Surprise Surprise

"Hello Harry", said a chorus of voices outside Harry's window, right at the stroke of midnight. "How'd you like our new set of wheels……. neat huh? C'mon mate, say something!!! Don't just stand there squabbling like a goldfish"

"Fred, George, what are you doing here? Where are you? I can hear you but where in the world are you? Can't you see all the street lights are off?"

"Dolt, switch off that invisibility charm…he can't see us!!...It is off!!"

"Silencio! A gruff voice said, it was a bad idea bringing them along!! They will raise the entire neighborhood"

 Harry stared into nothingness amazed that such a racket was coming from mid air outside his window. He imagined an invisible flying carpet with the Weasley twins brawling at the edge. "Now how do we make sure that he is Potter?  "We don't need to, if he isn't he will not be able to get into, you know where!!" said a calm quiet voice that Harry instantly recognized as Lupin's.

"If you guys don't show your selves within the next 20 seconds, I'm going to empty a barrel of paint over where I think your voices are coming from!!!"

Instantly Harry made out the profile of a car dimly illuminated by the dome light, floating right outside his window.

 "Is this flying car yours?  It's beautiful…hello professor, hello mad- eye professor… er….sir."

"Hey am I invisible or what? "Sorry Tonks, the interior is not bright enough. ……"

"Get your stuff and let's get outta here, before any muggles spot us!!" growled mad eye.

Within the minute they were on their way to number 12 Grimmauld place. Harry was admiring the interior of the car. It was as big as any apartment he had seen. Furnished with Gryffindor red, it even had the prefect style bathrooms. "This must have cost you a fortune!! How could you afford such a thing? "

"All thanks to you mate; our joke shop is a huge success. We've already opened up a branch at Hogsmeade. We got this only today after the….." his voice trailed off. "Welcome to the Weasley mobile Burrow! We haven't even shown it to mum yet.

 It has several wonderful features, many of which we haven't tried yet. Wonder what this button does!" A huge pair of hands grabbed Tonks and enormous boot came out of nowhere and kicked Tonks out of the car. "Oops!  That must've been the one for uninvited guests!" Both the twins and Harry burst out laughing.

"CRACK!" a steaming Tonks had apparated right besides Fred. "Laugh all you can, I'll get back; you just wait and see, in fact the spell is already in place!"

 Before they knew it, they had reached Grimmauld place!! The sight of Sirius' house suddenly made Harry feel like he had a stomach made of lead. He face grew visibly pale, as he entered the house.

"Cheer up Harry; we've got a great party lined up for you….. HAPPY BIRTHDAY!" said a smiling Lupin. "SURPRISE" yelled everyone. That included Ron, Hermione, and the rest of the Weasleys (excluding Percy), the party which brought him there, professor McGonagall and Professor Dumbledore. Harry was stunned. He was so happy at leaving Privet Drive that he had forgotten that it was his birthday. Another thing hit him. People had just screamed right in front of the portrait of Sirius's mother and yet there was no protest from her. He turned towards her portrait only to find brown wrapping paper covering a major portion of it. "Whoa….this is great, thanks guys" He looked at Lupin "how, why, isn't that screaming?" he said, pointing towards the brown paper. "That's part of the surprise, go on take off that brown wrapping…go on."

Harry walked tentatively towards it and gingerly tore open the paper. "SURPRISE" the portrait yelled. "Miss me?!!!"

Harry stumbled in shock; he was staring into the smiling face of Sirius Black!!  

He turned back to face the smiling crowd and back to the portrait "How…hey… Somebody pinch me!!" George obliged immediately "ARRRRRRGGHHH!!!  Not that hard you idiot" Sirius laughed as he explained "I woke up here as soon I had passed through the veil. I waited for ages waiting to be discovered, but it seems no remembered that all of the Black family have their portraits made as soon as they are of age. I tried screaming, but it takes a while to master your available faculty when you are a two dimensional object.  Anyway, it seems that when things were thrown into the fire, Kreacher (Harry drew a sharp breath at the mention of his name) for some reason chose to safeguard this portrait. I guess I am somewhat indebted to that miserable house elf after all.  "

"Say, if this portrait was drawn when you were of age, how do you look so as old as I last saw you"

"Well, it seems that although the portrait was not 'Alive' when I was, hmmm…..how shall I put it? Of flesh and blood, it still aged along with me. It had a spell to mimic my appearance as I changed over the ages. Anyway, here I am."

/* please submit reviews, the next chapter will be up next weekend ….   Happy Halloween */