Disclaimer: The characters that look familiar to you belong to J. K. Rowling. The ones you cannot find in any of her books are mine. I don't intend to make any money out of this. I'm just having some fun.
Paintings and Photographs
Harry awoke with his lips dry as if he hadn't had any water for days. He searched for his glasses in the darkness of the room and took his wand. After conjuring up some light, he checked if Ron was still asleep. He was, so Harry decided to let him rest and went downstairs alone. The house looked a little creepy in the evening light. Harry descended the stairs cautiously, avoiding the steps that creaked, he didn't want the others to awake, they had deserved a little bit of rest.
He headed for the kitchen, but a hiccuping noise made him turn instead to the entrance of the house. Harry could hear someone crying, a woman, but when Harry got there, there was nobody.
"Hello?" He asked tentatively. There was no answer, but the crying went on.
"Hello?" He insisted. "Do you hear me? Can I help you somehow?"
Still nobody answered, but the sobbing stopped, that gave Harry some hope.
"Where are you? Why are you crying?" He asked, looking around, waiting for the person, ghost or creature to make an appearance.
"Who are you?" A sniffling voice said.
"Harry P..." Harry checked himself in time, what if it was a dark creature or someone trying to lay him a trap?, better not reveal he was The Boy Who Lived. "My name is Harry," he repeated.
"Harry? Are you a Black?" The voice asked.
"No, but I know one." In truth, if he counted Bellatrix Lestrange, Narcissa Malfoy and Tonks he knew four, but he decided the voice didn't need to know all the details.
When the voice didn't speak, Harry asked in turn. "Who are you?"
Harry could have never guessed the answer: "I'm the mistress of the house, Stella Black."
Harry thought for a moment. Could this be Sirius' mother? The woman of the portrait? He turned to the portrait then and realised it was utterly destroyed, then he remembered Uncle Vernon had crashed onto it. Not even a car would have survived such an impact. Uncle Vernon wasn't precisely a light weight.
"Where are you Mrs. Black? Why were you crying?" Harry asked.
"I'm trapped inside the walls, my portrait has been destroyed, and all the other portraits in the house were connected to mine. They are all gone, now, I cannot move to another frame." She explained in a tearful voice.
"Oh!" Harry exclaimed. Mrs. Black had never looked too friendly, but she was still Sirius' mother, well, Sirius' mother's portrait. He didn't know how to help.
"How can I help you?" He asked.
"I don't know," the woman said in utter distress, and started crying again.
Harry was thinking maybe he should wake Sirius up when there was a knock on the door. He tensed immediately. Who could it be? The wards had been down since the Death Eaters' attack. Apparently, the simple fact of being in fuocciri territory was protection enough.
He readied his wand and opened the door cautiously just enough to see who had knocked. He was relieved to see the older of the Sams there, Yamiko.
She smiled at him. "Hi! Dinner will be ready soon, I came to wake you all up."
"Oh," Harry said, "thanks." He doubted for a moment and then said. "You know, I'm not sure we should wake them, they must be very tired."
"I know," Yamiko said, "but if they don't eat now, they will probably wake up hungry in the middle of the night. Better wake them up now so they can eat and then sleep all night through. That should help you get used to the change of time, you can't follow the English time while you are here, it wouldn't be wise nor healthy."
Harry thought for a moment and then realised he had been very rude, keeping Yamiko outside. "Sorry," he said opening the door completely and stepping aside, "please, come in."
"Thanks," Yamiko said, and stepped inside. She looked around with curiosity. She had only seen one room of the house so far and the facade. When she had come in while everybody was still unconscious, she hadn't taken the time to inspect the house.
"What a mess," she commented, looking at the fallen furniture pieces and broken things lying on the floor since the attack.
"Yes." Harry picked up a chair from the floor and offered it to Yamiko. "Please, sit down while I go and wake everybody up."
"Ok," she said, and sat gracefully on the chair, still looking around curiously.
Hermione and Ginny were already awake -or as Harry thought, they hadn't had any sleep, too immersed in their conversation-, but it was hard to wake up the rest. Some of them were in a deep slumber. Remus almost cursed Harry instinctively when the boy shook him, and Ron just got further down the cover and tried to ignore Harry, until he showered him with a jet of water from his wand.
"Ok, ok," Ron said, sitting up in his bed in a flash. "I'm coming, no need to be nasty."
Harry got dressed in a second and went back downstairs. From the top of the last flight of stairs he could see the chair where he had left Yamiko, but it was empty. He hurried and then looked around. Yamiko was in front of Mrs. Black's portrait, running her finger along the torn canvass.
"Everybody is coming," Harry told her.
"Oh, excellent," she said, without much interest, and retreated some steps to study the canvass again. "How did this break? Did you saw it?"
Harry explained what had happened. Yamiko thought for a moment, looking at the canvass all the time.
"Mrs. Black?" She called.
"Yes, I'm still here," the tearful voice answered. Harry guessed they must have introduced to each other while he was upstairs.
"Mrs. Black, I'm afraid I'm not sure how to repair your canvass," Yamiko said. "If it had been broken with a spell, it would have been much easier to restore, but since it was broken physically, it's going to be a bit more difficult. Don't worry though, we'll find a way. Let me think about it and I'll come back tomorrow morning, ok?"
"Ok, thank you dear," a very sad Mrs. Black answered.
"Don't despair, Mrs. Black, you'll be back in shape very soon, I promise," Yamiko said with an encouraging smile. Harry wasn't sure he wanted Mrs. Black back in shape, he felt sorry for the portrait, but he didn't want to hear her screams again.
"I should go back now," Yamiko told Harry, "the last time I left the knives working alone, when I came back they were having a fight and it took me more than an hour to stop them," she said, rolling her eyes. "Do you want to come with me? You can wait for your friends there."
"Fine!" Harry was hoping the knives would be having another fight again, it could be fun. He run upstairs to tell Ron and then hurried back and left with Yamiko.
It was already almost dark, and the air was cool, but Harry welcomed the sensation and breathed in deeply. Black Manor was not the best of homes, not very cheerful really. The fields were silent under the stars, and the sounds of the cicadas were very relaxing. Harry was taken out of his musings by an arm slipping around his, he had been walking with his hands on his pockets.
Yamiko was barely as tall as he was, with the only difference that Harry would probably grow up some more yet, and she wouldn't. She looked at him.
"So. You are Harry, right?" She asked.
"Yes," Harry pressed his lips against each other without even realising. Now it was coming. Yamiko would ask him everything about Voldemort and why he had killed his parents in the first place. Thus, he was very surprised when Yamiko asked:
"Which year are you in Hogwarts, Harry?"
"I'll begin my sixth year the first of September," he replied.
"Ah, so you've passed your OWLs already?"
"Well, I'm not sure yet," Harry answered with a sigh. Yamiko didn't seem to understand, so he explained: "I mean, I had my OWLs last year, but I don't have the results yet." He forced a grin.
Yamiko laughed. "I'm sure you did very well," she said encouragingly. "My son Yi has always wanted to go to Hogwarts. Benjamin has told him a lot of stories about the castle, and the four houses and everything, and now he is always complaining because he is not allowed to go there. His school seems quite boring to him in comparison. There are no ghosts, no Quidditch competitions..."
"What? No Quidditch?" Harry was so horrified that he stopped walking.
Yamiko laughed at his shocked face. "I'm afraid Quidditch is only played by wizards, dear."
"But your sons are wizards, aren't they?" Harry asked nonplussed.
"Well, not exactly," Yamiko replied, "they are magical, but they are sons of an ashanrii, what we call ashantiis. They are not as powerful as ashanriis, but they are usually more powerful than a wizard. Well," she corrected herself, "it's not really that they are more powerful, it's that their education is different, I guess. As I told you before, ashanriis encourage their sons to become animagi since they are very young, for instance."
"Yes, I remember," Harry said, "I just didn't think there would be many more differences."
Yamiko thought for a moment. "Well, there are quite a few, I think. Ashantiis learn foreign languages at school, for instance, because ashanriis usually move quite a lot around the world."
"Yes, I noticed your sons speak English too," Harry said.
"Well, not every ashantii speaks foreign languages as well as my sons do," she said proudly, "my sons speak Japanese, English, French and Irish because they have had relatives and friends who have taught them since they were born."
"They speak five languages?" Harry asked absolutely bewildered.
"Yes, Yi is learning some Norwegian and Spanish now, but he started only last year, so he still has a lot to learn. Communication is very important. Being able to speak with different people allows you to get to know them instead of fearing them for being different. Ashanriis like peace, war only brings sadness."
Harry nodded silently. Yes, war brought sadness. He himself had lost his parents, Neville too... So many wasted lives.
They had reached Yamiko's house by now, and she took her arm from his to open the door with a muggle key.
"You don't use magic to close your door?" Harry asked.
"What makes you think this key is non-magical?" Yamiko asked amused. "That it looks perfectly muggle doesn't mean it cannot be otherwise powerful." And then she whispered, as if someone could overhear them: "Appearances can be deceiving."
"Oh, no, not again," Yamiko cried exasperated. There were two knives fighting in mid-air in the middle of the sitting-room, and if Harry wasn't mistaken, that strange noise coming from the kitchen probably meant that the fight was bloodier there.
Yamiko grabbed both knives and forced them to separate. She glared at them and then let them go, and the knives hurried to the kitchen to behave as proper knives should.
When Yamiko and Harry got to the kitchen, the noise had subsided and all the knives seemed to be working normally, probably the other two had warned them that their mistress was coming. Yamiko then whispered in Harry's ear:
"Last time I told them that if I ever caught them fighting again I would melt their blades and burn their handles. It seems it worked."
Then she winked, and Harry smiled amused.
"Care to help me?" Yamiko asked.
"Sure, what can I do?" It was the first time that Harry was happy to help in the kitchen. He thought it was probably because Yamiko had asked him nicely, and Aunt Petunia usually commanded it.
"Sandrine brought some more wine, why don't you open a couple of bottles? They are in there," she said, pointing at a cupboard that turned out to be a muggle fridge, although Harry noticed some improvements, like the fact that it seemed to be bottomless and everything moved to the front row when he opened the door, so that he could reach the different things easily. He grabbed two bottles and then closed the door after muttering a quiet 'thanks'.
"The opener is here," she said, giving Harry a stick with the head of a rooster on top of it. He noticed the eye in the head looking at him. "I think we could eat outside, what do you think?" Yamiko asked.
"That would be wonderful," Harry said, still eyeing the opener suspiciously.
"Won't it be too cool?" Yamiko insisted.
"No, I don't think so," Harry said, looking outside the window.
"Ok, I'll lay the table then," Yamiko said, and left the kitchen through the backyard door, followed by an army of cutlery, napkins, candles, glasses and dishes.
Harry followed her with his gaze for a moment, enjoying the funny parade, and then turned his attention to the opener.
"Ok, let's try this," he said to himself.
He took off the plastic cover of the bottle with a knife and then tried to bury the stick of the opener in the cork, but it was very hard, and Harry realised in time that would only push the cork inside. He thought for a moment he could hear a small laugh, and realised with a shock the rooster's head was laughing at him. Harry got angry and hit the head against the bottle. The cock's beck caught in the cork and the laughter stopped immediately, only to be replaced by a despairing sound, apparently, the rooster couldn't breath. Harry panicked and tried to pull the rooster from the cork, but it only made an agonising sound, as if Harry was hurting the opener.
"Do you need help?"
Harry turned with a sweating face, the bottle and the opener still in his hands. Sandrine was smiling at him. She was carrying a big handbag and wearing a shabby white knitted jacket. Harry thought she had probably just arrived, and in time too.
"Here, let me help you," Sandrine said. "Jean Pierre, stop playing and open the bottle, will you?"
Harry wondered who this Jean Pierre was. There was nobody else in the kitchen apart from the two of them.
"Jean Pierre!" Sandrine warned, looking daggers at the opener.
The rooster's head pushed some more against the cork to get a better grab of it with its beck and then pulled hard, and the rooster took off the cork in one piece and then spat it.
"Jean Pierre, how many times do I have to tell you that you have to throw the cork in the dustbin and not just anywhere?"
The cork floated to the floor, buried its beck once more in the cork and then took it to the dustbin, were it spat it again.
"Much better, thank you," Sandrine said. "Do you think we should open the other bottle already or better wait?" She asked Harry, who was a bit annoyed at having been made fun of by an opener.
"Maybe just one, the others are still in Black Manor," he said.
"Ah, just in time," Yamiko said, coming in from the backyard with three wine glasses in her hands. She kissed Sandrine's cheek first and then put the glasses on the kitchen table, where the bottle started to fill them of its own accord.
"Oh, not for me, thank you," Sandrine said, and the bottle stopped filling the last cup.
"Just a little bit, Sandrine," Yamiko insisted.
"I really shouldn't, I haven't slept in two days. I should just eat something and go straight to bed," Sandrine replied.
Yamiko thought for a moment. "Ok, just a tiny sip then, I want to propose a toast."
"Oh, well, then I'll make the sacrifice..." Sandrine said, taking the fullest glass from the table, and looking immediately at the ceiling, trying to distract Harry and Yamiko so that they wouldn't notice she had taken the fullest glass, when a few seconds ago she had said she shouldn't be drinking wine.
Harry looked amused at Yamiko, who smiled back and rolled her eyes. The bottle finished pouring more wine into the other two glasses and then Yamiko took a glass and rose it in the air. "To a very quiet, boring and Death-Eater-free summer," she said.
Sandrine and Harry took a glass each and joined her in her toast, then they took a sip. Harry thought the wine was really delicious, and he hopped that would mean their wish would come true.
***
Harry hadn't had such an enjoyable dinner since the summer before his fourth year, when he had joined all the Weasleys and Hermione outside the Burrow for a late dinner the evening before they left for the Quidditch World Cup.
Benjamin and Sha-adi had come back in time to join them, bringing the remaining Weasleys and Penelope back with them. Edvard and Mich were there too, they were going to stay for the summer.
At the moment everybody was trying hard to finish their fried bananas, what was taking them all some time, because they were already full to bursting. Nobody seemed willing to leave the bananas alone, though.
"I got already four answers," Remus was saying, "Angelina Johnson, Katie Bell, Alicia Spinet and Lee Jordan are willing to stay for the summer." Fred and George cheered, but Mrs. Weasley only grunted, her worst fears were coming true, Merlin help them with the twins and Lee around.
"Professor Lupin," George said, "Fred and I have decided we'll close our little shop for the summer. It's a risk and we might loose some customers, but we will take orders by owl anyway, and if we stay here we'll be able to join your classes and we could also take the time to try some new products we are planning to launch to the market in September."
Mrs. Weasley happiness at knowing the twins would stay there disappeared as suddenly as it had arrived. Now they would probably blow Black Manor and the Sams' house up. How was she going to control them?
"Susan Bones and Neville Longbottom were very interested in your classes to," Benjamin said, "they got your owl while they were at St. Mungo's. They still had to ask their relatives for permission, though. And I don't think they will be able to attend all of your classes. It will be difficult to arrange their sessions at St. Mungo's around yours. Ginny and Cho Chang will probably have the same problem."
Lupin nodded. "I've thought about that. We'll have our sessions in the afternoon. We'll be practising more or less the same things during three or four consecutive classes, so they should be able to follow our rhythm if they take one class every two or three days and then practise on their own the other days. If they stay here, I could help them practise or be there in case they have questions. What do you think Ginny? Do you think you'll be able to do that and then prepare your classes in St. Mungo's and do your Hogwarts' summer homework?"
Ginny nodded at once. She swallowed the last piece of her banana and then said: "I've already finished my Hogwarts' homework, and I don't really need to prepare my classes at St. Mungo's a lot, because they are very practical, and depend a lot on the patients we get every day. I just have to read some books, and I can do that before going to sleep or something, I'll find the time."
"Very well," Lupin smiled, and Arthur and Molly Weasley were beyond themselves with pride. "Let's hope the others will be able to follow your example, Ginny." Ginny blushed a bit.
"Neville and Susan should have no problem, Professor," Ron said, "we don't have homework this summer, because we don't know for sure which classes we'll be taking next year. We haven't got our OWLs results yet."
"No," Lupin agreed, "but when you get your OWLs, you'll receive too a list of the tasks you should do during the summer, and I'm afraid they will be much more difficult than other years, and you will have less time, because you can't start them yet."
Hermione panicked at this. "Oh, no, we'll only have a month or less to finish our homework?"
"I'm afraid so, Hermione," Lupin said amused, "but I'm sure you will have no trouble to finish it on time." Harry and Ron agreed with Lupin, the problem would be if they would be able to finish the assignments.
The people around the table looked very tired. They hadn't recovered yet from the previous night and lacked sleep, thus Yamiko decided to introduce her pets so that everybody could go back to sleep without further delay. Everybody waited with baited breath for the dragons to appear. Yamiko clapped her hands twice, and the very next second seven scarlet dragons appeared around her, all looking around curiously. There were some younger dragons too, which looked quite sweet. One of them run straight to Yamiko's sons and curled between them, waiting for the children to pet its head, and then closed its eyes lost in utter bliss.
That convinced even Mrs. Weasley that Yamiko's dragons were not dangerous at all, and that everybody would be ok. In fact, she wondered now if those dragons would really attack anyone, and only believed Yamiko's words because she had seen some of them devour Lestrange. If it weren't for that, Molly would have had trouble believing these sweet creatures could harm a fly, much less a human being.
They took turns to pet the bigger dragons, which were obviously older, and after half an hour of fun and listening to Charlie's explanations about Chinese Fireballs, Mrs. Weasley decided it was time to go to bed. There were many complains, because after the excitement of meeting the dragons nobody felt like sleeping, but Yamiko agreed with Molly that they should all go to bed so that the next day they could start following the Chinese time.
"Before you go, though, I think that we should move Mr. Black's house as we had agreed," Yamiko said. "I have been thinking about the spells we could use to do it, but in the end I've decided that the best solution is just to ask my dragons to move the house."
There was a murmur of surprise around the group. Were Yamiko's dragons so strong? Black Manor was a huge house! Obviously, Yamiko knew best, so if she thought it could be done, nobody had anything to say against it. Yamiko and her sister transformed into dragons, and then flew to Black Manor, followed by the rest of the bigger dragons. They flew to the different corners of the building and, taking part of the roof with their talons, lifted the house from the ground and flew to the agreed destination point. Then they turned the house around so that it would have the correct orientation and let it down carefully. Now Black Manor stood next to the Sams' house, its door facing south.
The real dragons went on flying to wherever they were supposed to sleep, followed by the younger specimens, and Yamiko and Samako transformed back into women.
"Now we only have to open a door to communicate both houses," Yamiko said, "it shouldn't be too difficult, unless Sirius is right and the walls of his house are too thick or too magically protected. Give me a moment, there is something I want to try."
Yamiko went into her house and everybody followed, because they were curious about what she wanted to try and if it would work or not. To their surprise, Yamiko only took a small paintbrush, wetted it in red ink, and drew a doorframe on the wall of her house that now stood next to Black Manor. Then she threw the contents of the paint pot against the wall, and the liquid expanded obediently to cover the space delimited by Yamiko's frame. Now they had the door, but no doorknob. Yamiko took another brush and wetted it in golden ink, and drew the doorknob and a peephole with it. The doorknob became immediately three-dimensional. Yamiko grabbed it and opened the door, but all they could see was the wall of Black Manor. She repeated the operation of drawing a door and a doorknob again, and then pushed the second door. It opened, and she turned to smile at them from inside Sirius' house.
Everyone clapped their hands, absolutely impressed by Yamiko's work, and touched the doorframes and the doors' surfaces. They were both red, but they weren't made of solid wall, as they had expected. No, now they were normal wooden doors, only with a not very discreet colour.
After that, they all wished each other a good rest and the wizards and muggles crossed the two doors -which they left open- into Black Manor.
"Sirius," Yamiko said, "could I have a word with you, please? Just a minute."
Sirius was a bit surprised, but nodded immediately. "Sure, no problem Miko."
Harry shared an amused look with Lupin. Trust Sirius to use the fuocciris short names only a few hours after they had met. But then they turned their attention to the Grangers, who were saying their farewells, since they would be leaving early the next morning and they wouldn't see them until they came back at the end of the summer holidays. The Dursleys took their leave too, but they were much more stiff and short, and certainly kissed nobody nor even shook hands.
Meanwhile, Sirius had followed Yamiko back into the kitchen.
"There is something I wanted to ask you, Sirius," Yamiko started nervously.
"Yes?" Sirius asked intrigued.
"I've met your mother this afternoon," Sirius looked utterly shocked, and Yamiko corrected herself quickly: "I mean, her portrait."
"Oh, sorry, she's really an old bat, I hope she didn't insult you," Sirius said, worried that his mother would have offended Yamiko.
"No, no, she was rather nice. I felt sorry for her, you know, because her picture is now destroyed, and she seems to be trapped inside the house walls."
"Really?" Sirius was starting to remember now that Vernon Dursley had crashed onto his mother's picture, he hadn't given it a second thought.
"Yes," Yamiko answered, surprised that Sirius apparently didn't know about his mother's distress. "I told her I would try to fix the picture for her, you know, but I really think her old portrait is destroyed beyond repair, so I was wondering if maybe you could give me a photo of her, so that I can use it to draw a new portrait, you know. That way she could have somewhere to live."
Sirius' mouth hung open for a moment, until he recovered from the surprise. He thought hard, but he wasn't sure if he still had a photo of his mother. "I think there is an old album upstairs, in my mother's old room," he finally said. "The photos should be quite old, though, probably from my mother's wedding, so I don't know if they would be useful at all. The portrait which has been destroyed pictured her in her sixties."
"That shouldn't be a problem. I only need to know how did she look like. Then maybe you can help me get a better idea of how she was. I will need some information on her character and her life so that the portrait is accurate. She can help me too."
The idea of talking about his mother didn't sound quite right to Sirius. "I'm very sorry, Miko, but I'm afraid my mother and I were never too close. My family were dark wizards and I didn't agree with their views on many things, so we quarrelled often, until I finally run away from home when I was sixteen. After that, we only met once, when my younger brother died."
"Oh, I'm sorry," Yamiko said blanching, "I wouldn't have brought the subject up if I had known it was a sad memory for you."
"That's ok," Sirius said, forcing a smile. "It was a long time ago."
Yamiko nodded nervously and bit her lower lip, feeling very guilty. Then she did something Sirius didn't expect, she hugged him, patting his back awkwardly. It was a quite funny picture, really, because Yamiko was so small that she barely reached Sirius' chin, even standing on tiptoe. Sirius was so shocked that he didn't even react at first. He hadn't been hugged much lately, and definitely not by a woman, unless you counted Sandrine's quick hug back in her flat. He crouched a bit so that he was more at Yamiko's level and hugged her back. Then they let go, but Yamiko still looked a bit worried.
"I'm really sorry, Sirius," she repeated, looking Sirius in the eye.
"That's ok," he said, but he was finding it very hard to control his emotions. Suddenly all the sadness, all the loneliness of the last years seemed to finally catch up with him, and his eyes became bright with unshed tears.
They remained silent for a moment, until Yamiko finally found the courage to speak again. "Sirius, if you don't want me to draw your mother's portrait, I..."
"No," Sirius interrupted her, shaking his head, "it's not that. I don't know, I... The memories I have of my mother won't probably help you much, but I will find you some pictures tomorrow. I have no right to throw her off her own house. I don't even want the house. If it weren't because Dumbledore needed it, I would have never come back here, and her portrait and her memory would still be intact. I'll help you as much as I can, but I don't really feel much up to talking about her."
Yamiko thought for a moment. "That's ok, I think the photographs should be enough, specially if you can find me several, so that I can compare them. Your mother herself will be able to help me too. She can talk to me while I work. That will help me get to know her a bit, so that I can capture in my painting not only her physical features, but also her personality."
"You don't really need to do this, you know. If my mother gets too nasty, just ignore her. I'll understand." Sirius said.
"Ok, I promise. I want to give it a try though. She sounded really sad, and although I have never really met her, I feel sorry for her."
"If you had known her, Miko, you wouldn't feel sorry for her, believe me."
"Maybe," Yamiko conceded, but she was sure she would have felt exactly the same. In Yamiko's opinion, nobody deserved to be trapped for eternity inside a wall.
When Sirius passed the rests of her mother portrait on his way to his room, he stopped and had a look at them. He had never stopped to look at his mother portrait since he had come back to Black Manor. True, he had confronted her many times, trying to silence her shrieks, covering her with curtains, but he had never truly looked at her face. What could he tell Miko about her? He only remembered her angry at him, shouting or punishing him for not being 'a true Black'. He wondered if the Dementors had taken the good memories he had from his mother, or if he had never had good memories of her.
Thus instead of going to bed, Sirius closed himself in her mother's old room, and spent the night looking at old pictures, desperately hoping that something good about her would come back to him, until tiredness and sadness finally overcame him, and he wept until he fell asleep on his mother's bed, with photographs of now dead people smiling sweetly at him.
*****
Thanks for the reviews!
Thanks all for reading and reviewing!
FF.net is not working very well lately, is it? I have had problems to log in again, I hope they will solve them soon.
Oh! Poor Sirius! I felt really bad for him while writing this chapter.
Until now, the story has been very slow. I've posted 20 chapters so far and we haven't even reached Harry's birthday yet, which means we are still around mid July. Very soon time will start to "fly"! Before that, though, next chapter we are going back to Malfoy Manor to see how Amanda is doing, and I think you might be surprised... :D
Dinsmore: I got your review when I had already updated Chapter 19, I hope you liked it too. Thanks a lot for reviewing!
hermionegreen: Thanks, you are very kind! The dragons are Chinese Fireballs, of course. :-) You are right about "communicate", I used it with a meaning it has in Spanish, but it seems it doesn't work in English, I've already corrected it. Thanks for telling me! ;-)
Kadi Rilla Wholi: Thank you! I wasn't sure about Chapter 19, I'm glad you liked it.
Lupin: Don't worry, there will be action again soon, but I need some chapters of "explanations" in between, so that the story makes some sense. ;-) Edvard and Lupin didn't know each other, they have met in Yamako's house. Edvard had met Sirius before, at the beginning of the fic. Edvard and Lupin are both werewolves, that's why they immediately start to talk to each other. And of course, I'll be delighted that you link my fic to your web site. I'll send you an email anyway. Thanks!
Starfire: Thanks! The fuocciris have been in my head for some time now, so I guess I know quite a bit about them. ;-) And in fact, the Grangers ARE in China. They all are. I haven't said it that clear in the story, but the Sams are Chinese, the dragons are Chinese Fireballs, and there is an 8 hours difference between China -or some parts at least- and England. So the hints are all there...
