A/N: Revised as of July 7, 2005

Chapter three: New Acquaintances

Crack. Dumbledore and Michaela arrived on a rather shabby-looking street; there were broken windows and bits of trash lay on the ground everywhere. Leading the way, Dumbledore led Michaela between two houses, number eleven and number thirteen.

"Remember what you just read," said Dumbledore quietly.

Michaela remembered the note he had given her and suddenly a house appeared between the house numbers eleven and thirteen. It was quite shocking for Michaela, who glanced around nervously, looking to see if anyone had noticed what had just happened, but not so much as a cat came out to investigate.

Dumbledore strode to the front door, which had an odd knocker shaped like a snake. He pulled out his wand and tapped it once. It took a full five minutes for someone to answer, during which Michaela shivered. It was getting on past ten o' clock at night. When Michaela heard the sound of a chain and dead bolt being unlocked, she gratefully moved closer to the door.

The person who answered the door was a man with long black hair who looked quite handsome, once a person got over the shabbiness of his robes. He seemed vaguely familiar to Michaela.

"Sirius, we have a situation here—"

"You're Sirius Black!" said Michaela remembering. "You were in Azkaban . . . but you escaped!"

"Come inside, Michaela, he's on our side now," said Dumbledore.

As they stepped inside, Michaela said, "No, no, I know, Mom told me about it, but made me swear not to tell anyone."

Dumbledore looked at her sharply. "Just how much do you know?"

"I know that some man, oh what was his name? Pettigrew! Yes, so Pettigrew was made the Potter's Secret Keeper before Voldemort's fall and Pettigrew betrayed them and then pinned it on Black."

Sirius and Dumbledore exchanged looks. "What do you know about the Order?" asked Dumbledore.

"Oh, not much, Mom said I wasn't to know too much since I wasn't in the Order, but she told me that you might start it up again and she would join you again if it did."

"So she did," said Dumbledore, sighing.

Sirius, who had been quiet up to this point, said, "Dumbledore, what's going on?" Michaela noticed that he had done a double take when he first heard her accent.

Dumbledore walked down the hallway, beckoning Michaela and Sirius to come. He led them to a kitchen and invited them to sit down at the table that was there.

"Sirius, this is Michaela Woodburn, my niece. I received warning earlier this night that my sister Angela and her husband Howard were in danger. I Disapparated to their house in California and found Michaela here with the full body bind hex that Angela had put on her to stop her from trying to rescue them from a Death Eater."

Sirius looked at Michaela with a mixture of pity and sympathy. Michaela, however, turned away from his gaze and looked intensely down at her fingers, trying not to think about anything.

"She must stay here for now but I think that she will attend Hogwarts . . . you know who's coming to Hogwarts this year, don't you?"

Sirius nodded. "But how will you explain this to—"

"I'll make up some story. She can't go back to California. It might be possible for her to do her normal schoolwork at Hogwarts. You're in your last year at school, aren't you?" Dumbledore asked, turning to Michaela.

Michaela looked up to him. Her mind was grateful to have something else to think about. "Yes, but you know I can't do magic-"

"You're a Squib?" said Sirius incredibly.

"Yes," said Michaela, a bit annoyed. Though Sirius probably hadn't intended it to be cruel, it still brought back painful memories of the teasing she used to get when she was younger and still hoped to be part of the Wizarding world.

"I'll send the details in the morning, but I must go now. Please help explain the situation to the others, Sirius."

"Of course."

With that, Dumbledore took off out of the kitchen, presumably to the door. Before he left though, Michaela caught a glimpse of his ring. It could have been her imagination, but Michaela thought the ring was redder than before and was now smoking around the edges.

After Dumbledore left, Michaela felt a huge surge of exhaustion, both mentally and physically. Given the nights events, it didn't seem unusual and she was about to fall asleep when Sirius gently roused her.

"Come on, there's more comfortable places to sleep in this house, though hard to believe."

He led her down the hallway. In her sleepiness, she didn't see the umbrella stand made out of some sort of a leg and tripped over it.

"Damn!" Sirius said.

"What's—" but that was all Michaela could say before a woman started shrieking so loudly that it hurt Michaela's ears. Instantly, Michaela's sleepiness went away.

"—BLOODY FILTH IN MY HOUSE! BORN ODDITY'S WHO CAME FROM THE ARROGANT HELL- HOLE OF A COUNTRY!"

"Don't mind her, it's just my dear sweet mum!" shouted Sirius to Michaela before bellowing "SHUT THE HELL UP! I'M TIRED OF LISTENING TO YOU! IF IT WERE MY CHOICE, I'D BURN THIS HOUSE DOWN!"

With that, Sirius tried to close the curtains of a portrait of a furious-looking woman who was apparently the one making all the noise.

"Come help me!" called Sirius and Michaela rushed forward. With a tremendous yank, they managed to close the curtains and the woman's shrieks died away.

But all of the other portraits were awake now, though they didn't have curtains, so Sirius yelled "Stupefy!" and waved his wand and a ringing silence followed.

"Sorry about that, my Mum is an old hag with racist ideals about wizards."

"You're telling me." Michaela now felt forcibly awake, like when she had to get up early for school even though she only had a few hours of sleep. Sleep wouldn't come easy for her now; it never did when she was in that state and she had the added double that her parents were—No, I'll think about that later, she told herself. Just get to the room and then you can do whatever. She hoped that "whatever" did not include crying because she did not like to cry at all, but at least it would be better in privacy.

Just as Sirius and Michaela were walking towards a flight of stairs, passing a row of heads that looked suspiciously like house-elves, they heard voices upstairs. Michaela braced herself for another onslaught of shrieks and yells but Sirius waved it away. "No, it's not more portraits, it's just everyone upstairs. Damn! She just had to wake everyone up, didn't she? Bitch."

Sirius looked about ready to go kick the portrait of his mother, but then thought better of it. With a sigh, he led Michaela up the partially carpeted stairs. A light was on in the corridor.

"What's going on?"

"Who woke up Sirius' Mum?"

"Everybody back to bed! You have to get up early tomorrow!"

But whoever it was that gave that order was clearly ignored as people stepped out of their bedrooms, coming to see what all the commotion was about.

"Sirius, what's going on?" asked a skinny boy who looked on the smaller side for his age. He had flyaway black hair and Michaela saw a lightning-bolt shaped scar on his forehead.

Harry Potter? What's he doing here? Well, it made sense, her mind argued. Her mom had told her about Harry and his escapades at Hogwarts—not to mention his escape from Voldemort as a baby. He had to live with his Muggle relatives every summer, who were apparently quite awful to him. He was probably going off to Hogwarts with—Michaela looked at the gaggle of people.

Four of them had flaming red hair and looked as though two were twins and the other two were their siblings, a boy and a girl. Another girl had bushy brown hair and looked about Harry's age.

Sirius looked over at Michaela and she nodded. "This is Michaela Woodburn. She, uh-" Sirius broke off, not knowing what to say.

Michaela broke the awkward silence. "My Mom is Dumbledore's sister. I'm, uh, his niece."

"Is something wrong?" asked an older lady who also had red hair and looked as though she might be the mother of the four red-haired children.

"Well, um . . ." Sirius paused again. He looked at Michaela, clearly wondering whether or not she would mind him telling them what had happened.

"It's okay, Sirius. My, uh, my parents . . ." Michaela trembled. Don't cry or you'll never get through with this, she told herself. "They were t-t- taken!" There! She had said it. Saying it oddly gave her a sense of small relief.

"By whom?" asked one of the red-haired twins keenly.

"Shut your mouth, George!" said the red-haired lady.

But Michaela blurted it all out before she could stop herself. "By a Death Eater! He had them bound and I tried to save them, oh!" Michaela couldn't help the tears that started to come.

But she continued her story through her tears, she felt as though she had to tell them what happened, to make them understand. "He bound Dad and I t-t- tried to h-help him! But Mom put th-the body bind hex on me! And then they were g-gone!"

She collapsed to the floor, still crying and now shaking as she said, "They're being t-t- tortured right now, I know it!" Michaela felt like all the emotions that she had tried to bottle up so badly were now gushing forth and she had no power to stop them.

Sirius and the red-haired lady went to her and tried to comfort her. "Get back to bed, you lot!" called the red-haired lady.

"Molly, go ahead and go to bed, I'll take care of her," said Sirius after their efforts to calm her. He led Michaela back downstairs.

Michaela was now slightly calmer; she was hiccupping and brushing away the tears off her face. Her hands were still shaking a little as Sirius took her to the kitchen again.

"It's okay, Michaela," he said.

Michaela looked at him through blood shot eyes. She didn't know this man at all but found herself pouring her heart out to him. "I'm so scared! What if they . . . what if . . ."

Sirius saw that she was going to upset herself all over again and walked over to her and gently pushed her to the floor where he rocked her in his arms back and forth.

Sirius didn't know exactly what to say in a situation like this and so said the only thing that he could think of. "Dumbledore's on the case, Michaela, and it'll be alright. You know that Dumbledore's the only one that Voldemort was ever afraid of. He's your parents' best chance and a hopping good one at that."

After comforting her a bit longer, Sirius said, "Here now, drink this potion." He magicked a goblet full of liquid from the refrigerator to his hand and put it to Michaela's lips. "Just drink this."

Devoid of any energy, Michaela drank the liquid without argument. It was pleasantly warm and sweet. Instantly, she fell asleep.

Sirius sighed, looking down at her. "Poor girl."

"Is she alright, Sirius?" said the red-haired lady who was coming into the kitchen.

"I gave her a potion for a dreamless sleep, so she should be alright for a few hours."

"Poor dear. I can't believe Angela and Howard were taken by a Death Eater!"

"Dumbledore's gone to try to find them."

"Do you think he'll be able to get them back?" she asked.

Sirius' face darkened. "I don't know, Molly, but Dumbledore said to take her to Hogwarts to do her schoolwork there. If that's not a sign that her parents probably won't be recovered, I don't know what is."

"Did you tell her?"

"No, I couldn't bear to tell her. Poor girl, she's had enough for this night and her parents might yet be recovered."

"Let's take her to bed; she can sleep with Hermione and Ginny."

"No, she can have my bed for the night; I think she'll need a little time in the morning by herself. I'll just sleep on the davenport on the second floor."

Sirius lifted Michaela up in his arms and carried her off. As he laid her down, he couldn't help but feel such deep sorrow for her. This poor, pretty girl whose life was drastically changed in mere minutes. Sirius silently renewed his vow against Voldemort and his supporters before heading off to sleep himself.