Chapter 5

Return to Grimwald Place

When they got to Grimwald Place, Mrs. Weasley told them to go up to their rooms and stay there and that Fred and George would bring their bags. Then she ran out the door.

"I can't believe it," Hermoine murmured as she slowly started up the stairs, "who could be so heartless?"

"Malfoy." Everyone looked at Harry, "Why else would he have been so jumpy around us. If he didn't do it he at least knew about it."

"Actually, Harry," Ginny finally spoke, "I don't think that's why he was jumpy, Usually when he knows about things like that he's really rude…more so than usual."

"Gin's right, Harry, he's usually really rude when he knows the tables are going to turn for his better," said Hermoine.

"Well who ever it was, it was a death eater."

Ron turned around as he was opening up the door, "You don't think it was that girl, do you?"

"No," Hermoine said, "but come to think of it, I think that that was the reason why Malfoy was so jumpy. He wanted to be rude to the girl to save his reputation, but he couldn't because she had just called him her friend. And then we found out that she's a muggle born on top of it. I think that we hit his soft spot," Hermoine plopped down on the bed Ron was currently laying on and continued, "Do you think his father knows about her? What if she was staying at the Leaky Cauldron?"

"And his dad found out, and didn't like the idea of having his son be friends with a muggle born, so he decided to teach his son a "lesson" and dispose of her," Harry went on speaking everyone's thoughts aloud.

"Or maybe you guys should just stop guessing cause you're way off track." Fred and George walked into the room with four levitating trunks behind them.

"Do you know what happened?" Ron asked as they threw down the trunks at the foot of the bed.

"More than you apparently," said Fred.

George sat down by Harry "Yeah, don't know who you're talking about but they were after Tom."

"Then why did they blow up the ice cream parlor," stated Ginny.

"Just for the fun I suppose, you know, on their way out," said Fred, "They've been after Tom for month's now, don't really know why, probably because the Leaky Cauldron is the barrier. Now there is no barrier for the most popular wizarding shopping place and muggles can just come in any time."

"But word around the extendable ears has it that Tom knows something. I mean, I guess he's missing and they didn't find a body," George broke off into thought, "then again he could be hiding."

"None-the-less," Fred interrupted, "it doesn't matter because he doesn't have a place to go back to. The Leaky Cauldron was his home and now it's destroyed. Not to mention after what's happened-and the way rumors spread- he won't have much for business anymore. We'll be having enough problems ourselves with people being too spooked, and we didn't even get hit."

"Harry?" Ginny looked at Harry who had glazed over eyes and seemed to be staring at some small particles floating about in the air. "Are you okay?"

"Something's upstairs," is all he said when he got up and walked out the door.

It felt like he had been walking forever before he had finally reached the door from which the noise was coming. Harry pressed his ear up to the door to make sure.

Harry turned the knob and pushed the door open only to find that behind the door was Sirius' bedroom filled to the top with reminders of him and his sudden death, down to the very last dirty sock lying on the floor. The room wasn't much to look at, it wasn't even decorative, but it was Sirius'. It only consisted of a small bed with tattered sheets, rows of old books and torn up newspapers, a table with a broken chair and shattered teacup, a few old photographs, a closet and a chest. Everything in the room reminded Harry of Sirius and the thoughts that were running madly through his head could do nothing but bring him to tears. Not a thing could ruin it, nothing but the small urchin lingering in the corner by the trunk containing his former master's belongings.

Before he could tell what he was doing, Harry found himself grasping Kreacher by the throat and yelling words that not even he could understand. He was hitting Kreacher as hard as he could when he began to hear a faint screaming from behind him and a tugging on his shirt.

"Harry, no! He didn't know any better. Stop, you

re going to kill him!" Hermoine was pleading to him as Ginny tried to pull him off.

"Harry, this isn't the way to solve this. Killing him won't make Sirius come back!" Ginny's pulling became unnecessary as Harry stopped and froze. "This isn't the way to handle this. If you kill him it's not going to make you feel better. Let Dumbledore handle this."

"But he killed Sirius," Harry broke into tears and the world seemed to fade away as Ginny held him in her arms.

"What do you want us to do with him?" Fred picked up the bloody, unconscious house elf off the floor, "Is he even still alive?"

"Yes," Hermoine checked his pulse, "just beat up. I don't know what to do with him, but I suppose that we'll have to keep an especially close eye on him regardless…at least until someone from the order shows up to deal with him. You best take him downstairs and out of sight. Just make sure one of you stays there with him, we don't want him regaining consciousness then running away."

"I don't think we'll have to worry about that cause their back," Ron walked over to the staircase to hear a large amount of chaos down the stairs.

"Come on…let's just get rid of this thing…it's disgusting and I know disgusting…that's…" Fred was interrupted by an earsplitting scream from down the stairs.

"Get out of my house you filthy blood traders, you are not welcome in the house of Black!" In the brief pauses between Mrs. Blacks insults, you could hear a voice yelling, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry," The screaming ceased and the previous chaos was extinct.

"I guess that means Tonks is here and that they're in the dinning room having a meeting. Shall we?" George held out his hand and showed everybody the extendible ears.

"We shall," and Fred pulled a pair out of his pocked. "You coming?" He looked over to Harry and Ginny.

"Yeah, we'll be right down," Ginny kissed Harry on the forehead and helped him to his feet, then they followed everyone else down the stairs.

Fred fed the line of the extendable ear slowly down the balcony until it reached just above the door of the dining room. There were so many conversations going on within the room that not a single word was distinguishable until there was a, "QUIET!" So loud that the extendable ears were not needed to hear it. Then it all went quiet except for the one voice.

"First off, as far as our most recent attack goes, none of the death eaters were caught and we are pretty sure that they killed Tom. Other than Tom, there are two missing people reported since the attack who are possibly dead John Turner and his eight year old daughter Savannah," Hermoine covered her mouth and gasped. Ginny had a similar reaction and by the sound of it so did Mrs. Weasley. "We have found a weapon that we think is powerful enough to defeat the Dark Lord, but it is expected that Voldemort has also discovered it or at least part of it meaning that we must act quickly. I only have to hope that I interfered in time but there have been strange interactions between the Malfoy establishment and a…the uh…girl recently which is suspicious due to her muggle relations…"

"He's talking about that girl we say Malfoy with today," Ron pulled away from the extendable ear, "The muggle born one."

"I knew that was suspicious," Hermoine put on one of her faces where she had just discovered something, "She knos about the weapon, or maybe she is the weapon…"

"SHHHH!" Hermoine dropped her face and went back to listening.

"And…" the voice sounded frustrated, "for those of you who haven't been to the last six meetings…we've decided to execute Kreacher because he now will be working for the Malfoy house hold due to more recent events and he knos too much."

Hermoine let out a gasp, "How can they do that, he didn't know any bet…oops!" She looked at Harry's face and knew at once that she was wrong, "I'm sorry Harry, I mean, he certainly deserves it after what he did, but surly you don't think that he actually knew what he was doing. He was raised that way, he was only following orders, and I, oh." She looked at the disappointment on everyone's face.

Ron looked at her spitefully and said, "Why don't you just do us all a favor and go read a book."

"Harry?" She was waiting for Harry to say, 'no, that's okay, I understand,' but it never came. Tears swelled up in her eyes as she walked up the stairs and out of sight.

"She didn't mean it in a cruel way, she was just thinking of how unfair house elves are treated," Ginny frowned at the cruel behavior towards their friend then followed her up the stairs.

The dining room doors opened up just as Fred and George had pulled up the extendable ears.

"Do you think I was a bit hard on Hermoine?" Ron looked ashamed of himself.

"Yeah, I think we both were," Harry looked at him.

"I don't know, but we should take that thing downstairs." George pointed at Kreacher who was carelessly thrown into the corner, "He's starting to stink."

When Harry and Ron went to apologize to Hermoine, they found her lying on her bed crying into her pillow with Ginny by her side.

Ron walked up to her and said rudely, "Hey, Ginny, do ya mind?" She rolled her yes and walked out the door. "Hermoine, please don't cry, I didn't mean to yell at you. I guess you just hit a nerve, you know talking about Sirius and all."

"Yeah, me too, I just have been having a hard time copping with that and I understand what you meant about Kreacher but still, he can't be trusted. I'm really sorry."

Hermoine sat up from her pillow and looked at Harry with her red teary eyes. Ron looked at her as though he was about to cry, too. "Please forgive us."

She looked at Ron and then back to Harry, "I know I'm really sorry, too. I know what has to be done, and loosing Sirius has been hard for me too. I don't know what I was thinking when I said that, but I'm really sorry."

"Tell ya what, we'll forgive you if you promise to forgive us."

"Of course!" Hermoine gave both Harry and Ron a big hug.

When Ron received his hug he said, "So we're friends again right?"

"Best of!" Hermoine gave him an extra hug, "We should go help with dinner, I'm starved." She jumped out of bed, wiped the tears from her face and straightened her jeans, "Come on."

"Well, she's back to bossing us around." Harry just shrugged his shoulders and followed Hermoine down to the kitchen.

When they arrived in the kitchen, Mrs. Weasley was yelling at Fred and George for Kreacher's mangled body and by the looks of it, they had completely tuned her out because they were in the corner having their own conversation

"I just don't understand how you could do that to a creature that's not even half your size. Ginny are you almost through setting the table? Dinner's about done. George, could you take the stew and Fred, get some butter beers out of the fridge would you. Fred? George? Where are you? Get in here the both of you and help out. I asked you to put the stew and the butter beer on the table. Oh, there you are!" Mrs. Weasley spotted Harry, Ron and Hermoine enter the kitchen, "Are you alright? We were in such a rush earlier that I didn't get to make sure you were okay. Are you?"

"We're fine, mum. But is dinner done yet?" Ron pushed away his mother from his cheeks.

"Oh, yes, just go ahead and sit down."

"Is dad coming?"

"No, he's working late again. With that campaign going on and today's attack, we'll be lucky if he ever comes home for dinner." Mrs. Weasley went to take a bite of stew when the bowl got up and ran away from her. The main bowl in the center of the table began to spin violently and Fred ran over to turn on the record player. All of the dishes on the table began to bounce and dance along with the beat of the music. Spinning and twirling, it was like turning an entire rave into dishes. They seemed to just flow with the music.

"Fred! George! Stop!" Mrs. Weasley got dumped from her chair and it began tap dancing. Ron looked as though he was about to be sick because his chair was spinning like a ballerina and Ginny's had thrown her across the room. In all the mean while, Fred and George stood in the corner laughing and having a riot.

"Don't worry Mother, they'll stop after a song or two:

Harry walked up to bed slightly nauseous that night from all the twirling his chair had done. He went to his trunk to get his pajamas and a green and gold box rolled out of a pair of socks.

He set his mother's music box next to himself on the night stand, laid sown with the parchment in his hands, and began reading along with the music…

When I'm on my own

Far away from home,

Will you keep me in your prayers,

When you're alone…

The words became hazed as Harry drifted off to sleep from the sound of the familiar lullaby.

"Harry, please just tell him. It hurts!" There was a girl with beautiful red hair screaming in agony. "Please, Harry, it hurts…Ahhhh! Please!" She was crying because she was being tortured. There was blood everywhere.

"tell me the prophecy, Potter," a man with red slits for eyes hissed at Harry.

"Don't you touch her!"

"Oh but I think she likes it. She will make such a lovely toy. Love can be so hard to find, especially when you need an heir," a devilish smirk grew across his face.

"No! You can't!"

"Please, Harry, don't do this to me…Ahhhh…. PLEASE!"

"No! No! NO! It's just a dream! You can't hurt her!"

"Oh, but how easily dreams can become a reality!"

"No!"

"Please, Harry!"

"No! This isn't real! No! No!" Harry woke up in a cold sweat 'No, it was a dream!' He jumped out of bed and snuck up to the room where Ginny slept. She was safe and sound in her bed. He went and laid down next to her but didn't sleep for fear of what would come. But what if he did plan on making Harry's dreams become real?