Disclaimer: The characters aren't mine. The plot sort of is.

A/N: Hey. Sorry for the lack of updates. Thanks for the reviews. Took me ages to write this chapter, but that was because I kept having to check things. Anyways, next chapter is in the works and I will finish it soon.

Chapter 13

Harry found his chance later that week after Defence Against the Dark Arts. Professor Brooking looked almost panicky as she realized she had no excuse to run off somewhere. The classroom emptied, all except for one student.

"Can I talk to you for a minute, Professor?" Harry Potter asked her. She tried to come up with an excuse, but her mind was empty.

"Uhh… sure Potter," she finally managed.

"You've been avoiding me," he stated. She didn't reply, just looked a little embarrassed. "I think I know why."

Her eyes flickered to the door. This was definitely not the conversation she wanted to be having.

"I was looking through my photos the other day and I found one of my parents wedding day," he told her, his eyes on the floor. "It had the best man and the bridesmaids in it. I recognized one of the bridesmaids."

"Me," Professor Brooking stated. "Yes, Potter, I've been avoiding you. I didn't really want to talk you because it all comes down to the fact that I didn't know what I would say. So I will just say it. Yes, that was me in the photo. I went to Hogwarts with your parents. Your mother, Lily, was my best friend."

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Harry leaned back against the tree, the sun shining down onto him. In front of him the lake was quiet. The giant squid created ripples now and then, poking a tentacle or two through the surface. He guessed dinner would be over by now. After the conversation between him and Professor Brooking he hadn't really felt like eating. He came outside to think by himself.

Professor Brooking was one of the few living people who had known his parents well. Her and Harry's mother Lily had been best friends throughout Hogwarts. They were both in the same year and the same house. They shared a dormitory and most of their classes. When they graduated they remained close friends for awhile but drifted apart slightly. When Lily and James were killed Professor Brooking had felt guilty. They hadn't been in contact for awhile and she read it in the Daily Prophet. When she learned they had a son who survived the attack she felt guilty… she got to spend so much time with his parents and Harry got so little. She felt guilty for not keeping in contact and not being there for them. But most of all she was sad. All that time she could've spent with them and she didn't… wasted. She never got to say goodbye. When she saw Harry at Hogwarts it brought back memories of things she had long forgotten. Memories that were almost painful for her to think of.

Harry snapped out of his reverie, looking at the sinking sun. He knew he should return to the castle – the others would be looking for him – but it was the last thing he wanted to do. As he watched the last rays slip over the horizon he stood and made his way to the castle, brushing away the tears that had somehow appeared on his cheeks.

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Harry had earlier arranged for their visit that weekend to be instead to Grimmauld Place. As they stood in Professor McGonagall's office waiting to leave, Harry's stomach was in knots. He never wanted to set foot in Grimmauld Place again, but he knew he must.

Finally, they left. They stepped out of the fireplace in the kitchen of Grimmauld Place, looking around. No one was there to greet them. The Order had moved back in after it was discovered that Harry rightfully owned the house, extremely grateful for the use of it. Harry gave a little sigh as he looked around the room. He wanted to turn around and leave again.

The door to their left swung open and through the doorway came Remus Lupin. He looked quite pleased to see them.

"Harry," he said loudly, beaming. "Nice to see you again. Same with the rest of you."

The work began almost immediately. Harry didn't want to waste any time. Most of the house had been cleaned out, but if Harry remembered correctly there was an attic that had not been touched. He asked Remus about it, who knew it hadn't been cleaned out, but didn't know where the entrance was. So they set out, searching the rooms until finally Harry came upon a door he didn't recognize. He opened it to find a set of stairs sloping steeply upwards. If he hadn't opened the door he would've assumed it was a cupboard.

Calling the others over, he started to make his way up the stairs, flicking a light switch to light the stairs. There was silence as the others followed him up. The first thing he noticed as he opened the door at the top of the staircase was the dust. He pulled out his wand and flicked on the light switch. He looked around at the hundreds of boxes, filling the large room. A few small round windows surrounded two walls of the room, but were so thickly covered in grime that Harry wondered if they would have been able to let any light through, had it been day.

"Well," Harry said, looking at Ron, Hermione and Ginny, "I suggest we move everything over one side of the room. We can take one box at a time each and see what's in it. When we have finished we will reseal it, label it and put it over the other side of the room."

"It's going to take forever," Ginny moaned.

Harry nodded. "Looks like we might be back here next weekend."

An hour later the three oldest had levitated most of the boxes into one corner, stacking them only as high as they dared. Even so, the boxes took up almost two-thirds of the room. They stopped and had a quick refreshment before choosing rooms and collapsing into bed, exhausted.

The next morning Harry was the first of his friends to wake. He opened the curtains of the room he had chosen (not the Master bedroom… he couldn't bear to see Sirius's things everywhere) and looked out at the day that was dawning before him. His stomach rumbled and he made his way downstairs, where the table was loaded with several different kinds of food. Harry smiled.

"Someone must have been up early to do all this," he commented to Remus. The older man looked slightly uncomfortable.

"Dumbledore sent a house elf a little while ago… not Kreacher, a different one. Said we could use her for help around here. I believe you had a little run in with her… Winky?"

Harry nodded. "I would've thought she couldn't be… well… trusted after what happened. She was quite faithful to her old Master."

"If Dumbledore thought she is trustworthy we will trust his judgement," Remus told Harry firmly. Harry nodded, and sat down, helping himself to a pile of steaming hot scrambled eggs. He was soon joined by his friends. Hermione, upon hearing of the households new house elf set off in a huff to find Winky.

"We'll be in the attic when we're finished here," Harry called after her retreating back. Ron gave a bit of a laugh, spraying pieces of scrambled egg everywhere.

Before long they were back in the attic, minus Hermione. Harry pointed his wand at the windows and muttered 'scourgify'. Light immediately filtered in through the room, filling the room. Harry gave a small smile of satisfaction and used the same spell to get rid of the dust and cobwebs.

He looked back at Ron and Ginny. "On second thoughts, anything you think is useless can go in that corner," he told them, pointing to his left. "I imagine it will be quite full."

They got to work. The first box Harry opened was full of dresses, presumably Sirius's mother's, from the age of them. Harry held one up and looked at Ron.

"Think a museum would take them?" he asked, laughing a little. Ron smiled and Ginny made her way over, digging through the box. The dresses seemed to get worse the further they dug down, polka dots and large roses jumping out at Harry. They shoved them back in and Harry sealed the box, writing 'dresses' on the top. He levitated it over to the left corner, then turned to see how Ron and Ginny were getting on.

Ron, on his right, had a box of broken objects. He pulled a broken remembrall out of the box, along with a few broken dark magic detectors. He sealed it up and levitated it over to the left corner. Ginny, on Harry's left, had a box of books. Harry could see the titles of a few from where he stood. 'A guide to the Unforgivable Curses' and 'A Thousand and One Ways to Kill a Wizard' were on the top. Ginny looked at Harry questioningly.

"Take the ones out that may be of some use… like the one about the Unforgivable curses and put the rest in the left pile. I don't want dark books on how to kill people, but books about spells and curses may come in handy… they might hold information I need."

Ginny nodded and began to sort through the box. Harry summoned an empty box for her to put the books that she wanted to thrown away in, then levitated another box towards himself. This box contained photo albums. Many of them were pictures of Sirius's parents when they were younger. Harry sealed it and wrote 'photographs' on the top, making a mental note to look through it properly later. He levitated it to the right pile and took another one from the pile.

They were soon joined by Hermione, who had successfully found Winky.

"Well," she said moodily, "she seems happy enough. At least she's getting paid for it." Harry silently exchanged grins with Ron, then explained to Hermione what they were doing.

An hour and a half later, Harry stopped the others and the took a break. The left pile was somewhat larger then the right pile, but they had hardly dented the pile of boxes on the other side of the room. Among the boxes they had found a few pieces of furniture – a desk, a few chairs and a table, which Harry intended on moving downstairs, and two owl cages, both quite large and in perfect condition. Harry had sent one to his house at Godric's Hollow and the other was sent to the Burrow for Pig.

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They munched on some cucumber sandwiches in silence, as they sat at the big table downstairs.

"Anyone found anything particularly interesting yet?" Harry asked, but there was silence around the table.

"Harry nodded solemnly. "Well I will levitate them down to the library, there's a few empty shelves."

The others went back to work as Harry levitated the boxes of books to the library and vanished the pile of junk. This left a fair bit more space in the attic. When he finished he arrived in the attic to find the others hard at work. He opened a few more boxes, mostly full of book and various trinkets, somewhat discouraged that so far they had found nothing of use. Nothing much on Regulus Black.

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Later that night as Harry lay awake, he thought about what to do next. Cleaning out the entire attic could take forever. He sighed, knowing that if he didn't he could miss something important. His mind wandered back to the box of photographs he had found earlier. He got up and pulled on his dressing gown, grabbing his wand and making his way up to the attic.

He found the box quite easily, shoved to the side of the pile on the right of the room. He opened it again and pulled out the first few photos. The first showed Mrs. Black and a man, presumably Sirius's father on their wedding day. Neither looked very happy.

The next photo was of Mrs. Black and two small boys. Harry gave a little grin as the oldest, a black haired boy, poked faces at him from the photo. The other stood quietly, not grinning, just looking out from the photo, a mop of dark hair falling over his eyes.

Harry was about to pull out a few more photos, when something caught his eye. It looked like the corner of a book. He pulled it out, looking grimly at the title. He opened it and flicked through it until he found what he was looking for. It wasn't unexpected. He remembered something he had seen earlier, and ran at full speed downstairs to the library, searching the newly stacked shelves wildly. There it was. He pulled the book from the shelf and put in on the floor, flicking through it as fast as he could, reading the headings from the light of his wand.

His wand dropped out of his hand as it fell into place. He turned so his back was against the shelf and drew his legs up to his body. He sat there thinking, the moonlight streaming down on him. He didn't know how long he had been there. Eventually he fell asleep, head on his arms, troubles left out of his dreams.

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A/N: R/R please. Had some trouble uploading it... won't hold the formatting...