Author notes:

Sorry for the late chapter, was being difficult with uploading documents.

Many thanks to Sazza and Jayley for reviewing (twice!), you guys made my day! I think I actually squealed aloud when I saw Sazza's review, you like my writing style! Yay!

To Jayley: I did remember about the Snape thing, too late to change the entire plot though. I'm afraid Dumbeldore hasn't learned anything from his earlier mistakes in my fic.

8. Black

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Harry jumped back from the shower when the water suddenly turned cold.

He slipped on the bathroom floor and flailed his arms around to steady himself, painfully colliding with the sink.

Grabbing his arm and glaring at the offending sink he resisted the urge to start cursing, he had already been in a bad mood before his shower and this was not helping.

He had been staying at Grimmauld place for several days now and was starting to wish he was back with the Dursley's.

He hated this place and not only because of the bad memories or the fact that no matter how many times they tried to clean the place it would still look as dirty and neglected as before.

Harry was certain the house was conspiring against him, it had started the first night he stayed in Grimmauld place: the bed Harry slept on suddenly got legs in the middle of the night and decided to take a little trip down the stairs, Harry still had bruises from that particular incident. The next day he had been attacked by three rugs, got bitten by a chair and tripped over several pieces of furniture that mysteriously managed to move in front of his feet. The doors were also working against him by suddenly closing while he was walking through it or by refusing to open. Mrs Weasley had been forced to put silencing charms on all the mirrors as they started screaming insults whenever Harry walked by and just this morning he had woken up with several slimy snake-like creatures in his bed. At first he thought it was all some elaborate prank from the twins, but they were constantly busy with their jokeshop and according to Hermione, it was actually quite common that a house where several generations of wizards lived in, got his own personality, although she had to admit it usually didn't actually have enough power to move things around. That personality was a mix from all the wizards that used to live in the house, so it only made sense that the house of the family Black had rather nasty and twisted sense of humor.

Harry opened the tap to wash his face and growled when another of those snake things crawled out.

Irritated he gave up and turned around to get dressed and stood eye to eye with a snake.

A very big, black snake.

Startled Harry backed away until his back hit the wall.

You fascinate me, the snake hissed, moving it's head in a strangely hypnotic way.

I do? Harry asked, taken aback.

The snake jerked it's head back and let out a thin black tongue, tasting the air, yesss, you definitely fascinate me.

Harry cast a wary glance at the snake, it was hanging from the ceiling and even though he could only see part of it, as it seemed to be coming through a hole in the ceiling, it still looked big enough to easily swallow the boy whole.

The snake slithered forward until it's head was almost touching Harry's nose, Harry was getting cross-eyed trying to look at it but he didn't dare to move.

There hasn't been a parselmouth in thisss house since 1912, the snake bobbed its head excitedly, why didn't you say sssay something sooner?

I didn't even know there lived a sssnake here, Harry wished he could reach his clothes, he felt very vulnerable this way.

I'm no snake! The snake hissed indignantly, I am Black, guardian of the family Black.

Right, not wanting to offend the snake, or guardian, Harry didn't ask what that was supposed to mean, well, nice to meat you Black, I'm Harry

I know you're Harry, Harry Potter, not Black, yet I feel drawn to you. It must be because you ssspeak my tongue.

Maybe we can talk later, Harry suggested hopeful, although Black didn't seem dangerous he would feel a lot better if he was wearing clothes and carrying his wand, I'm sssupposed to be at breakfast right now.

Very well, Black hissed disappointed, we will speak later, pleasssant hunting, Harry Potter.

With that the snake seemed to dissolve into shadowy smoke before disappearing entirely, leaving Harry gaping.

Harry poked at his food, not feeling very hungry at all, but as usual Mrs Weasley had mad far too much food. As she had given up on cleaning the house, all she could to pass the time was cook.

So she cooked.

All day long.

Harry was still a bit bemused from his talk with Black, it was obviously no ordinary snake, there had been no hole in the ceiling, Black had just gone right through it, like some sort of ghost.

He thought about asking Hermione about it, but she was once again bickering with Ron. She and Ron were almost always bickering these days, it was even worse than before.

The only thing they could do to pass the time was playing games, Harry was getting sick of playing exploding snap but even that was better than doing 'research' as Hermione wanted, she desperately wanted to find out what was wrong with Harry ad he tried to appreciate her concern. But there was simply nothing to find about it and it seemed a waste of time, even though Hermione kept insisting that more knowledge was always better he didn't see the point of knowing how to turn someone inside out through their nose, or how long you can put someone under cruciatus before they lose their minds.

Now and than Rose or the twins would come by, and one time Charlie stayed over for dinner, but most of the time it was just the four of them. Harry had asked Mrs Weasley about Remus as he had expected him to live at Grimmauld place as well but she just smiled sadly and changed the subject. This infuriated Harry more than anything, she was still treating him as a child and on top of that he was now really worried about Remus.

Harry hadn't heard anything from Dumbledore either, he still didn't know what was the deal about his mothers adoption paper or what happened to Hedwig, Mrs Weasley insisted she saw the dead bird with her own eyes, but the body had mysteriously disappeared. Harry was still convinced she was the real Hedwig, besides if Voldemort could get a spy inside Grimmauld place than surely he would use something better than an owl who supposedly died.

Snape hadn't shown his ugly face either, which was odd after Dumbledore's claim he needed to learn occlumency as fast as possible.

All in all Harry felt rather abandoned and pissed off, he had thought that after last year Dumbledore would stop leaving him in the dark constantly.

Fortunately Harry had only gotten one vision since he was at Grimmauld place and that happened in the bathroom so none of his friends had seen it. It also seemed as if the pain following the vision was not as intense as before, but it was hard to tell when his head felt like Voldemort was doing the tango on top of it. It was odd that the visions had suddenly lessened, before coming to Grimmauld place he had a vision every day, his only guess was that Voldemort could no longer reach him as he didn't know where he was.

"Harry dear, you really should eat more," Mrs Weasley said gently, "you're far too skinny."

Harry dutifully piled more food on his plate, ignoring the worried look Hermione gave him. He was getting rather tired of her constant are-you-sure-you-are-alright looks. Even Ron, who usually always treated Harry like he was normal, now suddenly acted like Harry was about to fall apart or something.

At least Ginny still treated him normally, in fact they were getting along better than ever before. If it wasn't for her Harry was sure he would have lost his mind completely.

After breakfast they all moved to the room Harry and Ron shared. They had fallen in a routine the first day: get up, breakfast, study, play games, study, lunch, study, games, study, dinner. Ron had insisted in gaming pauses in between and Hermione had eventually relented, that didn't stop them from arguing about it though and most times they were so fed up with eachother by the time dinner ended, either Ron or Hermione would blow up and leave in a huff, leaving the other to sulk. Harry and Ginny were used to it by now and always left as quickly as possible after dinner, hiding out in one of the many empty rooms the house had. Those evenings were actually the best times of the day. Harry wasn't blind to the knowing and delighted looks Mrs Weasley and Ron send them every time they spent time together, and even Hermione seemed to hint at a possible romantic relationship between Harry and Ginny.

It wasn't anything like that though, Ginny was just a great friend, someone he could talk to about everything but also could chose to stay silent without her pressing him to talk