Seven

Fortunately for everyone, the following morning did not start with more bad news. Erin had spent the whole afternoon with the thought of her family stuck in her mind and had ended up writing to her parents. Still, that had not reassured her. She was relieved that at least Kingsley had not contacted her about any other incident. She'd been thinking about something she wanted to try for a few days but she didn't know if she would be able to carry out her idea. She took her stack of papers, more paper and ink to write and headed for the library. Maybe there she'd find some enchantment that would help her achieve what she wanted to do.

Erin came down the stairs carefully because she could hardly see if her feet reached each step with all the things she was carrying, and she did not want to spill all the ink on the floor. She had already reached the last stretch when, as she lifted her head, something caught her attention and made her stop. The painting she had seen on the stairs when she'd arrived was uncovered, unlike the rest of the days she had looked at it. She retraced her steps holding everything as well as she could and leaned a little over the painting. She'd barely had time to study it, to realize that it was a portrait, when the old woman who was painted began to scream at the top of her lungs.

The young woman jumped in the place and some of her papers escaped from her embrace. She bent down to try to pick them up before they fell to the floor with her heart racing, and as she did so, the container with the ink also rushed down the stairs.

"Damn it." She muttered annoyed.

The woman in the painting was still shouting.

"A half-blood in my house! What a dishonour. Shame on the house of my fathers!"

Erin's only desire was to cover her ears, or better, to quieten the horrible woman with gray hair and wild eyes at last. She shouldn't have looked, she thought regretting it. She went down the rest of the stairs and put her things on a step that was not stained with ink, to collect everything she'd thrown away. She heard a noise to her left and when she turned her head, she saw Sirius approaching from the corridor that came from the library.

"I see you've met my dear mother, Walburga." He spoke as he approached her. Then he started to shout at the painting to shut up. "Sorry about that, don't listen to her."

"She's charming." Erin answered sarcastically.

Picking up her papers, she realized that some of them had become almost incomprehensible; so much ink stained them that she could hardly understood what it was written. She'd made such a mess only because she'd been scared by a stupid painting. Sirius had also bent down to help her and looked at her holding a paper.

"I hope it wasn't very important."

"I'm afraid it was."

Erin would have to find a way to return everything to its original state or else, she would have to find another copy.

"Were you going to the library?" Sirius asked.

Erin nodded.

"Then I'll collect your things." He said pointing to what Erin had left above, undamaged.

"I can take it, don't worry."

She didn't want to bother him.

"You haven't seen yourself, Erin." Sirius began to say. Suddenly he took a couple of steps towards her and reached out his hand. He left it stretched out near her cheek. What was he doing? "But you have some ink in your hair."

Sirius had a small smile on his face and Erin found it impossible to get angry, it was better to laugh about having got so dirty.

"How much is some?"

"Well...quite a bit." He said touching her hair.

Sirius retreated backwards and Erin noticed how her cheeks burned. Why did she have to blush so easily?

"I'll leave everything in the library. I'm going to have Kreacher clean all this up." He frowned a bit but continued to look at Erin with kindness. "I'm sure this has been his doing."

It did not seem very far-fetched that the elf had done so in order to annoy either of them. Erin tried not to give her incident too much importance while washing her hair but wished with all her strength that when she went back down the woman would be quiet. Luckily, she and although Kreacher was cleaning the stairs he didn't even look at her while she went to the library, her hair still wet.

"Was your mother like that while she lived?" Erin asked Sirius once she got to sit in an armchair next to him.

She had her things on the table in the centre of the library and it seemed Sirius hadn't even touched them.

"Practically the same." He answered. "And the worst thing is that damn painting is fixed with magic."

Erin thought it must've been very difficult to have to put up with Walburga. What kind of person chose to portray herself like that in order to torment those who step on her house? She was starting to think the only decent person from the Black family was Sirius. She looked at him out of the corner of her eye as he wrote something down in a kind of magazine and began to think about how close he had been to her when he had told her she was stained. She couldn't deny that she had already noticed that Sirius was attractive, she was sure that most women with eyes considered him so, but she had not considered until that very morning what it was that made him look exactly like that.

He'd grown a beard during that week and it looked pretty good on him. Even the old clothes he wore when he was at home suited him. Erin shook her head lightly and looked away, thinking it was stupid to be distracting herself like that when she had so many things troubling her.

"Did I interrupt you before?" She asked him. "Were you doing something important?"

"If you consider doing crosswords important." Sirius replied with a shrug.

He had turned a little to look at Erin and show her what he was doing.

"I love doing these". He murmured as if he were speaking to himself. Then he raised his voice again. "By the way, I had forgotten to tell you two letters arrived for you earlier."

Having said that, Sirius got up from his seat, picked up the two letters from the table and handed them to Erin. He sat back down while Erin turned all her attention to the letters. Maybe her parents had answered her, or Fred and George had finally written to her. She took one of the letters and opened it quickly to see that, as she had wished, Fred had written to her.

At the beginning of the letter he talked about how they were doing with the store and what they were planning next. Erin smiled thinking how proud she was of her friends being able to maintain a business of that type in an era with such uncertainty. Then, he asked her how she was doing and that comforted her. She'd had a very bad time before becoming friends with the twins and since then, they had always cared so much for her ... She would have to let them know that she was perfectly fine. Fred ended the letter saying hi in behalf of the whole family and asking her to write to Ginny. Supposedly, she had spent all week wondering what Erin would be wearing for Bill and Fleur's wedding. The latter almost made him laugh because Ginny always looked pretty, no matter what she wore. She never cared too much about clothes, anyway.

Erin finished the letter with a smile on her lips which almost disappeared with the next letter. It wasn't because it made her sad, but it did surprise her. Nymphadora Tonks, or Tonks as everyone called her, had written her. She was a little older than Erin and was also an Auror so they knew each other but Erin sould only recall having worked with her once. They still had a lot in common as Tonks had also been a Hufflepuff at Hogwarts. She remembered she had thought earlier that Sirius was the only decent Black but Tonks was as well. She often forgot that they belonged to the same family. The truth was that if Tonks had contacted her, it must've been for a serious issue. And it was.

Dear Erin,

You may be asking yourself why I'm writing you this letter. I don't want you to worry but I thought you should know what is happening. We have doubled the vigilance to Scrimgeour this week given the inactivity of the Death Eaters in regard to the Ministry. We suspect that the attack on the Muggle people was just bait, a way to distract us while preparing for their true objective. A trusted ally we have within the ministry affirms Umbridge is developing a project for the registration of half-blood people and muggle-borns among others. Believing that it is the most intelligent thing to do now, I have presented my resignation as Auror (although that does not mean that I am going to leave the Order). In this way, I hope that if the ministry does fall in the wrong hands both Remus and I will be safe.

I advise you to present your resignation, Erin although you are not obliged to do so. The person I've mentioned is willing to give you your file or destroy it so that no one has information about you. Please, think about it and contact me or Kingsley to plan it.

See you soon.

PD: I hope my cousin is treating you well xx.

Erin folded the letter in two and felt her stomach sinking. She was grateful Tonks had warned her when she didn't have to and that she had remembered her father was muggle-born. They were in potential danger. She didn't know how to feel about it; was she going to throw all the work overboard and just give up? After all the time she had struggled to get where she was, she was almost annoyed that she had to leave. Still, wasn't it more important to protect herself and continue with the Order?

She hadn't wanted to think about what could happen if Voldemort took over the Ministry but it seemed that from that moment onwards she was going to.

She had a lot to mull over.