It's me, your favourite I'm an official disaster favourite writer! Anyways, this is not my best but the following chapters are my absolute favs so. Please enjoy and feel free to roast me, xx.

Eleven

Erin had not even had time to form an idea of what she might found, but when she pushed the ajar door she thought that wouldn't have occurred to her. It was a space big enough to be a bedroom but there was not a single piece of furniture, which was rare compared to the pompous rooms in the rest of the house. Erin entered feeling an intruder, contemplating the dark green walls. She had barely taken a couple of steps when she saw what the room was supposed to be keeping. There was a large drawing on the wall to the left that occupied it entirely. It was a tree with stretched branches on the same green background as the rest of the walls, although the colour seemed duller, as if it were worn. In each branch there were rounds containing names and on top of them a portrait of the person it named, Erin assumed. Then it hit her, it was a family tree of the Black family. Her eyes passed from one name to another trying to find one familiar to her and then in the middle of the tree, at the top, she spotted Wallburga Black, Sirius' mother. The weirdest thing was that beneath her name there was some Regulus Arcturus Black and next to it a black blur. Erin ran her fingers through the aging tapestry in that space. She could still feel the relief of the letters of the name, something feeling like an s, later the letter r. There must have been Sirius' name and portrait, she thought. If both branches came out of Wallburga, then it could only mean that Sirius had a brother or at least, he had had a one once.

Regulus. She had never heard a word about him.

Her stomach was in knots seeing more blurs in the tree, She couldn't help but think about a thousand absurd reasons why some Black had been erased from memory. Somewhere between revulsion and surprise, she walked away from the tapestry in order to leave before she could be discovered. As if she had provoked it herself with her thoughts, Erin found Sirius walking by when she was closing the door behind her. Sirius' hair was wet, as he had just come out of the bathroom, and Erin stood there, not knowing what to do and simply stared at him. Why had he had to be so fast? Or worse, why was she dumb enough to do something she knew she shouldn't do? Whatever happened next, she thought bitterly, it was only her fault.

"What are you doing?" Sirius asked.

He had barely spoken, and Erin already knew that he was angry. He had sounded sharper than ever, almost like the Sirius who had challenged her on the first day, with his dark eyes nailed to her own.

"I was, I was..." Erin noticed her tongue getting stuck. "The door was open."

She continued standing, talking like a fool. A scared fool. She wasn't afraid of Sirius, that much was clear, but she was afraid of betraying the trust they had.

"That doesn't mean you can come in."

Erin heard every word, noticing how her face lit up. She tried to open her mouth to say something, but nothing meaningful crossed her mind, not even an apology. The first reaction that followed was her moving her legs. Was she going to leave without a word? It sounded much better than making the situation even worse than it already was. Erin hurried upstairs leaving Sirius confused, frowning and with a hint of anger reflected in her eyes. He called her while she was leaving but Erin was no longer listening, the shame she was feeling was too strong to stay a second longer. Everything would have stayed like this had it not been for the fact that they lived in the same house; at some point they were going to bump into each other again and Erin would have to apologize. For the moment, she would get away with it, especially thanks to Kreacher who, to her surprise, obeyed her and brought her food during the day. However, the following day they had to accompany Harry from his home to the Burrow so she could no longer avoid it.

It wasn't as hard as Erin had thought. She began the day by keeping Kingsley posted on how things were going, even though he was also going to be present too due to the importance of the mission. When it was time to leave during the afternoon, she decided to go down to the ground floor, from where different voices came. Erin assumed it would be Remus and Tonks and she was right. They were already in the hallway ready to go, just like Sirius. She smiled at them both and being cautious, avoided a certain person's eyes.

As they left the house to teleport to number 4 of Privet Drive, Remus continued going over the plan that Erin already knew by heart: some of them would go in pairs and as Mad-eye had suggested, they would take the Polyjuice Potion to distract the Death Eaters in case they attacked so they couldn't recognise Harry. Specifically, Remus and Tonks were going to escort them along with Bill, Arthur or Sirius without having to drink it. Erin would. Sirius had not even crossed his gaze with her yet.

Sirius did not consider himself an intimidating person, at least when he was not angry, but he was almost certain he had scared Erin the day before. To be fair, she had frightened him first and had not let him say a word after she ran away. Yes, he had been angry at first, because the least he expected was to see her in that room. He did not quite know why it bothered him so much. He had blamed it on tiredness and having to be in that house, being locked up. However, after a whole day without seeing her again and having heard Kreacher bring up Erin's food, all his anger had vanished and it had given way to shame. Hadn't she told him that a house was just a house? He was making a mountain out of a molehill.

He had not had a chance to tell her anything in all day, they had left home with Remus and Tonks, and Sirius' only concern had become Harry. Then, there had been too many people in front of them to have that kind of conversation and Erin had not tried to approach him at any time. He had frightened her, indeed, and because of it she would not speak to him. He could not deny he had been tempted to at least tell her everything would be fine after everyone had taken the Polyjuice Potion, but Erin looked better after seeing Fred and George and Sirius had had to leave before she did.

In that moment, he was already in the Burrow and his restlessness made him go around the house again and again, seeing that only him, Arthur and Fred had arrived. Molly was still inside the house and Sirius knew how worried she must be about her children, just like he was about Harry. It was a very risky move, but they had to make sure he was safe anyway. After another round nearby the house Sirius found endless, he saw a broom approaching and his heart flipped. Being so far he could only distinguish a person with blond hair and for a moment he thought of Fleur, who was flying with Bill of course, but then remembered that they were going in a Thestral and realized that it could only be Erin. He approached the door of the house, where Arthur was watching, a huge relief spreading on his chest. He would never have forgiven himself if something had happened to Erin after he had behaved like an asshole.

The relief disappeared as fast as it had arrived when Erin got off her broom paler than Sirius had ever seen her, breathing heavily.

"Erin". He called her. "Are you alright?"

The girl approached the door and all the Weasleys who were at home appeared. She said nothing and shook her head.

"There were Death Eaters everywhere." She announced with a thread of voice.

"That's not possible." He heard Arthur say. "No one outside the Order knew we were going to move Harry."

Then Erin uttered what none of them wanted to admit aloud:

"Then someone has betrayed us."

Molly and Arthur began to argue and Fred embraced Erin, who seemed to be catching her breath. Sirius did not want to listen to any more of it. It boiled his blood to think that something like this might be happening, once again. Perhaps he was the one who brought his bad luck everywhere. Unexpectedly, he felt a hand on his arm squeezing him without much energy. He turned around and saw Erin, her eyes half watery.

"There is no use going out there now."

Sirius nearly told her that was not what he wanted to do, but it was exactly the first thing that had crossed his mind. Harry and his friends were still out there, and so were Tonks and Remus. He did not want anything to happen to them.

"Am I so predictable?"

Erin looked at him and gave a weak-half smile even though it had not been Sirius' intention.

"It's what I'd like to do too, but it's not the best idea."

Erin was right but had he been alone, Sirius would have gone himself without thinking to rescue the rest, especially for Harry. Maybe all he needed from time to time was a person to make him stop and think for a second.