"Hermione. What. What are you doing here?" Harry asked, trying to figure out if he was actually seeing her there. For a wild moment he wondered if it might be Tonks playing a joke. If she'd been able to nail that crazed look that Hermione got though when she'd been studying for days and finally cracked something, well, that'd really be impressive.
"I've been researching!" She beamed.
Yep. That was definitely Hermione.
"Hello, Sirius! So good to see you again." She greeted him as he joined them on the lift then blinked a few times pulling back slightly, seemingly remembering herself. "What are the two of you doing here? Not in trouble, are you?" She asked in concern, registering what floor of the Ministry they were on.
"No. Nothing like that." Sirius chuckled. "Do you want to tell her?" He asked Harry.
Harry grinned. He was feeling much more confident about it all. It hadn't changed anything between them. He was still Harry Potter, and Sirius was still Sirius Black. The only thing that really changed was his holiday address. "Sirius is now my official guardian." Harry said proudly.
"Oh!" Her hand went to her mouth. "That's wonderful!" She jumped up and down once and then threw her arms around Harry.
Harry chuckled and gave her a hug back. "But what's going on with you?"
"Well." She said pulling back and becoming more solemn. "Maybe here isn't the best place." The door to the lift had just opened again on floor three, Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes, and a few people got on.
"It's getting on lunch time." Sirius offered looking at his watch. "Can we take you out somewhere and you two can catch up?"
"That would be lovely." Hermione accepted. "I'd love to have lunch with the two of you. I've been holed up at home this whole holiday, and now even my parents have their office open today so the company would be a nice little break."
There was a proper restaurant on a posh side street just down from Gringotts off Diagon Alley, Sirius took the two of them there and put up a privacy spell.
"Tom Riddle." Hermione said with wide and excited eyes after they gave their food order to the server.
Harry felt his stomach drop slightly. Of course, she'd been spending her holidays trying to figure out who Voldemort was. She was still working on her project of pulling together a book about the last war. He was cringing internally knowing all he would now be able to tell her if he could.
Sirius choked on his water a bit and her eyes turned to him. "You knew?" She asked surprised.
"Er." Harry started. "We just found out a few days ago." Hermione looked frozen as she processed her thoughts. How much work had she done into trying to figure out his past, he wasn't sure, but it couldn't have been looking something up on a simple registry.
"We?" She asked slowly.
Sirius said nothing, just gave Harry an imploring look. Harry had told Ginny what had been happening with the former Tom Riddle, but not Neville nor Ron, and he hadn't even seen Hermione. Sirius didn't know Hermione, and he wouldn't have any idea why she would be so thoroughly researching his history. He knew about all of the Daily Prophets and Quibblers from two months ago, but not that Hermione was pulling together a book about what they'd discovered. She may have mentioned it to Remus while Sirius was still staying on in his suite, but saying something and following through are two different things.
Sirius also didn't know Hermione like he knew Ginny. "Harry." He said cautiously.
"She's my best friend." Harry replied simply.
"And Peter Pettigrew was mine." He said sadly.
Both Harry and Hermione sucked in a breath at that.
"I'm sorry." Sirius held up his hand in a placating manner for her. "I'm sure you are a lovely girl, and from the little I know about you, quite bright. But there are some things we've learned about Tom Riddle recently that are best not shared with the masses. And as close as you are to Harry, to me you are the masses."
Hermione observed him a moment with pursed lips taking in what he had said. She didn't seem offended, just like she might be looking for a loophole or a way to prove herself. "Well." She said finally. "There's nothing stopping me from telling you what I've learned."
Harry smiled at her resolve and gave Sirius a proud look. Hermione had been a great and reliable friend all these years and he was rather relieved that Sirius hadn't offended her with his hesitancy. Sirius seemed to relax slightly at her offer. There would be no harm in learning what information she'd come across, and it could be helpful to them.
That slight movement of Sirius' relaxing shoulders was all she needed to start into her story of going back through everything they had known and assumed about Voldemort after all of the Daily Prophet articles. She'd gone further back in the archives and then figured out his age, then checked some school records, making the assumption that he'd been a Slytherin. It was after playing the game of Scrabble with her father that she realized that the name Voldemort could potentially be an anagram and had looked into a few of the registered Slytherins from the early 40's and after eliminating several options she finally figured out that it was Tom Riddle, former Hogwarts Head Boy that had been responsible for the last war.
"Now I'm looking into everything I can get my hands on about his early history and the build up to when he finally emerged as 'Lord Voldemort'." She finished, only having taken a breath when the server delivered their food.
Harry really admired her. She was so able to focus and work and work until she solved her problems. "So. The anagram?"
"Oh." She snickered. "It's actually rather juvenile." She laughed. "He must have come up with it when he was quite young but see; his middle name is 'Marvolo' and when you rearrange all of the letters in his name it becomes 'I am Lord Voldemort'."
"You're shitting me." Sirius' jaw dropped slightly, and he couldn't help contributing to the conversation.
"I know." Hermione tried to hide her mirth.
Harry too was quite floored by that. It was a rather childish thing to do, but Tom Riddle certainly had made it work for him. There were still several people that were too scared to even whisper his name. It was like stage actors and the taboo around saying Macbeth, but on a more extreme level.
"So that's what I was doing at the Ministry this morning." She continued. "Looking into his history and such. I'll be doing more research at Hogwarts of course, but it is so much better to get information straight from the administrative offices at the Ministry directly." She looked wistful about having been in the office space. She may have been picturing herself there in just two years, clerking for some big ministry executive like Harley Gordon.
"Now then, do you know what he did after Hogwarts?" Sirius asked leaning forward and appearing far less weary of Hermione's potential motives that he had been twenty minutes ago.
She nodded enthusiastically. "He worked for Flourish and Blotts and did some free-lance work for Borgin and Burkes in acquisitions."
"That makes sense." Sirius looked thoughtful.
"What's Borgin and Burkes?" Harry asked. It sounded like a law firm.
"They purchase and sell dangerous goods on Knockturn Alley." Sirius explained. "They'd be interested in the hard to acquire and slightly priceless artifacts."
"Oh." Harry clued in. That would have been where he'd gotten a lot of his information and contacts for his Horcrux artifacts. The Flourish and Blotts job would have allowed him access to the history books that would have been too expensive for a former orphan to have purchased as well.
"Oh, what?" Hermione regarded them critically. "You just made some kind of connection."
Harry felt guilty. He was positive she wouldn't use this information to try and harm people, she just wanted the information because she found it fascinating. He looked over to Sirius for guidance.
His Godfather let out a sigh. "If you can get Dumbledore to tell you what we're looking for, then we will tell you the rest. How is that?" He negotiated.
Hermione sat up a little straighter at the mention of her Headmaster. She very much respected Albus Dumbledore. "That's fair." She conceded.
Harry watched her carefully though. She appeared to have gotten a lot more from Sirius' last statement than simply the words he'd used.
"Anyways." She continued on. "I've been looking into his family as well. His mother died during child birth, she was a witch, but it seems her Muggle husband had cast her aside when she started showing some of the signs of magic that women give off during pregnancy. At least that's what I've guessed. I'm not one hundred percent sure how she wound up alone in a Muggle orphanage. Particularly since records show that her father and brother were alive at the time."
She was getting into one of her one sided conversations. She'd discovered quite a lot about Tom Riddle. And Harry hadn't known that pregnancy was different for witches than it was for muggles, he found that interesting too. She must have been buried in archives at the Ministry this whole holiday to figure this all out. She had just told them she hadn't known who Voldemort really was before Christmas.
"Tracking down who his maternal family was had been rather difficult with only 'Marvolo' to potentially go off of, but I managed to find several issues with a Marvolo Gaunt and his two children Morfin and Merope. Merope was Tom Riddle's mother. And the only way I actually found all that out was because I was searching for more in relation to Tom Riddle and found out that Morfin Gaunt was thrown in Azkaban for killing a Tom Riddle Senior, a Nobel muggle and no doubt his former Brother-in-Law. However, that murder actually occurred when our Tom Riddle Junior was about sixteen."
"Breathe, Hermione." Harry stopped her.
She did pause at his insistence and sucked in a deep breath, letting it out slowly.
"This is all incredible." Sirius stated incredulously. "You've figured this out in just a week?"
"Well." She blushed slightly. "I'm very good at research. I went into the records hall on Friday as soon as it opened, and then went over everything I'd learned this weekend. Today I was just double-checking things. And after lunch today I was going to head down to look at the records for the orphanage he'd been raised in."
"To what end?" Harry asked. "You already know he was raised there until he went off to Hogwarts. What are you hoping to find?"
"If I'm going to get a well-rounded history of him then I want to start from infancy." She said like it should be obvious. "He was there during his summers from Hogwarts too. There might be notes on what he was like as a child. School records from when he went to primary, notes about if he had any friends. Health records even!"
"And you know where it is?" Sirius asked, now sounding concerned for her safety.
"I know where it was." She corrected. "It isn't there anymore. It was torn down, but all of the records would have been moved to a storage facility by the district and I'm going to talk to one of the people that work for the council to get the location tracked down."
It sounded like a tedious and daunting task, but she seemed quite excited about it.
"Now then." She relaxed and finally picked up her fork. "Tell me about your Christmas. You said you were getting your guardianship changed this morning?"
The two men stared at her for a moment before they registered her abrupt change of topic. "Yes." Harry picked up after his brain caught up with her. "And we visited with the Goblins last week about the Potter vaults and such. Turns out I have three property titles, including the house I grew up in." He pursed his lips a bit.
'What?" Hermione asked dangerously. "You owned the house that those horrible relatives of yours have been living in?"
It was the same reaction he was getting from everyone. "Yes. And I'm just signing it over to them. I don't want to see it ever again if I don't have to." She opened her mouth, but he raised a hand to stop her. "Please, I've heard all kinds of arguments for what else I could have done but this is how I'm choosing to deal with it."
She nodded reluctantly. "What about the other two properties?"
"Haven't seen them yet. One was the one my parents lived in when. With. When it happened." He managed. "I haven't seen that one, or the one by Cambridge."
"That one was Potter Manor." Sirius told them. "It's lovely, or it was when I was growing up. I lived there for a summer when I was in school. And the majority of the summers until then as well." He turned to Harry. "Maybe we should go and visit it on Wednesday? Might be a nice way to start off the new year."
"That'd be great." He smiled. "Mind if I bring Ginny?"
"You mean the future Lady Potter?" Sirius teased. "Yeah, sure."
Hermione looked like she was still biting her tongue over the Dursley's getting their house after treating Harry so poorly but was willing to put a pin in that for later. "You went to the Weasley's for Christmas then?" She asked tentatively.
"Yeah." Harry beamed. "It was great. I was there Friday and Saturday too. Neville came and we all played with Kenneth in the snow."
"And how did Ron seem?" She was looking down at her plate.
Harry shifted uncomfortably. "Uh. A little, um. Sad. But you know. Dealing." He told her awkwardly.
"Dealing?" She asked, raising her eyes to him. "He told you?" She asked sadly, then cast an embarrassed look at Sirius briefly.
"Uh, Ginny actually. Then Ron confirmed it." He admitted. "But. You know we'll all be okay. It'll probably just be a little awkward for a bit."
"He. He decided then?" Her breath hitched.
Now Harry felt frozen. Had Ron said they were broken up? Hadn't that been what Hermione wanted? Quickly he went back over his conversation with Ron in his room the other day. And with his comment about Daphne Greengrass just before Luna made an appearance at the Burrow. It had seemed like he was leaning towards breaking up, but he hadn't actually said it.
"Uh. I can neither confirm nor deny actually." He told her honestly. "I saw he was making a pro/con list. But, honestly, you tell a bloke that you feel like it isn't working. Were you expecting him to, I dunno, fight for you?" He asked quizzically.
Hermione blushed. "I. I don't know." She frowned. "I'm not sure what I expected. He hasn't written me."
"Have you written him?" Harry asked, now noting how Sirius had taken a great interest in his food, and very little in the conversation. He probably didn't need to hear about teen relationship drama when there were some very important happenings going on in his life.
"I've been too busy." She blatantly lied. Yes she'd been busy, but not too busy that she couldn't manage a simple letter.
"Hermione." Harry moaned. "Do you want to be with him, or not?" How hard was it? He didn't have any question about whether or not he wanted to be with Ginny.
She let out a groan and rested back in her seat. "Fine. I think we'd be better suited as friends. No doubt there are other girls that he could move on with. There are certainly enough showing interest." She added bitterly.
Harry tried his best to school his reaction to that, but there was no doubt the concern for how his friends were going to get along once they were all back at school was apparent on his face.
"So then, Hermione." Sirius started, putting his knife and fork together on his empty plate. "All this research you are doing into his past. You are wanting to formulate it into some kind of book?" He changed the conversation back to something he was interested in.
"I'm not entirely sure anymore." She said picking at her chips in thought, switching gears. "I'd thought a book on the last war would be interesting, and now all this information on who 'He' really was is entirely interesting. But the thing about books is that not a lot of people read them. Unless you have an amazing publisher or fantastical stories like Gildroy Lockhart had. So, I'm wondering if a smaller scale might be a better option. Like trying to sell the idea to a magazine for a several part series." She shrugged. "I mean. I have to write it first, so maybe I'm getting ahead of myself."
"Well. As Albus was known to be the one person he was afraid of, I'd get his input on it all." He encouraged. "And I would be very interested to read anything you come up with on it."
Hermione glowed with pride and determination at that.
()()()
Sirius side-along apparated Harry to his cousin's house for their New Year's Eve get together.
They'd spent the morning going through the Gringotts vault. Now that Harry was a Black in the technical sense Sirius had him added to the list of those that could access the vault. Remus had been able to search with him because he was of age, but due to Harry being both under age and unrelated if he'd touched anything it would have been very unpleasant.
The morning at Gringotts had been fruitless. They'd managed to scour a good quarter of the vault but would be going back in a few days to look searched for two hours before giving up the quest for the cup for the day.
There was no immediate rush to get their hands on it, and there still wasn't confirmation that this Chalice was one of the Horcruxes. Harry just hoped that they did find it before he had to go back to school. He also hoped that when he got back to school that Dumbledore would let him view the memories that Sirius and Remus had seen.
And Hermione.
After parting ways with her yesterday he and Sirius went into the Muggle world and took in a movie then went for a wander around before grabbing dinner and then heading home. It had been nice having some casual bonding time. The server at dinner last night had mistakenly called Harry Sirius' son, they shared a look but didn't correct the assumption
He didn't see what the harm would be if Hermione did see the memories or know how Tom Riddle became Lord Voldemort. If everyone knew what he'd done, then maybe he wouldn't be so revered. He'd just be a sad old murderous man that had destroyed his life with Dark Magic. He'd be a warning to anyone else willing to try it.
Hermione had found out so much on her own and he could only imagine how vehemently she'd fight to get her hands on all the missing information.
"Sirius! Harry! Welcome." A woman in her late forties opened the door with long black curly hair and soft features.
"Andromeda! So good to see you." Sirius stepped forward and gave her a hug. "Harry, this is my favorite cousin." He led Harry forward by the elbow.
"Thank you for inviting me." He gave her a polite smile and heard another pop of Apparation behind him that must have been Remus.
"Andy!" Remus came into the foyer and closed the door behind him. "It's been quite a few years, and yet you look exactly the same." He charmed her.
Harry couldn't help but notice he was looking and feeling much better than he had over the last few days. He must have spent the entire previous day sleeping and recovering. Or perhaps he took a Pepper-Up Potion to look more human for the get together.
"Remus Lupin. Good to see you too." She ignored his flirt and gathered up Harry and Sirius' jacket to hang in the front closet. "Come on through, Ted and Dora are probably sneaking dessert in the kitchen."
Harry was keen to see Tonks, or Dora, again. She'd been really cool yesterday, and he was hoping she'd do a few more morphs for his entertainment.
The three men followed Andromeda through to the kitchen where they were met with the smiling faces of dessert thieves, who were decidedly looking too innocent. "Ted, Dora." Andromeda started, ignoring the antics of her family. "You remember Sirius. And this is Remus and Harry. Remus, Harry. My husband Ted and my daughter Dora."
'Dora's' hair was simply brown today and it hung down in soft waves just past her shoulders. Her eyebrow ring was still in place, but she had changed into a nice party dress, probably at her mother's insistence as she'd looked quite comfortable in her gothic-style get up yesterday.
"Hello there." Ted smiled at all of them and stepped around the kitchen island to shake their hands.
"Heyya." Dora followed her dad and gave Harry a quick and familiar one-armed hug. "Great that you're here. We need plenty of help eating all the food mum has whipped up." She shook Remus' hand and gave a nod to Sirius.
Ted got them all drinks and then showed them into the sitting room where the conversation was immediately filled with what Sirius had been doing since his release and his plans for the future.
"Professional Lay-about for the next few months is all I have planned right now." He answered honestly. "Can't imagine the career I'd been heading for as an Auror would go over very well." He joked. "I'm in no big hurry to find out what comes next." He shrugged.
"That has always been your go to setting." Remus stated. "He was this cavalier about it in school too."
"Always had you there to keep me on track though. Otherwise who knows what would have happened."
"You'd have a whole pile of illegitimate children running around is what." Remus commented. "Had to remind you about that charm every time you were about to go on a 'date'."
"And he never had to remind you?" Dora asked with a smirk and a keen eye zero'd in on Remus.
"Mister Manners?" Sirius scoffed. "Never. He would never forget something important like that!"
Harry wondered when the last time would have been that his professor had a girlfriend. He hadn't mentioned one and didn't seem that close with any of the female professors that were close to his age. Harry very much doubted that there might have been something going on with he and Trelawney. Though there had been a major secret he hadn't know about his favorite professor until just a week ago, so who knew.
"And Harry?" Ted picked up, trying to change the conversation.
"Already made sure he's covered in that area." Sirius joked to Harry's mortification.
Thankfully Ted ignored Sirius' comment, as did everyone else. "You are in your sixth year of Hogwarts?" Ted clarified where his questioning was going.
"Yes. Still not sure what I want to do after though. We did the career counseling with our Head of House's last year and I made sure I had all the classes for Auror training just in case, but." He shrugged. Then turned to Dora. "How long have you been an Auror?"
"Started into training right out of school. That was three years and I've been a fully trained Auror for four years. It's been hard, interesting and a lot of paperwork." She admitted. "But when there is proper work to be done it is quite fulfilling. If you are seriously interested, then I could see about you doing a job shadowing in the summer." She offered.
"Really?!" Harry was incredibly interested in that. No doubt he wouldn't be following Auror's out on missions or anything, but he would hear more about what the job truly entails. Thus far he'd only heard fantastical stories that sounded more like an action movie. No doubt there were several down sides to the job as well.
"That would be pretty amazing." Sirius added his two cents. "You think you could really arrange that?"
"Sure." She shrugged. "Wouldn't hurt to ask. There are a ridiculous number of applicants to the Auror program that think the job will turn out to be some exciting minefield of adventure, then after they've been trained up, we lose them to some other department. I think I could convince Amelia, er, Miss Bones to implement a shadow program to weed out some of the less committed applicants."
"She seemed really nice." Harry remembered. "I really wasn't expecting someone so... well. Young. As the Department Head."
"She's young, sure, but she's the best at cutting through bureaucratic bullshit."
"Dora." Her mother scolded her language.
"And." Dora continued, ignoring her mother. "She did spend some time in the field herself and knows what we're up against sometimes. She took over the position a year after I'd started fully, and I've seen some great improvements."
"You seem really dedicated." Remus told her admiringly. "It's nice to see."
"I'm just glad it is a much different world now that it was back during the last war. You had no idea who's side people were truly on then." Andromeda said.
"Too true." Sirius nodded. "Even the ones you were sure were light were dark, and vice versa."
"Subject change." Ted cut in. "It's New Years. Let's discuss something pleasant. Harry!" He focused in. "Have you got a girlfriend?"
Harry blushed and smiled. "Yeah. Ginny. She was actually Sirius' 'owner' for a while." He chuckled, glad to have found a way to spin that topic change back on someone else. Sirius told him they already knew about where he'd been for the three years he was in hiding, and he'd trusted them enough to keep it to themselves.
"Oh! A Weasley then?" Dora asked excitedly. "I remember her brother Bill, Merlin he was attractive." She leaned back in her seat looking wistful. "Head Boy in my fifth year." She explained.
The room chuckled a bit at her outburst.
"Well, he lives in Egypt right now working for Gringotts as a Curse Breaker." Sirius told her. "You could pack up and trail off after him if you want." He teased.
"Nah. There are plenty of blokes close by that could take up the task." She deflected and threw a wink at Remus.
Remus had been taking a sip of his drink then and coughed at her actions, then chose not to say anything.
"Dora." Her mother warned again.
"I remember Molly and Arthur. They were lovely. How many children did they wind up with? Think it was five the last time I properly spoke to Arthur." Ted asked Sirius.
"Seven." Sirius beamed. "Ginny was their last. Molly was adamant that she wanted a girl, so they kept going until they got one."
"Which I'm eternally grateful for." Harry couldn't stop himself from saying. "She's amazing."
"This one's in love with her." Sirius reached over and gave him a patronizing pinch to his cheek.
()()()
Ginny groaned. She had been feeling human again before that Floo trip. And once again there wasn't anyone in the sitting room. With a grumble she plopped herself on the couch and rested her head back against the arm.
Her hang over had been full force this morning keeping her in bed until just after nine. Considering she had been up until after two, that wasn't such a crazy lie in, but Harry had asked her over so that she would accompany him in seeing his family property with Sirius.
She wasn't going to miss that, no matter how much her head was pounding and stomach was turning.
Really, she blamed the twins. They were the idiots that started the game of 'Never Have I Ever'. Now Ron and the Twins knew way too much of what she'd been getting up to with Harry, and that she'd broken into Filch's office. Damn the twins. They had slipped her a truth serum, they must have. She would have never said anything about her sex life otherwise.
And why would they want to know? She certainly didn't need to know what Fred had gotten up to with some loose Muggle girl he'd lost his virginity to on a night out in London.
She'd warned them of what would happen if they started in on Harry about any of it, even pulled her wand and gave George a little demonstration since he was usually the instigator out of the two of them. Hopefully that had been enough to know to take her threats seriously.
Lucky the Trace didn't register under the Burrow roof because of their homeschooling otherwise that would have been an interesting one to explain to her parents.
With only twenty minutes to pull herself together before she had promised to arrive at Grimmauld Place she managed to vomit in the loo, wash her face, brush her teeth and throw on some new clothes before accepting the hang over potion from her mum and avoid being sick again when offered dry toast, which she declined. She had thought to wait an entire five minutes after taking the potion before Flooing to Grimmauld, but it wasn't enough. Her belly had calmed down enough that she wasn't going to be sick, but her brain was still twice the size of her skull and that wasn't making her feel like the nicest person in the world.
Thus, with an arm over her eyes she lay there in wait of relief, praying that the boys were running late.
She must have fallen asleep.
The sound of footsteps nearby had her twitch awake moving her arm from over her eyes and blinking the sleep away to try and focus on the person standing over her.
Waking to her DADA Professor smirking down at her from four feet away was an interesting experience.
"Had a hard night, did you?" He asked, looking suitably rested and pulled together.
"What time is it?" She croaked and sat up before doing an inventory of her aches and pains.
"Just after ten." He responded and took up on the armchair across from the couch.
Ginny nodded. It had been maybe only ten minutes since she'd arrived, but it had made a world of difference to be able to recuperate and let the potion do its job. Her head felt normal and her belly was starting to register its emptiness. She looked down at her outfit and was pleased to notice that she had managed to pull together a decent outfit in her groggy state.
"Did your mother know you were feeling that rough?" Professor Lupin asked in hesitant concern.
She sat up and curled her feet under her leaning back against the corner of the couch. "Yeah. She's fine with Ron and I having a drink every now and then so long as it's for a reason, and we don't do it often. And this one I blame on the twins. Have you met Fred and George? I mean, besides at Christmas?"
"I have. I've been into the Zonko's in the village several times. Those two are excellent salesmen the way they go about peddling the products to the kids." He approved, probably more than a Hogwarts professor should have considering most of the products they pushed were frowned upon/banned at the school. "I believe they were even the ones responsible for getting the Owl Order business properly up and running."
"Yeah. That's them. Their boss has been quite keen on their ideas. I'm pretty sure they are working on inventing their own line of joke products too. They're pretty brilliant actually. Mum just wished they'd apply that brilliance to something less troublesome to the innocent bystanders." Ginny chuckled.
"And they are the cause of your state this morning?" He innocently nudged for further explanation.
"Yep." She did a slow stretch with her arms above her head and let out a yawn. "They were eager to try out some kind truth serum with a drinking game. I'm feeling much better now though." She looked around. The elves had cleaned up the decorations and gifts now. The sitting room was spotless. "Where are Sirius and Harry? Not still sleeping, are they?" Part of her thought she was going to want to hurt them if they were. It had not been an enjoyable wake up this morning.
"In the kitchen." He gestured with his book to the door across the hall.
"Thanks." She sighed and got up to head that way.
The smell of pancakes greeted her when she passed through the door into the kitchen and her mouth started watering.
"Ginny!" Harry greeted her excitedly. "Is it ten already?" He looked to a grandfather clock behind her head.
"Fifteen after." Sirius too was checking the clock. "And here I thought you were supposed to be keeping us on schedule." He teased.
"I've been sleeping on the couch for that long." She snorted. "And I'm starving, so any breakfast left over?" She noted their empty plates sadly.
"Dobby can make miss a plate." The elf appeared eagerly from the other side of the kitchen and pulled out a seat for her. "Would miss like some coffee?"
"Water, please." She told him in relief and took the seat, giving Harry a kiss hello. "How was your New Year's Eve?" She asked them. They appeared well rested and ready to go.
"It was nice." Harry shrugged. "The Tonks' are all easy to get on with. Dinner was good."
"We were back just before eleven, so we didn't party as hard as you did." Sirius was giving her a side smile. He knew the Weasley's too well.
"Oh. Are you feeling okay?" Harry asked suddenly concerned.
"Fine." She assured him. "My little nap on your couch helped the potion kick in. Now I'm just hungry and dehydrated."
Dobby set a plate of pancakes and a banana in front of her with a glass of water and Harry told her all about Dora Tonks, this amazing Auror he'd met and her Metamorphamagus skills. The excitement in his voice as he talked about her made her cast a side glance to Sirius. He in turn shook his head, knowing her question. According to Sirius, Harry was simply in awe, not infatuation. It was great that Sirius knew her well enough to know that's where her thought process would lead her.
Harry wrapped up talking about the potential shadow program she was going to investigate. "And I think it is something she should talk to Remus about too." Harry said turning to Sirius. "He should be able to help out with that as the Defense professor. He'd know who was interested or capable of joining up."
"Oh." Sirius looked intrigued. "Can I be there when you ask him about teaming up with her for that?"
"Why?" Ginny asked. He seemed a little too eager to see the reaction from their professor.
"Dora was coming off a little keen on him last night." Harry snickered. "And I don't know if he just doesn't get hit on a lot or what, but I don't think I've seen him blush before."
"He's one for propriety for sure, but she did make a few comments that were rather thinly veiled innuendo." Sirius agreed. "He probably thinks she's too young for him." He rolled his eyes.
"How old is she?" Ginny asked. Professor Lupin could only be in his mid-thirties. It would be understandable if she was young enough for him to have taught her when he'd first started at Hogwarts. That would be uncomfortable, but if not, then it wasn't that uncommon for men to be older than the women they dated, even if it was by more than ten years.
"She'd be, what? Twenty-four or something?" Harry asked Sirius.
"Yeah, round there." He concurred.
"Alright." Ginny finished up her plate and drank down her glass of water. "You two ready to go?" She asked.
Sirius put down his paper and finished up his cup of coffee before standing. "Ready."
"Yeah. Good." Harry stood too.
()()
Sirius gave a great wistful sigh as Potter Manor appeared before the three of them.
It was not at all what Harry was expecting. There hadn't been any photo's in the file containing the paperwork for the property, but he heard the word 'Manor' and assumed it would be more of a grand estate looking place.
Not that he didn't like the look of it. In fact, he found it entirely lovely.
It was a stone house, well, not a house, it was larger than simply a house. It was two levels, a large garage attached at one side that surprised him. They must have built that on or converted a stable or something and extended the house over top of it. Given the age of the building, not to mention the magical owners, it could only have been something built on in and around 30 or so years ago.
There was a long wrap around porch that went in front of the main entrance and around the side of the house that he couldn't yet see.
Raised gardens were evenly spaced in rows in front of where the drive ended. Oddly they didn't look to have been overrun with weeds before the snow covered them up, nor did the expanse of yard before the forest appear to have run wild in the absence of a Potter having last lived at the property.
There were two shack-like out buildings on the other side of the raised gardens from the house that he wasn't sure what their purpose would be. Perhaps his grandfather had a shed full of Muggle things like Ginny's had.
"Oh, it looks like a Christmas picture." Ginny exclaimed softly.
"It does." Sirius agreed. "Come on. I want to show you the inside!" He let go of the two of them and headed up the drive to the porch.
Ginny moved closer to Harry and took his hand. "Ready?" She asked brightly.
Harry steeled himself and nodded dumbly, letting her guide him to the front door.
Sirius stood on the porch in front of the door waiting for them.
"Do I have to do something to get the door to open?" Harry asked.
Before Sirius could answer the door opened and a little blur ran straight for Sirius and attached itself to his leg. "Mister Sirius!" It squeaked. "Yous come back! I misses you SO much!"
It was a House Elf. A crying House Elf.
Sirius stared down at it in shock. "Mira?" He whispered. "You. You've been here all this time? By yourself?" He asked sounding pained.
"I keeps the house for my Masters return. I feels him." She let go and took a step back, turning her attention to Harry and bouncing up and down slightly. "Yous is." She cut off with a big gulp and more enormous tears. "Yous looks just like your daddy."
Harry was frozen to his spot with his mouth open and wide eyes taking in his family House Elf. She was dressed smartly and comfortably. Easily the best-looking House Elf he'd ever seen, hopefully that meant she'd been comfortable all these years staying here by herself, because it looked like everyone, even Sirius, had completely forgotten about her.
"Have you been here by yourself this whole time?" Ginny asked for him.
"Oh yes." She nodded enthusiastically. "I keeps the property for my masters return!" She rocked back and forth on her shoes, then launched herself at Harry's legs to wrap them in a big hug.
Instinctively he reached down to place both his hands on her back to return the embrace in the only manner he could manage with their height difference.
"Mira. I am so sorry." Sirius said in disbelief. "I should have come to check on you."
"Oh, Mister Sirius." She pulled back to look at him. "Yous were in hiding. Mira wanted to come and rescue YOU, but I can't feel your magic. I couldn't find you. I couldn't FEEL you."
"But you can feel Harry?" Ginny asked curiously.
"Yes! And now he's here!" She jumped up and down a bit. "And he brings his mate! Oh! Mira is so happy!" She stepped back. "Come. Come and see. I keeps the house so nice for you." She turned and hurried into the house.
Harry was still staring at her in shock, but saw Ginny look over at Sirius and jut her chin out for him to go in first. He did and Ginny put her hand on Harry's lower back to urge him forward.
The house was nice and warm. It had a 'Cabin in the Woods' feel, but it was polished and comfortable. The entrance was open with a loft area leading to the upstairs area. Immediately to his left was a cozy sitting area with a big fireplace that Mira ignited upon their entrance. The stairs up to the second level were blocking his view of the rest of the main floor.
They kicked off their footwear and he wandered around the stairway. Mira was talking away, but he couldn't pick up on what she was saying, he was too busy taking in the home. The kitchen, dining area and living room were all a big open space that looked into each other. There were so many windows looking out into the forest that surrounded them. He wandered slowly through the kitchen area and found a bedroom to his right past where the stairs had been. It was probably the master bedroom given the size of it. It looked out over the porch to where the drive and raised gardens were. The king-sized bed was nicely made.
Harry couldn't bring himself to step into the room. He just observed it from the doorway, then turned to walk down the short corridor and found the main bathroom then continued to the laundry area past that and opened the door at the end. It led to the garage/workshop. There was a car in there under a cover and several Muggle tools.
He stepped back from it and closed the door. Turning around to head back towards the kitchen he saw Ginny staring at the wine rack. He came to stand beside her to see what she found so interesting and lost the ability to breath for a moment.
It was his mum, dad, Sirius and Remus with him as a baby. His first Christmas.
And they were there. In the house he was currently standing in, with tacky Christmas crowns on their heads smiling at the camera. Mira ran into the picture and his Dad grabbed her and held her like she was a child, then the frame reset with just the humans again. His mum had him in her arms, he was such a roly-poly baby.
Ginny put a comforting hand between his shoulder blades while he watched the photo go through its sequence again before he could pull his eyes away to look at her. She didn't say anything, just gave him a sweet kiss and gently urged him to continue his discovery of the house.
Mira was still talking away behind them and moving around the kitchen. Now he could comprehend enough to realize she was listing off potential lunch combinations for the three humans.
Harry went back towards the living room area where the stairs were and made his way up them. There weren't any family portraits donning the walls here like there were at Grimmauld Place, but he wished that there were. Instead there was simply a landscape piece of art that showed a peaceful lake scene at dawn or dusk. He made his way to the landing of the second floor and looked back down at the living room and dining room a moment.
The landing had a simple open area with a pool table and a wet bar. He couldn't help the smile that came to his face upon seeing it and letting out a little chuckle at how different this house and Grimmauld Place were. Everything felt so relaxed here in comparison.
The door to the left of the pool table was open and he saw the silhouette of Sirius standing in it. Harry came to stand in the doorway and had a look around. There were a few posters of Quidditch teams, a Queen-sized bed against the main wall, and on the wall furthest from the window were bunk beds built into the wall.
"Why the bunk beds?" Harry couldn't help himself asking.
Sirius jumped slightly not having heard him come in and turned around to face him. His face set into a sad expression. "They were mostly for Remus and me. The Potters build them after James started school for us to stay in when we visited."
There was only a desk and dresser for furniture. It looked like when James Potter moved out of this room it turned into more of a guest room, save for the posters. "Permanent sticking charm?" He asked Sirius humorously.
"Yeah." He sighed.
As hard as this was for Harry, Sirius seemed to be taking it pretty hard too. It made sense considering he was the one with memories of each and every room.
"Come on." Sirius turned away from the room. "Let's show you the rest of the house." He ushered him back out into the bar area and went for the half door around the banister that squared off the stairs. There were two other full doors to choose from on that wall, but Sirius reached for the little door first. "This is where Mira sleeps, and it is storage as well."
There was a cute little mini room set up with an Elf sized bed and vanity along with a closet full of outfits for her. There was a child sized arm chair and mini bookshelf as well.
"I thought giving an elf clothes meant that they were freed?" Harry asked Sirius, pointing at the closet.
"Clothes yes, fabrics so the elf could make their own clothes, no." Sirius explained. "Mira was part of the family to the Potter's, they wanted her to be as comfortable as possible."
Harry nodded thinking that Sirius should probably give Dobby and Kreacher some fabric then, because their little sacks were ridiculous.
Mira's room ran along the length of the upstairs, save for the Living Room area. Easily twenty feet of a four-foot-high by four feet wide portion of windowless, otherwise storage, space. While Harry didn't know too much about Elf culture, he did remember the bit about clothes and that they slept in enclosed spaces.
Sirius pulled back and shut the door and opened the next door which was a full bathroom.
The door closest to the wet bar was another bedroom with a door on the opposite wall. Sirius didn't pay attention to the room, he went in and walked through to the other door. Granted the room simply held a bed and a closet, but Harry thought it was interesting how Sirius made a bee-line for the other door so he followed in behind him. Given the size of the house from the outside and the size of this room there should be more rooms that ran the length of the garage past this room.
Sirius opened the door and took in a deep breath as he stepped into a small kitchen.
Harry's jaw dropped at the sight of it and his mouth stayed open as he took in the rest of the space.
It was a bachelor pad. Or a mother-in-law suite.
There was a tiny sitting room that had a half wall portioning off the bedroom, and a full bathroom sharing a wall with the kitchen. There was even a door leading to a second story balcony area. On the far wall there were stairs leading down to another exit.
"Did. Is this where you lived when you moved in?" Harry asked.
"Yeah." Sirius leaned on the counter area that separated the small kitchen from the sitting room. "It did house your great-grandmother after your great-grandfather passed. But that was about ten years before I moved in." He sighed and gave a look around. "It was great living here while I got things figured out."
Ginny stepped into the space behind Sirius, her eyes going wide at her discovery of the small flat. "This is awesome." She studied the cabinets. "Uh. Mira has made some lunch for us."
"Bit early for that." Sirius commented.
"Well I certainly wasn't going to stop her from making food for the first people she's seen in fifteen years." Ginny told him as she opened one of the cupboard doors. "But by all means, go tell her it isn't necessary."
Harry took a good look out the window. He couldn't see the neighbor's house from here and doubted that you could see any of the neighbors from any spot on the manicured part of the property. The house sat on five acres of land and there had to be some wards protecting the privacy of its occupants.
Poor Mira had been here all alone for far too long.
It was a lovely home though, and no doubt it required a good amount of upkeep, but to be the only one doing it. She must be a little stir crazy.
"Think she'd get along with Dobby and Kreacher?" Harry asked Sirius.
He shrugged. "Probably. We can invite her over to Grimmauld and let her know she can go back and forth between the two so she can socialize."
They headed back downstairs to sit at the bar stools in the kitchen. Mira hopped up on a stool as well and stared at them eagerly while they slowly ate their mini sandwiches. She then started telling stories of young Sirius and her master running through the woods and trying to be Animagi, then of the Christmas when Harry was only a few months old and how he was 'such a messy pooper'. Ginny got a good laugh out of all of it, but Harry was embarrassed.
Despite the embarrassment, it was nice having someone else around to tell him stories of his parents and grandparents.