Chapter Two: #12 Grimmauld Place

After breakfast, Remus went to Firecall Albus to let him know that they were ready to head over to #12 Grimmauld Place. Harry was watching Remus, so Elodie pulled Sirius aside to ask him something.

"My memories of the books tell me there should have already been work done at #12," she said. Elodie hadn't expected Sirius to flash her a bright grin.

"They have been working there!"

"Without you?" she had to ask.

Sirius stretched his arms up and mussed up his hair before weaving his fingers together behind his head contentedly. "Albus was so grateful I offered up that old wreck of the place that he got some of the Order to agree to clear out some things before I had to see them," he said. "I won't notice a difference, most likely, but the longer I could avoid it, the better." He sounded confident, but Elodie could sense the vulnerability in him, and she gave him a huge hug. If there was a way to infuse one's affection directly into another person via magic, she would have done it right there.

Harry rushed into the kitchen, excited. "Professor Dumbledore says we are going to fly to the Order house. He agreed to let me use my own broom. He's going to Apparate us as close as he can and we'll be disillusioned so the Muggles can't see us!"

Elodie froze up. She had never enjoyed imagining using brooms when she'd read the books, and while she found the idea of Quidditch fun in theory, she never had the thought of 'boy, I sure wish I could use a broom, too!' Sirius threw an arm around her and said something encouraging to Harry before the boy walked back into the living room to talk to Remus.

"You're shaking! I can Apparate us, love. No brooms required."

She buried her face in his shoulder. "I feel like a traitor to witch-kind!"

"Well, that's why we teach them young, before the self-preservation kicks in," he said, kissing her hair.

"Or, in your case, nonexistent?" she teased.

"Precisely."

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On the whole, Elodie had found that scenes she'd read about in the books and then experienced in person were far more richly detailed and accurate in real life, as was to be expected. Watching #12 Grimmauld Place appear out from the middle of a block of other houses was quite similar to the film version, but still astounding to see. The Muggles in the surrounding houses seemed to feel no change to their location, despite the fact that there was a significant difference in footage once the house fully materialized.

Elodie hung back so that she and Sirius were last to enter the house. So much had happened in the past day and night that Elodie had not ended up preparing herself very much for the prospect of seeing Walburga Black's portrait.

"Interlopers! Invaders, begone! You besmirch the very floorboards of the house of my forefathers!"

"Oh, lovely," Sirius said with a groan as they walked over the threshold. "She's awake."

"I don't blame her, it looks like the children were already here, and about seven people just walked in-"

Sirius stopped her by putting his hand over her mouth.

"There's no reasoning with the woman, so don't fall into that trap. Dismiss her, ignore her, hex the damn thing, but don't make excuses for her!" he said, pulling his hand away from her to make an angry, dismissive gesture. Then, he jogged ahead of her down the unnaturally narrow hallway to speak with the cluster of adults in the room beyond.

"Oh, would that my traitorous son had died before me!" the portrait moaned, somewhere off to Elodie's left.

That's it, Elodie said to herself. Time to meet Mum.

She marched forward, following her instincts. The sound coming from the portrait was elevated slightly, and so when Elodie saw a few stairs up to a landing that turned a corner, she walked up them with purpose, her wand in hand. The hallway was dim, and she lifted the wand to illuminate her path until a voice startled her so much she almost dropped it.

"Another one! Dressed worse than a servant!"

Elodie turned to see a nearly full-sized portrait of an old woman with yellowed skin and bad teeth. Given the proportions of the frame and canvas, the image of the woman seemed too close, even when Elodie backed up until she felt the solid wood-paneled wall behind her. She looked down at what she was wearing; that morning she had opted for black leggings and a dark green t-shirt that clung to her body, hoping that they wouldn't get pulled or ripped from getting caught on furniture.

"Are you truly screaming at someone here to restore your house to its former glory?" Elodie asked. She'd meant to sound outraged, but fear of just how odd and intimidating the portrait was made her voice sound timid and almost respectful, instead.

The woman's half-mad eyes seemed to brighten in an odd way. She leaned forward, the cap on her head doing nothing to stop her frizzy hair from staying out of her face.

"You'll be too weak for the enchantments on this house, girl! They'll eat you up, Slytherin or not!" the portrait said in mocking derision.

"Slytherin?" Elodie repeated, confused. Then she looked down at her shirt. "Right. Green," she muttered under her breath. Instead of looking at the woman in the portrait, Elodie looked at the frame around her, noting the way the curtains that were pulled to the side seemed to be nearly destroyed by age and insect activity.

"Will you start with my curtains, then?" the old lady asked in a wheedling tone.

Suddenly a strong hand grabbed Elodie and bent her backwards into a theatrical kiss. Seconds before she realized it was Sirius (of course it was Sirius! she realized), Elodie wrenched herself free and lifted her wand toward her attacker.

"Blood traitor! Degenerate filth! Unhand her!" Walburga Black screeched.

Elodie stared at Sirius, and then she stared at the portrait. Sirius just stared at Elodie.

"I promised her new curtains?" Elodie said weakly, trying to explain herself. "I'll have to measure-"

Sirius grabbed her hand and dragged her out of the hallway to the howling vituperations of his mother. Molly appeared at the end of the hallway and shook her head at them, her hands at her ears.

"What did you say to her!" Molly demanded, apparently rhetorically, as she rushed past them into the alcove. A few seconds later, the screaming had lessened; dampened, Elodie assumed, by the moth-eaten curtains that still hung from the portrait frame.

Sirius was still dragging her, and he didn't let go until they were in the expansive kitchen at the end of the hallway. Quite a few Order members were assembled there, eating pastries and drinking from mugs.

"I'm with Molly. What in Merlin's name did you say to her?" Sirius demanded, letting go of her wrist.

Elodie glared at him and didn't answer until she'd cast a healing charm on herself, which caught Remus's attention, among others.

"I stumbled into there following the sound of her voice, and she saw my green shirt and I guess she assumed I was a Slytherin, which might have made her like me? I said I was here to clean up the house, and she asked me if I'd start with her curtains…" Elodie trailed off, noticing that the sound of other discussions had fallen away and everyone was quietly staring at her.

"You made nice with my mother," Sirius said incredulously.

"I didn't do it on purpose!" Elodie said in despair.

"That's so much like you it hurts, Elodie!" Tonks said cheerfully.

"I mean, it couldn't hurt to spend just a little to get fancy curtains she likes, could it? Don't you think she'd be more willing to have them cover her if they're up to her standards?" Elodie asked, filled with a sudden sense of outrage. Yes, Walburga Black's portrait was a miserable wretch of a woman, but she was making everyone who could hear her miserable as well. "No sense in all of us suffering- it's not like an eyelid, those curtains. She has to look at them, doesn't she?"

Elodie could tell by the mulish look on Sirius's face that she had a point, and he did not want to acknowledge that point. He theatrically huffed in disgust and stomped away from her, brushing against a tall, ginger-haired man Elodie hadn't met before. She mouthed an apology to the man, who smiled easily and walked over to her.

"Bill Weasley; we didn't get much chance to talk when I was over at Phoenix House. You must be Elodie Merriman," he said. His hand was warm and very strong. She tried not to wince before he let go of her.

"I never know how to react when someone says that," Elodie admitted.

"That's actually endearing," Bill said, leaning over to whisper as if sharing a secret. He straightened, and added, "Many people are desperate for notoriety. Fewer are just hoping to be known. Rarer still are those who can be known before they've even been introduced in person."

"That was poetic," Elodie said, impressed. "And, thank you. Though nothing will persuade me that you're referring to any sort of reputation that I may or may not have. I am, after all, most likely the only person you don't know, here." She smiled up at him mischievously.

"How about a bit of both?" he offered.

"I can live with that. Your letter was fun to read, I never got the chance to say," she told him, remembering how he'd written about his life at Hogwarts. She'd especially loved how he had described the feeling of freedom of not being the oldest and most responsible, for a change.

Bill's smile sobered, but in a way that told her that he was flattered rather than offended. "Thank you. I haven't really gotten the chance to examine that period of my life much. I hope you got the answers you were looking for?"

"I did, thank you," she said, wishing she had time to talk to him about Charlie's unified theory of house behaviors, but she saw the way Albus, Molly, and Mad-Eye were standing in a cluster. She sensed that the assembled group were about to get their orders for the day's cleaning activities, and she was right.

After assigning each witch, wizard, and student a general location and assignment, Albus requested that Elodie, Sirius, and Remus follow him. He led them to a small side library, shut the door, and warded it for secrecy.

"News about the Dursleys, then?" Sirius asked before the headmaster could even turn back around to face them. He threw himself on the lone couch in the room, stretched his arms out along the sides and his legs out in front of him, looking at Albus expectantly. Remus walked over and half leaned, half sat on the front edge of the large desk, his hands in his pockets. Elodie simply stood between them and waited, hoping she didn't look as anxious as she felt.

"Yes. The cause of death appears to be… rather gruesome. Their automobile was involved in a sinkhole incident. The report states that a nearby factory experienced a failure of coolant water, which leaked out across their property and pooled under the roadside. The water eroded away the structure of the road, causing it to fail as they drove across that section," Albus said. He paused, made a face, and then continued. "The water was at a high temperature. The car was submerged."

"Would the road have collapsed no matter what vehicle drove across it?" Remus asked.

"Yes, it appears so. There is some question about why they were in that particular area, and a relative has stated that Vernon told her prior to his death that he'd been contacted to possibly purchase some property in the area."

"Definitely not a coincidence, then," Elodie said. "They were lured there."

"That is also my assessment," Albus said, looking regretful.

"So Lord Git has finally decided to move against Harry!" Sirius spat. "He'll have us to deal with, first."

"I do not think that Tom was involved in this scheme," Dumbledore said. His tone was gentle and almost apologetic. Elodie wondered if he was trying to placate Sirius, who was showing signs of a growing manic anger fit. She walked over to stand near the couch. "The mechanisms could plausibly fool Muggle investigators. The cause of death was in no way magical in appearance, despite the likelihood of such events not being random."

"He'd use something fantastical. He'd make an example of them," Elodie said.

"Precisely," Albus said.

"So this was, what? A sycophant's gift to their master? That's grim," Remus said.

"I can't imagine it's easy for him to get quality help these days," Sirius said, his eyes glittering with malice. "Even less easy if they start dropping like flies, don't you think?"

"What, Mr. Black, would be the difference between you and the perpetrator of this crime then, do you think?" Albus said in a soft voice dusted with steel. "I understand your anger. I even appreciate that it exists despite the event bringing you to the situation you have wanted for so long. But that guardianship you long for is not served by this recklessness. It is perhaps a very good thing that you are not in a position to be the sole guardian of your godson."

Sirius's face was dark with anger, and Elodie decided to sit beside him and surround one of his clenched fists with her hands.

"Since you mention the guardianship, I was wondering: will one or both of us be able to attend Harry's trial?" Remus said.

"I'm glad you brought that up," Albus told him, pointing in his direction. "The forces that are working against us in the Ministry want to silence Harry. They fear my influence, and with the two of you able to step into the role I had intended to take at his trial, the event itself may end up being reduced to a mere formality."

"You think they'll see a working class couple with ties to his parents? People who don't want to rock the boat, maybe?. People who won't know enough about what happened to him to speak up for him." Remus sounded angry.

"Well they'll be wrong, there," Elodie said. "We've got the school Pensieve at the house. Harry can pull out his memory of the attack, and we can be better informed about what actually happened."

"Good point," Sirius murmured. He was still as tense as a rock, his teeth gritted, but Elodie was undeterred. She was trying to breathe slowly and deeply beside him, hoping that he would subconsciously attune to her and start breathing more deeply himself.

"Albus?" Elodie said, a smile growing ever bigger on her face. "You need to warn me now if you think I'll need to be demure. That's the sort of thing I'll need advance preparation for."

Sirius and Remus both burst out laughing, and even Albus cracked a smile.

"Perhaps not demure, but deferential, certainly," he said, bowing his head toward her.

"So are you saying you think they'll slap him on the wrist and send him away with his obscure new family, provided they don't antagonize the interrogators?" Remus asked.

"Just so," Albus said. "You might even play that up a bit. Wear shabby clothing, appear slightly intimidated, but don't try to hide your intelligence, either of you. You should come across as an earnest, loving couple without means."

Remus had been looking in her direction before Albus added that last bit, and his face reddened a bit as he looked away. "Noted," he said.

"I'm not concerned about the deception. The two of you have a level of familiarity with each other that could quite easily be misconstrued. Some bonds are obvious, whether or not their true nature is understood in observation," Albus said. The words sounded comforting enough to Elodie, but she didn't think they were anything of the sort for Remus. Sirius still looked quite upset, too. It was time for a subject change.

"Speaking of bonds, have you learned anything further about the soul link you discovered in Harry? The reason he passed out when leaving the maze?" Elodie asked.

Albus frowned at her, but he took a deep breath and spoke. "Nothing so far. I have suspicions, though. I need to speak to an old colleague of mine."

"If you need me to get ahold of Horace for you, please don't hesitate to ask," Elodie said, without thinking. She was still distracted by her plan to soothe Sirius with gentle touches and deep breathing.

All three men in the room stared at her, each with varying levels of comprehension. Albus's eyes showed the most concern.

"Have you had a vision, Elodie?" he asked her mildly.

"Not really…" Elodie hedged. She wanted to hew close to the truth, here. Severus Snape and Tom Riddle weren't the only accomplished Legilimens in the book series, after all. "I just made some assumptions. I happen to know that Horace is someone who is completely fascinated by fringe magic, and I have a feeling that whatever mechanism has Harry linked to another person is probably dark and obscure. Horace mentioned once teaching at Hogwarts, so I put two and two together."

"Harry lived with Muggles for years before Hogwarts. Did he ever mention feeling attacked, or having a gap in his memory?" Remus asked, standing and walking over closer to the couch where Sirius and Elodie were sitting. His tone of voice sounded casual, but Elodie noted the way he was holding his arms rigid, his hands balled into fists in his pockets.

"None that he's mentioned to me," Albus said.

Sirius stiffened as he and Remus made eye contact. Elodie watched the play of emotions on both men's faces, and knew what Remus was going to say before he said it.

"Unless it happened at Hogwarts, there's only one time when Harry could have been exposed to dark magic like what you're describing, Albus," Remus said quietly.

Dumbledore sighed. "Yes, you're right."

"What are we going to do about it?" Remus asked, a hint of a threat in the smoothness of his voice.

"Has anyone ever asked Harry if he feels connected to some other person, or felt a presence in his mind?" Elodie said.

"He feels anger and negative emotions, connected to his scar, sometimes. He's written me about it," Sirius said, shaking his head. "I…"

"I must confess, Sirius, that I have long suspected that there was some kind of kinship between the two- after all, Harry speaks Parseltongue, and he has mentioned feeling his scar pain him. I had hoped that it was simply a reflection, a remnant of Tom's emotional state when attacking him, but I fear I may be wrong." Dumbledore called over the desk chair with a quick spell and a flick of his wand, sinking into it with an unhappy expression on his face. "Tom having left a bit of himself in Harry is bad enough, but if-"

"If he did it on purpose?" Elodie suggested, when the pause Albus had left became unbearable.

"I will speak to Horace," Albus said, suddenly patting at his robes as if looking for something. He pulled out a handful of jellybeans. "I trust the three of you will be able to keep this conversation to yourselves?" he said, popping two of the sweets into his mouth as he stood up.

"As long as we'll be coming up with a solution that's more cogent than 'wait and see,'" Remus said. It sounded like a threat dressed nicely as a promise, and Elodie didn't bother to hide her smile.

"Do you know, I believe the three of you will prove to be far better at holding me to account than Vernon and Petunia ever could have imagined," Albus said. He turned around and walked out the door, humming.

"Those jellybeans are dosed," Sirius said. Remus burst out laughing, and Elodie just shook her head, until Sirius turned to her and said, "Elodie, did you really just distract me from being angry by bringing up Harry's soul link to Lord Git?"

"It worked, didn't it?" Elodie pointed out. Sirius looked like he was about to get ramped back up again, so she pulled out her secret trump card. She had read the books. She knew what was papered all over Sirius Black's walls. "Well, it's about time you showed me your childhood bedroom, don't you think?"

Remus started laughing so hard he had to sit down on the chair Albus had left in the middle of the room.

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By the end of the day, everyone was dirty, exhausted, and most were more than a little disturbed by the random encounters with dark magic they'd experienced. From where Elodie was sitting with Remus and Sirius on her end of the table, she could see Harry and his friends laughing and watching as Tonks demonstrated her metamorph abilities. Mad-Eye was at the opposite end from her, regaling the Weasleys present with a rousing tale of discovering a dark wizard where he was hiding with a friend. She could only hear snippets of the story, but just through observation she could tell that Moody was feeling a bit manic. She wondered if he was like Sirius, sociable up to a point and then prone to a bit of overindulgent madness when he was the center of attention for any length of time.

The crazy, magical eye he wore seemed to be fixated on her. Every time she glanced over in that direction, it was staring. So when he finished his story and called out to her across the table, she wasn't surprised.

"Speaking of deceptions, Elodie, are you prepared for a Ministry interrogation about you and Lupin?"

Most of the conversations at the table stopped, and Elodie cringed a bit at the idea that everyone looking at her could be thinking about her relationship with Sirius, thinking about how she had to act loving to Lupin. Ah, yes. 'Faking' my love for my boyfriend's best friend, how will I ever manage to do that?! she thought to herself hysterically.

"I assume you'll tell me it'll be worse than a roomful of Order members staring at me at dinner?" Elodie yelled back at Mad-Eye. Everyone laughed, and Charlie lifted his glass in tribute to her quick wit.

"Much worse!" Mad-Eye rumbled. "They might even make you kiss. Can't hesitate, I know I'd suss that out immediately."

"I can't imagine what that would be like," Remus said from beside her in a low whisper she knew no one else would catch. Elodie was glad he was able to joke, but also profoundly grateful that she was already blushing.

Sirius's eyes widened in mock horror to tease her from directly across the table, and she kicked at him but was too slow to land a blow.

"Come off it, Moody!" Sirius yelled over at the auror. "You can't have come across so many fake couples that you have a procedure for it!"

"Well," Moody said begrudgingly, after a long silence. The implicit recognition of Sirius's point ended up breaking the tension, and conversation resumed around the table, to Elodie's relief.

Bill Weasley was seated across from Remus, beside Sirius. He'd watched the whole exchange with interest, and now he gestured to Elodie and Remus.

"Wait, so the two of you aren't…" he said, trailing off politely.

"No, she's mine," Sirius said smugly. His eyebrows shot up in a clear challenge to Elodie. 'Are you going to stop me from being outrageously possessive and risk the misunderstanding?' his facial expression was asking, silently.

He likely hadn't counted on Remus's chivalry, though.

"Elodie isn't a possession," he objected, a thread of anger in his voice.

"He's just trying to goad me," she said, laying a hand on Remus's arm as he reached for his cup. She could feel him tense up at her touch, and thought about Moody's warning.

"Well, he ought to think about how his comments reflect on you when they're overheard," Remus said without glancing over at her. Instead, he continued looking at Sirius.

"Well, thank you for sticking up for me," she said, squeezing his arm and letting go.

"Wait, so…" Bill said, looking from Sirius to Elodie to Remus in confusion.

Sirius shrugged. "She's mine," he repeated, grinning. Then he got up and put his plate beside the sink, and walked off into the long, dark hallway.

"I think the problem here is that Black's the sort to say something like that even if it wasn't true," Kingsley Shacklebolt observed from Remus's other side.

"That's painfully accurate," Elodie admitted, as Remus chuckled beside her. "It's possibly unfair to try to curb his rebellious tendencies in this house in particular."

"So you and Sirius are-" Bill started to say, his brows still furrowed. He interrupted himself to apologize. "For clarity's sake. Moody implied there will be lying involved, for some of us, or I wouldn't be so pushy."

"Elodie kisses Sirius on purpose and plans to co-parent Harry with me," Remus said in a bland voice that completely belayed the weight of private knowledge he was hiding behind his words.

He stood up just as Sirius had; she felt him get up beside her even though she felt frozen in place by the memories his words stirred up. She felt the blush flaming bright red on her face as Remus's arm came into her view, picking up his cup. She knew the longer she sat stock still, blushing, the more Remus would feel smug about his comment, and the more embarrassing it might be to witness for Kingsley and Bill. She shook her head and squared her shoulders, lifting her chin.

"I'm dating Sirius, is the answer you're looking for," Elodie told Bill. "Since his name still isn't cleared and the Ministry thinks he's hiding out somewhere remote, Remus and I have been or will be officially declared Harry's guardians, which is presumably because we all three live in a house together."

"Ahh, so he has a bit of jealousy to work out, I'm betting," Bill said. "It's all still new."

"All kinds of jealousy, I imagine. He's always wanted to be a father figure to Harry," Elodie mused.

"Yes, I'm treading in what he sees as his territory in more ways than one, I suppose," Remus said from behind Bill, in the doorway to the kitchen. There was a sad kind of resignation in Remus's voice, and Elodie filed that away internally.

"Keep away from his motorcycle and he'll probably be fine," she said.

Remus thought for a moment, leaning his shoulder on the wall. "Would now be a bad time to tell him that because of his fugitive status, it's my name on the title?"

"Oh, Merlin," Elodie groaned. "Get out of here, you're just making it worse!"

"Yes, dear," Remus said in a long-suffering tone. Everyone around her was laughing and watching Remus walk away, which was good, because hearing Remus Lupin call her 'dear' was doing something to Elodie's ability to breathe, damn him.

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"I hate to be a spoilsport, but it's past nine in the evening. We should go home to bed, Harry," Elodie said from the doorway to the library at Grimmauld. Inside, Harry and Ron were playing Wizard's Chess, Hermione had a stack of books that from the looks of her face, she hadn't even known existed, and the twins were at the desk, whispering and laughing over a vintage Zonko's catalogue.

"Mum hasn't called for us to head to bed. Harry's probably fine," Ron said in a dismissive voice.

Elodie felt a pang of loss. She had liked being just another 'cool adult' like Tonks and Bill, but her role had changed, and that meant the way she, Harry, and his friends all interacted with each other would also need to change. At the same time, though, authority was a funny beast when it came to teenagers.

She walked into the room and looked at the chess board, trying to gauge how much longer the game might go. "I'm happy to wait until one of you wins," she said. "Or there's a stalemate," she added hurriedly, remembering the legalistic way she'd always tried to trick more time before bed out of her own parents.

"You mean, until Ronniekins wins," one of the twins called out. "Not sure I've ever seen Harry beat him."

"It's happened," Harry said, frowning.

"Yeah? Prove it!"

"Nice try, but just because I haven't spent the last fourteen years raising a child doesn't mean I don't remember what it's like to manipulate adults into delaying bedtime," Elodie said cheerfully. "Besides, not to get grim, but trauma affects everyone in different ways, but sleep is a universal defense."

Ron lifted his head from his intense scrutiny of the chessboard. "Huh?"

"Sleep will help Harry deal with everything," Hermione said patiently.

"Thanks, Hermione," Elodie said. It helped that the Hermione she pictured in her head was somewhere between the canon 7th year Hogwarts version and a mid-twenties aged fanfiction version, rather than the awkward teen know-it-all who had rephrased her words for her.

"Checkmate!" Ron said, sounding pleased. Then, he added, "Sorry, Harry."

"It's all right. It's been a long day," Harry said. He clapped his friend on the shoulder and stood up, walking over to straighten Hermione's pile of books. "Good night," he said to the room. As everyone said their goodbyes to Harry, Sirius burst into the room.

"Ah! There you are, Harry. Time to go, then," he said. "Don't stay up too late, everyone. Remus thinks there might be a Boggart in the attic. He'd like everyone to practice on it tomorrow."

They walked out of the library and into the dark, oppressive hallway and Elodie grinned to herself. A Boggart! She wondered if Remus would let her check it out. Did Boggarts have a certain amount of staying power that would deplete faster if an adult cast the Ridikkulus spell? She didn't want to spoil his teaching opportunity, after all. As they passed the alcove where Sirius's mother's portrait was hung, Elodie had a thought. She hung back and watched Harry and Sirius walk ahead without her. Then, she snuck up the stairs and, as she'd done with the portrait of Phineus Nigellus Black, she cast a sound muffling charm nearby (on the doorway and the stairs), instead of directly on either herself or Walburga Black.

The woman in the portrait was mumbling angrily to herself. On an impulse, Elodie pulled her hair back and transfigured her black pants into an ankle-length skirt. She pulled a handkerchief she'd found stuffed in a hole in one of the rooms she'd cleaned that day, cleaned it off with a spell, and transfigured it into an apron. Then, rolling her eyes at herself, she spelled the apron green.

Slytherin green.

Elodie walked over in front of the portrait and cleared her throat before saying respectfully, "Excuse me please, ma'am?"

"Oh, it's you," Walburga Black said. In anyone else's voice, the phrase and intonation would have been disgusted, but something told her for this particular witch, it was very nearly affectionate.

"I wanted to ask, ma'am, what color you would like your new curtains to be? Forgive me, but I can't tell the color of the current ones."

Sirius Black would break up with her and testify against her at the Wizengamot for war crimes if he ever found out what she was doing, Elodie was completely certain.

"Oh! Well. Green, of course," the portrait snapped. "If you can find any of dear Regulus's old House Scarves, the green from those. But you must get the most high quality curtains, you know. With anti-moth spellwork woven in, not just cast on the outside. I'll know, if you try to cheap out, missy."

"Of course, ma'am. Have a tolerable evening," Elodie said, changing 'pleasant' to 'tolerable' at the very last minute. She didn't think the woman had had a 'pleasant' anything, even when she was corporeal.

"Smart mouth, you've got, girl. Tolerable, indeed!" Walburga Black sniffed. She started griping to herself about the quality of the curtains she currently possessed, and Elodie snuck away, ripping off the apron and re-transfiguring herself back to normal as soon as she could. She had no idea if she could even afford new curtains, but as she'd said to Sirius and the other Order members earlier that day, could they really afford not to buy them?

Of course, Elodie had every intention of tearing down the brand new fancy curtains and burning them if they did nothing to improve the mood of the madwoman they would be purchased for. The entire point was that they would mask the misery for the rest of them.

A random thought sprung up as Elodie powerwalked through the dank hallway toward the room with the fireplace in it.

What if she went through the frustration of this fake relationship with Remus, inflicted obvious issues with jealousy on Sirius ( and torture on me, she couldn't help reminding herself) only for them to be found incompetent as caretakers, or discovered to be lying? Wouldn't it be prudent for she and Remus to basically take extra precautions, for them to 'buy the luxury curtains' version of pretending to be a couple, just in case?

Exactly what would that entail?