Author's Note: Well, here's the next bit; it turned out a little longer than I thought it would. Thanks so much to everyone who comes back to read this, and a special thanks to everyone who reveiwed. You've all been great!
Disclaimer: Still don't own anything, accept a copy of the first 6 books.
War Stories
Chapter 3 Welcome Home
Sirius arrived in the kitchen on Number Twelve Grimmauld Place. It hadn't changed that much from what he remembered, though it was much lighter and cleaner than before.
"…contacted work and said I'd be taking the week off. Kingsley was fine with it." Ron was saying to Hermione.
Harry grinned. "You have the week off?" he asked Ron.
"Yep. I just flooed Kingsley." Ron looked at Sirius and explained, "He heads up Magical Law Enforcement now." He grinned. "I'm an Auror, though I train newbees rather than do field work these days." He gestured vaguely in the direction of his eye-patch.
Sirius nodded with a smile, then turned to Harry. "What about you? What are you up to now?"
"Well, you remember in fifth year, Fred and George Weasley planned to open a joke shop called Weasley's Wizard Wheezes?" Sirius nodded. "After the war and everything, I felt like I needed a break from the whole saving people thing." He sent a wink to Hermione where she was sitting at the kitchen table writing on some parchment. She smiled, and Sirius got the impression that this was some private joke between them.
"So," Harry continued. "I started working with the twins as a tester for their merchandise." He grinned. "It isn't a job you'd call stress-free, but the fate of the world isn't resting on it either." Ron and Sirius laughed.
"The twins might disagree with you on that, Harry," Hermione smiled. She laid down the quill she was using and stood up, folding two pieces of parchment. "I'm going to send these with Pig and Hedwig." She turned to Sirius. "They're letters to Professor Lupin and Professor McGonnigall, telling them the news. While I'm doing this, why don't you guys start the tour? I'll catch up when I'm done."
The men nodded and moved towards the door. Something occurred to Sirius.
"So, does that mean old Moony's a Professor again?" he asked.
Hermione smiled. "That is part of a very long story, Sirius, and this letter should have him appearing on our doorstep the second he reads it. See the house first, then we'll get into it, with his help."
Sirius frowned slightly, not liking being in the dark. But he shrugged, knowing they would tell him everything soon.
"Sure," he said. As Hermione smiled and left the room to send the letters, he continued to Harry and Ron. "Though judging by the kitchen, the place is all that differ…" His voice trailed away as they walked into the hall. "Wow."
Sirius was stunned. Where before the hall had been dank and dirty, it was now clean and bright. The walls and ceiling seemed to emit their own faint glow, the wooden floors were polished to a well-cared-for sheen, and the old, threadbare rugs had been replaced. And this was just the hall!
Seeing the house again, all the reasons why he and his friends had changed it came flooding back to Harry and he was able to say, with more confidence than he had felt back at the Ministry, "It is really different. When I first found out that you'd left this place to me I never thought I'd even visit it, let alone live here. I knew how you felt about it. But after the war…I don't know, I guess I thought this was a good way to remember you; turn the house into a real home, the home it should have been for you," Harry paused slightly. "And for me."
Sirius nodded, looking sad, but touched as they began to move from room to room. Most of the rooms were clean and comfortable, but relatively empty and unused. Then they reached the floor where all of their bedrooms were.
"I sort of took over your old room, Sirius," Harry said in a tentative voice. "But we can change. You can have it back if you want."
Sirius smiled. "No, it's alright." It was already understood that Sirius would, of cause, move back into Black Manor with them. "To be honest, I'd rather a different room; fresh start and all that."
They walked down the corridor, not going into any of the rooms, just pointing each one out to Sirius and telling him who's it was.
"Next to mine is Ron and Luna's room," Harry said.
Sirius looked at Ron with raised eyebrows. The younger man smiled, saying with simple pride, "We're together."
They all smiled at that as they continued strolling down the hall. After a moment Harry spoke again. "Across the way there is Neville's room, and Ginny's is next to his. Hermione's room is on the other side of Ron's." He pointed to each as he said them. "Dobby and Winky live here too. They have rooms down the end. I asked them for help with this place when we moved in. It was even more of a wreck then when you lived here and we all had so much on our plates back then. We really couldn't have changed it so much without them."
It took a frowning moment for Sirius to remember who Dobby and Winky were. When the answer finally came to him, he asked, "So, if they work here now where is Kreacher? He isn't in the attic building a fort out of my Mum's old bloomers, is he?"
"Well," Ron said slowly. "I know you're probably sick of hearing this, Sirius, but it's all part of that long story we haven't gotten to telling you yet."
"Ah, we can skip to the happy ending of that little bit of the story," Harry decided. He smiled at Sirius. "Kreacher isn't here. In a nutshell, we put him in the Hogwarts kitchens so the elves there could keep an eye on him. He was caught stealing things from students and the Hogwarts elves were going to punish themselves for failing to keep him in line, until we told them that since Kreacher was at fault, they should punish him instead."
Ron grinned. "We just thought they were going to iron his hands or something, but what they did was way better." He looked at Harry as though asking permission to finish telling the tale. Harry nodded and Ron grinned wider. "They stripped him of all his magic and handed him over to Filch!"
This got the expected bark of laughter from Sirius. All three men were still chuckling when they came down the stairs again, where Hermione finally caught up with them.
"Good," Harry greeted her, his eyes sparkling with mischief. "We wanted you to be here for the unveiling." Harry looked sideways at his Godfather. "Er…so to speak."
The others smiled before Ron elaborated a little for a confused looking Sirius. "We saved the best for last."
As they made their way down the last of the stairs to the entrance hall – which Sirius assumed they had avoided so far, due to his mother's portrait – Harry and Ron grew steadily more excited.
They came to the heavy curtains that covered Mrs. Black and Ron, now grinning from ear to ear, said, "Wait 'til you see this, Sirius."
Hermione stood off to one side with a look of fond amusement on her face, while Harry and Ron took up positions on either side of the curtains. Sirius was wondering why, with all the noise they were making, the she wasn't already screeching obscenities at them.
"Now, Hermione found a way to remove the sticking charm from the portrait," Harry said. "But we thought you'd enjoy this more." He nodded to Ron and they took hold of the curtains, sweeping them aside with a flourish.
Sirius' eyes widened and his jaw dropped. There was silence for a long moment, then he burst into hysterical laughter. The old hag was silent, due to the fact that her mouth had been altered to appear sewn shut with vivid orange string. Someone had also drawn on a curly moustache and pointy beard, as well as two small horns on each of Mrs. Black's temples. Though Sirius didn't yet recognise them, his mother's robes now resembled the Weasley's Wizard Wheezes staff uniform, and her hair was streaked Gryffindor red and gold and was stuck up in two messy pigtails. Sirius laughter began to subside, then he glanced again at the portrait and started laughing harder then ever.
Harry, Ron and Hermione laughed with him, each indescribably happy to have Sirius back.
Hermione was just closing the curtains over the portrait again, when there was a frantic pounding on the front door. They all looked towards the sound.
"That will be Professor Lupin, I expect," said Hermione, as Harry walked passed her to answer the door.
She was right. Remus Lupin began speaking as soon as he saw Harry, waving his arms wildly, clutching a piece of crumpled parchment in one hand, and a tiny, twittering Pig in the other. Tonks' bubblegum-pink hair could just be seen over his shoulder.
"Harry, have you had word from Hermione? I just got this letter saying…" He trailed off, no longer looking at Harry. Harry looked over his own shoulder, and seeing that Sirius had come to stand a few feet behind him, he moved aside. Remus' jaw dropped and he stepped forward. "How…? W-what…? How…?"
"Three excellent questions," Ron said, coming to stand beside Harry, looking between Sirius and Remus.
The two old friends stood studying each other with shocked expressions. Remus saw Sirius exactly as he had been that terrible night at the Ministry, not a hair different than he had looked then. Sirius on the other hand, saw many differences in Remus' appearance; the robes he wore, while not elaborate, were of good quality and not tattered or patched at all; his hair, which had been prematurely grey, was once again light brown, with only small silver streaks at his temples, as was natural for a man his age; and his face no longer held the tired, slightly sickly look it always had, the lines around his eyes were far less noticeable, and his skin-tone was much healthier. All in all, it seemed the last five years had been uncommonly kind to the werewolf.
The spell (figuratively speaking) was broken by Tonks. After the initial shock, she had sped around Remus, knocking over a hall table as she went, and threw her arms around her long lost cousin.
Sirius returned the hug for a second, then suddenly pulled back, looking down with wide eyes, then back up again into Tonks' face, his eyebrows climbing. "Your pregnant?!"
Tonks looked down at her swollen belly with a slight frown, as though she'd forgotten it was there. She looked up, saying, "Oh. Yeah, I am."
Remus stepped forward, grinning. "I wonder who the father is…"
Sirius' eyes went wider than ever. He waved his hand weakly between his cousin and his best friend. "You mean, you two are…?"
Remus nodded, practically bouncing with excitement and beaming with pride. Tonks rolled her eyes and laughed fondly at him.
A slow grin spread across Sirius' face and his shoulders shook with silent laughter. "Well, how 'bout that. A mini-Moony on the way."
The aged Marauders caught each other's eye and that was all it took. They laughed and hugged, pounding each other's backs exuberantly (Remus had fortunately thought to release Pig the owl before the pounding), both trying to talk at once and neither understanding a word.
While all this was happening, Harry had closed the front door and he and Ron moved unobtrusively to stand beside Hermione, unwilling to interrupt the moment. Now, Tonks left the men to the expression of their feelings - in a manly way, of cause – and came over to where the trio stood.
"Wotcha, guys." She gave Hermione a hug, saying quietly, "Good to have you back, Hun; you had us all worried with that little 'just busy at work' disappearing act. Thanks for this, though." She waved to where Remus and Sirius were still trying, unsuccessfully, to communicate in full sentences.
A few moments later, the reunited friends calmed down enough to realise that talking over each other was getting them nowhere, and they turned, rather sheepishly to look at the others.
Harry smiled. "We all have a lot to catch up on. Remus, Tonks, if you two aren't busy for the rest of the day, why don't you stick around and help with the story telling?"
"Lunch!" Ron suddenly said, drawing all eyes.
"Well, that was random," Tonks blinked. "Albuquerque! See, I can do it, too. Snorkel!"
"Doormat!" Sirius produced, getting into the spirit of things.
"No." Ron rolled his eyes. "I mean, it's like 3 o'clock in the afternoon and I haven't eaten since breakfast." The others continued to look at him oddly. He rolled his eyes again at have to explain further. "I know there's a lot to catch Sirius up on, but nobody's narrating on an empty stomach. Let's make some lunch, then settle in for the first instalment of 'What Sirius Missed', ok?" His stomach let out a hungry growl right then, as if to help argue his point.
Listening to such a food related discussion, Harry realised that he was hungry, too. "Sounds good to me," he announced. He then pointed his wand in the general direction of the kitchen and immediately the sound of cookware clanging industriously could be heard through the door.
Sirius raised an eyebrow at Harry, who shrugged and joined Ron and Hermione as they headed towards the parlour.
Remus smiled at the confused look on Sirius' face. "You didn't think Harry could live with Ron and not know how to cook, did you?"
"What about Ginny? Harry said she lived here, too?" Sirius asked, thinking she would have been the obvious choice to fill Molly's usual role.
"As it turns out, cooking skill isn't hereditary." Tonks was loosing patience with standing in the hall. She took each of them by the arm and led them in the trio's wake. "C'mon you two. Mini-Moony and me are hungry."
Remus groaned. "See what you've started?" he said to Sirius. "Nicknames like that stick, you know."
Sirius tried and failed to look innocent as they entered the parlour.
Like the rest of the house, the parlour was bright and clean, but obviously lived in. There were two couches opposite each other with a low table sitting between them. There were also several comfortable looking armchairs scattered about the large room, some with smaller tables nearby. A large bookcase took up one corner, a few feet to the left of a fireplace. Overall, large though it was, the room seemed cosy, warm and safe. Not unlike the Gryffindor common room, Sirius reflected, accept that it also included Ravenclaw blue and silver.
Harry, Ron and Hermione had already seated themselves; Harry and Hermione sat on either end of one couch, while Ron had sprawled very comfortably in what Sirius took to be his usual armchair. Remus and Tonks moved passed him and took the other couch and Sirius lowered himself into another armchair.
They sat in silence for a few minutes, nobody quite knowing what to say. Then Harry raised his head, saying, "Lunch is ready."
An array of food appeared on the low table before them, with a stack of plates and cutlery to one side.
"Well, serve yourselves and dig in," Harry invited.
At first the room was quiet as everyone took the edge off of their hunger, enjoyed each other's company, and collected their thoughts. It was Sirius who finally spoke.
"So, why don't we start at the beginning? What happened at the Ministry after I fell through the Veil?" he asked quietly. He knew that whatever had happened couldn't have been easy for any of them.
"Well," Harry began. "I didn't believe you were really gone at first. I kept expecting you to come back out. Then, when I know you wouldn't, I went after Bellatrix and…"
A/N: When the next chapter starts, they will have finished catching Sirius up on book 6. I saw no reason to retell HBP; just imagine that Sirius has now been told everything that Harry and them knew at the end.
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