Disclaimer: I don't own anything, neither am I making any money off this. I am just writing for my own enjoyment and hopefully the enjoyment of others. What's really all mine are any mistakes you might find within the text, if you want them you'll have to sue me (LoL)

-chapter four-

Padfoot spent his time alone resting in his hideaway. He had tried to transform but immediatly noticed that the mushroom-shaped playhouse had been designed for small children and not for an over six foot adult. He kept his doggy-shape and took a long nap.

He was awaken by some house elves popping into the garden side of the playground with comfortable chairs, tables and a tea service. Padfoot was sure that they were preparing the area for the afternoon tea, which most probably would put an end to the celebration.

Once everything was ready the door to 13th Grimmauld Place opened and people started to pour out. The first wave were the kids, but Padfood noticed that the number of kids had slightly increased.

There were four more kids together with Harry and apparently the same age. Draco and Neville were already known to Padfoot, the next one could only be a Crabbe and the next one was a light brown haired lad with a round face who answered to the name of Ernie and who Sirius didn't know from Adam.

The next wave of kids were either younger kids or girls. Alphard, the pint-sized-chatterbox, came out together with a big girl, probably on the same age group as Harry, who he called Millie and a smaller version of the girl he addressed as Pippa.

Teddy came out together with a small and cute blonde girl with long hair he called Astoria. Tugging at their their hands was obviously a younger sibling from Alphard, which everyone address as Archie. The kid was another mini-Sirius and couldn't be more than four years old, if even that old.

The kids were obviously happy to leave the house and the adults behind and stormed the playground with a passion. If they had really spent the whole time with his family he definitively could understand them.

Padfoot was surprised that the kids would be left out on their own, but he saw two house elves discretly keeping an eye on things and remembered the existing wards all over the place. He was sure that no kid would have been able to leave Grimmauld Place without the authorization of one of the Blacks.

A little bit later more people started pouring out off number thirteen. The first four were two young women, a good looking brunette and a blond one, which once again seemed quite familiar to him, together with Regulus and Rabastan. They started walking around the playground chatting and keeping an unintrusive eye on things.

A somewhat bigger built young woman, obviously related to Millie and Pippa, joined them shortly afterwards. Sirius noticed that they kept walking around the garden\playground-area whilst the kids kept playing as far away of the adults as they could get without leaving the enclosed playground.

The next wave were composed of Marius, Sirius and Remus and they headed straight to the parked limousine. Sirius had a notebook on his hands and they were obviously discussing something about the mechanics and extremly interested in the car.

The next wave of people almost gave Padfoot a heart failure. They came out into the place and eyed the parked muggle car with the same kind of sympathy they would use to eye an eviscerated rotting flobberworm who had been lying under the august sun for a couple of weeks. They of course headed towards the comfortable chairs with all the importance of their rank.

They were great-grandfathers Arcturus and Pollux, head of the House of Black and heir of the same, respectively, Callidora Longbottom, nee Black, actual Head of the House of Longbottom and aunt Cassiopea Black.

This group could give the Monster Family a run for his money. Arcturus, Pollux, Cassiopea and Callidora Longbottom –nee Black- were either siblings or close cousins, had been together in Hogwarts before the first muggle world war started and were definitively as flexible as steel and as cheery as a funeral service.

Those four had two hobbies, bickering and contradicting each other and critizising the younger generations which were without doubt an absolute disapoinment. Regretfully one couldn't do without them, as they were actually the future of their own family but... if they could have done without, they would most definitively have liked to give it a try.

They shared the opinion that the world was going to hell with a handbasket and those belonging to the younger generations were all a bunch of spineless flobberworms unable to tie their own shoelaces without detailed instructions from their elders. And lacking the necessary intelligence to recognize this fact and obediently following those instructions.

Padfoot thanked his lucky star that they were sitting far away and he couldn't hear a single word of whatever they were talking about. He had had enough of their rantings in his own youth to last him several lifetimes and universes.

The last group to come out were another surprise for him, aunt Clytemnestra and great-grandmothers Melania and Irma came out together with grandmother Druella and her daughters Narcissa and Andromeda Black. Forget about a squib drinking tea with the Black females, what in Merlin's name was Andromeda doing here? Was she maybe not a Tonks in this universe?

Irma, Druella and Andromeda were happily bickering in typical Black fashion and Narcissa was enjoying the show and only giving her opinion to start a new bickering when the old one seemed to be dying out.

Actually Padfoot thought that the only other female able to get the best of a Black woman in any argument, could only be another Black woman. And as much as he loved Andie he had to recognize that she was Druella's daughter when it came to arguing with her mother and grandmother. Narcissa as the youngest had always had her fun in listening, and of course in reinkling the arguments if necessary.

After taking another look at aunties Cassiopea and Callidora and grandmother Druella he definitively agreed that the female is the deadliest of the species.

Well, he now knew two things, this was not his universe and this was most definitively his family. Thankfully not as poisonous as his own one. But the time had come to return to the ministry and jump into the veil once again.

Padfoot only needed to quietly lie in this playhouse until the family went away. But he had made his plans without counting with the youngest Black present.

Charlus Arcturus Black was a vivaceous four years old with the kind of curiosity which found the cat and got it killed. Archie, as he was known, to the chagrin of great-grandfather Arcturus, was extremely bored at this moment in time.

His older brothers and their friends didn't pay him any attention and did not let him play with them saying that he was too little. And the girls only wanted him around to try to play house with him. That's the reason why as soon as he saw the oportunity and noticed that nobody was paying him any attention, he disappeared to explore the playground.

His first place of exploration was obviously the place where no-one else seemed to be around, the mushroom-shaped playhouses. Anyone can understand his joy when he found his favourite toy in one of them, padfoot!.

„PAAADDDFOOTT! DADY TRANSFORMED FOR ARCHIEEEEEEEEE"

Daddy did not transform much nowadays as it would have been difficult for him to inspire respect as a parent if the kids saw him as Padfoot but now and again he still did it, to the absolute delight of his own kids. Archie loved Padfoot and had several charmed padfoot-shaped plushies.

Archie went to Padfoot laughing and shouting and without a care in the world. The rest of the Black family went to Padfoot with drawn wands and extremely effective hexes. It was a question of seconds until Padfoot found himself, stunned, hexed, bound, silenced, made to transform into a wizard and being floated into number thirteen with a very respectable guard of, let's not forget it folks, dark witches and wizards.

The young brunette with blue eyes was trying to calm Archie and the matrons of the family were protecting the kids with the same zeal an Hungarian Horntail would use to protect her nest. Actually Padfoot thought that right now confronting an Hungarian Horntail would be a much healthier and better idea than confronting them. Not to mention confronting the Sirius and Regulus who were glaring at him. There was no doubt in Padfoot's mind that this Sirius was a true Black. He was getting a bad feeling...

He got an even worse feeling when he heard great-grandfather Pollux gleefully informing the family that he was going to fetch a batch of Veritaserum, and telling Arcturus to take him into the cellar for an interrogation. He would be joining them shortly!

Thankfully for him Sirius, Remus, Regulus and Rabastan had been against Arcturus and Cassiopea's first idea of taking the intruder into the dungeons still in existence in twelve Grimmauld Place for a more throught interrogation.

-End of chapter four-