Tidy Time

Part 4

Lunch

Kreacher had done very well. The rest of the roast beef, along with a good portion of ham, had been converted to sandwiches. Harry's favorite French onion soup graced the tureen, and a Caesar salad sat in a sizable wooden bowl on the table. Kreacher had also braved the wilds of the garden and brought back some large basil leaves. The leaves had then been partnered with brie, bacon, and fresh sliced tomatoes for Ginny's sandwich. Kreacher had remembered this from a small conversation with her. He blushed and stammered when Ginny kissed the top of his head, thanking him. Then there were afters. Two treacle tarts sat on the counter top.

"Masters Harry and Ron could eat an entire one themselves," creature had croaked and then cackled.

They had found that most of the house had been cleared of the darkest objects during the great Molly Weasley purge of Ninety-five, however there were still pockets of evil scattered here and there. Hermione and Ron had found a particularly nasty book in Regulus' room, and it had almost poisoned Hermione when she opened it without thinking. She was very lucky that he had the reactions of a keeper. The book flew from her hand, and the scorpion like stinger passed between two of her fingers when he had blasted it from her grasp. On the third floor Luna and Dean had been trying to make order out of the chaos that was left of Mrs. Black's bedroom.

Buckbeak had destroyed most of the furniture while he'd been kept in the room. Large claw marks riddled the walls, and roughly chewed fragments of wood were all that was left of the bed. Luna had been delighted with the number of feathers she had collected though, and Dean was suitably proud of the job he'd done with the last Boggart in the house. When he opened the toilet tank in the master loo, and a dead Luna had flopped out, it had taken him a few moments to collect himself, but then he'd remembered, and a quick Ridiculus later the boggart was in a box and on it's way to Weasley's Wizard Wheezes. George had been looking for one for quite a while, tough no one had managed to pry out of him why.

The biggest hit of the day, though, was Pelly. Hermione had been stunned. This was another one of those creatures that she was sure Luna had dreamed, until she had been confronted with the furry reality. She was still astounded when she looked over to the quite large grey lump that seemed to have taken up permanent residence in Luna's lap.

"A badgewonk," She would say, shake her head, and mutter "Amazing."

Luna giggled every time. Pelly was clearly hers, and Harry had told the badgewonk she could go with Luna, and that she was released from the house and any service she was under. The animal, which was clearly partially sentient, had tittered with joy and bounded around the room, licking hands and rubbing legs, until Luna had called her back, whereupon she resumed her place in Luna's lap.

Dean was mixing his paints on his artist pallet while the rest of the group sat at the table, "I thought I'd start on Mrs. Black after lunch, if she's amenable." He said.

"Yeah, why don't you four take her while Ginny, Andy, Cissy, and I take a look down in the tombs?" Harry said.

"You sure you don't need all of us down there, mate?" Ron had asked.

"Nah, we're up to it, eh?" he said to his ladies.

"There's nothing down there I'm afraid of." Narcissa said in her haughty voice.

"Much," Andromeda said and burst into giggles herself. "We snuck down once when we were nine and eleven, thought we were big bad witches, one wand between us."

"I'd only heard about the Hogwarts ghosts, how was I to know what a real haunting was like?" Narcissa said in a fake hurt voice, and then laughed herself. "Literally scared the pee out of us," and both sisters double over in laughter from the memory.

"Where was Bellatrix?" Luna asked.

"She was at Hogwarts already," Narcissa said. "Andy had just got her wand, and we were always curious about what was down there."

"So what is down there?" Hermione asked.

"Everybody, it's the Black family tombs. There's an enlarging enchantment on it, just like the garden. The catacombs go for a bit. This isn't the first House of Black to stand on this land, just the latest. There has been a House of Black here for at least two thousand years" Andromeda answered. "Are we doing the garden too?"

"No, Neville and professor Sprout are doing that this coming week. They're really looking forward to it too. Just like us, Neville's getting credit for it in his NEWT studies." Harry answered.

"Oh, I forgot to tell Cissy about that." Andromeda said.

"What?"

"We have to write a report to Minerva about what they did, and how well they handled the spells and situations." Narcissa rolled her eyes when Andromeda finished.

"I haven't written for her in years. Hope she's not grading on our grammar or you guys are in trouble," she chuckled.

"So, what scared you so bad?" Dean put in.

"Let's just say our ancestors are not exactly resting easy," Andromeda said. "And there're some other things. Things that aren't nearly as sweet as Pelly." That badgewonk looked up at the mention of her name.

"That's a good girl," Luna said as she smoothed the fur on Pelly's back.

"Amazing." Hermone said again.

Luna tittered.

"Yes, I realized this is hysterical to you Luna, but you don't know what she implies."

"Quite the contrary, Hermione, I am perfectly aware of what her existence means," and Luna proceeded to demonstrate exactly why she was top in her year until she was kidnapped. "The fact that there exists a living badgewonk directly proves the existence of the cilliwonk, long thought to be mythical by some." She nodded to Hermione. "Furthermore, the fact that she survived at least a century and a half of hibernation proves that the cilliwonk was at least partially immortal, as the legends say."

"Nice to have someone you can actually lose and argument too, eh?" Dean said in Hermione's ear.

"I'm right here," Ron said in an exasperated tone.

"Okay, someone you don't have to lose to on purpose," Dean said smirking.

"Fuck you, mate," Ron said, though he was half laughing.

"Ronald! Language!" Hermione said, and the kitchen exploded in laughter.

"I've only ever read about the cilliwonk once, and that was a long time ago. Can you tell us more about them, Luna?" Andromeda asked after the laughter died down.

"All we know is from legends from southern Spain and Greece. They were apparently the last of the European apes, like small tailless monkeys, magical, and immortal. Obviously they can be killed but they don't die of age. They were also mostly sentient. Pelly proves that too." The badgewonk looked up at Luna. "Yes, you are a smart girl, aren't you?" she said to the creature.

The badgewonk nodded in agreement.

"See." Luna continued. "Malock is said to have captured some of the last cilliwonks on his travels through Iberia, once he arrived back here in England, he found that they were fading, and he couldn't determine why. In desperation he did the spell of joining and created the badgewonk."

The badgewonk nodded again.

"Are you one of them, one of the first?" Luna asked Pelly in awe.

Pelly nodded a third time and snuggled into Luna.

"That means she's almost six hundred years old! Wow, lookin' pretty good old girl," Dean said from Luna's side, and he scratched under her chin. The badgewonk leaned into Luna and closed her eyes, relishing the attention. Dean had been a bit nervous at the new arrival, but when he had leaned in to kiss Luna, Pelly had licked his hand, and he had breathed a sigh of relief that the badgewonk wasn't the jealous type.

"Yes, she is very healthy for her age. I think we should go see Professors Grubbly-Plank and Hagrid soon. Won't they be surprised?"

"I think you may have earned your NEWT in Magical Creatures, that's for certain." Ron said.

"That was never in doubt," Hermione said, reaching across the table and patting Luna's hand. Luna beamed back at her.

"Well, speaking of NEWTs, if you want those letters to Minerva, we should get back to work," Andromeda said.

"Slave driver," Harry said with a smile.

"She's always been that way," Narcissa said, smiling to her sister.

"Middle child," Andromeda said. "Bella was the oldest and could do no wrong, Cissy was the baby, so she was coddled a bit. Oh, don't look at me like that, you know you were. So I was the one that got scolded, and punished, and blamed for practically everything that went wrong. I even had to take the blame for that rat bastard Lestrange."

"But I introduced Bella to Rodolphus. It was at one of Lucius' parties." Narcissa said.

"Well, they blamed me for it. Doesn't matter though, he's the one who took our sister from us." At a strickened look from her sister Andromeda added, "It wasn't your fault Cissy. She chose him, and you had no idea what kind of evil piece of…" she paused and looked around at the much younger audience she had, and then smiled at Ron. "This is really your area, so I won't infringe."

"Shall I fill in the spaces for you?" Ron said brightly.

"I'm sure we can all do just fine," Hermione said patting his hand.

There was a moment's pause and the room burst into laughter again.