Chapter 8: Kreacher's Outburst
"Where do we start?" Harry looked despairingly around the living room.
"Uh, well... I guess it depends on what you want to do with it," reasoned Hermione from where she sat on one of the moth-eaten sofas, legs tucked beneath her.
"New wall paper, new rugs, new sofas, fireplace, lamps," he listed, mentally checking each item off as he glanced around the room again, "And definitely new paintings," he grimaced at a particularly foul piece of artwork, depicting a crazed looking horse, rearing up onto its hind legs, a large red slash across its chest, blood spattering its white coat. What appeared to be its muggle rider lay still on the muddy ground, and a tall man with sallow skin and hollow eyes stood before the stallion, brandishing a wand.
"Is that all?" Ron asked sarcastically.
"Probably not," he sighed, "we need an interior decorator."
"Oh!" Hermione suddenly exclaimed, clapping a hand to her forehead, "I meant to get some books on cleaning spells from your mum before we left, Ron, but I completely forgot!"
"Never fear! I got them!" Ginny suddenly piped up from where she had flopped down on the hearth rug, "I think Mum assumed we had no idea what we were doing."
"She was right," said Harry with dismay.
They worked all through the day, each assigned to different rooms. Neither Harry nor Ron trusted their abilities enough to use the spell books, leaving Hermione to complete her assigned rooms in little over an hour each. Harry scrubbed at the floorboards of the living room with a dilute solution of Magical Mess Remover, and then proceeded to strip away faded green wallpaper. Finally, after dusting the ornaments he wished to keep (chucking the ones he did not into a cardboard box by his feet to give to Kreacher as he did so) and the bookshelves, he set alight the shredded wall paper that lay in a heap on the floor. Sweating, he trooped out into the hall, and looked up at the curtained picture frame that held Mrs Black.
"Gunna call Kreacher?" Harry jumped at the voice. Ron stood behind him, equally sweaty and flushed from the hours of physical labour.
"Mmhm. Kreacher!" With a loud crack, the old dishevelled house elf appeared right before Harry, making him step back in surprise.
"Master," Kreacher bowed low, is nose barely above the floorboards.
"Kreacher, what can you do about this?" Harry asked, gesturing at the painting.
"Do about it?" the elf asked, confused, looking between his master and the black velvet curtains.
"As in, what can you do about removing it from my wall?" As Harry finished his sentence, the most profound look of shock and outrage twisted Kreacher's features into a grimace not dissimilar to a gargoyle's.
"Remove it, master?" he spat.
"Well, see, it's stuck on with a permanent sticking charm, so I can't remove it. But your magic is different, so I thought maybe you would be able to remove it. How else are we supposed to put it up in your new room?"
"You are giving it to m-" the elf began, shock pushing all signs of anger out of his expression, "New...room?"
"Oh, yeah, well, none of us will be using Regulus' old bedroom, so I thought you could have it. Only if you want it, of course..." Harry grinned. To his surprise, the elf began to sob. The curtains covering Mrs Black's painting flung themselves aside, and the woman began to scream obscenities. Harry quickly dashed to pull the curtains back across her. Ron grabbed Kreacher and dragged him down the stairs to the kitchen. Harry followed and shut the door behind him.
"Oh dear," Ron whispered in his ear, "You've overwhelmed him. Maybe we should give him a while to recover himself."
"Yeah. Erm, Kreacher, when you're done, there's also a box of stuff I don't want that belongs to the house in the living room. You can have that too." Harry said to him, before hurrying back up to the hall. As he closed the kitchen door again, he heard the sobs increase in volume behind him.
Hermione had offered to make them all dinner once she had finished cleaning the kitchen, and promptly at seven thirty, she began to serve them steaming bowls of pasta alla carbonara. At that moment, the doorbell also rang, and Mrs Black's portrait began to shriek; Kreacher had not yet recovered himself enough to remove it. Hermione dropped spoon she had been using to serve the food, and Ron swore as he was splattered with pasta sauce. Harry fell backwards over his chair as he scrambled to go answer the door. As he descended, his knee collided with the underside of the table, which jerked upwards, sending the sauce pan full of tagliatelle souring into the air. The pasta was thrown high into the air, and hit the low ceiling with a splat, while the pan fell back to earth with a resounding clang, and the sound of one of the black floor tiles cracking. The lid of the pan dropped onto Ginny's foot and she howled with pain. Silence reigned, except for the sound of the pan lid spinning on the floor, until that, too, stilled.
Glancing briefly at each other, they all leapt for the stairs. Once in the hall, Hermione wrenched the curtains back over Mrs Black, ignoring her blood-curdling screams of "Mudblood scum!", and Harry yanked open the front door, not quite able to rid his expression of the exasperated "why can't I just have a normal day for once in my life?" look before coming face to face with Kingsley Shacklebolt. The man looked a little puzzled, no doubt having heard all the clanging from downstairs. It only became more so after glancing at the pasta covered Ron, frazzled looking Hermione, Harry's askew glasses, and Ginny massaging her bruised toes.
"Is this a bad time?" he asked, eyebrows raised.
"No, no," Hermione assured him, coming to the door.
"You plan to leave on Thursday, yes?"
"Yes,"
"And you wish to travel there by plane?"
"Yes,"
"It's quite a long flight, are you sure-"
"Yes, minister, quite sure. I don't want to cause the ministry any trouble. I'll be paying for the tickets, too."
"Miss Granger," Kingsley began to argue, when he was interrupted by a loud splat. The pasta had finally detached itself from the ceiling, and had fallen, landing slap bang in the centre of the table, right in front of Kingsley. He stared at the heap for a moment, and then up at the slightly damp patch on the ceiling. "Did you cook that?" He asked Hermione. She nodded. "I commend you; you seem to have managed to get that pasta perfectly al dente. Mine has never managed to stick to the wall or the ceiling for more than a couple of seconds." All four of them stared at their Minister for Magic, stunned.
" Anyway, where was I? Ah yes, you three have done so much, you can at least let the ministry handle the cost of the flight."
"But I can afford it, so I don't see why I need to take money from you that you could be spending on rebuilding this country." Kingsley considered her for a moment.
"How long are you going for?"
"Two weeks, maybe three weeks."
"Three weeks!" Ginny exclaimed, furiously, "You said you would only be gone one!"
"Gin, It takes over a day to get there, and once I'm there, I need to find my parents, get them to trust me, reverse their memories, actually tell them what's been going on over the past few years, as I've pretty much kept them in the dark, and then they'll have to wrap up their lives in Australia, pack up their stuff, and come back here. And I'd quite like to spend some time in Australia, too. You know, see the sights, that kind of stuff." Hermione explained. Ginny just huffed and crossed her arms.
"I want to see Australia, too." She whined.
"Ginny, am I right in saying that you're not yet seventeen?" Kingsley asked, kindly. Reluctantly, she nodded.
"Then it would be up to your parents to decide whether or not to let you go, and knowing your mother, I don't think they would. Three weeks isn't that long. Focus on your studies. Actually," Kingsley turned back to the other three, "speaking of studies, have you three considered what you plan to do next year?" Harry glanced at the other two, unsure of what to say. Ron was shaking his head, but Hermione seemed to have some idea of what she wanted to do, but after looking at him and Ron, bit her lip.
"I don't know, but... I don't think I can go back to Hogwarts," said Harry, regretfully.
"Same," Ron agreed.
"I remember hearing that you want to become an Auror, Harry. Are you still interested in going down that career path?" Harry nodded without thinking, and then stopped.
"Well, I'd like to, but I don't have any N.E. so I don't see how that's possible now."
To his shock and confusion, Kingsley laughed.
"Harry, after what you've spent the last year, in fact, last few years doing, do you honestly think you aren't intelligently equipped or experienced enough to work as an Auror?"
He thought about this.
"Yes, well... no, but I don't think it's fair for me to just go into becoming an Auror, when everyone else who's actually qualified to try has had to do so much work towards it."
"Harry, not much of your own life has been fair, in the traditional sense. I think it's only fair to you that you get this opportunity. The same applies to you two, Ron and Hermione, if you want it."
"Really?" Ron asked, shocked. "Wow, cool."
"Actually..." Hermione bit her lip again, "I want to go back to school," she almost whispered.
"Then that can be arranged, too." Kingsley amended, "Now, I'm sorry that I won't be joining you for dinner," he glanced once again at the sorry pasta pile, "but I have dinner arrangements with your family, Ron and Ginny. I suppose I'll see you three when you're back."
They sat in the eerily bare sitting room, by the fire. Harry lay back on the rug, Ginny's head on his stomach, and the other two sitting close together on the couch, Ron's large hand wrapped around Hermione's. The room was silent, save for the crackling of the fire.
"Today was nice," Hermione half whispered, sighing happily.
"Are you kidding me? Today was bloody chaos!"
"Ron!" Hermione scolded, slapping his arm.
"Come on, Hermione! Packing, Ginny and mum arguing, that sodding great spider, spending the day cleaning," he pulled a face, "and that disastrous dinner!"
"Hmph."
"He has a point," Ginny mumbled sleepily from the floor, curling into Harry.
"So what are we going to do between now and Thursday, then?" her boyfriend asked, pressing his nose into her hair. Ron shifted slightly uncomfortably and averted his gaze.
"Clean and pack," Hermione replied brightly. Harry and Ron groaned.
"Fine, don't, we'll just keep this house in its pureblood frenzied state, shall we? I think all the Slytherin black and green is beginning to grow on me, and the dark arts stuff could really come in useful some day," she huffed.
"Okay, okay. Surely we could just get Kreacher to do all this-" Ron began to say, but was silenced under Hermione's icy glare. "So, uh, cleaning and packing it is." He forced a slightly nervous smile onto his face, while inching slowly away from her. Harry laughed, and then glanced down at Ginny. She was sound asleep.
"We should go to bed," he suggested to the other to, shifting himself into a sitting position, Ginny's head supported on his shoulder.
"Hmmm, you're probably right," Hermione agreed, yawning and pulling herself to her feet, stretching as she did so. She offered a hand to Ron, and helped pull him up. Hand in hand, they headed out of the room.
"Gin," Harry whispered, kissing her forehead softly, "Gin, it's late, come on, let's get to bed." She moaned slightly in objection to being disturbed, and shifted herself in his arms. He chuckled.
"Come on," he said again, wrapping an arm around her waist and standing them both up. She blinked blearily, and he began to walk them back upstairs.
Their rooms were at opposite ends of the landing, and he turned to take her to hers, but she stopped him.
"No," she whispered, a glint in her eye, all traces of tiredness gone.
"Gin..." Harry looked nervously at the door to Ron's room.
"Come on, Harry," she pleaded, taking his hand and pulling him towards his own room. He looked at her for a long moment, before following her. He spared one last look at Ron's room, before quietly closing the door behind him.