I sat on my bed as Fred and George apparated in laying on the bed either side of me. I lay back between them.

"Morning you two. What brings you here this time of the morning"  

"Well Mum says get up, breakfast is in the kitchen and then she needs us all in the drawing room, there are loads more doxies than she thought and she's found a nest of dead puffskeins under the sofa."

"Wonderful, looking forward to it" I say rolling my eyes.

"If we've got to deal with the torture so have you my dear Aurora" Fred says with a smirk.

"Whatever you say Frederick" he glares at me "don't call me Aurora then" I say sticking my tongue out at him like a small child. Half an hour later we all enter the drawing room, its a long, high-ceilinged room on the first floor with olive-green walls covered in dirty tapestries. The carpet exhaled little clouds of dust every time someone put their foot on it and the long, moss-green velvet curtains were buzzing as though swarming with invisible bees. It was around these that Mrs. Weasley and everyone else grouped, all of us looking rather peculiar, as we had tied cloths over our noses and mouths. Each of us was also holding a large bottle of black liquid with a nozzle at the end.

"Cover your faces and take a spray," Mrs. Weasley said to Harry and Ron the moment she saw them, pointing to two more bottles of black liquid standing on a spindle-legged table. "It's Doxycide. I've never seen an infestation this bad  what that house-elf's been doing for the last ten years" Hermione's face was half concealed by a tea towel but I distinctly saw her throw a reproachful look at Mrs. Weasley at these words.

"Kreacher's really old, he probably couldn't manage"

"You'd be surprised what Kreacher can manage when he wants to, Hermione," Pad's said as he  entered the room "Anyway this writing desk" He bent over to examine the locked cabinet which was shaking slightly. "Well, Molly, I'm pretty sure this is a boggart," Pad's said peering through the keyhole "but perhaps we ought to let Mad-Eye have a shifty at it before we let it out knowing my mother it could be something much worse."

"Right you are, Sirius," Mrs. Weasley said. A loud, clanging bell sounded from downstairs, followed at once by the cacophony of screams and wails that had been triggered the previous night by Tonks knocking over the umbrella stand.  

"I keep telling them not to ring the doorbell!" Pad's said exasperatedly, hurrying back out of the room. We heard him thundering down the stairs as Mrs. Black's screeches echoed up through the house once more: 

"Stains of dishonour, filthy half-breeds, blood traitors, children of filth" 

"Close the door, please, Harry," Mrs. Weasley said. Harry took as much time as he dared to close the drawing room door. Pad's had obviously managed to shut the curtains over his mother's portrait because she had stopped screaming. Mrs. Weasley was bending over to check the page on doxies in Gilderoy Lockhart's Guide to Household Pests, which was lying open on the sofa. "Right, you lot, you need to be careful, because doxies bite and their teeth are poisonous. I've got a bottle of antidote here, but I'd rather nobody needed it." She straightened up, positioned herself squarely in front of the curtains, and beckoned us all forward. "When I say the word, start spraying immediately" she said. "They'll come flying out at us, I expect, but it says on the sprays one good squirt will paralyze them. When they're immobilized, just throw them in this bucket." She stepped carefully out of their line of fire and raised her own spray. "All right squirt!" We had been spraying only a few seconds when a fully grown doxy came soaring out of a fold in the material, shiny beetlelike wings whirring, tiny needle-sharp teeth bared, its fairylike body covered with thick black hair and its four tiny fists clenched with fury. Harry managed to catch it full in the face with a blast of Doxycide; it froze in mid air and fell, with a surprisingly loud thunk, onto the worn carpet below. Harry picked it up and threw it in the bucket. "Fred, what are you doing?" Mrs. Weasley said sharply. "Spray that at once and throw it away!"  Fred was holding a struggling doxy between his forefinger and thumb. 

"Right-o," Fred said brightly, spraying the doxy quickly in the face so that it fainted, but the moment Mrs. Weasley's back was turned he pocketed it with a wink. 

"We want to experiment with doxy venom for our Skiving Snackboxes," George told Harry under his breath. Deftly spraying two doxies at once as they soared straight for his nose, Harry moved closer to George and muttered out of the corner of his mouth. 

"What are Skiving Snackboxes?" I roll my eyes at him.

 "Range of sweets to make you ill," George whispered, keeping a wary eye on Mrs. Weasley's back. "Not seriously ill, mind, just ill enough to get you out of a class when you feel like it. Fred and I have been developing them this summer. They're double-ended, colour coded chews. If you eat the orange half of the Puking Pastilles, you throw up. Moment you've been rushed out of the lesson for the hospital wing, you swallow the purple half" 

"which restores you to full fitness, enabling you to pursue the leisure activity of your own choice during an hour that would otherwise have been devoted to unprofitable boredom.' That's what we're putting in the adverts, anyway," whispered Fred, who had edged over out of Mrs. Weasley's line of vision and was now sweeping a few stray doxies from the floor and adding them to his pocket. "But they still need a bit of work. At the moment our testers are having a bit of trouble stopping puking long enough to swallow the purple end."

"Testers?" 

"Us. We tried to convince Rory to help out but she denied us" Fred said whilst Harry glances at me I turn away from him looking back around the room at the others. "So we take it in turns. George did the Fainting Fancies, we both tried the Nosebleed Nougat " 

"Mum thought we'd been duelling," George said. 

"Joke shop still on, then?" I heard Harry mutter. 

"Well, we haven't had a chance to get premises yet," Fred said, dropping his voice even lower as Mrs. Weasley mopped her brow with her scarf before returning to the attack, "so we're running it as a mail order service at the moment. We put advertisements in the Daily Prophet last week."

 "All thanks to you, mate," George said. "But don't worry Mum hasn't got a clue. She won't read the Daily Prophet anymore, 'cause of it telling lies about you and Dumbledore." The de-doxying of the curtains took most of the morning. It was past midday when Mrs. Weasley finally removed her protective scarf, sank into a sagging armchair, and sprang up again with a cry of disgust, having sat on a bag of dead rats. The curtains were no longer buzzing; they hung limp and damp from the intensive spraying; unconscious doxies lay crammed in the bucket at the foot of them beside a bowl of their black eggs, at which Crookshanks was now sniffing and Fred and George were shooting covetous looks. 

"I think we'll tackle those after lunch." Mrs. Weasley pointed at the dusty glass-fronted cabinets standing on either side of the mantelpiece. They were crammed with an odd assortment of objects, a selection of rusty daggers, claws, a coiled snakeskin, a number of tarnished silver boxes inscribed with languages I could not understand and, least pleasant of all, an ornate crystal bottle with a large opal set into the stopper, full of what was definitely blood. The clanging doorbell rang again. Everyone looked at Mrs. Weasley. "Stay here," she said firmly, snatching up the bag of rats as Mrs. Blacks screeches started up again from down below. "I'll bring up some sandwiches." She left the room, closing the door carefully behind her. At once, everyone dashed over to the window to look down onto the doorstep as I walked out of the room and up to my room. Mrs. Black's screaming had stopped again. There was an explosion of sound from downstairs as I walked into my room. Mrs. Weasley was shouting at the top of her voice.  "WE ARE NOT RUNNING A HIDEOUT FOR STOLEN GOODS! COMPLETELY IRRESPONSIBLE, AS IF WE HAVEN'T GOT ENOUGH TO WORRY ABOUT WITHOUT YOU DRAGGING STOLEN CAULDRONS INTO THE HOUSE" It was pretty obvious she was shouting at Mundungus. Mrs Weasley's voice was lost amid fresh shrieks and screams from the portraits in the hall. I sit on my bed as Moony appears in my doorway.

"Hello Wolf, you okay?" He asks as he comes to sit beside me. I rest my head on his shoulder before answering him.

"Yeah just needed a break from so many people being in one room and the smell of the doxycide" 

"You mean you wanted to get away from Harry. You two need to sort this out soon"

"I know Moony but this is his issue not mine, I didn't do anything but look out for him and he threw it back in my face" He wraps an arm around me.

"I know Wolf. He was an idiot but I can see the regret in his face every time he looks at you, he just needs to figure out how to fix it now" I smile at him knowing he's usually right "Come on let's get back down" I nod standing up and following him back to where the others are as Pad's says.

"A likely story," he was glowering at the elf from the doorway. "Stand up straight," Pad's says impatiently. "Now, what are you up to?" 

"Kreacher is cleaning," the elf spoke. "Kreacher lives to serve the noble house of Black" 

"And it's getting blacker every day, it's filthy," 

"Master always liked his little joke," Kreacher said, bowing again, and continuing in an undertone, "Master was a nasty ungrateful swine who broke his mother's heart"

"My mother didn't have a heart, Kreacher," Pad's snapped as I stood next to him. He smiled at me wrapping an arm around my shoulder before continuing. "She kept herself alive out of pure spite." Kreacher bowed again before speaking again.

"Whatever Master says," then muttered furiously, "Master is not fit to wipe slime from his mother's boots, oh my poor Mistress, what would she say if she saw Kreacher serving him, how she hated him, what a disappointment he was" 

"I asked you what you were up to," Pad's said coldly to Kreacher. "Every time you show up pretending to be cleaning, you sneak something off to your room so we can't throw it out."

"Kreacher would never move anything from its proper place in Master's house," said the elf, then muttered very fast, "Mistress would never forgive Kreacher if the tapestry was thrown out, seven centuries it's been in the family, Kreacher must save it, Kreacher will not let Master and the blood traitors and the brats destroy it" 

"I thought it might be that," Pad's said casting a disdainful look at the opposite wall. "She'll have put another Permanent Sticking Charm on the back of it, I don't doubt, but if I can get rid of it I certainly will. Now go away, Kreacher." It seemed that Kreacher did not dare disobey a direct order; nevertheless, the look he gave Pad's as he shuffled out past him was redolent of deepest loathing and he muttered all the way out of the room. 

"comes back from Azkaban ordering Kreacher around, oh my poor Mistress, what would she say if she saw the house now, scum living in it, her treasures thrown out, she swore he was no son of hers and he's back, they say he's a murderer too"

"Keep muttering and I will be a murderer!" Pad's said irritably, and he slammed the door shut on the elf his arm still around my shoulder. 

"Sirius, he's not right in the head," Hermione said pleadingly, "I don't think he realizes we can hear him." 

"He's been alone too long, taking mad orders from my mother's portrait and talking to himself, but he was always a foul little" 

"If you just set him free," Hermione said hopefully, I can't believe she's still on that. "maybe" 

"We can't set him free, he knows too much about the Order," Pad's said curtly removing his arm from around me as I leaned into Moony. "And anyway, the shock would kill him. You suggest to him that he leaves this house, see how he takes it." Pad's walked across the room, where the tapestry Kreacher had been trying to protect hung the length of the wall. Harry and the others followed whilst I stood with Moony having seen it already. Large words at the very top of the tapestry read: The Noble and Most Ancient House of Black 

"You're not on here!" Harry said, after scanning the bottom of the tree. 

"I used to be there," Pad's said, pointing at a small, round, charred hole in the tapestry, rather like a cigarette burn. "My sweet old mother blasted me off after I ran away from home Kreacher's quite fond of muttering the story under his breath."

"You ran away from home?" Does my brother not listen when other people speak 

"When I was about sixteen," Pad's said. "I'd had enough." 

"Where did you go?" Harry asked, staring at him. 

"Your dad's place. Your grandparents were really good about it; they sort of adopted me as a second son. Yeah, I camped out at your dad's during the school holidays, and then when I was seventeen I got a place of my own, my Uncle Alphard had left me a decent bit of gold he's been wiped off here too, that's probably why, anyway, after that I looked after myself. I was always welcome at Mr. and Mrs. Potter's for Sunday lunch, though." 

"But why did you?" 

"Leave?" Pad's smiled bitterly and ran a hand through his long, unkempt hair. "Because I hated the whole lot of them: my parents, with their pure-blood mania, convinced that to be a Black made you practically royal my idiot brother, soft enough to believe them  that's him." He jabbed a finger at the very bottom of the tree, at the name Regulus Black. A date of death followed the date of birth. "He was younger than me, and a much better son, as I was constantly reminded."

 "But he died," Harry said.

"Yeah. Stupid idiot he joined the Death Eaters." 

"You're kidding!" Wow that boy is stupid I looked up at Moony who just smiled down at me as I rested my head against his arm.

"Come on, Harry, haven't you seen enough of this house to tell what kind of wizards my family were?"

"Were your parents Death Eaters as well?" 

"No, no, but believe me, they thought Voldemort had the right idea, they were all for the purification of the Wizarding race, getting rid of Muggle-borns and having purebloods in charge. They weren't alone either, there were quite a few people, before Voldemort showed his true colours, who thought he had the right idea about things. They got cold feet when they saw what he was prepared to do to get power, though. But I bet my parents thought Regulus was a right little hero for joining up at first." 

"Was he killed by an Auror?" Harry asked tentatively. 

"Oh no. No, he was murdered by Voldemort. Or on Voldemort's orders, more likely, I doubt Regulus was ever important enough to be killed by Voldemort in person. From what I found out after he died, he got in so far, then panicked about what he was being asked to do and tried to back out. Well, you don't just hand in your resignation to Voldemort. It's a lifetime of service or death." 

"Lunch," Mrs. Weasley's voice said from behind me. She was holding her wand high in front of her, balancing a huge tray loaded with sandwiches and cake on its tip. She was very red in the face and still looked angry. The others moved over to her as I walked over to Pad's and Harry. Pad's smiled at me but I could see the sadness on his face as he wrapped his arm around me. 

"I haven't looked at this for years. There's Phineas Nigellus my great-great-grandfather, see? Least popular headmaster Hogwarts ever had and Araminta Meliflua cousin of my mother's tried to force through a Ministry Bill to make Muggle-hunting legal and dear Aunt Elladora, she started the family tradition of beheading house-elves when they got too old to carry tea trays of course, anytime the family produced someone halfway decent they were disowned. I see Tonks isn't on here. Maybe that's why Kreacher won't take orders from her he's supposed to do whatever anyone in the family asks him"

"You and Tonks are related?" Harry asked, surprised. 

"Oh yeah, her mother, Andromeda, was my favorite cousin. No, Andromeda's not on here either, look" He pointed to another small round burn mark between two names, Bellatrix and Narcissa. "Andromeda's sisters are still here because they made lovely, respectable pure-blood marriages, but Andromeda married a Muggleborn, Ted Tonks, so" Pad's mimed blasting the tapestry with a wand and laughed sourly. Harry, however, did not laugh; he was too busy staring at the names to the right of Andromeda's burn mark. A double line of gold embroidery linked Narcissa Black with Lucius Malfoy, and a single vertical gold line from their names led to the name Draco. 

"You're related to the Malfoys!" 

"The pure-blood families are all interrelated, If you're only going to let your sons and daughters marry purebloods your choice is very limited, there are hardly any of us left. Molly and I are cousins by marriage and Arthur's something like my second cousin once removed. But there's no point looking for them on here if ever a family was a bunch of blood traitors it's the Weasleys."

"Lestrange " Harry said aloud. 

"They're in Azkaban," Pad's said shortly. Harry looked at him curiously. "Bellatrix and her husband Rodolphus came in with Barty Crouch, Junior. Rodolphus's brother, Rabastan, was with them too." 

"You never said she was your " 

"Does it matter if she's my cousin?" snapped Pad's. "As far as I'm concerned, they're not my family. She's certainly not my family. I haven't seen her since I was your age, unless you count a glimpse of her coming in to Azkaban. D'you think I'm proud of having relatives like her?" I wrapped my arm around his waist as he smiled down at me 

"Sorry," Harry said quickly, "I didn't mean I was just surprised, that's all" 

"It doesn't matter, don't apologize. I don't like being back here," he said, staring across the drawing room. "I never thought I'd be stuck in this house again." I glance down at the floor knowing it's my fault and as if he knew what I was thinking he pulled me into him more before speaking "Don't" I look up at him "It's not your fault"

"It is though Pad's"

"No it's not, this place is ideal for headquarters as well as keeping you safe and that's all I care about, keeping you safe" Pad's said before turning back to Harry. "My father put every security measure known to Wizard-kind on it when he lived here. It's Unplottable, so Muggles could never come and call as if they'd have wanted to and now Dumbledore's added his protection, you'd be hard put to find a safer house anywhere. Dumbledore's Secret-Keeper for the Order, you know nobody can find headquarters unless he tells them personally where it is that note Moody showed you last night, that was from Dumbledore. If my parents could see the use it was being put to now well, my mother's portrait should give you some idea" He scowled for a moment, then sighed. "I wouldn't mind if I could just get out occasionally and do something useful. I've asked Dumbledore whether I can escort you to your hearing so I can give you a bit of moral support, what d'you think? Don't worry, I'm sure they're going to clear you, there's definitely something in the International Statute of Secrecy about being allowed to use magic to save your own life." 

"But if they do expel me," said Harry, quietly, "can I come back here and live with you?" Pad's smiled sadly. 

"We'll see." 

"Hurry up, you three, or there won't be any food left," Mrs. Weasley called. We all went over to join the others. 

The drawing room took three days to decontaminate; finally the only undesirable things left in it were the tapestry of the Black family tree, which resisted all their attempts to remove it from the wall, and the rattling writing desk, Moody had not dropped by headquarters yet, so Mrs Weasley could not be sure what was inside it. We moved from the drawing room to a dining room on the ground floor where we found spiders as large as saucers lurking in the dresser. Ron had left the room hurriedly to make a cup of tea and did not return for an hour and a half after this. The china, which bore the Black crest and motto, was all thrown unceremoniously into a sack by Pad's, and the same fate met a set of old photographs in tarnished silver frames, all of whose occupants squealed shrilly as the glass covering them smashed. Snape might refer to our work as "cleaning," but it felt like we were really waging war on the house, which was putting up a very good fight, aided and abetted by Kreacher. The house-elf kept appearing wherever they were congregated, his muttering becoming more and more offensive as he attempted to remove anything he could from the rubbish sacks. Pad's went as far as to threaten him with clothes, but Kreacher fixed him with a watery stare and said, 

"Master must do as Master wishes," before turning away and muttering very loudly, "but Master will not turn Kreacher away, no, because Kreacher knows what they are up to, oh yes, he is plotting against the Dark Lord, yes, with these Mudbloods and traitors and scum" At which Pad's, ignoring Hermione's protests, seized Kreacher by the back of his loincloth and threw him bodily from the room. The doorbell rang several times a day, which was the cue for Pad's mother to start shrieking again, and for Harry and the others to attempt to eavesdrop on the visitor which I didn't really care much about. Snape flitted in and out of the house several times more, as well as Professor McGonagall, looking very odd in a Muggle dress and coat, though she also seemed too busy to linger. Sometimes, however, the visitors stayed to help; Tonks joined us for a memorable afternoon in which they found a murderous old ghoul lurking in an upstairs toilet, and Moony had helped to repair a grandfather clock that had developed the unpleasant habit of shooting heavy bolts at passersby. Mundungus had even managed to redeem himself slightly in Mrs. Weasley's eyes by rescuing Ron from an ancient set of purple robes that had tried to strangle him when he removed them from their wardrobe but he still wouldn't look at me from fear of another broken nose. Me and Harry still hadn't spoken and we were making an effort to put space between us at all times.

Mrs. Weasley turned to Harry during dinner on Wednesday evening and said quietly, "I've ironed your best clothes for tomorrow morning, Harry, and I want you to wash your hair tonight too. A good first impression can work wonders." Ron, Hermione, Fred, George, and Ginny all stopped talking and looked over at him whilst I just continued to push my food around my plate. 

"How am I getting there?" Harry asked Mrs. Weasley, I could tell he was trying to sound unconcerned. 

"Arthur's taking you to work with him," Mrs. Weasley said gently. Mr. Weasley smiled encouragingly at Harry across the table. 

"You can wait in my office until it's time for the hearing," he said. I saw Harry look over at Pad's , but before he could ask the question, Mrs. Weasley had answered it. 

"Professor Dumbledore doesn't think it's a good idea for Sirius to go with you, and I must say I"

"think he's quite right," Pad's said through clenched teeth. Mrs. Weasley pursed her lips. 

"When did Dumbledore tell you that?" Harry said, staring at Pad's.  

"He came last night, when you were in bed," Mr. Weasley said. Pad's stabbed moodily at a potato with his fork. I pushed my plate away slightly before leaning towards Moony, whispering to him.

"Moony" 

"Yes Wolf"

"Do you have any chocolate?" He smiled at me before reaching in his pocket and pulling out a bar of my favourite chocolate, handing it to me "Thank you. You're the best, not only did you give me chocolate but my favourite chocolate" I smile at him.

"Want to know a secret Wolf" I nod "I keep a bar of your favourite chocolate in my pocket at all times for when you ask for it" 

"You are the best Godfather ever" Pad's scoffs at this pouting at me "Pad's you're the best uncle" He smiles at me sending me a wink as I shake my head slightly before smiling.