The Summer of the Phoenix

Chapter 9

"Professor R. J. Lupin," Sirius read off the letters stencilled on the battered suitcase floating in front of him as they were climbing the stairs. "Sounds quite impressive, I must say."

"Pity it didn't last," Lupin said with a sad smile. "Although to be fair, I was luckier than both the professor before me and the one after me in the job. Unlike them, I at least have a handful of memories of my year of teaching at Hogwarts. And very fond ones, too."

"Getting to teach Harry for a whole year," Sirius grumbled, "while I was hiding in the Forbidden Forest, living off rats and never catching the one I was really after. I'm still jealous. Speaking of Harry," he continued in more cheerful tone, "I've got to find an owl soon to write to him."

"Oh, I just talked to Dumbledore about that this morning," Lupin said.

Sirius glanced at him sideways and frowned. "Talked to Dumbledore about me sending Harry an owl?"

"No, not that," Lupin hastened to explain. "Just owls in general. He told me he'd prefer not to have too many of them fluttering around Grimmauld Place though, in order not to attract too much attention."

Sirius looked unhappy.

"But it doesn't mean that - of course you can always go and - I mean you can always give your letter to someone else to post so - "

"Was he here this morning? Dumbledore, I mean?" Sirius interrupted his friend, again ashamed at the thought that while he'd been hiding upstairs pitying himself, his friends had been busy rebuilding the Order. He wondered what else he might have missed.

"He's still at Hogwarts," Lupin answered his question. "He'll be here on Friday evening."

"Then how did you talk?"

"Oh, that," Lupin said lightly. "Floo powder, of course."

Sirius stopped dead, completely taken aback. "Floo powder?" he asked incredulously. "But this house has never been connected to the Floo Network!"

"The kitchen fireplace is. Didn't you see the powder pot on the mantelpiece? Mind you, it's not a transporting connection. I tried that from my own home, and I couldn't get in. It's just a communicating one. But one that works as well as any of them. Don't worry," he said, catching the alarmed look on Sirius's face. "Nobody who isn't in on the Fidelius would be able to use it anyway."

"But the Floo Network is watched by the Ministry!"

"Not very closely," Lupin shrugged. "It's true, they can register when a certain place is used, or when a certain person is transported -"

"I know I can't travel by it," Sirius interrupted him impatiently.

"- but they can't police the whole thing all the time," Lupin concluded.

"It's no use to me anyway," Sirius said resignedly. "They never connect Muggle fireplaces."

"Except for special occasions. Arthur Weasley's got a hilarious story to tell about that. Speaking of the Weasleys - thanks, Sirius."

They had arrived on the second landing, and Sirius had pushed open the door to the bedroom assigned to his friend. Lupin took his suitcase and put it down on the bed inside, ignoring the cloud of dust that rose from it.

"The Weasleys will be here on Friday morning to give us a bit of a hand with the house, and get ready for the meeting. At least Mrs Weasley definitely will."

Sirius smiled. Molly Weasley was after all one of the very few witches and wizards who knew the truth about him. And once convinced by both Dumbledore and her son Ron that Sirius was not who he had appeared to be for so long, she had offered her help and support so eagerly that Sirius couldn't help suspecting that she was trying to make up a little for housing and feeding that rat of a traitor for twelve years - the traitor for whose crime Sirius had spend those same years in imprisonment in Azkaban.

"That's really nice of her," Sirius said, and meant it.

* * *

The rest of the day was indeed spent with the kind of work that Lupin had called 'less academically challenging'. Sirius soon found this a blatant euphemism.

"I'd never have thought I'd be teaching you household charms one day," Lupin said to Sirius while they were carrying several arms full of bedclothes and sheets down to the kitchen for washing. "But then, the day had to come when we'd both settle down and be domesticated."

Sirius only snorted in reply, careful not to trip over his own feet, which he couldn't see. He had had to admit that he was nearly useless when it came to simple magical cleaning and washing techniques. Lupin, from long practice of living on his own, was quite adept at them.

Down in the kitchen, Kreacher the house-elf was busy, or had at least started pretending to be busy as soon as he heard their footsteps approaching. He stood on a chair bent over a large washtub full of steaming hot, bubbling water, washing out the bed linen they had brought down earlier. He was muttering to himself, and now and again he affectionately ran his long spindly fingers over the Black family crest that was embroidered on each of the sheets.

It was very warm in the room. They hung the washing on a makeshift line to dry next to the fire, and the steaming wet cloth made the kitchen feel like a green house. Sirius and Lupin were glad to escape it again, even if it meant returning upstairs to the unpleasant task of cleaning and clearing out dank and dusty rooms. Thankfully, at least Phineas Nigellus didn't show up in his portrait to accompany their work with his snide remarks.

The large drawing room on the first floor proved the worst of all. Not only was it stuffed full with heavy furniture and many other items that matched the forbidding serpent decorations of the hall with disturbing exactness; its front window curtains also housed a whole colony of doxies, nasty airborne creatures that dealt out very painful bites if not killed or stunned instantly.

They had just decided to give up on that room at least for the day, when the doorbell announced a new arrival. Sirius offered to take care of Mrs Black, remembering the pain the noise caused Lupin's sensitive ears at this time of the month. When he had closed the curtains with some effort, he went to open the door and found Mundungus Fletcher on the doorstep, grinning and apparently alone.

"'Afternoon," Mundungus said. "I've brought you someone you migh' be happy to see." He entered, and the air behind him suddenly sprang to life, and something large, discernible only by its movement and the clatter of hooves on the stone steps, walked into the house behind him.

"Buckbeak!" Sirius exclaimed, and Mundungus grinned even more.

"Tha's right," he said, giving the air behind him a tap with his wand - and the head of a giant eagle appeared out of nowhere, then a neck and a body, which was that of a horse, and finally the taloned legs and swishing tail.

"Dumbledore thought you migh' like to have 'im aroun'," Mundungus explained, "so I brought 'im 'ere. An' to tell you the truth, Mad-Eye Moody wasn' too sad to have the beast outta his backyard, either. Kept complainin' he didn' have the time to look after a beast too proud to even let 'im touch it."

But Sirius was hardly listening, patting the Hippogriff's shiny neck and stroking its steel-coloured beak. "I've missed you, you know, Beaky," he said. "It won't be long now, and the two of us will be up in the air and travelling again, I promise. We'll fly all over Britain, over the mountains and over the sea... visit Harry..." The Hippogriff rubbed its imposing forehead against Sirius's shoulder, almost knocking him over in the process, but Sirius only laughed. "And in the meantime, until we're free again, you'll be getting the biggest bedroom in the whole house, with enough room to stretch and flap your wings so you won't forget how to fly."

Lupin, who had been watching the scene from the stairs, smiled at the pair of them that had seen so much and travelled so far together. He came down to the hall and bowed to the Hippogriff, which immediately inclined its head in return, allowing Lupin to touch it.

"Hello, Buckbeak," he said, stroking the shiny feathers of its head, "Nice to meet you at last. Well, I'll leave you two to your reunion. I might as well nip over to St. Mungo's and Diagon Alley now and do my shopping. Anything you need?"

Sirius shook his head absent-mindedly, and so did Mundungus, although the question hadn't been directed at him.

"I'll see you around then," Lupin said, took his shabby coat from the stand next to the door, and left.

"I hope Mad-Eye Moody treated you properly," Sirius said to Buckbeak.

"He said there'd been no trouble," Mundungus reported, "but he still couldn' be rid of the beast fast enough. An' mind you, this one's a bit difficult, really. Wouldn' let me touch it until I'd explained that I was goin' to take it straigh' to you, Sirius. After tha', it couldn' go fast enough. Had to hang onto its neck for dear life on the way 'ere."

"That's my Buckbeak," Sirius said happily. "Now, come on upstairs, I'll take you to your new home."

"Eh, Sirius," Mundungus, not liking being forgotten, called after him as Sirius began coaxing the Hippogriff into following him up the narrow staircase. "It's been a long way. Have you stocked up on that butterbeer down in the kitchen?"

* * *

When Lupin returned in the evening with his shopping - several bags and a small covered cauldron - there was an almost cheerful atmosphere in the kitchen.

Mundungus Fletcher and Kreacher were taking down the washing from the line, folding up the bed sheets between them in perfect harmony - a harmony that was, on closer inspection, based solely on the fact that Mundungus was turning a completely deaf ear to Kreacher's muttering. Sirius was chopping meat and vegetables into a pot for a stew. Both wizards had a bottle of butterbeer standing somewhere within reach, and Lupin heard them talking together very amicably even before he opened the door.

"There you are," Sirius greeted his friend. He looked a completely different man compared to the morning. He'd shaved and washed his hair and was practically beaming at Lupin across the room. "Mundungus is giving me a run-down on fourteen years worth of news and gossip about British wizarddom," he said as Lupin put his shopping down on the table. "It's amazing how much I've missed. And I can't believe Emmeline Vance and Elphias Doge are still pretending to be no more than friends. How did things go for you?"

"Fine," Lupin said, producing several small black bottles from his bags. "Doxycide," he explained. "I'm afraid the drawing room is a case for some drastic measures. And Mrs Skower's All Purpose Magical Mess Remover - lots of it. Maybe we can make Kreacher remember how to use it."

"Use it to poison our food, I bet," Sirius said, but he didn't bother to give Kreacher one of his dark stares, or even to sound particularly threatening.

"I went to Gringotts first," Lupin continued, "to collect my cheque. I met Bill Weasley in the hall there. I almost didn't recognise him, in his smart Gringotts robes and tie and all. Not that he looked very comfortable in it. He's actually got himself a desk job here in London, 'to be closer to the family', he told me with an enormous wink. 'I'll be seeing them all on Friday,' he said. So he's coming, too."

"He's a great chap, Bill Weasley," said Sirius appreciatively. "I'm glad he's joining us. Wish we had more like him."

"Wan' a butterbeer?" Mundungus asked Lupin across the room.

"Erm, no thanks. Maybe later. I'll have to find a safe place to store this cauldron first. I don't want anyone to knock it over or throw it out and have to deal with the consequences. And it's time I had some of the stuff, too."

Lupin took off the lid and placed the cauldron on the stove, heating the potion within until the surface was bubbling. He then ladled some of it into a mug, took a sip, and gulped it down with a visible effort. "It is and remains disgusting," he said, pulling a face. "Especially this mass produced re-heatable stuff from St. Mungo's. Snape's was so much better."

Sirius, who had gone back to his stew, now pulled a face in his turn at the name Lupin had mentioned. "I still marvel that you'd ever even touch any of that one's brews," he said.

"Excuse me," said Lupin irritably, "Snape happens to make by far the best Wolfsbane Potion to be had in the whole country, so maybe you'll forgive me for finding it comparatively easy to overlook the fact that it's him making it."

Sirius snorted.

"The big difference between his stuff and this," Lupin continued, "is that Snape's leaves me with a perfectly clear mind, while this one makes me all hazy and drowsy. Either they can't do it any better at St. Mungo's, or it's the painkilling ingredients they put in there."

"Which Snape accidentally forgot to put into his?" Sirius said aggressively. "The bastard."

"He did not forget," Lupin defended his one time colleague. "He warned me that it would have to be either or, and asked me what I'd prefer - the painkillers or a completely clear mind - and I said I'd rather be able to think straight, and I told him that I knew thinking and feeling belonged together. He didn't seem particularly amused at that comment, but he's made a Wolfsbane for me, month after month, that most werewolves in Britain can only dream of."

"You dream of this stuff?" Mundungus asked disbelievingly, gesturing at the still steaming cauldron that gave off a rather unpleasant smell.

"Anyway," Lupin concluded, replacing the lid, "I'm going to ask him if he's got the time to make it for me again, when he comes here on Friday."

Sirius looked up sharply. "You think he will be here?"

"All the Order will be here, Sirius," Lupin said impatiently. "And not for the last time, either. You might as well try and get used to the idea."

"You don't like him any more than I do."

"That's right," Lupin agreed. "But I also hate him a lot less than you do."