Heiress of the Blacks

Chapter I

"Everything okay, Tonks?" yelled Lupin, his voice making its way through air streams while Nymphadora Tonks was checking out if they were being followed, circling her broom around Lupin and Harry. It was a hot August day but the air up in movement was refreshing, as the three of them were flying over large crop fields to London, where Harry was to stay till the end of summer holidays.

"Yep, no Muggles on the radar, or the bad guys for that matter."

The feeling of freedom overflew Harry once again and he replayed the recently-seen scene of Lupin and Tonks Apparating in the Dursleys' dining room while they were having another one of their peaceful, normal, non-magical breakfasts watching Dudley eating his third hamburger.

"That's my boy, Didlee, you have to eat properly to be a champ, isn't it so, Petunia?" asked uncle Vernon, but Petunia didn't really get to answer that question, being stunned by two figures appearing from thin air in the middle of her dining room, and one of them kicking too hard a small lace-covered desk with a crystal vase on it -- which soon turned into lots of crystal pieces on the floor. Uncle Vernon was speechless, but he remembered the wizard and the witch from King's Cross, which made Harry's leaving of the house a bit more quiet; so after all the mess Harry was finally able to fly his broom once again.

"You'll be staying in Sirius's house and the Weasleys will join you soon. Dumbledore's in London helping the Ministry and he wants you as near to him and the Headquarters as possible," Remus said to Harry while they were walking down the alley to the park where they could lift up more safely.

"Oh, great! Are you guys staying there too?" Harry asked.

Lupin and Tonks exchanged weird looks and Tonks said: "Maybe, I mean... we might, I suppose."

"We don't spend a lot of time on the Headquarters, we're really busy these days, all of us. We're all still working under cover, of course, although we have Ministry support now," said Lupin.

They landed in front of number 11, Grimmauld Place. A house appeared out of nowhere between number 11 and 13 and the door burst open as Lupin murmured something, pointing his wand to the door. They entered and Tonks took the Invisibility Charm off of them.

"Would you mind, umm... carrying your trunk upstairs, Harry? You know where your room is..." said Lupin and Harry listened, slightly confused though, careful not to wake up Mrs Black's portrait. He left his things in the room where Ron and him stayed last holidays and, not knowing what else to do, went back to the first floor... only to see Lupin and Tonks kissing in the hallway. It seemed they didn't notice him so he went back upstairs quietly, surprised but grinning at the sight. He returned to his room and started unpacking, but before he even had the time to take out his Invisibility Cloak and admire it for a bit, Tonks called him to come down. Lupin and her were waiting in front of the entrance, ready to leave.

"We just got a message from Dumbledore, there's something we have to take care of, but don't worry, the Weasleys will come in a couple of hours, so you won't be alone in here for too long," Lupin said. Harry was happy to be spending the summer here with his friends, but in fact, he hated this house, he hated the atmosphere in it and the thoughts of Sirius spending time in it, alone and unhappy; but all he said to Lupin was: "Okay, don't worry, I'll be fine."

When they left, Harry went back to his room and unpacked the rest of his things. Having nothing to do, he opened a magazine on Quidditch news and was just re-reading the article on Croatian victory over England in the final of European Quidditch Championship when he heard knocking at the door.

Harry hurried downstairs to open it, smiling at the thought of seeing Ron and his family again. But what he saw when he managed to open all the locks on the door was not the smiling faces and brightly red hair of the Weasleys; on the doorstep there was a single girl, a rather pretty girl about a year or two younger than Harry, with black hair and blue eyes, wearing jeans and a black T-shirt. There was an expression of curiosity and anxiety on her face.

She looked at Harry, gave him a vague smile, glanced over Harry's shoulder as though investigating the house and said: "Hello, is this the house of Sirius Black?"

A thousand things passed through Harry's mind in a nick of time; how did anyone find out about the position of Headquarters when Dumbledore itself had cast a Fidelius Charm to it? How could there be a single person in the country that hadn't heard about the death of Sirius after the apology Cornelius Fudge made last month and a front cover article in the Daily Prophet explaining what really happened the day after Potters were murdered? And who was this girl? There was a voice in Harry's head saying that she was a disguised Death Eater, but Harry couldn't come up with a better idea than letting her in the house, and then thinking about what to do.

"Yes," he said awkwardly, "come in."

She stepped inside, still throwing glances at the walls and the doors that still bore marks of the Black family living in the house for centuries, while Harry hurried to lock up all the padlocks again.

The moment he turned, there was another surprise waiting and Harry's stomach made a jolt of anger. Kreacher had lurked out of a door, humming under his voice as usual, but somehow more quietly this time. It was the first time Harry saw him after Dumbledore told Harry about his betrayal of Sirius, the night when Sirius died...

"Oh, it's one of those house-elves, isn't it?" asked the girl in a curious tone, watching the elf carefully.

"Freaks and scum, filthy brats have returned to the house of my dear mistress! Mudbloods, dirty mutants, half-breeds, blood traitors... Oh, if my poor mistress was here to see this..."

The girl seemed to become even more interested in him, and with an eager look on her face she descended to her knees and said: "Well, aren't you a bitchy little racist! These things listen when you tell them to do something, don't they?"

And without waiting for a response from Harry, she turned back to the elf and said in a babyish voice: "Say 'Heil Hitler'!"

Kreacher's murmurings were stopped for a moment as he repeated what the black-haired girl said; then he left quietly through one of the doors. Harry was still stunned at seeing Kreacher obeying an order from a total stranger as the girl raised from the floor and finally spoke to Harry.