Bittersweet

Chapter One:
A New Home, Hardly

It was a swelteringly hot summer's afternoon, just before dark and all Felicity wanted to do was throw off the thick black cloak she was wearing or even taking the hood down would feel nice. It was a particularly low hood that dipped down in front of her, obscuring her face from the bridge of her nose up. She was still full from the rather late lunch she'd had earlier and if she took off this coat she would feel ready for a nice lie down. She hadn't expected it to be quite this warm in Britain, no, she had heard that Europe was always cold, wet, and rainy, but this hot July afternoon was far from it.

She wouldn't have minded the cloak at all if it weren't so humid. On the contrary, she would have thrilled in this capuche that hid most of her facial features and her long sheets of shining hair, behind it's thick black folds. She didn't exactly have a choice on the cloak though. It was supposedly for her protection and the protection of the whereabouts of the headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix, an anti-Voldemort group established more than fifteen years ago when the Dark Lord was at the height of his power. Now, that he was supposedly back in action the organization had reformed and her rancorous uncle was a member of it.

Yeah, she thought with a derisive laugh to herself as she pulled the directions from a secret fold in her cloak, old Voldie's just going to jump out from behind that trash receptacle and demand that I lead him to the headquarters.

Not that she'd be much help to him, she wasn't even really sure if she was reading the directions to this place right. She came to the last part of it which read in different handwriting from her guardian's:

The headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix may be found at number twelve, Grimmauld Place, London.

What kind of a street was called "Grimmauld Place," anyway? What had happened to "Oak," and "Main," and "Thirty-first?"

Felicity rounded a corner and stopped.

"Oh, this kind of street," she answered herself aloud. "Urgh."

It was not a welcoming sight and if she hadn't spotted a crooked sign that said "Grimmauld Place," she probably would have turned around and left right then and found a nice pleasant hotel to room in for the summer until she left for school. The houses of this neighborhood were covered in lime stains and some of them had broken windows from which shutters hung lopsided and needed repainting. The doors of these houses (although if Felicity hadn't been very polite person she probably would have called them shacks) wanted painting as well and heaps of garbage lay outside several sets of front steps, complete with swarming flies and mangy looking cats.

Felicity glanced back down at the slip of paper her godfather, Snape, had given her and saw the house address was number twelve but when she glanced back up at the row of houses she saw that it was numbered wrong: nine, ten, eleven, thirteen, fourteen... and so on. There was no number twelve.

Great, she thought with annoyance, just great...

Rolling her eyes, she glanced back down at the scrap of paper, just to make sure she hadn't read it wrong, hoping sincerely she hadn't.

The headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix may be found at number twelve, Grimmauld Place, London.

No, this was right. She looked back up and to her great surprise and somewhat disturbance, number twelve had appeared, right where it should be between numbers eleven and thirteen, cramming itself in and smushing its neighbors.

"Listen to me," Snape had warned, "you must destroy that slip of paper immediately after you find the place. It is essential that this bit of information not fall into the wrong hands. It could completely eradicate the Order of the Phoenix."

"How shall I destroy it?" she asked cheekily. "The paper, I mean. Not the Order of the Phoenix."

Snape looked as though he would sincerely love to roll his eyes at her, something that would have been highly enjoyable to watch, but restrained himself.

"Anyway you'd like," he said in bored tones. "Eat it if you must."

She certainly did not intend to do that. Felicity held the slip of paper in her hand and closed her eyes, concentrating. She opened her eyes and watched the slip of parchment curl and wither in her open palm as small sparks of orange raced across it. Piece of cake, she thought as she blew the cinders from her hand.

Taking a deep breath and holding it so the putrid smell of rotting trash didn't reach her nose she walked up the crumbling steps and to the peeling black front door.

"Knock once, only once," Snape had said in his sever British tone. "Don't touch the knocker just use your fist, someone should be waiting to open the door for you."

"Now, when you say 'knock only once," Felicity inquired, specifically trying to be a smart-ass, "do you mean to knock several times, but only knock several times once? Or do you mean, just one short little rap on the door?"

"You know bloody well, I mean only one short knock," Snape spat, glowering at her.

"Right, Uncle Snape," she said cheerfully. "And then can I take my cloak off?"

"No, you cannot," said Snape, "and don't speak to anyone besides the person who let you in. They will show you to your room and you will have everything you need up there to stay there until the beginning of Hogwarts term."

Felicity grinned. "Most humans feel this little thing called hunger, which in turn gives them the desire to eat and satisfy that hun-"

"I was under the impression that you had bought nonperishable foodstuffs to last you the remainder of the month of July and August," he said stiffly.

"But what if I want to make friends?" Felicity asked curiously, changing tact at the speed of light. "I'll want to make friends before I go to school, won't I?"

"No, you'll be better off if you don't make friends with any of them," her guardian said in a matter-of-fact tone. "They are all Gryffindors and when you are put in Slytherin you'll be looked down upon for having friends in that House."

She gave him an cryptic look and raised an eyebrow. "But-and this is a very serious, very important, 'but' I'm talking about-what if-try to contain yourself here, sir-what if-I'm put in Gryffindor?"

"God forbid that ever happen," he'd said in an undertone with disgust so utmost it slightly disturbed Felicity. He glanced at the plain black watch on his wrist. "Just remember knock only once with your fist. Do not under any circumstances use the knocker."

"Yes, Uncle Snape," she had agreed, rather too meekly for her taste.

Felicity stared at the knocker that was twisted in the form of a silver serpent. Well, no problem there, she wasn't exactly itching to touch the horrid thing, she thought as she glanced at it. She had never been partial to snakes; she wasn't afraid of them and she didn't hate them, no, she had just never liked them. It had something to do with the quiet, sneaking way they slithered. Rats, that's what she hated, in every aspect of the word... and for what she was afraid of... ah, well... that was an easy one. Death. The thought of death terrified her and she hated it. Felicity hated being afraid of anything. Fear was a bad thing in her books; something that was almost as bad as death.

Felicity took a deep breath, raised her fist to the front of the door, and knocked one hard rap upon its black surface. Immediately, she heard locks begin to click and the sound of a chain being unlatched and the door opened. She walked in hurriedly with much trepidation and the door closed softly behind her.

The smell that greeted her when she stepped into the house was little better than the reeking garbage outside. A sickly sweet smell of decaying wood reached her faintly freckled nose and it had the slightly dismal air of an abandoned home. She could sense that the family that had lived in this house last had not been a happy one, and something told her it was full of dark memories.
It took a moment for her eyes to adjust to the dim light inside the house after the bright sunlight outside and when they did Felicity found herself standing in a foyer with two small, heavily curtained windows. Old-fashioned gas lamps along the walls cast flickering insubstantial light over the peeling wallpaper and the worn carpet of a long, shadowy corridor. A chandelier draped in cobwebs glimmered overhead and age-blackened portraits hung crooked on the walls. Both the chandelier and the candelabra on a rickety table nearby were shaped like serpents.

"You must be Miss Felicity Parish," said a soft male voice.

The cordial voice startled her and she whipped around to find a tall, broad-shouldered man with long black hair and clear dark blue eyes standing behind her. His voice was British too, but not nearly as sneering and unpleasant as her guardian's. This was the kind of polite, proper British accent that made her and her best friend Anne swoon with pleasure when they heard it on a movie (an audible moving picture thing Anne had introduced her to) or from a foreign exchange student. And when this European pronounced her name, "Felicity Parish," she couldn't help but sigh longingly for such an agreeable articulation. The man held vestiges of great attractiveness, but his dark blue eyes had a sort of haunted, hollow look to them and she immediately realized that he must be Sirius Black, the escaped convict, unfairly imprisoned in Azkaban without a trial and her surrogate uncle's least favorite living person.

"And you must be Mr. Sirius Black," she said from under her hood, wishing she could take it down. But it was probably a good thing her hood was up, that meant that he couldn't see her face and couldn't immediately judge her on how she looked like so many other people did.
Felicity was part Veela and extremely beautiful, she knew she was and sometimes, she really, really hated it. Like, when she met new people who judged her for her looks before they actually got to know her, or when the year before last it had caused her best friend, Tyler, to fall in love with her, when Felicity knew that Anne, her other best friend, was really who Tyler loved, not her. Yes, it really was a good thing Sirius Black couldn't see her stormy gray eyes and porcelain skin with its barely there freckles across her nose.

"That I am, but you can just call me Sirius," he said in a cheerful voice. "Would you like to go and meet everybody?"

Yes. Yes, I would like that very much. I would also like to toss this cloak in the nearest fireplace, Felicity wished she could say. But her godfather had said that she wasn't allowed and despite her nature to be rebellious and impertinent when people told her what to do, she decided she had best obey him for the time being. The "everybody" Sirius had mentioned, might not be friendly or welcoming at all and she didn't care to risk Snape's wrath. "Uh... no," she lied reluctantly, "no, I'm rather tired. The time change, you know. I'd just like to go to my room now, please."

For a moment, Sirius Black looked taken aback, but then he smiled gently and said, "Follow me."

Up several flights of stairs and past many closed doors, Felicity followed Sirius. Occasionally, she thought she heard a door creak open behind her, but when she turned around to see who had opened it found the doors closed tight and after a while began to ignore the sounds completely.

She was having a hard time believing she was actually in Britain. She had always wanted to go to Europe, on vacation of course not to stay for good. Her grandmother lived in France with the Veela clan and Felicity had planned on staying with her, if the clan would allow it. Felicity had wanted to visit London and Paris and Venice, all the popular tourist places, and she had planned on visiting with her two best friends sometime after they all turned seventeen.

She hadn't expected Snape to move her here after she'd graduated. She had expected him to check in every so often and allow her to remain living back home at her daddy's plantation. Of course, it wasn't a plantation anymore. Most of the fields had been sold off when her father had inherited the estate. Only the closest to the house remained for the horses to graze on.

Her best friend Anne lived with her, because her parents were Muggles and didn't understand or want anything to do with her (something they didn't talk about a lot) and Tyler's home was built on one of the transacted crop fields. So they had always lived around each other and together and Felicity had expected it to stay that way. Now, Anne was living in her huge house by herself with only the housekeeper and maids for company and had made Felicity swear to her that she would be back.

"You promise," Anne had asked, on the day before Felicity's departure as she clasped her hands around Felicity's. "You promise me, Felicity Faye Parish?"

"I promise, Anne Marie Hamilton," Felicity said and they had hugged and cried and stayed up all night talking about things that had happened over the eight years they had known each other.
Tyler, normally just as talkative as the girls, had been broody and silent the whole night, laying across the foot of Felicity's bed as she and Anne sat up at the head of it. He barely spoke and even when Felicity flung herself down beside him to demand that he explain his silence to them all he had said was, "I'm going to miss you, Parish."

That had been the day before yesterday and Felicity realized with a pang of sorrow, that shot a sharp pain through her heart, how much she was going to miss them both too.

"Oh and I'm sorry about the cloak and dagger routine, I've got going," Felicity said apologetically, trying not to remember Tyler's forlorn coffee-colored eyes. "I'm under orders not to draw attention to myself."

"And the hood isn't?" Sirius asked raising his eyebrows.

"Trust me, I'm drawing far less attention with my hood up than down," she said quietly.

"Oh, well, here we are," Sirius said stopping abruptly at a peeling black door with a serpent's head for a doorknob. He opened it and stood back for her to step inside.

It was a dark drab square room with hard wood floors, one window on the far wall, and a small, unmade bed in the corner. The room was already rather large and the absence of furniture and her large assortment of trunks and a large empty cage for her owl resting in the middle of the floor only made the room seem even larger and desperately bleak. There was another door in the wall opposite the bed. She hurried across the bedroom and through the door to find another room smaller than the one she had just vacated complete with a sink, mirror, tub, and toilet.

"You're things arrived yesterday and I'm sorry it's so bare and desolate," Sirius's voice came from the other room echoing as her footsteps had. "But you have to understand all the rooms are like this. This house hasn't been lived in... in ten years."

"This is fine," Felicity said as she came back into the bedroom, she walked to the window and with a great tug pulled it open. "Thank you. I think I'm just gonna hit the sack now." She took her cloak off as she turned toward the bed.

"Let me know if you need anything, we'll all be happy to help you in any way we can. The people here are good honest people who I'm sure would be more than obliged to assist you in any way," said Sirius quietly after a long pause, during which Felicity could tell he had been staring at the back of her long dark reddish-brown hair, quite an oddity when it came to people of Veela relation. True, her mother had had beautiful reddish-white hair but you could still tell she was of Veela inheritance. Another thing girls with Veela blood inherited were soft blue eyes and Felicity's dark stormy gray ones with silver sunbursts around the pupils were far from that color. About the only things she had inherited from her Veela ancestors were her pale skin that (due to human relation) just barely tanned and freckled and the aura that made some men with less mettle or weren't already in love with someone fall over themselves. She could also dance beautifully and heal but she only did that when the need was great, as it drained her of strength like nothing else could, the healing not the dancing. Felicity didn't dance very often either, for the annoyingly gaga effect it had on some men. "I know it must be hard for you to have come all this way to Britain after living in America all your life," Sirius finished.

"Yes," she said, and she turned back to face him. He was right she didn't especially want to be here, she hadn't especially wanted to go through her and her dead parent's things and she hadn't wanted to pack up and leave her home in America, certainly not for this. "It has been hard, but you've been very kind."

Sirius Black studied her face kindly for a moment before she had the chance to wipe the melancholy expression from it. "You'll be okay, though," he said reassuringly, and he clapped his hand around hers once before exiting the room.

Sure I will, Felicity thought skeptically as she flung herself back on the bare unmade bed and pulled her cloak up around her. Yeah, I'll be fine. Right...

* * *

Dear Diary,
I'm finally at number twelve Grimmauld Place and for the headquarters of a secret society fighting evil, it looks pretty evil itself. There are serpents everywhere: serpent candelabra, serpent chandelier, and serpent doorknobs. And I can't shake the feeling that the only thing holding this heap up is magic. Muggles would call this place condemned for sure.
It is so hot here. So much hotter than Anne and I thought it would be.

I met Sirius Black and for an escaped convict he seemed quite pleasant and not at all that bad looking, though I suppose he looked better when he was younger. I was expecting a gruff, scar-faced, tattooed oldster. You can imagine how disappointed I was...

He offered to take me to meet the others that I will be sharing this "house" with for the remainder of the summer, but despite my instincts to disobey Snape I followed his orders and went straight to my room. I'm not sure if I want to meet my fellow inhabitants. What if they don't like me because I'm American, or my guardian is Severus Snape? What if I make a big fool of myself? Naturally you can see why I'm going to remain in my dark drab room for some time. I have no urge to put myself out there and risk being rejected. I miss my dear Merlin. He hasn't arrived from America yet and I have a feeling he could be my only companion for quite a while.

Diary, I'm tired. I feel like I haven't had a decent night's sleep in three days, so goodnight.

-Fee

* * *

The next day Felicity woke up to a loud hooting noise. She blinked blearily and rolled over on her back. A large snowy owl was flitting back and forth in the air above her head, hooting enthusiastically.

"Hello, Merlin dear," she said softly, extending a hand for him to land on. He hooted softly and perched himself upon the back of her hand.

"When did you get here, handsome?" she asked quietly, stroking her beautiful owl. He hooted affably and she sat up in bed, transferring him to her knees. She looked around the room, surprised at it barrenness, then remembered where she was.

"I guess I'd better unpack then, Merlin," she said with a gentle sigh and Merlin hopped to her shoulder as she stood up and walked to her trunks. "You look sleepy, my pet."

Merlin hooted again.

Felicity picked up the large birdcage and set it upon the bed. "Here, love," she said, gently placing Merlin in the cage and shutting the door behind him. "Sleep tight."

She watched fondly as Merlin, who she'd owned since he was an owlet and she was three, ruffled his feathers up and tucked his head under his wing.

"What room should I start on first?" she said to herself, turning around and clasping her hands together. She had always enjoyed interior decorating and her new living quarters were definitely in need of such.

Deciding on the bathroom as a good to place as any to start, she began rummaging through her trunks to find the one that was full of her towels and soaps and other toiletries. After finding that trunk she took out her wand and, having graduated from school a month ago and fully able to use magic whenever she liked, levitated it into the bathroom and into a corner, where it wouldn't be in the way with her work.

Sitting down on the toilet lid, she decided that this room really was too big for just a bathroom and decided that she should use it as a closet as well.

Upon hearing that she was going to be sent to live in Europe she had seized it as a shopping opportunity. Inviting Anne and dragging along Tyler, Felicity proceeded to buy a large wardrobe (as she had heard that the British didn't have built-in closets like Americans) and a big deep bathtub, besides a new assortment of clothing to make her feel better. She had spoiled herself, she knew, but it had been a fun last outing with her best friends and she was not sorry for it.

Well, she believed she had just found wear her new bathtub and wardrobe were going. But she most certainly needed to paint the starch white walls.

A couple hours later, Felicity stood back to admire her work. Using her wand she had painted the bathroom a soft red color, positioned the bathtub, added a shower, moved the toilet and sink to her liking, tiled the floor, positioned her wardrobe against one of the walls and filled it with her clothes. The moving and painting hadn't taken so long, the deciding the color and position of everything and putting all her junk away had been the most time consuming.

With a small sigh of satisfaction Felicity walked back into the bedroom and laughed out loud and the bareness of it compared to her neat little bathroom. Then with a determined air began work on the bedroom.

The first step had been to decide upon the color of the room (easy, a deep green shimmering color) then to fix a set of shelves covering the whole wall with the exception of the bathroom door for her extremely large collection of books. Wanting her new living quarters to be as homey as possible Felicity was going to make her room here look as much like her room at home as possible. She had to admit after the velvety green walls replaced the mental-hospital-white and her bookcase covered the wall, the room was really starting to take shape, but it wasn't having the desired affect at all.

Of course the room reminded her of home and it made her happy to picture herself back there, but it also, made her feel quite depressed about the whole affair. It brought back waves of memories from when she had watched her parents paint her old walls a golden yellow color when she was about four and then when she had turned twelve, decided that yellow was far too childish for her and decided to paint them this shimmering green. She could still remember both days exactly.

Her mother and father had loved her very much and had, after Felicity's insistence that she meant to help and couldn't if they choose to paint the magic way, broke out the Muggle paintbrushes and proceeded to paint it the slower, but more fun and accessible way so that their young daughter could dabble in the paint as well. Felicity, being only a little over three feet tall, had been resigned to gild the lower half of the room and after a couple hours had had to simply relax upon the rug and contently watch her mother and father speak softly to each other as they painted the top half. Soon she had fallen asleep to the sound of their adoring whispers.

Then less than three years ago with Anne and Tyler at her side, Felicity had attacked the beautiful saffron colored walls and transformed the once daisy and fairy filled room into a room resembling something from Arabian Nights with glimmering green walls, tapestries, a vast bookcase and a large ebony four-poster to match. They had collapsed after the rampage of redecoration and all three had fallen asleep right there on her soft luxurious bed.

So it came as no surprise that Felicity felt tears welling in her eyes and had to plant herself most firmly upon her trunk to regain control over her emotions. Due to more than half of her being of the Veela lineage and therefore Veela-nature, bad things happened when Felicity lost control of herself.

But it was just so terrible! Why should she of all people have to loose her parents then come and move to crummy Britain, just when things were starting to go so great, starting to pick themselves up again? She had graduated from her school with top honors and was going to be attending a secondary college after the end of the summer break, but now she was stuck going to a stinking British school and where she had already attended half of the classes they offered.
But soon she realized that sitting on her trunk and sobbing her eyes out, however better it made her feel, was not going to get her room finished. So with a heavy sigh she got to her feet, opened the trunk upon which she had been perched and began extracting books and returning them to their normal size and levitating them to their proper places on the shelves. She had such an immense collection that she'd had to shrink them to make them fit in her trunks. Then she began unpacking the charmed nonperishable rations she'd brought to keep her fed throughout the remainder of July and the month of August and placed them in some of the side cabinets of the bookcase.

After that was done, Felicity glanced at her watch, and was astounded to see that it was already thirty minutes past three o'clock. Her stomach growled in protest to the hollowness of it's interior and Felicity realized she was famished, not having eaten since her late dinner of yesterday evening.

"What to eat, what to eat?" Felicity mused aloud as she rummaged through her newly stocked cabinets. None of the delicacies she had stored away looked very tempting to her though.

Then with a sudden idea, Felicity turned around abruptly and grinned mischievously at her trunk, before she began rummaging through it, looking for...

"Found it!" she cried happily as she pulled out the Invisibility Cloak she had inherited from her grandmother. "Now to scrounge up something to eat!"

After wrapping the cloak around her and making sure that no part of her body was visible, Felicity crept quietly from her room and made her way downstairs. On the first floor landing a delicious smell reached her nose and she began to hurry toward it, careful not to make a sound.
She paused outside a door she was quite sure was the kitchen and waited. There were people conversing inside.

"Mum, did Dumbledore say when Harry would be allowed to come and stay?" said a male voice in an anxious tone.

"Yes, Mrs. Weasley," said a female voice, presumably not related to the male. "You should have seen Harry's last letter! He's really-er-frustrated at being left out of everything!"

"Speaking of being left out of everything, Mum," said another male voice different from the first.

"When are we going to be allowed to join the Order?" yet another masculine voice said. Something about their tone made Felicity suspect the three males were related and the fact that they were all calling the same woman "Mum."

"Molly, I'm going to have to get going now," said a male voice distractedly and Felicity heard sounds of papers being shuffled together. "I've already stayed past my lunch break."

"Very well, Arthur, dear," said Molly affectionately, "don't overwork yourself and don't forget your cloak out in the hall like you did this morning."

"Molly dear, it's July," said Arthur in a beseeching tone.

"It gets drafty in that office of yours," said Molly in a matter-of-a-fact tone.

"Right, Molly, I'll be sure to get it."

"Thank you, Arthur," said Molly kindly.

"Ron, Fred, George, Ginny, behave your mother," said the man called Arthur.

"We will, Dad," said a girl's voice different from the first.

Just then the door Felicity was standing outside of opened and the man Felicity supposed was Mr. Weasley exited. He was a thin, redheaded man with a steadily receding hairline, glasses, and a benign, yet absent-minded air about him.

Hurriedly, before the door swung shut Felicity ducked into the kitchen to find five redheads, a curly-haired brunette, and Sirius Black. Mrs. Weasley, (also Mum and Molly) a plump, redheaded kindly looking woman, was standing at the kitchen counter and the other six were seated at the wooden large wooden table with an large quantity of chairs pushed up to it and the remains of a late lunch on top of it.

The source of the smell had been found; a large plate of roast beef (or what was left of roast beef) and roasted carrots and potatoes. Resisting the urge to take some of the meat right then, Felicity looked around the chamber. It was quite as gloomy as her own had been and had a medieval air about it, with large iron pots hanging from the ceiling, scabrous stone walls, and the large fire in the hearth from which most of the light and a thin wisp of smoke was coming. The smell of the roast beef mingled with the wisps of smoke and wafted leisurely toward her nose, making Felicity's mouth water.

Pushing her hunger out of her mind, Felicity turned her attention to the people seated at the table. Of the four other redheads (besides Mrs. Weasley) three were boys and one was a girl. She was a pretty girl with shoulder-length flaming red hair, delicate features, and quite a bit of freckles. Felicity assumed she must be Ginny. Of the three Weasley boys two of them were twins and appeared identical down to the last freckle and tendril of orange hair. The final and, by the look of him, youngest boy was a tall gangly fellow with (surprise, surprise) a lot of freckles and a long nose. The look suited him though and the brunette girl seated next to him appeared to have no problem with it. She was too was a pretty girl with a bright smile and a headful of bushy brown hair. Her dark brown eyes gleamed with great intelligence and Felicity got the oddest feeling that there was something between herself and the Weasley boy she was seated next to that everyone else recognized, but neither of them did. And last but not least, was the tall attractive figure of Sirius Black, leisurely leaning back in his chair.

"Mum," said one of the twins as though he had after mature consideration come to an astounding conclusion. "I think that since we're of age, we should be in the Order."

"I think I don't want to discuss this with you right now, Fred," said Mrs. Weasley sternly.

"Now see here, Mum-" began the other twin in the same deliberate tone.

"George, Fred, no!" Mrs. Weasley said firmly turning around from the sink glaring at the twins fiercely. "While you are living under the same roof as your father and I, you will not join the Order until you are out of school and we've deemed you mature enough! And I've said all I'm saying on the subject!"

Fred and George shared a defeated look and the brunette opened her mouth to speak again but the boy called Ron spoke up before her.

"Mum, about Harry," Ron said. "He really-"

"Soon, Ronald, soon," said Mrs. Weasley, and Ron scowled at her. "Dumbledore didn't seem too worried by the fact that Harry's getting frustrated."

"Dumbledore obviously doesn't know how Harry gets when he frustrated," said Ginny.

"And you do?" asked Ron keenly.

"Well, yeah, doesn't everyone?" the girl asked, giving Ron a sour look.

"Enlighten me, please," Ron said, with a genuinely interested look.

"He does something drastic," said Ginny in a tone that clearly said she wasn't impressed, rolling her eyes to the ceiling. "He doesn't think about what he's doing, and does something extreme."

"Which is what will happen if he's left out for too much longer," the brunette said worriedly.

"Dumbledore said Harry would be able to come to Grimmauld Place soon, Hermione, dear," said Mrs. Weasley kindly. "I know you're all worried about him, but Dumbledore seems to think he's safer and better off at the Dursley's, however unhappy he may be."

Hermione, that's an odd name, thought Felicity, looking at the brunette. Maybe it's just because I'm foreign; maybe it's common around here. Oh well, I don't have any room to talk with a name like Felicity. How often do you hear that name?

Felicity wondered who this Harry was, he sounded a lot like her. She had been known to do rash things if her friends or parents had been leaving her out of things. But that was during the Golden Era, when her parents had been alive. Or the slightly less superior Silvered Era when she had at least been home in America. No... it was better not think of such things now.

Then something it her like a freight train and she almost slapped her head at the idiocy of herself. Harry was the Harry Potter, the Boy-Who-Lived. The boy who had lost his parents at the age of one and had defeated Voldemort when the curse that had been intended to kill him backfired and drained Voldemort of his powers. How could she forget about something like that? He was something of a hero, wasn't he? Except he probably wasn't the Boy-Who-Lived anymore, by the sound of it, he was the Angry-Misunderstood-Teenager-Suffering-From-Acute-Angst-Who-Lived. Before she could help herself she had begun to wonder what he looked like, in the hopes that he was as attractive as he was famous. Then stopped herself with a stern mental voice, "Felicity Faye Parish, you don't meddle with the male half of the population, remember what happened last time?"

How could she forget what happened last time? It was heartbreaking...

At that moment Felicity's stomach chose to growl loudly and had it not been for Ginny's equally loud sneeze at that precise moment, Felicity was sure the room would have been discovered. She needed to grab something to eat (preferably that left-over roast beef) and get out of there, back up to her room before she was discovered.

Ron, the redhead, stood up from the table and stretched. Hermione, Ginny, Fred and George followed suit. "Lunch was good, Mum," said Ron.

"Yes, Mrs. Weasley, very good," seconded Hermione.

"Absolutely, Mum," agreed Ginny.

The twins Fred and George nodded silently, apparently still put out about being told off.

"I'm glad you liked it," said Mrs. Weasley, walking to the table to gather the remains of the dinner, "and I hope you're full because it's time for the five of you to go and start to clean out the rooms on the second floor."

"Mum, we can't use magic," said Ron in a pained voice. "Do you know how disgusting that's going to be?"

"Well, cleaning's never fun," said Hermione calmly, "but I've had plenty of practice cleaning without magic at home."

The others didn't appear the slightest bit cheered by this.

"Oh, Mum, no," wailed Ginny. "There's stuff breeding in those rooms, no offense Sirius."

"None taken," he replied benignly. "I intend to help you since it's partially my fault they've gotten so bad."

"Thanks, Sirius mate," said Fred brightly.

"Right," said Mrs. Weasley decidedly. "Fred, George, Sirius, you can be a group and Ron, Ginny, and Hermione, you can work together. But I want a word with you first, Sirius. Trot along, you there," she added to the youths.

With a backward curious glance at Sirius the teenagers departed silently through the kitchen door, but Felicity had a sneaking feeling that they were outside the door listening as she had been earlier.

Sirius turned to Mrs. Weasley. "This is about the girl, I presume?" he asked.

"Yes," answered Mrs. Weasley. Felicity stiffened. Her, they were talking about her. Felicity. She involuntarily took a step closer. "The girl, I'm worried about her, she hasn't come down from her room all day and I know it must be hard for her to have moved from her home in America all the way to Britain."

Mrs. Weasley was concerned. Felicity felt the wall she had been building around herself against this woman melt away. She actually cared about Felicity's welfare and how she was doing, just as Sirius had.

"I'm concerned as well, I think that Snape must have said something to her, to make her stay up there," he said quietly and Felicity thought she detected a slightly bitter tone.

It wasn't surprising. When Snape had spoken about Sirius Black to her his voice had been more than slightly bitter. It had been dripping with hostility and resentment.

"Whose house is it exactly?" Felicity had asked.

"Sirius Black's," her surrogate uncle had said tartly.

"What's he like?" Felicity asked. "I know all about him being an escaped convict and all, but really what's he like?"

"Sirius Black and I don't... get along," he had said after a long tense pause. "I couldn't tell you what he's like if I tried."

"What could he have said," asked Mrs. Weasley.

"That the others will resent her for being American and for being related to him," answered Sirius. "They're all Gryffindors, he's a Slytherin, she'll most likely be a Slytherin. They'll think she's just like him."

Good point, Sirius, I'll remember that, Felicity thought to herself.

"But they wouldn't, I'm sure of it," said Mrs. Weasley indignantly.

Then why'd he suggest it? Felicity wondered.

"I know they wouldn't, Molly," Sirius said quietly. "But I don't know if she'll believe that. I had planned on going to speak to her later. I'll talk to her then. Right now I had better go and join my group before they come looking for me."

Felicity sensed a slight retreating movement from behind the door and smiled.

"All right, Sirius," said Mrs. Weasley. She turned back to the table and made to clean up the remaining roast beef.

"Er... Molly, Mundungus, he-er asked me if he could drop by and er, have what was left of the lunch," said Sirius, looking a little fidgety as he shuffled from foot to foot, "you know after he'd finished his watch over Harry."

Mrs. Weasley rolled her eyes and looked very much like she would like to scowl, but she said tersely, "Of course he can, Sirius."

Sirius looked sincerely relieved that she hadn't objected.

"Thanks Molly, you know I just couldn't say no to him," he said.

"I know, Sirius," said the Weasley matriarch, as she exited the kitchen. Sirius, after running a hand through his hair and breathing a sigh of relief, followed.

Felicity immediately crossed the room to the kitchen table and began cramming bits of roast beef, carrots, and potatoes into the plastic container she had brought along. Having sufficiently filled her Tupperware with enough food to hold her till tomorrow morning, leaving enough on the plate for Mundungus, whoever he was, Felicity withdrew from the kitchen and made her way back up the stairs to her room.

Sitting down upon her trunk once more she began tearing through the food in front of her, but soon forced herself to eat at a much more moderate pace, as she knew hunger was eased faster if you ate slower. After eating her fill and setting the container with the remainder of the food in one of her cabinets. Felicity turned to her rather meager bed upon which Merlin still slept with his head tucked under a wing.

Gingerly, so she didn't wake the snowy owl, Felicity lifted the cage from it's resting spot upon the bed and carried it over to a blank spot in her book case she'd left deliberately for him. It fit snugly into the cubby just as she knew it would, just as it had at home.

Back to the bed, Felicity raised her wand and summoned the picture of her bed at home into her mind. The large four poster with dark ebony wood and lavish violet, verdant, sapphire, and scarlet embroidered comforter and pillows. The hangings were gauzy violet color that had matched her window's draperies and could be seen out of but not into. Felicity raised her wand in her left hand and concentrating so hard on the memory of that beloved room, that a tear leaked from her eye she cried, "Memento Four Poster!"

Instantly her bed was transformed and Felicity let out a small sigh and ran to the bed, throwing herself upon it, stuffing her face into a pillow, and breathing deeply. It smelled of light lovely lavender and before Felicity knew it she had lapsed into memories...

"Oh, Mamma!" cried a six-year-old Felicity, padding barefoot down the dark wood floor toward her mother's study.

"What is it, darling?" Elizabeth asked, looking up from her painting with concern at the little girl in a silky blue nightdress. "You're supposed to be a sleep, my little Faye. You better not let your daddy catch you up running around here."

"Mamma," whispered Felicity, looking at her mother with adoration as she always did. Mamma was so beautiful it was breathtaking. Her soft blue eyes lit up with pleasure when she spoke to Felicity or Daddy and the strawberry blonde hair caught every glint of light from the lamp she was using to paint by. "I can't sleep," whispered the little girl. "I just can't, I tried everything, Mamma. Laying real still with my eyes closed, humming a little bit, counting sheep. Mamma, I even tried counting snitches."

"It might have worked a bit better if you'd counted something less energetic that snitches, love," Elizabeth said kindly, with a big beautiful smile, opening her arms to Felicity. "Come here."
Without hesitation, the little girl clambered into the outstretched arms and felt comforted in an instant. Mamma picked her up and carried her back to her room, tiptoeing softly past Daddy's office. After she'd tucked Felicity in again, Elizabeth Anne Parish had brushed Felicity's hair back away from her face and kissed her on the forehead. "You sit tight, sugar," she said, "I'll be right back."

Felicity watched her mother practically fly from the room and wondered where she had gone. Probably to finish her blasted painting, she thought without interest. But when Mamma returned several moments later with two small bottles of some liquid Felicity's inquisitiveness could not be quelled.

"Whatcha got, Mamma," piped the little girl.

"This, love," answered Elizabeth patiently, "is chamomile"-she shook one bottle-"and this is lavender." She shook the other.

"Lavender is a color, silly," said Felicity, laughing at her own mother's mistake.

"Ah, right you are," Mamma said in her sweet southern voice, "but it's also a plant, used for potions and to make this scent."

"Oh, let me smell," said Felicity, sitting up in bed excitedly. This was the first time Mama had let her go near any of her potions ingredients, but on one adventure with Tyler they had sneaked into Mama's store cupboard and opened one of the bottles that looked a lot like the two Mama were holding. It had smelled atrocious, but maybe these were different.

Elizabeth carefully opened the bottles and held the chamomile under Felicity's genteel nose. It smelled quite nice, Felicity decided after pondering it thoroughly. "I like it," she said.
"Alright then, Sis, smell this one, here," said Elizabeth holding the bottle of lavender under her nose. The chamomile had smelled really quite nice, but this lavender smell was just wonderfully pleasurable and comforting. It must have shown on her face how much she enjoyed it.

"So the lavender then?" Mamma inquired.

"Oh yes, but what are they for?" asked Felicity politely.

"You'll see," said Elizabeth reaching into the pocket of her apron. "Now close your eyes for a moment and don't open them till I say so."

Obediently, Felicity snapped her eyelids closed and felt Mamma doing something concerning her pillows. "What're you doing, Mamma?" she asked, opening one eye just a crack.

"You'll see, and don't you be a-peaking!" said Mamma.

Ashamed at her boldness to dare defy Mamma the insubordinate eye was sealed shut again and Felicity endured several minutes of agony before Mamma said she could open her eyes and lie back down.

Gently and slowly, Felicity reclined back into her big four poster and looked up at Mamma questioningly. "What did you do?"

"Give your pillow a good sniff," said Elizabeth and Felicity didn't hesitate to obey.

"Mm, lavender, Mamma, you put some on my pillow," said Felicity, laughing as she threw her arms about her mother's neck, smothering her with kisses.

"Now, you go to sleep, sweet pea," said Mamma leaning over Felicity and kissing her forehead.

"Sweet dreams. I love you."

"How much?" Felicity asked, knowing the answer she would receive. She heard it every night.

"From the sunrise to the sunset and all the stars after," her mother answered.

"Promise?"

"With all my heart," Mamma said, brushing Felicity's hair away from her brow.

"Then I love you too. From the sunset to the sunrise and all the stars in between..." said Felicity softly, before she fell asleep from the soft scent of lavender wafting up from her cushion.

The same scent that due to a special charm never faded brought relentless tears to her eyes and Felicity sobbed. "Mamma, I need you," she wailed, into the redolent pillowcase. "Oh, Mamma, I miss you so."

Nearly six years had passed since the death of Felicity's parents and two cries in one day was the most she had cried in a very long time. To Felicity, tears were a weakness, only to be shared with the closest of close friends and not even to them if you could help it. She absolutely hated to cry. This long-time hatred had caused her to abstain from crying after her parents' demise much earlier than most nine-year-old would have and caused the housekeeper, Mrs. Trinket, and the maids, Annie and Candy to fret over her something horrible. Even Bernard, who looked after the gardens and the stables, was concerned.

She merely shrugged them away and put forth all her efforts and emotions into being the best in her schoolwork and on her quidditch team. She hadn't even cried at their funeral. But when she had been taken home, Felicity had promptly locked herself in their room flung herself upon the window seat, not being able to touch their bed or any of their other things, and cried her eyes out till the tears ceased to flow and all she could muster was dry sobs that shook her entire body.

Apparently, moving out of the southern plantation home and into the urban area of England was having a drastic effect on her emotions or she would never have allowed herself to continue weeping over something silly like a pillow. It was disgraceful!

Sniffing loudly, Felicity lifted her head from the pillow and proceeded to wipe her eyes with the back of her hand and waving it profusely in front of her eyes in an attempt to reduce the redness and puffiness.

It was a good thing too, she decided because at that time there were three short raps at the door and a voice called, "Felicity?"