Tidy Time

Tidy Time

Part 4

Lunch

Kreacher had done very well. The rest of the roast beef, along with a good portion of ham, had been converted to sandwiches. Harry's favorite French onion soup graced the tureen, and a Caesar salad sat in a sizable wooden bowl on the table. Kreacher had also braved the wilds of the garden and brought back some large basil leaves. The leaves had then been partnered with brie, bacon, and freshly sliced tomatoes for Ginny's sandwich. Kreacher had remembered this from a small conversation with her. He blushed and stammered when Ginny kissed the top of his head, thanking him. Then there were afters: two treacle tarts sat on the worktop.

"Masters Harry and Ron could eat an entire one themselves," Kreacher had croaked and then cackled.

They had found that most of the house had been cleared of the darkest objects during the great Molly Weasley purge of ninety-five, however there were still pockets of evil scattered here and there. Hermione and Ron had found a particularly nasty book in Regulus's room, and it had almost poisoned Hermione when she opened it without thinking. She was very lucky that Ron had the reactions of a keeper. The book flew from her hand, and the scorpion like stinger passed between two of her fingers when he had blasted it from her grasp. On the third floor Luna and Dean had been trying to make order out of the chaos that was left of Mrs. Black's bedroom.

Buckbeak had destroyed most of the furniture while he'd been kept in the room. Large claw marks covered the walls, and roughly chewed fragments of wood were all that was left of the bed. Luna had been delighted with the number of feathers she had collected though, and Dean was suitably proud of the job he'd done with the last Boggart in the house. When he opened the toilet cistern in the master loo, and a dead Luna had flopped out, it had taken him a few moments to collect himself, but then he'd remembered, and a quick Riddikulus later the Boggart was in a box and on its way to Weasley's Wizard Wheezes. George had been looking for one for quite a while, though no one had managed to pry out of him why.

The biggest hit of the day, though, was Pelly. Hermione had been astonished. She'd been sure this was a creature that Luna had dreamt up, until she had been confronted with the furry reality. She was still incredulous when she looked over at the large grey lump that seemed to have taken up permanent residence in Luna's lap.

"A badgewonk," she muttered, shaking her head. "Amazing."

Luna giggled every time. Pelly was clearly hers, and Harry had told the badgewonk she could go with Luna, and that she was released from the house and any service she was under. The animal, which was clearly partially sentient, had tittered with joy and bounded around the room, licking hands and rubbing legs, until Luna had called her back, whereupon she resumed her place in Luna's lap.

Dean was mixing paints on his artist's pallet while the rest of the group sat at the table. "I thought I'd start on Mrs. Black after lunch, if she's amenable," he said.

"Yeah, why don't you four see to her while Ginny, Andy, Cissy, and I take a look down in the tombs?" said Harry.

"You sure you don't need all of us down there, mate?" asked Ron.

"No. We're up to it, eh?" he said to his ladies.

"There's nothing down there that I'm afraid of," Narcissa said in her haughty voice.

"Much," Andromeda said, bursting into giggles herself. "We sneaked down once when we were nine and eleven, thought we were big bad witches, one wand between us."

"I'd only heard about the Hogwarts ghosts. How was I to know what a real haunting was like?" Narcissa said in a fake hurt voice, and then laughed herself. "Literally scared the pee out of us." Both sisters doubled over in laughter at the memory.

"Where was Bellatrix?" asked Luna.

"She was already at Hogwarts," said Narcissa. "Andy had just got her wand, and we were always curious about what was down there."

"So what is down there?" asked Hermione.

"Everybody; it's the Black family tombs," said Andromeda. "There's an enlarging enchantment on it, just like the garden. The catacombs go on for a bit. This isn't the first House of Black to stand on this land, just the latest; there has been a House of Black here for at least two thousand years. Are we doing the garden too?"

"No, Neville and Professor Sprout are doing that this coming week. They're really looking forward to it, too: just like us. Neville's getting credit for it in his NEWT studies, you see," Harry answered.

"Oh, I forgot to tell Cissy about that," said Andromeda.

"What?"

"We have to write a report for Minerva about what her students have done, and how well they handled the spells and situations."

Narcissa rolled her eyes. "I haven't written anything for her in years. Hope she's not grading our grammar or you people are in trouble," she chuckled.

"So, what scared you?" Dean put in.

"Let's just say our ancestors are not exactly resting easy," said Andromeda. "And there're some other things. Things that aren't nearly as sweet as Pelly." The badgewonk looked up at the mention of her name.

"There's a good girl," said Luna as she smoothed the fur on Pelly's back.

"Amazing," repeated Hermione.

Luna tittered.

"Yes, I realize this is hysterical to you, Luna, but you don't know what she implies."

"Quite the contrary, Hermione. I am perfectly aware of what her existence means." Luna then proceeded to demonstrate exactly why she was top in her year until she was kidnapped. "The fact that a living badgewonk exists proves the existence of the cilliwonk, long thought to be mythical by some." She nodded to Hermione. "Furthermore, the fact that she survived at least a century and a half of hibernation proves that the cilliwonk was at least semi-immortal, as the legends say."

"Nice to have someone you can actually lose an argument to, eh?" said Dean in Hermione's ear.

"I'm right here," said Ron in an exasperated tone.

"Okay, someone you don't have to lose to on purpose," said Dean, smirking.

"Fuck you, mate," said Ron, though he was half laughing.

"Ronald! Language!" said Hermione, and everyone but Ron laughed.

"I've only ever read about the cilliwonk once, and that was a long time ago. Can you tell us more about them, Luna?" asked Andromeda. "How can something be semi-immortal?"

"All we know is from legends from southern Spain and Greece. They were apparently the last of the European apes: like small tailless monkeys, magical and immortal. Obviously they can be killed but they don't die of old age. They were also mostly sentient. Pelly proves that too." The badgewonk looked up at Luna. "Yes, you are a smart girl, aren't you?" she said to the creature.

The badgewonk nodded in agreement.

"See," Luna continued. "Malock is said to have captured some of the last cilliwonks on his travels through Iberia. Once he arrived back here in England, he found that they were fading, and he couldn't work out why. In desperation he did the spell of joining and created the badgewonk."

The badgewonk nodded again.

"Are you one of them, one of the first?" Luna asked Pelly in awe.

Pelly nodded a third time and snuggled into Luna.

"That means she's almost six hundred years old! Wow, lookin' pretty good old girl," said Dean from Luna's side, and he scratched under Pelly's chin. The badgewonk leaned into Luna and closed her eyes, relishing the attention. Dean had been a bit nervous at the new arrival, but when he had leaned in to kiss Luna, Pelly had licked his hand; he had breathed a sigh of relief that the badgewonk wasn't the jealous type.

"Yes, she is very healthy for her age. I think we should go see Professors Grubbly-Plank and Hagrid soon. Won't they be surprised!"

"I think you may have earned your NEWT in Magical Creatures, that's for certain," said Ron.

"That was never in doubt," said Hermione, reaching across the table and patting Luna's hand. Luna beamed back at her.

"Well, speaking of NEWTs, if you want those letters to Minerva, we should get back to work," said Andromeda.

"Slave driver," said Harry with a smile.

"She's always been that way," said Narcissa, smiling at her sister.

"Middle child," said Andromeda. "Bella was the oldest and could do no wrong; Cissy was the baby, so she was coddled a bit. Oh, don't look at me like that, you know you were. So I was the one that got scolded, and punished, and blamed for practically everything that went wrong. I even had to take the blame for that bastard rat Lestrange."

"But I introduced Bella to Rodolphus; it was at one of Lucius's parties." said Narcissa.

"Well, they blamed me for it. Doesn't matter though, he's the one who took our sister from us." At a stricken look from her sister Andromeda added, "It wasn't your fault Cissy. She chose him, and you had no idea what kind of evil piece of..." she paused, looked around at her much younger audience, and then smiled at Ron. "This is really your area, so I won't impinge."

"Shall I fill in the gaps for you?" Ron asked brightly.

"I think we can manage without," said Hermione, patting his hand.

There was a moment's pause, and then, with chuckles and many thanks to Hermione, they rose from the table to resume their work.