"If your whole life turns out to be a lie, what will you do then?"
"If everything you knew turns out to be a hoax, what will you do then?"
Graciana Duerre Weasley, twin sister of Ron Weasley, is a troublemaker. Mischievous but a little introvert, bo...
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THE CLEANING OF THE BALCK house wasn't fun at all. It was filthy, full of doxies and rats. Once they had done the cleaning for that day, Kreacher had entered the room muttering profanities under his breath. He listened and bowed to Grace, as she was Sirius's daughter. But kept badmouthing her under his breath, knowing very clearly that everyone could hear him. Sirius had to chuck him out of the room.
"If you just set him free," said Hermione to Sirius hopefully once Kreacher had left the room, "maybe —"
"We can't set him free, he knows too much about the Order," said Sirius curtly. "And anyway, the shock would kill him. You suggest to him that he leaves this house, see how he takes it."
Sirius walked across the room, where the tapestry Kreacher had been trying to protect hung the length of the wall. Grace and the others followed.
The tapestry looked immensely old; it was faded and looked as though doxies had gnawed it in places; nevertheless, the golden thread with which it was embroidered still glinted brightly enough to show them a sprawling family tree dating back (as far as Grace could tell) to the Middle Ages. Large words at the very top of the tapestry read:
THE NOBLE AND MOST ANCIENT HOUSE OF BLACK "Toujours Pur"
"Grace, you're here!" said Harry, looking at a double gold embroidery linked a burn to Tatiana Abildgaard, and a single vertical gold line from their names led to the name Freya Black.
"I'm a Black, remember?" said Grace staring at her face on the tapestry. "But dad, why isn't my name blasted?"
"Because you're also an Abildgaard." said Sirius. "My dear mother wouldn't miss such an opportunity to show off that Abildgaard's blood is in a black family child."
"Was my mother's family that well know?" Grace asked.
"Yes, very well know. And also very old and powerful," said Sirius.
"But you're not here Sirius." said Harry after a moment.
"I used to be there," said Sirius, 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?"
"When I was about sixteen," said Sirius. "I'd had enough."
"Where did you go?" asked Grace, staring at him.
"At Harry's dad's place," said Sirius. "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."
