Black Spirit • harry potter (AU)

t e n • jingle bells

Christmas at Grimmauld place was truly something special.

Mum had decorated the house with christmas trees that had an enchantment on them, making snow fall right on the trees. Instead of spider webs decorating the lights and ceilings, there were now silver tinsels hanging down them.

Besides decorating for the holidays, mum and Kreacher had changed the wallpapers in almost every room on the first and second floor. There were no portraits of the old family members in the hall anymore, my mother had moved all of them into the drawing room, where they could be heard discussing amongst each other at times. There were so many portraits of witches and wizards from my family that almost all the walls in the room were covered, and the ceiling was already two floors high.

There was only one portrait that my mother hadn't moved and that was a portrait of my great great great great grandfather, Phineas Nigellus Black. The only reason my mother hadn't moved him was because he was a way to contact Dumbledore, since Phineas had been a headmaster at Hogwarts many years ago. His canvas was mostly empty, but it was through him that Dumbledore had sent us the message that I had been accepted at Hogwarts the previous summer.

The entrance hall now had white walls and the dark and dusty hardwood floor was now replaced by a shiny, chestnut one. The place where the troll foot umbrella stand had been, was now occupied by a black, sleek umbrella stand. The place where a chest of drawers had been next to the umbrella stand, now had a grey bench, perfect for sitting on when putting on shoes to leave. The place where the Black family had stored the heads of deceased house elves now had a wardrobe and some hooks for coats and jackets.

Even the stairs weren't black and creaky anymore, they seemed lighter and newer, no doubt my mother had done some household magic on them, to make them creak less when walking up and down.

My room however, was my favorite throughout the whole house. It used to be my uncle Regulus' room, but was now mine. My mum had replaced the bed, giving me a large one with the most comfortable mattress I had ever slept on. My bedspread was a lilac colour, with a pretty floral pattern. My walls weren't covered in newspaper cuttings and pictures of the Black family anymore, those had all been packed up in boxes and moved to the attic. They were now covered in white paint and the chimney which used to be an ugly brown brick was also white.

In the corner of my room was a bean bag with a bookshelf next to it, which had several of Regulus' old books on it, potion and spell books that you could probably only find in the restricted section at Hogwarts, some of his old school books and some of mine. This was the only thing in the room that had been here since we moved in. It was a black shelf and so heavy that my mother had trouble lifting it even with magic, so she just left it, and I quite liked it. She hadn't touched the books either, even though there were some with quite dark magic in them. It's not that I was interested in practicing any of it, but I was curious as to what dark magic Regulus did.

There was a desk under my window which now had all my school books laid out on it, some opened as I had been doing homework, the ones that I hadn't got to yet were closed, and those which I didn't even intend on opening laid in a separate pile further back. Those subjects being care of magical creatures, which I sort of had a natural talent for and Hagrid hadn't left us any homework anyway, and transfiguration, because I had already finished the homework before I left school.

The doorbell rang downstairs, startling me and making me drop my quill and ink splattered all over my essay about grindylows for Defence Against the Dark Arts. I cursed under my breath, grabbing my parchment and running down the stairs to ask my mother to clean it up for me since I couldn't use magic outside school.