Harry Potter - Fanfiction

Year 5 - The Order of the Phoenix

There is a gentle knock on the door.

"Hey Nyx," George says in a soft calming voice.

"Yeah," I answer, rolling over.

"Everyone's heading down to the kitchen." He smiles.

I get up from the bed, walking to George –

CRASH.

"Tonks!" we hear Mrs. Weasley cry out exasperatedly.

"I'm sorry!" wails Tonks.

And then comes the horrible, ear-splitting bloodcurdling screech.

Sirius' mother is awake... The woman in the portrait behind the moth-eaten velvet curtains, screaming and screaming as though she is being tortured.

George and I walk out onto the landing with our hands over our ears.

The old woman is drooling, her eyes rolling, the yellowing of her face stretched taut as she screams and all along the hall the other portraits awake and begin yelling too.

Lupin and Mrs. Weasley dart forward to try and tug the curtains over the old woman, but they will not close and she screeches louder than ever before, brandishing clawed hands as though trying to tear at their faces.

"Filth! Scum! By-products of dirt and vileness! Half-breeds, mutants, freaks, begone from this place! How dare you befoul the house of my fathers –"

Tonks appears to be apologizing over and over again at the same time dragging the huge troll's leg back off the floor. Mrs. Weasley abandons the attempt to close the curtains and hurries up and down the hall, stunning all the other portraits with her wand. Then a man with long black hair comes charging out of a door down below, Sirius.

I can't make out what he is screaming over the woman's wretched screeching which still can be heard through our covered ears; however, Sirius seizes the curtain Mrs. Weasley had abandoned.

"Yoooou!" she howls, her eyes popping at the sight of the man. "Blood traitor; abomination, shame of my flesh!"

With a stupendous effort he and Lupin manage to force the curtains closed again.

The old woman's screeches die and an echoing silence falls.

Panting slightly and sweeping his long dark hair out of his eyes, Sirius turns to face Harry.

"Curse that old hag for using a Permanent Sticking Charm on her canvas," I moan.

"Let's get downstairs before any of them wake up again," George says quietly next to me.

We follow everyone into the basement kitchen.

"– This was my parents' house," Sirius says to Harry. "But I'm the last Black left, so it's mine now. I offered it to Dumbledore for headquarters... About the only useful thing I've been able to do."

Most of the light in the room emanating from the large fire at the far end of the room. A haze of pipe smoke hangs in the air like battle fumes, through which looms the menacing shapes of heavy iron pots and pans hanging from the dark ceiling. Many chairs have been crammed into the room, since our arrival a month ago, for the meetings and a long wooden table stands in the middle of the room littered with rolls of parchment, goblets and empty wine bottles. Mr. Weasley and his eldest son, Bill, are talking quietly with their heads together at the end of the table.

Mrs. Weasley clears her throat. Her husband, a thin, balding, red-haired man, who wears horn-rimmed glasses, looks around and jumps to his feet.

"Harry!" Mr. Weasley says, hurrying forward to greet him and shaking his hand vigorously. "Good to see you!"