The Black Queen | F. Weasley

25. Weasley's Wizard Wheezes

Remus and Sirius were cooking alongside one another in the kitchen of the Black household. It had been a long time since Sirius had been inside his family's home and he never would've thought that he would return to the house. But even he had to admit that the house was basked in a different atmosphere these days in comparison to his childhood.

He actually quite liked it.

Salem could be held accountable for most of the changes, for both the change of atmosphere and the change in interior. The house that had once been shrouded in darkness now flooded in daylight. She had gotten rid of the hacked off heads of Kreacher's ancestors which were stuck on a plaque and displayed inside the built in notches of the wall beside the stairs which led to the first floor of the house. There were now vases stalled out in each notch which were filled with beautiful, colourful flowers which brightened up the place even more.

The large, musty brown drapes that used to withheld all the sunlight from streaming inside through the windows were replaced by white lace net curtains which were paired off with black drapes as well for during the night. Every room in the entire house was dust free and Sirius was surprised to see that even his room had stayed neat and cleaned.

Salem had planted record players around the whole house and LP records laid strewn in every room. He relished in the fact that his mother would've thought of it as a blasphemy... He could practically hear her shrill voice screaming indignantly 'Muggle objects?! In my house?!'.

The things that had remained the same was most of the furniture, the wallpapers and the general layout of the house. But it had never felt more like a home to him than during that Summer.

Each day he discovered something new about his old family's house, that particular day he had come across a portrait Salem had painted on the wall. It was a portrayal of how three year old Salem had pictured her family at the time. It consisted out of four stick figures, all of them were holding hands; two smaller and two taller ones. He noticed Remus' handwriting and a name was scribbled down beneath each figure. From left to right he read the names Remus, Salem, Regulus and Kreacher.

His heart constricted slightly as he read his little brother's name. He missed Regulus, a lot. He wondered what had happened to his brother, the death eaters who had been with him in Azkaban had always talked about Regulus in envy. They were jealous of how much Voldemort had apparently liked him. The only thing he had managed to get out of Voldemort's death eaters was the fact that he had disappeared all of a sudden and they believed him to have died during a mission.

He was pulled out of his thoughts as a set of lips was pressed against his bearded cheek. His eyes looked to the side interlocking with the grey ones of his niece. He smiled at her and sent a wink her way, her cheerful mood was infectious and he followed her with his eyes. She skipped over to Remus and kissed him on the cheek as well.

Just as she tried to flee the kitchen his eyes fell upon her right hand which she hid suspiciously behind her back. He saw a glimp of a wrapper and he knew that it belonged around one of Remus' chocolate bars he bought at Honeydukes.

Salem noticed how Sirius was looking from the hand she was hiding behind her back and then at her with an unimpressed, amused look. He silently told her with his eyes that it would be their little secret if she would share it with him and she nodded almost unnoticeably before trying to leave once more.

"Are you sure that you want to do that, young lady?" Remus voice asked laced with mirth, but somehow he managed to say it with a warning tone as well.