Miss Slytherin

Book 5: Chapter 21

The Christmas dinner was great, she received another Weasley sweater too and that seemed to brighten her up since her old ones were in Mirelle's loft. But the general feeling that she was having was all warmth from the ginger haired family. Seeing them all smiling from ear to ear, Mrs Weasley fussing over her husband, the Weasley children marvelling over the gifts that they received. Everything was amazing so far, it was just a shame that it wasn't going to last for her once she leaves after sending Harry upstairs for bed.

"You look like you could use a glass of whiskey," a voice said from beside her, she turns around and gave out a large smile towards Sirius. In shoulder length hair just down, in a purple suit, he opened his arms for her to give him a hug, and she did.

"I need something stronger than that to be honest with you," she chuckled, burying her face on his shoulder, missing the warm embraces from the people she cared about. Hogwarts has restricted her so much this year, it was only natural that she would hug everyone with every opportunity she gets.

"I hope you like my present? It was bitch to smuggle it in the Knight bus," she tells him.

"I can understand if you got me a wand, and I would've refused it too," Sirius smiled before turning to the top of the table where a beater's bat laid. "But a steal bat? What the bloody hell were you thinking?"

She shrugged, it wasn't really that hard to smuggle, she was exaggerating after all, but lifting the thing was murder. Her arms weren't strong with all the bags that she was carrying, a good old Wingardium Leviosa would've done the trick but then again she was underaged. "I thought that maybe you would get tired of you mother's portrait, you may as well use that to maybe damage the frame."

"I like the idea," Sirius winked, placing an arm over her shoulder, his peripheral view caught someone move into a room from across the kitchen. He pats Finley's shoulder, motioning for her to follow him, walking inside to see Harry marvelling the room.

"Nasty breath standing, there's bulls brown," the old elf Kreacher grumbled as he looked up at Harry. "Harry Potter, the boy who stopped the dark lord."

"Friend of mudbloods, and blood traitors alike," the elf sneered. "If my poor mistress—"

"Kreacher!" Sirius booms, startling Finley who just stood beside him. "That's enough of your bile, away with you!" He yells, glaring at the elf fiercely.

Finley went ahead and got inside, stopping to see the tapestry like walls, all of which were labelled by star names.

"Sorry about that," Sirius apologised. "He never was pleasant, even when I was a boy, not me anyway."

"You grew up here?" Harry asks Sirius, a little shocked at the information that he just heard that he turned to Finley who didn't at all say anything about it for the matter.

"This is my parents' house, I offered it to Dumbledore as headquarters for the order," Sirius trailed, looking around the room, specifically the walls. "The only useful thing that I've been able to do," he sighed, walking inside, patting Harry's shoulder.

"This is the Black family tree," he says, motioning to a specific tree near where Harry stood.

Sirius pointed at the branches with faces, one burnt off. "My deranged cousin, I hated a lot of them," he says. Harry focused on the name Bellatrix Black-Lestrange for some reason that he did not know of.

"My parents with their pureblood mania," Sirius snaps Harry from his trance, turning to Sirius who was pointing at a burnt patch on the tapestry. "My mother did that the night I ran away," he says.

Finley slowly walked towards her brother and Sirius, seeing how distant Sirius had become as he pointed on the burnt part of the wall. It was his spot in the family tree after all, she could only feel bad for him. "Charming woman now, isn't she?" Finley chuckled in attempt to lighten up the mood.