Emma Potter; Going to War

32: Confusing Christmas [Pt. 2]

We got up and dressed; we could hear various inhabitants of thehouse calling "Merry Christmas" to each other. On our way downstairs we met Harry and Ron. 

"Thanks for the book, Harry!" Hermione saidhappily. "I've been wanting that New Theory of Numerology for ages!And that perfume is really unusual, Ron." 

"No problem," said Ron. "Who's that for anyway?" he added, nodding at the neatly wrapped present she was carrying. 

"Kreacher," said Hermione brightly. 

"It had better not be clothes!" said Ron warningly. "You know whatSirius said, Kreacher knows too much, we can't set him free!" 

"It isn't clothes," said Hermione, "although if I had my way I'd certainly give him something to wear other than that filthy old rag. No,it's a patchwork quilt, I thought it would brighten up his bedroom." 

"What bedroom?" said Harry, dropping his voice to a whisper asthey were passing the portrait of Sirius's mother.

 "Well, Sirius says it's not so much a bedroom, more a kind of —den," said Hermione. "Apparently he sleeps under the boiler in thatcupboard off the kitchen." 

Mrs. Weasley was the only person in the basement when we arrived there. She was standing at the stove and sounded as though shehad a bad head cold when she wished them Merry Christmas, and we all averted our eyes. 

"So, this is Kreacher's bedroom?" said Ron, strolling over to a dingydoor in the corner opposite the pantry which I had never seenopen. 

"Yes," said Hermione, now sounding a little nervous. "Er . . . Ithink we'd better knock . . ." 

Ron rapped the door with his knuckles but there was no reply."He must be sneaking around upstairs," he said, and without further ado pulled open the door. "Urgh." 

I peered inside. Most of the cupboard was taken up with avery large and old-fashioned boiler, but in the foot's space underneath the pipes Kreacher had made himself something that looked like anest. A jumble of assorted rags and smelly old blankets were piled onthe floor and the small dent in the middle of it showed whereKreacher curled up to sleep every night. Here and there among thematerial were stale bread crusts and moldy old bits of cheese. In a farcorner glinted small objects and coins that I guessed Kreacherhad saved, magpielike, from Sirius's purge of the house, and he hadalso managed to retrieve the silver-framed family photographs thatSirius had thrown away over the summer. Their glass might be shattered, but still the little black-and-white people inside them peeredhaughtily up at him, including — I felt a little jolt in my stomach —the dark, heavy-lidded woman whose trial he had witnessed in Dumbledore's Pensieve: Bellatrix Lestrange. By the looks of it, hers wasKreacher's favorite photograph; he had placed it to the fore of all theothers and had mended the glass clumsily with Spellotape. 

"I think I'll just leave his present here," said Hermione, laying thepackage neatly in the middle of the depression in the rags and blanketsand closing the door quietly. "He'll find it later, that'll be fine. . . ." 

"Come to think of it," said Sirius, emerging from the pantry carrying a large turkey as they closed the cupboard door, "has anyoneactually seen Kreacher lately?" 

"I haven't seen him since the night we came back here,"I said."You were ordering him out of the kitchen."

 "Yeah . . ." said Sirius, frowning. "You know, I think that's the lasttime I saw him, too. . . . He must be hiding upstairs somewhere. . . ."

 "He couldn't have left, could he?"I said. "I mean, when yousaid 'out,' maybe he thought you meant, get out of the house?"

 "No, no, house-elves can't leave unless they're given clothes, they'retied to their family's house," said Sirius.