Malfoy. Draco Malfoy.

Chapter 40

"Don't waste your youth growing up"

"Don't forget to keep your voice down in the hall" Ginny whispers as we descend the stairs.

As we pass the row of house-elf heads on the wall, I see Lupin, Mrs Weasley and Tonks at the front door, magically sealing its many locks and bolts behind whoever had just left.

"We're eating down in the kitchen" Mrs Weasley whispers meeting us at the bottom of the stairs. There was a loud CRASH.

"Tonks!" Mrs Weasley cries in exasperation, turning to look behind her.

"Sorry!' Tonks says, lying on the floor. "It's that stupid umbrella stand, that's the second time I've tripped over—"

But the rest of her words were drowned by a horrible, ear-splitting, blood-curdling screech.

A pair moth-eaten velvet curtains I had passed earlier had flown apart, but there was no door behind them. For a second I thought I was looking through a window, a window through where an old woman in a black cap was screaming as though she was being tortured - then I realize it was a life-size portrait but the most realistic, and the most unpleasant, I had ever seen in my life.

The old woman was drooling, her eyes were rolling, the yellowing skin of her face stretched, and as she screamed, she became so loud that I had to clap my hands over my ears.

Lupin and Mrs Weasley darted forward and tried to tug the curtains shut over the old woman, but they would not close and she screeched louder than ever, 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 apologized over and over again, dragging the huge, heavy troll's leg back off the floor, and a man with long black hair came charging out of a door facing Harry, who was standing behind us with Ron and Hermione.

"Shut up, you horrible old hag, shut UP!" he roared, seizing the curtains.

The old woman's face blanched. "Yoooou!" she howls, her eyes popping at the sight of the man. "Blood traitor! abomination! Shame of my flesh!"

"I said - shut - UP!" roared the man, and with an enormous amount of effort, he and Lupin managed to force the curtains closed again.

The old woman's screeches died and an echoing silence fell. Panting slightly and sweeping his long dark hair out of his eyes, Sirius Black turned around. "Hello, Harry. Lola." he said grimly. "I see you've met my mother."

"Your-?" Harry starts, dumbfounded.

"My dear old mum, yeah" said Sirius. "We've been trying to get her down for a month but we think she put a Permanent Sticking Charm on the back of the canvas. Let's get downstairs, quick, before they all wake up again."

"But what's a portrait of your mother doing here?" Harry asked, bewildered, as they went through the door from the hall and led the way down a flight of narrow stone steps, the others just behind them.

"Hasn't anyone told you? This was my parents' house" says Sirius. "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."

I follow them silently, Ginny next to me. I've never talked to my Godfather, yet the last thing I said to him was "Fuck you".

Mrs Weasley stands outside the kitchen door, waiting for us, when Fred and George apparate right next to her, making her jump. "Just because you're allowed to use magic now, does not mean you have to whip your wands out for everything!"