Novus Orbis | Fred Weasley x Insert | ON HIATUS

Chapter 33 - Books

The days go by slowly, spent scrubbing at windows and doors and, really, any other surface Molly can see when she walks into a room. At times, Sirius will come in and talk to them, but really it's just him reminiscing and the three working away and listening intently. If he talks to Ron and Hermione about anything else, it's pointedly not around them–but Y/n does learn from Granger one night that the man spent months hiding in a cave above Hogsmeade disguised as a stray dog.

"He's an animagus?" Y/n had exclaimed, and the girl had shushed her but smiled, telling her that he was unregistered. "Wouldn't it be so cool to be one?" She mentions it to the twins later, without revealing the comment about Black. "You could eavesdrop on people all too easily."

It's such an idea, in fact, that without giving away her intentions, she asks Sirius for permission to the library and begins her search for books on the method. She doesn't ask Hermione for help, fearful that the girl won't allow her to, but stays intently there after cleaning a lot of days until dinner, much to the disappointment of the twins.

"This will help us, I promise," she tells them, and each time they give each other a look and leave the room. The descriptions in the books she finds instruct the potion for only those who are skilled in Potions and Transfiguration, both subjects in which she excelled–and excels–at. She buries herself in the knowledge, reading the instructions from multiple books and searching for where to get the ingredients. She discovers, one evening, while getting a few things for Molly to cook dinner with, a cabinet beside the spice drawer with potion ingredients. To her great delight, there are various things that she needs, the first being Mandrake leaves. It's not surprising at all, she thinks to herself, considering it's a very old Pureblood family's residence, and that the current owner himself is an unregistered animagus.

But Sirius comes calling at that moment for the things she was supposed to be getting, and she hurriedly closes the case before being able to get anything, let alone open or examine any more stoppers. She comes into the kitchen, smiling at them all, jars in her hands–sure of her first victory in her plan.

She doesn't dare to return later that night, very acutely aware of the footsteps passing occasionally outside her door and down below, indicating another meeting amongst the adults. That week alone, Alastor Moody (the real Moody), a woman named Nymphadora Tonks, and several other people that she hasn't caught the names of have arrived at 12 Grimmauld Place, and the tightness of the door to their secrecy in meeting has been pulled even tighter.

Even Bill comes, a very pleasant surprise, and Fleur Delacour, the champion from the Beauxbatons school, joins the Order as well. The twins are more desperate now to finish the last touches on their latest work dubbed 'Extendable Ears,' hiding from Molly and working in the dead of night–much to the disappointment of Y/n, who cannot leave her room with all the people about to ask what she's up to, and the rooms she has to pass on her way upstairs.

When the letters begin arriving from Harry, she can't help but laugh in sympathy, feeling poorly for the boy who must certainly feel trapped and frustrated, left in the dark at the Dursleys. They're not allowed to give him any information at all in their letters, Hermione tells her, for the risk of their letters going astray in the mail and landing in the hands of the Death Eaters and their compatriots. Her letters to Charlie, too, are heavily screened by Molly, and she's glad that they have subjects they can discuss other than present matters.

It's a week before she can manage to get back into the cabinet where the potion ingredients are, but the others finally leave the house, Molly bustling about upstairs to finish some organisation in the attic with Ginny. She's sitting on her bed when she hears the others in the foyer, rain battering against her window and making it difficult to understand what they're saying. But she knows they're going out–and that's enough. As the scuffing gets fainter, before being shut off by the snapping sounds of Apparating, she closes her book, getting up and heading to her door. Hermione is asleep on the bed across from her, her shoulders gently rising and falling as she naps on top of the blankets.