Emily Potter - Book 5 - Order of the Phoenix

Chapter 4 - Grimmauld Place

Moody pulled the piece of parchment out of Emily’s hand and set fire to it with his wand. As the message curled into flames and floated to the ground, Emily looked around at the houses again. They were standing outside number eleven; she looked to the left and saw number ten; to the right, however, was number thirteen.

“But where’s -?”

“Think about what you’ve just memorized,” said Lupin quietly. Emily thought, and no sooner had she reached the part about number twelve, Grimmauld Place, then a battered door emerged out of nowhere between numbers eleven and thirteen, followed swiftly by dirty walls and grimy windows. It was as though an extra house had inflated, pushing those on either side out of its way. Emily gaped at it.

“Come on, hurry,” growled Moody, prodding Emily in the back. She walked up the worn stone steps, staring at the newly materialized door. Its black paint was shabby and scratched. The silver doorknocker was in the form of a twisted serpent. There was no keyhole or letterbox.

Lupin pulled out his wand and tapped the door once. Emily heard many loud, metallic clicks and what sounded like the clatter of a chain. The door creaked open, “Get in quick, Emily,” Lupin whispered, “but don’t go far inside and don’t touch anything.”

Emily stepped over the threshold into the almost total darkness of the hall. She could smell damp, dust and a sweetish, rotting smell as if a corpse was decomposing in the hallway; the place had the feeling of a derelict building. She looked over her shoulder and saw the others filing in behind her, Lupin and Tonks carrying her trunk. Moody was standing on the top step releasing the balls of light the Put-Outer had stolen from the streetlamps; they flew back to their bulbs and the square glowed momentarily with orange light before Moody limped inside and closed the front door, so that the darkness in the hall became complete.

 “Now stay still, everyone, while I give us a bit of light in here,” Moody whispered. The others’ hushed voices were giving Emily an odd feeling of something sinister; it was as though they had just entered the house of a dying person. She heard a soft hissing noise and then old fashioned oil lamps sputtered into life all along the walls, casting a flickering weak light over the peeling wallpaper and threadbare carpet of a long, gloomy hallway, where a cobwebby-y chandelier was overhead and age-blackened portraits hung jagged on the walls. Emily heard something scuttling behind the baseboard. Both the chandelier and the candelabra on a rickety table nearby were shaped like serpents.

Emily reckoned that the owners of the house were a family of Slytherins, she wanted to turn and ask Remus, but it didn’t feel like the right time for questions.

There were hurried footsteps and Ron’s mother, Mrs. Weasley, emerged from a door at the far end of the hall. She was beaming in welcome as she hurried towards them, though Emily noticed that she was rather thinner and paler than she had been last time she had seen her.

“Oh, Emily dear, it’s lovely to see you!” she whispered, pulling her into a rib-cracking hug before holding her at arm’s length and examining him critically. “You’re looking rather tall; reckon you need feeding up, but you’ll have to wait a bit for dinner, I’m afraid.”

Emily felt Tonks tap her shoulder, informing her, “We’ll be back with your brother, stay put here.” Emily did not bother to ask why she couldn’t come with them in retrieving her brother from the Dursleys, she didn’t bother to act like the stubborn girl she was and demand to be included in their extraction team. Emily wanted her brother back to her, she wanted him back here in the quickest way possible, and that was only achievable through them.

She only watched Moody, Remus, Tonks, Kingsley, and the other witches and wizards go out of Grimmauld place, mount their brooms, and fly off into the dark, unmercifully cold night sky. Molly charmed Hayley’s cage and Emily’s trunk to levitate up the stairwell, floating its way to the 3rd floor, entering a room which Emily deduced was hers, “Go up, dear. The others are waiting for you upstairs.”