A.J RYAN IN THE ORDER OF THE PHOENIX

Chapter Two - Grimmauld Place

When they called for volunteers to go get Harry. To fly him to Grimmauld Place for the remainder of the summer – I remained silent. I would be useless to everyone up in the air. Something Sirius was happy to laugh about at dinner.

"You can't fly a broom?" Sirius asked with a smirk.

Remus was fighting back the smile twitching at his lips.

"Sure I can," I replied brightly. "Just not more than a metre off the ground." I mumbled under my breath.

Sirius was in fits of laughter, and Remus chuckled along with him. I feigned a hurt expression before smiling and turning to talk to Tonks.

I loved her pink hair. She was a Metamorphmagus able to change her appearance at will, and she was a young Auror at the Ministry of Magic. She had qualified a year ago, despite being very clumsy.

She had dark twinkling eyes, and her natural hair colour was brown. It fell to her shoulders, fanning around her pretty heart shaped face.

I wasn't the only one, who had noticed she was pretty.

Remus Lupin was bitten at the age of four by the well-known werewolf – Fenrir Greyback. Nobody here seemed to care about this part of him, if you paid attention, all you saw was that he was smart, warm and caring.

He was still quite young now, but his problem had caused signs of stress on his appearance. He had small patches of grey hair, he wore shabby clothes, and he looked tired.

"What's so funny?" Came after two loud cracks. The twins had apparated right into the kitchen, something they appeared to do a lot.

Tonks and I were deep in conversation, so we ignored their entrance. Until I heard my name.

"A.J here has a problem..." Was as far as Sirius got.

I had launched myself on his back and put my hand over his mouth. "Oh no you don't." I said playfully.

He was shaking from laughter under me. Remus and Tonks were sharing amused expressions, the twins were staring at me like I was mad, and Molly only paused briefly to smile.

"Sirius." I called his attention. "That house-elf in the hall, he's rather..." I struggled for the right words.

"A nutter." Sirius offered. "Completely gone 'round the twist. He hasn't cleaned this place in the ten years it's been empty since my mother died." He spoke with great distaste.

"He's not like any house-elf I've met." I smiled.

"Oh, he loaves me.But I'm the last living Black, so the house passed to me along with Kreacher."Again, with the tone of distaste.

The morning I turned up at Grimmauld Place, I was bombarded with the news of the Dementors attacking Harry. Mundungus Fletcher had abandoned his watch for a business opportunity, stolen cauldrons – when two Dementors turned up in Little Whinging. Harry had performed a Patronus charm to defend himself and his cousin.

Dumbledore was furious with him – apparently nobody had seen him look so scary, Dung had at least had the decency to appear ashamed.

Harry would have to attend a hearing on the twelfth of August at the Ministry of Magic – where he would find out if he would lose his wand and be expelled from Hogwarts.

It was well known that Dung was a crook. He had gone somewhat astray when learning some crucial lessons about the difference between right and wrong. But it was useful to have someone like him in the Order. He heard a whole lot of things from amongst his crowd of other crooks that the Order couldn't.

Hermione Granger had been here a few weeks, and Harry was due tomorrow night.

I had been dropping into Grimmauld Place a fair bit since my first Order meeting last week. I had made friends with Sirius in the short period; enough that he chastised me for not being around to visit sooner. My parents came for the meetings but left straight after, they were quite busy with the extra work of the Order on top of their normal lives.