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Chapter Nineteen

Sirius had lost him again, he couldn't find Kreacher anywhere, that is what Sirius told Erin anyway; who just rolled her eyes at him, but she had the faintest idea that Sirius hadn't even looked for the house-elf at all.

“You haven't looked for him, Sirius” said Remus, who was sitting in the kitchen as well, reading something. Erin smirked, she was right.

“Shut it, Moony” Sirius muttered. “I thought maybe you'd like to help, Erin... it's a lot faster when you have help, as you know.”

“It's your house-elf” she stated.

“She does have a point, Padfoot” said Remus, from behind his parchment.

Sirius glared at Remus before turning back to Erin with a pleading look, she rolled her eyes once again and stood up.

“Let's get on with it then, I want to find him before dinner...”

“I'm sure he's probably in the attic” said Sirius, as he followed her out of the room. They went up to the attic and started looking for Kreacher.

“I haven't seen him for awhile, a week or so” Erin stated, as Sirius moved a box out of the way with his wand, it was way less messy in the attic since they cleaned it, but there was still stuff everywhere. “Where the hell is he?”

“Maybe he's finally...”

“Don't say it” she cut him off, putting up her hand.

“What... stuffed it?”

“YOU SAID IT!” she yelled.

“I DID!” he mocked her.

“Shut up” she huffed, crossing her arms over her chest in a pout.

“Oh, let's not start crying, now.”

“I'm not going to cry... I'm going to slug you” she barked. He laughed at this. “I'm not kidding.”

At this he laughed even harder, nearly doubling over. She had, had it; she un-folded her arms and shot one hard fist into his upper left shoulder. He stopped laughing right away and rubbed his arm.

“Bloody hell, you have a good punch.”

She smirked at this proudly and turned around to leave the room.

“What about Kreacher?”

“Oh, I forgot about him” Erin said, turning back around. “Better not leave you to find him alone, if he did 'stuff it' you'd be so heartbroken about it...you might do something rash.”

“That's right” Sirius stated, before moving another box with his foot. “I don't see the little bugger anywhere...”

“He has to be somewhere...let's go look on the lower levels.”

Sirius agreed and they left the dusty attic, just then Remus came rushing up the stairs, looking flushed and out of breath.

“Harry's in the fire... he wants to talk to you, Sirius.”

“He's in the fire?” Sirius asked. “But I thought all the Hogwarts fires were being watched?”

“I don't know… but you'd better get down here, quick” Remus told him. “Erin can you stay up here, please?”

“Of course” Erin stated. “I'll keep looking for Kreacher.”

Both Remus and Sirius rushed down the stairs and out of sight, she wondered what Harry wanted and hoped everything was alright as she wondered around looking for the missing house-elf. She really hoped that either Sirius or Remus would come back to tell her she could come back down stairs but she was doubtful about this due to the urgency it seemed Remus had in his voice. She would just have to keep looking for that damn house-elf that she couldn't find anywhere until she felt it was safe to go back down stairs. And that's what happen, an hour later after not finding Kreacher she went back down stairs to find Sirius and Remus in a deep conversation and no Harry what’s so ever, she would have said something about their carelessness but she thought it would be a bad idea for both looked rather annoyed.

“I will be telling Dumbledore just as soon as I can, and be having that chat with Snape” said Remus.

“I wish you'd let me have a go at Snivellus” said Sirius, leaning back in his chair.

“I will not let you have a go at Snape... you’re not to leave the house” said Remus.

“You’re not my boss, Moony.”

“I have always regretted letting you and James do those things you shouldn’t have when we were in school... Harry has reminded me of this, and I will not take a back seat anymore, Sirius, you cannot and will not do anything, I will handle it” said Remus, determined. Sirius scowled and crossed his arms, leaning his chair back on two legs.

“Do what you must, Remus” Sirius then stated, in a glum voice.

“You wouldn't make the matters any better, Sirius and you know it, you’re still hung up on the school boy grudge you had.”

“As is he.... you think he'd be treating Harry like this if it wasn't for his father?” Sirius let his chair fall to the floor again and stared at Remus; who looked thoughtful.

“He's like that to every student... Neville Longbottom told me himself, he's afraid of Snape.”

“He's just a foul git” muttered Sirius.

“He made me the wolfbane my year at Hogwarts....” Remus trailed off, Erin didn't understand why Remus was trying to make sense of Snape, she had only met him once and from that alone she agreed completely with Sirius, Snape was a foul git.

“And he also told everyone you’re a werewolf... tried to get me kissed by the Dementors...” Remus just looked down; it was obvious he had been defeated.

“Why are you talking about Snape anyways?” Erin asked, finally.

“He stopped giving Harry the lessons in Occlumency” said Remus.

“Why?”

“Because he's Snape...” Sirius trailed off.

“That doesn’t seem like a good reason,” Erin stated.

“It is when you’re Snape” Sirius muttered. Remus had soon left to go find Snape and Dumbledore. Erin sat in the drawing room, it had been a few days since she drew anything and there for she spent three whole hours drawing, but she didn’t find this worrisome, this picture seemed to flow from her pencil, and it only took her a total of three hours till she finished it, when it was done she placed it on the floor and did an enlargement charm on it to make it bigger, Remus had just shown her that spell the day before, when they were once again practicing dueling. She looked down at the Eiffel Tower, she had always wanted to go to Paris one day, she heard footsteps and Sirius entered the room.

“Finally done?” he asked. “You’ve been at it for hours.”

“Yeah, I’m done, have a look.”

“Hm, it looks good” Sirius said, as he looked down at the black and white drawing.

“I want to go there one day, I bet it’s just beautiful” Erin smiled.

“Hell, maybe I’ll go with you, we can fly there on Buckbeak” Sirius smirked.

“Yeah, no…I will never ride Buck, not in this life time anyway.”

“I’ve rode Buckbeak hundreds of times, it’s fun” he grinned.

“Yeah, it might be real fun, but...no thanks.”

“Oh, you’re no fun” he remarked, and left the room. At dinnertime Remus returned telling them how he had talked to Dumbledore and how Dumbledore said he would talk to Snape. Remus seemed happy about this, but Sirius began to scowl again, Erin was sure Sirius would still like to tell Snape off. As June approached it was starting to get extremely hot in the house, Erin would be found most days fanning herself with that ascent fan Sirius let her have. She had been at Grimmauld Place for nearly ten months, that was almost a year…a year and yet Erin felt like she had been there forever, it felt like years since she had lived all alone in LA and she didn’t miss it one bit, she hadn’t thought of how Andrew Silver took it on Monday when his waitress didn’t show up for work, she didn’t care if the owners of her apartment got paid or not, these things didn’t matter anymore, she’d much rather be here, be at Grimmauld Place with Sirius, and Remus when he was there, he had left again with more orders from Dumbledore. The next few days Sirius and Erin sat around bored, one morning Erin even had to convince Sirius not to leave the house…

“Just only to the park…I could go as Padfoot and if you just wear a hat or something….” he trailed off.

“Are you mental?” she barked at him, as she ate her eggs and toast. “We can’t leave, you nutter…”

“I know, it was just an offhand thought...I know we can’t leave...but one day…one day we will, we will be able to go wherever we want to, even to Paris, maybe you could take me to America and show me around a bit…we won’t be stuck here forever.”

“Maybe one day….” She trailed off.

“Well” he sighed, standing up, putting his plate in the sink. “I think I’ll go check on Buckbeak, tell him were going to fly him to Paris one day.”

“Never….ever” she warned, he just laughed as he walked out of the room. She rolled her eyes and got up to do the dishes, thinking how nice it will be when she could leave the house and go outside for once.