Order

Chapter Three

The next morning it took Erin a few minutes to recognize where she was, the old house looked different in the day light, yet still old and unused. She sat up, looking around, the room looked dusty and dingy, she wondered why anyone would want to live here, she dressed quick and wondered down to the basement kitchen, and most of the chairs that were crammed in the room from the night before were gone.

“Good morning, Erin” said Sirius, his back to her.

“How did you know it was me?” she asked, sitting down at the table.

“Who else would it be?” he asked, turning around with something on a plate that looked a lot like black bricks. “I haven’t got magical seeing powers, I can't see through the back of my head.”

He set the plate down on the table and took a seat across from her.

“But Mad-Eye can,” he added.

“Who's Mad-Eye?” she asked, as she watched him pick up what could only be blackened toast and take a bite.

“Mad-Eye Moody, he's a retired Auror” Erin stared at Sirius, wondering what on earth an Auror was, but then he went on, as if reading her mind. “An Auror is a wizard who tracks and captures bad wizards and witches... Kingsley Shacklebolt, he's an Auror and in the Order, he's in charge of my search.”

“What do you mean your search?” Erin asked, watching him still, as he eats the toast.

“I escaped from Azkaban, the wizards prison nearly two years ago and Kingsley is in charge of my hunt.”

Erin looked at Sirius dumbfounded, she was right in thinking he looked like an ex-prisoner; he was, she felt steamily uneasy and suddenly found herself standing, ready to run up to her room pack and leave at once. He looked at her with a small smile.

“It wouldn't be right of me not to tell you that I was innocent of my crime...” he trailed off, she blinked, looking at him sharply then slowly fell back into her seat, ready to hear the story, he promptly shoved the last bit of his toast into his mouth and began the story, “ Back when Voldemort was at power the first time, it was chaos, as I told you, Dumbledore wanted the Potter's to go into hiding, I told you that too. He never really gave... me at least, a full reason why, but I was meant to be the Potter's secret keeper, that means as long as I didn't say where they were hiding they were safe. But I thought it would be to obvious, me being James best mate and all, I thought that might tip Voldemort off, so I decided to make Peter Pettigrew the secret keeper, he had been our friend for years, I never thought...”

Sirius broke off; Erin could sense this subject was still a bit hard for him to talk about.

“Anyway, it was all set and Peter was the secret keeper, we were all going into hiding, even me, but something felt wrong, I went over to Peter's to make sure he was alright, but he wasn't there, I knew right away, so I rushed over to the Potters...”

He broke off once again; he was staring off into space as if his mind was playing back his memories.

“So, Peter had betrayed us, he gave Voldemort the location of the Potter's and what you've heard about Voldemort so far, I bet you know what I found. I wanted Harry to come live with me, I was his godfather after all, but Dumbledore wanted him with the lousy muggles, so I decided to go after Peter, I cornered him and he cuts off his finger shouting about how I betrayed Lily and James then blew up the street, killing twelve muggles, then turned into a rat and went into the sewage pipes....”

“How did he turn into a rat?” Erin interrupted, Sirius heaved a sigh.

“He, James and I all were Animagus, which means we could all change into an animal.”

“No way” she gushed, without thinking, he laughed slightly.

“Let me show you.”

Sirius stood and suddenly he began to shrink, his hands turned into pews and before she knew it a big, black, shaggy dog was before her.

“Oh my....” she trailed off, covering her mouth with her hands. He suddenly was back in human form and took his seat again. Erin stared at him in amazement, she had never seen anyone change into a dog before, but how could she? She had lived as a muggle her whole life.

“I had no idea you could do that” she exclaimed, he chuckled and took another piece of the blackened toast.

“Remus told me your magic was limited... you grew up with muggles, right?” Sirius asked.

“Yes.”

“You never thought to go to a school that would teach you all about magic?”

“I didn't have the money and it’s a long story, and I want to hear the rest of yours....” she trailed off, she didn't feel like telling him how she was too poor to go to a wizards school, that she had never seen wizard money in her life.

“If you must...” he ate the last bit of his second piece of toast and looked around for a second. “The ministry caught me and Barty Crouch sent me to Azkaban without a trial.”

“How did you get out?”

“Well, since I can change into a dog the Dementors; who are the Azkaban guards, horrid things they are, they have a hole for a month and are blind, they can't sense dogs as well as humans so one time when they brought in my food tray I slipped out as a dog, no one had ever escaped from Azkaban before, I eventually found my way to Hogwarts where I knew Peter was hiding as Harry's friend Ron's rat, at the time Remus was teaching at the school, he had thought it was truly me before, but when we cornered Peter everything was sorted out, but Peter escaped, I should have killed him when I had the chance...” Sirius trailed off. Erin didn't think it would be wise to press the subject anymore; she just looked around the kitchen, hoping for something to change the subject. She was thankful he mentioned Remus, at least it was a change.

“When will Remus be back?” she asked, looking back at Sirius, his eyes still fixed unseeingly, he blinked and looked over at her.

“I'm not sure; he's off on Dumbledore's orders.”

“Finding more girls who might be related to Lily Potter?”

“I doubt it...” he trailed off, a few minutes of silence filled the room, Erin was feeling a bit hungry but wasn't about to eat any of that toast Sirius had made. But her thoughts of proper food were lost once Sirius started talking again. “I think Remus is trying to arrange for you to get a better wand and maybe some lessons in magic... he was a teacher after all.”

“That might be good” she said, coolly,, but getting lessons in magic from Remus made her very excited for some reason.

A few days past, in those few days Erin explored the house of which she was staying, her second morning there she had come across a grumpy, little man, type thing, Sirius told her was the house-elf; Kreacher, who muttered rude things in an undertone. Sirius told her to pay no attention to him, but she found it hard to not be hurt by being called a 'filthy mudblood.'

On the third day of her stay at Grimmauld Place; Remus returned. She was lazily walking down the stairs when she heard his voice come from the hall, she hurried down the stairs to find him talking to Sirius.

“Good morning” he said, brightly to her.

“Hello” she smiled, once she got to the bottom of the stairs she fallowed them down into the kitchen. They sat around the kitchen table; Sirius has made more burnt toast and tea. Remus poured himself a cup and sat back in the chair, Erin did the same while Sirius just ate the toast.

“How do you like staying here, Erin?” Remus finally asked.

“It’s not bad” Erin answered, looking over to Sirius then back to Remus. “It's a lot better than I thought it would be.”

Remus smiled and took a sip of his tea.

“Well, Dumbledore has agreed to let me take you to get a better wand” said Remus, setting down his tea cup on the table.

“Great” she smiled, downing the rest of her tea, before placing it on the table as well. “When will we be going?”

“We have to wait for word, we have to do these things consciously” said Remus. Erin nodded, she did not want to run into one of those Death Eaters, the very thought scared her.