Chapter 543: The Goodness of Fish (Edited)

After lunch, Fish began to wander around the Black's ancestral home.

Every time he goes to a new place, Fish has to familiarize himself with the surroundings....

Then, at night, he would return to mark his territory.

Of course, Fish knew that that was someone else's house, but that didn't contradict the fact that he had marked his territory, had marked Hogwarts and Hogsmeade all over, and still got spanked by Professor McGonagall....

Because the Ministry of Magic was looking for him, Sirius, who couldn't run at all, had already gotten bored at home and volunteered to show Fish and Hermione around the house.

But there wasn't much to see in Black's mansion to begin with, it had been abandoned for so long that apart from a few limited rooms such as the main hall, dining room, kitchen and meeting room, only Fish's and the others' bedrooms had been cleaned.

Most of the other rooms were still in a dilapidated state, and Mrs. Weasley didn't have much time for that, as she had to keep on top of Order of the Phoenix business and take care of everyone's daily meals.

"Of course, I helped tidy up!" Sirius explained sarcastically, probably because of the disdain Fish and Hermione were heaping on him. "It's just that every time we clean, we get interrupted by Kreacher."

"Kreacher always hides things in his room, won't let us throw them out, and then puts them back after a while, and even the things we've thrown out, he goes out of his way to find them and put them back."

As if worried that Fish and Hermione wouldn't believe him, he opened a cluttered room and began to roughly move the mess around.

Sure enough, it wasn't long before Kreacher was in front of the three of them.

"The young master, the loser, is back to trashing his mistress's belongings." Kreacher muttered in a voice they could all hear as he grabbed a disc-shaped object with a speed that belied his image and ran off.

"Look." Sirius didn't bother to stop Kreacher as he stopped moving, tossing aside some sort of brass pot and shrugging helplessly.

"Why is he doing this?"

?(??ω??)?

Fish asked, not quite understanding.

"Because Kreacher wants to keep the house the way it was when my mother was alive," Sirius said helplessly as he pulled up a chair and sat down in it with a big smile. "If it wasn't for the contract with the house elves, he wouldn't even want to acknowledge me as family scum. "

"Then... why don't you try releasing him?" Hermione suddenly suggested, still feeling sympathy for those house elves.

"We can't let him free; he knows too much about the Order of the Phoenix." Sirius, who didn't know what Hermione was really thinking, sighed, "And anyway, the shock would kill him. Suddenly you ask him to leave the house and see how he reacts."

Hearing Sirius say that, Hermione nodded regretfully, then added, "Well, we don't have to get rid of these things, just get them in order, do we?"

"Yeah, yeah, Fish doesn't like to throw things away either, and Fish still has all the sticks he used to use to sharpen his teeth!".

(?ΦωΦ?)?

Fish pulled a palm-sized stick out of his magic pocket and proudly showed it to Hermione and Sirius.

"Look, Fish loved to chew on it when he was little."

The stick in his hand was covered in small, deep teeth marks.

"The Blacks are an old pureblood family," Sirius shook his head bitterly, dismissing Hermione's suggestion once again, "Inside these things are hidden a lot of dark magic items, some can even be dangerous." He said, "Last time Lupin cut his hand on a bowler, it almost cut half his hand off."

It wasn't impossible to do what Hermione said, it was just that just as Kreacher hated Sirius, Sirius hated everything about this place and didn't want to come back here if he could help it.

So it was only natural that Sirius didn't appreciate the things in the house, he would just throw them all away.

Fish didn't mind, as long as Fish's room was clean, the rest of the house he didn't care. He even used to mess up his room, and Professor McGonagall had to work hard to catch him up.

After following Sirius around the house, Fish asked curiously, "Why don't you see your mother? Didn't Ginny say there was a portrait of her?"

?ω?

"You wanted to see her?" Sirius smiled, a strange growl escaping his throat. "No, she's not that easy to get along with, and I know your strange affinity doesn't help with portraits and ghosts."

But Fish didn't give up and asked bluntly, "Have you ever thought of reconciling with your mother?"

(??ω??)

Since Fish himself was the most important person to Professor McGonagall, he had always been fine with most things, but this time he wanted Sirius to get along with his mother.

And since Fish knew that Hermione, Ron, Harry, and Draco were all loved by their mothers, and that Sirius's mother was no exception, he naively assumed that Mrs. Black was just having an argument with Sirius.

As for purebloods, Fish didn't take it seriously, there were plenty in Slytherin, but they were all friendly, not the Death Eaters who followed Voldemort.

And even if they were Death Eaters, weren't there good people like Severus?

Fish was optimistic about that.

"Ha! With that old hag?"

Sirius shook his head in disbelief, but his expression faltered when he saw Fish's serious look.

It would be a lie to say that he had never thought about it, when he had escaped from the Blacks to the Potters and had seen the warm and harmonious interactions between his best friend James and his family, Sirius had admired and fantasized about being like James with his family.

But Sirius knew too well the nature of his parents, and his relatives, and as long as he refused to admit to his silly pureblood theory, there was no way his family would reconcile with him, so this unrealistic idea was extinguished by Sirius not long after he brought it up.

"Of course I've thought about..." Sirius sighed again, "But my mother hates me enough to kill me, there's no way she'll reconcile with me."

"It's your mother," Fish persuaded him, "Minerva was always angry with Fish too, but in the end she always forgave him."

(???ω???)

"It's not the same..."

Sirius shook his head with a bitter smile, he knew Fish meant well, but the situation at home was not a normal mother-son fight.

But Sirius didn't know how to explain it to Fish, and after thinking about it for a few moments, he simply said, "Never mind, I'll just take them to meet her, they'll know when they see her... I hope they won't be intimidated by her."

With that, he led Fish and Hermione, in the direction of the entrance hall.