4

It was the second day of Hermione and Ron's stay at Grimmauld Place when Harry finally found out. He was sitting with Hermione in the library, swishing his new sword around experimentally and talking idly about going back to Hogwarts in a few weeks when she let it slip.

"I suppose you'll be getting an awful lot of attention, as well as the rest of us, of course, seeing as they don't believe you about Voldemort and all…"

"What do you mean they don't believe us?" Harry asked, incredulous.

"Well… they don't believe you, Harry. They're saying that we all made the story up, or had some sort of mass hallucination. I mean, the French and Bulgarian governments aren't happy with it, what with Fleur and Krum being part of it and all, so I'm pretty sure they're on your side out of principal, but that doesn't stop the fact that the Daily Prophet… wait, haven't you been reading the paper?" Hermione asked.

Harry scratched the back of his head sheepishly, waving his other hand towards the corner of the living room where a teetering stack of old newspapers sat. Hermione frowned as a bit of ash dropped from the end of the cigarette held loosely between the fingers of the hand he'd used to wave and landed on the, knowing the Blacks, probably very expensive rug covering the floor.

"I mean, sometimes we glance through them…" He trailed off at the look of outrage on Hermione's face.

"Glance through them? How in the world did you miss your faces plastered all over the front of them? Are you crazy?" She spluttered.

In a moment of extremely bad timing, Sirius walked through the door with Dobby on his shoulders, about ten of Hermione's hand-knitted hats perched on top of the house elf's head. They were singing the Macarena. Sirius was doing butt-wiggles.

"Why did I even need to ask?" She wondered out loud after a minute in which Sirius dislodged some of the hats by doing an extra-vigorous wiggle.

"What's up, fuckers?" Sirius asked boisterously, waving around a half empty bottle of whisky in one hand.

"Pads, they don't frickin' believe us!" Harry whined.

"What about the size of those guys last night? They were fuckin' giants, 'Mione, and there were five of them, five!"

Hermione rolled her eyes and Harry rubbed the bruise forming around his left eye self-consciously. If Sirius wasn't drunk again already, he'd be paying attention to the cardinal rule of lying about fights. The five times they'd told the others this morning had been plenty. Anymore and it'd be obvious that they were making it up.

"No, not the five giants last night, and seriously, 'Mione, they were fucking enormous, like, Hagrid size for fuck's sake."

"Oh, don't be ridiculous, you expect me to believe that this story you've been telling us all morning is actually true? You do remember that we were there, don't you? And that me and Ron were the ones to calm things down and drag you two home, seeing as you were both too drunk to walk, let alone find your way back here."

Harry and Sirius stared at her, shocked. Even Dobby looked mildly indignant from his perch on Sirius' shoulders.

"How dare you?" Sirius asked her, "How dare you question the sanctity of our sacred words? Disbelieving little wench!"

A choke of laughter came from Harry, almost drowning out the indignant scoff from Hermione.

"We won't be telling my parents about that, will we?" Ron asked from the doorway, looking worried. "Dad's already weird about me staying here."

"I don't like them staying there," Arthur said to his wife over the dinner table. Ginny and the twins stopped their conversation about the merits of potion based itching powders versus charms to the same effect and looked across at their parents. Molly tutted and glanced at her staring children before answering.

"Yes, well. They're there now, and it's only for a few days. I'm sure Sirius won't be… too irresponsible."

The twins and Ginny snorted in unison.

"You have met Sirius, right?" Fred asked.

"About yay high?" George gestured with one hand.

"Black hair."

"Black clothes."

"Black toenails."

"He really should get that taken care of, it's a simple fungal cream."

"Even muggles have it."

"Black hair, this fellow has too."

"Maybe he doesn't wash?"

"Last time I saw him, he was in a bath tub."

"Wasn't that the bath tub filled to the brim with that strange pink jelly?"

"That would be the one, twin of mine, the very one."

"Not much cleanliness going on in that tub then."

"Not like us, brother."

"We are simply gods of hygiene though, brother."

"It's true. We shouldn't hold others to such high standards."

"Still, a shower wouldn't hurt."

"Okay, boys, enough. Of course I know Sirius, and I'm sure that he washes," Molly interrupted, much to the relief of her husband. If you let them, the twins could go on for ages like that. They'd had a memorable Christmas when the twins had been eight and Charlie and Bill had a bet going on how long they could carry on for. It had been coming up on three hours when Arthur, a little bit drunk on eggnog, had told the twins that if they didn't shut up, he'd curse them so that all they could ever hear was a recording of himself talking about all the muggle stuff in his shed with a great amount of enthusiasm. They'd shut up rather quickly after that.

"I just really hope he's not being too irresponsible. That's all I ask," Arthur complained.

"One hundred and twenty… twenty eight… one hundred and twenty… thirty! Ready orrr not, here I come fuckers!" Harry swayed slightly on the spot as he spun away from the wall he'd been facing, hands pressed tightly over his eyes. He pulled the cigarette from behind his ear and poked it between his lips. He lit up and took a drag before scanning the sitting room with slightly blurry eyes.

"I'm gonna fiiiind youuu!" He slurred in what he felt was a rather threatening manner. He blew smoke out through his nose and pretended for a few seconds that he was a dragon until he heard giggling from behind one of the thick burgundy curtains and his eyes narrowed and he stalked over the room. Well, he thought he was stalking. It was more a sort of stumble as he bashed into various objects on his way across to the windows. "I'm gonna geeetttt you!"

He ripped aside the curtain and almost fell over backwards. Dobby giggled and then gasped, seemed to realise that he'd been found already and darted through Harry's legs, running out of the room before he could be stopped.

"Hey!" Harry yelled, pouting, "Tha's no' fair! Tha's no' how you play!" He swayed a little more and then set out resolutely into the rest of the house, determined to, at the very least, hunt Dobby down and turn the little bit of fuzz the house elf had left on his head pink. Or green. Or gold. Or some sort of stupid ridiculous colour that would let Harry's friend know never to cheat at hide and seek ever again.

It can hardly be blamed on Harry that by the time he actually found Dobby, it was almost five hours later and the house elf was with the others, playing a drinking game that somehow involved Sirius climbing onto the kitchen table and drinking shots out of an old trophy they'd found in one of the cabinets.

"Where the hell have you been, pup?" Sirius asked, jumping off of the table and falling in a heap at his godson's feet.

Harry thought back to the events of the last five hours. Playing with his sword (his literal sword, not his *ahem*, metaphorical one) in the library, pretending he was battling aliens, having that game of 'no you shut up' with the portrait of Phineas Nigellus in his bedroom, and then finally falling down the ladder from the attic and lying on the floor for a while.

"I've been… uh… places. Various places. Of no interest to you, old man. Hey, Ruby's here!" Harry stepped over Sirius and made his way over to Ruby who was conveniently standing right next to a bowl of what looked to be some sort of punch. On further examination (and a glass or two) it turned out to be straight vodka with a bit of food dye.

Sirius paid him no mind and climbed back to his feet, throwing his arm around Hermione's shoulders and stopping her mid-rant. It turned out that far from mellowing her out, drinking just made Hermione more angry about various social issues. Sirius personally felt that his decade or so in Azkaban excused him from having to care about such stuff, but the Gryffindor didn't agree when he'd said so.

"Let's play the potato waffle game!" He announced, loudly, in Hermione's ear. Ron cheered a little too enthusiastically, waking Dobby up from his nap. Needless to say, they were all rather hungover the next morning and it took quite a few hours of showering to wash the potato waffles from various body parts.