Chapter 541: No. 12, Grimmauld Place... (Edited)

After some small talk, Sirius took the initiative, showing Fish and Hermione the rooms in his house.

As the oldest ancestral home of the Black family, there was no shortage of rooms, and not counting Bellatrix, who was still in Azkaban and had married, Sirius was the only one of the Black family left, so the rooms were largely unused.

As he led the way, Sirius presented the house situation to Fish.

"So this is your house?"

(°ω°≡°°ω°)

Fish followed Sirius, looking around curiously, and frowned when he saw a row of house elves' heads hanging on the wall.

He had seen on TV that some Muggles liked to hang the heads of the animals they hunted on the walls, something Fish wasn't a fan of, but Sirius had the heads of house elves hanging on the walls....

Fish, who already had a small opinion of him thanks to Snape, detested him even more.

(?ω?)

But Sirius was quick to notice the difference in Fish's expression and explained with equal distaste, "It's a family tradition my aunt 'invented': cutting off the heads of house elves when they get too old to hang on the wall."

"Oh my God, that's so cruel!" exclaimed Hermione from the side.

And Sirius shrugged, "But this practice quickly became popular among those pureblood families, and many elves even took pride in it.... That's why I ran away from home at first."

After his explanation, Fish's face improved a little, and he knew that there was something strange going on in the minds of the house elves in the house.

Fish kept looking around, and then asked, "Haven't you and Lupin been living here for over a year? Why is this place still a mess?"

?ω?

"This... ahahahahahaha..."

Sirius laughed dryly and scratched his head. "My family's ancestral home is too big," he excused himself. "And it's usually just me and Lunatic, plus a Kreacher at most, so it doesn't get cleaned much."

Mrs. Weasley rolled her eyes behind his, "Humph! Men!"

"And who's Kreacher?"

?ω?

Fish continued curiously.

"He's our house elf." Sirius' face didn't look very good, more like disgust, "His biggest dream is to die with his head hanging on the wall of this house."

Fish however was very interested in this Kreacher, "Where is he? Fish would like to meet him nya."

"Oh...then you're in for a big disappointment." Sirius pursed his lips and said, "He's not like the nice Hogwarts house elves, he's a crazy old man."

"A crazy old man? Like Albus nya?"

?ω?

Fish blinked, and said.

"Hahahaha! If it's about madness, they're probably both the same." Sirius was also interested in teasing Dumbledore, and grinned broadly.

Mrs. Weasley, who was following them, didn't stand for it, and shouted, "Sirius! How dare you say that about Dumbledore?"

"Hey, Molly, I was only joking with Fish." Sirius waved his hand with a wide grin.

"No joking!" Molly took two steps forward and hugged Fish, "What if Fish is serious?!".

"Wasn't Fish the first one to say that about Dumbledore?" exclaimed Sirius, laughing.

Mrs. Weasley turned to Fish and said, "Fish, you can't say that about Dumbledore, he's a great wizard and you must respect him."

"But..." Fish wiggled his ears, looking back at the startled twins, and said, "Rita said the same thing in the paper, and Albus said he liked her article nya."

"Uh..." Mrs. Weasley was struck dumb,

And the twins let out a long sigh of relief.

At that moment, they made their way to the room reserved for Fish and Hermione.

"This is your room," Sirius' snake-headed doorknob on the bedroom door opened the door, then winked at Hermione again, pointing to the left, "Your room is right next to Fish's, Hermione." He then pointed to the right, "Professor McGonagall's room is on the other side."

"Nya~"

?(=`? ′=)?

Without a word, Fish transformed back into his cat form and began to scamper around the room, occasionally leaving a few claw marks to mark his territory.

Hermione then transformed into a small black cat, jumped onto a chair and plopped down.

Sirius thought better of it and took the form of a big black dog, and then there were the hilarious twins....

Within seconds, Mrs. Weasley, Ron and Ginny were the only ones left in the room that had been crowded.

"Should I learn the Animagus Charm too?" Ron couldn't help but mutter as he watched his two siblings fly around the room enviously.

"No!" spat Mrs. Weasley, "You have O.W.L. exams this year! I forbid you to be distracted by other things!". She pointed bitterly at the magpies that George and Fred had become, "You both spend too much time on these things and didn't get a good grade on the exam!

"Don't worry, Mum," demolished Ginny as she rolled her eyes, "Ron's said that a dozen times, and I've never seen him act on it."

"Ginny!" shouted Ron annoyed with his disrespectful sister.

However, Ginny didn't bother to pay attention to him and, after twisting her lips, she ran over to Fish, who was still marking his territory, and picked him up in her arms and began petting him happily.

Mrs. Weasley was having a hard time with the little ones, so she shook her head and said, "I should be getting the food ready, George and Fred, come and help!".

The twins fell helplessly from the sky and returned to their human forms.

"It's weird that Fish is here, we should play with him for a while, Mom." George argued, undeterred, as they continued to try to talk to Fish about his sales strategy after Weasley's Sortileges.

Even though Bagman had only given them back the capital, with the money they had made last year, they should be able to open a store in Diagon Alley this year with a little more effort.

The twins have it all planned so that they can graduate after this year and then open a store in Diagon Alley, which is perfect.

So this year's turnover is very important to both of them.

But Mrs. Weasley didn't care about that, she just knew that George and Fred hadn't done as well on the O.W.L. exam as their three brothers, so they had nothing to do with her, and whenever she got the chance, Mrs. Weasley dragged the twins to housework.

This time was no exception...

"Cut the crap, Fish has Hermione and Ginny with him!". Mrs. Weasley shouted at the twins with her arms crossed, then, turned her attention to Ron who was cowering, "And you! Ron! Have you finished your homework yet? If you get the same O.W.L. grades as your two brothers this year, you know what will happen!".

A pained expression crossed Ron's face.

It seemed that Mrs. Weasley was worried about him repeating his twin brothers' mistakes, so she had suddenly started catching him studying this summer, not only reminding him to do his homework every day, but also having Percy come into Ron's room every night to give him extra lessons.

"It's only the beginning of the summer...Mum..." grumbled Ron reluctantly, but he made his way towards the door.

Not that he hadn't tried to negotiate with Mrs. Weasley before, but he had been forcibly shushed.

Mrs. Weasley came out of Fish's room with her three children, and when Sirius saw that Fish and the two girls were the only ones left in the room, he shuddered and transformed back, following him out.

Once they were all out of the room, Mrs. Weasley suddenly turned to the two cats and said in a serious voice, "Fish, Hermione, you'd better read more if you have time, you have O.W.L. exams this year, they are very important for wizards and your future work."

Her words had no effect on Fish, but it was Hermione who was nervous about it.

Hermione returned to her human form, pulled a copy of Standard Spells: level 4 out of her bag and flipped through it.

She had been running around Hogsmeade and the Forbidden Forest with Fish for a few days now, playing games. Other than working on vacation homework together in the afternoons, he hadn't read the textbook at all, which was unthinkable for Hermione.

Just as she was about to resume her studies, Fish let go of Ginny's arms and jumped to Hermione's feet, resting her front paws on Hermione's knees and looking at her excitedly.

?(=?ω?=)?

"Nya!"

Although Hermione in her human form didn't understand cat language, she understood what Fish was saying: the cat wanted her to tell her a story.

Miss Know-it-all looked nervously at the textbook in her hand and then at Fish....

"Snap!"

She closed the textbook in her hand with a loud slap and pulled out a new storybook.

Review and all that...

I'll do it next time!