Love Lost, Not Forgotten

One week after moving out of the Granger household and into Grimmuald place, at the insistence of Sirius Black and Remus Lupin, Grace Granger and her two companions sat in the kitchen each eyeing their own copy of the daily prophet. None of them had spoken much about the owl, nor at about the fight Sirius and Harry had had over his schooling. Together the three had decided to let him make his own choice, he had after all done all that he could to save the world—they just wanted him to relax a little before jumping into the life of an Auror.

“Grace, can you pass the marmalade…and your crossword? Someone,” Remus gave a pointed look to Sirius, “decided to do theirs and mine … in ink.” The dog-like man folded his paper down long enough for his friend to see him childishly stick out his tongue before folding it back up. The woman sitting between them, at the head of the table, only rolled her eyes and did as she was requested, “Certainly seems like this will be a quiet day.”

Sirius folded his paper and was beginning to speak when the front door slammed, “She speaks too soon Moony,” he chuckled a bit, as did Remus, but the laughter died as soon as a redhead charged and knocked Grace out of her chair.

“You bitch! You killed her!” There was a slapping noise and a holler as Grace tried to block her face from Ronald’s flying hands. The outside door slammed twice more and yelling was heard, but none more so than Sirius as he picked Ron up and slammed him into the wall, “What the hell are you on about?!” Remus moved to help Grace up, her face red and beginning to bruise.

Ron, his own face crimson and bleary from tears, pointed at Grace and yelled, “She killed her! You took her only reason to live! That bitch killed my mum!” He tried to knock off the older man to get to her but others came in to help Sirius. Harry, who looked about as worn as Ron, shoved Sirius out of the way and grabbed Ron by the shoulders, “It wasn’t her mate! She didn’t know it would happen! None of us did!” Ron looked at Harry his face unreadable for a moment before he shoved the boy who lived into his godfather. He took a step towards Grace, who was thrust behind Remus, and pointed a finger at her, “Its your fault! I know it! You had it out for us the moment you came here!”

Hermione, who had been standing in the door frame all along moved forward, “Ron,” but he rounded on her as well. “And you! You ungrateful, sodding bitch! You’ve been waiting for something like this haven’t you?! Waiting for my life to fall to pieces so you could just come in and rescue me. Well you can forget it! You and your filthy mother can just get the fu—“

“THAT IS IT!” a booming voice sounded from near the kitchen table. Sirius moved forward and grabbed Ronald by the scruff of his shirt, “You take your filthy mouth and get out of here! You will not speak to my daughter or her mother that way, Weasley! I’m sorry for your loss but it gives you no right to barge into my home and beat on my guests before trying to tear them down with insults!” After grabbing him Sirius had begun to walk towards the door, his mother’s portrait was screaming about blood traitors and the like, at that moment it almost seemed as if Sirius would have agreed with her. Without the use of his wand, or any magic at all really, Sirius opened the front door and thrust the ginger headed Weasley onto the ground in front of his Ancestral home. “I don’t want to see your face anywhere near my girls, my home, or my godson, do you understand? No where! Or I won’t bother with niceties. Just remember Weasley, I’ve gotten out of Azkaban before.”

The kitchen was almost silent when Sirius made his return, Harry had picked up Grace’s seat and sat down while Hermione cried and healed her mother’s face. Remus was up boiling water for tea, Sirius just took the seat next to Grace and put a hand on her back. The gesture caused the woman to look up at him and sniffle, “I mean for anything to happen. She just looked so tired, oh God, Sirius I killed her.” Sirius shook his head and pulled her closer allowing her time to cry on his shoulder. He looked between the two teenagers and in a calm monotonous voice he said, “I want neither of you to visit Ronald. Ginevra and the others may still visit, if they don’t attack Grace as Ronald did.” He turned and looked at Harry, “When is the funeral?” Harry looked into his Godfather’s eyes and shrugged, “They found her this morning, Ginny had gone to wake her up for breakfast and she just … didn’t wake up. It isn’t your fault Grace, she was getting ill to begin with. Fred and George think she may have kept some of the poisoned sweets that …” Sirius shook his head not needing him to finish.

Hermione was still quiet; she had been shocked by Ron’s outburst. No it wasn’t quite what she would have expected, Ron had never been a connoisseur of words but it still hurt that he would think of her like that. After healing her mother’s cheek she had watched as Sirius took control of the situation and could almost find redeeming qualities in him, after all, not everyone wanted to deal with her mother’s waterworks.

Sirius looked around the table and sighed heavily, “Listen we’ve only got a few more weeks before Hermione goes off to school. We’re a family, all that each of us has right now …” he gave Hermione a glance as she started to open her mouth, “we’ll mourn for Molly, but we won’t blame anyone. She and Arthur were together since Hogwarts, they’ve been attached to each other for a long time … it was only a matter of time before she was with him again. Harry, tomorrow you and I will go give our condolences, buy flowers, and all that lot, Remus …”

The werewolf looked up and nodded, “I’ll do that today for myself … maybe drop by WWW and find out just when the Funeral is, apologize for what’s transpired here, then I’ll get some take-away. Sound alright for everyone?” He looked around the table and received nods before standing. Harry stood as well, “I’ll help you … Hermione?” The bookworm of the now disbanded trio looked up and shook her head, “I think I’m going to just go to Diagon Alley, pick up my things for school.” There was no noise other than sobs from Grace as the three got up and made their way to the fire place.

Once everyone was gone in their own green flame Sirius rubbed Grace’s shoulder and cleared his throat, “Alright, c’mon love. I think its time you took a nap.” Grace only nodded and wrapped her arms around his neck. Sirius lifted her bridal style and climbed the stairs until he was near his room. It wasn’t by coincidence that he had placed her there, he wanted her close by. But of course he also made the convenient mention that Hermione’s room was on the same wing.

Sometime in the move from kitchen to the fourth floor Grace had actually fallen asleep, thus making it hard for Sirius to open her closed door. Grumbling under his breath he looked down the hall seeing his own bedroom door open, “Don’t slap me Gracie, please don’t slap me.” Moving carefully he settled them on his bed and pulled her close with his arms around her. A nap wouldn’t hurt anyone.