Moving into Sirius's house was certainly interesting for Harry. He had been ushered onto a street in London, and handed a slip of paper with the words '12 Grimmauld Place' written on it, and as soon as he read it, he watched the two buildings either side of it move apart, revealing a hidden third multi-level building between them.
As Harry entered, it was not too dissimilar to other apartment buildings he had seen in London before, a slightly cramped entry hallway that led immediately to a set of stairs. Hung on the wall by the door was some kind of painting, but a black sheet had been draped over it.
"Harry! Welcome to your new home, for the time being at least." Sirius said, clapping Harry on the shoulder, as he guided him inside. "Ignore the painting, it's my mother. Nasty old woman she is. Pureblood bigotry would be running through her veins if she still had those."
"I remember Aunt Walburga very well… you're downplaying it significantly." Andromeda said, as she glared at the covered painting.
"And to think, her prized children are either dead or in Azkaban, while you and I are free and living our best lives." Sirius said with a cocky smile.
"Narcissa is at least content where she is, and she's still following Walburga's rhetoric, at least publically." Andromeda said, as her eyes glanced over the large mural on the wall.
The mural was a family tree for the Blacks, with various portraits of individuals shrinking and growing to provide spotlights to certain ones. "Here Harry, that's your great-grandmother Dorea, you can see where they added a note about how she married Charlus Potter. If this had continued past where she married into the family you'd be on here." Andromeda said, pointing out the path that led to Dorea.
"He will be anyway if I decide to keep the damn thing. I'm torn on whether or not I should." Sirius said, crossing his arms in front of it. "I'd put the connection between myself, you, and Dorea for him, and make sure Nym's on it as well."
"Didn't Walburga take you off of it?" Andromeda asked.
"She blasted my spot, but I'm still on the tree itself." Sirius said, pointing to a blasted place on the wall. "I think only father could officially remove people, and despite how angry mother got with me, HE never cast me out of the family. Still not sure why."
"Do you think that maybe he wasn't as in on the pureblood agenda as she was?" Harry asked.
"Uncle Orion was still largely in favor of purebloods, but he definitely wasn't as far to that side as Aunt Walburga." Andromeda said, her eyes darting to the place on the tree where Walburga's name sat.
"He might have just wanted to make sure there was an heir to carry on the Black name. My older brother Regulus was already in with Voldemort's Death Eaters by that point, maybe he was just hedging his bets." Sirius pondered. "It's hard to tell really, father wasn't exactly the loving or sentimental type, but he did take pride in his name."
"Regardless, I think you should keep it." Harry said, looking at the wall. "It's part of the family, and it tells a story about where it came from. It's not like every person on this wall was a pureblood supremacist, right?"
"Uncle Alphard wasn't, as well as a few others dotted here and there." Sirius mentioned, rubbing his hand over a spot on the wall that was notably empty. "I need to add him back to this too."
"He's the one who helped you out after Walburga kicked you out of the house?" Andromeda asked.
"Yeah, he did. Got disowned totally for it as well. Ironic considering I wasn't, but he was an adult with his own money and business. He ended up fine in the end." Sirius said with a sad smile.
"Dragonpox is what got him in the end wasn't it?" Andromeda asked.
"Yeah, lost him, Fleamont, and Euphemia to it." Sirius said.
"My grandparents?" Harry asked.
"Yeah, they took me in after I got kicked out, so they were like my parents too. Alphard made sure I had money, but the Potters made sure I had a home." Sirius said with a smile. "They died a few months before you were born, they were so excited to meet you." Sirius shook his head. "That's enough with this sad talk, we're starting fresh here. A new Black family, so we're going to act like it. The old ones were dour and boring, so we're going to be fun and exciting. To that end, how about I show you to your new room Harry?"
Sirius bounded up the stairs with the energy of a child, and Harry followed behind. Entering his room, he was surprised to see that many of his decorations from home were here, including his Ravenclaw banners.
"We tried to move everything we could over, but since this is a magical house, not a lot of it could make it. The computer and your gameboy wouldn't survive here, so unfortunately you'll have to do without." Andromeda said as Harry took in the room.
"I'm sad that we don't have a choice about this, but there's no reason we can't make this place home. It took me a year, but I managed to get all the dark and depressing stuff out of here. Now the only 'dark' stuff left is in a closed off section of the library, because I'm hoping Dumbledore might get some use out of the knowledge there." Sirius said with a smile. "I know when Hermione gets here, she's going to immediately start tearing through all the books. I hope I've got enough to keep her busy during the summer."
"Hermione is coming to stay here?" Harry asked, and Sirius nodded.
"Hermione and Susan for certain. I'm not sure about anyone else. I offered for all of them to come stay, we have the room, and I know how much they mean to you." Sirius said.
Andromeda sighed. "Which means we're going to have to talk about sneaking into each other's rooms at night I'm sure."
"It's not sneaking if we just give the okay." Sirius said. "You're the parent here, but with everything those kids have been through, I think we can cut them some slack in that regard."
Andromeda thought for a moment. "I suppose you're correct on that front… I guess I'll need to have a talk with the other parents about this."
Harry flushed red at the implication, which he was thankful at this moment was still his natural reaction to this kind of thing, if only to not tip off his mother and godfather to the activities he had been up to since the Yule Ball.
"Oh, that reminds me. Andy, how much do we want to enforce the underage magic here?" Sirius asked.
"What do you mean? Underage magic is illegal." Harry said, looking to Sirius.
"It is, but in a wizarding household they can't tell who performed the magic, the trace isn't that accurate. In these instances it is up to the parents to enforce the rules on it. Since the primary reason behind the law seems to be to keep minors from performing magic in front of Muggles." Sirius said.
"I need to talk to Ted. He needs to be involved in this decision as well." Andromeda said.
New arrivals occurred by the day to 12 Grimmauld Place. First was Susan, who wasted no time in hugging Harry when she arrived. Hermione followed the next day, her parents deciding it would probably be safer for her to stay with the Tonks family. Luna arrived later, her father having given the okay to stay with Harry. Without her at the house with him though, he decided to make a trip to Belize to look for previously undiscovered magical creatures. Daphne appeared the day after, her family had moved to their own property under the Fidelius charm, but Daphne had insisted that she be allowed to stay with Harry.
As the five of them sat in the kitchen on the day Daphne arrived, Daphne pulled out a piece of paper. "Harry, while I know you aren't in any rush to sign one of these yet, I have been asked to present this to you for now." Daphne said, pushing the paper towards him.
The large text at the top that read 'marriage contract' was enough to startle Harry, but he calmed himself, beginning to read over it. "Your parents are wanting to push for this already?" Harry asked.
"Father wants to, out of formality mostly. If word got out that we were living together, even if temporarily, without explicit plans for getting married there is a worry about my social standing. We aren't overly worried, but it is something to consider." Daphne said. "I'm not going to make you sign, I'll be here regardless, and I told my parents that I didn't care if you did or not. They just wanted me to at least let you know they wanted it."
"Do you want this Daphne? Not just the social impropriety, but… are you really ready for an effective engagement?" Harry asked, nerves hitting him.
"Of course, I've already told you I intend to marry you, I knew that last summer. I had wanted to hold off on a contract mostly out of lack of desire for the formalness of it." Daphne said. "I'm not going to make you sign it, and just signing it for my sake won't make me happy. If you really want to take the step, and actively declare your explicit intentions to marry me, that's a different story."
"Well, I do want to marry you someday. I just… thought it'd be later. After graduation, or something. Not because I thought about not being with you just… well marriage is an adult thing. We're growing up fast, but we're still really young." Harry said, stumbling through his words to find his point.
"I don't want to actually marry you until we graduate either, not because I don't love you, but because of the others. I might be ready for marriage early, Padma is, and Susan is, but Luna's younger than us, so I can't expect her to be ready for that; and Hermione isn't ready largely by the standards through which modern muggles view marriage. I don't even know about how Fleur feels about all of this, although given how it seems even her soul has acknowledged her love for you, I'd be surprised if she wouldn't immediately put on that white dress if you asked her." Daphne said, leaning back in the chair she was in.
"What about the rest of you girls?" Harry asked, looking over to them.
"I'm ready to sign a contract whenever you are Harry. I realized I was going to marry you when you saved me from Riddle." Susan said, shooting him a sweet smile.
"I don't need one. Father knows that you make me happy, and we're not worried about this kind of thing." Luna said, looking at him sweetly.
"I wouldn't have a contract, but I certainly am not going to marry you until we graduate. Not because I do not love you, I love you dearly and fully expect to marry you, but because a girl younger than 18 getting married in the muggle world is… excessively scandalous." Hermione said.
"And one man marrying 6 women isn't?" Daphne asked.
"No, that's illegal. However, the wizarding world has different rules, and I don't expect all of us being married to come up too often in the Muggle world, although my marriage with Harry might." Hermione answered.
"How so?" Daphne asked.
"For starters, I would want a muggle wedding with Harry alongside whatever equivalent ceremony would be needed in the magical world. I want my family to watch me declare my love for Harry, and let them know I will be in good hands." Hermione said, shooting a smile at Harry.
"I want you to have that if you want it Hermione, we'll figure out how to deal with it when it happens though." Harry said, sitting back and reading over the contract. "I guess I'll have to make sure Sirius and Mum read over this too."
"Read over what, pup?" Sirius asked as he stepped into the kitchen, moving over to look at the paper he was holding. "Ah, Ms. Greengrass isn't even here for a day and is already trying to make you an honest man."
"Father is mostly. It was a compromise that I bring it up for me to be able to stay here." Daphne said, waving off Sirius's joke.
"I know, Harry and I have a meeting about another one of these next week." Sirius said.
"Wait, who wants a contract? And why wasn't I told about this until now?" Harry asked.
"Because I just got off of the floo call about it, and it's that Padma girl you like so much. Her family is apparently only going to allow her to come here for the summer if you sign the marriage contract." Sirius said. "I agreed to a meeting to discuss it, it'll ultimately be up to you to sign, you're old enough to make these decisions on your own."
Harry blanched for a second, trying to process the information. "Well, if I have to sign one of yours, I'll have to sign all of yours. Susan, do you want to call your aunt to get one drafted?"
"No Harry." Daphne said.
"What?" Harry asked.
"You don't have to sign all of our marriage contracts just because you have to sign Padma's." Daphne said, a fire in her eyes.
"I promised when we started this that I wasn't going to play favorites." Harry said. "I'm not going to give one of you special treatment."
"This isn't special treatment. Padma's situation is different. I'm not mad that Padma's would get signed first, I was fine with never signing one until the actual wedding day." Daphne said, standing up.
"You aren't signing mine just because you are signing Padma's." Daphne said, taking the page back.
"I won't make you sign one for me either, Harry. I'm fine without it for a few years still." Susan said with a smile. "I know you'll marry me. I don't need a piece of paper to tell me that."
Harry smiled, walking over to the two girls and pulling them into a hug. "Thank you girls, I love you, and if you want them signed I'll sign them, I just don't want you to feel obligated by them. I figure you'll eventually wise up and find some better bloke than me, and while I'll miss you terribly if you go, I want you to live as happy as a life as you can."
"And we will, with our husband Harry Potter, whenever we feel like tying that knot." Susan said, giving him a kiss. Daphne followed shortly thereafter.
"Not that I'm not enjoying the show I'm seeing, I have something else I need to talk to Harry about." Sirius said, looking to his godson.
"What is it?" Harry asked.
"The Order is having a meeting tomorrow. I want you there. You're more involved with this than anyone. Some of the Order members think you're too young to be involved with it, I say they're wrong. Ultimately I suppose it's Dumbledore's decision on if you're allowed to stay in, but I want you to make your best case for being there." Sirius said.
"I will then. If we're going to be fighting against Riddle, then I've got more experience than pretty much anyone." Harry said.
"You're damn right." Sirius replied with a wide grin on his face.