- Chapter Five -
"Order of the Phoenix?"

STOMACH LURCHING AND BODY SQUEEZING until he was nothing more than a piece of paper flying through the harsh winds that pushed it a variety of ways, Sebastian Hargreaves apparated as soon as he had grabbed Remus' hand.

Not knowing where you were going in apparition was always scarier than when you did it on your own, a fact which Sebastian had not taken into account when he had decided to place his hand in Remus Lupin's calloused palm and let the man take them wherever he wanted.

The wind was whipping his face, but like all other apparition he did, Sebastian had his eyes shut tight - it helped to visualise and materialise the place in front of him.

Once his feet had thudded on a particular harsh and solid piece of stone, Sebastian knew they had arrived and opened his eyes up with hesitation.

The expectation of what he wanted to see before him had been vague; was Remus going to take him straight to Dumbledore? Had they lifted the apparition ban from Hogwarts? Was Dumbledore chilling in a pub in Diagon Alley?

Any of the three were plausible, but what stood in front of Sebastian and Remus was nothing like the young boy had been expecting there to be.

"Are you fucking joking me? I swear I'll kill you if this is some sick joke." Sebastian turned on Remus at once, pointing his finger at the location he had taken them too with a harsh glare on his face. Remus was beginning to think that was his permanent face.

"In case you forgot, Sebastian, I am in possession of your wand so you might want to tone it down." Remus spoke firmly to the young boy beside him - they were similar heights and so neither had any extra intimidation on the other. Yet surprisingly, Sebastian merely grimaced at Remus and backed away only slightly. "This is the place I meant to bring you to."

"A couple of ugly terraced houses in London?" Sebastian asked, heavy with sarcasm as he turned around and faced what was in front of them dead on.

The two of them seemed to be on grassy patches of land upon the edge of a pavement, behind them there was a gate but in front of them were tall buildings that stretched high into the clouds with black doors as their entrance.

A small staircase lead up to the door and steel iron gates like the ones behind them, branched off of the staircase and covered a window until it got to the staircase of the next one along.

The bricks were white but then turned into usual brick colour the more layers were put on the building and the higher it got, accompanied with multiple vertical windows trailing up the collection of bricks the houses were created with.

Sebastian furrowed his eyebrows, did Dumbledore live in the middle of London? But then he noticed a small crack in the brick of house number 11.

"This is the Black family house." Sebastian said lowly, eyes shifting over every inch of the houses that hadn't yet revealed the one they supposed they were wondering into. Remus simply hummed and Sebastian looked back at him before looking at the house again. "I met the whole family here. Orion, Narcissa, Bellatrix, Sirius...whatever his brother was called, I can't remember."

"What do you remember about Sirius?" Remus asked curiously, taking a piece of paper from his pocket as Sebastian stared at the houses willing for the magic one to appear, but it didn't.

"Not much. Bit of a rascal. Annoying. Preferred his brother." Sebastian shrugged his shoulders, learning to put up with all of the odd questions that Remus was asking him. He hoped that his willingness to answer them would allow Remus to do more for him. "He kicked a Quaffle and made that though."

Sebastian pointed a finger towards the crack in the wall of Number 11, remembering just last week where he had been made to go to the Black's house and help Bellatrix and Andromeda babysit. The parents called it 'bonding', Sebastian called it hell.

He didn't even really show his face to Sirius Black anyway, only kept an eye on him from a dark window whilst he went out and caused mayhem. His brother, just over a year younger, had decided to stay with Sebastian who had made his phoenix patronus dance around the room to entertain the young child.

A duty, just like any other. Except it wasn't last week. It was 25 years ago.

"Why are you asking me about Sirius?" Sebastian turned his head just a little, refusing to take his eyes off of the building in front of him as he tried to picture the house appearing between the two muggle buildings. It was broad daylight, so legally the two men couldn't use their wands to open up the house as muggles wandered the streets all around them.

"He was one of Elladora's best friends." Remus answered quietly and Sebastian twisted his mouth into a mix between a smile and a grimace as he remembered the defiant child he had taken little care of parading around with his sister. "And he's in that house. He was also in Azkaban for 12 years."

"Azkaban?"

"Read this." He instructed, cutting off Sebastian completely, who clenched his jaw in anger at his questions not being answered but he snatched the piece of paper from the man without a word and looked down at the words, furrowing his eyebrows before he looked to Remus to check if he was being serious. Remus simply nodded at him in encouragement. "Go on."

The Headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix may be found at number 12 Grimmauld Place, London

"Order of the Phoenix?" Sebastian asked in an extremely unimpressed manner and Remus snatched the paper back, giving the boy beside him an alarming look as a muggle smoking a cigarette passed them lamely, not really caring about either of them. "Oooo, sorry, nearly gave away your super secret order."

"Just-" Remus cut himself off, tired of dealing with the young boy beside him already. But for his sake, Sebastian's sake and the sake of Dumbledore who would want to know immediately that someone had been raised from the dead, he calmed himself and looked back at Sebastian. "Look at the buildings and remember what you read."

Sebastian sighed, one that made Remus' skin crawl in frustration as the boy turned and faced the houses opposite the street and repeated the sentence in his head. The Headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix may be found at number 12 Grimmauld Place, London.

Almost immediately, Number 11 and Number 13 began to slowly tear apart from one another, revealing a blackened and decayed Number 12 that sent a small chill down Sebastian's spine at the memories of what he knew transpired in that house 25 years ago.

"Right, come on then." Sebastian shook himself out of his shiver and began to cross the road, disregarding the cars that were about to run him over but slammed on their breaks at the last minute with the teenager decked head-to-toe in black appearing suddenly in front of them.

"Wh- Sebastian!" Remus hurried after him across the road, putting a hand out to the taxis and people in cars who were honking their horns at them in frustration and a little bit of shock. Apologies fell from his lips whilst whistling blew out of Sebastian's and the two of them climbed up the staircase together. "Did you never get taught road safety?"

"You mean, in my pureblood family, was I never taught about muggle customs?" Sebastian asked the man beside him who stuttered a little and gave in, realising that that was completely correct. But Sebastian just smirked humourlessly and turned back to the door, pounding on it with his fist impatiently. "Hello?"

"Just wait a second, someone will-"

"Hello?" Sebastian called again, banging even louder on the door and Remus tried to push his hands down but somehow the boy was quite a bit stronger and so shoved his hands away and continued pounding on the door. "Order of the Phoenix? Organisation of the birds?"

"Sebastian, stop it."

Despite Remus' harsh tone as he finally managed to stop the boy from nearly punching the door down, the black wood that Sebastian had been banging on was ripped open immediately and the two men turned to look at who stood in the doorway.

A small, frazzled ginger woman was stood in the threshold, eyes compressed into a glare and face flushed with anger as she stared at them but her anger slowly melted into surprise at the sight of a tall boy with Remus - she wore a dress down to her knees and an apron around her waist as well as flour stains upon her torso.

"Hello, Molly." Remus said exasperatedly as the woman moved out of the way of the door without saying a word and Sebastian sauntered in with the man right behind him, keeping track of every move he did. But the boy simply stopped in the middle of the hallway and looked around at the corridor, nothing much had changed. "Is Dumbledore here, do you know?"

"He just left, unfortunately, Remus." Molly answered, much to Remus' annoyance as he tutted and looked back at the boy he had entered with who was curiously walking down the hallway towards the dining room, eyes tracking every dusty corner of the building. "Who have you brought with you?"

"Uh..." Remus trailed off, watching as Sebastian picked something up off of a display table and juggled it in his hands for a second, not bothered that it was fragile glass. Then he put it back down, pursed his lips and turned on the spot to get a look at what was behind him - then Remus tore his eyes away from him to turn back to Molly. "I think it's best if we call an impromptu meeting."

"Everybody is about to be in the dining room, anyway." Molly clasped her hands together, pointing over her shoulder towards the door and Remus nodded, incredibly thankful. "We'll just have to get the children out- where did your friend go?"

"Shit." Remus looked back up, blood pumping rapidly for a minute as he scanned the hallway then proceeded to poke his head into the first couple rooms on the first floor with Molly trailing behind him cluelessly. Then, closing the door to one of the many living rooms in the house, Remus noticed that the door to the dining room was ajar. "Fuck, no no no no no."

At once, his walking turned into a small jog as he rushed to the door to the dining room, pushing it open as quickly as he could. He expected to see the dining table full of his colleagues from the Order, staring at Sebastian like he was a zombie back from the dead. Which technically he was.

Surprisingly, Sebastian was the only one in there, trailing around the long dining table and taking a look in all of the cupboards which contained goblets, glasses and plates.

"This is all very nice, very, very nice. But-" Sebastian slammed the doors of a cabinet closed, much to Molly Weasley's surprise as she yelped, but Sebastian paid no attention and instead leaned against the oak wood and raised his eyebrows at Remus in the doorway, shrugging his shoulders. "Where the fuck is Dumbledore?"

"He's not here right now, but-"

"Moony, I thought I heard your firm teacher voice." A new, low tone joined the conversation and everybody turned around to face a small corridor that lead out of the kitchen near to where Sebastian was stood.

Remus inhaled sharply and rushed across the kitchen to meet the new voice near the corridor, blocking Sebastian from view which made the boy furrow his eyebrows. Although Remus was tall, he didn't do much to block the two men from spotting one another.

Sebastian looked over his shoulder to see someone about the same age as Remus though slightly smaller, brown curly hair that reached his shoulders, a fancy coat on his shoulders and facial hair growing in thick.

In his hand, he held a goblet and behind him there was a boy with slightly cropped hair and round glasses over his startled looking eyes at Remus' quick movements.

"This really isn't a good time." Remus tried to whisper but everybody in the kitchen could hear him.

Even the new arrivals of tall ginger twins about Sebastian's age, a curly-haired brunette girl and another ginger boy being shoved out of the room by Molly seemed to pause at the predicament in the dining room.

"Why?" The man who had entered asked, looking around at the commotion as Molly managed to push everybody out of the room and slam the door behind her.

Locking Remus, Sebastian, the man and the boy behind him in the dining room as Remus looked awkwardly behind him and then back to the man.

Sebastian groaned loudly, making Remus wince as the boy just couldn't seem to pick up on the hint that Remus was trying to stay secretive.

The boy behind the new man popped out from behind him, eyeing the other teenager in the room curiously as Sebastian pushed himself away from the cabinet and went around the other end of the dinner table, extremely bored with whatever was happening.

"Remus, it's been nice. No. Why am I lying? It's been horrible." Sebastian said as he twirled a wand around in his hands and Remus put his hand to his waistband, feeling only one wand rather than the two he had previously had. But the boy didn't seem to threaten them, he just simply walked away. "But I've gotta go find Dumbledore. You know how it is."

"What the fuck?"

Sebastian stopped in his tracks, continuing to twirl his wand in his hand but slightly twisting so that he was facing the corner of the room where Remus, the man and the boy all stood. All of them could see each other so clearly now and Remus put his hands behind his head, groaning as Sebastian raised his eyebrows at the man who had spoken.

The little grin the man had previously had on his face dropped at once and he was drained of all colour as they met eyes with one another and the twinkling of Sebastian's brown eyes sent the man's goblet crashing to the floor.

"Oh, how rude of me." Sebastian puffed air into his mouth and then sighed it out, acting bored and Remus watched him unenthusiastically. For Elladora's sibling, Sebastian was endlessly infuriating. "Hello, Sirius."

•*•*•*•*•
A/N; giggling, if everything so far seems a bit too chaotic then good.