Watching as the houses with numbers 11 and 13 moved apart to make room for a decrepit and shabby-looking building with the barely noticeable digits of number 12 on it, Petunia sighed doomedly and said:
Oh, my heart tells me that this summer the trip to the island is canceled. But, Harry, promise me that as soon as everything settles down, you will invite Vernon and me to rest and laze around on the white sands of the beaches for a year or two.
Anything you want, Aunt Petunia. Anything you say, I'll do.
The wall of the building facing the square was solid, windowless, and covered with dirty patches of mold. There was only a large door, with rusty iron nails driven into the wood. Its handle was strange, of an intricate shape – with spikes and curlicues. From the outside, the building looked empty and uninhabited, probably for several dozen years.
A broken staircase of once beautifully worked granite led from the pavement up to the entrance level, and Harry climbed it to open the door. At the last moment, having already placed his hand on the strange door handle, which up close seemed to the boy like an open greedy maw, he remembered that Sirius had given him the address of his house, but had not given him the key to it.
But it was already too late, his hand lay on top of the dull metal, and a sharp pain from the prick on the inside of his palm frightened Harry. He jumped back and, taking a step, almost fell from the stairs, but miraculously held on, watching in surprise as the door opened with an ear-cutting creak.
From inside came the smell of rot and stale air, the darkness was impenetrable.
With a timid step, the boy crossed the threshold and entered this frightening house. The light from the street weakly penetrated into the gloom of the vestibule, and he suddenly felt cut off from the whole world and from people. In search of support, he confidently turned and looked back at his companions on the street. They were standing in the same place where he had left them earlier, and were looking at the dark maw of the entrance into the house with pale faces.
Aunt Petunia, Dudley, come in! – he shouted, and they finally moved from their place and followed him inside.
After the front door closed, pitch darkness fell, and having no other options for seeing where they had ended up, Harry took his wand out of his trouser pocket and said:
Come what may. Lumos!
The bright light at first blinded the three visitors, but then, when their eyes got used to it, they began to look around. Dark, gloomy-shaded walls, high under the ceiling hung wooden panels as decorations, with some small dried-up heads on them. Several doors painted with cracked black paint, a strange-looking – wooden, the visitors decided – leg, serving as an umbrella stand with a single faded umbrella in it.
Opposite the entrance, from floor to ceiling, stood a huge painting with a room depicted on it. In the foreground, in a beautiful antique armchair, an elderly lady was sleeping, having laid her head drearily on her hands. The setting around the lady was richly furnished, with a fireplace in which no fire was burning, a small table with a tea set, and a little farther behind stood a sideboard, whose glass reflected light coming from somewhere to the side. Curtains of dark-green, almost black color descended to the floor covered with a Persian carpet.
The lady looked tired, desperate, and lonely in her dark surroundings, being in the painting on the wall of this empty vestibule. But when the light from Harry's Lumos played across the canvas, something unprecedented happened – suddenly the woman in the painting opened her eyes, seeing which the three visitors – Petunia and the two boys – let out a piercing scream and stepped back toward the exit.
The painted lady sharply rose from the chair and took a step forward, as if intending to come out of the canvas of the painting, shouting in a thunderous voice:
Who are you? What are you doing in my house? How did you get inside?
The three opened and closed their mouths, trying to breathe. Petunia, as the oldest in the group and the most responsible of them, came to herself first and decided, to hell with common sense, to answer the woman in the painting:
Sirius Black dictated the address to us, madam, saying that he had made my nephew his heir.
What is your nephew's name, Mrs. ...?
Dursley. And my nephew is Gary, Harry Potter.
The lady in the painting began to examine the boys attentively, deciding which of them was the son of Sirius's crazy friend, James, but out of the two only that one, the dark-haired one, seemed to her to be the likely Harry.
Come closer, Mr. Potter, - ordered the woman from the portrait, and the boy, obeying her, stepped forward. – All right, now clap your hands and say "Light."
The dark-haired teenager followed the lady's order, and high under the ceiling several bright globes spilled white, almost daylight. Having extinguished Lumos on his wand and feeling that politeness, even under such strange circumstances, had not been canceled, he nodded his head and said:
I am Harry James Potter, ma'am. And recently, at the goblins', I understood that I am also a Slytherin.
The elderly lady's eyes widened, and she began blinking them in surprise.
From which side – from your father or from ... your mother?
From my father's side, as they assured me, ma'am. And who, forgive me, are you?
Oh, dear boy! Such an unforgivable mistake on my part, not to introduce myself to the dearest heir of the family. I am Sirius's mother, Lady Walburga Black. And who are your companions?
Harry made a half-turn and pointed at his aunt:
Allow me to introduce to you my aunt, Mrs. Petunia Evans-Dursley – the sister of my mother, Lillian Evans-Potter. With us is my cousin, Dudley Frederick Dursley.
The fair-haired teenager took a step forward, stamped his foot, nodded his head with the most serious look, and said crisply:
Very pleased to meet you, ma'am.
Walburga's dark, almost black eyes lingered searchingly on Potter's relatives, and after a minute of silence she said:
Everyone said that James married a Mudblood, but her sister and nephew are not Muggles. Something is wrong with their core, but they are not Muggles, I am certain. They need to be examined at Mungo's. But tell me, Mr. Potter, where did you meet my good-for-nothing son? Did he finally deign to escape, in the end?
We have no time to go into details, ma'am, - Petunia intervened in the conversation. – In short, Harry caught the real traitor of his parents, Peter Pettigrew, who had been hiding in the form of a rat. Today is the trial over him in the Wizengamot. It turned out that your son has no relation whatsoever to the death of my sister and her husband, so Sirius was freed and brought to the office of the head of Investigation. We were there and met him there.
My son was locked away without trial or investigation in Azkaban, so that he could not take care of his godson. Damn Dumbledore and his chess games! – the painted lady lamented mournfully, and tears shone in her bottomless eyes. – What, besides the address, did my son say?
He had little time to say anything before he was taken to Mungo's, ma'am, - Harry decided to keep silent about Sirius's loss of consciousness. – But he informed me that he had made me the heir of your family, that his will is kept here, that the house-elf Kreacher must give it to me and swear himself into my service.
That is wonderful, dear boy! Kreacher! – the painted Lady Walburga called, and with a soft pop a decrepit, dirty house-elf appeared before the guests.
The gray skin, where it was exposed, hung from thin bones. Huge ears drooped backward down the back of the pitiful creature. Small, malicious eyes dug into the visitors with wild hatred, and then looked at the portrait, and their gaze became soft, devoted, and unhappy.
The beautiful mistress called Kreacher? Do you want him to drive out the intruders?
Lady Walburga took another little step forward, and it seemed to the guests that with just a little more pressure on the canvas, she would tear through it and come out into the vestibule.
Kreacher, listen to my order and obey. This dark-haired boy is your new master. His name is Harry James Potter-Slytherin. My eldest son, Sirius, made him his heir, and that means the heir of the House of Black as well. The first thing you must do is swear loyalty and service to your master. Then bring him everything he orders you to, and what you hid away in your hiding place. Do it!
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