Not seeing the internal struggle in his godson, Sirius followed along behind, skipping happily as the whole group went to the kitchen. "I told Kreacher you were coming a few days ago," the animagus explained. "He stocked the whole kitchen, cleaned your room again, you now have three vases of dead flowers in there, and now he's gone into his invisibility mode and no one has seen him in about 24 hours."
"Strange," Harry remarked simply as he looked in the cupboards. Luckily, they were very well stocked. "I'm going to make a curry," he finally decided.
Initially, Harry had started Sirius and Remus out on chopping ingredients. After they started throwing carrots at each other, Harry moved them to stirring. It only took ten minutes before they were distracted again, and Harry eventually just kicked them both out of the kitchen with Tonks following along behind, laughing at them the whole time. He needed another saucepan and wasn't sure where he would find one once he was finally left alone, grumbling as he cooked for the Order members. "Kreacher! Is there another saucepan?!" Harry called out, feeling silly talking to a house elf that wasn't in the room.
Another pan immediately appeared on the stove with a loud pop. "Thank you!" Harry called out again, wondering if he'd ever see the house elf. "I'm not going to hurt you, by the way. Seriously, I'm harmless!"
The ancient house elf popped into the room and warily stared at the dementor. "Kreacher thinks the dementor might eat his soul. The dementor destroyed the evil in the locket though when Kreacher couldn't, so Master Regulus can rest in peace now. Kreacher doesn't know what to do," he continued in a tone of distress, wringing his bony hands.
"I'm not going to eat your soul, Kreacher," Harry assured him with a smile. "I don't think house elf soul would taste very good anyway. Please keep it to yourself that I'm a dementor though if you don't mind. As for Master Regulus…do you mean this locket?" He asked, pulling the locket up to show the elf.
Kreacher nodded his head vigorously. "The evil wizard's locket. Master Regulus asked Kreacher to destroy it, but Kreacher couldn't."
Harry glanced around at the multiple pans simmering and the massive undertaking he was in the middle of with a sigh. "Kreacher…would you like to help me by doing some chopping? I would love to hear more about Regulus and the locket as well." The house elf's face went from wary to happy as he immediately started chopping produce expertly and chatting about his beloved Master Regulus. Harry was so grateful to the house elf that he'd listen to whatever he wanted to share for as long as he wanted to share.
"This is the best curry I've ever had!" Kingsley Shacklebolt exclaimed as he got a second helping while everyone sat around the table chatting before the Order meeting.
"Yes, Sirius," Molly Weasley nodded in shocked respect. "I have to admit, I didn't believe you could do it. You've proven me wrong."
"Oh please, Harry kicked all of us out of the kitchen after about fifteen minutes," Tonks laughed and dropped her fork on the ground while Sirius glowered at her.
"You made this, Harry?" Mr. Weasley gaped at the teen as everyone else looked at him in shock.
Harry turned pink in embarrassment. "Er, Kreacher helped a lot," he motioned to the house elf who was washing dishes in the corner to everyone's amazement since he usually never helped with anything.
"I didn't realize you could cook," Mrs. Weasley shot narrowed glares at all her kids (those old enough for the Order anyway) who were avoiding her eyes, none of them wanted to learn to cook no matter how much she tried to get them to.
"Yes, very impressive, my boy," Dumbledore grinned at Harry, looking a little less worried than he had in a while. Harry figured that might be since he, the dementor, was away from all the students at the school.
"Sure, no worries," Harry mumbled out, looking for an escape. The escape came when he was kicked out of the kitchen and the meeting started shortly after. He was fine with that though; he had his own plans. Over the summer, Harry had noticed that Snape would normally stay after Order meetings to get potions started that took all night to brew. He'd then return the next morning to bottle them. It didn't sit right with Harry the fact that Remus didn't seem to know about the HSMC, and he couldn't figure out why Snape would have sold him out third year either. He needed to talk to the Potions Master; he would just have to find a way to make the man answer his questions.
A couple hours later, Harry had unpacked his trunk in his room and admired the dead flowers Kreacher had left him. He'd also come up with a semblance of a plan while he waited outside the attic door for Snape to come up and start the potions. The tall man stopped and sneered at the teen when he arrived at the door to his make-shift lab. "What do you want, Potter? I'm supposed to be rid of you for a couple weeks."
"I have some questions I need to ask," Harry said as he nervously opened the door for his professor.
"I'm not in an answering mood, bugger off," Snape growled at him and pushed past, seeming more irritated than he normally was.
Harry hurried through the door behind him. "I have a deal for you. If you answer my questions, I promise I won't talk to you to the rest of break. I'll avoid you as much as possible. I'll be a ghost until the new year."
The vampire narrowed his gaze and considered for a moment. "You'd promise to completely avoid me, not even looking in my direction if you could help it?" He asked, an eyebrow quirking up in question.
"As much as humanly possible…or dementorly possible, rather," Harry smiled hopefully.
Snape gave a sharp nod and started pulling vials off his shelves. "Fine, ask your questions, but I'm not answering anything I don't want to."
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