"This is it," Sirius said as he led the two into the foyer, stopping at a spot where two velvet curtains hung, "It's not too late to repent." He said grabbing the doe-eyed velvet curtain with one hand.
But it was obvious that Fish and Hermione weren't going to regret it, Sirius sighed and remembered, "Remember to cover your ears." With that, he pulled the curtain from his hand and yanked it off the wall.
The next moment Fish and Hermione knew why Sirius had warned them to cover their ears....
A terrible, deafening, chilling scream came from the portrait behind the curtain, an old woman in a black hat screaming desperately, as if she was being hit hard.
And as she screamed, it was as if a chain reaction had started in the lobby, and all the other silent portraits started screaming, and it was as if the whole lobby had been a roller coaster ride when Fish had gone to the amusement park.
"Nya!"
?(?≥∆≤?)?
Fish groaned in pain, quickly retracted his cat ears and covered his human ears with his hands, while beside him Hermione did the same.
"You bastard, you bastard, you filthy sinner, how dare you present yourself to me!"
The old woman in the portrait screamed and cursed, and waved her skinny hands like chicken feet, as if trying to claw at Sirius' face.
"Shut up, you horrible old hag! Shut up!" Sirius shouted defiantly, and pulled out his wand, casting a stupor spell on the other screaming portraits to silence them again.
The old woman in the portrait paled as she pointed at Sirius and continued to curse, "Loser! A disgrace to the family! The evil seed I gave birth to!"
"I told you! Shut up!" shouted Sirius to his mother at the top of his lungs.
Mother and son refused to give in to each other, and their screams were louder than the previous scream, and they were on the verge of overwhelming each other in volume.
Fish and Hermione could only cover their ears as they watched in disbelief as they argued.
Just as the two were at a dead end, an old man, who looked familiar to Fish, appeared in the portrait, grabbed Sirius' mother's shoulder and said quietly, "Come on, Walburga, shut up and don't make jokes with the guests."
"Phineas, what brings you here nya?".
(?ΦωΦ?)?
Fish's cat ears popped out of his silver-gray hair, and he excitedly greeted the new old man in the portrait.
This man was, naturally, Phineas Nigellus Black, the most unpopular Headmaster in Hogwarts history, and the only one from Slytherin...Fish's oldest friend.
"This is my house, of course I can be here." Phineas stroked his goatee, rather proudly, and then, with a smile and a nod toward Fish, said, "You're welcome to come to Ancestral Black house, Fish."
He ignored Hermione, who stood beside him, and was already reluctant to argue with her, for the sake of Fish and Hogwarts, and for the sake of his status.
"Great-grandfather!" Walburga Black stopped shouting as soon as she saw Phineas, and stood behind him respectfully.
"Phineas..." Sirius looked at Phineas and greeted him reluctantly as well.
"Hmph!" Phineas didn't look kindly at the grandson who had betrayed his family's traditions, he didn't even bother to look at Sirius, he kept talking to Fish.
"Are you coming to see Walburga?".
Phineas knew how everyone else present treated his scion, so it could only be Fish, the curious little man.
"Yes," Fish said with a serious nod, "Fish wants to reconcile Sirius with his mother."
(??ˇ?ˇ??)
"No way! I can never forgive that bastard son!" Mrs. Blake shouted again.
"But Sirius is her son, and whatever Fish has done wrong, Minerva will forgive me."
But Mrs. Black refused to acknowledge Sirius' existence, she shouted, "My son is just Regulus! My poor baby... woo woo woo woo woo woo..."
She couldn't help but cover her face and cry as she remembered her infant son who was nowhere to be seen and had probably been murdered.
"You see, Fish? There's no chance of reconciliation between us!"
Sirius shouted with a terrible frown.
Even though he had been dead to his family for a long time, Sirius was still embarrassed and ashamed to hear himself denied by his own mother once again.
Then, without waiting for Fish to say anything else, he lifted the velvet curtain, which was covered with bug eyes, and covered his portrait of Lady Black again.
"I'm tired, I'll go back to bed."
Once the curtain was closed, Sirius waved to Fish and Hermione, as if he had run out of steam, and walked out of the hall with a heavy step.
"Hermione, did Fish do something wrong again?"
(??ω??)?
Fish seemed to sense Sirius' sadness and asked in a depressed voice.
"None of your business," Hermione whispered as she hugged Fish. "You were being nice, weren't you? It's the conflict between Sirius and his mother's philosophies that's so violent, it's not easy to get them to understand each other."
"Like Draco and Harry?"
Fish remembered the analogy that had occurred to him earlier.
Hermione twisted the corners of her mouth, then nodded, "Well, you can say that too."
It was a bit of an odd analogy, but, seriously speaking, it didn't seem wrong.
...
"Minerva~"
?●ω●?
When it was time for dinner, Professor McGonagall finally appeared, and Fish rushed over to her, missing his mother because of the evening's events.
Mr. Weasley, Bill, Percy, and Lupin were also there, and they were all very happy to see Fish, so they all gathered around and ate dinner very comfortably.
When dinner was over, Bill got up and left, neither he nor Percy were staying here, Percy was staying, of course, to help Ron with his homework.
As Ron was dragged to his room by Percy with a sad face, Fish dragged Professor McGonagall to his room.
"Well, what story do you want to hear today?"
Professor McGonagall asked with a smile as she sat down next to Fish on the bed and rubbed his cat ears.
"Minerva," Fish ignored Professor McGonagall's question and instead put his arm around her and told the story of what had happened today. "Fish met Sirius' mother today...".
As Fish related what had happened, Professor McGonagall's face showed an expression of excitement.
"I think Mrs. Black still loves Sirius, but Regulus' murder hit her so hard that she probably took it out on Sirius."
Professor McGonagall didn't know exactly what Mrs. Black was thinking, but she tried to give Fish as "good" a reason as possible.
"Conflict between mother and son is not so easily resolved," Professor McGonagall said, giving Fish a pat on the head similar to Hermione's, "just as I wouldn't easily forgive you if you tried to follow Voldemort now. "
"It's not the same thing nya!" replied Fish, "Following Voldemort is doing bad things, Sirius isn't doing bad things!"
?(? `ω′?)?
"But in Mrs. Black's eyes, Sirius is doing pretty much the same thing." Professor McGonagall explained at length to Fish, "Although in our eyes, Mrs. Black is the one in the wrong, Sirius could not choose his family's birth, and in a pureblood family like the Black's, Sirius' actions are the ones that are wrong..."
Professor McGonagall spent the afternoon talking to Fish about many things, from the relationship between mother and son to the clashing philosophies between purebloods and half-bloods and even Muggle wizards.
While Fish may not have fully understood, he listened attentively and took note of everything, showing no signs of falling asleep in the middle of the conversation.
"Well, it's getting late, so you should get back to bed, and Mom has things to do tomorrow."
They talked well into the night, when Professor McGonagall looked at her watch and stopped talking.
"By the way," she said, suddenly remembering something, "Did you remember to take a mandrake leaf today?"
"Nya! Fish forgot!"
∑(?`Д′?)