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Grimmauld Place is the Black family house. It's located in London, in a rather derilect area. it's protected by a Fidelus charm and can only be found by those who know where it is. It pops up between Numbers 11 and 13 when viewed by such a person. Sirius grew up in Grimmauld Place and ran away from home when he was 16. After his parents' and brother's death, the house fell into his position and he gave it over to Dumbledore to be used as the Order of the Phoenix Headquarters. Harry, Hermione, the Weasleys and many Order members, including Lupin, Tonks and Moody lived at the Headquarters with Sirius for a while. Being the house of Dark Wizards (Sirius's family), it's fashioned rather crudely. It has grimy windows and a battered black door, with a door knocker in the form of a silver serpent. The furniture is metal and gothic, with huge rickety chandeliers and tables shaped like serpents. The hallway is gloomy, filled with cobwebs and lined with old, age-blackened portraits of sinister-looking witches and wizards. There are tables made with trolls' legs and their are rows of shrunken house-elf heads lining the staircase. Everytime a family elf died, it was a tradition to mount their heads.
When the Order inherited the house, Harry, Hermione, Sirius and the Weasleys were assigned the job of decontaminating it. It had been empty for a long time, and magical pests and dark creatures had begun breeding there. The drawing room is filled with dark-magic objects and poisons. It also houses a Black family tree tapestry, where Sirius's name has been burned off - as he rebelled against his Dark Wizard family. The Black family elf, Kreacher, inhabits the house. He slouches around, muttering insults against Sirius and the Order - he's still faithful to Sirius's dead mother, whose screaming portrait hangs at the top of the staircase. The Grimmauld Place kitchen is a cavernous room with rough stone walls, and is scarcely less gloomy than the rest of the house. It has a huge stone fire-place at the end, and a long, roughly hewn wooden table in the centre, with many heavy iron pots and pans hanging from the ceiling.
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Number
12, Grimmauld Place
