To put it bluntly, in the eyes of most adults in the wizarding world, Sirius wasn't exactly reliable. Then again, this was something of a Gryffindor trait.
The difference was, most Gryffindors eventually mellowed out—either after starting families or after being thoroughly beaten down by society. Just look at the Weasleys, or Lupin. Sirius, however, wasn't like that.
Oh, he had been beaten down, all right—but mostly by the Dementors of Azkaban, not by the backstabbing politics and exhausting interpersonal drama of the adult wizarding world. So his experiences, though numerous, hadn't exactly made him more mature. Honestly, before Azkaban he was one way, and now—he was still pretty much the same.
This was also one of the reasons the Weasleys weren't too keen on letting Ron stay at Sirius's house. Not because of anything sinister, but simply out of fear that one of Sirius's "great ideas" might get a group of young wizards killed.
If Harry hadn't been so stubborn about it, they might even have tried to fight Sirius for custody.
Unfortunately, that wasn't an option. Whether in the Muggle world or the wizarding world, custody of Harry was firmly in the hands of the Dursleys—backed, in the wizarding world at least, by Dumbledore's endorsement. Even if the Dursleys didn't want custody (or at least didn't look like they did), they still held it.
The other families, however, didn't have the same concerns as the Weasleys. Neville's parents, for instance, knew Sirius well.
They had worked with him in the Order of the Phoenix and had even been in the same year at school. Besides, now that Sirius had cleared his name, his character wasn't in question.
Well... character aside.
Like everyone else, they didn't necessarily think Sirius was "reliable," but they did have full confidence in his magical power.
Put simply: if Sirius fought at full strength, and it came down to a fair, one-on-one duel, he could hold his own against Voldemort for at least a few exchanges.
Of course… it was only two spells—being generous, maybe ten at most.
As for Hermione's parents… well, this was a prime example of how an information gap makes all the difference.
If they'd at least had time to subscribe to the Daily Prophet, they wouldn't have been so easily tricked by Hermione into believing there was a difference between "Sirius Black, wanted criminal" and "Sirius Black, her friend's guardian."
Whatever excuse Hermione gave them, somehow she managed to convince her logical, middle-class parents, and so she ended up joining her friends at Sirius's newly purchased house on Privet Drive.
"I swear, what I really need right now is a spell that only wrecks the décor without damaging the house itself… I'm getting tired of tearing this stuff apart manually…" Sirius grumbled, swinging a hammer and smashing a huge dent into a stainless steel cabinet that didn't suit his taste.
"Can't you just use a Peeling Charm for that? I thought those household spells were mostly conceptual anyway," Kasenhis said, while one of his mechanical arms went wild destroying everything non-structural and non-living in sight.
"Me… uh… back in school, I never really bothered with household magic. Didn't think it was worth learning." Sirius glanced at the younger wizards. Ron met his eyes, then both turned to look at Hermione.
Hermione sighed helplessly. "It's too late for that now. The wallpaper and furniture are already smashed into bits. I'd have to use a Peeling Charm on every single fragment."
"Maybe it's because you're not conceptualizing hard enough. Those spells don't have a fixed casting effect—it's all about intent. Magic, in a way, is closer to doing whatever you want with your willpower," Sirius explained.
"So then, couldn't you just use magic directly, without an incantation, to peel things?" Neville asked curiously.
"Uh… oranges, maybe."
A simple demolition plan, carried out with the full effort of two adults and three young wizards, somehow dragged on for the entire morning. By noon, everyone ordered some fast food and started eating. Maybe it was because they were starving, but ten minutes later Kasenhis pulled out his phone and placed a second order.
"Wait a second… none of you ate breakfast before coming here?" Sirius asked.
Neville gave an embarrassed look. "We thought the house would already be renovated. We came purely for the food, so we left our stomachs empty on purpose…"
Ron nodded weakly. "Yeah… now I finally understand the look my mum gave me when I left."
"What look?" Sirius asked instinctively.
"Uh… pity. Maybe because you're unreliable?" Ron replied.
"Mm. My parents had the same look," Neville added, then exchanged a glance with Ron, and the two gave each other a high five in perfect understanding.
Meanwhile, after eating and drinking his fill, Kasenhis sat on a toolbox to rest for a while.
Out of nowhere, scaffolding and mesh appeared in his hands, and he casually walked around setting up a tightly sealed barrier around the whole house.
By the afternoon, once the young wizards had eaten, rested, and fully recharged, Kasenhis finally started the real work.
First, he had Sirius use the Vanishing Spell to clean up all the trash in the rooms. Then he began with the flooring. Square oak planks flew into place like building blocks, quickly covering two full stories of the house.
After that came the wallpaper…
"...What's wrong?" Sirius asked, noticing Kasenhis suddenly pause.
Kasenhis shook his head. He couldn't exactly admit he'd forgotten to bring plaster. If he stuck the wallpaper on directly, it would look uneven and bumpy. But as a genius in civil engineering, he came up with a solution almost instantly.
First, he pulled out a huge thin wooden board, roughly the same height and width as the wall. Then he pressed three sheets of sugarcane paper flat across the board, and directly slapped the whole thing—paper and board together—onto the wall.
"I really am a bloody genius!" Kasenhis shamelessly praised himself.
Then, using the same method, he went around covering all the other walls. Before leaving, he dumped a pile of paints of various colors into the hands of the young wizards.
"Draw some patterns on the wallpaper—floral designs, plants, animals, whatever you like. But you all have to paint something, no slacking off!"
Hermione instinctively nodded, and then only afterward did it hit her. She turned to Sirius and asked about the surface area of the house's walls…
"Oh… the wall area? About… more than a thousand square meters."
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