|
|
|
|
This is mine!
Oh wait, no, it really isn't. The whole Harry Potter universe belongs to JKR, and the chapter title I may have stolen from a Star Trek book by the illustrious Peter David. Oopsie.
Please enjoy it anyway.
Professor McGonagall returned three hours later with Hagrid in tow. “How are you doing?” she asked them. “We were hoping to talk to you. I want to tell you a little more about my offer.”
Hermione glanced at Harry, and then said, “We just can’t be anywhere else right now. Hogwarts is the only place we know of that has the books I need to read to help us complete our mission.”
“And that is?”
“Ours,” Harry said, “to share when we choose to. The time may come when I need to tell you everything, but the fewer people who know, the better it is. If Voldemort ever found out what we were doing, it would be disaster. Actually, don’t even tell anyone I said that…he might guess.” Harry sighed, thinking of the danger anyone who guessed what they were doing would be in.
McGonagall smiled. “I understand completely, Potter. Do you three want to join the Order?”
Harry was floored. He understood that he might be able to work out an invitation to join when he turned seventeen, and that Ron and Hermione might be able to join now. But an offer for him to join now was completely unexpected. “I can’t!” he told her. “I’m not seventeen yet!”
McGonagall merely shrugged. Harry was struck by how tired she looked. “I know you aren’t, but you will be in a matter of weeks. You have proved many times that events will not leave you alone. You are central, for some reason, to this fight, and you have no relatives who would object to your joining the Order…no fit guardians….” She frowned then, as if trying to rid herself of an unpleasant thought. “Harry…I did try to stop Dumbledore from leaving you with those…people.” She spat the word out.
Harry sighed. “He had a good reason. My mother died to save me. Living with her sister made me impossible for anyone associated with Voldemort to find. It was the best protection he had for me. Sleeping in a cupboard may not have been particularly comfortable, but it got the job done.”
“And who else would I have had so much fun with this summer?” Ron asked.
McGonagall and Hermione suddenly looked stern. “Ron,” Hermione asked timidly, “what did you do to them?”
“I…erm…put a Permanent Sticking Charm on the door to the cupboard Harry used to sleep in.” Ron said matter-of-factly. “Now it’ll never open again.”
Hermione looked like she was holding back a laugh. McGonagall, however, gave Ron a fleeting smile before she continued. “Do you three want to join the Order? We just had a meeting, there was a vote. You’re all in if you want to be. This is the new headquarters, since Grimmauld Place has been rendered unavailable to us, so you’d have to spend some time here, even if you weren’t living here full time. But you could be privy to everything we know about what’s going on with Voldemort, and we think it’s quite a lot.”
Hagrid spoke for the first time. “Pleas,’ Harry,” he said, “We need you.”
Harry realized then that this was one of the times when he would have to make a decision for Ron and Hermione. In the end, once again, it came down to him.
He looked at McGonagall. “We’ll try it.”
Living at Hogwarts as an active part of the Order was one of the best things that had ever happened in Harry’s life. The next day, they were taken to their first meeting. Apparently, the Order met at three o’clock every day in a small room on the seventh floor, which was available to the Floo network (although the members all had small portkeys that they could put in a pocket, shaped like a small metal bird). The other members of the Order talked about their various projects, and Hermione took several rolls of parchment notes which were magically concealed as notes on the Goblin Rebellions (Ron swore to her that no one would ever want to read them, although she had her doubts). Tonks and Kingsley were working on recruiting members from the Ministry (an activity that was no longer forbidden). Tonks was also doing some spying in pubs frequented by Death Eaters, since she could change her appearance at will. Most of the other members of the Order were involved in various spying missions, keeping track of known or suspected Death Eaters. Whenever a new Death Eater was identified, Kingsley would tell the Auror office he had received an anonymous tip and the person would be thoroughly investigated by the Ministry, and then arrested.
After all the other members had reported, McGonagall turned to Harry. “Potter, what can you tell us?”
Harry had decided what he could and could not say the night before. “Before Dumbledore’s death, he told me the specific way to defeat Voldemort. He told it to me because Voldemort believes I am a threat to him, and will never stop hunting me until one of us is dead. He told me I could tell Ron and Hermione for some reason. And now that Dumbledore is dead, we are the only ones who know about this weakness of Voldemort’s.
“So our plan is to exploit it. We don’t want to tell you what it is. Apart from Dumbledore’s instructions, we know what would happen if this information ever got out. As far as I know, Voldemort doesn’t know that we know. Our only chance is to catch him off guard. We may ask you questions about Voldemort or the places he goes that sound a little strange. But our goal is to defeat Voldemort, and I move that the Order prepare to attack Voldemort as soon as we’re done. If we attack before that point, Voldemort cannot be killed.
“There is one other thing. I had a dream a few nights ago. In it, I recalled the scene of Dumbledore’s death and I saw a kind of connection between Dumbledore and Snape – I wondered if any of you have experience identifying the signature of Occlumency or Legilimency? I was hoping to find out if it’s possible that Snape got some kind of message from Dumbledore before he…” Harry trailed off.
The other members looked shocked. Then Tonks said, “But, Harry, it can’t be. Why would Dumbledore order what you’re implying he ordered?”
“He was weakened that night,” Harry said. “We were working on the mission he charged me with, and he was weakened. He kept asking for Snape after we got back to Hogsmeade, and then when we heard about the Dark Mark we just rushed right over here and he stopped talking about it, but of course, we did find Snape that night. It just…made me wonder if I was missing something.”
No one had any answers for him.
After the meeting, Harry cornered Remus Lupin. “Professor?”
Lupin smiled. “It’s okay, Harry. You can call me Remus.”
Harry smiled. “Remus, I need a favor.”
“What do you need?”
“I need to know how to get to my parents’ home in Godric’s Hollow, and I need to know how to find their graves.”
“When did you want to go there? And why?”
“I just feel like I have to. Will you tell me how to get there?”
Remus sighed. “No. But I’ll take you there myself. When did you want to go?”
Harry was relieved. He had wondered if Lupin would say no. “After the wedding.”
Life continued on like this for the rest of the week. They would eat breakfast; look up potions to find out what Dumbledore might have drunk and spells that might help them later on for the morning, eat lunch, take a break, go to the Order meeting, and then study until dinner. After dinner, they would spend some time chatting with whatever Order members happened to be around – Remus and Tonks, who seemed almost obscenely happy together, Ron’s parents (The night his mother had found them in an Order meeting had not been enjoyable.), Fred and George Weasley (also newly inducted), and, occasionally, Hagrid. Hagrid was moody, and usually did not stick around long. Harry made a mental note to spend some time with Hagrid after the wedding.
Bill Weasley was getting married that weekend, and they were going to go to Ottery St. Catchpole for the occasion, which was to be held in the Weasley garden. Harry was nervous about the idea of attending the wedding, mostly because he was afraid to see Ginny again. His plan was to try to pump the brains of everyone there that he trusted about the mission he was soon to embark on without drawing attention to himself while avoiding Ginny as much as possible. He had managed to spend the last three weeks not thinking about her as much as he was capable of, because every time he did he felt worse. More guilt was not what Harry needed right then.
But the day before they were to leave for the Burrow, Hermione cornered Harry in the common room after Ron had gone up to bed. “Harry,” she asked him, “what, exactly is going on between you and Ginny? You told us you two broke up, but you never said why, and she is going to be living in the house we’re going to stay in, so I just want to know exactly what to expect.”
“Well,” Harry said, “she said she understood why I had to do it. Ron talked to her, and since he didn’t hit me afterward, I think she’s probably doing okay. I know that it hurt her, and she probably cried-” Harry hated the thought of making Ginny cry. He ran his hands over his face, and then continued. “I doubt she’s cursing my name. She understood why I had to break it off.”
“And that was?” Hermione asked.
“Well,” Harry thought it would be obvious. “It’s dangerous.”
“Harry, Ron and I are in danger! Do you care about that?”
“I just don’t want her to be any more of a target than she already is. I won’t take that risk.”
“We’re targets too. You should be shedding all of us if that’s the case you’re trying to make.”
“Well, first of all, when I broke up with her, that was kind of the plan. I was going to go look for Horcruxes and you and Ron were going to stay in school. Remember? But you’re the ones who decided to come along.”
“So,” Hermione responded calmly, “let me get this straight. You’re going to let Ginny suffer alone because you’re afraid she might die if Voldemort finds out you love her. Your best friends, who you also care about, are coming along with you, and that’s okay?”
Harry said nothing, but inside he was a combination of things. Angry had its place, as did annoyance. He was frustrated, and he was afraid. But, more than anything, this conversation was making him miss Ginny, which he had avoided doing all week by not thinking about her.
Finally, one of them had to say something. “It’s too much of a risk to her.”
“Harry,” Hermione responded, “it’s her risk.”
“Don’t think I haven’t thought about this, Hermione! For ages, it was all I could think about. But, the most important thing to me is that she’s alive. I don’t care if she’s cursing my name; I just want her to be alive. And it’s just different with you and Ron. We’ve been through so much together, and you started it all when you got under that cloak in first year. Ginny’s never done that.”
“So, just because she happens to be a year younger, she doesn’t deserve to come along? You know she would have been with us if she’d been there. Or even know that you might be back for her someday?”
“Of course I can’t tell her that! What if I don’t come back?”
Harry and Hermione both froze. Neither of them had mentioned the idea that Harry might die on this mission, or really thought about the idea that Ron or Hermione could die too.
“I won’t leave her alone, Hermione. I can’t. If we’re together, and I die….I won’t do that.”
“Harry, do you think you deserve love?”
“What kind of question is that?”
“I was just curious. You don’t remember the love of your parents. You were never loved by the Dursleys. You lost Sirius before he had the chance to do much for you. All the love you’ve known in the world has been taken from you except for me and Ron and his family, and the first chance you have to know real, true, romantic love, you break up with Ginny. And you may have had a good reason, but that doesn’t make it quite right, because she wants to take this risk for you, and you’ve obviously considered that this could be the end of your life, in which case one would think you’d want to be with someone you love. So I’m asking if you feel you deserve her love.”
bravenet.com