CAHPTER 1
This is what happens when you cross magic with the real world, not some authors fucked-up perception of how people really are how they act in hostile situations. Yes this is a remake of Harry Potter and I claim no affiliation with the original author or the original works. This is the story of how I think Harry's seventh and final year should go, and damn anyone who disagrees with me.
It was raining hard at Number Four Privet Drive, it seemed like the weather was always bad nowadays. People had little to be happy about and nature itself seemed to be in a constant state of depression. After all why should anyone be happy with horrible accidents and murders happening every day. Of course one Mr. Harry Potter knew better then to believe the half-hearted explanations about bridges collapsing and trains malfunctioning. He knew the real reason for these horrible events, knew them because he was the solution, in the end only he, the Chosen One, prophesied to face Voldemort and either win or lose.
Harry looked first one way, then the other up the gloomy, rain soaked streets, looking for a car he knew he wouldn't see until it was in the driveway, but looking nonetheless because it made him feel like he was doing something. This was the last time he would ever be this house, the same house where he had been dropped off as a baby, grudgingly adopted by his aunt and uncle, abused, starved, and generally spat-on for nearly all of life.
Fortunately the Minister of Magic still though he could buy Harry's support and was overjoyed at Harry's request for an official car to take him first to the Ministry to take his Apparition test, then to the Burrow for the remainder of the summer. His aunt and uncle were cowering in the living room, scared out of their wits and doubtless remembering the last time a wizard had been in their home, their son Dudley had been left with a giant, four-foot tongue. Dudley himself was nowhere to be found. Harry's stomach jumped along with the rest of him when all of a sudden there was an official looking sedan parked in the driveway and the driver was making his way to the door.
The driver was Stan Shunpike, who Harry had met before when he worked on the Knight bus. "Promoted?" Harry asked. "Yes Mr. Potter, got me a real job now with a nice suit and everything, I'm supposed to take your luggage out." Together they wrestled Harry's school trunk, along with Hedwig's cage, out through the rain and into the surprisingly large trunk of the car. Stan held open the door for Harry who got in feeling awkward, he was hardly used to people holding doors for him, and soon they off towards London.
CHAPTER 2
It was pouring rain in London too, as the car rolled slowly into an underground parking garage about tow hours later, Harry followed the signs to the visitor's entrance to the ministry, told the broken pay-phone why he was here and received his badge: Harry Potter, Testing. Once inside the ministry he felt instantly better, not because he had any reason to like the ministry, but it was good to be back in the company of wizards and witches again. Harry met Mr. Wesley on the lift, and after exchanging greetings, proceeded down to the floor labeled Wizarding Qualification Testing. There they were met a jumpy witch who gave Harry two sheaf's of parchment that he needed to fill out in order to take the test. It took Harry a long time to fill out the forms and after an amazingly long wait, he was the only one there, his name was called to be tested.
He was led by another overworked looking witch into an empty room where she began to explain the testing process. "Your goal is to Dissapperate, and Apperate in a completely different location some miles away. Should you accomplish this by re-appearing within three feet of your target you will have passed the test. Ready… set… go!" Harry was in no way ready but remembered form the papers he'd been given that he was aiming for a clearing in the about 25 miles away. He had an idea of where he was going from a map attached to the destination. So he swallowed hard and half-twisted half-stepped into that familiar constricted-squeezed feeling which only lasted for a few seconds before he re-appeared in an empty clearing and looked down to find his feet not ten inches from the mark he was supposed to be aiming for. Just then a pop to his right interrupted his thoughts and the testing witch appeared next to him. "Congratulations Mr. Potter you've passed." "Errr… Thank you" replied Harry. "What do I do know?" "You Apperate back of course." So he did, this time re-appearing exactly where he'd wanted to back in the small office at the ministry. Mr. Wesley was there to meet him with a big grin on face as he clapped Harry on the shoulder with a "Well done Harry" and then together they headed for the lobby so that Harry could Apperate back to The Burrow. Harry found that he didn't enjoy Apparition that much, the compressed felling was very strange, although it was a serious improvement over Floo powder. Mrs. Weasley, and Ron were waiting in the backyard to greet him which Mrs. Weasley did with a huge floury hug and the promise of as much food as he could eat in the following month. Ron was rather subdued and quite, for much the same reason as Harry was. Together they walked inside and up to Ron's room where Harry would be staying.
Passing though the third floor landing Harry could feel eyes on the back of his neck and knew exactly who it was, though he didn't turn, it would have been to painful to see her right now. Ron seemed to know why Harry suddenly looked like he was making a hard decision and quickly moved upstairs. Harry's brief relationship with Ron's sister Ginny had been a better alternative to some of her other boyfriends but that didn't mean that Ron was entirely happy about it. The old room on the top floor looked the same as it always did, maybe a little messier then usual, Harry set down his things and plopped down on the extra bed, suddenly feeling very depressed. Ron tried to start a discussion on Quiddich, but not even talk Harry's favorite game, in his opinion the only one worth playing, could distract his mind from the girl he was afraid to love, just two floors down. He had explained it to her ant the end of last year, knew she understood why they couldn't be together, and knew that both of them hated it. After some hours Mrs. Weasley called them down to dinner, Harry and Ron passed by Ginny's open door on their way down and Harry was almost sure she had opened it on purpose when she heard them coming. Harry suddenly knew that the next weeks were going to be some the most emotionally difficult times of his life.
Dinner was quiet and rather awkward with Harry trying not to look at Ginny, Ginny only half trying not to look at Harry, Ron trying not to notice, and Mrs. Weasely actually not knowing that anything was going on at all. By the end of dinner Harry was soundly regretting the hard decision that he had made two months ago, and wondering if it might be worth the risk to be as happy as he had been for those few days.
Time dragged by very slowly for Harry and it seemed like no matter where he was trying to seclude himself, he always found himself running into Ginny and then trying to find an excuse to leave without saying much. It was hurting him to do this, but he knew it to be for the best. The pain was obvious on her face sometimes too, and Harry thought that he had even heard crying one night on his way to the bathroom.
There were thing Harry had to do know, one of them was killing him inside, the other one was much easer now, nut would be painful later. And so he sat at Ron's battered desk, took out ink, and quill, and parchment, and wrote a letter:
Dear Professor McGonagall,
I would greatly appreciate it if you could arrange a meeting for me, all of the old faces, in the usual place, I think you will find that the same note will work. There is little time and much to be done, and first we must reorganize ourselves.
Your sincerely, Harry Potter
Hedwig winged off into the night, carrying the letter that would bring back even more painful memories later that night. In the meantime Harry went down stairs to get something to eat for lunch, and yet again bumped into Ginny on the third landing, this time he didn't bother with an excuse, he just bolted down the stairs, and without a word began eating the sandwich's that Mrs. Weasely had prepared.
When lunch was over Harry asked Mrs. Weasley for a private word and explained that he was calling a meeting of The Order tonight and that he needed her, Mr. Weasley, Ron, Bill, Charlie, Fred, and George to be there. She seemed skeptical but agreed and hurried off to contact her two sons abroad. Harry returned to the top floor where he was amazed to find Hedwig with a note tied to her leg:
Mr. Potter,
I will of course arrange the meeting for you, I only hope you know what your doing, having this many of us in one place is very dangerous.
Minerva McGonagall
It was about what he had expected and at least she was going to do it. There was no backing out know, thought Harry, as much as he'd never wanted to even see that house again, he was going to have to. There was just no other place to do it, he couldn't ask anyone else to put themselves in danger by having the whole Order of the Phoenix meet at their house. It was dangerous enough with all of the spells and enchantments on the house at Number 12 Grimald Place. Harry dispatched Hedwig with a letter to Hermione, telling her of the meeting and how to get in, he needed her there of all people. He had thought of including Ginny, but knew that apart from his own misgivings, mainly the desire to keep her as far away from danger as humanly possible, Mrs. Weasley would never her allow her last child to join the Order while she still had any stay in the matter. She was as nervous as Harry had ever seen her, always checking her magical clock that told her where the members of the family where, she tried to hide it, but not very well.
Finally the time came to leave and Harry half twisted half jumped himself into an old front yard in London, said the pass phrase aloud, and walked into his house. It was dirty and smelly as ever, and the first thing Harry did was to take out his wand and use a very destructive spell he'd been teaching himself, to destroy the enchanted painting of Sirius' mother that hung on the hallway wall. Then he went into the kitchen to wait. First the Weasley's arrived, then Professor McGonagall, Tonks and Remus Lupin, Madeye Moody, and several people Harry had not even known were in the Order. Hermione arrived last, Harry supposed that she had been driven here by her muggle parents. And so the first meeting of The Order of the Phoenix under Harry Potter began.
CHAPTER 3
"I think I've figured out why we're losing this war," Harry was saying "it's because the other side has no set limitations on what they can and can't do, we've restricted ourselves. I think it s time for that to change, we're longer gathering intelligence, identifying Deatheaters, now I want to start hitting back, I want o start thinning out their ranks, start making them pay for what they're doing to the world." "Harry," Hermione asked, tentatively "are you asking us to…. To kill death eaters?" "No" replied Harry" "I'm telling you to, and I know most of you agree with me, we're losing to badly, with Dumbledore alive we had a chance to win it his way, not any more, now it's this way or lose. I hope you all understand that" heads nodded in the small kitchen, though not all of them, Hermione and Mrs. Weasely in particular looked mortified, while the elder Weasely brothers along with Tonks and Lupin, had adopted looks of grim determination, and Madeye Moody was nearly jumping for joy at the idea of being able to kill dark wizards. "But what will the ministry say?" Asked McGonagall "Nothing replied Harry " They still want my support and they'll do anything to get it."
After some small discussion on the moral complications of killing mass-murderers people began to slowly file out until only Mr. and Mrs. Weasely, Fred, George, Ron, Harry and Hermione were left, and they soon returned to The Burrow where everyone except Harry went to bed. Something told him he wouldn't be sleeping much for a while, he'd asked some his best and closest friends, most of them, in fact, to seek out and try to kill Deatheaters, Harry just hoped they were all up to it. He was also dreading the day he knew would come, when the ministry finally figured out what was going on, came to him about it, they would of course, and he would have to sell his support to people he neither liked, now respected, nor thought deserved his respect. And he would have to give it to them to protect his friends, but he knew they would all do the same for him, and some of them had, no he thought about it.
Surprisingly life seemed a little easier now that he'd accomplished that particularly nasty piece of business, Hermione and Mrs. Weasley seemed not to want to look at him, and Ron was constantly nervous, but it felt as though some of the weight was lifted, he even caught himself smiling at Ginny a few times, as did Ron and Hermione, and their amused looks only served to further confuse Mrs. Weasley, who still had not caught on.
CHAPTER 4
In a small village way out in the country, two hooded and cloaked figures moves swiftly through the night, one was under the Imperious curse and didn't know it. The other didn't know anything and was just a bodyguard. The pair moved into the village to a seemingly abandoned hut, upon entering they found it was only enchanted to look that way and was in fact a very luxurious manor house. The bodyguard halted and the cursed man moved towards the head of a table where a shrouded figure sat and drank wine. He knelt down before the figure and made his report on the meeting of the Order of the Phoenix. "You have done well, your betrayal of your friends will not go unrewarded, now return and continue to watch and listen." The cursed man arose, bowed, and made his way out. The man who was no longer a man, called Waylin Tarringon, took another sip of wine, and began to ponder the significance of what the traitor had told him.
CHAPTER 5
Time passes on, and no war can change that, neither can it change the coming of school for children, wizards included. The Burrow was becoming increasingly harried as people ran about looking for things everyone trying to get everyone else's things packed so they could start on their own. And no one really got too much done at all. Harry had already arranged for a few ministry cars to take them to the train station on September first, and was starting to appreciate just how easily he could manipulate the ministry. It was almost too easy all he had had to do was to tell the minister that it might make the situation appear less serious if ministry officials were seen out helping students get to London, and the minister had not only agreed, but asked if Harry had any more good ideas, Harry thought he was genially serious about that, which brought a rare smile to his lips.
The cars rolled out onto the country lane and were soon navigating the city streets with ease, to the fact that they arrived at platform 9 ¾ with 20 minutes to spare for good-byes, good-lucks, and be carefull's. Harry of course received the majority of these and was getting pretty tired of it when Ron and Hermione announced that they had to go up to the Prefects compartment, they were Head Boy and Girl, and Harry opted to go with them, rather then have to find a compartment with Ginny. He did manage to find one with Cho Chang and some other members of the D.A. and was finally felling almost like a normal teenager for the first time all summer. He found that he was completely at ease around Cho, something that surprised him greatly, and accredited it to the fact that a small part of his brain was, as always, focused on Ginny and where she might be, and what she might be doing, and what they might be doing together id he wasn't so stupid as to push her away. But it was a small voice among many greater ones, still it did worry him a little as the English country side rolled by.
As usual the train ride seemed all to short and soon enough the train slowed and stopped, the was a violent melee of bodies and luggage as everyone tries to disembark at once, and then there was Hagrid's massive voice calling out for the first years, and them something different, "Harry!…. Harry!… there ye' are Harry! Been lookin' for ye' yer to come across the lake with me an' these firs' years, don't ask me why cause I don' know, 'tis jus' what Professor McGonagall told me to do". Harry knew it was pointless to argue and kind of liked the idea of a moon-lit boat ride, the small voice in his head instantly added Ginny to that picture, and so he helped Hagrid lead the little first years down to the lake and the boats that awaited.
CHAPTER 6
Harry was met at the doors to the castle by Professor McGonagall, and his first thought was that something had gone wrong with the Order. She seemed to have read his mind, or expected the question because she quickly told him that nothing at all was wrong but she needed to speak with him before the feast. "Potter as you know the position of Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher is vacant for the tenth year in a row, and I would like you to fill it." Harry was in complete shock and could only stare dumbly. "Oh come now Harry, don't look so surprised, you're a natural candidate for the job, you must at least as much about it as half of your old teachers, and ill have no argument, there's no one else in the country to do the job." And without another word she led him into the Great Hall through the small teachers door, and he took his seat at the staff table between her and Hagrid, with the eyes of everyone present on him.
