Albus Dumbledore sat behind his desk, a cup of herbal tea steeping in a bone china teacup to his right. By the light of a dripping candelabra, the old wizard was pouring over the rolls of half scorched parchment in front of him with a keen eye. The messy
scrawl of a forgotten dark wizard had faded with age, but the information was new and exciting.
"Fawkes," he called for his animal familiar, his eyes never lifting from the paper. The bird swooped from it'shigh perch and settled itself on the old man's shoulder, the wizard paying his bird's long talons no mind as he read on for a few more
moments. "This holds only half of the potion," he spat, shoving the paper away from him suddenly. It floated lifelessly to the hardwood floor.
The bird squawked as if in twin outrage. The old man had spent months searching for the works of Talan Hereward, a thirteenth century warlock who had created nearly a hundred spells and potions that were now illegal in the modern magical community within
Britain.
"I need that potion. I need those instructions!" Dumbledore pushed himself from his desk with such surprising force that Fawkes was thrown into the air, his tail feathers settling to the floor, resting next to the scroll.
The wizard was furious. He had ordered a lower member of the Order, a young witch whose name he had could never recall, to endure what turned out to be a suicide mission for the scrolls. He had gathered intelligence from months of work, most of which
had delved into darker techniques. The blood on his hands was not something new, the war had been ongoing for years, but the girl's accidental death had been painful and could have been avoided.
Dumbledore pushed his half-moon glasses up the bridge of his nose with a sigh. He was being forced to play his hand. The war had always fluctuated in action. They had just come out of eighteen months of relative peace, but Dumbledore knew that the next
few months would be crucial. The Light were only just winning, their intelligence and members just tipping that of the Dark.
The war affected every person differently. The leader of the Light had lost his humanity and Dumbledore had found himself isolated in his office most of the time, the wards keeping everyone but his most trusted followers out.
Dejected and annoyed, he turned his head and caught sight of a glint in the corner of his office. The wizard gripped his long robe and crossed the office, waving his hand and disrupting the miscellaneous items that were obscuring the object with ease.
His thin lips twitched and his bony fingers stretched out to caress the lid of an antique silver trinket box. Inside was a lone vial filled with a simple memory. Dumbledore lifted the glass to the shaft of moonlight filtering down into the center of the
circular room. The silver substance danced like smoke in the pale light as it twisted and turned on itself. The memory was an idea; an unorthodox moment of inspiration caught within time in between his forefinger and thumb.
Dumbledore grinned to himself, a wicked, cruel shine to his eyes as he looked up at his bird. "We will be stopping by Grimmauld Place soon," he told the animal. "There are things that need to be done."
Grimmauld Place was bursting at the seams, filled to the rotten eaves with members of the Order of the Phoenix, and these days, Harry Potter could hardly move for bodies and people stopping him on the staircases for idle chat.
The wizard couldn't recall a time when he hadn't needed to wait in line for the bathroom or cast wards around his crockery. The boy had never even needed his own crockery before the war.
The Order had organically split into two halves during the recent peacetime. One half, filled with the older members, lived in their own homes scattered around the country. The majority had never even been within spitting distance of any battle.
The second half, mainly students and those under twenty five, lived under Sirius Black's roof, adopting the Boy Who Lived as their personal leader. Harry, on the other hand, was a skilled fighter and knew how to handle himself and a team through a combat
situation, something that lent power to his authority.
Harry shared a room with Hermione Granger and Neville Longbottom on the fourth floor, but even though the boys were in hammocks and Hermione in a single bed, the room was hardly spacious. It used to be only Harry's, but the war had caused a surge in members
of the Order, and Sirius had been forced to play host to nearly sixty people in a house that could comfortably fit only twenty-five.
The house was unusually quiet when the Gryffindor woke up. In a rare moment of tranquility, Harry just lay in his hammock, staring out of his window at the garden. The sun had yet to rise but Harry could hear gentle rain on the windowpane.
He reached out and pulled his glasses from their precarious perch on the string on his hammock. Above him, at a diagonal angle, was Neville. Harry listened to the soothing snores of the wizard as he rolled out of the hammock with practised ease. His bare
feet made a soft thud as he came in contact with the polished floorboards and he winced as Hermione made a noise in her sleep.
He squinted through the dark, statuesque, to watch her roll over, her breathing settling once more. He exhaled slowly, knowing first hand the trouble she was having as she fell asleep.
Harry and Hermione had always been close friends, but as they underwent more missions, the more altered they became. Harry was paranoid and found himself asking around for anti-anxiety potions, whereas Hermione's kind heart slowly began to freeze.
Anybody who wasn't Harry, Neville or a few other select people were left with a guarded young witch who had developed an itchy trigger finger and had a dark arsenal locked away in her mind. Hermione had been instrumental to those higher up in the Order,
but as time and the war progressed, her willingness to help diminished as she became a shell of the woman she had been.
Harry found himself alone in the kitchen for the first time in months. Usually, the wizard was competing for space at the table or elbowing others so that he could fill up his plate, but that morning he poured himself a cup of black coffee without having
to worry about it being taken from under his nose.
The Boy Who Lived sat a the long bench, just right of Sirius' high backed chair like usual. His Godfather ran the house with strict rules, ordering around in fear of chaos if the teenagers were left to run wild.
Sirius Black's reputation as a murderer usually preceded him, but within the walls of his family home, the rumors had been stoked and expanded, a little white lie overcoming the man who used simple hexes to ensure everything ran smoothly. The permanent
state of intoxication he kept himself in not only medicated the wizard but aided his godson with the daily runnings.
The younger members of the Order found themselves respecting and fearing the older man, and collectively acted as if his word was gospel, but it didn't take a genius to see the real leader. Harry was the true ringman of the unusual circus he had surrounded
himself with daily.
The green eyed wizard had hated being thrust into leadership, but over the two years he had been in the unofficial position, the Order's numbers and intelligence had doubled and he thrived. Children of high ranking Death Eaters and neutral families alike
had converted to the Light in favour of Harry's leadership, but it was something that came with a price.
As Harry sipped his bitter coffee, he allowed the sunrise to wash over him. He listened as the house came alive as soon as six o'clock came, hearing the noise before he saw it. Early risers greeted him as they helped themselves to breakfast, and a congregation
had gathered in the hallway upstairs, demanding his attention. He glanced at his wristwatch, it was not even seven.
The noise level rose considerably and Harry ran a hand through his hair in annoyance, abandoning his cold coffee with a scowl. He moved easily through the house members as they parted for him, leaving him alone to deal with the situation.
Seamus Finnegan was the first person in Harry's line of sight, and he made it clear with a stinging hex.
"Shit!" the Irish wizard swore, his hand cupping his stinging cheek.
Those around him quickly shut up as Harry pushed through them to come face to face with his fellow Gryffindor. "What time is it Seamus?"
"Huh? It's like seven," the boy replied, still angry about the hex he had thought unnecessary.
"And what do you think you're doing, waking half the house up?" Harry's tone was flat and his annoyance was plain to see.
Seamus swallowed and glanced around. "Dean went out last night, said he'd received a tip off, but he hasn't come back yet." The Irishman couldn't meet Harry's eyes.
"A tip from who?" Seamus shrugged in return. In a fluid movement, Harry had the shorter man pressed up against the wall, his forearm applying light pressure to the boy's neck. "You know I don't like to repeat myself Sea," Harry hated having to use physical
threats but the safety of the order and it's members was too high for him to be allowing solo missions without consent. He had to ensure that the Order listened to him, and he had found out that throwing his weight around allowed for a smooth leadership.
Seamus was slowly going purple when he finally met Harry's eye. "I don't know, I swear!" Harry applied a bit more pressure until Seamus began to beg. "Amelia Bones sent him a letter three days ago with a location and a code word!"
"This letter?" a voice drifted down from the stair case. Hermione had dressed in her Muggle jeans and was clutching a roll of partchment between her fingers with one dark eyebrow cocked. Seamus nodded as Harry let him go. "This forged letter?"
"It's not forged!" Seamus replied, his temper rising as Hermione descended the stairs and stood next to Harry.
Harry looked around at the gathered crowd and stamped his foot for attention. When he was sure all eyes were on him, he hoisted himself up, feet on the banister, his long body meaning he could steady himself with his hands on the ceiling as he stood on
the wooden beam.
"Let this be a lesson; Amelia Bones was murdered whilst completing a solo mission a week ago," Harry allowed a ripple of whisper before he continued, making direct eye contact with a pale Seamus. "This is a forged note and because of it, Dean Thomas is
probably dead. There are rules in place for a reason!"
"How can you be sure it's forged?" somebody asked.
"Probably a handwriting spell dummy," someone else answered them.
Hermione nodded and then turned, seeking out the Ravenclaw who had spoken. "This is not all fun and games Willis. Whilst you are having sleepovers and keep the whole house awake, the Death Eaters are rebranding and regrouping, with more intelligence and
better strategies this time around. By targeting a boy who thought he was above the rest of us, they thought they would be able to crack the location of the Order and our next move."
Harry picked up straight from where Hermione had finished, "Nobody is more important than another. Nobody is to execute solo missions without having the backing of the Order. There are rules for a reason, and that reason is your safety. Ask yourself,
where would you go if there was no Grimmauld Place, no safe house?" He dropped back to the floor, still standing a head above the rest.
The crowd burst into conversation as Hermione dismissed them, ordereing them down to the kitchen for breakfast or to start their chores. Harry watched her pass the note to Seamus who had gone deathly pale. He was being propped up by two other wizards
who nodded as Hermione said something to them.
"Nicely handled," Sirius said from above them. Neither could ignore the beginnings of a slur. He pushed himself off of the wall and turned around, climbing the staircase. "My office, if you will," he ordered over his shoulder.
Hermione and Harry exchanged a wary glance as they followed him up, climbing until they reached the third floor. Sirius herded the two into his office after he unlocked the wards and pushed open the door. "Amelia Bones' body was found on the tenth, why
did you not tell them as soon as you knew?"
"Thomas was getting too big for his boots," Harry muttered as he took a seat. He busied himself with picking lint off of his trouser leg.
Hermione laid a comforting hand on his shoulder. "Dean had been telling anybody who would listen that he was planning on conducting his own intelligence mission, trying to prove to McGonagall he should be allowed to do field work again," Hermione explained.
"He was going to compromise the entire Order with his daft plan."
"So you let him go off on a suicide mission instead?" Sirius demanded, rounding on the pair with sharp eyes.
"Of course not, Charlie took care of him!" Hermione cried. "Dean Thomas is safe in the middle of the Romanian countryside, without the knowledge of any war at all."
Sirius let out a low whistle. "Merlin Hermione, what you just did to Finnegan was ruthless considering."
"But now his focus and allegiance has realigned and the worry has become obsolete, a 'thank you' would be nice." Hermione folded her arms and stared the man down.
Sirius shook his head, avoiding her piercing glare. "The pair of you need to discuss things with me more. I am left out of the loop too many times."
"Would you really have given us permission if we'd asked to obviated a man who was a minor threat and then sent him halfway across the world?" Harry retorted, his patience already wearing thin.
Sirius paused. "Fine, you've got me there, but anymore half-brained ideas are to be ran by me, is that understood?" Sirius had never put up much of a fight wherever the duo were concerned. He liked letting them run the household and only step in when
higher Order members swooped in. This was merely pointless talk as the three of them knew that the teenagers were lying as the agreed to the promise.
"Well, be gone with you. Word is that some letters should be arriving soon, and a guest, and I am sure as hell not dealing with that," the wizard had already uncorked a bottle of whiskey as the teenagers left without saying goodbye.
Yes, the war had changed people, but the worst was yet to come.
Author's note:
SO this is my new story! It's based loosly on the plot of Leigh Bardugo's Six of Crow's novel. This time round, i will be banking up on chapters before posting so that there is a semi-structured posting formation. Please leave me a comment, rate or review
to tell me what you think. They mean more to me than you will ever know!