Disclaimer:

Harry Potter, and all things, places or otherwise physical or non-physical things I mention are property of J. K. Rowling. I mean no harm in uploading this, only to have a little fun taking the characters in a very different direction from where they were taken in Book 6 and probably Book 7.

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Plue: Thanks so much for your review! It actually helped me find the drive to flesh out this first chapter, which is usually the hardest one for me. Hear that people? Reviews make me write! I only hope you like where I'm going with this. Thanks again. : )

Leveling and Letters

Harry was as of yet unimpressed with the Ministry, he reminded himself as he sat with arms folded in a corner of the living room at number 12 Grimmauld Place. The summer had crept by painfully slow following that eventful night at the Department of Mysteries and only a few days ago did anyone contact Harry after he was sent back to Privet Drive. And even then, all he got was a curt letter informing him that Mr. Weasley was going to floo to Privet Drive to pick him up and bring him back to Headquarters. Why Harry was suddenly brought back into the wizarding world after what seemed like a month and a half of exile was beyond him, but he wasn't about to open up his mouth and ruin it.

"Hey Harry," a voice jerked him out of his stewing and he looked up from where he had been staring at the floor tiles to see Ginny approaching him. "How's it going?" she asked once she neared him. He shrugged and looked away, but unlike both Hermione and Ron, that didn't seem to be enough for Ginny. She shifted on her feet and crossed her arms with a huff, which threw him off. Everyone else had mostly left him alone, treating him as if he might break if they so much as uttered a single touchy syllable. Ginny didn't seem to be moving. "Listen, you can't just sit here and mope around all day, Harry," she spoke in a slightly agitated voice. What? Why would she be agitated? Harry was the one whose single remaining family had just been murdered a month and a half ago; Harry was the one who the Ministry had attacked; Harry was the one who everyone treated differently. "I know you're upset," she said, and Harry rolled his eyes. He'd heard that line so many times the past few weeks he could've bought a new racing broom if he had been paid each time.

"Harry!" she said in almost a shriek that made him jump and turn to face her. He blinked in astonishment to see tears about to fall from her eyes, but she didn't look sad at all. Her face was flushed and he fists clenched. He instinctively wanted to edge backwards in his chair, fearing she might punch him. "Don't keep writing us off like that! You think we don't see it when you roll your eyes? That it doesn't hurt us when you shut us out? I might be the only one who's plucked up enough courage to come tell you what a brat you've been, but I'm not the only one thinking it." All those words seemed to just tumble out of her mouth in a giant tidal wave, and she had to take a few deep breaths after finishing. Harry felt as if he'd just fallen for the Wronski Feint and plowed into the ground at full speed.

"So I'm a brat then?" he asked with cold venom dripping from his voice as he trained his seething glare on her flushed face. Now he saw her roll her eyes.

"Don't put this on me," she laughed mercilessly, returning her own gaze to his. "What I meant is you've been acting downright lofty. It's true, no one has had the exact same experiences as you, but we're all here for you, and you don't seem to want us. That's not going to get you anywhere, Harry. Why don't you stop feeling sorry for yourself and get up and help fight?"

"I've tried helping, Ginny!" Harry exclaimed as he stood up. "I tried getting people to listen; I tried preparing you guys and look where it got me. The Ministry tried to get me expelled last year, we got caught and they tried to put Dumbledore in Azkaban, and when I tried to save Sirius he died, Ginny, he died!" Harry finished his own tirade and searched the red head's face for a reaction. She seemed a little less mad now, but she still stared at him, unfazed.

"You saved me Harry, in the Chamber of Secrets. Or have you forgotten that already?" she asked in almost a whisper. The sudden change in her voice made something in Harry stop and really look at her, but she just shook her head, and her long red hair obscured her eyes for a second. When he could see her face again, it was still flushed, but serious. "Listen, I'm sorry. I know you've had more pain than probably anybody I know, but… that doesn't mean you should stop trying to do what's right," Ginny spoke in a quieter voice, one more befitting to the girl that Harry remembered from his second year. Harry sighed and looked around uneasily. Some small part of him told him that she was right, but a larger part of him just didn't care anymore. Something about the fact that it was Ginny standing in front of him and not Ron or Hermione struck him, but he didn't pursue that thought any farther as he shook his head.

"What can we do? No one tells us "kids" anything anyway," he said with a resigned sigh. Ginny looked very surprised at that response, which made Harry raise an eyebrow in response. What had he said? Surely it wasn't his observation that the members of the Order were being secretive, so that left his rather simple question… had he really been that bad that she was surprised he offered to do something? Anything?

"Well, it's not like we'll be out hunting Voldemort but Dumbledore wants to send owls to all the Ministries, you know, to see how they're going to deal with Voldemort being back."

"That's it?" Harry asked incredulously but Ginny simply put her hands on her hips.

"It's more than you were doing just now," she replied curtly in a tone of voice oddly reminiscent of her mother. She seemed to recognize that too, for she broke into a sort of strangled smile soon after, and Harry couldn't help but follow suit. "Come on, let's go," she said with a noticeably larger amount of ease as she beckoned to him and turned around to go down the hall to the room used mainly by the Order.

Harry followed Ginny down the hall and into the dining room, and he had to admit, he was surprised at what he saw. Hermione sat at the table with an enormously long piece of parchment draped in front of her; it was so long it actually extended in folds in front of her, onto and across her lap, and down to the floor where it finally ended. She was nibbling on one end of a quill as her eyes seemed to bore a whole in the parchment. Ron was up and about, bringing in and stacking rather fancy pieces of parchment and envelopes on the dinner table; he gave a nod when he saw Harry follow Ginny inside.

"Hey Harry, here to join the fun?" Ron called, his voice a bit strained, whether it was caused by the stacks of envelopes or Harry's sudden appearance, Harry wasn't so sure, but either way, Ron's greeting caused Hermione to look up. Her face broke out into a giant smile when she saw him and she laughed a little nervously, shuffling the parchment in front of her.

"There's certainly lots to do," she started and Ginny made her way around the table to stand directly across from Hermione. Hermione glanced at the stacks of parchment and envelopes Ron brought in, and Harry could almost see her tallying them in her head. "I think Ron's brought in all the supplies we'll need to finish up; we're already on the M section…"

"M section?" Harry echoed as he closed in and leaned over the back of Hermione's chair, looking at the enormously long parchment in front of her.

"Mhm, of countries. Ron, Ginny and I have been working on these all day and have a pretty good system working. We need to send out copies of this," she replied distractedly as she held up a well worn piece of parchment that looked like it had been on the blunt end of a duplicating spell once too many times, "to all the Ministries for Magic and otherwise relevant persons in power…" she trailed off, but quickly turned around in her chair to look at Harry. "Did you know there are more than 200 ministries out there?" she asked so quickly Harry didn't have time to contemplate a simple yes or no answer before she spun back around and went back to perusing the list. Harry could now see that the said parchment was, in fact, a list of countries, and their corresponding Ministers or, in some cases, rulers apparently, for next to more than one of the countries was the person called something other than "minister."

"Well, what am I supposed to do now?" Ron asked, though he was looking at Harry and rolling his eyes, for obviously Hermione was paying little attention to anything other than the list in front of her.

"Oh, well, why don't you get to copying this letter," she instructed and handed him the worn piece of parchment she had shown to Harry. "I'll keep addressing the envelopes," she muttered more to herself as she summoned the stack of envelopes closer with her wand. Harry saw Ron watch this in disbelief before rolling his eyes and giving a resigned sigh. "And why don't one of you two stick the letters in the envelopes and the other send them?" she spoke almost to herself; Ginny seemed alright with that instruction, and she leaned her hip on the dining table waiting for the first envelope, but Harry only looked around.

"Hang on, how are we supposed to send the letters? Unless you three have been hiding over 200 owls somewhere around here, I haven't a clue as to how to send the letters," he asked and folded his arms across his chest.

"Oh, right!" Hermione exclaimed and she once again whipped around in her chair; Harry began to wonder how she didn't get whiplash. "You'll see on the mantle above the fireplace over there are two pots. One is of ordinary floo powder, the next is of a bright red powder, enver powder; just sprinkle a little on the envelope and throw it into the flames and it should go to the fireplace closest to the recipient," she explained with a nod and a smile before going back to looking at the parchment. She soon put it down and took one of the envelopes and muttered a charm, and Harry watched as fluid black letters began to seemingly write themselves on the face of the envelope. This one was going to the Minister of Macedonia. Harry shrugged and he looked at Ginny to gave a smirk and a roll of her eyes.

"It's something," she muttered as she took the now addressed envelope from Hermione and picked up a single sheet of parchment from the stack of copies Ron was making. With a flick of her wand too, she folded the letter, inserted it into and sealed the envelope. She held it out to Harry with a bored sigh. Harry couldn't help but shake his head as he took the envelope and went over to the fireplace, beginning to wonder if there wasn't some charm he could use to send the letters.

He took a pinch of the red dust and plopped it on the face of the letter. He vaguely wondered if it would stain. If it did, half the address was obscured now. He raised his eyebrows vaguely in a devil-may-care fashion, and tossed the letter into the waiting fireplace. The flames leapt up as if he had just thrown in a bottle of alcohol and caused him to jump back, giving an involuntary yelp of surprise. Ginny giggled and Ron snorted in a vain attempt to staunch his own chuckle and Harry glanced back at them momentarily.

"Oh stuff it," he countered, but this only caused the laughter to increase as the tension that had been in the room seemed to lift away with the smoke from the flames. He returned his gaze to the fire which simmered mutely in front of him. "You knew it was going to do that, didn't you two?" he asked as he returned to where Ginny was sitting on the table, only to get the second envelope from her outstretched hand.

"Mm, vaguely," Ginny conceded with a smirk as he reached for another pinch of powder and sent the second envelope.

"We did send out what must've been about a hundred of those already," Ron added as he went to lay another newly copied piece of parchment on the stack, only to have it practically taken out of his hand by Ginny's charm to stuff it into an envelope.

"Right," Harry muttered as he mailed the third of many to come.

After what seemed like hours of walking back and forth between the dinner table and the fireplace, Harry was almost sure he had about worn a track in the floor. This time as he reached for the pinch of enver powder the flames rose up prematurely and he stumbled backwards with a shout as the flames turned bright red, as if he had just sent 10 envelopes at the same time.

"What's happening?" Ginny gasped as she slid off the table and whipped out her wand, pointing it at the fireplace. Both Hermione and Ron did the same, as he rounded the edge of the table and she stood up from her chair. Harry scuttled backwards a bit before managing to get to his feet, and pulling out his own wand as well.

"Wait a second, I think we're getting a reply," Hermione stated as she took a few steps towards the fierce flames. And right enough, a plain envelope made of an aged, almost canvas-like parchment, burst out of the flames and floated into her waiting hand. The red flames died down and the embers crackled innocently as Hermione turned the envelope over in her hands. TO THE ORDER was all that was written on the front. Hermione turned over the envelope again and narrowed her eyes as she ran her thumb over the strange two headed dragon seal. "Odd…" she muttered, as the other three crowded around her to get a look at the letter.

"Well, who's it from?" Ron asked expectantly and Harry peered over Hermione's shoulder. Hermione shook her head.

"It doesn't say, but… this looks like the Durmstrang seal," she observed and moved her hand away so the others could see the two headed dragon.

"I thought it was a two headed bird," Ginny observed, shuffling to get a closer look and Hermione nodded.

"I know, but doesn't it look too similar? I mean, they're kind of… bird-like dragons aren't they?" Hermione replied looking at the other girl hopefully. Ginny just shrugged.

"Why would Durmstrang be enverring the Order?" Harry wondered aloud and noticed Ron was pointedly remaining silent. Harry only shook his head, whereas neither Hermione nor Ginny seemed to notice.

"Go on, open it," Ginny prodded, and Hermione seemed truly taken aback.

"But we're not members of the Order," she protested, and Ginny only smirked and reached for the letter. Hermione tugged it away however.

"But we're the ones sending out the letters. Who knows, maybe somebody in the faculty at Durmstrang is also involved in one of the ministries? After all, we don't know who's the new Headmaster over there do we?" Ginny argued and Hermione seemed vaguely convinced.

"And then again maybe this person at Durmstrang is a Death Eater and has hexed this to blow up when opened, or worse," Ron piped up angrily, causing all three in the room to look at him, but he didn't seem bothered by the stares.

"Ron," Hermione sighed. "Viktor said there weren't any other Death Eaters or former Death Eaters in the Durmstrang's faculty," she argued and Ron held up his hands.

"Who ever said anything about Viktor? I'm just saying there could be Death Eaters who could get the Durmstrang seal and use it to lull us into a false sense of familiarity then kick us right when…" Ron was cut off mid-tirade by an agitated Hermione.

"Envers don't work that way Ronald. It is impossible to send an enver with malicious intent. The charm just won't work that way. It'll just come right back to you."

"Well, who's to say You-Know-Who hasn't found a way to counteract that, huh?" Ron retorted and Hermione opened her mouth to reply but was promptly cut off as the envelope was snatched from her hands. Ginny hopped a few paces away until she was on the other side of the table, and tore open the envelope. The torn envelope dropped to the table top lamely, and did absolutely nothing spectacular and Ginny only stared at Ron with one eyebrow arched and a smirk plastered on her lips.

"Alright, alright, no need to get cocky," Ron muttered, crossing his arms defensively over his chest.

"What's it say?" Harry called across the table, leaning on the wood with both hands. He had to admit he was curious. He wondered if the Ministries of other countries were as oblivious and pig-headed as his own Ministry.

"Hang on, it's in some chicken scratch writing…" Ginny laughed as she squinted and brought the oddly crisp and pristine sheet of parchment up closer to her face.

"To the REPRESENTATIVE of the ORDER OF THE PHOENIX: I swear I'm reading it right. He capitalized certain words for emphasis, so I'm emphasizing," Ginny stated mock-defensively at the odd looks the others were giving her when she put a certain extra amount of air behind the capitalized words.

"DO NOT send any more envers to Minister Oblansk. He has been missing for a month, and his envers go to the old ministry building, which is currently held by DEATH EATERS. Oh that's not good," she said in a side note.

"Please address all future envers or other methods of communication to "MIR KHANZADA." I have no clue if I pronounced that right, anyway, um; I have enclosed his response to your previous enver.

"Sincerely,

"GENERAL VULCHANOV. Geez, he certainly liked writing in big letters…" Ginny muttered as she reached for the enveloped. "Now where's that enclosed response?" Ginny said with an air of mocking pomposity she seemed to have gotten from the letter. "Ah, here it is," she exclaimed as she pulled a second, smaller piece of paper out of the envelope. This piece of paper however matched the envelope and appeared quite old, complete with worn edges and a weak cloth like composition that forced Ginny to hold it from the two top corners and let it hand horizontally so she could read it that way.

"Representative of the Order; oh good he writes like a normal person," Ginny commented and Harry head Hermione take in a deep, impatient breath, although Ron wasn't quite so discrete.

"Quit the commentary, Gin. Would you hurry up and read it already?" he broke out and Ginny looked at him over the piece of dilapidated paper.

"All right, all right, keep your shirt on… where was I? Ah right, the very beginning," she said dryly.

"Representative of the Order,

"I am sorry to say that Mr. Oblansk is dead; it is far worse in Bulgaria than we are lead to believe it is in your own country. The Bulgarian Ministry is now in the hands of Death Eaters, and is pressuring other nearby ministries, namely, Romania, Greece, and Turkey, to pledge their support, under threat of death.

"However, we, meaning myself and a large group of followers, are trying to prevent that. We right now have many anti-You-Know-Who leaders in our possession and are doing our best to keep them safe.

"We are exterminating all Death Eaters we can find…"

"Exterminating? Does he mean to say they're killing all Death Eaters they run into?" Hermione interrupted, and Ginny shrugged. Harry seemed a bit perturbed, thought not by the letter, more so by Hermione.

"What's wrong with that? They're Death Eaters," he spat bitterly as he glanced at the shocked Hermione. Harry wasn't sure if he cared how she looked at him however. In his experience, Death Eater's deserved what they got. Even former Death Eaters were absolute louts in his opinion. After all, wasn't everything bad that had happened in his life somehow influence by a Death Eater? If not the Voldemort himself.

"They're still people Harry. They deserve the face of a trial at least," she countered emphatically but Ginny just cleared her throat and went on, breaking up the rising tension.

"We hope things are going as well in your country as they appear to be. I am glad to know that your Ministry has finally realized what has always been right in front of them. Know that you have our support.

"Take care,

"KHAGAN

"Mir Khanzada & Gur Khan." Ginny finished reading the fabric-like letter, and laid it down on the table in front of her before looking up. "I think we should give this to somebody who'll know how to deal with it," she said flatly and Harry couldn't help but agree, eager to get out of that single stinking room and do something other than send letters through the fireplace

Author's Note:

Well, the first chapter is up. Opinions? Anyone? And I'm still looking for a beta reader. If you can tell, this is only written and edited by myself. And boy do I hate how most of the formatting disappears when I upload chapters here...

Sorry if you don't like the way I've done Harry or Ginny, or any of the other characters… I never meant to start out with so much of Harry and Ginny; it just sort of happened. And this story takes place BEFORE Harry and Ginny got together, so they really don't have much of a relationship here. I just thought that she had the most distance where she felt she would be able to go up to Harry and kick his lazy butt into gear. : )

Thanks for reading, and I hope you come back for the next chapter! (Which will hopefully be up in another two or three weeks, yes, I'm sorry it's taking so long. I'm going on vacation away from the internet).

Don't forget: reviews make me write more:D