AN* I do believe I should thank 'harrytonkslover2216' for messaging me, and inspiring me to keep going with the story. Also, all the people who followed and favourited this story. And nearly 1 year later, I post Chapter 2!

I had multiple versions of Chapter 2 written at least three weeks after I posted Chapter 1, but none of them looked right, and I wouldn't have them being subpar. That said, I am somewhat of a grammar nazi, so if you come across any spelling, grammatical, or storywise errors in my work, I'd appreciate it if you could let me know.

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, JK Rowling does. If I did, it would be a lot different.

Chapter 2

Severing Connections

When Harry Potter arrived in #12 Grimmauld Place, his first words were a burning question that had been on his mind. "Where's Sirius?"

Remus answered. "This is his house, Harry. Well, his parents house. he's been cooped up here, his childhood home, which he hates by the way, as you might be able to tell from the horrible furniture and decorations, the family was a set of dark wizards. And this made Sirius the black sheep of the family, pardon the pun."

"Harry was ecstatic, and cracked his first true smile for a long time. "When can I see him?"

"Soon." Remus promised. "He's at a meeting, but as soon as it's over, he'll go and find you straight away. He's been extremely agitated, seeing as he hasn't seen you, and can't tell you anything useful."

"Why can't he?"

"Dumbledore's decided to keep you in the dark, and not let anyone tell you anything important. He's forbidden everyone from sending any important information." Moody explained in his gravelly voice. "Stupid, really. You deserve to know, more than anyone."

"Didn't stop Sirius." Tonks chipped in, with a smirk on her face. "Tell him, Remus."

"I was going to. Anyway, Sirius didn't take to kindly to Dumbledore keeping you in the dark, so he tried to send a letter, detailing everything."

"He nearly did it." Kingsley remarked.

"Why didn't he?" Harry asked.

"Dumbledore found out just before Sirius sent it. So they had a massive argument, with Dumbledore storming off, after telling Sirius not to try anything else." Remus explained. "Sirius wasn't deterred, however. So he transformed, and snuck out. Molly caught him and immediately flooed Dumbledore, he found Sirius, and then they had a massive argument, which involved spells being thrown, and Sirius punching Dumbledore."

Harry smirked. "No less than he deserves."

"Sirius wasn't the only one." Tonks smirked.

"Fed and George have shown a surprising amount of loyalty to you, Potter." Remus clarified. "They keep saying that they owe you big-time, that they wouldn't forget it, and that out of everyone, you're the most decent person they know. They still refuse to tell anyone what you did for them. I advise you not to take them for granted."

"More loyal than Weasley and Granger." Moody grunted. "Considering they're supposedly your best friends, they haven't really done anything for you."

Harry's tone was cold. "Explain."

"They've lapped up everything Albus has said, Harry." Kingsley was the one to explain. "They aren't doing anything to help you, and don't say anything about you. Honestly, it appears as if they couldn't care less." Kingsley finished, looking disturbed.

"Back to the twins. Coincidentally, they were trying to get a letter to you, at the same time Sirius was. They got caught, got a scolding from Dumbledore and Molly, and that was supposed to be the end of it." Remus started. "However, like Sirius, they didn't appreciate you being left in the dark, and them being told to butt out. So they tested some of their products on an unwitting Dumbledore. Mayhem ensued, Dumbledore was humiliated, and Sirius couldn't stop laughing, although Dumbledore wasn't happy, and Molly was furious." Remus was smiling now. "The twins were subjected to a fierce scolding by Dumbledore, and furious shrieking by Molly. Fred and George just smirked at them the whole time, and told them to shut up. To this day I've never seen Dumbledore look so shocked. The twins and Molly had a shouting match, with Fred and George grounded for the rest of the holidays. Fred and George haven't acknowledged Molly's existence since then."

"Put your faith in the twins, Harry. They'd follow you to their grave. They've been wanting to see you for a while now." Tonks spoke softly.

"Watch out for Molly as well, she's dying to know what you did for the twins, and since only you three know, and the twins refuse to acknowledge her, she'll hound you about it soon enough." Remus advised.

"Okay, I hadn't realised back at the Dursley's, but I thought Bellatrix Lestrange was in Azkaban. Is that right?"

"She was, Harry." Remus stated gravely. "But Voldemort broke them out."

"Then why haven't the ministry put this in the paper? It'd be front page!"

"Anyway, we've taken enough time from the meeting, so let's go. We'll tell you more about that, and why we're all here at dinner." Mad Eye said, before shuffling out of the room. One by one, the members walked out of the room, saying their goodbyes to Harry, Until only Remus remained.

"You do realise, that I'll have to see this all for myself?" Harry called to Remus' retreating back.

Remus turned around and smiled: "I'd be surprised if you didn't." Then he walked out of the room.

And with that, Harry went to go to his room, then he remembered something. "Shit, where's my room?"

When Remus, Tonks, and the rest of Harry's escort walked into the kitchen of the Headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix, all chatter amongst the previous occupants of the room stopped.

"Ah, Remus, Nymphadora (Tonks bristled at the use of her name), Alastor, Kingsley. Now we can get this meeting underway." Dumbledore said with a smile. "Now I must ask: How did escorting Harry go?"

Tonks laughed. "You can take this Remus." She smirked before sitting down, Kingsley and Mad Eye following suit.

"Was there a problem?" Dumbledore asked, concern evident in his eyes.

"Not so much as a problem, as some very interesting news." Remus answered with a smile.

"Well, Lupin? We don't have all day." Snape's voice was snide and annoyed.

"Shut up, Snivellus, you're getting grease all over the house!" Sirius cut in to defend his friend.

"Be quiet, you useless mutt!" Snape retorted.

"GENTLEMAN!" Dumbledore stopped the argument in its tracks, but Sirius' mutter could be heard clearly 'dickhead!' Snape just gave Sirius a withering glare in return. Dumbledore pressed on: "Remus, please continue."

"Harry's changed, a lot." Remus stated.

"In what way, for better or worse?" Dumbledore asked, concern written on his face.

"I don't know about for better or worse, but he's adopted a new rebellious attitude. And not the usual teenager rebellious, I mean he's got a completely new attitude."

"Doesn't surprise me." Snape muttered under his breath. "Arrogant as ever."

"And is that everything?" Dumbledore was looking anxious now.

"Wel-" Tonks started, but was cut off by Remus.

"Wait, Nymphadora." Ignoring Tonks' death glare directed at himself, Remus pressed on. "Severus, what are the statuses of Bellatrix Lestrange, Greyback, Dolohov, and Rookwood?"

"Why?" Snape demanded."Why those four, specifically?"

"Please just answer the question."

"Fine, the Dark Lord sent them on a mission a while ago, no-one knows what for, and no-one's stupid enough to ask." Snape's face became even more sour.

"Oh this is bad, Harry was right. He was right all along." Remus took a deep breath to steady himself.

"Remus, what's going on?" Sirius asked, concerned.

"Voldemort's had them guard Privet Drive. Waiting for Harry to step out of the wards so they can take him."

Gasps of shock rang out at that declaration. "How do you know this!?" Snape demanded again.

"Harry told us. He's so cautious now, I made a small joke about it and he pinned me to the wall." Remus clarified. "He told me it wasn't a joking matter, as those four were surrounding his house, waiting for him to leave."

"Has he tried to leave?" Dumbledore asked.

"He won't if he knows what's good for him!" Mrs Weasley shrieked. Sirius rolled his eyes, not going unnoticed by Tonks, who smiled at him.

"He did." Tonks answered.

"How do you know?" Mr Weasley asked.

"He would have had to, because he's had some changes that he'd had to leave for." Tonks started to take over the answers.

"What changes?" Dumbledore asked.

"You'll understand when you see him." Tonks said.

"Alright, we've heard about changes to his attitude, what abut his power?" Dumbledore queried again.

"That's been untested, as we didn't encounter any resistance." Tonks revealed. "But he still took on Mad-Eye and won." She smirked at Mad-Eye who grumbled in response.

"How did this happen?" Mr Weasley asked, smiling bemusedly.

"We went to open the door, Potter jumped out at me. We crashed down the stairs and he interrogated me until my answers satisfied him." Mad-Eye grumbled, looking annoyed. "Did a good job of it."

"Come on Mad-Eye, now you're getting beaten by fifteen year olds! At this rate, even little Nymphadora here can beat you!" Sirius barked out, most of the room laughing or chuckling.

Nymphadora, however, didn't find it so amusing. Levelling her wand at him and sending an over powered stinging hex at him, she smiled when it was about to hit him, only for the smile to be wiped off her face when Sirius calmly used a shield charm to 'accidentally' deflect it in Snape's very direction, Snape volleyed it towards the wall, leaving a bitter scorch mark on the wall.

Ignoring Mrs Weasley's rants of adults behaving immaturely, Remus valiantly pressed on. "It turns out that he's been jumping the back fence, most likely under his cloak, and running until he was far enough away to take it off, then going about his business."

"And the Death Eaters don't suspect a thing?" Dumbledore asked, wonder on his face. "Ingenious. Truly ingenious, taking advantage of the their ignorance."

"For his own ends." Snape silkily said. "If I didn't know any better, I'd say that he was thinking like a Slytherin."

"Shut it Snivellus!" Black yelled.

"Enough!" Dumbledore was starting to get visibly annoyed by now. "Then what?"

"We jumped the fences, he got his owl to follow him stealthily, and we got on our brooms and made our way here." Tonks explained

"Then we landed outside here, Tonks did something stupid-"

"Oi! I tried to lighten the mood!"

"More like tried to impress Potter." Mad-Eye grunted

"Shut up!" Tonks retorted. Mad-Eye let out a bark-like laugh in response.

"Anyway, Tonks tried to 'lighten the mood' by sending a jinx that popped Mad-Eyes fake eye out, he possibly overreacted and rounded on her and started yelling at her until she was on the verge of tears, Harry told him he was going too far, Mad-Eye rounded on Harry, and Harry nearly beat the hell out of him again." Remus summarised, while Sirius had a grin on his face. While Mrs Weasley looked completely disapproving.

Dumbledore spoke. "You'll be reprimanded for your actions Nymphadora, but if there's nothing else, this meeting is concluded.

Meanwhile, Harry was trying to find his room. He walked up the stairs, fully intent on finding Ron and Hermione and finding out why they abandoned him. They better have a good excuse,and not just the 'Dumbledore told us not to write anything' one. At least Sirius bothered to try. But Remus did apologise for not writing, even though I didn't really expect him too. But Harry's rambling in his head took him up the stairs, when he heard voices coming from the first door on the right.

"Honestly, Ron! With Harry being targeted by you-know-who, we need to be smart, so we don't end up like Diggory! Harry heard Hermione's shrill yell through the door. Surprised no-one heard her. His blood was boiling, he wanted nothing more than to kick down the door and demand what the hell was going on, but he wanted to see what he could find out what his friends thought, when they believed they were alone.

"How the bloody hell are we supposed to do that? Everyone knows we're his best friends!" Ron's exclaimed.

"Keep your voice down, Ronald!" If Harry could snort without being caught, he would.

"Fine. But still how do we do that?" Ron spoke much more quietly this time.

"He's a magnet for trouble, so we distance ourselves from him. Professor Dumbledore's 'no important information policy" Hermione explained, a tad impatient. "This will prevent us from being targeted, and if you-know-who wins, hopefully he leaves us alone. If Harry wins, we'll claim we were by his side the whole time, but we were distancing ourselves so we could draw out attackers, to make sure can have the final battle with you-know-who."

"Yeah! And we can say that us distancing from him will make him want to train harder, because we were also training harder!" Ron said, cottoning on.

"Good Ron!" Hermione sounded pleased. "And when the final battle approaches, we decide whether we fight or run, and then we live our lives peacefully."

"We won't actually fight, will we?" Ron sounded worried.

"Only when people are watching, we only have to make it look like we were, then we can run off, claiming to look for more Death Eaters, and hide until it's over." Then we make it look like we were in a valiant battle, and we become heroes!" Hermione was jubilant by this point. "Then tell Harry we were trying to get as powerful as him, and like you said before: because we were distancing ourselves, we were trying to help him get stronger!" Hermione had crossed the bridge from jubilant to giddy.

"What do we do until Harry gets here?"

"We wait."

Harry had enough. Kicking the door open, he announced: "You won't have to wait very fucking long will you?" He snarled at them.

"HARRY?!" Hermione screamed. Then she saw his appearance. "HARRY JAMES POTTER! WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO YOURSELF!?" She started shrieking, clearly disapproving of the changes he made to his appearance.

"You can't just burst in here, mat-!" Ron tried to yell, but before he could finish, Harry punched him straight in the face, breaking his nose.

"Shut up!" Harry was seething, he had a lot of pent-up frustration, and wasn't going to pass up this opportunity. "I CAN'T BELIEVE I TRUSTED YOU!" He yelled at the two, then rounded on Ron. "AND YOU! I SHOULDN'T HAVE FORGAVE YOU FOR THE DAMNED GOBLET OF FIRE! I SHOULD HAVE SEEN THE SIGNS!" Then directly to Hermione. "DON'T THINK I'M DONE WITH YOU, I SHOULD HAVE LEFT YOU TO THE TROLL!" Smirking suddenly, a move that greatly unnerved Ron and Hermione, he continued. "Would you like to know something?" At Hermione's nod, he spoke again. "It was rhetorical, idiot. Anyway, did you know that back when you were in the girl's bathroom, that it was my suggestion to go and tell you? That Ron didn't want to go, and I had to force him to come with me? That he didn't care about your life?" AT Hermione's shocked expression, he delivered the finishing blow. "Let that sink in. He was perfectly content to let you die, while he gorged himself back in Gryffindor tower!"

At this Ron ran at Harry, and tried to hit him, yelling all the while. "SHUT IT, POTTER!" Harry merely dodged Ron's pathetic attempt at a punch, and looking pensive for only a moment, decided something. I'll hit him in the mouth, I already broke his nose, let's see how many teeth I can knock out! Then he struck Ron in the mouth, causing him a bloody mouth and the grand total of four teeth knocked out.

Harry decided that he was done, and as he walked out the door, he spoke to a hysterical Hermione, and an agonised Ron: "You're only known because of me. When I tell everyone what you've planned, you're going to have no-one. We're no longer friends. Think on that." And with that, he walked out the door.

Feeling decidedly chipper after that encounter, he announced to the empty hallway: "That went even better than expected!" He briefly noted the fleshy string, carefully placed as to deflect attention away from it. Chalking it up to one of the houses many intricacies, he traipsed on. He only stopped walking until he found a door at the very end of the corridor, he opened it, and found a a very pleasant unexpected surprise.