"Well, here we are." Elphias blinked, starting quickly forward toward the Byrrow. "It's been a while, I must say."

"You've been here before?" Harry inquired as he watched the wizened Order member walk alongside Tonks and Hestia. "When?"

"'Twas a while ago, but I really enjoyed it then," Elphias replied reminiscently. "Good folk, those Weasleys. It was Order business, but I'll never forget my stay here."

Harry was about to ask another question when something disturbed the peace. The brown chickens he'd been absently focusing on as he spoke with Elphias had begun to scatter quickly about at the sound of a raised voice. And he could see why – he, too, was shaken and embarrassed by the row that met his ears.

"HOW MANY TIMES HAVE I TOLD YOU NEVER TO DO IT AGAIN? JUST WHEN I ACTUALLY THINK YOU'VE ACTUALLY DONE SOMETHING WORTHWHILE FOR ONCE—"

Two clamoring voices met the anguished yelling:

"Mum, you know we were right when we said that Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes would be a smash."

"Yeah, Mum, it was. We're rolling in Galleons now. There's enough money to support us and give you a little extra money—"

"DO YOU REALLY THINK SO? DROPPING OUT OF YOUR LAST YEAR AT HOGWARTS AND NEVER EARNING MORE THAN HALF A DOZEN O.W.L.S AMONG BOTH OF YOU, AND NOW YOU'RE MULTIMILLIONAIRES?"

Now, her two repliers were annoyed and disgruntled:

"Well, Mum, to be honest – yes, we are multimillionaires. Well, almost."

"Yeah, Mum, just a few more million Galleons to go, and before long we'll be on the cover of the Daily Prophet!"

"YOU'RE THINKING ABOUT BECOMING RICH AND FAMOUS WHEN THERE'S A MUCH MORE DANGEROUS THREAT AT HAND? BEING RICH IS NOTHING, ESPECIALLY WHEN YOU SHOULD BE WORKING AT THE ORDER LIKE EVERYONE ELSE IS!"

"Pish tush, Mum, to be honest we don't need to. Our money will keep them out of debt."

"You do know that meetings of a secret anti-Dark wizard organization in an abandoned mansion that belongs to Harry now are actually quite time-consuming to manage, I presume? This is how we do our part, by earning everyone's keep—"

"'EARNING EVERYONE'S KEEP?' I'LL HAVE YOU KNOW, WE NEED HELP IN THE ORDER MORE THAN WE NEED YOUR 'HELP'— Oh, hello, Harry dear. We were expecting you."

Harry stepped forward, watching Mrs. Weasley as she glared daggers at her twin sons, Fred and George, giving an odd resemblance to a saber-toothed tiger, and his point was proven as the twins broke under the pressure and began walking determinedly toward the house, shortly followed by Elphias, Tonks, and Hestia.

"Wotcher, Molly," called Tonks as the three of them filed in through the front door. "We'll be in the kitchen."

"That's all right, Tonks," replied Mrs. Weasley distractedly. "We'll be there soon." Turning to Harry, she invited him in. "Come along, dear; you're in time. We're just about to have supper. Hermione's with us, too." Beginning to reenter the house, a stone structure whose many floors had been added time after time, she added, "the Order members want to have a word with you."

Harry watched as she left, calling out, "Give me a bit." Entering the house, he appeared behind Fred and George. "What did you do this time?"

"We were trying to come home to experiment for new products at Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes." An annoyed Fred stared pointedly at his mother's disappearing figure. "Ginny and Ron said they wouldn't mind, 'slong as they weren't going to hurt them—"

"Percy, being the prat he is, still isn't talking to us," clarified George with a shake of his head. "And even if he were here I wager he'd be with Mum. 'But that's the wrong thing to do, and not to mention it can get you in trouble with the law.'" He pitched his voice higher, ending with a disgusted shake of the head. "I can just imagine him berating us like he used to, the Ministry's little Weatherby and all that."

"Anyhow, we wanted to try out these new products – they won't kill you, mind, but we can't tell you what they'll actually do to you." Fred exchanged a smirk with George. "Secrets of the trade, you know. It's confidential."

"After that, Mum wasn't happy." George rolled his eyes, stopping at the door. "She said we could get ourselves in serious trouble, especially since we weren't helping the Order out like she made everyone else."

"Helping the Order out?" repeated a bemused Harry. "Doing what? I mean, I know what's happening – people being killed, put under the Imperius Curse, going missing – but what's the Order going to do to help? Look for Voldemort?"

"Don't say the name, Harry," admonished George, faintly annoyed.

He nodded. He'd forgotten again. "Anyway—"

"We don't know, actually," Fred shrugged, "but we decided to help 'em out with the earnings from our shop."

"Mum didn't take well to it, naturally," George chimed in. "Especially when we came back. She seized the opportunity."

"Yeah, she's been yelling at us since this morning." Fred shook his head sadly. "I always knew Mum'd have to be tough to give birth to the awesome us, of course, but I never realized she could go yelling at us for half a day."

"We had to keep reusing the same old protests and reasons for why we're doing what we're doing." George hesitated for a brief moment. "We could have stayed at the flat, after all, but we didn't want to."

"We wanted to come home to our family, instead." Fred nodded. "'Sbeen ages since we've seen them, you know. Busy men have busy schedules, of course."

Harry checked his watch, a simple new one he'd thankfully bought at Hogsmeade earlier that summer. "It hasn't even been a month yet," he observed.

"So?" replied Fred stoically. "We wouldn't have seen them that time if it weren't for Dumbledore's funeral, after all."

Harry stood silent with the twins for a while, thinking with pain of the deceased Headmaster and pondering Hogwarts' oncoming future. It would not open again come September, he knew, he how he knew this he could not say.

"Anyhow," began George, breaking the silence, "we'd better get moving."

And got moving they did.

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For once, Molly saw as she observed Harry like a eighth son – which, in a sense, he was – he was not concentrating on her scrumptious cooking and the pleasant chatter that surrounded them. Of course, the 'chatter,' albeit pleasant, held a forbidding note. Everyone knew that, with Dumbledore gone, one wrong turn in the Order's careful, perfectionist planning could lead to the deaths of money.

And, Molly had to say, not without reason. The world was in danger, more danger than they'd ever faced since Grindelwald's reign of terror during the First World War. Passwords whispered in the doorways of family and friends, security measures in every household, wizarding children under Hogwarts age locked up in the house day and night, stores closed and boarded up, people killed or missing (in the streets, no less) – the evidence was everywhere. It was truly the greatest danger both worlds, wizarding and Muggle, had ever faced. Every day, You-Know-Who was gaining more power.

And Percy still hadn't returned. Morosely, Molly turned to the Order members, Tonks, Elphias, and Hestia, as she remembered their place at the Burrow. "What do you need to ask Harry about?"

"We want to see if he's eligible for the Order, Molly. You needn't worry." Hestia smiled, tucking into her plate of fish. "And, I must say, your cooking is delicious."

"Yeah, we want him to be in the Order." Tonks, seeming to have cheered up since the last time Molly had seen her, at Dumbledore's funeral, changed her hair from bubblegum-pink to seaweed-green with a loud pop. "We have to try that, and give him pointers on what he has to do to save the world." She grinned, cheeks coloring slightly. "Remus said he would destroy You-Know-Who."

Molly glanced fondly at the one she had taken under her wing summer after summer. "I've no doubt."

"We were also wondering if any of the others would like to be in the Order." Hestia began anew, devouring another forkful of fish. "Of course, just in case, we'd have to try them, too, but that could be arranged. I'm pretty sure they're experienced enough to be eligible."

"Yeah, we're still working hard." Tonks seemed unusually thoughtful. "For example, we've had to owl Charlie so that he could come here. He's on the Romanian Knight Bus now, I think."

"Yeah, but, before the wedding, we need him on Order business." Hestia patted Molly's hand. "We also mentioned Bill's – er – injury," she added, voice low. "He wanted to see him, anyhow."

Molly glanced uneasily at her eldest son, Bill. He and Fleur would be married before long, and she was reminded once more of how fast her offspring were growing. Observing him, she noticed that his face – a reminder of the vicious werewolf Death Eater who had bitten him, though it hadn't been during the full moon – was still unrecognizable. But, aside from that and his odd fondness for rare meat, the disfigurement altered Bill very much, though she'd noticed a change in her son. He was more serious now, more conscious of what he was doing, more careful. He'd always been hard-working and down-to-earth, but on the other hand he'd been something of a dreamer, too. Now, though….

Molly sighed, feeling a tear forming in her eye. The whole world was splitting its seams around her….

"You're not the only one." Tonks' hair had been switched back to mousy-brown – the thought of Bill living his days as he was had made her happiness evaporate, Molly supposed. "I—I wanted to be with Remus, you know, but…" She shook her head. "I haven't seen him since Dumbledore's funeral, you know. He hasn't owled me or any of the Aurors, not once – I don't know if he's all right or not, still spending time with the other werewolves as he is."

The three women fell silent, a great sadness touching each of them in turn. Home was no longer home. There was no home anymore, not without Dumbledore.

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Hermione was sitting on the bed in Ron's room shortly after dinner, an aged copy of Hogwarts: A History propped up against his headboard. Ron was sitting at the bed, watching as his owl Pigwidgeon flew in through the window and hooted appreciatively. Crookshanks, Hermione's cat, watched him with keen yellow eyes, tail waving as he lay as if in wait.

"Shut your trap, Pig." Annoyed, Ron walked across the room and started rummaging through a bag of Owl Treats perched haphazardly on his bed. "Here. Have these."

The tiny Scops hooted a second time, hovering impatiently as he caught the Owl Treats and downed them in a second. Snapping at the other Owl Treats Ron tossed him, he flapped over to the cage on the windowsill and took his place in it. Ron was in the midst of replacing the orange and blue bag when a loud knocking sounded at the door.

"It's Harry!" Hermione closed the book, carefully marking the page with a strip of parchment she always had with her that served as a bookmark. "Finally!" she said, opening the door, "It took you a while to eat, didn't it?"

Harry came in, adjusting his glasses. "Good to see you lot again," he grinned, passing an eye over Ron's room. "Still going for those Chudley Cannons, Ron?"

"Yeah." Ron grinned and gestured to his violently orange bedspread, a light in his eyes. "But look, Harry!" he cried out, breaking away from the door and darting over to the bed. "Look at what Fred and George were able to buy me with the money from their shop!"

"I always said you should get a summer job, Ron," reprimanded Hermione as the lanky redhead reappeared with a package in his hands. "That is, earning your own money instead of relying on your brothers to buy you things."

"Well, have you?" Ron shot back as grabbed Harry's arm and dragged him over to the bedside.

"For your information, I was working as a freelance journalist for Wizarding Scribbles. It was fascinating." Hermione closed the door and sat down by her friends as Ron ripped the plain brown package paper open slowly, increasing the tension yet more. "And I earned quite a lot, too."

"You were lucky," Harry told her. "When I was in Hogsmeade, I saw that most of the shops and business were closed and bolted down."

"It's really horrible, what they're doing." Hermione's jaw was set as Ron, taking his time, unraveled the silk-wrapped package. "I figured that those extra Dementors they put in Azkaban to guard it would have helped, but instead more of the criminals have escaped now than ever before."

"It's like the Dementors are working for You-Know-Who – not that I would be surprised," Ron suggested darkly, still pulling the silk away from the parcel. "Or, I guess, they could be following Sirius' example."

It took a while for Harry to answer and, when he did, his words were slow, measured, deliberate. "The wizarding world – and the Muggles', too – is in more danger than it ever was before after Dumbledore died."

Both Ron and Hermione stopped where they were to look at him. He was sitting calmly at Ron's right side, staring at his hands, clenched in his hands with whitened knuckles. "We're sorry, mate," Ron told him, voice low and sympathetic, reaching out a hand and patting Harry's shoulder. "We miss him too."

"We never knew him as— as intimately as you did, Harry, but I couldn't have asked for a better Headmaster." Hermione bit her lip, looking up at the ceiling. "I—Now that he's gone, I really miss him."
Harry was surprised to find words pouring quietly off his tongue. "He— He knew. He knew that it was Snape all along. He knew that Snape's been plotting to kill him since first year, but he never stopped him, sacked him, had him testified and sent away to Azkaban. He always had faith in people. It was his fault, and he knew it."

A testy pause followed his speech. The three of them exchanged hopeless glances, at a loss, in despair; even Hermione couldn't deny that Snape was evil after killing Dumbledore, though they couldn't guess at his motives. Finally, his package forgotten, Ron pushed the tangle of white silk off his lap and reached for something behind his pillow. "Listen, Harry," he began, voice muffled by his Chudley Cannons blanket as he lay on top of it, "we—we didn't know what to do, after Dumbledore died. Fawkes is gone, maybe forever…."

"He's moved on," explained Hermione, her voice slow, hesitant. "He doesn't belong at Hogwarts anymore, now that Dumbledore's gone."

"But… But we found this in the staff room. This phoenix feather was on top of it." Ron resurfaced, clutching something tightly in his hands. "It's almost like the one in his office…"

"It was meant for you, Harry," Hermione finished quietly.

"What is it?" asked Harry, taking the bulky object in his hands, but he knew he didn't need to ask. Slowly, undoing the burlap paper that wrapped it, he stared hard at it, taking meticulous notice of everything about it: its carved wooden frame, its faded gold lettering, its scenery depicting a man sitting in a magnificent scarlet throne, its familiar face asleep but – at least – alive.

It was a portrait of Albus Dumbledore, exactly as Harry remembered him before his death. This, Harry knew, could be used to communicate with Dumbledore's dead self somehow – indubitably not as easily as he had with the living one, but, based on what he'd come to expect of talking portraits, fairly well. He knew that it was for him, as Hermione had said, even before he decided to take the single crimson feather into his hands and gaze at it. It was one of Fawkes', though how he knew he could not say. It was important, simply knowing that it was there – and, Harry knew, as he stared deeply at the feather, Fawkes was still alive. He would not return to Hogwarts, but he would return – somewhere, sometime, it didn't matter. He would, and that was what was important.

Harry sat, staring, mesmerized, at the feather; Ron and Hermione, he saw, were entranced as well. They gazed into its depths, unaware of the time passing as they stared clearly into it. It was in a daze that they rose finally, at Molly's calling, to go down to speak with the Order members.

Harry, remembering what Mrs. Weasley had told him before, found that he did not care what the Order member would ask him. They were on his side, anyhow, but then again, everyone not with Voldemort was, even the Ministry…

And he had to save them, save the entire wizarding and Muggle worlds from the abyss into which they had fallen.