Disclaimer: Everything you recognize is J.K. Rowling's. Except Jamie, Luka, and Ariana.


Chapter 4- The Order of the Phoenix

"I'm fine Molly. Emotions just got a little high is all… Ariana calmed me down though." I tell the worried mother. Ariana comes closer to us shaking her head.

"Not all true Mrs. Weasley. Jamie was able to keep herself under control very well, I was only there to remind her to keep her head cool." She says with a smile. Molly gives her a grateful look and squeezes her arm.

"You're such a lovely child." Molly says. We're suddenly brought back to the conversation that is going on around us.

"Your — ?" Harry starts bewildered.

"My dear old mum, yeah," says Sirius. "We've been trying to get her down for a month but we think she put a Permanent Sticking Charm on the back of the canvas. Let's get downstairs, quick, before they all wake up again."

"But what's a portrait of your mother doing here?" Harry asks, bewildered, as we go through the door from the hall and lead the way down a flight of narrow stone steps, the rest of us just behind them.

"Hasn't anyone told you? This was my parents' house," says Sirius. "But I'm the last Black left, so it's mine now. I offered it to Dumbledore for headquarters — about the only useful thing I've been able to do."

Sirius' voice is filled with bitterness and it is one that I have long been used to hearing. Finally we get to the bottom of the stairs that leads down into the basement kitchen.

It is scarcely less gloomy than the hall above, a cavernous room with rough stone walls. Most of the light is coming from a large fire at the far end of the room. A haze of pipe smoke hangs in the air like battle fumes, through which looms the menacing shapes of heavy iron pots and pans hanging from the dark ceiling. Many chairs have been crammed into the room for the meeting and a long wooden table stands in the middle of the room, littered with rolls of parchment, goblets, empty wine bottles, and a heap of what appears to be rags. Arthur and Bill, are talking quietly with their heads together at the end of the table.

Molly clears her throat, and Arthur jumps and turns around to see us, and he jumps to his feet. "Harry!" Arthur says, hurrying forward to greet him and shaking his hand vigorously. "Good to see you!"

Over his shoulder I see Bill, who is still wearing his long hair in a ponytail (much to Molly's dismay), hastily rolling up the lengths of parchment left on the table.

"Journey all right, Harry?" Bill calls, trying to gather up twelve scrolls at once. "Mad-Eye didn't make you come via Greenland, then?"

"He tried," says Tonks, striding over to help Bill and immediately sending a candle toppling onto the last piece of parchment. "Oh no — sorry —"

Poor Tonks she means well and tries hard, but her clumsiness just gets the better of her whether she likes it or not.

"Here, dear," says Molly, sounding exasperated, and she repairs the parchment with a wave of her wand: In the flash of light caused by Mrs. Weasley's charm, I catch a glimpse of what looks like the plan of a building.

Molly sees us kids looking. She snatches the plan off the table and stuffs it into Bill's heavily laden arms.

"This sort of thing ought to be cleared away promptly at the end of meetings," she snaps before sweeping off towards an ancient dresser from which she starts unloading dinner plates.

Bill takes out his wand, mutters "Evanesco!" and the scrolls vanish.

"Sit down, Harry," says Sirius. "You've met Mundungus, haven't you?" The rest of us all file around the table to find a set. Tonight I end up with Luka on my left and Ariana on my right. It looks like they don't trust me to be around Harry. Well its better for Hermione and Ron to be stuck with him at the moment than me.

The thing I had taken to be a pile of rags gives a prolonged, grunting snore and then jerks awake.

"Some'n say m' name?" Mundungus mumbles sleepily. "I 'gree with Sirius . . ."

He raises a very grubby hand in the air as though voting, his droopy, bloodshot eyes unfocused. Ginny giggles, and I roll my eyes. That girl has become far too amused with that man for her own good. He's nothing more than a scoundrel.

"The meeting's over, Dung," says Sirius. "Harry's arrived."

"Eh?" says Mundungus, peering balefully at Harry through his matted ginger hair. "Blimey, so 'e 'as. Yeah . . . you all right, 'arry?"

"Yeah," says Harry.

Mundungus fumbles nervously in his pockets, still staring at Harry, and pulls out a grimy black pipe. He sticks it in his mouth, ignites the end of it with his wand, and takes a deep pull on it. Great billowing clouds of greenish smoke obscure him in seconds. I can't help but cover my nose at the reek. Ariana's nose scrunches up, and I chuckle. Oh Merlin…

"Owe you a 'pology," grunts a voice from the middle of the smelly cloud.

"For the last time, Mundungus," calls Molly, "will you please not smoke that thing in the kitchen, especially not when we're about to eat!"

"Ah," says Mundungus. "Right. Sorry, Molly." The cloud of smoke vanishes as Mundungus stows his pipe back in his pocket, but an acrid smell of burning socks lingers. I dare not tell Molly that my appetite has officially left me now.

"And if you want dinner before midnight I'll need a hand," Molly says to the room at large. Luka, Ariana, and I scramble up from the table to help. I've learned by now that helping Molly in the kitchen goes a long way to staying on her good side. "No, you can stay where you are, Harry dear, you've had a long journey —"

"What can I do, Molly?" says Tonks enthusiastically, bounding forward. Molly hesitates, looking apprehensive.

"Er — no, it's all right, Tonks, you have a rest too, you've done enough today —"

"No, no, I want to help!" says Tonks brightly, knocking over a chair as she hurries towards the dresser from which Ginny is collecting cutlery. My brother and I have taken up the skinning of potatoes knowing that this is a safe job for us to do. It doesn't require too much skill or effort to do, so it's perfect for the culinary underachievers that we are.

I can't help but smirk at the artist chef that is Ariana as she twirls gracefully around a blundering Ron, and adds an ingredient to her bowls. She's a master in the kitchen as well as in the brewing of potions. Harry is left to sit alone at the table with Sirius and Mundungus. He's a freeloader and will do practically anything for a meal.

After some prodding from Molly Arthur cleans his throat nervously. "So then… what's this about a row earlier with Harry that I hear?" He says casually as he can. I stiffen from my spot, and accidently skin my potato with a little too much vigor so I end up slicing my finger slightly. I suck in a sharp breath and drop my knife and spud to hurry over to the sink.

I run the bleeding appendage under the water, letting the coolness take away the sting. "It was nothing. There can be disagreements between friends." I say with forced lightness in my voice.

My hand is taken out of the sink, and before I can declare that I am fine, Molly has cast a spell and healed my small cut like it is nothing. "I heard that it didn't sound like a small disagreement." She says. I roll my eyes at the floor, and return back to my station where a clean knife and potato is waiting for me.

"S'nothing leave it alone." I say again a little more forcefully this time. We all work in silence for a while as dinner is prepared.

"Fred — George — NO, JUST CARRY THEM!" Molly shrieks.

Harry, Sirius, and Mundungus look around and, a split second later, dive away from the table. Fred and George bewitched a large cauldron of stew, an iron flagon of butterbeer, and a heavy wooden breadboard, complete with knife, to hurtle through the air towards them. The stew skids the length of the table and comes to a halt just before the end, leaving a long black burn on the wooden surface, the flagon of butterbeer falls with a crash, spilling its contents everywhere, and the bread knife slips off the board and lands, point down and quivering ominously, exactly where Sirius's right hand was seconds before.

"FOR HEAVEN'S SAKE!" screams Molly. "THERE WAS NO NEED — I'VE HAD ENOUGH OF THIS — JUST BECAUSE YOU'RE ALLOWED TO USE MAGIC NOW YOU DON'T HAVE TO WHIP YOUR WANDS OUT FOR EVERY TINY LITTLE THING!"

"We were just trying to save a bit of time!" says Fred, hurrying forward and wrenching the bread knife out of the table. "Sorry Sirius, mate — didn't mean to —"

Harry and Sirius are both laughing. Mundungus, who has toppled backward off his chair, is swearing as he gets to his feet. Crookshanks has given an angry hiss and shoots off under the dresser, from whence his large yellow eyes glow in the darkness. I am immensely grateful to Fred and George for taking the attention off of me for the moment.

"Boys," Arthur says, lifting the stew back into the middle of the table, "your mother's right, you're supposed to show a sense of responsibility now you've come of age —"

"— none of your brothers caused this sort of trouble!" Molly rages at the twins, slamming a fresh flagon of butterbeer onto the table and spilling almost as much again. "Bill didn't feel the need to Apparate every few feet! Charlie didn't Charm everything he met! Percy —"

She stops dead, catching her breath with a frightened look at her husband, whose expression is suddenly wooden. I shrink away from the frightening pair. I'm still debating who is worse when angry, Molly or Arthur. Rest assured I find both terrifying.

"Let's eat," says Bill quickly. I agree with him wholeheartedly.

"It looks wonderful, Molly," says Lupin, ladling stew onto a plate for her and handing it across the table. The rest of us scurry back into the seats that we had occupied before.

For a few minutes there is silence but for the chink of plates and cutlery and the scraping of chairs as everyone settles down to their food. Then Molly turns to Sirius and says, "I've been meaning to tell you, there's something trapped in that writing desk in the drawing room, it keeps rattling and shaking. Of course, it could just be a boggart, but I thought we ought to ask Alastor to have a look at it before we let it out."

"Whatever you like," says Sirius indifferently.

"The curtains in there are full of doxies too," Molly goes on. "I thought we might try and tackle them tomorrow."

"I look forward to it," says Sirius. I hear the sarcasm in his voice. I feel badly for the man, being trapped in this house with no way out. I may not like him a lot but that doesn't mean that I don't feel for the fellow.

Opposite me, Tonks is entertaining Hermione and Ginny by transforming her nose between mouthfuls. Screwing up her eyes each time with the a pained expression she her nose swells to a beaklike protuberance like Snape's, shrinks to something resembling a button mushroom, and then sprouts a great deal of hair from each nostril. This is regular mealtime entertainment (one that I love), because after a while Hermione and Ginny start requesting their favorite noses.

"Do that one like a pig snout, Tonks . . ."

Tonks obliges of course. "Looks like a female Dudley." He mumbles into his stew. Arthur, Bill, and Lupin are having an intense discussion about goblins.

"They're not giving anything away yet," says Bill. "I still can't work out whether they believe he's back or not. 'Course, they might prefer not to take sides at all. Keep out of it."

"I'm sure they'd never go over to You-Know-Who," says Arthur, shaking his head. "They've suffered losses too. Remember that goblin family he murdered last time, somewhere near Nottingham?"

"I think it depends what they're offered," says Lupin. "And I'm not talking about gold; if they're offered freedoms we've been denying them for centuries they're going to be tempted. Have you still not had any luck with Ragnok, Bill?"

"He's feeling pretty anti-wizard at the moment," explains Bill. "He hasn't stopped raging about the Bagman business, he reckons the Ministry did a cover-up, those goblins never got their gold from him, you know —"

A gale of laughter from the middle of the table drowns the rest of Bill's words. Fred, George, Ron, and Mundungus are rolling around in their seats.

". . . and then," chokes Mundungus, tears running down his face, "and then, if you'll believe it, 'e says to me, 'e says, ''ere, Dung, where didja get all them toads from? 'Cos some son of a Bludger's gone and nicked all mine!' And I says, 'Nicked all your toads, Will, what next? So you'll be wanting some more, then?' And if you'll believe me, lads, the gormless gargoyle buys all 'is own toads back orf me for twice what 'e paid in the first place —"

I roll my eyes at that. Usually I would find such a tale amusing (far too amusing for Molly's tastes) and be laughing right along with them. I really don't feel like it tonight though. I just feel drained. I want to forget about everything that's happening in the world right now for a while. It doesn't look like that's ever going to be possible though.

"You all right?" Luka asks me nudging me with his elbow. I glance up at my brother, and see the frown on his face and worry lines between his brows. He looks far too young to have such a serious look on his face, yet he's always been so.

"Yeah, just not feeling quite right." I say with a meager grin. He drapes his arm around me and pulls me closer to him. Usually I would try to fight such a hold in public, but tonight I'm not feeling it. I rest my head on his shoulder, and allow the conversation to go on around me.

"I don't think we need to hear any more of your business dealings, thank you very much, Mundungus," says Molly sharply, as Ron slumps forward onto the table, howling with laughter.

"Beg pardon, Molly," says Mundungus at once, wiping his eyes and winking at Harry. "But, you know, Will nicked 'em orf Warty Harris in the first place so I wasn't really doing nothing wrong —"

"I don't know where you learned about right and wrong, Mundungus, but you seem to have missed a few crucial lessons," snaps Molly coldly.

The conversation goes back to being lighter after that.

Mr. Weasley is leaning back in his chair, looking replete and relaxed, Tonks is yawning widely, her nose now back to normal, and Ginny, who has lured Crookshanks out from under the dresser, is sitting cross-legged on the floor, rolling butterbeer corks for him to chase.

"Nearly time for bed, I think," says Molly on a yawn.

"Not just yet, Molly," says Sirius, pushing away his empty plate and turning to look at Harry. "You know, I'm surprised at you. I thought the first thing you'd do when you got here would be to start asking questions about Voldemort."

The atmosphere in the room changes with the rapidity associated with the arrival of dementors. Where seconds before it was sleepily relaxed, it is now alert, even tense. I raise my head off of Luka's shoulder. A frisson has gone around the table at the mention of Voldemort's name. Lupin, who was about to take a sip of wine, lowers his goblet slowly, looking wary.

"I did!" says Harry indignantly. "I asked Jamie, Ron, and Hermione but they said we're not allowed in the Order, so —"

"And they're quite right," says Molly sharply. "You're too young." She is sitting bolt upright in her chair, her fists clenched upon its arms, every trace of drowsiness gone.

"Since when did someone have to be in the Order of the Phoenix to ask questions?" asks Sirius. "Harry's been trapped in that Muggle house for a month. He's got the right to know what's been happen —"

"Hang on!" interrupts George loudly.

"How come Harry gets his questions answered?" says Fred angrily.

"We've been trying to get stuff out of you for a month and you haven't told us a single stinking thing!" growls George.

"'You're too young, you're not in the Order,'" mimics Fred, in a high-pitched voice that sounds uncannily like his mother's. "Harry's not even of age!"

"It's not my fault you haven't been told what the Order's doing," says Sirius calmly. "That's your parents' decision. Harry, on the other hand —"

"It's not down to you to decide what's good for Harry!" snaps Molly sharply. Her normally kindly face looks dangerous. "You haven't forgotten what Dumbledore said, I suppose?"

"Which bit?" Sirius asks politely, but with an air as though readying himself for a fight.

"The bit about not telling Harry more than he needs to know," says Molly, placing a heavy emphasis on the last three words.

Ron, Hermione, Fred, and George's heads turn from Sirius to Molly as though following a tennis rally. Ginny is kneeling amid a pile of abandoned butterbeer corks, watching the conversation with her mouth slightly open. Lupin's eyes are fixed on Sirius.

"I don't intend to tell him more than he needs to know, Molly," says Sirius. "But as he was the one who saw Voldemort come back" (again, there is a collective shudder around the table at the name), "he has more right than most to —"

"He's not a member of the Order of the Phoenix!" says Mrs. Weasley. "He's only fifteen and —"

"— and he's dealt with as much as most in the Order," says Sirius, "and more than some —"

"No one's denying what he's done!" she says, her voice rising, her fists trembling on the arms of her chair. "But he's still —"

"He's not a child!" cries Sirius impatiently.

"He's not an adult either!" says Molly, the color rising in her cheeks. "He's not James, Sirius!"

"I'm perfectly clear who he is, thanks, Molly," growls Sirius coldly.

"I'm not sure you are!" she snaps. "Sometimes, the way you talk about him, it's as though you think you've got your best friend back!"

"What's wrong with that?" asks Harry. I worry my lower lip not liking the direction that this fight is going in.

"What's wrong, Harry, is that you are not your father, however much you might look like him!" she says, her eyes still boring into Sirius. "You are still at school and adults responsible for you should not forget it!"

"Meaning I'm an irresponsible godfather?" demands Sirius, his voice rising.

"Meaning you've been known to act rashly, Sirius, which is why Dumbledore keeps reminding you to stay at home and —"

"We'll leave my instructions from Dumbledore out of this, if you please!" snaps Sirius loudly.

"Arthur!" Molly cries, rounding on her husband. "Arthur, back me up!"

Arthur does not speak at once. He takes off his glasses and cleans them slowly on his robes, not looking at his wife. Only when he has replaced them carefully on his nose does he say, "Dumbledore knows the position has changed, Molly. He accepts that Harry will have to be filled in to a certain extent now that he is staying at headquarters —"

"Yes, but there's a difference between that and inviting him to ask whatever he likes!"

"Personally," interrupts Lupin quietly, looking away from Sirius at last, as Molly turns quickly to him, hopeful that finally she is about to get an ally, "I think it better that Harry gets the facts — not all the facts, Molly, but the general picture — from us, rather than a garbled version from . . . others."

His expression is mild, but I am sure that Lupin, at least, knows that some Extendable Ears survived Molly's purge.

"Well," she says, breathing deeply and looking around the table for support that does not come, "well . . . I can see I'm going to be overruled. I'll just say this: Dumbledore must have had his reasons for not wanting Harry to know too much, and speaking as someone who has got Harry's best interests at heart —"

"He's not your son," says Sirius quietly.

"He's as good as," snaps Molly fiercely. "Who else has he got?"

"He's got me!"

"Yes," says Molly, her lip curling. "The thing is, it's been rather difficult for you to look after him while you've been locked up in Azkaban, hasn't it?"

Sirius starts to rise from his chair. "Molly, you're not the only person at this table who cares about Harry," says Lupin sharply. "Sirius, sit down."

Molly's lower lip is trembling. Sirius sinks slowly back into his chair, his face white.

"I think Harry ought to be allowed a say in this," Lupin continues. "He's old enough to decide for himself."

"I want to know what's been going on," Harry says at once.

"Very well," says Molly, her voice cracking. "Ginny — Ron — Hermione — Fred — George — Jamie— Luka— Ariana I want you out of this kitchen, now." There is instant uproar.

"We're of age!" Fred and George bellow together.

"If Harry's allowed, why can't I?" shouts Ron.

"Mum, I want to!" wails Ginny.

"NO!" Molly shouts, standing up, her eyes overbright. "I absolutely forbid —"

"Molly, you can't stop Fred and George," says Arthur wearily. "They are of age —"

"They're still at school —"

"But they're legally adults now," he says in the same tired voice.

Molly is now scarlet in the face. "I — oh, all right then, Fred and George can stay, but Ron —"

"Harry'll tell me, Hermione, and Jamie everything you say anyway!" says Ron hotly. "Won't — won't you?" he adds uncertainly, meeting Harry's eyes.

Harry pauses for a rather long moment looking the three of us over seriously. "'Course I will." Harry says. Ron and Hermione beams at him, and I shoot him a grateful smile.

"Luka is my twin and I'll tell him anyway." I say simply. Before Molly can open her mouth to speak again Ariana steps in.

"I know too much already and grandfather doesn't care much about what I know anymore." Ariana interrupts.

"Fine!" shouts Molly. "Fine! Ginny — BED!"

Ginny does not go quietly. We can hear her raging and storming at her mother all the way up the stairs, and when she reaches the hall Mrs. Black's earsplitting shrieks are added to the din. Lupin hurries off to the portrait to restore calm. It is only after he has returned, closing the kitchen door behind him and taking his seat at the table again, that Sirius speaks.

"Okay, Harry . . . what do you want to know?"

Harry takes a deep breath and starts. "Where's Voldemort? What's he doing? I've been trying to watch the Muggle news," he says, ignoring the renewed shudders and winces at the name, "and there hasn't been anything that looks like him yet, no funny deaths or anything —"

"That's because there haven't been any suspicious deaths yet," says Sirius, "not as far as we know, anyway. . . . And we know quite a lot."

"More than he thinks we do anyway," says Lupin.

"How come he's stopped killing people?" Harry asks. He knows that Voldemort has murdered more than once in the last year alone.

"Because he doesn't want to draw attention to himself at the moment," says Sirius. "It would be dangerous for him. His comeback didn't come off quite the way he wanted it to, you see. He messed it up."

"Or rather, you messed it up for him," corrects Lupin with a satisfied smile.

"How?" Harry asks perplexedly.

"You weren't supposed to survive!" says Sirius. "Nobody apart from his Death Eaters was supposed to know he'd come back. But you survived to bear witness."

"And the very last person he wanted alerted to his return the moment he got back was Dumbledore," says Lupin. "And you made sure Dumbledore knew at once."

"How has that helped?" Harry asks.

"Are you kidding?" cries Bill incredulously. "Dumbledore was the only one You-Know-Who was ever scared of!"

"Thanks to you, Dumbledore was able to recall the Order of the Phoenix about an hour after Voldemort returned," explains Sirius.

"So what's the Order been doing?" says Harry, looking around at us all.

"Working as hard as we can to make sure Voldemort can't carry out his plans," says Sirius.

"How d'you know what his plans are?" Harry asks quickly.

"Dumbledore's got a shrewd idea," says Lupin, "and Dumbledore's shrewd ideas normally turn out to be accurate."

"So what does Dumbledore reckon he's planning?"

"Well, firstly, he wants to build up his army again," says Sirius. "In the old days he had huge numbers at his command; witches and wizards he'd bullied or bewitched into following him, his faithful Death Eaters, a great variety of Dark creatures. You heard him planning to recruit the giants; well, they'll be just one group he's after. He's certainly not going to try and take on the Ministry of Magic with only a dozen Death Eaters."

"So you're trying to stop him getting more followers?"

"We're doing our best," says Lupin.

"How?"

"Well, the main thing is to try and convince as many people as possible that You-Know-Who really has returned, to put them on their guard," explains Bill. "It's proving tricky, though."

"Why?"

"Because of the Ministry's attitude," Tonks pitches in. "You saw Cornelius Fudge after You-Know-Who came back, Harry. Well, he hasn't shifted his position at all. He's absolutely refusing to believe it's happened."

"But why?" says Harry desperately. "Why's he being so stupid? If Dumbledore —"

"Ah, well, you've put your finger on the problem," says Arthur with a wry smile. "Dumbledore."

"Fudge is frightened of him, you see," says Tonks sadly.

"Frightened of Dumbledore?" says Harry incredulously.

"Frightened of what he's up to," explains Arthur. "You see, Fudge thinks Dumbledore's plotting to overthrow him. He thinks Dumbledore wants to be Minister of Magic."

"But Dumbledore doesn't want —"

"Of course he doesn't," Arthur says. "He's never wanted the Minister's job, even though a lot of people wanted him to take it when Millicent Bagnold retired. Fudge came to power instead, but he's never quite forgotten how much popular support Dumbledore had, even though Dumbledore never applied for the job."

"Deep down, Fudge knows Dumbledore's much cleverer than he is, a much more powerful wizard, and in the early days of his Ministry he was forever asking Dumbledore for help and advice," says Lupin. "But it seems that he's become fond of power now, and much more confident. He loves being Minister of Magic, and he's managed to convince himself that he's the clever one and Dumbledore's simply stirring up trouble for the sake of it."

"How can he think that?" growls Harry angrily. "How can he think Dumbledore would just make it all up — that I'd make it all up?"

"Because accepting that Voldemort's back would mean trouble like the Ministry hasn't had to cope with for nearly fourteen years," says Sirius bitterly. "Fudge just can't bring himself to face it. It's so much more comfortable to convince himself Dumbledore's lying to destabilize him."

"You see the problem," says Lupin. "While the Ministry insists there is nothing to fear from Voldemort, it's hard to convince people he's back, especially as they really don't want to believe it in the first place. What's more, the Ministry's leaning heavily on the Daily Prophet not to report any of what they're calling Dumbledore's rumor-mongering, so most of the Wizarding community are completely unaware anything's happened, and that makes them easy targets for the Death Eaters if they're using the Imperius Curse."

"But you're telling people, aren't you?" says Harry, looking around at Arthur, Sirius, Bill, Mundungus, Lupin, and Tonks. "You're letting people know he's back?"

They all smile humorlessly.

"Well, as everyone thinks I'm a mad mass murderer and the Ministry's put a ten-thousand-Galleon price on my head, I can hardly stroll up the street and start handing out leaflets, can I?" says Sirius restlessly.

"And I'm not a very popular dinner guest with most of the community," says Lupin. "It's an occupational hazard of being a werewolf."

"Tonks and Arthur would lose their jobs at the Ministry if they started shooting their mouths off," states Sirius, "and it's very important for us to have spies inside the Ministry, because you can bet Voldemort will have them."

"We've managed to convince a couple of people, though," says Arthur. "Tonks here, for one — she's too young to have been in the Order of the Phoenix last time, and having Aurors on our side is a huge advantage — Kingsley Shacklebolt's been a real asset too. He's in charge of the hunt for Sirius, so he's been feeding the Ministry information that Sirius is in Tibet."

I look down at my hands at the mention of my old guardian. It seems like a lifetime ago that we had lived with him. Everything is very different at the Weasley's than there.

"But if none of you's putting the news out that Voldemort's back —" Harry begins.

"Who said none of us was putting the news out?" says Sirius. "Why d'you think Dumbledore's in such trouble?"

"What d'you mean?" Harry asks, and I roll my eyes. For someone so smart he sure can be daft a lot.

"They're trying to discredit him," explains Lupin. "Didn't you see the Daily Prophet last week? They reported that he'd been voted out of the Chairmanship of the International Confederation of Wizards because he's getting old and losing his grip, but it's not true, he was voted out by Ministry wizards after he made a speech announcing Voldemort's return. They've demoted him from Chief Warlock on the Wizengamot — that's the Wizard High Court — and they're talking about taking away his Order of Merlin, First Class, too."

"But Dumbledore says he doesn't care what they do as long as they don't take him off the Chocolate Frog cards," says Bill, grinning. I can't help but smile at that statement.

"It's true it will break grandfather's heart if it comes to that." Ariana chuckles.

"It's no laughing matter," says Arthur shortly. "If he carries on defying the Ministry like this, he could end up in Azkaban and the last thing we want is Dumbledore locked up. While You-Know-Who knows Dumbledore's out there and wise to what he's up to, he's going to go cautiously for a while. If Dumbledore's out of the way — well, You-Know-Who will have a clear field."

"But if Voldemort's trying to recruit more Death Eaters, it's bound to get out that he's come back, isn't it?" asks Harry desperately.

"Voldemort doesn't march up to people's houses and bang on their front doors, Harry," says Sirius. "He tricks, jinxes, and blackmails them. He's well-practiced at operating in secrecy. In any case, gathering followers is only one thing he's interested in, he's got other plans too, plans he can put into operation very quietly indeed, and he's concentrating on them at the moment."

"What's he after apart from followers?" Harry asks swiftly. I perk up actually wanting to know the answer to this question.

I think I see Sirius and Lupin exchange the most fleeting of looks before Sirius says, "Stuff he can only get by stealth."

When we continue to look puzzled, Sirius continues, "Like a weapon. Something he didn't have last time."

"When he was powerful before?"

"Yes."

"Like what kind of weapon?" questions Harry. "Something worse than the Avada Kedavra — ?"

"That's enough." Molly speaks from the shadows beside the door. I did not notice her return from taking Ginny upstairs. Her arms are crossed and she looks furious.

"I want you in bed, now. All of you," she adds, looking around at Fred, George, Ron, Hermione, Luka, Ariana, and me.

"You can't boss us —" Fred begins.

"Watch me," she snarls. I so do not want to cross that tonight. She is trembling slightly as she looks at Sirius. "You've given Harry plenty of information. Any more and you might just as well induct him into the Order straightaway."

"Why not?" says Harry quickly. "I'll join, I want to join, I want to fight —"

"No." It is not Molly who speaks this time, but Lupin.

"The Order is comprised only of overage wizards," he says. "Wizards who have left school," he adds, as Fred and George open their mouths. "There are dangers involved of which you can have no idea, any of you . . . I think Molly's right, Sirius. We've said enough."

Sirius half-shrugs but does not argue. Molly beckons imperiously to her sons, Hermione, Ariana, Luka, and me. One by one we stand up and start out of the room. As I'm passing though she catches my arm.

"Don't think I've forgotten what happened today. We'll talk about it eventually." She warns me. I wince, and curse my rotten luck. Now she's even more agitated over what all went down tonight. I'm not in for a break anytime soon.