Chapter Four – A New Plan

Sirius Black threw the copy of the Daily Prophet across the kitchen of number twelve Grimmauld place in disgust, scattering its pages all over the room.

The so-called newspaper's headline screamed: 'Boy-Who-Lied?' Another salvo in the ministry's campaign to smear his godson. The attacks had started almost right after the events of the third task and showed no signs of stopping anytime soon. No-one seemed willing to contradict Fudge's assertion that Voldemort had not returned.

As he nursed a mug of coffee – black, naturally – Sirius reflected that there were pluses and minuses to his current situation. He was out of Azkaban – dreams of that hell-hole still woke him up some nights – but he was still a wanted fugitive.

He was also back in a completely different hell-hole, his childhood 'home', and unable to leave, a definite minus; but Moony was here with him, and old friends and acquaintances came by to visit, and best of all Harry would arrive eventually. Big plus.

Another mark in the plus column was that Molly Weasley had been by almost every day since the school holidays had started with some of her children, helping to clean the place up. After nearly a week of furious effort, the place was actually approaching habitability. Most surprising of all, they'd managed not to wake up the portrait of his mother – another plus – but neither had they been able to remove it entirely.

The worst part wasn't the environment though, it was being stuck in it. In his new prison of the ancestral home of his hated family, he just felt... useless.

After escaping Azkaban, he'd spent months prowling around the grounds of Hogwarts, trying to gain entry to capture and kill that damned Rat. The thought of that traitor sleeping in the same room as Harry made his blood boil with anger and freeze with terror at the same time.

He'd actually managed to get in once, but the bypass charms he'd placed on the guardian portrait of the Gryffindor common room all those years ago – he could never quite remember the password when he was a student – had long since worn off; and the Fat Lady had not been amenable to persuasion. When he had finally gotten in with the passwords from Longbottom's list, the Rat was gone.

The time at Hogwarts hadn't been a total waste though, he had managed to watch Harry's quidditch games and been thrilled to see his godson's talents on a broom. The boy was a born seeker.

When he'd finally cornered Wormtail in the shrieking shack Harry had insisted on turning him in rather than killing him. After he'd been captured – by Snape of all people, ugh – and escaped with Harry and Hermione's help, Dumbledore had sent him off to relax and recover.

Spending some time in the Caribbean had been helpful, he'd gained back some of the weight lost in prison and even recovered some of his humorous spirit. That spirit fell quickly though when Dumbledore contacted him with the news last autumn.

Learning that Harry had been entered into the tournament had him worried sick. Whatever was going on was obviously the work of Voldemort, and there was nothing they could do but wait for it to play out. Dumbledore had told him that the tasks had been watered-down significantly from previous competitions, but if Voldemort had interfered with it once...

He'd taken up residence in that cave near Hogsmeade and tried to help as best he could but ultimately Sirius' fears had proven correct as Harry was kidnapped from the maze and made to take part in some horrific ritual to resurrect the madman who'd murdered his parents.

Sirius had never regretted not killing the Rat as much as he did that night.

After hearing the story in Dumbledore's office, all he wanted to do was grab Harry and get him somewhere on the other side of the planet, somewhere Voldemort would never find him. Eventually though, after a long conversation that included a certain amount of yelling on Sirius' part, the headmaster had convinced him to let Harry return to those Dursleys.

When all this was over, Sirius was going to unleash the worst kind of hell a Marauder could think of on them. Pranks they'd deemed too nasty even for Snape.

He had spent the past couple of weeks reconnecting with some of his old friends and contacts. Venturing outside of the house was dangerous, there were wanted posters of him everywhere after all, and Dumbledore suspected that Pettigrew would have revealed his animagus form to the Death Eaters.

Sirius had tried to argue that one benefit of his status as 'Voldemort's-Right-Hand-Man' was that lower-level dark wizards would be more likely to talk with him; as long as he kept away from the inner-circle minions, who would know better, he should be able to gather some useful intelligence for the Order.

Dumbledore had shot that idea down however, pointing out that Voldemort would likely clear that misunderstanding up rather quickly; and then Sirius would have to evade two groups out to capture him.

He was right, but that just reinforced that sense of uselessness that hung over Sirius like a cloud.

He looked up as Remus entered the kitchen, took a seat at the table opposite him and poured his own mug of coffee, adding some cream and sugar.

"Good morning Padfoot," he said after taking a deep sip.

"Mornin' Moony. You want some breakfast?"

"Sounds good."

"Kreacher!" Sirius called, causing the elf to pop into the room.

"Master calls Kreacher?"

"Prepare another breakfast for Remus," Sirius commanded.

Kreacher looked at him in disgust and horror. "Master wishes to feed the half-breed?"

"Yes. Master does," Sirius told him pointedly, "and you're not to refer to him as such ever again."

With a grumbled "yes master" Kreacher disappeared.

"What did you do with the newspaper?" Remus asked, looking around the table for it.

"It's... around," Sirius waved his hand absently, "nothing worth reading. Except the comics."

"That's all you ever read," Remus said with a smile, waving his wand and bringing the scattered pages back to a neat pile.

"Ah," Remus said, seeing the headline, "perhaps you're right."

"Master's breakfast," Kreacher intoned. "And his... guest's," he added with a sneer.

"Great, now piss off you wretched little hatemonger," Sirius barked at him.

Grumbling and muttering, the elf levitated the plates onto the table before vanishing with a louder-than-nessesary pop.

"You don't have to be quite so..." Remus started.

"He's a menace," Sirius interrupted, "I've had to order him three different ways not to try to poison you," he pointed out.

Remus tilted his head, conceding the argument and started on his breakfast.

A white owl swooped into the kitchen, landing on the table in front of Sirius. For a moment, he thought it was Harry's owl, Hedwig. Disappointed, he took the parchment from the owl, held out a strip of bacon from his plate and looked at the note, written in Dumbledore's loopy script.

Remus started when Sirius banged the table causing the plates to rattle and the owl to squawk, chortling in excitement.

"Looks like Dumbledore has a plan." He announced, a wide smile on his face.

Ron Weasley woke to the sounds of his twin brothers thundering down the stairs outside his room. Groaning, he sat up in bed and yawned, rubbing his eyes. When the sounds of Fred and George faded as they ran out the back door – slamming the screen door on their way out – Ron flopped back down in bed and turned away from the window, pulling the covers over his head to block out the morning light. He loved sleeping in.

"Ron! Ginny! Breakfast!" he heard his mum call from downstairs.

Now properly motivated, Ron sprang from his bed, pulling his nightshirt over his head. Crossing the room, he reached into the basket of clean clothes that he hadn't quite gotten around to putting away and pulled out a shirt at random. Orange, excellent.

His trousers had been tossed over the desk, and when he pulled them towards him the pile of summer homework assignments followed, spilling over the floor.

"Bugger." He grumbled. He'd managed to put those from his mind. Well, it was only the first week of summer hols. He'd get to them eventually.

He pulled on his pants and ran his hands through his hair, smoothing it out. Exiting his room, he saw Ginny a few steps before him, heading to the kitchen.

Sitting down at the table, Ron inhaled deeply, savouring the aroma of bacon, sausage and toast. Hogwarts had great food, lots of it, and a good variety, but nothing quite filled him up like his mum's breakfasts.

He ate slowly – for him anyways – as Fred and George bantered back and forth about some mad scheme or another and Ginny silently read some witch's magazine.

"We'll be going to Mr Black's house again today," Molly announced as they were finishing up. "It's time we tackled the second floor... none of that!" she scolded as groans came from the boys.

"Now, put your dishes in the sink and head upstairs. Find some clothes fit for scrubbing," she instructed.

Sighing inwardly, Ron carried his plate to the sink and returned to his room.

More cleaning. Wonderful, he thought to himself. The past few days had been filled with it. As if the layers of dust and grime covering Grimmauld place weren't bad enough, yesterday he'd run into a whole nest of doxies hiding in a curtain. He'd managed to avoid actually getting bitten, but it was a close thing, and the twins laughing at him as he ran through the hall had annoyed him greatly.

He took off his nice orange shirt and traded it for a faded grey one with a hole in the side. Crouching down he scooped up the homework assignments that had fallen off the desk and saw the letter he'd written to Harry.

He'd written it in defiance of Dumbledore's edict, but his mother had caught him while trying to send it off. Ron was surprised that instead of the yelling he had expected, his mother had understood what he was doing and let him off without too much of a lecture, telling him only that Harry was in a difficult situation and was best left alone for a while.

That actually bothered Ron somewhat. He had a pretty good idea of how difficult things were for his best friend, and thought that Harry would be better off knowing Ron was with him; well, this time at least. The events of last year had forced Ron to become a bit introspective, and the guilt he felt over what happened still gnawed at him.

He'd actually turned his back on his best friend, the one person he thought he'd always stand with; after everything that had happened to them over the years he knew better than to think that Harry would try to show him up. He knew better than anyone how much Harry hated the attention he got.

Harry had of course, forgiven him. That was just who he was.

There was nothing he could do to change the past, he could only try to do better moving forward. Ron realized that if he wanted to make his own mark on the world, it would have to come as a result of his own efforts; he wanted to be Harry's best mate, but he wanted to be known as Ron Weasley, star quidditch captain and keeper and eventual coach.

And the one who finally took the Cannons to the championship.

He remembered what he had seen in that magic mirror all those years ago. If he wanted to be Head Boy, he'd need to start pulling down some better marks.

Maybe he'd write Hermione, get some pointers on how to handle those summer assignments.

He also recognized the more practical need for improving his magical skills; bad times were coming, and Ron would be there to help. He wasn't going to let Harry down again.

With a plan in mind, and resolved to actually put it in motion, Ron left his room and headed back downstairs to face the dirt at Sirius' house.

As the family was assembling in the kitchen to floo over to Grimmauld Place a small brown owl floated into the room and landed on the table. Ron watched as his mum untied the message from the bird's leg and offered it a treat. Reading the note, she looked surprised, then smiled.

"Good news from Dumbledore," she told them.

Hermione Granger sat at the desk in her bedroom, staring at the half-completed letter she had written to her friend Harry before remembering her promise not to write him this summer.

There were times in the past that she had disregarded the rules and disobeyed her teachers, but they were few and far between. Contrary to her schoolmate's opinions, she did not revere authority for its own sake; she just respected the knowledge and experience of the adults in her life.

She believed that rules were important yes, but rules were predicated upon reason. So you could break the rules, if you had a good enough reason to. The times she had done so were – to her thinking – for good reason, and so she didn't let them weigh on her; but nothing had ever caused her such consternation as this.

The headmaster had instructed her not to write to Harry this summer.

She had reluctantly agreed, but try as she might, Hermione was unable to grasp why such a thing was important, the reason behind the rule. Given everything that had happened a few weeks ago Harry would need her support now more than ever.

Of course, there was nothing to prevent her from writing to Harry's godfather. A small smile crept on to her lips as she considered how she might still be able to help.

She'd read the recent history of the magical world of course, and although actually meeting Harry Potter had cast some doubt on the veracity of her books, she had a fair idea of just how bad things had been before that terrible Halloween night fourteen years ago.

Voldemort was a terribly dangerous foe to be sure, but his real power was in the fear he created, the legion of followers he controlled; without them he would still be a powerful wizard, but no longer a larger-than-life symbol of terror. Maybe then people could be convinced to stand up to him. Get enough of them working together and Voldemort wouldn't stand a chance. That was not going to be easy though.

Hermione had also shared her history books with her parents, who had started to receive the Daily Prophet in an attempt to connect with the world their daughter lived in. Of course, that awful gossip rag didn't help matters. They had been systematically attacking both Harry and Dumbledore over the past week. Obviously the ministry was in denial. The sheer mindlessness of the magical world infuriated her. Didn't they understand that not thinking about something didn't make it go away?

Talking to her parents had been difficult, she didn't want them to panic and withdraw her from school, but neither did she want to shut them out. She was aware of the growing distance between them as she became more and more involved in a world that could never include them, and didn't want to lose them entirely.

It had taken all of an afternoon and most of an evening to explain everything. They had no trouble believing her about Voldemort and his return, but were understandably worried over the fact that she would be a target for those bigots. They had, at least, voiced no serious objection to her relationship with Harry, even knowing that he was the primary enemy of the resurrected dark lord.

There wouldn't be much she could do about the larger wizarding world, but at school at least she could make a difference, bringing people around to a proper way of thinking.

She just hoped they'd have a decent Defence professor next year. Maybe they could start up a study group...

Her thoughts were interrupted when a tawny owl flew into the closed window with a smack, leaving an owl-shaped pattern of dust on the glass; even the outlines of its feathers were visible.

"Oh! Poor thing!"

Hermione darted over to the window and pulled up the sash, allowing the owl to enter and then settled on her desk, giving her a reproachful look.

Carefully untying the note so as not to further annoy the owl, she held out her arm to the bird.

"I don't have any owl treats, but I'm sure there's something in the kitchen."

She carried the owl downstairs to the kitchen where it launched itself from her arm and landed on the back of a chair.

"Goodness, is that an owl?" her mother asked, entering the room.

"Yes, I just got a letter. Do we have any ham?" Hermione asked, looking in the fridge.

"I think so, in the crisper drawer. Who's the letter from?"

"I'm not sure," Hermione replied, holding a slice of lunch meat to the owl, which hooted and motioned to the note she held in her other hand, still unread, before snapping up the offered food.

Unfolding the parchment she searched over the message, written in a flourishing hand that made it – in her opinion – unnecessarily hard to read, and found the signature at the bottom.

Her eyes widened, why would Dumbledore be writing her?

Author's Notes:

This was the last chapter of set-up before the proper story begins. This, along with chapter two, was difficult to write, as I'm trying to get into the character's heads without stepping on canon too much. There isn't much detail on the summer before Order of the Phoenix, about the only thing I was able to determine was that Dumbledore told Ron and Hermione not to write Harry any letters for some reason.

- LJSi