Chapter 10

Harry's POV

The 12 Order members approached and surrounded the small, dark house quietly, holding their wands in their hands firmly.

"Ok, here's the plan," Harry began in a tense whisper, "We need to find him quickly, before he can get a chance to tell any Doom Soldiers that we are on to them. Ron and I are going to look for him and take him back to headquarters for interrogation. Clear?"

The small group nodded and Ron spoke up in a strained and stressed sounding voice, "George, Bill, Seamus, Angelina and Dean you search downstairs for anything relevant and useful to the case. Neville, Charlie, Hannah, Dad and Luna you look upstairs. We will see you back at headquarters at 8 o'clock in the morning, there's a meeting."

The team agreed and they slowly crept toward the house. As he crawled along the ground Harry felt extremely anxious, he didn't know what to expect from Davidson and just prayed that they would not find out that something terrible had happened to Hermione, but it was a hopeless prayer, he knew better than anyone that you don't get kidnapped and come away smiling. He just hoped that they wouldn't kill her; things were bad enough already, Ron was falling apart now and Harry didn't think that either of them could cope if she was really gone.

Once they reached the back door of the house Bill stepped forward and, soundlessly, undid the security enchantments around the gloomy house. Harry turned and looked at Ron, who gave him a determined nod and they motioned for everyone to enter the house. The Order began their search immediately, without a sound.

Harry and Ron went out into the hallway which was narrow and dark, due to the late hour. The duo tiptoed silently up the stairs. They were now looking at another hallway, this time there was 2 doors, the one to the left was opened and clearly led to the bathroom, Harry and Ron rushed over to the door on the right. Harry nodded to Ron and he opened the door cautiously, wand at the ready.

The first thing Harry noticed when he entered the room was the horrid smell, his stomach churned violently and he thought he was going to be sick, Harry pushed through his revulsion and looked around the room. There was a large mahogany bed in the middle of the room, which was clearly where the unbelievable stench was coming from. Harry lowered his wand slightly as he and Ron walked over to the bed cautiously.

"Oh God!" Ron exclaimed, shocked at the gut-wrenching site before them. Harry felt the blood drain from his face as he looked at the disgusting and terrible scene before him. When Harry saw the huge amount blood, the blood took him back to Dobby's death and the grief it brought him, although he felt no grief now there was a sense of loss in Harry when he realized that their best lead on the case so far was gone and so was all hope that Harry had that this case was going to turn out OK. The bed sheets were covered in so much blood that you would have never guessed they were any colour other that dark red and the figure in the bed did not look like the young man Ron and Harry had worked with many times before, his face was indistinguishable. One thing was clear; they would not get any information from John Davidson.

Harry felt repulsed as he saw what Lestrange was capable of. Davidson was his alley but that didn't stop him suffering from a gruesome death. It seemed to Harry that Benjamin Lestrange cared about his followers just as much as Voldemort did, which was a horrifying thought. What scared Harry the most was, if this was what Lestrange did to his helpers, what would he do to Hermione?

"We need to find her, Harry," Ron said breaking Harry out of his trance. When Harry looked at Ron he seen the same fear and horror that he was feeling. "We've just got to." Ron finished in an agonized voice.

oo00OO00oo

The entire room was silent. Harry could see the shock clearly etched on every member of the order's faces.

"Why would he kill him? He so young," Molly asked in an anguished whisper and Harry had to admire how caring Molly was, even to the person that was partly responsible for her son receiving a serious injury.

"Because he knew that we would discover the traitor easily, he was cutting off any loose ends," said Aberforth, bluntly. The room agreed with him gloomily, despite the cruel choice of words, Harry knew he was right. The room was silent again for a few moments, before Ron spoke,

"Lestrange is smart and cunning, he isn't going to make mistakes or, as Aberforth put it, leave any loose ends. He leaves no clues and no serious witnesses. We need to think about our next move. He clearly expected us to find out about Davidson. We need to outsmart him." The room nodded as one, each person pondering Ron's words.

"Maybe we need to wait for him to make a mistake?" Dean said.

"And how long will that take?" Ron snapped angrily. Harry took a deep breath and interrupted before Ron and Dean started arguing.

"We need to think through everything with this guy, he's dangerous and unpredictable," everyone nodded at Harry's words, "We can't rush into anything or make stupid decisions in the heat of the moment."

The silence was interrupted by a booming laugh, which echoed through the walls of Grimmauld Place.

"Are you serious?" George demanded, happily, "Harry blooming Potter is telling us not to rush into things? Mr Act-now-think-Later-Potter?"

The tension in the room dissolved quickly as everyone laughed at the indignant look on Harry's face. It was some time before everyone composed themselves.

"Ok, how about we set a trap?" Neville said confidently, despite the astonished looks on everyone's faces, "What?" he demanded when George and Lee Jordan started sniggering, ruthlessly.

"Lestrange isn't Trevor, Neville," George laughed, meanly.

"Ignore them, Neville," Ron commanded, casting a cold glare at his brother and his friend, "What's your plan, Neville?"

Neville looked thoroughly embarrassed but continued as though there was no interruption, "We can organize something, he will probably attack as it has been a week since he took Hermione," Harry noticed how Ron visibly flinched but no one said anything, "It was only a couple of days since the attack, so that means that he will probably plan something else."

Everyone looked impressed with Neville's idea, Neville was now looking at George and Lee gloatingly and Harry resisted, with some difficulty, the urge to laugh.

"But what could we organize that he would want to sabotage?" Percy asked confusedly, he had come home from hospital a few days ago and ignored everyone, even Audrey, when they told him that he should be resting, he insisted on coming to the Order meetings and helping in any way he could, though he was not allowed on any missions yet.

The room was silent again, as everyone launched into their own thoughts. What could Lestrange not resist attacking? Harry asked himself. He thought Benjamin's reasons for doing this, maybe they should do related to Bellatrix, but what?

"A war memorial?" Hannah asked timidly.

"Well that's a bit obvious isn't it; it'll be easy to tell it's a trap!" Harry winced at the shrillness of Lavender's voice. Despite her break-up with Ron, she continued to come to the Order's meetings (Which Harry respected her for) but she was usually silent. Harry thought she was waiting for Ron to apologise but was so far unsuccessful.

Hannah looked angry at lavender's outburst but she kept her mouth shut, everyone knew not to antagonize Lavender at the moment.

"Ok, the war memorial was a good idea Hannah, but maybe we should consider something more unusual." Arthur spoke calmly, Harry realized that he was probably used to playing peacemaker with 7 kids. Hannah nodded solemnly and the room once again went back to their own thoughts.

"I've got it!" George roared triumphantly, causing everyone to jump.

"Well could you have it a bit less loudly," Angelina smirked at him. He stuck out his tongue at his wife before continuing,

"Well, Skeeter and the media are obviously very interested in the case, so what if they received and anonymous tip off that there is going to be a huge meeting of the Aurors, Order members and even the minister of magic himself to discuss this case?" George told the room triumphantly. A few people smiled but most stared at him blankly. He looked highly discouraged that not everyone seemed to grasp the brilliance of the plan.

"Come on," he said in an outraged voice, "How would it look to the press if there was an attack on us, at the meeting discussing the attack, he'll think he's going to make idiots out of everyone, including the Order of the Phoenix, half of which are family members of the person who killed his charming mother?"

Harry gaped at George for a moment, it was brilliant! There was no way that Lestrange could resist gloating like that. He'll probably think that he's got the Order of the Phoenix cornered.

"That is…genius!" Ron declared, in shock, while George grinned proudly.

"Why, thank you, little brother of mine!" he replied, happily.

"Who's going to tip off the press?" Ginny asked calmly, speaking for the first time. She was very stressed with the pregnancy and also worried about Hermione.

Harry knew that he had to be smart about this part or else their plan would be very transparent. An idea came to him suddenly and he knew that this would solve their problem…

"We don't need to tip off the press, they hassle me and Ron every day for information on this case, so we can just pretend that it slipped out," Harry told Ginny, everyone nodded as they realized that it was smart move. They discussed their plans for the next 10 minutes before Harry looked at his watch and realized that it was already 9:30, he looked over to Ron and mouthed "Work" to him.

"Ok, well I think we are done for today," Ron said, clearly happy to be making some progress, however small, on finding Hermione, "We have to go to work now, me and Harry can stop by and tell Kingsley about the plan and the developments in the case."

Everyone agreed quickly and left the meeting, for the first time in weeks an Order meeting had gone well and, although that could not make up for the absence of a member, everyone was in good spirits.