The dinner had been rather normal... What came after, however...
"Harry is fifteen! He is far too young to be thrown into this war, Thomas," Molly growled at me. Sirius scoffed and Molly whipped her head around to stare icily at him as well. "It's not down to you to decide what's good for Harry!"
"You were at that meeting, Molly. Dumbledore does not wish Harry to know more than he must but you don't get to draw that line," I said as calmly as possible. To my immense surprise, Sirius nodded in whole-hearted agreement.
"Just because he's not technically in the Order doesn't mean he can't ask any questions," Sirius added heatedly. "He's not a child."
"He's not an adult either," Molly retorted. "He's not James, Sirius, and he's certainly not you, Thomas!"
"This war would be a lot easier if he were," I muttered under my breath. Luckily, Molly seemed to not hear me over Sirius's outburst. The argument carried on in that manner with all the kids bearing witness until Remus bravely took the middle ground.
"It is important, I think, that Harry gets told at least the general picture by us, rather than a garbled version from... others." His gaze didn't touch the twins but both Fred and George exchanged the smallest of glances.
Molly appeared positively flustered for a solid minute, her hands waving around aimlessly.
"Well... Well... I can see that I'm being 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's got Harry's best interests at heart-"
"He's not your son," Sirius interrupted quietly. Molly reddened angrily.
"He might as well be. Who else has he got?"
"He's got me!"
"Yes. 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?" I've never seen the matriarch of the Weasley family so vindictive. A very tiny part of me winced on Sirius's behalf.
"Molly," I began, hoping my voice didn't give away how tired I felt. "There's no reason to start with that, please. Let's be mature about this. I spoke to Dumbledore and we've discussed at least part of his reasoning behind keeping Harry in the dark. I've shifted his training to reflect that. The risk that Dumbledore feared is now less pressing... Dumbledore is realizing that he hasn't always been right with his actions towards Harry. That's why Harry's been receiving training at all this summer. Harry has grown and you need to accept that in some capacity."
Dumbledore was very tightlipped on his exact reasoning but I could connect the dots once Dobby reported Harry's nightmares to me. The boy was rubbish at Occlumency but, so long as he practiced his meditation each night, his dreams would be safe.
"Fine. Ginny, Ron, Hermione, Fred, George- I want you out of this kitchen, now."
Cue the inevitable chaos.
Once Ginny alone had stomped and screamed her way upstairs- and Remus darted into the hall to quiet Mrs. Black- we were able to speak once more.
"Alright, Harry," Sirius started, "what do you already know?"
"I know that he's been trying to collect more followers, get others to join the cause. Has he been successful?" Harry asked urgently. Eyes turned to me- the resident expert on Death Eater movements, sans Severus- and I grimaced.
"He's being very quiet but there are whispers. It is both a blessing and curse that he's recruiting. I've been trying to worm spies into his ranks since his return but I'm only now getting any progress. We are placing more attention into tracking and monitoring known Death Eaters and ensuring Father doesn't gain support from any other magical species."
"What about Head Garvis?" Harry asked suddenly, frowning lightly.
"Strictly neutral. I like to think that, if it came down to it, he would personally side with us but he is just one voice among many. Garvis may be the goblin in charge of our branch of Gringotts, but there is a chain of command above him as well."
"What about the Order? Are we recruiting too?" Harry inquired. Sirius answered that one a little bitterly.
"We are, but it's hard to get the word out. I can't exactly go into the street and pass out leaflets now that I've got a ten thousand galleon bounty on my head, courtesy of our friends at the Ministry."
"We do what we can," I said with a shrug. I really couldn't care much about Sirius's bounty at the moment. "Anyone working at the Ministry can't be open about the war just yet, or we'd lose our jobs. Fudge is making it clear that anyone on Dumbledore's side can clear out. I'm working to get more Aurors on our side but it's slow work. I've been more concentrating on getting them all trained up so they can do their own jobs without Dumbledore micromanaging the lot of them."
"Dumbledore's also in a bad spot. He's using a lot of his political clout up, and the slander isn't going to stop or slow until Voldemort comes clean into the picture," Sirius added. I resisted the urge to scratch at my arm beneath the table. While the taboo wasn't so bad so long as I wasn't the one to say the name, it was still uncomfortable. Pride forbade that Severus and I speak about the taboo, though, so no one else in the Order seemed privy to that little fact. Dumbledore might be aware, but his stance on fear of a name was very clear. Thanks to him, some Order meetings can get rather... uncomfortable.
"Has he been doing anything else, then?"
"He hasn't been massacring the countryside, if that's what you're asking," Sirius said without mirth. "He's been laying low for a while now, trying to not pull attention to himself. His plans got really mucked up when he came back, you see."
"Or rather, you mucked them up for him," Remus added with a dry chuckle. Harry nodded with understanding. We'd talked a bit about that already.
"He does have plans, but I think Molly will skin us alive if we talk more now." I shot the woman a cautious glance. I'd rather face off against Father than intentionally get on her bad side. "I'll speak to Dumbledore to see what else you should know for the immediate future. It isn't entirely my decision, but I don't care to have you kept in the dark. It is your fate, after all," I said. Molly picked up on the hint, and she scowled at me fiercely.
"All of you to bed, now!" she ordered. She turned to me with an icy fury in her eyes. "And don't you think you're getting away with that."
"No, ma'am," I said as solemnly as I could. She left with the kids, bustling them up to bed, and I turned to Sirius as everyone else resumed conversation or began to clear their dinner plates. "Will you consent to Harry training here for the rest of the summer?"
Sirius threw me a weighted, calculating look. He thought in silence for a long moment.
"Only when I'm present," he decided finally. I quickly fought off the scowl that threatened to overtake the mask of my face. The fact that he agreed to it at all was more than I expected.
"I can accept that." A flicker of what looked like relief shone in Sirius's eyes for a moment, and a rush of realization came to me. A wry smile appeared on my face. "You just want to get out of cleaning, don't you?"
Sirius grimaced, which I took as a yes.
"You can't prove that," he defended half-heartedly. I scoffed but quickly sobered up.
"I won't be able to be here for the next couple of days. I'll be needed at the Ministry. Rufus finally caught on to what I've been doing."
"And?" Sirius asked, any trace of good mood gone. I appreciated that, though we could hardly stand one another, he was able to be civil when it came to the Order. Most of the time, anyway...
"He's going along with it for now. He's made it clear that my duty to the Office should come before my duty to Dumbledore but he won't argue against the fulfillment of a life debt. I'm fairly certain that he'll play along until Father makes his return known."
Sirius was silent for a moment before frowning. I abruptly realized that Sirius and I were now the only ones left at the table.
"Humor me. Why do you call him that?"
"Why do I refer to my father as such?" I rephrased sarcastically. Sirius scowled darkly.
"Look, I know we haven't exactly gotten along but I'm trying here, alright? Can't you just answer the damn question?" he asked with exasperation. I looked away, at a crossroads. It was bizarrely out of character for Sirius to attempt to be the big man but it was remotely possible that being locked away in Azkaban might have forced him to grow up a bit. With that hope, I chose the most bitter option before me: the truth.
"It's a taboo," I said, resenting the words as they came out. "It's built into the Dark Mark to encourage loyalty and fear of the name. It's why you won't find a marked Death Eater who doesn't call him the Dark Lord."
"You mean saying his name-"
"It causes the Mark to burn," I said as clinically and unfeeling as I could manage. "Saying and hearing it, though hearing it has a much less serious reaction."
Sirius looked very pale and I averted my eyes so I didn't have to look at him any longer.
"I didn't know."
"Of course you didn't. And I'd ask you to not repeat it."
"Is your pride that important?" Sirius said, a mocking lilt to his voice. I chuckled darkly.
"Isn't yours?"
Sirius was silent and remained quiet as others slowly drifted back into the room for coffee and conversation. I didn't speak for the rest of the visit and, for the rest of my stay, I didn't so much as glance in Sirius Black's direction.