Disclaimer: Still applies, thank you very much.

Author's Note: I'm sorry for the (absurdly long) wait between chapters. I get distracted easily?

Please don't forget to review!

o.o.o.o

"Please, sit down," Dumbledore instructed as soon as they had entered his office. Casting curious glances at Tonks, Ichabod and Severus took seats in two of the three chairs that had appeared facing the giant, claw-footed desk.

Tonks, looking agitated, seemed not to have heard him. She stayed near the door, wide eyes fixed on Dumbledore.

"Albus," Severus hissed, before either of the younger people had a real chance to speak. "That boy should be dead."

Something about his tone suggested that he was holding Dumbledore personally responsible for the fact that Bill was still among the living. When, indeed, the venerable old man'd had absolutely nothing to do with it.

Dumbledore said as much, in fact.

Tonks nodded quickly several times in agreement with this, her hair switching to a different (neon) color with each downward swing of her head. "It was Harry!" she blurted, helpfully. There was an excited gleam in her eyes. "Who saved him, I mean. It was Harry."

The men stared at her. Dumbledore rubbed his chin, considering.

"Preposterous," sputtered Severus, looking absolutely appalled at the very idea that a Potter had once again been involved in something miraculous.

"Let's hear Miss Tonks out before we dismiss her statement," Dumbledore cautioned softly, just a hint of reproach in his tone. His lips were pursed , considering and he was staring at Tonks contemplatively.

Severus grunted unhappily once, but afterwards subsided into silence. Ichabod was still staring at Tonks; he had yet to say anything, and did not look about to.

"What makes you say it was Harry?" Dumbledore asked with relative wall.

Tonks was silent for several tense minutes, and was beginning to look rather confused about what she wanted to say, when finally she admitted quietly, "I... can't really say, sir. But I just know it was Harry. Or, rather, Harry's wall."

Severus's eyebrows almost reached his hairline. "Surely I misheard you. Did you just say Potter's wall?"

"Yes." Tonks nodded enthusiastically, her hair flashing wildly again. "The one at the Ministry, Arrival and Containment Room 3."

Ichabod spat out something that might have been an oath in Russian.

Dumbledore's face gave away nothing of what he was thinking. He demanded quietly, "Nymphadora, what precisely are you suggesting?"

Eagerly, she came a little further into the room.

"Ichabod said Bill thought that the wards on that wall, the one that broke, seemed almost exactly like the wards here. Right? And I know I read somewhere that the Founders created those wards using bits of their own magic, permanently imbedded in the very fabric of the wards they were creating." She clinched her hands in front of her, anxious to be believed. When Dumbledore smiled encouragingly, she went on, "And that connected them to the wards, and also left behind a sort of semi-sentience, didn't it?"

All three men nodded this time, though on the part of Severus it was a bit reluctant, like a spoiled brat forced to admit he'd done the wrong thing.

Tonks beamed.

"Well, it had to have been Harry then, hadn't it? Nobody else could have done that to the wall, to the wards. Nobody else had the chance!"

"You are forgetting," Severus pointed out rather caustically, "that we do not know if this wall had anything at all to do with Weasley's... current state."

"It could have, though," said Ichabod. He was gazing at the floor pensively. "I mean, it's possible."

"Even the wards around Hogwarts do not actively protect its inhabitants from things like poisons," Severus countered almost scathingly. His tone would have been even harsher had he been talking to almost anyone but Ichabod.

There was a silent pause. Tonks started to speak, but Dumbledore beat her to it. "No, the wards do not. Not since the last of the Founders died, at any rate," he said , considering. His eyes were clear and serious. "Hmm."

Severus blanched, then stared at the Headmaster. "Are you saying... that's possible?"

"Probable, even, I suspect." The white-haired wizard smiled slightly. "Harry seems to have a thing for saving Weasleys."

Her hair a brilliant shade of neon yellow, Tonks was beaming still. "Which means your plan is working, doesn't it, sir?" she asked, strangely breathless. Ichabod glanced at her and then to the Headmaster.

"You never did tell me what that was about," he murmured, finishing his sweep of the room by looking at Severus, who also seemed slightly confused. "I don't understand."

"Now is not the time," Dumbledore said, shaking his head. He kept smiling, "Perhaps once we have figured a way to contact Harry. Until then..." He gestured to the door. With one last grateful look, Tonks slipped out. The two men rose to follow her, but Dumbledore held up a hand.

"A word alone, Ichabod."

Looking at Severus, Ichabod shrugged his agreement. The Potions Master left the room, closing the door behind him.

"Yes, sir?" prompted Ichabod. He was frowning, his brow creased almost thoughtfully.

"I know you may feel, at the moment, that you are a liability to my... organization," Dumbledore intoned softly. Considerately, he maintained eye-contact with the much younger wizard as he continued to speak. "However, I assure that we are much better off for your help, even if others know that you are providing that help, than we would be without it."

Dumbledore waited a few seconds, perhaps to make sure the other wizard wasn't going to say anything, then added, "I would like you to join the Order. Officially. I trust you. And, I believe it would not be right to let you go on as you are. We take care of our own, Ichabod, as you have done tonight."

Ichabod set his jaw and looked away.

The Headmaster just smiled serenely. "Think about it, Ichabod," he murmured entreatingly. His eyes twinkled. "Simply think about it. Do not rush to a decision. You know how important a question this is; indeed, I believe I've already asked it of you once before."

Swallowing visibly, the young man nodded and left rather quickly.

Dumbledore was not at all surprised when, four days later, just after Voldemort took possession of Azkaban, Ichabod came to him to accept the offered membership.

o.o.o.o

Harry was starting to get very tired of the walls of his cell. It was amazing, how quickly they got boring. And, coming from a boy who spent months on end staring at the same thing when he was younger and then again almost every summer, it was saying something that he'd gotten sick of them after the first three hours.

Five hours after those first three had passed, sitting in a corner, feeling the warmth of the stones seep into his body, Harry grimaced. He was very, very tired of those walls.

He wouldn't have admitted it, even if there had been someone to admit it to, but when he closed his eyes, he would have sworn he was sitting in Hogwarts. One of the dungeons, of course, but Hogwarts nonetheless. Even with his eyes open, there was a presence emanating from the building, or this section at least -- specifically the bit right against Harry's back; he thought it was an outside wall but couldn't be sure.

This feeling in the walls seemed to be growing, even, pulsing slightly as it did, and whispering soothingly to Harry.

An hour ago, Harry'd ceased to feel the dementors entirely. He hadn't noticed, though, because as soon as they realized they were getting nothing from this person, the dementors stationed outside the (still open) door to his cell had left. They moved silently, and Harry hadn't heard them go, or seen them. (Honestly, he'd been too busy staring at the wall and slowly coming to terms with the fact that he'd allowed himself to be captured and imprisoned, first by the Ministry and then Voldemort. In fairness, he was allowed a bit of oblivion. Just a bit, though.)

Suddenly, without warning, Harry got to his feet and took a few angry steps toward the doorway. He paused, blinking once or twice. He didn't remember deciding to stand or walk at all.

Low, rolling laughter reached out to him from the walls, and Harry had to smile in replay.

He couldn't have said why he was trusting this presence, or entity, or whatever it was, but he was trusting it. It was friendly, and warm, and not at all menacing, and not at all false, and completely the opposite of all the Dark Magic Harry had ever seen or felt. That was including Riddle's diary.

Absently stooping to pick up the gleaming phoenix feather laying on the ground and putting it in the pocket where he usually kept his wand, Harry exited the cell. In the hallway, he glanced around cautiously. There were no dementors or living beings, but Harry gagged and nearly vomited when he saw the bloody, mutilated body sprawled in the doorway of the cell next to his. He turned away, wishing in the back of his mind that it would be gone.

He continued down the corridor, looking only straight ahead. He tried not to notice when there were bodies or body parts in the cells or the hallway. He tried even harder not to think about what it meant when there were no bodies, living or dead, in the cells; a far more frequent occurrence, unfortunately. Blood was everywhere, even in those places where no corpse lay, and whole place reeked of fear and pain, desperation and anger.

It was a nauseating combination.

He'd gone through perhaps a half a dozen hallways, steadily more and more sickened by the carnage, before he encountered the first dementor. It was up ahead, prowling through an intercepting hall. Harry slipped into an empty cell and pressed himself against the wall, praying the thing wouldn't realize he was up and wandering the almost-deserted Azkaban.

He was mildly astonished when the thing simply walked by without so much as a twitch in his direction.

"Huh," snorted Harry, once it was out of sight. He was frowning bemusedly. "That's interesting."

Interesting it was, indeed, for every dementor in the place treated Harry this way. It was as if he didn't exist. He doubted whether they would have noticed him even if he stood directly in front of them -- but, of course, Harry hid whenever they came near, just in case they would have noticed.

Harry, guided by some sort of sixth sense (as it were), wandered through Azkaban as if he knew exactly where he was going. It was a vast, sprawling maze, but somewhat surprisingly had only one level. Every door was open, every torch lit, almost every hallway clear of obstacles where Harry approached. It was amazing.

He didn't notice it, but behind him, bodies tended to decompose rapidly and without the stench that would have accompanied the process otherwise. Bloodstains faded. Grime and filth from walls, ceilings and floors disappeared. And the warmth, the presence like in the walls of Harry's original cell crept after him, spreading in his wake.

No dementor walked where Harry'd set foot.

o.o.o.o

The room was dark when Bill woke again. His eyes were open but he didn't see anything. There was a soft murmur of voices around him; when he groaned, it stopped briefly and returned more loudly. One voice he distinguished as his mother's.

"Mum?" he croaked rather faintly, blinking several times and trying to see through the blackness around him.

Somewhere to his left someone lit a candle. Then suddenly there were candles flaring up all around him, and he could see the small army grouped at the edges of his bed. There were redheads everywhere.

"Shhhh-it," hissed Bill, squinting at them because his eyes didn't seem to want to focus.

"Bill!" his mother snapped, halfheartedly. "Language! Your sister's here!"

Bill thought he heard Ginny mutter something much worse than what he'd said, but decided it would be better to ignore it. "What're you all doing here, anyway?"

"Waiting for you to wake up again," muttered Charlie, directly on Bill's right. His face was whiter than it usually was, even after one of his winters in Romania. "You were out for three days, you know."

"And then you rude enough to end up asleep again before Mum could get the rest of us back here," one of the twins pointed out. The other nodded and added, "Bloody inconsiderate."

That was when Bill remembered the last thing he'd heard, before he'd passed out the second time. He tried to sit up, much too quickly, and far too many voices let out exclamations of protest, far too loudly.

"Where's the fire?" Ron asked, worriedly.

Bill fixed his eyes on his younger brother and voiced the only thought he could formulate. "Harry!"

The temperature in the room seemed to drop several degrees. Ron looked suddenly green.

"Harry?" Bill repeated, feeling nervous and thinking about Wizarding Wiredless broadcast he'd heard. He was thinking perhaps he'd dreamed it, but nobody looked as if he had.

Apparently, everyone else knew what he was talking about, because Ron spat, "He didn't do it."

"What happened?" he demanded. He swung his gaze rapidly from face to face, but the only one willing to share an opinion seemed to be Ron. Possibly, because Ron was so very fierce about his opinion.

"You-Know-Who's Death Eaters attacked Azkaban. This we know." Ron glared at the rest of his family, as if they were saying it had never happened. "Yesterday morning, a few hours after the attack, some employees on their way to work found a body in front of the Daily Prophet building."

Ron paused, and the Weasleys all took a moment to look disgusted and angry, in varying degrees. Bill heartily agreed with every expression.

Ron then continued, "There was a note pinned to the body, saying it was Harry's. There were also a bunch of gratuitous lies about him joining the Death Eaters before they killed him... but the body spontaneously combusted before they could run any tests on it. So it couldn't be proved that it was Harry, and that's why I am not even sure he's bloody dead."

"Harry... join the Death Eaters?" blurted Bill in an utterly scandalized voice. "Harry?"

"He didn't do it!" Ron insisted, furiously. Ginny put a hand on his arm, apparently trying to calm him down, but he shook her off. "Okay? He didn't bloody do it!"

Bill just shook his head. He looked amazed. "That's-- Harry, join the Death Eaters? That's ludicrous."

That shut Ron up. His jaw snapped shut with an audible click. He opened his mouth again to say something, once or twice, but nothing came out.

"You don't believe it?" Ginny finally asked, a not-that-startled tilt to her head. Bill rolled his eyes at her.

"It's Harry, Ginny. Of course I don't believe it," he said firmly. There was a rasp on the last couple of words, and without being asked Molly hurried over to get him a glass of water. He accepted it with a murmur of thanks, and took a drink.

"Well," Ron muttered clenching his fists and glaring at the door to the ward, "Some people believe it."

Bill frowned. "Who--" he started, but then realized, with a cold clenching of his gut, that he didn't need to ask. The militant looks on the faces of Fred and George were more than enough to tell him who Ron meant. Only one person's thoughts on the matter could upset so many of his brothers so much.

Percy.

"Bastard," Bill growled, without thinking, and everyone knew whom he'd meant.

Though she probably would have liked to give him a disapproving glare, Molly could only put a hand over her mouth and pretend she wasn't about to start sobbing. Arthur, with very uncharacteristic coldness, shook his head at Bill and said, "I don't want us to start that again right now. We almost lost a member of our family. We should be glad that we didn't.

"Now is not the time to talk about your brother."

Whom we have already lost.

o.o.o.o

Harry was not enjoying Azkaban. Some... things had already started to rot before he reached them, drawing flies and fester maggots and generally stinking up the place. He hadn't realized that things improved after he passed, so the desperate bleakness of the situation was steadily making his heart sink lower and lower. He wondered how long some of the corpses had been there, decaying.

He really didn't like this place.

Then things changed, suddenly.

Harry sensed the gates of Azkaban before he saw them. He was hit with a surge of malicious, overpowering glee, most definitely not his own. It was cold and controlling and made his skin crawl. It was pervasive. It made him angry.

He rounded a corner and there they were. Massive, ugly black things, tall and wide and wicked-looking. What made them scarier even than they looked was an indefinable something. The hostile feeling from the gates grew stronger, tried to seep into Harry's bones and terrify him. It wanted him to turn back around go back to his cell. It wanted to control him.

It made Harry angry.

He glared at the gates for a few minutes, just to show them who was boss. Then he hissed something uncomplimentary and slipped back around the corner.

Harry had no idea to open the gates. Even if he'd known, though, there was the matter of the thirty dementors guarding it. Despite that he, for some reason, didn't seem to be affected by their presence any longer, he still couldn't get past thirty of them. He made a little noise of disgust, sticking his head around to glare at the gates one last time. Then he headed out to explore the other half of Azkaban.

He wouldn't be getting through those gates any time soon. But, neither would anyone else.