Beyond
Never Alone, Book III

Chapter Twenty-Five – The Woes of Mrs. Weasley

A few days later, Harry had the first reports back from his wonderful double agents, the Aragons. Kimberly in particular thought the idea brilliant and jumped for the job when offered. Kent and Sarah were also rather happy to oblige, knowing full-well it would earn them favor in the D.A.

Kimberly spoke first,

"She suspects, but doesn't actually know anything just yet." she whispered, keeping a close eye for any people passing in the halls, especially Umbridge or any non-D.A. affiliated Inquisitorial Squad. Sarah continued for her twin,

"She plans to have regular patrols using the Inquisitorial Squad on top of the prefects already out."

Kent went on, uneasily eying the various passers-by,

"She's highly suspicious of you, your wife, Ronald Weasley and his,..."

Harry snorted quietly and corrected him,

"Ron's not married." All three of the Aragons raised an eyebrow,

"Fiancée, then?"

"Hermione's just his girlfriend." Harry said simply, earning a few winks and "ohs" from the group before him. Kent continued,

"Well, she suspects both of them as well, as well as several other of your sly Gryffindor pals." he took a deep breath and continued on, "Nikolas and Nicole Granger, siblings to Hermione, I presume?" Harry nodded. "A Gabrielle Delacour, she's the first year with the ferret Patronus, yes?"

"Mhmm." Harry said simply, looking at Kent suspiciously.

Kent chuckled softly and sighed,

"Ah, so cute of a first year to have a crush on Draco Malfoy."

"A what?" Harry choked, he couldn't have heard what he thought he just did...

"Nothing." said Kent waving his arm dismissively and carrying on, "She also suspects the Hufflepuff Hannah Abbott and the Ravenclaw Cho Chang. Also several other people that aren't actually part of the D.A."

"Okay, thank you all for reporting in." said Harry, shaking each of their hands, though Kimberly forced a hug, "This should help keep the D.A. secret and intact longer."

"Longer?" asked Kimberly sweetly as she pulled away from him to stand by her twin sister once again.

Kent snorted,

"Nothing lasts forever."

Sarah clearly did not believe her brother. She puffed up her chest and spoke firmly,

"That's not true."

Harry nodded,

"Love is eternal."

Kent and Kimberly simply smirked at him while Sarah looked at him curiously. She was, perhaps, a little less Slytherin than her siblings.

The door... everything he wanted, everything he needed was behind that door... he could feel it. He needed it.

All he had to do was get behind that door... open it...

Harry felt the world change around him, his surroundings much looked much the same, but he felt different...

He could smell meat... fresh meet...

Moving along the cold floor of the building, he smelled his way to his prey... the deliciousness that was Mr. Weasley...

"HARRY!" screeched Pansy, shaking him awake. "Harry, what's wrong? Harry?"

The dream flooded her thoughts, her once firm hold on Harry's shoulders shook fearfully. Tugging on Harry's shoulder, she got dressed as quickly as she could under the circumstances and ushered him to do the same,

"We're going to Dumbledore."

"Mr. Weasley, you say?" asked Dumbledore after Harry had finished relaying his dream. Dumbledore turned to a portrait, "I'm going to need you to visit your portrait at the Ministry and check on the condition of Arthur Weasley."

The portrait nodded and its occupant vanished, only to reappear a moment later, whispering something to Dumbledore. Dumbledore walked to his Phoenix, Fawkes, who nearly immediately vanished in a puff of fire and smoke.

"Phineas!" shouted Dumbledore to a portrait that appear to be sleeping. "PHINEAS!"

The portrait snorted and opened a single eye to the headmaster,

"I was sleeping!" he grumbled, "Can't you.."

"No." said Dumbledore firmly, "I need you to go to your portrait at Grimmauld Place and tell Mrs. Weasley that her husband is gravely injured and that her children and a few others will be arriving shortly."

Phineas snorted and vanished from his portrait as professor Snape walked through the headmaster's door,

"You called, sir?" Snape had clearly dressed himself in a hurry, his hair was rather messier than usual, he had likely been asleep, but otherwise he looked tolerably.

"Severus, I need you to help with something," Dumbledore began, walking toward the potions professor and decreasing his volume gradually, "Several students are going to magically vanish tonight and you need to help do your best to convince Professor Umbridge that they've simply gone home a little early and will be back after the holiday."

Snape looked rather annoyed,

"And what can I do about that?" he gruted.

"Feed her what we want her to hear. She trusts your house the most, most of her Inquisitorial Squad is comprised of people from your house, so receiving information from a few of her Squad would help in that regard."

Harry wanted to blurt that he had spies of his own that could have fulfilled this task, but, as the Defense Association was supposed to be secret even from the likes of Dumbledore, he kept quiet.

Hermione and Ron came through the door with Professor McGonagall as Snape left,

"What's going on?" said Hermione sleepily. McGonagall looked a little mad.

"They were sleeping together!" hissed McGonagall, her voice full of outrage. Dumbledore simply chuckled softly and smiled.

"I assumed as much since last year." he waved his hand into the air, "It was bound to happen."

"It's against school rules!" growled McGonagall, disgusted at the way her superior was handling the situation.

"Yes, well, they're going to be married soon enough, so what does it matter, they're engaged anyways."

"We're actually not, sir." Hermione said in a small voice. Dumbledore shook his head and smiled,

"Well, they'll be soon enough. Doesn't matter Minerva, hasn't caused us any problems. Now, as for Ms. Granger's question, Arthur Weasley has been attacked. He's likely at St. Mungo's hospital by now. You four and a few others, will be staying at Grimmauld Place till after the holiday."

Hermione nodded curtly and took a seat.

"Harry, I need you to gather a few people for me and bring them here using your Blinking ability." he then sounded off a list of names, every one of which belonged to the D.A., "Gabrielle Delacour, Nikolas Granger, Nicole Granger, Libra Malfoy, and Ginny Weasley. And also Fred and George Weasley."

Harry immediately Blinked into the Gryffindor female dorms. Opening the door for the first years, Harry stepped quietly to the bed of Gabrielle Delacour, gently shook her awake, ushered her to get a night robe on and hold onto his hand.

And so he took her to Dumbledore's office, when she let go, he vanished again.

"Nicki?" Harry shook Nicki Granger gently as he had done for Gabby, and ushered her to get dressed.

Harry took a slightly different approach with Libra, kissing her forehead gently, she stirred softly and jumped.

"Harry?"

"Shh." he whispered, "Get dressed. Dumbledore'll explain in a moment."

Libra looked at him apprehensively, but stood and dressed herself in a dark red robe. Taking her hand gently as he walked her to Nicki, he took hold of Nicki's shoulder and did the same with them, returning to the dorms each time picking up the remainder of the people he need to acquire, doing Ginny last.

"What exactly is going on here?" asked Ginny as she landed in Dumbledore's office.

"Your father has been attacked." Dumbledore said at once, not bothering to soften the impact of the words. Ginny and Libra gasped.

"Mr. Weasley was attacked?" Libra breathed, covering her mouth.

Nick just raised an eyebrow,

"What does that have to do with me... or Libra... or Nicki... or Gabby?"

"Your sister, Hermione intends to go away to see him and the excuse we have covering for them unfortunately would include you two as well."

"So.. what about Libra and Gabrielle?"

"Professor Umbridge knows that Libra would not go to her home for the holidays and, as such, would likely go wherever you go, catching her in the chain as well."

"Professor Umbridge?" Nick looked a little confused.

"Yes, the High Inquisitor will prove quite troublesome even with this cover-up."

"That still doesn't explain why Gabrielle's going."

"There are a number of reasons why Ms. Delacour must go with you, but I'm afraid that I will have to keep them quiet for now."

Libra, Pansy, Harry, Hermione, and Ron all looked at Dumbledore and each of them considered digging into his thoughts for an answer.

None of them succeeded.

"You will take this portkey to Grimmauld Place where you will stay till the end of the break." he held up one of the artifacts on his desk and muttered "Portus". Waving each person to take hold of a part of the small object...

A/N: Okay.. so that was a really hard chapter to write... I hope it came out decently. I've recently released several oneshots that could use some reviews, so for all you wonderful reviewing people out there, I'd love to see reviews for my oneshots, thanks! -TML