A/N: as my exams are again coming up, I'm not sure whether I make it to get out another chapter before them. If not, it's going to be a long time before we see each other again: 4/07/2021. Stay safe!
Henry POV, 2nd of August, early morning
Once again, his daughter looked dreadfully pale and absent. He consoled himself with the thought that at least this time, she was not in a coma. The unfortunate thing was that the threat was now directed at someone else.
It had taken some time to reconstruct what had happened. As always, when many things happened at the same time. Fudge's unsupportive attitude had not helped matters the slightest. But eventually, they managed to get a timeline.
"I declare this meeting open," Albus Dumbledore said, pulling Henry from his musings.
"Albus," Mrs. Weasley started, while Henry flinched. He had been willing to bet she would be the one to raise this particular objection, and he hated being right. The mood his daughter was in now, she would snap right back. "You cannot, for sure, allow a child to be present!"
As Henry expected, Jane's head snapped up. Henry caught her eye, trying to get her to calm down. She pursed her lips, nodded in his direction, but still didn't look entirely pleased. "Mrs Weasley-"
"Jane," he interrupted. She fell silent, looking mutinuous. Ignoring that for a while, he turned back to Mrs Weasley. "Molly, this is my daughter we are talking about. What she gets to know, and what she's not allowed to know, is my call," he stated calmly.
"She's too young-"
"Didn't help me in the graveyard, hm?", Jane asked stubbornly. Her worry was overcoming her common sense, and Henry shot her another warning look. "Sorry for my tone, Mrs Weasley," she apologised after uncomfortable silence.
"Apology accepted, dear," the woman said, frowning at the reminder. "But still-"
"Molly," Henry interrupted, "I'll not have my child fighting this war. It's something else entirely when she is defending herself against an attack, but I will not have her planning to fight. It is not her time yet." He noticed how Jane's jaw set. Recently, it has become a sore topic between them. Jane had argued that inevitably, she'd get involved. She was Harry's friend, a political (ex-)figure, and on top of that, she'd personally ensured the imprisonment of several Death Eaters in France. He had argued she was only fifteen, and already been through enough. But he couldn't deny she had a point, and he hated it. "What I do know, though, is that my daughters - both of them - are in a unique position. Knowledge can determine who wins a war, Molly. They don't have to endanger themselves to gain that info, so I'm all for it." When it looked like she had other objections, Henry stood. "They are my children. I agree to let them do this, as does professor Dumbledore. It is not your decision."*
The woman huffed, but kept quiet.
While the rest of the Order looked around awkwardly, Sirius broke the ice. "Can someone tell me what the hell is going on already?!"
Jane stood. "Hours ago, a building of us, the WereWolf Centre, was attacked by other werewolves. Conform protocol, they went in lockdown and full-defence modus, sending the kids to secure rooms, alerting the government of an attack and alerting the embassy of an attack. Unfortunately, neither my sister nor me were there. It was my temporary abdication, so to speak. I was in Paris, with my sister. At the same moment, the embassy itself was attacked."
Jane paused, reliving what she'd felt when they'd arrived back. Swallowing her fear, she continued. "The building was in shambles. Several of my Aurors, having remained behind to protect Harry, died. In total, seven Aurors died and twenty suffered injuries, of which three life-threatening and ten severe. Harry himself disappeared."
"It's obviously some kind of cry for attention from Potter-"
"Severus Snape!" Minerva McGonagall shouted. "I know my student, and I know he would not willingly do this. Either he's been taken, or he's hiding."
"Figured something out yet, from the Death Eaters?", Jane asked him casually, enjoying the look of surprise on his face.
Henry frowned at her.
"Have you, Severus?", Dumbledore prodded, eyeing Snape over his half-moon spectacles.
"No, professor. Wherever the insolent little brat is, the Death Eaters don't know."
"Neither does the Ministry," Kingsley piped up. "Although the Minister would love to know. He claims Potter violated his probation terms. Possibly, he just didn't tell us. He's not very trusting of Dumbledore supporters."
"I'll find out what he knows," Jane said shortly. Upon seeing the others' looks, she amended: "I'm not going to talk to Fudge himself. I got a source."
The tasks Dumbledore set them were not surprising: the Ministry employees were to return to their posts, and to gather information; Jane had to do the same. Henry would contact the hospitals, and the rest was to go out and search the streets, on locations Harry was familiar with.
"We're overlooking the obvious," Sirius stated calmly. It was the first thing he'd said during the meeting; Harry's disappearance, on top of all the rest that happened that year, had shaken him harder than he'd ever admit. It was why Remus had put his foot down: Sirius would not be living at Grimmauld Place, his childhood home, Headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix. No matter how much Dumbledore had argued it. "We need to ask the kids whether they can think of something."
"No!", Molly objected predictably. "It's no use to worry them needlessly! You know these kids, they'll go looking for him themselves, get in all sorts of trouble- Just look at Ron's second year-"
Before Jane could snap, Remus interfered. "Molly, I understand your concerns, really. And we will make it clear to them that the best way they can help right now, is stay here. But we also need to know whether Harry ever talked to them about some place he could go to, if none of us could be reached."
"I don't see what good the brats could do," Snape sneered.
"Well, I would think that you, as a spy, would be able to value the worth of intel," Jane snapped.
Two faint blushes appeared on Snape's cheeks, while the rest of the table watched in an awkward silence.
"Careful, Davidson," he snapped back. "You are to treat me with respect."
"Or what?", she sneered right back. "I'll treat you with respect in school, where you are my superior. Here, however, I'll treat you with respect when you earn it! Damn it, Snape! You sound like a sulky school girl, jealous of Potter's fame! Did it occur to you, perhaps, that you are the exact reason he never called for help from the staff?! Or didn't your perfect spy-skills tell you that?"
"Jane!", Henry snapped. "Enough."
She dropped her gaze, eyeing the table. "I apologize for my tone." She stood and left the room.
Jane POV, 2nd of August, hall of Grimmauld Place 12
Outside in the hall, she started pacing. In all honesty, she knew the moment she'd said it she'd gone too far. On the other hand, someone had to shove Snape the truth in the face. Apparently, it was the only way to get through to him…
In truth, part of the reason she was so snappish was that Percy had been subject of interest. Kingsley had mentioned him during the meetings, seeing as he nearly got caught guarding whatever it was they were guarding - they hadn't told her everything. Arthur's jaw had clenched, Molly's lip had trembled as if she was going to cry. And Jane had sat there, unable to tell them that their son had not abandoned them like that. She allowed her thoughts to drift back to that conversation, prior to her talking to Dumbledore about the Order of the Phoenix…
"They are torturing them," Percy had said. His face was a ghastly white, bags under his eyes. He looked dreadfully tired and desperate. Jane felt her sympathy rising for him, while her stomach filled with dread. "Cruciatus… They want to know about Dumbledore, about secret organisations… They want him to admit he killed Cedric… That he attempted to kill you…" His voice trailed off.
Jane swallowed. "Are you sure?", she asked, while intertwining her fingers.
Percy nodded. "I'm… I need to be there."
"Fudge, too?"
"No. He's given free reign to his Undersecretary, Madame Umbridge. She's got no scrupules… She'll do what it takes to protect herself, and the minister, in that order…
"Why are you telling me this?"
"Because… They brought him to the Wizengamot, last week. He saw Madame Bones… And he called her Ginny. He said 'Ginny, it's okay. Everything will be okay'… And I- I remembered all he'd done for her, in second year. He… He doesn't deserve this.
He raised his red-rimmed eyes and stared at her. "You have to get him out," he whispered brokenly, tears shining in his eyes. "The Healer said she didn't know how much more he could take. Umbridge… Doesn't care. She'll kill him. He doesn't deserve that. Not like that. It's not right."
It didn't escape her notice that Percy, at no point during his speech, admitted that Harry might be right, and Fudge wrong. But, as she told herself, it was a start.
She was brought back to the present rather rudely when the door banged against the wall. Almost automatically, she pointed to the portrait of Sirius' mother, interrupting her before she could start screaming obscenities no one wanted to hear. How Sirius managed to live with the wretched woman without going mad was beyond her, and it enforced her belief it was better for him not to be here for a prolonged period of time.
"Molly agreed," Henry stated, as he walked out after an angry Molly Weasley, who marched upstairs before Jane could even say a thing. "She insists on being there, though."
Jane shrugged. "Naturally. They are her children, after all."
Henry eyed her a bit, looking like he wanted to ask how she felt, but thinking the better of it.
As such, they waited silently in the kitchen, accompanied by Remus and Sirius, as Molly Weasley went to collect her children. They streamed in minutes later, surprised looks on their faces. As Jane had expected, both Ron and Hermione looked alarmed. Naturally, as Harry's closest friends, they knew that danger seemed to follow him like iron followed a magnet. Ginny looked between her youngest brother and the twins, who seemed elated.
"Have you changed your mind?", Fred asked.
"Can we fight?", the other one asked.
And as Jane fought the urge to shout at them that it was a war, and did they know what that meant?! Death, toture. Nightmares, long-lasting injuries. And she suddenly felt her sympathy for Molly Weasley flare.
"That decision is not mine," she said smoothly. Henry eyed her sharply, having heard the change in tone in her voice. She soundly ignored him.
"It has something to do with Harry, doesn't it?", Ron asked.
Molly frowned at her youngest son. "You don't need to worry about it - we're handling it."
"What is going on? Maybe we can help!", Ginny interrupted her mother.
As Molly readied herself to go against her daughter, Jane intervened.
"Yes, you can," ignoring the death glare Molly sent her way, she continued, "we need information we simply do not have. But you do. And in doing so, you can possibly save Harry's life, while allowing the Order to focus on other things, such as preparing to fight. Wars have been won on information, you know."
"What do you need to know?", the twins chorussed, for once entirely serious.
She looked at Henry; he had experience with stubborn teenagers prone to endangering themselves. "Yesterday, while Jane forwent her position to Lara-"
"I'm sorry about the rift between you," Ron said, sounding surprisingly grown-up.
Jane smiled softly in his direction.
"It's a fluke, isn't it?", Hermione asked. "She's pretending, so she can take over your role, and can continue to do what you would have done in this kind of situation."
Jane smirked. "Good thinking, Hermione. Yes, that's correct. My sister's pretending to hate my guts, to block me politically, just to keep my position in trusted hands. Some battles can't be won."
"Back to business," Henry interrupted. "While Jane and Lara were abroad, so was the majority of the defence of the embassy. There was an attack. A great many deal of Aurors was injured, and Harry is missing-"
He held up his hands to stall their questions. "We are positive that he made out. The wards around the embassy, albeit breached, still indicated he passed them on his own, voluntarily. But not even a second later, they fell completely. As back-up from France started to arrive, Voldemort's cronies left. But all scans confirm they didn't take anyone without the Dark Mark with them. We just couldn't find Harry afterwards."
"Why wasn't he with you?", Hermione asked Jane, brows furrowed. "You could've disguised him, you could've not taken him to the party and left him in your house in France… I mean, it's unlike you not to consider these options."
Jane sighed. "After his stay in Azkaban…. He wasn't the same. He … So many traumatic events, so short after each other… They left their mark. He was unwell, mentally. Well, physically not in the best shape, but we did work on that… The Healers advised against moving him - certainly by Portkey, which is how the British Ministry arranged our leave to France. And do you honestly believe Fudge would allow him to leave the country?"
As one, the children turn accusingly to their mother. "We didn't want to bother you with that knowledge. Harry had to be with his family anyway, you couldn't visit him."
"How about letters?", Jane said, frowning at the woman.
"Dumbledore forbade us to put any kind of information in letters, but we did send them," Ron defended himself.
Jane frowned, as she had not noticed any messages being sent to Harry. Then again, she had been injured for a long time, and recovery had taken its sweet bloody time. She was way more easily exhausted, way more sensitive to emotions and Magic. It was possible that she'd missed it - besides, Henry was nodding along. She raised an eyebrow at him, and he mouthed a 'later'.
"Do you have any idea where Harry could be right now?", she asked.
"Well, not at his so-called family, that's for sure," Ron snorted.
Jane winced, reminded once again that thanks to her, Harry hadn't even been able to tell Ron and Hermione that he had escaped the Dursleys. Suddenly sick of all the lies, she pushed on.
"I think you will find, Ron, that he has not set foot in that household for over two years now."
Henry winced, and shot her a glare. Jane shook her head and mouthed a 'later' as well.
"Then where was he?", Molly asked furiously. "The Headmaster told us he was with his relatives-"
"Did he, now?", Jane said innocently. "Well, I know for a fact he wasn't. But we're drifting off… Where do you think he can be?"
"The Leaky Cauldron?", Ginny suggested. "After all, he went there after he left his relatives last time, when he blew up his aunt."
"Yes, but he did that because he wanted to get caught, because you'd told him Sirius had broken free, didn't you, Jane?", Remus stated.
Jane grimaced. "Nothing escapes your attention, does it now?"
"Did he make a withdrawal at Gringotts?", Ron asked.
Jane shrugged. "As far as your brother Bill could tell, no."
"So we can rule out everything in the Wizarding World," Ron mumbled.
Jane eyed him curiously, and he explained: "They would only keep him hidden if they were friends, and then they would've contacted Dumbledore, or if he paid them huge sums of money, money he currently doesn't have on him."
"That leaves the Muggle world," Hermione stated. "And there, he can disappear easily: he has Muggle money, fake identities…"
Jane sighed. "His fake identities are showing up all across the world, but as long as I don't know what is a fluke, a distraction, and what's real, I can't send out men. I simply don't have the manpower."
"What if he isn't abroad?", Ron said. "It would be the perfect distraction: you set one of your Aurors out in the Muggle world, You-Know-Who will think you know where Harry is and follow him, and your hands will be free."
Jane bit her lip, nodding. "That could very well be the case. At any rate, I can't find a clue in his appearances abroad, so… The clue might be that there is no clue, because the times he shows up abroad are but a distraction. But then, where is he?"
"Near Hogwarts?", one of the Twins suggests, and Jane can practically feel them thinking about the Marauders' Map.
"Too obvious," Hermione objects. "Too visible."
"It must be some environment that's familiar to him," Ginny said.
Jane blinked. Familiar. What had the Mind Healer who treated Harry said? He'll seek out places he associates with positive feelings.
Without another word, she left, hearing Henry thanking them for their cooperation.
"Why didn't you tell me about the letters," she demands, as she rumbles through the coats. Remus and Sirius stare at her, having left the room as well.
"Harry was upset with the lack of information from his friends. He didn't want you to know - thought you had it bad enough with your recovery. Or so the Mind Healer told me. Why did you come clean about moving Harry?"
She'd finally found her cloak. "We live a war, dad. For all we know, we all die tonight. Someone has to know where Harry is then. No more secrets."
"You're going to tell-"
"Yes," she interrupted Sirius. "Not now. Now, I - we - need to check something."
And with that, Treaty popped her out, leaving the others to apparate themselves out.
Sirius POV
One thing the Death Eaters are perfectly capable of doing, is ruining a house. They've done so with the embassy in such a thorough way, that it takes effort to even find two connecting stones, where once stood a tall building. And although the embassy was only his place for a short amount of time, it pains him to see it like this. How this must be for Jane, he didn't want to imagine. She'd lost everything - twice now - and she wasn't even fifteen. In her place, he knew, he'd long given up. Sirius made himself no illusions of what kind of person he had been in his teen years: selfish, self-absorbed, arrogant, rich… Were only a few adjectives he thought off.
"D'you know what we're looking for?", he asked Remus. They stood in the pile of rubble that was once the entrance hall, and now looked like the playbox of a Giant. Perhaps, Sirius thought, that was exactly what had happened - but no, even Fudge could not cover a Giant up.
The man shrugged. "Anything that can help us, I suppose? What else could we be looking for?"
At that moment, Henry rounded what had previously been a corner. "You haven't seen my daughter, have you?", he asked anxiously.
They both shook their head. "After we landed here, she just walked out at some point, after scanning some documents there," Remus replied.
They sauntered over to where Jane had stood when they'd last seen her, anxiety creeping in their veins.
"The ward scheme?", Henry muttered to himself. "An old one, at that, from before she altered security…"
They both frowned at him, and he hurriedly explained that after a breach of security, Jane had let an expert at layers to the wards.
Sirius scanned the document, reading over Henry's shoulder. "The flat had a seperate set of wards," he whispered.
As Remus and Henry eyed him quizically, he explained: "look, here! The flat we stayed in before the attack, has a seperate set of wards! They didn't come crashing down when the embassy was attacked, this document says they're still on!"
They eyed each other, and ran towards the building. For once, Sirius cursed how far the flat was from the embassy - it had seemed a good idea at the time, to make sure they were independent from the institution, but that also implied they were rather far when something happened.
And as they stood before the building, almost like in a dream, the door opened, creaking like mad, and Jane came out. Followed by-
"Harry," he whispered.
Harry POV, night of the attack
Long, long ago, there had been a fight. People had been injured, people had died. It all seemed so far away, and concentration was always fleeting.
But Harry remembered fear, confusion. Death, and grief. They left behind a hole, a feeling like he'd never be whole again.
After that, there was darkness, cold, pain. On occasion, people visited his cell, they tortured him, asked him questions that didn't make sense. He knew he couldn't answer, so he ignored them. He withdrew into himself, more and more.
And then he lost the way.
Memories from earlier, memories from today, they seemed to flood him and lose all order. Time was a peculiar thing, slipping through his fingers like sand. At some point he had realised he might die, in his filthy cell. He'd been okay with that - rest, at last. Regret nicked him, though. He remembered faces, but no names, and the faces frowned and looked sad, when he thought about giving up. And so, he stayed alive.
Routine had been broken. He had been taken out of his cell, could hardly walk. He had showered - or rather, someone had done that for him, because he couldn't understand what was happening. Once off the island, his mind had cleared a bit, the cold had left. He felt like sleeping, since guards poked him awake at the oddest moments, but wasn't allowed to.
Of the hearing, he could remember little. But he did remember flashes of a white, large building. He'd first been confined to a bed; clean white sheets, a soft bed, he'd thought he'd died regardless of his attempts. But it was not to be.
Gradually, he regained a sense of what was happening around him. First vision and hearing. Memory returned shortly after, and made him want to withdraw even further. Cedric… Jane. But it was not to be; the Mind Healer tried to lure him out. And no matter how hard he tried to stay in nothingness, he could not.
And then the embassy had been almost empty. He had regained some of his senses; for example the one of curiosity. And instinct. And his instinct had been screaming to go to the flat. But he couldn't explain it to the Aurors guarding him. Not without words, and he was not ready to forgo his grieving silence for words.
And then the world had been torn apart in a cacophony of sounds, lights, people. Screaming and shouting had filled the air, and he'd later swear the building had trembled in fear. No matter. The leader of the brave people guarding him had cupped his face in his hand.
"Listen, Harry Potter. I know you can hear me," a female Auror had said. Her name was Mary, he remembered. "I need you to do something for me. I need you to run, as fast as you can, to the WWC. Get help. Stop at nothing, do not return. Go now. And don't look back."
But he had. And he had seen how she'd been held under the Cruciatus, for over thirty minutes. How Voldemort had brutally sliced off a hand. Nauseous, he'd ran.
It was only when he was at the border of the wards, he realised they'd fallen entirely. Regardless, it didn't matter. The WWC was under attack itself, and Harry realised they had boarded up entirely. Unless he managed to march through 200 werewolves, he was on his own. And as suchhe knew the situation was bleak. So he'd done something he'd never thought possible.
He Apparated.
Later, he was unable to say how he'd done that. He had concentration issues, logically, this should've been impossible. But it wasn't. Somehow, it had happened.
He'd ran back. He'd ran to the stables, let the horses out as a diversion, and prayed it was enough for the Aurors to hide and for Voldemort to flee- he could hardly be caught attacking an embassy, and the horses would draw attention.
Belatedly, he realised he put the attention on him - and that Voldemort and his cronies had to pass him to the Apparition point.
He could later, again, not explain why. But it didn't matter, he would argue. It worked. He'd ran to the flat Sirius, Remus and he'd shared. The bullet holes still in the wall, it made him chuckle softly to himself, and he startled at the sound. And there, in the safety of his bedroom, he had waited. He lost again all sense of time.
Until a face had peeked around the corner.
Jane.
Safe at last.
Henry POV, Grimmauld Place 12
He'd seriously doubted whether this was the right decision. Grimmauld Place, as safe as it was, was not the most inviting place he'd laid eyes on. In fact, the whole place seemed to scream 'run while you can'. But where else should he bring Harry?
They could not leave the UK - not with Fudge on the watch, anyways. The WWC was severely damaged, the wards needed to be renewed. The building could withstand another attack, but by hiding Harry there, they would bring a whole lot of werewolves in great danger, since Voldemort would move heaven and earth should he hear Harry was there. And he would hear, Henry was convinced of that. With the embassy destroyed and the wards breached, there was no other option.
So they'd returned to Grimmauld Place. Ron and Hermione had stormed over, Hermione trying to hug Harry, while Ginny and the twins had screamed excitedly. Add to that Molly trying to calm the lot of them down, and Henry could see Harry withdrawing.
Sirius noticed it, too, and quickly escorted Harry upstairs. For now, Henry had been able to convince them to keep their distance. He'd said Harry, after the whole ordeal, needed peace and quiet. And later, he'd said Harry was asleep. But the following morning, the whole story started over again.
"Ron dear, go bring Harry this tray with breakfast, yes?", Molly ordered absentmindedly, trying to organise breakfast for the entire crew. After the attack on the embassy, they had permanently moved to the headquarters. If Voldemort dared attacking a politically important space, he would not hesitate to attack the Burrow.
"Actually, Ron, leave that to Lara," Henry intervened. Lara had arrived when they'd gone to search Harry - she'd had other political obligations in France, and they had decided it was best to garner as little attention as they could.
Molly frowned. "I'm sure Harry would like to see his friends-"
"If he were in the right state of mind, yes, he would," Jane confirmed, entering.
"What do you mean?", Molly asked her. "Are you sure you're feeling well? You look a bit peaky."
Jane shrugged. "Harry didn't sleep too well. I'm a light sleeper, so neither did I. As to what I mean: did you seriously think Harry would just move on after seeing someone be brutally murdered, being tortured himself, escaping from Voldemort after his rebirth, being kidnapped by someone he thought he knew, tortured again, seeing me nearly die, and then send to Azkaban?!"
"All the more reason not to keep his friends from him!", the woman exclaimed angrily. "They can take his mind off things!"
"In ideal circumstances, I would agree, Molly," Henry interfered again. "I'm afraid, though, that Harry has become quite catatonic. And that means, in order for him to recover, to allow him peace and quiet."
"It's all right, mum," Ron says, "we just need to give Harry some time to heal."
"Yes, but I don't see why Sirius is there the whole time - honestly, he acts as if he has James back!"
"Sirius is executing his duties as godfather. And I decided that he has that right," Henry replied.
"And who gave you that right?!"
"I adopted him," Henry replied.
Molly staggered into silence. Arthur took over, frowning at Henry. "So that's how your daughter knew that Harry no longer resided with his relatives?"
Henry nodded.
"Dumbledore never informed us!", Molly fumed.
"He doesn't know."
"But - the blood protection-"
"Does not protect agaist all kinds of danger."
"Harry was abused, wasn't he?", Hermione asked solemly.
"Yes, he was."
"Dumbledore-", Molly started.
"Dumbledore lost his right on insight when he placed Harry there, without keeping an eye on them. For all he knows, Harry could've grown up in an orphanage!"
"Miss Figg was there to keep an eye on him," Arthur stated tiredly.
"Well, she didn't do her job to well then."
"Still," Molly argued, "the blood protection required only a member of the family. Other arrangements could've been made!"
"Oh, but the blood protection was fine," Jane stated. "I'm a cousin of Harry's. I'm Arya, daughter of Rosemary Evans, sister to Lily Evans."
Silence rang.
*Frankly, I don't have anything against Molly Weasley. But at times, she's overbearing. At times, she's not willing to see 'her' children have grown up. That's what I'm trying to show here. I've long hesitated before I included this little moment; would Molly Weasley stand up in the same way as she's done in canon, when the parents of a child are there? I think she would.