Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or any of the characters.

Original A/N: Thanks to MaeSilverpaws1, who is beta-ing this story.

Chapter One Hundred Forty-Seven

Order Meeting

Remus tapped his foot impatiently on the floor. Sirius had said that he would come to Grimmauld Place at least half an hour before the next meeting. He was already ten minutes late. He hated the questions that pop up in his head as he waited for his friend; the last month had been strenuous enough on his nerves. Seeing how bad Sirius looked every time he came home made him wonder how bad things were.

"Remus, you're tapping your foot again," Tonks said, resting her hand on his leg and he looked at her with a sheepish smile.

"I'm just worried," Remus said.

"Obviously," Tonks replied, her eyes twinkling in momentary amusement. "Sirius has never been on time before."

"At least not for something like this," Remus sighed, "I know that."

"But that doesn't stop you from worrying," Tonks said rolling her eyes. "Do you want me to distract you?"

Remus turned to her, her eyes were amused again and he couldn't help but smile at her.

"Oi there, none of that," come Sirius's voice, causing the other two to jump.

"You're late!" Remus said, and then looking closer at his friend. He had expected Sirius to be more depress, as that seemed to be the case over the last month, but Sirius was still smiling. "What happened?"

"Sorry I'm late, I was having a little chat with Harry," Sirius said.

"Really?" Remus said.

"Yep, oddest thing too," Sirius said. "On Friday he was as silent as ever, but today he came to my room … it was like nothing happened."

"Nothing …" Remus repeated, pressing his lips together as he thought. "Has he told you what was bothering him?"

"No," Sirius admitted. "Something tells me he's never going to."

Remus sighed, agreeing with Sirius.

"Look, he's doing better, and it's not just because he came to talk to me," Sirius said. "I can see it in his eyes. Besides, he's talking to other students again, talking about his lesson for the DA that he's willing to take over again. It was good to see him like that."

"I bet," Remus said trying not to sound bitter but sitting at home and only getting to hear how bad Harry was, and then being told that he was doing better didn't sooth his nerves very much. He wanted to see Harry for himself.

"I'm sorry," Sirius said resting a hand on his shoulder, understanding where Remus was coming from. "We could ask Dumbledore if you could …"

"He'll say no, just like he has said since this started," Remus sighed and added bitterly, "I can't go to Hogwarts, especially when I'm undertaking my important mission …"

"Are the other werewolves even listening to you?" Sirius asked.

Remus sighed, "They're listening; I just don't think it will change anything."

"Do they still hate you?" Sirius asked, his tone turning angry as he thought of how the werewolves shunned Remus because he was a wizard and tried to stay in the society.

"They resent me," Remus corrected. "And that's not going to go away. I'm too much of a wizard for the werewolves and too much a werewolf for the wizards."

"I don't get why Dumbledore still makes you talk to them then," Sirius grumbled.

"Yes you do, and so do I," Remus said. "They might not like me, or want to follow my advice, but they do hear some of the reason in my argument and they wouldn't hear that from anyone but me."

"Reason," Sirius rolled his eyes.

"Yes, the reason that keeps telling them that Voldemort isn't going to be any more friendly to them than the current admiration," Remus said. "Seeing as the most prejudice people are the pureblood families, they're the ones making most the laws and restrictions against them. They're not going anywhere if Voldemort gains power."

Remus shook his head, hating that the best he could do with the werewolves was to get them to stay neutral in the war. He wish he could do more to change that, but he knew realistically nothing could ever change until the many laws that restricted werewolves were overturned. He was pretty sure that wasn't going to happen anytime soon, which was another thing that made him feel bitter.

"Maybe we should go down to the meeting," Tonks suggested after a moment, seeing how gloomy Remus seemed to be now and that Sirius's cheer seem to dissipate as well as he felt sympathy for his friend.

"Oh joy, we can go downstairs where I'll have to tell all over again about how dismally my mission is going," Remus sighed, though he did get up.

"Well, be relieved that at least you won't be the only one that has something dismal to say," Sirius said, "I'm sure we'll hear our fair share of bad news."

"Hm," Remus said rolling his eyes at his friend, "such a cheerful thought."

When they got downstairs they realized that almost everyone else was already there and they took their seats. It was only moments later when Dumbledore started things, letting everyone know the general information of what has been going on lately. Then he debriefed everyone that had new information, Remus curtly explaining his mission, and Sirius going into probably too much detail about Harry, as it wasn't strictly Order business, most who knew the boy were glad to hear the news. Dumbledore then moved on to ask how things are going with Gringotts.

After Harry had told Dumbledore about his visions about the Horcruxes, Dumbledore had talked with Sirius and Remus about it. It didn't take long for them to realize that it would be much too difficult to handle what needed to be done on their own. Remus had proposed that they get help from the Order, stating that there had been plenty of missions were most didn't understand the reason why they were doing the mission, but understood that it must be important. Of course, saying that they needed to get into a Gringotts's vault had caused several questions, but Dumbledore answered them with mostly the truth, saying that something important to defeating Voldemort was in there.

However, actually getting in the vault was proving difficult. The problem was, there was no way that anyone could see that happening without offending the goblins, and possibly causing irreparable harm to the relationship between the two species.

"We could always try to bribe a goblin into helping us," someone offered weakly, already seeming to know that it wasn't a good option, but the conversation was going around in circles as it had been for the last few meetings.

"I don't think there's a goblin out there that would take a bribe, not when it's Gringotts," Bill said. "They have pride in their bank and they have pride in knowing that no one has ever stolen anything from it."

"Have you learned anything that might help us?" Dumbledore asked, though he didn't expect a positive reply as Bill would have spoken up before now if he had.

"No," Bill said. "As you know I've been looking into seeing if Sirius had any claim to the vault as he is the head of the Black family …"

"You don't have to rub it in," Sirius grumbled, that wasn't something he was proud of.

"Even though Bellatrix is a Black, the vault is not, and never has been," Bill went on. "It's all the Lestrange's family, and they have taken great lengths in making sure that only a Lestrange can have access to it."

"Yes, I thought that was likely the cause," Dumbledore sighed. "So we have learned that we can't bribe or use a technicality to gain access to the vault. That leaves us with few options left."

"We could get the Aurors office to lean on the goblins to open the vault for us, the Lestranges are Death Eaters and there is evidence in the vault that …"

"Yeah, that's a great idea, if we wanted to have a war with the goblins too," Sirius said.

"You don't know they would start a war."

"No, but they have started one for less before and we can't take the chance they will turn on us," Sirius said. "As it is right now, they might even turn to help Voldemort."

"Yes, they might," Bill agree grimly. "They're still waiting right now, not wanting to get on the bad side of either of us … mostly trying to see who's going to end up on top. But if we make a move like that, the goblins wouldn't be able to stand it."

"And we don't want that," Dumbledore said.

"What other option do we have?"

"We could always try to capture my dear cousin or her wonderful husband," Sirius suggested with dark humor.

"Hm … that is an interesting option," Dumbledore said raising an eyebrow in a thoughtful manner.

"I wasn't serious," Sirius said.

"Then who were you?" Tonks whispered so only those around her could hear.

Sirius tried to ignore her, though he couldn't help but roll his eyes at the pun. "Sir, you remember how difficult it had been to capture them the first time, and we had the full force of the Auror's office then. Plus, I can't imagine that they got any better after being in Azkaban. Bellatrix has always been dangerous and a bit mad, but after that she's probably completely unhinged."

"Yes, I would imagine she is," Dumbledore agreed. "And I would agree that she would only be more dangerous now. Rodolphus, too, would be difficult to capture as he has always been sly and calculating."

"It makes you wonder what he was thinking when he tried to look for You-Know-Who last time, the likelihood that mission would succeed had never been high."

"Perhaps not," Dumbledore said. "But if he had believed that Voldemort could not be defeated, then there was really no loss to him to try to find his master."

"No loss … he was thrown into Azkaban!"

"And now he has been freed, along with several other dangerous Death Eaters that are now Voldemort's more trusted advisors," Dumbledore said. "But I have digressed. I believe that we will find Rabastan the weakest link in that trio."

"I don't get the point of this conversation, even if we do capture them, it's not like any of them can walk into Gringotts; they're the most wanted criminals!"

"Ah, that is true," Dumbledore said. "I believe that we have much thinking to do. But that should probably wait until the next meeting."

On that confusing note, the meeting came to an end, most of the people in the room not exactly agreeing with Dumbledore that it would be a good or even feasible idea to capture one of the most prominent Death Eater. Several people rushed forward to argue this point more with him, but Remus, Sirius, Tonks and Emmeline hung back.

"So what do you think of this plan?" Sirius looked at his best friend.

"It sounds impossible to achieve," Remus answered honestly. "But if it was going to be easy, then more people would have broken into Gringotts before."

"You know the goblins aren't going to have a probably with showing a Death Eater to their vault, they don't care if someone is wanted by other wizards," Emmeline pointed out.

"Hm … that's true," Sirius agreed. "But fooling the goblin is going to be the tricky part. They're pretty good at noticing when things aren't right."

"It probably wouldn't be a good idea to use the Imperius," Tonks said, as an Auror she would be able to use that curse, along with the other Aurors that they have in the Order.

"Of course," Sirius rolled his eyes, "the chance that he would be able to break the curse would be too high. Also, it wouldn't be good to have more than one person go in there … it would raise way too much suspicion."

"So Polyjuice Potions," Remus said, "I guess I won't be the one going on this mission."

"As if you would have been picked," Sirius smirked. "Of course neither would I."

"I might," Tonks said; disguises were one thing she was good at. "But I doubt I'll have a choice in that matter."

"Hm," Remus said frowning, the idea of Tonks going on such a dangerous mission made his stomach drop, but he bit his tongue. For one thing, it wasn't likely that she would go on the mission and for another, she was an Auror, in the Order and he couldn't tell her not to risk her life because he was going to keep risking his own.

"I think we've chatted about this enough." Sirius said and then he turned to grin at Emmeline, "Why don't you and I catch up?"

"That sounds like a brilliant idea," Emmeline beamed at him.

Remus rolled his eyes at his quickly retreating friends.

"You don't think it's a good idea for me to go on that mission," Tonks said.

"No, I don't," Remus agreed with a wry smile. "But I'm not going to say anything about that. Of course the fact that it's not even a mission yet has something to do with it."

"But it's not the only reason right," Tonks said, looking him directly in the eyes.

"You know if it was up to me you wouldn't ever have to do anything dangerous," Remus said. "I don't want anything to happen to you. But I'm not going to stop you, it's who you are and I don't want you to change."

"I suppose that an expectable answer," Tonks answered trying not to show any emotion.

"Well, it's what I get for falling for such a dangerous, tricky woman," Remus added and she couldn't hide her smile.