Okay, this is one of the bigger canon divergences from what JKR wrote in her books. JKR invented the Fidelius Charm in OOTP but invented Side-Along Apparition in HBP, meaning that she didn't have a clear explanation as for what would happen if someone tried to Apparate into a place with a Fidelius Charm with someone who wasn't informed on the charm. For the purposes of *plot* I have decided that, instead of the second person splinching or something similar, the Fidelius Charm would allow them into the protected space. It's a purposeful loophole that I'm allowing so that this interaction could happen the way I wanted it to. Anyways, just wanted to let you know in advance so you don't have to read this chapter thinking "omg this is sooooo unrealistic and not-canonical" because I've already warned you from the start. Feel free to complain about it in the comments or point out other loopholes this would cause, but I'm not planning on changing anything anytime soon. Happy reading!
Content warnings can be found at the end of this chapter.
When Tim was thirteen, he'd almost died via asphyxiation. Long story short, he'd been trapped in an armored car that was submerged in concrete about three feet underground. Okay, very long story short.
That was one of Tim's first solo missions as Robin, and he'd only ended up surviving because the people who put him down there in the first place had gotten impatient and had drilled him out two days earlier than planned. After all of that, he'd ended up only being stuck in there for a little over five hours.
To this day, he still remembered what that last hour felt like. After Cluemaster had passed out (yeah, Steph's dad was there, too, as if things weren't bad enough already), Tim had lain propped up against one of the boxes in there, too tired to check Cluemaster's pulse, too tired to breathe, too tired to keep his eyes open…The only things that had kept him awake back then were, a) the overwhelming desire to not let Bruce down, and b) the overwhelming pain. It was heavy and dull—a throbbing in his chest, like he was trapped under an elephant, and a pounding in his head, like it was being repeatedly slammed into a brick wall.
That's what Tim felt like right now. Like he was suffocating all over again.
And then, he could see things again. Tim's feet were on solid ground, and he let go of the woman's wrist, stumbling backwards and dropping his wand. It took all of his effort just to stop himself from collapsing onto the ground.
"Bloody 'ell!" someone's gruff voice choked out.
Another man hissed, "Oi, Mundungus, mind telling me who the hell you brought with you?"
"I don't bloody know, Sirius, 'e jus' showed up 'n' grabbed me outta th' blue!"
Though his head was still spinning, Tim craned his neck up and stood back up slowly.
Tim, I have a feeling we're not in Hogsmeade anymore… he thought to himself as he locked eyes with a tall man with dark, matted hair falling over his unshaven face and a wand aimed at Tim at point-blank range. Tim took a second to take this in, and then he dropped to the ground, snatched his wand, and—
"Stupefy!"
The young man took one look at Sirius and Mundungus and immediately dropped to the ground, reaching for his wand.
Sirius automatically shouted, "Stupefy," before the kid could have a chance to fight back. He crumpled to the ground with a loud thump!
Still pointing his wand at the prone form on the floor, Sirius approached and grabbed the stranger's wand, tucking it away in his back pocket. He patted down the kid, both searching for some sort of identification and for anything else he had on him.
He was wearing an expensive black peacoat, which Sirius had some trouble unbuttoning and taking off of him.
"Now what're you doin?'" Mundungus grumbled as he slipped out of his previous disguise, though it was clear that he was also interested in what the boy had on him.
"Making sure he doesn't have anything dangerous on him, that's what." One pocket of the coat had a pair of leather gloves inside, the other was empty. A pocket inside the coat held a leather coin purse with a small fortune packed inside of it. A rich kid, then. That certainly explained the get-up. Sirius quickly tucked the purse out of sight before Mundungus could pocket it for himself. Sure, he was a member of the Order, but that didn't mean that Sirius would put his trust in the man. He had abandoned Sirius's godson over the summer just to go buy some measly cauldrons.
Something around the boy's neck caught Sirius's eye, and he reached over to pull off a blue and bronze striped scarf, feeling his stomach drop.
"Merlin's beard," Sirius whispered, turning the thing over in his hands. "You didn't tell me he was a student!"
"'Ow was I suppos' to know?" Mundungus exclaimed, throwing his hands in the air.
Sirius reached into one of the boy's pant pockets and withdrew three small metal discs and two thin metal cylinders, along with three spherical capsules.
"What's all this?" asked Mundungus, crouching down next to Sirius and snatching on of the disks out of his hands. "Jeezus!" There was a quiet, unidentifiable noise, and Mundungus fell down on his butt, dropping the disk like it was on fire.
Sirius picked the object off the floor, which had expanded into a four-pointed star with sharpened edges.
"…the hell?" he muttered, glancing down at the other disks and then back at the weapon. Before any of the others could explode and cut up his hand, he placed them on the ground, pushing them a good foot away from himself. He pinched one of the capsules, holding it up to the light and rolling it between his fingers.
"Well, I know what this is," Sirius said. "It's a smoke pellet." They sold stuff like this at Zonko's Joke Shop by the handfuls when Sirius was a student at Hogwarts. So this kid was a trickster.
"Timothy Drake-Wayne," Mundungus announced. "That's 'is name."
Sirius raised an eyebrow. "And how do you just happen to know that?"
Mundungus lifted up the boy's wrist, where he had pushed back his sleeve to reveal what looked to be a small charm bracelet. Sirius scooted over and removed the clasp on it after a couple failed attempts. On a long, flat piece of metal in the middle was engraved:
TIMOTHY DRAKE-WAYNE
NO SPLEEN
SEE BACK FOR EMERGENCY INFORMATION
"What happened to his spleen?" Sirius wondered aloud, eyeing the boy suspiciously.
"More smoke pellets in the other pocket," Mundungus informed him, handing over three more pellets. Sirius also felt a bulge under the boy's shirt, and he unbuttoned part of the boy's collared shirt so he could pull out a cord wrapped around a dark, circular rock that had a faint golden glow around it. He unwrapped it from the boy's neck and held it up for Mundungus to see. As it parted from its owner, the glow began to fade. It must have been attuned to him or something.
"Have any idea what this is?" asked Sirius. Mundungus was the local expert on magical artifacts, after all.
The other man grabbed the smooth ring and looked it over for a minute. "Not a clue. But it's definitely magical, don't need me to tell ya that." That seemed to be the last of the boy's—Timothy's—possessions.
For a moment, Mundungus and Sirius looked at the body on the ground. Then Sirius stood up and waved his wand, conjuring a chair from the dining room table.
"Well, we should probably call someone from the Order," he decided, grabbing Timothy under his armpits and hoisting him onto the chair. "Incarcerous." Ropes sprang up and bound themselves around the boy's torso, securing him to the chair.
"Well then, I'd bes' be on me way," said Mundungus, making as if to leave the room and potentially the premises.
"Not so fast, Dung," Sirius said, grabbing him by the collar of his jacket before he could slip away. "You didn't even give me a report."
"Not much to report," he replied gruffly. "'Arry and 'is classmates is makin' a secret club to teach themselves Defense 'Gainst the Dark Arts since Umbridge won't. 'Arry's in charge, 'pparently."
Sirius felt a deep pride swell in his chest. If only James could see his boy now, all grown up and rebelling against authority… He wandered over to the fireplace and tossed a handful of Floo Powder into the flames.
"Dumbledore's office," he announced, getting down onto his knees and sticking his face right into the fire.
"What's this about, Sirius?" were the first words out of Molly Weasley's mouth when she arrived last at Grimmauld Place.
"Ah…" Sirius and Mundungus exchanged looks. They had stuffed the unconscious boy and his chair into the pantry in the basement as soon as Sirius had gotten off of the call with Dumbledore so that he wouldn't be upstairs unsupervised. One thing at a time.
"Well…there's a couple things, actually…" he managed, avoiding eye contact with anyone else standing around the kitchen. Dumbledore, unsurprisingly, wasn't there, but Nymphadora Tonks and Remus Lupin had shown up alongside Mad-Eye Moody, Bill Weasley, and Arthur Weasley. Other more important Ministry officials, like Kingsley Shacklebolt, were unable to leave their posts, but it seemed that Minerva McGonagall was able to slip in, having herself been out and about in Hogsmeade, as well as (to Sirius's great displeasure) Severus Snape.
Mad-Eye leaned against one of the counters. "Would one of those things be the person tied up in your closet?" he asked bluntly, his bright blue eye staring right at the pantry.
"What?" Tonks, Remus, and McGonagall all shouted, and then the room was drowned out by the shrill cries of Mrs. Walburga Black.
"Filth! Disgusting filth! Half-breeds and Muggles and beasts under this roof! Scum! Begone, you foul curs, begone! Shameful, shameful!"
Sirius sighed. "I'll get that."
When he came back down, Mundungus was at the center of an interrogation headed by Molly and backed up by half of the room's inhabitants. The man was glancing around like he was looking for potential exit paths. Sirius almost felt sorry for the man.
"How long have they been here?" Remus ordered.
"How did someone get past the enchantments?" Bill added.
"If you don't take that person out of there, I'll go and do it myself!" Molly exclaimed, pointing her wand threateningly at Mundungus's nose.
"No need," Snape drawled, his gaze following Sirius as he ran down the stairs. Sirius purposefully avoided making eye contact with the slimy git.
Molly's head and, subsequently, her wand, whipped around to Sirius. "You have some serious explaining to do!" she said with almost the same voice she used to reprimand her own children.
"Sirius, this is a child!" came the muffled voice of Tonks, and Sirius realized that she was already in the pantry. "What the fuck is he doing tied to a chair?"
"He ambushed Mundungus!" Sirius tried to explain. "It was a safety precaution!"
"And how on Earth did he end up here?" McGonagall cried, lifting a hand in a sweeping gesture that encompassed the entire house.
"Mundungus," Sirius repeated, putting as much emphasis as he could onto the other man's name, "Apparated here and took the kid with him."
All eyes turned back to Mundungus, who shrunk in on himself and shot Sirius a murderous look. "'Ow was I suppos'd to see 'im coming? I was practic'lly 'alfway outta 'Ogsmeade when 'e showed up."
"I-is that Timothy Drake-Wayne?" McGonagall choked out, pushing Sirius out of the way and rushing over to where Tonks had moved the boy's body.
"You know him?" Sirius gawked, looking back and forth between the two.
"Of course I do, he's my student!" she snapped. "Did you hurt him?"
"Of course not! I just Stunned him, he was about to attack!"
"And why," Snape drawled, "would he feel the need to attack you?"
"'Cuz it sounds like Dung basically kidnapped him," said Bill, frowning in Mundungus's direction.
"Oi, 'e's th' one who attacked me first!"
"Why?" Molly demanded.
"I dunno!" Mundungus cried, throwing his hands up in defeat. "'E was at th' 'Og's 'Ead wiv 'Arry and th' others, dunno why 'e'd go afta me 'less 'e was suspicious."
"Wait, what was Harry doing at the Hog's Head?" Bill interrupted. "That place is shady as hell."
"Organizin' an illegal Defense 'Gainst the Dark Arts club wiv 'is mates, that's what," he answered, seeming almost pleased with the shocked expressions that his statement produced. "Didn't want Umbridge knowin' 'bout it. S'ppose they thought it'd be less conspicuous. Shows what they know."
"Those children!" Molly huffed, setting her hands on her hips. "No way are any children of mine participating in an illegal club and ruining their school careers!"
"And Timothy was at this meeting?" McGonagall asked.
Mundungus nodded. "Yeh, seemed real s'pportive o' th' 'ole thing." But he furrowed his brows, a scowl forming on his face. "No idea why 'e'd up 'n' ambush me like that."
Tonks looked less than impressed. "You're a trained member of the Order of the Phoenix, and a teenager got the better of you?"
Mundungus's face, already red from how worked up he was, only got redder. "'E got me in an 'ammerlock in seconds, 'e's no ordin'ry teenager!"
"Say, when d'you think he's gonna wake up?" Remus asked, looking to Sirius.
"Oh, I'm already awake," the boy in the chair said, lifting his head off his chest, and Molly let out a shriek.
"Scum! Leave this house! Defiling these rooms with your mud-blood and destroying centuries of tradition! How dare you!"
"…I'll get it," Sirius muttered.
Truth be told, Tim had been awake since he heard that shrieking coming from upstairs, and he'd just been feigning unconsciousness since then. It was totally worth it. He had learned so much about these people in the past five minutes. Sure, he'd been rather shocked to hear McGonagall's voice amongst the others, but it did help him deduce that he wasn't actually in enemy territory, not with the way these people talked about Harry and the others. In fact, he was pretty sure that the redheaded woman was the Weasley's mother, and the other two redheads were somehow related as well—the family resemblance was truly uncanny.
"Hello, Professor," Tim said politely, looking over at McGonagall, whose lips were pressed together impossibly tight. "Professors," he corrected himself after catching sight of Snape at the other end of the room, who refused to make eye contact.
"Timothy," she said slowly, stepping closer to him. "Please, stay calm. We mean you no harm."
Tim snorted. "No offense, Professor, but I don't think I'm the one having issues staying calm here."
"Who sent you?" A man shoved someone out of the way and hobbled over, lifting up his gnarled walking stick and jabbing its knotted handle into Tim's chest. "Why're you here?"
"Mad-Eye!" the Weasley woman hissed, grabbing his stick and pointing it away from Tim.
"What?" 'Mad-Eye' growled. He was glaring at the woman, but one eye, an electric-blue prosthesis, continued to watch Tim. "He attacked Mundungus, and now he's gonna tell us why."
So, the lady was Mundungus? Tim took a quick survey of the inhabitants of the room: Snape, McGonagall, Mad-Eye, the three Weasleys, the woman behind him who had pulled him out of the closet, the tired-looking man, and the man with the bloodshot eyes who was nervously playing with his hands.
Tim turned to that last one. "Well, I'd also like to know why you were spying on us at the Hog's Head," he said.
"Aberforth let you in?" the tired man asked, sounding surprised.
"Of course not," Mundungus snapped. "I was in disguise."
The woman behind Tim let out a short, sharp laugh. "Not a very good one, apparently, if this kid could tell you apart from the rest of us." The other adults in the room all turned towards Tim, narrowing their eyes.
Tim sighed. Okay, he could give them this one, it was a pretty simple deduction. "It's the nails," he explained calmly, nodding in Mundungus's direction. "I passed by him in the pub and saw his nails. They're yellowed because he smokes." The man looked down at his hands and then back at Tim with wide eyes.
"Got ourselves a Ravenclaw, have we?" one of the redheads, the one with the long ponytail, remarked, looking impressed. Mad-Eye, on the other hand, looked, if possible, even more suspicious than before.
"Regardless," Mad-Eye continued, "that doesn't answer the question of why he attacked him."
"He was listening in on our meeting," Tim shrugged, or at least tried to shrug, as he was still currently tied to a chair. "Then he tried to leave. Obviously, he was someone's informant. Yours, it seems."
"I—" Mundungus stammered, "I—who says I was listenin' in on yeh?"
Tim rolled his eyes. "Come on. You were looking at the same ring for a solid half hour, you hadn't taken a sip out of your drink, and you kept on reacting to things Harry said." Even Snape looked mildly impressed now—either that, or he was taking note of Tim as a new threat.
"It wouldn't surprise me if the Ministry of Magic had people tailing Harry," Tim continued, "seeing as they're still running a huge smear campaign against him. I didn't want word getting back to Umbridge. Hence the 'attack.'" Here, he made air quotes with his fingers, though no one except for the woman behind him would have been able to see them. "And then he Apparated here and took me along by accident. It was an honest mistake."
Mad-Eye got right up into Tim's face. "A mistake, eh? Then what's all that sitting on the dining room table?" Again, one dark eye was trained on Tim, while the bright blue one had rolled back into his skull.
Tim glanced around. Was there another table behind him?
"What's on the dining room table?" the woman behind Tim asked. Mad-Eye pointed his staff in the direction his other eye was looking, at the ceiling.
"Whatever it is, I can't summon it," he grumbled and hobbled off out of the kitchen and up the stairs on his wooden leg, which Tim could finally see in its totality. The man returned with a handful of Tim's tools—his shuriken, his pseudo-Batarangs, and his smoke and gas pellets. And his charm bracelet, for some reason.
He shoved the lot of them into Tim's face, and the young man had to lean back a little so that his nose wouldn't get punched. "What do you call these, eh?"
"My tools?" Tim answered, trying to sound as innocent as possible. In reality, his heart was pounding as his secrets were gradually being revealed to these strangers. He had to somehow mitigate the damage before too much got out.
"They're weapons," he spat. "Why would a child be carrying around weapons?"
"In case someone attacks me?"
"Ain't that what your wand is for?"
"I mean, yeah, that too. You can never be too careful, though."
Mad-Eye did not look convinced. He shoved the alleged contraband into his gigantic overcoat and grabbed his wand, pointing it at Tim.
"If you don't tell us why you're here, I'll force it out of you," he growled, leaning in so that his face was only inches away from Tim.
"Mad-Eye!" the tired-looking man shouted, stepping forward and grabbing the man's wrist. "You can't torture the child!"
"Watch me."
Then, to Tim's surprise, Snape, who had been silent up until now, interrupted the two. "I believe I may possess a simpler solution, gentlemen."
Mad-Eye rolled his blue eye. "What're you gonna do, force some truth serum down his throat?"
Snape ignored Mad-Eye, coming forward and drawing his wand. Tim opened his mouth to greet Snape and perhaps talk his way out of whatever was coming, but before he could form a single word on his lips, Snape pointed at Tim and said, "Legilimens."
Suddenly, Tim felt a sharp pang in the back of his skull, like…like…
Like he's trying to get into my mind, Tim realized, which explained why the sensation was familiar to him. He shut his eyes and opened them again to find himself in Drake Manor, sitting on the stool by the kitchen counter while someone banged on the door and slammed against it like they were using a battering ram.
The wooden door sounded like it was beginning to splinter, but Tim knew that this was only an illusion meant to convince him that his mental defenses were failing. The truth was that, as long as Tim could convince himself that it would hold, it would hold.
Back when he was younger and learning about mental protection from Bruce and J'onn, Tim remembered it taking every ounce of concentration he had to hold the mental attacks at bay for just a couple minutes. But Tim had been practicing this for years now. It was a part of his general "protect-yourself-from-psychics-and-don't-crack-under-interrogation" training as a Robin.
Nowadays, Tim was completely confident in his ability to guard his mind. To be fair, there were plenty of other areas in Tim's life in which he was completely faking his confidence, but somehow, mental protection was not one of them. Maybe it was because Tim had proven to himself time and time again that it really was a matter of willpower, that when he believed in his own mental fortitude, he'd been able to protect his mind one hundred percent of the time. At least, that was how Kyle Rayner had explained it to Tim when he'd asked the man about his secret behind willpower. After all, if anyone was an expert on that topic, it would be a Green Lantern.
"Drake-Wayne is fighting back," a voice echoed from outside. "He is…unusually resilient…"
"Better than you, Snivellus?" came another voice.
"Of course not."
Tim smirked, walking over to the living room and sitting down on the couch, listening to the continual crashes outside. He'd briefly entertained the thought of letting Snape in through the backdoor, showing him a façade of Tim's mind, to convince him that he'd gotten in, but then Tim remembered that he didn't like Snape. He'd decided on that fact a couple weeks ago when Snape had spent a good ten minutes humiliating a student who accidentally skipped half of the directions on the board, a student who Tim knew had ADHD.
He took a deep breath of the nonexistent air and started taking to no one in particular. "Three point one four one five nine two six five three five eight nine seven nine three two three eight four six two six four three three eight three three two seven nine five zero two eight eight four one nine seven…"
Tim did this all the time when he was bored—listing the numbers of pi, that is. When he was seven, he had watched a TV special featuring a man named Creighton Carvello who recited the first ten-thousand digits of pi in under an hour. The Drakes had recorded it on VHS, and Tim had watched that tape hundreds of times as a child and had taken the time to write out all the digits in an old notebook of his. Since then, he had made it one of his life goals to memorize at least ten-thousand digits of pi. Currently, Tim was up to six-thousand four hundred thirty-five digits.
"He has blocked all of my attempts," the voice hissed, "and now all I can see is a string of random numbers."
"Numbers?"
Tim grinned. "…one six nine three nine nine three seven five one zero five eight two zero nine seven four nine four four five nine two three zero seven eight…"
"But you can still get in, right?"
"Right?"
"Severus?"
"…one six four zero six two eight six two zero eight nine nine eight six two eight zero three four eight two five three—"
Tim was cut off and brought back to the real world when someone grabbed his face and forced his head backwards, plugging his nose.
"What are you hiding?" Snape hissed, pressing something to Tim's lips. He kept them shut, glaring at the man. Okay, so they were doing things the hard way, now, were they?
"Severus!" McGonagall cried and moved to stop him, but Mad-Eye raised his walking stick, blocking her path.
"Severus, this is crazy!" the woman behind Tim argued. "He's just a kid!" Tim wanted to let her know that he was nineteen so she would be aware that it was less morally reprehensible for Snape to be doing this to him, but, of course, he was busy holding his breath, which he could probably hold for another four minutes, based on past experience. Hopefully, by that time, someone would have successfully intervened.
Sirius started to say, "Snape, you better not—" but then Mad-Eye pointed his wand at him and said, "Petrificus Totalus." The man's body collapsed onto the ground with a loud thump.
Oh, boy. Paralyzing an ally? Tim was confused as to what that accomplished exactly. And to think that he, Tim Drake-Wayne, was responsible for such infighting. He was almost flattered.
Right after the curse was cast, the woman behind Tim said, "Expelliarmus!" and Tim watched out of the corner of his eye as Mad-Eye threw up a magical shield and narrowly avoided having either his wand or his staff wrenched out of his grasp.
"Don't try and stop me, Tonks!" Mad-Eye growled. Behind him, the tired man was looking even more tired and frustrated.
At this rate, these people were going to get into an all-out fight, and Tim did not want to be in the center of it. Plus, Tonks and McGonagall, at least, seemed genuine about their concern for him. He swung his leg upwards and kicked Snape in the groin, who stumbled back with a grunt of pain. Tim took the moment of opportunity to take a breath and wrench his arms out of the rope, which he could have done as soon as he'd woken up, but then he wouldn't have gotten all this information, now, would he?
Mad-Eye swung his arm around and pointed at Tim. "Stupefy!" However, Tim had already gotten to his feet and turned himself around so that the spell would make contact with his chair, which, as Tim had predicted, exploded, freeing Tim up fully. In the ensuing confusion, Tim rushed up to Mad-Eye and grabbed his wand wrist with one hand; the other, he shoved into the man's coat, searching around for his stolen items. Amidst his other tools, Tim's fingers closed around a small capsule, smaller than the gas pellets.
Perfect, he thought, and smashed it to the ground.
Immediately, a large cloud of smoke sprung from the shattered capsule, filling up the whole kitchen. Everyone began to panic.
"Merlin!" the older redheaded man exclaimed, and then fell into a coughing fit.
"Good lord!" McGonagall wheezed.
"Filthy Mudbloods, filthy half-breeds, blood traitors! Befouling the noble house of Black with your dirty hands and besmirching the great name of Black!"
"W-what the hell?" he heard Mad-Eye cough. Tim pinched the man's wrist, forcing him to let go of his wand, and Tim snatched it and put it between his teeth, knowing he would need both of his hands for this next maneuver. He grabbed Mad-Eye's other wrist and did the same thing, but this time, he took the man's walking stick.
"He got my wand!" wheezed Mad-Eye, though Tim had already backed away from him. Unlike these people, Tim knew how to move around in smoke and other environments that impaired his vision. The trick was to remember where everything was before the smoke came in and then to listen to where those things were headed.
For example, someone coughed a few feet to Tim's left, and Tim knew that this was almost exactly where Snape had stood before. He seemed to be the only other threat, as far as Tim could tell.
Tim was midway through a spell, "Expelli—" when he realized that his annulus was missing. His very important annulus that granted him his magical abilities.
"—shit!" Only panicking a little now, he put Mad-Eye's wand back in between his teeth (that man was going to kill him if he ever found out) and slipped from his sleeve the Batarang that he had also managed to nick off of Mad-Eye.
He would only have one shot at this, so Tim cleared his throat very conspicuously and started coughing. From Snape's direction came a cry of, "Stupefy!" and a small red beam that shot towards Tim, who had already moved out of its range.
Flicking the Batarang out to its full length, Tim imprinted in his mind the path that the spell had taken, and he threw his Batarang accordingly. A startled gasp was enough to tell Tim that it had reached its mark successfully.
Okay, so I've disarmed Mad-Eye and Snape, Sirius is incapacitated, and I have no idea how to get back to Hogsmeade. Time was running short for Tim, and he was running out of ideas as to what to do next. He had taken out the biggest threat, but now what? Where had Mundungus even taken him? How was he supposed to get out? He had about fifteen seconds left before the smoke completely dissipated, meaning he needed someplace to hide, somewhere he could further plan out his escape.
Then, he felt a hand fall onto his shoulder, and Tim automatically swung around Mad-Eye's staff and knocked the attacker's arm off of him.
"My apologies, Timothy," Albus Dumbledore said gently. "I did not mean to startle you."
Tim spat out the wand in his mouth. "Professor Dumbledore?" He dropped the staff like it was poisonous to the touch. He definitely hadn't expected Dumbledore to get up in this whole mess.
"Dumbledore?" Tonks coughed as the air began to clear. Tim stared into the bright, playful eyes of Dumbledore as he again moved to put a hand on Tim's shoulder. Tim reluctantly let him this time.
"Forgive me for being so tardy," the man apologized, speaking to the other members of the room. Tim turned around so that he wouldn't have his back to the enemy, so to speak. Were they even the enemy? Was Tim the enemy at this point?
"Dumbledore!" Mad-Eye roared, marching up to the two of them. Tim quickly snatched the man's wand off of the ground and pointed it at him menacingly. After all, how would Mad-Eye know that Tim wasn't physically capable of doing magic at this current point in time?
"This boy is a threat to the Order!" he continued, though he had stopped his approach once Tim turned his own wand against him. "He needs to be subdued!"
Dumbledore chuckled in that weird way that he did when he acted as though someone had just referenced an inside joke. "I hardly believe that will be necessary, Alastor. Timothy," he said, now addressing the boy directly, "you aren't planning on attacking anyone else, are you?"
Tim took a brief moment to decide if he was indeed going to keep up his attack.
"No," Tim grumbled anyways, "though they were the ones who attacked first…" He looked down at the wand in his hand and then at Mad-Eye, who looked out for murder. After a moment's hesitation, Tim tossed the man his wand back.
Dumbledore won't let him hurt me, he decided. Probably. During his evenings cleaning out the man's office, Tim had come to respect Dumbledore. Sure, Tim was still keeping an eye on him—that was part of his mission—but Tim also felt like he could trust him. And, sure, Tim would be the first to admit that he had a tendency to trust people who would eventually stab him in the back (metaphorically and literally), but…this was different.
Dumbledore patted Tim's shoulder like he was proud of him and took out his wand, waving it at Sirius, who immediately hopped up onto two legs and drew his wand on Mad-Eye.
"Mad-Eye, I swear to Christ…!" Sirius hissed, taking a menacing step forward.
"How about we all take a seat?" Dumbledore suggested pleasantly, but, by the way everyone stopped arguing and moved to sit down at the table, Tim could have believed that he had been given them a direct order.
"Don't think this is over," said Sirius ominously, shaking his wand at Mad-Eye as he took a seat next to the tired man. As for Tim, Dumbledore led him over to the head of the table, where he would both be able to see everyone else but also had a couple feet of space between him and the rest of them. It was a strategic move on Dumbledore's part, meant to put Tim at ease.
Joke's on you, Tim thought smugly, I'm never at ease.
Tim made sure to take note of where people decided to sit and when they sat down. It told him a lot about their relationships. Sirius had made a direct beeline for the tired man, so there was clearly a connection there. Tonks had sat down right alongside the tired one, as if they were a unit. Were they dating? The two older redheads were definitely married, confirming Tim's earlier suspicions, and the younger one sat down next to the woman when given the choice between that seat and one next to Mad-Eye, also pointing to familial relations between the three. Dumbledore sat at the other end of the table, a spot which everyone had purposefully avoided. So he was considered their leader. Mad-Eye sat at Dumbledore's left, and McGonagall at his right, Snape next to her. The tired one had left two seats in between himself and Mad-Eye—apparently, he was not a desirable one to sit nearby. As Tonks took up one of those seats, Mundungus ended up being the unfortunate one who had to take the seat between her and Mad-Eye, looking nervously at Mad-Eye all the while.
"Now then," Dumbledore started, "I believe some introductions are in order?" Everyone turned to look at Tim, who let out a little laugh, trying to break the tension.
"Guess I'm first," he chuckled, rubbing the back of his neck as though embarrassed. "I'm Tim Drake-Wayne. I'm a transfer student at Hogwarts from Gotham, New Jersey." That was all they needed to know right now.
"Bill Weasley," the ponytail boy immediately jumped in, giving Tim a little wave. Tim waved back.
"I'm Molly Weasley," the woman told him, suddenly treating him with an unprecedented kindness, "and this is my husband, Arthur. We're Bill's parents."
Arthur nodded. "Arthur Weasley," he repeated. He, too, had a very friendly smile, and Tim felt a little bad for being so suspicious of them before when they were the parents of at least five kids. That kind of job didn't come easy—Bruce was a prime example.
"You are, of course, aware of Professor Snape, Professor McGonagall, and I," said Dumbledore, and at Tim's nod, he turned to Mad-Eye, who frowned at Tim.
"Alastor Moody," he growled between clenched teeth. "Ex-Auror." Tim was certain that that last bit was supposed to be a kind of threat, but Tim was not particularly intimidated. It took a lot to intimidate Tim nowadays.
Mundungus cleared his throat. "Mundungus Fletcher. Th' witch at th' pub." The one you attacked, seemed to be implied.
"Tonks," the woman next to him said, also appearing rather chipper in the face of Tim's existence. He was expecting a lot more hostility, honestly. Was Dumbledore's opinion that important to all of them?
"Remus Lupin," the tired man said, giving Tim a small smile. "I taught Defense Against the Dark Arts at Hogwarts two years ago."
"And I'm Sirius Black," Sirius said cheerfully.
"As in the mass-murderer?" Tim asked, raising an eyebrow. Dumbledore trusted Sirius, so he couldn't have been a major threat to the others, but Tim saw his name pop up in the Daily Prophet almost weekly.
Sirius frowned. "I was wrongly convicted. Didn't Harry tell you that?"
"No?" Why would Harry have told Tim about his friend the not-mass-murderer? When did Sirius expect something like that to come up in casual conversation? And, if Sirius was being accused of crimes left and right on a daily basis, why would Harry have admitted to knowing him?
"Well, that's probably a good thing," Sirius ultimately decided. "Anyways, I'm his godfather. Also, this is my house. And before you say anything," he added quickly, "I know it's trash."
Tim smirked. "I mean, I wasn't going to say anything, but…"
"So," Molly asked when he began to trail off, "you're friends with Harry?"
Tim nodded. "I'd say I know Hermione the best, but I'd like to say I'm friends with him and Ron, who I'm guessing is your son?" It wasn't really a question, but Tim phrased it as such, given that it would be more conducive to the ongoing conversation.
Molly nodded enthusiastically. "Yes, yes, how's he doing?"
"Good?" Tim tried to think of any specifics to report. "His first Quidditch match is in a month."
"Ron's on Gryffindor's Quidditch team?" Bill exclaimed excitedly, looking back and forth between Tim, his parents, and McGonagall.
Arthur nodded, puffing out his chest a little. "He sent us an owl a couple weeks ago. Gryffindor Keeper!"
Bill grinned from ear to ear. "That's brilliant!" Tim watched their family interact, feeling a pang of longing in his chest for his own family. They were clearly close to one another, and Bill's smile was almost as infectious as Dick's…
"So," Tim said in order to get his mind off of his own family, "do I get to know why Mundungus was spying on us today?"
Mad-Eye started to say, "You don' get—!" but Dumbledore cut in with, "Mundungus has been tasked with keeping an eye on Harry."
"Why?"
"Because Harry," he said, folding his hands on the table, "is a very important person."
Well, yes. That was part of his mission, finding out why Harry was so important in the first place. "Because he saw Voldemort reborn?"
"Because—"
"Hold it," Mad-Eye interrupted, slamming his fist down onto the table. "Are you just going to give away all of our secrets?"
Dumbledore smiled at Mad-Eye, and Tim found himself agreeing with the one-eyed man. Why would Dumbledore just tell Tim everything?
"I believe that Timothy might just know more than he has let on," Dumbledore said. "Perhaps he even knows things of which we ourselves are unaware."
Tim kept a neutral face at these words, although inside, Tim had realized that Dumbledore was onto him. He knew that Tim wasn't all he seemed. He knew that Tim had something to hide.
Well, there goes 'covert,' he thought, only mildly hysterical.
Mad-Eye's blue eye looked right at Tim. "And what's that supposed to mean, exactly?"
"I mean that, if we are willing to open up to young Timothy about our mission, he may be willing to open up to us about his."
Dumbledore smiled at Tim. Tim, whose heart rate had doubled in a matter of seconds. Tim, who was eyeing the stairs and trying to ascertain how quickly he could get back to Gotham, back to Bruce, back home, back where he didn't have to worry about all of this.
"What?" about everyone at the table said within the span of a couple seconds. Snape narrowed his eyes at Tim. Mad-Eye looked like he was about to burst a vein. Sirius looked like this was the most exciting thing that had happened to him all week.
Tim cleared his throat and hid his hands under the table so that no one would see him wringing them anxiously. "I—that—I—"
The point of this mission being undercover was so that Tim could get into Hogwarts and get close to Dumbledore and Harry, something impossible from the outside. If Dumbledore wasn't going to expel him for this, which seemed like the most likely outcome right now, what harm would come from teaming up with them? It didn't take a genius to recognize that these were the good guys, the wizarding world's 'Resistance.' It would be much easier to learn about Dumbledore and Harry if he had an in with them. It would certainly make Tim's research easier if he could ask them questions instead of having to comb an unreliable newspaper to even get the slightest idea of what something was. It wasn't like he was revealing his identity as Red Robin or anything.
"—that—that would be acceptable," he said, sitting up straight and mirroring Dumbledore's folded hands. You got this. You got this.
"W-what is he talking about, Albus?" McGonagall asked hesitantly, shooting suspicious looks at Tim.
"I mean," Dumbledore said in that same even tone of voice that betrayed no inner emotions, "that just as we, the Order of the Phoenix, are concerned with the defeat of Voldemort and the return to peace, I believe that Timothy here is a part of his own organization that shares our goal."
Tim paused, but then, taking another breath, nodded. "That is correct, sir."
"Come again?" Tonks said, blinking a couple times in a row.
Tim stood up. Best to hand out information on his own terms instead of letting Dumbledore reveal whatever information the man had pieced together.
"None of what I'm about to tell you leaves this room," he started, looking around the room as if daring anyone to object. No one said a word. "Well then…My name is Tim Drake-Wayne, and I am a covert operative of the Justice League of America."
Tim did not expect the silence that followed what he thought was going to be a huge bombshell for these people. In fact, besides Albus, whose eyebrows rose slightly, no one even moved an inch.
After a moment, Tonks bit her lip. "And, remind me again, what exactly is the Justice League of America?" She looked at Tim, embarrassed, and fiddled with a long lock of scarlet red hair, which caught Tim off-guard, seeing as it was definitely platinum and in a pixie cut a minute ago.
"They're rogue wizards," Mad-Eye immediately replied. Then, as if hearing his own words for the first time, he did a double take and looked back at Tim. "You're a rogue wizard?"
"I—no…" For some reason, Tim thought the people here would be better informed on the JLA. Evidently, that was not the case. "First of all, I'm not even a member of the Justice League. This is my first time collaborating with them." Step one was to distance himself from the JLA. That way, Tim could keep up his persona as a wizard—that was one part of his story he was most certainly not going to reveal to them. If these people found out that he wasn't even a natural magic-wielder, that would put him at an incredible disadvantage. He was already feeling cornered enough without his annulus around his neck.
"But why would you even work with rebels like that?" Sirius asked. "Aren't you afraid of being discovered by the outside world?"
"Again, I'm not a member, this is a one-time gig."
"So, how did they find you?" asked Remus.
"Are there other operatives at the school?" McGonagall added.
"Does your family know about this?" Molly asked.
Without raising his voice or standing up, Dumbledore quietly suggested, "How about we let Timothy explain things," and everyone immediately fell silent and looked back at Tim, who had been using the past twenty seconds to hurriedly concoct a believable cover story. There were a lot of cover stories he had to maintain. Why not add one more?
"Okay, so my father—my adoptive father—Bruce Wayne, is a Muggle, but he knows that I'm a wizard because, well, he's my dad. Anyways, he's a huge public supporter of the Justice League, so he sometimes hears about things before the general public. So, when he caught wind of an underground society of wizards whose war was threatening the safety of the world, Bruce immediately thought of me. When he told me this, I offered up my services. And that's how I got pulled into all of this."
A solid-ish cover story if Tim did say so himself.
McGonagall nodded. "So, your reason for attending Hogwarts is purely for the Justice League?"
"Well, I also didn't finish my magical education, and this was my chance to finally graduate."
Tim waited with bated breath, waited for someone to poke a hole in his story, for Mad-Eye to whip out that wand again, and for Tim to have to run upstairs and find his stuff so that he had an actual chance at defending himself.
When Mad-Eye stood up, Tim instinctively reached down to grab another smoke pellet from his pocket.
"You want to see the fall of the Dark Lord?" said Mad-Eye, both eyes on Tim.
"Yeah," he answered slowly. "I'm not terribly keen on witnessing world domination." Mad-Eye stared at Tim for what felt like ages, neither eye so much as twitching. Finally, he set his hand on his staff and sat down with a low groan.
"Then I suppose we have ourselves a temporary truce," he grumbled. "Just don't go thinking you can pull another stunt like that. I still don't trust you farther than I could hex you."
Tim let out a sigh, pulling his hand back out of his pocket and sitting back down as well. "That's good enough for me."
Snape cleared his throat, reminding everyone that he was still in the room. "Are we to ignore the fact that Mr. Drake-Wayne has admitted to effectively infiltrating Hogwarts and shown himself to be capable of combat without a wand?" He glanced over at Tim with half-lidded eyes.
Albus gave the man a sympathetic smile. "While I understand and appreciate your concerns, Severus, Timothy will still be permitted to attend Hogwarts so long as he continues to operate covertly and does not specifically break any rules while doing so."
Well, I won't be breaking any rules infront of anyone, so I'm probably good…
"And as for the latter, just because Timothy possesses a particular expertise in nonmagical fields does not mean he is to be labeled as a threat. On the contrary," and at this, he looked at Tim over his half-moon spectacles, "I think we have just made ourselves an invaluable ally."
Oh, the poor Order of the Phoenix. They did not sign up for having to deal with a Bat, especially one like Tim. And yet, the two parties have finally met, and Tim made up another cover story, as he is wont to do when under pressure.
CW: description of suffocation