Authors note: I am not making any money from this story and the characters solely belong to JKR.

CHAPTER ONE

It's another hot summer's day in London. The occupants of No.12 Grimmauld Place (if you could call it that.) which is more of a dark gloomy mansion that appears as though it belongs in a fantasy world of some dark wizards you wouldn't want to mingle with. The peculiarity of the house doesn't end there, you see, the building's not visible to everyone, which isn't very odd since the occupants of the house are very much magical.

The day of Ginny Weasley's life couldn't be more miserable (It could be, compared to what happened to her.) she was helping with the cleaning of this... whatever you want to call it, as she doesn't want to call it a house, and with top of that she had to endure the bickering of her prat of a brother ( not to mention twin) and her best friend. Ron Weasley who was long and gangly with freckles splattered across his face, and Hermione Granger, whose bushy hair is tied in a ponytail, are bickering again over SPEW, which Hermione had started in their fourth year. Tucking an errant red hair out of her eyes

"Shut the bloody hell up.", she shouted at them.

They both shut up, turned away from each other, and started ignoring each other. Though she knew it wouldn't last long

"Dinner is ready, come down you lot", her mother bellowed from downstairs.

It looks like the order meeting has been completed downstairs. They had been trying to listen in on them, but their mother had caught them at it. And they had to endure her scolding for half-hour, which felt like half a lifetime.

We went downstairs to the kitchen basement after washing ourselves. It was scarcely less gloomy than the hall above, a cavernous room with rough stone walls. Most of the light was coming from a large fire at the far end of the room. A haze of pipe smoke hung in the air like battle fumes, through which loomed the menacing shapes of heavy iron pots and pans hanging from the dark ceiling.

Many chairs had been crammed into the room for the meeting, and a long wooden table stood in the middle of the room, littered with rolls of parchment, goblets, empty wine bottles, and a heap of what appeared to be rags.

Mr Weasley, her dad and her eldest brother, Bill, were talking quietly with their heads together at the end of the table. Tonks in her favorite bubblegum pink hair chatting with Professor Lupin, who looked older than his age, his mousy brown hair graying and lines across his face. Mad eye moody creepy as always, with his gnarled face. Her mother, who lost some of her weight since the return of YOU-KNOW-WHO and the leaving of her.. not anymore brother Percy. As she was about to sit in the chair around the large dining table, she caught some of Lupin's conversation,

"I'm worried about him..." Remus was saying to Tonks. Which was interrupted by two loud cracks indicating the arrival of my twin brothers Fred and George, looking identical from their head to toe, unlike her and Ron. They were apparating around the house since they had passed their apparition test and irritating everyone they could. Which they always did, creating a laugh wherever they could, even in this somber atmosphere.

She understood what or about whom Lupin was talking about, the enigma that was Harry Potter. Harry Potter is a classmate and fellow of Gryffindor who was a loner, though she used to talk to him in her first year from the second year he went back to his isolation. She thought at the time it was because of what happened, or rather what she did in her first year, but it didn't make sense since he gave her his support in the aftermath. (Asking her, to play exploding snap when everyone was acting as though they didn't know how to act around her, as though nothing had happened and everyone treated her the same way in the tower afterwards.) She was grateful to this day for treating her like always when everyone was wondering and whispering and pointing. She didn't want to impose on him when he started to withdraw into himself. And she had other things on her mind, so she let him be as he wished.

But now, outside of school, he was different here. He didn't stay here much in the daytime, and when he did stay he spent it mostly with Lupin or with us cleaning this ghastly house. He still retained his quick wit and sarcasm, which she forgot he exhibited though not often. But sometimes he sort of exploded with such a rage that you can't chalk it up to teenage behaviour. She could still remember him threatening the portrait of Walburga Black of what he would do if she opened her mouth again.

"FILTHY SCUM, TREACHEROUS BLOOD TRAITORS, HALF BREEDS AND MUDBLOODS BEGONE FROM MY HOUSE. THAT TRAITOROUS PIECE OF SCUM COULDN'T LEAVE US IN PEACE EVEN AFTER DEAD.

And the troll leg stand, due to which Tonks always tripped, had been thrown at her portrait with a force which would have broken it if it wasn't magical.

"You better keep that stink hole you call a mouth shut and never talk about Sirius again if you want your Noble and Ancient House of Black in all its glory," Harry said with a calm voice that didn't hide his fury much, "I wouldn't mind watching it burned down and I swear it."

Everyone could tell he meant it and the portrait has kept its mouth shut till today. Lupin had dragged Harry out of the room, not before he said bitch to that ..well bitch.

He disappeared again for a few days. Even when, after he returned he never much talked to anyone other than Lupin, and sometimes Tonks, her mother and father and Bill.

Hermione as usual, provided her intellect though

"It must be hard for him to be here, where Sirius must have hated all his childhood."

"Not to mention he must have had a rough life, a bit more than rough if you ask me and Sirius must have given him something he always awaited or something," Ron said with unusual insight. She was sure he could see the surprise on our faces.

"Yeah he was skin and bones, wasn't he? When he first arrived at Hogwarts and he always stayed at the castle during the holidays." Ginny asked.

There was something about him, that dark aura, not malevolent but dark nonetheless, the way he talked as though he saw things that no One should have had to see, as though he was holding his whole world with a thin string which would break at the silent disturbance. I sometimes think Lupin and Hagrid are the only one holding him together. And he lost Sirius 2 years ago. We didn't talk much about that topic; the summer holidays started the next day after his death. It was painful for us to know that an innocent man had died, someone who had been betrayed and suffered as no one should. The story which they have gleaned from a lot of rule-breaking, not to mention they were there when Pettigrew was forced out of his animagus form, which was none other than Ron's rat, Scabbers. Ginny could only imagine what he went through. But by the start of the new year, it went back to the past, not forgotten, but not constantly at the forefront of the mind. Harry isolated himself even more.

Dinner started, mum had made stew which is delicious as always, and everyone was chatting quietly, enjoying their meal.

Tonks was entertaining Hermione and me by transforming her nose between mouthfuls. Screwing up her eyes, each

time with the same pained expression as always, her nose swelled to a beak like protuberance like Snape's, (her greasy git of a professor)shrank to something resembling a button mushroom, and then

sprouted a great deal of hair from each nostril.

This is a regular mealtime entertainment for us, and after a while, Hermione and Ginny started requesting their favorite noses.

"Do that one like a pig snout, Tonks . . ."

After everyone finished dinner, Lupin announced,

"Dumbledore thinks you lot should know a bit of what is going on so that you don't believe some half stories you heard and do something you shouldn't".

The children were astonished that they were willing to provide information that they had been trying to hide from them. They looked at Mrs Weasley, who didn't look happy but resigned, and said,

"Only what you need to know and nothing more."

"Yes, nothing more"agreed Mr Weasley mostly to mollify her misgivings.

Just then the front door opened and arrived Harry, whose hair looked as messy as always, and his eyes the emerald green colour to which most girls would swoon . (Not her, though she found them attractive.)

"Harry" greeted Lupin.

"Oh! hello Remus, don't let me disturb you carry on I will make some hot chocolate and go to bed" he replied, and he did look tired with dark circles under his eyes.

Ginny wondered whether Remus would include Harry or wait until he went to his room. He chose the first option.

"Okay, . . . what do you want to know?" asked Lupin.

"Where's YOU-KNOW-WHO? What's he doing? I've been trying to watch

the Muggle news," Hermione asked never one to stop herself from gaining knowledge, "and there hasn't been any suspicious activity everything is quiet as it is, except maybe the verbal attacks on Dumbledore and Neville".

"That's because there haven't been any suspicious deaths yet," said Moody, "not as far as we know, anyway. . . . And we know quite a lot."

"More than he thinks we do anyway," said Lupin.

"How come he's stopped killing people?" Ron asked. They knew that he had murdered more than once in the last year alone.

"Because he doesn't want to draw attention to himself at the moment," said dad. "It would be dangerous for him. His comeback didn't come off quite the way he wanted it to, you see. He messed it up."

"Or rather, Neville messed it up for him," said Lupin with a satisfied smile.

"How?" Ginny asked perplexedly.

"Neville wasn't supposed to survive!" said Bill. "Nobody apart from his Death Eaters was supposed to know he'd come back. But he survived to bear witness."

"And the very last person he wanted alerted to his return the moment he got back was Dumbledore," said Lupin. "And Neville made sure Dumbledore knew at once."

"Shouldn't Neville deserve to know all this information though"interrupted Ron.

"Dumbledore wanted him to have some peace and rest assured he will be informed of this by his grandmother."

"So how has that helped?" Fred asked, bringing the discussion to the main track.

"Are you kidding?" said Bill incredulously. "Dumbledore was the only one You-Know-Who was ever scared of!"

"Thanks to Neville, Dumbledore was able to recall the Order of the Phoenix about an hour after Voldemort returned," said Bill.

"So what's the Order been doing?" said Fred, looking around at them all.

"Working as hard as we can to make sure Voldemort can't carry out his plans," said Moody in his gruff voice.

"How d'you know what his plans are?" George asked quickly.

"Dumbledore's got a shrewd idea," said Lupin, "and Dumbledore's shrewd ideas normally turn out to be accurate."

"So what does Dumbledore reckon he's planning?"

"Well, firstly, he wants to build up his army again," said Lupin. "In the old days he had huge numbers at his command; witches and wizards he'd bullied or bewitched into following him, his faithful Death Eaters, a great variety of Dark creatures. You know him planning to

recruit the giants; well, they'll be just one group he's after. He's certainly not going to try and take on the Ministry of Magic with only a dozen Death Eaters."

"So you're trying to stop him from getting more followers?"

"We're doing our best," said Lupin.

"How?"

"Well, the main thing is to try and convince as many people as possible that You-Know-Who really has returned, to put them on their guard," said Bill. "It's proving tricky, though."

"Why?"

"Because of the Ministry's attitude," said Tonks. "You saw Cornelius Fudge after You-Know-Who came back. Well, he hasn't shifted his position at all. He's absolutely refusing to believe it's happened."

"But why?" said Hermione desperately, still unable to comprehend the stupidity that's responsible for us. "Why's he being so stupid? If Dumbledore —"

"Ah, well, you've put your finger on the problem," said Dad with a wry smile. "Dumbledore."

"Fudge is frightened of him, you see," said Tonks sadly.

"Frightened of Dumbledore?" said Ron incredulously.

"Frightened of what he's up to," said Mr Weasley. "You see, Fudge thinks Dumbledore's plotting to overthrow him. He thinks Dumbledore wants to be Minister of Magic."

"But Dumbledore doesn't want —"

"Of course, he doesn't," said dad. "He's never wanted the Minister's job, even though a lot of people wanted him to take it when Millicent Bagnold retired. Fudge came to power instead, but he's never quite forgotten how much popular support Dumbledore had,

even though Dumbledore never applied for the job."

"Deep down, Fudge knows Dumbledore's much cleverer than he is, a much more powerful wizard, and in the early days of his Ministry he was forever asking Dumbledore for help and advice," said Lupin. "But it seems that he's become fond of power now, and much more confident. He loves being Minister of Magic, and he's managed to convince

himself that he's the clever one, and Dumbledore's simply stirring up

trouble for the sake of it."

"How can he think that?" said Ron angrily. "How can he think Dumbledore would just make it all up — that I'd make it all up?"

"Because accepting that Voldemort's back would mean trouble like

the Ministry hasn't had to cope with for nearly fourteen years," said

Moody bitterly. "Fudge just can't bring himself to face it. It's so much

more comfortable to convince himself Dumbledore's lying to destabilize him."

Ginny could observe Harry watching us with an amused smile playing on his lips, and he was not seeing towards Moody, and always tried to avoid him, which we i.e. Ron, Hermione and me thought was odd.

"You see the problem," continued Lupin. "While the Ministry insists there is nothing to fear from Voldemort, it's hard to convince people

he's back, especially as they really don't want to believe it in the first

place. What's more, the Ministry's leaning heavily on the Daily Prophet not to report any of what they're calling Dumbledore's rumormongering, so most of the Wizarding community are completely unaware anything's happened, and that makes them easy targets for the

Death Eaters if they're using the Imperius Curse."

"But you're telling people, aren't you?" Ginny asked, looking around

at dad, Moody, Bill, Mundungus, Lupin, and Tonks. "You're letting people know he's back?"

They all smiled humorlessly.

"Well, as everyone thinks I'm a mad old paranoid bat who lost his marbles, I don't think many would believe me".

"And I'm not a very popular dinner guest with most of the community," said Lupin. "It's an occupational hazard of being a werewolf."

"Tonks and Arthur would lose their jobs at the Ministry if they started shooting their mouths off," said Lupin, "and it's very important for us to have spies inside the Ministry, because you can bet Voldemort will have them."

"We've managed to convince a couple of people, though," said dad .

"Tonks here, for one — she's too young to have been in the

Order of the Phoenix last time, and having Aurors on our side is a

huge advantage — Kingsley Shacklebolt's been a real asset too."

"But if none of you's putting the news out that YOU-KNOW-WHO's

back —" Hermione began.

"Who said none of us was putting the news out?" said Moody. "Why

d'you think Dumbledore's in such trouble?"

"They're trying to discredit him," said Lupin. "Didn't you see the

Daily Prophet last week? They reported that he'd been voted out of the

Chairmanship of the International Confederation of Wizards because

he's getting old and losing his grip, but it's not true, he was voted out

by Ministry wizards after he made a speech announcing Voldemort's

return. They've demoted him from Chief Warlock on the Wizengamot — that's the Wizard High Court — and they're talking about taking away his Order of Merlin, First Class, too."

"But Dumbledore says he doesn't care what they do as long as they

don't take him off the Chocolate Frog cards," said Bill, grinning.

"It's no laughing matter," said Mr. Weasley shortly. "If he carries on

defying the Ministry like this, he could end up in Azkaban and the

last thing we want is Dumbledore locked up. While You-Know-Who

knows Dumbledore's out there and wise to what he's up to, he's going

to go cautiously for a while. If Dumbledore's out of the way — well,

You-Know-Who will have a clear field."

"But if YOU-KNOW-WHO's trying to recruit more Death Eaters, it's bound

to get out that he's come back, isn't it?" Ginny asked desperately.

"Voldemort doesn't march up to people's houses and bang on their

front doors, Ginny" said Lupin. "He tricks, jinxes, and blackmails

them. He's well-practiced at operating in secrecy. In any case, gathering followers is only one thing he's interested in, he's got other plans

too, plans he can put into operation very quietly indeed, and he's concentrating on them at the moment."

"What's he after apart from followers?" Ron asked swiftly.

She thought she saw Moody and Lupin exchange, the most fleeting of

looks before Moody said, "Stuff he can only get by stealth."

When we all continued to look puzzled, Lupin said, "Like a

weapon. Something he didn't have last time."

"When he was powerful before?"

"Yes."

"Like what kind of weapon?" said Hermione. "Something worse than

the Avada Kedavra — ?"

"That's enough."

Mum's voice came from the shadows beside the door. She had

forgotten mum was there. Her arms were crossed and she looked furious.

"I want you in bed, now. All of you," she added, looking around at

Fred, George, me, Ron, and Hermione.

"You can't boss us —" Fred began.

"Watch me," snarled mum . She was trembling slightly as

she looked at Lupin. "You've given them plenty of information. Any

more and you might just as well induct them into the Order

straightaway."

"Why not?" said Ron quickly. "I'll join, I want to join, I want to

fight —"

"No."

It was not Mrs. Weasley who spoke this time, but Lupin.

"The Order is comprised only of overage wizards," he said. "Wizards who have left school," he added, as Fred and George opened their mouths. "There are dangers involved of which you can have no idea,

any of you . . . I think Molly's right. We've said enough."

From the back, there was a snort and I remembered Harry was there. He was drinking his hot cocoa.

"What's funny boy?"asked Moody, "think this all some game do you?"

And he was avoiding Moody's eye contact while replying,

"Oh I was laughing about how you're playing them, did Dumbledore give you the script or have you all crafted it yourself. If you have then I should've given you lot much more credit than I gave you".

Moody was watching him calculatingly, not taking any offence.

Tonks was watching the scene unfold with amusement

She couldn't understand what Harry was implying, and took offense that he thought us naive. Fred must've thought the same because he demanded,

"What do you mean?".

"Just that they didn't really give you any information that you already don't know" he replied"Aren't I correct Moody?"

And at last, he looked Moody in the eye, as though he knew we thought he was avoiding Moody's eye, and want to declare he isn't afraid of Moody's eye, nor was he ignoring it.

"Gathered enough nerve to look me in the eye now have you?"retorted Moody

"Sorry if I didn't want to look in to your beautiful face Mad-eye."he said smoothly,

though there was something in his eye saying he was remembering something unpleasant, but trying not to.

"What do you mean they're giving us information we already know."asked Hermione.

"Harry.."Lupin said, though half-hearted, he too looked as though he too wanted to see what Harry was going on about.

Harry ignored him and grinned at Hermione as though he knew she hated, not knowing that she knew something more than not knowing something.

"Oh like You knew what you needed, but in your eagerness to find something from their meetings you didn't try to think about what you know"he said"Can't you really think why Voldemort" –everyone flinched and gasped, with the exception of Moody and Lupin–"would want to lie low and what would he do lying low, definitely not playing gobstones, I guess."

It brought out a laugh from many, the idea of vold–You-know-who playing gobstones was absurd, and that in itself was an understatement.

"And if you think about it you can tell why gathering more people to believe us is hard, people like to live in their blissful oblivion, the fools"he said it in a matter-of fact way.

"So yeah they didn't really give you any information except about Voldemort–everyone flinch again–seeking something he didn't have last time."Harry said.

"It was true they didn't really say anything new which they couldn't grasp."

"So why don't you enlighten us with your great deduction skill about what we didn't say."asked Moody hotly, but there was a faint edge of anticipation or eagerness, as though he couldn't wait to see some detective work done by a teenage boy.

"Do we really have to Alastor–"but Harry cut off, mum, evidently not wanting to back off from a challenge, though he gave her an apologetic look which seemed to mollify her a bit and she could see that her mum was also waiting about what he would tell.

"Voldemort most probably would look for information, and his first priority works be finishing off Neville which he is finding Difficult and make him look like a fool who claims to be tge most powerful wizard but could finish neither a toddler nor a teenager."

Ginny felt a bit nauseated about how he talked about someone's death, that too, a classmate of his, in a matter-of fact way.

"So first he went to Neville's house but why want to look him in the first place? Something must be there about Neville that he feared, that he himself went to finish off the business. Dear old Riddle"–this struck Ginny odd, since he spoke as though he had met him, but–"fears death above everything. He must have got the information that Neville could defeat him, but why would he believe a toddler could kill him when many skilled witches and wizards couldn't."

"The information must have been solid or its a major possibility or the one who gave the information couldn't be wrong."Ron said, there was a reason he wanted to become an auror.

Harry smiled, as though enjoying how everyone was joining the dots.

George said

"Maybe like a prophecy." One look at dad's face was enough to know that was the answer.

"Prophecy..." Hermione said skeptically. Her disbelief in divination was showing clearly.

"Muggles don't believe magic either and just because we don't like something or don't want it to be true doesn't mean they aren't there"Harry said.

"But professor Mcgonagall doesn't–

"Dumbledore believes them and everyone has their own flaws and that doesn't make them any less genius, it makes them human" She could remember it perfectly, the quotation similar to that one. Someone gave her a not in the hospital wing after her disastrous 1st year. A letter which contained something similar to that. Which helped me enormously over the years, though I still don't know who gave it to me.

Hermione had no retort to that answer.

"So they must be guarding this prophecy, but why guard it if he already know it's content"

"Maybe he doesn't know everything, so he want it too see any mistakes he had done and be careful this time."

Harry beamed at me like a proud teacher, and I couldn't help but smile back at him.

"But how does he only know half and not full" asked Ron .

And it's visible in Harry's face that he knew something else and was slowly drawing some conclusions.

But our mum had had enough. She must not have anticipated us coming this far on our own, or she was sure her mum would never have let us have even that tiny information the order had us.

Her mum was shouting for us to get to bed and we could see it was best to obey.

Her mum's shouting served to have snapped everybody, and it's clear that the order hadn't expected us to learn this much either. Though Moody, who was staring at Harry with an appraisal barked.

"Don't tell anyone this information,

you can never know who is on which side.

CONSTANT VIGILANCE"

Lupin was half smiling in exasperation and half in nostalgia, as though reliving his fond memories, and Tonks was watching him with a wistful look.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: This story is not strictly canon. Sirius died in 3rd book for reasons that will be revealed. And Everything will be clear after some chapters. Any advice is welcome