Author's Note – And after yet another long absence, here's chapter two. I'm really experiencing some slump with this story. I know exactly what needs to happen and how, but the words just won't come. It's quite frustrating.
Chapter Two
The International Statue of Secrecy
Alaw wasn't sure how she managed to drive the car back in the dark with broken windows and her hands shaking uncontrollably, but the trusty Ford Anglia seemed to know the way. They rolled back into the campsite just as the sun was rising and the moment they pulled up alongside their tents, Alaw staggered out of the car and over to the water's edge. She stood there, her hands resting on her thighs, not sure if she was going to vomit or not. In the end she didn't, and she had just turned to help the others pack away their stuff when she saw a man striding across the grass towards them. He was quite obviously a wizard for he was wearing full length, sky blue robes with some sort of insignia on the chest. He stopped next to the car and fixed them all with a stern look.
"Parlez-vous Francais?" he asked them sharply.
"Uh, un petit peu," said Alaw uncertainly and the wizard frowned at her.
"English?" he tried and they all nodded. "Bien sûr, I am Captain Chevalier, there was very much magic here last night."
"Um, yes, that was us, sorry," said Hermione. She looked extremely sheepish as the Captain turned his fierce gaze onto her directly and Alaw scrambled to explain.
"We were attacked by a Dementor, we had to use our wands to defend ourselves. But we weren't near any muggles at the time."
The Captain's frown deepened but Alaw could tell he was more confused than angry now.
"Pardon, my English is not good, you say, Dementor? What is this?"
Alaw had no idea what Dementor might be in French and she looked at the boys helplessly but they merely shrugged and shook their heads. The Captain seemed to come to a decision.
"D'accord, tu viens avec moi, ah, to the station. I will find a translator."
We appear to be being arrested, thought Alaw glumly as the Captain waved his wand and all their belongings packed themselves away neatly into the trunk of the car. The windows also repaired themselves and some of the dents in the bumper popped out. Well, maybe this wasn't the end of the world. She was sure once they were able to explain themselves properly they would be free to go. No idiot was going to charge them for defending themselves.
And so that was how they found themselves, two hours later, squashed onto a bench in the local gendarmerie. The Captain had rode in the front of the Ford Anglia with Alaw, directing her down the country lanes until they reached the nearest wizarding village. It was little more than a tiny hamlet with only half a dozen buildings as far as Alaw could see. The local Auror station consisted of a single building which doubled as a post office. Captain Chevalier and a heavily pregnant Sergeant called Leroux were the only Aurors on duty. She had a little more English than her Captain and so together they had been able to jot down a statement.
"So," the Captain said, glancing down at the parchment in front of him. "You say you were attacked by a Détraqueur, pardon, two Détraqueur?"
They all nodded obediently.
"And you used the Patronus charm to get rid of them?"
More nods. The Captain signed the bottom of the parchment and then turned it around so that the four of them could do the same. Whilst they were busy doing that, he took out his wand and then selected Alaw's from the table. He placed them tip to tip and muttered a spell under his breath. At once, a small cloud of silver smoke rose from the point where the two wands met and twisted into the shape of a dragon. The Captain, looking mildly impressed, gave her the wand back and sat down again.
"Well, that seems to check out. And no muggles saw you so there's no harm done. I suppose we need to investigate this attack now. Never had Dementors in this area before."
As the Captain mulled this over the four Brits exchanged hopeful looks.
"So, are we free to go?" asked Hermione and the Captain jerked out of his reverie.
"Oh, oui bien sûr, yes you can go. Just give Leroux your home address on the way out."
He pulled out more pieces of parchment and started drawing up his report, so Alaw and the others all got up and shuffled out of his office. Once out into the main room they each let out a relieved sigh.
"Well, that could have been a lot worse," Neville muttered. "But they seem more worried about the Dementors than anything we did."
"Of course they're worried, who wouldn't be? All the Dementors are supposed to be locked up in Azkaban and under the control of various Ministries. They don't just wonder around the countryside."
"Or haunt castles," Alaw reminded them and all four of them shuddered at the memory of the monster which had stalked the corridors of Hogwarts in their first year. "Anyway, it's obvious why the Dementors were here, isn't it?"
Alaw lowered her voice, even though they were alone in the post office with no one but half a dozen sleepy owls for company.
"He sent them didn't he? Voldemort."
The boys winced and Ron gave her a sharp whack on the arm.
"Stop saying that!" he hissed. The girls ignored him as usual. Hermione was shaking her head.
"Dumbledore warned Fudge this would happen!" she said darkly. "He warned him that the Dementors would defect, and he was right! It's been, what, two months? And they've already joined him! Well at least now Fudge will have to listen."
She stopped talking abruptly as Sergeant Leroux came in from a room behind the long counter, holding a letter.
"Pardon, which one of you is Alaw Jones?" she asked and Alaw raised her eyebrows in surprise.
"Um, me."
Leroux held out the letter to her.
"This came a few minutes ago whilst you were with the Captain. It's from London."
Alaw's first, panicked thought was that Dumbledore had finally found a way to bypass the anti-tracking charm. But then she took a proper look at the letter and her feeling of dread increased. The parchment was thick and had an official feel to it and when she flipped the envelope over she saw the seal of the Ministry of Magic stamped there. After breaking this, she tugged the letter out anxiously and read the short missive quickly, her eyes darting from one side of the page to the other.
Dear Miss Jones,
The Ministry has received intelligence that you performed the Patronus Charm at twenty three minutes to five (local time) this morning in a Muggle-inhabited area. This is a severe breach of the Decree for the Reasonable Restriction of Underage Sorcery and Section 13 of the International Confederation of Wizards' Statue of Secrecy. Your presence is required at a disciplinary hearing at the Ministry of Magic at 9am on the 20th of July. You should consider yourself suspended from Hogwarts School until that time, when a permanent decision shall be made.
Yours Sincerely
Mafalda Hopkirk
Improper Use of Magic Office
Ministry of Magic
Alaw read the message through again to make sure she understood it properly, then lowered it, feeling faintly sick.
"Neville," she said. "You know how you said this could have been a lot worse? Well it got worse."
O
It was a long drive back to Calais and Hermione ranted the entire way about the injustice of it all. Alaw didn't say anything much, her brain was whirring as she tried to come up with a plan. Her parents weren't expecting her back in Beddgelert before the end of the summer. The plan had been for them to meet up with her in London for a few days at the end of July before she caught the train back to school. It was probably best to let them think she was still in France for the time being. But that was the easy part, Alaw was at a loss for what to do about the rest of it. Any reasonable committee wouldn't even give her a caution under the circumstances, but the Ministry would surely find any excuse to expel her. And what then? They would snap her wand and she would have to go back to living life as a muggle. Until Lord Voldemort hunted her down of course.
Alaw was barely aware of the chaos of Customs, or the flickering lights as they zoomed through the Channel Tunnel. She was only brought out of her reverie when Hermione asked where she thought they should go next. Ron was back behind the wheel and he had successfully navigated them off the Shuttle and now they were driving along the road out of the station.
"I think we should pull in here and get something to eat," Alaw decided, pointing to a road veering off towards a service station.
Ron directed the car towards this and somehow managed to ease it into a parking spot without hitting either of the cars next to them. Alaw glanced at her phone as they all got out of the Ford Anglia. It was late in the evening now and they were all a little cranky from being cooped up for so long. They needed food, and they needed to find somewhere to stay for the night, then in the morning they would work out where to go from there.
"So where do you want to eat? I'm starving!" Ron yawned, stretching as he did so as if he had been the one driving for nine hours, not Hermione.
"Of course you are Ronald, some things never change."
All four of them whipped around at the sound of Mr Weasley's voice. There he stood, wearing not only a frown but a mismatched collection of muggle clothes, including a floral Hawaiian shirt and pink crocs. And he wasn't alone. Professor Lupin was standing beside him, as well as two others Alaw didn't recognise. One was a woman, not much older than they were by the looks of things, with purple hair. The other was altogether more frightening. He was lopsided, perhaps because he had a wooden stump instead of a left leg, his face was entirely covered in scars and he had a huge chunk of his nose missing. But the most bizarre thing was the electric blue glass eye he had. Alaw could tell it wasn't a real eye because of the way it kept whizzing around in its socket.
"Dad, what –" Ron began but Mr Weasley had already strode forward and drawn his youngest son into a tight hug.
"Thank goodness you're back, your mother is mad with worry! You are in a world of trouble young man, are you hurt?"
He was now holding Ron at arm's length and looking terribly anxious.
"Dad, I'm fine, we're fine. But how did you find us?"
"The Ministry revoked your anti-tracking charm," growled the man with the glass eye. "And once we found out how you got out of the country, it didn't take a genius to work out how you'd come back."
The man's voice was as menacing as his appearance and he and his companions came over to join them next the car. The muggles walking past were shooting them curious glances but they all scurried away when the man turned his gaze onto them. Mr Weasley introduced them.
"This is Alastor Moody, he's an ex-Auror and an old friend of Dumbledore's. And this is Nymphadora Tonks,"
"Current Auror, and it's just Tonks, nice to finally meet you all," said the woman good-naturedly with a pronounced Yorkshire accent.
"We've come to take you all somewhere safe," said Professor Lupin sternly.
He was giving Alaw a particularly hard look, as if she had disappointed him deeply and she kept her gaze fixed guiltily on her shoes.
"Yes, the sooner we get out of the open, the better. If we could find you, you can bet anything the Death Eaters are on the way too. Now, you lot, get back in that car right now, Arthur's driving," said Moody.
The four truants piled into the back seat of the Ford Anglia. This wasn't as impossible as it sounded, given that the car magically expanded once they were inside. The young woman, Tonks, also joined them whilst Mr Weasley sat himself down in the driver's seat and Moody and Lupin somehow managed to squeeze into the passenger seat. Alaw kept staring at the floor as Mr Weasley wheeled them back out of the car park and onto the motorway.
"Where are we going?" Hermione asked in a small voice.
"London, and that's all you need to know for now," said Moody. He had his wand out and he was glaring out of the window. "Thought you were clever giving us the slip, but you're under out protection now."
Hermione shared a worried glance with Alaw who nodded pointedly at her phone and began typing a text.
Let me and Ron take the blame for this, pretend you didn't know anything.
Hermione glanced down at her phone as it buzzed and after reading the text she gave a tiny nod, a slight frown creasing her forehead. Then she quickly turned the screen black as Tonks peered curiously at it. Alaw leant her head against the window and closed her eyes, allowing the movement of the car to lull her into a doze. She might as well rest now before having the telling off of a lifetime once they got to wherever they were going.
After managing to sleep almost the entire way to London, Alaw was nudged awake by Ron. Her head had lolled over to rest on his shoulder but he didn't seem to mind, Hermione was similarly dozing against Neville.
"Al, wake up," Ron murmured. Alaw groaned and blinked a few times in the orange glare of the street lamps passing outside the car. Mr Weasley was trying to park but he mounted the pavement ungracefully and they all jolted in their seats.
"For god's sake Arthur, why don't you try and be more conspicuous?" Moody complained, already getting out of the car and gazing around the deserted street suspiciously.
"There's no one here, Alastor, and we're parked two streets away as you requested," said Mr Weasley patiently, also opening his door and stepping into the street.
There were standing in a very run down area of London, though the terrace houses looked large and old, they clearly hadn't yet been subject to gentrification. Instead of fancy townhouses, these looked to be divided into flats and squats. There were a couple of overflowing skips nearby and most of the walls had been heavily gratified. Mr Weasley walked around the car to pop open the boot and Alaw moved to pick up her backpack containing her clothes and toiletries.
"Just take what you need for tonight," Mr Weasley advised as Hermione and the boys gathered around. "You can leave the tents and what not, we'll sort them out in the morning."
Moody was already leading the way down the street and Mr Weasley quickly locked the car and chivvied the young ones along. Lupin and Tonks had their wands out and were keeping an eye out for trouble. As it turned out there wasn't a soul in sight, though they heard rap music coming from an upstairs room of one of the houses, and two people arguing and swearing at each other from another. After a couple of turns they came upon a small square of unkempt grass which was strewn with empty crisp packets and crumpled beer cans. Alaw read the street sign as they passed it, Grimmauld Place.
How appropriate, she thought grimly. Moody held out a gnarled hand and they all stopped in their tracks as he turned to face them.
"Right, you lot, get over here," he muttered and the four friends shuffled forwards. Moody was holding a piece of paper and he evidently wanted them all to read it. Alaw squinted in the darkness, only half the street lamps were working and the closest one was flickering annoyingly.
The Headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix may be found at number twelve, Grimmauld Place, London.
The moment they were done reading, Alaw heard a scraping noise and she turned her head to see that the row of houses next to them was moving. Or rather, a new house was sliding into view between numbers eleven and thirteen. After two years in the wizarding world, Alaw still wasn't quite accustomed to seeing fantastical things and they always brought a smile to her face. This was quite something to behold. She doubted the muggles on either side of the new house felt or heard a thing as it muscled its way in between them.
"Alright, let's get inside, quick!" Lupin murmured. Alaw followed him up the stone steps to the front door which was painted black and had a rusty number twelve set over the enormous snake-shaped knocker.
Lupin tapped the door with his wand once and from inside the house came several metallic clicks and the clatter of a chain, then a bolt being drawn back. The door creaked open and Alaw was able to step across the threshold into a dark hallway. The first thing that struck Alaw was the smell, the house reeked of damp and rot, it was the stench of a place which had been abandoned for years. Once they were all inside the door was quickly shut behind them and the locks could be heard clicking back into place. Alaw then blinked as old fashioned gas lamps hissed into life all around them and she was able to get a proper look at where she was. The hallway was long and quite wide, though most of it was taken up by a wooden staircase.
This place may once have been grand, but the carpet was now threadbare and the wall paper was peeling away at the corners. Most of it was covered in portraits of sleeping witches and wizards but between these were large patches of the damp Alaw had detected. Hanging from the ceiling was a cobwebbed chandelier shaped like serpents. Remembering the knocker, Alaw frowned at this. The Slytherin motif wasn't something she'd expected to find in the headquarters of the anti-Voldemort movement. Lupin was now facing them all.
"Now, before we go any further, I need to warn you all to keep your voices down in this hall," he whispered.
Alaw's frown deepened and she looked around the hallway again. She heard something scuttling behind the skirting board and hoped it was just mice and not something more dangerous. There was a door to the right of the stairs which suddenly opened to reveal Mrs Weasley. She looked a lot paler than she normally did, though that may have just been the odd light of the lamps. When she saw the newcomers her hand flew to her heart and she strode across the hall to hug Ron as her husband had done.
"Thank goodness! Oh when I heard about the Dementor I was so worried, oh Ron!"
Alaw's feeling of guilt redoubled when she realised Mrs Weasley had tears in her eyes as she embraced her youngest son. Ron was obviously feeling something along the same lines because his face had gone bright red.
"We're fine mum, we're all fine," he muttered, hugging her back as her silent sobs grew worse.
Mr Weasley drew his wife away and Mrs Weasley wiped her eyes with a handkerchief.
"Well, he's arrived, the meeting's started," she whispered to Lupin, Tonks and Moody who all moved off towards the door she had just come through. Alaw felt the need to say something,
"Mrs Weasley, I –" she began but Mrs Weasley raised a hand to silence her.
"We can have a little chat after the meeting. But for now you all need to go upstairs and be patient. We'll have dinner later too. Ginny and the twins are in the first room off the first floor landing, they'll explain a bit more to you I don't doubt."
The four friends turned uncertainly and mounted the stairs whilst the Weasley parents watched them go.
"I feel terrible," Alaw groaned the moment they had both disappeared through the door.
"Me too," Ron muttered.
Neville and Hermione didn't say anything until they reached the landing when Neville grabbed Ron's arm and asked him, very seriously.
"You didn't tell your mum and dad we were going to France, did you?"
Ron glanced at Alaw wretchedly, then shook his head. Neville gave the pair of them a look Alaw had never seen before. He was angry, and hurt, and something else she couldn't identify.
"Why? And why didn't you tell Hermione and me?" he asked stonily.
"Because mum and dad would never have let me go!" Ron blurted out. "And then they would have told Dumbledore and he would never have let you guys go either!"
"And we didn't tell you because we wanted you to have plausible deniability. This way, you won't get into trouble," Alaw finished. Neville turned his frown directly onto her.
"Don't you trust us or something? We're your friends, Al! There's no need for you to lie, we worked it out weeks ago. Dumbledore told you to stay home, didn't he? But you decided to go on holiday instead, and fair enough, I don't blame you. But you should have told us instead of sneaking around like this."
Alaw wasn't enjoying this telling off at all but she was saved from further recriminations when the door next to the opened and Ginny poked her head out.
"Are you lot done whispering out here?" she asked with a grin. "Cause we can't quite hear you through the keyhole so it would be easier if you just came inside."
She stood aside and waved them all into the room. It held two beds and not much else, clearly this house wasn't properly furnished. Fred and George were perched on the windowsill and upon seeing Alaw they began to clap.
"Aha! The jailbirds return to the nest, bravo fair Slytherin, we salute you," said Fred, getting up and sweeping a flamboyant bow.
"Yeah, we thought we were brave, but you really take the biscuit," said George admiringly. "I didn't think you'd actually get the better of old Dumbledore, but you did it kiddo. So proud."
He wiped an imaginary tear from his eye and Alaw tisked, though she gave a small smile. Hermione wasn't as impressed with their antics and asked anxiously,
"Have they all been really worried?"
"Mum has, the others calmed down a bit once Sirius told them you'd only gone on holiday. Though Dumbledore had a right go at Mundungus. He was supposed to be following you but you gave him the slip in Dover," said Ginny as she flopped onto one of the beds. She and the twins shared meaningful looks and Fred gave a low whistle.
"Never seen Dumbledore so angry, I swear, Mundungus must have shit himself," he said with a note of awe in his voice.
Alaw grimaced and sank into a rickety old chair. As worried as she was about Mr and Mrs Weasley, she was nowhere near as afraid of their anger, as she was of Dumbledore's. She imagined she'd be hauled into his presence after this meeting they were all having and she'd have to steel herself for that ordeal. George had taken up the narrative.
"Yeah, I reckon if it hadn't been for that Dementor attack, you could have gone the entire summer without being found. But you need to tell us about that, cause that lot downstairs didn't explain a damn thing and there's only so much you can pick up eavesdropping.
Ron gave his siblings a quick rundown of the attack, concluding with their trip to the Gendarmerie and the letter from the Ministry. The twins and Ginny looked suitable scandalised.
"Gits," Fred growled. "Why is the Ministry getting involved anyway? This happened in France! It should be Paris prosecuting you, not London."
"It's probably cause I'm underage," Alaw groaned, rubbing the heels of her palms into her eyes. She was truly exhausted and hungry, she hoped the meeting wouldn't last much longer. "I think the Ministry takes responsibility for its own citizens if they're under twenty one and commit a crime in another country."
There was a pause as the others all looked at each other and the concern was clear to see on all their faces. Fred was the one to ask the question,
"So, uh, the Hearing, what do you think they'll do? I mean, they can't expel you, you didn't do anything wrong! You were just defending yourself. Would they prefer you just let the Dementor do its thing?"
"I'm sure some of them would," said Alaw darkly. "And I honestly don't know what they'll do. I just – don't know."