A/N - Okay.. you persuaded me. So many people begged for a sequel, that I have done one...God help me, I think I'm insane. Anyway, here goes, and I hope you enjoy this little bit of madness, and look out for future parts. (This part is basically an intro, a summary of what's happened since we last left our friends, so it's quite short, but it is only a prologue!) Anyways, I'm off to watch Comic Relief for the next, *checks watch* 8 or so hours.. happy reading! Rufus ^_^
Harry Potter and the Order of Praesentia
Prologue - The Mad House
"ELISE! No - drop that!" CRASH! "Oh, honestly, I didn't mean it literally - no, don't touch it, Elise, keep away from them, you'll only hurt yourself. SEE? Yes, I know it hurts. Look, stop crying, please? I don't know what to do with a crying 5 year old, for God's sake, HARRY!"
Sirius picked the small hysterical girl up off the floor, stroking her head in an effort to calm her, whilst she repeatedly showed him her bleeding finger. Harry skidded into the room, panting, obviously having run down the stairs from his room at the top of the house.
"What?" he asked.
"Help!" Sirius said, awkwardly shifting Elise's weight, "I don't know what to do!"
Harry grinned evilly, and raised his eyebrows at his godfather.
"Stop that," Sirius snapped. "Don't just stand there, do something useful."
Harry laughed and walked over, taking Elise off Sirius, smirking as she immediately stopped crying.
"Come on, Elise, cheer up. Go and get your doll and we'll make her something to drink, okay?"
Elise nodded, wiping the tears from her eyes, before grinning and skipping from the room, her brown curls bouncing up and down as she left. Sirius sighed deeply, and turned back to the brown lump on the table, which he had been previously working with. Observing it with a critical eye, he snorted in disgust, and prodded it again with his wand.
"What," Harry asked, amusement tingeing his voice, emerald eyes gleaming, "is that mess?"
Sirius sighed, and then grinned. "It was dinner. Your mother always said I was useless at cooking. I kind of hoped my skills would at least extend to instant magi-mix. How's your room? Did you get everything in ok?"
"Yes, thanks," Harry grinned, "It's great, and unpacking didn't take long. I was just reading a book. Want a hand with the cooking?"
"I don't know what you can do, but sure." Black grimaced. "Have a look in the fridge and see what there is, will you?"
Harry pulled open the door of the aforementioned fridge, frowning as he looked over its contents.
"Sirius, when was the last time you bought some food?"
"I dunno, 'bout a month ago, probably, why?"
"Because your fridge is about as sparse as a desert," Harry said, looking up. "Except the fridge doesn't even have sand. You do have eggs though. Lots of eggs - do you have another Animagi form I don't know about?"
"No," Sirius said shortly, "but I do have some chickens out back."
"Ah, that explains the abundance of eggs then. Anyway, we can have an omelette."
"A what?"
"Omelette." Harry repeated. "You don't know what one is?"
"No." Sirius said, looking confused. "Should I?"
Harry rolled his eyes.
"You sit and play with Elise and I'll make the dinner."
"I don't think so," Sirius frowned, "You'll blow something up."
"And you won't?" Harry retorted, laughing whilst removing the eggs from the fridge. Sirius gave up and allowed his godson to continue, before drifting towards the table to sit in a chair. He smiled as Elise jumped down the steps, her doll cradled carefully in her arms. She didn't have many toys, something he thought he should fix, but she certainly seemed to treasure this one doll in particular. As she sat down next to Sirius at the table, she looked up at him, blue eyes wide, before asking quite politely, where Sally's dinner was.
**
"Where are the kids today then, Sirius?" Remus Lupin asked with a grin.
"At the Weasleys," Black replied. "Molly said I probably needed a break for a bit."
"And?"
"She's right," he added.
Lupin laughed heartily as his friend bowed his head in mock shame.
Sirius continued. "I can't believe that I'm being worn out by the two of them. Well, Elise that is, not Harry." He shook his head in amazement. "Harry is completely the opposite of your stereotypical teenager - I suppose that so many years with the Dursleys will do that. He cooks, Moony, cooks." Sirius threw his hands skywards. "And it's all I can do to stop him from tidying things constantly, he's so used to it - he's practically a neat freak!"
Remus laughed again. "Shouldn't you be pleased about that? Last I remember, you couldn't do housework to save your life. Never mind cook."
"I suppose so," Sirius conceded, "but Elise more than makes up for everything. She's broken more plates in the last few weeks than any kid I've ever seen! Harry is the only one she'll listen to, God knows what I'm going to do when he goes back to Hogwarts."
"Well, it's not like he's a long way off - Hogsmeade trips are fairly frequent, and there's always the secret passage in emergencies." Remus rationalized, "Be glad you found a house in the village. Anyway, here's to peace and quiet, eh?"
"Hear, Hear!"
**
"There you go, it's not that bad, is it? Ok, slow down, Elise, slow down, ELISE! Harry stop her!"
Ron shouted up to his friend, watching as Harry was jolted from his daydream by Elise whizzing past, completely out of control on the broomstick which Ron had sat her on. He laughed as Harry sped after the small girl, eventually grabbing her off the broom, leaving it to fly around in circles around the paddock. It had been amusing, to say the least, when Harry had arrived at their door - Elise clinging to the back of his jeans, hiding behind him - with a wide grin on his face. His first comment on entering the house had been "Your Mum said Sirius needed a break," and the Weasley family as a whole was beginning to see why. The two of them were more trouble than appearances suggested. Harry had the completely disregard for his own safety that had got him in so many scrapes before, and the recently 5-year-old Elise had her adventurous nature and inquisitive mind. Between them, they had kept the whole household entertained for most of the time.
As Ron stood watching Harry teach Elise how to fly properly, he recalled the most priceless moment of their visit to date. When Elise had asked why so many people knew Harry when they visited Diagon Alley. The Weasley brothers had proceeded to fill her in on the details, and she was now completely of the belief that Harry was a super-hero in disguise, by day, filling the role of Harry Potter, but transforming when the world needed a hero into 'The Boy Who Lived'. The glasses Harry wore seemed to convince her of the fact that he was a real-life Clarke Kent, and, needless to say, the Weasley Twins had egged her on to a point where she would run to Harry whenever anything went wrong - including things on the news, such as the train crash in London the previous day.
Harry had ignored the teasing until Hermione innocently suggested that he should paint a lightning bolt on his cloak and buy some tights if he was going to look the part. Harry had 'politely' told Hermione what he thought of her idea, before going off to find the Weasley brothers, and perhaps setting their clothes on fire. Ron and the twins, in any case, had all clearly labelled him as the suspect ringleader when Elise had accidentally 'knocked over' the twins bookshelf, which had taken them the best part of an afternoon to clean up.
Ron refocused his attention to the present, and laughed at the scene. Harry was dangling dangerously from his broomstick, clinging to Elise - who had apparently tried to see if she could fly without the broom - whilst trying desperately to steer the Firebolt towards the ground. They only had two weeks remaining of the holidays, after which they would be returning to Hogwarts to begin their 6th year of studies. Assuming they had all passed their OWL examinations that was. Ron had to admit that he was more worried about the results than he was letting on - perhaps the frantic nerves his mother seemed to possess were having an effect on him. Harry looked fairly laid back about everything, completely the opposite to Hermione, who - as ever - was panicking that she might not have got full scores. Personally, Ron was more concerned about the pass boundaries, but with the owls carrying results arriving tomorrow, there was little he could do now.
As Harry finally touched down on solid ground once more, Molly Weasley called them in for dinner, demanding that they all go and wash up straight away. Lifting Elise up onto his shoulders, Harry followed Ron towards the small house, bathed in the glow of a red sunset. Tomorrow they would be returning to the house Sirius had found for them in Hogsmeade, 'Furiae.' Harry had once asked Sirius, at the start of summer, why the house was named that. Sirius had replied that it was 'madness' in Latin, and that it just seemed to fit group that would be living there. He loved the Burrow - the Weasleys had been practically family for most of his time at Hogwarts - but now that he had a home to go to, he was actually looking forward to going back for a change.
Mrs Weasley had, as ever, been treating him as her 7th son, and her cooking was certainly better than anything he - and in particular, Sirius - had managed in his time at The Furiae. The twins were still happily causing chaos amongst the visitors, still happy in the delights that was freedom from school, having both passed their exams. (NEWT results came through from the ministry before the OWL results, older students perhaps being more prone to stress.) Percy appeared at unscheduled times, when he deemed it within his 'busy schedule' to visit family, and even Bill and Charlie had made several appearances, whilst travelling from country to country. What most surprised Harry this summer were the frequent absences of Arthur Weasley, whom it seemed was more often at work than not. Harry might not have given this a second thought, had Arthur Weasley not worked in the Muggle protection division of the ministry, a department which rarely called for work out of office hours. Harry didn't press the matter, however, and as he packed with Elise the next day for their return home, he filled his mind with more pleasant thoughts, such as returning to Quidditch matches, his friends, and the other things he treasured about the school of witchcraft and wizardry he attented. The sound of a large hooter from outside the house drew Harry's attention, and upon further inspection, he discovered that it was the night bus ready to pick he and Elise up. He dragged Elise away from Pidwidgeon, Ron's minute owl, and jumped down the stairs, shouting goodbye to various members of the family as he went. He finally threw a last goodbye and good luck for the exams towards Ron before running out of the gate after Elise towards the giant bus that was waiting on the road.
**
"Did you have a good time at Ron's, Harry?" Sirius asked as the two arrived back, much to his surprise, in the state they left.
"Yep. We taught Elise how to fly a broom."
Sirius glanced at the girl, who grinned back and nodded her head excitedly.
"So," Sirius said with a grin, looking at his watch, "3 hours before the owl arrives, eh?"
"Yeah, but don't expect anything great. I did miss half the year."
"Ok, no pressure." Sirius laughed, looking at the pleading look on his Godson's face. "Actually, there's something I wanted to talk to you about." His face grew more serious, (no pun intended..*^_^*) and he sat down on a chair, motioning Harry towards a seat. Elise seemed to gather that this wasn't something she should be listening to, and left for her room.
"You can't transform anymore, can you?" Sirius asked after a short while.
"Er, you mean the Panther?" Receiving a nod, he continued, "Yes. Why? Shouldn't I be able to?"
"Not really," Sirius answered, "but we were expecting it."
"Who's 'we'?" Harry asked, assuming that the group in question would include Dumbledore, or Lupin perhaps.
"I'm getting to that," Black replied, before hurriedly asking another question. "How much magic can you do without your wand?"
"Not much. Bits and pieces. Why?" Harry asked, beginning to grow annoyed at Sirius' constant questioning.
"Show me," his godfather urged, "do something now."
Harry frowned, a hundred confused thoughts flashed through his brain all at once. "Like what?" He heard himself ask.
"How about a fire-spell?"
Harry shrugged, and concentrated hard on his hands. He brought to mind the rage that had filled him at previous times and directed it towards the thought of fire. With a pop, a small, glowing ball of flames erupted in his palm. He looked up at Sirius - who was staring, mesmerised by the sight of it - and then clenched his fist, extinguishing the light. He looked back at Sirius, a puzzled expression on his face.
"Yes," Sirius said slowly, "I can see why they're interested in you."
"WHO?" Harry demanded impatiently.
Sirius looked up at his godson, a small smile on his slightly tanned face.
"The Order of Praesentia, Harry, they want to talk to you."
To be continued...
A/N.. What on earth am I letting myself in for.....?
Thanks to those who reviewed the last part of 'And When The Dawn Begins', I hope that this part matched your opinion of that one, although I doubt that very much!
AJaKe - No epilogue - a new series.. is that ok?
Malena - It's not over.. Is a story ever truly finished?....
Herm - there ya go
Megan - thanks
Coqui - Thanks for beta-ing, even in your short amount of time ^_^ Great Job as per usual..
Sirius' Gal - Thanks, and it's people like you that persuaded me to do a sequel - I'll kill you all - muahahahahaha!!!
Dumbledore - Thanks, and I hope this sequel shows signs of meeting your expectations, ^_^
Jenn - Thanks, and AA is very annoying isn't it! Another one who guilt-tripped me into making a sequel..grrrrr..i luv you all really...*^_^*
Jamie Potter - Yep, here's your sequel!
Sarah - Thanks, and done.
Svolkarme - It was my pleasure!
Katy D *In spirit* and Angelface - I am very, very sorry to hear about Katy, my deepest condolences to anyone who knew her, she seemed like an extremely nice girl. Thanks for the review, and I did another series look !! It's not the end!
Kelzery - Done!
Amethyst - Hope you finished the rest of it too!
Zara - Thanks!
Thanks, as ever, for all the fantastic feedback. In particular to Tasha, who emailed me with a great thank you, which I really appreciated, and also encouraged me to write this.. ^_^
Thanks also to Coqui, as ever, for beta-reading, and I'm waiting for that next part!! ^_^ kidding, take your time.. Rede, I'll look forwards to your help with the next part, if you're willing!
JACK DEE FOR CELEBRITY BIG BROTHER!!! GO JACK!!
sorry...
(For any confused Americans.. this comedian has tried to escape from the house 4 times, and succeeded once for a while, before handing himself in, as he's doing it for charity!)
Keep an eye out for the next part, although, as ever, I have no idea when it'll be out!!
Rufus ^_^