AN:
Anonomys: I have no intention of making all Slytherins evil and I happen to think Snape's cool.
Honey: I'm not going to pair Harry up with anyone until seventh year, if then, though he may end up with Ira, never Hermione or Cho.
Sorry I didn't update sooner everyone!
Chapter 12
Harry collapsed into bed, completely exhausted and worn out, his mind reeling from all the injuries he'd seen and from organizing the entire Order all day. How did Sirius manage? All too soon Ron was shaking him and telling him to wake up. Harry got up and memories of all the blood and guts he'd seen swirled in and sank in fully, he hurried to the bathroom and vomited.
"Harry? What's wrong, and what happened yesterday?" Ron asked, Harry washed his mouth out and shook his head, they were going to be late for breakfast.
On the way to breakfast they passed the bloody baron, Harry couldn't help comparing his injuries and bloodstains to some he'd seen the other day, and felt his stomach reel again.
"Harry? You're really pale, are you okay? Where were you yesterday?" Hermione asked as they sat down, Harry raised an eyebrow a little, where had he been? That should have been obvious.
"I'm okay, or I will be. I spent all yesterday up to my elbows in blood and guts helping heal people with the Order." He winced at the sight of the red juice, and his stomach lurched again. "My stomach's a little off, I'll be okay." Dumbledore gave Harry a look, clearly asking if he was okay, Harry pretended not to see. At that moment eight black owls flew into the hall, everyone went silent, watching where they would land with their bad news. One fluttered down next to Ira, no other Gryffindor got one.
"Ira? What happened?" Parvarti asked as Ira started to cry.
"My older b-brother, he's dead." She said between sobs.
As they were heading to Defense class Snape came up beside Harry.
"Harry, this is from the Phoenix." He handed Harry a piece of parchment with the Phoenix's seal on it, a red phoenix flying inside a circle of black with gold flames around the edges.
"Thanks," Harry said absently, not noticing that Snape had addressed him by his first name, in Defense he sat in the back and opened it while the Professor was lecturing about destroying an enemy's wand.
Harry,
The healers have told me about yesterday, you did a great job getting them organized and working in an efficient manner thanks. Miranda says not to use too much magic for a while, you tired yourself out yesterday and got too little sleep. There's a full-Order meeting on Friday at three p.m. we're voting on and initiating eight new members from the trainee class. You know Oliver Wood? He's one of them and Victor Krum's another, they asked if you wanted to come, I think it's because they're nervous and need a friend around. And I need to talk to you afterward, there's going to be a full council meeting. Use the portkey if you're still not up to the Lightning Teleportation stuff you do.
I have been thinking about the order's ranking process, it lacks stability, if you have any ideas on this please write them out for the meeting.
PS. The Unusual Abilities Department wants to study your abilities sometime soon, to see what exactly you're capable of and if there're anymore you haven't discovered yet. But that can wait for a while, I know you probably wouldn't enjoy being their lab rat.
Your Godfather,
The Lord Phoenix
Harry sighed and tucked the note away, the bell rang and Harry hurried back to Gryffindor tower and up to his rooms, leaving Hermione and Ron down in the common room. Once inside he sat down at the table in the main room and began to write out a plan that had begun to take shape in his mind.
**
On Friday Harry used a portkey to get to the Fortress. It was unusually quiet as everyone was gathering inside the meeting chamber for the initiations. Harry felt a light touch in his mind and Sirius's voice echoed through his head.
Harry the initiations have been postponed, the meeting will occur now, please come to the council chamber He was gone, Harry hurried off to the council chamber, he was the first to arrive, then Sirius strode in.
"Harry I have to ask, do you plan to join the Order of the Phoenix?" Harry blinked in surprise at the question.
"That, Lord Phoenix, will depend on the circumstances, if I feel that hunting down the death eaters on my own would be better then I will not, if Voldemort is gone it might be disbanded, if Voldemort wins you don't have to worry about that question." Sirius looked surprised but resigned, and he chose a different line of questioning.
"I have been thinking of redoing the way the Order works." He said tactfully, knowing full well that Harry probably had thought out a whole new system already, which he had.
"Hmm, great minds must think alike, I already have a plan drawn out that I think you will like, no fine details yet, but the basics." He handed Sirius a folder with the new plans in it, Sirius skimmed the information, nodding, and handed it back. The rest of the council entered, bowing to Sirius and murmuring greetings, even Dumbledore was there. Sirius started off the meeting.
"I have been thinking about redoing the functioning of the Order." There was a shocked silence. "Harry? Would you please show them the plans?" All eyes turned to Harry who opened the folder and took out copies of his plan for everyone.
"As the Lord Phoenix," he gave a slight tilt of his head towards Sirius, "told me the order's ranking process needs some revisions. So does the coding system, everyone has their own code, specialty codes, patrol codes, rank codes, and hours are spent trying to remember which is which. With the system I have formulated it could all be kept reasonably straight. I'll start from the bottom and work my way up. Firstly are the trainees and part-time members. What I am proposing to do is to divide the entire order into two levels, the first level and the second level. In the second level are the trainees, and part-time members, in the first level are the full-time members. In the first level there would be different organizations, spies, healers, strategists, animal caretakers, and the crafts-wand making, weapon manufacturing, etc. In addition within each level there would be different levels of ability. For example: Level 2 Class 1 would mean a trainee who was nearly ready to
enter the first level, or an exceptional part-time member. There would be five different classes in the second level and five in the first. Level 1 Class 1 would be basically all of you here, the leaders of the Order. This could be shone on identification cards as shone on the plans.
Agent # Patrol color
Level 1 Class 3 Healer of the second Sept. (Wizarding healers division is organized in six Septs of ability, Sept 1 being the best healers.) Or
Agent # Patrol color
Level 1 Class 2 Spy
In order to rise up a class a person must have a 90% vote from the entire council, their patrol, and whatever division they work in, if they do. There would also have to be a limit to how many classes you could go up in one year. Training would last for exactly 400 days, just over a year. To making that process easier recruiting would be done only for a month in the winter and another month in the summer so that it will be easy to tell how long a person has been in training. If anyone fails the training they're memory is replaced and they are sent away not remembering anything more then that they didn't make it, if that. With this system each person would have an ID and they'd have to memorize the information on it. To keep death eaters from using stolen IDs to get into the Fortress the ID would have to be memorized and never taken outside the Fortress. When a person dies their ID would disintegrate into nothing immediately." He stopped and waited for five minutes while
everyone read through the packet of information he'd given them. Finally they had finished.
"I agree with this plan, we could try it out for a few months, it doesn't dissolve the patrols so there'd be no real changes. But we need to work on some details like what each rank's privileges are." Sirius said, Harry mentally kicked himself for not having thought of that.
"Punishments could be a denoting of rank, or being thrown out of the Order. While special achievements that didn't quiet merit a higher rank could be rewarded in the form of awards. Certain projects and parts of the Fortress would be available only to those with a high enough rank. Those in the first level would have better accommodations, and the higher ranks would allow for a slight upgrade." Miranda said, she was working with a pencil on a piece of parchment as she spoke when she was done she looked up. "People can't be expected to know everyone's rank by heart, so we'd need some kind of mark that would sow rank. And a new uniform has been in debate for months, let's kill to birds with one stone and combine the problems." She tossed her drawing into the center of the table. " The new uniform would be white pants and long sleeved shirt under an open, vivid green, hooded robe. (AN: just imagine the things the Jedi from star wars wear, in green.) Black leather boots, but
they must be flexible so as not to restrict ankle rotation during a fight, gold buckles, a gold Phoenix on the back of the robes and gold embroidery. Black belt, gold buckle, black sword sheath with a gold phoenix on it. Swords and knives would be a regulation standard with black leather wrapped hilt, gold crosspiece and emerald pommel with a gold phoenix on it. Everyone would have a pin, a gold phoenix surrounded by a circle of flames. The flame color would show what patrol they were and their agent number would be in gold lettering below it. Class would be shone by the number of gold rings around the cuffs of their robes and shirts. Level two has silver rings, level one has gold. The white pants and shirt must be loose and flexible to make fighting easier, in a fight the green robes could be taken off to allow for easier movement." There were nods all around, "when no one must know who they are the green robes could be changed to buckskin brown with no markings, except for
a phoenix badge on the inside of each sleeve." Miranda was a good artist and her design was ideal.
"All in favor of the new plans and uniform say aye." Sirius said, it was unanimous, though Harry didn't vote, he wasn't part of the Order. "Now when should we start this?" Sirius asked. Harry spoke up.
"We could announce it and explain it today after the initiations. If there were enough people working on them the new uniform could be ready by tomorrow evening along with IDs. Copies of this," Harry waved the plans, "could be placed somewhere so everyone can read them if they don't understand." There were nods of agreement.
"Well then, we should probably go, the initiations will be starting in a few minutes." They all rose and followed Sirius from the room. Harry stopped briefly to say hi to Flame the Dire Wolf, who was back from Norway.
Harry hurried in with the last group, Sirius beckoned him up to an empty seat in the rows of gray seats where the council and patrol leaders sat.
Since the order's reinstatement many new recruits had joined, but Harry hadn't gotten the chance to witness any besides the original. He examined the room as all the lights except for one shining down on the elevated balcony rows where he and the other sat on their gray seats, a light that shone on the eight new members stood, concealing their nervousness well, but now well enough. Then, on the circle of gold flames on the floor, the statue Harry had seen at the order's reinstatement appeared on the table cover with the flag, the empty space on the table held eight blue balls of light. It looked exactly like it had the last tie Harry had seen it over a year ago. The light on Harry and the others dimmed a bit and the Phoenix rose, glowing with his own light.
"Trainees you have progressed far since you first decided to enter the Order training. It is the decision of the council and I that you are now ready to finally truly join with the Order. If you have changed your mind and do not wish to join this is your last chance to leave." Not one of the trainees moved, Harry could see all their eyes, slowly moving from the Phoenix to the statue and back. He noticed Oliver and Victor, and locked eyes with both of them, giving them a tiny encouraging smile, they relaxed a little and looked more confident. Sirius raised both arms and the circle of gold flames imbedded into the stone floor became real flames, leaping to knee height, he continued.
"When your name is called enter the circle and place your hands in the handholds on the statue's base, do not remove them until the initiation is finished. If you do the flames will kill you, if the statue finds you unacceptable it will remove all memories of your training and you'll be sent home, or, if you have any inclination of betraying us, it will kill you." No one said a word, but the sense of fear Harry could feel from the trainees increased, Mirada rose and Sirius sat back down.
"Oliver Wood." Harry watched as the former keeper stepped into the flames and placed his hands on the golden ones. Like the phoenix in the crystal globe took flight, Miranda went on speaking. "When it is over you will have no finger prints, no specific blood type, no readable brainwaves, no records of what your magic code is will exist except for those on the Order record, you are sworn to defend wizards and muggles alike from the dark forces. You will work with your patrol, and live in the Fortress, you will go where we tell you, and do what we tell you too. Contact with everyone outside the Order will be severed completely whenever you take on a mission, disobedience will be punished, remember, you cannot leave the Order unless it is disbanded for the next five years at which point you will be given a choice. Welcome, Oliver Wood, to the order of the Phoenix." The Phoenix in the crystal globe stopped its song, the flames dipped lower, Oliver took one of the blue balls of
light and put it behind his right ear. Harry could feel currents of thought-talk ripple around the room as the Phoenix welcomed Oliver in his own telepathic way. Oliver went to sit on a row of benches right in the front, after this meeting he would be assigned to a patrol.
The same process was repeated for the other seven, when it was done there was wild applause, Harry took this opportunity to congratulate his friends with a full smile. His powers were no longer strong enough for him to speak to them telepathically.
The Phoenix began to explain the new plans, Harry didn't pay much attention to him, and many people cast looks at him. Harry's place in the Order was in no way solid, and none of the members truly knew just where he stood at any given time, but they did know that it was much higher then the average member, much higher.
Harry got back to school late that evening, he was very tired. After the meeting he'd stayed to help arrange the new portkeys. The Order had over three hundred and each was labeled, a few weeks ago Harry had decided to organize them better then just throwing all of them in a box. He made special room in which all the portkeys were stacked in labeled shelves and a register told who was using which one for how long, that process had taken three hours and it was now midnight. He put his things away and lay down, and was asleep immediately.
Anonomys: I have no intention of making all Slytherins evil and I happen to think Snape's cool.
Honey: I'm not going to pair Harry up with anyone until seventh year, if then, though he may end up with Ira, never Hermione or Cho.
Sorry I didn't update sooner everyone!
Chapter 12
Harry collapsed into bed, completely exhausted and worn out, his mind reeling from all the injuries he'd seen and from organizing the entire Order all day. How did Sirius manage? All too soon Ron was shaking him and telling him to wake up. Harry got up and memories of all the blood and guts he'd seen swirled in and sank in fully, he hurried to the bathroom and vomited.
"Harry? What's wrong, and what happened yesterday?" Ron asked, Harry washed his mouth out and shook his head, they were going to be late for breakfast.
On the way to breakfast they passed the bloody baron, Harry couldn't help comparing his injuries and bloodstains to some he'd seen the other day, and felt his stomach reel again.
"Harry? You're really pale, are you okay? Where were you yesterday?" Hermione asked as they sat down, Harry raised an eyebrow a little, where had he been? That should have been obvious.
"I'm okay, or I will be. I spent all yesterday up to my elbows in blood and guts helping heal people with the Order." He winced at the sight of the red juice, and his stomach lurched again. "My stomach's a little off, I'll be okay." Dumbledore gave Harry a look, clearly asking if he was okay, Harry pretended not to see. At that moment eight black owls flew into the hall, everyone went silent, watching where they would land with their bad news. One fluttered down next to Ira, no other Gryffindor got one.
"Ira? What happened?" Parvarti asked as Ira started to cry.
"My older b-brother, he's dead." She said between sobs.
As they were heading to Defense class Snape came up beside Harry.
"Harry, this is from the Phoenix." He handed Harry a piece of parchment with the Phoenix's seal on it, a red phoenix flying inside a circle of black with gold flames around the edges.
"Thanks," Harry said absently, not noticing that Snape had addressed him by his first name, in Defense he sat in the back and opened it while the Professor was lecturing about destroying an enemy's wand.
Harry,
The healers have told me about yesterday, you did a great job getting them organized and working in an efficient manner thanks. Miranda says not to use too much magic for a while, you tired yourself out yesterday and got too little sleep. There's a full-Order meeting on Friday at three p.m. we're voting on and initiating eight new members from the trainee class. You know Oliver Wood? He's one of them and Victor Krum's another, they asked if you wanted to come, I think it's because they're nervous and need a friend around. And I need to talk to you afterward, there's going to be a full council meeting. Use the portkey if you're still not up to the Lightning Teleportation stuff you do.
I have been thinking about the order's ranking process, it lacks stability, if you have any ideas on this please write them out for the meeting.
PS. The Unusual Abilities Department wants to study your abilities sometime soon, to see what exactly you're capable of and if there're anymore you haven't discovered yet. But that can wait for a while, I know you probably wouldn't enjoy being their lab rat.
Your Godfather,
The Lord Phoenix
Harry sighed and tucked the note away, the bell rang and Harry hurried back to Gryffindor tower and up to his rooms, leaving Hermione and Ron down in the common room. Once inside he sat down at the table in the main room and began to write out a plan that had begun to take shape in his mind.
**
On Friday Harry used a portkey to get to the Fortress. It was unusually quiet as everyone was gathering inside the meeting chamber for the initiations. Harry felt a light touch in his mind and Sirius's voice echoed through his head.
Harry the initiations have been postponed, the meeting will occur now, please come to the council chamber He was gone, Harry hurried off to the council chamber, he was the first to arrive, then Sirius strode in.
"Harry I have to ask, do you plan to join the Order of the Phoenix?" Harry blinked in surprise at the question.
"That, Lord Phoenix, will depend on the circumstances, if I feel that hunting down the death eaters on my own would be better then I will not, if Voldemort is gone it might be disbanded, if Voldemort wins you don't have to worry about that question." Sirius looked surprised but resigned, and he chose a different line of questioning.
"I have been thinking of redoing the way the Order works." He said tactfully, knowing full well that Harry probably had thought out a whole new system already, which he had.
"Hmm, great minds must think alike, I already have a plan drawn out that I think you will like, no fine details yet, but the basics." He handed Sirius a folder with the new plans in it, Sirius skimmed the information, nodding, and handed it back. The rest of the council entered, bowing to Sirius and murmuring greetings, even Dumbledore was there. Sirius started off the meeting.
"I have been thinking about redoing the functioning of the Order." There was a shocked silence. "Harry? Would you please show them the plans?" All eyes turned to Harry who opened the folder and took out copies of his plan for everyone.
"As the Lord Phoenix," he gave a slight tilt of his head towards Sirius, "told me the order's ranking process needs some revisions. So does the coding system, everyone has their own code, specialty codes, patrol codes, rank codes, and hours are spent trying to remember which is which. With the system I have formulated it could all be kept reasonably straight. I'll start from the bottom and work my way up. Firstly are the trainees and part-time members. What I am proposing to do is to divide the entire order into two levels, the first level and the second level. In the second level are the trainees, and part-time members, in the first level are the full-time members. In the first level there would be different organizations, spies, healers, strategists, animal caretakers, and the crafts-wand making, weapon manufacturing, etc. In addition within each level there would be different levels of ability. For example: Level 2 Class 1 would mean a trainee who was nearly ready to
enter the first level, or an exceptional part-time member. There would be five different classes in the second level and five in the first. Level 1 Class 1 would be basically all of you here, the leaders of the Order. This could be shone on identification cards as shone on the plans.
Agent # Patrol color
Level 1 Class 3 Healer of the second Sept. (Wizarding healers division is organized in six Septs of ability, Sept 1 being the best healers.) Or
Agent # Patrol color
Level 1 Class 2 Spy
In order to rise up a class a person must have a 90% vote from the entire council, their patrol, and whatever division they work in, if they do. There would also have to be a limit to how many classes you could go up in one year. Training would last for exactly 400 days, just over a year. To making that process easier recruiting would be done only for a month in the winter and another month in the summer so that it will be easy to tell how long a person has been in training. If anyone fails the training they're memory is replaced and they are sent away not remembering anything more then that they didn't make it, if that. With this system each person would have an ID and they'd have to memorize the information on it. To keep death eaters from using stolen IDs to get into the Fortress the ID would have to be memorized and never taken outside the Fortress. When a person dies their ID would disintegrate into nothing immediately." He stopped and waited for five minutes while
everyone read through the packet of information he'd given them. Finally they had finished.
"I agree with this plan, we could try it out for a few months, it doesn't dissolve the patrols so there'd be no real changes. But we need to work on some details like what each rank's privileges are." Sirius said, Harry mentally kicked himself for not having thought of that.
"Punishments could be a denoting of rank, or being thrown out of the Order. While special achievements that didn't quiet merit a higher rank could be rewarded in the form of awards. Certain projects and parts of the Fortress would be available only to those with a high enough rank. Those in the first level would have better accommodations, and the higher ranks would allow for a slight upgrade." Miranda said, she was working with a pencil on a piece of parchment as she spoke when she was done she looked up. "People can't be expected to know everyone's rank by heart, so we'd need some kind of mark that would sow rank. And a new uniform has been in debate for months, let's kill to birds with one stone and combine the problems." She tossed her drawing into the center of the table. " The new uniform would be white pants and long sleeved shirt under an open, vivid green, hooded robe. (AN: just imagine the things the Jedi from star wars wear, in green.) Black leather boots, but
they must be flexible so as not to restrict ankle rotation during a fight, gold buckles, a gold Phoenix on the back of the robes and gold embroidery. Black belt, gold buckle, black sword sheath with a gold phoenix on it. Swords and knives would be a regulation standard with black leather wrapped hilt, gold crosspiece and emerald pommel with a gold phoenix on it. Everyone would have a pin, a gold phoenix surrounded by a circle of flames. The flame color would show what patrol they were and their agent number would be in gold lettering below it. Class would be shone by the number of gold rings around the cuffs of their robes and shirts. Level two has silver rings, level one has gold. The white pants and shirt must be loose and flexible to make fighting easier, in a fight the green robes could be taken off to allow for easier movement." There were nods all around, "when no one must know who they are the green robes could be changed to buckskin brown with no markings, except for
a phoenix badge on the inside of each sleeve." Miranda was a good artist and her design was ideal.
"All in favor of the new plans and uniform say aye." Sirius said, it was unanimous, though Harry didn't vote, he wasn't part of the Order. "Now when should we start this?" Sirius asked. Harry spoke up.
"We could announce it and explain it today after the initiations. If there were enough people working on them the new uniform could be ready by tomorrow evening along with IDs. Copies of this," Harry waved the plans, "could be placed somewhere so everyone can read them if they don't understand." There were nods of agreement.
"Well then, we should probably go, the initiations will be starting in a few minutes." They all rose and followed Sirius from the room. Harry stopped briefly to say hi to Flame the Dire Wolf, who was back from Norway.
Harry hurried in with the last group, Sirius beckoned him up to an empty seat in the rows of gray seats where the council and patrol leaders sat.
Since the order's reinstatement many new recruits had joined, but Harry hadn't gotten the chance to witness any besides the original. He examined the room as all the lights except for one shining down on the elevated balcony rows where he and the other sat on their gray seats, a light that shone on the eight new members stood, concealing their nervousness well, but now well enough. Then, on the circle of gold flames on the floor, the statue Harry had seen at the order's reinstatement appeared on the table cover with the flag, the empty space on the table held eight blue balls of light. It looked exactly like it had the last tie Harry had seen it over a year ago. The light on Harry and the others dimmed a bit and the Phoenix rose, glowing with his own light.
"Trainees you have progressed far since you first decided to enter the Order training. It is the decision of the council and I that you are now ready to finally truly join with the Order. If you have changed your mind and do not wish to join this is your last chance to leave." Not one of the trainees moved, Harry could see all their eyes, slowly moving from the Phoenix to the statue and back. He noticed Oliver and Victor, and locked eyes with both of them, giving them a tiny encouraging smile, they relaxed a little and looked more confident. Sirius raised both arms and the circle of gold flames imbedded into the stone floor became real flames, leaping to knee height, he continued.
"When your name is called enter the circle and place your hands in the handholds on the statue's base, do not remove them until the initiation is finished. If you do the flames will kill you, if the statue finds you unacceptable it will remove all memories of your training and you'll be sent home, or, if you have any inclination of betraying us, it will kill you." No one said a word, but the sense of fear Harry could feel from the trainees increased, Mirada rose and Sirius sat back down.
"Oliver Wood." Harry watched as the former keeper stepped into the flames and placed his hands on the golden ones. Like the phoenix in the crystal globe took flight, Miranda went on speaking. "When it is over you will have no finger prints, no specific blood type, no readable brainwaves, no records of what your magic code is will exist except for those on the Order record, you are sworn to defend wizards and muggles alike from the dark forces. You will work with your patrol, and live in the Fortress, you will go where we tell you, and do what we tell you too. Contact with everyone outside the Order will be severed completely whenever you take on a mission, disobedience will be punished, remember, you cannot leave the Order unless it is disbanded for the next five years at which point you will be given a choice. Welcome, Oliver Wood, to the order of the Phoenix." The Phoenix in the crystal globe stopped its song, the flames dipped lower, Oliver took one of the blue balls of
light and put it behind his right ear. Harry could feel currents of thought-talk ripple around the room as the Phoenix welcomed Oliver in his own telepathic way. Oliver went to sit on a row of benches right in the front, after this meeting he would be assigned to a patrol.
The same process was repeated for the other seven, when it was done there was wild applause, Harry took this opportunity to congratulate his friends with a full smile. His powers were no longer strong enough for him to speak to them telepathically.
The Phoenix began to explain the new plans, Harry didn't pay much attention to him, and many people cast looks at him. Harry's place in the Order was in no way solid, and none of the members truly knew just where he stood at any given time, but they did know that it was much higher then the average member, much higher.
Harry got back to school late that evening, he was very tired. After the meeting he'd stayed to help arrange the new portkeys. The Order had over three hundred and each was labeled, a few weeks ago Harry had decided to organize them better then just throwing all of them in a box. He made special room in which all the portkeys were stacked in labeled shelves and a register told who was using which one for how long, that process had taken three hours and it was now midnight. He put his things away and lay down, and was asleep immediately.