A/N: Hey I'm back. I know, so soon, but I did get one review so I'm taking it as a good sign. Perhaps the one person who reviewed will be a good fan and tell all of his Fan fiction reading friends about my story? cough HINT cough. Well, anyway, lets move onward shall we?
Extra Note: Spoilers. Just thought I should mention it again.
Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter. And I'm not writing this dumb ass disclaimer in all of my chapters. This is the last one I am doing, so if it really bothers you that much just read this one as many times as I have chapters.
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Just as suddenly as it began, the spinning stopped and Tonks fell to the ground in an unflattering manner, bringing Harry down with her.
"Oomph!" Harry said as he collapsed on top of Tonks. "Jeez Tonks, I don't care if you fall, but did you have to grab me along the way?"
Giving him an apologetic grin, Tonks excepted Moody's outstretched hand as Harry took Remus'. "Sorry Harry, it's just part of my charm."
"Yeah," Harry muttered under his breath as the four headed towards the entrance to number four Grimmauld Place. "Charm, that's right. I can just see why your mum never called you Grace."
When the foursome got to the worn and aged front door, Remus knocked in a certain way on the ancient wood and it creaked open quietly. Harry tip toed into the front hall and shut the door behind him.
Harry looked around the dark and dreary hallway. He grinned, noticing that it hadn't changed in the slightest from the first time he had set foot in the building two years ago. So much had happened since then. So much pain, so many secrets. Two years ago Harry had almost lost Sirius. Had it not been for Dumbledore's quick intervention, Sirius would be dead. He inwardly shuddered at the thought.
After the whole Department of Mysteries fiasco, Dumbledore had revealed to Harry a most disturbing secret. Dumbledore replayed the memory of Professor Trelawney reciting a prophecy about him and Voldemort. Harry had never quite been the same after that. The fire that had once burned so brightly in Harry's emerald green eyes had been reduced to a mere flicker of light that only assured his friends that he was alive. He had to remain alive, there was no other option for him. He was allowed to die once Voldemort was defeated. Until then, he had to play the ever optimistic hero for the desperate public.
Pulling himself back into the present, Harry smiled reassuringly in the direction of Remus's concerned look and walked down the hall and into the kitchen. There he saw, to his pleasure, all of the Weasley clan and Hermoine sitting around the worn wooden table.
Grinning broadly Harry walked over to the table of still oblivious redheads, and cleared his throat loudly in Ron's ear.
Ron jumped about a foot off of the bench he was sitting on and he turned around sharply. His expression of confusion and anger melted away quickly at the site of Harry, and was replaced with a huge grin. "Harry! How you doing mate? Hope the muggles weren't too bad to you?"
Harry almost cringed at the mention of the Dursely's, but caught himself and trained his face into a mask of nonchalance and happiness. "Nah, nothing too bad." Looking around the table, Harry's smile grew wider. "Hey guys, Mr. and Mrs. Weasley." Harry said, nodding his head at each of the older red heads.
"Oh hello Harry dear!" Mrs. Weasley said as she enveloped him in a huge bone crushing hug. On any other normal basis, Harry would have welcomed this sign of affection and returned it eagerly. However the wounds that Vernon Dursely had inflicted upon his nephew over the summer had not quite healed yet, and were still a great deal sore.
Doing his best to keep his emotions in check, Harry returned the hug half heartedly and put a huge fake smile on his face. "Hi Mrs. Weasley. How have you been lately?"
"It doesn't matter how I'm doing, how have those horrid muggles treated you? You are so thin, poor thing. Though you have shot up a few more inches I see. You poor dear, have those muggles been feeding you at all? Let me go and make lunch. You like sandwiches right?"
Harry just nodded, this time a real smile crossing his face. Molly Weasley's coddling never failed to make him smile. It was so nice to be loved instead of neglected.
"Oh Harry!" This time Hermoine jumped up and ran over to him. "Harry how are you? Oh my, Mrs. Weasley you were right. Harry, you have grown some more. Are you ever going to stop, or will you just continue growing to spite me?" At the end of her happy tirade her voice turned to teasing.
Over the past two years Harry had changed considerably. Puberty finally decided to kick in, and had made him grow to the considerable height of 5'10. Harry had figured that he would stop growing there, assuming that the malnutrition he suffered at the hand of the Dursely's would be irreparable. He was astounded then, that when he measured himself a day or so before the Order came to pick him up, he had grown another few inches. He know stood at the significant height of 6'1. Hermoine didn't like his sudden growth spurt, because she was only 5'6, and didn't like having to look so far up to see both Ron and now Harry. Ron had already stopped growing during their 6th year, standing at 6'4.
"Just doing it to spite you Moine. Jeez, think you'd know me by now." Harry said, a mock hurt tone to his voice.
Hermoine grinned back up at him, contentment shining in her dark chocolate eyes. "We've missed you Harry." She said, more quietly this time so as not to attract the attention of the other Weasley's. "You had us worried when you only responded that you were "fine" in all of your letters."
Harry saw the concern and hurt that had registered in Hermoine's eyes. A pang of guilt clenched his heart, but he just grinned apologetically at her and let himself get caught up in a conversation about Quidditch with Ron.
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The rest of the day passed by in a rather uneventful way. Ron and Hermoine had ushered him upstairs to his room with his luggage where they talked and laughed as Harry unpacked. Mrs. Weasley had made a positively mouth watering meal, as usual, and Harry, for the first time since the end of his 6th year, felt safe and comfortable.
Around 10:00 P.M. Mrs. Weasley decided that they should all go to bed because of the early morning that they would be having tomorrow. Harry learned over dinner that he, Ron, Hermoine, and Ginny would be going to Diagon Alley to pick up their school supplies. The school lists had come the previous week, and Hermoine was positively itching to go and get the new books that were required.
The only thing that bothered him was the fact that they would be going with a guard of seven members, not including themselves. When Harry had first found out he had been furious, but quickly quenched his raging emotions. He was aware that several of the Order Members were gifted with the power of empathy, among those included Snape, and Harry had no desire to broadcast his emotions to the greasy git. He was just tired of being treated like a toddler who wasn't capable of looking after themselves.
Walking tiredly up the stairs, Harry tip toed past the screaming portrait of Sirius' mum, and padded into his room. He was no longer sharing a room with Ron, now that all of the rooms in Black Manor had been cleaned out, and Harry rather enjoyed the solitude. It had been ages since he had been able to relax properly, mostly due to the Dursely's and the ever apparent threat of Vernon and his collection of belts. So taking advantage of the seclusion, Harry sat in the middle of his queen sized bed, closed his eyes, and let his mind begin to drift.
What Harry was doing could not be classified as meditation, but more a different strand of Legillimency that he had perfected. During his sixth year, Harry had taken advantage of Voldemort's unusual calm and studied different methods of mind control and dueling that might assist him in the final battle. Legillimency had been particularly difficult to master and Occlumency even harder, but after half of the school, year diligently studying the delicate art, he had finally mastered it.
Once Harry had mastered both Legillimency and Occlumency he decided to alter the Legillimency part of it slightly. Normal Legillimens' needed eye contact in order to cast the spell, but Harry had found a way around it.
He discovered that when a person sleeps, the mental defenses of said person automatically go down. At least in most cases they would. Only a very talented Occlumens could maintain mental wards in their sleep. However, the normal person's mind was like an open book . So Harry altered the Legillimens spell in such a way that he could reach a persons mind through meditation.
Harry had a lot of questions that he knew he had the right of answers to, but Dumbledore had obviously silenced the Order, therefore his questions and pleas had fallen upon deaf ears. Normally his morals would kick in at this point and tell him that it was wrong to sneak into people's minds, but he knew that if he wanted to prevent a fiasco like in his fifth year he had to know some information.
At dinner he had inquired as to the absence of Sirius, but his question was shrugged off and he was told simply "Not to worry". How could he "Not worry"? Sirius was a major part of his life now, and ever since he had almost fallen through the veil, He and Harry had grown much closer.
Harry was also curious as to why Dumbledore insisted upon keeping him in the dark. Dumbledore had told him that he had seen the error of his ways, but had done nothing to make amends. The only thing that he had done was increase Harry's guard, and to add excessive amounts of training to his schedule. Harry was tired of being treated like a child, and had decided at the end of his sixth year that he would take matters into his own hands.
Harry let his conscious mind slip out of focus and the more instinctual sector of his brain take control. Taking control of his now relaxed but sharp mind, Harry tried to decide who's brain he would be picking for information tonight.
Not Dumbledore, obviously. The man was such a qualified Occlumens he would feel Harry's invasion of his mind a mile off. Definitely not Snape either. While Snape was not a powerful as Dumbledore, Harry had found his defensive wards to be extremely powerful and durable. Besides, Snape would kill him if he found out that Harry had been in his head.
Going through a list of Order Members that weren't skilled in Occlumency Harry finally decided on Moody. Mad-Eye, as paranoid as he was, never did get around to learning Occlumency or Legillimency. Also, Moody would provide to be a vast source of information. He was one of Dumbledore's most trusted allies, and would therefore be given access to a larger amount of top secret information then the Weasley's would.
The only drawback to Harry's brilliant new method of Legillimency was that if he wasn't within a half a mile radius of the person who's mind he wanted to pick, he would only be granted 5 to 10 minutes of time in their head before the natural mental shields would go up. The person would then wake up and somehow know that some one had been reading their mind.
This was something that Harry could not risk happening. The only kind of training that Harry had received last year was physical and Magical training. For some reason Dumbledore had not wanted Harry to learn either Legillimency or Occlumency. Harry could quite wrap his mind around that fact. Perhaps he simply thought that Harry was not strong enough to master the arts of mind reading? However, Dumbledore was completely oblivious to Harry's advances in mind reading, and Harry preferred to keep it that way.
Harry let his mind travel the long twisting roads of people's unconscious minds until he reached Mad-Eye. Harry let his mind mesh together with Moody's, so as not to startle the old Auror awake. Delving deeper Harry mentally voiced the question that had been bothering him since he had set foot in the house. "Where is Sirius Black?"
He was soon rewarded with a most 'informative' answer. "He is on a mission."
Mentally frowning, Harry asked a different question. "What is his mission?"
After a few moments of stillness, an answer came floating to the top of Harry's consciousness. "To meet with spies and find out information of Voldemorts whereabouts."
Hmm…interesting. Harry Thought to himself. Very clever of Dumbledore to use Sirius for this job.
Since Sirius had yet to be cleared, not many people would expect him to be hanging around pubs and bars trading information with spies. This was clever on Dumbledores behalf, but it was still dangerous for Sirius to be out wandering around in public.
Storing this information for later use, Harry moved on to his other questions. He didn't have much time left, considering that Moody was not staying at Grimmauld Place. "Is there any other important information that deals with Harry Potter?"
The answer he got was the last thing he had ever expected. "Harry Potter will be inducted into the Order by the end of the week. Also inducted will be Ronald Weasley and Hermoine Granger."
"Why?" Was the only question that Harry could ask due to the fact that the information he had just been given had muddled up his train of thought.
The answer was delayed, and Harry knew that it would be the last answer for the night. Moody was starting to feel his presence and was fighting it. "Harry Potter will be inducted so that he will stay out of trouble and not do anything reckless. Weasley and Granger are for reasons similar to this."
Harry couldn't believe it. His blood was boiling at the response he had been given. To keep him out of trouble? That was the only reason he was being inducted? Well, if the old man thought that he could manipulate Harry that easily then he had another thing coming. A plan was already starting to unfold in his mind, but he was violently jerked from his musings as alarms started going off in Moody's head. Mad-Eye had finally woken up and realized that there was an unbidden presence inside of his head.
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The next morning Harry woke up feeling physically tired and mentally exhausted. His raiding of Moody's mind had cost him a dear amount of energy and he was feeling the side effects now. Groaning into his pillow, he pushed himself out of bed and got dressed. Doing his best to tame his wild, raven colored hair, Harry slowly descended the stairs and entered the kitchen.
Ron and Hermoine were already sitting in seats across from each other, Hermoine happily eating her breakfast, while Ron still looked to be half asleep. Greeting his two friends, Harry sat beside Ron and piled a few pancakes onto his plate and dug in. The Legillimency he had performed the previous night had drained him so that he was close to starving.
He was just finishing his plate of syrup covered pancakes when Ginny and several other members of the Order entered the kitchen. Ginny smiled at Harry before sitting next to Hermoine and started chattering happily, while the seven Order members sat in the remaining seats. They, Harry assumed, were to be their guard when they went to Diagon Alley.
The guard was made up of Remus, Tonks, Mad-Eye, Kingsley Shaklebolt, Snape, Mr. Weasley and, to Harry's delight, Sirius. "Sirius!" Harry exclaimed. "Your back!"
Grinning widely, Sirius moved over to Harry and pulled him into a tight hug. "Heya kiddo. How's your summer been so far? Sorry I wasn't here yesterday to meet you, but I was…er… busy."
Forcing a smile onto his face, Harry said, "I understand Sirius. Don't worry." Casting around for a change of subject, Harry said, "Anyway, when are we leaving? It'd be nice to get out into Wizarding London again.
Sitting back down Sirius replied, "We'll be leaving as soon as Snivillus decides to show up. He should have been here half an hour ago."
At that moment however, they heard the front door creak open and light footsteps approaching the kitchen. Several moments later Severus Snape entered the now crowded kitchen and regarded Sirius' glare with a sneer of his own.
"Where were you Snape?" Sirius snarled, his eyes flashing. "You're about half and hour late."
"Unlike you Black, I had very pressing matters that needed to be attended to. I actually have important things to do for the Order, unlike the trivial and menial jobs you are assigned to." Snape said, his voice reaching a dangerous level of softness.
Harry was forced to grab hold of Sirius by the arm as he tried to launch himself across the room at Snape. "Oh yeah, important things. Things like what Snivillus? Does licking your masters shoes really count as a mission?"
Snape looked ready to hex Sirius but, thankfully, Remus chose that moments to intervene. "Alright, now that we're all here we can go." Looking over at Ron, Hermoine, and Ginny he said "Come on you lot, and Harry?" Remus said in a thoroughly amused voice. "You can let go of Sirius now. He won't kill anyone."
Harry doubted this statement seriously but released Sirius' arm anyway. Carefully avoiding the two glaring men, he made his way across the room and out into the hall. Looking over at Ron he said, "Well, it's only 8:00 in the morning and already they have tried to kill each other. I can sense that this will be a simply wonderful day."
Both Ron and Hermoine laughed in a hushed manner due to the mad portrait of Mrs. Black, but the mirth was evident on both of their faces, and Harry let a genuine grin cross his face for what felt like the first time since he had left Hogwarts.
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A/N: Well? What did you think? cricket noises in background I hope you liked, but please remember, R & R! I shall see you soon!