Chapter 18: Exposed

"My go now. Harry – truth or dare?"

"Truth," Harry said, knowing Hermione wouldn't think of a thrilling enough dare.

"Ok that's easy then," Hermione said looking pleased will herself. "What are you keeping secret from us? You keep disappearing – at the Burrow too but even more so now. How come you keep slipping away?"

Harry panicked. How could he answer this truthfully without letting slip about him and Ginny? Thinking quick he said, "That was 3 questions."

"It was one general theme, now come on answer Harry!" she said looking at him intently.

Normally Harry wouldn't have minded cheating on a game ... but when wizards played Truth Or Dare it was different. There was a magic surrounding the game and those who lied on their Truth or backed out of their Dare would be hexed automatically.

Harry looked around starting to feel flustered. Ok think – think. Answer truthfully but don't give too much away. Come on you can do this.

"Um – I've – been – well—" Uh oh.

"He's been hanging around with us," Fred said innocently. Harry would have been grateful for the help if it were from someone other than one of Weasley twins. Now everyone knew something fishy was going on.

"Come on, Harry," Ron urged.

"No I swear, he's been with us," George insisted. Hermione raised her eyebrows at him.

"Tell the truth," she smiled.

Harry's eyes swivelled around the room and he managed to catch sight of a scared looking Ginny. He could feel the heat rising to his face. Thoughts rushed through his head in a jumble and Harry struggled to remain calm. They should've been more careful. They'd noticed them slipping off. He'd have to admit it now! What would Ron say? How could he explain it? What about Ginny? Oh, he was in trouble now.

Face him with Lord Voldemort and Harry could keep his cool ... put him in a situation where he had to admit he'd secretly been dating his best friend's sister and had lied about if for a month and his mind went haywire. Harry spluttered and tried desperately to look composed. Ginny caught his eye again and her expression made him panic further. Hermione was looking at him with new interest and Ron's forehead was creased slightly in confusion.

Harry sighed. He didn't have much of a choice. If he lied he'd be hexed – if he told the truth he'd be as good as hexed. "Go on, Harry just say it," Fred said gravely.

Ok – ok. Oh no this wasn't going to be good.

"I've been seeing Ginny," he said clenching his hands and avoiding the gaze of anyone in the room.

Never-the-less he still saw Ron's jaw drop open.

"What?" Hermione asked astonished.

"Me and Ginny have been meeting secretly," he confirmed, chancing a peek to see how Ginny was reacting. She was glancing nervously from Ron to the twins and then across to Harry.

Coming to the rescue once again George broke the tension by saying "We caught them once! Haha! Made us promise not to say anything though. Sorry Ronnie-poo."

"How come you didn't tell anyone?" Ron asked Harry.

Harry looked up at his friend, feeling his hairline beginning to sweat. "We thought you wouldn't want us to date," he said feebly.

"Why?" Ron said sounding perplexed.

Harry shrugged. "Sorry, buddy."

"No, no-" Ron said shaking his head and smiling. "I'm totally cool with it. At least you'll be nicer to her than that idiot Corner. Just – um – don't yanno – do anything weird with her."

"Ron!" Ginny whined, rolling her eyes and turning the gazes of all sets of eyes in the room, from Harry to her. "I'm not stupid."

"I know! I know. But you're my little sister and I ... well ... if it was anyone other than Harry – well – erm... I know he's gonna be ok with you."

Hermione sighed and sat back in her chair ashamedly.

Harry smiled weakly – still feeling extremely uncomfortable now that his secret had been so brutally exposed.

"So how long have you been dating?" Ron asked curiously.

"6 weeks," Harry replied without thinking.

"What?" said Ron, his eyes wide. "Are you serious?"

Oops.

"Yep," Ginny replied.

"W-what – six weeks? That's like ... November! Are you kidding me?"

Harry shook his head.

Later that day there was another meeting for the Order. Wizards and witches would gradually arrive at the Head Quarters until almost all the members were present. Emmeline Vance turned up a 2 o clock with her curly hair let loose to fall just short of her shoulders. She gave Harry (who happened to be in the hall at the time) a pretty smile and wave as she entered, brushing a few snowflakes off her clothes and tapping her spectacles with her wand to clear them. She had a gold Christmas-Tree broach pinned to her collar and red and green nail polish on. She looked shocked when she noticed there were no other tributes to Christmas anywhere and promptly flicked her wand, to amend this. Harry smiled at her and she smiled back. "I love Christmas and I can't stand being somewhere that's not decorated," she explained. "The whole Order's coming here for Christmas day you know, it's going to a bit special. I had a few things planned but it looks like this place will need a few more of my touches before it's ready!"

Tonks was the next to arrive and although no-one was in the hall at the time she soon made her presence known by falling over a pair of shoes at the bottom of the hat stand. Her hair was braided into many tiny plaits and was black today. Mundungus Fletcher arrived unnoticed and Snape made no fuss either. Gradually the house became fuller as more and more members arrived. That evening Molly shooed the 'children' out of the way and the company gathered in the study.

Considering they had placed a silencing charm on the room, Harry guessed they must be discussing something very serious. The hours drifted by slowly and everyone was wondering what was causing the meeting to drag on for this length of time. Occasionally someone would emerge from the room, make a round of coffee and biscuits then return. Hermione made everyone some toast when the complaining had reached a climax at 7 pm and they were all sitting around the kitchen table, sipping at their hot drinks when Professor Lupin appeared at the doorway.

"Is the meeting over?" Ginny asked.

Remus shook his head, "No. Fred, George – we'd like to talk to you," he said looking at the twins very seriously.

Ginny looked at her brothers as the pair of them exchanged bewildered looks.

Hermione's eyes strayed from the twins to Lupin and her eyebrows lowered a little in confusion.

Without asking why, Fred and George left the table. Remus turned to the remaining 4 and smiled at them. Harry smiled back and Remus swept the door closed.

"Here they are," Arthur said looking at his sons with a meaningfully solemn face. "Sit down, boys."

Fred and George sat down in two ornately decorated chairs which had just appeared. All the furniture in the room seemed to belong to the long sleek dining table dominating the centre of the space, being as everything was carved identically. They sat down with the eyes of The Order on them. Fred couldn't remember any circumstance where so many people had looked at him this sincerely. Come to think of it, he couldn't even think of one where even a single person had.

When Lupin had taken his seat again Arthur crossed his arms on the table and getting straight to the point, said, "We'd like you two to do something for The Order."

Neither knew whether they were supposed to respond so George raised his eyebrows a little bit and his father continued. "We all agree you are both talented in creating an assortment of imaginative objects, a lot of which could be potentially dangerous. In fact more than just potentially, some of them have been quite hazardous. We want to ask you if you could perhaps take these inventions of yours up a level."

Fred thought he knew what his dad was asking – but he wasn't sure.

"We want you to make us some weapons we can use to attack Death-Eaters."

Well that set that straight then.

George glanced at his brother. Becoming a member of the Order was something they'd been wanting since 2 summers ago. Plus, doing what they do best and in the process taking out Death Eaters, would be something of an uplifting sensation. And look at all these sensible, intelligent, and highly regarded people considering that they have something of value to contribute to this war. They'd never had that sort of respect before. Working for the Order would be the step into maturity – no more silly little games. Their abilities would be used profitably from now on, as opposed to taunting bullies or wreaking havoc just for the sake of it. The sort of havoc they could cause, together, would be amazingly beneficial to their side. The possibilities were endless. Already their minds were spinning. The corner of Fred's mouth turned into a little smile and George winked back at him.

"We'll do it," they said.

Molly beamed at her children and Arthur grinned too.

"Excellent," Kingsley said. "In our next meeting we'd like to see some of your thus far inventions and perhaps you could talk to us about any developments or ideas you have that we could use."

They had homework already, this wasn't a joke. It was intense stuff and the responsibilities and been placed on their shoulders.

"In there anything you'd like to say by the way?" Emmeline asked them.

George spoke up. "Yea, um actually we've been working on something new lately. We've been targeting our pranks and creating some automatic timers too."

"Targeting, there's an excellent idea," Tonks said appreciatively and a few fellow members murmured in agreement.

"We're not quite there, yet. There's a few flaws in some of the more complex experiments we've been doing. But I think we'll nail it pretty soon."

"That would be wonderful," Emmeline smiled.

George nodded, still feeling a little awkward at being regarded as an important member of the Order.

"Thank you for agreeing to join us," said Hestia Jones, a chubby witch with ear-length black hair gelled out in an artistic sort of fashion.

"Our pleasure," Fred nodded.

"Now Remus," Talia said, sitting up straight. She had warm chestnut hair, tied up in a high pony tail and left to sweep on her back. Her eyes were a little larger and rounder than normal making them the predominant feature of her pretty face. She had thick, black eyelashes and her eyes shimmered with many depths and shades of hazel. When someone looked into them, they would feel an unexplainable shiver run down their spine and it was very possible to get lost in her allure.  She had been working as a secretary at the Ministry and it was Kingsley who had pointed out her potential as member of the Order to Arthur, who in turn mentioned it to Dumbledore. The Order kept watch on her for a few weeks, researching her background and finding out her views on the War. She had been approached in August and had willingly accepted the offer. She no longer worked at the Ministry, as the Order liked to have members ready to place in any necessary occupation.   "Have you any progress on the map?" she asked him.

Lupin sighed. "Well I've been thinking about it; trying to recall all the spells we used and such. There's a lot missing from memory of course and I'm going to need some regular maps of the places we're planning to keep a watch over. I can't say this is going to work but I will try. It took the 4 of us a lot of careful planning and persistent effort, so I won't promise I'll succeed at this."

"Are you talking about the Marauder's Map?" George asked.

Lupin smiled, remembering that Fred and George had been owners of the Map and had managed, by themselves, to figure out how it worked. "Yes," he replied. "And I've just thought of something. How carefully did you examine it?"

Fred and George exchanged glances. "Very," George answered.

"Well, would you by any chance, be willing to help me create a few similar ones?"

Fred's eyes gleamed. "Yea, ok."

Remus nodded. "Thank You."

The meeting continued with more exchange of news and formulation of plans. Notes were taken and ideas recorded. An hour later the group started to clear things up and leave their seats. When most of the room was empty and Fred and George were by the door themselves, Arthur tapped them on their shoulders and they turned around.

"I know you've been dying to hear what goes on in these meetings as have Harry, Hermione, Ginny and Ron. I expect you'd want to tell them all about what the Order's doing and I know we can trust them not parade the information but still – and I'm being serious here – I want you to understand that your positions are important and you have to be sensible about it. You'll take your membership responsibly and maturely won't you?"

Fred and George both nodded and for once were being genuine. They knew this wasn't fun and games.