Harry felt the wind get knocked out of him as he and Tonks slammed into a dusty wooden floor, an uncomfortable tangle of limbs and luggage. Lying on his back, slightly dazed, it took him several moments to realise that his former Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, Professor Lupin, was standing above his head gazing down at them looking mildly amused, doubtlessly by their clumsy arrival.
Lupin offered him his hand and hauled him up. Immediately he was almost suffocated in a thick cloud of brown hair as he was seized him in a hug.
"Oh Harry!" a voice squealed in his ear, "how are you? Did you see the paper this morning? I hardly had a chance to read the front page before Professor Lupin came to collect me and..."
Harry distangled himself from Hermione and after catching his breath, he helped Tonks stand up.
"I'm fine, I think..." He turned to Tonks, who was dusting herself down, "was that Death Eaters?"
She replied, "Well if they weren't it was an odd time for a costume party".
Harry heard Hermione gasp and Lupin sharply ask Tonks what happened, but his thoughts were racing away. If Death Eaters had come to Privet Drive then his Aunt, Uncle and Dudley were surely dead, just diverting playthings on the way to him. With a painful spasm in his guts, he realised that five people were now dead because of him - Cedric, Uncle Vernon, Aunt Petunia, Dudley and...
With a jolt, he realised where the Portkey had taken them. He hadn't bothered to look around him when he and Tonks had arrived, but now he saw that he was in the grimy, musty, basement kitchen of number twelve, Grimmauld Place: the Headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix, and his dead godfather's prison for the last eleven months of his life. While he had desperately wanted out of Privet Drive for the past fortnight, not once had it crossed his mind that to leave his Aunt and Uncle's would mean coming here, of all places. It was full of morose reminders of his godfather, and the fact that if it weren't for he, Harry, Sirius would still be alive...
Forcefully pulling his attention back to the kitchen, he became aware of Lupin looking at him expectantly, as though he had just asked a question.
"What? Sorry, I wasn't listening" he said.
Peering closely at Lupin, Harry could see that, though his face had always been prematurely lined, the creases had become more prominent, and the shadows around his eyes darker than ever. He looked thinner and shabbier and greyer, as though he was wasting away.
"How are you Harry?"
When Harry didn't reply – what could he say that could possibly describe how he was feeling, being back in the place where Sirius had lived, his only living relatives murdered only minutes ago because of him? – Lupin continued,
"We're not staying here: it's too risky to have the Order coming and going through the square now Voldemort will know where Headquarters is. We'll be travelling onto Hogwarts with Floo powder."
Harry managed to smile weakly, incredibly relieved that he wouldn't have to stay in this house for the rest of the summer. Sensing Hermione watching him, he met her eyes, which were full of concern. Recognising that question-about-to-be-asked expression, and knowing that it was unlikely to be a question he could bear answering, he thought it safer to turn the conversation in a direction he could face.
"How many Outstandings did you get then?" he said, forcing his facial muscles into a smile, knowing that she was bound to have received the top grade in every single one of the exams she sat and desperate to talk about it.
Hermione opened her mouth to answer, but before she could, Lupin threw a handful of glimmery purple powder into the fire he had lit in the grate, and there was an enormous rush of sound in the kitchen as the previously meagre fire grew to a height greater than Harry's. But instead of green, as was usual for Floo-powder fires, this one was sky blue. In response to his curious look, Tonks said,
"Hogwarts has been totally cut off from the Floo network for security, so Dumbledore charmed a couple of strategic fires so they could connect to the one in his office, but we have to use special powder." She smiled mischievously, "And obviously it makes it so much more difficult for the Ministry to figure out what we're doing and stick their dirty great noses in." Clearly Tonks hadn't forgotten the Ministry's previous attitude toward anyone with ties to Dumbledore. To emphasise her point, her nose swelled into an enormously warty, dripping purple lump.
Catching sight of Lupin glaring at her, Tonks coughed and dropped her eyes, abashed. Lupin said,
"I'll go first, then you Hermione, then Harry. Tonks is staying here to keep an eye on the place," Tonks's eyes grew into huge grey plates, "Hermione, if you've never travelled by floo before it can be a bit –"
"Vomit-inducing" interrupted Tonks
"Right," Lupin continued, "but because this fire is only connected to one other, you won't have to worry about getting out at the wrong place." With that, he stepped smoothly into the blue flames, and disappeared in a whirl. Looking apprehensive, Hermione followed, pulling her trunk, her ginger fluffball of a cat, Crookshanks, jammed under her arm. She, too, disappeared with a whirl.
With a grimace, Harry walked into the fire, Hedwig's cage under his arm. Floo powder was his least favourite mode of transportation. As soon as he was properly in the fire he began to spin very fast. Instinct told him to keep his elbows by his side, but that was easier said than done while holding a trunk and a cage containing a disgruntled owl.
With a clatter and a bang and great relief, Harry fell out of the fire and straight onto a thick carmine carpet. Shaking some hot soot out of his hair, he looked around him and found that he was indeed in Dumbledore's office. Hermione, who was standing nearest the fireplace trying to remove a smouldering piece of coal from her sleeve, offered him her hand and hauled him up.
Watching him from their portraits hanging on the circular walls were dozens of past Headmasters and Headmistresses, all of whom were wearing sombre and meditative expressions. Grouped around Dumbledore's desk were Mr and Mrs Weasley, their two eldest sons Bill and Charlie, and a three other members of the Order of the Phoenix: Kingsley Shacklebolt, a tall black auror built like a muggle tank; Alastor 'Mad Eye' Moody, who was as grizzled and paranoid as his spinning magical eye was disconcerting; and Dedalus Diggle, who, Harry was surprised to see, looked solemn: Harry had never seen him look anything less than terribly excited. All were listening intently to Lupin, who was seemingly recounting what Tonks had said about Death Eaters in Privet Drive. Everyone in the room looked as grim as the paintings. Harry got the impression that their expressions had been set like that for some time.
Lupin finished his account, and the group turned to him and Hermione.
"Harry! Hermione!" With a bustle, Mrs Weasley came forward and hugged them both, "It's so lovely to see you! Ron and Ginny are here as well but they're up in Gryffindor Tower, of course. I'm sure you four have a lot to catch up on, so if you want to go and join them, I'll send lunch up later. Just leave your trunks here and I'll have a house-elf bring them up to your dormitories." She said this very quickly and distractedly.
Harry stared at her in disbelief, dimly aware of Hermione admonishing Mrs Weasley for treating house-elves like slaves. After everything Dumbledore had told him at the end of last term, he had expected to at least be told what the hell was going on. What had Tonks said earlier? "Fudge is the least of our problems."
"Mrs Weasley," he said, "What else is going on? Aside from Fudge, I mean? Tonks told me..."
As Harry said this, Mrs Weasley's lips set into a thin line. Only when Fred and George, Ron's elder twin brothers, had catapulted over the boundaries she had set for acceptable behaviour had Harry seen her looking so very disapproving. She also had a look in her eye that Harry had seen once before: in the kitchen of Grimmauld Place last summer, when she had stopped Sirius and Lupin from answering his questions about what Voldemort wanted.
"Well there seems to have been an esc..." she stopped and looked slightly flustered for a moment before continuing firmly, "but we don't really know, and in any case, it's nothing for you to worry about." With that, she took both he and Hermione by the elbow and led them forcefully out of the office, "The password for the common room is circumagus". Before Harry had time to object, he and Hermione were staring at a closed door.
Harry snorted in exasperation. Once again he wasn't going to be told anything. After everything that happened last year, when him not knowing got Sirius killed and his friends hurt, he was still going to have to piece together hints and half-clues in the hope that the jigsaw came together accurately and not in some way that had him lead people into an ambush.
He realised that he must have been frowning into space when Hermione waved a hand in front of his face.
"Shall we go then?" she asked, in a tone of voice that suggested she was at least as happy about the situation as he was. Harry sighed in resignation and nodded. If Mrs Weasley found them lurking out here she would probably beat them about the heads with the business end of a broomstick: he had seen her do that to Fred and George on one occasion, just barely after the look he had just been on the receiving end of.
Half-heartedly, they set off down the spiral staircase.
"You don't think there's been an escape from Azkaban, do you?" Hermione blurted, twenty feet from the stone gargoyle that guarded the entrance to Dumbledore's office. "Mrs Weasley started to say 'escape,' I think, before she stopped herself. 'there seems to have been an esc...' she said. You don't think...not the Death Eaters in Azkaban?"
Harry stopped dead and looked at Hermione, his mind racing. He had been too peeved off with Mrs Weasley to really listen to what she was saying.
"Tonks said that something was going on when she came to get me... she saw the paper and said something was a bigger problem than Fudge being murdered..." he said slowly "but I didn't get a chance to ask her what she meant... I'd say that a eleven escaped Death Eaters is a pretty big problem though."
Harry started walking again, staring at his feet in concentration. "It would explain why everyone seems in such a panic..." And something occurred to him, "and why...Did anyone tell you someone would be coming to get you this morning? Because Tonks just showed up on the doorstep...If the Death Eaters had escaped, it would make sense that to get us somewhere safe, wouldn't it? Because they..."
"Would most likely come after us," Hermione finished. Harry nodded. She continued, "and it's not as if my house has any protective charms around it: if they came looking for me it's as good as gone. And you're...well...you, so..."
Frowning, Harry said, "I can't believe they're doing to this to me again! After Dumbledore told me that — " He stopped awkwardly. That wasn't a sentence he was ready to finish. He coughed, hoping that Hermione wouldn't notice. "After last term I thought that —" He trailed off again, realising that there was really was no way to say why he thought he would be involved without revealing everything Dumbledore had told him in his office after Sirius had been killed. Thinking it best to change he subject entirely, and knowing it was unlikely that Hermione could resist the discussion of academic matters a second time, he said, "How did you do on your OWLs then? All Outstandings?"
He was proven right.
"Oh!" she said, "yes, and you'll never guess what! The letter said that I had the highest marks this year in Arithmancy, Ancient Runes, Transfiguration and Charms! Apparently I'm the only person ever to do that! My parents were so excited, not that they really had a clue what any of the subjects were obviously, but still! And I had been so worried about Astronomy, you know, with what happened during it, but that was fine as well, I was so relieved!"
Not entirely willing to admit that he didn't really know what Arithmancy or Ancient Runes were either, he merely grinned.
"Congratulations Hermione, you really deserved it. With all that time you spent hogging the best table in the library..." He laughed as she squealed in mock offence and punched him playfully on the shoulder.
"How did you do?" she asked, when they had both stopped laughing. "You must have gotten an O in Defence Against the Dark Arts."
"Yeah..." he mumbled, wondering how to say this, "highest mark in...well...living memory actually..." he finished sheepishly, barely audible.
Hermione made up for his lack of volume with an almost ear-splitting shriek that reverberated off the stone walls.
"Harry! What did you get! It must have been...over 200 because I looked up the records before the exams to see what the standard was and I remember thinking what a high mark that was! And that was almost 30 years ago! Sirius would have..."
Harry glanced at her sharply.
"Sirius would have been so proud. Your Mum and Dad as well." She continued firmly. "There's no point pretending that's not what you've been wondering about." After a few moments of silence she said, "are you all right Harry? Your letters didn't really say much. Did your Aunt and Uncle treat you okay after what happened at the station?"
"They pretty much ignored me. Not that I was complaining. And anyway they're probably dead now, right? Not much point in thinking about them anymore; they certainly wouldn't have spared a thought if it was me that was dead."
Hermione didn't manage to find an answer, as they had reached the portrait of the Fat Lady that guarded the Gryffindor common room. Giving her the password, they clambered into the familiarly cosy room.
They found Ginny laughing, and Ron in a precarious perch on the fireplace.
"Come here you little..." he was shouting the tiny twittering grey owl, which was zooming excitedly around the chandelier in the middle of the ceiling. As they watched from the portrait hole, he leaned out a little to far and fell off onto a squidgy armchair, facing them.
"Harry! Hermione! What are you two doing here? Mum didn't say you were coming today! I was just going to send this little twit to you two!" He scowled in the direction of his owl. "Did you get your OWL results? Two Os, three Es and three As! And one P, but that was Divination, it doesn't count!" He said, triumphantly seizing a piece of parchment from the floor and waving it in the air.
For several minutes they discussed their results, but then Ron expressed his dissatisfaction with Mrs Weasley's response to his grades.
"She said, 'yes dear, that's wonderful,' then just walked away, can you believe that! When Bill and Charlie got their OWLs she was straight on the Floo telling everyone she'd ever met! Yeah when Fred and George got theirs she only yelled, but all they got was three As. You'd think all I'd done was de-gnomed the garden or something!" Ginny patted him on the arm sympathetically.
Harry and Hermione looked at each other. "Erm...haven't you two seen the Prophet this morning?" Hermione asked. Both Ron and Ginny shook their heads.
"Well, Fudge was murdered by Death Eaters last night: there was a Dark Mark and everything. And listen —" Quickly Hermione filled them in on what Tonks and their mother had said, and what she and Harry thought it meant. When she finished, Ron and Ginny were staring at her; their mouths hanging open.
"It might not be that," Harry said, "it just seems most likely, considering half the Order's in Dumbledore's office and they don't look very happy."
For the next two hours, the four of them talked about what might be going on. Around half past eleven, a house elf Harry indistinctly remembered from illicit trips to the kitchens turned up with his and Hermione's trunks, and Ron and Ginny were able to read Hermione's copy of the paper themselves. After pouring over every word of the article several times, hoping to glean extra information from between the lines, they gave up and instead talked about what the consequences may be.
"Bet Percy will be happy, " said Ginny sarcastically, "I can see him now – he'll be curled up crying his eyes out like a baby!" she finished scathingly. The third eldest Weasley had shown himself to be very much on the Minister's side when he was denying Voldemort's return, and trying to turn both Harry and Dumbledore into laughing stocks, last year.
"Yeah, that's two bosses he's lost – one might be bad luck, but two is just plain careless!" said Ron with savage glee. "First one swapped for one of You-Know-Who's minions, second murdered by You-Know-Who's minions! Next thing he'll be working for You-Know-Who himself!"
"He's still not apologised then?" asked Harry.
"Apologise?" Ron gasped, "the prat wouldn't know how! You wait and see, even after this, he'll still be saying that the Ministry is the font of all that's holy and is absolutely right in all its decisions! Didn't Dumbledore tell Fudge ages ago to take Azkaban out of control of the Dementors? And look what happens – they join You-Know-Who and the Death Eaters escape!"
Ron continued in this vein for some time, with occasional vehement interjections from Ginny, in language Mrs Weasley would have found increasingly disgraceful. He was halted in the middle of a chain of invective that would have made the most hardened crook blush only by the entrance of Professor Dumbledore.
"Mr Weasley! I had no idea that you were a student of Muggle philology: you demonstrate admirable aptitude with the more... ah... indelicate areas of language. It's quite a talent you have there. Remarkable." Dumbledore twinklingly surveyed Ron over his half-moon spectacles as he sank down into his chair; his face flushing scarlet with embarrassment.
"I believe," Dumbledore continued, "that lunch is being served in the Great Hall if you care to make your way down. But first a word, if I may, Harry?"
Ginny and Hermione followed Ron out of the portrait hole: whether it was the possibility of food that made Ron so quick on his feet, or the opportunity to get away from Dumbledore, was impossible to tell. Harry remained seated in his armchair, not quite able to raise his eyes, while Dumbledore lowered himself down in the chair opposite him. The last time they had spoken, after he had gotten Sirius killed and attempted to mangle and demolish the Headmaster's office, the responsibility of the whole entire fight against the most evil wizard of recent times was lain upon he, Harry. Apparently he alone had 'the power to vanquish the dark Lord'. And Dumbledore had thought it prudent to keep this from him for sixteen years, despite he, Harry, being the one who had witnessed his return, and saved the Philosopher's Stone falling into his hands, and...
"Harry," Dumbledore began, "I'm afraid I must begin with bad news. Magical Law Enforcement was advised two and a half hours ago of the appearance of the Dark Mark over your Aunt and Uncle's home. When the Aurors arrived, they found your Aunt, Uncle and Cousin had been killed."
Harry nodded. No surprise, in truth.
"The magic that protected you there is only very poorly understood: I had hoped that it worked reciprocally and protected your family as well as yourself. Unfortunately, that did not prove to be the case. I am terribly sorry Harry."
What could he say? That he was terribly sorry, too? He wasn't. Aunt Petunia may have been his mother's sister, but apart from the barest lipservice being paid to the fact, she might as well have been a stranger. Neither she nor Uncle Vernon had ever offered him anything more than what they were obliged to give: meagre rations and their own son's old clothes. Harry merely shrugged in response.
Even determinedly staring at his knees, he could feel Dumbledore's eyes on him. Quite unwillingly, he raised his eyes and met the Headmaster's gaze, but almost immediately looked away. Never had he seen him look so grave, and it unnerved him.
"I think, Harry, it is ridiculous to deny that you are intimately involved in this war. With hindsight it is easy to tell myself that you always have been; though perhaps now I see that I have been unwilling to overcome my aversion to your association. I know, and I am sure you will agree with me when I say this, that my personal feelings have denied you the benefits that should have been accorded to you. Without those benefits you have suffered the loss of Sirius, and have had to bear burdens that I never foresaw. I can only apologise, and hope that I can make amends for my mistakes in the future. Now, however, I feel that it is imperative that you do have all the help that is in my power to give to you, beginning with joining the Order, if you so wish."
Harry was speechless, his thoughts tumbling in a thousand directions at once. In the two weeks he had been confined to Privet Drive, lying on his bed in a somnolent stupor, his mind had turned time and again to the events catalysed by the Headmaster: his parents going into hiding in the place where they had been killed; being dumped on the doorstep of his Aunt and Uncle's house and forgotten for ten years; being ignored and uninformed all last year then having everything he should have been told ages ago hurled at him on the worst night of his life. He had come to harbour a furious resentment toward the man sitting opposite him that made him want to careen round his bedroom screaming and kicking the walls until the plaster cracked. Of course he had done no such thing, mindful of the fact that safeguarding his life or no, the Dursleys would not stand for such ostentatious behaviour and he would be out on his ear. But seeing Dumbledore now, he felt that rage tingle in his fingertips.
But at the same time he felt his heart in his throat pounding with adrenaline. To join the Order!
Once again he met the Headmaster's eyes, but instead of glancing away, he held his gaze, fully aware that in doing so he was giving an Occlumens the opportunity to read his thoughts, to see how angry and frightened he was. How was he, Harry, not even sixteen years old, supposed to kill a wizard whose aim was immortality when his was, or should be, to at last figure out Switching Spells?
To his great surprise, it was Dumbledore that looked away first. He rose stiffly and walked to the window, and after a long moment of staring out at the grounds, he spoke.
"Did you know, Harry, that we were first introduced only three days after you were born? I remember it as though it were yesterday. Your father and Sirius had thought it would amuse you to ride in the motorbike that Sirius used to fly and they, well I believe they termed it "borrowing you" although "kidnapping" would perhaps be more apt – it's certainly what your mother called it – and flew up here. I believe their excuse, on returning you to Lily, was urgent Order business though I recall nothing of the sort being discussed. Truth be told, they just wanted to show you off, Sirius as much as James. This was at the height of Voldemort's power of course, and social occasions were few, even for the wider Wizarding community: for members of the Order...I'm sure you can imagine..."
Harry could imagine all too clearly. Of the people in the photograph of the original Order of the Phoenix Moody had shown him last summer, only twelve were still alive and of those, two had been tortured into insanity and one had turned traitor. There must have been a lot of funerals.
Dumbledore turned back toward him and continued, "Now I am sure you can understand that three-day-old infants are rarely the most entertaining of creatures. I'm sure you slept the entire time you were "borrowed" from your mother. Your father and Sirius saw this as no obstacle in assuring me that you were quite the most exceptional individual I would ever come across, and frankly I am yet to find anything that proves them wrong."
At this, Harry felt a thick band tighten around his gut.
"I'm only exceptional because of a stupid prophecy," he said dully.
"That is where you are altogether mistaken, Harry. A prophecy only foretells what will occur; it neither institutes nor affects events. The prophecy Sybill made that night in the Hog's Head merely predicted the birth of an singular individual — you." Dumbledore sat back down in the opposite chair and leaned forward, "There is a vast difference. Despite being unaware of the prophecy until very recently, you have repeatedly acted to prevent Voldemort gaining power; and I believe if you were still unaware of the prophecy's existence, or even if the prophecy had never been made, you would still wish to hinder and defeat him."
Harry could only nod. Dumbledore was right.
The two of them sat in silence for a some time until Harry even began to realise that he was being given a chance to obtain the answers to questions that had been littering his brain for the past fortnight.
"Do all the members of the Order know about the prophecy?" It had occurred to Harry in the small hours of a sleepless night that Dumbledore must have told them something to explain why four people had to go into hiding, why Harry needed the protection he had, and why they had to risk life and limb to protect a dusty glass sphere. The thought that Mr and Mrs Weasley, Sirius, Lupin and Moody and people he had barely even met knew while he had not had made his hands shake in anger.
In response, Dumbledore inclined his head slightly. "I'm sure you can appreciate that some people had to be told that prophesy important to our fight had been made. With your parents, and Mr Longbottom's, I obviously divulged the entirety. The rest of the Order are aware that a prophecy details the keystone of our fight, but they are entirely unaware of just what - who - that keystone is. They do know I have not disclosed all that I know, they are content to know that I have my reasons, namely, I believed that when the time came, it would be up to you to reveal the details as you saw fit."
At this, Harry was very much relieved. But...
"Sirius...?"
"Only knew as much as the rest of the Order, I believe. I advised your parents not to tell anyone of the remainder of the prophecy, as it was around this time that there was the beginning of a suspicion of a spy among our ranks. To my knowledge, they followed my advice."
Harry had not realised he had been holding his breath. He let it out now in a long sigh without meaning to and felt a little lighter, as though someone had taken away some of the immensely heavy load he had been carting about on his shoulders. The thought of Sirius knowing had tortured him – knowing and not telling him, or knowing and there being the possibility that he had been merely keeping up a pretence of godfatherly affection to keep him, the Weapon, happy. With his mind suddenly feeling so much freer, it occurred to him that now was the time to ask what had happened that had the members of the Order so concerned.
"Sir, Tonks told me this morning that something had happened...erm, other than Fudge, I mean."
Dumbledore looked at him now with a faint smile that didn't quite meet his eyes.
"I have spent the morning with the Wizengamot trying to answer the very same question, Harry." It was then that Harry noticed that Dumbledore was indeed wearing the plum-coloured robes he had seen at his disciplinary hearing the previous summer. "It appears that the Death Eaters captured in the Ministry of Magic in June escaped Azkaban sometime last night, though how exactly they were able to do this is still unclear: despite no longer being under the control of the Dementors, the magic interring the prisoners was expected to hold them for a while yet. The murder of the Minister, it seems was merely a diversion to allow time for their removal from the island."
So their suppositions earlier had been right. Voldemort now had twelve of his most loyal followers back in his employ, and he was unlikely to go to all that trouble just to lay low. Dumbledore apparently shared that opinion.
"I fear, Harry, that we should expect the worst in the coming days and weeks. Voldemort will not see any reason to deny his followers' the sport that they have missed this past year. Unfortunately we can but wait."
