Harry pulled his hood over his head and walked through the ministry of magic. There was a meeting for all of the trainee aurors from what someone had said in the lobby and Harry had to see April about his assessment. He entered the auror headquarters. It was scarily quiet.
"Ah, Harry." Someone said behind Harry. He turned and saw Mr. Weasley.
"Mr. Weasley." Harry said lowering his hood, "How did you know it was me?"
"I guessed." Mr. Weasley said, "Look, I haven't been able to speak to April recently but I need you to give her this letter. It's about the order. Also, Molly will be round later to make sure all you kids are ok."
"Oh, tell her to watch out for my relatives, they're staying at the house." Harry said, taking the letter off Mr. Weasley.
"I'll tell her that. How are things going for you? How's training?"
"It's going ok." Harry said, "A bit difficult but-"
"Harry, get in here now." April said from her office.
"Yes." Harry said turning to April briefly.
"We'll talk later, just tell me. How are Ron and Ginny?" Mr. Weasley asked.
"Oh, they're fine. I don't know if I should tell you but Ron is dating Hermione now." Mr. Weasley grinned and strolled off.
"Harry, you're late." April said as Harry approached her.
"I slept in." Harry lied. April gave him a sceptical look.
"I hope it wasn't in the arms of my daughter." April said as Harry went into the already crowded office.
"No." Harry lied again. April looked like she didn't believe her and Harry caught the gaze of Pavarti who looked at him curiously. "Tell you later" he mouthed. Pavarti nodded and turned to April. Harry took his place behind April's desk
"Now, all the trainee aurors here?" April asked looking around. "As you know I don't take many trainee aurors on as it is usually highly difficult to get into training but we need aurors and you were the ones available." Harry scanned the crowd of trainee aurors. Pavarti and Padma, obviously. Seamus, Neville…Neville?
"Where's Katie?" Padma asked.
"She's at St. Mungos." April said. "Now, we're missing Hannah Abbott."
"She got injured last night." Seamus said.
"Who was she protecting?" April asked.
"We don't know. Professor Lupin found her." Seamus said. April nodded and wrote something down.
"Now, I want to inform you all that you will now work as full aurors though you will not be allowed to kill anyone. I have received reports from all of your mentors and you are all coming along well and look very promising, even you Mr. Longbottom." Neville beamed as April gave him a kind smile. "Now, that will be all of you but Potter."
"What!" Harry asked.
"Hold your tongue Potter. I need to speak to you about several matters." April said. "Now, I will assign you all to new mentors but you need not treat them as mentors." Pavarti looked horror stricken. "Of course I am only doing this because we have a very dire emergency on our hands and we need to try and stop the spread of Voldemort's power. I have a few spies in the school, well more like contacts, and obviously all your friends are keeping Harry up to date with everything that is happening at the school." April looked at several pieces of Parchment that were in front of her. "Here are the names of your new mentors. You are to stay in the headquarters until they can come and collect you."
"The order headquarters?" Pavarti asked.
"No, Miss. Patil, the auror headquarters." April said tiredly. She handed them all their mentors.
"Don't I get Valcrew?" Pavarti asked.
"No you do not. He is currently in a secret mission and does not need a trainee to tag along with him and risk his exposure." April said. "You may all leave, not you Potter, you have to stay. I need to talk to you about your assessment today." Neville and Seamus raised their eyebrows.
"Good luck." Padma whispered. Harry sighed and watched as his friends left the room.
"Sit down." April said in a serious tone. Harry sat in a chair that had just been vacated. "Firstly I want to talk to you about a private family matter." Harry knew what was coming. "I don't want you sleeping with my daughter unless you are going to marry her and at your age I highly doubt you are ready to make that commitment. Secondly, I need you to try and convince Jenny into letting me marry Sirius because he seems insistent that we don't marry without her permission" Harry nodded and didn't say anything. April didn't look any less serious as she carried on.
"The next order of business is your Assessment. It has been cancelled but you have still passed it. Your actions yesterday allowed you to pass the assessment with fairly good scores though I wasn't there I was able to get a proper account out of Dudley and Cho."
"Dudley?" Harry muttered.
"So you will be commencing to the next stage of training which will involve you coming out on raids with me and tracking down deatheaters that we need to capture. I will also put into your care the tightening of security at Azkaban Prison. I know it is a lot for you are such a young age but I believe that you should be responsible and I know that Hagrid will be able to give you advice on suitable creatures to be stationed there should you want them there." April said. She scribbled something on some parchment. "The next thing is the next order meeting. I want you, as my godson and trainee, to lead the next meeting. I might not be able to attend and Moody is currently being held up. I will give you the details in the future and I will give you a quick list of everyone's assignments. I also want you to tell Hermione to start up her House elf front. We need the information and she has all the resources to get it, give her your map and cloak if you need to-"
"I've already given them to Jenny." Harry said. April looked at Harry.
"You do know my daughter can be very irresponsible at times."
"But she's only fifteen. She's still got a lot of growing to do" Harry snapped, "And we can control ourselves when it comes to whatever you think you saw last night." April looked at Harry then back to her parchment.
"I'm afraid relationships are a very risky thing in the auror trade. Half the aurors here have lost a loved one." April said quietly. "This is one reason why I try and keep my relationships hidden, it is why I've tried to keep Jenny hidden for her entire life. Voldemort knows she's the only way to get to me and now he knows it's a way of getting to you. The only reason I'm not letting you become a full auror like the rest of the trainees is because you still need training and you are the only one who can save this world from Voldemort. You need to try and cut any relationships or try to stop developing the ones you have because it'll just cause you pain and blind you to the cause you're fighting for."
"Is that my godmother or my mentor speaking?" Harry asked dangerously.
"It's your mentor." April said.
"What would my Godmother say?" Harry asked. April hesitated for a moment and stared at Harry.
"As your godmother? I would advise you to try and keep your relationships. You don't know how hard it is to be your godmother and mentor, trying to teach you one thing when I believe another. It's the way of the aurors and you must always put the safety of others above your own, which means breaking links to them so that they are safer. It is a philosophy that Dumbledore adopted in your fifth year." April said. She looked away from Harry. Harry just stared at her for a moment and then dug in his robes for the letter that Mr. Weasley had written for April.
"Mr. Weasley wanted me to give you this." Harry said. April looked at it.
"I don't want it." April said.
"But you're head of the order." Harry said slightly surprised.
"No, I'm not. I'm currently leading it but I can't be head of the order on top of everything else. I would write myself a letter of resignation but I promised that I would carry on being head auror until Voldemort had gone."
"Who was the promise to?" Harry asked. April looked at Harry briefly.
"My dad." April said quietly. "Before he died. My sister is making sure I keep to it."
"You have a sister?" Harry asked.
"Yes, she lives in America and does want to meet you one day but we won't talk about it today. Get on with the tasks I have set you or I will give you an outright ban on my daughter." April said. Harry nodded. He reckoned if she wanted to April could stop anyone from seeing her daughter. She had somehow managed it for fourteen years. Harry left the office and went through the list of things that April had told him to do. 1) don't sleep with Jenny, 2) talk to Jenny, 3) sort out Azkaban, 4) run Order meeting, 5)severe all friendship ties. Harry had no idea how he was going to manage all of that. Pavarti looked at him curiously as he walked out.
"So?" she asked.
"I've still got a lot of work to do." Harry said. He sat down at a cubicle and opened pulled out a piece of parchment.
"Like?" Pavarti asked.
"Who do you think helps run Azkaban Prison?" Harry asked as he began a letter.
"Try magical law enforcement." Padma said on Harry's other side. Harry nodded and finished off his letter. "Why?"
"Nothing." Harry mumbled. Pavarti sighed.
"Can you believe I'm not with Valcrew. He was so nice to me and he was really sweet." Pavarti said pouting slightly.
"You heard what April said." Padma scolded her sister.
"So." Pavarti sighed. "I'm going to go and visit Katie later. I think she's doing ok."
"What exactly happened to her?" Padma asked.
"Curse." Harry muttered. He signed his name at the bottom of the letter and folded it into a paper airplane. "From Bellatrix." Harry said.
"Really?" Padma asked shocked. "Is she ok?" Harry shrugged.
"Now, if you excuse me I have a lot of work to do." Harry said bitterly.
Dudley had been sitting around this small house for almost a week now and he hadn't seen a thing of Harry or that blonde haired woman that questioned him. His parents had locked themselves in their room refusing to come out because of the freaks. Dudley honestly didn't mind. He didn't know why he had been so scared before. Harry's friends were actually ok people and the girls were very very fit. Especially the blond one that he was supposed to stay away from. It took all of Dudley's will power to do that but her and that red haired girl, Ginny, were just so tempting. Hermione had talked to Dudley a bit while he had been there and Dudley thought she was a bit of a know it all and as hot as she was it was clear she belonged to Ron Weasley. Dudley watched as the two played a strange form of chess across the table from him.
"Ron, you don't have to let me win." Hermione said.
"I'm not." Ron muttered angrily. Hermione smiled and told her knight to move space. Dudley looked away to his other cousin, Emma, who was sitting at the other end of the table reading a magazine called Teen Witch Weekly- everything a teen witch wants to know. She seemed quite interested in it. Dudley had noticed she looked a lot like one of the ladies who had their photo up on the wall. Dudley thought everything to do with magic was getting cooler by the day. He found the moving pictures absolutely fascinating and Ginny had scared him with a pack of exploding snap cards. The door opened and the blond girl walked into the kitchen looking depressed.
"Has Harry come back yet?" She asked Emma.
"No." Emma said, not taking her gaze off the magazine.
"I'm sure he has a god reason for not being here." Hermione said, "Check mate."
"Will you stop winning!" Ron snapped at her.
"Sorry." Hermione said innocently.
"He said he was going to make up for not being here on Christmas and he's gone!" Jenny said frantically, "He didn't even say bye."
"Would that be before or after you two nearly stripped?" Emma asked curiously. She glimpsed up at Jenny with a cheeky glint in her eye.
"Who told you about that?"
"Ginny." Emma said simply. Dudley marvelled at how they all seemed to get along but not get along at the same time.
"And she's supposed to be my best friend."
"Oh, Hermione told me." Ron said, Hermione kicked him under the table, "Ow, what is it with you and hurting me?"
"It's fun" Hermione said. The blond haired girl let out a frustrated breath and stormed out of the kitchen. Dudley watched amused.
"Keep your eyes off her mate." Ron said dangerously. Dudley looked at him.
"Why? You intimidated?" Dudley asked.
"No because if you touch her." Ron started, "Harry will kill you."
"I'd like to see him try." Dudley said.
Harry stared at the Hogwarts gates in Hogsmeade for hours. He had been counting how many deatheaters went in and out of the place every day. He shared the shifts with Seamus and they had so far counted at least a hundred in the past three days.
"Ok, my turn." Seamus said regretfully.
"Thank god." Harry said as he returned to their little hide out.
"Oi, Harry. Isn't that Cho Chang?" Seamus asked pointing out a few deatheaters. Harry looked to where he was pointing. In the middle of the clump of deatheaters was a black haired girl writhing in their grip.
"Oh shit!" Harry muttered.