Chapter Eight
Help
When Christmas Break came around Harry and Hermione decided that they wanted to go to Grimmauld Place, so Hermione sent a letter to her parents telling them that she needed to stay at school so that she could study for her upcoming exams. They said that it was fine, and Harry was going there because he knew that all the Weasley's were going to be there too.
Like always they had a guard, so when they were done packing they headed downstairs to the Great Hall to wait for the guard to show up. As they were walking down the marble staircase, Mad-Eye Moody, Tonks, Lupin and Shacklebolt were all standing in the middle of the Great Hall waiting for the both of them.
While the guard was standing there, Harry noticed that practically everyone that was in the Great Hall was looking curiously over at the small group of wizards.
Remus was the first to notice Harry and Hermione.
"Here, let us help you with those." he said gesturing towards their bags.
By the time that they had gotten to the taxi cab, which they had to use for security measures, they were all exhausted from the long walk.
They had to use two cab's because of the amount of people there were. So Harry, Hermione and Remus got into the first cab and Tonks, Shacklebolt and Mad-Eye got into the second cab.
Harry and Hermione definitely enjoyed being able to ride with Lupin rather than any of the other members of the guard. They had a good time laughing and joking around about everything.
Good, Remus thought. This is exactly what he wanted the trip to be like, that was his goal: to keep Harry and Hermione's mind as far away from the thought of Ron as possible.
When they arrived at Grimmauld Place, it looked the same as it did the last time they had been there. They all climbed out of the taxi's and got all their bags, Harry got Hedwig and Hermione got Crookshanks.
Harry noticed that both of the cab drivers seemed very pleased to leaving such a large group of awkward people and also to be getting out of such a beat up, old, dark and run down neighborhood such as this.
As soon as they got inside, they were being hugged by Mrs Weasley.
"Oh Hermione, Harry, I am so glad that you're alright. Thanks to you two The Order was able to get a quick move on trying to figure out where Ron is. Thank you so much. Now you two need to go ahead and go upstairs, there is a very important meeting going on in the kitchen." she whispered.
So Harry and Hermione made their way up the long, dark staircase. They passed by several smaller portraits, and then they came upon a very large portrait that had a large curtain that was pulled closed over the painting.
They both knew what was behind the curtain, it was a picture of Sirius Black's mother. They also knew that if there was a load noise made that it would wake her up and that was the last thing that they need. So, as the passed by her portrait they were as quiet as possible.
By the time that they got to their room, Fred and George were sitting on their beds waiting for them.
"Hello Fred, hello George. How are you?" Hermione asked them both.
"Hey." said Harry.
"We're doing pretty good. How about you two?" they asked together, in a voice unlike their own.
"Fine..." said Hermione slowly, "are you two all right?"
"Yea, great." George said, with sarcasm. "Of course we're not alright."
"That jerk Malfoy sold Ron, our little brother, out to You-Know-Who just to help out his stupid father, just to make himself feel important." Fred said angrily.
"And we're going to make him pay for what he has done to our family, for the last time." said George, with a hungry look in his eyes.
"Listen...Fred, George...I don't think that doing anything to Malfoy would help with anything–" Hermione started, but was cut off by Fred.
"Yea it will, it will help George and me get rid of our anger." Fred said, menacingly.
"What I meant was that all it would cause is you two getting yourselves into trouble and getting not only Draco, but Lucius angry." Hermione concluded.
"So what? Who cares? He's gonna get what he deserves, it's called payback Hermione." George said.
"I know what it's called, it's just–I mean..., Harry help me out here." Hermione said wheeling around and staring at him.
"It's none of my business what they want to do, BUT..." Harry continued on through Hermione's protests. "to tell you the truth, if it were my little brother that was sold out by some stupid little prick like Malfoy, then I would definitely want payback."
"Spoken like a true friend." said Fred, as George patted him on the back.
As Hermione opened her mouth to retaliate, Fred interrupted her, "Listen Hermione instead of you just sitting here trying to argue something that you won't win, why don't we listen in on what the elders have to say about Ron."
"They are downstairs having a meeting about Ron right now, and seeing as how we are his brothers than I think that gives us a right to know what they are saying." said George.
"And we thought that you guys would also have a right to know because you two are his best friends." said Fred.
As soon as he said that, he was pulling out two pairs of Extendable Ears.
"Harry, you and George can use those," he said handing Harry a pair of flesh colored strings. "And Hermione and I will use these."
As each one of them stuck an end of the string in their ear, the other end snaked their way down the balcony, all the way to the kitchen door.
Then out of nowhere, as if they were standing right next to them all, they heard every word that was being said.
"Now what we need to do is to make a list of where he could possibly be. And as soon as that has been done we need to split up and go and look for him." said Alastor.
"Yes but we need to make sure that we are looking in the right places. I mean it would be pointless to being searching in any place, that would just be wasting our time." Tonks piped up.
"All I want to happen is for us to find him as soon as possible, I miss him so much." said Mrs. Weasley through small sobs.
"We all want that dear, but we can't rush into anything right now." Mr. Weasley said patting his wife on the back.
"What I propose that we do is to, as Alastor said, make a small list of places that we know that he could be. Once we have done that then we need to send members out periodically. Not at the same time because that would seem too suspicious, and right now we do not want Voldemort finding a pattern in what we are doing. So, for right now we need to act, no matter how hard it may be, as if nothing has gone wrong, we don't want to show signs of weakness." Dumbledore said.
"So as of right now, we need to start writing down the areas that he may be in and after that is finished, we need to assign people to go and check those certain areas." McGonagall said firmly.
"Yes, that is a very good idea Minerva." said Dumbledore.
By that time Harry, Hermione, Fred and George had taken the Extendable Ears out and were dashing down the stairs. When they arrived at the kitchen door they didn't bother knocking, they didn't even bother slowing down, they just burst through the door.
As they stood there gasping for breath everyone jumped and turned to look at them with a look of mild surprise.
"We want to help!" Hermione said quickly.
"Wha–...how did you know?" Mrs. Weasley asked perplexed.
"It doesn't matter how we heard, we just want to help." said George.
"We heard you guys talking about it so we came down here." Harry said, sounding exasperated.
"You two weren't using those dreadful 'ear listening' things were you?" Mrs. Weasley said threateningly.
"Who cares, that doesn't matter now." Fred snapped.
Mrs. Weasley looked at them both with a hurt expression.
At this point, neither of them cared much about anything.
"I know that you must be sick from worry but I am afraid that you two cannot help us, not only because you are too young, but..." Dumbledore continued, even though Fred and George made sounds of protest, "because it is much too dangerous."
"But we're his brothers." Fred and George said together.
"Yes but–..."
"Yea, and we're his best friends and we're really worried about him and we should be able to help try and find him." Harry and Hermione piped up.
"Yes, but my word is final." Dumbledore said in a strong, even voice. "You four shall remain and assist Molly with the duties that are to be done around here."
Author's Notice: I hope you like this chapter better, well at least it's longer than the last one! Lol! Please keep reading and reviewing and I'll keep updating. Thanks!