Title: Diagon Burning (5/20)
Author name: 1 Eyed Jack
Author email: Drama
Sub Category: Action/Adventure
Keywords: Harry Ron Hermione Draco Pansy
Rating: R
Spoilers: SS/PS, CoS, PoA, GoF, FB, QTTA, OoTP
Summary: Harry Potter is one of the few who remain skeptical when Lucius Malfoy emerges from Azkaban with a full pardon and a plan to start an evil-fighting organization. Exposing Malfoy as a fraud won't be easy amid lies, fights, and hidden agendas. One motorway accident, two definitions for SPEW, three levels of Ministry alert, and lots of four-nication. Chapter 5-Inheritance: Draco pursues his teaching career, Pansy engages in internal monologue, Harry coaches Quidditch, and the Order finally makes a move. Sort of.
DISCLAIMER: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended. Some canon information in this chapter comes from the Lexicon.
Author notes: Special thanks to everyone who's reviewed so far as well as to emerald123, Oli and co., and Viola for the betas, and indarae and blythely for catching errors on LiveJournal. Naodrith and Alissa Raboin also looked over earlier versions of the fic.
Diagon Burning
Chapter 5:
Inheritance
"Creevey, Creevey, over here!"
Colin and Dennis wobbled over. That, at least, was progress. Dennis had actually fallen off his broom earlier this week. Not while he was playing. Not while he was flying quickly, even. They'd just been ambling through the air, barely moving while Harry discussed team strategy, and the kid had fallen right off. Harry had to dive and catch him before he faceplanted in the mud.
"Captain Potter, sir?" Dennis squeaked.
"For the love of God, Dennis, it's Harry! His name is Harry!" Colin whacked him on the head with his Beater's bat.
"Oww!" Dennis said. "I can't call him Harry, he's our Captain!"
"Dennis, will you—"
"Um," Harry said, "can you two hold off for a few minutes?"
The shut up instantly and faced him, eyes wide. Harry half expected them to bow or something.
"I need to talk to you two about your Beating style," Harry began, flying slowly so that Dennis wouldn't have trouble keeping up. Dennis slipped on his broom. On second thought, maybe it would be better if they just hovered in the air. Harry stopped moving. "You know why I chose you two, don't you?"
"Ooo! I know!" Dennis said.
"Dennis, shut up!"
"Because you worked so well together during tryouts," Harry said loudly. It was why siblings were so often selected as Beaters: they tended to have similar playing styles and to understand each other's movements. Twins were best, but the only set of twins in Gryffindor at the moment were first year girls, and Harry wasn't about to give two giggling eleven year olds Beaters' bats and rely on them to defend his team. And the Creevey brothers had been good in tryouts. What they'd lacked in instinct Harry had figured they could make up for with practice. He hadn't realized that the level of cooperation they'd displayed in tryouts was a rare truce.
They looked up at him, wide eyes identical. "We did?" Colin said.
"Yes." Harry said, but to see them in every practice since, nobody would know it. "You played like you'd been practicing together for ages."
Dennis blinked. "We're Muggle-born," he said.
"Yes, I know, which is what made it so remarkable," Harry said. "You were in the right positions to back each other up, you trusted each other to take care of Bludgers. You were everything we need out of our Beaters. But lately you've been playing like you don't even know each other." Or rather, like they knew each other too well and wanted nothing to do with each other.
The Creeveys gaped at him. Harry realized they weren't going to help him out with this. "You need to learn to cooperate if you're going to be successful Beaters," he elaborated. "You can't play such an important position if you're going to be fighting all the time."
They still weren't saying anything. "Can you at least give it a try?" Harry said.
"Yes, sir!" Dennis said. He started to raise his hand to his forehead—he was actually going to salute—but Colin slapped it down.
"I'll try, Harry," Colin said.
Harry had a feeling that they were a lost cause already, but he didn't think talking to them again would be much help.
He sent them back into practice and let loose one of the Bludgers. He didn't really trust the Creeveys with two at the moment. After a few minutes he saw the problem: it wasn't both brothers fighting each other, it was Colin trying to outshine Dennis, flying in front of him to whack a Bludger that Dennis obviously had under control, telling Dennis that he'd hit the Bludger in the wrong direction when Dennis had just made a clever move. It wasn't both brothers Harry needed to talk to, it was Colin.
But Harry just didn't have that kind of energy. One attempt to fix the situation was enough for the day. He called the whole team in to end the practice before things could get any worse. He'd talk to Colin tomorrow, or at the next practice, or maybe never, as long as it wasn't today.
The whole team was standing around him on the ground: Ron, at Keeper, who still hadn't quite gained the confidence he needed to grow into the position; Ginny, Jack Sloper, and Andrew Kirke, the Chasters, who had been Seeker and Beaters respectively during Umbridge's Quidditch ban last year; and of course the Creevey brothers. Colin had just jabbed Dennis in the side. Harry ignored them.
"Not too bad of a practice, guys," Harry said. "We're still learning how to play together, but we're doing really well for only the third day of practice." Harry avoided looking at the Creeveys as he said this. Colin had just poked Dennis again, and Dennis looked like he wanted to blubber. "If we keep working hard, we shouldn't have any problems. See you out here tomorrow at eight."
Everyone filed into the locker room and began to strip off their Quidditch gear. Before she headed to the girls' showers, though, Ginny touched his arm and said, "Harry, can I talk to you for a minute?"
Harry nodded. "Sure."
"Outside, maybe?"
They walked over to the door, but it had begun to rain. Ginny wrinkled her nose. "Maybe not outside."
"Do you want to go somewhere more private, Ginny?" Harry asked.
Ginny looked around. Harry followed her gaze. The main area of the locker room was clear. It was quiet except for the trickling of water from the showers. "Here is fine," she said.
Harry put his hands in his pockets and waited.
"Sloper and Kirke aren't passing me the Quaffle," she said finally. "I don't know if they're doing it on purpose, and I wouldn't think anything of it if it were only some of the time, since they're best friends and all, and they played Beaters together last year—but, Harry, it's all the time. The only time I got the Quaffle all practice was when one of the Creeveys hit a Bludger towards them by mistake and they dropped the ball. I didn't want to say anything to them since I'm not sure that they know they're doing it, but there's really no point in having me at Chaser if they're not going to pass to me." Ginny looked up at Harry.
"I didn't see anything, but that's because I wasn't watching you as much as the Beaters," Harry said. "But—"
"I don't think Colin means to be as mean to Dennis as he is," Ginny said. "Older brothers just do that sometimes."
Harry imagined Ginny knew exactly what older brothers could be like. "They seemed a little better after I talked to them," he said, lying through his teeth. "But, like I said, I wasn't really concentrating on what was going on with you and Sloper and Kirke, so I'd like to watch what happens in practice tomorrow before I say anything to them, if you don't mind, so I can base what I tell them on my own eyes rather than on what you told me."
"That's fine," Ginny said.
"Good. I'll see you at practice tomorrow." Harry began to pick up his gear.
Ginny touched his shoulder. "Um, actually, one more thing." She sounded nervous. "Listen, I know you moved me to Chaser this year because you think I play better there, and because you're back at Seeker, of course, and you're a better Seeker than I am but I really don't think I'm very good at Chaser, and I was just wondering what you thought."
"I wouldn't have moved you to Chaser if I didn't think you would be good there," Harry said. "And I'm the better Seeker—I'm not trying to be egotistical, you just said it yourself. I moved you to Chaser because there is no point to having a good Quidditch player as a reserve when you could be getting field time. Unless you'd rather be a reserve? Because I'm sure there are a dozen players who'd love to have your spot."
"No," Ginny said. "I don't think that would solve anything."
"What do you want to do, then?"
"I was thinking, maybe, could you help me a little after practice? With strategy, mostly, and applying it? Because I think that's where I need the most help, because I can see plays in my mind when you describe them or block them out, but when I go to try them myself I get confused and I could probably use your help."
"Okay," Harry said. "I'd be happy to help you."
"Really? Could we start now?"
"Yeah, that'd be—no, I have detention," Harry said. Detention with Snape, for having "purposefully disrupted" Potions class. Harry had been walking in front of Malfoy and Malfoy had tripped him from behind and Harry's books had gone flying as he fell. He'd had to spend the first five minutes of class cleaning up his broken inkbottle without magic, because, "the carefully controlled environment of a Potions classroom cannot tolerate magical interference until after we are finished brewing, Potter," and then the bastard had given him a detention to make it sound like Harry had spilled the ink on purpose.
Ginny's face fell, so Harry said quickly, "But would tomorrow be okay? After practice, for, say, half an hour?"
"That'd be great," Ginny said. "Thanks, Harry."
"No problem." He collected the rest of his Quidditch gear and deposited it in his locker.
-
The fourth day of NEWT potions, Snape didn't show and Draco Malfoy decided to teach the class.
Harry was about to say something to Hermione about leaving when Malfoy walked to the front of the room, slammed an enormous book on Snape's desk, and turned around to write on the chalkboard. Pansy Parkinson laughed, and Theodore Nott smirked, which was as much as Harry had ever seen him do.
Hermione placed a hand on Harry's arm. "Ignore him," she whispered. "Malfoy's just doing it to annoy us. Here," she flipped open The Standard Book of Spells, Grade 6, "let's do our Charms homework."
Harry did not want to do his Charms homework. But he reached down and grabbed his book out of his satchel. Malfoy cleared his throat. When Harry got back up to the level of his desk, he was able to see what Malfoy had written.
BLOOD
"Purity," Malfoy began, "is something of great importance to potion making. For example, the right quality and mixture of ingredients is essential to a successful potion—a fact that all of us, except Potter, are well acquainted with."
Harry got a parchment and quill out of his bag. He wrote the date and his name across the top of the parchment. Hermione was already on question three.
"A successful wizard is much like a successful potion. Purity is essential." Malfoy looked at Harry and Hermione. He gave them a nasty smile. "I'm so glad you're taking notes, class."
Hermione put down her quill, folded her hands and stared at Malfoy. Harry rewrote over the date and his name. He drew a number one and circled it, tried to read the first question and went back to rewriting his name.
"Just as a potion requires purity of ingredients, a wizard requires purity of what?"
Pansy Parkinson smiled and pointed at the board.
"That's right, Pansy," Malfoy said, leafing through the tome in front of him. "A wizard requires purity of blood. Athough it had been considered truth for thousands of years, the importance of racial purity was only proven a scientific reality in this century." Malfoy started to walk around the classroom. Harry realized he had been holding his quill at the top of the H in his name for the last thirty seconds. He had driven a hole in the parchment.
"Granger, you like to read," Malfoy sneered.
"I like to read, Malfoy," Hermione said. She mirrored his condescending tone almost perfectly.
"Have you read anything by Grindelwald, then?"
Hermione stared at him. "Yes."
Malfoy raised his eyebrows. "Really? Which ones?"
"All of them."
Malfoy smiled. "I found his On Wizarding Supremacy in the Modern Age particularly enlightening."
Hermione crossed her arms. "I found it particularly disgusting."
"Really, Granger. I'm surprised. All of Grindelwald's experiments were conducted under the most scientific conditions," Malfoy said, dropping his book on their desk and leaning up against it. He looked at Harry. "For those of us who are not familiar with the experiment, perhaps I should enlighten you."
Harry threw down his quill and stared at Malfoy.
Malfoy handed it back to him. "You may want to continue your notes." He glanced at Harry's parchment upside down. "Or were you just practicing your autograph?" When Harry didn't take the quill, Malfoy calmly set it down on the desk. "Grindelwald compared the estimated brain mass of five wizards with empirically collected data from nearly 150 Muggles. As you must see, the volume and scope of the experiment ensures its accuracy."
"The estimated brain mass of five wizards, Malfoy?" Hermione laughed sarcastically. "That sounds so scientific. Really."
"Grindelwald proved that the disparity between wizards and Muggles—always suspected—was biologically quantifiable."
"You're just incredibly stupid to believe any of that rubbish." Hermione said.
"Actually, Granger, Grindelwald proved that you are the one who is stupid. In his comparisons, he discovered that the Muggle brain is actually smaller than the Wizarding one by a substantial fraction, proving that we—I mean I—am biologically superior. Do you remember the fraction, Granger?"
Hermione stared at him, but didn't speak.
"For once, Granger doesn't know the answer," Malfoy said. "Let me find the exact statistic. I wouldn't want to misinform the class." He paged through his book. "Here it is: 'The Muggle brain is 4/5 the size of its Wizarding counterpart'." He looked directly at Hermione. "You are 4/5 as human. Though, as a Mudblood, I wouldn't suppose you'd be biologically capable of recognizing the importance or full meaning of this discovery."
Harry slammed the cover of Malfoy's book down on his hand. Malfoy blinked. "Do you have a question, Mr. Potter?"
Hermione was already packing her books. She grabbed Harry's satchel for him.
Harry stood up. He met Malfoy eye-to-eye. Malfoy eye-to-eye. "I'd curse you right now if you were worth the breath."
Pansy Parkinson started to laugh.
Malfoy's smile pulled his lips back over his gums. "Half-blood," he spat.
-
In 1604, when Stanislaus Parkinson made Hattie Coriander his wife, he must have been temporarily out of his wits. Rape was one thing and illicit affairs were slightly less acceptable, but no wizard of a certain social standing ever dreamed of marrying a Muggle. As a species, the Parkinsons were not particularly romantic. Pragmatism was such a well-established family trait Pansy supposed it had to have been part of the bloodline as far back as 1604. She scoffed at the notion that Stanislaus married Hattie the Muggle for love. Hattie must have had nice tits, or a really big fucking gigantic house in the country. Pansy hoped it was both, because the Parkinsons' drop in social standing was sudden, speedy, and supreme.
Although the inferior character of the children born from a wizard-Mudblood match was well known as far back as 1604, it was not scientifically established until Grindelwald's experiments at the University of Vienna proved pureblood supremacy in the early twentieth century. In his masterwork, On Wizarding Supremacy in the Modern Age, which Pansy had never read although she owned two copies, Grindelwald gave these descendents of mixed marriages a name: neuesbluten—newbloods. The detrimental influence of the Muggle blood was so strong, he discovered, it took seven generations for members of the tainted family to regain their full potency as pureblooded wizards.
Pansy had always wondered if her father named her Pansabelle because he thought it sounded aristocratic, pureblooded.
"It really is regretfully bourgeois," Draco had told her once.
"And the fact you call your mother Mummy is bourgeois too."
He buried his face in her stomach. "No it isn't. It's really posh."
"I call my mother Mother."
"Then you don't love her and there's nothing more bourgeois than a dysfunctional family." He placed his chin between her breasts, considering. "I will never call you Pansabelle."
She looked at him. "I never call me Pansabelle, either."
It took seven generations for Hattie Coriander's blood taint to iron itself out. Cheswick Parkinson was the sixth, Pansabelle the seventh. If her father had been born in her place, it would have been socially acceptable for him to be independently wealthy. As it was, Newbloods, like Mudbloods and Muggles, were expected to work. They fleshed out the bourgeois.
Her father often told her she was lucky, because if she had been born a generation earlier, Draco wouldn't even look at her. Sometimes she wondered if he really believed that a Malfoy's attention was lucky, or if he was just saying that because he was supposed to.
She knew as well as her father that Draco wouldn't stoop to touch a newblood. The seventh generation allowed social mobility.
She also knew, because her father had slipped a clipping from a little-read academic journal called European Magical History inside the copy of On Wizarding Supremacy in the Modern Age he had given her, that Grindelwald had been addicted to opium and incapable of scientifically proving anything.
-
"How was Advanced Potions?" Ron asked as Harry and Hermione slammed their textbooks down on the dinner table. "My free period was great."
They both gave him dirty stares. "Well, Snape didn't give Harry detention," Hermione offered after a long silence.
"That's because Snape didn't teach the class." Harry sat down beside her. "Where's the steak and kidney pie?"
Ron yanked the dish away from Neville and pushed it to Harry. "Where was he?" He dropped his voice, "Order business?"
Harry shrugged. "Dunno. I would if the Order told us anything."
"Draco Bloody Malfoy taught the class," Hermione said, driving her fork into the pile of mashed potatoes. "He gave a lecture—if you can call it that—on pureblood supremacy."
"Git," Ron said through a mouthful of roast. "Did you punch him, Harry?"
Hermione looked shocked. "He most certainly did not. Harry's on Ministry probation. That fight the first night was bad enough."
"I could have," Harry said.
"You should have," Ron amended.
"I didn't really feel like it," Harry replied. "He was really trying to piss me off and he was just being kind of annoying."
Hermione sat down her fork. "So you're saying he hadn't earned a punch."
"Frankly, I don't give a damn what racist crap Malfoy believes." Harry jabbed the steak and kidney pie with his fork. "And I'm not going to waste any punches to make him think I care."
"You did storm out of the classroom, Harry," Hermione pointed out after a slight pause.
Harry flushed. "Yeah, well, I would have punched him if I stayed."
-
"I have some bad news," Harry told the team at the beginning of practice on Friday night. "The Slytherins have taken up every evening practice time for the next three weeks. Snape convinced Avery that with the rivalry between Gryffindor and Slytherin as big as it is, there was no way we could practice on the same night without one team cheating and showing up early to watch the other team's practice." If he had been there, Lupin would have said that this was the most legitimate complaint Slytherin had ever lodged against Gryffindor; to Harry, it just rankled.
"Those slimy snakes took all our practice time? How could Avery let them do that?"
"He believed Snape? We'd not the ones who'd cheat, they are!"
"How can we play Slytherin if we don't get to practice for the next three weeks? We have to talk to Avery, he'll—"
"Hold on a second," Harry said. "I've already talked to Avery."
"Well?" Kirke said. "What'd he say?"
"We have a solution." Harry hesitated under their stares. "We're going to practice."
"That's right, show those Slytherins what happens when they mess with Gryffindor!" Colin said.
Harry took a deep breath. "But it's going to have to be morning practice."
"Morning practice?"
"We can't get up early in the mornings to practice!"
"It's a Slytherin plot to take away our sleep!"
"So we go to bed an hour earlier each night," Harry said. "Look, I know it sucks, and I want to beat up the Slytherins just as much as the rest of you, but we need to save it for the game. They're just trying to get at us in any way they can, and we can't let them do it."
"Why didn't you fight this harder?" Colin, who was obviously feeling belligerent today, wanted to know.
"For one, because Hermione talked me out of it. But she had a really good point!" he yelled before they could even start. "She said that, by not arguing, we can use this as a bargaining chip with Avery if Slytherin tries anything ridiculous later on. And she's right, and I'm not going to change my mind on this, so don't argue with me. What Slytherin's really trying to do here isn't take away our practice time. They want us to fight and fall apart as a team, and if we get into a big argument about this, Slytherin will have gotten what they want. But if we treat this as a challenge and use it to make us stronger, then they fail. That's what we all want, isn't it? To see Slytherin lose?" On that count, at least, the team seemed to agree. "Well, then, let's practice!"
But Harry could see that everyone was having trouble keeping their minds on practice and off of beating up the next Slytherin they saw. Harry was right there with them, but that wouldn't help them win. Even though emotional detachment had never been quite his forte, and it was a bit hypocritical of him to preach it, at the end of practice he decided he needed to give it a try.
"We're letting the Slytherins get to us," he told the team. "We're playing angry, and that isn't helping us play well. We need to concentrate on the game, not on how Slytherin's cheating. We're letting them control our emotions. If we're this bad three weeks before the game, what are we going to be like on game day?"
No one could contradict him, but Colin Creevey, who today was too sharp by half, said, "As if they aren't getting to you, too."
Harry made himself count to ten before saying anything. "I never said they weren't. And I'm not trying to say that I'm better at controlling the urge to bash their brains in than the rest of you, because obviously I'm not. All I'm saying is that all of us, myself included, need to take a step back from how much we hate Slytherins' guts and remember that this is a Quidditch game where the better team, not the team that cheats the best, will win. But if we want to be the better team, we have to take our minds off of Slytherin and actually start playing like a team. Right now, the only thing that's keeping us together is that we all hate Slytherin. Hatred won't win games. Teamwork will."
Harry dismissed the team to the showers. As he headed into the locker room, pulling off his armpads, Harry ran over his speech in his head. He hoped he sounded convincing, but even if the team stopped fighting and started playing together, he doubted there was much hope. Last night he'd seen a few minutes of the Slytherin practice from a hallway window on his way back to Gryffindor Tower after practice. They flew in perfect synchronization. Slytherin wasn't just going to give Gryffindor trouble. The game was going to be a nightmare. Gryffindor's only hope for survival was for Harry to catch the Snitch, and soon.
"Harry?" Ginny stood beside him. She looked questioningly look at his discarded armpads. "Can you still help me with—"
"Extra practice. Yes. Sorry, I was distracted," he said, pulling the armpads back on.
"It's okay," she said, and held the door open for him to go back outside. After a few seconds of silence, she said, "It's going to be okay, you know."
Harry started. "What is?"
"The game." She smiled a little. "We're going to be all right."
He wished he shared her optimism, but didn't want to discourage her by saying so. "Thanks for cleaning up the practice equipment for me the last couple of days. I would have been late for detention otherwise."
She looked at him oddly. "You had detention both nights?"
"I had it with Avery the first night for fighting with Malfoy, and Snape gave me another one for being in the halls after curfew. I tried to tell him that I was only out because I was coming back from detention, but he didn't care."
"That stinks."
"Yeah. And the worst part was, I'd just spent an hour and a half polishing every one of the school broomsticks by hand while listening to Malfoy talk about fucking Parkinson."
"I've got you beat. I walked in on them when I was putting away the Quidditch equipment last night."
"Again?"
Ginny nodded. "Fifth time in three weeks. And it's just as disgusting every time."
"Please tell me they weren't using the school broomsticks for anything."
"Why would they be—"
Because Malfoy had been using them to demonstrate very explicit sexual positions the other night, in what had been possibly the most disturbing evening of his life. "Never mind," Harry said quickly. "Let's go practice some passing." Thank goodness he had his Firebolt. After what he'd seen Malfoy do the night before last, he was never going to ride a school broomstick again.
-
By the middle of the month, Potions class hadn't improved, even with the correct teacher. Not that Harry had expected improvement; it was just that he hadn't anticipated Snape having this much stamina for hatred.
"What is the primary ingredient in the salve for treating third-degree dragon burns, Potter?"
Never mind that dragon burns were Medical Potions material, which Snape didn't even begin to cover until halfway through seventh year, "Five points from Gryffindor for negligence in homework preparation."
"But, sir," Hermione raised a hand, "I read the homework thoroughly and there was no mention of dragon burns whatsoever."
Snape blinked at her. "Mr. Malfoy."
"Yes, sir?"
"Did you read the homework?"
"Yes, sir."
"And was there a section on dragon burns?"
"Of course, sir." Malfoy smirked at Harry.
Snape looked dead at Hermione. "Five points from Gryffindor for outright lying."
Harry jumped out of his seat. "That was so bloody unfair—"
Snape held up a hand. "Careful, Potter. Your behavior in recent weeks has shown you to be incredibly unstable. You wouldn't want to force me to recommend expulsion, now, would you?"
Not that he hadn't recommended expulsion a hundred times before, Harry was sure. But he forced himself to hold it in and let Snape say, "You already have no marks for homework, Mr. Potter, but let's give you another question and see if you can redeem yourself a little in my esteem." He gave a very nasty smile. "Now, Mr. Potter, if you would, what is the final neutralizer added to the Rasputin's poison after it has been allowed to simmer?"
"Rasputin's poison?" Harry repeated. He was at a loss.
"Yes, Mr. Potter, Rasputin's poison. It's nearly undetectable and it tastes like vodka. In fact, I informed you of the final neutralizer our first class when you nearly created it by mistake. In the highly unlikely case you've forgotten my lecture from that most unfortunate day, Rasputin's poison was also covered in last night's reading. Is that not correct, Mr. Malfoy?"
Unless Snape had assigned the entire two-year text for last night's homework, Harry doubted it, but Malfoy, wanker that he was, said, "Of course, Professor."
Snape turned back to Harry. "The answer now, Mr. Potter?"
Hermione was trying to whisper the answer to him without moving her mouth but he couldn't understand her. He began to tell Snape to fuck off, but before he could say it someone said, "Knotgrass," from the back of the room.
Everyone turned. Remus Lupin's head poked through the door of the classroom. "Isn't that the correct answer, Professor Snape?"
Snape looked like he wanted to growl.
"I thought so," Lupin said. "Would you mind if I borrowed Harry for a moment?"
Snape looked like he was torn between the agony of letting Harry do something he wanted to do and the joy of not having to see Harry's face for a few minutes. His expression reminded Harry of Uncle Vernon.
"It's important," Lupin said.
"Fine," Snape said shortly. "Leave, Potter."
Harry didn't waste any time shoving his Potions materials into his bookbag and exiting. As he was walking out of the room, Malfoy gave his best imitation of a wolf howl.
Snape smirked. "Five points to Slytherin," he said.
Lupin pretended not to notice. He held the door and eased it shut behind Harry.
"Lupin!" Harry said. "What are you doing here? Is it something with—"
"The Order, yes. But not right now. Snape's in the Order, too, so we couldn't hold the meeting just yet."
"So why did you pull me out of Potions, then?"
Lupin smiled. "You didn't really want to spend the rest of the period with that git, did you?" He leaned on his cane. "Fancy a walk around the lake?"
"Yeah, all right," Harry said. "When was the full moon?"
"Three nights ago," Lupin said. "You knew from the cane, right? I didn't used to like the cane, but I don't really think about it anymore. Comes with the job. Lupin seemed to be making more of an effort to tell Harry things than usual, and, with that thought, Harry's self-restraint evaporated.
"The Order's meeting tonight?" he said. "Why here?"
Lupin smiled slightly. Maybe his cut-to-the-chase tactics had been a little too hasty. "Isn't that obvious?"
"Just tell me."
"They've decided to let you in."
"What?"
"You're in the Order."
Harry blinked, his mouth falling open. "I am? Really?" He had the sudden urge to hug Lupin, but he collected himself. "I heard you talking to Mrs. Weasley that night, after I beat up Malfoy, and you said I should be in—"
"It wasn't me who decided to get you in," Lupin said. "It was Dumbledore."
"Dumbledore?" It made sense, though. It was all part of Dumbledore's giant guilt trip over having kept Harry in the dark all those years, even after he came to Hogwarts. Harry wondered vaguely how many more perks Sirius's death would give him.
"Yes," Lupin said, but didn't elaborate. They were walking through the doors near the lake, now. "Sirius didn't ever tell you he'd written a will, did he?"
Harry almost laughed. The answers to his unasked question were coming a lot quicker than he would have thought. "No. We didn't really discuss him dying, though. Didn't ever come up in our extensive time together."
"He left Grimmauld Place to you, Harry," said Lupin quietly. Harry could tell he was pretending not to notice his sarcasm. "And named me custodian until you graduate—at which time you can do whatever you see fit, kick me out if you like, I suppose."
"No. You can stay at Grimmauld Place, if you like," Harry said. "I don't mind. I'd like that, I think."
Lupin nodded. They walked in silence until they got to the lake's edge.
"Sirius didn't happen to mention me joining the Order in his will?" Harry asked.
"No," Lupin said, looking at him. "It was Dumbledore's decision."
"I guess it would be," Harry said, swallowing what he wanted to say about Sirius, because saying it wouldn't do any good. "It's nice outside," he said instead of anything important.
Lupin looked at him sideways. "Good day for flying."
"We had morning Quidditch practice."
"And how was it?"
"Terrible. Slytherin's going to pound us into the ground."
Lupin leaned on his cane. "So it goes."
-
"What the hell was the werewolf doing here?" Pansy snapped as she and Draco flopped down on a couch in the common room next to Crabbe and Goyle. Goyle was knitting what was either an afghan or a shapeless one-sided sweater and even more alarmingly, Crabbe's head was buried in a book. At least he was reading it upside down.
Pansy turned it right side up for him. She looked at the cover. "The Gay Science by F. W. Nietzsche." Not for the first time, Draco felt mildly skittish about sharing a dormitory with Crabbe.
He decided to temporarily ignore it and start on the lesser of the two evils. "Why the recent knitting, Greg?"
"I find it calming," Goyle said calmly. "I no longer have violent impulses."
"They you're no longer my friend," Draco said.
Goyle ignored him. "You should take up a hobby, Draco, and get out some of that subconscious anger. How about origami?"
Crabbe grunted his agreement and turned The Gay Science upside down again.
"Origami's for girls." Draco made a face. "So is knitting."
"I don't knit. Or make origami," Pansy declared.
"You should," Draco said.
"Can I be your friend if I knit you a hat?" Goyle asked.
"No." Draco stood up. "Come here, Pansy." She made a face at him but came over anyway, sticking her hands in his back pockets. "Get me parchment and a quill."
"No."
"Do it. I'm going to write my father about the werewolf."
-
Harry had been wondering all afternoon how he was going to know when and where the Order meeting was. Lupin hadn't mentioned anything specific about it, even when Harry abandoned sneakiness and tried to pump him for information. And that was just typical of the Order, trying to keep information from Harry for as long as possible. He wondered if actually being in the Order would change that.
The note appeared on his plate at dinner, tucked in an envelope addressed to "H. Potter":
Room of Requirement, 7:30, Teakettle.
Harry stared at it for a few seconds before realizing that "teakettle" must be the password. He shoved the note in his pocket before Hermione or Ron noticed it. He didn't need to have hurried: they were so caught up in argument that their faces were just centimeters apart. He wanted to push their heads together so they would just kiss already. He considered breaking up the argument and asking them if they'd been invited to the Order meeting, but he hadn't seen notes on either of their plates, which meant that, unless they'd been told some other way, Hermione and Ron weren't invited. If Harry brought it up, they'd all only get into an argument, which was pointless since none of them knew what was going on with the Order, so Harry let them continue their current argument all the way through dinner and concentrated instead on enjoying his mutton. They could be amazingly oblivious sometimes. Whenever they were arguing, really, so closer to all the time.
Harry watched them argue up to the Common Room and through the door. "Aren't you coming through, too?" the Fat Lady wanted to know.
Harry shook his head violently and pantomimed shutting the portrait hole.
"There's no need to get all huffy about it," she grumbled. "Running off somewhere and you don't want your friends to know, are you? Meeting a young lady in the Astronomy Tower?"
"That's it exactly," Harry told her and left, choosing to ignore her encouraging yell of "Go get 'em, tiger!"
The door to the Room of Requirement was far less troublesome, docilely unlocking itself after Harry gave the password.
Nearly the entire Order was in the room, seated around a large, polished-wood table with Dumbledore at one end and Mad-Eye Moody at the other. Lupin was sitting next to Tonks, who was telling him how much she'd always loved canines. Snape was staring Lupin down from across the table. If Snape's bared teeth were any indication, he was redirecting all of his hatred for Sirius towards Lupin. There were lots of little conversations going on instead of a formal meeting. Dumbledore waved Harry over to an empty seat at his right, which Harry took and sat.
"We're still waiting on Kingsley Shacklebolt," Dumbledore said. "He owled earlier to say he might have a little trouble getting off work."
"Ah," Harry said.
"Excuse me," said the man to Harry's left, "but I'm Elijah Doge—Eli for short—and I don't think we've met before."
"Harry Potter," Harry said, shaking his hand.
"Makes perfect sense," Eli said. "Has anyone ever told you that you look exactly like your father?"
"Yes," Harry said, "I've heard it before," but that didn't stop him from smiling.
"Isn't that right, Emmeline?"
"A dead ringer," she agreed. "Except for the eyes. You have—"
"My mother's eyes," Harry finished for her.
"Isn't it remarkable, though, Eli? If it weren't for the eyes and the scar, I'd swear he was a sixteen-year-old James."
"Really, though, you do look just like him," Eli said.
"You knew him?" Harry said, a little suspicious now that he'd taken a better look at the man. "You look a little young to have been in the Order when he was."
"I wasn't in the Order till last year, but my dad—that's him, Elphias Doge, over there—he was. I was eight the last time I saw your parents—it couldn't have been long before you were born, because your mother was huge—"
"Your mother?" Dedalus Diggle appeared beside Harry. "Ah, Lily. You have—"
"Her eyes. I know." It was nice that so many people remembered his parents and said things to him, but really, he'd gotten the idea.
"And your father, James," Moody growled from the end of the table. "You look—"
"Just like him," Harry finished.
"You really do, though," said Hestia Jones. "I mean, really, you'd think—"
"Did you even know my parents?" Harry said incredulously.
"Well, I—" she hedged, but Kingsley Shacklebolt walked in the door just then and saved her from having to finish the sentence. Harry sank into the seat between Dumbledore and Eli Doge and prayed that Dumbledore would start the meeting soon.
"May I have everyone's attention?" Dumbledore said, standing up. "I would like to begin this meeting of the Order of the Phoenix. Although we ordinarily meet elsewhere, I have called this meeting here for a special reason: we are going to induct a new member.
"Harry Potter, would you please stand?"
Harry stood up, but something wasn't right about this.
"Raise your wand hand."
Harry did, but as he stood up, his eyes caught on Mr. Weasley's brilliant red hair. "Where's Ron? And Hermione? Aren't they supposed to be here, too?"
"Can it wait until after you're inducted?" Mrs. Weasley said.
"No," Harry said. "Ron and Hermione are supposed to be here, too, aren't they?"
A whisper ran through the room. Mrs. Weasley's voice rose above it. "I won't let Ron join until after he graduates. He's far too young."
"He's older than me!"
Mrs. Weasley's lips were tight, like there was something she wanted to say but couldn't. "It's my decision to make."
"Ron's old enough to be in the Order, and he's just as good at making decisions as Hermione and I are."
"It doesn't matter, Harry, we're his parents," Mr. Weasley said, finally coming to his wife's defense.
"I'm not joining without Ron and Hermione," Harry said.
"Harry," Lupin said quietly, "you shouldn't let what anyone else says or does affect this decision. You should decide based on yourself, not on Ron and Hermione."
Harry just stared at him, then turned to Dumbledore. "I'll join if you let Ron and Hermione in."
"We can't do that, Harry." Dumbledore looked older than ever.
"Then forget it. I'm not joining, either."
"Harry!' exclaimed half the room, but he didn't stop. He slammed the door behind him, walked around the corner, and kicked the wall.
"That was juvenile," Lupin said mildly from behind him.
"Kicking the wall or not joining the Order?"
Lupin considered. "Both, I suppose."
Harry looked him straight in the eye. "I had to do it."
Lupin didn't seem to have an answer for that.
Harry walked away.
When he got back to the Common Room, he saw that Ron and Hermione had fallen asleep on each other on one of the couches. They must have been waiting for him to come back. Hermione's head was on Ron's shoulder and Ron's head was tilted on top of hers. Ron was drooling. Harry almost woke them up but he didn't want to talk about the Order meeting. And anyway, it would be funny to see their reactions when they woke up in the morning and realized how they'd been sleeping.
Harry went upstairs and fell asleep before he even took off his glasses.
-
