Author's Notes: So, only two months between chapters this time instead of five. Vast improvements. Um, yeah. Thanks to those of you who are sticking around, and thanks again to Yolanda for all her beta wonderfulness.

Disclaimer: Not mine. JKR's. She makes the big bucks.

Chapter Fourteen: Gathering

They were in, of course. Harry had never doubted that they would be, never had a single moment's thought that either of his best friends would choose not to join the Order, and he had been correct in his certainty. But inviting Ron and Hermione into the Order had been the easy part, easy as breathing. The rest of the inviting, Harry knew, wouldn't be so easy. Approaching people, even people he knew and liked, and asking them to join one of the most important wizarding groups ever founded—it felt strange. It felt … adult. As he prepared to do his share of gathering Order members, Harry found himself understanding Dumbledore's words about wishing for more time—just a little more time to worry about Quidditch and Prefect duties and homework instead of Dark wizards and ancient magic. But he knew that the only way he—or anyone else in the wizarding world—would ever have the kind of time that he wanted was to take control of the Order now. After Voldemort was gone, he promised himself, everyone would have time for normal lives and normal worries.

Acting on the principle of getting the most disagreeable tasks over with first, Harry owled Percy Weasley and asked him to Floo. A private matter, he had said. Don't Floo from work. (With anyone but Percy, he wouldn't have had to specify this last, for no one else would have been working at the Ministry on a Saturday, but Harry wasn't sure that the word "weekend" was in Percy's vocabulary.) Percy had owled back immediately, his note characteristic:

Since I am sure you know how busy I am, I can only assume that the matter you wish to discuss is of vital importance. With that understanding, I will contact you by Floo tonight at 12, ante meridiem. Please take all necessary precautions to insure that our conversation is not overheard.

It was now 11:58, and Harry waited alone in the Gryffindor common room. Ron and Hermione (or "Necessary Precautions Alpha and Beta," as Ron had remarked in his best Percy voice) were guarding the boys' and girls' dormitories, making certain that no one wandered in while Harry and Percy were talking. Harry mentally rehearsed the conversation in his head, as he had been doing all day. Then, at midnight precisely, Percy's head appeared in the fire. "Good evening, Harry," he said. "What can I do for you?"

Harry regarded the head for a moment, contemplating this young man who was so different from the rest of his family—so prim, so precise, so dot-the-I's-and-cross-the-T's—and yet so like them in his stubbornness and conviction. He began to speak, hoping he had chosen the right tone. "There's a war coming, Percy. Voldemort's back." Blunt, to the point, no beating about the bush.

Percy grimaced at the forbidden name and immediately replied, "The official Ministry position on rumours concerning You-Know-Who…."

"… is stupid and wrong," Harry interrupted. "And people may die because of it." He paused, waiting to see if Percy would dispute this claim. He didn't. Harry, taking this lack of argument as a positive sign, continued. "If you had the chance to join this war early and make a big difference—maybe even save some lives—would you do it? Would you do it if it meant you had to stop pretending to believe the Ministry's story?"

"Now, see here, Harry," Percy began, and Harry sighed quietly. Any Percy speech that began with "Now, see here" couldn't be good. "…assure you that the Ministry is deeply committed to the safety …"

Again, Harry interrupted. "I'm not talking about the Ministry. I'm talking about you."

"I am a Ministry official," Percy replied stiffly.

"You're also a Gryffindor. And a Weasley. And my friend." House pride, family pride, and ties of friendship. There were probably other things to which Harry could have appealed, but these struck him as most appropriate.

"Yes. I am all of those things. However, none of those things changes the fact that I am also a Ministry official."

"And is being a Ministry official more important to you than the other things?" Harry asked.

"Why are you asking me this?"

Harry filed away the fact that Percy had not answered his question, had tried to change the subject when asked if the Ministry were more important to him than his family and friends. Not a good sign. But he answered Percy anyway. "Because I want to ask you to do something, but it's something that would mean doing things that the Ministry probably wouldn't approve of." A vague reply, Harry knew, but he felt he had to be vague. If Percy proved unwilling to join the Order, it would be foolish and dangerous to inform him outright of its existence.

"It is not good practise for a young Ministry employee to engage in activities that the Ministry could not be expected to condone. The term 'career suicide' springs to mind."

Was there a hint of irony in Percy's tone? Probably not; he wasn't usually the ironic type. Harry shrugged and nodded. There were many things he might have said—that there was more to life than a Ministry career, that Fudge's voice, though the loudest, was not the only one to which people in the Ministry listened, that the truth would come out in the end, at which time those who had been spouting the Ministry line would all look like proper fools—but he doubted that any of them would make a difference. Percy was casting his lot with the Ministry, and no further discussion would sway him. "All right, then," he said. "That's all I needed to know."

What was that look that Percy was giving him? Curiosity? Reproach? Apology? Harry couldn't tell. When he finally spoke, it was to ask, in a tone implying that he really didn't expect an answer, "What's this about?"

"You're probably better off not knowing," Harry answered. It would be both safer for the Order and kinder to Percy not to saddle him with information that could only prove a burden to him. Percy nodded as though this answer confirmed his expectations; he bid Harry good night, and his head disappeared from the fire. Harry sat and looked into the flames for a long moment before he rose to go up to his dormitory.

He shook his head in response to the questioning looks from Ron and Hermione. Their responses were as Harry might have predicted: Ron remarked, in an offhand, unsurprised tone, that Percy had always been a gigantic prat, and Hermione fussed at Ron for talking about his brother like that and added that Percy had as much right to make his own decisions as Ron did. Harry let them bicker amicably for a few minutes and then called a halt so that they could all go get some sleep. He was planning to face Snape the next day, and that would be bad enough without having been up all night.

*

Ron and Hermione drew lots to determine who would go with Harry to talk to Professor Snape; Ron lost, and he accompanied Harry to the dungeons. Harry peeked furtively into the Potions classroom and saw that Snape was there, mixing some foul-smelling concoction. Harry was faintly cheered to find him in the classroom; he had never seen the inside of Snape's private office, and he had no desire to do so. He nodded to Ron to show that Snape was there, straightened his shoulders, and prepared to knock. Ron gave him an encouraging punch on the arm and eased out of the doorway so as not to be Snape's line of sight; they had decided that Harry would speak to Snape alone. Harry took a deep breath, reminded himself to remain calm and not to let Snape's habitual rudeness bother him, and rapped firmly on the door. He obeyed the terse "Enter" and stood quietly, waiting to see whether Snape would throw him out on sight.

Professor Snape glanced up from his potion and grimaced when he saw Harry. "What do you want, Potter?" he said. He seemed distracted, like he couldn't even be bothered to put his characteristic venom into these words.

"I need to speak with you," Harry said, trying to sound firm but not confrontational. "Privately. May I close this door, please?" Snape grimaced again, a gesture that Harry decided to take as assent; Harry shut the door and moved closer to Snape and his bubbling cauldron. "You already know the details of the Order of the Phoenix, yes?" Snape grimaced yet again, and Harry continued, "Then you can probably guess why I'm here. I'd like to have you in the Order, if you're willing to work with us."

Snape looked at him expressionlessly for a moment. Finally, he said, "Albus made you come, didn't he?"

Harry shook his head. "Actually, Professor Dumbledore offered to come and see you for me. But I felt like I should do it myself."

Snape sneered. "How noble," he said, giving the word 'noble' derisive emphasis.

Harry felt a rush of annoyance. He took a deep breath, inwardly counted to ten, and fought the annoyance down, but he decided to call Snape on his snippy behaviour. In his calmest voice, he asked, "Why do you always do that?"

"Do what?" Snape asked, his tone clearly implying that he couldn't care less what the answer was.

"Treat good things like they're something to be sneered at." Snape stared at Harry for a moment with that same unreadable, expressionless look. When he didn't answer immediately, Harry elaborated. "You do it all the time. When Hermione and Ron follow me because they're worried about me, it's 'How touching that Precious Potter's friends follow him around.' When I try to do the right thing even though it means talking to you when you've always treated me like dirt, it's 'How noble.' Why do you do that?"

"Mind your own business, Potter," Snape said with a scowl, but he lacked his usual decisiveness, and seemed to be busying himself with the potion so as not to have to meet Harry's eye.

"Actually, sir, it is my business." Snape's head shot up, a mixture of surprise and anger in his eyes, as though he couldn't believe that Harry dared to stand up to him. "As a Caster for the Order of the Phoenix, it's my job to choose members that I can trust. And I have a hard time trusting people when I can't understand why they do what they do." He added quietly, "Especially when what they do is the same thing that Voldemort does."

"How dare you…" Snape began.

"Well, it's true," Harry snapped, his patience at an end. "Who's the one who always says that good things aren't really good and bad things aren't really bad? Voldemort. So when you're always acting like good things are bad, how am I supposed to believe that you're really on our side? How am I supposed to trust you when you think the same way that he does?"

Snape stared at him, apparently either too angry or too shocked to speak. Finally, he said, "Don't presume to tell me what I think, Potter."

"Fine. You tell me what you think, and I won't have to try to figure it out for myself. Why do you act like friendship and trying to do the right thing are bad?" Harry wasn't sure why he was insisting on this. He hadn't come here to argue with Snape; he'd just meant to ask him to join the Order, get his answer, and leave. But, for some reason he couldn't articulate, he felt like finding out the answer to this question was more important.

As he and Snape stood and faced off and seconds ticked into minutes, the answer began to occur to him. "It's just because it's me, isn't it?" he said softly. "It's not that you think friendship is bad, or that doing the right thing is bad. It's just that you think whatever I do must be bad. When in doubt, sneer at Potter. Doesn't matter if it's the kind of thing that deserves to be sneered at, just sneer at it because he did it."

"You don't know what you're talking about, Potter," Snape said.

Harry sighed. "Of course I don't," he said with weary irony. "Famous Harry Potter never knows what he's talking about. Nothing Famous Harry Potter says is ever worth listening to. Forget it. I understand." He turned to leave. Over his shoulder, he said, "The first Order meeting is next Sunday, a week from today, in Dumbledore's office, just after dinner. I hope you'll join us." He left before Snape could reply, closing the door quietly behind him.

"How was it?" Ron asked.

Harry shook his head. "About like you'd expect. I don't know if he'll come, but I told him where and when. If he wants to do it, he'll come, and if he doesn't…." He shrugged.

"If he doesn't, it's no bloody great loss, the greasy git," Ron muttered darkly. Harry, though he knew how important Snape's knowledge might be, couldn't help agreeing.

On the way back to the Common Room, the boys met Professor Dumbledore, who had news that provided a great lift to Harry's Snape-induced low spirits: Mr. and Mrs. Weasley had agreed to allow Ginny and the twins to join the Order. The good news helped Harry put his encounter with Snape out of his mind, and he and Ron hurried off to the common room to find the relevant Weasleys.

They found one relevant Weasley right away; Ginny was sitting with Hermione, listening intently as the older girl gestured expansively and talked very fast. "Hmm," Ron said, taking the tone of a researcher studying some particularly difficult specimen. "Big hand movements, fast speech pattern, no pauses for breath … must be either house-elves or homework help. Since Ginny doesn't look ready to die of boredom, we can rule out the elves."

Harry snickered, and he barely managed to keep his face straight when, upon approaching the table, he caught sight of the fourth-year Transfiguration textbook on the table between the girls. He made a mental note to tease Ron about how good Ron had become at predicting Hermione's behaviour, but he reckoned now wasn't the best time for that. He slid into the seat across from Ginny and waited for Hermione to complete her lecture on the finer points of turning hedgehogs into pincushions. When she finally finished, the four students chatted for a few minutes, and then Harry turned the conversation to the Order. Very quietly, he gave Ginny a brief explanation of the history and purpose of the Order and invited her to join, adding Professor Dumbledore's news that her parents had already given their permission.

Ginny agreed with almost as much alacrity as had Ron and Hermione and expressed her relief at finding out "what you three were acting so weird about all weekend." When Harry asked where the twins were, she rolled her eyes and sighed with fond exasperation. "Off with Lee. I reckon they're either working on something new for the joke shop or coming up with creative ways to lose House points."

Harry said he'd catch up with the twins later, and Hermione returned to the topic of homework. After minimal nagging, Harry and Ron went to fetch their Defense assignments. They spent the rest of the afternoon reading up on duelling methods.

*

The talk with the twins went well, as expected, and Harry's other conversations with prospective members of the Order of the Phoenix were similarly satisfactory. A quick word with McGonagall and Hagrid, longer talks with Lively, Krum, Fleur Delacour, and a very excited Dobby, and that was that. By midday on Wednesday, Harry's part of the contacting was done, and everyone except Percy and Snape was definitely on board. Harry met with Professor Dumbledore on Thursday night to discuss the Binding Charm and learned that Dumbledore's conversations were going as well as Harry's own; everyone would be there for the meeting on Sunday.

When he stopped to think about it, Harry decided that his main feeling toward the meeting was nervous excitement. Of course, he'd have preferred for the world to be other than it was—for Voldemort not to be back, for the Ministry not to be in denial, and so on—but, given the givens, it felt good to be doing something instead of sitting around waiting for the Death Eaters to strike a blow.

The usual school activities carried Harry through the rest of the week and through most of the weekend, and meeting time finally arrived. The hour immediately after Sunday dinner found Harry, Ron, Hermione, Ginny, and the twins gathered before the entrance to Dumbledore's office.

"Canary Cream," Harry said to the gargoyle, which opened obediently. The students stepped onto the spiral staircase and rode up to Dumbledore's quarters. The door was already open, so they walked straight in.

The circular office felt more crowded than usual. Dumbledore's desk had been moved out, and a massive, round wooden table stood in the centre of the room, taking up nearly all the floor space. Dumbledore was already seated at the table. He briefly paused in his conversation with Professor McGonagall, seated at his right, to greet the new arrivals. A few seats to his left was a man that Harry didn't know—a dark man with a thin, grim face. Since he was seated, Harry couldn't tell for certain, but he looked tall, and Harry guessed that he'd be in his middle forties. Next to the dark man sat a small, elderly woman who was crocheting something large and unidentifiable. Harry's jaw dropped as he recognised her. "Mrs. … Mrs. Figg?" he stammered.

"Hello, dear," the woman replied. "Nice to see you again." It was Mrs. Figg. But what could the Dursleys' neighbor have to do with anything in the magical world?

"But you're a Muggle," Harry blurted.

Mrs. Figg smiled. "Yes, dear. But Mr. Figg, rest his soul, was a wizard. And our children are all magical, and Professor Dumbledore was so kind to them all when they were students here. So, when he asked me if I could be his … what did you call it, Albus, your Muggle guru? Well, of course, I couldn't refuse."

Dumbledore added, "Arabella has been one of my most valuable contacts in the Muggle world. She keeps me informed of anything out of the ordinary."

Suddenly, things clicked for Harry. "And she keeps an eye on the Dursleys, doesn't she? And on me, when I'm there."

Dumbledore nodded. It looked like he was about to say more, but Fawkes, who had been drooping on his perch, suddenly burst into flames. Dumbledore hurried to move his coat rack out of the line of fire, murmuring, "Oh, dear. Burning Day already. I thought it was tomorrow."

"Barking," Ron muttered. "Completely, absolutely, utterly mad." He silenced at Hermione's glare, and the six students sat down at the opposite side of the table; Professor Dumbledore had asked Harry to sit directly across from him. Dumbledore waited for Fawkes to rise from his ashes. Then, after he helped the fledging settle back onto its perch, he returned to his seat. Gradually, the other seats at the table filled as more people trickled into the room. At the last possible moment, when Harry had all but decided that he wouldn't show, Professor Snape swept into the room.

"Ah, Severus," Dumbledore said. "Just close the door there behind you; I think we're all here." Snape closed the door and slid into the seat directly to Dumbledore's left, and the room, which had been buzzing with the noise of multiple conversations, fell silent as everyone waited for Dumbledore to begin. "The purpose of this meeting is to make sure that everyone knows all of the relevant information about Lord Voldemort's activities. Some of you have information gathered from tasks that you've done for me over the summer. Others have, so to speak, eyewitness accounts." The headmaster's eyes met Harry's for a moment. "And those are accounts that everyone needs to hear. Some of you don't have information for the rest of us, but you need the information that the others have so that you will be prepared for upcoming tasks. Before we get into details, though, I think that some of you are not acquainted with one another. I suppose we should go around the table and introduce ourselves. Severus, why don't you begin?"

Snape grudgingly admitted to being the Hogwarts Potions master, adding that he was taking time off from the classroom this year to write a textbook. The introductions continued around the table, and Harry only paid particular attention to the folks he didn't know. He learned that the dark man he'd noticed on his way in was John Kimble, the head of the Aurors. He was not there in his official capacity, which was to say that he, like Arthur Weasley, was not prone to sharing Order business with the Ministry. Harry decided that he liked Kimble in spite of the Auror's grim face and brusque way of speaking, for he radiated competence, and he seemed like someone who had no patience for nonsense.

Mundungus Fletcher seemed much less tightly-wound than Kimble, but Harry liked him, too, mostly for his infectious spark of humour. When he wasn't joining rescue missions with Remus and Sirius at all hours of the night, Fletcher was a pubkeeper, and he also ran a mail-order service selling rare magical books. He acted as something of a spy for Professor Dumbledore, a role that he was uniquely suited to fill because of, as he put it, "a reputation for trouble-making. It makes people inclined to say things to me that they might not confess to pillars of the community. And everyone witters on to barmen; it's a known job hazard."

The Croakers, Amelia, Celwyn, and Rhun, seemed nice as well. Harry learned that Amelia was an Assessor for the Ministry's Department of Education, which awarded O.W.L.s and N.E.W.T.s, and that Rhun was reading Law at a Muggle university.

Dumbledore finished off the introductions. "And I am Albus Dumbledore, the current headmaster of Hogwarts. I am the other Caster for the Order. Speaking of which, I suppose we should perform the Binding Charm now. Before we do, I should let you know that this is your chance to change your mind. If any of you have doubts about whether you want to join the Order, speak now. It is a difficult and dangerous task that you are undertaking, and I would be guilty of serious negligence if I did not remind you of the dangers. For our student members: You will not usually be asked to face the sort of dangers that your adult counterparts may have to face. To the extent that we can, we will protect you from direct contact with Voldemort and his Death Eaters. However, your road is still not an easy one. You will be expected to treat your extra Defence Against the Dark Arts lessons very seriously—perhaps more seriously than you have ever been expected to treat any other course of study. You will have to keep the information that you learn from the Order completely secret from other students; this necessity for secrecy may have a negative impact on your relationships with students outside the Order. Your friends, your teammates, your romantic interests—none of them can be told the confidential things that you learn here." Dumbledore's eyes locked with Harry's again, and he continued, "You will all have to learn to keep to your own counsel even in the face of taunts and attempts to trick you into revealing that you know things. Several students in our school now are known to have parents who are supportive of Lord Voldemort; you must be careful not to allow any cruel and hurtful things that these students say to pierce your armour. Information revealed to an enemy in a moment of thoughtless anger is just as dangerous and damaging as information revealed through cold calculation."

Dumbledore paused briefly, and Harry and Ron shared a guilty glance; Harry knew that they were both thinking about what they had wanted to do to Malfoy and his goons after the thwarted attack on Mr. and Mrs. Granger. His resolution not to allow Draco Malfoy to get under his skin would now be even more important.

Professor Dumbledore continued, "I emphasize this to our student members, but it is equally important for the adults. Those of you who work in the Ministry will have to be particularly careful not to appear to know things that you would not be expected to know. Some of you will have to dissemble to members of your own families," (Here Harry could see Mrs. Weasley looking pained and Fred and George looking angry.) "and others will have to be careful around your friends. In addition, our adult members may be asked to come face to face with Voldemort or his minions. I suggest that you all brush up on your Defence skills.

"And then there is the Binding itself. All of us will be Bound to one another in rather peculiar ways. If you find yourself in difficulties, you will be able to send a call for help to the other Order members no matter where you are, and they will be able to reach you, in some form or other, even through magical barriers to things like communication and Apparation. You will notice that Communication Charms will be particularly easy to establish between yourself and another Order member, and you may have difficulty establishing Communication Charms with people who are not in the Order. You will be able to access one another's reserves of energy. You may also notice other effects that are less definite and less concrete: a heightened sensitivity to the moods of your fellow Order members, a quicker grasp of one another's trains of thought. The connections established by the Binding are often some of the most intimate and intense that most people ever experience. It can be a bit of a shock to the system. If you are not mentally and emotionally prepared to be Bound to one another in the ways that I have mentioned, you should speak up now."

The headmaster paused for a long moment and looked around the table, making eye contact with each prospective member of the Order. After Dumbledore shifted his gaze from Harry to Ron, Harry shifted his own focus to Professor Snape. Snape's cold, black eyes met Harry's own, and Harry had to struggle to keep his expression from changing. The thought of sharing a deep, personal connection with this vengeful, bitter, unpleasant creature filled Harry with a revulsion that nearly made him physically ill. Could he do it? Should he do it? For what seemed like the millionth time, Harry inwardly questioned his decision to invite Snape into the Order.

And, for what seemed like the millionth time, Harry reminded himself that the dislike he felt for Snape was matched—and probably surpassed—by the dislike that Snape felt for him. But Snape was here in spite of that dislike. Snape knew what the Binding spell entailed. He had previously been Bound to James Potter, whom he had hated and who had hated him, in precisely the way that he was preparing to be Bound to James's son, and he considered the ordeal worth repeating. Harry felt himself sit up a little straighter, his eyes still locked with Snape's, as his resolve strengthened. If forming a magical Bond with Snape was what it took to defeat Voldemort, then that was bloody well what he'd do. He nodded once to Snape as if to say, "I can stand it if you can," and then he broke their eye contact and went back to watching Professor Dumbledore, who was just completing his long, searching glance around the table. He asked, "Before we perform the Binding Charm, does anyone have any questions?"

Unsurprisingly, Hermione was the first to raise a hand. "I have several questions, actually, all related to what you said about being able to tap into one another's reserves of energy. How does that work? Is it something we have to do consciously, or will it happen by itself when we need it to happen? Will we be tapping into the reserves of all of the members collectively, or will we be tapping into the reserves of just one member at a time? Will we be able to perform types of magic that other members can perform but that we can't? For example, will those of us who aren't Animagi be able to turn into cats if we tap into Professor McGonagall's energy?" Hermione paused for breath. "I think that's all," she finished. Harry and Ron exchanged good-natured eye-rolls; only Hermione would end a five-part question with "that's all."

"Excellent questions, Miss Granger," Professor Dumbledore said. "The short answer is that the Bond works differently for each individual, and it works differently in different situations. Sometimes, it works unconsciously. Last time, Remus was ambushed and Stunned once by a group of Death Eaters; the rest of the Order was immediately alerted through the Bond even though Remus hadn't been able to send out a call for help. It's difficult to explain how the alert feels when you receive it. It's just an immediate and complete knowledge of the situation. In the case that I mentioned, every other Order member immediately knew that Remus was in trouble, and we knew where he was and how to get there to help.

"Other times, you will consciously call on the Bond. When you do it consciously, you have much more control over the process; you can call on a particular member or group of members, or you can call on the entire Order. You can tap into the group's collective energy, or you can tap into a specific member's energy. You'd usually tap into the group's energy if, for instance, you just need an extra boost of magical power in general—if, in other words, you needed for all of your spells to be a bit stronger, but you didn't need help in any particular area. If, however, you knew that you were going to be performing a particularly tricky bit of some specific type of magic, you might call only on a few individuals. If, for instance, you needed to brew a potion that was more difficult than you would usually be able to manage, you might call on your Bond with Severus. If you were going to have to perform a difficult piece of Transfiguration, you might call on Minerva or me, or on both of us. That extra energy will enable you to perform more complicated magic than you could otherwise perform, but only to a certain degree. For instance, let's say that you need to transfigure your robes into Muggle clothing, and you're having trouble getting a piece of it right—the buttons don't line up with the buttonholes, or the pattern goes wrong, or what have you; tapping into Minerva's energy would probably allow you to complete that transfiguration successfully—in other words, to make the buttons align properly. However, tapping into Minerva's energy would not allow you to become an Animagus on demand.

"Tapping into another person's energy can, however, make it easier to learn new spells that the other person knows. You won't be able to perform the new spells on the first try, but you may have an easier time of mastering them than you would otherwise have. For instance, if any of you who are not Animagi decided to try to become an Animagus, you might tap into Minerva's energy while you were studying the spell, and that boost of energy from her would likely make it easier for you. Or, if any of our students who do not already know the Patronus charm decide to try to learn it, you might tap into Harry's energy in order to master the charm more quickly. In short, the Bond can make learning new skills easier, but it cannot give you instant access to skills that you don't already possess.

"As for whether you can feel someone tapping into your energy, the short answer is yes. The slightly longer answer is that you'll notice, and you'll be able to tell which member or members is tapping in, but your own ability to perform spells or to function normally shouldn't be adversely affected. Order members can check up on one another through the Bond, but you can temporarily block the mutual surveillance portion of the charm when you'd rather not have an audience. Also, you needn't worry about other Order members tapping into your private thoughts: the Bond doesn't allow for mind-reading without the consensual invocation of a Communication Charm."

Harry felt relieved at this last piece of information; chosen defenders of Light or not, he still didn't want people reading his mind. Harry glanced over at Ron, and he didn't need a Mind-reading Charm to see that his best friend was just as relieved as he was at hearing that their private thoughts would remain private.

Harry refocussed his attention on Professor Dumbledore, who was asking if there were any further questions. There were not. "In that case," said the Headmaster, "I suppose we should perform the Charm." Glancing just over Harry's head, he said, "Fawkes, if you don't mind…."

The phoenix, who had by now managed to grow a faint, fuzzy proto-plumage, Disapparated from his perch and reappeared on the chandelier that hung over the centre of the table. Dumbledore nodded. "Very good. Would everyone stand, please. Are you ready, Mr. Potter?"

Harry nodded, his mouth dry. Dumbledore pulled an ancient-looking, tattered piece of parchment from a stack in front of him and Banished it toward Harry, who hoped that no one noticed that the hand with which he caught the parchment was shaking ever so slightly. Harry placed the parchment, which contained the incantation for the Binding Spell, on the table in front of him. He and Dumbledore had been over the incantation already, but it was long and complex, and Harry was glad to have a crib sheet just in case. He met Dumbledore's eyes across the table, and the Headmaster inclined his head slightly as though bowing to a duelling opponent. Harry and Dumbledore raised their wands, pointed them toward Fawkes, and began to speak the words of the incantation, alternating some lines and speaking others in unison:

By strength and courage,

By valour and duty,

By friendship and loyalty,

By prudence and wisdom—

By all of these, we Bind you.

Through time and space,

Through darkness and light,

Through ease and strife,

Through hardship and plenty—

Through all of these, we Bind you.

In your moment of need,

In your hour of woe,

In the eye of the storm,

In the days of darkness—

In all of these, we Bind you.

May the power of the phoenix protect you for all of your days.

Adunare!

On the final word of the incantation, a bolt of pure-white light shot from each of the Casters' wands. The two bolts hit Fawkes at the same moment; he instantly transformed from the not-quite-feathered hatchling into his thick-plumed, full-grown radiance. The bolts of light broke into fragments as though refracted through a prism, and the resulting colored beams formed a web that stretched itself over the table and enveloped the members of the Order of the Phoenix. Harry could feel one strand of the web touching the top of his head, making his hair stand on end like a bolt of lightning. From the point where the beam touched his head, other beams shot out toward the other Order members. Soon, there was a complicated net of white light inside the enveloping rainbow-hued web; this net connected every member of the Order with every other member. One at a time, almost too fast to see, each white strand glowed red; when the strands connecting Harry to another member glowed, he could feel the other person's energy in his very bones. It was almost enough to make him believe in Professor Trelawney's ramblings about auras.

Then, the strands of the net all flashed together, their light so bright that it might have made Harry shield his eyes if he had been able to move. But he couldn't move; he couldn't even breathe. The spell had him entirely in its grasp, and he could feel the power of Gwenhwyfar Gryffindor's ancient magic in every cell and nerve and sinew. The effect was dominating, intoxicating, and more than a little terrifying; if the Cruciatus Curse had been aimed to induce euphoria instead of at pain, it would have felt like this.

All of this had happened in less time than it takes to tell; in the next instant, the colored beams of the enveloping web exploded like silent fireworks, and the white strands connecting the Order members vanished. The spell had finished its work. Harry fell back into his chair, feeling both happier and more exhausted than he had ever felt before. He'd thought that learning the Patronus charm had drained him; he'd been wrong. Fighting Dementors was simpler than Wingardum Leviosa compared with this. He cast his slightly-unfocussed gaze across the table at his fellow Caster and saw that there was faint sheen of perspiration on Dumbledore's brow. But his smile was as bright as ever, and his eyes were so full of pride that it might have made Harry blush if his body hadn't been too tired to move the blood up to his cheeks. Harry returned the smile and then leaned back more heavily into his chair, closed his eyes, and waited for his breathing to return to normal.

Mad-Eye Moody was the first to speak. "Why'd we bond with your dog, Lupin?"

Harry, still half-lying in his chair with his eyes shut, felt some part of his consciousness stretch itself toward Moody. Suspicious—more so than usual, I mean—and somewhere between resentful, angry, and hurt at not having been told the full story. It didn't feel accurate to Harry to say that he had thought this assessment of Moody's emotional state; it was like the assessment had thought itself and then placed the thought into Harry's head. When his eyes snapped open, Harry found both of Moody's own boring into them. He smiled a touch sheepishly at the ex-Auror. So that's the Bond, he thought.

Focussing this time, Harry sent that same part of his consciousness toward Remus. A little concerned, but for Sirius rather than for himself, and more amused than anything else. And can he always feel the moon in his blood like that? Harry pulled the piece of himself back, not wanting to intrude too deeply. He turned his attention to Professor Dumbledore.

Dumbledore was smiling at Moody. "I might have expected you to notice the particular pathways of the Bond, Alastor. At the beginning of the meeting, I said that today would be a chance for us to exchange information. The first piece of information that needs to be exchanged is the true identity of Remus's dog. Sirius, if you would…."

All eyes turned toward the dog, who promptly turned into the most famous convict in the wizarding world.