Disclaimer: Nothing belongs to me.

Author's Note: Thanks to all those who reviewed the last chapter (which was posted a disgracefully long time ago—sorry, again). Thanks also to Yolanda for her sharp-eyed beta-reading.

Oh, by the way, I made a goof in the last chapter and called Mrs. Croaker "Amelia." She's not Amelia; she's Winifred. I must have had Amelia Bones on the brain.

TSS

Chapter 15—Strategies

Before Harry had time to register what was happening, Dumbledore was holding three extra wands, and the current and former Aurors were looking extremely sheepish. "Old habits die hard," Professor Lively said as the Headmaster Banished her wand back to her.

"Indeed," Dumbledore agreed with a smile. "And your quick reactions are quite impressive, all of you. However, I can assure you that you will not need to duel with Mr. Black. He is on our side."

John Kimble and Sirius stared at one another, each looking as if he were trying to read the other's mind. Harry tentatively felt along his Bond with each man, and he realised that their Bond was deeply engaged; they were using it to try to feel one another out. Finally, Kimble spoke. "You're innocent, aren't you."

It wasn't a question, not really, but Sirius answered nonetheless. "In the legal sense, anyway."

"Then your name will be cleared," the Auror replied.

Harry couldn't have explained why, but something about the way Kimble spoke filled him with complete confidence. Sirius's name would be cleared. Kimble would clear it through sheer force of will.

Sirius smiled, nodded, and eased into the chair that Dumbledore had conjured between Remus and Dobby. Dumbledore let the charged silence reign for a few moments before he spoke. "Sirius, I believe now is the time for you to tell your story to the group."

And Sirius did. For background information, he told how three schoolboys became unregistered Animagi. Then, he told of the dark days near the end of Voldemort's reign. He told of the worries about a spy somewhere close to the Potters, of the change in Secret-Keepers, of Pettigrew's treachery. He told of hunting his old friend through the alleys of London, of finding him on a busy street in the Muggle part of town. "I thought I'd trapped the rat, but the rat trapped me," he said bitterly, concluding that part of his story.

"Skip ahead twelve years. I found out that Wormtail was at Hogwarts, and I knew I had to go after him again."

Nine months of sneaking around the Hogwarts grounds. Showdowns, captures, reprieves, escapes. Oh, yes, and a hippogriff. The Order believed him, of course; aside from the Bond's testament to the story's truth, it was all too crazy to be fiction.

Harry had stared at the table, too stricken with guilt to meet the eyes of the other Order members, when Sirius told the group why he had let Pettigrew live, but the feelings that came to him along the Bond were not those of blame. They were impressed, his fellow Order members. They would not rebuke him for his compassion.

Even Snape had no sneer for Harry at the moment. He turned the sneer on Lupin and Sirius instead, goading them with, "I'd have thought even a werewolf and a murderer would have had the sense to Stun a suspect until they got him into Ministry custody." "And I'd have thought even a slimy-haired Death-Eater scum would know that Stunning spells are unreliable on Animagi," Sirius spat back.

Professor Dumbledore broke in before the fight could escalate. "Enough, gentlemen. Sirius, Severus is no longer a Death Eater. Severus, Sirius never was a murderer. You would both do well to practise a bit more accuracy in your speech … to say nothing of civility." He fixed each man with his I-expect-better-of-you stare and then moved the meeting along. "Now that Sirius has told his story, I suppose it is time for you to tell yours, Harry."

Harry swallowed hard and steeled himself for the ordeal. He'd already told the story twice—once to Dumbledore and Sirius and once to Ron and Hermione—but he doubted that time and practise would make it much easier to relive that awful night.

They didn't. It was still awful. Harry tried not to listen to the words that he was saying. As he spoke, he stared at the ceiling, at the table, at the bookshelves—anywhere to keep from meeting the eyes of his fellow Order members. If he had to face the horror and pity and sympathy that he knew he'd see in their eyes, he would crack. So he looked away and thought of other things.

Back at the end of his first year, he'd faced Voldemort and lived, as they say, to tell the tale. And he'd enjoyed telling the tale. Sitting in the hospital wing, surrounded by Ron, Hermione, and enough sweets to make Honeydukes proud, he had relished his tale of the man with two faces. If things had gone differently in the graveyard—if Voldemort had seemed gone again, as he had seemed gone after the encounter with the Philosopher's Stone—would Harry's current tale have given him equal pleasure? Would Cedric's death have mattered as little to him as Quirrell's had if only the ending had turned out differently? These questions flashed though Harry's mind as he told of Death Eaters and Dark spells, of phoenix song and strange wand effects. He pushed them away, not ready to face them.

Finally, it was over. His story was told. The room was silent for a long time, and Harry could feel a whirl of thoughts and emotions coursing along the Bond. He blocked them out as best he could.

It was Dumbledore, of course, who broke the silence. "Thank you, Harry. I know that was difficult." He paused, then continued in a more businesslike tone. "Harry's account brings us up though June. From June until mid-September, Voldemort was rather quiet. He's lying low. There were a few events this summer, though, that I believe are linked to his return. I refer to the disappearances of some Ministry workers. John, what do you know about those incidents?"

"Precious little," replied Kimble, sounding vexed. "They just vanished from their homes. No signs of struggle or forced entry at any location. Just vanished."

"And do you think they disappeared one at a time, or all at the same time?" Dumbledore asked.

"We can't be sure," Kimble said. "There was a five-hour block of time when all three were alone, which is plenty of time for each to have vanished separately. Althea Simmons's husband and daughter were gone to the zoo—Althea having apparently stayed home to catch up on some work—and they were out for most of the day. Butler Innisfree lived … lives … alone, but, based on the testimony of neighbors and family, we can place his disappearance some time between seven in the morning and six in the evening. Ewan Tydfil-Cynon's disappearance is the one we can pinpoint most exactly, and it's the most … disconcerting. He went into the kitchen to make tea at about four o'clock in the afternoon. When he hadn't returned after fifteen minutes, his wife went to check on him, and he was gone."

Kimble's voice stayed even as he reported the last disappearance, but Harry could feel the Auror's agitation through the Bond. Though he might hide it well, Kimble was clearly disturbed by the vanishing of Ewan Tydfil-Cynon. Harry had also noticed the instinctive way that Kimble had referred to Butler Innisfree in the past tense, and the vehemence with which he had corrected himself, as though trying to convince himself that past tense wasn't yet necessary. But the slip had confirmed Harry's suspicion that the missing workers were presumed dead. He thought of young Rachel Simmons, and he squirmed inwardly. Pushing the morbid thoughts from his mind, he refocussed on what Kimble was saying.

"… know Basil, he's with Transportation, and he's completely trustworthy—he said that the signs of Portkey activity at Ewan's could have been traces left over from Saturday, when Ewan had to create an emergency Portkey to get to the site of that splinching in Devon. The tracing spells aren't very precise: they can tell us that there has been Portkey activity recently, but they can't pinpoint the time of use, and they can't tell us how many Portkeys have been used or how many people travelled. And there was no sign of Portkey activity at Althea's or Butler's."

"Immobilizing spells?" Professor Lively asked.

"None that we could trace," Kimble said. "For what that's worth…."

"…which isn't much, given that only Stunners are traceable with any consistency," Lively said, picking up Kimble's thought.

The Auror gave Lively a look that Harry couldn't read but that the Bond informed him was approving. "Right. We usually can't pick up Petrificus Totalus, much less other immobilizing spells."

"So you've got nothing." Moody's matter-of-fact growl summed up the situation.

Kimble shrugged ruefully, not bothering to be offended at Mad-Eye's assessment. "Yeah, pretty much. I've still got a team assigned to the case, but the trail's cold, and they haven't picked up a new lead in months. Barring a miracle, I don't like our chances on this one."

No one replied to Kimble's bleak pronouncement; there didn't seem to be anything to say. Dumbledore, deciding that the topic of the missing Ministry workers had been exhausted for now, moved on to Hagrid and Madame Maxime's summer task. Hagrid reported on their negotiations with the giants, finishing by explaining the promise of neutrality that they had managed to secure. Then, discussion turned to the thwarted attack on the Grangers. For the sake of those who hadn't heard it yet, Harry told the Order members about his dream, and then Remus related the story of the Death Eaters' capture.

Dumbledore picked up the thread when Lupin had finished. "We knew from Harry's dream that the attack on the Grangers was intended mainly as a diversion, but we didn't know what it was supposed to be diverting us from. We pieced that together after John informed me of the Azkaban escape. Though we cannot prove it, I have little doubt that Lucius Malfoy arranged the escape of Bellatrix and Rodolphus LeStrange. Which brings us to the next item of business:planning. We must not be content merely to react to Voldemort's actions; we must take direct action of our own. However, the official Ministry line regarding Voldemort's return severely limits our range ofaction. We must act, but we must act quietly.

"As I see it, our first priority should be to trace the movements of known Death Eaters as much as we can. By doing that, we may be able to predict—and thus to thwart—some of Voldemort's plans. Does anyone have suggestions for ways to do this?"

Heads turned toward Kimble, as if everyone expected the head of the Aurors to have the answer to a logistical question like this one, but it was the woman beside him who spoke. "We need a new spell, don't we?" Professor Lively said. "One that the Ministry wouldn't recognise if it somehow came to their attention." Professor Dumbledore nodded, and she continued, as if thinking out loud, "Something that would let us follow more than one person at a time without individual surveillance. Something that's with them all the time." She thought for a moment and then said, "How does Voldemort Summon the Death Eaters?"

The Order Members all either looked at Snape or looked at the table to avoid looking at Snape. Harry sensed a spike of annoyance and … something else along his Bond with Snape. The other emotion was stifled so quickly that Harry barely had time to identify it: shame. The shame surprised Harry; he hadn't known that Snape was capable of admitting, even to himself, that he wasn't always right. When he spoke, Snape's voice was even more scornful than usual, and Harry realised that this extra scorn was meant to cover his discomfort. He snapped at Lively, "I thought even the woefully incompetent Aurors that you worked with knew, Miss Lively, that Death Eaters are summoned through their Dark Marks."

A few people shifted uncomfortably at Snape's rudeness, but Lively didn't seem offended. If anything, she sounded exasperatedly amused, as one would be at a child who had missed the point of a seemingly-obvious question that you had asked him. "Yes, Severus, everyone knows that, but we only know the effect, not the cause. We know that the Dark Mark burns, and what makes it burn? What's the activating spell?"

Snape looked sour. "I was never with him when he did the Summoning," he replied. Harry supposed that was as close as Snape would come to admitting that he didn't know.

"In the graveyard, he put his finger on Wormtail's Mark," Harry volunteered. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Snape glaring at him, and he felt a stab of annoyance. Self-centred git, he thought. He ignored Snape, focussing instead on Professor Lively, whose eyes had lit up at his answer.

"What happened when he touched Pettigrew's Mark?" she asked.

"It turned black, and Pettigrew screamed," Harry told her. "Like it really hurt." He tried to push away the memory of Voldemort's cold, high-pitched, amused voice drawling the other arm, Wormtail—and to ignore the nasty little part of his mind that was vindictively glad at the thought of Pettigrew experiencing pain. "Within five minutes, the Death Eaters started Apparating to him."

Lively had a slightly maniacal glint in her eye that reminded him of Hermione when she was on the verge of solving something. "He touched Pettigrew's Mark. Does he have a Mark of his own?"

"I didn't see one," Harry said, "but I didn't get a very close look at the skin on his arms." As I was a bit preoccupied at the time, what with being tied to a tombstone waiting to die, he added silently.

Lively looked at Snape for corroboration. "If he has one, I am not aware of it," Snape said, his tone making it clear that, if he wasn't aware of something, it wasn't much worth being aware of.

"All right," Lively said, the glint still in her eye, "if he doesn't have a Mark, but all the Death Eaters do, then we ought to be able to track them using the Marks without him knowing about it. If we can just create the right spell…."

John Kimble looked ready to propose marriage to Professor Lively. "What do you need from me to make that happen?" he asked.

"That Crouch boy," Lively said. "Is he still technically alive?" Kimble nodded. "At St. Mungo's, I presume? Could he … disappear from St. Mungo's for a while without people asking questions?"

"You need him?" Kimble asked.

"I need two people with Marks to work on—one to test the spells on, and the other to tell me whether my spells are sending any messages to other owners of a Mark," she replied.

"I can have him to you as soon as you want," Kimble promised.

"What else do you need for this project, Artemis?" Professor Dumbledore asked.

"Just a secure place to keep Crouch until we get it ironed out," she said. "And, if I could have Professor Flitwick assist, that would be wonderful." Dumbledore nodded his approval. "And Severus, of course," she added, nodding politely at Snape. Snape, still looking sour, jerked his head once in acknowledgment.

"Very good," Professor Dumbledore said. "Now, does anyone have a plan that we can put in motion until Artemis works out a Tracking Charm?"

"I can take care of Macnair," Kimble offered. "I'll tell his Department Head I need him for a special project and then send him off somewhere too far to Apparate back."

"Excellent." The Headmaster's eyes twinkled, and Harry smiled to himself at the idea of one of Voldemort's most vicious Death Eaters being sent on a wild goose chase for months at a time.

"What about Malfoy?" Sirius asked. "He's the one who's been causing the most trouble."

Professor Dumbledore smiled. "Actually, we're already tracing his mail. Somehow, his post owl got charmed to bring all incoming and outgoing mail to me before taking it to the intended recipient. And the charm appears to be contagious, because other post owls bound for Malfoy Manor have started doing it as well. Can't imagine how it happened. Reminds me of an odd incident in your school days," he finished, shooting Sirius a significant look. Sirius and Remus exchanged smiles, and Snape gave them one of his most poisonous glares. Harry made a mental note to ask Sirius about it later.

"His post has told us a few interesting things—that is, once John had his code-breakers look at it—but it seems that most important information gets passed face to face, either in person or by Floo," Dumbledore continued. "John, how are you progressing on the Floo monitoring?"

"Still working on it," Kimble answered. "So far, I haven't found a way to by-pass the Department of Magical Communication, and there are some hard-line Fudge sympathisers in that Department, so it's too big a risk if we can't do it without letting them know. All Ministry Floos are monitored, of course, so we know Macnair isn't doing any talking from the office. I've managed to put Eavesdropping Charms on his home Floo connections as well. I've also charmed the home connections of Nott and Avery. Didn't bother with Crabbe and Goyle, since they're already safely in Azkaban. But I can't get Malfoy. His house is enormous, so there are lots of fireplaces, and therefore lots of Floo connections. That many Eavesdropping Charms would get noticed. If I knew which ones he's most likely to use, I'd just charm those, but I have no way of knowing which they are." Kimble looked frustrated.

Beside Harry, Dobby began to bounce. Finally, he squeaked, "If Mr. John Kimble pleases, sir, Dobby was working for nasty Mr. Malfoy once. Dobby could tell Mr. John Kimble which fireplaces nasty Mr. Malfoy was using for talking to his bad, Dark friends."

Kimble smiled gratefully at the elf. "Could you, Dobby? If I can send over the blueprint of the Floo connections from Magical Communication, can you mark the ones that he uses?"

"Yes, sir, Mr. John Kimble, sir. Dobby can do that."

"Perfect. I'll slip in and copy the blueprint as soon as I leave today. I'll owl it over right away, Albus."

"Very good," Dumbledore said. "Now, does anyone have any other suggestions for monitoring or impeding the activities of the known Death Eaters?" No one did, so he said, "I suppose all that we have left to do is to go over our own tasks to complete by the time of the next meeting. First, we need to set up defence lessons for our junior members. Artemis, you are in charge of those. Do you foresee needing help from any of the other adult members in the near future?"

Professor Lively considered that for a moment. "After Crouch gets here and I start working on the Tracking Charm, I may be pretty busy. If someone could attend our first lesson and then take them over while I'm working, that would be very helpful."

"I vill do this," Viktor Krum volunteered. Harry felt Ron stiffen beside him, and he grinned sympathetically at his friend.

Lively, Krum, and the junior members discussed meeting times for a bit. They decided to meet once a week to start, and they settled on Tuesday nights, when Harry and the Weasleys didn't have Quidditch practise. Then, the adult Order members discussed their tasks. The Ministry workers would continue to play their dangerous game of working around Fudge and his supporters while trying not to bring attention to themselves. The "pubkeepers" would, as before, watch and listen. Watching and listening, in fact, seemed to be the order of the day for most of the Order members.

On the foreign front, Madame Maxime would try to use her contacts with former students who worked with the French Ministère, hoping that a bit of pressure from other countries might "light ze fire under your Mr. Fudge. Some of us remember ze Grindelwald years, and we certainly do not wish for another Occupation." It was decided that Viktor Krum, who was as uncomfortable as Harry with the idea of trading on his famous name, would not comment publicly on Voldemort's return yet. Krum was, after all, just a year out of school, and Fudge's supporters would have done all they could to make him look like a boy playing at understanding the grown-up world, a dilettantish athlete dabbling in politics and making a hash of it. For now, they would save Krum's potential influence for a time when it was more likely to be of use.

The official part of the meeting ended with Dumbledore reminding them all to be careful and inviting them all to stay and get to know one another if they wished. A few of the Order members rose immediately, either issuing apologies for having to leave immediately or (in the case of Snape) simply swooping out without a backward glance. Other members switched seats to talk with people who had been seated far away during the meeting. Harry was watching John Kimble make his way around the table toward Sirius when the rhythmic thunk of wood against wood announced the approach of Mad-Eye Moody. "Potter," he said, looming over Harry in his intimidating way, "I found this in the Darks Arts office last year, and I think it might belong to you." He held a bit of parchment out toward Harry. It was the Marauder's Map.

Harry gasped. "How did you know it was mine?" he asked.

"Asked it," Moody replied tersely. When Harry goggled at him, he explained, "Mr. Padfoot and Mr. Prongs made a few less-than-complimentary comments about a certain Hogwarts professor" (here his magical eye fixed itself briefly on the seat formerly occupied by Snape) "who had tried to make the parchment reveal itself. When I told them they were dead right, they became quite talkative. They never mentioned you by name, but they hinted."

Harry was astonished. It had never occurred to him to try to talk to the Map. Filing this new information away for later, he thanked Moody, who nodded gruffly and stumped away. His place near Harry was immediately taken by Sirius and Remus, who needed to get home. Sirius had to add the next ingredients to the Wolfsbane potion, which he had taken to brewing "so Remus won't have to count on that slimy git." The potion was quite sensitive, and this round of ingredients needed to be added exactly seven minutes from now, so the two men took their leave with rather more speed than usual. The rest of the Order members trickled away, and Harry and his friends made their way back to Gryffindor tower to discuss the afternoon's events. This discussion, Harry reflected as they walked, was likely to be a very long one indeed.