Disclaimer: JK put a lot of thought into her work. Far be it for me to take any credit that rightly belongs to her.

Chapter Two -

A Welcome Invitation

Two loud cracks sounded in the backyard of number four Privet Drive at exactly Six-thirty AM the next morning. Harry went running, clutching his wand tightly in his bloody right hand as he went.

At five o'clock, just as the sun was rising, he'd received an owl carrying a message from the ministry of magic, berating him for his use of underage magic. They hadn't tried to expell him this time as they had last summer, but they still made it clear that the Reparo charm was an unacceptable use of magic for possible defence, and they expected him to give them a good reason for performing the task. Harry had dismissed the letter, knowing that the charm had been worth the risk. Even if it hadn't been a true vision, he still needed to tell someone about it. He would have felt much worse if he hadn't notified someone.

"What happened?" He asked as soon as he was certain that he knew who it was that had apparated in his aunt and uncle's backyard.

Professors Dumbledore and Lupin turned to see Harry striding determinedly across the lawn towards them.

Lupin had a strange look in his eyes that said if he hadn't known Harry so well, he might have been slightly afraid of him.

Harry knew that his black hair was more mussed than usual, which was certainly saying something, since he always looked as if he'd been in a tornado. His lightning bolt shaped scar stood out red and raw against pale white skin. The emerald eyes that were an exact replica of Harry's mother's were dimmed from their usual brightness. Harry's face clearly showed his agitation, but it wasn't the face that Lupin was looking at. It was the stance. Harry walked tall and muscular now with determined and heavy strides. His blood encrusted hands swung heavy by his sides, his right one clutching tightly to his wand.

"That looks like the 'someone is about to pay for what they've done,' walk. I saw your father do that one quite often." Lupin smiled as Harry drew nearer, and professor Dumbledore chuckled. Harry was too concerned to follow the humour.

It was nearly a man who stood before him now, and Lupin looked slightly alarmed by the sudden change in his former student. He knew that Sirius' death had hit him rather hard, but to see this...he silently took hold of Harry's hands, and magicked the blood away and cleaned the cuts. His hands still looked beat up, but at least they looked like they had been attended to.

Professor Dumbledore was speaking. "Percy Weasley is in St. Mungo's hospital. He is not well, and will be remaining indefinitely in the critical care ward."

Harry's posture slumped, and his legs couldn't hold him any longer, he toppled to the grass, and let his face rest in his mangled hands.

"I didn't get to you in time..." he mumbled, and sighed. "Mrs. Weasley is going to hate me." His eyes closed in absolute defeat.

"I doubt it." Remus responded. "She's pretty broken up about the whole thing, but I believe she'll thank you for sending people after him."

"What about everyone else? Was anyone hurt?" Harry looked up in fear.

"Miss. Tonks sprained her ankle when she was hit with a jelly legs jinx, and Mr. Weasley got caught by a bit of a rib-cracker, but everyone else is fine."

Harry jumped to his feet. "WHAT?" he yelled "YOU LET MR.WEASLEY GO OUT AFTER I TOLD YOU THAT THE DEATH EATERS WERE AFTER THEM?"

Dumbledore held out his hands in a calming gesture. "I could not stop him from helping." When Harry made to argue, he waved him aside. "He insisted that even if he could not be allowed on the team to rescue Percy, he would have to be doing something. His mind needed occupying, so we sent him to help Hermione Granger and her family sneak out of their house. They encountered some resistance, but everyone made it out safely."

Harry took a deep breath, and tamped down the anger inside him. He had promised himself that he would stay reasonable this year. After his anger and frustration had given him nothing but trouble and odd looks. "Everyone is all right then? Other than Percy?"

"Fit as fiddles." Answered Remus Lupin assuredly.

"Harry, I wanted to let you know that I have a proposal for you." Dumbledore announced.

Harry looked at him, surprised. Hadn't he just yelled at the man? Why would he want to give Harry anything?

"What sort of proposal sir?" He asked.

Dumbledore lifted a hand to escort the two wizards into the house. "I believe this should be said at another time in another place. Suffice it to say, that part of my suggestion is to remove you from these premises."

Harry looked up to see the ever watchful nose of his horse-faced Aunt Petunia slip away from the back curtains. When they arrived indoors, she was already off preparing breakfast in the kitchen. Her pink bathrobe tied tightly around her middle.

"Petunia," said Dumbledore, "We will be taking Harry away for the rest of the summer."

She nodded without looking up, and Harry could tell she was nervous to have two more of 'his kind' in her house. "Good." And Harry had absolutely no doubt that she meant it. It was one of the only things she'd said regarding his presence all summer.

Harry looked up at Remus suddenly. "Will I be taken to headquarters?"

Remus nodded, his eyes darting out the windows.

Harry's face fell slightly. "I have a few details about that that I need to straighten out before we go." He took a breath, and continued. "Firstly," he held up one finger, "I will not be used as some damn radar to detect Voldemort for you." Petunia's ear cocked towards him, knowing she'd heard the name 'Voldemort' before. There were very few muggles who ever had, and fewer still who understood the dangers associated with his name.

"Second," Harry continued, holding up another finger, "I absolutely refuse to live in the same place as that horrible house-elf."

"Harry," Dumbledore interrupted. "Kreacher has killed himself as he now has no family to serve, and it is not normally in the nature of most house-elves to denigrate themselves by being given clothes and freedom."

Harry nodded, and he took on a fierce stature. "Third, I will never rest until I see those elf-heads, the tapestry, and that horrible shrieking woman gone. They do not hold happy memories, and I'll burn the damn house down if I must, to get rid of them."

Professor Lupin began to laugh.

Dumbledore smirked. "I believe you should ask Remus about those last three items. It seemed that he was of the same mind as you."

Harry looked at his former teacher, wide eyed. "What did you do?" He whispered.

"Lets just say that they let me have the run of the house this last full moon."

Petunia's ears twitched.

"They didn't! Wasn't it a little dangerous?" Harry asked, already laughing to himself.

Remus looked up at Harry's aunt and smiled slightly sinisterly. He was about to give out his most painful secret, and he couldn't wait to see the response. "With the right wards, everything is all right. Besides, you have no idea how much fun a full-grown werewolf can have with a shrunken house-elf head."

The peals of laughter rang though the house as Petunia Dursley fled white-faced from the kitchen clutching at her stomach. Harry felt a little bad that this was the normal response his Professor got when he mentioned his curse, but since it had elicited the response he'd wanted, they were comfortably able to laugh about it.

"Shall we pick up your trunk and get going then?" Dumbledore asked as he turned to lead the way up the stairs to Harry's room.

"Sir." Harry interupted. "Sir, I wanted to apologize." Harry began to wring his hands nervously. "I shouldn't have yelled at you a minute ago, just as I had no right to yell at you and break your things back in June. I'm sorry. Forgive me?" The apology had cost him something, since he was still a little angry at Dumbledore for keeping vital information from him. The only reason he had just asked for forgiveness was that he knew it was part of his plan to be reasonable.

Dumbledore looked as if a weight had been lifted from his shoulders. "Harry, to be honest I'm rather glad you did yell at me. Had you not, I may have become so large in the head to believe myself the king of the universe by now. It has been so long that I had a good yelling at that I had forgotten a good many things about the process. I do by the way appreciate being humbled every so often. However a lowering of the decibel level may sometimes be in order." He looked deeply into Harry's eyes. "On the other hand, I do accept your apology for breaking all of those items in my office. I may have had too many of them, but they were still items I appreciated."

Their arrival at number twelve Grimmauld Place was painful in many ways for Harry. The first, being that he found it quite uncomfortable to travel by portkey. The strange jerk behind his navel, then rush of wind and colour always made him feel a bit like a worm on a hook. It also frustrated him to no end that the old man in their company landed without so much of a twinge, and he, the young strapping teen ended up landing hard on his bottom. It was unfair to say the least, that he should be offered help up by someone who looked more than five times his age.

The other painful thing about his first glimpse of Grimmauld Place was the depression that seemed to wash over him at the sight of his Godfather's old house. Sirius had never liked the place, and had gratefully handed it over to the Order to be used as headquarters. Today the building was shrouded in an eerie fog, and the effect it had on Harry's already tender emotions was bruising.

"Are you coming Harry?" Lupin said quietly. He was standing near the front stoop, holding Harry's firebolt broomstick, as Dumbledore disappeared through the front door carrying Hedwig's empty cage.

Harry picked up his trunk once more, and started forward, tamping down the almost insatiable urge he suddenly had to throw something heavy at the house. "How do you do it?" he asked Lupin quietly. "Seeing this place now makes me feel like it was just yesterday that Sirius..." Harry trailed off.

Lupin took the other side of Harry's trunk, and began to help him up the stairs.

"Harry, I'm afraid that I can't feel completely upset about losing Sirius." He said honestly, closing the door quietly behind them. "The truth of the matter is, that I thought I'd lost Sirius a long time ago. And then it was under much darker conditions. This time, even though I know he's not coming back... At least I know he isn't a traitor. I know he died honourably."

Harry nodded, and lowered the trunk to the floor. Somehow, hearing this perspective on Sirius' death made him feel quite a lot better. It was bittersweet now, this homecoming.

Lupin came over to Harry, and put his hand on the boy's shoulder. "I know he didn't have the easiest time of it here."

Harry snorted. "That's an understatement."

Lupin continued. "But, believe it or not, just knowing that you were there to need him made him feel very special. It made him happy."

Harry felt the tears gather in his eyes. He pulled off his glasses, and wiped them away viciously with the back of his hand.

The next thing he knew, Lupin was holding him tight, rubbing his back as he cried, the pain of his loss stabbing deeply into his heart. Had he looked a bit closer, he might have noticed the shiny dampness of his former teacher's world-weary face.

They grouped together in the kitchen.

Harry was surprised by how many people were here. He knew that Hermione, Neville, Luna, and all of their families had needed to escape, but somehow, he hadn't thought about where they would go. Evidently headquarters was now acting as a home for displaced persons as well.

None of the Weasley's, Longbottom's or Hermione were there, as he'd been told that they were all out at St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries visiting with Percy and Mr. Weasley.

Hermione's parents were there, however, and they seemed to be wearing perpetually alarmed expressions on their faces and clutching Hermione's cat, Crookshanks, who was wriggling and meowing in frustration. They were the only two muggles in a strange dark house among a plethora of unfamiliar witches and wizards, and Harry wondered for a moment what they were thinking, suddenly being thrust into the centre of everyday Wizarding life.

They were the only two people currently absent from the gathering in the kitchen. Obviously Neville's grandmother and Luna Lovegood's father had both been inducted into the order though, as they were both present. It was obvious that Muggles were not allowed in the Order, no matter the status of their offspring.

The other witches and wizards were mostly people that Harry had met either from his short stay last Christmas, or else they were teachers from Harry's school. Both professors McGonagall and to Harry's disgust, Snape were in attendance. Nymphadora Tonks, and Kingsley Shacklebolt, two Aurors that Harry knew quite well, were sitting opposite them.

"Wotcher Tonks." Harry greeted the young witch. "I heard you hurt your ankle. I hope it's all right."

She smiled back pleasantly. "Your young friend Neville sure packs a wallop with his jelly legs jinx."

They heard Mrs. Longbottom sigh happily at this announcement. Her grandson's ability to make ministry Aurors legs turn to gelatin must have been something she thought of proudly.

Mundungus Fletcher slumped in one chair, his ginger hair matted to his head from the fog outside, his pockets suspiciously lumpy. To Harry's enormous pleasure, Rubeus Hagrid sat trying, and failing miserably, to be inconspicuous on two of the chairs at the end of the table.

Harry walked over and gave him as big a hug as a half-giant could get.

"Good ter see yeh Harry." He grumbled pleasantly.

Harry didn't get much more of a chance to greet anyone, as Dumbledore then walked in and both he and Harry took the last seats. "As you all know," began Dumbledore, "we had a rather alarming occurrence last night, and we are here to clarify a few things with you all. First of all, I wanted to make it clear that what I am about to propose comes with quite a bit of reluctance on my part, and to be very honest, I would not like any of the Weasley's to know of it yet. So as I speak now I must have everyone's word that they will let me take them aside on my own to put it to them in a slightly different light." He looked around at each of the witches and wizards to receive their nods of agreement in turn. When he turned to Harry, he added, "That is to include the younger generation, I assure you." Harry nodded. "As well obviously, I would like no one outside the order to hear of it." He seemed to be speaking only to Harry again, so he nodded once more.

"My proposal is this. I would like to invite Harry Potter here to join our ranks in the Order of the Phoenix."

Harry gaped at his headmaster. No underage wizard had ever been asked to join as of yet, and Harry now understood Dumbledore's reluctance to tell the Weasleys. Molly Weasley was certainly not going to appreciate this.

"Not," Dumbledore added quickly over the rumble of opposition, which had arisen, "of course in any sort of active role." He looked quickly at the rest of the gathering. "I have a specific mission in mind for young Mister Potter that has nothing to do with active service and fighting. But I feel that I must explain a little more behind my decision." He took a deep breath.

"I have discovered, to my cost, that Mister Potter and his friends seem to have become a detective agency in their own right. No matter how much we don't tell them, they seem to find out anyhow. Sometimes I end up hearing important things from them of which most of us were unaware." He looked at Harry with the twinkle back in his eyes, and winked. Harry knew he meant no disrespect.

"This past year, I had been keeping many things from young Harry here, and the overload of secrets I kept, created a misunderstanding between us and made Harry believe that someone he cared for was in danger. I do not wish to continue with this path, and I believe that the more Harry knows about his situation, and about his connection with Voldemort, the better for all of us."

Most of the people in the room wincedat the name, but seemed to settle down a bit at this, but Harry could feel the glare of professor Snape's eyes as they bore obvious hatred into his skin.

"You all know however, and I must make this clear to you Harry, that the Order is still a very secretive place to be, and not everyone knows everyone else's business." He gave Harry a poignant look at this, and Harry looked nervously down at the table. "You must understand the importance of having secrets in an organization such as this, and I implore you not to discuss it with anyone not currently in this room."

Harry looked into the old man's eyes, and nodded once more.

"Do you accept my invitation then, Harry?"

Harry didn't see why he wouldn't. Given the opportunity to find answers to all the questions he'd ever had about Voldemort wasn't something he had to think on all that long.

"I accept." He said quietly.

"Good." Dumbledore smiled. "Now, last year, if I remember correctly, I had you studying occlumency. Have you been practicing?"

Harry blushed red, and looked fleetingly at Snape. "To be honest, sir, I wasn't feeling all that well when I practiced emptying my mind of all emotions, so I went to the muggle library and picked up a few books about meditation. They said something in one of the books about not being empty of emotions, but only analyzing and calming the ones you do have. I've been doing that for the last two weeks, and it seems to be helping. My scar is hurting a lot less, and I just feel altogether better about it. I know it's not exactly what professor Snape said to do, but..."

Professor Snape looked stunned for a moment. "Headmaster do you realize..."

"Yes, Severus."

"And have you known this for long?" he asked, his pale skin emphasized by his greasy black hair hanging about his face.

"I have only come to this conclusion just last night." Dumbledore answered.

"I should have known," Snape continued, "after what happened when he did the shield charm." He said, scowling at Harry. Harry remembered having used that charm in his occlumency lessons at one point, and it had made Snape's attempt to break into Harry's mind bounce back on him. Suddenly it had been Harry breaking into Snape's mind. As much as he was pleased that Snape was grudgingly impressed, he wondered why this was pertinent.

"Excuse me, but what did I do?" Harry looked confusedly between the two.

"Harry," said Dumbledore calmly. "All this time I thought that you were in danger of being possessed by Voldemort. I thought he would take advantage of your connection to either harm you, or make you harm others. I realized this was an incorrect assumption when he tried to possess you in the department of mysteries, although I couldn't have been certain of why it was impossible."

"He wasn't able to possess me, you mean. Not for long, anyhow." Harry said, hearing a few people gasp and Professor McGonagall muttering, "My word!"

"Yes. Even with you staring him straight in the eye, he could not possess you."

"What does that mean? Why am I still seeing his thoughts in my dreams and catching his moods and stuff?"

"I am suggesting, as is professor Snape, that it is you who is unintentionally possessing Voldemort."

Harry stared at the Headmaster while they waited for more sounds of surprise and disbelief to die down.

"What makes you think that sir?" he asked quietly. His mind swirling with confusion and a bit of fear.

"In the most recent 'vision', you were able to make Voldemort move and say things that he would not ordinarily have said. You knew that he did not remember having said those things. Those reasons and your chosen medium for practice -meditation- are all pointing towards the possibility that things are rather reversed from what we thought they would be. This ability you seem to have, is probably natural Legilimency."

"I don't want to act as a Voldemort radar for the Order!" Harry reiterated his statement from earlier in an angry tone.

"I wasn't suggesting that you do. In fact, I would like you to be able to control it, since Voldemort has proven that he has ways of altering his own memories to suit his needs, and I would not ask you to use this ability for our purposes. Practicing control as far as I am concerned would include both legilimency and occlumency. I don't want you to see these images at all if we can avoid it. I have another task for you which I think you will find much more acceptable."

Harry breathed deeply. "And what is that, sir?"

"I'm afraid we are going to be in a bit of a pickle this year as far as Hogwarts is concerned. The only person I was able to convince to fill the position of Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher is, I'm afraid, sorely lacking when it comes to practical experience." He looked deeply regretful at this. "She certainly knows the basics, but some of the darker aspects of fighting with real wizards are impossible for her to understand."

Harry tore his eyes away from the scowling Snape. The greasy man had always wanted the position of Defense Against the Dark Arts professor, but for some reason, Dumbledore wouldn't give the spot to him. Besides the fact that Harry wasn't sure he wanted his least favorite professor teaching his favorite subject.

Although now Harry thought he knew what Dumbledore was asking him to do.

"I would like for you to continue the DA." Dumbledore stated abruptly, confirming Harry's thoughts. "This may not be beneficial to us at the moment, but as a teacher, I can understand the importance of passing on the values of fighting and defense skills to a younger generation." He suddenly looked very sad. "We have no way of knowing how long this war against Voldemort is going to last. I do not wish to leave this world knowing I've failed to provide protection for anyone, young or old. And above all that means self-defense."

Sounds of surprise and disbelief warred across the table. Harry clearly heard professor McGonagall exclaim, "It's not like you're going to drop dead Albus!" and professor Lupin said something like, "You shouldn't have to worry about something like that!"

"Nonetheless," Dumbledore continued, "the education of our youngest witches and wizards is very important, and from what I've heard, Harry here makes quite a good teacher."

The room was silent.

"Did Hermione take the jinx off of that list of hers?" Harry asked in the middle of the silence, wrinkling up his nose at the question, hoping he wouldn't have the word 'sneak' marked across his forehead.

"I'm afraid she had to. I received a rather loud letter of complaint from the mother of one Marietta Edgecombe, saying that her daughter was suffering needlessly from an unknown jinx. I must admit that I admired the power and thought behind it, but I still had to ask her to remove it."

"All right, I can talk about it then. It's not as if everyone didn't know about it anyhow."

"Too true." Dumbledore nodded knowingly. "It is a good way to discern whom to trust to put a jinx like that on a simple piece of paper. But it's not enough to keep others from knowing your business. You must also watch those around you for eavesdropping."

Harry blushed. That should have been something on his mind at the time he, Ron and Hermione had organized the group. Harry remembered his mind being rather more occupied with a certain Ravenclaw seeker. Cho Chang herself had been a bit more interested in what Harry could tell her about the death of her former boyfriend Cedric. It was, he promised himself, the last time he would be taken by a pretty face.

"Hagrid," Dumbledore turned to the half-giant at the end of the table. "You have always been available to support Harry and his friends. I ask that you continue to do so, and I will make you aware of anything they need to know so you can pass it on to them quietly. If you were to come waltzing into my office every few days, or leaving the school, people might become suspicious, so I cannot allow you to sit in on meetings throughout the school year."

Harry nodded with understanding.

"One more thing is that I have personally gotten permission from Minister Fudge and Madam Bones-" Harry remembered her as the witch currently in charge of the Wizengamot. The wizarding law society, "- to allow you, and you alone to use underage defensive magic, beginning the day you turn sixteen."

Harry's heart felt weightless. This was everything he'd needed for so long coming to light all at once. It made the darkness of Percy's attack and the setting of Grimmauld Place all that much darker in comparison. His eyes brightened, and the old man before him gave him a knowing smile. In that moment, Harry forgave Dumbledore everything he had ever done to keep him downtrodden.

"Of course they will be monitoring your actions, but you will be allowed to practice defense and related subjects, while under adult supervision. Remus," he looked at Lupin with a smile, "You will be needed this summer to provide the adult supervision if you are able. Again, I'm sorry Harry, but you cannot tell your friends about this. It is imperative that this stays as secret as possible, at least until the school year starts."

"So I can't tell them now, but I can tell them later?" Harry was on the edge of his seat, his eyes flashing with happiness and wary resolve.

"Doubtless they will realize that you have improved somewhat over the summer when you reconvene the DA. Due to Miss Granger and Mister Weasley's avid curiosity, I believe it would be pointless and possibly even dangerous to keep silent about it then. You are still not, however, to tell them that you have been granted permission to join the Order."

"Excuse." Interrupted Mr. Lovegood in a smooth voice. "But what exactly is this DA you keep going on about?" It was obvious Mr. Lovegood was a newer member of the Order, and hadn't yet been told many of the things that had happened last year.

Dumbledore held out his hand to defer to Harry, and Harry nodded. "Hermione, Ron and I were getting really frustrated with that Umbridge woman-" he spat the word distastefully, "-and her classes. We were doing nothing while we were there, but reading the text. And if I do say so myself it was a pretty useless book. She wouldn't let us practice defense at all." He saw Lupin smile out of the corner of his eye.

"Anyhow, we haven't really had any good Defense teachers, except you professor," he smiled back, "for so long now that we just felt we shouldn't wait for one to show up. So we just started doing it ourselves. Mostly it ended up being me doing the teaching, but I learned a couple of pretty good hexes myself along the way." Harry thought briefly about Ginny Weasley's 'bat bogey hex' that she'd taught him, and it made him smile.

"Is that how Neville got involved in that crazy Ministry brawl in June?" Mrs. Longbottom asked Harry reverently. "I was so proud when I heard he'd been fighting Death-Eaters. I never thought he had it in him. You must've been quite the teacher." She trailed off.

"Luna too?" asked Mr. Lovegood, looking positively gleeful. "I've always said that girl was intelligent! She could smell a crumple horned snorkack from a mile away!"

Harry raised an eyebrow and he nodded. "And I wanted to apologize for that. I shouldn't have gotten them into it all. What I really wanted to do was just to train them in case they needed to fight. They heard me say that someone I knew was in trouble at the ministry, and they wanted to come along and help. I really shouldn't have let them. I knew it would be dangerous, I guess I thought I could use all the help I could get. I'm sorry." Harry was truly embarrassed by his total lack of judgement on this occasion, but he felt it would be worse to deny or try to hide it now.

Mrs. Longbottom nodded, smiling brightly, and she sighed wistfully.

"Yes," said Mr. Lovegood impatiently, brushing Harry's apology aside suddenly as though it were irrelevant, "but what exactly does DA stand for?"

Harry blushed, and looked up at Dumbledore. "It stands for Dumbledore's Army." He said, smiling secretively. "Ginny thought up the name. It's supposed to be basically an Anti-Umbridge slogan. You know, the Ministry of Magic's worst nightmare. We can change it if necessary. I know that the Ministry seems to be on our side of this war now. Besides, DA can also stand for Defense Association. That was the first suggestion."

Professor McGonagall laughed. "I wondered where you got that name from! I don't think changing it will be necessary."

Dumbledore gave a wry smile. "I certainly won't be pushing my nose into your business with the DA so you can basically continue on as before. I'm honored by the reference, but I promise not to make it a reality. The only thing I ask is that you keep your ear open for any stories you think could be of interest to the Order that you hear, and to pass them on to me or to another Order member. From what I've heard from your friend Miss Granger, stories of deceit and dark happenings pass between your group quite easily."

Harry smiled wryly. "They do. I've gotten a lot of useful information from them." Harry decided not to mention the fact that Luna was often the one spouting about spirits of fire and Crumple-Horned-Snorkacks and other things that had never existed. Now that he had met Mr. Lovegood, Harry could sort of see why her delusions were so strange.

"Good." Dumbledore stood now. "I'm pleased we've gotten the important points out in the open. Any suggestions, please come to me later this evening. I'm afraid I must be off. I have an important meeting with Minister Fudge today, and I do not want to be late.

"Tonks, Kingsley and Remus, I would appreciate it if you would escort Harry to St. Mungo's Hospital to meet with the Weasleys." And he swept from the room dramatically.