Chapter 16: Meetings
Severus was called by Voldemort late that night. He was surprised to see that he was the only one called. "Come my son, I have a plan that needs your assistance." The dark lord said motioning to a chair next to him. Severus could not tell where they were but he was surprised that Wormtail was not sniffing around. "I read in the Prophet this morning that Potter's little girlfriend may be cheating on him. I want you to encourage the little tramp to be with this Quidditch player. I want to weaken Potter. I have heard from the young recruits that he is hopelessly smitten with this girl. I thought about abducting her and luring him into our trap, but I know that old fool Dumbledore has him under lock and key. What do you think?"
"It is a brilliant plan my lord," Severus said grateful he didn't have to abduct any of the students. "I will accompany the Weasleys and the Lupins to the next Quidditch match and begin planting ideas in the girls head. I spied on the group of young ones the night that photo was taken. The boy Xavier seems smitten with the Weasley girl, I have no doubt he would pursue her if she gave him any indication."
"Good Severus, my plan to weaken Potter's mental stability is just starting. Once he is weak, then we strike!" Voldemort said with a manic laugh that brought chills to your bones. "Come to me after the match and tell me your progress."
"Of course my lord, I only live to serve," Severus said bowing low in his seat knowing how much the psycho lord loved the attention.
"Come my loyal servant, I will show you how the recruits training are going. If the old fool will not miss you, perhaps you can stay and help train some of them in more advanced combat." Voldemort said as he led Severus to a door in the wall that opened to reveal a large cave where the training facility was.
"Anything you require my lord, Dumbledore will not expect me tonight." Severus said and proceeded down to the training arena to take in as much information as possible to relay back to the Order. It was as if the Dark Lord was handing them the victory on a silver platter, thanks to their number one spy.
Harry and Ginny sat with the Headmaster and Snape in the small parlor. "He wants me to cheat on Harry?" Ginny asked them skeptically. "Why on earth would Moldy Voldy care about my love life?"
"He believes that if you are found to be having an affair it will mentally cripple Potter and weaken him for the inevitable fight between the two," Snape told her.
"So you want her to go along with it?" Harry said narrowing his eyes at Snape.
"We should give the appearance of it at least," Snape said. "He expects me to help push her into the arms of Xavier. I figured since he was an Order member as well, it wouldn't be a problem. Why is it he couldn't make this meeting as well?" Severus asked. "Wait, don't answer that just yet," he said thinking back on all the times he had seen X. "You would have done well in my house Potter. I never figured it out until now. It makes perfect sense. You can't be seen in public and suddenly Lupin has a nephew who is a spectacular seeker, how obvious, who is instantly friends with the golden trio and groupies." Snape was furious with himself for not spotting it sooner. He was a spy for goodness sakes! "How do you do it? I have never sensed any glamours on him."
Dumbledore nodded his permission to reveal the secret and Harry morphed into X, causing Snape's eyebrows to rise. "A metamorphmagi, it would seem you keep finding powers," Snape remarked. "This will definitely make things easier."
"So we will bring Ginny and X closer the remainder of the summer, making sure to have them seen in public a few times. By the end of the summer we need at least one photo of the two of you kissing for the public to fly with the story even more. Harry will have to look despondent if he goes anywhere, crushed that Ginny would do that to him. As few people who know about it the better their reactions will be." Albus told them.
"That may be a problem after the events of yesterday," Severus said realizing that the Weasley's would never believe it now that Ginny and Harry were bonded.
"Yes, their soul mating will complicate things but her family should know anyway. We will have to have Harry seen in Diagon Alley getting his school supplies, which will be a good reason for him to be out. That gives us slightly under a month to get the affair into the open. It will be believed after yesterday's article." Albus told them.
"We'll work it out sir; we can read each other's emotions and out mental connection is even stronger. We no longer need any sort of eye contact or even to be in the same room to talk to each other mentally any more." Ginny informed them. "We will be able to pull it off. I must say I never expected my first official mission for the order to be making out in public with my boyfriend." They left the office, with Albus still chuckling at her joke, to go talk about the plan in their secret room before the full order meeting later that night.
At lunch that day Hermione received an owl from Wood begging her forgiveness along with three dozen red roses. She sighed and placed the roses in a vase in the middle of the table. She knew he was sorry and that he hadn't meant to cheat but she had to admit she wasn't sad that it happened. It saved her the trouble with having to end it with him at the end of the summer. She spent the remainder of lunch writing a reply owl explaining, again, how they were better off as friends. She promised that she would still attend his Quidditch matches and that he could still join them at the club. 'We were never in love Oliver and it's pointless to pretend we ever would have been. It was fun while it lasted and gave us a chance to become better friends. I hope this won't end out friendship. Go out there and find someone to make you happy. Don't settle and please try and stay away from the fan girls, they will only throw you off track.' Hermione paused in her writing wondering how to finish the letter and settled with, 'Your friend, Hermione.'
"I see Wood is trying to make up for his mistake," Charlie said entering the kitchen and trying not to be jealous.
"Yep," she responded, "I'm just owling him back now." Hermione said as she attached the letter to the owl's leg and took it to the window.
"Oh?" He asked trying to act casual and not give away that he was dying to find out if she was giving him another chance.
"So are you coming with us to his next match or do you have to go back to Romania?" She asked watching his face fall as he thought she had taken Oliver back.
"I have the rest of the summer off, my boss found a summer intern to take my place so I get an extended holiday." Charlie answered as he watched her finger the rose petals and breathe in a large whiff of rose scented air.
"That's great; it'll be nice to have you around more." She said with a smile before excusing herself back to her research.
"Aren't you taking your roses?" He asked as she was almost to the door.
"I thought I'd leave them here for everyone to enjoy," she told him. "I love the way they smell up the room."
"She's a very selfless girl," Albus said to Charlie as he entered the room. "She is much more mature than most her age, wouldn't you say."
"Yes, she seems much older than she is. Sometimes when we talk its almost as if she is older than I am. She is easily the smartest witch I've ever met as well as one of the most compelling." Charlie told his old professor as they sat down to lunch together talking.
Harry joined Mr. and Mrs. Weasley in the small den next to the kitchen before dinner. "I know that Ginny and I are young, but you also know how much I love her. I want to ask for her hand in marriage. Not right now, but as soon as the war is over I want to make her my wife. I am asking for your blessing now so that you know my intentions towards her are honorable." He spit out as quickly as he could hoping they woudn't refuse him.
"This is a very serious thing you ask of us," Arthur said setting his book down on a side table. "Tell us your plans for the future."
"I anticipate the war to be over within the next few years. I plan to officially become an auror after school as I have finished all the necessary training already. If the war ends before she has finished her schooling at Hogwarts then I would wait and marry her after that. I know she hopes to become a potions mistress and I want to support her in that dream. I will move with her to wherever she is schooling so we can stay together. I know we both want a family but I am in no hurry as we are both so very young. I have pleanty of money to support her and even a family as large as yours if she chooses not to work. In fact, I can and will support her in anything she wishes to persue." Harry finished.
"What if the war is not ended in the next few years?" Molly asked.
"I cannot ask her to become my wife while my life is at stake to Voldemort. If the war seems to streatch on and she wishes to marry we will have to make a decision then. She knows my love for her and knows I would wait an eternity for the chance to be with her." Harry told them.
Molly nodded at Arthur as they had already discussed this the night before. "Very well then, I give you my blessing Harry Potter to ask for my only daughter's hand in marriage as soon as this war is ended." Arthur told him and the two men shook hands before Molly pulled Harry into a hug.
Gabrielle was worried for her friend as Ginny cried and smiled at the same moment as they were getting cleaned up for dinner. Ginny was so touched by what Harry had asked her parents. She hoped the war would end soon, she didn't want to spend any more time than necessary away from her soul mate.
The order was given a detailed description of the death eater training area by Snape. They spent over an hour discussing different techniques and how to counter the attacks as well as ways to determine the location and if it was a suitable place for attack. Snape said he figured the death eaters would start attacks again soon, in small numbers or perhaps with the dementors alone. "The dementors are growing restless. I fear the Dark Lord will order attacks to satisfy their hunger. His actual forces are too week to attack in mass so the strongest threat at the moment is from the dementors."
Gabrielle and Ginny were given the additional task of researching for better means of protection from dementors. Gabrielle was still researching ways to permanently defeat Voldemort. Ron and Draco were assigned the task of planning counters to all of the attack strategies that Snape had found at the training arena. Neville was to join them in training the Order members in battle strategy in the order's training area before the summer ends and continuing the draining into DA once classes resumed. Hermione realized she and Severus needed to double their efforts on the cure in order to have a solution by the time of the battle.
The potions they had tested so far had no positive effect, in fact the first two trials killed the mice they were working on. Neville was also reaserching ways of strengthing the magical properties of the healing herbs to see if a more potent ingeredient could help the cause.
"Are we playing a game tonight?" Tonks asked as they were finishing up dinner. The group decided to play something but also decided it wouldn't be as long so they could all get up in the morning.
"I played a game once at a slumber party that could be fun," Hermione told them as the same group as before, minus the twins, moved into the kitchen. "It's called 2 truths and a lie. You take turns going around the room and you each tell three things about you, two of them are true and one is a lie and then the rest of us have to guess which one is the lie."
"That could be fun," Remus commented, "But no reading minds!" He said looking at Severus, Harry and Ginny.
"Alright, I'll start," Bill said sitting down at the end of the table next to Fleur. "My favorite animal is a collie, I have danced naked in the rain and I'm afraid of Veela women." They all laughed at his last two and decided to go backwards around the table when they guessed answers. Everyone but Fleur and Gabrielle said his lie was that he was afraid of Veela women when that was actually the truth. "I never danced naked in the rain. I am afraid of Veela women, full blooded Veela women that is. Ever since I started dating Fleur I have a fear of full Veelas."
"It's because he's dating me. The Veela women can smell me on him and their charms are reversed and he becomes repulsed or afraid of them. It's a way to make sure Veela don't go after each other's mates." Fleur explained to them, Hermione had never heard of that and made a mental note to research it some other time.
Fleur was next, "I dye my hair this color, I have never been outside of Europe and I have a butterfly tattoo." She smiled as the group was mixed with their answers, in fact all three were guessed to be here lie. "My lie is that I dye my hair, this is my natural color."
Gabrielle smile and took her turn, "I remember everything I read, I had a crush on Harry Potter and I love shopping with Draco's mum." All the younger ones laughed at her answers and each of them guessed the correct one. "You're right, I really hate going anywhere with Mrs. Malfoy and shopping is the worst. You should see the kind of things she wants me to wear!"
The all laughed and then Bill spoke up, "That means you actually had a crush on Harry. Low blow there Malfoy."
"Nah, she couldn't help having a crush on the boy who rescued her from the mermaids. From what I hear it was quite scary under there." Draco replied and winked at his fiancé.
Luna was next, "I want to be a journalist, my mother was beautiful and Ravenclaw is my favorite house." She said knowing that no one was going to guess correctly. Neville was the only one who guessed right since he had seen photos of her mum and they had talked about how she wanted to be a journalist or author. "Neville is right, I actually hate my house. They have treated me horribly until last year and then they were only nice because I was friends with Harry and had an Order of Merlin. I would much rather be a Gryffindor or Hufflepuff."
"Why not a Slytherin?" Gabrielle asked with a smirk.
"I would not be treated any better by them than the Ravenclaws," Luna said with a shrug. "If it wasn't for Ginny being nice to me and inviting me to join the DA I would probably never have had any friends."
"Don't worry about the people in your house Luna, we all love you for who you are. We'll always be your friends." Hermione told her with a smile.
Neville was next, "My biggest fear is Snape, I have never really been in love, and I don't really like frogs." He said and laughed as most of them, including Snape, guessed that his lie was that he didn't like frogs. "I actually don't like frogs, I was upset when my uncle got me Trevor, I wanted an owl. My lie was that my biggest fear is Professor Snape, I am over that fear now." Neville smiled proudly at Snape who nodded his head to show that he was glad.
Charlie went next, "I have a tattoo of a dragon, I live in Romania and I like younger women," he said with a wink at Hermione causing his brothers to groan and the girls to giggle. They all guessed that he did not have a tattoo since they had not seen it last game when they almost got him stripped. "Nope, my tattoo is hidden with a glamour any time I'm in town so mum doesn't yell like she does about Bill's earring. My lie is that I no longer live in Romania. I have decided to move back to England."
Everyone at the table was happy with that news except for maybe Kingsley and Severus who didn't have an opinion on it. "Where are you going to live?" Ginny asked wit ha radiant smile, she liked that all her family was back in the country.
"I have all my stuff shrunk and in a trunk upstairs. I was going to see if mum and dad would put me up until the end of the summer when I'll find something a little more permanent." Charlie told them all.
"You can stay here as long as you want. It's not like Bill uses the other bed in your room anyway," Harry said with a grin at Bill and Fleur at the end of the table. Bill was flushed Weasley red and Fleur just had a smirk.
"Thanks Harry, I think I'll take you up on that. I love the burrow, but I've been away so long it's hard to go back to having mum checking up on me all the time." He told him.
Severus was the next one in the game and he made sure to glare at everyone before saying his three things. He told them, "I enjoy teaching, I don't hate Gryffindors and I have a pet snake." The group was a toss up between his lie being teaching or hating Gryffindors, the only one to answer differently was Hermione who said it was he didn't have a pet snake. "Hermione is right, as usual," he said to get a dig in on her know-it-all personality. "I do not have a pet snake; I don't have a pet at all. I know it's difficult to believe but I actually enjoy teaching and I don't hate Gryffindors, well at least not all of them, or at least not the ones in this room and the ones in the Order. I only ever really hated two of them."
"My father and my god father," Harry said rolling his eyes. "I told Hermione and Ron that the reason you were always hateful to the Gryffindors was because of my father."
"Trust me when I say the feeling was mutual," Remus said with a chuckle before giving his answers for the game. "Tonks is the only woman I've ever been with, I have a hairy back and I'm a wolf anamagus." His lie was that he was a wolf anamagus, he could only transform on the full moon, not at will.
Tonks grinned before taking her turn, "I really have blonde hair, I used to dance ballet and I change shapes when I'm angry." They all laughed for a few minutes as they imagined Tonks, the clutz, dancing ballet. The lie was that she actually has brown hair.
Kingsley made them laugh with his facts, "I shave my head, I got top marks in auror training and I once arrested James Potter." Most of them guessed that his lie was that he had arrested James. "I actually did arrest James once by accident. I was on a training mission and I thought he was one of the looters at a bookstore when he had really only arrived on the scene to watch to make sure I was doing my job. My lie is that I shave my head, unfortunately I've been bald since I was 13 my brother tried to hex me with a hair growth charm and got it wrong somehow. I haven't had hair since."
Draco was next, "I always hated my father, I ruined over 10 of Neville's potions over the years, and Severus is my godfather." They mostly guessed that the lie was the one about his father. Neville listed off a few of his caldron explosions that were Draco's fault, making Snape smirk at how many points he had taken off the boy when it was sabotage. "The lie is that Severus is not my godfather."
Hermione told them that her studies were the most important thing to her and that she never actually dated Victor Krum they were only friends and pen pals. "And on of the reasons I bought Crookshanks was that I knew it would piss off Ron." Harry had to hang onto the table he was laughing so hard at the look of outrage on Ron's face after that comment. Most of them guessed that was the lie. "Nope, I actually thought that Crooks was smart for jumping on Ron's head and decided he needed someone to take care of him. The lie is that I did actually date Krum, even if it was only for a very little bit. He told me he was in love with me and I couldn't say no to his face."
"You always insisted that you two were only ever friends," Ron said with a huff.
"Look at how you react and ask yourself why I lied. You never would have dropped it and besides it was only for a few months and we never even saw each other after the end of the year." Hermione said rolling her eyes at how he was still jealous.
"Fine," Ron huffed before taking his turn. "I have never cheated on an exam, chess is my favorite activity and I don't really want to be an auror." He smiled when they mostly all got it wrong. "I actually don't really want to be an auror. It think it's the coolest real job and that's why I' going to do it, but I would rather be a Quidditch player. My dream job is to be a professional Quidditch player, not an auror."
Harry laughed at his friend before taking his turn, "I have never spoken to my parents, I plan on marrying my soul mate and I have to be the one to kill Voldemort." They all guessed correctly since he couldn't really think of any funny truths. "You're all right, I did speak to my parents, sort of, when they came out of Voldemort's wand in 4th year."
Ginny was the last one to go, "I have a heart shaped birthmark on my lower back, I have spoken to Voldemort and I want 5 kids." Most got it wrong thinking she hadn't talked to Voldie. "The lie is that I don't want 5 kids. I spoke to Moldy Voldy in Tom's diary in 1st year." She said with a shudder and was glad when Harry put his arm around her and pulled her close.
"Well that was an interesting game, but I think I like the other one better." Tonks said as she yawned. It wasn't very late yet but they all were tired and decided to call it a night. "We can play again next time; hopefully the meeting will be on a weekend." They all said their goodnights and headed off to bed.