CHAPTER 15: Outlining Plans

The doors flew open and Harry wheeled to see dozens of ministry employees rushing into the room. Kingsley was one of the first people into the room. He ran up to Harry, when he saw the bloody sword Harry was still holding.

"No reporters will be allowed anywhere near this courtroom! If I see or hear any kind of leak I will personally track down the person responsible!" He said over the crowd, his deep voice booming. Harry felt a rush of gratitude for this action, but realized that it would ruin his plan.

"No, Kingsley. Let them report it. I'll tell them what happened."

"I'm not sure you understand, Harry. Everyone will know about this, including Voldemort."

"In all honesty, Kingsley, I want Voldemort to hear about it more than I want everyone else too." The Auror looked him over, finally nodding.

"We can do that a different way. If you don't want the public knowing about this they don't have to know. We will, however, find a way to get Voldemort the information." Harry looked at him skeptically. He would hate for all of his friends to know that he had committed murder, but he needed Voldemort to find out, was there really a sure way for the Order to get the message to him?

"I appreciate it, Kingsley. I assume you want to hear what happened?"

"Yes, go wait in my office, I'll be there in a minute." Kingsley released Harry's shoulder and strode over to where Lupin stood staring at the body of Peter Pettigrew, not even hearing the questions he was being bombarded with. Harry watched the Auror save the man that he had just found out was his guardian. He felt a wave of confusion overtake him, why would they tell him everything abut Voldemort's movements, but not tell him about his own guardian?

Harry was so lost in thought that he didn't even realize he had just knocked Moody over. "What the- oh sorry, Professor."

"I told you to call me Moody, or Alastor. I never did teach you, did I?" He said with a crooked smile, Harry looked into his eyes and saw that he wasn't as comfortable as he was letting on. Obviously he was just trying to keep his mind off of what just happened. He realized his attempt had failed and simply said, "follow me, Harry. I'll show you to Shacklebolt's office."

The pair entered the elevator and headed up to the Auror's headquarters. Harry barely remembered the trip, his mind was overwhelmed with information. First the whole thing with his sword and the felix felicis, then Parvati, his talk with Snape, Fudge's murder, and now he killed Peter Pettigrew. Harry sat down in an uncomfortable chair in front of Kingsley's desk. Moody out his gnarled hand on his shoulder reassuringly, but left the room in silence, leaving Harry with his thoughts.

Almost everything that had happened this year confused the boy who lived, but there were some things he knew he couldn't think about. As much as he wanted to think about it, his issues with Parvati just weren't important. He silently cursed himself for having to give up so much, but quickly put an end to the thought because it wasn't going to get him anywhere. His talk with Snape, while surprising, was also immaterial. It didn't matter how Snape treated him, and he didn't have the time to take occlumency to the next level.

Harry's mind drifted to his conversation with Dumbledore about the felix felicis. Harry wanted nothing more than to uncover its powers, but he knew that he wasn't going to be able to figure it out, not yet. This left him with two thoughts, Peter Pettigrew and the plan concerning the death eaters, and Fudge's murder. He knew that he needed to concentrate on his plan, but he could only take advantage of certain opportunities, there was no way he could track down a group of death eaters and kill them all.

This left him with trying to find out who the murderer was, the problem was that Fudge's murder could be for a motive he hadn't considered yet. Dumbledore seemed pretty convinced that it was Voldemort trying to send Harry a message, but it still doesn't make sense why he would kill Fudge, he was helping Voldemort without even realizing it. Nothing was to be gained by his murder. The only thing Harry could think of was that he wanted to demonstrate that nobody was safe and send the message to Harry. The only thing was that killing a bumbling, unarmed man wasn't such an accomplishment. Harry thoughts were cut short by the door opening.

"I'm sorry to have kept you waiting, Harry." Kingsley said in his low, calming voice. "I would like you to tell me the events that led to the death of Pettigrew."

"I went in to talk with him. He grabbed Remus, threatening to use his silver hand on him, I hadn't remembered werewolves have trouble with silver. I told Peter that I was calling in his debt, when he refused he was thrown backwards, against the wall. He ran for Lupin but before he could get to him I killed him with my sword."

"You didn't go in there to kill him?" Harry suddenly understood, either Dumbledore or Remus had told him. Harry sighed.

"Who told you?" He asked quietly.

"Nobody, actually, Remus told me the same exact story, right down to the 'going in to talk' part. When you told me about how you wanted Voldemort to know I realized this must've been something you thought about before hand." Harry looked him over, but then just nodded.

"My plan is to show Voldemort that his death eaters, his family, is no safer than my friends, seeing as I have no family left. I figure if he realizes that I am killing off his family, he'll get anxious and make a mistake."

"You realize that you are talking about someone who doesn't really care about these people? He tortures them himself, Harry. Do you really think he'll go to pieces if they are killed?"

"He will if they're killed by me. I'm the one person he hasn't been able to kill, if he starts to see that the fight is coming to him, and that I am strong enough to take out his loyal army, he'll get scared, or better, he could get angry."

"I see your point, I'm not sure if it will work, but I guess this is something that you will need my help with. I guess we will have to start getting more aggressive with your Advanced Defense classes. I do, however, have one question." Harry nodded, signaling for him to continue. "Do you expect to keep this a secret from your friends?"

"As long as I can, Kingsley." Harry said simply. "How do you plan on getting the information to Voldemort?"

"There are a few different channels, the most obvious one being Professor Snape."

"No, we can't do that." Harry said after a moments reflection. "If Voldemort knows he is in the Order than he'll suspect something is up, as trusting as Dumbledore is I don't think he's stupid, more importantly neither does Voldemort."

"I see your point, Harry. Another obvious channel is to send him a message, literally."

"How would we find him? Does the Order know where he is hiding?"

"No, that is a problem. Dumbledore has his ideas, but nothing concrete yet." Kingsley replied slowly.

"Then I guess there is only one way to do this."

"Harry..I don't think-" But Harry didn't hear him.

"We have to tell the reporters."

"There are going to be a lot of people that disapprove of what you intend to do, Mr. Potter."

"I understand that. I also understand that their will be quite a few who do agree, and I also understand that this is my choice and my choice alone. I'll listen to reason, so to speak, but ultimately it's my call."

"Fine. But we need to go over what we release very carefully." The Auror said, reaching into his desk for a quill and parchment. The two of them sat there for close to an hour brainstorming what should be said to the reporters. Kinglsey told Harry that it would be best to get back to school, and avoid any unwanted questions, Harry agreed and used the fireplace to floo back to school.

Harry hadn't realized how late it was, because when he stepped out of the Gryffindor common room fire the room was deserted, everyone was already asleep. Harry was grateful for this, but knew that he would have to talk to his friends before the paper came out. Luckily the story wouldn't be run in Sunday's paper, giving him all day to spread the word.

The next morning Harry awoke and nearly leapt out of bed. He rummaged through his trunk, looking for a gold galleon. When he found it and tapped it with his wand, rearranging the numbers that normally corresponded to the goblin who cast the coin. He wondered if the DA members still carried their coins around.

Harry had his answer by breakfast when a few of the members approached him at breakfast, and many others threw him furtive glances. Harry anxiously awaited six o'clock, telling everyone who asked him that they just needed to wait until the meeting.

Harry was thankful that Hermione, Ron and Ginny could notice something was bothering him and didn't question him on it. He spent most of the day getting destroyed by Ron in chess, although Ron swore he was getting better, doing some studying with Hermione, and when he couldn't take doing either he spent some time hanging out with Ginny in front of the fire place in the Gryffindor common room.

"Is there anything you want to talk about?" She asked, staring deeply into his eyes.

"You'll find out soon enough, Gin."

"Gin?" She asked with a raised eyebrow. "Interesting nickname."

"Yea well I figured you needed a better name then Ginevra." Harry joked, she punched him in the arm playfully.

"OW! You may be stronger than Ron…" Harry said with a smirk, rubbing his arm.

"Yea well you better be careful, I'm not going to take any of your crap this year, Potter." She told him with a smile.

"Yes ma'am. You sound like your mother, then again I'd rather have you hit me than yell at me for hours on end." She smacked his chest playfully this time, but didn't take her hand away. She edged closer to him and rested her head on his shoulder.

"I'm scared, Harry. You promised me that you wouldn't avoid us, but I've barely spoken to you at all this year. When we have spoken it really hasn't been about anything important, I feel like you're not telling me something." She said, staring into his eyes as if she were searching for the truth.

"There is something I'm not telling you. And I feel guilty for waiting, but I only want to say it once, so I'm going to say it at the meeting tonight. I hope you're not mad at me."

"No, of course not, Harry." She said soothingly. Harry began to relax and rested his head on top of hers. She let out a soft sigh. Suddenly Harry jumped up.

"We…um…I mean I-I have to go." He said and almost sprinted out the portrait hole. He hadn't realized what he had been doing, he knew that Ginny used to like him, but Hermione told him that she had gotten over him. But what the hell was that then? On top of that he still had no idea what was going on between him and Parvati. They had spent some time alone together since they kissed, but Harry could never bring up the issue. He liked spending time with her and he wasn't really sure how he felt about her, and didn't want to start messing things up now. But now he felt like he wanted to spend more time with Ginny. He had never really thought about her that way either, she was always just Ron's little sister. True, she had turned out to be quite stunning, but what would Ron think? What would Parvati think? He didn't even know what he thought