Disclaimer: If you recognize it from any of the books then it belongs to JKR and her publishers.

Chapter 2: HQ

Harry's world was a spinning blur as he was taken to the Order of the Phoenixes Head Quarters. The spinning didn't last long as he and Shacklebolt soon arrived at their destination, Grimmuald Place. Except it wasn't, wherever they had ended up it definitely wasn't Grimmuald Place. They had arrived in a large circular room with a circular table in the middle that was surrounded by chairs. There were a few portraits on the walls but they remained silent. Harry could easily tell that the room wasn't in Grimmuald Place because of one thing: it was very clean. No matter how hard they had tried to keep Grimmuald Place clean, its cleanest room was no where near as good as this room was.

"Uh, Kingsley," Harry began, "where are we?"

"This is the new HQ," Kingsley replied, heading for the nearby door, "With Kreacher around we didn't know what kind of information he could get his hands on that might be useful to the Death Eaters so we decided to move HQ and Dumbledore offered up this place.

"And where is this place?" Harry asked.

"This is the house of Albus Dumbledore," Kingsley said, opening the door and revealing a narrow staircase that had another door at the bottom. Harry began to follow Kingsley down the stairs and voiced a thought that was on his mind.

"I didn't think Dumbledore had a house," Harry said.

"That's what everyone thinks," Kingsley said as they reached the bottom of the stairs, "he apparently bought this house to retire in." Harry heard the slight emphasis the man added onto the word retire and had to agree with him-Harry could never imagine Albus Dumbledore retiring, it seemed like the elderly man would be working to the day he died.

As they exited the door at the end of the staircase and closed it behind them, Harry heard what sounded like a complicated locking mechanism. He looked back over his shoulder to see what was going on only to see that the door was no longer there. He looked up to Kingsley for an explanation, but found that the man was not going to give him one.

They had ended up in a hallway that had doors on all sides. At the end of the hallway there was a staircase that led to the downstairs, but Harry wasn't going there yet. Kingsley led Harry to the room across the hallway.

"Wait here and I'll go fetch Madame Pomfrey so she can fix up your shoulder," Kingsley said, and then he left. Harry sat down on the bed in the middle of the room and examined his surroundings. The room was nothing special, it was averaged sized and contained a normal twin sized bed, a dresser in the corner and a desk against one of the other walls. There was what looked like a woven circle with beads attached to it hanging above the bed; he didn't know what it was but he assumed it was part of Dumbledore's decoration. There was one window in the room, but all he could see out of it was darkness.

It was then, as Harry tried to relax on his bed that he realized something: there was something on his leg. He pulled up is pant leg to reveal the snake that had helped him earlier was wound tightly around his leg. As soon as the snake saw him it began to hiss at him.

"How dare you subject me to such a crude means of travel. After I helped you and made sure you survived the night this is how you treat me? I should bite you for being such a cruel master. Maybe--" Harry cut off its angry hissing by pulling his pant leg back down and covering it up. He heard footsteps approaching and soon the door to the room he was in was slammed open without so much as a knock. Harry was immediately defensive, but he soon realized that there was no need to be.

"Harry Potter," Madame Pomfrey shouted as soon as she was in the door, "why does it not surprise me that you are my first patient when the school year hasn't even started yet? Although I guess I shouldn't be very surprised with the way you always get into trouble. Why I ne--"

"Now Poppy," a familiar voice interrupted the healers tirade, "I am sure that young Mister Potter does not go around looking for trouble, it just all ways seems to find him." In the door way stood Albus Dumbledore, headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and holder of more titles than Harry could even try and count on one hand. With just a nod, Madam Pomfrey made her way over to Harry.

"Which shoulder is it Potter?" She asked.

"My left," was his answer. It wasn't long before he felt a soothing warmth over his left shoulder and then the throbbing pain that had been there was gone. Without another word, Madame Pomfrey made her way out the door leaving Harry and Dumbledore alone together.

"I would just like to apologize," the elderly man began, "it seems my protection over your relatives house was not as strong as it should have been. Not even your mothers protection lived up to its expectations." Harry just nodded; he was not really in the mood to talk to the man before him. "I also came to tell you that you will be needing training. I have asked Kingsley and Alastor and both have agreed to train you and your friends, if that is what you want."

"Yeah," Harry muttered, "I guess I will need training if I'm supposed to-"

"Lets not talk about that right now," Dumbledore interrupted, "It would be best to keep that between you and I for now." Both of them stayed in an uneasy silence for a minute before Dumbledore spoke again, "Well, I shall be going now, I am sure there are others you would rather talk to." He began to walk away, but Harry remembered the snake around his leg and stopped him before he could get out of the door.

"Wait, Professor." Harry called after him. The elderly man stopped and turned around, a small glint of hope in his eyes. Harry took the snake, which was still angrily hissing, off his leg and offered it to his Professor. "This snake, it helped me out, but I'm not sure if it's safe. I figured I would give it to the Order to checkout."

Dumbledore nodded and accepted the snake, the small glint of hope in his eyes disappearing. "Very well," He said, "I shall have it checked out." Once Dumbledore exited the room a tall red headed figure appeared in the doorway.

"Hey Harry," Ron Weasley said.

Harry stood up and greeted his friend with a manly back slapping hug. "Hey Ron, it's good to see you."

"Hello Harry," said another voice from the doorway. Harry looked past Ron to see his little sister standing in the doorway holding a tray of food.

"Hey Ginny,"

"Mum told me to bring this up," She said indicating the food tray. "She said she would have done it herself, but she's busy at the moment."

"Yes," Ron said, a smile on his face, "I believe at the moment she is busy chewing out Kingsley Shacklebolt for not protecting you and Dumbledore is next." Harry chuckled at the news, Molly Weasley was one of the only people who would yell at Dumbledore, Harry was another one. Harry accepted the food tray from Ginny and sat down on his bed. As he did so he missed the look Ginny gave Ron. "So Harry," Ron began uneasily, "how've you been doing?"

"I've been all right," Harry said, pausing to talk after his first bite of food, "although I think my summer is going to be better now that I'm away from the Dursley's"

"Ah, that's good," Ron said, his voice sounding slightly relieved. He sat down next to Harry and began to start a new topic of conversation when Ginny delivered a stealthy kick to his shin that Harry missed. "Uh, I mean, are you sure? I mean, what with Sirius and all." Harry stopped eating suddenly and looked at Ron disbelievingly. That didn't sound like Ron at all. Harry was about to answer Ron's question when Ginny spoke.

"What Ron means Harry," she said as she sat down on the other side of him, "is that we just want to know if you are dealing with Sirius' death well." She finished; she looked slightly uneasy, like someone who might be dealing with unstable potion ingredients.

Harry sighed; he really didn't want to talk about this at the moment. "I'm fine you guys, really," he said, hoping that they would drop the subject.

"That's good mate," Ron said, patting Harry on the back, "Hermione had the idea in her head that you might blame yourself for Sirius' death." Harry's eyes dropped to the food tray on his lap and he whispered something out loud that he had only meant to think.

"It is my fault,"

"What? Don't say that Harry it--," Ginny began in protest, but Harry cut her off.

"Of course it's my fault, Gin," Harry said, not able to keep the anger from rising in his voice, "It was my stupid decision that got him killed and my friends hurt."

"Harry that's not true," Ron said this time, "Sirius chose to go down there on his own and it's not your fault."

"He went there because of me!" Harry said angrily, "It's all my fault. If I hadn't gone then Hermione wouldn't have nearly died, Ginny wouldn't have been hurt, and you wouldn't have been attacked by those damn brains," Ron visibly paled at the mention of the brains and said no more.

"Harry, we chose to go to the Department of Mysteries just like Sirius did and we were ready to accept the consequences," Ginny retorted.

"You don't get it," Harry said, he was not shouting yet but the anger in his voice was obvious to those in the room. "If it hadn't been for me none of this would have happened."

"Harry don't---,"Ginny began only to be interrupted.

"Look you guys," Harry began, trying to calm himself down and not knock over his food tray, "I've had a rough night, I'm tired, and I don't feel like talking about this right now. So, can we just call it a night?" Ginny opened her mouth once again to protest but Ron stopped her.

"Lets go Gin," Ron said, he was still a bit shaken at the mention of the brains but there was an undeniable strength in his voice. He got up and headed for the door, Ginny reluctantly got up and took the food tray from Harry and followed Ron out the door.

Harry sighed, he hadn't meant to get mad at his friend, and they had only been trying to be there for him after all. It was just that he wasn't ready for that discussion yet. He got up off the bed and blew out the lamp that kept the room illuminated. When he had said he was tired he had meant it, he kicked off his shoes and took off his glasses before getting into bed. It didn't take long for him to fall asleep and when he did it was interrupted by the appearance of an old friend.

The Dark Lord Voldemort sat high upon his throne, his seat at least two feet above that of his servants. His red eyes burned even darker on this night in anger. His skeletal hands gripped the edge of his seat and his lip was curled up in sign of distaste.

"What did you say?" The Dark Lord seethed with barely restrained rage, speaking to the man kneeling in front of him.

"I failed to capture him, sir," the man restated clearly. Not much of him could be seen in the room but his baldhead.

"You failed," the Dark Lord repeated, "to capture and unarmed fifteen year old boy?"

"Excuse me," the man said, standing up in a defiant yet foolish move, "but have you not failed to do the exact same thing many times before?" Voldemort remained seated, his rage becoming even more evident. "I am not one of your servants to push around, you hired me for a job and I failed, our contract ends here." With that the man turned and began to leave.

"Why you insolent fool!" a Death Eater said, pulling out his wand and advancing on the leaving man, "No one talks that way to--"

"Leave him Lucius," Voldemort said, his voice an eerie calm, "the man is right, our contract with him is over. He no longer owes us anything." Lucius Malfoy obeyed his master's command and put his wand away. The man freely walked away and out the door. There was an uneasy silence in the room for few moments following the mans departure in which no one dared to speak. It was Voldemort who broke the silence. "Bella," he said, his voice no longer calm as it had been before.

"Yes my lord?" Bellatrix Lestrange answered her master's call.

"Take a couple of others and escort our friend home," Voldemort said, the evil smile on his near lipless mouth made it obvious what he truly meant.

"Understood my lord," she said, a maniacal smile hidden behind her mask. She stood up and beckoned a couple of nearby Death Eaters to follow her.

"And Bella," Voldemort called after her before she could reach the door, "make sure he is brought back alive, he still has his uses."

"Yes, my lord," she said once again before bowing and walking out the door with the others.

"They shall know the price of standing up to the Dark Lord Voldemort." he whispered to himself. It was awhile before anyone spoke again. "McNair how goes the project?"

"It goes well, my lord. It shouldn't be long before we can move it into the final stages," Voldemort looked pleased with this news and opened his mouth to say something but the scene vanished and Harry Potter awoke in a cold sweat lying in bed.

Harry sat up in bed and tried to recall the dream he had just had but he couldn't. He knew it was about Voldemort but the details kept slipping from him. It was as if something was pulling the dream from his mind so he couldn't remember it. He tried for another five minutes before he gave up and laid down in bed again. Maybe it was just a normal dream. He thought to himself. He truly hoped it had been just a normal dream, but the dull throbbing pain in his scar told him that it wasn't. He fell back into a peaceful,dreamless sleep.

The next morning Harry was awoken by knocking on his door.

"Harry," Ron called through the door, "It's time to come down for breakfast." Harry slowly opened his eyes. He was still a bit tired, but he didn't know why. The dream from last night had faded from his memory. He groggily got out of bed and stood up, stretching his limbs as he did so. He put his glasses back on his face and made his way to the door. When he opened the door he was greeted by Ron.

"Mornin' Harry," Ron said.

"Morning Ron," Harry said, holding back a yawn as he did so. He was silently glad that his friend seemed to have forgotten about the controversy of the night before. Ron began to head down the hallway towards the stairs and Harry followed. They traveled down the stairs and past the living room and into the dinning room. As he entered he saw that a couple of Order members would be having breakfast along with all of the Wesley's besides the eldest three children.

"Incoming," Rom muttered out the side of his mouth before hurrying off to his seat. Harry had just enough time to wonder what Ron had meant when he was wrapped into a tight embrace.

"Oh Harry dear, it's so good to see you," Molly Weasley said in a soothing tone. "How've you been dear? Have those muggles been feeding you well?"

"Uh, yeah, I've been fine." Harry replied, still stuck in the strong embrace.

"You are still much too skinny my dear," she said, holding him at arms length, "sit down while I fix you a plate." She finally let him go and went to make him a plate that looked much too large for him. Harry began to make his way towards the table when he was stopped by two other people crushing him into an embrace from two different sides.

"Oh Harry, we've missed you so," cried the familiar voice of one of the Weasley twins, although Harry could never tell which.

"Yes, its been much too long," the other twin cried.

"How long has it been George?" the other cried, apparently Fred.

"More than a week," George responded.

Fred let out a tortured howl, "Has it been so long brother? These horrible days have dragged on so long I have lost all meaning of time without our little Harrykins."

"Yes, brother, let us hold him in our tight embrace and never let go."

"We may kill him,"

"It will be well worth the risk,"

"Now boys," Mrs. Weasley interrupted the twins melodrama, "Harry doesn't need you two hanging on him like that, he needs to eat."

Both twins let go of him and gave him a thump on a back. "Yes mother," They both said in unison heading for the door. It was then that Harry saw them both were wearing the same leather jackets they had been wearing before. "See ya Harry," Fred said on his way out.

"Yup," said George, "got to get back to the shop." With that they were out of the room and had left a slightly embarrassed Harry and an amused breakfast table behind. Harry took the large plate of food from Mrs. Weasley and made his way to the table. He sat down at the table and gave morning greetings to the people he recognized. He sat down in a seat between Ron and Ginny and began to eat.

"By the way Harry," Ron began, "you've got some explaining to do."

"Yeah, I know," Harry replied, "I'll tell you guys everything after breakfast." Ron just nodded and began to wolf down his food.

"Ello there Harry," a voice from across the table greeted, "heard you got into a bit o' trouble." Harry looked up from his food and looked into the bloodshot eyes of Mundungus Fletcher.

"Uh, yeah, I did," Harry replied, not really interested in talking to the man.

" I was wonderin'," the squat man continued, "if you could describe the fella who tried to get ya." Harry was startled that the man was interested.

"I didn't get a good look at him," Harry answered, he was telling the truth, but he wouldn't have told him even if he had known. There was something about the man that Harry didn't like; perhaps it was the fact that he was a crook.

"He was a Caucasian male of average height and build, he looked to be in his late twenties and his hair was shaved bald. His eyes were a pale blue and his face was heavily scarred." Kingsley Shacklebolt intoned in his deep voice from his position at the entrance.

"Oi, Kingsley," Mundungus turned around from his seat at the table and looked at the tall man, "Didn't see you come in."

"Is there a reason you are so interested in Harry?" Kingsley asked, obvious distaste in his voice as he spoke.

"Just thought I might know the bloke who did it, is all," Mundungus said, oblivious to the distaste in Kingsley's voice.

"And do you?" Kingsley asked, Harry was also interested in knowing who the man was.

"Yeah," Mundungus replied, "sounds like a hit man for the Wizarding Mafia, names Abraham Louis."

Kingsley took on a thoughtful look before speaking again, "I'm not familiar with that name."

"Yeah, he's new to the family, started a few months ago."

"Hmm," Kingsley hummed in thought before speaking again, "Come with me 'Dung, we have to tell this to Dumbledore."

"But I haven't finished my breakfast yet," the squat man protested. His protest didn't last long as he was dragged out of his chair by Kingsley. Mundungus continued to protest as he was dragged to the door by the much larger man, but his cries were heard on deaf ears. Before he reached the door Kingsley turned and faced the table again, "You three," he said, indicating Harry, Ron and Ginny, "will begin your training in two hours." With that he left the room dragging a still protesting Mundungus Fletcher with him.

After Kingsley left, Harry spent a couple of minutes finishing up his breakfast before going into the living room with Ron and Ginny. Ron challenged Harry to a game of chess while Ginny decided to sit down and read a book. As Harry played Ron in chess he recounted his summer so far, including the attack by the mafia hit man.

"Wow," Ron said, "The wizard mafia, that's something new."

"Yeah," Harry said in a joking tone, "it was rather strange to have someone else trying to kill me,"

"Well," Ron replied, as one of his pieces took one of Harry's "If they're after you then they are most likely allied with You-Know-Who, right?"

"I guess," was all Harry said in reply, instructing one of his pieces to take one of Ron's.

A victorious smirk formed on Ron's face, "Check mate," he proclaimed. Harry studied the board and sure enough Ron was right, he had beaten Harry again.

"You should just stop playing," said one of Harry's own pieces.

"That's a real fine way to talk to you commander," Harry said, flicking the piece off the board and into the floor.

Ron chuckled and picked the piece up off the floor, "He's right you know, you are really bad at this."

"Yeah, well at least I managed to take out a few of your pieces before I went down." Harry retorted, a friendly smirk on his face.

Ron shook his head and chuckled some more, "That why you always lose, the point of the game is strategy not destruction."

"I stopped trying to use strategies against you a long time ago, none of them ever worked."

Ron began to reset the board, "another play?" he asked Harry.

"Sure, we don't have anything else to do for another hour or so." As Harry watched Ron silently reset the board he felt he needed to say something. "You guys, I'm, uh, sorry about last night." Ron stopped setting the board and Ginny stopped reading her book and looked his way. "I'm just not ready to talk about that yet, okay?"

"It's all right, mate," Ron said, going back to setting up the board. Harry looked over to Ginny and she gave him a smile.

"Yeah," she said, "we understand." Harry let out a relieved sigh and watched as Ron set the board.

"Plus," Ron added, "It was mostly Hermione's fault."

"Ron," Ginny exclaimed.

"Well its true," Ron said, "she's the one who told us to talk to Harry about it,"

"I'm sure Hermione meant well, now let's start that game of chess Ron." Harry said.

"That eager to be beat again, eh?" And Harry was beaten again, and again, and again. In fact, Harry spent the entire time up until their training being beaten by Ron. It was just after he had been beaten for the fifth time when Kingsley came to collect them.

"Lets go," was all Kingsley said. Ron packed away his chess set and Ginny put away her book and they all followed Kingsley to the back of the house. "Here Potter," Kingsley said, holding out Harry's wand, "you might be needing this today."

"But what about the laws?" Harry asked, this question had been on his mind since he had been told about his training last night.

"Don't worry," Kingsley replied, "Dumbledore took care of that."

"What do you mean 'took care of that'?" Ron asked.

"Don't bother, its too complicated to explain," was Kingsley's reply. He opened the back door and let them out onto the backyard and it was there that Harry realized why Dumbledore had bought this house.

It was the view.

The backyard overlooked beautiful rolling plains that seemed to stretch on forever. There were a few trees scattered along here or there and some small animals could be seen scurrying around. It was a beautiful view and it made the idea of Dumbledore retiring seem much more plausible. Harry could easily imagine the old man spending the last of his days overlooking the beautiful plains at twilight. Although Harry wasn't in a very great relationship with the elderly man, this peaceful thought made him crack a small smile.

"What's up mate?" Ron asked as he saw the smile on Harry's face.

"Nothing," Harry muttered, "I think I just realized something,"

"What ever you say," Ron replied to Harry's vague comment, "let get going before Mad-Eye gets mad at us." Ron began to head towards the middle of the closed off backyard where Moody, Kingsley and Ginny were already standing and Harry followed him.

"Now that we're all here," Moody began, focusing both his eyes on the three teenagers in front of him, "I'm sure you three know why you're here. You can't seem to stop getting in trouble, especially you Potter. The solution Dumbledore proposes is to train you up so that next time you get into a sticky situation you can defend yourself."

"On Ten o'clock everyday except Sunday we will have the first part of our training for two hours." Kingsley said, taking over, "after that we will break an hour for lunch, then we will resume with the second half of our training. Any questions?"

"What about Hermione?" Ron asked, "Doesn't she deserve training too?"

"Yes," Kingsley said, "but at the moment she is on vacation with her parents. Until she gets back here she will be training with Tonks." Ron nodded in acceptance, but Harry had another question.

"Then what about the others? Don't Neville and Luna deserve training too?" he asked.

"We offered them training but Lovegood is on a trip with her father to find gnarly snokaks or some such nonsense." Kingsley explained, causing Ginny to giggle when he stumbled over the name of one of Luna's creatures, "and Mrs. Longbottom doesn't want her grandson ending up like his parents." Harry thought he saw something pass over the stoic aurors face when he talked about the Longbottoms but it was gone before he even knew if it was really there.

"Well then," Moody said, moving forward, "are there any more questions?" When no one answered he continued, "Well then, let's begin."

Authors Note: There goes chapter two. Thank to the people who reviewed chapter one on Gamefaqs and here; special thanks to the people who helped me by pointing out my mistakes,feel free to point out any mistakes I made in this chapter if you like. Next chapter will take longer to get out,no more than two weeks though. Read and Review. I now take anonymous reviews.