Chapter 7

The Intentional Eavesdroppers

It was a calm enough day. Most of it was spent outdoors playing two- a-side Quidditch in the garden. Occasionally the twins would come out and be an extra team of unbiased Beaters, whacking the Bludgers gleefully at members of both sides. That ended when Hermione had one close call too many and refused to play anymore. She'd had the bad luck of coming off her broomstick (Charlie's old Cleansweep), and landing in the oak tree, so she felt she had good reason. It was getting a bit grey overhead anyway and even as they trooped back into the Burrow the first big spots were starting to spatter downwards.

The four accidental mischief-makers of the day before retired to Ron's room to get the books they had smuggled to the Burrow while the other two not-so-accidental mischief-makers went to their own room to, well, come up with more mischief, more-then-likely. The small groupjust had time to shove some of the less-respectable ones under the bed as the door opened.

"Ron, Ginny, come here," Molly Weasley was standing in the doorway, hands twisting around each other, but her voice clear enough. "You too Harry, Hermione. Fred! George!" she leaned out to shout in the direction of the twins room. They leaned out and she motioned them over.

"Neville Longbottom and Luna Lovegood are coming to stay with us- in Grimmauld Place tomorrow." Ron opened his mouth to ask something but she continued.

"The…incident in the Ministry made them both targets for the Death-Eaters- Luna's home was attacked last night. Luckily, she and her father were out at the time but their house-elf was killed. Neville's a target too. His grandmother and Luna's father agreed to Professor Dumbledore's offer of protection. Luna's father has to leave the country anyway for a time- something to do with some animal or other and refused to come and Adelaide won't leave her home but insisted to poor Neville…So they're meeting us at the house tomorrow." Harry looked particularly guilty, Ron confused but not worried and the twins positively gleeful at having more 'test-subjects'.

"Well, it'll be handy for the DA anyway- more researchers. Hold on…" as a thought suddenly struck Harry. "Yesterday…when those Acromantula…we used spells. How come we didn't get any Howlers?" Ron looked puzzled too but Hermione, of course, had the answer.

"The charms used on Grimmauld Place were very complex. They hid the house from the outside world, both magic and Muggle. My guess is that there's so much shielding magic there that our spells didn't even register."

"Then we can practice for the DA there and not be noticed?" asked Ron doubtfully. Hermione frowned at this suggestion of flagrant rule-breaking. But honesty compelled her to nod reluctantly.

"As long as it's nothing major we should be okay. Especially if it's defensive spells we use. For some reason they have a much lower magical energy signature then offensive magic." She looked at the two boys who were staring in utter bewilderment at her, and the less-confused Ginny who, having shared a dormitory with Hermione, had heard at least some of this before.

"Honestly, don't…"

"…you two read?" chorused Ron and Harry, who had heard this particular admonishment before. Hermione sniffed but had to laugh.

"Exactly."

Dinner that night was a quiet affair compared to the night before but everyone seemed good-humoured enough and there was plenty of chatting and laughter. Mrs. Weasley put an almost Dudley-sized portion onto Harry's plate, saying they had to feed him up. Harry had as good an appetite as anyone, especially for Mrs. Weasley's food, but he eyed the portion with a certain amount of alarm. Ron and George helped him out by nicking his sausages when he wasn't looking (which only helped marginally). Ron, Ginny, Harry and Hermione tried to eat quickly so they could get back to their task, which even Ron had to admit wasn't so bad. They managed to escape reasonably quickly after washing their dishes at Hermione's insistence, protesting it wasn't fair to leave Mrs. Weasley with them.

Upstairs they settled back into their self-appointed work.

"Here's a good one…" Ron glanced across the illustration and his eyes popped. "Uh…maybe not…"

"How about the Persistent Floating hex?" asked Ginny.

"Ugh…only if you want Death-Eaters flying around hitting you with spells," replied Ron with practiced elder-brother scorn. She shrugged it off and continued reading.

"Here's a good one if you can do it without being noticed. The backfiring wand hex. Has the effect of causing all spells fired by the wand of the victim to backfire." Hermione looked up, eyebrows raised.

"Good one. Is it difficult?" She glanced back down, lips pursed in thought. They could see her making a rather complicated pattern with an imaginary wand and mouthing something. "The incantation is a bit of a tongue twister but apart from that… Could be very useful." It was added to the list.

It was getting quite late and the four of them had more or less stopped researching and were just chatting idly when Fred tapped urgently on the door. Ron opened it and was dragged out bodily.

"Come on," hissed Fred, looking serious. Now the others could hear shouting from downstairs although they couldn't make out the words.

"In here!" The four bewildered Gryffindors saw George lying on the floor with a modified Extendable Ear pressed to the ground. There appeared to be a kind of trumpet attached to it. From it was issuing voices that they could all hear clearly.

"I won't have it! There's no way it can be true- there must be some sort of mistake! " Clatter

"I'm sorry Molly, but there's no mistake, not this time."

"What proof can you possibly have against him!" This one was almost a wail.

Harry was up against the window, Hermione beside him as they felt rather out of place in this family affair. He suddenly felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up and carefully twitched the curtain open enough to look out of. Behind him, the talk continued to issue from the trumpet.

"I'm sorry Molly, Arthur, but I know what I saw. And what Fudge's up to. He's made a deal with You-Know-Who's people. He couldn't have done it alone- most of his close people must be in on it with him, including staff. I have the proof that it was Percy who set up the meetings between Malfoy and Fudge. And…" Upstairs they unconsciously held their breaths. "One of my people was sent to his office a few days ago. He saw the Dark Mark on his arm. I'm sorry, but that's the evidence we have."

Upstairs, there was dead silence before shouting erupted again through the trumpet. Harry nudged Hermione. She glanced at him and he gestured out of the window. She looked out and gasped with shock. Of all the moments…Percy Weasley was standing half-way up the path to the door, eyes glued to the kitchen window. In the artificial glow his face was white.

"Oh no…" she whispered.

"If he's gone to their side then he's no son of ours!"

The two watchers saw the figure stumble slightly before turning and leaving at a run, bypassing the wards. When it reached the road it Apparated. Harry had never really liked the third Weasley son but he couldn't help feeling sorry for him…if the accusation was untrue.

"What are you staring out there for?" asked Ron in a slightly hysterical tone. Harry and Hermione whirled around, glancing at each other.

"Nothing…we thought we saw…nothing…" stammered Hermione. Luckily, Ron was too upset to notice. Fred and George both had very ugly looks on their faces and Fred in particular looked dangerous. Ron was white-faced and shocked and Ginny was already in tears. It's one thing to have a family row, for someone to leave because of foolishness…but quite another for them to join the people who've tried to kill you. And quite another from hearing them disowned.

"I'm not surprised!" hissed Fred angrily. "I'm glad he's not our brother…"

"Don't say that!" shouted Ginny furiously. She had been as angry as any of them with Percy but that didn't mean…

"Hush! Listen…"

The informer had gone, it seemed, leaving the Weasley parents alone.

"No…no I didn't. You're right, Molly. It's circumstantial at best. Perhaps a little more… Could it be true? I hope not…"

"I can't believe it. Percy…wouldn't! I honestly think that he did think we were wrong about Voldemort's return, that's why he joined the Ministry. But now…he remembers the last war- he was the one looking after the younger ones when…when you were missing and I…I couldn't." There was a sigh. "It was lot of responsibility for a six-year old…made him older then his years. It wasn't always a good thing- look how it made him a target for the twins teasing. But he was always the responsible, sensible one. How can I believe second and third-hand information over everything I know about my own son?"

There was a pregnant pause upstairs. The twins still looked pugnacious and Ron half-way between upset and furious but Hermione felt like she could risk some very diplomatic stepping in.

"Hold on…what proof is there really that he's done anything like that? Somebody says that some else says they saw the Dark Mark on his arm. Well, it's hardly the first time that's happened. In the last war there were three known cases of people being lynched because of accusation like that, where the person had made a mistake. If he had it, he would be being very careful to hide it, wouldn't he?"

Harry nodded firmly and Ron more slowly. The twins looked unconvinced.

"So he set up the meetings between Malfoy and Fudge, well, of course he would! He's the man's Undersecretary! That's his job!"

"Job sucks…" someone muttered. Hermione thought it might have been George, but she continued.

"And Fudge in league with Voldemort…" As a muggleborn herself, Hermione had never been quite so affected as the Weasley's, who winced in unison. They all paused. The idea that Fudge, idiot though he undoubtedly was, would go so far was horrifying.

"How do you explain that one, Hermione?" asked Ginny, sounding more defeated then accusatory. Hermione shrugged.

"I rather doubt that he'd have brought a young, green Ministry worker; the son of one of the most outspoken families on the side of the light, into his coterie. But that's just my opinion."

"He's very ambitious is Percy…and he's always been strongly in favour of Fudge," said Ron slowly. "It's possible that he went for what he saw as the winning side. Especially if Fudge was there…" He sounded as if he wanted this to get shot down. Hermione shrugged again. She couldn't really say that she'd seen his face when that accusation had rung out and he'd looked so horrified and betrayed that she almost had to believe he was innocent.

"Actually, something always struck me as a bit odd about that row…" said Ginny thoughtfully. "I was there for it, remember, you only got it second hand- or what you heard upstairs. What he said…it all struck me as a bit…I don't know. He said that about his promotion proudly all right and was shocked when Dad said what he did…but then he…what he said sounded almost rehearsed, somehow. Oh I don't know, not rehearsed precisely but…staged kind of." She trailed off, hunting for words. "He got every topic that would hurt Mum and Dad." She frowned again. "It was like he was looking for an excuse to…I don't know, storm out?"

"Why would that benefit him?" asked Fred, sounding a bit baffled. Ginny shrugged impatiently.

"How should I know? All I'm saying is I think there's more to all this then we know about. I don't why I think that but I do."

"He packed and left fairly suddenly didn't he?" asked Harry. "Maybe he left behind some sort of clue…or something. If there is more to this…" He shrugged helplessly. He couldn't say why but this all felt wrong. And it had something to do with that dream. Ron looked suddenly hopeful.

"Maybe!" He sprang to his feet and was halfway out the door before anyone else had chance to move. Fred and George followed last, sceptically. While they didn't hate their brother, or even really dislike him (under normal circumstances), they had never hidden the fact that they didn't have much time for him. It didn't seem beyond the bounds of possibility that Prissy Percy had snapped and joined the Dark Wizards. Actually…they glanced at each other, sharing a mental picture of their elder brother; prim, rule-following Percy, in a Death-Eater's robe.

"Maybe it is kind of unlikely…" muttered George. Fred shrugged, eyebrows furrowed worriedly.

Percy's room was neat, although slightly musty from not having been used in six months. (Even the door had been kept shut for the last four, everything exactly as he had left it.) This was mainly due to anger in the case of his siblings and maybe hope the case of his parents.

"Where do we start?" asked Ron, looking helplessly around. "What are we looking for?" Ginny stepped forward.

"Anything. Anything that'll help." She moved to his bedside locker first and opened it. The others scattered, although Harry and Hermione hung about near the door, ostensibly keeping a look-out, but more because they were rather uncomfortable with going through someone else's things. They weren't related to him.

"Diary…empty diary…" sighed Ginny. While she wouldn't have really wanted to go through her brother's diary any more then (she blushed) the idea of one of them going through hers, it might have held something useful.

"No clothes in here, except Hogwarts uniforms…he kept his Hogwarts uniform?" Fred with a certain amount of horror. "I think ours got used for the test-dummies in the shop…" His voice trailed off as he spotted something out of place in the excessively neat wardrobe. Something black…in the corner.

"Lumos." Several years of living in a room where the results of magical accidents could make the socks bite you had resulted in natural caution when it came to pulling things out of the backs of cupboards.

"What is it?" asked Ron, peering over his shoulder.

"I don't know…" he reached in and caught the edge of…fabric. He shook it cautiously, and when it didn't react, pulled it out.

"It's a robe. You get them in wardrobes," sighed Ginny dispiritedly. "Come on, there's nothing here." But Ron picked it up.

"Perce's an obsessive neat-freak. Why's that there?" He let it fall open and paled again. "What the hell?"

There was a tear in the robe along the left side. The edges were burned but the fabric all around it was stiff.

"I… think we've found something…" he said with a certain amount of shock. Someone looked over his shoulder and whistled.

"Is that…?"

"I think so…"

"Blood!" Hermione confirmed her voice somewhere between horrified and confused. She frowned and hypothesised out loud; "It… looks like someone was wearing that when they got hit by a dark spell. But with that amount of blood lost…look where it is- that should have killed whoever was wearing it." There was another long pause as Ron looked inside the collar with slightly shaking hands.

"P. Weasley."

They sat in a circle in the room Ginny and Hermione were sharing. Ron was still holding the scorched robe.

"It doesn't answer any questions!" he said in frustration, staring again at the dark stain. "It just raises more! Like…like…"

"Like who's blood that is. I can't believe that whoever was wearing it survived. We did science in school- Muggle school- and…well, there's a lot of blood there…" It was Hermione this time. Her eyes narrowed and she sprang up again, muttering something about a book before sprinting out of the room. She returned less then a minute later, hefting a heavy tome which she sank to the floor holding and immediately started poring through.

"Here! I knew I'd seen it! Fred, George, do you have potion ingredients like knotgrass, Doxy- hair, ash-bark, cows milk? oh…dragon scale…that's ended that idea!" she finished in frustration.

"I have a necklace with a scale on it- Charlie sent it to me a few years ago…what's this for?" Ginny leaned over he shoulder and whistled. Fred glanced at George and nodded.

"Yeah, those should be no problem, I think we've still got some of the Doxy-hair somewhere. We've an ash in the garden, and Mum's got an ornamental knotgrass plant in the bathroom. What are you planning?"

"There was a hairbrush in Percy's room. If we make a DNA potion we can find out if the blood matches the hair. A brilliant Muggle-born researcher created this back in the 1930's, based on work by Muggle scientists."

Harry would bet that he was the only other one that had even heard of Deoxyribonucleic Acid (and even he only had the vaguest idea what it was about) but it was a measure to how much the others respected Hermione's brain that they started moving immediately, Ginny to her room for her precious dragon scale necklace, Ron towards the bathroom to harvest some knotgrass. Fred looked outside and figured the coast was probably clear for him to swipe some ash bark without being spotted by their parents. Hermione was reading the potion.

"This is actually pretty easy. No stewing things, no cooking involved even. All we have to do is dissolve two stalks of knotgrass into each of two bowls of milk. Oh, we need to burn the Doxy-hair to powder, that's going to make a bit of a stink, split it between the potions. Break the scale, sorry Ginny, into halves, same. Leave for exactly ten minutes then we have to add some of the blood from the robe to one and, in our instance, a hair, of the person we want to compare it too. If they turn the same colour then…it's the same person who gave both samples."

George silently left to burn the doxy-hair. He'd never really wanted to believe that his brother was a Death-Eater and although he wasn't sure how it would, if this helped prove his innocence then he was prepared to do it.

Exactly fourteen minutes later, the six young people were crouching over the two bowls. The milk had turned a shade of off-pink after the doxy-hair had been added. Now Hermione held a red hair from the hairbrush in a tweezers to make sure none of her DNA got mixed in while George had used a minor blood-replenisher spell on the robe to get enough liquid blood to add. Ron now had it in a teaspoon and was looking at it in worried fascination.

"Ten seconds…" Hermione murmured, looking at her watch with tension apparent in the thin whitened line of her lips. "Now…" She pushed the hair into the liquid at the same time as Ron dropped the contents of the spoon into his bowl. They watched anxiously, not entirely sure of what they were trying to prove but waiting anyway. Ron's bowl had turned a deep scarlet but the one with the hair was gradually turning blue. The watchers let out sighs of relief but then the scarlet bowl started changing. Within five seconds or so, both bowls contained liquid of an identical deep blue.

"So what does that prove anyway?" asked Ginny in a high-pitched tone.

"I…don't know…except that at some point P…he was injured by something like Reducto or another offensive spell and lost a lot of blood. For some reason he didn't tell anyone and must have left soon after…or he'd have destroyed this presumably, if he didn't want anyone to know?" Hermione's logic seemed to have run out about there.

"Well, it proves nothing either way as to whether or not Percy's a…Death Eater," said one of the twins, crossing his arms. But he didn't seem quite as accusatory as before, staring at the results of their experiment.

"I don't know…" she replied as Ginny viciously Scourgifyed the two bowls.

Right, that'll teach them to be so ready to condemn! So Neville and Luna are entering the arena. Will they blame Harry? will Harry be completely paranoid? And what's going to happen when Percy joins the Knights?

Nice reviewy button. big puppy dog eyes!>

AZ