Author notes:

Just a quick note on the so called adoption paper in the last chapter: I have no idea how those are suposed to look like so made the whole thing up. If there's anybody out there who does know, please tell me so I can fix it!

7.Friends

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"Harry!"

Harry "oomphed" when he was jumped by an excited Hermione and stumbled slightly.

"You're alright!" The girl stepped back and gave him a look over, "are you really alright?"

"I'm fine, Hermione," Harry said exasperated, trying to wiggle free from her death-grip.

"Hey mate," he greeted a beaming Ron standing behind Hermione, "you suddenly turned your room into a library?" He asked, indicating the at the piles of books that were littered on the floor and the bed.

"Nah," Ron grinned, "just Hermione being Hermione."

Hermione made Harry sit down on the only book-free spot on the bed, "are you sure you're alright? You look like you haven't been sleeping in days."

"Yes, Hermione," Harry snapped, already fed up with her fussing, "I'm fine."

Thankfully Hermione got the hint and dropped the subject.

Ron threw some books on the floor, ignoring Hermione's protests and sat down as well.

"So what have you two been doing?" Harry asked curiously, "besides reading, that is."

Ron shrugged, "not much really, mum has finally given up on cleaning this house, as soon as you turn your back it turns dusty again, it's like this place is hexed to always stay filthy. Everybody is now busy magically enlarging the house, but we can't help with that. And to make things worse we are now restricted to our rooms and the kitchen, we can't even go to the library without someone to 'watch over us'," he said frustrated.

"You know very well why that is, Ron," Hermione said reproachful, "Rose got attacked by one of the bookcases there, she nearly died!"

"Yeah but she never fought any death-eaters, did she? I bet we could handle that bookcase easily."

"Yes, and get expelled from Hogwarts in the progress," Hermione snapped, "very smart, Ron."

"What did you mean with magically enlarging this place?" Harry quickly asked, before they would start a fight.

"The Order has recruited a lot of new members, and some of them wanted a safe place for their families to live," Hermione explained, "they're enlarging the house so that they can all fit in. They're already living a couple of families on the third floor, but we never get to see them, they have there own place with a kitchen and everything and they're not allowed to come here without good reason, to make sure they don't accidentally hear any information they shouldn't."

"But isn't it really unsafe if all those people know where the Order's headquarter is?"

Hermione shook her head, "they can't tell anything to someone outside of the order, the fidelius charm makes sure of that."

"What about Voldemort?" Harry asked, leaning forward slightly, "have there been any big attacks yet?"

"No," Hermione said, unconsciously lowering her voice, "it has been unnaturally quiet, no attacks or any odd disappearances at all. It really worries the Order, they had expected him to start with a killing-spree once his return was public knowledge, to scare people and remind them how powerful and supposedly unstoppable he is. He must be planning something really big."

Harry sighed frustrated, "so basically nothing has changed, we once again have no idea what he is doing."

"Of course something has changed, Harry," Hermione said, "now everybody believes Voldemort has returned, the Order has gotten a lot of new members thanks to that. And those that aren't in the Order are much better prepared, everybody is brushing up his or her defense skills."

"Is that what you guys have been doing?" Harry asked giving Ron a sympathetic look, he knew exactly how Hermione could be when it came to studying.

"No," Ron admitted, "we're actually trying to help you, we hope we can find some information about possession and stuff."

Hermione rolled her eyes at the word 'stuff' and clarified, "Mrs Weasley told us it is possible Voldemort will try to possess you," she bit her lip, "is-is it true?"

Harry sighed and than told his friends everything about his visions and what Dumbledore had said. He didn't say anything about how his mother might be adopted though, he still wasn't sure what to think of that. After they had returned at Grimmauld place, Tonks had told Harry to go see his friends and than had run off with Moody, probably to tell Dumbledore everything. It seemed unlikely that the paper was false, still it seemed even more unlikely that his aunt knew all along he was not her nephew and only now said anything. A small part of Harry couldn't help but hope that it was true as than there was the small possibility that somewhere there would be some long lost relative. That, more than anything, was what Harry wished for, especially after losing Sirius.

"I don't know about that possessing thing," Harry finished his story, "but Voldemort did manage to sort of take over me in the department of mystery."

"He did?" Hermione gasped, "why didn't you tell us sooner?"

Harry shrugged, "I wasn't exactly in a talkative mood before, was I?"

The door opened and Ginny peaked in, her eyes lighting up when she saw Harry.

"You're back!" She sat down on the floor in front of Harry, leaning against his legs, Ron raised his eyebrow at Harry and seemed to be silently asking him a question, unfortunately Harry had no idea what he meant.

"I overheard mum saying you're gonna stay here," Ginny babbled on, "did the Dursley's really kick you out?"

"Yeah, aunt Petunia finally cracked."

"Good," Ginny said satisfied, "about time you got away from them."

Hermione seemed mildly frustrated about something, but allowed Ginny to led the conversation to less serious topics like quidditch and classes.

"Guys?" A voice interrupted them from outside, "your mother send me to tell you lunch is ready, and you better hurry up or my boys will eat everything."

"Thanks Rose, we're coming," Ginny called back, getting up and offering her hand to Harry to help him up, over her head he saw Ron grinning at him.

Grimmauld place hadn't changed one bit, even the house-elf heads were still hanging on the wall, which reminded Harry, "what happened to Kreacher?" He didn't quite manage to keep the hatred he felt for the treacherous little elf out of his voice and Hermione gave him a wary look.

"Nobody knows, he just disappeared."

"Great," Harry grumbled, "he probably ran straight to the Malfoy's so now they know everything about the Order."

"Professor Dumbledore said it has been taken care off."

Harry shot her a doubtful look, "what did he do, kill Kreacher?"

"Of course he didn't!" Hermione said scandalized.

"Why not? It's probably the only way to make sure Kreacher doesn't rat us out."

"There are other ways," Hermione insisted.

"Last year everybody thought it was safe too," Harry snapped, "we all now how that worked out."

At the pitying look Hermione gave him he started to walk faster until he left her behind and reached the kitchen.

The table was loaded with enough food to feed a small army, but besides Mrs Weasley there was only one young, very pregnant woman sitting at the table, Harry assumed that was Rose.

She looked up when he entered, smiling brightly, "you must be Harry, I've heard a lot about you, I must say I agree with Ginny."

"Agree with what?" Ginny asked, sitting down as well.

"He really does have the most beautiful eyes I've ever seen," Rose smiled wickedly, "turn around Harry, so I can see if she's right about your cute a-"

"Rose!" Ginny exclaimed her face burning as Ron burst out laughing and Mrs Weasley threw her daughter a scandalized look.

Harry quickly sat down to cover his embarrassment feeling his face heat up.

Rosa had already started eating and Harry stared as she wolfed down everything at an amazing tempo, beating even Ron with the amount of food she stuffed in her mouth.

When she saw Harry staring she swallowed and patted her enormous belly, "my boys are big eaters," she said happily, "you wanna feel?"

Without waiting for an answer she grabbed his hand and put it on her belly, Harry gasped when he felt the skin ripple as one of the baby's moved, "wow," he breathed.

"They're great aren't they?" Rose beamed, "I love showing off my tummy, although I'll be glad when I finally have my old figure back, I can't even put on my own socks these days!" She sighed frustrated, "the worst part is that my magic is very wonky, in the last months of a pregnancy the magic is often a bit unstable but I have it really bad," she turned her sorrowful eyes to Mrs Weasley, "I don't know how you managed this so many times."

"It is worse with twins," Mrs Weasley admitted, "and I was lucky to have a supporting h-husband behind me," she blinked furiously and quickly turned away her head, trying to hide the sudden tears that had come up, Ginny shot her mother a quizzical look but nobody else seemed to notice.

"So are you family from one of the Order members?" Harry asked curiously.

"Yes, my brother is a member, he refused to join unless they got me a safe place, I've got my own place upstairs but I prefer staying here so Molly can tell me everything she knows about raising twins."

"You never told us why you needed a save place so badly," Hermione said, "or what happened to the father of the twins."

Rose shrugged, "it's not really all that interesting." But when she saw everybody looking curiously at her, she relented.

"We were in the same year at Hogwarts, I fell in love with him when I was 16. We were supposed to get married as soon as we graduated but a couple of days before the wedding he found out I've been adopted by my parents and that my real mother is a muggle." Rose shook her head, "I've known him for years but never once did I notice that he believed all that crap about muggle's being inferior, apparently his whole family was of pure blood and he wasn't planning on tainting the bloodline by marrying a filthy halfblood." She laughed bitterly, "I felt so stupid for not realizing it sooner. The worst part though was when he somehow found out I was a pregnant, months later he suddenly appeared at my house, demanding that I got rid of my baby because he couldn't have a halfblood bastard child running around, that it would ruin his reputation. When I refused he threatened to kill me, to destroy my whole family and than he showed me his arm, the bastard had taken the dark mark! Can you believe that? The person I loved, whom I thought I knew better than anybody else had become a fucking death-eater!" She paused and took a deep breath to calm herself, "anyway, my brother showed up and he is an auror so he arrested my ex-fiancé, but my family was worried his family might still try something so my brother got me a place here." She shrugged, "personally I think it's all bit unnecessary but those purebloods are real fanatics, I guess it's better to be safe than to be sorry."

Hermione was looking a little teary-eyed, "that is so sad," she sniffled, "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have asked."

"It's really not that bad," Rose said, "I got over that bastard ages ago, mostly thanks to my boys. And Molly has really helped as well," she smiled at Mrs Weasley, "I've asked her to become my boys' godmother and Fred and George have both agreed to become their godfathers, that way they'll each have a child to spoil. I'm actually rather happy, the only thing that worries me is how I'm ever going to explain my boys why their father didn't want them, because I still don't fully understand it myself."