Disclaimer:

I don't own Harry Potter and I owe way too much money on my car.

I never invented any incredible new kitchen gadgets and I have no soon-to-be-deceased rich relatives.

No one has sent me any anonymous – or not so anonymous – tips of the monetary variety.

Therefore, hoping to sue me for anything beyond a very poor imitation of Severus Snape's trademarked Glare of Death is a waste of my not-so-valuable time.

Chapter Two

Headmistress Minerva McGonagall paced her office restlessly. Her pointed green witch's hat was slightly askew on her head, as she kept reaching up in a vain attempt to straighten it. Her robes were also green and only slightly rumpled. She stopped and stared out the window, then raised her wand to check the time. It was now two-thirty in the morning, and Harry should have been in her office by now.

She had just started towards her fireplace, when it flared green. With an ungainly plop on the floor, Nymphadora Tonks stumbled out of the Floo connection. She pulled herself to her feet, and met the Headmistress' eyes. Her heart-shaped face was pale, and her hair - normally an obscenely bright color - was a dingy shade somewhere between brown, black and grey.

Tonks, as she preferred to be called, straightened her garish pink robes and took a deep breath. "Headmistress, we have a problem. Harry wasn't at the Dursley's when we arrived. Also, the Dursleys were d-dead." She closed her eyes and swallowed. "From what we could tell, it seems that they were hit with Avada Kedavra."

Minerva's eyes widened behind her rectangular glasses, and she inched her way into the nearest chair. The Dursleys were dead. Harry was missing. Either Voldemort had him or…. She looked at Tonks. "Check the Knight Bus. Harry escaped the Dursleys that way before. If we're lucky, he did it again."

Tonks nodded and dropped a pinch of green powder in the fireplace. The moment she was gone, McGonagall started fire calling the rest of the Order. She left the Weasley's for last, knowing that she was going to be on the receiving end of Molly's infamous temper.

Harry's eyes opened to pure blackness. He struggled to sit up, wincing as his cold and stiff body finally complied. He blinked repeatedly, hoping his eyes would adjust. He sighed after a moment and shook his head. Either they had blinded him, or there was absolutely no light in the room. Knowing Voldemort, either possibility was equally likely…. He assumed that if they had blinded him his eyes would hurt and they didn't.

Content in his assessment of his vision, he began trying to make sense of where he was. The floor under his hands was stone, he could tell that by touch at least. Slowly, he started moving around the room, mapping it in his mind. There were no windows that he could find, and the door seemed to be made of a very thick wood with steel reinforcements. He supposed he could be in a dungeon somewhere, but the only castle he knew of was Hogwarts. However, Voldemort wouldn't carry him there and the Riddle Mansion didn't look like it had a cellar from what he saw in his memories.

Deciding there was nothing more he could do at present, he settled in to wait.

No sooner had Minerva finished the last call, than the other members of the Order started popping out of the fireplace and into her office. As they settled in, she did her best to remain calm. Serenity turned out to be an impossible goal after Molly's tongue lashing, so she settled for appearing peaceful.

Once everyone was settled, the meeting began. Alastor "Mad-Eye" Moody, the paranoid Auror, was the first to speak. "How the devil did they find him? I thought that blood protection of his mother's was supposed to keep him safe."

Minerva nodded. "It was, but none of us realized that it would expire on his seventeenth birthday. After all, he became an adult yesterday so the protective parental magic ended." She smoothed her robes. "If only I had acted sooner…."

Moody snorted and shifted his artificial leg a little to the side. "I never thought I'd say this, but that blasted Snape would have at least warned us."

The portrait of Albus Dumbledore behind Minerva seemed to wake up at this. "What do you mean he would have warned us? Why didn't he?"

Molly gasped as Moody was his usual blunt self. "The self-important git killed you, Albus."

The portrait nodded. "Well, of course he did." At their astonished expressions, he continued: "He only did what I told him to do. Didn't you read the note I left you, Minerva?"

McGonagall blinked. "What note, Albus?"

He sighed. "It's in your top right drawer, my dear, underneath the false bottom."

McGonagall practically dove for the desk, startling Moody into drawing his wand. He shoved it back into its sheath with no apologies, and waited for McGonagall to read the letter. His eye's scanned the room constantly, the artificial one periodically rolling up in his head in an apparent attempt to see through the back of his head.

Remus Lupin, the only member of the Order who could technically be classified as a Dark Creature, hid a smile at Moody's nervous behavior. Even here, in the most warded room in the country, Moody practiced his personal motto of 'Constant Vigilance!' The werewolf immediately started mentally chastising himself when he started wondering if Moody really could see through the back of his head, or if he just enjoyed looking at the inside of his empty eye socket. When did I start channeling Sirius?

Then, it occurred to Remus that Mad-Eye Moody – the man who spent years telling everyone how much he hated Snape – had just come close to wishing Snape was still with them. He made a mental note to get his hands on the Auror's flask and check it for polyjuice.

McGonagall looked up at Dumbledore's portrait, her eyes wide. "Albus, you really did order him to kill you? Why would you do such a thing?"

Dumbledore chuckled. "Really, Minerva, I ordered him to kill me because he wouldn't have otherwise." At her matriarchal glare, he allowed himself a small smile. "Do you really think I wanted us to lose our best way to gather information? Besides, I was old and I knew I wouldn't make it to the end of this war. This way, Severus becomes more firmly entrenched in Voldemort's favor and can better sabotage his plans, while we can use his knowledge to plan for any contingency."

Dumbledore leaned back in the chair his painter had courteously included, smiling benevolently down at them. For once, everyone in the room debated at the same time exactly when Dumbledore had become a barmy old coot.

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