Later that night, when the guests stated leaving, a silver doe arrived in the middle of the guests.
"Looks like your patronus Rosie." Harry stated.
"It's Severus's." Dumbledore informed seriously.
The patronus started speaking:
"The Dark Lord will attack Godric's Hollow in 10 minutes, with his full force, to celebrate Harry and Rose's birthday. I was able to step away because I'm supposed to get first aid potions ready."
Once the patronus vanished, they started organizing themselves. One could have expected chaos but there wasn't any. They were well organized, they knew who to call, who could warn whom... Their well organized actions proved that they had planned for things like this.
Apparently, they had decided that should it happen, Rose and Harry would stay with molly Weasley and her children but since Misses Longbottom was present, they changed their organisation.
Neville's grandmother would stay at the Marauder's lair with her grandson to keep an eye on the always eager to fight teenagers. Molly would go fight, along with every adult present and they were already trying to contact the ministry of magic to get more help. Rose let them use Serenity so the messages could get faster where they needed to go.
"We want to go and help mom!" George begged.
"Yes, we want to fight, we're adults!" Fred insisted.
"No, you're not done with school!" Molly shook her head and, for once, her husband agreed.
Of course Harry and Rose wanted to go too but one look from Sirius and Remus was enough to know that he refused to let them go.
"The ministry is going to send Aurors, I warned them that we were coming along. Let's go." Dumbledore said when he walked back in.
"Will Aberforth join us?" Arthur asked Albus.
"Yes, he's on his way with a couple of trusting wands that were in his pub when I called." Abus nodded.
Soon, less than 15 minutes after they got the wanring, they all walked through the door, down the road for a few steps and they vanished.
"I hope they'll be fine..." Rose whispered.
"Don't worry young one, they're all very capable. I would have gone with them, but someone needed to stay here and make sure you wouldn't run off to fight. They know how you are, and it's honorable, but you should leave the adults to fight while you can." Misses Longbottom declared.
"You really would have gone?" Ron asked, surprised because of her advanced age.
"She's younger than Dumbledore is!" Neville stated defensively, making his grandmother smile.
They waited what felt like days but was really just an hour before a patronus dog arrived and spoke with Sirius's voice:
"The fight is over, we won. A few are injured but nobody died on our side. We'll be home in about an hour. A few fatalities among the Death Eaters, a few captures. The attack of Godric's Hollow was a diversion, every prisonner on his side has escaped Azkaban. Rose, don't worry, your kidnapper is still locked, she was in another section of the prison and they didn't have time to reach it before reinforcement arrived. The ministry seems to have had the great idea to hire a few Goblins to guard Azkaban. Voldemort left a message hanging in the air saying 'happy birthday Potters, it will be your last'... Don't worry though, you're sfae, we all are."
When he was done speaking, he vanished and everyone let out a breath they didn't know they were holding, though they frowned at the bad news that the prisonners had escaped Azkaban.
"How about something to drink and eat while we wait?" Rose offered and the elderly lady told them to stay sitted while she went to get it.
"They all escaped... All of them... Lestrange too..." Neville whispered, pale.
"Neville?" Ginny asked him, concerned.
Of course Harry knew why neville reacted this way and he had told Rose back when he thought that she was just a frigment of his imagination, but they hadn't told anybody and pretended they didn't know.
"The Lestrange's, Bellatrix, her husband and his brother, they tortured my parents until they lost their minds... That's why grandma is raising me. And now she's out..." Neville had a new determination in his eyes.
"Don't worry Neville, you'll be able to get your revenge on them, I'm sure of it. I'll even help you be ready if you want." Rose told him soothingly, making him nod.
Once his grandmother came back, they stopped speaking about this and they understood that Neville didn't want his grandmother to know how much this news hurt him.
.
Hermione stayed a few days with Harry and Rose and, during this time, Rose had a night over with both Ginny and Hermione while Harry went to spend the night at Ron's house. Rose was happy to find out that she had indeed a lot of things in common with both girls. At least she'd have friends at school, she wouldn't have to spend all of her time with her brother.
Hermione and Rose talked a lot about their favorite books and they had, even there, a lot in common. So much in common that they coordinated the books they'd bring to school, for entertainment purposes, so that they could bring more and not have doubles. Even if they ended up in different houses, they'd be able to exchange books.
They soon learned that Hermione and Ron were named Prefect while Harry was named Captain of the Quidditch team, which called for a celebration party of course.
Hagrid came over one night for dinner and explained that Dumbledore almost made Harry a Prefect but thought that he'd have enough on his mind with Voldemort and that being Quidditch Captain would be enough for him. Harry decided not to tell Ron about this fact, knowing that he was only the second choice wouldn't make him very happy and it didn't matter much anyway.
All in all, the summer passed quickly and happily.
Rose and Harry got more news from Dudley and had sent him some wizard candy. Slowly, he was becoming a real cousin to Harry, one he'd be happy to see again some day. Apparently, Dudley was also working on his parents so that they'd allow him to come for a few days, during the next summer, to visit Harry and Rose in their house. Being the overloving parents they were, he was confident that he would be able to do it. If not, he'd argue that this way they'd be able to spend a few days alone, just the two of them.
They went back one more time to the headquarters to finish the cleaning of it and this time, Hermione was with them. Now, the ancient house was ready to host guests comfortably, people from the order working overtime or, eventually, maybe even people who needed to hide. Especially since Kreacher was actually taking care of it now that he knew that they were all trying to do the same thing as his old master Regulus had done when he died. He was now wearing proudly the broken and destroyed Horcruxe around his neck, happy that Dumbledore had allowed him to take it once it was destroyed. He had also brought to Remus everything Regulus had on the Horcruxes, his research and his diary, so that he could try to see if he'd manage to find some information.
So far, they knew for sure that there was 7 and Regulus believed that Huffelpuff's cup was one, along with Ravenclaw's diadem and Gaunt's ring. It as a big step forward for them. Regulus also believed that Nagini, the snake, was one and Dumbledore had to agree, the bond between the two of them was too deep for it to be just of a man and his pet snake.
Mid August, they all went together to do their shopping before going back to school.
They had a lot to buy, especially since they had all grown a lot and needed new robes. Harry and Rose also needed a full restock of their potion ingredients because they had used everything they had left during the summer, when she helped Harry catch up. Thinking of working on the potion for Remus, Rose had looked for the list of ingredients and Sirius agreed to buy them for her, agreeing to keep the secret until she managed to make it.
Remus and Sirius wanted to buy a broom for Rose, but she politely declined. She didn't need it since she didn't play Quidditch and didn't like flying.
It had been decided that Remus would stay in the Marauder's lair whenever he wasn't on missions for the Order and Sirius would have a room at Hogwarts. He'd be able to go home some weekends, but mostly, he'd be there, able to watch after Harry and Rose and ready in case of an attack of the castle. The rest of the time, Molly had offered to look after the house and to come and clean it a bit once in a while. Now that she had Winky, she had plenty of time to do so and was more than happy to help and be useful, anyway she could.
On her part, Rose did her best to hide how nervous she was to start at this new school. What if she was sent to another house? What if she messed up?
"Don't worry, Rose, everything will be fine." Harry reassured her before they went to bed the evening before they went back to school.
"You know me well." She smiled.
"Remember that the Sorting Hat listens to your opinion. You have everything a good Gryffindor should have, don't be nervous. And even if you're sent to another house, I won't turn my back on you." Harry told her.
"What if the hat sends me to Slytherin?" She asked him in a whisper.
"Then I'll ask Colin Creevey to take a picture of Malfoy's face, it should be worth it." Harry laughed before he hugged his sister.
"Thanks Harry. I should be used to it, it's going to be my third first day of school without counting elementary school and preschool but… It's going to be my last and this time I actually care."
"You'll be great. Now get some rest, you want to look pretty for Fred tomorrow." Harry joked, making his twin sister blush.
"He hasn't made a move yet… Maybe he doesn't really like me this way, maybe he's just trying to be friendly or something…"
"I doubt it. Maybe he's waiting for you to get settled in school or something. Good night, Rosie." Harry told her with another hug before they each went to their own bedrooms.
Review please?
QUESTION: Can you guess who Luna will be paired with? I'll give you a few clues and if you guess it right, I'll answer ONE question you have about this story, even if it's a spoiler.
Clues: 1: She hasn't met him yet, but he's appeared in the story and has interracted with others. 2: She won't meet him until the summer between Rose's 5th and 6th year. 3: He's a boy. 4: the meeting between the parents should be extremely awkward, in a funny way for us.
Lorelei Candice Black