bbbb

Privet Drive, Surrey

August 2nd, 1995

A Witch's Broom

"Did you mean what you said?" Harry asked her, sounding almost afraid as they retreated down the dark upstairs hallway.

"Hmm?"

"About – me living with you? In London?"

Daisy stopped in front of what looked to be his bedroom door and frowned guiltily. "I'm sorry if I just bulldozed you. I won't force you to live with me or anything, if you wanted to stay here. I just got kind of incensed back there."

Harry looked conflicted then, in the darkness, and he half opened his bedroom door, but didn't seem all that encouraged to leave their conversation there. "I don't want to live with the Dursleys anymore, Aunt Daisy. But – I think we should wait, at least until the morning... I'd have to pack my things, send – a few owls." He said 'owl' hesitantly, as if expecting a Vernon-adjacent reaction instead of her curious one.

"You're probably right." Daisy agreed, reaching behind her head and letting her half-ponytail down, shaking her stiff hair until it fell around her head and the feeling in her scalp subsided. "Tuney and I – we've got a lot of adult-crap to talk about tomorrow. Not all of it will be about you, but when we get to where you'll live from now on, I'll call you down, ok? It had sounded like they'd be, shit, glad for you to leave. But that – shouty letter, the red one on fire, really spooked her." She muttered, thinking of the booming voice which had seemed to be threatening her sister. "Did the voice sound like anyone you recognize? They have to be a wizard, right? To have sent an owl at all?"

Her nephew shook his head, looking more naturally like a teenager now. "They'd have to be a wizard or a witch to send a Howler at least. I didn't recognize the voice but I think it must've been sent by a wizard she knows, but it's not like she'd ever tell me that she was in contact with them."

"Could it've been sent by someone who'd sent you the other letters? Your friend's Dad? Someone at the Ministry you have?"

He shrugged, looking a tad frustrated by the lack of information himself. "It could be. But all of them are just telling me to just stay here and wait, none of them are saying anything. Not even Sirius did."

Sirius. Familiar, familiar, this whole damn day was stamped with a fuckton of deja vu.

Daisy slumped down against the wall, resting her elbows on her knees as she felt the weight of the evening on her. She could only imagine how it felt on a fifteen-year-old's shoulders. She sighed and bonked her head against the wall. "So... How's school?"

Harry scoffed, his emerald eyes, a shade he shared with her sister and their Father, lighting up. "Well. I saw a decrepit skeleton version of the man who killed my parents come back to life in a giant cauldron of blood and bones a few months ago during a Tournament to the death."

"Not awesome then." She muttered, unable to really process what he said, so allowing it to just wash over her until a later date.

"Not really, no." He replied. "I should get to those letters, Aunt Daisy..." Harry hesitated again. "And thank you for everything tonight."

/~/

Daisy knew already that she wouldn't be able to sleep, so she didn't even attempt it.

Instead, she rifled through her luggage, tossing out her clothes and toiletries until she found the one hidden cigarette she'd sewn into her bag, lighting it with one of the matches that were kept on the dresser next to the decorative candles that Petunia kept there. She gave one a testing sniff and scrunched up her nose, feeling the tell-tale tickle of a sneeze. Lavender.

Smoke flowed from her mouth and she glanced at the small window, considering how petty she felt just then.

Dammit, she thought, walking over and unlatching it. The tingle of tobacco coated her mouth unpleasantly, but it relaxed her like a bubble bath.

Daisy looked back at her suitcase and bag that she'd ripped through. She'd have to repack it before tomorrow afternoon. Petunia might let her use the phone or she might not. Either way, she'd need to get a taxi here. If Vernon's offer for a ride is off the table anyway, she thought. What a complete phony her sister's husband was. He was all politeness and reaching out to her, a supposed 'normal' person who could do something that he wanted. But to Harry, she'd never seen his face turn that color before. She remembered now, during a dinner what felt like a thousand years ago, how he'd treated Lily's at-the-time fiance. She'd only been a kid at the time, and largely ignored until Lily had protested their fight, telling them to 'measure outside', away from their little sister.

She scoffed at the blurry memory.

Murdered. The word echoed in her mind, and her chest felt hollow with dread.

A man had murdered her sister and her husband... And had tried to murder Harry, too, when he was only a little baby. Only to fail, mysteriously. And now he was back? Brought back to life, somehow?

"Too much." Daisy grumbled, flicking the ash out the window. This is my last one, she reminded herself tiredly.

So, a taxi ride tomorrow morning to London. A hotel room for a week. Food for two. The pounds rack up, she thought blearily, tossing the brown end out the window into Petunia's begonias, thinking of how much money she should've had in her bank account. Could always credit it, though. Best to assume Tuney's offer of rent money was off the table.

"The cheapest two-bedroom closest to the Nightingale then." Daisy murmured to herself, reaching for her bag, where she'd stored a copy of that days newspaper. She flipped to the apartment listings and began to slowly weed through them.

The hours passed by with only two viewings she would consider – when suddenly, around 1 in the morning, a loud crash occurred below her, sounding like it was coming from the kitchen. Cold dread dripped down her spine and Daisy didn't have a second thought before dropping the newspaper and rushing to her bedroom door, listening intently for anymore sounds from below. When none came in a few heartbeats, she silently snuck out of the guest room and tiptoed to Harry's room.

She knocked quietly, twice, on the wood there, before twisting the handle and backing into the room.

"What's happening?" Harry whispered, already awake and standing fully-dressed beside his bed.

"Take out your wand." Daisy ordered softly, keeping close to the door, holding it slightly ajar with her ear in front of it, listening intently. Behind her, Harry obeyed. To her horror, the sounds of footsteps increased in volume – especially when whomever it was reached the staircase, where it squeaked. "Harry, give me something." She said.

"What?"

"Anything heavy. Quickly, c'mon." She told him, feeling a rush of adrenaline as she became absolutely sure that whomever this was wasn't any of the Dursleys. Daisy reached backward and was handed a desk lamp. Better than nothing, she thought grimly.

There were voices now. They weren't even attempting to be quiet.

"Not burglars." Harry smartly noticed, hearing them also, putting his fist with his wand up against the door.

"Someone more confident then burglars." Daisy guessed, not really wanting to think about who would break into a house without the fear of getting caught. "Could – these be Ministry folks? Here to expel you anyway?" She almost hoped it was, at least then she wouldn't have to hit anyone with a fucking lamp that way.

Her nephew frowned and he put his wand hand down protectively. "It might be." He said.

"I'm sorry if it is." She murmured, knowing it would do little to reassure him. But it was no good now, because the doorknob was turning in front of her belly, back and forth horrifyingly. No way this is any fucking government, she decided, attempting to shove it closed with her shoulder – but it burst outward with a beam of light, shoving her against her nephew. So, in a rush and a panic, she came forward and smashed the lamp down over the first figure's head. There was a grunt, but a ripple of glowing purple rippled underneath her blow, and the lamp shattered into a thousand pieces onto the floor, and Daisy joined it.

"That was almost an effective move, girl." A voice growled from the doorway. "If I was a Muggle, that is."

"Professor Moody?"

"I don't know much about 'Professor.'" The man continued. "Never got around to much teaching, now did I? Help up the girl and come down with us. We want to see you properly."

"It's alright Harry, we've come to take you away." Came a softer voice, belonging to another man. Another familiar man, she cursed, pushing herself back and accepting the arm of her nephew.

"Professor Lupin?" Harry said.

"Why are we all standing in the dark like this?" asked a woman then. "Lumos." Bright, white light erupted from the woman's wand, and Daisy saw that there were a whole mass of people standing there in her sister's hallway.

The first was a man with one leg, one eye, and with a chunk missing out of his nose. He was surrounded by the pieces of lamp – he had been the one she hit. He was 'Professor Moody.' Apparently, even just thinking the strange man's name, made him look at her – where his fake eye began to swivel around to stare directly at her.

"And who are you, girl?" He growled.

"You're Daisy, aren't you?" Interrupted the one Harry called 'Professor Lupin,' before she could speak. He was the one with the oval shaped face and lined, brown eyes and soft voice.

Daisy glared at him suspiciously, and 'Moody' gave a dark chortle. She ignored him. "Do I know you?" She asked, knowing somehow that she did.

"Sort of." He said almost sheepishly. "We haven't met for many years... You were just a child back then. Your sister and I were friends."

"Are you quite certain it's them, Lupin?" Moody growled again, looking suspicious at both herself and Harry. "It'd be a nice lookout if we brought a Death Eater in disguise."

"Woah – " Daisy started.

Lupin looked at her with a bit of regret, but shook his head. "I can't be really sure for her, Alastor."

"Fine then." The older man said before gesturing at Harry. "We ought to ask Potter there only a question that he would know. Unless anyone brought any veritaserum?"

"Where exactly do you think you'll be taking him, exactly?" Daisy cut across them both, assertively.

"Nowhere you'll need to know, lassie." Moody grunted finally.

"No dice, whoever the fuck you are. You aren't taking this kid anywhere without me knowing where. I'm his guardian now, you need my permission!" At the sound of her yelling, more people began to crowd into Harry's small bedroom, looking over each others shoulders curiously to see the small, red haired girl who refused to allow them to take Harry Potter anywhere. In particular, the only other woman there, the girl who looked the same age as herself, topped with a purple do, looked wide-eyed and nearly impressed with her defense.

"What about Petunia?" Asked Lupin.

"She got laid off." Daisy retorted.

"Very well, then girl." Moody said, his voice like the sound of an ancient motorcycle. "We'll be testing both of you. Lupin, send an owl to Dumbledore. Tell him to send Snape to Headquarters as soon as possible, with veritaserum. Until then, we'll question her just as we will the boy."

/~/

The questions varied from whatever was on her drivers license (which she gave them, not that it phased Moody, whose fake eye swiveled from it to her face like a particularly suspicious police officer) to things that would have been on a list of security questions, like the name of her first pet or the street she grew up on (all of which she passed, well, at least the questions that Lupin happened to also know, which wasn't that much actually.) By the time Moody seemed even a little bit satisfied, Harry had finished packing with the girl named Tonks, his trunk hovering in behind him. It dropped beside hers with a loud 'THUNK.'

Supposedly as a 'reward' for passing, the wizards allowed her to quickly write a letter to her sister, filling it with the lies that they agreed to. That they would be staying in a hotel up in London, and to wait for her to reach back out to them to plan what would happen with Harry for the next summer, whatever.

She'd hesitated at the end, but left it simple by signing an easy 'Daisy' at the bottom-right.

"Happy?" Daisy offered, showing it to her taskmaster, who merely grunted his approval. She left it on the counter, weighed beneath a glass.

"Excellent." Lupin said pleasantly. "We've got about a minute, I think. We should probably get out to the garden so that we're ready," Then, he looked back at her (something he couldn't seem to help too much, as all throughout her letter he'd been glancing her way.) "We'll be flying on brooms – and while Muggles can technically use it, I don't think you'd be too good at it for your first time, Daisy. Not that we have any spare, anyway. So you should ride with Tonks, she's got the largest among us."

"I'm sorry, I need to pause you, because I think you just said brooms, did you not?" Daisy asked dumbfounded, raising her eyebrows high as she looked from Lupin, to Tonks, to finally Harry, who actually was holding a broom in one hand, and a birdcage in the other.

Harry gave a short breath of amusement. "Sorry – I forgot you don't know everything yet, Aunt Daisy."

She held up a hand to stop him, her eyes on the broom in his hand. He stopped, looking a bit cautious now. Then, she said, "Do you know how fucking cool that is, Harry?"

He grinned, just as Lupin spoke up with a, "Language, please."

"Before you two take off, you'll need a disillusionment charm on you." Moody said, taking out his wand. It made her a bit uncomfortable, knowing that he wanted to use it on her, but she steeled herself. The man's fake eye swiveled upward then, out into the sky. "Clear night, tonight. Could've used a bit of cloud cover." His normal eye then looked back to her, while hers remained on his wand.

"Potter." He said. "You first, step forward. Lupin says you have an Invisibility cloak. But that won't stay on if we fly there, this'll disguise you better."

Harry did, stopping just short of the Professor, and only flinched when Moody's wand tapped him on the head. Before her eyes then, her nephew disappeared, taking her breath away with him.

"Jesus Christ." Daisy muttered, her eyes trained on where Harry used to be. And then, he moved. She could see him move! It was as if he was a human chameleon, and had taken on the color of his exact surroundings. "That's so cool." She told Moody, who huffed shortly, but seemed to be pleased.

"You next." He grunted.

A bit excited now, she came up to the plate, where Harry had left. Moody tapped his wand on the top of her head, and it felt as if he'd just broken a giant egg over her head, the cold, slimy eggy-ness dripping over her. Daisy looked down at herself, and she too had taken on the colors of her sister's kitchen cabinets.

She glanced up, and saw that only Moody's fake eye was trained on her. He can still see me, even if I stand still, she realized.

"Evans, you go with Tonks. Potter, on your Firebolt." Then, he moved, looking more like a drill sergeant now that he was addressing the entire group. "We're going to be flying in close formation. Tonks and Evans, you will be flying in front. Potter, keep close on her trail. Lupin will be guarding from below, while I will be behind you. The rest of us will circle. Now, we don't break ranks for anything, got me? If one of us is killed –"

"Killed?" Daisy repeated, alarmed.

"Is that likely?" Harry asked apprehensively, but the both of them were ignored.

" – the others keep flying, don't stop, don't break ranks. If they take out all of us and you survive, Harry, the rearguard are standing by to take over. Keep flying east and they'll join you."

"Stop being so cheerful, Mad-Eye." Tonks said sarcastically while strapping both Harry's and Daisy's luggage to her broom. "They'll think we aren't taking this seriously."

"I'm telling them the plan," Moody growled. "Our jobs to deliver him safely to headquarters, and now her. If we die in the attempt – "

"No one is going to die." Countered the wizard named Kingsley, calmly.

"Mount your brooms!" Lupin suddenly exclaimed, staring at the sky. "That's the first signal!"

/~/

Daisy had decided that she loved brooms. Screw the tiny motorbikes she'd been looking at, the first chance she got, she'd be looking into getting a 'Firejolt' herself.

"Here." Tonks said, shaking the moisture from her now bubblegum pink hair. She had unloaded the luggage there, and she reached to take her bag, swinging it over her shoulder. Harry appeared beside her, now completely visible, and took his trunk. They met each other's eyes, and he seemed to smile begrudgingly at her, as if to say, 'Sorry about all this.'

"So where are we, anyway?" She asked, but Moody had already begun limping away, out of the small gated park they'd landed in. There was a small click, and suddenly the row of street lights went out ahead of them.

"Hold on." The old wizard grumbled, digging through his pockets. He removed a piece of paper then and shoved it into her hands. "Read quickly and memorize."

Slowly, she opened the scrap of paper. Written there, was this:

The headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix may be found at number twelve, Grimmauld Place, London

"London, are you fucking kidding me?" Daisy quipped angrily.

"And what's the Order of the – " Harry began, only to be shushed by Moody. The paper was taken from his hands and set on fire, turned quickly into useless ash onto the pavement.

"Not until we're inside!" The wizard insisted.

Daisy and Harry were both hurried beneath the previously lit-street lamps. She looked curiously up at the rows of townhouses, and saw they were standing between the numbers eleven – and thirteen?

"What the hell?"

"Think about what you memorized." Lupin murmured from behind her.

And just like that – a building began to grow between the two townhouses. A building with a the tacked-on number of '12.'

"Magic, huh?" She muttered, crossing her arms as it spread itself out, apparently not disturbing the occupants of the neighboring homes. "Impressive."

"In, quickly. But don't touch anything, especially you, Daisy." Lupin warned. "And keep your voices down. There's a meeting right now. We'll invite you in soon, when Severus gets here."

chapter two, thanks for those who've followed/favorited and especially reviewed!

dont get used to this fast pace, just warning you guys