"She was a security risk," I said. "I had to be sure."

They were all staring at me, as though stabbing a painting was some kind of insane thing to do instead of a reasonable security precaution.

I was sitting at a table with Remus, Sirius, Snape, Dumbledore and Harry. The only one who didn't seem horrified was Harry. He just nodded at me knowingly. Molly Weasley was in a different part of the house, using magic to clean and get things ready for us. Moody was leaning up against the wall.

He understood the need to take decisive action; the only surprise was that the others didn't. Snape was the only one of them who didn't look surprised.

"She hasn't said anything in two hours," Sirius said. He sounded bewildered. "She's never given up an opportunity to say something horrible to me."

"Why did you keep her around?"

"We tried everything to get her off the wall, but the canvas and frame are permanently stuck on there."

"So destroy it," I said. "It's just a picture."

They all looked shocked, all of them except Harry. Even Snape looked a little disturbed.

"She's family," Sirius said. "Not the kind you want to talk to ever, or admit you're related to, but you just don't kill your family. It's just not done."

"She's not your relative," I said. "She's not real."

It wasn't that I didn't believe that artificial intelligences could be real people. Dragon had been a real person. It was just that I'd seen how limited the portraits were, even more limited than the ghosts.

The ghosts could at least learn, even if they would always emotionally be stuck in the moment where they died. They could even grow a little. Paintings just didn't have that ability.

"She's got my mother's memories," Sirius insisted. "As horrible and hateful as they are. When that painting is destroyed, the last thing that made her...well, her will be destroyed. You don't do that to family. Maybe if she was Bellatrix..."

I noticed that he didn't say anything about loving his mother. If she'd been like that throughout his life, she'd probably been critical toward him as well. That would have gone a long way to squashing any feelings of maternal affection.

Yet there was always part of us who sought that maternal approval. Did he still somehow hope to get that affection from the painting that he'd never gotten from his mother?

He didn't seem to like the painting any more than the rest of us, but was it all an act? I couldn't be sure.

"It does not do you credit to victimize a poor painting," Dumbledore said. He glanced at the hallway. "Although I must admit that you were provoked."

"We needed to know if she had another painting she could go to," I said. "Imagine that she'd had another painting she could visit in the Malfoy house."

"She wouldn't..." Sirius protested, then shook his head. "She had another painting, but it was destroyed in a fire a long time ago. The paintings here aren't all connected, not like the ones at Hogwarts."

"You think she wouldn't inform on the Muggleborn Liberation Front?" I asked. "When she rabidly hates muggles and muggleborns and worships everything pureblood?"

They looked at each other as though the thought hadn't occurred to them.

"Did you have to terrify her?" Sirius asked.

"I had to make her think she was going to die. If she could have escaped she would have. I'd still recommend putting a cover over her, something that you can magically stick on and off. Preferably something that muffles sound and light so that if she is captured she can't give anything away."

"If this place is captured, then no place in Britain is safe," Dumbledore said. "And all will be lost."

I shook my head.

"No headquarters is worth sacrificing everything for. Places don't matter. If we had to, we could hide out in France, in Spain. We're Wizards and space shouldn't be a barrier. As long as we have the people, we can come back, stronger than we've ever been."

"This isn't the Muggleborn Liberation Front," Dumbledore said. "Our organization is older than that. We've been together since the last war."

"Purebloods, mostly, right?" I asked.

"Why would you say that?" he asked, his voice carefully neutral.

"Molly Weasley is here," I said. "Which means that she is a member; she wouldn't be here otherwise. That means her husband is also likely a member, and some of her older children."

He nodded, but didn't say anything.

"Lupin and Snape are half bloods," I said, working it out for myself. "Moody is pureblood."

"And how do you know that, Missy?" Moody asked.

"You don't think I'd research the people I was to be working with?" I asked. "I'm not a fool. Skeletons in closets lead to betrayal at the worst of times."

"You've got a mountain of bones in your closet, I'd wager," Moody said.

"You have no idea," I said. Apparently neither Dumbledore nor Snape had told him what I'd revealed to them. It pleased me that they understood enough about operational security to be cautious, even with him."

"Still, I haven't heard about any muggleborn in this group of yours, and you even went out of your way to make a separate organization for them. That sounds a little sketchy to me."

"No insult is intended," Dumbledore said. "I simply created this organization from those people I knew and trusted best. Those people did not include many muggleborn. That is not to say that it did not include any."

He didn't begin spouting off names, which meant that he either didn't have many to say, or that he was taking operational security fairly seriously."

"They call it the Order of the Phoenix," Sirius said. He still seemed bewildered. He'd seemed that way every time I'd seen him since I'd saved him from the attack on the Shack. It occurred to me that life as a free man was likely difficult after years of having your sanity drained away by monsters.

I frowned.

"So the organization was destroyed and you rebuilt yourself?" I asked.

"No," Dumbledore said.

"You've all got fire powers."

"We are wizards," Snape said. He smirked. "I'm sure we could set some fires if needed."

"It's named after Dumbledore's phoenix," Harry said impatiently. Apparently he was so happy to be somewhere else other than at home that he was buying whatever Kool-Aid Dumbledore was selling.

I had no problems allying myself with Dumbledore, but I knew he had his own agenda, and that he'd likely throw me under the bus if it was convenient for him. Hopefully Harry wasn't a lot more naive.

"So if he'd had a parrot, you'd have been the Order of the Parrot? Guess you're glad he didn't have a pet chicken then."

For some reason Snape seemed the only one amused by that.

"Professor Dumbledore wasn't going to tell me anything for another couple of years, but he says you've already stolen my childhood, and so I might as well get started."

Dumbledore winced.

Apparently Harry hadn't been supposed to tell me that part, but he still had some residual loyalty to me. Dumbledore might not even have phrased it that way, but that was the way harry had heard it.

In a way he was right.

After all, Harry now spent more time training than he did playing gobstones or exploding snap. Even Ron participated somewhat more than half the time, although he often skived off to do something he thought was more fun.

Still, if Sirius hadn't insisted on Harry being here as a precondition for using the house, Harry likely would not be here. He'd be rotting away at home with his relatives.

I'd heard bits and pieces about them, usually when he was talking to Ron and thought no one could hear. I'd heard enough not to have a high opinion of them.

Some of the incidences would have required intervention by Child Protective Services in the United States. I wasn't sure what the laws were like in England or Scotland.

Unlike Harry, I had likely been slated to be here as soon as the opportunity opened up. Remus was too busy to keep a good eye on me, and no other place in Wizarding Britain would be as well protected.

Leaving me on my own would have been considered a nonstarter in any case; I was suspected of any number of murders, some of which I hadn't even committed. Both Dumbledore and Snape were wary of leaving me on my own for fear that I'd choose to meddle in politics.

I'd had a weird and awkward discussion with Snape after Umbridge died about not messing in politics.

What he didn't seem to understand was that everything we did affected politics, even and especially the decision to do nothing.

"I'd argue that your childhood was stolen the last time you saw your parents," I said tartly after a long moment. "And from what I've heard, what was arranged for you wasn't exactly what you would have chosen for yourself."

"No one gets to choose their family," Dumbledore said gently. "Nor their circumstances."

"I believe that if you are unhappy with your circumstances that you should try to change them," I said.

I'd wasted more than a year of life as a normal person trying to live with my circumstances, and all it had gotten me was misery.

"We should establish some ground rules," Remus said. He sighed and ran his hands through his hair. "Most of them are like they were last summer, but Harry wasn't there, so I'll go over them again."

"No stabbing people," I said. "That's rule one."

I glanced back at the hall.

"She's not a person though,' I said. "She's... less than a shadow."

"I hated her," Sirius said. "But she was still my mother. Family is important in the Wizarding world. You don't go around stabbing people's mothers."

My bugs detected the displacement of air behind me. I didn't have time to think; I just acted. Lunging to the side, I tried to spin around, but I was slow; too slow. My wand was in my hand, but the small creature behind me was pointing at me, his face contorted in rage.

"Mudblood!" he screamed.

A blast exploded the table where we'd all been sitting. I rolled, and dodged again, my wand out to stun my attacker.

Dumbledore was faster, though. He had the advantage of not having to turn, but I couldn't be sure that I'd have beaten him even so. Snape had his wand out as well.

Snape, Moody and Dumbledore all hit the creature with spells almost simultaneously.

The house elf went flying through the air to crash into a wall. He fell stunned.

"The other reason we don't bother my mother's picture," Sirius said after a moment, pulling himself up from the floor where he'd fallen, "Is that our house elf is unusually fond of her."

"This is going to be a problem," I said. "I can't feel safe going to sleep with this thing after me."

"It's not his fault," Sirius said after a moment. From the look on his face, he expected me to start stabbing. "He's been left in the house for ten years with only mother's portrait for company. It would drive anyone batty."

House elves were loyal, sometimes incredibly so. They were self effacing. I tried to put myself in his shoes; if I'd come home and found that someone had attacked someone I cared about, I knew how I'd have reacted.

I rose to my feet, and I pointed my wand at the elf.

"Don't," Sirius said. "It...wouldn't be right."

"I just agreed not to stab anyone," I said. "I'll try not to kill anyone either."

The others were watching me closely.

"Obliviate," I said, pointing my wand at the elf's head. He'd be out for a while from being hit by three stunners.

The others stared at me, horrified.

"Professor Lockhart was kind enough to teach me before he left," I said absently. "He said he's going on a worldwide book tour and may not be back for a decade or more."

It had taken the entirety of the school year to convince him to teach me, and it was a very difficult spell. Still, at least this house elf probably didn't have any good memories from the last ten years he'd miss.

I waved my wand, and I levitated the house elf behind me.

Back in the hall, I stood in front of the painting. The old biddy was hiding behind a chair, staring at me hatefully.

"I understand that this creature is yours," I said. "Your right hand in the world, your eyes. There is a saying in the muggle Bible about plucking out eyes that offend you."

She stared at me without speaking.

"I've removed his memory," I said. "When he wakes up, you will tell him that the damage to your painting was done by rats."

There were plenty of rats in this house; from what I knew of house elf psychology, it should have been humiliating for a house to be in this state. Maybe something like that would help keep him busy.

I knew what it was like to feel depressed, and how important it was to stay busy.

"If you don't, then I will simply obliviate all memory of you from him, and then I'll paint you over. He will never even know you existed, and you'll be alone in the dark. If I find out that you've tried to turn him against me, I will obliviate him. Do you understand?"

Eventually she nodded.

I returned to the kitchen.

I was bluffing of course; the truth was that I was nowhere good enough to remove all memory of a person lasting for years, not without simply wiping the whole person's memory. As long as she didn't know that, though, the bluff might work.

The others were staring at me as I returned.

"See?" I said. "I didn't even threaten to kill him."

I went to the drawer and got a washcloth. I wet it, and returned to the house elf, who was waking up.

I put his head on my lap, and I began washing it.

He blinked, then stared up at me.

"I hope you are all right," I said. "A rat ran by on a shelf and a tin of something hit you in the head."

Reinforcing the rat story was important. Hopefully he'd go after the rats who'd hurt his mistress and not me.

When he'd hit the wall, objects had fallen off the shelf to land on the floor. That helped sell the story.

His eyes narrowed and he slapped my hand away. He staggered to his feet.

"Nasty brat. Kreacher has heard about the girl."

"What, that I'm a mudblood?" I said mildly. "It's true. But I believe that anyone can rise above their station; mudbloods, ghosts, even house elves."

He looked revolted.

"Dirty things should know their place."

"Places change," I said. "I'd like us to be friends."

He stared at me, and then his face twisted up. He spit on the floor in front of me.

A moment later he left.

I listened in as the painting told him that it was rats that had damaged her painting. It wasn't a very good performance, but it seemed that it was good enough.

"He's going to be a problem," I said. "He can apparate out of here and back, right?"

Dumbledore nodded.

"Then we need his loyalty," I said. "And it's not going to be easy to get."

"I could just tell him not to say anything about what goes on in this house, and tell him he is not to harm anyone in this house."

"And then he kills one of us the moment we step outside," I said. "House elves are loyal, but loyalty is earned. If he's chained to do what you say by some kind of spell, he'll figure out how to get around it to help his master's former friends."

"He's just a house elf," Sirius said.

"He just attacked me in a room with how many of the fastest wands in Great Britain, and he still managed to get two shots off?" I asked. "And listen to him talk! He doesn't sound like all the other house elves."

"The Blacks expected a higher quality of servant," Sirius said. His face twisted. "He just parrots what my mother used to say."

"He's smart, and smart is bad," I said. "We have only three choices. We need to turn him, kill him, or obliviate him."

"We aren't killing my mother's house elf," Sirius said. "I'll have a talk with him."

"Don't undo my work with the memory charm," I said.

"About that," Dumbledore said. "That's a rather potent charm to place in the hands of someone who has not yet gone through puberty."

"It's better than my old way of removing memories," I said. I picked up my knife from the floor and slipped it into my bag. "And it's a little less permanent."

Only Sirius seemed confused by that statement.

"He's probably very lonely," I said. "From what I've seen, house elves are very gregarious creatures. Turning him might not be as hard as you think."

"You're much more forgiving of him than Ms. Black."

"He can change," I said. "She's just paint and memories."

"You might be surprised at just how potent some memories can be," Dumbledore said. "Children are sometimes quite opinionated, but as we grow older and wiser, we learn that sometimes there is more to the world than what we can see."

"Well," I said. "Let's get through the rest of the rules, and then I'd like to start obliviation practice."

"Right," Sirius said. "There are dark objects and books in the house."

"I'm going to read them," I said immediately. "You can't protect against the dark arts unless you know something about the dark arts."

"Some of us are... less than comfortable with the idea of you getting your hands on books like those."

"Then don't put me in a house full of those books. I have to learn as much as I can as quickly as I can."

"Where you are sometimes lacking is not in knowing what to do," Dumbledore said. "But in knowing what not to do."

It seemed that we were at an impasse.