A/N: So, I sort of merged two chapters into a really big one because next week I'll have a two-day field trip and it may cause yet another delay... Enjoy that 8000+ words!
"Kid, what did you do?" Sirius asked as Harry walked towards them, face-down and with his hand shoved into his pockets.
Now that the red-headed hurricane that was Ginny was out of sight, everyone's staring had shifted to Harry's moving form. There were groups of girls whispering among each other, a few Slytherins snickering at Harry's public humiliation and several people who'd just come for the funeral simply looking curious. And then, there were Remus and Tonks, who stood witnessing the scene from several yards away, looking just as confused at the others.
"Can't talk about it here," Harry said as he reached them. "There are too many people around."
His godfather narrowed his eyes – he had a feeling he knew exacty what had just happened. "You didn't. Just tell me you didn't do what I think you did, Harry," Sirius said, not receiving an answer in return. "You dumped her, didn't you?"
Harry looked down, his expression awkward. He couldn't bring himself to respond to them because… well, because it was too complicated to explain truthfully with so many people around. He really didn't want to have to lie to them just to avoid it. He should have thought they'd ask.
He didn't need to lie, though, as his god-parents took his refusal to speak as an admission of guilt.
"Merlin, Harry, why would you do that?" Mia asked him, dumbfounded – what was going on in that boy's head? "You and Ginny are so… you and Ginny. Is this because of what happened to Dumbledore? Some sort of … self-punishing act?" She took a deep breath – she vaguely remembered hearing about those in some Muggle TV show that aired on their telly back when she'd been stuck at home with a newborn Mary. "Oh, Merlin, it's worse than I thought."
"What? No, it's not some self-punishing thing," Harry said, furrowing his brow like she'd just said the weirdest thing he'd ever heard. "Look, it's just… complicated. Can we please go talk somewhere else? People are staring."
"Bet your arse they're staring," Sirius said. "You weren't on this side watching the show you and Ginny put up." He sighed, mentally recognizing that he was indeed very curious about what Harry had to say and started considering where they should move that conversation to. His and Mia's offices were in the castle and he really didn't feel like going all that way – with all the people cluttering the school, it ought to take about ten or fifteen minutes to get there, between greetings and people pulling them aside to talk about completely pointless matters. Where else could they go and get some privacy? Maybe the opposite side of the lake? No, that was too open. Maybe… Suddenly, an idea occurred to him and he found it just perfect. "Follow me," he told Mia and Harry, motioning to walk along the path they were standing on, exactly on the opposite direction of the castle.
"Sirius, where are we going?" Mia inquired.
"You'll see in just a moment, love."
And as promised, just a couple of minutes later, they did see where Sirius was taking them: The Quidditch Pitch.
Harry stopped walking and raised his eyebrows. "Er… I actually meant we should talk somewhere private, Sirius," he pointed out.
Sirius nodded and removed a bunch of keys from his pocket. "Just trust me, kid."
They ended up not actually entering the stadium but heading to a door on the side of it, which Sirius opened with one of his keys – it was a supply closet.
"Private enough for you?" he asked Harry. As Quidditch instructor and referee, he had access to pretty much everywhere in that pitch, including the places that were off limits to the students. He could say that was his domain.
Harry shrugged before stepping in. "I guess."
The closet wasn't very big and its ceiling was crooked, making the height of the room more and more reduced until it reached barely four feet when the ceiling met the wall opposite the door. Only a lamp on the ceiling illuminated it after Sirius turned it on and locked the door again, casting the usually silencing charm to avoid eavesdroppers.
"Well?" he asked Harry, sitting down on sturdy chest piled on top of another by the door. Mia also managed to find a pile of cardboard boxes to sit on, as did Harry. "You can start explaining what happened between you and Ginny."
Harry hesitated. "It's a long story."
"Start from the beginning, then," Mia suggested.
Their godson sighed. "Alright but just… don't interrupt me until I'm done telling you."
The night before
Illuminated only by the small light-spot at the end of her wand and making as little noise as she could, Ginny made her way down the girl's staircase headed to the Gryffindor Common Room. Harry had asked her, shortly before she'd headed to bed little more than an hour before, to meet him down there at midnight, when they could talk without interruptions and being overheard as everyone else would be in bed.
As she walked down, step by step to go unnoticed, Ginny wondered what that was about. They'd been alone plenty of times that day, though he certainly had looked lost in thought most of the time – no wonder, since little more than twenty-four hours before he'd watched his headmaster and mentor be murdered in front of him. It hurt her that she couldn't help him more with that…
When she reached the last step and walked into the common-room, the fireplace was lit, illuminating the room with tones of orange. And oddly, she noted, the room also seemed to be empty. Had Harry forgotten about the meeting? He'd better not or she'd kill him for having made her spend a full hour lying in bed, bored and fighting sleep for nothing. "Er… Harry?" she called in a hopeful whisper.
"Here," she heard him respond before he stood up, revealing he'd been sitting on the floor in front of the couch.
She sighed. "I was starting to think you'd stood me up."
He shook his head. "Of course not. You'd go upstairs to my dorm-room and drag me down here if I had, anyway."
"You got that one, right," she said, approaching his spot behind the couch. She might have kissed him, even if only as a soft greet, but something in that solemn look on his face told her that might not be the moment. "I take it you asking me to come down here wasn't code for 'let's take a shot at snogging on the Common room sofa'."
"No, not really," he said, motioning to sit back down on the floor as she did the same. "I actually meant to talk."
"About what?" Ginny asked – she felt the tickle of nerves in the back of her throat. He seemed too serious for it to be good.
"Stuff," Harry responded, her arms crossed over his bent knees. "Decisions and… things."
She raised her eyebrows. "Could you be a bit vaguer?" she asked sarcastically. "You're spoiling the whole talk with so many details." She paused for a moment and noted she might have been a bit too harsh. "Sorry. I'm a little edgy. What's going on, Harry?"
"I've been thinking a lot today," he told her. "About many things – too many to even start telling you about all of them unless you have a week spare." He sighed, looking down at his knees.
"And?" Ginny asked, urging him to speak. "Any conclusions?"
He spoke in a thoughtful and detached tone – entirely too normal for the matter in question. It seemed like he was just stating a regular fact. "We shouldn't be together, Gin."
Ginny felt her blood freeze inside her veins and stared at Harry. "What?" she asked, her tone with a hint of shock and disbelief. "You're joking."
"Ginny…"
"No," she said, lifting her hand to interrupt him – she was trying very hard to remain cool even though her mind was racing. He wanted them to break up? Just like that? And he was saying it in that blasted casual tone that made it sound like he was asking her to fetch him a sandwich instead of asking her to end their relationship? "Just… what sort of… completely demented train of logic led you to that conclusion?" She needed to know.
Harry sighed. "It's not demented, Gin. Voldemort uses people his enemies are close to. He's already used you as bait once in your first year, and that was just because you were my best friend's sister. Think how much danger you'll be in as my girlfriend. He'll try and get to me through you and Merlin knows I'd do anything, not matter how… stupidly risky it was to make sure you were safe."
She closed her eyes and huffed in frustration. "I knew it was for some stupid noble reason," she mumbled under her breath. "Just being a Weasley puts me in danger – we're blood-traitors and all that nonsense, remember? Almost as bad as Muggle-borns for them."
"You're not actually trying to compare the amount of danger of being a Weasley to the amount danger of being Harry Potter's girlfriend, Ginny, are you?" he asked her in disbelief.
"So, what if I am?" she defied. "It's still danger, isn't it? Every month, he makes people vanish – people who don't even know you and whose odds of being targets are minimal. That should show you that, in this war, the amount of danger one's in doesn't really apply to much more than numbers. What if I don't care about those numbers?"
"I care," Harry replied. "How do you think I'd feel if tomorrow I was going to your funeral instead of Dumbledore's? Because Voldemort had killed you to get to me?"
"So that's what you asked me here for?" she asked, looking down at her crossed legs, since she couldn't really face him at the moment. "To end things?"
There was a long moment of silence and at some point, Ginny dared herself to look up at him just to try and guess what was on his mind. He seemed guilty and ashamed as his eyes remained on the fire. "No," he said at some point. "I don't want to end things."
Ginny let out a frustrated breath. "Then why on Earth did you just say all that crap about why we shouldn't be together?" she asked, her voice filled with disbelief. What on earth was going on inside his head? How she wished she knew how to practice Legilimancy… "Merlin, Harry, are you okay?" she asked, noting how troubled he looked.
"I'm fine," he replied, looking up at her to see an unconvinced look covering her face. "I really am."
"Then tell me what this is all about, for Merlin's sake," she requested, tentatively resting a hand on his shoulder.
He sighed and nodded. "Okay. I said we shouldn't be together for… for all those reasons I've just told you."
"Which are rubbish, as I pointed out," Ginny corrected him flatly.
"Maybe you have a point but you can't deny that so do I," he offered diplomatically. "But the thing is… no matter how much a part of me thinks that we shouldn't keep this up… I'm too selfish to let you go. I spent the whole day convincing myself I should but the truth is that I don't want us to not be together. The past year has been… hell between all the messes Voldemort keeps causing. But it has also been one of the best ones of my life because of what we have together." He huffed before turning to Ginny. "Does that make any sense or am I just going mad?"
For the first time since she'd sat there, Ginny managed to give him a shadow of a smile as her hand descended to his own. "You're not mad – at least not more than usual, as far as I'm concerned. And I understand what you meant by what you said – it's been a bittersweet year for me too." She sighed. "So, what did you ask me down here to if it's not to break up, then?"
He hesitated. "Er… that's the complicated part."
Ginny narrowed her eyes, foreseeing complications. "Harry…"
"Just listen, okay," Harry requested. "Just let me say what I have to say and then we can talk… or you can yell, depending on how you take it. Please?"
Her eyes remained narrowed to thin slits. "Get to the point, Potter."
"Alright," Harry said. "We've already established that I don't want us… I don't want us to break up. Yet that doesn't change the fact that you openly being my girlfriend puts you in major danger, Ginny. If we weren't together anymore, though…"
Ginny huffed in frustration. "For Merlin's sake, Harry, have you hit your head or something? Because now you're starting to sound a bit mad."
"No, Ginny, listen up. Let me rephrase it: if everyone thought we weren't together anymore, the risk for you wouldn't be as big," he said.
The redhead furrowed her brows in realization. "You want us to make everyone believe we're broken up."
"Before you say anything, I've got to tell you that I don't… love the idea. I really don't. Part of me tells me I should do it for real. An even bigger part tells me not to do anything, to just let us be the way we've been all year. But… if anything happened to you, it would kill me and it would feel even worse if I didn't know that at least I'd tried something to keep it from happening. That I wasn't completely selfish."
Ginny didn't say anything for several moments and simply looked at him, thoughtful. She was in a dilemma herself. "What will you do if I refuse?" she asked
"I don't know, Gin. I really don't know." He sighed. "I know you deserve more than some… top secret relationship and if you want out, I won't blame you…"
She chuckled dryly. "You're an idiot," she said.
"What?"
"I said you're an idiot," she repeated. "You told me you couldn't break up with me because you were selfish. Well, guess what, genius? I'm selfish too and I'll be damned if you're going to talk me into breaking up with you myself."
"I wasn't trying to…"
"Yeah, I know you weren't. Consciously," Ginny said. "Now shut up and listen. A few minutes ago when you started talking about us not being together, you nearly gave me a heart attack. And if you hadn't fixed it in time and told me you weren't actually talking about going ahead with it, you wouldn't be returning to your dorm-room in a very good shape." She sighed like she was ashamed for admitting that. "Look, months ago, when what we had was still fresh, I could have been the understanding Ginny who accepted that her boyfriend was breaking up with her to protect her with a really cool face. I really could and Merlin knows that would have hurt like hell. But now… now I wouldn't have been able to pull that off to after we've been together for over a year and that has been the best year of my life too, despite the mess the world is in. Maybe it's because this relationship has spoiled me or because today I'm even more arse over elbow in love with you than I was one year ago. But if you'd really called me down here to break up with me for some stupid noble reason, you'd have bat boogies flying out of your nose right up until you realized just what a stupid thing you were doing."
"I figured you might do something like that," Harry mumbled.
"Good," Ginny said, pleased with herself. She sighed, then, and reached softly for his hand. "And about that fake-breakup… I'm not a big fan of it but I'm willing to go along with it anyway."
There was a silent pause, then, only ended by Harry's "short question. "Why?"
"Because it will make things easier for you," she told him simply. "And because, if something happened to me – which it won't –, I'd want you to know it wasn't your fault because we'd tried."
He should be happy she was going along with it, yet he didn't really feel that way. Maybe it was because he still had confessions to make. "Before we put that plan into practice, there's something you should know, Ginny." He had only told that to Ron and Hermione before her and it was only because… well, because he hadn't been able to stop the words before they came out of his mouth. Now, he was telling it to Ginny. "Next year… next year I don't think I'll be coming back to the school. Too many people are getting hurt while I'm here at Hogwarts – the Horcruxes are out there and I need to find every one of them fast so I can stop him and end this stupid war."
Ginny looked away from him, into the fire and Harry's eyes remained on her – her reaction was a mystery to him. He'd imagined she might yell at him for that, look shocked for a while or maybe hurt that he'd be leaving her behind. It was none of it.
"I can't say I'm surprised," she confessed faintly – the thought might make her nervous but she'd always known it was coming. "I knew this would happen sooner or later – that you'd have to leave. I knew you… we wouldn't be able to be really happy until Voldemort was gone." She faced him again. "Will Ron and Hermione go along?"
Harry nodded, surprised she was taking that so… coolly. "I mentioned it to them and they said they would. I tried to convince them not to but it didn't work." He sighed. "Ginny, please tell me you're not planning to join us too."
"I'd be lying if I told you that," she confessed.
"Gin…"
"You can't change my mind from this," she told him before he could finish. "Just as soon as I turn seventeen and am free of the trace, I'll be off to join you if you're still out there." He seemed surprised she'd thought of the underage magic problem – he'd been ready to use that argument if she insisted on going. "I'm not stupid, Harry. It's still more than a year before I turn seventeen but I know better than to go with you before it comes: if I did, I'd be a risk to you if I used magic and a burden if I didn't."
"You've given this a lot of thought, haven't you?" he realized.
She nodded. "I've seen this coming ever since you first told me about the Horcruxes, Harry. I even was blunt enough to go to Dumbledore and ask him if there was any way around the trace – he told me that if there was one, he'd failed to find it when he'd searched back when he was young. I'll have to wait until it goes away on its own and, in the meantime, I'll keep an eye on Hogwarts for you." She paused. "Of course, I'm hoping that I won't have to join you in your quest at all because you'll be back by the time I turn seventeen."
"I'm hoping for that too," Harry confessed.
She gave him a little smile that didn't last more than a second. "So, I take it you'll wait until your birthday too before you leave. We still have that time, don't we?"
"I don't think I can put it off much longer than that, Gin," Harry said.
She nodded. "Well, you could wait for Bill and Fleur's wedding – it will be on the day after your birthday," she said. "It will be a good way to end this… chapter of your life and start the new one where you hunt Voldemort. Plus, I really wanted a chance to dance with you. To make up for the Yule Ball."
"If we go along with this fake breakup, we shouldn't really be seen close together in public," Harry pointed out.
Ginny shrugged. "We'll find a way around it."
"So, you really will go along with this?"
She nodded. "I've already told you I would do it for you. Did you change your mind?"
Harry shook his head. "I was just thinking it will be a pain to have to pretend we're at odds all the time."
"On a more positive note, I've always heard that sneaking out is pretty fun," Ginny stated with a nervous laugh. "We can always meet like this every now and then. And we have just a couple more weeks here at Hogwarts. I suppose at home we don't have to pretend because, well, we can trust our families to keep it a secret, don't you think?"
Harry nodded. "Yeah, I guess. We shouldn't tell anyone we're planning this, though. Only afterwards. If they don't look surprised, it might make hard for other people to believe."
"Honestly, Harry, I think that the people who know us will find it hard to believe anyway if we just tell them we've split up," Ginny said.
"Well, we should put up quite a convincing public show for them then, shouldn't we?" Harry suggested. "How good are your acting skills?"
Her lips curled. "Well, we can say the twins and I have a lot in common on that," she said proudly. "I can put up a good show."
Harry nodded. "Alright, then. So, just to make it official…" He shifted his position so he was face-to-face with her and reached for both her hands. "Ginny Weasley, will you fake-break up with me?"
She had to smile – how stupid was it that the stupid question sounded so romantic to her? Ridiculous. "Just say the place and time."
"Tomorrow at Dumbledore's funeral?" he suggested. "After it, I mean."
So soon, she thought. But it had to be done that way. And it would not be real. "It's a date, then." She leaned closer to him. "I'm going to kiss you now."
"Okay," he said wearily just before his girlfriend's – soon to be know publically as ex-girlfriend's – lips touched his own. He hoped everyone would buy it as he simply didn't know what else to do.
Present time
By the time Harry was finished explaining the whole thing to his godparents, leaving out a few details such as his plans not to attend the school in the following year – he couldn't bring himself to do it as he was still gathering courage to break those news to them – Sirius seemed to be tempted to laugh.
"It was an act?" Mia asked him, her tone tinted with disbelief. "The whole thing?"
Harry nodded. "And apparently it was convincing enough," he said, satisfied.
Sirius snorted. "Convincing? It was brilliant, kid. Maybe a bit too loud with the yelling but just enough so it would catch everyone's attention." The news would be all over the school in less than an hour and, if the kid was lucky – or really unlucky – Skeeter would be typing an article about him being the newest bachelor at Hogwarts to Witches' Weakly by the end of the day. He had to chuckle. "You do realize her handprint is still all over your face, don't you?"
Harry groaned and rubbed his own cheek again. "That part wasn't really planned. I'm assuming she was trying to improvise…"
His godfather snorted. "It was worth the look on your face."
Mia sighed from where she sat. "Merlin, Harry, you really had me worried," she said. Ginny had been his rock for so long… The thought of him ending things with her just like that had made her more fearful than she liked to admit. "You know you didn't have to do that, don't you? Fake a breakup? You know there are so many people around who'd do anything to make sure Ginny is safe. Her parents, her brothers… even us."
Harry nodded. "I know but… I don't want to risk it, okay? It's safer this way."
"So, what are you going to tell people if they ask you why you broke up?" Sirius asked him.
Harry shrugged. "We're still trying to figure it out. We'll probably say that after what happened to Dumbledore, I didn't feel like I could deal with being tied up to a girl. Everyone thinks I've lost a few bolts over it, anyway – makes sense us ending things would be my fault."
"And are you sure that Voldemort himself will believe? Or even care?" Mia asked. "Honestly, Harry, I don't think he cares much about teenage romances."
"No, but he cares about who he can use as leverage against me. An ex-girlfriend, especially one I broke up with in such bad terms wouldn't be of any use to him. I'm sure a few Slytherins will make sure the news reach him soon enough, probably with a few dark rumours attached to make it sound even worse."
"And what about your…" Sirius paused and pointed at his own head "…connection thingy? Don't you think he can see it's a lie through it?"
Harry shook his head. "Dumbledore taught me Occlumency all year in our lessons after what happened in the Department of Mysteries. I'm a lot better at it now – he could barely enter my mind the last time we tried it," he stated. "Look, I'll keep practicing every waking moment if I have to but Voldemort won't enter my head ever again if I can help it."
"So you're really sure you did the right thing?" Mia asked.
Harry nodded. "I know I did," he said, sighing. "Look, I'd do the same with you all – the two of you, Izzy, Alex and Mary – if I could but it's harder to fake-break up with your family and, honestly, that Voldemort would never buy."
"Harry!" Mia said, livid. "Don't even think about that!"
"You worry about protecting yourself and let us worry about ourselves," Sirius told him more evenly. "Seems only fair, doesn't it?"
Harry sighed. "I guess," he said, standing up. "So, I probably should go back to the castle before people start wondering where I am."
His godparents nodded and got up too. Before any could reach for the door, Mia took a step further and wrapped her godson in an unexpected hug.
"You're too selfless for your own good, you know?" she asked.
Harry sighed before pulling away a bit. Funny, he thought just the opposite…
Later that day at Grimmauld Place, everything was ready – or as ready as it could be – for the Order meeting that was to take place there. And as agreed, around five that evening – roughly a half hour before the meeting was scheduled to– Mad-Eye was ringing the doorbell of the house and Sirius was already making his way to open it.
Yet when he did, his face shifted into a frown. "What is he doing here?" Sirius asked, his eyes narrowing at the sight of Mundungus Fletcher standing by Mad-Eye's side on his porch – it was no news that one caused trouble wherever he went and not the sort of fun trouble Sirius, as a respectable Marauder, appreciated.
Mundungus looked ready to protest Sirius's question. "Oi, I'm part of the ord…"
Mad-Eye smacked him on the back of the head. "Be quiet, you slimy crook," he said before turning to Sirius. "Caught this one plotting in Knockturn Alley to smuggle a bunch of stolen fake jewelry and sell it as protection amulets in Diagon Alley."
"That was a misunderstanding. I was just…"
"Shut it, Fletcher!" Moody barked at him – if his words hadn't been what had done the job shutting the other man up, certainly the I'll beat-you-to-a-bloody-pulp look in his mangled face had.
"And you brought him here because…" Sirius inquisitively said.
"Figured I should keep an eye on him in case he tried to skip the meeting and put the plan in action instead – would you rather have a few dozens of fools walking around exposed because they thought they have some bogus amulet to protect them?"
Sirius groaned. "Fine," he said, stepping away from the door so they could get in.
Mia was coming down the stairs by the time Sirius closed the front door and raised an eyebrow at her husband, also confused by Mundungus Fletcher's presence along with Moody – it hadn't occurred to her that, being part of the Order, he might show up for the meeting, never mind show early with Moody.
Sirius shrugged and pointed at the former auror. "His fault," he said.
"Well, will you show me where the centre of the wards is or what?" the former auror said.
"The what?" Mia asked, confused. She'd never actually heard of it.
"The centre of the wards!" Mad-Eye said. "It's where the core of a house's wards is."
"And how are we supposed to know where it is?" Sirius asked. "We never messed with the wards ourselves."
"Don't know where…" Mad-Eye mumbled under his breath in disgust.
"Maybe I could go look for it," Mundungus suggested all too innocently.
"To get your hands on a bunch of heirlooms while you're on it, no doubt," Mad-Eye barked in return before turning to Sirius and Mia. "Just take me to the house-elf – he ought to know where it is."
Mia nodded. "He's just upstairs, keeping an eye on the kids in the living room."
"Maybe I could just stay in here…" Mundungus suggested – so much stuff around that he'd love to get his hands into… "Busted a knee the other week and all those stairs…"
Moody grabbed him by the collar. "Nice try. I'm not letting you out of my sight for a moment." And with that, he pulled the man behind him up the stairs.
As expected, they found Kreacher in the living room, who informed them that the centre of the wards was located in the house's attic at the same time he helped little Alex build some sort of tower with his construction blocks, which was rapidly becoming almost as tall as him.
Satisfied, Mad-Eye once again pulled Fletcher up the many flights of stairs that led up to the attic, guided by Mia, who offered to take them up there as Sirius usually avoided going up to the topmost floors of the house where his old room as well as his late brother's one were located.
While the three were up there, Sirius spent a few minutes watching little Mary as she attempted to sit up inside her portable bassinet, squealing in delight when she succeeded, and then helping Alex reach the top of his tower, now definitely taller than him, to place one last block up there before he decided to make his way back down to the ground floor, leaving the kids under Kreacher's watchful eye, as people were bound to start arriving for the meeting soon enough.
It wasn't more than five minutes after he reached the ground floor that he first heard the sound of someone flooing downstairs in the kitchen– and since most of the Order didn't have a floo-connection to the house, Sirius figured it ought to be someone they had over frequently like Remus, Lulu or Elizabeth.
He was right the third time as only four or five steps into the stairwell, he heard the blonde healer's voice. Only she wasn't alone in there.
"…I told you should have stayed home! Floo travelling isn't good for healing, especially when it comes to ribs and other bones," she was scolding someone. "Keep this up and you won't be back to active work for the rest of the month."
Curious, Sirius descended further down the stairs – it was more than clear she wasn't talking to her father or her kids since, as far as he knew, none of them had injured ribs. In fact, the only person he could recall that had taken a rib injury lately was…
"Relax, Beth, it's just a little twinge. Didn't land quite the way I'd planned." The other person replied. And if the rib injury hadn't given him away, the slow, deep voice that said those words certainly did. A few more steps down the stairs allowed Sirius to peak through the kitchen's door and spot by the fireplace not only Elizabeth Harper but also Head Auror Kingsley Shacklebolt. Now, why those two had arrived together, was something he could only imagine…
"You're just a stubborn arse, you know?" she was telling him. "I could have easily discussed the matters you want to bring into the meeting myself and then tell you about it when I got home. I'm very articulate with words, you know?"
Kingsley chuckled, motioning to stand up. "I know you are, Beth, but I'd rather argue my own points. I'm fine, really. I just need to find Moody to have a word with him."
Elizabeth sighed. "Just don't let me hear you're putting too much strain on those ribs or else I'm holding you hostage in my place for the rest of the month."
And as she finished saying that, she leaned further and kissed him. Really kissed him. Well, Sirius thought, this is an interesting turn of events. Elizabeth Harper had a boyfriend and it was actually a pretty decent bloke unlike her ex-husband who still was on the run from the goblins for owning them a small fortune lost in gambling.
He didn't have the chance to go on with his thinking as, just as soon as she pulled away from the kiss, Kingsley started to motion towards the kitchen doorway, probably headed to the stairs – and then meant he'd run straight into Sirius and see he was eavesdropping. That would be bad.
Quickly, he improvised and made a little noise with his feet to make it sound like he was just coming down the stairs and, just as Kingsley as about to reach the doorway, Sirius pretended he almost ran into him. "Oh, sorry about that Kingsley. Didn't know you were here," he lied.
Kingsley shook his head. "No harm done. I've just arrived. Moody doesn't happen to be here already, does he?"
"He's in the attic messing with the wards," Sirius informed him. "But if you wait for him in the dining room, I figure he shouldn't take much longer up there."
"Yeah, I'll do that, thanks," the auror replied, walking up the stairs with difficulty.
Just as soon as he was gone, Sirius decided to enter the kitchen, only to find Elizabeth standing there raising her eyebrows at him. "How much did you hear?"
"Oh, more than enough. So," he said, grinning, "do you treat all your patients with such… affection?"
She smiled and shook her head. "Only the ones I'm engaged to."
Sirius's eyes opened wide. "The ones you're what to?"
"Engaged. As in 'fiancée of'," she said calmly. "It happened a few days ago and, before you ask, no, Mia doesn't know about Kingsley and I. I was going to tell her a couple of days ago but then there was the battle… Please do me a favour and let me tell her myself, okay?"
"I… sure. And congratulations, I guess," Sirius said awkwardly. "Little question, though: is Kingsley the bloke I almost caught you with in New Year's when Mary was born?"
Elizabeth blushed. "Yeah, that was him," she admitted, embarrassed. "Only my dad and the kids know about us being together other than you and, well, hopefully Mia soon. We've been keeping it quiet because he'd the head Auror and there are risks inherent to his position. We'd like it to remain that way."
Sirius rolled his eyes. "These secret relationships for the sake of safety are becoming a really lame trend," he commented.
She raised her eyebrows. "What makes you say that?"
He shrugged. "Never mind. My lips are sealed if that's what you want. But another question: why does he get to call you Beth and us common mortals can't even use a nickname without you trying to bite our heads off?" Sirius asked.
Her lips curled. "For the same reason he gets to shag me and you don't."
"Who gets to shag who?" Mia asked as she stepped into the room, her expression slightly confused.
"Long story," Elizabeth told her.
"Well, Mad-Eye said the wards were fine," she announced.
"Good, that's good," her husband responded, noting that Elizabeth was giving him a 'get lost' look, intending to use the opportunity to share the news with Mia. He cleared his throat, taking a step back. "Why don't I leave you girls to talk?"
Mia gave him a strange look as he retreated but didn't protest against his quick exit.
People started arriving quickly in the minutes that followed and gathering inside the dining room, waiting for the meeting to start. It was slightly odd to see the Minister of Magic entering his house as a regular guest when she arrived with McGonagall, who'd offered to show her where the meeting was, and sitting at his dining table. If she weren't talking to Kingsley with such a serious look on her face, one might have believed she was there for a dinner-party of some sort.
Mia and Elizabeth joined everyone in the dining room minutes before the meeting took place, arm in arm and all secrets and smiles like two girls in their teenage years – seemed Mia had taken the news of the engagement well. When the 'assembly', as Mad-Eye referred it, started, everyone sat around the table and remained quiet.
The meeting started with Madam Bones's formal introduction to the Order and her explanation of her reasons behind joining the order. Ironically maybe, the Minister confessed not to fully trust the Ministry itself and to believe that likely there were moles in several departments, though she wasn't sure who they were. Furthermore, she informed them that she was in negotiations with several foreign ministries to create secret refugee protocols to help several witches and wizards escape the country in the eventuality of Voldemort taking it over.
"And since I am tempted not to fully trust my staff, I'll only disclose any information concerning these protocols to the Order, hoping you will help me putting them into practice," Bones told them.
Other matters followed that one, such as the Muggle Prime Minister's protection, which was made Kingsley's responsibility as soon as he was fully healed, as well as the arrangement of rotating patrols in Diagon Alley, Hogsmeade and other important places in the Wizarding World.
It wasn't until Harry's name came to the discussion that it had Sirius and Mia's full attention.
"Alright, not that this is solved, we need to discuss Potter," Moody stated. "He's our main concern here."
"Yes, Alastor is right," Kingsley added. "Dumbledore said it himself. His last words to me were: 'Harry is the best hope we have'. We have reasons to believe that his safety is essential in the middle of all this."
"Well, this house is a fortress," Mad-Eye stated. "I checked it myself earlier. If he stays here until the school re-starts, nobody will be able to get him."
"You don't actually expect Harry to remain locked in this house the whole summer, do you?" Mia asked sceptically. "Even if his friends visited him here, he'd be bored by the end of the first week. There's no way we'll make him stay here until school starts again."
"You'd rather put him in danger so he can have a little freedom?" the former auror said.
"We'd rather he wasn't miserable and that's how he'll feel like if we let you turn his home into his prison," Sirius said icily – he knew his share about prisons.
"Well, at least he'd be safe!"
McGonagall was the one to speak. "Alastor, calm yourself," she told the other man. "Sirius and Mia are as good as Harry's parents and, more than anyone else in this table, they have a say about what is decided about him. Not to mention that they are right."
"Minerva…" Mad-Eye started.
"It's unthinkable to put a sixteen-year-old boy in house-arrest for something he's not even guilty of – being a target," the headmistress. "As a teacher, I can't support that idea and I'm sure we can find a better solution."
"Harry is always welcome at the Burrow," Arthur Weasley told them. "And since Moody is already reinforcing our wards to turn the shed into our new headquarters, I think it would be safe for him to spend time there too."
"Didn't he and Ginny just break up after the funeral?" Tonks pointed out suddenly, unaware of the truth behind the scene she'd witnessed. "I'm not against the plan, I'm just saying it ought to be awkward for her to have her ex-boyfriend around all the time after such a… bad breakup."
While many seemed pretty uninterested about the matter, three of four members, manly women, nodded in approval. Sirius had to fight the urge to grin – yep, the dramatic fake breakup had indeed worked: if people in the Order had bought it, he doubted many students wouldn't.
Molly cleared the throat. "Well, yes, but Ron is still Harry's best friend. The Burrow is a big place. I'm sure there's plenty of space for him and Ginny to avoid each other. It won't be an issue, I'm sure. He'd be safe there," Molly said – her tone was so unconcerned that Sirius guessed Ginny might have already explained hers and Harry's act to her parents.
"Or, on the contrary," George said, eyes narrowed, "maybe he won't. Merlin knows him being there will give Gin-Gin a chance to get back at the little prat for dumping her. We're more than inclined to help."
"Nothing deadly, though," Fred added as if it was a soothing thought. "She'll enjoy watching him squirm." He turned to Sirius and Mia. "No offence."
This time, and judging by the looks of agreement shared by Bill and Charlie, he guessed Molly still hadn't come around to telling her sons that the breakup was bogus. Sirius could only hope she'd do it soon, before the twins mailed Harry some sort giant dung-bomb as payback.
"Boys!" their mother said warningly. "Mind our own business! This is not the time or place."
The twins shrugged and leaned in synchrony against the back of their chairs with their arms crossed, plotting looks on their faces.
"Fine! He can stay either at home or the Burrow. Period," Mad-Eye accepted. "See? Problem solved: Potter's not confined to one place."
"No, that's still not fine, Moody," Mia stated, her tone edgy. "Now he's just confined to two of them. Are you even listening to yourself? Harry's not your property or anyone else's – not even mine and I've raised him from the time when he wore diapers. You… no, we don't get to just sit around a table and decide where he can and cannot go like he's some pet – Harry will be off age as of the end of next month, for Merlin's sake!"
"According to what Dumbledore believed, he may also be essential to defeat Voldemort!" Mad-Eye spat back. "He can't just parade around unprotected, all but asking to be killed!"
"And he won't," Sirius told him. "The kid's neither a moron nor suicidal, Moody. But he's not some puppet that's supposed to be shut in some box until someone needs to use him. He's a person with brains who gets to have a choice about his life. If anything, Mia and I can have a talk with him about where we think are the safest places for him to be and then it will be up to him to follow our advice. Either he does or not, we'll always be around to protect him."
"They have a point, Moody," Kingsley agreed. "You're going too far with this protection thing. From what I've seen, Harry's a very smart kid – need I to remind you that it was his idea to spread Felix Felicis among the fighters in the battle two days ago, which may have spared our side from countless injuries and deaths?" He might not have taken the potion himself but it had certainly soothed him knowing that everyone else had better odds of being safe because of it.
"You got that right," Bill Weasley mumbled diplomatically – as bummed as he might be with Harry over 'breaking up' with his sister, he couldn't deny that it was nothing short of luck that had made some chandelier suddenly fall down right between him and Greyback when the latter had been about to jump him to do Merlin-knew-what. He owed Harry for that.
"Then what do your enlightened brains say about what we'll do if Potter decides he doesn't want to follow our advice," Mad-Eye finally asked.
"I honestly doubt he'll want to cause much trouble, Moody," Remus vouched for Harry. "Harry is a good kid. He's not that rebellious."
His wife nodded in agreement. "Remus is right," Tonks said. "If anything, he may want to go out on Muggle London or Diagon Alley a few times. We can form a small guard to accompany him. I wouldn't mind joining it."
"That seems like a good idea," Kingsley agreed. "A small guard should keep him safe enough if they took, for instance some sort of emergency Portkey to get him to a safe place quickly in case of attack. I'd also offer to join it myself but looking after the Prime Minister ought to keep me busy on its own."
The next seconds were filled with half a dozen members offering their services to the guard even though they weren't even sure it would be needed at all. That solution seemed to be good enough for them – provided Harry would agree, which they were sure he would. At this point, when they could feel the time when Harry would have to stand against Voldemort approaching, Mia recognized that a piece of advice that Dumbledore had given them was becoming more and more precious: it was time Harry made his own decisions.
"Now, there's something else we need to discuss, still about Harry," Kingsley stated, taking over as Mad-Eye seemed to have taken to moping after his idea had been flatly rejected.
"You know, maybe we should have brought the kid along if we wanted to discuss so much stuff about him," Sirius said.
Kingsley shook his head. "It's related to him but it doesn't concern him directly… yet, at least. Just listen up. It's no secret that You-Know-Who attracted him to the Department of Mysteries by sending him through that… connection they have fake metal images of Sirius and Mia being tortured there. He may do that again. Use some kind of bait."
"Harry won't fall for it," Sirius said with certainty. "He told me himself this morning that he's gotten a lot better at Occlumency – he won't fall for illusions again."
"No, but unfortunately this shows he'd be reckless enough to go after his family if they were in need, no matter what the danger was," he said. "What if this time You-Know-Who really takes someone?"
"We'll be careful," Mia said. "There's no way we'll let himget his hands on anyone from this family."
"He wasn't referring your side of the family, Mia," Elizabeth told her – clearly, she and Kingsley had already discussed that matter, likely during the time he'd been recovering from his injuries at her place. "Lily had a sister, remember?"
"Petunia?" Mia asked, confused. "Harry has never even met her. She refused to take him in when Lily and James were killed, remember? Why would anyone use her as bait?"
"Blood's thicker than water," Mad-Eye said easily. "Potter's got a hero complex – the snake-faced bastard knows that. Can you be sure he wouldn't run to save his aunt and her family even if just for the sake of blood?"
The answer was easy: she couldn't. Mad-Eye had a point – Harry was too brave for his own good. She didn't think he would just leave the blood family he'd never known to die if the time came. Not that they really deserved it his help. "What do you want to do about them, then?"
"Send them into hiding under the Order's protection," Kingsley said. "It would be good for both sides: they would be safe and we wouldn't have to worry about You-Know-Who using them."
Sirius shook his head. "They'll never go along with it – Petunia hated magic and her husband was no better. They treated Lily like crap because of that."
"Maybe if someone explained the risk to them, they'd consider it," Madam Bones suggested. "They may hate magic but I'm sure they love their lives more."
"Yes, faced with the danger they may be more receptive," Kingsley agreed before clearing his throat. "They might be even more receptive if someone they already knew went there to explain the situation." He looked at Mia and waited for her to say something.
"You want me to be that person," she said flatly. "
"Lily was your best friend – you raised their nephew," the auror said. "It makes sense."
"I could do it too," Elizabeth offered. "I've met Petunia before."
Mia was silent for a few moments. She hadn't seen Petunia more than three or four times in her life, when she'd visit Lily in her parents' home during her school years, and through those few times Petunia had either ignored Lily or treated her horribly. According to her late best friend, her husband, Vernon Dursley, was just as unpleasant. They hadn't even been there for her wedding. And then, there was them refusing to take Harry in. That memory was bittersweet. Sweet – maybe selfishly so – because if they hadn't refused him, she would have never been given Harry to raise. Bitter they had been selfish enough to refuse an innocent little boy who'd just lost his parents and had nearly been killed himself.
Mia couldn't say she hated Petunia Evans – she didn't know her well enough for that. But she certainly resented her for treating her family the way she had.
Still, Kingsley had a point – Petunia and her family being safely hidden would give them one less thing for them to worry about. She turned to her husband, who shrugged, silently letting her know he'd go along with whatever she decided.
"It's okay, Elizabeth," she told her friend. "I'll do it. For Harry."
Kingsley nodded. "I'll dig up their address and send it to you when I have it."
Mia nodded silently in return as she felt her husband's hand reaching for her own.
Mad-Eye cleared his throat. "Now, ahead…"
The discussion didn't continue for much longer, from then on, with Kingsley and Mad-Eye leading most of the discussion. It wasn't more than ten minutes that the people started to leave the table, standing in groups discussing privately the decisions taken during the meeting.
Sirius and Mia remained sat side-by-side, silently for a few moments before he spoke. "You sure you can want to go talk to them? Harry's relatives?"
Mia nodded. "I'm sure."
"You did a good thing, love," he told her. "Not sure I would have done it myself. You do know I'll be right there with you."
She gave him a thankful smile. "I knew you would." Sighing, she rested her head on his shoulder. "But now that I think of it, I think it's time we have a little talk with the Dursleys. It's been delayed for almost sixteen years already, after all."
A/N: Well, I hope you liked the extra big chapter it was nice to write, though there were a few... casualties while it was under development (I have officially bought the crappiest laptop in the world!). Feedback is welcome! Review!