Harry was munching on a hearty breakfast of what was probably the best mixed fruit and cereal he had ever had, contemplating Ginny's reply to Ron's letter. Pig sat on the table near him feeding out of a small plate loaded with bird seed.
The letter looked like it had been delivered rolled up inside a copy of the Quibbler ('Man bites werewolf' claimed the bold headlines, complete with accompanying picture of a slightly feral looking and ferociously grinning wizard, 'and cures him!'), possibly to hide its existence.
"More cereal, Master Harry?" Winky asked.
"No thank you, Winky," Harry answered.
The elf had appeared as soon as Harry had woken that morning, claiming she was sufficiently healed to start her duties, and although Harry had been startled at first, he was quick to appreciate her service.
Hermione was going to be in for a shock, but Harry hoped she would accept it without causing another scene. As if responding to his thoughts, the bushy haired witch entered the kitchen.
"Good morning, Mistress" greeted Winky. "What be Mistress wanting for breakfast?"
Hermione stopped dead in her tracks and looked at Winky, then Harry.
"The cereal is really good," offered Harry, hoping to forestall an argument. "Best I have ever had."
Winky seemed to swell with pride, but was watching Hermione aprehensively.
Hermione turned her gaze from Harry to look back at the elf.
"I would love to try the cereal thank you, Winky," she said, smiling. "But please don't call me Mistress. Just Hermione will do."
Harry smiled and relaxed as Hermione took her seat and the elf hurried off to make her a bowl. He had spent the better part of an hour with Winky already, going over minute details such as her duties, where she was to sleep, and how she was to treat his friends, and the only point that she had refused to budge on was referring to Harry to as Master. He relented, not wanting to cause her stress while she might not be completely recovered, but he had convinced her to be tolerant of Hermione's expected attitude in return.
"I see you have read Ginny's reply," Hermione said looking at the letter. "It came in quite early this morning. What do you think?"
"It is a bit strange," he said. "What's with the directions?"
The letter had answered Ron's subtly worded enquiries about if Ginny had seen anybody from the D.A., with a rather strange series of stories about where Ginny had spent her days shopping. Each story had included some rather precise directions and descriptions of streets and shops, and most of them were in Muggle London.
"I think she wants us to follow them, but I don't know where she is leading us."
"I agree," said Hermione, after taking a huge bowl of cereal from Winky and thanking the elf. "It looks like Ginny has been doing a bit more than just sitting around pinning for her lost love."
Harry didn't know if he should take objection to that statement, but was thankfully interrupted by Ron who blundered into the room with his eyes half closed.
"Cereal?" he said, seeing what they were eating. "What, are we on a diet now or something?"
Over the meal they discussed their plans. It was agreed they would follow the instructions and see where it led them, but they would wear their disguises and make sure to have stocked up on some of the twin's more useful products.
"Not that Muggle clothes have that many places to put things," said Ron, "especially not the women's clothes in summer!"
Harry had rarely seen either Ron or Hermione in Muggle attire before and combined with their disguises, he suddenly realised just how different the three of them must look.
"Hope she doesn't Bat-bogey us before recognising me," said Ron.
Harry was already nervous about seeing her again, so Ron's statement did nothing to alleviate his tension.
For the next hour and a half after leaving Grimmauld Place, they followed the somewhat cryptic directions through Muggle London. Ron was having a great time watching all the Muggles around him and barely paid attention, while Harry kept a nervous eye out for any signs of followers. Hermione, being the one most familiar with London and all things Muggle, led them through the maze until they finally arrived at a small warehouse in a quiet industrial area.
Entering the building through an unlocked side door, all they found was an empty room with a single, plain, round plastic table surrounded by three chairs, sitting in a far corner.
"What the hell is going on?" asked Ron. "Is this some kind of a joke? Wait till I get back to the Burrow, I'll give her a walloping for wasting our time like this."
"I think we need to all sit down," said Hermione. "Her last line before she starts talking about a dress shop in Diagon alley is about how she was glad to have been able to sit down for a break, so I think she means we need to sit down in the chairs."
Ron grunted and plonked himself down, glad to be off his feet for a while. Hermione took a chair next to him, but Harry hesitated.
"Come on Harry," said Ron leaning back and putting his feet onto the table. "Take a load off."
Harry took out his wand and cast a detection spell Tonks had taught him on his chair; it glowed green briefly indicating that it was 'clean', or not under the influence of magic in any way.
"Constant vigilance eh?" Ron laughed, but Hermione looked thoughtful.
"I should have thought of that," she said. "We really can't be too careful."
Ron grunted and Harry lowered himself into the seat.
"What, did you expect Ginny to suddenly be able to create Portkeys or something? She is just playing games with us for not taking her along. Just wait, I am going to get her back good," said Ron.
Harry leaned forward to tell Ron he thought there must be more to it, but as soon as his elbows touched the table, a horribly familiar pulling sensation grabbed him behind the navel.
"POOOORRRRTKEEEEYYYYY!" he screamed, unnecessarily, as the trio spun out of control. He could see Ron and Hermione screaming as they clung to the cheap table and chairs.
"CRRRRUUUUUUDDDDDD!!!!" yeled Ron as he tried to take his feet off the table and grab it with his hands instead, but the magic of the Portkey held his feet as securely as manacles.
"WWWWWAAAAANNNNNDDD!!!" cried Hermione at Harry, making him realise he still had his wand in his hand.
He understood. When they landed there would be a few seconds that they would be helpless. Since Harry had his wand out already, he had to take instant action if it turned out to be a trap.
Just as he was about to reply, there came a jarring thump and he went flying backwards out of his chair as it crashed to the ground and smashed into pieces.
Fortunately, the tumble flung him backwards into a somersault that he continued over and up onto his feet again without actually meaning to. He found himself standing, wand out in front defensively, before he even realised he had stopped moving.
"Wow, Harry," said Neville Longbottom, raising his hands in the air in mock surrender. "That was really impressive."
"I'll say," agreed Cho Chang, looking admiringly at Harry.
"You think that's good?" added Fred Weasley, as he helped Hermione to her feet, "you should see how he comes out of the Floo!"
"Welcome to the head quarters of Harry's Heroes," said a voice behind Harry.
He spun around to face the owner of the voice and suddenly found his arms full of a petite redhead.
"About time you got here," said Ginny Weasley, as she grabbed his unprotesting head and pulled it down into a fierce kiss.
Distantly, Harry thought he heard cheering.
-
"Harry's Heroes," explained Ginny, as she took them on the 'Grand Tour' as Fred called it, "was the name we decided to call ourselves in the Quibbler."
Harry groaned and shook his head. So far Ginny had shown them an extensive maze of rooms and halls that had to be navigated in order to enter the main building, an impressive training room about three times the size of the room they had used for Dumbledore's Army, shooting ranges that, much to Hermione's chagrin, had human-like targets that not only fought back but ducked behind cover and performed amazing feats of acrobatic dexterity, and two other levels of underground offices, libraries and even potions laboratories. The facilities were amazing, but all of his and Ron's questions about their origins were pushed aside with vague promises of answers at the end of the tour.
"Most of us are employed by the Quibbler as roving reporters and columnists, under pseudonyms of course, so when some of our activities started to get noticed, we figured we should report on ourselves and make up all sorts of stories in order to keep better hidden."
It sounded illogical to Harry, but he was still a bit shell shocked by everything. Ginny linking her arm in his for the whole walk didn't help him to clear his mind either.
"What activities?" Hermione asked.
Aside from a few questions about various spells and magic she had seen, Hermione had been curiously quite, but the answer to her question now interested Harry greatly.
"Oh ,this and that," answered Cho vaugely, following behind them with Neville and Fred. "Mainly we kept getting blamed for rescuing people from places that were getting attacked by Death Eaters."
"Were you?" asked Harry.
Cho shrugged. "Sometimes," she admitted, "but usually it was one of our members saving themselves and their own family, but not wanting the newspapers to report what they had done."
"That's nuts," said Ron, who, like Harry, had clearly been overwhelmed by what they were being shown. "Why wouldn't you want to tell everyone if you had saved your family?"
"Sometimes the methods they used were questionable, or even illegal," Cho explained.
"Portkeys?" Hermione asked.
Cho nodded. "Usually. Before the Ministry started handing them out, we were producing dozens without authority, now that's slowed down a bit."
Hermione looked like she was about to say something but Ginny cut her off.
"Here we are," she said, stopping at a door that looked exactly the same as several others they had passed in the hall way, "the main store room and the end of the tour."
She opened the door and led them into a warehouse sized room crammed full of thousands of items ranging from furniture to horse drawn carriages.
At first Harry felt as if he had once again walked into the Room of Requirement where generations of Hogwarts residents had hidden things. There was even a stuffed troll similar to the one he had seen while hiding the Prince's potions book.
Racks of weapons, rows of statues, piles of jewellery and hundreds upon hundreds of other things lined the isles and shelves of the room. Overhead flocks of lanterns floated in an imitation of the Hogwarts main hall candles.
"Cor," said Ron, looking at the warehouse. "Were did you get all of this?"
"Well we didn't exactly buy it, little brother," answered Fred. "You could say it was donated."
"You could say that," Neville giggled, "or you could say we nicked it from filthy Death Eater houses."
"WHAT?" all three of the trio asked at the same time.
Ginny sighed and motioned for them to take a seat at a gold trimmed dining table that had ornate, wing backed chairs so large that Harry had to use two hands to move it.
"We started out just wanting to get together to train, like the original D.A.," Ginny explained. "With Hogwarts probably not opening up again, and the war picking up and all, we figured it wasn't a bad idea to get together every now and then to learn."
"After Harry telling us about the way the Ministry detects underage magic, we figured we could find a place to practice without getting caught, so we looked around for a place and made a few enquiries. Eventually we were offered this warehouse."
"Who offered it to you?" asked Harry.
"Daddy," said a voice from one of the isles. Luna Lovegood emerged carrying a turquoise blue box in her arms. "He built it to keep the records and things he didn't want the Ministry to be able to find if they raided the offices, but he had hidden it so well that he could never find it again. Hello Ronald, Harry, Hermione. I am afraid to that it appears you have been attacked by a wild flock of Hrare Chiblas and your hair colouring has been eaten, Hermione, but don't worry, you look nice as a blonde and it will grow back eventually."
Hermione opened her mouth to respond, but Fred cut her off.
"I agree," he said cheekily, "Very nice. Are you sure you have teamed up with the right Weasley brother there, Hermione? Nice looking lady like you deserves better than the youngest and hungriest of us normally red headed men."
"Oi!" said Ron, his face going red. "Quit it!"
"How do you know about that?" asked Hermione, unexpectedly looking thoughtful rather than outraged.
"Perhaps we had better start at the beginning," Cho said, looking to Ginny.
The story was a long and complicated one, and Harry had no doubt that he was only hearing a fraction of what had really gone on, but it was almost more than he could believe. While he had been hiding out and practically achieving nothing, Ginny and Neville had done more to combat Voldemort than he thought possible.
Even before getting off the train from Hogwarts, Ginny had cornered several former members of the D.A. about possibly getting together and training. Immediately on returning to the Burrow, she had written letters to people who had already left Hogwarts, like Cho, and explained her idea. Basically it had started as a way to practice and train Defence Against the Dark Arts, but quickly became much more as more and more former members heard the tale of their involvement in the battle that had taken Dumbledore's life. They even had several non-D.A. adults who wanted to help but were not willing to take a front-line stance. They had been invited to join after a complex verification process conducted by existing members.
With a wide spread network of contacts willing to come together to do something in the war, they started keeping an eye on known Death Eater sympathisers. Before long, the 'defence club' had become a fully fledged spy network providing valuable information to the Order of the Phoenix, mainly through Fred and George, and even giving the Ministry some much needed, though anonymous help.
The biggest breakthrough had come when they found out how to get into a wealthy Death Eater's home. While this particular Death Eaters was only a minor cog in Voldemort's organisation, the chance to directly strike back had been too big a temptation.
With the cooperation of some badly abused house-elves, several of the older former D.A. members, including Fred and George of course, had raided the house while it was empty of inhabitants, and stripped it bare.
That first raid provided the funding for them from then on. With money and other valuables, they had been able to expand their operations and raid several other sympathiser homes, once even catching a wanted criminal, although that had been by accident, and nearly ended as a disaster.
The Order had somehow confirmed the raids were having an effect on Voldemort's support base, without knowing who was responsible. The loss of resources and the fear the raids caused in his followers had already started to cause dissent. Thanks to the planting of some inspired false evidence, several families had suspected it was Voldemort himself ordering the thefts and turned from supporters to neutral or even openly hostile to the Dark Lord.
But by far their biggest break had come with the raid on Malfoy Manor.
"Malfoy?" shouted Harry surging to his feet, only to be shushed by the others.
While there was no doubt the Malfoy's had many other houses, and Draco had not been found in the main house, the group had managed to find several Gringotts vault keys. Taking a massive risk (in Harry's opinion), they had taken the keys and asked to be let into the vault, claiming to be on an errand for the absent Malfoy heir.
Although the Goblins had clearly not been fooled, they allowed access to any underage witch or wizard with the right key.
"Who would have thought the Goblins liked kids!" Neville chortled.
So much gold and other valuables had been taken that the Quibbler, which was already working as a front for the organisation, suddenly became a much larger publication almost overnight.
Mr Lovegood had not noticed the expansion, he was far to busy chasing reports of strange beast sightings all over the world, and had left several slightly corrupt employees to run things. Luna and Ginny, with the aid of the new D.A., were quickly able to convince them to leave and put trusted Hogwarts graduates in their place.
The Quibbler now employed over a hundred staff, although only a dozen ever appeared to be in the building at once, and had almost as big a distribution as the Daily Prophet, albeit on weekly basis only.
Farcical stories and extraordinary animal sightings were still present, but much of the magazine was taken up with accurate and in-depth investigative reporting, useful defence articles, and hard hitting editorials, all published under pseudonyms to protect the authors.
Maintaining their secrecy had been a big challenge, and one that was almost taken to extremes. Hermione nearly had a fit when they explained the random Veritaserum interrogations and subsequent Obliviating of that interrogation.
Ginny was unrepentant.
"It is the best way we have to keep us secret," she insisted. "Charms that make your face break out in the word 'sneak' are all well and good, but it didn't stop the D.A. from getting discovered last time did it? This time our charms do more than cause embarrassment, they will take your voice away and put you into a coma for a week, but even with that precaution, it is better to discover any potential traitors before they can cause problems."
Harry, while shocked at Ginny's ruthlessness, had to agree. Had the Order of the Phoenix shown as much foresight, Snape may have been discovered much earlier, and even Peter Pettigrew may never have been given the chance to cause the damage he had done.
"Have you caught any yet?" asked Ron, who, for the most part, had found the actions of his siblings to be very exciting.
"Six," Cho told him, shocking the trio. "We obliviated everything important and keep them on, working in the, er, more creative side of the business."
"You mean Luna's Loonies," said Luna proudly. "That's a special department I created to investigate Harry sightings."
"WHAT?" Harry asked, again unable to contain himself.
"Oh yes, many people refuse to believe that it is you appearing at the Ministry, so we are busy searching for you all over the world. Last report was that you had been seen wrestling a Bunyip in the Australian outback after riding a whirlwind across the Great Sandy Desert, but that was just silly since everybody knows Bunyips are just stories created to cover up the existence of-"
"Ok, Luna," Ginny interrupted gently. "We don't want to spoil the next edition by telling everyone about it now, do we?"
It seemed to Harry, that Luna was enjoying herself at his expense entirely too much.
Many dark objects had been found and destroyed by the raiders, but they avoided battles at all costs. If any mansion was too well guarded, the Order or the Ministry were given the information anonymously. While only a few of these cases had resulted in the capture of Death Eaters, the Manors where often left practically unguarded immediately after that, and made easy pickings for the raiders who returned to extract more than a little bit of revenge for the losses caused by Voldemort's forces.
A large portion of the confiscated fortunes went into a 'victims of war' fund to help those who had been directly affected. While money could not bring back lost loved ones, it had certainly eased the lives of families left with no home or income after brutal attacks. Most of the rebuilding of Diagon Alley had been paid for by the fund.
"Poetic justice that," said Fred, and Harry agreed.
By the time the trio had been given the whole story, or at least as much of it as they were going to get, Ron was eager to investigate the 'treasure room' as he had taken to calling it, Hermione wasn't sure if she should be impressed or disturbed, and Harry was angry.
Ginny and the others sat back, waiting for the trio to comment. It was a truly extraordinary story and a bit too much to take in quickly. Hermione finally broke the silence.
"I have a question," she said, looking intently at Ginny. "Where did you get the Time-Turner?"
The shocked look on Ginny's face told Harry Hermione had correctly figured out something he had completely missed.
Neville laughed and held out his hand to Cho, who, grudgingly, handed him a galleon. "Told you," he said as Fred clapped his appreciation of Hermione's intellect and deductive reasoning.
Ron was gob-smacked. "You have a Time-Turner?"
Ginny sighed, but Luna answered.
"It was Mummy's," she said. "I could never figure out how to use it properly, but Ginny helped me work it out."
"How did you know?" Cho asked Hermione. "We have been extremely careful with it. Only the four of us and George even know about it."
"You have done too much in too short a period," said Hermione. "That and a few other clues, things I read in the Prophet and the Quibbler overlapping with news Remus gave us. Everything seemed to happen too quickly, like Diagon Alley getting attacked and then was getting repaired the next day. How long has it really been for you guys?"
"About five months in total," the petite red head admitted. "Probably about the same for the others. We don't seem to age properly when we use it, and we don't have to eat, or sleep, but you feel funny, like you're not quite all there, or are a bit insubstantial."
"Like you're a ghost," whispered Neville with a shudder. "At least until you get passed the point that you left that is. It's horrible."
Harry looked closely at his former girlfriend. Five months? No wonder she had been able to handle him so easily, she had months to have planned what to do, where as he was still reeling over their break-up!
"Five months? That's extraordinary, but what do you mean you don't age properly?" Hermione asked, fascinated by the magic. "I definitely felt the extra weeks I lived through, and had to eat and sleep extra."
Ron had a glazed look in his eyes and he was mumbling quietly to himself. "A Time-Turner, wicked."
"How far back can it take you?" Harry asked, ideas popping into his mind so quickly he had trouble following even one through to a conclusion.
"Usually only a few hours," answered Luna, "but it is a bit flaky sometimes, and once sent me back a whole week when I was ten. I think Mummy broke it when she was experimenting with it."
The revelations in her statement caught the trio by surprise, forestalling Harry's disappointment at not been able to go back a significant amount.
"You have been using a time-turner since you were ten?" asked Hermione, her shock showing clearly.
"Oh, yes, although I never really knew how I was doing it until we went to the department of Mysteries and that horrible thing happened with the man getting the baby's head. When Neville told me about it, I figured it out, but still didn't know how to control it, it just seemed to happen randomly."
"So far she is the only one who can control it at all," said Fred. "The rest of us have had no luck, except Neville, who managed to send his underclothes two minutes into the past and several yards to the right."
Neville blushed. "You didn't have to tell her that," he said.
"Yeah I did," said Fred looking relieved. "Seriously, I did. It has to be one of the funniest things I have ever seen and I've not been able to share it with hardly anyone. It's been killing me."
Harry shook his head to get his focus back. The multiple shocks and overload of information were confusing him.
"Can I speak with you, alone?" he asked Ginny, much more calmly than he thought he was going to be able to do.
She nodded and took him to another small room that was setup as a meeting room, with a round table and several chairs.
"What do you think you are doing?" he snarled at her, as soon as the door was closed.
A flicker of confusion, then annoyance ran across Ginny's face at his words.
"I didn't break up with you just to so that you could run off and put yourself in danger by joining a gang of thieves using a dangerously unstable Time-Turner!" he explained.
Ginny looked stunned for a moment, then took a deep breath and proceeded to explain to Harry, with an excellent display of Mrs Weasley-like yelling, what she thought of that statement. Within minutes she managed to strip his anger away and reduce him to feeling like a naughty child. She spared no words, or volume, making sure he understood exactly what she thought of his plan for her safety, and then analysed in great detail his own dismal failure to own up to the idea that breaking up with her had more to do with his fear than her safety.
Finally, she verbally rubbed his face in the fact that, far from joining a gang of thieves, she had virtually created said gang and was working effectively to protect or help out others who were targeted for crimes much more mundane than dating the Boy-Who-Lived - crimes like have the audacity to having being born to Muggle parents, no less.
When she completed her tirade, which had clearly demonstrated just how much of her mother's daughter she was, it was with the most shocking of statements.
"I don't want to marry you if you think that's the kind of wife you want, Harry," she screamed. "If you want a slave, best you ask Dobby instead and put me out of my misery right now!"
Then she burst into tears and collapsed sobbing into one of the chairs, with her face buried in her arms on the table.
Harry was completely unprepared and inexperienced in handling a woman fully in the throws of an emotional outburst of such magnitude, and somehow found himself in the same position as generations of shell-shocked men before him did when thrust into the exact same situation; helplessly cradling her in his arms begging her to forgive him and determined to do anything to make up for his mistakes.
It was quite a while before they emerged from the room, but as Harry, still in shock at what had just transpired, exited the door, something Ginny said came back to him.
"How do you know Dobby?" he asked.
Ginny was spared answering by Ron running down the corridor towards them carrying something large and apparently heavy in his arms.
"Harry, Harry!" he yelled excitedly. "I think I found one. Look!"
In his arms was a stone basin that Harry took a moment to recognise.
It was a Pensieve.