"I'm afraid to ask in fear of being beat down and hated for the love I wish to share with you".
-Stephanie White
Passion Burns Deep Chapter Six
They all followed her out of the room and up the stairs of Grimmuald Place. Hermione was very pleased to see that Sirius' mother's picture had finally been removed from the wall. How they managed to get it off, she would never know. They reached the drawing room door and paused before it, Tonks with her hand on the door knob.
She looked at them all, pride written across her face. All she could say was, "Please don't get too excited".
With that, she turned the knob and pushed the door open, ushering them all through the doorway. Hermione followed Harry though the door and gasped when she saw the room in front of her.
As Harry and the others entered the room, everyone stood up cheering and clapping. The noise was deafening and Hermione was sure that most of them would be hoarse by the time they stopped their merriment.
Harry, who by now had learned to ignore all the attention, looked around at his friends. Ron's face was red, Hermione held her head high, and Neville looked like he thought it was a mistake that him of all people to be there. Luna on the other hand just looked around in apparent boredom, the crowd not affecting her at all.
Hermione noticed a smile creep across Harry's face as he watched Luna.
'She would be the perfect person to take along on a mission. She's smart and she can keep her cool in most situations.' Hermione thought.
There had to be over a hundred people, at least, in the room, all of them wearing black robes with the phoenix on the back. It was so crowed the floor below them all could barely be seen. Some of the older ones were sitting comfortably in chairs, while the younger, livelier ones, stood.
Hermione had never met half of them, but many of them she recognized right off; if not from meeting them before, she had heard them mentioned by other Order members.
"Ah, it's about time you all decided to join us!" McGonagall stated briskly as usual.
"Sorry about that Minerva," Mr. Weasley muttered.
Turning to address the crowd of people, McGonagall got the meeting under way. "Now that everyone is here, we can now begin".
There was a murmur from the assembly, and she continued, "Before we get to the main reason I called for this meeting, we have something else to attend to. There are six very brave people here today; they call themselves the D.A., in honor of their late Headmaster. I'm sure that all of you have heard of them and their feats at the Ministry a year ago, as well as the help they provided the Order with in late June".
More cheers came from the crowd, with an odd "Here, here" or "Very brave, indeed" every now and then.
"Yes," McGonagall said as the noise died down, "for this reason and many others, I have decided that, even though they have not completed all their years of training at Hogwarts, they will be allowed to join the Order along with all of you if that's what they choose. They have proved many times over that they are more skilled than many of us, and I believe they will, in the end, be the ones that help in the ultimate defeat of the Dark Lord once and for all".
Silence passed over the congregation as her words settled into everyone's minds. Hermione looked around at Harry and the others. They all seemed shocked; even Luna, who had arrived at Headquarters with Neville a little while ago, seemed to be paying attention to what McGonagall was saying. Hermione, who already knew, wasn't shocked at all.
McGonagall led them to the center of the room, where they stood there waiting for her to speak again.
"Occasionally, when we have new members joining the Order, we ask them to make an Unbreakable Vow. In this vow, they state their loyalty to the Order and their will to do anything possible to help defeat Voldemort. They pledge that they never, to their best abilities, do anything that may harm the Order in any way and follow any orders given to them by the leader".
'Well,' Hermione thought, 'it should be obvious that all of us are loyal to the Order. Will we have to take the Vow as well?'
As if she knew what she was thinking, McGonagall continued, "This Vow is only taken by the members that are considered hazardous. In other words, the members that are not fully trusted".
"Does that mean we have to take the Vow," Hermione nervously voiced her thoughts.
"Well considering the incident at the Ministry, no you do not have to take it. Your actions have proved that you all are loyal to the Order and would risk your lives to see the defeat of Voldemort".
It didn't matter to Hermione whether she made the Vow or not. She knew that either way she would never betray the Order like Snape had.
"All you have to do is sign this book".
McGonagall waved her wand and a book appeared in her hand. The cover was blood red with gold writing and the binding had neon green lettering.
Hermione tried to read the name of the book, but it was in an ancient language that she didn't recognize.
"The purpose of signing the book is so that we can keep track of you. Think of it like Molly's clock and the parchment that Miss Granger here had everyone to sign at the first meeting of the D.A."
Hermione stared at McGonagall in wonderment. She was surprised that someone so experienced in magic would use the concept of one of her ideas.
"Once you sign your name in the book, we can tell if you're in danger or need help. We can't tell your exact position sadly, but we can at least keep track of you. Plus, keep in mind that once you sign this book, it is up to you to remain loyal to the Order. I will not speak of the dire consequences of betrayal. After signing, you are bound to the Order".
Hermione didn't like the idea of being kept track of all the time. 'But,' she thought to herself, 'it's probably just to see if we're in danger. There's no way they could know where we are at during all times'. She would later find out that as usual, she was completely right.
"It's just to ensure that we don't have another Snape incident. We definitely do not want that to happen again".
A grim smile crept across Hermione's face. 'Well that won't matter once Harry gets a hold of him'.
"Now each of you sign the book and that's all there is to it," McGonagall concluded happily.
She held out a quill for Hermione to sign first. She took it and signed the book, not really paying attention to what she was doing. She had noticed that Fred and George's names were above hers. It surprised her that they would agree to sign the book; they always had to make things difficult.
Hermione stepped away from the book and handed Ron the quill. After everyone had signed, McGonagall waved her wand and the book disappeared.
"Remus, the robes please".
Lupin stepped forward and handed every one a pair of robes.
"You will wear these only to meetings, and when you are otherwise instructed to. Do not wear them anywhere else because it becomes obvious that you're part of the Order, and with Death Eaters swarming around everywhere, they could easily kill you," Remus told them. "You're our secret weapons, the Death Eaters don't know that you are now part of the Order".
"Now that we have that taken care of, we can move on to something that could determine the fate of the Wizarding World. But first I'm going to ask that all of you; especially you, Harry; to keep your anger in check and don't do anything rash," McGonagall's face was serious.
Harry stared stupidly at her. "I believe I can control my own anger, Professor," Harry finally said.
"Well, just in case, you won't mind if Remus stands near you. I'm sure you'll understand why in a few minutes".