Chapter Title: Dream Keeper

Author: Sam

Story: Harry Potter and Dumbledore's Army: 04 / ?

Chapter Setting: Wednesday, August 11, 1995: 12 Grimmuld Place, London

Chapter Summary: Information about a certain blue crystal.

Feedback: Please? I love comments.

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Over the next several days, Molly Weasley kept them all too busy cleaning to do much else. While Order members flitted in and out, some even staying for meals, no more information came Harry's way. And Molly carefully kept Stephen James by her side, preventing Harry from cornering him about anything Dumbledore might have passed on since recalling him.

On the third day, Harry came out of an upstairs bathroom when he caught the unmistakable baritone drawl of Severus Snape in the front hall. Scuttling back into the shadows, in case his least favorite professor chanced to look up, Harry tried to listen to whatever report the former Death Eater might be making.

"Harry, come along. Tonks is here to help with that ghoul," Molly called softly down the hall followed by the sound of a door shutting far below.

With a surge of disappointment, Harry shuffled his feet as he joined the group. As he stopped next to Ron, Harry noticed Stephen slip something of a midnight color into the pocket of his jeans. It left an odd roundish bulge against the man's thigh, but no one else seemed to wonder about it. Something familiar tickled Harry's mind and he knew he'd seen that ball somewhere before.

Stepping up next to Hermione, Harry waited until the three adults were busy with the ghoul before whispering, "'Mione? I need to know something."

She turned to him and nodded, all business. "What Harry?" Hermione loved to share her volumes of information.

Harry asked "have you ever seen a dark blue ball before? I mean one made of crystal and about the size of my fist?" He glanced over at the adults to make sure they were still busy.

Tonks repeatedly tried to bind the ghoul with magical ropes, accidentally shooting one straight at Stephen and briefly tangling his legs. Molly stepped continuously around to stay between the ghoul and the watching teens nearby, though Fred and George kept trying to jump into the fray to her annoyance. Once free of the ropes, Stephen snuck behind the ghoul, his grey jeans and dark purple Black Sabbath shirt blending well in the gloom of the hallway which seemed to repel any attempt at light brighter than a feeble lumos spell.

"Yes," Hermoine's soft answer drew Harry's attention back to his question. "If it's what I think it is, it's really expensive and hard to make. I saw one at Rutger's Jewels and Magical Crystals Emporium."

"But what is it?" Harry asked "what's it do?" He wondered how a muggle science professor could afford something Hermione termed 'really expensive.'

Brushing a hand through her bushy tangle of hair, Hermione took a deep breath then let it out slowly. "Well, it's called a Dream Keeper." She turned her brown eyes on Harry. "It's kind of like a portable pensive, but it only holds a few memories. It's the crystal that makes it cost so much. They're hard to find and only goblins know how to mine them, so they have to be traded for don't they? In the goblin wars they were used to carry maps and other really important information because one has to have the proper combination of pass spells to unlock the secrets inside."

"Used in war for battle plans then?" Ron asked from right behind Harry, causing him to jump. "Useful that. Why, Harry, where'd you see one?"

Narrowing his eyes, Harry shrugged and thrust his hands in his pockets. "Stephen has one . . . and," a memory surfaced of a scarred man in a dark kitchen, "and Mr. Dunraven has one, too."

Hermione nodded. "Probably for the Order then. It might even be the same Dream Keeper crystal. They are terribly rare since the Great Sacking of the Goblin Horde in '78."

"What?" Ron's tone shifted to highly interested. "What Goblin Sacking in '76? Why'd I never hear of that?"

Exasperated, Hermione turned and looked over the lanky redhead. "Seventy eight," she enunciated. "Professor Binns mentioned it last term but never went into it. I looked it up in the school library. They do have an entire section on wizarding history, Ron."

Harry snickered, drawing Molly's attention from the neatly bound ghoul. Pushing sweaty tendrils of red hair from her flushed face, she called "what's that, dear?" She shot sideways as the ghoul tried to snap it's body to escape then turned back to glance over Harry, Ron, and Hermione.

As always, Hermione thought quickly and called back "we're discussing school lessons, Mrs. Weasley."

"Oh!" Ron's mother sounded surprised but didn't question Hermione's word. Rather she turned her full attention back to helping keep the ghoul under control as Tonks worked on fully incapacitating it.

Hermione turned back to the others. "We'll talk about this later Harry . . . Ron."

Harry and Ron nodded in agreement, though Ron looked worried as to just which part Hermione wanted to discuss: the crystal, the wars, or Ron's lack of historical knowledge.

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Setting: Thursday, August 12, 1995: 12 Grimmuld Place

As the group congratulated Harry on successfully getting acquitted at his trial Sirius moved off to a corner of the large kitchen. The former prisoner had a forced cheer about him but everyone seemed aware of his darker mood.

Nearby Jonathan Dunraven stood talking quietly with Stephen and Remus, drawing a curious frown from Harry, who still wondered about that crystal he'd seen them with. What kind of information did the Order have on that ball? Did it concern the weapon Sirius accidentally mentioned that first night?

Pushing the thoughts away, Harry resumed celebrating his imminent return to Hogwarts and the life he loved. That afternoon dark, depressing Order business was hard to think about.

Arthur Weasley drew Sirius out of his corner and over to the other Order members saying "listen, Sirius, Lucius Malfoy was at the Ministry . . ."

Harry frowned, his happiness fading at the reminder of the pale-haired Voldemort supporter. He concentrated hard on listening to the conversation but had difficulty as Ginny, Fred, and George were chanting noisily about Harry's victory. Half of what was said got blocked by the sing song words, and Harry felt a surge of frustration as Arthur claimed he needed to get back to work on a vomiting toilet. Jonathan offered to accompany him to the door.

As the pair left, Harry frowned and looked over Sirius and Remus. Without warning, Sirius threw a glare at Stephen talking in another corner with Hermione. The older man turned and stormed from the room without a word, Harry watching after him in puzzlement. Now what had Stephen done?

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Continued in Chapter Five: The Order of the Phoenix