Harry lay quietly in bed, periodically checking his watch. Nearly half an hour had passed since he and Ron had run for the safety of their room. Twenty-six minutes had passed since Harry had noticed a slip of paper, his name written upon it in purple lettering, on his bedside table.
"Why d'you suppose Darcy called a meeting here tonight?" Ron whispered.
Harry shrugged, then realized the futility of that action and rolled his eyes at himself. "I have no idea. How much trouble do you suppose she's in?"
"Eurgh, quite a bit, no doubt. I wouldn't mind asking her when she gets here; is it nearly ten o'clock?"
"Already is, according to my watch. Do you think your mum will catch us?" Harry asked apprehensively.
"Well, now I do," replied Ron, sounding a bit scared.
Harry was about to respond when he heard the doorknob turning. In case it was Mrs. Weasley checking up on them, he shut his eyes and tried to breathe slowly and evenly. A few seconds later, the door shut again, and Harry sighed in relief
"That was pretty good fake sleeping," a mischievous voice whispered into his ear soon afterward.
Harry sat up quickly, startled that Darcy had crept so close without making a sound.
"Sorry," Darcy offered, sounding anything but sorry. "My shoes are charmed to absorb all sound in their immediate area, so I walk entirely noise-free, unless I bump into something or fall."
"That's brilliant," Ron said, impressed. "Hey Harry, how much easier would shoes like that make sneaking about in the ol' Invisibility Cloak?"
Harry was about to reply when two popping sounds signaled the arrival of Fred and George. And moments later, Hermione and Ginny crept into the room.
"Can somebody get a light on?" Darcy asked.
"Won't we get caught?" Hermione whispered as Harry lit a candle on his bedside table. "What is this all about?"
Darcy simply shook her head and reached into the rucksack she was toting, pulling out a ball. It was about the size of a bludger, but was silver and looked like it was made of rubber. She tossed it into the air once, then chucked it at the door.
Upon a soundless impact, the ball flattened and expanded, covering both the door and the frame. "One adult-proof room, check," Darcy said, no longer lowering her voice.
"What is that?" Harry asked.
"It's an Orb of Secrecy. With that in place, no sound or light can leave the confines of this room. Plus, anyone who intends to come in will feel a wholly inexplicable desire to pass on by. One hundred and one uses, I tell you," Darcy stated proudly.
"Sounds quite useful," Fred said, impressed. "Where do you get those?"
Darcy smiled. "I started working on them last summer, with Leah's help. We only perfected the design last month, but we've already patented it and sold about twenty of them. But, as I don't think Mom would approve of the direction I'm going with the product line, I've yet to tell her."
"Oh, you were dead right, Fred," George stated, with no small amount of awe. "Favorite cousin, indeed."
"The possibilities are endless," Fred mused, delight dancing in his eyes. "Just…endless."
"Darcy," Hermione ventured. "What is going on?"
But Ron spoke up before Darcy could reply. "Before we get into that, how much trouble are you in? And where's Leah?"
"Huh? Oh, Leah was tired; I think she's asleep already. And I'm not really sure how much trouble I'm in. I'm supposed to clean all the lavatories the 'muggle way', but Aunt Molly said it like it's a huge tragedy or something. I don't really get it. Anyway, I apologized and promised not to be disrespectful again, but also explained that my family has a very strict 'no raised voices' rule due to the fact that communication stops once shouting starts."
Ron looked horrified. "Yuck! You have to clean all of them? This is a pretty big house, there are an awful lot of lavatories."
Darcy brushed aside Ron's concerns with a wave of her hand. "Oh please, just give me some Clorox or whatever, a scouring pad, and a toilet brush. It won't take me that long. Anyway, that's not what I called this meeting for. We should get down to business."
Harry barely suppressed a gasp when Darcy sat on his bed…right next to him, but was unable to stop the blush from spreading across his face. Fred grinned and winked, but Darcy didn't notice, as she had leaned down to rummage through her rucksack.
She sat back up with a spiral notebook and heaved a sigh. "Okay, you all know that Rachel and I talked earlier tonight. What you don't know is that I wasn't actually in any trouble. She gave me this notebook and very specific instructions. There are some things she believes you all have a right to know."
Ron gasped, "You don't mean…?"
"I do mean," Darcy replied. "She doesn't think it's fair for you guys to have to keep it to yourselves."
To Harry and Hermione, she added, "Rachel said that she knew you two would find out eventually, but that you deserve to be trusted with the truth up front."
"I knew it, Ronald!" Hermione exclaimed. "You have been keeping secrets from me!"
"Now hold on a second, Hermione," Darcy ordered. "This really is an important secret, the kind you absolutely can not repeat to anyone who isn't already in the know. I think you'll understand why Ron didn't share."
"So what are we here for?" George asked.
"Yeah, we're already 'in the know', as it were," Fred added.
"Oh, don't worry, boys, there will be new information. Anyway, the purpose of the meeting this afternoon - that was before you got here, Harry - was apparently to decide whether or not the Order should be told about this, or if the truth should remain restricted to those who know already. Rachel said they decided to tell the Order, but that Professor D…I mean Dumbledore," she elaborated when she received several blank stares, "told everyone not to, and I quote, 'breathe a word of this to Mr. Potter or Miss Granger.' So Rachel told me to tell you instead."
Hermione rolled her eyes and shook her head, "So, that concept you spoke of before, about following the letter but not the intent of the law, runs through your whole family then, does it?"
But Harry was thinking that he liked Darcy's family very much, and was feeling more disappointed with Dumbledore by the minute. But he was getting frustrated by the vagueness of the conversation. "So, will you be telling us any time soon?"
"What, you mean you're already bored with the bit where I hint and generalize and basically not tell you a damn thing?" Darcy teased. "So impatient." She winked at him and ruffled a hand through his hair.
At her touch, Harry's scalp felt strangely tingly, and he felt himself blushing once more.
Darcy just grinned cheekily, opened up the notebook, sat back against the headboard, and then stared intently at everyone in turn. "You all have to understand just one more thing before I really get started. I am going to tell you way more than the Order was told tonight. Rachel is putting an awful lot of faith in your abilities to keep secrets. You can discuss this stuff amongst yourselves; you can talk to me or Leah, to Rachel, Pascale, Aton or John, but you can't talk to anyone else about this under any circumstances under pain of, well, getting your asses thoroughly kicked, then Obliviated. Are we clear?"
After everyone responded in the affirmative, Darcy drew a deep breath and began to tell quite a fantastic, often unbelievable, story…
Harry lay in bed, exhausted, but unable to sleep. After dinner, he mused, he'd thought his head was full. It may have been only three or so hours earlier, but it seemed almost a lifetime away. He'd not felt so completely overwhelmed since the day Hagrid told him that he was a wizard. After all, that day he'd learned about a secret society existing just outside of common man's reality, but even those events hadn't really tipped his world view on its ear. Rather, on the whole, the world stayed the same; the planet kept spinning, the sun rose and set. For a moment, he lost himself in the memory of those early days of wonder, when it was amazing that magic was real. He smiled to himself, remembering his early days at Hogwarts, back when he'd been quite certain that nothing in the world could be more frightening than his Potions professor.
How long had it been, Harry wondered, since he'd been afraid of Snape. When he thought about it, he realized that he hadn't feared the man since the end of his first year at Hogwarts. He still hated Snape quite a bit, but compared with Voldemort or the dementors, Snape was about as scary as a fluffy little kitten.
Harry's mind drifted back to Darcy's tale – on the upside, Voldemort seemed considerably less terrifying than he had mere hours earlier. The downside, of course, was that a slew of new and nightmarish creatures, from malevolent spirits to mutated, toxic-waste spewing creatures that once were human, had taken his place. It seemed to him that, over the course of a few short hours, the entire fabric of reality had rippled.
'In the beginning,' Darcy had said, 'There was the Triat, the most powerful forces in all of Gaia. Gaia, for simplicity's sake, is the spirit of this world, you know, uh, all-encompassing Earth-mother sorta deal Anyway, the Triat is comprised of the Wyld, the kaleidoscopic, chaotic force of creation, the Weaver, the force of perfect order, and the Wyrm, the balancer. The Wyld would randomly create raw, shapeless creation, the Weaver would then weave it into a pattern, and if either force became dominant, the Wyrm would consume the excess, restoring balance. But then something happened. No one really knows what went wrong, but the Weaver sought to bind all of creation in her pattern web. When the Wyrm attempted to restore the balance, it was caught in the web and partially crystallized. The Wyrm went mad from the agonizing pain and, instead of balance, became the spirit of corruption; instead of consuming excess creation to maintain balance, became hell bent on destroying all of Gaia.'
She told them that, over the millennia, many theories abounded about what exactly the Weaver did that crossed the line, that doomed creation, but the general consensus was that the Weaver had created humans. It was not particularly heartening, but considering the state of the planet, sadly not so difficult to see the point.
She went on to describe how, afraid for all of creation, Gaia created the Garou, warriors of both spirit and flesh, to protect Her from the Wyrm. Imbued with the power of spirits, armed with tooth, claw, and a powerful, bestial Rage, and tempered with human thought and imagination, they represented the hope that perhaps all could one day come back into balance.
That was what Rachel and the others really were. Not human, really – John, in fact, had actually been born a wolf. Werewolves, no Garou, Harry reminded himself. They were so very different from Lupin, and yet there was a connection…
"You awake, Harry?" Ron mumbled.
Harry sighed loudly. "Yeah. Can't sleep either?"
"You think it's really true?" Ron blurted. "That dark wizards were actually responsible for creating werewolves? D'you think Professor Lupin knows that?"
Harry was silent for a moment; he'd been wondering the same thing himself. "I don't know, but I believe it could have happened that way. From what Darcy said, the Garou have a lot of power. And that's really what dark wizards are out to get, right? Probably didn't expect it to backfire on them the way it did, though. What I wonder is if Professor Lupin's been told that he could be cured if he was taken to that one realm…Air-something, wasn't it?"
"Erebus," Ron replied. "Didn't sound pleasant, though. You get dumped into a magic river where you endure blinding torment, that's actual torture, that is, while at the same time you confront your weaknesses and fears in a waking nightmare, until your spirit's cleansed and the river finally spits you out… Oh, and the bit where there's really no way of telling how long a person could be stuck there, that wasn't particularly reassuring either. And oh-ho, best of all, since he's not Garou, the guardians of the realm might just kill him rather than allow him entry. I think I'd rather just be a werewolf, thank you very much."
"A normal life, though," Harry slurred, finally drifting off toward sleep, "might be worth any price."