A/N: It had been two weeks since I updated and I didn't get a single review… You know, it is not the best way to encourage someone who is new to writing. And after such nice first reviews I was really disappointed!

I'm not asking for dozens of reviews, I just want to know whether somebody is actually interested in reading this story. Because, as I said in previous chapter (the one that nobody reviewed), as long as there is at least one person interested in my story, I'll continue. If not – I see no point in loosing my time, trying to put on paper something that already exists in my head.

By the way, still no beta?

Now on with the story:

Chapter 3 :

Headmistress McGonagall was sitting behind her desk in her new office, starring at one point somewhere above the door and trying to understand whether she made today the biggest mistake of her life or it was the strategic move that Albus would have been proud of. The last order members left few minutes ago and now she was desperately trying to replay in her mind the events of the last few hours.

Then suddenly she stood up and was about to retrieve her pensive, when a knock at the door startled her. Wondering who it might be, she said "Enter!" and she saw Remus walking into her office.

- "I apologise, Minerva, for such late visit. I hope I'm not disturbing you?" – he said slightly worried.

- "Of course not! And after all, my visit yesterday was much later than that. I trust you accompanied Miss Granger to her rooms?" and after she saw Remus nod in confirmation she continued – "How did she take it?"

- "I'm afraid not well", - and the werewolf shoot an apologetic look at the Headmistress as if he had something to apologise for – "I tried to talk to her on our way back, but she remained silent. Just said that she has a lot of information to process and knowing Hermione the lack of the flow of unstoppable questions means nothing good."

For a few minutes the two worried adults remained silent, and suddenly Minerva remembered what she was about to do before Remus came in.

- "Remus, I was about to review the order meeting, would you like to join me?" – said Minerva and looked at the pensive.

- "If you do not mind me being in your thoughts, than I'll gladly join you. I admit that I have a nagging feeling that I missed something important…"

§§§

Remus and Minerva found themselves in the large beautifully decorated room, very alike the other rooms at Hogwarts except for one thing: there were no paintings at the walls. And if some wizard will ever try to test the wards, he will never manage to identify them all. And if by some miracle, he does, it will be impossible for him to bring them down. Not many people new about its existence and even less knew where it is located. Only few selected were granted the access. This room was neither mentioned in Hogwarts: A History, nor it could be found by accident. The Hogwarts' Heart, and it certainly was exactly that, was the most guarded room, linked to the Headmaster office. Initially, it was only the staff room, where the four founders could discuss all kind of things far from prying ears of students. With time, it became the sanctuary, the secret place revealed only to Headmasters where they held the most important meetings. Each headmaster, in order to be accepted by the castle, had to add a new layer of protective charms. So, as a result of more than a thousand years of existence, this room became not only implotable, impossible to eavesdrop, but it also held the members to the secrecy, so everything that passed in this room, stayed in this room. No charms, no potions were yet invented to force people to reveal secrets of this room, because one cannot reveal something that doesn't belong to you. It belongs to Hogwarts, to its heart.

So it is no wonder that this room was chosen for initiation ceremony of all order members, making it impossible to reveal the names even under verisaterum.

McGonagall looked around: all the inner circle was already here. She could see herself presiding the table, Remus was sitting at her left, and Moody was at her right. Kingsley Shacklebolt, Arthur Weasley, Hestia Jones and Emmeline Vance were already sitted. Two places were unoccupied : one was empty because they did not yet find the ninth member to replace the vacancy created after the death of Albus Dumbledor. The other belong to Severus Snape. Minerva looked sadly at this empty spot. This place is yours, Severus. I hope you'll be back to claim it. But she didn't have to pursue her thoughts as her memory self stood up and was about to begin the meeting. Of course she knew the speech by heart. After all I spent the best part of the last twenty four hours trying to figure out what exactly I was going to say to the Order to convince them to admit Miss Granger. But nevertheless she decided to listen carefully, like Remus, who was already completely absorbed by what was happening around.

§§

"Ladies and Gentlemen,

Thank you for responding at such a short notice, but something unexpected came to my attention. I trust all of you know Miss Granger and there is no need to present her to all present here today. I'll not make a long speech, but I'll only say: Miss Granger came too close to figuring out what really happened and I dare say our plan and Severus are at risk of exposure if the information goes out. So I, Minerva McGonagall, Head of the Order of Phoenix, submit the candidature of Hermione Granger for the approval of the Committee."

Here Remus stood up as it was his turn:

- "I, Remus Lupin, member of the Inner circle of Order of Phoenix, vouch of Hermione Granger, I swear on my honour her loyalty, the rightness of her beliefs and good conduct and I demand the Committee to second the proposition".

Now, according too the procedure, two members had to second the proposition in order to allow the discussion to begin.

There was the silence. Usually the candidatures were agreed on long before the ceremony itself and the procedure was only a formality. Today, the members received quite a shock they were not prepared to take and they have to make a decision right here and now. The choice they had was not an easy one: either they let in the Order somebody they do not agree on, or they refuse to do so and then there is a chance they will compromise the safety of the person who was doing the major part of the work in defeating Voldemort.

It was Emmeline Vance who broke the silence that lasted only a minute but seemed like an eternity to all present:

- "I second". And she was followed immediately by Hestia Jones

- "I second. But I do it only in order to allow the discussion to continue. I want to know what was so important that Miss Granger discovered that will allow her to get her place in the Order."

- "I'll let you judge by yourself, Emmeline". And with those words, Minerva brought out her wand and after few flicks the wall behind her became white and a bizarre object, that strangely reminded of muggle projector, appeared. Then she made another complicated wand movement and a thin silver thread appeared from her temple and she directed it to the said object, and as soon as the thread touched it, the image of potion classroom appeared on the wall. With last flick McGonagall extinguished the lights and everybody found themselves watching the scene.

§§

The first who spoke was Alastor Moody.

- "With all due respect, Minerva, I do not see anything compromising about this situation. The girl just actually proved that she indeed does possess a brain. She just came to the same conclusions we did after the events. I hope you didn't forget that we all believed Snape to be the traitor, before we came to our senses and began looking for explanations and proofs. We were able to find the evidences, she will not. No proofs, no crime. End of story. You just tell her to forget about everything, be a good girl, and go back to her routine, and let the adults deal with the situation".

- "I agree with Moody, said Arthur who remained silent trough the whole meeting, - "on the point that at the moment there is nothing to worry about. But my concern is whether Hermione will not start looking for the said proofs and whether she will find them? I know Hermione very well, she is like a daughter to me and of course I would like to spare her as long as I could from this war, but I think she is already in the middle of it just because she is Muggleborn and Harry Potter's friend. Whatt's more: I learned the hard way never underestimate her. I'll not be surprised that if she'll not be able to find proofs in the castle, she'll start looking outside."

- "You mean, you think she is foolish enough to run away looking for Severus?"

- "No, I'd leave this role for boys. But I'll not be surprised if she finds an alternative way to contact him… Mmmm…for example a letter. Yes, definitively Hermione will go for a letter."

- "A letter?!" exclaimed Moody who was looking like he was having a heart attack. "That just proves my point, if this chit can send a letter to our dear Snape asking for explanations, the letter that anyone can read, she is not mature enough to become the member of the Order, no matter how smart everyone thinks she is".

- "May I disagree with you, - it was very amused Lupin who spoke, - I believe that if we suppose that she'll address a letter to Severus, and believe me she has to be really desperate in order to do it, she would never send it like that, open to everyone who wants to read it. She will probably put quite a few layers of protective charms to be sure that only Severus and Severus alone could read it. And, - he added with a huge smirk he didn't even tried to hide, - she will probably add another little charm of hers that will ensure that our dear Severus actually answers her letter. I heard she is really good with them, especially the jinxes."

Moody was about to respond when Kingsley, who remained silent through the evening, decided it was a moment to intervene

- "If I may say something about this matter, I do not know Miss Granger as well as most of you, but after all I heard today, it seems that Miss Granger is very intelligent and smart witch. We can always hope that her suspicions will stay only that – suspicions. But there is always a risk that she'll go further and the whole truth will come out. The question is – do we really want to take that risk? Everyone was giving his or hers personal opinion, so I'll give you mine: the Order is not as strong as it was before. I do not know whether you noticed the number of casualties we suffered last year: Podmore arrested, Albus and Amelia dead, Severus is out of reach for the moment. To be honest we do not know whether he is still alive. And this in the space of one year. We need fresh blood: sooner or later they will join the Order; I know many of you prefer it to be later that sooner, but sometimes we have no choice. And I think that Miss Granger, no matter how young she is, will be a great addition to the Order. First of all, she will be under our control: we control the information she receives and how she uses it. Second, it will make another order member at the school. For now there is only Minerva and Remus: it is not too much considering the circumstances. Miss Granger will be able to keep an eye on students: I guess it will not be difficult considering that she is already a Head Girl, and we will know that we can count on her. And I dare to say that if it comes to worse, I'll not say no to another wand in our camp, especially, if I understood correctly, Remus", - here he turned to face Lupin, - "you are having advanced duelling classes with Miss Granger and Messieurs Potter and Weasley?"

Remus only nodded in response, and Minerva thought it was the best moment to launch the vote. Now or never.

- "So who votes for introducing Miss Hermione Granger, current student and Head Girl of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, into the Order of Phoenix, as full time member?"

- " I do", – Remus was the first one to vote. He took his wand and pointed to the center of the room. And jet of red light appeared.

- "I do", – it was Kingsley's turn, he made the same movement Remus did just a few seconds ago, and the red spot on the floor became bigger.

- "I do", – said Hestia, completely convinced by the debate and added her part to the light.

- "I do", – Arthur joined the group.

- "I do", - said Emmeline and with the new jet of the light one can clearly see the circle showing up on the floor.

Now everyone turned to Moody, because he was the only one who didn't say a word. He looked pensive, but after a moment he also lifted his wand and said "I do".

Then Minerva lifted her wand and said: "I, Minerva McGonagall, Head of the order of Phoenix, by the power given to me by this committee, declare Miss Hermione Granger from now on a full member of the Order of Phoenix". The circle flamed up and disappeared in space of a second living just a thin line on the floor as a reminder of what just happened.

The ceremony was completed. The only thing left was to notify Miss Granger of her new status.

§§§

Severus Snape was standing in front of the window and looking outside. It was raining. And he hated rain. It was wet. And cold. And depressing. As if he didn't have enough things in this parody of life to be depressed over. No, not depressed. Depression was the sign of weakness and Severus Snape was not a weak person. As the self-pity was the sign of cowardice. And Severus Snape was not a coward. He just wished things were different. He knew it was pointless, but he couldn't help himself to wonder what his life would be if he didn't take the dark mark in his youth. Would he be still alive? Would he have family? This mistake was made so long time ago, yet so fresh in his memory: him kneeling in front of Dark Lord and swearing allegiance to him truly believing that what he was doing was right. How long time passed since then? Seventeen years? More?

And since then his life didn't belong to him anymore. He, who valued his freedom more than anything became a servant. Servant for two masters. Swearing allegiance to one, then another, unbreakable vows, binding spels, charms, jinxes - everithing to limit his freedom. Will there ever be an end to all of this? He didn't know. I'm not sure that even in dead I'll ever be free.

But it was his deepest desire: to be free It was the goal in his life, a light at the end of the tunnel. If ever I survive this war, I'll go away; I'll be free with no one to tie me down. No one will regret me, I'll not regret anyone. So he imagined that instead of standing alone in front of cold window in some muggle hotel room lost in the middle of nowhere, he would be sitting in front of the fire somewhere in nice little house, reading books, or doing research in his lab, or writing articles, or… No, he should think about it. He has a task to concentrate on: horcruxes. Only three more to be destroyed and he can contact the order and it would be up to the Potter brat to act. He just hoped that the Order is doing something about his duelling skills. It had been three months and he didn't have a single information from the Order. He knew what was happening in castle thanks to Draco, but he had to be very careful. As the Dark Lord lost his spy inside of the castle he needed a new one. And he managed to convince the Dark Lord that Draco was perfect for this role. That way he killed more than two birds with one shot: first Draco was safe, then he had a contact with the Order, and finally, claiming that Draco needed training as Spy, he was still useful to the Dark Lord. Hopefully Draco will never have to attend a single meeting. The Order will keep an eye on him; as for the Dark Lord, the boy can always argue that he is very closely watched and thus he has to be very careful because any unwise step can end up in his expulsion.

The script was written and the roles were distributed a long time ago. Now it was up to the players to stage the play. He hopped everything was fine at Hogwarts. He was playing his role very good. He hoped that it'll not take more than four months to finish with Horcruxes. And it'll be up to the order to act. You add another two month to get ready and then there will be IT. The Battle. Six more month at most and he'll be either dead or free. He really should come up with the strategy to stay alive. Yes, I'll survive, so I can live. I wish to stay alive and be free. Free. Free. I wish to be free.