Chapter Four

Induction

"So, you want to join the Order, now do you?"

Moody's normal eye remained aimed at the paper on which he was vigorously writing, but his magical eye zoomed up to look at the three of them, standing rather sheepishly in the doorway. Harry decided to take the initiative. "Yes, Prof- sir," he corrected himself (he had never quite gotten out of the habit of calling him Professor). "We want to join."

Grumbling, Moody stood up and limped over to the doorway, leading them once more down into the hall, but he didn't take them into the kitchen. Instead, he veered into a room that was usually used for the secret meetings of the Order. Harry was beginning to get excited.

Moody ushered them inside, then stumped in and closed the door after them. There was a round table in the middle of the room, at which were seated seven people. Minerva McGonagall sat next to Kingsley Shakelbolt, who was listening Hestia Jones. On her other side sat Mundungus Fletcher, snoring gently and being prodded awake by Elphias Dodge, a wheezy, white-haired wizard who had come to escort Harry from the Dursleys' the summer before his fifth year at Hogwarts. Sturgis Podmore, only recently released from Azkaban for a crime he had been forced to commit by a Death Eater, sat on Dodge's other side. Next to him was Tonks, who was leaning back on two legs in her chair. As they entered, all seven looked up, looked back down, and then did a double-take.

"Alastor!" Professor McGonagall scolded, gathering up stacks of papers on the table and waving her wand at them to make them vanish, "you could have given us some warning! They can't see these things!"

"They want to join the Order, Minerva," Moody growled.

McGonagall looked sharply at them, and then he sighed. "I might have guessed as much. Very well, come in, come in, all of you."

Lupin took up a seat beside Tonks, who smiled at him, and then gazed up at Harry, Ron, and Hermione. McGonagall stood up, ushering them all to sit down. When they looked comfortable, she began.

"Normally," she said, looking between the three of them, "I would lecture you lot as to the importance of this decision. However," she said, her eyes landing on Harry, "I don't believe that you need it. You all know what can happen; Sirius Black, Emeline Vance, Dumbledore, and… Potter, your own parents have died because they chose to pursue this endeavor."

She appeared not to be able to speak for a moment, and Harry could see tears welling up behind her glasses, but she sniffed them away. "So, Weasley, Granger, Potter, I'm going to ask you one question. Do you want to join the Order?"

Harry was still for a moment. Did he? Of course he did! He'd already pointed out to Mr. Weasley that he would be in no more danger in the Order than out! But then, why was he having second thoughts?

Coming up with no reason other than nervousness, he added his nod to those of Ron and Hermione.

"Well, then," McGonagall said, in a rather subdued voice, "I am required by the rules Dumbledore laid down to give you each a dose of Veritaserum, to be sure that your intentions are pure."

"Veritaserum?" Harry said, startled. "If they've used Veritaserum on all the members of the Order, how did Snape get-"

"Veritaserum, Potter," her voice regaining its familiar cold edge, "is not one hundred percent reliable. Like the Imperius Curse, an accomplished wizard can overcome it. Snape was a skilled Occlumens, and was therefore probably able to block out the impulses that compelled him to speak the truth."

Harry dimly remembered Dumbledore telling him something of the sort.

"Anyway, I do not believe any of you have even felt the effects of the potion, let alone learned how to overcome it. And even if it weren't so, I'd trust your word. But they're Dumbledore's orders."

"Dumbledore is dead, Minerva," Elphias Dodge rasped.

"He never said to stop following his orders if he died," she said fiercely, smiling slightly at Harry.

Mad-Eye Moody conjured up a tray that hovered in midair, bearing three glasses of pumpkin juice. From her robes, McGonagall withdrew a tiny vial with clear liquid in it and dropped three drops into each glass.

Harry took one and drained it. The Veritaserum was tasteless, and he didn't feel any different… at first.

About fifteen seconds after he had finished the glass of pumpkin juice, his mind started going rather blurry, and it seemed as though he had no control over his thoughts.

The first thing she asked was, "Are you a Death Eater?"

Without instruction from his brain, his mouth replied, "No."

"Are you associated with Death Eaters or passing information to them?"

"No," his mouth said again. But then the tiny corner of his mind that remained his thought, Why shouldn't I lie? He told himself, Because I wouldn't be able to join the order. But he discovered that, whether he wanted it or not, he had control of his mouth again. It still answered, "Yes," when McGonagall asked whether he was willing to dedicate whatever he could to the cause, but he knew that if he had wanted to, he could have made it say no.

But he didn't want to, of course, so he let his mouth tell McGonagall the truth. Hermione went next, and then Ron. It took about a half an hour for the potion to wear off (of course, Harry's perception of time might have been rather distorted). They sat at the table, staring off into space unless someone asked them a question, which they answered quite truthfully.

Harry felt his thoughts and his mouth become truly his again just as McGonagall was waving away the papers which she had extracted again in order to wait for them to recover. She stood up when he shook his head and blinked several times.

"Well, Potter, Weasley, Granger, you've all passed," she said grimly, "and your lives are now forfeit to You-Know-Who because you have officially joined his enemies.

Everyone else had gone, except for Moody, Lupin and Tonks, the last two of whom were holding hands. They all had bleak looks on their faces, and that was when it really hit Harry.

He hadn't understood how big a deal this was until now. True, his life was in no more danger now that it had been before, but it suddenly felt like it was. People had died for this cause, and Harry had just pledged to fight to the death for it if it was required of him. The realization didn't change his mind, but it impressed upon him the importance of what he was doing.

And the grim faces around him made him realize that they cared. They cared what happened to him and what he did and whether or not he died, and not just because it had been foretold that he was the only one who would be able to defeat Voldemort. They cared… because they loved him.

Harry thought of his parents. They had died, as McGonagall had pointed out, and they had died trying to save him. He wasn't about to go and let himself get killed after they had given their lives for him. James could have hid, Lily could have run, but they chose to defend their son.

It was that which made his life worth living.

A/N: I know that last part was kinda cheesy, and the chapter wasn't that long or great and their induction into the Order wasn't very… I dunno, realistic. I'm sorry, I'm trying to get past all the boring stuff to the part where… oh, wait, I can't tell you. That'd ruin the whole thing. My point is, don't stop reading just because this chapter stank like rotten garbage. There are better ones coming, I promise.