Chapter 14

Eviction Notice

Harry lay in the sitting room, reading his disguised Animagus book as Order members arrived for the meeting. He stretched, trying to find a comfortable position to lie in after a morning spent working on holding his Occlumency shields while Tonks tried to knock his head off, before Remus continued his silent casting lessons. Even after Remus had given him a once over, healing the worst of his welts and bruises, he still had quite a few tender areas.

"Hey mate, how's it going?"

Harry looked up from his book to find his best mate striding towards him with his younger sister. "Hey guys," he said grinning and tossing his book on the coffee table in front of him, "it's going great. How have you been? I haven't heard from you in a week."

Ron shrugged as he and Ginny sat down across from him, "Bored, mum still won't let us outside the wards, so we can't even play Quidditch. I really wish she'd let us swing by here more often," Ginny nodded her agreement.

Harry grimaced guiltily. Between Mrs. Weasleys' over protectiveness and the risk of bringing Voldemort down on them, he had avoided the Burrow all summer, "Your mum still doesn't want you coming here?"

Ron shook his head, "No, she says there's too much going on around headquarters to have kids running around. As if we weren't here all last summer," he snorted humorlessly.

"I think she wants to make sure we don't hear about anything that is going on. She's been treating us like toddlers ever since the Ministry," said Ginny, a scowl across her face, "she still won't let Fred and George join the Order, even though they're both of age."

"Is that why they aren't here?"

"No, they're here," Ron said, "They're probably looking for Dumbledore right now. They think they can convince him to let them in." He hesitated for a moment before continuing, "So, we heard something happened after the last meeting, but our parents won't tell us..." he trailed off, obviously hoping he would fill them in.

Harry watched them for a minute as they both leaned in eagerly, before he told them about the attack on the Bones' and everything else that had happened since their last letter.

"Wait, so you got into a fight with Death Eaters, went to Sirius' will reading against Dumbledore's orders and you didn't think to send us a letter?" Ron asked, sounding annoyed as Ginny scowled at him.

Harry shrugged, "Sorry, Hedwig has been tied up all week. I sent her to Austria with a letter for Hermione first, then I got a letter from Neville and his gran hoping I could get them in contact with the Order," he explained, "The earliest I could have sent you anything was this morning, but I figured you would be here tonight anyways, so I sent another letter to Hermione and decided to tell you in person."

The anger left Ron's face as he seemed to relax as Harry justified his reasoning, "Sorry mate, I thought maybe mum had told you to keep things from us."

Harry shook his head, "It's alright Ron, I would probably be mad too. You don't have to worry though, I'll let you know about anything that comes up," he said before looking over as the twins walked in and sat down with them, "So any luck?" he asked them.

The twin on the left shook his head, "Nope, we finally found old Dumbles, but mum cut us off as soon as we started talking to him."

"Luckily she was interrupted when Mrs. Longbottom showed up. I didn't realize she was part of the Order," said the other.

"She wasn't," replied Harry, "we talked to her last night. She wanted to join the fight, so we invited her and Neville to the meeting. Was he with her?" he asked curiously. They had invited Neville along, but Harry was uncertain as to whether or not his gran would be as over protective as Ron's mother.

The twins didn't have time to answer as Neville picked that exact moment to walk into the room, "Hey guys," he said waving at everyone, "yeah Gran thought it would be a good idea for me to come along, to get an idea of what was going on, but Dumbledore and Mrs. Weasley wouldn't let me in the meeting."

"I wouldn't worry about it Nev, you aren't missing much," said Harry as he moved over to make space for the others.

"They actually let you in ickle Harrikins?" asked one of the twins in surprise.

"How'd you manage that?" asked the other, suddenly very interested in what Harry had to say.

"Yeah, they did," cutting them off before they could get too worked up, "though your mother wasn't very happy about it. As for how I did it, I didn't give them much of a choice. Sirius gave me the house, so I told them that they'd have to let me in if they wanted to use it."

"So what was it like, actually getting to sit in on the meetings?" Ginny asked excited.

"Honestly? Boring. I've only been to one so far, but it doesn't seem to me like the Order actually does much. All they talked about was suspected Death Eaters doing barely suspicious things. They don't train, they don't go on missions and with the exception of the few that saved us at the Ministry, hardly any of them have ever even been in a fight. They haven't even gotten any new recruits since last year. For the most part they're nothing more than Dumbledore's eyes and ears."

"Well that is rather... disapointing," said one of the twins.

"Yeah, we thought it would be all exciting, you know, planing battles and raids," continued the other.

"Setting traps."

"Interrogating prisoners."

"Who knew that a secret organization could be so... boring?" the twins finished together.

Harry shrugged, unable to come up with an answer as he had been thinking the exact same thing. "That's what I thought too, but I asked Tonks and she said the last meeting was pretty standard, other than the battle directly after it."

"What battle would that be Harry?"

Harry sighed and gave them a quick overview of the attack on Madam Bones and the aftermath, during which Susan walked in and added her side of the story.

"Bloody hell Harry," said Ron as Susan came to the point where he banished a pot to intercept the killing curse, "you didn't tell us that part."

Harry blushed, embarrassed at the praise coming from the rest of the group as they all agreed. As far as he was concerned he had just acted and gotten lucky.

"Aww, is ickle Harrikins embarrassed by his heroics?" asked Fred, grinning at the opportunity to tease him.

"Come now Harry, we thought you would be used to it by now. Bravely rushing in to save the damsel in distress at the last possible moment." Harry could feel his cheeks growing redder as the twins poked fun at him.

"That's enough of that," Susan said, cutting them off before they could build too much steam, "you're embarrassing him."

Harry looked gratefully at Susan as she stopped the twins in their tracks, "Thanks Sue."

"No problem Harry," she said turning towards him and batting her eyelashes, "though now that I think about it, it was pretty brave. And I don't think I ever properly thanked you for it," Harry felt his eyes widened as she moved directly in front of him and slowly leaned in. He felt paralyzed, unable to move as everything seemed to go in slow motion. He noticed the looks of shock cross the faces of the rest of his friends as he watched unable to move as she closed in on him, before moving to the side at the last moment to kiss him on the cheek. "My knight in shining armor," she said grinning up at him as time seemed to fix itself and everything began moving at it's proper speed. He stared at her a moment, his face burning like the sun, before she burst out laughing, the others only a moment behind.

Harry looked at them all for a moment before realizing why they were laughing and shaking his head, "You've been spending way too much time around Tonks," he said, trying to sound irritated, but ruining it with a smile.

"Who has been spending too much time with me?" asked Tonks, striding into the room.

"That would be me," said Susan, raising her hand with a large smirk.

"Have you been teasing him?" she asked, placing her hands on her hips. Susan's smirk vanished as she nodded meekly, "What did I tell you about teasing Harry?"

"Sorry Tonks," Susan said while glancing down at her feet, causing Harry to look between them confused. It wasn't like Tonks to stop anyone from ribbing him, "I just had the perfect opportunity and stopping to get you from the other room would have ruined it," she finished, causing everyone to burst out laughing again. Harry rolled his eyes and sighed. That seemed much more like something Tonks would do.

"So did you come in here for a reason or do you have some sort of sixth sense that is drawn to my embarrassment?" he asked roughly, trying to change the subject.

"Why can't it be both?" she asked with another laugh, causing him to cross his arms and glare at her, "But yes, the meeting is about to start, I came to get you."

Harry nodded, glad for the excuse to leave the room, "Alright, I'll see you guys later." He made to turn away before quickly turning back, "Hey Nev, could you fill these guys in on the party, I didn't get a chance, you know with everyone having a good laugh at my expense."

Neville nodded with a smile, happy that Harry hadn't forgotten or changed his mind, "Sure Harry, no problem. You don't mind if we head to your training room after though, do you?" he asked, twirling his new wand through his fingers, obviously hoping to get in some practice with his new wand.

"Go ahead mate, Susan can show you where it is," replied Harry as the Weasley's all looked at him curiously, before walking towards the dining room as the twins began to grill Neville about the party, while Ron and Ginny asked about the training room. He followed Tonks in as they sat beside Remus, at the end opposite from Dumbledore. As soon as they were seated Dumbledore called the meeting to order.

After introducing Mrs. Longbottom to the rest of the Order, the meeting progressed much as the last one had. The sole bit of worthwhile information, other than the announcement that Rufus Scrimgeour was likely to become the new Minister of Magic, came from Snape of all people, announcing that after recent failures the Dark Lord was falling back to regroup and was planning on using his allies such as the dementors and the giants for future attacks while he attempted to recruit more Death Eaters. Harry tried to force himself to pay attention, but quickly decided practicing his Occlumency was more worthwhile than anything being said. He was paying so little attention to the meeting that it almost finished without him realizing it.

"So, is there anything else?" Dumbledore asked, looking around the table. When no one spoke up he continued, "Well then, if no one else has any new information-"

"Hang on a second," interrupted Harry, "shouldn't we be making plans to actually do something?"

Snape sneered at him from his place behind Dumbledore, "What do you think we've been doing Potter?"

"From what I heard, mostly gossiping like a bunch of housewives," he replied snarkily, causing a number of Order members to glare at him.

"Typical Potter, walk in late like you own the place, disrespect everyone working for your benefit and then try to force everyone to agree to your ridiculous ideas. I said from the beginning headmaster, allowing the brat into these meetings wastes all of our time," said Snape, a small rumble of agreement coming from around the table.

Harry took a moment to calm himself before responding, "Well Snape, first of all I do own the place, so I'm allowed to walk in however I'd like," he said, causing Remus to grin. "Second, last time I checked this group was dedicated to defeating Voldemort, which is as much for the benefit of you and everyone else here as it is for me. And what ridiculous idea is that? I'm suggesting we be proactive, maybe take the fight to Voldemort for a change."

His comment had exactly the effect that he thought it would as most of the Order flinched before everyone began talking at once, shouting to be heard over one another and many claiming he was too young to understand how to fight a war. Dumbledore however just sat quietly, his face an expressionless mask as he watched the arguments escalate. Harry remained silent, Tonks and Remus doing the same as they waited for order to be restored. Eventually Moody, tired of the useless arguing and fired of a noise making spell that sounded like a gunshot, "Enough!" he shouted, causing everyone present to stop what they were doing and retake their seats. "Now lad," he said turning towards Harry, "what exactly are you planning?" he asked.

Harry looked at the grizzled Auror for a moment. He had both eyes, normal and magical focused on him, and unlike many of the others around the table, whispering to each other, actually seemed interested in what Harry had to say. Harry took a deep breath as he prepared himself. This was his chance to change things, to convince the Order to get their collective arses in gear. "Well I have a few different ideas. We need to start chipping away at the Death Eaters."

Elphias Doge quickly stood up, interrupting him, "Wouldn't that make us no better than them?" he asked, sounding outraged. He gestured around the table, "None of us here are murderers boy." All around the table murmuring started quickly agreeing with him.

"I'm not suggesting we kill them," Harry said, cutting them off before they could drown him out, "I'm suggesting we capture known Death Eaters now, before they attack innocent people and interrogate them. We have very little knowledge of their plans and it sounds like other than the obvious ones like Malfoy and the Lestranges, most of the Death Eaters we 'know' about are just your idle speculation. We could get a better idea of his forces, all the while taking some of his men off the streets." Harry looked around the table as he finished, trying to judge whether or not they agreed with him. He was surprised to find that only a small number seemed to be nodding their heads in agreement, until the headmaster spoke.

"Harry, we cannot just abduct people off the street based off our suspicions. Even if we were willing to do so, we don't have the manpower necessary to keep them."

"Then why haven't we been recruiting?" Harry asked, looking around the table for support, "I've looked around the last couple of weeks and the only new Order members I've seen are myself and Mrs. Longbottom."

"So now we're supposed to take in random passersby on the streets?" asked Snape, his usual sneer plastered across his face.

"Don't be ridiculous," Harry snapped, causing the greasy Potions teacher to snarl in anger, "I'm suggesting we bring in people we trust. I'm sure some of you must know others that want to fight back," he said, still looking around the table.

"And put our families and friends at risk?" asked Dedalus Diggle, "I joined up specifically so that they wouldn't have too." All around the table others agreed.

Harry shook his head, he understood not wanting to trust strangers and wanting to keep the people you cared about safe, but surely there were other trustworthy people willing to fight. Whether or not that was true didn't seem to matter, as with a few exceptions, no one seemed willing to even consider the idea. "So you're telling me none of you know anyone willing to fight against Voldemort?" he asked, his anger rising as most of the people around the table flinched again, "Merlin, what's the matter with all of you? How are you supposed to fight against him if you can't even hear his bloody name without cringing like frightened children?"

He opened his mouth to continue his rant when Dumbledore cut him off, "That is enough Harry. I believe that concludes the meeting for tonight, I will see you all next week," he said, as most of the Order quickly stood and moved towards the doors, "Harry if you would remain behind."

Harry pushed his anger down as the rest of the Order left the room, the sole exceptions being Remus and Tonks, who remained seated beside him, "Remus, Nymphadora, if I could speak with Harry in private," Dumbledore said, motioning towards the door.

Tonks' hair flared red at the use of her given name and Remus looked like he was about to argue, but Harry spoke first, "It's alright, I'll talk to you guys after," he said, nodding towards the door. Both looked at him for a moment before Remus gave him a small nod and led Tonks towards the door, closing it behind them on their way out. "What do you want Professor?"

The headmaster seemed to fight with himself as he looked at Harry over peaked fingers and sighed softly, "I believe it would be best if you no longer attended these meetings Harry."

Harry felt the rage he had been suppressing nearly overflow, "So that's it? Two meetings and you break our agreement?"

"You brought this upon yourself Harry," the headmaster replied flatly, further infuriating him, "Running into the fight after the first meeting and starting an argument at the second. I thought you were mature enough to be included, but your actions have proven me wrong."

Harry opened his mouth to yell at the old man seated across from him, but stopped himself before any words could come out. 'That's what he expects. Why would he ban me from meetings, he had to know I wouldn't just go quietly.' He stared at the headmaster for a moment before he figured it out, 'Unless he isn't planning on really kicking me out and just wants to get me to agree to whatever conditions he has to continue attending. Well bollocks to that,' he thought to himself, taking a deep breath to calm himself as he quickly decided on a course of action. "If that's what you think is best headmaster," he said, resisting the urge to smile as a look of surprise flashed across the old man's face.

To Dumbledore's credit, he recovered quickly, "I'm glad you're taking this so well Harry. Perhaps next summer you will be ready to join us in our efforts," he said as he stood and turned to leave.

"I don't think that will be necessary," Harry replied, smiling at the look of shock on the headmaster's face as he turned back towards him, "after what I've seen, I have no intention of joining your Order. And, with that in mind, next week will be the final Order meeting conducted at Grimmauld Place. After it is done, you will transfer the secret to Remus."

Panic was etched clearly on Dumbledore's face for a moment, before he changed from unquestionable leader to benevolent grandfather figure, "Harry, my boy, surely you don't mean-"

"I do Professor. I have no intention of joining a group that seems to refuse to take any sort of action."

"Harry, surely you can see we are opposing Voldemort the best we can?" Dumbledore said, the desperation clear in his voice.

"The best you can? What exactly have you done Professor? Other than the battles at the Department of Mysteries and Bones Manor, has the Order actually done anything?" he asked, curious as to whether Dumbledore's vaunted Order of the Phoenix had actually accomplished anything over the past year.

"Of course," he replied, sounding offended, "along with keeping an eye on suspected Death Eaters, we spent many resources on protecting both you and the prophecy."

Harry snorted, completely unimpressed, "So, aside from gossiping like a bunch of housewives, you have protected a crystal ball that should have been destroyed and made sure I stayed locked up like a prisoner."

"You were never a-"

"Never a prisoner?" he interrupted, "Really? Is there any other reason for there to be a guard outside my house? I mean I was protected by your supposedly impenetrable blood wards, what other reason would they have to be there?" he asked, he voice slowly raising as he spoke.

"What of Sirius, Harry?" asked Dumbledore, changing the subject to avoid the question he had no answer for, "His last request was that you allow the Order to continue to use your house, his house. Would you ignore his last request?"

The rage Harry had been suppressing burst, "How dare you! How dare you try to use Sirius to manipulate me!" he yelled, knocking his chair over as he stood and moved around the table to confront the headmaster directly. "In case you forgot, I was at his will reading too, and his last wish was that I be happy and free from your manipulations. Now get out!" he said, forcing the headmaster to stumble to his feet as he pushed him from his chair.

"Harry surely-"

"GET OUT!" Harry screamed, forcing the headmaster towards the door.

Realizing he was fighting a losing battle, Dumbledore allowed himself to be herded out of the room towards the fireplace. Dumbledore turned in front of the fireplace, "I will return tomorrow, when you've had a chance to calm down Harry"

"If I see you before the next meeting you'll regret it old man," Harry growled, his wand in his hand, completely unaware of his housemates behind him staring in shock. "Now, get the bloody hell out of my house."

With no other alternative, the headmaster turned and disappeared into the fireplace in a swirl of green flames. Satisfied that he was gone, Harry turned towards the stairs, only to be stopped by Remus, "Harry, what the hell just happened?" he asked, bewildered.

"I just served the Order their eviction notice," he replied, before climbing the stairs, slamming the door to his room behind him.