Disclaimer: Let's see, do I own this? O, of course not!
A/N: Drum role please... I am back, after a 7 month break and it took me this long to give you all another chapter of this... well... good story. School has consumed my life, and actually, I didn't expect this chapter to turn out the way it did, but hey, what can I say. My mind takes over my fingers, and this is what came of it. Remember, I am still looking for a beta reader if any of you are interested. Oh, and I encourage you to review!
Chapter 8: Promises and Parties
On the 11th of July we find Kendra in the kitchen making breakfast. She enjoyed making breakfast by hand when she could, but these days you couldn't tell when she had time. All of her kids were upstairs asleep, but the Dog and the Cat were not. Tinkerbell and Snowball were in the living room running around. Kendra left things cook, and entered the living room to see what the animals were up to. When she entered the room Tinkerbell jumped over the coffee table after the Cat, and couldn't stop because she ran into the opposite wall. Snowball on the other hand apparently thought the Dog was going to land on her so she took flight and flew into the inn table.
"You stupid animals," Kendra muttered, but Tinkerbell was the first to recover. She jumped back over the coffee table after the Cat, and almost caught her, but Snowball rolled under the table hissing. Tinkerbell growled, and lay down on her stomach to edge her way under the table, but it failed when she got as far as her front paws and head. Snowball backed away from the Dog, and got in the same position the Dog was in so she could mock her. Kendra finally had enough and figured she should help both animals. Going around the table she picked up the Cat and put her in the kitchen before lifting the coffee table so Tinkerbell could move again.
When she entered the kitchen a knock sounded at the back door. She checked the breakfast preparations, and then went to answer the door.
"Good morning Albus." She greeted.
"Good morning Kendra, I've got the notes you requested."
"Come in will you?" She asked. Dumbledore came in and Kendra took his traveling cloak before he seated himself at the table. Kendra went back to the stove to keep an eye on breakfast. From within a pocket of his robes Dumbledore took out a folded piece of paper that he engorged to lay out on the table.
"Anything interesting on the paper that can't wait for me to read?"
"No, I rather you read it yourself, besides its got a hex on it for those who aren't order members they won't ever be able to read it."
"Will you stay for breakfast? I'll read it shortly after in my study."
"Then I will stay, I want your input on the matter at hand."
Soon after Dumbledore ended his sentence a snake made its way into the kitchen and across the floor to Kendra.
"Coils, what are you doing out of your cage?" she question. The snake just hissed, and made its way up her body resting her head on Kendra's shoulder and fell asleep.
"Well well well, something apparently kept the poor dear up." Kendra said softly.
"Isn't that Holly's snake?" Dumbledore inquired.
"It certainly is," she replied. After a few minutes of silence footsteps could be heard on the stairs.
"Wonder whose up at 8:00 in the morning." Kendra questioned aloud.
"No idea," Dumbledore responded before Lily came into the kitchen.
"Morning mum."
"Good morning Lil. Are you planning to do anything today?"
"Yeah, Ines, Brad, Chloe, Zachary, and I were going to go to Diagon alley for a while, that ok with you?
"It's fine, I've got some of Hollianne's friends coming to spend the night, so it will help to have very few people in the house right now." She answered.
"Which of her friends are coming?"
"O, I think, Larissa, Heather, Serena, Jamie, Cassandra, Charlotte, Isabelle, Laura, and Melissa."
"Nine friends! You are letting her have NINE friends over?"
"Yes Lily, I certainly am. She hasn't seen them ever since school ended."
"Fine fine, but don't be surprised if some of my other siblings want to have there friends over too." Lily said exasperatedly.
"That will be fine, for all I care Kelly can have Amber, Alicia, and alexander; Mitchel can have Karrie, Adam, and Ryan; Nathan can have Sansa, and Joshua, Sally can have Alyssa, and Bryan, Gabe can have Madison, Cheyenne, and Simon; Molly can have Caleb, Dillon, and Delaney; Samuel can have Erica, Rachel, and Xavier; Reilly can have Liana, and Curtis; and Daniel can have Leslie and Logan, heck, I may even have Sarah, Lauren, Brett, and Kyle; and if your Dad wants to have Mark, Andrew, Tricia, and Brianna over so be it. You know I can cook for that many people." And that was what happened after lunch, but let's go back to just after breakfast.
Lily seated herself at the table and noticed that her old professor had a document sitting in front of him.
"What do you have there?" she asked.
"Notes from the last order meeting that I want your mother to look over." he supplied. Lily thought silently for a moment before she asked,
"Am I allowed to look at them?" Dumbledore smiled,
"You certainly are."
As Lily scanned the documents in front of her, a baby's cry sounded out of the monitor that Kendra had attached to her hip. Kendra left the room to go get her young son.
Two and a half hours later all the children were fed and getting ready for the day's events. At 11:00 Kendra directed Dumbledore into her study so she could have a quiet place to examine the papers. A soft glow emanated from the fire as Kendra sat behind her desk. She gestured for Albus to sit across from her in the armchair. As she looked over the documents of the last few order meetings her expression darkened immediately.
"So we have to guard the door?" She asked.
"Yes, and keep an eye on all of our members."
"Why?"
"Incase of an attack. We can never be too prepared. I'm not going to be surprised if we have another large fight."
"I hope a fight doesn't come of this."
"I hope not either." Dumbledore agreed, "But we still need to be prepared. Do you have any suggestions in the way of protection?"
"I would advise not staying in one place for too long, easy target ya know?"
"I do, I do, but can't we just protect the house we are staying in?"
"That would work, but if you tried the fedalius charm, you would have to find an extremely strong person."
"Yes, I know."
It was silent then, as they both thought of ways to protect the members of the Order of the Phoenix. A piercing scream ripped through the air like a knife, and like a bullet they exited the room and flew up the stairs to find a little girl hunched over her arm crying furiously. Holly was standing over her wand out trying to stop the blood flow, Coils was at the child's feet with her head in the girls lap. Mitchel was off to the side watching with pleasure as his younger sister attempted to partly fix the child so they could take her to St. Mungus.
"What happened?" Kendra shouted. Holly raised her head to look in her mother's direction.
"Mitchel provoked Coils to bite one of the kids, and it just happened to be Liana." The three-year-old whimpered, the venom was getting stronger, and she didn't have much time to live. A flash of red and gold entered their view as Fawkes lighted on Coils head. The phoenix's tears ran down its face and into the venom filled wound. Slowly, but surely, the wound knit itself back together, and the sobbing stopped almost immediately. Holly stroked the Phoenix's feathers thanking him over and over for a job well done. The Phoenix trilled a beautiful song in return, and flitted onto Dum4inre's shoulder.
After everything was settled, Liana obliviated, and everyone back to there various tasks, Kendra entered the vast kitchen taking down the ingredients to make a pot roast. The chopping of carrots, onions, meat, bananas, and strawberries, the pealing, chopping, and cleaning the potatoes and the satisfied grinding noise of the blender as she made strawberry banana smoothies for twenty plus people. When you upset Kendra Donnellson, she cooks, (I don't mean just small meals for a small lunch, and I mean large meals, large enough to feed the entirety of Hogwarts for a week.) This is how stressed Mitchel made her in this minute. She could not believe that he would try to expose the wizarding world to the muggles. Nothing ever makes sense with that boy, and she had a weird feeling that it never would. When everything was prepared, and ready to eat, Kendra called the children to exit through the back door and sit on the patio because it was a nice day.
Mitchel was the last to exit the stairwell when Kendra and Dumbledore grabbed him by both arms.
"You are coming with us." Kendra said in a hard voice with a stern look. They entered the familiar room of the office. Kendra motioned for Mitchel to sit in the chair she offered to Dumbledore about two hours before. He sat in the chair and looked up at was mother with an excited face. "Why did you make Coils bite Liana?" She asked.
"For something fun to do." He easily replied.
"Do you know that you could have killed her?"
"Yes, but I knew that because Dumbledore was here that he wouldn't let the little girl die, so I decided to do my experiment now."
"Experiment?" Dumbledore asked.
"Yes, experiment, you know, how many people can you freak out in one day? And at better way to do the experiment than to use a little girl."
"Mitchel, she could have died, you could have died, and any of the children around us could have died."
"Not with Holly around, that stupid Snake only bites if it is provoked, or if Holly says that it is allowed too."
"Regardless, it was a thoughtless choice, and the entire wizarding world was about to be discovered by muggles if because of you." Dumbledore informed him.
"So what if they do find out about us, we can just keep obliviating them and no one will ever know. That's why we have the Ministry of Magic, right?"
"That's not how it works Mitchel and you know it. If you keep erasing their memories, they will have no memories left to obliviate. And you also know that obliviating someone's mind; even a very powerful wizard will take its tolls eventually." Dumbledore replied.
"Well then that's what they get for being too perceptive." He said through clenched teeth.
"That's not reason to continue the action over and over and over, it will make the Ministry look careless if sightings are sighted and printed in the muggle press." Kendra added.
"We are just bewildered that you were thoughtless enough to take it upon yourself to expose the world to that, do you know how much panic these muggles would be in?" Dumbledore asked.
"Again, so what! They are just feeble minded creatures who do not an any magical blood in them. So, why should I care about there well being?" Mitchel scowled at the older adults.
"Because," Dumbledore started, "Because if all of our secrecy laws are broken by one person, the person responsible will find themselves visiting Azkaban." He finished his thought.
"So all I have to do is promise not to do it any more, and you guys will not question me any more?"
"Yes very no," Kendra said, "because you shouldn't want any type of evil to come to any one who doesn't deserve it. On the other hand we will stop if you get all that nonsense out of your head."
"Well then, ok, the nonsense is gone." Mitchel said convincingly, but not so convincing that it fooled either adult but they let it drop for now.
As Mitchel went back to his friends, Kendra walked with Dumbledore back to the kitchen. Outside, everyone looked like they were having fun, it was a beautiful afternoon and Kendra didn't want miss it.
"Well," Dumbledore said, "I should be going now; Molly and the rest have been expecting me at Jack Potter's birthday party around an hour ago."
"Oh?" Kendra said, "I'm sorry I kept you so long. You know with the Order notes, and the Snake bite stuff, tell Lily I said happy birthday to her son."
"I will do that Kendra, take care."
"You take care yourself. In and when is the next meeting?"
"The next meeting is on the fifteenth, I will bring you the notes from that meeting as well, providing we don't have trouble in the next four days."
"Yes, of course." Kendra agree, "Hopefully it won't come to basically rebuilding another entire village."
"I was thinking along those same lines." Dumbledore nodded his head in agreement.
"Well then, I'll see you sometime after the fifteenth then?"
"Yes, sometime after then." Dumbledore nodded. He exited the house and apparated to the outskirts of the burrow.
As Dumbledore entered the boundaries of the burrow, Molly came bustling toward him.
"Albus, you're late." she said surprised.
"I got stuck at Kendra's, to share notes and fix a situation that came up, that's why I'm late."
"What happen?" Lily asked.
"The other adults gathered around to hear what was going on.
"Well, Mitchel got a bright idea to provoke Holly's Snake to bite one of the young muggle children." Everyone was shocked.
"Did the child die?" Joanna asked.
"No, Fawkes took over and used his tears to heal the child."
"At least we don't have to obliviate many people." Arthur said.
"No, Kendra took care of it, and we talked to Mitchel about the importance of keeping our world from the muggles."
"Did he agree to leave everyone alone?" Rochelle asked.
"Yes, for now."
"So what did Kendra have to say about the notes?" James questioned.
"Just asked if the gist of what we are doing is guarding, and I just told her yes."
"So what is she going to do to help?" Sirius asked.
"Nothing at the moment, she is just keeping in touch with all of us and giving her input on our decisions."
"No suggestions from her yet?" Remus asked.
"None for the moment. Well anyway, Kendra say happy birthday to Jack, Lily, thought I'd tell you." Lily nodded, and they dispersed to do there respective tasks. The younger children were sitting on a blanket playing chess. The older kids were playing Quidditch or refereeing the game. Some adults just mingled in the yard, some were in the house with the desserts, and some were still stuffing their faces. At the end of the day Jack had an excellent birthday, no one else was hurt, and safety was still strong. All they have to do is wait and see what will transpire in the coming days. The question that was on all parents minds was "How much longer do we have before another war?" It haunted them all, in their sleep, in the day time, and in their thoughts.
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