Disclaimer: Still not mine, you'd know if it was, my nametag would read J.K Rowling.
A/N: By overwhelming demand, I will no longer use cliffhangers.
Just kidding! You'll have to contend with my evil ways and bow to my whims ;)
Let's all take a minute to thank my beta, Fredrika: do you now see what she has to put up with?
Chapter 16: Rift in the Order
An emergency meeting of the Order of the Phoenix was called at the secondary headquarters: the Burrow, which seemed ironically fitting, considering it was one of its occupants who was concerned. An exhausted Remus and Hermione recounted what had happened at St Mungos. Molly was tucked in Arthur's arms, surrounded by all the Weasley siblings, even Charlie who had used an emergency portkey to come back from Romania, and to her credit, the distraught mother-hen did her best not to wail too loudly, but her grief and desperation weighed heavily on everyone present.
"Why healers?" Alastor barked in Dumbledore's direction. "What? Is that ruddy bastard trying to win this war by letting us bleed to death if we're deprived of our doctors?"
"According to our spy, Voldemort has been weakened somehow and requested his Death-Eaters bring him as many mediwizards as they could." The old man replied calmly, trying to diffuse the tension with a soothing aura.
"B-b-but, my b-baby... She's only a-an apprentice!" Molly sobbed.
"We can only assume they captured everyone bearing the St Mungos crest on their robes on sight, regardless of their position." Dumbledore replied, patting the woman's hand. "I'm very sorry Molly, but we'll try our best to retrieve our agents."
"There was more than one order member captured?" Moody, the paranoid auror, asked, his magical eye spinning madly as he raised an eyebrow in disbelief. "Don't you think Voldemort set out to capture one of us rather than healers in general. And he got two on top of that!"
"Who's the other one?" Bill Weasley questioned, hoping it could be someone trustful who would protect his sister.
"Ichabod Barlow. He's head of a department and usually only intervenes for severe or complicated injuries amongst us, so not many of you have met him, and he isn't privy to many of our secrets. I doubt he even knows about Miss Weasley's involvement in the war."
Bill's hope deflated like a ridiculed boggart. His baby sister was hurt, alone and terrified. He would give anything to take her place.
"Can we trust the spy?" Arthur asked with a shaky voice. "Is V-Voldemort really weakened?" He had hope that at least the madman was doing so poorly he wouldn't be able to cast unforgivables on his only daughter.
"Yes, we can." Dumbledore assured him and the room at large. "He and his family have suffered at Tom Riddle's hands, and he still has much more to lose. We can trust his judgement, he's an intelligent young man."
"Headmaster?" Harry piped up determinedly. He was trying to sound unaffected but everyone could see the haunted look in his gaze. Having Ginny taken away from him by his arch-nemesis right when he had finally mended things between them, hit him really hard. "Do you think the magical whiplash from Snape's severed Dark Mark is what weakened him? I just saw how mad he was right after, but perhaps it had secondary effects?"
This led to a cacophony of questions coming from mostly everyone at once that prompted another explanation from the two patroni about how they had deactivated Severus' Dark Mark to save him, followed by a largely censored description of Harry's ensuing vision of the dark's wizard's wrath. The opinion were divided between those who saw the benefits of weakening the tyrant and those who held Hermione and Remus for responsible of the subsequent attack on St Mungos. Even the Weasleys were divided: most of them were angry at the two Gryffindors, arguing that Ginny would still be safe if it wasn't for their rash decision, while Charlie and the twins understood they had done what was necessary at the time and couldn't have foreseen the consequences.
Hermione felt terrible, Ginny's fearful eyes silently begging for help still plagued every moment of her existence. She had been so close and felt doubly responsible. Remus wasn't faring much better but he tried to be strong, for her.
"It is a good theory but unless we can try it out on another Death-Eater, it will stay just that, a theory." Dumbledore announced. "But let us not forget Riddle had many enemies, included some in his very own ranks. He could have been poisoned or cursed, without anyone being the wiser. No, we cannot know. All we can do, for now, is wait for our spy to give us more information, before we can act."
"Wait? WAIT?!" Hermione exploded. "Is that all you know to do? Wait? If we had waited for Severus, he would be dead by now. The same can be said for Remus. Will Ginny and Dr Barlow be the next victims of your wait and see policy."
"Maybe you have a better idea to propose, Miss Granger?" The old man said calmly, although the underlying sarcasm wasn't lost on her, which infuriated her only more.
"No!" She shouted to his face. "But, by Merlin, I'll find something and bring Ginny back!"
She walked out, followed closely by Remus who was watching her back in case someone had the very bad idea of hexing her out of spite or revenge for the hospital incident. At the moment, he trusted no one, except for his witch. And Severus, he added grundgingly. As he had said before, the WARTS had to stick together. Outside, her fury at the headmaster melted back to sorrow for the lost Weasley and she turned into Remus outstretched arms for a hug.
"Are they right, Remus?" She mumbled from where she had buried herself in the man's robes. "Is it really our fault?"
"Would you have sacrificed one for the other?" He reasoned, knowing very well her answer.
"No. I couldn't do that." She admitted.
"There you are then. Don't let Dumbledore get to you, love. He's playing games to gain some control over you, even if it means turning all your friends against you."
The door to the Burrow opened once more and two Weasleys barreled out, straight into them, sending all four of them sprawling on the ground. Hermione swore she heard one of the many garden gnomes snickering in glee.
"Thank Merlin..." George said.
"...you're still here." His twin finished.
"We want to come with you."
"We don't want to wait doing nothing."
"It's our baby sister out there."
"We'll help you any way we can."
The two boys were pale and frantic but had a steely, determined glint in their usually mischievous blue eyes. Picking herself up from atop Remus who had broken her fall and was now blushing from the inappropriate position they found themselves in, she extended her small hand to help him up. They exchanged a silent exchange with just a look and the wizard nodded.
"Fred and Georges can be trusted. They're so loyal, they could have been Marauders." He explained.
The twins grinned at Moony, one of their personal Hogwarts heroes.
"Charlie agrees with us too..."
"...but he wants to stay and try to convince Dumbledore to act..."
"...but if he can't, he'll join us."
Hermione nodded, extending an arm in silent invitation to Georges to side along apparate him, while Remus did the same for Fred. Landing in front of the dark little cottage in the dark woods, she turned to the twins.
"Welcome to the WARTS unofficial headquarters." She announced solemnly with a bow, knowing the twins enjoyed the theatrics and hoping to cheer them up, if only a little. Merlin knows they did their fare share of cheering up the Order when the war got to them.
"Wicked!" One said.
"So what is it?" Asked the other.
"A secret society within a secret society." She murmured confidentially.
The two redheads ooh'ed and aah'ed appropriately, waiting to hear more.
"It's a very select club, there's only three members right now. So... do you still want to join us."
"Only if you tell us..." Fred said conspiratorially.
"...what WARTS stands for." Georges finished.
"Weapons Against the Rule of Tyrants Syndicate." She confessed, head bowed. She was sure the twins would mock her acronym at least as much as they had with SPEW.
"Weapons..." One said smirking.
"...befitting." Mimicked the second.
They looked very much like villains from old black and white movies, and certainly were a worthy addition to their little group.
"So there's you two..." Georges said pointing at the couple before them.
"...but who's the third?" Fred wondered.
"Me." Answered an irate Severus from the doorway. "Do you lot plan on chatting there like asinine schoolgirls all night?"
Everything was explained to Severus, who was in better dispositions since he had wrestled his wand back from Hermione's pocket, and being his snarky self meant he was well enough to plot with them.
Hermione was surprised to see the twins get along with the snarky Potions Master, and stranger yet, Severus seemed to tolerate them too, despite them clearly being Weasleys. Maybe it really was the end of the world.
"Do we at least know where the Dark Lord is hiding at the moment?"
The twins shook their heads sadly.
"Nope. Just before we caught up with Hermione and Remus..."
"...we heard only his inner circle knew his whereabouts."
Severus reflected on this, muttering to himself as he paces before the magically enlarged kitchen table.
"Of course, Draco won't be in the inner circle as long as his father is, so he won't know. It makes sense. But his men captured...What? About a dozen healers?" He paused and looked over at the young witch for confirmation.
"At least twelve, I'd say." She answered, Remus nodding in confirmation.
"Okay, so he'll need quite a big place to keep the prisoners, plus room for the inner circle... That's about another twelve people. I'm guessing one that is little known and very secluded if he feels in danger. He's just that paranoid."
The man froze mid-step.
"What is it, Severus?" Hermione asked. "Did you think of something?"
"Possibly." He answered, drawing out the syllables, but the wolfish grin that spread across his generally dour face, told another story. "There is this one place that was mentioned to me a long time ago. Only two Death-Eaters and the Dark Lord himself knew of it: of those two, Barty Crouch was killed in a raid and Pettigrew...ah, well, everyone knows what happened to Pettigrew." He reminisced with a fond smile that was mirrored on all the other's faces.
Peter Pettigrew, also known as Wormtail, had been a personal insult to the remaining Marauder, to Gryffindors in general and The Order of the Phoenix in particular but also to the large clan of the Weasleys who had unwittingly been housing the murderous fugitive. The traitor was adding to that insult by spying on them in his animagus form for Voldemort until Crookshanks finally cornered him: he had the choice of returning to his human form and face the Order members then present, including Remus and Severus, but he finally chose to die at the fangs and claws of the kneazle like the rat that he was. Nobody scolded Crookshanks for eating the wizard, although they did ask him not to eat any more animagi, except maybe for blue beatles. In fact, Hermione's familiar was given more pats, cuddles and cat treats than he could handle until he finally died of old age, the happiest kneazle of magical Britain.
"So, what is this place? Can we go there?" Hermione asked eagerly.
"It's a run-down muggle manor in Little Hangleton. It's been abandoned for fifty years at least and I wouldn't be surprised he returned there to recover, like last time."
The group then made plans to go there as quickly as possible, just as soon as Severus gulped down several invigorating potions, since he refused to be left out once more and blackmailed the others into agreeing, being the only one to know the exact location.
So there they stood, facing an old decrepit manor with an overgrown garden, the five members of the rebel WARTS organisation. Hermione felt like James Bond, about to enter the villain's lair. Fortunately, all of them were experienced and proficient at snooping around and managed to get in and to the heart of the building as discretely as shadows. That's when Georges, who was checking out one of the many rooms, motioned for them to freeze.
"I heard someone over there." He hissed between his clenched teeth, sign that he was more nervous than he let on.
"Says the man with one ear." Quipped his twin in hushed tones, trying to diffuse the tension.
Hermione and Severus rolled their eyes but indicated that everyone should get ready to face Voldemort's troops, or even the man himself. They'd rather avoid it and just help the prisoners escape but doubted it would be that simple. A disillusionment and silencing charm on each of them later, they held hands to lurk into the room's shadows without bumping into each other. It seemed to be a vast dining room with the massive oak table and chairs still in place as if waiting for the next meal to be served, except a thick layer of dust and decay coated everything.
Everyone heard two voices arguing then. They were quite close by but difficult to pinpoint with the shrouding darkness.
"It isn't here. I knew this was a fool's errand." grumbled one.
"It was worth the try, my boy. Now, let us-"
The second voice cut itself off suddenly and a stupefy flew right at them. Hermione yelled a warning and felt Remus hand pressing her down on the floor. Severus threw several spells in the direction of the unknown threat and must have been hit because his disillusionment spell suddenly blinked away. The ex-spy then threw a large orb of light, if he was visible, he might as well see his opponent clearly too.
But as soon as the blinding light filled the abandoned dining room, all dueling stopped.
"Albus?" Severus asked incredulously.
"Harry?" Hermione squeaked.
"I believe you were right , Harry. Let us be on our way then." The old wizard said casually, as if nothing out of the ordinary had just happened.
"But...but..." Harry stuttered looking from one group to the other uncomprehendingly. "What are you doing here?" He settled on, looking at his fellow Gryffindors.
"Looking for Ginny." Fred said simply with a shrug.
"Why? What are you doing here?" questioned Georges more snidely.
"Hum...yeah, same thing." But Harry had always been a terrible liar and no one believed him for a moment. "Anyway, no one's here. All clear." He added nervously and followed his mentor meekly after a hasty good-bye.
"What was that about?" Hermione breathed out. "I don't know what those two are doing, but clearly it isn't looking for the healers.
"Although they are looking for something." Remus pointed out.
"Harry didn't look that pleased." Fred provided.
"I'd even say he was reluctant." Georges added.
"I know I'm going to regret this..." Severus said thoughtfully, a scowl marring his face. "But I think we need Potter. We're obviously missing some vital information."
"He could join us, I suppose." Hermione said. She'd be happy to get Harry to join WARTS. He was the epitome of a weapon being used by Dumbledore, and she missed him dearly.
"Problem is, Dumbledore will be wary of us around Harry." The ex-spy analyzed.
"How about polyjuice?" The witch proposed.
"Polyjuice isn't the answer to everything." The dour man scolded but with good humor. "Besides, who would you go as? There's too many possibilities there would be two of you at headquarters."
"Hey, don't forget we've already got someone inside..."
"...who's above all suspicion..."
"...and is daring enough..."
"...to bring us Harry!"
Hermione gasped as she realized what their genius idea was.
"Are you really planning to have Charlie kidnap the Boy-Who-Lived?" Remus quizzed bemusedly with a Marauder grin. By the looks of it, he was already aboard, probably happy to have Prongs junior near him once more.
The Slytherin also seemed happy with the idea, but probably because Harry would be scared out of his mind, if only briefly.
"Why don't you just ask Harry to come?" The only female asked with a huff. Boys were always going overboard.
"You know Harry..."
"...always hesitant..."
"...it'll take him forever..."
"...to decide he's better off with us."
Hermione conceded their point this time. But only this once, she swore.
"But how do we contact Charlie?" She asked, feeling one solution just led to another problem.
"Leave it to us." The twins said in unison. "We Weasleys have our ways."
The group split up, the twins off to capture Harry and the others off to check out other possible locations of Voldemort's whereabouts, mainly Death-Eaters' houses, and agreed to meet back at the cottage in a couple of hours.
The WARTS members were all waiting anxiously in the small cottage's main room. The twins assured the others Charlie had received their message although they refused to tell them how, and giggled like schoolgirls whenever they thought about it. They even managed to smuggle him a portkey that would bring him and his "guest" right to the cottage.
A ruckus outside jolted everyone out of their seats and a second later the door was kicked open and an irate Charlie stepped in, dropping the bundle on his shoulder onto the ground.
"FRED! GEORGES!" The muscled redhead roared. "If you ever set another godamned garden gnome on me, whatever the reason, I'll have your scrawny hides served to the meanest hungarian horntail I can find!"
"However do you get a garden gnomes to run errands for you?" Remus asked gobsmacked by the twin's inventiveness.
"Garlic." The two boys pouted at having one of their secrets known. "They'd do anything for garlic."
"Bloody little ankle-biters." Charlie grumbled.
The bundle on the ground groaned and pushed away the hood covering him to glance up at his captors.
"If you're quite finished." Harry told them. "I" like to know why you sent this... this brute to kidnap me."
The dragon-tamer looked pleased with himself.
"Come on Harry. It's not really a kidnapping. I left a note so they'd know you're safe with me."
"Somehow, I highly doubt that." The wizarding world's saviour shot back, rubbing his sore buttocks as he righted himself. "Now, if somebody would care to explain?"
"Simple." Severus answered with just a hint of a sneer. "We need information. We lost precious time tonight looking for your girlfriend while you were gallivanting uselessly like a beheaded chicken with the old man. If Dumbledore cared to share his prized information, we wouldn't have lost so much time. So tell us what you know."
Harry's emerald eyes flashed angrily at first before his shoulders slumped and the fight left him.
"We were not doing nothing, sir." The Boy-Who-Lived answered defensively. "We were trying to find... something that would weaken Voldemort. So I could end him."
"Does that mean you know where he is then?" The dark man asked, looming menacingly over the smaller wizard.
Harry shook his head in the negative, with a sad expression.
"Dunderhead." Severus articulated.
"Severus!" Hermione exclaimed to get the man to stop with the petty Harry-bashing. "Harry, can you tell us what you and Dumbledore were doing in the abandoned manor?"
Her best-friend for the last nine years looked hesitant, which deeply hurt her feelings. How he could not trust her was beyond Hermione, she had always been there to help and support him in the past. Finally, he relented and sighed loudly.
"Alright. Although I doubt it will help Ginny. But I'm warning you, Albus will have my head for telling you lot."
"Welcome to the club." She grinned back.