Chapter 22: Fallout and Reports
As soon as the group was finished in the hospital wing, which including lectures #4, 5 , 10, 432, 19, 1 and 84, Ginny and Harry started numbering them during Harry's second year at Hogwarts, the group headed straight for the Room of Requirement where Severus Snape was waiting, along with Filius Flitwick.
To say Harry was surprised was an understatement, "Filius, what are you doing here?" The small professor gave a small chuckle, "Mr. Potter I am here to aid in your research. Severus told me that you have a working theory regarding recording magical auras, well that was my area of specialty when I worked as an unspeakable in the Department of Mysteries." To say everyone was shocked was an understatement. The idea that Professor Flitwick was an unspeakable…it was amazing.
For the next few hours, the group broke into smaller teams. Hermione, Bill, Fleur, and Filius worked on organizing the data they had into something that was easier to use. Harry, Ron, Ginny, and Severus were going over the recording of the battle that had been recorded by other recording devices. Their job was to identify as many Death Eaters and strategies as possible. So far they were very successful.
Tonks, Charlie, Remus, Neville and Luna were each using a pensieve and filtering out anything that did not directly relate to the battle. They were paying very close attention to Voldemort during the fight. The goal of the entire group was to have their data ready to shove down the throats of the order at the meeting tonight.
Finally at six o'clock, Harry told everyone to head back to their rooms and get cleaned up for dinner. Remus, Tonks, Severus and Filius had informed Harry that they would go to the order meeting by themselves, but the others had agreed to go with Harry. Harry told everyone who was going with him to be in his office at 7:45pm dressed in their battle robes with weapons. He wanted to put on one hell of a show tonight.
Everyone nodded and headed off. Harry called on one of the House Elves to deliver the freshly cleaned battle robes and weapons to everyone's suites by 7:00pm. Harry and Ginny took everything they would be presenting with them.
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Albus was having an even worse day now then earlier today. He had a broken leg, numerous bruises and cuts, and a very badly wounded ego. It seemed that when young warrior Harry pushed Albus out of the way to deal with Tom Riddle, Harry pushed him into a deep hole. Whether or not this was planned, Albus had no idea. Then after the battle when Albus began to dress down Harry, he was ignored; he then watched as Harry, Ginny, Ronald, Hermione, Neville, Luna, Tonks, Remus, Charlie and Bill Weasley all walked thru Gringotts and into the portal back to Hogwarts.
When Albus returned shortly after them, he tried to head to the hospital wing, but was sent on a wild goose chase round the castle for a couple of hours, Albus assumed Harry was in the hospital wing. So here he sat, with his wounds being treated in the hospital wing with his wife and her best friend screaming at him. Yes, this was definitely a bad day.
Even though Albus was a patient man, he did have his limits and he just reached them, "ENOUGH!" Albus hollered loudly, causing Minerva and Poppy to recoil.
"Thank you. Between the two if you no wonder the students have numbered your lectures. Now, Poppy, if I have been treated, then can I go please? I do have a number of things to do before the order meeting tonight, including reading these reports." Without a backwards glance, Albus conjured a cane and walked out of the hospital wing.
Poppy just stared at the doors after he left, "You know Minerva, the only other person that hates this wing as much as your husband is Harry Potter himself."
Minerva laughed at her friend, "Yes, if I didn't know any better, I'd swear that Harry was our grandson." Sharing another laugh with Poppy, Minerva strode from the room to find her wayward husband.
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At 7:45pm, Harry was sitting behind his desk finishing up some paperwork he had neglected. It wasn't anything really important, just payroll for his entire staff.
"Harry, sweetheart, everyone is here." Harry looked up at his wife then at the clock; sure enough it was time to leave. With a wave of his hand and his paperwork tucked itself neatly into envelopes and then jumped into a satchel that Hedwig could grab. Harry moved over to his friends and made sure they had everything and headed out of his office for the Entrance Hall. On his way out, Harry strapped his sword and scabbard around his waist.
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At eight o'clock in the evening, Albus Dumbledore strolled into the formal dining room at #12 Grimmauld Place, better known as the Headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix. Around him he saw most of the order gathered, the only people who were missing were the four of the Weasley brothers, Bill, Charlie, Fred, and George and Miss Fleur Delacour. Albus figured they were sitting out as a sign of protest to support Harry.
After placing all the appropriate charms and wards were placed, Albus sat down at the head of the table and spoke, "Good evening everyone, I hereby call this meeting of the Order of the Phoenix to order. As we are all aware, earlier today during a Press Conference in Diagon Alley, Voldemort and 75 of his followers broke through the apparation wards and attacked. If not for our timely—"
There was a loud crash as Harry Potter, Ginny Potter, Ron Weasley, Hermione Granger, Bill Weasley, Charlie Weasley, Percy Weasley, Fred and George Weasley, Luna Lovegood, Neville Longbottom, and Fleur Delacour all strode right through the door and into the room. Harry surveyed the room and smirked. Everyone in the room was shocked except for Remus and Tonks who were laughing, and Mad-Eye Moody who was smiling.
"Oh, I'm sorry; I figured since you all wanted answers to why we orchestrated the fight today I thought we might need to be here."
Without another word, each one of group conjured a chair for themselves wandlessly while Harry also extended the table and sat down at the end. With everyone's shocked looks he knew why they were shocked, "Do you really think that the Lord of this Manor couldn't enter any room he wanted. That reminds me, KREACHER!!"
Suddenly a very old house elf appeared next to Harry; he was muttering about blood traitors and mudbloods. Harry was not in a great mood and so he levitated the house elf up onto table and spoke, "I, Harry James Potter, am your master! You will obey me!" Kreacher stared right into Harry's face and spit at him and spoke, "No."
Kreacher immediately keeled over and died. His body burst into flames and was incinerated. "Good, now that is taken care of, let's get down to the reason we are here. As most of you probably don't know, fifteen years ago, there was a prophecy made about me and Voldemort." Almost everyone in the room shuddered at his name "CHRIST ALMIGHTY!!! It's just a name, Vol-de-mort get used to saying it because I will not stand any euphemisms anymore. Now, where was I…ah yes…the prophecy, it was made, it says that either must die at the hand of the other. In simple turns, I have to kill him or he kills me. Now, since I am the ONLY person who can defeat him, do you think there is a good why I should not be allowed to join a group whose job it is to defeat him? I don't think so, but then again I am not the high and mighty Albus Dumbledore." Harry pointed his finger at Dumbledore who looked like he wanted to speak, but couldn't. Harry then turned back to Ginny who had a wide smile on her face.
Deciding to ignore this, he looked at Dumbledore with apologetic eyes. Albus' eyes actually sparkled brightly. 'This old man has really gone around the bend.'
Clearing his head, he continued, "Because of this, I have been forced to use other methods at my disposal. I have enlisted the help of these people to help me figure out how to destroy him. We have been working under the assumption that Tom Riddle, whom later became Lord Voldemort, used some sort of dark rituals to gain power and attempt to reach immortality. Now no one, except for Ol' Tom himself, has no real idea what he has done to make himself immortal, or at least as close to immortal as one can go.
"So in order to accomplish this, we had to do some serious research, which the lovely Hermione Granger headed up."
Hermione then stood up and continued the story, "As we all know, every magical creature, no matter how twisted they have become, have their own unique magical signature. This signature is mix of their own magical aura and any magic that has been used on or by the individual.
"Over the years, as more and more spells are used on or by a person, their signature grows and changes. If a person studies these signatures closely, they will discover every spell ever used. The problem we had discovered is that there are no known devices for recording a magical signature and recording this information for later analysis.
"So me, Remus Lupin, Bill Weasley, and Fleur Delacour were tasked with creating something that will record, and store someone's magical aura. Thanks to members of the order who are a little loose lipped, especially when Ogden's Best Firewhiskey is involved, we made some rather interesting discoveries.
"Magic is, in its simplest form, is a form of energy. It is similar to muggle electricity, so we thought that the muggle world might have the answers we needed. We soon learned that we were correct. We built an energy scanner and tested it a number of times. Also, as a side note, we discovered why muggle electronics do not work in areas of high magic, like at Hogwarts. Magic and muggle electricity run in complete polar opposite to each other. We are now running muggle radios and other items in the castle."
At this point, Harry took back over the briefing. So far, many of the muggleborn and half-bloods in the room all looked eager to use some of the muggle conveniences that they had to do without.
"Thank you Hermione, I'm sure many people will enjoy watching TV very soon. Now that we had the means to record Tom's magical signature, we now had the problem of figuring out how to record it. So we invited Severus, who is our resident expert on Death Eaters and Lord Voldemort into our little group. Now please let me say this, every person involved has made an unbreakable vow and a Wizard's Oath not to reveal anything that we were doing.
"Severus informed us that Tom is still recovering from his duel with Albus, but he could fight if he had a large enough target to go after. So we laid out a very elaborate plan which included the Ministry, Gringotts, Voldemort and of course, you.
"This was our plan, I figured that the best target for Tom was Albus, me, and my wife together, away from Hogwarts, so I planned the press conference that happened this morning in front of Gringotts to announce the changes that have occurred here at Hogwarts. I made sure Severus gave Voldemort the information that would make his mouth water, that I would be addressing a large group of innocent witches and wizards. Now, I abhor the idea of innocent people dying for no reason, so we planned out every single detail. All the chairs that the audience sat on were actually portkeys that took them to a safe location. They would not work for anyone who carried the dark mark thanks to Severus, who was kind enough to allow us to scan him and find the frequency of the Dark Mark. The largest part of our plan is thanks to William Arthur Weasley, Vice President in charge of Security for Gringotts Bank."
With a wave of his had, Bill stood up and delivered his report, "I would like to go on the record now, by saying that while I agree with Albus on many things, the issue of Harry not joining, I do not, that is why I have helped the New Marauders. Harry and I met with Mackrack and asked him to let me handle all the security arrangements for the press conference. Since Harry controls a large amount of money…you get the picture.
"Anyway, I had one battalion of goblins patrolling Diagon Alley along with seventy five of my wizard security team members and 50 Aurors and 30 Hit Wizards. Because of my curse breaker skills, I chose to setup the Portkey and Apparition Wards myself. I created two complete sets of wards for this event. The first set, which everyone thought had been weaved into Gringotts', was actually tied to ten black onyx stones that I used as the anchors for the wards. These were strong enough that any normal wizard couldn't penetrate them, but Voldemort, Albus, and Harry could shatter them easily. After Voldemort arrived, I activated the portkeys and the second set of wards. These wards were indeed the real wards that were powered from Gringotts itself."
Bill sat down and Harry stood back up and surveyed the room. There wasn't a single person who wasn't amazed at what these people had done. But things were about to get even better. "In our planning, we theorized that Voldemort was using his own magic to hold his body together, we thought that if we could injure him enough, it would buy us more time find a way to undo whatever he had done. At this time, I would like everyone to please look at the walls around you. What you are about to see is the battle first hand, from myself, Bill, Ginny, Ron, Hermione, Luna, Charlie, Fred, George, Neville, Fleur, and Percy's point of views as well as magical recording devices that were in place through out the alley. We have also included an overlay that shows the magical aura of everyone and everything you see."
Harry waved his hand and the five pensieves that Tonks, Charlie, Remus, Neville and Luna had used appeared and began to display the battle:
The image began with Harry and Dumbledore taking their places for the start of the Q & A session. As soon as they were in place, the huge popping noise as 75 Death Eaters apparated into the square filled the Dining Room. Everyone saw the aura of the Wards snap into place, as Voldemort casually waked towards the stage. Everyone heard Harry mentally tell Albus that he wouldn't want to order to miss what was coming.
Then Harry spoke to Voldemort and the assembled crowd "Ah yes, I see our question is from the wanna-be pure blood, Tom Marvolo Riddle, better known as Lord Voldemort, or to all of you as 'You-Know-Who' or 'He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named'. For those of you who do not know, Old Tommy Boy here opened the Chamber of Secrets fifty years ago and framed Rubeus Hagrid, and is not the Heir of Slytherin, like he claims to be. So Tom, what question can I answer for you? Wait, no Tom I am not going to join you, surrender, or do anything else like that, so just do us all a favor and go to hell."
Everyone say the steam how upset Voldemort was. In the room Harry heard Mrs. Weasley mention to Arthur that if he didn't control his blood pressure, he might pop an artery. This led to snickers through out the room. Everyone saw how Voldemort's pale skin went beet red and saw the steam blow out of his ears. "I ONLY HAVE ONE THING TO SAY TO YOU…BOY…ATTACK!!"
A furious cry escaped the Death Eaters lips as they charged the group of seemingly defenseless people stuck to their seats. Right before they reached the first of the innocents, they disappeared via portkey, in their places was Portable Swamps and other items from Weasleys Wizarding Wheezes. "I always knew our products would be used for the betterment of Wizard kind" yelled one of the twins.
In a flash the battle began all around them. The room watched as Order members and Aurors engaged Death Eaters. Harry and Ginny made a B-line for Voldemort who was dueling some young man, too foolish to run. Ron and Neville joined Harry and Ginny as they pushed their way to Voldemort. Along the way, they used both their wands and swords on the Death Eaters. Everyone could see that these people knew that this was a war and they had made their peace with killing Death Eaters.
As they reached Voldemort, Bellatrix and Draco Malfoy stepped into their path. He group heard Harry's thoughts about his vision and the surprise that Draco was alive. "So Draco, did you sell out your other baby death eaters?" Draco sneered, "Of course I sold them out! What did you expect me to do, offer myself to take the killing curse for them? I am not you, you damn Gryffindor!"
People looked around and saw Minerva battling three Death Eaters as Hermione jumped into the fray to help Minerva take down the three Death Eaters. Then Hermione looked up and saw Ron run his sword thru Draco Malfoy's chest and then shoot the exploding hex point blank range. Draco landed in the storefront of Quality Quidditch Supplies, impaled on a Firebolt which stuck out through the gaping hole in his chest. As Ron was soaking in this victory, everyone heard Viktor Krum cry out "CRCUIO!" Ron fell to the ground as Harry battled another Death Eater, still trying to get to Voldemort.
The room saw Viktor Krum standing over Ron with a manic gleam in his eye. The room changed and images of Viktor Krum raping Hermione flashed before them. Ron let out an unholy roar and wrapped her arms around his fiancée, daring anyone to touch her. The image then changed and showed Minerva plough thru the crowd to help Hermione.
The images then shifted towards Harry who was watching Voldemort duel Dumbledore. Voldemort wasn't winning the duel, but everyone saw that he wasn't losing it either. Dumbledore was clearly tired from fighting his way thru the crowd, while Voldemort was trying to conserve his magic. They then heard Harry's message, 'Albus, he's mine!' and then Harry scream out "Riddle, you're mine!" and with that Harry pushed Albus out of the way and took over the duel with Voldemort.
Albus followed his path with his eyes and saw that fell into a hole that was there a moment before hand. Fred paled, "Sorry Headmaster, they're our newest invention, 'Portable Holes' place it anywhere and make a hole. Albus laughed very loudly and continued to watch the battle.
All around them, the people in the room watched the battle. They saw Death Eater after Death Eater fall and the forces of the light continue to fight on. They all then started watching Harry and Voldemort duel again.
Harry threw curse after curse and used his sword every chance he could get. Everyone saw that Harry's plan was to make Voldemort use larges amounts of magic, thus making him magically exhausted. After twenty minutes of fighting, everyone saw Harry spin around quickly, he used the natural momentum of the spin to throw his sword towards Voldemort's chest like a boomerang. The spinning sword caused Voldemort to twist away, but it still nicked his right arm badly and right into the bludgeoning hex Harry shot at him. Harry then used a summoning charm to bring the sword back, nicking Voldemort's other arm. As soon as he had back in his hands, Harry crunched low and sprung over the shocked form of Voldemort.
While he was jumping, everything slowed down and the room saw Voldemort's magical aura beginning to fade. It faded even more when Harry severed Voldemort's left arm off at the shoulder. As Voldemort screamed in pain, Harry swiped at his legs and chopped off his right leg just above the knee. This caused Voldemort to fall to the ground in agony. No one had ever seen this before, Voldemort in pain and agony. Everyone saw Voldemort was beaten, and that he knew it. Voldemort reached for the talisman that was around his neck that wasn't there.
He then tried to apparate, but could not. Harry moved closer to him cut half of his wand hand off. Harry then summoned Voldemort's wand placed it in his battle robes. Voldemort then let out a blood curtailing scream and appeared to turn to a black mass of smoke for a moment before there was a large bong sound and Voldemort disappeared. As Voldemort began to disappear, the images slowed down and everyone saw Voldemort's aura went almost gray before he disappeared.
Everyone watched the last ten minutes of fighting as Bellatrix Lestrange, and three others had Death Eaters escaped. Neville and Ginny had scalped Bellatrix and removed her wand arm and left leg at the hip. The other three were also severely injured. Everyone saw Remus standing over the remains of Peter Pettigrew. Tonks was standing over the dead form of Narcissa Malfoy, with a letter in her hand.
The room saw Harry and Ginny finding Hermione, Ron, and Minerva who were standing over what was left of Viktor Krum. Ron had literally beat Krum to death using his fists. Then everyone saw Harry talking to Bill and Charlie who had taken charge of the cleanup on scene, "Guys any injuries on our side?" Charlie, who was wearing a very nice black-eye smirked, "No deaths on our side. We do have ten people who were sent to St. Mungo's in critical; they were extra people who didn't sit down. There are a number of moderate and light wounds, but overall I think we did very well, no deaths on our side. All but Voldemort, Bellatrix, and three other Death Eaters lived escaped; out of the remaining 71, 65 of them are dead."
The images faded and everyone looked back to Harry. "So, a plan that was made by a bunch of CHILDREN took care of 65 death eaters and seriously injured Voldemort. Severus now has a repot to make…"
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Lord Voldemort apparated away from Diagon Alley and to his nearest safe house, which was the old Riddle House in Little Hangleton. He was in very bad shape, missing one arm, one lower leg, his wand hand and his damn wand, all thanks to Harry Potter! Plus, he was very close to magical exhaustion. That was supposed to be impossible for him to do; his body was in essence a large magical energy storage device.
This body was maintained by his magic, he had to do something very soon or else he would be reduced to a specter once again. As he ran thru his options, he heard four distinctive pops, and then a scream as Bellatrix fell right next to him, "My Lord, you are deeply injured, what can I do to help you?"
Voldemort looked at his Bella and saw she was just as injured as he was. He vowed to make Potter pay for what he had done, but his own survival was more important. "Bella, who…who else remains? Who is left who is loyal to me? You are not strong enough to help me in your state." Bella understood that she was useless to her master in her condition.
"I have Mulciber, Johnson, and Malone here with me. The only other member of your inner circle is Severus, and he should still be at Hogwarts, I could summon here quickly." Voldemort only nodded and began to think of a plan that would save himself, and then it came to him.
"Bella, give me your wand. I must summon Severus here." Bella, who had grabbed her wand with her other hand before she disaparated, handed it over and then bared her Dark Mark so that Voldemort could summon his servants.
Moments later, Severus Snape, and ten other servants appeared next the four who were already there. Snape, trying to remain the spy, dropped to his knees to aid his so called master. "My Lord, what can I do to aid you?"
Voldemort simply hissed, "You will make a portkey that will take one of my healthy servants, Bella, and me to my private sanctuary in the Amazon. Once there, the servant will be able to restore us. Now, listen to me, The Dark Lord's Amazon Retreat is well hidden…Death to all." Suddenly the information entered Severus mind; he quickly created a portkey for Voldemort and Bella and gathered all of the Death Eaters around their Lord.
"My faithful followers, Harry Potter and Ministry of Magic have surprised me today, it will not happen again. Because of this, I have decided to move up my timetable and will take my most trusted Death Eater Bellatrix, and one other, you Johnson, will accompany us. The rest of you are to recruit me an army and continue to gather information. NOW GO!!"
With a series of pops, the Death Eaters were gone except for Johnson, a new recruit fresh out of Durmstrang. He was a friend of Viktor Krum and swore vengeance on Weasley and his whore for the death of his friend. Little did he know that what Voldemort wanted him for was raw materials to rebuild his and Bellatrix's bodies. In order to accomplish this, Voldemort knew he would be out of action for months, but he had his trusted Death Eater Severus Snape keeping an eye on Albus Dumbledore and the boy Potter.
While Voldemort was speaking to his Death Eaters, Snape daringly entered Voldemort's mind and extracted the locations of Voldemort's hideouts and storage facilities all throughout Britain and Europe. As he was finishing extracting this information, Voldemort turned his attention back to Severus. Because of how unstable his magic was Voldemort never knew what Severus had done.
"Severus, once I leave here, all of my palaces and homes will seal themselves until I return. You need to get back to that muggle loving fool and report that I have left for…Eastern Europe…that will keep Dumbledore busy and give me time to complete this ritual. Do not disappoint me."
Bowing once again, Snape simply said, "I live to serve you my Lord. I shall await your return, from your… activities." Snape then activated the portkey and Voldemort, Bellatrix, and Johnson were gone.
Snape looked around the room with disgust and used the portkey Harry had given him and appeared in the entrance hall of Hogwarts.
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As Snape finished his report, he looked back to Harry who had basically taken control of the meeting. With a nod to Snape, Harry stood once again.
"So, let's run review what has happened today, shall we? A bunch of children, well that's what you call us anyway, discovered a way to learn what Voldemort has done to himself to make him immortal, and used this discovery to gather the data we needed. In the process we have disabled Voldemort and the bitch Bellatrix for months, according to Severus, possible even a year. Out of the 75 Death Eaters who arrived today, we have captured or killed 65 of them. The remaining Death Eaters have been told to lie low for awhile. Severus has information in his head that will allow us to seriously cut Voldemort's resources down.
"We have also used this exercise to flush out at least four other moles in the Ministry. We have created a whole new field of wizarding surveillance and have done all of this with… five injuries to the fighters today; the worse injury was when someone fell into a portable hole. We had ten civilian injuries all already treated and released. I think we did a very good job, without the Order of the Phoenix. Albus, the ball is your court." With that, Harry sat down and stared directly at Albus Dumbledore.
Albus Dumbledore stared across the table at the young man across from him. Albus could not be any prouder of Harry Potter then he is right now. Albus did make a mistake when it came to Harry joining the order, he knew it, Minerva knew it, and so did every single senior member of the order. That didn't detour Harry though; Harry and his group had in one far swoop caused more damage to Tom Riddle and his followers then anyone had since Voldemort's first fall.
With a proud smile, Albus stood up, "Very well. I for one have seen enough evidence to acknowledge that this group of people has done something extraordinary. They have delivered a crippling blow to Lord Voldemort and have given us information we can use to help finally destroy Lord Voldemort once in for all. So because of this, I would like to introduce Harry James Potter, Ginevra Molly Potter, Ronald Bilius Weasley, Hermione Jane Granger, Luna Marie Lovegood and Neville Francis Longbottom as the newest members of the Order of the Phoenix."
Everyone in the room stood and clasped loudly. It was chaos for a few minutes until Dumbledore restored order. "Because of this temporary lull in the war, I believe this is the best time for us to change how our organization operates. This will take several days to plan out, in the mean time please continue on your assignments. Thank you."
With a wave of his wand, he lowered the wards and ended the meeting. Most of the room emptied out leaving the New Marauders (Harry, Ginny, Ron, Hermione, Luna, and Neville), Albus, Minerva, Severus, Mad-Eye, Kingsley, Tonks, Remus, Molly, Arthur, Charlie, Bill, Fleur, Percy and Penny. Everyone was talking and exchanging hugs and handshakes in the room. Once Albus resealed the room, Albus crossed to Harry engulfed him into a hug that would put Molly Weasley to shame.
This surprised Harry, but he hugged Albus back anyway. He really hated arguing with Albus, he loved him like a grandfather, and felt like whenever he argued with Albus, he disappointed him.
"First off Harry, I want to tell you and all your Marauders," Albus looked straight at Remus who looked away, "that I am prouder of you then I can ever tell you. You have done a very good job, better then anyone can hope. Second, I want to apologize for what happened in our conversation we had about your admittance to order. I was wrong in two ways.
"One of them was using the tone I used with you during that meeting. It was unprofessional and just plain wrong. The other way is far worst; Harry, when I picked you up from Privet Drive this summer, I had every intention of having you join the order, after you had proved yourself to some of the members by doing some simple missions. As I said, this was much better, can you forgive me?"
Harry didn't even bat an eye, "I forgave you when I learned that you fell into one of Fred & George's Portable Holes." With another round of laughter, the group sat down to start laying out the framework for the new order.