Note: The second part of the double bill. I would love it if double bills became a weekly feature but I simply cannot promise it. For the moment I will stick with saying 'at least one chapter a week, any more are a bonus'.

Chapter Seven

Reunion

"ARRESTO MOMENTUM!"

The shout came from somewhere in the vicinity and the car came to a screeching halt with just inches to spare. After taking a few moments to compose themselves and come to terms with the fact that they were in fact still alive and not entangled in a heap of twisted metal smashed against the Weasley home, Harry and Professor McGonagall got out of the car, Harry thoroughly embarrassed of the way his knees were shaking. Luckily, the headmistress did not look all that well either; indeed she had gone a pale shade of green.

"Harry!" He turned to see the wonderfully familiar face of Mrs Weasley careering out of the doorway with her arms outstretched to envelop him in a hug, but before she could reach him, her path was blocked by her eldest son. It was only in that moment that Harry realised that there were three wands trained on him and his teacher, these being wielded by Bill, Mr Weasley and Mad-Eye Moody. The former two looked slightly apologetic, but Moody was regarding him with suspicion, his magical eye completely still for once as it focussed on him, and Harry wondered if it was trying to see through possible disguises.

"Minerva, you know the drill," he said gruffly. Professor McGonagall nodded and transformed into a cat and back again. Moody looked somewhat satisfied by this and Harry's theory regarding the animagus ability as a foolproof method of identifying a witch or wizard was confirmed. Moody turned his wand on Harry.

"Harry…Why should you never put your wand in your back pocket?"

Harry wracked his brains to try and think of the words that Moody had spoken when they had broken him out of Privet Drive two summers previously. It was hard to remember things, and not look suspicious whilst doing so, when one had been put upon on the spur of the moment and one knew that the pressure would not lessen until the question had been answered.

"Because better wizards than me have lost buttocks," he quoted, and Moody finally lowered his wand.

"And don't you forget it," he said.

"Sorry about that Harry," said Mr Weasley cheerfully as he and Bill finally let Molly through to throw her arms around him. "You can never be too careful, especially now…" He didn't finish the sentence, but Harry nodded his understanding none-the-less, and let himself be overwhelmed by Mrs Weasley's attention.

"… If I'd known you were coming," she was saying, patting him down for injury, "I'd have done a treacle tart… How come you're so early anyway? Is everything alright?"

Harry looked to Professor McGonagall for assistance.

"We thought, well, I thought, that it would be more profitable to change the date at the last minute," she said. "I know that we were already planning on doing that, but I thought that perhaps the more last minute the better…"

They were interrupted by the crack of apparition and Kingsley, Lupin and Tonks appeared. Once the formalities of establishing the veracity of their identities was over and the Order members were caught up in the explanation of all the events that had led to their arrival, Harry managed to divest himself of Mrs Weasley's attention and run in the direction of the new voices that were shouting his name.

"Harry! Harry!"

Ron and Hermione were running towards him with as much exuberance as he was running towards them, and they collided in the middle of the yard in a clumsy mixture of hugs so chaotic that no-one could tell precisely whose limbs belonged to who.

"What happened?" Hermione asked, her voice betraying the inherent worry that she felt whenever something didn't go exactly according to plan. "We weren't expecting you until next Thursday, perhaps Monday at the earliest if we brought the date forward…"

"Oh, don't worry about it," said Ron. "Harry's here now, let's focus on that and ignore the fact that McGonagall decided to be spontaneous." He looked over his shoulder at the gathered Order huddled by the car. "Not sure Moody's particularly happy about it though."

Harry couldn't elaborate on the reasoning behind Professor McGonagall's sudden change of plans as he didn't know it himself, so he concentrated instead on telling them the story of the eventful journey from Privet Drive to the Burrow. Hermione was shaking her head in despair by the time he got to the part in which he drove point blank towards a tree, but Ron found the whole thing hilarious, especially when the car suddenly let out a siren burst for no apparent reason and the adults standing beside it started at the sudden noise.

"That was priceless!" said Ron. "Come on, let's get inside. We can talk more about… You know what." Harry nodded and Ron cast a spell to summon his luggage out of the boot of the car.

"You brought your trunk?" he asked incredulously. "Isn't that a bit overkill?"

"Ron!" hissed Hermione, gesturing the Order. Harry was not quite sure how much they knew, and he was anxious to share the words that Professor McGonagall had said to him just before their departure with Ron and Hermione. He led the way into the house and Ron and Hermione followed, bouncing his trunk up the stairs.

"McGonagall made me bring it," he said once they were safely squeezed into Ron's room. "Dumbledore told her about the horcruxes, but I don't know if the rest of the Order knows." He paused. "I don't think she wants us to go."

"She wouldn't," said Hermione. "She's taken over from Dumbledore as headteacher. The most primal duty of any head of a school is to protect its students, all of its students, and she can't do that if three of them are on a horcrux hunt."

Harry could not fault Hermione's simple logic. There was silence for a while as each of them digested the words and the meaning behind them.

"So what do we do now?" asked Ron glumly. "I mean, we've still got to do this, we can't not go just because McGonagall doesn't want us to."

Harry shook his head.

"I think there's something more," he said, "something she isn't telling us yet. Another reason." He paused, trying to fathom what the reason might be but soon giving up; there were too many possibilities and his mind was too fraught from the experiences of the last hour to try and concentrate on any remotely useful cogitations. "Let's not think about it now," he said quickly. "We'll decide after we've had some sleep. What's been going on here?"

"Well," said Ron, lying back on his bed and resting his feet on top of Harry's trunk, "the house has become a sort-of unofficial not-quite-headquarters for the Order… Mum's furious with Bill…"

"How come?" Harry asked, taken aback.

"He and Fleur… They got married last Saturday, just a quiet thing in a registry office. The thing is, Mum's been having wedding ideas for ages, with it being her first son and all that, and then they went and got hitched without telling her because they didn't want to wait… Well, you wouldn't, would you, not when You-Know-Who could be hiding just about anywhere." Ron paused. "But it's done now and she can't do anything about it. Who knows, they might end up having to get married again for the benefit of all the elderly relatives who were just hanging on long enough to see one of their great-nephews down the aisle. What else… Tonks and Lupin tied the knot the day before Bill and Fleur did; I'm telling you, we might as well get a licence and open our own office in the chicken coop, we've had that many weddings in the past week."

Harry couldn't help but laugh, although the news was not exactly heartwarming. True, the idea of life continuing in spite of everything that was happening was a good one; and whilst it made Harry proud to think that despite everything, Voldemort couldn't stop them from living, it also made him sad to think that their circumstances and fear were such that these people had been cheated of what could have been a momentous occasion for them. He thought about it; would Tonks really have missed getting dressed up in white and tripping up the aisle towards Lupin? Maybe not, she did seem like the type to do a bunk to Las Vegas to get wed by an Elvis impersonator, but he had no illusions that given the choice, Fleur would have wanted a big white wedding. It was a mark of just how fearful for their futures everyone was.

Presently Hermione's voice brought him back out of his thoughts.

"I still can't believe you drove here though, just you and Professor McGonagall with only Kingsley, Lupin and Tonks for protection," she was saying. "That's about as far removed from the original plan as possible! But then again, it would have been impossible to move the original plan forwards to today; the potion isn't ready yet…"

She tailed off under Harry's blank expression. The headmistress had mentioned something about the original plan, but Harry still didn't know what it actually was. He had expected to be taken by side-along apparition, after all, it was the quickest way of getting from A to B within the magical world, and it was extremely difficult to tail an apparition. But then again, apparition left traces of magic, and it was this magic that Voldemort would have been looking for…

"What was the original plan?" he asked. Hermione and Ron did their best to try and suppress little amused smiles, but they did not quite manage it.

"It was Mundungus's idea actually," said Ron. "And for him, it was a pretty ingenious idea. All circumstances considered and all that."

"Polyjuice potion," said Hermione simply. "The Order planned to create about seven Harry Potters and lead the Death Eaters on a wild goose chase all around the country, so they wouldn't know which was which. Well, hopefully." She shrugged. "Who knows, it might have worked, and it was better than nothing. But the potion wouldn't have been ready until Monday, so that's why we weren't expecting to see you quite so soon." She stopped, shook her head and threw her arms around him in a hug once more. "Not, of course, that we aren't amazingly pleased to see you in one piece. Still, driving an enchanted car across the fields to Devon…"

They were interrupted by a knock at the door, and Ginny poked her head around it.

"Mum's made hot chocolate," she said plainly, and the trio needed no further invitation. Harry looked awkwardly at their messenger as they filed out of the room, and she caught his gaze and held it. There was turmoil clear to see in her eyes, a turmoil that Harry also felt. He had tried to avoid thinking about what he would feel once he saw Ginny again after terminating their short-lived relationship at the end of the school year, and he had been completely unprepared. Neither of them spoke, until Ginny finally broke the silence.

"Go on," she urged. "It'll be getting cold."

Harry nodded.

"Thanks," he said, and he made his way down the stairs towards Hermione and Ron, who were waiting for him politely out of earshot. On the last step, he looked back at Ginny. She was still standing in the landing, in exactly the same position as when he had left her. She gave him a weak smile of encouragement before turning and going further up the stairs towards her room. Still trying to make sense of his jumbled emotions, Harry pulled himself together just in time to enter the kitchen to the wholly unusual sight of the stern transfiguration professor allowing Moody to pour an extremely generous measure of liquor from his hip flask into the steaming mug of hot chocolate that was cradled in her shaking hands. The older witch did not look quite as ill as she had done when they had first exited the car, but it was clear that it was a not an experience that she wanted to repeat in a hurry.

"You were fantastic Minerva," Tonks said from her position sitting cross-legged on the draining board as they took their places in the now slightly cramped kitchen and Mrs Weasley bustled steaming mugs of hot chocolate into their hands. "You should have seen it Molly, I've never witnessed anything like it."

"I'm not sure I'd want to see it," said Mrs Weasley briskly. "Can I get you a potion of some sort, Minerva? Brandy for medicinal purposes?"

"No thank you Molly," Professor McGonagall replied, having just taken a sip of her hot chocolate and obviously finding it a little more strongly laced than she had expected. Tonks opened her mouth to say something else but before she could elaborate on the details of the headmistress's visually dynamic duel, the flash of silver through the open kitchen window heralded the arrival of a patronus message. It was a lop-eared rabbit that spoke in a voice that Harry had last heard about an hour previously.

"The Dursleys are safe," said Hestia, but there was nothing more to the simple message and the rabbit bounded away again into the ether. The words silenced the gathered company, everyone's eyes turning unconsciously towards Harry. He had the strange feeling that he ought to say something, but he didn't have a clue what was fitting in the circumstances. He took a big gulp of hot chocolate to occupy his mouth and struggled not to spit it out when it scalded his tongue.

Just then, before anyone had the chance to break the awkward silence that had fallen upon the Order, another patronus arrived, a shape that was once again unfamiliar to Harry. This time, however, no-one in the kitchen seemed to recognise the leopard.

"They're here!" was the frantic cry that issued forth from the animal's mouth. "Azkaban is under attack!"

The Order members looked at each other, and after a conversation that took place through the medium of meaning glances and small gestures alone, Kingsley left the kitchen. Harry didn't know how long they spent waiting for his return, but he knew that no-one moved from the kitchen whilst they waited, the chocolate slowly going cold as the darkness began to fade into dawn. Finally, Kingsley reappeared, looking grave.

"The message came from Corban Athabasca, the Azkaban file-keeper," he said. "He'd intended it for the nearest Auror he could find, but under attack his direction was haphazard and it ended up with us, too late. Azkaban has fallen. The Death Eaters attacked tonight and freed their fellows." He paused. "Scrimgeour's determined to hush it up; he would be, but I went there… Athabasca's the only one who's not an inmate left alive."

The silence that fell with Kingsley's words was even more heavy and oppressive than it had been before his reappearance. All the euphoria that they had felt at getting Harry to safety without mishap had gone, knowing that something so monumental had been taking place simultaneously.

Well, Harry thought grimly, at least that explained how come there had not been all that many Death Eaters chasing them across the county borders. He looked askance at Professor McGonagall, who was staring down into her mug, and not for the first time that night, he got the impression that she knew slightly more than she was letting on.

Note2: Ho hum… Next time, a little sojourn back with the Death Eaters… Is that the beginning of flagrant insubordination I see on the horizon?