What if Harry insisted on participating in an Order meeting when he arrived at Grimmauld Place in the summer before his Fifth Year?

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Harry Potter wasn't surprised that the first response to his composed request to attend the Order of the Phoenix meeting being held at Grimmauld Place was an outburst by Molly Weasley. "You're too young for this, Harry! This isn't a conversation for children!"

"Young, Mrs. Weasley? I'm too young?" He paused to let her respond.

"Of course you are," she proclaimed righteously. "You aren't even close to being mature enough to participate in discussions of this type! Now you march upstairs and join the other children while the adults meet."

"I was only eleven when a twelve foot troll bypassed the school wards in what is supposed to be one of the safest places in the wizarding world and it tried to kill Hermione. The adults left us with only other students to protect us and sent us out in the hallways where the troll was roaming to go back to our Common rooms. It was Ron and I that saved Hermione, not an adult. Should we have let her die because we were too young?"

"Now Harry," interrupted Albus Dumbledore with a grandfatherly smile, "that was a very isolated incident and shouldn't be used to demonstrate whether you are old enough to participate in these adult discussions."

"Indeed, sir. I was still only eleven when a Voldemort-possessed Hogwarts staff member attempted to kill me during a Quidditch match by cursing my broom when I was fifty feet in the air. It wasn't an adult that stopped the curses, but a First Year student. For some reason, the adults never investigated that murder attempt. In fact, none of the adults who knew that staff member realized at any time during the school year that he was possessed. I was only eleven when I killed that same staff member at the end of the year as I fought for my life." He narrowed his eyes just slightly at the plumb red-haired woman's shocked expression.

"I was only twelve when the entire school turned against me because I could speak to snakes and not a single Hogwarts staff member, not a single adult, defended me. I was only twelve when I faced a sixty-foot basilisk and a shade of Voldemort that was sucking the life out of your daughter, Mrs. Weasley. Even as I was dying from basilisk venom, I still destroyed his shade to save your daughter. Should I not have fought either of them and let your daughter die because I was too young?"

The Weasley matriarch opened and closed her mouth soundlessly, unsure what to say. No one else commented as he continued speaking softly and quietly. "It was mature adults that decided it was a good idea to send dementors to Hogwarts. I was only thirteen when one of those dementors tried to Kiss me on the Hogwarts Express. I was only thirteen when dozens of dementors swarmed the Quidditch field and tried to kill me again. I was only thirteen when close to one hundred dementors tried to Kiss both my godfather and me. It wasn't the adults in the school that drove them away, it was my Patronus. I would have had my soul sucked out if I had waited for adults to save me."

He looked around with a stony expression. "I was only fourteen when my name was illegally placed into the Goblet of Fire. The Headmaster and the other mature adults decided that I had to compete in a lethal tournament designed only for those who had completed a minimum of six years of schooling. I was only fourteen when the entire school turned on me again plus the Daily Prophet joined the act and yet again not a single Hogwarts adult staff member spoke in my defense. I was only fourteen when I had to face an enraged nesting mother dragon with only my wand and my wits. I was only fourteen when I had to dive into a frozen lake in February to save your son who was unconscious in that freezing water even though I didn't know how to swim. I was only fourteen when I had to face illegally bred skrewts that grew to be ten feet long and acrumantula spiders as big as the Knight Bus. I was only fourteen when I was kidnapped, watched the callous murder of a class mate, forcibly used in a ritual to resurrect Voldemort, tortured with the cruciatus curse…multiple times…and then compelled to duel Voldemort where I barely escaped with my life."

"I'm too young, Mrs. Weasley? You name one person in this room who has faced more than I have in five years." He looked around the room and wasn't surprised to see that most of the adults were staring at him in shock or were looking down in embarrassment. "Young is a state of mind. I never had a childhood. Being ill-treated and neglected by magic-hating child abusers tends to prevent that. Now, as you are discussing Voldemort and he has made killing me one of his top priorities, I think I have the right to participate in these meetings."

Without a word, Remus Lupin moved over one seat, leaving the chair next to Harry's godfather, Sirius, open. Harry sat down between the two men and looked at Dumbledore impassively, raising one eyebrow when the man didn't start the meeting.

Sirius leaned forward to murmur in his ear, "Very well said, Pup. Although for the record, you and I will be having a private conversation when this meeting is done."

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