AN: Once again I am not JK Rowling.
Sirius helped me off of the Thestral and placed me gently on the ground. Everyone seemed to be at ease except for me, chatting happily catching up with each other. Suddenly the back door to the house was flung open and there was Harry standing in the doorway looking confused. He stepped out into the backyard and everyone started to greet him but I was so happy to see him I flung my arms around him and pulled him close to me. Ron came over and clapped him on the back smiling.
"All righ', Harry? Ready fer the off?" Hagrid asked.
"Definitely," Harry said, beaming around at them all. "But I wasn't expecting this many of you!"
"Change of plan," Mad-Eye growled, who was holding two enormous, bulging sacks, and whose magical eye was spinning from darkening sky to house to garden with dizzying rapidity. It always made me feel queasy just seeing it. Sirius slipped his hand into mine and entwined our fingers. "Let's get undercover before we talk you through it."
Harry led everyone into the house and I quickly braided back my hair.
"How are you feeling?" Sirius asked pushing a stray curl that was too short to fit in the braid back from my eyes.
"Pretty good considering." I muttered looking around the large kitchen that was perfectly clean.
"Sweetheart your heart is making my heart beat faster and your hands are shaking." Sirius said pulling my hands into his. "Everything will be fine."
I kissed him gently on the lips and smiled nervously at him.
"All right, all right, we'll have time for a cozy catch-up later," Moody roared over all the voices, and silence fell in the kitchen.
Moody dropped his sacks at his feet and turned to Harry, "As Dedalus probably told you, we had to abandon Plan A. Pius Thicknesse has gone over, which gives us a big problem. He's made it an imprisonable offense to connect this house to the Floo Network, place a Portkey here, or Apparate in or out. All done in the name of your protection to prevent You-Know-Who getting in at you. Absolutely pointless, seeing as your mother's charm does that already. What he's really done is to stop you from getting out of here safely.
"Second problem. You're underage, which means you've still got the Trace on you."
"I don't—" Harry started but Moody cut him.
"The Trace, the Trace!" said Mad-Eye impatiently. "The charm that detects magical activity around under-seventeens, the way the Ministry finds out out about underage magic! If you, or anyone around you, casts a spell to get you out of here, Thicknesse is going to know about it, and so will the Death Eaters.
"We can't wait for the Trace to break, because the moment you turn seventeen you'll lose all the protection your mother gave you. In short: Pius Thicknesse thinks he's got you cornered good and proper." It sounded absolutely horrible when he said it like that. Thank Merlin for Dung's idea.
"So what are we going to do?" Harry asked his eyes wide.
"We're going to use the only means of transport left to us, the only ones the Trace can't detect, because we don't need to cast spells to use them: brooms, Thestrals, and Sirius's motorbike." Harry looked like he wanted to interrupt but didn't.
"Now, your mother's charm will only break under two conditions: when you come of age, or"—Moody gestured around the pristine kitchen—"you no longer call this place home. You and your aunt and uncle are going your separate ways tonight, in the full understanding that you're never going to live together again, correct?"
Harry nodded.
"So this time, when you leave, there'll be no going back, and the charm will break the moment you get outside its range. We're choosing to break it early, because the alternative is waiting for You-Know-Who to come and seize you the moment you turn seventeen.
"The one thing we've got on our side is that You-Know-who doesn't know we're moving you tonight. We've leaked a fake trail to the Ministry: They think you're not leaving until the thirtieth. However, this is You-Know-Who we're dealing with, so we can't just rely on him getting the date wrong; he's bound to have a couple Death Eaters patrolling the skies in this general area, just in case. So we've given a dozen different houses every protection we can throw at them. They all look like they could be the place we're going to hide you, they've all got some connection with the Order: my house, Kingsley's place, Molly auntie Muriel's—you get the idea."
"Yeah," Harry said but he didn't look convinced.
"You'll be going to Tonks' parents. Once you're within the boundaries of the protective enchantments we've put on their house you'll be able to use a Portkey to the Burrow. Any questions?"
"Er – yes," Harry said looking around at everyone. "Maybe they won't know which of the
twelve secure houses I'm heading for at first, but won't it be sort of obvious once" – he looked around the room – "fourteen of us fly off towards Tonks' parents'?"
"Ah," Moody said giving a small smile. "I forgot to mention the key point. Fourteen of us won't be flying to Tonks's parents. There will be seven Harry Potters moving through the skies tonight, each of them with a companion, each pair heading for a different safe house." From inside his cloak Moody now withdrew a flask of what looked like mud.
Harry took a step back his eyes widening in horror. "NO!"
"I told them you'd take it like this," I said rolling my eyes. It was true before we had left I had mentioned Harry would loathe and deplore the thought of us pretending to be him.
"If you think I'm going to let six people risk their lives–!" Harry started.
"–because it's the first time for all of us," Ron said leaning against the counter.
"This is different, pretending to be me–"
"Well, none of us really fancy it, Harry," said Fred earnestly.
"Imagine if something went wrong and we were stuck as specky, sccrawny gits forever."
Some were snickering and others tried not to smile. Harry did not smile though.
"You can't do it if I don't cooperate, you need me to give you some hair." Harry said drawing up to his full height.
"Well, that's that plan scuppered," George said. "Obviously there's no chance at all of us getting a bit of your hair unless you cooperate."
"Yeah, thirteen of us against one bloke who's not allowed to use magic: we've got no chance," Fred said.
"Funny," Harry said, "really amusing."
"If it has to come to force, then it will," growled Moody, his magical eye now quivering a little in its socket as he glared at Harry.
"Everyone here's overage, Potter, and they're all prepared to take the risk. Let's have no more arguments. Time's wearing on. I want a few of your hairs, boy, now."
"But this is mad, there's no need–"
"No need!" Moody snarled finally losing his patience, "With You-Know-Who out there and half the Ministry on his side? Potter, if we're lucky he'll have swallowed the fake bait and he'll be planning to ambush you on the thirtieth, but he'd be mad not to have a Death Eater or two keeping an eye out, it's what I'd do. They might not be able to get at you or this house while your mother's charm holds, but it's about to break and they know the rough position of the place. Our only chance is to use decoys. Even You-Know-Who can't split himself into seven." My eyes bugged and I quickly looked at the floor.
"So, Potter–some of your hair, if you please." Harry glanced at Ron, who grimaced at him in a just-do-it sort of way.
"Now!" barked Moody.
With all of their eyes on him, Harry reached up to the top of his head, grabbed a hunk of hair, and pulled.
"Good," Moody said, limping forward as he pulled the stopper out of the flask of potion. "Straight in here, if you please."
Harry dropped the hair into the mudlike liquid. The moment it made contact with its surface, the potion began to froth and smoke, then, all at once, it turned a clear, bright gold.
"Ooh, you look much tastier than Crabbe and Goyle, Harry," I said. Sirius barked a laugh behind me and I flushed brightly. "Oh, you now what I mean–Goyle's potion looked like bogies."
"Right then, fake Potters line up over here, please." Moody said.
Ron, Neville, Fred, George, Fleur and I lined up in front of Aunt Petunia's gleaming sink. My hands were shaking and Fleur casually slipped hers into mine. I smiled at her and she smiled back the same worry I was feeling reflected in her eyes. She didn't think the ministry believed the fake lead any more than I did.
Moody started pulling out shot glasses from a hidden pocket and lined them up in front of us pouring a little bit of polyjuice potion in each of them.
"Altogether, then..."
I sent one last look at Sirius and downed the drink in one gulp. My insides swam around horribly and I leaned against the counter for support. Then I started to feel itchy in my own skin. It felt like it was melting off of me. I wouldn't be surprised if this is what death felt like. It was horrible. Then as suddenly as the pain started it stopped.
I looked up into my husbands eyes but I couldn't see him. Everything was blurry. Harry's eyesight really was horrible.
Fred and George turned to each other and said together, "Wow–we're identical!"
I snorted before I could stop myself.
"I dunno, though. I think I'm still better looking," Fred said, examining his reflection in the kettle.
"Bah," Fleur said checking herself in the microwave door, "Bill, don't look at me–I'm 'ideous."
"Those whose clothes are a bit roomy, I've got smaller here," Moody said, indicating the first sack, "and vice versa. Don't forget the glasses, there's six pairs in the side pocket. And when you're dressed, there's luggage in the other sack."
I quickly grabbed some clothes from the sack and started to strip off my clothes. It would have been horribly embarrassing but I couldn't see anything I shouldn't have.
"I knew Ginny was lying about that that tattoo," Ron said, looking down at his bare chest.
"Harry, your eyesight really is awful," I said putting on the glasses.
Once dressed, the fake Harrys took rucksacks and owl cages, each containing a stuffed snowy owl, from the second sack.
"Good," said Moody, as at last the seven dressed, bespectacled, and luggage-laden Harrys faced him. "The pairs will be as follows: Miss Granger will be traveling with me, by Thestral–" I nodded.
"Arthur and Fred–"
"I'm George," said the twin at whom Moody was pointing, "Can't you even tell us apart when we're Harry?"
"Sorry, George–"
"I'm only yanking your wand. I'm Fred really–"
"Enough messing around!" snarled Moody. "The other one–George or Fred or whoever you are–you're with Remus. Miss Delacour–"
"I'm taking Fleur on a Thestral," Bill said. "She's not that fond of brooms."
Fleur walked over to stand beside him, giving him a soppy, slavish look that I had never seen on Harry's face before. I smirked at the ground and shifted nervously.
"Mr Weasley with Kingsley, again by Thestral–"
"Which leaves you and me, Neville!" Sirius said nodding at Neville. Neville smiled brightly in return.
"An' you're with me, Harry. That all right?" Hagrid said, looking a little anxious. "We'll be on the bike, brooms an' Thestrals can't take me weight, see. Not a lot o' room on the seat with me on it, though, so you'll be in the sidecar."
"That's great," The real Harry said his eyes a little dazed.
"We think the Death Eaters will expect you to be on a broom," Moody said, who seemed to guess how Harry was feeling. "Snape's had plenty of time to tell them everything about you he's never mentioned before, so if we do run into any Death Eaters, we're betting they'll choose one of the Potters who look at home on a broomstick. All right then," he went on, tying up the sack with the fake Potters' clothes in it and leading the way back to the door, "Its three minutes until we're supposed to leave. No point locking the back door, it won't keep the Death Eaters out when they come looking. Come on . . . "
Sirius darted over to me as I started to walk towards the door. "This is so nerve wracking."
"I know." Sirius muttered running a hand through his hair. "but you'll be safe Moody will protect you if anything happens."
"I love you Sirius." I said my voice hushed.
Sirius pulled a face then shook his head. "Sorry its weird to hear Harry say that."
I snorted out a laugh but sobered up when Moody made his way over to us. "I'll protect you girly now we should get going."
I nodded and followed silently towards the large Thestral standing in the yard. Moody climbed up easily and reached down to help me. I grabbed his hand and pulled myself up onto the creature. He helped steady me before turning around. I made myself comfortable and wrapped one arm around Moody's waist and pulled my wand out.
"All right then," Moody said. "Everyone ready, please. I want us all to leave at exactly the same time or the whole point of the diversion's lost."
Everybody mounted their brooms.
"Good luck, everyone," shouted Moody, "See you all in about an hour at the Burrow. On the count of three. One... two... THREE."
The Thestral rose into the air and I took in a deep breath everything would be okay. Sirius would protect Neville and vice versa. Ron would be fine and Voldemort wouldn't get Harry. Everything would be fine.
Prepare yourself Hermione! I froze and turned towards Sirius but it hadn't sounded like Sirius. It had sounded more like Severus. If Severus had been close by then... oh Merlin! My eyes widened as the first killing curse hurdled past my head and I shrieked.
AN: Please Review! It helps more than you know. Tell me what you love, what you hate, anything.