Snap.
Whoosh.
Snap.
Whoosh.
Snap.
Whoosh.
Snap.
Crash.
Jerking up in bed, Harry sat frozen with one hand cradled to his chest, ears straining to hear anything over the handful of fire he held in his palm.
Curling his fingers around the fire to put it out, Harry slowly lowered his feet to the floor and stood, creeping on ratty sneakers over to his door where he pressed his ear against the wood nervously. If he held his breath and tilted his head just right, he could hear the quiet murmurs of the intruders below drifting up the stairs, the intruders not bothering to keep quiet.
But were they the bad guys or the good guys? And were there even any good guys in this fight? Or had it really been narrowed down to Death Eaters, Order of the Phoenix, and then Harry all on his own already?
Snapping out of it when he heard the creaking of the first step, Harry hurried across his room and snapped his fingers, conjuring a palm-full of softly crackling flames in each hand.
Wait... no.
Clenching his hands into fists around the fires he instead grabbed his wand, diving for his trunk. The intruders wouldn't be expecting him to be able allowed or willing to use magic to defend himself so willingly. And while they definitely wouldn't be expecting him to hurl fireballs across the room at them, he'd rather save that for when he absolutely needed it; like when they had him surrounded or hit him with a disarming charm.
Smirking as he heard someone tripping over the top stair (the top stair was higher than the others for some reason), Harry didn't even need to think about it as he turned and vaulted out the window, the breath bursting from his lungs as he landed and fell forward onto his chest. Hey, he'd managed to land the jump from the staircase into the hallway without issues, so what if he just assumed he could do it again?
Picking himself up and shuffle-jogging around the house towards the unlocked backdoor, Harry tightened his grip on his wand as he threw his invisibility cloak over his head and re-entered the house. Surely they knew he wasn't in his room by now right? Unless they didn't know which room was his... but that wasn't so likely since they probably watched the house to make sure that no one else would be home at this time.
Slipping in the backdoor and keeping an eye out for any guards, Harry waited in the kitchen. He knew what he needed to do, but there was a difference between knowing and actually doing. And he wasn't so sure that he was ready to kill if he had to, Professor Quirrell aside he'd never even thought about killing someone before. Seriously thought about it at least, he'd entertained the thought of going after Pettigrew and feeding him to Crookshanks, but the thought of actually killing someone made him feel sick to his stomach.
But could he do it?
Almost instantly the answer came to him. Yes, yes he could. They would be trying to kill him; it was the least he could do to return the favour. He wasn't going to sit back and let them kill other people to get to him, Cedric had already been murdered, he refused to let anyone else die because he couldn't or wouldn't stand up for himself.
Starting forward again, Harry moved up the stairs, wand at the ready as he carefully dodged all three of the creaking stairs and stepped over the top one.
And there they were, eight or nine silhouettes all loitering around the door to his bedroom, peering into the room. Sneaking down the hall with an ease born of practice, Harry chose his target and lunged, wand digging into the neck of the slim small woman standing at the rear of the group as he wrapped his arm around her to latch onto her far arm.
"Drop your wands, now," he declared to the stunned intruders, the tip of his wand glowing brightly where it was pressed against the woman's skin.
"Not bad, boy," said a low growling voice in response, "Didn't even hear you leave".
"Harry?" another familiar voice questioned, making him blink in shock as someone hit the light-switch and flooded the hallway with light.
"Professor Moody," Harry greeted coldly, "Professor Lupin".
"Don't know much 'bout 'Professor'," Moody muttered unhappily as he pushed past a pink-haired woman to stand at the front of the group. "Never got 'round to much teaching, now did I?"
Harry didn't even twitch at the sight of Professors Moody and Lupin in the group. And he had a very valid reason to be suspicious after all, he'd spent the last year at Hogwarts being taught by a man wearing Moody's face, with no one the wiser to the fact it was an imposter. But more importantly, an imposter that had tried to kill Harry before being unmasked – In his own humble experience he had more than enough of a reason to be suspicious and downright untrusting.
"It's alright, Harry, we're here to take you away," Lupin assured him, joining Moody at the front of the group, almost moving closer until Harry's wand jerked into the woman's neck hard enough to make her whimper.
"Oh I bet you are," Harry agreed sarcastically, "Right off to your Dark Lord?"
"Harry!" the violet-haired woman scolded.
"Hush Nymphadora," Moody snapped, "The boy's right, we could be anyone. Good thinking there, kid. Go on, ask me a question. Prove it's me".
"I don't think I know you well enough to tell if you're lying to me," Harry countered, his mind racing as he took a step back, dragging the woman back with him and hiding his grimace as his invisibility cloak caught on his sneaker.
"Harry!"
"He told you to hush, Nymphadora," Harry reminded cheerfully, watching with a smirk as the woman glared at him as her hair turned red. Big deal, he'd turned his teacher's hair blue when he was younger, although 'Nymphadora' won points for the whole red = Gryffindor thing.
"Mr friends called me 'Moony' back at Hogwarts," Lupin piped up, shooting Nymphadora a warning look as the red-haired woman glared. "It's really us".
"He also called Pettigrew 'Wormtail'," Harry argued, eyes narrowing as Moody's hand started casually drifting towards his opposite sleeve. "And my friends say I have the eyes of a hawk, Moody, so drop both of your wands now".
As Moody started and stared at him in shock, Harry just grinned, "I'm the youngest Seeker in a century for a reason you know," he pointed out as the battle-scarred man set both his wands on the ground. "The only game I ever lost was because of the dementors that swarmed the pitch to try kiss me".
"Which you came to me to learn how to get rid of," Lupin added quickly.
Lucky guess.
"I had a grindylow in my office the first time you visited me there?" Lupin continued hopefully when Harry just stared at them, "We used to talk about the wizarding world while we were catching our breath after banishing the boggart back into the trunk. We talked about how it felt to be a half-blood being introduced to magic for the first time
Okay, so maybe that one was a little more than just luck.
"We're here to take you away," Lupin repeated with a tired smile, apparently seeing Harry's acceptance in his face or something.
"We're here to take Potter away," Moody corrected with a huff, "Some secret it would be if we brought a Death Eater impersonator back to HQ".
"What form does your Patronus take?" Lupin added after Moody turned to stare at him expectantly, clearing his throat loudly.
"A stag".
"It's him, Alastor," Lupin said bluntly, turning a scowl on the scarred man who didn't hesitate to send one back. "Are you satisfied now?"
"It didn't hurt," Moody muttered under his breath, looking anything but.
Slowly pulling his wand away from the woman's neck, Harry shoved her away from him, lowering his wand slightly even if he didn't loosen his grip on it. "Just because I trust that it's really you, doesn't mean I trust you," he refused bluntly, Lupin blinking at him in shock.
"Harry!"
"Oh my god!" he exclaimed, turning an annoyed scowl on Nymphadora as he ignored his ex-hostage's glare. "Is that all you're capable of saying? What are you, a parrot animagus?"
"What's a parrot?" a man in the background questioned curiously.
"Harry, we're here to rescue you," Lupin interrupted quickly, "The least you could do is pretend to be polite".
"I haven't cursed any of you yet have I?" Harry deadpanned, raising an eyebrow at Lupin's shocked look. "Oh sorry, did you expect me to like any of you after what you've done to me?" he demanded.
"We're only here to rescue you, Harry," Lupin repeated slowly, looking over at his angry colleagues nervously, "We've done nothing to you".
"You've only what? Been watching me all summer, been intercepting my mail? You kidnapped my owl for Merlin's sake!" Harry shouted, feeling fury bubbling up in his chest. "And I'm supposed to be grateful to your stupid Order of the Phoenix for the way you've been treating me? I'm just supposed to come running like some trained animal when you call, after spending the majority of the summer alone?"
"Who told you about the Order?"
Blinking in shock at Moody's growled question, Harry inwardly cursed at his slip, outwardly just raising an eyebrow and smirking at the man. "Wasn't I supposed to know about you lot?" he drawled slowly, "Or were you trying to keep me in the dark about your little vigilante organisation too?"
"Who told you about the Order?" Moody repeated angrily, wooden leg clunking against the floor as he pushed forward, Harry refusing to flinch as he was grabbed by the arm and slammed into the wall, his wand clattering to the ground as his head bounced off the wall.
Almost immediately his inner flame was surging up, bubbling beneath his skin as he ignored Moody's eyes and slowly looked down at the hand squeezing his bicep painfully.
"Let. Me. Go".
Raising his eyes to stare into Moody's, Harry clenched his jaw furiously as he struggled to keep his flame under his control, feeling it almost begging him to unleash it upon the man who was only digging the Order of Phoenix a bigger hole. Just because he'd given the man a shovel through his taunting, didn't mean Moody needed to use it.
Step 1 – Think angry thoughts until he felt his inner flame waiting under his skin.
Moody's response was to shake him, his head snapping back to hit the wall again as the man repeated his question for the third time.
Seconds later a scream was echoing through the house, Harry's fingers having curled around Moody's offending wrist and tightened, the stench of burning flesh reaching his nose as smoke wafted up away from his hand.
Step 2 – Stop fighting the tingling of his 'spark' and allow it to reach his hands.
Releasing Moody's wrist, Harry shoved the man across the hallway and slammed him into the wall opposite, part of him smug that he'd been too angry by Harry's accidental revelation to remember to pick up his wands.
"Incindio".
Smiling innocently as gasps echoed across the hallway at the sight of fire bursting into life in the palm of his free hand, Harry held it close enough to Moody's face so the man would feel the burn without actually being burned by it. Both of the man's eyes following the handful of flames Harry was shoving in his face.
Step 3 – Pretend to cast the 'Incindio' charm as he pulled the flames through his skin and into his palm.
And viola, the final product was Moody staring at him in a mixture of rage and fear, and the rest of the Order looking at him in awe. It was really a good thing that he'd had time to practice that ability of his over the past two days, since it had amazing scare potential when used properly, but had quite the embarrassing beginning.
"I have to stop thinking about this," Harry was murmuring to himself as he paced his bedroom, ignoring the way his stomach rumbled as he shot covert looks at the parchment on his desk. "They're not going to answer me even if I could get them a letter… traitors".
He needed to relax, if he didn't he'd just lose control of the fire he could feel moving through his veins and burn the house down. Which, while it didn't feel like a bad idea altogether, it wasn't the most logical of ideas to be doing at this time. He needed to relax, to be calm and preferably away from the people he had thought were his best friends yet where conspiring behind his back.
Okay… maybe conspiring was too harsh of a word. But they were all in on this 'Order' thing together, and they'd left him in the dark to fight dementors and deal with his fire all on his own. It had taken everything he had to forgive Ron for abandoning him last year, he didn't think he could do it again.
Flexing his fingers as the tingling got stronger at that thought, Harry shook both his head and his hands, jumping up and down slightly as he tried to distract himself and calm down. He'd gotten better at controlling his temper over the past two days, it seemed that potentially burning down the street was a good motivator in control, he could already push it down and prevent his powers from escaping his control.
Huh… if he could push the fire away could he pull it too?
The answer to that was something along the lines of 'This was a bad idea', as the entirety of Harry burst into flames that coated his whole body in burning hot fire.
He'd quickly realised that stopping, dropping and rolling did not do anything to put out a Harry-induced fire, and that the only thing he could do was push the fire back beneath his skin once he'd calmed himself down. By that time however, he'd burnt his desk and curtains to a crisp and scorched a large portion of carpet and wall.
Then he'd discovered that while he was immune to fire, his clothing wasn't.
So if Harry hadn't figured out that he needed to restrict the 'pulling' of his fire to his palms, then all of the Order members would be getting an eyeful of little Harry. (Not that 'Little Harry' was in any way little… it was just a phrase… shut up).
As far as he was concerned though they didn't need to know about that. (Or that).
"Harry stop! You're already in enough trouble for breaking the Statute!" Lupin pleaded desperately, stepping forward as Harry stared Moody in the eyes.
(Did Moody know that Harry wouldn't hesitate to incinerate him if he thought Moody was a threat? The look in his eyes seemed to indicate he did)
"The Ministry can't detect wandless magic, I've been doing this since the dementors attacked after you abandoned me," Harry dismissed bluntly, already knowing that he was in no trouble at all for the dementor attack.
"We didn't aban – you used wandless magic on the dementors?" Lupin blurted, changing track halfway through his denial. "But the only fire spell capable of even harming dementors is Fiendfyre! And you're being summoned to a trial for casting the Patronus!"
If Harry had felt any respect or awe for the Order of the Phoenix – which he didn't, by the way – then it would have taken a steep dive as Lupin revealed exactly how out of date their information was. They had abandoned him that night, whether they wanted to admit it or not, he was supposed to have a guard but they never showed up and left the dementors to him and his useless cousin. Not only that, but Harry hadn't cast the Patronus, Madam Bones had known that before even showing up at Number Four the other day, and she'd also assured him that he didn't have a trial either.
"No, I'm not".
Lupin blinked, "Yes you are," he corrected.
"No, I'm not," Harry repeated, stepping away from Moody but not dismissing the 'fireball' as he scooped up his wand again. "I'm not, really, I don't know what you're talking about," he lied to Lupin's face, unable (and unwilling) to stop himself from taking petty revenge against the man he'd trusted.
"Dumbledore ordered us to collect you!" the woman he'd held hostage exclaimed.
"I don't care," Harry confessed bluntly, "I don't trust him, and I don't trust you".
"Harry!" Nymphadora hissed, freezing seconds later and murmuring out a "Never mind," as her red hair turned electric blue.
"I'm not going with you," Harry said pre-emptively, shoving past everyone to get into his room, refusing to just fall back into line when Dumbledore whistled for him like some obedient pup.
"Harry listen!" Lupin blurted, catching his bedroom door as Harry tried to slam it shut. "We're taking you somewhere safe. We – the Order of the Phoenix – have set up Headquarters somewhere safe, somewhere that no one will ever find us. It took a while to get everything right though, and we're finally ready for you to join us".
"But you were ready for Hermione and the Weasleys weeks ago right?" Harry shot back, spinning around and glaring at Lupin as the other 'guests' peered in through the door at them.
"What happened here?" Lupin just breathed out, staring past Harry at the burned furniture and walls.
"Fire magic is rather difficult to direct without a wand," he answered curtly.
Lupin gaped for a moment before shaking it off. "We're only trying to keep you safe, Harry".
"I think I've been doing a pretty good job of that on my own, thank you," Harry muttered coldly, "And my version of 'safe' doesn't involve me being attacked by dementors because my guard took a nap".
"Actually he went to Knockturn Alley to buy stolen property," the old man outside corrected, all of them scowling at some kind of memory. "I mean, er".
"You really are useless, aren't you?" Harry asked slowly, looking between the awkward witches and wizards slowly.
He really was better off on his own, it seemed, if the Order consorted with thieves and dark creatures.
"Sirius will be there?" Lupin offered hopefully, answering Harry's question for him.
Oh Merlin… had he really been that naïve that he would have just gone along with them before his little awakening? He really needed to keep up his suspicious double-thinking of everything if he was about as smart as Dudley without it.
Watching Nymphadora suspiciously as she slipped into the room and started inspecting herself in his mirror, Harry just shook his head at Lupin. "Give him my love, but that doesn't mean I'm going with you".
Starting slightly as Nymphadora's hair turned from a dull violet to a bubble-gum pink with a shake of her head, Harry watched as she breathed heavily on the mirror before writing something on it, pretending to be inspecting her eyes. Ignoring Lupin's attempts at convincing him to go with them, Harry focused on the chicken-scratch writing and stiffened slightly when he realised exactly what it said, Nymphadora wiping it away with her hand moments later.
KNORK.
Kronk.
"If I go with you," Harry interrupted, "I expect answers".
"Of course," Lupin agreed immediately, "But it's not safe to talk here".
Harry stared at him for a moment, glancing past him at the gathered witches and wizards outside before allowing his eyes to flick over to Nymphadora, who merely winked at him in the mirror.
"What are we still doing here then?"
IGNITION
What is this madness, you're no doubt wondering? This chapter seems longer than the previous ones! And you're right! In fact, my little plot-schedule-thing seems to imply that this chapter is only HALF of what it was supposed to be. I had been trying to write longer chapters anyway (as seen by last chapter's modest twenty-eight hundred words), but if I'd finished the entire layout for this chapter then I might have even reached 5k!
*coughs* Anyway. Harry's revealed his true feelings towards the Order of the Phoenix, more so than even he planned on doing, and it turns out that Harry's powers are only growing in both strength and finesse. (Sorry folks, no naked Harry for you… yet… maybe). Next chapter he meets up with his so-called friends, rescues his Hedwig-in-distress, and has a few harsh words to say to a certain Weasley Matriarch.
Thank you to everyone who reviewed – last chapter pushed me over 100 for this story – and remember that I don't own Harry Potter.
(That awesome moment when your story is added to a community you've been following since you first STARTED fanfiction!)
IGNITION