After the Weasley children, plus Hermione had been herded out (against their howling protests) and the room warded against further intrusions, an unnatural quiet settled around Harry. He could only hear his trousers moving against the rough velvet of the sofa but nothing else. It was as if he had been enclosed in a bubble.

"Hello? Bill? Mr. Weasley?" Harry asked, panic fluttering his heart. He started to rise and put his hands out in front of him trying to find something, anything tangible. His hands passed through empty air and he flicked out his wand, casting a shield charm as he took a defensive stance.

"Where did everyone go?" he asked, hating the tremble in his voice. "Nio, what's going on?"

The snake didn't answer or even stir at his belly and Harry sighed as he realized that Nio was sleeping through this whole encounter.

His ears popped and he could hear other people in the room again, as well as the familiar creaks and groans of the Burrow around him.

"Oh, no, Harry. I'm so sorry. You can put your wand away. We're just… er. We don't want to frighten you… and yet we know that you're also prone to take matters into your own hands. We've been debating about how much to tell you. You are, after all, just a child." Mr. Weasley explained.

Harry snorted even as his shoulders sagged. He didn't feel like a child. When had he ever been able to be just a child?

"I get it, Harry," Bill said, putting a hand on Harry's shoulder, then taking it away quickly when Harry flinched. "You've always had to rely on yourself. You haven't had adults looking out for you. But things are going to be different now, okay? We're going to make sure that you're safe."

"How?" Harry asked, his voice flat.

"Well, first off, you've got to trust us," Auror Bones stated.

"Us? Who is 'us' exactly?"

"Harry, we understand your skepticism. Auror Bones has already launched an investigation into what happened underneath the Center. She's promised to get to the bottom of it," Mr. Weasley assured.

"Well, I trust you…er, the Weasleys, I mean. But honestly, I don't know if I can ever trust the ministry again… after what happened to Aminah's dad… even if you do get to the bottom of it," Harry turned a bit so that his nose was pointing in Auror Bones' direction.

"That's fair. If you can trust the Weasleys, and I trust the Weasleys and they, in turn trust me, then maybe we can start there… we're all just doing the best we can given the circumstances. There is a lot that we don't know."

For some reason, this made Harry let out the breath he'd been holding since she'd started talking. He drew in a deep breath and shook out his shoulders.

"So, Harry? You'll work with the Weasleys, then?"

"Yes, I will."

"And you'll tell them if something feels off?"

"All right. Yes, I will."

"All right, let's get to work warding your house and setting up that Egress…"

As Bill, Mr. Weasley, and Auror Bones launched into the logistics of warding the house and creating the Egress using a lot of jargon that Harry didn't understand, he sank into the sofa, his hand cradling the sleeping snake in his shirt, tuning them out and trying to sort out what all of this would mean for him.

At a lull in the conversation… it sounded like Mr. Weasley pulling a heavy trunk from a corner of the room… Harry sat up and asked, "So, does this mean that I'll be able to take more courses at the Center during the summer? By traveling through the Egress?"

"Er, yes, I suppose it does. Would you like that?"

"Er, yeah." He didn't want to sound like Hermione, but the thought of returning to Hogwarts with his scant knowledge of Braille… he didn't even know how maths worked with Braille!

"We'll make sure that there's a connection to the Center as soon as we're able to secure both locations," Auror Bones promised.

Harry stood up and shook his staff from his holster to navigate to where their voices were coming from in the room.

The room was full of overstuffed chairs and shin-stabbing tables so the going was slow and the three of them had turned back to opening the trunk. There was a rattling of keys and scraping of metal as the keys were inserted into the lock.

Harry felt a bit put out, though he tried to soften his irritation as he asked, "so are you going to tell me anything else? What were you discussing before that you didn't want me to hear?"

"Oh, right. Sorry, Harry," Bill said, turning toward him and guiding him to a spot next to the trunk with a light touch on Harry's wrist. "We were just deciding how much to tell you about what we know about Black and his progress this way."

"Well, what do you know?"

"We know that he's being reckless and that's why we've been able to track him more easily these last couple of days… whereas before, we were having a really hard time getting any information on him."

Harry cocked his head toward the door as he heard Mrs. Weasley's boots echoing in the hallway toward them. She bustled in with a rattling tray of china apparently floating behind her, announcing brightly, "tea is served!" as it settled on the low table behind Harry.

"So, you're looking for our rune stones? The ones you need are in the seventh level of the trunk, Arthur… you need to turn the key one more time."

Harry heard the springs of the couch give way as she sat down and then muttered a charm that made the china start clinking as it moved around. He started when something brushed his hand and then jumped back as hot liquid soaked through the fabric near his ankle accompanied by the sound of breaking glass as the cup and saucer hit the floor.

"Oh, Harry! Forgive me, I should have warned you!" Mrs. Weasley gasped.

She muttered a few charms and his trouser leg warmed up, drying as the china knitted itself back together with a tinkling dissonance and grinding.

"Here, dear. A cup of tea."

Harry reached toward her and found the saucer. His fingers traced the smooth china, unable to find any evidence of the repair. He mused if it was now rainbow-hued.

"Thanks, Mrs. Weasley," he said, feeling the heat in his cheeks cool as his embarrassment for knocking over the teacup dissipated. He took a sip and sighed as the hot sweetness and sharp tang flowed over his tongue. Mrs. Weasley did make a good cup of tea.

Harry turned his face in the direction where he thought Bill was and asked, "So, do you know why he's being reckless?"

Mrs. Weasley made a questioning hum and Harry realized that Bill wasn't where he thought he was.

"Bill?" he asked, projecting a bit louder.

"What's that?" Bill asked from the other side of the room. His voice came from up high, near the ceiling.

"Oh, Bill, is that really necessary?" Mrs. Weasley grumbled.

There was a soft thud that rumbled through the floorboards.

"What did you ask, Harry? Here you go, Pops." Bill was back near the trunk handing something to Mr. Weasley.

"I was asking about this Sirius Black bloke… why do you think he's being reckless now?" Harry ran his hand over the sleeping lump of Nio wishing the snake would wake up so that he could tell Harry what was going on.

Why had Bill been flying around the room? What did he give Mr. Weasley? Why didn't Mrs. Weasley approve? What was the little noise that was coming from the spot where he imagined Auror Bones was standing? It sounded like a mouse worrying at a nut husk. Could it be Scabbers?

Harry wanted to shake out his staff and ask it to take him to Scabbers… but he was still holding his teacup and wasn't sure if there was room on the tea table to set it down. He turned toward Mrs. Weasley and cleared his throat.

"Er, Mrs. Weasley, is there a place where I can set down my teacup?" he asked, holding it out a bit.

"Of course, dear. I'll put it right over here." She took it from him and he heard it settle on a low table. "But what is it you need?"

"I just thought of something," he said as he shook out his staff and muttered "Navigant Scabbers." But instead of directing him, the staff informed him that it couldn't perform the task as the requested object was outside of the scope of the staff.

Then he had an idea… "Navigant Sirius Black," he said in a louder voice and the conversations around him hushed. He took his aftí out of his ear and pushed it into the storage of his staff so that everyone could hear what his staff was telling him, quickly changing the navigation from vibrations to words with a tap of his fingers.

"Turn left and take two steps, now turn right…" the lyrical voice rang out in the room.

"Oh, my! Harry, what are you doing?" Mrs. Weasley said, alarm making her voice squeak.

"Black's close enough to navigate to!" Harry said, through gritted teeth, his heart rate rising rapidly as he thought about the wards on the Burrow… they hadn't fortified them yet.

"What's the range on your staff, Harry?" Bill asked, hurtling himself to Harry's side and nearly bowling him over.

"No idea," Harry answered. "I think Godric said that it was a few city streets, but I'm not sure."

"That's too close," Mrs. Weasley said, rising in alarm.

"Get everyone down here at once!," Mr. Weasley shouted.

Bill turned away from him and there was a pop of apparition and he just felt the empty space where Bill had been.

"How is it that you have Sirius Black in your navigation's memory," Auror Bones questioned as she drew closer to Harry.

"I added him… from the albums I found in my parent's vault," Harry said.

"How did you…?" Mrs. Weasely started to ask and then stopped herself mid-sentence. "Nevermind, if he's close enough for you to walk to him, then he's too close and we need to get you to safety. All of us."

"Yes, that's what we need to do. Bill, tell them to be ready to listen and to be quiet. We've got to do this quickly," Mr. Weasely was using his disembodied voice to talk to Bill… it sounded in the room and also echoed above them in the rooms above the sitting room.

Auror Bones was also talking to someone else who wasn't in the room… presumably sending a message to the Ministry.

"The Auror department is on its way… we need to evacuate the premises immediately. I think floo will be the most secure method. Let's go to your fireplace," Madam Bones announced.

Harry waited a moment to let the others go through the door before him, but Mrs. Weasley hung back, managing the tea tray by the sound of it.

As he whispered to his staff to navigate to the door, she sighed behind him. "Oh, Harry. Your birthday cake. It's not done yet. I wanted to have a proper celebration for you."

"You're making me a cake?" Harry asked, his voice breaking as he turned his head in her direction.

"Oh, sweetie. Of course!" She sounded teary as she pulled him into a hug. "I'll put a suspension charm on it and we'll do it just as soon as we get this mess sorted out."

Harry inhaled her comforting scent—a mixture of flour, spices, and soap as she released him and blinked away the moisture in his eyes. He could hear a commotion in the kitchen as the Weasley clan plus Hermione clamoured to know more. Harry wondered if the wards had been set or if they had abandoned that effort in the hast to get everyone out of the Burrow.

He swung his staff and found the doorway, then moved into the hall where the portraits were frantically calling to each other about the approaching threat—throwing advice and questions at Mrs. Weasley as she followed Harry out of the room. She in turn was giving curt orders to them about how best to protect the Burrow and giving messages to deliver to other locations.

Her tone was totally altered from moments before and she sounded like a military commander instead of her effusive motherly self. It made him draw in his breath as he remembered that she'd been through this before. This wasn't her first war. Dread clenched his gut as he realized that he had brought the threat to their doorstep and he wanted desperately to lure it away and the same time that he wanted to be surrounded by all the warmth and protection that the exuberant family offered… that they were so willing to extend to him… as if he was one of them.

"Harry!" Hermione wailed in his ear as she launched her body at him, colliding with him. He flung his arms out, trying to find something to hold onto so that they didn't topple over and whacked someone in the head (Ginny, he thought by the yelp). Someone pushed him back upright from behind as Harry tried to apologize to Ginny and hang onto Hermione.

"Sorry, Harry! I've just been so worri…" her words were drowned out by the others as they realized that he was in the room.

He felt buffeted from all sides as everyone was trying to get his attention and several hands were on him, pushing and pulling him through the mass of bodies toward the heat of the enormous fireplace.

"Hush!" Auror Bone's voice cut through the din, effectively silencing them… or maybe she'd cast a spell?

"Harry, we've secured a safe floo passage for you. Percy will go through first, I'll follow."

"What about the rest?" Harry asked, stepping back even as someone grabbed his shoulder to move him toward the floo.

"We're all evacuating except for Bill and Arthur, who will await reinforcements from the Ministry as they finish setting the wards," Auror Bones hurriedly explained while grabbing Harry's wrist and thrusting it into powder—floo powder—his mind supplied. He scooped up a handful, his fingernails scraping against the tin bottom of the container. There wasn't much left.

"Wait, is there enough for everyone to evacuate?" Harry said, holding up his powdery hand.

"Yes, yes. The Aurors who are coming through are bringing more," Arthur explained impatiently. "You've got to go, Harry. We'll be all right. We promise."

"Wait a moment… Harry, do you still have the albums in your staff?" Hermione called above the crowd from the back of the room.

"Huh?" he asked, turning toward her voice.

"The albums… with Sirius Black in them!" Hermione shouted, even as Harry was being pulled closer to the fire. He heard Percy calling out the name of the Ministry address and the roar of the floo as it took him through.

"Yes?" He lifted up his staff, hoping she'd see it.

"Auror Bones, shouldn't everyone use the spell that Harry used to recognize Black with his staff… won't it also work with our wands?"

"Ah, yes," Auror Bones relaxed her grip on Harry's wrist and he awkwardly summoned the album from his staff, trying not to spill the floo powder in his hand. Someone took ahold of his staff as the leathery cover of the album snapped into his hand. It felt more weighty than he remembered it, maybe because he was only able to hold it with one hand. Someone snatched it from him, then his staff knocked against his knuckles. Just the brief moment without his staff made him feel adrift.

He heard the pages rustling as they flipped through the album. Harry was pressed from all sides as everyone crowded around, trying to get a glimpse of the escaped criminal.

Harry remembered the boisterous figure of the boy as he jumped through the frame of the pictures that Harry had converted to moving miniature sculptures… it seemed like an eon ago that he'd sat with Gemma at the Center examining the albums he found in his parent's vault. The warmth and affection the boy displayed for Harry's father and his grandparents, even their little dog, was clashing with the monster the Ministry insisted was after him.

What could do that to a person? Could Ron or Hermione change like that? Could he? he wondered.

"Come on, Harry. You need to go," Mr. Weasley urged as Auror Bones was instructing the group on how to use the memory and navigation charms.

Mr. Weasley put his arm around Harry's shoulders and pulled him toward the floo again.

"The destination is 'Ministry of Magic, Department of Mysteries" Mr. Weasley said close to his ear.

Harry reared back. "I'm not going there."

"Harry, it has the best protections within the Ministry itself," Mr. Weasley's voice rose in pitch and intensity. "You won't have to stay there long… just until we catch Black."

"I can't. They want to do experiments on me. I met this Croacher bloke! He's creepy! Why can't I just go back to the stone circle? I was safe there. Or the Center? Or just stay here! I won't go there. I won't!" It was all Harry could do to not stomp his foot like a petulant child.

"We can't secure the Burrow… and it puts us all in danger. You've got to understand that," Mr. Weasley consoled.

"I'm not flooing to the Department of Mysteries. I'll just go back to my stone circle… on my broom. No one could find me when I wore my invisibility cloak… not even Black. I was safe there!" Harry was struggling against Mr. Weasley who was gripping him hard around the shoulders and still trying to move him toward the floo.

Harry felt Nio move against his belly and was relieved that the snake was finally waking up. Harry stuck his hand under his shirt so that Nio could coil around his wrist.

"What's going on, Big Friend?" the snake asked.

"Too much to explain right now. I'll tell you later."

Mr. Weasley had let go of him in surprise at the snake's appearance and Harry used the moment to cast his shield charm, pushing everyone away from him. He breathed in deeply, glad for the muffling effect of the shield as well as the space from all the bodies crowding him. He pulled his cloak out of his staff and started fastening the ties while whispering to Nio about the recent events.

Someone started hammering on the shield, the pounding reverberated through his staff.

"Knock it off, would you?" Harry seethed. He felt sick to his stomach. This was not how he imagined things going at the Burrow… on his birthday, no less. How was it possible that everything was worse than when he was at the Dursleys?

The room around him quieted, but not magically. The quiet unnerving for how complete it was. Then the floo roared and Harry could hear Percy's distinctive twang ring out even over the floo's noise, "What's going on? What's that rainbow bubble? Where's Harry? Did he misfloo aga–?"

Someone shushed him and his questions were cut off.

"Harry, be still and remove your shield," Mr. Weasley muttered to him quietly. "Stay under the cloak. Don't talk."