Chapter 4 – Number Twelve Grimmauld Place

"Wait what?" exclaimed Harry as Moody took the piece of parchment and burnt it with the tip of his wand. Harry looked up at the dirty houses, a black, murky layer lay across each face of number 11 and 13. "But where is..." Harry didn't finish his sentence.

"Not here boy!" Moody scolded, Harry flinched at the word 'boy!' it always brought bad experiences with his Uncle

"Harry, think about what you just read" said Remus kindly. Harry repeated the words in his mind and as he was thinking about it number 12 came into view, squeezing between number 11 and 13. The residents in the subsequent houses didn't even move as the house seemed to expand the street.

Once the entirety of the house had settled and revealed itself everyone made their way to the front door, Remus took out his wand and tapped the door once. A series of metallic clicks could be heard from within the door and finally it swung open slightly.

"Don't go too far in and keep quiet" whispered Remus as Harry want past, the clicks of his crutches echoing in the empty, dark corridor. The place was very dark, Harry could barely see anything in front of him and the house had a small of rotting decay with an off sweetness to it. A slap on the back of Harrys head and the appearance of his hands and feet told Harry that the charm had been lifted.

Moody lit the lights in the corridor spreading light around. The hall ended with a door which was closed and a large staircase which extended high not the roof and down into the basement. The were portraits of people laden on the walls. There was a moth-eaten pair of curtains on the first landing which seemed to be covering a window. A rush of feet and the door opening to the kitchen and Mrs Weasley came rushing out.

"Harry Dear, what have you done? Look at the state of you!" exclaimed Mrs Weasley "You guys go through; Dumbledore has just arrived for the Order meeting." She said to the other members of the escort. Everyone walked past Harry and into the kitchen closing the door behind them. "Can you make it up the stairs, dinner will have to wait and we will have a proper chat with you afterwards, but the Order meeting needs to start Dumbledore only has a limited amount of time. If you go up the stairs, second landing, second door on the right, Ron and Hermione will explain everything, oh and remember to stay as quiet as possible, you don't want to wake them"

Harry nodded and made his way up the stairs, past the moth-eaten curtains on the first floor landing and up another set of stairs to the second floor. He hobbled over to the door second to the right and opened it struggling to keep balanced. As the door opened there was a rush of feet and then Harry wa engulfed in a hug from a girl with bushy brown hair. Harry balanced on his good leg as she continued to hug him. Once Harry was released Hermione gasped realizing Harrys injured leg.

"Sit down Harry!" exclaimed Hermione, Harry sat down on one of the edges of one of the beds "Do yu want to lay back and put your leg up?" Harry sat back slightly and let Hermione place some cushions under his braced leg which he was grateful for, the flight had been hard, cold and sore.

"Thanks Hermione" said Harry

"What happened? Are you all right? Obviously not. Did it happen with the dementors, oh you must be so angry with us Harry, we wanted to tell you everything but Dumbledore made us swear not to, ive looked up everything, they cannot expel you from school, they have nothing to stand on, it's outrageous! There is provision in the degree of the reasonable restriction of underage sorcery, its allowed in life threatening situation… " said Hemione very fast and was cut off by Ron.

"Bloody hell M'ione let the man speak for himself" as Ron came over and slapped Harry on his back. Before anyone could say anything else Hedwig came swooping down from a closet on the other side of the room, she settled on Harrys shoulder. "She was in a right state when she came here the other day, wouldn't stop flying around the room, swooping down at the parchment, nipping our fingers"

"Sorry about that" replied Harry looking at Ron and Hermione's cut hands. "I wanted answeres after…."

"We did want to give them mate"

"but Dumbledore, made you swear, I get it" finished Harry stroking Hedwig without thinking, now Harry was here and seeing the people he had been longing to see the last month, Harry didn't want to talk, the numbness from the journey had left hm and the negative dark cloud had settled happily back on his shoulders, he would rather be lone rather than with Ron and Hermione.

His two friends looked at him concerned at Harrys lack of flare that usually displayed in his emerald green eyes. Harry sighed, all he wanted t do was be alone and get rid of the heavy cloud on him, he knew what e needed to do but he knew it was something he should keep private, if people knew he was purposely hurting himself, they would surely lock him up.

"So who's staying here all together? There were loads of people escorting me" asked Harry to break the awkard silence.

"Only us, Sirius and Remus but there are loads of other people from the order coming daily"

"How?"

"Well a week after the end of term the Daily Prophet stated that Sirius had handed himself in and that Pettigrew was alive, after that the ministry allowed Sirius to come back somewhere to be under house arrest since if the story which Sirius told them were true, they would owe Sirius greatly for the twelve years he was locked up. That and the fact that the ministry is still ignoring the fact that You know who is back, Dumbledore suggested that we all came here, Mum and Dad wanted to help keep us safe and help the cause against You Know Who, they have set up a group of people who think that You Know Who has returned and are now meeting at least once a week."

"And what exactly has been going on in the meetings?"

"We don't know, all we know is that they are people who believe You-Know-Who is back, the parts we have hear from Fred and George's extendable ears is that Snape is on our side, mum went nuts when she found the ears and so has put a charm around the door so we cannot hear"

"Oh"

"Yeah, Fred and George have been trying to improve the ears but, no luck quite yet." As if the twins had been listening in on their conversation there was a distinctive pop and the twins had appeared out of thin air into the room.

"Harry! I thought we heard you voice!" cried Fred

"Very nice to see you again!" continued George in a joking manner.

"Will you two stop doing that!" yelled Ron

"Are little Freddie and Georgie frightening little Ronnikins!" giggle Ginny as she walked through the door. She took one look at Harry and gasped, "Harry! What happened?" she gasped.

"He hasn't got around to telling us yet" replied Ron

"So you two have passed your apparition tests?" asked Harry to change the conversation

"yup" they said at the same time

"Yeah and we all know it, Bill almost dropped his earring in his breakfast the other day, apparating just behind him" Ginny laughed

"Bills here?" asked Harry "I thought he was in Egypt"

"Yeah he was, but he wanted to be closer to home because of you know, so he has got himself a desk job, though it does help that Fleur has also taken a job in the same place" replied George

"What about Charlie?" asked Harry

"Still in Romania, to persuade some international wizards to join the Order on his days off from the dragon sanctuary" Fred answered

"I thought Percy would be able to do that?" Harry asked

"Well Percy isn't on our side, he was promoted to the minister's assistant, he lapped up everything the paper has said about you" continued George

"The paper hasn't said anything about me" exclaimed Harry

"Only if you are looking very closely, If you have just been skimming the front page you wont see it, they have been saying horrible stuff, making out that you are out of your mind and delusional. Basically, building on what Rita Skeeter said last year" Hermione informed

"great" muttered Harry

"So, Percy had a big argument with Dad, he was telling him how he didn't have any ambition and that he was a embarrassment that he associated with Dumbledore" explained Ron. Harry displace a face of great surprise. "Yeah so that same night Percy packed his stuff and moved out, we haven't heard anything of him since, Mum has been a right mess, not sure how dad is coping at work either"

"Listen, the meeting has just finished, dinner should be soon, and we should go downstairs, maybe we could catch something as they are coming out" exclaimed Fred clutching some flesh like in his hand. Everyone made their way out to the hall and Fred lowered one of the ears down the staircase and down to the bottom floor.

"Nah Fred, its no good, they are making their way towards the door, better bring them back up or Mum is going to confiscate this pair too" said George. Fred tugged on the flesh ears and brought them back up to their landing.

"KIDS!" Yelled Mrs Weasley from downstairs. Everyone started to make their way downstairs, Harry waited hoping everyone from the meeting had left.. He wasn't prepared for everyone asking about it, they should already know, he sighed the negative cloud taking a greater grip, couldn't he just stay upstairs? No, he must go, so Harry made his way slowly downstairs, not looking where he was going tripping over something waist height and tumbling down the stone stairs causing immense pain in his leg and screeching from the portrait that was hidden behind the moth eaten curtains.