Chapter 1
Harry appeared outside the Burrow with a sharp pop of displaced air. He was still under his invisibility cloak in case the Burrow was being watched – which it almost certainly was – but that didn't stop him from hurrying towards the wardline as quickly as possible. He only hoped that he was still able to get in.
The wards pulsed as he crossed them but allowed him entrance nonetheless. He breathed a sigh of relief, but still he waited until he was at least twenty metres inside the wards before he threw the cloak off and stuffed it into his pocket. Better safe than sorry.
The door burst open before he'd taken more than a few steps and people poured out, and he noticed Fleur, Bill, Remus, and Hermione before his attention was otherwise engaged by the wands that were pointed at his chest.
Not the welcome he had been expecting if he was honest.
"Who are you?" Remus demanded.
Harry looked at him for a second before slowly looking down at his own chest and then back again.
"I know who you look like," Remus said, his wand still raised, "but who are you actually?"
Quite suddenly Harry remembered that polyjuice was a thing and, crucially, that he hadn't told them he was coming. That would have defeated the purpose of a secret escape, of course, but it also meant that they were probably convinced he was an imposter. How said imposter would have got a piece of his hair was an entirely different question – not to mention why the wards had let him through – but Harry nonetheless decided to humour them.
The soft glow forming on the tip of Remus's wand had nothing to do with his sudden understanding, obviously.
"At the end of my third year, you-"
"Wormtail was there for all those events," Remus interrupted, the glow brightening.
Admittedly, Harry had to give him that one. He probably should have picked a different example.
"Fine," he said. "Fleur, ask me something only the real Harry Potter would know."
A small smirk appeared on her face and Harry suddenly wished he'd asked Hermione. Fleur evidently knew it was him already and was planning a way to make maximum use of her question. He just hoped she didn't ask anything embarrassing.
"What is my favourite poem?"
Harry laughed as everyone turned bewildered looks towards Fleur. She was using the opportunity to test the sanctity of their friendship, as she would call it. If he got this question wrong he had no doubt that he'd never hear the end of it.
"You realise most people don't remember every conversation from over two years ago?" he asked.
"So you remember when I told you," she replied with a smirk.
The two of them shared a grin, making the already twitchy Order members even more anxious. In fact, he could see Tonks surreptitiously moving her wand towards Fleur in the face of her strangely unconcerned behaviour.
"Your favourite poem is 'I am' by John Clare," Harry said, his grin ever so slightly tinged with sadness.
Fleur beamed as she lowered her wand and yanked him in for a hug that would put even Mrs Weasley to shame, and over her shoulder Harry saw a few Order members glance at Bill for confirmation. He shrugged, ears glowing red, and the Order members looked uncertainly at him and Fleur before they eventually dropped their wands.
"Come on Fleur," Bill called after a few seconds, "let's get back inside. The wedding isn't going to sort itself out."
"I'll be inside in a minute," she replied without looking as she finally pulled back from her embrace, "I want to greet Harry properly first."
Bill let out a small, near unnoticeable huff before he turned and stalked back to the house. Fleur watched him for a second before shaking the frown from her face and pulling Harry back into a hug, but Harry noticed the way her smile drooped ever so slightly at the edges. He suspected that she had only hugged him again in an attempt to hide the frustration on her face.
"So he's still acting like an arse then?" He asked quietly. Fleur didn't answer verbally, but there was more than enough answer in the huff of breath he felt against his neck.
"You know, I can–"
"No," she said sharply, "if our friendship makes him insecure that is his problem. We were friends before I met him and I refuse to throw away my closest friend because of his jealousy."
Harry pulled back and looked her in the face and found the same stubborn, resolute expression he had seen the previous summer when he offered to write to her less if it would cause less problems with Bill.
"BFFs then?" he asked lightly, his pinky finger raised in a solemn promise.
The hard expression melted away in an instant as she laughed and curled her little finger around his own. He managed to keep his serious expression just long enough to shake it.
"Child," she muttered.
"You can't say that now that I'm finally taller than you."
"Barely, and certainly not when I have heels on."
"I'll just wear lifts."
"Stilts more like."
He scowled half-heartedly and she laughed again, and it was only then that Harry noticed the majority of his welcoming party had disappeared. Ron and Hermione were the only ones left, and they were both staring and him and Fleur as if they were aliens.
"You two alright?" Harry asked.
His question seemed to knock Hermione out of her stupor at the very least, though she spent several more seconds closing her mouth wordlessly.
"But that's an English poem!" she finally gasped out, and Harry found it indescribably funny that that was the detail she had decided to focus on.
"Her parents nearly disowned her when they found out."
Hermione's face took on a horrified expression.
"He's joking Hermione," Fleur said before turning her attention to Harry. "And you don't get to criticize my favourite poem when yours is so depressing."
"You have a favourite poem?" Hermione cried. "The two of you talked about poetry?"
She took a deep breath and started muttering to herself, and Harry caught the words "fever dream" and "dimensional travel" before she realised everyone was staring at her. Fleur was straining with withheld laughter, and Ron just looked lost.
"Even you can admit that you're hardly the type to spend your time reading poetry anthologies or classical literature," Hermione said with a small blush. "But what is it? Your favourite poem?"
"Don't we have more important things to talk about than poems?" Ron asked and was summarily ignored.
"Do not stand at my grave and weep by Mary Elizabeth Frye."
Hermione's smile withered and died, and Ron, picking up on her distress, took on a troubled expression.
"It's a beautiful poem," she admitted, "I just wish you liked something a bit more... hopeful."
"It's always been my favourite poem, not just recently." He gave her an imploring look. "I promise I haven't given up."
He felt more than saw Fleur stiffen at his side. He had told her the prophecy the previous summer and promised her that he would train in the room of requirement every day, but he knew that it still terrified her beyond belief. Softly, he grasped her wrist and ran his thumb across the back of her hand, and he felt the tension slowly start to bleed out of her before he let go.
"What do you mean it was always your favourite?" Ron asked, ignorant to Fleur's distress and looking morbidly fascinated at the thought of anyone having a favourite poem. "Does that mean it was your favourite when you were a kid? You read poetry as a kid?"
Harry shrugged slightly.
"The literature section was directly in front of the librarian's desk at school. Even Dudley isn't stupid enough to try something in full view of a teacher."
It was confirmation of what his school-life had been like before he started Hogwarts – something he had only ever talked about with Fleur, even if he'd made thinly veiled allusions for years – but, while Ron opened his mouth and then snapped it shut again with anger written clearly on his face, Hermione didn't look particularly surprised. Instead she just smiled a sad little smile and said, "at my school it was history."
The air seemed to darken slightly until Ron started leading the way back towards the house, explaining everything Harry had missed as he went. Apparently the Burrow had become the Order's headquarters now that Grimmauld Place was compromised thanks to Snape's betrayal. That was why Remus and Tonks were there, and Ron seemed to think they had good news they wanted to tell him.
"Have they got married?" Harry asked, because really it was either that or Tonks was pregnant.
Ron's reply of "Yeah, but they wanted to tell you themselves so just act surprised, yeah?" earned him a glare from Hermione which quickly devolved in bickering.
"You could have told us you were coming early, you know," Fleur said lightly as Ron and Hermione began what Dean referred to as their version of flirting.
Well, what Dean had actually said was that it was their version of foreplay, but Harry certainly didn't want to imagine that.
"And how would I have done that?" Harry asked as he repressed his shiver. "Besides, that would have ruined the surprise. I've just knocked two days off your Harry countdown."
"A countdown implies that I would have otherwise forgotten, which I certainly wouldn't have."
"Oh Fleur," Harry cooed, "you do say the sweetest things."
"Not because I missed you. I was simply dreading having to fly a broomstick with you pressed into my back."
She gave a shiver of exaggerated disgust, and Harry did his best to look offended while his mind went through several crude responses before he decided the punchline wasn't worth the scolding he would get from Hermione.
"That was a stupid plan, by the way," he said instead.
"Ans how do you know what the plan was?" she asked. "I was under the impression it was being kept secret."
She peered around Harry to look at Ron and Hermione, who both shook their heads before turning curious looks on him. Harry ignored them.
"Seriously though," he continued, "who came up with that? It is arguably the worst plan I've ever heard, and that's coming from me. One of you could have transfigured me into a mouse or something, put me in your pocket and left. I had guards lingering around under invisibility cloaks; it wouldn't have been difficult. Or you could have slipped me a dose of polyjuice and let me walk out past the anti-travel enchantments looking like Vernon."
He paused mid-step with an expression of disgust on his face.
"Actually I think I'd rather just get captured. Fleur, you've never seen my uncle but trust me–"
"I have your description of him and that is more than enough," she said with a laugh. "You said that he had had a planet surgically implanted in his abdomen."
Ron snorted, and even Hermione couldn't stop a startled laugh from escaping.
"You know," Ron said a few seconds later, "I knew you two got friendly after the second task and stuff, but I didn't realise you were this friendly. Merlin, you haven't even seen each other for more than a month total since fourth year and here you are acting like this!"
"Who did you think I've been sending all those letters to for the last two years?" Harry asked.
"Wait, they were all to her? You must have been writing one every bloody day!"
"It was even more in the summers," Fleur said lightly, though the look she gave Ron and Hermione was anything but. She hadn't been happy that they obeyed Dumbledore's orders not to write to him, especially as she knew more or less how bad his mental state had been, and the two of them wilted slightly under her gaze.
"Still..." Ron muttered without meeting either of their eyes.
"Who else would I have been writing to?"
"I dunno," Ron said, "I figured you made other foreign friends or something. I didn't think that all of them were going to one person! That's just mental."
"Nah," he grinned, "that's Fleur."
Fleur gave him a withering look that did little to hide her amusement. The expression was quickly replaced by a smirk, however, and Harry had the conditioned response to flinch.
"And he wrote to Gabrielle from time to time too. Harry is her hero."
Somehow, she managed to breathe more adoration into that one word than should have been possible. Harry barely stopped the urge to gag.
"She's even got a poster of him on her wall," she continued with the same horrible grin, "and all the letters he sent her are kept tucked up in her bedside drawer. She's been saying how excited she is to see you ever since she found out I was getting married."
Harry grimaced.
"I'm quite thankful that I'll be in disguise for the wedding if only so that I don't spend the whole evening being accosted by her."
Fleur laughed, and to Harry's ears it sounded just barely this side of evil.
"You shan't be so lucky. Not only is the Weasley family British, it is also much smaller than the Delacour family. So, to prevent you from being noticed as a non-existent family member, you will be disguised as a cousin of mine who couldn't attend. There will be no reason for Gabrielle not to know it's you."
"No reason? How about my mental health, energy levels, sanity, will to live..."
"She is not that bad," Fleur said, though the grin in her eyes ruined her innocent expression.
"I do remember meeting her before the third task, you know. She climbed on my back and made me carry her around."
That lightened the grimace that had appeared on her face at the mention of the third task, but only just. Harry, unsure whether she was troubled by what happened to him or her own experience under Krum's cruciatus, settled for knocking her playfully with his shoulder.
"Won't that mean that Harry would need to speak French though?" Hermione asked.
"That won't be a problem," Fleur said as she shook old memories from her eyes. "I made sure he could speak a proper language while I was at Hogwarts. Being made to attend lessons taught in English was a cruel and unusual punishment, and I refused to spend the rest of my time speaking in English too."
"Why did you come back to Britain then?" Hermione asked with a strange sort of insistence, and to Harry's surprise Fleur went slightly pink.
"I wanted to be able to speak to Harry in his language without my accent; I know that sometimes he struggled to understand what I was saying because of it, even if he said it was fine. That was why I started looking for placements in Britain in the first place," she clarified quickly, seeming to notice something in Hermione's expression that he didn't, "but as Gringotts had an opening here and not in France I probably would have ended up here anyway. I am very thankful I did, else I wouldn't have met Bill."
That comment seemed a bit out of place to Harry, but Hermione seemed appeased by it for some reason. Ron, on the other hand, had taken on an expression of intense consideration that Harry thought looked quite strange without a chessboard in front of him.
"You realise that I haven't spoken French since the tournament, right?" he asked, putting the strange behaviour of his friends aside.
Fleur looked thoroughly unconcerned.
"With the proper incentive I'm sure you'll be suitably fluent by the day of the wedding."
"And what incentive will that be? Are you going to bribe me in chocolate frogs? Maybe promise to keep Gabrielle off my back? That last one is literal, by the way."
"Harry, do be quiet about Gabrielle," she scolded. "She is just a little girl. You will simply have to deal with her. But no, the incentive is that from now on I will only talk to you if we are speaking French."
"You're willing to risk a punishment to yourself just to motivate me?"
"It is not a risk because I already know that you will not be able to ignore me."
"Want to bet?"
She just smiled mysteriously before stepping through the door, and Harry glanced at the amused looking Ron and the speculative looking Hermione before he followed.
True to her word, by the time dinner was served his French was coming to him considerably more easily.
He had been hoping to have a nice, happy, normal Weasley family dinner with lots of laughing, bickering and stomach-churning amounts of food. Unfortunately he was to be disappointed, because it seemed that his unannounced arrival had upset Kingsley and utterly infuriated Mad-Eye.
"What were you thinking of boy?" he roared, his blue eye spinning in its socket and his scars pulling grotesquely, and Harry had clamp down on his instinctual reaction to being referred to in such a way. "You could have got yourself killed! You could have doomed as all, and for what? Because you got bored?"
"Because your idiotic plan was going to get us all killed," Harry said as calmly as he could. "Come on, Polyjuice and broomsticks? They'd have watchers on the place. The moment they saw us start flying they'd have called for reinforcements, and as soon as they arrived we'd have been fucked."
There were reluctant nods of agreement from many, as well as an admonishment for his language from Mrs Weasley, but Mad-Eye still looked livid.
"How do you know about the plan? That was top-secret information!"
Harry kept his gaze fixed on him until Tonks reluctantly raised her hand. She was cringing before Mad-Eye had even opened his mouth.
"Explain yourself," Mad-Eye growled.
"I thought he should know we had a plan in place so that he didn't go off by himself. I didn't realise that telling him would make him do exactly that!"
"And how did you know it was the real Potter?"
Tonks rolled her eyes at her mentor's paranoia.
"Because I was in the bloody house with him. If anyone other than Harry could have got in there it would have been pretty pointless for him to be there in the first place."
Mad-Eye grumbled to himself, still scowling at his protegee while his magical eye pinned Harry with its most intimidating look.
"How did you get here anyway?" Kingsley asked.
"Easily," Harry said with a smug smile at Mad-Eye. "I just told my uncle that he'd be rid of me a few days early if he pretended to forget something when he was leaving for work and left his car door open when he went back inside to get it. I got in under my invisibility cloak and stayed under the cloak while he drove to work. Once he got there all I had to do was get out of the car and apparate here."
He thought it was a rather good plan, as did several others present judging by the looks on their faces. Moody, however, did not.
"You apparated?" he roared again. "You've got the Trace boy! They can track you! And worse, you've given them an excuse to come and arrest you!"
"They can only track me if I use my wand," Harry pointed out. "Seeing as I didn't there isn't a problem."
"You expect me to believe a skinny runt like you apparated all the way here without using your wand? Only the most powerful wizards can apparate wandlessly."
"Alastor!" Mrs Weasley cried. "That's no way to talk to someone."
Harry took a second to glare at Mad-Eye. Runt was one of Vernon's favourite insults – one he had gotten off Marge. Harry wasn't entirely sure that Vernon even knew what it meant, but that had never lessened the malice in his voice when he said it.
"I've been able to apparate since I was eight," he ground out, still glaring at the man, "I just didn't realise that was what I'd done until Dumbledore side-alonged me last year. Just because you can't do something doesn't mean I can't."
Mad-Eye held his glare for a few moments before he barked out a laugh.
"I always did like the ones with spunk," he said with an almost fond look at Tonks which quickly became more severe. "We will still be having words about your decision to tell him about the plan, cadet."
"I'm not a cadet anymore, Mad-Eye."
"All you little twerps are cadets as far as I'm concerned."
Tonks rolled her eyes again.
"It was still reckless, Potter," Kingsley said, "leaving the protections without any backup like that. If something had gone wrong we'd have had no idea."
"No more reckless than having a broomstick race with death eaters," Harry said dryly.
Both the twins laughed while Hermione looked split between agreeing with him and chastising him for arguing. A few of the visiting order members looked upset at the blanket dismissal of their plan but most seemed to agree; the mutterings he could hear suggested that Mundungus had come up with it. As far as Harry was concerned that should have disqualified it immediately.
When Harry woke up the next morning to the familiar sound of Ron's snores, he was looking forward to a day relaxing with his friends. Seeing as he had arrived early there was a full five days until the wedding so he assumed things wouldn't be too bad. Magic would make things like this easy, wouldn't it? Things should be relatively calm for a day or two at least.
How wrong he had been.
It was chaos. Mrs Weasley was running around the house shouting commands while the rest tiredly complied, often with a slew of scathing mutters. Polishing spoons, dusting cabinets, repainting walls. Tonks had even been told to oil every single hinge in the house so that there was no chance they would squeak. What sort of wedding guest was going to go poking around in the second-floor closet or rifling through the crockery cupboard?
As for Harry himself, he found himself sat at the kitchen table folding napkins into ducks. He wasn't sure whether it was a normal wedding thing or if this was a purely Weasley phenomena, and he had no idea why ducks had been chosen specifically, but he was doing it nonetheless. Still, it was as tedious as it was difficult, and why couldn't the adults just transfigure the bloody things? Surely there were more pressing things than napkin origami? How many guests were there anyway? Were they planning on a two-to-one ratio of ducks to humans?
It wouldn't have been too bad, he supposed, had he been doing it with Ron or Hermione. They could have chatted while working or even cast a privacy charm and discussed their upcoming mission, but it was clear even now that Mrs Weasley was making a concentrated effort to keep the three of them apart.
Even doing it by himself would have been preferable to working with Ginny. The atmosphere between them had been stiflingly awkward ever since she had jumped into his arms after a quidditch game and tried to kiss him. She had probably been imagining some romantic moment with the common room cheering around them; instead, he had dropped her like she was infectious and hurried towards the drinks table. He had never heard the Gryffindor common room as quiet as it was in that moment, and yet it was clear from the looks she had continued to give him that she wanted to try again.
Unfortunately for her he had absolutely no interest in any sort of romantic relationship with her; not only was she Ron's sister, but after the things he had heard her say about Fleur the previous summer he wasn't sure he even wanted to be friends with her. Not liking someone was fine – not that he could understand not liking Fleur – but making thinly veiled allusions as to how she had come away from Beauxbatons with near perfect grades was not.
The moment he finished his pile of napkins he fled from the table and hurried away in search of Hermione. He knew Ron was outside with the twins doing something with flowers – he had no idea why Mrs Weasley had decided that assigning the three of them together was a good idea – and that Hermione had been assigned to help Remus with setting up enchantments of some sort. He was sure he would be able to talk Remus into letting him and Hermione have some time alone to talk about their mission, though that was assuming that Hermione was willing to take a break from something she would inevitably find fascinating.
After five minutes of looking it became clear that they weren't anywhere in the house. He paused at the third-floor window and peered out into the garden in search of her, keeping a wary ear out for Mrs Weasley as he did so, but he couldn't see that distinctive head of bushy brown hair anywhere.
"Looking for someone?" asked a voice behind him.
"Yeah," he said as he turned around, "but you'll do I suppose. Anyone is better than Ginny."
Fleur smirked at him until he scowled and repeated himself in French.
"In fairness," she said, "you did emphatically turn her down in front of a quarter of your school."
"It was her fault for trying to kiss me without warning."
"And now you're hiding from her."
"I prefer to call it a tactical retreat," he said as he leant back against the window, "but you're welcome to take my place if you want; she spent half of dinner yesterday and the entirety of breakfast glaring at you."
Fleur grimaced.
"I think I'll decline. Ginevra and I don't get on at the best of times, never mind when she is this jealous."
Harry returned her grimace. He knew that Ginny had enough jealousy in her body to power a small country, and he also knew that the entirety of that jealousy was currently focussed on Fleur; Fleur was older, smarter, prettier, with a prestigious job and an adorable little sister, and she was close friends with the boy that Ginny fancied herself in love with. It didn't help that she was also marrying Ginny's favourite brother, which meant that, as far as Ginny was concerned, Fleur was stealing Bill away.
"Who are you hiding from then?" he asked.
Fleur glanced around before she answered in a low voice.
"Mrs Weasley."
"Aren't we all?"
Fleur smiled slightly, though her irritation quickly bled through.
"This is different; she is having us go over every single different aspect of the wedding, and I mean Every. Single. One. We have spent months planning it and now she wants to go over everything in the space of a few hours? It is impossible! And she still doesn't seem to believe that I really don't want all the fancy additions like flocks of doves and fairies! How can she think that of me even after all this time? Whenever I say that no, I really don't want it she gives me this look as if she can't conceive of me not wanting all the frilly extras."
"Couldn't you get Bill to help?" he asked.
She snorted unkindly.
"Bill is there, but he is certainly not helping. He isn't particularly bothered; he will accept whatever I and Mrs Weasley eventually agree on. I am not sure if he was even listening. He was just sitting there, looking bored and occasionally nodding!"
Her jaw snapped shut and a red flush spread up her cheeks when she realised she had started badmouthing her husband-to-be, though whether it was from frustration, embarrassment or a mix of the two Harry wasn't sure.
"Aren't girls supposed to enjoy wedding preparations and stuff?" he asked in what was actually a quote from Ron that morning. Hermione had rolled her eyes hard enough to see her own brain.
Reluctantly, Fleur's lips twitched into a smile.
"Oh Harry," she sighed, "it truly is a wonder that your only relationship ended in a wet, sloppy mess."
"It was a shame I didn't have someone warning me not to go on a date with the ex-girlfriend of the boy I indirectly got killed."
"I did."
"Really? That letter must have got lost in the post. I can't conceive of a time I've ever done something you told me not to."
She smiled, probably thinking of all the times he'd done exactly that.
Footsteps echoed up the stairs and Harry was struck by the fear that Mrs Weasley had discovered him until Bill's head poked around the corner. A relieved expression came over his face when he saw Fleur, but it soured slightly when he saw Harry next to her.
"Fleur, Mum wants a hand going over the seating chart for the reception. You know, just in case there's been any last-minute falling outs on your side."
"Tell her I'll be right there."
Bill kept staring at them for several seconds before he disappeared back the way he came, and Fleur heaved a sigh before she shoved herself off the wall.
"I'll see you later, Harry," she said, looking at the stairs as if they were a dragon's open mouth.
"I'll have a firewhiskey waiting."
She snorted before disappearing down the stairs, leaving Harry alone in the corridor. Seeing as he had no desire to be wrangled into housework Harry quickly retreated to the room he and Ron were sharing, reached into the little pocket on the back of his wand holster and started pulling books out of it. It took him an absolute age to find the one he wanted, and then he looked from it to the dozens of books that were now strewn across his bed and reluctantly started putting them back.
'You'll be able to summon them soon,' he consoled himself.
Still, he could hardly believe he had so many! He must have had a small library's worth, and he didn't even want to think about how many more Hermione had tucked away. Most of the ones in his collection had been liberated from the Room of Requirement last year or from the Black family library the summer before, though there were plenty of others that he had taken from Dumbledore's office after Hermione told them she had summoned books about horcruxes straight through the window.
He still couldn't believe that had worked.
The pocket itself wasn't pretty – technically it was just a moleskin bag stitched to the straps of his wand holster as they wrapped around the outside of his forearm – but it did the job. The undetectable extension charm he had eventually asked Hermione to cast on it after a week of failed attempts meant that he could store all the things he needed, and given that it was attached to his wand holster he'd never lose it either. Hermione had done something similar with her bag, and Harry had no doubt that she had packed every single one of her earthly possessions in it just as he had.
By the time he was discovered and roused into polishing the windows he had read several more chapters of Dumbledore's copy of Battle Transfiguration: A Simple Art, and the more he read the harder he found it to work out why Dumbledore hadn't given him such books years ago. At this point all he could do was learn some of the simpler spells and apply the concepts as best he understood them. It was a relief to find that he had already learnt some of it himself in the Room of Requirement from either his own imagination or various other books, but even then much of the book would be beyond him with so little time to learn.
Why had he not been taught this before now? The prophecy said he would have to kill Voldemort; why had Dumbledore not prepared him for it? He'd known since before he was even born! Even with the frankly obsessive training he and by extension Ron and Hermione had been putting themselves through all year he had very little hope in a direct confrontation with Voldemort.
He shoved the question out of his head when dinnertime came, not wanting his frustration to show on his face.
Mr Weasley patted the seat next to him and Harry slid into the space before he could be made to take the open space next to Ginny.
"Thanks," he murmured, deliberately not looking at Ginny's crestfallen face. Mr Weasley didn't smile, but the amused look in his eyes said that he dearly wanted to.
Next to him, Kingsley showed no such restraint, and Harry wondered whether the entire Order had had a laugh together when they heard about the events in the Gryffindor common room.
"It's good to have you here a few days early Harry," Mr Weasley said. "Even better to not have to ride a broom."
Kingsley tried to look disapproving but the frown faded in barely a second.
"I have to admit this way was cleaner," he said.
"I've no idea why Moody liked the plan so much," Mr Weasley said. "We should have known it was a terrible idea when Mundungus was the one that suggested it."
"Ah Alastor!"
Mr Weasley's head snapped around fast enough to blur only to see no one there, and then he looked back at the laughing Kingsley in betrayal.
"Should have known," he mumbled, smiling.
"Constant vigilance Arthur," Moody said, appearing seemingly from nowhere to fall into the space beside Kingsley. "Never completely trust anything you haven't seen yourself."
Moody's scars pulled around his grin as he pulled his flask from his pocket.
"Don't worry boy," he said, smirking, "this one's mine. How're things at the Ministry King?"
Harry felt himself lean forwards.
"Much the same," Kingsley replied. "It's under their control, really, even if it's not official yet. Anyone with eyes and ears can tell that. Already there is talk between aurors about how best they can retain their position once the Ministry falls without doing the things they are sure will be demanded of them."
Moody smiled grimly.
"Better someone honourable than someone who will take advantage."
Kingsley hummed in agreement.
"Umbridge is still cooking something up behind the scenes," Arthur said. The snarl on his face was so very unlike the man Harry had come to know. "She seems to have taken an interest in the Improper Use of Magic office, so we've been quietly trying to destroy or at least sanitise as many records as we can. Names, addresses, and the like."
"And," Kingsley said, "they've stopped the auror search for Ollivander."
Moody cursed.
"They've got him then?"
Kingsley nodded, and Moody took a second flask from his pocket and took a long gulp.
"Ollivander left his shop," Mr Weasley explained quietly. "Of his own volition – there was no evidence of a scuffle, and in fact he was seen raising his wards and leaving all by himself. The Ministry soon started a search for him, saying he'd been kidnapped."
Voldemort.
Harry didn't know what exactly Voldemort could want from Ollivander. Whether to force him to make wands for death eaters or just to stop them being made for everyone else, it wasn't good.
The clouds hung over his head until Mrs Weasley finally plonked a plate down in front of him, after which point the clouds were chased away with a vigour only Molly Weasley's cooking could match. Mr Weasley and Kingsley continued to discuss the goings on at the Ministry and he listened with half an ear, the other half on Mrs Weasley's pestering of Fleur about wedding details. He shared a commiserating look with her when Mrs Weasley was distracted by the beeping of the oven, but even then he couldn't quite keep the smirk off his face.
"Where's my firewhiskey?" Fleur mouthed, and Harry grinned at her before turning back to Arthur and Kingsley.
From the sound of things the Ministry was going to fall sooner rather than later, and Harry had no doubt that Hogwarts would quickly follow. Again, he questioned the wisdom of letting Ginny return to school. It put a bit of extra pressure on their timeline for the horcruxes as well; finding and destroying them would take as long as it took, but with the Ministry firmly under his thumb Voldemort would be free to persecute and murder to his shrivelled heart's content while they did so.
When he tried to talk to Ron and Hermione about it, though, his attempts at a private conversation were thwarted once again by Mrs Weasley. Fortunately however Harry Potter had never been known for his compliance, so fifteen minutes later the three of them were crammed into the bathroom, protected by four separate privacy charms and the most advanced locking spell Hermione knew.
"I thought she'd never let us out of her sight," Ron muttered from his place atop the counter.
"If it was up to her we'd be locked away in separate rooms until we're bustled off to Hogwarts in bloody straitjackets," Harry muttered back.
They would have continued in that vein but Hermione, as always, was more focussed on the task at hand than complaining about things. Neither Harry nor Ron had ever understood how she did it.
"We need to over the plan again," she said.
Ron groaned aloud.
"We went over it a thousand times before we left Hogwarts, and you and me have gone over it almost as many while we were waiting for Harry to get here!"
"Actually," Harry said before Hermione could reply, "the plan's changed."
Both of them stared at him.
"You don't want to go back to Hogwarts do you?" Hermione asked almost fearfully.
"Definitely not," he said, and Hermione's face flooded with relief. "Voldemort will be controlling it soon enough; it'd be suicide. But that doesn't mean we should go running around the countryside in a tent either. We need a proper base of some sort. That way we can cast semi-permanent protections and proper wards instead of just concealing spells. We can't use Grimmauld Place because of Snape obviously, but that doesn't mean we can't use somewhere else."
Hermione was nodding slowly, her mind already going through possible locations, and Ron inclined his head easily.
"And I bet you've got the perfect place in mind."
"Course I have," Harry replied. "Hermione's not the only one who can plan."
Ron and Hermione shared a sceptical look that he was sure they thought he would miss.
"In fairness I didn't have much time to make a plan in those scenarios," he protested.
"It's alright Harry," Ron said, "you just tell us your plan and me and Hermione will improve it."
"You mean Hermione will improve it."
"Is that not what I said?"
Hermione elbowed him.
"Well," Harry started, "I figured it would be best if our headquarters was away from major population centres, both muggle and magical, and be somewhere no one would miss while we've… appropriated it. I briefly considered the option of just building a makeshift house somewhere, but then I decided that even Hermione probably doesn't know the spells to do that and that any house built by me and Ron would inevitably collapse anyway. So, I decided to look on the internet."
"The what?"
"The internet, Ron," Hermione repeated, as if that alone would clear things up for him.
"Basically, you use a computer to search through webpages about all sorts of stuff," Harry said. "Kind of like a big searchable book."
He seriously doubted that was an apt description of the internet – and by the look on her face Hermione didn't think so either – but it was good enough for this.
"Anyway, first I figured we could appropriate a holiday cabin, but then I decided that someone would probably turn up to use it and not be able to find it because we'd have put a load of wards over it. That wouldn't be good – I bet that that's the sort of thing the Misuse of Magic Office looks out for, and then we'd be buggered."
"Harry," Ron said, "no offence mate but I don't care about all the things you thought about but then realised were shit ideas. Just tell us your new and improved plan."
Harry blushed in embarrassment, which seemed to amuse Ron greatly.
"I thought the best idea would be to find an isolated cabin and hire it properly instead of just waltzing in. So, we have a three-bedroom hunting cabin in Scotland for the next ten months or so. It's got a generator for electricity, running water, all that stuff, and seeing as we're actually supposed to be there no one will be suspicious."
Ron and Hermione spent several seconds staring at him in shock.
"That's actually quite a good plan," Hermione said eventually.
"No need to be so surprised."
"I'm not surprised, per se-"
"Yes you are," Ron interrupted.
"So," Harry said as Hermione glared at the unconcerned Ron, "what do you think?"
"It's much better than changing campsites every few nights," Hermione admitted. "I'm a little annoyed I didn't think of it myself actually, though I'd have ruled it out because of the cost I think." She sent him a curious look. "You're right about the Misuse of Magic Office by the way; stealing muggle homes like that is a really common crime, especially by poorer wizards. In fact, that alone accounts for about forty-three percent of–"
"Hermione…" Ron interrupted.
"Yes, right," she said, blushing slightly. "I think the biggest issue is how we would we get there the first time, which isn't much of a problem at all really. We can't apparate if we haven't been there or at the very least know roughly where it is, but that doesn't mean we can't do it the muggle way. You must have directions, right Harry?"
"Yeah. I'll write out the address and stuff for you two just in case, but seeing as it's a way off the roads I'll just apparate the two of you. I snuck out last week to empty my vault and then pay the bloke."
"You went to Diagon Alley by yourself?" Hermione asked with a glare.
"I was under my cloak the whole time!"
If anything, Hermione's glare got even worse.
"Right," Ron said loudly, effectively interrupting their brewing argument, "as we'll be relying on Harry to get us there the first time we need to have some sort of meet up point in case we're separated. Probably best we have one anyway in case our base gets compromised."
Harry quickly nodded his agreement. How had they not thought of that before?
"How about where we camped for the quidditch world cup?" Hermione asked, still eyeing Harry in disapproval. "It's somewhere we all know and that no one will be watching; they took the stadium and all the spells down straight after the match."
Harry and Ron looked at each other and shrugged. It was as good a place as any.
With that done all their eyes turned to the door. It may be silenced but Harry could practically hear Mrs Weasley's fist banging on it. It would be nice to stay a little longer and have an actual conversation with his friends – one that didn't revolve around Voldemort and his death eaters and saving the world – but honestly, it wasn't worth adding any more heat to the looks Mrs Weasley would already be shooting at them.
"Mum's going to be pissed," Ron said unnecessarily.
"We haven't actually done anything wrong," Hermione pointed out, though from her tone she knew it didn't matter. "She can hardly expect three best friends not to talk to each other."
Evidently she did, because the moment the three of them emerged Mrs Weasley pinned them with a displeased look and started clattering pots around in the sink. It was the first time Harry had ever seen her wash up by hand rather than with magic.
She wasn't any less upset the next morning when he and Ron came down for breakfast to find Hermione already at the table. It was entirely by accident, but that didn't stop Mrs Weasley from stopping the sharp movements of her knife and straining her ears to listen to their conversation. From the way her movements suddenly seemed a little off-balance Harry suspected she was even snooping with a supersensory charm.
By unspoken agreement the three of them shelved the topic of horcruxes and instead spoke about other, mindless things. Hermione had first nattered away about the enchantments she had helped with, and then Ron had declared such things as "boring as sin" and lamented the fact that Harry would be disguised as a Delacour; not only would he be a Frenchman for the day – "a disgrace!" according to Ron – but he would also be deprived of the chance to woo one of the bridesmaids. Ron looked dreamy at the thought, a fact which earned him a kick and a scornful look from Hermione.
When he related Ron's hopes to Fleur she laughed so hard the sofa they were sat on shook.
"Wizarding weddings only have two bridesmaids," she said through her giggles. "My cousin Estelle still cannot believe I am marrying a redhead, so I would think Ronald is doomed as far as she is concerned. That leaves Gabrielle, and I have a funny feeling she has her eyes set on another wizard."
"She's eleven, Fleur."
"Harry," she said slowly, clearly enjoying herself, "she's been in love with you ever since you pulled her out of the lake. I have been treated to extensive plans for your eventual wedding – she used me as her Harry Potter expert to make sure you would like it. She was most upset when I told her you wouldn't like it if it rained rose petals."
Harry stared at for a few seconds, waiting for her to say she was joking.
She wasn't.
"I'll do literally anything if you tell her I'm not here."
Fleur's smirk turned gleeful.
"She will be here before the day of the wedding, you realise that don't you? She will see you without your disguise."
He hadn't realised that actually, but could he not still pretend to leave the night before? Surely not doing so would kind of defeat the purpose of being disguised for the wedding?
"But no," she continued, "I think I will enjoy watching you suffer, even if you are disguised at the time. Besides, she will never believe that I allowed my wedding to go ahead without you there."
Harry felt a burst of warmth flow through his chest, and he couldn't have stopped the smile that appeared on his face if he wanted to.
"And I'd never miss it," he said softly.
Fleur beamed at him, and Bill took that moment to wander into the front room.
"Running away from your mum are you?" Harry asked.
"Course I am," Bill replied as he sat down in the too-small space between him and Fleur. "Anyone with half a brain runs away from her when she's in this sort of mood."
Harry nodded his agreement before Bill started telling Fleur about something or other that someone at work had said. He had always considered Bill, in a word, cool. Easy-going and laid back, but also highly intelligent and as brave as anyone else in the Order. You had to be brave to be a cursebreaker, after all, and Bill was one of the best cursebreakers around.
He would have never even thought to apply the word insecure if he didn't know how Bill acted with regards to his and Fleur's friendship, but as he looked at him now it was difficult not to. Outwardly he was the normal Bill, but there was always this edge of hostility to his gaze whenever he looked at him. It was impossible for Harry to miss, and he knew from the strain lines on her face that Fleur saw it too.
"Where are you going?" Fleur asked when he stood up barely ten seconds after Bill sat down.
"Figured I'd see if anyone needed a hand. I don't want to be accused of being lazy."
Fleur knew why he was really leaving, of course, but she couldn't exactly say anything with Bill sat next to her. For his part, Bill gave him a reluctantly thankful look, even if he still very clearly didn't like his friendship with his fiancée.
As he left, Harry wondered which of them Bill didn't trust: him or Fleur.