After food, a shower, and another nap, Rory was feeling miles better than she had earlier in the day. She still felt like she could sleep for a thousand years, but Harry was going to be here and the rush of adrenaline she felt at that overpowered the exhaustion she felt.

She'd been trying not to be nervous about speaking to the Order. Her dad promised it would only be a few minutes and then she could "go run off and see Harry which is all I'm sure you'll want to do." She was too excited to be seeing Harry to be annoyed with him for teasing her about it.

Rory waited in the dining room with Sirius, and Mister, and Missus Weasley. The others would be here soon. Dumbledore would not be present tonight. They'd all decided that would not be constructive for anyone. Rory agreed. She would definitely be too busy laying into Dumbledore rather than talking.

But then Snape walked into the room. She really, really, really hated Snape. She was angry with Dumbledore, certainly, but she hated Snape. It was like a serpent sat in her belly and it came alive every time she saw him.

Rory looked at the clock on the wall. She knew the advance guard would be walking in any moment and that her time with him would be limited.

"Good evening," Snape said, taking a seat.

"Severus," Sirius said with all the politeness he could muster, which did not appear to be much. The Weasleys greeted him as well, but Rory remained silent. "Lupin."

Rory looked up at him. "Since you're not my professor right now, I'm not obligated to be polite to you, so I'm choosing to be silent instead because my dad will probably keel over if I admonish another one of my instructors this summer."

Snape leered at her, and Sirius grabbed her shoulder.

She expected him to quietly scold her, but instead, he whispered. "I'm only pretending to scold you to make it look good for when this gets reported back to your dad. Well done."

To her credit, Rory managed to keep her face devoid of a smile. It was nice to get a pat on the back for yelling at Snape for once.

And then the door opened again. The advance guard came spilling in and Mrs. Weasley walked out to direct Harry to his destination without coming into the room, which was their agreed-upon plan. Still, Rory watched the door and one by one the Order filed in, and then she saw him. And he saw her, and a warmth spread through like she'd submerged herself in a warm bath.

And then the door slammed shut and he was gone. Just for the moment.

"Looks like things went well then," Sirius said.

"Went off without a hitch," Moody said.

"I knew they were tidy people, but their house is so clean. It's like, sterile. Unnatural," Tonks said.

"Not going to let it go, are you?" Remus asked.

"I will for now," she said. "But I'm definitely going to bring it up again later."

"Later being the operative word," Snape drawled.

"Sorry, have you got somewhere else to be tonight?" Sirius asked.

"Any place other than here, which is more than I can say for you," Snape retorted.

Sirius leered at him. Rory leaned over to him.

"Salty," she whispered in Sirius' ear. They both restrained a chuckle while Remus tossed them a disapproving look from across the table.

"We do have business to get to," Moody said. "Miss Lupin."

"Aurora," she offered, if only because it unsettled her to hear Moody say her name that same way Crouch had.

"Aurora," he corrected, "gifted seer you are I hear."

"Unfortunately," she replied.

"You saw Harry being attacked?" Tonks asked.

Rory nodded. And she explained in detail everything that she saw and heard. She could almost feel the chill in the air.

"You said someone sent the dementors after Potter," Snape said. "Why do you think that?"

"Because I know someone did," Rory said.

"How?" Snape asked.

"I dunno. How was I able to see him attacked in the first place? It's all the same to me," she replied. "But they were sent there for Harry."

"And who sent them?" Snape asked.

"The logical suspicion would be Voldemort," Arthur said.

But Rory shook her head. She was almost certain of this.

"I don't think so," Rory said.

"You don't think so?" Snape asked.

"No," she replied. "It didn't… It didn't feel like Voldemort."

"It didn't feel like Voldemort?" Snape asked. "And what does Voldemort feel like?"

"You'd probably be able to answer that better than me, wouldn't you?" Rory asked tapping her fingers against her forearm knowingly.

"Aurora," Remus said warningly.

"Forgive me," Rory said, rolling her eyes. "All I meant was that the intent behind the attack didn't feel evil, the way the intent behind putting Harry's name in the Goblet of Fire did. Besides, it doesn't make a lick of sense to suck his soul out if Voldemort needs him for something. I'm telling you, someone else went after Harry last night."

"We'll take your warning under advisement," Snape said.

"Welp, the last two times my warnings were taken under advisement, I seem to recall that Harry was nearly killed. And then his soul was almost sucked out. So I would advise that you at least entertain the idea that I could be correct and perhaps try to figure out who done it," Rory said.

There was a pause as they could hear raised voices upstairs. To Rory's ear, it was clearly Harry.

"Someone's unhappy up there," Bill said.

"Can't possibly imagine why Harry'd be upset," Rory said.

"And on that note," Remus said pointing to the door.

Rory stood from the table. "All I'm saying is, maybe you shouldn't cherry-pick which of my predictions you want to listen to." She gave a curt wave and walked out of the dining room.

"My goodness, the sass from that girl," Diggle said. "Can hardly believe she's yours, Remus."

"I think Aurora is predisposed to being sassy from the bad influence she was sat next to," Remus said, tossing a pointed look at Sirius.

"I wasn't egging her on that much," Sirius replied.

"Are we sure Aurora's a seer?" Tonks asked. She'd been staring at Aurora's vacant seat for a long moment. This thought had been bouncing around in Tonks' head last night and she wanted to get it out while she knew Aurora was occupied and not likely to eavesdrop on the meeting.

"Do you not believe her?" Hestia asked.

"I do believe her, is the issue. But it's been bugging me. She's certainly able to predict the future, she's proven that. But last night she had to have been telling us about Harry as it happened. The timing was too spot-on," Tonks said. "I mean, she can predict things, but she's also able to sense things. She said she could feel the intent behind the dementor attack. The intent behind Harry being entered into that tournament. She can even tell when someone is being deceitful. She's unnervingly uncanny. It's unheard of."

"So if not a seer then what is she?" Sirius asked.

Tonks shrugged. "I have no idea. Maybe I just don't know enough about seers. Either way, being that uncanny is going to be very attractive to a dark wizard."

"We'll have to keep watch on her then," Moody said. "Probably for the best if she avoids going to your flat the rest of the summer."

"I don't believe I'll get much push back on that now that Harry's here," Remus replied.

888

Rory left her frustrations behind as she ran upstairs. She couldn't control what the Order or Dumbledore was going to do or what they'd done. Right now she just wanted to see Harry.

She could hear their voices coming from Ron's room and she pushed through the door. Everyone was silent when she stepped inside. Harry was standing just beside the door. Rory tossed her arms around him and buried her face in her chest before she could start crying. She was relieved when he held her back.

"Oh, Rory shows up and suddenly he's all quiet," Ron said.

"She was the only one who wrote to me all summer," Harry said. He seemed to squeeze her tighter at these words. She'd missed him.

"She was the only one who was allowed," Hermione said. "They were concerned with all the owls coming and going. Rory doesn't always stay here so she wrote you when she was home and they still didn't let her tell you anything."

"It doesn't matter," Harry said. "It's over with I suppose."

"Far from it," Rory said.

"What'd they want to talk to you about in the meeting?" Neville asked.

"They just wanted to know exactly what I saw," Rory said. "Dad said they wanted to talk to me last night, but he put his foot down and said no."

"Well, you were very out of it," Matilda said. "I've never seen someone hyperventilate before."

"Can't say I enjoyed it," Rory said.

"You still look kind of tired and miserable," Fred said.

"Thanks for your honesty," Rory said, rolling her eyes.

"Did they tell you anything?" Harry asked.

Rory scoffed. "Nothing. They go out of their way to make sure none of us hears anything, but especially me. I was dismissed once I was no longer able to tell them anything useful. Probably didn't help that I can't stop myself from being cheeky."

"Well, you did yell at Dumbledore that one time," Hermione said.

"I didn't yell at him. I just told him very plainly what I thought about how he was treating Harry. Just like I didn't yell at Snape tonight either, but told him very plainly that if you want to trust one of my predictions, you have to trust them all," Rory said.

"From what we've been able to gather," Hermione said, "they've referred to Rory as being 'a problem.'"

"I don't find it problematic that I've spent all summer relentlessly advocating for you to not be at the Dursleys, but I've been told to 'calm down' and 'don't go on a tirade' and that 'he'll be fine' so maybe, at some point, someone should've fucking listened to me and maybe I'm a little justified in how irritating I've been," Rory said. "And they won't tell us anything, no matter how much we ask. It's maddening."

"But we have ways of gathering information," George said reaching into his pocket.

"A new invention of outs," Fred said.

"Extendable ears. Let's you eavesdrop without being noticed," George said.

"But we still haven't learned much," Rory said. "They're following known Death Eaters, recruiting for the Order."

"And they're standing guard over something," Ron said.

Harry scoffed. "Seems likely that it's me."

"They're watching Rory too," Neville said.

"Why?" Harry asked.

"Because they reckon Voldemort knows I'm a seer and that he'll either find me useful in that capacity or at least as a tool to get you to do something reckless," Rory said.

Harry seemed to concede to that train of thought.

"I should also mention Dumbledore's not here tonight," Rory said. "Everyone seemed to think we wouldn't have a constructive conversation if he'd showed up. Which, admittedly, is probably true, because I have a lot of things to say to Dumbledore right now, and I don't know how to say them politely."

Harry seemed to nod in agreement.

"Children! Time for dinner!" Mrs. Weasley called upstairs.

"Finally," Ron said. "I'm bloody starving."

The others piled out of the room first, leaving Harry alone with Rory for a few brief moments. She pushed herself up onto her toes and kissed him. She wanted to kiss him longer. She wanted to kick the door closed and kiss him until they were out of breath and their lips were tired. But she only had a second for now.

"I missed you," she said.

"You too," he said. He kissed her again and then left the room, only a few paces behind their friends.

The kitchen had been cleared away of most of the Order. The Weasleys, her dads, Kingsley, Mundungus, and Tonks were all that remained.

Harry greeted Sirius, her dad, and the Weasleys warmly, and it made Rory feel good to know that at last, he was safe, that he was somewhere he'd be cared for, that he wasn't going to have to deal with all of this alone anymore.

"He's not going to disappear if you take your eyes off of him for a few seconds," Matilda whispered in her ear.

Rory swatted her away.

Harry sat beside Rory at dinner, and it was a chore to keep herself from swooning the whole meal. She didn't want to monopolize all of his attention. She wasn't the only one who'd missed him of course, and he'd obviously missed everyone else as well. But it still felt impossibly good whenever he leaned over and whispered into her ear: to ask her to remind him to tell her about something, to ask a question, to tell her this was the first time he'd ever seen her look even slightly nervous.

"It's because I'm still waiting for the other shoe to drop," Rory whispered back. "Expect Sirius will be the first to pounce."

"You think?" he whispered back.

"I know so," she replied. "He can't help himself."

"What are you two whispering about over there?" Sirius asked. Rory and Harry looked over to him.

"Nothing important," Rory replied as she picked up her water glass. She shot a knowing look to Harry. She would definitely be telling him "I told you so" later.

"You always say it's 'nothing important,'" Sirius said.

"I mean, you don't even know who Paul Hollywood is, so I can't explain the drama that is going on inside of the Bake-Off tent with his latest technical challenge," Rory said.

"And of course it's pastry week," Harry said.

"You know I actually made phyllo dough once," Rory said.

"Really?" Harry asked.

"Yes. It turned out wonderfully, but I hated it and I'm never doing it again," Rory said.

He laughed.

"Yes, they're like this all the time," Ron said. "Usually, they're even more annoying than this."

"False," Rory said.

"Not false," Matilda said.

"Judas," Rory hissed.

"Just calling it like I see," Matilda said. "What's that Lavender is always calling them?"

"'Annoyingly perfect and perfectly annoying,'" Hermione said.

"Wow. Guess I'm adding her name to my ever-growing list of detractors," Rory said. "She goes right up there with Rita Skeeter and Connor O'Malley."

"Who is Connor O'Malley?" Tonks asked.

"A boy I went on ONE boring date with last year. An entire month later, the day after the first task, he walks up to me, a copy of The Prophet in hand, and asks me to explain myself. He seemed to think we were dating, even though he hadn't spoken to me in literally a month," Rory said rolling her eyes. "Anyway, I told him off and he was so offended that he knocked my books out of my hands and called me a slut."

"He did what now?" Remus asked.

"Oh, don't worry. I continued to severely wound his pride repeatedly over the course of the following few weeks and he didn't dare to speak to me again," Rory said.

"Rory gets a whiff of fragile masculinity and she attacks, like a shark tasting blood in the water," Matilda said. "What a hero."

"Thank you, Matilda," Rory said blowing her a kiss across the table.

"So Harry," Sirius started, clearly attempting to be casual, "do you have any scorned exes as well?'

Harry scoffed. "Definitely not. I don't even actually know how I managed to convince her honestly."

Rory felt herself blush and took another long drink of her water. She was really glad to have Harry back beside her.

"Playing Quidditch was probably a prerequisite," Matilda said.

"Do you have any idea how annoying you are?" Rory asked.

"I do have some idea, yes," she replied smartly.

"If you're all finished, I think it's time everyone got to bed," Mrs. Weasley said.

"Not just yet I think," Sirius chimed in. "You know Harry, I'm surprised that you didn't start asking questions about Voldemort as soon as you walked in the door."

"I did," Harry said a flicker of irritation in his voice, "but Ron and Hermione said that since they're not in the Order so-."

"And they're right," Mrs. Weasley chimed. "You're all far too young."

Rory had heard all this before. They all had. Mrs. Weasley was spearheading the campaign of silence and mostly no one argued with her.

"They don't have to be in the Order to ask questions," Sirius said. "As Aurora has pointed out to us, repeatedly, almost daily since she arrived, Harry has been stuck inside his house for a month. I think he deserves to have some questions answered."

At that point, almost everyone chimed in. Remus shushed the table, but Rory was not going to let this go quietly.

"Okay, I'm sorry. Now, we're listening to Aurora and answering questions now that Harry's showed up? Good to know," Rory said sitting back in her chair with a huff.

"Now you know, that's not what this is," Sirius said.

"What is it then? Explain it to me," Rory said.

"And then explain how Harry shows up and gets all his questions answered, but we've been here this whole time and you haven't told us anything," Fred said.

"It's not my fault you haven't been told anything. That's your parents' decision," Sirius said. "Harry on the other hand-."

"Wow! Really?" Rory asked. "That's the excuse you're going to go with?" Beside her, even Harry winced at the comment.

"Not to detract from Sirius' point, Aurora, but he does not make decisions for you," Remus said.

"Could've fooled me. You two have been putting forth a joint effort to keep me in the dark all summer," Rory said, rolling her eyes and letting her hands fall into her lap.

"And let's not forget what Dumbledore said," Molly said.

"Which bit?" Sirius asked.

"The bit about not telling them more than they need to know," Mrs. Weasley said.

"I'm not going to tell them more than they need to know," Sirius said, almost mockingly. "But the fact of the matter remains that Harry was the one to see Voldemort come back. He's got more right than most to-."

Rory again rolled her eyes. Under the table, Harry gave her hand a reassuring squeeze.

Mrs. Weasley cut in again. She and Sirius went back and forth like for a few more minutes, before Mr. Weasley chimed in, agreeing that to some extent Harry needed to be filled. Mrs. Weasley agreed but did not like the idea of Harry having free reign to ask any questions he wanted.

"Okay, let's all calm down," Remus said rubbing his temples. "I think it is better that he get the facts straight from us rather than some other… Less reliable source."

Mrs. Weasley seemed to finally relent, though she and Sirius were still staring daggers at each other.

"Fine. But I'll remind you Dumbledore has his reasons for not letting Harry know too much," Mrs. Weasley said.

"Doesn't mean it's a good reason," Rory muttered under her breath. Remus gave her another warning look.

"And as someone with Harry's best interest in mind-."

"He's not your son," Sirius grumbled.

"He's as good as," Mrs. Weasley said. "Who else has he got?"

"He's got me," Sirius said.

"Well, I imagine you've found it rather difficult to take care of him while you were locked up in Azkaban," Mrs. Weasley said.

Rory's jaw dropped at this statement and then Sirius was on his feet. That was a low blow. It wasn't as if it was Sirius' fault he was in Azkaban. And it wasn't just Harry he'd missed out on taking care of, it was her too.

"Molly, you are not the only person at this table who cares about Harry," Remus said quickly, and firmly. "Sit down, Sirius."

Sirius dropped down into his seat with a huff. Mrs. Weasley looked like she was on the verge of tears.

"I think Harry should get a say in on this," Remus said. "He's old enough to decide for himself." Rory opened her mouth to speak, he leered at her. She was pretty sure if that if she or Sirius voiced another complaint, his head was going to be the next one to start yelling.

"I want to know what's been going on," Harry said.

"Alright," Mrs. Weasley said. "Harry, and I assume Aurora, can stay. The rest of you, off to bed."

There was immediate protest.

"Molly, you can't make Fred and George go. They're of age," Mr. Weasley said.

"But they're still in school and-."

"They're adults," Mr. Weasley said.

Mrs. Weasley sighed. "But the rest of you-."

"Harry's just going to Hermione and I everything anyway," Ron said. Then he looked over to Harry. "Right?" Harry nodded. "Right."

"And Harry also has a no secrets pact with Neville and me. It's one of the conditions he agreed to when we allowed him to date Rory," Matilda said.

"Allowed?" Harry asked.

"We're watching you, Potter," Neville said.

Rory was relieved for the small bit of levity their friends brought. The room felt like a powder keg.

"All right then," Molly said. "Ginny, to bed with you."

"But mum-."

"No, buts. Go," Mrs. Weasley said.