Penumbra I: Falls the Shadow

by Skaldic Oresteia

Post-HBP. As Harry disappears on the Horcrux hunt, Ginny is left behind to find her own path in the war against Voldemort. On separate paths, Harry finds an unexpected ally, while Ginny faces repercussions for helping him leave. Meanwhile, the Wizarding World faces an increasingly bleak future as Voldemort unleashes a darker and deadlier power than anyone could have ever imagined.

6. 5: Phoenix Messenger

Chapter Five
Phoenix Messenger

"Should I not engage in action,
These Worlds would perish, utterly;
I would cause great confusion,
And destroy all living beings."
—Bhagavad Gita

---

When Harry's feet met solid ground, he initially only saw complete and utter darkness, and felt a rush of intense cold, but as his eyes adjusted, he realised he was standing beside Ron and Hermione on dark, wooded path, dimly lit by the stars and the crescent moon. As he took in his surroundings, he could also barely see moonlit peaks, and through the trees the lights of a nearby village. Hedwig fluttered off his shoulder and onto his outstretched hand.

"Where are we?" asked Ron quietly.

"The woods outside Hogsmeade," Hermione answered. "I thought the Shrieking Shack would be a good place to hide out until we've got a better idea of what to do next. Nobody except Remus and the Hogwarts staff know the truth about it, and I doubt it'll immediately occur to them to look there."

"But Wormtail knows about it too," Harry reminded her.

She nodded. "I know, I already thought of that. That's why I didn't transport us directly into it, in case someone else is there."

"So we're going to scope the place first?" asked Ron.

"Exactly. And if we don't deem it secure enough, there's also the cave Sirius used to hide in." Hermione looked at Harry. "You've got the Cloak?"

"Yeah, but I don't know if it still fits over all of us."

"It's night. Anyone who happens to be out probably won't see if one of our shoes appears for a second."

Harry pulled the Invisibility Cloak out from under his jacket, where he usually kept it stowed now. As he wrapped it around the three of them, however, and they were all forced to stoop, he reflected that they couldn't continue to do things that way; it wouldn't work as well in daylight, and they were no longer small school children creeping around the Hogwarts corridors at night, trying to avoid Filch the caretaker. Still, he had to concede Hermione's point, and together they wandered along the dirt path. The northern, mountainous climate mixed with the strange cold that had enveloped Britain had made it especially frigid, and by the time the Shrieking Shack came into view, Harry could feel his toes turning numb. As they approached, they slowed down, and slowly moved around the abandoned house, taking in every detail the moonlight could afford them. They presently reached the side facing away from the village, and Harry slid the Cloak off of them as they quietly crept forward towards a back door, that had been sealed shut with a single wooden board. Hermione drew her wand and waved it at the house with a murmured incantation, but nothing seemed to happen.

"There don't appear to be any protective spells around the place," she reported. "Let's see if we can get in."

She then waved her wand at the board nailed across the door frame. They heard a slight creak, and then Hermione began trying to wrench it off. Ron quickly joined her in her effort, and between the spell she'd used to loosen the nails, and Ron's help, she was quickly able to remove the board and, after unlocking the doorknob with an Alohomora spell, she carefully opened the door, and stepped over the threshold.

"Homenum revelio," Hermione whispered, pointing her wand into the dark interior. Again nothing happened. She relaxed and stowed her wand away.

"Nobody here but us. And it would register a transformed Animagus like Wormtail," she told them, stepping inside and then holding the door open for Ron and Harry to follow. As soon as she closed the door behind them, Hermione lit her wand, revealing the dusty interior, the broken furniture, and the cob webs. It was absolutely freezing inside.

"He could still show up, though," Harry said, his teeth chattering.

"Yes, well, that's why we have protective spells," Hermione said with a wry smile. "Anyway, the Death Eaters don't know what we've done yet. With any luck, the Order will keep this quiet for as long as possible, so Voldemort probably won't find out for a while. Anyway, Wormtail's not the brightest or boldest Death Eater, is he?"

Harry exhaled. "Right. I suppose you've got a point. But we can't stay here forever, Hermione."

"And if Remus shows up?" asked Ron.

"I'll have to jinx him," Harry said regretfully. "Then we'll have to leave again. I really hope it doesn't come to that, though."

As he spoke, he also lit his wand, and Ron followed suit. Hermione, meanwhile, began pointing her wand at the boarded windows in succession. "Muffliato. Protego ambitum maxima. Tego maledictem…"

"Come on," Harry muttered to Ron. "Let's fix the furniture and warm the place up a bit."

Ron nodded and proceeded to magically repair a broken table, while Harry moved into the other room, and after asking Hermione if the wards she was constructing would hide any activity inside the shack, threw the pieces of a broken end table and a ruined chair onto the fireplace grate, and pointed his wand. In seconds a roaring fire went up. He then turned to view what evidently used to be a sitting room, and saw a large armchair on its side, one of its arms missing and a leg ripped off, lying nearby. Harry waved his wand at it. "Reparo."

The chair began to repair itself. They continued to work in this manner, Hermione putting up enchantments to both protect them from external attack and to conceal them from the outside world, maintaining the illusion that the Shrieking Shack remained abandoned, while Harry and Ron began clearing the room and repairing the remaining furniture, trying to make it more habitable. Finally Hermione cleared the dust with a wave of her wand, and lowered herself onto the sofa Ron had just repaired. Their work done, the three of them sat in silence before the fire.

"I can't believe we've actually done it," Ron finally said after a few minutes.

"I know," Hermione agreed. "They'll know we're gone by now."

Harry thought back to the party at the Burrow. Hermione was right; Molly almost certainly would have discovered their absence, and had probably found his letter. Had Ginny found and read hers? Were members of the Order, even as they sat before this fire, hidden from the world in the Shrieking Shack, already searching for them? And how long would it be before the Ministry and the Death Eaters started searching for them too? For a few minutes Harry allowed his heart to ache as he thought of what he had left behind, and the panic he had undoubtedly caused, but knowing that there was no point in returning, he forced himself not to think about the Burrow or about Grimmauld Place. Instead he opened up his rucksack and began digging within, until he found Dumbledore's box and withdrew it.

As soon as it came into her view, Hermione sat up abruptly. "Fawkes."

"Sorry?" asked Harry.

"You were supposed to call Fawkes, remember? As soon as we got away?"

"Oh yeah." Harry opened the box and withdrew the letter that lay on top of Dumbledore's journals with Kingsley's name on the front. He turned this over in his hands: it was quite thick and heavy, evidently containing multiple pages. But he had absolutely no idea how to summon the phoenix. True, Fawkes had turned up in a moment of need in the Chamber of Secrets, but Harry had neither called nor expected him. On the other hand, he had successfully summoned Kreacher by simply calling his name, so perhaps the phoenix could sense the call too.

Feeling very foolish, Harry feebly whispered, "Fawkes?"

Ron and Hermione looked around in anticipation, but when nothing happened initially, their faces fell. Harry began to look back into the box, in search of Dumbledore's letter, wondering if he'd missed something.

"Great," Ron murmured. "Now what do we"—

Suddenly a flash of bright fiery light illuminated the room, causing Ron to shout in surprise, and Harry's hand shot up before his face to shield his eyes. When he lowered it, he saw that a heavy, black chest had appeared in front of the fireplace, with Dumbledore's scarlet bird perched on top of it, a clawed foot resting on a smaller package. Harry stood, and the phoenix looked at him expectantly.

"Hello, Fawkes," Harry whispered, reaching out to stroke the bird's red and cold plumage. Fawkes trilled in response, and nudged Harry's hand with his beak, before fluttering to the arm of the sofa beside Hedwig, allowing Harry to open up the chest. Peering inside, Harry audibly gasped as he saw an empty stone basin encased within, which he recognised instantly.

"Is that Dumbledore's Pensieve?" asked Hermione breathlessly. "I've never seen one before. They're really rare."

"What's in the other box?" asked Ron, picking up the smaller package Harry had placed on the floor when he opened the chest. He tore the wrapping paper off to reveal a wooden box similar to the one Dumbledore had left at Gringotts. Upon opening it, he took out a crystal phial full of a silvery, wispy substance. It had a yellowing label.

"H. Slughorn, December 2nd, 1943, obtained June 30th, 1996," Ron read. "It says 'defective' in parentheses."

"That must be the bad memory Slughorn gave Dumbledore," Harry said. He looked back into the chest. "Hang on, there's a note in here."

He withdrew the small piece of parchment he'd noticed tucked under the rim of the Pensieve.

Harry,
To deposit your own memories into the Pensieve, focus on the memory you wish to examine and use your wand to extract it as you have seen me do. The nonverbal incantation is "Exprimo memoriam." The incantation to leave the Pensieve is "Exiro," also nonverbal.

I hope you make good use of this parting gift.

Prof. Dumbledore

"That doesn't sound too difficult," Hermione said after she and Ron scanned the note. "This will be really helpful."

Harry looked at Fawkes. "Thank you very much." The phoenix then looked meaningfully at Dumbledore's Gringotts box, which lay forgotten on the sofa, and trilled again. Harry, remembering Kingsley's letter, said, "Oh, right," and he held the heavy letter to Fawkes, who snatched it up with his beak and then, in another flash of fire, disappeared.

"Wish we could just have him stay," Harry said sadly. Hermione nodded.

"Well, that's done with," Ron said quietly, as he took out another phial. "So now what?"

They looked at Harry expectantly, who said quietly, "R.A.B."

Ron sighed. "Our missing Death Eater friend."

"You have a list of known Death Eaters as well as suspects from the trials, don't you Harry?" asked Hermione.

Harry scowled. "I've gone over this four times. None of them had those initials, and I don't know of anyone connected with the Death Eaters who does."

"It might be someone the Ministry never tried as a Death Eater," Hermione pointed out. "I just can't imagine how this R.A.B. could have written such a note if he wasn't in Voldemort's inner circle."

"I know," said Harry. "Maybe I'll start with looking over my memory of their meeting in the graveyard, the night Voldemort came back. There might be something I missed. And it can get me some practice using this thing," he added, indicating the Pensieve.

As he spoke, Ron yawned, and Harry looked at the watch Remus had given him.

"I think we should try…" Hermione began, but Harry interrupted:

"I think we should call it a night. I'll get started in the morning."

Hermione looked like she wanted to argue, but she saw Harry's resolute expression and Ron's weariness, and knew they felt done for the day. The protective wards were up, and the house was somewhat lit and just furnished enough for relative comfort. There wasn't more they could do until they had a decent night's rest.

---

If Ginny had expected to be in hot water with the Order, she had not anticipated how quickly the confrontation would come. Not that she was surprised that they would suspect her. The fact that three teenagers, one of whom was under the Order's tightest protections, had managed to find and exploit a weakness that the organisation's most experienced wizards had overlooked, and had done so without raising anyone's suspicions, undoubtedly would lead to the conclusion that someone must have helped them; additionally, the one person they were most in contact with had long demonstrated a slightly rebellious attitude towards the Order's strictures. In spite of this, as the youngest in the Weasley family and the only underage person remaining with connections to the Order, Ginny was easily overlooked. At the same time, her closeness to the elusive trio, through being sister to Ron, friends with Hermione and romantically involved with Harry, had not gone unobserved by the Order and certainly not by her family. Ginny therefore fully expected someone to put two and two together. What she had not anticipated was that she wouldn't even get half an hour to brace herself for that moment.

There had been a few minutes when all appeared quiet, but Tonks's quick exit upon hearing the news had precipitated the rest of the Order learning what had occurred, and before long Ginny could hear a great deal of activity within the house as they assembled, and judging from the sounds upstairs, tore Ron's room apart, looking for anything that might tell them where Harry had gone. The question of her own involvement, it appeared, hardly needed discussion, for the Order members had only been present at the Burrow for a minute before someone rapped loudly on her door. Ginny, who had been re-reading Harry's letter, hastily stowed it into the desk drawer where she'd also hidden the bag of D.A. coins and Hermione's instructions, just as Fred came in without waiting for an answer.

"Kingsley wants you downstairs," he told her.

Because she'd already been filled with troubled thoughts about the future of her world, and whether Harry, Ron, or Hermione would ever return, and because she'd already shed a few tears about it, Ginny didn't find it difficult to appear shocked and upset. "What's the Order going to do?" she asked.

"Don't know," Fred admitted. "They've called an emergency meeting right now."

Ginny already knew that, of course, and though she hadn't been permitted to attend a closed Order meeting since Sirius was alive, she supposed it shouldn't come as any great shock on this occasion that she had been summoned. The fact that Fred wouldn't meet her eyes confirmed her suspicions, but she said nothing until she returned to the front room, only to find herself facing what must have been at least half of the Order of the Phoenix, including all those who had attended Harry's birthday party. Her mother was in a corner with Arthur, and her eyes were red, but she was looking at her daughter with narrowed eyes. Bill and Fleur were there too, evidently having been called away from their honeymoon, and so were Charlie, Minerva McGonagall and Aberforth Dumbledore. Others included Filius Flitwick and Pomona Sprout (who, she assumed, must have joined the Order after Dumbledore's death), Elphias Doge and Sturgis Podmore, and a few others Ginny only vaguely recognised.

No sooner had she taken in her surroundings when Kingsley said, "Good evening, Ginny. Please have a seat." He spoke with his usual gentle and reassuring inflections, but it did not escape Ginny's notice that almost everyone else in the room was looking at her with the same suspicious expression that her mother currently wore. This was going to be rough.

Looking back at Kingsley, she said quietly, "I'll remain standing, thank you."

"As you wish," sighed Kingsley. "You consider yourself a close friend of Harry's, do you not?" When Ginny only gave a short nod in response, he asked, "Did he ever say anything to you that could tell us why he's left and where we might find him?"

"No, he didn't." At least that was half-true; she had no idea where he had gone. However, she could tell by the way her father stood up and placed his hand on the mantelpiece, not looking at her, that he certainly didn't believe her.

"But did he ever say something to you that might be relevant?" Kingsley pressed.

"I don't know where he went or what he's up to, if that's what you're asking," Ginny said truthfully; but she heard several people make sceptical noises, and she saw McGonagall's mouth thin angrily.

Her father, meanwhile, turned around and levelled an intense stare at his daughter. "But you knew he was planning to leave tonight, didn't you?"

His tone indicated that he didn't require an answer, and Ginny knew that there was no point in denying it; she therefore dropped all pretence and assumed a defiant manner. The tension in the room heightened; her demeanour was not lost on anyone in the room, and several people got to their feet, staring at her with a mixture of anger and disbelief. But Ginny only answered her father, in a cold tone, "And what of it?"

Molly too got to her feet, her devastated expression contorting into one of utter outrage. "You knew they were going to do this, and you didn't tell anyone?" she shouted.

"No, I didn't," Ginny said resolutely. "They knew you'd react like this, they knew you'd try to stop them! Of course they left in this way!"

"Of course we'd stop them!" her mother shot back. "They're going to get themselves killed!"

"They're of age!" Ginny snapped. "You can't stop them this time! What were you going to do, lock them in a cage somewhere?"

"If that's what it took! They're only barely of age! Harry's not even been seventeen for twenty-four hours!"

"Yes, but he's perfectly capable of defending himself!"

"They haven't even finished school yet!"

Ginny snorted contemptuously. "And when will that happen, mother dear? Were you just going to sequester them at Grimmauld Place until things got better and they opened up Hogwarts again?" Molly spluttered indignantly, but Ginny, having already had enough of this, looked at the rest of the Order and said furiously, "Wake up! The Ministry is run by a bunch of corrupt, self-interested morons, and the Death Eaters get stronger every day! What in God's name makes you think it's going to get better?"

"I understand your frustration, Ginny," Kingsley interjected, "but neither you nor Mr Potter have any reason to think things won't improve."

"Yes, because you insist on keeping us in the dark! But we're not children, and we're not idiots!" Ginny shook her head angrily. "Don't think you hid from any of us how scared you are! You have been acting like you expect something bad to happen for weeks, and no, I don't know what it is, because you wouldn't deign to tell any of us, but I have eyes! I have ears! And so does Harry! It's getting worse, with no solution in sight, and you know it! Don't you lie to me!"

"We're doing all we can, you know," said Hestia Jones defensively.

Ginny shot her a disgusted look. "Oh, I see. You think you can do much better than Harry can? That makes things clear. Let's stand back and leave it to you, the grown-ups, the Order of the Phoenix, to solve this problem, even though you couldn't save Dumbledore or Sirius, and you somehow had no inkling of Snape's true leanings!"

She'd hit a nerve. Some of the others made angry exclamations, but Molly's was loudest:

"At least we know what we're getting into!" she shrieked.

"And Harry doesn't?" challenged Ginny.

"Until he ran off on this childish crusade of his, we had a plan of action to"—

"You had a plan?" scoffed Ginny. "Really? Like what? You just lost your leader and your only spy turned on you, so you decided to hide Harry Potter away like some secret weapon, restrict him, entrap him like you did Sirius, and look how well that turned out!"

"That was different!" her mother yelled.

"The hell it was!" Ginny fired back, glancing at the rest of the Order in disgust. "Stop lying to yourselves! You show no faith in Harry, you won't trust that he might actually know what he's doing!"

"He gets top marks in Defence Against the Dark Arts, and you think that makes him ready for this, or that it gives him the right to drag Ron with him?" snarled Molly.

"Have you forgotten all the things he's done, everything he's been through?" Ginny jabbed her finger at her mother accusingly. "And youshould give Ron more credit! I bet he talked Harry into letting him come! Besides, they're acting a hell of a lot more ready than any of you are! They took action, while you decided to hide Harry somewhere, making him an easy target in the long run, and meanwhile, you renewed a Fidelius Charm!" She laughed bitterly. "Great! What a success! But how many Death Eaters have you captured or killed? How many of their operations have you thwarted? How much closer are you to ending this war really?"

Molly looked almost apoplectic at Ginny's words, and the room again erupted into indignant protests, but the only one she heard clearly came from Sturgis Podmore, who snapped, "It's not as simple as you're making it sound."

"Don't make excuses!" she snapped. "Should it come as a surprise if Harry's lost faith in the Order? That's assuming he ever really had faith in all of you in the first place!"

The angry noise became even louder, as nearly everyone in the room began yelling, at her, at each other, she couldn't tell; but she noticed that some, like Bill, Tonks, and Remus, looked distinctly uncomfortable, while Aberforth, Fred, and George were nodding at her approvingly. However, the majority of them were red-faced and defensive, all trying to voice their objections to her words; but she knew she had found their weakness, and dug a proverbial knife right into it without hesitation.

"WHAT?" she shouted, unleashing her words upon them at as high a volume as her small frame could muster. "TOO PROUD TO ADMIT THAT YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO, NOW THAT DUMBLEDORE'S GONE? I'M SORRY, BUT THAT'S ABUNDANTLY CLEAR TO ALL BUT THE TOTALLY BLIND!"

"That's enough, young lady!" her father yelled, shocking the room into silence. It was rare for Arthur Weasley to raise his voice. For a moment they glared at each other, then, returning to his normal tone of voice, Arthur said, "We understand you perfectly." Looking at Bill, he added, "She's said her bit. I don't think she needs to be here anymore. Please escort her back to her room, and make sure she stays there."

Looking at Ginny almost apologetically, Bill moved toward her and placed his hand on her shoulder. Ginny brushed him off, but turned to leave without protest; there was no point in arguing with them further. However, before either of them could take a step further up towards the stairs, a strange sound met her ears, and she paused to listen. It was an eerily familiar sound, one that seemed to bolster her courage, one that made her feel warm and comforted inside, but also one that called to mind the sound of dripping water, the crunch of feet upon dry bones, and the hissing of serpents. Ginny looked at Bill, and noticed that he was looking around for the source of the song too. Several members of the Order got up. Then there was a blinding flash of light in the middle of the room, a burst of flame, and a scarlet bird appeared there, flapping its wings to stay airborne. Everyone in the room gasped in shock and hope. Then, to Ginny's amazement, the phoenix fluttered towards her, and she raised a hand, allowing him to perch there. Fawkes nuzzled her affectionately, and then he looked directly at Kingsley, a letter in his beak. The acting leader of the Order stepped forward to take it without hesitation, and he slowly broke the seal and unfolded what looked like a lengthy epistle. Kingsley inhaled sharply.

"It's from Albus," he said. "He did write to us in case he died."

Ginny looked sharply at Aberforth, who was wearing a triumphant smile.

"Why would Fawkes bring us this now?" asked Professor Sprout in amazement. "It's been nearly three months!"

"And right after Harry disappeared?" added Bill.

"That can't be a coincidence," McGonagall whispered. "What does it say, Kingsley?"

Everyone looked at him in anticipation. Kingsley cleared his throat and read:

To my dear and loyal friends in the Order of the Phoenix:
If you have received this letter, then I am no longer with you. You may wonder at the timing with which Fawkes has brought you my instructions in the event of my death, and you would be right to. As my brother Aberforth would tell you, it is important to play one's cards close to the chest.

"Damn right," chuckled Aberforth.

This means that wheels are turning that the Order cannot and should not know or interfere with. You may not think it, you may not understand it, but my death changes nothing. I have known that I would soon die for quite some time now. Whether at the hands of Voldemort's followers or merely from my age, my time was rapidly approaching. My death means the fracturing of my followers into smaller operations, who will all be following their own instructions but separately from each other. For this exact reason, I give you a vital warning: do not interfere with anything that Harry Potter might do.

Ginny smiled triumphantly, but some of the others yelled out in protest.

"What's that supposed to mean?" gasped Molly. "Are we to just let him and my son traipse around the countryside to fight Death Eaters without helping them or knowing where they are?"

Hers was not the only angry, disbelieving exclamations. For a minute Ginny watched as Kingsley and Arthur struggled to get a word in edgewise, but the others' voices, shouts of "Preposterous!", "He's just a boy!", or "What was Albus thinking?", drowned theirs out. Then an ear-splitting whistle rang out, causing everyone to cover their ears, wincing in pain. Aberforth lowered his fingers from his mouth.

"Shut up, all of you," he growled. "I imagine we're about to hear why Albus wanted us to leave Potter alone."

"Thank you, Aberforth." Kingsley looked back at the letter.

Harry has his own instructions, part of which was to leave the Order's protection, in secret if necessary. I cannot disclose the nature of his instructions, but I anticipated that you would restrict his movements in an attempt to protect him. I assure you, without a shadow of a doubt, that this would be a fatal mistake, both for him and for the Wizarding World. Harry is now at a stage in this fight in which he must proceed freely, without hindrance or restriction.

Thereby stands your first set of instructions: should any of you run across him, do not interfere with his doings. Do not attempt to uncover the nature of his task. Should anyone still learn of it, such persons must not disclose it to anyone else, not even other Order members. Do not actively look for him or try to contact him, unless circumstances indicate that you truly need his assistance. Should Harry require assistance from the Order, he will contact you. He may or may not disclose critical information, but it will be at his own discretion. Do not press him for information. And if he decides to depart again, do not prevent him.

Kingsley stopped reading, leaving a stunned silence. Ginny shot her mother a vindicated look, and Molly fell back into her chair, shaking her head but not daring to speak. Most of the rest of the Order looked absolutely dumbfounded, although some, such as Aberforth, Fred and George, were smiling proudly.

"Isn't there any more?" asked Arthur finally, breaking the silence.

"Yes," Kingsley said. "The rest are our own instructions."

He looked at Ginny sternly as he spoke, which she took to mean that he would not read further with her in the room. But she hardly needed to be present. For now, her role in aiding Harry and confronting the Order was done. Ginny stroked Fawkes's feathers affectionately, and he trilled in response, before taking to the air again. There was another blinding flash of light, and the phoenix vanished again. Looking back at the Order, Ginny said coolly, "I'll be upstairs. In future, all of you had better show more faith in him."

Without a backward glance, Ginny returned to her room. With that out of the way, suddenly she wanted nothing more than her bed.

One thing was certain, though: that the Weasleys' only daughter was very capable of leaving a strained atmosphere in her wake. For a full five minutes after her retreat to her room, the crowd in the Weasleys' front room was utterly lost for words, save for those who only dared speak in a whisper to whoever sat close by. Eventually Aberforth looked at Kingsley and Arthur and said, "I'll tell you what, though: I suspected Al might have done something like this. So while we're clearing the air, I feel no compunction in telling you that I may have dropped Miss Weasley a hint or two about keeping Potter informed on the protective wards you were putting up, to the best of her ability. Seems she did a phenomenal job of it too."

Molly, recovering from her shock, leapt to her feet indignantly. "I can't believe you or Albus would do this, Aberforth!" she shouted. "That's my son who's now putting himself in danger!"

"So are the rest of your sons," Aberforth reminded her.

"They're teenagers, for Merlin's sake!"

"They're legal adults, and the way I see it, if Al says they're ready, then they're ready. Doesn't matter how old they are otherwise."

"Oh, so you'd let a five-year-old into battle?"

Aberforth snorted at such an absurd retort. "But Potter's not five, is he? He's not a child, Molly. For that matter, neither is your son, or your daughter. You'd do well not to treat them like they are."

But at his words, something snapped within Molly Weasley, and she reared up upon Aberforth, her hand raised to strike, as she shrieked, "DON'T YOU TELL ME HOW TO RAISE OR PROTECT MY CHILDREN!"

"Molly!" Arthur cried, running forward and seizing her wrist.

In spite of nearly finding himself with a red, handprint-shaped welt on his face, Aberforth looked completely unfazed.

"Molly, if you cannot calm yourself, I'm going to have to ask you to leave the room," said Kingsley.

"You can't order me out! This is my house!" Molly snapped.

"And mine, Molly," Arthur reminded her firmly. "And I agree with Kingsley. This is not helping."

Molly looked like she wanted to argue, but seeing the allied front before her, she had to satisfy herself with jerking her hand away from Arthur and returning to her seat, muttering angrily. Relieved that his wife seemed done yelling (at least for now), Arthur looked at Kingsley expectantly. However, it was Remus who spoke up.

"I can't speak for all of us, of course," he said quietly, "but I trusted Dumbledore when he was alive, and I trust him now. So I believe that Albus's instructions must be respected and followed."

"I agree," Kingsley said. "If he says we're not to interfere with Potter's work, then we don't interfere. Any who doesn't agree, feel free to raise your voice now."

There was some sceptical muttering, especially in the corner where Molly sat, but most of the Order were silent. Little as they liked the idea of placing all their faith and expectations on a barely seventeen-year-old man and his two friends, especially not knowing what they were doing, they also couldn't argue with the fact that their former leader, to whom they'd sworn loyalty upon joining, had always known the most about what was happening, and had never told them everything anyway. If Harry Potter had a vital role in this war, then no one would understand it better than Albus Dumbledore.

Seeing no further objections, Aberforth cheerfully said, "Well, that clears that up. I want to hear the rest of Al's instructions."

---

When she woke up the next morning, Ginny was annoyed, but not all that surprised, to find that someone, probably Molly, had magically locked her inside her room. But this at least gave her some measure of privacy, and she seated herself at her desk to again re-read Harry's letter. When she opened her drawer to withdraw it, however, her eyes fell on the bag of D.A. coins, and she took one out to examine it, considering Hermione's unexpected decision to leave them in her keeping. She thought she knew what Hermione intended by it, but she was unsure how to start, or even if she should. She waited for more than an hour to be let out, but finally, at around eleven, she heard someone step outside her door and then the lock clicked. The door swung open, and Ginny stowed the coin pouch in her pocket, and looked up to see Charlie standing there.

"Am I allowed out yet?" she asked coolly.

Charlie nodded glumly, not saying a word, but he stepped back and allowed Ginny to leave her room. When she arrived in the kitchen, her stomach grumbling, she found Molly cooking lunch, but as Ginny took a seat at the table, her mother pointedly ignored her. Ginny's heart sank, although she didn't find this unexpected. The fact that one of Molly's sons had run away at all was hard enough on the Weasley matriarch, but the fact that he had done so to help Harry fight Death Eaters, refusing the help of the Order in the process, was another matter entirely. That being said, Molly was accustomed to letting out her temper rather than allowing it to build, and she needed an outlet to direct her anger; and so Ginny found herself—as the person who'd done nothing to stop Ron and Harry and Hermione—the natural target for her mother's rage. That being said, Molly was so angry that she didn't even begin shouting, probably not knowing where to start, or perhaps not daring to voice her opinion after the contents of Dumbledore's letter had been revealed. Either way, Ginny spent lunch bracing herself for some inevitable quarrel. She'd hardly finished eating, however, when Molly swiped away her plate and said curtly, "De-gnoming, now."

Ginny held her head high defiantly, but in reality she actually welcomed the chore, at the moment wishing to be as far away from her mother as possible, so she pulled on a jacket and walked out the back door without protest. Once she was in the garden, she took a seat on the tree stump where Harry had sat the evening before. Doing so had caused a lump to form in her throat, but she determinedly swallowed it and looked around for any gnomes. She again wondered how they could withstand the cold, either of winter or of this strange, unseasonable weather, without any kind of hair or clothing, but withstand it they could, and so it wasn't long before she caught sight of one sneaking behind a rock, and Ginny stooped down and seized the little creature by its ankles.

"Gerroff me!" the gnome squealed, but Ginny ignored it and swung it in circles for half a minute, before she flung it over the hedge as hard as she could. That felt good, she thought as she heard the gnome land somewhere out of sight, and as she turned around, predictably she saw other gnomes peering out from their holes, and she dove for them too. She found that the gnomes provided a good outlet for her own anger, as well as a distraction from her fear for Harry; but she'd done all she could where he was concerned, and nothing anyone in the Order said would make her betray him now. Not that she'd be able to tell them much anyway. The second gnome flew over the hedge, then the third, and Ginny watched as they landed within feet of each other, and tried and failed to stand up. She smiled in satisfaction, and then turned to look for another.

After a few minutes of this, she heard the gate open, and she looked around as George entered the garden. Seeing her at the hedge, he approached and said incredulously, "She's already got you doing chores?"

Ginny grimaced. "She is not happy with me. You'd have thought that Dumbledore's letter might make her a bit less angry, but apparently not."

"Well, you know her. If she had her way she'd still have us all on leading strings."

Ginny scowled. "I didn't give Harry those orders! And I may have helped him out, but I hardly pushed him out!"

"She ripped into Aberforth too, you know."

"I know. I could hear her through my bedroom floor. I wouldn't be surprised if she sent him a Howler this morning. But if she did, it wasn't enough of an outlet."

"Good thing she's got you around, then," George said lightly. "The battle of the Weasley women. You'll notice that Dad and everyone except Charlie ran for cover this morning."

"And what about you?" challenged Ginny.

"I can handle Mum," George said confidently. When Ginny continued to give him a suspicious, scrutinising expression, however, he admitted, "although I decided it wasn't a good time to mention to her that Pigwidgeon showed up at our place late last night with a note from Ron. He's now our personal owl. I guess we Weasleys are used to making do, although we'll have to take care, lest we 'accidentally' sell him as a Pygmy Puff."

Ginny scowled at him, too irritated with his light-hearted manner to pretend to take him seriously, as she normally might have done. George, unconcerned, bent down and too grabbed a gnome, which he proceeded to spin and throw over the hedge.

"In all seriousness, though," he continued, "if there's anyone among us who can look after themselves these days, it's Harry."

"Well, at least you believe in him."

"So do you. It's got to count for something."

Ginny managed a weak smile. Together they continued to clear gnomes from the garden. Finally, as they watched the last of the gnomes stumble away from the hedge with hunched shoulders, George looked at his sister and said, "On a different subject, I'm curious what you're going to do now, what with Hogwarts closing."

"Practice, I guess," Ginny answered. "You know, going through the textbooks and trying to learn the material I would be studying this year."

"Fleur thinks you should go to Beauxbatons." George smirked when Ginny looked at him with an expression of utter horror. "Thought not. So, what about after you come of age?"

"I'm not sure, really," Ginny said. "Get my NEWTs, I guess? I was going to join the Order, but after last night I'm not sure they'll want me."

"Bullocks. They'll get over it soon enough. Everything you said last night was true, and they'll recognise it. If anything, they should be thanking you."

Significantly cheered, Ginny said, "Well, I'm glad at least you are on my side."

"Always."

Ginny smiled, and glanced back at the house. "Actually, there is something I want your opinion on, but I don't want Mum overhearing. Or anyone, really."

George's eyebrows twitched, and Ginny knew she definitely had piqued his interest. "Well, I don't think we'll be overheard here," he said. "With Harry gone, the Order probably won't be patrolling the perimeter as much, and besides, when I arrived, Tonks had firecalled, so that should keep Mum occupied for at least another fifteen minutes."

Ginny relaxed, and then pulled from her pocket the money-bag, which she tossed to George. "Hermione left this on my desk before dinner yesterday."

George opened the bag, looked within, and inhaled sharply. "Are these what I think they are?"

Ginny nodded. George withdrew the short note Hermione had left, and quickly read it. "So you think Hermione wants you to start the D.A. again?"

"I'm not sure. Maybe," Ginny said. "I don't know exactly what I'm supposed to do, though. Without Hogwarts open, it's not like we can just start the club up again, especially since half of us are still underage. Anyway, how would we meet up? Most places I go to are either too inconspicuous, too impractical, or too secret."

"Yeah," George said thoughtfully. "That's a problem. While I don't think most of the Order would be against the D.A. on principle, there's no way they're going to allow you to have training sessions either here or in Grimmauld Place. Then, of course, there's the underage magic thing."

But there was something in his voice that made Ginny raise an eyebrow. "I don't doubt that you know all about it. I bet doing underage magic without the Ministry finding out was one of the first things you and Fred looked into once you got wands. At any rate, I doubt the restrictions are totally infallible, otherwise you never would have been able to spend that summer making joke stuff before Mum caught you."

George laughed. "You know us too well, Gin. And you're right. There are loopholes, which we were able to exploit. But they only work in a Wizarding household. If your idea is to have the D.A. practice defensive and offensive spells independently, the underage members who are Muggle-born will have a harder time."

He handed the coin bag back to Ginny, who again pocketed it, feeling rather disappointed. "So what do you think I should do?"

George thought about it for a moment, and then said, "I'll run it by Fred. Between the two of us, we're pretty good at coming up with an idea."

Ginny relaxed. She hadn't been afraid of Fred and George opposing the idea; they were mavericks, and while they couldn't openly talk to her about the Order's affairs, she knew they were frustrated, undoubtedly for the very reasons she'd shouted at the rest of the Order the day before. But she was infinitely grateful for their support, and hoped that their input would be useful.

Before either of them could say anymore, though, they heard the back door open with a loud bang, and Molly stormed outside. "Ginny!" she barked. "I want you upstairs dusting out the bedrooms! And when you're done, I need you peeling potatoes for dinner later tonight. No arguments!"

She then stomped back inside. Ginny's jaw tightened, and red-faced, struggling to calm herself, she said to George, "Thank you. I hope we'll discuss this more later." She then followed her mother inside.

George watched her go, considering her situation both sympathetically and speculatively. His visit after that was not long—he and Fred did have a business to run, after all—but after seeing the situation at the Burrow, his mother's pique and his sister's obstinacy as well as her uncertainty, rather than resolve to keep out of it like his father and Bill, Charlie, and Percy undoubtedly would, he decided that he and Fred at least would keep an eye on things. An idea began to form in his mind, though it would take some further thought first.

---

Harry woke rather late the next morning to the sound of something sizzling and the smell of cooking oil. Cracking an eye open, he raised his head from his rucksack (which he'd been using as a pillow), and blinked, for a split second taken aback at the run-down room, at the peeling wallpaper and the moth-eaten furniture, and at the sunlight streaming through the boarded windows, rather than either the shock of orange from Ron's Chudley Cannons posters, or the red and gold wallpaper of his room at Grimmauld Place. Then his heart sank a little as he remembered.

No turning back now, he reminded himself resignedly.

With a sigh, he looked over at the fireplace from his position on the sofa, where he saw Hermione bent over the fire with a frying pan in her hands. Evidently she had thought to bring kitchenware in her magically-enlarged rucksack, and somehow this realisation, which hadn't at all occurred to Harry while he was preparing, brought him some large measure of relief.

"What's cooking?" he asked, forcing himself to grin.

Hermione looked at him. "Morning. Just some eggs."

Harry raised his eyebrows. "How'd you get a supply of food into your bag without Mrs. Weasley noticing you nicking it?"

She scowled at him. "It's not from the Burrow! I got up early and borrowed your Cloak, and then Disapparated to Dufftown to stop by the grocer's." At Harry's expression, she said defensively, "Nobody saw me! And you know Ron's going to be in a foul mood if we don't have a decent supply of food."

"Yeah, I know," Harry said quietly. "I just don't want to risk anyone in Hogsmeade catching on that someone's hiding out in the Shrieking Shack."

"I brought enough food to last us a week." She paused for a moment, and added anxiously, "At least, I think it's enough."

Harry snorted. "I wouldn't be too sure with Ron around."

She stifled a laugh. "Anyway, hopefully we have food covered. Otherwise, I don't think we have to go outside except maybe to gather firewood. You can't keep using broken furniture."

This had already occurred to Harry, who nodded glumly. "I don't think it burned that well anyway. Still, what if someone in the village notices smoke coming out of the chimney?"

"The concealment spells I put up should hide that. Just so we're careful when we go out to get wood, so no one in the village sees us. I think it'll be fine, at least until we find somewhere better."

Harry only shrugged in response. As Hermione handed him a plate of eggs, and then began to serve herself, she said, "I've been thinking, do you think Voldemort might have hidden one at his old orphanage?"

Harry considered the possibility for a moment, and then shook his head. "I doubt it. He liked to hide them where he felt powerful. He was miserable at that place. I can't see him hiding a piece of his soul there."

Hermione deflated, though she still looked curious. "It might be worth a look, though, don't you think?"

Harry swallowed a bite, and then conceded, "I suppose. I know the name of the orphanage, but not where it is."

"A morning in a Muggle library is all I need for that," she said unconcernedly.

"Ron's not gonna want to spend the morning in a library tracking down an orphanage."

"You and Ron don't need to come," Hermione said dismissively. "Anyway, you shouldn't go out in the open if we're going to hide from the Ministry. But they're less likely to notice me."

Harry hesitated. He honestly didn't like Hermione going off on her own like this, but she was right about the food, and he supposed that he couldn't afford to forego examining any potential area where Voldemort could have hidden a Horcrux, or the hint of a Horcrux. Hermione could take care of herself, and she could easily move about the Muggle world inconspicuously, whereas Ron would be clueless and Harry was too easily recognised by anyone connected with the magical world. He therefore agreed to allow Hermione to run this errand, although he told her to take the Cloak, and to not be too long.

"I'll come back at around two or three," she promised. "If I don't, you can come looking for me."

"And where would we be looking?" asked Harry.

Hermione thought for a minute. "Guildhall, I think. It's in London. I once had to do a report on London landmarks in primary school, and I got most of my information there. It's in the city centre, near the Museum of London, I think."

Ron woke a few minutes after Hermione left for London. He wasn't thrilled that Harry had decided to just allow her to go off on her own, but he too was confident in her ability to defend herself, especially with the Invisibility Cloak in her possession. As he served himself some eggs, Harry, finished with his own plate, opened up the black chest. The Pensieve's smooth surface seemed to glint in the sunlight now filtering through the boarded windows. Harry reached into the chest and carefully withdrew the stone basin, expecting it to be heavy, but to his surprise it turned out to be relatively light. Looking around, he spotted a small table in the corner that Ron had repaired the night before, and carefully placed it there. He then pulled Dumbledore's instructions from his pocket and carefully read them again, before drawing his wand.

"What are you doing?" asked Ron through a mouthful of egg.

"Revisiting Little Hangleton, remember?"

Ron swallowed and eyed the Pensieve curiously. "Do you need any help?" he asked. "I've never used those things before."

Harry looked at him in surprise. "Are you sure you want to see it?"

Ron hesitated. "Not really, but it might be better if we had more than one viewpoint on it." Seeing Harry's expression, he asked, "Is that all right?"

In truth, Harry was actually rather grateful that he wouldn't have to relive the memory by himself, and having someone there to help him view it more critically would probably aid him further in the search for R.A.B. than doing so alone; he wasn't confident he'd be able to do so without lapsing into the memory of the fear and resignation he'd felt then. He therefore consented for Ron to accompany him, but advised him to finish his breakfast after he'd seen it. This made Ron understandably wary of what he was about to see, but to his credit he pushed aside his eggs and joined Harry at the corner table. Harry looked over Dumbledore's instructions again, and placed the tip of his wand next to his temple. Closing his eyes, he thought of a graveyard near an obscure village somewhere in the southeast of England, where a ring of men and women clad in cultish robes and masks surrounded a cauldron and an emaciated creature—he could hardly call it human—in dark robes, declaring his resurrection and immortality in venomous triumph.

Exprimo memoriam, Harry thought, focusing hard on the graveyard. He then slowly pulled his wand away. It was a strange sensation, like pulling a loose but cold thread from his temple, but as he opened his eyes he saw the silvery memory strand gleaming, attached to the tip of his wand like spider silk. Harry gave it a little shake, and the memory fell into the Pensieve, the interior of which immediately glowed. For a third time Harry looked over Dumbledore's note, and then pocketed it, wanting to ensure that he and Ron didn't get stuck inside his own memory. He then looked inside his rucksack until he found a lined notebook where he had begun writing everything he could remember about Voldemort's Horcruxes, and a ballpoint pen.

Looking at Ron, Harry said, "Let's see if I did that right. Follow my lead."

Harry then slowly lowered his head into the basin. The moment his nose touched the silvery strands, all reality seemed to dissolve before him, and then reassemble around him as a dark graveyard. His heart seemed to still as a spectre of fear and panic welled there, but a moment later Ron appeared at his side, and Harry, grateful at the distraction, instead looked at him as he took in his surroundings.

"So this is where it happened?" Ron asked.

Harry nodded. "Glad to know I did it right."

As Ron looked around, his eyes fell upon a dark figure lying spread-eagled on the ground near a gravestone, unmoving.

"Is that Cedric?" Ron whispered.

Harry said nothing. The words "Kill the spare" rang in his memory.

"And where are you?" asked Ron.

Harry pointed to a large headstone labelled "Tom Riddle", where his fourteen-year-old self, bruised and dirty, and with a mangled leg, stood bound with a gag in his mouth, his eyes wide, both from pain and from terror. Before either Harry or Ron could say anything, there was a flash of blinding white light nearby, and they both followed the younger Harry's gaze to the enormous cauldron, where they could also see a crumpled Wormtail cradling the bleeding stump that used to be his arm. As they watched, the dark silhouette of the not-quite-living sorcerer who had tormented and haunted him all his life rose from the cauldron, a near-skeleton with blood-red eyes that almost glowed with bloodlust and malevolence, that commanded Wormtail to robe him. Harry glanced at Ron, and saw that his face had turned very pale.

"Is that him?' he whispered, shocked. Harry nodded, realising that Ron had never actually seen Voldemort in person before. "That's what Horcruxes do to a person?"

Harry made no response, but the only appropriate answer was self-evident. The Horcruxes bound Voldemort to the earth, but they were created through him stripping life, or rather the essence of life, from his own body. He was not truly alive, and his physical form showed it.

They watched as Voldemort used Wormtail's Dark Mark to summon the Death Eaters, and moments later the sound of swishing cloaks met their ears, and a group of nine or ten hooded Death Eaters appeared in the graveyard, standing in a circle around Voldemort and the memory Harry. The real, seventeen-year-old Harry observed as Voldemort reprimanded the Death Eaters for believing him to be dead, for slipping back among his enemies,for pleading innocence, ignorance, and bewitchment, and possibly even now paying allegiance to Dumbledore. Harry,knowing that the crucial moments were seconds away, opened up his notebook and clicked his pen, as a shriek met his ears. As they watched, a Death Eater flung himself forward and fell to his knees before Voldemort. "Master! Master, forgive me! Forgive us all!"

Voldemort laughed mercilessly, and cast the Cruciatus curse. He held his victim under it for a moment, and the Death Eater screamed, but then Voldemort released him.

"Get up, Avery," he said coolly. "You ask for forgiveness? I do not forgive. I do not forget. Thirteen long years… I want thirteen years' repayment before I forgive you."

The whole thing seemed to go much faster than Harry remembered, but he supposed that this time his life wasn't in danger, although he was glad he had the notebook and Ron's swearing to distract him. When it happened, the ensuing meeting between Voldemort and the Death Eaters had seemed to take an eternity, but now Harry realised that the entire incident hadn't taken more than a few minutes, half an hour at most. Ron, however, watched the scene play out, his now-sickly face a mixture of disgust or horror at what he was seeing. He cursed in revulsion as Wormtail, revelling in the installation of his new hand, obsequiously kissed the hem of Voldemort's robes and took his own place among the Death Eaters. They watched as Voldemort moved around the circle, speaking first to Lucius Malfoy. Harry made careful notes of everyone Voldemort talked to, as well as writing the basics of what he said to them. Once Voldemort had finished speaking to Malfoy, he then turned to survey a gap between him and the next Death Eater.

"The Lestranges should stand here," he said, "but they are entombed in Azkaban. They were faithful. They went to Azkaban rather than renounce me…"

Observing this, Ron asked, "Weren't there three Lestranges? There's only enough space there for two."

"Rabastan, Rodophus's brother," Harry said, nodding as he scribbled in his notebook. "I know he went to Azkaban with Bellatrix and Rodolphus. Maybe he wasn't actually in Voldemort's inner circle until after they broke out."

As they watched, Harry noticed that Voldemort passed some of the Death Eaters in silence, whom he couldn't identify at the time of the incident, but he now recognised two of them by their build: Amycus and Alecto Carrow, who were present at Dumbledore's death, though he didn't recognise the man standing next to them. Ron, however, did.

"Gibbon," he told Harry. "He was killed the night Dumbledore died."

Voldemort stopped before a Death Eater that stood next to Dolohov. "Macnair… destroying dangerous beasts for the Ministry of Magic now, Wormtail tells me? You shall have better victims than that soon, Macnair. Lord Voldemort will provide…."

He disregarded Macnair's mutterings of thanks, before turning to acknowledge Crabbe and Goyle, demanding that they "do better". As the two enormous Death Eaters clumsily bowed, and promised their obedience, Voldemort turned to Nott and made the same demand. The latter bowed to Voldemort.

"My Lord, I prostrate myself before you. I am your most faithful…"

"That will do," Voldemort cut across him.

Ron looked revolted. "Look at the way they grovel to him!"

Now that Harry no longer needed to feel more than an echo of the terror that he had felt two years earlier, he too was at leisure to be disgusted. The lack of the actual threat of death allowed him to observe the Death Eaters more carefully, and the more he watched, the more astounded he became at their delusion and stupidity, and awed at how thoroughly Voldemort had obviously manipulated them, to the point that they really thought Voldemort upheld and respected them. At the same time, he wondered if that would last, if at some point some of the Death Eaters would begin to ask questions, would begin to wonder if they actually understood their leader, if his intentions and goals actually aligned with theirs. In fact, that was why he and Ron were here, watching this play out, because at least one Death Eater had.

But Voldemort had moved on. "And here we have six missing Death Eaters… three dead in my service." Harry made another note. "One too cowardly too return… he will pay. One, who I believe has left me forever… he will be killed, of course… and one, who remains my most faithful servant, and who has already re-entered my service. He is at Hogwarts, that faithful servant, and it was through his efforts that our young friend arrived here tonight."

As he turned to survey the boy tied to the gravestone, and the Death Eaters did the same, Harry, not wishing to watch what transpired, took hold of Ron's arm. "Let's go," he said quietly. "We've got what we came for. We don't need to see what happens next."

As Harry pulled on Ron's arm, he thought "Exiro", and a moment later he and Ron found themselves back at the Shrieking Shack. Ron sank onto a chair, nearby, his face a bit green.

"Right," Harry said, looking at his notes. "So we've got most of Voldemort's inner circle: Avery, Wormtail, Malfoy, Bellatrix and Rodolphus Lestrange, Amycus and Alecto Carrow, Gibbon, Macnair, Crabbe, Goyle, Nott, three dead Death Eaters, one traitor, one coward, and Barty Crouch Jr."

"None who we're looking for," Ron remarked, looking slightly recovered.

His eyes still glued to his notes, Harry said coldly, "Snape must be in there somewhere." He felt a fresh stab of anger at his former Hogwarts professor.

"Maybe he's the coward," Ron suggested hopefully.

Harry considered that for a moment, then shook his head. "No, I think that must have been Igor Karkaroff. You remember that he ran as soon as his Dark Mark burned that night? And he was found dead a year later." He frowned. "That would mean… but that's odd. Maybe at the time Voldemort thought Snape was loyal to Dumbledore. We all did."

"So you think Snape's the traitor," Ron said. "Damn. I was hoping R.A.B. might be the traitor. Right. So I guess that leaves the three dead Death Eaters. Who were they, then?"

"Rosier," Harry said automatically. "Wilkes, and…" He frowned again. That was two, but as he looked at his notes, he realised that his initial conclusion couldn't possibly be right, and he now was drawing up a blank. "You know," he said, "at the time I thought that the third was Quirrel, but now that I think about it… I remember now that he simply encountered Voldemort later, after his downfall. I don't think he was ever actually part of the inner circle."

Ron thought about this, and nodded. "I could be dead wrong," he said, "but Quirrel couldn't have been more than twenty-five when he taught us, which means that he must have been about fifteen when Voldemort killed your parents."

Harry nodded. "Right. So, for now, I think we can assume that R.A.B. was this last dead Death Eater. And Voldemort said the three were dead in his service, so if we're right, then he must not have been aware…"

"… of what this bloke did," Ron finished.

Harry sank onto the sofa by the fireplace, frustrated. "That makes this harder. An unaccounted-for Death Eater who Voldemort apparently didn't kill himself."

"Unless he wasn't in the inner circle," Ron said.

Harry shook his head. "I can't think how R.A.B. could have found out about the Horcruxes unless he was."

"So our number one suspect is Dead Death Eater Number Three," said Ron. "Any idea of how to figure out who he was, short of capturing and interrogating a Death Eater?"

Harry was silent. Getting that information from a Death Eater was probably the most direct way, but they first would have to find a way to capture one who was important enough to be in the inner circle, the original inner circle, no less, but unskilled enough to be easily overpowered, and weak enough to be made cooperative. He also couldn't see how to do this without risking drawing attention to themselves. Given that he and his friends were only just starting, were still mostly trying to remain inconspicuous, and had yet to find a more permanent and secure place to work from, Harry couldn't imagine that this idea was a possibility at present; but perhaps Hermione would have some better idea when she got back.

---

Hogwarts students generally only ever saw Hogsmeade during their occasional visits, and during such times, of course, the village was bustling with activity; they almost never saw Hogsmeade on a normal day, when things were quiet except down the main street, when traveling merchants made dealings with the shopkeepers and the primary customers were the villagers. The shopkeepers always used the quiet periods between visits by the Hogwarts students to restock; while Hogsmeade theoretically could be self-sustaining, the visits by eager students always provided a substantial boost to the village's economy. That being said, the closure of Hogwarts meant that Hogsmeade had lost that source of economic sustenance. Therefore, the villagers undoubtedly would soon have to face the reality that hard times lay ahead (undoubtedly some shopkeepers already were making preparations), but this adjustment wouldn't be easy. Hogsmeade originally began as lodgings for the builders constructing Hogwarts at the Four Founders' instruction, and then later became a useful place of residence for certain families of the students, usually spouses and children of said students in a time when Hogwarts was simply a sanctuary for the apprentices of said Founders, when there was no set age of admittance and no limit to how long one studied there (and also in a historical period when arranged marriages were common, and it wasn't unusual for people to marry at the age of sixteen or seventeen or even younger, even while yet at Hogwarts). In other words, because Hogsmeade's foundation went hand-in-hand with the building and operation of Hogwarts, the village had never truly operated independently of the school. Until now, that is.

Such were Rok Grimrook's thoughts as he viewed the main street from his position in an alley beside the Hog's Head, squatting by a rain barrel and watching a few villagers quietly wandering the shops, and a single merchant leading a horse-drawn cart to Honeydukes. It was a slow, quiet day, and Hogsmeade undoubtedly faced a lot of slow, quiet days in future, whatever future that may be.

The snapping sound of Apparation shook Grimrook from his thoughts, and he stood abruptly, his eyes falling upon his uncle, who had abruptly appeared at his side, and was watching him expectantly.

"You took your time," Grimrook muttered in Sindrian.

Grobschmied shrugged, and answered in the same language, "Never mind. What have you found?"

Grimrook beckoned for his uncle to follow him, and then led him further down the alley, behind the Hog's Head, and through a gate in the brick wall there, beyond which lay a dirt path into the woods. The two goblins moved up this path a short way, until they came to a gap in the trees, beyond which they could just see the Shrieking Shack in the distance. Grimrook nodded in that direction, and Grobschmied frowned.

"He's in there?"

"Seems to be," Grimrook answered, glancing around nervously. It was unlikely that anyone was around at all, let alone anyone who understood the language of Tylwthteg, but instinct kept him cautious. "But they've got a well-constructed array of protective and concealment enchantments in place, and that's going to complicate things."

"That's only par for the course."

"All the same, that Granger friend of his has them sealed up in there tight. I'd say it's impossible to approach without alerting them."

His uncle grimaced. "Waltzing up to his front door would be a mistake. We know he's essentially gone underground, and he'll likely be on the lookout for Death Eaters. We can't risk spooking him, not if we don't want him hexing us and immediately leaving."

"So what do you suggest we do?"

Grobschmied narrowed his eyes at the miserable, run-down house in the distance. "He can't just be holed up in there all the time. They'll have to leave to obtain food and supplies, which might be the time to at least make an attempt."

Grimrook shook his head. "I can't just sit around watching the Shrieking Shack all the time, or people here will get suspicious, and it would riskhim noticing and making a break for it."

He had a fair point. Grobschmied frowned thoughtfully, and then said, "No one would notice Huginn watching the Shack."

Grimrook grinned. "That's just what I was hoping for."

"Right. I'll bring him here. What will you do in the meantime?"

"There's an inn at the other end of the village, Denlawr Moorside, that caters to goblins," Grimrook said quietly. "I'll book a room there and hang around. If Potter doesn't move into the open in two days, I'll switch with Menger and he can keep watch."

Grobschmied shook his head. "I've never been told that Menger knows Kraavi, or any of the Gadlaks, for that matter. And anyway, he can't spend too much time away from the bank."

Grimrook rubbed his eyes with his thumb and forefinger, frustrated. Then he perked up. "Cecilia, then."

"Does she know what we're doing?"

"No. But when she does, she'll certainly want to be a part of it. She has much claim to this as I do."

Grobschmied nodded slowly. "Very good. Personally, I'd prefer not to involve her, but I suppose she's no longer a child." He turned back towards the village. "I'd better head back home and collect Huginn. Go book that room."

With that, he Disapparated. Grimrook sighed and buried his hands back in his pockets, slowly wandering back down the dirt path they'd just used.

---

Fred Weasley busied himself shifting boxes in the stockroom, searching for a supply of new Skiving Snackboxes that he was sure they had completed a few weeks earlier, when the fireplace flared up with green light, and George stumbled out. "There you are," he greeted his twin, grinning. "Wondered if you'd ever get back. Any idea where we left those new Snackboxes?"

"I think they're in the closet by the Defence stuff. Verity for sure would know." George glanced in the direction of the front of the shop, where he could hear the chatter of customers and the noise of their products. "Sounds like she's got things in hand out there. Have you got a few minutes?"

At Fred's nod he beckoned at the stairs, and led him into their flat above the shop. Upon entering their kitchen, Pigwidgeon, who'd found himself a new favourite perch on an upper shelf, twittered expectantly. George tossed him an owl treat and opened up the cupboard and looked at its contents appraisingly. "Have we ever got anything decent to eat around here?"

"Not unless you want Verity to double as maid as well as assistant. I'll leave that to you to suggest to her," Fred said, grinning. Then his smile faded slightly. "Speaking of Verity, I've got a very nasty feeling she's looking for a different occupation. I caught her skimming the job column in the paper the other day, and she's been a bit fidgety."

"So I guess we have to find another assistant soon."

Fred nodded. "I'd ask Lee, but he likes his current job a bit too much. Such talent, wasted on the Magical Maintenance Department." He shook his head sadly. Then, changing the subject, he asked, "So, how's Ginny?"

George grimaced. "Not great. Mum's got her scouring the entire house down, and they're not talking to each other, except when Mum gives Ginny some new chore, and Ginny just says 'yes' or 'no'."

"That bad, huh?" Fred asked, wincing. "I wonder how long this will last. Mum's probably going to take it out on Ginny until she accepts what Dumbledore has done, and that Ron's helping Harry out with it whether she likes it or not. Knowing Mum, that could take weeks."

George nodded. "If Ginny were of age, I bet they'd have hexed each other into oblivion by now, and I reckon it's only a matter of time before she decides she doesn't give a damn about the underage restrictions."

"And then there will be blood on the stairs," Fred cut in.

"Yeah. She's definitely going to go spare if this keeps up," said George, "especially since she's not going anywhere for a while. What?"

Fred had suddenly sit up, his eyes bright, either with mischief or an idea, most likely both. "What if we hire her?"

"What?"

"Think about it," Fred said excitedly. "If Verity leaves, why not hire Ginny? She needs something to do, she needs space from Mum, and we need a shop assistant who enjoys pranks as much as we do. Everyone wins."

"Except Mum."

But Fred could see his twin slowly grinning, and he waved this aside. "If we can get Dad to support this, Mum will allow it."

"Brilliant," George said. "But let's wait to see if Verity actually is going to leave before we ask Ginny what she thinks. But while we're on the subject of Ginny, you'll never guess what Hermione gave her before they"—

At that moment, an ear-splitting bang from downstairs shook the floor, followed by a chorus of shrieks, and an outbreak of laughter. Fred stood. "Better check it." He then looked at George sternly. "But I definitely want to hear this later."

---

Hermione returned an hour after Harry and Ron finished revisiting Voldemort's return in the Little Hangleton graveyard, and they immediately told her what they'd deduced, and Harry had her look over his notes. Hermione agreed with Harry that at the moment they simply weren't prepared to undergo an operation as dangerous as capturing a Death Eater (not yet, anyway), let alone have the resources, but she suggested that perhaps records of the Death Eater trials might bring up some hint or other. When asked where she'd get such records, Hermione suggested that she go and visit Flourish and Blotts under a glamour spell, or, if it came to it, try to sneak into the Hogwarts library through the passage to the Whomping Willow. It was hardly a guarantee, but it was something they'd have to be satisfied with for now.

"So," Harry said, "did you find anything about the orphanage?"

Hermione nodded. "I located its address in an old newspaper. But it looks like the entire block was torn down about thirty years ago. There's just a council estate there now."

Harry shrugged. "It was a long shot. I honestly didn't expect you to find anything."

As he spoke, Ron's stomach growled loudly. He grinned at Harry and Hermione sheepishly. "I suppose we should do something about lunch."

As they prepared some sandwiches from Hermione's groceries, Harry took stock of the small food supply and thought that, if they economised, it ought to at least last them a few days, and he wanted them running errands as infrequently as possible, and also to avoid buying food from the same grocers. It might seem paranoid, he thought, especially since it was too soon for anyone outside the Order to know that they had gone underground. Hopefully whatever Dumbledore had written to Kingsley would convince the Order to stop looking for him, but even if it hadn't, he doubted that the Order would do anything to draw attention to that fact. However, he also knew that it was only a matter of time before the Ministry noticed something was up, and he didn't want to leave any kind of trail for them to follow. While Hermione and Ron were far less likely to be recognised than Harry was, he knew it was safe to assume that, once word of his disappearance reached them, the Ministry would likely be looking for them as well. Hermione's short trip to Dufftown wasn't exactly reckless, but because of its close proximity to Hogwarts and Hogsmeade, he was concerned that it might have a larger wizard presence than most Muggle towns.

Almost as if fate was determined to test his resolve to avoid anything that might risk their detection, however, Harry no sooner had finished these thoughts, and his sandwich, when a doleful hooting reached his ears and he noticed Hedwig fluttering by one of the boarded windows, repeatedly pushing her sharp beak between the boards, looking like a caged animal searching for an escape, and then she paused, and looked pointedly from Harry to the end table where Ron was still eating his sandwich. Harry looked at Hermione questioningly, and saw that she also had taken note of his owl.

"I didn't think to look for anything Hedwig might like," she said ruefully. "Sorry."

Harry sighed, and gathered up the Invisibility Cloak and his rucksack. "I guess I could take her out to the woods and let her hunt a bit. I could gather up some wood while I'm out."

"She can't be recognised, you know," Hermione pointed out. "Snowy owls aren't native to Britain, and plenty of people know you've got a snowy owl."

"So what do you suggest, then?"

Without a word, Hermione drew her wand and flicked it at Hedwig. Immediately her features transformed, her feathers turning from white to mottled brown, her wings and tail accented with black bars, and with two plumes on her head that resembled ear tufts. Hedwig screeched indignantly and flapped her wings, but Harry was rather impressed at Hermione's spellwork. Hedwig now resembled an eagle owl.

"It's just for now," Harry assured his outraged owl. "We'll turn you back to normal once we get back."

Hedwig gave a low, angry hoot, her feathers ruffled, but as Harry held his hand out, Hedwig hopped onto it, obviously annoyed but anxious to go outside all the same. Harry then put on the Invisibility Cloak, and, once he ensured that he and Hedwig were completely covered, he went out the back door and into the woods and mountain paths. Fortunately, between the Invisibility Cloak, Harry's spells muffling the sound of his footsteps, Hedwig's keen eyes, and his keeping to the woods and carefully avoiding coming within visual range of the village, Harry was sure that he could safely avoid detection. Once they were a comfortable distance from Hogsmeade, Harry lowered the hood of his cloak and uncovered Hedwig, allowing her to take flight, looking very inconspicuous with her new colouration. In the meantime, after using a Homenum revelio spell to ensure that no one else was around, Harry passed the time by gathering wood into the magically-expanded interior of his rucksack.

Hedwig was a skilled enough hunter that they were able to start back after only an hour or two. Harry assumed she had eaten her fill on some unfortunate mouse or vole, but to his surprise, she also brought back not one but two rabbits, which she deposited in front of Harry and looked at him with a low hoot. Harry raised his eyebrows, but nonetheless scooped up the rabbits and examined them carefully, before quietly thanking her. Having already gathered a reasonably large supply of wood, Harry then put his rucksack back on, put the Cloak back on, and then reached out from under the Cloak and allowed Hedwig to hop back onto his arm before he covered her up.

Still, Hermione and Ron were rather startled upon Harry's return when, after draping the Cloak over a chair, he then deposited the rabbits on the small table.

"A present from Hedwig," Harry explained, seeing their confused faces. "Not that she thinks we deserve it," he added, noticing her fluffing up her feathers and looking at Hermione expectantly.

Hermione wrinkled her nose at the game, but Ron only grinned. "Nice. We've got plenty of kitchen stuff, as well as salt and such, so we've got enough to at least roast them."

Harry stroked Hedwig's feathers, and then set her down on the table next to the rabbits. Hermione drew her wand and reversed the Transfiguration spell, which prompted Hedwig to immediately begin preening meticulously, seemingly checking to make sure all her feathers were back to their normal pattern of white with black markings.

"Anybody know how to skin a rabbit?" asked Harry, eyeing the dead animals on the table.

"Yeah, I do," Ron said, standing up. "Dad showed me how once, when we really didn't have a lot of money." When Hermione and Harry looked at him in surprise, Ron explained, "That was the year he got the car. For a while we had to save every Knut, so we grew our own food for the most part, and sometimes trapped game." He looked at Hermione's bag. "I don't suppose you've got a big bowl in there?"

Hermione nodded and dug into the bag, withdrawing a large steel bowl a moment later. She handed this to Ron. "Do it outside," she requested, looking a little queasy. "I don't want to watch this."

Ron shrugged and picked up the rabbits. He then looked at Harry. "You got your penknife, the one I gave you?"

Harry nodded and pulled the knife from his pocket, and then followed Ron out the back door.

"Don't step off the porch," Hermione warned behind them. "The perception charms don't go beyond it. And keep your voices low, because the charms don't hide sound beyond the house itself."

Ron seated himself on one side of the wide back porch. Harry likewise took a seat beside him and handed Ron the penknife, which he then opened and began making incisions in one of the rabbits. Harry watched with interest as Ron worked, and a moment later the latter handed the animal to Harry.

"Pull the skin off from the cuts," he instructed. "It's not hard. The hide just comes right off. I'll get started with this other one."

Harry did as he was told, and began peeling the skin off from the incisions at the rabbit's feet and rump. The flesh was unpleasantly cold and slimy, but Harry ignored this. He'd done far more unpleasant tasks in Potions class.

"Any idea how long we're staying here?" asked Ron, as he started on the second rabbit.

"Not long, I hope," Harry said, trying to work the hide off the rabbit's front legs. "It seems safe enough for now, but it's not a good place to work from. Not permanently, anyway."

As he spoke, he finally got the hide completely off and put the flayed rabbit into the bowl. He then tossed the hide into the overgrowth under one of the boarded windows.

"Yeah, I realise that, and I'm sure Hermione does too," Ron said. "We're too close to a Wizarding settlement, and anyway, Hogsmeade is a small town, so it won't be long before the villagers start to realise that someone's hiding here. We need to find somewhere more secure, and permanent. We won't be able to make much progress if we're constantly on the move."

"Maybe when we next go out, we can look for a place we can purchase and then put protections on," Harry suggested. "I've got enough money for that, and the means to pay for things without going to Gringotts now."

"I thought you already owned some properties," Ron pointed out. "But either way, won't Gringotts have a record of any property you own or buy? You don't want it to be something people can find just from looking through an archive somewhere."

Harry thought about this. "Well, we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. But it's still something we should keep in mind. I've been meaning to go visit Godric's Hollow anyway. We can look into finding a permanent residence while we're out."

Ron said nothing for a few minutes, seemingly focused on skinning his rabbit. Once he got the hide off and had too placed his in the bowl, he said, "Hermione's worried about you going to Godric's Hollow, you know."

Harry did know. It wasn't anything that hadn't occurred to him already, and having thought about it quite a bit, he said, "The Death Eaters won't be actively trying to hunt me down while they think I'm still under the Order's protection, and I don't see how they could possibly know what we've done yet. We only left yesterday."

"Maybe. But she's got a point," Ron said. "Even if they think the Order's still hiding you, they might have rigged something, in case you decided to go there." Seeing Harry's deflating expression, Ron added quickly, "I'm not saying we shouldn't go there, but we need to be careful when we do. And it definitely should be before Voldemort finds out you've gone."

"I notice you're saying his name now," Harry commented. When Ron only shrugged, Harry, returning to the subject of Godric's Hollow, said, "That's fine by me. Come on, then." He stood, taking the bowl as he did. "I'll help with the cooking. As you said, we could try roasting them, or if we could make some broth, there's probably enough meat on these to make a decent soup."

He and Ron stepped back through the back door and closed it, hoping to have a decently filling meal later that afternoon. Neither of them had noticed the raven perched in the oak nearby, watching or perhaps listening intently, which took flight as soon as the door snapped shut.

---

In the days following Harry's birthday, Ginny spent the vast majority of her time doing chores her mother assigned, undoubtedly as punishment for her indirect involvement in his "escapade". She mucked out the chicken coop twice, daily collected the chickens' eggs, de-gnomed and weeded the garden, tidied up the kitchen, the front room, the back room, and all of the bedrooms, and spent half her time between these chores peeling potatoes or slicing up carrots or some other vegetable to help her mother with the cooking. In fact, Ginny was working so hard, without the assistance of magic, that by the next Monday she'd almost forgotten that there was magic to do the chores. If her suspicions were right and her mother indeed intended these chores as a punishment, however, they instead proved to be a welcome distraction for Ginny. The real punishment came from her mother's waspish attitude toward her for most of the time, and it was this, along with the exhaustion from her nightmares, that had her grinding her teeth all the time. Ever since Harry left, the memory of Tom Riddle had started haunting Ginny again, now almost every night, and between that, the tension with her mother, and the constant manual labour, she was sure that she'd either go insane or collapse from exhaustion.

On Thursday morning, exactly a week after Harry's birthday, Ginny woke up at about three, and unable to fall asleep again, she wandered downstairs, as she so often did, to get herself some water. She then took a seat at the kitchen table and looked out the window to the night sky, unpolluted, as always, by urban lights, and, of course, unchanging. That thought always brought her to another night over a month ago, a near-identical scene under the stars, but this time Harry was not there to give her comfort and assurance, and she had to be satisfied with only memory.

The boy turned and saw her, then he recoiled at the glare etched on her face.

"Aren't you Ron Weasley's sister?" he asked uncertainly.

Her only response was a malevolent grin. His apprehension, his weakness, filled her with a sort of insane, sickening delight. They were mere playthings, these children, outlets for her power, subjects to toy with, because she could. Thrilled with her power and amused at his vulnerability, she began to spring the trap, closing in on her prey like a wolf closing in on a lamb. A low, poisonous, acidic hiss escaped Ginny's lips, a sound both unfamiliar and so familiar to her. The diabolical instructions issued forth, meant for very different ears from the new victim. The boy took a step backward, horrified.

"Parselmouth!" he cried, pointing his finger accusingly. "You and Potter! You're in it together! Parselmouths!"

A ghost with a partially-severed head rounded the corner, and asked warily, "What's going on here?"

Then Nearly Headless Nick and Justin Finch-Fletchley froze like statutes at a flash of yellow from a corner nearby, and some part of Ginny, suddenly alert, screamed out in horror.

"NO!" she howled into the darkness. "NO! STOP!"

Ginny closed her eyes and put her head in her hands as she remembered her most recent nightmare. She still remembered weeping helplessly, hopelessly, and with terrible desperation as Riddle forced her to see the things she did, remember his pleasure at others' pain, at how empowered hurting and killing people truly made him feel. It made her physically ill, remembering the disgusting things he made her feel. You would never do those things, she had told herself, over and over again, clinging to that thought throughout the years following her first year at school, repeating it to herself like a mantra. By the time she was fifteen, Ginny had almost convinced herself of it. Forget what he did. Forget about it. You would never do those things.

Outside, the stars were unchanging, and the moon was out, almost in the same phase in which it had been that night, when Harry was by her side, the one person who might understand. Now she was alone, without anyone to listen. So this time she didn't go outside to look at them; the memory made them too painful to behold. She had no idea how long she sat there, trying to force herself not to think of the Chamber, but it must have been several hours, because after a while she became vaguely aware of the sun rising. This had been her morning routine, her nightmares waking her in the very earliest hours, often some time before dawn, and every time, she would be unable to find sleep again, at least for an hour or so, and every time her thoughts were always so bleak that she'd been unable to appreciate the sunrises as a result.

That was how Molly found her some time later, at the dinner table with her head in her arms, only half asleep and feeling too exhausted to move. When Ginny heard her mother enter the room, she braced herself for yet another chore. To her surprise, however, Molly left her alone, and when Ginny finally raised her head, she realised that her mother, now cracking open eggs with her back turned, had left her a cup of tea. In spite of this maternal act of kindness, however, Molly didn't say a word to Ginny, not then or even ten minutes later, when, after serving her a couple of slices of toast and a bit of egg, she abruptly left the room.

Ginny looked forlornly at her toast for a few minutes. A sudden wave of heartache and loneliness swept over her. Perhaps it was her earlier reminder that Harry, Ron, and Hermione were no longer there for her to talk to, to confide in, but suddenly she realised that she hadn't really spoken much to anyone this past week, not since George visited the day after Harry's birthday. Normally Ginny would perhaps write to Luna or Neville, but since the Order placed the new security measures on the Burrow, the Weasleys hadn't used owls at all. Besides, Pigwidgeon was now at the twins' flat and Errol was getting too feeble and decrepit to serve as a post owl. Ginny couldn't be sure, but she strongly doubted that he would make it to Christmas—yet another depressing and permanent change to her life. So many things she'd once taken for granted were disappearing from her life: Ron, Harry and Hermione; Professor Dumbledore; Hagrid; Hogwarts; and maybe even that bloody ancient owl.

As she thought about all the aspects of her life that were now lost to her, or all the people she might still lose, she suddenly had an overwhelming desire to visit Luna; she'd have someone to talk to, and Luna somehow always managed to bring some cheer out of people when they were down, even in the oddest ways imaginable. Unfortunately, Ginny wasn't allowed to leave the Burrow either—not without an escort, anyway, and since her father and brothers were too busy, and most of the Order were still angry with her, she was stuck here.

At length, she managed to get some of the toast down, but she didn't feel much like eating further. She did, however, get started on her tea, and as she took the first soothing sip, something moved in the corner of her eye, an distinctly orange blur. Ginny quickly swallowed a mouthful of tea and moved into the back room. She couldn't believe she had forgotten him so easily.

"Crookshanks?" she called uncertainly, but there was no response, and no sign of him anywhere in the room or on the stairs. Ginny tried to think back to when she had last seen the cat, and felt a sudden stab of guilt when she realised that this was the first time Crookshanks had made any appearance since the day after Harry's departure, when she had caught a glimpse of him sniffing around her room where Hermione's mattress used to lie.

She hesitantly called out again, and this time she just saw movement in the space underneath the cabinet where her mother kept the family photos. Ginny crossed the room, got on her hand and knees, and peered under the cabinet. Sure enough, Hermione's cat was crouched under the cabinet, his ears were held back and his tail tucked between his back legs. As Ginny's eyes met his, Crookshanks let out a low yowl, but otherwise he did not move. She noticed that his fur, which was normally fluffy and well-cared for, was looking unkempt and dirty.

"Oh, Crookshanks," she sighed mournfully. She wondered when he last ate, and her guilt increased. She supposed that she'd been distracted by the frenzy of chores her mother had assigned her since Harry, Ron, and Hermione left, but even so, she had promised to look after him. "Come on out," she coaxed.

The cat didn't move or respond in any way. Ginny sighed and got back to her feet. "Stay there," she murmured, and she went back to the kitchen and looked under the cabinet, where she knew Hermione had kept cat treats. She scooped one out of its tin and returned to the sitting room, and found Crookshanks still there, still in the same position. Ginny crouched down again and placed one of the treats in front of Crookshanks, but he ignored it. Ginny moved the treat an inch further beneath the cabinet, but the cat seemed to retreat further. Ginny paused, not wanting to startle him or to violate his space too much. Then she tried to nudge the treat just a bit further under the cabinet.

At that moment there was a loud knock on the front door, making Ginny jump. So did Crookshanks. Before Ginny could react, he bolted past her and streaked across the kitchen, into the sitting room, and out of sight, probably upstairs somewhere. A moment later, she heard her mother answer the door. Sighing, Ginny picked up the cat treat and returned into the kitchen table and her mostly-untouched breakfast. She was vaguely aware of voices in the front room, though, and as she listened, she immediately stiffened as she recognised Hestia's voice as well as Tonks's.

The Order was yet another source of the stress and frustration that had been building up for the past week. Every time one of them came to call, they would either ignore Ginny or act unusually short with her. She supposed it was only to be expected, but their coldness aggravated her. It was less the case with Remus and Tonks, but when they visited, both of them had been unable to meet Ginny's eyes. Not wanting to deal with her or Hestia now, Ginny took the second slice of toast and quickly made her way through the back room, and out the door. She then took a seat on the back porch and attempted to nibble at the bread, but it had gone cold. Still, with nothing better to do, she choked it down, and then remained there, hoping Tonks and Hestia would be gone by the time she went back in.

Then the door opened, and Ginny looked up to see the very person she'd hoped to avoid, looking at her with an unreadable expression, an unusual look for the normally-bubbly, brightly-dressed Auror. After an awkward moment, Ginny carefully said, "Morning, Tonks. What can I do for you?"

She rolled her eyes. "There's no need to greet me like an Auror on business and not as a friend. I'm not here to bite your head off." Ginny looked at her questioningly, but at first Tonks said nothing else. She sat next to Ginny, watching a gnome run from its hole to the bin by the shed to rummage through the garbage. Then Tonks hesitantly looked at Ginny. "I don't know if I'd have had the guts to say what you did at the meeting last week." She inhaled deeply. "But I like to think I would have."

Relief swept over Ginny, easing her earlier loneliness, and she found herself smiling. Tonks returned the grin.

"You were right, Ginny," she continued. "Now that we've lost Dumbledore, we can't continue pretending. We need to get back on track and go on without him."

"So you're going to follow the instructions Fawkes brought?" Ginny asked curiously.

"I hope so. Albus gave us pretty concrete guidelines." Tonks hesitated. "But there's been a lot of arguing since that night."

"About what?"

"Some of us think that Dumbledore needlessly is risking Harry's life." Tonks glanced over her shoulder nervously as she spoke; undoubtedly Molly was among the loudest voices on that matter. Seeing that the coast was clear, Tonks went on, "And I think some of them are feeling betrayed that he didn't give us the slightest hint of this plan."

Ginny frowned, but wasn't sure what to say to this.

"But I speak for at least a third of the Order," Tonks said, "when I say that we should respect his last orders. We need to stop preoccupying ourselves with Harry and return our attention to the Death Eaters as we always should have done."

"Would you still feel that way if Dumbledore hadn't told all of you to let Harry go?" asked Ginny.

"Honestly? I don't know. But I was uncomfortable with how little the Order was getting done, even before you said your bit. But some of us, your Mum included, are probably going to ignore his order to stay out of Harry's way."

"They won't find him," Ginny said exasperatedly. "Not if he doesn't want to be found."

"I know," sighed Tonks. "The problem doesn't just lie in going off track. I know Molly feels the best way to protect her children is to keep them in sight, hence that clock of hers, so I imagine that it's hard for her to understand that, in this particular case, the Order would do more to protect Harry by not looking for him. Kingsley wants to try to hide his disappearance from the Ministry for as long as possible, but if the Order makes finding Harry a priority, we'll only draw attention to the fact that he's gone, and then Scrimgeour will find out sooner than desirable."

"And once the Ministry finds out, the Death Eaters find out," Ginny inferred. "Well, at least Kingsley's not stupid."

"You didn't seem to think so when you reamed us all out at that meeting," Tonks said, amused. "But yes, you've reached the crux of the matter. The longer we can keep this quiet, the more of a head start Harry will get, and the harder it will be for the Ministry or the Death Eaters to find him. Albus didn't say as much in his letter, but I suspect that's the Order's first order of business now, making sure Harry gets that head start."

"Ginny!" Molly called sharply from somewhere inside.

Tonks grimaced sympathetically. "What's she got you doing this time?"

"Who knows?" grumbled Ginny. "Cleaning the bathroom, doing the ironing, reorganising the attic, de-gnome the garden for the fiftieth time this week? You name it."

"Blimey," Tonks said, amazed. "She's got you working harder than a house-elf." Looking back over her shoulder, she asked, "Aren't you going to answer?"

"Nah. I'd give it another couple of minutes before she starts looking for me."

Tonks was silent for a moment. Then she asked, "What about your dad?"

"What about h— oh." Ginny realised what she was asking. "He doesn't say much to me these days." As she spoke, she made a valiant effort to keep her expression neutral, but to her frustration her voice quivered, and she had to fight back tears of exasperation and loneliness. Her mother's punishments were only to be expected, but Arthur's giving her the cold shoulder stung worse than Molly's anger.

To her horror, Tonks leaned forward and began looking at her more closely, taking in her exhausted, pained demeanour; and Ginny looked away, not wanting her pity.

"You know what you need?" Tonks finally asked.

"Besides Voldemort dead and our problems gone?" Ginny asked sarcastically.

"You need to get away from the Burrow," Tonks said firmly. "At least for a few hours. Take a break."

Ginny snorted scathingly. "Like you'll get Mum to agree to that. Anyway, where do you want me to go?"

"Well, where would you like to go?"

Ginny didn't have to think much to answer that; after all, she'd been thinking about it only just a few minutes ago. "Luna Lovegood's," she said honestly. "I haven't been able to keep in touch with her much. She doesn't live too far from here, and she's one of the few people I can really talk to about this."

"Well, then," Tonks said cheerfully, "perhaps we can persuade Molly. She's more likely to concede if you've got an escort, and Gawain Robards made me take some time off today, so I'll be happy to provide it." Looking back at the house thoughtfully, she added, "At any rate, your place has looked so clean lately that I think even Harry's aunt might approve of it. I can't think of a better way to mortify your mother than to compare her housekeeping to Petunia Dursley's."

---

On their sixth day in the Shrieking Shack, Harry woke up to find Hermione and the Invisibility Cloak gone, but since she occasionally went off to Muggle towns to obtain food and supplies, or into Hogsmeade in the early morning to obtain discarded newspapers, he knew not to think much of it unless she was gone for an inordinately long time. It had been almost a week since they left the Burrow, and so far, there was no sign that anybody had traced them yet. As more time passed, Harry allowed himself to relax a little, to become less on edge than he had been when they first arrived.

Even so, he sometimes felt antsy, and needing some kind of occupation, Harry put some more firewood to the grate and lit it with a wave of his wand, considering how to make use of his day. He hadn't been idle since their arrival at the Shrieking Shack, though, taking advantage of their privacy by studying memories in the Pensieve each day. Sometimes he did so on his own, and other times with Ron and Hermione; and while he sometimes he showed them one or two of Dumbledore's memories, at other times he showed them his own. Most of the time he'd simply shown them his lessons with Dumbledore, but he'd also chosen to allow Ron and Hermione to view his own encounters with Voldemort. Reviewing the Little Hangleton graveyard with Ron had made Harry a little more easy with this, but sometimes it was still deeply personal. The memory of the Chamber of Secrets, and of the cave where Voldemort had hidden the locket, had been especially hard for Harry to revisit, but he allowed Ron and Hermione to see them because he wanted them to know everything that he did. Their first priority was to identify and locate R.A.B., but thus far had no leads besides the high possibility of him being the unidentified dead Death Eater Voldemort himself had mentioned the night of his return. For that reason, thus far Harry and the others had only perused two of the memories Dumbledore provided: the first being Slughorn's memory telling Tom Riddle about the Horcruxes, and the second being the memory of Riddle's visit to Hepzibah Smith.

Ron, still snoring on one of the repaired sofas, did not stir as Harry went into the kitchen and returned with a small breakfast of apple slices. Hedwig too was fast asleep, which meant it might be some time yet before she wanted to go out hunting, so once he had finished eating, Harry took out the Pensieve again, and the box where Dumbledore had stored the phials containing his memories. He moved the stone basin to the same small table where he, Ron, and Hermione usually placed it for perusal and study. For a moment he looked at it, at a loss of what he wanted to look at, but unable to think of anything he hadn't already looked at or shown his friends earlier that week, he returned to the sofa he'd been sleeping on, and after emptying the smaller box containing Dumbledore's memory phials on the end table, he began reading their labels. He quickly set aside the two Slughorn memories, both the defective and the true memory, having already viewed and discussed them with Ron and Hermione ad nauseam. He then picked up another phial, read the label and the date, and set it aside to view later, quite certain that it was Dumbledore's memory of his first meeting with eleven-year-old Tom Riddle. He then picked up the next phial and read its label carefully:

A.B. visit, 30 July 1993

Harry stared at this label, trying to think back to all the memories he'd seen in those lessons the previous year. He had assumed that Dumbledore had shown him everything he'd obtained over the years, but this one looked unfamiliar. Most of the phials, they had quickly figured out, were labeled with the person the memory belonged to, the approximate date of the events of the memory, and the date Dumbledore had obtained them, unless of course, they were Dumbledore's own memories (which were only labeled with the initials of the person being interviewed and a single date). Harry didn't recognise the initials "A.B.", but what really caught his eye was that the date was recent, something that had occurred shortly before his thirteenth birthday. Wondering whether this was something new Dumbledore had wanted him to see, Harry picked up the phial and returned to the Pensieve in the corner, emptying its contents into the basin. Making sure his wand was securely in his pocket, Harry dipped his head into the Pensieve.

When the whirl of darkness subsided, he found himself in a narrow hallway, filled with portraits of Healers, and brightly lit with crystalline bubbles holding candles that floated near the ceiling. Harry immediately recognised the halls of St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries. Almost in confirmation of this conclusion, he saw Dumbledore slowly walk down the hall and pause outside one of the wards. He then looked up at its sign, which told Harry it was a long-term resident ward for the terminally ill. Seemingly satisfied that this was the correct ward, Dumbledore opened the door and walked inside, and Harry closely followed. Unlike the wards he had visited at St. Mungo's two years earlier, where the beds were all in the same room with only curtains provided for privacy, beyond these doors lay a corridor filled with rooms that were labeled with the names of patients. A Healer came out of one of these rooms and, spotting Dumbledore, stepped forward.

"Mr. Dumbledore," he said quietly. "Thank you for notifying us of your coming. He's in room 12. He already has a visitor, but I don't think it will take long."

Dumbledore nodded in thanks, and continued down the corridor, until they arrived at a door with a brass number 12 by the door, with a small name plate, where a slip of paper had been entered reading "A. Black." As Dumbledore raised his hand to knock, however, the door unexpectedly opened, causing Harry to start slightly, and an elderly goblin dressed in very fine clothes and a beaver top hat stood there, blinking in surprise.

"Mr Gadlak," Dumbledore acknowledged him, before uttering some greeting in a language Harry didn't understand.

The goblin raised an eyebrow, and then responded in kind, before saying in English, "Mr Dumbledore. It's a pleasure. I did not know you could speak our tongue."

Dumbledore smiled. "I have had to learn many languages to obtain the level of knowledge that I have. Besides, I have always found Sindrian to be an elegant language. It is a shame that so few of my kind bother to learn even the basics."

Mr Gadlak had raised both eyebrows now. "I can't say I'm too surprised. What is more unexpected is that you refer to it by its proper name, unlike most humans."

"One must always use the proper name for things."

"Indeed." Mr Gadlak tilted his head, considering Dumbledore for a moment. "You are also visiting Mr Black?"

"I am, indeed," Dumbledore said. "I understand you two used to be colleagues at the bank."

The goblin gave a small, acknowledging nod. "I suppose you want to ask him about his great-nephew. He won't be best pleased. I believe the Ministry of Magic already sent some Aurors here to inquire about that very thing yesterday."

Dumbledore frowned. "I see."

"I don't believe he knows any more than they do," Mr Gadlak continued. "I'm afraid you might have had a wasted trip. He might appreciate a normal visit, though. He doesn't get many."

"It is a good thing, then, that I am not here for that purpose," Dumbledore said. "Although I understand why you came to that conclusion."

Mr. Gadlak gave a small smile. "I'd better not keep you, then." He then tipped his hat, and departed. Dumbledore gave a word in the goblin language again, perhaps a farewell, before entering the room himself, beyond which lay a single bed and an end table, a chair drawn up by the bed. Sunlight streamed in from a window, beyond which Harry could see the skyline of London. An old man lay in the bed, who looked very ill indeed. He was bald, shrivelled, his face sallow and his eyes rather bloodshot, but he raised his head upon Dumbledore's entry, and looked mildly surprised to see him there.

"The Healers said you were coming," he wheezed. "Just wasn't expecting you now, right after my last visitor." He spoke so softly that Harry had to lean closer to hear him.

Dumbledore lowered himself into the chair by the bed. "How are you feeling?"

"No worse than usual," the patient said. "They're saying I'm not likely to survive past September."

"I'm sorry to hear that, Mr Black," Dumbledore said. "What is it, if I may ask?"

"Started out as dragon pox. But it doesn't mix well with the one thing St. Mungo's cannot ever seem to cure: old age." Eyeing Dumbledore, he said, "I know I probably seem young to you, given that you're about fifty years older than me, but it doesn't mean I don't feel it."

Dumbledore chuckled.

They were silent for a moment, then Black said nervously, "I wasn't that surprised when the Healers told me you'd be visiting. I'd been expecting it, actually. My great-nephew… I'm his only surviving relative. Naturally I'm the only person left to ask. But I have no more information for you than I did for the Aurors when they came to call. I couldn't tell you how he broke out of Azkaban, or where he might be found."

"That is not why I am here," Dumbledore said.

"Isn't it?" Black asked, his voice sceptical. "I'm sure you are aware that he was closer to me than he was to anyone in his family." He shook his head with a frustrated expression. "Whatever the Aurors may or may not have implied to me, I doubt hunting down and murdering a thirteen-year-old boy is his intention."

Dumbledore raised an eyebrow. "You still doubt his guilt?"

"I do," Black said stubbornly. "Of all my relatives, Sirius was the least likely to accept the Dark Mark. He hated his parents and all they stood for, and he hated his brother for joining up with You-Know-Who. If you were half as brilliant as everyone says, you'd doubt it too."

Dumbledore sighed. "I respect your opinion, Mr Black, but again, that is not why I am here."

Black relaxed a little, but he was still looking at Dumbledore in confusion and slight wariness. Dumbledore seemed to consider him for a few minutes, then he began, "You may have heard about a series of attacks at Hogwarts during this past year. The Ministry worked hard to keep it quiet, but I know you still have contacts in Gringotts, and of course, the goblins there have ways of knowing what's happening in the world, whether the Ministry wishes it or not."

Black smirked. "Money always talks, if one pays enough attention." He then turned more serious. "I had heard rumours. Attacks upon the Muggle-borns of Hogwarts and a lot of panic and speculation about the Chamber of Secrets; not unlike what occurred the year after I finished school there myself. The Ministry did all it could to cover everything up then too, but I still had plenty of friends there that told me all about it."

Dumbledore nodded. "This time I am pleased to say, with absolute certainty, that the Chamber of Secrets can never again be opened or used in such a way."

"And what does any of this have to do with me?" asked Black in clear bewilderment. "I was not there the first time, and certainly not the second time."

"But there may be a slight connection," Dumbledore said quietly. "The attacks ended after an enchanted artefact was recovered and destroyed. That artefact belonged to a former student of mine, and since then I have been trying to uncover certain… details… about his past actions. As you can imagine, until your great-nephew escaped from Azkaban, investigating the attacks at Hogwarts has been the Auror office's top priority; recently one of my contacts there found some information buried deep in the Ministry of Magic's archives." He was quiet for a minute, and then said pointedly, "It concerned an investigation a little under fifty years ago, in which you gave testimony concerning the death of a witch named Hepzibah Smith."

Harry looked at Black in surprise, and saw that his expression had suddenly become stony.

"What interested me the most was that, when they interviewed you, you told them that they were on completely the wrong track, and that the person they should have been investigating was a clerk at Borgin and Burkes, who had been regularly visiting Madam Smith."

"Tom Riddle," Black said, and Harry was startled to hear a dark anger in his voice. After a tense moment, however, his face relaxed into a more neutral expression, and he said in a calmer voice, "As you said, that was almost fifty years ago. Why ask me about this now?"

Dumbledore looked at him curiously, perhaps as taken aback by Black's earlier venom as Harry had been. "Because I want to know why you accused him," he said mildly. "I believe your time at Hogwarts overlapped with his, although you were older than him by a few years. As I recall, you were a prefect for much of that time?"

"I was," Black said. "I believe he was a second year when I got the badge. I didn't pay much attention to him when he was a first year, although I suppose I was aware that he was one of the more brilliant from his group. It wasn't until I'd been a prefect for some months when I first heard a suggestion that he had been frightening the other second years and the first years with displays of Parseltongue."

"You never thought to report it?" asked Dumbledore.

"No," Black admitted. "I saw nothing of it, and given how rare Parseltongue is, I thought it was preposterous. Just one of those stupid rumours that fly around Hogwarts every now and then. Where would he have gained such an ability? After all, it was believed to have mostly died out with Slytherin's line."

It was a line of reasoning as good as any, but Harry thought he sounded like he was trying to explain his inaction to himself, more than to Dumbledore.

"But that was only the start, wasn't it?" Dumbledore said quietly.

Black nodded. "I've heard the stories, but I never saw much that could firmly be traced to him or the other Slytherins his age, who seemed strangely drawn to him, like Mulciber and Nott."

Dumbledore nodded grimly. "Yes. I recall Mulciber was investigated for the bewitchment and subsequent rape of Emma Miller."

Black grimaced. "I think I was in seventh year at the time. As I remember it, he was the top suspect because of some lewd remarks he had made to her a few weeks earlier, but it couldn't be firmly be tracked back to him because she couldn't remember the identity of her assailant; a Memory Charm, no doubt, but there was no sign on Mulciber's wand of any of the spells used against Miller. It was always possible that he had stolen someone else's wand, of course, but without any evidence against him, including her own witness testimony, no one could ever prove it had been him." Harry heard him swear under his breath, before he added, "That was the worst thing that happened while I was at Hogwarts. Didn't think it could possibly get worse, until I heard about the attacks and the murder of that Muggle-born girl the next year."

"And Riddle himself?" asked Dumbledore. "What do you remember about him?"

"Charming and brilliant to the teachers, of course, although I remember that some of the other students were a little wary of him." Black shook his head in disgust. "He was a clever son of a bitch. I don't think anything was ever traced to him. He definitely never did anything awful in my presence. I was a prefect, after all, and I think I had a reputation for being the least likely of the Slytherin prefects to look the other way. I'm well aware that the Gryffindors used to call me the only decent Slytherin of the lot." He rolled his eyes. "I'm not sure that was entirely fair, but regardless, if Riddle was behind any of the incidents that happened during those four years, he was very careful around me."

"So why did you suspect Riddle in the Hepzibah Smith case, if you never saw anything of his behaviour at school?" asked Dumbledore curiously.

"It had nothing to do with that. Back when he was working for Caractacus Burke, Riddle had a reputation at Gringotts as a probable swindler, not that we ever had any proof. Just like it had been at Hogwarts," Black added with a contemptuous snort. "Madam Smith was one of our most prominent clients, so when her accountant learned that he'd been visiting her, he naturally decided to warn her about him. Unfortunately, he arrived too late. Madam Smith was already dead. When it was later discovered that two of her most treasured relics were missing, what else was I to conclude?"

"It is circumstantial," Dumbledore said thoughtfully, "but not unlikely. The Aurors would have done well to do as you suggested."

"Not that it would have done them much good," Black said bitterly. "By then, Riddle himself had vanished, and the Aurors too busy chasing the wrong leads to bother with investigating a former star pupil at Hogwarts, no matter what I said."

"Yes, I saw in the records that they first investigated her accountant," Dumbledore said, frowning. "Seemingly because he was the one who found her body and alerted them."

Black scowled. "They suspected him because he was a goblin at the wrong place at the wrong time. There's little more to it."

"I understand he could not be found for the remainder of their investigation," Dumbledore said. "Of course, that only made the Aurors more suspicious of him."

"Perhaps it did," Black said, "but I don't know what else they could have expected. When a goblin is a murder suspect in this fucked up world, there is almost no chance the Aurors will listen to a word he says in his own defence, so he did what any sensible goblin would do in that situation: he made himself scarce."

"I understand the Ministry ultimately concluded that Madam Smith's ageing elf had accidentally poisoned her," Dumbledore said.

"Idiots," muttered Black.

"I suppose your colleague must have come out of hiding after that," Dumbledore went on, as though there had been no interruption. "But what was your own involvement in Gringotts, pertaining to Riddle?"

"As I said, there was reason to be suspicious of him, even before Madam Smith's death. I was asked to help run a background check on him. There was never anything truly incriminating, just enough for suspicion." He closed his eyes wearily for a moment. "Clever as always, never doing or leaving anything that could be traced to him." Harry noticed that Black seemed to be growing tired. He sank further into his pillow and he was turning noticeably more pale. After a few moments silence, in which Harry thought he might have drifted off into sleep, he opened his eyes asked Dumbledore, "Why are you asking about all this? And what is the connection with the attacks at Hogwarts? Are you telling me Riddle was the one who opened the Chamber of Secrets?"

Dumbledore smiled slightly. "I'm investigating a hunch, that is all. Could you tell me more about the two artefacts that disappeared from Madam Smith's possessions?"

Black frowned, his brows furrowed in thought. "Two priceless relics that I believed were linked to two of the Hogwarts founders, Hufflepuff and Slytherin, I think it was. She had purchased the Slytherin artefact from Burke, but I understand the Hufflepuff artefact was some kind of family heirloom."

Dumbledore was quiet for a minute. An odd gleam had appeared in his eyes, and for a moment Harry thought he was going to ask for more details about the cup and the locket; but instead, he said, "You say that Riddle had a reputation at Gringotts as a swindler. Could you tell me more about that?"

"Exactly as I said." Black sounded slightly exasperated. "A wealthy patron would sell a valuable possession to Borgin and Burkes, at an absurdly low price. Each time the transaction was negotiated and overseen by Tom Riddle."

"What can you tell me about the items sold sold to Mr. Burke?" asked Dumbledore.

Black's face scrunched up as he tried to remember, but after a moment, he admitted, "I don't recall. It was too long ago, and there were many such items. I suppose it's in a record somewhere at Gringotts, not that it will do you much good. They won't disclose private information about Burke's transactions unless you obtain some kind of warrant from the Wizengamot."

Dumbledore nodded, looking mildly disappointed. "I quite understand. Perhaps I shall have to try to track down Burke himself, then."

They fell silent again, and Harry thought for a second time that Black had started to fall asleep. Then, in a hesitant voice, he said, "I don't suppose it would hurt to tell you that neither of the artefacts stolen from the Smith family ever appeared in Borgin and Burkes, or in any other shop in Knockturn or Diagon Alley."

Dumbledore, looking thoughtful again, asked, "Is there anyone else you now of, who might be able to tell me more about Madam Smith's murder? Or about the items stolen?"

"I doubt her remaining family know any more than the Aurors do," Black said quietly. "I believe her elf is still alive. She might be able to tell you more, but good luck getting anything from her. She was already senile then; she's almost gone now. And I don't think she's long for this world. If you wish to ask her about it, you should do so sooner rather than later."

"And the goblin accountant?" asked Dumbledore. "I'd very much like to hear his side of the story."

"I haven't seen him for years," Black admitted. "He retired some time ago, and I understand he's been abroad. For now, I'd say the elf is your best bet." He looked at Dumbledore with a strangely unreadable expression. "I am sorry I could not be of more help to you. Is that all?"

"Yes," Dumbledore said, looking at Black closely. "Unless, of course, there is anything else you would wish to tell me."

Harry started at the question, remembering Dumbledore asking him exactly the same question after the Chamber of Secrets had been opened. Black looked a little taken aback, but then he said quietly, "You're asking questions that should have been asked and answered decades ago, Dumbledore. All these people: Hepzibah Smith, the Muggle-born girl murdered in that bathroom, even my nephew Regulus… they're dead, like so many others killed by You-Know-Who and his followers. You-Know-Who is gone, and the Death Eaters are all either in prison or have gone underground. What more is there to tell?"

For an uncomfortable minute Harry watched as both men sat in silence. Then Dumbledore sighed, and stood. "Thank you," he said. "Your information was very valuable, more than you know. I realise you do not have much time left, Mr. Black, but if you do think of anything else, any more information you are able to give, feel free to contact me."

"Sure," Black promised, "but as I said, there isn't more to tell." As Dumbledore made to leave, however, he unexpectedly spoke up again. "They were on the wrong track when investigating Madam Smith's death, and they're on the wrong track with Sirius. I likely won't be alive any longer to speak out for him, once they do find him. Just… try to ensure they get to the bottom of it all, before they cast judgment on him, like they did before. What they're saying… is just not in his character."

"I will," Dumbledore promised. "I know it must be hard for you. You loved both your great-nephews very much."

Black winced, then a faraway look crossed his face. "I still feel guilty. For both of them. I did what I could for Sirius, but Regulus… I tried to dissuade him from that path, you know. His death was the worst of all, worse even than his brother's arrest." He closed his eyes. "I loved them both. And I lost them both."

Harry saw Dumbledore give a small nod that Black, drifting off to sleep in his hospital bed, did not see. Then the room started to darken heavily, and knowing that the memory had ended, Harry thought Exiro, and seconds later, he found himself back in the Shrieking Shack, staring at the Pensieve and considering what he'd seen. He felt both disappointed and oddly curious. It wasn't really anything he didn't already know; the only thing that was news to him was that the Ministry of Magic had initially suspected a Gringotts goblin of Hepzibah Smith's murder, before eventually convicting Hokey the house-elf. However, Harry thought this didn't seem like a very important detail, or Dumbledore would have mentioned it before. Still, he couldn't understand why he had left that memory, unless there was something more to it that wasn't readily apparent. He couldn't help but think that A. Black, Sirius's great-uncle, had known more than he was letting on, and that Dumbledore had thought so as well.

Shame he's likely dead by now, Harry thought dully.

Before he could consider any of it further, however, he heard a footstep, and looked up, realising that Ron was no longer snoozing on the couch. He emerged from the kitchen with a plate full of eggs, and seeing Harry, he sat on the sofa and said, "Morning. Don't suppose you know where Hermione's got to?"

"Dunno. She was gone when I woke up." Harry felt a small stab of worry. "But she took the Invisibility Cloak with her, so hopefully she's just out on some new errand or other."

Ron too looked slightly concerned, but said nothing further, instead scooping some eggs into his mouth, but he watched as Harry used his wand to extract the new memory from the Pensieve and put it back into its phial.

"What were you looking at in there?" he asked.

Harry looked at the phial, again reading its label, his thoughts returning to what he'd just watched. But before he could answer, a door abruptly swung open, causing him to jump, and seconds later Hermione almost seemed to pop into existence as she pulled off the Invisibility Cloak.

"Good, you're both awake," she grumbled, tossing the Cloak onto an armchair and sitting by Ron, looking rather disgruntled.

Once his heart returned to its normal pace, Harry asked, "What's up with you?"

"The passage to Hogwarts caved in," she answered.

"What?" said Ron, alarmed. "Are you all right?"

"I don't mean right now," Hermione snapped. "It looks like it happened ages ago. But it's completely blocked."

"So that's where you've been? Trying to get through the Whomping Willow passage?"

"Yes. I'm sorry if I worried you," Hermione said, looking a little guilty ."I would have left a note, but I didn't think I'd be gone long."

"I take it you were trying to get into the library?" Harry asked.

Hermione nodded. "I'm not getting anywhere with my research, and Flourish and Blott's doesn't seem to have anything useful."

"About the trials?" Ron asked incredulously. "That's a bit hard to believe."

"They've got plenty on Death Eater trials," Hermione defended, "but I haven't found anything we don't already know. Anyway, that's not what I was looking for. I was trying to learn more about the Founders and their relics, but all my books only give information on famous relics, and special enchantments they're reputed to have."

"But you have found some possibilities?" Harry asked, his interest piqued.

Hermione reached into a pocket and pulled out a folded sheet of notebook paper. Harry could see about a dozen items listed when she unfolded it. "These are some possibilities," she said, handing it to him. "The trouble is, the only ones that still seem to exist are Gryffindor's sword and the Sorting Hat, both of which are accounted for. Everything else on this list were lost or destroyed hundreds of years ago."

Harry looked the list over. "Hufflepuff's ring, Gryffindor's shield, an amulet of Ravenclaw's, Slytherin's fibulae (whatever that is), a dagger belonging to Ravenclaw…"

"All lost to living memory," Hermione said firmly.

"We can't rule them out, though," Harry argued. "Some of them are lost, not destroyed. Voldemort might have found one."

"Yes, I know. And I was trying to find details on those, but none of my books are giving anything really useful."

Harry thought for a moment. "There are other ways into Hogwarts from Hogsmeade. I can get out the Marauder's Map and try to find a way in."

"We could," Hermione said hesitantly. "I'm worried that the Order sealed off the passage last year to stop someone like Wormtail sneaking into Hogwarts and spying on Dumbledore. If so, they would have blocked all the other secret passages too. Lupin would have known them all."

Harry frowned, considering this. After all, they couldn't know for certain that the cave-in was the result of Hogwarts being so heavily fortified the year before, not until they tried the other passages, and while Harry didn't share Hermione's knack for research, he knew that the myriad tomes in the Hogwarts library were far more likely to provide useful information to them than anything in a bookstore in Diagon Alley. "Well, we won't know until we check. Your other option, of course, is the Forbidden Forest."

"No," Ron and Hermione both said adamantly, and Harry smirked.

Looking defeated, Hermione lowered herself onto the sofa next to Ron, causing it to creak under their combined weight. "Well," she said, "I suppose there are other places around Britain where we might find more information. The Hogwarts library would be preferable, but as it is…." She shrugged helplessly, and then changing the subject, she asked, "So, what have you two been up to this morning?"

Ron glanced at Harry, who hesitated. "I found a phial in Dumbledore's box with a memory I haven't seen before."

Both Ron and Hermione looked surprised but pleased. "What was in it?" Hermione asked eagerly.

Harry glanced at the Pensieve, and said, "I'm not entirely sure how helpful it is. But it was a bit… odd."

He then described what he had seen to Ron and Hermione. As he spoke, he could see their mild disappointment, and finally Hermione sighed. "It is odd, but it doesn't sound like there was anything in it we didn't already know."

"Why did Dumbledore leave it for me, then?" Harry asked. "I just think… I think there might have been more to that conversation than what was being said."

"Hmm." Hermione looked thoughtful. "Well, I suppose it wouldn't hurt to find out more about this relative of Sirius's, or the goblin who was accused. What were their names?"

"I don't know who the goblin was," Harry admitted. "I don't think his name was ever mentioned. I think I remember Sirius mentioning an uncle who had given him money after he ran away from home, but I can't remember his name. Don't think that will be too hard to find out, though." Glancing at the label on the phial, he added, "It started with an A."

They were quiet for a moment, and then Ron, looking as disgruntled as Hermione had, muttered, "More mysterious initials for us to find? Couldn't Dumbledore have been a bit more straightforward?"

Harry frowned. "He usually was."

"Except with the Philosopher's Stone," Ron retorted. "And the Chamber of Secrets. And fifth year, when he wasn't really communicating anything."

Harry couldn't quite argue with this.

"That is, of course, assuming that he meant anything by it," Hermione said quietly.

Ron nodded, but Harry couldn't quite escape the nagging feeling from earlier, that the memory wasn't something to ignore. But with little more than that feeling, for now he had nothing more to say on the matter. Ron returned to his eggs, and Hermione retreated into the kitchen to make her own breakfast, leaving Harry to his thoughts. Before he could give A. Black any further consideration, however, he saw Hedwig flutter to a cracked and empty planter by the door, where she usually perched to signal when she wanted to go out hunting. Suddenly wanting an excuse to gather his thoughts in private, Harry gathered up the Cloak and said to Ron, "Well, maybe when I get back we can all view the memory, and then decide if it's important or not."

He flung the Cloak over his shoulders, then drew his wand and began Transfiguring Hedwig's features so that she looked like an eagle-owl again. She looked at him balefully but got on his outstretched arm.

As he drew the hood over his face and pulled Hedwig close, covering her with the Cloak too, Ron groused, "If Hedwig decides to get us more game, tell her to get something else. I'm sick of rabbits."

"So you'd rather eat a frog?" Harry challenged. As Ron spluttered, Harry chuckled to himself and opened the back door. Making certain he was completely invisible, he set out for the woods that lay on the outskirts of the village.

It was a rather cloudy morning, a sign that it probably would rain soon. The sooner Hedwig finished hunting, the better, Harry thought dryly, as he looked at the darkening sky. As he crossed the grass, he considered his situation, and suddenly thought longingly of the comfort of Hogwarts or of the Burrow; but of course, there was no going back now. Hermione had checked discarded newspapers from Hogsmeade every day for any mention of their disappearance, but nothing had appeared yet, which told them that if the Ministry knew that Harry had gone, they had kept it secret from the public. With any luck they didn't know at all, but knowing Scrimgeour, Harry knew it was only a matter of time before he began to suspect something. Infinitely more dangerous, however, was when Voldemort himself found out; and when he did, Harry was certain there would be repercussions. The Order could not keep this secret forever, and once the news did reach the Death Eaters, Harry worried how many people connected with him Voldemort would target.

The woods were darker and quieter than normal, Harry thought as he entered them, but undoubtedly the reason was the impending storm. Hedwig adjusted her position on his arm, and he made his way down the path that led to the mountains, preparing to send the owl on her task. But he hadn't gotten far before a stab of pain shot across his scar, and he stifled a surprised gasp, his free hand flying to his forehead. Harry stood rooted to the spot, still rubbing the scar, and Hedwig hooted tensely, but Harry barely heard her. This was the first time in over a year that his scar had hurt him. He knew that Voldemort had been practicing Occlumency against him, but as the dark collected over Britain, as the Death Eaters gained more power and inflicted more terror, as the battle everyone knew was coming drew closer, Harry wondered if Voldemort's barriers were somehow weakening. His scar hurting almost certainly meant one thing, however: something was happening. He hadn't felt any flashes either of anger or of happiness unconnected with his own emotions, but Voldemort, who had remained strangely quiet of late, was stirring.

The Cloak had slipped a bit when Harry rubbed his scar, but recovering, he pulled it back in place, and looked at Hedwig, who was watching him warily. He wondered if he should return to the Shrieking Shack and inform Ron and Hermione what had just happened. Before he could make a decision, however, he noticed that Hedwig suddenly went still, and her head turned sharply, her eyes fixed on a point somewhere to Harry's right, as though she were listening to something.

"You hear something, girl?" he asked in a low voice, but she didn't make the smallest sound in reply. He then noticed, to his consternation, that her stillness wasn't the usual he'd observed in her when she had spotted prey. Instead, her feathers ruffled, and she leaned forward in a hostile manner, her wings spreading out, and her beak open, quietly hissing at something she could see or hear somewhere nearby. Unnerved, Harry looked in the direction Hedwig was staring, and then he saw something shift in the trees about thirty feet away, something much larger than a fox or a rabbit. He edged a bit closer, and then he saw a man move into view, a wizard in the unmistakable black robes, hood and mask of a Death Eater.

Harry instinctively crouched down, trying to keep as still and quiet as he could. The Death Eater's back was to him; he too was crouching low, staring through a gap in the trees toward the village below. As Harry watched, he saw a second Death Eater approach the first, and crouch down next to him. Hedwig snapped her beak menacingly, but thankfully the Death Eaters were too far away to hear her. Harry reached into his pocket and slowly drew his wand, which he transferred to the hand Hedwig was perched on. He then reached back into the same pocket, fishing around until he found what he was looking for, and inserted one end of the Extendable Ear into his left ear, then send the other end in the direction of the two Death Eaters.

"Keep it quiet, Al!" he heard one of them snarl. "The Dark Lord will feed your guts to his snake if anyone realises we're here!"

"Shut it," the other snapped. "What's the time?"

"Quarter past ten. Where's Dolohov? He and Nott should be here by now!"

"He went to meet the Dementors. Don't know where Nott is. Probably off to find out if our new… friends… will be involved in this." He had uttered the word "friends" in an agitated manner.

The other Death Eater audibly shuddered. "Sweet Merlin, that Sha'etemmin lot gives me the creeps! And that's saying something, after spending a good deal of my years in Azkaban with Dementors."

"Yeah," his companion agreed. "But the Dark Lord likes them. I dunno if he'll send them to openly attack an all-wizarding settlement, though. Not yet, anyway. He doesn't want the Ministry or the I.C.W. working it out too soon."

There was a brief silence. Then Harry heard the other Death Eater say. "I know they're powerful, that they'll give us an edge… but I don't really know about this, Al, about any of it. Not anymore."

"And if you know what's good for you, you'll shut your damn mouth," Al snapped. "If you're having second thoughts, Nate, don't involve me, for God's sake! I'm not sharing the Malfoy boy's fate!" They were quiet for a minute, until Al calmed down enough to say, "We move at Rabastan's signal. Don't forget to concentrate on the hit list. The Dementors will take care of any resistance from the other villagers."

Harry had heard enough. He pulled back the Extendable Ear and stuffed it into his pocket. Transferring his wand back into his free hand, he quietly backtracked down the path, and cast a nonverbal spell to clear any footprints he left as he quickly and silently made his way back to the Shrieking Shack.

"That was fast," Hermione remarked as Harry lowered Hedwig back onto the table ten minutes later. "Didn't Hedwig find anything?"

Instead of answering, Harry immediately opened up the black leather chest with a flick of his wand, and then carefully picked up the Pensieve from its place on the small table and lowered into the chest. He then pointed his wand at his notebook and other books on the couch, and sent them flying into his rucksack. Seeing this, and Hedwig's tense manner, and Harry's failure to transfigure her back to her usual plumage, Ron and Hermione both looked alarmed.

"What are you doing?" asked Hermione.

"There's a bunch of Death Eaters in the woods," Harry informed them, rolling up a sleeping bag. "They're going to attack the village. We have to get out of here."

---

Author's Note:

The memory Harry views with Dumbledore interviewing "A. Black" was not in previous drafts of this story. It's the first major addition, which I've added to build up to two connected subplots. I think I explained it well enough, but the interview took place between the events of "Chamber of Secrets" and "Prisoner of Azkaban", as part of Dumbledore's preliminary investigations into the origin and nature of the Tom Riddle's diary.

Another, smaller expansion which I have added, which was not in earlier drafts, was the scene with Crookshanks. This is part of a minor subplot that will eventually segue into a more significant element of the Ginny narrative. I don't have much experience with cats (half of my family is allergic, so we never had one), and had to do some research in how depressed cats behave, but given my lack of experience, I might have gotten some things wrong. If I did, I appreciate constructive feedback.