The sky was already dark when they arrived.

There had been a ghost of a chance that the enemy would make it out to be an attack from the Death Eaters, but their 'Voldemort has not returned' narrative could only survive so many hits. It was true that they assembled and attacked the Quidditch World Cup before their master had properly resurrected, but even that form was a serious threat. Harry regretted that he had not earlier told anyone that his enemy was still out there, in a weakened state, because he had known since first year, but it would have been even more likely that they would have counted him as mad; it would not matter at all that his words constituted a warning that the servants would do something else.

"Mark a man, like we practiced," he practically whispered. The easiest place for them to hide was inside the house, but they ran the risk of the whole place being destroyed in one fell swoop. As a result, someone had used a simple earth-moving charm, commonly used for graves, as if the mood had not already been set, and they hid in pairs under a layer of plant life that Neville had grown. With the general advantage almost always favoring the side with the most wands, Ron had argued that it could be broken down more clearly with small numbers. A nine wand group had a decent chance against a ten wand group, and probably a better chance against an eighteen wand group than a single witch or wizard had against two wands. As they could not, from their current position, gain any numbers, their best bet was to make the most of that advantage.

"I know," Ginny whispered back. She had insisted that Hermione was too valuable to share a foxhole with him and that she should do it herself, to minimize their losses if someone were to target them. Without trying to be overly optimistic, Harry had said that if all went well, there would be no casualties on their side, and there was a chance that a sufficient first attack would be more than enough to drive the enemy away. They had all been trained to use invisible spells whenever they had the advantage that the enemy could not see them, forcing the enemy to use human revealing charms to even get an approximate idea of where they were before any return fire could be attempted.

"Arresto Momentum." It was a simple spell, easy enough for most of them to learn, and despite the fact that most broomsticks were charmed to prevent being summoned away from their riders in flight, there were rarely protections in place to stop someone from freezing them in place, causing the riders to become unseated. The spell was not entirely invisible, with a quick flash around the target, but there was no stream of spellfire that could be traced back to the caster. The best part was, if he timed it well enough, the confederates of his target would not realize his plight in time to spare themselves of the same. Ginny took the hint and did the same.

By his estimation there had to be about thirty of the enemy, which was in vast excess of what he would normally think would be necessary, so the Ministry must have either guessed or known that Xenophilius would not be alone. The stone bricks of the tall, narrow house started to fly out of place as the spells hitting them began to overwhelm the charms that held them in place. Harry had no idea how demolitions worked in the magical world, but he would have thought that all that would be necessary would be to remove the protection spells and the whole thing would have collapsed by itself, but that would require them to read the blueprints of the house, and to get close to it, when it might well be a trap. A few of them had fallen off their brooms and the others were starting to regroup.

"It's not a death sentence," the witch next to him whispered. Was she trying to reassure him? What was the point, when he would have killed them even if he had no idea whether or not they had prepared themselves to fall? Quidditch gear was specially enchanted and usually the pitch as well, but outside of that, serious injury was more or less certain. If the enemy had a dedicated healer, that would take two wands out of the battle at once.

"I'm not fussed."

Knocking an enemy off a broom here and there made it easier to target the others; there was less of a need to worry about retaliation, and yet, spellfire was already going up from other positions at the enemy. Harry would have to ask the others after the battle was over, if they were lucky enough to survive, why they had abandoned the tactic of using untraceable spells. There was, however, nothing for it at the moment.

"Stupefy!"

"Avada Kedavra!"

Only the most insufferable legalist would have been able to come up with a moral difference between the spells they used, at least in their current context. His was loosed in an attempt to knock someone off a broom, though, and hers was probably aimed at someone lower, who would not have died from the fall. He had not climbed to the edge of the hole in which they waited to see, but it was easy to guess that the enemy was making raids on the ground, having discovered their trick. If anything could be counted as fortunate about that, it was that the falling bodies that would have still posed a problem to the defenders, surviving long enough in the air to curse someone on the way down, would only be human shields instead.

The two of them almost entirely used stunners after that. The area of effect for the Anti-Apparation Jinx was much larger than anyone would have guessed; it was not just the house and the surrounding areas; it included several other properties including the Burrow. One such unfortunate attacker was caught in the middle of trying to apparate out, hit with some unidentifiable spell right when he tried to get out of there. A few seemed to realize that the only way back was the way they came, and even though they were not exactly losing yet, decided that the chance of winning and everyone surviving was unacceptably low. How well they had prepared for the encounter was a conversation topic for another day. Climbing out enough to make his voice heard, Harry shouted an order to keep as many as they could from retreating.

A wizard fell next to him with the groan of something breaking on impact and it was trivial to stun him from a distance where he could never have put up a shield. It was not that he felt an abundance of pity with the green flashes of spellfire dragging his eyes away from their tasks; living captives were always more valuable than the dead, and if he felt like killing the man down the road, he could. Did he no longer hear his mother's scream because the curse was familiar to him now? Was it because the echo of her had been able to say more to him in the graveyard, when he needed more than anything else, some modicum of hope, if even from the dead?

"Harry!" Ginny shouted.

"Protego!" He cast a shield in the air right in front of them, just in time for all three of the broom handles of the suddenly arriving attackers to crash into it, knowing his partner's killing curse would pass through. In a moment, perhaps he would have time to be thankful that his own countermeasure had thrown off the enemy's aim, but he was too busy disarming a wizard who had been knocked out of the sky and decided to keep fighting from the ground. Another was crawling toward him, some mad determination keeping him from moving; it looked like he was fighting off a grazed stunner, and without another idea, he aimed a cutter at the man's throat. Some unexplainable surprise took hold of him before he could finish the killing curse he started as his blood watered the ground.

There were allies of his who had come out of the holes, and they would be getting reprimanded for it, but there was nothing to do in the moment but join them and keep the enemy from being able to easily select a target. The next few minutes were a careful mop-up of everyone who was left alive and trying to minimize their own casualties. He could not say how many spells he cast in the process, which ones, or who all had been hit. His next concern was the fact that Terry nearly lost a leg, and it took a concerted effort from two or three of the others to stop him from panicking to try to reattach it. They were certain that they had not killed every assailant, but since they had no idea from whence the enemy came, they would not be able to follow.

"Is everyone still alive?" Neville asked as soon as they woke him up. He had been knocked out, apparently by a blow to the head, because the countercharm for the stunner did not work, according to Daphne. "Please tell me no one died."

"We were hard to target and for the most part we didn't sabotage that for ourselves," he said. "I'd like to know why everyone was getting out of the holes."

"Don't look at me," Blaise said. "I only got out after Hannah insisted." He rolled his eyes. "I clearly told her that if Michael wanted to get himself killed, that was his business."

"It's my fault, Harry," Neville said. "I might have actually been the first one to get up. I couldn't aim at the ones who were getting away from where I was, and I figured we had the advantage. Everyone else only got up because I started it."

"It was the same reason," Michael said. "I persuaded Hermione to join me; it didn't have anything to do with you. Because it looked like we were in the lead, I decided we could afford to sacrifice our cover- where we could easily return if pressed- for greater range of motion, and I took out three or four more of our enemies as a result. There just wasn't anyone flying directly overhead anymore."

"That's a good reason," he said after a moment. "There's just one problem. We didn't plan on it."

"Well, whose fault is that?" Blaise asked. "I wasn't around for the planning phase."

"It doesn't matter whose fault it is," Hermione said. "If it's a bad idea and it gets us all killed, we shouldn't do it. For the record, part of the reason I was persuaded was because I felt like we had to provide cover for Neville, not that I want this whole conversation to be about blaming him- look, during the planning phase, we went over the possibility that they would draw us out, and one of the things we said was that they would use a false surrender or a false retreat."

"Well, that's clearly not what that was. It was a real retreat, and it was easy enough to see why. We were winning," Michael asserted. He was not the bravest out of all of them, but he could get quite confident when the facts seemed to support him. "I get that not everyone could see we were winning, and we technically didn't plan for what to do if we found ourselves in an ideal position, but I felt like the risk was appropriate. None of us died as a result."

"Terry will be lucky if he still has a leg," Harry said, sighing a bit. It was hard to say for certain that the point was worth pursuing. "We need a few more people to learn advanced healing spells. The only other thing I want to get across about this is that we didn't plan for what to do if it looked like we were winning, but we said that we weren't to get out of the holes, and no one objected to that. It's understandable to think that the plan didn't account for something, but technically we never got to a point where we just said 'okay, do whatever you want if that happens'. If part of the plan doesn't work, don't assume the rest of it is out the window."

No one said anything for a moment, and it seemed like no one was willing to keep pursuing the point. Ginny had mostly skipped the argument by going around and moving the bodies, unconscious and otherwise, and Hannah was working with her, along with Ernie. Had he seen them pair up before? Did the two of them get along, or was it just that there was some existing familiarity? He tried to refocus on other things, things that mattered. The house had not been completely destroyed, but it would not be safe to go back there, not while some of the assailants were still out there, and the enemy could still send more besides.

"Do you have a moment?" Hermione asked.

"Is it about getting out of the holes?"

"No, not exactly. What do you think of Ron's idea of giving everyone ranks?"

"I have to say that the others were probably right. I ran it by Blaise in vague terms and he said that it would cause a divide between the others."

"Well, I don't know; there's a chance that it's a good idea. I think what might be worse is if we go on pretending that we're all equal and then leaving everyone else out of certain meetings, and carry on deciding everything ourselves."

"We don't decide everything ourselves. We just haven't told everyone about the Horcruces. We also didn't tell anyone that Ron was going to the castle by himself because he didn't want anyone else volunteering. It was his plan." He shook his head. Even if they could only know how that mission was progressing, he had to think he would feel more at ease. Having sworn multiple times not to go and attempt an extraction, he was at a loss as to what he would do with the information other than come up with disaster scenarios.

"I think you need to get back to practicing your Occlumency with Professor Snape, Harry," his friend said. "I can read how you're struggling on your face. That was a real suggestion and not some kind of-"

"I know," he said. "I'll go. I just have to take care of things here. If I'm not here, it's like saying that I don't think we'll succeed."

"Then let me handle this at least. I just want to say this. If we had ranks, then people could prove their loyalty and ability and rise in the ranks. It's entirely possible that there are people among us who should have more authority than me or Ron."

"What about me?" he asked. "Am I different because you wanted me to lead this?" It was like getting mixed messages, though he could not say for certain that was what it was. Generally, Hermione had honest, well-meaning input whenever she was going against him on something, but there were times she could stand to put things in a different way. Could he blame her, though, when the three of them had been loners up until their fifth year of magical education?

"I'll think about it," he said. That much was true. He had a meeting with Snape in an hour, but they had agreed that if he could get there early and learn something about what the Order was doing, he should take advantage of it. Basically, it was not that the other organization was hiding anything from them, but they effectively saw no use in making sure the DA was updated. Sirius had even said that it made sense to have Harry act as an on the ground commander back when everyone thought he was going to Hogwarts, but with that out of the way, what was to stop them from just joining the Order? The problem with that, of course, was the fact that they had sworn themselves to the group, but he did not feel like telling a responsible adult about that, and his godfather counted. Though some of the others might say he was missing a late developmental stage after having been in prison for twelve years, he was more than capable of acting like an adult when his godson was involved.

He apparated away as soon as he got outside of the Anti-Apparation jinx. It was a nightmare keeping track of where everything was, especially since some of the charms had a square area of effect, others round, and there was even one that technically looped in on itself like some optical illusion. As promised, he gave some thought to the idea of ranks. It was inevitable if they really started expanding, because there was no way he could seriously give orders to a hundred different people or so. Already, with the dark magic team and the soft skills team, it seemed like they were already dividing into camps with their own leaders. Was that how he had envisioned it? If they got new people, would they have just been below everyone who was already part of the crew?

Number Twelve was anything but empty. There were at least twenty people in the main room, and there was not even that much red hair. A few Hogwarts teachers had their afternoons freed up, as they all had expected, and there were some other concerned parents who heard about it through Mrs. Weasley. The topic of conversation was hard to make out, because the meeting had not exactly started yet, but it seemed like everyone was interested in what was going on with him. Just as he thought it might have been a mistake to just walk in, he was pointed out and the questions began.

"Harry?"

There it was, a question to make sure he was indeed standing before them and that the coincidence was not too convenient to be real.

"Severus said he expected you here for a meeting."

That was strange. No one had expected him to be so forthcoming.

"What's all this about the attack on the Quibbler?"

That much was expected; it was the newest order of business, having only just finished.

"Please, please- I'll answer everything, I just- I'll tell you everything about what's been going on if-"

"There will be no time for that, I'm afraid."

As if to save him from his present distress, Professor McGonagall appeared from a side room and strode to the head of the table. She took the first question out of order, perhaps in its nature, allowing it as an exception to the rule.

"Please, Minerva, where's Albus?" an old voice asked. It was a wizard Harry had never met before.

"Those who seek him out could find him even here. It is not so simple that he can hide from the law and not hide from us as well. All other questions must be in order, and they must be reserved for after the substance of this meeting. That is to say, after we discuss changes to the law and how they impact our situation going forward. We are fortunate to have an early transcription of them from none other than Perseus Weasley. Reorganizations will be in order, so while I do not relish calling everyone here and away from their work, I assure you that I do not do so lightly."

In the next few minutes it steadily sunk in for him that the Order was an organization of proper adults, where they were almost all acting independently, unless they expected to be attacked. Each had a set of responsibilities closely related to his or her job, and there was no speaking out of turn during the entire meeting; it seemed everything fell into place quickly. Had the question of allowing ranks or not really contained any merit at all? Were they not better of duplicating what he saw before him? Were they capable?

"Our guest has a prior engagement about now, so I shall excuse him and Severus. Thank you for giving your update about the Death Eaters."

"It was... no trouble," the Legilimens said. "Come, Mr. Potter. We would not want to ruin your relatively rare streak of punctuality."