Chapter 16: The Order of the Phoenix
Despite Ginny's words, Dumbledore insisted that the Order continue to guard the Mystery Hall, and her father was attacked by Nagini. Fortunately, they had taken the precaution of doing the rounds in pairs and Kingsley had finished off the snake during the attack. When Harry received the vision, they all practically flew to the office of the headmaster, who took them to the Order so he could visit his father.
They spent Christmas at Grimmauld Place while his father convalesced at St. Mungo's and his mother went mad with anxiety whenever she didn't see them. Now, she insisted that everyone stay in pairs, she didn't allow anyone to be alone even in that house.
Ginny noticed that Harry was getting more and more annoyed with Sirius. He didn't say anything to her, but she knew it was because of her and the decision to keep him ignorant of the situation. So, she didn't say anything and allowed that animosity to continue, Black didn't even realize Harry's opinion of him.
They visited her father several times and Ginny took the opportunity to meet Percy on the sly when the others were distracted by seeing Neville visit his parents. Her brother looked extremely sad to be separated from the family, but at the same time, he was proud to have left his mother's nest and fend for himself and his abilities.
"I'm glad to see you, sister," Percy said as he hugged her. "I've missed you and all of you so much."
"Me too, brother, without you, the house is not the same, you know that you are my favorite brother." Ginny said as she kissed him on the cheek, "I'll keep sending you letters and I need you to do something for me. I'll need your help with something very important...
They continued chatting for a few minutes before they heard voices from the family searching for Ginny, and she went to them.
Soon, the holidays were over and everyone returned to Hogwarts.
o-o-o-o
It hadn't been Harry's best school year, the TIMOS were wearing out what little patience Umbridge had left him. There were also the Occlumency classes that Dumbledore forced him to take with Snape, he hated them, and he hated spending an hour a day listening about how bad was his father. In the end, using a cheap excuse, Umbridge managed to oust Dumbledore from the director's post, though it was hilarious when his brothers-in-law made their big getaway (the galleons he had loaned them were worth it for that only scene). The only good thing that happened in his life was his girlfriend, the only thing that motivated him to keep fighting and striving.
Sirius was another constant headache, every day he spoke to her through the mirror, the gift he had tucked away in the trunk and that Ginny had arranged on his nightstand. Most of the time the conversations were happy, he told him anecdotes of his father and mother, things that no one but Sirius or Remus could know, it was like meeting his parents for the first time.
The sight he saw in Snape's memory ruined much of the idyllic image of his parents, he couldn't believe it. What was making Harry feel so horrified and unhappy was not being shouted at or having jars thrown at him — it was that he knew how it felt to be humiliated in the middle of a circle of onlookers, knew exactly how Snape had felt as his father had taunted him, and that judging from what he had just seen, his father had been every bit as arrogant as Snape had always told him.
Harry had tried to think that Snape deserved to have suffered humiliation at the hands of James; but Lily hadn't asked, 'What has he done to you?' And hadn't James replied, "It's more the fact that he exists, if you know what I mean?" Hadn't James started it all simply because Sirius said he was bored?
Harry remembered Lupin saying back in Grimmauld Place that Dumbledore had made him prefect in the hope that he would be able to exercise some control over James and Sirius… But in the Pensieve, he had sat there and let it all happen… Harry reminded himself that Lily had intervened; his mother had been decent, yet the memory of the look on her face as she had shouted at James disturbed him quite as much as anything else. She had clearly loathed James and Harry simply could not understand how they could have ended up married. Once or twice he even wondered whether James had forced her into it… For nearly five years the thought of his father had been a source of comfort, of inspiration. Whenever someone had told him he was like James he had glowed with pride inside. And now… now he felt cold and miserable at the thought of him.
He felt as though the memory of it was eating him from inside. He had been so sure that his parents had been wonderful people that he never had the slightest difficulty in disbelieving Snape's aspersions on his father's character. Hadn't people like Hagrid and Sirius told Harry how wonderful his father had been? (Yeah, well, look what Sirius was like himself, said a nagging voice inside Harry's head… He was as bad, wasn't he?) Yes, he had once overheard Professor McGonagall saying that his father and Sirius had been troublemakers at school, but she had described them as forerunners of the Weasley twins, and Harry could not imagine Fred and George dangling someone upside down for the fun of it… not unless they really loathed them… Perhaps Malfoy, or somebody who really deserved it…
Even his mother... He still remembered the vision, she had been on the verge of laughing, her angry expression wavered and she was about to laugh, it was something that hurt him as well. He would never imagine himself finding it funny if Hermione was humiliated like this, nor could he imagine Hermione smiling if someone tried to harm him. Was his mother like that? As bad as her father had been?
Sure, he asked Sirius, who was with Lupin, but it was even worse to hear their justifications: "I wouldn't like you to judge your father on what you saw there, Harry. He was only fifteen —", his answer had infuriated him, as if he were not fifteen years old himself.
This tarnished their relationship irreversibly, something he could only talk about with Ginny. His last talks through the looking glass had ended in conflict, without going any further, his last talk had ended in a fight, like many.
His godfather hated his girlfriend and hated that Harry didn't trust the information she had given them, wasn't very mature, and couldn't take kindly to being forced to be locked up in Grimmauld Place. At least he had already understood that the moment he mentioned Ginny's name, Harry would cut off their connection and he had already stopped, but every time this happened, he couldn't help but resent Ginny despite how crazy it sounded in his head.
Was she so valuable as to cut off the only family he had for her?
That thought was constantly running through his mind, unable to put an end to it. And sometimes it showed in his treatment of her, in those last months, after returning to Hogwarts, that they had drifted apart. They still shared a bed, but even then, he tried to stay away from her physically.
It was uncomfortable to share a bed with her, the mornings were a martyrdom, he could no longer sleep soundly, he had to get up early, too early, to attend to his daily problem, and every time Ginny made physical contact, he shuddered at something he could only describe as horror.
Sure, he knew about sex in general, from his classmates in elementary school to his friends at Hogwarts had talked about it, but no one knew what they were talking about. And since he didn't have any real information, he didn't know what else to call what he felt.
And it's not like Sirius was accessible to ask him about those matters, he knew that he would only receive ridicule from him and no information. He was tempted to ask Mr. Weasley, he was the grown man he trusted most, but Harry didn't think he would like to be asked the kind of sensation his beloved daughter gave him.
Time passed and soon the end of the school year arrived.
He was in his History of Magic OWL when the vision of Sirius being tortured appeared. He couldn't remain calm after that, Hermione and Ron, being the loyal friends that they were, followed him, while he, desperate, sought out Snape to warn him that Sirius had escaped, he only made a gesture of contempt and continued talking to Umbridge who scolded him for making a fuss.
Desperate, he ran to his trunk from where he took out his mirror and called his godfather, the mirror only showed the ceiling of the room and Kreacher's high-pitched voice muttering hate, when he asked him where Sirius was, he just laughed and said that he had run away from the house.
Frantic, Harry attempted to break into Umbridge's office, only to be stopped by a desperate Hermione.
"Stop bothering me," Harry said to Hermione as he shook her hand violently, his contemptuous tone trying to hurt her at all costs. "I don't care what you have to say."
Hermione's eyes filled with tears, but she still stopped him. Ron had gone to get Ginny to help stop him and soon returned to his sister as Luna followed them with a dreamy expression.
"Honey, don't stress. Have you talked to your godfather yet?" Ginny asked as she stroked his face, and he pulled away from her hand.
"I tried, but Kreacher sneered and said he'd gotten out of the house, and Voldemort, your BLOODY TOM is torturing him and you're just asking me NONSENSES," Harry yelled at her for the first time in his life, everyone was stunned, even Ginny, clearly too surprised to respond to him as he deserved.
"You don't have to be rude, Harry, Ginny is just trying to comfort you," Luna said in the most irritated voice anyone had ever heard in her. "You don't have the right to yell at her."
"Well, I don't know if she planned this, or if she knew it was going to happen and didn't say anything." Harry kept screaming, almost crazed, his head buzzing with pain and he couldn't get those horrible visions out of his mind. "And you're just colluding with everything she does, Loony, don't pretend now that you care about me."
"What's going on? Is everything okay, Harry?" Neville walked over to them, probably attracted by the screams.
"You don't care," Harry said cruelly. "Just because you don't have anyone to hang out with doesn't mean you can come with us."
"Enough, Harry." Ginny finally said sternly, recovering from her astonishment, "If you're going to behave like an absolute cunt you can walk away, if you want help you'd better change your tune."
Harry was dying to yell at her, but a part of him forced himself to remain silent, ashamed of everything he had said, he had hurt everyone. Ron and Hermione explained what was going on as Harry paced back and forth with his hands in fists. Everyone tried to convince him it was a trap, but Harry didn't believe anyone, not even Ginny.
They eventually came up with a plan, as Harry was determined to flee and reach the Ministry. It was Neville who came up with the idea of going on the thestrals, no one else had thought of it.
Only Luna, Neville, and Harry could see them, so they had to help the rest climb onto them. It was one of the most awkward rides of his life, Ginny was in front of him in the animal, cold and not trying to talk to him.
Soon they arrived and entered the Ministry until they reached the Hall of Mysteries. They passed through the Hall of Brains, the Chamber of Death, the Chamber of Time, and finally the Hall of Prophecies. Tall as a church and filled with nothing, but the high shelves covered with small, dusty spheres of glass, duly gleaming in the light emitting the candle stands more set at intervals along the shelves, those in the circular hall behind them, the flames burning blue, the room was very cold.
No one spoke. Harry didn't want to look at any of them. He felt sick. He didn't understand why Sirius wasn't here. He had to be here. This was where he, Harry, had seen him... He ran into the space at the back of the rows, staring at them. Empty hallway after empty hallway. He ran to the other end and passed again in front of his companions who stood looking at him. There was no sign of Sirius anywhere, not even a hint of a fight.
"Harry?" Ron called him.
"What?" He didn't want to hear what Ron had to say; he didn't want to hear Ron tell him he'd been stupid or suggest they should go back to Hogwarts, but the heat was rising on his face and he felt like he wanted to hide there in the dark for a long time before facing the glare of the Atrium and the accusing stares of the others...
Harry was attracted to one of the spheres, walked over to it and brought his fingers closer, then withdrew his hand. The dial had his name written on it.
"Take it when you're ready, love," Ginny said, looking almost mesmerized at the spheres. Everyone knew it was a trap, so they weren't surprised when, as Harry took the sphere, a dozen Death Eaters appeared out of nowhere.
And then, from right behind them, a drawling voice said, "Very good, Potter. Now turn around, nice and slowly, and give that to me."
Black shapes were emerging out of thin air all around them, blocking their way left and right; eyes glinted through slits in hoods, and a dozen lit wand tips were pointing directly at their hearts. Hermione gasped at horror.
"To me, Potter, " repeated the drawling voice of Lucius Malfoy as he held out his hand, palm up. Harry's insides plummeted sickeningly. They were trapped and outnumbered two to one.
"To me," said Malfoy yet again.
"Where's Sirius?" Harry said.
Several of the Death Eaters laughed. A harsh female voice from the midst of the shadowy figures to Harry's left said triumphantly, "The Dark Lord always knows!"
"Always," echoed Malfoy softly. "Now, give me the prophecy, Potter."
"I want to know where Sirius is!"
"I want to know where Sirius is!" mimicked the woman to his left. She and her fellow Death Eaters had closed in so that they were mere feet away from Harry and the others, the light from their wands dazzling Harry's eyes.
"You've got him," said Harry, ignoring the rising panic in his chest, the dread he had been fighting since they had first entered the ninetyseventh row.
"He's here. I know he is."
"The little baby woke up fwightened and fort what it dweamed was twoo," said the woman in a horrible, mock-baby voice. Harry felt Ron stir beside him.
"Don't do anything, " he muttered. "Not yet…"
The woman who had mimicked him let out a raucous scream of laughter. "You hear him? You hear him? Giving instructions to the other children as though he thinks of fighting us! "
"Oh, you don't know Potter as I do, Bellatrix," said Malfoy softly. "He has a great weakness for heroics; the Dark Lord understands this about him. Now give me the prophecy, Potter."
"I know Sirius is here," said Harry, though panic was causing his chest to constrict and he felt as though he could not breathe properly. "I know you've got him!"
More of the Death Eaters laughed, though the woman still laughed loudest of all. "It's time you learned the difference between life and dreams, Potter," said Malfoy. "Now give me the prophecy, or we start using wands."
"Go on, then," said Harry, raising his own wand to chest height. As he did so, the five wands of Ron, Hermione, Neville, Ginny, and Luna rose on either side of him. The knot in Harry's stomach tightened. If Sirius really was not here, he had led his friends to their deaths for no reason at all. . . .
But the Death Eaters did not strike.
"Hand over the prophecy and no one need get hurt, " said Malfoy coolly.
It was Harry's turn to laugh.
"Yeah, right!" he said. "I give you this…prophecy, is it? And you'll just let us skip off home, will you?"
The words were hardly out of his mouth when the female Death Eater shrieked, "Accio Proph…"
Harry was just ready for her.
He shouted "Protego! " before she had finished her spell, and though the glass sphere slipped to the tips of his fingers he managed to cling on to it.
"Oh, he knows how to play, little bitty baby Potter," she said, her mad eyes staring through the slits in her hood. "Very well, then…"
"I TOLD YOU, NO!" Lucius Malfoy roared at the woman. "If you smash it …"
Harry's mind was racing. The Death Eaters wanted this dusty spun-glass sphere. He had no interest in it. He just wanted to get them all out of this alive, make sure that neither Ginny nor any of her friends paid a terrible price for their stupidity…
The woman stepped forward, away from her fellows, and pulled off her hood. Azkaban had hollowed Bellatrix Lestrange's face, making it gaunt and skull-like, but it was alive with a feverish, fanatical glow. "You need more persuasion?" she said, her chest rising and falling rapidly. "Very well… take his little girl," she ordered the Death Eaters beside her. "Let him watch while we torture the little girl. I'll do it. "
Harry felt the others close in around Ginny. He stepped sideways so that he was right in front of her, the prophecy held up to his chest.
"You'll have to smash this if you want to attack any of us," he told Bellatrix. "I don't think your master will be too pleased if you come back without it, will he?"
She did not move; she merely stared at him, the tip of her tongue moistening her thin mouth. "So," said Harry, "what kind of prophecy are we talking about anyway?"
I couldn't think of anything else to do but keep talking. Neville's arm was pressed against him, and he could feel him trembling; as well as the rapid breathing of another right on the back of his neck. I expected them to be thinking of ways to escape because their minds were blank.
"What kind of prophecy?" Bellatrix repeated, the grin fading from her face. "You jest, Harry Potter."
"Nope, not jesting," Harry said, his eyes flicking from Death Eater to Death Eater, looking for a weak link, a hole through which they could escape. "Why does Voldemort want it?"
Several Death Eaters let out low hisses.
"You dare speak his name?" whispered Bellatrix.
"Yeah," maintaining his tight grip on the glass ball, expecting another attempt to bewitch it from him... "Yeah, I have no problem saying Vol...
"Shut your mouth!" Bellatrix shrieked. "You dare speak his name with your unworthy lips, you dare besmirch it with your half-blood's tongue, you dare..."
"Did you know he's a half-blood, too?" said Harry recklessly. Hermione gave a little moan in his ear. "Voldemort? Yeah, his mother was a witch but his dad was a Muggle — or has he been telling you a lot he's pureblood?"
"STUPEFY! "
A shot of red light came from Bellatrix Lestrange's wand, but Malfoy deflected it, sending it onto a bookshelf to Harry's left where several crystal spheres burst.
Two figures, pearly white as ghosts, fluid as smoke, unfurled themselves from the fragments of broken glass upon the floor and each began to speak. Their voices vied with each other so that only fragments of what they were saying could be heard over Malfoy and Bellatrix's shouts.
"… in the millennium a new lineage will come..." said the figure of an old, bearded man.
"DON'T ATTACK! WE NEED PROPHECY!
"He dared... He dares... There he is... filthy half-blood...
"WAIT UNTIL WE HAVE THE PROPHECY!" bawled Malfoy.
"… and none will come after the lord of the magical world..." said the figure of a young woman.
The two figures that had burst from the shattered spheres had melted into thin air. Nothing remained of them or their erstwhile homes but fragments of glass on the floor. They had, however, given Harry an idea. The problem was going to be conveying it to the others.
"You haven't told me what's so special about this prophecy I'm supposed to be handing over," he said, playing for time. He moved his foot slowly sideways, feeling around for someone else's.
"Don't play games with us, Potter," Malfoy replied.
"I'm not playing games," said Harry, half his mind on the conversation, half on his wandering foot. And then he found someone's toes and pressed down upon them. A sharp intake of breath behind him told him they were Hermione's.
"What?" She whispered.
"Dumbledore never told you that the reason you bear that scar was hidden in the bowels of the Department of Mysteries?" said Malfoy sneeringly.
"I—what?" Harry exclaimed, feigning ignorance. "What about my scar?"
"What? " Hermione whispered urgently behind him.
"Can this be?" said Malfoy, sounding wickedly delighted, some of the Death Eaters laughing again, and covered by their laughter Harry whispered to Hermione, moving his lips as little as possible.
"Did Dumbledore never tell you?" Malfoy repeated. "Well, this explains why you didn't come earlier, Potter, the Dark Lord wondered why..."
"… When I say 'now'... "
"… you didn't come running when he showed you the place where it was hidden in your dreams. He thought natural curiosity would make you want to hear the exact wording…"
"Did he?" Harry said. Behind him, he listened to Hermione passing the message to the others and continued talking to distract the Death Eaters. "So he wanted me to come and take it, didn't he?" Why? "
"Why?" Malfoy sounded delighted and incredulous at the same time. "Because the only people who are permitted to retrieve a prophecy from the Department of Mysteries, Potter, are those about whom it was made, as the Dark Lord discovered when he attempted to use others to steal it for him."
"And why would you want to steal a prophecy about me?"
"About both of you, Potter, about both of you... Have you ever wondered why the Dark Lord tried to kill you when you were a baby?"
Harry stared at the holes through which Malfoy's green eyes glowed.
"Did someone make a prophecy about Voldemort and me?" He said quietly, looking at Lucius Malfoy, his fingers clasping over the warm crystal sphere in his hand. It wasn't much bigger than a snitch, still covered in dust. "And he's made me come and get it for him? Why couldn't he come and get it himself? "
"Get it himself?" shrieked Bellatrix with a cackle of mad laughter. "The Dark Lord, walk into the Ministry of Magic when they are so sweetly ignoring his return? The Dark Lord, reveal himself to the Aurors when at the moment they are wasting their time on my dear cousin?"
"So, you've got you guys doing the dirty work, right?" Harry said. "Just like he tried to use Sturgis and Bode? "
"Very good, Potter, very good," Malfoy said slowly.
"But the Dark Lord knows you're not so unintelligent..."
"Now! Harry shouted."
And chaos ensued.
o-o-o-o
For Ginny, it all came as a nasty blur. She was powerful, she could admit it without arrogance, but she wasn't masterful in battle, she lacked those natural reflexes that great duelists like Harry possessed. She didn't know how to lead in battle.
When the shelves exploded, Harry surreptitiously handed the sphere to her and dragged it down the hall until the confusion of the battle drove them apart.
She only focused on saving Black, so as soon as she saw him, she threw the brain she had kept in a jar during her escape, went straight to the back of his neck, and made him pass out. That would leave permanent marks on him, a slowness in his actions, and prevent his death at the hands of Bellatrix.
She'd hurt her ankle and could barely shuffle her foot, her head buzzing from the blow one of the Death Eaters had given her before she smashed his head with a snotty spell. She was on her way to the main atrium where she saw Tom appear. She left the Order behind, they were all in a thunderous and confusing battle with the Death Eaters.
Harry declared that he had broken the prophecy with derision while Tom, in anger, attacked him and attempted to take possession of his body. Ginny threw the sphere on impulse, that crap only served as a physical weapon. That was enough of a distraction for Tom to leave Harry, and she was able to walk up to him and try to help him while Tom listened to the prophecy intently.
"So only you can defeat me, Potter," Tom said in an amused voice as he cast a spell on them that froze them in their flight. Ginny barely heard that sentence, she was dizzy and wanting to vomit, her hair tousled and bleeding where the glass had hurt her skin, and she looked pretty pitiful.
Suddenly, she felt it begin to detach from his body. She only rose into the air, but she looked down and saw what she thought was her own body, a thin little witch with red hair stained black, half her face purple, without a shoe, with blood on her hands. The school robe was torn in places, and the eyes were blank, as if she had no irises or pupils.
She saw herself opening her mouth and starting to say something without her being able to hear.
It was the last thing she saw before she lost consciousness.
Thanks for your comments. In response to "Harry is so quick to apologize to Ginny when she says "we need to talk" that's not normal that's an abused child begging for forgiveness." Yes, usually abused children either walk away or cling to people, in this case, Ginny is the only person they consider acceptable to cling to. And if you're wondering why she's so malicious with her reaction, well, she's still a kid.
What bothered her with Cedric, maybe I wasn't clear, is that Harry told him about the dragons, and Ginny is furious that he went against what she had asked of him, she wants to give him every advantage if she can. And she's terrified that if he doesn't obey a direct instruction, the next time she says it to avoid his death, he'll ignore her order too.
You're right about Hermione, she has a certain resentment for the injustice of magical inheritance, plus even in the books she didn't really have close female friends, only companions on good terms.