Chapter Four
Nessa thought that she'd heard things incorrectly — or perhaps that Sirius was joking — but he looked deadly serious.
"Your —?"
"My dear old mum, yeah," said Sirius. "We've been trying to get her down for a month but we think she put a Permanent Sticking Charm on the back of the canvas. Let's get downstairs, quick, before they all wake again."
"But what's a portrait of your mother doing here?" Harry asked, bewildered, as they went through the door from the hall and led the way down a flight of narrow stone steps, the others just behind them.
"Hasn't anyone told you? This was my parents' house," said Sirius. "But I'm the last Black left, so it's mine now. Well, me and Tori are the last Blacks left —" he added as an afterthought.
"Cheers," Tori said with a grin. "I, for one, think Grandmum is a real delight. She keeps things interesting at least. Besides, it's great fun for me to think about running one of those swords upstairs through her."
Sirius snorted at his daughter's show of violence, and Nessa thought that the two of them looked quite comfortable with each other. Certainly more comfortable than they had been previously. She filed that away to ask about later.
"I offered it to Dumbledore for headquarters — about the only useful thing I've been able to do."
Nessa shared a look with Harry. She'd expected a warmer welcome from Sirius — at least for Harry — but she noted how hard and bitter the man's words sounded. They followed him to the bottom of the stairs and through a door leading into the basement kitchen.
It was scarcely less gloomy than the hall above, a cavernous room with rough stone walls. Most of the light was coming from a large fire at the far end of the room. A haze of pipe smoke hung in the air like battle fumes, through which loomed the menacing shapes of heavy iron pots and pans hanging from the dark ceiling. Many chairs had been crammed into the room for the meeting and a long wooden table stood in the middle of the room, littered with rolls of parchment, goblets, empty wine bottles, and a heap of what appeared to be rags. Mr. Weasley and Bill were talking quietly with their heads together at the end of the table.
Mrs. Weasley cleared her throat. Her husband looked around and jumped to his feet.
"Harry! Nessa!" he said happily, hurrying forward to shake their hands vigorously. As an afterthought, he seemed to realize that he didn't need to be shaking her hand, and pulled her into a hug instead. "Good to see you!"
Over his shoulder, she could see Bill hastily rolling up the lengths of parchment left on the table.
"Journey all right?" he called, gathering up twelve scrolls at once. "Mad-Eye didn't make you come via Greenland, then?"
"He tried," said Tonks, striding over to help Bill and immediately sending a candle toppling on the last piece of parchment. "Oh no — sorry —"
"Here, dear," said Mrs. Weasley, sounding exasperated, and she repaired the parchment with a wave of her wand: In the flash of light caused by her charm, Nessa caught the glimpse of what looked like the plan of a building.
Mrs. Weasley caught her looking. She snatched the plan off the table and stuffed it into Bill's heavily laden arms. Nessa glanced at her brother sideways, and it was clear that he'd seen what she had.
"This sort of thing ought to be cleared away promptly at the end of meetings," she snapped before sweeping off toward an ancient dresser from which she started unloading dinner plates.
Bill took out his wand, muttered "Evanesco!" and the scrolls vanished.
"Sit down, you two," said Sirius. "You've met Mundungus, haven't you?"
The thing that she had taken to be a pile of rags gave a prolonged, grunting snore, and then jerked awake. Nessa eyed him distastefully. She was not getting a good second impression from him at all.
"Some'n say m' name?" Mundungus mumbled sleepily. "I 'gree with Sirius…"
He raised a very grubby hand in the air as though voting, his droopy bloodshot eyes unfocused. Ginny giggled.
"The meeting's over, Dung," said Sirius as they all sat down around him at the table. Harry sat closest to Sirius. Tori took the seat on Sirius' other side much to Nessa's surprise. Instead of asking, Nessa took the seat beside Harry. "Harry's arrived."
"Eh?" said Mundungus, peering balefully at Harry through his matted, ginger hair. "Blimey, so 'e 'as. Yeah…you all right, 'arry?"
Her brother opened his mouth to answer, but Nessa spoke first, her tone sharp and unforgiving.
"No thanks to you."
Mundungus jumped, staring nervously between her and Harry, and pulled out a grimy black pipe. He stuck it in his mouth, ignited the end of it with his wand, and took a deep pull on it. Great billowing clouds of greenish smoke obscured him in seconds.
"Owe you a 'pology," grunted a voice from the middle of the smelly cloud. Nessa snorted when he didn't continue beyond that. She'd have ripped him a new one, but Mrs. Weasley called over to them.
"For the last time, Mundungus, will you please not smoke that thing in the kitchen, especially when we're about to eat!"
"Ah," said Mundungus. "Right. Sorry, Molly."
The cloud of smoke vanished as Mundungus stowed his pipe back in his pocket, but an acrid smell of burning socks lingered.
"And if you want dinner before midnight I'll need a hand," said Mrs. Weasley to the room at large. She and Harry immediately pushed their chairs back to help, but she waved them back. "No, you can stay where you are, dears, you've had a long journey —"
"What can I do, Molly?" said Tonks enthusiastically, bounding forward.
Much to Nessa's amusement, Mrs. Weasley hesitated, looking apprehensive.
"Er — no, it's all right, Tonks, you have a rest too, you've done enough today —"
"No, no, I want to help!" said Tonks brightly, knocking over a chair as she hurried toward the dresser from which Ginny was collecting cutlery.
Soon a series of heavy knives were chopping meat and vegetables of their own accord, supervised by Mr. Weasley, while Mrs. Weasley stirred a cauldron dangling over the fire and the others took out plates, more goblets, and food from the pantry. Harry and Nessa were left at the table with Sirius and Mundungus, who was still blinking mournfully at him.
"Seen old Figgy since?" he asked.
"No," said Harry. "We haven't seen anyone."
So clearly her tirade upstairs had helped him calm down in no way.
"See, I wouldn't 'ave left," said Mundungus, leaning forward, a pleading note in his voice, "but I 'ad a business opportunity —"
"Yes, you've made perfectly clear what you deemed more important than my brother's life," Nessa snapped, unwilling to hear his weak excuses again. Mundungus flinched away from her. "Clearly, Dumbledore's faith in you was misplaced. We're moving on."
Sirius cleared his throat as he turned to face her and Harry.
"Had a good summer so far?"
"No," they said simultaneously.
For the first time, something like a grin flitted across Sirius' face.
"Don't know what you're complaining about, myself."
"Oh boy," Nessa muttered at the same time that Harry incredulously said, "What?"
"Personally, I'd have welcomed a dementor attack. A deadly struggle for my soul would have broken the monotony nicely. You think you've had it bad, at least you've been able to get out and about, stretch your legs, get into a few fights…I've been stuck inside for a month."
"How come?" asked Harry, frowning.
"Because the Ministry of Magic's still after me, and Voldemort will know all about me being an Animagus by now, Wormtail will have told him, so my big disguise is useless. There's not much I can do for the Order of the Phoenix…or so Dumbledore feels."
There was something about the slightly flattened tone of voice in which Sirius uttered Dumbledore's name that told her that Sirius was not very happy with the headmaster either. Nessa felt a surge of pity for him that she tried to keep from showing on her face.
"At least you knew what was going on," she said bracingly. "You're prepared."
"Oh yeah," said Sirius sarcastically. "Listening to Snape's reports, having to take all his snide hints that he's out there risking his life while I'm sat on my backside here having a nice comfortable time…asking me how the cleaning's going —"
"You shouldn't let him get to you," Nessa said sharply. Harry shared an exasperated look with his godfather at these words. "That's why he does it. And you've made enough sacrifices in the last fourteen years. You are helping by making this place habitable, whether he wants to see that or not."
"Sirius?" said Mundungus, who did not appear to have paid any attention to their conversation, but had been minutely examining an empty goblet. Nessa huffed as they turned to him. "This solid silver, mate?"
"Yes," said Sirius, surveying it with distaste. "Finest fifteenth-century goblin-wrought silver, embossed with the Black family crest."
This did not appear to phase Mundungus any.
"That'd come off, though," he muttered, polishing it with his cuff.
Sirius clearly didn't care much for it, but Nessa, who really did not like Mundungus at this point, snatched it from his grasp with a glare.
"Fred — George — NO, JUST CARRY THEM!" Mrs. Weasley shrieked.
The four of them looked around and, a split second later, dived away from the table. Fred and George had bewitched a large cauldron of stew, an iron flagon of butterbeer, and a heavy wooden breadboard, complete with knife, to hurtle through the air toward them. The stew skidded the length of the table and came to a halt just before the end, leaving a long black burn on the wooden surface, the flagon of butterbeer fell with a crash, spilling its contents everywhere, and the bread knife slipped off the board and landed, point down and quivering ominously, exactly where Sirius' right hand had been seconds before.
Nessa stared, gaping, from her position on the floor, unsure whether she should laugh or cry or scream.
"FOR HEAVEN'S SAKE!" screamed Mrs. Weasley. "THERE WAS NO NEED — I'VE HAD ENOUGH OF THIS — JUST BECAUSE YOU'RE ALLOWED TO USE MAGIC NOW YOU DON'T HAVE TO WHIP YOUR WANDS OUT FOR EVERY TINY LITTLE THING!"
"We were just trying to save a bit of time!" said Fred, hurrying forward and wrenching the bread knife out of the table. "Sorry, Sirius, mate — didn't mean to —"
George had hurried forward to crouch in front of her.
"Alright, love?" he said, eyeing her worriedly.
His presence before her solidified her earlier decision, and she burst out laughing for the first time in weeks, leaning forward to rest her forehead against his and closing her eyes in relief. She had no idea how he did it, she really didn't.
"God, you stress me out," she said, grinning widely as though this were a wonderful quality of his. "You're ridiculous."
George chuckled, pulling her to her feet, and lifting her hands to kiss each of them in turn.
"I'll take that as a compliment, seeing as you're laughing so hard."
She snorted, resting her head on his shoulder and trying to bring her heart rate back down. Sirius and Harry were laughing as well. Crookshanks had given an angry hiss and shot off under the dresser, where his large yellow eyes glowed in the darkness. Nessa could care less where Mundungus had ended up.
"Boys," Mr. Weasley said, lifting the stew back into the middle of the table, "your mother's right, you're supposed to show a sense of responsibility now you've come of age —"
" — none of your brothers caused this sort of trouble!" Mrs. Weasley raged at the twins, slamming a fresh flagon of butterbeer onto the table and spilling almost as much again. Nessa tensed at the words, but George merely made a soothing noise as if the words didn't bother him at all. "Bill didn't feel the need to Apparate every few feet! Charlie didn't Charm everything he met! Percy —"
She stopped dead, and so did the rest of them. Mrs. Weasley sent a frightened look toward her husband, whose face had gone suddenly wooden.
"Let's eat," said Bill quickly.
The others took the queue hastily, all of them taking their seats without a word.
"It looks wonderful, Molly," said Remus, ladling stew onto a plate for her and handing it across the table.
For a few minutes there was silence but for the clink of plates and cutlery and the scraping of chairs as everyone settled down to their food. Eventually, Mrs. Weasley spoke to Sirius about what work needed to be done to further clean the house, and the atmosphere relaxed some.
Nessa didn't speak much, focusing on the food in front of her. She didn't eat much these days, but the ball of grief that she normally felt at the bottom of her stomach had loosened some since she'd arrived, and she made slow work of the crusty bread and stew in front of her, listening idly to the conversations around her.
Further down the table, Tonks was screwing her face up and transforming her nose into random shapes to entertain Hermione and Ginny, who eventually started making requests for their favorite ones.
Mr. Weasley, Bill, and Remus were having an intense discussion about goblins and whether they were likely to side with Voldemort. Mr. Weasley didn't think they would as Voldemort had killed a goblin family last time he'd been powerful, but Remus appeared to think it would depend on what Voldemort could offer them in terms of rights that other wizards had denied them. Bill said it was hard to say either way, as they weren't admitting if they believed he was back or not at all.
In front of her, Mundungus was telling a story about how he'd stolen toads from someone and then sold them back to him at double the cost, which sent the twins, Tori, and Ron rolling around in laughter. The line of conversation was quickly shut down by Mrs. Weasley, who looked highly disapproving.
Fred and George buried their faces in their goblets of butterbeer afterward; George was hiccuping. Nessa eyed him with narrowed eyes.
"How many of those butterbeers have you had?" she said suspiciously.
George leaned over, resting his arm on the back of her chair, so that they could talk without attracting the attention of his mother. With him so much closer, she noticed he smelled of something distinctly stronger than butterbeer.
"Only the one," he said, grinning at her. "Mundungus might have snuck us something a bit stronger when no one was looking."
She gave him a look full of disapproval. She didn't much care if he drank — she'd be a hypocrite if she did — but the fact that it had come from Mundungus — and that he and Fred seemed quite fond of him — was really what she didn't like.
"George —" she said, her voice sharp.
"Don't say my name like that, sweetheart," he warned, his voice deepening and something sparking in his eyes that made her swallow hard. "It doesn't work the way you think it does. And don't worry," he added, brushing her hair away from her eyes. "I know what Mundungus is. But he's useful —"
"How's that?" she said, crossing her arms. "Far as I can tell, he's anything but."
George chuckled under his breath, turning his head enough to speak directly in her ear.
"I know you don't like him, love, but we're not asking him to protect us in battle," he said warmly. She was hardly able to focus though, his proximity to her scrambling parts of her brain and forcing her to actively work to focus on him. "But he's able to get us ingredients that Mum would never use or have on hand. For product development," he explained at her bewildered expression. "I'm not going to trust him with my life — or yours if that makes you more comfortable —"
"It does not," she snorted.
"I just find him amusing, that's all," he said, kissing her on the nose and grinning crookedly. "And I enjoy doing things under mum's nose. I'm being careful…no more Bagman situations, I promise."
She sighed, looking down at her plate and paused in confusion. She could have sworn she'd eaten that bread already. She narrowed her eyes on George again, who was grinning at her smugly.
"Did you put that on my plate?" she said suspiciously. George shrugged.
"I've no idea what you're talking about," he said, tweaking her on the nose affectionately and leaning back in his chair. "Just making sure you're eating enough."
"I'm fine," she said, rolling her eyes. "Eating isn't the problem."
He looked at her sharply, some of his humor dying.
"What's the problem then?" he said.
She opened her mouth and then shut it very quickly. She didn't want to talk to him about her trouble sleeping. Or the dreams that plagued her.
"Nothing, I'm sorry," she said instead. "I'm just grumpy and tired."
He didn't believe her, she could tell, but his mother had gotten up to grab the rhubarb crumble for pudding, and she was spared answering by her return to the table. She was not stupid enough to believe that George would drop it, but she could at least come up with some reasoning that wouldn't force her to talk about Cedric.
A little over one helping of rhubarb crumble and custard later and she was wishing she'd worn looser jeans before they'd left. Mr. Weasley was leaning back in his chair, looking replete and relaxed, Tonks was yawning widely, her nose now back to normal, and Ginny, who had lured Crookshanks out from under the dresser, was sitting cross-legged on the floor, rolling butterbeer corks for him to chase.
"Nearly time for bed, I think," said Mrs. Weasley on a yawn.
"Not just yet, Molly," said Sirius, pushing away his empty plate and turning to look at her and Harry. "You know, I'm surprised at you. I thought the first thing you'd do when you got here would be to start asking questions about Voldemort."
The atmosphere in the room changed with the rapidity she'd come to associate with the arrival of dementors. Where seconds before it had been sleepily relaxed, it was now alert, even tense. A frisson had gone around the table at the mention of Voldemort's name. Remus, who had been about to take a sip of wine, lowered his goblet slowly, looking wary.
"I did!" said Harry indignantly. "I asked Ron and Hermione but they said we're not allowed in the Order, so —"
"And they're quite right," said Mrs. Weasley. "You're too young."
She was sitting bolt upright in her chair, her fists clenched upon its arms, every trace of drowsiness gone.
"Since when did someone have to be in the Order of the Phoenix to ask questions?" asked Sirius. "Harry's been trapped in that Muggle house for a month. He's got the right to know what's been happen —"
"Hang on!" interrupted George loudly. Nessa put a hand on his arm to indicate that he'd been a bit too loud for someone who was supposed to be sober.
"How come Harry gets his questions answered?" said Fred angrily.
"We've been trying to get stuff out of you for a month and you haven't told us a single stinking thing!" said George.
"You're too young, you're not in the Order," said Fred, in a high-pitched voice that sounded uncannily like his mother's. "Harry's not even of age!"
"It's not my fault you haven't been told what the Order's doing," said Sirius calmly. "That's your parents' decision. Harry and Nessa, on the other hand —"
"It's not down to you to decide what's good for them!" said Mrs. Weasley sharply. Her normally kindly face looked dangerous. "You haven't forgotten what Dumbledore said, I suppose?"
"Which bit?" Sirius asked politely, but with an air as though readying himself for a fight.
"The bit about not telling them more than they need to know," said Mrs. Weasley, placing a heavy emphasis on the last three words.
Ron, Hermione, Fred, and George's heads turned from Sirius to Mrs. Weasley as though following a tennis rally. Ginny was kneeling amid a pile of abandoned butterbeer corks, watching the conversation with her mouth slightly open. Lupin's eyes were fixed on Sirius. Tori, to Nessa's surprise, was not looking at either one of them, her expression carefully bored and fixed on a spot on the wall over Nessa's shoulder. Nessa had the sudden impression that Mrs. Weasley and Sirius arguing had become a frequent occurrence that Tori had had to learn to tune out.
She frowned at her.
"I don't intend to tell them more than they need to know, Molly," said Sirius. "But as Harry was the one who saw Voldemort come back, and Nessa lost a very close friend and has the responsibility of keeping Harry safe, they have more right than most to —"
"They're not members of the Order of the Phoenix!" said Mrs. Weasley. "Harry is only fifteen and —"
" — and he's dealt with as much as most in the Order," said Sirius. "And more than some —"
"No one's denying what he's done!" said Mrs. Weasley, her voice rising, her fists trembling on the arms of her chair. "But he's still —"
"He's not a child!" said Nessa sharply, sensing what Mrs. Weasley was going to say. The woman startled at the reminder that someone else might join the conversation. "Voldemort made absolutely sure of that in June. So we're not going to talk about him as if he is one."
"Of course he isn't, dear," she said, trying to speak more gently, but still glaring at Sirius. "But he's still in school, and he should be able to worry about other things —"
"Like being attacked by dementors?" Nessa demanded. "Like watching me nearly get my soul sucked out? Like watching someone die right in front of him? The secrets you've all kept from him have done him no favors, and not to be rude here, but seeing as we're talking about a group of people who thought that Mundungus Fletcher was trustworthy enough to keep watch over my brother for any amount of time, I have severe doubts in the judgement of anyone at this table — let alone, Dumbledore, who I assume approved his guard shift, yes?"
Tori was smirking now, though her eyes were still trained on the wall over Nessa's shoulders, as silence descended upon the room. There was a flash of hurt across Mrs. Weasley's face and Nessa softened her tone.
"Mrs. Weasley, I truly appreciate everything you've done for me and my brother," she said gently. "But you aren't helping him — or preparing him — by keeping secrets from him. Just because he asks doesn't mean you have to answer if you truly believe the information will put him in danger."
Mr. Weasley sighed heavily, taking his glasses off and cleaning them on his robes. He spoke without looking at his wife.
"Dumbledore knows the position has changed, Molly. He accepts that they will have to be filled in to a certain extent now that they are staying at headquarters —"
"Yes, but there's a difference between that and inviting them to ask whatever they like!" said Mrs. Weasley.
"Personally," said Lupin quietly, looking away from Sirius at last, as Mrs. Weasley turned quickly to him, hopeful that finally she was about to get an ally, "I think it better that Harry and Nessa get the facts — not all the facts, Molly, but the general picture — from us, rather than a garbled version from…others."
His expression was mild, but Nessa was fairly certain that he knew that some Extendable Ears had survived Mrs. Weasley's purge. She felt a rush of warmth for her own godfather, who she'd been sure was going to join Mrs. Weasley's side based on the way that he'd been looking at Sirius since the first words had left his mouth.
"Well," said Mrs. Weasley, breathing deeply and looking around the table for support that did not come, "well…I can see I'm going to be overruled. I'll just say this: Dumbledore must have had his reasons for not wanting them to know too much, and speaking as someone who has got Harry and Nessa's best interests at heart —"
"They're not your children," said Sirius quietly.
"They're as good as!" Mrs. Weasley said fiercely. There was a flare of warmth for her. "Who else have they got?"
"They have me and Remus!"
"Yes," said Mrs. Weasley, her lip curling. "The thing is, it's been rather difficult for you to look after them while you've been locked up in Azkaban, hasn't it?"
"That's enough!" Nessa said sharply as Sirius started to rise from his chair and Tori's head finally snapped angrily to look at Mrs. Weasley. "That was not Sirius' fault, and you aren't the only person here who cares about us. If I can't trust anyone at this table to act like an adult on my brother's behalf then I'll be the one to make a decision. I'm of age in two months, and I know Harry better than anyone else at this table, so unless Remus is going to tell me that I have to leave?" Remus met her eye from across the table, and shook his head with a sigh. "Fine. Then I make the call for him. If Harry wants to know, then he can ask."
Harry looked triumphant, giving her a look full of gratitude. She knew he hated being treated like a child, and he wasn't one, she believed that to the core of her no matter how much she wished she didn't have to, but she wouldn't allow him to learn more than he needed to either. Her position fell somewhere in between Mrs. Weasley and Sirius. She didn't want her brother to know anything that would put him in danger — or within Voldemort's line of sight — but she didn't want him completely in the dark either.
If they couldn't make that call for him, she'd do it herself. No one else in the room disagreed with her words either.
"Very well," said Mrs. Weasley, her voice cracking. "Ginny — Ron — Hermione — Fred — George — Tori — I want you out of this kitchen, now."
There was an instant uproar.
"We're of age!" Fred and George bellowed together.
"I'm not leaving!" Tori said hotly.
"If Harry's allowed, why can't I?" shouted Ron.
"Mum, I want to!" wailed Ginny.
"NO!" shouted Mrs. Weasley, standing up, her eyes overbright. "I absolutely forbid —"
"Molly, you can't stop Fred and George," said Mr. Weasley wearily. "They are of age —"
"They're still at school —"
"But they're legally adults now," said Mr. Weasley in the same tired voice.
Mrs. Weasley was now scarlet in the face.
"I — oh, all right then, Fred and George can stay, but Tori —"
"I am not leaving!" Tori said angrily, looking to Sirius for back up. He gave it to her.
"You don't have to leave —" he said calmly.
"That's not your decision —!" Mrs. Weasley said hotly.
"She's my daughter!" Sirius said sharply, looking very unwilling to concede on this point. "By blood, and by law, that is my decision. She stays."
The words could not have felt good for Mrs. Weasley, who had cared for Tori since she'd been a child, but it was the unfortunate truth. Mr. and Mrs. Weasley had merely pulled strings at the Ministry to keep her, they hadn't legally adopted her, and that meant that the final say did lie with Sirius, even if he hadn't been there to watch her grow up.
Even so, Tori looked slightly guilty for having used that loophole, but as she was getting to remain, she didn't say anything.
Mrs. Weasley's bottom lip trembled.
"Ron —"
"Harry'll tell me and Hermione everything you say anyway!" said Ron hotly. "Won't — won't you?" he said uncertainly, meeting Harry's eyes.
"Course I will," Harry said. Ron and Hermione beamed.
"Fine!" shouted Mrs. Weasley. "Fine! Ginny — BED!"
Ginny did not go quietly. They could hear her raging and storming at her mother all the way up the stairs, and when she reached the hall Mrs. Black's earsplitting shrieks were added to the din. Remus hurried off to the portrait to restore calm. It was only after he'd returned, closing the kitchen door behind him and taking his seat at the table again, that Sirius spoke.
"Okay, you two…what do you want to know?"
Harry looked to her, and she leaned back in her chair, waving him on to ask. His questions were the same as hers, and she would prefer to divert her attention to listening to what they were saying, and carefully weighing what information she wanted her brother to receive and what she didn't.
"Where's Voldemort?" he said at once. "What's he doing? I've been trying to watch the Muggle news and there hasn't been anything that looks like him yet, no funny deaths or anything —"
"That's because there hasn't been any suspicious deaths yet," said Sirius. "Not as far as we know, anyway…And we know quite a lot."
"More than he thinks we do anyway," said Remus.
"How come he's stopped killing people?"
"Because he doesn't want to draw attention to himself at the moment," Sirius said. "It would be dangerous for him. His comeback didn't come off quite the way he wanted it too, you see. He messed it up."
"Or rather, you messed it up for him," said Remus with a satisfied smile.
"Because he wasn't supposed to survive," Nessa said, trying to confirm her own theory about why Voldemort would remain so dormant. "No one was supposed to know that he was back yet. Especially not Dumbledore."
"Correct," Remus said, smiling at her proudly. "And Harry made sure that Dumbledore knew at once."
"How's that helped?" Harry asked.
"Are you kidding?" said Bill incredulously. "Dumbledore was the only one that You-Know-Who was ever scared of!"
"Thanks to you, Dumbledore was able to recall the Order of the Phoenix about an hour after Voldemort returned," said Sirius.
"So what's the Order of the Phoenix been doing?" said Harry, looking around at them all.
"Working as hard as we can to make sure Voldemort can't carry out his plans," said Sirius.
"How d'you know what his plans are?"
"Dumbledore's got a shrewd idea," said Remus. "And Dumbledore's shrewd ideas normally turn out to be accurate."
"What's his idea?" Nessa prompted.
"Well, firstly, he wants to build up his army again," said Sirius. "In the old days he had huge numbers at his command; witches and wizards he'd bullied or bewitched into following him, his faithful Death Eaters, a great variety of Dark creatures. You heard him planning to recruit the giants; well, they'll be just one group he's after. He's certainly not going to try and take on the Ministry of Magic with only a dozen Death Eaters."
"So how do you stop him from recruiting?" Nessa said.
As far as she was aware, you couldn't prevent stupid. Anyone who was stupid enough to join him would do so with or without the Order.
"Well, the main thing is to try and convince as many people as possible that You-Know-Who really had returned, to put them on their guard," said Bill. She assumed he meant people who were at risk of being bewitched or bullied, not faithful idiots. "It's proving tricky, though."
"Because of the Ministry," she said.
"You're sharp," Tonks said with a grin, nodding. "You saw Cornelius Fudge after You-Know-Who came back. Well, he hasn't shifted that position at all. He's absolutely refusing to believe it's happened."
"But why?" said Harry desperately from beside her. "Why's he being so stupid? If Dumbledore —"
"Ah, well, you've put your finger on the problem," said Mr. Weasley with a wry smile. "Dumbledore."
"Fudge is frightened of him, you see," Tonks said sadly.
"Who isn't?" Nessa snorted.
She'd only seen Dumbledore angry once, but the man had thrown an entire door and a person across a room with a single spell. He'd vibrated with power.
Anyone who wasn't afraid of Dumbledore in some capacity was a moron.
"Frightened of what he's up to," Mr. Weasley clarified. "You see, Fudge thinks Dumbledore's plotting to overthrow him. He thinks Dumbledore wants to be Minister of Magic."
"You're joking," she said, looking around at them all.
She'd sort of just assumed that Fudge didn't want to admit that he'd have his work cut out for him if Voldemort had returned and had gotten too comfortable with the public's admiration of him as Minister to step on any toes.
Thinking that Dumbledore wanted his job was quite possibly the most asinine thing she'd ever heard.
"He never wanted the Minister's job even though a lot of people wanted him to take it when Millicent Bagnold retired." Mr. Weasley explained. "Fudge came to power instead, but he's never quite forgotten how much popular support Dumbledore had, even though Dumbledore never applied for the job."
"Deep down, Fudge knows that Dumbledore's much cleverer than he is, a much more powerful wizard, and in the early days of the Ministry he was forever asking Dumbledore for help and advice," said Remus. "But it seems that he's become fond of power now, and much more confident. He loves being Minister of Magic, and he's managed to convince himself that he's the clever one and Dumbledore's simply stirring up trouble for the sake of it."
"How can he think that?" said Harry angrily. "How can he think Dumbledore would just make it all up — that I'd make it all up?"
"Because accepting that Voldemort's back would mean trouble like the Ministry hasn't had to cope with for nearly fourteen years," said Sirius bitterly. "Fudge just can't bring himself to face it. It's so much more comfortable to convince himself Dumbledore's lying to destabilize him."
And not having Ministry support would in turn mean that it would be much harder to convince other people that Voldemort was back, especially if they were working on a smear campaign against Harry and Dumbledore. And her, though she supposed she at least deserved it; she hadn't been kind to Fudge the last time she'd seen him.
"You see the problem," said Remus, noticing the expression on her face. "While the Ministry insists there is nothing to fear from Voldemort, it's hard to convince people he's back, especially as they really don't want to believe it in the first place. What's more, the Ministry's leaning heavily on the Daily Prophet not to report any of what they're calling Dumbledore's rumor-mongering, so most of the Wizarding community are completely unaware anything's happened, and that makes them easier targets for the Death Eaters if they're using the Imperius Curse."
A very bleak outlook if she'd ever heard it before. And a terrifying thought that Voldemort could simply turn up on a doorstep in the middle of the night and force someone to do his bidding.
"But you're telling people, aren't you?" said Harry desperately, looking around at the Order members in the room. "You're letting people know he's back?"
They all smiled humorlessly.
"Well, as everyone thinks I'm a mad mass murderer and the Ministry's put a ten-thousand-Galleon price on my head, I can hardly stroll up the street and start handing out leaflets, can I?" said Sirius restlessly.
"And I'm not a very popular dinner guest with most of the community," said Remus, causing Nessa to harrumph in displeasure. "It's an occupational hazard of being a werewolf."
"Prejudice is what you meant," she said darkly. "Not an occupational hazard."
"Tonks and Arthur would lose their jobs at the Ministry if they started shooting their mouths off," said Sirius, "and it's very important for us to have spies inside the Ministry, because you can bet Voldemort will have them."
"We've managed to convince a couple of people, though," said Mr. Weasley. "Tonks here, for one — she's too young to have been in the Order of the Phoenix last time, and having Aurors on our side is a huge advantage — Kingsley Shacklebolt's been a real asset too. He's in charge of the hunt for Sirius, so he's been feeding the Ministry information that Sirius is in Tibet."
"But if none of you are putting the news out that Voldemort's back —" Harry began.
"Then Dumbledore is," Nessa said, trying to get her thoughts to solidify somehow in her brain. There was no other alternative. No other person who could if none of them could. He headed up the Order, he called the shots, and he had a lot of sway with the public. "That's why the papers have been trying to discredit him."
Remus nodded, looking at her as if he'd never seen her before.
"I'm starting to feel like you know more than you're letting on," he said suspiciously. She smirked at him.
"There's not much to do at the Dursleys than rage and think," she quipped. "Harry took care of the raging piece."
"So you saw what the Prophet reported last week?" he inquired expectantly.
She shook her head.
"I stopped reading it a few weeks ago," she admitted. "Got a bit tired of reading about my moral decay and manipulations."
Tonks snorted into her glass of wine, but Remus continued without looking at her.
"They reported that Dumbledore had been voted out of the Chairmanship of the International Confederation of Wizards because he's getting old and losing his grip, but it's not true. He was voted out by Ministry wizards after he made a speech announcing Voldemort's return. They've demoted him from Chief Warlock on the Wizengamot — that's the Wizard High Court — and they're talking about taking away his Order of Merlin, First Class, too."
"But Dumbledore says he doesn't care what they do as long as they don't take him off the Chocolate Frog cards," said Bill, grinning. Nessa bit her lip to keep from laughing and shook her head at him.
"It's no laughing matter," said Mr. Weasley shortly. "If he carries on defying the Ministry like this, he could end up in Azkaban and the last thing we need is Dumbledore locked up. While You-Know-Who knows Dumbledore's out there and wise to what he's up to, he's going to go cautiously for a while. If Dumbledore's out of the way — well, You-Know-Who will have a clear field."
"But if Voldemort's trying to recruit more Death Eaters, it's bound to get out that he's come back, isn't it?" asked Harry desperately.
Nessa rolled her eyes.
"He isn't going to march up to people's houses in broad daylight, Harry," she said impatiently. "He went to Crouch in the middle of the night, under Wormtail's protection, and cursed him to do as he bid. He's clearly well-practiced at operating in secrecy. Or I imagine he'd have given himself away in the last month already, and his followers are well-versed in operating the same way. That's how they avoided Azkaban for the last fourteen years."
"This doesn't make me feel better," Harry snapped at her.
"I don't think it was supposed to," she deadpanned.
"In any case, gathering followers is only one thing he's interested in," said Sirius. "He's got other plans too. Plans he can put into operation very quietly indeed, and he's concentrating on them at the moment."
"What's he after apart from followers?" Harry asked swiftly.
The question didn't initially bother her, but she caught the most fleeting of glances between Remus and Sirius, and her entire body was on high alert again.
Eventually, Sirius said, "Stuff he can only get by stealth."
She didn't like the vague sentence, as if he were trying to walk Harry toward an epiphany so that he didn't have to be the one to give it away and risk Mrs. Weasley's or Dumbledore's wrath. It was cheap.
When Harry continued to look puzzled, Sirius said, "Like a weapon. Something he didn't have last time."
"Like what kind of weapon?" said Harry. "Something worse than the Avada Kedavra —?"
Nessa opened her mouth, but was stopped from speaking.
"That's enough."
Mrs. Weasley spoke from the shadows beside the door. Nessa jumped; she hadn't noticed her return from taking Ginny upstairs. Her arms were crossed and she looked furious.
"I want you in bed, now. All of you," she added, looking around at all of her children, Hermione, and Tori.
"You can't boss us —" Fred began.
"Watch me," snarled Mrs. Weasley. She was trembling slightly as she looked at Sirius. "You've given them plenty of information. Any more and you might just as well induct them into the Order straightaway.
"Why not?" said Harry quickly. "I'll join, I want to join, I want to fight —"
"No."
Nessa's voice cracked in the room like a whip. It seemed to surprise more than just Harry. Remus appeared to relax all at once, and Sirius blinked at her in surprise. Mrs. Weasley gaped at her without thinking.
"Nessa —" Harry argued.
"Absolutely not," she said, her voice hard. "Child or no, you have absolutely no idea what you're trying to sign on for, and I refuse to let you willingly put your face in front of Voldemort when we have no idea at all why he wants you dead in the first place. The safest place for you is at Hogwarts —"
"So you're coddling me —"
"This isn't up for debate, Harry," she said, her eyes flashing. "The call is mine to make until you're of age —"
"Sirius is technically my guardian —"
"By the definition, Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia are your legal guardians, whether Sirius likes it or not," Nessa snapped, her tone unforgiving. "And since those two idiots have never considered your well-being at all, it falls to me next. If Sirius would like to fight me for the honor, he's free to do so."
"Nessa —" Sirius said placatingly.
"He is not our father," Nessa snapped at him. Sirius moved as if she'd slapped him. "No matter how much he might look like him, he is not your best friend. And I will not allow him to be pulled into this because you wish that he was. My decision on this is final. He got his answers. He'll join the Order before he graduates over my dead body."
"You're going to join at seventeen!" Harry shouted. "When you're still in school! How's that fair?"
Nessa stared at him for a long moment, smirking at her like he'd won the argument. Nessa shrugged, pulling to a stand.
"You're right," she said. Harry grinned at her like he'd won until the next words left her mouth. "I suppose by that logic it's only fair that I don't join until I graduate either." It wasn't at all what she wanted, but her brother's safety took precedence over what she wanted, and always had. She looked at Remus with a raised brow. "Does that sound fair to you, godfather?"
Remus' lips twitched at the corners at her deliberate use of his relationship to her.
"I'm not going to complain," he said, sounding more relieved than she'd have preferred. She barely caught what he muttered to himself next. "Makes my life easier."
She ignored it for the time being, looking back at her brother with a raised brow.
"Then it's settled," she said, motioning to him to get up. "We're going to bed." She turned to Sirius and the others before her brother could argue further. "Thank you — all of you — for answering our questions."
Harry looked to Sirius as if he were hoping he might fight to allow him to join, but Sirius half-shrugged. Nessa nodded at him in thanks, though she knew it had not been for her benefit. She'd hurt him by what she'd said, but she wasn't going to apologize for it.
Her brother was not their father, and she despised that Sirius toed the line of misunderstanding that, no matter how much she felt for him. Mrs. Weasley, looking quite proud, beckoned imperiously to all of them. One by one they stood up, and Harry, recognizing defeat, followed them all out the door.