Choices and Consequences

The next morning Harry jumped out of bed, eager to get moving. Despite a little lingering stiffness in his muscles, he felt ready to take on the world.

Even though living at Privet Drive was tolerable without the Dursleys and with plenty of training to occupy him, what he really missed were his friends, and he bubbled with enthusiasm for his visit to Hermione's house that afternoon.

After a few warm-up exercises to loosen up his muscles and a light breakfast, Harry went out into the garden where John soon joined him for their scheduled Potions lesson. Once again John set up a fire for Harry to brew his potion over, and restored the privacy charms that they had employed to prevent any Muggle neighbours noticing their activity.

As they prepared what Harry figured must be a healing potion of some sort, John quizzed him on his reading on the use of blood in potions, and was satisfied with the answers that Harry provided, though he did recommend that Harry study the subject further.

They also continued their previous discussion about ingredient properties, and finally John asked Harry to identify the potion that they had been working on that morning.

"Well, it's a healing potion of some sort, I reckon, since there're ingredients that promote regeneration. None of the ingredients are poisonous in their own right, though I'm not totally certain about their combination, but I'm assuming that it's a potion that's ingested rather than absorbed through the skin or utilised in some other form," he offered.

"Okay, good start, Harry," complimented John, "but I think you should be able to tell what the potion is specifically designed to regenerate - think about the ingredients that you haven't already identified as contributing to the potion properties that you've already covered, and have another guess."

Harry thought through the ingredient list again, mentally noting that he hadn't been able to identify what the powdered human bone, the tincture of arnica and the ginger roots were used for in this particular concoction, though he knew he'd used the latter in some potion or other in his fourth year, when Snape had been goading him about the article in Witch Weekly. Bearing in mind how little attention he'd actually paid to that lesson, he wasn't surprised that he couldn't even remember what potion it was they were supposed to have been brewing that day.

He shook his head. "The only thing I remember about arnica is that it helps relieve bruising, but that could be for almost any healing potion," Harry noted.

"Actually, in this case, the arnica is to help relieve the pain of the bruising that's caused by the effects of the potion, rather than to cure bruising generally," John said, helpfully. "What sort of regeneration do you think might cause severe bruising, Harry?"

Harry reviewed his knowledge of healing draughts from another perspective. "What had he actually taken on the many occasions Madam Pomfrey had dosed him up in the Hospital Wing?" he wondered. Pepper-up potion was definitely out, since there wasn't anything in this potion that would cause the wild steam-out-of-the-ears look that it provided to imbibers, and it didn't contain the powerful stimulants he knew Pepper-up to be made from. Perhaps it was Skele-gro?

Harry reviewed the ingredients he'd used. If the arnica alleviated the bruising that the Skele-gro caused when he re-grew his bones, he dreaded to think how painful it would have been without it. It had been agony at times as he'd re-grown the thirty-three bones in his arm that Gilderoy Lockhart had managed to remove under the pretext of fixing them. He offered this suggestion to John.

"Excellent, Harry. How did you work that out, then?"

Harry explained his thought process, and how he'd worked it out from personal experience, ad described Lockhart's incompetence, to John's disgusted look.

"Bloody prat! He'd be a menace to society, if he weren't so elusive yet so popular."

"Not any more," Harry said with a grin, "he's confined to St Mungo's now," and proceeded to explain how Lockhart had managed to cast a memory charm on himself in the Chamber of Secrets.

When Harry explained about Lockhart's methods for writing his books, John was surprised but not shocked that he hadn't actually done all the things his books claimed. He told Harry that he'd always felt they were exaggerations, and hadn't realised that the stories were actually true, but that Lockhart had inserted himself as the chief protagonist.

"He always was a good self-publicist. So I guess it's not really a surprise," he noted. "I hadn't realised he'd stooped quite so low though."

He had laughed at Harry's description of Lockhart's fate, and knowing the truth about him suggested that it was a fitting result, but then turned has attention back to the Skele-gro.

He explained that the potion was actually licensed for used by a single company and that the specific recipe was a closely guarded trade secret, but that it was fairly easy to create a potion that had similar effects, as they had done that morning. Even though the ingredients in the proprietary product were confidential, John noted that there were ways of identifying whether specific ingredients had been used in a potion, although they didn't work for all ingredients, and didn't provide any clue as to the proportion of ingredients.

John noted that this particular recipe was basically his own version of Skele-gro.

"I've used it on myself in the past and it seemed fairly effective," he said with a chuckle. "It's this sort of thing that you might need to be able to do in future - to create your own potions that replicate the effects of store-purchased ones, but also to be able to invent potions to create specific effects that existing commercial potions don't.

"There are a lot of potions that you might find useful, but that you simply can't buy in Hogsmeade or Diagon Alley because the demand for them is pretty limited and it wouldn't make commercial sense to mass-produce them," John pointed out.

"Some people go to professional Potions masters for individual potions, but that can be really expensive, so it's probably best if you learn to brew all your own - some witches and wizards do, most don't.

"Many prefer to rely on the commercial potions," he continued. "They can't be bothered to brew their own, or perhaps they lack the skill, or are not confident in their abilities to do so, so there's a pretty healthy demand for the mainstream potions. Of course, there are also a number of con-wizards, who try and pass off ineffective or downright harmful potions as legitimate remedies."

This discussion took them up to lunchtime, and as Harry was packing up his potions kit and John was clearing the enchantments, Tonks emerged around the corner of the house so suddenly that Harry though she' apparated straight in.

She sported dark brown hair in a spiky look and wearing jeans and a plain black T-shirt for the occasion to blend in with the Muggles. Harry introduced her to John, and left them talking for a short while as he got showered and changed into clean clothes. He also picked up his new Pensieve and stowed it carefully in an old rucksack of Dudley's along with a change of clothes and a bottle of wine that he'd added to the shopping list he'd given Tonks earlier in the week.

The young metamorphmagus had looked at him strangely when she saw the wine on the list, knowing that he wasn't legally old enough to be drinking alcohol, but accepted his explanation that he wanted to leave it for Mr and Mrs Granger as a token of thanks for allowing Hermione to invite him to their house. She thought this was really sweet of Harry and had picked out a bottle that she said was highly recommended, but wasn't excessively expensive. Of course, Harry had teased her about how she knew so much about wines, but Tonks wasn't so easily riled.

By the time he emerged, John had left and Tonks was sat peacefully on the back lawn, relaxing in the early July sun. With a wicked gleam in her eyes, she tackled him about something she'd heard from John while she'd been waiting.

"Is it true you set fire to Moody yesterday?" she asked eagerly. "Your Mister Christopher was telling me about your little 'experiment' yesterday."

"Well it was Moody's experiment," Harry defended himself, "but yeah, he had my wand in the pocket of his robes when I set it off, accidentally."

Tonks chortled heartily at Harry's explanation.

"That's just classic. I'm going to have some great fun at his expense over this, you realise?"

"Why? Because he got burned?"

"No, because he assumed you weren't a threat and didn't make sure your wand was secured. You should hear him rant on about 'constant vigilance!' and all the excessive precautions he insists that we take when we're out on missions for the Order. It's like being back in Auror training, only without the charisma of the trainers."

"Didn't Moody train you then?

"Nah. He retired a couple of years before I left Hogwarts. Good job really," she added contemplatively. "I'm not sure I would have made the grade if he had been. He's just so paranoid."

Harry nodded. He remembered the excessively long detour Moody had insisted on to get from Privet Drive to Grimmauld Place the previous summer.

"Anyhow, for him to just pocket your wand, rather than put it somewhere safe or where he could keep an eye on it, is totally against Auror procedures. He'd've been the first to yell at us for doing it if he saw us, so it's just so cool that we can call him on it. Of course, he'll insist that in a real-life situation he would have snapped your wand and banished the pieces"

Tonks seemed to be bubbling at the thought of being able to use this against Moody, even if just to get him off her own back. Harry just hoped that Moody wouldn't hold a grudge against him for making him the object of fun, but he figured that the gruff-voiced wizard had seen enough in his lifetime for it not to faze him much.

"Was he upset about it?"

"He was just in his normal grumpy mood when I saw him, but he'd recovered from his burns by that time. He didn't seem to be in any particular pain. He was keen for me to make this journey with you rather than coming along himself though"

"He mentioned that it was a good job he wore flameproof undergarments, or something," Harry noted.

"Urgh!" Tonks pulled a face. "I really don't want to think about Moody's undergarments. If you don't mind, I'd rather think about yours, " she teased. "Are you wearing something decent?"

"Well, I'm not wearing Dudley's cast-offs, if that's what you mean? I've boxers that I got at Gladrags in Hogsmeade last year, if it's any of your business."

Tonks just smirked at him, and chivvied him along as they headed off once again to Little Whinging station. Harry had taken down directions to Hermione's house when he'd spoken to her earlier in the week, and had decided that the easiest way to get there would be on the train into London, take the tube from Victoria to Paddington, and then get another train from there to Banbury, where the Grangers lived.

They chatted quietly on the train journey, not getting into any detail about anything magic-related, since the carriage was about half-full and they didn't want too many strange looks. Tonks asked about John Christopher and what Harry was learning in his lessons, and was pleased to hear that he was making significantly better progress than he ever had with Professor Snape.

"You must have had Potions with him for seven years to get in Auror training, right?"

She nodded.

"Did he actually teach you anything, either?"

She sniggered. "Some, but not much. We mostly kept our heads down in class and got on with it through OWL level, and some of us got together as a study group to get through the exam, but NEWT-level Potions was much better. He actually tried teaching us stuff rather than expecting us to learn it by ourselves."

Eventually the conversation turned to what was going on in the press, and Harry was reminded about Minister Fudge's letter to him the previous day awarding him the Order of Merlin. Tonks was stunned. Even though she'd pointed out to Harry herself that there would be a connection between any award and the forthcoming Ministerial election, she was still surprised that Fudge had actually such an obviously politically motivated tactic.

Harry told her that he wasn't going to accept the award, and that he'd written back already to turn it down.

"I thought you might. You didn't seem to see a point in it before, and I quite agree with you - it's a meaningless thing that just makes those in power feel like they're being seen to be doing something. What did you say?"

Harry passed her a copy of his reply. He was glad that he had made the copy, given the number of people that he'd be talking to about it. If he'd had to repeat what he'd written every time he'd be going blue in the face before long.

Tonks read through the letter carefully, her eyes widening at certain points.

"Damn, that's good," she said finally, looking up from the letter. "I wish I had the opportunity to write a letter like that to Fudge. You were really on form yesterday, what with this and Moody, weren't you?"

Harry chuckled. "Oh hell," he exclaimed suddenly. "I just remembered something else I should have put in the letter. I forgot to mention about all the Death Eaters that Voldemort called to the graveyard."

Tonks looked at him questioningly.

"Oh it doesn't matter," he added, "most of the ones I recognised were picked up when they got caught at the Ministry. It was only Snape, Crouch, Karkaroff and a couple of others that were missing, and the first three aren't exactly a threat any more. I wouldn't have been able to name the rest of them anyway."

Tonks had read Harry's account of Voldemort's rebirth when it was printed in The Quibbler, so she knew exactly what he was talking about, but still didn't understand what he meant in terms of forgetting to include them in his letter to Fudge.

"Well he never believed that they were Death Eaters in the first place," Harry explained, "since he didn't believe my story. When I named them all at the time he just shrugged off the accusations."

"That's hardly a surprise, Harry. One of them, Lucius Malfoy, was probably his largest financial supporter, and another was a direct Ministry employee - Walden Macnair."

"Yeah, well I should have asked what was happening to them and reminded him that I'd implicated them twelve months ago. I wouldn't be surprised if Malfoy gets away without much of a sentence, simply because he's Fudge's mate."

Tonks snorted. "I see it's not just me who's cynical about the way that the Minister runs his office."

She handed Harry's letter back to him and kissed him gently on the cheek. "You've grown up so much, Harry," she said, then leaned down onto his shoulder and promptly fell asleep.

Harry was half-irritated with Tonks for taking the liberty of using him as her pillow, but also kind of amused that she felt comfortable enough with him to do it too. He could only imagine Ron or Neville's reactions had they been in the same situation. He was sure they'd both have been trying to haul Tonks off them, but Harry wasn't particularly bothered by it. He'd been in Tonks's company enough over the past two weeks to understand that it was part of being friends, though he wasn't exactly envisioning letting Ron do the same.

The journey was fairly uneventful for the most part. Harry woke Tonks up just as they were approaching Victoria station, and they managed to traverse the Underground without too much hassle. Even though it was fairly early in the afternoon, London was still busy with tourists and shoppers, so they didn't talk much whilst they were in the crowded tube carriage.

It wasn't long before they were on a train heading out of Paddington Station towards Banbury, and the train was a lot quieter. Harry talked to Tonks a bit about the visit to Hermione's and mentioned that he'd brought his Pensieve. She was quite interested to hear this and in fact suggested that he might share some of his memories of his adventures around Hogwarts if he felt like it, as she'd be quite interested in seeing them, rather than hearing them being described to her like myths or legends.

Harry had intended to show Hermione, Ron and Ginny his memory of the prophecy, but he had also thought about allowing them to look at some of his other memories. He was sure that Hermione would want to see what had happened in the Chamber, and although he wasn't convinced that Ginny would want to re-live that particular occasion, she might find it eased any lingering fears she still had about it to see what happened from another perspective.

"You're staying as well?" he asked her.

"Well of course I am. You don't think I'm just your security from Little Whinging to Banbury, do you? I've got to keep an eye on you all evening," she said, rolling her eyes at Harry's naivety. "I spoke to Hermione about it the other day, and she said I'm just as welcome to share the evening with you, so I'm going to do it that way, rather than shadow you for the whole night. Besides which, I think she's got about a tonne of questions to ask about our appearance together in the Daily Prophet."

"Oh hell," Harry swore, "I hadn't thought about that. I forgot I'd told her I was going to Diagon Alley with you."

"Hermione's a smart witch, Harry. I'm sure she would have figured it out pretty quickly anyhow. There aren't many that Dumbledore would have trusted to accompany you in public, and I sure didn't look like Moody, right?"

"Definitely not," Harry agreed quickly.

"So, we just tell them the truth and let them be sceptical about it. I'm sure Ron or Ginny will have heard something from the twins and be asking, too."

"I can't see Ron being all that curious. He'll figure it's something that Fred and George have made up to wind him up, even if he did see the Prophet. Ginny will probably be asking all sorts of things to try and wind Ron up if anything."

"Yeah, well I'm not getting on her bad side," Tonks insisted. "I've heard she's got a really terrible temper, and has a nasty Bat Bogey Hex to be wary of. I'm sure I'm not her favourite witch right at the moment."

"Oh? Why not?"

"Because of what was in the Prophet. I'm sure she'll have figured it out pretty quickly."

"Why would that upset her?"

"You really don't know much about women, do you, Harry?" Tonks asked rhetorically. "Don't worry about it for now, just relax and enjoy the evening. After all, you're with friends, you've no school to worry about, and you've basically got the day off tomorrow."

Harry looked at her dubiously, but took Tonks at her word. He was looking forward to seeing his friends again, even if had only been two weeks since they had said goodbye to him at Kings Cross.

The train arrived in Banbury about half an hour later, and Harry and Tonks walked leisurely from there to the Granger's house. It was only a fifteen-minute walk, Hermione had said, so they didn't bother taking a taxi as it was such wonderful weather: just a slight breeze cooling the late afternoon sun. The journey from Little Whinging had taken around three hours in total, including the time they'd had to wait at Paddington for the train, and the weather had remained excellent throughout the afternoon.

Arriving at the Grangers', a medium sized but well appointed semi-detached house with a small front lawn that was bordered with hedges and a small flowerbed, Harry rang the doorbell. After a few moments, the door was flung open, and Hermione stood there for a moment with a huge grin on her face, then launched herself at Harry, engulfing him in a breathtakingly tight hug.

"Oh, wow, Harry, it's so good to see you!" she greeted him breathlessly. "Come on in. Hi Tonks, come on in too," she added to the young Auror.

"Hey, it's only been two weeks since you saw him, and you've spoken on the phone since then," Tonks noted at Hermione's enthusiasm.

"He's changed an awful lot in two weeks, Tonks." Hermione stopped as she led the two of them through the house and into the living room. "You wouldn't have had anything to do with that, would you?"

"She might have done," Harry suggested. "I just reckon it's from her falling asleep on me."

Tonks rolled her eyes. Harry obviously hadn't realised the suggestive nature of the comment he'd made, and Hermione's eyes had widened in shock.

"He means on the train from Little Whinging - I fell asleep on his shoulder," she explained to Hermione's relief.

"Yeah, and on the train to London, too," Harry added mischievously.

"So that was you in the Prophet then?" Hermione asked Tonks.

"Of course it was. My head would have been on the block if I'd let Harry run around in London unaccompanied, let alone with some unidentified floozy! Not that he'd have any trouble looking after himself," Tonks added quickly, before Harry interjected to complain about needing a minder.

"Well, I guess you'd better explain that to everyone together," Hermione said, and opened the living room door.

The spacious living room was decorated in warm, welcoming shades of dark red and brown, and had a huge settee and a couple of large comfy chairs that were arranged to face the corner of the room where the television stood. Hermione obviously wasn't the only one in the family who enjoyed studying, since there were two large bookcases that reached from roof to floor dominating one wall, that were filled with a range of elegantly bound encyclopaedias and a huge variety of novels and reference books.

What caught Harry's attention more immediately though was that Ron was curled up in a ball on the settee defending himself from Ginny, who was pounding on him with her fists.

"How dare you!" she was screaming at her brother. "It's absolutely none of your business, who I date or when. I've a good mind to tell Mum what you're up to!"

Harry looked at Tonks, then at Hermione, who looked back at him equally unsure about what to do. Harry cleared his throat tentatively, and Ginny looked up.

"Harry!" She looked back down at Ron. "I was just beating some sense into my brother here," she added, a flush rising to her cheeks.

"That's fine," Harry joked nonchalantly. "It might take a while, so don't let us stop you. We'll just be over here when you're done."

Ginny got off Ron and walked over to Harry, hitting him on the arm. "You git!"

"Hey! Don't start on me!" Harry protested briefly, before Ginny pulled him into a hug.

"So what was it exactly that you were kicking the living daylights out of Ron for?" Harry asked.

Ron pulled himself out of the foetal position that he had adopted while Ginny was pounding on him and answered for himself.

"I wrote to Dean yesterday, and just happened to mention that I didn't think it was suitable for him to be dating Ginny."

Harry took two steps back as he could see Ginny's temper begin to rise once again.

"And it's none of his damn business," Ginny stated vehemently, glaring at her brother with accusing eyes.

"I hope you don't mind, but I'm not going to get involved in arguing about this with either of you," Harry decided. He heard a mutter from behind him that sounded like 'wise man', but wasn't sure if it had been Tonks or Hermione that had uttered it.

"Sorry Harry," Ginny apologised. "I'm sure that's not quite the welcome you were expecting."

Ron and Ginny greeted Tonks as well, though as Tonks had predicted, Ginny seemed a little frosty towards the metamorphmagus. Hermione suggested they move into the dining room where they could all sit around the table together, and Harry offered Ron a hand to pull him up from the floor.

When they'd all settled down and greeted Harry properly, Tonks explained that she was there to help provide some security, and that trigger alarms had been set up around the building in case there were any particular problems, since Harry's vision earlier in the holiday had identified that all of them might be targets.

The protection that the alarms provided was fairly limited, but they would alert the Order to any unexpected magical activity in the area. She explained that similar arrangements had been set up at The Burrow and at the Longbottom house as well, and that Dumbledore intended to discuss the situation with Luna's father when they returned from their Snorkack-tracking expedition.

"Does that mean we have to stay in the house?" Hermione asked dejectedly. "I'd planned for us to go out into town, to be honest."

"No that's fine," Tonks reassured her. "I can't see there being a problem with you being out in public - if there's any significant danger it's much more likely to be here, where any Death Eaters are most likely to find you."

Harry thought about reminding her that they'd faced Death Eaters before, but thought better of it, given the outcome of that particular occasion.

"Good, that's okay then. I thought we'd go out and have a pizza in town, then go to the cinema, if that's alright with everyone else?"

Looking around the table there was a general agreement to Hermione's plan, though Ron wasn't particularly clear about what would happen at the cinema. Hermione promised to explain later.

"Before that though," Hermione continued, "I thought Harry might explain his little photo opportunity in the Daily Prophet the other day. Tonks has already confirmed that it's her in the picture."

"So are you two going out then?" Ron asked bluntly.

"No, nothing like that," Harry explained. "We were just having some fun shopping."

"I've been working on Harry's self-confidence and getting him into a bit of shape," Tonks interjected, poking Harry in the ribs, "and as part of that I joked that he was to treat me like his date for the day when we went into Diagon Alley to do some shopping. Only he took it a little more seriously than I expected."

Ron screwed his face up. "I don't want to know any more details," he insisted.

"No, nothing like that, Ron," Tonks assured him, "but Harry insisted on buying me robes when we were in Madam Malkin's and wanted to 'show me off' to Fred and George, so I pulled a little stunt back on him too."

"I heard about that," Ginny said stiffly. "Fred said you snogged Harry right in front of them."

"Well it was a great way to wind them up," Tonks laughed, "and it served Harry right for treating me like a possession."

Harry shrugged. "You were the one who wanted me to spend my inheritance on you," he reminded her.

"I was only kidding, as you well know, Mister Potter."

"So there's nothing going on between you two?" Hermione asked. "Nothing at all?"

"Nah," Tonks confirmed, and Harry shook his head at the same time. "I've already told him he's not quite my type. I have made sure he's thinking about who he does want as a girlfriend though, so at least I've got him thinking along the right lines. I heard about your little rant at Ron last year," she added, directing the last directly at Hermione.

Hermione blushed, but noted Tonks's point.

Ginny watched the banter between Harry and Tonks with a slightly confused look on her face, and blinked rapidly when Tonks mentioned Ron's name, to re-focus on the conversation. At the same time, Ron stared at the young Auror with his mouth agape, and a few moments passed before he recovered sufficiently to change the subject.

"So what's all this training for then, Harry?" Ron asked in the silence that immediately followed. "I mean, I know you always seem to be a target for You-know-Who's attacks, but you've never had extra training or anything."

"I'll try and explain later if that's alright," Harry suggested. "I bought a Pensieve while I was in Diagon Alley, and it might make more sense if I were to show you, rather than tell you," he added, removing the Pensieve from his backpack to show Ron.

"Wow, that's cool! I thought Pensieves were really expensive though," Ron noted.

"They are, Ron, but I wouldn't worry about it," Tonks advised. "Harry's got enough money not to have to worry about it though. Even if the Prophet was a bit off in terms of how much he spent in Madam Malkin's, it still wouldn't have been much more than a drop in the ocean."

Ron looked half excited for Harry, but half-frustrated as well, knowing that he would never be able to afford luxuries such as a Pensieve, at least until he started earning his own salary.

His mouth worked frantically for a few moments with nothing emanating from it, and his face started to turn a little purple, signs that Harry recognised from living with Uncle Vernon that he was about to explode. He'd hoped that Ron wouldn't get jealous about Harry's money, but it seemed like it was a vain hope.

The explosion never came though, and Harry changed the subject again before the silence became too uncomfortable.

"I thought you might be interested in seeing some of our previous adventures," Harry said to all of them. "I know Tonks has already expressed a desire to have a look at some of them."

To his surprise, Ginny nodded eagerly. "I want to see what really happened in the Chamber," she told them. "I remember so little about it," she added, a little sadly.

Harry looked at her with sympathy. "Are you sure? I thought Hermione and Ron might want to see that, since they missed it the first time around, but I wasn't sure if you'd be happy to relive it."

"I have to, Harry," she said simply. "Besides, I want to see you forcing Lockhart to go down into the Chamber as well," she added with a giggle.

"Well I thought that Ron might also like to see what happened at the end of Third year when we left him in the Hospital Wing and perhaps, if you can stomach it, all of you, to go through the events at the end of the Tri-wizard tournament?"

Hermione looked eager to see the latter, though tinged a little bit with fear, as she recalled what Harry had told them about the events in the graveyard where Voldemort was reborn. All of them agreed that they ought to know first-hand what they were facing since, to date, Harry was still the only one of them that had actually faced up to the Dark Lord.

"Okay, well that's a plan for when we get back - if you feel like it, of course," Harry offered.

Hermione showed them around the house, and explained the proposed sleeping arrangements, which had Harry and Ron in the spare bedroom, and Ginny sleeping on a camp bed in Hermione's room, and Harry remembered the bottle of wine he'd bought for Mr and Mrs Granger, which Hermione took from him with a smile and placed in the fridge.

By that time it was almost six o'clock, and Hermione suggested that they make their way into Banbury to eat.

As with the walk from the station, it only took them a short time to get to Banbury town centre, despite Ron continually stopping to gawk at various technologies that Muggles used in place of magic. He was noticeably impressed by the neon signs that hung in some of the window displays, and kept muttering to himself about how they 'managed to do all this without magic'.

Hermione led them to the local branch of Pizza Hut, where they enjoyed a variety of pizza and salad selections. Ron and Ginny hadn't been taken to many restaurants in the past, since there were fairly few in the wizarding world and those that were well known were at the grander end of the scale, such as 'Rochelle's' in Diagon Alley. The Weasleys couldn't really afford to eat out at such exclusive places very often, though with Mrs Weasley's excellent cooking Harry was sure that they weren't missing a great deal. Still, fast food was fairly uncommon in the wizarding world, and even somewhere like Florean Fortescue's ice cream parlour only had a small variety of savoury snacks to complement the desserts they sold.

At one point whilst they were chatting fairly animatedly, Tonks let slip that Harry had indeed been approved for the Order of Merlin, as the Daily Prophet had intimated.

"I thought that was just the Prophet writing scurrilous rumours again," Hermione said. "I expected that sort of story more likely to be found in The Quibbler."

Harry replied in mock-offence that she obviously didn't have a very high opinion of him, if she thought that the likelihood of him being honoured was so extreme, and the four teenagers and one young witch had a good laugh at that.

"So when's the presentation ceremony going to be held?" Ginny asked him.

"Oh, there isn't going to be one," Tonks answered for him, leaving the question hanging in the air.

"Whyever not?" Ginny observed incredulously. "I can't imagine that Fudge would agree to such a great opportunity for him to be seen 'doing something', then pass up the chance to be involved front and centre of the whole thing, especially since he's up for re-election."

"Well there's not going to be a presentation ceremony because I'm not accepting the award," Harry told them, to a stunned silence.

"WHAT? YOU'RE TURNING DOWN THE ORDER OF MERLIN?" Ron bellowed, whilst the others tried desperately to shush him as the rest of the restaurant fell silent at the raised voice.

"Will you keep your voice down, Ron," Tonks hissed violently. "We're in the middle of a Muggle restaurant. Do you really want to get hauled over the coals for breaking the Statute of Secrecy?"

Ron turned beet red and his anger was bubbling under the surface, partially at being dressed down by Tonks, but also at yet another example of Harry getting preferential treatment. The restaurant's other patrons slowly turned back to their own meals and conversations, though the quintet got some strange looks, and the volume in the room returned to its normal level.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" he demanded of Harry, a little more quietly. "The Order of Merlin is one of the highest honours that wizardkind bestows. Why are you turning it down?"

"Because it's Fudge," Harry responded concisely. "It's just a ploy for me to be seen backing him to be re-elected," he added wearily.

"But it's the bloody Order of Merlin, Harry!" Ron repeated urgently. "Do you know how many people have been awarded the Order of Merlin?"

"Twenty in the last century," Hermione provided, though she sat back in her chair at a glare from Ron who hadn't really been looking for a precise number.

"Exactly," Ron said with a grudging look in Hermione's direction. "That's how much it means. I only know of two wizards still alive who have been honoured with the Order of Merlin: Dumbledore and some Danish Auror who hasn't been seen in years, some bloke called Gardener or something."

"That's really part of my point, Ron," Harry tried to explain. "If it's that important an award, why are they offering it to me? It's just far too convenient.

"Here. Read this." He passed Ron the copy of the letter he'd written back to the Minister, rejecting the award, and watched as Ron's eyes opened wider and wider.

"You sent this to the Minister?" he asked incredulously, getting an elbow in the stomach from Tonks as his voice rose again. A furtive scan of the room confirmed that nobody was paying much attention to them.

At Harry's nod he added "Blimey you really laid it on thick, didn't you?"

"Let's just say that I let him know my opinion,"

"What does it say?" Ginny asked, and Ron handed the letter to her to read for herself.

"Oh, wow," she exclaimed, a few moments later. "That's a great letter, Harry. I never knew you had it in you. I can't believe Dumbledore hasn't pushed harder for Sirius's acquittal. This has just got so much in it," she purred.

"Hmph. Dumbledore wanted to forget about Sirius," Harry complained. "He told me that it didn't matter any more if he was cleared of all the charges since, even though he was dead, those that cared about him knew he was innocent," he finished miserably.

He paused to collect himself at the thought of Sirius, and in the silence that followed, Ginny passed the letter to Hermione for her opinion on it.

"Sometimes I think Dumbledore's too wrapped up in what's going on today than what he needs to do to secure the future," Tonks noted quietly. "But you're right Ginny, It's a great letter."

"So what made you go off on that rant then, Harry?" Hermione asked, having quickly skimmed through the letter.

"It's all connected, isn't it?" he replied. "Ron forgot someone else who's still alive that was awarded the Order of Merlin: Pettigrew."

"Oh! I see."

"It all sort of clicked when Fudge's damn pompous bird flew through the window with the instruction to tear the slip off and send it back promptly. I was so annoyed that he expected me simply to do what he wanted just like that." Harry snapped his fingers. "Tonks pointed out the article in the Prophet to me a couple of days before and it just fell into place."

"I have to say, I didn't realise that you could write such an impressive letter," she admitted.

Harry chuckled to himself. "You should have seen the one I wrote to Dumbledore the day we got back from school," he told them with a wry smile. "I don't think I've ever written something so formal!"

"Well I don't think anyone could accuse you of being impolite to the Minister," Hermione said as she passed the letter back to Harry and he stowed in his pocket.

"I hadn't realised it was possible to be polite and yet so disrespectful at the same time," Tonks joked, shoving Harry half off his seat.

He smiled up at her as he regained his balance. "Should I tell them what happened to Moody?" he asked.

Tonks giggled, a bit of a strange sound to Harry, who hadn't really heard her giggle all that often. She normally acted less girly than that, though he supposed he could say the same for Hermione and Ginny too.

Harry explained the flamethrowing spell that John had taught him, and how it had ended up being a little more powerful than he'd anticipated. Hermione nodded knowledgeably as he explained his problems with controlling the power of the spell and particularly the direction, though even she was impressed when Harry explained that he was actually able to cast the spell without vocalising the incantation.

When it came to describing how Moody had tried to see if he could cast the spell wandlessly as well, Tonks took over, unable to keep from explaining the precautions that Moody should have taken and that he had continually drummed into those in the Order that he was working with, and no doubt into the newly recruited aurors that he'd trained at one time.

"Anyway," Harry explained as he reached the climax of the story, "I gave it a really vicious hand movement like I would have done with the wand, and thought really strongly about the incantation, since I figured that if I was going to be able to cast the spell without my wand it would be really difficult.

"Nothing happened where I expected it to - towards the target on the wall where I was aiming - but Moody yelped like he'd been bitten on the arse and dashed from the room with his robes ablaze!"

All five of them broke down in laughter as they imagined, or in Harry's case remembered, Moody running as fast as he could with his wooden leg and his clothes on fire.

"You cast the spell remotely?" Hermione asked in awe. "That's supposed to be really rare!"

Harry shrugged. "Everything I do seems to turn out that way: survived the killing curse; speak parseltongue; able to cast a Patronus aged thirteen; get entered into the Tri-wizard Tournament. Seems like I'm always marked out to be something different, whether or not I like it," he noted sardonically, with a pointed glance at Ron.

"Hold on a moment," Ron said. "How come Moody's robes got set on fire? Where was your wand pointed? I thought you said he was supposed to have it in sight, pointed away from anything it might affect?" he asked Tonks.

"That's right, he was. Only he didn't - he'd put Harry's wand in his pocket!" Tonks burst out in laughter once again.

"Good job he was wearing his fireproof underwear," Harry chortled.

"Ugh! Don't remind me," Tonks groaned.

The group finished their meal and headed off to the cinema, where Tonks and Hermione picked out a film that they thought all five would enjoy. Whilst Ron might have preferred a more action-based type of film, neither he nor Ginny had any idea of what the films on offer were about. Harry didn't really mind one way or another, so they ended up going to see "Jerry Maguire", with Tom Cruise in the lead role, someone that even the Weasleys had heard of, despite their lack of exposure to Muggle culture.

After the movie, they walked back to the Grangers' in the cool night breeze. Tonks did a quick check on the alarm wards that had been set and found that everything appeared to be fine.

Once back inside, Ron was keen for Harry to talk about why he needed all the extra training, and reminded him that he had promised to explain.

Harry retrieved the Pensieve from his backpack once again and the five of them made themselves comfortable around the dining room table. "I've not used this before, so just bear with me for a moment," he told his friends. "Dumbledore's shown me how it works but he wasn't really showing me so that I could use one myself."

He quickly re-read the instructions to ensure that he was certain of the procedure, then drew his wand. He thought carefully back a few short weeks to when Dumbledore had shown him his own memory of the prophecy, and concentrated on isolating that memory. He placed his wand against his temple and gently pulled away, dragging the silvery spider-silk strands of the memory with his wand and placing them carefully in the shallow stone basin.

"I'm not totally sure how Dumbledore did this," Harry said, turning back to the instruction leaflet and re-reading the next section. He placed his wand on the surface of the thoughts in the Pensieve and silently incanted 'viva memoria' and a ghost-like version of Dumbledore leaped from the basin and prodded a Pensieve in front of himself, with a similar effect.

"Whoa!" Ron exclaimed, sitting back in his seat, and the ghost of Dumbledore conjured up the even flimsier looking ghostly vision of Sybil Trelawney. Harry wasn't sure that the memory of the memory would actually work, but it was almost as clear as the original that Dumbledore had shown him. They all sat back as Trelawney uttered her fateful words, and silence descended upon the room.

"Does that mean ... I mean do you have to..." Ginny broke the silence tentatively. "It's either you or him, isn't it?"

"Pretty much so," Harry confirmed, letting out a 'whoosh' of breath. "That's what Dumbledore reckons anyway, and he's known the prophecy for nearly seventeen years."

He decided that he would keep John's speculation about being an "agent of choice", or whatever it was, to himself, for now. It didn't help explain why he needed the extra training, though Harry was acutely aware that for it even to get to that stage he'd likely need a fair amount of training to get past the Death Eaters before any final battle with Voldemort himself.

"Oh Harry!" she said, getting up from her seat and walking around the table to give him a hug. A few months ago Harry would have felt awkward, but his sessions with Tonks had helped him get over that fairly quickly. He smiled gently and wrapped his arms around her.

"It's alright," he reassured her. "I've no intention of letting him kill me - that's the point of this extra training. Now if I can just get him to take my wand and put it in his pocket, I'm sure I could give him a real surprise!" he added to lighten the mood a little.

Ginny punched him on the arm. "Idiot!"

"Well, yeah, but they say that I can be trained out of that."

"Uh Harry?" Ron asked.

"Yes?"

"How does Dumbledore know that the prophecy refers to you?"

"I assume you mean apart from the fact that I seem to attract trouble wherever I go? Well, to be honest, it might not have been me. There was someone else who was born to parents who had defied the Dark Lord three times, but it looks like when Voldemort killed my parents, that's the part where he 'marked me as his equal', in other words when he gave me this scar," Harry explained, pushing his fringe to one side to remind Ron of the legacy that the Dark Lord had left. He didn't explain that the other person was Neville, but figured they would find out sooner or later.

"But all this stuff about a 'power the Dark Lord knows not'. What's that about?" Hermione asked.

"Maybe it's the ability to draw Godric Gryffindor's sword out of the Sorting Hat," Ron suggested facetiously, though Ginny in particular didn't find that amusing.

"I don't know, Hermione," Harry responded, ignoring Ron's comment. "Dumbledore didn't exactly give me much in the way of detail about it. He talked about some room in the Department of Mysteries where this power is investigated, but then went off on a tangent about how I'd survived Voldemort when he possessed me in the Ministry atrium by thinking about how much I missed Sirius."

Ron winced at Harry's second use of the Dark Lord's pseudonym within a few short minutes.

"V- V-" He took a deep breath. "You-know-Who possessed you?" he asked fearfully, pushing his chair back from the table.

"Dumbledore drove him off, basically. I don't know what else might have caused him to leave so swiftly."

"Can you show us?" Ginny asked gently.

Harry returned the memory of the prophecy to his mind and retrieved another memory, this time one with more action involved.

"I don't think this will work in the same way," Harry told them after consulting the instructions. "You'll need to actually join the memory rather than me being able to project it."

They repositioned themselves so that they could all reach the Pensieve and in turn prodded the memory and looked down into its depths. As Harry had sensed before, when he had accidentally been drawn into Dumbledore's memories of the Death Eater trials, they found themselves looking at the memory, rather than the stone bottom of the Pensieve.

Bellatrix Lestrange raced into the atrium of the Ministry of Magic, casting furtive backward glances over her shoulder as she did.

Just as she reached the exit through the telephone box onto the London streets, the lift made a pinging sound and Harry raced out after her even before the doors had opened fully. Lestrange looked over her shoulder and fired a curse, which Harry dodged, sliding behind the Statue of Magical Brethren. Rather than continue her flight to safety, Lestrange stopped and headed back towards where Harry was hiding, taunting him all the while about Sirius's death.

To the amazement of four of the onlookers, Harry stepped out from behind the statue, his face seething with rage, and cast a Cruciatus curse that knocked Lestrange off her feet.

Seeing this, Harry's friends were stunned. They couldn't believe that Harry had used an Unforgivable curse, even if it was on the Death Eater who had just killed his godfather. Hermione looked at the Harry that stood next to her in fear and no little awe, whilst Ron simply wore a stunned expression. Ginny was the calmest of all of them and just laid a hand on Harry's arm in comfort, and he turned to her and nodded sadly.

They watched as the combatants continued their duel, now with Lestrange having the upper hand, as she circled the statue trying to get a clear shot at Harry while continuing to goad him. When Harry told her that the prophecy was gone, destroyed, she fell into a rage, firstly in disbelief and then in fear, as she attempted to summon it from him.

Finally Voldemort appeared, and his terrible snake-like face with gleaming red slit eyes were as horrifying as any of the previous scenes Harry's friends had witnessed. Dumbledore also appeared and began to use parts of the statue, conjuring them and animating them to take hits from the Dark Lord's curses as the two of them duelled, the Headmaster's calm demeanour and soothing words seeming to get on the nerves of the snarling Voldemort.

Finally, his options seemingly exhausted having sent yet another killing curse at Dumbledore, he broke into Harry's mind and spoke through Harry himself, taunting Dumbledore to kill Harry if, as he had said, 'death is nothing'.

His companions couldn't see what Harry had been going through at this point, the agony of the possession that he felt and feeling as though all he needed was release from the pain, even unto death, but they could se his face wrenched in pain as those emotions filtered through into Harry's mind, thinking that he would soon be reunited with his godfather. Suddenly, the possession ended and Harry fell flat on his face, shivering in relief.

The memory ended there and the five of them were transported back to the Granger house, where three teenagers and one young Auror looked at Harry with a combination of sympathy, fear and awe.

Tonks was the first to speak and, surprisingly, she didn't even touch on what they had all just witnessed.

"Something's wrong!" she said, alarmed. She jumped to her feet and drew her wand ready for action, all signs of her characteristic clumsiness disappearing. "The alarms have been tripped!"