Choices and Consequences

He was rudely awoken several hours later by a persistent knocking at his door. The knocking grew louder and louder, and Harry was tempted to ignore it and go back to sleep.

Despite his protestations to the contrary to Mrs Weasley the previous evening, he was still recovering from his ordeal, and he could have done with a few hours longer in bed.

Grumbling, he pushed his covers aside, wincing at the cold air that blasted across his body and mentally cursing himself for not closing the window before he'd gone to sleep.

"Who's there?" he asked grumpily.

The door was pushed open and Ron stuck his head around the doorframe.

"It's me!" he said enthusiastically. "Are you coming down for breakfast?"

Harry made an incoherent grunt at Ron's question.

"Yeah. Be down in a bit, mate."

"Hurry!" Ron urged. "We're waiting for you so we can open our presents!"

"Gah!" Harry responded.

He'd forgotten that it was Christmas. It explained Ron's excitement though, especially since he was normally the last to be up and about during the holidays.

"How old are you?"

"Aw, come on, Harry! Don't be a spoilsport. I know you never had much of a Christmas with the Dursleys," Ron noted, cajoling him into a semblance of humour.

Harry grinned. He couldn't help reacting to Ron's attitude, it was so infectious.

"I'll be right down," he relented. "Woe betide anyone coming between you and food."

"Oh I've already eaten," he replied. "I wasn't going to wait for you for that!"

Harry reached back and grabbed a pillow, which he threw in Ron's direction, but the youngest Weasley boy was too quick for him and had ducked back out of the door in plenty of time.

"You're out of practice!"

"Wait until I get back into shape," Harry warned as Ron cautiously stuck his head back into the bedroom. "I know just who to use for my demonstrations in the DA now!"

"Okay, okay!" Ron backed off. "Just get yourself downstairs, will you?"

Harry levered himself out of bed as Ron closed the door and thundered off down the stairs at great speed.

He only took a few minutes to wash and dress, worried that he was making everyone wait for him, and dashed down the stairs to the kitchen.

Mr and Mrs Weasley were sitting calmly at the breakfast table sipping at cups of tea, and Harry could hear Ron's shouts of joy coming from the living room.

"I'm not sure whether you should grab a cup of tea and wait for Ron to calm down, or go and join him," Mr Weasley told him with a resigned but contended sigh as he settled his teacup down onto its saucer. "It's the same every year you know - Ron's always hyperactive on Christmas morning."

Harry grinned, remembering previous Christmases they'd shared, in Gryffindor Tower and Grimmauld Place - though he did recall that one year it was Hermione who had woken them before Ron had the chance to.

"I think I'll join him," he said with a smile.

He poked his head round the door of the living room, only to be met with a shower of confetti that fluttered around his head and settled in his hair, before disappearing.

"Merry Christmas, Harry!"

Shouts of joy greeted him, and he was accosted by Fred and George, who ruffled his hair and bundled him to the ground before he could react.

"Bloody hell you two!" he groaned from somewhere under Fred's armpit. "What are you doing here so early in the morning?"

"It's Christmas tradition!" George informed him as he clambered back to his feet, to the sound of a raspberry blown by Ron, who Harry now noticed had an extremely red face and was blowing his cheeks out heavily. He also had green hair.

"Yeah! Time to abuse ikkle Ronnikins!" Fred agreed. "If you're going to be part of a Weasley family Christmas you don't get of lightly either!"

Fred reached out and grabbed one of Harry's legs from under him and laughed as he fell to the floor, the thick carpeting softening the blow. He kicked out and the twins stood back, giving him time to get to his feet.

"You two better watch out!" Ginny noted from where she was curled up on the sofa, her legs drawn up under her body as she watched their antics warily. "He won't forget."

"What? Harry here?" Fred began.

"He wouldn't harm us-" George continued.

"-not his favourite business partner-"

"-purveyor of finest merchanise."

"Which we happen to have been using all over Hogwarts," Ginny interrupted before the twins could really get into a flow. "Who do you think sets all these things up? It's not just you producing the materials, you know."

"Harry!"

"Chum! Mate!"

"Friend of ours-"

"-munificent benefactor!"

The twins backed away from him slightly and bent down on their knees in front of him together.

"Please forgive us!" they chorused, their faces turned up to Harry in beatific innocence that made Ron snort from behind them.

"Do you even know what 'munificent' means?" Ginny asked.

"Sister dear!"

"You wound us!"

"Yeah, right," Harry chuckled, rolling his eyes. "Get up you two!"

"Are we forgiven?" Fred wanted to know.

"I'll take it under consideration," he decided. "It depends what I find among my presents," he added with a grin.

George jumped immediately to his feet and started rummaging through the pile of presents that was stacked underneath the overladen Christmas tree. Eventually he pulled out a small package and stowed it in a pocket with a theatrical wipe of the hand across his brow.

"Clown!" Ron grunted at his brother as he started dealing the presents out amongst them.

"Wait for Mum and Dad, Ron!" Ginny exhorted. "You can't start opening your presents until they're here."

Ron looked around. "Where are they, anyhow? They're normally just as eager as us to get started."

Mr Weasley poked his head around the living room door and was immediately showered with confetti, just like everybody else.

"We're waiting for you lot to calm down," he said with a grin. "Your old Dad can't keep up with you boisterous lot anymore."

"Come on, come on," came Mrs Weasley's voice from behind him, as she pushed them both into the room, to be doused in the charmed confetti herself. She sent a warning glare at the twins, whose wide-eyed stares hadn't fooled her at all, and dragged her husband across to the sofa where they sat down next to Ginny and watched Ron hand out the pile of presents.

Some time later, they all sat around and took a deep breath. Mrs Weasley had brought in some mince pies at one point while they were busy unwrapping presents and they all sat back with smiles on their faces. Harry had rarely known such a moment of contentment, and basked briefly in the warmth and loving nature of the family that surrounded him. Even Fred and George were quiescent as they huddled together over a list of ideas for new products that Harry and Ron had given them.

Off to one side, Mr Weasley was gathering together the Muggle toolkit that Harry had bought him, whilst Mrs Weasley was busily knitting away. Ginny had joked that she was already starting on next year's Weasley Christmas jumpers, but was quietened when George commented that it was matching scarves for everybody and received a smack to the head with the knitting needles for his impertinence.

Harry was proudly wearing his jumper, once again in green but with a snowy owl on the front that looked like Hedwig. He was sitting on the floor in front of the sofa, leaning back contentedly as Ginny absently played with his hair.

Ron had snickered at the little domestic scene, but after receiving a glare from his sister hadn't said anything about it and concentrated on avoiding the ever-present threat that the twins posed.

Ron had, as in previous years, given him sweets from Honeydukes, but Harry didn't mind that at all, since he had done exactly the same for Ron. Ron's current silence was explained by the large chunk of nougat he had recently bitten off.

Outside, the snow had begun to fall again and, although it hadn't built up any further than before, Mr and Mrs Weasley noticed it and fussed around, making sure they had enough food and warm clothing, just in case they were snowed in, as they moved into the kitchen and bustled around preparing dinner.

Of course, having access to the Floo network meant that it would never be a serious concern, though if there was likely to be a prolonged cold snap, Harry wondered if the merchants in Diagon Alley and elsewhere would actually be fully stocked.

He remembered how cold and hungry he had been when he had been snowed in at the Dursleys and the electricity had been cut off. Aunt Petunia had panicked as she realised that she couldn't get to the shops, and they'd been left to eat tinned soup that Harry had been required to heat over a small camping stove that Uncle Vernon dug out of the garage and which had seen little prior use.

Dudley, who'd been about eight at the time, had been more upset that he couldn't play the new computer games that his parents had bought him for Christmas or listen to his radio in his bedroom, and had thrown a tantrum that had haunted Harry for days.

Fortunately it had only been a matter of six or seven hours before the power was restored and they hadn't needed to raid the depths of Aunt Petunia's cupboards for tinned goods.

"Are Bill and Charlie coming over?" Harry asked Mrs Weasley at one stage.

Her face clouded a little, as though remembering something annoying.

"They normally make it for Christmas dinner when they are in the country," she said with a fond smile, "but I'm not sure this year."

"Charlie's on a mission for the Order," Mr Weasley added to Harry's surprise, making his wife frown at the reminder. "He may not be able to make it. He was supposed to pop in last night, but Dumbledore mentioned that he hadn't reported back from whatever job it was."

"And Percy?"

Mr and Mrs Weasley shared a concerned look, as though they didn't want to talk about it.

"He dropped our presents off a few days ago," Mr Weasley started, "when he thought nobody would spot him. The boys haven't exactly forgiven him, yet."

"Too right!" Ron growled. "He might have apologised to you and Mum, but not to anyone else!"

"I wish you'd give him another chance, Ron," Mrs Weasley pleaded. "He's your brother, after all!"

Ron harrumphed a little and went back to reading the latest copy of Quidditch Quarterly.

"Was that your present from Hermione, Ron?" Fred asked with a sly grin.

"Er, yeah," Ron responded with something of a flush about his cheeks.

"Aww, poor Ronnikins, all embarrassed about a present from Hermione!" George teased. "Isn't it sweet?"

"Um, George-" Harry tried to interrupt, but it was too late.

The blush on Ron's face had turned an ugly beetroot purple and he stood up and hurled the magazine in the direction of the twins then stormed out of the room.

Fred and George looked at each other in confusion.

"Boys!" Mrs Weasley warned.

"We didn't do anything!" Fred protested.

"Honest, Mum!" George concurred.

"You know how sensitive he is about Hermione, boys. You were here when he got upset over the summer," Mr Weasley said, the unusual seriousness on his face a strange expression to Harry, who'd rarely seen him upset or angry.

The twins' faces dropped in guilty realisation.

"We were only teasing," George half-apologised. "We didn't mean any harm."

"Well it's time you stopped," his mother said with finality. "I don't want you spoiling Christmas. It's supposed to be a happy, family occasion."

"Now, let me get dinner started - you'll all be going hungry otherwise - and don't let me hear any more from the two of you," she added. "In fact, you should go and apologise to Ron now."

Fred looked at his brother with chagrin, then they hauled themselves up and tramped out of the living room and up the stairs, with Mrs Weasley eyeing them hawkishly all the way before she rose from the couch herself and bustled into the kitchen.

Harry sighed. He'd hoped Ron had gotten over his jealousy, but clearly that wasn't the case.

"I know, Harry. Don't worry," Mr Weasley told him. "Ron needs to deal with it in his own way though."

"Ron needs a good sh- snogging, that's what Ron needs," Ginny opined from behind Harry. "He just doesn't know it though."

Harry twisted his head to look round at his girlfriend.

"Is that a goal for next term?" he asked mischievously.

Ginny snorted. "Not for me," she said with a chortle. "Maybe we can get Hermione to plot something with her dormmates though."

"That doesn't sound like Hermione," Harry noted.

"Yeah, but maybe if it gets Ron off her back she'll think it's a good idea."

Harry leaned back against the sofa with a slight smile on his face.

Dinner wasn't quite as boisterous as it might have been. Fred and George were still under their mother's watchful eye and actually contrived to behave themselves, whilst Ron still looked a little surly.

Mrs Weasley had cooked up a sumptuous feast though, with huge platters of turkey breast and drumsticks, and all the traditional Christmas trimmings.

Harry laughed as the Weasley men passed the brussel sprouts around, each pretending to take a couple, but actually leaving them all on the plate.

"Come on, boys!" Mrs Weasley chided them. "Eat up your greens."

Everyone responded dutifully in the affirmative, but Harry noticed that none of them made a move to add any sprouts to their plate.

Bill turned up a few minutes before they were called through to the kitchen to eat, and Harry surrendered his position on the sofa next to Ginny to him, to let him catch up with his family, but there was no sign of Charlie, and Mrs Weasley looked more nervous and fretful as the afternoon wore on.

She had taken to checking the kitchen clock every ten minutes, but the hand with Charlie's face on it never moved away from "Mortal Peril", where it had rested for a number of days.

In the end, after dinner had been eaten and the dishes cleared away, she insisted on calling Dumbledore through the Floo network, to find out what had happened.

Mister Weasley had tried to reassure her that if there was any news, somebody would have told them, but his wife was so flustered that she didn't even accept his calming words.

It only took a few moments to connect the Floo to Dumbledore's office, and the family sat around the kitchen table waiting for her to talk to the Headmaster. They couldn't hear his words, but it was clear from Mrs Weasley's reaction that he didn't have good news for her.

If she'd been nervy before hearing from Dumbledore, she was downright hysterical afterwards, and it took the combined efforts of Mister Weasley and Bill to calm her down enough to pull her away from the fire and into an armchair with a cup of tea.

Moments later, there was a knock at the door and Ron opened it to find Dumbledore standing there.

"Is Molly okay?" he asked, pushing his way into the kitchen and through to the living room where she was nervously trying to drink her tea, though it seemed that she was spilling quite a lot of it down her front.

He placed a hand on her head and cast a wandless calming charm that relaxed her considerably.

"Arthur," he said, "I suggest you put her to bed. She's going to need some rest and to calm down.

Mister Weasley helped his wife up the stairs to their bedroom and returned to the living room, where everyone had now congregated, seated in a semi circle that faced the door.

"What's going on, Albus?" Mr Weasley asked. "Why is Molly so upset?"

Harry looked on curiously as Professor Dumbledore took a deep breath.

"I'm sorry, Arthur, I didn't want to spoil your holiday, but Molly was insistent on knowing where Charlie is.

"I'm afraid he's been captured, Arthur," he said with a sad look in his eye.

A gasp went up around the room.

"He was supposed to report in yesterday - Sturgis Podmore went to relieve him from his shift, but couldn't find him. His backpack was there, but he'd disappeared. I'm sorry, Arthur."

Dumbledore's head bowed low in defeat.

The one person that they had rested their hopes was unable to rectify the situation, and he looked a forlorn and broken figure as a result, a disheartening sign to those around the room who saw him as the bastion of light, defeater of evil.

"I don't understand," Ron said, scratching his head. "If he was missing yesterday, why didn't you tell us?"

Dumbledore sighed.

"I didn't want to ruin your Christmas by upsetting you," he told them. "He was arrested by the Ministry and I've been over there all day trying to negotiate his release."

"But you weren't able to?" Mister Weasley's voice trembled as he spoke, but it was clear from his tone that he knew the answer.

"No. Regrettably not."

"So, what are you doing about it, Professor?" Harry asked, still a little annoyed at the Headmaster's easy dismissal of his visions about the Malfoys.

"I've tentatively come to an agreement with Minister Fudge, but I need to call a meeting of the Order to seal it," he replied.

The Weasleys and Harry looked at each other, but were unable to form any coherent questions for Dumbledore.

"I'll be in touch very shortly to let you know when I've arranged the meeting for."

He looked at each of them to see if they had any final questions but, seeing the family mostly gobsmacked, sighed once more and turned to the door.

Everybody who could be was at the Order meeting that evening. As Dumbledore looked around the room, the gaps were glaringly obvious to him, particularly those that should have been filled by the Order members that had been arrested.

They sat in a semi-circle in front of him, from Severus Snape at the far left - closest to the emergency Portkey back to Hogwarts that the Headmaster had set up for him - to Fred and George Weasley, closest to his right hand, currently in a muted discussion together as they had been ever since they had entered and seen the prevailing mood.

That mood was sombre. Arthur and Molly Weasley were still worrying about Charlie's capture - Dumbledore had explained that he had been arrested while on an Order mission hadn't gone into any great detail about his agreement with the Minister, knowing that he would have to do so for the entire Order this evening.

Kingsley Shacklebolt and Nymphadora Tonks also looked stressed, and huddled together to talk when they first entered. Dumbledore imagined from their body language that the Head of the Auror Division had already spoken to them, and that the outcome had not been pleasant. Tonks in particular looked a little shell-shocked, her spiky purple hair reflecting the stark look in her eyes that made her look both upset and numb.

Once everyone had arrived he began the meeting.

"Good evening all. I'm sorry to say that we aren't meeting under the most auspicious of circumstances," he began. "I met with the Minister this afternoon and he presented me with a situation that places us all in difficulty."

He spent the next half hour explaining the dilemma that Fudge had left him with and concluded with an apology to those assembled for putting them in that position, and asked for their thoughts.

Molly had been holding her tears in, but now that he had finished his explanation, she started bawling, and insisting that Dumbledore do something to save Charlie.

"You've got to save him, Professor! Please!" she cried, and Arthur moved his seat round so that he could comfort her.

"Obviously this isn't just about those that have already been arrested," Kingsley spoke up as Molly's sobs died down a little.

"We are all at risk, if what the Minister said is true - we would all be fugitives, just as Sirius was last year. Would there be much point in the Order continuing if every time we stepped outside the door, we were at risk of being execution? You weren't prepared to risk Black last year under those circumstances, Albus.

"I'm not sure, anyway, whether I will be of much use to the organisation any longer - I've been placed on probation in the Auror corps as a result of being reported as a member of the Order," he added.

"At least you've still got your job!" Tonks burst out angrily. "Some of us got our arses fired for it," she spat.

Tonks's words triggered the floodgates as the arguments started about what should be done. Dumbledore let them continue for a while, but it was soon clear that nothing productive was coming forth, merely finger-pointing and blame-laying and he had to intervene.

"Please." Dumbledore held his hand up to calm the tempers on display. His voice was enough to silence the majority, though Molly Weasley was still arguing with the twins about something.

"Molly, hush, please."

Once the room was silent, he continued.

"Whilst I'm sure you all have opinions on the matter, I'm convinced that my only option is to accept the offer that Minister Fudge put before me. I must disband the Order," he said with regret.

"No, Albus, you mustn't!"

Alastor Moody was apparently the lone dissenting voice, or at least the only one unafraid to be.

"The fight must continue," he insisted. "I didn't come out of retirement to quit as soon as the Ministry set its beady eyes on us."

"How can you say that?" Molly interrupted hysterically. "My boy is sat in those Ministry cells and they're threatening to kill him, and you just stand there and insist we carry on as normal! You're a monster!"

"Molly, please!"

Dumbledore tried to intervene to calm her down, but Moody wasn't taking any of her dramatic weeping and wailing at him.

His magical eye revolved in his head as he surveyed the room and turned to face her, while all the while she clung tightly to her husband, who attempted vainly to reassure her.

"You knew when you joined the Order that you or a family member could die as a result of standing up to fight against Voldemort."

He paused as he had to wait for the reaction to the Dark Lord's name to die down, and glanced contemptuously at those who'd been frightened by his utterance.

"Do you no longer think you should stand up and be counted? Do you no longer believe in fighting the evil that is upon us? When you joined you were asked to make sacrifices, to be prepared to put lives on the line. What has changed?"

"Why do you think I tried to stop them all joining?" Molly screamed, standing and jabbing a finger into Moody's chest. "Bill, Charlie, Fred, George - they're all members now! Don't you think about how it's going to affect me? The stakes are too high! I suppose you'll want Ron and Ginny to join next!"

She dissolved into hysterical sobbing and Arthur pulled her back down into her seat, where she turned and buried her face in his chest.

"I'm sorry Alastor," Dumbledore apologised, trying to draw Moody's attention away from Molly Weasley who he was glaring at with a fair deal of anger. "When I formed the Order I didn't expect the Ministry to take this approach - we're not ready to work as an illegal organisation, fighting totally outside the law and against the Ministry's Aurors. We don't have the resources to do it."

He turned to Arthur and Molly, sadness in his face.

"Your children are old enough now to make their own decisions. They might still be your children, but they are adults now and you have to respect the decisions they make," he warned gently.

"We expected them to die fighting Death Eaters, not to be executed by the Ministry though, Albus," Arthur Weasley said sadly, his wife's face still hidden in his shoulder.

"I realise that. That is one of the reasons I have come to this decision," Dumbledore said, and removed a golden ring from the thumb of his left hand, wincing slightly as he eased it past the knuckle.

He conjured a silver-coloured bowl in front of him and dropped the ring into it, then muttered a few words while holding his wand over the bowl.

A bright flare came out of the end of his wand and settled into the bowl, and he stood up and looked each member of the Order in the eye in turn, then intoned formally:

"As the leader of the Order of the Phoenix, I hereby release each and every one of you from your vows."

A spark of electricity seemed to flit around the room, a blue lightning that flickered and flashed, illuminating the room brightly.

It seemed to stop flashing for a moment, then engulfed Dumbledore in it's bright light.

A gasp went up around the room, but he seemed unaffected and the light left him and sparked across to Fred Weasley.

It moved quickly from person to person, bathing each in the brilliant blue glow before moving on, then, after it had settled on all the room's occupants, it shot off through the ceiling, before returning almost immediately to the bowl on the floor.

As the spark hit the ring in the bowl, the whole room lit up again, and the colour of the light changed from the brilliant blue to a soft gold that dimmed the illumination and made everyone peer through the sudden gloom.

Then the bowl exploded.

Fortunately, it was only a small explosion and, if anything, Fred and George looked a little disappointed at the muted sound, glancing at each other and shaking their heads slightly. If they were disappointed, Moody was annoyed though.

"I can't believe you are abandoning the fight, Albus!" he growled, his good eye flashing angrily, almost matching the intensity of its magical compatriot.

"I didn't go through the first war with Voldemort to quit, and I'm not quitting now. You should be ashamed."

He looked around the room.

"All of you!

"Albus, you're caving in to the Ministry's demands. Where's your power gone? Where's the man who told us to do what's right rather than what's easy?"

Dumbledore had the good grace to look a little shamefaced at Moody turning his words against him, but the grizzled veteran hadn't finished.

"Shacklebolt - I'm surprised at you, too. More concerned about your job than insisting on doing what your job should be - stopping Death Eaters."

He looked around the room. "You too, Tonks. I thought you were tough. You've even less to lose than Shacklebolt now they've sacked you anyway.

"You've all disappointed me," he noted, his magical eye surveying each of them in turn.

"Alastor, please settle down," Dumbledore implored as he bent over and picked up the remnants of the bowl, examining the ring and dusting it off before placing it carefully back on his thumb. "You're disturbing everyone."

"Aye. As it should be."

"The Order is no longer the appropriate vehicle to take this forward - surely you can look at it that way?"

"Then we must act as individuals, whether or not we're concerned for our kin," Moody said, pointedly looking at Arthur and Molly.

"You'd best make sure that our 'Agent of Choice' is properly prepared," he added to Dumbledore. "And if you think I'm leaving that to you alone, you've another thing coming."

A muted muttering went around the room, speculating what Moody was talking about.

Dumbledore willed Moody not to go any further, he placed the last vestiges of hope he had that the ex-Auror wouldn't say anything about Harry, and reached out with his mind to try and convince him not to.

"Get out, damnit, Dumbledore!" Moody snarled, feeling the tendrils of thought that entered his mind.

"You all need to know - you can't make your choices without knowing."

"No, Alastor!"

"Yes. The prophecy is specific enough."

"Prophecy?"

"What are you on about?"

"What's this?"

"What prophecy?"

The questions around the room were immediate and demanding, and a number of people were on their feet.

"Is this what we were supposed to be defending last year?" someone asked, though Dumbledore couldn't make out who had framed the question through the general hubbub that Moody's words had provoked.

He sighed and addressed his words to the room.

"Calm down please, everyone," he requested quietly.

"Are you going to tell them, or am I?" Moody asked with a low growl.

"I'd really rather you didn't, Alastor," Dumbledore pleaded, "but I don't suppose I have a great deal of choice."

"It's their right to know; all the more now you've chosen to take the easy path."

"Very well then," he sighed defeatedly. "Please be seated everyone."

He waited a moment for everyone to calm down and return to their seats, then produced a Pensieve from under his robes and placed it on the table next to him.

"Please listen carefully," he instructed, then tapped his wand on the stone basin and it disgorged its contents: the sight of Sybil Trelawney completing her interview for the post of Divination Professor and her subsequent prophetic words.

There was a moment of stunned silence as those who hadn't heard the prophecy before, the vast majority of them, tried to assimilate what it meant.

Fred Weasley was the first to speak.

"This means Harry, doesn't it?" he asked. "That's why all the protection for him and why it's him that always seems to end up being on the receiving end of all the crap that happens, right?"

Dumbledore nodded, feeling rather defeated. He'd had a hell of a bad day and things didn't seem to be getting much better.

"What? No way!" Molly yelled, momentarily stunned out of her own despair.

"How can you do this to the poor boy? Isn't it bad enough that he lost his parents and had to suffer those untrustworthy relatives of his? You can't make him be responsible for this, too!"

She broke down in tears once again and Arthur pulled her to one side and slowly escorted her out of the room to calm down, his arm around her shoulders as he murmured vague reassurances to her in an attempt to calm her down.

Dumbledore didn't have any immediate response to Molly's outburst, and the meeting began to break up spontaneously as small groups got together to talk about what they had heard.

Bill, Fred and George Weasley were huddled together in one corner and a group of people surrounded Minerva McGonagall in another. Snape sat by himself, apparently still partially disgusted at the level of attention that the destiny of the Boy Who Lived was receiving, but also aware that there was nothing he could do about it.

Meanwhile, Kingsley broke off from a quiet word with Moody and was looking at Dumbledore with a question in his eyes.

"Yes?"

"So exactly what training is he getting to help him then?" the bald Auror asked. "I'm assuming you've taken steps to provide him with help?"

"He's getting enough for now," Dumbledore replied. "I've got a couple of specialists that I hired from overseas to teach him some ... particular ... skills, and Alastor is helping out as well. I can't say exactly what, since they have gone a little beyond my initial instructions."

Moody still looked a bit annoyed at Dumbledore. "Yeah he's got enough to be going on with for now," he grunted, "but it would have helped to have given him some training years ago."

Kingsley's eyes widened at the implication. "He had no training when he was younger?" he asked incredulously.

"To my regret, I may have made mistakes concerning Harry's life when he was younger."

"He's only fifteen, damnit Albus!" Moody rebuked him. "How many mistakes can you afford to make with him?"

Kingsley placed a hand on Moody's arm. "But you're training him now, yes?"

"Damn right I am. Kid's plenty powerful and realises what he's got to do, but he still needs guidance. He's still got plenty of potential for development though. Hopefully that'll be enough." Moody directed these last words at Dumbledore, who flinched slightly.

None of them had noticed Tonks joining them.

"Look what he's been through though - it's hardly a surprise that he's coping now. He's already defeated V-V-Voldemort five times," she pointed out.

Kingsley raised his eyebrows. "Five times?"

"Well you know about two, right?"

"Last year, and as a baby. Sure."

"Well there was the time in the first year when he denied him access to a Philosopher's Stone; then when he defeated Slytherin's monster in the Chamber of Secrets below Hogwarts; and when the Dark Lord was resurrected, he faced him down in a duel."

Dumbledore didn't think that Kingsley's eyes could have become much wider as Tonks mentioned each of Harry's past escapades, and was momentarily flustered when she wandered off and left him to explain.

"Anyway, he's tougher than he looks," Moody offered after Dumbledore had dismissed Kingsley's request for an explanation by suggesting it would have to wait for another day.

"He is," Dumbledore confirmed. "As much as I wish he didn't need to be.

The mood was mixed as the former Order members left Grimmauld Place. Some were still shocked at the Ministry's interference and Dumbledore disbanding the Order; others were still struggling to believe that they were expecting to rely on a fifteen year old boy to save the world; yet others, including Molly Weasley, had their own fears and worries - about their families, their jobs and their own lives and found it difficult to comprehend anything with all this thrust upon them.