Promises Fulfilled

Promises Fulfilled

Chapter Six

Untitled

The next morning, a fierce rain pounded against the aged windows of Number Twelve Grimmauld Place, causing the shutters to rattle noisily on their rusty hinges and the dusty glass to shiver in their frames. It was darker and colder than it normally was and the house seemed to creak and groan in the wind. The large bay window in the drawing room was shut tight; the hangings open to reveal the dark clouds that hovered ominously over Britain.

Harry, Hermione, Ron, and Ginny sat in the drawing room, layered up in their jumpers and scarves; Ginny was wearing a pair of horridly yellow, shag earmuffs. Hermione sat on the window seat, wrapped in a woolen blanket with a book propped up on her lap as Crookshanks dozed lazily by her feet. Harry and Ron were sprawled out on the floor amongst quills, parchment, and ink bottles, trying desperately to complete an excruciatingly long Potions essay (Explain the likes and differences between the Draught of Peace and a basic Calming Potion) for their least favorite professor while Ginny worked feverishly on an incomplete Transfiguration paper in the corner of the room.

"I'm telling you," argued Ron irritably, "that you add lacewings, not Hellebore!"

"And I'm telling you," Harry replied, "that you use two drops of Hellebore, instead of lacewings! Trust me! I've messed up this potion before!"

They glared at each other for a moment.

"Hermione!" both boys chorused in unison; she looked up, annoyed, from her book.

"What is it now?" Hermione asked.

"After adding powdered moonstone to a Draught of Peace, don't you add lacewings and not Hellebore?" Ron asked, eager to prove Harry wrong.

"Well," Hermione began, sitting up a bit straighter at the thought of her intelligence actually being needed for something important and not illegal. "After you add the moonstone, you stir the solution three times counterclockwise before--"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. We have that all ready," Ron said impatiently; Hermione huffed and turned back to her book.

"Just so you know, Ron, Harry was right," Hermione said; Harry grinned triumphantly. "You add two drops of syrup of Hellebore, but only after you let the potion simmer for seven--"

"Thank you!" both boys replied in unison, going back to their papers.

"Men," Hermione muttered irritably under her breath.

The day progressed slowly. Ron and Harry caught up on homework while Ginny soon joined Hermione in reading a book silently. The rain pounded against the windows, creating a rhythm that made the occupants of the room feel sleepy and sluggish after a while. Ron fell asleep on his Astronomy chart that he had just completed and Harry dozed off on page 583 of A Wizard's Brief Guide to Goblin Rebellions and Their Outcomes, page 584 fluttering whenever he would breathe. Hermione's head lolled onto her shoulder while Ginny lay sprawled out on the couch; both were sleeping soundly.

At around two in the afternoon, Mrs. Weasley bustled in with parcels and bags filling her arms. The door had been flung open so roughly that it ricocheted off the wall with a loud bang, startling Ron out of his sleep; he had a large ink stain of the constellation Aquarius on his right cheek. Lupin walked in shortly after her, also carrying some bags in one arm while the other held his wand that was levitating a tray of sandwiches and hot chocolate. Hermione jerked out of her slumber violently, hitting her head on the side of the window while Ginny sat up, looking bleary-eyed and confused. Harry was in the process of peeling a page (in the chapter Goblins Join in Unity for Equality in Georgetown--The Fifteenth of Sixty-Two Failed Attempts in History) off the side of his face as Hermione rubbed the back of her head with a small wince; Ron scrubbed at the stain on his face with the sleeve of his robe.

"I hope the lot of you haven't been sleeping the day away while I was gone!" Mrs. Weasley said, observing the sleepy looks of the four teens.

"You were gone?" Ron asked; Mrs. Weasley glared at him and pulled out a handkerchief to wipe the ink off her son's face.

"Where'd you go, Mum?" Ginny inquired, rubbing her eyes with her hands while Mrs. Weasley cleaned Ron's (by now, very red) face.

"Why, to pick up your school things of course! Can't have you all going to school with no books or quills or parchment, now can I?" Mrs. Weasley replied, pulling away once the star system could no longer be seen on Ron's raw cheek.

"Why couldn't we have gone with you?" Ginny asked.

Mrs. Weasley's gaze switched from her daughter to Harry, and then to Ron and Hermione. It was obvious that she was thinking that it would be an unwise move to bring them all out in the open. All those Death Eaters had seen their faces and all they had to do was grab one of them in the crowded streets of Diagon Alley and it was all over. Harry kept his head down, scratching behind his right ear while Ron fingered a cigarette burn in the tattered carpet. There was a heavy silence.

"I hope you all don't mind ham."

Everyone's attention went to Lupin who was standing behind Mrs. Weasley, pleasant smile on his face as always, though it seemed to be missing something...Harry looked up at the Werewolf. Lupin was looking skinner and a lot paler than normal, and that was saying something. His robes hung loosely off him; his hair was a shocking shade of grey for someone as young as he. Those normally dark, golden eyes were a bright shade of amber. The full moon must have been approaching.

"Ham's great!" Ron said, sitting up from his spot on the floor, glad that there had been a change in subject.

Ginny nodded in agreement and followed her brother towards the small coffee table in the center of the room. Hermione and Harry did the same. As they munched on their mid-afternoon snack, Mrs. Weasley distributed packages and bags to the four teens while Lupin sat in a subdued silence in the large armchair and watched.

Mrs. Weasley had gotten Harry parchment, some new quills (a lovely feather from a Red-Tailed Hawk) a fresh supply of ink (even the type that changed color depending on the mood of the writer) a new set of school robes (because he surely didn't fit in his robes from the previous two years) new potions supplies (Harry groaned inwardly at the thought of taking Snape's class yet again) and his new books: A Standard Book of Spells (Grade Six) by Miranda Goshawk, An Advanced Guide to Transfiguration by Emeric Switch, An Advanced Guide to Even More Magical Drafts and Potions by Arsenius Jigger II, and Advanced Charms--A Handbook to Excruciatingly Difficult Charms and Their Properties by Amadeus Carneigh.

Harry's brow furrowed; his look was mirrored on three other faces.

"Mum, are you sure that these were the only books on the list?" Ron asked, holding up the books so his mother could see them properly; his copies were rather tattered and Harry noticed this, feeling guilty as he held his own glossy editions on his lap.

"Yes, yes. I'm very sure. It says so right here on your letter, see?" Mrs. Weasley pulled out Ron's envelope from her coat pocket and handed it to him.

Ron took it from her and opened it up, taking out the letter with his freckled hands. Hermione leaned over and read over his shoulder; Harry noticed that Ron's ears went rather pink at the closeness of the two of them.

"These are the only books on the list," Hermione clarified for Ginny and Harry, who were seated on the opposite side of the table and could not see the list.

"Weird, huh?" Ron asked, folding up the letter; his cheeks were glowing faintly even though Hermione was back in her own seat now.

"Yeah, I mean, does that mean we don't have Defense Against the Dark Arts this year? I mean, we should with everything that's going on," Ginny said, taking a bite of her ham sandwich.

"That's not necessarily true, Ginny," Hermione replied.

"Really?" Ginny inquired curiously, cocking her head to the side.

"Yeah. Hey, Professor Lupin, you didn't assign us a book for Third year, did you?" Ron asked, not able to remember all that well seeing as they had other things to worry about that year.

"Heavens, no," Lupin replied, looking appalled at the thought of learning DADA through a textbook. "And, Ron, I'll do have you remember that I'm not a professor anymore."

"It's such a shame," Hermione said, "because you were the best teacher we've ever had. Why won't Dumbledore have you back?"

Lupin chuckled a bit at her question.

"I doubt that the Ministry would accept that, and parents surely wouldn't want a Werewolf teaching their children, now would they? Especially after that new Werewolfism Decree," Lupin explained; Harry could detect an undertone of bitterness that went unnoticed by everyone in the room except him.

"It really shouldn't matter. As long as we're learning it shouldn't matter who teaches us," Ginny said, taking a sip of hot chocolate.

"Yeah, I mean, Hagrid is half Giant and we learn a lot in his class," Hermione declared, looking a little angry.

"Plus I swear on my life that Snape's a Vampire," Ron said; Mrs. Weasley glared hard at him while Lupin chuckled lightly from his chair.

"And we have Firenze teaching now and he's a Centaur," Harry added, pausing in mid-bite when he saw Lupin's eyes darken a bit; Hermione noticed this too.

"What's happened?" Hermione asked, her voice just above a whisper.

Lupin looked down at his hands and sighed. Hermione sat on her knees, leaning half-way over the table with baited breath while Harry stared intently at his former professor. Ginny looked as if she knew what was coming, tears already forming in her brown eyes while Ron looked between them all, trying to figure out why everyone was so intense all of a sudden. Mrs. Weasley broke the uneasy silence.

"Would anyone like more hot chocolate?" she asked, trying to sound cheery; however her voice cracked a little bit towards the end of her question.

No one answered her, their gazes still fixed on the Werewolf who was now playing with the frayed sleeve on his robe.

"What's happened?" Hermione repeated again, her voice quivering slightly; Lupin sighed again.

"Firenze will no longer be teaching at Hogwarts," Lupin replied, his eyes looking anywhere but at the four youths on the floor.

"Why?" Ron asked.

"He died, didn't he?" Hermione asked quietly; Lupin nodded mournfully.

"What?!" Ron asked, jumping up so quickly that his hot chocolate spilled over.

Ginny began crying softly on Hermione's shoulder while Ron and Harry sat in dumb shock over the news; Lupin was looking down at his hands again. Mrs. Weasley cleaned up the spilt hot cocoa with a wave of her wand and a small sigh.

"It's impossible," Ron said, his voice sounding very small as he sat down.

"Was it for the Order?" Hermione asked, her eyes downcast.

"No. Firenze merely tried to make peace with the other Centaurs after school let out. Hagrid found him; told me that it was pretty gruesome," Lupin replied softly.

"Why didn't I see it?" Ron mumbled softly, picking his soggy sandwich apart; no one heard him but Harry.

"See what, Ron?" Harry asked; Ron looked startled for a second.

"Nothing," he muttered, bowing his head.

"So are we going to have a new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher or what?" Hermione asked; Ginny sniffled from her shoulder and pulled away to wipe her eyes.

"I don't know," Lupin replied.

"But," Hermione began, "now is when we really need a Defense professor! How are we supposed to protect ourselves?"

"Yeah, especially if we get a head case like Umbridge from the Ministry again," Harry added gloomily.

"Can't an Order member take the job? I mean, you guys sure have a lot of practice in the Dark Arts! Plus, you can monitor all the suspicious activity that happens and everything!" Hermione said; Remus shook his head.

"It's not that simple. We have a very limited amount of members in the Order. We can't spare anyone. Not even after what happened last year..." Lupin replied, trailing off and looking away from them again.

Hermione slumped back in defeat while Ginny was looking puffy-eyed and miserable; Ron was still picking apart his sandwich. Harry looked down, feeling helpless. It felt like everything was just beginning to spiral out of control and bad things were going to keep happening. And the scary part of it was that none of them could stop it.

pdpd

They were still in the drawing room long after Remus and Mrs. Weasley had left. All four of them sat in subdued silence, each thinking their own, helpless thoughts. The rain and the gloomy atmosphere wasn't helping their depression any. Suddenly, Hermione sat up, her face glowing with a newfound determination.

"You guys! It's not all over! We still have the DA! We could make it bigger this year so that more and more people can learn about the Dark Arts and how to defend themselves," she said; Ron and Ginny perked up a little too.

Harry didn't. It was beginning to look like a helpless battle. It wasn't like some Saturday morning cartoon where the good guys beat the bad guys and everyone was happy. No, it was War. People were dying everyday. More people were joining the Dark Side because they didn't want their families to suffer under Voldemort's wrath. And yet, here they were, just sitting locked up and hidden, trying to come up with their own little plans on how to save the world.

Harry was sick of it. He was sick of having the weight of both the Wizarding World and the Muggle World resting on his shoulders. He was tired of being looked upon as some type of great warrior. He wasn't a warrior. He was a sixteen year old boy who just wanted to live peacefully, not having to worry that the most evil Wizard in the entire world was out to get him.

"Yeah, and we could even teach the younger kids too! We can do it on different nights so we have last years members on one night and then the new members on a different night and--"

They were kids! Harry wished that the others would see that. They were kids. They couldn't possibly match up to older Wizards with much more training and experience. And these weren't nice Wizards. They just happened to be the most evil Wizards in the world. Some of the most experienced Aurors couldn't even beat them. How was a group of school children armed with wands and six years of experience possibly beat them? It was absurd!

"What do you think, Harry?"

He looked up. Three pairs of eyes were staring at him intently, waiting with held breath for his answer. He looked down.

"I think...that we shouldn't..." Harry said softly.

"What?!"

Three, angry voices washed over him. Why couldn't they understand?

"After what happened..." Harry began.

"It wasn't your fault, Harry," Hermione said gently.

"Yeah, Sirius's death wasn't because of you--" Ron started to say.

"YES IT WAS!"

Harry was standing now and he could feel himself trembling all over. They all looked so surprised; Ginny looked like she was going to break down and cry again.

"It was all my fault. And you know what? It could've been one of you too. Because I was so stupid, we went there, thinking we were protected because we took a couple Defense classes from The-Boy-Who-Lived and we went in there..." Harry knew he wasn't making any sense, repeating the same thing over and over again, but he needed to get it out. "You could have died. It would have been all my fault....no more...We aren't going to continue with the DA..."

Harry felt weak now; tired and drained. What he wasn't expecting was the sharp slap that collided with his cheek and nearly knocked him over. Harry looked up, shocked, to see that Ginny was standing before him, her eyes full of tears and her hand very red from the sharp contact with his face; Ron and Hermione looked shocked.

"How could you say that?! Because of you, we all lived! If we wouldn't have known all those spells and enchantments...we wouldn't be here! WE ARE ALIVE BECAUSE OF YOU!" Ginny cried, flinging herself onto Harry's chest where she began to sob loudly.

Harry didn't know what to say. Hermione and Ron gave him identical looks of agreement with Ginny. They wanted to continue with it. Even if it was helpless, they weren't going to go without a fight.

"It's better to die on your feet than to live on your knees," Harry murmured quietly; Ron and Hermione nodded.

Harry pulled away from Ginny and looked her right in the eyes.

"We'll do it. We won't go down without a bloody good fight," Harry said; Ginny smiled and threw her arms around him in a tight embrace.

Hermione's face was once again glowing and Ron sat up a bit straighter in his seat. They were ready. All of them were ready now. Their lives in that one moment had just been pledged to the winning of the War. Harry felt something warm settle in his chest and he smiled. It was the right thing to do. And they were going to do it.

pdpd

That night, the wind was howling even more fiercely than it had that day. The branches of the mighty oak tree outside of their window kept beating ruthlessly against the house. The four teens sat in Ron and Harry's room, discussing spells and hexes that they could learn in their upcoming DA meetings. They had a pretty good idea about what happened during a real Death Eater battle and the four youths used it to their advantage. By knowing how the Death Eaters fought, they could come up with their own plan on how to bring them down.

"We need to bring up Patronus Charms again," Harry said.

"Why? We did really well on them last year," Ginny replied, stroking Crookshanks lazily from Ron's bed.

"Yes, but no one's ever used a Patronus on a Dementor. It's a lot harder to conjure one when the thought of having your soul sucked right out of you is staring you right in the face," Harry answered. "Plus, we need to review. Patronus Charms are going to have to be a number one priority since the Dementors joined Voldemort. He'll most likely be using them in battle, so we need to be ready for it."

Harry was pleased to see that all three of them did not even flinch the slightest when he had said the Dark Lord's name. It was the first step that every person had to take. If the fear of Voldemort was taken away, then perhaps it would be easier to defeat him.

"I think that's a good idea. We should also work on Disarming--" Hermione began.

"--and Stunning--" Ron added.

"--not to mention Shields," Ginny finished.

"Yeah, we need to work on all of that. We found all those useful, but they weren't strong enough, so we're going to need to strengthen all our forms of offense and double all our forms of defense. It's better to stay alive than to just bring a Death Eater down for a few minutes," Harry said; the others nodded in agreement.

"There's other things we need to worry about too," Hermione said.

"Like what?" Ron asked, pausing in his flipping through an old Defense book.

"What if we're going to get stopped like last year?" Hermione replied. "Then what do we do?"

"We still have the coins," Ginny answered, holding up her Galleon that served as a device to let all members of the DA know when meetings were in secret.

"Yeah, the old members have the coins. What about the new members? The coins can get all the members confused and we could get the wrong group to come on the wrong night," Hermione replied.

"Well, how about we give the next group bogus Sickles then? I mean, it can show the difference between last year's group and this year. Plus, it could be like, gold is the highest class, meaning we have more experience and the lower class, which is silver, has the least experience," Ron said.

"Well..." Hermione pondered it for a moment.

"Let's just say that we don't get stopped. Should we still have last year's group meetings in secret or what?" Harry asked.

"That might be a good idea," Hermione said. "Then if the Slytherins get any ideas, it will just be what's being taught in the basic class, not in the intermediate."

"I have a feeling that Malfoy will be sniffing around us a lot more this year," Ron added from Harry's bed, his freckled hands dancing over his arms.

"Yeah, after his dad being thrown in Azkaban...I doubt he'll just leave us alone," Harry agreed.

"You think his dad's gonna bust out or what?" Ron asked.

"I'll bet. Malfoy made a point in telling me last year that since the Dementors left Azkaban, his father will be able to get out easily," Harry replied, sitting up from his spot on the floor.

"But then he'll be an outlaw," Ginny pointed out.

"But that's a good thing. That way, if something should happen to Fudge, then Malfoy Sr. will have a criminal record and he couldn't possibly earn control of the Ministry!" Ron said, sounded excited.

"Unless he blackmails everyone," Hermione replied darkly.

"And we all know that Malfoy's daddy surely isn't below that. If he blackmailed members of the Committee over Buckbeak's case, he'll definitely scare everyone into voting for him for Minister," Harry agreed, straightening his glasses.

Ron looked deflated. Ginny sighed. Hermione clapped her hands loudly, scaring everyone out of their gloom.

"Hey now, let's not worry about the Malfoys just yet. We have to worry about the DA right now!" Hermione said.

"Right now you're all going to go to bed."

The four teens jumped at the sound of Mrs. Weasley's voice from the other side of their door.

"Lights out in five minutes. No more talk of Lucius and his demented family!" Mrs. Weasley huffed from the other side before stalking off down the corridor.

They all laughed at Mrs. Weasley's description of the Malfoys being "demented."

"Good night," Hermione said and got up; Ginny followed.

"Night," Harry replied, and commenced in picking up all the textbooks and parchment on the floor.

The girls left and Ron and Harry sat for a moment in silence. Ron got up off Harry's bed and went to his own, ready to flop down on it, but stopped when a pair of amber eyes glared up at him.

"Oh, bugger," Ron muttered, picking up the cat by the scruff of the neck.

Crookshanks hissed at Ron as he opened the door.

"Well I don't like you either. Scat!" Ron said, throwing the animal out of their room.

Harry could have sworn that he heard Hermione's disapproving yell of "Ron!" from upstairs. He chuckled to himself as he changed for bed. Ron came back into the room and turned off the light before taking his shirt off and jumping into bed. Harry took off his glasses and put them on his nightstand while he shoved his wand under his pillow.

"G'night, Ron," Harry said.

The reply he got was a soft bit of snoring from his friend.

pdpd

It was dark and cold and the area was overrun by dying vines and small parasites. There was a termite infested bench in the center of the garden, surrounded by thorny bushes and poisonous fungus. A large snake slithered by the feet of a hooded man who sat perched on the bench, letting the insects crawl all over his form without so much as a flinch; a spider scuttled over his right hand.

Through the fog, a man stumbled forward, his face hidden by a dark mask. He knelt before the man and kissed the hem of his robes, visibly flinching when the large snake snapped at him.

"Good news, I trust?" asked the cold voice beneath the veil.

"Yes, my Lord. We found one of Dumbledore's men and disposed of him," said the man on the ground.

"I told you that I wanted him alive!" hissed the voice.

Red eyes glowed from beneath the hood and a wand emerged from his sleeve.

"P-P-Please, my Lord!" the man stuttered.

"Wormtail, you displease me. And you know what happens to those who displease me."

The hood was lowered and a pair of pitiless red eyes glared down at his servant. His face was bloodless and hollow, but the Dark Lord had grown a more human appearance. His nose, that had been mere slits before, was now long and straight while a curtain of thin, raven tresses had grown from his bald head and down to his shoulder. Voldemort smiled mercilessly as he raised his wand in the air.

"Crucio!"

Wormtail writhed on the ground in agony, his screams piercing the night air like a knife. Voldemort lifted the curse and stared once more down at his servant who lay in a crumbled heap by his feet.

"Now tell me. Which one of Dumbledore's men did you dispose of?" Voldemort asked, in a voice that could make Hell itself freeze over.

"The one who takes the shape of the beast when the moon is at its peak," Wormtail replied.

"The Werewolf?" Voldemort inquired, cocking his head to the side.

"Yes. I tipped off a member of the Ministry on his whereabouts," Wormtail whimpered, one of his artificial fingers scraping along the pavement beneath them.

"And how did they terminate his existence?" Voldemort asked, obviously not liking the fact that something so important had been acted out by a Ministry member.

"Pure silver darts. He will not survive," Wormtail replied.

"I thought that you told me that he was already dead," Voldemort said angrily, standing to his full height; Wormtail flinched back.

"Indeed. Nothing can save him now," he answered.

Voldemort sneered down at Wormtail.

"I am not pleased, Wormtail. Not yet, anyway," Voldemort said, brandishing his wand.

Wormtail whimpered again as another curse was laid upon him.

"You are most fortunate that I am feeling merciful tonight. The Werewolf was not a large player in this game. That is why I am sparing your pitiful life tonight. However, Wormtail, I do advise you in the future to do my bidding with your own hands," Voldemort hissed as he left, the snake trailing behind him.

"Yes, my Lord. Yes," Wormtail replied with another bow to his master.

Voldemort's only reply was sending another "Crucio" curse over his shoulder at his fallen servant.

pdpd

Harry awoke to a painful stabbing in his head. The scar on his forehead felt like it was on fire. He rubbed it, remembering everything that had happened in his dream, praying to God that it wasn't real.

"Harry..."

Ron's voice startled him. Harry turned to tell his friend that he was fine, but stopped. Ron's eyes were a pure gold and they were glowing strongly in the dark.

"Ron..." Harry began.

They looked into each others eyes and said at the same time:

"Lupin."

pdpd