Living in Dangerous Times

Chapter 2

Meetings

The week until Hermione came passed very quickly. Harry and the Weasley's settled into a sort of routine. Each day they would wake up late, eat breakfast (or sometimes, if someone slept really late, lunch), play Quidditch, then go to the hang out room or the twins room for a while, then breaking off to do their own things. On one such afternoon, the five of them had gone to Fred and George's room to sample some of the Twins new Wheezes.

"Fred, what's this?" Ginny asked, picking up a pastry with blue cream on it.

"That's a Tasty Tumbler. Go on, try it. They're very good." Ginny, looking dubious popped the small pastry into her mouth, chewing thoughtfully.

"Mmmm. Tasty. Very good Fred. I never knew you know how to cook." Just then, she rose three feet off the ground. Fred gave her a small push, and she began to flip head over heels into the couch.

"To answer you, Ginny," Fred told Ginny, who had just hit the couch, and was now lying there upside down, her shirt slipping down revealing more and more of her white stomach. She seemed to see Harry looking at her, because she pulled it up quickly. "I didn't bake those. That was George. He does all the cooking." Just then George interrupted him.

"Oi, Fred. What are these little apple things?" George took a bite out of a small apple as he spoke.

"George, don't!" Fred shouted, but George had already taken another bite. At that moment, George's body stretched to that of a tiger, and he growled, looking angrily at the four of them.

"Does anyone have any idea what to do now?" Ron asked quietly.

"Yeah," replied Harry, "Run."

They ran, with Fred kicking the door shut just as the tiger hit it.

"Mum! Mum!" Ginny panted.

"What is it dear?"

"Come quick, George...tiger...in the twins room. Quick!"

Mrs. Weasley grabbed her wand, and followed the four teenagers up to the second story landing, where she opened the door. Immediately George, in a tiger form, burst through the doorway, but Mrs. Weasley stopped it.

"Impedimenta!" She shouted, and the tiger stopped dear in its tracks. Mrs. Weasley then began the process of untransfiguring George. Soon George was back, on all fours, not moving. "Movementa" George stood up and brushed himself off.

"Blimey, Fred. What the blazes was that?"

"It was an Animagus Apple. I haven't perfected them yet. I still haven't got a way to make the effects wear off. Most of them turn you into rabbits and stuff, but I thought I would experiment with something bigger."

"Like a fucking tiger? Real bright of you Fred. I know exactly the charm you should use to make the effects wear off in five minutes, and in the case of dangerous animals, I know a charm to make them tame. You should have come to me. I came to you for the levitation spell on the Tasty Tumblers. You should have asked me. I owed you a favor anyway."

Mrs. Weasley, although she was very strict in punishing the boys (They both got three hours of degnoming the garden) did not blow up as usual. It seemed to Harry as if she was trying to restrain herself. As he walked upstairs with Ron, he asked, "Have the twins gotten in trouble like that before? It seemed your mum wasn't all that mad."

"Yeah, she's kind of gotten used to it. A couple weeks ago they gave Ginny a modified Tong-Tongue Toffee. Her tongue was at least as long as she is tall before Mum fixed it."

"Wow. They really are serious about this joke shop thing." They had now reached the sign that said "Ron's Room" Harry pushed open the door and flopped down on his cot, staring up at the Chudley Cannons posters that covered the slanted ceiling. Ron followed suit, flopping down on the bright orange blankets that covered his bed. After a moment, Harry spoke up. "Who are you after this year, Ron? I know last year you were all about Padma after the ball. You still on about her?"

"I dunno. Gotta see how some of the others have developed over the summer. You still on about Cho?"

"I dunno. She was really upset about Cedric last year. I don't think she'll be in the mood to date anyone this year." They were silent a moment. "Hey, Ron, come to think of it, your sister ain't that bad either." At this remark, Ron jumped of his bed.

"Don't you go getting funny idea's about my sister. She's too young."

"Yeah Ron? Too young? Wasn't it you who was making out with that Hufflepuff that night last year in the Astronomy Tower? You were the same age then as Ginny is now. Too young my ass." Ron was silent, for a moment.

"Yeah, well I was more mature then than she is now."

"Yeah, right." Harry muttered under his breath.

"I heard that!" They were both silent for a while. "Hey, Harry, did you know there's gonna be a Halloween Ball this year? Fred and George said that the 5^th years and up also have dances once in a while. That is, of course, if the students organize them." They sat talking to each other until Mrs. Weasley called them for dinner.

Harry and the Weasley's sat down at the table in the cramped kitchen, and ate their fill of Mrs. Weasley's best cooking. Afterwards, they all went into the living room, where Fred and George pulled two chairs into a corner and sat whispering over a large piece of parchment, just as they had done the year before. Harry sat across a small table from Ginny, playing wizards chess. Ginny wasn't as good as Ron, but she was still better than Harry. Quickly, Ginny took her Queen on a rampage, destroying nearly all his pieces until a lucky Knight destroyed her with its rearing hooves. That took them to a near-stalemate, with Ginny's Bishop and Rook chasing Harry's King, while being harassed by his Knight. Finally, after forty-nine turns of this chasing, without a single piece being taken, Ginny's Rook began raining arrows on Harry's King, efficiently destroying it.

"Good game Harry," said Ginny, shaking his hand. "I bet you could do nearly as well against Ron. I beat him once, but that was because he couldn't find his pieces and was using Seamus' set." In a little bit, Mrs. Weasley herded, Harry, Ron, Ginny, Fred, and George out of the living room and upstairs to bed.

Harry woke up in the morning, and as he got up, he found he had an unknown source of excitement. As he struggled to pinpoint it, Ron threw a pillow at him. "Hey, Harry. Stop standing around like you're a complete moron. Hermione's coming in half an hour."

"That's what it was," Harry thought, "I knew it was something." He tramped downstairs with Ron and plopped himself down at the table, where he helped himself to sausages, eggs, and toast. Just as he was getting up to dump his plate in the sink, the doorbell rang. Harry dumped his plate in the sink, and then dashed to the door, but Ron beat him there. Ron opened the door, revealing Mr. And Mrs. Granger, along with Hermione, who was lugging her huge Hogwarts trunk. Behind them, Harry caught a glimpse of a sleek dark green BMW. Moments later the rest of the Weasley's came to the door. Although Mr. Weasley invited them inside, they said that they had to be going if they were to get to their offices on time. Hermione came inside, and with Ginny's help, lugged her trunk up to the first floor landing.

Soon after, Harry, Ron, Hermione, Ginny, and the twins were gathered in the rec room, lounging on the couches. Ron was sitting on a blue loveseat with Hermione, and Harry on the loveseats red twin with Ginny. Fred and George sat in their respective armchairs, both smoking. Ron had his arm over the back of the couch, directly behind Hermione. Ginny had done the same, and her arm was dangerously close to slipping around Harry's shoulders. They were all jabbering uselessly about this and that, Fred and George arguing about Quidditch Digest, while Ginny was eagerly showing Hermione a new line of wizarding cosmetics in Witch Weekly.

"Hey, Hermione!" Harry called, disrupting her conversation about lipstick with Ginny. "How was your trip to Bulgaria?"

"Oh!" Hermione said, blushing. "It was great. Krum taught me how to fly better. He took me to several Quidditch games. We also went skiing, and did other things."

"What's skiing?" Ron asked curiously.

"Muggle sport." Replied Harry, "You have these metal boards strapped to your feet and you glide down a snow covered hill. It's pretty fun. I did it once, on winter holiday."

"Weird."

The conversation revolved around Hermione's vacation for a few minutes, then slipped back into idle chitchat. At about 11:00, they heard another knock at the door. Harry leaned out the open window to see who it was, and was amazed to see that it was his godfather, looking almost exactly like he did at his parents wedding, clean shaven, short cropped hair, clean robes, and a big smile. Harry jumped up, and striding quickly over to the blue loveseat, whispered to Ron and Hermione, "It's Snuffles. Lets go." They nodded, and got up. The trio walked out the door and downstairs, leaving Fred, George and Ginny glancing at each other and wondering what was up.

When they arrived downstairs, Harry, Ron, and Hermione found Sirius drinking coffee with Mr. Weasley in the kitchen. "Hullo Harry, Ron, Hermione. Good to see you. How's your summer been? Lupin should be here any minute with Dumbledore."

"What are you doing here, Sirius?" Harry burst out. "And why are Lupin and Dumbledore coming?"

"We're holding a secret conference this afternoon. Hogwarts is being watched and the Minister still refuses to acknowledge the Dark Lord's return. Dumbledore chose here. Mad Eye will be coming, as well as several other key members of the defense force."

"I suppose he'll want you to be in on this meeting. You three are probably the Dark Lord's first three targets. You'll no doubt have special protection around you. I will be at Hogwarts as well."

"How?" questioned Ron, "You're wanted by the Ministry still. Fudge will never allow it."

"Dumbledore got me a special pardon. As the head of the Order of the Phoenix, he has near complete control over the wizarding community, if not half the Ministry."

"Order of the Phoenix? What is this all about?" Harry was full of questions.

"Honestly Harry, don't you read? Haven't you read The Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts? The Order of the Phoenix is a committee..."

"Hermione, although it is a very good sign that you know this, I believe Dumbledore wants to tell Harry and Ron exactly what this is about." As if on cue, there was a series of popping noises. Dumbledore, Remus Lupin, Alastor "Mad Eye" Moody, and several other witches and wizards Harry did not know popped into the room.

Arthur Weasley stood up. "Come everybody, lets go to the living room. We'll be more comfortable there, no doubt. The group went into the living, room, and with a wave of his wand, Dumbledore provided the several chair less witches and wizards with comfortable, yet compact folding chairs.

Everyone waited in silence for a moment, and then Dumbledore spoke. "Before we begin, there are some introductions to be made. I am sure all of you are familiar with Harry Potter, and many of you with his friends, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger. Harry, do see anyone here, besides myself, Remus, Sirius, Alastor, and Arthur that you recognize?"

Harry looked around for a moment, and then finally nodded an affirmative. "I'm not sure if my eyes are tricking me, but that's Mrs. Figg."

"Yes, Harry correct. Arabella, please show yourself in your true form."

The old witch pointed her wand at herself and muttered a spell. "Agio Reducto." At that instant, her white hair turned to a shiny dark brown, and fell down around her shoulders. Her wrinkles disappeared, and Harry was looking at a very pretty woman who was about Sirius's age, and who he still recognized.

"I still recognize you!" Harry exclaimed. "You were at my parents wedding!"

"Yes." She said softly, "Lily was my best friend at school. When she was killed I volunteered to be her son's watcher. I lived my life in that house in that disguise for fourteen years. Not constantly, of course. Every vacation I took I went back to my true form. I had to have a break, to fly, to get out of my old lady body. No more will I live as an old lady, Harry. You are now adult enough, and this will be the last summer you go home to the Dursley's."

"All right now, Arabella, that has been done. Now there are still a few introductions to make." He gestured to a balding, middle-aged man who was sitting next to Moody. "This is Commander Jonathan Botanin. He is the leader of the Aurors. The witch on his left is Melissa Muddy-Duck. She is a Dark Arts expert, the most knowledgeable source we have on the habits of Dark Wizards." Harry looked at the woman that Dumbledore gestured to, and his first impression was of a bad tempered, demanding woman. "Now that we have that taken care of, let us begin. Welcome all, to the first meeting of the Order of the Phoenix since 1945. For those of you who do not know what the Order of the Phoenix is, it is a council of wizards that meets during a crisis. The council will determine what to do about this coming threat. We will meet once a month, or whenever I, the head of this Order, feel it necessary. Next order of business, roll call. This meeting I will be reading a list of those who will be attending the coming meetings. They are as follows:

Albus Dumbledore

Harry Potter

Melissa Muddy-Duck

Jonathan Botanin

Sirius Black

Remus Lupin

Severus Snape

Arabella Figg

Alastor Moody

"I know that some of you here are not on this list, and that is because I felt it was not completely necessary for you to attend every meeting. You may be invited to attend some meetings, and the same goes for several others not in attendance today."

"Dumbledore," Moody growled, "What exactly will the order of business be today?"

"Today we will be discussing the method of the Dark Lord's return, and how it came about. Now, down to business. The Dark Lord was resurrected by an ancient piece of Dark Magic that I know very little about. Melissa, if you could elaborate."

"Well, the potion that revived the Dark Lord is an extremely complex bit of potion brewing, as well as several interesting ingredients. It requires the blood of the victim's worst enemy. That came from our young friend Mr. Potter here. It also required the bone of the father. This is the hardest resource to find. We found evidence, when we traveled to Little Hangleton, that Tom Riddle Sr.'s grave was indeed ravaged. The final resource required was flesh of a loyal servant. This was obtained by forcing a servant, the one who brewed the potion, preferably, to chop off a fairly big bit off their self. Apparently the Dark Lord's servant, Peter Pettigrew, was the subject of this cruelty. It is surprising that Pettigrew was able to perform that bit of magic required to make the potion worth anything. He was not a very bright boy, if I remember correctly, from my days of teaching. Not bright at all. But that is beside the point. The final, and most important ingredient is a full gallon of unicorn blood. Surprising that the Dark Lord could get that much Unicorn blood. That is something that we'll have to investigate. This potion revives the spirit or pathetic, dying body of the person who is dunked in it, giving them their original body back, apparently better than before. That's it, Dumbledore."

"Thank you Melissa. I have a replay of the scene that occurred that night. Our young friend Mr. Potter provided it for us." Then to Harry, "Harry, I know that I took a great liberty here, but that night you were unconscious, I performed a very difficult bit of magic, and extracted a duplicate of the memory from your head. Do you remember my Pensieve? I have your memory inside of it, and I will project it for the council. Arthur, sound charms, if you will."

Arthur Weasley got up, and pointed his wand at each wall, the ceiling, and the floor in turn, and muttered, "Mutus" at each one. "It is done, Dumbledore."

"Very well now down to business." Dumbledore reached into his cloak, and extracted the Pensieve, its liquid content looking no different than if it were upright, and placed it on one edge, on the table in the center of the room. He muttered a charm, and then stirred the liquid with his wand tip, and a horrible scene out of Harry's own brain appeared on the wall. "What you will see," continued Dumbledore, "is the events of June the 24, 1994, as viewed and remembered by Mr. Harry Potter."

"The memory started. It was horrible, running from when he had touched the cup to when he was in Moody's office. Harry closed his eyes, not wanting to relive the awful night. In the end it was the sound that killed him. When Voldemort killed Cedric, Harry saw the flash of green light through his closed eyelids. He heard Cedric's scream of terror before he died. Then he opened his eyes. Everyone seemed amazed by the green flash, even Dumbledore and Jon Botanin, who had both no doubt seen the spell used many times before, and in the latter's case, most likely used it at least once. Looking around, Harry saw that Hermione was shaking with fright, and Ron looked extremely scared. The rest of the wizards in attendance just looked grim, all wearing much of the same expression. When the memory got to the point of the Cruciatus Curse, it was almost it Harry could feel the pain again, and from the looks on the other's faces, they were experiencing much of the same feeling. Finally the painful memory culminated in Dumbledore's questioning of Barty Crouch Jr.

"That's the whole of it." Dumbledore said after a moment of stunned silence. "Are there any questions about what you saw in that memory?" Several hands shot up. "Remus, you first."

"Well, Albus, what was that phenomena when Harries and the Dark Lord's wands connected?"

"Very interesting question. What you saw there was Priori Incantatem, or the Reverse Spell Effect. Harry's wand and the Dark Lord's wand share the same core. The particular phoenix whose tail feather is in Harry's wand also gave the tail feather for Voldemort's. The tail feather came from my phoenix in fact. When two wands share cores, they will not work properly. However, if their owners force them to do combat, Priori Incantatem occurs. The wands will become connected, and the wand with less willpower commanding it will be forced to regurgitate the spells it has performed in reverse. Shadows of all the people who Voldemort killed appeared, and though Harry broke the connection after his parents appeared from the tip of Voldemort's wand. The shapes lingered, and crowded, the Dark Lord, allowing Harry to escape back to the Triwizard Cup, which transported him back to Hogwarts. Are there any other different questions?" Jonathan Botanin raised his hand.

"Albus, will you be raising charges against the Death Eaters we saw in the memory? Lucius Malfoy, Vincent Crabbe, Gregory Goyle, Thomas Macnair, Jeff Nott, Ben Avery?"

"Not quite yet. Some the warrants may go out soon. I will have you take those on that list who work at the Ministry into custody as soon as possible. You will have a valid excuse for that, believe me. Arthur, could you organize a vote among the heads of Department to give ministerial powers over to the Order of the Phoenix? I will have to get a backing from Fleur Delacour in France to do this. Keep the operation away from the Cloister for now. I'll talk to you when I get a backing. Anymore questions?" Seeing no hands go up, Dumbledore stood. "Meeting dismissed."

Harry slowly got to his feet and shakily walked towards the door of the room. Sirius, seeing his discomfort, stopped him. "Harry, are you all right? I know it must be hard for you to relive that nightmare just when you were trying to push it out of your mind. We were all amazed at how you stuck the whole ordeal out. I'm sorry you had to go through that again. I should have told Dumbledore to let you step outside while that was playing."

"Yeah, I'm all right. I could probably use a Cheering Charm though."

"All right, you sure?" When Harry nodded an affirmative he performed the spell. "Cheerious!" Instantly Harry began smiling, and felt better. He walked over to where Ron and Hermione were still sitting on a couch together.

"How can you be smiling, Harry? After that?" Hermione was amazed at Harry's magical smile.

"Sirius did a Cheering Charm on me. I needed it. Bad."

"He could definitely use one too." Hermione said, gesturing at Ron. "He was shocked by it. It was terrible." Harry looked at Ron, who was staring blankly at the wall.

"Too true. Lets get Mr. Weasley to give him one. Then we can go back upstairs without the others suspecting something's up." They hoisted Ron off the couch, and together held him up as he half walked half got dragged out into the kitchen, where a horrified Molly Weasley greeted them.

"Oh is he all right? Dumbledore shouldn't have let you children watch that horrid scene. Arthur!" Arthur Weasley came rushing in, took one look at Ron, and gasped.

"He seems to be something like stunned. Strange. Well, it's worth a try. Ennervate!" Ron eyes focused again, and he shook his head as if to clear his vision.

"What...what happened?" He managed to stammer out. In a moment, a look of enlightenment came to his eyes. "Oh, I remember now. That memory thing that Dumbledore showed us..."

"You look like you need a Cheering Charm, Ron." Mr. Weasley commented.

"Yeah, could you do one on me Dad?"

"Sure Ron. Cheerius!" Ron's at once brightened, and it seemed as if he had forgotten the horrible scene he had just witnessed.

"Let's go upstairs. Ginny and the twins will be wondering where we are."

"Good idea Ron." Hermione said, without the cheerfulness evident in Ron's voice from the charm. "I was just about to suggest it myself." The trio tramped up the stairs, and opened the door to the rec room. Inside they found Fred, George, and Ginny anxiously awaiting their return.

"Where the hell have you three been?" Ginny exclaimed, "You've been gone for hours."

"Harry's getting special protection this year and Dumbledore had to show us about it. There were quite a lot of different wards. Enchantments, artifacts, bodyguards." Hermione, as usual came up with a witty explanation for their several hour-long absence. Soon enough, however, conversation was back to normal. Before anyone knew that time had passed so quickly, Mrs. Weasley was calling them for dinner. All six of them trooped downstairs and sat down at the table, and had a fairly uneventful dinner, featuring Weasley boys jostling and fighting, in a way that only brothers can. Afterwards, they all went off to bed, for dinner had been rather late.

AN: Please review