Father and Son

~Chapter 20~
The Famous Order of the Phoenix
-part I

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But this is your hour. This is when darkness rules.
~ Luke 22,53 ~
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August, 2015

'Hermione!' Ron suddenly stumbled into the room, making a mess of ash on their carpet.

'Get the children and a few things, and then go to Headquarters!' he ordered strictly.

Amaris had never seen her uncle this serious.

Hermione got to her feet.

'What happened?' she asked, catching the fearful expression on her husband's face.

'There was an attack on the Ministry. A group who is calling themselves Neo Death Eaters lead a coup, and now the Minister of Magic and a few Ministry superiors are under their control. Harry is one of their hostages, too.'

Hermione clapped her hand over her mouth.

Amaris' thoughts soared faster through her head than she could grasp them.

Neo Death Eaters! She knew of this underground society. Her best friend Leatrice was in it, and she herself had been at a few meetings. Of course she knew that the Death Eaters were illegal and highly prosecuted these days, but it had been the thrill to do something highly forbidden.

After all, it was not unusual for Slytherin to be part of a dark wizardry society. And it was an unwritten law that the fellow Slytherins keep their silence about everything. She knew that her grandparents had been Death Eaters at the times of Lord Voldemort himself. Many parents and grandparents of her fellow students had been, and it was something most of them were still proud of.

Amaris herself had been raised to hate the dark side of magic, but ever since she came to Hogwarts and with that to Slytherin she had been curious about the dark arts. She was fascinated by what she hated and soon came into a harsh conflict of her conscience.

'How could that happen, not even Voldemort--'

'I know! 'Mione, there were attacks on many families who are known to have fought against Voldemort and caused his fall. The Longbottoms were attacked, but Neville wasn't at home when it happened, but his grandmother and two of his children were killed. Eleanor was at Diagon Alley when it happened and Neville was at work, he's still at St. Mungo's. There are so many victims of Death Eater attacks... Luna was attacked, but she escaped, and the Manor was attacked, too,' he added when his gaze fell on his niece.

Amaris' eyes grew wide.

They wouldn't! Amaris thought. They can't attack the Manor. The Malfoys are a highly regarded family, how dare they attack our home?

'Why?' she asked horror-struck.

Her uncle ignored her.

'Get the children!' he roared at his wife, who immediately snapped out of her shock and ran upstairs.

'Where is Headquarters?' Amaris asked, remembering what her uncle had said earlier.

Ron glared at her.

He didn't trust her. Not after seeing girls and boys of her age taking the ministry, killing and torturing people with pleasure.

Amaris saw his conflict.

'I've got to go home,' she decided, saying it more to herself than to Ron.

He said nothing until she seized a hand full of Floo powder to throw it into the flames.

'There is nobody at the Manor. I heard some Aurors talk about it when I left St. Mungo's.'

Ron's voice was cold and grave. Amaris' heart sank.

Her father - had he been at the Manor? And where were her siblings?

'I've got to find them!' she cried out, her voice cracking.

'NO!' Ron took hold of her hand.

'IT'S TOO DANGEROUS!' he bellowed at her. 'YOU ARE FAR TOO YOUNG! YOU HAVE NEVER EXPERIENCED WAR!'

Amaris looked at him fearfully. She had never heard him shout at anybody like this. It had been ages since somebody had really shouted at her.

But her family was out there. She wanted to find them to know if they were all right. And she wanted it to stop. No, she wanted to stop it. She wanted to find Leatrice and scream at her to stop it!

'I have to go! I have to go and tell them to stop!' she screamed at Ron.

Ron glared at her, his eyes widening.

'You know them!' he said dangerously quiet.

Her wrist still in his grip, he pulled her towards him.

'You knew of it and you didn't tell anybody!' he accused her. Never had somebody spoken to her with such hatred.

Amaris broke down. Tears streamed over her face and she was sobbing uncontrollably.

She had known of the Neo Death Eaters. She had known of their plans and their cruel and dangerous attitude. Yet she had kept her silence.

She was guilty. Guilty of the death of two children, of family members, of Harry being kidnapped...

She was sobbing so hard that she barely noticed Hermione re-entering the living room with the children and a trunk.

'Let's go!' she heard her uncle say.

When he threw the Floo powder into the flames there was an explosion from the front door.

'GO! HEADQUARTERS! GO!' Ron shouted and ran to the hallway.

'RON--' Hermione shouted after him, but then thought of her children.

'Hold on to me! You, too, Amaris!' she ordered.

Amaris grabbed her aunts cloak and heard her say, 'Grimmauld Place, number twelve,' before she was thrown into the flames.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

When Amaris reopened her eyes, which she hadn't noticed closing before, she sat in the hallway of a gloomy looking old house. It was completely dark, but as Amaris' eyes adjusted to the darkness, she could see the big staircase in front of her. She smelled dust and rotting old wood. Hermione lit a row of gas lamps on the walls. Amaris looked around. The hallway looked run-down, as if there hadn't been any inhabitants in it for decades. Old tapestries were peeling of the wall and the snake-shaped chandelier hanging over them was so cobwebbed that Amaris nearly couldn't tell what it was.

'Where are we?' she asked as she got up from the dusty carpet.

'We are at Grimmauld Place, number twelve. The old house of the Black family and Headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix!' Hermione declared proudly.

'This...this is the house of my ancestors!' Amaris said with reverence in her voice.

'Unfortunately.' Hermione nodded, trying to calm her crying children down.

'We never managed to get rid of Sirius' mother's portrait, though we succeeded in shutting her up,' she said, waving Amaris to follow her into the kitchen.

'It's rather shabby, isn't it? Not bad, no one would notice that this house is Headquarters of the Order. It looks like there hasn't been anybody here for ages.' Amaris followed Hermione to a door at the far end of the hallway.

'Not hard, is it? Nobody has been here since the Second Wizarding War.'

'What?' Amaris asked stunned. 'But I always thought the Order still existed in the underground, fighting for peace and...' She stopped when she realized how childish she sounded. It was true; the Order had always been a legend since it defeated the Dark Lord. But she'd never wanted to hear that it was just a fairytale. After all, she knew it had once existed. Her parents had been in the Order. Somehow she had thought the Order was still working. To see this shabby old house just disappointed her.

Hermione's laugh sounded hollow.

'Fighting for peace...' she repeated, shaking her head. 'Have you never heard the saying fighting for peace is like...you-know-what for virginity?'

'What?' Amaris asked.

Hermione cast a deafening spell at her children and send them down the stairs to the kitchen.

'Fighting for peace is like fucking for virginity. We never fought for peace. We fought for our lives and against Voldemort. That's what your generation has never known. The fear that you or the ones you love could die any time.'

'We didn't ask for it!' Amaris defended herself.

'You should have, Amaris.'

Hermione followed her children down the stairs.

Amaris stared after her.

What the hell is going on here?

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Harry looked up when the heavy oak doors of the Auror Headquarters were flung open. Draco Malfoy and Blaise Zabini, hands tied behind their back, were brought in by two dark-hooded Neo Death Eaters. He wondered whether they had been at the Ministry when the Neo Death Eaters had stormed the Auror Headquarters or if the Order already knew about the attack.

Some of the Neo Death Eaters guarding the hostages in the large office room cheered and whistled when they recognized Draco Malfoy, mocking their new famous hostage.

Malice Black's head snapped up at them.

Cassius Clouth walked towards them, smirking.

'Well, well, well, what do we have here?' he said, folding his arms, looking quite self-satisfied. 'Malfoy and... Zabini, if I'm not mistaken.'

'Not concerning my name,' Blaise growled.

Cassius ignored him. He'd already turned to Draco. 'We are most honored by your presence, Mister Malfoy. Your father set an example which we all yearn to achieve.'

Draco glared at him. 'My father was nothing more than a filthy murderer!'

Harry looked at Draco, surprised. He had never heard him speak badly of his father.

The young man, dressed in a black, hooded cloak didn't seem impressed, though.

'Both your father's and your mother's families are highly regarded by us.'

'Still you attacked the house of my fathers, traitorous scum!' Draco snapped.

Cassius cold face hardened.

'You call me a traitor?' he shouted angrily. 'You're the ones that betrayed our race! You think you're the heroes of the wizarding war, but the real heroes were your parents. Your parents, who fought for what they believed in. And they were betrayed by their own flesh and blood! You are blood-traitors of the worst sort!'

Now everybody in the Auror Headquarters listened to this verbal combat of two very different generations. One that had turned traitor on their Death Eater parents, and one that turned traitor on their parents to be Death Eaters, although Harry wondered just how many of their parents would be proud of them now.

'We were the first who dared to break the vicious circle our race was stuck in,' Draco said proudly. 'We dared to revolt against our parents. I feel sorry for my parents, because they weren't strong enough to break away. They were indoctrinated by their parents and their parents by their own, and so were we. But we accepted the help to break out. We saw it was wrong!'

'You just pretend that. In reality you are still convinced by our vision,' Malice pointed out.

She gracefully slid from the desk she'd been sitting on, and made her way towards them. She was the only one that didn't wear a cloak. Instead, she wore a light blue corset with a pleated skirt of black silk that barely covered her thighs.

For a second, Draco thought it was Amaris walking towards him, because of her black hair and her piercing blue eyes. But this girl had a hard face, cold features and her eyes seemed to hold a mad sparkle.

Her black-painted lips curled into a smirk. 'Your dear daughter is the living evidence for this. You taught her that pure-bloods are better than others. That our kind stands above that Muggle filth. She hasn't lost the ideals of her grandparents.'

'My daughter's dating a Muggle-born!'

'Of course. Amaris is torn between what her blood tells her and what you taught her to pretend in front of others.'

'Amaris is not a Death Eater!' Blaise snarled.

'No. She's too infatuated with Dorringcourt,' Cassius admitted. 'But we have another darling of yours in our ranks.'

He nodded to one of the hooded figures that had brought Blaise and Draco in.

One of them came to stand beside Cassius and took her hood off.

Draco drew in a sharp, strangled breath when the blonde head of his daughter appeared.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Amaris couldn't believe her eyes when strange people kept walking into the kitchen, hurrying to Hermione and talking to her in hushed voices.

There was a bald black wizard, leaning on a crutch and surveying the room. A ragged looking old man with grey hair was standing next to a strangely dressed woman with pink curls who was holding the hand of a girl with dark black hair and piercing green eyes. Amaris shuddered when she realized the girl kept watching her. There was a group of people that seemed to be about her parents' age standing near the fireplace.

Amaris wasn't sure if she knew some of them.

Suddenly she felt a hand on her shoulder. Her uncle Bill stood behind her and smiled encouragingly at her.

'Everything all right, Amaris?' He took a seat next to her at the kitchen table.

Amaris saw that Charlie and the twins Fred and George and their respective families had arrived, too, as well as Bill's wife with their four children.

Amaris shook her head.

'I haven't heard anything about my family yet,' she said, trying to hide her tears.

'I don't know about your dad, but your mum has just arrived,' he said, pointing to the fireplace where an ash-covered Ginny Malfoy stepped out of the flames behind Luna Potter.

Upon seeing her daughter, Ginny rushed through the crowd of people and gathered her in her arms.

'Oh, Amy, I was so worried! Are you okay?'

'I'm fine, Mum,' Amaris lied. In fact she was feeling more than ill.

'We must get the children out of here,' Professor McGonagall decided over the noise. 'Romulus, take the children and search for a room that isn't covered in dirt,' she ordered.

A boy with mouse-brown hair and a heart-shaped face nodded and shooed the group of children to the kitchen door.

'Miss Malfoy, please go and help Romulus,' McGonagall said.

'I'll stay,' she said.

'No. This is an Order meeting!' Ron said. He had just entered the kitchen and looked coldly at his niece.

'She's of age.' Ginny defended her daughter.

'She's not in the Order! Nobody is allowed to be present at an official Order meeting except the members. We don't know if we can trust her,' he shouted.

'She's my daughter!' Ginny yelled indignantly.

'No offence, Ginevra, but I also think Amaris shouldn't stay,' Remus said calmly.

Amaris looked around. She felt like an outcast. Amaris knew the others just considered her too young for the meeting, but for her uncle and maybe a few others, too, she was an enemy in their midst.

She left the room without another word.

But instead of trying to find the boy called Romulus, she went to the front door. When she grabbed the handle somebody laid his hand on her shoulder and turned her around.

'A prisoner who runs away is found guilty.'

'I'm not a prisoner!' Amaris snapped at the boy standing in front of her.

'But they don't trust you,' he said sedately.

'I don't care!' she hissed and turned again.

'So you're going to run away from the house of your ancestors? Not very you.'

Amaris froze.

'How would you know? You don't know me. You don't even know my name,' she said sharply.

'Amaris Elizabeth Malfoy, Slytherin prefect, Head Girl and seventh year in September.'

'Who told you my middle name?' Amaris asked. By now she was looking at him suspiciously.

'Romulus Lupin,' he said and stretched out his hand, a faint smile on his pale face.

'You are my second cousin. I should have known. Nobody except my family knows my middle name,' she said coldly, ignoring his outstretched hand. 'If you'll excuse me, now...' This time she opened the door.

'Stay where you are, Amy.'

Amaris whirled around slamming the door shut.

'You--' She stopped in mid-sentence when she saw him holding a parchment.

She snatched it from his hand and immediately recognized Sky's messy hand-writing.

'All right, you've played enough cat and mouse with me. What's the meaning of all this?'

'Help me watch the children, and I'll tell you everything,' he suggested.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

'You know what's worst about this?' Blaise growled. 'She struck me down with one little curse!'

He was sitting in a group of hostages in a corner of the Auror office along with Harry and Draco.

'She inherited her mother's duelling abilities,' Harry concluded.

'Too bad there's nothing more of her mother in her,' Draco said quietly.

'I can't believe this! Where did this Neo Death Eater wave come from? Why didn't we notice that the next generation is reforming the Death Eaters?' Harry asked.

'Because we kept our silence about what happened,' Draco said, sounding rueful. 'Ginny and I always hated to remember those times. So we didn't tell them much.'

'Don't blame yourself, mate. There are other forces at work. Much worse than lack of education,' Blaise said.

'Who's that girl?' Draco asked, watching Malice stroll through the rows of hostages.

'Malice Black. But I also heard some of them call her Lestrange,' Harry told them.

'As in Bellatrix Lestrange?' Blaise asked, stunned.

'I suppose. I always thought she didn't have children.'

'She only had a daughter. When we moved into Malfoy Manor after my parents died, I found some of my father's letters. Apparently, he raised her until shortly before he was killed. I never found out where he sent her.'

'Malice! That's just like Bellatrix, naming her child like that!' Blaise snorted in disgust.

'It sounds like a dedication to Alice Longbottom,' Harry said, glaring at Malice.

'Look at her. The spitting image of her mother. Before Azkaban, of course,' Blaise pointed out.

'And over there--' Draco nodded towards Diana and Cassius. 'Narcissa and Lucius Malfoy!'

Harry had to admit that Diana resembled Narcissa with her long blonde hair and her black Death Eater robe. And next to her Cassius Clouth, the apparent leader of the attack. Tall, with short blond hair, holding Diana in his arms.

'I'll kill him. Just for touching my daughter!' Draco decided when Cassius leaned down to give her a rough kiss.

When Cassius noticed that Draco was glaring at him, he smirked, self-satisfied.

'She's chosen that git over her family. I can't believe it!' Draco muttered.

'You taught her that love is worth betraying one's parents,' Harry said.

Draco glared at him. 'So you think the garden gnome over there is right? That I taught my children to be Death Eaters and to hate Muggle-borns and blood traitors?'

'I don't know what you taught her, but she's undeniably part of a rebellion against the government,' Harry snapped back.

'By the way, what are they trying to achieve? To overthrow the government?' Blaise asked.

'They want to build a new government. The Minister is supposed to sign a contract which declares the dissolution of the present government and a new rule that only pure-bloods are allowed to be in the new government.'

'There are enough pure-bloods that are on our side...'

'I think with pure-bloods they mean the old meaning of pure-blood. The father's and the mother's line of a given person is not allowed to have half-bloods or Muggle-borns in it for five generations,' Draco guessed grimly. He knew this contract. His father had once drawn up these laws for the Dark Lord. This putsch was a plan that never came into action because the light side was too well-protected.

'My father used to say that there would be a time when my children would do everything to me that I did to my parents. I hate it when he's right!'

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Aber jetzt ist eure Stunde da, jetzt hat die Finsternis die Macht.
~ Luke 22,53 ~
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