Ten Miles to Midnight

****

Prologue


The night smells of promise and mystery. It is an odd smell, one doesn't smell it often around the muggles. But here it is, plain as if grandma were baking cookies. Three friends stand looking over a balcony in some unknown place, unheard of muggle town. Two males, one female; black hair, red and brown.

Another female joins them. Red hair, like one of the friends. She speaks in a singsong voice that matches her hair but not the night.

"Correct me if I'm wrong, but something tells me you three aren't out here stargazing," she says in her light and airy voice, darker than normal, with a hint of worry edging the music notes that fill the air around the four.

The friends share glances, trying to decide if they should let this newcomer into their circle. The girl and dark-haired boy nod, but the redhead looks almost pained with the idea. He's worried. He doesn't want her in; he thinks she'll be in danger. The other two give him looks that would say "but we're all in danger, better to let her help us..."

The red-haired girl waits anxiously for answers. Finally, after a few minutes of what seems like telepathy, the redhead nods as well and the three accept the new girl into their group.

She stands next to the other girl, on the end, unofficially named the newcomer. The dark-haired boy turns to look at her with bright green eyes looking tired, weary. He speaks slowly, with a sort of tone that suggests he's seen it all, and he has. You can see it in his eyes.

"We try not to talk about what's been going on lately, Gin," he says with a tone of finality. He looks away at the horizon, staring at a place forever and a day away. His friends watch this place to, as if it were there, like ten miles to midnight. The one who's been dubed Gin looks down railing of the balcony to see a friend, a brother, and a former crush. All staring out into the distance. Sure they didn't know their task yet, but it would come. Oh, it would come; Harry Potter's last adventure.

***

Chapter One

It wasn't really a balcony. Balcony gives you the image of a large house, with marble railings in a Cinderella-type story. It definitely wasn't a balcony. It was more of a platform. It was small; only wide enough for a door to open to it and stairs to lead down from it into a dirty little alley behind Order headquarters. The headquarters had moved, for after Sirius' death, number 12 Grimmauld Place had belonged to Narcissa Malfoy. This didn't cause much of a stir in the Order, however - most of the members were glad to get out of the house that brought back memories of their lost comrade-in-arms.

Whatever it was, though, the four friends stood upon it looking over the alley. They were deep in London, headquarters was now based in an old, abandoned muggle warehouse. You could hardly smell the likely mystery and adventure over the smog that the factory across the alley was putting out. But it was there... like a dormant monster waiting to frighten everyone around it into hiding. All four knew about Harry's adventures throughout their days at Hogwarts. His previous six years at Hogwarts had more danger than most people encounter in six lifetimes, and the other three were involved in this as well. But none had noticed the smell before the start of a Hogwarts term before. It was almost as if you could sense the prophecy about Harry coming true this year. They all knew of it now... 'neither can live while the other survives...' Lord Voldemort was plotting something. But what? Lost in their thoughts and completely silent, they hardly hear Mrs. Weasley calling them until she came out onto the platform and spoke directly to them.

"What in the world are you doing out here," she asks and they snap out of their semi-consciousness. "Honestly! I could yell for an hour and none of you would even realize that dinner is on the table! Why are you four out here, anyway?"

Hermione recovers first. "Thanks so much, Mrs. Weasley. Sorry we couldn't hear you, the factory was making a bunch of noise, plus we were just talking."

She looks around at the four and accepts this, even though she realizes its untruthfulness. She returns to her normal, forced cheerful tone that she's been using since last year. "Well, dinner is ready, dears. Don't wait until it's cold." She turns and walks back into the warehouse not really expecting anyone to follow. They share glances and decide to go eat with whomever in the Order's dropped by for a square meal of Mrs. Weasley's cooking. They probably wouldn't eat much, anyway.

The weary teenagers wound their way through the miscellaneous rooms until they reached the one designated as the dining room. It had probably once been a cafeteria for workers, but over the many years the factory had been abandon, many of the long rectangle tables had collapsed, leaving only three of about twenty. It was more than enough, but it made the whole place seem dirtier and older than it might have really been.

Mrs. Weasley came bustling back into the room floating a large pot of soup in front of her and setting it on the table. Members of the Order soon filtered out of the kitchen where they'd been talking. Remus Lupin, Nymphadora Tonks, Kingsly Shaklebolt, Severus Snape, FredFred, George and Mr. Weasley all come out to sit around the table. It was a bit unnerving to see your least favorite teacher over break, the four had decided, but they were used to it after three summers.

They greated all the members and sat down to some of Mrs. Wealsey's delicious cooking. The members quickly started up a conversation about Voldemort's movements as of late.

"I heard from another wolf in the forest that he'd heard Voldemort's moving through America," Remus Lupin commented. He was getting more and more tired, Ginny noticed. "Picking up more supporters, that's my guess. I don't know much about how the Americans feel about him, but I hope they realize doing his bidding won't do them any good."

"That's what I heard as well," Snape commented, nodding curtly at Remus. "I heard he was somewhere in the West and was moving east, disguised as someone remotely normal looking." The group shared a forced laugh, but it wasn't really funny how many times they'd all seen Voldemort.

"The Daily Prophet's been marking him as still in the United Kingdom, somewhere in Wales," Kingsly Shaklebolt said. "Not that we're able to trust them fully since that incident last year..." he trailed off. They knew what he was talking about. Last summer right after they'd moved headquarters to another warehouse many miles from here, the Daily Prophet had got wind of it and posted the address. How stupid could you be? With the Dark Lord running amok they just print the address of the only organization that might be able to save them all? They'd moved again the day it was printed.

They all finished dinner with more talk of the Dark Lord and preparations to fight him and Death Eaters that'd been caught. No one worded what they were all thinking. Tomorrow, seventeen-year-old Harry would return to Hogwarts. What would they do then? Sure, they were trained wizards and witches and had power. But they knew the final fate for Voldemort. They couldn't kill him if they couldn't get at him. Only Harry could. The prophecy was common knowledge, and they knew that sooner or later, either good would prevail, or evil would stand proudly in it's place. Harry was going back to school, which meant that they couldn't kill evil while he was not among their midst.

The group broke apart to go to their respective rooms. Harry, Ron, Hermione, Ginny, Fred and George all helped Mrs. Weasley with the dishes. As they scrubbed, Fred and George talked about Weasley's Wizard Wheezes.

"Business is doing great," Fred told his mother, while drying a bowl. "We get tons of kids dragging their parents in to look at our merchandise."

Mrs. Weasley scowled. She still did not approve of Fred and George flying away in Ginny's fourth year. George seemed to know what she was thinking. "C'mon, mum! You know you're proud of us for getting away from that evil Umbridge woman," he said. "And I bet you don't much mind the money, either," he added as an afterthought.

She looked hurt at this idea. "George dear, you know it's not like I only love you for your newly acquired money!"

They laughed at this. The idea that Mrs. Weasley only loving her kids because of money was funnier than the idea of Malfoy in bright pink robes. "I know mum, I'm only teasing," he said gently. The topic changed from money to Hogwarts.

"I'm really upset I may not see Hogwarts again," Hermione said wistfully, while rinsing a goblet. "It's really quite depressing."

"Yeah, it is," Ron agreed, taking the goblet from her and drying it. "I'm really going to miss Hogwarts."

"We sure miss it," Fred told them. "It's really quite horrible having my last memory of Hogwarts have that bloody cow in it." They laughed again.

"I'm torn," said Harry, thinking. "I mean, Hogwarts is my home and always will be, but it's not like all my memories there are good ones. I'll be sad to leave it, and I'll miss it terribly, but I'll never go back." Everyone nodded. Not really in agreement, but more that they knew what he meant, even if they didn't agree.

"I know what you mean," Ginny said, voicing what they were all thinking. "But I'll go back. Not just for school, either. I'll want to see my children graduate, won't I?"

They finished the dishes in silence. When they were done, the group all said goodnight, and left to go to bed. Harry, Hermione, Ron, and Ginny had all searched out rooms next to each other. Harry and Ron shared a room, as did Ginny and Hermione. Those warehouse rooms were awfully creepy at night. Hermione and Ginny parted from Harry and Ron as the four went into their rooms. Ginny had yet to pack so she spoke to Hermione as she folded her socks.

"Hermione," she began. "What's going to become of us? We've spent our school years following Harry, helping Harry, living for Harry. But what happens if he fails?"

Hermione looked as though she'd reached a particularly hard problem in arithmancy. "I don't really know," she said vaguely. "I suppose all we can do is hope he doesn't fail."