A/N NOT MY WORK, ALL J.K. Rowlings!
Many hours later the three completely exhausted wizards walked out of Harrods carrying handfuls of bags each.
“I had no idea that shopping could be so much work! I feel like I just played a day long Quidditch game right now, not to mention I’m starving.” Harry said, although his voice was muffled by the stack of clothes boxes in front of his face.
“I’m glad that we were able to do that though, I really did need some new clothes and I did what Sirius told me to do. Maybe I’ll ask Tonks on a date sometime now.” Lupin said excitedly. He had bought an entirely new muggle wardrobe, including a very nice watch and several silk ties. “Here why don’t we go down this alley and I’ll shrink all of our stuff so we can fit it in our pockets. We still have a bit of a walk to the Leaky Cauldron.”
Lupin piled up all of the bags and boxes and shrunk them neatly into groups small enough to fit into their pant pockets. They made the long walk to the Leaky Cauldron, once again stopping at Hamleys just to look at the toy trains again, then flooed back to Miss. Figg’s house and snuck into the Dursley’s house as quiet as possible seeing as it was well past eleven at night when they got back. They all emptied their pockets and un-shrunk the packages so they could change into their new pajamas. Because everyone was so tired they changed as quickly as possible then turned in for the night, all of them falling asleep minutes after the light was put out.
The next morning over a late breakfast Lupin received a letter from Fawkes. He read it out-loud to Harry and Ginny. “Remus, I believe that enough time has passed for Harry to be sufficiently protected for the rest of the year. When it is convenient I expect you three, along with the Masseys to head to Grimmauld place to pass what little time remains of the summer. You can also expect Miss Granger and the rest of the Weasleys there. Reply with your date of departure so we can prepare for you. Sincerely, Albus Dumbledore.” Remus finished reading the letter and looked up at the two excited teenagers, “looks like we should start getting packed.”
Harry and Ginny both jumped up off the bed excitedly. It was nice having company, but the Dursleys were still horrible people and you could only be cooped up in one place for so long.
“Tell him were coming tomorrow, I’ll go over to Emma’s today and explain everything. I’m sure she and Joy will be excited.” Harry said quickly, as he threw on a shirt at the same time causing him to fall over, “Oh, and we’ll need new trunks, we have too much new stuff.” He added poking his head out from his shirt.
Ginny and Lupin laughed at his antics, happy to see him in such high spirits. The whole time they’d been here they’d noticed some sort of tension. Lupin put down to a mix of the tension and fear between him and the Dursleys, and the depression over the loss of Sirius. Although he hadn’t seen any outward signs of abuse by his Aunt or Uncle the way Harry acted around them did not escape his notice. Harry was amazingly mature for his age, yet around his relatives he acted like a very nervous five year old. All Lupin knew was that he was glad to be leaving.
“I’ll go to Diagon Alley quickly this afternoon and get some trunks for us to use. Meanwhile, after you talk to Emma, how bout you two try and get as many of your items collected so we can be ready to leave tomorrow.” Lupin said. He dressed quickly, sent off a message with Hedwig, then left to Miss Figg’s house after warning them to be careful and not stray too far when going to Emma’s.
A little while later Harry and Ginny headed over to Emma’s house to tell them the good news.
On the way there Ginny paused momentarily on the side of the street and looked around.
“Are you okay Gin? What’s wrong,” Harry asked immediately noticing the change in her mood.
“Yeah I’m fine, it’s just we have a follower. Tonks, is that you?” Ginny asked, pulling out her wand just in case it wasn’t, “Tonks?”
Harry pulled out his wand too and started walking towards where Ginny was looking at. He couldn’t see anything but continued walking forward until he hit something invisible and tripped, hitting his head on the curb at the same time as he ripped the invisibility cloak off of a crouching Tonks.
“Harry!” Ginny shouted and ran over to where Harry was now sitting on the ground, she rolled him over to reveal a large gash on his forehead which was bleeding badly. He was conscious though and smiled at Ginny, “Don’t worry, it doesn’t hurt. Just one of those things that looks worse than it is.”
Tonks was now hovering over them, with a worried look on her face, “Oh bugger Harry, I’m sorry, that looked like a pretty nasty fall. Here, let me get rid of that for you.” But she stopped at that gaping at what Harry was doing.
He was slowly rubbing his hand around the cut, and somehow this was removing the blood and also looked as if it were healing the cut.
“Harry, how what are you doing?” Ginny, who now also had noticed his actions, asked.
“Just rubbing my head, I think I’m going to have a pretty bad headache later.” He said shrugging.
“No, Harry, your healing yourself! You’re rubbing the cut and it’s completely disappearing.” Tonks said in utter amazement.
“What? I thought you couldn’t do wandless healing? At least that’s what Lupin told me.” Harry said confused as he stared at his own hands, which were now completely blood free.
“It is true, no one I know, not even Madame Pomfrey can do wandless healing. It takes up too much energy to perform even a simple healing charm,” Tonks said.
“Well he’s doing it, so it can’t be impossible.”
“I know, Dumbledore did say that now you two are Heartbonded you both would start to show some…un-common abilities. Maybe this is one of them?” Tonks said with a shrug.
“Probably is, hey Gin’ by the way how did you know that there was someone following us?” Harry asked as he stood still rubbing his disappearing cut.
She shrugged and shook her head, “I honestly don’t know. I just felt that there was someone near us. It was really weird, I didn’t know who or really where they were but I just felt that we were being watched. It was sorta creepy.”
“I think that might be something new too, Dumbledore said we would be getting much more powerful magically. Maybe it’s started already.” Harry said as the three walked up to Emma’s front door. “Remind me to ask him when we get to headquarters tomorrow.”
“Harry! Your shirt,” Ginny said right before he rang the doorbell. It was covered in blood from the fall, and to anyone who didn’t know what had happened would look very frightening; especially an eleven year old.
“Oh, good catch Gin, you always have my back don’t you?” Harry joked as he vanished the blood with his wand, returning the shirt back to its perfectly new state.
“Yes I do, and I always will,” she said, then rang the doorbell.
The door opened to reveal Joy in an apron, apparently right out of the kitchen, “Oh hello Harry, Ginny, how are you? Where’s Remus?”
“Oh, he’s just getting things in order for tomorrow, this is Nymphadora, but you should probably just call her Tonks, she doesn’t like her first name. She’s an auror, you know, one of the police I told you about.” Harry said, winking at Tonks.
“Well any friend of Harry is a friend of ours. Why don’t you come in and I’ll get Emma, she’s upstairs cleaning her room,” Joy said beckoning them inside graciously.
Moments later Emma came running down the stairs and grabbed Harry by the waist hugging him. She then hugged Ginny, who she had become good friends with also, always asking her questions about school and the wizarding world.
Harry introduced Tonks, and then sat down to tell Emma a Joy the news. “So yesterday we got a note from the headmaster saying that I have spent enough time at my aunt and uncle’s house this summer and that we could go to headquarters. He also said that the invitation was open to you two, we only have a little over a week before school starts and you’d be able to go with us to the train platform and we’d be able to get Emma her things for school. Now I know you have your barrister duties Mrs. Massey, but I would really like it if you and Emma could come. You’d be able to meet a lot of other witches and wizards.” Harry finished, smiling at Emma who was now looking pleadingly at her mother.
“What is ‘headquarters’?” Joy asked, fifteen years as a lawyer had tuned her ability to notice the smallest discrepancies.
Harry mentally kicked himself for slipping up like that, he should have known better than that, discussing Order matters in front of non-members; he knew that this secret was the only thing keeping many witches and wizards hidden from Voldemort.
Thankfully Tonks popped in and answered the question for him, saying that it was too sensitive to discuss in the open but if they were coming tomorrow that all would be explained by Dumbledore himself.
Joy asked for a minute to think it through, all the while Emma was quietly begging her mom to let her go. Finally she made up her mind and spoke up, “well work won’t be a problem. We just finished our case this Friday so I am not busy next week, and I know Emma wants to go. I just am nervous about this whole wizarding world war right now that Harry and the headmaster has told me about. And I’ve been around enough liars to know when I’m not being told the whole truth, you will have to promise to tell me everything you can once it is safe.”
“So are we going?” Emma asked excitedly.
Joy smiled at her daughter and nodded, “yes dear. We’re going. You should go get packed.”
Emma jumped out of her seat, kissed her mom on her cheek and asked for Ginny to help her get packed. The two girls took the stairs two at a time running for her room upstairs.
When Lupin got back later that day he too headed for the Massey’s and helped Joy sort out all the smaller details of the trip. They were planning on flooing from Miss Figg’s to headquarters next morning, and then would bring Joy back after she saw Emma off at the train station.
They left late at night after a long enjoyable dinner cooked by Joy and Lupin, who actually enjoyed cooking quite a bit, and whose magic allowed for them to cook many more things at once. Everyone shared funny stories and jokes and ate enormous amounts of food and sweets.
Lupin had the three trunks up in Harry’s room when they arrived and he showed them the features that he was most excited about; including the shrinkable feature which allowed you to shrink the trunk to fit in your pocket, and the second compartment whish was a lot like Moody’s trunk, which would open if you twisted the second knob.
They all packed that night, sticking all of their old and new clothes in the trunks, along with the dozens of spell books and parchment pieces. Finally the room was barren, with only the bookshelves and the furniture remaining they all turned in for bed excited about the next morning’s journey.
Lupin woke up Harry and Ginny at six in the morning so they could collect Emma and Joy before going to Miss Figg’s. They shrunk the trunks down, and removed the requirement spell from the room returning it to its normal proportions. They then headed downstairs, Harry shouted down the hallway to his aunt and uncle that he was leaving for the summer, then headed out the door. But that wasn’t before he and Ginny cast another special spell that they had found.
Walking over to the Massey’s Lupin noticed their conspiratorial glances at each other and asked what they had done. At first they refused to answer but finally Harry broke up laughing and told Lupin that they had placed a jinx on the house called conversio cubiculum which, Ginny said, completely inverted the house for a set amount of time. They had found it in one of the spell books Lupin had brought and thought it would be a good parting gift.
“Well, you two aren’t doing much for Muggle wizard relations, you could seriously scare them,” Lupin said, trying to hide his smile but eventually failing. “Alright, alright, it was good, I’ll admit that. They’ll have no idea what’s hit them. But you cannot tell your mother I said that, she’d skin me alive if I knew I was encouraging you two.” Lupin said pointing at Ginny jokingly.
When they reached Emma’s home the lights were already on and there were two bags sitting on the front step, Emma answered the door excitedly and said she was all ready to go and that she couldn’t wait. Joy gave the three some muffins and tea because they hadn’t had breakfast yet.
A little before seven the group reached Miss Figg’s and rang the bell, once again they heard the screeching of cats and the curses from the squib about turning them all into turnips.
They all bustled in, apologizing for waking her, then lined up at the fire. Lupin explained to Joy and Emma the basics of floo travel. Harry offered to go with Emma to make sure she wouldn’t go somewhere wrong, and Lupin offered to go with Joy.
Ginny went first, throwing her handful of powder into the fire and stepping into the hearth, then shouted “
The last room he saw into before landing at headquarters was that of a small poorly lit room, and although it was poorly lit the face he saw was easily recognizable. It was that of the traitorous friend Peter Pettigrew. Alongside him were several other obvious Death Eaters including one Harry recognized as McNair.
The scene flashed by so quickly that he wasn’t completely sure that it really was real or if he were imagining it. But once he landed in the kitchen of
Around the kitchen were several members of the Weasley clan along with some other Order members. Before any of them could welcome him back or say anything for that matter, he said in an low voice, “We have a problem.”
