Disclaimer: I'm too old for this shit!
A/N: OK, the P.L.O.T. moves on a bit in this chapter and when I get the next chapter containing the wedding and Harry's birthday out next, it'll get serious (as in Death Eaters and such stuff. Also a bit of what happened in last chapter is explained - if you skipped it for some reason (like thinking I had mistakenly put a HP/SW story up instead of next chapter) I'd suggest you go and read it. IMHO it's not just really funny, but important things about Harry are revealed (and I don't mean here that he and Luke could change places with anyone being the wiser). All the weirdness should be explained in the chapter itself, but if you still doubt my sanity, go read the A/N at the end and my answers to some of the reviews for last chapter. Author out!
The secrets you keep
"So what's so bloody important that requires Crookshanks presence 5 o'clock in the morning?" Harry was trying to hold a conversation and coax an angry half-kneazle down from the chandelier at the same time.
"I, um, missed him?" Hermione offered.
"You know, that makes me jealous enough to leave him up there," Harry huffed and crossed his arms over his chest.
"I missed you too," she smiled at him. "Feel better now?"
"Well, that depends on if you missed me more than him," he jerked his head towards Crookshanks.
"Yes - much, much more than him. Would you now please get him down?"
Harry grumbled something unintelligible and reached up again from where he was standing on the couch. When his hands reached Crookshanks the half-kneazle hissed at him angrily and took a swipe at him with his claws.
"Ow! Hell!" Harry yelped, withdrawing his hands quickly. One of them now had long scratches visible on it with a few drops of blood seeping through the skin. "That's it, Crookshanks! Get down, NOW!" Harry snapped.
Crookshanks seemed to give Harry the cat/kneazle equivalent of a shocked stare, then jumped down obediently to land softly on the couch and ran out of the living room.
"Yeah, no good deed goes unpunished," Harry grumbled, nursing his itching hand. "My collection of scars just keeps growing with every year." He dropped down on the couch himself and sat there.
"Don't worry, Harry." Hermione told him as she got comfortably on the couch with him - her feet dangling over one edge and her head in his lap. "As he's my cat I feel it's my solemn duty to properly reward you."
"Oh," Harry grinned. "I do like the sound of that."
"But not now, Harry," she said, closing her eyes.
"So now that you made sure both Crookshanks and I are still here you're going back to sleep?" Harry asked her.
"No," Hermione yawned. "I believe I had my share of dreams for tonight. You?"
"Same, I guess," He told her. "To tell you the truth, I don't remember anything from the dream, but the feeling right now ranks somewhat above the one I had after that nightmare the first day back - and significantly lower than the feeling of waking up next to you, just so you know. Whatever that potion did, I guess it helped."
"Harry…I need to tell you something," she said, twisting her fingers. "It was actually one of two companion potions that I made. They are called the Dreamer and the Watcher - I found them in Moste Potente Potions."
"You did? Well, for something out of that book it tasted surprisingly good."
"Let me continue, please? The Dreamer works like a sleeping potion, but it let's the person who drinks the Watcher potion to enter and see the dream the other person has. It means that I sneaked around in your mind without asking you first," she finished.
"You did?" Harry asked. "Hope you didn't see anything I should be highly embarrassed about."
"No, not really. But I saw some things that made me realize a few things about you. Like how you deal with death and grief, for example," she said quietly.
"What's there to realize?" Harry asked her. "Don't I deal with it like everybody else does?"
"No, love." Hermione looked up from where her head was resting. "You seem to channel your grief into rage and anger, and that is not right. When you grieve you feel the loss of a loved one - but you turn the absence of love into something quite different. It makes it easier to deal with in short-term, but it will just hurt you more in the long run." She raised one hand and caressed his cheek. "The people you lost - you haven't let them go. Like you believe that they are lost to you forever. But remember what Professor Dumbledore told you after you defeated Quirrel and Voldemort in the first year? Death is but the next great adventure - and I believe it. It didn't help that you lost your parents so early in life and were forced to grow up with the Dursleys - those creatures didn't teach you anything worth knowing. When Cedric was killed in front of you - I remember how angry you were when we met you at the headquarters. A month had passed and you were still suffering from it."
"Yeah, had a good running streak of nightmares the whole month before it, but they went away," Harry interrupted.
"Why do you think they went away, Harry?"
"Er," Harry thought hard. "Would I be wrong if I assumed it was because of getting back to you and Sirius?"
"No, I was thinking the same thing, Harry…But then you lost Sirius. And it was sad that not only did he die, but he disappeared through that damned veil so there was no funeral, or even a memorial service to honor him - and it's exactly those things that help people deal with their grief."
"I'd say you're right, but that wouldn't be telling anything you already didn't know, now would it? So let me just tell you that I really like smart girls who understand me so well - and there only seems to be one of them around." He kissed her on the lips softly. "I'd love to hold a small memorial or something to remember Sirius - I don't know if the Order ever held one. If they did, they didn't see fit to invite me. But that's not that I need right now…"
"What I really need right now is a cup of hot steaming coffee," he replied, rubbing his hands over his face to get the blood going. Suddenly the smell of fresh, hot coffee filled his nostrils. He lowered his hands and saw, indeed, two cups of the steaming stuff on the small table in front of them. "Hey! Nice service in here, thanks!" He reached for one of the cups, noticing his own name on it.
"Er, Harry, that wasn't me - and unless I acquired a house elf or two without my knowledge, it was you who conjured them." She was watching the cup with her own name suspiciously.
"Really?" Harry said, arching an eyebrow. "Well, it tastes great. Must've been Kreacher, then...or Dobby, more likely, as it obviously lacks poison." His face went sour suddenly and he sighed.
"What?" Hermione asked with concern.
"Mentioning Kreatcher made me think of Sirius's old house. It would have been a great place to go after I turn seventeen and it has loads of space - even a library - we could have used it as our base."
"And what's stopping us now?" Hermione raised an eyebrow.
"With Dumbledore - and thus, the Fidelius charm - gone, I dont fancy stepping through the door and in front of a "welcome home, Harry!" killing curse. Snape must've told them all about the place now, I figure."
"Ah! This may make you feel better then, Harry," she started with a grin. "Remember you asked me to check up the Fidelius charm when you called me through the mirror?"
"Oh, I will definitely remember that one for the rest of my life, Mione!" Harry grinned from ear to ear.
"Ha ha!" Hermione said in annoyed tone, rolling her eyes. "Anyway, I did check it up. I was just waiting for you to ask about it. What I found out was most interesting. It seems that the Fidelius charm has a sorts of fail-safe built in it." She sat up and reached for the cup of coffee.
"Oh, come on! No dramatic pauses please Mione! The suspense is killing me!" Harry said in a mocking voice.
After giving him a warning stare for interrupting her, she continued with her report. "Should the Secret Keeper die then yes, normally the spell would end and the protection would be lifted. However, it is possible for the Secret Keeper to name a successor that would become he new Secret Keeper when the previous one dies. When the Secret Keeper dies the secret he protects is transferred into his successors head. It kind of makes sense for such a powerful charm to have a way to keep the protection up - if all it took to end the protection was to kill the Secret Keeper the Fidelius charm wouldn't be half as useful as it is."
"Well I figure killing Dumbledore wouldn't have been easy at all if he wasn't so weakened by that potion," Harry said in a pained voice. He still partly blamed himself for feeding it to Dumbledore, especially because it had all been in vain - the mysterious R.A.B. had beaten them to the Horcrux. The rest - most - of the blame he laid on Snape, of course.
"You're right, it wouldn't have. But still I think he took the measures to pass on the secret to someone else should anything happen to him."
"So how exactly does it work - passing the secret to someone else?" Harry asked her, looking her in the eye.
"Well, the books said that in order to pass the secret, the Secret Keeper and the successor must share a bond," she said what she remembered from the books.
"Bond? What bond?" Harry asked.
"A bond of trust. The Keeper must trust the successor first," Hermione said.
"First? There's more to it?"
"Yes - now let me continue, please, or I shall put you in detention. Now if the Keeper trusts the successor, then the next step would be to reinforce it, make it a magical bond."
"How'd you do that?" Harry interrupted again.
"Detention, tonight, Mr. Potter, and if you interrupt me once more I'll…" she tried to think of a suitable punishment.
"Kiss me right away and not wait for the so-called 'detention'?" Harry asked smugly. "I assure you it's a one-hundred percent sure way to shut me up!"
"Grrr…." Hermione growled. "Reinforcing the bond - in other words, the successor must fulfill a promise he made to the Secret Keeper." She looked at him with a serious expression. "And it has to be something important. Things like "I promise not to sneak into the kitchen tonight" wont cut it."
"Yeah, well, I'm certain that cuts the circle of possible candidates to at least three-digit numbers considering how important Dumbledore was and how many people he must have known during his long life," Harry said sarcastically. "Wonder which one of them might have the keys to my house now."
"No, Harry, I don't think so. I owled Professor McGonagall and Moody who were Professor Dumbledore's closest friends and associates for a long time. They told me that Albus almost never asked anyone to make a promise to him. Even with the Order members - he asked or ordered but never made them promise something that would count for the Fidelius charms requirement," Hermione told him.
"So you think Dumbledore left the secret to a successor…any ideas who it might be, then?"
"As it happens, yes - I have one." Her eyes caught his. "I think it's you."
"What?!" Harry hadn't expected that. "Me? Why me? How'd you figure that?"
"It's called 'logic', Harry. It wouldn't hurt you to use it sometimes," she smiled at him teasingly. "Why I think it's you? Easy - Dumbledore trusted and respected you immensely. And I believe you've made a promise or two to him over the years that you were able to keep. And last but not least - as you said just now, it is your house now. No-one else I can think of would qualify as the successor."
Harry was trying to think of a flaw in her reasoning. He might as well have tried to find a way to prove two plus two was sixteen. She was right, of course - Dumbledore had trusted him - he hadn't told him every secret he knew, but the trust was there, no doubt about it. From the first year at Hogwarts Dumbledore had stood by and let Harry and his friends do what needed to be done - ready to intervene if necessary, but otherwise letting them act freely.
Then there was the promise…Harry wondered which one from over the years would have been sufficient to act as the reinforcement to their bond of trust. The last one, he figured. He gave his word to do what Dumbledore told him to do - no matter what. To feed him the potion and not to stop as it happened to be in the end. He suspected no one else had before and now never would be in a similar position - forced to keep a promise in such a way. And it was his house now so the idea that the protection of he secret should be transferred to him sounded very…right.
"Ok, let's assume it's me. So how would it happen - the transfer of the secret? I mean I don't feel any different than before," he said at last.
"You're not supposed to. If it's been transferred to your mind all you have to do is to imagine it to see it. The books describe it like an imaginary list with all the names of the people who know of the secret - to whom the Secret Keeper has revealed it, that is."
Harry suddenly saw quite clearly a piece of yellow parchment before his eyes with many names written with green ink on it. Then the list rolled up into a scroll and a small jeweled metal box snapped shut around it with a click like the turning of a lock. The next moment the image was gone, leaving him blinking.
"You were right, Mione. It's in my head now - the secret."
"It is? Really? What does it feel like?" she asked, peering into his eyes as if trying to see the mental image of the list reflected in his eyes.
"It doesn't 'feel', it 'is', Mione," Harry said. "Great, now at least we know that I'm the new Secret Keeper. Is there anything I can do to the list? Like cut out Snape's name?" he asked.
"No, that's not possible I'm afraid," Hermione answered. "You have two options according to the spells description - to either keep the list and add new names to it when needed or to wipe it totally clean - start anew."
Harry instantly knew what he would need to do. He closed his eyes and recalled the image of the list in his mind. When the box appeared, opened and spit out the scroll with the names he concentrated harder. One by one the names disappeared as if the paper was soaking in the ink - like Riddle's diary, he thought. When the parchment was clean, he let it be boxed again.
"Mione, the new base of our trio will be at Grimmauld place, Number 12, London. Mi casa es su casa," he grinned. He heard an imaginary quill scribbling her name on the parchment inside his head.
"Harry, I've been there…" Hermione started to say but stopped suddenly. "You wiped it?" she asked.
Harry nodded with a serious expression on his face.
"But why? The Order needs it as their headquarter!"
"The Order is not important, Mione," Harry said. She noticed that he had started to call her with the name from his dream. "It's what we three will do that matters. Dumbledore would have agreed with me. He only told me about the Horcruxes and allowed me to tell you two - the Order was never in on this information. We need a place where we wont be disturbed, so at least for a while only the three of us will have access to it. I don't need any distractions like Mrs. Weasley or even Remus watching over our shoulders the whole time. And the Order doesn't need a headquarter to function if it's still functioning at all. Dumbledore is gone and even Fawkes has left. I think it's really dark times for the Order at the moment."
"The Order will survive, I'm sure," Hermione told him. "It actually pre-dates Dumbledore and the war against Voldemort, did you know?" Seeing his expression she said: "So you didn't. And you're right - Fawkes left. But the phoenix will return and choose a new leader for the Order."
"What? What do you mean with that?" Harry was puzzled.
"I checked it up when I found out that I was a witch and all the things like unicorns and phoenixes and dragons were real. See, as phoenixes don't really die but are reborn on their burning day they can live a very long life. So unlike other magical beings that wizards take in as pets with phoenixes it's actually the other way around - here the wizard is the pet and the phoenix usually chooses his next one when the previous dies."
"Now what I have been able to find out - when it's 'pet' dies, the phoenix disappears until his next burning day. When he is reborn on that day his previous name is abandoned and he searches out a new wizard to become his keeper. I looked through the records on phoenixes and their masters the Ministry had and discovered something - a surprising number of them were considered to be the greatest white wizards of their time and I wouldn't be surprised at all if they were all also the headmasters of the Order."
Harry thought that Professor Dumbledore was probably greatly amused that Fawkes would consider him his 'pet'.
"Well then, when we hear that someone has acquired a phoenix we'll let him or her know where the headquarter of the Order used to be," he told Hermione. "Wonder who it will be, though."
There's a thing to be said about cosmic jokes. They are usually played on people least expecting the. And they are usually triggered when people say something. A good example would be the jokes that have been classified as the Famous Last Words. If anyone would have told Harry that one day a vortex of flames would burst out of his coffee cup, leaving a pile of ash and a baby phoenix in it, he would have laughed at it. But somehow people never laugh at the cosmic jokes. Or at least those they happen to don't.
Harry was staring dumbfounded at the little baby-phoenix in his cup who was enjoying himself immensely and gawking cutely at his face. He felt Hermione stand up next to him and peer into the cup. She looked at him, then.
"Harry?" she asked.
Harry lifted his eyes to meet hers.
"What are you thinking now?" she asked next.
"I'm thinking…" Harry started slowly, "that Hedwig is not going to like this one bit."
"Why?"
"Elementary, Watson. How would you like a new roommate who would go up in flames ever month or so?" Harry grinned now that the initial shock seemed to have passed.
"Oh, right."
"Now I'll leave baby-Albus here with you while I go get my butt kicked by Bruce again and I'll see you later, then!" Harry said. The tiny bird chirped happily at the mention of his new name.
"Wait, you're going? But what about - Albus? You're naming him Albus?" she asked.
"Yes, Mione. And I'm sure neither one of them would object. See you later!" he told before popping out.