Disclaimer: See Part 1.
Author's Note: I'm sorry for how long this chapter has taken to post but RL and then other things got in the way. At any rate, here it is and I don't think it will take as long before the next part is posted as I have a pretty good idea where I'm going with it.
I must acknowledge being very indebted to the brilliant Lynney's 7th year fic, "Magic Never Dies" for the ideas in much of this chapter-as I do agree with her.
A mostly plot-set-up chapter (in which I also indulge the history geek in me.)
Enjoy!
From My Soul
Part 11
Harry scowled blackly at the wall as he closed the door behind him with a slam. Idiot Ministry- making laws that ended in people like Stan Shunpike being accused and arrested while people like Lucius Malfoy and Antonin Dolohov and Bellatrix Lestrange roamed free because the Ministry was too cowardly to actually deal with the real Death Eaters.
And then he saw something that made all his anger vanish instantly, like a fire doused by cold water.
It was Fawkes, perched on the little table he used as a nightstand. And he knew what it meant.
Oh no…
He shook his head back and forth in automatic denial even as Fawkes tilted his head to one side and simply looked at Harry-and Harry could swear the damn bird was somehow talking to him. You know why I'm here and now that I am, I'm not going anywhere.
Harry's frown deepened. He was losing his mind if he was imagining a bird-even if it was a phoenix-talking. And the denial- the refusal- stayed.
"Fawkes, don't take this the wrong way but-sod off."
Fawkes opened his beak to let out a single note of phoenix song that seemed to linger in the air long after the sound had died out-and for the first time, the sound of the phoenix song wasn't enough to banish Harry's doubts.
"I can't, Fawkes. Don't you understand? I can't. I'm not him; I can never be him. He's gone…"
Harry's voice cracked on the last word. Something about having to say that just got to him-and he stumbled over to his bed, sliding down to sit on the floor, leaning against the side of his bed, and buried his face in his arms. Dumbledore was gone-and no one could bring him back or replace him… Certainly not Harry. Dumbledore had been the only wizard Voldemort feared; Harry was-just a boy.
"I can't do it. I can't… He's gone…" he mumbled, the words forming a litany in his thoughts-and he fought the tightness in his chest and the pricking of tears behind his eyes.
"Go away, Fawkes," he said louder. "Just leave. Please? I- I can't do what you want."
There was no response, no sound at all in the room except for his breathing.
Until he heard a knock on the door, followed by Hermione's voice. "Harry? Can I come in?"
"Yes," he raised his voice slightly so she could hear it and finally opened his eyes, wishing rather than expecting Fawkes to be gone.
He heard Hermione's small intake of breath. "Oh…"
He looked up at her, not bothering to try to hide the bleakness he felt. He didn't say anything to explain, knew he didn't need to, that she could read his expression as she always had been able to.
She moved over to sit next to him. "I knew it," she breathed softly. "I knew he would pick you…"
Harry stared at her. "But I can't do it! I'm not Dumbledore; I can't be him; I don't know the slightest thing about what the Order really does." He paused, added in a softer tone, "I can't lead anyone when I don't know what I'm doing myself."
"You don't have to lead the Order, not really."
"But--"
"Harry, listen to me. The Order doesn't need you to really lead it; it needs you to be the figurehead, the symbol. It's what you are, you know, what you've always been to the wizarding world since you were a baby-the symbol of the resistance movement against Voldemort. Fawkes came to you so everyone will know the Order-and the resistance-is still on. But you don't need to be the one giving orders; you can delegate that to someone else you trust. You just need to be there."
Her tone softened from her coolly-logical one to one more gentle, understanding. "You can do this, Harry. Dumbledore believed in you, as does Fawkes. And so do I."
He gave her the ghost of a smile but didn't respond, his still-sad gaze on the phoenix.
"And those three votes of confidence are worth a lot, if I do say so myself," she said, trying to inject a lighter note into the atmosphere, trying to ease the pain in Harry's gaze in the only way she could at the moment.
It worked.
He looked up at her, the beginnings of a smile just touching his eyes. "They are worth a lot," he told her, only half-humorously.
She smiled quickly before returning to the matter at hand. "Who do you want to choose to lead, Harry?"
He barely needed a moment to think. "Prof-that is, Remus."
She nodded, having expected he would say that. Entirely aside from Professor Lupin's experience in the Order, she knew Harry trusted him as much as he trusted any adult-as he always had ever since their 3rd year- and felt a sort of instinctive bond with him, just from knowing how close Professor Lupin had been to Harry's parents and Sirius.
She turned to Fawkes who looked back at her. "Fawkes, how did Dumbledore call together the Order in the past?"
Fawkes bobbed his head as if to nod and then plucked out one of his tail feathers while a blank piece of parchment somehow materialized in front of him. The feather began to write on the parchment in a thin, old-fashioned script: Directions to Re-form the Order of the Phoenix.
Hermione watched in some awe, rapidly revising everything she had ever read about all the magical abilities of the phoenix to include the fact that it could also make a very effective messenger of sorts, at least when it chose to be. (She knew that the phoenix was almost notoriously choosy when it came to choosing masters-rather like wands, the phoenix chose his master; a wizard never chose a phoenix, which was why they were never sold commercially as familiars. And once a phoenix had chosen a master, there was nothing the wizard could do to avoid it. Of course few wizards would want to avoid a phoenix as a familiar as their known powers were immense and the full extent of their powers not yet known as new ones seemed to crop up to suit necessity. Besides which, once they had chosen a master, phoenixes were incredibly loyal, the most loyal of familiars-flying into the flames at Dumbledore's funeral had been a commonplace sign of devotion among phoenixes.)
Harry watched, feeling the constriction in his chest tighten even further rather than lessen, as the feather ceased its writing.
He hesitated to pick up the parchment as the enormity of the task facing him seemed to come down on top of him-and turned instead, instinctively, to Hermione for some reassurance.
"D'you really think I can do this?" he asked in a tormented whisper.
Hermione met his troubled gaze directly. "Yes, I do," she answered simply. She wondered how she could ever have thought she might care more about Ron than she did about Harry. Seeing Harry now, when he looked so- lost- with so much pain in his eyes at the memory of Dumbledore, she was overwhelmed with a flood of so much sympathy and tenderness, it was almost a physical sensation in her chest. And she knew she could-and she would-do anything to help Harry, to make him feel better, to make him smile again…
For a moment, her gaze lowered to focus on his lips as an almost-random thought flitted through her mind: what would happen if we kissed?
But she dismissed the thought-she couldn't and wouldn't start anything with Harry now when there were other, more important things to take care of. Later…
She just bent forward and kissed his cheek quickly. "I've always believed in you," she told him quietly.
He gave her the ghost of a smile before he pulled the parchment towards him to read it.
1. The Leader decides the time and place for the next meeting.
2. The Inner Circle- consisting of the most experienced, most trusted, members of the Order, as decided by the Leader- shall be informed first by Fawkes.
3. The Inner Circle may choose to meet first, privately, before the general meeting of the other Order members.
4. All other former members will be informed of the next meeting by Fawkes and will indicate to a designated member of the Inner Circle whether or not they will attend the meeting.
5. All former members will be given the choice whether or not to rejoin the Order at the first meeting at which point they will be sworn to secrecy once again, while those who do not rejoin the Order, will have their memories altered for the safety of the rest.
"That seems simple enough," Hermione said. "For the Inner Circle, then, obviously Remus-who else do you think?"
"You and Ron, for one thing; Professor McGonagall, Mr. Weasley, Hagrid, and Moody."
He fell silent and she sensed his sudden tension as he looked up at her, the bleakness in his eyes back.
"What about Snape? It says all former members…"
She stifled a sigh. She had known the problem of Snape would come up when it was time for the Order to reform; she had been trying, at various times, in the past months to try to come to terms with what Snape had done over the years but she hadn't yet come to any conclusion. Was Snape really the traitor he certainly seemed to be? Dumbledore had trusted him-and yet, Snape had killed Dumbledore…
"Let's go talk to Ron," she said instead. "He's the master at Chess so he might have some strategies to suggest. And we can talk about Snape with him too."
~~~
"I have an idea. Let's tell the git we're meeting in some nice deserted place and when he shows up, we hex his bollocks off and throw him into Azkaban or some place-and then Apparate the hell out of there before V-You-Know-Who and his henchmen come by to kill us all since Snape will have told them where we were meeting."
"Ron!" Hermione exclaimed reprovingly.
"What? You can't tell me you think we can trust him after he killed Dumbledore!"
"But- Dumbledore trusted him…" Hermione put in doubtfully.
Ron snorted. "Yeah and look how much good that did him. It got him very dead. I say we learn from Dumbledore's mistakes and just decide to curse Snape on sight if we ever set eyes on the greasy-haired traitor."
"But… what if Snape really isn't the traitor to the Order we think he is? Dumbledore trusted him and I just can't believe that Dumbledore was wrong about him for so long. Dumbledore wasn't blind or an idiot but he trusted Snape, just like he trusted Sirius and Arabella Figg and Hagrid and Remus, when no one else would." She spoke slowly, thinking hard and trying to force herself to play Devil's Advocate and look past her own dislike of Professor Snape.
"Face it, Hermione. Dumbledore made a mistake in trusting Snape and the mistake cost him his life. Whatever you say, you can't get past the fact that Snape killed Dumbledore and that's not exactly something someone loyal to the Order would do."
"What if-isn't it possible that Dumbledore wanted Snape to kill him?" Hermione suggested, now speculating aloud.
Ron made a sarcastic sound. "What- that Dumbledore said, 'please kill me' and Snape obeyed because of his loyalty to Dumbledore? That's the silliest thing I've ever heard." He turned to Harry who hadn't contributed to the conversation, looking as if he wished he were almost anywhere else but there, where he was having to relive one of the worst nights of his life. "Harry, you were there. What do you think?"
"Put aside what you feel about Snape," Hermione added.
Harry frowned, glowering at the floor for a long moment, before he sighed heavily and looked up, admitting with palpable reluctance, "Dumbledore just said, 'please'… But he could have freed me from the spell to let me move-and he did look at Snape for a long time as if he were begging--" Harry paused and then added, his frown darkening, "But the look on Snape's face when he killed Dumbledore-it was hatred."
"See! Snape hated Dumbledore and he killed him too. He's evil. There's nothing more to say."
"I don't think it's that simple, Ron. Think about it," Hermione began, her gaze fixed absently on her hands as she thought aloud. "Dumbledore might have known he was dying already from that potion he drank in the caves; he prevented Harry from doing anything to save him or show himself so Harry wouldn't be hurt or captured. Dumbledore used Legilimency to get into Snape's mind and told him that he was dying and asked Snape to kill him since he was dying anyway and it would be the one thing that would ensure that Snape remained one of Voldemort's most-trusted Death Eaters, which would make him an even more valuable spy for the Order."
"That's nice and convoluted-but what about the look of hatred on Snape's face?" Ron asked skeptically.
Hermione paused, glanced at Harry whose entire stance spoke of grief as he kept his gaze fixed on the ground, hesitated and then answered bravely. "It could have been hatred at having to kill someone whom he respected, in order to protect and help Harry, who he hated. He would have been going against his every inclination to help someone he hated so much, for the better good."
Harry stiffened visibly, finally lifting his head to look up at her with a pained expression.
She flinched inwardly at his look, hating that she'd had to hurt Harry to make a point-but somehow, every logical feeling and instinct in her was telling her that Dumbledore couldn't have been so wrong about Snape and there was something about Dumbledore's death that wasn't obvious. After all, they had thought Snape had been the obvious villain in their first year, only to be completely mistaken about that. If she had learned anything in her years in the magical world, it was that things- and people- weren't always what they seemed-and Snape had always been the most central example of that principle.
Ron was gaping at her-as if she had said that she thought Voldemort was really a good person. But all he said, after a moment of stunned disbelief, was, "You really are mental."
She turned to Harry, mentally pleading that he understand. "Harry, think about it-entirely aside from how you feel about Snape. I'm not saying this because I personally like Snape or even trust him myself-but I just can't think that Dumbledore was so wrong. And if Snape still is loyal to the Order-then we can't afford not to include him because his role as a spy on the Death Eaters is too vital. He could help us!"
"But if he is a traitor to the Order…" he trailed off, not needing to complete the sentence. They all knew what would happen in that case.
She met his eyes. "I think it's a risk we have to take."
Harry was silent for a long moment, conflicting expressions passing over his face as he thought it over. "Okay, we'll keep Snape in for now," he finally said. He paused, adding rather grimly, "But if he turns out to be a traitor, I'm going to kill him myself."
Ron let out a short sigh. "If you say so, Harry, it's your call."
Hermione relaxed slightly now that the most difficult question was out of the way. "When do you want the first meeting to be, Harry?"
He hesitated for a moment and then said, "I- I'm not sure-but let's make it a few weeks from now on the hope that we'll get to talk to Professor Dumbledore's portrait first. I think-I hope-he'll wake up soon; it's been months. Professor Dumbledore will be able to tell us more, especially about Snape, and maybe give us some advice on what the Order can do." He glanced at Fawkes, who was perched on the back of the empty chair, as he waited for them to finish their discussion. "It's okay that we wait before calling the first meeting, right, Fawkes?" he asked.
Fawkes tilted his head to one side, which Harry decided to interpret as an affirmative response.
"So we'll wait, then," Ron said.
~*~*~
Their lunch was interrupted by a tapping sound at the window. It was an owl. Harry leaped up, opening the window to let it in.
The owl dropped a letter sealed with the Hogwarts seal onto the table and then flew back out again.
"It must be from McGonagall. Professor Dumbledore's portrait must have awoken," Harry said and opened the envelope eagerly.
The note was very brief and to the point.
The portrait has awoken.
I will expect to see you in my office at 11 am on the last Saturday of the month. The password will be A_ _ e _ _ a T _ _ s_ _ _l.
They all bent over it, frowning.
Ron made a sound of disgust. "Oh great. Now she's sending us riddles because having pieces of You-know-who's soul to find isn't enough of a challenge."
Just as he finished speaking, another owl flew in the still-open window, deposited another envelope on the table and flew out with the same speed as the first owl had.
The next note contained only 3 words: Hogwarts, a History.
"She's gotten as barmy as Dumbledore was," Ron grumbled.
Hermione frowned over the two notes and then made a small sound of comprehension. "Ooh."
Ron glanced at Harry who shrugged and turned to Hermione. "What is it?"
Hermione looked up with a smile tinged with triumph. "The password is Alberta Tutskill."
"Al- who? And why couldn't she just write that?"
Hermione rolled her eyes briefly. "Don't be daft, Ron. She did it for security reasons in case the owls were intercepted. Voldemort knows we're not at Hogwarts by now and he'll probably figure that Professor McGonagall will be keeping in contact with us."
"Who's Alberta Tutskill?" Harry asked curiously.
"Oh, honestly, aren't you two ever going to read Hogwarts, a History for yourselves?" But there was no irritation in her tone, even a little half-affectionate exasperation at this oft-repeated question. "Alberta Tutskill was the first Headmistress of Hogwarts after Helga Hufflepuff and Rowena Ravenclaw." Hermione paused, thinking and then added, "She was Headmistress sometime in the 1300's, I think, more than 300 years after Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw died. It took the wizarding world that long to get over the idea that a woman shouldn't be the Head of Hogwarts." Hermione's tone indicated her wealth of scorn for those medieval wizards.
Ron gaped at her. "You remember all that?"
Harry and Hermione both ignored him, Harry frowning slightly, as he tried to remember the portraits in Dumbledore's office. "How many Headmistresses has Hogwarts had?"
Hermione grimaced slightly. "Four, other than the Founders. Professor McGonagall will be the 5th one. After Alberta Tutskill, it wasn't until 1558 that there was another Headmistress, oddly enough."
"Why odd?"
Hermione looked at Harry but he looked genuinely interested and so she answered, "That was the same year that Elizabeth I became Queen in the Muggle World and Scotland had a reigning queen and a female regent at the time. It's fascinating, sometimes, how wizarding history echoed Muggle history."
Harry smiled slightly, thinking that he really loved the way Hermione's eyes lit up when she talked about something she was interested in.
"Did you eat that book so you'd remember everything in it?" Ron asked.
Hermione looked torn between amusement and annoyance. "Did I- what?"
"Seriously, how d'you remember all that?"
Hermione shrugged a little. "I don't know. I just do."
"And thank Merlin you do. Otherwise we'd probably never have figured out what the password for McGonagall's office will be," Harry interjected.
Hermione smiled slightly down at the floor, her cheeks slightly pink with pleasure.
Harry spared himself a fleeting smile but then frowned.
Reforming the Order-without Dumbledore. He didn't want this, had never wanted it, he thought rebelliously.
He hoped desperately that Dumbledore's portrait would provide all the answers they needed…
To be continued…