Harry was still seething about Lupin and the Order to trying to take away his responsibility. He couldn’t see how they could do that and not include Harry in their plans. They aren’t going to stop me, he thought to himself. He fell into an uneasy sleep, and was woken up in the morning by Hermione, who was practically jumping up and down on his bed.
“Get up!” she shouted into Harry’s ear.
“I’m up, I’m up,” Harry said groggily. “Didn’t know you would be this anxious to get started,” he said, reaching for his glasses.
“I doubt that we’ll be starting today,” Ron said when he came into focus.
“Why not?” Harry asked, bewildered.
“Look outside,” he said, nodding towards the window, which was letting through dazzling sunlight.
Harry got out of bed and looked outside, and when his eyes adjusted to the sunshine, he saw three figures standing outside the front door: Mr. Weasley, Lupin, and Mad-Eye Moody.
“What the heck are they here for?” he asked Ron.
“I’ve got a shrewd suspicion, but I’m not getting my hopes up by saying it out loud.”
Harry beckoned Ron and Hermione out of his room and dressed as fast as he could. He just got his left arm through his T-shirt when he wrenched open the door and went downstairs.
When Ron and Hermione caught up, Harry opened the front door.
“Good morning, Harry,” Lupin said. There wasn’t anything in his tone that suggested anything good. Harry stepped aside to let all three of them through.
“Close the door, Potter!” Moody said. Harry shut it after realizing he had been gawking at them with the door wide open.
Mr. Weasley’s eyes lingered on Ron for a second, but he didn’t give any greeting when he passed him. Lupin then quietly led the way towards the basement kitchen.
“Now,” Lupin said, turning to Harry, Ron, and Hermione, “I have discussed our conversation last night over the fire to the rest of Order, and we have came to a decision.”
“Some of us, including myself, are dead set against it,” growled Moody, eyeing the three of them, “but it appears we have no choice.”
“Actually, Alastor, everybody is against this,” said Mr. Weasley, looking glum.
“So, we are offering you lot one last chance,” Moody said. “Tell us all you know about these Horcruxes of Voldemort’s.”
“No,” Harry answered defiantly.
”Fine, if there is no other way to get the information out of you, then it looks like we are going to have to induct you into the Order,” Lupin continued. His expression was unreadable.
"You are?” Harry said, completely stunned, even though it was obvious that was where they were going. He had never seriously expected the Order to let him join. Hermione and Ron looked shocked as well.
“Are you serious?” Ron said, grinning.
“Yes, but only because you are giving us no other choice.”
“And it’s nothing to be smiling about, Ron,” Mr. Weasley retorted angrily.
“All right, then,” Harry said, enthusiastic about getting something done. “Let’s do this.” He then spotted Ron and Hermione and said to them, “Look you two don’t have to do this. I’ve got the Order to help me now….”
His voice trailed off when he saw their faces.
“Come off it,” Ron said, annoyed. “We aren’t letting you do this alone”even with the Order behind you.”
“Actually, nobody is going to join at this very moment,” Hermione said, looking at Mr. Weasley, Lupin, and Moody.
“And why not?” Ron asked.
“Because,” she said, “how do we know that after we join and give them the information, that they won’t just shove us aside and search for the Horcruxes without us?”
“That is a very good point,” Harry said, turning back to the three older wizards and casting them suspicious looks. “How do we know that you won’t do just that?”
The smallest trace of a smile appeared on Lupin’s face, but left instantly. “Very astute of you, Hermione. Very well, I give you three my word that I will put you on the Horcrux assignment.” He ignored Mr. Weasley’s groan. Apparently he expected Hermione’s suspicions to come to pass.
“Fine,” said Harry, “when are we doing this?”
“We’ll be leaving for the headquarters right now,” he answered. With that, he left the kitchen with Mr. Weasley and Moody. Harry, Ron, and Hermione followed. They all went back upstairs and outside.
There, Lupin took hold of Harry’s forearm, Mr. Weasley took Ron’s, and Moody took Hermione’s. They all stepped forward and Harry felt the familiar pressure around him. Before he knew it he found himself outside a quaint Muggle neighborhood. Nobody was around, even though it was still the morning, but Lupin was already shoving him forward between two houses.
“Take this,” he whispered, shoving a piece of parchment into his hands. Ron and Hermione looked over his shoulder. They recognized the handwriting to be McGonagall’s.
The new headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix is number twenty-one Waterside, Exeter.
Harry looked back up to see that a new house had appeared between numbers twenty and twenty-two. Moody, whose irregular eye was swerving in all directions, took the parchment from Harry and burned it with the tip of his wand. He must have been much more paranoid since all this was being done in broad daylight.
“Go on,” he said, going back to Hermione and prodding her forward. Lupin and Mr. Weasley dragged forward Harry and Ron. Lupin hit the front door with his wand, there was a clicking sound, and the door creaked open.
They were all shoved inside, where it was far less gloomy than Harry’s first visit to Grimmauld Place. The wooden floor only had the occasional scuff, the chandelier and the candle brackets in the hallway had no cobwebs, and when Lupin spoke he didn’t bother to keep his voice down.
“This way,” he said. Lupin led them down the empty hallway to a set of stairs on their right. When they reached the first landing they went down another hallway, and the second door to the left stood ajar. He let Harry, Ron, Hermione, Moody, and Mr. Weasley pass first, and then closed the door behind them.
Lupin and Moody went forward to sit at a long table at the center of the room where Professor McGonagall and a wizard Harry recognized as Sturgis Podmore sat. This must be the Council that Moody mentioned, Harry figured. In a shadowy corner he saw the wizard that had fought poorly at Godric’s Hollow, Geoffrey Baxer.
“Don’t mind him,” said Moody, who had followed Harry’s gaze. “He’s our scribe. Been keeping a real close eye on him ever since he let that Ministry official get assassinated.” He shot a menacing look at Baxer, who whimpered.
“I’m sorry,” he said, “I””
“Now,” cut in Professor McGonagall, looking at Harry, Ron, and Hermione over her square spectacles, “as Remus has already informed you, due to your lack of cooperation in giving us information on these Horcruxes of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, it seems that we have no choice but to make you three part of the Order of the Phoenix.”
“Great,” Harry said, nervous and unsure of what to say or do. “Erm”so, where do we sign up?”
“There is no signing up, only the matter of taking an oath against You-Know-Who.” Upon saying that, she placed three rolls of parchment. “Each of you take one”but be warned,” she added quickly when Ron made for a grab for one of the rolls, “there is no backing out. Once you three have taken this oath, we expect you to hold to them. This is your last chance to tell us what you know.” She held them in her gaze and watched carefully for any hint of weakness, until none came. “Memorize and proceed.”
Harry, Ron, and Hermione unrolled their parchment and began to read. After reading it about five times, they gave back the scrolls and started to say their oath. It seemed much too simple.
“ ‘I swear to always fulfill the tasks the Order sets for me to do and work against the Dark Lord, to do whatever it takes for me to complete the task, even if it should lead to my own death. I will not back down when I see what there is before me, and will continually judge what will be the right thing to do if I may go astray.’ ”
“Welcome to the Order,” McGonagall said once they had finished.
“That’s it?” Ron said disbelievingly. “It seems too easy.”
“This was very short notice, Ron,” Lupin explained. “We had to get this done as quickly as possible.”
“We’re very selective about who joins,” said Sturgis Podmore. “We normally run a very thorough background check before we offer membership.”
“The only reason that weasel, Snape, got into the Order,” Moody said, answering Harry’s unasked question, “was because Dumbledore vouched for him. And Pettigrew must have joined the Death Eaters after he joined, because his record was clean.”
“How do we know that this wasn’t all some kind of trick?” Harry asked suspiciously.
McGonagall simply gestured to the wall on her left, where a desk stood and quill was moving on its own over a piece of parchment. Harry went over to look and saw that three names were written on fresh ink under many other names: Harry Potter, Hermione Granger, and Ronald Weasley.
“Blimey,” said Ron’s awed voice behind him. Harry understood how he felt completely: they were now part of the Order of the Phoenix.
“Now, as your first duty,” Professor McGonagall said, satisfied that she had convinced them that this was no trick, “is for you to tell us all that you have learned concerning the matter of You-Know-Who and his Horcruxes.”
“We are going be involved in the search, aren’t we?” Harry asked Lupin.
“Either way you have got to tell us about the Horcruxes, since it’s your duty to fulfill your oath,” he answered. “But, yes, you three will be involved in the search.”
Harry looked into his eyes and believed him. Then, pausing for a moment, Harry said, “I started taking private lessons with Professor Dumbledore at the beginning of the last school year, where I learned about Voldemort’s past.” He then started to spew out everything that Dumbledore had shown him: the Gaunts (though he had to explain Voldemort’s true name), Caractus Burke, the orphanage with Riddle, Voldemort visiting Morfin, Voldemort’s application for a job, Hokey the house-elf’s memory, and Slughorn.
“So three of the Horcruxes that Dumbledore suspected had existed I know for sure are already destroyed: Voldemort’s pet snake, Marvolo Gaunt’s ring, and Tom Riddle’s diary.”
Ron and Hermione were standing in the corner, so as to not interrupt Harry. Mr. Weasley had not said a word since they left Grimmauld Place, and every body at the table was listening carefully.
“And what of the other three?” Sturgis Podmore asked.
“Two of them are still hidden: that’ll be Hufflepuff’s cup and some other artifact of one of the founders of Hogwarts. The last one was hidden in the cave, which was Slytherin’s locket, and it was already taken by some person calling himself R.A.B.” From his pocket he took out the fake Horcrux that he had been carrying with him.
“Any idea who this person might be?” Lupin asked, taking the locket from Harry’s outstretched hand, and looking at it.
“Nope,” said Harry simply.
"We will leave that for later,” McGonagall said, examining the locket, which she had taken from Lupin. “From what you have told us, can you guess the location of any of the two Horcruxes that You-Know-Who has hidden?”
“My best guess is Tom Riddle’s old orphanage. It’s somewhere in London, I know that, but it could take a while to find it.”
“No, it will not. Remus, could you kindly go to Hogwarts and look into old records for Tom Riddle?”
“Of course, Minerva,” Lupin said. He got up from his seat and walked out the door.
“That easy?” Ron asked again.
“Hogwarts is a very large castle, Mr. Weasley,” McGonagall responded. “Why would we simply toss out information on a student that could be helpful later on?”
“What do we do now?” Harry asked.
“Your first order was to tell us about what you knew. Your second is to wait back in Grimmauld Place. And I assure you,” she added, when she saw that Harry was going to interrupt, “that Remus will get you after he retrieves the information on Riddle’s orphanage.”
After a brief pause Harry turned on his heel and left out the door with Ron and Hermione.
“You three have done it now,” said Mr. Weasley, who had followed them out. “When I tell Molly about this….” He shuddered at the thought.
“Hold on!” Ron said. “How does Mum not know about this?”
“She was under the weather, I think it was because she was so worried, and asked me to represent her. I didn’t tell her that the Order decided to let all of you in, because I knew she would just get in the way. And I asked Bill not to say anything, either.”
“Mr. Weasley, look,” said Harry, trying not to sound too apologetic. “Dumbledore meant for me to do this, so I’m not letting””
“Yeah, I know,” he said, waving it off, “Remus told us. Well, wish me luck.” And with that, he walked past them and went down the stairs.
“Oh, I do hope that Mrs. Weasley doesn’t take this too bad,” Hermione said earnestly.
Ron snorted. “If Mum goes ballistic on him, then I won’t be looking forward to my next meeting with her.”
Harry Potter and the Secret Spell by Phoenix 86
Chapter Notes: Another thank to my Beta.