chapter six
Friday rolled around and a sense of dread settled over the occupants of Grimmauld Place. No one was looking forward to the meeting. They had come up with a solid plan as to how to attack it though.
The Weasley family would be coming, and so instead of having Harry sit with James, Sirius, and Remus, he would be sitting with Bill and the twins, as they could remove him from the situation if need be and James wouldn’t have to leave. Ron and Hermione would also be in the meeting, so they would be with Harry as well.
Now as for Mary and Regulus. They had all decided, including Harry in this decision, to not inform Dumbledore that they were respectively either back and present in the wizarding world or back and present in the world of the living. They had thought it best if the older man were completely unaware of their involvement, at least for the time being. So, Mary would be under a disillusionment charm and Regulus would be under the cloak. They would both be under a silencing spell so any noise or reaction they have or make won’t be noticeable, or if it is, it’ll be muffled enough to pass off as the house settling. Everything was planned out to a tee.
So, when Dumbledore showed up with everybody an hour earlier than they had agreed upon, James knew how bad it was going to go.
“Albus,” James started, warning evident in his voice. “We agreed to meet at six."
“Oh, was it six?” The older man asked, seemingly nonchalantly but James knew better. Albus knew that they were hiding something, and he was determined to find out what it was. “Too late. The Weasleys will be here any second and the others will trickle in as the meeting starts.” James nodded with a tight smile on his face.
“I’ll let the others know that you’re here.”
“That dickhead showed up an hour early to try to fuck with us,” James cursed, walking into the study where his entire family was currently sitting in, all doing their own things in peace, just sitting in there together to spend time with each other. James’ words caused Sirius to swear and Harry to sit up quickly from where he was laying his head in Remus’ lap.
“Why the fuck would he do that?” Harry asked, making Regulus snort at his language.
“What happened to luqaddqa?” Regulus asked, amusement in his voice. Harry just glared at him.
“This is the one time I’ll let you say fuck,” James warned.
“Harry, how old are you?” Regulus asked.
“I’m turning 15 next week.”
“James, you were saying worse things than that at his age,” Regulus scoffed. James glared at him.
“Do you want to listen to the meeting?”
15 minutes later James, Sirius, Remus, and Harry all walked into the overflowing kitchen, with Mary and Regulus hidden behind them. Harry recognized the entire Weasley family, Andromeda and Ted, Kingsley, and what appeared to be the real Mad-Eye. Although Harry wasn’t entirely sure.
“Harry’s going to be joining us?” Mrs. Weasley asked, worry seeping into her tone.
“Yes,” James said, nodding. “He deserves to understand what’s going on. And so, I’ll recommend you allow Ron, and Hermione, as I’m assuming you're her magical guardian, to sit in the meeting as well. Because either way Harry is probably going to tell them everything anyway, and it's safer for them to hear everything firsthand rather than from my son’s story telling skills, as entertaining as those probably are.” The Weasley parents thought this over, but ultimately decided to allow it. Ginny, however, was made to leave, which made sense, but James felt bad about it, so he decided to try to make her feel better. “Gin, Betty is somewhere on the third floor if you’d like to say hi to her.” The youngest Weasley sent him a blinding smile and ran off to find the cat.
“Time to get down to business, yeah?” Sirius asked, settling in in the chair at the head of the table, much to Dumbledore’s dismay.
“First we’re going to go around and introduce ourselves,” James corrected.
“James, I’m sure we all know each other already–” A random woman started, which James cut her off with, “Harry doesn’t, and he isn’t comfortable in a room full of adults he doesn’t know, especially if he doesn’t even know their names.” This one sentence made the entire room turn to look at the younger Potter who did, as predicted, look immensely uncomfortable, despite the fact that he was surrounded by his friends. And so, they went around the room introducing themselves.
“I’m Tonks,” a woman with purple hair said, confusing Harry.
“Wait, why haven’t I met you before?” He asked, immensely confused. “Assuming that you’re Andromeda and Ted’s daughter, of course.”
“I wasn’t trusted around children when you were born and the last seven years, give or take, I’ve spent in Romania,” she explained, grinning.
“When this meeting is over, I want to know why you weren’t trusted around children,” he said. Tonks smiled and agreed.
“Alastor Moody.” So it was the real Moody. After him it was all people that Harry knew, so he somewhat zoned out, trying to ignore the way that the real Moody was looking at him. He’d already had a bad experience with someone who looked like him, he didn’t need another.
“I’m sorry,” Harry finally spoke up after a few minutes, interrupting Fleur’s introduction. “I don’t know why you’re staring at me, but please stop. I get enough of that from the first years every year, I don’t need an adult staring at me too.” The room was silent, and from the strange looks he was getting, they had no idea who he was talking to.
“Alastor,” Dumbledore said. “I believe he’s speaking to you.”
“This is the boy we’re betting on winning the war?” He asked, his voice gruff with disbelief.
“Watch what you say about my son Alastor,” James said sharply. The older man scoffed but kept quiet.
“Now, is it alright if we start discussing our course of action?” When there were no objections, Dumbledore continued. “As you all know, on June 24, Voldemort was resurrected. He then murdered Cedric Diggory, who was innocent in all of this–”
“That’s not correct,” Harry interrupted, shaking his head.
“What?” Albus asked, sounding patient but the look on his face suggested otherwise.
“Voldemort wasn’t the one to kill him,” Harry clarified. “Yes, he gave the order to do so, but when Ced was killed Voldemort wasn’t resurrected. He was still just a creepy, baby looking thing. Voldemort ordered Peter Pettigrew to kill him. So, he did.” James’ heart nearly stopped beating. First Harry lost his mother because of Peter, and now his boyfriend was killed because of him as well. Regardless of all of that, James was proud of his son. He was talking about the murder of his boyfriend without breaking down. It was a start to him healing and it was a start that James was proud of.
“My apologies, Mr. Potter,” Dumbledore apologized, but he had a weird twinkle in his eyes. “He ordered Peter Pettigrew to kill an innocent boy, and then he was resurrected. Now, the Ministry is already doubting this series of events, as they have no way of verifying that its true–”
“I’ll give them my memories,” Harry said quickly, interrupting Dumbledore for a second time. “They can’t deny it after that, can they?”
“Memories can be altered,” Fred explained to him quietly. “They’ll probably believe that you altered them for your own gain.” Harry looked horrified.
“What the fuck would I gain from killing my boyfriend and then lying about the murderer of my mother coming back from the dead?” He asked, disbelief dripping from his voice.
“James, if you cannot control your son, then he’s going to have to leave,” Alastor growled.
“I’m not something to be controlled,” Harry snapped. “Dumbledore allowed me to be in here as long as I wanted to be. You don’t seem to be in charge here, so don’t act like you are. I’m not getting kicked out of a room in my own home.” The room was silent. “Dumbledore, you can continue.” All of the adults in the room looked at each other warily. It was obvious that none of them were used to the fireball that is Harry Potter. And luckily for them, they wouldn’t need to.
“Thank You Mr. Potter,” he said softly. He was probably marveling at this little piece of information he just gained about Harry, that he and Cedric were together. “As I was saying, they don’t believe that anything is going to be happening, so we’re going to be operating all under the radar, which means that anyone who is a student at Hogwarts cannot, under any circumstances, talk about the Order to any outside of the people in this room. Do you all understand?” At the chorus of ‘yes’ that he received, he continued. “Now, during the last war, we operated pretty smoothly–” James snorted, causing everyone to look at him. “Yes James?”
“Last war we had a spy, and you couldn’t figure out who it was. If you had rolled up his sleeve you would have seen the fucking mark, so I wouldn’t say that we ran ‘smoothly.’ Almost everyone who was previously in it is dead,” James said, quite bluntly.
“Uh–” Kingsley started, looking quite awkward. “Most of us here now were in it originally.”
“Raise your hand if you were a part of the Order originally,” James said, making Andromeda, Ted, Sirius, Remus, Alastor, Molly, and Arthur raise their hands. “Alright, now, this goes for everyone by the way, even those not alive during the time, raise your hand if you personally lost a loved one during the war who was a part of the Order.” Andromeda, Ted, and Alastor lowered their hands, but Harry and the entire Weasley family raised their hands. “Now, keep your hand up if there is more than one person.” Harry sent a questioning look to James, who nodded, so he kept his hand up.
“He didn’t lose more than one person,” Alastor pointed out.
“Marlene McKinnon and Dorcas Meadowes were his aunts for four years, yes he did,” James said. “So, we lost Marlene, Dorcas, Lily Potter, Emmeline Vance, Benjy Fenwick, Gideon Prewett, Fabian Prewett, and that’s only those who died. We still have Peter Pettigrew, who betrayed us, Frank and Alice Longbottom, who were brutally tortured for information that they didn’t even have, and Mary MacDonald, who left the wizarding world after losing all of her friends. So, please correct me if I’m wrong but we lost more people than there are people here today who were originally a part of the order.”
“Don’t forget people who were in the Order but not in the field and they were still killed,” Sirius said, sending a significant look to James.
“My parents were murdered by Rabastan Lestrange in one of our ‘safe houses’ while healing people when I was 17. So yes, we have lost most of our original members,” he snapped. “We have 7 out of 21, that’s less than half. We did not run smoothly.”
“They knew what they were signing up for,” Dumbledore started. “Just as everyone in this room does.”
“You promised me and Lily that we would be safe,” James spat. “You promised us that Peter was the right choice, that Sirius and Remus were not to be trusted, because one’s a Black and one’s a werewolf. Right? Fuck you Dumbledore, no one in here really knows what they’re signing up for.”
“I never promised you anything,” Dumbledore replied, calmly.
“Yes, yes you did,” James said.
“Even if I did, everything would have been fine, and you guys would have been safe if you hadn’t been secretly going on missions when you were supposed to be in hiding.”
“Are you seriously trying to imply that it's my mother’s fault that she was killed?” Harry spoke up, sounding disgusted. “She would have been safe if you had let them pick their own secret keeper, rather than forcing them to pick Pettigrew. So, if anyone was to be at fault for her death, it would be you. As I’m sure is the same case for a lot of the deaths in the previous war. The only way you guys won last time was letting a 21-year-old mother get murdered and then have a four-year-old have a murder attempt against him. Why anyone would even think about letting you lead them into war again is mind boggling. Based on what I know and have heard about the last war, you created a child army. What the fuck is that all about?”
James was radiating pride. He couldn’t put into words just how proud he was of his son standing up against Dumbledore. But, based on how the other adults in the room were looking at the 14-year-old, he knew he needed to get him out of there.
“Harry,” Kingsley started, trying to have a soothing voice. “No offence meant at all, I know this must be hard for you to be a part of, as you were present during the resurrection, but you shouldn’t speak on things you don’t know about.”
That seemed to have snapped all self-restraint in Remus and Sirius as they both started talking at the same time.
“All due respect Kingsley, but he knows what he’s talking about. He was there when the last war ended, and he knows all about it. He grew up raised by three people who were avid fighters in the war, he knows what he’s talking about.”
“Harry is fully aware of what he’s saying. Believe me when I tell you that he wouldn’t say anything if he didn’t understand it,” Remus argued.
“Harry,” Hermione whispered as arguing broke out among the adults. “Why don’t we leave?”
“Yeah,” Ron agreed. “We can find Ginny and Betty.” Harry nodded, looking uncomfortable and immediately left the room, with his hands intertwined with Hermione and Ron’s. Not long after, the twins followed them, seemingly having enough of the arguing that was going on.
“You’re telling me that you raised your son with war stories?” Alastor scowled.
“Don’t insult his parenting skills,” Sirius said sharply. “Especially when you’ve never raised a child before.”
All in all, James thought that the meeting went better than expected. Dumbledore was only cussed out by Sirius, Remus, and James once, and no one was physically harmed. Mentally? James was yet to check on his son, but to his knowledge, not as bad as it could’ve been.
James took a few deep breaths and knocked on the door to his son's room. There was silence until a reluctant ‘come in’ was said, and James opened the door. What he found warmed his heart. Harry was lying down on his bed, his head in Ron’s lap and his feet in Hermione’s with Ginny sitting behind him, Betty lying in his lap, and the twins in front of him, leaning against the bed.
“How are we doing?” James asked tentatively, walking into the room.
“Fan-fucking-tastic,” Harry deadpanned, making James laugh.
“Glad to hear it,” he replied. “Ma waxaad doonaysaa in aan kaa tago kaligaa? Ma waxaad iga dooneysaa in aan aniga iyo maryan isku diro?” Harry thought this over for a moment.
“Miyaan la joogi karaa saaxiibaday oo kaliya in yar?” Harry asked and James nodded.
“Haa Dabcan,” he said, moving towards the door. “Let me know if you guys need anything, alright? And I can check with your parents to see if you guys can stay over, if you’d like.” All of the Weasleys and Hermione looked at each other for a split second before nodding, making James laugh. “Alright, I’ll let you guys know the verdict.” And with that, James left Harry alone.
“So,” James started, once everyone except Andromeda had left. “I have some shocking news for you, and I’m not entirely sure how you’re going to take it.” At this, she furrowed her eyebrows in a confused manner.
“What do you mean?” She asked, sounding suspicious.
“How do you feel about Regulus?”
“What?” She snapped. “Why are you asking me this?”
“I’ll tell you once you answer my question,” he replied calmly.
“He was forced into something much more complicated than it appeared at an age that was too young,” she replied easily once she caught up with her emotions. At the answer she gave, James let out a sigh of relief.
“That will make this a lot easier,” he said, relief evident in his voice. “Regulus?”
When Regulus Black walked into the room, you could feel the air get sucked out of it. Andromeda was staring at her youngest cousin in pure, unadulterated, disbelief. James was seriously concerned that she may just pass out then and there out of shock. Luckily, after a moment she spoke.
“You aren’t dead?” she screeched before throwing a pillow at him. “You let me think that you were dead when you weren’t?”
“Andy,” Regulus started slowly, walking towards her with his hands up in a surrender motion. “I’m sorry that I had to lie to you, but it was either that, or I actually get killed. Please believe me when I say that I never intended it to be for that long.”
“You planned it out?” She asked, seemingly confused. “Why?”
“I defected,” he said, shrugging as if it were no big deal.
“You what?” Andromeda gasped, before moving to gather him in a hug. And if James were being honest, he had never seen Regulus so happy to be hugged. Well, other than those two years of his life, but he usually chooses to just ignore those years. “You actually managed to leave once they forced you to join?”
“I almost died in the process, but yes,” he said, laughing a bit, which shocked James even more.
“So, I’m sensing that I wasn’t supposed to bring them in here right now,” Harry said, making James turn around to find him and his friends standing in the doorway, Harry looking awkward and his friends looking confused beyond belief.
“Well fuck,” James cursed, shaking his head.
“I mean no disrespect at all but…” Fred started. “Why the fuck is there an almost carbon copy of Sirius hugging Andromeda?”
“Almost a carbon copy?” Harry asked him questioningly.
“Sirius isn’t that tall, who are you kidding,” George replied, while laughing.
“Well screw you too George,” Sirius said from behind the kids. “This is Regulus Black. My arsehole of a little brother who faked his death for over a decade in America.”
“That’s so cool,” Ron breathed out, making Harry laugh and roll his eyes.