Chapter 9: Grimauld Place No 12

Harry had been right. As soon as the Dursley's had left the house at the fourth night he was there, he could hear other voices in the kitchen downstairs. His magic told him the rest. His senses showed him, that Harry's old Defence professor was one of the new inhabitants of the kitchen. He grinned and stood up. With a simple swish of his hand the things the previous Harry had spread on the floor found its way back in his trunk.

Then he left his room, Harry's wand out, walking as if he was afraid.

" Lower your wand, boy, before you take someone's eye out" said a low, growling voice. Harry did not lower his wand, even if he knew this voice. Instead he played along with the afraid-fifteen-year-old-role he planed.

" Professor Moody?" he said, sounding uncertain.

" I don't know so much about 'Professor", growled the voice, "never got round to much teaching, did I? Get down here, we want to see you properly."

Harry knew Moody would see through the glamour he was using for his hair, but he was now wearing Dudley's cast-off so there was nothing else that was strange with his appearance - and his hair he could easily explain.

As Harry predicted, Moody raised an eyebrow when he saw Harry's hair. But he said nothing, when Remus Lupin began to speak.

" It's all right, Harry. We've come to take you away." It was really strange to be called "Harry". But he said nothing, except:

" P-Professor Lupin? Is that you?"

" Why are we all standing in the dark?" said a third voice, a woman's. " Lumos."

And suddenly Harry could see the people in front of him, and not just sense them. He knew the most of them, even if he shouldn't. He had been watching Grimauld Place often enough to know them by now. There were Kingsley Shacklebold, an Auror, Nymphadora Tonks, another Auror, Elphias Doge, Dedalus Diggle, Emmeline Vance, Sturgis Podmore and Hestia Jones. No-one new. He heard them murmuring about his appearance.

" He looks exactly like James" was the second part of Kingsley's speech to Remus. " Except the eyes - Lily's eyes." Another one said. Harry said nothing. It was not his place to tell them, that he did not look exactly like James - but he could not argue with Lily's eyes. He was family after all.

Instead he focused on Moody who eyed him with distrust in his eyes.

" Are you quite sure it's him, Lupin?" he growled. "It'd be a nice lookout if we bring back some Death Eater impersonating him. We ought to ask him something only the real Potter would know. Unless anyone brought any Veritaserum?"

The truth serum was nothing Harry would like to have, but a question that was easy. He was sure, he could answer the entire question they would throw at him. And Moody was right: He could be a Death Eater impersonating Harry. Not that he was - a Death Eater, mind you, impersonating Harry he of course did.

"If there just would be a real Harry." He thought, but said nothing and waited instead for the question.

" Harry, what form does your Patronus take?" Lupin asked.

" A stag" Harry answered lying. It wasn't a stag. Well, he could change it to a stag - but when he didn't it was a Phoenix. It had been a Phoenix for a very long time.

" That's him, Mad-Eye" said Lupin and Harry nearly snorted. One simple question and they believed him?! And then it was a question about something another person would have easily seen for themselves would they just have been near Harry while he was casting. Not very secure - but well…

He stowed Harry's wand in his back pocked, while descending the stairs.

" Don't put your wand there, boy!" roared Moody. "What if it ignited? Better wizards than you have lost buttocks, you know!"

While Tonks asked Moody about whom he knew who lost his buttocks and Moody was grumbling about wand-safety Harry discretely took out his wand again and slipped it in his wand-holster, where he carried one of his own. He would need to finish his extra for Harry's wand, but it would do until he got it ready. He just had to wait until it was as secure as the other ones - secure enough that even Moody could not locate them. And it was better like that. He would have a hard time explaining the other wands and of course the rest of the weaponry he was carrying.

So he instead asked Remus if they were leaving and where they were going.

" Where are we going?" He asked, trying to sound hopeful while hoping he was wrong. " The Burrow?"

" Not The Burrow, no" Remus replied to Harry's delight. " Too risky. We've set up Headquarters somewhere undetectable. It's taken a while…"

So they were going to Grimauld Place! Harry was so happy, that he didn't mind anything else this night. He let the introduction to the other members flow over himself and when he was send to pack he needed not more than a few minutes.

And then they were gone, flying through the night sky to London until they reached Grimauld. There Harry got a notice written in Dumbledore's hand and they finally entered the building Harry had been longing to get into for a few months now - Grimauld Place No 12.

Just before Harry could leave the hall, Moody stopped him. With a whispered " Here" he ended the Disillusionment Charm, but then held him back again while everyone entered in the kitchen.

"Why the glamour?" he growled whispering.

"My aunt doesn't like long hair" Harry answered. "So I found a glamour charm and applied it in school when I wanted to have long hair. My aunt doesn't see it, what makes her happy, and I have not as much trouble with long hair as with short, what makes me happy."

He stopped, then asked hesitating. "Will you end it?"

Moody snorted.

"A glamour for your hair? No, when you want to glamour it, do it. As long as it's just as little as that, do what you like - just do it in school and not at home."

"Yes, sir." And with that, Moody let him go. Harry had known that Moody would be able to see right through the glamour. But that was planed. It would have been more difficult when Moody would not have been able to see through it, but would have known it was there. Like that, he had just explain one party why he had glamoured his hair, would it have been different he might have had to drink Veritaserum - and that was something Harry would like to prevent. Of course he could have just cut his hair, but that was something he had not want to do. He hated to have short hair. And he would not have been able to cast a more undetectable glamour on his forehead - the scar that had to look like the original Harry's. But that was not all.

Someone in his position did not wear short hair - even if no-one told the previous Harry something like that…

Well, the previous Harry had not even been told about his position… but Harry would change that. He would play along until he was ready and then he would show them, that he wasn't Harry Potter.

It just would take some time.

Harry started to follow Mad-Eye in the kitchen, but was prevented from entering by Mrs Weasley who sent him up to the other children. Harry was alright with that. He was not interested in their strategies - well, he was, but he had Dobby to listen in. So instead of trying to listen, he slipped upstairs and opened one of the rooms to get in - and suddenly he was attacked by a very large quantity of bushy brown hair. In the last minute he recognised his attacker and stopped mid-casting. Not that anyone had noticed the spell…

" HARRY! Ron, he's here, Harry's here! We didn't hear you arrive! Oh, how are you? Are you all right? Have you been furious with us? I bet you have, I know our letters were useless - but we couldn't tell you anything, Dumbledore made us swear we wouldn't, oh, we've got so much to tell you, and you've got things to tell us - the Dementors! When we heard - and that Ministry hearing - it's just outrageous, I've looked it all up, they can't expel you, they just can't, there's provision in the Decree for the Reasonable Restriction of Underage Sorcery for the use of magic in life-threatening situations - "

" Let him breathe, Hermione", said Ron, grinning as he closed the door behind Harry.

Hermione did as she was told, and let Hedwig greet him, whom he hadn't seen since he had sent her to his friends. He let her nibble at his ear while still looking at his friends. Friends he had not talked to - friends who knew just the previous Harry. He instead was a foreigner. Looking like Harry, but not being him. He had no idea how the original Harry would have greeted them…

"We're really sorry" the boy said in that moment - Ron, Harry reminded himself, his name is Ron. "I know, you wanted answers the whole summer, but we couldn't give them. You know, Hermione was going to spare, she kept saying you'd do something stupid if you were stuck all on your own without news, but Dumbledore made us - "

" - swear not to tell me" said Harry while still wondering how previous Harry would have reacted to this news. " Yeah, Hermione's already said."

" He seemed to think it was best" said Hermione rather breathlessly. "Dumbledore, I mean."

Of course she did.

Dumbledore this, Dumbledore that. Harry had known his friends were used to follow Dumbledore's path, but he had never known how much influence the old man had. He sighted.

" I think he thought you were safest with the Muggles - " Ron began.

" Yeah?" said Harry, raising his eyebrows. "Have either of you been attacked by Dementors this summer?"

" Well, no - but that's why he's had people from the Order of the Phoenix tailing you all the time - "

This time Harry nearly grinned.

" Didn't work that well, though, did it?" said Harry, doing his utmost to keep his voice even. "Had to look after myself after all, didn't I?"

" He was so angry" said Hermione, in an almost awestruck voice. "Dumbledore. We saw him. When he found out Mundungus had left before his shift had ended. He was scary."

This time Harry didn't reply. He had heard enough. Hermione was hero-worshiping the old man and Ron wasn't better. He sighted inwardly. Of course, the man was hero-worshiped by them. They were children. But Harry wasn't - and Harry was sure, that he could be even scarier when he wanted to be. Dumbledore was just a puppet-player, no thread at all to someone who could strike from the shadows…

But the most of his people were Gryffindors - unable to see his flaws and blindly believing his words. But Harry wasn't a Gryffindor. He was the absolute Slytherin - and he would strike when he had Dumbledore cornered without the old man knowing of anything…

But first there was something else, Harry had to do…

That was the moment when he saw that his friends were staring at him as if waiting that a bomb erupted.

"Don't worry. I'm not angry", he said.

"You're not?" He could hear that Ron didn't believe him the slightest.

He shrugged.

"I knew they were following me. And I know, Dumbledore would never have let me leave my relatives when the Dementors wouldn't have happened - but that's fine. I knew he would bring me away from there as soon as the Dementors left. I don't like dwelling in the past. What happened, happened."

"But… but you have tried to get information from us the whole summer" Ron said stunned. "Why just suddenly give up?"

"Oh, I haven't given up at all" Harry answered grinning, "but I will not ask you, when you have sworn not to tell. I will get it from someone else…"

"Sirius?", Hermione asked with a knowing glance and Harry just smiled. No need to tell her, that he didn't need most of the information at all - that he had gotten them weeks or month ago… some of them even years ago…

He saw them relaxing and even later, when Fred and George tried to get some information through their extendable ears he just sat beside them, listening uninterested.

That was, until the meeting ended and the adults left. When Mrs Weasley came to get them to eat in the kitchen. She had just advised Harry to tip-toe down the stairs, when…

CRASH.

Tonks was lying on the ground. And while Mrs Weasley cried the young woman's name and said woman apologized, the curtains in the hall opened and the screeching voice of an old lady screamed:

" Filth! Scum! By-products of dirt and vileness! Half-breeds, mutants, freaks, begone from this place! How dare you befoul the house of my fathers - "

Harry stared at the screaming painting and when his eyes and the eyes of the painted woman met, he smiled at her - a gruesome smile, his eyes cold as death. Then he dared her to follow his gaze to his right hand, where a single ring sat, invisible for all he didn't want to see and saw back in her eyes.

Her eyes had widened. She knew. She knew who he was - and he knew she wouldn't dare to befoul his name. There were few families the members of the old families feared, but his was one of them - even if it was just because of the connections his house had. So even when she dared to befoul all the others - she would never say anything foul to him again…

In that moment Sirius stormed in the hall and drew her curtains shut. No-one had seen Harry's short communication, had seen the woman stopping screeching before Sirius had reached her.

" Hello, Harry" Sirius said grimly. "I see you've met my mother."

Harry had. And he had silenced her in the second their eyes met.