The Other Black Book 5

Chapter 3 - The Advanced Guard

Aurora sat in her room, the door locked to keep Olivia and Taylor from coming in, staring at Number Four, still trying to wrap her mind around what had happened. She went to bed that night with dreams full of dementors and that stupid pink toad leading some sort of charge of them.

Aurora remained in her house, too rattled to speak or leave, going about each day with hardly a thought. She was lonely without having Harry to talk to. Olivia and Taylor were trying to get Aurora to talk, but she wouldn't. Three days blended together. She didn't want Olivia and Taylor's company. She wanted Harry's. She wanted to go next door and ask to speak with him.

Once when Aurora was walking, her wand not far from her hand, Mrs. Figg had reminded her to not leave Harry's side. Aurora said that she did her best, but his aunt and uncle wouldn't let her near the house.

On the fourth night, Aurora sat on her bed, looking out the window, not wanting to see the pink frog again, when the three Dursleys left the front door and their car pulled away.

Olivia and Taylor were asleep. They'd gone to bed early that night. Aurora sent Cooper over with a letter, asking if she could finally go talk to him. About whatever, but in truth she wanted to know about the letters. If he'd gotten anything new. Cooper returned with a very lazy OK written on the back of Aurora's parchment.

Aurora left a note for Olivia and Taylor, in case she fell asleep, and crossed the street. She found the hidden key they left for Dudley, and turned it in the lock. She replaced the key exactly as it had been, then locked the door behind her, and made her way up to Harry's room. She tried to open it, but it was locked. Aurora didn't dare use magic. She asked him if there was a key in the Dursleys' room. He said he didn't know. Aurora went to look. She'd only just reached the door when she heard a crash downstairs.

Aurora froze, listening intently. There was silence for a few seconds, and then she heard voices. She turned around, watching the dark hallway.

Harry's door opened. Aurora stared, knowing that wasn't her.

"Aura?" Harry whispered.

"Not me," Aurora whispered.

After a few seconds, she watched his silhouette move swiftly and silently to the head of the stairs. Aurora tiptoed there too, her wand gripped tightly. She swallowed hard.

There were people standing in the shadowy hall below, silhouetted against the streetlight glowing through the glass door; eight or nine of them, all, as far as she could see, looking up at them.

"Lower your wand, boy, before you take someone's eye out," said a low, growling voice.

Aurora swallowed again. She knew that voice, but she did not lower his wand. Instead, she tightened it. Why was that voice here, in Privet Drive, in the middle of the night?

"Professor Moody?" Harry said uncertainly.

"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 lowered his wand slightly but did not relax his grip on it, nor did he move. Aurora didn't relax at all. They both had very good reason to be suspicious. They had recently spent nine months in what they had thought was Mad-Eye Moody's company only to find out that it wasn't Moody at all, but an impostor; an impostor, moreover, who had tried to kill Harry before being unmasked. But before either of them could make a decision about what to do next, a second, slightly hoarse voice floated upstairs.

"It's all right, Harry. We've come to take you away. Aurora too, if she wants."

Aurora's heart leapt. She knew that voice too, though she hadn't heard it for more than a year.