Chasing Time (Seamus Finnigan)

seventeen

I didn't understand at all why I couldn't send my letter. Mister Weasley had given it back to me, and the next weeks went by slowly. Most evenings Hermione, Ginny and I talked a bit, and I spend most of the time helping to clean up the house together with the others and reading the Daily Prophet.

Lupin always brought it with him, and as no one else was interested, he gave it to me, every time he got here.

I didn't like being locked up in the house. Fortunately we could make the place a bit more cosy, for as far you can make such an ancient family house look cosy.

The people were nice there and all, but I dreamed of going back to Hogwarts. When Harry finally arrived, two weeks before we had to mount the Hogwarts Express, everybody was very delighted, Hermione and Ron the most.

'Harry! Are you alright? We were so worried about you!' Hermione said as she hugged Harry when he entered our room. Ron had joined us and he too gave Harry a hug. 'Why didn't you write to me?' Harry said as his face fell.

Hermione sighed. 'We wanted to. Really. But nobody could send a letter, especially not to you. It would be way too dangerous.'

'And what is this place?' Harry asked as he sat down on one of the beds. 'Grimmauld Place 12. Headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix.'

'Order of the Phoenix?'

'Yes, that's a secret society, against Voldemort and his Death Eaters. I'm sorry we couldn't tell you, mate,' Ron added.

'And since when are you here?' Harry looked to Hermione and then to me. 'A few weeks,' Hermione answered. 'I came here with the Weasleys,' I replied. 'So all of you knew about this? All summer?' Harry stated disbelieving. I nodded slightly.

'And nobody cared to tell me? I'm only the one who saw him return. I'm only the one who fought him! Yeah, I'm only the one who lost his parents by-'

'Harry! We're sorry, we really are, you need to believe us. We didn't like it either, but the Order wouldn't let us write you. Don't you understand it would be way too dangerous. We can't risk anything, now Voldemort is back. Don't you understand?' I said quickly.

Harry sighed. 'Ofcourse I understand Dora! But that doesn't mean they can keep me out of this.'

'We know that too. Talk to Sirius. Maybe he can persuade the rest to tell you what's going on?'

Harry ignored my last sentence. 'What have you  been doing for so long then?'

'We've been cleaning up the house, really. It wasn't fun to be locked up in here,' Ron explained.

'What is this place, actually? How did the Order find this house?'

'It's Sirius's,' Hermione admitted.

'This house?' She nodded. 'Yes.'

---

The Order had decided to give Harry a little bit information after dinner, and Hermione, Ron and I could join them, after Ron had complained.

Hermione and I told Ginny anyway.

---

Two weeks later, it was finally time to go back to Hogwarts. I was excited to see Seamus and Dean again, and all the rest.

At Hogwarts, everything seemed to be back to normal, alhough there was a new professor for DADA again: professor Umbridge. Everybody hated her. The first lesson, she gave Harry detention immediately. She didn't even let us use the spells. Never before I had hated a book so much.

After a few months, Hermione had come up with Dumbledore's Army. All participants, including me, found it amazing. I had finally the feeling I was learning something. Ofcourse I already knew a lot of these spells, but I could only practice more.