Dark Pasts { A Harry Potter Story }

Chapter 85 - The Seven Potters

"Allrigh', Harry? Ready fer the off?" Hagrid said before his eyes landed on me. "Blimey, Elizabeth wasn't expectin' to see yer."

I smiled at him before moving aside to let him enter.

"Iwasn't expecting this many of you!" Harry said as we saw Hermione, Ron and Mad-Eye appear behind him.

"Change of plan," Mad-Eye said. "Let's getundercover before we talk you through it."

"What are you doing here?" Hermione whispered to me as we hugged each other.

"Change of plan," I said simply with a smirk.

Harry led them all back into the kitchen where they all found a place to sit or stand. I hugged Ron tightly before quickly greeting Fred and George. Bill was there, too, badly scared, and beside him were Fleur and Mr. Weasley, who I happily greeted with a smile. Tonks and Remus, whom I had not seen since their wedding, followed. Remus shook his head as he hugged me. I was surprised to see Kingsley, for I thought he was watching over the Muggle Prime Minister, but also Mundungus, whom Harry was not particularly fond of. The last to enter was my dad, whose eyes narrowed as they landed on me.

"Why am I not surprised?" he said simply as he and Remus exchanged a knowing look, to my surprise.

"Harry, guess what?" Tonks said happily as she wiggled her ring finger in front of him.

"You got married?" Harry yelped, looking from her to Remus.

"I'm sorry you couldn't be there, Harry, it was very quiet," Remus said.

"That's brilliant, congrats —"

"All right, all right, we'll have time for a cozy catch-up later!" Moody roared before he looked to harry and explained the plan.

". . . Also, you're underage, which means you've still gotthe Trace on you," he said.

"I don't —"

"The Trace, the Trace!" Moody said impatiently. "The charmthat detects magical activity around under-seventeens, the way theMinistry finds out about underage magic! If you, or anyone aroundyou, casts a spell to get you out of here, Thicknesse is going to knowabout it, and so will the Death Eaters.

"We can't wait for the Trace to break, because the moment youturn seventeen you'll lose all the protection your mother gave you.In short: Pius Thicknesse thinks he's got you cornered good andproper."

"So what are we going to do?" Harry asked.

"We're going to use the only means of transport left to us, theonly ones the Trace can't detect, because we don't need to cast spellsto use them: brooms, thestrals, and Hagrid's motorbike," Mad-Eye explained and I saw Harry frown in hesitation.

"Now, your mother's charm will only break under two conditions:when you come of age, or" — Moody glanced around the living room — "you no longer call this place home. You and your auntand uncle are going your separate ways tonight, in the full understanding that you're never going to live together again, correct?"

Harry nodded.

"So this time, when you leave, there'll be no going back, and thecharm will break the moment you get outside its range. We're choosing to break it early because the alternative is waiting for You-KnowWho to come and seize you the moment you turn seventeen.

"The one thing we've got on our side is that You-Know-Whodoesn't know we're moving you tonight. We've leaked a fake trail to the Ministry: They think you're not leaving until the thirtieth.However, this is You-Know-Who we're dealing with, so we can't justrely on him getting the date wrong; he's bound to have a couple ofDeath Eaters patrolling the skies in this general area, just in case. So,we've given a dozen different houses every protection we can throwat them. They all look like they could be the place we're going tohide you, they've all got some connection with the Order: my house,Kingsley's place, Molly's Auntie Muriel's — you get the idea."