Twisted Tales

Headquarters

"Harry," the plump redheaded woman exclaims, bustling up the hall to pull Harry into a bone-crushing hug. She turns to me, her eyes alight with a cheery smile, "And you must be Isabelle."

"Yes ma'am."

My eyes dance over the area laid out before us. The house is just as dreary as I remember it. What would have once been the lavishly decorated and well-maintained home of one of the most well-known, pure-blood wizarding families of the last century, has now fallen into almost irrepair after years of neglect by its current owner. A thick layer of dust coats the dark wood, wallpaper yellowed and peeling away from water-worn plaster. Pictures line the stairwell, their colors muddied by time and neglect. Overhead, the floorboards creak under footfalls, wood dust falling down, and coating our heads and shoulders. The dim candle lighting casts long shadows over the carpeting, worn all the way through in some places.

I let myself be ushered upstairs, the woman babbling on, "No time to explain, straight upstairs. First door to the left." She stops as we reach the first landing, eyes once again dancing in my direction. "Oh, Isabelle, Severus would like a word after the meeting."

"Of course," I answer coldly before striding up the hall to catch up with Harry.

He turns to me once the woman has disappeared back downstairs, "Why does Snape want a word? Classes don't start for another month."

"Haven't the slightest," I give him a nonchalant shrug, curling my fingers around the tarnished silver of the doorknob. "Shall we?"

Harry is instantly wrapped into a hug by a girl with frizzy brown hair. She talks quickly, going on about how the Ministry can't possibly expel him and how they must give him a hearing. I remember her; the insufferable know it all, Hermione Granger. Behind her, a tall, lanky, redheaded boy mumbles about giving Harry a minute to breathe. Ron Weasley. I suspect the rest of his family is lurking around the house.

Once Harry is released, he staggers backward, pressing his back up against the peeling wallpaper, "What is this place?"

"It's Headquarters," Ron mumbles through a mouthful of chocolate, unable to explain much more before Hermione cuts in, wearing a rather matter of fact expression.

"Of the Order of the Phoenix. It's a secret society. Dumbledore found it back when they first fought You – Know – Who."

"You mean Voldemort," Harry and I say at the same time, the boy flashing me a half-smile while the other two cringe at the use of his name. They way they act you'd think the mere mention of the wizard's name would have him popping up in the room.

Harry's smile fades quickly as he eyes his friends, "You couldn't have put any of this in a letter, I suppose? I've gone all summer without a scrap of news. The only person I was able to talk to was Isabelle and I've only met her a few days ago."

"We really wanted to write," Ron offers back, his eyes downcast, the toe of his socked foot pushing back and forth against a particularly worn spot on the hardwoods. "Really we did – "

"Only what?" Harry challenges, anger slinking its way into his words.

Hermione offers a weak smile, staring through Harry to the wall behind him, "Only Dumbledore made us swear not to tell you anything."

"Dumbledore said that? But why would he want to keep me in the dark? Maybe I could help. After all, I am the one who saw Voldemort return. I'm the one who fought him. I'm the one who saw Cedric Diggory get killed," Harry snarls back, his voice rising with each word.

A sudden pop halts any further argument. Two redheaded boys, both just a bit shorter than Ron with a spattering of freckles over their noses and cheeks appear in the middle of the room. They grin, bumping each other's shoulders, snickering at the slightly stunned look Harry and Hermione wear. They speak in unison, "Hello, Harry."