Chapter Six::New Ideas

“I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant, and fill him with a terrible resolve.”

-Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto

C-in-C of the Imperial Japanese Navy, he ordered the attack on Pearl Harbor which took place on December 7, 1941. He said this when the attack came nearly an hour before the Japanese declaration of war arrived in Washington D.C. not five minutes after the declaration like the Geneva Convention, his plans, and their honor demanded.

Hermione’s Muggle grandmother’s kitchen was in shambles, Ron thought. It appears as though the Death Eaters ransacked the place. The table was broken in half, and the cupboard doors had apparently been ripped open and their contents spilled onto the ground. This was evidenced by the broken plates and knives scattered across the ground. Though, amazingly enough, out of touch with the general destruction, the window over the sink was unbroken. It was only until Padma spoke that he had given voice to that thought.

“Maybe they didn’t want to immediately attract attention.” Ron turned to stare at the darkly beautiful Indian women, her equally beautiful twin standing next to her.

Smart girl, Ron thought, to come up with that. Hot too. However much he enjoyed looking at Padma, he had no desire to ask her out. One reason was that she was already involved with Michael Corner, and two, he had finally accepted yesterday that he loved Hermione. He impulsively smiled thinking of her beautiful face framed by that glorious brown hair. As he thought that, his thoughts turned to what apparently had happened to Hermione’s grandmother. There was no doubt about. Judging from the smashed phone in the kitchen wall, and the bloody kitchen knife on the floor, she had been taken. However she seemed to have put up quite a fight before she was. He picked up the knife, intent on showing Hermione. It was only then he noticed the basement off the kitchen, its door off its hinges. He turned around and located Ginny, who was staring off into space, clearly unfocused.

“Ginny,” Ron said loudly. She either didn’t hear him or she was ignoring him as she continued to stare.

“Ginny,” he said again, even louder this time. And she ignored him! Finally he lost his patience and shouted, “Ginny!” She finally turned around to look at him, her face blushing with embarrassment. To his shock, she seemed to have been crying. Crying, Ron thought. That isn’t her style. “What is your problem? I called three times, and you didn’t answer even though you were a foot away.” A moment later he softened his tone and asked, “Why are you crying? That’s not like you at all.”

She wiped her eyes and said, through a clogged nose, “It’s nothing, what do you want?”

He considered asking her again, but he decided against it. I’d better ask Harry, he decided. If he hurt her in any way, he’ll pay, best friend or not. Pushing that thought aside, he said, “Go into the basement and see what’s down there. Meet us in the sitting room. It’s probably at the front of the house, so it shouldn’t be too difficult to find

“Yes, Sir,” she said. “Recovering quickly, she went into action. “Parvati, Luna, Michael, come with me,” she called. They broke off and walked with her down stairs. Shaking his head in wonder, Ron led the others off into the rest of the huge house

The basement was as thoroughly wrecked as the kitchen, Ginny noted after she turned on the Muggle electric light. There were boxes overturned everywhere and holes in the wall and floor. Suddenly, unbidden in her mind came the images of the previous evenings horrendous dream. She was back in that room being shown those images over and over again, She stayed like this for a moment when suddenly one of them, she was never quite sure who, must have disturbed something. For at that moment, a plaintive mewling was heard throughout the basement. It was a sound Ginny recognized instantly, a sound which snapped her out of her reverie; it was the sound of a trapped cat.

“Spread out,” Ginny ordered, “find that cat.” She absolutely adored cats and she would go to hell before she let one stay trapped like this. They fanned out and searched through the devastated basement

After two minutes, Michael called out, “Hey, I think I found it!” Right at his feet, covered in boxes a mewling could be heard. Ginny, Luna, and Parvati rushed over and cleared away the boxes to reveal an adorable black cat with gorgeous green eyes, and a tail stuck under a box. Michael lifted up the box and Ginny picked up the obviously female cat into her arms where it immediately purred. Hermione mentioned her grandmother having a cat, once, Ginny thought. Its name was Shadow, could this be her?

“Come on,” she said to her team. With that they withdrew from the basement. Ginny’s new friend cradled in her arms, and moved through the house towards the front where the sitting room supposedly lay.

It took three minutes to get to the sitting room, and that was only because the house was as big as Grimmauld Place.

Once they were all there, Ron showed Hermione the blood –stained knife, and Ginny showed her the cat. Hermione looked at the knife and understanding dawned in her face. Here at last was incontrovertible proof that her grandmother had been taken. When Ginny showed her the cat, Hermione confirmed that it was indeed Shadow.

“Can I take care of her?” Ginny asked her friend.

Hermione thought about it for a minute and said, “Sure.”

A moment later Harry spoke up and said, “There’s nothing more we can do here, we should go back to Platform Nine-and- Three-Quarters, and see if the Order members are still looking for us.

“Yes, lets,” Hermione said quickly, sadness lacing her voice. “I just want to get out of here.”

“Everyone who can’t Apparate grab someone who can,” Harry ordered. “We’re leaving for Platform Nine-and- Three-Quarters.” There were a few moments of waiting as everyone got into position. Colin and Luna, because they couldn’t Apparate of course, grabbed Terry and Seamus respectively, and held on. The only was exception was Ginny, who still held Shadow in her arms and, with both hands occupied, couldn’t take anyone’s hand. Plus, she couldn’t Apparate on her own as she didn’t know how and was underage to boot, so they were left with a kind of personnel issue. Fortunately, Hermione came to the rescue by letting go of Ron, who had chosen her to Side-along Apparate with, and took Shadow from Ginny. Ignoring the shocked look on Ginny’s face, Hermione took one of Ron and Ginny’s hands and put them into Harry’s hands. Harry saw what she meant for them to do right away, and didn’t like it.

“No, Hermione,” Harry said. “I’m underage, it’s illegal.”

“Technically,” Hermione responded, “Blowing the doors down was illegal. Besides you Apparated when you brought Dumbledore back from the mission to find the Hor…” At this she stopped, remembering who else was in the room. Looking for ‘that special object,’” she finished lamely.

“But that was diff…,” he sighed and continued by saying, “Why am I arguing?” Let’s just go.” Ron and Ginny promptly put their hands in Harry’s and waited through the Apparation process. They were the first to Dissapparate, followed quickly by the rest.

They arrived at Platform Nine-and-Three-Quarters to find Remus Lupin the only person on the platform. Lupin cut quickly to the chase. He told them to pick up their luggage (which had been left behind in the mad scramble to get to Hermione’s grandmother) and proceed to the Burrow immediately. No one was angry, Lupin explained. The Order decided to let them handle this incident, to see if they truly measured up.

“They only sent me,” Lupin said. “To make sure you got to the Burrow all right in the event you came straight back here.” A second later, he said, “I take it you didn’t get to your grandmother in time?”

It was Hermione who answered. “No.” she said. “But we found this bloodstained knife and my grandmother’s cat Shadow.” She looked down and gasped. Shadow was still as stiff as a board, arched, her hair standing on end, her eyes wide, and her claws were digging into Hermione’s clothes. The cat didn’t take Apparation well, Harry thought. Hermione stared at the cat for a second, then calmly drew her wand and fired a Stunning spell at Shadow. The cat crumpled and Hermione handed Lupin the unconscious feline. Harry automatically understood that knocking the cat out was better than forcing it to endure another attempt at Apparating while conscious.

Hermione picked up her luggage and Harry said, “All right will Apparate on three; one, two, three!” They Apparated, and found the Burrow’s front yard to find it empty.

“Where is everybody?” Harry asked Lupin.

“Inside,” Lupin said. “Prepare for a bit of a shock.” They walked in to find every Muggle-borns’s parents and every half-Muggle’s Muggle parent in the sitting room eating snacks. They were Justin Finch-Fletchley’s mother and father, Dean’s foster parents, Seamus’s father, both of Hermione’s parents, and Colin’s father, mother, and brother. As their children broke ranks and ran to their parents to greet them, Harry whispered furtively to Remus, “What are they dong here?”

“Well,” Lupin whispered back, “when we figured out what happened to Hermione’s grandmother, we made the decision to bring all the Muggle-borns parents and Colin’s brother to the Burrow.”

“Why?” Harry asked.

“We feared You-Know-Who had somehow found out about your plans,” Lupin said, “and he was targeting D.A. member’s families to intimidate you and your people.

“Why did you evacuate only them?” Harry asked, “why not all the families?”

“Well,” Lupin said. “We figured that the Wizarding families had the best chance of defending themselves, and we barely have room to accommodate these people as it is, with the reunion in less than twenty-four hours.”

“Okay,” Harry said. He wandered why the Dursleys weren’t there, but they would have committed mass suicide before being taken to a Wizarding home, anyway, so it was probably a good thing. He saw Hermione, Ron, Ginny, Neville, and Luna talking to Mr. and Mrs. Weasley, and probably being told the same thing. Before he walked over to his friends, he asked, “Do they know? Do they know about Voldemort?”

Remus winced instinctively at the feared and hated name. “Yes,” he said. “They were shocked and scared of course. But they calmed down, obviously.”

“Good,” Harry said, outwardly calm. Inside he was seething. This seriously complicated matters. Apart from whatever intensive training the D.A. required to prepare them for combat, their coming security duties, and now this. They’d have enough time keeping the Muggles from embarrassing themselves tomorrow. Speaking of which, he thought, we’d better get these supplies to the Burrow tonight, or we won’t be ready for tomorrow. He walked over to his friends and gently reminded them that they had a job to do, still.

It was Ginny who spoke first, shouting, “All right everyone! We have a lot of supplies to get by tomorrow morning. We need every D.A. member to…” Then Mrs. Weasley interrupted.

“You don’t have to do that, you know,” she said.

“Why?” Ginny asked.

“Go out back,” Mrs. Weasley told Harry and his friends, “You’ll see.”

Curious, they walked out followed by Fred and George to see what she was talking about. They walked out to see a brown drab tent. In side, they were in a huge warehouse stacked to the ceiling with boxes and containing a smaller stack of tents that had been folded up for storage.

“Everything you paid for has been stored.” Fred said. “We’ve even paid for the tents you see. There are enough for each individual D.A. member. And extras for the evacuated family members.”

“Good,” Harry said, relieved. It really was good. They had saved his people a lot of time. “Thanks.”

“Your welcome,” Fred and George said in unison.

“Now, come on,” Fred said. “Mum’s got dinner on.”

The feast was as sumptuous as ever, roast chicken, shepherd‘s pie, and other foods were available in great quantities. They ate out in the yard and the Muggles began to loose their fear and confusion around wizards. However for Hermione Granger, the highlight of the evening was, to everyone else, a common household accident. To Hermione, however, it would begin a path down an avenue of research and development that would one day bear fruit. This fruit would prove to be of enormous benefit to a Death Eater-besieged human race.

It began simply enough, while dinner was cooking, the Muggle-born’s parents, for want of anything to do, had asked if they could help in the kitchen. Mrs. Weasley had set them to work chopping meat and vegetables and as such the meal was completed three times faster than it would normally for the amount of people they were feeding. But the preparations had not gone on without incident. Mary Finch-Fletchley, Justin’s mother, had cut the tip of her finger clean off while cutting vegetables. Normally she would have been in serious trouble, i.e. she would have to get the finger on ice immediately in hopes surgeons could reattach it. Thankfully, along with the Wizards, to whom such damage was considered minor, there were three doctors among the evacuees. Apart from Hermione’s parents, the other doctor was Major Doctor Sally Thomas. Unlike he parents, the middle-aged black woman had earned her keep in the Falkland Islands fifteen years earlier. As such she was immediately at Mary’s side, pressing a washcloth to her wounded finger to apply pressure to the wound to stop the bleeding.

Molly Weasley had also run over to the injury. Over Dr. Thomas’s shocked and impassioned objections, Molly pushed aside the blood-soaked rag and waved her wand over the wound. In a puff of smoke, Mary was standing looking shocked and confused over a freshly healed finger, along with three shocked representatives of the Muggle medical community.

“Amazing,” Dr. Peter Granger, said, examining the finger while Mary’s husband held her close; there was not a trace of the scarring you’d normally find. Dr. Mary Granger looked at the tip as if expecting it to pop off at any time. Hermione however, stood transfixed; she had suddenly been struck by an amazing idea. What if the Specialis Revilo could show the data that would distinguish a Death Eater whose just ingested Polyjuice Potion from everyone else? She slowly drew her wand, pointed it at the blood on the cutting board, and said Specialis Revilo. The spells effect was similar to what it was on potions, a holographic field showing a breakdown of the potion into its constituent substances. It’s effect on the blood was radically different. Though the substance breakdown still showed, it was augmented by a red and white blood cell count, including figures for hemoglobin and blood plasma as well as water. Off to the side, a moving effect like a twisty ribbon showed that Hermione instantly recognized.

“A double helix,” Dr. Thomas said, gazing amazed at the sight before her eyes. A representation of the building block for all organic life: Deoxyribonucleic Acid, DNA was being shown. Everyone else in the room had stopped working and was staring transfixed at the display. Now, Hermione thought. If only I could go just what compounds were present in Polyjuice Potion? Then I’d be able to recognize them among the list of compounds being shown.

Hermione’s reverie was broken by Mrs. Weasley’s shout of “Get back to work!” That sent everyone back to their assigned tasks, even the D.A. members, who were helping as well. Though struck by inspiration she was also reeling from the loss of her grandmother and hunger so she decided to wait until after dinner before pursuing this.

For Harry however, something different happened. A new phase of D.A. training could be said to have begun that night under the stars. Throughout the meal, he noticed Major Thomas staring briefly at the scar on Harry’s forehead. Later, after the meal, as they all sat under the stars, Major Thomas walked over to Harry as he was in one of his usual pining episodes about Ginny; just as he was on the verge of running over and taking ex-lover back into his arms, in full view of everyone their just like the night they first kissed. However, in a move that saved a lot of people from embarrassment, Major Thomas walked over to them and said, “So Mr. Potter,” he said amicably. “I hear you’re in charge of the students here.

“Yes,” Harry said, wondering why they were talking. “Why do you ask?”

“I was wondering if I had my facts straight,” Major Thomas asked. “For if what my son tells me is true, your people are in the midsts of a raging civil war and they want to follow you into a combat.” He laughed mirthlessly when he said what he said next. “Tell me, do any of you or the people in this group have any combat experience? Or are you guys some of those self-deluded fools who, throughout human history have gotten people killed because they think they know what the hell they’re doing?

This angered Harry briefly but it got him to thinking. Maybe a couple of battles doesn’t provide the necessary experience to be a good leader in combat?

“He has plenty of experience!” Ginny growled behind him. Harry turned around to see her eyes ablaze with anger. He’s led us in battle against Death Eaters once, and came in the middle of another battle

“Really?,” Major Thomas said, laughing mirthlessly again. Then the sturdily-built black man asked, “Tell me about the first ‘battle’.”

“Before I tell you about that,” Harry said. “There are some things you need to know about. You need to know about the previous war that raged over seventeen years ago. And everything that’s happened over the past six years.” He then commenced to tell them about how Voldemort tried to kill him as a baby, how he’s had dealings involving him every year for the past six years. When he got to the events of the past year, he omitted all the historical information on Voldemort and his Horcruxes, information Dumbledore wanted restricted to him, Ron, and Hermione. When he was done, Major Thomas had an intrigued look on his face.

“Well,” Major Thomas said after that diatribe. “It’s clear you have some ‘innate’ tactical abilities. But they need to be honed if you have any hope of surviving. If my son has any hope of surviving.” He said emphatically. “I can help with the physical and tactical training if the sons and daughters of every parent who has a child in your organization have any hope of surviving this war.”

Harry thought about it and realized at once that Harry was absolutely right. “It’s a deal,” Harry said. He offered his hand to Major Thomas who shook it firmly.