Chapter 30: An Enemy Revealed

Harry arrived at Grimmuald place and knew he was the last one to arrive. He ran towards the door of the meeting room as Ron hurriedly motioned for him to get in before they locked the room.

He slipped inside just as the door clicked shut, and tried to ignore the disapproving look from Moody.

“Some interesting things have occurred tonight.” Minerva began, looking around the room. She paused as though trying to decide how much to tell them.

“Where is Dumbledore?” An impatient voice asked from the back. Harry turned and recognized the man as the rude man from the previouse meeting, he had meant to ask about him.

Minerva sighed, and drew herself up, as the preparing herself for the onslaught that would come. Harry began to shake his head, as if to tell her not to do it.

“I am getting to that Mr. Gudgeon, if you will but be patient.”

“Gudgeon.” Harry thought to himself, “Good that’s a start.” He couldn’t explain why, but he did not trust the man a bit.

“After our last meeting some interesting events took place. As most of you know, several of us were celebrating the birthdays of both Harry and Neville, and we were called away. After the meeting we went back over to the Weasley’s to continue the party.”

“I hope this isn’t why we were called here.” Gudgeon mumbled under his breath, but not under enough for more than half of the room to hear him. Dirty looks and scowls were shot his direction from around the room, Harry being one of them.

Harry was immensely surprised when Gudgeon looked up and shot him a look of such deep seated hatred. Harry frowned in surprise and looked around the room to see if anyone else noticed the man's glare.

“Davy that is enough!’ Minerva exclaimed. “If you can’t keep your comments to yourself, you will leave!” The shook her head as she continued.

“We received word from Dumbledore that he had received some information from some of the portraits at school that there might be a way to destroy the veil in the Department of Mysteries, which used to be used for evil. The Department of Mysteries has apparently been examining it, and would not be aware of what they could inadvertently unleash .” Minerva said, not showing any sign of remorse for bending the truth.

“Now how is that possible?” Gudgeon once again interrupted to ask, “Everyone knows that the Headmaster’s can not leave their portraits and likewise other portraits can not enter theirs.” He smirked as though putting everyone in their place.

Minerva began to open her mouth, but Hermione beat her too it. “Please keep your mouth shut if all you are going to do is persist in showing off your ignorance. You obviously don’t pay any attention to anything. If the Headmasters could not leave their portraits, then how does Dumbledore get here?” She asked him, effectively stomping him down.

Davy Gudgeon’s face flushed with anger. He muttered darkly as he abruptly stood and made his way to the door. “Let me out, now.” He growled to Moody.

Moody glanced at Minerva who nodded, every head turned towards the back watching as Moody cast a series of spells to allow Davy to leave.

“Let him leave the room, but not the house, take him upstairs Hagrid, don’t let him out of your sight.” The soft voice of Minerva blew through his mind.

Harry glanced back at her and smiled. She was adjusting the sleeves of her robes, having discreetly sent the message while the attention of the room was else where.

“This is going to take some getting used to.” Harry thought grinning to himself. He glanced at Hermione who was rubbing the side of her head, and he had to struggle to not start laughing.

Moody had finished with the spells and opened the door to allow Davy to leave, before the door had completely closed behind him, Harry was sure that he caught a glimpse Hagrid.

“Now where were we?” Minerva said when again the attention of the room had returned to her. She glanced about as if trying to get her bearings.

“Ah yes.” She said picking up her train of thought, “After receiving word from Dumbledore of the importance of promptly destroying the veil we hurried over to the Department of Mysteries to carry out his instructions. I wanted to explain this to you, so that you would know that we were not leaving you out, time was of the essence, and there was simply no time to call a meeting and discuss what would happen, we had to act, and we did.”

She said with such force, yet almost apologetic that Harry was not surprised to see the other members in the room nodding their heads in understanding.

Almost instantly after she said this, Harry understood why she had told them this.

“The fact that we did this in it’s self is not what is important, I would just as soon not bothered the Order with this information. Based on the nature of the veil and the Department of Mysteries, this information will never get out in public.” She said truthfully, “What is important however, is what came of these actions.”

Harry nodded, he know understood how difficult it would be to explain Sirius to everyone without their knowing what had happened, or at least an abridged verson.

Harry braced himself mentally, knowing that now would come the outburst from the Order. He looked around and saw that everyone was on the edge of their seats, waiting to see what Minerva would say. He could see on the faces of others that they were wondering if her revelation would have anything to do with Sirius.

Sighing, Minerva continued, “While we were performing the spells to destroy the veil, we somehow managed to extract Sirius.” She paused for the outburst that she knew would happen, and she was not disappointed.

When the other Order members had regained composure she continued, “I know that many of you did not trust nor believe that Sirius was innocent of the crimes he was framed for, even after seeing Peter Pettigrew alive and well during the final battle.

“However," She said loudly stopping any interruptions before they began, "I have heard and seen proof of his innocence and I believe him. Also take into consideration that the two people who can prove his innocence beyond any doubt, are now sitting in this room.”

There was a moment of confused silence following Minerva’s words, then suddenly as one, almost every face in the room turned to look at the very embarrassed Lily and James Potter.

“Is it true?” Kingsly asked the Potters, “Tell us what happened.” He all but whispered.

At a nod from James and a smile of encouragement from her son, Lily began the tale. “It was September after Harry turned one that we really began considering having a Secret Keeper. We really didn’t want to have one, but Dumbledore finally convinced us of the need.

“We had already managed to escape Voldemort three times, along with Frank and Alice.” Lily paused a moment, overcome with grief, the knowledge of Frank and Alice still new to her. James rubbed her back lightly, and when she had recovered, she continued.

“Dumbledore convinced us that we had already beaten him three times, we wouldn’t be able to remain so lucky; that we needed to take our son into consideration. We didn’t know about the Prophecy at the time, we just wanted to keep our son safe, looking back it makes sense, and I now know Dumbledore knew that all along.

“We had originally asked Sirius to be our Secret Keeper, everyone expected it. Just before the spell was to be cast, Sirius, with the help of Dumbledore asked us to reconsider using him for our Secret Keeper, not because we didn’t trust him,” Lilly added hastily, seeing people begin to smirk and nod, “but because it was expected, no one would imagine that we wouldn’t use him.”

The incredulous looks that covered the faces of the people in the room began to disappear as Lily continued.

“We started to ask Frank and Alice to do it, but decided that since they had also been attacked several times, that they would be too great of a risk, so we decided on Peter.” She choked on his name, and began sobbing.

“James said that he wasn’t sure about Peter, and I chided him and told him that Peter was his friend, and that he should ask him to do it, no one would imagine that we would ask Peter, he was a nothing to most people. I told James that it would let Peter realize that he was loved.” Lily was sobbing uncontrollably, and was forced to stop.

Harry along with everyone else in the room was staring in open mouthed horror at Lily, realizing the implications and her over whelming feeling of guilt. For the first time, Harry realized that his mother blamed herself for their deaths.

“We had also almost asked Lupin, but we realized that he knew that Lily and I loved him. He wouldn’t need the proof.” James said quietly staring intensely at his long time friend while he waited for Lily to compose herself.

Lupin stared intently at James for a few moments. A myriad of expression crossed his face. First was the same angry expression that had been on his face every time he was forced to be in the same room with James. Next was disbelief, disbelief of what he was hearing, like it was just an excuse. His expression then melted away, showing that he knew James and Lily especially would never lie to him, especially not about something like this. A deep sadness filled his heart and was apparent on his face as he realized that he had scorned James when he had first come back, scorned James when James had needed him the most, when he had realized that the rest of his friends were dead or had betrayed him.

He smiled sadly through tear that flowed down his face as he looked at James. He lightly patted Tonks’ knee and got up and joined Lily and James. He sat down next to James and the two men stared at each other for a tense moment.

“Can you forgive me? Can you forgive my behavior?” Lupin asked, searching James eyes. James returned his stare for a moment before smiling, the two men embraced, hitting each other on the back and began laughing, both crying.

Harry smiled, now understanding the awkwardness between the two men.

“Oh Lupin!” Lily said crying, “How could you possibly think that we didn’t trust you.” Lupin folded her into a hug.

“I’m sorry, Lil. It won’t happen again.” He said softly, tears freely flowing down his face.

After several more minutes of laughing and crying, Lily finally pulled away from Lupin, to continue. The rest of the group sat in amused silence watching the friends.

Her voice began shaking, “We made Peter the Secret Keeper and within a week, we were dead.” If that statement sounded weird to anyone else, no one mentioned it.

“I knew right away what had happened when I heard James yell to go save Harry. I knew that we had been betrayed, that we had made the wrong choice, that we had found that spy within the Order, and that Peter must have immediately told Voldemort how to find us.” Her voice abruptly changed from the shaky tear filled voice, to having almost no emotion in it what so ever.

Harry looked up alarmed at her change in voice. Lily was sitting with her hands in her lap, staring straight ahead, unseeing, as she began to recount her final moments.

“I saw the reflection of a flash of green light on the wall in front of me and heard a crash as I bolted up the stairs. I knew that James had just died. It took all of my power to keep going, all I wanted to do was lay down and cry. I heard Harry scream from his bedroom and that was what kept me going.

“I had just grabbed him out of his crib and was about to jump out the window so I could apperate away when the door slammed open and Voldemort came through the door. I was a little surprised that it was him and not one of his minions. I remember thinking in a panic that we most be very important.”

Harry had often wondered why his mother had not just apperated away, he hadn’t even considered that there had been anti-apperation spells on the house, but it made sense.

The people in the room stared at her in horror as she recounted the events that led up to her death. Minerva tried to get her attention, but to no avail; Lily needed to tell them what it was like, how it had been. The group stared in rapt silence, listening to her every word.

“He told me to give him the baby; I needn’t die as well. He said that all he wanted was the insignificant child.” She raised her arms up as if protectively holding a baby.

“I could feel Harry fighting against me, could hear him crying. He again repeated that all I needed to do was to give Harry to him, that he didn’t want to kill me; he said that he had other plans for me. I knew that I would not be able to survive after the death of both my husband and child.

I put Harry back in his crib and told Voldemort to take me instead, that Harry didn’t need to die; he was just a baby for Merlin’s sake. He told me to step aside, or he would be forced to kill me too, I could feel him trying to use the impervious curse to get me to obey him. I resisted, as much as I could. He finally sighed and said, ‘So be it.’ The last thing I remember is a flash of green light.” She began crying again as she finished speaking, Harry reached out and lightly touched his mother’s shoulder.

She jumped and looked up at him for moment and thing grabbed him in a tight hug, sobbing into his shoulder. Harry looked around for a moment, silently asking for help, and then slowly wrapped his arms around his sobbing mother, not knowing how to thank her for saving his life.