Hedwig was becoming increasingly restless from her extended grounding at Grimmauld Place. Harry looked at her sympathetically as he ran a rag over his wand. Ron's gift of a wand servicing kit lay open before him on the cluttered desk. Piles of advanced magical books that Harry was sneaking out of the library were teetering perilously as they waited for Harry to secret them away in his trunk. At first he had concentrated on bringing out all the dark curse books that he knew would be the first to go when Tonks or Moody finally got around to going through his library. Recently though, Harry began combing through the other sections for books that might be in peril and had discovered several interesting books including one dedicated entirely to something he had never seen before, the invisibility charm.
Even the tiny peek that Harry had taken was enough to tell him that the invisibility charm had a huge amount of potential. True invisibility would be even more useful now that the Ministry had banned invisibility cloaks, not to mention that cloaks were cumbersome to carry around.
Harry seethed at the thought of the Ministry and its latest round of petty rules. The Order had already been forced to remove the Floo Network connection from Grimmauld Place since none of them would be able to get a passport to use a fireplace hidden from ministry inspection. Hermione had worked herself into a S.P.E.W. like frenzy over what she called the police state of that "tyrant" Fudge.
Dawn was beginning to creep into the room so Harry began stuffing the books into his trunk for safekeeping. When he finished lifting the last stack down into the larger than it appeared trunk he noticed a uat brown package that had been hidden from view. He peeked inside and saw Sirius' old
two way mirror set sparkling back at him in the dim light. Kreacher had come through in a timely fashion after all.
Harry tottered into a standing position without feeling too out of balance. He had mastered his animagus falcon transformation pretty well now, but he still had a tough time remembering which body went with which stances. As long as I don't start flapping my arms, he thought wryly as he strode to the door. Moody had placed a silencing charm on the painting of old Mrs. Black, but Harry went quietly down the stairs anyway just in case. Noise seemed to be foreign to the large corridors as a general rule, except when Tonks was knocking something over.
"Wotcher Harry," came a sleepy voice as Harry pushed his way through the dinning room door.
"Hullo Tonks," Harry replied cheerfully.
Moody was there too, but he only managed to gruff out a short "Potter" before returning to his intense study of some tiny silver object Harry had never seen before. When Moody saw Harry looking at him he gave the object a pull on both ends and it turned into a mist that quickly dispersed.
"Just readin' my mail," he said cryptically.
"Speaking of mail, Dumbledore told me to give you these," Tonks said.
She whipped out four envelopes and tossed them on the table. Harry blanched uncomfortably as he saw the names on each of them. One was for him, one was for Ron, one was for Ginny and the other was for Hermione. That could only mean one thing: O.W.L.s had arrived.
"Er, thanks, I guess I'd better wait for the others then," Harry said.
Tonks grinned broadly, "I feel your pain Harry, I hated getting scores too."
Molly was back at the Burrow so there was not much of a breakfast since Moody and Tonks were almost as poor at cooking at Remus. Harry still couldn't use magic and there was little point in trying to coach either of the adults through a meal so Harry just settled on toast again. Harry sat down and waited for the others to make their way downstairs. He didn't have to wait long before the others trickled in one at a time. Ginny went ahead and opened her letter since all it contained was her list of books. Harry had wondered if she would make prefect, but she had been adamant that there was no way that she even wanted it.
Hermione one the other hand was a mix between giddiness and apprehension at the prospect of her grades. Harry convinced her to wait until Ron came down so she sat and worried her lip nervously, refusing to eat.
