Always and Forever

Chapter 30

Chapter 30: The Seven Potters

George POV:

Landing on the muggle road brought back all of the memories of coming to rescue Harry from the Dursely's so many years ago. He was thinking about the loud roar of Hagrid's flying motorbike and wondered how the muggles would react if they saw the strange group of witches and wizards landing in the drive. He glanced over at Hermione and watched as Shacklebolt helped her down from the skeletal, black winged horse that they would be riding tonight.

Harry wrenched open the door of No. 4 Privet Drive and ran over to his friends where Hermione was sprinting towards the black haired boy. The two Gryffindors collided together in a tight hug that Ron joined in briefly before Mad Eye was ushering the entire group into the safety of the house to discuss the change of plans to Harry.

The Chosen One led the group into the living where the group settled around the room. Fred clapped a hand on the back of Harry's back as the twins walked by and George did the same. They went to stand next to Hermione and Ron who were standing in the middle of the living room, waiting for Mad-Eye to make the plan clear to the group once again. When Harry laid eyes on Kinglsey Shacklebolt his eyes boggled a little. "Kingsley, I thought you were looking after the Muggle Prime Minister?"

"He can get along without me for one night. You're more important." Shacklebolt nodded with a proud smile on his face from his spot leaning against the wall next to Bill and Tonks.

"Harry, guess what?" Tonks shouted with excitement as she wiggled her left hand free from Remus and showed off a glittering ring on her hand. "We officially tied the knot."

"We wish you've been there--" Remus began but Mad Eye grunted.

"All right, all right, we'll have time for a cozy catch-up later! As Dedalus probably told you, we had to abandon Plan A. Pius Thicknesse has gone over, which gives us a big problem. He's made it an imprisonable offense to connect this house to the Floo Network, place a Portkey here, or Apparate in or out. All done in the name of your protection, to prevent You-Know-Who getting in at you. Absolutely pointless, seeing as your mother's charm does that already. What he's really done is to stop you getting out of here safely." Mad-Eye clanked his foot around the room, eyeing the group as if to remind them that they all need to be on their A game. "Second problem: You're underage, which means you've still got the Trace on you. It's the charm that detects magical activity and under-seventeens, the way the Ministry finds out about underage magic. If you, or anyone around you, casts a spell to get you out of here, Thicknesse is going to know about it, and so will the Death Eaters. We can't wait for the Trace to break, because the moment you turn seventeen you'll lose all the protection your mother gave you. In short: Pius Thicknesse thinks he's got your cornered good and proper."

"So... what are we going to do?" Harry asked as his green eyes darted around the room, looking at the people here to defend him.

"We're going to use the only means of transportation left to us, the only ones the Trace can't detect, because we don't need to cast spells to use them: brooms, thestrals, and Hagrid's motorbike. Now, your mother's charm will only break under two conditions: when you come of age, or when you no longer call this place home. So this time, when you leave, there'll be no going back, and the charm will break the moment you get outside its range. We're choosing to break it early because the alternative is waiting for You-Know-Who to come and seize you the moment you turn seventeen. The one thing we've got on our side is that You-Know-Who doesn'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 just rely on him getting the date wrong; he's bound to have a couple of Death Eaters patrolling the skies in this general area, just in case. So, we've given a dozen different houses every protection we can throw at them. They all look like they could be the place we're going to hide you, they've all got some connection with the Order: my house, Kingsley's place, Molly's Auntie Muriel-- you get the idea."