In The Shadows² ★ Draco Malfoy

*Seven Harrys

Harry Potter hadn't known what the plan was to move him from 4 Privet Drive, but when he looked out of his kitchen window and was greeted with the sight of the Order all arriving, he had been beyond relieved to see them again after such a lonely month since Dumbledore's funeral

He quickly opened the front door and everyone bustled into his kitchen, and Harry smiled at the familiarity of the scene

"Briar!" He smiled and hugged the younger girl "How've you been?"

"Great actually," she grinned and leaned against the washing machine, on which Tonks was perched "I've got a step-mother now"

Sure enough on Tonks's left hand was a glistening ring and Harry looked from her to Remus "You got married?" he exclaimed

"I'm sorry you couldn't be there, Harry, it was very quiet." 

"That's brilliant, congrat -" 

"All right, all right, we'll have time for a cozy catch-up later," roared Moody over the hubbub, and silence fell in the kitchen. "As Dedalus probably told you, we had to abandon PlanA. Pius Thicknesse has gone over, which gives us a big problem. He's made it an imprisonable offence 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 preventYou-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. Second problem: You're underage, which means you've still got the Trace on you." 

"I don't –" 

"The Trace, the Trace!" said Mad-Eye impatiently. "The charm that detects magical activity around 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 you cornered good and proper." 

"So what are we going to do?" 

"We're going to use the only means of transport 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 -" Moody gestured around the pristine kitchen "-you no longer call this place home. You and your aunt and uncle are going your separate ways tonight, in the full understanding that you're never going to live together again, correct?" Harry nodded. "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 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's – you get the idea."

"Yeah," said Harry

"You'll be going to Tonks's parents. Once you're within the boundaries of the protective enchantments we've put on their house you'll be able to use a Portkey to theBurrow. Any questions?" 

"Er – yes," said Harry. "Maybe they won't know which of the twelve secure houses I'm heading for at first, but won't it be sort of obvious once-" he performed a quick headcount "-fourteen of us fly off toward Tonks's parents?"