Harry followed Tonks as she dived. The team landed and hurried towards the houses.

Standing on the sidewalk in front of the dingy houses, Moody pulled out a silver lighter. He pointed it in the air and clicked it once. A street-lamp near them went out. He kept clicking it repeatedly till all the street-lamps in the vicinity went out, plunging their surroundings into darkness.

“That should keep those pesky muggles out of our business,” said Moody.

Harry tried to look around in the pitch darkness, and to his surprise, he could see to a much greater extent than he expected.

‘Must be thanks to Fawkes,’ he thought.

As Harry was looking around, Moody handed him a piece of parchment. “Here”, he handed a piece of paper to Harry while using his lit wand to illuminate it. “Read quickly and memorise”

Harry looked down at the piece of paper. The familiar narrow handwriting on it read:

The Headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix may be found at number twelve, Grimmauld Place, London.

“Super secret society?” asked Harry with a smirk as he passed it to Lily to read.

“Haha yes” laughed Tonks from the side.

Moody quickly grabbed the piece of parchment from her hand once she was done and lit it on fire. As the parchment curled into flames and floated to the ground. Harry thought about what he read.

The moment he reached the part about Grimmauld Place, a door materialised in front of him. Quickly followed by walls and windows, which seemed to push the houses next to it out of the way and materialised in front of him.

“Woah,” was all Harry could say, as he stared at the newly appeared house in awe. Lily squealed in surprise and gripped Harry’s arm.

“Well, that’s magical,” said Harry with an admiring sigh, causing Lupin to speak up next to him with a smile. “Oh good, you got it to work” 

Harry walked up the worn stone steps, staring at the newly materialised door. Its black paint was shabby and scratched. The silver door knocker was a twisted serpent. There was no keyhole or letterbox.

Lupin tapped his wand on the door, and Harry could hear many loud metallic clicks. Soon, the door swung open to a pitch dark hallway.

“Get in quick, Harry. You too, Lily,” Lupin whispered, “but don’t go far inside and touch nothing.”

Harry stepped over the threshold into the almost total darkness of the hall. Lily stepped in after him. Lupin and Tonks, carrying their trunk and Hedwig’s cage, entered after him and the rest filed in behind them. Moody was standing on the top step, releasing the balls of light the Put-Outer had stolen from the street-lamps; they flew back to their bulbs, and the square glowed momentarily with orange light before Moody limped inside and closed the front door.

“Here”

He rapped Harry hard over the head with his wand, causing Harry to feel as though something hot was trickling down his back. He knew that the Disillusionment Charm must have been lifted.

Harry watched in amazement as Moody did the same to Lily. She appeared as if a haze lifted off of her.

“Now stay still, everyone, while I give us a bit of light in here,” Moody whispered.

He heard a noise and then old-fashioned gas lamps sputtered into life all along the walls, casting a flickering insubstantial light over the peeling wallpaper and threadbare carpet of a long, gloomy hallway, where a cobwebby chandelier glimmered overhead and age-blackened portraits hung crooked on the walls.

There were hurried footsteps, and Ron’s mother, Mrs Weasley, emerged from a door at the far end of the hall. She was beaming in welcome as she hurried towards them.

“Oh, Harry, it’s lovely to see you!” she whispered, pulling him into a tight hug. She soon pulled away and held him at arm’s length, inspecting him. “You’re looking sickly. You need food, but you’ll have to wait a bit for dinner, I’m afraid.”

“And who is this?” She asked quizzically, turning to Lily.

“Uh, hi. I’m Lily,” came a shy reply from Lily.

“She’s my girlfriend,” added Harry with a smile.

“Oh my. It’s lovely meeting you dear,” she whispered back, quickly getting over her surprise.

She turned to the wizards behind them and whispered urgently, “He’s just arrived. The meeting started.”

“Ron and Hermione should be upstairs,” she said, “you can wait with them until the meeting’s over, then we’ll have dinner. And keep your voice down in the hall,” she added.

Pressing her finger to her lips, she led them on tiptoe around a large umbrella stand that looked as though it had been made from a severed troll’s leg up the dark staircase, passing a row of shrunken heads mounted on plaques on the wall.

They continued in silence until they reached a certain door on the second landing.

“You’re the door on the right. I’ll call you when it’s over,” she said and then hurried off downstairs.

Harry twisted the knob and opened the door. He wasn’t able to see much of the room before he heard a loud shriek and a large quantity of very bushy hair completely obscured his vision.

Hermione had thrown herself at him in a tight hug, while Ron’s tiny owl, Pigwidgeon, zoomed excitedly around their heads.

“HARRY! Ron, he’s here, Harry’s here! We didn’t hear you arrive! Oh, how are you? Are you alright? Have you been furious with us? I bet you have. I know our letters were useless - but we couldn’t tell you anything. Dumbledore made us swear we wouldn’t. Oh, we’ve got so much to tell you, and you’ve got things to tell us! The Dementors! When we heard - and that Ministry hearing - it’s just outrageous, I’ve looked it all up, they can’t expel you, they just can’t, there’s provision in the Decree for the Reasonable Restriction of Underage Sorcery for the use of magic in life-threatening situations - ”

“Uh, it’s great seeing you too, Hermione,” said Harry awkwardly.

He turned to Ron and saw him staring at a point behind Harry.

“Aren’t you in our class?” He asked suddenly.

Hermione seemed to have finally noticed Lily behind Harry.

“Lily?” she asked, surprised. “What are you doing here?”

Lily smiled at them. “Hi Hermione, Harry brought me along,” she replied and gave a polite nod to Ron.

“Why?” Asked Ron with a frown. “Dumbledore mentioned no outsiders are allowed in here.”

“She’s not an outsider,” replied Harry.

“We don’t know her!” Said Ron agitatedly.

“I do,” replied Harry, making his displeasure obvious on his face. “What’s your problem?”

“We know nothing about her. She could be a spy for you-know-who for all we know,” yelled Ron.

“Excuse me?” Lily asked with narrowed eyes, “did you hit your head or are you naturally that dumb?”

Ron turned red and was about to snap back, but Lily continued.

“Dumbledore, let me tag along, so I’m obviously not a spy. Not to mention, I was at least there for Harry when you guys just abandoned him. Do you have any idea how bad Harry must have been feeling, having gone through everything he did and everyone still kept him in the dark like a child?”

She was practically yelling at this point.

“So don’t give me this exclusive secret society crap. You’re lucky Harry didn’t just tell you all to bugger off.”

Hermione and Ron looked taken aback. Hermione looked incredibly guilty, while Ron just looked more furious.

“She’s not wrong, I almost did that,” said Harry and grinned at Lily. “anyway, what have you guys been up to here? Having fun at this super secret club?”

Ron seemed to have calmed down a little, but his expression turned ugly when he noticed how Harry took Lily’s hand and intertwined their fingers.

“Not fun, no,” said Hermione. “They don’t really let us in on any of the information. We’ve deduced some things, but well, we don’t really know anything since they say we’re too young.”

Though Hermione still seemed guilty about the earlier matter, she tried to continue the conversation normally.

“What’s this super secret club about anyway?” asked Harry.

“It’s a secret society,” said Hermione “Dumbledore’s in charge. He founded it. It’s the people who fought against You-Know-Who last time.”

“Right,” said Harry. “So what have you guys been up to then? If you’re not allowed in the meetings?”

Hermione perked up at that. “We’ve been cleaning the house. We’ve so far finished with the kitchen, most of the bedrooms, and I think we’ll be doing the drawing room tomorrow.”

Just as Hermione finished speaking, the door opened up. “Hey, Hermione, I wanted to ask you some-”

Harry looked up to see a cute red-headed girl just a little younger than himself walk into the room, just to pause when she saw him with a look of surprise. “Harry! I didn’t know you arrived!” she squealed happily. “How are you?”

Harry smiled at Ginny, Ron’s younger sister. “Had a bit of a roller coaster ride the last few weeks, but basically fine.”

“I heard about wha-” she spoke only to be interrupted by two loud cracks, Fred and George, Ron’s elder twin brothers, materialised out of thin air in the middle of the room.

“Can you stop doing that!?” Hermione asked weakly to the twins.

“Hello Harry, we heard Ginny’s squeals announcing your arrival,” said George.

“We extend our heartfelt congratulations on your escape from the clutches of death,” said Fred with a dramatic and frankly unnecessary flair.

“Passed your Apparition tests, then? ‘’ asked Harry.

“With distinction,” replied Fred, who was holding what looked like a piece of very long, flesh-coloured string.

“Who do we have here?” asked Fred.

“Lily Moon, Harry’s girlfriend,” replied Lily, a little tired of introducing herself over and over.

Hermione and Ginny looked surprised, and Ron looked jealous.

Fred and George took it in their stride.

“Well, little lady, it’s lovely meeting you. I’m Gred and this is my long-lost twin brother, Feorge.”

“Ginny kind of interrupted our reception there,” said George. “Extendable Ears,” he added, for no particular reason.

“Its no-go with the Extendable Ears. She’s gone and put an Imperturbable Charm on the kitchen door,” said Ginny from the side. “Tonks taught me how to check. You just need to chuck something at the door and if it doesn’t touch, then it’s been Imperturbed,” she said.

“I just spent the good part of the last twenty minutes chucking dungbombs at the door,” she said with a giggle.

“Oh…” Fred sighed in disappointment.

“Shame. I really fancied finding out what old Snape’s been up to.”

“Snape!“ said Harry with narrowed eyes. “So he is here.”