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The Pledge


Sirius moved out to the Shrieking Shack that night, despite Remus’s objections that the Shack was too cold and too horrible a place. Sirius pointed out that they’d fixed it up better than it had been before, nobody would be looking for him out there, and he had his marvelous stereo there, thanks to his Moony, and James pointed out that they didn’t really have anywhere else to hide him that was safe and not already being used as the headquarters for the Order of the Phoenix. But Remus hated it just the same because the walk to the Shrieking Shack was too long to make every night and therefore he didn’t get to feel Sirius’s arms about him at night as he slept and it was a very, very long night without the weight of Sirius Black next to him in the bed.

But they’d only moved Sirius just in time for the very next day they returned to the dormitory after lunch to find Moody poking around the Gryffindor common room, accompanied by Professor McGonagall. Her eyes followed the three boys up the stairs as they rushed by, James without looking twice at her, afraid of the look that might be in her eyes. “He isn’t here, Alastor,” McGonagall said heavily, “I think we might have noticed if Sirius Black was roaming about the castle. How would he even get in through the gates?”

Moody shook his head, “I know what I’ve seen, Minerva.”

McGonagall lowered her voice, “But how would he have made himself invisible?”

“A cloak, I told you,” Moody grumbled.

McGonagall shook her head, “If those boys had an invisibility cloak, we would know of it by now!”

Moody sprang unannounced checks on the Gryffindor common room over the next week, with or without her, searching for Sirius Black, but of course he didn’t find him there. “Blimey,” whispered James one morning when they woke to find Moody sitting in the chair by the fireplace, waiting, watching, “What in hell do you reckon makes him so keen on finding Sirius anyway? I thought Moody was alright, but I mean -- he’s exerting an awful lot of energy to capture a runaway teenager, don’t you think?”

Remus shrugged, “Moody hates lawbreakers.”

“Could we get in trouble for hiding Sirius?” Peter asked nervously, looking about at the other two.

“Harboring a fugitive, I reckon,” James answered.

Peter shivered, “What do we do? What do we do?”

“What do you mean what do we do? We’re not turning him in, we just keep the secret,” Remus replied. “Don’t be a ninny.”

McGonagall had stopped James once after class to ask him if he was going to be attending their next Animagi lesson and he’d replied, “I have other extra curricular activities to tend to now, Professor, I’m sorry…” and she’d looked both worried and heartbroken at exactly the same time and he’d had to run off before he was tempted to tell her everything - right down to how he’d somehow ended up a leader, just like she’d said about him when she’d told him about the form of the stag… It would have made her proud, if she’d known, he thought, that he was living up to the stag… He wished he could show her how good he was at changing… but he couldn’t, of course. She couldn’t ever know.

It was hard, with all the extra scrutiny from Moody, to make the plans for the next meeting of the Order of the Phoenix, but somehow James managed to do it. They planned a time for Saturday morning, right after breakfast, and James heard from several of the people who had attended, agreeing to come to join the Order officially. And miraculously, nobody had seemed to rat out the group of them, or at least there were no rumors or anything flying about.

The first job at the second meeting of the Order was to finalize the list of members. It was about half of what had attended the initial meeting, but it wasn’t a terribly short list, either, though he wished it had stayed a little bit longer... James ticked them off the list as they came through the door --

Sirius Black
James Potter
Remus Lupin
Peter Pettigrew
Frank Longbottom
Ali Prewitt
Lily Evans
Marlene McKinnon
Annalee McKinnon
Emmaline Vance
Maryrose Jenkins
Andy Woodhouse
Meg Johnson
Jasper Odair
Alabastar Jackson
Harry Warbeck



He couldn’t help but notice that most of the names on the list were Gryffindors, but every house, including Slytherin, was represented and for that James felt a bit of pride.

Remus spello-taped the parchment list to the wall carefully and sat down on the floor with the others. They were in a big circle this time, James sitting among them with what appeared to be a gap in the circle between him and Remus. He took a deep breath, “Alright. First off, we’re all going to swear a oath to the Order. Mostly just for honor’s sake… He pulled out a parchment from his pocket and he looked it over. He’d spent half the night writing the pledge. “It, uh, it goes like this - I solemnly swear that as a member of the Order of the Phoenix, I will do my best work to defeat the one they call The Dark Lord -- Voldemort. I swear to have the back of my fellow Order members. When we battle, we battle together as one; I protect you, you protect me, and we all protect each other. I swear that blood status means nothing to me, that every person is equal. I swear to keep the secrets of the Order and its Members, and to reveal the things we speak of and do here to none others, no matter what. Together we shall rise up from these ashes, new.

Frank clapped, “Bloody brilliant, James.”

“It’s like poetry,” said Annalee. She was next to Peter and she had laced their fingers together.

“It is,” agreed Peter, “I told him that when he wrote it last night. He was afraid it was rubbish.”

“It’s not anywhere close to rubbish,” said Ali Prewitt.

He handed around the parchment and one by one they all took turns reading the words. James held Maryrose’s hand as they listened to each new member of the order read the words from the parchment, swearing themselves into the Order of the Phoenix. James smiled at Lily when she took the parchment and read it, her green eyes glowing with importance before passing it on to Marlene. The whole room was full of the passion that each voice read the words out with, each emphasizing different parts. For example, Alabastar Jackson put an emphasis on ”I swear that blood status means nothing to me” while Peter emphasized on doing his best, and Remus on keeping others secrets…

When it was time for Remus to hand it off to the last person -- Sirius pulled off the invisibility cloak and everyone gasped - except Frank, Ali and Lily, who had guessed Sirius was there. Sirius took a deep breath, “In the honor of keeping secrets…” he looked about at them, then took the parchment up and read through it with a glowingly passionate voice that had Remus staring up at him with wide, affectionate eyes. Remus wasn’t the only one giving Sirius that look though - there was also Meg Johnson and Marlene McKinnon looking at him that way.

James took the parchment back from Sirius when he finished with it - the pledge would be spello-taped next to the list of members later - and he cleared his throat, “Alright then. We’re all members. We’re all sworn to protect each other and keep each other’s secrets. So let’s begin. We’re literally going to start right off with something big going on, guys… so I hope you’re ready…”

“Bring it on, Potter,” answered Alabastar Jackson, “I’ve never been more ready for something in my entire life.”

And so James said, “The Minister for Magic is in trouble. The Death Eaters are taking over the Ministry. They have no fear of Eugenia Jenkins. We believe they’re trying to force an election. But the Death Eaters aren’t the only one trying to do - there’s also another bloke named Harold Minchum that’s trying to push an election as well, planning to run himself.”

“I’ve met Harold Minchum,” said Meg Johnson, “He was one of the representatives that came with Eugenia Jenkins when we came over from Ilvermorny for the tournament. He seemed really nice.”

“Well, we’re not entirely sure what his intentions are, if they’re good or bad just yet. He might be a good guy. We dunno. That’s what we need to find out. We need to research this Harold Minchum, find out who he is and if we want him to become Minister for Magic and we need to launch a campaign either way, promoting him or promoting the fear of him to all the students in the school.”

“What good is that going to do? We can’t vote in the election,” pointed out Harry Warbeck.

“No but our parents can,” James said, “And maybe by us having a passionate say about it, maybe our parents will, too. Maybe we can encourage them to vote for Minchum - or not to, if that’s the way this goes - either way.” He paused, then he said, “And we need to find out everything we can about the Ministry - how to get in, that sort of thing - just in case we need to do battle there against You Know Who, to protect the Minister.”

Peter shivered.

“Doesn’t the Minister have intense security detail?” asked Annalee.

“It’s either corrupt or not existent,” Sirius said. “I heard my Dad talking. They’ve imperiused as high up as the Minister’s secretary, who also happens to be her niece. The Dark Lord’s literally walked into the Ministry himself without challenge.”

Frank Longbottom shook his head, “How in hell can they be so bloody lax about it?” he asked, “I mean, even Dumbledore has loads of security up around this school. How can the bloody Ministry of Magic be less secure than a school?”

“Because of Dumbledore himself,” said Emmaline, “Dumbledore’s what’s kept us safe.”

“And now we have Moody!” lamented Maryrose.

“Moody is Dumbledore’s man through and through - McGonagall’s words,” James said. “I don’t believe Dumbledore’s very far off. I’m not even positive I believe he’s left Hogwarts at all, but is actually hiding someplace in the castle.”

“Which can be done,” Sirius announced, smirking.

“So I think we’re safe because of him,” James concluded.

“Maybe Dumbledore should run for Minister,” announce Jasper Odair. “Loads of people respect Dumbledore. They say he’s the only wizard You Know Who’s afraid of. And after what he did with Grindelwald - you can’t blame You Know Who for being scared. I would be too!”

James nodded agreement, “I think Dumbledore would be a brilliant Minister, but I haven’t heard anything about him running.”

“We could spread that about the school, get everyone talking about wanting Dumbledore for Minister,” suggested Emmaline.

“We should still learn about this Harold Minchum,” Lily said, looking over at Emmaline. “He obviously wants the job, Dumbledore may not. We need to be educated about it, know what he stands for, what he doesn’t. We need to know what our Ministry is going to be with him in it, what our futures would look like if he runs and wins. Politics are convoluted and not every bit of the way they work makes sense, but they really do affect us, even if it’s indirectly. This Minchum bloke could change the world we live in. So its important we know who he is.”

“Agreed,” James said. “So here’s what we need to do. Everybody does everything they possibly can to find out everything about Harold Minchum and the Ministry for Magic. Next week, we discuss.”