A Change in Fate || Cedric Diggory [1]

Chapter 34: The Hearing

On the 2nd of August, 1995, Harry Potter and his cousin, Dudley Dursley, were attacked by dementors in Little Whinging. The news spread inside of the Order of the Phoenix headquarters almost as soon as it happened, what with many of its members being employees at the Ministry of Magic. Once again, Analeigh and the other teenagers were left in the dark, but they managed to figure out that the Order would be rescuing Harry from his awful family soon enough.

It was four days later that Analeigh, Ron, and Hermione found themselves anxiously waiting for Harry's arrival. Of course, they knew that he would be in good hands since many skilled witches and wizards, like Nymphadora Tonks and Remus Lupin, had volunteered to transport him to Grimmauld Place — but, that still did little to ease their worries. They had no idea where Voldemort was and what his followers were up to, so all the crazy scenarios of what they might do to Harry if they caught him on the way to the headquarters raced through their minds.

It was eerily quiet both inside the house and out in the streets, so the three friends weren't sure when Harry would arrive. Their questions were quickly answered when the door slowly clicked open. While Analeigh and Ron merely perked up at the sound from where they sat on the bed, Hermione stood up right away and ran to the door, engulfing a certain green-eyed boy the second he entered.

"Oh, Harry!" Hermione exclaimed, catching him by surprise. "Are you all right? We overheard them talking about the dementor attack. You must tell us everything."

"Let the man breathe, Hermione," said Ron as he and Analeigh approached them as well.

"And this hearing at the Ministry — just outrageous. I've looked it up. They simply can't expel you. It's completely unfair."

"Yeah. There's a lot of that going round at the moment," mumbled Harry, walking further into the room. Analeigh watched him carefully, noting that he didn't look all too happy. As she expected, he was most likely annoyed at them for not writing to him the past few weeks. "So, what is this place — this headquarters?"

"It's of the Order of the Phoenix," Analeigh replied. "It's a secret society Dumbledore formed back when they fought You-Know-Who."

"Couldn't have put any of this in a letter, I suppose? I've gone all summer without a scrap of news."

Analeigh, Hermione, and Ron all shared uncomfortable glances. They knew Harry would be angry at them for that, but that expectation didn't make them feel any better now that he was actually confronting them about it.

"We wanted to write, mate. Really, we did. Only..." Ron trailed off.

"Only what?" Harry demanded.

"Only Dumbledore made us swear not to tell you anything," Hermione answered quickly.

"Dumbledore said that? But why would he keep me in the dark? Maybe I could help. I'm the one who saw Voldemort return... the one who fought him, I'm the one who saw all those Death Eaters —"