Change the Future

DH 2

They headed to 4 Private drive, all of them under Disillusionment Charms that they lifted as Harry opened the door and looked around. Dominating the scene was Hagrid, wearing a helmet and goggles and sitting astride an enormous motorbike with a black sidecar attached. All around him other people were dismounting from brooms and, three, skeletal, black winged horses. Charlie helped Rory down from one of the horses and kept an arm around her waist as Harry hurtled out of the back door. Hermione flung her arms around him whilst Ron clapped him on the back, and Hagrid said, 

"Allrigh', Harry? Ready fer the off?" 

"Definitely," Harry said, beaming around at them all as Rory leaned into Charlie. "But I wasn't expecting this many of you!" 

"Change of plan," growled Mad-Eye, who was holding two enormous, bulging sacks, and whose magical eye was spinning from darkening sky to house to garden with dizzying rapidity. "Let's get undercover before we talk you through it." Harry led everyone all back into the kitchen where, laughing and chattering, they settled on chairs, sat themselves upon Petunia's gleaming work surfaces, or leaned up against her spotless appliances, Ron, Hermione, Fred and George, Bill, Mr. Weasley, Mad-Eye, Tonks, Remus, Fleur, Kingsley, Hagrid, Mundungus Fletcher, Rory and Charlie. 

"Weren't Bill and Rory recently attacked" Molly says looking at the two on screen.

"Yes they were" Charlie says looking at Rory who just smiles at him.

"Kingsley, I thought you were looking after the Muggle Prime Minister?" Harry called across the room. 

"He can get along without me for one night," Kingsley said."You're more important." 

"Harry, guess what?" Tonks said from her perch on top of the washing machine, and she wiggled her left hand at him; a ring glittered there. 

"You got married?" Harry yelped, looking from her to Remus. 

"Go Moony" Sirius cheers. 

"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. Moody dropped his sacks at his feet and turned to Harry, "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 from 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!" Mad-Eye said impatiently. "The charm that detects magical activity around under-seventeens, the way the Ministry finds out 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 youturn 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 just rely on him getting the date wrong; he's bound to have a couple 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 auntie Muriel's—you get the idea."