"They need us at Hogwarts" Bill shouted as he went to find Phoenix.

"What's going on Bill?" Phoenix asks running out of the bedroom to find him.

"It's started" Phoenix nodded in understanding before they apparated to Hogsmeade where Aberforth Dumbledore allowed them through to the room of Requirements. They spot Charlie already there with Sirius and Remus. They walked over to them. 

"Bill, Nix" Charlie said looking at them.

"Don't you have a baby to be looking after?" Phoenix asks looking at Charlie before turning to Remus "And you" 

"Isla's with Nova and Teddy's with Tonks, they're both fine" Charlie answers her.

"Bet they're both thrilled about not being able to help"

"I honestly thought Wolf was going to murder me when I told her she was to stay" Sirius said making Phoenix smile.  There were now some more new arrivals including Fred and George as well as Kingsley, Oliver Wood, Katie Bell, Angelina Johnson, Alicia Spinnet and Mr. and Mrs. Weasley. Everyone looks over as Harry walks in.

"Harry, what's happening?" Remus says meeting him at the foot of the stairs.

"Voldemort's on his way, they're barricading the school. Snape's run for it. What are you doing here? How did you know?"

"We sent messages to the rest of Dumbledore's Army," Fred explained. "You couldn't expect everyone to miss the fun, Harry, and the D.A. let the Order of the Phoenix know, and it all kind of snowballed."

"What first, Harry?" called George. "What's going on?"

"They're evacuating the younger kids and everyone's meeting in the Great Hall to get organized," Harry said. "We're fighting." There was a great roar and a surge toward the foot of the stairs, Harry pressed his back against the wall as they ran past him, the mingled members of the Order of the Phoenix, Dumbledore's Army, and the old Quidditch team, all with their wands drawn, heading up into the main castle.

"Come on, Luna," Dean called as he passed, holding out his free hand; she took it and followed him back up the stairs. The crowd was thinning: Only a little knot of people remained below in the Room of Requirement, Harry joined them. Mrs. Weasley was struggling with Ginny. Around them stood Remus, Sirius, Fred, George, Bill, and Phoenix.

"You're underage!" Mrs. Weasley shouted at her daughter. "I won't permit it! The boys, yes, but you, you've got to get home!"

"I won't!" Ginny's hair flew as she pulled her arm out of her mother's grip. "I'm in Dumbledore's Army"

"A teenagers' gang!"

"A teenagers' gang that's about to take him on, which no one else has dared to do!" Fred said.

"She's sixteen!" shouted Mrs. Weasley. "She's not old enough! What you two were thinking, bringing her with you" Fred and George looked slightly ashamed of themselves.

"Mum's right, Ginny," Bill said gently. "You can't do this. Everyone underage will have to leave, it's only right."

"I can't go home!" Ginny shouted, angry tears sparkling in her eyes. "Nearly my whole family's here, I can't stand waiting there alone and not knowing and" Her eyes met Harry's for the first time. She looked at him beseechingly, but he shook his head and she turned away bitterly, "Fine," she said, staring at the entrance to the tunnel back to the Hog's Head. "I'll say good-bye now, then, and" There was a scuffling and a great thump: Someone else had clambered out of the tunnel, overbalanced slightly, and fallen. He pulled himself up on the nearest chair, looked around through lopsided horn-rimmed glasses, and said,

"Am I too late? Has itstarted? I only just found out, so I I " Percy spluttered into silence. Evidently he had not expected to run into most of his family. There was a long moment of astonishment, broken by Phoenix turning to Remus and saying, in a wildly transparent attempt to break the tension,

"So how is Teddy?" Remus blinked at her, startled. The silence between the Weasleys seemed to by solidifying, like ice.

"I- oh yes-he's fine!" He said loudly. Percy and the other Weasleys were still staring at one another, frozen. "Here, I've got a picture!" Remus shouted, pulling a photograph from inside his jacket and showing it to Phoenix and Harry, it was a tiny baby with a tuft of bright turquoise hair, waving fat fists at the camera.

"I was a fool!" Percy roared, so loudly that Remus nearly dropped his photograph. "I was an idiot, I was a pompous prat, I was a a "

"Ministry-loving, family-disowning, power-hungry moron." Fred said. Percy swallowed.

"Yes, I was!"

"Well, you can't say fairer that that," Fred said holding out his hand to Percy. Mrs. Weasley burst into tears. She ran forward, pushed Fred aside, and pulled Percy into a strangling hug, while he patted her on the back, his eyes on his father.

"I'm sorry, Dad." Percy said. Mr. Weasley blinked rather rapidly, then he too hurried to hug his son.

"What made you see sense, Perce?" inquired George.

"It's been coming on for a while," Percy said mopping his eyes under his glasses with a corner of his traveling cloak. "But I had to find a way out and it's not so easy at the Ministry, they're imprisoning traitors all the time. I managed to make contact with Aberforth and he tipped me off ten minutes ago that Hogwarts was going to make a fight for it, so here I am."

"Well, we do look to our prefects to take a lead at times such as these," George said in a good imitation of Percy's most pompous manner. "Now let's get upstairs and fight, or all the good Death Eaters'll be taken."

"So, you're my sister-in-law now?" Percy, said shaking hands with Phoenix as they hurried off toward the staircase with Charlie, Bill, Fred, and George. Percy looked at Charlie. "I hear you're married as well to Aurora"

"Yeah shame you missed it we also have a daughter together now she's a week old" Charlie said looking at his younger brother as they walked.

"I'm sorry Charlie" Percy said looking at him.

"When this is all over Perce I want you to meet your niece" Phoenix smiled at Bill who returned it as they entered the Great Hall. The enchanted ceiling of the Great Hall was dark and scattered with stars, and below it the four long House tables were lined with dishevelled students, some in traveling cloaks, others in dressing gowns. Here and there shone the pearly white figures of the school ghosts. Every eye, living and dead, was fixed upon Professor McGonagall, who was speaking from the raised platform at the top of the Hall. Behind her stood the remaining teachers, including the palomino centaur, Firenze, and the members of the Order of the Phoenix who had arrived to fight.

"evacuation will be overseen by Mr. Filch and Madam Pomfrey. Prefects, when I give the word, you will organize your House and take your charges, in an orderly fashion, to the evacuation point." Many of the students looked petrified. However Ernie Macmillan stood up at the Hufflepuff table and shouted. 

"And what if we want to stay and fight?" There was a smattering of applause.

"If you are of age, you may stay," Professor McGonagall said.

"What about our things?" called a girl at the Ravenclaw table.

"Our trunks, our owls?"

"We have no time to collect possessions," Professor McGonagall said. "The important thing is to get you out of here safely."

"Where's Professor Snape?" shouted a girl from the Slytherin table.

"He has, to use the common phrase, done a bunk," replied Professor McGonagall, and a great cheer erupted from the Gryffindors, Hufflepuffs, and Ravenclaws. "We have already placed protection around the castle," Professor McGonagall was saying, "but it is unlikely to hold for very long unless we reinforce it. I must ask you, therefore, to move quickly and calmly, and do as your prefects " But her final words were drowned as a different voice echoed throughout the Hall. It was high, cold, and clean. There was no telling from where it came; it seemed to issue from the walls themselves. Like the monster it had once commanded, it might have lain dormant there for centuries.

"I know you are preparing to fight." There were screams amongst the students, some of whom clutched each other, looking around in terror for the source of the sound. "Your efforts are futile. You cannot fight me. I do not want to kill you. I have great respect for the teachers of Hogwarts. I do not want to spill magical blood." There was silence in the Hall now, the kind of silence that presses against the eardrums, that seems too huge to be contained by walls. "Give me Harry Potter," Voldemort's voice said "and none shall be harmed. Give me Harry Potter, and I shall leave the school untouched. Give me Harry Potter, and you should be rewarded. You have until midnight." The silence swallowed them all again. Every head turned, every eye in the place seemed to have found Harry, to hold him frozen in the glare of thousands of invisible beams. Then a figure rose from the Slytherin table and he recognized Pansy Parkinson as she raised a shaking arm and screamed,

"But he's there! Potter's there! Someone grab him!" There was a massive movement. The Gryffindors in front of him had risen and stood facing, not Harry, but the Slytherins. Then the Hufflepuffs stood, and almost at the same moment, the Ravenclaws, all of them, with their backs to Harry, all of them looking toward Pansy instead, and Harry looked awestruck and overwhelmed, wands emerging everywhere, pulled from beneath cloaks and under sleeves.

"Thank you, Miss Parkinson," Professor McGonagall said in a clipped voice. "You will leave the Hall first with Mr. Filch. If the rest of your House could follow." The sound of the grinding of benches and then the sound of the Slytherins trooping out on the other side of the Hall was all that could be heard for a moment. "Ravenclaws, follow on!" cried Professor McGonagall. Slowly the four tables emptied. The Slytherin table was completely deserted, but a number of older Ravenclaws remained seated while their fellows filed out; even more Hufflepuffs stayed behind, and half of remained in their seats, necessitating Professor McGonagall's descent from the teachers' platform to chivvy the underage on their way. "Absolutely not, Creevey, go! And you, Peakes!" Harry hurried over to the Weasleys, who were all sitting together at the Gryffindor table.

"Where are Ron and Hermione?"

"Haven't you found?" began Mr. Weasley, looking worried. But he broke off as Kingsley had stepped forward on the raised platform to address those who had remained behind.

"We've only got half an hour until midnight, so we need to act fast! A battle plan has been agreed between the teachers of Hogwarts and the Order of the Phoenix. Professors Flitwick, Sprout, and McGonagall are going to take groups of fighters up to the three highest towers-Ravenclaw, Astronomy, and Gryffindor-where they'll have a good overview, excellent positions from which to work spells. Meanwhile Remus" he indicated Remus "Arthur" he pointed toward Mr. Weasley, sitting at the Gryffindor table "Sirius" He pointed at Sirius who was with Remus "and I will take groups into the grounds. We'll need somebody to organize defence of the entrances of the passageways into the school"

"Sounds like a job for us," called Fred, indicating himself and George, and Kingsley nodded his approval.

"All right, leaders up here and we'll divide up the troops!"

"Potter," Professor McGonagall said, hurrying up to him, as students flooded the platform, jostling for position, receiving instructions, "Aren't you supposed to be looking for something?"

"What? Oh," Harry said, "oh yeah!"

"Then go, Potter, go!"

"Right-yeah- " He ran out of the Great Hall again, into the entrance hall still crowded with evacuating students. Once everyone had been organised they started leaving the hall in groups. Bill squeezed Phoenix's hand before kissing her quickly.

"Stay safe" He whispered.

"You too"