28

CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT:

Harry flopped onto Severus's couch with a sigh, closing his eyes as he leaned his head against the backrest. "That didn't take as long as I thought it would," he said with a relieved laugh. "I imagined this long Legilimency session, a lot more Crucios, and much more grandstanding…"

Severus snorted as he slipped out of his Death Eater robes. "Were Lucius still around the meeting would have taken far longer; he had a unique talent to get others into trouble with the Dark Lord, and that always led to many excuses and Crucios. I daresay many of our companions were relieved to see him dead."

"Always happy to do Death Eaters a service," Harry said drily and Severus chuckled.

"Let us call together the Order; the night is growing long."

Harry stood with a stifled groan. "Do we have to take Dumbledore with us?" He really didn't feel like putting up with the old bastard. "He's probably in too much pain to do anything anyway," he wheedled, making Severus smirk.

"Indeed. However, we should at least check on him, and fetch Poppy for the meeting while we are at it."

Harry had to concede that Severus had a point, but that didn't keep him from heaving a heavy sigh before following the Potions Master to the Hospital Wing. It didn't improve his mood any to find Dumbledore awake, either, but he hid it well.

"How are you feeling, Albus?" he asked softly as they approached the old man, thankful for the lack of a twinkle in the Headmaster's eyes. If there was one thing about Dumbledore that set him on edge, it was that unnatural twinkle.

"Ah, Harry my boy," Dumbledore said, his voice faint. "You have already returned from the meeting, then?"

Harry nodded. "We were just about to call together the Order. Do you feel well enough to join us?"

"I'm afraid not," Dumbledore sighed, "but I will come regardless. The Order must have its leader, after all." Harry thought that was a pretty weak way of trying to reaffirm himself as the Order's leader – it must be obvious even to the old manipulator that that post now belonged to Harry.

"Very true," Harry agreed anyway, keeping his thoughts to himself. By then Severus had returned with Poppy, and between them they managed to get the old man into the Floo and to Grimmauld Place, arranging him on a couch before straightening and seeing who was already around.

"Hey Remus, Sirius," Harry greeted with a small smile, "Do you mind calling the rest of the Order? I just realized I left some things back at Hogwarts." He was already heading towards the fireplace when Remus said that they'd deal with it, and a minute later he was back at Hogwarts and on his way to Severus's rooms. It didn't take very long for him to get there and grab his notes, but the discovery that Severus had told Medusa to grant him entrance when he wished it immediately got him in a better mood.

"Hello everyone," Harry greeted far more cheerfully as he stepped out of the fireplace at Order Headquarters to find all Order members gathered and waiting on him. "Let's get this meeting started, shall we?"

"Got what you needed, then?" Remus asked with a smile as everyone settled into seats.

"Just some notes," Harry returned amicably. "Today we'll mainly be discussing the questions we'll ask the Death Eaters and the phrasing of the oath we'll have them swear. Let me just present the main topics we want to cover during the questionings and then we'll work out the details, hopefully with input from our Auror members," he said with a nod in the direction of the three Aurors in their midst. "Now, my thought is that the questioning should be similar to a Ministry trial – the first step is to establish their guilt by asking whether they are a Death Eater, when they joined Voldemort, whether they have any reservations about having joined, an approximate number of people they killed… The entire questioning should be recorded in some way, and only done under the effects of Veritaserum. Severus, if you would please refresh our memories on how to operate with the truth potion?"

Severus rose smoothly and faced the gathering with a neutral expression. "The target should be restrained, preferably in an upright position, before three drops of Veritaserum are administered," he began in an even tone. Catching Kingsley's eye he addressed him, "Shacklebolt, I will provide you with a flushing potion that Travers will need to ingest before you can administer the Veritaserum. He regularly takes a potion that combined with Veritaserum would ensure his quick demise, and the potion will need to be flushed from his system." Receiving a nod he continued to address the room as a whole. "Each team should have a dicta-quill and parchment with them for the questioning, and one member of each team will have to be aware of the time during the interrogation. Three drops of Veritaserum will wear off after an hour, and while not many wizards are capable of masking the transition point it is best to be aware of the time of the change. Another dose of Veritaserum is to be administered only after a minimum of ten minutes has passed since the original dose wore off. Do not administer more than three drops unless you wish for the target to die," he finished with a slight edge to his voice; no doubt expecting some of them to have forgotten that basic detail. Harry carefully kept a smile from his face.

"Thank you, Severus," he took over, letting Severus reclaim his seat. "Now that we're clear on the actual interrogation, let's work out what questions should be posed…"

It took a while, but after an hour or so they had decided on the most important questions to ask the Death Eaters and their families, if they had any. Each member on a team had a list of questions for a Death Eater target and a separate list for unmarked spouses, should there be any; the Death Eater children were at Hogwarts and would be dealt with by Severus, so there was no alternative list for those. Harry had stressed how important it was that one person on the team ask the questions while the other members keep track of the time and their surroundings, avoiding any unpleasant surprises. He also pointed out that the Death Eaters would most likely have at least one house elf, and that some of them were fiercely loyal to their masters. "Don't underestimate them," he cautioned, "but hopefully they'll stay out of our way." Some of the Order members seemed skeptical, but none questioned his words.

Harry looked around and saw that no questions or comments remained, so he clasped his hands and moved on to the next topic. "That's the interrogation dealt with, then. Once the Veritaserum wears off each target should be offered the choice between an oath and death, along with the explanation that if they swear the oath they will be under house arrest until a fair trial can be held, and that should they choose death it will come in the form of a quick and relatively painless poison. You should decide within your groups who will administer the poison should it come to that, but at this time I want to discuss the wording of the oath. Any ideas?"

It took longer to settle on the wording of the oath than the questions, for the opinions on that account were many. Moody was, unsurprisingly, in favor of a very restricting oath, while Dumbledore actually managed to pull himself together long enough to advocate an extremely forgiving oath. While several Order members seemed inclined to go with Dumbledore's suggestion, Harry was pleased to note that the majority was for a more restricting oath than that. Some members suggested swearing to never oppose the Ministry, but Severus pointed out drily that that would be troublesome, as even speaking against a Ministry employee could see the oath-taker losing his life or magic. And that was another point of contention: Should the targets swear on their life or on their magic? Harry thought that magic would be sufficient, as that would surely seem like the worse fate to them, but he could tell that Moody, at least, secretly hoped that they would break their oaths and die.

In the end they finally agreed on a phrasing, but Harry privately thought that had it not been so late the discussion would have continued on for some time longer. As it was, it was long past midnight when they finally finished, and Harry was sure that everyone was looking forward to a bit of a lie-in the next day. He however had other plans: Looking at the frail form of Dumbledore had him deciding to hold their own little interrogation the very next day. He also had to get the Golden Trio up to date – as far as he knew his counterpart didn't know about Horcruxes yet, much less about the one that had been in his scar…

Tomorrow's another busy day, Harry sighed as he fell into bed fully clothed, resigned to the fact that his life would continue to be busy for quite some time. At least it's a better kind of busy than in the other timeline, he decided as another body joined him in bed, pulling the covers up to cover them. Yes, definitely quite a bit better than the other timeline.