Lyra watched Harry carefully, wondering what questions he was about to ask about the Dark Lord and his plans. She wasn't sure what conclusions he had come to on his own (because she knew he liked doing so without listening to anybody around him sometimes. He had once thought she was a Death Eater, after all).

"Where's Voldemort?" the young boy quickly asked, making several of the people around the table to shiver or wince. Lyra was no exception. "What's he doing? I've been trying to watch the muggle news, and there hasn't been anything that looks like him yet, no funny deaths or anything."

"That's because there haven't been any funny deaths yet," Sirius was quick to respond. He almost seemed proud at how his godson seemed to be asking the right questions. "Not as far as we know, anyway... and we know quite a lot."

"More than he thinks we do, anyway," Remus added, casting a quick glance at Lyra. She had been quick to tell when she knew they were having meetings and had overheard a few things, and Snape had been feeding information about what he knew. Together, those two had given them a clearer picture than they could have hoped for.

"How come he's stopped killing people?" Harry asked, confused. He thought his whole thing as a so-called Dark Lord was to kill and torture everyone who disagreed with him, and there were quite a few people who disagreed with him.

"He doesn't need all this attention, Harry," Lyra spoke up, being the one who had met the Dark Lord the most in the room. "They're trying to discredit anyone who says he's back and people will be more inclined to believe it if nothing changes, if things stay the same. He doesn't want people to know he's back, and it's been much harder after he messed up his comeback."

"Or rather, you messed it up for him," Remus added, his chin raised proudly. There was a little James in the boy, causing messes and trouble wherever he went. Sometimes it even went in their favor.

Harry furrowed his brows. "How?"

"You weren't supposed to survive!" Sirius exclaimed quite pleasantly, looking even prouder than Remus had. "Nobody apart from his Death Eaters was supposed to know he'd come back. But you survived to bear witness."

"And the very last person he wanted alerted to his return the moment he got back was Dumbledore and you made sure Dumbledore knew at once," Remus stated, smiling brightly at his former student.

"How has that helped?" the bespectacled boy asked. Things hadn't seemed to change just because Dumbledore had known. He hadn't even seen Dumbledore since the end of the school year.

"Are you kidding?" asked Bill, looking quite incredulous. He thought what he was about to say would be common knowledge, especially for Harry. "Dumbledore was the only one You-Know-Who was ever scared of!"

"Thanks to you, Dumbledore was able to recall the Order of the Phoenix about an hour after Voldemort returned," Sirius said thankfully. He then looked at his cousin, exchanging a smile with her. "With a few new additions, of course."

Harry seemed to accept this quickly. He then looked around the table, carefully watching each and every face of those part of the secret organisation, questioning what had been going on. "So, what's the Order been doing?"

"Working as hard as we can to make sure Voldemort can't carry out his plans," the Black man responded, mostly looking happy to finally be able to tell his godson what had been going on since the last time he'd seen him.

"How'd you know what his plans are?" Harry asked, though finding himself looking Lyra's way. He knew she was a Death Eater's wife, having seen Lucius Malfoy with a Death Eater mask himself. He wouldn't be surprised if she'd gotten some good information because of it.

"Dumbledore's got a shrewd idea," said Remus, neglecting to add in how much information Snape and Lyra had given them, thinking it wasn't information he needed to know. "And Dumbledore's shrewd ideas normally turn out to be accurate."

The Potter boy's gaze quickly left Lyra once he didn't hear a mention of her having anything to do with it. He just needed to get information without beating around the bush, so he didn't bother to ask her about it. "So what does Dumbledore reckon he's planning?"

Lyra could feel people's eyes on her, so she sighed and realized they wanted her to explain. She had overheard Lucius speaking to Avery about it only a week before, after all. She had gone straight to the Order to tell them.

"He wants an army," she answered simply. "He used to have one. It was huge, filled with all kinds of creatures and different witches and wizards, who were either there voluntarily or not. He's been going after the giants last I heard but they won't be the only ones he'll try to recruit. There's strength in numbers after all. He can't overthrow the Minister with the people you saw in the Graveyard that night."

Harry had been looking intently at her, but looked away at the mention of the graveyard, a night which was still so clear on his mind. The nightmares haunted him every single night. "So you're trying to stop him getting more followers?"

Remus exchanged a quick look with the blonde woman, unsure of how to answer the question. "We're doing our best."

"How?"

"Well, the main thing is to try and convince as many people as possible that You-Know-Who really has returned, to put them on their guard," Bill spoke up this time, reaching back to tighten his ponytail. "It's proving tricky, though."

"Why?"

Nymphadora nodded eagerly. "Because of the Ministry's attitude. You saw Cornelius Fudge after You-Know-Who came back, Harry. Well, he hasn't shifted his position at all. He's absolutely refusing to believe it's happened."

"But why?" asked Harry, running his fingers through his already messy hair, not noticing how the act pained those who had once known his father. "Why's he being so stupid? If Dumbledore-"

"Ah, well, you've put your finger on the problem." Arthur sounded quite somber as he spoke up. He didn't understand how anybody couldn't have great respect for Hogwarts's Headmaster and how people had been so quick to discredit him. "Dumbledore."

Nymphadora frowned deeply, knowing that the Minister was technically her boss and she was working for him, no matter what dumb things he did or said. "Fudge is frightened of him, you see."

Harry's eyes widened at this. "Frightened of Dumbledore?"

"Frightened of what he's up to," Arthur corrected him, adjusting his glasses on the bridge of his nose. "Fudge thinks Dumbledore's plotting to overthrow him. He thinks Dumbledore wants to be Minister for Magic."

"But Dumbledore doesn't want-"

The Weasley man shook his head. "Of course he doesn't. He's never wanted the Minister's job, even though a lot of people wanted him to take it when Millicent Bagnold retired. Fudge came to power instead, but he's never quite forgotten how much popular support Dumbledore had, even though Dumbledore never applied for the job."

"Deep down, Fudge knows Dumbledore's much cleverer than he is, a much more powerful wizard, and in the early days of his Ministry he was forever asking Dumbledore for help and advice,' Remus remembered.

"I know Fudge, Harry," Lyra spoke up quietly. "There is nothing that he enjoys more than the power he gets from being Minister and the powerful people around him. It's given him a dangerous amount of confidence, bordering on arrogance."

"Exactly," Remus agreed, looking at her thankfully for backing up what he was saying. "He loves being Minister for Magic and he's managed to convince himself that he's the clever one and Dumbledore's simply stirring up trouble for the sake of it."

"How can he think that?" Harry exclaimed dramatically. He was getting tired of people discrediting him and thinking he was just a child, especially when it was hurting Dumbledore's reputation as well. "How can he think Dumbledore would just make it all up. That I'd make it all up?"

"Because accepting that Voldemort's back would mean trouble like the Ministry hasn't had to cope with for nearly fourteen years," Sirius explained. "Fudge just can't bring himself to face it. It's so much more comfortable to convince himself Dumbledore's lying to destabilise him."

"You see the problem. While the Ministry insists there is nothing to fear from Voldemort it's hard to convince people he's back, especially as they really don't want to believe it in the first place," Remus sighed.

"The Daily Prophet's another problem," the blonde woman added. "They haven't reported on any of what you or Dumbledore's been saying. It's like nothing's happened for most of witches and wizards. They're not on alert. They become easy targets, especially for the Unforgivables."

"But you're telling people, aren't you?" Harry looked pointedly at every single Order member around the dinner table, worried once he saw them all smile without a trace of humor. "You're letting people know he's back?"

"Well, as everyone thinks I'm a mad mass-murderer and the Ministry's put a ten thousand Galleon price on my head, I can hardly stroll up the street and start handing out leaflets, can I?" Sirius quipped.

"And I'm not a very popular dinner guest with most of the community. It's an occupational hazard of being a werewolf," Remus excused himself, though with a trace of bitterness for his condition that had never faded.

"Almost everybody I see most of the time already knows. Unfortunately, they're on the other side of the war, so it's not really any help," Lyra smiled apologetically at Harry, who didn't seem pleased to hear this.

"Tonks and Arthur would lose their jobs at the Ministry if they started shooting their mouths off," Sirius explained. "And it's very important for us to have spies inside the Ministry, because you can bet Voldemort will have them."

"We've managed to convince a couple of people, though," Arthur spoke up, happy to have some good news. "Tonks here, for one. She's too young to have been in the Order of the Phoenix last time, and having Aurors on our side is a huge advantage. Kingsley Shacklebolt's been a real asset, too; he's in charge of the hunt for Sirius, so he's been feeding the Ministry information that Sirius is in Tibet."

Harry could hear everything they were saying, but he couldn't really understand it. He wanted them all to stand on rooftops and scream to the world that he was back and ready to start another war. "But if none of you are putting the news out that Voldemort's back."

"Who said none of us are putting the news out?" asked Sirius cheekily, a boyish grin appearing on his face. It made him seem several years younger, like the pain from Azkaban was fading slightly. "Why d'you think Dumbledore's in such trouble?"

"What d'you mean?"

"They're trying to discredit him," said Remus. "Didn't you see the Daily Prophet last week? They reported that he'd been voted out of the Chairmanship of the International Confederation of Wizards because he's getting old and losing his grip, but it's not true.

"He was voted out by Ministry wizards after he made a speech announcing Voldemort's return," he continued. "They've demoted him from Chief Warlock on the Wizengamot, that's the Wizard High Court, and they're talking about taking away his Order of Merlin, First Class, too."

"But Dumbledore says he doesn't care what they do as long as they don't take him off the Chocolate Frog Cards," Bill grinned widely, appreciating the way his old Headmaster had a bit humor in troubling times.

"It's no laughing matter." Arthur sent his oldest son a stern look. "If he carries on defying the Ministry like this he could end up in Azkaban, and the last thing we want is to have Dumbledore locked up. While You-Know-Who knows Dumbledore's out there and wise to what he's up to he's going to go cautiously. If Dumbledore's out of the way... Well, You-Know-Who will have a clear field."

None of this made any sense to Harry yet. He wasn't sure if his friends felt the same way, as they had stayed pretty silent throughout the whole ordeal. "But if Voldemort's trying to recruit more Death Eaters it's bound to get out that he's come back, isn't it?"

"It's not that simple," Lyra shook her head. "The recruitment into his army has always been under the radar. Usually in the old pureblood families or with the leaders of different packs of dark creatures."

"Many don't join him voluntarily either. As I said, a lot of people have been very susceptible to the Unforgivables. They can choose to torture people into joining their ranks or giving up something that's holding them back," she continued, an edge in her voice at the mention of the torture curse.

"But the thing they're most fond of is the Imperius curse," she quickly said, not wanting to think about the horrors of the torture curse, especially as she had once seen Sirius be hit with it in that very room. "Nobody's thought to protect themselves from it for a long time, many have forgotten how to even try. He has many ways. I'd know. I was once one of his most promising possible recruits."

"Wait, what? You were a Death Eater?" Harry asked, looking betrayed for a moment as he jumped to conclusions. "You told me you weren't one."

"I've never been a Death Eater, Harry. I've proved this several times to the Order, don't worry," the Malfoy woman smiled reassuringly, though a bit hurt he still thought she could lie to him about it. "I almost was, though. Against my will, of course."

"You've never said anything about this," the Potter boy said quietly, eyeing her strangely. He had been seeing her in a specific way for so long, as his dad's old girlfriend and Sirius's cousin, Remus's best friend. Not as a potential Death Eater back in the day.

"It's not something I like talking about," Lyra said, her voice becoming a bit sharper against her will. "I was a kid, forced into meeting him and being involved in some of his plans because of who my family was and who my friends were. I was barely older than you."

Harry looked a bit more sympathetic at this, though still suspicious. If Voldemort was going around and cursing people, forcing them to do his bidding, he didn't want Lyra to be one of those people cursed, especially now knowing her past. "How come you didn't become one then? If he used to force people to become one?"

"By marrying Lucius, actually," she revealed, noticing the eye-rolls and annoyed looks on basically everybody's faces at the mention of her husband. There wasn't a person in the room who didn't dislike him, which she could definitely understand.

"How did marrying that git stop you from becoming a Death Eater, Aunt Lyra?" Nymphadora asked, even more confused. She knew from her mother that the blonde had been in a few sticky spots with the Death Eaters in her youth, but she was interested in getting to hear more now.

"He made me a promise. I was eighteen, still in school, only back for the Easter holidays. I had just broken up with your father a few months before, Harry." Lyra looked to the boy, who looked invested in the story. "He had been there at a meeting where... things happened. He could see I didn't want it, so he offered our marriage as a source of protection for me... and hopefully for James as well."

"That worked out well, didn't it?" Sirius muttered under his breath, having disliked the man even more once he found out he had manipulated his cousin into marrying him by using James, the man she loved, against her only to not follow through with protecting him when times got tough.

"Yeah, well..." she trailed off, not really wanting to talk about this for much longer. "If there's one thing you can trust me on, it's how the Death Eaters recruit their members. I know that better than anybody in this room."

"And it's not like recruitment's all he's working on either," Sirius quickly changed the subject, sensing her discomfort. He wanted to send her a reassuring smile, but didn't want to draw more attention to her. "He's got other plans too, plans he can put into operation very quietly indeed, and he's concentrating on those for the moment."

"What's he after apart from followers?" Harry asked, forcing himself to look away from Lyra as well. He could see her send Sirius a stern look after he asked this question, as him, her and Remus all exchanged looks.

"Stuff he can only get by stealth," Sirius answered vaguely, wondering how much he could say while avoiding getting kicked in the leg by Lyra. "Like a weapon. Something he didn't have last time."

"When he was powerful before?"

"Yes," Sirius answered simply. He looked at Lyra, who was glaring at him in warning. He could feel her foot tap against his calf, as if it was threaten him of what would come if he said more than he needed to.

"Like what kind of weapon?" Harry asked, wondering what kinds of weapons were usually used in the Wizarding World. He suspected they were different from muggle weapons. "Something worse than the Avada Kedavra-?"

"That's enough!" Molly cut them off, returning from forcing Ginny to bed, with her arms crossed in anger. She had interrupted just as Lyra started pulling her foot back, preparing to kick Sirius for saying something wrong. "I want you in bed, now. All of you."

Fred, always eager to remind his parents that him and his twin were legally adults now, was about to speak up and object. "You can't boss us-"

"Watch me!" Molly snarled, leaving no room for argument. Her anger was quickly moved to Sirius. "You've given Harry plenty of information.Any more and you might just as well induct him into the Orderstraightaway."

"Why not?" Harry suddenly asked, making every eye in the room turn to him. They hadn't expected him to speak up to fight against Molly Weasley of all people. "'I'll join, I want to join, I wantto fight."

Lyra was about to open her mouth and yell that it was unacceptable, that she refused to allow him to go into the front lines. There were many capable adults who could do most of the fighting for him. 

But Remus beat her to the punch. "No. The Order is comprised only of overage wizards. Wizards who have left school. There are dangers involved of which youcan have no idea, any of you... I think Molly's right, Sirius. We'vesaid enough."

"I'll be going home then. It's late and you should be getting to bed," Lyra smiled tightly, wanting to get out of the tense situation as quickly as possible. She leaned over to kiss both Remus and Sirius's cheeks in goodbye, hoping to bring a little love into the tense situation. 

She leaned over to ruffle Harry's hair, to which he grinned at her, happy she had shared some information with him at least, and she wasn't angry that he had accused her of being a Death Eater for the second time.

"Goodbye then, everyone," Lyra said, looking around the room at everybody, but ready to get the hell out of there and the tense situation happening. She quickly apparated away, getting back to Malfoy manor, where she could quietly sneak into her empty bed, where Lucius still hadn't come home from wherever he was.