While I watched Voldemort's spirit disappear in the distance, still processing what had just happened, Dumbledore called Fawkes and disappeared with Quirrel in a flash of fire.

Snape turned around and gave me a questioning look with his unfamiliar polyjuiced face. "Really, Potter? 'You killed my parents, prepare to die'?"

"I felt like I had to say something! If it had worked, he'd have written a bestseller about it!", I answered, pointing at Lockhart who was still recovering from the shock of realizing that he'd just cursed Lord Voldemort in the face.

"But to quote The Princess Bride?"

Now that was a surprise that completely succeeded in distracting me from our massive screw-up that had just happened. "It wasn't great, okay, but it was the only thing I could think of on the fly! And I'm honestly surprised that you know that movie."

Snape shook his head. "The book. Lily once… threw her copy at me."

Oh. Probably after something happened that split their friendship further. "I'm sorry."

Lockhart was confused: "What are you two talking about?"

"Nothing."

-HP-HP-HP-

I barely got any sleep that night. After Dumbledore had returned from St. Mungo's, reporting that Quirrel was barely alive thanks to Phoenix tears, Lockhart (correctly) assuming that we wouldn't let him continue stealing people's memories had taken advantage of our current lack of a Defense Professor to get himself a new job and Snape had announced his discovery of several extremely dark books and a dragon egg in Quirrel's quarters, it had been almost three past midnight when I returned to Ravenclaw tower, only to be ambushed by a very worried, glad and angry Hermione who reminded me that despite our failure to destroy Voldemort, the situation was far from the worst possible.

Phew.

I seriously think that batch of Felix might not have been the best quality.

At least the next day was a Saturday with no classes.

-HP-HP-HP-

On that day I learnt multiple things.

First, I'm really obvious about my mood for an Occlumens.

Second, when the Weasley twins can easily tell that you're in a terrible mood, even when they can't tell that it's because you let a dark lord loose on the country, they tend to want to cheer you up.

Third, their preferred method of cheering you up is dragging you into the Room of Requirement and starting a party.

Fourth, they have a lot of Butterbeer hidden away for impromptu parties.

Fifth, they figured out that you can ask the Room to fetch the beer from their hiding place.

Sixth, Butterbeer contains alcohol. Not a lot, but it's not nothing.

Seventh, my body is still eleven and doesn't have much resistance to alcohol.

Long story short: I got myself drunk for the first time in this reality.

"Did you see the specs of the new Nimbus?", Fred asked, handing me his Quidditch magazine. "They're going to start selling it later this year. Ten percent better than the two thousand."

I made a halfway-decent attempt to read the blurry numbers before giving up.

"Howww fast?"

George took it. "120 miles per hour top speed, reaches it in less than twelve seconds. Safe all the way up to twenty thousand feet altitude."

"Wwwhyy ssoo ssloww?"

Fred took my butterbeer bottle away. "Slow? I think you've had enough for today, Harry."

"Yeah, I think he has. Got any of that sober-me-up potion, brother?"

"Wwwhyyyy not goo fazter?", my muddled brain tried to inquire as to why brooms are speed-limited in the first place.

"Unfortunately, you drank our last vial last week, remember? We haven't gotten around to brew more."

"Damnnit," George said. "And I think that the broomstick enchantments need to be more powerful for a faster broom? Although I'm not sure."

I had a weird thought and started laughing like a maniac. Rather embarrassing, I have to admit. "Brrooom hasss masssss. Usse ze Force, Luke."

"The what? And who's Luke?", asked George who had obviously never seen Star Wars.

"The Force!"

I was trying to explain how Force is defined as 'the derivative of momentum with respect to time' and when m=const. it can be written as mass times acceleration, but due to my blood alcohol level it came out as "De-peee deee-tee! Ma! Godda go faszt!"

"George, what were we thinking, giving Harry this much butterbeer? Look at what we've done to the Boy-Who-lived! He's blabbering nonsense!"

"To be quite honest, I have no idea."

Lessons were learned that day. Others not.

Because I'm not that good at holding an Introduction to Newtonian mechanics lecture while drunk.

-HP-HP-HP-

"ORDER! ORDER! I will have Order in this room!"

I honestly wasn't quite sober by the evening, but hopefully nobody noticed my slight drunkenness at the first assembly of the Order of the Phoenix since 1981.

"As Harry so eloquently put it, it'd be nice to calm things down and begin with the meeting", Dumbledore calmly stated and the room went still. The eyes of the assembled wizards and witches darted between me and him.

After a few seconds of silence, an elderly wizard spoke up. "Albus, why did you tell us to come? And why is there a boy at the table?"

"I'm Harry Potter, pleased to meet you. And the reason why everyone is here is that I screwed up the one thing I'm supposed to have done."

Dumbledore sighed as murmurs began around the table.

"When the war ended ten years ago, I did not know whether Voldemort was gone for good or if he would return one day. Unfortunately, now we know that he has survived."

"We don't know if he's still a serious threat," I interjected. "We kinda blasted his brains, but we don't know just how successful we were at that. Best case, he forgot how to revive himself and he'll never be more than a spooky ghost. Worst case, he's contacting his followers right now and we'll have another war on our hands by tomorrow."

"You blasted his brains?", Sirius asked.

"Why isn't the Ministry informed of this?", Mad-Eye Moody asked. "If He's back, why haven't you told the aurors?"

Albus replied: "We don't have any evidence."

At least none that doesn't also reveal Lockhart's secret and that we've let Lord Voldemort teach the nation's children for several months. Yikes. If we tell the public the truth of what happened, I don't know what's worse: That they won't believe us, or that they will.

"As you already know, several suspected Death Eaters have managed to attain positions of significant influence in the Ministry."

Moody whispered "Malfoy" as Dumbledore continued:

"Harry thinks that if Voldemort has already succeeded in contacting one, he could convince the Minister to believe that our attempt of alerting the nation was actually an attempt of me to usurp the Minister through fear-mongering. A scenario which I find quite unlikely, but still within the realm of possibilities."

"Right. Fudge's a bloody idiot, he could actually be that stupid. I'll tell my aurors that there are rumors though, so that they can stay vigilant."

"And what are we going to do?", a witch who I didn't recognize asked.

"We need to prepare", Dumbledore said. "Luckily we will not have many monetary issues this time. My friend Nicholas Flamel has agreed to help us financially, should we need it."

He had picked up the Stone earlier today via Floo and resumed the experiments at his lab. "So basically if you can think of literally anything that would've been really useful during the last war, let's buy it. We got the gold."

Remus spoke up. "That's great to hear. International Portkeys aren't cheap. So far I've managed to convince about two dozen fellow werewolves to join the BLA, but even spread across all of us and with Sirius's help it's not easy."

Dumbledore nodded. "If that's how it is, I'm sure Nicholas will agree to assist. The more werewolves we can enable to live a normal life, the fewer will be desperate enough for change to be drawn to Voldemort."

And so the discussions on how to proceed began.

After the majority of the attendants had gotten over the shock of hearing about Voldemort's return and the surprise of having a little boy at the table, we went on to decide to stock up on various healing potions, partially brewed by Snape, partially bought, as well as many ingredients that may be hard to get in a war situation.

We decided to have several members with free time and a good reputation (including Sirius) get themselves involved into politics to subtly combat the influence of suspected Death Eaters (mostly Malfoy).

Someone mentioned that given how easy it is to block apparition we might need good brooms to escape dangerous situations which prompted more discussion on whether to mass-order Nimbus 2000s or to wait for the 2001 release. I suggested getting the 2000s and using more of our sponsor's money to get the 2001s later, then donating the obsolete 2000s to the Hogwarts Quidditch teams. Totally not a scheme to funnel some of the generous war budget towards other interests.

Several Order members were given the task to turn their homes into impenetrable fortresses. Grimmauld will be base #3, with Hogwarts being our Headquarters for now.

We're also planning to buy a few random secluded muggle homes and turn them into safehouses as well, but given the enormous amount of effort involved in securing a place from attack it may take quite some time until they're usable.

No Fideliuses planned for now as they can be quite disruptive to normal life, but we're working on a list of places where nobody outside of the Order would have a reason to visit.

The topic of getting a supply of spare wands was brought up since kidnapping the few wandmakers Britain has may be within the range of Voldemort's capabilities, so Dedalus Diggle is now looking into it.

Hagrid was absent at the meeting as he was at a dragon reserve in Ireland, delivering the dragon egg we found amongst Quirrel's things. He should've been back by the time of the meeting but you know him and dragons… It was decided to postpone the question of whether he should contact the giants to the next meeting.

Recruiting more members was discussed. Moody suggested Kingsley Shacklebolt. Arthur mentioned his two eldest sons, much to the protest of his wife. I asked Sirius if he thought his cousin Andromeda and her family might be interested. Having a metamorphmagus available would be extremely advantageous, after all.

We do not know the exact status and capabilities of Voldemort. But we're doing our best to ensure that no matter what happens, we'll be prepared as best as possible.

Unfortunately, things didn't all go perfectly smooth. Just as the meeting had formally ended and most members had left, Sirius and Snape, who had avoided looking at each other the entire time, finally spoke to each other.

"Black."

"Snivellus."

"I had wondered if eight years with the Dementors were enough to temper your arrogance. Apparently not."

"Just as snarky as the last time we met, a decade ago. How does the snake tattoo suit you?"

I couldn't let that continue. "OH, STOP IT WITH THE BICKERING!"

I turned to Sirius. "Sirius. Ever since the day we met you've been like a father for me. Just what I needed after the Dursleys. Please, do me a favor here and don't ruin it now."

To Snape. "Professor. I know you and my parents were complicated, and you've got a good reason to not like me or Sirius. But we've been getting along splendidly, and working with you and Professor Dumbledore so far has been an absolute honor. I really want that to continue, and not just because it would severely reduce our chances of success otherwise."

Back to the very shocked and confused Sirius. "I need both of you. Despite everything, I'm eleven and in the middle of a war. Please, just do me one favor and do an honest effort of burying your stupid feud!"

After a second of silence, Remus said: "You know, he's right. We can't afford to be enemies any more. We're all on the same side. And it's a shame that he's more of an adult than us."

That got Snape and Sirius to at least stop glaring at each other.

Sirius sighed. "It's times like these when I am reminded that you're not James."

Snape nodded. "And he's not Lily either. Although he does have her eyes."

I'm really sick of hearing that line over and over again. "Oh, please, I wish I had. The Fates must be playing a cruel joke on me, because they only saw it fit to give me her eye colour. The part that matters is all James. As if my life wasn't enough of a mess already."

To answer the confused looks I was getting, I took off my glasses. "You think I would need these if I had my mother's eyesight? Please."