A little story taking place near the beginning of Book 5. Harry crashes an Order meeting to ask Dumbledore a question that has been niggling in the back of his mind.


Logic

This was the fifth meeting of the Order of the Phoenix to take place in the time that Harry had been staying at Number 12 Grimmauld Place, and once again Harry was banned from attending. Harry, somewhat understandably, was not too pleased with that, but this time it was not out of wanting to know what Voldemort was up to.

No, today he had a question to ask, a question that had nothing to do with Voldemort's current rise to power.

He had tried getting a hold of Dumbledore to ask him this twice now by loitering outside the door of the meeting room and waiting for him to come out. The first time Molly caught him and scolded him for trying to eavesdrop of the Order meeting and telling him it was nothing to do with him as he was a child. The second time Snape had caught him and Harry was treated to the man's usually completely grown up and mature temper tantrum about anybody going by the name of Potter.

Both times Dumbledore had completely ignored Harry's presence and simply walked out of the front door without so much as a nod of acknowledgement.

Well this time Harry had a plan. He'd probably have to deal with Molly's empty platitudes about the meeting being nothing he should concern himself with, and Snape was sure to have another temper tantrum, but beyond that, Harry was sure that this would work.

He figured that there was no way that Dumbledore would completely ignore him in front of the entire Order.

Walking past Hermione, Ron, Fred, George and Ginny who were all standing at the top of the stairwell and using extendable ears to try and listen in on the meeting, Harry marched down the stairs and came to the door behind which the meeting was in full swing.

Given that he could hear no voices coming through the door he deduced that there must be an imperturbable charm on it, thus making the extendable ears his friends were using useless.

Harry wondered if the door was locked as well. It probably was, but there was only one way to truly find out.

He grasped the handle and turned it. To his surprise the door swung open easily, allowing all chatter inside to suddenly assault his ears. This quickly ended, however, when every eye in the room turned to him.

The silence was broken, predictably, by a raging Severus Snape "Potter! What do you think you're doing?"

Having decided not to take any crap Harry replied "Actually I wanted to speak to Professor Dumbledore, and seeing as every attempt I have made after meetings so far has been interrupted I thought I'd crash this meeting and see if I could get an answer out of him now."

Molly Weasley was on her feet by now and making her way over to him "The headmaster doesn't have time to talk right now Harry. We are discussing something important."

"So you're saying that my concerns about things aren't important?" demanded Harry, his temper rising a little.

At this Dumbledore offered an empty platitude "Harry, you have nothing to worry about with regards to your upcoming trial-"

"It's not about the trial." Harry said heatedly, cutting Dumbledore off. He'd noticed that the headmaster never bothered raising his eyes off of the table to look at Harry "It's about my parents."

That spotted Molly in her attempts to nudge Harry out of the room.

Dumbledore looked up, but not at Harry.

"Oh, let him ask his question, Albus." said Minerva McGonagall.

Dumbledore sighed "Very well. What is it that you want to know, Harry?"

"Well, it's about how they went into hiding." said Harry, calming a little.

"Yes, go on." prompted Dumbledore.

"It's my understanding that that they used the Fidelius Charm, right?"

"Yes, that's right."

"And the whole reason they were murdered was because Peter Pettigrew was their secret keeper and he told Voldemort. And the whole reason Sirius went to prison was because everyone thought he was the secret keeper?"

"Yes, go on."

"Well, I've noticed that you are the secret keeper for this house and you can enter it without any ill effects. Also anyone you tell the location of this house to cannot tell anyone else, right?"

"You are correct."

"Well then sir, my question is this: why did my parents make the secret keeper someone other than themselves? I mean, if my mum performed the charm and made my dad the secret keeper, then as he would have been hiding under the spell as well there was no way that anyone other than my dad could have revealed the location to Voldemort. And people like Sirius, Remus, you or even Pettigrew could still have visited if they were told the secret, without the risk of one of them being captured and revealing the location. I mean what's the point of protecting yourself under the Fidelius Charm and then appointing someone else to be secret keeper? I mean, first of all they'd have to then tell you the secret back, and then you run the risk of them being captured and tortured for the information… Sir?"

That last question was asked because he had looked up and found Dumbledore staring at him blankly, his eyes vacant and his mouth hanging open dumbly and he sat limply in his chair.

Every other member of the Order appeared to be in the same catatonic state. Some, like Tonks, Arthur and Snape were muttering an occasional inane babble or two.

Sensing a presence behind him, Harry turned to find all four Weasley children slumped on the floor just outside the still open door, the same vacant expressions on their faces. Ginny's right arm was twitching and George was babbling.

Hermione seemed perfectly fine.

"What happened?" Harry asked her.

Hermione smiled ruefully "Logic, Harry. Remember what I told you in first year? When we were met with the potion challenge?"

"Uh, yeah." replied Harry, thinking carefully "Yeah, you said most full grown wizards don't have an ounce of logic about them."

Hermione waved an arm in gesture towards all the catatonic people around them.

"Huh." mumbled Harry "Well; I guess that proves that after all."

He turned to Hermione "Fancy helping me come up with a logical way to get me out of my trial."

"Of course." replied Hermione brightly, and followed Harry as he led her towards the staircase "And maybe we can find a way to use it to bring down Voldemort and his followers as well."

"Maybe it could be a way to take over the Government." Harry suggested hopefully as they reached the top of the first staircase "You know, like the Ministry keeps claiming I want to do."

"Forget one government," said Hermione eagerly "I'll bet we could rule the entire Wizarding World if we so chose to!"

"That'll be fun." said Harry, opening his bedroom door and showing her inside.

Downstairs Snape's head fell forward onto the table with a thud and he began drooling copiously. This was the result of part of his brain sensing that Potter was up to something, but the rest of his brain being in no state to deal with it.


A/N: What d'ya think? JKR had Hermione call it an absence of logic; I call it a convenient cover for a myriad of plot holes, but whatever.

Probably been done to death but oh well.

The fallout of this would be Harry using the "Declared an adult for the tournament/trial so try me as an adult" bit that I've done before, though this time he is set free due to the fact that no one in the Wizengamot is in a fit state to actually sentence him. He probably defeats Voldemort using the same questions he does here. Do Harry and Hermione ever get to rule the whole of the magic world? Sure, and they have lots of uber smart green-eyed babies to help them do it. Probably Luna too after they discover that she's immune to their logic puzzles.

On a side note, why does this thing keep removing the underline of the title every time I save it?