Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter.

Chapter 1

Although it would seem normal for a person to be sitting inside on this particularly hot day in the summer, I found myself sitting in the small backyard that belonged to my terrible aunt and uncle. Right now, I would give anything in the world to just return to the world where I belonged: the wizarding world. Instead, I was swinging back and forth on a small, wooden swing that sat in the corner of my aunt and uncle's backyard. How fantastic.

My twin brother, Harry, had found solitude sitting in front of the house next to the open window so that he could listen to the Muggle news that Uncle Vernon had turned on. However, it wasn't the Muggle news that Harry was interested in. Ever since we had been sent back into the Muggle world this summer, both of us had taken turns listening to the news to see if there were any signs of disorder that happened that was most likely the cause of the rise of Lord Voldemort. Of course, we couldn't just listen like normal people though, we had to make it out into a secret because every time the Dursleys caught us watching the news, they started to get suspicious and would send us out of the room.

It isn't like the Muggle news reporters would come out and say that it was the work of a dark wizard, most likely because they didn't know this themselves. Normally, we would hear some news that came out as random and unexplainable that we knew to be Voldemort's work.

Today it was Harry's turn to listen to the news.

While he sat in the front yard, I swung back and forth in the back yard, just looking up into the sky and around the yard, not really paying attention to much of anything to be honest. The only thing that seemed to be running through my mind was what I could be doing right now if I wasn't trapped inside of the Dursley's home for the summer. Why did Dumbledore insist that we remain here? Wouldn't we be more useful if we were around other witches and wizards?

Suddenly, just when I thought that things were remaining far too normal for Privet Drive, a black and white owl flew down into my lap with a few letters attached to its feet. Unfortunately, owls don't go unnoticed on Privet Drive. Something about them flying around during the day time seemed to tip people off that something was happening out of the ordinary. It just so happened that our neighbor, Mrs. Olive, happened to be watering her garden at this particular moment and, upon catching a glance at me, noticed Hoot who happened to be sitting on my lap.

"Oh my - is that an owl?" Mrs. Olive asked.

"It appears to be," I said.

"Why, what's it doing sitting on your lap?" she asked. "That's odd behavior for an owl!"

I was about to open my mouth again to tell her just how odd that it was, when Aunt Petunia came running out of the house and began to shoo away my owl. Even though I wanted to tell her to knock it off, I figured that it wouldn't really matter much at the moment considering that she was covering up for my odd, witch-like behavior so that her neighbor wouldn't get suspicious. Not that it really mattered what she thought of me considering that the Dursleys had been so kind to tell all of the neighbors that knew who we were that we had been sent off to a correctional facility. In other words, they already thought that I was a mess, so how exactly was an owl acting kind towards me really going to change their opinions? The only downfall was that Hoot was now angry, so I would probably have to give her some extra treats for this…

"What do you think you're doing Emily?" Aunt Petunia asked quickly and under her breath.

"It isn't my fault that she saw," I muttered.

"Hello Petunia," Mrs. Olive said cheerfully while also looking a bit skeptical. "Did you see that owl? It just landed in your niece's lap!"

"Strange, isn't it?" Aunt Petunia said nervously. "She probably had a bit of crumbs with her, didn't you?"

"Of course I did," I said bitterly. "Unless you can think of another reason that an owl would want to come near me."

Aunt Petunia looked down at me in my swing with a look that told me that I needed to watch it. What did it matter anyway? The Muggles around here aren't exactly the brightest of people. Not to mention that they wouldn't know what I was talking about anyway - Harry and I were the only witch and wizard around, how would they even begin to fathom what we were?

"It's hot out here - go inside now," she ordered me.

I shrugged and figured that it couldn't hurt to go inside. I'm sure that the news was probably coming to an end anyway and I could ask Harry if anything strange had happened. There's no doubt that there were some disappearances recently, those had been the cases recently anyway. The Muggles just thought that these were random, mysterious happening, but Harry and I knew better than that.

Just as I crossed the threshold of the door, I heard an alarming crack that sounded from the other side of the house. Could that have been Harry? I quickly raced through the house and out through the front door to see what was going on. However, I wasn't the only one who heard the sound.

"What's going on Potter?" Uncle Vernon roared out of the open window in the front yard.

As soon as he poked his head out of the window, he drew back immediately when he caught sight of Harry sitting, now standing, just beside the window in the garden. Great, we're going to have to find another spot now…

"Harry - what happened?" I asked quickly.

"I'm not sure…" he said while looking around frantically.

For a moment, it didn't register to me just what Harry was holding in his hand because I had seen him with his wand in hand so many times before, but it didn't take me a second to know what Uncle Vernon was freaking out about.

"Put that bloody thing away before someone sees it!" Uncle Vernon snarled quickly.

For a moment, the two of them wrestled with each other, Uncle Vernon attempting to get the wand from Harry's hand to keep any of the Muggles from seeing it, but after a moment, Harry had it back in his grasp and quickly put it back into his pocket and out of sight.

"What do you think you're doing boy?" Uncle Vernon snarled.

"No one saw my wand - it doesn't matter," Harry muttered and looked back around the street.

"That's not what I'm talking about," Uncle Vernon said angrily. "What was that noise?"

"I don't know," Harry said. "It wasn't me."

Uncle Vernon shot a look my way as if to blame me, but I honestly have no idea how he could have possible assumed that the noise had been something that I had done. Besides, if it were me, I would be quick to take the credit just to annoy him anyway. It wasn't either of us and we knew that it wasn't just any normal noise to hear.

"I wasn't even over hear," I said, not even bother trying to hide my annoyance. "I was just in the backyard, so don't even try to blame me."

He didn't believe either of us. Anything that happens in this neighborhood that is out of the ordinary is often considered our fault just because we weren't the same as anyone on this street. In their opinions, which we heard quite often, we were freaks. Not that I cared, I would rather be what they considered a freak than anything else.

"The two of you are up to something," he said. "Boy - what do you think you were doing - sitting under the window, a bit suspicious, eh?"

"I was listening to the news," Harry said bluntly.

"Why do we constantly catch you both watching the news?" Uncle Vernon asked while looking from one to the other. "It's not like there is anything from…your kind on here."

"That's what you think," I muttered.

"What was that?" he asked.

"Don't you worry yourself about that," I said.

He narrowed his eyes at both of us before he spoke up again.

"Don't think I don't see what you two are doing," he said threateningly. "I'm not as stupid as you think I am."

"I wouldn't bet on that," Harry muttered.

Doubting that Uncle Vernon had actually heard what he had said, Harry made his way through the garden and towards where I was standing. He lowered his voice and quickly told me what the plan was.

"Listen, you stay here and distract them," he whispered. "I'm going to go see if I can find whatever made that noise - understand?"

I nodded in agreement and walked back into the house. Normally, it was difficult to separate us during the summer months because we believed it was easier to deal with the Dursleys as a pair. However, this summer we decided to use a new tactic. Recently, when the two of us were together, the Dursleys would never allow us to go anywhere without being followed because they thought we were being our normal "freakish" selves - it was their belief that we were coming up with a plot to terrorize the "normal" people of the neighborhood. So, we decided that it was best to always keep one of us back at the house to keep them distracted while the other could roam around and try to see if there was anything odd going on - that or we were just bored and wished for a walk.

"Where is your brother going?" Uncle Vernon asked quickly as he noticed that I was the only one walking in the house.

"He decided that it was best if we turn all of the children of the town into toads," I said.

"Don't get smart," Uncle Vernon said.

"You make it too easy for me," I said under my breath.

I walked over and sat down to watch the end of the news with Uncle Vernon, but it turned out that it was only the weatherman giving us the week's forecast. It was going to be hot all week long - how wonderful. After a minute or so, Aunt Petunia returned to the house and looked into the living room where I was sitting and quickly came up with something for me to do so that I wouldn't get to watch the news - not even the weather. Who knows, maybe that would give me a hint about the wizarding world (NOT!).

"Emily - go make some lemonade," she said. "Now - before Dudley gets home."

"Yes, we wouldn't want him to be a bit parched now, would we?" I said in a mockingly cheerful voice.

In the kitchen, I quickly pulled out a few lemons and some sugar before I started squeezing them. Of course Aunt Petunia couldn't by the artificial kind that was much easier and faster to make. We wouldn't want Dudleykins to have low quality now. As I squeezed some lemons, I really wished that I could use magic…this would go so much faster.

Once I was finished, Aunt Petunia walked in to test it to see if I had made it just right for her son. It had to be the perfect refreshment for someone that just finished terrorizing the little children of the neighborhood - oh, I mean "going out for tea" like he claims to be doing.

"Just a bit more sugar," she said after a moment.

Tired of arguing, I just added some more sugar to the pitcher and set it out on the table. Then, feeling that I was given too much free time now, Aunt Petunia requested that I also make some cookies so that her son wouldn't become too hungry. Yes, because he's really going to starve the way he's going…

I need to get out of here…

Oddly enough, Aunt Petunia actually began to help me with this task. It was really strange that she would do this because she usually just made me do everything by myself to make sure that I didn't finish too early. We didn't talk at all for a while, but after the second batch was completed, she said something to me, which was a shock because it wasn't at all rude like it usually was.

"You know…" she said while taking the cookies off of one sheet. "I used to make cookies with your mother during the summer…"

I nearly dropped the plate that I was holding when she said this. Never in my life here with the Dursleys had she ever voluntarily talked about the life she had with my mother. Even though this was some insignificant fact about her childhood, it was alien coming from her mouth.

"…really?" I asked after a moment.

"Yes…" she said with a small smile. "Whenever one of us was a bit off…we would always start to bake cookies to cheer us up…"

Because I was caught off guard with this sudden talk of my mother, I really didn't know what to say to her. This was probably the golden opportunity for me to ask her about my mother, but I felt like my mind had suddenly been wiped clean and I couldn't think right. Nothing that Aunt Petunia ever said to me had ever been related to my mother nor had it ever been something that could possibly strike up a positive conversation.

When she looked up at me, I saw a flicker of sadness on her face that I hadn't really noticed before. It's odd because it sort of reminded me of the look that I often saw flash across Snape's face whenever he saw me. That was probably just a coincidence I guess…

"You remind me a lot of her, you know…?" she said quietly.

"I-I do?" I asked, still shocked that she was trying to have a civil conversation.

"Yes…do you…do you remember her at all?" she asked.

"No, not really," I said.

She nodded as she put the last cookie down on the plate and wouldn't look me in the eyes. It was really strange to me that she would say that I reminded her of my mother - not that it was the first time that I had heard that from anyone or anything. It was just weird to me because of how badly she had always treated me. If I reminded her so much of my mother, then why would she treat me like I was something that she found on a dirty street? Wouldn't it be the other way around - wouldn't you think that she would treat me better knowing that I was so much like someone that she grew up with?

Then again, from what Aunt Petunia had said when she found out that Harry and I were magical, she appeared to have been very jealous of my mother. Was that why she treated us so badly? Maybe it wasn't all about us being so called "freaks" to her, maybe she was treating us the way she did because she had been so envious of our mother.

"No, I guess that you wouldn't remember her…" Aunt Petunia said. "You were…far too young I suppose…"

After that, there wasn't any more talk about my mother. Although you could still see that I wasn't exactly her favorite person, she seemed to be acting a little bit kinder to me after that. I wonder where this sudden realization came from. Maybe it had to do with what she had mentioned about her making cookies with my mother when they were younger. It probably only sparked up a good memory. I wonder how long this was going to last.

When we finished up making the cookies and cleaning up the dishes, I noticed just how dark it had gotten outside. Where was Harry? Normally he wouldn't stay out too long because he didn't feel that it was right to leave me with the Dursleys too long, so what was holding him up? Not only was Harry missing, but it was obvious by the untouched plate of cookies that Dudley hadn't been back either. Even though it was normal for Dudley to be out for several hours of the day, he usually did show up before it was too late so he wouldn't get his parents suspicious about his behavior - not that they would believe that he was up to anything anyway, not their Dudleykins!

When I went into the living room with Uncle Vernon, I kept looking out of the window to see if there was any sign of either Harry or Dudley coming to the door. After a few minutes of that, Uncle Vernon sent me out of the room because I was annoying him with all this "paranoid nonsense" and what not.

When I was sent out, I headed up to my room and sat on my bed. From there, I got a better view of the street and they were nowhere in view. What was holding them up? This wasn't like Harry. Could he have found the source of the noise and got into some sort of trouble? Then again, this was Privet Drive. Nothing ever happened here, so he was probably just wandering around or something.

When I felt a nibble on the side of my arm, I realized that I wasn't the only one in our room. Hoot was sitting next to me with all of the letters that I had seen earlier that day and I decided that now was as good of a time as I was going to get to open them. It would probably be better than sitting there worrying about my unaccounted for brother. Even though I was trying to convince myself that he was okay, something just seemed a bit off. It was probably just paranoia...

After handing over some extra treats for Hoot, who appeared to be a bit angry at me for what had happened earlier with Aunt Petunia, I took the letters and began to open each of them individually.

The first letter, judging by the untidy scrawl on the envelope, appeared to be from my boyfriend George. Hopefully he would have more to say than his last letter that hardly contained anything but a few sentences that didn't make too much sense. I had this weird feeling that he was trying to keep something from me and he wasn't the only one. Ron and Hermione's letters had also become short and unimportant as well.

Emily,

You really shouldn't get so worked up. You know that I can't give away too much information through letters in case they get intercepted. It really isn't my fault - I've already sworn to Dumbledore, and so has everyone else for that matter, that we wouldn't say anything to either of you until we see you in person. Please don't be angry!

The joke shop is coming along wonderfully by the way. Since we've bought the place in Diagon Alley, we've made so many tweaks and it looks awesome! I can't wait for you to see it because I know that you'll love it! Besides, I think you'll be interested in seeing some of the last minute products that we've come up with. I can't wait to see you, love!

Love,

George

I could kill him - honestly. Ever since the summer began, I've been trying to get some sort of clue from him, but nothing is working. He refuses to budge. I would have thought he could have given me some sort of clue by now, but it was just the same as always. "We can't say anything just yet." If I read that line one more time, I'm pretty sure I was going to freak out.

Tossing that letter aside, I picked up a new one. This one had slightly neater handwriting, but it still appeared to be the work of a boy (no offense).

Emily,

I'm sure that it isn't easy for you, but they probably aren't telling you anything because they are afraid of the owl being intercepted. I would imagine that it would be really dangerous if it was really important information that got leaked out. Just try to be patient, I'm sure you'll figure out what they're up to soon enough.

By the way, you mentioned during the school year that you were interested in meeting my parents and I thought you should know that Gran's going to be taking me to see them before the school year starts. If you still want to go, just tell me and we can meet up somewhere. If not, don't worry - I understand.

Much love,

Neville

Before I moved on to the final letter, I made a mental note to reply as soon as I could to him. I really and truly did want to meet Mr. and Mrs. Longbottom no matter what condition they may be in. The final note that I opened had hand writing very different from the other two. It had a certain familiar elegance to it that I loved so much.

Emily,

You must not worry yourself what happens over here. Obviously, as I am sure that you have already heard, we have all been sworn to secrecy and I must not reveal any information. The only thing that you need to know right now is that we are all safe and looking out for you. I apologize with the utmost sincerity and I look forward to seeing you again.

Love,

Severus

P.S. Are the Dursleys mistreating you in anyway? If they are, then I assure you that are meeting will come sooner than expected.

I rolled my eyes and pulled out a few pieces of parchment to respond. To George, I only had to say that I was upset that he couldn't tell me anything and that I looked forward to seeing his shop soon. To Neville, I told him that I would love nothing more than to meet his parents this summer and I thought it would be best if we met at the Leaky Cauldron or someplace like that. Lastly, I told Snape that I wanted to kick him for keeping things from me and that the Dursleys were being unusually civil towards us recently.

Once I sent Hoot out, I glanced out of the window again. No one was there still. When I checked the clock next to my bed, I seriously began to worry. Harry should not be out this late and it was bothering me. Just as I was about to walk away from my window, I caught sight of a few people walking not too far away from number 4 Privet Drive. When I moved closer to the window, I could make out that there were three people walking by because of the street lamps. However, they weren't bright enough for me to see who they were. All I could tell was that the one smaller boy appeared to be dragging the much larger boy as a smaller figure walked next to them.

As they walked closer, I saw the face of my brother illuminated by the street lamps. He was dragging Dudley along the sidewalk. What was going on?

Before I had another thought, I quickly made my way down the steps and towards the front door. Ignoring the Dursleys' alarm from my sudden appearance, I opened the door and walked outside as fast as I could. Something was wrong, I should have known! However, it seemed that Dudley, who appeared to be sick and traumatized, was the one that had somewhat wrong with him.

"Harry, what's going on?" I asked once they were stepping into the front yard. "Oh - hello Ms. Figg..."

What was she doing there? It was a rare occasion that I actually saw her, but she seemed to be out of her element. It wasn't that she didn't have any cats with her, but it seemed like she was far too alert for her usual calm, crazy-cat-lady self.

"Both of you need to stay here until further instruction - do you understand?" she asked.

"I suppose so," Harry said at the same time that I said, "No, what are you talking about?"

Just as I was about to ask what was going on, the Dursleys were hurrying out of the door and Mrs. Figg was scurrying away from us. When I turned back to everyone, they were already making their way through the front door in a sort of panic - mostly because of Dudley's state. Once the door was closed behind us all, I quickly got Harry's attention.

"Harry, can you please tell me what happened," I said desperately.

Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia stopped panicking long enough to listen to what Harry had to say for an explanation. What I heard wasn't something that I would even have guessed - especially in Little Whinging.

"Dementors."

Thank you so much for reading the first chapter of the Order of the Pheonix! Just so you all know, I'll probably have the next chapter up by Tuesday or Wednesday (EST) so that I can put more work into it. I hope you don't mind. These chapters will probably be longer because I don't want to have a million chapters for this story.

What do you think so far? Any comments or suggestions? Tell me what you think!

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