"Listen, we can't just do that!" I half-yelled, starting to rise from my seat in anger. "If we just let things play out for a while, who knows what might happen?"

The meeting had been going on for hours, and, so far, all that had happened was me getting unbelievably angry at their stupid 'ideas', if you could even call them that.

"Iv," Laurel said, placing her hand on my arm, "can you try to calm down... just a bit?"

"No!" I shook her hand off me, sending her a furious look. "You're all as bad as the damn Ministry, with your 'oh, let's just see what happens! Let's not warn Harry he's in any danger, and maybe everything will sort itself out!' Well guess what? Nothing ever turns out alright if you don't do anything about it." I took a deep breath, then added as calmly as I could, "Now, if none of you are going to do anything about this, I'm taking matters into my own hands and going to talk to Harry."

"Ivory, you can't just leave," Remus said, gently guiding me back into my chair. "I understand what you're saying, but you have to realise that this is a very complex situation. It's not something we can just make plans for in a single meeting, without any detailed information. Hundreds of lives are potentially at stake here."

"Fine." I rubbed the side of my head, trying to get rid of the headache that had started to form. "Tell me about this tournament thing you mentioned earlier."

"You might have heard of it," Mr Weasley said. "It's called the Triwizard Tournament."

"Please tell me you're not referring to the competition that got cancelled because people kept dying, and which has killed someone every time the Ministry's tried to start it again," I said, in possibly the flattest voice ever. "The one where someone can just enter Harry into it, get him killed, and take his body to my father?"

"It's not possible for him to be entered," Tonks reassured me. "The Goblet of Fire's had an age restriction added to it, so only people who are of-age can be chosen as champion."

I gave a humourless laugh.

"Come on, you know as well as I do that my father doesn't play by the rules. You'll get to the announcement of the champions, and then — oh, what do you know! — Harry's name came out of the Goblet of Fire! And now he has to compete otherwise he'll implode because of the stupid magical contract the champions are bound by!"

"She has a point," Mr Weasley said. "You-Know-Who has always managed to get around Ministry rules and things if they're in the way of him achieving his goals."

"Not to mention how easy it would be for anyone powerful enough to just make the Goblet think Harry is of age," Laurel added, in a resigned voice. "I hate to say this, because it seems like the sort of ridiculous thing Iv would say—" she looked at me with a small smile, as if to say 'love you really'— "but if nothing else, Harry needs to be told what we know of the Dark Lord's plan, and we need to find a secure way of keeping in contact with him."

Finally, someone gets it!

"Not letters by owl," Tonks said. "Too easily intercepted."

"And we can't go to see him in person," Remus added, before I got the chance to suggest it. "If nothing else, it would be far too suspicious."

For a minute, everyone was silent as we thought. Then, Sirius spoke up.

"What about the mirrors? You know the ones, Moony."

Remus nodded. "Have you still got both of them?"

"Somewhere," Sirius said. "I made sure to secure them at Grimmauld Place before I went after the rat traitor." He practically spat the last two words, and I saw Thana wince. Clearly, she hadn't got used to having Sirius at the meetings yet.

"What mirrors are these?" Moody asked, his magical eye moving away from me for the first time in the meeting, as it instead fixed itself on Sirius, while his normal eye was on Remus.

"Two-way mirrors," Sirius explained. "James and I used to use them to talk to each other when we were in separate detentions. If we somehow managed to get one to Harry, with an explanation as to what it is, we could have the other one here, and use it to talk to him when we need to."

There were murmurs of approval all around the table, and then everyone started speaking over everyone else again, giving suggestions of how to get one of the mirrors to Harry. Moody banged his hand on the table for silence, then motioned for Thana to speak.

"We could get the Ministry to connect his fireplace to the Floo?" she said, tilting her head.

"The Death Eaters would find out," I said quickly. "Quite a few of them work there, and others have influence over what the Ministry does. You'd need an excuse to connect it, else they'd get suspicious."

"We're taking Harry to the Quidditch World Cup on the twenty-fifth," Mr Weasley said. "We could ask for his fireplace to be connected to the Floo network, and give him the mirror while we're there."

"Or you could bring him back here the day after the match?" I suggested.

Many of the others gave exasperated sighs at this, and Remus said, "At the moment, Dumbledore believes it's in Harry's best interest to be kept in the dark about the Order."

"No, it's in his best interest to know that at any time, he could be walking straight into a trap!" I shot back. "That he's in even more danger than he has been during his previous years at Hogwarts!" I kept my eyes fixed on his, determined not to back down. I wasn't scared of Remus anymore — and with that lack of fear had come an inadvisable amount of courage. "James and Lily Potter sacrificed themselves to save their son, Remus. I don't think they'd be too happy with you, or Dumbledore, or any of the rest of us, if we just sat back and let Harry walk around blissfully unaware of the fact he needs to be on his guard more than ever if he wants to stay alive."

"Hogwarts is perfectly safe, Ivory!"

And finally, something inside me snapped.

"I WAS TORTURED INSIDE THAT CASTLE'S WALLS!" I yelled, my chair clattering to the floor as I rose from it. "I WAS KIDNAPPED FROM ONE OF THE CLASSROOMS! AND YOU KNOW WHAT YOU AND THE OTHER PROFESSORS DID ABOUT IT? ABSOLUTELY NOTHING! NONE OF YOU TRIED TO FIND ME! NONE OF YOU SAVED ME FROM THE HELL MY MOTHER WAS PUTTING ME THROUGH! AND THE ONLY REASON I GOT OUT OF THERE WAS BECAUSE SIRIUS WALKED FROM SCOTLAND TO WILTSHIRE TO SAVE ME! BECAUSE, UNLIKE YOU, HE ACTUALLY CARED ABOUT WHAT WAS HAPPENING TO ME!"

"Ivory..." Remus started, his voice quiet and shaky, but I cut him off at once.

"DO YOU KNOW HOW MANY TIMES I TOOK MY PUNISHMENTS, THINKING YOU'D SHOW UP SOON TO SAVE ME, LIKE YOU'D DONE BEFORE? DO YOU KNOW HOW MANY TIMES THE ONLY THING KEEPING ME GOING WAS THE THOUGHT THAT YOU MUST'VE BEEN FINISHING YOUR PLANS TO GET ME OUT OF THERE? AND DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH IT BROKE ME WHEN YOU STILL DIDN'T FIND ME — DIDN'T EVEN SEEM TO BE TRYING? THE FIRST ADULT I'D DECIDED TO TRUST AFTER I'D THOUGHT LAUREL HAD DIED, AND YOU DIDN'T BOTHER FINDING ME BECAUSE IT WASN'T CONVENIENT FOR YOU!"

"I didn't—"

"I WAS IN MALFOY MANOR!" I bellowed, finally losing control of my magic and shattering all the glass in the room. "I WAS IN THE PLACE I'D LIVED ALL MY LIFE! IT WASN'T EVEN DIFFICULT TO FIND ME! BUT YOU DIDN'T EVEN TRY, REMUS!" I glared at him, utterly furious, my mind seeming to spin with rage. "AND IF YOU DON'T WANT HARRY TO HATE YOU TOO, I SUGGEST YOU TELL HIM WHAT'S GOING ON!"

I turned on my heel and stormed out, using wandless magic to blast open the door just before I crashed through it. Behind me, the meeting room was left in total silence.

***
A/N: Welcome back to Fear of the Thing Itself, here's a bunch of angst!

Yep, that's right — I'm updating this book again! I figured that as my editing of Fear of a Name is taking me literally forever, there was no point in waiting till I'd finished it before going back to this book. Soooo yeah, I'mma be writing this and editing FoaN at the same time now, which will be Not At All Confusing for me 😂

Also, quick note that I've added a few things to the start of this book:
• a trailer!!
• potential triggers
• credits for people's OCs
• what things mean (these are slightly different to before, so I recommend checking that out)

I've also edited this book a little to get it up to date with my new writing style, so it now matches things like my Pandora Malfoy book more than it does FoaN tbh. Aaaand the old first chapter has now become a prologue, so all of the other chapters have had their numbers moved down by one. A a a a a a n d a couple of the chapters have slight changes to them to reduce the infodumping a little and make it flow a bit better.

Aaaanyways, back to this chapter. I'm very sorry about the angsty argument (actually no I'm not but shhhhhh), I wasn't even intending to add it tbh, but it just kinda Happened. Iv was bound to snap at some point 🤷🏻

What do y'all think is going to happen next? I'd be interested to see how you think the others are going to react and treat Iv after this, especially Remus.

~Charlie 🖤