All for one, and one for all
And fate? No one alive has ever escaped it, neither brave man nor coward, I tell you— it's born with us the day that we are born.
Homer, The Iliad.
"All of you, get together!"
"Shit, make me a place, Prongs…"
"No! Find one for yourself."
"Shut up! All! Sirius, here…"
"Thanks, Abe."
"Marlene, for Merlin's sake, smile!"
"I am smiling, damn! I just can't smile like Alice, look at her cheeks!"
"Hey!"
"You've got to accept Marlene is right…"
"Fabian, thanks for the support!"
"Shut up everyone, I'm taking the photo!"
CLICK!
When someone entered in the Phoenix Order, someone chose to fight. Fabian and Gideon know that. Someone chose to stand firmly in the battlefield and fight until your last breath. Someone chose to fight for a better world, for a world without war. Someone chose to fight the bad ones. Someone chose, above all else, protect the weakest, the one that cannot protect themselves. Emmeline knows it, too. Fabian and Gideon has taken her to that place, to that house. When she sees her hands, they are trembling, because there are Death Eaters outside and they have been able to overstep half of their protection spells. The spells fly and the windows get broken. The glasses fell in the floor in a million pieces.
The three of them manage to defend their position.
Until now.
(because nothing lasts forever and the brave ones always dies in the stories)
"Emmeline! WATCH OUT!" Gideon's shout lets her deaf, but it's the only warning she needs to get away from the window, to avoid a curse.
The Death Eaters cannot see them, they don't know where to shoot. That maybe is an advantage. But they don't know where the Death Eaters are going to shoot, so they have to stay alert.
Emmeline is a couple of years younger than Gideon and Fabian, but she shares the same experience, almost. And that child's face. Anyone will believe she doesn't have more than seventeen, but she is getting closer to her thirties and the war is playing havoc with her.
(Marlene and her parents are death and Caradoc is missing and Dorcas was killed by the one and only Voldemort the day before)
Wrinkles has started to appear in her temples. Her eyes are tired after all the funerals and the crying. She is tired. She doesn't want more war. But she is there, standing up, raising her wand, the most deathly weapon she knows. And there are Gideon and Fabian and she still doesn't know if this is the last time they are alive. And together.
Everybody die, Emmeline thinks.
But nobody told her that death is so quickly.
"Fabian!" she screams when she sees the green lighting. Fabian doesn't get killed and he casts a desmaius instead. "You won't defeat them with a simple desmaius!" She casts a diffinido, waiting to cut off legs, arms, whatever it takes.
Fabian, always such a gentleman, ignores her.
(in the battle, everything becomes instinct)
"We will not die here!" Fabian assures.
(and he doesn't know, but he's wrong)
"They have to be a hundred more to kill us." Gideon laughs and shoots a spell and then another. Gideon is the fastest of the three, the more pompous one. He laughs when he doesn't have to and he is optimist to death. Emmeline likes him more, but she would never dared to tell that. They are like the three musketeers: all for one, and one for all.
They have been fighting together a long time.
(all for one and one for all)
"Watch out!"
A piece of furniture falls just centimetres away from Emmeline.
"Emmeline! Are you okay?" She doesn't know which voice is. Fabian's and Gideon's voice are the same. She isn't damaged. She is okay.
"I'm still alive…" She gifts them with a nervous smile and shakes her wand. "I'm still alive." Hard to believe.
(because in times like this, being alive is having luck)
Fabian casts more spells and suddenly a white lighting lands on the floor. A patronus. With Madeye's voice.
"Your sister is in trouble!" And then, it vanishes.
Fabian and Gideon are now pale, sacred. Fabian the most, because he has always been the most protective of the two.
"We can't go," Fabian murmurs. He would wish it, because Molly is the girl of his eyes and she has a lot of children to take care of. "We can't leave…"
Gideon gets close to Emmeline.
"Emmeline, you have to go," he starts.
"No!" screams her. "No!"
All for one, and one for all, remember? She wants to say that to them. But she can see the look in Gideon's eyes and the cold fury of Fabian. She have already lost the discussion.
"He is my sister, Emmeline! Our sister!" Gideon says to her. "You have to protect her, please. We will cover you. Just for a moment."
(all for one and one for all)
Fabian fights.
Gideon too.
Emmeline, before she can say goodbye, goes.
This is the last time she is going to see them alive.
Mad-Eye sends the photo for Christmas and she discovers that almost everyone there is dead. Marlene's body was found with a lot of wounds in the room, just metres away from the parents'. The coffin was closed in her funeral.
(it is said that Sirius didn't go, that he spend days drunk)
Dorcas was found death with her favourite robe, a blue one. She has a note signed by Regulus Black in her hands, but the words have been erased. Everyone assumed that he had lead her into a trap.
(really, she knew too much)
Caradoc was never found. They spent days looking for a body.
And Lily and James. So young, both dead, with an orphan son. Dead. Emmeline wasn't able to join the celebrations. There was nothing to celebrate. Many were dead. In the photograph James and Lily were smiling and by their side, Sirius, that fucking traitor.
(it cost her fourteen years to find the truth, that the fucking traitor have been another)
They only found Peter's finger. Everyone knew that confront Sirius have been an stupidity, but still, her mother got a Merlin Order in his name.
Alice and Frank suffered a destiny worse than death. Emmeline trembles at the thought of it.
At the end, her eyes stop at the Prewett twins. She can't think about them. She isn't capable of it. Of saying goodbye. The only think her brain―that fucking bastard―is capable to thing is of that phrase they get of a muggle book Fabian never finished.
All for one, and one for all.
They were brave. They died like brave ones. But Emmeline doesn't know why she doesn't feel brave.
I think the "all for one, one for all" isn't even in The Three Musketeers, but meh. I took the license.
English is not my mother tongue (it's Spanish) so, sometimes, just for fun, my brain gets all wrong and write things in the wrong order. If you find a mistake, feel free to tell me, I'm going to be grateful.
Andrea Poulain
Original: 1st April, 2014
Translation: 15th May, 2016