A/N: Well. Nearly four years after I finished writing The Brave at Heart, I've suddenly been inspired to write the sequel that's been floating around in my head ever since. Technically, it's more of an interim-fic, and takes place between the last actual chapter of TBAH and the epilogue: what happened between Hogwarts and Halloween 1981. If you haven't read TBAH, that's okay too – this story is intended to be able to stand on its own.

Another motive I had to write this was that there are far too few stories out there that focus on female friendship, and not on a romance plot. So this is my attempt to fill a void.

Whether you've followed these characters since the very beginning or this is your first introduction to them, I hope you enjoy the story.

Chapter 1: Horizons

Amanda Macintosh sat behind the till of Gladrags Wizardwear, tapping her red fingernails on the oak countertop, her other hand absentmindedly twirling her short blonde hair around her fingers. It had been a slow day, a drastic change from the previous few weeks when Hogwarrts-bound students had been scrambling to get all the new robes and hats they needed for the start of their new year. It was September of 1978, and this was the first time in seven years when Amanda was no longer on the train to Hogwarts alongside her best friends.

She'd started work at the London Gladrags soon after leaving Hogwarts, her head full of so many dreams and plans that there almost wasn't enough room for all of them in there. It took a long time to work one's way up to seamstress and designer, and as a teenager fresh out of Hogwarts, Amanda had to start at the bottom in order to work her way up to what she wanted. But she was fine with the rather dull work of counting money for now; she had other dreams to focus on for the time being.

A bell tinkled, and off to the left of the counter, the door to the shop opened and let in a column of yellow September afternoon sunlight that illuminated all the floating fibres in the air, until a silhouette filled the doorway. "Excuse me, I'm looking for a set of dress robes that matches my eyes, has exactly seventy thousand stitches in it, shimmers when I move, and is also practical enough to wear to work."

"Matches your eyes? No one ever wears brown dress robes," Amanda quipped back, grinning at her best friend in the doorway. Melanie Hastings grinned too, and rushed over behind the counter to swoop in for a hug; Melanie's wild, curly brown hair got in Amanda's face.

"How are you doing, Mandy?" asked Melanie as she pulled away.

"Today was slow," Mandy responded. "That was a nice change though, after all the people running about yesterday doing their last-minute shopping, it was mad. Also you're not supposed to be behind the counter. I'm still trying to make a good impression here." She shooed Melanie around the counter until the wooden table was between them, Melanie on the customers' side. "There, now we look very businesslike."

"When are you off today?"

"About ten more minutes. Wait for me, eh?"

"Sure." Melanie idly browsed through the selections of dress robes, scarves, and jumpers, mostly just feeling the soft fabrics, while Mandy counted out the till. She brought a bag of golden Galleons and silver Sickles into the back room, where her supervisor and a coworker were gossiping and glancing up every now and then to monitor the needles sewing the robes.

"Still slow out there?" asked Mrs Goldstein. The purple robe nearest her kept moving while a needle trailing lavender thread bobbed in and out of the sleeve.

"Yeah. No one's come by in the past half hour. I closed up the till, since it's about time."

"Thanks, Mandy, have a good evening. See you tomorrow."

Mandy smiled and headed back out into the display room, where Melanie was examining tie-dye robes. "Ready?" she asked.

They walked out the door, turned right, and continued through the busy London streets. True, they could Apparate if they wanted, but it was only a few streets between Gladrags and the flat the two girls shared, and sometimes the walk was nice, especially when the weather was favourable like today.

"How was the first day of training?" Mandy asked.

Melanie had just begun a three-year training course in the Department of Mysteries as an Unspeakable. "I rode a dragon into outer space and discovered the origin of magic," she said. When Mandy turned to look at her sceptically, Melanie laughed. "You know I can't actually tell you a whole lot about it," she continued, "but today was just introductory stuff. A tour of the place, piles of parchmentwork, signing confidentiality agreements."

"Sounds riveting."

"Says the person who sold two dress robes today."

"Yes, yes. Want to grab takeaway for dinner or should we cook tonight?"

An hour later found the two girls at home in their small kitchen, Melanie checking on the rounds of aubergine roasting in the oven while Mandy directed a knife to slice tomatoes. "Did you ever get around to making those leaflets to distribute at work?" Melanie asked. "The ones about how to stay safe from Death Eaters? I didn't see any when I was there."

"Yes, actually, I did. But thanks for reminding me, I need to make more. That's why you didn't see any leaflets – they've been quite popular. Lots of people are interested in protecting themselves from dark spells."

"Has anyone asked you anything about them? Or do people just quietly collect a leaflet on the way out?"

"Some people ask," said Mandy. "Most are quiet about it, though. I mean, these days no one really knows who to trust, but I imagine it's especially scary for Muggle-borns now that they seem to be targeted by You-Know-Who. They don't know if they can trust me."

Melanie nodded, and sighed heavily. "I knew everything was going to change once we were out of Hogwarts, I guess I just… wasn't prepared for how different it really is. It's not like we have Death Eaters at our throats all the time, but you know what I mean – it's that sense of fear that just doesn't go away – fear of what could happen to ourselves or our loved ones. I felt like we were making a difference with our defence spell practise group, that last term at school. And now…" she trailed off.

"Yeah," said Mandy. She'd felt the same sense of helplessness, and hated it. She was doing her best to distribute knowledge about defence in her pamphlets at the counter in Gladrags, but it wasn't enough. What she wanted was to prevent what had happened to her family ever happening to anyone else; last year, her parents' house had been destroyed by Death Eaters for something her mum wrote in the Daily Prophet, or maybe it also had to do with the fact that her dad was a Muggle. Luckily, they had both got away, and were missing for a few stressful weeks until they'd felt safe enough to contact Mandy again.

But other people had met similar fates and not been so lucky, she knew. Melanie hadn't been attacked personally, but she'd seen her family fall apart as they went from neutrality to settling on opposite sides of the building war. They'd stayed in touch via letters now and then, but Melanie hadn't been back to Liverpool to visit her parents in months. And there were others, people the girls had known at Hogwarts, who had had parents, siblings, or cousins die at the hands of Death Eaters. And it all only kept getting worse.

"What about the Order of the Phoenix?" Mandy asked after a silence. "Have you had any meetings yet?"

"We have," said Melanie. "Twice. Mostly it's just people reporting information they've gathered. But there are a few seasoned Aurors in the group, which is a bit intimidating, and the Order are planning an ambush of Death Eaters soon, and I'm not sure how I feel about participating in a big battle like that. You know Sirius and James, they always want to jump headfirst into any fight alongside the Aurors. But I'm terrified of fighting, with the stakes this high. I was there when Charlotte died, I saw it happen, and it could just have easily been me. Really it's just vengeance that keeps me going in the Order. Peter and I both kind of wonder what we're doing there at all, because we're scared and everyone else is so brave."

Charlotte had been the final part of their Slytherin trio at Hogwarts, a beloved friend, and her loss still hurt both Mandy and Melanie. Her death had spurred both girls to act, although in different ways; it had motivated Melanie to join the Order of the Phoenix and fight back, and Mandy wanted to run away and bring everyone she loved away from harm. It appeared that neither of them was really succeeding.

"Bravery doesn't mean you're not scared," Mandy said. "It means you act despite your fear. I think you are brave, for what it's worth."

"Thanks, I appreciate that," said Melanie, smiling.

There was a pause, and Mandy asked, "How long do you need to roast that aubergine? I'm hungry."

"You can't rush perfection," Melanie insisted loftily, and then laughed. Mandy threw the parsley stems at her.

"I heard from Nathan today," said Melanie.

Mandy's eyebrows shot up. "He wrote a letter? I thought he was trying to lay low and stay safe!" Melanie's brother had deserted from the Death Eaters last spring after a change of heart, vowing to leave Britain altogether and hide away out of You-Know-Who's reach, because if Nathan was found he would certainly be killed.

"Well, he signed the letter as 'Fiona', to keep himself untraceable if it was seen by the wrong eyes, but I recognised the handwriting. And he says he's safe. There's nothing else of substance in the letter, but it's a huge relief to know that he's alive and he's all right."

"Where do you think he is?"

"He doesn't say, obviously, but… if I had to guess, maybe Egypt? Our granddad on our mum's side grew up there, so I'm sure we still have some very distant Muggle relatives there, and maybe he's with them? I don't know. If not there, I wouldn't have the slightest idea."

"So he got out safe."

"Looks like it," said Melanie, then hastily added, "Touch wood." She rapped her knuckles on the wooden chopping board.

"That's really good to hear," said Mandy. She picked a cut piece of tomato off the chopping board and ate it.

There was another silence, while Melanie ate some of the tomato as well, and then Mandy spoke again. "Why do you think Muggle-borns aren't doing the same thing? Escaping, I mean. Every day it's a little less safe to be a Muggle-born in Britain – don't you think they would want to flee as well?"

"And leave their whole life and everything they've known here?" Melanie asked. "It'd be hard. People are probably just thinking it won't happen to them. Everyone always assumes that… until it does happen to them."

"I remember you used to say you wanted to leave and run away when we were out of Hogwarts."

Melanie smiled wryly. "Sometimes I still want to. But I made a promise to Charlotte, and to myself. Besides, how could I run and leave you behind?"

Mandy nodded. "We'll get through it, I know it."

"I want to believe that so much. You and your bloody optimism."

"If you believe it hard enough, then it's true," Mandy insisted.

"Tell that to my eight-year-old self who legitimately believed there were Crumple-Horned Snorkacks living in the attic of my house in Liverpool. Aubergine's done." Melanie withdrew the pan from the oven.

"Do you want to play Monopoly after dinner?" asked Mandy. The topic change was swift, but the war looming overhead was always there to talk about, and they couldn't live under its gloomy shadow forever. Even in the middle of war, life still went on, and some levity was necessary to balance out the rest.

"I never want to play Monopoly," said Melanie. "Chess?"

"Boring."

Melanie snorted. "How can you say chess is boring but you like Monopoly, which takes a day and a half to play?"

"Because I usually win Monopoly," said Mandy. "Okay, wait. How about we go into the Muggle part of town, find an arcade, and play pinball!"

"Play what?"

"Ooh, you'd love it. You press buttons and it lights up and everything. And we can work together against the machine or compete against each other. I discovered the game last week on a date with that Muggle, Eric, and even though I've since ditched the bloke, I'm glad that at least I got this out of it."

They both laughed. "Sure, I'm up for it," said Melanie. "Just don't ditch me after if I win."

"Never!" said Mandy. "…Meaning you'd never win."

Melanie threw a chunk of tomato at her.

Thanks for reading! And if you have a moment, please let me know what you think so far :)