Dead on the Inside
Chapter Eleven: The Order of the Phoenix
Sirius
"Come on Padfoot, we have to go! The Order meets in a little under an hour! Wake up!" James yelled lobbing pillow after pillow at me. Or maybe it was the same pillow over and over, I don't know and it's not the point. I got up slowly, rubbing my eyes, trying to get them to adjust to the morning light. I shook my hair out and pulled on the first clean thing I saw in my trunk. I trudged down the stairs to the common room.
"You missed breakfast, so I brought you some food," Emma said greeting me with my morning kiss. I ate the toast as we walked out to the gates, and on to Hogsmade. The four of us walked in pairs, me and Emmy and James and Lily. James had recently gotten the balls to ask Lily out, and was surprised to find that she gladly agreed. Once I had downed the flask of pumpkin juice we left from the gates, where we had met up with the others. It was still chilly out, and a light snow sprinkled the lawn. I held Emma's hand in mine to keep at least one of them warm.
Dumbledore was waiting for us at the said meeting place, a grungy old bar called the Hogshead. The downstairs was not very well kept, and I made a mental note to never drink out of the glasses here. The bar tender was as 'well kept' as his bar, and he looked very out of place next to the tall and tidy Albus Dumbledore.
"Upstairs is where we will be having the meeting; it's safer and harder for a Death Eater to eavesdrop on us," He was telling Emma, as we began to climb the rickety staircase. We ended up going up single file, so I stood behind Emma. James was behind me, giving me a confused look.
"What's a Death Eater?" He mouthed. I shrugged. Hell if I knew what it was. Sounded like a person that ate death for breakfast.
"Death Eaters are the followers of Lord Voldemort Mr. Potter. I suggest you keep that in mind, because if this war continues you'll find yourself fighting quite a few," The Headmaster replied. Emma giggled as we came to the top of the staircase, and to a large wooden door. He pushed open the door to reveal a fairly nice section of living quarters. Dumbledore continued even further, to a back room with a large table and a nice view. We all took our seats around the table and waited for others to come in.
"Let's see you have the Potters, Mr. Black, Ms. Evans, Mr. Weasley, Mr. Longbottom…hmm I'm afraid we're missing a few people. Arthur where's Molly and Alice?" Dumbledore asked. Just then the two girls bustled in followed by a loud thumping sound. Dumbledore smiled, his last guest had arrived.
"Moody!" Emma yelled, acting like a child again. She ran to him, almost upsetting chairs as she did, and hugged him. James did the same joining into the hug. It was weird to see Moody give so much affection. Alastor Moody was a sight to see, with his peg leg, but once you got over that, the twins godfather was actually a fairly handsome guy.
"I'm going to assume that you two have already been in to see Albus several times this year…"
"Both have only been in my office twice to deal with punishments. Emma of course has been in my office almost every night for the past few months getting things for the Order ready," Dumbledore chuckled. The twins and their godfather took a seat and the meeting began. Dumbledore opened with a nice speech and then he gave it to Emma to really open the meeting. She stood from her seat, her fingertips resting gently on the rough table top and cleared her throat.
"We are all here today for one reason and one alone. We're here to fight back, and to stop hiding in the shadows. Every one of us here have taken a stance and realized that we have to protect the ones we love, so that they can live a happier life. So that all of us can live a happier life," She sat back down. I took her hand in mine and squeezed it tightly, telling her in a way, how much she meant to me.
"We can meet in my office until you all leave and go into the world as new wizards and witches. Then we'll have to find a new place to meet. For now most of the things we will be doing will be tiny things, to keep our efforts subtle at first. It will be easier to do more things once you get out of school and we get more members in from the ministry," Dumbledore said after Emma finished. He talked about what we would be doing to help, and how it would be best if we got jobs in the ministry. He told he would have some of us out on the field fighting the Death Eaters and others doing more behind the scenes work.
"Now some of these Death Eaters will be your classmates, in fact I'm sure we all know of a few current ones. Ah, ah, no names here, keep it to yourself, I just want you to all be prepared. Now before we call this meeting to an end I want us to take a toast to the Order," Dumbledore said passing around clean shot sups filled with fire whiskey. We raised our glasses high and drank to the Order. I rather liked Fire Whiskey, and the burn it left going down my throat, but Emma made a funny face as hers went down.
"Oh Merlin, I need a butterbeer now, that was just awful tasting!"
"Let's go get some then," James said leading the three of us down to the Three Broomsticks. Peter had caught up with us, and James made him go get our drinks. Lily and Emma were giggling and whispering to each other. Their cheeks were a light red from laughter and the whiskey.
"What's so funny?"
"We were just saying that we had only just found a way of getting rind of him and then he shows up again," Lily joked talking about Peter. Out of the group Peter didn't fit in, and we would joke about it. We changed the subject to Barty Crouch, and how he was a cry baby.
"He's about as bad as Lucius…"
"Yeah, maybe they're related…"
"I related to Barty, you must be jesting. That kid is a mama's boy," Lucius said passing by us. We burst into laughter as he strode out the door. Today was turning out to be pretty great.
"Who's willing to bet me that his boy is going to be a mama's boy?" Emma asked holding out a hand teasingly. James suddenly sat up straight and disappeared to go retrieve something. Lily shook her head amused by his actions.
"I almost forgot Lils, Happy Valentines Day!" He said coming back with a large bouquet of roses. Lily turned redder than the roses in front of her and kissed James, knocking him off his stool. Emma smiled weakly, obviously she had forgotten as well. She got up to leave to go talk to a teacher that walked by, and I slipped a ring box in front of her seat. I put a finger to my lips to signal to the others not to give it away. She returned, seeming satisfied with the answer she received and almost knocked the box off the table. She caught it then gave me a quizzical look.
"Open it, you know how to right? You pull the little bow off then you place your fingers and thumb like so and pop, it opens! Then you look at it and tell the others that's you' like to thank the academy, oh wait wrong thing…" I said joking. Emma did as she was told, even repeating my instructions out loud for the others. Then she gasped, nearly dropping the box for the second time in fives minutes.
Carefully, as though this ring were four hundred years old and might shatter at any moment she took it out of the box to display. IT was a simple, pure onyx ring with the Black family crest embedded in gold in the very center.
"Sirius,…why are you giving me this?"
"Because Emma, it's Valentines Day, and men show their love by giving his girl a very special gift. Can't I get the woman I love a simple gift?" I asked reaching over and cupping her face in my hands. She nodded and let me slip the ring on her finger. I kissed her, mean while flipping her brother off for the faces he was making.
"Sirius, I need your help, tonight…is a full moon….I took my potion, but…I need to get into the Shrieking Shack," Remus said interrupting the tender moment. Emma didn't seem to mind much, because she turned to Lily and they began to giggle and whisper again James and I quickly kissed our girlfriends and promised them we'd return after Remus was safely hidden away.
"Don't get lost," Emma joked winking to me. I winked back and strode out the door after James. We both felt like the luckiest men alive, and who could blame us. Once again everything was going just right.