Chapter Twenty-Nine
So Much to See
"Are we late?"
Lily scoffed. "Like I'd be late, honestly, Gracie."
"Then where is everyone?" The rooms of the house were tight and damp with an unpleasant, musty smell that seemed to increase exponentially the further we ventured into it.
"Don't be silly. This is highly top-secret, of course, so they're not just going to be sitting out in the open."
Considering we'd had to circle the street house three times to find the house in the first place, I didn't really consider this 'out in the open.'
"Doesn't it defeat the purpose if we can't even find the meeting place?"
Again, she rolled her eyes, and let out a long, heavy, and very unnecessary sigh, ushering me forward. We stepped through what appeared to be a sitting room. I eyed the carpet as we walked, noticing how it resembled curtains rather than an actual functioning carpet: green, velvet curtains, probably crawling with insects and rodents. I watched where I stepped just in case.
"I know where it is, just have some patience," Lily said, and after trekking around the remains of a tan armchair—I wasn't even going to ask what happened to it—we came to the wall, where a portrait of a small boy dressed in all black resided.
"Is this the entrance?" I asked, purely curious. Well, it was a valid question. Either that or the entrance was beneath the dismantled armchair, but I was banking on this.
"Shh," said Lily, not taking her eyes off the boy. He didn't stir in the slightest. I figured that it must not have been a magical portrait at all, but Lily kept staring it down adamantly anyway. "We'd like admittance to the Order."
"I beg your pardon," the boy said, and I jumped, honestly, three meters in the air. Neither gave it any attention, and the boy went on, in a chilling tenor that seemed far too developed for his apparent age, "I'm afraid I don't know what it is you speak of."
Lily looked somewhat miffed, but squared her shoulders and stood up straighter to appear as if she was not becoming more distressed by the moment. She liked to pretend she knew what she was doing, but she was every bit as uncertain about all of this as I was. "I was told that you were the one to go to in order to acquire admittance. Are you not Jonathan?" Good thing I'd left all this investigative stuff to her.
"I am," he replied nonchalantly, sounding genuinely disinterested.
Lily sighed rather wearily. "Well, would you know anything about where the entrance is, then?"
He shook his head, little curls unmoving on his head like they were crafted of marble. Or paint. Whichever. "I've been sworn to secrecy."
This change of tune caused Lily's face to flame a bright red. I supposed I should have stepped in at that point, but she did tell me to be quiet, because 'she knew what she was doing.' I was only following instructions, after all. "But you just said you knew nothing about it. Which is it then?"
"I am not at liberty to respond."
"Oh, for the love of Merlin!" she cried loudly. "What does it take to get in here, a galleon?"
"Of course not, miss. I'd have no way of accepting your payment, if that was the case." The little boy smirked lightly, sadistically enjoying the entire charade.
She narrowed her eyes at his sarcasm, most likely wanting to claw his face off with her nails. I would have encouraged it, seeing as he was only paint, but I kept my mouth closed. "The question was rhetorical," Lily snapped.
The boy did not supply her with an immediate response, and instead slowly drifted his gaze to someplace beyond her, eyes focusing and unfocusing. After a long, pondering moment, he looked back to Lily and me both with a rather curious expression and said, "There is a way that you may prove your allegiance, if you are willing."
"Of course," answered Lily, her voice now not only weary but a mix of wary as well.
He nodded his head to the same place behind us. "There are two goblets on that table behind you. Drink their contents and you will be granted admittance."
The two of us turned to find the table of mention, and discovered that there were indeed two tall goblets on a table only steps away from where we stood. We shared a look, neither of us daring to say a thing. Namely that the situation was certainly not under control and this appeared to be our only option. Or that said only option could be the last option we ever had.
Oh, well. Surely the Order wouldn't try to poison us at the first meeting. I took the initiative and trailed forward, reaching the table in wide strides, and took a goblet in my hands.
Unfortunately, I hadn't been able to see how revolting the strange liquid in the goblet looked from the previous distance. At the distance I was at then, however, it was much easier to see.
"Gracie, hold on," Lily chided as she followed after me and tentatively took the remaining goblet in her own hands. "Don't just drink it. It requires proper investigation. This could be a test."
"A test of our loyalty, yeah?"
"Yes, that too. But it could also be a test to rate our gullibility."
Something sounded far off, like a violent cracking of glass. Lily and I's eyes widened simultaneously, potent looking drinks in hand and snotty-nosed boy watching in his cozy little frame. We'd been warned that there would be no disapparating anywhere near Order headquarters, and that if there was any sign of enemy infiltration, we were to conceal ourselves immediately or take the direst measures possible to escape. We could not be found alive near the Order of Phoenix meeting place.
Which was rather inconvenient, because our short-winded minds could only process one way out, and that way was, indeed, our friend Jonathan's rather poor choice of beverage.
We hadn't needed to confirm this idea, either, because as soon as heavy footsteps followed the noise, we were already raising the goblets to our lips.
"Eh, reckon Benjy'll try to kick us out for being late again? Last time I swear Mad-Eye woulda let 'im—"
I was about to down the contents, but a deafening clatter and a, "Gracie, wait—Reducto!" stopped me in my tracks.
The goblet fell to the ground in simmering ash, and the instant passed so quickly that my eyes transitioned within a moment from the disaster at my feet to the two tall red-headed men in front of me, staring blankly in return.
For a moment, absolutely nothing happened. But then the silence broke at the sound of the two men bursting into explosive laughter.
"Johnny boy! You've really got to quit it with your pranks, honest!"
"Really, it's a wonder we got any new recruits at all with you makin' half of 'em drink gravy fat every other week. Swear, Dumbledore's gotta quit leavin' it out here."
"Gravy fat?" Lily shuddered and directed a glare towards the boy in the portrait, who was laughing too hard to notice or care.
"Sorry, lassies," one of them said, and at a quick glance, he looked entirely identical to the other, aside from choice in clothing and hairstyle, but it was practically impossible to distinguish otherwise. The man that was speaking had longer hair that curled around his ears, and he was wearing a dark-plaid button down, while the other's hair was short enough where it stuck up all over, as if it didn't know where to sit. His shirt was a washed out blue, sleeves rolled up to his elbows. That was how I temporarily differentiated between them: Plaid Man and Blue Man. Plaid Man went on, addressing Lily and me directly, "Jonathan's got a bad rep here. It's a wonder we even give him the honor of protecting the Order."
"Hey! I get them nearly every time, don't I? Shows how easily gimmicked they are, don't it?" the boy of mentioned protested.
"Yeh, but you're bloody rotten and if you weren't a portrait you'd be burnin' in hell, hear? Come on, now, let us in, yeh good for nothing little rascal," Blue Man said, rather gruffly, and Jonathan unhappily obliged. The portrait slid open, reminding me fondly of the Gryffindor common room back at Hogwarts.
"You two are the new recruits, aren't you? Just hopped off from Hogwarts, yeah? What're your names, by chance?" Plaid Man asked, meeting my gaze as he said this.
I took the liberty to respond. "I'm Gracie, and that's Lily."
"No surnames? You on the run or somethin'?" Blue Man asked.
Lily rolled her eyes, laughing, "Lily Evans, Grace Hachette, and we are quite pleased to have made your acquaintances." Quite pleased you saved our arses before we were forced to drink liquid fat, more like.
"Good to hear," Plaid Man said, nodding his head graciously. "Same to you. I'm Gideon, that's Fabian—Gideon and Fabian Prewett, that is, and proud of it."
Right, now they had names. That was going to be confusing. Plaid Man was Gideon. Blue Man was Fabian. Right.
"Sorry 'bout Johnny, by the way," Fabian said—was it Fabian? It was Fabian, surely—as we continued our hike. "Likes to give people a hard time, he does. Reckon it's a miracle we haven't just thrown 'im out already. I've had ta restore 'im twice already, and I'm gettin' bloody tired of it."
"Twice?" Gideon interjected. "Nah, not twice."
"Yeah, twice," Fabian answered stubbornly. "When Dorcas mistaked 'im for a Death Eater—"
"Yeah, that was the only—"
"No, Mundungus tried to burn a hole through 'is head just las' week, and I was the one that was assigned ta restore 'is damn annoyin' face."
"Right, right, I remember," Gideon said, bobbing his head. "So—this is the way, right, Fabian? Or do we turn left? No, right, okay—anyway, are you two birds the only recruits this time around? I was under the impression there were more of you."
"Yeah, four more, actually," I responded, wondering absentmindedly as we snaked through the crooks of the corridor how in Merlin's name Lily and I would have found this place without these two.
"Ah, that's a blessing," said Gideon.
"Yeh, we don't get many people willin' to take up the occupation, and we're much less willin' to tell people about it, anyhow. Not that it's a dangerous occupation or nothing, 'course." He winked at us in the dark, only visible by the glimmer of a torch on the wall.
"Mhm," Gideon said, nodding his head vigorously again. (I was beginning to think it was a habit of his.) "In fact, so very not dangerous that we are quite proud to say that we have never lost an Order member in battle."
"Like that goes to say much. We've done near to nothing for the last coupla years. Oh, found the door," Fabian announced, disgruntled. "I swear, Mad-Eye's tryna keep us out with how often he moves the damn thing. In we go, then. After you, lassies."
"Don't worry!" Gideon said as they both ushered us forward. "This is nothing to fret over. You'll get along just fine, I think. I'll introduce you both around."
The minute the door appeared and Fabian thrusted it open, I was overwhelmed by the sight of the group. At first glance, the group seemed massive, with clutters of people scattered all around the vastly spread room. The room was much warmer and much friendlier than the house and the long corridor had been, thankfully, but there just seemed to be people at all points of the room…
"'Ello, everyone! We found our newbies!"
And then suddenly all eyes were turned on us. Now, I'd never been necessarily a nervous person, but my stomach flipped unpleasantly at the sudden pressure. Gideon's hand was on my back, pushing Lily and me forward, leading us through the group. "This here's Benjy, our good mate—" I nodded at a man with a rather scruff beard, though significantly young in appearance, "And Dorcas, she's lovely—" I smiled at the thin brunette woman, "And this is Edgar, Elphias, Caradoc,"—could he slow down a bit? For the love of Merlin—"Dedalus, Emmeline, oh, that's only Fabian, Mundungus, Alice, Frank—eh, Frank, where's Mad-Eye? The birds've got to meet Mad-Eye!"
Lily and I shared a look. Mad-Eye? He sounded slightly intimidating. Worse than gravy fat? Most likely.
"He's with the new recruits in the back room," the man Gideon addressed said, directing his attention to Lily and me. "Frank, like he said. Pleasure to meet you."
We shook hands. "You, too. I'm Gracie," I said, as cordially as possible, and Lily followed similarly.
"This is my wife, Alice," he introduced, drawing forward a rather petite woman with short, spunky hair.
"Nice to meet you," she said, smiling brightly, and we returned it. "Didn't you both just graduate a month ago? Your friends were telling us. This all must be kind of crazy! I can't imagine."
"Yeah," Frank began saying, "we graduated an entire four years ago, and all of this is still crazy for us." They both did look vaguely familiar, now that I thought about it.
"Well, I think we're used to a little insanity by now," I offered, laughing a bit. Lily agreed with me, laughing too, and soon we were spilling countless tales of our rather fond friends' escapades in our Hogwarts times. After continuing to talk some with Alice and Frank, things started to calm down a bit. The group, it seemed, wasn't as large as it first appeared—according to Alice, there was only now a total of twenty-five people actually included in the Order's ranks. It had seemed more like twice that when I'd first walked in.
"There they are!"
Lily and I turned towards the source of noise at the same moment. It seemed almost as if it was only Lily and I, actually, that noticed them at all, because the group quickly resumed its natural pace. I found four distinctly familiar faces, all grinning broadly, and before I could make a movement towards them, Sirius was dashing over to meet me.
"Gracie! You're finally here! You're so bloody late!"
"I wasn't, actually, it was just—" I started to argue, but Sirius wrapped his arms around my sides in one quick motion and spun me around. I shrieked, laughing and squirming to get away, but he just held me tight to him and buried his face in my shoulder.
"It has been far too long since I've seen you," he said, meeting my eyes once more as if there was something to find within them. "Why didn't you come see me?"
I rolled my eyes, still laughing. "Sirius, don't play dumb. We already talked about this." We'd agreed to just meet up at the Order meeting and then go out together afterwards in one of our few letters over the last couple of days.
He smiled, grey eyes light and just as breathtaking as ever. The sight of his smile made something turn fondly in my heart, like a sweet memory rekindled. I'd missed that smile so much. He bent down and placed a gentle kiss on my forehead, and I was so tempted to tilt my head up and meet my mouth with his, but there was a time and place for everything, and this was probably not the best time for that. So, I contented myself with a hug instead.
"Just wait till you meet Mad-Eye," Sirius said to me in a whisper. "He's loads of fun."
I raised an eyebrow. "That's not reassuring at all."
He laughed. "You'll see."
I shook my head dismissively and drifted from his grasp to greet the other boys. I hugged them all, making sure to tousle Peter's hair, almost out of instinct. When I got to Remus, he asked, "Hey, how'd that interview for the Prophet go?"
"It was okay, I think," I said with a shrug.
"She blew them out of the water, more like!" Sirius interrupted. I'd told him about it in one of our letters. Of course had to exaggerate. "Her stories are going to be front page material, without a doubt."
I swatted at his arm, shooing him away. "No, it went pretty well, but I don't know. How've you been, Remus?"
"Eh, not bad. Been keeping James and this bloke in line, for the most part." He jabbed a finger at Sirius's chest, who began to complain that we were abusing him.
"All right, attention, you lot. I don't know when this meeting became a party, but let's break it up now. We've got important matters to discuss," a gruff voice called out, breaking through the group. I followed the direction of the voice, and it took all the effort in my core to not express my surprise at the appearance of the man. The wooden leg and scarred face weren't even it; it was the electric blue eye on the left side of his face that was swiveling about madly that caught my complete attention and held me rooted to the spot.
He hadn't even needed an introduction; I knew he was Mad-Eye at once. And he far exceeded the title of intimidating.
His normal eye locked onto mine momentarily, and he nodded in acknowledgment in my direction before carrying on. "Things are getting worse. I don't need to tell you that, though; all you've got to do is look outside. We'll need to execute immediate training for our newcomers so we can catch up to our enemies… This war is no time for dilly-dallying."
And, evidently, it was not.
There was some program playing on the telly, but I'd lowered the volume so much so that the program was only a random collection of lights at the opposite end of the room. I thought it had something to do about fishing, but I couldn't be sure, because Sirius had (the majority of) my attention. He was rattling off about that oddball Mundungus Fletcher who he so far was not overly fond of from the meeting earlier. Mad-Eye's plan of immediate action had been to pair an experienced Order member with one of the six "newcomers," and Sirius had been paired off with Mundungus, seeing as he was one of the longest-standing members who didn't happen to have too many responsibilities tied to him.
I'd gotten Gideon, which I was fairly pleased with. He seemed friendly. Lily had received Emmeline Vance, who I didn't know at all, James with Edgar Bones, who turned out to be the brother of Peter's date for the Leaving Ball, Amelia. It was a small world. Peter was with Aberforth Dumbledore—I hadn't known Professor Dumbledore had a brother at all—and Remus got Fabian.
Overall, they weren't bad mentors at all, aside from perhaps Sirius's. I hadn't actually properly met Mundungus, but Sirius wouldn't quit complaining, so I'd take his word for it, at least.
"He sat there, kicked his feet up, and said, 'Reckon you can go to the library and pick you up something good, if you really want to know about proper defense.'"
I leaned onto his shoulder, letting him vent his frustrations and didn't say a word. He was probably going to be thoroughly annoyed when he discovered I was falling asleep on him, but at that moment, I didn't care.
"Anyway, I'm going to see if maybe they'll switch me out… That Frank bloke seems decent, and I'm sure Dumbledore would see to a switch, I mean, I was always a favorite of his, yeah? You know, I didn't realize how late it was."
"Really?" I asked sarcastically.
"When's your flatmate supposed to be back?"
"I dunno, why?"
"Because I think someone's at the door."
"Oh, dammit," I groaned, and indeed, with something of a fight, the front door squeaked open loudly.
In stumbled Loraine, aforementioned flatmate and source of various headaches the majority of the week so far. Tomorrow marked one official week living with her, and my, had it been glorious.
My parents had begun retracting their funding after paying the initial cost for the rent on the flat, and they'd suggested the second day I'd been here that I could "probably use some assistance with the costs." Loraine showed up the day after I'd put up the advert, and alas, here she was, nearly a week later, already perfectly at home.
Which was fine. At least she felt comfortable around me. But there was that factor to consider of how comfortable too comfortable was. She was definitely it, whatever it was. I would elaborate another time, perhaps, but I'll say just one thing: she was completely oblivious. Completely, without, regard. For that reason, I was kind of strangely fond of her. She reminded me of Marie-Claire, in a way, and that familiarity was nice. Kind of, anyways.
"Gracie! Are you here?" she called out enthusiastically, dropping her five million bags on the floor to the kitchen and swiveling about frantically. She was quite the character, but had literally no boundaries. Her curly blonde hair was particularly flurried at the moment.
I shifted a little bit on the sofa, waving at her. "Yeah. Sirius is here, too. You haven't met him yet, have you?"
"Oh, no, I haven't. Hullo, Sirius!"
He waved back at her. "Hello! Nice to meet you."
I'd actually only mentioned him once to her and that had been the brief time we had spoken about our boyfriends at all, when we'd discussed the "no boys to spend the night" rule. That was definitely a rule that I could live with, considering Loraine. I'd met her boyfriend twice already; he was blonde, like she was, and tan and thick-necked, kind of slow in speaking. He didn't come off as overly intelligent, and I almost wanted to say that said a lot for why he was with her, but I slapped myself mentally for the thought. I was trying to be nicer to her in my head.
Sirius hopped up from the sofa and went to go shake her hand.
"Nice to meet you, too," she replied, smiling warmly. I dragged myself from my rather comfortable position on the sofa and joined them. "I haven't heard very much about you, to be honest. How long have you two been together?"
On the contrary, he'd heard quite a bit about her. They didn't tend to be very good things. Oh well. I was making an effort to be nicer about her, after all, so I was trying to make up for it.
"Oh, forever," Sirius said with a shrug, shooting me a smirk.
It really hadn't been that long at all, though the giant lapses of actually physically seeing each other seemed to hint that it had. Relatively, though, it'd been no time at all.
I quickly re-gathered my poise, absentmindedly gripping the inside of Sirius's elbow to start pulling him away. We'd established prior to Loraine's arrival that when she did come home from work, we'd go out for dinner or whatever it was Sirius was so excited about doing. He hadn't really explicitly told me what his grand plan was.
"Sirius and I are actually going to go out for a bit, Loraine, so I'll have to catch up with you later, okay?" I said, smiling.
"Oh, okay," she said. "Did you want me to get take-away for later? Pizza or something?"
"Don't worry about me. I'll get something. Thanks, though. See you later!"
"All right, have fun!"
My exit probably looked far too rushed to the average observer, but considering that was how most exits went with Loraine so far, it wasn't too abnormal in our flat. After wrestling with the door—it constantly got stuck, to the point where I'd have to kick it open—we were out in the sanctuary of the staircase.
"So, where are we going?" I asked, sneaking his hand in mine. He didn't mind it, I didn't think.
"Should I tell you?"
"Yes, obviously, dolt."
"All right. Make sure to contain your excitement, though."
"Okay."
"The London Zoo!"
I stared blankly.
"Er, you can uncontain that excitement now."
I paused for a moment, before exclaiming, "Yay, that's great! You're great!" I pulled him in and kissed him on the cheek.
He scoffed. "Now you're lying to spare my feelings."
"No," I gasped, pretending to be genuinely appalled.
"Stop it," he said, but laughed anyways. "Well, you know what? I'm excited. I've never seen an elephant before. I'm going to go see an elephant, and it's going to be marvelous."
"Hey, no, we're going to go see an elephant."
"Right." He smiled slyly.
"You're such a kid," I said, rolling my eyes.
"Oh, I nearly forgot!"
"What?"
He didn't provide me with a verbal response and instead pulled me in close, kissing me tenderly on the lips and stealing my breath away. I'd nearly forgotten how surreal kissing Sirius could be, how everything else in the world could blur and just leave us in the middle of it, awakening every single one of my senses tenfold. One of his hands grazed the skin beneath the very hem of my shirt, the other caressed my face slowly. And every bit of anxiety, trepidation, irritation, all of it, all of it was gone, because Sirius was so much of everything that I couldn't even begin to collect my pulsing emotions into a single word. I kissed him till I was breathless, and even then I didn't let him go, simply because I didn't have to.
When the fervor finally settled, I grinned at him brightly, wanting to memorize the streaks in his eyes, the lines he got when he smiled too big, the way he laughed with his eyes squeezed shut and his head thrown back.
Then it was his turn to ask, "What?"
I just answered with a smile and shook my head, because he didn't need to know how much I really loved him.
"All right then. Let's go! We don't want to miss the zoo!" He grabbed my hand and started dragging me along the staircase.
"Woah, woah, wait a second. How are we getting to London? It's two hours by train, Sirius!"
He gave me a look that seemed to question my sanity. "Gracie, are you a witch or not? We are apparating, of course, but not in front of your flat, where your dear muggle friend could appear at any moment. Right?"
"Oh, right," I mumbled. "I knew that."
He snickered.
"I had a moment. Leave me alone."
"I will very much indulge in doing quite the opposite, thank you."
Of course he would. I'd thank him for it later.
A/N: Hi. Do any of you remember me? Woooops... I haven't updated in over a month! I've gotten so tremendously busy, I'm sorry. :( But on a positive note.. I've joined the swim team! I am beating my couch potato-ness and I am... moving myself! Huzzah. I'm unstoppable.
Sorry if this was kind of awkward. I haven't written in a while, may I remind you, in case you've already forgotten. Also, it was kind of difficult to throw a whole bunch of new people in there, and I'm not really happy with it, but I'm saving them to develop later, of course. :)
LOVE YOU GUYSS leave a review and make me happy, yeah? You guys are brilliant. Mwah! x
