Tonks and Remus got married in a ceremony that consisted of Sirius, Daphne, Blaise, the twins, and I. It was quick and sweet, considering the timing of it.
It was only a few days after when Remus called Daphne, Blaise, and I up to the study. Blaise and I knew what was coming, and so did Daphne if her look of nervousness said anything. Blaise was already learning to duel and I was quite proficient, but Daphne had little hands-on experience with it.
One trait of a Slytherin that not many people took into account, was our dislike to be seen failing. That's why we were seen as the back of the class kids that never talked or answered questions. It also explained our work ethic and grades. It wasn't even the act of failing that bothered us. Any true Slytherin would tell you that failing was a necessary aspect of life, if you never failed you never learned.
I nudged her forward and we walked into the study. A spell was launched at me the second I entered the door. My wand was out and deflecting it just in time, and sending one back only seconds later, not caring about who the antagonist was.
"Well, her relexes haven't faded." Sirius stated with a grin as he stood up from his chair, which was now on fire. I rolled my eyes at the older man. He was an idiot, but an effective teacher.
"Of course they haven't, I was in a battle situation less than a month ago." I rolled my eyes.
"Meh, figured I would try to get you back for the duck incident." I glared.
"We agreed to never speak of that again." He laughed, and Remus finally inturrupted our bickering.
"Okay… I'm going to go over some basics with Daphen, test reaction times, and see where her skills are in general. Sirius, you're going to help Blaise practice. Lily, Tonks agreed to duel you and offer some pointers she learned in the auror acadamy. She's waiting in the attic. She figured a bigger space would be better for a full fledged duel." I nodded and left to meet with Tonks.
It was a long duel, one that spanned over an hour and left us both out of breath, sweating, and laughing. She ended up teaching me a new spell and a technique to use when injured. We then walked down to check in on the other four.
When we entered the room we were just in time to watch Daphne send Sirius flying into the wall. Blaise got distracted by this and Remus sent him into a couch on the other side of the room, near where Sirius was. Tonks saw Remus was distracted and sent a stinging hex at him with a small grin. I sent one at Daphne. Both yelped in shock and turned to glare at us.
"Constant vigilance." Tonks stated with a grin and a laugh.
"Good god, my wife is morphing into Mad-Eye Moody." Remus feigned a look of terror. I walked over to Blaise and offered him a hand up. Then I jumped on Sirius to keep him on the ground.
"Distracted by something mutt?"
"Oh yes, for someone who says she hasn't had any training in duelling, she is better than I would expect."
"I never said no training, just no formal training. Also I do have my OWL in defense." Daphne interjected.
"In other words, it was a well-timed accident. She was probably trying to disarm you." I translated, recieveing a small nod from Daphne and a twitch of the lips of Sirius.
"Can I get up now?" Sirius asked from under me. I jabbed him with my elbow and shook my head.
"It shouldn't take too long to get you capable enough for battle. I'd wager you would be able to protect yourself in the final confrontation when it comes time." Remus stated with a sad certainty.
"Well, that's reassureing." Blaise stated with a look on his face. I sent a slight stinging hex at him and he yelped before glaring at me.
"Next lesson will be tomorrow. We will train every day and each lesson will focus on teaching all three of you spells, stances, strategies, and styles. We can have them before lunch, 11 a.m." Blaise was rubbing his tail bone, which had hit the wood of the couch, and Daphne was looking a little scared. I smiled and nodded in excitement. It sounded fun. "I might use you in some of their lessons as an example, Lily. It's a little easier to teach something when you don't have to do it yourself as you talk." Remus stated. "You and Sirius are going to be my little fighter monkeys."
"Hey, Tonks, why don't we go shower and change while these four take care of lunch. I gave Kreature the difficult task of helping the twins organize and inventory the store room at the shop." Sirius groaned, we both laughed as we walked off to take a much needed shower.
It was finally time for the Order meeting about transfering Harry. This would also mark the first Order meeting for Daphne. The three of us had skipped the weekly meetings since getting home, giving Daphne time to get used to her new circumstances before throwing her to the weasels.
As such, we were now sitting in the living room of the Burrow, a first for all three of us. Molly was alternating between glaring at us and looking at Bill in worry. There were still several members who had yet to arrive, so it was more of a mingleing party at the moment. Fred and George were among those who were absent and, as such, I was introducing Blaise and Daphne to Andromeda.
"Lily?" Bill had walked over and now stood behind me. I turned in surprise and looked at the older Weasley. I excused myself from the conversation as Bill pulled me aside.
"Hello Bill, do I finally get to meet Fleur?"
"You can if you want, she's over there." He gestured in her vague direction, "That's not what I wanted to talk about though. I never got to thank you for everything."
"What do you mean?" I asked, genuinly curious.
"Greyback. You most likely kept him from killing me, and then you kept me from dying. From what I hear, it's because of you that I didn't bleed out from a scratch. Talk about lame ways to die." I smiled slightly, but couldn't be too gratuitous for his praise. From what I heard about it from Pomphrey, and Molly, my actions were also why his scars were as bad as they were. It took too long for them to get to him.
"Well, I guess. Really though, Bill? You don't need to thank me for that. It's what anyone would've done. Besides, if it was anyone else your scars probably wouldn't be as bad as they are."
"I'm still thanking you. If you ever need anything, like help with the twins, let me know."
"I think I have the twins covered, but thank you. I might need to cash that favor in at some point."
"Now… you've been wanting to meet my fiancee for too long, let's go." He grinned and the two of us crossed the room to speak with Fleur. I was distantly aware of the floo going off and security questions being asked, but Bill was keeping me distracted.
"Bonjour, it is a pleasure to finally get to meet you." I greeted the blonde. She looked at me in delight.
"I as well. I've heard much about you, and I must thank you for saving my Bill's life."
"It was no problem or inconvenience to me."
"By that she means she's too emabarassed to accept an apology." George stated as he wrapped an arm around my shoulders. I almost jumped in shock at his sudden appearance. Fred came up on my other side and wrapped his arm around my waist.
"Well, hello,"
"Brother dearest." The twins said with manicle grins.
"Say, will you go fetch something for us,"
"We left in the yard. You should know the area like the back of your paw." I jabbed both twins in the side, they grunted, but kept their little grins. Fleur glared at them, but Bill just smirked.
"That's what you came up with? You had so long and that was the gem you decided to go with?"
"Well, we already asked Tonks if Remus was house-trained, and then we asked Blaise if Sirius needed to be on a leash. We only have so many dog jokes. You aren't quite important enough for us to come up with more." George smiled, wide and toothy. I bet the answer to the question about Sirius was yes. He was known to be a problem.
"And there's the real insult." Bill chuckled. "Let's be honest, the only reason I'm not important enough to warrant a good dog joke is because you need to use the good stuff on the two men that stand between you and your 'Lily pad', don't try and deny it." My eyes went wide.
"What do you mean, stand between them and me?" I asked, the three men looked at me incredulously.
"You're kidding…" George stated.
"I don't think she is boys." Bill narrowed his eyes in investigative confusion.
"We've been trying to get Remus and Sirius' permission to court you for the past three years. Just after the Yule ball actually…"
"Yeah, then you all but adopted Blaise and we had to start on him as well."
"Then why did you two start dating Katie and Angelina?" I asked incredulously.
"Because they told us to live our lives as normal until you became of age." Fred actually looked pretty put out at that. The more I thought about it, the more I realized how unlike a couple the twins acted with Katie and Angelina.
"Which, if I remember correctly, happened three months ago." My jaw dropped. They'd basically made a move the second they were able to.
"It still took some convinceing though. I think they only agreed because we were annoying them so much. Sirius was far easier to convince than Remus was though. He just told us good luck. Blaise was tougher, but in the end he just warned us against hurting you."
"I'm going to kill them. All of them."
"You won't have time, Moody just got here, the meeting is starting now." I allowed myself to be moved to the couch, for now. I sat next to Daphne and Tonks, all of our men (Blaise, Fred, George, Remus, and Sirius) standing behind us.
"Okay. Because Snape is a lying bastard, we need to adjust our plans for getting Harry from the Dursley's to here. We have a plan, we will use polyjuice to make it harder for any oposition to know which Harry is the real one. As such, we will need 5 volunteers to take the polyjuice and 6 volunteers to act as his Order escort. We won't be able to apparate because of the trace he will carry until his birthday, so we will be using other methods of transport."
"What do you mean, other methods?" Hermione asked, fear and dread in her voice.
"Thestrals, flying moterbike, and brooms. Now, any other questions? No? Good. Who volunteers? We need ten." I saw Bill, Fleur, Ronald, Hermione, Kingsley, and Arthur. I heard the twins whispering and turned to look at them, they both had their hands in the air. Sirius and Remus had their arms in the air as well. I saw Tonks put her hand up, and Remus gently push it down from his spot behind her with a stern look.
Then I put my hand in the air.
Protests rose in the room. Fred and George tried to push my arm down, Remus, Blaise, and Sirius forbid it, and Daphne looked about to say something as well. Moody quieted them all with a shout.
"Now, as much as I would like to accept you as the final volunteer, I cannot because we need one more Order escort and I don't think they would buy us sending Harry with someone his age." I nodded and I heard sighs of relief around the room. "You will wait here with Molly to heal anyone that gets injured." I practically heard the woman wince from across the room, and was dreading it myself. I nodded anyway and allowed myself to be put somewhere behind the scenes. Charlie raised his hand and Moody nodded.
"So, there will be 6 pairs in the sky?" I asked, Moody shook his head.
"I will be bringing Mundungus. There will be seven." I thought that was a terrible idea and almost said something. I only just refrained. I was just lucky Hagrid wasn't asked to escort Harry. The man was nice, but not the best dueler.
"I will figure out the groupings, all of the volunteers should meet here on July 27. We fly then, we will apparate from here to the Dursley's. Everyone going is of age so the trace shouldn't come into effect. Moody turned and left the room without another word, leaving the Order meeting to disperse. The twins dragged me to a corner where Remus and Sirius were waiting. Daphne and Blaise were engaged in a conversation with Tonks and her mother.
"Are you kidding me? You four are ridiculous! I know how to duel, I would've been perfectly fine!"
"Yes, but consider this… we didn't want you endangering yourself." Sirius stated.
"Look at Tonks, she's an Auror and Remus didn't want her to volunteer either." Fred pointed out. I glared at him and he cowered slightly, possibly second guessing himself, probably not.
"You all suck." Remus and Sirius walked away with serious expressions in tact.
"At least we know you won't be in any danger…" George commented.
"Yes, but the same can't be said for me! You four are the closest things I have to family, and all of you are going to be in danger with this."
"We'll be fine!"
"Yeah, we'll be Harry, he apparently can't die!" I rolled my eyes and punched them both in the arm as hard as I could. They winced and I leaned up and gave each a kiss on the cheek.
"You'd better be fine." I walked away, my threat hanging in the air. It was the nicest threat I'd ever issued. I joined in on a conversation with Charlie and Arthur about creature rights, not paying any mind to the twins for the rest of the night.
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