They got there too late. Half of the town was burning, and all of the wizards and Muggles alike had fled. Death Eaters attacked them from all sides, but between her, Moody, and Kingsley Shacklebolt, they managed to wrangle a couple of them. As Kingsley unmasked the ones that had been stunned, binding them together and disapparating with the group. "I'll set up camp," Moody grunted, making his way through the still-smoking rubble. "You know what you have to do, kid."
Hazel, as the youngest of their group, was almost always given the task of identifying all of the dead Death Eaters. They had to let the Auror Office and the Minister of Magic himself know who they'd killed and who they'd captured. Martin, a nervous little man, would dash about the Auror Office, crossing off names from lists and shuffling the bits of parchment they'd affixed to one of the walls, mapping out the hierarchy of Death Eaters. One by one they were being picked off of the list, but unless things changed soon, they would never be fast enough.
She had their faces memorized, at least the ones they had found photos of. She'd learned all of their details, their life stories, everything she possibly could about everyone she possibly could. But none of it helped when she was faced with the task of actually identifying them. Every time she rolled one of them over with the toe of her boot, she was afraid of who she'd find. Most of them wore masks, which the Aurors collected in the Auror Office like trophies. She'd already found a couple of people who had been in Slytherin while she was a student. She'd taken classes with them. She knew them, even if they weren't her friends.
As she turned another one of them over, she held her breath. It was a tall young man, his cloak covering his hair. With a shaking hand, she reached out, plucking the silver mask from his face. Please don't be Sev. Luckily, at least this time, it wasn't him. "Who've you got?" Moody called.
"McNair, the younger one," she yelled back, holding her breath again as she moved on to the next Death Eater. "Frank got his brother last Friday. Just the middle brother to go, now. Fourth one's still at Hogwarts, isn't he?"
"Aye, second year, if I 'member right," Moody grunted.
Long ago, when she'd joined the Auror Office, she'd made Martin promise her that if anyone ever found Sev, he would send an owl immediately. No owls came that night. As she lay on the frozen ground in one of their paper-thin tents, she wondered if Sev was doing the same thing somewhere across England.
She'd tried to banish every thought of him when they'd gone their separate ways, but they still saw each other in class. Luckily no one worked in groups that spring, since N.E.W.T.s were to be taken on their own. But Slughorn and Flitwick had noticed, since they weren't constantly invading each other's common rooms anymore. At first it seemed natural - when everyone came back for the spring term, the seventh-years were beyond nervous, cramming in study time between classes and on weekends. But the professors began to notice the two of them studying separately in the library, avoiding each other in the halls, and not bothering to sit next to each other in class unless they absolutely had to.
More than once Hazel had been tempted to reach out to him again, but the more she saw him with the Slytherins, the more she realized he had sold himself to their side completely. They still glanced longingly at each other in class sometimes, wishing that he'd made different choices, but there was nothing to be done about it now. But she hadn't betrayed him to anyone. Even when Flitwick stopped her after a Charms lesson, directly asking what was going on, she'd just told him that "things didn't work out" and refused to say more.
All of it was nearly forgotten when she got to the Auror Office. Her entire class of trainees was put on an accelerated schedule. They were in classes or in the practice areas for twelve to sixteen hours a day on a short day. Mad-Eye Moody picked his favorites and kept them working eighteen hours a day at times. But it was worth it. While her cohort was still mastering blasting curses, Hazel was out in the field within three months. On the last day of training, Moody had sat them down - a small group of four - and made them write out their wills. Aurors were dying left and right at the hands of the Death Eaters. They had to know what they were signing themselves up for.
So as she sat there filling out the forms, her mind drifted back to the boy she'd sat next to in Potions for years, the one who had made her laugh and had been willing to sit up and work with her well into the night, testing spells and modifications of potion recipes. Her quill hovering over the parchment for a second, Hazel hesitated before filling in the names of a couple distant cousins. She had no one else to leave things to, and not much to leave at that. There was no amazing Ravenclaw fortune passed down for generations. She had what her parents left her, but it wasn't anything impressive. If she left anything to him, they would have to hunt him down. And she didn't want that either.
A month or so into her actual career, she, Moody, and the three other trainees that he'd taken under his wing, flew out to meet Kingsley Shacklebolt, the Longbottoms, and a couple of older trainees who'd been through the program already. The Death Eaters were raiding a rather large Muggle town and they needed all of the Aurors they could get. "Now the Ministry's just lifted the ban on the Unforgiveables," Moody reminded them gruffly as they assembled in the Auror Office. Memos zoomed past them and other Aurors ran by at breakneck speed. there was another Death Eater group ransacking a town in Wales, and the Aurors were assembling a squad to go there as well. Martin was dashing about, updating the wall of known Death Eaters. he pulled a couple of the photos down, moving them to either the "dead" or "captured" categories before tacking up a couple more photos of Death Eaters who were recently identified. "I've taught you. Do not be afraid to use them. Capture if you can, but I'd rather have a pile of dead Death Eaters than dead Muggles. Martin, make sure we have an Obliviator squad ready to swap places with us when we get back."
They landed in the town to screams and people running in every direction. The Death Eaters, in masks and black hoods, were having fun torching houses. A couple of them were suspending Muggles in the air, trying to throw them through the mouth of the glittering Dark Mark that was suspended in the sky overhead. Moody charged in first, throwing curses in all directions. Hazel looked to her fellow trainees and then to Frank Longbottom, who gave her an encouraging nod. She would be doing her best to save the Muggles with Frank and his wife Alice.
There were two kinds of Aurors: the ones who prided themselves on capturing or killing Death Eaters, and the ones who counted their victories in the number of Muggles that they saved. Hazel was determined to be the latter. So she followed Frank and Alice into battle instead of Moody.
Deciding on a structurally sound house, Hazel shuffled a couple Muggles into the basement, telling them to stay quiet and promising that she would be back soon. One by one, she brought their neighbors in. She'd enchanted the house to be perfectly invisible to the Death Eaters, mysteriously repelling them. She could duck inside and keep hiding people in the basement. The Longbottoms followed with more people.
Hazel found herself trying to help an elderly woman out of her house when three Death Eaters advanced on them, their silver masks reflecting the light of a burning house across the street. One of them raised a wand, but Hazel managed to hit him with a knockback jinx before he could say anything. The blast of the jinx was powerful enough to knock the one next to him down the steps, both of them falling together. The third raised its wand as Hazel tried to petrify the two that had fallen to make sure they wouldn't be getting up any time soon. Half of the Killing Curse had left its mouth when a jet of green light hit the hooded figure in the back. He crumpled, Hazel looking for the source of the spell.
There was no way she could mistake that voice. He'd only said two words, the chilling "Avada Kedavra", but she knew. Staring into the light of the burning house, she noticed another hooded figure. He didn't take his mask off, but she could just barely make out the black eyes in the flickering firelight. Both of them seemed spellbound for a fraction of a second, but it was broken as the woman asked, "Do you know him, dear?" Hazel turned to mumble a response, and when she looked up, he was gone.
Even now, when she was camped out in the wreckage of another village, she could see the same hooded figure when she closed he eyes. It had to have been him. No one else would have done it. No other Death Eater would have killed one of their own, even in the middle of battle, where it could easily be made to look like an accident. No one else would have been confident enough that they would aim perfectly and not risk hitting her in the process.
A few weeks later she would find herself fighting a battle on the Forest of Dean, her, Moody, and a couple of the others sent to raid a Death Eater camp in the middle of the night. Moody was guarding a group of very stunned Death Eaters, waiting with them for the dementors while the other Aurors were combing the woods for anyone they'd missed. Something grabbed her arm from behind a tree, pulling her back and out of sight. She hardly had time to register that a couple of Death Eaters had been right behind her. "Ssh," a familiar voice instructed, Hazel not daring to turn and look at him until the Death Eaters had passed. When they were out of earshot, she whirled around at once. "You're alright?"
He'd taken off his mask, the black robes obscuring the rest of him. "Sev -"
"I don't have long -"
"It was you, wasn't it? Who saved me in Upper Stoatby?" She kept her eyes locked on him, trying to memorize every expression.
"Yes. It's good to see you again. I," he winced, casting a quick glance down at his left arm. "I have to go, but be careful. Please."
"Sev, you could join us. Come with me."
"I have to go," he repeated, impulsively giving her a hug before apparating away.
Hazel leaned against the tree, staring at the spot where her old friend had just been. Moody's voice eventually roused her from her trance. He asked if she'd seen a ghost in the forest, to which she shook her head. But he was right, she had seen the ghost of what could have been.
A.N.: So I'm getting the urge to rewrite this whole thing in chronological order. I'm just thinking about it, but it might happen... we'll see. But thank you all for the lovely messages and reviews!