Hazel ended up staying at Spinner's End more often than she thought she would. Cokeworth was far from London, but being able to apparate in every day made things much easier. Wormtail tried his best to spy on her, but with her family history and Snape's unwavering faith in her, there was nothing he could report that made her look suspicious, not in the slightest. She was careful never to mention the Order or her true allegiances, at least not until she and Sev had passed the barrier charm that kept everyone out of the second floor. Rumor had it that Voldemort had great faith in her too. Though her family had, at times, held sympathies for Muggles, they were one of the founding families of Hogwarts, closer to wizarding royalty than many others. She'd overheard Wormtail whispering to Sev about how, "the Dark Lord thinks very highly of her, oh yes. The last remaining Ravenclaw heir on our side... He says the two of you would have wonderful children - not Purebloods, unfortunately, but -" Sev had muttered some vague threat, Pettigrew falling silent immediately.
The return to Hogwarts was a happy one, but it was still tinged with apprehension. As students and professors reunited with their friends, a dark cloud of fear hung over the school. Voldemort was back, and his followers had begun attacking Muggleborns, their families, and anyone who dared to support them. Every morning the Daily Prophet reported more deaths, Hazel finding herself excusing one or two students from her class each week so they could go home for a funeral.
This was how it had started last time. By her seventh year, the disappearances had begun. Muggleborns who went home for the holidays never came back. Rumors of Death Eater squads torturing people indiscriminately floated into the castle as they came back from the winter holiday. Hogsmeade trips were cancelled by the third week of spring term. Cleaning up after the attacks, healing the survivors, burying the dead, and hunting down Death Eaters had begun to take up more and more of the Ministry's time. As more Ministry employees fell prey to the Death Eaters, either being wiped out completely or placed under the Imperius Curse, no one knew who to trust anymore. The original Order of the Phoenix was born.
Fear, chaos, and uncertainty gripped the entire wizarding world. Even foreign wizards came in to help fight, but almost as many of them joined the other side. The terror grew to the point that most people would refuse to speak Voldemort's name for fear of inviting evil into their lives. Fear of the name never protected them. If Voldemort wanted someone dead, there was no avoiding him, not forever.
As soon as she graduated, Hazel went into the Ministry, training under Alastor Moody himself. By the time she first set foot in the Auror Office, Barty Crouch had made serious headway in tracking down Death Eaters. The usual three-year training period was accelerated to three months, and they were allowed to use even the Unforgivable Curses. Dumbledore and a few of the other Wizengamot members frowned on the practice, but when it came down to it, even they compromised in order to save innocent people. Moody and Dumbledore were the two people she knew she could trust. Even in the Order, she remained suspicious. Any large group was bound to be concealing someone disloyal to the cause. Time would show her that she was right.
Most of those who were fighting the war tried to continue on with their normal lives as much as possible. Under Dumbledore's protection, Hogwarts was still the same excellent school it had always been, and soon became one of the safest places in the world. Parents were relieved when they sent their children off to school because they knew they were safer in the castle than at home. The younger members of the Order found jobs, started families, and tried their best to stay safe. Even so, the number of funerals Hazel went to was far greater than the number of weddings she attended.
Spending every waking moment on Department of Magical Law Enforcement business, Hazel was too busy to think about anything else. She and Remus had reconnected, but after he nearly died trying to infiltrate the werewolves, they both decided it would be best to swear off starting a real life until the war was over. She had lost too much to Voldemort already. If Halloween and Voldemort's defeat hadn't happened, she probably would have turned into the next Mad-Eye Moody, giving up everything for the Auror Office.
The new year wasn't celebrated at the Auror Office. Hazel spent it camped out in a forest with Moody and Kingsley Shacklebolt, the three of them staking out a potential Death Eater hideout. If the tips they had received were right, they would be facing off with the Lestranges. They were partially right, the three of them capturing Rodolfus Lestrange, though his wife wasn't with them. All three had wanted to bring her in. She was one of the most adept torturers in Voldemort's ranks, her rabid devotion to him fueling the horrors she committed.
The war reached a new low with the deaths of her old friend Marlene McKinnon and her entire family. Edgar Bones and his family were next. Then two of her friend Molly's brothers, Gideon and Fabian, fell prey to the Death Eaters. It took five of them to bring the brothers down. At their funeral, Moody and Hazel began to suspect that one of their worst fears had been realized. There was a traitor feeding information to the Death Eaters. Gideon and Fabian had been in hiding. Information like that could have only come from inside the Order itself. There was no way Voldemort would have known where they all would be and when they could be caught off guard.
It seemed like there was another death or disappearance being reported every time they returned to the Auror Office. Dorcas Meadowes, who simply never showed up to work, sparking an investigation. Caradoc Dearborn, who disappeared on a seemingly normal day. They could only assume he was dead by the time they heard the news. Benjy Fenwick took on three of the most powerful Death Eaters singlehandedly and was killed so brutally that the remains they delivered to his family fit in a matchbox. Crouch unleashed new Auror programs, allowing Moody, Kingsley, and Frank Longbottom to take full control of the Auror Office and instructing them to only take prisoners if they thought it was safe. Otherwise they were to kill on sight.
Moody had a lot of hope for Hazel, who had finished the three months of training in two and managed to capture a surprising number of Death Eaters who were masquerading as scared occupants of a ransacked town. Legilimency training helped. She and Sev had started to teach themselves in their fifth year, just to see if they could master it. By the time they drifted apart, they were both fairly accomplished. She was there when Moody captured Igor Karkaroff, and helped patch up his nose after a vicious duel with Evan Rosier. For all of their efforts, Voldemort himself remained untouchable. Until he wasn't.
Hazel wasn't there for all of it, but she learned that Lily and James Potter had gone into hiding with their son. Nothing was put in letters anymore. When she finally made it to an Order meeting, she learned that their son was one of the two possible hopes for taking down Voldemort. A small group of their oldest friends was charged with protecting him. It was too late for the other family.
The Longbottoms were tortured into insanity by Bellatrix Lestrange, but Frank and Alice's Auror friends arrived in time to save their son. He would live in his grandmother's protection as they made sure both of the children were kept safe. Hazel had just left Neville and his grandmother when she was called into an Order meeting. It was the usual business, everyone updating each other on their progress. When they split up, everyone wished each other a happy and hopeful Halloween.
She was at the Ministry the next morning when she heard the news. The Potters were dead, but their son had survived Voldemort himself. They may have to spend the next few years hunting Death Eaters, but their leader was dead. Save for the few holdouts that weren't in Azkaban already, they had won the war.
And now it was starting all over again. The fear was growing. Everyone's trust was wearing thin. The Order had been brought back. Hazel was grateful that Dumbledore was back at Hogwarts. With him there, they could be fairly certain that the school was safe. The illusion of safety wouldn't last for long, though.
The first Hogsmeade trip of the term was going well, at least as far as she knew. Since she'd been called to an Order meeting and Sev had been called away to Malfoy Manor, neither of them went to chaperone, but when they returned to the castle, they found the other professors had brought all of the students back early. "It's Katie Bell," McGonagall told her as soon as Hazel arrived in the staff room. "She's been cursed."
"Miss Bell is lucky to be alive," Sev announced, freshly back from inspecting the offending necklace in Dumbledore's office. "Someone seems to have been making a rather dangerous and foolhardy attempt at reaching Professor Dumbledore with that little gift."
The chatter in the staff room took a while to die down. Thinking that she would return to the Ravenclaw common room to fill her students in on why they had been forced to leave Hogsmeade early, Hazel stepped out, lost in thought until she heard footsteps behind her. "Sev if they could get to her in Hogsmeade, what's to say they can't get to us in the castle?" she asked, turning to find him right behind her. "Dumbledore might scare the Death Eaters now, but after this… it may not be long. He might be able to prevent the larger attacks for now, but a lone wolf like this could be his undoing."
"It's going to be alright. Dumbledore has a plan," he assured her. "I trust you're not up to dinner?"
"No. I've suddenly lost any appetite I might've had. I should be working, but... Let's go for a walk around the grounds. I can't just sit at a desk right now."
If anyone had been looking outside of their dormitory windows, they would have seen two figures, tiny from far away, holding hands and walking around the castle. They stopped at the Black Lake for a little while, continuing on past Hagrid's hut, weaving their way through the greenhouses and around the Quidditch pitch. Most of the time they walked in silence, but they never let go of each other, thankful to have some sense of stability in a world that was very rapidly falling apart.