Previously in the Darklyverse: Death Eaters killed both Mary and Emmeline while Mary and Reg were fighting and Peter was on the run.

xx

June 4th, 1982: Alice Abbott

They've corresponded in letters, but Friday evening is the first time that Alice sees Reginald Cattermole in person since Mary's and Emmeline's deaths. He looks—"unwell" is a gross understatement. Alice doesn't think he's taken a shower or even bothered to change his robes in the past four days; there are bags under his eyes, and his skin is sallow and gaunt. His usual mild expression has been replaced by one of anxiety, and when he smiles at her in greeting, the curve of his mouth looks like a lie.

He shakes her hand as she approaches him, and his grip feels weak. "Thanks for coming," he says in a hoarse voice. "I know you've been busy organizing Emmeline Vance's funeral, and…"

"Mary was one of my best friends in this world," says Alice, unable to meet Cattermole's eyes. "Of course I came. How are you holding up?"

Cattermole purses his lips and shakes his head. "I walked out on her. She told me she was a—" he doesn't say the word vigilante, because they're in public, at Mary's damn funeral, and neither of them has cast Muffliato, but they both are thinking it "—she told me what she was, and I walked away. If I had known she only had days left, I would have… well, I would have taken her someplace safe, first of all, so that this wouldn't have happened to her."

"You were scared for her. You were well within your rights to take some space to process something that big."

"I was going to go back, you know? I was going to fight like hell to get her to quit, but I wasn't going to leave her. But she doesn't know that, and now she'll never know that."

"It's not your fault. You had no way of knowing what was going to happen."

It's absolutely bizarre having this conversation with this person at the funeral for the one person from her class and year that Alice thought was actually going to get out and survive the war. Cattermole may have been Mary's husband, but Alice honestly never got to know him—certainly not well enough for it not to feel strange that he's confiding in her about his marital problems. But these last few days, Alice's relationship with Cattermole isn't the only thing that's been turned upside down. Hell, nothing has felt normal since Marlene died last summer.

Alice has been helping Em's sister, Jacqueline, plan Em's memorial because who the hell else is going to pitch in? A year ago, she'd have thought that this job, were it ever necessary, would fall to Peter, but Peter is a goddamn traitor, and he's not exactly here anymore to make any arrangements for Emmeline. The only girls left alive are Alice and Lily, and Lily is still stuck under a Fidelius Charm in Canada—she's in no position to be hosting British social events.

Jacqueline could have done Emmeline's funeral alone, but she gladly accepted the help when Alice stepped up—Alice hadn't wanted to leave her to bury Em alone, not when Jacqueline had already done the same thing for her parents a few short years ago. Part of the planning has meant writing back and forth to Cattermole to coordinate funeral dates and give him the names of Order members who'd probably like to attend Mary's service. He couldn't go back to his and Mary's old flat, and Alice couldn't continue to stay there—Death Eaters burned the whole building down when they were through with Emmeline, whom they found there after killing Mary—so their paths haven't crossed in person until now, here at Mary's memorial. She wonders whether she'll ever be able to look Cattermole in the face without feeling guilty.

To Cattermole's credit, he's pulled together a beautiful ceremony for Mary. It's a closed casket visitation—Mary's body was in no condition to be put on display by the time the Death Eaters were through with her, and Cattermole hadn't had the heart to use magic to try to clean her up. Alice doesn't blame him: she'd felt the same way about Emmeline. He's hosting it in the flat he's been sharing with Gilderoy Lockhart, who today is acting more subdued than Alice has ever seen him—it's a jarring change from the flamboyance Alice is used to Lockhart projecting. The place is fully adorned with flowers, and an already large pile of casseroles people have gifted to Cattermole is slowly growing in the kitchen.

"Lily and James Potter asked me to tell you that they're sorry they couldn't come today," says Alice now. "It's got nothing to do with you or with Mary—they're not coming to Emmeline's service tomorrow, either. They, uh…"

"Vigilante stuff?" Cattermole guesses. His eyes are hardening.

"More or less. They, um—well, this is from them." And she lifts up the macaroni dish she's holding a couple centimeters higher.

Cattermole smiles thinly. "Tell them thanks from me. I'll just go and put it with the others." And he takes the casserole in hand and turns away.

Remus is the only other Gryffindor here from Alice's class at school: Lily and James obviously can't attend, Sirius has gone into hiding, and everybody else is dead. Well, not everyone, she remembers—Peter is still alive somewhere. There's no way in hell he's risking everything to come to Mary's memorial service, but she supposes there's a small chance he's read about the murders in the paper and will try to sneak into Emmeline's. If he does, and they catch him, Alice isn't sure what exactly the Order will do with him. They can't just let him go—he knows too much, and he has a documented connection to the Death Eaters, whether or not he's remained in contact with them—but they can't hand him over to the Auror Office, either, if they want to protect themselves from criminal offenses. Vigilantism isn't exactly legal, and everything they have on Peter hinges on his involvement in the Order. (It's the same reason they haven't tried to go after Malfoy or some of the other Death Eaters legally—the only ones they've been able to turn in are the ones they managed to apprehend and send to the Ministry on raids.)

She hasn't actually seen anybody in the Order besides Remus (and, at work, Frank and Kingsley Shacklebolt) since that disastrous night when Alice had to tell everybody that two of their best friends in the world were dead. She had been shocked to Apparate back to flaming rubble where Mary's flat used to be, the air smelling like Emmeline's burnt flesh. It took a full day for Alice and the other Aurors to find Mary's body—the Death Eaters intercepted her on her way home from work, they think—but she'd known it was in the ground somewhere. They must have tortured Mary something awful to get the secret of Emmeline's location out of her, and there's no way they were leaving her alive after they got it.

The part that's baffling everybody in the Order is how the hell Sirius is still alive when the Death Eaters managed to suss out and kill Emmeline's Secret-Keeper just weeks after Mary put her under the Fidelius Charm. Alice's best guess is that tracking down Emmeline and punishing her for escaping the Imperius Curse was personal for Malfoy—that he made finding and killing Em into his own vendetta. She's sure that getting to the Potters is personal for Voldemort, but he doesn't do much of his own dirty work, does he? Alice doubts that any Death Eater would have it in for Lily, James, and Harry the way that Malfoy probably had it in for Em.

Either way, Sirius has declined the Hit Wizard job offer he received from the Ministry and started crashing with the Potters in Vancouver, leaving Alice to reclaim her room in her flat with Remus. Every time Alice turns down the back hall, she feels like the third bedroom that Em never got the chance to occupy is staring at her. Every time Alice closes her eyes—

She and Remus don't stay long, Disapparating just after the eulogies from Cattermole and from Mary's Muggle mum. She hopes Cattermole and Mrs. Macdonald won't be offended. It's not that she doesn't want to honor Mary—she just doesn't think she can hold it together much longer. Planning Em's funeral has at least given Alice concrete tasks to focus on completing so that she doesn't have much brainpower left to spend on remembering that she'll never hear Em or Mary laugh again. Slowing down long enough to listen to the eulogies—she just can't afford to do it for long.

Alice hasn't cried this much or this hard since—well, since Marlene died. How do you ever get over losing somebody you gave your soul to? How is she supposed to get over losing three of them?

Emmeline's service the next day is actually a bit easier on Alice: since she's helping Jacqueline coordinate the thing, she's so occupied making sure everything is in its proper place that she doesn't have any room left to think about Em or Mary actually being dead. This time, when Jacqueline and Remus are ready to give their eulogies, Alice has the good sense to excuse herself and hide in the bathroom. (Sirius had wanted to speak at the ceremony, but Remus and Alice overruled him on even attending, given the safety considerations at hand.)

She's just leaving the restroom when she quite literally bumps into Frank, who is swiping at his own red eyes. "Hey," he says gruffly.

It's awkward, obviously, but Alice finds that she—doesn't care. Now is not the time for social propriety, not when two more people are dead and she's barely hanging on. "It's Em and Mary," she says thickly. "I can't…"

"I know."

And then they're hugging. It's not romantic—there are no undertones of intimacy or anything more—but she clings to him like she needs him, and maybe she does. Maybe Alice has spent enough time pushing people away. She's never going to get to see Mary or Em ever again. If she's here, and Frank is here, and she loves him, then why the hell shouldn't she face that? Vulnerability is scary, but wouldn't it be scarier to go the rest of her life without being close to the people she loves?

And she's not just talking about Frank. She can still be there for Lily and James and Remus and Sirius even if she failed Mary and Em and Marlene. Can't it be okay to need other people? After all, sometimes, they need you back. Neville certainly needs Alice, and it may be too late to go home to him and Frank, but maybe…

"I'm sorry," she tells him. "I was wrong about everything. I shouldn't have left."

"Nah, you weren't wrong," says Frank. "You weren't ready. How can I hold that against you?"

"I don't know if anyone is ever ready to be a partner or a parent. I should have tried harder."

"I'm not mad, okay? I was, but I'm not anymore. We were just kids, Al."

"Can't we…?"

Frank pulls back so that he can look her in the face, glancing from her left eye to her right and back again. "Alice, I will always have love for you, but I don't have it in me to try again."

"I know. I just mean… can we try to be friends? I'd like Neville to know his parents care about each other, and I don't want to keep having to see you around the office and…"

"Avoid each other anymore," he finishes for her with a sad smile. "I don't like it, either. I just don't know if I…"

And in that moment, Alice can fully appreciate that everything wrong in her family is her fault, happened because of her actions. "I'm sorry," she whispers, and she shoves out of his arms and goes to find Jacqueline.

But when the last guest has left and food has all been stowed safely in the icebox, she and Remus don't go home. They Apparate to Vancouver and walk the ten minutes it takes them to get to the Potters' house.

Remus, Lily, James, and Sirius: only half of Alice's friend group is still here and in the picture. Lily immediately reaches out to Alice for a hug; out the corner of her eye, she notices James clap Remus on the back while Sirius takes his hand and squeezes. "How have you lot been?" Alice asks when she pulls back. Harry's running up to say hello to her and Remus; she puts one hand on Harry's back and the other behind his head while he hugs her legs.

"As okay as we can be, I suppose," says Lily. "Sirius has been having a time of it trying to switch his sleep schedule."

"Yeah, well, at least all I've had to do is stay up late in the day and shift things forward," Sirius says. "I can't imagine it was fun for Remus to wake up early enough to make Em's funeral today." Remus, of course, is living with Alice in Scotland, but since he's still working at Jonker's in Alberta, he's on a Canadian sleep cycle, too.

"It's fine. It was worth it," says Remus, shrugging.

"Are we ready to do this?"

"Yeah, let me just get Harry settled in his room again—he's a little too young for this. Come on, buddy," James coaxes, sticking out a hand for Harry to grab and leading him up the stairs to the nursery.

A few minutes pass before James returns alone. His hands are gripping each other tightly, twisting around and around.

"I'll go first," says Remus.

All in all, their private eulogies only take about a quarter of an hour to go over. Unlike Remus's speech earlier at Em's service, the tribute he pays her and Mary today is unscripted. He holds it together as he talks about Emmeline, probably because he spent all week rehearsing things to say about her at the formal ceremony, but when he starts to talk about Mary, his voice catches in his throat and his eyes start to water. "For a long time, Mary was the only person I could talk to about—about being gay," he croaks. "And she never resented me when things started to happen between me and Sirius, even though she easily could have. She was always happy to listen to me vent about my bullshit problems, no matter how frustrated she was in her own personal life."

As James puts an arm around Remus's shoulders, Lily speaks up, "I basically stole her best friend from her, and Mary still was more than willing to quit her job and be my campaign manager when I ran for Minister. When Marlene died, she let me lean on her to get through it. We leaned on each other, you know? Right up until she died, Mary was always down to come visit me in Vancouver and fill me in on whatever dumb drama was going on with her Hufflepuff friends back in Britain, if only so that I'd have something to focus on that felt normal. She could have hated me—she herself admitted how jealous she was—but when I needed her, she put all that aside so that she could be there for me."

"Mary could have hated me," adds Sirius, "for my relationship with Marlene, and she didn't. Mary was never anything but kind to me. And Emmeline… there was a time that I was closer to her than almost anyone. I don't… I don't think I ever told her I was sorry, you know, that Bellatrix murdered her parents. I should have told her I was sorry for that."

"I'm sure she knew," Remus mutters. "She can't have thought you didn't care about their murders."

"I didn't spend enough time with them," says Alice. "Either of them. I should have learned my lesson when Marlene died, but… I just thought we had more time."

"We all did," says James. "Look, it's just the five of us now. Alice—Remus—you're both welcome here anytime, all right? I don't want any more of you to die without knowing that I…"

Sirius steps forward and tugs James into a rough hug. "We know, Prongs," Remus says. "Us, too."

They don't have any ashes to scatter or personal effects to bury, but Alice and Remus brought flowers from both funerals, and they all step outside to pluck off the petals and watch them float away on the wind. Alice's hair whips around her face; she's worn it in curls today, the way Mary used to do it for her in sixth year. (It used to look better when Mary would do it.)

She and Remus don't intend to stay long after that—Remus is desperate for a nap after waking up in the middle of his usual sleep cycle for Em's funeral, and Alice is supposed to meet with Snape after this to pick up the last Horcrux, Tom Riddle's diary, about which he wrote to her this week to inform her that he'd finally smuggled it away from Lucius Malfoy. But there's already someone in their flat when they Apparate back—four someones, in fact. Dawlish from the Auror Office is there, along with three Hit Wizards who disarm Alice and Remus and bind them in ropes before they've been home even ten seconds. "What is this?" says Alice. Her voice sounds a lot steadier than she feels. "What grounds do you have to detain us?"

"You're under arrest for—a whole host of things, actually," sneers Dawlish, "but the biggest one is vigilantism."

"Based on what evidence?"

"The memories and Veritaserum testimony," says Dawlish, "of Peter Pettigrew. He turned himself in to the Ministry for his involvement in the Death Eaters three hours ago. Guess he didn't consider that the Death Eaters weren't the only organization he was part of that's illegal."

Alice and Remus hardly have time to exchange horrified looks before the Hit Wizards are Side-Along-Apparating them to the Ministry. They're in for a long night.