Seeing the Past, Present, and Future
Epilogue
A circle of fifteen or so children sat in a group, warming their hands upon the small fire in the middle. The wind swept in through broken windows and cracked door frames but the guard their bodies provided kept the fire from being extinguished.
"I hereby c-call to order the O-Order of the Phoenix," a girl spoke, her teeth chattering from the cold. Brown eyes surveyed the 15 or so teenagers and young adults in front of her. Although she was not the oldest, it would have been obvious to any outsider that she was the leader. They formed a rather haphazard looking group; all of them wore Muggle clothes, and most of them at least one jacket or cloak. Sitting in an abandoned, dilapidated building, outsiders would probably consider them simply a gang plotting their next bad deed, but others might know better. If one looked closely they would notice that the fire was not burning in a pot filled with timber, but rather a pot half-filled with water. In addition to that, every single one of the teens held one thing in common: a long, cylindrical piece of wood, with an extraordinary core. Some held veela hair, others dragon heartstring, or phoenix feather, and one even held unicorn hair, a rare event now that they had been labeled as endangered.
"Is everyone h-here?" the girl spoke again, her teeth still chattering. The group nodded, with a few murmurs of agreement. "Okay, g-good. Let the record s-state that today is M-March 31, 2037, the s-second blue moon of its year." Murmurs of agreement again. "First of all, a moment of silence for all of the Muggles that have been killed this week and all of the Muggle-born witches and wizards we could not save." Bundled in cloaks, everyone clasped their hands together and closed their eyes for a minute, honoring the dead. Not a decibel of noise could be heard in the building except the small, crackling fire in the middle. "Okay. Today l-let's break into two groups again. Nozomi, why d-don't you lead the second group this t-time?" A girl only a few years younger than the leader nodded, her black hair staying partially over her eyes as was the Muggle-style. "Here's The Standard Book of Spells Grade 3, if you want another book just come over and exchange it." The girl nodded as she leaned forward and took the book, clasping it protectively against her body. "I d-don't think I have to remind you t-that these are the only books we g-get." Nozomi nodded as the leader continued talking. "Okay, so you t-take the second g-group and I'll take the f-first, as usual. Any comments or complaints?" the girl asked, not rhetorically, but rather with a certain kindness in her voice. No one spoke and a few shook their heads. "Okay, so—" a large clattering noise was heard directly outside of the building they were currently residing in. The group quickly stopped whatever noise or movement they might have been producing before and extinguished the fire, sitting perfectly still. Death Eaters rarely went into the bad areas of Muggle cities but only one exception to the norm could easily cost them their lives. In this time Muggle-born witches and wizards were not allowed to learn magic; few survived to adulthood, anyway. Lord Voldemort was not technically the head of the Ministry of Magic, but considering the power he wielded over the magical community he might as well have been. The Ministry did almost nothing when it came to the subject of Death Eaters because they, like the rest of the magical community, were too terrified to punish or reprimand them in the slightest. Because of this, Death Eaters were given the greatest of respect and almost always the whole community would know of their allegiance to the Dark Lord.
"It's okay, I think it's just a homeless Muggle," the leader spoke in the silence after peering out of a shattered window. "Re-light the fire."
The group silently complied, one member leaning forward and whispering "Incendio."
"Okay, so," the girl started again, this time in a much quieter tone of voice. "Before we start training, I want to mention that I think I may have found another inconspicuous Muggle-born wizard. However, I want at least a third of the group to see him and state their opinion on whether or not we should invite him in before we consider that course of action."
The group nodded and one of the more experienced members, the second one to join, spoke. "Will you give us his statistics afterwards?"
The leader nodded. "If it is decided that he is suitable then we're going to have to steal another wand from Ollivanders. I know normally I do the deed but, Aaron, I think your Disillusionment charm is advanced enough you can do it this time, if you want to."
A sandy-haired boy on the other side breathlessly nodded. "Do we leave any money, normally?"
The leader sadly shook her head. "We can't convert our Muggle money to wizard money without being noticed and if we leave Muggle money then people will become aware that there are Muggle-born witches and wizards with wands, and we can't let that happen. I'm sorry, I'd like to be able to pay him for the wands too," she quietly spoke.
Aaron nodded. "It's okay, I understand. Would I have to cast a Disillusionment charm on the boy too?"
"Yeah. I'll lead you through it another time because I have to show you which windows to use Alohomora on and stuff like that."
"Okay," the sandy-haired boy replied before another member of the group spoke.
"Where does this boy live? Just roughly, I mean," asked another girl.
"At my old orphanage, actually," the leader told the group. "One advantage of him living there is that it means he'll be able to sneak out to our meetings more easily," she explained, mentally sighing, picturing the gray carpet and chemically-clean windows. She remembered that orphanage well. The fifth stair from the bottom squeaked and only the window in the room next to her's opened without making a noise. After her father had been killed by Death Eaters she had attempted to live on the streets, but ultimately failed and turned herself into a Muggle orphanage despite her aversion to large crowds of Muggles. She had lived there for four years, until she was 13 and adopted by a couple who already had one daughter. That made it even tougher to sneak out and practice her magic, especially since she shared a room with the Muggle daughter. She knew she was a disappointment to her adopted parents, scraping only passing grades in classes and sneaking out at night (they thought she was going to parties), but she just couldn't force herself to submit to the Muggle world. Throughout every class, with every dissected rat and every endless polynomial, she couldn't help but look out the window and think I don't belong here. So she increased the amount she studied. During science when they were supposed to memorize the Periodic Table of Elements she would mentally review any new spells she had learned, murmuring their incantation under her voice and using her finger as a representation of the wand movements. Some people looked at her funny, but already she had developed a reputation as having an attitude. She didn't want to, but she knew it was too late to change it. So she studied more. She didn't really know why she was bothering to learn all of these spells when chances were she'd never use them, it simply seemed like what she should do, and that to submit entirely to the Muggle world would be a horrible thing to do. And then it happened. There was another Death Eater attack. Normally when she saw that glittering skull in the sky she'd flee, but for some reason she didn't want to this time. So she cast a Disillusionment charm on herself and approached the smoldering remains of a once fine house, looking among the wreckage with her wand lit.
"Help me…please…anyone…" a pitiful voice moaned while the 15-year old girl whipped her head around, looking for whom the voice could belong to. In a far corner underneath the debris, lay a badly injured, sandy-haired boy who looked to be about 11. Eleven. The age rung a bell in her head.
Quickly removing the Disillusionment charm, she approached him, not caring whether he was a Muggle or not. Stooping down, she attempted to push away the large pieces of wood that was trapping him, but failed and instead decided to use a Wingardium Leviosa charm. He didn't seem to notice her attempts, or the fact she had just used a cylindrical piece of wood to rescue him, but instead continued his moaning and crying. She noticed that he was bleeding in a few spots and shaking uncontrollably. "Come on," she kindly spoke, helping the young boy sit up.
"W-we were h-having dinner and al-all of a sudden these p-people burst into the h-house, and I d-don't know where my p-parents are and t-they hurt me b-but I don't know how b-because all they had was these l-long, skinny pieces of wood, a-and they were calling m-me a 'Mudblood' and I d-don't know what t-that is and I just w-want everything to go back to the w-way it was," the boy broke into heavy sobs.
"Everything's going to be ok," she spoke, drawing him into a hug while wondering what she could do. "That was probably the Cruciatus curse," she thought aloud, before deciding to ask the boy a question. "Tell me, have you ever done anything accidentally when you were really mad, or frustrated?"
"W-what do you mean? I-I've lost my temper b-but everyone does sometimes," the boy said, obviously concerned she would be mad at him.
"I mean, anything really unusual," she pressed.
"Once w-when I had failed a-a test it burned up r-right in front of my eyes, e-even though I hadn't used m-matches or anything," the boy trailed off. "W-Was that bad? I didn't m-mean to!"
"It's okay, there's nothing wrong with that," she quickly spoke, thoughts swirling within her mind. So he was a wizard. Uncalled for, the image of Harry, Ron, and Hermione with the Order of the Phoenix floated to her mind and tears stung her eyes. They were all dead, every one of them, killed by Lord Voldemort. She wanted to avenge them; she wanted to stop the oppression of Muggle-born witches and wizards; she wanted all of the pain caused by Death Eaters to stop. And it was that Friday evening, with the full moon shining and the glittering skull overhead, that the idea of a rebel group started forming in her mind.
In honor of Dumbledore they decided to call themselves the Order of the Phoenix. Invisibly rescuing Muggles and Muggle-borns, they trained each other from their leader's memories of the past and the 7 books she had, books which she made sure never left her side for fear of them being stolen. They stayed in a tattered brown bag, which had a specialized shrinking charm, and she made sure to bring that bag with her everywhere she went.
In the four years since she had rescued Aaron from the wreckage of his former life, he had matured incredibly. The first impression she had received of a scared, sandy-haired boy without control of his life had long since vanished and now he was even skilled enough to perform a charm that most his age couldn't--the Disillusionment charm. Every one of them had matured, really. Nozomi had been unconcerned about the world around her before, but now she could both teach and receive knowledge, caring incredibly about the innocent lives that they could save.
The leader took a deep breath, allowing the cold evening air to slip into her lungs. Meetings were no time for reminiscing, even if it was only for a split second. "Okay, so are we ready to start?" she asked the 15 teenagers in a circle around her.
"Just one thing," Nozomi started.
The leader nodded. "Yes?"
"We—" the ebony-haired girl glanced at the rest of the group--"We want to wish you a happy 19th birthday," Nozomi continued. "Happy Birthday, Aya."
The brown haired girl smiled at the group. "Thank you," she sincerely spoke, "But we can celebrate later. For now there are still people out there that need our help."
They nodded and with a quick lumos the whole group lit the tips of their wands, bringing them together. "To Harry Potter, Ron Weasley, Hermione Weasley, and the Order of the Phoenix," they whispered hope into the evening air.
Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter or his world.
A/N: This is officially the end of this story. Thank you for reading this whole story and staying with me despite the sporadic updates. I would, however, really, really, like to hear your opinion on this chapter and the story in general so please review. Also, if you have any questions on this story, simply leave it in a review and I'll e-mail you the answer. Thank you again!