Life goes on.
If Hermione ever heard those words again, or even a variation of those words, she was going to kill whoever said them, wrote them, or embroidered them on a pillow.
Five days had passed. Five chaotic, terrifying, and still endless days since the abortive battle in Diagon Alley, where she had struggled from one disaster to the next, and still the only thought that managed to stay with her was an endless Draco, Draco, Draco.
Arrogant. Stupid. Selfish. Merlin, let him be all right.
Tears threatened to spill down her cheeks and she blinked them away, only slightly comforted by the movements of the little dragon on her back. Despite the danger, despite the unceasing attacks by Death Eaters, the loss and disappearance of who knew how many Aurors and members of the Order, she still had spent an inordinate amount of time studying the little guy on her back, watching to see if he faded, terrified that he would. He dozed, he purred, he rolled over on his back like a dog asking for a belly rub, but he hadn't faded.
If the Death Eaters had Draco, then that was no mercy. If the Death Eaters had Draco, she might not know it until they killed him.
Because of Draco's warnings, both the Ministry and the Order were not entirely unprepared, but the network of spies and wizards under the Imperious curse had been deep and deadly. The Daily Prophet's headlines screamed it, and for the first time in two decades, the very night air was filled with the screams of the grieving and the moans of the bereaved. The Dark Mark. Morsmordre. Flickering in the night sky over dozens of houses. A living nightmare, worse, oh, so much worse than it had been even two decades ago.
The Patil twins were missing. As was Lee Jordan, and both Fred and George's faces were rigid with anger held severely in check. Katie Bell, and Alicia Spinnet. Wayne Hopkins had been killed in the night, with his wife and son...two nights ago? And poor, batty Mrs. Figg was dead. Harry reported that the Dursleys had packed up and left for Portugal, on the off chance that the Death Eaters suspected any fondness at all between them and their unwanted nephew.
It was the Eye. It had to be, she thought dully. The Eye lent its power not only to Voldemort, but his followers. It was why they were being pushed back; why they had ultimately lost Diagon Alley to the Death Eaters, and were battling ceaselessly to hold the Ministry and St. Mungo's. They lost someone every day, fighting the Death Eaters. Bill...
Stop it.
In the Headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix, Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place, the house had taken on the air of a refugee camp. Only by the Fidelius Charm was it still secret; only by the wisdom and strength of Albus Dumbledore had that secret had been kept. As safe as it had ever been, back to when Mrs. Black had screamed doom onto the blood traitors and Mudbloods that gathered there.
Hermione stared for a moment with grim fascination at the two pictures on the wall in the kitchen, mentally marking off the new casualties in contrast with the old. And prayed with all her heart that history was not about to repeat itself. She was the last to go down the steps to the cellar; the last to take her seat beside Ginny, whose eyes were red and swollen from crying.
Percy Weasley slammed the door of the meeting room shut and nodded at Dumbledore, taking his seat beside his parents at a single long table that stretched the length of the room. It had taken time–years–but the reconciliation had come, though it was a grimmer, more uncertain Percy than had been before. It had taken the death of his wife to make him believe.
Instantly, the meeting room erupted in a cacophany of fear, rage, and grief.
It was a select group of the Order that were here, but in truth, that was all that was left. Anyone who had not been so quick, so ruthless, so clever, so lucky, was already dead. And more spies than Hermione liked to think of were dead as well, some of them at the hands of the people seated at the table with her.
Harry. Ron. All of the Weasleys except for Bill. Fleur sat on Mrs. Weasley's other side, her face bloodless and eyes staring, not yet recovered from her shock. Ginny, who was tearing at her lower lip with her teeth in an effort not to sob aloud: Dean Thomas had not returned from guard duty at the Ministry the night before.
Tonks, looking wan and less bumptious than usual, even with her lime-green hair.
Moody. Shacklebolt. Several other Aurors who sat tight-lipped, grim-faced, and shadowy-eyed.
Members of Dumbledore's Army from long ago, their families shoved into cramped rooms above or long gone to mainland Europe, or even to America.
Elphias Doge. Sturgis Podmore and Emmeline Vance. Professor Snape, still active in the Order, though discovery of his duplicity had cost him an arm two years ago. Hermione found it oddly appropriate: the arm he had lost was the arm that had borne the Dark Mark.
The rest of the "old crowd," as Dumbledore still called them, a great deal older and fewer in number. Their losses had been heavy.
Hagrid, towering in the corner, eyes on Dumbledore, looking for all the world like a bull mastiff straining on its leash. The giants were recuperating from their labours in the Forbidden Forest, much to the dismay of every other creature there.
Remus Lupin, greyer and shabbier than ever, but still capable of giving Hermione a weak smile as he waited quietly, betraying his nervousness by tugging at patched sleeves.
Young and old, Auror and Order, there were perhaps forty wizards and witches seated–or standing–down the long table, in varying states of agitation and apathy. Forty of a hundred; many dead, some missing, some fled. Some having finally declared their allegiance to the Dark Lord, and staring now through the eyes of a Death Eater's mask.
The din was deafening, and went on long enough for Hermione to wonder why Dumbledore didn't put a stop to it. But then, she had never in her life seen Dumbledore look quite so worn. His trademark irreverence was gone; he stared at the table like an old man longing for better days. Which, she thought silently, he was.
But when Dumbledore stood, everyone fell silent, sitting slowly back down in their chairs.
"I am sorry," he said heavily, and trailed off, almost as if he had forgotten what he was going to say. "I know you are all afraid. And angry," He added, his eyes finding the flushed faces along the table. "And grieving," He said more quietly, compassion etched in the deep lines of his face as he looked at the expressionless Fleur, and Ginny, sobbing silently on her mother's shoulder. "As we began, so we must continue. The Order must stand together. We must trust one another; with our very lives. We have been divided for too long."
Hear, hear, Hermione thought, gazing over at Percy Weasley's shuttered face.
"Divided," he said, raising his voice slightly, "by a thousand casual unkindnesses. By apathy; by fear; by complacency. Complacency has a very heavy price. We have been complacent. I say we, for I am as guilty as the rest of you. There was something..."
Dumbledore faltered, the word ending on a quavering note as he looked at Harry.
"I made an old man's mistake," Dumbledore said, a carrying whisper.
Molly Weasley shot to her feet.
"If you're talking about what I think you're talking about, Albus Dumbledore..."
"No." Harry stood up. "No, Mrs. Weasley, he's right. It's my fight. It was always my fight."
"Harry–"
Hermione couldn't stop herself; she, too, was standing, the same Hermione that had tried to dissuade Harry from a hundred risks, and failed, nine times out of ten. Nor was her voice the only one. Lupin's, Ron's, Ginny's, and even Hagrid's. Harry's shout cut through them all.
"This is why I lived!" He shouted, effectively silencing everyone. Hermione sat down slowly, closing her eyes. Not Harry. Merlin, not Harry, too. "This is..." Harry paused, lowered his voice, and Hermione could see that he was terrified. Few others would know him well enough to see it. "There was a Prophecy," Harry said, and swiftly met Dumbledore's eyes, as if asking permission to continue. Whatever he saw there, Harry straightened, squaring broad shoulders. "Made before I was born. That either Voldemort would kill me, or I would kill him. That's why he killed my Mum and Dad. That's why he came after me while I was in Hogwarts. And that's why..." Harry paused again, as if he couldn't believe his own ears. "...I have to go. When we find out where he is, I have to go."
"Not alone," growled Moody, and stood to clap Harry on the shoulder. "You won't go alone this time, Potter."
"No, he won't," said Ron. "I'll go with you, mate."
"So will I." Lupin stood.
"You're not going without us." Fred and George, tight-lipped.
"Je vais aller." Fleur, her wand clenched so tightly in her hand that Hermione wondered she didn't snap it in two.
"Wotcher, Harry." The irrepressible Tonks.
"All ri', Harry?" Hagrid.
"I'm going, too." Ginny, scarcely noticing the tears flowing down her cheeks, her small face hard and brittle.
And everyone else, Mrs. Weasley reluctantly, Hermione dazedly, Arthur Weasley with a hand on of Harry's shoulder. And Dumbledore, no longer the wavering, tired old man, stood last, bowing his snowy head to the Boy Who Lived.
The remains of the Order of the Phoenix.
Author's Notes
This is also a short chapter, so two posted tonight as well. Thanks, while I'm thinking of it, to Kazfeist, for checking my French for me in the last chapter.