Chapter 18

The First Deaths of War
By Pence Auryion
Written October 31, 2005
Typed November 2, 2005

One morning, the six went down to breakfast as usual, it was just a normal Friday. As they started in on breakfast, the post came. An owl came over and dropped The Daily Prophet into James's lap.
"Whoa…" James said to himself, reading the front cover.
"What is it?" asked Pence, trying to look, too.
"Listen to this," James said and started reading the article,
"Body of Robert Moore found after missing for two weeks. Ministry officials say that Moore's body seemed untouched, aside from an inscription on his right arm that read,
'Lord Voldemort sacrifices no one.
Mudbloods will perish.
The world will soon submit to the Dark Lord and his Death Eaters.' " James showed them the picture of Moore's arm. The inscription was carved, rather than written, along with a skull that had a snake coming from its mouth.
"Wow…" Peter said quietly.
"Yea," James replied, "and it says here that three others have gone missing…all of them are muggleborn."
"Guys," Maj said in a scared tone, "I'm muggleborn." Sirius put an arm around her,
"If anyone tries to get near you, they'll have to go through me first, and I'm not going down without a fight." Maj gave a little smile and seemed to feel a bit better.
"Come on," Remus said, "we'd better go and get class over with, tonight's Hogsmede."
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
After classes were out, all students, third year and up, walked to Hogsmede. As everyone else went to shop, Pence and Remus decided to go get some coffee.
"You know, I don't think it's a good idea for you to have coffee…you don't need anymore caffeine." Remus said to Pence as they walked through the streets.
"Nonsense! If I can hold vodka, I can handle a cup of coffee!" Pence replied.
"Fine…" Remus gave a smirk, "But it'll stunt your growth." Pence pushed him on the arm,
"Jerk ass-ahh!" she toppled into a little girl that looked about five or six years old. The little girl gave a frightened look; Pence saw that she was crying, so she bent down to her level.
"Hey, what's the matter?" she asked softly.
"I-hic-can't find my-hic-mummy." the little girl sniffed. Pence looked up at Remus; he just kind of raised his eyebrows. Pence then turned back towards the girl,
"Hey, listen, it'll be okay. We'll help you find your mom. Okay?" the girl nodded.
"I'm Pence, and this is Remus." said Pence, pointing up towards Remus.
"I'm Olivia," the little girl said, tears still running down her cheeks. Pence then, surprisingly, picked up Olivia and started asking her where she last saw her mother.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Eventually, they found Olivia's mother in a robe shop, looking for her daughter. Pence and Remus were finally sat down at the coffee shop, when Remus made a statement.
"You're great with kids, you know," he said taking a drink, "Where'd you learn that stuff?"
"What do you mean?" asked Pence, a bit confused.
"You know, the caring, and love, kindness…towards that little girl; you were totally different than how you would be around someone else."
"Oh, most of that is feminine instinct…" she looked down, "But that's not why I did it, really." she paused in an almost hesitant way before saying,
"I had a sister. She was eight years younger than me. She was in the car with my parents when they crashed. She was six, I was about to turn fourteen." Neither of them said anything for a moment.
"I'm sorry." Remus said quietly.
"You know, people say they understand, even when they've never had anyone close to them die…but you never really do until it happens. You can tell, by the person's tone of voice, when they say they have bad news that something horrible happened. I knew instantly what had happened, when the person from the U.S. Ministry came to tell me…but you don't really realize it until they say the words. It's a hundred times worse than anything I've ever been through." Pence put some money down on the table and stood up. Remus followed her, and then put a hand on her shoulder. She turned around; Remus stood there for a brief second before hugging her.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The next few days went along smoothly, until Monday that is. Monday morning, the paper came, saying that the three missing people were found, dead, with the same inscription on their arm as Robert Moore. There were also five deaths in a town near London. Every one of the victims was muggleborn. Maj, at this point, was very worried.
"Oh, come on Maj," James was saying that evening, "This is just some deranged guy who's made his own fan club, and now he's trying to scare everyone into following him."
"Besides," added Remus coughing (the full moon was only several hours away.) "No one would dare try and attack Hogwarts. There are more protective charms on this place than there is in the whole country." he paused for a moment, "But I understand, my mum's muggleborn."
After several hours of finishing homework and talking, Pence and Remus went to transform, shortly followed by their friends.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The next morning, Remus awoke in the hospital wing as usual after the full moon. He sat up and jumped. Dumbledore and Professor McGonagall were sitting at the foot of his bed. Remus glanced over to see Pence still asleep in the bed beside him.

"Remus," Dumbledore said, making Remus turn his full attention towards him, "I'm afraid we have some bad news."
"Oh God…"
'You can tell, by the person's tone of voice, when they say they have bad news that something horrible happened.'
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Pence woke up and looked at the clock, it was nine-thirty. She sat up and looked at Remus in the bed next to hers. Remus had his head in his hands; silent tears were rolling down his cheeks.
"Remus?" asked Pence, getting up and limping over to him, "Remus, what happened?"
"My mum…she went to see my aunt last night, and on her way home, she got pulled over by some people. She got out of her car, probably thought it was cops or something… They were Death Eaters…they killed her. She's dead."
"Oh God, Remmy," Pence's eyes welled up with tears as she put her arms around him. By this time, Remus was full-on crying, as Pence rocked slowly back and forth.
"Shh…it'll be okay," she kept saying, crying with him, "Everything will be fine, babe…I promise. We'll get through this."
00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
Hello people.
Pence here.
Maj 'assigned' me to write this chapter, because we thought we needed things to start getting a little deeper, and a little darker.
This was a hard chapter for me to write, because I love Rem, and it made me sad to have to write about his mum dying.
I do have one inside joke to point out though…
-"But it'll stunt your growth."

-You may notice that several times, someone (usually Remus) makes a comment about Pence being short. Now, we never really said how tall Maj and Pence were…but in real life Maj is about 5'4-5'5, and I'm only 5'1-5'2.
Pence Auryion
Leave Reviews!

----NOTE: Today it was confirmed that both Pence and Maj are both 5'2. Maj and Pence both agree, though, that Maj is at least two inches taller than that. Damned school liars. ----