Sorry about the wait, I've been setting out a timeline for the rest of the story and I didn't want to rush out a half-arsed chapter instead of a late, readily planned one, although it was a mistake reading up on what's going to happen, obviously I know, but it's surprising how close to characters you can get when writing for them
"Lily?" Marlene was walking down the girl's dormitory stairs when she noticed their old door was open and Lily was sat on the floor next to one of the beds. She didn't reply.
Worried, Marlene went closer, noticing that she was digging away at the bedpost with a knife.
"Is everything ok?" She asked unsurely, bending down next to her.
"Mhhmm" Lily muttered, deep in thought, barely hearing what Marlene had said. At a closer look Lily was slowly carving around a section of the bedpost with initials carved into it.
L.E
S.B
K.S
4ever
Despite their terrible first year grammar and the deep scratch marks over Lily's name where Sasha had tried to erase her from her memories Lily still wanted the memory and was desperately trying to cut it out.
"I… just… need…. AH" Lily struggled to drag the knife around the edges before giving up and throwing it down, thumping the ground.
"It's ok" Marlene hugged her, picking up the knife and attempting to carve it out herself whilst Lily got herself together. Finally she dropped the jagged chunk of wood into her hands smiling.
"Thanks" Lily sniffed, shoving it into her pocket and putting her hand on the hole in the bed "Isn't it awful how your whole life as you know it can be shattered in one hit?"
"I suppose it is" Marlene admitted, trying not to think about it herself "Don't worry, we'll destroy the little shits"
"RIGHT" Karkaroff stood behind his desk looking furious "I know most of you knew the girl that was killed before the Christmas holidays" Lily bit her lip and clenched her fists to stop herself screaming out in pain again, Karkaroff noticed and nodded slightly "And I know a lot of people have dropped out of school since"
He was right, the number of students had practically halved since the term before, with most of the children going home for the holidays not returning. James had heard about the masses of half-blood wizard families leaving the country, but he hadn't expected it to be this bad.
"What you need to understand is that this isn't a one off case. You're going to go through a lot of shit over the next few years and I'm not here to dress that up in a frilly dress for you" James though he heard Sirius muttering something about wishing he did, but he'd learnt to start talking extra quietly whilst Karkaroff was around. "And if you're looking for a doss lesson" He growled, looking over at Sirius, surprised he didn't get a sarcastic remark "You've come to the wrong place"
Jumping down from behind his desk Karkaroff pulled open an old rickety cupboard, revealing it was full to the brim with broomsticks.
"For your end of year exam you'll have to use a variety of transport methods to effectively complete the... task" Karkaroff was careful about choosing his words as he couldn't reveal exactly what the final exam was.
"Is the final exam being thrown into a full blown war by any chance?" Sirius remarked slightly too loudly as Karkaroff swung around.
"It's designed so useless, namby pamby show offs who can just throw about a couple of spells don't end up defending the country" He stared right at Sirius before handing out brooms.
"In a battle, your best hope of a getaway is your broom, as they're Auror's first choice of transport, so being able to swiftly get on and away whilst throwing spells is essential" Karkaroff started to explain, James and Sirius nodding cockily along because of how blatantly amazing at it they were going to be. "You don't understand the panic of trying to fly whilst being attacked until you've tried it"
James gave Sirius a knowing look as he remembered escaping from Malfoy Manor, surely they were going to be brilliant at this, and to prove it he and Sirius discretely high fived behind their backs. Karkaroff opened the door to the practise room revealing it was completely open and empty apart from a stage at the end and cannons lining the left and right sides.
"Say what you want about him Pads, but you have to admit the guys got dedication" Remus pointed out, inspecting the flawless charming done on the cannons making them automatically aim at them as they entered the room.
"Dedication doesn't make someone any less of an arse" Sirius murmured, lining up with everyone and waiting for Karkaroff to give instructions from the podium he'd gone to on one side.
"Simple task today to judge skill. Fly across the room" before anyone had the chance to get over-confident Karkaroff activated the cannons which started madly firing spells at them before they disappeared directly in front of their faces because of charms put up along the start line.
"Crap" James muttered, getting on his broom and gesturing for Remus, Lily, and Sirius to gather round "Guys we have two options, get through as quickly as possible or hang back to take out the canons to help the others and make it quicker for us, it will be harder though"
"Prongs have you ever know me to take the easy way?" Sirius grinned, moving back into line and jumping onto his broom.
"GO!" Karkaroff shouted before the barrier in front of them dissolved and they had to immediately dodge out of the way of spells.
Without thinking James flew up to the top of the room, dodging multiple curses and quickly taking out one of the cannons, he was soon followed by Sirius who took two more. Before they could do more they were distracted by Benjy shouting as he was thrown into a wall.
"You're using real spells!" Sirius yelled at Karkaroff who just shrugged at him.
Remus was circling the room using more powerful short range spell to blow up some cannons and Lily, with her limited flying experience, was just managing to avoid the spells by leaning left and right, every now and then throwing a spell in the vague direction of a cannon. On seeing this James flew down to her destroying another cannon as he went.
"You need to forget that you're flying" he reassured, throwing her out of the way of what didn't seem like a very legal spell as it burst into flames on the wall "Move with the broom the way you would if you were walking, same turning action, lean forwards to go faster" Nodding Lily slowly flew away, frantically whirling left and right.
"Trust us to get the mental teacher" She muttered to herself as she went.
After five minutes of blowing up cannons most of the class had got to the other side, but, with three more left and something against Karkaroff, James and Sirius were determined to destroy them all.
Splitting up to opposite sides of the room they were quick to do two, but James was knocked off his broom by the last. Disgusted by the smile on Karkaroff's face at someone not making it Sirius kicked the cannon over himself so it couldn't move, ran over to James, and carried him across the line himself, nodding over to Karkaroff for good measure.
"Ok Pads, put me down now, I'm not your princess" James struggled to get out of his arms but Sirius held on.
"Oh Prongs, of course you are you cutie" Sirius grinned, bending down and kissing James on the forehead much to his disgust.
"LILY!" He shouted over to her. Unfortunately for James, Lily turned out exactly as Sirius was spinning James in a circle laughing wildly, so she just sighed, shook her head, and carried on talking to Marlene.
"Reeemuuuus?" Sirius slid onto the bench next to him at dinner.
"Oh God, I don't like where this is going" Remus sighed, putting down his pizza.
"You'll love it" James assured him as he sat down opposite them "You see, the thing is we need your help with something. Remember back in the old days when you used to fill in for Septimus Weasley jr as chaser, and how amazing you were in Defence Against the Dark Arts just then?"
"No. Nononononono!" Remus started to edge away, shoving food into his pockets as he went, but Sirius quickly blocked his way
"We need you Moony" James begged, getting down on his knees
"Why do you suddenly need me" Remus sighed, close to breaking.
"Kirk left at the Christmas holidays. His family moved to Australia." Remus realized things were about to get awkward if the topic of why people left Hogwarts at Christmas came up and where he'd gone, so he answered quickly.
"Alright! I'll brush off the old Quidditch kit"
"YES MOONERS!" Sirius lifted him up into the air and spun him around.
"SIRIUS I'M GOING TO THROW UP ON YOU IF YOU DON'T PUT ME DOWN" Remus shouted whilst punching Sirius in the back, who promptly put him down and knelt in front of him.
"Of course master" He nodded of before running of celebrating.
"It's my honour to announce the first meeting of the Order of the Phoenix" Dumbledore spoke up from their secret room in the Three Broomsticks "And for the first time, we have everyone here"
James felt pretty funny meeting up with Dumbledore, Hagrid, and McGonagall outside school hours, but it was amazing to see the amount of people who had the courage to turn up and fight for this
"The most important thing to consider at the moment is our students" Dumbledore paused to nod to the corner where the Marauders, Lily, Dorcas, Marlene, Emmeline, Benjy, Gideon, Dedalus, and Caradoc were sat "Today's meeting is to discuss what they're going to do until they leave the school"
"I don't see what the issue is Albus" An old man who looked eerily like Dumbledore got up and stood next to him "They're not going to need an education if they're dead, I say pull them out now"
"Aberforth you know that's not how we work" McGonagall argued "They need to stay in school for their NEWTs, what's the point in fighting for a future we're not prepared for?"
"We can't postpone our action when there are people out there dying!"
"Considering this is about us can I contribute?" James wasn't used to talking to professors as his equals and didn't know where the line was drawn. Surprisingly Dumbledore nodded and James moved forwards, wringing his hands "Let's be honest, we're not ready yet. We don't know enough spells and curses to be able to effectively take these people on. If you want to start attacks I fully support it, but let us train before we're fully involved"
"Kids got a point" Fabian pointed out "I don't want a bunch of amateurs to have my back"
"Speak for them, Fab, you trained me yourself" Gideon piped up, grinning at his brother from across the room.
"That's a point, why can't we train them ourselves? Get rid of the boring school crap"Elphius Doge called up from his chair in the corner.
"We're no teachers" Frank Longbottom looked up from the table he shared with his wife Alice to interject.
"I can do it" Aberforth looked keen.
"Aberforth they're people, not your troops" McGonagall said through clenched teeth. Aberforth's mind rarely thought further than defeating Voldemort, he'd put everything into fighting the evil in the world and had turned down high up jobs in the ministry to buy the Hogs Head and spy on the evil characters that turned up there.
"Yeah, no offense guys, but I do actually want to do more than this" Marlene would never shut up about her future glittering career as a Healer at St Mungo's.
"Fine, stay here, but don't blame me when we're killed due to a lack of numbers at the Ministry tomorrow" Aberforth sat down in a sulk.
"The Ministry?" James frowned, wondering if he'd accidentally joined a rebel group.
"You don't understand how corrupt it's become; most people at the top are Death Eaters. We're going go in there and round them up. Without them gone the Order will never be allowed to exist" Dumbledore explained "Of course myself, Rubeus, and Minerva will be unable to participate, and the members slightly too past it"
"We'll go!" Sirius grabbed James and Remus' hands and threw them into the air "Please let us help"
Normally Remus was keen to get as far away from Sirius' plans as possible but he needed in on this "Yeah, count us in"
"And us!" Lily, Marlene, Emmeline, and Dorcas piped up.
In the end everyone had volunteered to go along with the rest of the Order to the Ministry.
"If we're going to be a team, we need most of us to do the first attack, and if you're taking on the ministry you're going to need as many people as possible" James' argument finally won over Dumbledore who gave them permission to leave their lessons the next day to go.
"You'll meet the rest of the Order in the Hogs Head at exactly eight tomorrow morning, I'd send Filch to let you out of the gates but I have a feeling you already know how to get down there" Dumbledore raised his eyebrows at them before clapping his hands and declaring the meeting over.
"PULL YOURSELF TOGETHER" Lucius slapped Severus around the face as he sat shaking in a chair glaring up at him "WHAT THE HELL'S WRONG WITH YOU?"
Severus had been caught with an owl sending a letter to Lily, once again begging for forgiveness, just before the recruits were going to be sent out to join the rest of the Death Eaters.
"It's nothing really" He muttered, clenching his fists in a mix of embarrassment and anger at himself for being so weak.
"NOTHING?" Lucius showed no sign of calming down, opening the note and quoting it for the millionth time "Oh Lily, I can never apologise enough, I can't help where my beliefs have led me, I'd never purposely hurt you. What, you don't agree with what we're doing?"
"Of course I do or I wouldn't have done it" Severus shivered as he remembered the face of Kara's cousin as he killed her as she begged for her life "You have no reason to doubt my total devotion"
Trying to slow his breathing Lucius frowned, slapped him around the face, and spat on him, "Bullshit"
Severus glared him out, not moving a muscle before he realized what he had to do "Let me see the Dark Lord"
Even Bellatrix looked around in shock at what he'd suggested; recruits didn't just pop in to see Voldemort, only his inner circle.
"Oh you'll see the Lord alright. He'll be the last thing you do see" Lucius snarled grabbing him by the scruff of his neck and throwing him out the door before everyone followed him out. Out to war.
"Why the hell are we looking at a heap of dead bodies?" Bellatrix looked disgusted, prodding one with her boot and they walked through the room to a briefing session, catching the eye of Rodolphus and smiling at him.
"What you're looking at" Lucius barked over his shoulder as he led them by "Is an entirely new army. No questions"
Looking slightly scared, Severus followed him separately into a large, dark dining room which was empty apart from the table which was worryingly smeared with blood.
"The traitor" Lucius snarled, shoving him into the room then slamming it behind him. Just as he thought he was alone Voldemort slowly walked to the centre of the room, wand clutched in his right hand, face totally blank.
"You tried to speak with an enemy" His voice was cold and empty.
"She's nothing, trust me" Severus automatically went into defence mode "I needed to apologise, it's over…"
"Yes. It is."
"I can do anything" He pleaded, getting onto his knees.
"I expect no less"
"I'll spy. If she thinks I have the heart to regret anything then they might not be as suspicious of me" Severus watched as his expression changed for a split second, like he may have actually saved his life.
"We've heard things from Hogsmeade. Things about a threat. Turns out we're not the only people recruiting students, they've been meeting in Hogsmeade but none of my people can get close enough without being noticed, but you…"
Seeing his way out Severus shook any thoughts of Lily Evans out of his head, there were more important things at stake.
"I can. Trust me" He insisted.
"You're on then, but cross me one more time and I'll kill you on the spot"
I do like writing for the other side, although I never know if I'm writing Voldemort properly, thoughts? Anyway I must run to Zumba
- Mischief Managed