Previously in the Darklyverse: The Order took on several new members, including Augusta Longbottom, Septimus and Cedrella Weasley, and Septima Vector. Lily had a meltdown. Reg found out that Mary was gay. The Order debated how actively involved those in hiding should be in the war front.

xx

November 28th, 1982: Reginald Cattermole

If Reg never has to even think about performing or witnessing another Fidelius Charm again, it'll be too soon.

This, of course, is too much to ask for, because Fidelius Charms are the only things keeping any of them safe, and the Order's going to continue using more and more of them in the future as their plans expand, whether or not Reg approves of the direction in which those plans are going. Lily and Sirius—and Remus by extension—have pretty much coopted Reg to a grunt work role so that they can run the Order, which means Reg is in charge of things like taking stock of the Fidelius Charm's corresponding potion's ingredients and sending Kreacher on missions to buy more of the ones they're running low on. It's not like Reg is great at Potions or anything—he survived his O.W.L. with an A before dropping the class back at Hogwarts—but just to give himself something to do, just to hold onto the illusion of moving forward, he starts joining Alice and Arabella to brew the thing.

This time, they're doing Fidelius Charms not to protect anyone additional going into hiding but to keep secret the fact that Augusta, Septimus, Cedrella, and Vicky are members of the Order of the Phoenix at all. The new members' liaisons will be Secret-Keepers, which means that they need enough potion to divide between Frank, Arthur, and McGonagall during the casting of the spell. (Before this, Reg hadn't ever heard of potions being used in coordination with charms, but apparently it's a thing—Sirius says the spell to become an Animagus involves a potion, too.)

Severus and Lily are the best potioneers they have, but Sirius categorically refuses to trust Severus with anything of this importance, and Lily's busy making executive decisions for the organization when she isn't caught up in whatever dramatic breakdown has been playing out in her head for the last couple of weeks—so the task of brewing the potion has fallen to Alice instead. Reg had been a little surprised when she'd volunteered herself for the task, but in retrospect, it makes sense for the very same reason that Reg had expected her not to want to take it on: out of everyone, she was one of the ones who had the hardest time recovering from Azkaban. He'd thought she'd want to take it easy, but on the contrary, brewing the potion seems to calm Alice, keep her grounded—and so does teaching it to Reg and Arabella.

She's a good teacher, Alice. She occasionally moves too quickly through the steps, but whenever Reg or Arabella voices any confusion, Alice is patient in teaching the step again another way (and another and another) until she lands on an explanation that makes sense to him or her. "You're both doing great," Alice assures them when they're in the last few minutes of what they can do today; everything has been mixed, and Reg is watching the clock as Arabella gives the cauldron one clockwise stir for every seven counterclockwise ones. "Especially you, Arabella. I would have thought you'd struggle much more with Potions than you have been."

"Potions aren't so bad," shrugs Arabella. "I never took chemistry, but brewing potions is similar enough to cooking. I learned some Arithmancy when I was your age, too—it uses a lot of the maths I learned when I was in school."

Hesitantly—he doesn't want to be rude or speak out of turn—Reg says, "Arabella, can I ask why you…?"

"Kept one foot in the wizarding world? Joined the Order?"

"I, uh…"

"It's all right," she laughs. "It's hard trying to integrate into the Muggle world when you come from a pureblood family. I attended Muggle grade school and high school, but I could never get too close to anyone—bring friends home to meet my family—if I didn't want them to realize that something was terribly wrong with my upbringing. I didn't understand basic Muggle technologies like telephones or refrigerators, let alone popular culture references. I had to start from scratch to learn Muggle history and politics, too. When I finished school, it was easier to return to Wizarding Britain, even if I couldn't fully be a part of it. It was what I knew."

"You took odd jobs, right?" asks Alice politely.

"Mostly Potions and Arithmancy," nods Arabella, "and I bred Kneazles on the side, too. When I first finished high school, I took a job as a Muggle secretary, but it was too lonely—I missed being a part of my family's world."

"We can probably call that good for today," says Alice; Arabella stops stirring. "We'll pick it back up first thing tomorrow morning."

"Thanks for everything, Alice," says Reg, forcing a smile. He wants to keep her here for a while, check in with her, make sure she's okay, but he's not sure what he can say that he hasn't already covered more times than is strictly necessary—they room together, after all, and he just asked her how she was feeling when they woke up this morning. Besides, just because Reg is lonely doesn't mean anybody owes it to him to let him hold them captive, and Alice seems to be, if not flourishing, then at least surviving just fine with Frank, Sturgis, and Kingsley for support.

Reg is, of course, lonely, but that's nothing new. He's been aching for connection since Mary died.

He wishes Lily never told him that Mary was gay. Even if it was hard—even if it made him miss her more—at least at first he could hold onto the image of himself having achieved something in the time he and Mary were together. Now, he's just the pathetic sap who wishes he could have his dead lesbian wife back—and for what? So she could stay miserable in her marriage to him after he'd tried so hard to make her happy? So she could leave him? So she could tell him to his face that she didn't love him the way he loved her?

And it's not like there's a damn person in this house he can confide in about her. No, it's Reg's job to devote his life to taking care of everybody else, because everybody else is suffering so much worse than Reg ever has. It would be selfish of him to complain when it's not like he was trapped in Azkaban. He was there, yes, but not for four whole months. He was there of his own volition. At the end of the workday, he got to come home—to get away from the dementors. Nobody else had that luxury. The only people in this house who haven't been touched by Azkaban are Sirius, Lily, and Kreacher; Sirius and Lily have both lost more people than Reg has, and one of Lily's losses was her spouse, too.

On the one hand, Reg is livid with every last damn person in this house—especially Lily, Sirius, Remus, Alice, and even Peter—for drawing Mary into something that got her killed and took her away from Reg. On the other, if this is the cause she died to defend, the only thing left that he can do to make her sacrifice worth anything is bloody well make sure that the vigilantes win this war.

That's not to say that Reg really believes the war effort is anything but a lost cause. Short of carrying out Lily and Sirius's assassination plans, what's left that they can do? They've got a grand total of four people on their side outside these walls who can even go on raids after Sirius and Sturgis finish recreating the curse-identification orb they apparently used to use before Azkaban. However, even if Vector, Septimus, Cedrella, and Augusta do agree to risk their lives trying to intercept Death Eater attacks, there's no endgame there—no intention to turn the tide of the war.

"Come into the bedroom with me," says Alice, interrupting his train of thought.

"What?"

"I know you asked me this morning again how I'm doing, but—you look like you could use somebody to ask how you're doing."

"What?" he repeats. "I'm fine, Al."

"Just come on," Alice presses.

So he follows her upstairs into the bedroom they share, where Alice carefully perches on the edge of her bed and pats the space next to her for him to sit on. He does so gingerly, nervously.

"You're so busy taking care of everyone that sometimes I forget that you're fallible," Alice admits quietly, "or that all of us have had years to work together and form cliques that you're on the outside of."

"It's not anybody's job to take care of me."

"But it's yours to take care of all of us? I mean, I know it was literally your job in Azkaban, but we're not in Azkaban anymore, and you're still…"

"What else am I supposed to do?" mutters Reg wildly. "I'm just as trapped in here as you are. If I slow down, all I can think is that Mary is gone and it's for nothing. If I focus on myself…"

"I think you're going to have to," Alice says gently. "If you don't, it'll just build up. I've been there. I'm not good with emotions—not even my own, let alone other people's—but if you ever want someone to talk to, um, I can try. I can listen, at least."

It sounds like it's costing Alice something to say this, and Reg realizes in a rush that he's not the only person in this room who failed in their relationship. He wants to ask her what Mary told her about him—if Mary ever loved him in any way at all—but what comes out instead is, "Does it get easier?"

"Does… what get easier? I don't follow."

"I'm sorry if I'm overstepping, but—has it gotten easier being divorced from Frank?"

Alice takes a moment to think about this. "Yes," she finally says, "but I know it's not the same as with you and Mary. For one thing, Frank is still alive for us to work things out and become friends."

The other—the part she doesn't say—is that Frank used to actually be in love with her. Reg just doesn't have the luxury of knowing Mary felt the same way about him as he did about her.

xx

It all starts going to hell barely two minutes into the next meeting, when Sirius and Sturgis are giving their update on the new curse-identification orb. "And when it's ready, we're giving it to Augusta?" says Ted.

Sirius and Sturgis look at each other. "We only have four people on our side outside these walls," says Sirius carefully, "and we don't want to put them all on the front lines. What happens if and when Death Eaters kill them all? We'll be back to square one with no allies on the outside."

"And I suppose us leaving the protection of our Fidelius Charms to intercept attacks is the first step in the pipeline toward us going on assassination attempts?" Andromeda drawls. "That's where this is headed, isn't it? You're trying to ease us into feeling comfortable leaving this house so we can not just get ourselves killed but become murderers, too."

"We voted no," Lily speaks up. "Sirius and I respect that, at least unless or until enough people change their minds to shift the vote to yes in the future."

"And I'll bet you're just chomping at the bit waiting for that day," says Molly, rolling her eyes. "The two of you aren't the only ones leading this organization, you know. Reg may not have rescued you as literally as he rescued us, but some of us still put stock in that."

Reg closes his eyes. Here it comes…

"That was a group effort," Sirius insists. "Do you think he could have charmed the Portkeys to work without our help? Do you really think—"

"That's awfully classy of you, putting down the man who kept the Order alive," snorts Moody.

"I don't care if he got poor marks in school or if he used to work Magical Maintenance," says Molly now. "Would you have taken a job in Azkaban so you could feed us and bathe us and talk us down from our nightmares, and do it all day in the presence of dementors, until the day your actions got you exiled out of your life and into this house? It's about what kind of man he is, Sirius, and he's the kind of man I want to listen to if he's got something to say."

"Fine. Reg—what do you think? Would you consider having us start leaving the house to go on raids?"

The thing is, Reg doesn't know what he wants. He knows where he stands on assassinations—he knows he doesn't agree with that—but would it be worse for most of the Order to hole up in this house while people are dying out there or for their numbers to dwindle while they try and save what few lives they can as the country keeps spiraling deeper into war and destruction? What they need is a long-term plan—but the only one they've got is Sirius and Lily's, and there's absolutely no way that Reg can stand for that.

"Fine. We go back out, but we do it on a voluntary basis. The second anybody comes anywhere close to dying, we pull back out, and this does not mean we're targeting anyone without the orb alerting us to Unforgivable activity."

"And if we do manage to detain anybody while we're out there?" says Frank. "With Death Eaters running the Ministry, it's not like anyone we catch will face repercussions if we just Stun them and send them over."

Reg looks at him with dead eyes and sighs. "We don't aim to kill. We never, ever aim to kill."

"Then what? What are we supposed to do if we can't kill them and there's no point turning them in? We're going to run into the same problem whether it's us going or our liaisons on the outside."

"There've got to be plenty of people still in the Ministry with integrity," says Alice. "The leadership positions may be mostly occupied by Death Eaters, but most feet on the ground are on the side of the Light."

"Like all the Obliviators who worked overtime to cover it up when we dumped Voldemort's corpse on the steps of Gringotts?" Sturgis scowls.

"We don't know that they weren't coerced. They could have been under the Imperius Curse, just like Pyrites could put Aurors under the Imperius Curse in order to get them to target us instead of the Death Eaters."

"Either way," points out Arthur, "it spells trouble for our side. If we can't make captures anymore…"

Yeah, that's about where Reg is at with all this, too. "We don't have to figure everything out tonight," says Lily as if she's the voice of reason in all this. "Let's just take a breath, okay? We've still got at least a couple of weeks before the orb will be ready."

"And when it is?"

Lily doesn't have an answer to that. Nobody has an answer to that.