Previously in the Darklyverse: Sturgis got the new Unforgivable Curse-identification orb working, but there was disagreement within the Order about whether or how to use it.

xx

November 30th, 1982: Frank Longbottom

The meeting starts like every other they've had in recent memory. You have to shout to be heard, for one thing. A few people—Alice, Reg, Moody, Andromeda—fall in the middle, acquiescing that the Order should at least resume going on raids now that they've got the orb working, but naively, few people seem to fully agree with Lily and Sirius's wishes to plot the assassinations of as many Death Eaters as they can.

The fighting divides friends, roommates, couples, the gaggle of those who used to be Aurors before they all got carted off to Azkaban. Frank has gotten used to dodging Alice's eye every time they have a meeting, but he can't deny that it's a blow when Remus comes out on Reg's side for the first time tonight, at least for the half an hour before his monthly transformation kicks in and he scurries away to keep Harry company upstairs.

Yes, it starts like every other meeting has started—but then the orb starts to flash, and that's not typical at all.

Everybody falls silent for a second, and then Sturgis says, "Who? Where? How many?"

The orb is sitting in the middle of the table, and everybody at the edges of the table gets up to crowd around it. "Looks like just one young man," says Arthur, who's closest to it. "A wizard, clearly, because he's got a wand on his bedside table—not that he's using it."

Frank cranes his neck to get a glimpse between Ted and Andromeda's heads. Sure enough, the crystal ball they've repurposed for the spell is showing a figure being tortured on the ground, his wand useless meters away from him. There are three Death Eaters—masked, of course—with their own wands raised, their movements jerky and wild.

One of them lowers their wand, giving the wizard on the floor a breather. The victim rolls onto his side, his face fully visible, and Frank—

—squints. He's got to be absolutely sure before he goes running off half-cocked that the wizard is who Frank thinks he is because if he's not—

—but would it matter? Even if this were an absolute stranger, wouldn't the Order owe it to him to get off their arses and fight for him? The politics are messy—the group is divided—but there's nothing really to stop Frank from Apparating over there himself and taking a stand, is there? Especially when the victim is—

"Dirk," Alice breathes.

"What?" says Moody, looking sharply at her.

Alice's face is beet red, but not with anger, not anymore. Her voice wavers. "They've got Dirk Cresswell. He's a good man, Alastor. He's…"

Her eyes connect with Frank's, and he knows what he's got to do.

"Al, tell Neville I love him."

Her cheeks go from red to pale faster than you could say Crucio. "Frank, what are you—?"

"Feels different now that it's not somebody faceless anymore, doesn't it?" His words are bitter, but his tone is distracted. He grabs his wand. "Anybody remember how to conjure masks?"

"I'll do it," says Sirius immediately. "I'm going with you."

"Me too," Lily murmurs. "Make sure Harry knows—that he knows—"

"No," says Molly abruptly. She's bright red, too, but for entirely different reasons than those of Alice. "We didn't agree to this. If we took a vote right now—"

"If we stop to take a vote, he could die in the meantime. Dirk is my friend, Molly, and I'm going."

Sirius flings a newly conjured mask at Frank, who catches it and secures it over his face. There's probably not much point wearing these anymore—everyone in Dirk's flat is going to know exactly which organization Frank, Lily, and Sirius are a part of, and the whole country already knows they're wanted by Azkaban. Frank thinks he'll feel a little safer, maybe bolder, once he puts it on, but underneath the mask, Frank just feels like—a foreigner. He feels gone.

Unable to help himself, Frank says, "Alice, are you coming?"

He knows it's a long shot: they're on opposite sides of this debate, and Alice never remotely consented to going on raids again now that they're all on the run. But Dirk was her friend, too—even more than that—and if there were ever somebody whom it'd be worth switching sides for, you'd think it would be somebody that she used to love.

She bites her lip. "Dirk was always against the Order, ever since we were first starting out and I asked him to join it back in school."

"And that means his life isn't worth saving? We have a responsibility to help people even when—"

"We don't have time for this," barks Sirius. "Lily—Frank—see you on the other side."

He Disapparates with a pop, and so does Lily. Frank shares one last frantic look with Alice before he, too, is gone.

Pretty much the only things they've got on their side are the element of surprise and what they have left of their wits. After all, the Death Eaters certainly aren't expecting them to show up here tonight, not when everybody thinks they're planning on hiding out indefinitely. Frank knows he only has seconds to orient himself when he materializes with a crack; he turns his wand on the first enemy figure he sees and bellows, "CRUCIO!"

The spell doesn't have the intended effect, but the Death Eater gets the wind knocked out of him, at least, long enough that Sirius can Disarm him. While Sirius is pocketing the Death Eater's wand, Frank Stupefies the bloke—but a second later, Lily drops to the floor and starts to twitch.

"Impedimenta! IMPEDIMENTA! PETRIFICUS TOTALUS!"

"AVADA KEDAVRA!" Sirius roars, but it's no good—he goes down in an instant, too.

"What—" Dirk is croaking from the ground, "what—?" But Frank doesn't have time to answer him. His allies are both locked in the throes of the Cruciatus Curse, and Frank is about to be next if he doesn't—

It only takes a split second to do the math. Of the three Death Eaters, one is knocked out, and the other two are each engaged in a Cruciatus on Sirius or Lily, leaving Frank free to—

"STUPEFY!"

A second Death Eater collapses to the floor, Stunned. The third turns his wand from Lily to Frank, but it's no good—by the time Frank gets hit with Sectumsempra, Dirk has fully recovered, gone for his wand, and locked the third Death Eater in a Full-Body Bind.

"Dirk," Frank blubbers. Blood is spilling from what feels like every centimeter of his body. "Dirk…"

Dirk drops to the ground and rips off Frank's mask. Dimly, Frank registers that Dirk's eyes are widening. "Frank? I thought—but—"

"We need to get out of here," Frank hears Sirius mutter. "Lily, can you work on Frank? I'll… I'll…"

"We can't let them go free," whispers Lily. "We can't."

"Take them… back," Frank croaks.

"Back where? Where have you all been all this time? I mean, how—?"

But Frank ignores Dirk entirely, his eyes locked with Sirius's (he and Lily have got their masks off, too, by now), and he thinks Sirius understands his meaning. If they take the Death Eaters to Grimmauld Place, the location of the house as the Order's hiding place will be blown, at least for these three of them, but the individual people in the house will still be protected by Fidelius Charms: the Death Eaters shouldn't even be able to register that anybody besides Kreacher is there with them. As long as they take away the Death Eaters' wands and stop them from blowing the whole house up—as long as they don't leave—the Order can keep them as prisoners long enough to figure out what the hell to do with them.

Lily is working her wand over Frank, who's pretty sure he's going to lose consciousness before he fully sees how this plays out, but he's awake to hear Sirius respond, "Yeah. Good idea. Dirk should come, too—he won't be safe here."

"Hold on," says Dirk slowly. "I can't just pick up and—"

Sirius Stupefies the Death Eater in the Full-Body Bind and then blurts, "Number twelve, Grimmauld Place, is the safe house for the Order of the Phoenix, and Lily is in hiding there. Lily, can you—?"

"Sirius is in hiding at Grimmauld Place, too," Lily says rapidly before returning to her spellwork over Frank's body.

"There. That means you'll be able to see both of us there, and we can catch you up on what it's safe to tell you."

"But I never—I shouldn't—"

"We've got to go," says Sirius. "Take my hand—we need to grab these three as well—I'll Side-Along-Apparate all of us."

"Frank? Frank?"

Frank doesn't answer—doesn't hear another word.

xx

When he becomes aware of his surroundings again, his limbs hurt something awful, and he feels weirdly and specifically like all the blood has drained out of his abdomen—but he's awake. He's alive, and he's at Grimmauld Place, curled up in his bed with Lily leaning over him and Alice stroking his hair. "You gave us quite the fright there, Frank," says Lily. Her laughter doesn't reach her eyes.

"You're bloody insane," Alice whispers. "All three of you. The house is in an uproar. You got lucky—you know that, right? You know that if it were four on three instead of the other way around you could easily have all died?"

Frank ignores this. "How's Dirk?" he manages to ask.

"Rattled," says Lily, shrugging. "Sirius is catching him up. He wasn't going to tell him everything—didn't tell him most things, actually—but he was going to give him the major points. Voldemort is dead—the Minister is Death Eater—you know, the highlights."

"And how's he taking that?"

"Beats me," says Lily with a shrug. "Neither of us has left this room since we carted you up here. Drink this."

She thrusts a rather large bottle of Blood-Replenishing Potion in his face, and he obediently opens his mouth and allows her to tip some of it inside. He tries to lift his hands to hold the thing himself, but his arms are too weak and shaky to stay up in the air very long.

"He said he wanted to talk to you," Lily adds, "you know, whenever you woke up, but to do that, he'd need Sturgis to tell him the secret of your location, and Sturgis can't tell him here because you haven't told Dirk where Sturgis is."

"Can't Sturgis write it down so that you or Sirius can give Dirk the paper?" Alice suggests. "We could at least try it and see if it works."

Lily considers this. "Yeah. Yeah, I should go and ask Sturgis. Should we have Remus do the same so Dirk can talk to you, too?"

Alice frowns. "I… no, I don't think that would be a very good idea. It's not like I was there to help save him, and…"

"He won't blame you," Frank tries to tell her, but he doesn't think his words have any effect on Alice, who still looks troubled.

"I'll be back," Lily promises, "and hopefully Dirk will be with me. Don't go anywhere, Frank, not that you, uh…"

And then Frank and Alice are alone. She's still stroking his hair, but her movements suddenly feel stilted, somehow. "You should have come with us," Frank says dully. "You know Dirk. You loved him once."

"I still do love him. Not… not in that way—I don't think I ever was really in love with him, though I did have feelings for him—but I still care about him."

"Then why not come with us? Wasn't that what forming the Order was supposed to be all about? And don't sit here and tell me that people have died; of course people have died; we knew what we were signing up for when we started this."

She sighs. "We're not murderers, Frank, and we shouldn't let ourselves become that."

"If you haven't noticed, we didn't kill anybody. We brought the Death Eaters back here with us as prisoners. How are they, anyway? And who are they?"

"Alecto Carrow and Augustus Rookwood and Rabastan Lestrange."

"Lestrange—is that Sirius's cousin-in-law?"

"No, that's Rodolphus. Rabastan's his brother."

"And Carrow was Pettigrew's Death Eater liaison, right? Bet he'd be terrified to find out he's under the same roof with her right now."

A hint of a smile works its way onto Alice's face. "He wouldn't like knowing that we've got Lestrange or Rookwood, either. I think he's dead scared of what any of them would do to him if they got their hands on him, what with him trying to turn them in like he did."

"Maybe. Maybe not. He did them a favor, getting all of us imprisoned."

"But that part was an accident. He did try to turn on them, even if he failed."

Frank doesn't answer this. He and Pettigrew had adjoining cells back in Azkaban, and Pettigrew was part of the reason Frank was able to keep what he did of his mind—even if it was mutually beneficial, even if Pettigrew was only speaking to Frank to try to take care of himself. The memory of Pettigrew trying to talk Frank down during some of his lowest moments flashes through his mind, and he tries to suppress it. What's done is done, and Pettigrew is never leaving their attic as long as the Order are living here, and there's no use trying to humanize the bloke.

There's a knock on the door, and then Lily and Dirk appear. He looks calmer than he did when Frank saw him on the outside, frazzled from the Cruciatus Curse and the appearance of vigilantes and the way blood kept spurting out of Frank as if he'd been stabbed all over his body, but there's still something manic behind his eyes.

"I'll go," says Alice quickly. They all know Dirk can't see or hear her, but she still looks flustered and afraid as she dashes out of bed and bolts past Lily through the doorway.

"I want to check your vitals again," Lily says, "but then I can give the two of you some time to talk."

"Sure," says Frank, his eyes fixed on Dirk's.

"I'm so glad you're okay," Dirk murmurs, following Lily to Frank's bedside tentatively, as if he's afraid somebody's going to tell him he doesn't belong there. "I really thought I was going to watch you bleed out and die in front of me. I don't know how the hell you managed to save him, Potter."

"I have been working as a Healer on and off since graduation," Lily remarks, grinning.

"The countercurse to Sectumsempra is kind of her specialty," says Frank with a grin. "She cobbled it together herself based on her experience trying to save us from it—countless times, really."

"You're all idiots. You had no business showing up there to save me. I mean—" Dirk laughs sort of hysterically "—it's a thankless job, isn't it? I knew all along that something wasn't right with what you were getting up to, and I told Alice not to get involved, and I never even… and the Ministry chucked you in prison for it, and—"

"You mean the Death Eaters chucked us in prison," says Frank, shaking his head. "There's not much difference between the two anymore."

"That's the other thing: how do you know that? How do you all know so much when you're trapped in a house without access to the news?"

Frank and Lily exchange looks. He's not sure how much Dirk is allowed to know—can Frank tell him that they've got a few new liaisons on the outside? "It's complicated," he settles for saying, knowing that Dirk deserves a hell of a lot better after what he went through tonight—after all the years he and Frank have been friends.

"So, what, am I your prisoner now, too? Me and the three Death Eaters you wrangled here tonight?"

Lily frowns. "We… haven't decided what to do with you yet, to be quite honest. We're afraid you'll be targeted if you leave here, but we don't… we can't just bring the whole country here in hiding for the rest of our lives. There's been… disagreement about what the Order's role in the war should be now that we're all on the run and Death Eaters are running the show."

"I just can't believe You-Know-Who is dead. I can't believe we're still in this war now that their leader is gone." Dirk snorts. "I can't believe The Quibbler was the news outlet that actually got it right."

Frank knows what he means. The whole world turned upside down a long time ago, and even if this insane suicide mission of theirs works—even if the Order agrees to start killing off Death Eaters and they pluck them all off before the Death Eaters can pluck off what's left of the Order—he doesn't know if it's ever going to right itself again.