Previously in the Darklyverse: The Order went on its first raid since Azkaban. Vicky asked Minerva to ask the Order members who were students at the time of Elisabeth Clearwater's and Millie LeProut's deaths whether to loop in current members of War Stories.

xx

December 2nd, 1982: Sirius Black

"I don't like this," Molly snaps.

Even though Sirius radically disagrees with her on just about every item on tonight's agenda, she's got a point. Even McGonagall seems hesitant to endorse her own girlfriend's desire for Sirius, Remus, Lily, Alice, and Frank to be the only ones to decide something as major as whether to include Hogwarts kids in the Order. Sirius and Lily have been careful to organize the Order in this post-Dumbledore world so that everybody knows the plans and has a say in them, and as much as Sirius knows he's right about what to do, shutting nearly the entire Order out of that conversation flies in the face of what he's trying to build here.

"I don't like it, either," says McGonagall heavily, "but I'll tell you one thing about Vicky: if she sets her mind to something, you can't stop her. She wants input from the people who joined the Order when they were school-age, and I'm not going to lie to her about what they say."

"If that's what she wants, then I'll save everyone the trouble of a vote," answers Molly, rolling her eyes. "Lily, Frank, and Sirius are going to outnumber Alice and Remus, and they're going to say to draw your kids into this organization—to get them to break the law and risk having them thrown in Azkaban like we all were—without the knowledge or consent of their parents."

She glares around at them with her eyes narrowed, as if daring them to contradict her. Nobody says anything for a second; then Remus mutters, "Just because we all voted that way on raids and assassinations—"

"You're just trying to wriggle out of it so that you don't disappoint your new boyfriend," Andromeda accuses him.

Sirius's cheeks burn. He glances at Remus, but Remus is pointedly watching his hands; Sirius doubts he'd look up for anything short of Death Eaters Apparating into the house and attacking them all out of the blue.

"I still think everyone should have a say," says Ted tiredly, "but if you insist on leaving it up to the people who were kids when the Order was started, you should at least include Reg in that, too. He may not have been a member until recently, but his wife joined when he was at school and they were together, and whichever way you look at it, she's dead today because of us."

"That's not entirely fair," says Sturgis. "Reg had no idea that Mary was involved."

Reg is blushing. "I mean, somewhere in my mind, I think I knew something was going on. There were rumors flying around the whole castle, including among all of our friends. I just… didn't want to believe them."

"Well, we all know which way he's voting," Frank mutters. "It's a stalemate—we're three and three."

"It's not a stalemate," Reg mumbles. Everybody's eyes flick over to him. "There's somebody else who hasn't voted yet."

It takes Sirius a second to realize whom exactly Reg is talking about. "You're bloody joking," he cries out when he does. "Pettigrew? We can't ask him, Reg. No damn way."

"It's only fair. We need someone to break the tie, and he wasn't a spy when Liz and Millie died—not yet, anyway. He's been where Vicky's kids are now, whatever he became later."

And Sirius is sick of all of this—this making excuses that Reg keeps doing for Peter. Doesn't he care about all the people who died on Peter's account? Doesn't it mean anything to Reg that Peter lied through his teeth for years about his allegiance? Doesn't anybody besides Sirius feel properly pissed or crushed or betrayed? Moreover, whatever happened to placing as little information in Peter's hands as possible? If, somehow, he manages to escape, there's no telling whether he'd run straight back to the Death Eaters and give them as much intel as he can if they entrust him with any.

"Reg," says Lily in a voice of forced patience, "I know there are a lot of things we don't see eye-to-eye on, but involving Pettigrew? Really?"

"He's still a human being," Reg says levelly. "He's still the same person somewhere in there."

Sirius narrows his eyes. "Fine. Fine, but I'm going up there with you. Two people voting differently from each other should both be up there to hear what he has to say."

"Sirius, do you really think I would lie to you about Peter's vote?"

"We need a third person to put up the barricade and wait outside for us," he says, ignoring this.

"I'll do it," growls Moody.

So Sirius, Reg, and Moody troop up the dark and narrow staircase leading into the attic; the only noises they make are those of their footsteps against the hollow-sounding wood. For his part, Sirius doesn't have a damn word to say to Reg. He wonders what the hell is going through Reg's head right now. Does he feel guilty like he should for insisting once again on Peter's inclusion, or does he genuinely believe that Sirius's hatred of the man is irrational?

He better not. If Reginald Cattermole, moral compass of the Order of the Phoenix, can honestly say to himself that he thinks what Peter's done is forgivable—that Peter's hand in Marlene's death is forgivable—

It only takes moments for Moody to cast the barrier spell so that Sirius and Reg can safely enter Peter's room in the attic without their wands; when they do, and Moody locks the door behind them and takes down the wall, Sirius feels like there's hardly enough air in the room to breathe. Peter is sitting on the ledge by the little window, his forehead pressed against the glass, and it takes Sirius barking, "Hey!" at him for Peter to tear his eyes away from the outside and look at them. "That glass is magically reinforced," Sirius snarls, "so before you get any ideas about smashing through it so you can bust out of here—"

"I'm not trying to bust out."

"Well, we need you," Sirius snaps. There is no forgiveness in his eyes. "We're taking a vote, and it's a tie, and somebody—" he shoots Reg an extremely dirty look "—thinks you ought to be the one to break it."

"What? Why me?" Peter's eyes are big and wide and unthreatening, and Sirius thinks about how Reg says Peter held it together better than anybody else in all of Azkaban, and he could just scream.

"Because you were one of the only ones left who joined the Order when you were a kid," says Reg much too gently. "We need to know if—well—if you would approve of us looping in a few school kids."

"You're recruiting?" Peter abruptly gets to his feet. "Have you recruited already? Adults, I mean? How many people on the outside do we have?"

"We can't tell you th—"

"How am I supposed to break the tie on a decision like this without all the information? Reg, please. I've been locked in this room for weeks. I haven't tried to escape. I've been good. I've been dying to know what's happening out there—hell, what's happening in here. Sirius—Sirius!"

Sirius hisses, "You want to be included? You want to be valued? Maybe you should have thought of that before you joined the Death Eaters and got my girlfriend murdered—"

Peter fails to point out that Sirius and Marlene had long since broken up at the time of her death. "Then why are you here? Why come up here and dangle in my face—?"

"If I had it my way, you'd be rotting in an Azkaban cell while dementors sucked your soul out through your mouth, but Reg thought—"

Peter's face goes pale. "You'd have them kiss me? You… I knew you hated me, but you really hate me that much? Doesn't what we used to be still count for anything to you?"

What Peter doesn't get—what nobody gets—is that of course he still means a hell of a lot to Sirius. If he didn't, what he did—what he's become—wouldn't hurt so bloody badly.

After a long pause, Reg seems to realize that the fight is over, and he says quietly, "So? What's your vote, Peter?"

Peter bites his lip. "You shouldn't drag them into this—the kids at Hogwarts. If there are Death Eaters in the school, they could do to kids in the Order what was done to me—blackmail them—and it isn't worth the risk."

Whatever Sirius was expecting to hear, it wasn't this, and he hasn't got a clue what to say—how to feel. "Put the barrier back up, Moody," he calls, his eyes fixed on Peter's. "We're done here."

xx

When they get back downstairs, the orb is firing off. They lucked out for a few days—this is the first time it's gone off since they saved Dirk and captured Lestrange, Carrow, and Rookwood—but it's not like they've even decided what to do with the people they brought into the house last time, let alone agreed whether to try and do it again now that it's happening again.

Shit is obviously about to go down, though, because Lily, Frank, Sturgis, and Andromeda have already got their masks on. The interesting part, however, is that they don't have their wands out. Instead, Ted is clutching a fistful of wands and insisting, "You're not going out there."

"Ted, people will die if we don't. I know you're scared, but—"

But Ted's having none of this. "And it's better for you to die trying to save them? Andy, listen to reason—"

"No, you listen to reason. We're cooped up in this house day in and day out, and I'm not saying we should be out there assassinating Death Eaters, okay, but time is running out for four Muggles right now, and if we don't save them—"

"Expelliarmus," Sirius mutters.

All five wands soar out of Ted's hand and into Sirius's. In an instant, Molly and Alice have their wands out and pointed at Sirius, while Moody raises his wand to Molly and Kingsley raises his own to Alice.

Mutually assured destruction. Right.

There's a flash of green light in the image in the orb. One of the bodies crumples.

Sirius's eyes flick to Remus, who's staring at Sirius open-mouthed. "I know you don't agree," says Sirius softly, "but I love you, Moony."

"Padfoot, don't you dare. You nearly got yourself killed once already this week. I didn't even know you were leaving until you came back. If you had died—"

He grabs the wand he thinks is Lily's in his free hand and tosses it to her.

Several spells fly in quick succession—

"Expelliarmus!"

"Accio!"

"Stupefy!"

CRACK!

The next thing Sirius knows, he's empty-handed and has been knocked onto his haunches on the ground; his wand and several others have flown from his own hand to Alice's to Kingsley's; Molly is on the floor, too, but unlike Sirius, it looks like she's actually been knocked out. Lily is gone—Disapparated, from the looks of it.

It only takes a second for Kingsley to toss Sirius back a wand. It's not his—he thinks it's Andromeda's—but it'll do.

"Kingsley, stop!" Alice cries, but Kingsley isn't paying any attention to her. Sirius Disapparates before he can hear the rest.

He's the second on the scene, and it's reckless of him, he knows, because he's not even wearing a mask, but at least one of the Muggles is dead already, and Sirius might not ever have gotten out of Grimmauld Place if he hadn't left when he did. Kingsley and Andromeda appear next, followed by—Sirius swallows his shock—Remus.

"What are you—?"

"AVADA KEDAVRA!"

Andromeda barely dodges the curse, but Lily isn't so lucky when she gets hit with a Sectumsempra. "We have to—"

"Crucio!"

"CRUCIO!"

One of the Death Eaters goes down, but so does Andromeda. Sirius takes stock quickly: there are only two Death Eaters here today, and one of them's out of commission thanks to Kingsley's quick Cruciatus Curse, but the other has got his wand out and pointed at—

Sirius's Impediment Jinx barely knocks Remus out of the way of another jet of green light. He turns his wand on the Death Eater responsible for nearly killing Sirius's boyfriend. "EXPELLI—"

But he's in white-hot agony before the spell can fully come out of his mouth. Distantly, he registers that it's the other terrorist, the one Kingsley knocked down before, who's up on his feet again.

CRACK.

It's the sound of Apparition, but whether more of the Order has arrived or some of them have Disapparated, Sirius is in too much pain to tell. He's not sure which would be worse: more of the Order putting themselves at risk while Lily bleeds out on the ground or some of the people already here leaving the others to die with less backup.

When the torture finally comes to an end, neither Death Eater is anywhere to be found. Remus, also unmasked, rushes to Sirius's side and helps him to his feet. "We had them outnumbered pretty badly," Remus says shakily. "I think they realized they were in over their heads."

"Is any of us dead?"

"Not… not yet, but it's bad, Padfoot. They took Lily back to the house, along with the Muggles, but she's the best Healer we've got, and she can't heal herself. I told Kreacher to take her to Zoudiams, you know, the Canadian hospital where she used to work."

"God fucking dammit."

"We knew this would happen," says Remus with hesitation. "We went through the same thing with Frank just days ago."

"You shouldn't have come. You could have gotten yourself killed, you know." Sirius is aiming for a joking tone, but considering he's still recovering from the Cruciatus Curse, the humor doesn't quite reach his voice.

"Thought you wanted me to agree with you about going on the offensive."

"Yeah, but that doesn't mean I want you dying just so you can save me."

Remus shrugs.

"So—we've got ourselves a few more refugees?"

"I dunno what we're going to do with them all," says Remus. "We can't evacuate the entire country, and even if we could, as soon as we did, the Death Eaters would just expand outside Britain. We all know full well that anyone can Apparate as far across the globe as they'd like."

Wiping sweat off his forehead, Sirius replies, "I just don't see why we don't just kill the three Death Eaters we've got. Sure, we can get what information we can out of them, but after?"

Remus's gaze flicks down. "Let's get out of here. There's a Dark Mark over the house. People are going to be swarming this place any minute, and we don't want to get caught when they do."

"I hope Lily's going to be all right," Sirius murmurs. "She hasn't been doing great lately, and I know it's because of me, and if she dies before I can make that right…"

Remus cups Sirius's cheek in one hand and flashes him a sad smile. Sirius's skin is still burning when they Disapparate.