Chapter 5: 1979
July 13th 1979
Remus grumbles incoherently, rubbing at his eyebrows that have been singed by the small hand of cards in front of them.
"Exactly why I don't play," James sings, striding past the lot on the floor.
Lily and Marlene snigger, dealing out another fresh hand to all the players as they restart the game. Peter, eyeing off Remus' eyebrows, declines the round's invitation.
A few of the younger Order members often hang around one of the safe houses, since as the height of the war takes place, they have become some of the only safer places to be other than their homes. Cressida sits on the spine of the lounge, watching the game happen before her. The coffee table is pushed to the side, filled with empty, tea and coffee-stained mugs.
Sirius isn't with them. He'd been sent off with the twins somewhere, hunting down a group of Death Eaters that were targeting blood-traitors. He vehemently volunteered for the role. Cressida is worried for him, but at least she wasn't alone through the nights. At first, she was, assuring James that she'll be fine to stay at the apartment alone, but after the first night when there was no music or television to wake up to, an icy hand crept up along her spine and she owled James soon after. It's not the first time he's left, but he was usually back within a few hours or a day or two. This has been a week.
"Look like you need it."
Alice appears at her side, with a tea filled cup on offer. Cressida smiles down at it, taking it with a thank-you, despite knowing that it would hardly be as nice as James'. "When are you next heading out for something big?" she questions after a short sip.
Alice had recently cut her hair short; a style that suited her well. She smiles evenly. "Not sure. Frank's been trying to track down Dolohov and Bellatrix Lestrange. They're right in his ring. Take them down, we'll be saving a lot of lives."
"Let's just try and not lose ours in the process," a different voice grunts. Moody stalks past them with a cane in hand, limping heavily. Over the year, he had gotten in a horrid duel with Rosier who managed to take a chunk out of his nose and another Death Eater struck his leg from behind, blowing it right off. Unfortunately, he got away, but both Moody and Cressida made vows to bring him down. Cressida hadn't been at the fight, but Elias was and he came back to the safe house bloodstained with Moody over his shoulder.
"Always the aim, Alastor," Alice toasts the Auror with her own cup.
Cressida' own upcoming job would intertwine with Elias since Moody has taken a step back while he recovers. She hadn't moved on from finding the stone completely, but she's been sent on other missions as well. She holds a prideful moment of being the reason Yasfult Malfoy is currently sitting in an Azkaban cell.
Elias would return from Europe in a few days on a completely separate job that even she hadn't been told about, but they would be heading to Little Hangleton, a small village type in a rural outskirt of a larger town. They had been there before, to the Riddle Manor, but it was filled with too many wards for her to get through. So she left and began studying more.
Cressida touches her necklace, waiting for the warmth to spread over her skin. It does. "Sirius is fine," she says to James, taking his hand. "I think I'm going to go home for the night. Just check in and let Mr Thornberry know that I'm alive." James huffs with affection. Mr Thornberry is an elderly man with a sweet demeanour. He is hunched, and toothless with only a few hairs on his head left. Sirius took to him before she did, even inviting him over for breakfast one morning. He always made them laugh with his gummy smile. "I'll come to your place tomorrow and stay there for the rest of the week, yeah?"
"Sounds like a beautiful plan except for tonight where I'm going to be sleeping alone," he taunts, holding a hand to his chest.
"Please," she laughs. She spends half her time at James' already. "I've just got a few things I want to sort out."
"Like what?"
"Like taking Bastian to Diagon Alley. He's starting fifth year, you know? He needs some new robes after the growth spurt he had."
"You're talking like you're his mother."
Cressida shrugs softly, sipping from the teacup. "His mother is a Muggle and doesn't really like Diagon Alley from what I've heard. I know how nice it is to go with someone, even if not your own parents."
Cressida can never repay Fleamont and Euphemia for how they cared for her in her younger years – and still very much today.
Sending her empty mug to the kitchen with her wand, Cressida leaves James' side, heading to Remus and Peter, kissing either's cheeks. "I'll see you boys later." Clicking her tongue, she glances at her two ex-dormmates. "Try and not burn off Remus' entire eyebrows, will you? We'll hear about it for weeks."
Marlene leans against the coffee table, shuffling cards. "That sounds very much like a you problem," she smirks.
Remus is the one to retort with wide, accusatory eyes, "It's going to be an everybody problem."
Lily laughs, holding a finger between her teeth. "Don't worry, I think it's an endearing look." Remus glances at her over his top lashes, a slight dusting on his cheeks the only other sign that he heard her. Cressida straightens back up, wandering back to James with raised eyebrows.
"Really?" Peter snorts, missing the moment between the two.
James makes an expression back, pulling his bottom lip down with his chin. "As much as Lily usually gives good advice, don't singe off your eyebrows," she whispers to him, the pair moving to the edge of the room. "I prefer the full, messy look."
The left side of his mouth rising high into his cheek. "I keep it long to compel you to play with it." Cressida hums in amusement, turning around and leaning back against his chest, watching Mary join their game of exploding snap. James dips his head to her shoulder, his head of dark curls on full display. "That was an invitation, if you missed it."
"Oh no I got it," she grins, "I just decided to decline." He gives off a pathetic whinging sound, much alike a puppy's. "Merlin, you're acting more like a dog than Sirius does." To appease him, she reaches up blindly, to run her fingers through his hair. His smile grows against her shoulder, turning upwards to her neck where he dusts her skin in the lightest of kisses, his hair beginning to tickle her chin.
She kisses the top of his head as he does so, eyes still stuck on the scene of exploding snap. Marlene is sitting nonchalantly, throwing aimless cards at Peter who barely knocks them away before they hit his face. Lily seems to be the only one fully committed to the game, as Remus and Mary are also hesitant in being anywhere near the cards.
Children. They're bloody children. Nineteen-year-olds, playing games between their efforts into the war. James is nineteen. She is nineteen. Yet instead of nearly being arrested for doing something boyishly stupid like getting into a bar scuffle or setting off fireworks indoors, they were chased down by the police while on the run from Death Eaters.
Eventually she pulls herself away from James, promising him – but mostly reminding herself – that she'll see him tomorrow afternoon. He follows her outside and to the edge of the property where their wards preventing apparation end. She feels the soft vibration of the magic as she passes through the border, the image of James becoming distorted for a moment in a wave-like shimmer. "I love you," she says.
James smiles, tipping his head to the side. "I love you too. Until the very end."
He first said that to her at their Graduation Ball. Now he says it every time one of them has to leave. Every time that their journal conversation ends or she's with Sirius and looking into their mirror.
When Cressida apparates back, the weather is a stark and abrupt change. Instead of the soft warmth of late summer, her home in London is grey, wet and chilly. With no jacket sleeves to pull down, Cressida keeps her arms tucked underneath the other, jogging back to her home.
It's empty, as she expected.
Going straight to the large windows, she unlocks one of the latches, using a bit of strength against the stubborn wood and pushes the glass panel open. She hisses at the strong wind entering her previously stiff-aired apartment where the air was at least a little bit warmer, but a small price to pay.
A black and grey speckled owl with a wide, classic owl-face flies straight in. It squawks in a complaint, the letter in his beak swinging back and forth. "Apologies Gregovich," she drawls mockingly, taking the letter hastily. It is, after all, the reason she wanted to come home before going to James'.
Like all well-trained purebloods, her name is written in perfect cursive and not a splot of ink is out of place. Knowing that she'd have to burn the letter later anyways, Cressida spares no care in tearing it open.
Regulus graduated from Hogwarts not three months ago now. He had sent her a few letters through the year with the school's owls which were unrecognisable to Sirius and she easily dismissed at Bastian's who didn't have an owl. But now, with only his own owl at hand, his letters have come more sparsely and usually only after she sends one to him with Sirius' owl first. So as much as she hates Sirius being off somewhere in danger, it provides her with an opportunity to speak to his brother and that has become a small guilty pleasure. Well – pleasure isn't the right word. Guilty habit.
Cressida paces the floor of the flat as she reads over the letter. He's still living at home, but like the Order has safe houses and meetings, that is where he often goes. It was a spoken and mutual agreement that he wouldn't be a mole for the Order, however much it might've helped. He didn't feel safe enough to betray those around him, and despite his hesitation, Regulus still had some sort of allegiance to these people.
So the letter gives nothing away of their movements, just like she gives no details of their own. A strange situation of Romeo and Juliet without the weird love at first sit and dying for the other part. Cressida shakes her head, knowing she could come up with a better comparison for their situation than a Shakespearean story.
The letter tells her that he's doing fine. He's well trusted amongst the ranks and nobody really looks twice at him. Regulus puts it down to his age. Eighteen.
She thinks back to just half an hour or so ago, where she watched her friends playing card games and drinking tea in front of a fireplace. That was what they got between the war. They got moments of being young and laughing. They have moments to sit and not think about it.
Then she imagines Regulus. He doesn't have that. He doesn't have the chance to let his guard down. You mess up a mission in the Order, people know you did your best and the consequences vary but they come from the event itself. You mess up for the Dark Lord, you might not live to see the consequences. Regulus is eighteen and being treated like a seasoned soldier.
Like always, his name isn't signed at the bottom, nor are there any dates or descriptions that would get him in trouble. Just a first person entrance into what he's thinking, leaving her to piece the rest of the story together.
Cressida tosses Gregovich a treat as she writes her response in a similar style. There's a constant feeling of someone looking over her shoulder, reading the words. And it could be like that, if someone intercepted the owl. Sealing it shut with her tongue, she carefully writes R.A.B in handwriting that isn't her own. Gregovich takes the envelope and scurries back out of her apartment. She has a feeling the owl doesn't like her very much. Nevertheless, she smiles as it flies away, shutting and locking the glass window once more. And the letter behind her on the bench slowly burns out of existence.