A/N: A shortish chapter that sheds the light on Evelyn as a person. Enjoy!!!
Oddity update : I have gone with a mix of both political and action. Hato is once again out and about.
Symbol update : Really had fun writing the latest chapter. I think you would also enjoy it. It takes place when Adam met Andromeda. Boy oh boy! What a ride it was!?
Anyway, let's enjoy this story...


The Last Doomtreader!


"So, Harry, I am sure you have a lot of questions for us," Remus asked as everyone sat down for the dinner.

It had been an hour since the woman had left the house. What followed in her wake was a furor of unimaginable proportions that had kept most of the adults in the room busy.

Professor McGonagall has left immediately after the woman. Moody has chastised Bill for being so lax about the whereabouts of the Order's location and Dumbledore has insisted that they communicate with him before bringing any more foreign wizards to the meeting.

He had also instructed Harry to stay away from the woman as much as possible and always have an adult beside him if the woman ever drops by. He had left after that stating that he had urgent business to take care of. Meanwhile, Sirius and Remus had retreated to Sirius's rooms and had only returned when the dinner was called for. And they were smelling strongly of firewhiskey much to Mrs. Weasley's displeasure.

Mr. Weasley had flat out refused to state who the woman was and said that it wasn't his tale to say. He had also informed him that Dumbledore wouldn't be pleased with the arrival of the woman. He also stated that things will get hectic in Ministry now that the woman was back in British soil.

Moody had left sometime later stating that dealing with Thorne always left him thirsty for some reason. However, Harry wasn't fooled. Moody had a haunted, melancholic look in his face as he left. When Tonks wanted to accompany him, he had growled at her to leave him alone. Tonks had retreated with a stricken look and had been sulking since then.

Mrs. Weasley had returned down with the youngsters. While most of the conversation had been kept low key and wouldn't have carried to the first floor, Harry knew for a fact that everyone had heard the entire conversation from the looks everyone was shooting at him. What irked him most was that he had no clue as to who that woman was and the people who could provide answer to him were running around like headless chicken.

"Who the hell was that woman?" Tonks butted in rudely not giving Harry any chance to ask his questions. "I have never seen Moody like that."

Sirius and Remus exchanged a look and grimaced.

"That was Eve, Evelyn Thorne," Remus began as he sipped his firewhiskey. "The best friend of Lily Potter."

Harry perked up at the mention of his mother. He had known Sirius, Remus and even that rat were friends of his father when they were in school. But, no one had said anything about his mother or her friends. Sometimes, he had idly wondered where his mother's friends are.

"One of the last remnants of Doomtreaders," Sirius said with a playful smirk.

"Merlin," Tonks exclaimed, "No wonder Moody is so shaken up."

Harry looked around the table in confusion and began to realize that he was the only one without any clue about Doomtreaders. Again.

"That's impossible," Hermoine began, "Aren't they all dead after the First Wizarding War?"

"And she is too young," Ron voiced out his agreement.

"Well, that is why I said remnant and not an actual member. She was trained by them. Her father was one of them," Sirius replied with a shrug.

"Sorry, but I don't know what this Doomtreaders mean," Harry interjected hastily.

Sirius looked taken aback for a moment, before frowning.

"Seriously Harry, you need to open some books," Hermoine grumbled.

Harry shrank back his head sheepishly, but nevertheless looked at Sirius eagerly.

"Remus, you might want to take this," Sirius said massaging his head. "History is more of your turf."

Remus nodded in acknowledgement, before he began, "Well, you know how the Order was established to fight against Voldemort, right? Doomtreaders were people who fought against Grinderwald. You can call them the veterans of Grinderwald war. And that is why you can never have a Doomtreader and Dumbledore under the same roof. Too much bad blood."

"But, I thought Dumbledore defeated Grinderwald," Harry asked in confusion.

"Isn't it obvious, they are jealous of Dumbledore," Hermoine huffed, to which all the Weasleys nodded, except for the twins.

"Well, you have got that wrong," Tonks grimaced as Sirius and Remus shook their head.

Hermoine looked around in confusion.

"We have heard some stories about that," Fred began.

"We don't know if they are true," George finished.

"The water between Doomtreaders and Dumbledore is way too muddy. There are countless stories and interpretations out there. Unless you can make Evelyn talk, no one will know what the real story is. But, know this, Evelyn despises Dumbledore and any amount of trust between them blew up after what happened to Lily," Remus said taking a sip of his firewhiskey.

"What do you mean?" Harry frowned.

"Well, while Evelyn was never part of the Order, she fought against You-Know-Who. And Lily was her best friend, and she wasn't going to stand by when people hunted her," Sirius piped in with a wistful look.

"Anyways, sometime before Lily's death, she and Evelyn got into an argument. No one knows what it was about," Remus grimaced.

"The widely prevalent rumor is it was about Dumbledore," Sirius piped in causing the adults in the room to shoot him a dirty look.

"That's all just rumors, unless Eve opens her mouth about that, no one will know what it was about," Remus sighed massaging his head, "Anyways, what you need to know about Evelyn and Lily's relationship is that they were both stubborn and butted heads often. They will argue more than half the time they were in each other's presence, but inevitably they will make up. Its how their relationship was."

"I do remember the time Travers thought they were fighting with each other and called Lily some unsavory terms," Sirius chuckled causing Remus to smile fondly.

"What happened?" Tonks asked eagerly.

"Well, Evelyn broke both his legs and stated in no uncertain terms that no one is allowed to badmouth Lily," Sirius laughed loudly.

"You see everyone was afraid of Evelyn," Remus said shaking his head, "even we were. Evelyn was crass, blunt, and often times in the face of everyone. She picked up fight with anyone and everyone. There were only two people who she truly listened to Lily -your mother, and Alice – Neville's mother."

"But, no one dared to mess with her," Sirius chuckled.

"Evelyn was a powerful witch, even at that age," Remus said in reminiscence.

"And with a temper to boot," Sirius snickered agreeing with Remus. "I remember her having as much detention as we had."

"Only for hexing people who annoyed her," Remus replied with a smile.

"But, she did, didn't she?" Sirius smiled.

"Yeah, anyways, we are getting off track," Remus said shaking his head, "the thing is, she had an argument with Lily. And like with every time they fight, Evelyn left to clear her head somewhere. But, before she could return, Peter betrayed your parents and you know everything that happened afterwards."

"But, that's not the worst part, even the Longbottom's were attacked two days after your parents died and Alice was left in a coma," Mr. Weasley said wearily. "And Evelyn didn't take to the news well."

"Mind you, no one knows what happened after that. Even I only heard of this from others," Remus continued with a grimace. "Rumors state that she and Dumbledore got into an argument immediately after her return. No one knows what they discussed, but all everyone knows is that they ended up in a honor duel of all things following that. Evelyn lost and as per the stipulation, she had to leave Britain for ten years in exile."

"She has never been in British soil since then," Sirius said somberly. "I think if not for you, she wouldn't have returned at all."

Harry was dumbfounded by the tale of the woman. On one hand, he couldn't but feel impressed by the woman. To challenge Dumbledore for a honor duel when everyone knows how powerful he was can be considered as either very foolish or very brave. But, he knew that only handful of wizards will even entertain that notion.

And the way she hadn't backed down from Dumbledore earlier said that she had only grown stronger since then. It was somewhat refreshing to kmow that his mum too had friends who were very close to her. While a lot of people spoke about how talented his parents were, the conversation always focused on his father. Not that he minded it much, as no one had spoke to him about his parents in detail. So, any morsel of information he gleaned about either of his parents were very important to him.

However, he had always wondered why there was little to no information about his mother's friends. Even when either Sirius or Remus talked about his father it was one off comment here and there. They only mentioned his mum to tell how she reacted to it. But, this was a woman who was best friends with his mother. And if he had read between the lines, it also meant that his mother was friends with Neville's mother.

Why in the hell had no one told him about this? Did Neville know that their mothers were friends? If so, why hasn't Neville talked to him about it?

As he pondered these questions, he began to notice something very strange about his life. Apart from Ron and Hermione, he had no other friends at Hogwarts. For Merlin's sake! He had been schooling there for four years and had been getting into all sorts of stuff, albeit reluctantly, but not having more friends by now wasn't something he had ever thought about until now.

As he thought more about it, he also remembered that Neville had believed him when Ron had abandoned him. He had even helped him with some other stuff over the years. In fact, most of his interactions with Neville was when he was in his first year. New to the magical world and looking at everything with wonder. Once he had settled down, that communication with Neville had been dwindling every year.

After thinking about stuff for a long time, he resolved to get to know Neville better this year, that is if the Ministry didn't expel him from Hogwarts. Arrgh, he still had that stupid trial to go to.