Chapter Thirty

Gone

"You've been working here a month, and you still don't know how to work the door?"

I sighed, rubbing my forehead. Sharice just laughed, patted me on the back, and demonstrated how to properly exit the building. It only took a simple tap of your wand near the center of the wall, but my head was throbbing too painfully for me to remember that.

"Long night?" she asked as we walked out into the sunlight, a waft of warm wind surrounding us.

I really was quite fond of Sharice. We were both relatively new to the office; Sharice had come a week after I had, and so we'd bonded over lunch a few times and helped each other out when things just didn't make sense, like then, with the exit.

"Kind of," I admitted. "My flatmate came home last night completely smashed. It wasn't pleasant. I think you get the picture."

She raised a brow in concern. "Oh. Should I even ask?"

I laughed wearily. "No, you don't want to know."

I'd been sleeping when Loraine got in last night, and the only reason I'd known she'd been drunk into oblivion at all was because she turned the hair dryer on at one-thirty in the morning. Her hair dryer wasn't even the normal kind of loud. It was atrocious, like apocalypse in a vacuum kind of atrocious. I'd finally gotten up after fifteen minutes of restlessness to find her in a heaping, crying mess, attempting to dry herself off from walking in the rain. She'd walked home from her friend's party because she'd gotten in a fight with her boyfriend and he'd refused to take her back home. Thus, she had melted into a toxic catastrophe.

She kept pointing the hair dryer at her face like she was trying to dry the tears, and I literally had to pry the stupid thing away from her, force her to change into something dry, and direct her back to her bed. I even used a little instantaneous drying spell on her so she'd stop crying about it. She was too drunk to notice, and it contented her enough where she could finally go to sleep, so it was all in the name of good.

Sharice and I normally dropped by the coffee house after work, but I had that Order meeting to go to, and that was something that was absolutely un-ditchable. Unfortunately. "D'you have the time, by any chance?"

"Er, I dunno."

"Sharice, you've got a wristwatch."

"Oh, but it's broken. Alec got it at a muggle market, or something like that." Alec, as in her live-in boyfriend. "He brings back muggle junk for me all the time." She gazed down at it, running her fingers over the gold border. "It's pretty, though, don't you think?"

"Beautiful," I responded to humor her, and rolled my eyes lightheartedly. "You know, I think I've got to run. I was supposed to go somewhere after work and I only just remembered."

"Where to?"

"Well, ah, a meeting." That answer did not appear to satisfy her. "For book club," I finished lamely.

"Book club? Hm. I've never liked those. They always seem to pick dull books."

"Yeah." I nodded, wondering why I'd come up with book club of all things. We were journalists, though, so I supposed it wasn't too odd. I mean, we read and everything. We had to.

Damned Order and their stupid confidentiality policies.

"Go ahead." She waggled her fingers at me, smiling kindly. "You owe me coffee next time, though."

"Oh, fine," I said, sighing as if it was really a burden. "I'll see you later then."

"Absolutely."

And I went and skipped off to a place where I could apparate safely.

It was certainly not good that I didn't know the time. Gideon was not going to be happy.

Nope. Gideon was not happy.

"Do you take any of this seriously?"

"Yes, very seriously," I sighed, crossing my arms while he continued to scold me. We were instructed to take some time to practice our spells while Dumbledore and the other senior Order members discussed our mission. So, I, of course, ended up in a room with my mentor, where he could chide me like a child all he wanted.

"You can't act like a Hogwarts student, Gracie. You're graduated and mature and you need to act like it. You have to take this seriously so that other people will take you seriously."

I huffed.

"And no huffing!"

"Sorry."

"Good. Now cast a Patronus."

"No forgiveness? No reconciliation? Nothing? Just 'cast a Patronus'?"

"Cast a Patronus and I won't exile you to Antarctica."

I frowned. "Fine." I closed my eyes briefly, summoning happy thoughts, and struck the air with my wand. "Expecto Patronum!"

A shot of brilliant blue light emitted from the tip of my wand, bounding out in the shape of a small, petite cat. He reminded me fondly of Leo, the kitten Sirius had gotten me last Christmas. He wasn't technically much of a kitten anymore. He'd seriously grown about a meter in the last couple of months. Well, maybe not a meter.

Gideon chuckled at the spectacle. "You've got such a flimsy little Patronus. A cat."

I gasped, shoving him in the side as my Patronus began fading far off. "Gideon! You're so terrible! What's your Patronus then?"

"A dragon," he answered proudly, straightening his shoulders. "Because I'm strong and mighty."

"Oh, right. Right. Show me. I want to see."

"Nah."

"But Gideon, how will I ever know how to properly cast a Patronus? You're my mentor, remember?"

"Yours was good. Real impressive. You'll be fine." He patted my shoulder.

"Gideon, I'm going to tell Mad-Eye that you—"

A head peeked through the open entrance of the door. "Tell Mad-Eye what?"

I shrieked, sending a portrait on the wall flying to the floor with my compulsive movement of my wand hand.

"Gracie! You're destroying Order property!" Gideon cried, running frantically to the portrait.

"Woops. Sorry, Gracie." Frank grinned sheepishly.

I sighed and smiled. "Sorry, Frank."

"I was just coming to tell you all that Dumbledore wants everyone to gather in the sitting room to hear instructions for our mission."

"Okay, thanks."

"The portrait's all right!" Gideon announced happily, hanging it back in its proper place. "I apologize, noble knight."

Frank and I shared a look of silent amusement as the three of us went to the sitting room where everyone was already gathered. Lily caught my eye from across the room and waved with enthusiasm, beckoning me to join her and the boys.

I snaked my way through and sat next to Lily on the floor, seeing as the older members had already occupied the sofas. James was at her side, Sirius, Remus and Peter somewhat farther off. They all said their hellos, nodding at me. Sirius winked.

I smiled. "Hey, you lot."

"Where were you before?" Lily asked, green eyes wide with curiosity. "I didn't see you."

"Erm. Got here late."

"Oh. Why? Did you get lost?"

"Sure." I shrugged. "Oh yeah, wasn't Petunia's wedding yesterday? How'd it go?"

Lily's expression got stiff, and James leaned forward, shaking his head frantically, signaling no don't go there no no no as loudly as he silently could.

Well, woops.

"It was fine," was her lame response. "Doesn't matter."

"Yes, you're right, Lils, it doesn't," James reassured, rubbing her back. "Doesn't matter at all."

"I mean, I know she hadn't said anything about me being a bridesmaid before, but I thought, well, maybe she just hadn't mentioned it," Lily began to ramble, looking fixedly at a spot in the floor. "I thought, surely she'd want me to be one. I mean, there was that one little time, at the restaurant, but that wasn't a big deal. I mean, she's my sister."

"Shh, shh," James said, still rubbing her back in circles.

"But no! She had all of her friends… all of her friends from school, all of them lined up, her sister nowhere in sight… And someone asked me how I knew Petunia, and I said, I'm her sister, and they said, well, why aren't you wearing a bridesmaid's dress? And I didn't know what to say! Why wasn't I? Because she hates me! But I couldn't have very well said that, could I?"

"Oh, Lily," I said, frowning. "It's all right. She's just bitter. It's just a phase. It's probably just a sister thing."

"You don't know Petunia… She hates me, she really does." She was biting her lip, looking on the verge of tears.

James kissed her cheek and said, "Shh, Lils. It's all right."

She nodded vigorously, wiping her face. "I know, I know. More important things to focus on, right?"

I squeezed her hand. "I promise to listen later if you want."

She nodded again, gently, gradually calming down. "Okay."

Once everyone had gathered in the room, Dumbledore began delivering the orders. While we listened, it was hard not to think how much of a big deal this was. Our first mission. All six of us shared an anxious look that hinted some subtle sort of excitement. Even Peter looked mildly excited, and that was definitely saying something.

"Why did I get paired up with you?" I whined, stomping my feet as I walked.

Gideon glared. "I think a more valid question would be why did I get paired up with you?"

"Oh, Merlin's trousers," Fabian groaned. "If the two of you don' shut the hell up, I'll curse your mouths off."

Remus pressed his lips together tightly, looking like he was suppressing a laugh.

"Sorry, Fabian," I murmured.

"Damn right you are. Sorry excuse for a cadet, that is."

"You Prewett boys are just cruel, you know that?"

Gideon laughed loudly, wrapping his arm around my neck and ruffling my hair obnoxiously. "Oh, you're like the little sister we never had."

"'Cept we've got three, o' course." Fabian rolled his eyes.

"Well, okay. You're like the fourth sister we never had."

I looked to Remus desperately for help. He just shook his head.

I wrestled myself from Gideon's grasp, blew out a loud, weary breath, and sat down on the steps with a thud. "What are Death Eathers going to be doing at a bakery, anyhow?"

"Not much, I imagine," Gideon said, tone roughly matching my own.

"Animating pastries and terrorizing gingerbread villages," Remus laughed.

"No, Remus, stop," I said, but Gideon and Fabian were laughing hysterically, like it was the funniest thing since Salazar's ripped pants.

"They probably do all their training on biscuits. Ha, drown in tea, you little mudblood!"

"I will baking you into a cake and then eat you! Bow down to me!"

"No, no, I can draw the Dark Mark, with icing—"

"I WILL SET FIRE TO YOUR HOMES WITH THIS CANDLE AND I WON'T BLOW IT OUT!"

The three boys were laughing so hard they were doubling over, wheezing and gasping for breath between body-shaking series of laughter. I just watched on, internally remarking that they were undeniably ridiculous. It was hard to deny, though, that they were somewhat amusing. Endlessly pathetic, but still amusing.

They were so caught up in their joke that I was the only one to notice the silvery phoenix that had suddenly appeared, hovering in a powerful presence before us.

"Remus, look, what is it—" I shook hard on his arm to get his attention, and it took a good five or ten seconds before the three of them understood what it was I was talking about.

"Dumbledore," said Fabian, staring at the Patronus with a fierce gaze.

"Oh, no," murmured Gideon.

"But wha—"

I stopped, though, as the wispy blue figure began to emit a loud, deep and resonating voice that certainly resembled Dumbledore's but sounded so strangely altered and stiff.

"There has been a battle. Our Order members have fought Voldemort himself—James Potter, Frank and Alice Longbottom, Peter Pettigrew, Mundungus Fletcher, Sirius Black, Emmeline Vance, Lily Evans. They have fought him and his forces valiantly. We are done. It is over, for now. Evacuate positions immediately."

And then it was gone with the wind, almost like it'd never been there at all.

"Does that mean they're all right?" I asked at once, letting the foolish question fall from my mouth without restraint. I turned desperately to the other three. Remus didn't respond, seeming to be wondering the same thing. Gideon and Fabian did not respond, either, but their tragically dubious expressions were confirmation enough. My heart began pumping frantically.

The transition from joking to serious was a difficult one, and it seemed as if everyone was numb from shock. But we had to get moving. Luckily for us, Fabian was the one with the clear head. "All righ', you heard 'im. Let's go. We'll be apparatin' to headquarters. Quickly now."

The four of us joined hands without another word and the world began to spin around me in a nauseating and uncomfortable blur. The unknown fate of everyone, of Lily, of James, of Peter, of Sirius...

I tightened my grip around Remus's hand in fear that I might slip away. I forced myself to stop thinking about it all and watched the warped world morph around me and twist me through the middle, focusing on the painful throbbing in my head rather than in the rapid beat of my heart.

We were soldiers. Practically. I had to act like one.

Keep it together, Gracie. Keep it together.

My feet touched the ground for a moment before I found myself falling face forward, stumbling to the ground, only to be caught by a whirlwind of color that pulled me from the top of my head and yanked low on my ankles...

This time when my feet touched the ground, I was so disoriented that I toppled over on the floor, hands sliding mercilessly against cold tile. My torso was completely twisted in a direly uncomfortable position, but I'd managed to avoid smacking my face on the floor, so there were things to be grateful for. I righted myself with a groan, and was slightly relieved when I found that I hadn't been the only one to fall.

"What happened?" asked Remus, rubbing the back of his head. It appeared as if he hadn't been lucky enough to avoid head-butting the floor.

"We received a message as soon as we arrived at headquarters to re-direct to St. Mungo's," Gideon answered. "There is a possibility that headquarters may have been infiltrated, and we need to be sure before we send everyone there."

Fabian grunted quite audibly as he stood, clearly unhappy that he had fallen so disgracefully.

"A message?"

"It was for Fabian and I," Gideon said. "You wouldn't have heard it. Legilimency. It was directed specifically to Fabian and me because we're technically responsible for you, as your mentors."

Remus and I shared a brief look of annoyance. Because we were still children, Gideon might as well have said.

My eyes trailed idly to our surroundings, where life was otherwise uninteresting, aside from the obnoxious pops of people apparating in and out and the groans of the lifts. I watched a pair of Healers as they walked in conversation through the lobby and made their way onto one of the lifts, and only then did it occur to me to wonder why we were here of all places.

"Did someone get hurt?"

"Well, they fough' You-Know-Who, so I don' reckon everyone's too dapper," Fabian remarked sarcastically, pushing past Remus and I in the direction of the lifts. Gideon followed after, shrugging at me.

I braced myself to resist the urge to punch Fabian. My limits were certainly being pushed to the edge, but punching Fabian wasn't a good idea for a multitude of reasons, namely that his arms were practically the size of my head...

"Come on, Gracie," Remus urged calmly, taking my hand. "Let's go find the others."

"Do you think they're okay?" I asked softly.

"Yeah," he answered firmly. "Certain of it." But this time, he sounded slightly more doubtful, as if he was saying it rather for our joint benefit.

I let him lead me for a few blind moments. He followed after our mentors, who stopped only briefly to ask a Healer where certain Order members had been located. While we squeezed into a lift, I heard Gideon mention something about us being the last group back, because we had been assigned so far out of the way that the message had reached us much later than the rest...

I hadn't realized we were there until I heard her voice, shouting out to us over a loud murmur of people. It wasn't until I finally spotted her that my chest flooded with relief and I dragged Remus after to me to sprint to her.

"Lily!"

"Gracie, Remus! You're both all right! Oh, we hadn't heard from you, and we've all been waiting..."

"I heard about the battle—Merlin, I was worrying myself sick...how are you? Are you all right? Who got hurt?"

"I'm fine, only a couple of scratches. Everyone is fine, really, but ah..." Her gaze drifted slowly. "Mundungus, Alice, but they'll be all right... James snapped his wrist, but you know how that goes, they fixed it up in a jiffy, but..."

I found myself looking about desperately as well. The room was rather peculiar, with starch white walls that felt suffocating. There were a few cots scattered sparsely about the room, and I found Mundungus and Alice occupying them, surrounded by Order members in seemingly deep conversation.

James was not very far off, talking to Frank, who appeared to be trying to reassure him, looking him sternly in the eyes with a hand on his shoulder. James was just nodding, eyes glazed as if in a trance, dark hair matted wildly about his head.

"Where's Sirius?" Remus asked suddenly. "And Peter?"

The look on Lily's face made it painfully clear that she'd meant to say something else but hadn't had the courage to. "I—I don't know. I wanted to tell you at first, but I- No one knows where they are."

My heart sank.

"We were trying to fend off the Death Eaters, but they were so tall and so swift, and we were running and blocking and dodging and we just lost of sight of the both of them in the mess of it all. We were supposed to stick together, all four of us, but we—no one knows where they are, they're all looking—"

"Lily," I said, trying to stop the shaking of my hands, "Lily, stop blaming yourself." Frank was probably telling James the same thing, I realized. "Sirius probably just ran off, trying to be the hero." I swallowed down air so that I wouldn't start crying. "He does that, you know."

"I know. But, oh, Merlin..."

"They'll find them. Both of them," Remus encouraged firmly.

"Yeah." I nodded vigorously.

It was a half-hour of pacing and nervous laughing later that Edgar Bones came bursting into the room, screaming and shouting at the top of his lungs that Sirius Black had been found.

I'd gone so still from shock that at first I didn't move at all. Somehow, I met James's gaze in that instant. It seemed as if we were both desperately anxious to see him and the thought had temporarily connected us both, and Lily saw it. She gave me a light nudge.

"Go."

I tried not to run and reminded myself that there really was no reason to run, but the walking I was doing was certainly not one of leisure. James did all the talking and maneuvered us through the mass of healers and managed to sneak us into the intensive care facility where Sirius was being taken care of.

When we'd finally arrived and my eyes fell on a familiar face that did not currently look so familiar, I felt a great, uncomfortable stir in my chest.

"Oh, Sirius, you stupid prat!"

I was there in quite a shorter time than James and was by his side, looking upon his dirty, marred face that shone with a sheen of perspiration. I wrapped my arms tightly around his neck before I could stop myself.

"Hello, you two," he greeted fondly, and when I let go of him, I spotted a goofy smile upon his features that certainly did not fit his condition. "How's the weather outside?"

"Oh, shut up," I sighed, rolling my eyes so that James could see. We both ended up laughing in near hysterics, so overcome with overwhelming relief that we were getting slap-happy.

"You look terrible, mate," James told him, grinning indistinctly.

"Bet I'm still better looking than you," said Sirius. "What do you say, Gracie?"

I frowned. "Well, I think James wins this one."

Sirius gaped in emphatic disbelief.

"Well, have you looked at yourself? You look like you changed ethnicities!"

James laughed wildly in the background. Sirius pouted. "To be fair, it's mostly dirt, and I haven't bathed yet." He paused, like he was thinking, and then leaned into me, whispering, "Do you think the healers will have to bathe me? I don't want them to get a look at all my business."

"Sirius!" I gasped, and James's laughter only escalated. "Could you be serious for one moment?"

He raised a brow.

"Oh, don't even say it. We are far past that terribly pathetic joke."

"All right, love, whatever you say." He leaned back into his bed casually, winking at me.

"What's wrong with you? Anything broken?" asked James suddenly. "Anything sprained? Gone completely? Brain damage? Splinch?"

"Haven't the foggiest. The healers haven't even really looked at me other than to confirm I'm not dying. And technically neither of you are supposed to be here," he said with a smirk.

I waved my hand at him, in a manner that seemed to just say, Oh, whatever.

"Well, what happened?" said James.

"My lovely cousin Bellatrix tossed her knife at me. She always has had a bit of an anger issue," he commented dryly.

"What?"

"Well, it's lucky she's got a doozy of an aim. I think she was planning on hitting me in the chest, but she got my leg instead."

I sighed and raised my hand to his forehead, brushing his hair out of his face so I could see his eyes properly. I twirled his dark hair around a finger idly and then lowered my hand to stroke the side of his face. I smiled sadly. "I love you, you know."

He smiled. "Fancy a kiss before they kick you out of here? Because I think I hear the healer coming in."

"Ew, but you're filthy right now." I stuck my tongue out teasingly. "Plus, James is watching."

"Oi, Prongs, get out."

"Hey!" James protested. "I came in here to check on my best mate because I was genuinely concerned about you, and this is how you repay me?"

Turns out, the healer was on her way in. She looked slightly miffed upon her discovery of James and me in the room, but collected herself rather well. "Excuse me, but I've got to check on your friend's injuries. I'll have to ask the two of you to leave for now."

James gave Sirius a look that said, "Ha!" before turning to scurry off out of the room. I leaned down to brush Sirius's lips with a quick, fleeting kiss, and then rushed off after James.

Lily and Remus were waiting outside the room when we returned. "How is he?" Lily asked.

"Good," I said.

"Quite good. Lousy arse," grunted James.

I just laughed, patting him on the back. The other two looked curious, but I just shook my head.

"Have they found Peter yet?" I asked suddenly.

Remus and Lily both visibly tensed.

"No," Remus said. "They haven't."

The relief that had filled me up with exuberating warmth suddenly disappeared and was replaced with a deep, unsettling sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. Peter, poor little defenseless Peter...

And in our minds, wordlessly, we all mourned the death of Peter's friendship, though I hadn't realized what that feeling had been at all until many, many years later.

Thank you all for not abandoning me. Much love. x