A/N: Thanks again to everyone who reviewed! I really appreciate them. Without any reviews from you guys, I basically will end up stopping the story, cause it takes up a lot of time. (Though I totally love writing it! I just need to know it's being read.) So this chapter partially takes place the night of the last chapter, the end of summer before book 6, but the rest of it takes place at the end of Book 6.

Disclaimer: Harry Potter is the property of J.K. Rowling.

Chapter 5

She alone remained free from the disaster at the Ministry to do the Dark Lord's bidding. She was most grateful that after the blunder there he was even allowing her to live. Now Bellatrix Lestrange was determined to satisfy his every need—to fulfill every mission he so mercifully bestowed to her.

The Dark Lord wished for her to find and bring him her sister Narcissa and her son. They were hiding from him because of Lucius' mistake, knowing that Voldemort was planning to punish them. As cowardly and disloyal as Narcissa was, she was admittedly clever. But not too clever for the Dark Lord. Narcissa knew that the last place anyone would look for the Malfoy family is in the midst of a Muggle town. And that's why that was the first place Voldemort told Bellatrix to look.

She strode down the suburban streets at dusk, her face carefully hidden in the dense mist, feeling for the sensation of poorly concealed magic.

As she walked in front of a house with a front porch, she felt it. But it didn't feel right. The magic was weak here; it was dying. She kept walking and as soon as she reached the next house she felt it again. Yet this house was not right either. It was not the magic of the Malfoy family. Bellatrix knew the feel of Malfoy magic. No protection and concealment could disguise the hint of Dark magic. She kept walking.

She had walked two more streets when she felt it: the appealing Dark Magic that sent the thrill of blood0lust down her veins. As soon as Bellatrix turned to approach the house a figure appeared walking towards her in the mist. She paused, waiting for her next victim to come closer, so she could see the figure's face. It was a middle-aged Muggle man and since he undoubtedly saw her—a wanted criminal—she pulled out her wand.

He was walking quickly. She frowned at the realization that torturing him would cause too much of a commotion. And she still had a mission to accomplish.

The man was feet away from her. As he appeared to be on a leisurely stroll, he smiled at her and bowed his head in polite greeting. However, he quickened his pace and looked alarmed as he caught a glance at the amused, sadistic smirk on her face.

And then it was over. There was a flash of green light and the man crumpled on the ground, without standing a chance against the cackling witch who was already entering a nearby house.

Angelina groaned, feeling exhausted. She was scraping the untouched dinner she found in her sleeping mother's room into the garbage and was thinking about a letter she was supposed to be finishing to her two-time Quidditch Captain (this time of the team Puddlemore United) Oliver Wood. She had to explain why she couldn't play the upcoming summer season, starting in two weeks. The thought of her life without Quidditch—her dream—was starting to drive her to the edge. She had been taking care of her mother for months and it was coming with too many sacrifices. She could hardly leave the house, seeing as though her Uncle Miles was killed just taking a stroll. She couldn't be a real part of the Order of the Phoenix (although Fred wouldn't let her join anyway, since it was dangerous). She couldn't have a job. And she couldn't live with Fred. They talked multiple times a day, through the mirrors. Fred even came over, though only about once a month, since he still had to run the joke shop. But it wasn't enough. Everyday problems and the tragedies the war brought came crashing down on her, much harder, now that she was without Fred. It reminded her of something her Uncle said about a year ago. "And if anything, being together in tough times helped them survive… Their love made them stronger; it was like a weapon against the tragedy around them." She was realizing now how true that was.

Life was starting to seem impossible stuck in her mum's house. And all of these sacrifices were causing her to slightly loathe her mother, which in turn made her feel guilty.

Angelina tossed the food in a Muggle dishwasher—as Lee said that other wizards could detect a magical household if its tenets were constantly using magic. She walked upstairs to her desk in her room to continue writing her letter, carrying her square two-way mirror with her. She had been carrying it with her all over the house since she moved in, so she would always have it ready if Fred used it. They have been using the mirrors multiple times a day, talking whenever Fred wasn't busy in the store.

He was one of her two connections to the outside Wizarding world; Lee still lived next door to her. However, he only stopped over once a week. Though Angelina knew it was not true, she secretly felt he could have stopped Bellatrix Lestrange from killing her uncle. It was necessary to blame someone. Instead of accepting it as another tragedy of the war, it had to be someone's fault, so that was she could feel that her uncle didn't have to die. The person she really blamed was herself, for not being there, but it was easier to think it was Lee's fault. She always made excuses for not wanting him to come over. It was a battle between not feeling guilty and not being alone. Seeing as though when she came to this battle, she remembered that Lee was the person who kept insisting that she stayed in doors—for her own safety—she usually refused to see him.

"Angelina Johnson." She heard Fred's voice coming from the mirror as she finished writing the letter and tied it to her owl Radva's leg. She glanced over to glimpse Fred in the mirror.

"Hey! Hold on a second." She said opening a window to Radva to fly out of. He flew into the secluded backyard and disappeared into the night sky. Angelina turned to sit down in front of the mirror and saw that he looked terrified. She had never seen Fred Weasley scared before.

"What happened? Fred are you—" She asked, not bothering to conceal the fear in her own voice.

"I'm fine." But he was shaking. "Angelina, there was an attack at Hogwarts tonight."

"What?! How?"

"Death Eaters. Somehow they got in. Dad said something about Draco Malfoy fixing that old Vanishing Cabinet—oh my god, George and I shoved Montegue in that thing, what if--?"

"No Fred, it's not you fault. If Malfoy fixed it, then—"

"Dumbledore's dead."

Angelina's jaw dropped.

"Snape killed him. I bet that was the reason the came to the castle. Dad says Dumbledore was the only one You-Know-Who ever feared. And now…" Fred said with a distant look on his face, as if he was seeing horrors of the war to come.

"Don't say that Fred!" Angelina exclaimed, tears slowly rolling down her cheeks. "This can't be happening. Things cant' get any worse!"

"And Bill…" Fred started, looking sick. Angelina's heart skipped a beat. "He got… bit. By Fenrir Greyback, the werewolf. But we don't know what's going to happen to him. It's not a full moon. Lupin doesn't know…" He trailed off, lost in thought.

Suddenly a door opened and shut in her house, causing Angelina to jump.

"Angel, what was that?" Fred asked.

"Someone's…" She stopped and ran to her mother's room with the mirror still in her hand. "Mum? Mum, get up!" She said shaking her.

"What's going on?" Her mom muttered, rolling over in her bed.

"Damn it, Mum, someone's here. We need to disapperate." She said, forcing her mum to sit up. "Here, just take my—"

The bedroom door opened, and Lee walked into the room to find a terrified Angelina clutching a mirror with Fred's face reflecting from it and holding the hand of her confused mother.

"Ang! What are you--?"

"You bastard! What the hell do you think you're doing, sneaking into my house at a time like this!" She screamed, dropping her mother's hand and shoving Lee hard into the hallway.

"How do you know? I was just coming to tell you. Is that Fred?" He asked, pointing to the mirror.

"Yes. He told me. It's a two-way mirror." She snapped, turning to her mother. "Mum, everything is alright. Lie down and go back to sleep. I'll be downstairs if you need anything."

The old woman suddenly grabbed Angelina's wrist.

"It's him, isn't it? You-Know-Who?" The thing Angelina's mother said didn't usually make sense. But now, in the middle of the might, Maria was more lucid then she had been in a year. The one time there was emotion in the old lady's grey eyes, it was fear. Yet as Angelina looked at her, seeing her as if for the first time in awhile, she saw a young woman, in love and alive, instead of the old, senile lady who stayed in her room all day giving conversations with her dead husband.

Out of the corner of her eye, Angelina saw Fred's eyes wondering in the mirror and she was brought back to the current situation and her current rage.

"Yes, mum. It's him." She said sadly, helping her mum back in bed and quietly leaving the room.

When she got in the hallway she grabbed Lee's arm and dragged him downstairs.

"Lee are you ok?" Fred asked from the mirror.

"Of course Lee's ok!" Angelina shouted. "Lee's alright even when people he's protecting end up dead!"

"What?" He asked, laughing in shock.

"Yeah, Lee, laugh! You let my uncle roam around and he got murdered by a Death Eater!" Angelina snapped.

"What? Angie, that was in the middle of the night, I didn't know!"

"So that must be why you're trapping me in the house, so I can't have a job or play Quidditch or live at all, so you can make sure no one else dies on your watch?"

"Hold on. I'm coming over." Fred disappeared from the mirror. A second later he was in the living room with them. "Angelina, please calm down. You know your uncle's death wasn't Lee's fault."

"So this is why you only let me check on you once a week? Like you really have laundry to do!" Lee shouted, getting up in her face.

"Hey! Stop." Fred said, pushing him away from Angelina.

"Check on me? I'm not a child Lee! Don't you know how miserable I've been? You've forbidden me from even doing magic so I do have laundry to do!"

"I'm trying to keep you safe!"

"Keep me safe? Uncle Miles needed your protection because he wasn't a wizard! I can defend myself!"

"Hey." Fred said calmly, taking her hand. "I wanted Lee to keep you safe! I told him to protect you, Angelina."

"Fred, I don't need to be protected, I can defend myself!" She insisted.

"I know you can, but if anything happened to you, I don't know what I would do." He said seriously. "And I know this year has been impossible for you, and I'm sorry. I love you though and I didn't want anything to happen to you."

Angelina started to cry and she nodded.

"Angelina, I'm—" Lee started. Angelina let go of Fred's hand and turned to Lee.

"I'm so sorry. I just needed for Uncle Miles' death to not be another war tragedy. I didn't want to think that he had to die, I needed to think that it could have been prevented. It was… It was just easier to blame you for it, then it would be to blame myself. I know it wasn't your fault." She sniffled, giving him a hug. "No one wants to be prisoner in their own house. Uncle Miles just had to get out of the house, away from your protection."

"I'm sorry for doing that to you. I just want you to be safe, too." He said, heading towards the door.

"Oh, and Lee?" She called after him.

"Yeah?"

"Thank you."

He nodded, smiled, and was gone.

"You know that you're the only person who makes me feel safe?" She asked Fred casually, though she meant it with everything inside her.

"Yeah. I know."

"You know why?" Angelina asked again.

"Why?"

"Because you're my hero."

Fred smiled, looking truly touched, and they both fell silent for a moment.

"I'm sorry, Fred." She said quietly.

"For what? It's just been a hard year." He said, pulling her into his arms.

"But now it going to be getting harder." She said, wiping her eyes.

"No, we'll get through this."

"I don't know if I can, without you here." She said, her voice quivering.

Fred lifted her chin up to his face with her thumb and looked deep into her eyes.

"You will never be completely without me, Angel. We're going to survive this war. Everything's going to be ok. I promise you." He said, meaning it.

"You can't make that kind of promise. How do you know we'll survive?" She said, feeling helpless just thinking about it.

"Because I love you. That's something that You-Know-Who will have a hell of a time trying to take away from us." He said smiling.

"Uncle Miles said the same thing. In so many words."

"It's true. Even if something happens to me—"

"Don't say it!" Angelina cried. "You are not going to talk like that.

Fred shrugged.

"But even so, whatever happens, I'll meet it with a laugh. I believe that our love is so strong that whatever we have today will be even stronger when this is over."

Angelina was crying.

"You are not going to die." She said.

"Angel…" Fred replied warningly.

"Say it! You are not going to die. You are going to live forever."

"No one can live forever."

"You will. Just say it. Say "I am not going to die.""

Fred kissed her.

"You're avoiding it." She insisted.

"How about this." Fred said, leading her upstairs. "I plan on marrying you someday, Angelina Johnson. Someday when this whole war is over."

She looked him over, and stared into his warm hazel eyes, that sparkled with life. They made her trust him. Always and forever, those eyes would be twinkling with laughter. Alive with jokes to be told and trouble to make. They were filled with love.

"I guess that will do." She said seriously. "And I can't wait till then."

A/N: Review please!