Disclaimer: It's been a bit of a while but no, I still haven't become a billionaire and acquired the rights for HP and the various characters yet.

So Far: Alice and Frank (who, if you somehow missed it, are a couple) were approached by McGonagall just before boarding the Hogwarts Express for the last time. From her, they each received a letter with the mysterious title "Order of the Phoenix".

Chapter 30

Or

Of Invitations and Revisiting

There was a surprising amount of nice, Wizard-friendly restaurants in London, if you knew where to look. And Alice knew where to look, even if Frank wasn't sure how; they were both purebloods, and Frank at least had never felt the need to look for restaurants such as this outside Diagon Alley. Alice must have not agreed with him, and to be fair, this was a very nice restaurant; the atmosphere was cool, with a red and gold color scheme. The tables had small candles in glass bowls on them, bathing the entire space in a soft light supported by the mood lighting.

It was very romantic. It ought to have been; this was their four year anniversary that they were celebrating.

He had to keep his hands away from his left pocket, constantly fidgeting.

"You like it?" Alice asked.

He grinned. "I love it."

They weren't the only people in the restaurant, but it was surprisingly empty nonetheless. Perhaps it was that intangible quality it had to it, the mystery, the fact that it both did and didn't look expensive, that pushed people away. Perhaps it was just a slow night. In any case, Frank was grateful.

Alice was beautiful. She had cut her blonde locks short when they entered the Auror program, but Frank didn't mind; now he could see her face more clearly. She was wearing a beautiful, flower-pattern dress, knee-high and impossibly flattering. It was always possible, of course, that she'd altered the dress for that express purpose; she was good at transfiguration.

Frank felt like nothing next to her. He felt alive. He felt on fire.

This was nothing new. He had reacted to Alice that way since he could remember.

"Shall we?" Alice said, a smile tugging at the edge of her lips.

"Of course," Frank said, letting her lead him to a relatively secluded corner table. The candle flickered as they sat down, but didn't blow out.

The conversation flowed, the food was, as Alice had said, "Eggcellent", and by the time they got to dessert, Frank was barely containing his excitement. He kept reaching for his left pocket, again and again, only just stopping just in time. He wanted to wait until after dessert. He wanted to end – he wanted to begin – with a sweet taste on her tongue.

"So," he began. "What do you want for dessert?"

"Well," she said, "I was thinking of something special – "

"Oh?"

"Yes, well, you see, it is our fourth anniversary, and I was thinking about us – "

"Excuse me, Mister, Madame," said a waiter, rudely butting in. His stupid handlebar mustache jumped up and down along with his stupid, puffy lips. Couldn't he tell that he was interrupting something important?

"What is it?" sighed Frank, barely containing his rage.

"A man just came by, and he gave me this to give to you," the waiter said. "Insisted that it was important, and vital that the two of you got it right now."

He was holding an envelope. Frank recognized it immediately, and one look at Alice confirmed that she did too.

"Well?" Frank said. "Give it here."

When the waiter was gone – finally – Alice opened the envelope with its familiar green scrawl, and read the contents. She wordlessly passed it to him, and began gathering her things.

He sighed again, and pawed at the ring case in his pocket. Soon, he promised wordlessly.

The forest was uncannily quiet in the cool night air, which seemed almost unreasonable. Benjy was never an adventurer, though he wouldn't quite call himself a coward. Perhaps he was, however; the eerie darkness was overbearing, almost, and he couldn't wait to –

What was that noise?

He stopped, and listened. Maybe it was nothing, maybe it was just his imagination –

No, there it was again. He shifted his weight from leg to leg nervously, his hand creeping towards his wand.

When you are invited to a super-secret meeting you tend to get paranoid. Benjy didn't think that he was exaggerating when he turned around right then and there and held his wand up, aiming straight forward. There was nobody there.

The note he received was simple: there was a place on it, and there was a time. But Benjy had been approached on the last day of school. Benjy had been friends with Lily Evans all year, and he knew what was going on in the Wizarding world. Benjy may have been a Hufflepuff, but he was not stupid. He could do simple math, and he knew what two plus two equaled, and all those other metaphors for getting the gist of something that was pretty obvious but not stated outright. He was being invited to join the war, and he knew this was dangerous, and perhaps the danger had already started.

The rustling sound happened again, and from the same direction. Slowly, he took a single step in the direction, being careful not to step on any dry leaves, which, though not abundant, could already be found lying on the forest floor. It felt too early in the year for so many trees to have shed their leaves; perhaps winter was coming early.

In the darkness, he couldn't see a thing; it wasn't long after the new moon. He debated lumos before realizing that it would be a beacon straight to him if there actually were anyone out there, looking for him, perhaps meaning harm.

There it was again, that sound of steps on dry leaves. There must have been more than one person, based on the frequency of the steps, and these people weren't particularly good at hiding themselves. Perhaps they weren't looking for him at all?

At this point Benjy realized the footsteps were getting farther away. Carefully, he walked in their direction –

Oh.

"Alice! Frank!" Benjy said in a stage whisper. The two, easily identifiable as he'd known them for seven years and even hung out with them over the past few thanks to more overlap between their social circles and schedules, were startled and raised their wands at him, only to lower them when noticing who it was.

Alice grinned and ran straight at him, hugging him tightly. Benjy didn't really think they were in the hugging stage of their friendship, what with only speaking occasionally over the past few years, but hugged her back nonetheless. She pulled back as Frank caught up, and Benjy noticed that they were both dressed in simple but fancy clothing, as though they'd dressed up. Should I have dressed up, too?

"Are you here for the Order too, mate?" Frank asked. Benjy wondered for a second if they would hug, too.

They didn't.

"Yeah, McGonagall contacted me on the last day of school," he replied, almost too late. "You guys have any idea what this actually is?"

"Not any more than you do," Alice said. "But c'mon, we're going to be late if we don't get a move on."

She was right, and so the three of them marched on through the woods before finally reaching the edge of it; that is, where they were told to show up. Five minutes ago.

"D'you think we're too late?" Alice whispered worriedly.

"Ah, you're finally here," said a gruff voice from behind them. They all spun around immediately. What appeared before them was somewhat horrifying: the man was not tall, but not short, though he seemed to lack a leg, with a wooden replacement where the extremity should have been. He was dressed in Auror garb, which didn't seem wise, and his hair was stringy and loose, as though he hadn't bothered to wash it for a while. Worst of all were his eyes; that is, one of them was perfectly normal, small and brown. The other was not. It was a bright, striking sort of blue, and was too large for his face. It moved, as well, not in the way eyes moved usually, but in all 360 degrees, even back into its own socket.

"Well, what're you waiting for? Move, move," sighed the crazy-looking man, as he slowly turned and limped back into the forest. As they entered the Forbidden Forest once again, Benjy couldn't help but send a wistful look at Hogwarts castle, wishing he were in there with the rest instead of out here, dealing with things that were, to be honest, terrifying.

I guess that's the price of war, he thought, and marched on.

The man's name was Alastor Moody, and he was an Auror and a personal friend of Dumbledore's. Benjy was honestly not surprised by the fact that Alastor would be a friend of Dumbledore's, and yet, it didn't seem likely that friendly, elderly Dumbledore would be friends with Alastor in return. Alastor was, at least as far as Benjy could tell from his brief but blunt introduction, was somewhat eccentric, similarly to Dumbledore; however, he didn't seem to have that friendly twinkle in his eyes that Dumbledore had. Dumbledore, also, had both of his original eyes, as far as Benjy knew. And both his legs.

(He probably shouldn't think of him as Alastor, as the man had introduced himself in the James Bond-eque turn of phrase "Moody, Alastor Moody" and did not seem to be a very approachable sort of person; but Benjy, though a Hufflepuff, was a creature of spite, and enjoyed the private laugh of calling him Alastor, at least in his mind.)

They'd been walking for about ten minutes when Moody stopped and ordered them to do the same. He searched them for a moment – or at least, Benjy assumed that was what the blue eye was doing – before telling them to go on themselves. As they did so, he turned to Alice and Frank to express his confusion over the encounter, only to have them start gushing over finally meeting "Mad-Eye Moody". Frank especially, apparently, was awe struck.

"I cannot believe we just met the actual Mad-Eye. This is insane. I cannot believe this. You think he's actually part of the Order? Oh, he must be, that would explain so much, that is, not very much, but Dumbledore has to get his information from somewhere – "

"Oh, would you please shut up? I think I see someone."

"Benjy!" said Alice, sounding extremely insulted on behalf of her beau.

"Look!" Benjy said, pointing at a minor clearing in which, in fact, two figures could be seen. They moved closer, only to notice that they were minor tree trunks, covered in cloaks.

That's when the attack started.

It was warm near the fireplace on this cold evening, but Lily didn't look to be getting very warm. Her expression was vacant, unsatisfied, and her entire body language – all bunched up with a blanket around her – screamed how freezing she must have been. James had approached her earlier with a cup of tea, courtesy of Remus, and she was still blowing on it, having not taken a single sip of it since it had been delivered.

James wished he could do something. He didn't know what he could do.

So he brought her food.

In his defense, she'd barely eaten anything all week; she hadn't so much as touched a single thing at any meal today at all, and James was unclear as to how she hadn't died already. (James seemed to constantly be hungry, at all times, no matter the situation. He used to joke that he'd probably overeat at a funeral, but then Pete's dad had died, and it didn't seem appropriate anymore. It definitely didn't feel appropriate now.)

"Hey, Evans?" he asked tentatively as he approached her again, this time holding a platter of cakes and cookies and other baked goods. "I got this from the kitchen for you. It's – well, you can see what it is. You haven't eaten all day."

At first, Lily barely even moved, her gaze fixed on the fire. She didn't seem to have heard him, but then she looked up at him and smiled weakly. "Thanks, James," she said. He put it down on a small table and crouched beside her. "Really, thank you. But I'm just not hungry."

"You need to eat," James insisted, handing her a piece of apple pie. "C'mon, I know for a fact you love apple pie. Just – take a bite."

She took the plate and looked at him. Then she stood up, took her tea, and began walking away.

"I think I'm going to go to bed," she said without looking at him. "Good night, James."

"Good night, Lily."

The platter of cake now open for grabs, he picked it up and brought it over to a pack of sixth years. Putting on his brightest smile, he offered it to them; a couple of girls whose names James couldn't remembered grabbed it first.

"Hey, James Potter," said one, giggling. She was pretty, with ringlets of dark hair cascading around her like a bizarre halo. "It's funny you should come here, because Lanette was wondering – "

"I really should go," James interrupted, before the dark haired girl could get the chance to finish that sentence. "Enjoy the sugar!"

And despite the girls' clear disappointment, James walked away, breathing slightly easier.

He probably wouldn't be able to sleep tonight, but at least he thought he'd gotten Lily to eat. And that was… some sort of accomplishment.

A/N: So, I'm back. My n button is still broken BUT the reasons I've been gone actually have nothing to do with my computer's various shortcomings. The most important reason is that I decided to merge two chapters and had to write up another one before I publish; that's good news for you, because more content per chapter, but bad for me, because I was having a bit of a writing block. The reason for that, however, is simple: I graduated. That's right. I started this when I was 16 and a Freshmen and I have now graduated. So yeah, it's not as good of a reason as the first but I think that with all the exams and procrastination-sleeping before said exams, it's pretty understandable that I didn't really have time to think of anything but graduating.

The bad news is that we're beginning to see the end here. I suspect that this fic will close around chapter 40, maybe even sooner, having just progressed the plot by a bunch; all of these various plots will come together, though I'll probably leave a few hanging, if I'm honest. I want to start working on a project I've nicknamed "fairytale" (Of Three Times is still called "prompt" on my computer) and it's not a fanfic, but I feel like I have no mental energy to work on it until I finish this. This means that several plotlines I meant to introduce for Remus, Benjy and, most importantly, Peter, are going to get cut; notice, also, that I've edited the fic so it now says that Marlene/Dorcas are a main ship, because let's be honest, they've somehow become really important to the plot and, more importantly, me. I might do one shots, or extra chapters, once I'm done, just to talk about their side stories that will not fit in the final chapters; there's also an epilogue planned, so maybe I'll just fit them into their instead.

I'd like to thank you all for reading this. For sticking with me as my writing developed over these past two years, as the characters developed and as I retconned my own writing and went back and edited so nobody would notice. For sticking with me when I updated every few weeks and when I updated every few months, for marking this as one of your favorites and for following and for reviewing - please, keep reviewing, it's like fuel - and for just proving to me that these two idiots still have an audience.

So yes, please favorite, follow, review, share - this experience is almost over, and I'd like to be the best it can be. In return, I'll try and get as much of the final chapters done before I start working.

Lots and lots of love,

JustGail