A/N: So I have decided to end it here. It really isn't the best ending but it is the best I could do. I will be posting a part two that will follow up and end their sixth year and hopefully get into their seventh year. I didn't expect this to be so long. But I think it is too long to finish up their sixth year. We haven't even reached Christmas yet!

I really hope you enjoy this! Thank you all to those who have read, and those who have reviewed.

Disclaimer: The Order of Chaos is based off of characters that have been introduced in the Harry Potter series by JK Rowling. The plot and only a few characters have been designed by me the writer of this fanfiction. JK Rowling is incredibly brilliant and I can only hope to become so.

Y6: A Warrior's Shoelaces

Is it really that surprising that Lily Evans was the only person in the seventh floor corridor when James arrived? James was twenty minutes early and Lily looked comfortable as she sat quietly on the floor with parchment and a quill out.

"Evans?" James asked as he took a few steps towards her

Lily's had snapped up and she gave him a nod and went back to scribbling on her parchment.

James raised his eyebrows as if Lily had never done such a thing… of course she had, thousands and thousands of times before.

He slid down the wall opposite hers and over a few feet. With nothing to do, he tapped his fingers on his knees. But even that got boring. So his legs slid down as he reached into the pocket of his cloak.

He pulled out his shiny gold snitch; he had stolen it early this year after Peter had distracted him causing the last one to get away.

James let it go, then caught it quickly. Then let it go and waited a quick second, and caught it. Then he let it go past his knee and reached out and snatched.

"Are you serious?" Lily glared down at him.

James looked at her innocently, "What?"

"That's really quite annoying," she said matter-of-factly.

"Oh?" James looked at the snitch that struggled in his hand then shoved it in his pocket, "Sorry."

Lily looked back at her work and began scribbling. James watched her. She had her hair tied back into a high ponytail again. She wore a cloak that had a light blue sting that tied it together at the neck. Her very green eyes flickered back and forth and back and forth across the paper as she wrote.

"Can you stop that?" Lily had an edge to her voice but didn't look up, only kept writing.

"I'm not even doing anything," James protested with his hands in the air.

"You're staring," Lily kept writing.

"Oh sorry, didn't realize that staring was a crime," James rolled his eyes, "Don't tell anyone. I'm too handsome for Azkaban."

"Prat," Lily muttered under her breath.

James' mouth curved up at one side; how fun it was to wind Lily up.

And he still had nothing to do. He couldn't play with his snitch and he couldn't stare at the only interesting thing in Hogwarts. So he pulled out his wand.

"Avis," James muttered and pouring from the tip of his wand were four small birds.

They flew out quickly and circled the corridor. Lily hadn't even noticed them until one rushed past her and gave her a quick tweet.

"What the—" Lily jumped up knocking her ink all over her parchment, "Dammit POTTER!"

James had cracked a smile as Lily started dabbing at her paper. But the birds were too much for her. Their tweets were building on her frustration.

"Praemorio!" Lily screamed and they vanished.

"Did you just kill them?" James said standing up.

Lily glared at him sharply, "I made them vanish."

"No you stopped their existence!" James said to her with that very annoying half grin, "That's basically killing them."

"Well, I wouldn't have had to do that if you could manage to not be a git for a day!" Lily spat at him and then bent down to clean her work. Wordlessly, she removed the smudges of ink that James had caused.

"You're not very fun, Miss Evans," James smiled to her.

"And you're not very nice, Potter," she wouldn't even look at him.

"I'm plenty nice!" James said offended, "I'm just slightly mischievous."

Lily scoffed and rolled her eyes, "You—"

"—My mum always said that if you keep rolling your eyes like that, they'll soon roll out of your head."

"I don't really care what you're mother said, Potter," Lily made it a point to roll her eyes dramatically, "I was saying that you are much more than mischievous!"

"Please, dear Lily," James smiled, "tell me what I am."

Lily fixed him a glare, "For one, you are an absolute arse! You're an insufferable bully. And you seem to think that you'll be remembered in this school after you strut out these doors for the last time. Which by the way, I wish you would leave here sooner rather than later."

James looked at her with a mockingly confused look, "So you don't think that I'll go down in Hogwarts History as the most devilishly handsome bloke in all of the United Kingdom?"

"Are you serious?" Lily was so frustrated that he liked to play these stupid little games.

"No, no," James said pretending to be as serious as he'd ever been, "I am quite handsome."

Lily laughed. But it wasn't a laugh of amusement, it was a laugh of frustration and annoyance.

"I mean I thought my trophies in the Trophy Room secured me a position in Hogwarts forever," James went on, "and then when I finally won over the great Lily Evans, well then I'd always be remembered as that being my greatest triumph."

"Christ, Potter!" Lily was turning red as she almost pulled out her hair, "You're so annoying!"

"Oh c'mon, I'm not that—" James had started.

"You really are!" Lily interrupted.

"Evans! Prongs!" Sirius Black strutted down the hallway with the other two Marauders by his side, "I thought I heard yelling."

"What time is it?!" Lily said frustrated ignoring Sirius' taunts.

"Ten to," Remus replied.

Lily bit her tongue and sat down frustrated. James joined the others with a smile on his face.

Two Hufflepuffs and a gang of Ravenclaws came down the corridor moments later. Then there were a dozen older people, ministry workers perhaps. Then more Hufflepuffs and a lot of Gryffindors. A few professors. And then finally, Lily's friends arrived.

"Last ones here, are we?" Marlene smiled as she strutted towards Lily.

Lily looked at her annoyed, "It would've been nice if you had shown up a few minutes ago."

"What happened this time?" Emmeline sighed.

"Potter?" Dori said with a slight smile.

Lily glared at her, "He is unbelievably inconsiderate! I was trying to work and he just had to annoy me!"

"Ah," a light voice carried down the hallway quieting the casual conversations.

It was Professor Dumbledore who walked slowly down the hallway in light blue robes. They matched his twinkling eyes.

"Alexander," Dumbledore smiled as he walked towards a fat man on the opposite end of the corridor.

The man smiled and nodded politely, "Albus."

"Oh and Dolorous Donoghue," he said walking back where he had come from.

"Professor, it's so nice to see you again," the old woman with wispy white hair smiled to him.

"And to see you," he smiled at Dolorous, then started back down the hallway, "It is so very, very nice to see you all, really."

He turned at the end with a grin on his face, "Secret meetings are secretly exciting, aren't they?"

Everyone gave a slightly awkward laugh.

"Now," he said as he headed for the center of the corridor, "If we could all go into the room. Excuse me, Miss Evans."

Lily stepped away from the wall she had been leaning on and watched as the Professor walked towards her. But then he stuck out his hand and reached past her. Lily snapped her head and looked behind her. She jumped when she saw a door there.

It had most definitely NOT been there two seconds ago! Had it?

Everyone piled in as Lily looked at it confused. No one had questioned where the door had appeared from; it's as if they simply hadn't noticed it earlier but of course it was always there.

"Was that always there?" Lily whispered to Dori.

Dori looked at her friend very confused, "Well, I would assume so Lily. Rooms just don't pop up out of nowhere."

Then Dorcas followed the other two girls in leaving Lily last to exit the corridor. She walked in slowly and looked at the room. It was huge, the perfect place for a gathering. Desks and chairs were set up everywhere. And there was a podium at the front of the room.

Lily took a seat at the very front of the room and her friends followed her. Lily had never seen a classroom like this; never this big. She looked at a bookshelf that towered high above them. She examined the glass cupboards that held potions. And she wondered what the mannequins at the edge of the room were for.

Dumbledore stood at the podium, "Welcome, welcome my friends. It is so nice to see how many of my little notes had been taken in to careful consideration. I am so very glad that you are all here."

"Professor," a man in the back spoke up, "the notes didn't say exactly what this was all about."

"Yes, Mr. Green, they certainly did not," Dumbledore smiled softly, "You see, I brought you all here to speak of the recent crimes in the wizarding world. Unfortunately, I reporting a war. We are at war, we are all at risk."

There were a few gasps, but a majority of the people just nodded their heads as if it was no surprise. He went on to explain the Death Eaters, their goals, and their leader Lord Voldemort. He listed every single attack committed by them including their attack in Hogsmeade that had killed and injured many students at Hogwarts as well as a majority of the locals. He told us the names of Aurors who died in the recent battles. He explained how the Death Eaters have recently left a signature in the sky to tell where they had attacked.

And then he said, "I do not tell you this to scare you. This is what our world is to become if we do not stop these attacks. What I—"

"Stop them?" Someone shouted, "Isn't that what the aurors do."

Dumbledore pressed the tips of his fingers together and rested them on his mouth. Slowly he nodded, "Of course you are right, Mr. Bentley. Unfortunately in the last few months we have dropped from 38 aurors to just 16. A majority of those sixteen were brought in without even finishing their Auror training. The attacks have become more violent and more frequent. How many more aurors will have to die, Mr. Bentley?"

That shut that Mr. Bentley up.

But then the old white wispy haired woman slowly stood.

With her head high and a booming voice, she said, "Professor, I see that a majority of the people in this room are still students. I would happily lay down my life for this cause, but how can you ask this of children?"

"Children?" Sirius Black stood quickly to counter the argument, "I may still be a student, mam, but do not mistake me for a child. Do not mistake any student in this room as a child. Yes, we are under age magic users but we know how to tie our damned shoe laces without magic. We all know the price of this war. We know the price of this justice could be our lives. We are not idiots. Every single one of these students have lost something in this war. For us, the war isn't still stirring up. For us, it has already begun."

"I understand your passion, sir," the woman continued, "but you are not legally allowed to make this decision. Legally, you are children!"

"It is more than passion that we hold," James stood as well, "Yes this is a just cause. It does not matter your blood type, everyone deserves magic. Every person in this room agrees with that or else you wouldn't have been brought here. But there is so much more in us students. Our passion for this is not simply just some idiotic children trying to play hero. Every god damned student has lost something, or someone. Our childhood has been robbed from us."

The woman rubbed her hands frustrated, "I understand that you are all still going through pain—"

"Do you?" Lily rose up and everyone's head snapped to the small redhead, "Do you understand the pain we all feel? Tell me mam, when you were fourteen did you have to go identify your parents' bodies after Death Eaters killed them? Did you trip over dead bodies after the Hogsmeade attack? Did you roll over a dead body to discover that it was your best friend who lay there in the snow? And mam, did you too watch as the last bit of childhood slip from this boy's eyes," Lily pointed to James, "as he carried the dead body of a girl, of his friend, all the way to Hogwarts? I was in the Hospital Wing after the attack. Do you know how many students were killed? Thirty four. Do you know how many were injured? Twenty nine. And do you know how many students ran back out into the fight so they could help save their friends? Four. Only four. And those four are in this room and those four are the only ones who even smile any more. And they saw everything. And believe me, mam, as annoying as they are they are not children. Not one of them. We are not children. We have seen too much to be children."

Lily sat down and turned her head back to the front of the room unable to look back there any longer. But she didn't hear the woman protest; she did hear the scraping of seats though. She felt Marlene's hand on her shoulder. She clenched her jaw refusing to cry in this moment.

They were not children. How could anyone be a child anymore when their parents are being murdered before their eyes? How can they be a child when danger is at every turn and death is at the end of a wand? Children cannot even tie their shoe laces; but soldiers knew how to strap up. That is what has become of these Hogwarts students. They have become soldiers. Every single one of them carries the heavy heart and the dead eyes. They all knew loss. They all knew suffering.

The room had fallen in to a dark silence and that is when Lily noticed the girl in the door way.

"Miss Connors," Dumbledore smiled breaking the silence, causing every one's heads to snap to the direction of the door way where Cara stood.

"Hello Professor," Cara said quietly.

She looked weak. She was still far too thin and her hair hadn't been washed. But her skin had returned to its healthy color. Though she looked a bit red in the face.

"Would you like to take a seat?" he gestured to the many open chairs.

Cara slowly took to the back of the room and sat at a desk by herself. No one's heads had turned back around, they simply watched her. The adults had thought she was dead. The students had thought she had gone crazy.

"Would you care to explain why we are seeing a very lively ghost?" someone shouted.

Dumbledore laughed lightly as Cara blushed, "Miss Connors is very much alive, I can assure you. Up until this moment, many of you have presumed her to be dead. Fortunately that is not so. Miss Connors, a girl of sixteen," Dumbledore stressed her age to show that she too would legally be a child, "escaped her captors and made it back to the Wizarding World. She was brought to Hogwarts in secrecy to keep her safe. I have invited her to this meeting because Miss Connors is the prime example of what it takes to win this war."

"What the bloody hell is he thinking?" Sirius muttered to James, "She's still too sick! She hasn't even gained back her memory."

James shrugged, "I don't think it really matters. Dumbledore is right in saying that Cara is the prime example."

"But does he honestly expect her to go out and fight in the state she is in?! This is a war!" Sirius whispered.

James looked at Sirius as if he was disgusted, "She is the only person in this room who knows the strength that we will need if we are going to win this war. She is the only one who escaped them alive, Pads. This group won't bring her into the war. She is already in it."

Sirius looked away his jaw clenched tight.

Dumbledore went on about the importance of this meeting, the importance of this cause. All the while Sirius kept glancing back at the Cara he didn't know. She was completely lost to him. She was his biggest sacrifice.

Yes, Mary was a hard blow. But Cara had been the closest female friend he had ever had. It had always been the Marauders. And when the Marauders became too much, it had always been Cara.

When she was kidnapped, Sirius had been angry more than hurt. He had yelled at his parents. He had blown up at them completely; he ran away but came back. He figured they really hadn't known.

And when she came back to him, well that was pure happiness. But then she hadn't remembered him. More than that, she had actually feared him. And he never knew why.

This girl who sat in the back of the room was not the Cara Connors that Sirius Black had known. It was not his Cara, not the girl he grew up with. It was simply a twisted fragment of what had been the girl. And that was Sirius' biggest loss. He had lost someone he had loved. It was like if he lost James… or Peter… or Remus.

An unbearable pain was what he felt as he eyed the ghost of his friend. And the girl had given him a quick glance before looking back at her lap.

What Sirius didn't know was that she felt like a ghost, too. Cara didn't feel whole. She knew there was something missing. And she knew it was her memory. But she remembered now. And remembering was equal to his unbearable pain. She may have not understood the relationship Sirius and her old self had, but she knew that her memories would crush him. And how could she do that to someone?

How was she supposed to say "Hey you who keeps staring at me like I'm a lost cause. Well I'm a lost cause because your dad tortured me days on end! It's your fathers fault! It's your family!"

How could she do that? …. Well, she couldn't.

So what was Cara supposed to do? Act as if she hadn't remembered a thing?

Yes that would be it. That would be how she saved him from this pain. She wouldn't tell him. That would be the just thing to do, the kind thing.

It would, it is.

Ignoring more of Sirius' stares, Cara bent over and tied her shoe lace. It was time to strap up and be a warrior.

A/N: I HAVE STARTED MY NEW STORY WHICH IS PART 2! PLEASE CHECK IT OUT!