"What the hell are we going to do about all of the Dementors swarming around London?" came the voice of Rowan Hallow. He used to be Celeste's Potions professor, but now he was just another Order member. Looking around, Celeste couldn't remember seeing this many people in an Order meeting since, well, ever. She was sitting between Teddy Lupin and Nymphadora, the pain in her back slowly bringing her more and more discomfort every second. Yet even though the room was so full, it felt so empty without the faces of Hermione Weasley and Lily Potter. Their most recent loss was William Donnohan, and she knew that was a hard loss for everyone. He was Victor's best friend, his second in command, and no doubt the best fighter in the entire group. She could easily picture him as one of those infamous Muggle Generals, leading his troops to victory. Everyone felt his absence. Even Jocelyn Fairchild, the mad scientist, and her cousin Kainan had showed up, though he did look rather uncomfortable.
"What are we supposed to do, Rowan?" Eleanor Potter. Her voice was weary, and Celeste could see why. She'd been through about as much as anyone and still put all of her effort into the Order, not to mention being a Professor as well. "I know we're supposed to be protecting people, but they haven't Kissed a Muggle yet - and they can't even see them," she began, but Victor interrupted.
"She's right. We have more important things to worry about. There have been multiple wards added to the barrier around Hogwarts, but Genevieve and I have found a hole in their defenses." Celeste's eyes moved from Victor to Gene, her brow furrowed. it seemed awfully soon to be planning another raid. Thankfully, she wasn't the only one who shared this opinion.
"I thought we agreed that we shouldn't try any more raids until summer?" Eleanor asked, her eyes full of worry. "After losing William we would have no chance. We have no idea how many we would be up against. We'd be going in blind - and deaf." There was a general murmur from the round table, a few people nodded.
Elisabeth Ryder spoke up then, her voice quite, making everyone lean in to listen. "Maybe that's a risk we're willing to take. The wizarding world has no hope right now, imagine what it would do to morale if we rescued just a few children. Don't you want your son back, Eleanor?" Everyone in the room stopped. A silence fell over them, and Eleanor simply looked at her, her face blank. Celeste couldn't help but think that was completely uncalled for.
"We don't even know if there are any students left." Eleanor's words chilled her to the bone. "You have no idea how badly I want my son back," she said, and Celeste was surprised that her voice didn't crack. "But we can't lead a raid that would cause us to lose more people. We can't lose anyone else, and we will if we have another raid."
Celeste breathed a deep sigh. There was something wrong about this whole situation, she just couldn't explain what - and her intuition had never been wrong. Something just wasn't right. Teddy rested his hand on hers for a moment, as if to say, It's okay. Next to her, Nymphadora looked about as uncomfortable as Celeste felt.
Finally, Teddy spoke up. "It won't matter either way now that Edmund Frost has been elected Minister for Magic," he said, his eyes narrow. "Aurelia has said that he plans to 'investigate' Patronus Academy. If he finds one thing wrong, he could try to have it shut down. Not to mention the fact that we only have a few ears inside the Ministry left. And, no offense to Jocelyn, but when they start the Muggleborn discriminations, she'll be the first to go, no matter how much work she's done in the Department of Mysteries." He stood up, addressing them all. "We can't do anything on a large scale right now - that we can all agree upon. It's the small steps we need now. Follow Elisabeth's example - we've seen what she had do with the media. Small steps will lead to larger ones. We cannot move offensively until we are protected. Eleanor may want her son back, but she still has another she needs to protect." He sat down, and Celeste returned his hand squeeze. People began to talk among themselves, all the while she thought about her prophecy. Her vision had not shown her a face of the 'spy' in their group, but she couldn't help but think that maybe if she only saw the person, maybe she would recoginise them as the traitor. She had no fancy words to sway the Order with, and she was not a fighter: her Sight was the only use she had. They who thought for light, is not.
She scanned the faces of all of the Order members present, and nothing stuck out at her. She wanted so badly to be able to help. Celeste would really do anything. Sometimes Celeste wished that she could force her visions and prophecies to come as she wished, because she would wish for one right now - she needed something, anything to tell her that this was going to be okay. When she was a little girl, her parents had thought her crazy, and she had the feeling that if she hadn't gotten her Hogwarts letter her parents would have committed her to an insane asylum by the time she was sixteen - especially when she started going into trances. It perplexed even her what caused them - sometimes a simple word could send her into a seizure-like trance, other times her eyes simply rolled into the back of her head and she saw vision, foggy visions without real faces or places. She hadn't been able to tell Aurelia who the spies were in her last visions, even though she had seen them. Maybe if she saw them up close and looked, but even then she couldn't be completely sure. The only vision she had seen regarding her baby...
Another headache began to work it's way into her head, but she didn't know if it was from her pregnancy or from another vision coming on. Whatever it was, it hit her suddenly, and grew. The chatter around her filled her ears, until she could hardly open her eyes with the pain. "Agh," she sighed, clutching her hands to her head. Immediately, Dora and Teddy turned to her, making sure she was okay. After a few moments, the headache lessened slightly, and she winced up at them. "Just a headache, I'm fine," she explained. Looking up, she saw that plenty of other people were looking at her too, almost expectantly. She breathed another silent sigh, avoiding their eyes.
The rest of the Order meeting went along more smoothly, as they talked about peole they'd captured, hiding places they'd discovered, informants that had come to them with information. It was when the conversation turned to Romulus did she truly pay attention.
"We've had word from Romulus," Teddy announced. She could feel the eyes burning a hold into her skull, especially from Alex Fanthom, a friend from school. Dora held her hand under the table. "He has been accepted by The Mistress. He writes that she had 'big plans' for him. As we all know my son has turned on us and given himself up to the Dark Force. What he plans to do, I have no idea. But if we come across him in any battle, I do no ask you not to harm him. I ask you to treat him as if you would treat any other Dark Force member. He's not one of us anymore. He's abandoned his family in more ways than one." This must have been so hard for Teddy. Celeste felt tears brim her eyes, and let her long blonde hair cover her face. "I'm afraid he is no longer the Romulus we once knew and loved." He resumed his seat, and Victoire hiccuped beside him, leaning into his shoulder.
Once the Order meeting was over, Celeste found that she could not just stay and socialize like everyone else. She ran away, like the coward she was running up the stairs two at a time. Slipping into one of the empty bedrooms, the tears began to fall. At first she had it contained to simple tears, but then sobs began to rack her body. She tried to hold a pillow over her mouth to stifle them, but it would appear that someone had heard her anyway. The door creaked open, and she his her face behind her blonde hair. She had known it would be him - intuition.
"Celeste." She didn't move for a moment, until he came to sit down by her. Gently, she let her pillow drop to the floor, and wrapped her arms around the boy next to her. He was the same age as Romulus, and while she had known of him in school, they had never really gotten close until she joined the Order. There, they had been given plenty of assignments together. She found him easy to talk to, a great friend. And now, she needed him for what seemed like more than ever.
"I hardly know what to do with myself," she admitted to him, once her sobs had died down a bit. "Alex... Can you believe it? He's always been so rebellious, but I never imagined..." I never imagined he would go this far, she thought to herself. She couldn't help it - Celeste just needed to be held. With the hormones raging inside her, it made it hard not to break out into tears every few minutes, though she wasn't normally one to cry.
Alex wrapped his arms around her in comfort, and she did feel a bit better. "I hardly talked to him during Hogwarts, even if he was in my year. When I started talking to him in the order, I knew at times he rebel at something or against something, But I never thought he would rebel against the order and join the dark forces. I will admit it is hard to believe he would even do such a thing. It hurt all of us to know one of our kind would do such a thing. Time will pass and things will become better and change for the better." She listened to the sound of his voice, but it only made her feel a little bit better. "Trust me when I say this, as time goes on, things will change for the better for you and you may even find someone to be in love with." Celeste's tears had dried by now, and she carefully extracted herself from Alex. Didn't he understand? She didn't want to be in love. Shaking her head, she wiped the tears off of her cheeks. She didn't want to hear these words. They had just been told about Romulus's treason, and he was already talking about falling in love again? It was all too much for her. She was already overloaded enough as it was, and she couldn't stand the ideas that this was putting in her head. What was she supposed to do, just fall head over heels for Alex just because he happened to be there while she cried? That didn't feel right. This whole conversation didn't feel right.
"I don't think so, Alex," she told him, picking up her pillow and setting it back on the bed. She didn't know how Eleanor Potter would feel about people crying all over her pillows, and wasn't about to just mess up a room.
But apparently she'd been taking him all wrong. "Celeste, I wasn't saying you were going to fall in love again or anything. Just from what I know, for some people finding someone else to love helps them forget... Then again, there are others who won't fall in love either. Not saying you won't, it's just... All I am trying to say, you will find comfort whether it's through love or not. I really do hope you'll find comfort sooner or later." Great. Now she was moody and a bitch. Wonderful.
"I just... I need some time." Should she tell him? Could she trust him with the news that she was carrying a child, that in eight months there would be a little version of her and Romulus running around? She bit her lip, her eyes full of worry. How on earth was she going to do this?
"It would take a lot of time to get though what you are going though. No one is pushing you though this, Celeste. No one will either. You have to deal with this in your way and time." His words echoed in her mind, and she couldn't help but think about how right he was. Leaning her head on his shoulder, she took a deep breath.
"Thank you, James."
Yikes, I know it's short. It's half of my usual length, but the rest will be like normal. :) Promise.
