Note: We're back with the Death Eaters, or more specifically with their spouses, for this particular update. These three chapters follow an arc that is slightly separate from the rest of the story … I hope you enjoy anyway. (This is also the second and indeed last chapter entirely from the point of view of an OC as opposed to a named character we know nothing about; the first is 'Uninvited Guests' from the POV of Della Jones.)

Oh, and we've reached the half century – fifty chapters and counting!

Chapter Fifty

Priorities

Susanne Bea Rowle, named for her deceased Auntie Susie, was born at thirty-three minutes past six on the morning of the twenty-eighth of March, weighing seven pounds, five ounces and measuring fifteen inches. Camilla looked down at her goddaughter with mingled sadness and wonder, and the child gazed back at her with her mother's innocent blue eyes. The poor mite, thought Camilla. She had absolutely no idea of the mess that she'd been born into. She was blissfully unaware of the shadowy forces that were pressing in on her family from all sides.

Finn gingerly shifted his hold on his daughter, seeming to be genuinely surprised when she didn't start to cry and merely stared at him. The young man had been sitting in the same position for the past three quarters of an hour, as if he was still having trouble processing the fact that the state of impending fatherhood that had been hanging over him for the past thirty-nine weeks had suddenly become an all too solid reality.

"Finn," said Camilla gently. It took her four attempts to get a response.

"Hi, Cam," he said eventually.

"Just checking you were still with us." She laughed. "She's got you mesmerised already."

"She's so small," said Finn in disbelief.

"She's a baby, Finn. They tend to be small. I think you were expecting her to be a giant because Mareike's so tiny, her bump looked massive in comparison." Camilla touched the wisp of blonde on the child's head. "She'll be the spit of her mother when she's older."

"If she gets that far," muttered Finn darkly. Camilla could not deny the foreboding truth of the statement, but the suddenness with which Finn had said it knocked her for six. They all knew that Mareike's security, and that of her baby, had been gradually lessening since the summer. Events just before Christmas had warned them of that. But for Finn, who had always tried so desperately to keep a brave face and who rarely confided his fears in anyone, for him to say upfront that he was having doubts as to his daughter's continued survival, well, that was a marker of just how unsure the times were. Camilla knew what had brought about the change and turned a once vaguely optimistic man bitter. Finn had signed his own death sentence during the night of Susie's birth. He had not said anything to either Camilla or his wife, but both women knew what had occurred. Camilla had seen it as Mareike gripped his hand to the point of breaking, swearing in her native language more colourfully than Camilla ever thought possible and crying till she was certain that no more tears could come. The infernal mark had burned glossy black and Finn had gasped at a sudden pain that had nothing to do with Mareike cutting off his circulation. The call had gone out. His presence was required elsewhere. And Finn, brave, foolish, wonderful Finn, had ignored it, staying with Mareike as she brought their child into the world. He had made it clear where his priorities lay.

Camilla had spent enough time around the Dark Lord's followers and their families to know that one could not simply ignore the call. You couldn't turn your back on a master whose ire knew no bounds and who had, in Camilla's opinion at least, so few moral reservations that he was into negative figures. When a man demands utter subservience, anything else is viewed as insubordination. Blatant ignoring could not be misconstrued. Finn had turned his back on the corps, and Camilla knew only too well what that meant. Someone would end up dead.

Camilla shook her head; there was no use dwelling on what they had no hope of controlling. She patted Finn on the shoulder and held out her arms to take Susie from him.

"We're safe here at the moment," she said. "That's all that matters. We'll take each day as it comes. You go and get some sleep. I've got her."

Finn nodded weakly, knowing that should it come down to it, he was not in any way up to fighting for his existence in his state of numb exhaustion, and he relinquished the baby to Camilla. He had been getting very little sleep this past week, spending most of his time watching over Susie whilst the exhausted Mareike slumbered in the next room.

"I don't want to let her out of my sight," he admitted eventually after staring down at her now-sleeping face for a few more minutes. "I keep thinking something terrible will happen if I turn away for a moment." He sighed. "What has she got, Cam? She can't protect herself, she's a baby."

"She's got you and Mareike," said Camilla. "She's even got me, as old and rusting as I am."

Finn laughed.

"Sleep well, Schätzchen," he murmured, kissing Susie's forehead.

Camilla watched him leave the room, his manner hesitating, before she placed Susie into her crib and sat in the chair that Finn had just vacated. She glanced around the room, decorated in varying shades of lurid pink and mauve, and she dreaded to think what would have happened if Susie had turned out to be a boy. The room had originally belonged to her daughter Alexandra, and she'd never felt any desire to change it, even when Allie had flown the familial nest. Camilla had always kept the room sacrosanct for when she returned home.

But Alexandra was not going to return home. Her mother was almost certain of that. She had not heard from her daughter since last June, over ten months now, and all the enquiries that she had launched into her whereabouts on the other side of the Atlantic had been fruitless and frustrating in equal measure. Camilla was sure that her daughter was dead, but the not knowing was killing her. How, why, who, where…

She looked down at Susie sadly; she had already vowed that she would not make the same mistakes with her goddaughter as she had made with her own children. She would not fail to protect her from the horrors to which she was an innocent bystander, and she would not allow her to be corrupted by the false promise of power and glory. Daniel's enthusiastic decision to go against his mother's wishes and sever ties with his family as a result was a constant knife in Camilla's heart. After everything that the family had been through at the hands of Evan's master, she simply could not understand what Daniel saw in the beast. Ultimately, thanks to the Dark Lord, Daniel had lost his father to Aurors at the age of eleven. Camilla sighed; she knew that she could not blame He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named for everything that had gone wrong in her life, there was a degree of free will in there somewhere, but sometimes it made life easier to be able to direct all her hatred and frustration against one person. Camilla missed her husband terribly and had done for the past eighteen years. Naturally, she was inclined to see their time together through rose-tinted spectacles.

Presently Susie woke and began to cry. Camilla went over to the crib and rocked it gently, humming an old song that had been sung to her as a child and that she had passed on through the generations. The sound did nothing to soothe the child, and Camilla was just about to go and rouse Mareike when the witch in question appeared in the doorway.

"It's ok, Schätzchen," she said softly, picking up her daughter. "Mama's here."

Camilla left the two in peace and entered into the darkness of the hall, moving through the house without bothering to source any illumination. She'd lived there long enough to know her way around by instinct alone. She couldn't think clearly in the light; there were too many visible distractions. Life was easier in the dark, when one could try and pretend that the terror was not there simply because you couldn't see it. True, all sorts of unsavoury things could hide in the dark, but Camilla had always felt safe within the four solid walls of her Surrey home, protected and isolated from the world.

Now though… Now she was not so sure. Not now that Finn had deserted. She would always support his decision; she did not regret his having done what he had done, far from it. But she could not deny that his doing so had placed them all in a very precarious position. Their whereabouts were no secret; being a widow and therefore superfluous, Camilla had never felt any danger nor the need for a secret-keeper, and now it was too late. She supposed that they would have to move and find a safe house somewhere else, but Camilla had no idea where. All of the friends whose hospitality she had always been able to rely upon in the past were out of the question; their addresses were known to the Dark Lord and by proxy to the Death Eaters who would undoubtedly carry out his orders. Camilla did not think herself important enough to be killed by the master himself. They would be better off leaving the country entirely, and indeed, both Mareike and Finn's childhood homes stood empty and ready for them to use. The problem was getting there with Susie. Whilst they could be carried through the domestic Floo network to a distance of ten miles, the international Floo network was off limits to babies under three months, and the youngest age for travelling out of the country by portkey was eighteen months except in extenuating circumstances. International magical travel for newborns was a tiresome and bureaucratic process, and since the Dark Lord now controlled the Ministry and all the possible channels of communication, Camilla knew that she would not be able to get the necessary permits to move Susie without alerting the very people they wanted to protect her from, and they would not be able to travel illegally for exactly the same reason.

Camilla's pacing came to a halt. They were trapped in their house, and she only hoped that they could defend their small domain when the time inevitably came. Camilla was no spring chicken but she knew the average arsenal of combat spells. Average wouldn't be enough against a trained army of killers, however. Finn had the best chances, but he had learned his way through the corps unwillingly and was not as skilled as the comrades who practised their efforts with glee. And Mareike… Well, Mareike might just surprise them all. Camilla paused outside the make-shift nursery and listened to Mareike's voice singing an out-of-key lullaby in the old tongue of her forefathers, one that not even Camilla could understand. Motherhood had changed the young woman, that much was clear to see. She was truly in her element; she had found her calling in life. When Camilla had first met her, she had been a reserved, fearful girl, barely out of her teens, but as her pregnancy had gone on, she seemed to have regained the spark that Finn so often lamented the loss of. Certainly, Mareike was not an exemplary wandswoman, nor would she be the life and soul of the party in a hurry, but Camilla knew that she could be fierce when she wanted to be, and if her beloved child was threatened, then there was no doubting that her fire would be in full force. Camilla had felt the same way when her own children had been helpless newborns, and she still felt the same ferocity when she thought of her Alexandra, lost in a foreign grave in a foreign land, her whereabouts unknown and her soul alone.

Camilla resumed her walk through the house, coming to a halt in the front of the last door on the landing and taking a deep breath before placing her hand on the handle. The lioness of motherhood was roaring in her chest once more, and she knew that it was now or never. She was standing in front of Daniel's room, a room that had been sealed ever since he made the decision to leave his fretting mother who was so determined to hold him back from his goal of greatness. Camilla remembered the discussion bitterly; it was a moment that she replayed over and over in her lowest ebb. The moment in which she knew that she had failed as a mother, and Evan had failed as a father. She had sealed the room after Daniel had left, unable to face the memory of the boy she no longer knew.

She tapped her wand against the lock and the door swung open slowly, creaking through three years of non-use. The room looked so deceptively normal; the domain of any teenage wizard. Daniel was no longer living at home when he had made the decision to join the corps; he had long since established himself as a man of independent means, but there was something about his final severance that had made Camilla need to create some distance between them in her house, and his room had been a constant reminder.

She had already vowed to protect Susie and not repeat her mistakes, but it was in that moment, faced with so many memories of her own beloved children, that Camilla promised herself something else. Like Finn, she knew where her priorities lay, and Camilla's priority had always and would always be her family.

"Oh Allie," she murmured. "I will not rest till I find out the truth."

Note2: Onwards, the fun doesn't stop there! I think you can all guess what's coming next but I don't think anyone will guess the ending… *Cackles with glee.*