When the paper had a paper that had more information about official events from the Department of Mysteries, which was still not the full story, Emma was told by Luna, Emma began to get tired of school.

"Good thing it's nearly done, then," Tien said knowingly. "Will your darling Weasley be meeting you at the platform?"

"Yeah, he wrote me the other day," Emma said with a small smile.

That had been the one good thing about the war being official and Umbridge being in shock: Fred was able to write to Emma, and had done so every day since.

"Try not to be too sappy," Tien teased. "You're not coming home from war or something."

But the grin on the pretty Asian girl's face fell when she saw that her words did not cheer up Emma, but caused Emma's own face to fall.

In a way, she was coming home from war. She'd been fighting small, non-lethal battles against Umbridge since he left her, and the whole time the events were occurring in the Ministry, she knew that bad things were going to happen just because she had the sheer bad luck to cross Snape's path at the wrong time.

"Well, I suppose you can give him a sloppy, wet kiss," Tien said slowly. "If you really want."

Emma smiled, hugged her best friend, and tried not to let fall the tears of relief that were welling up in her eyes.

It was over. All of the tension and suffering of her final year of Hogwarts was over, and she couldn't believe she'd been upset that it was almost over. All she wanted was to go home.

But she couldn't go home. She couldn't put her family in any sort of risk of being attacked, because even if she wasn't heavily involved in the war, Fred was sure to be. She didn't know where she was going to go until she had a job and enough gold for a flat, but she supposed she could stay at the Leaky Cauldron or something.

The girls were finishing up the last of their packing and Tien and Emma were finding that they had each other's clothes all mixed up through their trunks, trading back to try to not accidentally take each other's things.

"I guess if something turns up missing," Tien said with a shrug, "I'll have a decent idea where it went!"

Once they'd gotten things in order and fully packed, they decided they'd go down to walk the grounds one last time, and were surprised to find Angelina and Lee in the entrance hall, seeming to be going off to do just that.

"Where's Katie?" Emma asked, taking one of the proffered licorice snaps from Lee.

"She and Leanne are bonding," Angelina said with a small smile. "I think she's letting us say our goodbyes without interruptions. She knows she would only be in the way."

"You know," Tien said thoughtfully, "for someone who comes across as a bit of a bimbo, she's actually rather wise sometimes."

The four of them laughed, heading out into the sunshine of the grounds, pleased that they were actually able to enjoy it now that N.E.W.T.s were over.

"I've got trials in a month," Angelina sighed. "Oliver's gotten me some spots with various teams he's got mates on. He wants me on Puddlemere, though, obviously."

"I think you'll make the Harpies," Lee assured her, which they all knew was what she wanted. "The twins tell me you've got a job with them, Tien."

"Yeah, they gave me a good offer," Tien said with a nonchalant shrug. "It made more sense than searching for a poor-paying job that doesn't suit me as well."

"I'm jealous," Lee sighed. Then he grinned. "Or, I would be if I weren't working for the WWN."

"No!" Emma gasped. "You actually got a job with them?"

"Yeah," Angelina snorted. "He's going to be getting their tea and sandwiches, organizing paperwork. You know."

"It's a start," Lee said indignantly. "You'll likely end up on a reserve team to begin with, anyway."

"Yeah, but I'll still be playing Quidditch," Angelina pointed out.

The settled by the lake, looking out over the perfect water, admiring how the sun glistened across it.

"What about you, Emma?" Lee asked, stretching out. "Have you taken any steps toward the future yet, or are you still undecided?"

"Actually," Emma admitted with a blush, "I contacted Fred's father the other day, told him I was interested in working for his department at the Ministry. He put my name on the list of interested parties, so my credentials will go straight into the pool when the scores come back. And... and he said he'd recommend me. So that's good, I suppose."

"That's great," Angelina assured her. "You're well on your way, I think."

Yes, well on her way, but well on her way to what, Emma wondered. After all, she was following more of a whim than a passion. She was joining a Ministry already proven incompetent at best at the official beginning of a war that had been going on for a whole year.

"I guess," Emma replied with a shrug, turning her attention to the lake, glad that they were done with talking about careers.

They'd turned, instead, to talking about living arrangements they'd made. Was she really the only one so poorly prepared for the future?

She tried to ignore them as she picked at the perfect grass, wishing Fred was holding her, kissing her neck and telling her that nothing else about the future mattered because they had each other. What a beautiful daydream it made, but Fred was in London as far as she could tell from his hastily scribbled letters, and not with her in sunny Scotland.

Emma had laid back on the grass, closed her eyes, and begun to doze off slightly, dreaming of Fred holding her again, when someone began shaking her awake again, spoiling her lovely fantasy.

"Emma, look!"

She jerked up to a sitting position, squinting where Tien was pointing.

It was Professor McGonagall. She was coming back onto the grounds with her things, seeming quite well healed for a woman who'd been in critical condition not too long ago.

"It'd take more than a bunch of dumb Ministry people to take down McGonagall," Lee said proudly. "She's a tough old bird."

"That she is," Tien said happily. "She was too stubborn to die, anyway."

Emma's stomach turned as she watched Professor McGonagall making her way up to the castle.

Die.

People were going to die, more than just Sirius. Whatever her friends wanted to say about McGonagall (and maybe it was true), the world wasn't made up of people too stubborn to die. Emma would have said Sirius was too stubborn to die. It hadn't proven true.

"Should we see her in?" Tien said eagerly.

"I'd rather not," Angelina said quickly. "I'm glad she's well again, but she's likely to make us take her things up to her quarters for her, and I'm not keen on working right now. I mean, we've worked hard enough with N.E.W.T.s and everything. And we've got the luncheon..."

Graduating students had a light luncheon in their honor before the school-wide feast, just the seventh years in attendance.

"I don't want to go to the luncheon," she whispered, more to herself than to anyone else.

"Emma!" Angelina said indigently. "What if you get some sort of award or something?"

"I won't," she whispered. "I was a prefect, but I was nothing special. I never topped a class, ever. The twins, they would have won something in spite of themselves. But I'm nothing, nobody. They'll forget me when they talk about what happens during the war. It will be like I never existed."

"Well, that all depends on who's telling the story," Tien said thoughtfully. "I suppose any one of us could cease to exist where history's concerned. Well, not the twins. They're already immortal as far as Hogwarts is concerned."

Emma smiled, knowing she was referring to the swamp, which Professor Flitwick had left a bit of, roped off to memorialize the twins, and the fact that their spectacular exit had become its own sort of popular culture machine. 'Doing a Weasley' was the slang way of saying that one wanted to leave Hogwarts. There seemed to be a dozen ways the twins had left their mark on Hogwarts, which was exactly what they'd wanted.

"If Fred writes it, though," Tien said softly, "you can bet that somehow you'll end up as the heroine, and he will be your knight in shining armor, and your fool. Probably both at once."

"Other than me being the heroine," Emma snorted, "that would actually be fitting."

"You know, I heard Alicia telling Katie the other day that she felt sorry for you," Angelina said softly. "She said she couldn't imagine how hard it's been for you, alone when the school was at its worst without Fred."

Emma shook her head, laying back on the grass.

"It wasn't at its worst," she sighed. "He was safe. He was happy. And I was too busy to worry too much about him when I knew he was okay."

That was a lie, she knew, and Tien knew as well, but she didn't want it getting back to Alicia that her pity fell on needy ears. The last thing Emma wanted was for Alicia Spinnet to pity her for any reason.

"I don't really want to go to the luncheon either," Tien said thoughtfully. "Only Dumbledore, the Head Boy, and the Head Girl get to speak. Where's fair in that?"

The other three just blinked at Tien, but she didn't seem to notice that their eyes were all saying that it was actually perfectly fair. But there was no point saying such things out loud to Tien. She just pretended she couldn't hear when someone was contradicting her, anyway, even if it was a professor.

It was then, however, that an owl approached their group, and landed carefully on the ground beside Emma, holding out its leg.

"What is it?" Angelina asked eagerly. "Is it from Fred?"

"I don't know, do I?" Emma asked, chuckling. "I've not opened it yet."

It wasn't from Fred, but from Dumbledore.

"It's for Lee as well," Emma explained, frowning. "Dumbledore wants to see us after the luncheon, Lee. Great. That means we have to go, I suppose."

What more could he possibly have to tell her after telling her that Sirius was dead?

Surely something hadn't happened to Fred, not so quickly. They'd not even set a date for Sirius's funeral yet, she'd been told.

Fred was fine, she told herself. Fred was going to be all right. Everything was going to be fine.

"We're going to have to be at the luncheon soon, actually," Angelina said darkly, looking down at her watch. "I guess we'll see you there, but I think we're supposed to sit by Houses. So I'll see you on the train, if not before."

Ironically, the house tables were gone when we got to the luncheon. Dumbledore explained that while usually students sat with their house at such events, he wanted to remind us that there was a war.

"Your House is your family while at Hogwarts," he said softly, "but once you step out of these walls, there is only the wizarding community. At this moment, the wizarding community is at war. The wizard known as Lord Voldemort is returned, and there have already been deaths. You won't be spared because of your house or your blood status. You will have to make difficult decisions."

The luncheon otherwise went on as normal, but Emma couldn't shake the thought that Professor Dumbledore had been looking at her as he'd said the bit about decisions.

She'd already had to make decisions. Letting Fred leave, not making Sirius make some heavier promises or vows of his own safety... She should have gone with Harry, should have found some way to protect him, as foolish as she knew it was to think so.

She and Lee made their way to Dumbledore's office as instructed in the note, as soon as the luncheon was over. They were awkwardly quiet as they walked, as neither of them knew what to expect.

When they were welcomed into the office, however, Dumbledore's expression was a sad smile.

"Miss Norwick, Mr. Jordan, please, have a seat." They sat. "Mr. Jordan, I don't know if your friends have told you much of their summer or winter holiday activities?"

Lee shook his head.

"No, Professor," he said.

Professor Dumbledore explained, swiftly, about the Order of the Phoenix. He made a point that Lee would be, with his new job at WWN, privy to all sorts of information that other Order Members, of whom none were involved in the media, would have the same access to. He was invited, should he choose to join the Order, to use that information to aid the forces against Voldemort in the war.

Emma's head was spinning. If he wanted Lee for the Order because of his job, what did Professor Dumbledore want her for? She didn't have a job, yet.

"And Miss Norwick," he said kindly, turning to her. "You are familiar with the organization. I cannot give specifics, as the details are still being arranged, but I can confirm that very soon you will be offered a position at the Ministry of Magic. I ask that, should you wish to help us, you take the position and use your Ministry position to help gather information and possibly members to the Order. It will be dangerous, and I know that Mr. Fred Weasley is not particularly fond of the idea, but you have the potential to save many lives this way."

At first, she'd been all ready to say no, especially when he said that Fred was against it. Not the job, but the Order. She needed the job. But when Dumbledore mentioned the fact that information she gathered could save lives, she reconsidered. What if better information could have saved Sirius?

Shouldn't she join the Order, if she could help save someone from dying like Sirius? If she could save Fred or George or anyone? Fred would understand. He had to understand. She would explain and it would all be all right.

"Yes," she said with a forced smile. "Yes, I'll join the Order of the Phoenix."

The walk away from Dumbledore's office was just as silent as the one leading there, and Emma was grateful for it, for her head was spinning as she went and she didn't want to have to converse with Lee about what they'd just been tasked with.

There would be plenty of time for that later, she was sure.

So instead, she answered none of Tien's questions, finished her packing, and slept through the feast, praying that everything would be all right when she got back to London, that Fred would understand.

The following morning, Emma carried her trunk down to the carriages, got on the train with her friends at Hogsmeade Station, and waited anxiously as they pulled out into the countryside. Lee, Angelina, Katie, Leanne, and Tien were all happily chattering about jobs and flats and all that sort of business, and Emma was feeling more unsure than ever before.

She should have asked Dumbledore where she was supposed to stay. She couldn't go home, not to her parents. She'd already sent a letter telling them that she would be staying in London, that there was a war and that she would contact them when she could do so safely.

Which could be never, she thought bitterly. Nobody could say how long the war would last, not even Dumbledore, who knew everything. Still, it was better to give her parents hope than to push them to doing something stupid in order to keep her with them.

Now she just had to find a place to stay, she decided, sitting in the train compartment, looking up at the clear sky, ignoring her friends as they talked in hushed tones about the war, as if it mattered if anyone heard. Everyone knew the truth.

"Do you think things will ever be the way they were again?" Angelina asked thoughtfully as the scenery outside the window began turning more into a suburban atmosphere. They'd be at King's Cross within minutes.

"The way then were when?" Tien asked.

Angelina shrugged.

The friends sat silently, waiting for the train to come to a stop. What else was there left to say? Emma certainly couldn't think of anything.

They'd hit London proper, she thought, looking at the tall buildings. They'd be there any minute.

When the train finally slowed to a stop, Emma had already been turned away from the window, scrambling like the others to get her things.

There was a flurry of hugs and kisses on the cheek and telling Katie and Leanne to have a wonderful year the following year and not to let their N.E.W.T.s get them down, and then Emma gathered up her things and filed out after Lee and Tien, hyperaware of Angelina behind her as they got off the train and onto the crowded platform nine and three-quarters, into the current of students getting ready to go back out into the Muggle world.

"This is it," Angelina said softly. "We don't go back through this until we have kids of our own."

"Who's going to let any of us breed?" Tien joked.

"Oh, I don't know," Angelina said teasingly. "I think that someone ought to let Fred and Emma breed."

Emma blushed as they shuffled forward, toward the entryway back to the Muggle world.

"Do you think we'll get to all come back at the same time?" Katie asked. "Or do you think we'll all have children at different times?"

"I don't know," Angelina said with a shrug. "I know one thing, I'm not having kids in this war."

They all nodded in agreement and it was their turn, stepping out into King's Cross.