Order meetings were growing more difficult for Emma all the time. She wanted so badly to ask Albus about the murder plot, but she knew she was not supposed to know. She wondered what Severus would say if she tried to talk with him about it, but she knew he would not fill in the blanks she had left, even if he knew the answers. For some reason, she suspected that he did not.

"Excellent, Bill," Albus said kindly as Bill finished his report on the goblin interaction with all known Death Eaters. Nothing had changed, and Emma didn't expect it to, but it was important to keep an eye on things regardless.

Her eyes went to Albus's arm, covered by his sleeve. How long would she have left to ask him what happened to it? And honestly, did she want to know?

"We have had a report from Charlie Weasley," Albus continued, clearing his throat. "He has done as asked and had a meeting with the Black Forest werewolves. He is getting a sense for their social structure. It appears to be very different from the one Remus has described here. He believes there is some promise that they will support our efforts."

Tonks twitched at the mention of Remus, and Emma felt her stomach turn.

"D'you think he's right?" George asked, sitting forward. "I mean, we couldn't get the giants, and we had as good of an in as any."

"Giants are…pretty ruthless by nature," Emma said thoughtfully. "They would appreciate the methods of the Death Eaters. Werewolves are just people, like any other, who have a monthly condition that makes their lives difficult. Their nature is simply…human nature with a twist. They're no more likely to join one side or the other by nature."

George looked like he wasn't sure he fully believed that. Emma knew it wasn't any sort of prejudice in him. George simply believed that desperate people were always more likely to align with the dark than the light, and werewolves pretty much everywhere could be categorized as desperate. They had only managed to eek out some power for themselves in the Black Forest because they had amassed so much in numbers that the German government had to grant them some level of autonomy. But they were not welcome in the rest of wizarding society, even in their region.

Still autonomy must have been a nice win.

The discussion continued, likelihood of getting actual aid from the Black Forest and what the Order would do with such aid. Emma barely paid attention, her mind moving back and forth between the issue of the attempted murders, and Remus and Tonks. Both things were troubling, both thinks increasingly troubling Emma, and both more or less out of her hands. She'd all but been told to mind her own business on both counts, and yet she could not stop thinking about ways to meddle in both.

"Excellent," Albus said, grinning at something Dedalus said. "Ah, lastly, I need to speak with Emma and Fred. The rest of you may go about your lives, enjoy the lovely dinner Molly has prepared if you so choose!"

Emma and Fred followed Albus upstairs to the sitting room while guests either helped set the table or left to go back to their families, friends, or grade books in the case of Severus.

"Now," Albus said, gesturing for them to sit down, which they did. "I have a mission I want to put to two of you on, if you are so inclined."

Emma and Fred exchanged astonished looks. They hadn't been given a mission together since they joined the Order.

"Why us, sir?" Fred asked.

"Because I believe that this will require a combination of your specific skills," Albus said, smiling. "It will not be easy, but you have both done difficult things well before. I know you two can trust each other, which is critical."

Emma felt something sharp in her chest. Trust depended on truth, didn't it, on disclosure? They had faith in each other, but was that really the same thing?

"We'll do it," she said, taking Fred's hand in hers in case he was about to argue. He said nothing as Albus explained their mission to them. It sounded like detective work and shadowing with just a hint of mischief, which Emma had to admit, sounded like a perfect blend of her and Fred. Fred seemed a bit nervous about all the subtlety required, but Albus assured him that Emma was wonderful in that regard.

When Albus took his leave of them, Fred turned to her.

"That's what you've been doing?" he asked. "Tailing and shadowing?"

"For the most part, yeah," Emma said, shrugging. "I have a forgettable face and I'm good enough at transfiguration and charms to hide in plain sight."

Fred nodded, turning to frown at the bookshelf in a way that he probably hoped wasn't brooding. Emma knew he was debating with himself on whether or not he wanted to pick a fight over learning this, although she didn't understand why it would be worth fighting over. Surely he must have expected this was some of what she was doing. She knew he was fighting. That was his skill, and there was plenty of fighting to be had. Tailing people was an even larger enterprise, and someone had to do it. Without Tonks being able to morph, it was falling on other people more and more.

They did manage to go down and sit through dinner without incident. Emma noticed, though, that the way Molly actively avoided asking her son about why Dumbledore had pulled them aside was very similar to the way Fred actively avoided talking to her about certain things. Emma had never thought of her husband as especially sensitive, but knowing how his mother was about loved ones Emma did have to wonder if she hadn't perhaps been a bit wrong in that assumption. Maybe Fred was more fragile than she expected.

That night, Emma pulled the covers up to her chin, turning onto her side and glancing at the window, expecting to feel Fred turn over and wrap his arm around her waist, pulling her closer to him. He remained on his back, however, and she closed her eyes, disappointed, wondering whether he was upset or hurt or simply pensive.

"I wish you wouldn't have accepted it before we had a chance to talk," he whispered into the darkness, and her eyes opened. Emma frowned, trying to think of what he was referring to. Her tongue touched her chapped lips and she realized he meant when she told Dumbledore they would do the mission.

"What was there to talk about?" Emma asked, turning onto her back again, feeling his elbow beneath hers as she clutched the sheets across her chest. "We get to do a mission together instead of apart. Isn't that a good thing?"

He hesitated, and the silence pushed a small wave of panic rushing through her chest. Had she been too hasty, accepting the mission? It had seemed like such an obvious thing at the time. Was she so deep into the Order that she no longer understood her husband?

"No," he said slowly, "it probably is a good thing. Better that than being like Tonks and Remus, always wondering if the other is okay. But marriage should be about making decisions together, shouldn't it? I mean, I understand if we can't talk about everything we're doing in this war, but if we're doing things together we should be making the choices together."

She nodded a little, realizing what he was saying. There wasn't any chance that they would have not accepted the mission. They both understood that Albus would not have asked them if he hadn't thought they were the best people for the job.

"I'm sorry," she said softly. "I'll try to remember for the future. It just didn't occur to me that you would have an objection."

Fred picked up Emma's hand and pressed it to his warm lips. The act was both sweet and erotic at once and she closed her eyes again, enjoying the feel of his lips on her knuckles.

"I love you," he whispered. "I love you so much."

Emma wanted to believe, as she had once believed, that this was all that mattered in the world, the fact that Fred loved her and she loved Fred. Whether she would have voiced it in that way or not, she had believed that the strength of their mutual feelings would protect them from almost anything. And while she had no doubt that their feelings were still as strong as the day they first kissed, she no longer felt invincible. She felt weak, small, vulnerable.

Fred rolled onto his side, leaning over her face, the moonlight causing his hair and eyes to shine as he leaned down to kiss her gently. Emma let her fingers reach up and trace his freckled face. His skin was so warm under her fingers, his lips so soft against her chapped lips. His fingers trembled against her side as they traced down from her waist to her hip.

He pulled out of the kiss and rested his forehead against her, sighing against her mouth.

"Sometimes," he whispered, "sometimes I feel like we're getting old before our time, you and I. We should still be in our honeymoon phase, or maybe some early irritations. But I feel like we've been together for years."

"Is that bad?"

"It's comfortable," he muttered. "Comfortable and…sometimes scary. Like if I'm not careful I'll look up and we'll be so different we won't recognize each other anymore."

She felt physical pain at these words, somewhere behind her ribcage, and Emma's hand grabbed Fred's. Her fingers laced through his and his hands responded instantly, covering the back of her hand with his warm palm. His lips pressed to her nose.

"I love you," she said again. "I love you so much, Fred, and that is never, ever going to change. Even if we are different than we were, even if we're more different someday, I am always going to love you more than anything."

He let out a burst of a bitter sort of laugh and said, "I suppose it was expecting too much, wasn't it, that we would be normal when everything around us goes to hell." He sighed, pressing their foreheads together again, squeezing her hand gently. "Well, if we're going to do this thing, then we're going to do it right, aren't we?"

"Hmm?"

"The mission. The Order mission."

"Oh. Yes. I suppose so."

Fred sat up slightly, his face turned toward the window. Emma watched his eyes shine in the moonlight, not daring to move and ruin the sight.

"So tell me, love," he said, looking down at her again, smiling in a way she supposed was tight by the sound of his voice. "How do we hide in plain sight?"

"There's a few options," she said softly. "We'll likely have to use a few of them, of course. I'll ask Mad-Eye if he's got any Polyjuice in stores. It's hard to stock, because Fleur and your mother aren't skilled enough to make it, so Severus has to brew it on his schedule."

"When did you start calling Snape by his first name?" Fred asked, amused.

Apparently more had changed than she had realized. She managed to brush it off as nothing, just having to work with him made calling him "Professor Snape" awkward, and she proceeded to describe other methods of hiding in plain sight to Fred. He seemed engrossed with her methods, so much so that he did not ask more about Severus Snape for the moment. But she did wonder, as they finally fell asleep, cuddled up together, whether she wouldn't someday have to explain the strange situation she and Snape found themselves in to her husband someday. She certainly hoped it never came up again.

/-/

"You've got to be kidding me," Fred muttered out of a mouth that was nothing like his own. It was bizarre, strolling down a Muggle street on his arm, trying to appear casual as they followed Death Eaters Emma didn't even recall the name of. At the end of the road, a Muggle-born couple and their young children lived, apparent threats to the Death Eaters. Although Emma couldn't understand how, except by existing. Yes, the man worked in the Ministry, spoke in support of Muggles and Muggle-borns. Others had done as much.

Her hand brushed black hair out of her face. Her fingers were still her own, but the face she touched felt wrong, altered with careful transfiguration. She would never get used to altering her facial features. Sometimes, however, things were necessary.

"He'll beat us to the house," Fred growled. "What are we supposed to do?"

Emma had been wondering that herself. They could not simply Disapparate or use magic, not here in the middle of such a crowded Muggle street. Surely the Death Eaters would notice if she tried to impede their progress, even if she were careful about it so that the Muggles did not notice. They were still too far away to warn the intended victims.

"Any ideas you have will be welcome," Emma muttered. "Honestly, this isn't my area. I follow, I watch, I listen from the shadows. I've never had to do anything before."

Fred licked his lips and nodded, his eyes scanning the layout of the street before them. They couldn't send a Patronus without alerting the Death Eaters to their presence. They couldn't try to scare off or engage the Death Eaters without Muggles seeing, without drawing attention to themselves.

"I can only think of one thing," he said nervously. "But it's not legal."

The thought had crossed Emma's mind, too. Done right, the Imperius Curse would give them the advantage, the momentary leg up that they needed to fight the Death Eaters on even footing, to give that family a fighting chance to make it out alive. But as neither of them had ever used it, as it was illegal, as the Death Eaters had almost certainly had to fight it before – perhaps even successfully – Emma shook her head, disregarding the thought to both herself and Fred. Even if she could make it work, she had a feeling she would regret it in the morning.

"Well, we have to do something, and fast," he muttered, "because they're close enough now that we won't be able to stop them if they do something from a distance."

From what Emma had seen of reports, it was more likely that they would torture this family before killing them. Why else bring so many people? One person could set a building on fire as well as three. And a fire could be escaped, everyone unharmed. Wizards would be unaffected.

Fred, though, did not seem to think this the case, and Emma saw one of them taking out a wand as they neared the house. Almost as soon as it happened, Fred's wand was whipped out and he did a quick, strong, nonverbal shield charm between the Death Eaters and the house.

Unfortunately, this action – or rather, reaction – drew the attention of the Death Eaters to them, and one hit Fred with a Cruciatus Curse, which sent him crying out, to the ground. The Muggles reacted to Fred, as did Emma, and she heard several people saying something about seizures as Fred writhed on the street. While Emma was distracted, though, the Death Eaters could return to their main course.

The house, the whole house, exploded at the end of the street, and the Death Eaters had Disapparated before Emma even had a chance to look up from her screaming husband.

"No," she hissed as the crowd around began to panic. She gripped Fred's sweaty hand, staring at the house in horror. There had been people inside, two people. Now there was nothing. "No, no, no."

"I've heard," a weeping woman said as she helped Emma calm Fred, "that epileptics sometimes seize when a disaster is about to happen. Maybe your husband sensed the gas leak."

"Right," Emma said absently, unable to understand in her mind what this Muggle was prattling on about. What did this woman know about anything?

"I'm sorry," Fred choked as Aurors appeared on sight, including Tonks and Kingsley.

"The Minister?" Emma hissed as Kingsley knelt over Fred, raising his eyebrows at Emma.

"This is a related case," he rumbled. "Fred?"

"Cruciatus."

"I'll help him around the corner and then to Grimmauld Place."

Emma nodded, assuming someone who could help him was standing by. She stood alone in the street for a moment as Fred disappeared around the corner with Kingsley. She caught her breath, gazing up at where a house used to be. Tonks and a few trainee Aurors were taking statements, wiping memories, encouraging the gas leak story no doubt.

They had done everything asked of them, everything it was possible to do. Perhaps even more than they were asked, she thought, a very clear picture of Fred writhing in pain in her mind's eye. The only thing more they could have done was the one thing she had told Fred not to do: The Imperius Curse.

Were those lives on her hands because she said no? Were those people killed, Fred tortured, needlessly, because she was too cowardly to do something for the greater good?

Emma caught Tonks's eye briefly before slipping around the corner to an alleyway. She needed to make a report to Dumbledore, and the last thing they needed was for her to be in the official record of the event. It was the sort of thing that could cost not only her job, but also her life with the way Yaxley was paying attention to her these days.

As soon as she stood on Grimmauld Place, out of sight of windows, she allowed one quick sob to escape her lips. Once it was gone, she gathered up her emotions and composed herself to the best of her ability, preparing to face all the questions that were sure to come.