Written for The Quidditch League Fanfiction Competition, Season Four (Round 8)
Team: Puddlemere United
Position: Seeker
Prompt: What (if anything) does the Order of the Phoenix do in response to Voldemort rising to power?
Word Count without A/N: 1,975 (Google Docs)
Before Sirius Black left the house, he triple checked whether or not all necessary charms were in place. A Quieting charm, a Muffliato, a Disillusionment charm and a Notice-me-not charm as well as a shield were placed on himself, an Impervious and and an Illegibilus charm on the parchment he was carrying.
If someone saw him, well, he didn't really know precisely what they would do. But he could be sure that he would suffer. The man tried to avoid thinking about it; he didn't really fancy imagining all the things the twisted minds of Lord V's supporters had come up with or copied from someone else.
He opened the front door as little as possible to squeeze his thin body through the gap. He moved quickly and locked the door behind him. First manually, then two locking charms—a Colloportus and then another one to protect the door from being opened by magical means.
It might seem a little paranoid, but his childhood, his time as a prankster and the two months of V's reign had taught him to be cautious. Moody was right, it's not paranoia if they are really out to get you.
And the Death Eaters definitely were out to get him. They had always been interested in him and his friends. Somehow they convinced Peter—no, Wormtail—that their side was right.
Sirius shook his head to get rid of these thoughts and looked at the sky for less then a second. The new moon couldn't be seen; it was covered by dark clouds. Perhaps not everything was against them.
The former Gryffindor moved quickly through the tiny village he still hadn't bothered to remember the name of, careful to stay at the shadows as long as he possibly could. It was just a small village; only one or two of the Dark bastards were patrolling in it.
Which was the exact reason he had chosen it as a temporary base.
It didn't take long until he had reached the edge of the village. Keeping his back closely to a wall, he looked around.
Sirius didn't see anyone, but that meant nothing. Oh, his fingers itched to cast a Hominus Relievo, a stunner, anything just to make sure he was alone, but he couldn't.
It was simply too dangerous.
He sprinted out of the shadows and into the nearby corn fields. He hated corn, but that was irrelevant at the moment. It was the best he could do to stay hidden. So he simply ignored the smell, even if a part of him urged to do something drastic to get rid of it.
The former Gryffindor couldn't be caught. Not today, not with his message. The message that might—possibly—help them.
He ducked and moved through the field, not moving towards the middle the field, but in a straight line, almost parallel to the outer border.
It went on for a minute or two before he finally saw his goal. The hut in the nearby forest. Granted, the small wooden hut was still far away—he could only see the vague outline of it and that only because he knew where it was located—but it was better than nothing.
Sirius hurried to the hut and entered it. He quickly checked if it was indeed empty and that all the wards were still in place, before he searched the pockets of his coat for the matches he knew he had in there somewhere.
He froze when he heard something outside. Slowly, very slowly, he turned so he could see the one window.
It was just a fox, good. If the fox were an animagus, the person would already have attacked him, Sirius was sure of that.
When he found it, he lightened one and then a candle. He avoided magic outside his house or the base as best as he could. He still wasn't sure what Lord V and his minions could and could not track and while he did want to know the specifics, this was not the way he'd like to do that.
Sirius picked the candle up and moved to the corner. It took a few seconds, but he quickly found the trapdoor.
He climbed down the ladder, closing the trapdoor as he did.
Once he reached the bottom, he placed the candle on a small table and ran into one of the five corridors. Then, once he felt the wall in front of him, he disapparated.
On his arrival he checked whether or not he had spliced (thankfully not), then he repeated everything in reverse order.
The night was equally dark here, the only difference was that it was raining.
"Oh, I almost forgot," the former Gryffindor whispered when he was about to step out of the slightly larger hut. He took his suitcase that he had hidden in a double wall and removed the Disillusionment Charm. Then he left, feeling as if someone had painted a huge target on the back of his head.
But that was all part of the plan.
After another twenty to thirty minutes, he knocked on the door of what looked like an unsuspecting Bed and Breakfast. Two slow knocks, five fast ones and three more directly following.
He heard someone moving downstairs.
"What on earth are you doing up at this time?" A rude voice questioned. It sounded like he had just woken the woman on the other side on the door up, but Sirius knew better.
"It's me! I rented a room for the night. Sorry, that I didn't arrive earlier, the train was late and the suitcase didn't exactly make moving in the rain easier."
The woman cursed but opened the door very slightly, not removing the security chain, and looked his up and down. Then she scanned his face.
"Come in then." She opened the door fully and he moved through it. "But this is the last time, lad."
Then the door closed.
The woman, Emmeline Vance, smiled as they moved towards the living room. "I still don't know why you, your friends and Moody insist on this. The building is under a Fidelius Charm anyways!"
"It adds another layer of security! By changing the password and the location every time, it makes it a lot harder for someone like Wormtail to spy on and betray us."
And hadn't that been a terrible revelation? Their friend, their brother in all but blood had betrayed them and everything they had stood for. And for what? Money? Power? No one really knew. At first they figured he had just been afraid, but then he was repeatedly spotted during Death Eater attacks, eagerly participating.
It really made his stomach turn. Had they brainwashed him somehow? Or—and that was the worst option by far—had their friend always been like that and they hadn't noticed?
"That's right, Black," said a voice he immediately recognized as Alastor Moody. "That is, if you're really Black."
Someone from his right tried to hit him at the head with a vial—at least that's what it felt like—but Sirius caught it in time. He did his best to check it was indeed Veritaserum before dropping a few drops on his tongue and swallowing.
Only a few seconds later Moody, Remus and James (who apparently was the person who threw the vial) interrogated him to figure out whether or not he was indeed who he claimed to be.
Once that issue was dealt with and they were as sure as they could be, they waited for the others to arrive. Dedalus Diggle and Sturgis Podmore arrived via broomstick and Benjy Fenwick and Dorcas Meadowes had somehow acquired a thestral to carry them. Granted, these days it was not particularly hard to find any creature connected with grief or death, at least not by normal standards.
Of course they questioned everyone else, just like they had questioned Sirius. Everyone helped where they could, but the Marauders didn't really know anyone outside their group, so they quietly talked between themselves.
"Hey Prongs, where's Lily?" Remus asked when he didn't spot her anywhere in the room.
"Upstairs with Marlene. Apparently her morning sickness is starting to turn into 'middle-of-the-night sickness' and she didn't want me to see her like this or something..."
"Have you decided what you are going to do?"
James sighed. "I don't know, Moony. Lily wants to keep the baby and I do want children, but I don't want them to grow up in either a war or a world where V won."
Remus nodded.
"Well, if you keep the baby, we'll just have to end V's reign before they're born!" Sirius stated with conviction and perhaps a bit louder than he meant to. "I may even have-"
"Yeah, right," Sturgis Podmore interrupted the conversation. "It's pointless. We've lost. V has won and there is no going back."
"Not with this attitude," Frank Longbottom argued. "The war is only truly over when we give up. We should keep fighting!"
"You should keep quiet and care for your pregnant wife," Dorcas Meadows disagreed. "The war has been over since Peter betrayed us."
"Wormtail," Sirius corrected bitterly. Peter was the (relatively) innocent teen he remembered. Wormtail, however, was a monster disguised as a human.
"I agree with Frank," Alice Longbottom proclaimed. "If we give up, then all our fighting, all our struggles and all the sacrifices we've made were completely and utterly pointless!"
"They are anyway! We've lost!" Benjy Fenwick cried in frustration.
Remus shook his head. "Not really. We do still have a chance to turn this around. Sure, it's incredibly small, but if we give up, then no one else will keep fighting. It might take months, years or even decades, but I believe that one day we will be able to win."
"The lad's right," Moody huffed. "Provided y'all finally start fighting properly. We're in a war, not some schoolyard argument. You need to kill or otherwise incapacitate your opponents."
"Alastor, everyone deserves a second-" Dumbledore was interrupted by Gideon Prewett.
"This is precisely what got us into the mess. They're raping, killing, torturing and Merlin knows what else! And they're not going to suddenly develop a conscience that tells them what they're doing is wrong."
"Yeah, they fight to kill. If we stun them, the other Death Eaters will simply reanimate them. We need to kill them too. They fight to kill after all," Fabian supported his twin.
"That would mean we're stepping down to their level!" Emmeline Vance protested.
"Nah, not really. We're not killing for pleasure, we would never do any of the disgusting things they do like rape or torture. We will only do it because it is necessary. Because otherwise they'd just continue with their reign of terror and many more people would suffer."
"Sirius is right," Fabian Prewett stated. "This is not the time for stunners. That time has long ended. Hopefully it will one day return and with some luck and a lot of effort it might even be in the near future. But now is the time for worse things. If you're not prepared to use a Kedavra that's completely fine. Use a cutting curse instead. Levitate something heavy and drop it on them. Bloody hell, you could summon a knife if that strikes your fancy. But we need to do something. This is the last chance we'll probably have. This is the moment to fight!"
"I may have something," Sirius informed the Order. "My brother recently sent me a Patronus. I didn't even know he could do that, to be honest. Anyways, according to the message he sent—I have a written down version of it here—he wants out." He showed the parchment to the room.
His words caused a whisper of excitement to spread through the room.
"And how do we know it's not simply a trap?" Moody inquired.
Sirius sighed. "We don't."
Please tell me what you think!
~Marvelgeek42