Thank you to the reviewer who caught my discrepancies in Emma's name! And to all who have offered feedback so far :) I'm in the midst of final papers so this might be the only chapter I post for this week.
Frank Longbottom and Alice Prewett acted like an old married couple.
Frank was occasionally forgetful but unbelievably kind. Alice was sharp as a tack, with a quick wit to match. Their relationship wasn't one of endless romance, but of comfortable ease, and of trust. First year girls would talk about how they wanted a love like Frank and Alice. Those idealistic girls would huddle on a sofa in the common room and sigh as they watched Alice adjust Frank's tie before the two heads hustled off to meetings with Dumbledore, and giggle when they saw Frank kiss Alice's forehead at the foot of the dormitory stairs when they said goodnight.
Frank and Alice's seventh year had been busy, but blissfully uneventful up to this point. A few detentions monitored, regular Hogsmeade dates for a butterbeer, and late nights studying in the library for the auror exams. It was one of those busy, blissfully uneventful mornings in November that would change their lives forever.
Alice and Frank were two of the first people in the great hall for breakfast. They sat across from one another, munching on toast and sipping tea, in a perfect silence that only true partners can achieve. The only other people in the room were Professor McGonagal and a handful of Ravenclaws. The Prewett family owl swept into the great hall and dropped a letter into Alice's lap.
"Looks like Gideon's handwriting." She remarked to Frank, dusting her hands on her napkin. She broke the wax seal of the letter and read.
Al,
I'm sure you'll see the Prophet soon and understand why I am sending you this missive. It's come to a point where we don't think we can wait til you graduate. AD wants you and Frank in the Order and recruiting within Hogwarts if you can. Secrecy is important, hence why you're hearing from your big brother and not from AD. Confirm your agreement by marking the bottom left hand corner with you and Frank's initials. Use the family stamp and reseal this same letter. The owl will wait until you are ready.
Love, Gid
"Has the Daily Prophet arrived?" Alice said to Frank in a tone of concern.
"Don't think so, why?" He replied.
Alice wordlessly handed the letter to Frank. He read it in silence, not once but twice.
"Has to be important if Gideon is writing. Do you want to wait and see what the paper has to say?"
Alice felt an instinct she couldn't explain. She had to respond immediately and accept. There was no time to be lost. She knew of the Order of the Phoenix, her older brothers were members and she and Frank had been planning to join their ranks as soon as they were old enough. But something must have changed. Something big.
"No. I trust whatever he is suggesting, let's write back before any commotion here." Alice said quietly.
The young couple got up from their seats and walked toward the doors of the Great Hall, passing a troubled looking Dumbledore as they did. He looked into their eyes for one sorrowful moment, so brief that Frank wondered if he had imagined it. They passed a stream of students coming down the stairs for breakfast, and somewhere far off in the castle, Alice heard the faintest echoes of an agonizing wail.
Sirius and James were sitting across from Marlene and Lily at the Gryffindor table, chatting about their Transfiguration marks.
"You two never stop talking in class, how on earth do you manage top marks?" Marlene asked
"Oh you know, we put in lots of time practicing outside of class." Sirius replied mischievously. James elbowed him in the ribs.
"Practice? How so?" Lily asked with a quizzical brow. Before James could try to cover Sirius' doglike tracks, a torrent of owls flooded the great hall, dropping letters, parcels, and newspapers. A copy of the Daily Prophet made its way into Marlene's hands.
Sirius watched the color drain from Lily's face as she read the headline over Marlene's shoulder.
"What is it?" James asked, between sips of pumpkin juice.
Marlene wordlessly turned the paper around so Sirius and James could see:
MUGGLE PARENTS OF HOGWARTS THIRD YEAR BRUTALLY MURDERED, THE DARK MARK SEEN HOVERING OVER THEIR KENT HOME
Below the headline was a moving photograph of the third year, a Gryffindor girl, and her now dead parents smiling together in front of Flourish and Blotts in Diagon Alley. Sirius felt a chill travel over him, like his blood had turned to ice.
"Why would they print her name and photo like that." Lily whispered.
"Why wouldn't they?" James asked.
"Because she's a child James." Lily replied, her voice rising.
"People need to see just how dangerous these Death Eaters are. This picture makes it more real, her name and situation brings it closer to home." He shot back.
Sirius looked at Lily's face and knew James had messed up.
"It shouldn't have to hit close to home, it shouldn't have to be in a picture for this to matter to you people," She looked at James with disgust, "And no child, witch or muggle, should learn that their parents died because it's splashed across the front page."
With that Lily pushed away from the table and left without another word.
"She's right, you know." Marlene said, picking up her bag and getting up herself.
"Wait, Marlene. Are you done with the paper?" Sirius asked before she walked away.
"Sure, take it." She tossed the barely read Daily Prophet into Sirius' hands. He rolled it up and hit James upside the head with it.
"Ow! What was that for?" James whined.
"For being a prick. I swear, even I am more thoughtful than you on occasion." Sirius said as he got up from the table.
He crossed the distance to where the Ravenclaws sat and scoured the table for Emma. Finally he caught a glimpse of her roommate, Genevieve, talking animatedly to a brunette wearing a ponytail and navy blue ribbon whose face he couldn't see. He figured it was her. Stepping up behind her, he dropped the Prophet into her lap. She turned her face up to him and looked shocked.
"Remind me how you're 'just existing' once again?" He asked, then left the great hall.
Emma and Lily were growing into excellent academic partners, and perhaps, an inkling of friendship bubbled between the two.
Emma didn't know what to think of it. She looked forward to classes with the redheaded witch, who always had the funniest things to say. Far bolder than herself, Lily would point out what others wanted to communicate but weren't brave enough. Lily was precisely the sort of person whom Emma's mother feared the most: someone who had infiltrated their world and filled to the brim with talent. Lily was the kind of muggleborn who destroyed pureblood ideals just by existing. And worst of all, Emma was starting to trust her.
Her favorite times with Lily were in Divination Class. It was a small cohort, none of the Marauders save for Peter Pettigrew, who doted on Lily, and simply annoyed Emma. None of Emma's Ravenclaw chums were there either, but oddly enough it seemed that every Hufflepuff was represented. Professor Delphi was said to be over 200 years old, and slept through nearly every lesson upon her velvet chaise longue, so the class was more or less self-taught via experimentation by the students.
By late November, practically no one was bothering with their Divination Theory textbook. Instead, most passed the time by playing with Tarot cards or gossiping. Even Emma slacked off, on this particular day deciding to play around with reading tea leaves with Lily and Peter.
"My mother does this at least weekly." She said as she deftly spooned the leaves and used her want to light a flame beneath the kettle.
"Really? Why would someone need their fortune told that often?" Lily asked.
"Well, it's generally not for herself but for her volunteer work." Emma said, not thinking about the fact that her mother was constantly hiring seers and oracles to prophesy on behalf of Lord Voldemort.
"What does she volunteer for?" Lily leaned forward, looking intrigued. Emma snapped her head up and realized what she was talking about.
"Oh, just some old witches charities," Emma stumbled, trying to come up with a lie, "trying to foretell the best day to have an event, or something." She was a shit liar and she knew it, and from the look on Lily's face, she knew too.
They sat in silence while Emma finished preparing the tea, Lily following her hands every movement.
"Have you ever taken up knitting?" Lily asked.
"Knitting?" Emma repeated, a befuddle expression furrowing her brow.
"Yeah, like with needles and yarn." Lily said, miming the action.
"Uh, no. I've seen my house elf knit before, but that's with magic." Emma replied, pouring the hot water into their cups.
"You have delicate and quick fingers. You'd be good at it. Come to Gryffindor Tower sometime and I can teach you."
"Alright." Emma responded. What use did she have for knitting? Nonetheless, it warmed her that Lily had offered.
Peter picked up his tea cup and sloshed a bit over the edge, getting some of the hot liquid on his trousers.
"Ooh!" He squealed, clearly feeling a slight burn.
"Oh, Pete." Lily laughed, passing him a napkin from the tea service. Peter dabbed it up, and then fished something out of his pocket.
"Sorry I forgot, Lily. James asked me to give this to you." He handed Lily a crumpled piece of parchment.
Emma watched Lily open it and saw a blush creep over the red-head's freckled face. What correspondence could this possibly be? It was not in her nature to ask, so she did not. Her looks were direct, but her tongue was always guarded. When one could stare out an answer, they didn't need a quick wit. And when Lily looked up from the parchment, Emma looked at her precisely that way.
"It's nothing." Lily lied.
Emma just took a sip of tea.
"Just James. You know how he is." Lily laughed nervously.
"I'm not sure I do." Emma raised one of her dark eyebrows.
"We've just been spending more time together lately. That's all."
"Genevieve might not be affectionate, but she can be vindictive." Emma said.
"Who said anything about Genevieve? You don't think I have feelings for Potter?" Lily exclaimed, defensive.
Emma said nothing once again, and sipped her tea. Lily seemed to be fuming with anger. Not fuming because Emma was wrong, but fuming because she didn't like being read so easily. The rest of the class passed with Peter's nervous attempts to stimulate conversation and Lily muttering to herself about how ridiculous the notion of her having feelings for James was. When Professor Delphi's clock chimed at the end of the hour, Lily rushed out of the tower. The rest of the class vacated besides Emma.
"Uh, oh, goodness. Class over already?" Professor Delphi woke from her slumber and saw that only Emma was in the room.
"Ah, Miss Howard-Shelley. I have a private tutorial with a few 7th years next, would you mind watching the classroom until they arrive? I'm afraid I need to use the loo but don't want to leave some of these rare crystals unattended."
Delphi didn't wait for a response before she floated out of the room. Emma furrowed into her thick armchair and began shuffling a deck of wizard's tarot cards. She had nothing in particular she was looking to have answered, but liked the way the thick cards sounded as she flipped through them, it reminded her of her mother.
"I don't think she's in here, Alice." Came a voice from the doorway. Emma sunk further into her chair, and became silent. Evidently the 7th years were early for their tutorial.
"But like I was saying, Frank. I don't think recruiting muggleborns is smart right now." A female voice said. It sounded like Alice Prewett. The other voice must be her boyfriend, Frank.
"You sound like the people we're fighting against Al, we have to prove that they are just as strong and belong in our world as anyone else." Frank said.
"First of all, don't compare me to them. And second, you know I believe that, I just think that asking them to join a resistance group puts a large target on their back."
"We don't go public with it, we just put some feelers out. Dumbledore would want that."
"All right, I'll talk to Lily and some of the others. Should I tell them about the Order of the Phoenix or just call it something vague?"
"Let them know exactly who we are." Frank replied.
"Ah! Head Boy and Girl are here." The voice of Professor Delphi echoed down the hall as she came into her classroom.
"Hello Professor." The couple intoned together.
"Ah, go ahead and get settled. We can start with your charts, Miss Howard-Shelley, you may go."
Emma inwardly swore but stood from her concealed spot, leaving the cards and picking up her books. When she turned to leave the room she saw Alice's face was an ashen white.
She couldn't think of anything else but how proud Mother would be of this information.
The time Lewis and Narcissa had been spending together all term had grown exponentially from that first time in the library. Happenstance meetings in the library turned into planned study dates, which precluded bumping into one another at the Three Broomsticks, to stolen late night kisses behind medieval tapestries, to the most powerful element of all: knowledge.
Lewis had changed in the two years he had been gone. Though he was the first born son, he was somehow overlooked in his childhood. By the time the family was in France, he had been reading the things his sisters had been forbidden to read, making friends with the people his sisters steered away from. Emma's subversive destiny might have been foretold in her sorting, but Lewis was the true rebel, and nobody had the slightest inkling.
At Beauxbatons, while Emma had tried and failed to ignore the egalitarian ideals of the wizarding French, their liberation between blood status, Lewis had fully immersed himself. The British thinkers he had grown up with gave way to French witches and wizards who had staged a revolution alongside French muggles in the 1700s. No longer would they be governed by an elite who was so out of touch with reality. And so by the time he had returned to Hogwarts for his 7th year, Lewis Howard-Shelley hated nothing more than pureblood culture, and the Dark Lord. He watched in agony as his sister wavered between the ideals of their family and the ones he knew to be right. He worried that before long she would be completely within the clutches of the Death Eaters, especially after the Lestrange's Ball, and her dance with Lord Voldemort.
The only person who knew of Lewis' feelings were Sirius Black, whom he told under the effects of Firewhisky punch at that same ball, and Frank Longbottom. And a few weeks ago when that poor third year's parents had been murdered, he had sought Frank out once again, and joined him as the first students in the Order of the Phoenix. All that remained was to save Narcissa and Emma from darkness.
Narcissa.
His childhood playmate, companion, best friend. He'd loved her all his life, to be sure, and when his family had moved to France he didn't know how to express himself, and had kept his feelings to himself. Now that he was back, she was engaged, and he was different. His uneasiness with the pureblood society in which they were raised was never something they talked about before he had left Hogwarts, but now that he was back he knew he needed to tell her his beliefs. She was too important to him to leave to the clutches of men like Lucius Malfoy.
But he knew that a man like Lucius Malfoy would strong arm his wife into sharing his beliefs. Lewis didn't want that. Narcissa knew her own mind, and he didn't want to force her into something she did not feel.
So instead of making her, he showed her. It began with reading muggle literature on the grounds as they lay next to the lake, in the late October sun. He would lend those books to her, and more when she asked about who this "Jane Austen" lady was. He made a point to chat with their squib priest, Father Weasley after mass on Sundays. He never referred to Voldemort as "Lord" under any circumstance. He treated every muggleborn and half-blood with respect, not referring to any person by their blood status.
It wasn't long until Narcissa had started to emulate his behavior. She started to speak out too.
Was he being manipulative? Maybe.
Was he restricting her own identity by sharing more of his? Perhaps.
Did he regret it? Not at all.
It was a day late in November, not long before the term ended, when he bundled up in his warmest cloak and scarf to go watch the Ravenclaw vs Gryffindor Quidditch match. He and Narcissa had met in the common room and walked to the pitch together.
"You know I love you, Ciss." He said.
"I know." She replied, the wind whipping her pale face.
"I don't want you to marry him."
"I don't want to marry him either."
"What can we do about it?"
"I don't know."
I know this version of Narcissa isn't necessarily matching up with who we see her as in canon, but I'm playing a long game here...I have some significant portions much later in the story already written that will make some more sense of this & the next few chapters...Trust me!