AN: A side series to my main 'Marauders' series to put all my random stories for it. Enjoy!
"This is going to be interesting," Sirius muttered to him and then yelped. "Hey, watch where you're standing!"
Benji Fenwick turned around and gave him an apologetic look.
"Sorry, didn't mean to."
Sirius muttered something quite rude under his breath. Remus elbowed him reprovingly. It wasn't Benji's fault, there were far too many of them trying to cluster into a small place. Everyone had been elbowed and stood on while they tried to get into some semblance of a line. Which really wasn't a line at this point, or even multiple lines, because no one here seemed to know how to do that. They were just crowding around each other, hoping that they would eventually do the right thing.
The right thing being trying to get in position to take a photo. A photo of the whole Order. Which was a nice thought, memories and all that. The problem was that there was rather a lot of Order members. More than any of them realised, in fact. Or maybe it was just because of the lack of space with everyone moving around like they were.
Either way, taking a simple picture should not result in so many bruises or possible broken toes. They were all supposed to be adults, after all. Not that you could guess that with the amount of chaos going on at the minute. Seriously, why did it seem like there were more people in here than there actually was?
"Why are we even in such a small room anyway?" James wondered out loud, steadying himself against the wall so he didn't fall over as people shifted around him. "Surely this would be easier somewhere bigger?"
"It's not like we're all crammed in," Lily said logically, staying close to him. "It's just because we're all here for a change."
James looked across the room and nodded. Yeah, that was a fair point. Literally everyone in the Order was present. When did that ever happen? He didn't think it ever had, not since they joined, anyway. There was always someone away on a mission or working or in tbe hospital. But somehow everyone manged to show up just to take a picture?
Well, some people admittedly were dragged in. Severus being one of them.
"I don't see why we even have to take a bloody picture," he muttered from Lily's other side.
"Because we should have a photo of all of us together."
"Like a team photo," Sirius added. "Like we did for Quidditch."
"I never played Quidditch," Severus told him.
"Well, dig up some team spirit from somewhere."
"This isn't team spirit, this is a security risk."
"He has a point," Remus agreed. "Having a picture of us all together isn't exactly good for keeping a secret organisation, well, a secret."
"It's an open secret," scoffed James.
He had heard all the gossip in the Auror Office, you couldn't miss it. Anything to do to with Dumbledore was fair game to the general population. And it wasn't hard to miss random people popping up at Death Eater attacks to help out the Aurors.
"But no one knows who belongs to the Order," Remus said persistently.
"Aw, it will be fine," James dismissed. "It's not like the picture's going to be just left somewhere and I doubt Dumbledore is going to write 'Members of the Order of the Phoenix' across the back. It will be fine."
Severus muttered something about over-optimistic Gryffindors who would be better suited to Hufflepuff. Which just earned him a well-deserved punch from Tonks.
"Surely there can't be more people coming," Sirius said, craning his neck in an effort to see what was going on.
"Chryssie! Over here!" Lily called, waving her hand in the air.
"I stand corrected."
Of course, even that couldn't go easily because she manged to smack Gideon Prewitt in the nose.
"Ow! Trying to pick my nose, Evans?"
"It's Potter, now, Prewitt and don't be disgusting."
James did his usual goofy grin at Lily using her new surname. Granted, it was the goofy grin he almost always aimed at Lily.
"You're the one who was trying to pick my nose!"
"More like your nose was in the way of my hand!"
"I'm right against the wall! I can't be in anyone's way!"
"Well, you were in mine."
Thankfully, Chryssie came over before Lily could hex Gideon or do something else she'd probably regret.
"Why is everyone bunching up in this corner?" She asked, panting from the effort to get through everyone.
"Is that why it seems like there's still people coming in?" Remus asked.
"I don't know," she shrugged and then squeezed herself in between Sirius and Severus.
This had the rather unfortunate side effect of Sirius taking a step backwards. And he did so without checking behind him.
"Black, I swear to Merlin if you elbow my boobs one more time..." Emmeline threatened.
"Aw, come on, Vance, it was an accident," Sirius said in his defense.
It wasn't a very good defence if the glare Emmeline was sending him was anything to go by. Even James had to admit that she was terrifying. And she liked him. Well, liked him more than she did Sirius. He was pretty sure that Emmeline thought that Sirius existed solely to annoy her. Which was fair because his best friend very much enjoyed winding her up. James was convinced that she actually rather liked it and also enjoyed threatening Sirius but there was no way he was going to say that to her. Like he said, he was kind of scared of her.
"Just stay away from me, Black," she huffed and tried to walk away but the wall of people around them stopped her from doing that.
Seriously, when were people going to stop moving around and actually try to organise themselves?
"All right, that's it!" Moody barked, making them all freeze.
Because when Moody got like that, you did as you were told, lest you get hexed or something, knowing him.
"Argh!" Dora yelped just as everything went quiet
She had tripped over something or someone or maybe even herself, knowing her. Either way, she tipped forwards but he, Sirius and Remus all managed to grab her at the same time. Thankfully they caught her before she hit the ground but they may have ruffled a few feathers in the process. As in, Sirius somehow managed to elbow Emmeline again, despite her being three people over, James tripped over Lily's foot and Remus may or may not have basically shoved Peter to the side in his haste to grab Dora. Hey, at least they were all upright, though Sirius may not be for much longer...
"I swear it was an accident, Vance," he was trying to defend himself while backing up extremely rapidly.
Everyone oh so kindly cleared a path to do that too - far too amused to help him. James was one of those people. As was Marlene, who was cackling at the ridiculousness of everything. Emmeline had murder in her eyes.
"I feel like we should perhaps take this picture so we do not waste anyone's time any further than we already have," Dumbledore said serenely, his voice carrying over everyone's chatter.
Which, of course, immediately made everyone feel guilty about wasting time. Dumedore had quite the knack for that.
They all started shuffling around wotb more purpose but they still didn't really achieve anything except for joking around less. Oh, and people didn't complain about getting their feet stepped on. Though Remus would have liked to because Vance's heels she was wearing for tonight hurt horribly when they trod on your foot.
"Sorry," she mouthed at him when he winced.
"How come I don't get an apology?" Sirius whined.
"I'll stab you with one of my heels," she threatened.
A piercing whistle made them all freeze and fall silent. They all turned to the source of the sound to see a very unamused Moody at the front of the room. Well, more unamused than usual. James didn't think that he'd ever seen the man happy.
"Right, two lines," barked Moody in a tone that could control dozens of Aurors.
Which meant that everyone in this room snapped to attention. It was very comical to see. And terrifying. And yes, James was the quickest to snap to attention maybe only beaten by Sirius. Hey, they worked for the man.
"Yes, two lines would be best," Dumbledore agreed. "It means we should not need as much space and it will far easier to keep the camera steady."
Yeah, having a shaky hand would not be a good idea for this picture. Not after all the effort that was going to be put into it. Could you imagine going through all of this just for the result to be a blurry photo?
"Better take a few," James heard Kingsley shout.
"Only one picture!" Moody barked immediately. "There'll be as little evidence of this as possible. Do you want to basically give the Death Eaters a ready-made hitlist?"
Everyone shifted uncomfortably at that and started muttering to each other. No one had really thought of it that way. James caught Frank's eye and they both rolled their eyes, this was just normal for Moody. No need to freak out about it.
"It is my camera, Alastor," Dumbledore said, his voice carrying over everyone. "And I will be doing the film development myself. No one else will be in possession of the photo or the negatives."
Moody peered at him suspiciously. Honestly, there was paranoia and Alastor Noody paranoia. Because normal paranoia would mean that even if you didn't trust anyone else you would at least trust Albus Dumbledore! Which Moody apparently didn't.
"I'll be the one holding onto that photo, Albus," Moody grunted.
Dumbledore smiled benignly in agreement and Moody at last looked satisfied.
"Now that that is all sorted out," Dumbledore said. "I suppose the only thing left to say is smile!"
Dozens of teeth were exposed as everyone put on a smile. Even Severus after getting an elbow in both ribs, from Chryssie and Lily.
'Click'