From the playlist:

Visons of Gideon - Sufjan Stevens

The Art of Getting By - Laura Zocca

Youth - Daughter

Chapter 41 - Blood is Thicker Than Water, Pt II

The front room was in chaos by the time the four of them apparated back to the safe house. Not many had come out of this battle unscathed - Edgar's wife Phoebe was nursing Dedalus' leg while Alice examined a gash on Sturgis' forehead. Edgar himself walked away to see to a burn on his arm.

Lily, who'd been waiting at the house for the others to return, leapt up from Peter's side when she saw Sirius and Emmeline. Almost as soon as he landed, Sirius moved quickly towards her and clutched her in a tight embrace.

"Thank God-" Lily started.

"Is Prongs home with Harry?"

"Yes," she confirmed, rushing to hug Emmeline as well. Together, they surveyed the rest of the room.

Emmeline turned back to the sofa. "You okay, Pete?"

"Fine," he responded, remaining in his seat.

"Marl-lene?" Sirius asked as a one word question, shivering.

"She's fine," Lily assured him, reaching into her pouch and handing them each a phial of Pepperup potion. "Sturgis said Mad-Eye asked her to help comb the dock."

Emmeline heaved a shaky sigh of relief, then uncorked the phial and tipped back its entire contents. At least they'd round up the stupefied Death Eaters. "Have you seen either of the Prewetts back-?"

Lily's response was intercepted by Sirius, who took her by the hand. "I need to talk to you-"

But before he'd finished his sentence, they heard a crack, then two disconcerting thuds behind them. Everyone in the room gasped as Sirius grabbed Lily and Emmeline to move them away.

Both Gideon and Fabian lie dead in the middle of the room.

Marlene was on her knees between them clutching both their shoulders, looking sickened. Her eyes drifted up to Sirius, and she shook her head. "Not good…"

He came around and got on the ground behind her, placing a comforting hand on her back as he got a good look at the twins.

It was immediately apparent that they'd suffered from something other than the Killing Curse. Their knit jumpers were drenched in blood, which, by the looks of it, they'd vomited up. Fabian's jumper was raised slightly at the bottom, revealing an unnatural purple hue lurking under the skin of his torso. Even their eyes, once the warmest shade of blue, were now colored crimson from burst vessels. They'd been made to hemorrhage to death, but by what sort of foul curse, nobody knew.

No one said a word, even as the stench of iron began to overwhelm the musk of drenched wool lingering in the air.

Finally, Marlene spoke up again, her voice thick: "Somebody needs to let Molly know..."

"We should have gone with them," Emmeline whispered, her lip quivering. She did not see Sirius's hand tighten into a fist at his side.

A whoosh followed by another thud drew everyone's attention to the dining room, where they were met with another disturbing sight: In hobbled Mad-Eye - his face smeared with blood and a sizable chunk missing from his nose - with the lifeless body of Evan Rosier in tow. Rosier's loyalties played no part in how unsettling it was for some of his former classmates to see him dead on the floor, too.

He let Rosier's arm flop out of his grasp. "Longbottom, I need you to-" Moody began, but stopped suddenly when he saw the twins lying butchered in the middle of the room.

One might've thought Alastor turned to stone the way he froze up at the sight. Nobody dared to speak or even audibly breathe as he looked back and forth between Gideon and Fabian, assessing the massacre. Judging by his reaction, he'd never seen this curse before either.

After an achingly long silence, Alastor bent down and waved his hand over Gideon's face, then Fabian's, closing their eyes forever. Mad-Eye was normally mostly unfazed by death - he had to be in his line of work. But as he struggled back to his upright posture, his face lifting back into the groups' view, he looked as if he was about to erupt. He had been very close with the Prewetts.

"What. Happened."

Still clutching their shoulders, Marlene began to heave; then, the heaving gave way to stifled sobs.

"...Someone must have told him we were coming-"

"I don't mean tonight, I mean TO THEM!" Mad-Eye bellowed, cutting off Sturgis' meek attempt at an explanation.

Peter pulled his knees towards himself and put his head in between them.

Neither Sirius nor Emmeline said a word at first, fearing that Mad-Eye might maim them in his rage.

"...WELL?"

"Alastor, we-"

"They fought off five Death Eaters to save us," Emmeline interrupted, sacrificing herself at the foot of Mad-Eye's wrath so Sirius wouldn't have to. "My group was ambushed before we reached the signal point and got stuck in one of the shipping containers. Gideon came back for us, then he and Fabian created a diversion so that we could escape…"

"But we stupefied the Death Eaters, they should have been there on the dock," Sirius explained. "Did you see them?"

"They'd revived by the time I got to them," Mad-Eye growled low. "Only managed to nab Rosier here, and when he got feisty…" He shook his head. "Dolohov and the others got away."

Sirius could feel heat rising in his face. "Dolohov? He did this to them, didn't he?"

That explained it. It was known now that a few Death Eaters Voldemort had picked up back East were quickly rising through his ranks; but none faster than Antonin Dolohov. He was a practitioner of dark, vile curses, the likes of which nobody in the British Ministry had ever seen before when the victims started rolling in.

"Sick son of a bitch, he likes to make it as gruesome-..." For a moment, Moody's mouth stiffened up in a way they had never seen before. Then, he cleared his throat loudly, and it returned to normal.

"Alastor," Lily murmured, approaching him with caution. "Your face-"

"I'm fine," he snapped. "As you can see, Rosier paid the price for it..."

Despite his refusal, Lily went to the kitchen and fetched him a damp washcloth anyway, offering it to him for his nose. He accepted it wordlessly, but heaved a sigh.

"I'll take them to St. Mungo's then go see Molly myself. She shouldn't see them like this."

"I'll come with you," Marlene offered tearily. Not once had she let go of them.

Mad Eye-nodded. Then, with what little sense of self-preservation he had, he shed all sentimentality so quickly that it was frightening and got back to business. "Alice, you'll need to take Rosier's body to Crouch. The rest of you," he shouted suddenly, returning to his usual gruff tone. "Meet back here tomorrow. Midnight."

Alastor knelt down again next to Fabian, grimacing as he looked into his empty, bloodied face. Sirius helped Marlene pry her hand from him as she adjusted over to Gideon and took hold of both his shoulders.

The pair disapparated with their fallen friends.

"We should have let those Death Eaters drown," Sirius spat, glaring spitefully up at Emmeline.

…

She apparated home as the sun was rising with her hair in a stringy mess and her clothes not yet fully dried. With her teeth now chattering again, she went immediately upstairs, scribbled a note saying she'd be out sick from work, and sent Orpheus off with it straight away. Then, peeling off her layers, she crawled into the shower and turned the knob to the hottest setting. She sat stiffly on the floor of the tub, hugging her knees to her chest and letting the water rain down on her in silence. The way Sirius had spoken to her...Should they have let those Death Eaters die? More importantly, was the Prewetts' blood on her hands? And what had Voldemort stolen from her memories?

A few minutes later, the sudden swinging of the bathroom door sent her into a panic and she screamed as the shower curtain tore open.

She nearly broke down when she got a look at her intruder.

"Remus," she whimpered.

Distressed by her scream, Remus knelt down beside the bathtub and pulled her into his embrace, paying no mind to the fact that she'd gotten his clothes wet as she began to cry silently into his shoulder.

"What happened?" he asked, awaiting a death toll.

"We mounted an attack last night, but the operation was a failure. The Prewetts were killed…" she sobbed.

"Oh no…" He shut his eyes, thinking of Mad-Eye and Marlene.

"They died from this horrible curse, there was so much blood."

"Which curse?"

"We don't know, but it was-…Remus, it was awful."

"I'm sorry, I should have been there..."

He'd been gone for nearly two months, about a week longer than he'd expected his trip to last. He would have come home sooner, but he felt that, after having spent a second transformation with them, he had just begun regaining the trust of the werewolf pack in Albania. He thought it would be beneficial to linger and see if there was more information he could gather; but it turned out there was not.

Emmeline pulled away and got her first good look at Remus's haggard appearance. His jaw was covered in stubble, and his sleepless eyes seemed to have sunk into their sockets framed by tired, purple bags. The skin around his nose and mouth was chapped and dappled with cuts.

"...You look awful..." she breathed.

The corner of Remus's mouth turned upward at her honesty. "The transformations were rather rough this time around. Sorry to come home to you like this."

"Did they hurt you?"

"No," he lied. The bruises had faded by now, and she'd never notice that some of the wounds on his arms and shoulders weren't inflicted by his own hand.

She pulled him back into the wet hug and buried her face in his shoulder. "...You missed your birthday last month…" Again.

He let out an exasperated sigh, disappointed that he'd lost track of his own birthday this year. "I'm sorry about that, too." Twenty-one years old should have felt like a milestone, but instead it just felt like another rung on an endless ladder leading nowhere.

Emmeline sat up out of his embrace and turned off the water, then hugged her knees to her chest again, wiping tears. "Lily and James invited me over. Peter came. We made a cake. Harry had some, too. I sliced up what was left and saved it in the freezer for you…" Mentioning the Potters jogged her memory. "Remus, do you know if-...Is something wrong with James and Lily?"

His eyebrows came together. "What do you mean?"

"Sirius said something that made me wonder…"

"Well they've sort of been on hiatus, haven't they?"

"…Is it just me, or does it seem more like house arrest than a hiatus?" she questioned.

It occurred to Remus that he didn't rightly know. "Dumbledore suggested we lay low because of the baby" had been enough of an explanation for him at the time. But surely James would have told him if something was wrong…

"…Maybe we should ask when we see them," he suggested, helping her up and wrapping a towel around her shoulders.

"We're due over at theirs later anyway. James's orders. He's missed you, and he's going a bit loony being cooped up at home."

When she stepped out of the bath, Remus reached out and took her hand, cherishing the soft skin of her palm after several weeks of thorny brush and harshness. "I missed you terribly…"

Emmeline pulled him nearer and puzzle-pieced herself into his embrace. "I'm so glad you're home."

"I'm so glad you're okay…"

Her face twisted up as she began to cry again. "...I'm only okay because of Gideon and Fabian…"

…

"We allowed ourselves to be DECEIVED!" Alastor howled, his nose covered in bandages. His mood seemed considerably worse than usual in light of the Prewetts' demise.

"What would you have had us do?!" Edgar countered. "We were led to believe-"

"He may not have even been on the ground!"

"Someone's been passing information to the other side again!" Frank charged.

"They could have just tricked Mundungus, we don't know that!" Dorcas countered.

Out of the corner of her eye, Marlene spotted Remus and Emmeline apparate into the entryway. Relieved to see Remus in particular, she trotted up to embrace him but stopped when she got a good look at his face. "You look terrible."

"Good to see you, too," he teased humorlessly, pulling her into a tight hug. "I heard about-...How are you?"

"…It still doesn't feel real."

"I'm so sorry…" He looked up when he heard all the shouting.

"I'd better get back."

"Alright."

Sirius took his turn to embrace Remus while Emmeline ducked away from him, heading into the dining room with Marlene.

"I thought you'd be with us last night," Sirius said wearily. "Could've used the help."

"I know; I'm sorry. I got held up on business for Dumbledore."

"Yeah, that's what Marley said. What sort of business?"

Remus furrowed his brow at him. Sirius knew full well that he wasn't supposed to ask.

But Sirius pressed him further, feigning playfulness as he shoved his shoulder. "C'mon mate, it's me."

Remus winced, taking hold of the sore spot he'd pushed as he walked past him into the meeting. "I can't talk about it, I'm sorry."

A flicker of indignation passed over Sirius's face.

Meanwhile, the adjacent argument was heating up:

"I know what I heard!" Mundungus was shouting up to Alastor now, thumping his chest.

"Go over it for us again…" he grumbled. "...You louse," was said under his breath as an afterthought.

"I told you," Mundungus began vexedly. "I was in Knockturn Alley a few weeks back, an' over'eard a conversation between the Carrow girl and Avery junior outside Borgin 'n Burkes. They said You-Know-Oo would be with 'em."

Mundungus' intel had prompted the previous night's campaign. Undermining the Ministry and the International Statute of Secrecy had always been part of the other side's agenda. With the Death Eaters planning to display their Master's power by disrupting muggle commerce via an attack on the port, and Voldemort projected to accompany them, the Order had devised an ambush. As they found out, the ambush was instead for them.

Remus had read about it in the Prophet that afternoon at the Potters'. Several longshoremen had been killed and the fires had damaged a significant amount of equipment as well as goods. The terminal at Tilbury was new, only completed in the last few years, and the attack would certainly cause a disturbance as Voldemort hoped - or so he wanted it to appear.

"How do we know you're telling the truth?" Frank interrogated Mundungus, side-eyeing him. "You led everyone right into a bloodbath!"

Dung turned to him as if to punch his groin. "It's not my fault they were waiting for you!"

"Someone tipped them off! They caught Dedalus' group and used our signal!"

"We all heard him, right?" Emmeline asked suddenly, motioning to her head.

The Longbottoms, James, and Sirius all seemed to tense up.

"Dumbledore always suspected him to be a Legilimens," Alastor informed her. "But he must have honed the craft." He had blocked him from his mind.

She shuddered, remembering how the raspy voice infiltrated her thoughts. Earlier that afternoon, James and Lily had insisted they were fine, and that they weren't sure what Sirius was on about; but Emmeline wouldn't be satisfied until she knew all the facts. "When he said he's been defied three times, what did he mean?"

"...He'd been trying to recruit a few of us to join him, like the last time at the Minister's residence," Alice explained with caution, looking to Mad-Eye for approval.

Emmeline turned to James, who also waited for a nod from Mad-Eye before he was allowed to proceed. "Lily and I were approached just before we left Hogwarts, then again during the summer before the wedding."

Remus remembered the second time - Corban Yaxley had shown up on Fleamont and Euphemia's doorstep one afternoon while Lily and James were comparing paint swatches for the cottage. It was a miracle that it hadn't ended in a fight, but even in his age, Fleamont had scared Yaxley off. They'd come over to Remus's house afterwards to check on him.

"Holy shit, James…" Emmeline muttered. He hadn't mentioned that this afternoon. "I had no idea…"

"Didn't really want to go broadcasting it."

"...But why was he looking-?"

"It doesn't matter," Alastor snarled, changing the subject. "All that matters is we missed our opportunity to get the bastard."

"Hang on, he said something else last night that I can't get out of my head," Dorcas interjected, the cogs turning behind her eyes. "He's obsessed with immortality, right? He said 'mortal death would never be able to touch any piece of him.' Maybe there's something we can glean from it. Maybe last night could be a success-"

"Gideon and Fabian are dead, do you reckon that's a success, Meadowes?!"

Dorcas swallowed her next words, and a silence fell over the group. Many eyes drifted back to the spots where their bodies were laid out the night before.

"May they rest in peace-"

"Don't, Edgar," growled Mad-Eye.

"So what happens now?" asked Sturgis.

Nobody seemed to be able to answer the question.