The Next Great Adventure (A Marauders Fan Fic)

Chapter Fifty Nine

Chapter Fifty Nine

The rest of their summer was rather uneventful. Although the Order did their best, their decisive defeats and the alarming number of deaths had forced Dumbledore and Moody to rethink their strategy. Since it was apparent that Voldemort’s forces were far more numerous than they had wanted to believe, they had begun to focus on infiltrating his forces and places they believed he would attempt to take over instead. A number of members had been sent overseas to gather support there and others were desperately trying to find new members; Remus had been sent off into some mysterious part of the country and Wormtail only reappeared every so often.

The only people Lily and James saw with any regularity were Cassie and Sirius, and even they were preoccupied with making the most of what time they had together.

It was the polar opposite of what their summers had been like at school and, as she gazed out of the window at the Muggle children who were still playing in the street, Lily wished she could go back to that time. “It was so much simpler then,” she sighed to herself, leaning her head against the window. Her days passed slowly, full of work for her Healing course and worry. It was obvious that the Order hadn’t achieved much apart from killing off some of its best members and she could tell that that knowledge was affecting everybody. Even Dumbledore looked more tired than usual and that was even without the stress of running Hogwarts.

However, it passed faster than she had realised and before too long the trees began to fade from their vibrant greens to pale golds and burning reds. The shadows lengthened and the sun fell lower in the sky, sending shining orange beams through the cracks in buildings and between trees. As the days grew shorter, Lily wrapped herself up more and more, trudging between St. Mungo’s and her home. She barely went anywhere else, apart from to the few Order meetings which took place every month or so, and to see her friends. Alice and Frank had moved out to a small village in the West Country and, although Cassie saw Alice in the Ministry, Lily and James didn’t. So, every few weeks one couple would Apparate to the other’s house for lunch at the weekend and catch up with each other.

Eventually autumn slipped into winter and the trees shook off their leaves, leaving their stark branches behind. Towards the end of November, Lily and James found themselves fighting their way through the bitter wind as they headed to yet another meeting.

Inside many of the members were assembled, all of them looking tired and drawn as they loitered around the table in small groups, barely smiling as they murmured to their friends. It was impossible to know who would still be there the next time they met and it was clear to see that years of this were taking their toll on the remaining members. Some of them, like Molly and Arthur Weasley, Caradoc Dearborn, and Lucinda Welles had been with the Order for years and had seen so many of their friends replaced by others, who were then replaced themselves, that it was a wonder they were still fighting. Molly, of course, was still there, present in one corner despite beginning to be quite obviously pregnant with her sixth child. Her two brother, Fabian and Gideon, were there with her, teasing her about something. Although Arthur had tried multiple times to stop her from coming, and she often missed some meetings, she was more than happy to leave their children with their grandparents and attend as many as she could. Even Lily, when she entered the room, found herself looking round and counting how many people were there - it was nearly impossible to stop herself from wondering whether they would all be there next time.

“He’s not doing anything,” she heard someone mutter disapprovingly. “It’s alright for him, shut up in that castle, but does he expect us to be able to have as much protection?”

“It feels like we’re risking our lives for nothing,” another replied.

Lily sighed, recognising their doubt in herself but wanting to ignore it. Luckily they were interrupted before they could say anything else and, as she settled down to listen to Moody, she frowned; his speech was hardly going to help their faith in the resistance.