Thicker than Water (Marauders Era)

30 June, 1980 - Suspicions

But of course, despite everything, despite the chaos and the hells and that creeping numbness, life went on.

For all the Order's fears of a spy, and all Lavinia's personal suspicions, nothing seemed to have been given away and no one seemed to have turned traitor. Regardless, everyone was on edge. Lavinia couldn't blame them, even if it rather annoyed her. So she did her best to play peacemaker, made sure everyone knew that when they stepped into her home, the politics ended and the mistrust needed to be left behind. Not that they couldn't talk about it, but she was sick of the suspicious looks even between her friends, sick of the defensive attitude everyone seemed to have adopted. Sick of it all.

Outside of the house, Lavinia went to work and did her best to keep visiting Bertie when she could. Sirius kept telling her it wasn't safe, but she didn't want to leave the old man alone. She liked him too much and he was a calm and steadying presence in her life that Lavinia would freely admit she needed when everyone else seemed to be jumping first and looking later.

But of course, Sirius did have a point. Every time Lavinia left work, she saw Death Eaters, waiting in the alley, just beyond the protective enchantments, hoping she would slip or do something stupid. She didn't dare go to Diagon Alley anymore and frankly she didn't think anyone should be going out in public, but they needed money and supplies so they went, always making sure that none of them were alone and preferably in groups of three or more.

So they tread carefully, all walking a dangerous line and all torn between knowing they needed to have each others backs and fearing that somewhere among them, a traitor lurked. Lavinia kept that fear at bay, however. She had plenty of others to be getting on with and she truly didn't believe that any of their friends would sell out.

Well.

Maybe.

She had her quiet suspicions that she didn't at all like thinking about after that day Peter had come in so flustered. But there was no evidence of a traitor, anyway. Ambushes were going off without a hitch and thus far, no one had died because of anything even resembling leaked information. Which meant that if there was a traitor, they seemed to still have some loyalty left to the Order. Or to some of the people in it, anyway.

This left Lavinia with nothing to do about that particular worry except to try to spend as much time as she could with Peter. He was oddly obliging to this, actually, and however shifty he had been that day, he had taken to stopping by when Lavinia was alone in the house and she didn't think it was just to provide her some company. But she also didn't question it. She knew Peter needed support more than any of the others did right now and it was a source of more than mild frustration to Lavinia that none of the others seemed to notice that. Actually, Lily might have, but as she was just over a month away from her due date and James was taking overprotective to entirely new levels, Lavinia didn't think the other woman was going to be able to do much with her worries for Peter even if they existed.

Which left Lavinia to fill in.

She did so happily, in part because she was more than glad of the company, and in part because she wanted to pay it forward. She couldn't even begin to count the number of times she'd been helped when she was stressed or afraid or simply lost and it seemed only right to offer the same thing back when she saw Peter looking so very adrift. Not that he always took her help, but she made sure he knew it was there if ever wanted it.

It was slow going at first, but soon, it seemed that every time Peter was available and Lavinia was home alone, he joined her. It was nice, actually, to have a friend whose thoughts weren't all on the war, a friend who was just as afraid as she was and a friend who was just as desperate for a distraction as she was. Not that the others weren't also in need of distracting but... But Peter was there more often. Lavinia suspected this was because Dumbledore was fully aware that Peter was not capable of some of the more complex assignments that people like Remus and Sirius were given, but she didn't particularly care. It meant that someone was there. It meant she wasn't alone as often.