Where Dark Meets the Light

Azkaban

Charlie woke in the middle of the night to his mother storming into his room. "Mum?" He mumbled. For once he'd been asleep, but after his mum threw his covers off and frantically told him to get dressed, he was more than wide awake.

"Mum, what's going on?" Were they under attack? Were they in danger?

"There's been an incident. There is an emergency Order meting in 5 minutes. Meet me downstairs as fast as possible." His mother rattled as she sped out of the room.

Charlie pulled his pants up and grabbed the first shirt he saw before taking off after his mum. "An incident? Did someone get hurt? Is dad alright?"

"I don't know." Lily's voice rang from the kitchen. "I only just got the patronus. I don't know any more, we just have to hurry."

Charlie did just that. He pulled on his shoes, not even bothering to zip them up before his mother ushered him to the fireplace.

In a flash of green fire, they were in the Order's headquarters. The Longbottom's were already there. Right behind them the first of the Weasley's started to arrive. Sirius was standing in his bathrobe and disheveled hair. Normally Charlie would try to joke about the state of his hair, but even Sirius looked worried. What happened?

Just then, his mum dragged him from his thoughts and ordered him upstairs. He sighed and did as he was told. There was no point fighting about it. There was no way that the Order was going to let him attend even if it could potentially save his life.

"C'mon mate." Neville said, after shooting a look over his shoulder at the kitchen where his grandmother had disappeared off to.

Together they all went upstairs. There was a heavy silence as they made their way towards where they knew the guest rooms were. Once they settled down the silence was broken by Ginny.

"What do you think happened? Did your mum tell you anything?" She asked Charlie.

"No," He shook his head. "She never tells me jack. But this time even she didn't know what was going on."

"Got a patronus message and then turned everyone's bed upside down if you didn't get out fast enough?" Ron grumbled.

"Might as well." Charlie let out a small smile at the grumpiness. Then he sobered again. "You don suppose something happened to dad, right?"

He was met with silence. It appeared none of them had considered it that his dad was supposed to be back from his mission two days ago and hadn't come back yet. "You don't think-"

"No." Neville interrupted. "Not to be rude, Charlie, but the disappearance of one Order member wouldn't warrant everyone being roused at," He glanced at a clock, "2:50 in the night." He shook his head. "It has to be something big. Something that can't wait. I know Gran hasn't been in the Order for long, but has anything like this happened before?"

And that makes sense to Charlie. Order members had gone missing before and it would be discussed at least when the sun had risen. Still, he couldn't quite let the tension go. It was still possible that whatever happened, had injured or killed his dad.

The room fell quiet again.

The adrenaline from earlier slowly ebbed away while they listened to the muffled voices coming from downstairs.

Charlie started to shiver. Only now did he notice that he was only wearing a t-shirt. Before he could get up though, Neville tossed him a blanket. He shot a look of gratitude at the other boy. Before long Fred, George, Ron and Ginny left to the other bedrooms for some sleep. It was clear that the Order meeting wasn't going to be over any time soon.