moony and wood | r. lupin

all hallows' eve

"They're calling him Harry Potter, The Boy Who Lived!"

‧͙⁺˚*･༓☾

October 1981

Ottery St. Catchpole

Evie was, frankly, exhausted. Regardless of the fact that she was house-bound, she was still exhausted.

After her sister's death, Evie had been sent on very few missions, only three in September and October combined. The idea made her feel pathetic– useless to the Order. She knew why she was getting less, too; after seeing how hard Gwen's death was on her, Aberforth– at Remus' request, probably– conferred with the other Order leaders to ease off on her, and they had. The missions she was sent on were easy ones at that– spying on small groups of rogue Death Eaters in her animagus form.

Evie hated staying at home, but she didn't have many options as to where she could go. None of the Order members were supposed to visit each other on the off-chance that they were being watched, as it created greater risk. The isolation was starting to drive Evie crazy; at least on missions, she was getting out.

Instead, Evie had the latest news mailed to her in the Daily Prophet, from her friends in the Order, or she heard it from Remus, who was barely home in the past two months. Unlike Evie, he'd been sent out on what felt like endless urgent missions, leaving for weeks at a time, pressing hasty kisses to Evie's face before dashing out the door. He'd only been home in the week of the full moon, given his lower health around the day of.

So, she mostly sat home, stuck in her ever-lasting thoughts of how things had turned out after graduation, and the loss of some of her favorite people– Marlene, Dorcas, her own sister.

Dorcas had been her very first friend at Hogwarts– she sat on the boat with her on their way to the school for the first time when they were eleven, and sat together at the Gryffindor table after being sorted. They had been closer than Evie realized, looking back. She wished she could go back and give her younger self a good shake, tell herself to appreciate what she had more than she did.

Evie hadn't always gotten along with Gwen– but they were sisters in the end. Gwen was the one she ran to when she was upset, because her big sister was stronger than she was, and she hoped that the girl's strength would rub off on her somehow. Gwen was nit-picky, always liked things a certain way and got upset when they weren't how she needed them to be, but she was loyal and brave-hearted. Evie almost thought that Gwen should've been in Gryffindor instead of herself.

Evie shuddered. She didn't like to think about Gwen for too long. Even just saying her name felt like a stab to the chest.

She hadn't been allowed to go to the funeral, at the risk of detection from the Death Eaters.

Remus hadn't told her, but the funeral wouldn't have been very pleasant to go to in the first place– he had heard from Mad-Eye that the Ministry had quietly limited it to two family members. Mr. Wood had been thoroughly unpleased with that, but still showed up at his daughter's burial, his son beside him. Jace hadn't said a word the entire time, apparently– he was upset that his five-year-old son wouldn't even get to see his aunt go down.

-

It was another quiet Wednesday when Remus came home. He had been in a fight with more Death Eaters alongside a small number of Order members (no one had been injured too badly, luckily). The thought baffled Evie– how did Voldemort have so many followers?– but she brushed it away, dropping the thought of the war to fall into Remus' embrace.