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CHAPTER FIFTY TWO
little new beginnings
BETTY LAID ON the bed staring up at the pitch black, James snoring softly next to her. The feeling of not having to catch his name in her throat when she was asked who she was seeing all the time still felt strange. But even that wasn't what nagged at her mind.
The Order of the Phoenix. James's commitment to it. Remus's commitment to it. The fact that no one had told her. A million battle scenarios struck through her mind as quickly as she tried to bury them. Albus Dumbledore's long, bony fingers reaching out to shakes each of their hands. Their jaunty, courageous, naive smiles shimmering in his half moon glasses. The whispers that to have been surrounding them for months by those that fought the war best. That were surrounding her.
Quietly, she shifted out of bed, making James shift and turn over. She froze and watched him as he settled back down with a grumble. Reaching over lightly, she caressed his hair, feeling the softness between her fingers. Her finger gently caressed his cheek quickly before she pushed herself fully off. The room placed a robe on a table for her which she wrapped over herself as she looked at a window that formed. As she approached, she saw the Forbidden Forest stretching around the edge of the castle. It felt endless as she stared at it—the silver of the moonlight catching on a few of the leaves. Her eyes caught at the rustling ever so often down below of woodland creatures venturing in the night. A black dog, strikingly similar to one that she'd seen over the years, ran across the fields outside the castle. Normally, a stag was with it. But it was alone. Her eyes tracked it as it ran across, the moonlight starting to touch her. She knew it wasn't a wild dog, so she couldn't imagine how it could live here if not with someone else.
Her mind drifted to the nickname that they'd called Sirius. "Padfoot," she said quietly to herself. His patronus was a dog. "It's forbidden magic," she reminded herself. She shut the thought away, but not too tightly. The same with the promise that she'd made James.
It was becoming harder with two allegiances in the group. Had it been mere months ago, she would've stormed down Remus's door and demanded that he explain himself. But she didn't look for James in every room months ago. Remus and Albus Dumbledore hadn't shaken hands months ago. They were boys. She was but a girl.
Her eyes snapped over to James suddenly as he stirred and then mumbled his way back to sleep, her face unmoving. She couldn't seem to comprehend that they were willing to throw themselves out into the battle like that. Nothing but themselves. The strategy being crafted by wisened, but breaking fingers as they played with each of the marionette strings. Strategy for wars that were fought long ago. Strategy thought up by wizards who wouldn't be able to comprehend what was happening outside the castle walls at that very moment. The only people that could keep those that she loved safe was someone who knew them. Not a headmaster by name only.
