Skill and Seclusion [2] || Harry Potter x OC x Draco Malfoy

159. Everything's Changed

DISCLAIMER

I do not own Harry Potter ... but OOTP is my fav Harry Potter film

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Through the darkened alleyways of London walked two individuals.

To an outside eye, they would appear as ordinary passersby.

Just two strangers who probably didn't even know each other given the five large steps in-between them at all times.

Regular people, London dwellers, on their way to whatever unknown destination they needed to reach.

Perhaps the safety of their homes, or the warm fire-lit room of a pub.

In reality, none of that was true.

Both were magical beings, currently undertaking yet another deadly excursion.

They were fighters in the beginning stages of war, their presence on the streets being a risk to both their lives.

They knew this, of course, and had long since accepted it as a risk they were in the position to take.

One was not wholly human. Changed by the full moon to become a beast who failed to recognise those the man loved.

One was the most powerful witch of her age. Suffering from one life to the next, burdened by the decisions and actions she had to make every day of her life.

They were two members of an organisation who had taken up the cause to save the freedom, safety, and lives of the people in their world.

Not to mention the lives of the people in the other world.

Their own lives, too.

Everything was at stake. Everything was at risk. They had everything to lose.

This had been the reality of the past three months for Mabel Whitlock.

Ever since she had accepted a position in the Order of the Phoenix, she had been jumpstarted on a mission of recruitment the second summer came around.

Gathering alliances, maintaining loyalties, spreading the true word that high-ranking officials were trying to put to rest.

Lord Voldemort has returned, and a war is coming.

It hadn't been easy.

Denial was a tricky thing, and very much present among those who wished to turn a blind eye to threat.

Those in respected positions of power had it coursing through their veins, and they had turned their sights onto the main competition to their opinions.

Albus Dumbledore and his Ward.

The two had been slammed in the papers, invalidated and belittled, rumoured to be attempting an uprising against the Ministry, and denied every beg they gave for people to see reason.

Cornelius Fudge had made numerous threats, but the most terrifying of all was to seize control of the girl who he believed was the heralder of all this chaos.

An Heir of Slytherin, a relative of Voldemort, a dangerous, powerful being whose heritage spoke only of betrayal and mistakes.

Bel was none of these things, of course. But most people believed otherwise thanks to the word of the Minister of Magic.

To him, she wasn't a girl fighting for a righteous cause to keep her friends safe.

Instead, she was the thing that endangered them the most.