The Bug Collector | marauders

The Years That Followed

Regulus' abilities grew substantially after their brief meeting.

Overtime, they'd grown to be a consistent presence in Rose's life again, despite the circumstances.

Regulus had gained the ability to come and go as they pleased, and, for a while, even posses those around them.

Rose and Regulus attempted to continue their relationship as it had been before they died, but overtime it became increasingly obvious that was not quite feasible. Regulus couldn't hold her like they'd wished they could. Instead, they'd posses the girl just to feel her hands, run a finger across her skin to actually feel the warmth radiating off it.

Once, they'd even taken that hand, her own hand, and instinctively snaked it around her neck, remembering what it was like to tighten their own fingers tightly around it. What it was like to have her look up at them with half-lidded eyes and whisper: "I trust you, Regulus."

The memory had been too much for them.

They stopped with the possessions after that. They figured no spirit was meant to feel alive. The feelings of hunger, desire, and taking a simple breath were meant only for the living. Continuing to experience them in fleeting moments would only make Regulus far more bitter, and they wanted to avoid that.

Rose had gone through her own metamorphosis during the years that followed Regulus' death. With the help of visits from Professors McGonagall and Sprout during the Summer of 1979, Rose was able to officially graduate from Hogwarts. She didn't sail across the Black Lake like the other students, but Professor Sprout had welcomed Rose to the opportunity to be her apprentice.

Rose didn't immediately taken her up in the offer. First, she joined her best mates, sister, and even Stephone Greengrass(who was promptly disowned after refusing a marriage proposal after Regulus' death) in the war efforts.

So, during 1980, at 19 years old, Rose Evans joined the Order of the Phoenix.

She was a helpful herbalist, assisting mostly in healing and the occasional creation of herbal weaponry. She'd travel from place to place alongside those who were fighting.

After joining, she moved from her family home into a flat in London with Remus and Sirius, and Peter camped out on the couch so often he might as well have lived there too.

Rose did her part for the war effort as safety as she could. Leaving it with only one scar.

A nasty scar it was, more a tattoo really. She couldn't remember exactly how it happened, probably due to a charm of some sort, but she and Peter had been out together on enemy territory, and they'd been taken. When the two of them escaped together she'd had her hair cut off, and a dark burn made in the likeness of the dark mark on her left arm.

It hadn't been the actual dark mark, it was just a brand of sorts, Rose hadn't known if Peter got off any better, he wouldn't talk about the experience after that, and wore exclusively long sleeves.

Rose could only assume he'd had it just as bad as she had.

Not everyone made it out of that time as lucky though.

It had been Stephone and Odette who broke the news to Rose when the Mckinnons died. It had been on her birthday in 1981, a birthday she shared with her nephew who was born a year earlier.

Harry James Potter, son of Lily Evans and James Potter, a clever and sweet child, barely two years old. Rose's mother had not enjoyed being made a grandmother so soon, but she stepped into the role graciously nonetheless.

On top of being an aunt, Rose was also a godmother, for one Luna Lovegood.

Luna was born in the start of 1981, Xeno and Pandora were beyond excited. They'd started a business together, moved off on their own, and thus the child was welcomed with open arms. The two had been a part of the Order as well when their daughter was born.