Gwen could not shake the thought that she was stuck in a dream and nothing she was seeing was real life.
It couldn't have been real life, because James was, indeed, before her, and he was running to her, her name escaping from his lips in a whimper of relief as he wrapped his whole being around her; she sunk into his touch, wordless, wide-eyed, disbelieving.
James was here. James was alright. James was holding her.
She had, long ago, when the owl first came in, successfully decoded Marlene's message of the next Order gathering—at the place where Gwen "peaked", or joined the Order, Peverell's Peak. Back where she started, back where James proposed to her, back in the dingy old shack at the top of a bloody freezing mountain.
Gwen did not, originally, want to return. She did not want to see the Order unless they had news of James. After all, Marlene's letter had said nothing of him, no confirmation or denial that he was alive...
The thought of losing James smothered Gwen for ten days straight, and he was all she could think of, all she could dream of.
So when she saw him for the first time in weeks, and he was absolutely fine, it became a bit difficult to believe that she was not dreaming him up. Or that another Death Eater had not taken a bit of his being and transformed back into him, gearing up to pounce on Gwen next.
It was only as James's face broke into a shattered, relieved smile and he exhaled Gwen's name with more ease than anything that she believed it—James was here, James was alright, James was holding her.
They did not absolve from each other's touch for the entirety of a meeting. Hands interlaced and lying humbly atop Gwen's lap, they listened to the other Order members recants of the events of the past few weeks, each perspective shifting with a new speaker.
It came to pass that, just as Gwen had suspected originally, she and Lily had Disapparated the furthest from the rest of the group. The Death Eaters had been able to follow, but only them. James, Sirius, and Remus had attempted to stay and fight the assailants, but it proved a fruitless effort, and they soon fled in Marlene, Mary, and Peter's footsteps—Apparating straight to Peverell's Peak to meet the rest of the Order.
At this, Lily caught Gwen's eye, and any hostility that may have lingered between them evaporated at once: Lily exhaled a short laugh at their over-enthusiasm to escape, and Gwen smiled, something she did not think she could stop even if she wanted to.
"There were no deaths," Kingsley said, as his own retelling of the attacks came to a close, "and that is.. the best we can hope for."
Ted cleared his throat quite awkwardly. "However," he said, shooting Gwen an apologetic look, "your flat's been destroyed. We had to Obliviate your proprietor, the whole nine yards."
Gwen's lips twitched into an unbothered smile. "My landlord is possibly the very least of my worries, Ted."
He broke into a grin of his own in response, however wary it may be.
By the end of the meeting, Gwen was wondering what had sponsored the Order to call the proceeding in the first place: There was no good news, it seemed, beyond the fact that no losses had been suffered in over a month. Gwen tried to point out that there would have been losses suffered, really, if the attack on her flat had gone any more pear-shaped than it did, but the look James shot her told her that perhaps it was best not to bring that possibility up.
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