The Last Lieutenant

Platform 9 3/4

Her time as a spy was ending, but she still had jobs to do.

 Today, that job was making sure that Harry, Hermione, and the Weasleys got off the train and back into the muggle world without being attacked, or kidnapped, or murdered in the middle of a crowd of Hogwart's students.

 For her first day back, it's not so bad.

"These kids are so small." It wasn't a helpful comment, but at least George was talking to her again. There had been a beat of awkwardness when she first came back to the hospital wing and they met each other's eyes over Bill's hospital bed, but after a long game of exploding snap and an even longer conversation about the things they had done after everyone else had went to sleep, they're friends again. Not the same, exactly, but not all that different, either. "Were we that small when we were younger?"

 "No." Fred was there, too. He had been game to come along when George had asked, anxious to keep the peace between the two of them. "Definitely not. What do you think, Audra?" It takes him a moment to realize that she is no longer standing beside them. "Audra?"

 She doesn't answer, just keeps walking towards the train, peering around at the swarm of kids and parents pushing past her to get to the platform. There, through the smoke, barely visible in the gaps between the train compartments, had been her father.

Get lost in a crowded place. He had told her that. It had been the first thing he ever taught her, she remembers, before even teaching her to tie her shoes or how to spell her name. Her mother had thought that he was reading her a bed time story, and Audra supposes he was, of sorts. When people hide, they always try for the out of the way places, where no one knows exists. The only problem is, once they get found, there's no where for them to run. But when you're in a crowd- all you have to do is walk the other way and you've disappeared again.  

That's what he's doing now.  Fred and George run to stand behind her, back to back with wands out.  They are drawing stares but Audra does not tell them to calm down, just keeps staring through the smoke, peering across the tracks at the hazy image of her father's face.

I'm always going to protect you.  He had said that, too, when they were walking through the street hand in hand at twilight.  She had been looking at the watery reflection of the sunset in a store window when someone charged at them, waving a shard of glass in her direction.  He had been dead before he even made it within five feet of her.  She found out later that they had been bunk mates during her father's Hogwarts days.  No matter what, no matter the cost or who against, even if you've done a terrible thing, I'll be here to protect you.

She supposes that's what he's here to do now.

"Audra."  Fred's breaks between them, his fingers warm on the inside of her arm.  She tries to push past him but he doesn't let her- he had promised not to let her go and it seems like he meant it.  "What is it?"

Her brother was dead.  Clary was missing, and if she ever came face to face with Emmeline again, it was likely that one of them would have to kill the other.  No one from the Order had been able to tell her what happened to her mother, and George looked like someone she didn't recognize, like he was still himself but a poor imitation of it.  A boy pretending to be the person he thought he used to be and doing a bad job.  Besides Fred, her father was the only one she had left.

Family matters.  He had taught her this on one of the few times she had ever found herself afraid of him.  They were throwing a dinner party, and Audra had misbehaved- her tantrums were famous back then, screams that smashed open glasses and made sparkling champagne spread over table cloths, where she would cry and beat her fists on the floor until her skin was black with bruises- and this time, he had grabbed her by the arms and dragged her down into the basement where no one could hear her cry.  His face had only been inches from hers, and he was gripping her so tight that he ripped the sleeves of her dress.  Before anything else, before anything you might want or need or dream for, we take care of this family.  It doesn't matter who we push out of the way as long as we're still standing.  Do you understand, Audra?  He had shaken her, then, so hard her teeth clacked together.  She had cracked one of her molars and had to spend the next of the afternoon at St. Mungo's waiting for an open healer to see her, but not before she sat through dinner and chewed her way through seven courses without so much as one tear.  Some skills you learn early.  This family survives because we do what it takes.  It's time you start to do your part.

But family is decided by more things than blood.  It had taken her a while, but Audra knows that now.  

She had more promises to keep, to people more important to her than her father.  Jobs to finish, people to protect.  Her father never did manage to understand what it's like to make hard choices for something other than your own survival.

Audra still intends to make it through this war, but she's not going to do it by hiding until it's over.  And she's not going to do it alone.

"No." She pauses for a moment to take in the sight of him, and her father stretches out his hand to her.  She can just barely make him out now, and knows that she has only moments before she loses sight of him forever.  "I just thought I saw someone."  It was a conscious gesture to reach back and grab Fred's hand instead of walking towards her father, back into the protective circle of the twins instead of leaping across the tracks towards whatever plan her dad had waiting for her.  "Turned out to be nothing."

We all make choices, dad.  Fred presses a kiss down to her head, an arm wound around her shoulder in a way that was borderline possessive.  She doesn't fight him even though she could, just lets him lead her over to where his parents were waiting.  I just think it's time I start making the right ones.