These Hallowed Halls

Harry

She's getting tired of Order meetings.

It's terrible, really, to think that she's reached a point in her life where taking part in a rebellious organization would become mundane.  That she would have to jerk herself awake when they read off guard watch duty lists and her thoughts would wander during moments of silence of the deceased and displaced, and that sometimes, she and George and Fred would just sit in the back and crack jokes so quiet that only they could hear, their arms and legs thrown over each other until they are so intertwined they could almost be one person.

And yet-,

"Stanton."  It's Mad Eye.  He leads the Order meetings now, ever since Dumbledore died and McGonagall had to stop coming.  Health issues, left over from the stunning spells that Umbridge shot at her.  Sometimes Kingsley helps, but this time it's all him, magical eye whirling around the room to pick up on any sign of disinterest.  "Are you paying attention?"

She jerks awake, shifts into position so she is sitting straight up.  Across the room, Fred is fighting off a smile and Remus is looking at her like he cannot help but worry.  "Always, Alastor."  No one calls him that.  She doesn't know why, if it was bad memories or if he just hated the name or maybe the nickname was simply better, but Audra's started to, ever since that night in the alley.  "We're trying to save lives. Fight bad guys.  Important stuff."

Someone laughs, probably Mundungus, but no one else does.  Every one else is looking between the two of them like they are waiting to see which one of them will snap, which one of them will be the first to yell.  She had never seen Mad-Eye yell.  Audra imagines that it would be frightening.

"We're talking about saving the Potter boy."  He always calls him that.  The Potter boy.  Never Harry.  Audra knows why- calling him by his name would make Harry more real, make him more of a person.  It would make them all get close, get personal.  At the moment, for the people in this room, he is only allowed to be a mission.  That's the only way that this will succeed.  "I would have thought that that would be important to you."

"Why?"  She says, knowing she's mouthing off, knowing she's being petty, knowing that she should stop but still being unable to rein herself in.  It wastes time to have her sit back here and sulk, and yet lately, that's all that Audra seems to find herself doing.  "I'm not a part of it."

You made sure of that, she wants to say, but the message comes across anyways.  Audra had been part of the plan one day, and the next she wasn't.  The only difference she could find was that Mad-Eye caught her in that dueling club.

Never mind that she had reasons.

He doesn't care about her reasons.

Nobody does, not even Fred.

The rest of the group is murmuring, muttering between themselves.  She knows that she worries them, but at the moment, all she can do it stare across the room at Moody, who is limping towards her on his one wooden leg, glaring at her with both of his eyes until he reaches her seat.

"We don't need killers."  He's got his palms splayed flat on the table, bending forward so they are eye to eye and his scarred face is only inches from hers.  This is what a solider looks like, she thinks to herself, this is someone who went to war and was still able to come back whole. "We need thinkers.  Fighters.  People who follow orders, none of which applies to you."

Audra didn't remember moving, but suddenly she was standing.  Across the room, Fred had stood up, too, with George's hand on his forearm.  He wouldn't move until George let's him, she knows, and is grateful, the fact that there is still someone with a level head that Fred is willing to listen to.