Thicker than Water (Marauders Era)

21 July, 1981 - Trust (II)

Lavinia, as it turned out, was expected at the meeting. Not that anyone bothered to tell her that much in advance. Indeed, it was barely two days before the meeting that Sirius informed her of when and where this mysterious meeting was and that she was indeed supposed to attend. She'd just given him a flare stare that said quite clearly that they were going to have a discussion about the last minute nature of the information. Which they did.

James and Lily had laughed it off, thankfully, and said they would be fine finding a babysitter. Lavinia, meanwhile, pushed away her disappointment at the loss of an afternoon with her godson. She knew she hadn't spent nearly as much time with him as she should have, and certainly not as much as she would have liked to, but circumstances were complicated. And, she supposed, this was no exception.

As it turned out, the meeting was not anything tactical, for which Lavinia was grateful. She didn't particularly like being involved in tactical meetings. She was usually just informed of when and where her services would be needed and she preferred it that way. It was selfish and cowardly of her and she knew it, but she didn't want to be making decisions that would put the weight of even more lives on her shoulders. It was bad enough that she was tasked with healing them all, knowing them, and even worse, knowing the people who would miss them if she failed... it felt like a recipe for disaster.

But it became apparent upon their arrival that this meeting was a rare gathering of the entire Order of the Phoenix and not for anything war-related. It was to take a picture. Personally, Lavinia was of the opinion that this was a pointless and probably unsafe exercise in vanity, but she seemed to be the only one.

Everyone else was milling about, connecting with friends they hadn't seen in a long while, from the sound of it. Which, Lavinia supposed, was probably true. Now that meetings never gathered the entire Order at once, some of these people probably hadn't seen each other since almost a year ago, when they'd first become certain that there was a spy in their midst. And these days, with everyone going out of their way to lay ow, those meetings might have been their only chances to see some of their friends and acquaintances from the Order.

As Lavinia didn't have many friends among the Order to begin with, she stayed close to Sirius, feeling rather out of place. She didn't know the names of at least half of the people in this room, admittedly because she'd never bothered to learn them, and it made her feel more than slightly like an outsider. It was also quite possibly the first time she'd felt truly guilty for not making an effort with them, especially as Sirius greeted them all by name and exchanged pleasantries. Pleasantries, but not news. No one was discussing the war. No one was sharing tactics or information. It was like they'd all silently agreed to take a break, to suspend reality for a few hours and pretend this was just a normal day, just a group of friends and acquaintances getting together for a photograph.

So Lavinia followed suit. She mostly kept her mouth shut, actually, smiling politely as Sirius chatted with various people and, occasionally, greeted people she knew, like Alice Longbottom and Marlene McKinnon. A few others she recognized generally, but didn't know the names of and there were a handful she could name, but didn't know much about. Like Rubeus Hagrid, who had been the gamekeeper during her time at Hogwarts, and though she'd never so much as spoken a word to him, was easily recognizable, massive as he was, and Alastor Moody, an auror who had once come into the ward with some very nasty injuries and a strangely blase attitude about them.

Moody had greeted her gruffly and started asking her about some rather bloody details of her work. Lavinia had been uncomfortable to say the least, not usually one to discuss the less pleasant aspects of her job, though she rather thought Elias might have liked the man. She made a mental note to ask him about it next time they were on shift together.