In The Fight To Survive (Golden Trio Era) {4}

Tetchy Teens

The next two days consisted of nonstop cutlery cleaning, de-gnoming the garden, helping Molly cook vast batches of canapés and colour-matching favours, ribbons and flowers. The foursome were getting sick of Molly's separation methods as they were missing out on the vital companionship that they were hoping for before Ron, Hermione and Harry were leaving. They haven't had a moment alone as a four since the night Harry tried to leave alone. On top of the wedding preparation, Mikayla was leading multiple Order missions daily to foil Death Eaters attacks and wanted nothing more than to decompress with her best friends.

"Mikayla, dinner!" Molly called from the kitchen, she was given the job to clean her and Fred's bedroom in preparation of the Delacours arriving tomorrow, alone without magic. She was currently under the bed, pulling out the items of clothing that have made their way under there over the past month. "One second!" Mikayla calls back, groaning as she reemerges from under the bed, getting to her feet and looking in the mirror to see if there was any evidence that she was fighting a losing battle with a bra that somehow got stuck to floor. Other than her hair being a mess, she looked fine, so she pulled her hair into a messy bun, so that it's a controlled mess.

When she arrived in the kitchen, she noticed just how crowded the place was, everyone were squished together barely able to manoeuvre knives and forks. Molly led Mikayla to the seat between Remus and Arthur, making her at least three people away from any of her friends. "Hullo..." Mikayla mumbled grumpily as she picked up her fork. She looked over to Harry, who was crammed in beside Ginny, and looked even more uncomfortable than everyone else. It was clear that he was trying so hard to avoid brushing her arm as he cut his chicken. "No news about Mad-Eye?" Harry asked Bill, breaking the silence of the room, "nothing," Bill answered solemnly.

They haven't been able to hold a funeral for Moody, because Bill and Remus haven't recovered his body. It had been difficult to know where he might have fallen, given the darkness and the confusion of the battle. "The Daily Prophet hasn't said a word about him dying or about finding the body," Bill went on, seeming to notice that he had everyone's attention as they all hated the silence, "but that doesn't mean much. It's keeping a lot quiet these days." None of them could argue against that, there's been no mention of how the Order has foiled over fifteen Death Eater attacks in the past week and a half, just what the Ministry plans to do.

"And they still haven't called a hearing about all the underage magic I used escaping the Death Eaters?" Harry called across to Arthur, who shook his head, "because they know I had no choice or because they don't want me to tell the world Voldemort attacked me?" Harry asked before taking a bite of his dinner, "the latter, I think. Scrimgeour doesn't want to admit that You-Know-Who is as powerful as he is, nor that Azkaban's seen another mass breakout." He looked at Mikayla, who reverted her eyes back to the plate. Remus and Fred thought it was necessary to inform the whole Order about Mikayla's incident in the Apparition Licence waiting room, so that could keep a closer look at her.

"Yeah, why tell the public the truth?" Harry scoffed, clenching his knife so tightly that the faint scars on the back of his right hand stood out, white against his skin: I must not tell lies. "Isn't anyone at the Ministry prepared to stand up to him?" Ron asked angrily while stabbing his mashed potato with his fork, "of course, Ron, but people are terrified," Arthur replied, "they are terrified that they will be next to disappear, or that their children will be the next to be attacked! There are nasty rumours going around; I for one don't believe the Muggle Studies professor at Hogwarts resigned. She hasn't been seen for weeks now. Meanwhile Scrimgeour remains shut up in his office all day. I just hope he's working on a plan."

"What was the Professors name?" Mikayla queries when Arthur concluded spilling his thoughts on the matter. Kingsley informs Mikayla that the Professor's name is Charity Burbage. "Well then, I can confirm your suspicions. She died almost three weeks ago." Mikayla settles down her cutlery and looks up to see that everyone was staring at her. "I saw it in one of my sleeping visions the night we brought Harry here, or parts of it at least." Mikayla explains herself pushing her plate of food away from her, as she lost her appetite at the scene of Voldemort's snake swallowing the woman whole replaying in her head.