Katie.

The Burrow had never looked more alive.

Sunlight poured through the garden, filtered gold and warm through the fluttering white wedding streamers strung between trees. Fairy lights danced from branch to branch, and the old barn out back had been transfigured into something out of a magazine. It smelled like wildflowers, baking bread, and tension.

Because tonight, Bill and Fleur were getting married.

And tomorrow? We went to war.

It was a weird kind of limbo. We knew what was coming. We knew what we were walking into. But today, just for today, we were allowed to pretend the world wasn't collapsing.

The Chaos Crew—as always—was multitasking like maniacs.

Rowan and Fred were levitating crates of enchanted wine and bickering over whether the labels were cursed. Cassian was charming chair cushions to be less aggressively floral while Maddie supervised like a general with a clipboard. Sage had found a ladder, a wand, and a dangerous amount of glitter.

"What is the glitter for?" I asked her.

"Hope," she replied.

"That sounds like sabotage."

"And yet," she sang, flinging a handful in George's direction. "You love me anyway."

Adrien and I had spent the morning hanging lanterns and silencing garden gnomes with stunning spells. Maddie and Sage had gone off to get changed, but not before finding out George and Cassian had hexed their heels to whistle the theme from Celestina Warbeck's latest single.

"I am going to MURDER HIM," Maddie yelled from upstairs.

"You'll have to get in line," Sage called back. "I called dibs on war crimes."

That left Adrien and me alone in the makeshift dressing room that used to be Ginny's.

"Here," I said, handing her a brush. "You go first."

"You just don't want to be the one crying over mascara."

"Correct."

There was a moment of eye contact, a small stand off before Adrien rolled her eyes, but she sat, and I started brushing through her dark hair. It was still damp from her shower, and she smelled like mint and stress.

"You okay?" I asked.

She was quiet for a second. "Yeah. Just... a lot."

"Tonight's the wedding."

"And tomorrow's the beginning."

We both went still for a moment.

Then Adrien said, softly, "I haven't told Fred when yet."

"The elopement?"

She nodded. "Feels insane. Planning something that big when everything else is falling apart."

"Feels like the only sane thing left," I said.

Adrien looked at me in the mirror. "You and Rowan...?"

I swallowed. "It's complicated."

"Because of Draco."

"Because I let him get in my head. Rowan's never been scared to point it out or brace with me through it. And I hate how right he is for that."

Adrien squeezed my hand. "He's still here. That says something."

We fell into silence again. The quiet kind, full of everything unsaid.

Eventually, we helped each other get dressed. Adrien's dress was navy blue, mine burgundy. Our heels clicked softly against the floorboards.

"Ready to face love and glitter?" I asked.

"As I'll ever be."

The ceremony faded into the kind of reception people would tell stories about for years.

There was dancing. Magic. Champagne that poured itself. Plates of food that refilled before you could ask. Laughter tangled with music. The air smelled like roses, cake, and a little bit of sweat from George's failed attempt at a choreographed entrance.

Adrien and I were the first ones to reach Bill and Fleur after the kiss. Fleur swept us both into a hug that knocked the wind out of me, laughing in that airy way she always did—like nothing could touch her.

"You are both so beautiful, mon dieu," she said, cupping Adrien's face. "I am so glad you came. This—it means everything."

"You're the one who looks like a literal goddess," Adrien said, wide-eyed.

"And you!" Fleur turned to me. "Are you finally dating that tall boy you were always glaring at?"

"Which one?" I asked.

"The one who looks like he would duel a mountain lion for you."

"Rowan," Adrien and I said in sync.

"Yes! Him! You must show me later, so I can approve."

"That's exactly what I needed," I muttered. "A Beauxbatons approval committee."

We were still laughing when Fleur suddenly turned, lit up, and waved at someone behind us. That someone stepped into view—and the air in my lungs stopped.

Zoe.

She looked the same as she had at Beauxbatons: composed, elegant, untouchably magnetic. Although that same heaviness remained in her eyes from the last few times we saw her—sleepover at Adrien's, delivering to the shop. But her hair was coiled into an updo that probably took magic and three stylists. Her expression was polite.

But her eyes went straight to Adrien.

Fred, at my side, went rigid.

"Oh, you've got to be—" he muttered, stepping half in front of Adrien before she could even react.

"Fred," Adrien said quickly, her voice tight. "Don't. It's fine."

"She kissed you," he hissed, low enough only we could hear. "She doesn't get to look at you like that. She doesn't even get to breathe near you without—"

"It's fine," Adrien repeated, firmer now. "I'm yours. She's not a threat."

Fred still didn't look away from Zoe. I could practically see him calculating hex trajectories and estimating wind resistance.

I tugged Adrien gently by the wrist. "Let's go find Maddie and Sage before your fiancé transfigures Zoe into a decorative centerpiece."

We found them near the punch bowl, arguing over something Cassian had done to the cutlery.

"I swear to Merlin, if the forks sing again, I'm going to melt them into hairpins," Maddie snapped.

"He said it would create ambiance," Sage muttered.

"It's creating a mental breakdown, is what it's doing."

"At least George charmed the soup ladle to waltz."

"George is on thin ice too. He tried to swap out the wedding cake for a seven-tier edible joke scroll."

Adrien laughed softly. "Are you two okay?"

"Perfect," Maddie said sweetly. "Murderous. But perfect."

"It's weird," Sage added. "Being happy at something like this. Like we're not supposed to let ourselves enjoy it."

Adrien's smile faltered just slightly. "Yeah," she said. "I get that."

The music shifted into something upbeat and bold—something with enough rhythm to make everyone start clapping before the first verse even finished.

"Okay ladies," Sage declared, already kicking off her heels. "You know what time it is."

Maddie whooped and tossed her hair over one shoulder like she was walking into a fashion show. Adrien grinned and grabbed my hand.

"Oh, it's happening," she said.

I didn't argue—I couldn't.

We stormed the dance floor like we owned it—me, Adrien, Maddie, and Sage, weaving through the crowd like a whirlwind of color and magic and too much energy. Dresses flared, hair flew, and if we weren't coordinated, we made up for it in raw girl power and volume.

Sage nearly slid into a table during a spin. Maddie caught her by the waist and flipped it into a dip like it had been choreographed. I doubled over laughing. Adrien grabbed a floating lantern and spun beneath it like she was in a fairytale, eyes sparkling.

We laughed. We shouted lyrics. At one point, Maddie turned around mid-move and yelled, "If Cassian doesn't kiss me after this, I'm hexing his hairline!"

That set all of us off.

At the edge of the dance floor, the boys were gathered like a smug little support group.

Fred had his arms crossed, watching Adrien with a crooked grin and literal stars in his eyes. Cassian looked like he was analyzing Maddie's moves like they were spellwork. George gave a lazy little clap every time Sage threw in a hair flip. And Rowan—Rowan was watching me like I hung the bloody moon.

Sage spotted them and rolled her eyes.

"Look at them," she said through her teeth, still dancing. "Like a bunch of Victorian husbands admiring their terrifying wives."

"We should start charging," Maddie added. "Five sickles a glance."

"I think Fred already paid for the VIP package," Adrien muttered.

I laughed so hard I almost missed my step.

At one point, I caught Rowan's eye—and he just raised his glass in a toast, mouthing, You win.

I winked back. Because I did.

We danced until we were breathless, laughing until our sides hurt, the four of us tangled together in the middle of all this beauty and chaos.

For just a few minutes—it felt like nothing could touch us.

Later, while Adrien danced with Fred again—her head on his chest, swaying so gently it looked like floating—I ended up pulled onto the floor with Rowan.

His hand settled at my waist like it was supposed to be there.

"You clean up alright," I told him, smirking.

"And here I thought you only liked me when I'm covered in dirt and snark."

"I like you angry."

"Convenient," he said, leaning closer, "since I'm always on the verge of throwing something when Draco's name comes up."

"Rowan—"

"No, I know. You don't owe me an apology for the past. Just... keep choosing me in the present."

My throat closed.

"I do," I said, honest and quiet. "I do choose you."

He smiled, and we kept dancing.

Until we didn't—because I caught movement over Rowan's shoulder.

Sage and George were halfway through the most suspicious food heist I'd ever seen: one of them carrying a whole roast chicken under a tablecloth, the other balancing éclairs on a levitating spoon.

"They're doing it again," I muttered.

"I'm not even surprised anymore," Rowan replied without looking.

"George winked at me while pocketing an entire wedge of brie."

"At least they're in sync."

I laughed—but when I glanced toward Adrien again, something shifted.

She wasn't laughing anymore.

She was still on the dance floor, but her body had gone stiff in Fred's arms. He was talking to her, but she wasn't answering. Her eyes had gone glassy, faraway. Her hands were shaking.

At first I thought—Cassian and Maddie. Maybe she saw something strange between them. There had been weird tension all day. I made a mental note to ask.

But then Adrien turned.

And I saw her face.

Saw the panic.

Saw how pale she'd gone, how fast her chest was rising.

That wasn't jealousy.

That was fear.

"Adrien—?"

She bolted.

Fred followed.

The music kept playing.

But I couldn't hear a damn thing over the sound of my heart breaking.

I turned on instinct, scanning the crowd.

Rowan caught my expression instantly. His arm immediately snapped to my back, voice low."What happened?"

"I don't know," I whispered. "She just—she panicked. Fred went after her."

He opened his mouth to answer—

And the air shifted.

Not the wind. Not the music. The magic.

Silver-blue light burst overhead. A jaguar—a Patronus—soared above the garden and spoke with a voice that silenced the world.

"The Ministry has fallen. Scrimgeour is dead. They are coming."

The Patronus vanished—just like that.

The silence lasted half a heartbeat.

Then all hell broke loose...again.

Guests screamed. Wands were drawn. Someone dropped a tray of enchanted champagne, and the flutes exploded like fireworks. The fairy lights above sparked violently, then dimmed.

Rowan grabbed my hand. "We move. Now."

"Adrien and Fred—" I breathed.

"Will catch up. We can't split."

Maddie appeared out of nowhere, dragging Cassian behind her, eyes wild. "George just hit a guy with a gravy boat. We're under attack."

Sage skid into view, wand already firing. "AND I'D DO IT AGAIN!"

George popped up next to her. "You loved it."

"I hated it and I hate you and if we live through this I'm marrying you."

"Romantic!" Maddie yelled, deflecting a curse.

Spells lit up the air like war-flares—green, red, silver. The tables exploded one by one. Someone screamed Fleur's name. Another Patronus erupted on the far end of the garden, a phoenix this time—no words, just a call to move.

We regrouped by instinct.

Me. Rowan. Sage. George. Maddie. Cassian. All of us scanning—

Hermione, breathless and red-faced. Ron—limping, bleeding slightly as they stumbled into Harry and POP! —they were gone.

"WHERE ARE THEY?" I shouted, feeling my throat clench from my volume.

Fred and Adrien were nowhere in sight, still.

And now the night was unraveling in front of us, and two of our own were missing.

"They'll come," Sage snapped, blocking a hex with a flash of gold. "They have to."

"We can't wait forever!" Maddie shouted. "They'll cut off the perimeter soon!"

"We leave no one," Rowan said. His voice was ice. "We wait."

"Wait for what?" a Deatheater sneered, stepping from the smoke. "Your little lovebirds?"

"Yes, actually," Sage said, and blasted him into a wedding tent.

More spells. More fire.

Then—

A scream behind us. A flash of white. And they were there. Fred was limping, robes scorched, dragging Adrien by the wrist. Her makeup was smudged. Her eyes were furious.

"We're here!" Adrien snapped.

"What took you so long?!" George shouted.

"We were having an emotional crisis in the bushes, George..." Fred shouted back, practically dragging her toward us now, his hands settling at her waist like if he let go, she'd vanish again."...AND I GOT HIT IN THE LEG!" Fred added, half-defensive, half-laughing, like he couldn't believe that was the punctuation to their evening.

Cassian stepped in, cool as ever, flicked his wand over Fred's leg. "Go."

"NOW!" Rowan barked.

We all grabbed hands—eight of us. One chaotic, bloodied, soot-smeared crew barely holding it together.

And we Apparated.

Straight to the Suns' lakehouse.

The contrast was so jarring, I almost fell over.

The moment we landed, I was standing on a wraparound porch made of warm, dark cedar, beneath twinkling enchanted lanterns and an overhead pergola wrapped in ivy. The smell of pine trees and water hit me first, followed by a rush of lake wind that felt like safety and peace and not war.

The lakehouse was massive.

Three stories of floor-to-ceiling windows, floating candles on the lake, two docks that jutted out like polished arms into the black water. The walls were painted soft gray and honeyed white. A long enchanted fireplace flickered in the outdoor seating area.

Sage turned around, completely unfazed. "Welcome to my mom's backup lakehouse."

Maddie, still covered in sweat, just blinked. "I'm sorry. Backup?"

"You didn't tell us you were rich," George said, turning slowly in place like he was trying to process what universe we'd just landed in.

"Correction," Sage said, unlocking the front door with a swipe of her wand, "my parents are rich. I just know the security wards."

The door swung open and the interior was somehow worse in the best way: massive sitting room, lake view from every angle, glittering charmed lights on the ceiling that mimicked the stars outside. There was a stocked kitchen, a dining room with floating candles, a spiral staircase made of enchanted driftwood.

I heard Fred mutter behind me, "If this place has towel warmers I'm proposing to Sage." earning an elbow from Adrien.

"George already did," Sage said without turning.

"You said yes?" George blinked.

"No. But you made me pancakes so you're on probation."

We filed in, dumbfounded and exhausted, shedding cloaks and dropping packs as the door shut behind us.

Cassian walked to the center of the massive sitting room and turned slowly, his arms crossed. "Right. This is now headquarters."

Rowan and I found a loveseat tucked into the corner of the windowed wall. He sat first and pulled me down gently beside him.

Cassian and Maddie ended up leaning against one of the huge glass panes that looked out across the lake and the glowing dock. The sky beyond was cloudy now, reflecting the flickering wards around the house.

George and Sage sprawled across a massive couch like it owed them something.

And Fred and Adrien... collapsed directly in the center of the plush rug in front of the fireplace, completely horizontal, hands still tangled together like they hadn't stopped since the garden.

There was silence for a beat. The kind that doesn't feel peaceful—just tired.

Then Fred said quietly, "If the Minister's dead... and the Patronus was real... then the Ministry is gone."

Adrien turned her head where she lay, eyes half-lidded. "Which means the Deatheaters aren't just running it—they own it."

"But how?" Maddie asked. "How did it happen so fast?"

"Because it was never going to be slow," Rowan said. "They've been building this for years."

Cassian's jaw tightened. "And now they'll make their activities legal. Quiet. Controlled."

"They've already started," Adrien murmured, eyes on the ceiling. "There's talk of Muggle-born Tabs."

The room went still.

"Tabs?" George echoed, arching his brow.

"Registries," Adrien clarified. "Tracking. Identification. Quiet little labels so people can be watched. Questioned. Isolated."

"I—" I blinked. "I thought that was just a rumor."

"So was the theoretical fall of the Ministry," Adrien said flatly.

She didn't raise her voice. She didn't need to.

Fred reached over and ran a hand through her hair, gently, like grounding her was the only thing keeping him calm. His jaw clenched. He still said nothing.

Nobody did.

Until Maddie asked, almost too quiet to be heard, "The Tabs... they're for everyone?"

Adrien shook her head where she lay on the floor, still staring up at the ceiling.

"Not everyone," she said. "Muggle-borns."

The silence snapped like a live wire.

I felt it hit all of us at once.

Cassian stiffened where he leaned against the glass. George slowly sat upright, like the weight of it finally settled in.

Rowan turned toward me, something haunted in his eyes, like the pieces had just clicked together—and he didn't like the shape they formed.

Maddie looked at Adrien like she couldn't quite compute what she'd just said. Like the words made sense, but her heart rejected them anyway.

And Sage...

Sage went still.

No snark. No flippant joke.

Just still.

Her expression didn't crack—but her hands did. Clenching tightly. Fingernails biting into her palms. Her jaw tight like she was holding something in she couldn't afford to let loose.

Then—low, even, terrifyingly calm—she said,

"You're not going on a list."

It wasn't a question. Wasn't even a declaration.

It was law.

Adrien's gaze finally lifted, locking with hers. "Sage—"

"No," Sage said again, louder this time, eyes burning. "I don't care what bloodline your mother didn't have. I don't care what Ministry paper says. You're ours. You're one of us. And if they come near you—if they even think about tagging you like you're some stray—they're going to wish they never learned how to read."

Adrien blinked. "Are you crying?"

"I'm not crying," Sage muttered, wiping her face. "I'm sweating from my soul. Shut up."

George leaned in and gently squeezed her knee. "We're with you," he told Adrien. "All of us. Always."

That's when it hit me. Like ice in the gut. Because in this room—our little slice of what still felt like real—Adrien was the only one.

Everyone else? Pureblood. Half-blood. Protected.

But Adrien? Adrien was the one they'd come for first.

"Absolutely not," I muttered. "They're not getting to you."

"Yeah, sorry," George added. "That's not happening."

"If they want her," Rowan said, voice low and lethal, "they'll have to dig through all of us first."

Adrien let out a breath that might've been a laugh. "You're all very brave. Also very hexable if you start treating me like I'm glass."

"You're not glass," I said. "You're a grenade. And if they want to pull your pin, they can choke on the fallout."

Fred, quiet until now, finally spoke—voice low, cracking around the edges. "I'm not letting you get taken. I'm not letting them register you. Track you. Breathe near you."

Adrien shook her head faintly. "They already have my information, they've registered me already—probably already being tabbed, tracked..." Her voice quivered slightly as she glanced around the room again, "You know, I can fight. You don't have to throw yourselves in front of me."

"That's cute," Maddie said dryly. "You think we wouldn't."

Cassian snorted softly. "I already made a list of Ministry aliases. You're all in it. Adrien has four identities and a backup wand. This was always Plan A."

"Wait," George blinked. "I only have two."

"Because you won't stop putting your real name on joke receipts," Cassian deadpanned.

"IT'S CALLED BRANDING," George hissed.

"It's called being traceable," Maddie muttered.

"You're traceable," George grumbled.

Sage shoved a pillow at him without looking. "Not the time."

Adrien finally sat up, folding her legs beneath her, pulling her knees to her chest. Her voice was softer now. Fragile around the edges. "I'm serious," she said. "If this gets bad—if they start going house to house—if I ever become a liability—"

Fred was already moving before she finished the sentence. "Nope," he said sharply. "Stop. Shut it down."

"Fred—"

"No." He knelt in front of her, gently pressed their foreheads together. "You're not a liability. You're not a burden. You're not going anywhere." He sighed heavily into their space before whispering, "You're mine, they don't get to take what's mine."

Adrien's voice cracked. "I hate how scared I am."

"Good," I said, my voice thick. "Means you're smart."

Rowan reached over and took my hand. His was shaking too.

And that was it. That was the moment.

We didn't need a speech. We just needed each other. Because the wedding was over.

The war had begun. And our best friend was on a list none of us could erase.

But they'd have to go through all of us to try.