Third person POV (bet you didn't see that coming)

The Headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix was in chaos. About a week or so ago, Remus had showed up, needing somewhere to stay ("Severus — er — accidentally let slip that I'm a — you know—"). He'd explained the situation with Sirius to everyone ("Peter faked his own death — can't believe I trusted him more than Sirius — never forgive myself—"), and, after a lot of debate, Sirius had been given a room to stay in as well ("It's more than I deserve, really...").

Once everyone was at least a little more at ease with Sirius being there, Remus — with the occasional input from Sirius — had told them all about Ivory; how she wasn't like her parents at all; how she'd realised right at the beginning that he was a werewolf, but hadn't said anything; how she'd been tortured by not only her parents, but by Snape as well; how she was almost certainly going to die over the summer holidays. There had been many yells of, "She what?" at the last part, and plans had soon been made for a raid on Malfoy Manor. This raid was to serve two purposes: one, to hopefully capture some Death Eaters, so as to turn them over to the Ministry, and two, to get Ivory out of there.

Now, it was nearly time to go. The Order members who would be going were filling their pockets with vials of potions, and casting both shield charms and duelling spells at the wall, making sure they could do them absolutely right. Sirius was getting used to having a wand again by making hundreds of books fly around the room, Remus was trying to get them to stay on the bookshelf ("Padfoot, stop making them dive-bomb me, for Merlin's sake!"), and Tonks kept accidentally knocking them out of the air. Nobody was surprised when one of the books hit Remus on the head and knocked him out — well, nobody except Sirius, who somehow hadn't realised that if you make books attack someone, that person is most likely going to be hit by those books.

After waking Remus up again ("Soooorryyyy, Mooonyyyy!"), and carefully guiding the books back onto their shelves, those who were going on the raid did one final check that they were completely prepared.

"Healing Potions?"

"I've got those," Sirius said, still looking rather guiltily at Remus.

"Blood-Replenishing Potions?"

"I've got those as well." He pulled a small satchel out of his pocket, and said, "I've also got some Antidotes to Common Poisons, Antidotes to Uncommon Poisons, Antidotes to Veritaserum, Anti-Paralysis Potions, Burn-Healing Paste, Calming Draughts, Confusing Concoctions, Deflating Draughts, Draughts of Living Death, Draughts of Peace, Drowsiness Draughts, Essence of Dittany, Fire-Protection Potions, Forgetfulness Potions, Mandrake Restorative Draughts, Murtlap Essence, Oculus Potions, Revival Potions, Skele-Gro, Strengthening Solutions, Veritaserum, Wideye Potions, Wiggenweld Potions, and Wound-Healing Potions."

"Do I even want to ask how you got all those potions? Or how you're going to bring them all with you?" Remus asked, after a moment of stunned silence throughout the room.

"I didn't steal loads of potions from Ivory over the Christmas Holidays and put them into an illegally enchanted satchel, Moony! How could you think such a thing?" Sirius said, in a mock-hurt voice.

"I'm sure you didn't." Although he was trying to sound like he was so done with this already, a small smile tugged at the corner of Remus' mouth as he remembered his schooldays with the other Marauders. When he'd been with them, the world hadn't seemed like such a dark place. Of course, that was before Peter had betrayed them all...

Putting these thoughts out of his head for the moment, he turned his attention back to the raid.

"—and don't stop fighting if any of us is killed. Remember, constant vigilance."

There was a chorus of "good luck" and "stay safe" from those who were staying behind, and the others all apparated to the Manor, their wands drawn, hoping that they'd all make it back alive — and with Ivory, too.

As soon as they got there, they were immediately bombarded with spells. They'd apparated right by Lucius, Narcissa, Bellatrix, and a few other Death Eaters, who were quick to yell for assistance. Soon enough, the numbers of Order members and Death Eaters in the battle were pretty much the same.

"We've got to find Ivory," Remus said to Sirius in a low voice, dodging a killing curse that had been shot at him by Bellatrix. "We need to get her away from here as soon as we possibly can, or they might use her against us... or worse."

Sirius nodded, and they both started to move away from the battle, still shooting, blocking, and dodging spells.

"I more or less know the way to the cells; I reckon she'll be there," Sirius murmured, stunning a couple of Death Eaters. "Come on."

He started to walk along the corridor, with Remus following behind him, but his dear cousin Bella caught sight of them, and started sending dozens of curses their way. They were only just able to dodge them by half jumping, half falling into a nearby room, slamming the door shut behind them. Bellatrix's maniacal laughter echoed to their ears from out in the hallway. They quickly put up some defensive spells to stop her being able to get to them — at least, not for a short while — so they'd hopefully have enough time to work out exactly what to do.

"We can't duel her, it'll waste time we could use to try and find Ivory," Sirius said. He was strengthening their protective enchantments as best he could, hoping that they could get to Ivory before it was too late.

"We might not have a choice," Remus pointed out, glancing around the room for the first time, looking to see if there was anything in it that they could use to slip past Bellatrix undetected. "We—" He stopped suddenly, and his breath caught in his throat for a second.

"What's wrong?" Sirius asked, turning to see what he was looking at. "Oh, Godric, is that—"

"It is."

Lying on the floor of the room they were in, in a pool of blood, was Ivory.

***
A/N: about the POV change: normally, I'd keep the book entirely in Ivory's POV, but if I were to do that with this bit, it'd a) miss out on all the action, and b) probably be kinda confusing, as I'd have to try and explain everything that happened in a short space of time, so it might be a bit too much info to process. Doing it this way means I'll be able to put more detail into what actually happened rather than just throwing the whole raid at you in just a few paragraphs.

Anyways, that's all from me for now, I hope you enjoyed this chapter!

~Charlie 🖤