NEW YEAR'S EVE

Sage stood in the kitchen of Alice Fortescue's home, a flask of Polyjuice Potion in one hand, and a shot of firewhisky in the other. James, Lily, Sirius, Remus, and Maia were gathered around her, watching her with anxious expressions, while Alice and Frank sat in chairs at the table, sipping on champagne.

"You know you don't have to do this, Sage." Lily said, concerned, and she placed one hand on Sage's shoulder. "You can go home. You don't have to fight this battle tonight—there's plenty of time for you to be a hero."

Sage gave her a dark look. "I'm not sitting in my house and waiting for my boyfriend and best friends to come back. I'm not sitting around anymore." She said, shocking herself with the level of strength in her own voice.

Without another second of hesitation, she put the opening of the flask to her lips and tilted her head back, almost gagging as the putrid potion slid down her throat. She chased it with the shot of firewhisky, and even the burning alcohol was more welcome than the vomit-like consistency of Polyjuice Potion.

The transformation was almost instantaneous, and her boyfriend supressed a giggle as she shrunk two inches to reach Anna-Lee's height of five feet, three inches. Her dress grew tighter as her hips widened, and her shoes abruptly felt too big.

"Well?" She spoke, reeling back when her voice suddenly came out with a southern drawl. "Do I look like her?"

Sirius stifled another laugh. "I won't be kissing you for the rest of the evening, that's for sure."

Sage sighed and smoothed down the fabric of her dress, trying and failing to make it looser.

Bloody Anna-Lee and her wide hips.

Alastor Moody came hobbling into the kitchen then, leaning on his cane. "Alright, you lot. Eat, drink, and be merry, but don't lose your wits. We don't know when they're coming, but we do know that they are coming. So stay sharp, and have fun." He said sternly.

Sirius nudged Sage in the ribs. "You should hang out with the girls tonight—don't want anyone getting suspicious that your boyfriend is all up on your friend." He was smirking, clearly making fun of the fact that his darling girlfriend would be frustrated by not being able to touch him all night.

She rolled her eyes and shoved him, giving him the middle finger, before turning around and going off to find Rowan and Charlotte.

She was intercepted by the Prewett twins, towering over her with their massively ridiculous heights.

"Oi, haven't seen you around before. Are you new to the Order?" Gideon said, smiling what he probably hoped to be flirtatiously. Instead, it came out looking like a constipated smirk.

Sage looked at him, questioning his audacity. "It's me, you loathsome git. It's Fontaine."

The twins burst into laughter when they heard her haughty British slang coming out of her mouth in a heavy southern accent.

☾

The party went on for several more hours with no sign of Death Eaters, and soon, it was several minutes to midnight.

Most of the Order was in attendance that night, with the small exception of Albus Dumbledore himself, who was most likely at Hogwarts; it was for the best that he wasn't in attendance, for if tonight went badly, if the entire Order was wiped out on a single night, the wizarding world needed someone to pick up the slack, to reinvent the Order someday if its current members were all brutally murdered.

Sage shook herself out of those dark thoughts. After what happened to Evan, though, they couldn't afford to take any chances.

She was squeezed between Marlene and Maia, holding their hands as they counted down to midnight.

"Ten! Nine! Eight! Seven! Six! Five! Four! Three! Two! One!"

When the clock struck midnight, the front door exploded open.

"Fucking hell." Moody sighed, diving in front of Sirius, who was just beginning to turn around.

The Death Eaters stormed through the door, and although some of them wore masks, the majority of them didn't. Sage's blood ran cold when she saw Bellatrix, her dark eyes bright with malice and venom.

Sage was lucky her face was no longer her own; if she had looked like herself that night, her cover would have been blown. But since she wore Anna-Lee's face and spoke with her voice, she was safely undercover.

☾

The aftermath of the fight between the Order and the Death Eaters was not as bad as it could have been, that much Sage could be thankful for.

As she knelt over Sirius, hands pressed to a large wound on his abdomen, she was overwhelmed with happiness that, for starters, the Polyjuice Potion had worn off, but also that Severus Snape's spell had, for the most part, missed him.

"Sage?" He said, groggy and tired from blood loss.

She gave him a weak smile. "How are you feeling?" She asked, using her free hand to push his hair out of his face.

"Like I'm formulating a revenge plot against Snivellus as we speak."

She helped him sit up once she was sure that the bleeding had stopped, and he slumped against her.

"Is everyone alright?" Lily shouted from the kitchen, where she'd gotten into a rather nasty fight with Alecto Carrow and was hit with several stuns to the chest.

There was a unanimous chorus of agreement from the Order, all of whom were in various states of pain, discomfort, and injury.

However badly they'd been hurt, they'd all come out of the skirmish alive.

hahahahaha