Gemma stepped into Dumbledore's office for the second time in her life. This time she was clutching the vial of tears tightly in her hand. 

Dumbledore was pacing when she found him. 

'Ah, Miss Aston,' he said, peering at her over his half- moon spectacles. 'I've been wondering when you would arrive.' She didn't say anything; she didn't have to. He led her to the pensieve. 

'What do I do?' she said

He took the vial of tears and poured it into the water. 

'Now, put your head in there,' he said. She stared.

'I'll drown.'

'You won't,' he assured her. She stared at him for another moment. 

Ah fuck it, she thought. Dying doesn't seem too bad anyway.

The second she dunked her head under the water, shapes made of black ink began to develop around her, until she was standing in a house; her house. Except the walls weren't yet olive green, instead they were a brilliant white.

Genevieve, her mother, was there holding a baby. Next to her stood... Gemma's father. They were deep in conversation with the wizard opposite them; Dumbledore. He was talking calmly, but Genevieve was antagonised, speaking with her hands, frustration painted on her face.

Gemma ran towards her father.

'You're here? How? Can you hear me? Dad!' She cried. She tried to grab his arm, but her hand passed straight through it, and the image dissolved.

She stumbled into- through- past a wall, and the setting changed. She was in a clearing. A masked man dressed all in black stood on one side, wand raised. Her mother stood on the other.

'Mother!' She shouted. There was no reaction. 'I don't understand!' Panic began to rise.

'Looks like we've reached the end, Genevieve,' the masked man said, a sickly smile on his face. 

Green light shot out of his wand, directly at Gemma. She cried out and stumbled to the side. She tripped; but instead of landing on grass, the scene changed again, and she landed on a hard, wooden floor.

She stood groaning. With much difficulty she willed herself to be calm. It's not real, she said. It's just a memory. 

This time, she regarded the setting with a clear, focused mind. She was in a decrepit shack of some sort, with mould growing on the ceiling and plaster peeling off the walls. There was shouting from the next room. She followed the noise.

'You promised I could be home for Easter!' Genevieve roared. 'I missed my girl's fourth birthday! And her fifth! I'm sick of this Albus- I want a life!'

'I understand that,' Albus Dumbledore reasoned. 'And I tried to-'

'You didn't try,' Genevieve snarled. 'You tricked me. I didn't want this.'

'Genevieve-'

'I didn't sign up to never see my family again!'

'I understand that. Eventually, Gemma will join you.' Upon hearing this, confusion seeped through Gemma. She had absolutely no idea what was going on. Apparently, Dumbledore hadn't really succeeded in placating her mother though, because she raised her wand, fumes almost visibly coming out of her ears.

'How dare you even implicate that Gemma should ever have to join us,' she said in a dangerously quiet voice. 'Everything I'm doing, are you saying it's for-' her voice broke with emotion, 'for nothing?'

'Ah, how I wish the truth were different.' Dumbledore began inspecting what looked like a real human skull in the corner of the room. 'But sometimes, we must risk the lives of those we love for the unknown. The greater good.' Dumbledore and her Genevieve's images began fading.

Gemma pulled her head out of the water, gasping for breath. Dumbledore sat at his desk, signing paperwork. He didn't even look up at her.

'Confused?' He asked. She flopped down into the seat opposite him.

'Yes,' she said. 'You are going to explain. And I don't mean cryptic bullshit that I don't understand, I mean proper, actual answers.' He put his pen down, and looked at her.

'Very well. Do you know, Miss Aston, who Lord Voldemort is?' She stared at him. 

'Um, I'm in Slytherin and my father was a muggle,' she said incredulously. 'Of course I bloody know who you- know- who is.'

'Say his name, Gemma. Fear of a name only increases fear of the thing itself.

For now, we shall move on. When he began to rise to power, I decided it would be necessary to make a group. A group of people who will fight against him should he rise to power. And rise to power he did... alas, we were not enough to stop him before he began gathering followers.'

'My mother is part of this group,' Gemma wondered aloud, realisation dawning on her.

'Very good, Gemma. We call ourselves The Order of the Phoenix. Not sure why, but it does sound rather invigorating.' He chuckled to himself. She just stared. 'Now, as he works on expanding his army, we must work on expanding ours.'

'Ah,' she said. 'I see what your gonna do.'

'Really?' He said, seemingly amused.

'Your gonna ask me to join. I gotta say though man, I'm not really very good at magic stuff. Or thinking stuff. Or, stuff, in general'

'Really? Because I would argue that you would be a perfect recruit. Your mother's allegiance should mean some sort of loyalty on your part. You are in Slytherin also, meaning you would be able to tell us which students are possible targets of his.' His voice dropped to, impossibly, a more serious tone at the end.

Gemma thought. A thousand thoughts swarmed in her mind. Mulciber was a death eater. Regulus would be a death eater. Death eaters were bad. Regulus wasn't bad. She didn't want Regulus to be in jail and therefore didn't want to snitch on him. She didn't want to have to fight. But she didn't want the bad guys to win.

 In the end, she finally gathered her thoughts and reached a conclusion on her priorities.

'If I do join, I'm not fighting or doing spy stuff on Sundays,' she declared. 'Sunday is my day off when I do nothing.'

'I'm sure that could be arranged,' Dumbledore said. She shrugged.

'Cool, I'm in then.'

'Splendid.' He picked up his pen. 'I would like you back here at 9 p.m. sharp this evening.'

'Why?' He looked at her as though she was stupid. 

'To meet the Order of the Phoenix. Oh, and your mother.' He looked away from her and started writing, dismissing her wordlessly. 

.•*•.•*•.•*•.•*•.•*•.•*•.

Gemma lay with her head in Regulus' lap. He was reading a book, and she was staring at the ceiling and thinking. He'd decided not to question it, and she was grateful for that. She checked the clock again. It was 8:49. 

'I have to go,' she sighed. She was about to get up, but he pulled her hair lightly and she fell back down, laughing. 'Dude, seriously!'

'Where exactly are you going at this time?' He asked suspiciously. 

'Dumbledore sent for me. Probably something about my mother.' Not the whole truth, but definitely not a lie. He accepted it, and went back to his reading.

On the way to the office, Gemma decided that fate was weird. Maybe if it hadn't been a Tuesday, she wouldn't have gone. If she hadn't had breakfast today, she wouldn't have set foot in that office. If she hadn't had Care of Magical Creatures today, she wouldn't have walked up to Dumbledore's desk and allowed him to apparate her to the Order's headquarters.

Fate was a strange thing. It meant that if all the events leading up to that particular moment hadn't taken place in the manner and time that they did, everything would be different. 

Or it wouldn't. Maybe no matter what she ate or studied the result would still lead her here, in a corridor with floors of polished oak and walls of dark grey, lined with moving portraits of those that died for the Order's cause.

'Sturgis should be just down the hall,' Dumbledore informed her. 'Meet them, I'll be along shortly.' And with that he disapparated, leaving her alone in the large, empty hallway.

She did what he said and followed the corridor warily, but when she reached the end there was still nobody there.

'Hello?' She called. Her voice echoed, but nobody replied. She was about to go back when a figure jumped from the ceiling.

'Boo!' It shouted. She yelped in shock, but the figure began laughing, and as it came closer, she realised it was a boy. He was about 18 with very blond hair. 

'Scared ya,' he said, leaning against the wall. 

'Are you Sturgis?' She asked. He grinned.

'The one and only.' He took her hand and kissed it. 'Pleased to make your acquaintance.'

'You are such a bloody flirt.' Another voice came, and they both turned. A girl with black braids walked towards them. She barely seemed older than Gemma.

'Yeah, and you know you love me Dork- Ass,' he said, flashing a dazzling smile.

'In your dreams,' she said scornfully. She turned to Gemma, holding out her hand. 'I'm Dorcas Meadowes. You're Gemma, right?'

'Yes,' Gemma replied warily shaking it. 'How do you...'

'Dumbledore told us. He kind of had to since you're in our group.'

'Group?'

'Everyone in the order has groups,' Sturgis explained. 'Like two or three people who go on missions together, share a crib, usually around the same age group. You, me and sour-face over here are together. And thank god for that, dealing with her alone is just-'

'Let's show you our place,' Dorcas cut in, throwing a dirty look at Sturgis. Sturgis and Dorcas bickered as they went.

'Maybe if you were less uptight-'

'Maybe if you were less annoying-' and on and on. Gemma couldn't decide if they loved or hated each other. 

'How old are you guys?' She asked, breaking up the arguing.

'I'm seventeen, he's eighteen,' Dorcas replied. She and Sturgis laughed when they saw Gemma's shocked expression.

'Don't worry, this isn't the toddler patrol,' Sturgis reassured. 'We're actually the youngest here, by quite a bit. Most people are in their thirties or forties, then you've got the old geezers in their fifties and sixties, then there's the likes of old Dumbles that are centuries old.'

'Why are you guys in the Order?' She asked.

'Well, I guess I'm just super awesome, with a super cool sense of justice,' Sturgis said. 'Dorcas over here, her parents-'

'You ask an awful lot of questions,' Dorcas interrupted. 'Do you go to Hogwarts?'

'Yes.'

'House? Year?'

'Slytherin. Fifth.'

'Slytherin?' Dorcas said in surprise. 'Wouldn't've pegged you as one. I'm Gryffindor, seventh year.'

'Cool,' Gemma said. She probably would've left some snarky remark about Dorcas' house, but school rivalry seemed rather pathetic at the given time and place.

They reached the room, and as Gemma went inside, it became clear that two very different people had decorated it. On one side of the room the wall was white, and the desk was made of a light wood, and the cabinets were arranged neatly with paperwork and notebooks stacked in a tidy manner.

On the other side of the room the wall was a dark blue, with The Cure and The Weird Sisters posters covering almost every inch of them. The bookshelf was full of strange artefacts and on the desk there were open notebooks littered around with scribbles all over them. 

'You'll have to find a way to add your mark,' Dorcas explained. 'I don't really come here much, but Sturgis practically lives here.

'Yep yep and yep,' Sturgis said, dropping down onto his chair and accidentally sitting on some more loose papers. 'Dorcas, why are you so messy?'

'That's your desk?' Gemma said in surprise. She would have expected the older girl to have the neat and orderly side.

'Yeah real slob isn't she,' he replied grinning. 'Really pokes a hole right through the good- girl façade.'

Dorcas probably would have cursed him right then and there if it hadn't been for Dumbledore entering the room. Following him was a woman with dyed black hair, and shockingly blue eyes. 

'Gemma,' she said, holding her arms out. Hesitantly, Gemma went and embraced her mother, though she did so stiffly. 

'Hi,' she said awkwardly. Genevieve pulled back.

'You have seen the memories, no? Dumbledore showed them to you? You understand my reasons? I had to leave you Gemma. I had no-'

'Choice, yeah I know. It's cool, I forgive you or whatever, we're cool.' They were far from cool, but Gemma did not want to make a scene in front of Sturgis and Dorcas and Dumbledore. Genevieve may have realised this, because she pulled Gemma through the door and out of the room.

'Come, Gemma,' she said in French. It had been along time since Gemma had heard the language, but she managed to understand what Genevieve was saying.

'Nous avons bien des choses à aborder- we have much to talk about.'