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Harry Potter and all of its characters belong to J.K. Rowling.
I own nothing but the original characters I make.
"Dialogue"
'Thoughts'
-Author notes-
Chapter 89: The Greater Good
The members of the Order and the Death Eaters who managed to escape the slaughter flew for over half an hour before finally stopping in a clearing to attend the wounded.
"I never thought I would say this but… she needs to be seen by a proper healer." Sirius glanced down at the unconscious Bella, whom he had rescued and held in his arms the entire time. "Saint Mun—"
"We are not going there!" a Death Eater shouted at Sirius. "Are you trying to get us arrested?"
"Get that stupid mask off your face already, Rookwood. Who do you think you are fooling?" Moody said. "And if we wanted to arrest you, we would have done so already."
Right now, there are over twice the number of Order members compared to Death Eaters.
"Here, I have some potions that can help." Snape approached Sirius and Bella before taking a glass vial with a green liquid inside.
He then removed the cork and poured the liquid over the wounds on her shoulder and head.
The first bullet that hit Bella had pierced her shoulder cleanly, but the second one had left a nasty wound on her head and face. Her left eye was now covered in blood. "I don't think we can save that eye, but she should live if we can take her back to our hideout. The Carrow twins are trained in healing magic," Snape said.
"Hey! Be careful with what you say. They are our enemies." Lord Rosier shouted at him before pointing his wand at the Order member.
"Put that thing away!" Mundungus exclaimed.
"Listen to what he says, Lord Rosier." Shacklebolt walked calmly towards him. "You are outnumbered here."
"Rosier, that's enough." Rookwood took off his mask. "They are right, we are outnumbered, and this is not the time to fight anyway…" His eyes moved to the corpse of Voldemort, whom they had carried here. "The Lord is dead…"
While the two groups argued, Tonks was looking into the sky and wondering about someone else's absence. "Shouldn't Remus have caught up with us by now?" She remembered that he had stayed behind and faced Harry to buy them a bit of time to escape. Now she was fearing the worst.
"Remus…" Sirius muttered. With everything that happened, he had almost forgotten about his friend. He left his cousin Bella with Snape and went to fetch his broom.
"Where are you going?" Moody spotted him.
"I'm going back to Azkaban so I can find Remus," Sirius said.
"Sirius, that's too reckless! That place is filled with demons, and they have those Muggle weapons as well." Hagrid tried to reason with him.
"Aye! You will never set foot in there. They will shoot you from the sky if you go there now," Mundungus added.
"But… what about Remus? He could still be alive!" Sirius exclaimed.
"Do you really think that?" Snape suddenly said.
Sirius turned to glare at his old enemy.
"After all you have learned of this 'Harry'... do you think he will hesitate to kill Lupin?" Snape then added. "If you go there, you will just join him. He bought us some time to get away...don't waste it."
"Sirius." Moody approached him. "A smart man should know when it is time to retreat and when it is time to fight. We'll get that demon boy, but it won't be today. Not with what we have right now."
Sirius clenched his fists, but he knew they were correct. If he went back to Azkaban now, he would no doubt die. He recalled that the last time he acted on his impulses, it landed him a decade in prison. "Fine… then what do we do?"
"For tonight, we go home and recover," said Moody. "Tomorrow, we start planning again."
"What about them? Are we really going to just let them go?" Hestia pointed at the Death Eaters.
Not counting Snape, who was on their side, or Bella, who was too injured to do anything, there were still five of them.
Lord Rosier and Rookwood had been identified, but the remaining three were still wearing their masks and refused to speak as it would reveal their identities.
"We let them go," Moody stated.
"What?!" McGonagall exclaimed, not believing what he just said. "After all the effort we have put in to stop You-Know-Who?"
"The Dark Lord has been stopped, hasn't he?" Shacklebolt pointed at the corpse of Voldemort. "Now we have a bigger problem on our hands, and arresting these men will not get us closer to solving it."
"Also… technically, we haven't seen them break any laws," Tonks pointed out.
"And we no longer have a wizard prison anyway," Hagrid added.
Lord Rosier grinned. "You heard them, Miss Headmistress." The man had a smug smile on his face now.
Moody gave her a reassuring tap on her shoulder. "Justice will be done… eventually. But right now, we need to think about the bigger picture, or as Albus used to say…"
"The Greater Good." McGonagall nodded. "Fine."
"What are we doing with the corpse?" Mundungus glanced at Voldemort. "I don't even know why we brought it here."
"Have some respect!" Rookwood shouted. "That man was the greatest wizard this country has ever seen!"
"That title belongs to Albus Dumbledore!" Hagrid exclaimed.
"Please, let's not start with that now…" Hestia rolled her eyes.
"Take him." Moody seemed to have an idea. "Keep the body under a preserving charm, but don't bury him yet."
This earned a piercing glare from the other members of the Order.
The Death Eaters, on the other hand, looked confused by the strange instructions.
Still, they didn't care all that much, as long as they got to leave without facing any consequences.
Once they were gone, the Order of the Phoenix was left alone in the clearing, save for Snape, who had left with the Death Eaters, carrying Bella with him.
"Moody… you can't be thinking about…" McGonagall started.
They all knew about the Horcruxes thanks to the notes left behind by Dumbledore.
This meant that Voldemort would not be completely dead until all of them were destroyed.
So in theory, Voldemort could still be brought back to life.
"I just like to keep my options open, that's all," Moody responded.
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