Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

"The War Diaries"
by Christine Anderson
aka Lilly Malfoy

People are starting to look at me strangely in the halls again. Auntie Amelia says it was like this in the last war- that people looked at the Aurors' kids that way then, too. It's a look I don't even know how to describe- part of it's pity, the kind you get when people learn your parents are dead. Part of it's shame, like they think your kin are doing something theirs can't, or wouldn't, and it embarrass them. And part of it is... I don't know, a kind of jealousy? Because of the attention, I suppose- this is the part I've never understood.

You can have this, really.

And then there are the ones that make me most angry, and annoyed, and a million other things I don't know how to say. The ones who look at you like you shouldn't even exist. Either because they wished your folks had died sooner, before they'd b-been a-able to h-have y-you, or because they thought wartime is a stupid time to be having children.

Maybe they're right- not about the first part, but about the second. All I know is the war is all the time my parents really ever had. They met when the war was just getting started, when the old Order got formed. They were both people Professor Dumbledore and some of the others had known and trusted, but they hadn't known each other before then.

I wish I remembered them more. But I've always felt like I knew them, because Aunt Amelia gave me Mum's journals when she thought I was old enough for them. There's some stuff in there I still don't really understand, and a few entries I've never been able to read all the way through because they're just too horrible. But I've always liked reading the parts about my parents, how they met and fell in love.

Mum said she just knew it was right, almost from the moment she first kissed him. Like her friend Alice when she met Frank Longbottom- my auntie Alice, she called her; parts of the diary are letters addressed to me. Da was like Mr. Longbottom, from an old Auror family. Mum had just been drawn to it, like some people are.

You'd think I guess that with most of it being written in wartime, my Mum's journals would be full of depressing, dark things. And some of it's like that- but a lot of it isn't. A lot of it is funny and wonderful- and sad, too, because so many of the people she talks about are gone, or... different.

I met my auntie Alice and my uncle Frank once, when Auntie Amelia took me to St. Mungo's to see them. She said I ought to know my godparents, even if... Well, I'd read Mum's journals, even once when I was feeling really brave, one entry about a night when she, Da, and some of the others of the Order rescued a friend of theirs who was being tortured by Death Eaters, so I thought I understood... I thought I understood what the Death Eaters could do.

I was wrong.

For a moment or two I thought it might be alright- Auntie Alice looked at me like she recognized me, even if she did call me Leah- my mother's name. But she didn't say a thing after that, didn't move. Her face didn't change even when I told her that no, I was Leah's daughter, that my mum had died in the war. As for Uncle Frank, he was the same as auntie Alice, only he started out that way- didn't notice when we came into the room, or when I left.

So I never really met my godparents, but I did get to be pretty good friends with Neville that day. We sat out in the hall and talked, and I told him about the things my mum had written about his parents- how happy they'd been, and how much they'd loved each other, and how they'd had good times even in the middle of all that fighting. We weren't really sure we understood that, either of us- how could you be happy with so much death and destruction around you?

I think I'm starting to understand it now. Now that I have my own war, now when I know my friends and people I love are fighting in it, or are going to. Now that I know I probably will too. Mum and Da's old friends, people like Professor Moody, always believed You-Know-Who would come back, so I did too, but somehow I never thought... I don't know. In Muggle Studies they talk about wars that started in big ways, with big things, attacks so big people couldn't pretend they hadn't happened, or armies marching across land that wasn't theirs and trying to take it.

Nobody thought the second war would start with the death of a Hufflepuff. I sure didn't.

I remember going to see Professor Moody in the hospital wing the week after Cedric died- the real Professor Moody, not that horrible Death Eater we'd thought was him all term. Madame Pomfrey tried to send me away- I guess he wasn't talking much to anyone except Professor Dumbledore. I'd felt like I had to try anyway, though. I was so sad about Cedric and so mixed up about the war, and I still thought it was horrible that Professor Moody couldn't have had many visitors, that nobody seemed to care...

I can remember thinking later that summer that Professor Moody was a lot like Hufflepuff house that year- we went through a lot of stuff that nobody liked to talk about. Even though Auntie Amelia always says talking is what helps, and bottling things up just makes it worse.

So I'd thought I would at least go and ask after him, the way I was sure my parents would have if they'd been alive. They'd been pretty good friends. There's an entry in Mum's diary about when he lost his leg, how she and Da and the Longbottoms dropped everything to run to the hospital and wait to see if he was alright...how some of his oldest friends never came by at all. I couldn't imagine that- I still can't, really. It's a horrible injury, but that's kind of the point- I think the worse the injury is, the more painful and disfiguring, the more a person needs their friends. And anyway, what's the point of calling yourself someone's friend if you aren't going to be there when they need you most?

Auntie Amelia ruffles my hair when I say things like that, and tells me I'm a true Hufflepuff. And that she's proud of me for it.

I probably looked as surprised as Madame Pomfrey did when she came back to say he'd see me. I sure felt it. I guess my name had something to do with it- he knew my parents, after all, and had probably known me when I was a baby. So I went and sat down- and why are hospital chairs always so uncomfortable, anyway? You would think that people who sit in them are already worried about somebody, upset maybe, and a comfy chair would help. And I felt stupid for being there suddenly, like I was intruding, even though I hadn't meant to.

"I don't want to bother you, sir," I remember saying, "I just wanted to say hello, and see how you were doing..." And I was sounding stupider and stupider even to my own ears.

"No bother, lass. As for me, I'll live."

I couldn't help it; I winced.

"Oh, Merlin, that was thoughtless of me. I'm sorry."

I shrugged. "Don't worry about it, sir. Nobody else seems to, much." I remember being amazed and a little frightened by the bitterness in my voice, but that it didn't seem to surprise Professor Moody.

"Did you know him well?"

I shook my head. "Not really- he was three years ahead of me. But..." I sighed, wanting to talk, knowing he'd probably understand, but not wanting to unburden myself on someone who looked like they had enough to deal with as it was. It was the day of the Leaving Feast, and all anyone could talk about all over school was the night of the Third Task, and Harry Potter's latest tale. I wasn't sure half of them believed a word of it.

But I did.

"But you knew him, and now he's gone. You'll never get the chance to know him better- and all around you are people making idiots of themselves as usual. That right?"

I nodded. "S-some people reckon Harry's m-making it all u-up-" And damn that stutter! I'd almost gotten rid of it, but it came back when I was really nervous or upset. "B-but I d-don't see why he w-would. Why would he want this to be true if it isn't?"

Professor Moody nodded. "Sometimes people don't want to believe in things that scare them. They think that if they ignore it long enough, it might just go away."

"That's never going to happen," I protested.

"No, it's not."

I sighed. "It's starting, isn't it, sir? The war- the next war."

He looked at me for a moment or so before he answered. "You're Edgar and Leah Bones' daughter. You don't need me to answer that, do you, lass?"

I'd never really seen my parents' old friend in Professor Moody that year. I understand now that's because he wasn't really there. But he was then. "No, sir. I guess not. It started with Cedirc...and they don't even know it."

He sighed. "They will, lass. They will."

I'd thought when everyone realized the war had come, things would get better. And I guess they did, in a way. At least now everyone more or less accepts the fact that You-Know-Who is back. And we have a real Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher again, when we haven't had a good one in ages. I guess that Death Eater taught us some stuff, and all, but I can't look back on that year now without seeing who he really was, and it's horrible. And of course we had Professor Lupin before him... But I can't help thinking we need Professor Moody's kind of teaching more these days.

Professor Moody was right in what he said to me that day three years ago- people were afraid of the war. They still are. But now they're starting to remember that it was fought before, that people stood up to You-Know-Who. That winning is going to be difficult, but not impossible. As for me, I'm reading over my mum's journals more these days. Reminding myself that even in the middle of the darkest time in her life she was happy. She fell in love, and believed in the future enough to have me. She knew she might not live to see me grow up- she wrote about that some. But she never lost hope.

So I can't, either.