Dumbledore had made it very clear that the special Order training meetings would be very sporadic. Yet, when she got stuck painting walls with Sirius and Remus, she couldn't help herself from thinking that maybe Dumbles knew she hated painting.

Since they got the special paint that one could only see sometimes, they had to paint it onto the walls the muggle way. Equipped with only a paintbrush and half of her normal tolerance for stupidity, Lily had snapped ten minutes into painting when Sirius wouldn't stop shouting about some creature called nargles Regulus had told him about.

Don't get her wrong, Lily loved that Sirius and Regulus were on speaking terms again, but the constant exaggerated stories—which were really re-enactments of letters—got on her nerves quite a bit. Sirius had the habit of really overdoing things when he was happy. And he happened to be really happy.

When Remus thought Lily was about to shove her paintbrush down Sirius's throat, he decided that the rest of them could deal with painting. Obviously, the three of them had had enough of it already.

He coaxed the other two into the Marauders' kitchenette for tea to calm them down. Don't judge him, it was the best and only thing that came to mind.

"You've been engaged to Prongsie for exactly eleven days! How does it feel?" Sirius nudged Lily with his elbow.

In the kitchenette, there was a small counter space area with wall-attached cupboards. There was a small oven, stove, and microwave—all requirements for a good kitchen. A movable island stood in the middle of the space, giving even more room to store things.

"I can't understand why he wants to marry me of all people. I'm not wife material," she responded.

Voicing her doubts that had been plaguing her mind for the past almost two weeks, felt like a cloud had disappeared from above her head. She hadn't seen much of the girls recently as they were all super busy, and it's not like she had a mother to talk to about it.

"Excuse my language, Lily, but actually shut the fuck up," Sirius said bluntly.

Remus choked on his tea. Telling someone with self-doubt to shut up, is like telling them not to open up about their problems. He knew Sirius didn't mean it that way, he meant that he just disagreed with her statement. Of course, Remus had to make sure Lily knew this.

"What Sirius is trying to say is, James loves you for who you are and that will always be enough. You'll figure this whole marriage thing out together. Besides, you still have to plan the whole thing out!"

When they decided to finish painting the walls, Remus made sure to smack Sirius on the head and glare at him. Padfoot just needed to learn social cues sometimes.

...

It hadn't taken too long for Dumbledore to send out a patronus to James, Mary, and Chris Chang that summoned them to the Ministry. There they met with a grumpy-looking Mad-eye Moody, which James took as a not-so-good sign.

Moody gave a gruff greeting before he beckoned for them to follow him. Since the three of them weren't there every day, Ministry workers started to take notice of the teenagers and stare at them for a little longer than necessary.

Lily had assured James that everything would be fine, that it always turned out to be okay, but even if he had known Moody throughout his childhood, the guy made him nervous. James could never tell if it was the large piece of nose missing or the magical eye, yet either way, the queasy feeling in his stomach seemed to be going along for the ride.

Never having been in the Ministry building before, Mary had been scanning every inch with her curious eyes. She noticed the people there looked under extreme pressure to act as near robots with their movements as if one odd mannerism would set off an alarm.

The elevator ride was an odd one. Moody stood as far into the back corner as possible like it shielded him from something. Chris couldn't stand still and his foot tapping was starting to make James even more anxious. It seemed that Mary was the only relatively calm one, which was strange in itself since she had never been there before. Moody worked there almost every day, Chris had been a few times, and James had spent the better half of his childhood roaming the halls freely.

Ding!

Arriving at Moody's office came as a relief. Once they were inside, the three mentees sat down obediently and watched their mentor silently.

"You're here to learn some very advanced magic. I have been given the job to teach it to you, and I never fail a job given to me."

Well, that sounded promising...

...

Marlene had not been happy when she saw Liz White and Hayley Unwerich standing next to Kingsley Shacklebolt in Hog's Head. Just the sight of them made her want to leave and never come back, maybe she could fake ill.

Her feet didn't obey her thoughts, as she kept walking into the bar. Marlene's intrigue was piqued higher than the amount she wanted to leave anyway, so she would just have to put up with the two others.

She wanted to know why Kingsley had brought them to Hog's Head. What would her assignment be for the time being? How did Kingsley even get a high enough ranking in the Order to become her mentor? The last time she checked, Myles had told her that he was just above an entry-level.

Greeting Aberforth like an old friend, she sat at the bar to order herself a whiskey. Perhaps that could take the edge off of the two brats she would have to deal with?

He quickly gave her the drink, she paid and then continued to walk over to the table they occupied.

"Alright, what's happening Shacky?" Marlene greeted him, completely ignoring the two girls' existence.

"Shacky? Well, that's a new one," he responded, raising an eyebrow.

"Sorry, I've unfortunately picked up Sirius's habit of creating nicknames for every living thing," she spoke idly.

"Right, well, sorry about the odd location, but Aberforth is also in our... organization, so it just made sense for the time being," Kingsley kept a steady, low tone.

"What have we been assigned to do?" Hayley asked, Marlene took a long sip of her drink.

"You're going to be shadowing me for the time being to learn what it's like to be a member. I'm here to teach you, but also take you along on the projects that I'm assigned."

...

Sirius hadn't even been able to change out of his paint tarnished clothing before they had received message patronus from Doodles. The three of them were to travel to a near-empty Hogwarts—which was quite spooky considering that the halls were dead silent—and enter Dumbledore's office.

The trip was easy as the three of them had taken it many times before. Sirius and Remus drastically different reasons than Lily, but their trips all counted.

"I think that we should just get straight down to the point of our little meeting today. Lily and Sirius, you'll be doing Order work with Dorcas Meadowes and Remus, I have to talk to you privately."

As if on cue, two people entered his office. The before mentioned Dorcas, and Timmy Eliope, who was despised by almost everyone in the room.

"Alright, you two," Dumbles spoke directly to Sirius and Lily, "off you go! Dorcas can pick up where I left off."

They got up from their chairs accompanied by haste and ventured back out into the empty corridors.

Dorcas eventually caught sight of Lily's engagement ring and got extremely excited at the prospect of a wedding. She had talked for what seemed like forever about the ones she had gone to in the past, which had been interesting to Lily, but Sirius could only hope Remus was having a better time in Dumbledore's office.

"You two are being trained personally by me, as your future missions call for it."

...

James had always been enthralled by girl talk. No matter how many times Lily had explained to him that it wasn't that amazing, the concept would still completely baffle him.

Instead of playing chess with Peter, who had just gotten back from his mum's house, he marched into the girls' flat for talk and tea time.

"Believe it or not, James, Lily's not very good at keeping her stress under control because she just chooses to ignore it. So, please make sure that wedding planning doesn't get to be too much for her," Marlene said.

Alice and Mary just nodded along with her statement, which left James wondering if the Marauders had ever done that. Did they just know what was going on in each other's heads? Oh, yes, they most certainly did.

For some reason, after becoming animagi in fifth-year, their bond had strengthened. It was difficult to explain, yet it made so much sense the more he thought about it. That had been a grueling process, which had compromised many hours of sleep over the course of three years, of course, it had strengthened their bond!

"I'll make sure to keep an eye on her," he agreed.

"This may be a stretch, but don't go too crazy on stag night either," Alice advised.

"You might want to talk to Sirius about that one. I, however, make zero promises."

...

Author's Note:

Putting Marlene with two people she dislikes deliberately is extremely amusing to me.

Which Order assignment is the most intriguing? If I know what you guys are interested in, maybe I'll throw some extra scenes in of that one.

Lmao anyways thanks for reading
-teddy🍄