He supposed that if he had to live vicariously through anyone, it would be through his best friend. Not that his life as a seventh year wasn’t exciting enough, just that he wasn’t pregnant nor would he ever be. Holding back Marly’s hair while she leaned over to puke in the early morning hours was a lot more interesting than any homework he had to do. Holding Marly’s hand as she raged at anyone and everyone was a lot more important than reading about grindylows.

He might have been a little jealous at times, but he would never admit that much. Caradoc Dearborn was not known for being blatantly honest with his emotions, and he wasn’t going to change to being hormonal and overly emotional just because his best friend was. He let it go, anyway, because as far as he was convinced, he didn’t want any children. He would never want any children. They were dirty and they shat their pants and why would he want anything to do with them?

And then everything changed when he saw the baby’s face.

Joined the Order. The world was shocked. My only condition is that when if I die, they burn my corpse on a funeral pyre. As far as conditions go, I think it’s a fair one.

He didn’t amount for much after he was done at Hogwarts. Then again, he had never expected much out of himself. He never took the time to map out careers, to find something worth doing for the rest of his life, and he was stuck floating for a while after. Caradoc Dearborn had always been the definition of an apathetic teenager, and there are always certain parts of people that didn’t change. If anything, Cary cared less and less about everything, so that by the time he was working his first job, bartending at an obscure Muggle bar where all of the cabinets were lined with dust and the smell of mildew, everyone else was off doing their own thing.

During his years at school, Cary had always been afraid of being left behind. He didn’t like the idea of watching backs turned and he certainly didn’t like the idea of being forgotten back at the nest. But as the time passed, he became more and more aware that he wasn’t left behind. He was just stuck in the past. All he needed was a little bit of a push, and he would get out of this funk and be everything he was meant to be. But he wasn’t sure what that push was.

And then came the Order.

Mum and dad finally wrote me off. I can’t decide whether I should be sad that I actually have to survive on these tips now, or happy that I can feel okay about burning all of the family pictures without that nagging in the back of my brain.

The Order of the Phoenix wasn’t so much Cary’s job as his life. Everything he had ever been and everything he ever would be was pulled into this little group of people, strung together by the man that Caradoc had idolized since before he really knew who Dumbledore was—since the day that he’d had his first chocolate frog and found blue eyes twinkling back at him behind half-moon spectacles. His best friends—Marlene, Gideon, Fabian—were there like they always had been. Love, or the closest he’d ever really found to it, though long past, stalked him there in the form of a ragged-edged werewolf. He learned to expect the unexpected when he found himself joking with Edgar Bones as though there had never been a sore spot between them.

Maybe even more important than who was there was who wasn’t—people outside of the Order faded to the backgrounds, and every breath of air, every single step, suddenly had a purpose. It wasn’t a familiar feeling, but it was as natural as sleeping and waking up. Seeing Caradoc Dearborn, master of not caring, dedicating his all to something might have seemed unusual to anyone from the outside looking in, but it worked for him.

And that was all that had ever really mattered.

Family photo Friday. The frame isn’t really big enough to fit all of us, but we all know how to shove over. I also thought that now would be a good time to note that I hate Avery. Nothing new there.

As far as Cary was concerned, he never had a family or much of a life outside of the Order. His parents had always been distant, at best, and in all honesty, he couldn’t have cared less about whether he was living up to their expectations or not. That was why he was technically no longer a Dearborn, even when he bore the name. That was why he continued to go on raids, to play hero and crusade against the forces of evil and whatever else was lurking out there.

It may have also been why he clung to the Order the way that he did, though he couldn’t be quite sure of that. When he wasn’t fighting, he was babysitting, and when he wasn’t babysitting, he was fighting. The weirdest times were those when he didn’t have to do anything—the time he had to realize that everyone was having children and growing up and it kind of almost disgusted him. Except that it didn’t, because maybe he was growing up, too.

He supposed he couldn’t hold on to Peter Pan forever.

Dead. We’ve all gotten so used to it, but it doesn’t change the fact that it’s the same thing as “over.” It’s not something we get used to. Losing Marly… Where do we go from here?

How do you tell someone that another person has died? How do you come to terms with the fact that everything does end and maybe, just maybe, you will be the one left behind, in the end?

Cary didn’t know.

He just didn’t know.

If this doesn’t end up changing everything, then I would love to say that this was still the best time of my life. But if I die for no reason, fuck everything.

You can’t burn a body if you haven’t got one.