#ofvaance

With tensions increasing and the death toll beginning to rise, it became more important than ever for the Order to mount a watch on their wanted targets - those they suspected most strongly of being Death Eaters. But it was geting harder; more than one such watch recently had been spotted and ambushed, resulting in some nasty injuries. Nobody was quite sure how it kept happening. The best course of action would have been to put the older, more experienced members on the stakeouts - but they had other tasks to deal with, and while Dumbledore and Moody tried to spread the workload out so nobody took on too much, it just couldn't be helped... everyone was tired.

Still, if it had to be their younger people going out to stalk Death Eaters, it might as well be the ones who were training for that kind of work anyway. That was why, late at night as autumn drew in, two young Aurors were crouched in the shadow of ornamental trees outside the home of Thorfinn Rowle, who'd been a suspect for a little while now but had yet to present them with any hard evidence.

Wishing he was anywhere but here right now, or at least anywhere his friends weren’t here to find this hilarious, William crossed the room to Emmeline, convinced that Frank was watching him the whole way. With his face blazing, he attempted to pull on the professional, friendly veneer that had worked so often in the past, and failed completely.

“I, ah...” he began weakly. “I don’t mean to bother you, but I thought - I mean, well, Frank thought - that it might be nice if I offered you a dance?”