Justin entered the loft quietly. He'd been dreading this since starting with the Order, but he knew Lavender would want to know. Especially if they were taking down France. In fact, depending upon her reaction, he wanted to bring her to a meeting. He knew where her loyalty was. He knew what she wanted to happen with this.

"Lav? You here? Um... we need to talk?"

Lavender came out of the bathroom, looking at Justin's back as he crossed into the living room. She smirked, padding on bare feet until she was right behind him. "Yeah?"

He whipped around suddenly with his wand out. Then frowned at her. He was so distracted she had been able to sneak up on him.

"Um... you might want to sit down."

What now? Lavender crossed her arms over her chest, her face instantly guarded. "I think I'd rather stand." He'd been twitchy since he'd come home from wherever he'd gone last night. She had a bad feeling.

Justin sighed. "We found the camp in France. We're going to take care of it. Leave nothing left. I was wondering if you'd get me in contact with your French policeman to help with the Muggle end of it."

Lavender's arms fell to her sides, searching his face for any sign that he was somehow kidding, even if she knew he'd never play with something like that. "What do you mean, we found the camp? How did you find the camp? Who found the camp?"

"Er... this bloke who knows Moody. He had some special stuff. You helped though. You said the Frenchman sounded like he was from Versailles. The camp is just outside that area. I'm um, in the Order of the Phoenix. It's back to being functional, and we're going after them. I want..." Justin tried to think of how to say this. "I want you to come to the next meeting me. You can't write about anything that goes on there, but... I know you want to stop them. If anything for what they did to... Cat and Steven, to Andy."

"You... the Order? When have you..." She put a hand to her forehead, trying to process everything he'd just told her. The Order of the Phoenix had been called back together and Justin was a member. They'd found the camp that Cat and Steven had been held in, the one Andy had escaped out of. "How long have you been going?"

"About a month. There have only been two meetings. I want you to come to the next one. I think it could help, think you could help. I think it would make you feel better if you knew who these bastards were going up against."

Justin moved close and rubbed his hand up her arm.

"When?" She looked up from where she'd been looking at his hands. "When are they going to the camp? I want to go."

"What? No. You can't... Lavender, there will be hexing. People will be everywhere and they will be carting the captive workers out. I don't want you that close to actual fighting."

"Did you honestly think that you'd tell me you found this camp, were planning on going in, and I wouldn't want to go? You know me better than that, Justin. These people... That man killed them. I'm going with." She brushed past him, her stomach turning with the thought of facing that Frenchman, but knowing that she needed to. "When are you going? Soon?"

"Probably, but Lavender..." Justin moved around to stand in front of her. "I don't think you should go. I want you to stay here where it's safe. I'm going to do something about that Frenchman. Don't worry. I just... you need to stay safe. You're not very good at taking care of yourself, Lav."

"It's not safe anywhere right now, Justin!" They're going after Him. They're going to find that Bastard and kill Him. "I need to be a part of this. I know it doesn't make you happy, and I'm sorry, but I'm not exactly thrilled about you going either! The last man I saw face the Frenchman was killed! I need you safe too, did you ever think about that?"

He pointed at her. "Then you are staying with the healers and Malfoy. You are not going inside in. You are staying outside. Ginny wouldn't let anything happen to you."

"You can't tell me what to do, Justin! If there's fighting, I want to go! I was in the DA too, you know!" I want to be there. I want to watch him hurt, like I hurt. "If you hadn't found the camp, were you ever going to tell me you were even in the Order, or was that going to be another secret, another thing about you I don't get to know about?"

"Lavender, only Aurors and hit wizards are going into that camp. This is not negotiable. If Moody even knew I was discussing this with you without checking with him, he'd have my hide. The conditions of your going at all are that you are not involved in the fighting. If I think otherwise, I'll bind you and leave you here. I don't care how angry you get with me. And no, I was not going to keep it from you. As I mentioned before, I think you should attend the meetings."

Justin started pacing.

"You already know more about my job than even Hannah does."

"No!" Lavender made Justin stop walking by stepping in his path. "You don't get to throw this at me and tell me I have to stay on the sidelines! This man killed my family! You expect me to just watch you go charging in? I'm sorry, but I can't do that!"

"I'm not," Justin shouted at her.

It was silent for a moment.

"I'm staying on the outskirts to make sure no one who's not supposed to gets out."

"Like the Frenchman, when he tries to escape, killing anyone in his way? Yeah. That doesn't exactly put me at ease." Lavender blinked. "I'll stay on the outsides, doing the same. Making sure no one gets out. I can do that." She looked up at Justin with defiant eyes. "I can do that."

Justin knew this was as good as it was going to get for him keeping her out of it. "You have to stay with me. And no killing. Just stop them. Put them down. Not permanently. We're going to question the bastards. I think we need to work on your hexes before then though. I know you were in the DA, but that was almost a decade ago, Lav."

The pot holding their plant shattered on the counter, the sound loud in the loft. She looked up at Justin, willing him to call her on it. Her hand tightened around the wand in her hand. Watching the Frenchman murder Andy had terrified her into training, something she hadn't done for years. "You have your secrets and I have mine."

"Why do you want to hurt the plant," Justin said, moving to pick up the poor thing. "Is this what you want to do to my head just because I want to keep you safe?"

He was holding the plant and petting it a little. Justin knew he was ridiculous, but he felt the plant was a metaphor for their relationship somehow.

"I may not be an Unspeakable, but I know how to protect myself if I have a wand. I just don't know what to do when I don't." She frowned. She didn't like admitting she couldn't defend herself, especially when it was very possible that admitting it would keep her away from the fight. "You can't keep me from this fight, Justin. This is my fight." More than anyone else. Maybe that thought was selfish, but it's how she felt. She'd lost more to this Frenchman than anyone else.

Justin scowled at her. He repaired the blasted pot and did his best to repair the plant, petting the leaves even.

"You had better keep a cool head about this or you won't believe how much I can and will keep you from this fight. You just wounded an innocent bystander."

Lavender growled in frustration. "Keep a cool head about this? Tell me, if you knew who'd hurt your family, you would let someone keep you from them?"

Justin looked at her. She didn't know. She really did not. "You don't want to know what I'd do, but it's not just him there, Lavender. There are innocent people... children. They have children working there, so if you don't think you can control yourself, you will not be going."

"Fine." Lavender spat, turning on her heel and stalking up the stairs towards the bedroom. Whether he thought he was protecting her or not, all Justin was doing was making Lavender sure that she would be a part of this fight, whether he wanted it or not.

"Hey," Justin snapped. "You don't get to be mad. You went from not going at all to being right near where I will be, so you don't get to be mad."

He grabbed her and pressed his forehead to hers even though it seemed she did not want to let him.

"We'll be part of what stops this from happening to anyone else."

Lavender wanted to be mad, wanted to rage at him. She wanted to let loose the anger that had been bubbling under her skin since she'd first found out that Cat and Steven had not died the way she'd thought, since she'd found out that they'd been killed.

She sighed, closing her eyes, taking in a deep breath before letting it out slowly. "If he hurts you too..."

Justin pulled her into a hug. "Well, if you're standing there with me, I'd really like to see him try."

Both because of that blasting hex of hers he'd just witnessed and because Justin would never let that bastard even remotely near her. Her fear about him being hurt made Justin wonder if he shouldn't show her what he was capable of. Just a little. No one who was an Unspeakable was particularly feeble of kitten-ish. They all had particular, and oftentimes deadly, talents.

Justin rubbed his hands up and down her back hoping to soothe her.
 
"I am not that easy to kill, Lavender. I promise I am not going anywhere without one hell of a fight, okay? I'm about half scared of what Hannah would do to me. Add in the fact that she'd enlist your to help... yeah. Not going anywhere."

Lavender shook her head, pulling away from him reluctantly. Cat wasn't going anywhere without a fight, either. That fight was the last thing she did. She sat heavily on the bed. "What would you use my contacts for? The Ministry doesn't have any contacts in France?"

"We're not doing this through the Ministry. Some of them are in the Ministry. They can't be trusted. We're afraid someone will get word to them, and all will find is a bunch of buildings with dead people in them. There are a few French contacts. You have several, so I thought... we have places to hold the people, to help them, and we have a plan for those running the camp."

"What's the plan for them? The people who are doing this?" She looked up at him, a frown on her face. "What are you going to do to the people you get? If you're not going to do this through the Ministry, I assume you'll be keeping them somewhere?"

"Yeah. We'll be holding them. They won't be running around. Someone suggested transfiguring them into marmite or spam. I think I might try spam and feed it to Hannah's cat."

Lavender laughed, the sound a bit hollow. She was warring internally. She wanted to see the Frenchman caught. A small part of her wanted to watch him suffer, watch him hurt, beg for his life like she'd watched Andy beg for his.

Another part of her was horrified for wanting such things. What normal person wanted to watch another person suffer and die?

"I'll go to the next meeting with you. Where do they hold them?"

"I don't think that was definitively decided. Several people offered up properties. A chap I don't know very well has a workable dungeon. That looks to be where they will be kept."

She had this look.

"What?"

"Where do they hold the meetings," she clarified.

"Oh. Um... Harry's."

"Potter? They hold it at his house?" She grinned to herself. "I'm going to know where Harry Potter lives."

"It gets better, and please let on like you didn't know all this before," Justin said. "And you can not tell ANYONE where Harry lives, but just take a moment to marvel at the fact that Draco Malfoy is in the Order."

"Malfoy? Why would Harry Potter allow Draco Malfoy anywhere near his house? Are the people in the Order crazy?" She got to her feet. "Are you going to start being best friends with Blaise now, too?"

Justin made a face at her. "Hell no. Ironically, Malfoy's actually had some good ideas. It's a bit spooky. If you think about it, he's a target. That school he's organizing takes all walks of wizard life. Even squibs. I don't know. There's a lot of people there I don't understand, but I don't have to understand it. You know Snape was even at the first meeting."

"Ew," Lavender said, sitting back down on the bed before flopping backwards, blinking up at the ceiling. It was very possible, whenever they did this, that she would come face to face with the person that was responsible for Cat and Steven's deaths. That knowledge both excited and terrified her.

Justin flopped onto the bed next to her. He didn't know what to say or do now.

"So when are you going to start training me?" She propped herself up on an arm, facing him. "I wouldn't mind a little training right now." They'd been screaming at each other not a few minutes previously, but there was no denying that she found herself insatiable when it came to him.

Justin made a face at her and briefly considered saying he had a headache. He was wondering when exactly he'd become the woman in this relationship. Still, he rolled to the side slightly and kissed her. He'd better give it up. She got too unmanageable when she did not get sex regularly. He was not making that mistake again.


{SUMMARY} Justin tells Lavender about France. She is determined to go, and he is determined to protect her from being reckless and angry. (Good luck with that, Justin)