Lately they are always exhausted. The war has taken its toll on everyone, and Frank and Alice Longbottom have had a miserable time of it. Working full-time as Aurors, trying to work with the Order on the side, and a baby.

"How is Neville?" Minerva thinks to ask, just so they can start on something more pleasant than the war.

Alice laughs and looks at him. "He's doing well! Yesterday he rolled over."

Minerva nods indulgently, though she doesn't know if that's actually significant.

Frank tickles the baby's foot gently. "He's disillusioned with Dumbledore, I'm afraid. Yesterday he spat up on his beard."

"I've been tempted to do so myself on occasion," says Minerva drily.

They laugh.

"He's still launching attacks on Muggleborn families in London," says Alice. "Here's the Auror report-" she pulls it out of her purse and puts it on the table. "As nearly as we can tell there isn't any particular method to it, it's mostly random. He's going after well-established families, the ones in the Ministry mostly. Scrimgeour has us keeping an eye on a few families but it's not going to accomplish anything if they actually get targeted. We aren't cleared for intervention."

"We're stretched thin as is," murmurs Minerva. "We'll have to try and stretch out some more patrols. Only a few. There's a few families who live pretty close together."

Frank nods and circles a few blocks of the city in red ink. Alice bounces Neville on her knee and Minerva frowns at their map and sips her tea.

"Perhaps we ought to reach out to them," says Alice. "The families."

Minerva nods, but disagrees. There's no guarantee that these families won't turn on the Order to protect themselves. Not for the first time she thinks about the Order members with families. James and Lily Potter and their Harry, Hestia Jones and her daughter, Marlene and her children and husband, what members of the Bones family are left.

Who's to say the Order's safe even from itself?

She's lucky, really, to live alone, to have loved and lost early enough to be turned off of love. It's a curse to be in this war with someone you care about. Her thoughts stray to Benjy Fenwick's parents- he'd still been living with them but they hadn't know he was in the Order until Minerva had brought them his remains. And the Boneses, an ancient and huge family now down to Rachel and Amelia and Rachel's baby. And Caradoc Dearborn. And Dione Diggle.

They are being picked off, down to their families. Minerva looks across her kitchen table at Alice and Frank- not young by any means but not old, not as weathered as she feels. They are poring over the maps, taking pauses to smile at each other, fond but tired.

For the first time, Minerva regards them with fear.