OOC: Talia Trent = Order adjacent, but part of ANOTHER resistance group (with permission). Feel free to just say your charrie is with them as well if you want/need something for your charrie to have been involved in before this point. Details in this post. Anyone can join, if you wanna figure out how to make it make sense for your charrie poke me and I can help! And we can headcanon some fun things together later too <3 Talia Trent was ready as soon as Charles had contacted her telling her she had been right and actually sounding almost like his old self (except somehow even older, and more tired, which was understandable given everything). There hadn't been much time to talk, and while he'd given the gist of what was going on, he had told her to turn on the wireless, that there would soon be an announcement for everyone. She had in turn let her own contacts know to turn it on and be ready to hear the call to arms.
She had been working tirelessly for a long while now, first from when she had realised the man acting as headmaster was NOT her husband, and then more actively after she had met with Charles and discovered things were not right there. It had been hard to know who to trust and what to do (especially because she did NOT trust the ministry right now), but little by little a group was formed. The main goal had been ensuring muggle family members would be safe, not just her own or those of the group, but of any muggleborns and halfbloods who had needed help and protection for their families.
They had been kept very busy.
Beyond that, some of the group had been following leads, trying to discover who had true ties to this neo-alliance and who were only sympathisers. There were a LOT of dead ends. Maybe some of them had fake names. Maybe MORE of them wore fake faces like the man who had taken place of her missing husband. Still, every dead end narrowed things down further and she was sure ultimately the information would be useful to someone, even if it was just for clearing some names, and redirecting the authorities (if they ever became 'the authorities' again that was) in more fruitful directions. It all went back, of course, to the Azkaban break out. To the graffiti that had begun appearing several years ago now. But it had to go back further than that.
Sometimes it was hard to stay focused, it was hard to care, when your children and your husband were both missing (and the guilt of sending her children back to that place even with her suspicions, it GOT to her, it did. Even if she had told them and then let them decide for themselves if they would return, she'd never forgive herself for not simply pulling them as soon as she had known that Kai was not Kai at all), but her own parents were muggles, so it had started there for Talia. She couldn't sit on her thumbs and do nothing, so it had expanded. To some parents who likewise had their children at Hogwarts, to some of her current and former professional contacts, to friends and friends of friends, and even in a few cases, to other muggleborns who hadn't been known to her before all of this.
The muggle news had been very forthcoming with information too - a lot of missing muggles in certain places. They had tracked that as much as possible as well, and patterns emerged. There wasn't much they could do for those muggles though. There were too many muggles in general, so a focus on muggle families who had magical connections was the only way to contribute, to do something that mattered.
More recently, through one of her colleagues, Talia had connected to a young man working in the ministry itself, a former student of her husband's, and her colleague's son. One of two who were involved in a resistance group, the one she now knew was responsible for freeing Charles and for the wireless announcement. It was rather sweet and fitting of them to style themselves as a reiteration of the historical Order of the Phoenix, and it had her wondering idly at the time how many other groups had self-styled themselves as such. She supposed that anyone could, and it wouldn't matter, as long as they were fighting on the right side.
Which was another thing to worry about - perhaps some who were gathering here were NOT in fact on the right side. You really could not be sure anymore and it was important to remain vigilant.
Apparating not far from Charles, she saw January Bones slipping her hand into the old man's. It was a relief to know he was being looked after. And there, not far away was his daughter, the one that worked with dragons. She would stick near him herself, but not to look after him, rather because she felt it would be likely that he would be the one to find the man who had replaced her husband.
And then maybe Talia could find Malachi.
She would of course be searching desperately for her children too, and if the opportunity came to scoop up Kale and Mavis and get out of there, she likely would do so, or make them take up one of the emergency portkeys she had on her person, but she needed to know if Kai was okay. If he was as alive as her conviction told her.
"Charles." She said, loud enough for him to hear him, her voice full of determination.
She was here, and she was going to get her family back, so help her Merlin.
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OOC: Carmine Beryl, also order adjacent, but more importantly mama of some order members and also students, and healer. Will be making her way to the triage area. Also here, not far behind Talia Trent, was Healer Carmine Beryl, former professor. She would not be fighting, rather she would join the triage team, but she had arrived with the resistance group that she had been working with to help with the muggles in need, and intended that her two boys (of whom she was so proud) knew she was there for them. They would find their brother and sister, she was sure. Raj and Shivali would be brought back to her. She wore her St Mungos robes with her name and 'Head Healer, Artifact Accidents' emblazoned on the front.
She already saw several of her former students, and hoped there might be one or two in particular that she knew would likely be particularly good assistants in the triage staging area, which she had heard through colleagues would be best fit in the Great Hall, a point that she agreed upon as it was a defendable space, if they could get to it first.