Winner of The Who, What, Where Competition!
So we know he's attacking tonight, we know when, we know who he's roped in, and we know he's attacking a muggle dwelling," Minerva's voice called over us. "Thank you for those involved with gathering the information. But we haven't decided where. Can we look over the facts?" She turned to Mad Eye Moody, who cleared his throat to speak.
"The movements we've observed last night and so far today suggests they're attacking the Cornwall, Devon and Dorset area. Perhaps even South Wales. Yaxley dropped a hint this morning when he was gloating to Mary, by saying 'Make sure all your friends and their loved ones are safe,' so we can assume it's a family member of one of us. Two nights ago, Roiser was overheard. He said 'If we kill one baby, the other will come crawling to our Lord'. So, think to your family and friends. Any suggestions?"
I froze. No. No, it couldn't be. All the pieces seemed to fit but the answer was hell.
As the others shook their heads, or muttered, "No," I watched the light dance behind my eyes as my heart raced and a cold sweat creeped up my back.
"Lily, are you alright?" James asked me, placing an arm around my shoulders. No. No, I wasn't alright. Not at all.
"Petunia," was all I could bring myself to say. My mother had told me that we'd given birth just over a month apart. A boy, but I wasn't sure of his name. He'd be almost a year old now.
No one said anything for a while. Most of them knew how things were between me and Petunia, and the ones who didn't, well, they didn't know me well enough.
"Are you certain?" Moody asked me. I nodded as James' hand tightened on my shoulder. I instinctively leaned in towards him.
"Well, what do you think we should do?" Sirius asked, and it was a very good question. I didn't know. "Would your mother help?"
"No," I shook my head. "She won't get between me and Petunia, and she doesn't even believe there's a war," I explained.
"Her life's in danger, Lily, she has to listen to you, even if just this once," came the voice of Mary MacDonald, ever the optimist.
"And then what?" I asked.
"Bring her to my house," Molly said. "A half-formed plan is better than nothing. We can come up with the rest there."
Before I knew it, I was on my way to Petunia's house, accompanied by Mary. As a Half-Blood, it was decided she would be able to fit in with the Muggle world, at least a little, which might have made Petunia a little more receptive. We'd have to wait and see.
I knocked on the door of her little house in the suburbs, noticing a For Sale sign outside. I didn't know they were moving.
It took a while for the door to be opened, but the sight that greeted me when it did was not surprising.
"What do you want?" Petunia asked, her lips pulled tight. She was dressed at the height of eighties housewife fashion with her hair piled high in tight ringlets and a knee length floral skirt.
"Tuney, please listen to me," I started. "Your life is in danger."
She looked shocked for a moment, but didn't speak.
"I know you believe me when I say there's a war on, in my world. I know you heard me when I said that. Well, Lord Voldemort is after me. And Harry, too," I said.
"Because of that no good husband of yours, I assume," she said, and the hatred in her words was painful.
"Can I come inside?" I asked, and she eyed me and Mary carefully, before opening the door wide enough to let us pass.
I stepped in quickly, Mary close on my tail, knowing time was of the essence.
"What the bloody hell are you doing here? We don't want you and your kind on our doorstep! I thought we'd made that clear!" came Vernon's voice, booming through the hallway.
"It's alright," Petunia said quietly, before ushering us in to the living room. She closed the door behind us and turned to face us, folding her arms across her chest.
I didn't even bother to look around at the room, my attention was solely focused on my sister.
"Lord Voldemort thinks he can get to Harry through you, and your son," Mary said, and Petunia's eyes widened. She might have hated me, but her maternal instinct shone through.
"He's going to attack here tonight, Tuney. We're doing everything in our power to stop that from happening, but we need to get you somewhere safe. I'm asking you and your son to come with us, just for the night, and then it'll all be over," I told her, hoping beyond hope that that was true.
"What about Vernon?" she asked.
"Would he come?" I countered. She shook her head as her eyebrows creased.
"Tuney, please, I know you hate me, and magic, and the whole world I live in, but you love your son, right?" I pleaded.
"Of course I do," she replied, looking a little affronted. After a moment's pause, she said, "Let me go and talk to Vernon."
She left me and Mary alone for a few minutes that felt like a lifetime. I might have lost Tuney, as a friend, a long time a go, but I still cared about Petunia, my sister, as I always had.
She came back into the room with her son, a fat little thing with dark curly hair and a tiny nose.
"Will there be people here? Keeping Vernon safe?" she asked.
"I promise," I told her, knowing I'd make it happen, even if I had to come here myself. Anything, so long as she came with me now.
"Where are we going?" she asked.
"A friend's house," I told her. "We'll have to Apparate, which is like teleportation. You can go with Mary, here, and I can take your son, if you like. It will be easier if you don't go together, but it'll only be for a minute," I told her, and she clutched her son tighter before nodding.
"His name is Dudley," she said before handing him to me. He was heavier than Harry, the baby I was used to. I knew James would be at Molly's with our son, and now, with this foreign child in my arms, I was desperate to get back to him.
We apparated to the usual spot near Molly's, and I handed Petunia her son back, before leading them to the cottage. I was anxious to hear if they'd come up with the rest of the plan yet, and to see who 'they' was. I wasn't sure who was going to be there.
We stepped over the threshold, Petunia following behind, clutching her son, and I headed straight towards James. It was instinctive, like breathing. I let him wrap his arms around me for a moment.
"Are you okay?" he whispered, and I looked into his hazel eyes before nodding. My eyes scoured the room for Harry and I saw him in a quiet corner, next to Molly's own son, Ronald, and they were both sleeping.
I looked back at my sister, and saw how her lip curled as she took in the room she was stood in, the people around her, and me with James. For a moment, I understood how she could hate me. For a moment, I wanted to slap that look right off her face.
"So, do we have a plan now?" Mary asked, expectantly.
"Not really," James began, taking my hand in his own as we stepped apart. "Remus, me and Moody will go and watch the house, keep an eye out and call for back-up if we see anything suspicious, but if they're looking for you," he motioned towards my sister, "And if they don't find you, they'll come looking."
I looked at James with a smile. I guess you didn't become one of the best pranksters Hogwarts has ever seen without knowing how to form a plan.
"So, Petunia has to not be found?" I asked.
"Precisely," Sirius said. "But that's the bit we're stuck on."
"Does anyone have anything?" Mary asked.
We stood in silence for a moment, each trying to grasp on to something.
"Well, I have something," James began, looking at the floor. "I have some Polyjuice Potion. In my pocket. It's Sirius," he said. I looked at him in confusion, and many others matched my gaze. Sirius broke out into a grin.
"Why on earth do you have that?" I asked him. He shrugged.
"What on God's earth might that be?" Petunia asked, her stubborn, defensive side creeping through.
"It's a drink that'll change your appearance. You'd look like me," Sirius explained, quite happily.
I looked at my sister, unsure how she would respond to all of this. She'd spent so long desperate to believe this all wasn't real that I was worried this would all be too much.
"So that if they came looking, they would find him, and I'd be safe," she said, and I couldn't help but smile. She understood.
"Relatively," James said, which made Petunia remember he was in the room. She shot him a dark look, which he ignored as he turned to his best friend. "Padfoot, could you lay low for the night?" he asked.
"Yeah, just call if you need us. It was supposed to be date night, anyway," he said with a suggestive grin. Knowing that was one of my best friends he was referencing as part of 'us', the grin was too much information.
James also ignored Sirius' comment as he pulled the vial out and handed it to Petunia.
"You have to drink it all," he told her, and she avoided looking at him, or touching him, as she took it from him. Passing the now sleeping baby to me, she began to drink.
Within moments of the glass touching her lips, she began to grow and morph into a spitting image of Sirius Black, in too tight women's clothing.
"Clothes!" I said as I began to usher Petunia upstairs and into a bedroom.
"Sirius, we'll need yours," I heard James from behind me.
"I'll get you something of Arthur's," Molly added.
Petunia and I stepped into a bedroom on the left, which we found full of toys and a cot. This must be Molly's youngest son's room, Ronald. He was around the same age as Harry, I knew. I'd met him a few times through the Order. I placed Dudley in the cot, hoping Molly wouldn't mind.
Petunia and I began to struggle with her clothes, and at first, I thought nothing of it. Then I realised that I was touching a carbon copy of my husband's best friend's body. When there was a knock on the door, I jumped back as quickly as I could to answer it.
"How's it going in there?" James asked with Sirius' clothes in his hand.
"Weird," I replied. Sirius appeared then at the bottom of the stairs and grinned.
"Is that a tattoo..?" I heard Sirius' voice mutter from behind me, but Petunia's condescending tone could not be mistaken. I rolled my eyes. I took the clothes back to Petunia and looked at her.
"If anyone asks you, you need to be convinced you're him. You need to fool anyone that might come looking. Okay?" I asked and she nodded with his head. "So, who are you?"
"I'm Sirius. Sirius," there was a pause. "What's my surname?"
"Black, but you wish it wasn't," Sirius said from the other side of the door as Petunia finished dressing. I opened the door as she finished buttoning up the shirt and James and Sirius walked in.
Sirius walked right up to her so they were less than a foot apart and he grinned. "Merlin, I'm good looking," he said.
"Now's not the time, Padfoot," James said before turning to the Sirius who wasn't acting like, well, Sirius.
"What's your name?" he asked.
"Sirius Black. My name is Sirius Black," my sister said.