"Tell me," she says, voice barely a whisper, "do you believe in fate?"
"No," he replies, uncertain.
A pause, a breath, a shudder, a sob.
"Good," she breathes.

carve the new path
"in life, you need either inspiration, or desperation." -anthony robbins

To James, the beginning was fuzzy, and the pieces of the puzzle never quite fit - to Lily, the story was complicated and opaque, and it seemed like she was quite a bit better off not knowing all the details. What they agreed on, what they all agreed on, is that it started with a nasty mistake made by Sirius, that almost got the whole lot of them killed by Death Eaters.

The last thing James remembered was seeing wide black eyes behind a skull-like mask, hearing the whisper of Avada Kedavra just beginning to form, and the sudden jolt of horror when he realized that his kneecap was shattered, and he could not run.

He woke up in a tent.

"Good morning," a voice said, and he blinked several times. The tent was tall and wide, and he was on a soft, fluffy bed, and he could hear insects outside the canvas and someone groaning off to his left, and the woman looking at him was wholly unfamiliar. She looked exhausted, more than anything else, her ink-dark curls pulled into a messy ponytail and dark circles under her murky eyes.

"Where am I?" he croaked, and tried to sit up, but the woman put a hand - scarred, he noticed, although the full extent of the marks disappeared into her sleeve - on his chest, pushing him back down.

"Don't try to get up yet," she said. "You're still in pretty bad shape."

"You didn't answer - " he started, but she cut him off.

"We're in... Ireland, I think? I didn't set the portkey, you'll have to ask... Evan about that."

"Ireland?" he cried, and then, "Evan? Who is Evan? Who are you? Where is Lily? Sirius!" He scrambled against the woman, trying to escape the woman who was fighting just as hard to keep him in the bed. A blond man bolted in from outside and came over to help her hold him down. Panic - along with the past six months of intensive combat training under Mad-Eye Moody - rose up behind his eyes, and he made a move to roll out from the two strangers fighting with him, but then he knocked his knee against the bed and the resulting shockwave of pain stopped him dead in his tracks. "What's going on?" he shrieked, and now that he wasn't struggling so much, the two people relaxed their hold on him.

"We were - passing by," the woman said, "we saw the failed raid. We came to help you and your friends escape. Unfortunately," she added, a little hesitantly, "none of you were in good shape. The people who could apparate already were, but then the Death Eaters got a ward up, so we had to... improvise."

"You just..." he started, gaping, "happened to be passing by as a pack of Aurors were conducting a raid on a secret Death Eater hideout?" He cast about for his wand in desperation. "I don't buy that for a hot second," he snapped, and then the man did something strange. He took out his own wand and handed it to James.

"Here. Oh, and," he added, walking over to a little shelf that was set up on the other side of the tent, bringing back what looked like the clothes he had been wearing, neatly folded in spite of the tears and the bloodstains, his wand sitting on top of them, "here's yours. And - Jean," he said, voice jerking slightly on her name, "why don't you give him your wand, too?" She did so, eyes strikingly blank. "There. You've got all the power."

The man took a seat on a little stool beside his bed, and leaned on his knees. "We're not lying to you. I promise you that - we won't ever lie to you."

James stared at him uncertainly, and looked around the tent for more information. On the other side of the man lay Sirius, ghostly-pale, on another bed, and on the other side of Sirius, Frank Longbottom was also asleep. "So," he began, "let me get this straight. You were just... passing by, and you decided to jump in and save us, and now you're... taking care of us in some tent somewhere in... Ireland?"

The man and the woman - Jean? Was that her name - glanced at each other. "More or less," Jean replied. "It's... complicated. We knew about the Death Eaters, and... we'd been... well, watching the hideout for a while."

"Why were you...?" James asked, trailing off in confusion. Jean wouldn't meet his eyes.

"It's our job," she said.

"No," James countered, laughing a bit at the absurdity of all of this, "no, I'm pretty sure that's my job. Or, will be, when I finish my mentorship. You're not Aurors," he continued, still laughing, but not in humor, "it's not your job to fight Death Eaters."

"No," the man replied, "it isn't. We're on a different kind of mission."

"Oh?" James prompted, raising an eyebrow. "Do tell."

"It's classified," the man answered immediately, "for now, at least. Suffice it to say, our job involved being there."

"And what job is that?"

"We can't tell you that," he replied in his strange monotone. He glanced to Jean, but her blank eyes gave nothing away.

"You said you wouldn't lie to me. You promised, didn't you?" he challenged, propping himself up on his elbow. "So tell me the truth."

"I can't," the man said. "And I never said I would tell you everything, just that I wouldn't lie. The truth is: I can't tell you what my job is."

"Fine," James said, scowling. "What's your name, then? And when can I go home to my fiance?"

"Evan," the man replied shortly, "and as soon as you and your friends are well enough."

"We aren't really healers," Jean admitted, sighing. "But we've got plenty of field experience," she added with a melancholy smile. "We'll get you fixed up all right, don't worry, but it'll take a little time. A week or so, at the most, I would guess."

"A week," James repeated. "And you can't just take us to St. Mungo's because...?"

They glanced at each other, and then Jean sighed. "Officially, we don't exist. We can't go around in public. That's... the next thing." She winced. "You didn't see us, all right? You can play the hero if you like, claim that you grabbed - your friends," she said, like she was correcting herself mentally, "and whisked them away until all three of you were well enough to apparate."

"So if you don't exist," he began, "where'd this mission come from?"

"We can't tell you that," they both replied at the same time, monotonous voices in perfect unison. It was downright eerie. James growled.

"All right, then, who do you report to? The minister?"

"Dumbledore," Evan answered curtly. "Although he doesn't know it yet."

"You realize how suspicious you sound, right?"

Evan raised an eyebrow. "You've still got our wands, and your own. Trust me when I tell you that my very last intention is to hurt you, your family, or your friends in any way, shape, or form, for any reason."

That, James thought, was an awfully specific promise. "Right," he said, making up his mind not to trust this guy - or his creepy friend - at all. "So, this mission is just the two of you, running around with a giant tent, watching Death Eaters, and... playing nursemaid?" On second thought, maybe they weren't secretly plotting to kill him. Maybe they were just insane.

"There's one more with us," Jean said, and her voice was strangely cold. "He's on lookout right now. His name is Roland."

"Lookout?"

Jean nodded. "We've got plenty of wards set up to hide us, but it's good to have someone watching out anyway."

"That's a bit... paranoid," he said uncertainly, and Jean smiled weakly.

"Yes, well," was all she said to that. He peered at the two of his keepers - they both looked like all the life had been plucked straight out from behind their eyes, like their souls had been murdered and left to hang over their heads like a sword of Damocles. If he hadn't heard them speak, he might have thought they'd gotten a kiss or two from a dementor. And they didn't sound evil, just tired and empty and completely broken.

He couldn't pin down their ages; the haggard pallor on their faces was undoubtedly aging them. Still, they couldn't be more than twenty or so - what could possibly have happened to make people so young look so shattered?

There was something vaguely familiar about Evan, but it was hard to figure out; Jean was an enigma entirely. She might have been pretty, if she didn't look like she'd spent the last year or so in Azkaban - her cheeks were hollow and her eyes too large for her face, a muddy green that probably would have been enchanting if they didn't seem to be so empty. Her lips were cracked and reddened and there were red marks around her eyes like she'd been rubbing them angrily for a very long time.

Evan didn't look much nicer than Jean. His eyes, a similar muddy color to Jean's, were slightly redder and puffier like maybe he'd been crying earlier, and his cheeks were rounder, but sagging somewhat, like his skin was just giving up on staying where it was. His hair was a dirty blond but his eyelashes were dark, and it looked like he hadn't really taken care of himself in a while.

He'd been sitting in silence - barring the near-continuous low groaning coming from Sirius - with the Creepy Twins for the better part of five minutes, and the awkwardness was just starting to really dig in, when the third member of their party slunk in through the tent flap. Jean looked at him and nodded. "My turn for guard duty," she said, and stood up, smoothing her strikingly clean skirt out with meticulously-kept hands, and then swept out of the tent.

The third Creepy Twin was less creepy than the others, but that might have been because he looked slightly healthier. He was taller than either of the others, and though his black hair and freckled skin made him look a bit sickly, his eyes were the only ones that seemed to have any life left in them. "So, you're awake," he said, taking Jean's now-free seat. "How d'you feel?"

"Confused," James replied, and the man - what had Jean said his name was? - smirked.

"Yeah, I get that," he muttered, and stuck his hand out. "Call me Roland," he said, and James shook his hand. It was surprisingly strong and calloused for someone who looked only slightly less dead than his companions.

"Roland," he repeated. "Got it. I'm James."

"Yup," Roland replied, nodding, and then winced as Evan shot him a look. "You didn't say anything to him, I take it?"

"No, but I guess now I don't have a choice," Evan growled, a bit sourly. Roland shrugged.

"You know who I am?" James asked, trying to sit up again and glaring at Evan. "How?"

"It's part of our job," he replied, "to know things."

"That's a great explanation, Ev," Roland said, clapping sardonically. "You really nailed that one."

And then James realized why Roland seemed more alive than the other two - Jean and Evan had given up, but Roland was angry. "I guess you can't tell me the details, huh?" he mused, and Evan nodded sharply. "So, your job entails being at Death Eater hideouts and also knowing things. What sorts of things?"

"All sorts," Roland replied, waving a hand. "We know lots of things."

"We can't give you details," Evan said between clenched teeth, glaring at Roland, who merely shrugged again.

"Whatever, you're the boss," he said, and muttered something under his breath, but James couldn't tell what. "I'm gonna go out and bird-watch with Jean. Call me if anything interesting happens," he added, and stalked out of the tent.

"So what crawled up his arse and died?" James asked conversationally, and then caught himself. "No, let me rephrase that. What crawled up all your arses and died?"

Evan looked at him with hollow eyes, and said, "The world."

Sirius woke up, vaguely aware that there was a rhino sitting on his chest and something with claws trying to get out of his throat. He tried to speak, but all that came out was, "Blughth." Luckily, someone heard this and interpreted it to mean, "Water, please, and any opiates you happen to have on your person."

"Hello, Sirius," an unfamiliar voice said, and tilted his head up to let him drink. The water had a bitter aftertaste, and he thought for a horrible second that he was in the clutches of the Death Eaters, but then the pain lessened some - no Death Eater would ever give him a painkiller. Wincing and coughing against the terrible-tasting thing he'd just been given, he managed to open his eyes.

He was in a... tent? A woman with black hair and muddy eyes was looking at him and holding a cup in her hand. "How is that? Do you need more?" she asked, and he nodded. She helped him take another deep drink, and when it had had time to kick in, he was aware enough to speak.

"Who are you?" he croaked, and she smiled tightly.

"Jean," she replied. "Don't worry, you're safe."

Well aware that "safe" was always a relative term, he struggled into a half-sitting position and looked around the room he was in. Sure enough, it was a tent, with four beds in a row against one canvas wall. On his left was James, a magazine over his face from where he had apparently fallen alseep while reading it - which was good, since it meant that he'd been awake at some point - and on his right was Frank Longbottom, who looked about as cheerful as Sirius felt, but was also awake, so he was willing to tentatively accept Jean's theory that they were safe. "Where am I?" he asked, but Frank snorted.

"Don't even try, mate," he said coldly. "They won't tell us anything."

"Why not?"

"We can't," Jean answered sympathetically. "It's a very long story. Once you're well enough to travel, we'll get you back to your homes and families, all right?"

Frank sneered at this, clearly not trusting Jean even as far as he could throw her, but Sirius was too woozy from the pain and the painkillers to be hostile. Vaguely, he was glad that he had been rescued, even if the circumstances were curious at best. Waking up stuck in a tent with a strange woman who insisted that she couldn't tell them anything was still miles and miles better than waking up in Voldemort's clutches. "Sure, yeah," he replied airily, and then glanced at James. "He's okay, yeah?"

Jean nodded. "He is. He woke up before either of you did, and he's in much better condition as well."

"Good," Sirius said, and then Frank growled. Oh, right, he thought, Frank was his Mentor - and Sirius wasn't exactly acting like the epitome of Auror training right about now. "Come off it, Frank, we're alive, aren't we?"

"Doesn't mean you can relax. We don't know we can trust these people."

"Please," Jean said evenly, "take my word for it. James has my wand - and Evan's, as well."

Something within Sirius stirred - how did she know James's name? And who was Evan? And why would anyone give their wand to someone they'd never met before? And then he recalled that she'd greeted him by name when he'd woken up. "How d'you know our names?" he asked, and Frank snorted again.

"She won't tell us that, either," Frank said coldly. "Just that it's her job to know."

"What are you, an Unspeakable or something?" Sirius asked, slightly aware that she wouldn't be able to say yes even if it was true.

"No," she replied, "but I have an important mission. You and James are... part of it, in a way."

"Oh? First I've heard of it."

"I know."

"Care to elaborate?"

"No," she answered curtly. "I'm sorry, but I can't, not right now. When you're well enough to travel, we'll take you back to your homes, and then we have to speak to Dumbledore. Then," she added, sounding exhausted, "we'll be able to tell you more."

"Fair enough," Sirius replied, and heard Frank splutter beside him. Frank was an excellent Auror, partly because he was so anal-retentive it was a wonder that anything escaped the gravitational pull of his arse, and Frank didn't like anything that he didn't understand in full. Sirius, meanwhile, listened to his gut more than his head and his gut said that Jean wasn't out to hurt him. "Look, Frank," he started, knowing that he'd probably be looking at a monster of a write-up after this was over, "it makes sense. She's on a mission that she can't tell us about until she briefs her leader about it. What would you do if I went around talking about a mission before I'd told you all the details?"

He knew the answer: eviscerate him, and then string his remains up for display in the Auror Headquarters. Frank scowled. "I don't trust her."

"So don't," Sirius responded. "Just keep your mouth shut and your wand trained on her and if she does anything funny, hex her and you can make fun of me for it for the rest of my life. If she doesn't," he continued, and shrugged, "then we were fine anyway. And we can say that we didn't take any unnecessary risks and that you had the 'keeping her in line' thing in the bag the whole way. Sound good?" he asked, to both Frank and Jean. Jean smiled genuinely, and it looked like she hadn't done so in a long time.

"It's all right if you don't trust me," she said, her voice distant, "but I'm not going to hurt you."

"See?" Sirius said, waving a hand, and immediately regretted it as pain shot up his shoulder. "Oh, God," he groaned, and Jean winced.

"Don't worry - " she started, and Sirius gave her an incredulous look.

"Don't worry? My arm's about to fall off!"

"No, it isn't," she said, and laughed just a little bit. "Your shoulder was dislocated. We relocated it and used a few basic healing spells to make sure it healed cleanly. It's going to hurt for a while, though, but it's fine."

Sirius sighed, and touched his shoulder gently. Now that he knew, he could tell that it wasn't in any real danger - the shock of the sudden pain had been nasty, but he'd had his shoulder dislocated before, so it wasn't all that bad. "You couldn't just heal it normally?" he asked. The Aurors had a rule about never going anywhere without at least one member of the raiding party trained in medicine, and he would have thought that the Unspeakables, or whoever had sent Jean on this mission, would have had something similar.

"None of us are healers," she replied gently, and he wished suddenly that Macdonald - his party's healer - was there. Thinking of Macdonald drew his thoughts to the rest of his group, and he almost jolted out of bed.

"The rest of the party!" he cried, startling Jean, "Where are they? Did they get captured?"

"No," Frank and Jean said at the same time, and then Frank scowled at Jean until she let him speak. "They got away. James and I both were going for you to help you apparate out when we got struck, and then..." he trailed off, still scowling.

"And then we stepped in," Jean finished for him. "We had surprise on our side, and it gave us enough time to get the three of you to safety."

Sirius, regardless of what his professors at school had muttered under their breath, was not stupid. Unspeakables weren't the sort of people who could - let alone ever would - rush in to save a bunch of Aurors who had mucked up their own mission royally, even if they were, for some unfathomable reason, also watching the same Death Eater hideout that they had been watching. And they had proved that even a pack of (mostly) well-trained Aurors couldn't penetrate the hideout's defenses and get out without severe casualty - so how had this woman and her unknown accomplices managed to do so?

She wasn't an Unspeakable, that was for sure, and he knew she wasn't an Auror - but she clearly had field training. Whatever her mission was, she'd been on it for a while, and he wondered how long she'd been hiding in this tent, gathering the information that she needed to share with Dumbledore. Judging from her haggard appearance, it had to have been a while. Also, he was reasonably sure that he hadn't gone to Hogwarts with her, although it was certainly possible, he thought he would probably recognize her if he had.

"How?" Frank was asking - no, demanding - "They set up an anti-apparition ward."

"We have portkeys," she replied, "that we can activate with a special spell. You've heard of such things, right?"

Yes, he had, but that just made things more confusing. That sort of charm wasn't taught anywhere, except to the highest-ranked Aurors, due to the danger inherent if the wrong kind of person knew about it, and when you couldn't tell the difference between a Death Eater and a friend, it paid to be paranoid.

"Well," she continued, when Frank nodded, "we have several of them, and they all lead to... remote places. We activated one to help you escape."

But then, he mused, glancing at Jean, that took paranoia to a whole new level. He doubted even Mad-Eye Moody would go that far - maybe he'd have one portkey set up like that, but several? He made a mental note to remember that tactic, because it was a damn good idea - his superiors would be impressed. (And then he remembered that his immediate superior was sitting on the bed next to him, listening to the same damn good idea, and he sighed.) "That's a bit paranoid, don't you think?" he asked, but Jean shrugged and Frank only looked uncertain.

"That's a pretty rare spell," Frank said. "How did you find out about it?"

"Hours and hours of research in the dead of the night," she replied with a weak smile.

"Because it's your job to know?" Sirius inferred, but Jean shook her head.

"No. It's the prerequisite to my job, to be able to find or create any spell that we might need."

"Alone?" Frank asked incredulously. "We have a whole committee devoted to that."

Jean sighed. "Not quite alone. Evan and Roland help some, but they have their own duties, and, well," she added with a wan smile, "they aren't very good at it anyway."

"What are their duties?" Sirius asked, making it sound as innocent as he could.

"Evan is our leader, and Roland's the tactician," she answered. "I'm the researcher."

"And the healer?" Sirius asked - it was a basic set-up for any serious kind of mission: at least one person to plan the mission, one person to lead the mission, one person to learn everything about the target of the mission, and one person to make sure that everyone else stayed in one piece until the mission was over. Jean had apparently heard this set-up, but she looked at him with haunted eyes.

"She didn't make it," Jean said, and Sirius's heart fell - there were four beds, but three people here. That explained at least some of the paranoia. They'd already lost one of their number, and Sirius knew that watching a friend die would make anyone jump at shadows for at least a while afterward.

"I'm sorry," Frank murmured, looking distinctly less hostile than he had before. Mutual suffering could make any two people friends, and both Sirius and Frank recognized at least some of the ghosts behind Jean's eyes. And, well, she and her friends had saved their lives. Whatever that was worth in this climate, when darkness prowled the streets and the whole world was paralyzed at the thought of a name - it meant, at least, that they were allies.

"Wasn't your doing," she replied bluntly.

A/N: I debated for a long time about whether or not to post this for the public, but I eventually decided to go ahead and do it. As a fair warning, updates on this will be slow. It is not one of my top priorities, but the story idea has been lingering in my head for, jeez, years and years now and I finally decided to give it a shot. Can you guess where it's going? It'll become obvious soon enough, but there's a lot going on here that isn't what it seems to be. Tell me what you think! I'm very nervous about this, since it's quite a bit more ambitious than anything else I've written, and I'm a bit rusty on my Harry Potter.