The sun shone wearily through the uncovered and dirty window panes of the old creaking house. The floorboards groaned under the couples' weight and they entered through the back door. At least an inch of dust covered every surface of the decrepit house and as the pair breathed new life into the stale and stagnant air of the place, dust particles began to waft harmlessly through the air—or seemingly so.
The woman sneezed. The man turned to her with a look of concern in his eyes.
"I promise we will have the place cleaned up in no time for the two of you—or soon to be so, two of you. I'm sorry, Lily. This is all my fault…"
The woman stopped his blabbering with a hand on his arm.
"It's alright, James. We'll be fine—all of us. And don't blame yourself for all this," she said, waving her arm around and causing more of the dust-coated surfaces to give off more of their particulates. "It's just as much my fault as it is yours. We both had a part in this whole fiasco, we both fought him, we both angered him. It just so happens that we're also married. Don't worry. We'll be fine. I'm sure that fixing this old place up will keep us more than busy until the baby arrives. Just don't blame yourself, James. We all had a part in this. And if it takes hiding away for a few months to bring him down, I'd say it's worth it. Not just for us, but for our child as well." This last statement she said with a hand splayed on top of her growing baby bump, the other hand reaching for his.
Another sneeze from the damsel brought them out of their reverie. The man let go of her hand, turned, and dragged a large, heavy trunk off the back porch and through the worn back door.
"I'll just take these upstairs, alright? Can't have you lifting heavy things, and remember, we can't use magic for a few days to ensure our hiding place is properly sealed."
Lily looked up from her place by the bay window, gazing out onto the heavily overgrown backyard. She smiled lightly and nodded her head.
Hours later, Lily sat across the newly cleared table from James, a two plates and a vase of flowers in between them. Lily gazed at her husband in a concerned matter. The man in question sat with his head hung, elbows resting on the table and face resting on his open palms. Like any good wife, Lily knew the reason for her husband's inner turmoil, but she could not understand it.
The past few months had been tough, what with Voldemort on the rise and Lily's pregnancy and James' all-consuming job as an Auror. But they had fought their way through, just as they always had. Until that night, when it all went wrong…
Humming, Lily brought out her keys to open the door to her flat as she climbed the last stair to their level. James was coming home tonight after his month-long mission for the Order and she had a special meal planned for him and everything.
But as she unlocked the door to their flat, Lily immediately took in the scene before her. Papers strewn all over every flat surface in the place. Books were thrown about, opened like birds who died mid-flight. Chairs lay overturned and plates lay shattered all over the kitchen. Lily frowned. She noticed no disturbance of the spells carefully laid upon the door for their protection. Nothing seemed quite out of place until she saw the inside.
But puzzled and frazzled as she was, Lily calmly turned around and followed Order protocol. Stepping quickly over the mess near the door, she step foot back into the hallway and firmly closed the door behind her. Closing her eyes, she recalled the moment when James proposed and the day they were married, the look on her husband's face when she told him she was pregnant… and then she cast her spell and a silvery doe emerged from the tip of her wand.
"To Dumbledore," she ordered it. And when it had sprinted down the stairwell and into the night, the woman turned and was gone with a pop. Apparating to just outside headquarters, Lily dashed down the street to the proper gate and, following the steps for entrance, at last stepped through the front doorway… and into pandemonium.
The whole place was in an uproar. Blood everywhere, shouts everywhere, and not a spare piece of floor space anywhere. In fact, if it hadn't been for Alice grabbing her arm at the last second, Lily would probably have been pushed straight back out the door and into the street again.
"Lily, thank goodness you're here! We didn't know what happened to you! Knightley and MacDoogal were at your flat just over an hour ago and they said it was completely destroyed. We thought you were taken! Oh, thank God, Lily!" the woman sobbed, as she threw her arms around the redhead's neck and clung to her. "I don't know what I'd do without you!"
"Alice, I'm alright. But what the heck happened? Where's James, has he gotten back yet?"
Alice looked up. "Yeah," she replied as she dabbed away her tears. "They just got back a little while ago. Who else could cause such chaos, right?" she smiled through her tears. "They took the two of them upstairs a while ago. Second room on the right, I think. You'd better go before they tell him they can't find you…"
But the rest of her words were drowned out as one voice was heard above all the rest—"WHAT?! WHAT DO YOU MEAN, 'CAN'T FIND HER'?!"
Hearing the dulcet tone of her husband once more, Lily elbowed her way through the crowd to the staircase, which she took two at a time in her hurry. Following the continued screaming, Lily threw herself at the offending door, and fell right through into the arms of her battered, but safe, James.
"Lily!" he gasped as he caught her and hugged her to his chest. "Oh, Lily I was so worried!"
Glaring at the messenger over Lily's flaming hair, the man smiled guiltily at his mistake and slowly backed towards the door and into the hallway.
"James, what the heck is going on?! What happened? And why are there so many people injured downstairs?!" Lily demanded.
"Oh, Lily. They found out. They found out and they attacked and I had no choice… they knew, Lily, they knew! And I couldn't stop them! And when I heard they attacked the apartment…" James paused. "You're okay now, but it's all my fault. I should have been there to protect us, to protect you. I'll never let it happen again! Never!"
A knock sounded on the door, breaking up the couple's reunion. Alice poked her head around the corner. "Meeting in five, you two. We have to discuss our options."
It was then that the Order decided to hide James and Lily away. It took a while for them to find a place for them, so the couple stayed at Order Headquarters for until they did. And that was how they had arrived at this "godforsaken dump" as James had so eloquently dubbed it. And James had put the entire fault for the whole scare upon his shoulders—because even magic couldn't put him in two places at once, because no amount of convincing by Lily could make him believe that it wasn't his fault at all.