"James Potter, there is a very real possibility that I will kill you," Lily snapped, grabbing the hideous bed sheets out of his hands and tossing them back onto the shelf.
James grinned at her as he made to reach for another, equally atrocious, set. Lily watched as his fingers slowly closed around the package depicting a horrific floral print, complete with over sized bees smiling as they flew around from flower to flower.
"Actually," Lily said, narrowing her eyes dangerously at James, "those will probably look good on the couch, where you'll be sleeping once I move in."
James rolled his eyes and dropped the offensive sheets and instead grabbed a set of blue striped ones instead. "Happy now?"
Lily ignored him and grabbed two matching pillow cases in response.
They were on their first official shopping trip to find things to turn James' flat into their flat, and so far, it wasn't going well. Actually, it was going wonderfully for James. It was Lily who was not enjoying herself nearly as much.
A week before, they had a meeting with Dumbledore where he assigned them a mission going undercover in the Ministry. Lily had originally thought it would be boring, but soon found that nothing was ever boring when sharing a cubicle with Sirius Black.
Lily and Sirius were training as Muggle Liaison Officers, while James and Peter were working in the mail room. James, of course, had scoffed at his lowly assignment until Peter pointed out to him that they handled every piece of mail that came into or left the building. This revelation pacified him a little, but he was still unhappy with the situation.
While James and Peter sorted mail and screened suspected death eaters, Lily and Sirius were in their shared cubical alphabetizing reports of children falling out of trees or third story windows and bouncing back up into the air.
"How this," Lily muttered one morning, waving her hand over the work surface that was scattered with folders of various colors, each indicating something different, "is going to stop Death Eaters from invading, I'll never know."
Sirius had shrugged and put down his coffee mug a little too aggressively, sending the hot, dark brown liquid splashing out, staining the myriad of folders covering the desk.
Lily sighed and waved her wand to clear up the mess before going back to reading the file about a small girl, Elizabeth Bloom, age 7, who fell out of a tree house and bounced three times, one time landing neatly in the middle of the road, causing several oncoming cars to slam on the breaks and veer off into the ditch.
Lily pulled her mind away from her order mission though. There she was, shopping with James, who had, admittedly, a more boring position than she did, and he was having a decent time, so why shouldn't she?
Lily looked down in the basket hanging from her arm and checked things off her mental list. New sheets? Check. New towels? Check. Purple picture frame embossed with the phrase World's Hottest Wizard? Wait, what?
Lily looked up into the mischievous face of her boyfriend and smiled. "If you buy that," she warned, "I'm going to make you put it on your mail cart."
"But Love, I was buying it for you." James said, slinging an arm over her shoulder. "You spend all that time shut up with Sirius, I don't want you to forget – "
Lily cut him off. "That Sirius is the World's Hottest Wizard? How could I forget something like that?"
James pulled a face and gave her a playful shove. "Miss Evans, one day you'll see the error in your ways."
"Hopefully for you, Mr. Potter, I'll be old and gray before I realized I should have dated Sirius instead of you."
Time seemed to pass too quickly for Lily's taste. Her days became a blur of rushing to the ministry, trudging through monotonous busy work with Sirius, and then rushing home to write in that stupid journal for Dumbledore.
When Lily woke up one Friday morning a few days after her shopping trip with James, she felt like she was repeating a day she had already lived several times. She woke up and rushed to London, wishing she had her belongings packed so she could finally move in with James. She ran to her shared cubical where Sirius was always waiting for her with a cup of coffee and a newspaper.
This day was no different until a strange visitor showed up in the cubical.
Lily had been busy creating a new file for yet another child who showed early signs of magic around nonmagical people. This particular girl was incredibly angry when her sister tried to steal her teddy bear. Naturally, the bear came to life and bit the sister.
The response team had been sent to the girls' home to deal with the situation while Lily and Sirius dealt with the paperwork involved. Of course, not being horribly interested, they were discussing their plans for the weekend when a harried wizard stepped into their cubical and interrupted them.
"What are you doing?" he hissed, nodding down to the folder in Lily's hands. "I'm here for Lily Evans?" he said, this time louder.
Lily and Sirius looked at the man questioningly before Lily finally responded, "I'm Lily…what do you mean?"
"Keep it down," the man growled. "I mean, you need to destroy this paperwork. You need to get rid of all the evidence. If they find out what you're up do…"
"Who?" Sirius asked quickly. "Who is they?"
"I have a message for you, Miss Evans," the man said before hissing, "The Death Eaters .That's why you're here, isn't it? To stop them?"
"How do you know, though, that the death eaters are interested in this four year old girl?" Lily asked, placing the folder back down on the desk warily.
"Look," the man said, gesturing roughly to the tab on the folder. Lily and Sirius both bend forward to inspect the folder.
Realization dawned on Lily and she looked back up at the man who was already heading for the door. "She's muggle born?" She whispered frantically. "What are they going to do to her?"
"Have a lovely day, Miss Evans." The man called as he turned to leave. Before he left, though, he looked over his shoulder at their surprised faces and whispered one more word. "Kill."
Lily and Sirius sat in silence for seconds that seemed to drag on for eternity. Their silence was broken when a sharp knock sounded on the wall of their cubical.
Lily nearly groaned out loud, fearing that the strange man had come back with more strange whisperings. When she looked up she was relieved to see James and Peter peering curiously at the two of them.
Sirius waved them in and cast a quick silencing charm on the cubical. "We need to talk to you," Sirius said as he began pacing back and forth.
"What's wrong?" Peter asked, watching as Sirius moved back and forth across the tiny cubical. "What's going on?"
Lily sighed and then started to explain their encounter with the strange man. "Have you seen or heard of anything like this?" she asked, once she had finished her explanation.
Peter shook his head immediately, but James thought for on it for a few seconds. "Do you think," James began, "this is what they were trying to do? Do you think that they were trying to kill all of the muggle borns before they even make it to Hogwarts?"
"They can't go to school if they're dead," Sirius said glumly, finally sitting down in his chair.
"What are we going to do about this? The man said we had to cover this up. Destroy the evidence." Lily said.
"That parts easy," Peter said, pulling out his wand. He muttered a spell under his breath and the file burst into flames. He muttered another spell and they were extinguished, leaving behind a small pile of ashes that he vanished.
"Someone needs to write this down in the journal. Did anyone bring it today? Dumbledore needs to know what's going on, but we can't go to him or they'll know we know." Sirius said, looking around at the others.
"I have mine," James offered, "but I'm not staying here to write in it. I'm going with you to the girl's house."
"What do you mean," Lily asked sharply. "Why are you going to the house?"
"Don't you see? We have to! We have to go and save that girl. For all we know, they're already there torturing the poor girl and her family."
Lily sighed and then snatched the journal out of his hands. "I suppose that means you expect me to stay here and take care of this?"
"It's important. Dumbledore needs to know." Sirius said, handing her a quill.
She glared at the three boys and said, "That's great. You three are all going off to die, Remus is god knows where, and I'll be left here writing in my diary like a five year old. Just fabulous."
James offered a small smile, which Lily refused to return, and said, "Don't worry Love, we'll be back."
Lily waved them off and opened the journal just as Sirius undid the silencing charm around the cubical. "Have a lovely lunch," Lily called after them. She sighed and began writing furiously in James's work journal.
"Miss Evans?"
Lily looked up from her scribbling to see the same wizard from before hovering in her doorway.
"Yes?" she asked, not sure what she was supposed to think She had never met this man before in her life, and he burst into her office to tell her she needed to help cover something up.
"We need to speak with you."
Two wizards she hadn't noticed before stepped out from behind him. The hairs on the back of Lily's next stood up as she watched them move towards her. "I suggest you come with us by choice," one of the two wizards added.
"Of…of course," Lily said, clambering to stand up, nearly knocking over her chair in the process. She tried to discretely hide the journal under another stack of papers, but she wasn't fast enough.
"We'll take that," the third man said, snatching it up off of the desk. Lily took a deep breath and followed the men to a small room down the hall from her cubical.
"Can I ask what this is all about?" Lily asked, looking nervously between the three faces.
"Let's not get ahead of ourselves," the original man said, shutting the door behind her. She could hear the lock click as she was pushed down into a hard, plastic chair. "My name is Dennis, and these two men, my colleagues, are Charles and Wesley."
Lily shifted in her seat. "Nice to meet you, gentlemen. Could you tell me why you've taken me out of my cubical and into this…room?"
"I think you know why, Miss Evans." The shortest of the men, Wesley, said. "Why don't you tell us why you're here."
"Well, I was just writing in my journal on my lunch break. You lot stormed into my office and told me it would be wise not to struggle. Here we are. Let's hear your version, shall we?" Lily asked, smiling up at the man from her seat in the uncomfortable chair.
"Don't be smart, Evans. You know exactly why you're here. There are some spies in the ministry. I think you're one of them." Wesley said, wiping the smile off of her face.
Lily looked between the men once again, as though sizing them up. Charles, clearly, was the most uncomfortable with the situation. He kept looking over his shoulder towards the door.
"Spies, you say, " Lily said, trying to play it cool. "What kind of spies?"
"Why don't you tell us?" Dennis sneered, leaning down over her shoulder and making her skin crawl. "You are one of them, aren't you?"
"A spy? Heavens no," Lily laughed, but it was a hollow sounding laugh. She hoped they wouldn't notice. "I'm just so excited to have a job here at the ministry."
"We saw your file," Charles said, finally speaking up. "You applied for every position in the ministry except this one. How did you manage to get it?"
Lily shrugged. "It's all in who you know, isn't it? A friend of a friend recommended me for the position. It wasn't necessary for me to apply yet again. I mean, you guys saw how many times I tried." Lily moved to put her arms up on the table top, but Charles, the jumpiest, whipped his wand out and bound her to the chair.
"Hey," Lily said, nodding down the ropes. "What did I do to deserve this? I answered your questions. I want to go!"
"You're not going anywhere, Evans. We think there are some Death Eaters infiltrating the ministry and we think you're one of them. You better prove us wrong, and fast." Dennis said, once more leaning over her shoulder. This time Lily couldn't move so that his fetid breath didn't touch her neck and shoulder.
"I'm not a Death Eater, you morons. I'm a muggle born. You seem to know everything else about me, surely you would know that."
Lily watched as the two men, Wesley and Charles made some sort of gesture to Dennis, who was still hovering close behind her. She was so angry with herself. Why didn't she fight to go along with the boys when they left? She had been so worried about them leaving, she didn't even realize it would be dangerous to stay behind.
"That doesn't prove anything," Dennis whispered. "That doesn't prove anything."
Lily swallowed and fought back the tears. Did these men really think she was a Death Eater?
A/N: Hello! I'm so, so sorry this has taken so long. I know this is sort of a cliff hanger, but I'm already halfway through the next chapter so I'm thinking you'll have it next weekend :)
Next time, on Moving… We find out the answers to these questions: Who the hell is Dennis and why is he so damn creepy? Where did Remus go, and is he ever coming home? What is going to happen to James, Sirius, and Peter?