A/N: Thank you for the reviews! We're having a lot of fun with this; let us know if you're enjoying it as much as we are :)

Dawn came earlier than usual that morning, or at least that's what it felt like to the two bleary-eyed trainee aurors standing outside Alastor Moody's office waiting in line for their portkey. They could hear faint snatches of conversation as it filtered through the door.

"...and remember to apply lots of sunscreen Longbottom, our British skin is just not made for the Jamaican sun," came Moody's gruff yet doting voice for his favourite trainee.

"Yes, and we'll take special care to remember what you said about those vicious canaries sir," said Frank Longbottom quite seriously.

"Those nasty buggers, they're the reason I lost my eye," grumbled Moody.

Lily and James had stopped looking at each other in disbelief as every auror team before them had had these ridiculous conversations with Moody about the truly exotic places that they would complete their assignments in.

They heard the now familiar wrenching noise of the portkey and knew that Frank and Alice were already in Jamaica slathering on sun screen by the time they heard Moody call out, "Potter, Evans...get in here."

They made their way into his office, hoping for a pep talk but received nothing more than an acknowledging nod and two thick jackets made from some sort of dead woolly animal thrust at them.

"Now, we don't have much time, my last meeting might have gone a little longer than usual. But your portkey is scheduled to leave in two minutes. Stay alert in Boloxisnom, there are no known dark wizards there, it is however, their winter and that might be an even more dangerous hazard. This portkey might not land exactly where it's meant to, you might be thrown off by a few kilometers, as I couldn't get the exact co-ordinates. In case you do get lost, this is a picture of the inn you will be staying at, I cannot pronounce the name and I am not going to try. You will meet a translator there and you will receive your assignment instructions daily by owl."

Their portkey had begun to glow and pulse in Moody's hand indicating that Lily and James' time in Britain was drawing to a close. Moody barked out one final remark as he handed them the rubber ducky portkey, "Stay vigilant at all times!"

"Constant vigilance? Got it!" said James as he stared deeply into the eyes of the unblinking rubber ducky. He felt a jerk from his behind navel and his world began to spin.

In the Head Auror's office Alastor Moody sat, musing. "Constant vigilance," he muttered to himself, "a good motto to have for the aurors and its even kind of catchy..."

xxxx

WHUMP!

The cold hit James like a snowbank. Actually, it WAS a snowbank. He found himself unceremoniously dumped, robes over his head and definitely upside down in the biggest pile of snow he had ever seen.

He spluttered as he tried to get the fluffy white stuff out of his mouth and started groping around for his glasses that he had lost in the snow.

"Get your hands off my bottom, you tosser," shrilled Lily as she whacked him over the head.

"Then bloody help me find my glasses Evans," he hissed at her, rubbing his head, only to find his glasses painfully entangled in his hair.

"Moody is rubbish at portkeys," he grumbled as he fixed his glasses on his face and began to wade out of the snow bank blasting snow everywhere with his wand to clear a path, and leaving Lily behind.

"Wait for me you wanker, my bags are missing under all of this snow," said Lily, stopping him in his tracks.

"Evans, you are a witch aren't you? Summon them!" said James as he walked away grumbling and muttering 'diffindo!' at the snow as it exploded out of his way.

They had been walking for exactly twenty seven minutes on a rural snow covered road (hardly a road though and more of a goat path) when Lily sat down on the side of the road and told James she was giving up and that they should just try to go home now.

"Look, Evans..." he reconsidered what would have been a reprimand when he saw how miserable she looked sniffling on the side of the frozen road, huddled in Moody's abnormally large fur jacket. Her nose was an abnormally bright shade of red and her face flushed was from exhaustion from hauling her three large trunks.

"Er look, Lily. This isn't going to be some easy-peasy theory assignment that you can study for and logic out the situation; this is the real thing. This is what we've been in training for. We've come this far there's no point in going home now. Yes, we are lost in a foreign country and yes the only civilization we have seen has been three goats and a scarecrow but this is only our first setback and we have to keep going or we're going to freeze our little bums off. And from what I've experienced today, it would be a shame to lose a bum like yours to frostbite."

Lily snorted and rubbed her eyes. She sighed, dragged herself up, punched James lightly, and began trudging along with him again. He hummed tunelessly and she joined in, finding that it made her feel better.

Another twenty-seven minutes later and they found themselves on the outskirts of a very small village. They could smell the wood fires of the chimneys before they could see the rural cottages. Boloxisnom was a depressing sight: whatever wasn't covered in snow was covered in soot or smelled of boiled cabbage.

They held up the picture of the inn that Moody had given them and compared it to the building in the centre of the village. It was definitely their inn and it was easily the tallest building around. A full two floors. The inn had a look of general disrepair and possessed a very untidy front yard, littered with all sorts of odd broken machinery.

The sign that hung outside the inn has swinging and creaking in the harsh Boloxisnom wind and it was quite difficult to read what it said until they got closer. They trudged towards the centre of the village and managed to make it to the inn with Lily only tripping once over some stray logs of wood.

They stood in front of the inn and looked up at the sign. Lily gasped and turned bright pink while James chuckled and shook his head. Though they realized the name of the inn was Boloxisnomian, they couldn't believe how incredibly rude the name seemed to an English speaker!

Outside the inn on a bench sat a man in a large furry jacket and an abnormally large furry hat, with his head in his hands. He looked up at them and his face broke out into a smile. "Ah, you are the English, yes? I feared you had been eaten by our goats!" said the man with a very thick and indistinguishable accent. James supposed the man was maybe in his early twenties and from the devilish look on his face, quite the ladies man as well.
'Good,' thought James, ' at least I will have someone to be my wingman in this frigid wasteland.'

"Come, come inside. You look greatly tired. I am Yegor, your translator," as he shook hands with Lily and James, "I live in village and I will be your guide. I am greatest English speaker in Boloxisnom!" He jangled a large ring of keys in their faces and said excitedly, "Come, I lock you in!"

xxxx

Lily's eyes widened in terror and she looked desperately towards James, who looked perplexed but not too worried. James started off after the very handsome man whose dark, furry hat was bobbing along in sharp contrast to the blindingly white snow, and Lily had no choice but to follow them.

Her anxiety at Yegor's comments faded as her hands and toes began to warm up as they stepped into the inn. They found themselves in a cramped and dimly lit foyer. It turned out that looks weren't that deceiving, the inn looked just as bad from the inside as it did from the outside.

Yegor lead the way up the narrow, dark stairwell and down a darker hallway that had dust piling up in the corners. Lily couldn't help but notice the elegant way Yegor moved under his bulky coat, like a trained fighter. Yegor, moved to the side, opened the first door on the landing and smiled at her and said, "Lady, your bed." She looked at him from beneath her eyelashes and returned his smile shyly. The moment was ruined when a cold gust of icy air swept through the doorway.

"What in Merlin's name...?" Lily exclaimed and was too shocked to say anything further. One of the walls of the bedroom had fallen inwards and covered most of her bed in rubble.

After a moment Lily found her voice, "I can't sleep on that! There's... there's...a wall on it!"

Yegor looked mildly surprised but was clearly not in the same degree of shock that Lily and James were experiencing. "Yes, well," he sighed, shutting the door and shooing Lily and James back down the hallway a bit, "sometimes wall gets tired and have to lie down." He put a different key into the lock in the next door, and wiggled it. It wouldn't open. So he wiggled it some more.

Lily started to get concerned, "Do you think these are their only rooms?" she whispered to James.

"Dunno," James replied helpfully.

"Do you think they'll send us to a nicer hotel?" she whispered. Yegor, unfortunately, had heard her.

"This is best room in Boloxisnom! First – star living!" he replied, and the lock gave way with a loud "clunk" and he swung the door open.

This room had all of its walls standing more or less straight up. It even had a small, attached bathroom, a single shelf, and a tiny and rather uncomfortable looking bed. James marched up the shelf, took the rubber ducky (a portkey, no longer) out of his pocket, and set him on the shelf. "Ah, a home for Duck."

Lily smiled: that had been kind of cute, despite the fact that it was James.

"Ok! Sleep together!" Yegor said, handing the key to James, who looked mildly horrified at the suggestion. James took the key and headed back across the room towards the shelf and began unpacking. Lily noticed Yegor eying James up and down in a familiar way… a way she had seen Sirius eying pretty girls at Hogwarts.

"Oh, bollocks!" Lily exclaimed as she connected the dots in her head. Both men turned to her, questioningly, and she flushed red. She hadn't meant to say it out loud, but she was disappointed. The only man aside from James she's seen in hours turns out to be gay. He didn't move with the grace of a trained fighter, he was a...a trained dancer!

"I mean… I haven't got a bed?" she asked trying to cover up for herself. It seemed to satisfy the curiosity of James and the translator, and Yegor waved his wand around absently.

"Ah! Yes! Accio bed!" he yelled, brandishing his wand most extravagantly. There was a loud crash – as the wall fell off the bed – and the mattress came soaring into the room and landed with a loud thump on the floor next to the other bed. This room was starting to look really cramped. Yegor turned to leave and waved his hand over his shoulder in a farewell, "See you tomorrow."

Lily and James were alone again.

Lily dropped her bags on the floor, and moved to flop down on the bed. She was tired, cold, hungry, and desperately craving chocolate.

"You can't leave those there!" James whined, gesturing madly at her bags.

"Why not?" Lily said, kicking off her wet shoes.

"They're taking up the whole room!" James was sounding very distressed. Lily didn't peg him for a neat freak but apparently he was.

"Well, where do you propose we leave them, hmm?" Lily said pleasantly, falling backwards onto the bed.

That was a HUGE mistake. "Oh bloody hell!" she cried, rubbing her rear-end. That bed was terribly uncomfortable.

"Aha!" James exclaimed, oblivious to her pain, and with a flick of his wrist, her bags were shrinking.

"James!" she started to yell, but then changed her mind. It's not like he was actually hurting anything. Besides, she thought it was funny the way his face screwed up when he did non-verbal spells. He wasn't entirely proficient at those yet.

They spent the rest of their day unpacking, setting up and cleaning their rather cramped, dank room. This part of Boloxisnom obviously did not get very many visitors, as their room was filthy.

James set a few more of possessions on the shelf with the rubber duck. He brought out an English to Boloxisnomian phrase book. "A surprisingly thoughtful gift from Sirius," he commented as he set it down.

He had also brought along a map of Boloxisnom, with the inn marked clearly in red ink, a pair of dragon hide gloves, his Gryffindor scarf, and his owl, which he had shrunk and stored in his trunk.

"Well, aren't you going to un-shrink your owl?" she asked after getting over the shock that he had kept his owl inside his trunk.

"Un-shrink? I didn't shrink Elvendork," he said and wrinkled his brows in confusion.

Lily couldn't help but laugh, "My, my James. You do have a tiny owl. Miniscule really."

"It's not the size that matters, its how you use it!" James said indignantly.

"Oh, pardon me! I'm sure Elvendork knows just how to use his size to his advantage."

"Elvendork is a unisex name, I'll have you know!"

"You were too stupid to determine the sex of your owl, so you named it Elvendork?" Lily questioned mockingly.

"Get over yourself, Evans. I'm not the one who named her frog Pickley-poo in second year!"

"Shut up," cried Lily as she threw her pillow at him. Seeing as the pillow was made of the same hard material her mattress was made out of, James was knocked out for a few hours and she got to have some peace and quiet. She decided to send an owl to Marlene.

Marlene,

So we're here, stuck in this perfectly horrible country in a perfectly horrible inn called - I can't even bring myself to write it. It probably means nothing in Boloxisnomian but it's so offensive! You'd think their public relations officers would have interfered or something... but no. They don't have public relations officers. Our translator, who is gorgeous but unfortunately a poofter, barely speaks English at all! He also has a thing for James (who is totally oblivious, might I add). The only interesting things here are the man-eating goats, which Potter thinks are hilarious. Speaking of Potter, I cannot figure out what he's up to; he's nice and, well, normal for awhile, but then he's back to his horrid self again. I'm going to steal his stupidly tiny owl and send this letter to you with him. I hope it'll be able to make the journey... it's pretty tiny. Anyway, I'm starved and I can't wait to go find something to eat. I haven't seen anywhere to buy food yet. As soon as Potter wakes up - I've accidentally knocked him unconscious with a pillow, and it's great to have some peace and quiet - I think I'm going to drag him out to find something to eat. Or to find something we can at least transfigure. I think I'm going to hate it here as I have to share a room with him, and I don't even get a proper bed! It's a mattress on the floor, and it's unbelievably uncomfortable.

Anyway, I do believe the wanker is coming too, so I should probably use his owl before he wakes up and stops me. I know you miss me loads!
Lily

Lily hurriedly rolled up the parchment and attached it securely to Elvendork's leg. Elvendork hooted softly, and leaped out of the window as if he couldn't wait to escape the frozen wasteland. Lily sighed and wished she could go with him.

James was stirring from his spot on the floor, he opened his eyes and looked around groggily. It appeared he had forgotten where he was, so Lily waved at him. He waved back and as if on cue his stomach rumbled. They shared a laugh and discussed getting a quick snack from the innkeeper before turning in for the night.

They made their way down the dark staircase and found themselves in the drafty lobby where they found a woman in bulky skirts dusting. They both knew from the amount of dust in their room and the staircase that her dusting was not very efficient so they didn't mind bothering her at her task.

She smiled and nodded at them, but continued to dust. James cleared his throat and tapped her on the shoulder. "Where is food?" he said very slowly and mimed putting a spoon into his mouth.

They got the same response, a smile and a nod. Lily decided to try by rubbing her stomach and saying, "Mmm."

The woman smiled wider, this time in understanding, and they could see she was missing quite a few teeth. She pulled them into another room that Lily decided must be the kitchen, though it lacked a stove, a sink or a refrigerator. She leaned over and pinched James on the cheek much like an old grandmother would, and then exclaimed "You so bony! Hanka will feed you now."

Lily laughed at James, who was rubbing his cheek indignantly, and happily thanked Hanka.

Several minutes later she hurried out of the kitchen to Lily and James in the main room, hot liquid splashing to the floor out of the huge bowls she was carrying. "Soup!" she exclaimed proudly.

Lily and James thanked her profusely and dove into their dinner as she returned to her dusting. James spluttered and spat the soup back out. "This is awful!"

"I think it's beet..." Lily said sadly as she slurped it down.

Upon returning to their rooms, James noticed Elvendork was gone. "Where's my owl?" he exclaimed, worriedly.

"Oh, I sent him to Marlene with a letter," Lily said smiling.

"But I wanted to send a letter to Sirius!" he said angrily. "You are an owl thief, Lily Evans."

"He'll be back soon, don't worry about it too much." She took off her robes and lay back gingerly on her bed, careful to avoid the large spring that had stabbed her the moment before.

Ignoring her, James removed his robes and reclined on his bed, looking quite comfortable, his eyes drooping.

"These beds are so awful!" Lily complained, wiggling around on the lumpy mattress.

"Hmm? Oh, yes. Terribly uncomfortable," James said offhandedly. He was asleep within seconds and snoring within minutes.

xxxx

"Rise and shine!" James crowed just moments after Lily had finally managed to get comfortable enough to fall asleep. It had been the most awful night, she was sure she probably looked terrible.

"It's not morning, go back to sleep," she grumbled. So he started jumping on her bed.

"I hate you," she mumbled, rolling over and getting a sharp jab in her side from another spring.

"Aw, Evans, that's not very nice. Not at all. I'm just trying to make sure you don't miss breakfast!"

"Breakfast?" Lily shot up in bed, absently patting her hair down around her face. She knew it was probably fluffy and everywhere and she could practically feel the dark circles under her eyes getting darker, but James looked well rested and positively chipper.

"Smells good, yeah?" he said, sitting on the edge of her bed and referring to the heavenly smell wafting up the stairs. It did smell delicious.

Lily's stomach grumbled in anticipation as she swung her feet over the edge of the demon-bed, and pulled on her robes. She attempted to disentangle her hair, but gave up almost immediately. It could wait until after breakfast; she was starving.

Lily shuffled down the hallway behind James, who was nearly skipping with anticipation. They entered the small entrance area, and a large woman with a kerchief tied around her head bustled over to them holding two steaming bowls.

They could make out through her thick accent that she had said, "Morning, morning!" as she plopped the bowls in front of the pair, "I am innkeeper, Miranz, I make breakfast!"

Lily smiled warmly at the woman, "I'm Lily, thank you for breakfast!" She waited for James to say something, and finally looking over at him. He was staring down at his bowl with a poorly hidden look of disgust on his face. Lily looked down at her own bowl, and understood his expression.

The bowl was filled with thick brown goo. There was no other word for it. Lily did not understand how such a delicious smelling thing could look so unbelievably unappetizing. She kicked James under the table.

"Oh! Uh, thanks for James. My name is breakfast," he stumbled.

Miranz laughed heartily, pinched James' cheek, turned and bustled out of the room. From the kitchen Lily could hear Miranz chattering away fiercely in what she assumed was Boloxisnomian to someone in the kitchen, probably Hanka.

"Oww," said James dismally, rubbing his cheek, "I hope that's not some silly custom I have to get accustomed to. Also," he hissed," What is this sludge? I can't eat this," James said, pushing the bowl away from him.

'Such a spoiled brat," Lily thought huffily, rolling her eyes. She was too hungry to bear though so she dared a bite.

It was amazing. She'd never tasted anything like it. The most delicious thing she had ever tasted. "It's vile," she said in an undertone to James, "but if I don't eat something, I might die."

She heard James' stomach rumble and promptly shoveled another spoonful into her mouth, doing her best to look disgusted.

"I wonder if I could transfigure this into something else..." James was muttering under his breath. "Brussel sprouts, perhaps... they'd probably taste better."

At that moment a bedraggled looking brown owl careened into the room, landing haphazardly on the table. It had a crumpled letter in its beak.

"Oh!" Lily exclaimed happily, removing the parchment from the owl's beak, "that must be our first assignment from Moody!"

She scanned the paper. It was a general assignment and she guessed all the other auror trainee teams had received the same letter. "I hope you were able to cope on your first night in a foreign country," the letter began, "Your first assignment will be to find and differentiate the wizards and witches from the Muggles at a local cultural hotspot"

"Hot spot?" said Lily disbelievingly looking out the window at the freshly falling snow.

The letter continued, "What are the local customs? What will offend the people and how can you avoid these mistakes? Converse with as many locals as you can to obtain these answers, do not rely on observations alone. Try not to get killed and remember, constant vigilance!"

Lily looked up at James, excited to share the letter with him and begin their first day of work. He was trying to coax the owl into eating his breakfast.