A/N: Enjoy reading it. Heaven knows I had a lot of fun writing it.
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November 1976
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Something is different.
He has no idea what is it, of course. But something is different.
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"Black, we need to talk."
He turns around to see Alice and Dorcas standing there. "Did she tell you anything?"
"Yes. Did he?"
"Yes."
Dorcas breaks the silence. "What'd he say?"
"What'd she say?" Sirius counters.
Alice sighs, pinches her nose. "She said she asked him if he loved her."
"He said he said he was in love with her."
The friends of James and Lily stare at each other. They all know that this has been bubbling for seven years, that it is high time, that now it is time to wait. But knowing doesn't always make things like this any easier.
"Are you going to wait?" Alice questions, tilting her head to the side.
Sirius chuckles lowly, darkly; Dorcas stares, fascinated. "I've waited six years for this to happen. A few more days won't kill me."
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Love is essentially the essence of human nature. It is what we are made for, our purpose of sorts. Mingled with that is hate. It is a precarious balance. Lily Evans tumbled over the precipice by falling in love with James Potter. She cannot to climb back up; she knows that even if she could, she doesn't want to. But like someone who has suddenly discovered that they have won the lottery, does not want to give back the money but does not know just what to do with it either, she is – confused. Besides. James Potter is a million times better than a lottery.
Something must be done about this. What that something is eludes her. So she sits in her room sometimes, or in an alcove in the library, or alone near the lake, or anywhere, really, and thinks.
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"It's unsettling, isn't it?"
He is behind her. She stays silent and tries to convince her heart to keep quiet.
"To love someone is the best and worst thing in the world," he continues. His warm breath blows on her neck and she suppresses a shiver. "Although I suppose you know that now."
"What do you want, James?"
"I want what you want," he says smoothly. He has stepped into her personal space. She pretends not to notice.
Daringly – or perhaps stupidly – she turns around. Her nose nearly bumps his chest. She leans back against the counter, leans away from him and tries to speak flippantly. "And what do you think I want?"
She knows she does not imagine the quirk of his lips. "You already know."
"Then why wouldn't I go after it?"
His hazel eyes –gold, green and mud, she thinks – smolder. "You're scared." He shoots her a smirk and leans in toward her so that they are inches apart. "And it is pathetic," he whispers. She cannot help the shiver that runs through her involuntarily, although she recovers quickly and shoots him a glare that would have sent most running for cover.
"Like you're any different?" she demands. "If you really know what I want, and you certainly seem to know what you want, then why aren't you going after what we both supposedly want?" But that is a stupid question, too, and they both know she only says it because she has nothing else.
Then, James Potter grins in a way she has not seen him grin since – well, since Fifth Year. And for a moment, that James, that sunny, carefree James, is back. "Ball's in your court, love." Then he drops a kiss on her forehead, which makes Lily think of other more appropriate places he could have placed his lips on. Which makes her scowl, because God, she is pathetic, which makes him chuckle lowly before disappearing on her.
She turns back to her cup of coffee with a scowl plastered on her face. This is not turning out to be a good day. And it's only nine in the morning.
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Dorcas squints her eyes at Lily, who is reaching up to a book balanced precariously on the topmost shelf. "She's about to crack," she whispers to Alice, who was trying to deter Frank from nuzzling her neck and force him to concentrate on his homework.
"Of course she's about to crack," Alice says sensibly, sending her boyfriend a scathing look of disapproval, "she just realized she's in love with James Potter."
"It had to happen sometime," Frank comments, settling in his seat. "Why Potter hasn't done anything about it, I have no idea."
"I'm sure he has, in his Potter way," Dorcas says dismissively.
"What's that supposed to mean?" Alice and Frank chime at exactly the same time.
Dorcas tears her eyes away from Lily. "Well, you can't actually expect James Potter not to do anything about the love of his life falling in love with him, can you? I'm sure he's made some powerful suggestion or manipulative trick to ensure that Lily falls straight into his arms soon."
Frank shrugs, acquiescing that Potter, while more reserved, was still Potter, and therefore prone to doing a host of unprecedented and brilliant things, especially when someone as important as Lily Evans was concerned.
His girlfriend is not convinced. "Lily isn't some twit who easily sways to the power of suggestion of some bloke."
"And James Potter is not some bloke," Remus Lupin, apparently having eavesdropped on the conversation says, sinking into the chair beside Alice.
"Oh, good. Someone from the enemy camp," Dorcas whispers dramatically. She grins at Remus. "How is el Capitan faring? Better than our unfortunate Lily Maid?"
Lily, having collected the precariously balanced book, goes deeper into the library to look for another book. Remus, taking note of that, makes a shaky motion with his hand. "He's waiting."
"Hasn't he always been?" Frank points out wryly.
And the other three people at the table have to concede that yes, James Potter was always waiting. However, judging by the expression on Lily Evan's face as she shot past them, red hair streaming and a grim determination on her face, he wouldn't be waiting for much longer.
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Lily Evans marches up to James Potter, drags him from his comfortable position on the bench and slaps him. This, observers mutter, is not anything new. Evans slapping Potter is a time-old tradition. What she does next, however, is most decidedly new.
You see, at one thirty-two in the afternoon on the second Thursday of November 1976, in the Great Hall of Hogwarts, Lily Evans kisses James Potter.
Applause rings out.
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Present Day
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8:17:am.13:05:1979
Ministry of Magic, London
Sirius Black cannot believe what he is seeing. "Prongs. Moony."
"What?" the two mutter, frustrated at their lack of success.
"Look at this." They abandon their own stacks of paper to move behind Sirius, who has a Pensieve playing something.
"What is it?" Remus questions. "The Ministry doesn't approve of the use of Muggle equipment. How do you have these tapes?"
James snorts. "Do you honestly have to ask him that?"
Remus sighs. Years after Hogwarts, and still, James Potter and Sirius Black are up to no good – with him as a relatively willing accomplice, no less. He is about to voice his opinion about disobeying actual law when Sirius slaps the back of his head.
"Will you two tossers shut up and watch?" Sirius waves his wand and the video moves backward slowly. "Stop," he whispers, just as an individual comes onto screen. "Is that Anna Evans, Prongs?"
James nods slowly.
"Anna Evans enters Moody's office…" Sirius waves his wand and the video starts to move forward rapidly. "Anna Evans enters Moody's office again on the same day and comes out looking like… that." The woman who has just exited has a severe bob, is short and stocky and looks nothing like Lily Evans. Which is exactly the point.
James Potter stares at the woman. "We found her."
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9:18:am.13:05:1979
Paris
"A package arrived for you," Lily says, fiddling around with a metal box, as Mark walks into the apartment.
"They asked where you were. I made fantastic excuses, I have to say," Mark drawls, plucking the package and unwrapping it in deft movements. "'She's in a spa in Tuscany. Horribly stressed, Alexandra. It's all this fuss with her parents in America. I loathe staying there, but one must follow the in-laws,'" he mimics. "They bought it."
Lily doesn't bother looking up from her gadget. "And you bought a new broom. I don't know why you have to always have the latest and best in broomsticks. It's not like you use them that much…or at all."
"It's the principle of the thing," Mark explains, rapping on the handle, before carefully placing it in a closet that held thirteen other broomsticks. "When I do go around trying to kill myself on the broomsticks, I have to make sure I have the best."
"If you wanted to kill yourself through death defying stunts, we have enough opportunities," Lily says dryly.
"Like you bringing a bomb home," Mark points out dryly, dropping into the chair in front of her. "Why do we have a bomb at home, anyway?"
"Security for the Church. It explodes, propelling outwards and incapacitating everyone within a twenty foot radius of the shield… if anyone manages to get past my Jelly-Leg Hexes Barrier."
"You put a Jelly-Leg Hexes barrier? That's not very threatening."
"That's after my Poena Nunc and Fyrian Protegere curse, naturally," Lily sighs.
"Being ripped apart by pain and burnt alive, jelly legs, and then incapacitation," Mark says appreciatively. "I quite like it."
"You are sadistic."
"And you are masochistic."
"Bugger off."
Mark nods. "Are you almost done with that job?"
"Just have to tidy up some things and Alexandra shall join her lovely husband tomorrow," Lily says dryly.
"Oh, he does look forward to it," Mark sighs.
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9:45:am.13:05:1979
Waverly Cathedral, London
Lily surveys her work critically when the familiar pop of an apparition has her disappearing into thin air. She looks around the Church suspiciously. Her senses are tingling. There are people here.
She feels her heart thud as Sirius Black appears from behind a bush and strolls towards the Church. He stops right before he hits the shield, as if he can see it – which he shouldn't be able to, and that worries her. "You can come out, you know," Sirius says in that rather-jovial-dry voice of his. "I don't bite."
Since it would be suspicious not to, she does.
"Jane Wickham, isn't it?" He turns to smile at her. It reminds her of old days.
"Yes," she says curtly. This is Jane Wickham's persona and she will act it out to the hilt.
"You've done a good job with the shield," Sirius says, smiling. "Oh, where are my manners, eh? I'm -"
"I know who you are, Black," she says with a quick eye roll. James Potter and Sirius Black were probably the most famous Aurors of their generation. They appear almost weekly in newspapers, their names making headlines and their photos posted up for the entire Wizarding World to see. "What I want to know is why you're here." She narrows her eyes. "Did Moody send you to check up on me?"
"No." He pauses and stares at her critically. And Lily can't help thinking that if this continues, he will know, just like his best friend knew. "You remind me of someone, you know that?"
Terror grips her. "Cut to the chase."
Sirius smiles softly. His gray eyes pinion hers. "Hey, Evans."
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9:47:am.13:05:1979
Waverly Cathedral, London
If this is Lily, Remus thinks, her acting skills have vastly improved over the two-year interval. James is tense, beside him, his eyes roving over Jane Wickham's figure almost obsessively. He wonders if this was a good idea. James might break, again. And he barely lived through the last one.
She chuckles. "You think I'm Lily Evans?"
"I know you're Lily Evans."
"I understand your desperation, Black, but isn't this pathetic, even for you? I suppose James Potter is lurking around here, as well."
Remus places a restraining hand on James, who looks like he is about to explode out of his skin, if such a thing were possible.
"What makes you think I'm her?"
"How did you know James Potter would be here?" Sirius says quietly, tilting his head to the side. He twirls his wand around. "How do you even know how I know Lily Evans?"
"Common sense," she says dismissively. "I read about her disappearance in the Prophet, just like everyone else in the Wizarding World. Tragic, I must say."
"It was never mentioned, our relationship with her. How did you know?"
She merely laughs again. "You don't really have any right to interrogate me, Black. I'm just doing my job."
Sirius suddenly decides to drop the topic and backs away. Remus wants to ask just what does he think he's doing, but he doesn't. Sirius is even better at manipulation than James is. But before he disappears, he asks her a question. There is no emotion on her face when he asks it. Just like there is no emotion on her face when he disappears. She turns to stare at the spot they are standing in, and then they disappear.
In the flurry of apparition, Remus thinks that maybe Jane Wickham isn't Lily Evans. That woman has no life to her. That woman is cold. And Lily Evans was many things, but she had never, ever been cold.
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9:47:am.13:05:1979
Waverly Cathedral, London
"How could you do this to us, Evans?" Sirius whispers before he disappears. It takes every ounce of willpower in her to stop the scream that says that she did what she felt like she had to do and she's so sorry they got hurt but she had to do this.
A carefully planned scheme is falling apart. Anger and disappointment mingle with self-reproach and she feels so angry. She needs to explode, and as there is no outlet for her here, she disappears to the one place she knows she can.
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10:54:am.13:05:1979
Practice Rooms, Headquarters
"I needed that." Lily doesn't remove her wand from his throat, and he doesn't let his wand wander from her temple.
"Are you two done trying to kill each other?" Sara apparates into the practice ground and snorts. "You've wrecked it."
"I put shields," Lily mumbles, gasping for air.
"I decimated them," Gavinsky reminds, prodding her temple with his wand. "Tie."
"Deuce," Lily agrees, before letting him go and sliding to the floor. She feels the kind of aching bone-tired that comes from too much physical exertion – the kind of tired that leaves no room for feelings. Which was, she thinks with a mild amount of satisfaction, the point. "It's been two years to the day since I met your insufferable arse, Gavinsky."
Gavinsky slumps to the ground in front of her and rests his forehead against hers. He lets his eyes slide shut. While waiting for pain and darkness to pull them both under, he decides another prevarication in a long career of prevarications will not hurt anyone at all. In fact, one might reason that the situation absolutely warrants it. "We're going to be fine, Evans. We're fucked up, but we're going to be fine."
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1:09:am.13:05:1977
The boy on the bed surveys her as she walks in. Clearly, he has been expecting the intrusion. He says nothing as she places her trunk at the foot of the bed. He is silent even while she unpacks her belongings. It takes her all of three minutes. Then she sits on her bed, a bed that faces his, and they watch each other. He breaks the silence first.
"Mark Gavinsky," he says hoarsely. He sounds like he hasn't spoken in quite a while. "Durmstrang."
"Lily Evans," she whispers shakily. "Hogwarts."
They lapse back into silence. "Do you reckon…" Lily swallows. "Do you reckon we'll regret this?"
He laughs, shortly, before turning away from her, shoving his trainers off and lying down on his bed. It is a while before he answers. "Don't you see, Lily Evans of Hogwarts?" He says her name slowly, like he is tasting it on his tongue. "We already do."
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12:32:pm.13:05:1979
Healing Ward, Headquarters
Lily's green eyes fly open and she jolts out of bed with her wand pointed straight at the person she knows is standing at the foot of the bed.
Sara Fournier smiles down at her grimly. "Excellent instincts, cherie. But you can relax."
"What's the name of my ex-best friend?" Lily says, fighting the urge to collapse back with ease. She's been through much worse than fatigue.
"You had two," Sara replies, unfazed by being held at wandpoint. "Alice and Dorcas."
Lily slouches back into bed, although her grip on her wand is still tight.
Sara is about to start talking when the entrance of a large black woman interrupts her.
Hardened though she is, Lily winces at the look of reproach on the nurse's face.
"Lily Evans, y'all doin' your poor body great deal of stress. Why, you and Mark-boy nearly kilt each other, you did. I won't have you a-leavin' this ward for three more hours at least. So no, Miss Sara, y'all can't have them precious jewels yet. They needs to rest or else they'll be collapsin' all over that bloody field and who knows what will happen then and what Rosemary's gonna have 'ta fix then. No siree, Miss Sara, Lily and Mark-boy ain't leavin' this ward for a bit yet," she finishes, her big hands on her hips as she sniffs indignantly.
The seventeen-year old in her wants to snicker at the resigned look on Sara's face.
"Very well, Rosemary," Sara sighs. She turns her gaze to Lily. "Report to me at exactly 1700 with your husband." Lily barely has time to say, "Yes," before she disappears.
Lily looks over to the next bed at Gavinsky, who is shuddering in his sleep as a broken bone is sown back together. "How is he?"
Rosemary looks over at the boy. "Mark-boy's had worse, Miss Lily. You just rest, and let him do his own healing."
Mildly comforted, she lets sleep take over her.
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5:20:pm.13:05:1979
Headquarters
"James Potter has recently become aware of your aliases."
Lily nods in affirmation.
Sara purses her lips and considers the situation. "He's brilliant, isn't he?"
"Brilliantly wrecking our cover, more like," Gavinsky snorts. He has not met James Potter personally, but already, he dislikes him on principle.
Sara ignores him. "He's inevitably going to get his way."
Lily is mildly surprised. "That sounds suspiciously like we're contemplating defeat."
Sara smiles. "You have much to learn, mon petit canard. There is a difference between a strategy and a tactic – the same different between a war and a battle, no? Perhaps the time has come for us to change tactics."
Lily and Gavinsky exchange glances.
"I don't like the sound of this," Gavinsky says cautiously.
Sara threads her fingers together. "I have a new assignment for you, Lily."
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5:22:pm.13:05:1979
Outside conference room, Headquarters
He is currently preventing her from Apparating. "You know I hold Sara Fournier in the highest regard, Evans, but I honestly think that this time, she's gone bonkers."
Lily shoots him a look of aggravation. "It was a serious order, Gavinsky. It hurt when I even thought about disobeying."
He looks almost desperate. "Evans…"
"What do you want me to do, Mark?" she hisses. His first name slips out easily, as it always does in times of distress. "I can't disobey a direct order – and neither can you. Obstructing my path is tantamount to breaking our oath. Doesn't it burn?" She clenches her fist. She knows hers does.
Gavinsky looks down at her. "You can't foresee what will happen," he says lowly. "It will end in disaster, Evans; you will be left with a broken heart. Why do you rush forward to fulfill an order that will bring you nothing but pain?"
But even as he asks, he already knows the answer.
She knows he knows.
"My heart's already broken, Gavinsky," she says lightly. "A few more shards won't matter." She smiles at him blackly and reaches out to squeeze her partner's hand. "I'll be back tonight – and I fully expect you to fix me."
She Apparates without so much as a noise.
Gavinsky stares at the space that she has just left and wishes that just this once, Lily Evans were a coward.
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12:34:am.13:05:1977
"Once you swear this oath, you are a member until death or dissolution."
She thinks of what she has to fight for. Unsurprisingly, it is a long list of names. It is worth it. "I understand."
"Once you become a member, you leave your identity behind. "
"I understand."
She surveys her. "You have so much to live for, Lily Evans."
"If you really think about it, Madame," she says, cracking a tired smile, the smile of a person who has already thought of all the possibilities and settled (braced) herself for a course of action that she could very well regret, (a smile that will be redefined as her usual smile for the next two years) "that's just another way of saying I have so much to die for."
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5:30:pm.13:05:1979
Library, Cooper Mansion
"We don't need bodyguards."
Moody eyes him almost indifferently. "You don't have a choice."
"It's true, mate," Sirius says, wincing at the thunder in James' eyes. "The Minister signed the order himself."
James is the kind of person who, when angry, becomes quieter and quieter. This is what happens now. There is a storm above James' head, and in his eyes. Pearson squeezes his arm. He looks down at his fiancée with torn eyes. "Why?" he spits at his best friend.
"The Ministry has received information that Voldemort's forces intend to attack the Potter wedding," Sirius says quietly.
Pearson inhales sharply and curls herself into his side. He almost unconsciously lets his arm encircle her waist.
Moody displays rare diplomacy when he takes it upon himself to explain. "The Wizarding World's in a bad state, Potter. The Auror office has had to censor the press to ensure that nothing too harsh will come out and lower public morale even further. Enter your Wedding of the Decade and suddenly, people have something else to watch."
If James or Pearson are inwardly bristling at being a made a spectacle of, they don't show it.
"This wedding is being watched very closely," Moody mutters. "I cannot begin to tell you the kind of fear and eventually, panic, that would ensue if something untimely were to happen your bride. Or you." He inclines his head towards the couple. "With your protection – and prevention of hysteria – in mind, the Ministry has assigned each of you an operative who will shadow you until the wedding."
"Just one?" Pearson says softly, mildly surprised. "One guard for each of us?"
Moody smiles grimly. "They'll be enough."
James watches him with dark eyes. "You seem very assured of their capabilities."
"I should be. I trained them myself."
"How do we know they're really as good as you say?" Sirius cuts in. "And who in Merlin's name are they? Don't tell me you've assigned James and Pearson Aurors for protection. You might as well have assigned Remus or me to them! We're with them all the time, anyway."
"They're not Aurors." Moody looks at something on his wrist. "They've arrived."
Sirius and James' eyes flick to each other's. Silent communication passes between them. Neither likes being caught unaware. This feels very much like they have just been hoodwinked by Mad-Eye.
"Are we to meet them somewhere?" Pearson questions, her breeding forcing her to sound breezy and polite, even when presented with an unorthodox circumstance.
Moody looks up and his eyes look eerily – amused. The world must be tilting even further on its axis, Pearson thinks, because Mad-Eyed Moody looks like he wants to laugh. "Oh, they're already here."
Pearson's blue eyes widen in alarm. "Here? In the Mansion?"
"Yes," Moody says calmly.
The Cooper Mansion, being a Pureblood Mansion of a family that went back only eight generations, is considered a mansion of parvenus, especially when compared to families like the Potters, Blacks and Malfoys, who can trace their ancestry as far back as the fourth century. However, parvenus though they might be, the Coopers had created a security system that could hold its own against any Pureblood house.
James's eyes narrow. "I've inspected the wards of this house myself, Mad-Eye. A person who could slip through the defenses unnoticed," and this person must have slipped through the security system unnoticed, because no alarms had sounded, "would have to be very deft with charms work."
"They are."
"They?" Pearson demands. She feels skittish. The idea that someone had infiltrated the wards was not pleasant. The idea that two people had managed it was even less so.
"The two operatives." Moody's eyes spin around the room. "Ah. They're with us."
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5:57:pm.13:05:1979
In between wards, Cooper Mansion
A bead of sweat makes its way down Lily's forehead as she struggles to keep the orifice open. Penelope is closing the other ward, furiously whispering a stream of French words to ensure that the alarms do not sound. She finishes and spins around. Breathing heavily, Penelope stares at the tiny space and without hesitation lunges through it, her body twisting into a shape that would be impossible for most people. She rolls through the grass before deftly jumping to her feet. "Bloody Purebloods and their bloody paranoia," Penelope hisses just as Lily collapses the hole in the shield.
Taking a deep breath, Lily wipes her sweat away and surveys their surroundings. They are now in what Lily knows to be the Coopers' Back Garden. The expanse of green grass looks harmless, but she knows better. To get into the house might prove even more difficult than getting past the gate. She moves a trained eye across the Mansion, searching for the telltale signs of magical wards – she concludes after eyeing the slight shimmer in the air surrounding the Left Wing and the particularly bright quality of the Back Entrance that the Right Wing is the least guarded. She is about to tell Penelope this when they both feel a tingle run down their arms.
Their eyes snap to each other's and both can almost hear the other's thoughts: Moody is giving us a summons. Moody is inviting them into the house. "Thank God," Penelope mutters.
They close their eyes and Disapparate.
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5:59:pm.13:05:1979
Library, Pearson Mansion
Penelope has barely enveloped herself in invisibility when James Potter spins around, slashes his wand and sends the blanket vibrating, revealing her location to all in the room. She should be furious that she has been found, but mostly she is vaguely impressed at James Potter's skill. Shields are her specialty, after all – her favorite, so to speak, just as Charms and Wards are Lily's and Memory is Mark's – and to have sort of been bested at it by Lily's ex-boyfriend must mean that James Potter is very, very good at magic.
"Stop the cloak-and-dagger act," he says tiredly, but with enough authority in his voice to make Penelope listen. She doesn't want him angry, after all. She drops the defenses, and to the rest of the people in the room it indubitably looks like she has just stepped out of thin air.
She throws James Potter a bright smile before stepping to Moody's side, reaching into her pocket for a pack of gum, unwrapping it and tossing it into her mouth. She commences chewing.
James, Sirius and Pearson are unsure of what to make of this 'Operative' and this is evident by their uncharacteristic silence.
"Potter, Black, Miss Cooper – this is Penelope Turner."
James and Sirius stiffen. Suddenly, things are beginning to make sense.
Penelope gives them a casual once-over. She knows perfectly well what they're thinking, what they've just realized. She almost feels sorry for them, because this is about to get a lot worse.
"She will be Miss Cooper's shadow for the next two days."
"Pleased to meet you," she says, throwing a wink at Pearson and snapping her gum. "I'll keep you safe – I promise."
Pearson inclines her head and returns the pleasantry.
"So where's the other one?" Sirius says carefully, gripping his wand and feeling the hair on his neck rise as it only does when something is very, very wrong.
Moody's magical eye shifts to a black couch by the bookshelf. All eyes turn to the seemingly empty couch. "None of you will need introductions to this one."
And just like that, Lily Evans – the Real Lily Evans, complete with bright green eyes and flaming red hair and an insouciance that belays the gravity of the situation – appears on the couch. She is slouching into the couch, and her right ankle is tucked behind her left ankle. She is twirling her wand in the air. She is dressed in dark jeans and a dark top and looks uncharacteristically solemn. She looks at Sirius, then Pearson. "Hi Black. Pearson." She flicks her eyes up to James Potter's frozen, furious hazel eyes and cracks a small, small, small smile. "James." She takes a deep breath. "Long time no see."
A/N: ...oh, I know. I know. I'm sorry.
Now. Poll: Will James kill her or kiss her?
Also, don't you hate it when people say, "Long time no see?" I myself find the phrase absolutely abhorrent.
And I'm terribly interested in what you guys have to say:
What do you think is going to happen, now that Lily is James' bodyguard?
Funny picture, isn't it? And I've got all sorts of scenarios planned out. But I'd like to know what you think. So please - review. :)