Chapter Four: Altercations
James and Sirius were serving detention one Thursday evening for some stunt that they had pulled in Charms involving Dennis Roy's feather and a box of newt's feet. James was frowning as he scrubbed at the trophies and plaques, but Sirius was smirking. His plan was going exactly as he wanted it to.
"Tough luck, no?"
"It was your idea." James muttered.
"Evans has a stick up her arse, mate. Don't sweat it."
"What's your problem with Roy anyway?"
"I don't have a problem with Roy." Sirius stopped smiling momentarily. "And you're the one who thought of the newt's feet anyway." He turned his back on James and scrubbed harshly at a plaque deeming 'Harold Crooner' an asset to the school. Sirius thought Harold was most likely a prat. Like James.
"Whatever." James muttered, kicking at a bucket of sudsy water, causing a bit of it to slosh up over the sides. "She was already angry with me I suppose."
Sirius laughed. "And the look on Flitwick's face… Priceless." James laughed as well.
"I agree. Thought for a moment there that he was going to blame me for the whole thing."
"That wouldn't have been fair." Sirius tossed his rag into the bucket and leant up against the wall. "I would have felt duped if you got all the credit." Then, in a slightly more calculating voice. "'sides, everyone knows that I'm the brains of the operation anyway."
"What?" James laughed. "What in the bloody hell gave you that idea? I'm the one that come up with all the good ideas."
"You wanna bet?" Sirius asked, crossing his arms over his chest. James was about the easiest person to manipulate that Sirius knew.
"Yeah." James said back haughtily, throwing his shoulders back and sticking Sirius with a challenging look. "How do you want to go about this bet?"
"Looking to me yet again, for a good idea." Sirius said, pushing himself off the wall and taking a few steps towards James. "Whoever gets the most detentions this term, will be the winner." James pressed his lips together and thought about it.
"Detentions that we'll get for showing up to class late don't count."
"No. Missing homework, being late, being loud, all of that doesn't count. It has to be for clever things."
"Can we use Peter and Remus for this?"
"Yes, but they're also going to be the judge of whether it counts or not."
"And we'll keep a tally in the room for everyone to see, with some charm to prevent anyone but Remus from tampering with it." James nodded. Sirius could tell that he was really getting into this idea, falling right into Sirius's trap. "And it all has to be clever."
"Pranks and stuff." Sirius nodded. "All in good fun."
"So no fights either?"
"We're usually together for those." Sirius shrugged. "There's no point of us both getting the same detention points."
James nodded and pressed his lips together again, thinking it over one last time. Then he grinned and stuck out his hand. "You've got yourself a deal, mate."
"Prepare for war." Sirius said in response.
oOoOo
Lily hadn't been reading the paper as much this year as she had in the past. It hadn't been a conscious decision, it just seemed as though every time she went to pick it up something else needed her immediate attention.
Mary was always wanting to gush about Quidditch practice, and Lily wanted to be a supportive friend, so she listened attentively and truth be told, she was very excited for the girl. Mary had always been a big fan of Quidditch, but hadn't had the nerve to try out for the team the last few years, but after much arm twisting and encouraging, Lily, Carlee and Savanna had convinced her that she should try out this year.
Savanna had now taken to avoiding her sister, for reasons Lily was unaware of, but often found herself caught in the middle of it. Gisele knew that Lily was good friends with her older sister and would often come to her to find out where Savanna was, and then Savanna would often come to Lily and tell her not to tell Gisele where she was. It was like a never-ending game of hide-n-seek.
Lily was also spending a lot of time with Alice, when Alice wasn't spending time with Frank that is. Alice was a year below Lily, but only just so. She had just celebrated her fourteenth birthday, September 5th, missing the deadline for the year above her by just six days. Alice was a cheerful girl, but she loved to talk and she always had something to tell Lily.
Then there was Severus of course, who, now that Lily was spending less time with James, wanted to spend more time with her. This was a fact that Lily was grateful for, because she had missed him the first couple weeks of school, when he had been all but ignoring her, and she had taken to meeting him nearly every day after classes in the library.
Carlee was a godsend in Lily's eyes, always around, but she didn't need anything from Lily. She was also quite intuitive and could tell when the girls and Sev were really stressing Lily out, and would leave a treat or a nice note on Lily's pillow, draw something clever or cute in her notes, or take Mary, Alice and Savanna down to the pitch so that Lily could have a moment to herself.
Lily hardly had any time to read over the newspaper.
One clear day in the middle of October, Lily found herself unusually alone at breakfast. She put her plate together, spread jam on her toast and then looked around, waiting for someone to say something, but still, no one had joined her.
That was when Lily made the decision to wake up early every day and spend a few minutes enjoying a quiet, peaceful breakfast.
And then she saw James.
He walked into the Great Hall alone, and plopped down at the end of the table, not noticing Lily, not that he would have sat near her if he had. James and Lily hadn't spoken to each other in almost two weeks.
With everything that had been going on with all of her other friends, she hadn't really had much time to give her slightly fractured relationship with the boy much thought. She rested her chin on her first and looked at him. She had fancied him last year something awful, she had even told him- Well, sort of. She wasn't sure if she still fancied him or not, but she did know that she still wanted to be friends with him. It made things more difficult with Severus. He became more defensive and distant, but Lily liked being friends with James, so she picked up her plate, stood and walked down to where James was sitting and sat down directly across from him.
"Morning." Lily said tentatively, looking at him through her lashes, awaiting a reaction.
James looked up, surprised to find Lily sitting across from him. He had been expecting it to be Remus, the only other Marauder that got out of bed before eight. "Morning." He said, glad to find that Lily had decided to speak to him again.
"I'm sorry that I can sometimes to be a bit judgmental and difficult to talk to." She said, deciding that taking the blame for their previous spat would go much farther in mending things than a simple apology.
"No, I'm sorry that I shouted at you in front of everyone."
"I sort of deserved it." Lily shrugged. "I wasn't being fair."
"You're in a difficult situation." James allowed.
"What do you mean?" Knowing what he meant, but wanting to hear his take on things. James shrugged and stirred his oatmeal up a bit, adding a bit more cinnamon.
"You've been friends with Snape for a long time." He offered very little incite but his explanation did actually work.
"Doesn't mean I should let him dictate who I can and can't be friends with."
"I'm glad you feel that way."
They were quiet after that for a few minutes, both eating their breakfasts and breathing a sigh of relief that the other had forgiven so quickly, hardly remembering the last two weeks of averted gazes and route detours.
At five to eight, Ian Bones walked into the Great Hall with a scowl on his face and blue hair.
"Damn." James muttered, pounding his fist on the table, causing Lily to pause in her laughter and stick him with a curious look. "That's going to put Sirius ahead by at least two."
"I haven't a clue what you're talking about." Lily said, still looking amused. Ian had tried to put his hood up, but it seemed to be repelling from his head, and would simply fall down whenever he would pull it up.
"Sirius and I started this prank war with one another," James started to explain, just as Frank Longbottom walked into the Great Hall, his hair was purple. "Merlin's balls!" James exclaimed. "We get points for every detention we get, and for every prank we pull, and something else, I don't know, Remus keeps track of the points- but now he's winning and we had been tied."
Lily was laughing as she asked him how he was going to get back ahead, and that surprised James a bit. "Well, I didn't know that he had this planned, so I'm going to have to come up with something now." James shrugged, and ran a hand threw his hair. "I've got a list going, though." He reached round for his bag and rummaged through it before pulling out a piece of parchment, a quill and an inkwell. He pulled out the stopper with his teeth and then dipped the quill in, forgetting to tap it before pulling it away and getting a drop of ink on his breakfast.
"What are you scribbling out?" Lily asked, as James angrily crossed something off his list.
"Dying the lad's hair." James muttered. "Sirius and I have been friends for too long, or planning pranks together for too long. Us having the same idea was bound to happen." He started chewing on the tip of his quill as he thought over the other ideas he had. "I could vanish Mrs. Norris' hair." He said, looking up to see what Lily thought about that.
"Oh that would definitely put you ahead!" Lily giggled, nodding excitedly. "Filch would try and have you expelled." James nodded and then circled that idea.
"I'll get that done later today than. I don't like being around Sirius when he's winning. He's too smug."
"Oh, and I'm sure you're not smug at all."
"No, I am. I just don't annoy myself when I'm smug, only Sirius."
"So the two of you just aren't friends unless you're tied, right now?"
James shrugged. "We're competing, but we've got other projects going on too, so…" He tilted his head back and forth. "We put the prank war on hold after sevenish."
Lily nodded and then went back to her breakfast, James (after putting his things away) did the same. It was around the third bite that Lily realized that she had added yet another name to the list of people she was going to have to interact with on a daily basis, and that being friends with James was going to make her friendship with Severus complicated again, but she couldn't help but grin again because being friends with James was easy and fun and he made her laugh. She wanted to be friends with him, and Sev was going to have to accept that.
oOoOo
Professor Swindal was either your favorite professor, or your least favorite professor. His style of teaching was much more hands on than any of the preceding DADA professors, and while he was always willing to answer any questions that the students had, most of the time they found themselves too intimidated to ask him anything. This would have been a problem, if he wasn't so good at explaining things, and then going back over and reviewing them. He was aware that he was odd and intimidating, so when he split the class into groups, he made sure there was at least one student in every group that often spoke out in class.
This often meant that James, Sirius and Remus never ended up in the same group.
Sirius had been partnered with Peter and Carlee, while Lily and Remus had somehow ended up in the same group, but James was stuck with a very mousy Slytherin girl, Savanna, and a fellow Gryffindor boy, Carl.
"Swindal scares me." Carl said, nervously glancing in the direction the professor had just gone, after handing out a thick stack of parchment to their group.
"His projects scare me." The Slytherin girl said, warily eyeing the stack of parchment. "They're always so long and intricate."
The three Gyffindors exchanged looks, not entirely sure how to interact with a Slytherin whose first instinct was to speak civilly with them with no obvious derision in her voice.
"I'm not going to bite any of you. Promise." She said, putting her hands in the air and smiling weakly at them. "I know my house has a bad reputation, but… I'm pretty sure I'm only here because I want to be the Minister of Magic at some point in my life."
"Ambitious." James nodded, not sure if he wanted to sound funny or just agreeable. She seemed to appreciate the fact that he said anything at all though and stuck her hand out.
"Catherine." James took her hand, slightly amused. "Blake. Er- that is, my name is Catherine Blake."
"Nice to meet you. James Potter. And if you want to be Minister, you're going to have to work on you introduction."
"I know." She shrugged. "I still haven't worked it out. Part of me wants to do a James Bond type of thing and be all, 'The name's Blake. Catherine Blake.' But the other part of me worries that it's not professional." James didn't have any idea who James Bond was, but that seemed to elicit a response from Carl and Savanna.
"So what are you exactly?" Carl asked, now less concerned with where Swindal was in the room. "Dirty, half or whole?"
"What?" James asked before Catherine had a chance to answer. "What does that even mean?"
"Dirty." Catherine said, then she turned to James. "He was asking about my blood status."
"Bloody hell," Carl laughed. "I didn't know there were any Muggle borns in Slytherin."
"We are few and far between. Plus, we all tend to be a fair bit quieter than the richies- er," She looked at James, a bit sheepishly. "I mean the Purebloods." James just laughed.
"Alright, class," Swindal called everyone's attention back to the front of the room. He pulled his wand out and gave three sharp taps on the blackboard, a long set of instructions appeared. "You have until the end of this double period to complete as much of the assignment as you can. Good luck."
On the other side of the room Sirius and Carlee's group was suffering a great deal on their behalf. Peter was stuck in between them and neither of them had said much of anything since they had sat down. It didn't help that Kyle Wilks was their fourth partner. Wilks didn't seem to want to say anything either, and that only left Peter to try and coordinate everything, which wasn't going so well.
"Well, I suppose we should start." Peter sighed, pulling the stack of parchment towards him. "This stack of parchment isn't going to do itself."
"Obviously." Wilkes muttered.
"Shut up." Sirius snapped.
"He was making a valid point." Carlee retorted.
"Thank you." Wilkes smirked at Sirius.
"Don't make me tell you again," Sirius leant forward. "Shut up, Wilkes."
"Let's just do the assignment." Peter tried again to gain their attention.
"Don't know what Swindal was thinking." Wilkes laughed.
"What?" Sirius tilted his head to the side, feigning hurt. "You don't want to work with me?"
"I'll work with you. You get good grades in this class and generally know what you're talking about, I've got no problem working with any of you really," He laughed and mimicked Sirius's position, leaning across the table. "But the two of you," He pointed to Carlee and Sirius. "Well, I'm not so sure you could say the same thing."
Sirius stood up from the table, causing the legs of his chair to scrap angrily against the flagstone floor and then teeter on its back legs before falling back against the desk behind him. Swindal had just started walking towards their table when Sirius picked up his bag and walked out of the room.
"This doesn't count!" James called after him, but he didn't stop.
Peter sighed, and rested his chin against his hand.
"What happened over here?" Swindal asked, bending down to pick up the fallen chair. "Is he alright?"
"He's perfectly fine." Carlee said. "He's overdramatic and stubborn, but he's perfectly fine. Though, in the future, it would be best for everyone if you refrained from putting the two of us in a group together."
"The two of you?" Swindal's eyebrows shot up. "I had no idea that you and Mr. Black had any problems with one another. I was actually hoping that putting him and Mr. Wilkes in a group together might help them overcome some of their animosity towards one another."
"Oh, that's not going to happen." Wilkes said, shaking his head. "Our mothers are friends. I could have worked with him, but we're never going to like each other."
"What does your mothers being friends have to do with-"
"Sirius hates everyone and everything that his mother likes." Peter said, his head still resting on his hand. "She's kind of a horrible person. Almost disowned him when he was sorted into Gryffindor instead of Slytherin."
"She is frightening." Wilkes agreed.
Swindal looked between the three students and then blinked several times and shook his head. "Alright, well, carry on without him then. If he comes back, I'll put him in a different group."
"Sounds good." Carlee smiled at him and then Swindal left.
"What did I miss?" Mary leant over the isle and rested her elbows on Carlee's desk. "Lily and I couldn't hear what Wilkes was saying.
"Don't drag me into this." Lily said, putting her hands up, quill still in hand. "I don't eavesdrop."
"We can talk about it later." Carlee said, shooing Mary away.
"I know I'll be hearing about it later." Peter sighed again, switching hands. "I might never hear the end of it." Wilkes cracked a grin at his expense while Carlee tried to comfort him by patting his shoulder.
oOoOo
James was sitting in his bed, sometime after seven o'clock (when Sirius and his truce officially began.) While he normally sat in bed surrounded by books about animagi or cartography, he only had one book with him now, because after all his searching, he had found the book that they needed.
The Art of Transforming, by Agatha Slatington was almost a step by step guide on what one had to do to become an animagus and he had read almost two hundred of the four hundred pages in the last three hours.
"Sirius, if you don't stop sulking I'm going to lock you and Carlee in a room together until one of you kills the other or you learn to get along." Peter walked into the dormitory room first and looked completely exasperated, James could tell even over the tops of his glasses. When Peter got exasperated, he adopted James' habit for running his hand through his hair and it always stuck up at odd angles, giving him a mad scientist look.
"If she wasn't so aggravating, than we wouldn't have a problem." Sirius was slightly red in the face. James set the book down on his knee to better inspect his friends as they walked through the door.
"I thought we were done talking about this." Remus sighed, bringing up the rear and closing the door behind him. "We talked this conversation to death during dinner."
"You're the one that brought it up!" Sirius said. "I'm good with pretending the mad witch does exist."
"You need to talk to her." Remus said, not denying his bringing the subject up. "You two used to be friends."
"I was friends with her when I was eleven." Sirius all but rolled his eyes.
"Oh yes, you were young and stupid that long ago. What's it been, three years?" Peter threw his rucksack on his bed and sat down on his trunk. "You were friends with her last year too, you're forgetting." He ripped his shoes off and threw those to the other side of the room so they bounced off the wall.
"Hardly."
"You were." Remus said, "And I don't care if the two of you become friends this year, but you need to get over whatever it is that's making you angry with her."
"She's just- She's-" Sirius shrugged his shoulders and shook his head. "She's a bitch." Remus and Peter both snapped their heads round to look at him and James's eyebrows shot up.
"She is not." James said, speaking up for the first time since the lads had entered the room. "You don't have to like her anymore, but Carlee's still my friend and I'm not okay with you calling her that, mate." Judging by the look on Sirius's face, he hadn't been aware that James had been in the room, but he quickly shook his shocked look and shook his head.
"I don't know why you all won't just drop this."
Remus looked as though he wanted to say something more, but he bit his tongue and looked down. James would have loved to bash Sirius some more for being so thick, but he had more pressing matters to discuss with everyone, so he jumped up from his bed and went over to sling an arm around Remus.
"You'll never guess what I found." He said with a sly grin on his face. Sirius opened his mouth, most likely to say something sarcastic, but James didn't give him the chance. "I found exactly what we've been looking for." Sirius's mouth snapped shut and he tilted his head to the side.
"A spell for the map?" Peter guessed.
"Even better." James said, sounding just as smug as he looked. Remus shifted uncomfortably.
"You found out how to do it, didn't' you?" Sirius laughed, jumping over his trunk and attempting to snatch the book out of James' hand. "How to become animagi?"
"Exactly." James nodded, removing his arm from around Remus's shoulders and flipping the book back to the right page. "It's a step by step list."
"Why was that in Hogwarts?"
"Poor judgment on the professor's part." James shrugged. "It was over looked, left behind- who knows?"
"And who cares?" Sirius asked. "Do you know what this means?"
"It means you three are going to kill yourself all in the name of helping me."
"We're not going to kill ourselves." Peter snapped, walking up to take a look at the book as well. "We are going to help you though."
"When we can finally do this," James said, looking at Remus over the tops of his glasses and running a hand through his hair. "It will mean that you never have to go through it alone again. We can be with you."
"We can stop you from hurting yourself." Sirius added, throwing his friends an easy grin.
"You don't know that this is going to work." Remus said. "For all we know, the wolf can tell the difference and I'll turn you all as well."
"Even better." Sirius slammed the book closed. "In fact, don't know why I didn't think of that-"
"That's not going to happen." James interrupted, noticing the horrified look on Remus's face as Sirius went on. "And we've already talked about this-"
"I don't care. I didn't think you'd actually be able to find anything on it. That's the only reason I've been going along with it. I will not be responsible for you three getting your lives torn to pieces. I'm not going to do to you what was done to me. You all have no idea how it feels-"
"No we don't." Peter said, "But you know what, you don't know what it's like for us either. I know that you go through a lot of pain, but we have to listen to you tear yourself to bits all night. If we do this, then we could help you, we wouldn't feel so… so…"
"Goddamn worthless." Sirius said.
"And I appreciate that you all want to help me, I do… but I can't take the chance that something bad will happen to you all."
"You're not." James said. "We're taking that chance."
"Gah! You're not listening to me!" Remus pulled at his hair and spun around, stomping his foot on the ground. "I have no control over the wolf. He does whatever he wants to and I have no say over it. If you three went in there and something bad happened, I couldn't stop myself from- from-" His eyes were wide and he looked mad. "I can't let you do this." He said adamantly. "I have to stop you."
"And just how do you plan on going about that?" Sirius challenged.
"I'll go to Dumbledore." He threatened.
"No you won't." Sirius crossed his arms over his chest.
"Yes I will."
"Then do it. Go and tell Dumbledore right now."
"You think I won't, but I will."
"Then do it, because we're not going to give this up. We're going to learn to become animagi and we're going to help you."
"This is the last warning that I'm giving. If you don't hand over that book, I'm going to march out that door and head straight to Dumbledore."
Sirius shrugged. "Don't threaten us unless you plan on following through, Moony."
"Remus," James stepped forward, not exactly pleased with how his big reveal was going. "We just want to help, mate."
He sighed and dropped onto his trunk. "I know, but I just don't want you to get hurt. Especially not because of me."
"We don't want that either. And we're going to be very careful and we're going to do more research, and we're going to do this right. No one is going to get hurt. You're not going to hurt anyone."
"Alright." He didn't sound happy about it, but he seemed to have accepted that he wasn't going to win an argument against James and Sirius, and James considered it a win. Remus would get on board sooner or later, when he realized that this plan was brilliant and that it was going to work.
oOoOo
Liza Potter's robes were a bit rumpled and starting to feel itchy. She hadn't been home to change in almost three days, which meant she hadn't been able to bathe in three days, or eat a real meal in three days, or see her husband in three days.
It wasn't a choice that she had mad of course, she would never willingly choose to spend three days without a bath… or her husband.
It was the Minister. Minister Henderson was letting her prisoners go and now she had unwittingly became a prisoner herself, just to prevent this from happening again. If she left her office, even for a few hours to go home, she was terrified that the Minister would hold a secret meeting again and release more of the people that her team had worked extremely hard to get locked up.
"Miss?" Liza looked up, brushing her hair back from her face and tried to force a smile.
"Joyce?" The young girl entered the room and took a seat across from the Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement as though she was nothing more than a junior auror. Liza was always impressed with Joyce Camery's confidence, but today she wished that the girl had acted slightly more intimidated. She knew that there was nothing intimidating about her at the moment, but she could use the ego boost. "What can I do for you, dear?" If she couldn't be intimidating, she would be maternal. Joyce typically responded better to that anyway.
"Emery and I were going over those case files again," She sighed, crossing her arms over her chest and looking her age for one of the first times since Liza had met her. "Those men are guilty. They killed people and hurt people and terrorized them and the Minister just let them go."
"Yes." Liza nodded, leaning forward on her elbows. "I'm doing everything I can to make sure that it doesn't happen again."
"But that's the problem, isn't it? This shouldn't be something that you should be worrying about. Our department shouldn't be taking shifts on who get's to sleep because we're worried that the Minister of Magic is going to release our prisoners."
"You're all taking turns?" Liza asked, a yawn escaping her almost before she finished speaking. Joyce gave her a small smile. Then she looked over her shoulder and stood up.
"I forgot to close the door." She explained, walking over to the door and closing it. She then took out her wand and waved it at the door. Liza narrowed her brows, but didn't bother reaching for her wand. She knew that whatever Joyce was up to, she was not about to hurt Liza in anyway.
"What seems to be the problem, Joyce?"
"The Minister is working with the Death Eaters." Joyce said. "You know that, I know that, all of the aurors know that."
"I suppose." Liza agreed.
"Well, we have to do something about it! We can't just sit around and twiddle our thumbs while he ruins people's lives." She fell back in her chair, blue sparks popping out the end of her wand. "Sorry." She shoved it in her pocket.
"I hope you are not about to suggest what I think you are." Liza said, her tone shifting slightly to warn the young girl.
"Well, I'm not about to suggest that we kill him."
"Well, that's good."
"We should charge him with something though."
"The most we could charge him with is conspiracy and that's not going to get us very far."
"We could find a few more. Negligence for one. And even if we can't get him in prison, we can get him out of office."
"Joyce," Liza sighed and ran a hand through her hair. "I understand your frustration, but do you realize how useful having him out in the open is? If he is working with Death Eaters, than that could be potentially favorable for us."
"You haven't slept in three days and your name is being dragged through the mud."
"Yes."
"He let three of our prisoners go and is causing the public to question our competence."
"That is also true."
"Is that not frustrating you?"
"Sweet heart," Liza hadn't meant for her voice to sound as patronizing as it did, but she hadn't slept in three days and her brain wasn't doing the best job at controlling intonation. It was allowing her to keep her eyes open though, so she wasn't going to give it to hard a time about anything else. "I have not seen my husband of 50 years in over three days. Saying that I'm frustrated is a bit of an understatement."
"Then let's do something about it!"
"Joyce, you're not listening to me. Moody and I are doing something about it. We are watching the Minister, making sure that when he slips up, we are two steps away, wands at the ready. The thing is, he's well connected, he's a Pure Blood and he just ran our names through the mud. If we did something like what you're suggesting, it would look petty and retaliatory."
Joyce sat with her arms crossed over her chest and stared at the wall behind Liza's head for a few moments. Neither of them spoke and it gave Liza the opportunity to remember that Joyce had been fast tracked when she entered the Auror program. Moody had liked her, so she was put in a two year program, jumping very far ahead. She was still so young, but more than that, because Liza wasn't one to judge someone on their abilities based on their age, she seemed angry that she had nothing to do. Liza sighed.
"Look, as soon as I have an assignment, I'll call you in and we'll talk. Until then though, I'm going to need you to do what everyone else is doing and sit tight. I know that it's hard, and it's not the way that things are typically run around here, but sometimes to beat the system, you have to go through it."
"That's not really the issue here." Joyce stood up and brushed her robes off. "We're supposed to stop bad people from doing bad things, that's our job, that's the job that I signed up for. You're operating in some grey area, allowing people to continue to put other's in harms ways so that you might be able to catch more bad people later. What about the ones that we already caught? What about the people that we both know are going to be put in harm's way because those Death Eaters are no longer locked up? We're supposed to keep people safe. It's hard to do that if we can't lock up the people trying to hurt them."
With that, Joyce spun on her heel and marched out the door, slamming it a bit harder than was necessary.
"Well, I'll say…" One of the paintings on Liza's wall gasped, putting a hand over their heart.
"Don't." Liza said. "She has every reason to be frustrated."
After a few minutes of pretending to sort through paper work, Moody walked in without knocking or announcing himself in any way. He tapped the door with his wand to make sure it was locked and then went over to Liza's desk and leant against it.
"Did she buy it?"
"Of course she did." Liza said. "Though I'm still not sure that I like this plan."
"I know." Moody nodded. "And if you knew all the facts, you'd dislike it even more."
"All the facts? What else is there?"
"Malfoy- the one we had locked up- He's the one that killed Joy's mum last year."
"Moody-"
"I had to pick her. She's one of the best we've got and she's highly motivated."
With a disbelieving laugh, "Highly motivated."
"I'm keeping an eye on her." Moody said, grinding his teeth a bit. "And unless you have another suggestion, I wouldn't be so quick to judge my plan."
"It's a good plan." Liza tucked her hair behind her ear. "I just wish that we could tell her somehow."
"She'll know soon enough."
"How do you know she's going to do what we want her to?"
"I trained her." Moody scoffed.
AN: Reviews are the best.
So are you.
