Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or any of the places, characters or items mentioned. They all belong to J.K Rowling.

Chapter four: Wannabee Auror.

My footsteps were crawling across the rough wooden floorboards as I stretched out the almost luminous white hands that didn't appear to match the rest of my blurred body. Touching the end of the door handle, my glowing fingertips tugged, uncharacteristically tugging harder until there was a faint noise of a bolt clanking to the floor.

Inside, a Victorian fireplace was full of moving portraits of all different shapes and sizes of a preppy redhead. I moved closer, noticing that in many of the portraits her face was red, eyebrows directed downwards with her arms crossed bearing a bold badge on her robe. She reminded me of someone whom I couldn't quite place.

I continued moving down the creaky floorboards towards a wooden desk where there was a stack of papers, encircled with the letters; L&J in each corner of what I could only make out as poems. Poems about lilies.

It didn't take long to drift round the unusually bright bricked room to realise that the entire room was filled-to almost to an obsessive state- with items, poems, portraits and even hair elastics from the redheaded, green-eyed girl in the portrait. I reached out towards a shelf, grabbing a the hairbrush containing strands of red hair, picking one out and holding it up to eye level. It matched my own locks in which had come into sight. Dropping it, the whole scene zoomed out like a magnified glass placed backwards, as I realised this was a shrine to me, in James Potter's house.

"Ah!" I jumped up, stunned from my horrific nightmare after feeling a cold wet nose touch my own while I lay not-so-peacefully in the spare room within the Potter household. "Aww, Hello there."

A scruffy jet-black dog wagged his long skinny tail at the sound of my voice, its eyes large and puppy-like, rummaging under my bed to reveal a wrangled squeaky toy that barely squeaked. It spat it out on my bed covers.

"Padfoot! Padfoot? Where the bloody hell are you?" Came the questioning voice of Potter himself. Padfoot-who I could only guess as the dog-scatted across the wooden floor, whimpering and scratching the door with his claws before a knock sounded at my door.

"Err, Evans? Is the dog in there?" Potter asked through the door. Quickly, I grabbed a book from the side table, and sat as sophisticated as I could possibly look in baggy t-shirt pyjamas with flannel bottoms.

"Yes, he is."

"Well...Could I get him?"

"Aren't you going to ask if I'm decent?"

"...Can I fetch him now?"

I sighed, my eyes automatically rolling. If I was honest, I was still stupidly angry and somewhat scared from the nightmare which had seeped into my self-conscious mind in my sleep, therefore already annoyed at Potter before the day had even started.

The door creaked open, with a pair of round glasses accompanied with Potters head peered round the door, smiling sheepishly.

"Hi Evans."

"Potter."

"Hi Padfoot."

The dog barked appreciatively, his shaggy tail wagging at one hundred miles a minute.

"What are you doing in here?" Potter asked the dog, its response to jump into my bed, rolling on its belly. Potter raised his eyebrows at the dog, as I stretched my hand out to tickle its messy black belly.

"I didn't know you had a dog, Potter?" I asked, giggling at Padfoot who was rubbing his face on the blanket, sneezing.

"I haven't had him long..." Potter mumbled.

"How did you come about him?"

"Sirius brought him with him."

Padfoot's ears perked up at his owner's name, before jumping down from my bed and heading out of the door.

"Don't forget," Potter added as he followed Padfoot out of the door "Work experience starts in 2 hours."

I snorted as he walked out, closing the door behind him. As if I'd forget.

"They've got to be joking! This isn't what we signed up for!"
I sighed heavily, pushing aside the hundredth piece of signed document, stamping it, and putting on a pile for the minister to sign.
"This is exactly what we signed up for."
"We signed up be-or at least watch Aurors! Not-THIS." Potter pushed away his growing pile of documents with force.
"You didn't really think that they'd let you start with the heavier stuff. You should be happy that your Dad is giving us a presentation this afternoon. I am."
Potter scowled rather like a child who hadn't gotten his own way.
"You would..." he mumbled. "And besides, when do we actually start to 'shadow' the real Aurors?"
I couldn't answer, picking up the big red stamp again, pushing down the words 'Approved.'
"Be grateful to even be doing this."
I gulped, my back straightening instantly.
"Dad." Potters eyes widened in surprise.
Raising my green eyes the-oh-so-serious Mr Potter stood in front of our desk, while Ministry officials busily passed through the halls, ignoring our table in which stood awkwardly outside of the auror office door.
"James, you knew what was required here. Don't embarrass me."
Mr Potter nodded curtly to me, eyebrow still raised suspiciously at James until he walked away, dealing with a very confused Alice who was covered in pink pigmy puffs.
I continued to stamp papers in silence scanning over names. Suddenly, my eyes scanned over a name in which I recognized. Why? I couldn't tell you.
'Matthew McNolly.'
"Evans." Potter asked, tapping my arm. I moved my sights away from the table.
"Pardon?"
Potter smirked. "You see that man over there?"
"I see a lot of people Potter."
"Him, the one with bitty facial hair and hat."
I watched, raising my eyebrow. He was relatively tall, wore a black robe like any other and just like Potter had said had a patchy beard and moth bitten hat.
"Shifty, isn't he?"
I continued to watch as he shuffled around on the spot; however Potter nearly jumped out of his skin as the man headed our way, directing his eyes at me.
"You finished with those?" he asked, a deep voice gesturing to the stacked papers on our desk.
I frowned.
"If you don't mind me asking, who are you?" Potter asked accusingly in response I kicked him under the table.
"I am here to take these papers to the record vault."
"But you didn't answer the-"Potter begin again, however was stopped at the showing of a badge indication he was in fact an ministry official.

I handed him the stack of papers much to Potters dismay, ignoring his 'ifs' and 'buts' and nodding politely to the man named Laurence Jackman—or so I had quickly read. Handling the stack of papers, he shuffled briskly down the halls. There was nothing suspicious about that, well, not to me.

"Let's follow him."

I sighed, rolling my eyes as Potter began arise from his chair.

"You're actually serious aren't you?"

"Beats sitting around here like a monkey."

I had no time to protest, as Potter whisked himself away, sprinting down the corridors leaving me to have to be the responsible adult and try and stop him before he did anything so very Potterish. Something many of us at Hogwarts at experienced many times.

"Potter!" I hissed seeing no sign of him in the almost empty corridor. Out of the blue, a hand was strapped around my mouth leaving no second for a scream as I was dragged into a little nook.

"Potter!" I growled, using my foot as force.

"He went through there." He whispered through gritted teeth, ushering me to hush.

"Look Potter, I know work is such an uncommon aspect of your life, however you are going to have to learn and by stalking a bearded man is not going to get you any-"

"The crow is out of the nest." He interrupted, forcing me to have to watch Laurence Jackman shift out of the vault. What continued to silence me (much to my disgust) was the possibility that this man was, yes, a little shifty. He peered out of the vault door, armed with papers, whistling and strolling away yet cautiously looking around as if he were merely a tourist in an unfamiliar country.

"You can't tell me that wasn't just a little weird." Potter smiled smugly, pushing his rounded glasses higher up his nose.

"I'm not a super sleuth."

"But you are a wannabe auror."

Potter waited no more, darting lightly around until he reached the vault. It must have been difficult for him to watch as I un-dramatically walked across the tiled floor, a single eyebrow raised, my interest now gained.

"You'll get nothing out of this..." I sighed again, as Potter hacked into the magical combination of the vault. Upon the door entering with a wave of a wand we were in. "Now I'll tell you what does seem a little suspicious. That door. You wouldn't think just anybody could get in."

Potter turned his head for a moment, long enough for me to notice the little twinkle in which had returned once again in his eye. "I suppose there are perks of being a Marauder. Finding combinations from your father's office takes four geniuses."

"Or four idiots..." I mumbled to myself as we entered the large vault-like room. The room was like no other place we had ever entered in the ministry; however you could tell it had muggle influences, such as the ongoing vertical lines of filing cabinets, which looked just like my dad's office back home. Along with this, there were shelves upon shelves of awards, and even more obvious was the shelf in which was entitled birth records, which was sectioned between blood statuses. Pureblood, Half blood and Muggleborns. But what was the most intriguing was the chunk of muggleborn records in which were blatantly missing.

Potter whistled. "Man, someone's had a little rummage around, haven't they?"

Without warning, the vault door slammed shut, leaving both Potter and myself in pitch black. We ran to the door, banging our fists rapidly, hoping there'd be some way to get out.

"There can just be one way out!" I heard Potter say.

"Oh, so the famous Marauder can find the way in, but-duh-getting out didn't occur?" I breathed sarcastically hoping to get across just how ridiculous I found the situation.

"So you think we are famous?" He asked, his voice changing.

"Potter! This isn't the time, but I swear if you don't get me out of here and you flirt with me I'll-I'll-"

"You'll what?" I felt his breath on my face, quickly digging in my robe jeans pocket for my wand.

"Lumos." I whispered, gaining a little light in the area in which we stood. I then proceeded to use my wand to hit Potter with it. "This is all your fault. All I wanted to do was what I was told, but noooo, that isn't good enough-"

"My fault?" He raised an eyebrow, clearly amused at my consistent anger.

"Yes your fault. I'm not the one who owns the Mystery machine, dear Shaggy." I quipped.

He sniggered again, lighting his own wand and moving closer to the dishevelled muggleborn files. He flicked his fingers through the papers, showing many birth records of muggleborn witches and wizards.

"What are you doing?" I asked

"Riding a bike. What does it look like Daphne?"

My eyes widened. Well, that defeated the object of my muggle joke.

"You know muggle cartoons?"

"Nah only watched it for the good looking one. You should know I'm a fan of redheads."

My eyes narrowed, myself now searching through the muggleborn files.

"Why would anyone want to steal Muggleborn birth records?"

Author note: Just a quick recommendation for anyone who wants a fun, quirky and enjoyable read of an Lily Evans and James P story; Its written by Campbell93 and named A Change in Perception.