Chapter 8 – Excitement

The Department of Mysteries had one rule: Observe, theorise, research all possibilities, but do not interfere. Or, as Bode liked to say, "Look, but for Merlin's sake don't touch!"

It was on this subject that Croaker was arguing with his companion as they scoured the campsite that had been set aside for the Quidditch World Cup. Bode glared at his partner. Maybe, just maybe if their Head of Department hadn't fired Railer the same morning that the Research Librarian had accidentally locked himself in the broom cupboard they wouldn't be having this problem.* However, he had and now they had a dilemma on their hands.

"Damnit! She said she had tickets!" Bode hissed violently as they finished their fourth sweep of the last field. "She said she had bloody tickets!"

"Well she's hardly likely to turn up somewhere she knows that we know she's going to be," Croaker muttered back to him. "Besides, the kneazle's out of the sack now – we know what she took and what she did, and I'm buggered if we can figure out how to reverse it."

"The only way to reverse it would be to re-kill them – and we can't exactly rewrite the entire universe around this incident!" Bode said, his voice rising violently.

Croaker hushed him quickly. "No, but we can do damage control. Remember when Jones went ballistic and grabbed that firecrab back in '89?"

Bode shuddered. "PR had an absolute field day. They aren't going to be handling this though," He said shortly. "It's far too much of a large focus in the public eye and we're trying to shift the blame at the moment. If PR gets involved it will land solidly on our department and we will all end up out on our arses."

"Or in Experimental Charms," Croaker said gloomily. They shared a glance. No, it really shouldn't get out that ultimately, their Department was responsible for this mess.

"Let's check the next field over again," Bode said wearily. "Even if we can't find her we might be able to find something."

Although Croaker sincerely doubted it, he didn't say anything since Bode probably did too.

-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-TPT

Sirius stared at the newspaper in the bin, jaw hanging open in a distinctly un-dog-like manner. Abandoning his search for food, he grabbed the paper in his jaw and raced down into a dingy alley where he transfigured back into a form with opposable thumbs and lit his wand to properly read the article that had grabbed his attention. The first part was obscured by a large coffee stain.

"… An exciting turn of events, a high profile puzzle to say the least, James and Lily Potter (34?), murdered by You-Know-Who have returned from the dead! While neither of them could be drawn to comment on their situation, reports tell us that they are staying with close family friends…"

Sirius' numb fingers let the paper slide out of his grasp. 'Events have been occurring' didn't begin to cover the magnitude of the situation. "Nox," he muttered, extinguishing his wand and sitting in the darkness.

All of his rational senses were telling him it was a dream, but his gut, honed by the rack of memory in Azkaban, was telling him in no uncertain terms that it wasn't some sick imagining of his desperate mind.

A few minutes later, a large black dog trotted out of the alley, headed directly north, tongue lolling out of the side of its mouth in an oddly thoughtful manner.

-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-TPT

Amelia Railer's study was almost completely upside down. Her breath came in short, heavy pants as she gazed around the small room in despair. It had to be here, it just had to be. There was a knocking at the door. "Mum?" called Elizabeth's concerned voice. "Mum, are you ok? Mum?"

"I'm fine," Amelia replied flatly, willing herself to believe it was here. There was a tickling sensation in the back of her head, and, horror struck, the image of it lying on the floor as she left drifted to the front of her mind.

How could she be so stupid? If anyone found that it would be disastrous! Everyone would know… everyone would judge… she could be found. It was bad enough that Liz was going to Hogwarts! If someone found that…

She took a deep breath and began to straighten up, mind still buzzing. If it wasn't found until Elizabeth was at Hogwarts… yes her luck could hold out that long… she hoped. She picked up the dry flowers to reorganise them into their box and started picking up scrolls of parchment and replacing them into their folders as the plans began to form in her head. It could work…

-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-TPT

Molly didn't notice the tea pooling in her lap until she heard the chatter of voices outside the front door. She had been sitting quite happily in the kitchen when the owl with the Daily Prophet arrived, with the front page, with that Mark, at the Cup, where Arthur and the children and James and Lily –

Needless to say, Fred and George's complaints about strangulation from their mother were neither heard nor acknowledged when she hugged them.

The children satisfyingly smothered, Harry, Hermione and Ron headed directly upstairs to Ron's room, the others split off to their respective rooms (except for the twins, who went to play some Quidditch of their own) and the adults congregated in the kitchen.

Molly made them all cups of tea with still shaking hands, but by the time everyone had been served to their tastes, the trembling had subsided. "Are you ok Molly?" Lily asked, accepting her cup of tea.

"Yes, yes, I'm fine," Molly said, sitting down with her own. "It just… gave me a fright." Arthur patted her hand comfortingly.

They talked for a little while of matters of no real consequence, with Molly and Arthur continuing the process of filling James and Lily in on everything that had been happening while they were… well, dead, when the conversation took a few unexpected turns.

"Thank you so much for putting up with us," Lily said, biting her lip. "We really didn't mean to be such a burden-"

"Nonsense," Mrs Weasley said, "it's been a pleasure."

James and Lily shared a guilty glance, they really were imposing, and they didn't like it. Every time they tried to help out around the house, or put their money forward for shopping, they were waved off and it was making them feel very guilty, like they weren't doing enough.

"Still…" Lily said, "We're imposing and I don't like it that we are." She held up a hand to forestall Mrs Weasley's protest, but the matriarch ploughed on.

"But dear, home shopping is such a tough process, wouldn't it be better to wait until after the Hogwarts term is in progress so you don't always have children underfoot?"

James shook his head, "I think we'd both prefer it if we had Harry in on it," he said firmly, Lily nodding in agreement. "Do you know of any places that might be available?"

"We'll there's plenty of space around here – it's more a building area though."

"Generally you can find a lot of places in London itself."

"I heard something about places for sale up in Cornwall."

Lily groaned and put her head in her hands. "We might as well just do up the Shrieking Shack and live there," she said.

Mr and Mrs Weasley laughed, and Lily herself giggled slightly before sitting up properly and turning to James. "Right, so we should probably look in the Prophet, make a list-"

James wasn't listening though – he was staring at her, a slow smile spreading over his face. "We could do up the Shrieking Shack," he said, grinning broadly.

Lily stared at him. "It was just a joke-"

"But we could!"

James stood and bounded off, grabbing a quill and parchment, making notes furiously. Lily and the Weasleys stared at him. "God help me, I married a mad man," Lily said, finishing her tea in one gulp before standing to help him assemble a working plan.

-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-TPT

*Let us presume, that if perhaps the head of the Department hadn't woken up on the wrong side of the bed, late and without his coffee, he would have reacted far more sensibly to Amelia Railer's proposal instead of chewing her out, sarcastically asking whether she had the comprehension abilities of a toddler, dismissing her idea as impossible and firing her for getting on his nerves for the eighth time that week. It is amazing what a little bit of caffeine and sugar does for the human psyche.

Ergo, my choice of departure point from canon for the purposes of this fic. Hi, it's been a little while – and I'm really, really sorry about that. I just started my last year of high school and discovered that it is, in fact, possible to drown in homework and study :S. I know I promised that this would be a long one, but I apparently suck. I'm so sorry. I am hoping to write a lot more on all my stories over Easter though, so here's hoping!

Mordanyes, Dinny93, pennypotter128, Louey06, Sol Swan Cullen, jesse1588, sjm95x, The Wizarding DemiGod, XritaskeeterhatersX, Animus of Masada, V. L. Crawford, Cheese Lover, In The Mix, AliceCullen0629, My boyfriend is Draco Malfoy, bandnerd2669, Lisa, cookyc, , deathy-cool, kisabloom92 and When Hazel Meets Emerald thank you so much for your reviews and prompting :)

That being said, a huge round of applause to the wondrous Lollipop Child who took on the monster task of editing this chapter! :D :D :D Thank you so much for putting up with my crappy updating and I hope you enjoyed!