Ch 11: Whirlwind

The next six months seemed to pass in a whirlwind for Lily and James. They celebrated their first Christmas together in their tiny, happy home, they worked themselves ragged, and Lily's stomach seemed to grow larger by the day. She was perfectly happy and healthy, so she was still pulling light duty at the Ministry, much to James' chagrin.

"I have the day off, so stay home with me today," he urged, as she tried to struggle out of his arms one morning in early May.

"Love, I have to go to work," Lily giggled, kissing his temple. If she had been worried that James would find her unattractive in her pregnancy, she couldn't have been more wrong. In fact, he seemed to find the sight of her rounded stomach and extra curves even more attractive.

James frowned as she pulled away, almost pouting, and Lily laughed, leaning back over to kiss him.

"I'll be back in a couple of hours, love," she said. "I'm not leaving forever."

"Okay, okay," James relented, smiling. He kissed her cheek. "Love you, be careful."

"I'm always careful," Lily replied and James rolled his eyes as she walked out the door.

As soon as she was gone, James too got up out of bed. He looked out the window, checking to make sure that she had left before walking into the closet and pulling out his briefcase. He dressed quickly, mulling over his job.

He'd had some problems in the past few months with missing files, and occasionally those files seemed to correspond with missions that went awry. At first, when he'd brought this to his partner's attention, Remus had shrugged it off, assuming that it was James' general carelessness that had lost the files, but, as files and reports continued to disappear and several more Auror teams were ambushed, he agreed with James' theory: there was a spy in the Auror Department.

Neither of them knew who to trust or how exactly to rat out the mole, so they kept their information to themselves, not even telling Lily and Sirius of their suspicions. They couldn't work on the theory at the Ministry, so they spent their days off together, examining what little information they had and running through their list of suspects.

James took his briefcase downstairs to the sitting room, waiting for Remus to arrive. When his friend was nearly an hour late for their meeting, James knew that something had gone horribly wrong. He quickly grabbed his traveling cloak and lit a fire, using the floo to go to Remus' home. His friend was not there either, and, although there was no real sign of a struggle, James had the sense that something wasn't quite right. He apparated quickly to the Ministry.

What he found when he reached Auror headquarters was mass pandemonium. Marcus Olivers was standing on top of his desk shouting at the top of his voice. Remus was on the floor at his feet, bound and gagged, unconscious. People were running and shouting, wands were drawn, paperwork was flying everywhere.

Marcus' shouts could barely be heard over the chaos in the office, but odd words such as "abnormal" "animal" "beast" and "dangerous" caught James' ears and he knew instantly what had happened.

Remus had been ousted as a werewolf.

James simply stared around the room in panic. He had no idea what was going on. No one except himself, Moody, Emily, Dumbledore, Sirius, Peter, and Alice were supposed to know about Remus' condition. Lily didn't even know!

Suddenly, a loud bang erupted through the noise, startling everyone into silence.

Alastor Moody stood in the doorway to the office, wand drawn, his face nearly burning with anger.

He pointed his wand at Remus and the cords binding him disappeared.

"You don't understand!" Olivers shouted in fury, wand now trained on Moody. There was a scary, wild look in his eyes. "You don't know what he is!"

"I know perfectly well that Lupin is a werewolf, thank you," Moody replied, his voice deadly calm. "This department is in charge of keeping the peace. That means that we preach tolerance and acceptance."

The room was still and silent, everyone staring at either Olivers, still standing on the desk, Remus, still laying on the ground only half conscious, or Moody, wand drawn, fury etched into every line of his gnarled face.

"Does anyone else here have a problem with Lupin on the force?" Moody asked. No one moved. "Alright then. Clean up this office and get back to work. Olivers- my office. Now."

Everyone stared after him in silence for a moment as Moody swept into his office, Olivers following a moment later. Then, James and Sirius moved as one to their fallen friend, helping him to his feet. Remus swayed, but his friends steadied him.

"What happened?" James asked. "How did he find out?"

"He found out because he's not an idiot. He checked the lunar charts and put two and two together," Remus muttered, wincing and putting a hand to the back of his head. Olivers had hit him with something heavy and hard, and he was bleeding a little.

James took half a glance at Sirius before lowering his voice further and asking, "Do we need to talk in private?"

Remus nodded, which James took to mean that the day's events had something to do with the spy in the Auror office.

"I'll take you to Mungo's," Sirius offered, shooting a questioning glance at James, who shook his head, silently communicating that there would be time for explanation later.

"No," Remus said. "I don't need the hospital. I'll be fine." He tried to pull away from his friends' helping hands, but staggered and would have fallen had James and Sirius not been there to help him.

"You're going to the hospital, Moony. No arguments," James replied. Remus only sighed, confined to his fate because he knew that he didn't have the strength of body or spirit to fight back. Sirius set off to the Atrium, with Remus leaning heavily on him for support.

James hurried through the office to find Lily.

"You knew?" she asked, not entirely shocked but still shaken from the events.

"Yeah," James replied. "There's more to it than that, though. We need to talk." He ran a hand through his hair, his mind a mess. He had to tell her about the spy, he had to get the information about the spy from Remus, he had to tell her that he and Sirius were Animagi, and he had to kill Marcus Olivers.

"I'll be home around six," Lily replied. "Can it wait until then?"

James nodded. He knew that Remus wasn't in a fit state to talk about what had happened yet, so that interview would have to wait until tomorrow, and Marcus was still in Moody's office, which had an Imperturbable charm on it. He had no choice but to go home and look over his files and try to make sense of what was going on for himself.


When Lily arrived home after work, talking was the very last thing on her mind. Her day had been hellish, what with having to clear up the office after Remus' unfortunate encounter, having to do Sirius' work in addition to her own, and being nearly seven months pregnant.

James greeted her at the door, his need to discuss the whole affair with her even more desperate after re-reading his notes.

"Please, can't it wait until after dinner?" Lily asked. "I'm exhausted and starving and it's been a horrid day." She did look tired, and James protective instincts over her overrode the instinct that this conversation couldn't wait any longer.

They ate supper quickly and in near silence, both lost in their own thoughts. It seemed that every time James started to talk to his wife about work or what had happened with Remus, she cut him off, moving to a different topic.

After dinner they ended up on the sofa in the living room, James laying back against he pillows, one leg draped over the side of the sofa, Lily leaning against him. He supposed that they both needed a bit of time to unwind after such a stressful day. He could wait another half hour or so before adding more stress to his wife's workload.

Lily twisted around to catch his lips with hers, and James let her deepen the kiss slowly, her tongue darting into his mouth for only a moment before she broke away. Lily turned around completely in his arms, straddling him, bracing herself with one arm, the other trailing through his hair. James cupped her cheek with one hand, the other on her lower back. The kiss was soft and lazy, but there was something behind, some desperation that James didn't recognize at first. Lily's tongue slipped into his mouth, kissing and tasting him with the familiarity that can only be found with a long-time lover.

James found himself losing his train of thought in the haze of desire that he fogged his mind, so he just kissed her back, gently stroking her back and bum.

Several moments later, when Lily finally broke the kiss, James regained his wits and realized the game she was playing. She didn't want to talk right now, so she was trying (rather successfully) to distract him. As she leaned in for another kiss, James gently placed both hands on his wife's shoulders, holding her at arms' length, staring into her eyes.

"We need to talk, love," he said softly.

"I don't want to talk," Lily replied, her voice suddenly harsh. "I don't want to even think about it. Remus was-is-". She broke off, and James saw the beginnings of tears forming in her eyes.

"You knew, didn't you?" he asked softly, wiping her eyes with his thumbs. Lily nodded.

"I suspected. But, James, it never changed the way I felt about him! I adore Remus; he's one of my closest friends. The way Olivers treated him… it was barbaric. And Olivers won't be the only one. The whole world's going crazy with prejudice, and I hate it!"

James hated to burden her further. They'd had this discussion many, many times over the last few months, discussions about how awful it was that the Wizarding World was in this war, how terrible the things they saw on the battlefield were, how much they hoped they would make it through alive and whole. Now, with the spy and his confession and her pregnancy… he only hoped he wouldn't be overwhelming her too much. But she needed to know. It was past time.

"There's more to it," James said softly.

"What do you mean?" Lily asked, her bright green eyes alert as she looked at him with a furrowed brow.

"I have something, well two somethings actually, to tell you. And you're really, really not going to like it."

Lily sat up, removing herself from his lap, arms folded, suddenly looking ready for a fight.

"What is it?" she asked, trepidation evident in her tone.

"I'm an Animagus."

Lily laughed.

"Of course you are, love," she said, reaching up to pat his cheek, thinking that this was his attempt at humor to cheer her.

"I'm serious, Lily. Sirius, Peter and I are Animagi. We have been since 5th year."

"James, you…. You can't be!" Lily replied, staring at him incredulously. "There's no way you managed to become Animagi in 5th year. That's extremely advanced magic. Besides, it's illegal to do without Ministry Supervision…." She trailed off as James rose from the sofa, walking across the room. A moment later she was staring at a gleaming white stag. "What on earth…?"

The stag walked across the room slowly, and Lily held out a hand to it, staring at him. He gently nuzzled the hand and licked at her fingers, his brown eyes gazing up into hers.

"Prongs?" Lily asked, dawning comprehension on her face as she stared at his antlers. A moment later her human husband was staring up at her.

"Yes," he said softly. "I'm sorry I never told you, Lily."

"So, Sirius and Peter…?"

"Sirius is a black dog, and Peter's a rat," James replied.

"Right," Lily replied, slumping back against the cushions of the sofa. "Does Dumbledore know?" she asked suddenly.

"No, no, he has no idea," James replied. "No one does, except the four of us… and you, obviously."

"I can't believe you would… can't see you could have done…. But Remus was a prefect in 5th year!" she burst out, anger and indignation finally breaking through the confused babble.

James couldn't help but chuckle at that. "Well, yeah, he was."

"This isn't funny, James!" Lily shouted suddenly furious. "This is serious!"

"I know it is!" James snapped back. "That's why I'm telling you, because it's very serious."

"I can't believe you hid this from me, from everyone! All three of you! It's so…so… immature!" Lily suddenly winced, her hand flying to her stomach, and James' frustration and anger were instantly forgotten.

"Easy," he said, his voice low and concerned. "Alice said for you to go easy and not get worked up in this last trimester because of the Crucio Renovo…"

"I know what Alice said," Lily growled back, making to push his concerned advances away.

"Alright, alright," James replied, backing off, hands up in surrender. They sat in silence for a few moments more.

"I need to process this," Lily said softly. "I-I can't think what to do, James. I'm just going to go to bed. We can talk about it tomorrow….," she trailed off as she stood, heading for the stairs.

"We're not done, here, Lily. There's something else that I need to tell you," James started to say, only to bet met by a furious Lily, who turned to face him, eyes blazing.

"Oh, we are more than done here for tonight, Potter! If you are going to go around doing stupid, immature things like this and hiding them from me, we are most definitely done! And you are sleeping on the couch tonight!" She started marching angrily up the stairs.

"Lily, wait, I need to tell you! There's a spy-!" he broke off as he heard the bedroom door slam. This hadn't gone nearly as well as he had hoped it would. Then again, he supposed he hadn't taken pregnancy hormones into account. He turned toward the couch and flicked his wand at the lights, turning them out. He might as well try to get a decent night's sleep on the lumpy old sofa, even if it was nearly a foot too short for him.

As he pulled one of their throw blankets over himself, he suddenly remembered that they had a spare room, equipped with a bed and everything. He groaned as he stood, thinking that if this war didn't kill him, marriage to Lily would definitely finish the job.