AN: Nay, your eyes do not deceive you. DOUBLE UPDATE! I seem to have quite a few silent readers, it would be lovely if a couple of you would review. Thanks to those that did. Now, this chapter and the next are quite important...
I'd like to write either a Jily/Dramione oneshot (open to Bellatrix and Narcissa too). Does anyone have requests or ideas?
Chapter Twenty-Eight: And the Truth Shall Set Ye Free
Lily arrived at Charms tutoring a whole five minutes early, bearing a jug of pumpkin juice, two goblets, and a plate of biscuits. One goblet was already full of the bright orange liquid. After all, she had no intention of consuming the Veritaserum herself.
She set up a table in a very secluded corner of the Library with the items. Her hands were strangely solid as she withdrew a tiny vial from her robes, deftly uncorking it to shake three colourless drops inside the jug. Not even the slightest tremor jittered up her fingers.
Did she care so little, then?
No. She cared too much. Now, finally, she was going to have her answers.
Lily took a deep breath to compose herself and settled into her chair just as James sauntered up. "Hey," he said, then paused as he took the food in. "Special occasion?"
"I decided to try my hand at baking," she said as he sat down opposite her. "Here, have a biscuit. Pumpkin juice?"
"Sure," he said. Was that wariness on his face?
Lily poured some juice into the empty goblet. Her handing it to him seemed to happen in slow motion, their fingers brushing as the goblet changed hands, the bare white line of his throat when he tilted his head back to take a sip, the bob of his Adam's apple when he swallowed.
Her breath caught.
"So," James said, "I reckon I'm ready for us to start –"
What he might have said next, she would never know.
"Incarcero!"
She had whipped her wand out to conduct the spell. Immediately chains burst out of his chair and busily wound themselves around him, tightening the more he struggled. But she had underestimated him. He was James Potter, after all.
"Expelliarmus!"
She did not even have time to react. Lily's wand was jerked out of her hand and flew across the table to settle in James's, clasped alongside his own wand, which he had somehow managed to extract from his pocket or wherever it was he kept it. The chains began to retract.
Her heart suddenly pounding, Lily whirled around to run – God, that had been so quick, so stupid of her – but she felt the hard clamp of fingers around her upper arm.
"Not so fast," he purred into her ear.
She was alone and wandless with a James Potter she had just tried to bind to his chair. He didn't need to be a Death Eater to be angry with her about that. She felt hysterical laughter bubbling up and tried to quash it.
"Muffliato," he said. He edged her around the table until her back bumped up against a shelf, his body looming over hers and pressing into her front. His hazel eyes were hard. "Now, what the hell was that?"
Her only advantage was that he had taken the Veritaserum and would be compelled to answer all of her questions. Unfortunately, she was in no position to be asking any.
Well, actually…
"Going to Cruciate me again, James?" she taunted. He was close enough that she could feel his warm breath on her face. "Once wasn't enough for you?"
"I have no intention of Cruciating you," he said. Then he looked astonished. Was that not what he'd meant to say? Lily rushed on before he could start thinking about it.
"Where's Sirius?"
"In Malfoy Manor," James said rapidly. His eyes widened in horror. "Fuck, have you – is that – Veritaserum?"
Lily capitalised on his state of horrified distraction to wrest her wand out of his grip and duck out of his arms. She had her wand up and pointing at him immediately. Not that she would be able to hex him, because his own wand was instantly trained on her too. Stalemate.
"Maybe," she said sweetly. "Now. What are your personal feelings on blood purity?"
"Purebloods are obviously the best but I don't loathe Muggleborns," he ground out between clenched teeth. The effort he was expending in trying to fight the truth potion made veins bulge out in his fists. Lily found herself unaccountably amused.
"Well, that's actually better than I was expecting," she said. "What's the Order?"
"The Order of the Phoenix. Bunch of do-gooders. Stooges of Dumbledore."
"Your opinion of them?"
"They couldn't find their own arses with a roadmap," he said, so honest it was killing him, and she burst out laughing.
"Why would Sirius ever think you might join them, then?"
"Because he doesn't know," James hissed.
Lily shifted position minutely, all amusement gone. Now they were getting somewhere. "What doesn't Sirius know?" And then, when his face worked furiously instead of answering, "Tell me! Now!"
"That I'm trying to persuade Dumbledore to let me in," he said finally. "That it's my job to pretend I'm defecting. That sometimes I wish I really was. That I'm glad I'm really not. That I used to wish I was him, so confident of my place in the world, so sure I knew I was right. That I know that he knows how I only used to fuck his girlfriends to get back at him. That I had to throw Quidditch tryouts in third year so he'd get onto the team. That I actually quite like Regulus. That –"
Lily realised that the Veritaserum was forcing him to reveal everything that answered her question, no matter how hotly the rage flared in his eyes as the sentences poured from lips. This was fascinating stuff. Not least the fact that, apparently, he was the same bad old James Potter he'd always been, only playing at redemption the way she'd used to play at dress-up. She really hadn't expected any differently, if she was to be honest with herself.
"Enough," she said. "That's enough."
His mouth snapped shut, but she was prepared when it immediately opened again. "Tarantallegra!"
"Protego!"
Her Shield Charm deflected the ray of blue light that had issued from his wand, forcing her to duck. She countered at once.
"Petrificus Totalus!"
The Body-Bind Curse missed him by millimetres.
"Doing this," he said, "was a really, really big mistake, Delilah. Locomotor Mortis!"
"Oh?" she said scornfully as she dissipated his Leg-Locker. Her blood was humming under her skin the way it did after she won Quidditch matches. This was not the same Lily who had shrieked under James's Crucio four years ago, and, surprisingly enough, this was not the same James who had cast it. Lily realised with a rush of astonishment that their roles had more or less reversed, and she was a lot more inclined to cast as Unforgivable Curse on him than he was her.
After all, hadn't he said under Veritaserum that he wouldn't do it again?
"Flipendo!"
He activated his own Shield Charm. "Are we duelling, then?"
"So it seems," she said. A single Oppugno caused the table to rocket towards him, making him hiss and blast it with a Reducto curse. The plate and goblets fell to the floor with ringing clangs. It was a good thing he'd cast Muffliato beforehand, she thought.
With the table out of the way, they began to duel in earnest.
