Chapter Thirty-Two: Blinders

Lupin was waiting in the greenhouse like they had planned, squinting at a piece of parchment. He rolled it up as Lily entered.

"Good, you're here," he said. "I've thought of how we can leave. There's a –"

"Not so fast," she interrupted. "Explain to me exactly why we're leaving Hogwarts, again."

He sighed impatiently. "Because Hogwarts is not where things are happening, okay? All the other players in this particular game have already gone to get their pieces set up. We need to do the same."

"We," she repeated.

"Yes, we. I need to get out of Hogwarts too. Things are… going to get difficult for me if I stay."

"Why?" Lily said suspiciously. He ran his hands through his sandy hair.

"Do you remember Emmeline Vance?"

"Who?"

"You know," he prompted, "that girl whose twin sister Sirius had to get rid of?"

Lily remembered huge blue eyes and maniacal laughter. That was the girl who'd thrown herself at James during the Prefect meeting, doing nothing but repeat the number seventeen. "I know who you mean."

"Well, I don't know how, but she's found out what I am. There's a proper epidemic of finding me out going round Hogwarts right now, apparently."

Lily caught the lightning-fast glance he flashed at her. "I didn't tell her!" she said, stung. "I'm a Black. My word's as good as an Unbreakable Vow. If I said I wasn't going to tell anyone, then I haven't."

"Alright," Lupin said calmly. "If you say so."

"I think we should go to Malfoy Manor," Lily said. "That's where everyone is, isn't it?"

His eyebrows shot up. "Well, yes, but it's a little… extreme, isn't it? You do know what they mean by everyone, don't you?"

"He's there?" she gasped. "In my sister's home?"

Suddenly, the spectre of Voldemort loomed nearer than it had in years; she knew he existed, of course, and that Bellatrix spoke of him often, but somehow she'd always failed to grasp that he was a living breathing human being.

"Exactly," Lupin said. "And even if you have the Order behind you, it's far too dangerous."

Lily stared. "You think I have the Order of the Phoenix behind me," she clarified.

He stared back, looking suddenly blank. "Well. Don't you?"

She folded her legs under her and settled on the cold floor. "No. I don't. I haven't spoken to Dumbledore in ages, not since he told me about Sirius leaving – what on Earth made you think I had the Order behind me?" Her voice had risen to a shout by the end of it.

He sat down beside her, expression shell-shocked. "I assumed. I mean, you don't like the Dark Lord, right? And you don't like James, and you don't like Sirius, and the natural thing to do would have been to get yourself in with the Order…"

"I only found out about the Order this afternoon, Remus," she said quietly. "I drugged James with Veritaserum to make him tell me."

"Okay," he said at last. "Okay. Right. I did think we'd have prior support going into this, but…"

He trailed off. Lily had raised her wand and was pointing it at him.

"What game are you playing at, Lupin?" she said. "So you're grateful to Dumbledore, fine. That doesn't change the fact that James and Sirius are your best friends, and have been for years. Don't try to convince me you're plotting against them."

"I'm not," he said earnestly. "I'm really, really not."

She barked a laugh. "You're not telling me that James and that cousin of mine are secretly on Dumbledore's side, are you? That ship's well sailed."

"That was the point," he said. "They've twisted and turned and lied to everybody and told the truth to people who wouldn't believe them and sometimes I don't even know if they know what side they're on, they've shed their skins so many times. But they're snakes. They can handle it. And deep down, I know what side they're really on."

"Their own," she said. He shrugged.

"Well, luckily for Albus Dumbledore, what they want and what he wants happens to coincide quite nicely."

Lily stood up agitatedly. "This is dragon dung," she said. "I'm not listening to a word of it, alright?"

"I could prove it to you," he said. A shaft of moonlight fell in from the greenhouse roof, illuminating his serene expression.

She scoffed. "And how do you propose to do that?"

"Oh, quite easily," he said. "Let's go to Dumbledore."

~#~#

James sat on the window seat of the bedroom he had been given, staring fixedly at the moon. The room was as tasteful and luxurious as one would expect of Malfoy Manor – and yet he still found himself slightly homesick for the cosy common room under the lake and his own four-poster bed.

He heard the door bang open behind him. There was no need to bother turning around. Only one person would barge in on him, and that person had been doing it since they were eleven years old.

He hadn't used to bring a guest along, though.

"Prongs!" Sirius sang out. "Why the long face, my friend?"

"Go away," James said. He could see his best friend's reflection in the window. Sirius' hair was rakishly mussed, and purple love-bites spotted his neck. That had never been an unusual occurrence; what was unusual, however, was the squirming blonde Sirius had in the crook of his arm. There'd never previously been a girl he kept around for longer than it took to get off.

Judging from the sounds emanating from their bedroom, they'd already gotten off. Multiple times. And yet Sirius Black was still taking Alice McKinnon everywhere.

James knew his best friend didn't force girls into having sex with him. He just didn't. It was a fact of life. Sirius liked his girls wet and willing, and rape was not something that fit into those plans. But still, still, even when the girl in question was undeniably willing, something about this situation put him on edge.

He thought her eyes did look a little too brilliant. Maybe she was on drugs.

But no drug in the world could account for this. Sirius had informed him that they'd been together roughly since sixth year, and quite apart from the betrayal James felt over the fact that Sirius had never told him, something just wasn't right.

He finally deigned to turn around. Sirius was whispering something into the ear of a giggling Alice, one hand snaking inside her top and the other up her skirt. The sounds of her pleasure grated on James' nerves.

"What did you want?" he snapped.

"Hmm?" Sirius said distractedly. "Oh… your dad's here now, he wanted to see you… Good Gods, love, you naughty girl –"

He began backing her towards the bed. James' bed. James saw red.

"Diffindo!"

Sirius hissed as the spell slashed through the flesh of his arms. He turned his head, scowling. "Was that really necessary?"

"Yes," he growled back. Then his mouth twisted. Alice was running her fingers along the wounds he'd made, dipping them in; the tips came out wet with blood, and she was bringing them towards her own mouth, her expression dreamy. Sirius watched her with a predatory gleam in his eyes.

"For fuck's sake," James muttered. He swung himself off the window-seat. Had the entire world gone mad?

AN: What do you people think of the interludes? Do you enjoy having another dimension to the story, or is it annoying to get away from Jily?

Oh, and what do you think of the new summary? Yea or nay?

As always, please review - I like knowing that you're pleased with that I'm writing, or if not, why not. Valete, discipuli.