Chapter 36: Back to Fighting
After a too short night on a transfigured armchair Lily and James had breakfast with the headmaster in his office. Dumbledore sat in the armchair that had been their bed for the night while Lily and James shared a sofa.
"Much has happened in your absence," said Dumbledore. "I´ll fill you in." He poured them tea. "Marlene and her family were killed hours after your departure and the Meadowes were attacked only last week. Dorcas is dead, but Frank and Alice were able to save her husband and son. Voldemort himself was one of the attackers in this case."
Lily held her breath. She remembered Frank saying that he and Alice had been injured badly twice when they met Voldemort. "Is Alice OK?" she asked in a small voice.
"They both are," Dumbledore reasured her. "There were attacks at Peter´s and Remus´ houses. Luckily neither was at home," the headmaster went on. "The deatheaters destroyed their homes but both your friends are safe. Though you´re not the only ones in hiding now."
"Sirius is the only one not attacked," whispered James. "I hope he´s careful!"
"Well," said Dumbledore, "it took some persuasion, but he´s hiding, too. In fact, all members of the order are to some extent. It´s difficult for those who have jobs and can´t afford to lose them. And our aurors are very unwilling to hide. But they do nevertheless. The order meets at the Hog´s Head now. Aberforth bought it and lets us use it."
"Can we risk to go home today?" asked James.
Dumbldore took a sip of tea. "The protective spells are strong and in place. There have been no signs that the deatheaters have located your residence."
"When can we leave without being seen?" asked Lily.
"Between nine and ten all students are to be in classes. You can go then."
-x-
It was good to be at home again though Lily hadn´t been calling this house home for more than three months.
It was good to see Remus and Sirius again who had obviously been checking daily whether they had returned.
It was good to have a chat with them over a cup of tea and some marzipan sweets.
It was good to give them their souvenirs and see Sirius´ boyish enthusiasm about a muggle witch doll they had bought for him at a small Austrian shop.
It was good to be back.
-x-
Two weeks later Lily and James attended an order meeting at the Hog´s Head. Aberforth had prepared one of the private rooms for them. Dorcas and Marlene were missing. Lily couldn´t believe she was never going to see them again.
"There has been less poisoning over the last weeks," said Alastor. "This sounds like good news, but it isn´t. It seems that the use of poison is too slow for them nowadays. They attack with wands and spells recently."
"We need to train up then," said Benjamin Fenwick, who had joined the order only months ago.
"Indeed we need to," said Alastor. "For it seems they know which spells we are going to use in advance."
"How is this possible?" asked Lily.
"Well," answered the auror, "I can think of two ways. Either they learned legilimency or they have a spy in our midst."
"A spy?" several people gasped.
"Please, calm down," Albus Dumbledore said softly. "Never forget, my friends, that our unity is our strenght. We mustn´t let distrust divide us!"
"But Albus," cried Alastor, "if there is a spy among us, he may sell us all to Voldemort. One by one. We already lost Dorcas and Marlene."
"What do you suggest, Alastor?"
Moody eyed their leader hesitantly. "You are a legilimens, Albus."
"I will not sink to Voldemort´s level." The headmaster´s tone left no doubt that this was his last word.
-x-
As the other side tended to use wandwork rather than poisons, Lily spent more time translating runes than brewing. In fact her activities at the lab – which was tiny in comparison to the one she had inherited from Harold – were confined to brewing medical potions for the order members. Healing draughts, oinment salves, pepper-up potions.
Instead she was found at a desk in the living room most of the time, studying the books and parchments she had brought from their journey. The runes from the Venetian church proved very useful. They described a very powerful charm to protect buildings. Lily used it on her own house and Dumbledore volunteered to try to get past the new protection. It took him more than ten minutes, which was – considering how powerful he was – an eternity.
"Wonderful!" he cried. "This charm is a good find! Ten minutes give the inhabitants plenty of time to prepare for a battle or flee."
He agreed that he would be the only one to learn the new charm. That way the spy, if he existed at all, couldn´t give it to Voldemort. Any member of the order was free to ask Dumbledore or Lily to use it on their home.
-x-
Summer came and went and as autumn neared its end, the Order of the Phoenix had to face the fact that they indeed had a spy among them. There was not one single meeting without reports of attacks. Attacks on people who were well hidden. People who had told only a handful of friends where to find them.
The spy however, seemed to be clever for they never managed to figure out who he was. They tried by comparing lists of who knew where to find the attacked people. But it wasn´t possible to narrow it down to one name.
Members started to ask Dumbledore to catch the spy with legilimency, but the latter refused. He was not going to violate the minds of his allies. Not even with their permission.
-x-
Lily and James were attacked late in November on their way home from a meeting. They had walked through the village of Hogsmeade to apparate from the forests, when they heard the voice they had heard only once before.
"What a pleasure to meet you again," Voldemort said softly, his voice barely more than a whisper. "You will not send insects at me again, I hope."
Lily stood transfixed.
"What do you want?" asked James. Lily wondered how he managed to keep his voice firm.
"Nothing you could give me." Voldemort said coolly. "I said last time, I want your wife to join my deatheaters. I may consider letting you live to show her what a generous lord I am. And I may kill you painfully to show her how unforgiving I can be. Chose, witch, what will you earn? My generosity or my wrath?"
"I will not join you!" said Lily.
Seconds later James´ yells echoed from the trees. Voldemort took his time before he lifted the curse.
"Think again, girl," he said pointing his wand at the crumpled form of Lily´s husband.
Lily stepped between James and Voldemort. "I will not join you," she said in a shaky voice. The pain was overwhelming. Though she knew that the curse hadn´t been cast with full power nor longer than some seconds, she didn´t remember what it was like not to be in pain.
"Lily? James?" a voice sounded from the village. A welcome voice. The voice of Albus Dumbledore.
-x-
"It was him," Lily whispered. "I´ll be OK, Albus. Take care of James."
"Alastor is taking care of him. He´ll be OK, too. We´ll take you home as soon as James has recovered a bit."
"Where is ... he?" Lily´s voice was still shaky.
"Gone. We heard James yell. We feared we´d be too late by the time we got here, so I made myself heard. Voldemort fled." Dumbledore helped Lily get up.
"He fears you," said Lily, her voice a bit stronger.
"He does." There was no pride in the statement. Only certainty.
-x-
It took James nearly half an hour to recover. As soon as he was able to stand unsupportedly, they apparated home.
Dumbledore conjured tea, Alastor stayed with James and Lily went to the lab to find a potion to ease her husband´s pain.
Twenty minutes later they were having tea together. James looked still pale.
"That was close, Albus," said Lily. "If you hadn´t come, he would have killed us both."
"Promise me you won´t do this again," said James.
"What are you talking about?"
"Step in front of me. Let him torture you instead of me."
"He´d have killed you when I refused to join his ranks the second time."
James snorted. "He´d have used the Cruciatus again."
"He wouldn´t. He´d already seen that I didn´t react the way he expected."
"Rubbish," growled Moody. "James is right. He´d have tortured him, not killed. If he killed him, he´d have lost his bait for you. Be honest, Lily, how long could you listen to James yelling in pain? How long would it take until you´d do anything to end his suffering?"
Lily paled.
"Girl, Voldemort never thought you´d give in after a minute. We have reports that he continued this ´game´ for hours."
Lily started feeling sick at the thought of having to watch for hours what had been so terrible to watch for only five minutes.
"Do you think we should move?" asked James to change topic. "Is the house still safe?"
Dumbledore nodded. "He´d have attacked here without risking to be disturbed if he could."
-x-
"I have a Christmas present for you, Albus!" Lily greeted the old wizard cheerfully when he arrived for Christmas dinner. "Attack me!"
"What?" Dumbledore was puzzled.
"Attack me!"
Dumbledore frowned but did as he was asked to. He sent a carefully dosed stunner spell at Lily. His eyebrows rose in surprise as the spell bounced off the young woman.
"Come on, you can do better," teased Lily who had not made one single move in her defence.
Dumbledore tried some more powerful spells to no effect.
"How are you doing it?"
"I told you about that ancient wizarding school on Crete. I deciphered one of the writings I took photos of as a child. It describes how to conjure a permanent shield."
"A permanent shield?"
"Well, not really permanent. But it will last for half an hour and it covers my whole body and moves with me when I walk. It´s even apparition proof."
"That sounds too good to be true. Where´s the hitch?"
"It´s a difficult spell. Not every member of the order will be able to master it."
"Can James do it?"
Lily nodded. "It took him more than a week to learn though. But there´s more. The shield is draining power from the wizard or witch. If you´re protected by this shield your power in attack will be reduced."
"So if you fight in a team, conjuring the shield will weaken the strong team members and leave the weaker less protected than before."
Lily agreed. "And there is a counter charm. It´s simple. If we have a spy in the order, we may not be able to use the shield for long. But I thought it´s better than nothing."
"That´s right," Dumbledore smiled. "It´s a great find, Lily."
-x-
Lily and Albus demonstrated the new shield at the next order meeting. Lily cast her spell and the headmaster aimed some powerful curses at her.
"It will not shield you against an Unforgiveable," Lily explained, "though it will weaken its effects in the cases of Cruciatus and Imperius. We tried it out."
"That´s impressive," said Frank. "Will you teach us how to do it?"
"Of course," smiled Lily. "Albus, James and I will be teaching you. We´ll start after this meeting."
When they parted this evening, Alastor was the only one who had mastered the new spell and Lily could tell that some never would.
-x-
During the next weeks James´ friends came often to visit and practice the new shield charm. Especially Peter was determined to master it.
"He was so upset after the attack on his home," explained Remus. "He´s gone to great effort to ensure his safety since then."
Lily was glad to have the three in the house for she was sure that deatheaters wouldn´t attack a house full of grown wizards.
-x-
The new spell saved several order members over the next months. It came as a shock when the deatheaters used the counter-charm and nearly killed Remus in March. Hadn´t it been for Peter´s presence, Remus wouldn´t have survived.
"So we know for sure now," growled Alastor at the next meeting. "This spell is not in the books. We do have a spy in our group."
"Don´t let this divide us!" Dumbledore said warningly.
"I wish you were reasonable, Albus," said the auror. "You could catch the spy in a minute."
"I will not use Dark Magic on my cofighters."
"It´s not dark if we give you permission. Sometimes even the light needs to use what can be considered dark. You can´t fight the Evil with velvet and honey."
"I know, Alastor, that this is the ministry´s point of view. It is, however, not mine."
"You´re risking our people´s lives!"
"Alastor, my final word in this matter has been spoken!"
-x-
The Cretan photos proved to be a valuable source of spells. Lily worked hard to translate the old writings, but it was difficult. Some of the symbols had been severely damaged by time, weather and muggles, so she had to make guesses and try out different possibilties. The outcome of her guesswork varied from amusing (a living room full of singing furniture, the mantlepiece claiming to be the choir-master) to dangerous (a major explosion in the kitchen, luckily James was there to help extinguish the fire).
Nevertheless Lily continued her work with determination. The Dark Lord had to be defeated. Life in hiding and fear wasn´t what she wanted for herself and her friends, nor for anybody else. From time to time the girl was rewarded with finding a useful spell. She found two more variations of shields – which were sold to the Dark Side by the spy only weeks later – and a spell to distract an enemy. Lily decided that this spell would be entirely useless if the deatheaters knew about it in advance. So giving it to the order was pointless. Probably the spy would give the spell away before it was even used once.