What Was :: 4 ::

A man in a grey suit was pulling small blue plastic booties over his expensive Armani shoes. He hated working on the weekends. Angrily, he pulled plastic gloves over his hands, and re-adjusted his glasses.

"I hate you, Wallace." he muttered under his breath.

He placed a communicator on his head, and twisted the mouthpeice towards him.

"Okay, I'm outside the door, for christ's sake." he said. Garrison's voice spilled into his head.

"Bravo. Is it locked?"

"Fuck, Wallace, don't pull me in here on a Saturday and feed me this,"

"Just get in there, damn it."

The man shook his head, reached for a wand, and a minute later the door sprung open a crack. His hand slipped into the crack, dragging his fingers across the wall until he found the small box he was looking for. He quickly disarmed the apartment and slipped inside.

He quietly closed the door behind him, and flicked the lights on. He wasn't afraid of the owner being here,she was in Azkaban at this moment, so said his boss.

"Now what am I looking for?"

"This girl has got to have something we can use against her in trial. She's a deatheater, for goodness sake. Go through the personal stuff."

At this the man smiled. When Garrison Wallace had asked him to do this, he had asked if there was a warrant to search involved. Garrison said no. He loved this sort of thing. It made work more interesting.

He grunted into the mouthpiece. Approval.

The man walked into the apartment. He traced a finger on the dark wooden table, and looked around more carefully. This woman had taste, he thought, but she seemed somewhat of a packrat. There was a few items that she must have kept since she was in school. Upon closer inspection, she had kept all of her school books. He picked up a transfiguration textbook.

"Property of L. Evans." That part had an "x" through it. Underneath was "J.Potter" , which was also "x" -ed. It carried on like this, several times.

"Cute." he muttered to himself. He tossed it back on the pile of textbooks, clearly not amused, and made his way into the bedroom.

He dropped to his hands and knees, and looked under the bed. A few photo albums, slippers, more books.

"Westley-"

The man jumped, and his head smacked the bedframe.

"Dammit, what the hell do you want?"

"Do - you - have - anything - ANYTHING - yet?"

"I'll let you know."

"So nothing yet,"

"Just give me more time. It's not like she'll burst in on me."

Wallace laughed. Westley rolled his eyes, and shifted a pile of books to one side, grabbing a photo album. He crawled out from under the bed, and sat on his heels.

It was a bunch of photos from school. He even saw Potter in them. And then, "Wait - what's this woman look like again?"

"Red hair, kinda curly. Green eyes, average height. Why?"

"Nothing." he said. 'So that must be her', he thought, 'The one that's yelling at James.' He smiled. 'They must have been so cute.'

The man, Westley, suddenly felt awkward. He felt as if he shouldn't be there. Garrison suddenly heard a book cover slam shut.

"Everything okay?"

Westley remembered James from when he worked in the office. James was hilarious. Him and Sirius. Westley got a picture of James looking lovingly at Lily in his head, and felt overwhelmingly queasy. He ran for the bathroom, and threw up in the toilet.

"Jesus, what the hell is wrong with you?"

Westley regained composure.'Snap out of it,' he thought.

"I'm fine."

He stood, and opened the medicine cabinet. He pushed a few items to the side, until he found the pepto-bismol. He unscrewed the cap, and chugged half of it away.

"Get it together, you idiot." he muttered more to himself, hoping Wallace didn't hear him.

Lazily putting the cap back on, he absent mindedly looked again at the medicine cabinet.

The bottle dropped from his hands, and he made no move to pick it up again. Pink liquid seaped onto the floor, but he took no notice.

"Wallace?"

"Yeah?"

Westley took out a small box, white, with a small prescription sticker label on one side.

Lillian O. Evans M.D.
Rheumordic Epiderma Mortomises (A/N: Completely made that one up)
Taken externally once weekly until gone, or until scar becomes less visible.
06/15/1981

"June 15th, 1981, wasn't that just a few days after one of them meetings?"

"Why are you asking me that now? I guess it is, didn't I assign that case to you to file away?"

"Yes, but that isn't why I'm asking."

"So what's with the questions?"

"You may want to know the details before I bring you your discriminatory evidence, and it was only one question."

Westley listened to Garrison Wallace laughing heartily, papers flying in the background, until he clicked of his communication piece,and flicked off the lights. He was eager to take off these stupid booties.

*

Lily had been walking, sometimes running, in a scattered direction for the past two months. There wasn't a day that went by that she didn't think of the night she escaped. She remembered it well.

Once she had freed the man of his memory, she ran deep into the darkened wood, snapping his wand in half as she went. She had to stop shortly thereafter, feeling the effects of her wound. She tried mending it magically, but her inexperience left it scarred and sore. She tore the hem off her sleeve and wrapped it tightly around her hand. She then began running again, trying to put as much space between her and the road as possible.

Lily ambled into a small town, cold and starving. The sun had just set then.

She had only 4 pounds left in her pocket, not nearly enough to feed her for more than two days, even if she ate little. The rest of her original 47 was gone, having diminished in the previous months. Suddenly Lily felt like she was going to faint from exhaustion. She leaned on a wooden fence that served as a barrier for an adjacent diner. She swallowed a lump in her throat, and fell down on her rear to recouperate.

That was when she realized that she was sitting on the sidewalk - just as it was getting dark, looking a mess. Her hair was in an untidy ponytail, her clothes dirty and ripped in places, and her shoes looking even more pathetic than usual. People would have thought she was a wandering, homeless person.

But she was.

She got to her feet again, although her legs screamed out in protest. A door banged open in front of her, and two women came tumbling out, almost tripping over their heels.

"Thanks a lot!" one yelled back through the door, while the other shook out her skirt.

"I swear to god, no one appreciates talent anymore." said the other, after a moment.

The women looked only slightly older than Lily. One turned at the moment Lily was watching them, and caught her eye.

"Who are you?" she asked.

Lily felt stupid at being caught staring.

"Uhm, O- Olivia." she stuttered, giving them her middle name.

"Well, Olivia, you look like you need a drink."

"Oh, n-no thank you."

"Oh come on," said the other, "We need to vent some feelings to a third party. It'll be fun."

Her arm linked with Lily's and led her off across the street, while the other linked her other arm.

"My name is Margaret, but you can call me Marge, or Margie-"

"And mine is Coraline. Just Coraline."

"This really isn't necessary,"

"Oh, hush up. Just follow my lead."

"What lead, Marge? You can't even keep a note."

"Shut up, we've got company."

And Lily smiled to herself. She was glad to have someone to talk to, a place to go ( even if it was only for a while). She spent the evening with these women in a small pub,just talking about nonsense. She found that they were aspiring singers, currently down on luck. They didn't pry about Lily's life story, and she was thankful. They just wanted to tell stories. In the end, they offered Lily a place to stay the night, once they learned that she didn't have one yet.

They had been staying at a modest hotel for the while that they were in that town.

"You can kip out on that couch, I'll call down for some extra blankets."

"Thank you."

"Now you can stop it with those thank yous."

"Hey, Olivia, how's your singing voice?"

"Coraline!"

"What? I'm only asking! There's no harm in asking. You're a soprano, aren't you Olivia?"

"I don't sing. "

"Bah, everyone sings."

" 'Cept you."

"Now you shut up, go boil some water for tea."

Marge went to the kitchen to boil water, muttering incomprehensible words under her breath. She emerged a moment later.

"It'll whistle." she said curtly to Coraline.

"Olivia," Coraline said gently, "Why was you sitting on the sidewalk? And what happened to your clothes?"

"A lot happened to me, I suppose - It's just - What happened was - Maybe if I started - "Lily said, debating over what to tell them.

"Oooh, are you on the run? That's okay by us, we're almost the same. Well, only because we're always moving, never stopping."

"I, well I guess I am on the run. But it's complicated, because I'm innocent."

"How good am I?" Marge said quietly to herself. "Go on," she told her.

And then Lily found herself spilling her story to these women. Oddly enough, she felt good after she told someone. She did, however, alter the magical parts. When she mentioned the part where she hurt her wrist, they both looked at it, frowns of disgust on their faces.

Lily fell asleep there, feeling calmer than she would ever have expected being in the position she was in.

Lily had a nightmare there. She dreamed that James had been tortured and then killed after not turning in any information about her. She awoke in a cold sweat. Everything was dark, except for a stream of light coming in from a window. She shook her head, and stood up, wanting to go splash water on her face.

Her bare foot slipped into the stream of light.

But then there was no light. Lily looked quickly at the window, and screamed a terrible scream. She saw a figure, a cloaked figure, and it was staring right at her.