Author's Note: I apologize for the way Phillip talks in circles, that is just Phillip. James isn't evil, just manipulative-in other words, made for a soap opera. James will start to interact with other Springfielders more in the next few chapters. I know I play pretty freely with GL pairings and time, but this is an AU fic. Would someone tell me if it really was Brandon Spaulding who founded Spaulding Enterprises? I can't remember.

Augusta

Disclaimer: I don't own anything that can be traced back to Guiding Light or Harry Potter.

Chapter Six: A Drink With Phillip

Reva Lewis hadn't lied when she said that he was causing a lot of talk in Springfield just by being an outsider. He hadn't left the confines of Company since he arrived in Springfield, but two weeks after his chat with Reva, but everyone in town seemed to have heard about him. One afternoon, Marina handed him a small, stiff piece of expensive paper. When he raised his eyebrows questioningly, she explained.

" Phillip Spaulding sent that message down from the mansion this morning," she said, her mouth tightening with distaste as it always did at the mention of the Spauldings. " He wants you meet him at Olivia's at two-thirty."

" Olivia's?" James asked, mystified. " I was under the impression that Phillip and Olivia hated each other. "

" Oh, they do," Marina reassured him. " I forgot that you don't know your way around Springfield yet- Olivia's is the name of the bar at the Beacon Hotel, she runs it. Her and Cassie Winslow renovated and reopened the Beacon together, but I think Cassie owns it all now." Dinah, who had walked into Company just in time to hear them, came over.

" I can give you a ride over there, if you want," she said.

" Thanks."

" It's no problem. I have to meet Edmund there anyway."

" I've met him. Speaks with an accent, has a bit of a fixation with his fiancee?"

" Yeah, that's Edmund. His brother's widow's his lover. Here, have a cup of coffee with me." Coffee, James had discovered, was one thing Company sold 'round-the-clock. Just as well he'd gotten used to it. It wasn't as bad as he had expected the traditional American beverage to be. A good deal of what he had believed to be true about Americans and American things were actually just myths, and not for the first time he found himself thinking that if he ever went back to England, it would be difficult to switch back to the British way of doing things. He and Edmund Winslow had had a lengthy conversation over that a few days earlier-Edmund was the dethroned prince of the Europeanized island of San Cristobel. James had thought he had misheard 'dethroned prince' for 'defrocked priest' at first, and then he had thought that Edmund was another of Springfield's madmen, but he had been brought to believe it. Who was he to say anyone had an improbable sounding past, anyway?

Dinah's car was of a much better model than he would have expected from a woman who worked as the P.R. girl for her ex. She smiled when she noticed that he had noticed. " My father got it for me as a Welcome Home present when I came back to Springfield and got out of prison."

" How did you end up in prison in the first place?"

" Long story. I was engaged to Hart Jessup, but Cassie Layne, then a stripper and now Cassie Winslow an upstanding citizen, stole him from me. I tried to kill Cassie, but I've never had good aim-I shot Hart instead." She blinked hard, then went on. " He died, and I ran. I ran for a long time, then I got thown in a dungeon prison. Jeffrey O'Neill-you've met him-got me out and had me impersonate Cassie while he impersonated her dead husband Richard-they look exactly alike except that Richard was better groomed, you can't tell them apart. It went on a few years, but the Richard died, Jeffrey left, and I went against orders and kept up the act for another year before Cassie found me out and Jeffrey busted me. Came back, got arrested. Cassie dropped the charges and then tried to kill me herself. Jeffrey and Edmund turned up and she chickened out, and here I am." Dinah smiled sardonically. " On a better note, have you heard Danny and Marina's news?"

" Have they set a date yet?" He had come to consider Danny and Marina and Dinah the best friends he had in Springfield. He was reminded of the Marauders, but had pushed that aside.

" No, but it's going to be after Christmas and before Easter."

" Good time for a wedding. Summer's not good."

Dinah looked at him quizzically. " Why not? Over here, summer's considered the best time for a wedding."

" Oh, we Brits think it's the best, too," he said casually. " It's a reasonable assumption-the stereotype of a pretty summer wedding. My wife and I were both seventeen when we married, and Lily was practically a little girl mentally. She set it for July. Oh, God, everything went wrong!" He laughed aloud at the memory. As long as he kept himself from seeing faces, he could remember it safely enough. His wedding had been less of a personal than political occasion to him, and that made the difference. A Potter taking a Muggle-born to wife signified a change in the world; a physical representation of the unity the world would need to win the War.

" What happened?" Dinah asked.

" It was the hottest summer in my memory that year, and all the flowers wilted. The Matron of Honor-my Aunt Pauline- fainted, she said from the heat, everyone else said from her girdle being too tight. The ice cream, the ice, and the icing on the cake all melted, and all the drinks got warm. The bridesmaids were all wearing taffeta, and they looked like dying morning glories in that purple color Lily had them wearing. The Maid of Honor-my sister Anne- said it was too hot to bother with formalities and set the best man-my best friend-to fanning her with a program. The musicians got their scores mixed up and everyone was playing something different. It was my Grandmother Wright who set things right, no pun intended. She started the whole wedding over with new flowers, food, rearranged the scores, and forbade Anne to enlist herself a servant. After that, we had a perfectly normal, boring wedding." He smiled at the memory.

" It's a wonder you got married at all," Dinah commented. " I've never been legally married, myself. It always went wrong. Hope it goes okay for Danny and Marina. Danny told me that their biggest worry is Michelle and Tony.

" Who're they?" James remembered Michelle as having been the name of Danny's wife who ended up on the wrong end of a mob hit, but Tony meant nothing to him.

" Danny's ex-wife and his cousin," Dinah explained. James looked at her, confused.

" I thought Michelle was dead in an explosion."

" Oh, no, life wouldn't be that kind to Danny. Michelle just lost her memory. She started dressing like a hooker and her attitude... I won't have anything to do with her, and I don't have many things I won't deal with. She fell for and married Danny's cousin Tony Santos. He's as stupid as Michelle, and Danny doesn't own either of them anymore. He said he lost Michelle in that mob hit-well, he did, just not the way it sounded like. " She nodded firmly.

" What about them's worrying Danny and Marina?"

" They're worried that Tony and Michelle will turn up just to ruin their wedding. Tony doesn't have enough brains to think that up himself, but Michelle would do it just for spite."

" Well, there's always a chance nothing'll go wrong."

" Yeah, sure," Dinah said sarcastically. " There's also a chance that Jeffrey O'Neill and Edmund Winslow will become best friends, too."

James had to laugh at that one-even having only been in Springfield the short time he had, he knew how much Jeffrey and Edmund hated each other. " What started that quarrel, anyway?"

" Cassie Winslow," Dinah said simply. " Jeffrey's a dead ringer for her dead husband Richard like I told you, andEdmund tried to kill himrepeatedly."

" He should meet my sister Teresa sometime-they'd be soulmates. She's been trying to kill me since she was sixteen and I was fourteen, may still be trying to find me so she can finish the job her lackeys botched." Dinah laughed. She was a Springfielder-deadly rivalries were the norm in this town.

The Beacon was a large, old-time hotel, sitting within sight of the docks and the Springfield Lighthouse, which he understood was the private property of Rick Bauer-his sister, who turned out to be Michelle, had been co-owner, but she had tried to turn it into a club and it had been decided she was incompetent to own property. Edmund was waiting outside for Dinah, and they started conferring in low voices at once. James walked through the front doors into the kind of wealth he had been accustomed to all his life but had almost forgotten in his humble lodgings at Company. The place screamed rich, from the winding staircase to the fine carpets to the bellhops in tuxedos. A large sign covered a wall showed through the oddly constructed door into a darker second room, and he thought it would be correct to assume it was the place he was supposed to be since the word 'Olivia's' was in curly writing across the wall sign.

He recognized Phillip Spaulding from Company at once, seated in a corner removed from the rest of the bar. James had to work to keep from falling back on old instincts-this was not the English Wizarding World, Phillip was not a wizard, and Phillip was most definitely not a Death Eater. Sitting in a corner away from everyone else did not mean an assasination attempt, just a desire for privacy. Phillip was looking at some papers in a red folder when James approached him, but he looked up-and closed the folder with the words " Spaulding Enterprises-Confidential" on the front-and extended his hand. " Mr. Potter."

James nodded adknowledgement. " Mr. Spaulding."

" Please, call me Phillip," he said, with a smile that didn't reach eyes with more than a hint of something like insanity in them. " Mr. Spaulding is my father, Alan."

" Mr. Potter is my brother Phillip," James returned as he sat. " What is it you want to see me about?"

Phillip tucked his red folder into his briefcase and pulled out another that looked just like it to James. " You might have already heard that we don't get many newcomers here in Springfield," Phillip said, laying the folder on the table between them. " I was curious, I'll admit, and I have connections. I've been doing a bit of research on you."

James felt his pulse quicken and his mind go into a state of detatched levelheadedness the way they did before a battle. " And? "

Phillip smiled again. " Why don't we discuss this over a drink? Waiter!" A waiter stopped, and they ordered. There was a tense, alert silence until the man returned with the drinks on a tray-a nice detail. Phillip tapped the folder. " You've lived a very interesting life, James. Very interesting. Went to a private school, left it with honors as the Head Boy-I presume that is a British position of some authority?" James nodded and Phillip went on. " Had several near-death expiriences, some at the hands of family members. Married your girl's school opposite number, a Lily Caroline Evans, who died under mysterious circumstances."

" If you're asking me if I killed my wife," James said levelly, " I didn't. I was in Hungary at the time."

" Oh, I never meant to insinuate anything," Phillip said lightly, waving it aside in a way that told James that insinuating that James had killed Lily was exactly what he had meant to do. " However, you saying you were in Hungary at the time brings me to the whole point of this meeting."

" Which is?" James was starting to have a bad feeling about this whole affair.

" I know every detail of your life," Phillip said, sounding almost bored. " Including the fact that you just so happen to own a company yourself." He grinned at James's expression. " Surely you didn't think that another business man wouldn't find it out eventually? You can fool a lot of people, but not another man who's been there and done that. Your mother left you her father's company-Wright Enterprises, I believe."

" What do you want, Phillip?" James had had enough of playing mind games.

" You were in Hungary when your wife died on a business trip, then you came to America, lived in Savannah, Georgia for a time, left without leaving an address, and then came here." Phillip looked him straight in the eye. " It all makes a connected picture-but for one detail. James Potter is dead."

" I beg your pardon?"

" James Potter died under very mysterious circumstances and was buried near Haworth, England almost two months ago. Now, if James Potter is currently going to dust across the ocean, who are you?"

Damn Albus! " I am James Anthony Potter," he said. " I have a cousin who was also named James Potter- my mother's sister Pauline and my mother married fifth cousins and both named their sons for their father, James Wright. My cousin died under, as you said, mysterious circumstances." He never flinched at the lie. Serena and Pauline had indeed both named their sons for their father, but the other James was alive and well, living in Barcelona and owning a whorehouse in the local Wizarding district, from all his cousin could conclude.

Phillip studied him suspiciously for a long time, but in the end he nodded. " I'll accept that-for now. No need to make an enemy of you before I get the measure of you."

" I can reassure you that I am not a good enemy to make." Understatement, Anne's 'voice' said pointedly in his head.

Too true, dearest. Phillip spoke again, and James turned his attention to the person in front of him instead of the one in his head.

" The Spauldings are not a good enemy to make," Phillip responded easily, blatantly giving the impression that the family was in a perfect unity- meaning that they were truly fractured beyond repair. It was a tactic the Potters had used too often in front of others during the War. " Still, I don't want a fight. I want to talk alliance."

" I'm listening."

" I can see that you're an aristocrat. Some would call us Spauldings nouveau riche-Spaulding Enterprises was founded by my grandfather, but it goes no further than that-but as Jim Williams once said, 'It's the riche that counts'." James nodded; the little while he had spent in Savannah and a reading of Midnight In the Garden of Good and Evil had made him very aware of who Jim Williams was.

" The Potters rose through the Wrights," James admitted, returning confidence for confidence. That was the way such careful conversations as this worked. "We were coast aristocrats out of money living in genteel poverty until that point. A good number of the more classical families in our part of England ended up like that due to the Industrial Revolution-living without two pence to rub together on the Welsh coast."

Phillip laughed. " The good old Industrial Revolution," he said, shaking his head. " The gentry lost it all, and the opporotunists closed in like sharks who've smelled blood in the water. Brandon Spaulding was a shark, and Horace Caruthers was a gentleman. The last Caruthers is a year dead and the Spauldings are living in a mansion."

James smiled thinly. " All sides have their season, my grandfather used to say."

" Too true-but I digress from the point. You're an aristocrat, I'm an opporotunist, we're both businessmen. Are you planning to stay in Springfield for any length of time?"

" I was thinking of settling here."

" Springfield is all about family and tradition- The Bauer Barbecue, the San Cristobel Gala, the Lewis's trips to Cross Creek, the Spaulding-Cooper War, the Coopers on Fifth Street, the Santoses and the Mob, all that manner of things. You don't have a wife or any family, from what I've found. It's entirely possible for you to fit into Springfield, but it'll be damn hard."

" Are you telling me to get the hell out of your city, Phillip?"

" No. I'm offering to help you become established in Springfield."

" So that's how it is. What's your price?"

" Springfield is Spaulding turf. This town all but belongs to Alan Spaulding. I want to know if you're planning to try to take Springfield from us with Wright Enterprises."

" That was the last thing on my mind," James told him, being totally honest for the first time in the meeting. " I would, however, be pleased to do business with you."

" We could both benefit," Phillip agreed, and stood. James noted wryly that neither of them had touched their drinks. " Might I take the liberty of inviting you to dinner at the Spaulding Mansion next Tuesday evening?"

A deal had been made, and what the repercussions would be was yet to be seen. " I'd be honored."

" Dinner will be served at seven," Phillip said, then left Olivia's.

Dinah was waiting when James came out of the bar a few minutes later. " Well?" she asked. " What's up?"

" Phillip Spaulding just asked me to dinner at the Spaulding Mansion on Tuesday," he told her.

Dinah's eyes scanned his face. " No one can refuse that invitation-even a Cooper would go."

" I didn't refuse, Dinah. I told him I was honored to accept."

Her eyes widened noticably. " You mean to play the Coopers against the Spauldings and the Spauldings against the Coopers? You're either insane or insanely ambitious, James."

" Probably both, " he agreed. " I'll play my game, Dinah, and you play yours. We'll both come out winners in the end-don't ask me how I know, but I do."

" You learn fast in Springfield never to ask anyone how they know anything," Dinah said matter-of-factly. " It always leads to trouble."

" You know, I become more and more convinced by the day that either this town was made for me or I was born for this town." Dinah laughed with him as they left the Beacon.