4 Months after the wedding


Lily sighed and closed her finally completed scrap book. She looked at her handy work as she flipped though all of the moving pictures from her wedding night and honeymoon. James walked into the living room, rubbing his eyes. "Lils, when are you coming to bed, it's two in the morning…" he said yawning and tousling his black hair.

Lily looked at the clock on the wall. She hadn't realized how late it was getting. "I finished the scrap book," she said happily as she pulled herself off of the couch which was now covered in paper scraps. She pulled out her wand and muttered, "Scourgify." The bits of paper immediately vanished.

James grabbed the read leather book and started to flip through it. Why it there a blank square in on the first page?" he asked still yawning.

Lily blushed. "For our family photo," she blushed.

James looked confused. "We just had one last week."

"Well our family is going to grow eventually, isn't it?" she asked, now blushing the color of her hair.

James ruffled his hair. He hadn't really given it a whole lot of thought. "Come on, we'll talk about it later. I am exhausted," said Lily yawning.

They walked up the stairs and went into their bedroom. James set the scrap book his dresser as Lily got into bed. James had no idea how long he stood staring blankly at the cover of the scrap book. Lily moved in her sleep causing James to snap out of his trance. He shook his head and shuffled over to his bed. Sleep came instantly.


Lily woke up and saw the sun streaming through her window. She rolled over and looked at her clock. "Crap!" she screamed. It was 10 am on a Tuesday morning and James was late for Quidditch practice. He was drafted for England's team just a few short months before the season started.

"James, wake up!" Lily yelled in his ear. James sat up so fast that his head hit Lily's. "Ouch! James!" she cried.

James looked over at the clock and jumped out of bed and ran to get dressed. "Why didn't my alarm go off?" he called to Lily from the bathroom as he threw on his Quidditch robes.

"Cuz you didn't set it," she said, rubbing her head. "I'll make something for you to eat on the go," she said going down the stairs.

"Throw it into my bag along with this morning's Daily Prophet!" he called, now brushing his teeth in the master bathroom.

Lily ran into the kitchen to see an owl sitting on the back of one of their wooden kitchen chairs. She grabbed the news paper out of its beak and put some coins into the back on its leg, quickly apologizing for making him wait so long. The owl hooted good naturedly and flew out of the window after nibbling on their dinner dishes from the previous night that were laying by the sink. Lily threw the prophet into James' bag and magically toasted two pieces of bread and buttered them. She stuffed them into a zip lock bag tossed it into the Quidditch bag as well.

She paced frantically around the kitchen thinking about what else James may need for the day's practice. Lily ran over to the cupboard and pulled out a water bottle. She filled it with cold water and cast a freezing charm on the bottle. Lily threw it into the bag just in time for James to grab it on his way to the quaffle on the mantle of their fire place that the team used as the official portkey for their private Quidditch field.

James quickly kissed her good bye. "Oh, Lily, don't forget that we have a meeting to night at our house," he said. Lily nodded and watched him disappear.

She had totally forgotten about the meeting. This was the first one. Albus Dumbledore had been watching the Prophet closely, just like Lily and James had. Just a few weeks ago there was a reported murder of a family not too far away, the Elophens, if Lily was remembering correctly. There was no known cause of their death that the muggle doctors could find. They were perfectly healthy and had no reason to die on the spot.

This is what had prompted Dumbledore to have a meeting. He figured that their deaths had to be related to magic other wise doctors would have been able to find some cause of death. Lily and James had opened up their house for the meeting since their house was the biggest out of all of the people that were called to the meeting and was fairly new and clean…or was clean.

Lily looked around in dismay at the state of her house. She had always been able to keep her room clean when she was younger as well as maintain the rest of her house over the summer time…living with James had changed all of that. He had a much more laid back sense of living and his favorite phrase when it came to house work was "We can do it later. Now is the time for f-u-n."

Lily began bustling around the house using charms to straighten up the house, blessing her lucky stars that she was a witch gifted in charms. She did some laundry and made some snacks for the meeting. She glanced at the clock. It was three pm and she hadn't gotten dressed yet, not to mention paused to think about her grumbling stomach.

Lily ran up stairs and jumped in the shower. Just as she was putting the finishing touches on her makeup when she heard James arrive home in the living room. She ran downstairs to greet him. Lily had a smile on her face knowing that he would need to see it after a hard practice. She entered the room and saw James lying on the couch. He looked serious and was holding the Daily Prophet in his hand, reading the front page.

Lily wiped the smile off of her face. She could see from his expression that there had been another attack. "Not another attack, James?" she said.

James looked up just realizing that his wife was in the room. "Yes," he said seriously.

"Who was it this time? Please tell me it wasn't one of our kind," Lily begged.

"It was one of Head Master Dippet's nephews. Luckily he was the only one home at the time. The rest of his family was visiting old Dippet himself at St. Mungo's," he said not looking up from the paper.

Lily sat down next to him. "We'll have an answer by the end of tonight's meeting, hopefully," she said tenderly.

"The meeting… that reminds me, Peter said he was going to be late, something about his brother needing a ride somewhere, but whatever. When are they coming over?" James asked tossing the prophet aside.

"I think Dumbledore said that he was going to be here at six tonight or at least that's what he said yesterday on the answering machine. I liked the recording you made by the way, very creative," Lily laughed.

James smiled, "Which one was it again?" he asked.

"You are now leaving a message for Little Red Riding Hood and Prongs," she laughed.

"Ah yes that one. I thought it was maybe still the one that I made last month: You have reached the house of a seer. I know who you are, where you are, and what you want so there is no need to leave a message, thank you. That was one of my better ones that I don't think people from your family would understand," he said.

Lily laughed. James was always able to act the sun during a rainy time. "Let me see this scrap book of yours that you spent the whole night working on," James said.

Lily went up stairs with James and lay on the bed with the scrap book open. They went through it remembering different things from their honeymoon and wedding day. "This didn't turn out half bad. You have a knack for making pictures look fun," he laughed as he saw a page that was dedicated to his funny facial expressions. "Do I really look like that when I am sleeping?" he asked wrinkling his nose.

Lily laughed, "Only sometimes. I am glad that the scrap book turned out. It wouldn't have been half as good if you hadn't gotten the photographer to use your special camera," she said proudly.

James leaned over and kissed Lily. She scooted closer to him and drew her arms around his neck. James smiled to himself. Kissing Lily was the perfect way to get his worries out of his head and to relax after the hard Quidditch practice. Ever since they had gotten married Lily had become more comfortable with controlling the kisses and James had to admit, it was a nice change not to be in control.

There was a light tap at their bedroom window and Lily pulled away to see a brown owl hovering outside of it. She walked briskly over to the window and pulled it open and was greeted by the crisp September air. The owl flew in and dropped the letter on the fluffy bed and immediately flew off into the horizon.

James picked up the letter and recognized the writing on the envelope to be Sirius. He tore open the seal and read aloud:

Dear Mr. and Mrs. Potter (never going to get used to it),

I heard word from Dumbledore, well actually I intercepted an owl of his on accident but that's not the point, I heard that there was going to be a meeting over at your house concerning the deaths that have been taking place. As I am your secret keeper (no idea why you picked me by the way) I am showing up at the meeting tonight. I will be a bit early to chat for a bit (and to get help planning the next prank to play on my neighbors, they are really getting on my nerves) say around five o'clock. See you then!

Sirius Black

"Yes, exactly what were we thinking when we made him our secret keeper, James?" Lily laughed.

"He is the best lair in the world. And he can get anything out of anyone," said James peering over at the clock. "Looks like he'll be here in about a half an hour, plenty of time for me to dig up something for this prank he is planning."

"James, really, are you going to assist him in torturing his neighbors? We have met them before, they were the sweetest people," she said sternly.

"If Sirius thinks that they are bad, then they're bad," said James defensively.

"Well it doesn't take much to convince him then does it?" Lily said sarcastically.

James went out of the room and down into the cellar to look for his old No Heat Wet Start Fillibuster Fireworks. He found them in the darkest corner, but to his dismay they had all gone off already. "So that was that big bang that I heard while I was sleeping last week," he murmured. He looked around determined not to go up empty handed. James finally found a box of dung bombs that were way past their expiration date.

Just as he was about to bring the box up stairs he heard Lily say, "James! Come up here! Sirius is here!" James went up stairs with out delay to greet his best friend and present him with the deadly dung bombs.

"Jamie boy! So good to see you again!" said Sirius and then seeing the box in his hands added, "So you found something for the prank, knew I could count on you!"

"Stop with the cheesy nicknames and yes I did find something for you," he said handing Sirius the box.

"James, these are almost a year old," said Sirius looking puzzled.

"Yes, you see the older the dung bomb the deadlier the aroma," James smiled deviously.

"So, Sirius," Lily started, trying to get their conversation off of the prank, "have you heard about the murders?"

"Yes, that is what this meeting is about, isn't it?" he asked looking a bit more serious now.

"Yes, Sirius, I have no idea why you didn't get a notice about it," said Lily.

"Must have slipped the poor man's mind. He always had so much to deal with when we were had him for transfiguration," Sirius said.

"Well he did put you, James, Peter, Remus, Snape, and I all in the same vicinity in the back of the class room," Lily pointed out.

"Smart man that one, smart man," Sirius said.

"Anyway, I am glad you are here, Sirius. You have to see the scrap book that Lily put together. There are some hilarious pictures of you in it," laughed James running up stairs to get the scrap book.

"So how was your honeymoon, Red?" Sirius asked lounging on the couch.

"It was great, although it did rain most of the time so we couldn't do a whole lot outside," said Lily.

"So now do you want to spill about the vacation? Anything exciting happen?" he asked cheekily.

"No, Sirius, nothing that concerns you," said Lily blushing.

Sirius laughed. "I understand," he said. Sirius stuck his nose into the air and sniffed. "Do I smell cookies?"

"They're for the meeting," said Lily. Sirius got off of the couch and went over to the kitchen. "Don't eat them all, other people in this world like my cookies too you know," she called after him remembering all to well at James' 18th birthday party. Sirius had eaten all of the cookies before the first guest had even arrived. She had wizened up though; she had hid the cookies this time as a precaution.

James came running down the stairs with the red scrap book in his hand. "Where's Sirius?" he inquired.

"Raiding the kitchen for cookies, I can guarantee that he won't find them though. I hid them in the oven and I'm not quite sure he knows how to open it," she laughed.

"Yeah, well Padfoot does know how to follow his nose, he'll find some way to open the door," said James. Just after he said these words there was a loud bang in the kitchen.

"I'll help him," sighed James setting the scrap book on the coffee table. "Sirius? What are you doing?" James asked watching as Sirius tried to pull open the oven.

"Your wife is a cruel witch, Prongs!" Sirius teased. "She hid her cookies in a muggle contraption that I can't open! Where did I put my wand?"

James laughed. "Ah, found it. Alohomora!" Sirius yelled.

"Its not locked, Padfoot," said James very amused. Sirius had now resorted to shaking the oven violently.

Lily ran into the kitchen and smiled. "You can't beat me Sirius," she laughed.

Sirius scowled. "Just tell me how to open it and I'll only eat two," he begged.

James looked at Lily for some sign of approval. "Go ahead James, put him out of his misery," she laughed.

James went over to the oven and pulled open the door. "And that, my friend, is how you open an oven," he said, slightly stressing the word oven.

Sirius looked amazed. He closed the oven door and opened it again. "What exactly do you use an oven for?" he asked pulling out two cookies off of the plate that was nestled on the middle rack of the oven.

"Cooking," sighed Lily.

Sirius shrugged and stuffed a cookie into his mouth. "What ever flies your broomstick," he sighed throwing another cookie into his mouth.

James walked over to Lily as Sirius amused himself with the other buttons and knobs on the oven. "Better put those cookies somewhere else now that he knows how the oven works," he laughed.

"How about in the microwave?" she whispered back.

"No, we hid the cupcakes in there the last time he was over. What about the bread box?" he suggested.

"Okay, just occupy him so I can hide them properly," laughed Lily.

Sirius screamed and jumped away from the oven. Lily threw her hands over her mouth once she saw what he had done. "What are you trying to do?" she cried.

James ran over and turned off the stove that lay on top of the oven. Sirius had innocently turned on the gas. "The oven isn't a toy, come on, lets look at the scrap book," said James leading Sirius out of the room.

Lily calmed down and went over to the oven to hide the cookies in the bread box. It wasn't an easy task. First she had to empty all of her magical touch spices out of it, making sure that the muggles next door couldn't read the labels. She threw the cookies inside and tried to close the bread box door, but the tray was too big. She went through her cabinets looking for another dish.

Lily opened the third cabinet to the left next to the oven and found her trays haphazardly stuffed in. "Sirius," she muttered pulling out the smallest try she could find. She piled the cookies on the plate and had to put a loose sticking charm on the cookies so they stuck together. Lily mentally reminded herself to perform the counter spell before she set the cookies out at the meeting.

She roamed around her kitchen checking each cabinet looking to see if Sirius had disrupted them as well. Lily only found two and magically sorted them back to normal. She looked up at the clock 5:45. Fifteen minutes until Dumbledore was to arrive. Lily went into the living room to tell Sirius and James.

Lily entered the living room to see that Dumbledore was already there in the room. "You're early," she said.

"Things are a bit more urgent than we thought. I have told everyone to report over here at 6:30, if you don't mind," he said.

"That's fine," James said looking serious again.

Dumbledore unfurled the copy of the Evening Prophet. "There has yet been another attack, the rest of Dippet's nephew's family. So, naturally, his oldest son, Brian, will not be attending the meeting tonight," he said passing the prophet to James.

"How is this happening Dumbledore?" Lily asked, nervously.

"There are ways to do such horrible deeds," Dumbledore sighed hanging his head.

Sirius nodded, along with James, while Lily looked confused. "What do you mean?" she asked.

James and Sirius both looked at her. "Unforgivables," they said in unison.

Lily just stared at them. Sirius looked at her for a minute before smiling. "You're kidding right?" he asked.

"What are you talking about?" she asked.

"Remember that Auror that came to talk to us in our sixth year during defense against the dark arts?" James asked her.

Lily nodded. "But…that was so long ago…and it didn't really interest me…" she said, blushing.

"Well she talked about the unforgivables a lot," James said.

Dumbledore cut in to fill Lily in, "There are three unforgivable curses, the one for torturing people is called the Cruciatus Curse, the mind controlling curse is called the Imperius Curse, and the killing curse is called the Advada Kedavra which is the one that is supposedly killing everyone."

"Why hasn't the prophet said anything about the curse being suspected of killing people?" asked James.

"They don't want people to think that there is a powerful wizard running around, people would panic. In my opinion, if there is a dark powerful wizard running around he would want people to panic, it would cloud their minds," said Dumbledore.

"Well this has been happening just recently. Maybe people have heard something about him and wouldn't mind selling him out," Lily suggested.

"We did find some people who were willing to give us information, and we did get some useful information out of them. We know that he has been plotting this mass destruction for years. He has done a few numerous attacks over the years, but most were on muggles related to his father and he used muggle means to kill them, or covered it up to look like he used muggle means such as poison or other violent methods. He has been carefully gathering followers that he feels would be a strong asset to him, mostly graduated Slytherins who excelled in the dark arts. We haven't been able to get a whole lot of information on him. Those who were willing to give away information on him were his followers who showed great regret for joining his forces. They were all dead by the time we contacted them to meet us again," Dumbledore explained.

Lily shivered. "He killed muggle families? Innocent muggle families?" she asked.

"No muggle family is innocent in the eyes of Tom Riddle," Dumbledore frowned.

"Tom Riddle?" Sirius laughed.

Lily frowned at him as he continued to laugh. "What does he have against muggles?" she asked.

"Well he himself is part muggle," Dumbledore said.

"So? What does that have to do with anything?" she asked.

"Well since he is part muggle, he is not a pure blooded wizard. And, as I am sure you know Lily, wizards who are not completely pure blooded aren't taken seriously in all areas of the wizarding world," Dumbledore said.

"So he was mad at his heritage?" she asked.

"Mad at his father for being a muggle and mad at his mother for marring a muggle," Dumbledore said.

"So he took it out on his own family?" she gasped.

Dumbledore nodded. "He killed his own immediate family as well as everyone on his father's side of the family and his father's friends."

"All by himself?" Lily shuddered.

"No, he had acquired a few followers who were also angry at the non-wizard society," Dumbledore said.

"Have we caught any of his followers?" Sirius asked.

Dumbledore frowned. "The only ones that we know of are now all dead for giving us information."

There was a long pause in which everyone looked at either their nails or feet.

"So who is coming to this meeting?" asked Sirius, to change the subject.

"Frank and Alice Longbottom, Alasar Moody, Dedalus Diggle, Marlene McKinnon, Emmeline Vance, Remus Lupin, Benjy Fenwick, Edgar Bones, Sturgis Podmore, Caradoc Dearborn, Rubeus Hagrid, Elphias Doge, Gideon Prewett, my brother Aberforth, Dorcas Meadows, Peter Petigrew who informed me that he was going to be late, Molly and Arthur Weasley, and of course us. Hopefully we can get more people as time goes on," said Dumbledore.


"No sign of Peter yet?" Lily sighed. It was typical of Peter to be late, he always had something going on now a days.

Everyone shook their head. "Well let's get started," said Dumbledore looking frustrated. "Everyone is here except for Peter, so we can start. Now have all of you been keeping up with the prophet story?" he asked, looking at the crowd of people around him.

Everyone nodded murmuring "Yes," or "Absolutely horrible." "Good, good, now does anyone have a guess as to how this is being done?" Dumbledore asked smiling.

Again there were many head shakes, although Frank Longbottom spoke up, "The unforgivable curses. If you read the article about the Elophens it states that they had an expression of unbearable pain on their faces. This suggests that before they were killed they were under the Cruciatus Curse."

"That was exactly the conclusion that the Potters, Mr. Black, and I came to before you all arrived," said Dumbledore.

"Please, call me Sirius," said Sirius, he couldn't stand being called by his last name.

"Right, sorry Sirius. Let's continue. Does anyone else have any ideas?" Dumbledore questioned.

Emmeline spoke up, "Well it is possible that they were killed by physical means, but the wounds were covered up."

"Very good, that was the other way that I was thinking of. The unforgivable curses and magical cover up were the two possibilities that I came up with. Are there any more?" Dumbledore said happy that they were coming up with the answers he was. This was going to be a good defense group against the new arising power.

They shook their heads. "Good, very well. So now here comes my next question, how many of you believe that there is a new rising power?" he asked. He wasn't surprised at the looks of shock and fear that he received; in fact he would have been worried if they hadn't reacted that way.

"What do you mean a new rising power? Are we going to go through a dark age or something? Is there going to be a wizarding world war or something?" panicked Benjy Fenwick.

"There is always the possibility. That is why we are all here tonight. If there is a power that is rising we need to protect each other and not be fooled by the new power," said Dumbledore calmly.

Lupin also looked calm, "What Dumbledore is trying to say is that we all agree to fight the evil before it gets to strong," he said looking over at Dumbledore with raised eyebrows.

"Well of course we are going to stop it! We can do it especially if we start now!" said Edgar Bones pounding his fist on the table.

"Well now Mr. Bones, lets not be too hasty, we don't even know who it is that is causing this mayhem. We need to find out who it is with out any one finding out about us. Sturgis?" said Dumbledore looking over at Sturgis Podmore. "Stand up please."

Sturgis stood up, "Yes Albus?" he asked.

"Everyone, this is Sturgis, the famous black market dealer. If he feels up to it, I am going to entrust him on the mission of finding out who is behind it all. Does anyone volunteer to help him out?" said Dumbledore.

"I will," said Peter walking into the living room.

"Peter, so nice of you to join us," said Dumbledore drawing up another chair beside Sturgis.

"I arrived in time to hear you cry for volunteers, I would have come in, but I didn't want to interrupt anything," Peter said nervously.

"So are you willing to act 'spy' with Sturgis? It will be a dangerous mission. But, I dare say, if you succeed in your task and we defeat this evil power you will receive much glory," smiled Dumbledore.

Peter walked over to the chair that Dumbledore had drawn up for him. He looked nervously around. "Pretty big turn out," he mumbled.

"Yes, I was quite pleased with the vast number of people who were interested. Unfortunately a few people, such as Lily's friends, Gloria and Amy, could not be present tonight but they were interested in joining," Dumbledore said.

Lily smiled to herself. She could always count on Gloria and Amy to stay by her side. "So what exactly are we going to name our selves?" asked Hagrid.

Many people looked puzzled. "Well we are obviously a group now. We need a name to identify ourselves with," agreed Mrs. Longbottom.

"I shall have to think on that one," said Dumbledore stroking his beard.

"I think we should take a group photo. Then we can know who to inform about the next meeting," said Moody.

"Why don't we just have everyone sign a piece of parchment?" asked Remus.

"Parchment can easily be tossed away without a thought. A picture would be less likely to be thrown out. And besides any traitors in the room would be able to wipe their names off of the sheet at any time," snarled Moody.

"Alastar, I don't think that we will have any problem with betrayal," commented Molly Weasley, rolling her eyes.

"Okay, a picture it is then. Who has a camera handy?" asked Dumbledore.

"I have one upstairs, I will go get it," said James leaving his seat.

"I don't think that Sturgis and I should be in the…"

"Nonsense Peter! No one is going to know what we are planning. We could say it was taken at a reunion of some sort," said Remus.

Peter was about to protest when James came running down stairs with the camera. "Everyone gather over here by the fireplace," he said making the camera levitate in the air.

They all smiled and were blinded by the flash. "Get me a print of that photo, James!" called Moody.

"We should all like a copy," said Aberforth.

Shortly after, everyone started leaving either by floo powder or by apparating. Sirius stuck around for a while eating the left over cookies. He left after they were all gone, expired dung bombs under his arm.

Lily let out a long sigh as she flopped onto the couch. James made the chairs disappear and sat down next to her. Lily leaned her head onto his shoulder. James wrapped his arm around her waist and pulled her into his lap. She sighed again, leaned her back against him, and put her arms around his neck. It had been a hard day.

Lily looked into the kitchen and could see a lot of dishes cluttering the sink. James saw what she was looking at and as soon as she started to move he tightened his grip around her and kissed her neck affectionately. "Get them tomorrow, its ten already. Besides, it only takes a wave of the wand," he whispered into her ear. Lily smiled and leaned back into him and kissed his neck. Hopefully tomorrow would be a bit more relaxing.


A/N- Well here is chapter two or chapters 3-7 of the old FATE. Some things were changed but nothing really.

Changes

Some lines were switched so different people are saying them

the part where everyone arrived for the meeting was taken out as well as some other 'dead' sections.

I changed some of the dialogue so that Dumbledore knew who Voldemort was and that he had been wreaking havoc for a while before this time.

Please review!