Disclaimer: Nothing's changed; I still don't own any recognizable characters, and I still don't have a job.

*~*~*

When Dawn Breaks The Night

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Part One-Meeting the Dawn

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Chapter Three-Revenge Planned

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"You are one work of art."

"It's nice to see you too, James." Lily said with a pleasant smile as she sat next to him in the unusually crowded library, drawing stares. "I guess I should ask if you have a girlfriend."


"Not at the moment. Are you interested in fulfilling the position?"

"Not at the moment." Lily mocked. "I just don't relish the idea of being attacked by a jealous girlfriend."

"I don't date jealous girls."

"You don't, do you? What if it's a sudden personality twist?"

"Normal people don't have 'sudden personality twists'. And even if they did, they would be the people I tried to avoid."

"I think Sirius is one of those sort of people."

"I think you're one of those sort of people."

"That was rude."

"We've already established I'm ruder than the average golden boy. And you really shouldn't be pointing out rudeness, considering you blabbed by secret!"

"Everybody already knew that stupid secret!" Lily said, slapping her palms on the table in frustration, causing the nearby occupants to look up at her again.

"Remus didn't know what I was looking for."

"You act like it's a big deal. Really, peop-" Lily found herself pulled not harshly from her chair, and propelled across the room. "What?"

"If you feel the need to interfere in my own personal business, you can interfere where other people don't hear us. Accio chairs." James pointed his wand at two unoccupied chairs from opposite sides of the room, making them rocket across the room, and lowered his voice slightly. "In case you're too thick to realize, I would prefer that the entire magical community didn't know that I am trying to find my father."

"That statement has boundless layers of stupidity in it. So many, in fact, I'm not going to comment further on it." As James dropped her bookbag in her lap, she drew out a few books. "I'll wait until you crack."

"Aren't you the witty one."

"You really are an annoying prat."

"And you really are an insufferably snoopy little girl, and I refuse to continue this conversation." James opened up a newspaper and began scanning. Lily, for lack of anything better to do, since her Transfiguration homework was nearly impossible, watched his hazel irises dart back and forth. "Don't you have anything else better to do?"

"Nope."

"I don't see how you can carry a relationship with Junior when you're spending all this time stalking me."

"Don't worry about it."

"So why won't you leave me alone now?"

"I'm curious."

"So? What makes you so special among the hundreds of other curious witches and wizards?"

"I guessed on my own. Nobody told me. I have no previous experience with your family, bad or otherwise, and I still figured it out. That should be worth something."

"I'll give you a cookie to leave me alone."

Lily laughed, finding the buy-off amusing. "Not hardly. I will start negotiating at a cake."

"Then by all means, let's proceed to the kitchen." James smiled, albeit reluctantly, at her, and didn't make an attempt to get up. After a little bit, he sighed. "Get a paper and start looking."

"Great…great. So how exactly are you going to go from scanning papers to finding your dad?"

"Simple. My family gets their faces pasted across the papers if they so much as set foot outside our door. I will merely locate every article featuring my mother around the time of my fated conception."

"So why does this have to be a secret? People go searching for their parents every single day."

James rolled his eyes. "There is a point, Lily, when naiveté merges into stupidity. You obviously don't know the Slytherins and how much they hate me."

"How much do they hate you?"

"I'm captain of the Gryffindor Quidditch team. I beat out their own golden child, Severus Snape, for Head Boy. I have top marks in all of my classes, including traditionally Slytherin-ruled subjects. Figure it out."

"Oh. I see. So they would rub it in?"

"What a keen observation." He answered sarcastically, which was pretty much his typical tone of voice to one of Lily's most keen observations.

"Why are you so angry?"

"With what?"

"The world?"

"Why is the world angry at me?"

Lily shook her head, feeling that she had met a lost cause. "I don't think the answer really matters to you. You just want an excuse."

"Doesn't everybody need an excuse for something or another?"

"No, James, not everybody does."

*~*~*

The next time Lily walked into the library, she didn't sit with James as had become habit, instead chose an empty table. She ignored his penetrating stare as she drew books from her rucksack. The reason for her solitary seating was soon discovered as Barty Crouch bounced in with a smile on his face. "Guess what, Lils!"

"What?" Lily asked the same time as Madame Pince shrilly said, "Keep the noise down!"

"My dad promised to take me to a game of the Bats and the Falcons!"

"Ummm, brill?" She tried, hoping for the right level of excitement.

"More than just brill, this is totally ace! The Falcons ALWAYS get into a fight with the other team, you can ask for a bloodier game. They've taken out more than one Seeker."

"Why would anyone want to see that?"

"Don't you love to see a Seeker debroomed?"

"Not really."

"You really need to relax. You won't get anywhere in the wizarding world if you don't at least pretend to like a good game of Quidditch."

Lily glared at him in a remarkably menacing manner. "Excuse me?"

"In the top jobs, your boss will take you to discuss business at a game. It's obligatory to cheer and know a few plays."

"For you maybe."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

Lily raised her eyebrows in the look of classic female sassiness. "It means that bum-kissing might be the standard in wizarding politics, but I'm going to be an Auror, and we do the bum-kicking."

"Until you become the kicked instead of the kickee."

"There's no such word as kickee, Barty."

"So?"

"I'm saying kickee makes you sound like an uneducated idiot. Can we just drop this anyway, it's stupid."

"Sure, sure. Do you have notes from the last Prefects' meeting?"

"Yes. Did you forget AGAIN?"

"Yeah. I'm sorry! Don't look at me like that, I'm not quite as punctual as you."

"No, I suppose not. So do you want to meet me at The Three Broomsticks next weekend for the Hogsmeade trip?"

"You know I do." Barty answered with a grin, accepting her hastily written notes.

*~*~*

Life progressed, as it has a tendency to do. September blew out, and October blew in with a premature snowstorm, blanketing the Hogwarts grounds at and absurdly early time, causing a fit from Madame Sprout, who feared for her outdoor plants. October marked the end of several things, one being the safety of Remus's secret.

Lily and Barty were walking through the fourth floor corridor on the west side of the castle when the heard voices coming from the territory they would come upon.

"That doesn't sound like Prefects on patrol." Barty observed, looking around curiously.

"Nooo, not unless they're about ready to get in a fist fight."

Quietly, the snoopy couple peeked around the corner to see a congregation of seventh year boys, the Gryffindor to Slytherin ratio four to one. They came in time to hear Severus Snape hiss "For a common by-blow, you are definitely high and mighty, Potter! Maybe I should find a new name…chance child…mongrel…woods colt?"

There were three lunges at the Slytherin cast simultaneously, but James stood back.

Lily saw that Barty opened his mouth to intervene, but she stopped him.

"Are you just going to let them break school rules and get into a fight?"

"Yes. I'm a firm believer in one turn deserves another. Nobody should talk like he did without expecting the consequences. He disregarded human feelings."

"You just have a soft spot for that particular by-blow." Barty said with a teasing smile on his face.

"Don't say that!" She shoved him jokingly as they departed from the scene of a pummeling.

*~*~*

"I think I dropped my wand back there." Sirius said, turning from his friends.

"Sirius…" James said warningly, knowing that his friend hadn't dropped his wand.

"Relax, Prongs. Are you going to the library?"

"I guess."

"I'll meet you there. You and Lily there."

"Moron."

"I know." Sirius grinned and jogged down the corridor the way they had come. After a little consultation with the Marauder's Map he had successfully swiped from his unaware counterpart, he soon found Severus Snape walking slowly down the halls. Careful not to be seen, he took an ulterior route, scribbled a hasty note, and dropped it in the path of Snape.

Severus walked down the intended path, as Sirius had planned, and picked up the crumpled note, also as Sirius had planned.

Wormtail, don't forget to meet me at the Willow tomorrow night at sundown. –Padfoot P.S. Prongs can't come, he's meeting her in the library again.

Snape grinned, knowing which set of people used those particular nicknames.

Sirius grinned, knowing he would get revenge for his friend.