disclaimer: i think we have all established by now that I am still not jo...so why do I even bother putting this up here?
a/n: hey look you guys! I'm not dead! I died twice, but now I'm back and with a new character that I hope you all hate...a lot. And I am being sirius, just so you know. sorry I haven't updated sooner like I had promised, but as I said, i died twice, and was forced to endure the excrutiating (I don't think that's how you spell that) torture of midterm exams (cringe). Anyway, I'm back, and I swear, the next chap wil be up SOON, as in less than two weeks. It has a bit of a cliffhanger in there, so I'm gonna be nice and get it up quickly, so you don't pull your hair out in stress...lol
enjoi
To all my reviewers: Thank you all for being patient w/ me...you all get virtual chocolate!

"Hurry up, would you?" Sirius hissed, glancing over his shoulder at James.

"I'm going as fast as I can," James replied. "You do want to get out of here, don't you?"

"Yeah."

"Than shut up and let me find the book we need," James snapped. It had been what seemed like the millionth time Sirius had asked him to hurry up in the last five minutes. They were currently hidden deep withing the Department of Mysteries, in one of the many research departments. James was still trying to find a way to get Sirius back home, but they hit a little snag on the way: they couldn't find anything. So, despite Lily's many protests, James and Sirius had decided that they needed some rather handy resources from the Department of Mysteries.

James turned to scan the next bookshelf, muttering random things to himself the whole time. He was looking for a particular text that he knew for a fact was banned at least a thousand years ago. He also knew that the Ministry would have kept record of it; they never would have gotten rid of it if they thought it could be potentially useful."Sirius, is there anyone coming?"

"Nope," came the reply. "All clear."

"Good," James muttered. "I'm so dead...again...if they find me here...again."

Sirius chuckled from his lookout post near the door. He had agreed to keep watch for any unwanted people coming around, just in case. He honestly had no idea what James was looking for, and figured he's be in better use as a sentry.

"YES!" James suddenly yelled from the back of the room.

Sirius, forgetting that he was supposed to be on lookout, came racing back. "Did you find it?" he asked eagerly.

"No," came James's sarcastic reply. "I just yelled 'yes' for the heck of it."

"Ha ha ha, very funny, Prongs," Sirius said smiling. He rounded the corner to find James standing there, looking rather pleased with himself, hold two very large scrolls. "Are you sure these are the ones we need?"

"Positive. With luck, you'll be home in a month and out of my hair," James said grinning recklessly.

However, luck was the one thing they did not have. Sirius was just about to reply, when they heard loud, purposeful steps coming down the hall. "Someone's coming," Sirius said in a whisper.

"No duh," James hissed. He looked around quickly for an exit. Finding none, he shoved the ancient scrolls in Sirius's arms. "Go. Apparate back to my place. I'll follow in a minute."

"What! No. James, I'm not gonna leave you here," Sirius growled. "There's no effin way I'm leaving here without you."

The expression on James's face hardened. "Sirius, look, if they find you here, who knows what they'll do to you! You're a living man who's living amongst the dead! Do you know what people will do to find out how this happened? Nothing short of killing you, I'm sure." He shoved Sirius off to the back of the room. "Apparate, now! I'll throw them off!"

James headed towards the door, glancing over his shoulder to see if Sirius was actually going to listen to him this time. Surprisingly enough, Sirius was already gone. Turning back around, James found himself face to face with Victor Actaeon standing in front of the door, blocking James's only way out.

Seeing the look of twisted malevolence on the man's face, James quietly muttered, "Oh crap."

OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO

Sirius, meanwhile, had successfully apparated back to the house, nearly knocking Lily over in the process.

"Sirius!" Lily exclaimed. "Where's James?"

"We were caught snooping around in the Department of Mysteries. He made me leave him there to deal with whoever was coming," Sirius said, setting the two large scrolls down on the kitchen table. "He didn't want me to get caught and he wanted to get these scrolls back here."

"Are these the ones you need?" Lily asked, running her hand through her hair.

"James seems to think so," Sirius said. "I really hope they are, too. I want to go home."

Lily smiled and sat down in one of the chairs at the table. "When you do go back, Sirius, I want you to promise me that you'll do one thing," she said as Sirius sat down himself.

"Anything at all Lily."

"I want you to get in touch, personally, with Athena."

Out of all things he had expected Lily to say, that was not it. "What?" he asked incredulously.

"If I know Athena at all, Sirius, she'll want to see you again. She'll want to sort things out with you," Lily said calmly.

"But– I...it's just... and...er..I ...I really don't think that's a good idea, Lily," he stammered.

"Promise me, Sirius," she said again.

Sirius looked up at her and nodded in consent. "Alright, but if she's hurts me, it's your fault."

Lily smiled and glanced at the clock. Her smile melted slowly off her face and she turned back to Sirius. "James should be back by now, shouldn't he?"

"I think so. Maybe the guy that found us is giving him a hard time. He'll be here in a moment," Sirius said, trying to reassure her.

"Did you, by any chance, happen to see who it was?" Lily asked, still slightly worried.

"No, I left to soon. Why? Is there some nut who has it out for James?"

"Yes."

'Why," Sirius asked, "does that not surprise me? Who is it?"

"There's this man who is currently working at the Ministry here, his name is Actaeon. He used to be Minister of Magic in the living realm a couple of centuries ago before he got kicked out."

"Kicked out?" Sirius said, raising an eyebrow.

"Yeah. Rumor has it that he was trying to create a dictatorship after he won office. Other key figures working at the Ministry at the time suddenly started disappearing and found dead several days later. An auror linked the deaths to him after his family had been killed," Lily said in a hostile tone. "Most thought he had just hired someone to kill them, later it came out that he actually killed them himself. He's absolutely power mad."

"So why's he out for James?"

"When he tried to create this dictatorship, it was his eventual plan to rid society of anyone who likes to think outside of the box–"

"In other words, people like James," Sirius said.

"Exactly."

"But how'd he find out about James?"

"Well, you know James, he has a tendency to attract the attention of unwanted individuals. He found out what James was like after he was arrested for the first time. Although, James seems to think that he's out for revenge as well."

"Revenge?"

"Yeah. James did some research after his first run in with him. It turns out that the auror who blamed the deaths on Actaeon happened to have the last name Potter, and James is convinced that there is some relation between that Potter and him."

"And he's had it out for James ever since?"

"Pretty much. Let's see, out of the five times James has been arrested, four of the arrests were made by him, one of which he had no reasonable ground to arrest him for. And he was responsible for sending James to Azkaban for a total of three weeks."

"What?" Sirius said, interrupting. "Azkaban?"

Lily nodded grimly. "They have it here as well. James has also been placed under house arrest by him on more than one occasion; though James hasn't said anything, I have firm reason to believe that he's used the Cruciatus Curse on James. And, to top it all off, he has tried to hit on me when James is away. It's sick!"

Sirius's jaw dropped. "You're kidding me? What kind of man is this?"

"The evil psycho maniac kind," Lily said sharply. She got up and started pacing around the kitchen. "Oh, I'm going to wring his scrawny little neck so bad," she muttered.

"What?" Sirius asked.

"James!" she snapped. "I told him not to go, but does he ever listen to me? NO!"

Sirius jumped back. He doubted if he had ever seen Lily this angry. But Sirius also thought she had a good reason to be. James had obviously caused her to worry quite a bit over the years; he had a certain knack for doing that.

"You think he's run into Actaeon?" Sirius said quietly.

"Almost positive," she said, sitting back down. She took a deep breath and looked at Sirius. "Well, there's not much we can do but sit and hope for the best."

Delano's final thought (lol): don't worry, you shall all find out what's gonna happen to James next chap...until then, give me a couple reveiws, por favor