Chapter 44 The Important Thing
Lily raced toward the Death Eaters, James at her heels and Frank and Alice somewhere to her left. She was desperate to put a stop to the Death Eaters' Muggle baiting; her own parents were only a few blocks away.
Everything was in mass confusion around them. The restaurant patrons and employees were streaming out onto the street and Disappparating without regard for any Muggles that might be watching, many of them in the throes of complete panic.
Not that the Muggles had leisure time to wonder about the strange sights all round them. Several were spinning like tops high above the street, plainly terrified. Others attempting to escape were being used as moving targets by the Death Eaters, who laughed and shouted encouragement to each other as the frightened Muggles fell under the influence of various jinxes. And some were writhing on the pavement in the throes of the Cruciatus Curse.
Without hesitation Lily made her way toward a Death Eater tormenting an elderly woman and screamed "Expelliarmus!" at the top of her lungs. The masked wizard's wand flew into Lily's outstretched hand and the Death Eater stumbled. "Run!" Lily urged the woman on the ground, who managed to do so, sobbing her thanks as she went.
Slowly, the now wandless Death Eater turned to face Lily, his hands raised. "I don't know why you expect mercy from other people when it's rather clear that you haven't got any," Lily observed coolly, keeping her wand trained on the wizard in front of her. The Death Eater's grey eyes flashed from behind his mask, but he remained silent. Puzzled by this unprecedented cooperation, Lily got a firmer grip on her wand, staring the masked wizard down.
"Stupefy!" a voice shouted to her right. Lily turned to see another Death Eater, who'd clearly been about to sneak up behind her to come to the grey- eyed Death Eater's aid, now lying Stunned on the ground and James standing over the form, wand raised. Lily offered her boyfriend a relieved smile of thanks before turning back to the wandless Death Eater. Slowly, she held up his wand and very deliberately snapped it in two. Lily then dropped the halves to the ground and blasted them into smaller pieces with her wand before glancing back at the masked wizard to see his grey eyes bright with fury. Before he could react, however, James was there conjuring ropes to tie the Death Eater with. Task accomplished, Lily and James tossed him unceremoniously into a corner and turned together toward the chaos again.
It continued that way for what felt like several hours: Lily and James methodically worked their way through the crowd of Death Eaters together, doing what they could to give the Muggles a chance to escape and incapacitating the Death Eaters in any way possible. Frank and Alice were doing much the same, and it was plain to Lily that they and James would make great Aurors; none of them lost their heads in a crisis and they were all fast enough with brains and wands to stay ahead of the Death Eaters. Lily didn't feel that she herself was quite as good at it as they were. But she was surprised to find that she was able to hold her own. She knew a number of charms and jinxes that were useful and her reflexes were moderately good. Of course, a good bit of it was probably luck, not to mention, Lily thought wryly, her own experience with being attacked.
Unfortunately, their streak of luck didn't last indefinitely. Lily and James were dueling with a masked witch who'd been using the Choking Charm on a pair of Muggles. They had her more or less cornered and Lily was just preparing to Stun her when suddenly James wasn't next to her anymore. He was spinning upside down several feet in the air instead, looking just as astonished as Lily felt while a second Death Eater stood below, taunting James as he spun him faster.
Before Lily could do anything to remedy the situation, something dropped from the sky and walloped her squarely in the head. Rubbing the offended area resentfully, Lily searched the ground and spotted the culprit, a small black box. Realizing that it must have come from James' pocket, Lily tucked the box safely away before attempting to sort out James' safe release.
Said negotiations did not progress favorably at all, particularly when another Death Eater joined in. The arbitration finally culminated in Lily Silencing one Death Eater, putting a Freezing Spell on the other, and accidentally Stunning the third, who just happened to be the one dangling James over the pavement. Needless to say, as soon as the Death Eater dropped to the ground, so did James.
"Impedimenta!" Lily shouted, waving her wand at James' plummeting body frantically. "Impedi – oh, shit!"
It hadn't been an entirely lost cause; James hit the sidewalk with slightly less speed than normal. Nevertheless, his skull landed with a resounding crack.
"James!" Lily shrieked, tripping over the Stunned Death Eater in her haste. When the Silenced one tried to get in her way, she threw him aside and tossed a Full Body Bind at him over her shoulder for good measure before skidding to a halt next to James' prostrate form. "Can you hear me? Oh James, I'm so sorry! This is all my fault! We should've gotten help instead of trying to – James?!"
James blinked rather dazedly up at her, as though trying to work out where he was and who exactly she might be.
"Thank Merlin you're alive!" Lily exclaimed, hugging her boyfriend with blatant disregard for possible broken bones or cracked skulls. "Can you hear me? How many fingers am I holding up? Who Chases for Puddlemere United?"
"I'm ok," James said rather weakly, closing his eyes once more.
"Are you sure?" Lily eyed him keenly.
"You were holding up three fingers and Mullet, Corrigan, and Blitz Chase for Puddlemere," James replied, remarkably smug for someone who'd just taken a swan dive into the pavement.
"Well, your ego seems to be working, at any rate," Lily retorted, grimacing at him. "This fell out of your pocket, by the way." She handed James the black box.
"Thank Merlin you found it!" James exclaimed, snatching the box from Lily and examining it closely. "Don't know what I would've done if it'd gotten lost."
"What is it exactly?" Lily eyed the box warily.
"Er – "James paused to think up a suitable lie until he could find a more romantic moment, but a little voice in his head that seemed to have been jarred free during his fall spoke up. Oh, go on, Potter! You might as well ask her now. If you wait for the perfect romantic moment, you'll be about fifty when you finally make it down the aisle.
"Right," James said aloud. It was decided. Ever so slowly, he began to sit up.
"What are you doing?!" Lily demanded. "You'd better lie down before you fall down." Resolutely, James continued until he was sitting up, then paused for a moment, summoning the energy to make it to his knee.
"Er – James?" Lily regarded him uncertainly. "Is there anything I can – er – help you with?"
"No thanks," James replied politely, carrying on.
"Right," Lily said slowly. It was clear that she thought the fall had scrambled his brains a bit.
Having made it to his knee, James glanced down at Lily. This wasn't right. "Hey, Lily? Would you stand up for a minute, please?"
"Why?" Lily still appeared a bit dubious.
"Could you just do it?" James asked as nicely as possible, not wanting to scream at Lily to bloody well do it before he did fall down at this particular moment. Still skeptical, Lily did as he asked and stood waiting.
Perfect. James clutched the ring box and opened his mouth to begin his speech. Except nothing was coming out because, as he realized a bit belatedly, he couldn't remember a single word of his speech. James closed his eyes and concentrated, but it was no use. He could remember snatches of it, but not enough to go from and he couldn't for the life of him remember whether it began "From the first moment I saw you" or "With as timeless a love as ours."
"Lily – "Oh, sod it, James thought. He couldn't remember the speech and he was beginning to feel just the slightest bit ridiculous. "Lily, I love you," James said finally, opening the box. "Will you marry me?"
"Yes," Lily said without hesitation, her smile dazzling even in the dim light. James stared at her, flip flops overtaking his stomach, mesmerized by Lily's smile and a bit too shocked to fully process what had just happened.
"Are you serious, or are you just humouring me because you think I have a head injury?" James wanted to know.
Lily knelt on the pavement in front of James and held out her left hand in reply. Carefully, James slid the ring onto her hand, both of them beaming as he did so, then leaned in to kiss Lily, fully aware that this, in spite of everything, was the best moment of his life.
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Lily and James had only been engaged for a few seconds and neither had had time to process it when Frank and Alice came racing toward them through the crowd, several Death Eaters in hot pursuit.
"We've got to get help," Frank gasped as they approached. "He's – he's here."
"Voldemort," Alice supplied in response to Lily and James' confused expressions. Her robe was badly singed and her face was streaked with soot, as was Frank's. "Voldemort WAS here. We fought him, but he disappeared just now. I don't know where he went, but it can't be good. It can't be anything we'd be able to handle without some help, anyway. We've got to get word to the Ministry. Come on, run!"
Resigned to the fact that he and Lily seemed doomed not to have any romantic moment that did not include mayhem in some form, James gripped Lily's hand and the four of them set off, running as fast as they could for a small alley just ahead where hopefully they'd be able to stand still long enough and concentrate hard enough to Disapparate.
They were nearly there when an ominous popping noise filled the air, announcing the arrival of more people on the scene. James, Lily, Alice, and Frank braced themselves for a fresh wave of Death Eaters, wondering how long they could hold.
"NOW what?" Alice asked no one in particular, eyeing a particularly tall masked figure apprehensively.
"Er –"Lily tried to keep a steady grip on her wand, the waves of terror she'd been staving off all night beginning to encroach on her again.
"Just stay calm and Stun as many as you can," James' voice was unruffled and steady; Lily glanced at him out of the corner of her eye admiringly. "Does everyone have a Shielding Charm up?"
Before anyone could reply or express their irritation at James' stupid question, the space around them began to fill with witches and wizards, all of them brandishing their wands purposefully.
But these people weren't cloaked and masked; they were wearing the sort of robes any witch or wizard might wear to work. They came in all shapes, sizes, and ages, but all of them had the same purposeful expression and steely glint in their eye.
The Aurors had arrived.
Much later, Lily and James Apparated onto the sidewalk in front of the Evans house, both considerably the worse for wear. But they were alive, uninjured, together, and engaged. All in all, Lily and James were feeling rather good about their evening.
It hadn't taken long for the crisis to end after the Aurors appeared on the scene. Most of the Death Eaters had Disapparated immediately, but they'd managed to take a few suspects, who'd been unconscious, wandless, or Silenced, into custody. Then the Department of Magical Catastrophes had arrived to help clean up the mess, placate and Obliviate the Muggles, and take statements from witnesses. Lily, James, Frank, and Alice had been questioned by several of the Aurors, however, all of whom seemed amazed by what they had done and more than a bit pleased that three of them would begin Auror training on Monday.
Lily glanced down at her ring again, reminding herself that it was real. James had actually proposed, for Merlin's sake, and she'd accepted. Not that there'd ever been a question of her accepting him, but marriage in the near future wasn't something she'd given a great deal of thought to. The more she thought about it though, the more she liked the idea. It often didn't seem like it at first, but James really did have excellent timing.
"You're sure you meant to say yes?" James asked for what could very well have been the thousandth time.
"If you ask me that once more, I'm going to kick you," Lily snapped, her patience finally exhausted.
"Sorry," James grinned rather unrepentantly, and Lily smiled back, walking on air again.
"Good Godric!" Lily exclaimed suddenly, a thought occurring to her. "Did you take me to that restaurant tonight to PROPOSE?"
"Yeah," James said, thinking Lily was being a bit thick. Why else did she think he'd taken her to a posh restaurant carrying an engagement ring in his pocket?
"Oh," Lily replied rather lamely, everything that had happened, from Frank and Alice's interruption, to the Death Eater attack to James'close encounter with the pavement, running through her head. "Oh, I'm so sorry."
"It wasn't your fault," James pointed out. "You didn't ASK the Death Eaters to ruin my night."
"But you probably had some grand plan to hide the ring in the pudding or something," Lily seemed genuinely upset. "Then your plans all went to hell, and you probably got a concussion on top of it all."
"Well, it did take me weeks to write the speech," James admitted. "And who hides an engagement ring in the pudding? Someone trying to off their fiancée?"
"It's an old Muggle cliché," Lily waved him off impatiently. "Muggle men hide the ring in the woman's chocolate cake or whatever so she'll be surprised. It's meant to be romantic."
"Yeah, because nothing says love like the Heimlich Maneuver," James snorted.
"So you wrote a speech?" Lily bit back her annoyance at James' sarcasm with an effort. "What happened to it?"
"I – er – I sort of forgot it when I landed on my head," James admitted sheepishly. "I'd memorized it, but Sirius – he helped me write the speech – kept telling me to bring along the written. I should've listened to him, apparently."
"That's all right," Lily consoled, touched at the mental image of James and Sirius working out a way to propose together.
"I could go home and get it," James offered. "I'm not sure I could memorize it again quickly – it's a bit long – but I could read it to you if you like."
"Er, that's ok," Lily said quickly. She might have been touched at the idea of James and Sirius trying to propose, but she had a sneaking suspicion that she wouldn't be able to keep a straight face through the speech. "You did say the important part, after all." Lily held up her ring, grinning broadly.
"Yeah," James replied, returning Lily's smile, "I got the important part right at least."
On Monday morning, James, along with Sirius, Frank, Alice, and Dorcas and a few others, sat fidgeting in a classroom of sorts on the second floor of the Ministry, waiting for their instructor to arrive and their training to begin.
It had definitely been an eventful weekend, James reflected as he rubbed his eyes tiredly. He and Lily had spent the Sunday after their eventful Saturday night breaking the news to their parents, who had taken it rather well and, to Lily and James' mild indignation, hadn't seemed at all surprised about the announcement.
True, James had gotten a "think of marriage the way you would a funnel" lecture from his dad and Lily's father had been a bit quiet after they'd told him and took to staring at James suspiciously for the rest of his visit. But Lily had assured him that Mr. Evans was coming round and James had been frankly relieved by the reappearance of the funnel analogy after the last talk he'd had with his dad.
The sound of the door slamming against the wall jolted James out of his reverie and he glanced up just in time to see a heavily scarred wizard with a wooden leg and a magical eye appear in the doorway. Mad Eye Moody. James and Sirius exchanged a glance.
Moody's good eye skimmed over a piece of parchment he was carrying. "This is the lot of you, then?" he asked no one in particular, his magical eye scanning the room.
"Yes, sir," Frank spoke up.
"H'm," Moody grunted, shooting each of them a last glance. "Right then, I'm Alastor Moody. As a senior Auror, I'll be overseeing your training," he announced, assessing them all before continuing.
"If you've come here thinking that being an Auror is nothing more than playing the white knight to damsels in distress and talking to appreciative reporters about putting Jelly Legs Jinxes on Death Eaters, you might as well leave right now," Moody's voice rang clearly through the room as he stared them all down. Nobody blinked an eye. Moody nodded in grudging satisfaction. "Let's get on with it, then."
James had always considered himself to be in good physical condition after years of playing constant Qudditch. By the end of the day, James had learned just how wrong he was, convinced he couldn't be more physically exhausted. By the end of the week, James realized how big a lie that was as he reached previously unknown levels of fatigue.
That first day, James had stood with all the others in a circle, facing outward toward several Aurors, who stood at various points round the room. At Moody's signal, the Aurors had immediately flung any and all manner of jinxes rapid fire at the trainees, who'd done their best to deflect whatever they could to the best of their abilities. Needless to say, their best was woefully inadequate, and they'd spent the rest of the day brushing up on basic defensive spells and practicing drawing their wands as fast as they could. "The first and most important skill is to be able to defend yourself against people who don't fight fair," Moody intoned over and over again. "Constant vigilance!" He'd finally packed them all off with mountains of reading about Dark magic and spells, Death Eaters, and Voldemort to do for the next day.
The rest of the week continued in this pattern, and James was having distinct difficulty remembering why he'd signed up for this. But every time he had himself convinced that a nice safe desk job would be just as helpful in the fight against Voldemort and a lot less painful, he'd achieve some goal, like getting a slightly higher mark on one of the dozens of exams they took, or knocking Moody on his arse during dueling practice, that would remind him why he'd been willing to give up so much to take this job.
Feeling motivated once again, James gritted his teeth and resolved to make it through this hellish first bit of training if it killed him.
And James was growing more and more convinced daily that it would.
Lily approached her first day of work with loads more apprehension than James had. She arrived at the Atrium to meet a smiling Caradoc Dearborn promptly, wondering what she'd have seen the next time she was in it.
Dearborn made polite small talk with Lily, introducing her to the watch wizard and to any witches or wizards they met in the corridors or lifts. Lily wondered if he'd ever been nervous in his life about anything. He certainly didn't seem like it.
Finally they reached the ninth floor and made their way along the dark hallway to the single door. "The password is 'manticore,'" Dearborn informed Lily quietly, "and it changes every day." Before Lily could think of a reply the door swung open to reveal a circular room with at least a dozen identical doors. "Just to warn you, after regular Ministry operating hours, these doors are enchanted to rotate," Dearborn explained casually. "The idea is to prevent any unexpected visitors trying to steal Ministry secrets from finding what they're looking for and escaping with it. Remind me to show you the necessary spells later."
"Ok," Lily replied in a rather high voice, envisioning herself wandering trapped and lost in the Department of Mysteries all night.
Lily forgot a bit of her nervousness in her fascination when Dearborn gave her a brief tour of some of the less sensitive areas of the department. She was fascinated by an arch with a curtain, behind which voices seemed to be whispering, in the Ambiguous Magical Artifacts Division, and stared wide-eyed at the thousands of prophecies in the Prophecies and Divination Division. They also visited the Provisional Medicine Division, the Intelligence Sector, and the offices, all of the other subdivisions being too classified for outsiders, before Dearborn pushed open yet another door. "And this is the Classified Charms and Spells Division," he informed Lily.
Lily found herself in an immense room, at one end of which was a perfectly ordinary set of cubicles, and at the other a large, open experimentation area with heavily padded walls and floor. A rack against one wall displayed an impressive collection of wands of all lengths and thicknesses. The space between the cubicles and the experimentation area housed enormous bookshelves, crammed full.
Dearborn led the way to the cubicles, Lily trailing behind, and when the witches and wizards saw who was approaching, they stopped what they were doing to cluster round. Lily recognized Gideon Prewett in the crowd.
"This is Lily Evans," Dearborn announced, putting a hand on Lily's shoulder. A slight murmur went through the crowd at this information. "Lily, this is Emmeline Vance, the division head."
"Welcome, Lily," the stately looking witch said, offering Lily her hand and a surprisingly warm smile.
"I'll just leave you to get acquainted," Dearborn said, and, with a parting smile at Lily, he exited.
Quickly, Emmeline Vance introduced Lily to her new colleagues: Tristram Croaker, Jane Bones, Galinda Godricson, Bilius Weasley, Cressida Crandall, and Augustus Rookwood. She already knew Gideon, and most of the others seemed nice enough. But Augustus Rookwood seemed a bit odd to Lily. He was the deputy division head and had been with the Ministry for years, but he just didn't seem quite right; he was a bit too smooth and polished, and he tended to stare at Lily when he thought she didn't notice.
By the end of the week, Lily was ensconced in her own cubicle and was beginning to learn the basics of charm experimentation. Work was a good deal more fun than she'd thought it would be; the others were friendly and there was almost always some sort of interesting experiment going on. It wasn't at all uncommon to hear explosions and smell smoke, or to see one of the department members go flying across the room while others made notes. Bilius Weasley did it so often, however, that by Friday, Lily was a bit concerned for his health, not to mention his head.
Fascinating as she found it, Lily was anxious to leave work on Friday and get to the Leaky Cauldron. She, Alice, Dorcas, Morwenna, Kathleen, and the Marauders had agreed to meet there every Friday for dinner, just to keep in touch. Tonight, however, she and James would be announcing their engagement to their friends – with the exception of Sirius, who already knew and was sworn to secrecy – and Lily was very much hoping that it would be well received. Not that there was any reason to think that it wouldn't be, but since Petunia had burst into hysterical tears when Lily had told her and Mr. Evans had only recently come out of his denial stage, Lily was feeling a bit gun shy about the whole engagement issue.
Finally Lily could go, and she hurried out of the Ministry and Apparated to the Leaky Cauldron as quickly as possible. The others were all sitting already at their usual corner table, those who'd attended Auror training looking asleep where they sat.
".........licking envelopes all day," Peter was saying as Lily approached. "Don't think my tongue will ever be the same." Peter had found a job at the Ministry in the Improper Use of Magic Office. He was a very junior clerk who spent most of his days dispatching warning letters to Reasonable Restriction of Underage Sorcery violators, which depressed him beyond words. So everyone, at Alice's suggestion, had been going to great lengths to appear interested in Peter's job.
"I - er – like to seal envelopes," Dorcas enthused very unconvincingly, stifling a yawn. Sirius snorted derisively. He was having a bit of difficulty getting behind Alice's plan.
"You must feel so useful," Alice said, shooting Sirius a filthy look. "The Reasonable Restriction of Underage Sorcery is a very important law, you know."
"Yeah," Peter sighed modestly, then winced and touched the tip of his tongue gingerly. "Wish it wasn't so hard on my tongue though."
"Oh, for Merlin's sake!" Sirius burst out, goaded beyond endurance. "You're a bloody WIZARD, Wormtail! Do the words 'Sealing Spell' sound familiar or have you been huffing so many glue fumes that you've forgotten your ENTIRE HOGWARTS CAREER?!"
"Oh," Peter said in a small voice.
"Well, that could easily happen to anyone!" Alice exclaimed, kicking Sirius viciously under the table and causing him to yelp. "Everybody forgets – things – sometimes!"
"So THAT'S why that other bloke was sniggering every time he glanced over," Peter said in the tones of someone who'd just solved a particularly perplexing mystery.
"Hi!" Lily said brightly, deciding to create a diversion before Sirius lost control of himself again. "Sorry I'm late." She slid into the chair next to James, leaning in to kiss him.
"What's that?!" Kathleen demanded, snatching Lily's left hand. "Merlin's beard, they're engaged!" she exclaimed, beaming. "Oh, congratulations!" Kathleen gathered Lily into a crushing hug.
Morwenna plucked up Lily's hand. "Very nice," she said approvingly, eyeing the ring with a connoisseur's eye.
"Congratulations, James, Lily," Remus put in.
"This is great news," Peter squeaked.
"Well, it's about bloody time!" Alice grinned.
"Hear, hear!" Dorcas seconded.
"Why is nobody ever surprised when they find out we're getting married?" Lily asked James, her left hand stretched almost to full capacity to allow Alice to get a closer look at the ring.
"Well, it's not really that shocking, when you think about it," James shrugged, clearly basking in the attention. "I've been mad about you for years now and you've finally returned the favor; it seems like the next logical step."
It was another few minutes before the excitement died down sufficiently for James and Lily to tell the tale, with a bit of help from Frank and Alice, of the night they'd gotten engaged. After hearing this story, the rest of the night was interspersed with Sirius' spirited renditions of a concussed James popping the question to Peter, playing the part of Lily.
"Frank and Alice are married, Remus and Kathleen are living together, and we're engaged," Lily summed up to James sometime later during a lull in Sirius' performance. "It's like we're all growing up or something."
"Yeah," Sirius snorted, overhearing Lily's remark. "Peter still hasn't mastered a first year spell and you just got yourself engaged to the bloke you used to reject in favor of the giant squid. Right mature lot this is."
Deciding that they'd suffered through their fair share of ribbing, James and Lily demonstrated the effectiveness of Sealing Spells to Peter and Sirius by sealing their lips shut. Unable to retaliate magically or even verbally, Sirius reverted to the universally understood declaration of war: throwing food. It was quite late by the time the ten former Gryffindors, having alienated all of the Leaky Cauldron's patrons and seriously annoyed Tom the proprietor, finally made their way home, satisfied that they hadn't grown up completely just yet.
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Author's Note:
I'm so excited to have hit the two thousand review mark! Thank you to everyone who has ever reviewed Priori Incantatem, and thank you especially to those of you who review faithfully chapter after chapter. I always look forward to hearing from you. Hang in there, everyone; I do try to update more quickly but it doesn't always work out that way.
Also, I wanted to mention that my story A Sacrifice has been nominated for a Twisted Colours Award as well. So thank you to whoever nominated me!
I dedicate this chapter to Allison; thanks so much for your help with everything =)
Lily raced toward the Death Eaters, James at her heels and Frank and Alice somewhere to her left. She was desperate to put a stop to the Death Eaters' Muggle baiting; her own parents were only a few blocks away.
Everything was in mass confusion around them. The restaurant patrons and employees were streaming out onto the street and Disappparating without regard for any Muggles that might be watching, many of them in the throes of complete panic.
Not that the Muggles had leisure time to wonder about the strange sights all round them. Several were spinning like tops high above the street, plainly terrified. Others attempting to escape were being used as moving targets by the Death Eaters, who laughed and shouted encouragement to each other as the frightened Muggles fell under the influence of various jinxes. And some were writhing on the pavement in the throes of the Cruciatus Curse.
Without hesitation Lily made her way toward a Death Eater tormenting an elderly woman and screamed "Expelliarmus!" at the top of her lungs. The masked wizard's wand flew into Lily's outstretched hand and the Death Eater stumbled. "Run!" Lily urged the woman on the ground, who managed to do so, sobbing her thanks as she went.
Slowly, the now wandless Death Eater turned to face Lily, his hands raised. "I don't know why you expect mercy from other people when it's rather clear that you haven't got any," Lily observed coolly, keeping her wand trained on the wizard in front of her. The Death Eater's grey eyes flashed from behind his mask, but he remained silent. Puzzled by this unprecedented cooperation, Lily got a firmer grip on her wand, staring the masked wizard down.
"Stupefy!" a voice shouted to her right. Lily turned to see another Death Eater, who'd clearly been about to sneak up behind her to come to the grey- eyed Death Eater's aid, now lying Stunned on the ground and James standing over the form, wand raised. Lily offered her boyfriend a relieved smile of thanks before turning back to the wandless Death Eater. Slowly, she held up his wand and very deliberately snapped it in two. Lily then dropped the halves to the ground and blasted them into smaller pieces with her wand before glancing back at the masked wizard to see his grey eyes bright with fury. Before he could react, however, James was there conjuring ropes to tie the Death Eater with. Task accomplished, Lily and James tossed him unceremoniously into a corner and turned together toward the chaos again.
It continued that way for what felt like several hours: Lily and James methodically worked their way through the crowd of Death Eaters together, doing what they could to give the Muggles a chance to escape and incapacitating the Death Eaters in any way possible. Frank and Alice were doing much the same, and it was plain to Lily that they and James would make great Aurors; none of them lost their heads in a crisis and they were all fast enough with brains and wands to stay ahead of the Death Eaters. Lily didn't feel that she herself was quite as good at it as they were. But she was surprised to find that she was able to hold her own. She knew a number of charms and jinxes that were useful and her reflexes were moderately good. Of course, a good bit of it was probably luck, not to mention, Lily thought wryly, her own experience with being attacked.
Unfortunately, their streak of luck didn't last indefinitely. Lily and James were dueling with a masked witch who'd been using the Choking Charm on a pair of Muggles. They had her more or less cornered and Lily was just preparing to Stun her when suddenly James wasn't next to her anymore. He was spinning upside down several feet in the air instead, looking just as astonished as Lily felt while a second Death Eater stood below, taunting James as he spun him faster.
Before Lily could do anything to remedy the situation, something dropped from the sky and walloped her squarely in the head. Rubbing the offended area resentfully, Lily searched the ground and spotted the culprit, a small black box. Realizing that it must have come from James' pocket, Lily tucked the box safely away before attempting to sort out James' safe release.
Said negotiations did not progress favorably at all, particularly when another Death Eater joined in. The arbitration finally culminated in Lily Silencing one Death Eater, putting a Freezing Spell on the other, and accidentally Stunning the third, who just happened to be the one dangling James over the pavement. Needless to say, as soon as the Death Eater dropped to the ground, so did James.
"Impedimenta!" Lily shouted, waving her wand at James' plummeting body frantically. "Impedi – oh, shit!"
It hadn't been an entirely lost cause; James hit the sidewalk with slightly less speed than normal. Nevertheless, his skull landed with a resounding crack.
"James!" Lily shrieked, tripping over the Stunned Death Eater in her haste. When the Silenced one tried to get in her way, she threw him aside and tossed a Full Body Bind at him over her shoulder for good measure before skidding to a halt next to James' prostrate form. "Can you hear me? Oh James, I'm so sorry! This is all my fault! We should've gotten help instead of trying to – James?!"
James blinked rather dazedly up at her, as though trying to work out where he was and who exactly she might be.
"Thank Merlin you're alive!" Lily exclaimed, hugging her boyfriend with blatant disregard for possible broken bones or cracked skulls. "Can you hear me? How many fingers am I holding up? Who Chases for Puddlemere United?"
"I'm ok," James said rather weakly, closing his eyes once more.
"Are you sure?" Lily eyed him keenly.
"You were holding up three fingers and Mullet, Corrigan, and Blitz Chase for Puddlemere," James replied, remarkably smug for someone who'd just taken a swan dive into the pavement.
"Well, your ego seems to be working, at any rate," Lily retorted, grimacing at him. "This fell out of your pocket, by the way." She handed James the black box.
"Thank Merlin you found it!" James exclaimed, snatching the box from Lily and examining it closely. "Don't know what I would've done if it'd gotten lost."
"What is it exactly?" Lily eyed the box warily.
"Er – "James paused to think up a suitable lie until he could find a more romantic moment, but a little voice in his head that seemed to have been jarred free during his fall spoke up. Oh, go on, Potter! You might as well ask her now. If you wait for the perfect romantic moment, you'll be about fifty when you finally make it down the aisle.
"Right," James said aloud. It was decided. Ever so slowly, he began to sit up.
"What are you doing?!" Lily demanded. "You'd better lie down before you fall down." Resolutely, James continued until he was sitting up, then paused for a moment, summoning the energy to make it to his knee.
"Er – James?" Lily regarded him uncertainly. "Is there anything I can – er – help you with?"
"No thanks," James replied politely, carrying on.
"Right," Lily said slowly. It was clear that she thought the fall had scrambled his brains a bit.
Having made it to his knee, James glanced down at Lily. This wasn't right. "Hey, Lily? Would you stand up for a minute, please?"
"Why?" Lily still appeared a bit dubious.
"Could you just do it?" James asked as nicely as possible, not wanting to scream at Lily to bloody well do it before he did fall down at this particular moment. Still skeptical, Lily did as he asked and stood waiting.
Perfect. James clutched the ring box and opened his mouth to begin his speech. Except nothing was coming out because, as he realized a bit belatedly, he couldn't remember a single word of his speech. James closed his eyes and concentrated, but it was no use. He could remember snatches of it, but not enough to go from and he couldn't for the life of him remember whether it began "From the first moment I saw you" or "With as timeless a love as ours."
"Lily – "Oh, sod it, James thought. He couldn't remember the speech and he was beginning to feel just the slightest bit ridiculous. "Lily, I love you," James said finally, opening the box. "Will you marry me?"
"Yes," Lily said without hesitation, her smile dazzling even in the dim light. James stared at her, flip flops overtaking his stomach, mesmerized by Lily's smile and a bit too shocked to fully process what had just happened.
"Are you serious, or are you just humouring me because you think I have a head injury?" James wanted to know.
Lily knelt on the pavement in front of James and held out her left hand in reply. Carefully, James slid the ring onto her hand, both of them beaming as he did so, then leaned in to kiss Lily, fully aware that this, in spite of everything, was the best moment of his life.
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Lily and James had only been engaged for a few seconds and neither had had time to process it when Frank and Alice came racing toward them through the crowd, several Death Eaters in hot pursuit.
"We've got to get help," Frank gasped as they approached. "He's – he's here."
"Voldemort," Alice supplied in response to Lily and James' confused expressions. Her robe was badly singed and her face was streaked with soot, as was Frank's. "Voldemort WAS here. We fought him, but he disappeared just now. I don't know where he went, but it can't be good. It can't be anything we'd be able to handle without some help, anyway. We've got to get word to the Ministry. Come on, run!"
Resigned to the fact that he and Lily seemed doomed not to have any romantic moment that did not include mayhem in some form, James gripped Lily's hand and the four of them set off, running as fast as they could for a small alley just ahead where hopefully they'd be able to stand still long enough and concentrate hard enough to Disapparate.
They were nearly there when an ominous popping noise filled the air, announcing the arrival of more people on the scene. James, Lily, Alice, and Frank braced themselves for a fresh wave of Death Eaters, wondering how long they could hold.
"NOW what?" Alice asked no one in particular, eyeing a particularly tall masked figure apprehensively.
"Er –"Lily tried to keep a steady grip on her wand, the waves of terror she'd been staving off all night beginning to encroach on her again.
"Just stay calm and Stun as many as you can," James' voice was unruffled and steady; Lily glanced at him out of the corner of her eye admiringly. "Does everyone have a Shielding Charm up?"
Before anyone could reply or express their irritation at James' stupid question, the space around them began to fill with witches and wizards, all of them brandishing their wands purposefully.
But these people weren't cloaked and masked; they were wearing the sort of robes any witch or wizard might wear to work. They came in all shapes, sizes, and ages, but all of them had the same purposeful expression and steely glint in their eye.
The Aurors had arrived.
Much later, Lily and James Apparated onto the sidewalk in front of the Evans house, both considerably the worse for wear. But they were alive, uninjured, together, and engaged. All in all, Lily and James were feeling rather good about their evening.
It hadn't taken long for the crisis to end after the Aurors appeared on the scene. Most of the Death Eaters had Disapparated immediately, but they'd managed to take a few suspects, who'd been unconscious, wandless, or Silenced, into custody. Then the Department of Magical Catastrophes had arrived to help clean up the mess, placate and Obliviate the Muggles, and take statements from witnesses. Lily, James, Frank, and Alice had been questioned by several of the Aurors, however, all of whom seemed amazed by what they had done and more than a bit pleased that three of them would begin Auror training on Monday.
Lily glanced down at her ring again, reminding herself that it was real. James had actually proposed, for Merlin's sake, and she'd accepted. Not that there'd ever been a question of her accepting him, but marriage in the near future wasn't something she'd given a great deal of thought to. The more she thought about it though, the more she liked the idea. It often didn't seem like it at first, but James really did have excellent timing.
"You're sure you meant to say yes?" James asked for what could very well have been the thousandth time.
"If you ask me that once more, I'm going to kick you," Lily snapped, her patience finally exhausted.
"Sorry," James grinned rather unrepentantly, and Lily smiled back, walking on air again.
"Good Godric!" Lily exclaimed suddenly, a thought occurring to her. "Did you take me to that restaurant tonight to PROPOSE?"
"Yeah," James said, thinking Lily was being a bit thick. Why else did she think he'd taken her to a posh restaurant carrying an engagement ring in his pocket?
"Oh," Lily replied rather lamely, everything that had happened, from Frank and Alice's interruption, to the Death Eater attack to James'close encounter with the pavement, running through her head. "Oh, I'm so sorry."
"It wasn't your fault," James pointed out. "You didn't ASK the Death Eaters to ruin my night."
"But you probably had some grand plan to hide the ring in the pudding or something," Lily seemed genuinely upset. "Then your plans all went to hell, and you probably got a concussion on top of it all."
"Well, it did take me weeks to write the speech," James admitted. "And who hides an engagement ring in the pudding? Someone trying to off their fiancée?"
"It's an old Muggle cliché," Lily waved him off impatiently. "Muggle men hide the ring in the woman's chocolate cake or whatever so she'll be surprised. It's meant to be romantic."
"Yeah, because nothing says love like the Heimlich Maneuver," James snorted.
"So you wrote a speech?" Lily bit back her annoyance at James' sarcasm with an effort. "What happened to it?"
"I – er – I sort of forgot it when I landed on my head," James admitted sheepishly. "I'd memorized it, but Sirius – he helped me write the speech – kept telling me to bring along the written. I should've listened to him, apparently."
"That's all right," Lily consoled, touched at the mental image of James and Sirius working out a way to propose together.
"I could go home and get it," James offered. "I'm not sure I could memorize it again quickly – it's a bit long – but I could read it to you if you like."
"Er, that's ok," Lily said quickly. She might have been touched at the idea of James and Sirius trying to propose, but she had a sneaking suspicion that she wouldn't be able to keep a straight face through the speech. "You did say the important part, after all." Lily held up her ring, grinning broadly.
"Yeah," James replied, returning Lily's smile, "I got the important part right at least."
On Monday morning, James, along with Sirius, Frank, Alice, and Dorcas and a few others, sat fidgeting in a classroom of sorts on the second floor of the Ministry, waiting for their instructor to arrive and their training to begin.
It had definitely been an eventful weekend, James reflected as he rubbed his eyes tiredly. He and Lily had spent the Sunday after their eventful Saturday night breaking the news to their parents, who had taken it rather well and, to Lily and James' mild indignation, hadn't seemed at all surprised about the announcement.
True, James had gotten a "think of marriage the way you would a funnel" lecture from his dad and Lily's father had been a bit quiet after they'd told him and took to staring at James suspiciously for the rest of his visit. But Lily had assured him that Mr. Evans was coming round and James had been frankly relieved by the reappearance of the funnel analogy after the last talk he'd had with his dad.
The sound of the door slamming against the wall jolted James out of his reverie and he glanced up just in time to see a heavily scarred wizard with a wooden leg and a magical eye appear in the doorway. Mad Eye Moody. James and Sirius exchanged a glance.
Moody's good eye skimmed over a piece of parchment he was carrying. "This is the lot of you, then?" he asked no one in particular, his magical eye scanning the room.
"Yes, sir," Frank spoke up.
"H'm," Moody grunted, shooting each of them a last glance. "Right then, I'm Alastor Moody. As a senior Auror, I'll be overseeing your training," he announced, assessing them all before continuing.
"If you've come here thinking that being an Auror is nothing more than playing the white knight to damsels in distress and talking to appreciative reporters about putting Jelly Legs Jinxes on Death Eaters, you might as well leave right now," Moody's voice rang clearly through the room as he stared them all down. Nobody blinked an eye. Moody nodded in grudging satisfaction. "Let's get on with it, then."
James had always considered himself to be in good physical condition after years of playing constant Qudditch. By the end of the day, James had learned just how wrong he was, convinced he couldn't be more physically exhausted. By the end of the week, James realized how big a lie that was as he reached previously unknown levels of fatigue.
That first day, James had stood with all the others in a circle, facing outward toward several Aurors, who stood at various points round the room. At Moody's signal, the Aurors had immediately flung any and all manner of jinxes rapid fire at the trainees, who'd done their best to deflect whatever they could to the best of their abilities. Needless to say, their best was woefully inadequate, and they'd spent the rest of the day brushing up on basic defensive spells and practicing drawing their wands as fast as they could. "The first and most important skill is to be able to defend yourself against people who don't fight fair," Moody intoned over and over again. "Constant vigilance!" He'd finally packed them all off with mountains of reading about Dark magic and spells, Death Eaters, and Voldemort to do for the next day.
The rest of the week continued in this pattern, and James was having distinct difficulty remembering why he'd signed up for this. But every time he had himself convinced that a nice safe desk job would be just as helpful in the fight against Voldemort and a lot less painful, he'd achieve some goal, like getting a slightly higher mark on one of the dozens of exams they took, or knocking Moody on his arse during dueling practice, that would remind him why he'd been willing to give up so much to take this job.
Feeling motivated once again, James gritted his teeth and resolved to make it through this hellish first bit of training if it killed him.
And James was growing more and more convinced daily that it would.
Lily approached her first day of work with loads more apprehension than James had. She arrived at the Atrium to meet a smiling Caradoc Dearborn promptly, wondering what she'd have seen the next time she was in it.
Dearborn made polite small talk with Lily, introducing her to the watch wizard and to any witches or wizards they met in the corridors or lifts. Lily wondered if he'd ever been nervous in his life about anything. He certainly didn't seem like it.
Finally they reached the ninth floor and made their way along the dark hallway to the single door. "The password is 'manticore,'" Dearborn informed Lily quietly, "and it changes every day." Before Lily could think of a reply the door swung open to reveal a circular room with at least a dozen identical doors. "Just to warn you, after regular Ministry operating hours, these doors are enchanted to rotate," Dearborn explained casually. "The idea is to prevent any unexpected visitors trying to steal Ministry secrets from finding what they're looking for and escaping with it. Remind me to show you the necessary spells later."
"Ok," Lily replied in a rather high voice, envisioning herself wandering trapped and lost in the Department of Mysteries all night.
Lily forgot a bit of her nervousness in her fascination when Dearborn gave her a brief tour of some of the less sensitive areas of the department. She was fascinated by an arch with a curtain, behind which voices seemed to be whispering, in the Ambiguous Magical Artifacts Division, and stared wide-eyed at the thousands of prophecies in the Prophecies and Divination Division. They also visited the Provisional Medicine Division, the Intelligence Sector, and the offices, all of the other subdivisions being too classified for outsiders, before Dearborn pushed open yet another door. "And this is the Classified Charms and Spells Division," he informed Lily.
Lily found herself in an immense room, at one end of which was a perfectly ordinary set of cubicles, and at the other a large, open experimentation area with heavily padded walls and floor. A rack against one wall displayed an impressive collection of wands of all lengths and thicknesses. The space between the cubicles and the experimentation area housed enormous bookshelves, crammed full.
Dearborn led the way to the cubicles, Lily trailing behind, and when the witches and wizards saw who was approaching, they stopped what they were doing to cluster round. Lily recognized Gideon Prewett in the crowd.
"This is Lily Evans," Dearborn announced, putting a hand on Lily's shoulder. A slight murmur went through the crowd at this information. "Lily, this is Emmeline Vance, the division head."
"Welcome, Lily," the stately looking witch said, offering Lily her hand and a surprisingly warm smile.
"I'll just leave you to get acquainted," Dearborn said, and, with a parting smile at Lily, he exited.
Quickly, Emmeline Vance introduced Lily to her new colleagues: Tristram Croaker, Jane Bones, Galinda Godricson, Bilius Weasley, Cressida Crandall, and Augustus Rookwood. She already knew Gideon, and most of the others seemed nice enough. But Augustus Rookwood seemed a bit odd to Lily. He was the deputy division head and had been with the Ministry for years, but he just didn't seem quite right; he was a bit too smooth and polished, and he tended to stare at Lily when he thought she didn't notice.
By the end of the week, Lily was ensconced in her own cubicle and was beginning to learn the basics of charm experimentation. Work was a good deal more fun than she'd thought it would be; the others were friendly and there was almost always some sort of interesting experiment going on. It wasn't at all uncommon to hear explosions and smell smoke, or to see one of the department members go flying across the room while others made notes. Bilius Weasley did it so often, however, that by Friday, Lily was a bit concerned for his health, not to mention his head.
Fascinating as she found it, Lily was anxious to leave work on Friday and get to the Leaky Cauldron. She, Alice, Dorcas, Morwenna, Kathleen, and the Marauders had agreed to meet there every Friday for dinner, just to keep in touch. Tonight, however, she and James would be announcing their engagement to their friends – with the exception of Sirius, who already knew and was sworn to secrecy – and Lily was very much hoping that it would be well received. Not that there was any reason to think that it wouldn't be, but since Petunia had burst into hysterical tears when Lily had told her and Mr. Evans had only recently come out of his denial stage, Lily was feeling a bit gun shy about the whole engagement issue.
Finally Lily could go, and she hurried out of the Ministry and Apparated to the Leaky Cauldron as quickly as possible. The others were all sitting already at their usual corner table, those who'd attended Auror training looking asleep where they sat.
".........licking envelopes all day," Peter was saying as Lily approached. "Don't think my tongue will ever be the same." Peter had found a job at the Ministry in the Improper Use of Magic Office. He was a very junior clerk who spent most of his days dispatching warning letters to Reasonable Restriction of Underage Sorcery violators, which depressed him beyond words. So everyone, at Alice's suggestion, had been going to great lengths to appear interested in Peter's job.
"I - er – like to seal envelopes," Dorcas enthused very unconvincingly, stifling a yawn. Sirius snorted derisively. He was having a bit of difficulty getting behind Alice's plan.
"You must feel so useful," Alice said, shooting Sirius a filthy look. "The Reasonable Restriction of Underage Sorcery is a very important law, you know."
"Yeah," Peter sighed modestly, then winced and touched the tip of his tongue gingerly. "Wish it wasn't so hard on my tongue though."
"Oh, for Merlin's sake!" Sirius burst out, goaded beyond endurance. "You're a bloody WIZARD, Wormtail! Do the words 'Sealing Spell' sound familiar or have you been huffing so many glue fumes that you've forgotten your ENTIRE HOGWARTS CAREER?!"
"Oh," Peter said in a small voice.
"Well, that could easily happen to anyone!" Alice exclaimed, kicking Sirius viciously under the table and causing him to yelp. "Everybody forgets – things – sometimes!"
"So THAT'S why that other bloke was sniggering every time he glanced over," Peter said in the tones of someone who'd just solved a particularly perplexing mystery.
"Hi!" Lily said brightly, deciding to create a diversion before Sirius lost control of himself again. "Sorry I'm late." She slid into the chair next to James, leaning in to kiss him.
"What's that?!" Kathleen demanded, snatching Lily's left hand. "Merlin's beard, they're engaged!" she exclaimed, beaming. "Oh, congratulations!" Kathleen gathered Lily into a crushing hug.
Morwenna plucked up Lily's hand. "Very nice," she said approvingly, eyeing the ring with a connoisseur's eye.
"Congratulations, James, Lily," Remus put in.
"This is great news," Peter squeaked.
"Well, it's about bloody time!" Alice grinned.
"Hear, hear!" Dorcas seconded.
"Why is nobody ever surprised when they find out we're getting married?" Lily asked James, her left hand stretched almost to full capacity to allow Alice to get a closer look at the ring.
"Well, it's not really that shocking, when you think about it," James shrugged, clearly basking in the attention. "I've been mad about you for years now and you've finally returned the favor; it seems like the next logical step."
It was another few minutes before the excitement died down sufficiently for James and Lily to tell the tale, with a bit of help from Frank and Alice, of the night they'd gotten engaged. After hearing this story, the rest of the night was interspersed with Sirius' spirited renditions of a concussed James popping the question to Peter, playing the part of Lily.
"Frank and Alice are married, Remus and Kathleen are living together, and we're engaged," Lily summed up to James sometime later during a lull in Sirius' performance. "It's like we're all growing up or something."
"Yeah," Sirius snorted, overhearing Lily's remark. "Peter still hasn't mastered a first year spell and you just got yourself engaged to the bloke you used to reject in favor of the giant squid. Right mature lot this is."
Deciding that they'd suffered through their fair share of ribbing, James and Lily demonstrated the effectiveness of Sealing Spells to Peter and Sirius by sealing their lips shut. Unable to retaliate magically or even verbally, Sirius reverted to the universally understood declaration of war: throwing food. It was quite late by the time the ten former Gryffindors, having alienated all of the Leaky Cauldron's patrons and seriously annoyed Tom the proprietor, finally made their way home, satisfied that they hadn't grown up completely just yet.
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Author's Note:
I'm so excited to have hit the two thousand review mark! Thank you to everyone who has ever reviewed Priori Incantatem, and thank you especially to those of you who review faithfully chapter after chapter. I always look forward to hearing from you. Hang in there, everyone; I do try to update more quickly but it doesn't always work out that way.
Also, I wanted to mention that my story A Sacrifice has been nominated for a Twisted Colours Award as well. So thank you to whoever nominated me!
I dedicate this chapter to Allison; thanks so much for your help with everything =)