Chapter 58 Trials, Traditions, and Tribulations

December 1980

In the days since the Evanses' death, Lily and James' flat had become very quiet. Or so it seemed to James, anyway. There'd always been noise before – Harry's babbling, Sirius' laughter, Peter's squeaks, and of course, James and Lily's half-teasing arguments. But it seemed as though all of that had stopped lately. Of course, James knew that there was still noise in their flat – it just didn't feel the same.

It was because Lily wasn't the same. She'd said very little since she'd found out about her parents' death; in fact, when the police had come to tell her, she hadn't spoken a word for fully five minutes. Finally she'd managed to form the words to ask the police some questions, James holding her cold hand all the while, and then when the policemen had left, she'd gone straight to their bedroom and shut the door. James and Harry sat outside the door for a long time, but James hadn't heard any crying coming from the other side.

Then the next day, Lily got out of bed and went about the business of planning her parents' funeral, which turned out to be no small task since Lily and Petunia were forced to collaborate. Lily went through the motions of behaving normally; she managed to speak to her sister without shouting, (which James wasn't sure he could have done) took care of Harry, accepted their friends' sympathy, and arranged the funeral details, but James wasn't fooled.

He knew better than anyone did how close Lily had been to her parents. Estranged from a never very warm relationship with Petunia at the age of eleven, Lily had focused all of her love and affection on her parents instead. And Mr. and Mrs. Evans had adored Lily in return, James knew, and had protected her from the worst of Petunia's vindictiveness. Her parents, Lily had told him once, had never been anything but supportive of Lily's magical abilities, had encouraged her constantly and were always interested in and amazed by her studies. Having witnessed firsthand the sort of treatment Muggle borns received in both the wizarding and Muggle worlds, James could guess how much her parents' support had meant to Lily.

The funeral took place the first week in December at a church in London, with, after much heated debate, a reception at Petunia's house in Surrey afterward. Lily, James, and Harry squeezed awkwardly into a pew at the front of the church with Petunia, Vernon, and Dudley, the two families taking extreme caution not to touch each other any more than necessary. Petunia kept darting glances over her shoulder at the witches and wizards who had come to the funeral and then glaring at Lily, who pretended not to notice.

But as soon as the service was underway, Petunia gave herself over entirely to loud, theatrical tears, soaking through three dainty black-trimmed handkerchiefs in the process. Lily remained dry-eyed throughout, her cold, clammy hand squeezing James' for dear life. Harry, discomfited by his aunt's wailing, had buried his head in James' shoulder and peered over at Petunia occasionally with a sort of fascinated horror.

Dudley, on the other hand, screamed bloody murder until his mother stuffed a sweet in his mouth with astonishing speed and accuracy, especially considering that Petunia's face was buried in her handkerchief at the time. He continued to cry at intervals throughout the service as he finished one sweet and waited for his mother to bung him another one. Vernon chuckled at this, muttering something about a lusty pair of lungs and a boy who knew what he wanted, but James, staring down at the fat, red-faced, squalling baby, could think of several other adjectives for the little bugger, none of them complimentary.

All in all, everyone was relieved when the service was over and they could all escape, most of them with Petunia-and-Dudley-induced headaches, to a place that didn't echo. James, holding onto Harry and Lily for all he was worth, made a beeline for the exit, afraid of what he might do to Dudley and Petunia if he didn't get away from them soon.

"Peace and quiet at last," James sighed in relief the moment they made it safely to the corridor. Just then a crowd of middle-aged Muggles descended upon Lily before she could reply, offering their sympathy. James pasted a polite smile on his face and prepared to be as kind as possible to Lily's parents' friends, but just then Petunia announced her arrival with a trumpeting nose-blow into her handkerchief, Vernon and a squalling Dudley in her wake.

"Why don't you take Harry to the reception area and I'll come and find you?" Lily suggested, and James, not keen on the idea of spending time with the Dursleys when escape was possible, hastily agreed.

"Compared to that little blighter," James said wryly to his son, "you're the perfect baby, mate." Harry, still fascinated with his large pink cousin, strained to see him over James' shoulder, his eyes wide as saucers.

Sirius intercepted James and Harry as soon as they reached the reception room. As always when he caught sight of Sirius, Harry grinned widely and stretched his arms toward his godfather. "Thought you could use this," Sirius said, thrusting a cup of tea into James' hands as he took the baby.

"That's all right," James replied absently, attempting to return the cup. "I ought to say hi to everyone, and get Harry his bottle –"

"No, I REALLY think you could use this tea," Sirius repeated meaningfully.

"Huh?" James, who had a roaring headache and a baby to contend with, was not at his most discerning.

Glancing hastily round, Sirius shifted Harry and opened the jacket of his Muggle suit, revealing a flask tucked neatly into the inner pocket.

"Ohh," James exclaimed, cottoning on. He took a swallow of his tea and felt the Ogden's Old Firewhiskey burn its familiar path down his throat. Relieved to find his headache dulling, James closed his eyes reverentially. "Knew there was a reason you were my best mate."

"I should've brought enough to spike everyone's tea," Sirius remarked, watching warily as Vernon and Dudley entered the room in search of yet another treat to silence Dudley. "Is that kid always like that?"

"Dunno," James shrugged. "This is only the second time I've seen him….. although come to think of it, he was like that then as well."

"Harry isn't going to get that big, is he?" Sirius continued to observe Dudley. "That baby's huge!"

"I hope not," James frowned. Dudley was easily twice Harry's size, and James was not relishing the idea of carting around so much extra weight. "I think Dudley's just fat."

"What?" Sirius turned to face James finally.

"I said I think Dudley might just be fat," James repeated, sipping his "tea" again.

"Yes, but what did you call him?" Sirius wanted to know.

"Dudley," James answered resignedly. "That's his name: Dudley Dursley."

"Yes, that's what I thought you said," Sirius said sadly, taking a fortifying gulp from his own teacup.

James and Sirius located a bottle for Harry and managed to finish their drinks before James had to go and make the rounds of funeral guests with Lily, wanting especially to speak with all of the wizarding guests since they hadn't been invited to Petunia's reception. In no time at all, Petunia was hissing at them to be on their way, so Lily and James said reluctant goodbyes to James' parents and their friends, collected Harry, and clambered into the car that had been hired to drive them to Surrey.

A soon as the car was underway, Lily slumped back into the seat, her eyes closed as though she too had a headache. "Here," James said, brandishing the flask he'd had the foresight to appropriate from Sirius before he'd left the church.

Lily took a sip and pulled a face. "Where did you get this?"

"Sirius," James replied. "You looked like you had a headache, and it helped a lot with mine."

"You're right," Lily said hoarsely after taking another swig from the flask, "it does help." She sat up a bit and pulled Harry into her lap, then shifted close enough to James to rest her head on his shoulder. James put his arm around Lily, trying to decide on the best thing to say. Once again he drew a blank and settled for silence. In fact, it was a very quiet ride to Surrey.

James opened the front door of their flat with a slam and stalked into the sitting room, clutching Harry tightly under one arm as he fumed.

Lily followed her husband and son wearily, her headache back in full force. She wished that she and James hadn't finished off Sirius' flask on the way to Petunia's; some Firewhiskey would be very welcome right about now.

"I don't care what you say," James repeated. "That little beach ball tried to eat Harry!"

"Dudley did not try to eat Harry," Lily replied for the umpteenth time. "He's just teething and likes to - suck on things."

"Like Harry's head?" James asked scathingly, inspecting Harry yet again for any injuries that had escaped his attention during the first fifty inspections. "That is definitely a tooth mark," he announced, pointing dramatically to Harry's cheek.

Lily sighed exhaustedly, rubbing her eyes. The reception had been an unequivocal disaster. Petunia's weeping and wailing, combined with Dudley's screams and Vernon's blustering about the unreliability of foreign cars, had been wearing for everyone but especially for Lily. Things had been tense already before the episode between Dudley and Harry, which had been the final straw.

Lily, deep in conversation with some of the Evanses' friends, hadn't seen anything happen. One minute James had been getting Harry a bottle and talking to Aunt Beatrice, Lily's mother's closest friend. The next minute both Harry and Dudley were crying at the top of their lungs and Vernon was shouting at Harry, his purple face only inches from the baby's as James held him and shouted back at Vernon.

Instantly, Lily had hurried across the room to rescue James and Harry before the situation escalated. She'd scooped Harry up, attempting to comfort him and listen to poor Aunt Beatrice's explanations before contending with her brother in law.

"I don't know what happened," Aunt Beatrice stammered distraughtly. "I was holding little Dudley while I spoke with your husband and then suddenly Dudley had finished his shortbread and leaned toward Harry –"

James, however, had no such intentions; within seconds he and Vernon were engaged in a nose-to-nose shouting match, the sort that usually ended in a pub brawl.

Except they weren't in a pub. Petunia, after providing Dudley with a variety of biscuits, began shrieking at James to get away from her husband, clutching her baby to her in a death grip in case James turned on Dudley as well.

Dudley, stuffed to the brim with sweets as he was, didn't take kindly to his mother's manhandling and threw up all over Petunia, Vernon, Aunt Beatrice, and Harry. Seizing the opportunity, James escorted Lily and Harry out of 4 Privet Drive while the Dursleys were distracted, still shaking with fury. Too impatient to wait for the car to return for them, James had stalked into the Durselys' tool shed, retrieved a broom, enchanted it to fly, and helped Lily and Harry on, Lily rolling her eyes all the while.

"I was there!" James insisted stubbornly as he peeled off Harry's vomit-stained clothes. "That little pig in a sailor suit your sister calls a baby has got it in for Harry!"

"Come on, James," Lily scoffed as she helped him pull off Harry's shoes and socks. "Dudley did scare Harry, but he was probably trying to make friends or something. He wasn't trying to eat him."

"Oh really?" James demanded hotly. He thrust the baby into Lily's face. "Take one more good look at our son and THEN tell me that Dudley didn't try to eat him!"

To humour James, Lily gave their son another once-over. Harry's hair was wet and sticky with saliva and shortbread crumbs, and one side of his face was pink from Dudley's attempts to get a good grip on him. Lily squinted narrowly at the spot high on Harry's cheek that James had been inspecting earlier; it DID resemble a tooth mark. In fact, it really did look like Dudley had tried to swallow Harry's head, as though he meant to –

Suddenly Lily began to laugh, softly at first, then harder and harder, drawing in deep, gasping breaths. It all seemed so terribly funny; Petunia's fat, piggy little son had tried to stuff Harry's head into his mouth. Lily laughed until she cried , and then finally she wasn't laughing any longer. Forgetting about Harry's bath, James helped Lily and Harry into the bedroom and onto the bed, the three of them sandwiched together while Lily cried.

The weeks following the funeral were a bit better for Lily. She was still grieving, of course, but she had become much more responsive. Harry's encounter with Dudley seemed to have snapped Lily out of her numbness, and James did his best to see that she had no reason to relapse.

Both Lily and James threw themselves into preparations for Harry's first Christmas. Neither of them wanted to risk leaving the flat any more than necessary, so they did most of their shopping by post. As a result, a positive fleet of owls swept into and out of the flat several times a day, bearing oddly shaped parcels that Lily and James hid in the guestroom. Not that hiding them was really necessary; Harry seemed much more interested in the birds than their burdens anyway. But, James insisted, it was the principle of the thing. "We don't want to scar him for life of something," he pointed out.

Lily privately thought that if Harry was psychologically scarred, it was more likely due to Dudley's attempts to eat him than to seeing unwrapped Christmas presents. But she didn't like to remind James of the incident, so she kept the thought to herself.

But apparently James wasn't the only one who'd overreacted to the incident; Lily hadn't seen or spoken to her sister since their parents' funeral. Petunia communicated with Lily only through their parents' solicitor and even then it was about matters relating to the Evanses' estate. Lily had no idea when, or if, she would see Petunia again.

All the more reason to focus on her own family, Lily told herself firmly as she and Harry made Christmas shortbread one afternoon. Or rather, Lily made the biscuits while Harry watched and ate occasional pieces of dough, offering Lily wide grins that displayed his small collection of teeth every time she turned to show him things.

James, Lily, Harry, and Sirius spent Christmas at Mr. and Mrs. Potter's house, arriving on Christmas Eve and staying the night. Lily hadn't thought she'd feel much like celebrating; this would be her first Christmas without her parents, and it didn't seem right that Christmas should go on without them. But James, Harry, Sirius, and Mr. and Mrs. Potter made it impossible for Lily to remain depressed.

After a very pleasant Christmas Eve dinner, they'd all gone to bed somewhat early. Lily had been astonished that James and Sirius would agree to this, but neither of them put up any sort of fuss. However, Lily had years of reasons to distrust the angelic expressions they both wore as they all said goodnight to each other. Something was definitely going on.

Lily didn't find out what until well after midnight. She'd been fast asleep when an insistent poking at her shoulder disturbed her.

"Lily? Lils, c'mon, you've gotta get up." Lily blinked blearily up at her husband.

"What's going on? Is it Harry?" Lily managed to raise her head off of her pillow.

"No!" James was appalled that he'd scared Lily. "No, Harry's all right. You have to get up; it's tradition!"

Lily snorted and stayed where she was, not at all convinced. Desperate now, James took hold of her arm and began tugging. "C'mon! Sirius is probably wondering –"

Just then a loud pop sounded and Sirius appeared, clad in his pyjamas. "What in the bloody hell is taking the pair of you so long?" he demanded. "Are we doing this, or what?"

"That depends on what we're doing," Lily maintained stubbornly.

James and Sirius swapped an incredulous glance, then turned back to face her. "We're sneaking down to the sitting room to open our Christmas presents early, of course," James replied in the tones of one stating the obvious.

"We most certainly are not!" Lily was horrified.

"It's a tradition!" James protested. Sirius nodded vigourously.

"And do your mum and dad know about this tradition?" Lily wanted to know.

"Of course," James and Sirius said simultaneously. "Who else would put the spells on the presents?" Sirius asked reasonably. Lily wasn't quite sure what to say to that.

"I started doing it years ago," James explained. "I'd sneak downstairs, open up my presents, and re-wrap them. After a couple years my mum and dad figured out what I was doing and instead of shouting at me, they decided to teach me a lesson by jinxing the presents. So when I tried to do it the next year, a siren sounded the second I touched one of the packages. Mum and Dad caught me and thought I'd learned my lesson. Bit of a shock for them when I did it again the next year."

"And all the years after that," Sirius put in.

"It's been a contest between us ever since," James grinned. "We've done it every Christmas I've been at home."

"What about last year and the year before?" Lily wanted to know. "I was here then and I didn't see you doing it."

"We waited until you were asleep," James shrugged. "You're not the lightest sleeper in the world, you know." Lily opened her mouth to make a retort, but Sirius cut her off.

"This is all right touching, I'm sure." he drawled impatiently. "But would the pair of you stow it so we can GET ON WITH CHRISTMAS?"

So Lily found herself, in pyjamas and dressing gown, creeping down the stairs between her husband and his best friend, on her way to raid the Christmas tree in the sitting room.

A few feet from the doorway, James stopped and drew his wand, motioning for Lily and Sirius to follow suit. "Shielding Spells, everyone," he whispered, then crept forward.

"Why are we whispering?" Lily hissed to Sirius.

"Some of the spells have been sound-sensitive," he murmured back. "There was one year where I stepped on a creak in the floor and all of the ribbons shot off the packages and tied us up –"

Shhh!" James hissed. Lily, who had no desire to spend the rest of the night trussed up on the sitting room floor, shut up.

Cautiously the three of them crept closer to the tree, inching across the room. James and Sirius clearly expected attack at any moment, which made Lily a bit uneasy. The fact that these two experienced pranksters were so nervous was quite disconcerting.

They got closer and closer to the tree and Lily was just beginning to relax a bit when suddenly a brisk breeze began to stir through the room, whipping Lily's hair round her face. Immediately James and Sirius huddled round Lily, and Sirius shot a spell that she didn't quite catch toward the tree, putting an end to the wind.

They all stood quite still for a few seconds, holding their breath, then James cautiously lifted his head, looking for further threats. When none were forthcoming, he and Sirius relaxed, grinning in triumph.

"Was that it?" Sirius scoffed. "What a letdown."

"My parents must've gone soft in their old age," James smirked.

"Uhh – James?" Lily said slowly, eyes on the Christmas tree, "Where's that whistling sound coming from?"

"I dunno," James frowned as he turned to see what Lily was looking at. "Maybe it's an alarm or some – ahhhh!"

The whistling, as it turned out, was the sound of objects moving through the air at a rapid speed. Objects that turned out to be jets of purple paint.

James, Lily, and Sirius, shrieked and shouted and scrambled for cover, but no matter which way they went, the paint seemed to find them. The doors had sealed themselves off, and by the time they consented to open again, there wasn't a spot on any one of them that wasn't purple.

"Merry Christmas," Mr. Potter said smugly to Lily, James, and Sirius as they came downstairs the next morning, all three of them a bit bleary-eyed from lack of sleep. "Have I 'gone soft in my old age,' or did I hear the shower running late last night?"

"Very funny," James replied sourly as he plunked down at the breakfast table. Knowing his parents as he did, James didn't bother to ask how his dad had known what he'd said to Lily and Sirius last night. "You've won again; I admit it. Are you happy now?"

"Immensely," Mr. Potter replied tranquilly, sipping his coffee with a decided twinkle in his eyes.

"I was a bit surprised that you dragged poor Lily along with you," Mrs. Potter commented mildly. Lily flushed a bright shade of crimson and busied herself with twirling a lock of hair round her finger, embarrassed to have been caught engaging in such childish behaviour.

"Were you really?" Mr. Potter raised a brow at his wife. "I was more surprised that they didn't bring Harry along, get him started as early as possible."

"You honestly think James is so irresponsible that he'd wake his sleeping baby up in the middle of the night just so Harry could watch us participate in some childish tradition and possibly get hurt in the process?" Sirius asked incredulously.

"Give us a little credit," James put in, aghast.

"Perhaps you and Sirius are a bit more mature than we gave you credit for," Mrs. Potter amended, kissing first James, then Lily and Sirius soundly on the cheek in passing on her way to the kitchen, Mr. Potter trailing behind her in search of more coffee.

Once they were safely out of earshot, Sirius leaned over Lily to whisper to James. "Can't believe we forgot to get Harry!"

"We'll bring him next year," James hissed back, then smiled angelically at Lily, who stared from her husband to Sirius and back again, not quite sure what to say.

The rest of Christmas, thankfully, was much less eventful. After breakfast, they all adjourned to the (miraculously clean) sitting room to open presents. As it turned out, James and Lily weren't the only ones who'd gone a bit mad buying things for Harry. Mr. and Mrs. Potter and Sirius had had similar ideas, so Harry's pile of gifts was quite formidable. Harry tired of ripping the packages open halfway through and seemed quite content to play with the discarded paper and ribbons, no matter how much James and Lily encouraged him to carry on. James and Sirius finally grew impatient with waiting for Harry to regain interest in his presents and opened the rest of the stack for him. Lily privately thought that they were having more fun with Harry's toys than he was.

After an enormous Christmas dinner, they'd all gone to sit by the tree, drinking eggnog and talking about past Christmases. Eventually they'd managed to coax Lily into talking about her childhood holidays, especially her parents, and Lily found that it felt good to talk about her mum and dad.

So they'd all sat up talking until Harry, who had spent the evening alternating between staring at the Christmas tree and chewing on his grandfather's spectacles, finally fell asleep in Sirius' lap, performing a nosedive into the cup of eggnog Sirius had been holding with his free hand.

"Bloody hell!" Sirius exclaimed as the sticky liquid stained his lap.

"You really shouldn't use such language in front of the baby, Sirius," Mrs. Potter said reprovingly as she cleaned up the eggnog with a Scouring Charm.

"Harry doesn't even talk yet," Sirius pointed out crossly. "It's not like he's going to go about repeating it."

"That's what we thought, until James learned his first word," Mr. Potter retorted.

"'Ball?'" James furrowed his brow. "What's wrong with that?"

"We only TOLD you that ball was your first word," Mrs. Potter explained. "Your actual first word was not one that one repeats to an eight-year-old."

"What was James' first word, then?" Lily felt her lips twitching.

Both Mr. and Mrs. Potter ensured that Harry was safely asleep before continuing. "I had James with me one day when I was attempting to repair a cracked cauldron," Mr. Potter began.

"Which you were never very good at," put in Mrs. Potter.

"True," Mr. Potter admitted. His face coloured a bit and he cleared his throat several times before carrying on. "Anyway, I was trying to repair it with a Sealing Spell when I dropped the cauldron on my foot, and – er…… Well, I'm afraid I – er – used quite an - er – an explicit profanity in the heat of the moment, as it were, and James apparently liked the way it sounded, so -"

"We tried to pass it off as 'duck,'" Mrs. Potter explained. "But nobody believed us for a second. We finally had to stop taking James out in public until we managed to teach him a new word."

There was a second or two of stunned silence, then Lily and Sirius burst out laughing, their shoulders shaking and chests heaving as they gasped for breath. And after a few seconds of embarrassed silence, Mr. and Mrs. Potter joined in. The commotion was too much for Harry to ignore, and he stirred, whimpering a bit over having his sleep interrupted.

"You woke the baby up," James, who had turned a dark shade of pink at this story about his own reprehensible youth, said accusingly to his wife, parents, and best friend. "Happy now?"

None of them could get enough breath to formulate a reply.

January 1981

Severus Snape stepped away from his cauldron and stretched, hoping to relieve the ache in his back that countless hours of potion making had instilled. After consulting the directions for the hundredth time to confirm yet again that the potion needed to steep for an hour, Snape poured a small amount of wine from the jug that sat on his table and sank into a chair with his glass, closing his eyes briefly. He'd always enjoyed conducting the Dark Lord's experiments before, combining potions and spells to create new ones in the hopes that he'd hit upon the right combination and come one step closer to immortality.

But ever since he'd begun spying for the Order, Snape had been deliberately botching his experiments. Not botching them badly enough to draw suspicion, but he made certain that he suffered enough setbacks to slow down the proceedings and garner incorrect results. This had grown more and more difficult since Lord Voldemort had found out about the prophecy; he'd been increasingly more obsessed with his quest for immortality and increasingly impatient over delays. But Snape had managed to evade undue attention, taking care that his setbacks appeared to be inevitable and not through any fault of his own. It had worked thus far, but Snape found himself missing the possibility of success.

An unfamiliar noise entered Snape's consciousness. Tired as he was, it took Snape a moment to identify the sound. Voices, coming from the corridor. Typically the townhouse was silent during the days, each of its inhabitants shut into separate rooms with their experiments; this was indeed an incident that merited further investigation. Snape set his glass down gently and then made his way carefully across the room to the door. There, he pressed his ear to the wood, listening for all he was worth.

After a few seconds, Snape was able to recognize the first voice, which belonged to one of his fellow researchers. Though Snape couldn't make out what he was saying, his tone was decidedly agitated; apparently he was having a disagreement with the other person. Snape waited impatiently for the second voice to speak. After several more seconds of talking and silence, it finally did. And that second voice made Snape's blood run cold. Bellatrix. Snape didn't know why, but Bellatrix was here, in this house.

But before he could process this information more fully, Snape heard the echo of footsteps in the corridor, moving in his direction. Hastily Snape stepped away from the door and returned to his worktable, sprinkling a small vial of potion over the wine jug before he continued to chop the mandrake roots he'd been preparing earlier.

He'd gotten into position not a moment too soon; Snape had barely been at work for thirty seconds when the door swung open and Bellatrix glided in, reminding Snape forcibly of the old days at Hogwarts.

"Miss me, Severus darling?" And Snape looked up to find Bellatrix Black Lestrange standing before him, as coy and as dangerous as ever. Snape watched her dispassionately, unable to believe that he had spent so many years associating with her willingly.

"Bellatrix," Severus said slowly, continuing with his chopping. "To what do I owe the pleasure of this intrusion?" He finished with his mandrake root and moved smoothly onto turtle hearts without missing a beat.

"Curiosity, really," Bellatrix smiled like a sphinx and shrugged, reaching out to toy idly with the adder's tongue waiting to be diced.

"Oh?" Snape raised an inquiring brow at her in passing as he moved to check on the progress of his steeping potion, praying that nothing but indifference showed on his face.

"I was very much hoping," Belllatrix moved over to the cauldron and stood very close to Snape, not quite touching, "that you could enlighten me on a few – matters." She whispered the last word directly into his ear. Snape resisted the impulse to shudder and stepped briskly away.

"I should hardly think so," he said abruptly, carrying on with his work. "You seem always to be so much better informed than I."

"But only when I was in town," Bellatrix was sulky now, the beginnings of one of her dangerously childish moods. At Snape's blank expression, she went on. "Rodolphus and I have spent the last several months traveling Eastern Europe at our master's request, gathering support for him there," Bellatrix's expression was gloating, reveling as always in having an advantage of information.

"I'm in London only briefly," Bellatrix continued when she realized Snape had no intention of questioning her. "Our master has requested that I check up on some old interests." Snape nodded briefly, but wondered, with a trace of alarm, if Bellatrix was referring to Evans. Bellatrix's interest in the prophecy could prove disastrous, both for the Potter child and for his status as a spy.

"What's happened, Severus?" Bellatrix asked, watching him closely. "What has happened to our master? I've never seen him so enraged, so out of temper. Why are all of the Death Eaters so afraid? Everything is different now, but nobody – nobody – will tell me a thing."

Quickly Snape strode to a cupboard and rummaged in it, careful not to let Bellatrix see his face. She didn't know. Snape could hardly credit it, but it seemed to be true. Bellatrix didn't know about the prophecy, didn't know about the two children or about the many failed attempts to kill them. Bellatrix, who had always been such a favourite, appeared to be completely in the dark. Severus' head spun as he tried to puzzle out what it meant, what he should do and say.

When he was able to trust his expression again, Snape turned from the cupboard, bearing another jar of turtle hearts. He set these on the table and turned to wash his hands in the stone basin. Bellatrix's eyes followed his every movement; in fact, Snape knew that her eyes had not left him since he'd turned from her.

Hands clean now, Snape drew his wand and conjured a glass, then half filled it with wine. He offered it to Bellatrix, indicated a chair, and tended to his own drink. When they'd both been sipping for a few seconds, Snape began, very carefully, to speak.

"I cannot pretend that I am unaware of what you're referring to," he said, looking down into his glass. Mentally steeling himself, Snape then looked up into Bellatrix's eyes, hoping his expression was convincing. "But unfortunately, I am no better informed about it than you are." Bellatrix snorted delicately into her wineglass, indicating her disbelief.

"I have been trying for months to get information," Snape persisted. "But no one is willing to speak of it. All I know is that our lord is furious, and none of the Death Eaters that I am acquainted with are willing to risk his wrath to enlighten me."

"Tell me another one, pet," Bellatrix drawled, and in that moment she reminded Snape forcibly of Sirius Black. "You were always as well informed as I was; the Dark Lord has taken an interest in you since you were a child. Don't bother to tell me that he'd cut you out now."

"He's grown paranoid in your absence," Snape could be truthful on that score at least. "Our master always liked to have a certain division of information for secrecy purposes, but only a very few know this particular secret, and they're not talking."

Bellatrix watched Snape over the rim of her cup, watched him as a snake watches a bird. "A pity my reasons for being in town are nothing to do with you, Severus darling," she smiled lazily. "I'd enjoy sniffing out your secrets." Leisurely, Bellatrix drained her glass and stood, moving toward the door. There she paused and turned to regard Snape once again. "But keep them for now, pet," Bellatrix whispered, and blew him a kiss. Then, as suddenly as she'd appeared, Bellatrix Lestrange was gone.

For the barest instant, Snape slumped in his chair, relieved beyond measure that he was safe. Then he strode to the cupboard and grabbed his cloak and a map of London, which he spread on the table. Delicately, Snape poured another drop of the Locating Liquid he'd slipped into the wine onto the map and watched the drop settle. Carrying the map with him, Snape slipped on his cloak and went to follow Bellatrix.

An hour later found Severus on a park bench outside of the Ministry of Magic. He knew it was futile to hope that Bellatrix would come out again with someone or something that would indicate what she had been doing inside the Ministry, but it was Snape's best chance. He hadn't come prepared for a disguise, and he couldn't risk being spotted.

He couldn't help but wonder what Bellatrix had done. A known Death Eater, Bellatrix made it a point to avoid Ministry employees, as an encounter with one of them would inevitably lead to a stay in Azkaban for her. Bellatrix's business in the Ministry must have been urgent indeed for her to risk exposure.

The spy! Snape jolted a bit with the impact of his thoughts. Bellatrix must have been one of the few who knew who the Ministry spy was. After all, spy recruitment had been one of Bellatrix's tasks before she'd been sent to Europe; she'd excelled at blackmail and coercion.

But what business with this spy was so important that Bellatrix had been pulled away from her assignment in Europe to attend to? Snape simply didn't have enough information to hypothesize, and he was not the sort to make wild, uneducated guesses.

Nor was he likely to gather more information sitting here. Snape got to his feet and strode off to find a secluded place to Disapparate. It was time to go to Dumbledore.

Author's Note:

Thank you, everyone, for waiting so patiently for me to update; I didn't get a single nasty review about it, which I thought was very understanding, considering it's been over a month.

I wanted to mention that PI has been nominated at the Hourglass Awards in the L/J Romance category. Thank you to Sara for the nomination! The link is posted on my profile page; it's not the sort of contest where you can vote, but I think you can sign up to become a judge.

Also, I received an email a while ago that asked me who the most popular PI character was, and I realised that I had no idea. So I thought I'd take an impromptu poll; who's your favourite PI character (original or canon)? Just thought it might be interesting to know.

As always, it's terribly late and I'm off to bed. Till next time, which will hopefully be a lot sooner.

This chapter is dedicated to Tim. If you'd ever been at Hogwarts, you would definitely have been a Marauder.