Prologue

Dana Wright drove her car slowly through the city to Godric's Hollow, the village where her best friend Lily and her husband James Potter lived. Sirius Black, one of James's best friends, had asked her to Apparate there but she had chosen to drive as she was feeling too weak to Apparate and she also needed some time to collect her thoughts.

Dana frowned and her knuckles gripped the steering wheel hard. Why had Sirius asked her of all people to meet him at Lily's house? They usually didn't see eye to eye on things. Obviously, it must be something to do with the Order. But his message had sounded like he wanted only the four of them to know about the meeting.

Dana wondered if it had something to do with the threat to Lily and James's lives, the tip the Order had received – that Voldemort was after them.

She shivered involuntarily. This threat had haunted her for quite sometime now, even in her dreams. Dana, being Muggle-born was also in danger – Voldemort had been the cause for the deaths of countless Muggles and Muggle-borns including Lily's parents and her parents, and he was still not finished with it.

Yet she found it harder to digest that Lily and James were the next target, Lily and James and baby Harry, the family which meant such a lot to her that they were almost her family. She glanced at herself in the mirror as she drove. She was a slim blonde with brown eyes, which looked a bit swollen and strained for she had not had a good night's sleep for the past week. She was pretty ordinary looking in her striped tee-shirt and denim skirt. So unlike Lily. Lily was beautiful, graceful and vivacious.

Dana could not imagine a life without Lily. Lily was almost like an older sister to her, though they were of the same age. They had gone to Muggle school together and both had received letters from Hogwarts when they were eleven. Dana was shy and soft-spoken, but Lily being bold and kind hearted had taken Dana under her wing. When her parents had been murdered by Voldemort in her second year, she had been shattered and had searched high and low for happiness. But, at last, she found it in her friendship with Lily. Lily had been a pillar of strength during those long weeks, helping Dana recover from her shock and grief, for she had witnessed her parents' death and would have been killed if Dumbledore had not saved her.

Dana had changed since their school days. After leaving Hogwarts, she was no longer the nervous little girl who was always protected by her best friend. She was a full time member of the Order and was also a spy for them at the Ministry of Magic.

Her thoughts came back to the danger James and Lily were now in. If anything happened to them … her heart clenched tightly at the thought. Dana shook her head to clear her mind. Don't be silly, she told herself. There's the Fidelius charm to help us and those three will be perfectly all right with Sirius as Secret Keeper. Sirius will guard them even if it costs him his life. He's one of us.

Or is he? The thought Dana had been trying to restrain for sometime came to the surface. Someone close to Lily and James was a spy and she often suspected it to be Sirius. He knew everything about their whereabouts. Dana knew Remus was too soft and kind hearted like her to be a servant of Lord Voldemort and Peter was too cowardly and much too slow. But Sirius's brother had been a Death Eater and Sirius, being a brave and rash wizard, had every chance to be one.

Stop that, Dana told herself fiercely and fought with her mind to push the horrible suspicions out of her mind. She knew pretty well how loyal Sirius was to Lily and James, but she couldn't control the tiny spark of suspicion that came to the surface of her tired and generally suspicious mind, whenever she thought about him.

As she reached the Potter manor, Dana brought the car to a stop and got out hurriedly. Sirius opened the door for her when she had identified herself.

"I thought I asked you to Apparate here quickly," said Sirius, scowling.

"It's OK, Sirius," Lily said appearing behind him. She pushed past him and hugged Dana warmly.

"I've missed you so much," said Lily.

"Me too," said Dana, her eyes stinging, though it had just been a week since she last saw her friend.

"Come on in," Lily ushered her through a corridor and into the living room, where James sat waiting for them on a couch.

Sirius locked the door behind them and came in.

"Where are Remus and Peter?" asked Dana.

Nobody replied.

" Sit down," Sirius told her. "We have a lot to discuss."

And then they began the discussion which would change their lives.