Disclaimer: Harry Potter isn't mine.
A/N: Still need a beta reader. I'd like to thank Dumbledore, excessivelyperky and Asha Ice for their lovely reviews and wonderful input. This is an almost entirely new section, written to fill in some background. I left it out of the first version, and my sister, who has graciously agreed to be my plot editor, started going 'Huh?' during some parts, so I wrote this. Not much plot development, but hopefully some nice character development. Also, I think that I might be the first person ever to use MBA as a verb. For 'MBA'd idiot', please read 'idiot with an MBA'. I'd write that in the story, but it disrupts the flow.
Lily unlocked the door of her flat, sighing. She'd let Severus walk her as far as her building, but no further. She hadn't wanted him to see the mess that was currently masquerading as her sitting room, of all the ridiculous things to worry about. Opening the door, she sighed even more deeply, regretting that she'd ever given her mother a key. Her mother was perched on the arm of a chair, the only surface not covered with empty pizza boxes, coffee mugs and the red-inked drafts of articles. "Honestly, Lily, you'd think that a career woman like yourself would have higher standards. Not only do you live in a pigsty, you haven't even got a greeting for your mother."
Lily turned scarlet, and scrambled for something to say. "I was just startled; I thought that the days of having my mother waiting for me to come home from a date were long past." Before she was even half-through saying it, she realized it was the wrong thing to say.
"Well, finally! I've been despairing of you ever settling down like your sister. I've told you and told you that you should be more like your sister Petty; only a year older than you and her tenth wedding anniversary is next year! And Vernon is such a good man. He's been promoted, you know, got his own secretary and everything."
"Yes Mother, I know." Oh yes, she knew. Guess who Petty called to bitch about her husband to; that's right, Lily. Her mother was going to have a nasty shock when the divorce went through, and Vernon moved in with that secretary of his.
"What's this young man of yours like, then?" Her mother got straight to the point.
"He's gorgeous, and he's taking me to Wales next weekend." Lily blushed; that was certainly not what she'd meant to say.
"All you know about him is that he's gorgeous, and you're letting him take you God knows where? I thought I raised you better than that!"
"Actually, I've known Severus since we were both eleven, and got into a terrible fight over a library book. I probably know more about him than his own mother."
Her mother eyed her dubiously. "Well, if you say so."
"Was there any particular reason you're here, Mother? It's been a long day, and I really do need to get some sleep."
"Hmmph. I suppose I'll just leave, then." Her mother got up, fastidiously dusted herself off, and left.
Lily brushed aside some pizza boxes and collapsed on the couch; she was asleep within ten minutes, not having moved once.
"Hello, Margery? This is Severus. I'll be staying in Britain until further notice; something's come up." He paused, and listened to his assistant's outraged demands to know what was going on. "No, I'm not going to tell you. It's personal, and it's absolutely none of your business." More outraged screeches. "I don't care!" He hung up, slamming the phone down so violently that it fell off the table. He stormed over to the mini bar, and took one of the bottles at random. "Echh." What is this shit? He looked at the label; it said crème de menthe. He took another, more tentative sip. Cough syrup. Muggle cough syrup.
He tossed the bottle in the trash, and slumped onto the bed. Looking around the room, he sighed. He spent so much time in hotel rooms it wasn't funny; and he had begun to hate them. No, scratch that; he'd begun to hate them years ago; now he outright loathed them. There was no damn point in having a house anymore; he lived in hotels for nearly half the year. He owned the damn company; he should be able to delegate, for Slytherin's sake! But could he? Nooo. The one time he'd tried it, the Princeton educated executive he'd sent in his place had nearly gotten the company sued for slander, of all things. Just went to show, didn't it? His own formal education had stopped at age eighteen, and he had ten times the common sense as that MBA'd idiot. Maybe the more education you got, the less common sense? Probably not. Lily'd gone to college, and she was the most level-headed person he'd ever met.
Lily... Now there was a problem. How was he going to hide how he felt about her? How he'd always felt about her? He'd been fascinated with her since he'd first seen her, the little redhead with the brass to walk right into the Restricted Section and take a book. She'd been the only one, in all his years at Hogwarts, that he'd ever had a decent conversation with, and that had only been the once. He hadn't been a Gryffindor, hadn't had the nerve to try and get what he wanted so badly. By the time he had developed that kind of courage, she'd been Potter's girlfriend, and off-limits to anyone who wasn't suicidal. And it seemed that that courage had left him again. Here he was, a millionaire business owner, and he was sitting in his room brooding about her, the same way he had when he'd been sixteen. It was pathetic. And he was late for a business dinner. Shit.
"Nicola, where did you put my school trunk?" Sirius was going through his closet, the one he'd thought his trunk was in, and it wasn't there.
Nicola answered, her voice slightly muffled, "The one by the front door, with all the other luggage. Why?"
"I just need a few of my old things." Sirius said evasively.
"Well, I don't know what's in there; I could never get it to open." She stepped through the closet door, and Sirius' jaw dropped. She was wearing a short, tight cocktail dress, and from Sirius' position on the floor, he could see some very interesting things. "What is it you need?" Sirius, caught off guard, said absently, "Just my old Auror badge and robes. Oh, and my knives."
There was a clatter as Nicola dropped the hanger that was in her hands. "You were an Auror!"
He shouldn't have said that. Not only was he forbidden to, there was the whole reputation. Among Muggles, an Auror was one step up from James Bond, and every two-bit DMLE hack cashed in on it as hard and as often as possible, which was very often indeed. There went his nice, private life. "Yeah, I was an Auror. Recon Agent Second Class Black. First Class, by the end of the war."
Nicola went and sat heavily on the bed. "So, Sirius, why didn't you ever mention this?" Her voice was mostly shocked, but there was a note of anger now as well.
"Because I thought that part of my life was behind me forever. I'm not proud of having sent my own brother to rot in Azkaban, you know." He said bitterly. The oft-hurled epithet 'blood traitor' still stung him on the raw.
Nicola paled. "Oh... Yes. I can understand not wanting to talk about that. So why do you need your old things?"
"I've been recalled to active duty. They've re-formed the Aurors, and given me a promotion," he pronounced the word with relish, "on top of everything else. I am now Special Agent First Class Black." He flashed a quick grin. "Don't worry, though. With my luck, I'll be taken out of the field within the year, and given a cushy job at the Academy."
"And you just had to spring this on me right before I go to dinner with an important client, didn't you?" she snarked, fully recovered from her earlier shock.
"Be fair, Nicola!" He gave her his most charming grin. "After all, you were doing something distracting at the time!"
"Oh? And would that be?"
"Being ravishingly beautiful. I'm not sure I like the idea of anyone but me seeing you, when you're dressed like that."
Nicola snorted. "You're a jealous fool, Sirius Black, but I'll humor you just this once." She picked up a charcoal grey wrap from the foot of the bed, and brandished it at him. "Does this satisfy you, you prude?" she teased.
He smiled at her. "Not quite. Your outfit needs just one thing; stay here." He dashed out to the entry hall, and dragged his trunk into the bedroom. He rummaged through it frantically, and at last drew out a small black leather case. Turning to Nicola, he flipped open the top. "The Black family jewels." Nicola's eyes bugged out, staring. Sirius took a rope of black pearls and a heavy silver ring set with a square-cut onyx. "These, I think." Nicola, still stunned, made no move to resist as he put the jewelry on her. He stepped back, and smiled widely.
"Sirius Black," Nicola said threateningly, "Is there anything else you haven't told me? Aside from having jewelry worth more than I make in a year and being an Auror?"
Sirius backpedaled hastily. He really didn't want to be on the receiving end of one of Nicola's rants. "Um, well..."
"Out with it!"
Sirius began to babble. "Well, technically I'm a lord, and I'm planning to ask you to marry me, and I'm being sent to Wales for the next month, and the ring is the Black family ring and it was me who left the milk out, and I really think that pink's a horrible color on you, and I can turn into a dog at will, and I don't think that there's anything else, so please don't be angry!" Nicola seemed ready to explode, so he transformed and threw himself under the bed.
Instead of exploding, however, she slumped on the bed. "Is pink really that bad on me?" Sirius poked his snout out from under the bed cautiously, and Nicola gave him a half-hearted glare. "Bad dog. Get out here so I can take a look at you." Sirius slunk out, all too aware of the possibility of being swatted. Nicola looked at him appraisingly. "You'll take a fairly large collar, I think." she said, eyeing the worried looking Newfoundland, who promptly became human again.
"Collar!" Sirius asked in alarm.
"You honestly didn't think I'd let you get away with leaving the milk out, did you? I am going to get a collar and leash, Sirius, and I am going to walk you when you get back from Wales."
"So you're not angry about the other things?" he asked hopefully.
"Oh, I'm furious. I just haven't got the time to deal with it right now. I need to go to this dinner, and I need to persuade this guy Snape that my firm is the best to market his stuff in the UK."
"Somehow, I don't think it will be that difficult." He offered her a weak smile.
"Whatever you say, Sirius. Just be gone before I get home; I need time to deal with this."
Sirius nodded mournfully. It was no more than he expected.
Peter flopped down on the bed in his hotel room, still going over the day's events in his mind. Turning his new badge over and over in his hands, he marveled at how much everyone had changed, not least himself. He'd noticed, even if the others hadn't, the two team pictures on Madam Bagnold's desk. Severus, Remus and him, standing on front of the bombed out shell of Malfoy Manor, looking so damn young. He remembered having that taken, the day after the raid. They hadn't even had the chance to sleep, or clean up. Remus, so pale and skinny, his knuckles all raw from the fight, and Sev, flecked with spots of dried blood that looked like macabre freckles, with a grin on his face that still scared Peter, even after all those years. And then there was Peter himself; framed by the two taller wizards and still bearing traces of puppy fat, fingering a wickedly sharp stiletto. He looked nothing less than a 'maleficent cherub', in Lily's words. They'd become heroes, at the age of nineteen.
The picture of Lily's team had been taken even younger, the day they'd all finished training. She'd been grinning from ear to ear, so proud of her new badge, polished to a shine and displayed prominently on her chest. James had been even prouder, stand beside her, with his arm around her waist possessively, looking at her, his adoration plain to see. Sirius standing on tip-toe behind the two of them, with an impish grin on his face, making rabbit ears above James' head. He'd spent most of the meeting staring at it, wishing he could be that innocent again, then abruptly withdrawing his wish. After all, he'd be a far different now if it weren't for the war, and he wouldn't change his current life for the world; wouldn't change any of their lives.
Lily practically radiated a serene happiness. Remus, although graying prematurely, seemed so at peace. Sirius was in love, for Merlin's sake, and wasn't it odd to see him sticking with one woman for more than a month? The only thing that he'd even remotely think about changing was James. James, who'd seemed the strongest of them all, once. He'd fallen apart, and Peter wasn't sure if he'd ever be able to put himself back together. It hurt so badly to see him this way, knowing he couldn't do anything to help him. Peter sighed. He'd better start thinking about the mission, and get back in the old mindset, while he still had time. No point in useless could-have-beens.