TWO
Albus inclined his head toward her. "You said you had something to discuss?"
"Yes." Lily twisted her hands in her lap. "I…saw James."
Albus's brows lifted the slightest degree. "I see."
"I guess it was…sort of a…date?"
The Headmaster didn't say anything, just peered at her over those half-moon spectacles with a curious expression.
"We, um. We went sightseeing. Around London."
He held up a hand. "Lily. Just to be clear…you do not ever have to tell me anything you don't want to, or don't feel comfortable discussing. You do know that, don't you?"
The implications of that sentence—that he conceived it possible she'd already done something she'd feel awkward describing, that it was inevitable they would reach that stage of developments—sent a wave of heat through her body, and she felt a flush rise up her neck and into her cheeks.
Lily cleared her throat. "Of course."
What did one wear for their first faux-date? And not even a full-on date, but more like a sort-of date, the type of date that neither party labels as a date but that can't really be considered not a date when all circumstances are accounted for?
Lily blew out her breath through puffed cheeks, hands on her hips as she evaluated the contents of the wardrobe in front of her. It had been nearly a full week since she'd exchanged letters with James Potter, nearly a full week in which she could have planned her outfit, but alas, here she was, half an hour before they were scheduled to meet, the post-script of his letter echoing in her mind like she could hear it in his voice: Hope you don't mind a little adventure.
How in the hell was a girl supposed to dress for that?
And also: what the fuck did it mean?
After another few minutes of him-hawing, Lily settled on dark jeans tucked into glossy riding boots with a flowy cashmere sweater and her elegant black cape that she wore on her walk to work everyday, since it blended with a current Muggle style. With a final curl of her lashes in the mirror and primp of her loosely styled ponytail, Lily took a deep breath and muttered, "I can do this."
"Of course you can, dear," affirmed her mirror.
And with that, Lily closed her eyes and turned on the spot.
He was waiting for her when she appeared at the address he'd written her, which turned out to be an alley cramped on both sides by tall brick buildings. With a lazy smile, he pushed off the wall where he'd been leaning. The movement highlighted the taut fit of his trousers, and Lily belatedly yanked her eyes upward, taking in the burgundy sweater—jumper, she corrected herself—stretching over his broad chest under a dark wax jacket, and then following the line of his upturned collar, which highlighted a jawline she hadn't fully appreciated the last time she'd seen him.
By the time her eyes met his, already crinkling behind his glasses from how he was still smiling that stupid crooked smile, she wanted to hex herself. This man didn't deserve her ogling, if even a word of what Albus had told her was true, which she didn't doubt it was.
Thinking only of making a smart remark to distract him from how he'd just caught her blatantly checking him out, Lily quipped, "Didn't think you'd wear Gryffindor colors anymore, Potter."
His eyebrows skipped up his forehead, mouth falling just enough to let her know she'd hit her mark in catching him off-guard. Only—
"Someone's done their homework."
Fuck. She was going to blow this all up on the first date if she wasn't more careful.
"Hardly," she answered smoothly with a slight roll of her eyes. "You know how Horace loves to gab."
A real smile spread back across his face as he turned so they were walking side-by-side. Thank Merlin. "Oh, yeah, I know how Sluggy talks. Usually tune him out, mind."
Lily allowed herself a chuckle and said, "Well, when it was about potions or you, I tuned back in."
She snuck a sideways glance up at him and saw the blush dusting his cheek as he grinned to himself. So Albus had been right on the money: this guy was all ego.
They reached the end of the alley, meeting a busy road filled with pedestrians and Muggle cars, London's signature double-decker buses trundling past. Closing her eyes, Lily took a deep breath through her nose, inhaling the exhaust and crisp leaves and faint scent of food that filled the air.
Opening her eyes, she saw James was peering down at her curiously.
"Every city smells different," she explained. "Have you never noticed?"
He gaped at her a moment, then closed his eyes and took his own deep breath. "Hmm." He cracked an eye at her. "You know, you might be onto something, Evans."
"You don't say," she teased.
He steered them to the right as he asked, "What's Paris smell like then?"
"Piss," she said matter-of-factly. "Didn't you know? We Parisians piss anywhere we please."
James stared at her, seemingly gobsmacked, for only a moment before he burst into laughter. "Holy shit," he wheezed, pinching his nose under his glasses. "Ah, fuck."
"You don't believe me?" Lily jibed. "Come to Paris, see for yourself."
His shoulders still shook as he wiped at his watering eye. "Aha, I believe you." And then he did something entirely unexpected, and closed his hand around her shoulder, pulling her into his side for a quick hug. "Y'know," he said through lingering laughs. "I think we're gonna get along just fine, Evans."
A strange sensation, some mixture of anticipation and dread, curdled her insides, even as the squeeze of his hand and the heaviness of his arm sent flutters through her chest.
She quickly changed the subject. "So where are you taking me, tour guide?"
"Well," he started, dragging out the word as he withdrew his hand to put it back in his jacket pocket. "There's obviously our London, which we'll get to, but I thought we'd take in some of the sights along the way."
"Oh?"
He turned another corner and nodded ahead of them. "Like that."
Lily followed his gaze, breath catching in her throat as she saw her first glimpse of Buckingham Palace, and an entirely different, "Oh," dropped from her lips.
"Not quite as glamorous as all your chateaux, but she's still a beaut."
She quickly checked over her shoulder, confirming there was no one nearby, and then asked softly, "You're showing me Muggle London?"
He gazed down at her, and for the first time, Lily noticed the color of his eyes behind his glasses, more of a brownish-green in the overcast light. A crisp breeze blew through his rumpled hair, lifting a messy lock off his forehead and leaving it windswept in a way that made her suddenly want to thrust her fingers into it.
Abruptly, he sucked in a breath and looked away, like he had also been caught up in their staring, and answered, "I am. It's our London too, after all."
Lily scoffed softly and tried to sound teasing as she probed, "Doesn't that go against, well, everything your group stands for?"
A muscle twitched in his jaw. "What do you mean, your group?"
She arched a brow, glancing over her shoulder again, before she dropped her voice anyway and admonished, "James. Like I'd start working with British colleagues without getting a primer on local politics first."
His stare was unreadable, though his nostrils flared.
Not one to be intimidated, Lily continued quietly, "I read the latest Prophet. Based on the state of Number Twelve, I can hazard a guess at what might be on your left arm. And I got the exam short-answer version"—James gave a soft snort at that, lip twitching—"of where battle lines are drawn and why. So forgive me if it's a bit confusing to go from meeting you in the Black's drawing room with Walberga staring at me like I'm an…ostrich, to you giving me a walking tour of Muggle London landmarks."
Her speech finished, Lily crossed her arms firmly over her chest, holding his stare, but it didn't take long before James cracked a smile. "She's like that with everyone, don't take it personal. And she also hates Slughorn, calls him a meddling monkey when he's not there."
Lily snorted at that before she could help it.
"But about the rest…." James started walking slowly along the road that would lead them closer to the Palace, and Lily matched his pace. "These aren't Muggle landmarks. They're ours. We helped build this city, control this city, like wizards did for every major city in this world. The Muggles don't know that, obviously, and honestly, a lot of our kind don't fully realize it either, but it's the truth."
"Yes, well, that may be true," Lily mused, "but that doesn't answer my question. Are you really going to tell me that some of your comrades wouldn't just start blowing people up if they were here?"
James sighed, something that seemed more tired than annoyed. "Don't call them my comrades," he started cooly. "Just because I'm aligned with them doesn't mean I like all of them."
Like Snape? she wanted to ask, but she held herself back. "Duly noted."
"And no, you got it right, most of them would only come to this side of London to do just that."
"And you?"
He seemed to tense beside her, but his voice was even when he answered, "You might not know this about me, but I played Chaser."
Deciding she should probably stop confirming what she did and didn't know about him, Lily only asked, "Were you good?"
James laughed, something short and smug, and answered, "Yeah, I was. Damn good, actually."
"Ah," Lily laughed, "I see."
James ignored her teasing tone and added, "I was Captain at Hogwarts. We won the House Cup every year under my watch."
Lily looked sideways up at him through her lashes. "Now you're just bragging."
He chuckled and shook his head. "Nah, I'm making a point."
"Let me guess," Lily teased, "you have good aim? Or, no, you're…good with your hands?"
He kept smiling, tipping his head back slightly as he walked, looking proud as a peacock in full plume. Fucking hell, it really was all ego with him.
"I mean, both of those things are true," he flirted back, "but not quite what I was getting at."
"Go on."
He was quiet for a moment, then explained, "Chasing is about strategy. Every formation, every play, every shot, is done with the purpose of getting a step ahead. Putting points on the board. But…some people think it's just about throwing a ball around, so that's all they do."
"I…see."
Only, she wasn't sure she did.
Maybe James could tell, because he stopped just on the outskirts of the Palace gates and faced her with a look of quiet fierceness. "And some people," he went on, "just like to throw balls around for no purpose, and don't care to know about the game at all."
That piece of the analogy hit closer to the mark. Lily's insides twisted uncomfortably as she turned the implications of those words over in her mind, and she quickly focused on controlling her thoughts and not dwelling on the fact that he'd essentially told her in code that he only killed for strategy instead of sport.
She broke eye contact, focusing her gaze on the Palace instead, and said in what she hoped was a conversational tone, "The French don't care about blood like you English do."
James scoffed and muttered, "I find that hard to believe. Some of our biggest pureblood families are traced to France."
"That statement may be true," Lily mused, "but their French counterparts aren't attacking witches and wizards who happen to have non-magiques parents."
A muscle twitched in his jaw, and, dropping her eyes, Lily could see the fists clenched in his pockets. But just as quickly, a determined playfulness was back in his face as he smirked down at her. "Is this the part where I say, welcome to England?"
Lily sighed and turned her gaze back to Buckingham, unable to keep the sudden sadness from her voice as she answered, "More like, welcome back."
She could sense James's gaze on her before he observed aloud, "You know, I thought you had too little of a French accent."
Lily chuckled softly; despite living several years in France, she knew she still sounded English, especially when she spoke it, so she'd figured she might as well explain it to him up front. "I haven't been back to Britain since I was kid," she told him. "My mum was French, dad was English. They chose Beauxbatons over Hogwarts"—she glanced up at him with a smile—"presumably so it would give them an excuse to retire in the French Riviera."
That was a lie: they'd chosen Beauxbatons because the blood war in Britain had made them fear for her safety, and they wouldn't have had the money to retire in the French Riviera even if they'd lived to be old enough to retire in the first place.
James chuckled appreciatively. "Can't fault them for that. Though"—he pressed a hand gently against her back as he leaned toward her ear, and warm lightening spread from his touch—"it would have been nice to go to school with you."
Lily forced her mind away from her parents and back to the matter at hand: seduction. "Oh?" She peered up at him through her lashes and asked playfully, "What house would I have been in, then?"
His eyes darted thoughtfully over her face and lingered a moment on her lips before he answered, voice dropping low, "I'll have to get to know you better to answer that."
She didn't have to fake the way her breath caught in her throat, nor the heat rising in her cheeks, nor the words that were quick to rise on her tongue. "Looks like you have some work to do, then, Potter."
Some blokes might have been offended by sass like that, but James looked at her with a mischievous smirk that foretold just how much he liked it. "Feisty," he murmured, the words blowing hotly against her ear. "That's one tally under Gryffindor, then."
Lily arched a brow. "Sure you're not just finding reasons to put me in the same house as you?"
His smirk ballooned into a full-on grin. "No, I definitely am," he admitted shamelessly, and the renewed press of his fingers reminded her with a jolt of heat that his hand was still on her back. "Because if you'd been at Hogwarts, I would've been all over you, Evans."
Though her heart was (stupidly, annoyingly) fluttering like crazy, Lily found herself rolling her eyes at his flattery. "And I'd have kicked you to the curb, I expect," she bantered, twisting out of his grasp to continue walking along the gate. "Now I thought you were taking me on a little adventure?"
His hand slipped inside hers, encasing her fingers in a warm, firm grip. "Impatient"— he sounded amused—"so definitely not Hufflepuff."
Before she could respond, he tugged her hand, nodding to a path leading away from the Palace, and Lily let herself be led as James immediately launched into a soft-spoken history lesson about various wizards and witches' influences over London. It was only some time later, as they reached the end of the long, beautiful park they'd strolled through, that Lily realized she was still holding his hand.
Her surprised inhale must have given her away, because James suddenly paused his steps and looked down at their interlaced fingers. "I like this," he said quietly.
And just like that, her heart was hammering in her chest, her insides betraying all the trappings of something she hadn't felt in far too long, something she was not supposed to—did not want to—feel: a crush.
An annoying, stupid, unfortunate, and nonsensical crush, mind.
But, alas, a crush all the same.
Without any direction from her brain, her mouth replied, "Me, too," and though she wanted to curse herself, another more logical part of her brain felt a purring satisfaction at the softness that came over his face at her words. But then, just as fleetingly, that look was gone, replaced by the mischief Lily was already used to seeing.
"Do you trust me?" he asked.
"Should I?" she countered.
James didn't answer but simply turned on the spot, and before she knew it, Lily felt the familiarly uncomfortable sensation of being compressed through space before she emerged, gasping for air as sudden wind whipped her ponytail across her face and stirred water in her eyes.
"Did you just—Disapparate us in public?"
An arm wrapped securely around her waist as a chuckle rumbled warmly somewhere near her ear. "To the top of Big Ben, yes."
Lily laid her arm over his, gripping his hand in a desperate bid for something, anything, to ground her in her sudden, swirling panic of standing on a small strip of flooring nearly one hundred meters in the sky.
"What d'you think?" His voice was like a purr, low and smooth, and Lily leaned into his touch like a reflex, overcome with awe over the view this vantage point afforded.
"Well, this is definitely not Diagon Alley and a beer."
James chuckled and curled his fingers against her waist. "We'll do that after."
Lily sighed, relaxing her head into the crook of his neck. "It's…stunning."
He was quick to reply, "So are you."
Lily rolled her eyes. "Now you're just spitting out lines."
His lips ghosted over her ear, making a shiver work down her spine. "Is it working?"
Yes, her body screamed. Fucking hell, yes. But before she could cobble together a response more witty than that, her eyes were pulled to a burst of fire on the skyline.
"Fuck," James whispered, and Lily's spine straightened, all of her muscles suddenly on edge.
"Is that…?"
Smoke plumed into the sky as a second burst of flame sent sparks singeing upwards. James's fingers started to relax where they'd clenched.
"Muggle," he sighed. "It has to be Mug—shit, never mind."
Lily's mouth fell as she watched a cloud of black smoke surge and whirl into the sky until it formed a skull with a snake bursting from its mouth.
"Ohmygod," she breathed.
"Yeah." He turned her by the shoulders, staring down at her with an intense urgency, though his voice remained calm. "Apparate yourself home. You'll be safe. I have to go."
Lily nodded numbly. James surveyed her for only a second more, and then he released her and was gone.
"I was home for about five minutes before I came here," she finished lamely. She was still somewhat in shock over the whole thing, if she was being honest.
Dumbledore was frowning, looking deep in thought but altogether unsurprised by the turn of events. "The Evening Prophet is due in an hour," he said gravely. "I'll forward on any news."
Lily nodded and, hearing the dismissal in his voice, began to collect the bag at her feet and make for the fireplace.
"And Lily—"
"Yes?" She peered over her shoulder at the Headmaster, gazing out his dark window.
"I think you can feel safe with him." He turned those steely blue eyes on her. "He already seems to care for your safety. And if there's one thing about James Potter I would bet has not changed, it is his dedication to those whose safety he cares about."
Lily gulped, unsure what to say to that, and with a final nod goodbye, stepped through the grate.
Corbeau Castle, the Lestrange family's English home, was far too gothic for James's taste. Though it wasn't quite as…grotesque as Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place, it still dripped with all the trappings of a family who could trace their wealth back to the Middle Ages and seemed intent to boast about it through every detail, down to the gargoyle sconces lining the walls and reclaimed guillotines sitting where other (more normal) wealthy people might set out prized sculptures.
A raven ruffled its feathers on one such piece of equipment, and James spared it only a passing glance as he passed by, his shoes clipping sharply on the stone floor.
"Lestrange," he said simply. The whole damn family transfigured into ravens—their family emblem and their castle's namesake—so it was impossible to tell them apart while outside of human form.
This particular raven morphed into Rodolphus and fell in step with James. "Potter."
"What's going on, Rod?"
Fuck, he loved pissing Rodolphus off. The bloke constantly looked agitated, like he was ready to blow his lid at any moment, though James supposed that being married to Bellatrix would do that to anyone. Still, calling him Rod was the surest way—and James's personal favorite—to get his temper boiling.
"Not much, Jim"—James snorted; so Roddy was trying to play, was he?—"Just wondering why you missed all the fun."
"Well, you'll have to wonder a bit longer, I'm afraid."
"Hope you have a good excuse ready, Jimmy."
"I don't make excuses," James sighed. "I have reasons." And he quickened his pace so he could cut in front of Rodolphus to enter the dining room, knowing exactly the slight that signified. Really, the Lestrange boys should just expect it by now; James never passed over an opportunity to mess with them.
A table stretched the length of the stone room, the only sources of light a massive fire at one end and gleaming candlesticks lining the table.
"James." A cold, high-pitched voice echoed down the room. "Here."
He followed the voice, then the stark-white hand pointing to a chair a few seats down from the head of the table, and sat where instructed.
And now they waited. As the clock ticked, the table gradually filled with cloaked figures, all silent as soon as they sat, until the one at the front pulled his hood from his face and opened with, "Bella, I assume the afternoon's main event was one of your design."
She preened under Voldemort's praise, though she tried not to show it. "Yes, my Lord. King's Cross Station is a pile of ash, and the number of Muggles dead only continues to climb."
Voldemort crooned, "But how, dear Bella, will all the students at Hogwarts get home for their holidays?"
The room erupted into maniacal laughter, and James forced a smirk despite the fact that his stomach turned at learning it was King's Cross they had blown up. Besides being simply unnecessary, it was also the sort of thing that would garner all sorts of unwanted attention.
"Almost everyone was there," Bellatrix crooned.
"And who, might I ask, was not?"
Bellatrix's eyebrows lifted at James from where she sat across from him.
"James?" Voldemort sounded surprised. "Where were you?"
He met those permanently bloodshot-red eyes head-on and answered, "On a date, My Lord."
Titters rose around the room, but James ignored them.
Voldemort's lips—or whatever was still left of them—twitched as he mocked, "And who is the special girl?"
"Lily Evans."
Voldemort's face instantly changed from bored amusement to blazing greed. "The girl we think could be in the Société des Alchimistes?"
James nodded, still holding eye contact. "The very same."
There was a long beat of silence as Voldemort scrutinized him, features razor-sharp in his magically sunken face; James hadn't exactly disobeyed, but he had acted without direct orders to do so, which was always a risk.
Thankfully—predictably—the greed in Voldemort's face never left. "And? How did it go?"
He didn't have to force the smirk that time; his smile was waiting at the thought of her laughing face, her coy smile, her quick tongue. "I think she likes me."
Pandemonium ensued, and James thought Voldemort gave him the closest thing he could to a smile.
But then, because of course he had to, Snape spoke up from down the table.
"But—My Lord—this is not in the plan—"
"No," Voldemort agreed idly, swirling his wine glass. "It was not."
"But—this could jeopardize—surely I'm in the better position—through our shared work—"
To James's surprise but utter delight, Voldemort cackled. "Through your shared work. My dear Severus, if this girl works for who we think she does, you might as well play with a toddler's potions set."
Snape flushed and stared at the table.
"Besides, it doesn't hurt to have more than one player in the field, now, does it?"
Snape asked, "And if she becomes suspicious?"
Some hushed whispers broke out at that, and Voldemort stroked his chin with a long, pale finger.
Feeling the start of something jealous was bubbling in his stomach, James figured this was the time to speak up. "She won't."
"Oh?" Voldemort turned an arched brow at him. "Explain."
"She associates him"—he nodded toward Snape—"with work. She holds her work in the utmost regard, you can tell from how she carries herself, how she speaks of Slughorn. She doesn't seem like the type to entertain crossing certain, shall we say, boundaries between colleagues."
Snape turned, if it was possible, even redder. Good.
"I," James continued, "don't have that problem."
"It's still a risk," Snape hissed.
James rolled his eyes, feeling his temper start to slip just slightly out of grasp. "I'm sorry," he snapped, "what exactly about that first meeting gave you the impression that you could get her to tell you about the alleged potion she's working on as part of a secret alchemists' society? Unless your plan is to slip Veritaserum in her drink, I'd say your chances are nil. She's smart; witty; controlled. And I know this because I asked her out after we met, she said yes, and we proceeded to have a lovely start to a first date before it got interrupted"—he turned his glare on Bellatrix—"by a fucking explosion."
Voldemort held up his hands between them, and James took the gesture for what it was: a signal to calm the fuck down.
"Severus," Voldemort placated, "we knew that finding out more information about the Société would require having someone on the inside, and we also knew that a…personal lead was far more promising than a collegial one."
That they had, and James had known from the look on Snape's face the minute it came up that Snape wanted to be—expected to be—the man for the job.
James had had one visceral, immediate reaction to that idea: over his dead body.
But also, it was painfully obvious after cocktails that Lily had no interest in Snape; she had even seemed mildly repulsed by him, which had only endeared her to James more, but which also strongly compromised even the possibility of success for the mission, which James knew was something deeply important to Voldemort. So, being James Potter, he'd taken matters into his own hands and done what he'd needed to do to outstep Snape, slimy snake that he thought he was.
Snape looked like he wanted to kill him on sight, but then, James had expected that. It was Voldemort's reaction that really mattered, and thankfully, enough Tom Riddle was still in there to recognize the value of good looks and charm when it came to espionage.
"You'll both continue as you are," Voldemort announced. "Severus, work the professional angle. James, the…other one."
James briefly wondered if Snape's teeth were about to crack from how hard he was clenching his jaw just then, but he met Snape glare for glare down the table as he answered, "Consider it done."
Once Voldemort had decided something, it was decided, so the meeting moved on to other topics after that. James half-listened, a skill he'd long since mastered, while he simultaneously composed a note to Lily in his head. Something short but that would make her smile. Something that would lead right into seeing her again. Something not too eager but that showed his interest all the same. Something that would make her want to still say yes after the way they'd parted.
James traced those final moments in his mind. Despite her guardedness, he'd been pleasantly surprised by how easily they'd bantered, flirted, even touched. And when he'd held her at the top of the clock tower and felt her fit into his body like she'd been moulded from him, he'd wondered for a fleeting second whether she'd let him kiss her, purely because he'd wanted to.
He wouldn't have, of course. A first date like this called for something far more subtle, like a brush of lips over knuckles or across a cheek. Because this was important. This was about working his way to an unknown inside, to the inner workings of a life shrouded in mystery. This was about seduction. This was about winning.
There were rules to these things. Obviously.
