"You'll be careful," Gideon pleaded for the tenth time that morning, as he, Dorcas, and Fabian were sitting at the breakfast table. The twins were dressed in muggle hiking gear, knapsacks next to their chairs, as they ate the eggs, toast, and sausage that Dorcas had set in front of them before they went off to meet Ogden in Grasmere and set off on their tour of the Lakes. Dorcas was drinking her typical cup of tea and milk; leaning back on her chair and clutching her cup with both hands. She still wore her pajamas and robe and was yawning occasionally. It was barely after dawn.
"I'll be fine, Gideon." She rolled her eyes. "There are going to be four other well-qualified people with me."
"I know, sweetheart," he leaned across the table towards her. "But if you get hurt…." He stopped suddenly, shut his eyes, and turned his face from her.
Dorcas smiled slightly and put a hand on top of his. Tilting her head so she could look him in the eyes she squeezed his fingers. "I'll be fine," she whispered.
"Come on Gideon," Fabian jumped in. "Sturgis is going, and the Potters. She'll be great. Honestly we should be worried more about ourselves. The Lakes District in January? Ogden is bloody mad. We'll drown."
Dorcas laughed loudly and Gideon chuckled slightly, kissed Dorcas' hand and went back to eating his eggs, occasionally looking up at her.
A half an hour later, Dorcas waved goodbye to the brothers from the front door as they set out to the apparation point in the rain. She sighed when they were out of view; readying herself for the trip she would be taking in a few hours to Surrey and Jason Cole's home.
"Lily, have you seen my Magpies shirt?" James yelled from the bedroom of their flat.
Lily rolled her eyes, taking a long swig of tea from her place at the kitchen table as she skimmed the Daily Prophet. "No James, I have not seen your Magpies shirt," she yelled back. "Did you check the laundry?"
"Yes," came the reply.
Lily cringed as she imagined the state the bedroom was probably in now; clothes all over the floor, the bed in disarray. She silently cursed the Potters for having money and never teaching their son to clean up after himself.
"Why is it SO important James?" she yelled back; her eyes resting on a headline about the Ministry's latest foul-up. "We have to leave in an hour and if the bedroom looks the way I think it looks….."
A muffled curse was heard and Lily gritted her teeth in anger; trying to focus on the paper again. Ever since Christmas, she had been ready to strangle James, every little thing he did got on her nerves. Whoever had said the first year of marriage was the hardest must have been married to a Potter.
James came out of the bedroom; wearing nothing but a pair of pajama bottoms and scratching his head in confusion. "You're sure you haven't seen it?" he asked; frowning slightly.
"Yes," she said through her teeth; barely turning her head to say it over her shoulder.
James sighed and walked over to the kitchen. Lily felt her body tense in annoyance as he shuffled loudly across the tile floor and opened the refrigerator. Humming absent-mindedly, James rested his forearm on the bar above the door and scanned the shelves for something to eat. After what felt like ages to Lily, he pulled out a bottle of milk and, without shutting the door to the refrigerator, proceeded to take a long swig directly from the glass receptacle.
"If you drink from that bottle…." Lily threatened with narrowed eyes just as the lip of the bottle had reached James' mouth.
Immediately James dramatically pulled the bottle away from his mouth, angrily put the lid back on, and shoved it back into the refrigerator. "What's got your panties in a twist this morning?" he said sarcastically.
"Oh don't give me that, James," she spat and tried, again unsuccessfully, to concentrate on the newspaper in her hands.
Growling slightly under his breath, James plopped down in his chair across from Lily at the table. He reached for the World News page of the Prophet, which Lily had abandoned to the left side of the table.
"I'm reading that," Lily said without looking away from the front page she had in her hands.
"You are not reading the entire paper at once, Lily," he said; the paper's section still in his grasp.
Lily put the paper down on the table and glared at James across the table. "I am reading the paper right now, James," she yelled, grabbing the section in his hands.
"It's impossible to read every section of the Daily Prophet at one time, Lily," James bellowed back. "Give me the damn World News."
"NO," she pulled at the paper. "You can read the paper when I am done with it! Maybe you should go look for you bloody shirt again."
"FINE!" James dropped the paper violently and pushed his hair back; standing and huffing back off to the bedroom.
Taking a long angry sip of tea, Lily smoothed out the World News section. Then with a long, laborious breath, she went back to the front page.
Jason Cole's home was a boxy brick building with a slanted black roof and a large chimney stuck in the middle of a regular muggle neighborhood in the village of Guildford. A large lawn stretched out to the knee-high hedges that stood like eerie figures in the dark. The street lights had just been turned on when Sirius apparated to the street in front of the house. It was a clear night and the full moon was white in its brightness. Feeling the bite of the cold January wind, he pulled his scarf tighter around his neck. With a visible breath, Sirius flung his bag higher up on his shoulder and walked toward the house, afraid of what awaited him over the next three days – whether or not the Death Eaters showed up.
He opened the small gate in front of the walkway up to the house. Noticing the dormant flower beds lining the walkway, Sirius thought for a second about Jason Cole and his family. Jason and Emily Cole had gone into hiding with their young son David earlier that same day. He hoped the secret would be kept. Sirius reached the front door and knocked loudly three times.
"Who is it?" Came the muffled reply of James' voice.
"Padfoot," Sirius replied half-heartedly.
"How can I be sure?" James' voice was twinged with laughter.
Sirius sighed; he hated this part. "I read Wizard Weddings to help you find a way to propose to Lily….Let me in, James."
The door opened to a smirking James in his Montrose Magpies shirt and an old pair of jeans. "I love that part," he said cheekily.
Sirius frowned. "Is she here yet?"
James furrowed his brow. "Yeah," he nodded. "You're the last to get here. We're all set up in the living room. Come on, you've got to do it sometime," he clasped a hand on Sirius' back and steered him down a hallway. Double doors lead into a typical living room. A blue sofa faced two floral armchairs and a large fireplace dominated the wall opposite the door. Thick green curtains had been drawn over the windows that faced the street Lily was sitting in one of the armchairs, her arms and legs crossed angrily, her face stuck in a grimace. Sturgis was next to the blazing fireplace, unrolling sleeping bags. Dorcas was sitting cross-legged on the plush carpet; a book in her lap. She looked up when Sirius walked in.
"Hi Sirius," she said quietly; trying desperately to rid herself of the wrinkle between her eyebrows.
"Dorcas," he nodded, taking another breath, and sitting on the sofa.
James plopped down in the armchair nest to Lily, who immediately shifted her body away from him. He frowned. "So," he said heavily, "We should do watch in two hour shifts so we can all get enough sleep. Any volunteers for the first shift?"
"I'll do it," Dorcas said; the book still open in her lap; her eyes stuck on the curtains.
"I'll take the second shift," Lily said flatly.
"I guess I'll take the third," James said. "Sirius, you take the fourth, Sturgis the fifth. Alright?"
Both men nodded.
"Fantastic," he sighed. "I could use some sleep. We should do rounds every twenty minutes to make sure no one's bursting in on all of us while were asleep."
Standing, James moved to the sleeping bags Sturgis had set out around the fireplace. "I'm going to bed," he yawned; kneeling to pull a pair of pajama bottoms out of a blue knapsack next to one of the sleeping bags. To change he went into the adjacent kitchen. Sturgis followed suit; pulling out his own pajamas. Groaning, Sirius stood from the sofa. He walked past Dorcas, who watched him pass while biting her lip in thought. Both Lily and Dorcas remained still as the men came back out of the kitchen in their night-wear.
"Going to bed, Lily?" James asked as he climbed into one of the fluffy sleeping bags.
"Not yet, James," she said sarcastically; her angry eyes now resting on Dorcas, who had finally shut the book on her lap.
James grumbled and rolled over, "Alright then."
Lily didn't respond.
Sturgis looked at the four others in the room: suddenly awkward with the awareness of all the underlying tensions and conflicts between his companions.
"Good luck Dorcas," he said, trying to sound encouraging, as he crawled in to a sleeping bag.
Sirius said nothing as he climbed into bed. He briefly linked eyes with Dorcas, whose expression was unreadable – as usual. Unwilling to deal with any of that anymore, he shook his head away from her glance and shut his eyes, welcoming sleep.
The men fell asleep quickly: Sirius and James out of emotional exhaustion and Sturgis out of habit. Dorcas and Lily remained silent; Dorcas growing gradually more uncomfortable under Lily's glare. When Sirius' snores became loud enough to signal he had entered deep sleep, Dorcas stood to go on a round through the house. Lily followed her into the long shadowy hallway.
"I hope you're proud of yourself," she whispered harshly to Dorcas' back. Dim light from the outside streetlights lit up half of Lily's face, giving her an ethereal glow.
Dorcas spun around; a frown tightening her face. "Lily," she spat. "Leave me alone. You don't know anything about it."
Lily scoffed loudly. "Sirius wasted so much time on you. I feel sorry for Gideon. How long are you going to string him along before you smash his heart too?"
"As if Sirius left me unscathed," Dorcas said through her teeth as she shook her hair out of her face. "Gideon is a completely different circumstance. I would never deliberately hurt him because he would never break my heart the way Sirius did."
"So you admit you meant to hurt Sirius?" Lily's flashing eyes were visible even in the semi-darkness of the room.
"No," Dorcas growled in frustration. "Fine," she threw up her hands. "I messed up, is that what you want to hear? I messed up. I shouldn't have gone to him that night."
"Well, you'd better keep away from him from now on," Lily said coldly. "I'm not going to let you break his heart again. It's already happened too many times."
Lily spun on her heel, stuck up her chin, and walked back into the living room. Dorcas watched her go; her breathing quickened. Her body tense, she rotated her wand between her fingers and turned to the other end of the house; determined to complete the job she had been sent to Surrey to do.