Three

April was finally sitting up in less pain then she'd been in before. For her own sanity's sake, she had left the black wig on, and had just recently applied her makeup. She was ready to get out of this place without being seen as soon as possible and had just finished arguing with Dumbledore over when she could get back to her job. He'd told her that now that she had been discovered there the job was to be forfeited. And that she was to not move from this bed or she wouldn't get better. He informed her that she'd broken several ribs from the curse and a few cuts but that was the worst of the damage.

Her eyes widened and she paled when July walked into the room. Why had Dumbledore let her in? She paled even more when she realized the answer. He wanted her to come out. She was to finally come out and let everyone know that April Merriwether was very much alive.

July only saw the same pale, frightened, hooker she'd seen the night before. The eyeliner was a dark shadow around her eyes and her bright red lips and black hair made her shallow skin look hollow. Except her pouty, bottom lip had a cut on the corner and another cut was a shallow line down one cheek. She frowned. "Hullo,"

April thought her voice was going to betray her. July sounded so shy, talking to her as if she was a perfect stranger. April felt tears burn the back of her eyes but once again didn't let them show, or tried not to.

July caught the glisten in the girl's eyes and could now tell that she couldn't be any older than she herself was. She frowned, walking over and sitting next to the girl on the bed, and taking her hand. "You're okay now, that guy is gone. He was a-"

"I know." April said, angry now. "I know he was a Death Eater!" She slammed her other fist on the table beside her. "I know the goddamn rat was a Death Eater and he knew who I was, which is not good. And now because of him my cover is totally blown!"

July was lost for words, having not expected the random outburst. "Do you want to talk about it?"

April's voice softened to a barely audible whisper. "More than you could ever know."

July blinked, becoming more confused with the girl by the minute. "I'm sorry?"

"July, I've wanted to tell you so much."

"What are you talking about? Who are you?" July asked, slightly alarmed that the girl would know her name.

April, always making the dramatic entrance, decided it was now or never. Sitting up taller, she winced, and removed July's hand from her own, using both of her hands to get the pins out of her hair. She slowly removed the wig, her silvery hair tucked into a cap underneath it. She paused, and watched July's eyes, saw them grow more aware and understanding. Looking away from her sister, her twin, her best friend, she removed the cap, letting her hair flow down like silky water to her shoulder blades. She prayed her sister would understand and even talk to her again. But she understood if that would not happen. She couldn't blame her anyways.

July gasped when her sister was revealed as the hooker. Couldn't believe it. Didn't believe it. Her wand was whipped out from underneath her clothing and at April's throat before she could blink. Tears stung her eyes.

"Who the hell do you think you are!" she yelled. "Who are you! Tell me, now!" She heard footsteps coming up the stairs but didn't stop. "How dare you, I could kill you for this!"

April blinked, not expecting that reaction from her mellow sister. But the last few days had taken a toll on her and that taste of fear was back in her mouth again. She took a deep breath, feeling the tip of the wand against her throat, and by the hand of her own sister, was chilling and she felt a shudder go through her body. She hated herself for showing this weakness but couldn't help the lethargic state she was in. She closed her eyes briefly taking another gulp of air. The panic made her lungs seem smaller.

The footsteps rushing up the stairs belonged to the Minister, Dumbledore, and were followed quickly by Remus, James, and Lily. They all arrived in the room to see July pointing her wand at the throat of a friend deceased.

Remus, James, and Lily were each shocked into silence. The only sound had been Lily's gasp of surprise and her hoarsely whispered 'April'. James found himself amused that April was still alive, thinking it was just like to do something such as this, but was more disturbed by her appearance. Besides the eye makeup that made her look odd anyway, she was pale and sickly looking. Almost as if she were scared and under high stress. Remus noticed her state also and was concerned for her health, having realized that it was she who had been cursed the previous evening. But the shock of her being alive overcame all emotions for the three as they watched sister against sister.

"Miss Merriwether!" Fudge exclaimed, motioning for the guard to come in slowly. "Lower your wand at once!"

"Who is this? Why would you allow someone to use a Polyjuice of my own bloody sister!" July shouted again, throwing her wand to the ground, angry tears running down her cheek. She glared at Dumbledore. "Am I supposed to not blame this person for imitating my sister? Because I do!"

"Miss Merriwether," Dumbledore said, immediately silencing July with a mere rising of his hand. "I believe you are quite confused. Or in a rather severe state of shock and denial of which you cannot be blamed for. Send your guard away Cornelius, I can see the young lady is understanding now." His gaze wandered to where April was suffering from chills and a cold sweat again. She had fallen asleep again, no doubt from effects of the potion she was being given regularly to ease her pain. He frowned, hoping she hadn't caught something at the bar the previous night. Or worse, the effects of the curse were doubled because of the stress she'd been under the past year. "Please take a seat, and allow me to explain. As you can see your sister is in no state to be doing so herself. Ah and where might Mr. Black be?" He had just noticed a vital part to the group missing.

"I… I'll get him Professor," Remus offered shakily. He looked to April again, still finding it hard to believe what he was seeing. He knew later on he would be angry but the shock and concern was overcoming that. He stood up and walked from the room, walking to the next door and knocking. "Sirius, open up." He tapped his foot impatiently on the floor while he waited. When no response came, a bit of the anger sparked. "Sirius, open the damn door now!"

The door opened and Sirius stood there giving Remus an uninterested look. He'd heard muffled yelling from the room over but believed it to be the hooker again. Multiple times he'd wanted to go in there, to make sure she was okay, but had held back. "What Remus?" He blinked, noticing Remus was nervous about something. "What's wrong?"

"Y-You need to get in there quick." He made a jerky motion with his hand towards April's room. He choked on each word he spoke. "As in right now."

Sirius frowned but tried to stay uninterested as he followed Remus into the next room. Remus paused at the bedroom door. "Brace yourself, mate. You'll take this harder than any of us for sure."

"Whatever. Don't know why you're making me see the…" he trailed off when Remus opened the door, exposing the entire scene to him. July was sitting on the side of the bed, covering the hooker's face while she appeared to be wiping something off it with a tissue. He heard her sniffling and knew she was crying and trying to keep it silent. Fudge and Dumbledore stood on one side of the room, both looking at him oddly as if expecting something of him. James was comforting Lily on the other side, letting her lean on his chest while he brushed her hair with his fingers. That surprised him a bit and he nudged Remus who only nodded solemnly. Remus crossed over to July and gave her arm a little tug to get her to move so that Sirius could see what he needed to see.

Sirius thought the worst. "Oh man, she didn't die did she?"

"NO!" July exclaimed, promptly bursting into tears and curling into the corner of the small loveseat. Remus sat down and awkwardly tried to soothe her.

Sirius didn't understand. Why was everyone so glum? Then he looked from July to where she'd moved from: the bed. And everything around him ceased to exist temporarily. It had to be a trick, he thought. It just wasn't possible that she could be alive. He'd read the Prophet announcement continuously, and it had stated that April Merriwether, age sixteen, soon to be seventeen, had been killed during a Death Eater's raid on her neighborhood. He'd enveloped himself in the belief that she wasn't coming back again. Had hated the fact that he had only read a rather humorous owl from her the day before she'd died. It had been a memorable owl for it had been the first funny thing she'd written since her parents had been killed. He still had it tucked in his bedside table drawer.

And now there she was, sleeping on the bed in front of him, and he didn't know what to do. He came back to reality, looking around the room. All eyes were on him and he could still hear July's sniffles. He now saw that July had been removing eye makeup from her sister when he'd walked in. And he realized that April had been the hooker he'd joked about. Said he'd like to bang. The one who he was wishing a happy night to with the man who had almost killed her? He was glaring now, his hands bunched into fists at his sides.

"What the fuck was she doing dressed like that!" Sirius bellowed. He didn't even care that he'd sworn in front of the Minister of Magic himself. "She almost died because she was dressed like that!"

Dumbledore frowned, not liking the reaction and knowing it wasn't what April needed. His voice lost the friendly tone it normally took. "You will cease your attitude Mr. Black and pay attention while I explain. You will not comment to her when she awakens on her previous night's attire. There will be another time for that."

Sirius felt ashamed, but Dumbledore had always been able to make him feel like that. He was mad though and merely nodded, taking another look at April. She looks so sickly, he thought. He felt sick himself, noticing the cut on her cheek and lip. He could see her shiver every now and then, and had no trouble noticing the small beads of sweat that lined her brow. She looked pained while she slept, a fitful sleep. He felt more ashamed now that the first thing he'd spoken about her since her death had been negative.

He tuned out, in his own thoughts, as Dumbledore started the explanation and story leading up to April's current condition. Everything made sense to him now. He'd been angry when she'd come into The Leaky Cauldron dressed like that the previous night because it had been April and he would have had the same reaction if she'd done that when she'd been 'alive'. When she had cried out in pain he'd felt the need to be by her side, and that made sense to him now too. He wondered if the others had made sense of their own reactions yet.

July frowned, listening to Dumbledore but not fully understanding. "Why would she take the position though?"

Fudge cleared his throat. "Well Miss Merriwether, she was approached with the offer from Dumbledore only six months or so after the deaths of your parents. She most likely felt that she was doing them a good deed by fighting in their favor. Doing jobs to bring down the very people who were responsible for tearing your family apart. Trust me, Miss Merriwether, your sister's intentions were from her heart and she did it for her family.

"Your sister was also and remains to be a very excellent actress," Fudge continued, when Dumbledore left the room to get a Healer. "She was perfect for the position."

"Why not someone more experienced?" Sirius demanded. "Why not someone who knew what they were doing? Why a sixteen-year-old girl!" He felt himself becoming angry once again and bit off the last question.

A Healer rushed into the room, brushing past Sirius to check April's temperature and give her another smaller injection of the painkiller. Sirius watched as his April shuddered from head to toe as the potion was put into her body. He noticed the Healer frown when her temperature was done being read. He watched as the Healer placed a steaming pad on her forehead to warm her and ease her chills. He was angry that there was no magic besides the potions being used to make her more comfortable.

Dumbledore answered Sirius' question. "April was a fresh, intelligent, feisty young lady who had the ambition and nerve to do this job that even some of the most experienced Aurors could not handle. She deserted her life to help the Order undercover." He watched April stir and nodded. "Well, we seem to have a bit of a problem on our hands."

Lily frowned. "What sort of problem, Professor?"

"A rather disastrous one, or it could be nothing at all." Dumbledore responded wearily, taking a seat in a chair next to him.

"What do you mean?" James asked.

"Last night, April was approached by a man. You have seen him, the one with the black trench coat."

"I'll kill him when I see him next." Sirius stated bluntly, not being able to help looking at the places where he'd hurt her.

"That will not be necessary, Mr. Black. As I was saying, he seems to have discovered April was working for someone as a spy. This is not good."

"No kidding," Remus said sarcastically, not liking the current situation.

Dumbledore continued as if he hadn't heard Remus. "Now this isn't as bad as it could be." He paused for a moment sensing another question.

July waited a heartbeat before speaking up, "How can it not be that bad? She's lying in bed, almost died, and could very well be mentally ruined for life after that curse!"

"I assure you, Miss Merriwether that your sister is in a perfect mental state. It's her physical state that has us worrying." He caught the look from Sirius. "Nothing that can't be fixed, Mr. Black. Not to worry. As I was saying, this man, and we've seen the Dark Mark and know he's a Death Eater, knew her only by her alias name: Alexis Stone, who is a part-time as you would call it, hooker or prostitute."

July chose to ignore the details of her 'part-time job'. "And so if he didn't know her real name, what's the problem? She doesn't exactly look like Alexis Stone any longer."

"Yes and I am aware of this Miss Merriwether. What I am worried about is that this man had used her alias name to get a response. For all we know he could in fact know her true identity, in which case we would have a serious problem on our hands."

"How serious?" James asked, glancing to where his friend lay on her bed, in a fitful sleep.

"Serious enough to put her life in danger. This man wouldn't keep this information to himself; he would have shared it with another trusted Death Eater. More than likely, the other man April was there to spy upon."

"And so what do we do now?" Lily asked, posing the question to both the Minister and Dumbledore.

"Now we wait for April to recover. She was awake enough earlier to explain what we've just told you," Fudge started. "Of course the considerable pain she was in had us giving her another sedative."

"Are all of these drugs good for her to be taking, sir?" July asked, frowning slightly. April had cried out several times the previous night, now knowing that each time she'd been injected with more potions.

Dumbledore waved a hand at her worry. "Not to fear. You're sister is just a very strong young woman who has a body that doesn't take foreign substances entering it lightly. We're giving her the normal doses but they've been wearing off more quickly than they would for others."

"Why is this affecting her this way, Professor?" Remus asked, not fully understanding the situation at hand. "I, and I'm sure everyone else here, has seen people hit by the Crustaceous Curse before. They're in pain but not in sweats and chills."

The Minister summoned forth a Healer at that point, checking his watch and frowning. "My deepest apologies for cutting this short, but the Headmaster and I have a conference to attend concerning your sister and her new protection that will be placed on her for the time being."

July paled. "It's that serious?"

"It very well could be, Miss Merriwether and we're not willing to take a risk on one of our best spies like this. Good day, ladies, gentlemen." With that, Fudge apparated out of the room, Dumbledore leaving shortly after him.

Sirius looked at the Healer, who had just completed checking April's vitals again, a frown still upon her face but not as severe as before. "Why has the curse affected her this way?" He asked, repeating Remus's earlier question.

The Healer, startled at being so abruptly addressed, stood straight and frowned to April before scanning the others. Her gaze rested on the young man who had asked the question. "It seems that the Crustaceous Curse performed on Miss Merriwether was very powerful. But the chills and other sickness were caused by something different; the curse merely sped up what would have eventually happened. More than likely her current condition is due to stress and her weight is a bit on the low side. Because of the nature of her work she probably hasn't eaten as much and as well as she should, resulting in a poorer quality of health. Her energy level must have been down but we ran tests yesterday and found high traces of caffeine in her blood stream. She's a smoker-"

"No. April doesn't smoke…" July said, wrinkling her nose at the thought.

"I assure you she does. Our tests do not lie to us." The Healer sounded impatient at having her prognosis of a patient doubted by someone so young. "As I was saying, smoking does not do well for one's health. She most likely uses it as a stress alleviator when in all essence it only makes her health poorer." She checked her wrist where a small white watch was worn. "I would advise you not to stay overly long though there are no specific visiting hours at this time. Either myself or another will be back in an hour to check on Miss Merriwether."

The Healer left and Sirius swore under his breath, finally crossing the room and sitting on the bed next to April. He brought a shaky hand to the warm pad resting on her forehead, using it to gently wipe the sweat from her hairline. He was angry, very angry, and it was difficult for him to stay gentle.

July watched, a small smile visible on her face, as Sirius approached April, appearing nervous in front of her for the first time in his life. She thought he looked awkward being so gentle.

Lily frowned. "They couldn't give her some more decent clothing."

Remus surveyed the attire April was in. She wore the same mini skirt, and red shirt that resembled more of a sports bra. Her leather jacket hung on what he guessed was the bathroom doorknob. He frowned, clearly able to see the bandages wrapped around her lower chest, holding her bruised or broken ribs together so they could heal. He shook his head. "This is weird."

"For some odd reason, I'm not surprised she'd still alive." James said, causing the other four in the room to stare at him as if he were a three-headed dog. "Well, I'm not! I mean honestly, we all know April's going to outlive all of us, she has too much life in her not to. She wasn't ready to go yet, we all knew that."

"Just because someone has a lot of life to them doesn't mean they're meant to live it, James" July said, frowning at him. "I thought my own sister was dead for the past year and a half. You have no idea what that feels like, to have a half of yourself gone forever. How could she not see the effects taking this job would have on those around her?"

She sounded hurt when she said it, not so much angry, Remus thought to himself. He wanted badly to comfort July but wasn't sure of how to go about it. He wanted to throttle himself for not knowing how to anymore.

James, being himself, spoke aloud a question he'd know later he should have kept to his own private thoughts. "Do you think April had to… you know… actually carry out the role of a hooker?" He winced at Lily's gasp and the glare Sirius sent his way had him almost blushing. "Just a thought…"

"I don't want to think about it," Sirius said softly. His tone had July, Lily, and Remus looking between the two young men who had once been best friends. "Who do you think you are to even speak that thought aloud?"

James glared at Sirius. "Excuse me for trying to lighten the mood. You and I both know April would never do that to herself."

"Do not lighten the mood at her expense, James." Sirius said, the threat clearly read on his face and in his voice. He frowned suddenly and shook his head, seeing the apology on James's face. "I'm sorry, Prongs. I'm not myself," he glanced at April. "A bit on the snappy side."

James grinned good-naturedly to his friend. "No apology necessary, Padfoot." His stomach growled loudly causing July to laugh, the first true laugh between any of them. James gave everyone a lopsided grin. "Guess it's time for a snack."

July stood up just as James did. "I'm a bit hungry too." She needed to be out of that room and needed some time to sort out her thoughts on April. She was a bit confused as to whether or not she should be kind to her suddenly-living twin. Remus sensed something was wrong and also volunteered to get some food.

Lily had also stood and when Sirius made no move to follow, she frowned. "She probably won't wake up anytime soon, Sirius. They've just given her another sedative. Why don't come you come along and join the rest of us?"

Sirius shook his head, smiling to Lily. "Thanks anyways, but I've missed out on a year and a half. I'm sick of waiting. I just want to spend some time with her, Lily."

Lily nodded, heading for the door. "I understand, Sirius. See you soon." She quietly exited the room, closing the door with a soft click behind her.