Chapter – 11:

Lily P.O.V

"Lily! Lily! Get your disgusting, freakish creature away from me!" A horrified screech woke Lily from the calm, peaceful, fun dream she'd been having. It wasn't about murder clouds or whatever Severus often stated.

Sighing and rolling out of bed, she padded through her messy room to find something more appropriate to put on for breakfast. Petunia's recurring shrieks implied that the owl at the table was obviously not the one that delivered the daily prophet, or Apophis, the owl that Lily owned.

By the time Lily finally walked down the stairs, Petunia had yelled for her no less than twenty times.

"There you are!" Petunia said, relief filling her voice. Lily hadn't heard that tone from Petunia in a long time. "Now take this blasted bird of yours away."

Petunia made a shooing motion at the owl, which gave a disgruntled hoot at her and hopped onto Lily's shoulder. Petunia sniffed arrogantly at the owl, and went back to her breakfast, a fashion magazine in hand.

Lily just rolled her eyes. "Hey, you," she spoke to the massive brown owl. "What do you have for me?"

The owl hooted, sticking out its leg, and Lily removed the letter attached.

"Thanks." She told the owl absentmindedly, and it was gone immediately. Sitting down at the table, she opened the letter.

Lily,

Happy Christmas! How are your vacations going?

Lily snorted at the inane opening to the letter and the multiple smudges and scratches.

I'm not sure what to say to you.

There are some interesting developments in our quest. My dad works in the Ministry of Magic, and he was talking about it yesterday. Well, it's not good news at all. In fact, this month we seem to have more bad news than good news.

You-Know-Who has kidnapped children.

Lily paused, scowling at the parchment. What on earth did James mean by kidnapped children? Surely no one was as inhumane as that? Children? Lily continued reading the letter.

Seven children to be precise. All of them are from light families. You know what light families are, right? I hope you do. Just tell me if you don't and I can explain it to you. But they aren't all from light families actually. The kids that were kidnapped are from families who don't support him, and well, most of the light families are against him. Not to say that all of them are, but most of them are.

Anyways, Sirius says Phase 1 is complete. And he heard about the kidnapped children as well, and he probably has more information than me. But don't send him a letter! At all!

Peter says that he's utterly bored and needs help with potions and asked me to ask you to help him. I don't why he couldn't have done it himself! Oh yeah, he doesn't have an owl that can travel long distances!

I think Remus is ignoring me. Has Remus sent you any letters? He hasn't sent any letters to me at all! Send him a letter, would you?

Oh yeah, and the Ministry is pushing all this under the rug. The kidnapped children, I mean. So, that's why no one has seen it in the papers. They were kidnapped on Christmas eve, when all the shopping was going on, I think. That's what my father said, at least.

So, yeah.

Tell your sister I said hello!

James.

Lily laughed at the last part. As if Petunia would appreciate a wizard like James saying hello to her. Lily wasn't even going to attempt it! Or maybe Petunia would appreciate it because he was rich and would be able to pay for her choice of fancy university.

Pushing the thought from her mind, she turned to the rest of the letter. Seven children from families who didn't support him had been kidnapped. Seven innocent children, and all this corrupt ministry was doing was hiding everything! She felt anger consume her and glared fiercely at the table.

"Lily, darling. Have you seen my keys?" Her father's voice called from the door. His voice faltered as he walked into the room. "What's wrong, Lils?"

Lily groaned, shoving the letter at her father. Any potential embarrassment over a boy sending her letters and her father reading them was buried under the fury. She watched her father's expression carefully.

His confusion melted, giving way to amusement and then, realization and anger.

"Who is this 'you-know-who'?" He asked, voice calm despite his anger.

Lily didn't have his calm, chilling temperament. When Lily got truly angry, her voice caught, anger expressed in punches rather than words. It hadn't gotten better since she was a child. So, she was unable to answer his question accurately, and her father understood that.

"Some kind of terrorist?" He asked, reading between the lines and smart enough to understand that much.

Lily nodded and focused on calming herself.

When she had herself under sufficient control, she growled out. "He's a prejudiced wizard who just kidnapped seven children and controls the ministry of magic. That's all we know about him."

Then, as if figuring out who she was talking to, her eyes widened. "Do not tell mom about this?"

If Richard Evans had a calm temperament, his wife Margaret Evans was a spitfire. Lily definitely had her mother's temper, and an angry, righteous Margaret Evans was no joke.

Her father's face smoothed out and he nodded, amusement coloring his features. "Of course, Lils. But we will be talking about this later." He checked his watch, and grimaced. "After work."

In less than a minute, Lily was alone in the room. Sighing, she picked at her breakfast, mulling over the letter and what they could do about it.


Several hours later and with Severus' helpful insights, Lily came to the conclusion that there was something she could do. Well, Severus implied and outright stated that there was nothing she could do, but Lily often just ignored him in cases such as this and Severus expected that. Or maybe he didn't!

His half-hearted, "Lily! We're only 15, we can't do anything about this" did not convince her and would not convince anybody.

So, as usual Lily sat down in her room, ignoring Petunia's petty whining and complaints and thought about it. The kidnapping of kids was slightly out of her league, but she had listened to her grandparents' stories of the World Wars and other minor battles, and the main thing that everyone needed? Allies.

That much she could do. She wasn't sure how she could call the recipient, so letter it was.

Ahis time instead of receiving an obscure, important letter, Lily wrote one.

To Aurora Lark,

Happy Christmas. I hope you are doing well…