CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED FIFTY

The following Monday morning was a difficult one for Jane. From the moment she opened her eyes, she just felt an overwhelming sense of dread; it had nestled its way inside her chest, and she just couldn't seem to shake it. She turned her head to see a note on Sirius' pillow, adorned with her name in his handwriting. She reached out for it and flipped it open.

On post with Sturgis Podmore today. Love you.

Jane sighed as she folded the note back and sat it on her bedside table as she sat up and stretched. She really wished he would have woken her up before he left because that meant they weren't going to get to see each other all day until she came home from her scheduled afternoon post. She slid her feet into some slippers as she realised that this would be their Mondays and Wednesdays from here on out, or until the Order decided on something better to do with the Palace of Westminster. There had been talk at the meeting of placing numerous protective enchantments on the building, but that would take a while due to the palace's size and due to the fact that none of them had any Ministry clearance to do what they were doing. Everything had to be done under the radar.

Jane walked to the kitchen in a sleepy daze and went about preparing her toast and jam. She wasn't quite sure what to expect with the whole Westminster thing; after all, she'd never worked a security detail before. She figured that she was more than certainly underqualified for the job, and she wonder how well Kevin Fawley worked under pressure. Perhaps he was wondering the same of her as well. After all, they were partners now; they were going to have to look out for each other despite how well they knew one another.

Jane tried to remember the last time she'd actually spoken to Kevin Fawley and finally decided that it had to have been in her sixth year when he had been paired with her and Remus while they were extracting pods from Snargaluff plants in Herbology. The three of them had argued for five minutes about who exactly was going to be putting their hand inside of the stump to do the extracting. They had ended up voting on it, and Remus had betrayed Jane by voting for her; he thought that Kevin would be more useful in fighting off the vines, and he certainly hadn't wanted to put his hand in there. Jane had to smile a bit at the memory; though they had left the greenhouse with multiple cuts and bruises that day, it was still a simpler time, one that she longed to get back to.

Most of Jane's interactions with Kevin over their years at Hogwarts took place in group conversation and dodging his well-aimed Bludgers during Quidditch matches. From what she knew of him, he was a very kind guy with a good sense of humour. A bit of a prankster during their earlier years, Jane had almost always spotted him in Zonko's during school trips to Hogsmeade. There were definitely far worse people to have to spend an afternoon alone with. As she bit into her toast and jam, she fleetingly wondered if he and Sadie Selwyn were still together.

Jane readied herself for her classes and disapparated, landing in an alleyway behind the Muggle bookshop that was beside the café she frequented. She typically didn't like to Apparate, opting to take the Knight Bus for trips, but Sirius had made it a point to tell her that she should at least practise it every now and then because having a licence didn't mean you couldn't get splinched. She walked out of the alleyway and made her way towards the little shop that was hidden from Muggle view. She normally ordered a butterbeer, but the Apparation had made her slightly queasy, so she just walked straight for the little room in the back. She ran her wand up the side of the door's bottom hinge and opened the door, walking out into the East end of the school's first floor corridor conveniently close to her Healing Fundamentals classroom.

Walking to the back of the classroom, Jane took her seat beside Andrew Abbott. He had been the only other person from her class that had decided to study at Pendle Hill; everyone else had either chosen to study elsewhere or chosen a different career path after graduating from Hogwarts. He and Jane didn't really speak to one another often, but they usually still sat near each other in their shared classes or even in the library as they studied quietly; they both found this better than being completely alone. Jane had found it odd that for a school in the United Kingdom, Pendle Hill didn't get a lot of applicants from Hogwarts due to its small number of Healer-aspiring students (or at least it had been that way for the past decade or so, if Professor Costner's numerous complaints on the subject had been of any merit). However, the school seemed very popular with international students.

Right before Professor Chattox was about to start her lecture, a straggling student with wavy brown hair waltzed through the door and towards his seat in a lax manner as though he weren't almost late for class. He took his seat in front of Jane and immediately turned to her and Andrew.

"Hey, Hogwarts, do either of you got the notes from Wednesday's class?" he asked in his southern American accent.

Jane rolled her eyes at the boy, but he had done this before, and she knew that he would only continue to ask until one of them gave in and let him copy their notes. Jane pulled the previous class' notes from her bag and pushed them across the table at the boy. Andrew gave her a disapproving look but said nothing.

"Perhaps if you'd stop skiving off, you'd be here to take your own notes," Jane told the boy as he spelled his quill to start copying her notes on a separate piece of paper.

"Here now, ain't I?" he said, and Jane expected that to be the end of the conversation, but the boy turned all the way around in his seat to face the both of them as the professor started her lecture.

"I have a question."

Jane and Andrew looked from the boy to each other and then back to him expectantly. He frowned.

"Man, y'all really don't talk much, do ya?" The boy shook his head. "Anyway, I've been living here for about two months now, and I finally gotta ask: What's with this guy that's all in the papers over here? Like, I can't even find out his name because they won't even print it."

Jane and Andrew visibly tensed up at the question, and the boy from Beauxbâtons that sat beside the American boy tensed as well; though, he never turned to look at any of them. Jane knew, from talking to Keiko, that news of Voldemort and his follower's activities were rarely followed by the media in other countries outside of Europe, even in some of the more eastern European countries, he still had yet to gain footing. While this should have been a comfort, Jane found it a bit isolating in a way.

"Mr. O'Dell, please kindly turn back around and pay attention or remove yourself from my classroom," Professor Chattox's voice said, coincidentally saving Jane and Andrew from having to answer the boy's question as he reluctantly turned back around in his seat. Andrew pursed his lips as they both started to take down notes when Professor Chattox resumed her lecture.

"Don't lend him anything else," he muttered without looking at Jane as though telling her that she'd given him an excuse to talk to them.

"Agreed," she replied under her breath.

At lunch, Jane found herself in the academy's dining hall with Keiko, picking far too slowly at her food, which prompted Keiko to ask what was bothering her. It was a fair question, she wasn't nearly as talkative today as she was during most of their lunches together, but Jane's ability to answer the question had yet to be determined as she looked up at her concerned friend. Jane wasn't quite sure what was wrong with her. Perhaps the question from the boy in her earlier class was still bothering her, or maybe she was thinking too much about her upcoming post duties. It might have been that she was just tired. Jane chose to go with the latter answer as it didn't require much by the way of explanation.

"Just a bit tired," Jane said.

"You're being untruthful," Keiko said pointedly as she ate her soup, and Jane lamented the girl's uncanny ability to tell when someone was lying. It didn't matter whom or how big or small the lie, Keiko had a natural gift for sorting out the facts. "If you don't want to tell me, that's fine, but do not lie," she said to Jane, content to not push the subject further seeing as how Jane did not seem to want to share.

In Medicinal Herbs, Professor Redferne returned the tests they'd taken the previous week, and the girls compared their marks, always slightly competitive in nature when it came to this particular class, and perhaps that was in part due to the fact that Josephine Redferne was by far their favourite professor. Jane had never felt the urge to impress one of her teachers as badly as she did with Professor Redferne. Maybe it was because she was one of the youngest professors at Pendle Hill, which made it easy for students to relate to her. Maybe it was the way she taught, prompting class discussions rather than lecturing them for over an hour. Maybe it was just her charismatic nature that made her students like her so much. Whatever it was inspired her students to try their very best.

"I've got two wrong," Keiko informed Jane after flicking through her test. Jane let out a defeated sigh, causing Keiko to smile triumphantly before Jane could even say,

"I got three. I always forget that gingko is used in bone re-growing potions!"

"Excellent," Keiko said gleefully as she put her test away. "So, lunch tomorrow at Finnigan's; you're paying."

"You know that there are other places to eat in Clitheroe besides Finnigan's," Jane teased. "It's the only place you ever choose."

"I can do what I want with my winnings. You're just sore that this is the third time in a row that I've bested you," Keiko teased back.

"Oh, shut up," Jane grumbled, though she smiled as she tucked her test carefully into her schoolbag.

"There's a study group tonight," Keiko informed Jane, "down at the café for Professor Bailey's class. It starts around five o'clock. I figured we could use all the help we can get in his class."

Jane bit at the inside of her lip. Keiko was right; Professor Bailey's class had proven to be one of their more difficult classes, and if Jane were being honest, she really didn't want to pass up such a prime opportunity. However, she had a job to do.

"I'd love to come, but I can't," Jane said.

"Oh, come on," Keiko whined. "None of my roommates have Professor Bailey's class this term, and you're one of the only other people here that I really talk to. Don't make me go alone."

"Believe me, I want to. It's just I have to be back in London after this class ends," Jane said. "I have a thing I have to do."

"A thing that's more important than passing the exam on Thursday?"

"It's a pretty important thing," Jane assured her friend. Keiko looked up, and Jane knew she was expecting something in the way of an explanation, but that was the most Jane was able to say on the subject. And though Keiko didn't push the subject, Jane could tell that her friend was a bit unsatisfied with her answer.

Jane spent the rest of the class quietly taking notes. She didn't raise her hand to answer questions or offer up her opinion in class discussions. Perhaps she thought that by only participating in the most mundane part of class, it would make it go by slower; after all, all of her boring classes seemed to last longer than they actually did. She made a point to glance at the clock above the door as much as she could; in her experience, that had always helped time slow down as well. However, there was only so much that could be done for a class that lasted an hour and fifteen minutes, and before Jane knew it, Professor Redferne was assigning them their homework and telling them to have a wonderful afternoon. It was a nice sentiment, but Jane's entire afternoon was to be spent on the roof of a building with a boy she really didn't know all too well while they awaited an attack that may or may not come. It still all felt a bit too surreal to her. Nevertheless, Jane packed her things away, said goodbye to Keiko and made her way to London.

Jane had never given much thought to the Palace of Westminster. It had always just been there. She'd learned a bit about it in her Muggle schooling days, a big historical building where old, stuffy rich people met to discuss laws and the like; she knew that it had been burned down at one point. Government affairs, especially of the Muggle world, had never been of interest to Jane before; even the Ministry of Magic lost its appeal once Jane had heard enough people talk about it.

Jane stood outside, looking up at the building for a few minutes before realising that no one had given her any instruction on how she was to make it to her post. Perhaps she was expected to Confundus her way into the palace. Jane wasn't a really big fan of that charm, especially when used on Muggles; it just didn't seem fair in her opinion. As she walked towards the entrance, she found Kevin Fawley waiting for her there. Unlike Jane, he didn't seem on edge or nervous. On the contrary, he was sporting a smile, seemingly unperturbed by their reason for being there.

"What's the sour look for, Hensworth?" he asked as she neared. "Don't tell me you had better plans for the afternoon than protecting a dusty old palace."

"No, I love guarding palaces," Jane said sarcastically. "I was planning on popping by Buckingham once our post was over. Care to join?"

"That depends," he said, "do I get to meet the Queen?"

Jane let out a small laugh despite her nerves. Perhaps her afternoon with Kevin wouldn't be as uncomfortable as originally thought.

"Anyone bother to mention to you how we get in?" Jane asked him. He shook his head.

"Nope. I'm just as clueless as you are, but our post starts in exactly twenty-two minutes, and I reckon this is where we're supposed to report since that's there."

Kevin pointed to the ground just outside the front gate. Emblazoned on cement was gold phoenix, glistening in the sun. None of the Muggles nearby took notice in the new graffiti.

"Push comes to shove, I suppose we could always Apparate our way inside," Kevin said.

"Wouldn't make a habit out of that if I were you, sonny. Once the enchantments are up, anyone trying to Apparate in there is in for a world of hurt."

Jane and Kevin both whipped around only to see Alastor Moody standing behind them. Next to him stood a small man with a combover. He seemed a bit dazed, and Jane wondered how many times he'd been confuded that day.

"This is Thomas Acton; he'll be seeing you inside. Take these."

Moody handed Jane and Kevin two badges that identified the two as part of a work crew.

"Anybody asks, you're inspecting the roof tiles," Moody continued. "After today, you'll be using the St. Stephen's entrance. If you run into any trouble with the Muggles, a quick Confundus Charm always does the trick."

"I-I'm sorry. This is all terribly informal. Before they're cleared for work, I need to make sure they're properly—"

As an example of his previous statement, Moody silenced Mr. Acton with a Confundus Charm of his own, and before Jane or Kevin could think of any questions to ask, they were being shown to the roof access points.

As expected, it was dreadfully boring, which Jane supposed was the best-case scenario. Most of the roof "terraces" weren't terraces at all, just narrow walkways with stone parapets in between them and a three story drop to the ground. Though there were some parts that were more terrace-like; Jane liked the ones that looked out over the River Thames. Though, if one weren't careful, falling over the edge wouldn't be too difficult.

"Could be worse," Kevin told her. "At least we're not in the basement."

Jane silently agreed. She didn't know what the Palace of Westminster's basement looked like, but judging by the bleak state of the rooftops, she was glad that she was at least able to see the sunlight.

"They do have quite a bit of water damage," Kevin told her after a while. Jane cocked an eyebrow at him curiously.

"My granddad's in the business of home repair. He specialises in charming rooftops and foundations and the like. Dad works with him, and I plan on doing so as well."

Jane let out a small chuckle.

"What's so funny?"

"Nothing, it's just, it's an odd occupation for a…" Jane trailed off, not sure how to put it.

"For a 'Sacred Twenty-Eighter'?" Kevin supplied, and Jane was relieved to see the smile on his face. She'd learned of the directory while at Hogwarts; at the time, she had noted that a lot of the names appearing in the directory had ties to the Ministry. "Granddad says that blood purity is a load of horseshit," he continued. "Besides, no one looked twice at the Fawleys until that stupid directory was printed. The Fawleys were actually big advocates of coexistence with the Muggles back in the day, big supporters of intermarriage and such."

"Interesting," Jane said. "I'm pretty sure the Hensworths were just bankers and financers."

"Pretty sure?"

Jane kicked herself for the slip, but she figured that since she'd be spending a good portion of time with him, getting to know each other wasn't such a bad idea. It would be nice to be on a first name basis at some point.

"Yeah, I don't really know much about my dad's family," she admitted, leaning against the parapet. "Unsurprisingly, Muggles are just like Wizards in such that money and social standing can make them think that they're better than others. Dad's parents didn't like Mum very much, and they weren't above disownment."

"Sounds very stereotypically pure-blood to me," Kevin joked. "You sure your dad's not just a Squib?"

Jane chuckled.

"That'd be something, wouldn't it?" she said, amused at the idea. "But no, I'm Muggle-born through and through."

"Granddad would get a kick outta you, Muggle-born and dating a Sacred Twenty-Eighter, a Black no less," Kevin said. "Of course, we all figured it'd end up that way."

Jane furrowed her brow.

"What're you on about? Who's 'we'?"

It was Kevin's turn to laugh at her perplexed face.

"Well, it was well known around the halls of Hogwarts that you were Potter, Black, Pettigrew and Lupin's girl. Everyone figured you'd end up with one of them eventually. Potter was most people's first choice; no one ever actually believed he'd manage to win over Evans. Black came in at a close second. I was an outlier," Kevin informed her somewhat proudly. "Thought you'd end up with Lupin."

Jane laughed, shaking her head a bit in disbelief. She supposed this information shouldn't have surprised her. After all, it had been an ongoing joke between her roommates during their early years to call the boys Jane's "boyfriends," and Jane had had many a girl question her as to her relationship status with James and Sirius over the years, typically before said girl made her own advances.

"I was unaware that my love life was of such intrigue to everyone," she joked. The rumour mill at Hogwarts had truly been never ceasing.

"Sadie says it's why Avery hated you so much."

"And here I thought it was because he was just a wanker."

"Oh, no doubt, that's one hundred percent why," Kevin assured her. "But the cherry on top was your friendship with Potter and Black. Two pure-bloods, one a Sacred Twenty-Eighter, being friends with a Muggle-born? Sadie said it was a scandalous topic buzzing about the Slytherin common room during our first year."

"You and Selwyn were a bit of a scandal yourselves, you know," Jane said, trying to tread lightly on the subject, but genuinely curious about the couple.

"Do I ever," Kevin said, and Jane could have sworn that she caught just the slightest twinge of bitterness in his voice. "She's a great person once you get to know her. I get the disdain for Slytherin as a house, but not everyone who's sorted there is a bad person. I just wished that my friends would have gotten to know her rather than turn their noses up."

"I suppose you're right. She never bothered me any," Jane said, recalling their trip to Pendle Hill during their seventh year. "But isn't her family a bit on the purist side of things?"

"Isn't Black's?" Kevin retorted, and Jane faltered. "Only difference between Sadie and Black is that Black was sorted into Gryffindor."

Jane thought about it for a moment. She supposed Kevin was right. After all, Sirius' family was as bad as they came. How differently would their relationship had gone if he'd been sorted into Slytherin? Would they have ever been friends at all? It was debatable, but there was a good chance that at lot of the people Sirius called his friends now wouldn't have given him the time of day if he'd been sorted into Slytherin.

The two were silent for a moment, and Jane cursed herself for ruining a good conversation. She thought desperately for ways to salvage it.

"She doing well then? Selwyn?" Jane asked. "I haven't seen her since seventh year. I haven't seen her at Pendle Hill, so I don't really know what she's up to these days."

Kevin gave a small smile that made the sinking feeling in Jane's stomach fade away.

"She's studying in Ireland," he told her. "Who knows, perhaps you'll be working with her one day." Jane smiled a bit at the thought.

"I don't think I'd mind that so much."