It was 9 am when Lily reached back home. I suppose you would call it home, she only thought of it as where she lived. It was a comfortable one-bedroom apartment on the top floor of 5 story building in muggle London.
She had planned to make it a home when she first moved in after graduation - to paint the walls, put up framed pictures and have a million plants and maybe a pet. Then she started her internship at the Prophet and all her plans were forgotten in a moment.
Since her first day, she had been on the fast track. She was groomed in a hurry by her former-editor; the paper had finally lobbied enough to print about the war without the ministry threatening to make arrests and shut their offices down. There was no point trying to cover up the war anymore; the dark mark had become a well-known symbol of fear, more and more people were dying, disappearing or going into hiding. It was a time of terror and it was the media's job to provide verified, unbiased information to the public. Ignorance is not bliss when there is a war at your doorstep and bodies lining the street. It is a privilege. And no one on the right side of this war had it anymore.
If the closest person to the Minister could be murdered, who was the say the Minister himself wouldn't be next? It was only a matter of time before the ministry was completely infiltrated; McLaggen had hinted so herself.
Lily had met Louisa McLaggen twice before. Lily had conversed with Louisa often. To report on the war, Lily needed sources and Louisa shared and confirmed what she safely could. The only reason Lily had even know there was something wrong was that Louisa missed their pre-planned check-in two days earlier. The next day, she was dead - her body bruised, beaten, bleeding—
Lily dropped her bag on the floor and turned to the cabinet where she kept the alcohol. She knew she would be seeing the dead body in her dreams tonight, she needed to not think about it just this very second.
There was a knock on the door, in the fashion of one, two, cha, cha, cha. Lily finished making her drink as she took out her wand from her bun and waved it to the door to unlock it.
"Saw you walk in when I was buying cigarettes," Remus Lupin said as he entered through the door. "Thought you could use one, I saw the paper this morning."
Author's Note: Reviews are my love languages. Promise chapters will get longer soon.