Lily woke in the morning and felt very disorientated. She lay in the bed trying to work out where she was and it took a few minutes for her to realise she was in James Potter's bed, in his house and the events of the night before came back to her.

She looked around for a clock to gage the time but there wasn't one, alarm clocks were a muggle thing so she supposed James had no use for one. She quickly went into the bathroom and showered to wake up properly and to wash away last night. She stared at her reflection and her face looked different, her curly red hair fell down around her face, something she rarely did and framed her freckled fair skin and vibrant green eyes. She shrugged and let her hair remain down and headed back into the bedroom with just a towel wrapped around her, moving quickly so she didn't bump into anyone, especially James.

She realised she didn't have any clean clothes to change into and her pyjamas were hardly appropriate attire for the day time. She decided to take a liberty and looked in James' closet and found an old gryffindor quidditch shirt and some tracksuit bottoms. Both of them swamped Lily but she had no other option so she pulled them on and headed downstairs.

She tiptoed downstairs in case anyone was still asleep and entered the kitchen meekly looking around but it was hard to miss James, back to her, at the stove. He was dressed already and madly darting around trying to stir one sauce pan and manage something in another. She smiled watching him struggle and cleared her throat to let him know she was there.

"Morning," She said as he turned to look at her, his eyebrows raising as he noticed her clothes. "I hope you don't mind that I borrowed your clothes, I didn't have anything else." She added. She looked across the room and didn't see Marlene or Sirius assuming they were either out of in bed still. The clock above the stove said it was 9.30am so it might be too early for Sirius still.

James turned back to the food as the pan sizzled loudly and let out a little curse as he burned his finger on the hot pan.

"No that's fine," He said in between turning the stove off and sucking his burnt finger. "I should have thought of clothes. I'll grab something of Marlene's later for you to wear, she won't mind. I heard you in the shower so I'm attempting to make you breakfast but as you can see I'm failing miserably." He said as he pulled out two plates. She couldn't help but grin at his floundering trying to getting the ingredients to a english breakfast onto the plate. The result wasn't actually a total failure although the scrambled eggs were a big on the runny side. He placed the two plates on the table and sat down looking a bit stressed out by the whole process of muggle cooking.

"Why didn't you use magic?" She asked curiously with a little smile coming through as she found his struggling quite amusing. He looked a bit sheepish and took his burnt finger out of his mouth,

"I had the good fortune of having a house elf my whole childhood so I don't really know any cooking spells. I usually just eat on the go so never really needed to learn them." He said sitting and pouring them both some orange juice which was already on the table.

"Did you sleep well?" He asked her as they settled to eat. She took a bite of the bacon which was very crispy but still tasted really good.

"Yes, I did surprisingly, like a log. Thank you for cooking, this is great." She said tucking into the food, he looked pleased and watched as she ate the food.

"So," She said breaking the quiet. Her next move was on her mind, she obviously couldn't stay with James forever and she also had to go back to her house at some point. "What do I do now? When can I go home?" She asked. James chewed his food slowly and then swallowed, a troubled look on his face.

"I honestly don't know. I don't think it's safe for you to go home right now." He said frowning knowing that wasn't the answer she was looking dor.

"Do you know anything more about the farmhouse incident? Are you closer to solving the case? I feel like I still don't know so much and I can't just sit here waiting." She asked, feeling helpless was something Lily was used to but this situation made her feel something different to normal, she felt energy for once. She wanted to be involved, she wanted to help.

"I know, I'm sorry you feel so in the dark. I was trying to protect you but I see now that didn't work. I'll explain as much as I know." He said putting down his knife and fork as he finished his food.

"The event Mr Dawes saw wasn't the first of its kind in recent years, it happens relatively frequently, every month or so someone goes missing but we've never been able to place blame. The cover up is from the highest level and it's so important we get evidence to go to the wizengamot with as the ministry are refusing to acknowledge the situation." James said, anger and frustration showing in his voice. "The situation with Dawes has been the biggest breakthrough we've had because it's slightly different to the others. The ministry had also been openly looking for the man Mr Dawes witnessed. The man with the purple birthmark." James said, Lily listened intently taking in everything he said. "The man is called Rupert Hurtwell and he's a famous wizarding historian and generally pretty well known for being as dodgy as they come. The ministry wanted to discuss some cases with him that related to some stolen artifacts that it was rumoured he had and as soon as we went to find him he disappeared and hasn't been seen or heard of since. That was 9 months ago and we weren't sure at the time if he was running from the ministry or something else as when we went to his home it looked like there had been a struggle of some kind and the house was pretty trashed." James continued, Lily's attention still firmly on him.

"We weren't sure if he had already been kidnapped so we were trying to find him and then when this story came up, it's obvious he had been in hiding and the death eaters had found him. I only found out about the situation because I read a file I shouldn't have in the auror office. It referenced Mr Dawes police report of the incident, thankfully it didn't mention you but it doesn't really matter now as the death eaters obviously know you're involved. They're get to anyone to cover up whatever they're doing." James finished.

Lily took in all he had said and tried to rationalise it.

"So what does Hurtwell have that the ministry, or the death eaters want?" She asked.

"That's the thing, the corruption runs deep in the ministry so it's hard to tell if their agendas are the same but the ministry are just claiming he had been linked to some stolen artifacts, unspecified and they want to 'question him'. He specialises in Hogwarts founders memorabilia so I assume it's something linked to that." He added.

"If the ministry is corrupt why do you and your mother still work there?" She asked. James obviously had noble intentions but continuing to fuel this corrupt office seemed pointless.

"We're using our in at the ministry to feed information back to the separate collective we're a part of. I can't tell you more than that but if you want to know more I can take you to the meeting later today. You'll have to swear an unbreakable vow in order to go though so I'll understand if you don't want to." He said, his face let nothing go but she could tell he wasn't overjoyed at the thought of her going.

"Yes, I'll go." She said firmly straight away. There was no way she could get in this deep and then walk away, back to her dreary muggle existence. "I can't walk away now, I can't go home so all I can do is maybe help."

"Talking of your home, I woke Sirius up early, to his great delight, and he's popped over to check on your house." He said, and if by magic there was a loud growl of a motor bike and Lily saw a huge motorbike, straddled by Sirius lower into their tiny garden. The noise of the engine so loud Lily couldn't even hear James say something. Once the engine turned off James said it again.

"He knows how to make an entrance." He said rolling his eyes at his best friend as he strolled into the kitchen.

"Morning mate," James said smiling at his friend. Sirius looked like a stereotypical bad boy, black ripped jeans, rock band t-shirt and a well worn leather jacket. He had always been a heartthrob at school and girls had loved him but Lily had always thought he was an arrogant prick at tried to push her old opinions of him down though as it was ten years ago and they had all changed a lot since then, her especially.

Sirius didn't respond to his friends greeting, the smirk he'd seemed to have permanently plastered on his face was gone and he looked uncharacteristically serious, no pun intended.

"How did it go?" James asked picking up on his friend's vibe. Sirius shook his head and looked at Lily as if to say not in front of her.

"Just say it," Lily said, she could tell it was bad news she might as well hear it now. Sirius raked a hand through his long main of black hair and sighed trying to find his words.

"The house is in pretty bad shape, still standing just about but torn apart from top to bottom. They were either looking for something or pretty pissed off to have let you go." He said and Lily felt a tightness in her throat hearing of her childhood house destroyed.

"I'm really sorry Evans," He said sincerely. "Seemed like a nice place." He walked across the kitchen and poured some coffee and he and James waited for Lily's reaction.

"I… I don't know what to do now." She said trying to hold back tears, she didn't want to cry in front of James and Sirius. She had a quick flash back to school when James had teased her in first year about her red hair and she'd cried in front of him and it brought back the same feeling of shame. She had promised herself she would never cry in front of him again.

"You can stay here as long as you need Lily." James said kindly, his word breaking her out of her old memory of him tormenting her. She thanked him and sipped her drink trying to come to terms with the loss of the house and all its content. Photos and memories gone forever.

"I can't stay here though, I have a job and… and…." She barely finished as she knew it wasn't really true. Her only life was writing the occasional article for a local newspaper and living in her mother's old house. Her sister didn't care what she did and she had no friends, other than maybe Gina, who would notice she was even gone.

"You'll be okay Lily. Even though I think this is scary and a terrible situation don't you think this is a sign?" James said. Lily was confused by this.

"A sign? For what?" She asked almost annoyed. He realised he'd annoyed her with his statement and he continued on.

"A sign that you need to come back. Rejoin the wizarding world and come out of hiding. You're an amazing witch. You could do amazing things." He said.

Lily didn't know what to say, his words were flattering but also terrified her. She had been a stranger to this world for so long that rejoining it seemed impossible. She nodded though and felt that same energy she had felt earlier spark inside of her. Maybe the old Lily wasn't gone forever.