"Well?"

A tall, pale man stood in front of a fireplace, his back towards the door as he waited patiently for news. The new arrival hesitated nervously in the doorway, swallowing hard before taking a few steps inside before speaking.

"They have left, my Lord," the arrival said as loudly as he dared.

Lord Voldemort didn't even twitch at the news. "Where have they gone?" he asked quietly.

The arrival sighed as though knowing what his next answer would result in. "I do not know, my Lord. It was decided that their destination should remain secret."

"Or perhaps they just did not think you worthy of telling," the Dark Lord responded coldly, only now turning to face the arrival. "Did I not tell you that you were not to report to me until you have discovered where they have gone?"

"Well, yes, my Lord, but–"

"But nothing!" Voldemort said angrily, removing his wand from his cloak. "You had your instructions and yet you defy me still! I warned you of the consequences, did I not?" The other wizard began to panic, to beg for mercy, but Lord Voldemort's wand was quicker. "Crucio!"

Lily Potter woke rather suddenly after her first night's sleep in her new home and her first thought was that the half of the bed she hadn't slept on was much too cold to be normal. With a heavy sigh, wondering what James was doing, Lily pushed her blankets away and got out of bed. She dressed slowly, trying to remind herself that she had to put on a brave face for her two young sons, and once she was certain it hadn't looked as though she'd cried herself to sleep in the very wee hours of the morning, she headed out to the hallway. Almost immediately, scents of eggs, bacon, and french toast filled her nostrils. With a very sincere smile on her face, she headed down the stairs where she heard Harry and Nicholas talking and laughing about something.

In the kitchen, Remus stood at the stove, monitoring breakfast with his wand as he listened in amusement to Harry telling his younger brother about how he'd learned several Chaser tactics from their father the week before. "And if I catch you diving like I saw your father last week," Lily said, announcing her arrival, "you will be grounded until your eleventh birthday."

"Morning, Mummy!" Nicholas said happily, jumping out of his chair to give her a hug.

"Good morning, sweetie," the witch replied, accepting the hug gratefully. "Remus, that smells wonderful."

The wizard grinned. "Well, I thought you might appreciate a good meal," he said.

Lily approached the counter and grabbed a piece of bacon. "You were right," she said back, chuckling as Remus pushed her towards the table and forced her to sit. "I was thinking we might get out today, see the area."

"It rains too much here!" Harry complained, looking out the windows where it was, indeed, raining.

Lily rolled her eyes. "Harry, it rains as much back home, if not more, than it does here."

"But that's a different kind of rain," Harry insisted as Remus floated plates of breakfast over to the table. "I had friends at home; I don't have any here."

The witch gave her son a sympathetic look. "You'll make friends," she promised, cutting up Nicholas' french toast.

"As eager as I am to go out into the very wet world to which we've moved," Remus said, sitting down himself, "how do you propose we do so? We haven't got a car and we certainly can't Apparate everywhere."

"I'd thought of that," Lily said, pointing her fork full of syrupy french toast at the wizard. "Obviously, we can't keep calling a taxi; with the way you tip, we'll be broke in a month." Remus chuckled. "But I was thinking we could at least take a taxi into town and buy a car. James has given us full access to his Gringotts vault and so long as we don't put him into bankruptcy, it won't be a problem."

Remus nodded and began to reply when there was a knock at the door. He and Lily looked at one another briefly. "Who could that be?" he asked, slowly standing.

Lily shrugged. "Boys, stay here a moment, finish your breakfast…" The two adults made their way into the front hallway where Lily peeked through a window beside the door. "Looks like it might be neighbors," she whispered to Remus.

"Well, don't be rude, answer the door," he responded with a grin.

Lily did. Standing on the porch, umbrella in one hand and a plate of cookies in the other was a woman who looked to be in her mid-forties. She was built rather like Molly Weasley, though instead of red hair, she had light brown. Her brown eyes were very friendly as they surveyed Lily and Remus. "Oh, hello," Lily said, smiling.

"Hello, my name is Wendy Burns, I live just down the street." She turned and pointed at one of the houses with her umbrella. "We heard you'd arrived yesterday, but nobody really saw you, or we would have come by sooner." Lily thought this was a rather odd statement to make – who actually admitted that they were spying out the windows on their neighbors?

Remus smiled and stuck out his hand. "John Broderick," he said, shaking their neighbors hand. "It's a pleasure to meet you. And this is my wife, Rose."

"Well, it's good to meet both of you," Wendy said after shaking Lily's hand. "Headmaster West spoke so highly of you!"

Remus' eyebrows rose. "Er, I'm sorry, who?"

The woman gave Remus a knowing smile. "Headmaster West, of the Salem Witchcraft Institute."

Lily and Remus gave each other startled looks. Unless they'd missed something, nobody was supposed to know that they were wizards. "I'm sorry, did you say witchcraft?" Lily said, attempting to be oblivious.

Chuckling, the woman nodded. "It's okay, dear," she said kindly. "When your furniture was being moved in, a few of us spoke to the young men doing the moving. Said they were friends of yours and that you needed a bit of a change from England, so you've decided to move your family here."

I'm going to kill James, Lily thought briefly and without much conviction.

"You do realize this is a wizarding town, don't you?" the woman asked, still smiling as she looked around at the other houses. "One of the very few here in the States, but definitely full of magic."

"Er, actually, we didn't," Remus said honestly, glancing at Lily's equally oblivious face. "Though I must say it is a relief."

The woman chuckled again. "Well, I've made you some chocolate chip cookies – fresh out of the oven. If you need help with anything or your children need someone to play with, there are plenty of us around – I've got four of my own that are still at home." She suddenly looked uncertain. "You do have children, don't you? I thought your friends said you did, but I can't really tell right now; mine usually aren't this quiet…"

"Yes, we do," Remus said, smiling. "Two boys, Harry who is five and Nicholas who is three."

"Wonderful," Wendy said. "Well, I'll let you get settled. Please let us know if you need absolutely anything."

Lily smiled and nodded. "We will. And thank you for the bisc– er, cookies," she said, holding up the plastic wrapped plate.

Wendy winked and headed back down the street in the downpour. Remus and Lily watched her until she disappeared in what they assumed was her home and closed the door. "Nice woman," Remus said, taking the cookies off Lily. "Did James tell you we were going to be living in a wizarding town?"

"Nope," she said airily. "You?"

He shook his head and followed her back into the kitchen where the boys had finished their breakfasts. Both boys were standing; Harry stood behind his brother with his right arm around the younger boy's neck in what Lily recognized to be a wrestling move from Sirius' and James' most recent obsession. "If I see you doing that again," she sternly told Harry as she forced him to relinquish his hold on Nicholas before the smaller boy's face grew any more blue, "forget grounded until eleven! You'll be grounded until you've gotten married!"

"I was just showing him how to do a sleeper hold!" Harry said.

"How would you like me to try it on you?" Remus asked with raised eyebrows and twitching lips, his arms outstretched as he advanced on Harry. The result was for Harry to scream and duck Remus' arms, forcing the wizard to chase him around the house for the next half an hour.

"Boys," Lily sighed, looking over at Nicholas. Her youngest son was now staring out the windows. "What's wrong, sweetie? Did Harry hurt you?"

Nicholas shook his head and sighed. "I miss Daddy," he said quietly.

"So do I," Lily replied, picking Nicholas up and hugging him closely. "But we'll see him soon. Would you like a biscuit before we go out?"

"Does Harry get one?" Nicholas asked.

"Would you prefer he didn't?" Lily asked, grinning. Nicholas nodded vehemently. Chuckling, the witch took her son over and gave him a cookie before setting him in the floor again. "Eat it quickly, then get dressed."

"Thanks, Mummy!" Nicholas called, already out of the kitchen and on his way upstairs, shouting the whole way about how he'd gotten a cookie and Harry didn't.

"Stupefy!" James yelled, knocking his current opponent to the ground. He quickly turned around, searching the field for Sirius and Peter. He located them several yards away, both locked in a furious battle with their own Death Eaters. Cursing enemies as he passed, James ran over to help his friends; they managed to stun four and give a fifth bat wings growing from his nose when they heard Mad-Eye's voice from not very far away.

"We're outnumbered!" the Head Auror shouted. "Retreat!"

"Aw, but I was just getting into it!" Sirius whined, cursing another Death Eater before glancing at Peter and James. A moment later, he Disapparated.

"Come on, Wormtail!" James yelled at the wizard. Both of them disappeared from the battle almost at the same time and reappeared just outside Headquarters for the Order of the Phoenix.

"Took you long enough," said a voice from the back porch.

James walked up the stairs and through the door, showing Sirius a specific finger as he passed. Sirius and Peter followed him into the large house that belonged to Alastor Moody. Due to his paranoia, his home had made the perfect headquarters for the Order; every protection, defensive, unplottable, and Muggle repellent charm known to wizardkind had been placed on it. This evening, the kitchen had turned into a small infirmary where those who'd been at the fight were getting their injuries looked over by other Order members. Luckily, most of the injuries were minor – just a few cuts and bruises – though James didn't like the angle Fabian Prewett's leg seemed to be stuck at.

"You three all right?" asked Alice Longbottom, glancing up at them briefly as she healed the infected-looking cut on Sturgis Podmore's shin.

James nodded. "We're fine. Where's Mad-Eye?"

Alice jerked her head towards the sitting room just off the kitchen. "He's briefing Dumbledore," she responded. "What happened out there?"

"Same old story," Sirius sighed, grabbing a few butterbeers from the icebox and passing them to his friends. "Too many Death Eaters, not enough of us."

James pulled the cork out of his bottle and left his friends to help Alice while he listened in on what Mad-Eye was telling Dumbledore.

"We were outnumbered again, Albus," the Auror was saying to the Headmaster. "Their numbers are growing and if we keep losing people, we're not going to last much longer."

James sat in an armchair and watched Albus Dumbledore's pensive face in the fireplace. "We haven't a choice, Alastor," Dumbledore responded.

"So you're just going to keep letting them pick us off, one-by-one?"

"Certainly not," Dumbledore said. "But we also cannot allow them to know that we're so small in numbers."

"You think they don't know that?" James asked with raised eyebrows. Mad-Eye and Dumbledore looked at him. "They're going to know we're outnumbered and Voldemort is going to keep recruiting until there are twenty Death Eaters to every one Order member. Face it, we're losing. We're all exhausted; we can't keep battling every other day. It keeps up like this, the Death Eaters aren't going to have to worry about us; we'll have died from lack of sleep."

Dumbledore's own eyebrows rose to meet the younger wizard's. "Are you suggesting we surrender, James?"

"Of course I'm not!" James retorted, not hiding his annoyance. "All I'm saying is we need a break, we need more people helping us. The Auror squads are great, but they're just as tired as we are. We all have our weaknesses, Dumbledore; what's Voldemort's? If you don't know, it might be good to find out." He stood up again. "Now if you'll excuse me, I'm expecting a call from my wife and then I need to sleep for the next week and a half."

As he left the room, he heard Dumbledore sigh. "He is under far too much stress…"

Nearly two weeks since their arrival in the United States, Lily was beginning to settle into a very comfortable routine and was actually starting to enjoy her new surroundings. She missed James horribly, but knew he had his reasons for doing what he had. They spoke several times a week, but lately, he'd been so busy with work at the Ministry, trouble with Voldemort and the Death Eaters, and Order meetings, that it was becoming more difficult for Lily to reach him during hours when the boys were awake. She and Remus tuned in to the Muggle news every few evenings and watched as stories of odd occurrences that would have been much more important at home were nothing more than quick mentions. Even on the wizarding wireless, the attacks by Voldemort didn't get more than a few moments of airtime before they reported on Quidditch scores.

"This is ridiculous!" Lily said in annoyance, waving her wand to turn the wireless off. "I hate not knowing what's going on or if they're okay."

Remus sighed and lowered his book, knowing "they" meant James. "Lily," he said patiently, "if something had happened, we would know by now, don't you think? From what I've been able to tell, the news we're hearing is at least a few days old. You read the letter from Dumbledore yesterday; not much has changed, everyone is okay, and there isn't any reason to worry."

She stared at him with raised eyebrows. "No reason to worry," she repeated. "Are you really telling me, Remus, that you're not the least bit concerned about your friends?"

"That's not what I said." Remus sat forward a little and reached for her hand. "I'm just saying that you shouldn't give yourself an aneurism every time you don't hear what you expect from the news." Lily glared a little and Remus sighed. "Look, it's only a fortnight before Christmas; James and Sirius will be here in a few days and it will be like it has been every other Christmas, and you'll see that James is perfectly fine. All right?"

Lily nodded, though Remus knew she was only humoring him. A few minutes later, she muttered goodnight and headed up to bed.

Remus looked around the living room, smiling at the tree they had setup in the corner beside the fireplace. That day had been one of the few times since they had come here that Lily had seemed truly happy. She and Remus had let the boys do most of the decorations on the tree – Nicholas had been in charge of the garland and therefore, most of it was surrounded the tree's base, and Harry had done the lights and most of the baubles and bulbs. Lily had insisted on placing the star at the tip of the tree herself and she had charmed it to sparkle different colors. The final touch had been Remus': he'd found a plastic, winged fairy in one of the boxes of decorations Lily had bought and he charmed that to fly slowly around the tree, mostly for the boys' amusement.

Outside their home, snow covered the ground and more was falling quickly. The moon would be full two nights after his fellow Marauders' arrival, and though James had insisted that this had nothing to do with why they picked that specific day to fly out, Remus appreciated it all the same. Since he had been fifteen years old, he hadn't transformed without at least one of his friends, and he could already feel the wolf's intolerance of his new surroundings.

For the most part, the four of them had settled quite well in the neighborhood. As promised, Wendy Burns had provided daily entertainment for Harry and Nicholas in the form of her young three boys and daughter. She had introduced the new arrivals to the other neighbors in the area, all of whom had welcomed them just as easily as Wendy had.

Well, at least if we have to be stuck here for any amount of time, it's not completely miserable, Remus thought, pulling the curtains shut before heading up to his own bedroom.

Lily was reaching her wit's end with her sons. Both of them had been jumping around, bouncing off the walls since Remus had left for the airport two hours ago. While she understood their excitement in seeing their father after several weeks, the constant running around and screaming at the top of their voices was getting quite old. In an effort to get them to calm down, Lily had wrapped them up in winter coats, scarves, and gloves, and had taken them out to the backyard to build snowmen. This had resulted in a snowball fight and Lily receiving a snowball in the face, thrown by Harry.

She'd finally given up. Now she stood on the porch overlooking the backyard with a cup of hot chocolate in her hands as the boys ran around to their hearts' content. Faintly, she heard the front door slam and spun around in time to hear Remus yell, "We're back!"

"Harry, Nicky! Daddy's here!" Lily called excitedly to the boys, holding the door open for them. She didn't even attempt to get them to stop and take off their wet clothes as they ran through the kitchen to James. She looked on with a wide smile as James enthusiastically hugged and kissed his sons. After a moment, he looked around for her. Their eyes met and Lily's body began to tingle with excitement. She completely forgot about the boys being in the room as well as Sirius kneeling down to accept hugs from his godsons: James stood slowly and began to cross the kitchen towards her, love shining brightly in his hazel eyes.

"Hi," he said quietly when he reached her.

Lily's response was to wrap her arms around her husband's neck and kiss him long and hard. She hardly even heard the noises of disgust coming from her sons and Sirius. At some point, Remus must have ushered the three of them out of the kitchen to give the Potters some private time, because when they eventually broke apart, they were completely alone. "It's so good to see you," she said, not loosening her grip on James.

He chuckled huskily. "Apparently," he responded, kissing her again. "We should go join the others."

"Why?"

For most of the evening, James and Lily were cuddled up together on the sofa, listening as Sirius and Remus jokingly argued about stupid things they hadn't been able to argue about in weeks. They had allowed Harry and Nicholas to stay up as late as they could manage in order to spend more time with their visitors; they had both fallen asleep on the floor beside the Christmas tree after dessert.

"So why didn't Peter come out?" Remus asked.

Sirius shrugged. "I don't know," he said. "He's been acting a little oddly lately, hasn't he, Prongs? We offered to buy his ticket, but he said he's got too much going on this week."

Lily raised an eyebrow. "Too much going on?" she asked dubiously. "Peter?"

James nodded. "Now you see why we say he's acting oddly," he said, rubbing Lily's shoulder. "We thought he was just reacting to the four of you leaving, but I started thinking about it, and he's been like this for some time now. Ever since Benjy Fenwick's death, at least."

"That was over a year ago!" Lily argued. "I haven't noticed anything strange with him."

"It's been subtle changes," Sirius said, shrugging again. "Like how he'll decide out of nowhere that he doesn't want to join us for dinner or how he leaves right after Order meetings."

"Or like the other night when the three of us were sitting around, watching the telly and he jumps up out of nowhere and announces that he's got to help his mum with something," James added. Remus and Lily were now looking at the two wizards concernedly. "I tried convincing Padfoot that our dear Wormtail has just met himself a nice woman and is just disappearing to spend time with her."

"At which point I lost every bit of food I had consumed in two months," Sirius said matter-of-factly. "Besides, if Wormtail had a new girlfriend, why wouldn't he want to introduce her to us?"

Lily and Remus only stared at him. "Probably because he's afraid you would make fun of him until the day he dies," Lily said dully.

"Or maybe it's not a girl at all," James suggested, scratching his head.

Sirius' brow furrowed as he worked that one out. His friends watched and pinpointed the moment realization hit his mind: his eyes widened and his mouth formed an O. "Well," he said after a moment, "there isn't anything wrong with that… Right?"

Lily rolled her eyes. "Be nice to Peter," she said. "Both of you."

Remus chuckled at the look James gave his wife. "What else is going on?"

After a few more hours of James and Sirius bringing them up to speed on the war and how the Order of the Phoenix was becoming more outnumbered than ever before, Lily deemed it time for sleep. She and James carried their sons up to their bedrooms while Remus showed Sirius to the room he would be using during his stay.

"You liking it out here, Moony?" Sirius asked before Remus left the room.

"It's not horrible," Remus admitted with a smile. "I certainly miss my family and friends, but I'm adjusting rather well, I think."

Sirius nodded. "James has been really worried about Lily and the boys," he said quietly.

Remus closed the door and furrowed his brow. "Why? They're fine…"

"You know James," Sirius said, shrugging. "To him, they won't be safe enough until they're underground in a time-release shelter that won't open until eight days after Voldemort's been defeated. I don't know; honestly, he's been acting odder than Peter has lately. He's worried about his family and I'm worried about him, really worried."

"Why, what's he doing?" Remus asked, leaning against a desk in the bedroom.

"Moping around when he thinks no one is watching; snapping at everyone at Order meetings, more than usual, I mean. And he's saying weird things, like how he's going to end the war on his terms and nobody's going to see it coming. Stupid rubbish like that."

"End it on his terms?" Remus repeated. Sirius nodded. The werewolf sighed. "Well, maybe he's just missing his family."

"Yeah, I thought so too, until Gideon Prewett told me last week he spotted James outside the Hog's Head Inn at two in the bloody morning."

Remus blinked. "What the hell was he doing there?"

"Couldn't tell you," Sirius said. "I only hope he relaxes enough while we're here that he goes home with a clear head. This whole ordeal is taking its toll on him, Moony, and I don't know how much longer he can take of it…"

Not long following that discussion, Remus headed to bed. He lay there for nearly an hour, staring at the ceiling while he wondered what was going on in James Potter's mind. What could possibly bring him to the Hog's Head Inn at such an odd hour? James always been friendly with Aberforth Dumbledore, but he also knew that after nightfall, the place turned into a Death Eater haven. As he drifted off to sleep, Remus promised himself that if he found the correct timing during James and Sirius' visit, he would pull James aside and, if needed, knock some sense into him.