Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, no matter how much I wish that I did.

Playing God

Chapter 20

"So the paperwork just…appeared?" Lily asked sceptically as she looked up from her own important paperwork, the fingers of her left hand curled around the warm porcelain of her bright pink mug while her right hand was clutching a pen, poised elegantly over a discharge sheet, her eyebrow raised.

"Yep. Just poof."

"Like magic?" Lily half-smirked as she shook her head, "come on, Sirius, it isn't like a huge mystery story here – maybe personnel only just found her files? You can't just assume that she had anything to do with that." She admonished quietly and Sirius huffed, flicking her hair from his eyes in a way that made a passing healer blush a light red, but never had much effect on Lily.

"I'm not saying that –"

"That's exactly what you're saying!" Lily laughed, pushing her chair away from her station and standing, running her hands down the front of her lime green scrubs, grinning when they settled on the barely there curve of her stomach. "Either ask her out and mean it or leave the poor girl alone."

"I don't want to leave her alone." Sirius said under his breath, "there's something about her…"

Lily sighed and rolled her eyes simultaneously – something that she was used to doing after spending years hanging around with her husband's idiot friends…And her husband, for that matter. "Sirius, not three weeks ago you were asking me about how to light and hover a hundred candles at once for your date with her, and now you're convinced that she's hiding some secret past? Really?"

"Hey, a lot can be revealed in three weeks!" He defended himself as he pushed down the head on the little-bobble head of the queen that her sister had given her years before, back in the time when they were actually friends. When they were actually sisters.

"So what if she does?" Lily shrugged, slipping the sheets of parchment into a folder and then sliding it into its designated space in the filing cabinet. The other on-call healer assistants used magic for this task, but Lily much preferred using her own two hands. It was much more satisfying and she didn't feel so lazy – just because she could use magic for every little thing, didn't mean that she would. "Would it change how you feel about her?"

Sirius spluttered momentarily and, whether it was because of surprise or outrage Lily wasn't sure, but she couldn't stop the smile tugging at her lips in amusement. It wasn't that he was keeping the feelings that he held for the bushy haired girl a secret, and Lily was sure that Hermione felt something towards Sirius – whether it was interest, lust or something more Lily wasn't sure, but she was extremely excited to see how this would play out. All that Sirius needed to do was mature enough to realise that he was a one-woman kind of man and then she would watch the romance unravel before her. Hopefully before she gave birth, but she wasn't holding out on anything. "Would it?" She prompted, flipping her own vibrant red hair over her shoulder.

Sirius glared for almost a full minute before he sighed and dropped his head. "No. I mean, I know that she does have something in her past – I can't tell you what, because you don't have clearance, but that can't just be it. There has to be more…"

"Why?" Lily sighed, resting her head in the palm of her hand while her elbow balanced on the desk before her, "and why are you talking to me about it?"

"Come on, you're the closest thing to a sister that I have." He shrugged and hefted himself up to sit on the edge of the desk before Lily put her hand on his lower back and, quite elegantly, shoved him back off.

"Continue." She smiled sweetly as Sirius clamoured back to his feet, his glare trying to menacing, but Lily had to stifle a giggle. Sirius might have an aura of someone not to be messed with, but he was a teddy bear. He was as cuddly as they come, growls and all. Lily just knew that he wanted the sweet kisses and the cuddles at night – he wanted that perfect girl to spoil at Christmas and on birthdays and to kiss on the nose in the morning while she cooks breakfast, matching rings on their ring fingers…Lily knew it, she was just wanting for Sirius to know it.

He'd better know it soon, because someone like Hermione, as…plain as she might look, she was a wonderful, wholesome person and she wasn't the type of girl to be single for long.

Or so Lily assumed, considering that Cal Heartway was hovering over her.

"Just some of the things that she's said and done." Sirius said non-committedly and Lily resisted the urge to roll her eyes. Again.

"Like?" She encouraged, waving briefly at Frank Longbottom who was visiting her wife, Alice who has serious morning sickness and dehydration.

Sirius sighed and hung his head, his hand curling around the back of his neck, scratching into the nape, "Lily, she sounds like a solider. Like someone who's seen and escaped death and I hate that. She's just a young woman."

"You're a young man," Lily pointed out, "you're younger than she is, I think, and you've escaped death."

"Yeah, but if I hadn't then it would have been an accidental death – my motorbike crashed Lily, I wasn't hunted down."

"You think that's what'll happen to Hermione? That she's on the run?"

"Lily, you know that Death Eaters have one target at the minute."

Lily shivered at the reminder that others saw her as inferior, that the blood that ran her veins was dirty, filthy. Mudblood.

"Then you'll keep her safe." Lily said with conviction, "I know you will."

"Of course I will. One of Voldy's ole' helper elves will have to work pretty hard to get to Hermione." Sirius ran a hand through his hair, nodding to himself, "and they'll think twice before touching you. Me and James have your back."

"I should hope so." Lily laughed. She felt a certain sense of pride at having helped soothe Sirius – at least for a little while.

00000

"Aw, come on, Hermione, it isn't a particularly difficult question." Natalia said, her little pink tongue winding around the ice-cream cone to catch the little melting drops that slid down the wafer.

"It is, considering that I haven't slept with either of them." Hermione pointed out, "besides, you've slept with Sirius."

Natalia scoffed before she winked at a passer-by, whose jaw dropped at the sight of the woman by her side and Hermione couldn't say that she blamed him.

With her black glossy curls cascading down her back in a tight fitting red blouse and a black pencil skirt that showed off long stretches of tanned skin on her arms, legs and neck, even Hermione's eyes had dragged down her friends figure before she mentally chastised herself.

Natalia has smirked at her though, so she was fairly sure that Natalia was aware of her betraying eyes.

When they eventually got back to their apartment complex, loaded down with shopping bags (Hermione still had no idea what Natalia's job was) and ice-cream, Hermione stopped dead at the sight before her.

The courtyard was a disaster zone and the doors to the apartments were all open, creaking on their hinges. The fighter in Hermione told her to check for survivors, but it seemed that she was frozen to the spot, her vanilla ice-cream melting down onto her hand, but she barely noticed. What happened here?

Beside her, Natalia dropped everything that she was holding, not even caring that her ice-cream fell into the bag with those shoes that she was just dying to have regardless of the insane price tag stamped on them, and she ran to her apartment, her wand in hand, held in front of her.

Hermione snapped out of her stupor and followed suit, edging her way to her own apartment, her wand whipped from her bag and in her hand before she could even blink. Despite the fact that she hadn't felt the need to defend herself in a while, it felt nice, natural, to go into fighter mode, to resort back to a feeling that she was incredibly familiar with. With her hand on the door she slowly pushed it open the rest of the way and she had to hold back a wince when she saw that her bookcase had been toppled over and her books were spewed all over her maroon rug. Steeling herself she searched her whole apartment and, while everything was torn down, ripped up or damaged in some way, no one was there and nothing had been taken.

She met Natalia back in the courtyard and together, they searched Remus' flat. While she felt strange being in her friend's home without their permission, she shoved the uneasiness aside and focused on her task. They wouldn't know if anything had been taken, but they could make sure that no-one was lying in wait for the werewolf.

Finding no-one, they split up; Hermione turned towards Cal's apartment while Natalia went into Steven's. Hermione instantly felt another wave of uneasiness creep up on her, this one much more terrifying.

Cal had a charm up around his apartment to stop people with ill-intentions from getting in. Only a hand full of people were able to walk through it, unaffected by the magic that played a trick on your mind – Because of the magic making the assailant believe that they'd already raided it, Cal's apartment should have been fine; should have been the only one untouched. It wasn't.

It was in shambles – his guitar was laid in pieces before her on the floor and Hermione cringed – Cal loved his guitar the same way that Hermione loved her books. His bedspread had been pulled off and ripped and his bed turned over, his bedside cabinet had been shoved to the floor and the draws roughly yanked out from the wooden framework, pieces of his life littered across the hardwood floors. Hermione felt ice build-up in her stomach as she ignored the rest of the mess and headed straight for the back of the room, to a purple throw rug.

Uncaring for the rich fabric, she pushed it to the side with her foot before falling to her knees and digging her fingers under the loose floorboard, using her full body-weight to pry it from the ground, a bead of sweat trickled down her temple as with a loud crack, the floorboard came lose, sending her reeling backwards momentarily.

To reveal an empty space. Hermione dropped the plank of wood as terror and panic gripped her heart, painfully squeezing and twisting as it felt like the world dropped out from around her. She felt faint and dizzy as one thought cartwheeled chaotically around her mind, over and over, sending her emotions and thoughts into a frenzy.

The Mirror of Cupio is gone.

Before Hermione could descend into a full hysterical freak-out, she heard Natalia shout her name almost frantically, and that sent her bolting from the room with her wand aloft, shoving the memory of the mirror to the back of her mind now, ready to defend her friend.

Her body slammed into the doorframe of Caitlyn and Jack's apartment, whipping around the turn only to stop short – Jack was sitting on the floor, his hand cradled to his forehead against the thick, long cut that was slowly dripping blood down the side of his face and trickling down his neck, staining his white shirt with little rusty brown and vibrant red dots.

"Are you okay?" She couldn't help but ask. Jack's green eyes slowly slid up to meet hers and Hermione was taken aback by the emotion swirling in them, the agony palpable just by the glance he sent her way.

"Caitlyn's gone." He told her, one tear escaping from his right ear, slipping down his cheek. "They took her."

"Who?" Natalia asked, her fists balled up by her sides, her eyes narrowed in a glare that would put fear into anyone's heart, "who took her, Jack?"

He clenched his eyes tight as Hermione's stomach seemed to shrivel on itself, getting tighter and tighter with unease and pain, "the Death Eaters." He practically whispered, his hand dropping from his forehead to rest against his stomach and his skin was slowly turning a dark grey colour in fear. "They want her back."

A/N: And I know this is super short compared to the other chapters, but I wanted some Lily/Sirius interaction and then the little, mini surprise at the end and I didn't feel that it needed fleshing out any more than it already has been.

Also, the next chapter will be up on Friday. I can promise you this. I know a few of you are going "Yeah, Friday, right! I don't remember a time when you've ever uploaded regularly." And you sirs, are correct! So how can I promise Friday?

Because I've already written it! Right now I'm just going through it and editing and what not, hence – Friday.

I'm sorry for another incredibly long update, but my faithful and wonderful dog whose been by my side for the past 18 years died, then I got fired and then I got evicted at the same time that my Mom got charged with benefit fraud (which she's innocent of, by the way) and my Grumpy Gramps got diagnosed with Prostate cancer.

Yeah, I didn't think it was possible for so much crap to happen to one family in four/five weeks, but it did and it sucked and I cried and now I'm just…Carrying on, which is all anyone really can do.

Funnily enough, when I felt at my crappiest, I looked at my bookshelf (colour-coordinated. Yeah, that's how my bookshelf rolls.) I reached for Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (which is my favourite of the series and I've read it so many times that pages have fallen out, it's all dog-eared and the spine is starting to peel off) and it cheered my up. Immensely. So, just another thing that I have to owe to the wonderful world of Harry Potter and all that it has offered me.

And a huge thanks for you guys for being so understanding and not hounding me for updates. You guys are seriously the best and I love you all in a non-creepy way, of course.

And, random question (although now that I think about it, not that random…) but which of the Harry Potter series is your favourite book and why? And which one is your least favourite and why? My least favourite was always the Half-Blood Prince because I found it to be such a tedious read compared to the wonders that is the rest of them until recently when I figured out how important that novel is in understanding Voldemort and now I don't know! Ahhh!

Kelly

xxx