A/N: Sorry about the wait...

Chapter Four: Gone Ain't Gone

"We must strike again. However, we must not underestimate the art of subtlety. Our next acts shall truly strike fear into the hearts of all wizards."

"Do you already have a plan, master?"

"Yes."

Lord Voldemort moved, snakelike, across the room. His almost-ghostly skin was stretched tight across his face. He spoke softly, the hiss of a snake wouldn't have sounded much different. His followers, his Death Eaters, lined the walls of the small room. They had to lean forward to make out what Voldemort was saying.

"Smith," he said in the same snakelike hiss. "I want you and Zander to find the most well-known auror at the Ministry. Kidnap him. Take him somewhere, it does not matter. Kill him and leave no signs. I want there to be no signs of a kidnapping or a murder. He must simply...disappear." The two men nodded eagerly. "Go now."

Without a moment's hesitation, the two men stood. The shorter of the two grabbed the other's arm and they disappeared.

"Severus Snape," the Dark Lord went on. A pale, greasy-haired young man looked up, his black eyes shining with excitement. This would be his first assignment. "I would like you and Regulus to kill some muggles. It does not matter who. Just make sure they make the headlines."

"It shall be done, my Lord," said Snape, bowing slightly. The boy called Regulus looked like he could be no more than sixteen years old. Regulus was dark-haired like Snape, but his eyes were of a lighter color. He strode over to Snape and linked arms with him. They disapparated.

"Mulsiba, Goyle," said Voldemort as he continued to pace, "engineer the disappearance of some Hogsmeade residents. Crabbe, Lucius...Belatrix, Avery and Jones...Travers, MacNair, Rockwood... You all need to find a way to kill the head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement as well as the junior Minister. Leave the Minister for now, we'll see if his mind changes about our demands after he sees what is happening now. Whoever is left, kill the Daily Prophet's editor. Go."

Finally, Lord Voldemort was left alone in the dark room. He still paced, trying to formulate the next leg of his plan. If the Minister of Magic did not cave in to demands, then they would need to find a way to assasinate him. It was another one of those grand plans, the one that truly mattered. There was a small formality, however. Voldemort knew that if he truly wished to rule, he would eventually need to face Albus Dumbledore. That inevitable battle actually frightened the Dark Lord. It was unsettling.

As sure as he was of himself and of his own magical skill, Voldemort knew that Albus Dumbledore would always have yet another trick up his sleeve. It was one of those annoying truths that he was trying to see to. It angered him. And the more angry he got, the more people would suffer his wrath.

With murder in his heart, the self-proclaimed Dark Lord turned into darkness. There was recruiting to be done.

It's funny how time can pass so fast and yet feel so slow.

James was already dressed in his school clothes-minus the robes-when he and Remus climbed aboard the Hogwarts Express on the first of September. It was only ten fifteen, so there weren't too many students there yet.

"We need to go to the front compartment," said Remus, pointing to their right. "The meeting starts at eleven thirty, but if I know Lily, she'll have plenty of stuff to go over."

"You talk like you guys are best friends," James pointed out, leading the way to the front compartment.

"We've been nice to each other since day one," Remus said, rolling his eyes. "You two were the ones who were always at each others' throats. And besides, you've never seen her at one of these prefect meetings."

"I'll give you that," said James. "This feels so weird." Remus laughed.

As James put his hand on the handle to the compartment, he heard the loud, argumentatively-toned voice of Lily Evans.

"Just stay away from me," she was saying. James knew the tone of voice well. He had often been on the receiving end of Lily's anger. She meant business. "Get out of here. You can come back at eleven thirty."

"I don't understand why you won't even talk to me about this," came the hushed voice of Severus Snape.

"You know why," Lily spat venomously.

James raised his eyebrows in Remus' direction. Remus shrugged. James slid the compartment door open and stepped in. The Heads' compartment was magically enlarged on the inside to accommodate all of the prefects. There were long benches set in rows. At the far end of the room were two overstuffed armchairs for the Head students to sit in.

"Is there a problem, Lily?" James asked as he approached them. He looked from Snape to Lily.

"It's none of your business, Pot-"

"Everything is fine, James, thank you," said Lily, cutting across Snape. He looked like she'd physically hit him by using James' first name. "Severus was just about to leave."

Snape looked slowly from Lily to James and then back again. James stepped a bit closer to Lily. He gave her a questioning look. She nodded slightly.

"Go on, Snape," said James. "We'll see you at eleven thirty."

"Nice try, Potter," said Snape. James heard the daggers in his name. "I'm a prefect. You're the one that doesn't belong in this compartment. So you can go ahead and leave now."

"Nice try, Snape," said James. "I'm Head Boy, so I think if I were you I'd run along now. Leave Lily alone, she said she doesn't want to talk to you. Go find your little friends and do whatever it is that you do, will you?"

Snape glared at James. "So now you've fallen for him?" he demanded of Lily. "You're just like every other stupid bimbo at this school. You're worse than those three Hufflepuffs that follow him around! You disgust me!"

James looked down at Lily and could see that she was holding back some tears. The things that Snape was saying were getting to her, though James did not know why. They weren't true statements. He was glad to know that she wouldn't back down, though. Her emerald eyes never left Snape's black ones.

"That's enough," James said, tearing his gaze from Lily and directing it again at Snape. "Get out before we have to force you out, Snape."

Snape continued to glare at Lily for a moment. Finally, he pushed past James to leave the compartment. James nodded to Lily before bending down to grab the bag that he had dropped upon entering the compartment. At that very moment, a very unexpected word was shouted to the surprise of Remus, James and Lily.

"SECTUMSEMPRA!"

The curse that was meant for James' back missed him when he bent down and instead hit Lily in the arm. She screamed and collapsed. James leapt forward and broke her fall. At the same time, Remus tackled Snape to the ground. He ripped Snape's wand from his hand and threw it to the other end of the compartment. "Can we apparate from the train?" he shouted as Snape struggled.

"Only the platform," James answered as he lifted Lily into his arms. He barely registered the struggle of Remus dragging Snape from the compartment as he laid Lily across the nearest bench. "Okay, Lily...I'm going to need to take your shirt off."

"Undershirt," Lily managed to get out through gritted teeth. It was followed by a string of profanity that caught James slightly off guard.

He unbuttoned her school shirt and got it off of her as quickly as possible. Tossing it aside, he turned his full attention to Lily's injury. Luckily, it wasn't as bad as the copious amount of blood was making it look. James set to work.

When she had lived, James' mother had worked as a healer for St. Mungo's. She had taught him some basic healing magic, saying that one could never be too safe.

It only took James a couple of minutes to stop the bleeding and patch up Lily's arm.

"You're alright," he told Lily quietly. "The curse only grazed you, so it was better than it looked. It'll still hurt for a while, and you're going to have a scar...I think it was dark magic. I should have been able to fix the damage without it scarring, but..." He trailed into silence. As Lily attempted to sit up, James set about cleaning the compartment.

"Thank you," a subdued and somewhat defeated Lily finally said as James handed her a now blood-free shirt.

"Not a problem." James took a seat next to Lily on the bench. "Are you alright?" he asked.

"Physically, it's fine," said Lily. "The pain will be gone eventually, like you said."

"But you can't believe what Snape just tried to do," James guessed. Lily nodded. "I'm sorry."

"Oh, it's definitely not your fault," Lily said forcefully. "I just...I can't believe he would try to curse you like that...you saved his life last year."

James merely shrugged.

"It's not like Severus," Lily went on. "Not the one that I know. He's been my best friend since we were ten years old."

"Ten?"

Lily nodded. "He lives in my neighborhood," she explained.

"Ah."

"We were the best of friends," Lily began again. "But all of the sudden last year, he started acting very strange. I don't know what got into him." She bowed her head. "I miss the person he was before he fell him with that crowd."

"What crowd?" James asked, frowning.

"All of those Slytherins that graduated last year. Smith, Mulsiba, Avery..."

"Been reading the Prophet?" James inquired. Lily shook her head. "Well...Smith was caught last week trying to kidnap Remus' dad; he's an auror."

"What?"

"Yeah," said James. "They put him under veriteserum and found out that the plan was to murder Mr. Lupin. The plan came straight from Voldemort."

"The man who killed your parents..." Lily breathed.

"Yeah," James said steadily. "His followers are called the Death Eaters. The Ministry milked as much information as they could from Smith, but then one of the people doing the questioning murdered him. The bloke had been imperiused."

Lily sat there, her mouth hanging open. "Are you saying-"

"I'm not saying Severus Snape is a Death Eater," James said quickly, raising his hands defensively. "I'm saying one of his friends is-well, was one."

Lily sighed. "I think he may be though," she said after a moment. "I think he's been lost to the dark arts."

"Lily...Lily, if you honestly think that he's a Death Eater...you need to tell Dumbledore."

Before Lily had a chance to respond, the door to the compartment slid open. James and Lily looked up simultaneously. Sirius was standing in the doorway. "Hi," he said uncertainly.

"What are you doing up here?" James asked.

"I saw Remus before he disapparated...helped him bind Snape's hands. He told me to come see if you needed any help up here." Sirius topped off his explanation with a slight shrug. "Looks like you've handled whatever he meant me to help with," he went on after a moment. "I guess I'll see you later-"

"Wait," said James. Sirius' blue eyes lit up. "I've been thinking a lot lately... We need to clear the air."

Sirius moved a few steps further into the compartment but did not speak. Lily stood and went to find the paperwork she had filled out with all of the prefects' duty times and passwords. James also stood. He moved to stand in front of Sirius.

"You're my best mate, Sirius," he began. He sighed heavily, looking at the floor momentarily. His gaze fell once again upon Sirius. "You're my best mate, but what you did...it was so, so stupid. I can forgive you for what you did, but I don't know if Remus can. You need to deal with this with him first. Once you've done that, we're okay...but so help me, Sirius, another stupid stunt like that and you're not going to get another chance...from me or from the Ministry."

Sirius was fighting the smile that he felt breaking over his face. "Thank you," he said sincerely.

James couldn't help it, he smiled too. He held up his arms and Sirius stepped forward for a very intense man-hug.

"I don't mean to interrupt," Lily said after a moment. James and Sirius broke apart. "The prefects are going to be arriving soon..."

Sirius left the compartment shortly after. James noticed he seemed to be in considerably better spirits.

"I'm glad the Wizengamot decided to give him a second chance," Lily said as the door snapped shut.

James laughed. "You're only saying that because Snape just cursed you."

"Probably..." Lily admitted. She shrugged, then winced at the pain. "Anyway...was there anything that you wanted to go over at the meeting?"

"Er..."

"I didn't think so," Lily said in her old smug tone, though she smiled at James this time. "We're just going to hand out the patrol schedule that we worked on over the summer and pick a regular meeting time for the year."

"Sounds good."

"By good, you mean short."

"Indeed I do, Miss Evans."

James was hoping that Remus would apparate back for the train, but he did not. James expected that Dumbledore was taking the issue very seriously.

As the train gathered speed, the prefects began to pour into the compartment. By eleven thirty, all but the two prefects that had apparated to Hogsmeade were seated and ready for the meeting to begin.

No one seemed to notice the Head Students until they stood to call for order. As Lily began explaining the patrols, James noticed that almost all of the prefects from Gryffindor, Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff houses were staring at him. A few of them were speaking to their friends in whispers.

James bit his lip and looked down at the floor as he realized that the whispers were not born out of the shock of James Potter-troublemaker extraordinaire-being named Head Boy...

"Anything to add, James?"

At the sound of his name, James' head snapped up. "No," he said quickly. "Sounds good."

"Alright, so meetings will be held every Monday night at eight-thirty," said Lily. "Everyone grab one of these-" she held up the duty schedules and lists of passwords "-on your way out. Have a good first day back tomorrow, and we'll see you next Monday."

There was general commotion as everyone tried to be among the first out of the compartment. James helped Lily hand out the right set of passwords to each person. He tried hard not to meet any eyes. The last prefects left, finally, were Lily's friend and new seventh year Gryffindor prefect Annie and Hufflepuff seventh year prefect Amos Diggory.

"Hey, Potter," he said, laying a hand on James' shoulder. "I just want to say I'm sorry about your parents. It's a real tragedy."

James nodded and took a deep breath. He let it out slowly. "Thanks, Diggory."

Amos gave James' shoulder a slight squeeze and then promptly left the compartment. Both girls eyed James. "Do you want us to-"

"No," he cut Lily off. "No, stay. I'm fine." He walked over to one of the armchairs and collapsed into it. He hadn't thought that going back to school would be this hard... Sure, he thought it would be a challenge, but this...

As Lily and Annie began to chat about their summer holidays, James became engrossed in the passing countryside. He heard his own name a few times; Lily was explaining the new, strange friendship to Annie. It was enough to shake him from his thoughts but only momentarily.

Soon, he found himself asleep.