Chapter Six: Strange Encounters of the Worst Kind

James ran his hand tiredly through his hair as he walked through the office, delivering a huge stack of paperwork to Moody. It mostly contained Intel on areas where known Death Eater activities had occurred. The current plan was for the Aurors to stake out the locations and hope that there was more illegal activity that they could follow up on. It wasn't a likely plan, but at that moment, it was the best that they could manage to work up.

James placed the stack of files in the folder on Moody's door which read "In". He was just finishing up his shift for the day and was anxious to get home to his wife. Lily's condition had improved rapidly after her collapse. Alice's explanation, though, was more negative news.

It seemed that the curse had been feeding on the upper level magic Lily had been trying to use during her duel with Moody. It had now, more or less, decided that it liked her body and would use it as an acceptable host. Her condition, most likely, was permanent. It was hard to tell, Alice had told them, because a case of Crucio Renovo as severe as Lily's had not been seen since before St. Mungo's opened in the sixteenth century. There wasn't enough information about the disease to be sure how it reacted on individuals, because it was so rare that only a handful of people who had contracted it had ever survived long enough for it to become specific to the wizard's body.

Basically, the curse now allowed Lily to have renewed strength and energy because it was feeding off of her magic and her body. The condition wasn't likely to hurt Lily very seriously, other than the pain she still experienced in her stomach. It also tended to give her stronger magical abilities. These were so strong, in fact, that Lily had been releasing raw, wandless magic left and right without being able to control it. Useful as this skill would have been for an Auror, this ability was quite likely to disappear rather quickly.

James returned to his little cubicle and began to gather his cloak and briefcase. He also stopped by Lily's desk, taking all of the paperwork from her "In" tray and placing it in his case to bring to her. She was insistent about at the very least keeping up with her paperwork and files.

As he walked, James absorbed himself in a few files of his own: profiles of known Death Eaters. He did not notice the beautiful young blonde who was walking towards him until he collided with her, spilling her mug of coffee all down the front of her crisp white robes.

"Oh, no. I'm terribly sorry," James said, stuffing the files into his pocket and repairing her broken mug with a wave of his wand. "I didn't even see you there." The woman looked up, her crystal clear blue eyes filled with warmth as she looked into James' face.

"James Potter!" she exclaimed. "I'm so glad I ran into you! It's been ages." She was smiling at him, her teeth a gleaming white that literally glinted in the light from the torches above them that lit the offices. She was wearing the brightest color of nauseatingly neon pink lipstick that James had ever seen in his life.

"Marcia Torrence," James replied, smiling slightly in recognition. "How have you been?" he asked her, trying to keep his voice as civil and cordial as possible. Marcia was an ex-girlfriend of his, the girl he had dated a few months before he had started dating Lily. She and Lily hadn't exactly had the friendliest of relationships after the engagement was announced.

"I've been fabulous, Jamie!" The overzealous woman replied, smiling that dazzling smile again. "I'm working as a secretary for the Department of Magical Games and Sports, and had a few papers and such to drop off down here. I was kinda hoping I might bump into you," she added, the timbre of her voice lowering slightly. "Though I wasn't expecting it to be quite so literally," she added as an afterthought, looking down at her coffee soaked robes.

"Yeah, listen, I'm really sorry about that," James said, brandishing his wand once more. "Would you like me to, um, dry you out a bit?" he asked, uncertain if he was overstepping the boundary of chivalry or not.

"Please do," Marcia replied, her voice husky as she threw back her shoulders and thrust out her rather expansive and coffee-soaked chest. James forced himself not to concentrate too much on her chest as he quickly performed a drying spell on her. "Thanks so much," Marcia grinned, flipping her hair back across her shoulder. "It's been forever, hasn't it?" she asked, placing a hand on his chest. Her fingernails were long and painted the same shade of pink as her lipstick. Before James had even realized what was happening, she had pushed him backwards into the empty and semi-private cubicle behind him. Her lips were covering his before he had a chance to react to the sudden change of position and it took him a moment to regain his senses and push her away.

"Marcia!" he exclaimed, furious. "What do you think you're-" His words died in his throat as she began to kiss his neck, pulling his tie loose. Finally he mastered himself enough to push her away just hard enough to make her stumble, but not quite hard enough to do her serious injury.

"What the hell do you think you were doing?" he snapped, straightening his tie, furious. "I am very happily married, I'll have you know, and I don't appreciate my old girlfriends coming back and attacking me in the place where my wife and I work!" he started to walk away, picking up his briefcase from the floor. "And by the way," he called over his shoulder at the very distraught woman, "you have serious personal-space-respect issues!"

With that, he stormed out of the office, wiping his face, leaving a very distraught and misguided woman in his wake.

Lily started work again the day after James' encounter with Marcia Torrence. This time, she had been somewhat content to stay at home until she had made a complete recovery. It would have been insane for her to push herself by going back to work early after the last catastrophe, and Lily appreciated that fact, even if she didn't like it very much.

Needless to say, she was very happy to be back at work. She was partnered with Sirius once more, and life continued for her in the way it had before Crucio Renovo: long, exhausting shifts, low pay, mysterious missions which very rarely ever resulted in an actual capture or any truly useful information, meetings and missions for the Order of the Phoenix, the constant, looming threat of attack from Death Eaters, various stages of sleep deprivation, and not quite enough time left over to spend with her husband, much less do any form of housework!

She was surprised at how quickly she was able to get back into top physical shape. She trained daily at the Auror Training Field, as did every member of the Special Forces Sector, and was back on her A-game in no time at all.

James waited in the waiting room of Saint Mungo's as Lily attended the last of her weekly official check-ups with Alice. As he thumbed uninterestedly through a back issue Witch Weekly, he suddenly found himself haunted by the memory of his encounter with Marcia Torrence. He had decided not to tell Lily about the incident, hoping to spare her feelings. Nothing had happened that he could have avoided, he had reasoned, and telling Lily about it now would only hurt her feelings, which he most certainly did not want to do.

Still, his guilt about the incident was considerable. He kept trying to remind himself that he hadn't done anything wrong, that he had successfully overcome the temptation of Marcia's advances, but he still couldn't help but hate himself a little bit for allowing it to happen in the first place.

"Ready to go?" Lily's voice startled him out of his thoughts. He lowered the magazine, fixing his face into a smile.

"Yup. What did Alice say?" he asked, standing and wrapping his arm around her waist as the walked to the floo bank to go home.

"Pretty much the exact same thing as she told me when we talked at tea yesterday," Lily replied sarcastically. "She thinks that I don't eat enough or sleep enough and that my job is entirely too stressful."

"Lily," James replied carefully, barely concealing a smile, "You don't eat or sleep enough, and our job is entirely too stressful." Lily hit his shoulder playfully, grinning at his jibe.

They apparated home to Godric's Hollow and began to walk up the lane of the quiet little town. Hand in hand, they spoke cheerfully of their joy in Lily's recovery.

"We should have a party," James suggested.

"What?" Lily laughed.

"A party," James repeated, grinning. "To celebrate your recovery."

"James, there's no way we can get enough people over here for a party," Lily replied, looking at him as if he were crazy. "All of our friends are either in the Order or work for the Auror Department."

"I know," James replied. "We'll have it just after an Order Meeting and that's who we'll invite. We can use the Manor and everything."

"You're barking," Lily giggled. "Why would anyone want to celebrate something so trivial as recovery from a battle wound with a party?"

"Because," James replied, his voice going deep with sadness, "we don't have much to celebrate in the world lately." By the far away look in his eyes, Lily could tell that he was thinking of his father. She squeezed his hand.

"All right, you great bat," she grinned, leaning up to kiss his cheek. "We can have a party if you want to, but you've got to organize it, alright?" James nodded enthusiastically. "I know I certainly don't have the time to organize a party, and I can honestly say that I don't have any idea where you'll find it either, but you go right ahead, baby." James grinned, looking around for Muggles before pulling out his wand and beginning to take the wards off of their home before they entered.

When Lily woke up the next morning, the sun was already shining high in the sky and James was standing over her, holding a tray with breakfast for two and two steaming mugs of coffee.

Lily grinned up at him, stretching luxuriously. "To what do I owe this pleasure?" she asked, smiling as she accepted the tray so that James could climb in to bed with her.

"To the fact that this is the first time in months that we've both had the day off and both been well," James replied. Lily laughed.

"I like it when you act sweet and romantic," she said, taking a bite of scrambled egg.

"I'm always sweet and romantic," James replied, pretending to be offended.

Lily giggled and leaned over to kiss his cheek. "Don't be arrogant, love," she admonished, teasing him.

James wrinkled his nose, frowning playfully at her. They finished breakfast, and James banished their tray back to the kitchen, then rolled over, holding himself up on his elbows, leaning over his wife and kissing her soundly. The kiss was soft and lazy, but Lily pulled away fairly quickly.

"What?" James asked.

"Sweetheart, if we're going to start something right now, we both need to get up and brush our teeth first, because you have breakfast breath, and I'm certain I don't taste like roses either," she said, laughing and slipping out from under him and towards the bathroom. James got up and followed her, laughing, too.

Lily and James decided to use the remainder of their day off to catch up on all of the housework that desperately needed to be done. James was sent to do almost a month's worth of dirty dishes and try to clean out the pantry, while Lily handled the laundry.

She was sorting through the dirty clothes, when she came across a shirt of James', which was balled up behind the clothes hamper. Frowning, she pulled it out and unrolled it. As she did, something strange caught her eye. There was a lipstick stain on the shirt. It wasn't any shade of lipstick, either. It was the brightest, most nauseating neon-pink that Lily had ever seen in her life.

Lily stared at the stain, her thoughts rushing around her mind so fast that she couldn't make out anything. She felt wetness on her cheek, and, raising her hand to the spot, she realized that she was crying. This revelation seemed to bring her out of her daze. Her hands clenched on the shirt and she wheeled around, heading towards the door.

"POTTER!!" she shouted as she raced down the stairs to the kitchen.

"Love, when on Earth did we eat this? It looks like it's about a year old," James grumbled, holding out a container of very moldy food. Lily stood in the center of the kitchen, glaring at him, fuming. James turned to her. "What's wrong?" he asked, catching sight of her red face and teary eyes. He took several quick steps toward her, but suddenly found himself with his wife's wand in his face. "Lily, what-?" he broke off as he caught sight of the shirt in her hand, and his face drained completely of color. "I can explain," he said quickly.

"Explain my arse!" Lily shouted. "You cheated on me!" As she spoke, the lights in the room flickered dangerously. Lily did not have a handle on the powerful magic that Crucio Renovo had given her.

"You've got to calm down," James said softly, taking a hesitant step closer to her.

"No!" Lily screeched. "I will not calm down! I want an explanation, James. Who was she?" Her eyes were blazing, and James knew better than not to answer.

"Marcia Torrence," he muttered, looking down at the floor. "But, Lily, it was an accident."

"How do you accidentally cheat on your wife?"

"It's easier than you might think," James muttered under his breath. He was thoroughly regretting his decision not to tell her what had happened sooner.

"Oh, so I'm easy to cheat on? Is that what you're trying to say? I'm such a terrible wife that you don't have any problems with it?" Lily was pacing around the room and didn't even notice when objects began flying around the kitchen of their own accord.

"Lily, you're twisting my words," James snapped, losing his own temper a bit.

Lily ignored him.

"I'll bet you did it when I was sick, right? You just got tired of having a wife who couldn't give you any action, so you found someone else. Is that right, James?"

"No," James said firmly, slamming his fist down on the kitchen table.

"I'm leaving," Lily announced, her eyes flashing.

"What are you talking about?" James asked exasperatedly. If she would just give him a chance to explain!

"I can't stand to be in the same room with you! I don't want to see your stupid, arrogant, cheating face!" She strode from the room and pounded up the stairs, packing a bag with a wave of her wand. James reached the door just as she was leaving the room. He spread his arms across the doorframe, blocking her path.

"Get out of my way," Lily snarled.

"Not until you listen to me," James replied.

"Move, now," Lily demanded.

"No."

Lily glared at him, swelling with anger. The lights in the bedroom began to flicker. Before Lily could even begin to control what was happening, the items in their bedroom began to rise into the air. The lamp from the bedside, several heavy leather books, picture frames, the mirror off the wall, the bedclothes, and every pair of shoes that James owned came hurtling towards them. James ducked out of the way, leaving Lily just enough time to push past him before the wave of items started to attack her husband, hitting him over and over again. Lily raced to the door and apparated to Alice and Frank's.

By the time she knocked on the door, Lily was in tears. Great, sobbing tears that tore at her chest, making it difficult to see, to hear, to think, to breathe. Alice answered the door, and her usually bright and happy face fell as soon as she saw Lily.

"What's happened?" she asked, instantly drawing her friend into a hug.

"I-I've j-just left James. Our m-marriage is over!"

A/N: Please don't kill me! Trust me, this was just as hard for me to write as it was for you guys to read! Hope you all enjoy it anyway! Please review. Just say "Cute story I like it" or "crappy story I hate it" if you want (though I prefer the first option!) and let me know that you've been here and read it!

Love from

Lyny Angell