Summary: Two and a half years ago, James Potter's life ended when his wife was captured and declared dead. After intense mourning, his friends forced him to move past it, and resumed living without Lily. But an anonymous tip that brings Lily home sends his life into a tailspin once again.
Disclaimer: I own Penelope but that's pretty much it. I'll let you know on the rest. So, until further notice, JK Rowling owns pretty much everything in this fanfic except the plot, which isn't entirely mine either(see dedication). Please don't press charges, I have to pay $400 bi-annually for car-insurance, I can't afford anything big.
Dedication: The idea for this fanfic is from the case of Lt. Commander Michael Scott Speicher, a United States naval pilot, who has been missing since January 16, 1991. His status has been changed from Killed in Action to Missing in Action. This by no means is a representation of his life, only of a presumed dead soldier. This is for all the soldiers who haven't made it home yet.
*~*~*
"Uhhh, sorry. I didn't know you lived here," James said after an awkward pause.
"Do you want to see my kitty? He's a Kneazle, actually." Celeste shoved the cat into his arms without giving him a chance to protest.
"He's, er, nice," he stated, looking around the flat. "The Ministry put you here?"
"Yes," Celeste supplied happily, deciding she liked this man. "What's your name? My kitty's name is Marauder."
James's eyes widened, and he turned to look at Lily, who stared evenly back.
"Did you forget your name? Wait! I bet your mummy told you not to tell your name to strangers. My name is Celestina, but Mummy calls me Celeste, so you can too. So we're not strangers anymore because you know my name."
"Right. My name is James Potter."
"My mummy's name is Lily. I don't thinks he has a last name like you do. I don't have a last name either. Mummy says it's because nobody knows who my daddy is, but I don't know why my mummy has no last name. I guess she doesn't want one. I don't want one either. Why do you want one?"
"Celeste," Lily interrupted, deciding this little festival couldn't continue. "It's midnight, and you should be asleep. I should be asleep. The entire time zone should be asleep." She took the Kneazle from James, and indicated to the door.
"I better go to bed or Mummy will take away my kitty. I wouldn't like that at all, Mister James."
"Potter," Lily corrected.
"She can call me James."
Celeste looked between the two adults. "Do you have any pets Mister?"
"Yes, I do."
"It's time for him to leave, Celeste, stop talking."
"What sort of animal is it? Do you have a Kneazle? Because if you had one, my Kneazle could have a Kneazle friend. It's not fun not having friends. I know."
"I actually have a bird."
"Neat! Can I see it some time?'
"Celeste!"
"Sorry, Mummy. I'll go to bed. Marauder can sleep in my bed, can't he?"
"Not tonight." Lily opened the door, and the second James stepped through it, she slammed it closed. "Celeste, I don't want you to talk to him anymore."
"But why?"
"Because I said so." Lily winced as she said it. God, she was getting old.
*~*~*
"Did you get them to be quiet?" Penelope asked, drinking tea at the kitchen table in her nightgown.
"It was just a Kneazle," James answered casually. "Why are you drinking tea if you want to go to sleep?"
"I doubt that Kneazle is just going to magically be quiet."
"You never know."
"So who lives there now?"
James didn't actually know what to say. Would it be wise to tell his wife that his other wife was living next door? Probably not. "Just a woman with her daughter."
"Another of those single mothers. What is the world coming to?"
"Fire and brimstone."
"You're in a bad mood."
"I'm always in a bad mood, in case you haven't noticed."
"No, you're always depressed. Now you're being surly and sarcastic."
"Great words of alliteration."
"I still suggest that you go in to see if it could be clinically treated."
"Penny, there are some things that magic and medicine doesn't fix. My life is one of them. Go to sleep."
"What are you going to do?"
"Read."
Penny sighed and decided she had to choose her battles, and this one wasn't worth it. Her generally moody husband was even moodier when she tried to figure out what was wrong.
*~*~*
"Sirius! Pal, wake up!" James hissed at Sirius, shaking his sleeping friend awake while trying not to wake his sleeping bed partner.
"God, can't you leave me alone at night? I have somebody over here!"
"And I have a crisis."
"You're whole life is a crisis. Toss me a pair of pants." After Sirius was clothed, they convened in the dining room. "So what's the problem this time. The one that made you get me up from a very delectable female."
"Was that who I thought it was?"
"Umm, maybe?"
"Anyway, we can deal with that later. Lily lives next to me."
"WHAT?"
"She does. I saw her tonight. And Celeste doesn't have a last name, and apparently Lily isn't using any of hers."
"It's her choice." Sirius rubbed his eyes, wondering how he had put up with James for twenty four years.
"What am I going to do?"
"You're going to get through it. You've been through worse stuff, this is child's play in comparison."
"No. In case you didn't notice, my world began revolving around Lily, Sirius. She was the person who kept me from falling into the dark pit I was headed for. And then she fell and I didn't pick her back up."
"James," Sirius sighed, and hugged James. He could count the number of times he had hugged James on one hand with fingers left over. James didn't like to be touched, but he was at the beyond upset stage that Sirius had seen only a very few times. "It isn't your fault that she was taken, or kept, or not recovered. You didn't have control of the situation."
"And we all see how it turned out. I don't have control on this situation, either."
Sirius paced a bit, then said, "James, I've done quite a bit of thinking on your situation. Granted, all of this is just my opinion, but it's what I honestly think, you can take it or leave it. Obviously, something has happened with Lily's mind, and none of us know what. But I think you do." James opened his mouth to protest, but Sirius held up a hand for silence. "Not right now you don't, but think about it, and I bet you will. You're the last person alive that really knows much about her, about the way she thinks. Analyze the way she thought, her outlook on things, what her solutions were usually like. Think of all the tricks or jokes she ever played, and what she dreamed about. You two were painfully honest with each other. You have all the resources to figure her out, just try it. Take a couple weeks off. Do a little snooping without Penny looking over your shoulder."
James steepled his fingers in thought, "Sure, but how is that going to tell me what happened to her?"
"It's not," Sirius answered simply, and his friend gaped. "It's only going to tell you what she's doing now."
"Right. I'm confused."
"Obviously. And you were considered a genius at Hogwarts, what a disgrace. You can't control what happened to her, all you can do is try to figure out what's going on with her now. And then you'll know what sort of life you could have left with her. Chances are she's so emotionally damaged she won't want another man to touch her in three life times. But then again, maybe things aren't what they seem."
"What are you talking about?" James asked, amazed by Sirius, never knowing his friend was this insightful. Certainly Sirius was smart, James couldn't abide by stupid people, but he was showing an intelligence of the human soul.
"What if, by some miracle, she was able to walk away from that hell hole? Maybe she's merely wounded, but not fatally so. It that was true, the Lily you knew might be salvaged."
"Sirius, what do you know that I don't?"
"A great many things, but nothing about Lily."
"Then how do you know all this crap?"
"Because you've spent your life running from people, and I've spent mine embracing them."
*~*~*
Lily felt angry. Furious. How in the hell was she supposed to move on with her life in she lived next door to James? Her husband!
That, of course, would have to be taken care of in due haste.
She had a small child in her care, who was too smart for her own good, and apparently liked James. Now that was just excellent. Bloody damn brilliant.
Lily wasn't normally one for cursing, but nearly three years around all sorts of surly men and women who weren't exactly refined had coarsened her preferences slightly, but this was a time for cursing if there ever was one. Her life was falling down around her ears.
She was the current freak show of the magical world. She hated that she couldn't try to resume life without snoopy busy-bodies who couldn't mind their own damn business. It was her own life, wasn't it? Exactly.
And how was she supposed to reason clearly when she could hear through those bloody walls to listen to James telling his new wife goodbye? What kind of establishment was this, anyway?
And why wasn't he going to work today?
It didn't matter, she told herself firmly. What mattered was trying to figure out how to cook something for breakfast. She had never been too spiffy in the kitchen, and now wasn't the exception. Lily ran her hands through her hair in frustration, Celeste was complaining of hunger, and she was hungry too. There wasn't so much as a box of cereal.
There was bread, eggs, milk, pasta, soup mix, some spices, tea, cream of mushroom soup, and some wrapped meat. And then there was coffee, praise God for coffee.
"How about some soup for breakfast, sweetpea?"
"Mummy, you don't eat soup for breakfast," Celeste said seriously, staring at her mother.
Lily sighed, "I'll go see if I can find some cereal. Is cereal okay?"
"Yes."
Lily grabbed the carton of eggs and went across the hall to her neighbor's flat, but not James's. She knocked, and tapped her foot in impatience as she waited for someone to open the door, and then an old woman did. "Professor Figg!" Lily cried in delight, grinning for the first time in ages.
"Lily? My Lord, what are you doing here?" Her former Transfiguration professor looked shocked out of her mind.
"I'm bartering cereal for eggs. Is it a deal? We don't have any cereal, and at the moment I'm facing a hungry toddler. And I can't cook."
Professor Figg drew her in, Celeste soon following, and they both let the feeling of warmth soak in. They had two years of coldness to work out of them.
*~*~*
James felt guilty. He didn't like feeling guilty. He had ushered Penelope out of their flat this morning, calling in for a vacation. Of course, it was granted, most people assumed he was on the verge of insanity.
So, here he was. James was locked inside of his study. Nobody ever came in here, it was his private abode. Only one person had ever been allowed in his private quarters, and so it was filled with memories of her. Of course, that had been a different private study, but it was the same thought. Here, he kept his few and precious memories of Lily. The books she had bought him were locked in a glass cabinet, just in case. That was his policy with all her things, just in case.
There was a bottle of perfume in his bottom desk drawer left over from three years ago.
His old wedding ring.
Their wedding picture.
Her spare pair of glasses.
An earring without a partner.
A Christmas card.
His hand brushed over the card with a raised snowman and he felt guilty. The guilt was so tangible he thought for a moment he would be ill. James felt guilty for giving up on Lily so soon. He felt guilty for not giving up completely once he married Penelope. He felt guilty just because he married Penelope. He had married her after three months; it had taken three years for Lily and him to walk down the aisle.
The search for Lily's secret wasn't going so well.
*~*~*
"JAMES!"
"Yeah?" James asked, finally aware of a screaming voice outside the door.
"What the hell are you doing in there?"
"Uhh...fornicating with the maid?" He opened the door the same time he said that, so the situation would be slightly more humorous.
Penelope didn't see the humor, "We don't have a maid."
"Right. I was just catching up on some stuff. What brings you home early?"
"I'm dropping this grocery list by, I-"
"I have to go shopping?" James made it sound like she was infecting him with the plague.
"Yes, you have to go shopping. I'm going to invite our new neighbor to dinner."
"What?"
"The neighbor. To dinner."
"But they're noisy, surely you don't want to foster friendship." Oh crap, I'm in deep. And I mean deep.
"You said it was their cat. Anyway, I slid a note under their door."
"Great," James said weakly, thinking it was anything but.
*~*~*
Author's Note: Céline brought up that James lived in a house. You were only given the impression that he lived in a house because there were stairs. I'm a fan of the tent theory, where the outside is different than the inside. So his flat has the interior of a house. Lily's doesn't because the Ministry is paying for it, and do you honestly expect the government to give her a great flat when they're already paying her? It's great that you caught that though, I'm thrilled that somebody's actually paying close attention!
Mistocean: I do bold by just bolding the words in Word, then saving it as a webpage, and all my formatting is kept.
The reviews were brilliant as always, they make writing all the more fun. Lotsa thanks to The Elfin Child, Eleanor, unicornjewel, Céline, Nicole Christine Potter, Hanna-chan, Stefanorkle, Mistocean, ljpottafreak, luv-jinxy, Julie Anna, Stormie Night, KeeperOfTheMoon, littlegoober, Sara, RBFfreak22, Clare, missy, meLisSa, raphaella, Tina, Maria, Kristen, Julie, NattyNatterz, Nicole, laughoutloud, JazzyNStue, everblue3, and Carmen Sandiego.