Disc.: Plot is mine, most of the characters are not.

Chapter Sixteen

She was certain that she was going stir crazy in her apartment. It had been two weeks with very minimal interaction from anyone. The healer had come, but not Marshall. The ministry had changed their mind at the last minute and substituted him with another healer, a large woman with big hands. Lily didn't really care to focus on this stranger, and didn't make small talk. She went through all the albums, some pictures exactly how she remembered them in her head, others seemingly made up for all they did for her.

She had paced the apartment plenty, until she was certain she could do so blindfolded in the dark and be able to navigate it. She even ventured into the boy's room, walking among his things, opening drawers and cabinets. Nothing sparked anything to her. She sat on the edge of his bed, picking up a worn teddy bear and cradled it to her, closing her eyes and breathing deeply. She took slow, deep breaths trying to draw to mind anything. After a few minutes, she growled frustrated and a bit embarrassed. She was angry that someone had taken from her parts of her life like this, that she was basically locked away in her apartment without anyone to talk to and few memories to keep her occupied.

She tossed the bear on the bed and stood. She glanced at the side table drawer and hesitantly opened it, half expecting something to be there. The drawer was oddly empty, void of even dust. Frowning, she closed the drawer and left the room, pausing only momentarily to glance back before flipping out the light and wandering back to the living room area. She stared at the door, willing anyone to enter. She wondered if one of the three guards were out there. She noticed that they rotated between Brody, an old man named Chuck, and a sweet older lady name Sharity. None of the three chatted with her, rather they followed her when she left the apartment.

It drove Lily insane. She may not have had all her memories, but she knew that she was a social person. She could feel that to her core. She sent messages to family via owl, and even requested people to visit her. Several memos had been inked and sent to the various ministry official and even the minister. Each one was returned to her with vague indications of soon or eventually or that they'd be in contact. Even Draco had brushed her off. The only people she saw regularly were her guards that held her like a prisoner of her own apartment, and occasionally she'd see the neighbor that lived in apartment 4C.

He, in and of himself, was an enigma. He always looked angry or upset when he'd see her and she'd always stop to watch him walk by, usually on the stairs or the lift, but sometimes in the hallway as well. He'd blatantly ignore her as if he didn't see or hear her. Being slighted like that enraged her. It was simply rude. They'd obviously been neighbors before the 'accident' as she was now calling it.

"You know, it's rude to just ignore your neighbor when she greets you in the lift," Lily took to saying every single time they found themselves in the lift at the same time. He would meet her eyes for a moment in the reflection of the doors, but never respond. Like clockwork, he'd bolt out the door and disappear out of sight as if he wasn't even there.

"You shouldn't harass your neighbors, Miss Potter," Brody whispered once and Lily laughed. It was one of the few and only times that he'd talk to her since that first day, and other than generalized pleasantries of greeting and dismissal.

"I'll keep that in mind, Brody," Lily told him, flipping her hair over her shoulder. She watched the days tick off the calendar, June edging closer. She had yet to be talked to by the minister, or summoned by the ministry. She decided that if they weren't going to address her, she'd address them herself.

She'd have preferred the sneakers, jeans, and tee shirts, but knew for this she'd be better suited to dress her age. She looked through her closet, picking a skirt and a shirt that she hoped screamed adult. She thought about the heels but was certain she'd fall down and opted for knee high black boots. She figured, if nothing else, she would be able to kick someone in the shin if it came to that. She did her hair up, and paused in front of the mirror, thinking she still looked older than she felt but not looking quite like she was in her thirties quite yet.

She grabbed her purse and opened the door, stepping out into the hall. She barely glanced at Brody, who was in the middle of drinking something and choked slightly, storing the flask away quickly as she stalked to the elevator. She reached it before him, pushing her neighbor back into the elevator and slamming her hand over the button, sending energy into it to close quickly. She heard Brody's protest as the elevator made its slow decent down.

"Hey, what's the meaning of-"

"Look, we have been neighbors for years I suspect, maybe not all at once, I know you know who I am, and I implore you to please, help me," Lily rambled without taking a breath. She looked at him pleading. "Just tell me what your name is and why you won't talk to me." He hesitated, glancing as the elevator passed the second floor.

"I'm Damon West," he breathed as the elevator stopped on the first floor. "And I'm forbidden to talk to you because the ministry wishes it."

"Why?" Lily demanded as the doors started to slowly slide open.

"Because, once upon a time, we used to be intimate," he whispered as he eased towards the back of the elevator, pretending to be checking his phone as Brody, Sharity, and Chuck entered in a rush, wands raised.

"Miss Potter, are you okay?" Sharity asked coolly as she looked at Damon. Lily glanced up at her, surprise on her face.

"Oh, yes, delightful!" Lily responded brightly as she zipped her purse closed. Sharity reached for it, though Brody grabbed it first and started to rifle through it. Lily frowned. "I don't know what you hope to find in there. I've already looked and there wasn't a single piece of gum!"

"Oh," Brody muttered. He handed her purse back but shot Damon a glance that could only have been classified as down right hostile. "You left in such a hurry that we became alarmed that something was wrong."

"Nope, just in a hurry. Things to do, people to see," Lily's voice was positively saccharine.

"Well, Miss Potter, I'll join you while Brody finished up checking the elevator for malfunction," Chuck told her as he took Lily by her upper arm and gently steered her towards the lobby doors. Lily glanced back to see Brody and Sharity descending on Damon, but he wasn't looking at them. She saw him staring right at her and he smiled, her returning the smile. She was certain that he'd be in trouble, possibly seriously so, but she couldn't help but think that there was another person so close to her that knew her secrets.

"Hopefully they can figure out what happened to the elevator," Lily chattered. "Funny thing it just slamming shut like that. My poor neighbor must have been terribly confused by the whole thing."

"Miss Potter, where are we heading?" Chuck asked nervously as they wandered on foot. He was dressed in a suit, but even in this area he was out of place.

"Oh, Chuck! It's such a surprise!" Lily grinned at him, her smile wide. She might not have had her memory, but she knew a thing or two about area and knew that someone like Chuck might not have been too enthusiastic about it. A few thuggish looking men watched from across the street.

"I think we should just take a cab, or perhaps have Brody and Sharity join us," Chuck murmured as more than a few people seemed to focus on the two of them walking at break-neck speed down the street.

"No," Lily snapped with such hostile finality that she even surprised herself. She shook her head. "I'm not going to be holed up in my apartment like I'm some prisoner of Azkaban. I'm firing you, Sharity, and Brody."

"You can't fire us," he told her. He took a quick sip of his flask and tapped his wand on his leg, almost as if it was a nervous tick, but Lily wasn't stupid. She knew he was probably signaling someone.

"I can, I am, I did," Lily explained with a smile. She glanced up at the sky for a second. Closing her eyes. She could hear the snap of folks aparating in the area, she focused on it. She opened her eyes to see that Chuck wasn't alone. Draco was there, not looking pleased, along with Damon, Brody the guard was there, but Sharity wasn't. Instead, her cousin Rose was there, and Lily's wheels got to turning. The flasks, she'd seen Albus with one and she concentrated hard on that. She could picture her father in her head, faded and distant but for the first time him from a memory she knew there'd be no record of, when she was a small girl.

"Lily," Draco warned carefully as he took a step forward. Lily put her hand up for a second, gasping for breath as the memory sharpened on its own. Lily didn't fight it, or encourage it. She just breathed through the pain it was causing in her head as the neurons recreated their connection for that one memory.

"When I was a little girl, maybe thirteen or fourteen, my father and I were talking at home after visiting my mother. He was in their room and he was emptying his pockets, and he placed upon the dresser a silver flask. An Auror's flask," Lily told them as she started to move backwards slightly. She glanced around to see that there were a fair few people there, but they all seemed to be witches or wizards, and no muggles. She narrowed her eyes.

Her plan had been to storm the ministry to get answers as to why they were avoiding her, but instead she found the people she most needed to talk to, sans the minister himself, were closing in on her fast and she knew she couldn't out run them.

"Lily, how about you and I go get some coffee," Rose offered at Draco's nudging. Lily smirked.

"Something tells me that you'd not fill in any blanks, cousin," Lily accused lightly.

"Sure, we could talk all about that fateful coffee break after I went maternity shopping for Tabby," Rose promised. Lily looked at her skeptically.

"My dad told me what the Auror flasks are for, why Aurors carry them," Lily continued without responding to her cousin. "Oh, I'm sure he didn't mean to tell me. I asked what he kept in it, and he winked at me like he did when he was telling me a joke, and told me that an Auror never knew when he might need a bit of Poly Juice to get out of a sticky spot."

"Lily, let's go talk to the minister," Draco offered reaching his hand out and Lily took another step back. "He'll be pleased to hear that your memories are returning."

"Nice try, Draco," Lily laughed. She closed her eyes for a second, picturing where she wanted to go. She'd never tried this, not without a wand, but she knew that there was a first for everything.

"Lily," Draco snapped loudly. Lily opened her eyes to see that they were moving closer.

"The very thing I remember about my dead brother is that Potters should NEVER trust a Malfoy," Lily smirked. With a crack, she was gone. She landed roughly and fell to the ground, scraping her hand on a rock as she caught herself. She knew it they'd be right behind her once they realized what she'd done. She stepped a few steps to the left and aparated again, each time moving a little before sending herself hurtling through time and space until she was completely drained.

She had bounced all over the place, but settled back in London not far from where she'd left. She pulled out the flask she'd swiped from Damon when she's pushed him on to the elevator. She may not have had all her memories, but some things, some skills one never forgot. She knew she needed to get out of her clothes, and she needed to get out of her skin. She still had the credit card, but she knew that she could be traced with it. She went to a cash machine, taking out a few hundred pounds in several transactions before it locked up and denied her any more. She stuffed the money in her bag and dropped the card in the first rubbish bin, in case Draco had it marked with a tracer.

She headed into the first shop she came to and got nondescript clothing, ditching the skirt and shirt for something a little more stealthy and blending in with her peers out there on the street. She paid in with cash, changed in a back alley and took a swig of the potion, remembering to place a hair of the clerk in it first. She felt her body shift and change, her legs lengthening until she was a few inches taller than she'd started. The clothes she'd picked out almost seemed too small, the skirt riding up until it barely covered her rear end. Lily touched the shiny red leather, her bra seemed to be stretched to the max and her breasts were barely contained in the red leather vest. She caught a glimpse of herself in the reflection of the store front window, the sun setting behind her. She looked like what she always feared she was, a tart.

Across the street, she glimpsed her brother and Draco come out of the shadows and she turned her back towards them to apply lipstick as red as the boots on her feet. She stored the rest of her money in the red leather bag and ditched her purse. To anyone who passed her, she was a shiny leather clad prostitute. She doubled back around, ignoring a few of the propositions she'd received and only leaning in on an open window to chat it up when one of the Aurors got too close for comfort.

She headed back to her apartment, certain that by now Damon had to be back. She stared up at the outside, seeing a light on in both her and his apartments. They were probably looking through hers to find out exactly how much she remembered. She knew that even dressed as a hooker, there was no way that they'd just let her walk up to his apartment on the fourth floor. She looked at the fire escape and dreaded it. She wondered if she had enough of wandless magic to aparate up there, but decided against it. If she needed to make a hasty retreat, she wanted to make sure she had enough in her.

She took a giant swig of the poly juice potion, hoping that she could convince him to come to her side in less than an hour or to at least fill in the blanks in that much time. She knew that when they caught her, and she knew that they would, she was going to be in serious trouble. She could only hope that Damon was enough on her side that he could help her. She took a deep breath, as deep as she could without popping a seam and reached up, climbing carefully on the rubbish bin to reach the ladder. She glanced down at her boobs and knew she'd miss them most of all of the polyjuice. Her too long nails, not so much.

Her arms were used to moving around her sized body, she found, and she was able to climb up without much difficulty. She nearly fell only once when her knee high red leather boot slipped on one of the rungs, but she recovered and she made it to the fourth floor emergency landing. She paused by the window, finishing all but the last sip from the flask then tapped her nails on the window pane. She waited, then tapped again a little louder. It took forever, but Damon's face appeared behind the glass and curtain. He hesitated.

"Open the window and let me in," Lily told him in what she hoped came off as a sultry voice. She doubt that even if she could remember all of her life before, she was a sultry kind of girl. She could see herself being more of the giggly, almost embarrassed kind of flirting that was so bad that it was funny. Damon's eyes were wide with surprise but he complied, sliding the window open and stepping back.

"Who are you?" he asked as Lily climbed through the window. Lily flipped her waist-long blond hair behind her.

"A friend sent me," Lily offered with what she hoped came off as a sexy smile. "Thought you might be lonely and need a little entertaining."

"Blonds aren't my thing," Damon replied stiffly. "Any friend of mine would know that."

"This isn't my real hair," Lily stepped forward. She was as tall as he was now, eye to eye in height. Not that it mattered. He wasn't looking at her eyes, rather the bulging shirt. "Plus, in the dark you can't tell I'm a blond."

"Ah," Damon swallowed as she rolled her shoulders slightly her back starting to ache a little from the extra top weight. He looked at her.

"Plus, your friend was very generous with me in hopes I'd be very generous with you," Lily rambled as she ran her fingernails across his shoulders. She glanced down at the master bed and pushed him ever so gently. She was almost disappointed that he went back against it easily.

"My friend?" Damon asked as Lily, polyjuiced into this tall, blond hooker in red leather, straddled his lap.

"Mhmm..." Lily murmured, dipping herself down so that her mouth was as close to his as possible without actually touching him. She glanced to the side table to see that he'd so foolishly left his wand just laying there. He groaned softly as she pressed down on him with her body. "You're a big, big boy aren't you?"

"You tell me," he groaned. He raised his hips up roughly, almost slamming into her when he connected with her body. Lily gasped, her hands going to his hips, gripping them firmly to hold him in place as the rush of a not so distant memory flooded over her.

"Ah," Lily moaned softly in her own soft voice as his hands touched her intimately. She ignored him, what he was doing in his haste to remove their clothing while she remained frozen, locked in the pleasure of a memory less than a year old, a memory that Damon himself had given her.

"C'mere," Damon linked his hand behind her head, dragging her mouth down to his. He kissed her and that was the damn that seemed to break. Suddenly, she wanted this. She wanted more. With his every touch, a rush of another memory. She stole a peek at him as he finished disrobing, her body aching in ways that she knew could have only been knowledge of that body. She leaned back breaking another kiss with him.

Once the potion wore off, he'd probably pull away and call the Calvary, and Lily knew that she'd never have another moment with him. The ministry had made their position clear on the subject, though Lily didn't know or understand why. She had only suspicions. Something to do with the son she still didn't remember with the man she didn't remember, and all controlled by Draco. Draco and the minister. Damon watched her carefully as she unlaced the leather top slowly. Part of her wanted to jump his bones without wasting time, the other part wanted her to wait. She knew that it wouldn't be too much longer. A glance at the clock proved that the hour was almost up.

She stood, walking over to the door and locking it. He watched, his eyebrow raised slightly. He, too glanced at the clock before returning his attention as she stood by the light switch, hand hovering over it. He smile at her, almost knowingly, and Lily's heart raced as she let the last of her clothes fall away and turned out the light.

"In the dark, we can be anyone, do anyone," Lily whispered as she climbed back into the bed with him. She kissed him, pulling away only for the briefest moment her body returning to her normal form, the lat of the poly juice wearing off as rapidly as it had kicked in, before she met his mouth again. He pulled her close, edging in slowly to the very depths of her soul. He was a musician, her body an instrument, and he was a master of the chords.

She edged closer to the summit of the mountain of knowledge. She knew it. Should feel the race of her heart, the synapses firing, the rush of adrenaline and passion searing her veins. He kissed her again, this time was with more feeling than she could have ever imagined a kiss could be, and certainly more than he had when the lights were on. Lily fought the urge to cry out, to release. Every single memory of Damon crashed down on her at once, in such crystal clarity that she couldn't hold on anymore. She leaned back, tossing her hair back as his hands gripped and guided her hips and she cried out loud enough that she was certain her ancestors heard her.