The next day she goes to work and stops in the gift shop. Lumos magazine is sitting there innocuously. She doesn't want to support, but grabs it anyway and gives the teenager behind the register coins before heading out the door. She promised to meet Michael at the police station, something she greatly dreaded. Apparently, not everyone had seen her at the ball and she was still 'Michael's mystery woman'. She snorted at that, but figured she owed him at least this.
As she walks, she looked down at the magazine. It's not her on the front cover, thank Merlin for that, but in the right hand corner she sees curled writing reading: Lily Potter tells all! "That bitch," she mutters and stops, stepping off to the side, to look inside. She flips to the page and nearly half of it is filled by the picture of Lily kissing Michael. He looks dashing in his uniform and she looks…happy. The Politics of Love, is what the article reads, Ever since the infamous breakup of the wizarding world's golden couple, Scorpius Malfoy and Lily Potter, the youngest daughter of Harry Potter and Ginny Weasley has managed to stay out of the spotlight. Many speculated it was because of her work schedule as an auror at St. Mungo's, but others—us included—wondered if there was another reason. I stumbled across Lily at a function for the City of London police raising money for various charities hoping to talk with a man that has given up the wizarding world for the muggle, but was surprised to find Lily. She has not lost her fashion sense and looked stunning in a classic gown of navy blue that complimented her hair, and the suit of her lover, Michael Collins. Collins is a member of the City of London police and appears to be smitten with the youngest Potter, but he has no clue to her true identity. After I spoke with him, she seemed very adamant that he was not to know that she was a witch. This brings to light many questions, is the relationship serious or is Lily out for some fun? If you heard her tone or so the way they were wrapped up in each other you could clearly see that this was not a farce. It is a deeper seated issue, one that stems from the Ministry's clear stance on keeping muggles separate from the wizarding world…
Lily stuffed the magazine in her purse and buried her head in her hands. It wasn't horrid, a bit soppy for her taste, but now there is no choice but to tell her parents about him. As much as she wants to go to the Ministry or the Prophet immediately she knows that she should go see Michael and goes inside the police station, stopping at the front desk where a man is typing away on his computer. Lily thinks the device looks strange, even after her aunt Hermione giving her brief lessons on it. "Hello, where's Officer Collins desk?"
"Uh, what's your business? He's a bit tied up, but someone else could assist you."
Lily shook her head. "No, no—"
"Oh! You're Lily aren't you? I saw you at the fundraiser, my name's Marc."
"I think I remember you." She gives him a sweet smile and rests a hand on the desk. "I do! We danced right? Some weird song."
"Weird? It was a classic."
She furrowed her eyebrows. To her, a classic was the Weird Sisters or Celestina Warbeck. "I just never listened to that type, more of a…" She bit her lip trying to figure out how to describe what she listens to. "Rock type of person."
"Michael's desk is just over there." He gestures to a doorway to a room filled with desks and whiteboards and computers…a muggle version of the auror office.
"Thanks." She moves forward, but when she steps forward she feels like the world is at a tilt.
"You alright?"
"Fine, long day at work." She makes herself move forward, forcing even breaths with each step she takes. It doesn't take long to locate Eric. "How are you?"
"He's having you come to work already?" Eric whistled lightly as he leaned back in his chair, putting his feet up on the desk. "You better watch out, Michael never has his girlfriends at work-Hey, what are you doing?"
Lily has started walking towards a whiteboard set kitty corner to several desks, Michael's included. There are pictures taped to it, lines, and notes written. One image in particular captures her attention…The object looks unfamiliar, oddly shaped, then she remembers the word, gun.
"Just put it down before anyone gets hurt," the woman auror says.
"I know what you're doing!" the man shouts. "Who are you really?" He points the object directly at her.
"I told you already, Rosie Walters, Metro PD." Her wand is missing but she stands in front of him in her robes, opened loosely, the belt part of her wand holster revealed as is her muggle styled clothing.
"You don't act like a cop, hell, you don't even look like a cop."
"Do you want to see my badge?" She twists her body to reveal an ID badge clipped to her belt.
"We want to help, just put that down…" The even toned voice belongs to a thin man in robes like the woman.
"Get out of here," she hissed, then she heard sirens…
"Lily, what are you doing?" Eric reached for her, tugged her away from the board. "Haven't you seen a gun before? God…are you having a panic attack."
"No…" Lily paused a moment to collect herself. "I don't have hear palpitations, no nausea, trembling or numbness…I'm fine."
"Sit down, what's the matter with you?" he asked.
Her head was spinning, whirling around her, her mind wanted to show her more. Words flashed in her mind…A life will be lost. A woman with the heart of a lioness, only trying to protect her world will die a muggle death. She has shown that harmony can exist in the wizarding world, but more lives will be lost until magic can be in harmony with muggle. "I really have to go…"
"I don't think you should—"
"Do you have a bit of parchment?"
"Parchment, what the hell?"
Lily shakes her head at the slips and fumbles around looking, finally finding a post-it note to leave for Michael. As she's scrawling at note, her hands not seeming capable of working the silly pen. She feels a hand on her shoulder and sees the face of Michael, a mix of happiness and worry. "Lily, what are you doing?"
"I have to go." Her voice is soft. "Sorry." Their eyes meet and Lily is there, but they seem far away. She drops the pen and the paper before backing away to leave. She's out the door when she hears her name being called.
"Where are you going?"
"I need—"
"You could have told me if something came up." He stops a few feet in front of her. "Eric said that…are you alright?"
"Fine."
"You're not fine!" Michael took a breath and pinched his nose. "I'm getting tired of this."
"Tired of what?"
"You putting up a damn wall. Every time I ask you something you avoid the question!"
"It will make sense…just trust me." She looked at him, pleading with her eyes, but Michael looked down at his feet.
"I can't," he said. "Lily, I do trust you, but there's all these things I don't know. All these secrets about you that you refuse to talk about. And then you have a panic attack in the bull pen after you see a picture of a gun…"
"We're over then." Her voice was soft and tears appeared to be gathering in the corner of her eyes. "It's not you, I just…I'm not ready and I can't do it." She wanted him, but…Lily wanted him because he made her feel safe in a way that no wizard could. That's why she walked away from him and didn't even turn around.
Scorpius walked in the room with a file in one hand and two badges in the other before he stopped at his desk, setting both the badges down and splaying open the pages. Aurors looked at him, including Albus who was currently perched on his desk.
"Right, so I was asked to brief you on a case by Potter. Not that one." Scorpius ran a hand through his hair as he looked down and then up again. "The Ministry is concerned because of a robbery at muggle/wizard bar. This one had both types of currency. The thief got suspicious and there have been a number of other break-ins. This is out of our jurisdiction since the culprit appears to be muggle, however we don't know if it is one or several. London PD has allowed us to be involved as long as we keep low." Scorpius looked around at the faces and then picked up his badge. "We've been issued Metro PD badges with aliases to help us when we are in the muggle world."
"Why do we have an alias?" Roxie asked, reaching over to grab her badge and then frowning at the fake name.
"For most of us, there is no record of our existence in the muggle world and the Ministry wants us to keep it that way." Scorpius then grabbed his badge. "Besides some of our names aren't exactly typical muggle names." He shared a look with Albus, a slight smile playing at his lips.
Soon enough, the group dispersed to each of their own jobs. Albus went off with one of other groups that was going out into the field. Scorpius and Roxie were stuck with holding down the fort. They were hiding under mounds of paperwork when the door opened. He looked up and saw the person he least expected, Lily. She had a panicked look on her face as she walked over.
"Where's my dad?" she asked as she stopped in front of Roxie's desk. Her hair was pulled back like she normally had for work, face devoid of makeup, but wearing muggle clothes.
"He's out now," Roxie answered and then looked at Scorpius with a very pointed look.
"What do you need?" Scorpius asks, then notices how she takes a step back at his voice.
"I just…I think I had a prophecy."
"Score, I'm going to find Uncle Harry, you—"
"But—"
Roxie is already gone and Scorpius is left with Lily who looks at him. "Come on, we can go to one of the conference rooms."
She glares at him, but follows him anyway. Lily doesn't sit down once inside, but places her purse on the table. Scorpius recognizes what is going on, the distant look in her eyes, the way she wants to move.
"What was it about?" he asks.
"I…You probably don't remember, but the vision I used to have, it's back and…" She took him in and then reached inside her purse to pull out the slip of paper that she wrote the words on when they were flashing through her head.
Scorpius took it and looked at the words. "This is yet?"
"Yeah." She claps a hand over her mouth and Scorpius watches as her face twists in a pain. She backs up until she hits the wall and sinks down to the floor. "Make it stop, Score…" She says a few moments later.
"You said I triggered your visions."
"You did, but…I saw the words when I was in the police station."
"What were you doing in the police station?" he asks.
"Look in my bag, there's a magazine, it'll explain everything."
Scorpius sat beside her, summoning the magazine and flipping through the pages. Lily looks so happy with that man, kissing his neck like she always used to do to him. When he reads the article, though, it's clear what triggered her vison.
"He wanted me to tell him everything, but I couldn't." She clapped the hand over her mouth again as tears pricked at her eyes. "I scared him half to death, because it looked like I had a panic attack and…"
Scorpius laughed, he didn't meant to, but he recognized what had happened, just seeing Lily it was clear that it wasn't any different from when she first started having them. However wonderful this Michael might be, dealing with things like visions or magic wasn't something a muggle would ever understand.
"Merlin, where's my dad?" She lifted the hand from her mouth and swiped at her eyes with the back of it.
"Come here." He set aside the magazine and held out an arm. There was a split second of hesitation from Lily, but then she leaned against him, letting her body relax. "I'm scared, too," he said.
"Why?" she murmured.
"Your vision just cements it."
Lily looked up at him turned from under his arms and wrapped hers around his. In that moment, the tension that had built up over the three years began to fade. Suddenly, they seemed to have the friendship that they lost.