Hi all, so I am back to this wonderful fandom with a new story! I am taking a delve into a fandom, an era and a couple that has always fascinated me and it's the James/Lily era.
This is the second part of the story that started in the Beginning of the End and these are the moments in the first Wizarding War and the build up to Harry.
This story will be twenty chapters long and some events/events that do take place might be missed.
Also spelling/grammar...not my best thing. Again keep that in mind when you read...please.
Disclaimer-Nothing here is mine.
Please Read and Review.
And on a side note, I like so many other Fanfiction Authors no longer receive notifications via email about reviews/PMs etc. So if you do send any it might be a while, if ever before I get back to you. Please keep that in mind for it is not intentional-If anyone has a fix please let me know
I do not receive PMs anymore, if you have a question stick it in a review and I will answer it in the chapter notes.
The End Of The Beginning
The Second Part of the Story: The most known part. James and Lily-moments in the first Wizarding War that made and unmade the couple and the build up to 'The Boy Who Lived'
Chapter 1-The Quality Of Mercy.
Lily and James are out of Hogwarts, into the big wide world, in the Order of the Phoenix and are brushing death at every turn.
She ducked swearing under her breath as another blast of red light nearly hit her. She forced another curse backwards and she blocked another one keeping her eye on the prize which was the house at the end of the street.
The Death Eaters had launched their usual monthly attack on a muggle neighbourhood and as usual the Order of the Phoenix had leapt into action to stop them. There was nothing that could be stopped however, they had arrived too late and too undermanned as always.
And Lily Evans was learning very quickly that, that was just the way it was. The way it always was. The way it was always going to be unless something serious and significant changed. And that didn't seem like it was going to happen anytime soon.
She ducked another curse and fired one back ducking behind the door of the house. It had been blasted open and she looked around hastily though she had known what she was walking into. No survivors.
She had known that too. She had known that she was running into nothing. This entire street had been cleared out and the dead were littering gardens or living rooms or anything and everything else and she swore again seeing the old man in the corner killed by the killing curse. There were footsteps behind her and she ducked as Dolohov came into view and she fired off another curse at him.
Just as he was redoubling James came into view dark hair falling into his eyes and he fired the same curse she did and Dolohov only just managed to apparate away.
"Anything?" James asked holding out his hand and breathless and Lily shook her head and she grabbed his hand and allowed him to throw her out of the house just as the thing exploded. The houses on the street were on fire and that was always a tell tale sign that they were wrapping up and going back to…well…whatever it was that the Death Eaters did during their off hours.
That was the second problem.
The third was arriving right now.
Auror's, ministry workers, muggles, all mingling together in the street and from their vantage point in the corner Lily saw one open his mouth and she knew what he was going to do so she grabbed James and turned on the spot and from the thudding noise at her ankles she had only just managed to apparate away before the anti-apparition charm came down.
She and James fell onto the hard ground and James swore pushing himself upwards.
"Where'd you take us?"
"Just outside Diagon Alley. Children's park, was the only thing I could think of that would guarantee a semi-soft landing. Shit that was close".
She shook her head letting James pull her upwards and he kissed her passionately. Everything between her and James now was hard and fast and passionate now. They were living hard and fast somewhere between life and death and far to dependant on each other for things that nineteen year old shouldn't do and while it was not something she would ever want for a daughter of hers, Lily had to admit that she was loving every minute of being pressed against his hard body.
James put her down eventually and the two of them ran down the slope embankment and towards Diagon Alley.
"Nobody made it out that time" James said grimly. "Wonder what the ministry will say it was this time. The whole gas explosion thing is getting a bit thin and that's to me, never mind how it is going to look with the muggles. But hey ho" he said giving the gravel a bit of a kick and sending it everywhere with his frustration, "At least they turned up this time"
They arrived at Diagon Alley and James tapped the brick work and the two of them slipped into the Leaky Cauldron that was as always when the local Quidditch was on, packed. Much to Lily's eternal amusement she saw that James picked up the nearest newspaper and ran an eye down the scores before wincing and passing it back to the underage Hogwarts students who had all snuck out of school and were bound to get caught because none of them had thought to take off their ties.
Tom caught their eye and jerked his head upstairs and they both nodded following.
One door at the end of the corridor was shut and James tapped his wand again on the wood and recognising the persons on the other side the door opened and the two of them stepped into the room upstairs.
It was a large room warmly lit by the fire and goblets of mead were floating around.
"Potter, Evens"
Professor McGonagall (still Professor because when James had dared to call her Minerva he had got what Sirius had called the pointed eyebrow of doom and that had promptly been the end of that) was there looking them both over in that way that made Lily feel she was still at school.
"No injuries I trust?"
"No Professor" James said and Lily shook her head. "But you are aware that—"
"Liliguard, Kane, McGuire and Robertson are all downstairs trying to see if Tom will serve them Firewhiskey? Yes I am Potter and I can assure in three point two seconds Professor Sprout will arrive to take her students home for a very stern talking to on the dangers of drink"
She turned to sit back down at the large table and from her obvious dismissal James tugged Lily down into a seat as well thinking it was best if they kept their heads down during the meeting.
The door opened and in came Sirius and Marlene both looking windswept.
"Other end of the street was gone" he said by way of a greeting taking one of the goblets of mead and downing it in one. "Ministry showed up at the end of course but everyone had gone at that point…Professor you do know—"
"Yes I know" McGonagall said in a tired sort of tone Lily had heard all throughout her school years and often at time when it had been these two men in front of her and she had bite back a giggle even though this was not the time nor was it the place. Marlene shot her a look as she sat opposite swinging her legs over the benches and sitting down.
"Remus?" she murmured.
"Still recovering" James muttered for the benefit of both of them. "Last night took a lot out of him, I left him in his bed shaking away the tremors. Peter offered to stay with him, he has nothing to report anyway he hardly did anything the other weak"
"James" Lily said gently. "You know his mother has been very sick recently. I went round there the other day and she didn't look very good. Leave him alone."
She knew it was for that and for that reason alone that Peter was taking the brunt of things at the minute. Nothing got under James's skin more than a sick parent and she could not even think of laying any kind of blame at his door for that. Peter needed time to focus on what was important and deep down she knew that James understood that even if he was giving off the impression of an arrogant arsehole.
Sirius clapped James on the back and went to sit next to Lily digging around for a cigarette no doubt.
"Sit next to Marlene if you're doing that" she said flatly. "All I want to do is go home after this and have a hot bath and a hot meal and I can't do that if your blowing smoke into my hair. Right now I smell more like an ashtray than I want to"
"Get a grip Evens" Sirius said lighting his smoke. "Half the people here at this table smoke"
She sighed but there was a point to it and he knew that she knew it as well.
The meetings of the Order of the Phoenix could be as long and as short as they wanted to be. Dumbledore tried to get them to meet more than once a week but the main meeting was on Monday night and that was the one that come hell or high water they were all expected to attend. The rest of them were as broad as they were long because while James, Lily, Sirius, Marlene, Remus and Peter were surviving on collective funds (at least until they could see the way clear) quite a lot of other people didn't and therefore they had to work.
It wasn't just McGonagall either. Or Hagrid who often came sometimes with baby bowtruckles in his pocket that needed mending or once with a baby unicorn that had just been born that he claimed he couldn't leave alone (here Dumbledore had been unable to gavel in the meeting for half an hour as everyone even the most jaded and cynical crowded round for a look), but it was other people. James and Marlene and Sirius had been more intimidated than she had been stepping into this room as they had known half of the people by name if not by their faces.
She had met over time Edgar Bones who had three children he delighted in showing off photos, two little boys and a teenage girl at Hogwarts who he sometimes asked Lily and Marlene about because they were still technically teenagers themselves. There had been Dorcas Meadows high in the Department for International Co-Operation who had welcomed them all warmly her dark curling hair greying at the top of her head but who still looked regal in her clean cut navy blue dress robes. There had been the Prewitt brothers Gideon and Fabien who ate, drank and declared themselves to be merry but who Lily had seen in action and thought they were fucking lunatics when it came to risk taking but who were a lot of fun. There had been Benjy Fenwick and Caradoc Dearborn who were both two years older than James and Lily and together just as much as they were and had stared at her as if daring her to make something of it (like Lily cared, love was love in her opinion and she had no trouble telling any bigot that thank you very much) and there had been Aberforth Dumbledore who was nothing like his brother, came once to the meeting and spent the entire time staring at his brother as if he wished nothing more than to set him on fire with the power of his gaze and his gaze alone.
There were others too. Marlene's two older brothers, Malcom and Montague and her cousin Mortimer. The Wood brothers of which there were four, Declan, Ben, Fergus and Angus, Alice and Frank Longbottom who had been childhood sweethearts the year above her and James and who had gone all through the second year all the way to the seventh without breaking up once, who had married at eighteen with nothing to lose and who were now training up to be Auror's under Mad-Eye Moody who Lily had heard about but of whom she had not fully appreciated until she had seen him in the flesh. Or rather what was lacking of it.
There was Sturgis Podmore, Emmaline Vance, Hestia Jones, and others that she knew were operating overseas, underground and though she knew her old Headmaster didn't like to comment on it, straight out of school. She and James and Sirius and Marlene and Peter and Remus had not been the only ones to come straight of out a uniform and into another.
This was war.
Even Lily knew that you couldn't afford to be sentimental.
It was one of the reasons why she told herself it was best that she and her mother didn't talk.
Yeah…that was the reason.
Dumbledore chose that moment to walk in and the chattering stopped immediately. Her old Headmaster looked as he always did serenely calm and confident in his abilities to win this battle. Anyone who was standing clamoured to grab a seat.
"I have spoken to our young friends downstairs" he said with a twinkle in his eye. "Pomona has made sure that she is ready to great them when they return back to Hogwarts suitably chastised. Now…James, Lily, Sirius and Marlene…talk me through what happened tonight"
"Same as it always was" James said running a hand through his hair. "They pick a muggle street and burn it to the ground, go through the houses kill all the muggles that they can. It's the same like clockwork Professor but they don't send anyone higher than Dolohov. I think my initial thought was right I think they are using it for training the younger generation because most of the kids Lily and I fought tonight were just that…kids. They didn't know which way of their wand was up half the time"
"Because your such an old man yourself" Fabien Prewitt said sticking out his tongue. James winked at him. Lily sighed catching Marlene's eye. Sometimes with James and Sirius it was really like Fabien and Gideon were their older versions only with red hair.
"The Ministry showed up again" she ventured. "They didn't do much but they are at least showing"
"Cover up" Sirius muttered. "That's all they are interested in, Crouch won't take them out for anything less."
Mad-Eye Moody scoffed once but neither agreed nor disagreed with Sirius's rather cut and dry assessment of Barty Crouch Sr.
"Problem is Professor they know exactly where we are looking and they are hitting the other end of the country and with no idea what they are planning a lot of Muggles are going to become sitting ducks"
Dumbledore sighed. "I am aware" he said heavily. "And I am aware that the muggle Prime Minister is struggling to keep his own people in line as well. Unfortunately we do not have a great deal of support within the Ministry. Crouch thinks I am running a teenager's gang"
"Merlin I wish" Edgar Bones said, "I'd give anything to be young again and get the cold out of this hip" it lightened the mood considerably and everyone who didn't laugh managed a small smile.
Dumbledore too flashed a smile though Lily noticed his brother did not.
"Let us return to the meeting" he said with a smile and Lily cracked her neck from side to side and sat up a bit straighter as he commended this meeting of the Order of the Phoenix to take place.
This was her life now. This was what she had signed up for.
And Lily was young, she was strong, she was confident.
She believed that she would live through this.
Why would she not?
And there you are, I will publish the next chapter soon.
Next Chapter-Living together and living apart brings many challenges as the Order's actions come close to home. James is thinking about somethings. So is Peter.
