Chapter Five
Frank's face and his limp body posed a number of questions in Lily's mind. Was someone in here? Are they still in here? Were they here before everyone arrived or did they come after? How'd they get in here? Did someone overhear Mrs. Potter telling us the password? Or was there a breach in the Ministry? She turned around quickly to find James and Sirius equally lost in thought. James stood up and motioned Sirius to quietly cover James's back as the two of them walked around the cellar, surveying the place. Lily sat there in the dark with only her wand to light her immediate surroundings. She looked down at Frank and pressed two fingers to his temple. His pulse was weak and his skin was growing cold. She then looked around for any sign of a duel that might have taken place. There were none. The place looked almost untouched and still. She then looked for any signs of curses that might have left any mark on his body. His sleeves were rolled up and his shirt was open at the collar. She pointed her wand at his neck to see clearly, but his neck was devoid of any marks. She then pointed her wand at his right hand and again, nothing. She however did find his wand lying around in close proximity. She reached out and grabbed it. She moved to his left hand and saw the palm of his hand had turned a deep shade of blue which would look almost black if such bright light coming from her wand wasn't pointing directly at it. Moving towards the fingers the blue turned lighter and lighter. The veins below his wrists were painfully evident as if almost ready to pop out any moment. She remembered Severus had once asked her how a person who was locked up alone in his house for twenty four hours could have died an unnatural death without the murderer showing up in his presence. He had felt so proud telling her something she didn't know when he explained to her that the murderer could've planted an object cursed with dark magic in the victim's house and had to just wait for the guy to touch the object. She had been stunned and Severus had only halfheartedly feigned disgust with such an act. She brought herself back to reality and looked around for whatever he could've touched that might've been cursed.
"I don't get it, there's no one in here."
Lily jumped at the voice of a frustrated Sirius.
"There wasn't anyone here to begin with. He touched an object cursed with dark magic. Look." said Lily as she pointed to Frank's palm. James and Sirius rushed to her side and crouched down to look at the palm.
"We've already sent a patronus to my mother telling her about this, I hope they bring a healer with them." said James as he looked around for the same object Lily was looking for. Lily flashed her wand under one of the racks next to Frank's body and could make out something like a tray lying under it.
"I think that is what Frank touched." she remarked, pointing towards the object. James who was sitting next to her made a move to grope around under the rack. Lily and Sirius both caught his arm.
"Do you have a death wish? Don't touch it with your bare hands." said Sirius.
James lit his wand and pushed his hand under the rack in an attempt to prod the object on the other side of the rack. When he had successfully pushed the object, the three of them rushed to the other side to see the object. It was a tray. It looked really old, and extremely out of place with the cellar. The three of them jumped at the sound of people approaching and had their wands ready. But when the door to the cellar opened, three tall figures appeared, one of whom was James's mother. She was the only one that the three teenagers recognised.
"Where's the boy?" asked a really old weary looking man. He was tall, had bushy eyebrows, and although his eyes looked tired, they were filled with genuine concern.
"Here." said James as he took the three new comers towards the side of the rack where Frank was lying.
"What had happened?" the old man asked, who Lily guessed to be a healer, because the moment he set his eyes on the limp body, he got down and conducted a normal tests to know if Frank was still alive.
"It had been almost 30-40 minutes when Frank had left to get some snacks. When we realised this we rushed here and saw him lying like this. Evans thinks, it happened because he touched a cursed object. We may have also found that object. It's on the other side of this rack." Sirius explained.
"How do you know about all of this Miss Evans?" the third strange man asked. Lily looked at him ready to explain, but the suspicious glance that she received from the man made her nervous.
"A friend told me." she answered, hoping the man won't press for details, because she wouldn't trust herself to tell the truth if he asked for the name of that friend. Lily wondered if sometime in the future she'll be able to face the truth about Severus without feeling that sharp pain in her chest and tears pickling her eyes.
"Some friend you must have there." the man said in a cold, harsh voice, and while Lily looked him square in the eyes as he said this, she could feel the insides of her body squirming with unrest.
Mrs. Potter and the man rounded the corner of the rack to inspect the tray. Lily turned around to see the healer waving his wand, with golden wisps coming out of it, around Frank's forearm as if tying bandages.
"That should temporarily stop the curse from spreading. We need to take him to St. Mungo's right away."
"We have urgent business to attend to at the Ministry, you should go ahead with Frank. We'll send his mother to St. Mungo's as soon as we reach the Ministry." said Mrs. Potter.
"Very well then." said the healer, as he levitated Frank's body towards the exit.
"Who found Frank?" asked Mrs. Potter.
"We all did." Sirius replied.
"Very well. You three will have to come to the Ministry with us. We've to take your statements." the strange man stated. Up until now Lily hadn't noticed that the guy had an accent. Much like Liam. Realisation hit her as they moved upstairs and light hit everyone's faces. Lily looked at the guy with the American accent, who was walking right in front of her. He had the same dark brown hair as Liam, almost the same body built, save for the paunch that middle aged men develop, however he seemed fit for his age, and was sharply dressed. As they reached the iron gate, Mrs Potter stopped them all.
"Wait here, I'll inform the rest of the kids. We'll leave then." she said. Everyone nodded as she disappeared behind the door after having said the password.
"Are you Liam's father?" asked Lily, before she could control herself. She received a nod in response to her question. He isn't much of a talker, quite unlike his son.
About after a minute of waiting, Mrs. Potter appeared and everyone shuffled towards the exit. As soon as they were out, they apparated to the Ministry. Lily had never been to the Ministry. As soon as they landed, Lily's eyes were quickly moving from one thing to the other, trying to memorise everything in just one go. She occasionally slowed down to read something and would often get bumped by people around her, who for some reasons seemed to be in a hurry. Lily had never been around so many witches and wizards who were running around with a purpose. The only gatherings of wizards she had attended were either parties or Hogwarts. She had for some reason assumed that wizards always walk around as if they have all the time in the world. She realised she hadn't even been to Gringotts. Alice or Marlene would always get her muggle currency exchanged because the only time she had been there before starting her first year, she hadn't understood a word the goblin had said, neither did her dad know how to deal with magic people. The event had scarred her with that angry goblin shouting something about ignorance and lack of respect. As they reached the level of Department of Magical Law Enforcement, Lily noticed that there was much less hustle bustle here than the entrance.
"I remember it being a lot different than it looks now." remarked James.
"Come on, we need to get your statements. One by one. We'll start with you Miss Evans, then Mr. Potter and then Mr. Black." stated Mr. Bolte, in a very business like tone. As they reached a waiting area, Mr. Bolte pointed Lily towards a door.
"You'll find a junior Auror in there. He'll take your statement." he informed her. His very voice made Lily nervous. She nodded quietly and walked towards the door.
"She's been in there way too long!" said James, huffing in frustration.
"Calm down mate. You know she could explain things to no end." said Sirius in a bored voice.
"Did you see how that jerk was talking to her?" asked James referring to Bolte.
"Yeah, and his son is just a verbose counterpart of that jerk." remarked Sirius, wondering what Marlene and Liam must be doing right now.
"Do you think it was Snape who told her about the cursed objects?" asked James
"Do you think it could be Marlene or Alice? Of course it was that slimy git. If I didn't know better, I'd say he was the one to plant that tray to curse you or me." scoffed Sirius.
James shook his legs anxiously. Reason told him it had only been fifteen minutes. But he couldn't relax for the life of him. Being here in the Ministry, in his dad's department, his worry for Lily was more or less an escape from thinking about, the time when he was fourteen and had first visited the Ministry and how normal things were back then. There had been so many people around in the same level where he was waiting. The place was crawling with people. The department had been delighted to meet the young Mr. Potter. He had sneaked chocolate frogs from the desk of an intern of the department because he was really mean. He remembered that intern had said something about nepotism and crown prince. He wondered if he got a job in the Ministry.
At that moment the door opened and Lily stepped out, followed by a tall, blond guy, whom James recognised almost immediately, as anger boiled inside of him. It was the same intern that James had met back when he had visited the Ministry. He was standing too close to Lily. Lily on the other hand was trying to move away from his towering figure, uncomfortably.
"If there's any proble-" the guy was cut off as he noticed someone striding towards Lily and him.
"Well if it isn't your boyfriend Miss Evans." the junior Auror remarked, lazily looking at a fuming James.
"He's not my boyfriend." Lily corrected him quickly
"You gotta do better than wear his jersey screaming Potter's girl, if you want to really keep it a secret."
"I'm sorry to interrupt your pathetic attempts at flirting. If you're quite done I hope you'd be able to take out some time for the Ministry business, if it's not too much trouble to ask." James replied trying to control his anger.
"Ah, of course, the son of the Head of the Department. Very impressive. Suits you. I must say I never thought I'd say this but puberty sure was kind to you. And of course you scored yourself pretty chic." the junior Auror flashed Lily a toothy grin. James gripped his wand tight, and glanced at Lily, and saw her looking at him nervously, lightly shaking her head, urging him to not create a scene. He hadn't noticed up until now, but Sirius had been standing behind him. James did realise the consequences. His mother works in a different department, all the senior Aurors of this department had left to take care of the current situation leaving the only figure of authority here this smug junior Auror or at best the Bolte guy. James realised if he'd punch the Junior auror, it'll only prove his point about James being a spoiled pureblood, everything happening at his behest. He decided he wasn't ready to give this guy the satisfaction.
"And I'm sorry that you never had the pleasure to meet puberty." said James, with a straight face, as he moved between Lily and the auror to enter the room. On entering the room his eyes fell on the name plate kept on the table. Mr. Francis Kane, Junior Auror. He sat down and soon was joined by Francis. James relayed the incidents starting from when they received the information regarding the abductions, up until when they found Frank's body and the arrival of his mother, Mr. Bolte and the healer. When he was done, Francis repeated whatever he had written down, and asked James for his signature. James left before Francis could utter another word.
"Go ahead Pads, get this done with." said James, as he took the seat next to Lily that Sirius vacated.
"Yours was pretty quick." Lily remarked.
"What were you doing in there? What took you so long?" asked James curiously.
"He'd barely let me finish a sentence! He kept cross questioning me about everything I said. Didn't he do that to you?"
"No. I just told him what happened. They are only supposed to take your statements. If your statements don't concur with the main story, then you're called for questioning." explained James, "He probably just wanted to keep you in longer to irk me."
"How do you know him?"
"I came here when I was in the third year. He was an intern then. Spilled the same shit he said today. Pulled some nasty comments about things being easy for me because I was the HoD's son, stuff like that. I nicked all of his chocolate frogs later that day." said James with a mischievous smile.
"You really are a character." sighed Lily as she closed her eyes, gently resting her head on the wall behind her.
James looked over at her. She looked really pretty in his jersey. Her hair had come loose from her ponytail and there were still a hint of pink left on her lips from her lip gloss earlier today. Her brows furrowed just a little and he knew she was going to open her eyes. He quickly looked away. She did open her eyes and looked around.
"Was it Snape who told you about the cursed objects?" asked James, not looking at Lily.
"Yeah." said Lily, in a small voice.
James nodded quietly.
"What?" Lily asked, looking at him curiously.
"What what? I didn't say anything." defended James.
"Yeah, I noticed. It's quite uncharacteristic of you to do that."
"I just didn't want to prod you about it."
"We were asking each other riddles. Harmless riddles mind you. At least I was. Then he asked how one can kill a person without even coming in contact with them. He didn't even look sorry when I asked him how he knew." said Lily, looking down at here hands. James shifted in his seat, uncomfortably, not knowing how to respond to this. He wasn't sure if Lily wanted him to say something.
"People joke around with their friends all the time like this. If I had to kill Remus, I'll poison one of his chocolates. He loves them." said James trying to comfort her although he wasn't quite sure if people joked about killing other people, "You were probably the only friend he felt comfortable sharing that information."
"Please Potter, he had plenty of friends to joke about that stuff. That was all those friends of his did all the time. Joke about killing and torturing people. And even if you do joke about how you'll kill Remus, there's still that endearing factor you have, of you knowing how Remus loves chocolate and would eat a poisoned one too. Severus was amazed only by the very idea of being able to kill someone without being caught. I've been so blind!" said Lily, her hands over her forehead, her eyes closed, head back against the wall. James could tell by the look on her face she was struggling to decide if she should say more. She'd open her eyes, and then close them again.
"When I'd confront him about him hanging around with guys who whispered "mudblood" when I'd pass them, he would just say, "It doesn't matter, they're just some fanatics." or "You shouldn't be bothered with such bullies, you're top in class". He has always been so dismissive. Sometimes he just wouldn't say anything and would tell me to never talk to him again if that's the only thing I wanted to talk about. So I stopped asking." Lily paused, and then almost as an afterthought, she added, "I should've asked, could've saved myself a lot of pain and humiliation." she finished, as she let out a resigned sigh.
"But then you would've blamed yourself for having ruined a friendship of so many years over a personal issue. And if Snape had called you a, you know what, after you had broken off with him, you'd blame yourself even more thinking he may have developed that hate after your friendship got done with."
"Or I could've talked him out of it while we were still friends."
"Evans, you're one of the most convincing, kind hearted people I know, if you yourself being a muggle-born, couldn't even begin a conversation with Snape because he didn't want you to and on top of that used your friendship with him as leverage, then he was already lost to the other side. He was just stalling things." said James. This was perhaps the only thing he'd said all day that he was sure of and made any sense to him. He saw Lily as she contemplated what he had said. Her brows were ever so lightly knitted together and her lips were pursed. She nodded slightly.
"I guess, yeah." Lily replied.
James sat back as he heard her response. He was suddenly reminded of the time when in their second year Lily had been crying about something at 2am in the common room. He had asked her why was she crying but she just couldn't get the words out of her mouth because of the hiccups. James had put an arm around her shoulder and had told her "It'll be alright." over a hundred times until she had calmed down and said, "It'll never be alright." He still didn't know what it was all about. And Lily had never mentioned that night ever again. He wondered if she ever thought about that night. James thought about it almost every time he'd look at Lily being quiet.
Sirius took that moment to return to the two of them. He squished himself on the corner where James was sitting, pushing the latter into Lily's direction.
"You're getting fat, Pads."
"You're practically a cow." retorted Sirius, elbowing James in the ribs.
"I think we're done here." replied James as he stood up from his spot, "We should go find my mum."
"Yeah." Sirius nodded.
The three of them followed to the elevator. As soon the doors to the elevator opened, Fleamont followed by nearly twelve to thirteen other people walked out. James let out a surprise breath as he hugged his father, almost the second he saw him.
"Are you okay? Is everyone okay? Did anyone get hurt?" he fired the questions at his father.
"Sorry people, you guys go ahead, my son never really grew up after he was twelve years old. I still have to answer all his questions when I get back from work." said Fleamont, addressing the people standing behind him. James flushed at this. Lily and Sirius were standing close behind him.
"We're all good, nobody's hurt, except for Augusta's boy, we even got five death eaters in custody although two still managed to escape. If anything, this has been a good day as compared to the last five months." said Fleamont with a weak smile.
"Where's mum?" asked James.
"She has gone to get the other kids." replied Fleamont. James nodded.
"Can we go see Frank?" asked Lily from behind James.
"I'd suggest against it. He won't be conscious anytime soon, given his condition, and Augusta is in no shape to entertain anyone. It's been some day for her." said Fleamont, solemnly. Lily nodded.
"Is it safe to go home now?"
"Yeah it is. It's gonna be long long day, well whatever is left of the day. We might need to spend the night here too. There are five death eaters to question. Euphemia will get you all home. Until then let's wait for her in my office." said Fleamont.
The three of them nodded and followed Fleamont as he walked to his office. As they entered the office they saw Euphemia talking with Liam's father.
"There you kids are. We looked for you in the waiting room but you weren't there."
"We were coming to your office but ran into dad." replied James.
"Right, let's get everyone home. Lily, I'll drop you off first. Just tell me your address." said Euphemia, as she started walking towards the exit. James felt a little disheartened as Lily started walking towards the exit too, but his heart jumped when she turned around.
"Bye Potter, Black." said Lily.
"Bye, Evans" said Black.
"B- yeah, bye, bye." stuttered James, not at all expecting a parting farewell from Lily.
She turned around and left with his mother.
Later that day in, laying in his bed, James would replay that day's every event, a hundred times through his mind, unaware that Lily would also be doing the same especially when she finds a small note in the pocket of James's sweatpants. The note looked like it had been in the pocket while the pants were washed because the ink and the paper looked frayed. But Lily was quite sure she could make out a snitch drawn on it with the letter L.E. inscribed inside the snitch.
A/N: So sorry for the late update but my WiFi had been a bit scratchy lately. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this chapter. Thanks for reading!