Lily heard the scrabbling and chaos erupting around her and felt an adrenalin rush. She pointed her wand to her throat and was within moment standing on top of her desk, looking out over the low walls of her cubical at every excited, scared, and confused face. Her voice boomed unnaturally with the force of the charm on her throat and the movement in the cramped room ceased.
“Everyone!” Every eye fell on her. “Please stay calm as I debrief you on this lead,” A bead of sweat rolled down her brow, feeling every gaze as if it were a hot spotlight. “His name is Grenigal Garson, and until recently, his killings appeared completely random. We have just cracked the code. He’s only killing boys born in the month of July-” chatter immediately broke out again, much more urgent than before. Several aurors had turned slightly pale.
“My son’s birthday-”
“-reckon I still qualify as a boy?”
“What’s he got against July?”
“That sexist son of a-”
They all spoke over each other, and Lily whispered a short incantation under her breath. The strange vibrations in her throat died away, and she climbed off her desk, joining her colleagues in the walkway between cubicles.
“People, people!” rang a loud voice above the chatter. Everyone turned to see the new speaker. Lily felt a twinge of surprise for the second time that day. Sirius Black stood on a desk now, glancing around at the now mostly quiet sea of faces before him. Black worked there too? Lily shook her head, a smile curving her mouth. Of course he did. James and Sirius had been attached at the hip at Hogwarts, apparently that hadn’t changed.
“I think we should tell the public so they can protect their kids-”
“But then Gengal or whatever will know we know!” shouted a woman. The crowd nodded and murmured in agreement.
“That doesn’t matter- we just have to keep everyone safe!” About fifty people appeared to be trying to answer him at once, with no success.
“It’s your call, Rufus!” A voice rang out. A second man detached himself from the crowd and stood on a desk. Rufus Scrimgeour. Lily could see Sirius scowling.
“I believe that Mrs. Beyer is correct, we shouldn’t release this to the public, lest we start a full on invasion. We must keep this to ourselves for the time being. That leaves more time to think of any alternative courses of action,” Concurrence swept through the crowd as the speech ended. Lily eyes Sirius, who shrugged to himself, looking reluctant.
“Alright, I want everyone looking over their own assignments, looking for similar patterns. Report any finds to me,” Scrimgeour finished, and the crowd sprang into action. With every passing moment the excitement in the room seemed to intensify as people scrutinized their notes.
“How’d you find it?” Alice asked from her perch on Lily’s desk a few minutes later. Lily looked at her, hiding a proud smile.
“You had everything I needed, Alice. Malfoy was doing the same thing, except it was all documented separately, which is probably why you never realized,” Alice gave a sheepish grin as Lily’s elation soared- they might finally have a solid lead on the man that had been keeping her up past two in the morning for the last month. “So I checked up on all of Garson’s victims, and found the same,” Alice was now watching Lily with knowing eyes.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you this happy! First James, now this…” At the mention of his name, Lily sobered. In all the rush, she’d forgotten completely about her weak plan. She cleared her throat in a tentatively, her smile becoming a grimace.
“Yes, about that-,”
“Oh, you don’t have to explain anything to me, Lily. I could feel it,” Lily looked away from Alice’s cheerful face while her heart pumped wildly.
“F-feel what?” Her voice was rather shrill, she noticed with an internal wince. Alice rolled her eyes and giggled. Lily could feel herself go from pale to beet red in a mater of seconds.
“Love,” she answered wistfully. There was a long pause in which Lily regained her voice.
“No, Alice, I-,” an exasperated look from her new friend silenced Lily mid sentence. She hung her head in defeat. “It was a long time ago… I broke it off,”
“Why?” The bluntness and simplicity of the question stunned Lily, it seemed almost harsh. The instinct to lie was suppressed. Lily wanted to talk to Alice about this.
“My parents…” she began feebly. ‘The plan’ would never work. She had never confided in anyone about that day in seventh year, but if she was going to, she owed it to mum and dad to do it right. Lily had to admit to herself that her feeling for James had never gone away. “They were murdered. Three years ago, about a month after James and I got together.” Having instantly realized that this went much deeper than just her relationship with James, Alice’s eyes widened and she adjusted her seat on Lily’s desk. Anger sizzled in Lily. “They were muggles, Alice! Innocent muggles… After that, I didn’t want to be close to anyone, least of all James, because he mattered so much to me. Alice,” Lily paused, looking up into Alice’s eyes, “He still does. But I don’t know If I’m ready for him again,” Lily’s eyes had drifted to Garson’s cheery picture. She felt a warm hand on her shoulder and tears stung behind her eyes.
“Why didn’t you tell me all this before?” Uh-oh, here it came. Lily sniffed and wiped her glistening eyes.
“I had this, this stupid plan,” she replied, laughing a little as she thought over it once more. “I didn’t want to get close to you or James, so I thought I’d try to get the two of you together. Needless to say, it never would have worked,” Alice had started shaking in silent mirth halfway through Lily’s explanation.
“No, my heart beats for another,” she said slyly, winking at Lily’s astonished face and walking out of the cubicle.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
James ran a hand through his hair for the umpteenth time that evening. The phrase ‘old habits die hard’ was taking on a whole new meaning to him.
Sirius was pacing restlessly across the expanse of the small cubicle, mumbling to himself absentmindedly.
“This is a bad idea, I can feel it,” he informed James, his eyes lifting in time to see another hair ruffle. “Stop that! You’re doing nothing to ease my nerves!” He swatted James’ hand from his hair and continued to pace.
“Neither are you! You’ll wear a whole through the floor at the rate you’re going,” James snapped as his fingers began to drum the surface of his desk anxiously.
Ignoring him, Sirius lengthened his stride. “Wonder how Evans found it out…” James felt the same way. He shrugged- a jerky, swift movement.
“Scrimgeour is making a mistake,” Sirius alleged, perhaps louder than necessary. Quieter, as if his words were only meant for James this time, he murmured, “It’s not the first.”
“No, it hardly is,” James agreed, finally taking out and searching through his notes in resignation. He already knew that Lily’s observations were true for his man, too. “I just don’t see how I missed this,” he lamented to the taller man, who still strode from one side of the cubicle to the other. “I mean, I looked at physical characteristics, age, broke down names, counted letters… But I never considered it would be as simple as birthdays…” he snorted, angry for some reason beyond him that Lily had beaten him to cracking the code.
“Whatever mate,” Sirius grumbled. “The point is, there’s a pattern. We know who’s at risk and we aren’t doing a thing about it.” With that, he strode out into the hallway, motioning for James to follow, who obeyed grudgingly. He had a good idea of where they were headed.
Sure enough, by the time he had caught up with Sirius’s long strides, they stood before the wooden doors to Rufus Scrimgeour’s office.
James gripped his friend’s arm before he could knock. Their eyes met and a pang of worry ran through James. “Don’t do anything stupid,” he whispered, letting go and stepping back.
Sirius eyed him and spat, “You should be telling him that.” He jerked his head toward the office that lay in front of them and swiftly rapped on the door, which creaked open an instant later.
The office was furnished with two comfortable-looking chairs before a dark polished desk at which Rufus Scrimgeour sat, beckoning them inside with a warm smile.
Sirius led the way and James carefully closed the door, then turned to gaze at one of the armchairs longingly but not daring to sit.
“To what do I owe the honor?” Scrimgeour asked, his mocking tone matching his eyes. It was obvious he though himself higher than them, having not even stood to greet them. No, he just sat there in his expensive robes, smugly eyeing them over.
Sirius had very little chance of being taken, well, seriously. He and James had not been ranking aurors for even six months, and Scrimgeour would be likely to view any disagreement on his decisions as a direct assault on his character. In this case, James thought as he looked over at Sirius, it probably was.
“You know why we’re here, Rufus,” Sirius sneered, his relation to all those dark wizards showing more prominently than ever before. James winced at the harshness of Sirius’s tone, suddenly wishing to be anywhere except that very office.
“Erm, actually-” James began in his defense, only to be cut off when Sirius stepped on his foot.
“Yes,” Scrimgeour said after a pause, allowing delight to flood his face. “You have no doubt come to parade your support for my actions earlier. Well, I’m sorry boys-,” Sirius began to tremble in what must have been fury at having been called a boy, “-but I’m afraid we are simply too busy for any of that. Perhaps after we have You-Know-Who in our custody,” He suggested, wearing a more-than-teasing grin. But James could see the spark that had ignited in his eyes upon the mention of catching Lord Voldemort.
“Busy, sir?” Sirius’s voice was surprisingly calm and collected. “Busy riffling through moldy old parchment for more clues? I was under the impression that Evans’ clue had told us enough,” he was now speaking with a tone that suggested he had found that he was mistaken and was begging to be set right. This was, of course, completely misleading.
“Oh-ho!” Scrimgeour guffawed, and leaned back in his chair. The tension in the room was suddenly broken at the unexpected outburst. “Surely you boys can understand why I have not taken action as of yet?”
A stunned pause met his words. Did Scrimgeour have some hidden motives? When neither James nor Sirius responded, Scrimgeour leaned forward again, placing his meaty hands on the desk. His eyes glittered with conspiracy and the mirth in his voice was gone.
“Do you two have any idea of the uproar this would cause?” he asked in low tone, turning his head slowly from James to Sirius. “A six-monther cracks the code in one day when we’ve had experts analyzing the case for months? Obviously this has a bit to say about our so called ‘experts’,” he growled. “Should the Ministry hear of this when the reputations of so many respectable wizards are on the line for an attempt at saving- what? One percent of our citizens? I ask you, Black,” he finished, tilting his unpleasant head away from them.
Sirius had seemingly recovered from the surprise at what was really at works. He set his jaw. “Yes, sir, the Ministry should hear of it. It’s not only ‘our’ citizens at risk, muggle boys have also-,”
Scrimgeour scoffed and turned away from the two apparently un-important men in front of him. “Don’t waste my time.”
A snarl grumbled in Sirius’s throat that he has the sense not to release. He turned and proceeded to tramp out of the no longer comfortable room.
Desperate to have contributed to the ‘conversation’, James hastened to the desk. “Sir, couldn’t we make everything public and just give credit to the experts?” Sirius paused halfway out the door to hear Scrimgeour’s response.
“I’m afraid it doesn’t work that way, Potter. Credit isn’t like galleons- you can’t spread it around however you wish,” he had taken out a large pair of spectacles and was proceeding to read the papers in front of him. “When it’s something this big, the minister’s office wants detailed logs of exactly how everything played out. Changing or tampering with logs is a felony.” James was indignant.
“Oh, so you’re just not going to tell them, and that isn’t a fe-,”
“Mr. Potter,” the older man said gently, making eye contact for the first time. “Do you value your career as an auror or not?”
James walked glumly back to his cubicle alongside Sirius, who was in a perpetually better mood.
“Bad luck, Prongs,” Sirius recited his favorite statement to James, grinning and swinging his arms largely as he strode. He looked like an oversized child. “I know how much you had your heart set on taking away Lily’s glory.”
“Yeah,” James admitted, allowing a smile to come to his own lips. “Don’t suppose Scrimgeour likes us much now.”
“Pity, too,” Sirius put on a mask of quiet remorse. “I really enjoyed his Christmas cards!” James chuckled as he recalled receiving a hideous picture of a porky toddler in a bow tie last year.
“So… Going to tell Rita Skeeter our little secret?” James asked, and, having reached his desk, began twiddling his thumbs.
“I’m currently weighing telling her now or waiting Friday… You know how many more people read over the weekend,” Sirius replied, a far-off look on his face.
“Everyone will hear about it either way,” James pointed out haughtily, watching as Sirius bent and scribbled a hasty memo and pulled out his wand.
“Right you are, Prongs.” He tapped the parchment and it folded itself into a paper airplane, zooming away. “So why deny ourselves the look on Scrimgeour’s face until Friday?”
Both men watched the flapping note proudly as a balding wizard held the heavy wooden doors of the ‘auror territory’ open for it.
“You’re planning on making that interview anonymous, right?” James cast a sidelong glance at his unpredictable friend.
“Haven’t decided,” he yawned and laughed at the look on James’ face.
Good is an Illusion by AFootyFan
Chapter Notes: Yeah, so, this one's the last chapter I have written, so it may be a while before I overcome my writer's block... Just a side note, if you've read Stephenie Meyer's books, Twilight and New Moon, I'm going to be posting a fic about that soon on FF.net. Please review, you guys were awesome for the last chapter!