Title: Learning the Basics

Summary: Lily Evans is a nursery teacher. James Potter is a police officer with a five-year old son. When James finds himself wrapped in a case, Lily finds herself falling for a certain someone, and looking after his son much more often. AU.

Shout-outs: Thanks to 'megi-pegi', 'HogwartsDwarfKat', 'Pizziagirl', 'Overlordred', 'Lollypops101', 'Manoella Nascimento', 'bow down to me peasants', 'angelazzarello94', 'Lighty1172', 'Kzqueen', 'constantly contradictory', 'Books are air', 'Emskie Potter', 'May Waters', 'deant33', 'SilentFlame13' and 'CeCexoxo' for reviewing the last chapter.

Notes: Okay, so June 17th is here, I've just finished my final exam and I am now able to focus on writing more so than usual. I'm not going to promise a consistent update scheme, because I'm not very consistent, but I've got the next few chapters planned out in my head, so I'm ready to write it all. Hope you like the length of this chapter and it's content. Don't hesitate to review!

Later, Mint~

Chapter Ten

Half way across the city, Lily had no idea that someone had been murdered. The wind outside was harsh, and rain had started to patter on the pavement, but the redhead didn't really find herself strolling from The Leaky Cauldron to her car.

Her hair was damp, as were her clothes, by the time she shuffled into the driver's seat. Searching her bag for her car keys – she'd had them just a few seconds ago, where had they gone? – She let out a small growl.

Then, Lily noticed the car behind her.

It was a fiat. Black, four wheeled – most likely a manual car like most others in England. It was such a normal occurrence to see such a car that usually Lily would have simply overlooked it. The number plate was what caused a feeling of unease.

She'd seen that number plate before.

Actually, she'd seen it a lot recently. It was always around the nursery – and around her neighbourhood as well. Shivering, Lily slowly zipped back up her bag, opening her car door.

Her car keys – they'd been in her coat pocket apparently - were quickly used to lock her car once again. Walking briskly back to the café, Lily listened to everything around her. Maybe she was paranoid, but she knew that number plate and frankly that scared her.

Marlene looked up when the door opened. Marlene's brown eyes were suddenly clouded with worry and despite her paranoid feeling Lily couldn't help but feel slightly guilty about worrying her friend.

"Lils, what's wrong?" Said friend asked, jumping over the counter and walking up to the redhead. Taking hold of her right hand, Marlene dragged Lily over to table, urging her to sit down. "What happened?"

Lily smiled – trying to ease her friend's worrying. "My car," she said, once she'd sat down. "It won't start, I think the battery's run out – I must have left one of the lights on before coming in."

Marlene laughed slightly, buying the lie. "Oh that's fine Lils, once I finish my shift, I'll drive you back, yeah?"

Lily nodded, though as soon as the brunette stood up to continue her work, she couldn't help but feel slightly unsettled.

Hogwarts Academy was James' main area of interest when he showed up at work the following morning. He'd shown up early, at six AM, with a sleeping Harry in his arms, for his briefing. After the previous night's activity James didn't really want to leave his son alone for very long.

It was very much the same feeling that James had felt after Harry's mother had died.

After leaving Harry under the protection of one of the constables, James headed over to his briefing. Briefings were normally set for ten o'clock, but due to the severity of the murders, Moody had set it for six o'clock.

Many of the other officers on the case were sat, grumbling under their breath, with dark bags under their eyes. They'd been at the crime scene until only a few hours ago investigating the scene, looking for potential witnesses, and making sure the scene didn't gain any trespassers or reporters.

Moody opened the briefing, adding small bits that he had learnt himself, before calling upon James to add the information that he'd learnt. After his discovery about scholarship students, James had been given the status of head detective on the scene.

"Morning guys," James spoke, mostly out of habit as he looked at everyone around him. Quickly, he set up a slideshow that he'd made before leaving home on the computer, before turning around.

The first slide that was projected on the wall around him was a picture of Hogwarts academy from the outside. James waited a few seconds so that everyone could focus back onto him from the picture before starting his brief.

"Hogwarts Academy, as we all know, is the academy where Myrtle Harris attended before her murder. She was also, found dead in one of the academy's fields, which has since been blocked off since her body was found."

James clicked a button and the picture of Hogwarts changed to a picture of Myrtle, dead at the scene. He continued with his brief,

"As we all probably know from the briefing that Moody gave us all on Myrtle a few days ago, she was an esteemed girl, with good grades and a scholarship student. We didn't know of any links as to why such a girl would be murdered."

James clicked the button again and the picture changed to the picture of Dorcas' crime scene. Sirius, who was sat in the front row, flinched at the picture. James didn't.

"This," James said, gesturing with his hand at the photo, "is Dorcas Meadows. She is the second victim by the Mud-Blood killer, and was murdered yesterday night. Like Myrtle, she had a slit in either hand that had been dirtied with blood. She was also, a scholarship student once at Hogwarts."

The officers in the briefing paused for a moment, before one of them raised a hand. James nodded at the woman, allowing her to ask her question.

"The killer is killing off girls, who were, or are, scholarship students at Hogwarts?"

James nodded, clicking his button once more to show some statistics. Now that people understood the link that he had made, James decided to go into more facts that would help the case progress.

"Every year, two new scholarship students enter Hogwarts. They normally require a score of 95% or higher on all of the admissions tests in order to gain scholarship status." The officers in the room were watching James so seriously that he had to pause for a moment to regain his thought track.

"Out of those two scholarship students only one is female. So that halves our amount of scholarship students that we have as potential victims. The list of scholarship students kept at Hogwarts shows the twenty previous women, and men to have attended."

Sirius looked like he wanted to ask something on the subject, but James ignored him.

"We have a list of twenty scholarship students, and taking out the two victims who have already been murdered that leaves us with eighteen." Running a hand through his hair, James pressed another button, changing the screen to the list of female scholarship students that he had been emailed by the headmaster of Hogwarts. He had crossed out Dorcas and Myrtle's names.

"Out of the eighteen surviving women, seven now live overseas so they are not classed as in danger from the killer. Three other scholarship students don't live in London or in a thirty mile radius so they aren't based as high priority."

Moody looked at James in a manner that told the detective that he should hurry up and get to his point. James nodded in response.

"That leaves us with eight female scholarship students who are classed as high priority and need protecting. Four of the scholarship students still attend Hogwarts, and so, I suggest that we have eight officers at Hogwarts at all times, making sure that the four children are kept safe."

James paused for a moment as Moody gave orders as to who would make up the team of eight officers going to Hogwarts. Then, he continued.

"Then, the remaining four scholarship students who have graduated will have several detectives and officers around them every day. I was thinking about sending some people undercover."

Moody waited a few moments for James to continue, as did the few remaining officers who had not been assigned to the Hogwarts team. James hadn't spoken this idea out to his commanding officer yet – Moody was as new to the idea as the other officers.

"Uh," James continued, "Yes – I believe that we should send four to eight detectives or officers undercover, to protect the four potential victims. Many of us officers have different qualifications that we have gained before joining the force. We can use them to protect the four women at their work placements."

Moody perked slightly at this idea. "Two officers or detectives per graduate. Potter, as head detective, you'll have to oversee all of the other detectives when they give their reports to you. Other than that, you'll go undercover as well, understood?"

James nodded, taking his seat down next to Sirius. Sirius nudged him slightly, nodding his agreement at his friend's suggestion. For a moment, James wondered whether they'd be partnered together or not.

"Potter," Moody called James out of his thoughts, "you'll be assigned to protecting Miss Lily Evans. She's a nursery teacher, and you took a course in teaching when you were part of the cadets did you not?"

James nodded. "Yes sir. And I gained some extra training about teaching in military school."

Sirius breathed in deeply, but didn't say anything. Instead he looked at Moody for his own orders. The commanding officer turned to look at Sirius with a few seconds.

"Detective Black," he spoke, looking at Sirius. "You've got quite a good understanding about medicine don't you? You've got many different first aid qualifications and diplomas, yes?"

Sirius inclined his head, nodding slightly. He'd gotten the qualifications in attempt to try and help Remus when he got ill – despite all of the qualifications however, any medical training was hard to use on someone who's illness hadn't been diagnosed properly yet.

"Good," Moody said, crossing his arms. "They've needed a new medical nurse at Kings Cross nursery anyway, and you'll fit the criteria with all of those qualifications. You'll play the part of protecting Lily Evans as well, though you'll do it more from afar I suppose."

James wanted to say that he already knew Lily Evans – and that Sirius did too – but he didn't speak up. He supposed that working undercover would be nice though, especially if he got to work near Harry. Hopefully, that would help cure his worries about his son throughout the day.

Within a few moments, all of the officers and detectives who had been assigned as part of the protection cartel were let out of the briefing room. James collected Harry from his colleague, before carrying him out to the car. Sirius followed after him.

"Are we going home to get changed out of our uniforms?" Sirius asked quietly, when they'd placed Harry in the back of the car. The two sat down in the car.

James nodded, smiling slightly. "Civilian clothes for work – sounds strange."

As James turned the keys in the car ignition, Sirius looked over at him again. He had a thoughtful expression on his face.

"How exactly is Moody going to get us working at Kings Cross Nursery by today? Seems a little last minute if you ask me," Sirius said. His voice was bland. James looked up at him after he'd pulled out of the police station.

"I don't know really Padfoot…" he muttered, "but Moody's our commanding officer isn't he? Just trust him to do his part of the investigation, and he'll trust us to do ours."

James looked at the time on his clock – 6:52.

In less than an hour and a half, he'd be undercover as the newest nursery teacher.