Disclaimer: I'm not J.K. Rowling. I wish I were, because then I'd be very clever, and let's face it, very wealthy. Harry Potter and all related characters/places/ideas belong to her and she has generously shared them with Warner Brothers, Scholastic, etc. I'm none of these entities. I don't own any of this.

(Edited 7/26/04 for formatting)

 
Chapter 1- Another Monday

In the ten minutes since she had arrived at the office Lily Potter had done nothing but stare in abject horror at the dangerously tipping stack of papers obscuring what had been her "in" box. It was too intimidating to even begin sorting through, and she briefly imagined quitting her job then and there, just getting up and walking out. Of course that urge passed as it generally did, since she actually quite liked her job. She just hadn't realized before she actually started working for the Ministry that being an Auror involved so much paperwork. All the forms to fill out, reports and memos to read. Everything they did had to be documented again and again so it could be used in a trial, if they were lucky enough to bring in Death Eaters alive and put them where they belonged, in Azkaban. Normally a very organized person, it put Lily on edge to see the mess. I was on holiday a week and I come back to this, she thought irritably. I hate Mondays.

With a resolute sigh, she twisted her long red hair up into a clip away from her face and attacked the pile. She separated it into three piles first- things that she should do right away, and things she could put off a little while until she caught up, and things she could throw away without anyone being the wiser. Less punctual people than Lily were arriving now, all in typical bad Monday morning moods; some muttering hello, some asking how her holiday had been and complimenting her tanned and rested look a little enviously, some not even seeing her as they were still reading The Daily Prophet as they walked. She wondered where James was.

"Oi, Lily!"

She glanced up in annoyance and then broke into a smile at the tall, thin, red-haired man who was standing in front of her desk. He had some sort of vibrating, rapidly whirling metal object in his hand but didn't seem concerned by it. Instead, he grinned at her.

"Have a nice holiday?"

"Well, it was only a week. Though from all this you'd think I'd taken three months." She gestured helplessly to the jumble of paper. "But I heard! You and Molly! Twins! That's brilliant Arthur! Congratulations!"

His ears went slightly red. "Well, thanks. Yeah, they're a handful already. We've been up at all hours." He looked very pleased nonetheless. The newborn twins made five Weasley children, Lily was pretty sure their oldest was almost ready to start Hogwart's.

"Well, if you ever need someone to baby-sit-"

"Be careful Lil, we might take you up on that-"

"-James would be glad to lend a hand." She finished. Arthur chuckled. "What's that you've got there?" She added, gesturing to the wildly spinning thing in his hand.

"Oh, well, I was hoping you could tell me."

Arthur Weasley worked in the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts Office. Though he was a pureblood wizard from an old family, his interest in muggles, really more of an obsession, was well known in the Ministry. But you wouldn't find anyone more enthusiastic about muggle inventions, or anyone who lobbied more adamantly for their decent treatment, and for this alone Lily liked him immensely. He knew she had grown up in a muggle household and so he came to her when an object came across his desk that he couldn't identify, or sometimes just to pick her brain on subjects like toasters and washing machines. Now he held up the spinning thing helplessly. Lily thought it looked like…if it would only hold still a moment..

"Oh Dear. It's a corkscrew Arthur. Muggles use them to open bottles. You know, to take the corks out. But it's not supposed to be spinning like that."

"It's not? I wondered about that. Must have had a spinning charm on it. How childish, really."

Lily nodded sympathetically. She'd felt her share of prejudice because of her family and she'd learned to ignore it. It didn't have anything to do with talent obviously, she'd been at the top of her class at school and one of the top students in Auror training. It didn't matter to the people she cared about, and so it didn't matter to her…most of the time.

"Well, guess I'd better go deal with this. Good luck at getting through all that. You'll have to come by and see the twins soon. I'll be sure to ask James about that babysitting." He winked at her and left.

Slightly cheered, Lily went back to her work. I still hate Mondays.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

"Potter, I need a word."

James Potter moved his feet off his desk quickly at the sound of his boss' voice. He turned and saw that Crouch looked grave, even more so than usual, and he wasn't generally cheerful. James was reminded rather uncomfortably of his teachers' expressions when he'd gotten in trouble back at school, and wondered if he had done something wrong. Absurdly, he considered for a moment if the Ministry of Magic gave out detentions, but then Crouch said "Longbottom, Prewett, you too."

James caught Frank's eye with a questioning look, and Frank shrugged slightly. Gideon looked as mystified as the other two as they followed Crouch into his office and he shut the door a little more forcibly than necessary. The three men stood nervously, unsure what to do. Bartemius Crouch was the head of Magical Law Enforcement, an important and well- respected man, and they were very young and very junior in the Department. As Crouch faced them James couldn't help but noticed he looked a little, well, crazed. He was normally impeccable, with perfectly pressed robes and neatly combed hair, but today he looked decidedly rumpled.

"There was an attack last night." He said without preamble, pointing to several pictures on his desk, crime scene photos. James looked at the top one, a normal house, except for the bizarre apparition floating in the sky above it. A vast skull made up of glittering green stars with a serpent snaking from its mouth. James gave an involuntary shudder, the Dark Mark.

"Wait a minute." Said Frank behind him. "That house...isn't it...isn't that Miller's house?"

Startling them all, Crouch snatched up all the pictures, throwing them back onto the desk one by one. "Miller...Barnes...Rob and Juliet Mason...Downing...and the Kelly boys." Five houses, each one with the dark mark glittering menacingly in the sky over it. "Paul and Alec Kelly fought them off, took down two of them as well, but the others were all taken."

"Taken?" Gideon repeated. "You mean they're not-"

"Dead?" Crouch finished bluntly. "No, they were taken alive as far as we know. Don't you see that's worse? They can give information, they can compromise everything, all of our plans."

What plans, thought James cynically. So far he had found the lack of organization in the Ministry to be a great frustration.

"They wouldn't-" Gideon began.

"Oh don't be ridiculous Prewett, don't you think You-Know-Who can make them talk? He'll use veritaserum, or torture more likely, that's his style."

"How come we didn't know? I mean, how come it's not the first page of the Daily Prophet?" Frank spoke up. "An attack like this? On Aurors?"

"That's exactly it Longbottom. An attack like this, on Aurors. People would panic, more than they already have. It would be chaos, and so we're keeping it quiet. It hasn't left this office, and it won't." He glanced at each of them in turn as he said that, and then added "That includes wives, or brothers."

"But if they're still alive." James pressed, getting back to what he thought was the important point. "Then we can still rescue them, alive. Do we know where he's taken them?"

"We have an idea. We've had two trackers working on it all night. Accio Map." A rolled up map flew over and spread itself out on the desk. "It seems he's taken Barnes here, a village in Surrey. About a mile outside the town there's an old wizarding house, deserted for centuries, but we think he's taken Barnes there. Maybe the others as well, it's as a good a place as any to start."

"Well, what are we standing around here for?" Said Gideon, drawing his wand.

"No, not right now Prewett. Tonight, when it's dark. I want the three of you to Apparate here, near the edge of the village. It's an entirely muggle village now, so take care you're not seen. Alastor Moody will meet you there, he's prowling around to see what he can find out in the meantime. And remember, tell no one."

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

"That had to be the longest day of my life. I'll have to go back and fetch Lily in a bit or she'll stay all night" James Potter groaned as he Apparated into his own kitchen with his best friend. He slung his bag down on the table and collapsed into a chair, running a hand though his hair. It was such habit he didn't realize he did it. It made no difference to his hair, which stood up in all directions no matter what you did to it. It often made him appear younger than he actually was, which sometimes worked to his advantage. People underestimated him, and James Potter was not a man to underestimate. His best friend, now rustling in cupboards for something to eat, was exactly the opposite in that respect. Sirius Black looked dangerous, in a way most women seemed to find irresistibly sexy. He was the classic "tall, dark and handsome" and knew it. Women fell over themselves to date him, and he seemed to feel it his duty to accommodate as many of them as possible.

"Right mate." He said from inside a cupboard. "Your first day back after a week of the beach. You poor little dear, how do you ever manage? My heart bleeds for you. While you were slaving away last week lying on a beach, the rest of us were…what was it again...oh yes, working."

"What are you looking for?" James ignored the sarcasm., it was how they showed affection.

"Food."

"Don't you have food at your house?"

"Unlikely."

James and Lily's new house in Godric's Hollow was a natural gathering place for all their friends. Away from the rush of London, a warm, comfortable house. A house for a family, James thought, but in the meantime, everyone seemed to prefer it to their own places. And James didn't really mind. He liked the people coming and going. And since it was so common to have people gather there, he was slightly startled, but not shocked, when he entered the living room and found a young woman seated on the couch with a book in one hand and a bottle of butterbeer in the other. Her dark eyes barely flicked up from the book when he entered.

"McCarrick, don't you have a house?" Said Sirius, coming in the room behind him.

"Neighbors." She replied vaguely, not looking up, apparently thinking this explained it all. From their raised eyebrows she noticed it did not.

"My neighbors." Morgan McCarrick clarified precisely, tossing back her waist length dark hair. It was arguably her best feature, and certainly the one she was the most vain about. "If I didn't know they were muggles I'd swear they were using voice amplifying charms. They're too loud, I couldn't concentrate, and I need to concentrate." She held up the book The Unforgivable Curses- Theory and Defense. Morgan had graduated two years behind the others from Hogwarts, so she was just starting her second year of Auror training, nearly finished as the usual programme had been accelerated due to the need. Despite the two years age difference, she had always been in their social circle, as she had also been in Gryffindor House and she was Sirius's cousin. Despite the way they generally acted, they were quite close. They had both fallen out with their larger family, and it was to Sirius that Morgan had gone when she had started inexplicably refusing to go home for school holidays. They had the same sense of humor, and the same hot temper, so they tended to play off each other and either ended up cackling maniacally or coming to blows. Tonight he seemed inclined to bait her.

"Yes McCarrick, you look quite overwhelmed."

She didn't seem to take the bait, but closed the book with a snap and smiled at him a little too sweetly. "Well then I'll get out of your way luv, I have plans for dinner anyway."

"A date?" He said sharply. "With who?"

"It's not a date, I said dinner. And with who is none of your business."

James saw her game immediately. She hadn't taken his jab because she had something to make him far more angry.

"It's Evan Marakiv, isn't it?"

"So what if it is?"

"I don't want you seeing him Morgan! He's a Slytherin!"

"Oh grow up Sirius! We're not in school anymore!"

"That doesn't mean he's not a git anymore! He's only interested in one thing, you do realize that, don't you?"

"Just because you have the intellectual depth of a puddle doesn't mean we all do, dear cousin."

"You don't know what you're getting into Morgan!" They were face to face now, shouting at each other.

"And you're not my father!" She yelled back, and then in swish of scarlet robes, she disapparated.

There was a loud silence while Sirius stood there, teeth clenched and his hands balled into fists. Finally someone spoke quietly from the doorway behind them.

"What did you say to her this time?" Lily asked tiredly.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

"Morgan isn't a child anymore, Sirius needs to stop treating her like one." Lily explained after Sirius had gone, still muttering about Slytherins and spoiled Scottish cousins. She was moving around the kitchen, setting things out for dinner. James didn't answer, he seemed to be distracted by something. A quidditch magazine was open on the table in front of him, but he wasn't even looking at it, he kept glancing at his watch. Finally, Lily stopped and said sharply "James!" He looked up. "Am I keeping you from something?"

"Huh?"

"Well, you're not listening to a word I'm saying, you're staring off into space, except when you're checking the time every five seconds. What's bothering you tonight?"

"Oh, nothing, it's just, I have to go out for a little while tonight, to meet Frank, for...a thing." He knew Lily liked Frank and he hoped that might distract her from the fact that he had pointedly not said where he was going. He hated keeping anything from her, he had no secrets from his wife. He felt almost sick with nerves and he wished he could at least talk to her, to share some of the weight that seemed to have settled on his shoulders since he had learned about the attacks. But on the other hand, he was glad she couldn't know. Because as much as he knew she was capable, brilliant even, this was the most dangerous thing either of them had encountered so far and he wanted to be able to keep her safe. His wife was the center of his universe, he couldn't live if anything happened to her.

"James!" She said again. He was now getting the "impatient, hands on hips" pose. "James, I asked you where you and Frank were going."

"Oh, well, its..." He tried to think an adequate lie, but he couldn't do it, her couldn't lie right to her face about something important. "It's just something I have to do Lily. I can't tell you. I want to but I can't, and that's the truth. Can you please trust me?"

Lily lost the impatient and irritated look immediately, and it became one of concern. "I do trust you James. Always." She took both of his hands in hers. "But there is nothing you can't tell me. If something is bothering you I want to help. Tell me."

"Crouch said-"

"Crouch is archaic and sexist James. Maybe that comes from the fact that his wife swoons if she has to so much as lace her own shoes, but I'm not going to be shut out."

He looked up at her, at her serious expression, into her eyes, and he told her. About the attacks, and what they planned to do that night. She listened without interruption. When he had finished, she nodded. "Well, I'm going with you of course."

"Lily no! You can't!"

"James, I know you're trying to protect me, but that's not what I want. I hate that we have to do these things, I hate that we have to live in dangerous times, but if we're in this, then we're in this together. If you jump, I jump, it's that simple. I won't sit here and worry about you, wondering if you'll come back, not when I can do something to help. I'm as fully qualified as you are." She turned and picked up her wand where it was lying on the table. "Are you going to try and stop me?"

He stared, and then slowly shook his head. "I wouldn't dare."