A/N: This is a story that I co-wrote with the lovely Lils. It will go back and forth in point-of-view because I wrote for James and she wrote for Lily. Please R&R. If I see that people like the story I will add to it, and trust me, it gets better. :)

Lily was sitting in her office reading her newest case file. She had just been promoted. She now headed a Magical Law Enforcement Forensics team. Interestingly enough, she worked, many times, with James' auror buddies on cases, although never with James himself. Her eyes scanned the gruesome details. This one was horrible. But it was strange; there were no pictures of the body included. Great. She'd have to go to the morgue. A footnote at the bottom requested that she give Barrington, head of the Auror's offices, notice before she went to inspect the remains of the victim, so that he could send an auror over.

Lily sighed and tossed the file onto her desk, sipping at a cup of tea. She'd never been a coffee drinker. Getting up, she strode over to the small fireplace, bent down, and took a pinch of floo powder from the small bowl on the mantle. Tossing it in, she gave the hearth the head auror's office. In a momentary whirl of color, she was looking out of the man's fireplace.

"Barrington," she said loudly. The man sitting with his back to her jumped in surprise.

"Evans. Got the note in the case file, I see," he said in a gruff voice.

"Yeah, I got it," she said, rather disdainfully. "I'm headed down to the Morgue now. Just do me a favor; don't send me someone right out of training, will you? I was cleaning up vomit for an hour last time, and I didn't appreciate it."

Barrington laughed. Lily rolled her eyes and extricated herself from the fire. In a second, she was back in her own office. Sighing, she picked up the case file. Tucking it under her arm, she made to disapparate. This was going to be a long day.

James sat down at his desk and sighed. He probably would not get a chance to sit for very long and he took the opportunity to gulp down some coffee that his new assistant had left on his desk for him. Yawning, he stretched and thanked the fact that he had the caffeine from his coffee otherwise he knew he would be sleeping on his desk.

James's newly appointed assistant, Jack Schroeder, opened the door and stumbled in under a very heavy looking stack of papers.

"So many reports already?" James asked in a tired voice.

"Yessir, two more attacks in Wales, another in London, and a really nasty one just outside of Edinborough. By the way, Barrington left you a memo on top of this stack. He says it's urgent." Jack said nervously, setting the papers down on James's desk. Jack was only seventeen and fresh out of Hogwarts. Even though James was only nineteen, he could see the difference between himself and Jack, and sometimes it was frightening.

"Thanks, Jack. I'll get right on it." James replied picking up the memo from the top of the stack. Immediately after Jack had left, James found himself leaning into the fireplace and face-to-face with Barrington.

"James, good you got my memo. I was beginning to wonder if that assistant of yours was worth his minimum pay," Barrington grumbled.

James simply watched his boss, with a cold expression on his face. Barrington had a way of demeaning some of the newer recruits and James was not at all sure that he liked that.

Once Barrington saw that James was not going to respond he continued, "I need to move you to the case on the attack outside of Edinborough. You're to accompany a healer from St. Mungo's to the morgue to view the body. Then you will both work on trying to solve the case. Got it?"

"Yes sir," James replied, "I just hope it's not one of those Hufflepuff softies who's sweet all the time. Otherwise he won't be able to make any progress in a case like this."

Barrington gave a bark of laughter and looked much too amused for the situation in James's opinion, but he ignored this, saluted his boss and pulled his head out of the fireplace.

Once he was back in his office, he gathered a few essentials, grabbed his cloak throwing it over his uniform, and apparated, trying to brace himself for the worst.

Lily nearly fell over in shock when James apparated nearly on top of her. Regaining her balance, she stared at him.

"What are you doing here?" she asked, cocking her head to the side and giving him a quizzical look. "Don't you have work?"

"I could ask you the same question," James replied, returning her quizzical look with one of his own. "I'm suppose to be meeting a St..." he let his sentence fall away unfinished as he realized what was going on. No wonder Barrington had found the situation amusing.

A look of comprehension dawned on Lily's face. "Remind me to hex Barrington later," she grumbled, although she was secretly glad to have him here and not somewhere dangerous.

"Come on, follow me."

She began to walk briskly down the hall and took a left into a very large, white room, where she stopped just inside the doorway, opening her case file.

"Says here it took place outside of Edinborough, about five or six hours ago," she said, looking down the sheet in front of her again. "Nobody who arrived on scene was sure what curse had been used on the victim. Weird," she said, flipping through the pages. "No discription of the body. No pictures, nothing. Just a body number."

"Everyone around Auror headquarters is referring to his as "a nasty one"," James said. He was beginning to feel as though this case was going to be even more unpleasant than usual.

"Well, we're about to find out why." She pulled out her wand and raised it. "Body number 20804, please," she said, consulting her file.

A cool, ringing female voice responded in a rather mechanical tone.

"Body 20804. Location: Edinborough. Identity unknown."

"Correct," said Lily briskly. A large, flat table-drawer rolled out from the wall, twenty feet in front of them to their right. On it was a black body bag. Lily moved to the wall immediately to their left and drew out a medical mask and a pair of gloves. She put a pair on and then offered the same to James.

James accepted the proffered mask and gloves. After fitting the mask over his mouth and nose, he pulled the gloves over his hands. However, he could help but think that under no condition would he be handling this body. As strange and not in control of the situation it made him feel, Lily was the medical personnel assigned to this case, and poking and prodding the body was her job, not his. Once they had secured their masks and gloves James and Lily walked the twenty or so feet to the metal table that held the black body bag.

Lily slowly unzipped the bag and opened it. She let out a gasp of horror. The only thing remotely human about it was its outline. The rest might as well have been file of decomposing flesh. This was definitely the worst she had ever seen. The entire skeletal structure; every bone had been broken at least once. Wait, she shouldn't have been able to see the bones...

"Oh my god," she said quietly, taking a step back as a wave a nausea washed over her.

James turned his head away quickly, fighting the need to retch. He had seen bad cases before, but never one this grotesquely mutilated. "Goddamn fucking bastards," James muttered in anger, hatred, and disgust.

Lily scowled at her husband. "James, Potter, mind what comes out of your mouth!" she shot at him, frowning. Then, she steeled her stomach and took a closer look at the body. Her examinations all pointed to one terrible conclusion. "I know the spell that did this. And it was no accident."

"Of course it wasnt an accident," James replied irritably.

He chanced another look at the body and realized that all of the bones were broken. "Someone really hated this poor soul," he added, feeling a sudden pang of sympathy and...fear.

"Or just wanted them in as much pain as possible before they died," said Lily in disgust, "And they did a very good job of it, too. Definitely male, judging by height and build. Six foot, probably close to 150, maybe 160 pounds..." She suddenly grew rather quiet. "This is the only time I've ever seen the effects of this spell," she murmured, feeling queasy again. "They only ever mentioned it in the restricted section at Hogwarts. Not even auror training covers this one."

James swallowed hard. "So...what is this curse? What does it do? What type or skill of wizard is likely to know how to perform it?"

"It's the Corporeus Extrosa curse," said Lily, closing her eyes and taking a deep breath. The smell did nothing to make her feel any better. "It... it slowly turns the victim... inside out..."

James turned around and compulsively took several steps in the opposite direction. The smell that seemed to have permanently penetrated his nostrils and the thought of being turned inside out forced him to place all of his concentration on keeping his churning stomach from expelling its contents.

Lily shuddered. She closed the body bag and rolled the drawer shut with a snap. She took off her gloves and her mask and tossed them into a trash can. A small puff of smoke came from it as the contents was incinerated instantly.

"You'd better follow me back to my office. I want to keep this quiet. It'll cause a panic if anyone overhears," said Lily quietly to James as they stepped out of the morgue. She squeezed his hand. With a compressed feeling, they landed in her office a moment later. Lily sat down and put a shaking hand to her temples.

As soon as he felt his feet hit the floor in Lily's office, James set to pacing. A million questions were flying through his mind and he could not decide which ones to find the answers to first. The only wizard powerful or hateful enough to do this was Voldemort. So, what had the victim done and why was he important enough to be murdered personally by Voldemort?

James continued to pace, mulling all of these things over. They would need to bring in some choice wizards for interrogation.

"I'm going to have to disect the body in order to determine any kind of identity, but I can't promise anything. They body isn't holding up well, as you just saw. But even if I do manage to sort out the identity of the person, this has to stay low profile. The wizarding world would go into a state of panic, and we don't need any more of that right now," she said, looking up at him. She then looked down at her teacup. She really needed more tea. She tapped it with her wand and took a long draw from it.

James nodded and stood still for the first time since he had arrived in her office. "Alright, I need to go check up on an old "friend". Try to get your findings to me as soon as possible." James said distractedly, before disapparating.

He felt his feet hit the floor and immediately began walking briskly down the corridor. James grabbed a blood red piece of parchment out of his pocket and scribbled a note:

To: Shroeder. See that Igor "Iggy" Mansford is waiting in the interrogation room in fifteen minutes. -Potter.

Then he pointed his wand at the piece of parchment which quickly folded itself into an airplane and zoomed off, knocking other less important memos out of its way.

Lily watched him disapparate, and then she did the same. Appearing in the St. Mungo's staff room, she found just who she was looking for.

"Bernice, get Gouche in here, stat."

One look at her face sent the nurse nearly running out of the room. Good. Now she was going to get down to business.

James headed to his office and set to transferring some of what he had seen to three, small flat mirrors. These would do, since neither he nor Lily had wanted to stay long enough to take pictures, and Lily would not have time to send him the pictures from the autotopsy by the time he talked to Iggy.

Fifteen minutes later, as James was leaving his office, a red paper airplane collided with his head.

Sorry boss. No one down here can find him. I think he might have left the country. I sent a request to the Seeing room, but they're swamped. They said they would get on it as soon as possible.

James made a frustrated noise and crumpled the paper airplane in his fist. Well then, he would just have to find Iggy himself, and when he did, Iggy would wish he had stayed at home.

Throwing his black travelling cloak on and pulling the hood up over his head, James disapperated.