Four Little Words

Chapter Twenty-Four

True to their word, neither James nor Sirius made mention to Lily of Remus' flat situation. After learning about the werewolves attacked, she had asked, frantically, if they had come by his house, but Remus assured her that they had left him alone.

So life returned to a semi-normality. There was just the slight apprehensiveness as to which member of the Order of the Phoenix would be the next one.

One bright and early morning about two weeks after the funeral of the Prewett twins, James was bored and wandering around the cubicles, peering into offices and generally annoying people. He did have a giant stack of paperwork to be filing through, but that really didn't interest him at the moment. He wanted to be nosy and to see what everyone else was doing.

Whistling a slight jig, he peered into each office, noting that each occupant was busy doing their job. Until he passed by Lily's office, and backtracked a few steps.

She was sitting with her head in her arms on top of her desk and was looking over a pile of leaflets. James reached his hand back and knocked lightly on the door.

Lily's head popped up and she looked around wildly for a minute before her eyes settled on James. She cleared her throat and ran her hand through her hair, as it was currently sticking straight up.

"Sleeping, Evans?" he teased.

"No, actually," Lily cleared her throat and tried to compose herself. "I'm having...issues...with this Healer training."

"Ah," James nodded. "Mind if I sit down?"

"Go ahead," Lily said, gesturing to her only vacant chair. James sat down and grabbed one of the flyers off the table.

"I'm having scheduling conflicts with Moody," Lily shook her head. "The classes are either all day or during the evening. And, as you well know, I can't do it all day, because I have to work, and evenings..." She sighed.

James flipped the leaflet over. "Can't you tell them that you're an Auror and need to take these classes to help out the cause?"

Lily snorted. "I tried that. Once they found out what I do for a living, they were even less keen to help me. They said that Aurors do not understand the Healer's creed of ‘Help All, Refuse None,' and a load of other tosh."

"That's stupid," James shook his head. "You'd never refuse treatment to anybody."

"I think they were talking about Death Eaters," Lily sniffed. "Which, it would be very difficult for me to treat them, it's true."

"Yes, well, they shouldn't disagree to teach you-"

She sighed and looked out her window, which was a piece of cubicle charmed to look like the English countryside. "They didn't want to take me because they're scared. You know the Prophet has been over-reporting the deaths of those who were informants to Aurors, nobody wants to be in connection with them."

"I'm sorry, Lily," was all James could say. He knew how much being a Healer meant to her.

"It's fine, I guess, I get along fine with what I'm doing," she shrugged. "Besides, it's...." She trailed off.

"What?" James asked.

She smiled, grimly. "It's only a matter of time, right?"

James blanched. "Don't talk about that!"

"What with this spy who seems to know everything," Lily said, her voice steadily rising and tears appearing in her eyes. "And nobody wants to help us anymore, and people are still dying all the time and-"

James was on his feet before she got going and had pulled her into a hug. He was stroking her hair gently and shushing her quietly. She swallowed and pressed her face into his chest, forgetting for a moment that they had closure and taking a deep breath of him. He hadn't played Quidditch in ages, yet he still smelled grassy and wind-blown, as he always did.

And he was talking to her. "...food and it'll make you feel better."

"Hm?" Lily asked, looking up at him.

"I said, let's go get you some food," he said, patting her gently on the back.

"I'll...go get my coat," Lily said, pulling away from him. When she turned to get her coat, she noticed the large amount of people outside her cubicle watching them intensely.

"What?" James said, noticing them too. They all turned to go about their business.

"Ug, Potter, that's so disgusting," Lily said, grimacing. James was currently lathering mayonnaise onto a chip and spreading the excess onto his fish strips.

"Mm...this is the good stuff," James plopped the piece in his mouth and ate it, relishing.

"Do you know what's in that stuff, James?" Lily asked.

"Mm-hm..." he said, repeating the process. "And it's so gooood..."

"One of these days, you are going to get fat off of that stuff," Lily sniffed, daintily dipping her chips into ketchup and taking small bites off of it. "And I just hope I'm around to laugh at your fat belly."

James gave her a warning look. "I thought the deal was that we weren't going to talk about that sort of thing anymore."

Lily looked down. "Didn't mean to-"

James waved her off. "It's fine."

Lily picked at the old wooden table. It had been pouring outside when they left the Ministry, and so they'd picked the first restaurant they'd come upon; a small, smokey pub.

"Who do you think it is?" she asked after a few minutes of silence.

"I don't know," James shook his head, sighing. "It took us this long to figure out that there was one person, and not an accidental leak. Who knows how long it'll be before we figure it out fully..."

"I don't understand who would just be a spy against us?" Lily nibbled on her chips some more. "Who wants that guilt on their conscience?"

"Lily, if the bastard is trading secrets, I doubt he has a conscience to begin with," James growled. He then turned to her and nudged her gently. "At least I know it's not you."

"Why's that?" Lily asked, a small grin coming to her face.

"Because you're too sweet to betray us all," James winked.

"You never know, Potter," Lily grumbled, playfully. "My sweet, darling exterior might just be a front for something much darker."

"Oh, trust me, I know all about that side," James chuckled.

"Do you now?" Lily asked, raising her eyebrow.

"I seem to remember once you tying me to the bed-" After the words slipped from his mouth, James knew he'd said too much. Lily's face betrayed the same embarrassed emotion. They had closure, they didn't need to be discussing their past sex life.

"So..." James said, dying for a subject change.

"I'm going to go to the loo," Lily said quickly, not looking at him, and hopping up as quickly as she could.

When she was out of sight, James started banging his head on the table. He sat up and sighed, a slight throbbing in his head now. He brought his hand up to rub the pained part of his head, pouting slightly.

Lily stared at herself in the mirror and then leaned forward to start banging her head on it. She stood up straight and squinted in the dingy light; she had a nice red mark on her forehead. Hastily, she rubbed it off and left to go back to James.

"Sorry," James apologized.

"Forgot about it already," Lily grinned, relieved. It was so nice that they didn't have issues over discussing the past.

Of course, now there was nothing to talk about.

"So...." James began, groping for a subject. "How's....Petty..?"

Lily blanched. "I have no idea. I gave up trying to talk to her when..."

"When?" James pressed.

"When we...erm...broke up..."

"Oh..." James looked at his hands. "Sorry."

"It's fine," Lily lied. "I'm...I'm really glad that we decided to end it, actually."

"Really?" James said, looking up at her. He was going for "happy" but felt "shitty."

"Yes," Lily nodded, not looking at him.

"That's...good..."

"I'm...er...going to go to the loo again," Lily excused herself.

"But, didn't you just go?" James asked, confused.

"Powdering my nose?" Lily tried, as she escaped.

When she returned to the table, the check had already arrived, which saved them unnecessary conversation. The rain was still pouring, which was a good thing, because it also saved them the hassle of trying to come up with conversation.

Neither one was paying much attention to the street beside them, and neither noticed the giant puddle running down the street, and neither noticed the truck hurtling down the street from behind them...

Until it was too late.

After the worst was over, James shook his head, and all of the muddy water flew from his hair. As he'd been closer to the buildings, he was spared, for the most part.

Of course, Lily was a much different story.

Covered, head to toe, in muddy water. Her hair was a deep red and was dripping onto her soaked jacket and clothes. She still had the look of extreme shock on her face. James let out the tiniest of laughs and Lily turned on him dangerously.

"Shut it, Potter."

"C'mon," James said, trying his hardest not to laugh outright at her. "Let's find an alley to clean you up in."

Lily trudged angrily behind him, a permanent scowl on her muddy face. James nipped into an alleyway and waited behind a dumpster for her to storm over.

"Do you want me to fix you up or- are you cold?" James asked, smirking.

Lily's teeth were chatting and she gave him a hard push on his shoulder. "I just got showered with cold water, you idiot, of course I'm cold."

"Scourgify," James said, cleaning her up. He did the same to his slightly muddy overcoat and offered it to her. "Here, it's not raining so hard, and it's cold outside."

Lily looked at the jacket and was taken aback. Without saying another word, she took the jacket and put it on. It was still warm, and oh, how it smelled of him.

"Shall we head back?" James asked, looking up to the sky. "It looks as if it's clearing up a bit..."

"Sure," Lily whispered, and then cleared her throat and repeated it, louder. She followed James, watching the spikes of hair repel water and bounce lightly. Even through the rain, she could still smell the grassy field that was James' signature scent. She tried not to breathe it in too deeply because it was making her light-headed.

"Are you all right?" James asked, turning to look at her. He knew it was a bad idea to look at her; she was wearing his coat, which lead him to remember some summer nights when she'd wear only his Snitch boxers and a bra, and she'd snuggle up to him, and he'd spend the night gently touching the soft skin on her back, watching her as she slept.

"Fine," Lily replied, smiling. She stepped up a few steps and was even with him. Before either of them knew it, they were back at the Ministry, on the lift down to their offices. They still weren't speaking to each other, but not intentionally.

As the lift dinged to their level, Lily turned to smile at James, finally.

"Thank you," she whispered.

"For?"

She shrugged, and was suddenly aware that she was still wearing his jacket. Not one to be a jacket thief twice in her life, she took it off and handed it back to him. "Letting me borrow your jacket," she said, finally.

"Oh," James said, taking the jacket back mechanically; he'd half wished that she'd kept it. "No problem..."

"...insensitive prick!"

The two of them whipped their heads around to listen for the sounds of heated argument coming from somewhere in the office. Both curious as to the source of the argument, they followed the strains of cursing and insults until they reached the closed door of Sirius' office.

James, who never knocked on Sirius' door in his life, opened the door blatantly and blinked.

"Everything all right, Padfoot?" he asked, gently.

"NO!" Dorcas yelled at him, storming towards the door and slamming it in their faces. They heard Sirius yelling at her and she yelling back and then the door opened again.

"Sorry about that," Sirius said, smoothly.

"What's going on?" Lily asked, concerned.

"Absolutely nothing," he answered, throwing a dirty look to Dorcas. She huffed and stormed out of the room, about to hit the first thing that came her way.

"Erm...all right..." James said as Lily ran off to see why Dorcas was in such a huff.