Author's Note: Dinah's kitty has a name! I told one of you about the book I saw the picture of the original gray British Shorthair in (101 Cataclysms for Cat Lovers) before, and I came across it again in Costco! (Then again in Target) so I found the kitten again and...borrowed his name! They list all the cats' names in the book. If any of you see the book when you're perusing the bookshelves, be sure to flip to page...7, I think it was, and find the adorable gray kitten and coo over his cuteness.
Dedications: Same Greek goddess!
My muse: You keep allowing me to turn chapters out so quickly. How can I dedicate to anyone but you?
Chapter 9: Surprises, Surprises
Dinah zipped in front of Dumbledore and sat herself in Lily's lap, grinning broadly.
"You're not going to jail!" she chirped, slinging an arm around her neck. Lily grinned as well at the news; if Dumbledore was on their side, they'd be just fine.
Dinah's little gray kitten strolled leisurely through the door, attracting the eyes of all present; he paused near where Dumbledore stood and stretched.
"I named him!" announced Dinah, back to her bubbly state now that she'd been assured that everything would be all right. "Maximus!"
Maximus looked up at his owner and mewed.
"Maximus?" Lily wrinkled her nose in distaste. "Isn't that a bit formal?"
Dinah shrugged. "I saw it on a desk in the other room. It sounded good to me."
"Max," Sirius suggested with the same relieved smile.
Dinah leaned and scratched the kitten's ears. "Max," she agreed.
"Aren't you going to speak to Professor Dumbledore?" James broke in, frowning at their rudeness. Though Lily thought he was no one to scrutinize the manners of others.
Dumbledore chuckled. "Thank you, James. But the girls deserve their reunion."
The policeman watched them with crossed arms and a pursed lip from behind the desk. "Enough reunions, Sir," he said waspishly. "We have an interrogation to conduct!"
"Certainly," agreed Dumbledore. "Lily, James, Sirius, come with me."
Lily took one last look at the policeman before following Dumbledore from the room; he harrumphed at her. Rather than taking them to the next door office, Dumbledore halted the group outside of the office they'd just exited.
"Where's the Prime Minister?" asked Sirius, glancing all around the hallway. "That bloke said she came with you."
"She's in Officer Maximus's office having tea," replied Dumbledore, indicating the office in which he'd interrogated Dinah. "And I'd prefer it if you didn't refer to Officer Mediro as 'that bloke' while you're in the airport. I imagine he wouldn't find it particularly respectful."
Sirius nodded.
Dumbledore addressed Lily. "I need you to tell me everything important that's happened during the last two days."
Lily nodded and spilled her tale, feeling very tired of constantly sharing stories, simultaneously reliving their events, which usually proved tiring and occasionally saddening. She did, as promised, vouch for the boys, who couldn't have spun their lie about kidnapping in the presence of Dumbledore, whether Lily was in the room or not. Reaching the end of yet another story didn't take quite as long as any of them--except perhaps Dumbledore--expected, and they were left standing in silence in the hall not long after entering it.
"Right, then," said Dumbledore cheerfully after she finished. "Your story matches Dinah's exactly. There's no case, just as I suspected."
"What about running away from the orphanage?" asked Lily. "Aren't I to be punished for that?"
Dumbledore raised his eyebrows in amusement. "Would you like to be?"
Lily blushed. "No, of course not. But...how is it possible that I'm getting off so easily?"
"What you did, because a bona fide kidnapping did not occur, was a very minor offense. Under the circumstances--you having recently lost your parents--it was easily excusable, especially because no real harm was done."
Lily frowned. "So things like this are to be expected out of emotional nut-cases like me, are they? They think that because someone loses their parents, they become...deranged?"
"Lily, come on," said Sirius. "You're getting off...."
"I only ran off because I needed some time to absorb things!" she continued, as if Sirius hadn't spoken. "Time to sort myself out! I hadn't even planned on letting Dinah tag along. She--she just...I couldn't..." Lily began to cry. She sat down on the floor beside a water fountain and drew her knees to her chest. She laid her cheek on the plateau of her knees and sniffled, allowing her tears to flow freely into the fabric of her jeans. All of the emotion she'd been feeling for the past two days erupted. It had been like a pot of water on the stove, constantly bubbling, threatening to boil over. Now it had.
Dumbledore patted Lily affectionately on the head and excused himself to Officer Maximus's office to give them some privacy. No one would be traversing such hidden corridors.
James knelt beside Lily and rubbed her back while she sobbed, unable to offer her much more. She inhaled so abruptly in the midst of her tears that she started coughing and crying at once.
"Calm down, Lily," whispered James. "You're going to choke yourself."
"I don't care," she wailed, burying her face beneath her hands. "What have I got to live for anyway?"
"How about us?" said Sirius. "Your friends. And Dinah. She needs you."
"What can I give her?" she said, voice shaking from her crying. "I've got nothing. Enough for two or three weeks' groceries."
"You love her," said James. "You've got love to offer her."
"Love won't pay the bills," Lily pointed out, wiping fresh streams of tears. "Just"--she hiccuped and more tears leaked from her eyes--"just give me my wand back so I can end this misery." She held out her hand to Sirius, who she knew nicked her wand on their way to the office. James felt like ice.
Sirius stepped closer to them. "Look at you, Lily." He held out his two-way mirror so she could glimpse herself. "You have no reason to be acting this way. You're getting off--everything's all right. You're going to get a job and earn more money. It's not as bad as it seems."
"I have plenty of reasons to act like this!" warbled Lily. "My parents just died, that's reason enough, and they left me with nothing. Not one cent. Just...family...shit! What good is it doing me, Mum? Weighing down my bag, that's all! Burden indeed," she scoffed, referring to what her mother said about her house. "I would have been ecstatic to bear that burden!"
"At least your parents loved you!" spat Sirius. "If mine died right now they wouldn't leave me even family trinkets. Not even a Knut. Not a crumb. End your misery, indeed. Being with the Black family is misery if I've ever known it!"
James was taken aback by his friend's outburst; Sirius never spoke of his family.
"You can support yourself, Sirius," snapped Lily. "What am I to do with only eight-hundred pounds? Where will I live? Nowhere for long."
She, with reflexes better than the boys knew she possessed, stole her wand back from out of Sirius's pocket and backed away.
James withdrew his own. "Put it down, Lily."
She pointed it at her chest. "No."
"I'll make you put it down," he threatened.
"Why would you bother?" she asked. "All we ever do is argue. Why would you miss that?"
James lowered his wand out of surprise. "Why would I miss you, you mean? I know that's what you're getting at. I'd miss you because I care about you, dammit! Everyone argues; we just need to...talk out a few things." Lily's fierce expression faded. "Please don't do it, Lily. You'd hurt a lot of people. You'd kill me."
Lily lowered her wand, ashamed of herself. 'How could I have created such a scene?' she thought. 'I...I am loved. Things...things are--things might--work out okay.'
"Do you mean that, James?" she said. "You care about me?"
He went to her, smiling slightly in relief. "Of course I do." He cupped her cheek. "Isn't it obvious? I would have let you go through with it if I didn't care."
Lily hugged him around the middle. "Thank you, James. And you too, Sirius," she added over James's shoulder, "for talking some sense into me."
James grinned at her. "Isn't that a man's biggest job? Talking sense into the woman?"
Lily scowled. "You just lost your hug."
He reeled her back in around the waist, kissing her near her cheekbone.
"Enough," remarked Sirius, slipping back into his normal disposition. "You're making me sick, you two."
His answer was a double raspberry.
The door to Officer Maximus's office clicked open and Dumbledore re-entered the hallway, followed by the Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher.
"All sorted out, my dears," she sang with a smile. Blushing, Lily disentangled herself from James's grasp. "Just try not to cause any more trouble. This job is difficult enough." She winked at Lily.
"Thank you, Mrs. Thatcher...ma'am. But I have a question for you: How did you find us so quickly? Nobody knew where we'd gone!"
"I wouldn't say that," twinkled the Prime Minister. "Your neighbor--Mrs. Manila, wasn't her name?--was the first person the police investigated. She told them about what she'd given you, and we searched every hotel directory in the area, which wasn't as tedious as it sounds." Her tone suggested that it was "all in a day's work."
"Thank you again for your assistance, Margaret," said Dumbledore, who could sense that she needed to depart. "It was much appreciated."
The teens nodded their heads in agreement.
"It was nothing," smiled the Prime Minister modestly. "It's always a pleasure to aid a witch or wizard, especially a friend of Albus's." She smiled at them once more and Officer Maximus (a tall, slender mustached man, a contrast to his colleague), who had been watching through the plate glass on his door, walked into the hallway to escort the Prime Minister.
"Excuse me!" called Lily, and both Officer Maximus and Margaret Thatcher turned toward her. "I have one more question I forgot to ask; would it be possible for me to..."--she wrung her hands nervously--"adopt Dinah Elamain? I--I mean since I've been cleared of the charges and all...."
"Are you eighteen years of age?" asked the Prime Minister.
"Almost," said Lily shyly.
"When you turn eighteen, you are legally able to adopt a child. That is, if you can provide a suitable home."
Lily tried not to look as disappointed as she felt before Margaret Thatcher, and forced a smile and thanked her. The clicks of the Prime Minister's heels were the only sounds in the hall for a moment or two. She and her escort turned the corner and they heard the back door to the building open and close.
Neither James nor Sirius had a chance to offer words of comfort to Lily before Dumbledore spoke.
"Now that the legal issue is all sorted out, I can tell you what I was really interested in telling you today. Surely you three are aware of the rising threat of Lord Voldemort?"
All thoughts of adoption left their heads.
"Yes," they chorused.
"I--and many others of your acquaintance--am forming a...resistance group, if you will. A resistance against Voldemort. It will be called the Order of the Phoenix, and your participation would be a wonderful asset."
"What are the jobs of this Order?" asked James.
"We're to use any methods possible to hinder Voldemort. Hopefully, to terminate him. We'll spy on him and his Death Eater, locate his base of operation, discover his plans...."
"Sounds worthwhile," said Sirius. "Definitely worthwhile."
"Please consider it," said Dumbledore. "I don't need your answers right away."
They nodded.
"I'm going to have to leave you now," he said. "Other important business awaits my return to Hogwarts. Take care, you three." He winked at Lily; she smiled back.
In a CRACK! he vanished.
They heard the sound of rushing boots toward the door in Officer Mediro's office and he stuck his pudgy head into the corridor.
"What in God's name was that?" He frowned at the teens and stepped fully from behind the door.
Sirius held out a snapped belt for the officer to see. "My belt broke. It felt a bit tight, so I took it off to give it a good stretch...guess I pulled a tad too hard."
"Get inside, all three of you," he grumbled.
On their way in, Lily gave Sirius a look that clearly asked, "Where on Earth did you find that belt?" He grinned and tapped the deep pocket that held his wand. In the short time since the row in the hall, Lily and Sirius had silently forgiven each other.
Max nuzzled Lily's ankles with his furry face.
"Are we leaving now?" asked Dinah. "I'm tired."
Lily's heart sank. What could she tell her? How could she leave her behind? Where in the world would they go, anyway?
"Dinah, I--" Lily silenced at James's hand on her shoulder. He smiled at her and knelt to address the child.
"I'm going to adopt you," he said.
"No!" Dinah protested. Officer Mediro leafed lazily through a magazine, not paying the group any mind. "Lily's going to adopt me! She said so! I'm going to live with her!"
"I can't adopt you just yet," said Lily, who felt extremely grateful toward James for his kind gesture. "I have to wait until I turn eighteen. And earn more money."
"But I don't want to live with James!" insisted Dinah. "I want to live with you!"
James glanced over his shoulder to be sure Officer Mediro wasn't listening. "You're still going to be with Lily," he said in low tones. "Lily will gain custody of you when she turns eighteen."
"How will I be with her if you adopt me?" asked Dinah.
"Lily can stay with me. At my house."
The weight that had filled her for the past two days vanished. She felt light. Incredibly light. Like a speck of pollen in gale force winds. She felt it hard to believe that she had contemplated suicide just minutes before.
"You mean that?" said Lily, trembling and staring at him hopefully.
James took her hand. "Of course. You think I'd leave you to the streets?"
Lily took to her tiptoes and leaned her head to kiss James's cheek. But before her lips got near enough to brush the skin, she pulled back, full weight returning to her feet, startled by the click the office door made as it slid open and a woman Lily had never seen before sauntered confidently into the room.
O O O