Author's Note: I love this chapter! -does a jig-
Dedications: To a Greek goddess!
My wonderful, fantastic muse: You need a plaque, or something.
Chapter 8: Arrested
For the second day in a row, Lily was awakened by shoulder shaking. Sirius hovered over her while she yawned and groggily blinked her eyes.
"What do you--?" she started, but halted at the sight of two middle-aged, uniformed Sierren policemen standing beside the bathroom door. Dinah, looking frightened and sad, stood dressed and ready (clutching her kitten) with her backpack between them.
"What's going on?" Lily breathed, sitting up and rising out of bed. James threw her a nasty stare from the corner where he stood handcuffed.
"You stole this child," said the accented policeman on Dinah's left. "We are taking you to airport where you will return to Little Whinging."
"I did not--" began Lily hotly.
Sirius covered her mouth. "It's best to stay silent," he whispered. "You'll get your chance to speak in court."
"Court?"
Lily began to tremble.
"Pack your things," commanded the policeman on Dinah's right. "We will go this instant."
Trembling still, Lily nodded and unzipped her duffel bag, which laid beside the bed. While making sure the policemen didn't catch sight of the wizard currency, she gathered the small pile of Knuts from the carpet. She realized that what she was feeling--shock, anxiety, fear, confusion--must have been similar to what James experienced the evening before. She scurried into the bathroom to check for anything she might have left; she bowed her head when passing the policemen. Once she was certain she'd packed everything (thirty seconds later) she slung her bag over her shoulder.
"Give me the bag," ordered the Left Policeman unexpectedly. "You are not permitted to carry of it."
Without making eye contact, Lily handed the bag by the strap to the man. The Right Policeman snatched her hand roughly, surprising her, and slapped a handcuff onto her wrist. He connected her to Sirius.
They marched from the room, she and Sirius, of course, walking side-by-side, sandwiched with James (the Left Policeman led and held Dinah's unwilling hand) between the policemen. While they trudged down the hallway, Dinah glanced longingly at Lily several times over her shoulder. Other glances she received weren't so friendly. In addition to James's constant scowls from her left, Lily had to endure the hard, unpitying, disapproving faces of the lobby-goers while they made their way to the front desk to return the room key. The man at the desk refunded Lily for the week she'd paid for, charging her only for the night she stayed.
Even worse than the embarrassing saunter through the hotel was having to enter a police car (there were two--one for Dinah and Left Policeman and one for Lily, James, Sirius, and Right Policeman). People crowded around the cars and craned their necks to see who was entering them. Some even pressed their faces against the tinted windows for a better look after the trio was buckled in the back seat. Their policeman had to honk the horn several times to clear the area enough so they could pull away.
The only fortunate thing about their situation was the glass divider between the front and back seats.
"You kidnapped Dinah?" growled James. "What the fuck was going on in your head?"
Lily shoved him against the door with her free hand. "I did not kidnap her! Do I look like a criminal?"
"If you didn't do it," he said bad-temperedly, "why the hell would they be accusing us of it?"
"Well, I...I suppose it might seem that way," admitted Lily shamefully, "to the women at the orphanage."
"You have five minutes," threatened James, "to explain before they'll really have something to lock me up for."
Lily spat in his face for his threat; he shoved her into Sirius.
"Oi!" he snapped. "Cease-fire!"
Lily and James exchanged looks of venom before she began another story.
"On my way to the orphanage, my neighbor--who brought me there; my sister kicked me out of my house--promised me she would bring the jewelry my mother left me the next morning. She found my birthday present--money for a skiing trip--in my mother's safe along with the jewelry and brought it to me as well. Of course, I hated the idea of staying at the orphanage until my eighteenth birthday, so I decided to take my vacation early. By this time I had already met Dinah and I couldn't bear to leave her behind; she was so crushed when she heard I was leaving."
"You ran away together?" said Sirius, looking hopeful. "That's...a little better. Dinah'll tell this to the jury and we might get off easy."
"What are you fretting about?" said Lily bitterly. "You weren't involved. Either of you," she added pointedly to grouchy James.
"Yes," conceded Sirius, "but the jury won't believe that. It definitely looked like James and I were involved."
"I'm going to tell them you weren't," said Lily. "I'm going to tell them the whole, complete truth so we can clear this mess up."
"You don't have to," said Sirius brusquely. "We'll take the blame. You won't be in trouble at all."
James grunted in protest from Lily's left. Lily smiled gratefully at Sirius.
"No. Thanks for the offer, but it wouldn't work even if I were interested; the women at the orphanage know you weren't there."
"I could say I kidnapped the both of you," he offered, looking earnest.
"No, Sirius," she said, chuckling. "I'll stick with the real story, thanks."
"But I know how much you love Dinah," he pressed. "If you have a criminal record, whether you were guilty or not, I can guarantee you won't be allowed to adopt her."
Lily sighed. "Even so, I couldn't anyway. I've got no money, no job, no house, no car...."
A tear rolled unnoticed by Sirius down her cheek. James, however, saw it. He didn't feel so angry at her when he realized just how desperate her situation was. She would--once her fate was decided in court--quickly run out of money once she settled down into a normal life. She was unable, anyway, to settle into a normal life because of her lack of funds. And she was being convicted of a felony presently, which would destroy any chance she might have of rebuilding her life. She would also never have Dinah, who, James knew, meant the world to Lily.
'Damn her,' he thought, annoyed. 'Two minutes of pondering leaves me feeling sorry for her.' It occurred to him then that he was acting awfully rude about a girl for whom he thought he cared a great deal.
'She doesn't care about me,' he dismissed. 'She didn't even have the decency to explain things last year. She only cares about herself. Herself and her own feelings. She doesn't give a damn about me. Only Dinah and Sirius and...just about anyone who's not James Potter.' He stole a glance at her; she looked terrified. Her hands trembled and she kept playing with her hair while she glanced at their passing surroundings.
'Why doesn't she care?' he wondered.
The car rolled to a stop in the parking lot of Sierre's airport. The policeman turned off the engine and opened the door on James's side of the car. The three--awkwardly because of the handcuffs--shuffled from the back seat and stood before the policeman, who carried Lily's bag on his shoulder.
"You will not wear the handcuffs for the airplane ride," he said, and unlocked both sets of cuffs. They were all glad, especially James, to have full use of their hands again.
They followed Right Policeman around the building to the back, where a small plane waited for them; Dinah was presently being escorted into an identical one beside it.
"Lily!" she cried when she caught sight of her. She made a move to run, but Left Policeman snagged her backpack and hurried her into the plane.
Lily hung her head to drape her hair around her face; she didn't want the others to see her tears.
There were ten seats on the plane. Lily, James, and Sirius, though, still had to cram into a row in the back.
"I will sit here," said Right Policeman, pointing to a seat in the front row. "We will arrive in two hours."
Lily slumped into the seat by the window and turned away from the boys, showing her back. She reclined her chair and curled up to sleep away their journey. James took the middle seat and Sirius, the aisle.
"What are we going to do to help her?" whispered Sirius. "She's innocent. We can't let them lock her up for this."
"What can we do?" mumbled James. "We'll tell the truth and hope things work out."
Sirius snorted. "Great plan, Prongs," he whispered sarcastically. "Very optimistic of you."
"What?" hissed James. "What's wrong with telling the truth? We might get off!"
"Yeah. And pigs might swim out of my arse. We need a game plan! Think of this like a Quidditch match!"
"These are Muggles," James pointed out, irritated.
"And? We're not really playing Quidditch, you dolt!"
"What's your plan, then?" sighed James, uninterested.
"We lie," said Sirius bluntly. "We tell the jury we kidnapped them. Then Lily will get off and she can still adopt Dinah."
"That's a nice gesture and all," said James, "but what happens to us?"
Sirius grinned. "You think we couldn't bust out of a Muggle prison?"
"I don't think we can pull it off," said James doubtfully. "We don't know how to act like criminals."
Sirius gave a careless wave. "How hard can it be? Just look fierce; no smiling."
"Why are you so keen on getting Lily off, anyway?" asked James suspiciously.
Sirius rolled his eyes. "I don't fancy her, mate. She's your kind of girl, not mine."
"Why, then?" insisted James. "Why are you willing to go to Muggle prison for her?"
Sirius sobered. "You didn't see her that night." James knew he meant the night of the rape. "You didn't see her looking more terrified than you thought was possible. You didn't have her recoil at your touch. You didn't see her sobbing in the Hospital Wing, like everything had been yanked away from her." His expression was determined. "I'm not letting Dinah be taken away from her."
James's mind drifted fleetingly to her late parents. A balloon of pity--of slight affection--for Lily took residence within him, inflating with each passing second.
"I'll do it," he announced, equally determined as his friend to make sure Lily's incoming adult life was as pleasant as she deserved.
- - -
When the plane landed in Little Whinging's airport, it was midday. The sunlight beamed through the windows of the plane, replacing the less vibrant rays of morning. James placed a hand on Lily's shoulder, gently waking her. She rubbed her eyes, stretched and yawned before inquiring as to their whereabouts.
"We've arrived in Little Whinging," he mumbled to her, eyeing nearby Right Policeman. "Come on. Let's go."
Lily's sleeve caught her eye as she set her hand on the chair before her to raise herself; she was still wearing the--now slightly wrinkled--clothes from the night before.
While descending the small flight of stairs leading from the plane, Lily felt James's fingers brush hers in an attempt to hold her hand. She gave him a confused look and he smiled sheepishly in response. Lily didn't permit him to hold her hand. She tucked it hastily into her jacket pocket after snatching it away from him and refused to make eye contact with him; she wasn't about to warm up to him after his attitude in the car. This, rather than making James regret his behavior, only ignited his off-and-on annoyance with her and he, too, jammed his hands in his pockets, and threw a scowl in her direction. Sirius, observing from nearby, chuckled at their interaction.
A short, stout policeman wearing a tan uniform stitched with the Little Whinging law enforcement emblem waddled toward them in a penguin-like fashion from the back entrance to the airport, cramming the last bite of a doughnut into his mouth and rolling his tongue over his sticky fingers to clean them of residue. He and the Swiss policeman nodded politely at each other when he reached them.
"I'll take over from here, Officer," said the policeman from Little Whinging, and the Swiss policeman headed back toward the waiting airplane. The new policeman watched the teens suspiciously while they walked, standing behind them to make certain none of them tried to take a run for it. Lily wondered where Left Policeman had taken Dinah; the thought carried in a wave of depression.
The stout man's office was in the back of the building, far out of view of the bustling travelers, eager to board their planes.
"Where's Dinah?" said Lily without thinking.
The policeman raised an eyebrow. "She is being interrogated as we speak in the office of my colleague." He gestured with his hand to the wall on his right, indicating that the office was next door.
"Wait..." Sirius rose from his seat, puzzled. "being interrogated already? Aren't we going to court? A hearing, at least?"
"You're all going to be interrogated here," said the policeman.
"But why?" pressed Sirius, disappointed at the news.
Sirius's relentless determination ensued the same effects on everyone who experienced it. It used to really rile up McGonagall back when he took her Transfiguration class; he contradicted anything and everything he found wrong with her teaching methods, the textbook, and the techniques of the Slytherins. The policeman was as fond of his presence as McGonagall, especially when he was supposed to be a criminal.
"It is not the custom of our judicial system to embark on a case in this manner so quickly," his tone made clear that he didn't approve of the circumstances, "but those with greater authority than I insist that this be taken care of here in the airport. Doesn't think it's worth it to bring you to court."
"Pardon," said Lily, too cautious to allow the eager relief to flood her, "but who doesn't think it's worth it to bring us to court?"
An odd expression took over the man's face, though not out of annoyance at the teens. "A strange bloke...he popped in for a mo' to get the child. He's dressed very...uniquely. Came with the Prime Minister, of course. He's got the longest hair and beard I've seen on a man in all my years; he could really use a haircu--"
"Pardon," interrupted James; the policeman appeared annoyed at the intrusion. "Who is this man? What is his name?"
"You should know," chided the policeman. "He says he's very close to all of you."
Lily began to tremble again. 'It couldn't be,' she thought, 'but it has to be. I never knew he involved himself in Muggle affairs, or knew the Prime Minister....Then again, he knows everyone and everyone knows him.'
The policeman had no need to answer. Because, as though to answer for himself--as though he'd heard James's question through the walls (which would have surprised no one)--Albus Dumbledore strolled through the office door, smiling at all in welcome, with Dinah in tow, just visible behind the many layers of his bright purple robes.
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