Petunia Evans sat on the couch in the living room at the Evans's house, eating a pinafore from a box of them that sat on the end table at her elbow, and pouring over a magazine entitled WEDDED BLISS. On the cover, a muggle woman smiled one of those wide smiles that's all teeth and no feeling, her blonde hair cascading over her back in the most fashionable Farah Fawcett cut. Her wedding dress was long, with a square cut neckline, covered with lace that went up to a choker about the neck. The sleeves were big, billowing things, until they got to the wrists, where they tightened into cuffs with twelve fabric covered buttons that fastened them tightly shut. The bride wore what looked like a white sunhat with a long, lacy veil that hung all the way down the length of her, like a strange sort of cloak.

"Trying not to let Vernon get at you, are you?" Lily asked, throwing herself down onto the chair next to the couch on the end where Petunia was sitting. "I wouldn't either. Gods knows what's under all that walrus flesh."

Petunia looked up from her magazine, her lips pressed tightly together in annoyance. She stared at Lily. "It's the fashion," she said sternly. "I suppose wizard wedding gowns are soooo much better, are they?"

Lily shrugged. She hadn't really thought of them yet, honestly, but upon contemplating it, she said, "A far sight better than that hideous frock. Look at those wrists! It'll take days to undo just those buttons alone! And I suppose the back is all the same. Itty bitty buttons all the way down your spine. James would blast the thing apart before he'd undo all those buttons."

Petunia muttered, "Well it isn't my fault that your nasty husband doesn't have patience."

"Vernon doesn't want to spend his entire honeymoon undoing your gown, either, I promise you that. I know what you lot get up to when you sneak him in during the night. Don't think I don't notice you tiptoeing past my bedroom, as though that lunk could ever be quiet enough to go unnoticed!"

Petunia flushed.

Lily reached over and took a pinafore from Petunia's box, and taking a bite. Petunia glared at her sourly, but didn't complain, then turned back to her magazine. Lily watched the magazine shift as her sister turned the pages and she twisted in the chair so she was hugging her knees, and bit her lips. Then, in the first kind gesture that she'd offered in quite a very long time, she asked, "Have you started planning it, yet? When are you having it?"

Petunia's mouth shifted, as though she were deciding whether LIly's olive branch were a trick or not. Finally, she lowered the magazine. "Our colors are off white and a soft pink," she replied, "And we're having it at Vernon's mother's church. We aren't sure exactly when just yet. I'd rather a Spring wedding, perhaps April or May... Maybe June..."

"That's lovely, Tuney," Lily replied.

Petunia nodded, "Yes, it will be. I'm hoping to use roses and heather for my bouquet." She paused. "Vernon's gotten his suit. It's a very nice brown colour and we found him an offwhite shirt with a soft pink tie, so even Vernon will match. I'm still looking for just the right dress. Petunia looked Lily over carefully. "Have you planned yours yet at all?"

"Not yet. I'm sure Sirius will have a hundred-thousand opinions on it, and most of those will be rubbish, but I've got to hear him out anyway... He had an actual unicorn at his own wedding, did I tell you that?"

Petunia blinked in confusion, then her face twisted in annoyance once again. "There's no such thing as unicorns."

"There are, too," Lily replied. "He wore a pistachio green suit, and Remus and Sirius rode off into the sunset in Costa Rica on a unicorn." Lily held up her hand as though swearing an oath.

Petunia made a face. "Sounds terribly tacky. I wouldn't even listen to a thing he has to say about your wedding, if I were you. He'll have you doing some awful thing like that!"

Lily laughed, "Probably. But I've got a bit more resolve against his charms than Remus Lupin has got."

Petunia turned back to her magazine, dismissing Lily once more.

Deciding she'd gotten as much out of Tuney as she could ever have hoped - and even more - Lily wiped her pinafore frostinged fingers on her knees then rolled up out of the chair. She was about to leave the room when she stopped and turned back.

"Tuney?"

"What?" Petunia looked up.

"Maybe we could go to one of those shops - with all the wedding dresses - maybe one in London - you know... together. I'd love to help you look for the perfect one, and maybe you could help me find one for my wedding also."

Petunia thought about it, then shrugged. "Maybe."

"Alright." Lily smiled, then turned and headed back upstairs to her own bedroom, wheres he lay across her bed and breathed a big, heavy sigh. Maybe, she thought, maybe just maybe, this whole wedding thing would bring a change and she, Lily, and Petunia be friends again, spend together, like they had long ago, in the past. Maybe, just maybe, they could be sisters again one day... just maybe.

"Mister Underhill?"

The grumpy old wizard looked up from his piles of paperwork to peer at James Potter through squinted eyes over the top of tiny glasses that clung to the tip of his nose. "What?"

James produced a folder, among many, that he'd been working on sorting through and organizing for Underhill as his work in the office with the head of the training program. He laid it down before Mr. Underhill. "This is a folder about what happened last year, at Fallengunder. With the werewolves and the Death Eaters." He reached down and flipped it opened, shuffled a couple pages about, and stopped on the sheet that had a photo of Ned Veigler magically attached to it. "It accuses Ned Veigler of being a death eater, but that's a mistake. Professor Veigler wasn't a death eater at all. He was under the imperius curse and managed to throw it off in his dying moments. He was brilliant and brave and... he ought not to be remembered as a Death Eater."

Underhill shifted his glasses and peered at the document slowly, perusing through the papers after he'd looked at the one James had pointed out. Finally, he looked back up at James. "There was no proof of his being imperiused," he said. He leaned back and studied James for a long moment, fingers peaked over his lips. "How do you know he was imperiused, Mr. Potter?"

"Because I was there, I saw it when he threw it off."

Mr. Underhill nodded slowly. "But I don't believe you, Mr. Potter. Eye witness accounts are fallible and often quite wrong compared to what evidence shows during an investigation. Especially those reports that are concerning a major event, like a fight." He perused the document again, then said, "So, Mr. Potter, how do you know that Ned Veigler was under the imperius curse?"

James felt his cheeks flush with anger. "Because I knew Ned, I knew Ned very well and he wouldn't have betrayed the good guys."

"And who are the good guys?"

"The people who don't support You Know Who, of course."

"I see. And there is nothing that might have made Mr. Veigler change his views?"

"No."

"He was a werewolf. Did you know he was a werewolf, Mr. Potter?"

"Yes," James replied solemnly. "But that doesn't affect the fact that he was imperiused."

"Did you know that it was Greyback who made him?" Underhill asked, "Greyback who changed him from man to... beast."

James nodded, though he rather thought the word choice was poor on Underhill's part.

"And are you aware when a man is changed to a werewolf, his wolf assumes a position of obedience toward the wolf who created him?"

"Yes, Greyback would have been Veigler's alpha, I know how that works. But I also know that can be changed and overthrown and -..."

"And good men can be made to do terrible things in the presence of their alphas, James." Underhill closed the folder. "I have done a lot of work on that case. We tried like hell, Potter, to prove the Imperius Curse theory, but it simple wasn't there. What happened was wrong and tragic... but it wasn't provable to be dark magic, but rather magic of a sort that is deeper than the flash-bangs and sparks that we wizards can produce with our wands. It was animal, it was deep in the blood and the instinct of him."

James frowned. "I just hate that a good man like Ned Veigler is listed in these files as... anything but good."

Underhill considered this, then he murmured, "And I'm very sorry for it, but I'm afraid there's simply nothing I can do to change it, Mr. Potter. It is what it is, however unfortunate it may be." He closed the document, neatening the sheets as they clustered in, and he held it back out to James, who took it and started toward desk in the corner.

Underhill mused, "Of course..."

James looked up.

"If someone were to... anonymously... change the document... there may not be anyway to ever find out who had done it." Underhill waved him off and turned back to his own paperwork.

James thought about the words he'd said for a moment, then a slow grin crawled its way across his face and he hurried back to his desk, throwing himself into his chair. He pulled out his wand, and opened up the file, letting the pages lay flat across his desk.