"What's the biggest lie you ever told?" 

"I told Marlene once that she looks awful in a particular shade of blue because when she wears it she looks prettier than I do."

Sean laughed loudly and shook his head, "That's diabolical, that is."

"Got my favorite sweater out of the deal." Annalee smirked, then, "In general, any time I don't tell Marlene that she's the absolute knock-out of the family... I'm such a shrew... I'm self conscious and I let her think I'm the pretty one, but really I'd do anything to look more like her."

"Aye, Marlene is beautiful," Sean said, "But I'm glad you look like you - I might be rather biased but I think y'are the pretty one."

Annalee's nose turned pink.

They were sitting in a sandwich shop not far from the Ministry for Magic. Sean worked weekends when there was a good amount of paperwork and he was still copying reports from the Giant Attacks in Ireland that the aurors were putting in. Annalee had come 'round to meet him at noon - something that had become a bit of a daily occurrence for them. They had found a lovely little sandwich shop just a couple blocks from the Auror Training Center's, where Sean's office let out to Muggle London by the Embankment, and they'd quickly become regulars in a table in the corner.

Sean would get crisps and a sandwich and Annalee would just get a sandwich and steal Sean's crisps from his plate. He never mentioned it, but he thought it was adorable and he started quietly buying two bags of crisps and dumping them onto his plate so she didn't know he was planning on her eating all his crisps. Over the two weeks they'd been doing this, he learned she preferred the Walker's salt and vinegar flavor to the cheese and onion and although he preferred cheese and onion it was salt and vinegar that had found its way onto his plate each day since he'd made the discovery.

They were learning a lot about one another in that sandwich shop, one question at a time.

"Who was your hardest crush back at Hogwarts, Sean?" Annalee asked.

Sean sipped his cola and leaned back in his seat. "Well," he mused.

"Sean?" Annalee teased, kicking his foot under the table.

Sean laughed. "Ahhh I d'know," he flushed bright red and looked away, "Some... some girl... I don't remember who..."

Annalee laughed. "It was me, huh?"

Sean grinned down at the plate of crisps to avoid eye contact. "Dunno. Possibly."

Annalee's smile shone so brightly, he couldn't get enough of it. She was so pleased, it made his stomach flip several times over. "Was it really though?" she trilled, "You must've only barely had any idea I existed, surely."

Sean stared at her for a long moment, then said, "I thought you were amazin' - since second year."

"Second year!" she laughed.

He nodded solemnly. "I remember layin' in me bed and talkin' to Marty Jenkins and him sayin' to me one night, oi, who d'ya reckon is the prettiest girl in the whole bloody school? And my answer? It was always you."

Annalee shook her head.

"Course Marty was tryin' to figure out a look for himself at the time." 

"Y'mean Maryrose, yeah?" Annalee asked gently.

Sean paused, then, "I suppose I'm supposed to say she and herself and Maryrose, yes, but it's so bloody hard remember. Not on account of me not approvin' or anythin' of the sort - Mar-- Maryrose  -- can be whoever she's wantin' to be... it's just when you call somebody one thing years an' years before it changes suddenly; it'd be like callin' the day night and the sky ground and it's all different and upside down in my head. Ain't no excuse o'course, but I really don't mean to do it." Sean stared down at the crisps left on his plate. 

"Did you know Maryrose well - before?" Annalee asked.

Sean nodded, "Ah very well, yes. The Jenkins used to holiday 'round Dunlewey and I spent a great deal of summers each year waitin' for the day when they'd arrive each year." He chuckled, "Like an old dog goin' an' waitin' for their family. Grandmum enjoyed it very much, me havin' a mate to go gettin' me out and about during the summers." Sean shrugged. "We wrote each other near to constant all year 'round. Knew each other exceptionally well. Until one September, there was one less bed in our dormitory, and nobody had seen Marty anywhere... everyone thought something happened... 'til we met the lass everyone had just assumed transferred in." Sean  looked up, "Marty had told me about it long ago, but he didn't dare really do it, his parents --" Sean paused, "I mean they're good people, but they really wanted their boy, you know, especially Mr. Jenkins, and Marty was a wee scared what his Dad would think of the change. Pandora knew. She was Marty's sister - in Ravenclaw -"

"Yeah I was friends with Pandy, that's how I knew about Maryrose."

Sean nodded, "Ah, I see. Well, some people in the Hufflepuff common room were fair and others didn't know what to do with it and there was a couple who just didn't want a thing to do with Maryrose after the change. She was so bleedin' kind she would answer to whatever name you called her without a flinch, though she cried 'bout it to me sometimes later when we'd be talkin' after midnight you know, as good friends do. Oh the snark that went about that dormitory whenever she was seein' James Potter. Couple the girls insisted she did it only in spite, like she was takin' advantage of the fact that James Potter was rather notoriously thick..."

Annalee laughed, "James Potter wouldn't have noticed Maryrose used to be Martin if it had happened in our own dormitory, I swear to Merlin, he barely saw anyone but Lily Evans from the very first day of school onward. By the time he put himself on market, it was a hopeless case."

"Put himself on market!" Sean snorted.

Annalee nodded solemnly. "We all waited like vultures for the day. Goodness - I thought McKenna and Meg were going to slaughter each other over that boy, and I won't lie, I had my own time with him, too --"

"Oh I remember," Sean laughed.

"-- but he always only had eyes for Lily Evans and we all knew the moment she woke up and saw it too, we'd be forgotten as quick as disapparation. He waited all the way to seventh year before she woke up and took notice of him. Can you imagine waiting for someone that long?"

Sean stared at her. "Annalee, love, I only just told you I did it myself."

Her eyes were wide with emotion as she stared back at him.

The door of the shop burst open suddenly and Annalee and Sean both looked up. Marlene had just come running in. Annalee looked in surprise at her, "Marly?"

"Annalee - its - you've got to come quickly."

"What is it?"

"There was an attack."

"An attack?" Sean asked. "Another?"

"Smaller but -- .... At Speaker's Corner. Someone was out there spreading propaganda this morning and the Ministry sent a couple aurors - Frank and McKenna. Frank's alright but McKenna's - you gotta come quick."

Annalee reached for her coin purse but Sean stopped her hand. "I've got it, love," he said. "Go."

Annalee nodded and slid out of the booth, her tears wobbling on the edge of her eyelids, and she gave him a quick peck on the cheek before she turned and hurried after her sister, the door of the shop closing as they rushed out.

James walked into Mr. Underhill's office, fresh from his strange encounter with Albus Dumbledore, holding his contract of employment, the keys Dumbledore had given him, and the schedule for the matches and flying lessons still in hand. He took a deep breath out side the door of the office before he pushed his way inside.

Harry Underhill was behind his desk, pouring over new files that had just come down from upstairs, and his eyes moved over James. "Potter, you aren't s'posed to be here 'til Monday." He sat up, seeing James expression. "What's the matter, James?"

"I've a conversation to have with you and it's going to sound similar but be very different, which doesn't make sense, I realize but will in a moment."

"Alright..." Underhill pushed the case aside, closing the folder, and leaning back into his listening closely position. He eyed James for several moments. "Go on."

"Sir, you and I came to an agreement a few weeks ago in which I was in a very desperate situation and my friend was, too, and you offered to get me out of that situation and at the time nothing else mattered. In the short time I've been back on the force in training, I've nearly been killed by a giant and honestly been at my least happiest as I've been in a couple years."

"I'll admit you certainly had a rough first week."

James nodded, then, "Sir, I do owe you, and I owe myself to stick to something, but I don't want to be an auror, sir. I don't. My wife and I are tryin' to have a child, sir, and I don't want to be running about riskin' my life everyday when I have a little one at home who needs me... I want to be there for my kid, like my Dad was there for me."

Harry Underhill had heard this thought process before, little did James know, from the very Dad he spoke of now. Underhill sighed. 

James mistook the sigh for annoyance and he plowed on, "Sir I'd like to resign from the Auror training program. I don't have it in me. I want to help people, I do, but right now I'm not sure I even know how to help myself. I'm struggling, sir, honestly... more than I let on."

Underhill considered James a long moment, "And what of your agreement with me? Now that Sirius Black is free, you don't feel any obligation to uphold your part of an agreement you made?"

"I want to be honorable and uphold my half of the bargain that we struck to get Sirius Black out of jail. Being your assistant is what I agreed to and I intend to fulfill my half of that deal for you, sir," James said, "But to be honest I feel that the agreement wasn't fully fair. You know Sirius wasn't guilty of all they were charging him with in that hearing and that he didn't deserve to be put in jail for what happened. You know that. Shouldn't that have been enough for you to advocate for Sirius, without my bargain?"

Underhill sighed.

"I was offered a position as a flying instructor and Quidditch coach at Hogwarts."

Underhill's eyes flashed. 

"I accepted the offer." James put the employment letter and the schedule down before Underhill and he looked them over, his eyes moving over the name Albus Dumbledore where the headmaster had signed his name at the bottom of the letter of employment. 

Underhill looked up at James. "Let me be square with you, kid."

"Alright." 

Underhill took a deep breath. "James, ultimately, I want what's best for you. Not what's best for me, and certainly not what's best for Dumbledore."

James said, "Sir, I can't explain why, but let me assure you that this -" he waved his palm at the employment letter, "Is not in anyway what's best for Dumbledore. This wasn't an offer that he came to me on. He mentioned it in passing to me the other day and it's been on my mind since. He argued with me about it this morning, told me he wanted me here at the Ministry." James paused. "You warned me last year about Dumbledore, sir, and I thought you were mad when you first said it. But some things happened since then and --" James considered how to word it. "Well, let's just say that I saw a very different side of Dumbledore than I'd ever seen before and I'm not keen to do anything to help him or his cause after what I saw of him. A part of me hesitates to work for him in any capacity - but blimey do I want this coaching job somethin' bad, sir. I feel like I'm made for it, like it's something I never knew to dream of becoming until it was put before me, you know? I had the big League dreams when I was a kid never thinking coach at the school was an option... but I would've dreamed of this if I'd known."

Underhill asked, "What did you see?" his brows furrowed.

"I can't explain it, sir," James said. "But it was a very different side of Dumbledore."

Underhill said, "I chose you to be my intern here in my office because Mad-Eye let slip that Dumbledore had pushed him very hard to get you into the program. As you know, I'm the head of the Training Program. In addition to my  case work, I choose the incoming students each year based on their NEWT and applications. You missed that process this year as it begins in January and ends in May, but it's a very involved process going through all the students and choosing who should and shouldn't be here in the Auror program." Underhill leaned forward in his seat, "I originally denied your application to the program because I was concerned with the things you'd been through that the program might not be right for you, that it might cause you anxiety and some post traumatic stress. But Mad-Eye and Dumbledore showed up in my office, they had an agenda. They wanted you in the program and they were willing to barter with me to make it happen."

James frowned.

Underhill continued, "I chose to accept you into the program, but to keep an eye on you myself, putting you in my office as my intern. I've never liked that Dumbledore was so keen to have you here. It was clear Mad-Eye wanted you here because Dumbledore did, he said it frequently. Dumbledore's pockets aren't deep enough to barter me out of my integrity, personally, but I digress... I chose to put you into the program to prove to us both that you didn't have what it takes. Which was why I gave you the blank case that I gave you. I had hoped you'd quit long before you did."

"Then why did you pull me back in with the incident with Sirius, sir?" James asked.

Underhill said simply, "Dumbledore plays his pawns well to make things happen, and some of the movements are more obvious than others. Some are much more calculated, small changes in one place that dominoes into something bigger... I wanted to keep an eye on you. There had been some ....talk.... that I overheard and I knew that there was some conversation about trying to get you to come back to the Ministry soon. When the incident with Sirius happened, I requested you back on instinct, but I wanted it to be on my terms and in my office as it had been before. So I asked you before anyone else could. It was coming. If I hadn't done it, it would've been done by another... But Mr. Potter, know this... I found in my research that the Leonards woman did not notice Remus Lupin's attendance records alone, nor did she get the idea that Sirius had threatened her on her own, either. That is all I'm authorized to say."

James titled his head. 

Underhill said, "So here is what I have to say to this new job of yours. I would like you to remain my assistant as you've suggested, part time, and enjoy your new dream job if that's what you want to do. But if you are employed by Albus Dumbledore... argument about the position or not... be aware that there is something more to it than you are seeing... and that it most definitely is of benefit to Albus than it is to you... and be careful, Mr. Potter. I do not know how deep these chess games go, but if they're half as deep as I suspect, you will be playing in a game that is way, way over your head."

Those words were playing on repeat in James's head as he left the Ministry and chose to take muggle transport to give himself time to think - headed for the flat in East London, hoping he might get to talk to Remus and see what people smarter than him might think of the warning.