And so the missions continued; checking houses, looking for clues, and the same, constant feeling of being watched.

“Lily, did you hear something?” James whispered, looking nervously around the dark room that we were in.

I was seven months along and quite honestly, I couldn’t hear much; a huge migraine had taken over my mind and the baby kept kicking.

“I'm not sure,” I groaned, leaning up against the wall for a moment.

“Are you okay?” he asked, resting his hand on my bloated stomach. “You shouldn’t have come today.”

“No, I'm fine. I need to be here. Alice is here.”

“It’s not a competition, you know.”

“I know. Come on. There’s nothing down here. Let’s go up.”

I carefully followed him out of the room and we were almost all the way up the stairs when a hair-raising scream rounded through the house.

“Alice!” I cried.

We chased after the direction of the evaporated echo. James was about the slam into the entrance when I stopped him.

“Wait. We don’t know what’s in there. At least get prepared,” I hissed, whipping out my wand. He followed suit, nodded, and kicked open the door.

I shuddered at the sight that met me. There where three Death Eaters in the room. Sirius had his wand pointed to a man’s head, which had his wand pointed to Frank’s throat, who had his wand pointed at a woman’s ear, who had her wand cornering Alice. Dorcas had her hands raised, and I believed that we’d come in on her pleading for them to stop. They were like a dangerous chain reaction ready to go off at any moment, and she knew it.

I looked at Dorcas, who stared back and I realized that we’d come to the same conclusion; three of them, three of us. I stepped on James’ foot, hoping he’d notice, but he made no sign of understanding. The whole room was quiet and I felt as if we’d been standing there for minutes. Everyone was breathing deeply and shaking slightly.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the woman open her mouth.

“Incarcerous!” I yelled, and thick ropes shot out of my wand and wrapped around her. At that same moment, Dorcas stunned one of the men and James put the other in a full body bind.

“I guess you got the signal, then,” I said to James as I rushed over to Alice, who’d collapsed in the corner. “Shh, come on honey. You’re okay.”

She nodded and drank from a cup of water that I conjured up.
I turned around to find James collecting the wands from the Death Eaters. “What’re you doing?”

“Breaking them,” he replied, and snapped all three in half. Green and red sparks shot out dangerously but nothing was hurt. He threw them in the corner with a look of disgust.

“You’ll regret that,” the woman hissed. “You’ve gotten away now but the Dark Lord will come after you! He knows your names: he knows your faces! You will all perish at his hands and-”


“Ugh, Lily, you forgot a gag,” Sirius said, shoving a piece of cloth into her mouth forcefully. “Why don’t you call your master, Bellatrix? Let him know that you’ve let him down again.”

“You know her?” questioned Dorcas.

“My cousin,” he replied gruffly. “Frank, you know her.”

He backed away, as did Alice. “You- you’re the one that tried to kill us.”

Though she couldn’t say anything, her eyes gleamed with the truth: she would try again if she could.

“We need to leave,” snapped Dorcas, and we did. However, no one went home. We all headed to my house and as soon as we entered the room, I conjured my Patronus and sent it to Dumbledore.

“Frank, Alice, what happened? Why didn’t you tell us before?” James looked at them worriedly, taking them to the living room.

“Well, it was about six months ago… we were out for dinner at a local Muggle restaurant when that woman… Bellatrix… entered with a few other people in black capes. At first we thought they were just a group of teenagers, just trying to stir up some trouble. But when they pulled out their wands… we knew we were in trouble. Bellatrix ended up sending Killing Curses left and right… We wouldn’t have survived if it weren’t for Dumbledore. That’s when we joined the Order…”

“Did I hear my name?” called a voice from the kitchen. Dumbledore walked in, looking grim in a set of dark gray robes. “What’s going on?”

“They know who we are,” Frank said softly. “And they’re prepared to find us.”

“Ah,” replied Dumbledore, sitting down on the coffee table. “I expected this to happen soon enough, and I already have a solution for you all. You all need to find your own Secret Keepers.”

“Secret Keepers?”

“Someone who you trust with the location of your home. No one else can see or enter your home without your Secret Keeper telling them where it is first. It is a powerful magical contract and is not something that should be handled lightly.”

“Sirius, will you?” asked James automatically.

“James, that’s not really something that can be put on the spot,” I murmured softly. “Ask him later, in private.”

“No, it’s fine, Lily,” smiled Sirius, putting his hand on my knee. He turned to James. “I’d love to, mate. Anything for my best friends.”

However, I couldn’t help to notice how pale he was underneath that plastered smile.