The Marauders - Order of the Phoenix - Part One

Tibirius Rosenblat

J.
Grant.
Archer Record.
IRE.
Dumbledore.

James sat up, awake well after he ought to have fallen asleep. He held his head up with one hand, elbow on the table, staring blearily at the tiny bit of paper in his hand. Beside his elbow there sat a cup of tea that had been steaming when he started, but was now cold and bleak. His lips moved as he silently read the words - over and over and over again - illuminated only by the soft glow of the stove hood light.

"So you are home then," Lily's voice was sleepy and she yawned as she came into the kitchen, tying the belt of her dressing robe, shuffling in dainty pink bunny slippers. "I was getting worried, you were working so - so late." She yawned again as she walked up and rubbed his shoulders, bending to kiss the top of his head.

"Been home," he murmured absently.

Lily reached for his sad little tea cup, "It's cold, honey..."

"Forgot about it..."

She poured it out over the sink, then drew her wand and two fresh cups of chamomile in the pink rose budded cups. She sat down at the table beside him, scooting her chair to be close next to him, and placed the second cup in front of him. "Drink. It'll help you get some rest." She reached for a file that lay open before him and folded it closed gently, "Whatever this is, you can work on it in the morning." She could see the exhaustion in his eyes.

"Uh huh."

Lily reached up and tucked a stray strand of hair behind his ear. "James... love... what is it?"

He absently held the bit of paper up for her to inspect. She took it from his fingers and read it. Then, "What's it mean?"

"Dunno, do I?" James groaned and put his forehead down on the table in defeat. "I don't have the foggiest, even." His voice shook with the mental torture of it.

Lily sighed and rubbed the back of his shoulders and neck comfortingly.

James drew a deep breath.

"Drink your tea," Lily said gently.

"Will it tell me what this rubbish means?" he asked, sitting up and plucking the paper from her hand. "I mean,  bleedin' hell, what was this supposed to even mean?"

Lily pursed her lips, thinking, as she sipped her tea. "Who is it from? It doesn't look like Dumbledore's writing."

"It isn't. That's not a signature. It's a clue," James explained. "It's Underhill who's written it..." He told her about what had happened when he went to the office, how he'd overheard the conversation between the two men and how Underhill had discreetly deposited the note to the floor by his trainers.

"He knew you were there," Lily observed.

James nodded. "Asked me there especially to witness the entire thing, I suspect. He didn't seem to have much else a reason for me to be there, nothing special to work on or anything. Then the first thing he said was to stay down."

Lily mused, "Odd... You don't think he could be working for You Know Who?"

James shook his head. "He called Voldemort weak, Evans. Right in front of the other bloke, who I do think might have been a death eater. Or at least defecting from it. Maybe someone turning over our side? I dunno. Never heard the voice in my life before..."

"Why would Mr. Underhill have wanted you to hear the conversation?" Lily asked. "And why not tell you things to you directly, rather than in this cryptic note?"

"Dunno," James replied. "But its something to do with Marjorie Veigler, I reckon."

He quickly filled Lily in, too, on Sirius's theory that Mr. Grant had been involved in the investigation of Ned Veigler's imperius curse and how he and Sirius were in agreement that Grant himself may have been compromised at one point, when Anne had been sent to the Thickey ward during her hospitalization. "I honestly think its all somehow connected and whatever is going on, there's some reason that Underhill himself can't be the auror on the case. Whatever it is, he can't be involved. I just haven't the foggiest why."