The Marauders - Order of the Phoenix Part Three

Sanguini's Vino Rosso Extrodinaire

"The most important thing about this mission," Albus Dumbledore had said, sitting behind his desk in the office in the high tower at Hogwarts, "Is that, regardless of whether we gain a legilimens, as we hope to do, we must not have our plans be spoiled ahead of time."

"But the moment Evans goes to talk to Snape, he'll know what we're planning when he looks into her mind," James said.

"Occlumency," Dumbledore murmured.

"I don't know occlumency," Lily stammered, looking 'round the other three with confusion.

Dumbledore looked at Frank.

"Well, they - they give a bit of a course on it in the second year's cirriculum at the Auror Training Center," Frank said, "But me being only fair at the practice doesn't help Lily knowing it! I certainly couldn't teach it in a single day, it takes months of practice and that only results in the pathetically shabby level that I'm at with it..."

"What if you were Lily?" Alice asked.

Frank looked confused.

"Polyjuice?" Lily asked.

"Absolutely not," James and Frank both said at the same time.

"Hang on," James said, turning 'round to Frank, "I know why I don't want you to do it, but --" He paused, then, "Why don't you want to be my wife, Longbottom?"

Alice snorted. 

"James, honey?" Lily tapped him so he turned to look at her. "You know how we always talk to Sirius about thinking about how something sounds before he says it?"

"I should think that would work very well, on the contrary to both of your objections," Dumbledore said, inserting himself into the conversation before James's thick brain had worked out what he'd said that had sounded wrong.

"You do?" Lily looked at Dumbledore.

"But I wouldn't know how to be Lily!" Frank objected, "And Snape's obsessed with her for years, he'd notice instantly if I was her."

"Exactly," Lily said.

Dumbledore rubbed his beard thoughtfully, then said, "There is a wizard - a graduate of Ilvermorny, some time ago now - who used his magic to delight hundreds of thousands of muggles by creating moving pictures. I have seen much of his work and I must say it is truly enthralling to be caught up in the most charming stories which he weaves with his moving pictures. There is one in particular he made in which a very loud and recognizable duck is forced to hire a stunt double for himself to attend a date he has with a very lovely female. This double - a charming mallard - must woo the female for the loud duck..."

"Sir?" James's head was tilted to one side.

"I apologize. I'm rambling. My point is that the charming duck know what to say to the female duck because the loud duck whispers lines into the charming duck's ear so he can respond to the female the way the loud duck would... Thus, fooling the female into believing the rouse." He paused, smiling between the four of them as though this absurd summary was the answer.

Surprisingly, Frank said, "Hearing ears."

"What?" James looked at Frank.

"The Prewetts have invented this very interesting little device, it's called Hearing Ears. There was a lot of talk about how amazing their natural connection to one another is, being twins, the way they can feel one another --"

Lily looked over at Frank, then bit her lip and looked distracted for a moment as he spoke.

"-- and Moody asked them if they could come up with a way for other aurors to have a similar connection. They're still working on it, but I've been apprenticing under Fabian lately and he has created Hearing Ears. They're sort of prosthetic ears that go over one of your own ears - magically molds itself to look just alike to your real ear, near to undetectable - and the other person puts on the mate to it and they can hear everything that the other can. And so they can be used sort of the way Muggle Walkie Talkies are used, but completely silent to any others in the room - only the two ears can hear what's on the other end."