December 15
Lily stepped onto the brick road of Diagon Alley, eyes the strangers slowly passing her by, ushering their children away from the witch with fiery hair. She walked into the street and looked around for the dark alley she was looking for. She found it and with her hood on and her head down, Lily walked into Knockturn Alley.
“Come here, deary,” a hoarse voice called to Lily, “I can show you everything.”
Lily pulled her hood up higher and kept walking, passing strangers with shaky, frail hands reaching out to grab a hold of her, and people calling out to her, trying to pay her for a second of her time. Lily kept her head down and kept walking to the store she was looking for, a store that, even though it was so newly opened, its popularity had risen.
The Dark Mark.
It had been opened two days after Harry and James’ death, by Evan Rosier and Barty Crouch Jr., and they made sure everyone knew where to find it. It had spellbooks that contained the darkest of magic, and potion ingredients illegal almost everywhere. It has almost anything and everything related to dark magic, and even though the name was not very cleverly thought of, people feared the contents of the store. This store was where Lily hoped to find one of the two owners and talk to them.
Lily walked up the broken steps to the rusty front door of the brick building and opened the door, the sound of a bell ringing greeting her as she walked in. She smelled so many smells at once, smells that ranged from familiar to vague.
“Look around, everythings is everywhere.” A raspy voice called out from behind a shelf, and Lily recognized the voice. It was a voice she had hoped to never hear again.
“Barty Crouch.” Lily whispered to herself, making her way through the clustered aisles, knocking over a glass jar filled with something foul-smelling.
“Oi! What the hell d’you think your doin’ breakin my stuff?” A voice roared from behind the shelf, followed by heavy footsteps and then suddenly Barty Crouch Jr. was standing right in front of Lily, towering over her, his dark brown eyes staring into her dark green ones.
“Crouch.” Lily spoke,
“Evans.” Barty uttered, running his hand through his straw-blonde hair.
Lily took a step back and walked into a shelf, catching a book before it slammed to the ground
“What the fuck are you doing here?”
Lily stared at him and stood up straight, staring at him,
“I've come to help rescue Regulus. I don't care what you or Evan said, I'm going to help. Me and Regulus have something big planned and it wont work if he's fucking dead.”
Barty scoffed and turned around, walking back down the aisle. Lily followed him into a back room and he shut the door behind.
“Merlin, Evans. Y’know you showing up and shouting that rubbish in here is going to get me killed. Someone could HEAR you, and then where would we be?”
Lily sat on an overturned bucket and folded her arms, “Well then, I’ll just sit in here until you close and then we’ll talk.”
Barty sighed and ran his fingers through his hair again, looking at the clock.
“Shifts over in 15, then Evan’ll be here and he can talk with you. He knows more than I do. Just stay here and don't move or make a sound. The Lestranges might be comin’ so they cant see you.”
Lily nodded and looked at the clock too, 15 minutes to 3.
“Ill stay in here.”
Barty nodded and walked out the door at the sound of a bell coming from across the store, closing the door Lily heard the lock click, her mind panicking.
‘Merlin, what if Barty was locking her in?’ After all, Lily hadn’t seen Barty since before James, hell before Marlene died, and even then he was blowing up bridges and killing innocent muggles when she last saw him. And Evan, well he was always with Barty. The two were always very close. Lily couldn't remember a time when they were not together. The two terrorized 1st years together and even bullied Remus together. Well, before Remus fought back and left Mulciber in the Hospital Wing and then the two really layed off of him.
Lily heard distinct talking behind the door, and leaned up against it to try and hear who it was.
“Bella, you know I can't do that,” Barty was saying, his voice raised
“Listen, Crouch.” a female voice snarled back at him, full of anger, “The Dark Lord needs a place to put his-” there was a loud crash and a yelp
“WORMTAIL GET OUT OF THERE!” Bartys voice roared to the place of the crash and Lily heard scurrying footsteps of Peter Pettigrew walking back towards the two.
Lily almost burst through the door at the mention of the rats name, but she held her temper and covered her mouth to prevent herself from yelling curses.
“Anyways, he needs someplace to put it and this might just be the safest place.” Bellatrix Lestrange whispered to Barty, her voice angry.
“Bella,” Barty said, “I would, I really would but I have aurors coming here daily to check for anything more suspicious than what we sell, so it really wouldn’t be a safe place. Just hide it in Luscious' stupid bunker thing under the drawing room.”
The woman groaned and slammed something against the wall, which made Barty cry out.
“OI! Just because you can't find a fucking place to hide The Dark Lord's soul or whatever doesn't mean you need to come in here and destroy my business.”
There was the small sound of a bell chiming and two people left the store, one stomping and one limping softly.
Lily looked up at the clock and saw that it was now 3 minutes to 3. 3 minutes until Evan got to the store and Lily got to learn the plan. Until Lily got to learn everything.
There was a ring and the store door opened,
“Barty?” A deep voice called out, “Barty, you there?”
Barty answered and the door was shut and Lily heard the lock and blinds being closed.
She heard footsteps coming closer to the small room she was in and the lock being turned. Two figures stood in the doorway and looked down on her sitting on the floor.
“Lily, the hell you doing here?” Evan roared, shaking his hands at her.
Lily stood up and dusted herself off, “Y’know you really ought to clean up in here a bit more, its rather nasty.”
Barty rolled his eyes and ran his hand through his head, mussing it up more.
“Lily…” Evan warned, eyeing Lily.
“Okay, can we go somewhere to talk? I want to know the plan.”
Evan looked at her and cocked his head, “what plan?”
Lily sighed and crossed her arms, “the plan to get Regulus back.”
Evan looked at Barty and sighed, looking back at Lily, “well, we still need to make a plan. All we know is that Regulus is being held in the dungeons and they have their stupid little house-elf Dobby watching him at all times. The elf really is rather stupid.”
Lily glared at him and scoffed, of course Evan would be making fun of a poor house-elf who was forced to do this.
“Whatever, but Narcissa is always there with her son, Draco. And Bellatrix and Lucius and Wormtail stay there but they are out a lot. And the Death Eater meetings are always held there. So that's sorta when we expected to rescue him, because The Dark Lord doesnt know we are kind of rebelling against him.”
Lily closed her eyes and pushed her forehead, trying to get rid of the headache she had.
“Okay, well clearly we need to devise a plan better than that.”
Evan and Barty looked at each other, “like what?”
Lily smiled and folded her hands together,
“We're going to break into Malfoy Manor.”
Barty and Evan smirked at each other, “wicked.”