Archive of Our Own

"Okay, mates, I'm in their inner systems. Location?"

"Second floor hallway, east wing, right near the turn."

James keeps watch in the dim moonlight, his partner Sirius at his back. Not a sound.

"Location spotted. You're not visible on security—"

"When are we ever," James interrupts.

"—and I'm throwing the camera footage on a loop… now. Go."

He steals across the lengthy corridor on command, crouching low on the other end of the hallway and peering around the corner. Sirius' soft breaths brush against his shoulder.

"Anyone?"

"No," James whispers back to Sirius. Checks his watch. "But a guard should be due in one minute."

"Get back," Peter's voice comes in his ear. "Guard around the corner."

They slink back into the shadows into a nearby gallery, hiding instead behind the tall glass case that houses—

"The crown… Portugal… Sir Arthur Gilbert's donated collection." From his crouched position, Sirius softly reads bits from the attached placard. He looks up at the gleaming crown within its glass walls. "Gaudy. I like it. Think we can slip this in as well, Jamie?"

James rolls his eyes. "Eye on the prize, Sirius. We need the Heart. This wouldn't be worth a third of the price that beauty is fetching us."

"I know, but this one is shiny," Sirius mutters.

"Guard's leaving," Peter's scratchy voice comes through their comms devices. James hears the dull thuds of booted footsteps fade away. "Move."

He exchanges a quick glance with Sirius and slinks out of the gallery.

They come up to a turning where the hallways intersect. "Left here," Sirius whispers, and James follows his lead. They head to the central exhibit on the floor, Peter temporarily switching off the motion detection and tampering with the cameras for each hallway and gallery they pass, warning them for every guard that patrols their way. Sirius would have happily knocked them out if needed, James knows, but they're not those kind of burglars.

They're the stealthy kind. Better. Faster. They're not robbers. They are thieves.

"Okay, we're here," James whispers to Peter when they are staring up at the big metal door blocking their access to tonight's target. "Code?"

"Give me a minute, I'm still getting through the last protocol barriers on this thing," Peter responds, muttering. "What kind of garbage control room are they operating here? Four separate computers just to store all this data…"

"Uh Pete, we're kind of standing targets; there is piss-all to hide behind here," Sirius interrupts his grumbling with a grimace, "So stop fucking around and get us in—"

"Shut the bloody hell up and let me work, Sirius," comes Peter's irritated voice.

"You should have thought this through, mate," he huffs to himself, and James slaps him upside the head and puts a finger to his lips.

"You're going to get us caught, dumbass," James whispers and pulls him to the side so that they're not standing right in the middle of the large hallway where anyone could see them.

He crosses his arms as he presses back into the dark wall, tapping his fingers against his biceps while they wait. Sirius fidgets impatiently beside him. He can't deny that he's starting to get worried—Peter is taking a while to acquire the passcode to their current predicament and by his calculations, a guard is due any moment. The central exhibit is patrolled more heavily than the others, and they cannot afford to be caught when they are so close to having what they came here for in the palm of their hands.

"Finally," Peter's voice comes through. James lets out a relieved sigh under his breath and uncrosses his arms to hurry to the wall panel beside the door.

"Punch it in." Peter rattles off the numbers, and he presses the digital buttons accordingly with one gloved hand while his partner presses a bit of foam against the tiny speck on the bottom of the machine that serves as its speaker. Sirius watches beside him with bated breath as the numbers get accepted, and the machine acknowledges their code with a very muffled, near-inaudible beep.

They both let out synchronised breaths of relief and grin at each other. Sirius pulls open the metal door silently, and they slink in. As they close the door, James spots an approaching shadow around the corner that signals the guard's arrival.

They made it.

"A second longer and you two would have been meat for the sharks," Peter's voice comments, and James pulls a face at the hypocritical comment, annoyed despite himself.

"And who's fault is that?" Sirius mutters beside him, making James roll his eyes as he's forced to ignore the half-defensive, half-complaining protests in his ears.

They survey the exhibit first, looking over their strategies to see which ones fit.

"Pretty large for a room that has only one artefact," Sirius murmurs off-handedly.

"Well yes, Siri," James responds, feeling a grin creep up his face as his eyes find their prize, "but this artefact is worth everything."

The Emerald Heart.

It beckons to him, gleaming gorgeously even in the unflattering security lights. An intricately cut, highly polished gem, far larger in size than most emeralds. It would sit comfortably in his palm, he thinks as he stares. There is no question why Fenrir Greyback's client commissioned them to steal this marvellous-looking stone.

"I'm downloading my virus to this device as we speak," Peter says in his business tone. "It should scramble the encryption for the proximity sensors in an estimated four minutes. You have till then to get past the lasers."

"Lasers? Didn't you deactivate them already?" Sirius asks, frowning.

"Can't, it's not showing up on the security software here. But if the room is as large as you say then there's got to be laser detection, so there must be manual ones installed." James lets out a hum of agreement, his keen eyes spotting the dark edge of a little box strategically tucked into a crevice on the wall. Looking around, he thinks he spots more, each placed in a distinctive pattern along the walls.

"These people are thorough, even if their control room is managed for shit. I bet there'll be either a passcode or biometrics on each one, so you're out of luck there."

Sirius sighs, smiling a little self-satisfied smile. "Good thing we brought the aerosol," he says with an eyebrow waggle, reaching back into his backpack for the spray can.

"Be careful with that," James warns instinctively, and Sirius aims him an unimpressed look as he perfunctorily shakes the can.

"Oh nooo, it's not like we've been doing this for years, Jamie."

"Do you really think either of us have forgotten that fire incident?"

"I knew you were going to say that," Sirius says defensively, pointing one finger at James as he sprays the aerosol in the approximate direction of the lasers with the other hand. "We were seventeen, James. Shit happens when you're seventeen."

"Doesn't excuse the fact that we nearly got caught with our pants on fire. Literally," James retorts half-heartedly, his gaze more occupied tracking the shimmering, faint red beams making itself visible in the dark. "Let's go," he says before Sirius can protest. "It won't stay visible for long, since you sprayed too little."

"I sprayed just enough, arsehole," Sirius bites, throwing the can back into his backpack and slinging the bag back into place. "You know we can't inhale too much of this."

"Talking wastes time," James sing-songs, already halfway through the first barrier of lasers. "Hurry up, you turtle."

"Turtles are bloated. I am not a turtle."

Sirius contorts himself in an excessively grandiose way to one-up James, aiming him a smug look as he balances himself on one foot. James rolls his eyes and, just to prove he can, does the limbo with the next red beam.

"Are you two pissing around again?" Peter growls impatiently. "Hurry up, the virus is already half downloaded. You have two minutes."

Sirius and James glance at each other and roll their eyes.

"The problem with you, Petey," Sirius huffs as he jumps over a tricky intersection of faint red light, "is that you worry too much."

"Yeah, Petey, lighten up a bit," James echoes, twisting his torso to subvert a streak of red that he notices at the last minute. "Eyes on the prize, remember?" He ducks under another shimmering beam. "We got this in hand."

"Well, forgive me if I don't have the same faith in you nutcases," Peter's dry voice says in his ear, "But I think I've been given plenty reasons to worry over the years. You two don't attract trouble, you incite it."

"Name one instance—" James starts as he tightens his hold on his slipping backpack, stopping it from hitting a laser behind his legs.

"Hah! Made it before you, git," Sirius crows on the other side of the final laser beam blocking James. "Who's the turtle now?"

"Still you, punk," James grunts, taking a high step over the fading red line. Once his foot touches the waxed floor again, he hops his way over the beam and finally puts his other foot down on safer ground.

"Well, just in time," Peter says over the comms, somehow sensing that they had made through. James never knows how he does it. "The proximity sensors are now down. Don't take too long; I don't know how long I can keep their encryption key scrambled. These guys are good."

"Gotcha," Sirius says, slipping out his blades and tools as they step closer to the rounded dias standing proud in the centre of the exhibit. Together, they each put a foot on the first step and hold their breaths, waiting for an incriminating screech of an alarm.

Nothing.

"No silent alarms activated," Peter offers, unprompted. Emboldened, they take a second step and a third, and then their toes are an inch away from solid, polished wood and they touch cautious fingers to the big glass box protecting the gem.

The Emerald Heart. The pride and joy of the Zabini collection; temporarily granted to the museum for public display for the first time in decades. It has never seen the light of day beyond the undoubted extravagance of the Zabini mansion, and James' eyes are greedy to take in the sight.

The Heart gleams a sickly, inky colour in the dim security lights, as big as his approximations told him it would be and so very real. He is in awe.

Sirius gets to work immediately; he doesn't possess James' luxury of having the time to stare. The next part is all Sirius—he is the light-fingered expert of the two of them. James forms the break-in strategies, Sirius does the actual stealing. They are each expert at what they do, and they form quite the team, the two of them.

And Peter makes for a brilliant hacker sidekick. James would go as far as to include Peter in their team.

"Brilliant security, ancient lock," Sirius says to him with a smug smirk as he jimmies the lock open with a final twist of his wrist, "Must have pinched the big cats to spend on a better locking system."

"Well, their proximity alarms are pretty top notch," Peter comments as Sirius opens the glass case with a triumphant grin, "Not to mention, security is really tight."

"But not infallible," James murmurs with an absent grin, reaching in with delicate fingers to pull out the gem from its intricate little stand. "They never saw us coming."

His gloves make it impossible to discern the texture of the gem, but he can tell with his trained eyes that the rock he holds in his palm is the real deal. Its cut is exquisite.

There comes a thump from above.

James' head snaps up at the sudden whoosh that follows; a flash of darkness and shifting shadows alerts him to a new intruder, but he is not quick enough.

The gem is snatched right out of his hands.

And James and Sirius are left gaping at the clear silhouette who now holds the Heart, swinging from a rope that seems to be attached to the ceiling. James squints and… there's a skylight. A tiny one, almost impossible to spot, but undeniably there. He can now see a sliver of moonlight against the edge of a beam overhead, made imperceptible by one of the dull security lights just next to the beam. How had he not seen it before? He notices everything.

The silhouette clinging to the rope weighs the gem in their hand and, seemingly satisfied with what they're looking for, twists around more to face them, resting one booted foot on a corner of the empty glass case that only minutes before housed the Emerald Heart. Light illuminates the figure from behind, and the figure takes the distinctive shape of a woman.

Sirius sounds like he is choking.

James… James just stares. Because it is her. Again. And this time, she has his Heart.

"What's happening?" Peter's frantically asking through the comms. "Mates, talk to me, are we compromised? Should we abort?"

Sirius chokes some more in response.

The woman is dressed all in black like always, form-fitting sweater and jeans hugging her figure. Her flaming ginger red hair is eye-catching in its thick bun, but it is her eyes that draw him. She never comes near enough for him to discern their colour, but they're bright and sharp; their sparkle outshines the gem in her black-gloved hands.

The black mask that hides the upper half of her face is a travesty in his eyes. Not that he can point fingers, of course. He is wearing a similar mask to hide his identity, and so is Sirius.

Peter's intake of breath is sharp to James' ears. "Oh fuuuuck, is it her again? Fuck, where did she come from? Did she get the gem?"

James ignores him. "Give that back," he says to the woman, and her lips curl in what has to be the most devilish smile he's ever seen. He knows he's lost the fight before she even opens her mouth to speak.

"I should thank you," her deceptively soft voice teases, "for doing all the work for me. You have my gratitude, gentlemen."

Sirius growls and makes a grab for her foot, but yet again, she is quicker. A deft twist of her hand on the rope and it jerks up like a pulley, lifting her out of his reach with its momentum.

"You're quite agile, by the way," she says to James, and his eyes widen, "Consider me impressed."

Another tug, and then she is soaring up, up, up, leaving them with nothing.

Sirius' angry eyes are on the gem she clutches in her hands, the one that was so nearly theirs. But James, well—if pressed, he would confess that his eyes were on her and her retreating form, and his mind was on her parting words.

This woman stole his Heart and made off with it, a fellow thief in the night. And he let her.

He should be more indignant, more defeated, but in truth… this is not the first time he has let her get away with stealing what is his.

Consider him impressed.

Sirius is not impressed.

James knows this, because Sirius will not shut up about the mystery woman who stole their gem.

It takes a whole twenty seconds of Peter screeching at them to get away from the proximity sensors before James takes action and pulls a muttering Sirius down the steps of the dias. They are just in time, for it is at that moment that Peter loses his fight with the encryption and the proximity alarms go up again. Then it is simply a matter of getting past the laser beams once again, waiting for Peter's signal to leave the exhibit and sneaking out the door.

The whole process takes five minutes, tops. Sirius grumbles the entire time.

"Bloody wretch," James catches him saying as they creep down the way they came, Peter's voice directing them when to stop and when to hide. "Filthy, foul, soul-sucking demon villain succubus skunk, bloody thief…"

James found it best not to point out that while tonight was an example in thievery failure, at the root of it all they were also, technically, still thieves.

"Wait," Sirius stops him then, pulling him behind a large bronze statue of an old man with a beard that reaches his knees. He pulls off his mask abruptly.

"Sirius?" Peter questions in their ears.

"We're not leaving this place empty-handed," Sirius whispers harshly, his face scrunching up into a determined frown. "We spent weeks planning this gig."

"Well, what else do we do?" James whispers just as sharply in response. "What we came here for isn't here anymore!"

"And that is your fault, by the way," Sirius quickly adds with a jab of his finger, his frown turning annoyed. "Standing there like a bloody statue… like… like…" he glances up at the tall, larger-than-life statue that is their cover, "like this hippie dude here! See him? Beard and everything! You grew fifty years older in the time she took to snatch it from you, you utter bellend, would it have killed you to—"

"Sirius, point made, we don't have time to do this right now," Peter interrupts his rant hurriedly, and James involuntarily lets out the breath he's been holding the whole time Sirius was in his face. "What's your other point?"

Sirius huffs. "My point is…" His grey eyes dart around, searching. "There!" he whispers triumphantly, pointing at the wide arch of a nearby gallery entrance. "That's my point."

Quick as lighting, he straps his mask back on with one hand and darts across the hallway, slipping past the arch. James is left scrambling to follow.

"What is going on?" Peter huffs irritatedly. No one answers him.

Sirius is paused at a nearby display, a smaller one that simply holds a square cushion and something that looks like a gold ring cut in half and welded back together the wrong way. As if the rounded-X shaped thing isn't odd enough, it has rows of diamonds dotting both the curves of the X like a true sparkling monstrosity.

"Gilian Packard, London, 1972," Sirius reads, snorting at the next sentence. "Oh look, it's supposed to be a ring. Looks like someone was under the influence when this baby was made, eh? What a gag. Come on."

Sirius heads to the glass case opposite, and James' eyes widen in recognition. "Hey, that's the crown we saw when we hid here!" He looks at Sirius suspiciously. "What are we doing here?"

"Stealing it," Sirius says casually as he pulls out his tools again. "Keep watch. We're not leaving here without something to make this whole rigmarole worthwhile."

James blinks and does as he's told. He knows better than to fight with Sirius' stubborn side, and this is nothing if not Stubborn Sirius taking the reins.

He chances a quick glance to watch Sirius work, his eyes catching the Sir Arthur Gilbert written in eye-watering curlicues on the placard. Merlin, the crown really is gaudy. Not for the first time in his life, he wonders what higher entity he had angered in his past lives that he's currently in this situation.

They take the Gilian Packard ring monstrosity with them as well.

"Greyback looked plenty pissed off the other day when we told him, didn't he?" Sirius comments out of the blue as he passes by James at the checkout counter, carrying his cardboard box out to the front.

James' eyes bug out a little. "Sirius, not here!" he hisses as he rounds his way past the desk and follows behind the other man.

"Ahh shut up, no one's here," Sirius says lazily. If he had a hand free, he would have waved James off. "So. Greyback. He was pretty pissed off at losing his client."

"Well, we did promise him the Heart, and we didn't get him the Heart. I suspect his client didn't take it well either," James points out as Sirius sets down his box near the empty shelf. "Thankfully, Greyback didn't take it out on Moony."

"It wasn't Moony's fault," Sirius agrees, bending down and thumbing the flaps open. "I blame that vile harpy for taking it from us. I mean, come on! We clearly had dibs."

James' eyes get dreamy at the mention of their mystery thief. "Did you see her, Siri? Completely silent, like a ninja."

"There is a code, dammit!"

"And her moves! Flawless. Did you see?"

"What kind of soulless monster does that?"

"She's like water, smooth and sure and inevitable."

"Museum theft is supposed to be a victimless crime. She made us victims. That was not a victimless crime!"

"And she said I was impressive!"

"Dammit, she's stolen from us too many times now."

"She's practically perfect in every way."

Sirius stops and stares up at him for a long time, sitting back on his heels. "For fuck's sake, mate, who's side are you on?"

James sighs, and his shoulders slump. "I'm sorry. It's just… you know how I get around the ones I fall for."

Sirius rolls his eyes hard. "Boy, do I know." Sirius does know how James gets. The entirety of their secondary school and college years can attest to that. "I have the worst taste in best mates."

James blinks. "Mates? You have just the one."

Sirius' eyes grow big. "Oh fuck, you're right. I'm cursed."

James doesn't even rib him for that one. He's probably right.

After all the dumb stuff they've done and the trouble they've pulled each other into, it's honestly a wonder they're still standing.

"It's just… I don't know what you see in her. She has literally made our lives twice as difficult since she dropped in our lives with her black boots and bloody quips."

"I don't know, mate. There's just… something about her. She's special."

"She's something, I'll give you that," Sirius mutters as he pulls out the first toy from the cardboard box. "Go piss off back to the register. You're not gonna be any help, I can see."

"Fine," James replies, pouting. "I'll go back and watch from afar as you miss me more by the minute."

Sirius looks up with the fakest of fake smiles. "I promise, if I start to feel that old, familiar body ache coming on, I will hug the shit out of this plushie," he says, holding out the giant ladybug soft toy out in his hands.

James glares, still pouting. "I see where I'm not needed." As he stomps off back to his counter, he hears a genuine laugh from Sirius.

The next few minutes are spent flicking his nails on the counter and watching as Sirius rhythmically stocks their shelf with a mixed set of soft toys. Glancing outside at the door every few seconds, he notes the shoppers passing by outside their store.

Marauding Mania is located on the first floor of the shopping centre, boldly standing out against the denim store and beauty care shop bracketing its sides. There is a sprawling open-counter Starbucks coffee kiosk right opposite, and every time a customer walks into their store, they bring with them the glorious smell of freshly ground coffee.

Sirius and James co-own Marauding Mania. The tongue-in-cheek name was something they came up with when they were drunk and had no regrets, and when they woke up sober, they were too hungover to care. They have everything from toys to computer games to vinyl figure collectibles to whoopee cushions to 25-pack multicolour gel pen sets.

James loves their store. They get all the cool customers—cute little kids and prankster teenagers who remind him of himself and Sirius and the best nerds and doting parents and aunts and uncles and the occasional grandparent looking to spoil their grandkid.

And well, James is perfectly happy to overlook the snot-nosed brats, the moody teens, the stressed mothers and fathers, the clueless elderly folks and the rare person in their thirties who come in high as a kite on a weekday—because they have built this store from the ground up and they are surrounded with all their favourite things, and with both this business and their side business, James can safely say that he and Sirius are pretty comfortable. What more could one ask for in life?

He looks around at their store again, smiling a little at the cheery yellow-white lighting and stacked shelves and bright display colours. They have a steady flow of customers on a good day, but also get enough room to breathe at intervals, and the shop is easily manageable between the two of them.

Sirius finishes emptying his box soon, and it is when he vanishes into the back room that James gets their next customer.

The glass door opens silently, but it is the euphoric rush of coffee-scented air that the opened door brings that alerts him to the new arrival. His head shoots up.

"Lily!" he exclaims with a smile when he sees who it is.

Lily Evans greets him with a similar smile, walking up to his counter. She is wearing a marigold yellow dress today, her dark red hair loose and falling in thick waves past her shoulders. Her green eyes, as always, remind James of emeralds, and they fixate on him with a clear sharpness that never fails to remind him of a predator.

James and Sirius have known Lily since college. She now works as an organiser for a non-profit that helps with child poverty and children at risk, and she's been one of their steady customers almost since they first started up. And barring the rare times she has had to phone emergency orders in, Lily always comes to their store to finalise her orders with them.

"Hey, Potter," she says with a grin when she spots the week's counter display arrangement. "Invisible pens, huh?" she asks teasingly, picking out one from the stand to inspect it better, "Doesn't look very invisible to me. Very flashy."

James rolls his eyes and snatches the red and gold pen back from her unappreciative hands. "It's the ink that's meant to be invisible and you know it," he mumbles, placing it where it belongs. "And it's custom-made. Red and gold are Marauder colours."

"I've got eyes," she retorts, lips twitching as she looks around their store. "I can tell."

"Good, then don't insult it. Or I'm revoking your discount."

"Whatever will I do?" Lily exclaims softly, hand on her chest and eyes wide. "I have nowhere else to go, James, don't take away my toys."

James snorts. "Is that meant to be an imitation of Sirius?"

"You guessed it," she replies, and soon they're both breaking down in chuckles. James grins as he toys with the counter display bubblegum packs.

"Oh hey, Lils," Sirius' voice comes from somewhere behind him, and James turns to see him walk out from the computer game section, dusting off his hands. "What do you need?"

"School starter packs," Lily says with a lingering wide smile. She props an elbow near James' register. "Pens, books, stationery, you know the drill."

"I do happen to know the drill," James affirms, pulling up the order log on his computer. "How many sets this time?"

While Lily negotiates her order with him, Sirius wanders off to adjust some of the other stuff on the shelves. A new customer comes in—stressed mother, James takes the time to note—and Sirius attends to her while he is busy.

They finish up just as the stressed mother speed-walks up to the counter looking only slightly less stressed, a Friends LEGO set tucked under one arm.

"Right, I'll be off then, James," Lily says from the side while he rings the woman up. "See you."

"Bye, Lils," he offers her a smile, one she returns over her shoulder as she leaves. Her dark red hair looks a little brighter when it catches the light. She leaves with another whiff of coffee, and when the stressed mother leaves after her, James gets hit with the scent of roasted beans again.

God, but he loves this job.

Sirius saunters over when it's clear that they are getting no more customers, his long dark hair falling forward and curling around his neck. Not for the first time, James wonders if it tickles.

"Right, so, about the vicious chipmunk she-devil who's been stealing our stuff…"

James groans, and wishes he was anywhere but here.

The next place they raid is a private collector's home, and their target is an antique gold sundial.

They do not leave with the sundial. They leave with a bunch of faded, rubbed-out gold coins in a makeshift handkerchief-turned-purse as a consolation prize, and the ringing laughter of a certain redheaded archenemy echoing in their ears.

"I feel bad for Moony, y'know?" Sirius tells James when they are sprawled on the couch back in their shared flat, beers in hand as they commiserate over their epic failure of a night—again. "He's the one who has to deal with Greyback. Not us, not really."

"I know," James responds, chugging his beer. "But it's Moony, he's resourceful. I'm sure he'll come up with something good to cover our arses—have you seen him in salesman mode? He can convince anybody of anything."

"I know, man," Sirius nods emphatically, then pauses in consideration. "It's just… I feel sorry for the bloke, y'know? His dad sold him out to Greyback when he was five. Five. He's our age, Jamie. It's been years—decades, really; hasn't he paid off his father's debt yet? He should have gotten out by now."

"It's the mafia, Siri," James responds eventually, shaking his head. "You don't just get out. But this is him we're talking about. If he wanted to get out, he'd be out already. I think there's a reason Moony's still hanging around Greyback's gang."

"Takedown from the inside?" Sirius questions, cocking an eyebrow with interest.

"It's Moony, who knows what's in his head?" James shrugs, and he feels the beer slosh around in his can. "Point is, he's fine. Likely planning something. Don't worry 'bout him so much, he can take care of himself."

Sirius concedes his point with a tilt of his head, then huffs and throws his legs dramatically on their coffee table. "Now that witch, on the other hand…"

"She is starting to get inconvenient," James reluctantly agrees. The metal-ring tab of his beer can suddenly looks very interesting.

"Finally, you agree!" Some of the liquid in Sirius' can sloshes out at the force with which he throws his arms out. "We've got to do something about her, Jamie. She's stealing our business."

"Fine. Something. But what?" James asks, frowning at his beer.

"I… do not know," Sirius says with a grimace, "But I'm going to do something. Next time, I'm going to stop her before she even gets her filthy hands on what's ours."

James looks over and sees Sirius' stubborn face on. Who's he to argue with that?

"Just don't make me do anything to help," he cautions a little sheepishly. "If I freeze, it'd be on you for making me do it in the first place."

Sirius snorts. "I know you too well to make a rookie mistake like that."

"Well," James blinks. "As long as we're on the same page, then."

It's another day of working at the store when the strangest customer they've had all month walks in.

Getting to be about four o'clock in the evening, about thirty minutes before Fabian and Gideon Prewett—twins, part-timers, and two redheads with brilliant smiles and an inhuman amount of bounce in their steps—take over for Sirius and James. They're saving up to start up a shop of their own somewhere downtown, James thinks. Good kids. James even trusts them to close up the store when they work the evening shifts. And James isn't prone to trusting people with store business.

Anyway, he and Sirius are still at the store—it's Sirius' turn at the till this time—when the man walks in. Right off the bat, he can tell that the man doesn't fit into any of their customer categories. He's certainly not a stressed mother, that's for sure.

James notices the expression first, and promptly wonders how a person can look sullen, constipated, miserable and annoyed all at one time. Then, of course, he notices the hair, which is lanky and greasy and just as miserable-looking as his face. Next the hilariously disproportionate nose, followed by his unearthly sallow skin, and last, the confusing black get-up he's wearing. He's dressed up either like a cosplayer or like he's forgotten to change out of his unsexy vampire costume after Halloween, but judging by the convoluted expression he wears, James doesn't think either of those are the right answers.

The man stalks up directly to the register in his funny robes of black, and James edges closer because he just has to see what the man wants. He hopes he's being subtle.

The man slams an arm down onto the counter, and James sees Sirius' eyes grow wide. "You got the worms?"

Sirius looks confused, and James knows that his own face must look pretty befuddled as well. "W-Worms?" Sirius stumbles over the word.

"Yes, the worms," Goth Cosplay Weirdo stresses impatiently. "Do you have them or not?"

"Uh," Sirius takes a second to compose himself, and James busies himself messing around with a rack of computer game CDs while he eavesdrops. "We don't have any trick worms, if that's what you're looking for, but we do have a pack of fake spiders around the corner if you… James can guide you to—"

Goth Cosplay Weirdo lets out a cross between a huff and a snort. "What are you talking about? The flobberworms, you bloody dunderhead! Give them to me before I curse you into the next century."

At that, James swiftly turns around and acknowledges Sirius' desperate eyes. James generally handles all the weirdos, because Sirius doesn't take kindly to being insulted and has the unfortunate habit of almost-punching the crazy ones for being irritating.

There would have been actual punches involved, had James not so far maintained an excellent record of stopping Sirius before things got physical. The last thing they needed was for someone to call the cops on them.

"I'm sorry, sir, but we do not stock flobberworms," James steps forward to say, hoping his voice doesn't betray his doubt at whatever flobberworms might be, "You might have to try another store to find what you're looking for. Now, if there is anything else you need, we will be happy to assist."

Goth Cosplay Weirdo lets out an actual growl. "Incompetent fools." He turns on his heel with an icy glare and stomps away, opening their glass door with a jerky squeak and disappearing into the crowd of shoppers the second he's out. Even the gust of coffee scents that assaults James' nose feels aggressive.

"How insensitive," he remarks.

Sirius stares after the whirlwind that just left them. "Ever wonder how even though we run what's basically a toy shop in a goddamned shopping centre, we still get the weird ones?"

"World is filled with them," James responds with a shrug, and they go back to what they were doing before they were so rudely interrupted.

It's less than a minute later when Lily walks in.

She's got a bunch of shopping bags strung along her arms this time, James notices. One of them is from a shoe store right across the floor, a little way away from them. James can safely assume that is more than a single pair in her bag.

"James, Sirius," she greets them as she struts up to the register. They echo her name together in response, matching fond smiles on their faces. James comes over to lean against the counter while Lily is in their store.

"Been good, Lils?" he asks her as she sets her bags down on the sparkling clean tiled floor near the counter like she owns the place.

She rolls her eyes. "You saw me four days ago, James."

He pouts. "Can't a bloke ask after his good friend's health without being picked on for it?"

A single dark red eyebrow goes up. "When we're sixty years old and in genuine possibility of having a health crisis in the four days since we've last seen each other, then, I suppose, you can pull your gentlemanly rot. But until that happy day, Potter, I'm perfectly okay with being healthy and fine so don't you ask after my health and jinx it for me."

James feels his own eyebrows climbing up, and he puts both hands out defensively. "Woah, cool your jets, Lily! All I did was ask how you were."

At this, Lily sighs and runs a hand through her hair. "I'm sorry, James," she says, softer, and her voice this time sounds exhausted. "It's the fundraiser I've been organising—Alice is out sick and Marlene is no help and Dorcas… you know how she is. I'd rather do her work myself than have her come to me with questions about every little thing. So it's all been on me and…"

Her shoulders slump, and James feels sorry for her.

"Hasn't been going so well, huh?" Sirius pipes up sympathetically, and James' eyes cut to him, forgetting for a moment that he was still nearby.

"It's going fine," Lily responds with a sigh, "I'm just tired."

"It will be over soon," James says, patting her shoulder gently. "And it will go off without a hitch, because this is you we're talking about. Things will be fine, yeah? And when it's done you can take a nice day off next weekend and just relax and sleep in."

"Sleep. Sleep is good," she murmurs, cocking her head to the side to rub against his forearm as she nods. He continues patting her shoulder, letting her take her comfort. He and Sirius share a look over her head.

She doesn't stay in the same position for long, shifting to stand straight again with a more decisive sigh.

"Shopping helped?" Sirius asks with a teasing grin when he sees her looking his way, jerking his chin to point to the bags by her feet.

She smiles sheepishly. "Marlene said I was too stressed and needed to take a couple of hours out. Figured I could come here while I shopped, strike out two birds."

"Well, it is a Saturday," James teases, lips twitching. "So yes, I agree that you need a break."

She smiles a little, then raises her chin up to what he likes to call her Professional Lily Evans face. "Right, is the order for the fundraiser ready?"

"All packed and ready to be shipped," James reassures before she gets worked up again. "I checked over all the boxes myself."

"Twice," Sirius adds with a smirk. "He was very thorough." Unbidden, James feels his face heat up.

"Well, that's good," she says, nodding to herself before she turns around to aim him a smile. "Thank you, James."

"Anytime," he waves it off, flushing some more. He runs a hand through his dark curls to seem more nonchalant, but that plan falls under the bus when his fingers get stuck in a couple of knots.

Sirius looks horribly amused at his predicament. Luckily, Lily doesn't seem to notice that he still has his hand frozen in his hair.

"It was a good idea to use the bubble blowing sets as giveaways, by the way," Sirius comments, distracting Lily because he is a good partner and James' unofficial brother, no matter how much of an arse he can be, "Since all the people coming to your fundraiser are parents. Parents love getting gifts meant for their kids; it's like a martyr complex," Sirius ends with an eye roll, and James finally untangles his hand from the knots in his hair and pulls it out.

"I… will ignore the last part because you tried to be nice," Lily says with a bemused smile. "Thank you, Black—let's just not forget next time that I work for a charity for kids, eh?"

"Will do that," Sirius says sheepishly, rubbing his neck.

Aiming them both one last smile, she bends down to pick up her bags. James doesn't offer to help, knowing his hand will be smacked away.

"Well, I gotta run. Do me a favour though—deliver that shipment an hour early? When I'm running around pulling my hair out over everything that's arriving late, it'll be good to know that at least something is ready." She shoots James a wry, self-deprecating look, and he cannot help but grin.

"Will do, Lils," he calls after her retreating form. "We've got your back."

Lily turns around to give him a genuinely pleased grin before she grabs the door handle, and he calls it a mission success.

"Later, Potter."

Sometimes, when James is sneaking around restricted areas in the middle of the night with Sirius beside him and Peter in his ear, he forgets that, during the day, they run a glorified toy shop.

James is eighty percent sure that most toy shop owners don't lead such adventurous lives. Well, unless they're the adult shop kind. Then they get to have all the fun.

"We're in," Sirius whispers to Peter when they find the right gallery. Their target this time is a Rembrandt painting called—and James might be an art thief, but he really doesn't get it either—A Bearded Man in a Cap.

"Right, motion detection systems are down," Peter says in his professional voice. "Vibration sensors will go down in fifteen seconds."

A normal burglar would simply pay their ten bucks and walk in like a normal lawful citizen, hide behind or under something till closing—or up in the vents, if they're feeling fancy—and then break out, steal their targets and break the nearest window to get out.

They are such robbers. No class, the lot of them. James could cry.

He could also gloat, because those robbers would have been caught quicker than they could say the words criminal philistine. Lowbrows like them tend to forget that fancy art museums like these have motion detection throughout the room, and not just at key spots around the area. Most of them don't even get to stick around long enough to touch their targets. Honestly, they deserve to be caught.

They're not like James and Sirius, poring over blueprints with Peter in their flat at all hours of the night. They're not professionals. They need to be professional to really make it in the business. Proper thieves.

And while they're at it, James absently thinks as they both take opposite sides of the room and search for the painting in question quickly, they also need to get themselves a Peter. We should show ours more appreciation.

Because really, where would they be without Peter? Peter is an important part of their unit, and they wouldn't be such successful thieves if they all didn't work so seamlessly together. And they'd be missing a pretty big chunk of seamlessness without Peter, because let's face it, without Peter's uncanny ability to break into any control room and hack into systems unerringly and give them all the information they need right when they need it and—

Peter lets out a short scream in his ear, and James jumps reflexively. "Pete, what is it?"

"S-Sorry, beetle, nearly got on my hand—"

James tuts in annoyance. Peter is a bloody menace.

Just then, he spies movement from the other end of the room and turns to look, spotting Sirius waving his hand to get his attention. He stealthily makes his way to Sirius, watching out for guards at the entrance as a precaution even though he has Peter to warn him when someone is about to come near.

"This should be it," Sirius whispers with a nod to the large painting beside him of… a bearded man in a cap. Of course.

James never did understand art.

"It's your turn to climb, Jamie," Sirius murmurs, and James nods decisively and waits for Sirius to squat. When he is in position, James climbs up behind him, holding his hands for support as he puts his right leg on one of Sirius' spread thighs and then the other, and then the right foot on Sirius' right shoulder and then the next. Finally, he's standing up on Sirius' shoulders and at eye level with the top of the portrait, squinting in the dimness of his penlight to read the inventory code etched into its frame.

"Got it. Pete, incoming," James warns, and then he reads out the code to Peter who confirms that it is the right painting.

"Go ahead and take it down," Peter adds. "I already turned off the vibration sensors registered against that code."

James jumps down off of Sirius with light feet, and together they attend to the painting. Sirius pulls out a few of his tools from a side pocket of his backpack and gets to work detaching the sensor cables from the back of the painting's frame. They lift it down and lay it on the floor; they are about to remove the canvas from its frame when a simple clearing of the throat signals to them a new presence in the room.

Sirius groans even before they turn around.

Their masked rival stands with her arms crossed, dead in the centre of the gallery, a confident smirk gracing the unmasked half of her face. She seems completely uncaring of the potential security patrollers who could notice her any minute—where did she even come from? Did she drop from the ceiling? Appear out of thin air?—and James is torn between being appalled at her level of self-assurance and in awe of her ability to pull it off.

Privately, James admits to himself that should someone wander nearby and notice her, they would turn right around and get far away from this madness.

The woman may be an angel, but she is not one you would want to trifle with.

"Don't tell me you want this one," Sirius groans when he sees her. She doesn't respond to him, but the change in her smile gives them one hell of a yes.

"Fuck, not her again," Peter curses in their ears. "How do I always miss her on the cameras?"

James and Sirius both sigh and exchange glances. "Look," Sirius says, trying to be reasonable. "There are like fifteen paintings in this gallery. Why can't you pick something else? We'll work silently, see, and we won't even rat you out. That's a good deal, right? Isn't it? So we agree?"

Her smile doesn't budge an inch. "But I want that one," she murmurs in her soft voice that somehow carries across the room and yet doesn't, and James is starting to slowly sink into the mysterious enigma that is this woman yet again.

"Yeah no, babe, this one isn't for you," Sirius drawls, his face hardening like he somehow knows what's going on in James' traitorous head. He rummages around in his backpack, and James has a split second to remember Sirius' promise to "do something" about her and be terrified of what Sirius might bring out before his brain freezes and grinds to a screeching halt. Because there's a gun.

A toy gun. One he recognises. It's one he noticed in Hamleys.

"Oi! Piss on a cheese stick, what are you doing with that?" he hears himself hiss loudly—and a little high pitched—to Sirius in the silence.

James doesn't know whether to feel mortified that Sirius brought a bright green and blue foam dart gun as their defence or offended that Sirius was forced to purchase a product not from their store, because they have way better ones, thank you. He goes for a nice compromise and settles for being horrified.

Things get kind of messy after that.

James remembers a lot of quiet cursing from Sirius and the delightful O shape the woman's plump lips make at the sight of the gun. James also remembers blurting out a very embarrassing, "Go out with me!" that comes out as a squeak which she, even more embarrassingly, actually hears. He thinks she laughs at that one.

Oh, and there's also Sirius who fires his dart gun at her—multiple times. James remembers this because she kind of avoids the foam bullets and they kind of hit the portrait behind her in their trajectory and it kind of sets off shrill vibration sensor alarms that kind of deafen James' ears and it kind of devolves into chaos from there.

Kind of.

Peter is right there in his ear screaming obscenities the whole time.

The only thing James really remembers with crystal clarity is when the mystery woman jogs towards them with a bright grin, Sirius frozen in shock beside him, and whispers, "Escape and I'll give you one date," in his ear in this really seductive low voice that makes James a little weak at the knees.

There isn't much light to work with, but he thinks her eyes are green. She also smells really familiar, and James is dying to know what perfume she uses so that he can get Lily to help him find the right one when he inevitably caves and walks into the beauty care shop beside their store to do something horribly, irreversibly stupid. Like buy it.

The woman runs out the open gallery entrance with a quickly tossed, "See you at the next heist, gentlemen," over her shoulder, the flaming orange-red hair she wears in a high ponytail swinging behind her as she disappears into thin air beyond the entrance.

James must zone out for a few seconds, because the next thing he sees are two portly guards with blue security uniforms and one not-so-portly man in a cheap suit hasten towards them like one big bulldozer.

"Freeze!" the one in the suit barks, and James obeys, disoriented. Looking at themselves, he sees why they might be considered suspicious. There is the question of the black clothing and masked identities, plus the painting resting flat on the floor, still in its frame, and the sensor cables dangling from the wall it previously hung on—and yes, the brightly coloured toy gun still clutched in Sirius' startled hands. The gun didn't look particularly innocent either.

James feels quite dazed as he looks around frantically for an exit, but as he knew going in, there are none. They are pretty effectively trapped.

James shares a defeated look with Sirius, and they both surrender.

The museum cops aren't very good at their jobs. They are practically arguing between the two of them, and the bloke in the suit seems like a pushover and doesn't point out that James and Sirius might need to be unmasked so that their faces are caught on camera. Not that Peter would let the camera go off its loop since—

Wait. Peter.

James' eyes widen a little as he focuses in on the voice in his ear, and his eyes widen some more when all he hears is harsh breathing. Sharing another glance with Sirius, he sees that Sirius has noticed what he's noticed.

Subconsciously, he starts to quietly struggle in his handcuffs. The guards, of course, pay him no mind.

Suddenly, Peter's voice murmurs roughly in his ear. "Hang in there," he says, low and breathless, but he doesn't sound harmed. Despite himself, James breathes a sigh of relief. Then he hears a soft but steady sound echoing outside in the halls and Peter's words sink in, and his breath catches in his throat when the pieces fall into place.

The soft sound grows into the sharp clips of measured footsteps on polished oak flooring, and this alerts the guards. They swing their flashlights wildly at the entrance, and the bloke in the suit looks genuinely terrified to be here. James idly wonders how he ever got to be in museum security.

The footsteps sound deafening to James in the forty seconds it takes for the body accompanying them to materialise. First comes the silhouette, and then the silhouette comes into focus. And James has to fight not to give himself away.

The man looks to be in his late thirties, with a thick walrus moustache under his round nose. His sandy hair is meticulously flattened into a side part with lots of gel, and his tweed coat looks worn. He raises his eyebrows when he sees the group of them.

"Oh, Detective, it's you!" The man in the cheap suit says, looking visibly less nervous. "We caught these intruders here with a gun—"

"A toy gun," Sirius interrupts beside James.

"—a toy gun, and the Rembrandt was taken down and laid there where it is. They removed the sensor cables, see?" the man ends pointing to where they hang on the wall.

The detective's eyebrows climb higher at the mention of the toy gun. "So I see," he murmurs speculatively. "Caught them just in time, I see."

At this, the two security guards puff up. "They set the alarms off," one of them says, waving it off with gruff pride.

"Still, that is good work, gentlemen," the detective offers them with a kind smile. "I got here just in time, it seems."

"Were you touring the museum to test the security of the place tonight, Detective?" the not-so-nervous-now man asks.

"Yes indeed, I was," the good detective responds with a little nod, "And it looks like I will have to step up my efforts, since these two clearly found some way to get in." He grins a little goofily like he cracked a really good joke, and the man lets out a tittering little laugh in response.

James does not know whether to be amused or offended by the whole scene.

"Well, gentlemen, I think I should take them down to the station, interrogate them." The detective gives all three of the security personnel a nice grin, his thick moustache practically fluffing up. "Come along," he says to James and Sirius, softening his smile into something kinder and more encouraging as he walks over to them.

James and Sirius share a look, and start to struggle in their metal handcuffs when he tries to grab their arms. "Come now, no fuss," the detective says all gentlemanly, but his grip on James' arm when he pushes them ahead of himself is far from polite. James glares behind at the moustached man and obeys him.

"I'll just take them downtown, gentlemen," he says to the personnel just a little bit hastily before they protest, "Carry on then, I'll take care of all this. Good work catching these two."

They are out of the gallery before the others can blink, and the detective hurriedly leads them down hallways and the occasional gallery, down a gigantic gleaming marble staircase to the ground floor where he then proceeds to corral them out of the building through the employees' entrance. The lone guard who sits there is startled out of his wits, his eyes wide at seeing first James and Sirius in handcuffs, Sirius' gun half sticking out of his backpack, and then the detective in his tweed coat behind them, prodding them along.

"Good day," James hears the detective say to the confused guard in a cheery voice—as if it isn't two o'clock in the morning. The sky right outside is dark enough to swallow James whole.

They are pushed into the back of an old beat-up car parked down the street one by one, then the detective briskly walks to the other side and slips into the driver's seat.

"Not a word," he says with a single raised finger, his eyes seeming to meet Sirius' through his rear-view mirror.

Sirius huffs and looks out the window, glaring.

None of them talk at all during the drive; in fact, James hardly dares to breathe. He and Sirius are about to either be in a world of trouble or get off scot-free. And it all depends on the man currently driving their car.

The man abruptly pulls a right on the next main street, taking a maze of turns along the roads which leads them to a progressively seedier area. Finally, he seems satisfied when they turn into an empty alley big enough for the car to pass through. The detective stops the car right at its mouth.

There is dead silence as he turns around to face them and takes off his moustache.

The dim yellow light of the streetlight behind them is somehow enough to illuminate his face as he goes through his transformation. The man winces a little as he rips off the moustache, but this is clearly not his first rodeo. He places it carefully and wraps it up within a handkerchief he pulls out of nowhere. When he looks up at them again, his eyes are large and crinkle-free—he has stopped squinting, it seems—and his honey brown eyes look much brighter without the facial hair.

He runs a hand through his hair, messing up the carefully gelled side-part into something more resembling his natural hairstyle. The strands still stick together as they fall over his eyes and frame his face, but James has it on good authority that the sandy brown hair is actually quite fluffy without any product in it. It also has a good handful of grey strands in it, but it never does take away from the youth in those features.

Even in the unflattering light, James can tell that the face across from him looks more than a decade younger. In fact, the bloke across from him looks young enough to still be in college, though James knows otherwise.

Remus Lupin scowls at them both spectacularly.

"You're lucky you have me to bail you out when you screw up. What in the glorious fuck was that back there?!"

James winces. Remus never swears. But when he does, the level of swearing is a solid indication of his likeliness to murder someone, and it looks like their deaths will be bloody.

"A toy gun?" Remus' head swivels to Sirius. "A toy gun? Are you fucking insane? What were you thinking, Sirius?" Sirius goes to explain, but Remus puts out a hand to stop him. "No, tell me nothing. I don't want to be an accessory. This is madness, you absolute tossers. Madness."

Very bloody.

Sirius looks like he's about to speak again, but Remus gives him a look to silence him. "If you speak unless I specifically ask you to," he growls, "I will take that toy gun of yours and shove it down your gullet while I strangle you with my bare hands."

Their limbs are going to be scattered all over London in little boxes.

Remus runs a hand through his hair in stress. "I'm going to have to cover for you two idiots. Again. As if it's not bad enough that you're pissing Greyback off, I need to now save your arses as well. Is that what I'm here for? Running interference between you and your fucking job?"

James and Sirius share a quick look. "We're sorry, Moony," they say together contritely, and James adds, "We didn't mean for it to get so out of hand."

"Oh?" Remus answers sarcastically. "And you had it well in hand right up till the foam gun came out, eh? Let me guess, you have a bunch of sparklers hiding in your backpack in case there's an emergency."

James looks down at his lap and goes bright red.

"Tell me you're kidding." Remus' sounds utterly done.

"It's Instant Darkness Powder," he mutters sheepishly, staring down at the car mat, "Would help us escape in a pinch."

Remus stares at him flatly. "It's not like it's the middle of the night or anything." James wants to explain that no, that's not how it works, Moony, but he's not Sirius. He knows when to shut up.

"Look, I don't want to know," Remus says, turning back around to the front and pinching the bridge of his nose tiredly. "Powder leaves traces, dammit. And if it messed with the air filtration system the museum has in place to preserve its collections, who knows what harm it could cause the rest of the paintings just in that gallery alone? Their board of trustees would be slobbering all over themselves to have someone sued, and we don't need them getting that sort of attention right now. You're lucky you had me to come get you before you idiots started throwing your trick-shop powders around the place."

James makes a face at the slight to his darkness powder. He's had it imported from Peru, after all, and it was quite handy.

Remus looks like he's run out of steam, and James uses the opportunity to ask if Peter escaped safely.

"He's the one who called me, yeah," Remus says, more civilly this time. "Told him to crawl out through the window. He got away okay."

James and Sirius breathe twin sighs of relief.

They let the silence settle in the car for a while. James looks out of his window, but there isn't much to see—unless he considers the large wet spot down the side of the building on his side something worth viewing, which he doesn't. He doesn't even want to know.

"So," Remus says suddenly, staring intently at the dark alley before them through his windshield. "Did she get her hands on anything this time?"

James startles. "How do you know she was there?"

He can see the corner of a smile grace Remus' profile. "You haven't botched up a single job before her. And certainly not so…" he looks up at the rearview mirror, likely at Sirius' backpack where the toy is still sticking out, "colourfully."

He snorts. Sirius, on the other hand, simply looks pleased. "She didn't touch a thing," Sirius says with pride in his voice, and James sees Remus' lips quirk up even more.

"Good," comes the reply viciously. "I hate freewheelers." Remus' eyes cut to James. "Gotten over your infatuation with her yet?"

This time, it's Sirius' turn to snort. "He asked her on a date, so no." James wants to sink through the floor.

"Really?" Remus turns around to raise an eyebrow at him.

"It was in the heat of the moment!" he squeaks in defence. Remus doesn't look impressed.

"And what did she say?"

"She said…" James doesn't know if it's physically possible to have this much blood rush to his face without bursting a vein somewhere, but if there's a limit his body is certainly testing it. "She said, uh… 'Escape and I'll give you one date.'"

Both Sirius and Remus are looking at him incredulously. "Really?" Sirius asks. "She said that?"

James nods.

"Welp, looks like you've got yourself a date, Jamie-boy!" Sirius exclaims, clapping him on the back. "Look at you go!"

"Sirius! I thought you didn't like her?" Remus sounds betrayed. Sirius' eyes go wide.

"I mean… she actually agreed to… and James has a chance after all, so…" he trails off, looking confused with his own logic, and James is now torn between feeling touched and staying embarrassed.

The way Remus' lips purse up is honestly hilarious. "Why do I do this with you two?" He sighs. "I work with Fenrir Greyback—"

"Don't you work for—" Sirius shuts up at his glare.

"—And this is this kind of stupidity I deal with on a weekly basis," he finishes with a sigh, shaking his head. "I should get paid more for this."

"You love us?" James ventures, opting not to point out that Remus doesn't exactly get a salary for his own shady side venture. And that working for Greyback is a party when one is in Remus Lupin's shoes, considering how pleased Greyback is with him. Because while Remus' murdering instincts seem to have dimmed towards them with all the talking, it wouldn't take much for him to get his back up again.

Remus rolls his eyes at that. "C'mon, admit it, Moony," Sirius adds, leaning forward and grinning hopefully. "You love us, don't you?"

Remus pouts in defeat, and even James has to admit that the sight is adorable. "Shut up, Sirius."

The crowing comes instantly. "You do! Jamie, he does! He loves us!" And in less than a blink, the pout vanishes.

"Alright. We're done here now. Out."

If James wasn't so startled at the abruptness of the change in attitude, he'd find Remus' discomfort at having to admit that he loved them very interesting. Who knew that the calculative man they both knew so well had a weak spot for them?

"Well? Why aren't you moving? Get out, I said."

"But Moooooony, why?" Sirius whines, "It's cold outside! And how are we gonna get back to our place? It's really late."

"You're both grown men. If you can fuck up an art heist, you can get yourself home. Out," Remus snaps with a particular bite to his voice, and they scramble to get out of the warm car.

He backs up out of the alley and zooms away without so much as a goodbye, leaving them standing under the streetlight.

It all happened so fast, James thinks, still a little stunned.

"Isn't he perfect?" Sirius sighs dreamily beside him. James gives him an incredulous look.

"He just threw us out of the car and drove off without us."

"Oh, shut up," Sirius snaps, glaring at James for a mere second before he's back to staring out at the empty road with hearts in his eyes, "If you can crush on a vicious leech who exists to ruin all the good things in our lives, I can have feelings for the gorgeous man who saved our sorry arses and then dumped us on the street at arse o'clock on a Friday night."

James turns over Sirius' declaration in his head, cringing as he realises just how messed up this whole thing is.

They are both so fucked.

It's the Wednesday after their last attempt at theft—James convinced Sirius to dump the foam dart gun in a dumpster in one of the alleys in their neighbourhood and they agreed to never speak of it again—and both James and Sirius are still pretty exhausted from inventory day yesterday.

They did surveillance around the location holding their next target last night, hours after they closed up their store, and they are currently running on three hours of sleep and a boatload of coffee from their machine in the back room. Sirius is practically thrumming with the caffeine rush, and James is faring no better. He also has a bone-deep craving for pretzels, and no way to get any.

There is a pretzel shaped soft toy propped up on the shelf right opposite him. The pretzel plushie has eyes. Its eyes are following him around, mocking his hunger.

Today is not a good day.

When Lily walks into their store, he is seriously contemplating running out through the employees' exit and going out to grab a quick pretzel while he leaves Sirius to run the till. He knows a bakery nearby that sells pretzels; it's less than ten minutes away.

Of course, then he sees Lily, so he has to stay.

She's wearing a dark green jumper today, and it makes her braided hair look more deep brown than red. She also has a wriggling little boy attached to her arm, and James stares.

"Lily, good to see you again," Sirius calls out, hiding his surprise well.

"Hey, guys," she says to them as she hitches her handbag higher on her shoulder. "You've met my nephew before; this little man here is Dudley."

The kid grunts, his floppy blond hair hanging in his eyes. "Not little."

Looking at him, James agrees. The kid reminds him more of two oversized beach balls sewn together snowman-style… which jogs an old memory of a little one-year-old beach ball's birthday party at the Dursley home, and yeah, he remembers this child now.

"Petunia's kid?" he asks, commending himself on the excellent way he hides his distaste for both the name and the person.

Lily hums a yes. "Vernon has a week-long conference to attend for his drilling company and they didn't know who else to ask while they were away, so I'm babysitting Dudley for these few days." The look on her face reveals much of what she thinks of this request.

Looking at Dudley's grumpy face, however, James can only sympathise. The kid looks like a handful and then some, and Petunia and Vernon aren't the most shining examples of good parenting. Poor Lily must be living a nightmare.

Lily's green eyes scream please take this kid off my hands at him, and she looks so desperate, he cannot help but oblige. He pushes himself away from the counter and comes round to Dudley's side, bending to look at him better.

Man, the kid's face looks even more like a beach ball up close. All it needs is stripes to be complete.

As a general rule, he likes kids, but this one seems to be firmly up there in the brat category.

"Is there something you'd want from here, Dudley?" he asks pleasantly. "Look around! What would you like?"

"Your hair is weird," Dudley comments. "You're weird."

"Dudley, be nice!" Lily reprimands him, but she seems to have lost her will to correct him.

James fights a frown. "Weird is good! I aspire to be weird all the time. Don't you?"

"Mummy says that weird people are freaks. Are you one?"

Yeah, no. He's not going that far to please this kid.

"Want to see some cool stuff?" he says instead, and leads Dudley to the display of bobbleheads. Dudley doesn't seem very impressed by them, which is very offending because James happens to love them. They have a Deadpool one with springs that wiggles its head when he touches it. It's very cool.

"Okay, how about these?" he asks, showing him some of their puzzle games.

The face Dudley makes has him wanting to throw things. The disgust is so uncalled for.

"This?" He shoves a giant lilac llama plush toy at the boy as a last ditch attempt to give the kid a chance for redemption.

"I'm six," Dudley says dryly. James did not anticipate the disgust to worsen.

And now he really is insulted. Llamas are the coolest things! Everyone loves llamas! Who wouldn't want a llama?

He looks up first at Sirius in a can you believe this? look that Sirius returns, the concealed affront in his eyes matching James' own. He then turns to Lily in exasperation, only for her to cross her arms at him with annoyance. Directed at him.

… And okay fine, maybe he was goading the kid a little bit. He doesn't like people with attitude, and this is only made worse by his knowledge of who Dudley Dursley's parents are. Petunia Dursley can fuck off back to the judgemental hellscape she was spawned from, and her husband can get in line. He knows just how much hurt and pain Lily's sister has caused her and he doesn't like it.

But Lily's angry look makes him feel maybe a little guilty. Just a smidge.

Sighing, he takes Dudley to the computer game section and points out the race car toys on the shelf beyond, and lets the kid go wild.

It is a big mistake. The kid practically comes alive, and he goes really, really wild. James and Sirius can only watch on in horror while the chaos unfolds before him.

"I want this one!" Dudley exclaims, grabbing yet another box. "No, this one!" James is surprised he's even bothering to verbalise his claims. As far as he's observed, the kid just wants everything he sees.

Well, except for the things he doesn't want. Those are scattered all over the floor haphazardly. James is now very glad that Dudley didn't take a fancy to the bobbleheads.

They have one hell of a clean-up ahead of them.

"Lily, what the hell, he's like a tornado," Sirius hisses frantically over the counter to her.

She sighs. "I'm so sorry, guys. I'll make it up to you later, I promise."

"I expect something good," Sirius counters, annoyed. "Seriously, just look at him!" Lily looks, and then simply nods in resignation.

When the kid gets to the section with the prank items, James has had enough.

"Right kiddo, you've definitely maxed out your credit card. How 'bout we take the scenic route back the way we came and make a quick stop at the checkout, yeah? Yeah. Let's go, c'mon."

"But I want this!" Dudley exclaims, pointing at one of their trick magic canes. "And this too!" The whoopee cushion? James doesn't think so. He doesn't want to imagine the kind of "fun" this kid will have with a whoopee cushion.

He looks pointedly at the bulk of toys in the kids' arms. It's a miracle he can still hold on to all of it; James thinks that he must have had a lot of practice at this.

"If you can pick those up without dropping the stuff in your arms, you can have them."

Dudley looks thrown.

"We have a store policy," James fibs, "You can only purchase the stuff you can carry. Sorry, kid." Swivelling in place, he walks away from the wide-eyed six-year-old and towards Sirius and Lily.

"Tell me you're not paying for his haul yourself?" he asks her quietly.

She rolls her eyes, huffs, and pulls out a credit card. He sees the name Vernon Dursley embossed in shiny silver block letters on the black plastic. "I'm not that much of a pushover, thank you."

"No one in their right minds could call you a pushover, Lils," Sirius says with a chuckle.

"What do you call that, then?" she asks, tiredly nodding over at where her nephew is still struggling with the trick cane.

"The love of an aunt for her only nephew?"

She gives him a look.

"Right, not that," Sirius hastily backtracks. "I… I got nothing."

"You just happen to care for people more than you like to admit, Lily," James points out, leaning back against the register to watch the kid better. The kid knocks over a box of colourful string lights from the shelf on his next attempt, and James sighs. "It's a good thing today's a slow day for customers; that mess is not good for our image."

"Whoever thinks that has clearly not seen your flat," Lily quips, and instantly looks apologetic. "I really am sorry, boys. I just… really needed a break, and this was the only place I could think of that would both relax me and entertain him."

"S'okay, Lils," James says, patting her arm, "Consider this our payback for all the times you had to deal with our drunk arses back in college."

"That is true," Lily says with a laugh as Sirius indignantly throws him a "did you have to remind her?" behind them. Finally, the kid admits defeat and stumbles over to them, knocking over a couple of things from its racks as he lumbers around like a drunk elephant.

James intently watches to make sure he doesn't go near the computer game CD shelves, because as delightful as the idea of using Vernon Dursley's credit card to compensate for any broken products is, he'd much rather not have to order new stocks of anything so soon. For fuck's sake, they just did inventory.

The lilac llama plush gets knocked to the floor behind the boy, and James feels a tic rise in his left eyebrow. He loves that llama.

The kid can hardly reach the top of the counter, but he attempts to dump his load on it anyway. Of course, that means more of his choices fall from his arms. A fist-sized wrist band ball rolls up to James' foot.

"Yeah kid, those don't count," he says when Dudley bends to picks his things up. "They didn't make it to the counter, so you don't get 'em." Dudley frowns. Hard. "Sorry," he adds with a shrug. "I didn't make the rules." My evil clone did, he finishes in his head.

Dudley frowns harder, then looks down at the race car set closest to his own feet and kicks it five feet away. "I don't want it anyway." James' blood is boiling.

"Dudley Dursley!" Lily exclaims in shock. "Apologise to the nice man this instant, or I'm not paying for anything!"

Dudley's mouth drops open. "You can't do that!"

"Oh, but I can," Lily responds, glowering. "Say you're sorry, Dudley."

James can see the kid weighing his options in his head. He doesn't care. His blood is still boiling.

"Sorry," the kid finally mutters to him. He nods tightly. Then Dudley looks up at him, and James can instantly tell that the boy is plotting revenge. His eyes narrow.

Dudley looks around at their counter in thought, and the second his little beady eyes lock on the stand with their customised Marauding Mania pens, James knows. He is still too late to stop the disaster.

"Whazz this?" the kid asks faux-curiously, fingering a pen, and his hand abruptly slips and knocks the whole display over.

James is horrified.

So are Sirius and Lily.

Dudley makes to pick up the mess of pens. James instantly reacts, and his self-imposed ban on cursing around kids spontaneously disappears. "Oi! Piss on a cheese stick, what are you doing with that?" he squeaks loudly and a little high-pitched. "Put that down! No, don't touch it!"

Sirius rushes around the counter to help him with everything. They pick up all the other toys around as well while they're at it, and James sets the cluster of pens to the side behind the register, far out of Dudley's reach. He'll rearrange their display once the kid is out of their store and James loses the building urge to poke one of his ball-point pens right into the kid's throat.

He's so incensed that it takes a while for him to notice that Lily hasn't moved since Dudley knocked down their pen display.

Her eyes look a little wider than usual, and when James raises his brows in silent question, she stares back at him like he's a whole new person.

"Lils?"

"You—Yeah, yes, thank you." Lily clears her throat and comes back to herself and the moment clears like it never happened. James is still worried about her, though, and he notices a new tension about her as she pulls Dudley's hand into hers. It's very weird.

"Yes or no?" Sirius asks with raised eyebrows, behind the till once again as he dips his chin towards the awkward pile of things set near the register.

She nods distractedly, and he gives her a look of his own as he gets to work. James wanders around to Sirius' side behind the counter to bag all the items as Sirius checks them out, and when he sneaks a peek at their computer he sees a very satisfying total.

Sirius seems to take great pleasure in swiping Vernon's card against the reader. James deeply understands the sentiment.

"Come on, we're leaving," Lily says to her nephew firmly when James hands her and Dudley their bags, but he notices the way her eyes flit to Sirius like she's thinking about something. He wonders what's wrong, but puts it down to stress. Spending an extended amount of time around Petunia's kid can make anyone go batshit insane, he figures. Once she gets rid of the little sod, she'll go back to herself.

Yeah, he thinks as Lily throws him a final inscrutable look before she hurries out the store with a sulky, unwilling brat in tow, she'll be just fine.

Now they, on the other hand, are going to lose their minds.

Sirius glances at him and then the mess concentrated in the right wing of their store, and sighs a heavy, weary sigh. "Let's get to work, then."

It takes them twenty minutes to set the shelves to rights, and another five for James to reset his prided pen display. His craving for pretzels is back with a vengeance, and it kills him that he cannot escape to satisfy his need for them but he can't leave Sirius here to deal with any potentially tricky customers alone. After everything else today, who knows what else can go wrong?

James heads to the back room instead, and makes himself a large, large cup of coffee. He'll certainly need it to get through the day.

They are back in their flat that night when they get the raps at their door.

At one in the morning.

James stumbles out of his bedroom before Sirius does, the sleep clearing from his eyes with each passing second. He grabs a wooden bat before he can think. Sirius is the next one out, and when he sees the bat in James' hand he heads straight for the screen of their video surveillance equipment at the door.

Sirius gasps at seeing whoever is on camera, and rushes to open the door.

It startles James, and he hefts his bat higher in position to be ready for attack. Then he sees who the man on the other side of the door is, and the bat nearly drops.

"Moony," he whispers, throwing his weapon aside and helping Sirius bring the injured man in, "What happened to you?"

Remus Lupin waves his hand limply at him, then winces when James shifts his hold on the other man's arm, and James really isn't a fan of the way he looks like he's been used as a stress ball and then thrown down to relax under a bus.

"I feel like I've been run over by a combine harvester," Remus groans, unknowingly echoing James' sentiment. "But I'm fine."

Sirius scoffs as they help him sit down on the rim of the tub in their bathroom. "You are not fine. Look at you!"

Remus grins wryly. "I've had worse."

Observing Sirius get more worked up at his words, James casually comments, "Not helping your case, mate."

Remus' eyes travel to Sirius properly then, taking in his worried face and frantic hands as he searches for their first aid kit, and something in him softens. "Sirius? Hey, Sirius."

Sirius turns around to him absently, and Remus reaches out a hand. Sirius' hand goes in his without even thinking, and Remus pulls him in.

"I'm okay," he murmurs, looking earnestly up at Sirius who's standing between his legs, "Give me a few days and I'll be good as new. Don't worry, alright? This is not the first time I've gotten hurt and it won't be the last; I only came here this time because your flat was closer than mine. It's nothing serious."

The reassurances are sweet, but James' eyes are more drawn to the way his thumb keeps rubbing over the back of Sirius' hand. James has never seen his best friend calm down faster in all the years he's known him.

He can tell how in love they are just by looking at them. Remus softens for no one more than he does for Sirius, and Sirius smiles for no one like he smiles for Remus. It's obvious in the lines of their bodies and the way they touch, and while James worries for Sirius sometimes, he cannot deny that Remus is good for him.

Even when he comes to their flat at one am looking worse than a flattened trash can.

James goes over silently to help Sirius patch him up. Together, they help Remus out of his shirt and trousers, and as Remus settles himself again on the edge of the tub in his boxers, they assess the extent of the damage. 'It looks bad' is arguably the best conclusion that could be given to James' personal assessment.

Sirius' jaw gets tighter clenched with each new cut they clean and bandage, and when they work their way down to the bruised ribs—Remus is lucky they aren't cracked—James is afraid the next injury he will have to tend to will be Sirius'. He hopes his best mate doesn't break a tooth; he hates the dentist and James isn't equipped to deal with his pained whining and the dentist's complaints.

"So, what happened?" he asks Remus casually, aiming to spare the future of Sirius' teeth and his eardrums.

Remus sighs. "Greyback sent me to check on a couple of overdues. Couple of thugs they were; didn't particularly take a fancy to their loan shark's messenger."

"So they beat you up?" Sirius asks, appalled.

"Did I mention that they were thugs?" Remus says dryly, quirking up a corner of his lips as he looks down at Sirius who is attending to his scraped knees. "Beating people up is their answer to everything."

James sighs. "Greyback shouldn't have sent you out to do that. You're good at defending yourself, Moony, but you're no match against brute strength. You have the arms of a chicken."

"I do not—"

"Shut up, it's true," Sirius snappily interrupts him as he applies disinfectant to the scrapes, and James approves of how quickly Remus subsides. James isn't the only one who knows when to shut up, it seems.

Sirius' muscles are tightly wound up, James observes as he bandages a deep gash on Remus' right thigh. He's going through the motions with dedicated enthusiasm, and judging by the occasional wince Remus lets slip, James surmises that Sirius is not being very gentle.

"Why?" Sirius asks abruptly after a few minutes of pained silence. He looks up at Remus, frowning in controlled anger. "Why do you stay? And don't give me that bullshit about your father giving you to Greyback to pay his debts," he adds when Remus goes to speak. "I know, I know that you could get out if you wanted to. It's bad enough that he keeps putting you in these awful positions and expects so much out of you, but now you're getting hurt on the job too? This has got to stop, Remus."

"Sirius, this isn't a new development," Remus says with sad, soft eyes, reaching out to cup his cheek. Sirius' eyes shutter and he shakes his head from side to side almost subconsciously, but his accusing eyes do not leave Remus.

James sits back on his heels in an attempt to give them some space, because he feels like he's intruding on something private. Remus looks to be breaking, however, and he doesn't want to scoot back so far that he can't hear them anymore.

Finally, after what feels like forever, Remus sighs and drops his head. "I suppose it's fair that I should tell you, right?"

"We just want to help, Moony," Sirius says earnestly, resting a gentle hand on his knee.

He sighs again. "I've been collecting information about Fenrir for a while," he starts, and in the back of his head, James feels a distant satisfaction at having been right. "Past history, criminal involvements, documented proof of all the cases he's managed to sweep under the rug. There's no… solid evidence yet, and that's what I'm waiting for. I need hard, conclusionary proof of his bigger dealings—all I've gathered so far only highlights the smaller stuff. The rest isn't… he'd get ten years in prison, max. That isn't enough."

James frowns. "Greyback operates the biggest crime ring in London."

"I know," Remus says, looking tired. "It's taken a while to work up to my position in his ranks, and this is still all I've got. I have no choice but to play along till I get something concrete. I've got my eye on the next drug shipment from overseas—they've been good at covering themselves so far, but I've got a couple of my connections working on pulling a false alarm at the docks and… hopefully, that should get them to slip. Couple of pictures is all I need."

"Will that be enough?" Sirius asks sceptically. "Drug trafficking isn't the worst thing he's running."

"It should be a start," Remus shrugs. "I have some more plans in place as well, just have to get the first ball rolling."

James and Sirius share a look.

"Sounds like it's gonna take a while," James points out. Remus presses his lips together noncommittally.

"Let us help," Sirius says again pleadingly. "Remus, come on. You've done great by yourself, but let us help. We just… we don't want you staying around there longer than you have to."

Remus shakes his head. "I can't let you get involved. You both are still on the fringes of Fenrir's outfit—when I take him down, you won't go down with him. But if you get involved and something goes wrong… no. No, you're not… I can't…"

James observes Sirius' hand squeeze tighter on Remus' thigh, and he stops trying to continue. Sirius glances at James worriedly, and he tries to look as reassuring as he can.

Standing up, James snatches the glass resting on the platform of the sink and fills it from the faucet, handing it to Remus to drink. The water is downed in a few quick gulps, and he takes the glass back and sets it upside down on the sink, making a mental note to rinse it out later.

He gives it a few more minutes, allowing Remus time to relax after the admission of the secret he's held close to his chest all these years. He puts his hand on Sirius' shoulder and gives it a quick pat, quirking up his lips. Sirius still looks unsure, but he silently agrees to let James take the lead on this one.

They were always good at silent communication, the two of them. It came with the territory of being best mates and brothers—partners.

Finally, James walks to their bathroom entrance and leans casually against the doorframe, giving Remus more space and room to breathe. Remus was always more calmer around Sirius, anyway.

"We could have cut off ties with Greyback any time we wanted, you know," James speaks up conversationally. Remus' eyes cut to him. "It's like you said. We're on the fringes of his operation. If we left, he could find another contract thief to replace us whenever he wanted."

Remus frowns, not knowing where he's going with this. If James is honest with himself, he doesn't know either.

"Why do you think we stay, Remus?"

Remus brows scrunch together. "Because you don't have to go looking for clients?"

"Eh," James shrugs, "we could survive without it. Looking for buyers makes our job harder, but it's not like we've not done it before. Plus, we get more without Greyback to take his huge-arse cut out of our profits."

Now Remus just looks confused.

James rolls his eyes and crosses his arms. "We didn't want you to stick around alone," he admits at length. "We were worried about you." He aims a pointed look at Sirius, who is alternating between checking Remus' ankle for a sprain and levelling worried glances up at their conversation. Seeing him, Remus' lips gentle into a soft smile.

"We're your friends, Moony," James continues, letting a smile of his own show as moves over to the tiled bathroom wall and he angles himself to lean back against it, "and we've got your back. You need help, you come to us. Just like we come to you."

Sirius allows himself to properly look up at James' final words. "We care about you," he adds softly. "We've known you for years, Moons. You're important to us, don't you know that? And we can't bear to see you hurt. I can't bear to see you like this. So please. Let's do this together, yeah?"

Remus swallows, eyes for no one but Sirius. James doesn't even mind.

"Yeah. Let's do this together."

They stare at each other intently, Sirius kneeling on the hard tile floor as he looks into Remus' eyes. He reaches for the other man's bandaged hand slowly, carefully, and James cannot bear to intrude on such an intimate little scene.

With soft steps, he tiptoes out of the bathroom and lets them have their privacy. Right as he eases the door closed, he sees Sirius lean in for a kiss.

His work here is done.

"And that's the list of all the information Moony has gathered so far," James ends, setting his notepad with its messy scribble back onto the coffee table. "Ideas, mates?"

They're sprawled around in a vague approximation of a circle up in James and Sirius' flat—James, Sirius, Remus and Peter. James has the floor, spread out on their soft rug and toying with its fluffy threads; Peter has taken a stuffed armchair and is resting his elbows on the armrests, tapping his fingers against a temple in his special thinking pose.

Sirius and Remus occupy the couch together, and it hasn't escaped James that they are sitting much closer to each other than they usually would. And if their shy, pleased glances are anything to go by, they very much do not regret this new development. James is happy for them; it was about time they got their act together and did something about the ever-present tension between them.

There are two bags of crisps propped up on the coffee table and a third monopolised by Peter and so far, Remus has let down his guards enough to take a couple. James counts it as progress.

"Right," Peter says, crunching through a mouthful of crisps. "That's a pretty varied list; you seem to have a little on everything."

Remus nods. "But not enough," he adds with an unhappy frown.

"That's okay," Sirius says, squeezing his hand. "We have a starting point. Since we know all the activities he's involved in, we know where to dig and what to look for. It's going to make our job easier."

"It's true," James says, nodding his head as he reaches for the bag of crisps nearer to him. "And I've been thinking—"

"Oh no." Peter quips.

"Oi! What's that supposed to mean?" James scrunches his brows, pouting angrily at the interruption. "I'll have you know that I do think sometimes, Petey."

"Oh yeah?" Peter challenges. "What was your idea, then?"

"I…" James trails off, frowning at himself. "I do not remember." Didn't he just have the thought in his head?

"Thought so," Peter says, amused.

James pouts again. "Oh, shut your face and eat your damn crisps." Chuckling, Peter does as he's told.

"Focus," Remus murmurs to them, and James straightens up and gets serious again.

Peter nods solemnly and bends to pick up James' notepad. "Ugh, your handwriting is horrible," Peter mutters under his breath, but James still hears. He pretends he didn't.

"Okay, so looking through this… I think our best bet would be to start by following up leads on the white collar crimes first," he says absently, going through James' list again. "Greyback is going to have an online log of all his dealings somewhere, and if we find it, we've struck gold."

Sirius snatches the notepad from him and looks over it himself. "Money laundering. The institutions Greyback is funnelling his cash through belong to some pretty high-up people. I mean, I see at least two names here that I know are tied to known politicians. If we blow open this racket, they're going to cover up their arses faster than we can get the word out. We'll have to go to some fancy high-up people ourselves."

"I have that in hand," Remus offers, tucking his legs under him. "I was planning to use my detective cover for credibility when I go to the coppers." James frowns, a thought occurring to him, but he lets Remus finish. "I have a couple of connections in MI5 under my alternate identity, and the more I uncover about this operation the more I'm convinced that I might need to go to them instead."

James' frown deepens. "Didn't Greyback forge the documents for your other identity, Moony? There's a fair chance that the good detective might be compromised."

Remus scoffs. "Do you think I'm stupid enough to have gotten it done through the man I've been planning to expose for a decade now? I had it done through another contact."

Sirius' eyes widen. "So he'll be in the clear?"

"Detective Howell?" Remus smirks. "Detective John Howell is completely safe. I've been using his identity for years now, and I've racked up plenty of credibility under his name. We'll be perfectly fine."

James blinks. "You certainly did your planning."

His smirk softens. "I appreciate your help, guys, I do. But for years, I've been planning this out on my own. I do have a structure in place, you know. Just need the dirt."

"Then that's where we'll help you," Peter declares, pointing a grubby finger at him. "We'll get you the dirt."

"And we'll start with the best way to get the dirt," Sirius continues, "which is, like Peter said, his database."

"It's not at his personal office." Remus leans forward and balances his elbows on his knees, resting his head on his chin as he frowns. "I did a little light digging through his computer there. And it's not with any of the higher goons in his chain of command either. I checked. Looked at some of the key spots in his operation—warehouses, cover offices, heck, I looked through the control base on the boat he owns up the river—and nothing."

"Greyback is a paranoid bastard," James points out, making a face. "If anything, he'll have his data kept safe in his own house."

"That's what I'm afraid of," Remus sighs. "Fenrir's home is better secured than any place I've seen in London. I've been in once, no farther than the entranceway, but I've seen enough. It's going to be impossible to break in."

James and Sirius snort, and Peter cracks a huge grin. "You've got two thieves and a hacker," Sirius says with a feigned superior look. "The best in London. It's our job to break into places that aren't meant to be broken into."

"Yes, leave it to us," Peter adds, smirking. "We'll get the job done."

Remus rolls his eyes, smiling despite himself. "While I appreciate your enthusiasm, boys, it's not going to be that easy. I've seen how you work—and while you're good, his security is unmatchable. Two thieves and a hacker aren't going to cut it; I don't think you'd be able to do this job yourselves."

Sirius and Peter frown in defeat, and silence takes over the room while they continue to think.

"We'll get help," James says suddenly, sitting up ramrod-straight. "If two thieves aren't going to cut it, we'll make it three."

"Uh, Jamie, if you're talking about Remus—"

"No, not Moony," James cuts Sirius off. "No offence, Moony—you're good at playing the field, but your skills do not lie in doing what we do. We need a professional thief."

Sirius pauses. "Tell me you're not talking about who I'm thinking of."

"We need her, Sirius," James says simply. "We may be the best in London, but she outdoes us every time she's on the job."

"Who are we talking about?" Remus stops them by asking.

"The stinking harpy who's been stealing our business from us," Sirius gets in before James. Remus and Peter both make a face.

"Her? Seriously?" Peter asks, wrinkling his nose. "We'd be better off dressing up a knife to look like a person and taking it with us."

James blinks. "Is that your roundabout way of saying she's a backstabber?"

"Well… yeah."

"Why would she even help us?" Sirius asks. "She's a thief, plain and simple. One without morals, I might add. We could tell her that we needed the money for treatment for our best friend who suffers from cancer and she would not bat an eye while she stole every single thing in the room right under our fucking noses."

"That's maybe overstating things, Siri—"

"Point is, she's a witch!" Sirius ends, incensed. "Even if we talked her ears off begging for help, how can we be certain that she'd give it?"

Remus tries to counter Sirius' argument, playing the side of the devil's advocate, and soon Peter jumps in as well and the room devolves into chaos. James sits quietly in the middle of the tempest, turning over his thoughts in his head.

"She tags Greyback's clients."

At once, the other three stop talking and turn to him. James nods to himself, reaffirming his thought process, and looks up to address the others better.

"Have you ever wondered how she only comes for our targets? She hasn't mucked up all our thefts, just the important ones. And it's always our target. There could be a room full of artefacts that are valued higher than ours, but she'll come for the sundial we're meant to steal. The night of the Rembrandt disaster? I'm pretty sure I saw a da Vinci hung up in there. Virgin of the Rocks. Do you know how much that would go for?"

James pauses, looking around at them to let his point sink in.

"She stalks Greyback's dealings, and there's a reason for it, I'm sure. I don't know what her angle is, but she wants something. And I don't think that whatever she wants works in Greyback's favour."

Remus looks like he is seriously considering James' theory. "Have you noticed a pattern?"

"Other than that she's present for all our more valuable targets, no. Personally, I think she's either trying to undermine Greyback's credibility to his clients or just trying to put a chink in his operations."

"And throwing us under the bus while she's at it," Sirius adds with disgust. Remus frowns in agreement at his words.

"Unpopular opinion, but I think she genuinely hasn't considered that," Peter ventures unsurely, setting down his empty bag of crisps in his lap.

James and Sirius stare. "We literally work for the bastard," Sirius says disbelievingly.

"And no one who observed the way you two work would be able to tell," Peter counters. "You are very… uh, self-confident?"

Remus' lips twitch. "I think the words you're looking for are 'overblown tossers', Pete."

"What he said," Peter agrees with an emphatic nod, reaching for one of the packets of crisps on the coffee table and frowning as he finds it empty.

James shares a look with Sirius, and they shrug in acceptance.

"So." Sirius looks around at all of them. "It's decided then? We're getting Ginger Medusa on the bandwagon?" Peter snorts at that one, but they all nod in agreement. "Okay then. We're just going to have to plot a way to entice her to our next heist."

James frowns at the last bag of snacks and goes to check it, and yes, this one's empty too. When did they eat all the crisps?

"We won't have to. Our current target is definitely valuable enough to call for her presence. She'll be there."

So saying, James stands up and dusts himself off perfunctorily, already making for the kitchen as he talks back over his shoulder. "We'll need Dr Pepper for this. Let me get the bottles and we'll get back to work, start making plans."

He pauses at the doorway, turning back around. "Oh and by the way, you two, if you want to canoodle, go right ahead. Don't be shy," he ends with a lewd wink, grinning as Sirius and Remus go bright red and shift away from each other. It's always fun to tease both of them, and James envisions a bright future ahead of him with them dating.

He comes back minutes later with an 8-pack set of the mini-bottles and, pushing aside the empty crisp bags to make room for them on the coffee table, he puts them down and settles back on the rug. They each reach for a bottle, somehow snapping off the caps together perfectly in sync.

Remus picks up the notepad and a pen, James and Sirius divide the maps of London between them, Peter boots up his laptop, and they get to work.

James lays his eyes on the first Fabergé Egg he has seen in his life, and it is glorious.

They're in the secure room of the private collection that houses the Third Imperial Egg. It had taken nearly two weeks for Peter to find the trail of information that tied the high-profile transaction made by Wartski jewellers on behalf of an undisclosed account to the address in question. Someone had found the Egg in an American flea market, of all places, and since the purchase by the new owner is still headline-fresh, it makes this particular Egg prime property for all the money-happy residents in Crime Land.

James cannot even pronounce the owner's last name, but it doesn't much matter to him anyway. What's important is the Egg—the Egg that's only minutes away from being in his hands.

It's in a glass case like always, sitting pretty on a velvet pillow, and Sirius is already working on getting the case open. James privately thinks that private collectors, at least, should be smarter than to lock up their multi-million pound ridged gold rugby ball in a glass case where everybody and their uncles could be tempted to snatch it up.

Not that it doesn't work out in their favour. Sirius, after all, has had plenty of practice with glass cases.

James pulls out a padded box to put the Egg in from his backpack while Sirius is dealing with the locks. Finally, the glass swings open, and James holds out the box in readiness.

Silently, Sirius pulls the Egg out, stand and everything.

Personally, James feels that the stand is more beautiful than the Egg. The Egg is a simple ridged piece, with a single large diamond embedded in its centre. James knows that if they pop open the diamond clasp, the Egg will open to show a beautiful gold Vacheron Constantin watch.

The stand, on the other hand, is more James' speed. It has three legs, each ending in lion paws, and is adorned with deep sapphires and plenty of tiny diamonds, and even tiny gold garlands wrapped around the breadth of the stand. It's the kind of trinket James would love to wake up to every morning.

It'd be the perfect mascot for their store, too—it would match so well with their red and gold lion logo.

Sirius shares a sudden glance with James when the Egg is safely settled in their box. James snaps it closed, and Sirius sets their decoy Fabergé Egg on the velvet cushion and fiddles with the glass case again to lock it closed.

"You promised me a date," James comments aloud as he sets the box in his backpack. Sirius' back tenses minutely, but he shows no other sign of interest.

They hear a rustle behind them.

"I did, didn't I?"

James turns around to see their mystery thief walking silently towards them. Her shining ginger hair is worn loose tonight, her steps careful and quiet. She looks wary this time and, looking at her, James could swear that her attention was more on Sirius than him. It's like she is looking to figure something out.

She stops mere feet before them. James glances to the side and, even through the mask, he can tell that Sirius' eyes are tight.

"You're going to have to fight us for the Egg," he says sharply. "And we're not giving in, so fight hard."

"Wasn't planning on it," she says instead, and James' eyes widen slightly despite himself. "I'm looking for something else this time."

James won't lie, he is a teensy bit jealous of the way her eyes search Sirius' face through the mask. She should be looking at him that way. She looks satisfied with what she finds in the exposed half of Sirius' face—but she should be looking at him with such satisfaction.

Not that James minded. He didn't mind at all.

"Well." Her lips curve up into a more familiar smile, and James racks his brains to no avail for what it reminds him of. "I see that I'm right."

"Eh?" Sirius asks eloquently. She shakes her head, still smiling.

"I think I got what I came here for."

James shares a baffled look with Sirius.

"Right," James says, shaking off the confusion. "We need your help with something."

She cocks her head. "I'm listening."

"Are you working against Greyback?" Sirius blurts out, and James closes his eyes in defeat. Peter, in his ear, lets out a huge sigh. "We know you've been tagging his clients."

The mystery woman's eyes widen. James wishes he could really tell their colour. "I certainly didn't expect that."

"Well, are you?" Sirius asks impatiently, when she doesn't offer more than that.

"And why should I tell you, hmm?" she asks in a low, deep voice. It's not meant to be seductive, but to James, it really is.

"Because we want to take him down." It's now James's turn to blurt, it seems. "And we want to know if you're on our side."

"Interesting." Her lips curve. "Well, you've certainly been getting gold stars tonight, gentlemen, but I don't plan on revealing anything to you in a place we're likely to get caught."

James pounces on her words. "Where, then? Give us a time and place and we'll meet you there."

"Slow your roll, tiger," she says with a little chuckle, "Or should I say, lion."

He frowns, confused.

She laughs again, but James hears a different sound this time—it's genuine, not carefully controlled like her usual laughter. It's like her persona is transforming before him, and it leaves him highly at a loss. "You wouldn't get it. Not yet."

She notices Sirius starting to look impatient and continues more seriously. "I'll come to you. Don't worry about the hows and wheres; I'll take care of them. You'll know when it's me."

"How do we know that you'll keep your word?" James asks doubtfully.

She takes a visible deep breath. "Because," she says softer, coming closer to him. James' breath hitches. "Because…"

She is so close to him. He can breathe in her perfume again, a heady scent that makes his head feel lighter, and her eyes are dark in the bleak light. Bottle green. That's all that James sees. And he is tired of this masquerade, tired of not knowing who she even is when she has such an obvious effect on him.

Her voice is a whisper, and everything about her is so familiar.

"Because… I know who you are. I know who your partner is. And James," the sound of his name from her lips makes him forget to breathe, because that's his name, how does she know, "James Potter, you know who I am too."

And she's gone again before he can breathe, blending into the shadows of the room and disappearing into what looks like a tunnel in the ground. An actual tunnel. But James can't even blink, because she said his name.

She knows who he is.

"What in the arse?" Sirius murmurs beside him, just as stunned. "Peter? Pete, did you hear that?"

"… Yeah, I caught it," Peter's disbelieving voice comes in their ears. "We're fucked, mates."

They really were.

It's another day at the toy store, but James' heart isn't in it today.

For a little less than a week now, all he's seen is red hair. There's red everywhere he looks, and he wonders how people ever thought red hair to be less common.

James knows far too many redheads himself. There's Lily, of course, though her hair is more dark brown than bright ginger. Then there are the twins, Fabian and Gideon, and their older sister Molly who comes in sometimes with one or two of her many redheaded children. Arthur Weasley with his carrot-coloured hair, one of their suppliers and the one who prints out their customised Marauding Mania merchandise. James is relatively sure that Arthur and Molly are married—he'd ask the twins, but they'd rib him for forgetting who their sister's husband was.

Hell, even Peter's strawberry-blond hair looks red in the right light.

Just last night, James dreamed of his mystery thief removing her mask, only for the face looking at him to be that of one of the twins. Fabian—or maybe it was Gideon—had given him a big bright grin, whispering, "it's me, James" in a soft, deep voice, and when Dream James blinked to clear his vision, the face morphed and widened into Peter's ruddy features.

Needless to say, he didn't sleep for the rest of the night.

So he's at the register today, doped up on lots of coffee and lots of sulking, fiddling around with a pen lethargically as the other elbow rests on the counter, propping up his face. Sirius is stocking the shelves in the collectibles section, also looking tired.

Just then, the door to their store opens, bringing in a youthful woman along with a little girl of about nine or ten with… red hair. Of course. The world exists to mock his pain.

In her defence, though, the girl looks very sweet. James decides that she must be one of the good ones and, despite the vibrant red hair, he deigns to forgo lumping her in the brat category with the other rugrats. He watches both of them move around the store with renewed interest.

Both mother and daughter—they look like mother and daughter, certainly—head straight for their chosen sections of interest without a word. The girl first runs to the giant dino plush toy James had set out as the centrepiece of the shelf, inspecting the T-Rex's teeth for authenticity.

The mother, on the other hand, is already at the shelf with the Funko Pops where Sirius is currently stocking up. James sees her pick up two boxes instantly, then frown and ask Sirius for an item, which he produces from his cardboard box and hands to her.

With Sirius to attend to them should they need assistance, James allows his thoughts to wander once again to the mystery woman in black.

Who could she be? She knew him, for sure—and after a lot of thinking, James surmises that their meet-up last week over the Fabergé Egg was a way for her to confirm Sirius' identity. That's the only explanation he has for the ample amount of staring, because he is staunchly unwilling to consider that she has a crush on Sirius Black.

Which means that this mystery woman, whoever she is, must have figured out James' identity quite recently.

He is pretty sure that if someone he knew came to the realisation that he moonlighted as an art thief right in front of him, he would recognise it happening. Wouldn't he?

The sound of footsteps alerts him to an approaching presence, and he looks up to see the mother-daughter pair walk up to his register. He gives them a smile out of courtesy as they set down their picks on the counter.

"Good afternoon," he greets them as he picks up the first product—the stuffed dinosaur. "Fan of dinos, eh?" he says to the girl teasingly, trying to be more amiable to his customers. "My friend over there can't get enough of them." He nods over to Sirius with a conspiratorial grin.

The girl grins a touch shyly, and the mother chuckles in response. "Got it from me, she did."

"Good taste," James compliments her with a grin of his own. He rings up their items, which includes a couple of vinyl figurines, puzzle sets, and a 3-pack of elephant-shaped erasers—which, judging by the happy smile when he picks it up, belongs to the mother—and announces their total.

"Al is going to kill me," the mother says with an unapologetic grin as she readily hands over her card, and the girl at her side lets out a secretive little giggle, stealthily looking up at her. James cannot help but smile at the whole affair.

They soon leave with their bagged purchases, letting in the refreshing aroma of coffee as they exit. It makes James long for another cuppa, and he pouts.

It also makes him think of redheads again, because lately, everything does.

They get a lull in customers again, and at some point, Sirius puts away his empty cardboard box and joins James at the counter to talk. They chat about mindless topics for a while before James spots movement against their glass door and looks up just in time to be greeted by glorious coffee dreams and Lily's nervous-looking face entering their store.

James frowns at the look, getting Sirius' attention with a quick nudge of his hand. Sirius looks up and, seeing Lily walk up to them, echoes James' expression of worry.

"Lils, you good? You haven't been by in a couple of weeks," James ventures to ask when she draws near.

"James," she says instead, her eyes roving over his face quickly as she stares.

"… Lily," he echoes tentatively, giving her a look. She doesn't respond for long moments.

James and Sirius share a glance. "Lils, you're being weird," Sirius points out, his brow scrunching.

James nods. "Yeah, you're doing the staring thing again."

"Like the last time you were here," Sirius finishes. James is just thankful that she doesn't again look like she's seen a ghost do the cha-cha-cha before her. This time, she just looks like she's spotted the ghost.

Lily swallows, and her expression clears. "I'm fine," she says, "Just needed to talk to you both."

They share another look. "We're always here for you, Lily," James says. "Name a time and place, and we'd be there."

Something in her eyes flickers at his words, but he doesn't know what he's said wrong. Very much worried now, he futilely tries to brush it off.

"Can you meet me after work?" she asks, glancing between the two of them. "It's a little important."

"Sure," Sirius answers for them, "We'll be there. Madam Puddifoot's?"

"Where else?" Lily responds with a brief grin. "I'll meet you at the entrance."

"Will do," James says. He frowns lightly. "You sure you're okay, Lils?"

"I'm fine," she brushes it off, "just gotta get to a quick meeting before I meet you boys there. See you in a few hours?"

James simply smiles in response.

"Good."

They watch her leave together with neutral expressions, but when she gets out of sight, they look at each other and let their concern show.

What is going on with Lily Evans?

James is the one to spot Lily near the tea shop, standing to the side by a cluster of trimmed plants. He nudges Sirius to point her out, and together, they make their way to her.

"Here, Lils," he says when they get near, and Lily looks up at his voice.

"Hey! You made it," she greets with a smile. She looks far more composed than she had at the toy store that morning, and James unconsciously breathes a sigh of relief. Whatever it is, it's probably not too earth-shattering.

"Don't we always?" Sirius teases with a grin of similar relief. "Come on, let's go inside." She leads the way in with a quick grin, and the bell above the door tinkles as she pushes it open. James holds the door for her and Sirius, then follows them in.

Madam Puddifoot's Tea Shop doesn't have the same enticing smells as the Starbucks opposite Marauding Mania from which James frequently steals happiness, encouragement and the will to live—but it has a nice, relaxing atmosphere about it. The brews here are calming, and James does need something to ground him back down to earth every once in a while.

There is a lot of pink in this shop. It disgusts him a little, but the affront of being assaulted by the colour everywhere he looks is somewhat assuaged by both the privacy the corner booths offer, and the amazing drinks the baristas here make. Their pineapple mint iced tea is a work of art.

They head straight for the corner with the private booths, but every last one is occupied. It's surprising, because they've never seen such a crowd in Madam Puddifoot's before. Exchanging disappointed glasses, they turn towards the open section, when something catches James' attention from the corner of his eye.

He stops them and impulsively walks up to the last booth in the row where a mother and her two kids look like they're finishing up.

"Hi, are you getting done here soon?" he asks sheepishly, running a hand through his hair nervously when the mother looks up. Her face is kind, though, and her eyes behind her glasses show simple curiosity.

Her hair is a light shade of ginger, because of course it is, and James despairs of the world.

She glances at the two empty plates before her kids quickly. There are traces of chocolate on them. "I think so, yes. Why?"

"Oh, my friends and I were hoping for somewhere private to talk, but everywhere else is full," James replies, his face red. "But it's okay! You don't have to get up, I can't make you do that. We'll find somewhere else, it's fine—"

The woman purses her lips up, hiding an amused smile. "We're about to leave anyway," she says. "Just give us a minute to finish up here."

He gives her a grateful smile. "Thank you so much."

"Of course," she smiles up at him. Turning to her kids, she asks, "Are you both done?"

James looks at the kids then, and promptly grins. The girl has long, bushy curls and a heart-shaped face, and looks like she smiles a lot. The boy has cool, spiky hair and is practically vibrating with energy in his seat as he slurps the last of his drink. What catches James' attention, though, is the motif of a Goomba on his t-shirt. James has a shirt just like it at home.

Standing against the wall to give them some privacy, he signals to Sirius and Lily quickly and then crosses his arms to wait. Sirius looks like he's fighting down a loud cackle, and even across the tea shop, James can sense Lily's long-suffering amusement. James shrugs back with feigned disinterest, and hopes his embarrassment at doing what he just did doesn't show on his face.

True to her word, the mother and her kids take less than a minute to get done. A final sip from her mug and a few words to her kids and the woman gathers up her things and gets up from her side of the booth.

"All yours," she directs at James with another look of amusement, and he feels his face start to burn once again.

"T-Thank you," he says on a stutter, and he sees the woman's lips twitch when she spots Sirius approaching in his leather jacket. Lily comes up right behind.

"Thanks, ma'am," Sirius says with a wide grin as he slides into the now-empty booth, settling near the window.

"Have fun," the woman says with a slight smile as she heads off, pushing her kids ahead gently with one hand. The little girl turns behind to face her mother with a swish of curly hair and a happy little laugh, and she gives James a shy smile when she sees him. He waves to her as they leave.

James takes the seat next to Sirius, and Lily settles on the stuffed sofa opposite theirs. A waiter soon comes to clear away the plates and glasses on their table, and they give their order to him. They chat about their day while they wait for their drinks and food to arrive.

The drinks come first, and James leans back against his sofa as he sips at his pineapple mint iced tea. Lily laughs at one of Sirius' jokes across from him, smiling and looking normal, and eventually, the reason for their visit to this tea shop is pushed to the back of his mind.

It's the only explanation for why, once their food arrives as well and the waiter leaves them with a pleasant, "Enjoy," Lily's sudden question shocks him out of his skin.

"So," Lily says, nibbling at her thick sandwich as she looks up at them, "how much did that Fabergé piece go for?"

James chokes spectacularly over his pineapple mint iced tea.

"W-wh-what?" Sirius stutters, blinking in shock at Lily's innocent face.

"Oh, you know, the Third Imperial," Lily continues casually, flapping her hand as she chases the straw of her bubble tea with her mouth. "Figured that hey, it's been a while since you two got your hands on something truly valuable, so it's only polite to ask how it's been for you, right?"

James and Sirius stare at her, then stare at each other, then stare back at her.

"Surprised?" Lily asks with a secretive little smile. James can only stutter in response.

"You're not…. it can't be you," James ends his stumbling attempts at conversation on a somewhat decisive note. "It's not… it can't."

"W-what he said," Sirius adds, pointing sideways at James.

"Really, gentlemen?" Lily asks with a mysterious look, and James' eyes widen so fast that they burn at the corners. Because the way she says gentlemen, her tone, the curl of her lips… bloody hell.

Bloody hell.

"You," he hisses with borderline accusation in his voice. His mind is still reeling. "It's you."

"It's me," she repeats with a little grin.

"But it can't be," he says desperately. "Your hair… it's not the same."

At that, Lily smirks. James' eyes are drawn to her mouth, comparing it in his mind's eye to that of the mystery thief. It is one and the same.

"To think that a simple wig would stump you this much, James Potter," she says with a Lily-like laugh—and unbidden, James' mind flashes back to that genuine laugh of his mystery thief he remembered from a week ago. His mind is spinning as it makes the connections.

"A wig?" he asks, feeling a little like his mouth is running without his control, "But why red? Your hair is already red."

"Threw you off, didn't it?" Lily's sharp green eyes fixate on him as she grins, and when he sees the hunter's look in her gaze… yeah. Yeah, the thief is definitely her. It could be no one else. "Face it, I was the first person you discounted when you went through the list of redheads you know."

And James winces in silence because well, yes, that is true. No one could ever say that Lily Evans isn't brilliant.

Well, except for law enforcement. And museums. They wouldn't be much inclined to compliment her. Because apparently, Lily Evans is now a thief. Like them.

"What the hell," Sirius murmurs to himself, but James can hear him. "You're you, and she's a cockatoo shitting steroids. This isn't right."

"Do you always insult me like that when you think it's not me you're insulting?" Lily questions with twitching lips and mischievous eyes.

Evidently, she's heard Sirius' grumbling as well. Sirius goes bright red at being called out.

"Ursula with octopus suckers," James lists out absently. "Ginger Medusa. Cruella de Vil. Chipmunk backstabber. She-devil."

"James!" Sirius tries to shut him up, but James isn't really listening anymore. His brain feels fried at the sudden revelations, and he's struggling not to faint face-first into his sandwich.

"So," Lily asks with a teasing look, "What did you two do with the Egg, anyway? I hope you extorted Greyback's client to the highest degree; he really doesn't deserve a Fabergé. You know what I'm saying?"

James faints face-first into his sandwich.

"Today feels surreal," James comments as they walk along the pier. The sky is brightly hued and expansive before them, and the shimmering waters of the Thames reflect its vibrant colours.

They had watched the sun begin its descent while they talked and told each other their stories, and James appreciated the balance that came with talking about serious conversations in a relaxing atmosphere. The stretch of the pier around them is quiet in the approaching twilight; James could be in no better place.

Escaping from Madam Puddifoot's Tea Shop had taken a while, with James having to make constant assurances to the staff and surrounding customers that he was fine and while yes, he fainted, no, he did not feel particularly sick. Not in the traditional sense.

How was one supposed to feel when one was confronted with unshakable evidence that one of their best friends, one they've known for years, hustled as a successful art thief in their spare time?

Especially, James considers, a successful art thief one had an undeniable crush on.

He wonders if this is what destiny is supposed to be.

But as he looks at Lily, lips wide in a bright smile, her dark hair blowing in the breeze, he finds that he doesn't really mind.

"You know," Sirius says beside them, leaning his forearms on the rails, "I almost can't believe that I didn't believe you at first, Lils. Now that you've told us everything, it sounds like the most obvious thing."

Because really, the fact that Lily started in on ruining Greyback's reputation with his clients because he tried to funnel his share of the money acquired from their art heists through her charity was actually very believable. It was just like Lily Evans, in fact.

He could almost laugh at it all. Now that their mystery woman has revealed her identity to them, James cannot imagine her being anyone else.

And to think, Lily Evans was it this whole time.

James quietly watches Lily talk to Sirius, standing by her side. They're laughing and joking around, and Lily has an elbow resting on Sirius' shoulder as she gestures with her hands, and James comes to his quietest revelation yet.

There's no fanfare to this realisation, no fireworks and flashing lights, no raucous laughter or cheering friends. There's just Lily here with him on a pier, watching the lazy lapping of the glistening river, breeze cooling their faces and the sunset gleaming in her eyes.

It's always been her.

And James feels a little bit like a fool for not seeing it sooner.

He's always prided himself for being observant, but he's come to realise that for a lot of important things, he's been too oblivious to see what's right in front of his face. And it's about time he fixed that.

Now Sirius, though—Sirius really is observant. And it's obvious in the way he catches James' eyes and smiles, somehow always, always knowing what James is thinking when he thinks it. It's like their minds are connected on a deeper level, and James has never been more grateful.

"Well, I'm hungry," Sirius says, coming around to clap James on the back. "I'm gonna go back to the stalls to grab some fish and chips. Anyone else want anything?"

"I'm good, mate, thanks," James says, but Lily smiles gratefully.

"I'm feeling a little parched, could you get me a drink? You know what I like."

"Yes, ma'am, I do," Sirius says with a goofy salute that makes her grin. "I'll be back soon." The hand on James' shoulder squeezes him encouragingly, and with a soft whisper of "go for it," in James' ear, Sirius leaves them and heads back to the start of the pier.

James suddenly feels very alone.

Aiming a nervous glance at Lily, he mirrors her position, leaning against the railing as he looks out at the view. The sun is very nearly down, and the sky has darkened from bright yellows and oranges to fiery reds and pinks. The water starts to pick up a little current.

After a minute or three in companionable silence, James' mouth decides to ruin the peaceful moment.

"So, uh, you're the mystery thief." He nearly facepalms. Smooth, Potter.

He peeks from the corner of his eye to judge her reaction, and sees the corner of her lips curl up in a smile. She shifts her grasp on the railing, but looks straight ahead. "Yes, I am."

"And, uh, about that date…"

That grabs her attention. "What date?" She asks, turning a little to face him with a slight frown.

He feels a little more wary now, swallowing anxiously at her refusal to acknowledge that night. What did it mean? "The date we agreed on… erm… that night… with the Rembrandt…"

Thankfully, she cuts him off before he can embarrass himself further. "I know what date you meant, James." She looks back ahead, rubbing one finger over the metal bar of the railing nervously. "I just thought… that you wouldn't want it brought up again now that you know who your mystery thief really is."

"Why wouldn't I?" he blurts out, confused.

"James, please." Lily glances at him, and there's a sadness in her green eyes that's almost resigned. James doesn't like it. "I can recognise the signs of a crush, and you had it bad for… for her. The masked person you knew nothing about. It was so obvious, really." She shakes her head. "Can't believe I didn't recognise the signs sooner. You were so… you about it. Even a mask couldn't hide that."

James cocks his head. "How did you find out who I was, anyway?"

Even sad, it seems, she's very capable of rolling her eyes. But James always knew that about her. "You said something silly the day I came in with Dudley and the pieces clicked."

His eyebrows raise. "Ohhh-kay, that's very definite." He stops her protest with a quick smirk, self-deprecating and teasing. "I know, I know. I say enough stupid shit on a daily basis, it should be explanation in itself. You don't have to tell me."

"You're very distinctive, Potter," she teases back with a toothy grin. He laughs at her, smirking as her look turns fond.

"I suppose I am." He leans further into her, settling into a softer version of his smirk and looking her directly in the eyes. "So then, why won't you go out with me?"

She looks startled at his bluntness; he can see it. Her mouth opens and closes, then settles into a firm line. "I would say yes if I thought you were actually serious."

He blinks. "I am serious!"

"Potter," she sighs and looks away. "The woman you're attracted to is her. The mystery, the danger. And I may don the mask, James, but that person isn't me. The whole point of her is for me to be anybody but myself. She's a part of me, but she's not who I am. Who I am… you're not attracted to me. Just her."

He stares at her profile. A gust of wind whips her hair back, but strands of it blow against her cheek instead. The low light from the sun highlights the edges of her hair, making it shine a deep brown-gold. She looks beautiful.

"That is not true," he murmurs, looking at her. "She was a farce, Lily. You are the real deal."

"And for all this time," Lily counters sharply, "you thought she was the real deal. There's a difference between her and me, you know. It's not the same."

"Boy, don't I know," James whispers to himself. "Lily. I know… I know I was attracted to her. And yes, it was all those points you spoke of. Mystery, danger. But what's kept me up every night this past week is that laugh you laughed right before you said my name that night—it was your laugh. And I didn't realise it then, but nothing, nothing about her got to me like that laugh. That was you, Lils. It was always you."

He takes a deep breath and looks out at the water. "And yes, I was attracted to her. But it's you I love. You've always been a cut above the rest to me, and now I realise why. It's because I don't simply love you like I thought I did. It's more. With you, it's always more."

Her eyes widen a little at his admission, but her reaction isn't the one he wants. It's wary, more closed-off. "And what happens once you come to a different conclusion?"

"How could I?" he replies, smiling despite the fear in her eyes. "It took me eight years to come to this one."

She huffs out a deprecating laugh, but her eyes soften. "Do you really think a few pretty lines are going to sway me, James? You know me better than that."

"I do know you better than that," he insists, turning fully to face her. "And that's why you know that I would never, never do or say something like this unless I was sure that it was something I wanted to pursue. Romantic attraction or not, Lils, the last thing I'd ever think to do is break your heart. You know this. Don't say that you don't."

"I do." Lily twists around, angling her back against the railing. Taking a deep breath, she relaxes, and allows herself to rest her elbows against the painted metal. Something in James' chest loosens, and he knows that this is the moment.

This is when he convinces her to look at the way he looks at her, and see what he sees.

This could be the start of something.

"Are you sure?" he hears her whisper. The breeze blows against her back, and her hair obscures her features. She doesn't seem to mind it, but James thinks it makes her voice sound really small.

Or maybe, Lily could just be scared.

James is scared too.

"As sure as I can be," he says as confidently as he can. "I think… I think I've known this all along, in fact. Just needed a push to make me see."

Lily smiles, turning her head to face him. "We've been friends for a long time."

"But we've also never been just friends for a long time," he adds with his own smile.

"Will things be the same?" she wonders softly, tilting her head as her eyes trace his features. She looks like she's seeing him for the first time, and honestly, James knows the feeling.

"Either way, Lils, today's changed the course of things," he replies, using a gentle tone himself, "I think we owe it to ourselves to take it all the way and find out. Don't we?"

"Yeah," she says, her voice a mere breath of a sigh. "Yeah, I think we do."

He smiles.

She looks captivating, and he has to force himself to gaze out at the view again to keep himself under control. And it's calming, the horizon, but it's not what he wants to look at.

There's a sliver of sun still to be seen, and the sky is now a gorgeous blend of light purples and blues and little hints of pink and yellow. The water is darker now, reflecting a haze of purple from the sky, and he should be admiring the soft beauty surrounding him, but all he's itching for is to see Lily's face again.

And what is temptation against the pull of the best woman in his life?

So he looks back at Lily, only to find her staring back at him. His breath hitches.

Her eyes are decisive, and her expression firm. The breeze whips her hair every which way, and the sky paints a backdrop of lilac to halo her face. James thinks she's beautiful. He can see only her; he never wants to look away again.

His eyes roam over her features, drinking in all the tiny details he can see from this proximity. There are flecks of brown-gold in her green eyes, and tiny smatterings of freckles along the sides of her nose. He thinks he likes it better this way.

"We're gonna have to have a conversation about this," she whispers, moving her face closer to brush her lips against his.

"Later," he pleads, tilting his head a little in anticipation for that perfect angle.

"Later," she agrees, mirroring his movements. She leans up a little, and he leans down a little, and then they kiss.

It's unlike any kiss James expected with his mystery thief, but with Lily… it's exactly how he imagined it would be. His senses are enveloped in a cloud of cinnamon, the scent of her hair. It's a little bit awkward, like they're dipping their toes into a pool of endless unknowns.

It's achingly familiar, and he can feel his pounding heart gentle to match their unhurried rhythm. Sweet and slow, like they have all the time in the world.

With a start, James realises that they do.

They pull back eventually and smile at each other with shy happiness, and James feels at peace. The world comes into focus around Lily. He sees the horizon behind her again, purples and blues painting the twilight, the shining reflections of the river settling into a duller glow. He sees a lagging flock of birds flying through the air beyond.

And at the centre of his world she stands, hair gently blowing in the light breeze. Her eyes are soft and happy, and he is unimaginably proud of himself for putting that look there.

"We're still going to have that talk," she murmurs with a tiny curve of her lips.

He grins. "Later," he says again, and leans in for a second time.

If he turned back, he'd see Sirius smiling softly at them from a distance, holding Lily's drink in hand. He wouldn't have been able to read Sirius' expression from where he stood, but had he been closer, he would have seen the satisfaction in those grey eyes.

It has taken a long time for them to admit that they are in love, but they are finally here.

- Epilogue -

"Second floor clean," James murmurs from the shadows, the heavily carpeted flooring muffling his light footsteps.

"Nothing on the first floor either," Sirius adds through the comms.

"Heavily creeped out by all the statues here, but the ground floor is also clean," Lily's voice fills his ears.

"Wait there, we're coming down to you," James instructs, sprinting down a wide, similarly carpeted staircase.

"I know the drill, James," Lily's wry voice says, but she sounds amused.

James reaches the ground floor, and sees her waiting right by the staircase. She's dressed like them in all black—jeans and sweater—and her bright ginger-red hair is pulled into a loose braid this time. Her black eye mask covers her face, like always, but this time James knows who's underneath.

And he loves the woman underneath that black mask.

Sirius is nowhere to be seen, but James knows he must already be in the kitchen. He smiles at Lily and waits beside her, crossing his thickly gloved hands over his chest.

"First heist working together," he asks casually. "How does it feel?"

Her lips curl into a wicked smile. "Like it always does, except this time I get to wind you up in different ways."

At this, James cannot suppress a shudder of want. He doesn't mind being wound up, not when it's her doing the winding up.

Still, he's not about to go down without a fight. He leans down without a word and steals a kiss from her just because he can, and hearing her squeak as the kiss turns heated is very, very rewarding. He cannot hide his smirk when he pulls back, but she only rolls her eyes and pushes lightly at his arm.

It doesn't take long for Sirius to come back, fiddling with the edges of something in his hands. James looks at him in question, and in response, Sirius holds up the little round white circle in his hands against a penlight in triumph. James can see the faint outline of a fingerprint traced in its centre.

It's a trick Sirius has perfected—nabbing a fingerprint with wide tape and placing a simple napkin ring over it, pouring superglue within the circle and holding the length of the tape over a fire to solidify the glue, and voilà, they have an embedded fingerprint to do with what they will. It's come in handy more times than they can count.

"Ready, Gingerella?" Sirius voices mischievously, and James can instantly spot the frown taking over her face, even covered by the mask.

"Stop calling me that, will you?" she huffs as she pulls him down the steps, down to the basement. It's all that's left to check in the house, and they agreed beforehand that it must be the most likely place they will find Greyback's technical setup.

James can sense Sirius following behind them.

"Remus just sent me a message," Peter's voice pipes up through the comms. "The distraction is going even better than planned—another of Greyback's goons panicked and fucked up, and Remus estimates that Greyback will be held up by at least another hour."

"Perfect," James says, grinning at their luck.

As if Peter knows what he's thinking, he adds, "I don't think the accident was much of an accident either, if you ask me." Somehow, James is not surprised.

"That's my Moony," Sirius says with a savage smile.

They're at the bottom of the staircase, facing a towering metal vault door with the biometrics scanner they knew would be there. Sirius presses his fingerprint mould against the screen, and they are instantly accepted. They grin at each other, and James pushes the door open for them to walk in.

"Cameras in the basement disabled," Peter's voice comments in crisp tones. "You're in the clear."

While it was pure skill that Peter nabbed Greyback's floor plans from the construction company's internet archives, it was sheer luck that Remus managed to get hold of Greyback's security plans. Without both maps, they wouldn't have been able to plan this break-in so extensively; but as it is, they've been one step ahead of the security system all night.

One of their biggest challenges had been getting Greyback out of the house at a time when none of his staff were occupying their target location. Greyback was notoriously paranoid, and he had timed his schedule perfectly so that someone was always in the house. But Remus was brilliant there, too, engineering a few slip-ups at one of Greyback's seedy clubs and devising a whole emergency to get him there.

And all of Remus' efforts look like they're going to be worth it, because the basement is even more promising than they dreamed it to be.

It's a huge, extravagant office, occupying the expanse of an entire floor of the house. There are a few more of the creepy busts Lily had complained about, but statues aside, the place looks quite tasteful in the dimness of their flashlights. Of course, they aren't concerned with the quality of wood the drawers and cabinets are made of—not as much as what's in them.

"Fan out," James murmurs to his partners, and he heads straight to the desk with the computer and boots it up. The monitor is flat and wide, but the rest of the tech attached to it doesn't look very new. James surmises that it is regularly upgraded, and has been used for many years.

Glancing up, he can see Sirius and Lily on opposite sides of the room, photographing all the evidence and important documents they can find.

It doesn't take too long to log into the device—Peter provides excellent guidance in his ear, and they know enough about Greyback to eventually guess the right password—and when everything is loaded and ready, he inserts his flash drive and downloads Peter's virus to the computer. With it, Peter will get remote access to Greyback's computer even after they leave, and Greyback will never know.

"Here, I'll do the next bit," a soft feminine voice murmurs in his ear, and he nearly jumps in shock.

"How do you do that?" he hisses, trying to get his heartbeat to slow down. "Every time, like a ninja. How do you do it?"

She rests her chin over his shoulder, and he can sense more than see her smile. "A girl is allowed some secrets, James, it's only polite."

"What if I pull the boyfriend card?" he tries.

She chuckles and leans forward, typing on the keyboard over him. He shifts to the side to grant her easier access and lets her do it, watching her concentrate with a little smile. She pulls up the command prompt centre and enters the required code to activate Peter's software, and her braided hair falls over her shoulder as she continues to type.

"We're in," she says to Peter after a shorter time than James had anticipated. He looks up and sees Sirius walk over to them quietly. The grin on his partner's face tells James that he has found something good.

Peter makes a little huffing sound over the comms. "Okay, logging in from my end." James can hear the faint sound of rapid clicking of keys, and then Peter huffs again. "Got it."

James and Sirius look at each other and share smirks. Lily rolls her eyes at them, but what can he say? They've been partners for more than a decade; the glances come naturally to them.

Lily looks through some of the folders they see, systematically clicking through each file as they give each one a cursory look. Peter is backing up everything to his own systems, anyway. They can look over the data more thoroughly later when they have more time to inspect everything and when Remus is there with them.

Sirius comes over to lean over James' other shoulder, and despite them technically being in a high-risk situation, James cannot imagine a time he has felt more content or secure.

"Wait a second," Sirius stops her from switching tabs on a particular spreadsheet. "Scroll up."

Lily does so, and Sirius points at the name that caught his eye. "Look at this."

James instantly recognises the name. "That's one of the institutions you pointed out on Moony's list."

"Oh my word." Lily's hair brushes his shoulder in her haste as she points out a series of numbers next to the name. "Check out the figures."

"We've hit the jackpot," James breathes, staring at all the data. "Check the other sheets."

They scan sheet upon sheet, finding more and more information to point out. James feels giddier with everything new that they uncover, and he can feel the energy in the room get more charged with each passing second.

"Mates, this is pay dirt," Peter's awed voice comes through. "I'm going through some of this while it transfers—it's now at sixty nine percent, by the way—and I've just found a folder with scanned copies of forged documents he's acquired. Everything, it's all here."

"We've just blown this whole thing wide open," Sirius whispers a little incredulously. "Think this'll be enough for Moony to go to MI5 with?"

"Totally," Peter says. "This has everything we need and more, and there's no doubt that the evidence we've got here is legit. Show them the tracking virus and we've got it made."

James leans back in his chair and stares up at his best friend and girlfriend in shocked silence. Sirius looks just as stumped as he feels, but there's a slow smirk full of mischief creeping up Lily's face, and her green eyes are sparkling as they glance first at him and then Sirius.

James feels those same butterflies that sparked up in his stomach the first time his mystery thief aimed that gorgeous smirk at him, but this time, it's for a whole different reason.

"Gentlemen," she says in that voice, deep and seductive and full of promise, "it looks like we're about to have quite the party."

James can only grin.