InsaneJournal

Lily was both excited and nervous. It had taken a few days to get everything ready - she’d double checked her potions, made sure they were still perfect and ready to go. They had to get this right. The hair was being used for more than just their Polyjuice Potion, and despite there being a decent chunk of it there really wouldn’t be room for mistakes. After she was absolutely positive her Polyjuice Potion was ready to go, she called on Remus and James to meet. It was ready, and for privacy, they met at Remus’s flat where no one would interrupt them.

She was sure it would work. Finally they’d get a face to who had been tormenting them for months. Lily set off alone from home to meet up with both James and Remus at the flat - James having left from work, and Remus presumably having been at his own own for the day, if not leaving from seeing Sirius in jail. Lily’s hands shook a bit nervous as she fumbled with her bag, carefully putting the Potion in a safe pocket so it wouldn’t be disturbed before she apparated a few blocks away from Remus’s place.

The walk was short, and before she quite made it to the door, she saw James. “Love.” She called out, waving to him and speeding up her walk just a fraction so she could embrace him briefly, before taking his hand and tugging him towards Remus’ front door. “The Polyjuice is ready.” She said in a hushed tone. “Double checked everything. This is going to work.” She spoke, meaning to reassure him but mostly reassuring herself. “Do you have the hair?” She asked, her voice still a whisper as she knocked on the door. “Remus, we’re here.”


“Of course.” James patted his inner robe pocket, where he’d kept the envelope with the hair all day. His employees had probably thought he’d developed a nervous tick with the number of times he’d checked his pocket to be sure it was still there, but he hadn’t wanted to leave it anywhere, not even in the secure files in his office. With it in his pocket, he knew no one else had touched it.

He squeezed Lily's hand as they knocked on Remus's door, trying to ignore the pixies fighting in his stomach. This could be the break they were looking for. He only hoped he turned into someone they recognized.


The flat he normally shared with Sirius over their holidays away from Hogwarts felt eerily empty. Of course, Remus knew that he could have gone up to Hogwarts itself if he wanted a reprieve from that loneliness- Minerva had offered as much, after that damnable Prophet article, anyway- but he stubbornly refused to leave. Perhaps a part of him was determined to stay just in case Sirius was miraculously released from DMLE custody and came here- it wouldn't do for him to find an empty flat, of course. (Yes, Remus was well aware of how ridiculous that sounded, which was why he hadn't admitted as much out loud, to anyone.)

Today, at least, Lily and James would be here, and they might all finally get some answers. Lily's potioneering skills were nothing short of legendary (in Remus' ever-flattering opinion of her, naturally), so he had no doubts that the potion she had supplied would work perfectly. Moreover, having company- even for a task as serious as this one- had given Remus an excuse to stop feeling quite so morose for a few hours. He'd straightened up the flat and had even made tea in preparation for his friends' arrival.

At the knock, Remus checked through the wards, verifying his visitors' identities, and then opened the door to usher them inside. "Come in, come in. There's tea and biscuits, if you want them."


“You are such a lovely host.” Lily replied to Remus, smiling at him warmly as she stepped inside with James. The smell of tea calmed her nerves but she didn’t want to waste time on finding out who Lady Noir was with formalities like tea and biscuits. They could eat afterwards, as she was sure James would want the taste of Lady Noir out of his mouth and they might all very well need a bit of tea to relax them after they found out who she was.

“Let’s just get started. I can’t wait any longer.”


“Save the tea and biscuits for after.” James flopped down on to the couch and pulled the hair out of his pocket. “I can’t imagine anything made from this is going to taste very good.” He wrinkled his nose as he looked at it. Drinking essence of Lady Noir did not exactly sound appealing, though Remus’s tea and biscuits would be just the thing to wash the taste out of his mouth.

“Let’s get this over with, then.” He handed Lily the hair so she could put it in the potion she’d brought with her. “Turn me into Lady Noir.”


Of course, tea and biscuits shouldn't have been a priority, and Remus knew that- but he still took some small measure of comfort in playing the genial host even on an otherwise grim and potentially dire afternoon. If Sirius were here, he thought, he'd offer some sort of jibe about Remus' housekeeping skills or the general sense of housewifery he embodied. Remus pushed that thought away, firmly, and instead turned his attention to Lily.


“Alright then.” She said with a heavy sigh, moving over to James to take the hair he had produced. From her pocket, she pulled the flask of Polyjuice Potion and mixed the necessary amount of hairs in, watching as it bubbled and a noxious sort of smell emitted from it. She didn’t wrinkle her nose, she merely glared at it before handing it over to James.

“Drink up, love.”


James did wrinkle his nose, then threw the potion down his throat all in one go. About the only redeeming thing about it was that he could swallow it all down at once without choking too terribly. “Merlin, that’s disgusting!” He handed the bottle back to Lily and looked pleadingly at Remus. “I’ll take that tea and biscuits now, if you’ve got them ready.”

It didn’t take long before the potion started to work. James’s hair brushed against his neck and then went past his shoulders, and he shrunk. He didn’t remember Lady Noir being this short when he fought her, but he hadn’t exactly been paying attention to her height, and she might have been disguised beyond her mask then too.

“Well?” he asked, holding out his arms once he his body stopped changing. “Who am I?”


Lily watched as the transformation happened. Slowly at first, so she couldn’t tell who it was. He shrank. Much more than she had anticipated. His hair didn’t change color much - but lengthened and changed texture to something more akin to a female with decently lengthed brown hair. And then she saw the face, and she gasped.

“Oh Merlin, are you serious?” She said, striding over to James quickly and grabbing his face, inspecting his face - her face - from every angle. It was unmistakably someone they knew, someone she thought maybe they should have expected, but for some reason Lily had never really thought it would be her.

“Bloody hell.” She said, for lack of a more eloquent exclamation at the discovery.


Watching someone transform under Polyjuice was uncomfortable- but perhaps doubly so for Remus, who was all too used to body transformations and the effects thereof. Even if, obviously, this potion and the result it gave was nothing like the transformations he went through, himself, it was still... jarring.

But when James' figure finally settled, Remus could only stare for a moment in shock. Mercifully, Lily stepped forward for the initial reaction, giving Remus a few more moments to collect his thoughts.

"Bloody hell is right," Remus offered, finally- so much for eloquence. "I never thought..." He shook his head. "No, I suppose it doesn't matter what we thought, before. Now we know..."