Their Seventh Year

Oh, I am sorry guys.  I thought I uploaded chapter 25 last night and I didn’t realize until I was at work this morning that it hadn’t gone through, so clearly I did something wrong, but here it is!

I’m not so good at writing action, so bear with me!

Chapter 25- The First

"What...what's going on?" Lily was still in a daze but vaguely realizing that something was wrong as James dragged his eyes away from her and looked at the door, beyond it they had heard a womanscream and now camethe sounds of other people shouting.

"I'm not sure, stay here,"he said as he rose, the picture of calm. He started toward the door, and she dragged herself out of her daze and rolled her eyes at his instructions.

"Not bloody likely,"she muttered, following him. He turned and glanced at her briefly, face unreadable, and then gave a slight smile and a shrug.

The scene that met them when they stepped back into the ballroom was chaos. Some people were trying to find a way out, some were trying to help, some were trying to maintain order amongst the crowd of guests, but most people were just trying to figure out what was happening.

"What's happening?" James asked, steadying a terrified looking woman who had just careened into him.

"Death Eaters!"she gasped out, waving a shaking handin the general direction of the entrance. "Over there."

"James, where is everyone?"cried Lily, and he knew immediately she meant their friends.

"I don't know, but we'll find them, let's just not panic."

That was easier said than done, and the most terrifying thing to James was the chaos. The guests at the party easily outnumbered the Death Eaters, but they were caught off-guard, searching frantically for wands, looking around wondering what to do, or justfrozen in disbelieving horror. James didn't want to give himself time to think, instead, he just acted. He seized Lily's hand and said "Let's find the others and get out."

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The moment he heard a scream Siriusguessed what was happening. It was the ideal time for an attack, if you were thinking like a Death Eater- everyone celebrating, their guard down because they were in the company of friends and family, and champagne flowing freely.  There was no security around the house- no wards, no guards.  Hadn’t they just walked right in?

His friends were a little slower to figure out that something was wrong, Remus was eyeing Peter who was eyeing more champagne, and Alice was telling Flora abouthaving tea withFrank's mother, apparentlya formidable woman. They all turned at the sound of the scream, confusion playing over their faces.

Remus saw the masked figures first, through the sea of people, as another scream split the air. Sirius froze for a moment, but then was on his feet, his wand drawn.

"We should get out of here,"Remus said.

"Are you kidding? We've got to help."

"Sirius-"Remus gave a pointed look in the direction of Alice and Flora.

"Oh for Merlin's sake, stop being all sexist, we can look after ourselves." Flora snapped. "I'm not going anywhere, this is my house."

"How many are there?"

"I don't know, I see, five...six...."

At that moment one of the Death Eaters pointing his wand up, instead of into the crowd of guests, and a second later someone ran into Sirius hard, throwing him backwards and knocking over Flora and Alice as well. Flora gave a small shriekand Sirius flinched as the chandelier crashed down on the spot he had been standing moments before. He turned and looked at the person who knocked him out of the way, and who was also towing aterrified Lily by the hand.

"Thanks Mate."

"No problem,"replied James. "Everyone all right?"

The only light was now coming from the floating candles, until a great draught extinguished most of them leaving the room in eerie darkness. Sirius felt a moment of panic until he heard Lily's voice say "lumos" and reminded all of them to do the same. But the Death Eaters had taken that moment of darkness to advance into the room, and now the curses started flying in earnest.

James struggled to his feet; fine except that he'd had the wind knocked out of him, and found himself face-to-face with a tall masked figure. He shouted the first curse that came into his head.

"Rictumsempra!”

A tickling hex? James quickly recovered himself and added "Stupefy!" at the doubled over Death Eater, who then collapsed with a thud.

"Well done,"congratulated Sirius, looking impressed. Behind him, screamed, and he whipped around in time to see her collapse under the cruciatus curse, rigid with pain. At the same moment he and Sirius shouted "Expelliarmus", but the Death Eater blocked it carelessly, almost lazily while continued to scream.

"Stupefy!"

"Impedimenta!"

The Death Eater blocked the first curse but wasn't expecting the second, and he fell over stiffly, the wand slipping from his hand. Immediately Lily fell to her knees next to , laying a hand against her cheek. ", are you all right?"

She didn't answer immediately, and without waiting for an answer James picked up the shaking, gasping girl and carried her over to the corner, away from the center of the fighting. They could no longer get out, the door was blocked by Death Eaters, but the fight was forgotten for a moment as they all crowded around her.

"I'm okay, I'm fine,"she gasped, struggling to sit up.

"We have to get you out of here,” Remus insisted.

"No, I'm fine, I don't want to leave everyone else..."

", you're in no condition to fight pixies, much less Death Eaters, and-"

"Well, well, well, what have we here?” said a cold voice.

They all turned to see another Death Eater, James could not tell who it was with the mask, but Sirius muttered "Malfoy."

"Hogwarts students." The voice was cool and amused. "Shall we see how well Dumbledore has taught you then?"

He raised his wand, and James whipped around with his own, but not quite in time, as he heard "Expelliarmus" and felt it fly away from his hand.

"Tsk tsk, you've failed your first test, never let go of your wand." Malfoy chided in a patronizing, slightly sing-song voice. "You'd be the Potter boy? Your father causes no end of trouble. So sad, to lose the only son and heir."

Malfoy raised his wand, but Lily cried "Stupefy". Malfoy neatly blocked the curse.

"Again, I'm disappointed. You're too obvious about what you're going to do. What are they teaching you at that school?" He raised his wand again and James was absolutely powerless, still kneeling next to , without a wand. Then suddenly, as if by magic, Sirius slipped his wand into his hand. Just as Malfoy cried "Crucio" James's arm flew out clutching Sirius's wand.

"Protego!"

Malfoy was forced to duck as his own curse rebounded on him. "Potter, you're starting to annoy me. Let's see how brave you are without your little friends backing you up." He turned his wand on Lily.

"No! Reducto!" Yelled James, his curse flying past Malfoy's outstretched arm, catching his wrist, which he immediately clutched to his chest, blood seeping through his fingers.

"You stupid boy, I've had enough of your games. Avada Kedavra!"

Not thinking, acting purely on instinct, James dodged, rolled, and came up on his feet as he felt a section of the wall explode above him. He was vaguely aware that Lily screamed his name, but he was focused entirely on Malfoy, watching his every move, anticipating what he would do next.

"If you won't stand still Potter, let's see how your little girlfriend likes this! Crucio!"

But the curse never struck Lily, as soon as the words escaped his mouth, there was a great cry of "Stupefy" and a curse hit Malfoy from behind and he collapsed in front of their startled eyes, unconscious. James looked around for who had stunned him.

"Dad!"

His father, and several other Aurors were on the scene. It didn't even occur to him to think about how much trouble they were in, he had never been so glad to see his father.

"James, Sirius, Remus, get these girls out of here." He said, his voice brisk and businesslike. Around them, fighting continued but now it was Aurors against the Death Eaters and they were slowly controlling the situation. James shook his head stubbornly.

"I can help."

"James, GET OUT NOW!" His father yelled, turning away the same second to block a curse sailing at his head. "Go!"

He wanted to refuse again, but both Sirius and Lily were urging him towards the now unblocked door, so he reluctantly allowed himself to be pulled away from the fight.

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They stumbled out onto the lawn, where people had gathered, some looking shaken but fine, others obviously injured. Emergency response wizards were seeing to the more seriously injured people and James waved one over to make sure was all right, then turned to Lily.

"Are you okay?"

She nodded, her face ashen.

"Lily, are you sure?"

"He...he tried to kill you,"she whispered.

"Oh, well, yeah. But he didn't. I'm right here, okay?" He squeezed her hand in demonstration of this, and she nodded and took a deep breath.

"Okay."

He didn’t release her hand, butturned to Sirius, who had been talking to Gideon Prewett.

"How bad is it?"

"Bad." Sirius replied gravely, not sounding at all like himself. "Five people dead he knows of. One of them was Paul Turner. He's in Gryffindor."

"Yeah." James nodded, his voice flat. His eyes traveled over the scene on the lawn. People embracing as they found their loved ones alive. In a few cases weeping as they found them injured or...James shook his had, not wanting to think about that.He had never seen the aftermath of a battle before, and now he saw it was not as exciting or dramatic he had imagined, but terrible. He squeezed Lily's hand again, and wondered how many more times they would have to do this before it was all over.

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