Unofficial Portkey Archive

Chapter Thirty

Lily fell to the ground in a puff of dusty rock. All of the Aurors paused to stare at her still figure. The dust settled and she continued not to move, but the battle raged on.

"No..." James whispered, his heart pounding painfully in his head. She needed to get up, she needed to brush herself off, look quite miffed at the interruption, and continue on, with a rather peeved expression on her face. She needed to get up to snark at James, and tell him that he was overreacting, that she was perfectly fine.

The battle, which had for sometime, been going in supreme slow motion, fast-forwarded back to reality when a hex hit James square in the center of the chest and sent him skidding. He came to a halt and stared at the sky, wondering why the pain in his chest didn't hurt more than it should have. His whole body was numb.

He turned his head and saw Sirius yelling at him. Probably telling him to get up or something like that.

His vision was filled with black hoods and wands.

"James!" Sirius cried, fear in his voice. If Lily was dead, James was sure to have stopped all reason for living. Sure enough, he didn't even try to raise a wand when three Death Eaters surrounded him and began torturing him.

His Death Eater was being oddly persistent in not letting him get to his friend, however, and it was getting annoying. James' screaming was drilling into his head like a bad hangover and it was ruining his concentration. He felt something wet on his arm and looked to see that the Death Eater had broken the skin on his arm.

"Merlin, not Sirius too," Remus breathed, seeing the giant splash of blood on his arm. He was purposely ignoring Lily's body on the ground, but James' screaming was a bit more difficult to forget. Now Sirius' red spotted arm was distracting him and causing him to make the correlation to Lily's red hair.

Why wasn't anyone going to help James? The sentiment was prevalent in all the minds of the Aurors. Nobody felt in control of the situation. It was all so confusing; on the one hand, the intelligent thing to do would be to just Disapparate. Safety of yourself was the number one priority...but then James would probably die, but apparently, he wanted to, now that Lily was dead, and who would be next?

The Death Eaters could sense another death was impending. James' screams were becoming weaker and weaker, even though they weren't very strong in the first place.

He could barely feel the physical pain from the curse. As he rolled on the ground, the ring that he always kept in his pocket dug into his hip, and it was the only pain that he felt. The pain drove a direct line from his hip to his heart, and was more painful than anything he'd ever felt in his life.

She was gone from his life, forever. The pain was making everything clearer in his head. He loved her. It was deeper than that though. As he lay there on the ground, emotional pain wracking his body, he truly understood what it meant to love her. He could never put it into words, but the feeling of love and loss that filled him made it almost too difficult to breathe.

In one second, he felt as if he aged ten years. This adult feeling of love surpassed any feelings he'd had for her before. He must have told her that he loved her a million times, and he thought he knew what love was. His love of Lily and his love of Quidditch were on the same level before, but this feeling that was overcoming his body, this feeling was on a whole new playing field.

And those bastards killed her.

When James' loud scream echoed on the battlefield, most thought he had finally died. They were supremely shocked when he blew all four Death Eaters back onto their backs, and was looking ready to kill.

Voldemort and Dumbledore had only paused briefly in their dueling when Lily had been killed, and when James had stood up again, but they were back to fighting. James had his eyes set on Voldemort, and his heart set on revenge.

Dumbledore saw James walking towards them, and knew what he was going to do by the look in his eyes. Before anyone could react, James raised his wand and set a hex straight at Voldemort's back.

He stepped forward a bit, as if the hex had only imbalanced him. He paused for a brief second, deflecting a curse from Dumbledore, and then sent James flying. He landed on his side and rolled a bit in the dirt, tripping Emmeline and the hooded figure she was fighting.

Voldemort and Dumbledore returned to fighting, but James was not to be deterred. His arm was only a little bit out of socket, and he could throw hexes with his left hand too. He walked right through Emmeline and her Death Eater, who looked quite affronted that he had interrupted their battle, and marched back up to Voldemort.

"James, would you quit it?" Sirius yelled when James went flying past him.

"Not...gonna...he's dead..." James panted, standing up again. "Lily..."

Sirius would have loved to have grabbed James before he got himself killed, but Rabastan Lestrange had other plans. He was enjoying laughing at Sirius' attempts to get away from him, and had found James' declaration of revenge to be very amusing. So amusing that he had announced it to the rest of the Death Eaters.

James really couldn't hear anything except the voice in his head telling him to keep trying until he was dead. There really was nothing left to live for now that Lily was dead, so what did he have to loose by going up against the worst wizard in nearly a century.

"Boy, you are trying my patience," Voldemort hissed, turning once more to get James out of his way. To his annoyance, James deflected that spell, and sent another flying. Voldemort growled and the two had a small dueling session for about five spells before Voldemort hit his target.

However, when Voldemort was distracted by the satisfactory glare at James bouncing along the hard rock like a jagged doll, Dumbledore got the upper hand and managed to strike his foe right in the chest.

Staggering back a few steps, Voldemort gave the first ever hints that he was human. He coughed and held his chest. His Death Eaters stared at him, but then were quick to leave their Aurors to rush to his side.

With a deafening Pop, he Disapparated. The Death Eaters followed, their normally in control eyes looking quite harried indeed.

"No," James huffed, getting to his feet slowly. Voldemort still needed to be there.

"C'mon, mate," Sirius whispered gently in his ear, helping him to his feet. The Aurors stood around, nursing their aches and pains, none of them looking towards the one person who could have healed them in one fell swoop, who was lying on the ground.

"We...we should all get to St. Mungo's," Dumbledore announced quietly. "James, you especially."

"Come back," James whispered, his voice cracking. "You stupid bastard, come back...."

"Can you Apparate, mate?" Sirius asked, throwing James' arm over his shoulder. "C'mon, let's go to St. Mungo's and get you cleaned up-"

"COME BACK!" James screamed, throwing Sirius off of him. The Aurors stared at him, a mixture of pity and shock on their faces. "COME BACK, YOU COWARD!"

"Mate-" Sirius said, approaching James slowly. "It's all right, there was nothing any of us could do-"

"HE NEEDS TO DIE!" James cried, and with a loud sound that was a mixture between a grunt and a whine of pain, he Disapparated.

Sirius sighed, heavily and looked to everyone else. "I'll...I'll go look for him in a bit...he needs some time to himself."

Dumbledore nodded and turned to look at Lily. "Alastor, will you help me?"

"Sure," Moody said, sounding as if he had a head cold. "I'll-"

Lily gave a moan and turned her head.

"What?!" Sirius said, doing a double take.

Dumbledore swept over to her in three strides and bent down to look at her. His finger traced the track the spell left on the dust and saw that it went about three quarters of a meter to the left of where Lily was.

"How?" Remus asked, also running over. "No one has ever..."

"You see here," Dumbledore explained, running his finger along the rock face. "The spell must have missed her when James ran into Lord Voldemort."

"Sweet Merlin," Remus swallowed, hardly believing his eyes when Lily gave another turn of her head. He had to look away because he was overcome with emotion.

"Well then," Sirius said, a ghost of a smile on his face. "Let me go get our prima donna."

James had no idea where he was.

He had no idea how he got there.

He couldn't tell you what it looked like, or how cold it was, or if it was uncomfortable to sit there for a long period of time.

All he could do was cry.

He sobbed and held the beautiful diamond ring in his hand. He loved her so much. He should have married her.

His chest was heaving and he was having trouble breathing, but he did not care. It was just as well that he died crying.

He was running over all the memories of her over and over again. Over and over he saw her when she first got up for the Sorting Hat wearing her jumper over her cloak. He remembered the first time he realized her fancied her, in their fourth year, when he and Sirius had broken into the girl's bathroom and they had seen her in nothing but a towel.

He remembered fifth year when she had yelled at him in front of everyone. Sirius was the only one who knew that James had cried that night. But not a lot, only a little, he protested.

Sixth year, when he found out that she liked his arse. He gave a chocked sob. He spied on her, changed himself for her. Made her fall in love with him.

Their first kiss was so beautiful. And then she had denied him again.

He tried so hard. Then they had flown together. He could have died a happy man, but he wanted more.

It all seemed to come crashing down. She found out that he'd been spying on her, and changing himself to fit her needs. She was so hurt, and he felt so stupid.

It was Snivellus who had inevitably gotten them together, funnily enough. If he hadn't been so stupid as to go look to see where Remus was hiding, then Lily never would have found out about his lycanthropy, and found out what lengths James was willing to go for his friends. It was after that that she decided to give him a chance. Funny how life works out that way.

Their first real date. He'd brought her flowers, and made Sirius and Remus help him get dressed in just the right clothes. Then, oh then they had kissed for near ten minutes on her porch.

He was insatiable after that. He wanted her lips on his all the time. Every day, he felt as if he would explode without them.

Christmas, their declaration of love. The necklace that she still wore, the feeling of euphoria when he finally was able to explore her most private places. Of course, he wasn't allowed to look, as she was still very self-conscious about her body.

He sobbed more, his chest hurting with every rattling breath.

Her family. Killed by the same man and his followers.

He grabbed at the ground until he found something that he could chuck good and hard.

They'd made love, and it was worth the wait. Then they had moved in together, and made love every night for a month, it seemed like.

He would never be able to wake up with her still sleeping next to him. She would no longer put on his Snitch boxers and a bra and snuggle next to him. She would no longer kiss him on the nose when they woke up. She would no longer sit on his lap and play with his hair while he and Sirius worked on their crossword puzzle.

There was no life if she was not in it.

"You know, you really should get cleaned up," Sirius said, clearing his throat behind James. "You look a sight."

"Go-hic-way, Sirius," James said.

"Ickle Prongs have the hiccups?" Sirius asked, sitting down next to him. "If you were anyone else, I'll have you know, I would draw this out and let you sit here in misery, but I'm not going to."

"What-hic-talking about?" James asked, his lips and eyes the same color red.

"The spell missed her, mate," Sirius said. "She's all right."

James stared at him.

"Lily's...alive?"

"Yeah," Sirius said, putting his arm around James shoulder and having a moment of male bonding with him.

James, however, had different idea.

"She's ALIVE!" he yelled into the night, shooting up straight. "W-Where is she?" he asked, and now that he knew that there was something worth living for, all the pain of his bruised body came back, and he hunched over.

"One step at a time, mate, you need to go see a Healer-"

"Fuck me, where's Lily?" James asked, breathless.

"St. Mungo's-" Sirius began and then James disappeared in front of his eyes. "Oi. One minute you're angry, then you're crying, then you're nearly peeing yourself," he rolled his eyes. "You're like a bloody girl on her period."

SGR's Note: Ah, ah...so close, so close...one more chapter! Don't forget to leave a FULL EMAIL ADDRESS or even better, email me yourself to find the writing journal. Of course, you know, you could always just check my author page and get it from there... But just remember, chapter thirty-one will be half here and half there!