Severus was taken aback at first. The fact that James would come to him for help was almost shocking. Because of his feelings for James, he had always made a point to distance himself from him, even making it seem as though he despised him. It was for the sake of sparing his own feelings and for Lily who was Severus' best friend. Lily and James had been seeing each other for a couple years now and were clearly in love. Severus knew that if it weren't for this, James would never even look in his direction. It was also because of her that James needed his help today.
James explained that Lily had gone missing late last night and after some investigating, he had learned that a death eater had taken Lily and was planning on torturing her for information, or possibly killing her. He needed to get her back and take out said death eaters involved, but knew he could not do it alone. Lily had always told James what a skilled wizard Sev was, and so James naturally turned to him first. As much as he was dreading how uncomfortable it would be working so closely with James, he was a little excited for it. He knew nothing could ever happen, but it never hurt to dream. What's more than that, is that he would do anything for Lily. She was a like a sister to him, and the idea that someone is trying to hurt her enraged him more than he could ever explain.
James and Severus prepared themselves and apparated to the last place they had known some of the local death eaters were hiding. If they didn't have Lily stashed here, chances were someone would have information on where they took her. As they landed at the location, Severus took a deep breath and was instantly pleased and disappointed all at once as James' cologne overwhelmed his senses. He could already tell this was going to be more uncomfortable than he first anticipated. Suddenly he became very annoyed with himself for letting it affect him that much, and had to remind himself his dearest friend was potentially in grave danger.
The plan was for Severus to undo the lock to let them in, and then James would take the lead from there. They didn't anticipate more than a couple death eaters at this particular safe house. James knew they usually liked to be spread all throughout the city. As Sev approached the door, he could a scream and a thump inside. His heart dropped, thinking it must be Lily so instead of bothering with the lock, he ran straight at the door shoulder first and busted it down, wand at the ready. They both ran inside, but no one was to be seen in this first room. The listened closely hearing more noise coming from the second floor, so they started up the stairs.
At the head of the stairs was a grisly thin man with greasy hair and sunken cheeks pointing a wand at a low level croney tasked with guarding the house(and doing a poor job of it.)
"Leave now, the both of you! Or we'll kill you along with your little ginger girlfriend!" the croney said shakily and started stepping down the stairs toward them.
Sev saw James' eyes turn frozen with fear. He was quickly learning that while James was brave when he had nothing to lose, his courage fell to the wayside when there was an actual emergency. He could tell James wasn't going to move fast enough to get out of the way, and he couldn't let him get hurt so Sev pushed himself ahead to shield James and try to take out the little spindly man.
"Stupify!" He shouted and quickly pushed James out of the way as the man fell and proceeded to tumble down the stairs.
James seemed to wake up from his daze. "Thanks Sev. I don't know what came over me. I guess when he said that, it just froze me. Honestly I don't know what I would do if anything happened to Lily or the baby.." he saw Severus's eyes grow wide.
"Baby? Lily is having a baby? Your baby?!" he realized he was almost shouting. He sounded angry but he was hurt more than anything. He turned away from James, and took a deep breath. He couldn't let James know how absolutely broken this made him feel. He knew deep down they would never be together, but his heart ached all the same. He knew James would be a good father but it was hard to think about that at the moment. His best friend and her unborn child were in great jeopardy. His head was swimming with so many thoughts with no time to dwell on them.
He sighed and continued up the stairs making a point to not look at James. For a moment he had to keep himself from crying. He took a deep breath and kept walking. There were only two doors on the second floor, one on the left and one at the end of the hall. Sev stopped just before the door on the left.
"You take this door, and I'll take the one at the end of the hall. Take out any death eaters that are there. Iif they have her in there, do not wait for me, just take her and apparate back to headquarters. Do not hesitate. If she is in my room, I will do the same. If she's in my room, just take out the deatheaters in yours and then head to the other. If anything happens to her because you freeze the way you did a moment ago, you will deeply regret it." Sev was almost shaking. As soon as he finished speaking he quietly moved past James to the door at the end of the hall.
He secretly hoped they had her in James room, he almost didn't want to see her. It was like she punched him in the gut when she first told him she was seeing James a few years ago. Now it was that same feeling, only about ten times worse. He had had feelings for James a long time before Lily started seeing him. Though of course thats something he would never tell her. She was his dearest friend and her happiness meant everything to him.
He leaned in close to the door to listen. He heard a womans voice shout some expletives, and then what sounded like a hard slap. His eyes widened as he stood back and prepared a spell to blow the door in. The room seemed small so there was no point in a stealthy approach. He would just have to move quickly to get her out, and not waste too much time fighting.
The door went flying and the man interrogating Lily ducked out of the way. He was clearly more capable than the man they had guarding the stairs. He was quicker and obviously alot stronger. Severus ran into the room and stood in front of Lily while the guard regained his balance. Once Severus got there he flicked his wand to undo the ropes holding her.
"Stay behind me. Are you ok?" he asked, but did not look at her, keeping his eyes peeled for the guard. He saw him jump out of the way but did not see where he went. He saw a spark come out from behind the desk and the man stood up. Severus didn't hesitate.
"Expelliarmus!" the wand flew from the mans hand as Severus closed in on him. He kept his wand pointed directly at the man as he approached.
"Tell me why you took this woman! Tell me now or you can answer to Dumbledore when you regain consciousness!" He grabbed the man by his collar, keeping the wand aimed at his face. At that point he felt confident enough that they were safe to try and get some information from him.
Just as the man was drawing breath to say something, they all heard a scream from the other room.
"Petrificus Totallus!" the mans body went stiff and fell to the ground as Sev took Lilys hand and ran to the next room.
Severus's heart dropped as he pushed open the door to the room James was in. James was locked in combat with a death eater, and was clearly injured. The death eater looked injured as well, but James looked worse. Sev was quickly learning their plan of apparating in, grabbing Lily and getting out, was not going to work that way. James was obviously too weak to aparrate assuming he even wins.
Once he saw the situation, Severus had Lily wait in the hall to keep her out of danger. He went in and tried to disarm James' opponent, but he deflected Sev's spell. He shot something at Sev but he ducked just in time. He shot something else before Severus had time to move again, and Sev felt his heart stop. He didn't realize though that by distracting the man James had time to move.
James, without thinking, lept in front of Severus to take the blow. As he fell to the ground, Sev saw an opportunity and stunned the death eater, and yelled for Lily to come tie him down. As Lily ran in the room, Sev ran to James and looked on in horror as the man he loved now laid dying in his arms. There was no way they could apparate anywhere quick enough to get him any help.
Severus didn't have any words. He just sat with Lily tears streaming down both their faces. James was struggling for a breath as he gripped Lily's hand.
"I love you Lily. I hope you always know that. Severus, help her with the baby. I know you'll love him like I already do." he smiled and coughed.
"Of course I will." Severus held him tighter and struggled to breathe between sobs. His heart was breaking and it hurt more than he ever knew possible.
It was then that Lily realized how much Severus cared for James. He always made it seem as though he disliked, maybe even hated James, but at that moment she learned the truth. He cared for James more than he could ever possibly express to anyone. He cared so much he looked as though he would bleed to death with the pain of it. She wrapped her arm around his shoulder and they wept together as James took his last breath.
Authors Note:
School-Mahoutokoro
Year 5
Theme-Orion
Prompt- you do care, you care so much you feel as though you will bleed to death with the pain of it.