A/N: I've been wanting the write this for ages now. So here we go-I don't really know if I'll continue at all, but depends on feedback and reviews (fingers crossed and get your mouses clicking that little button). Here we go...

Disclaimer: Mate, I'm no JK

Please review! Just so I know even that this is being read and that the HP fandom is alive and kicking... Otherwise I probs won't keep writing...


Prologue

(Upstairs)

"Avada Kedavra!"

Her throat tightened and she clenched her jaw when she heard the words from down the stairs. Tighter and tighter until her head began to throb. Those words had been uttered many times before in front of him, she knew, but James, James always escaped, she screamed in her head. He escaped from discipline, he escaped from capture, he escaped the criticism of other, and most of all, Lily needed him to be escaping those words now.

He was tearing around the corner, his shrieks of hilarity reverberating off the stone walls and closing in all around her head. He was gently leading her up the stairs, eyes sparkling and mouth slightly open as he made sure the cloak covered their two bodies. He was dragging her out of the doorway, nails digging into the goosebumps on her arms and she fought to keep her eyes open, desperately trying to get to a place where they could apparate away from the battle field.

Watchful eyes never laid their sight on him.

Cold fingers never closed around his wrist.

He was always one corner already turned, one step too high for them, one shade too bright for them. Until now.

(Downstairs)

He didn't bother moving.

He closed his eyes and held his breath.

Of all the times to be caught he thought, it was certainly not now. Not when he couldn't protect, not when he couldn't fight and definitely, definitely not when he couldn't escape. He thought of the two people upstairs, the only two people he had failed, the only two people he couldn't protect, the only two people who he knew had to survive.

As the bloodless lips curled to form the curse, he didn't bother moving.

He closed his eyes and held his breath.


A/N: I know, I know! Cheesy, typical fan fiction beginner but that's exactly what I am.

I'd rather a review than Kettle's salt and vinegar crisps at the moment, and let me tell you, I want them very very much...

gP