AN: Hey Guys! Here is the first chapter of my new story.
I hope you all enjoy it (please let me know if you do) and be on the lookout for the next chapter next week! Major Love to VinoAmore for alpha reading for me. You're a doll!
Lily held her breath as she heard the door swing open, only letting it out once she saw it was just James. The relief was short lived though, as the look on his face betrayed his fear.
"He betrayed us, Lils."
Any further conversation was cut off by a crash from downstairs followed by the creaking of the stairs as someone made their way up them.
"Get behind me, Lily. Get Harry, and stay behind me." James ordered.
She moved without a second thought. Holding her son tightly she crouched into a corner just behind her husband. The seconds felt like hours as certain doom approached them.
This time when the door swung open she had to bite her tongue to keep from screaming
"Move, and you shall be spared."
Though she could barely see him from her hiding place, Lily was sure there was a flash of amusement in Voldemort's eyes as James steadied his stance.
"You won't hurt my family as long as I'm around to prevent it." He moved further in front of them, effectively blocking what little Lily could see of the other Wizard.
"Very well then," Voldemort drawled. Raising his own wand for the first time, he trained it on James.
James narrowly blocked the flash of green light that was sent his way but was dismayed at the ease in which his opponent knocked his own curse away.
As the two men fought Lily considered her options. She could continue to cower here while the man she loved risked his life, or she could lay her son down safely and try to give James the upper hand.
The young mother held her son tightly to her chest and silently thanked the Gods that somehow Harry was managing to sleep through the commotion. Taking a deep breath, she softly kissed his forehead before laying him on the floor beneath his crib and picking up her wand.
Her first curse had taken Voldemort by surprise, but he had dodged it last minute. It appeared that she and James might be gaining the upper hand when the sound of Harry crying distracted her.
The momentary distraction was all that Voldemort needed to send a curse barreling in her direction. Lily turned back in time to see James jump in front of her taking the killing curse directly to his chest, the impact sending his body to the other side if the nursery,
He was dead before his body hit the floor.
Lily let out a pained scream, only allowing herself a moment to look at James before turning back toward Voldemort. She held out her wand, the shaking of her hand the only real indication of her fear. "You will not hurt my son."
He chuckled darkly "I'll tell you what, girl. If you step aside and let me do the same to the boy that I did to your dear husband I'll spare your life. I believe Severus would like a pet Mudblood around."
Lily's fear turned to rage, and she sent a curse at the wizard.
Voldemort deflected the curse with ease and sent two curses back in rapid succession.
To the surprise of both witch and wizard, though the second curse hit her near her shoulder, she was still standing relatively unharmed. The spell then ricocheted back and hit the wizard, causing an explosion as the room lit up green. The force of it knocked Lily to the ground, banging her head on Harry's toy chest as she fell.
The last thing she saw was an intangible form floating from where Voldemort's body lay before everything went dark.
Everything hurt, and she couldn't fully open her eyes, but she needed to get to Harry. He was crying somewhere close by. Lily tried to sit up but was stopped by a hand on her shoulder.
"Don't move, Lils. I've got Harry, you're both going to be fine. You need to save your strength."
"James?" she continued to struggle to open her eyes."
"No, Lily." the man sighed, "It's Sirius. James is…" he stopped, choking on his words. "James didn't make it Lily."
Her eyes were now open, and she could see Sirius sitting beside her, holding Harry a little tighter than necessary.
"I've sent for Dumbledore, and there are Medi-wizards and Aurors on there way as well." He ran a hand through his hair. "Why did this happen?" Sirius wiped angrily at the tears that now ran down his cheeks. "It's not fair. You were supposed to be safe. You all were supposed to be safe."
"I think," Lily paused and looked toward where James lay dead. "James said Peter betrayed us. Why would he do that?"
"I don't know, Lily, but I assure you I will kill him for this." Sirius moved to get up until she reached out and took his hand.
"Please don't leave us, Sirius. We need you." She weakly squeezed his hand. "Harry needs you."
She didn't remember falling back asleep, but as she regained consciousness, Lily assumed she must have at some point. When her eyes fluttered open it wasn't Harry's bedroom she saw, but a pure white ceiling.
Gingerly she sat up and took in the room around her. She quickly determined she was in a hospital room. The only thing that initially stood out in her rooms versus an ordinary St Mungos hospital room was the number of flowers, balloons, and other gifts that sat on a table near the window.
Lily was just about to stand up when the door slowly opened, and a very tired Remus Lupin entered the room.
"Hey Lily, you're awake." he stifled a yawn. Finally realising what she was moving to do he rushed to her side. "I don't think so," he scolded softly, "you've not been cleared to get out of bed yet. They've just now brought you out of the medically induced sleep."
"Wh-why did they have me asleep?" Relenting, she moved to sit back in the bed.
"They wanted to make sure that there were no ill effects to the curse that hit you. As far as they can tell you're perfectly healthy. Aside from the concussion you received, and of course the cut on your collar bone."
Instinctively, she reached up and touched the bandage that stretched across her neck and shoulder. "Where is Harry?" She turned toward him, eyes wide.
"He's safe, I promise you that." He rubbed the back of his neck.
"Remus, what aren't you telling me? Where is my son?" Her voice got quiet, "was he hurt too?"
"No, no, no," he pulled a chair up next to her and took her hand. "He is perfectly safe and was completely unharmed, outside of being a bit scared. I'm sure he and Sirius will be up here shortly."
"So, Sirius didn't do anything stupid then?" Lily bit her bottom lip.
Remus shook his head. "He waited next to you until the medi-wizards got there, then spoke with the aurors, and when that was done, he went to Dumbledore to get Harry back. He's only mentioned going after Peter in passing, but once reminded how much he's needed here the feeling seems to pass."
Lily looked at her hands and began fiddling with her wedding band. "Has the, uh, has the funeral happened yet?"
"Of course not, Lily. We wouldn't have done that without you. I've taken care of the arrangements, but we can change anything you want to."
"I'm sure you did wonderfully, Remus." She gave him a tear-filled smile. "Thank you so much for everything. You look absolutely exhausted. Have you slept at all?"
"Not much less than usual," he chuckled. "Of course we're helping. You're my family, Lils. Sirius and I will help you however we can."
She wiped a couple of stray tears from her cheeks. "So, what else have I missed? How long was I out?"
"They kept you under for nearly a week. It's the sixth of November today. As far as what has happened it might be easiest if I show you the recent Daily Prophet
."
The first thing she saw on the page was the flashing headline, "Dark Lord Defeated," followed by an article detailing the events from Halloween night. She noticed there were many speculations as to how she defeated him, which was something she'd have to research herself.
On the next page there was an article accompanied by pictures of the Lestrange brothers, and Sirius' cousin, Bellatrix. Lily gasped as she read about how the three had been captured following a brutal attack on the Longbottoms two nights after Voldemort's downfall. "Frank and Alice, are they?"
He shook his head, "They're alive, but it's still unknown if they'll recover fully. The auror's believe they were tortured for hours."
"What about Neville?"
"Luckily, he was with Mrs Longbottom that night."
Their conversation was interrupted when a man in scrubs entered the room. "Ah, Mrs Potter. I'm glad to see you're awake. We need to do a quick examination, then a couple of aurors would like to speak with you, would that be alright?"
"Yeah," she turned to Remus. "You should go home and get some rest. I'll be fine."
He looked as though he was going to argue with her for a second before nodding, "I'll be back soon."
The questions from both the medical staff and the aurors, combined with all the information Remus had given her earlier, left Lily feeling drained. She quickly drifted to sleep when she was once again alone in her room.
The feeling of her bed dip and pressure on her legs woke her a couple of hours later. She couldn't help the smile that broke across her face as she watched her young son crawl up the bed toward her.
"Careful there, Harry." Sirius playfully scolded, "Mummy isn't feeling well."
Harry stopped crawling and sat just above Lily's knees. He turned toward his godfather and babbled happily. The young boy let out a delighted squeal when Lily, feeling impatient, grabbed him and began peppering his face with kisses.
"Oh, Harry. I was so worried about you." She then turned toward Sirius. "When I woke up, and it was just Remus I was worried about you too. I thought that perhaps you'd gone after Peter."
Sirius shook his head. "Nah, you asked me to stay with you. Then once you were taken care of, I was too busy fighting with Dumbledore to give Peter much more than a passing thought."
"Fighting with Dumbledore?" Lily struggled to sit up further and gave Sirius a grateful smile when he adjusted the pillows behind her back. "Whatever were you doing that for?"
"Well," he trailed off.
"Sirius Orion Black, what aren't you telling me?"
"Dumbledore didn't think that I was responsible enough to take care of Harry. Even though I'm his godfather and the best option given the circumstances he wouldn't let me have him."
Lily looked down at her son. "Where was he, and how did you get him back?" Her voice was raising as panic overtook her.
"Dumbledore thought the safest place for Harry was with family" Sirius gritted his teeth. "He thought that you're sister and her husband was better suited to take care of him than me or Remus."
Lily took a moment to look over Harry, assuring herself that there was nothing wrong with him. Her fussing over him going almost entirely unnoticed by the baby, as he was much more interested in continuing to chew on his fingers.
"How did you convince Dumbledore to change his mind?"
"That's a funny story," Sirius rubbed the back of his neck.
"What did you do, Sirius? He doesn't know you have Harry does he?"
Sirius shook his head, "I know she's your family Lily, but he was miserable. At first, I told myself I'd just keep an eye on him. Make sure there were no attacks and what not, but they nearly neglected him. Your sister was ok during the day, but the second that her husband was home she acted as if Harry wasn't there."
As he spoke, Lily noticed how his face became redder and redder. She couldn't blame him for being angry though. It hurt her more than she cared to think about that Petunia would let Vernon Dursley treat her nephew so poorly.
"Well, after four days I was at my breaking point. I talked to Remus about it, since he's the one who usually talks me out of things, but he agreed that while you were here, I should be the one to have Harry. So, I waited until just before Dursley left for work. When I knocked on the door, he was more than happy to give Harry to me. Your sister mildly protested, but didn't put up any fight."
Lily took a deep breath and reached out to pat Sirius on the arm. "Thank you, Sirius. Thank you for everything."
It was early the next morning when Lily was given the ok to leave the hospital. Remus and Sirius had insisted she stay at their flat. After some convincing she relented and took them up on their offer, even agreeing to take Sirius' bed while he slept on the couch.
It wasn't until the first morning she woke up in her temporary home that the reality of the last week really hit her. From her spot on Sirius' bed, she looked over to where Harry slept in his travel cot.
If she were honest with herself, she'd admit that this was the first time she'd let herself think about James since waking up in St Mungos. She didn't remember a lot from that night, which she was truly thankful for, but one thing that stuck out in her mind was the empty look in James' eyes as his body lay on Harry's bedroom floor.
Lily felt her chest tighten, her pulse quickened, her breathing was becoming laboured, and she had no control over any of it. Panicking, she stood and tried to make her way across the room toward the door, but tripped and fell to the ground, pulling the stereo off of Sirius' bedside table.
She had barely hit the ground before the bedroom door flew open, and Sirius and Remus were rushing in. Remus quickly sat on the floor beside her and began speaking in a calming tone.
"Lily, I need you to breathe with me." He made an exaggerated gesture of oh breathing in slowly before breathing out. As she started to mimic him, he gave her a soft smile. "Perfect, ok now, I need you to focus." He turned to Sirius. "Hand me Harry."
The baby wasn't happy about being woken up but was soon smiling at his mother.
"Ok, Lily. Focus on Harry." Remus brushed hair back from her forehead. "Focus on your little boy. I know you have a lot going on in your head right now, but you need to focus on Harry."
Feeling her heart rate begin to come back down, Lily closed her eyes for a moment, before reaching out to take Harry. Remus carefully set the young boy down beside her and watched as she held him close to her, whispering into his hair.
Two days later Lily stood beside Remus and Sirius as one after another nearly every witch and wizard she'd ever met expressed their sorrow for her loss. Once the service was over, she stood quietly in the Godric's Hollow cemetery looking at her husband's headstone.
After some time she felt a presence next to her. Looking over, she gave Sirius a sad smile.
"So, I bought a house yesterday." he broke the silence after several quiet minutes.
"You did?" Lily raised her eyebrow.
"Yeah," he rubbed the back of his neck. "The lease was almost up at the flat, and I thought I could use something a little bigger. It's a pretty nice house just outside of Hogsmeade. It's got, uh, well, it's got four bedrooms." He put his hands in the pockets of his jeans and shrugged. "That's probably more room than Remus, and I need. If you wanted, you and Harry could move in with us?"
"I wouldn't want to crash your bachelor lifestyle," she laughed. "I'm sure you and Remus don't want us around all the time."
"First, Remus would prefer to not be left alone with me." He flashed her a mischievous smile. "The two of you might be enough to keep me out of trouble, but I doubt it." He winked when she rolled her eyes. "Second, you and Harry are family. You both belong with Remus and me."
She took a moment to look back at where she'd just laid her husband to rest and thought about Sirius' words. If there was one thing she and Harry needed right now, it was family. Turning back toward the wizard she laughed, "Well, you had better let Remus, and I do all the packing."
Sirius flashed her a brilliant smile, "deal."