A.N. I wrote this *technically* as part of my 'verse that started with A Rise and Fall, but you don't by any means need to read that to read this.
Disclaimer... these characters belong to JKR.
August 16th, 1978, Diagon Alley.
When Lily Potter joined the Order of the Phoenix, she had joined it to fight Lord Voldemort. In a general sense. She hadn't imagined face to face duels with him – more – battling his minions of darkness, (that always sounded cooler in her head than it did aloud.) Voldemort was the presence in the shadows, the watcher, the puppet-master. He was not, by any definition, a soldier.
But now Lily was standing in the middle of the main street of Diagon Alley, James at her side, and Voldemort was right in front of them. Her fingers slipped on her wand and she lifted it higher, hand shaking.
Beside her, James was grinning in a slightly manic way. Lily understood. That first pulse of adrenaline, that knowledge that the only thing standing between you and death was your own skill and a healthy dose of luck was always intoxicating. That was what had drawn them together, really. Recklessness and gallantry. Ideal Gryffindors, but not the sort that would be expected to live a long, safe life.
But for now, James was at her side and Lily was at least pretending to be brave so she lifted her chin higher and looked Voldemort right in the eyes.
He was pale, his head almost floating above his dark robes and she could see the faint red gleam of his pupils even from this distance. His features were strangely fuzzy, almost melted. Like candle wax. And he was smiling. Lily would remember that. He was smiling, not in the reckless, we're-probably-going-to-die-so-let's-go-out-with-a-bang way that Lily and James were, but in a cold calculated way that made Lily want to sink to her knees in fear. And then he spoke.
"So. This is the pride of the Order of the Phoenix."
Lily raised an eyebrow at the high, cold voice. She hadn't imagined him sounding like that, and from the look on James's face, neither had he. The two of them were standing shoulder to shoulder, not touching, (they'd learned long ago that even brushing shoulders would slow them down in a fight) and Lily could just see him out of the corner of her eye, but she'd always been good at reading him and right now he was too cocky. The set of his mouth, the curve of his shoulder… he was getting careless. She kicked the side of his shoe and James straightened up.
"Children hardly out of school…"
Lily swallowed. Christ, they were young. Sometimes it still surprised her. It was August, 1978, and a few months ago they'd been trooping down to the greenhouse every Wednesday for Herbology and sneaking up to the Astronomy tower for parties.
Voldemort seemed to zero in on their hands, hanging close together.
"And married."
"Right," James said, and if Lily didn't know him impeccably, she wouldn't have imagined that he was terrified. "Are we going to fight or are you just going to Apparate out of here like all the other times you've been cornered?"
Voldemort studied him. "A pureblood… I never willingly spill blood like yours. Hers, on the other hand-"
He seemed to hardly move his wand before Lily was ducking under a jet of angry green light, heart pounding in her ears.
They shouldn't even be here. This was supposed to be a routine patrol through Diagon Alley, weeding out the small groups of Death Eater sympathisers that sometimes glued leaflets over the shop windows. And it was supposed to be Lily and Emmeline Vance – James was off duty. But Emmi had come down with a bad case of dragon pox and then Voldemort had just appeared, and here they were.
"No time for niceties," Lily murmured to James. "If you get a shot, you kill him."
"Decristo," James shouted, slashing his wand viciously and Voldemort blasted aside the swirl of black with ease.
"This is what Hogwarts is teaching now? How to kill? You've become the very thing you feared."
Lily took a step back, using James as cover as she moved round Voldemort's side. "Battle not with monsters," she muttered to herself, and then; "Aruspices pellere!"
Voldemort threw up a non-verbal Shield Charm.
They couldn't win like this, this polite trading back and forth of curses. So Lily slipped closer to James and tapped his hand with her own, alerting him to the change of plans. They'd developed a sort of battlefield short hand to communicate.
The two of them attacked, sending curse after curse at Voldemort in a dizzying hurricane of light and noise. When Lily wasn't casting curses, she was flinging up wide Shield Charms that surrounded both her and James and every spell bought them another step forward. James at her side never stopped casting, his lips blurring as he shouted and spoke and whispered, cajoling the magic out. It was brutal and graceless and Lily loved it, the raw power of the magic swirling around them, the way she could hardly see Voldemort through the thick maelstrom, the way James was a steady, sure presence.
A heavy noise reached Lily, and she spun just in time to see a burst of white blue light and see James fly past her, borne into and through the nearest shop window.
She set her jaw and kept her wand up.
"Sectemsempra!" Lily screamed, angry now, and scared.
A slash appeared across Voldemort's pale cheek and for a second she stared, shocked. It seemed impossible that Voldemort was really flesh and blood and bone. From this distance he seemed waxen, and it was easy to believe that he was just a statue. But the glint of red was undeniably startling across his skin, and Lily raised a Shield Charm just as Voldemort sent a non-verbal spell at her that made the air ripple and her hair stand on end.
She was starting to tire, the tingle of magic that she normally felt in her palms beginning to dim and spark out. And James was lying somewhere, hurt badly, at the very least.
A rope of fire circled around her, making sweat run down her face and searing her skin pink. Lily was brought to her knees by the sheer power of the spell, and the heat of it. She kept her head up and shot a Reductor Curse at Voldemort that was blasted contemptuously aside, taking out a window display of caldrons. Lily struggled back to her feet, extinguishing the circle of fire.
Wake up James, she thought, damnit, I need help. And I really need you to be okay. That most of all.
There was a collection of gentle pops from down the street behind her, and then a deluge of spells. For a second Lily had tensed, until she recognized the figures coming up beside her, flinging hexes and curses and throwing up Shield Charms. It was the rest of the Order. Alastor Moody was there, grim and grizzled, and Sirius was grinning, and Dorcas Meadowes was extracting a groggy looking James from the broken window, and Edgar Bones clapped Lily on the shoulder before joining the fight. In a swirl of black, Voldemort was gone.
Lily flung herself towards James as the other grouped into a circle, wands still up.
James had a few bloody cuts on his face and bare hands and he was walking shakily, but Lily wrapped herself around him tightly.
"Did you really use the Bat-Bogey hex on Voldemort?" she spoke into his shoulder, voice muffled, and he nodded.
"Fabian keeps owling me about using it."
"Me too…" Lily said. "He made me swear that if I ever met Bellatrix Lestrange I'd use it on her."
"Fabian's a weird kid."
"Mm hmm."
"Hey Lily," James said, and she could hear the grin in his voice.
"Yeah?" she asked, lifting her head and resting her forehead on his so their noses just brushed.
"We just fought Voldemort," he whispered.
"That we did. Excellent job, Mr Potter."
"Why thank you, Mrs Potter."
Lily met his lips with hers and she could taste salt and ash and the metal tang of blood, and the only thing she could feel was relief.
A.N. Thank you for reading! I've wanted to write this for a while, but never got around to it. Finally inspiration struck and here we are. There'll be two more chapters, for the two more encounters with Voldemort. Reviews are treasured!