Disclaimer: Really, do you think I own anything? No, didn't think so.
A/N: I'm so bad at these. All I really want to say is please read and review. This chapter focus around Lily. Hope you enjoy and even if you don't please, please, please tell me what you think.
Four Marauders and a Silver Doe
Chapter One
Bad News
Most of the inhabitants of Spinner's Road were fast asleep and had been for hours. But in number 9 a red headed girl lay wide awake, rsting on her bed in the first floor bedroom.
Lily hadn't had a good night's sleep for weeks. Ever since school ended she had been laying wide awake for hours, frustrated at the situation she found herself in. The world was at war and she was stuck without news for a two months. She had been forced to withdraw her subscibsion to the Daily Prophet because the owl had confused her and Petunia's bedrooms. Resulting in some rather hilarious scenes but also her complete lack of news as all owls were baned from then on. She couldn't count on news from her friends either. Alice was a pure blood witch and didn't know how to send news in the muggle ways. Charity was muggleborn like Lily, but was currently spending her holiday up in the mountains with her family, unable to get to a phone.
So she twisted and she turned, but after hours of trying she still couldn't get any sleep. Finaly giving up, she went over to her window and placed herself in the window sill, which was still big enough for her to sit in. She used to love the viewfrom her window, she could see as far as Spinners End. On a cold night she would be able to see the smoke rising from Sev's house. Now it only served to make her already overworked mind even bussier. It had been over a year since the mudblood instence and she had come to peace with the fact that Severus Snape was out of he life forever. It still felt weird seeing him with all the Death Eater wannabes though. She had been forced to sit in the compartment next to their's last year on the way to Hogwarts and she had heard him laugh when he heard the news of another muggle killing. She hadn't been prepared for and her friends had spent the rest of their journey trying to comfort her, but as their 6th year progressed Lily had been forced to realise that Severus Snape had never been the person she thought he was. She rested her head on the cold window, finaly realising how tired she was.
Lily woke up, she had fallen asleep with her head ageinst the window. A strangly familiar sound had woken her up. The image of five grown up wizards appearing out of thin air infront of her crossed her mind, it was the sound of someone apperating. Something was terribly wrong; it was the middle of the night in a mugle street, apperating should not be a part of the picture. She was halfway down the stairs when she heard the doorbell. Upstairs she could her her sister and parents getting out of bed.
«Stay in your rooms!»
Lily wouldn't risk her family getting killed. She knew that if this really was the Death Eaters then she didn't really stand a chance, but she might buy enough time for them to escape. She just hoped they had sense enough to flee if they heard something wrong.
The doorbell rang again. All emotion was driven out of Lily's body. She should of course feel terrified, but she felt as though she was in some kind of trance. The only feeling she was left with was a small tingeling in her stomach, but even that felt as though someone else was experiencing it. She stood looking at the door for a moment before opening it.
«Bloody hell!»
«Lily!»
Three people were running down the stairs. A blonde girl in her late teens infront, looking terriefied, but ready for action. (A/N: yes I do believe Petunia loved her sister...deep, deep down that is:P) Behind her a man and a woman in their late forties came sprinting down.
«Sorry guys, it's OK. I was just a little suprised that's all.»
The blonde looked at the two men outside, it didn't take her long to put up a disaproving look. The two brothers were nothing like the people you would find Petunia Evans socialising with. They both had black leather pants and black t-shirts, they would not look out of place on one of those punk festivals she had heard about with the fangs thay had dangeling from their ears, had it not been for the cuts and bruises all over their body. But Petunia had no sympathy for riff-raff like this, whatever had happened to them they had probably had it coming. The two grew even worse in her eyes when they stepped inside the door and locked it without even being invited.
Lily was happy to see the Prewett brothers again, they were two years older than her and had been top of class in their 7th year. So she stepped aside, and hoped for an explanaition.
«Hi Lily, sorry to barge in on you and your family like this, but I'm afraid we have to evacuate you.»
She thought it was Joe who spoke first, they were so similar that it took years of practice to see the diffrence, and she hadn't seen them for two years so she might have been a bit rusty.
«I'll take it from here Joe.» Paul had always been the one with the most authority, that was probably why Dumbledore had made him Head Boy in his day. «As Joe said, we are very sorry to interupt your sleep, but you can not stay here. There have been several attacks on muggleborn Hogwarts students and their families. Just over the last hour we've seen several hundred attacks. I'm sure you all understand that we want to get you to safety. Unfortunatly you have to split up as it is safer for your family if Lily stays away for a little while.»
Petunia gave away a triumphant sound as she had always insisted that Lily was dangerous and should be sent to a mental hospital, not a school. She suddently liked the two brothers a lot more. The two looked confused, but there was no time to waste so they ignored it.
«There will be no need to pack your bags» Joe spoke again as four suitcases appeared out of thin air and the Evans' suddently found their neight -gowns replaced by their normal clothes.
«So you lot will come with me» Paul was speaking again and pointing at the three muggle Evans'. «While Lily will apperate with Joe to the Clearwaters.»
«The Clearwaters, do you mean Alice Clearwater's place?» Lily hardly dear believe she would spend the rest of her summer with one of her best friends.
«Yes. Thought you would like to spend your last weeks of holiday with your friend» Joe smiled at her. «Anyway we better get going. Say your goodbyes and come outside. We will make a portkey inside the house for your family, but you can't apperate indoors.»
Lily hugged her family goodbye, trying her best to comfort her mother. Her father was obviously worried, but he helped Lily calm Mrs. Evans. Petunia did nothing to help, sitting on the bottom step of the stairs and glared up at her sister, apperently happy to be parted with her. After a big hug from her dad, many hugs and kisses from her mum and a stiff handshake from Petunia Lily went outside. A single tear was swept away as she met up with Joe.
Lily suddently realised that she was not at all satisfied with the information she had. Had anyone she knew been hurt? Was Voldemort out there with his Death Eaters, or did he prefer not to do the dirty work? How many had been killed? How many were hurt? Had she just been lucky, or were the Ministry actually doing a good job at protecting the muggleborns?
«Unfortunatly I have no time to answer questions.» Joe said as though he'd been reading her mind. «The Clearwaters will be ready with all the answers you need when you get there. Now hold on tight to you bag with one hand and me with the other.»
Lily did as told and after e few seconds she felt a weird sensation in her stomach. Everything went dark and she felt as though she was beeing dragged and pushed by something attatched to her chest, it was a very unpleasent feeling. It didn't take more than a second before it was over though. She relaxed as she opened her eyes and saw her friend's house merely a hundred meters away.
She had always loved the Clearwaters's house. It was an old stone house, far away from sivilisation. Unlike most houses it was large and you could easily see that the Clearwaters were one of those rich old wizarding families. Unlike most such families however the Clearwaters had managed to give their house a feeling of home. They didn't hold with all the nonsense of their relatives about purebloods, mudbloods and what have you. Lily had been invited over to Alice's before and the house already felt like her third home (Hogwarts beeing the second).
As she looked up at the old house she could see the figure of her friend running towards her. It was impossible to mistake Alice as she had already mannaged to fall twice. Lily laughed and ran towards her friend. They met halfway and gave embraced eachother..
«I'll leave you here Lily.» Joe went over to the two girls who broke appart.
«Thank you for everything Joe. Please be careful. I really hope you will be Ok.» As Lily looked up at the two year older boy, she couldn't help but worry. The world was at war and he was one of those who were cought up in the middle of it.
«I will be, just take care of yourself and say hello to the Clearwaters for me» He smiled as he turned away and disappered into thin air.
«You better come inside Lily, or my mum will kill me.» Lily could see that Alice was glad to see her, but she could also see that her freind had had a rough night. There was grief an anger in her eyes as well as relief. As they walked back up to the house Lily's mind burst with questions again, but she decided it was better to wait till they were back inside before bombarding anyone with all her questions.
«Lily dear, how are you?!» Lily could feel the air beeing knocked out of her as Mrs. Clearwater pulled her into a tight hug.
«I'm just fine Mrs. Clearwater. Joe and Paul arrived before anyone got to our house.»
«Thank God for that.» A deeper voice came from behind Mrs. Clearwater and Lily could see Mr. Clearwater between some of Mrs. Clearwater's hair. «Now, now dear let the poor girl breathe.» He laughed as he lay a hand on Mrs. Clearwaters shoulder, who let go of Lily.
«Now sit down dear, I've made some soup. You must have a milion questions being pulled out of your house like that. We'll try to answer all of them.» Mrs. Clearwater made Lily sit down in the kitchen chair and poured her some soup, not asking if she wanted it.
Lily tried the soup and found she liked it just as much as she always enjoyed Mrs. Clearwaters cooking, which was marvelous. When Lily had finished she cleared her throat and asked the most pressing question on her mind.
«Are anyone dead?»
The clearwaters looked at eachother. It was clear there was something they didn't know how to say, Lily's mind panicked. It couldn't be any of her friends, could it? Alice looked down and took a sharp breath as though forcing herself to say something. When she finaly spoke, her voice was shaking.
«Charity's family was the first one to be attacked.» Lily felt a sharp stab in her stomach and felt that she didn't want to hear the rest. Alice and Charity were Lily's best friends, she couldn't bear loosing yet another friend.
«Not Charity.» She maneged to say through the lump in her throat.
«She's not dead, she managed to escape, awfully hurt. But–but th-the» Alice's voice broke into sobs and it took her a couple of minutes before she was able to continue. Lily found herself wishing that her friend would never be able to speak again, she simply didn't want to know the truth. But Alice was a gryffindor and pulled herself together. «The rest of the family is dead Lils.»
«No...No...No» Lily felt her head shake, she couldn't, she wouldn't believe it. She had visited Charity lots of times, her mother and father had been so nice, and her little brother... «Thomas!» Lily sobbed as the adorable little face of the four year old popped into her mind. You couldn't find a nicer boy anywhere, he was so cute and innocent, Lily's heart broke a million times over as she pictured the little boy. She cried harder than she had ever done before and was joined by Alice, the two girls soon clung to each other trying to get some comfort.
It took over an hour before the practical side of Lily's brain woke up, the grief never left her, but she needed to know some things. She gently untangled herself from Alice who still had tears running down her face, but she understood that Lily needed information.
«Where is Charity? She should be here with us.»
«You remember that I said she was hurt right?» Alice looked even worse now, almost grey in the face and a mixture of grief and rage in her blue eyes. Lily didn't think she could take more bad news, but she looked up and listened. «Well, she is in St Mungo's, that's all we know. Dad's been contacting all his friends, but no one will tell us anything. Oh, Lily I'm so worried we can't – can't l-loose her, w-we can't!»
Lily didn't know what to do, she felt just as bad as her friend, but she wrapped her arms around her and tried to calm her.. «Ssh, we'll go to London tomorrow and visit her...»
A few hours later the two girls went to bed in Alice's room, it was nearly dawn, but Mrs. Clearwater had given the girls some poition and told them they needed some hours dreamless sleep. The last thought to cross Lily's mind that night was the laughing face face of Severus Snape.
A/N: So that's that I know it was a bit long without any of oue beloved marauders, but next chapter is full of them I promise...
Ps: Not to nag or anything but there's this little link at the bottom of the page and if you click it you can write a couple of lines about this story and what you thought of it, which would make this girl a very, very happy person indeed: P