"The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches... born to those who have thrice defied him..."
This series gives us the story of how Lily Evans and James Potter defied the Dark Lord three times before the birth of their son Harry. This story is the first of the trilogy, from the perspective of James Potter. He, Lily, and their friends have left Hogwarts, Lily insisting upon living in London in a flat of her own (a decision borne of both pride and a need to prove herself). However, Sirius and James have proven to be a thorn in the side of the Dark Lord's plans (as evidenced by their run-in with a muggle police officer (one Sergeant Fisher), and they have become targets. And with James, comes Lily.
Enjoy the first of the Thrice Defied series.
"JAMES! JAMES!" The shout has me on my feet in the blink of an eye. The pitch and timbre terrify me. I know that tone. I know it far more intimately these days than I would like. I hear feet pounding across the floor, and a door wrenched open. The others around the table immediately follow me in standing, looking alarmed, or determined, or scared. Six white faces in a black room. Too few for something like this. All of us, crammed into a guarded bedroom in a suburb of London, like ghosts that haunt the fringes of the conflict. Sirius sits up so fast that his chair is thrown to the ground behind him while he reaches for his wand.
Peter appears in the doorway, panting, doubled over. "James!" he gasps. "After last… last fight... They're going after Lily! He's on... on his way to her-"
I hear someone shout an oath, and then realize it's me as the words cause my throat physical pain. I feel flames searing the soles of my feet as I struggle to move fast enough. I start to spin on the spot, but I feel someone grab my arm, preventing me from moving. I lash out. Edgar Bones jumps back, only to have Sirius take his place. "Prongs, think. THINK!" he shouts at me. Through the keening of blood in my ears, I barely hear him. Just barely. "You need to THINK. You can't just go running in there. We need a plan!" I can hear my teeth grating. The sound reverberates inside my skull, a satisfyingly violent, grinding sound.
"What if it's just to get at you, James. You're a key member to the resistance!" Edgar Bones barked, looking at James. "You and Sirius both spit in his eye in the last encounter we had with the Death Eaters. You forgotten that?"
"I don't CARE if it's what HE wants! LILY NEEDS HELP!"
"Peter!" A normally soft voice pierces the room like a dart. Remus has his eyes fixed on Peter. "What else did you hear?"
"Just… just that she's a target, and that they… they were ordered to keep her alive until…I don't… don't know w-where..."
"FUCK." It's me. I'm shouting obscenities again. I feels right. "We have to go, NOW," I roar, turning on my best friend. His lip is turned up in a snarl, long black hair glinting like a million threads of steel. He seems to crackle with energy, as though that hair could stand on end with the force of it.
Sirius is silent for just a moment before barking, "Ok. You and I take her apartment. Edgar, Remus, go check her parent's place. Can we get someone to get down to the safe house, in case she managed to get there?"
"I'll go," Marlene pipes up. "Dorcas, you get to Dumbledore. Tell him what's happening."
"Take Peter with you," Padfoot replies, tight-lipped. Then, he grabs me by the arm and heads right for the door.
It takes me half a second to realize we're going right where my head is screaming at me to get to. I sprint down the hall, down the stairs. I stumble down the last two and jam my knee. I'm up before Padfoot can reach me. The moment we're out the back door, Padfoot is transformed, and the cloak is over my head. Nobody will take notice of a loose dog in a place like this. Especially since the dog is black, and it's dark outside. I can hear him growling as we pound down the street, trying to get beyond the streetlights to apparate. We make it into an overgrown, empty lot, before Padfoot snaps back into a human, and we turn on the spot, the momentum of our sprint whirling us into oblivion.
The world goes dark in a sweeping vacuum, taking far too long for my thrashing brain and pounding blood. If they touch a single strand of auburn on her head, I will kill them all. Every last one of them. I imagine any one of the awful, masked demons that could be holding her hostage right now. I think about her green eyes, her terrible courage, but she would be outnumbered, to be sure. That courage, that beautiful, high-minded defiance could get her killed. I can see her refusing to drop her pointed chin, staring down her slender nose at the pieces of filth. I'm proud and terrified and I can't lose her.
We are thrown back into existence with a jaw-rattling thud as our feet hit the ground. Whether the momentum carried over from our run, I don't know, but I feel like dying as I sprint up the street, still under the cloak. I feel its thin folds clutched in one hand, sliding over one another in my grip. I grab my wand out with my free hand. I don't know what is coming. Fire, or death, or hell itself. It makes no difference to me, not if Lily is caught up in it.
Sirius is a dog again. We pound up the street, a deserted, back part of London. I told her I didn't want her getting an apartment here, that it was too risky. I told her to come and live with me and with my parents. Damn her and her beautiful pride.
Sirius hits the door before I do, still a dog for a split second, before popping back into a person. I have my wand already out, and a in a moment, I've hit the call box with a spell. We hear the door buzz open, and we shove ourselves in with such force that the glass cracks and we nearly crash to the floor. The only comfort I have is that they couldn't have apparated in. This whole shitty building was blocked off after Lily moved in. We made sure of it. I briefly remember Remus pacing every damned inch of the building, setting meticulous spells. My mind flashes to that day as we thunder up the stairs.
"James, I will be just fine. There are protective spells over every inch of the place."
"Lily, I still don't like you living here." The place was a wreck, cracks in her kitchen wall, shabby carpet and low lights that occasionally flickered. A tiny, third-floor hole in the ground.
"It will be the last place anyone will look," she had insisted, looking like a diginified goddess come to earth, her slender, white feet perched on a wilted mortal plane. So out of place, but she wouldn't hear a word against it, and delightfully unpacked her things as I helped her, spices and books and clothing and sheets. Sheets that were tangled around our legs later.
I remember her halo of nearly crimson hair over the pillow, her sharp shoulder pressing into my arm, the white glow of her against the dingy room, as I reach the third floor hallway and race down it. Anyone who touches her will burn.
We reach her door: 307. I ram into it with my shoulder, hearing the scramble behind it, and someone screaming "No, DON'T!" in a high, shrill voice.
Sirius throws me out of the way and blasts the door open with his wand. Anger at him flares like a demon in my chest, only to be clawed away. He's an ally, and almost as worried as I am. We tumble through the door, wands raised, and stop dead.
There are three Death Eaters, fully cloaked and hooded, and masked with those evil, snake-like masks. Devils all. The only thing stopping me from blasting them to oblivion is the fact that one of them, a huge, brutish figure, has Lily firmly by her throat, other arm training his wand on her. I can see her nails scraping at his hand, to no avail. "James, don't-" she manages to wheeze, before the hand closes suddenly, choking off her words, and causing red to cloud my vision.
"Let. Her. Go." My voice grates out of my throat, filing past my teeth like a steel.
"You come with us first, Potter. And you, Black." The other two have their wands trained back at us. "Come quietly, and we let the mudblood go, for now." The cold, low voice is familiar.
"Like hell, Mulciber," I spit. Sirius shoots me a look. Shut up, it says. Let me handle this.
"Let her go, Mulciber, before we have to remind you who was better in Defense Against the Dark Arts," he warns.
"I hardly think that necessary." A fourth voice, an inhuman, high, slithering voice enters the room from the hallway.
And there he is. White face stark against the shabby paint, slitted nostrils and snake eyes, all of him evil and unnatural. He seems to hover over the ground as he moves, eyes fixed on Sirius.
"Your brother joined me some time ago, Sirius. Why not you? You would have been welcome in our ranks, with blood as pure and magic as powerful as yours," Voldemort narrows his eyes slightly, a small, pleasureless smile flickering on his lips. His eyes flick back to Lily for the briefest moment, and then to me. The grin splits wider, like a deep, open wound.
"Tell me, James Potter, what exactly does a pure blooded wizard like you see in a mudblood like this?" he asks me. "Surely there is better out there. But you seem so attached to this one…" He wafts closer to her, for all the world resembling a dementor with an inhuman, snake-like face. He touches her cheek with a long, white finger. It looks like it should belong to a corpse. Lily tries to wrench away with a noise of fear and disgust, but the one holding her is too strong. "She is lively, isn't she?" Voldemort continues. "Perhaps I will see what use she might be to us. Unless you volunteer to take her place, that is," he sneers. His cronies let out unpleasant laughs, and I watch the big death eater finger her hair. The sight nauseates me to the core.
My eyes half flick to Sirius. I cannot see a way out of this situation. I lower my wand, very slowly. The Death Eaters, and Sirius, don't. "What are you DOING?" Sirius hisses.
"If I go with you, she stays here. And you don't touch her again."
"JAMES-" Lily starts again, to be cut off with a choking noise. If I hear her make that noise one more time, I will curse them, and damned be the consequences.
"Agreed," purrs Voldemort, and I know there is no way out of this. Sirius swears loudly, and lowers his wand.
"Then let her the fuck go. Now."
The huge death eater lets go of Lily's throat. She tries to spring away, but he grabs her by the hair, making her stumble back to her knees. The sound of her hitting the ground pounds in my eardrums, and her shriek of pain stabs through me like a white-hot knife.
"Put your wand down. And you, Black," says Voldemort, almost lazily drawing out his own and training it on us. I slowly lower my wand to the ground beneath my feet, placing it there. I look over at Sirius. He gives me a hard look, and then does the same.
"Very good." Voldemort turns to the death eaters. "Mulciber, their wands, if you would."
"Accio wands!"
Our wands fly into the hands of the Death Eater to Lily's right. I notice Sirius tense. He's acquired his target. I know the look on his face, even if I can't see it. It's full of hate and anger. I see the other death eater on Lily's right raise a wand. A female voice, high and drawling starts a spell.
"Incarce-"
Suddenly, there is a resounding crash behind us. Someone has blown the window and part of the wall directly behind Lily and her captor in. Glass hurls into the room, forcing the Death Eaters to shield themselves from razor-sharp shards of glass and chunks of brick. I hear Lily hit the ground and scramble away, toward me. I hear a voice bark "Expelliarmus!" I make a mad dash for Lily.
"NO!" a high voice somewhere screams.
I feel a curse fly just over my back as I throw myself on top of Lily, and we both fall to the floor. As I land, I feel an elbow stab into my chest slightly as Lily draws an arm out from under me. I roll off of her to sweep a leg under the nearest Death Eater, the woman. She hits the ground bodily. Ungallantly, I kick the bitch as hard as I can in the side. She lets out an animalistic sound of pain, and I hear a bone snap. Dust still fills the air, making me choke. I can't see a thing, but I feel Lily next to me, trying to grab me toward the front door.
I hear that voice, that terrifying voice scream words that I know mean death. I see a huge flash of green light that lights up the dingy room ten times over, refracting off the dust. Lily pulls me out of the way. It misses by six inches. I shout for Sirius, but I can't find him through the debris. I see flashes of light. Someone is shouting hexes outside the window. A blue streak flies by me and hits the huge Death Eater square in the chest.
I watch in horror as he topples over right into Lily, who crashes to the floor, half under him.
Right to the feet of Lord Voldemort. Through a haze, I see him smirk and raise his wand. I throw myself toward her, in front of her, just as the curse bursts from Voldemort's wand.
"PROTEGO!"
The curse splits into a thousand pieces and vanishes. Voldemort is knocked staggering by the force of the protection spell. I realize that Lily has managed to direct her wand under my arm, and has called up a shield. I catch a glimpse of her face, contorted in concentration and pain, and fear.
We've just escaped death by the breadth of a whisper. The adrenaline surges through me like a thing living. I take the split second advantage to grab Lily by the arm. I see Sirius standing over the two of the fallen death eaters, pelting for the blasted out-window, and see a broom hovering outside with someone on it, before dragging Lily out the door I'd barged in through.
Gods we were stupid to come on our own, just me and Sirius. If someone hadn't turned up for backup, we'd be dead now.
We might still be dead.
I realize I don't have a wand. Bile surges into my throat. I force it down. Now is not the time. We have to get out of range of the anti-apparition charms. Lily, brilliant, observant Lily, must've grabbed her wand when the hulk crashed down on her. I could kiss her, but right now we're running for our lives.
Lily, her hand still caught up in mine, says "This way!" Her voice is cracked and terrified. We thunder back down the hall, only to see another Death Eater at the end of it. I suddenly know, with a plummeting sensation, that someone has followed us into the hall.
We hear the high voice scream again, not the killing curse this time, but another.
"CRUCIO!"
Lily suddenly banks right so fiercely that she nearly pulls me over. The spell hits the Death Eater at the end of the hall, who screams and doubles over in pain. We both nearly fall down the stairwell that Lily's pulled me into. "Colloportus!" Lily yells, directing her wand back up the staircase at the door. It seals with a squelch. It won't hold for more than a second, but that might just buy us time.
I vaguely notice police sirens outside. The neighbors must have heard the hole being blow in into the side of the apartment. We're only down the second stair when the door above us crashes open. The door falls down the middle of the stairwell, blasted off it's hinges.
"Lily, JUMP!" I hoist her over the bannister. She lands far too lightly on the ground floor to be natural. It's like she's some kind of angel, the way she almost floats in the air for a moment before her feet touch the ground. I vault the bannister behind her and land bodily on the ground. She pulls me up. He's right there. Right around the corner. I see a flash as we make it into the main hall, and he's missed again by inches. As we sail through the front door, the glass surrounding it shatters, showering us with razor-sharp rain. Lily lets out a scream and quickly covers her eyes. We're just into the middle of the street when he makes it into the doorway, the broken glass in the threshold crunching eerily under his feet, a sound to pierce the eardrum and curdle the blood.
I wheel around in the street, turning on the spot. All the shards are levitating into the air. Rage is on Voldemort's face, as he prepares to cut us to ribbons, the shards a great, glittering evil in the streetlamps. Rage, white hot and incandescent, is on his face. It is the closest thing to the apocalypse I have ever seen. He points. The shards obey with blistering speed.
Suddenly, I am enveloped in compressing darkness. Lily, being the amazing witch that she is, is already disapparating. I feel intense pain in my arm and the side of my leg as we vanish into the vacuum of nothingness. I have the reflex to gasp, but my lungs are crushed in the void of apparition. Then, suddenly, it's more than just the traveling, and my world goes black.
I open my eyes slowly. I must have fallen on impact, because I'm on my back. But this is all wrong, I'm not anywhere outside. How could I have apparated into Sirius's hideout? My head swims as I lift it. I'm laying on an old couch, head against the arm. Lily is staring at me, and her face shatters with relief when I stir.
"James, you MORON," she gasps, looking relieved and cross all at once. She has a slice across her cheek. A stab of anger rips through me. I will murder the person who did that. I try to sit up, spurred by the burning, bestial desire to find and rip the man limb from limb. A hiss of pain escapes me. Fuck, that hurts. Wait, what hurts?
Her eyes flare heat at me, I can tell. I can't quite see them, since my glasses aren't firmly on my face, but I would have to be completely blind before I missed those beautiful spots of green swimming in my hazy vision. They look like glowing fireflies in the light.
"Stay still, you idiot. You nearly got sliced to ribbons. I've patched you up the best I could, but even with the dittany, you lost a lot of blood."
I ignore her and sit up a bit, despite the pain in my arm and leg. "Accio glasses," I mumble, before I realize that I don't have a wand. A moment later, they are hooked over my ears anyway as Lily, who is chuckling in a dangerous, half hysterical way, shoves them up the bridge of my nose. "Oi! Watch it! You'll take skin off," I half laugh. I reach up to adjust them and instantly regret it. My arm feels like it's being stabbed with white-hot needles, a sizzling, sharp pain that eats at my brain like maggots until I lower it again. I look down. The bandages wrapping my arm from the elbow down have blood flowering over them in slash-like, radiant patterns.
"Dammit, James, I JUST wrapped those," Lily swears at me. I know she's angry now. My Lily doesn't usually swear like that. "Sirius, would you-"
"On it, Lils," Sirius replies. I hadn't even noticed him, on the other side of the room. He looks like a spooked stray, haggard and twitchy, as though the ceiling might come down on him. Maybe it had. He slumps off, and I see a bandage up one side of his face. Guilt stabs at me, but we've had that conversation before. We both knew the risk, and took it. There would be no discussions, or apologies. He knows I would have done the same for him, or Remus or Peter. Any one of them.
I look at Lily, who has gently lifted my arm, ignoring my gasp of pain. She unrolls the bandage from my forearm. It sticks in places where the cuts were too deep for the diluted dittany, and have bled and oozed out into the bandages. Those are the cuts that have reopened, making my arm look like a slab of raw meat in the process of being diced.
"What the HELL were you thinking, James?!" She fumes at me, her beautiful lashes crackling with electricity from those iridescent eyes. I see her going for a dropper bottle, unstopping it threateningly. "You might have been KILLED."
"They would have killed you," I start, and she cuts me off ferociously.
"They were EXPECTING you James! That's why they did it! If you just hadn't shown up, they'd-"
"They'd WHAT, Lils? Leave you alone? Turn the hostage situation into a lovely evening tea? They would have been disappointed and taken it out ON YOU. You are a muggle born, Lils! They kill you all for fucking SPORT."
My blood pressure is up, I can feel it. It isn't helping the bleeding any. Lily stares at me for a moment, lips tight, before she exhales through her teeth and drops a good amount of Dittany into one of the deeper cuts. It stings like a million bees for a moment. "Gah! Woman, you are going to be the DEATH of me!" I growl as the pain subsides. She goes stiff, as though a rod has been jammed down her spine. The next few cuts she treats without a word. The last few drops of dittany are accompanied by tears.
"I couldn't live with that," she half whispers, the tears falling like drops of holy water. Somewhere in my mind, I feel like they would heal my wound like phoenix tears, but I hate every one that falls, and curse myself for bringing them to the surface.
"Hey, hey now, Lils, I didn't mean it like-" I begin, but I drop off, and bring up my uninjured hand to wipe one of those dewdrops away from the petals of her cheeks. They are sharp and angular, like the petals of her namesake. Beautiful and stark, and now marred by a cut across the bone. My eyes flick to the bruises around her neck, topped with scratch marks from jagged, long nails. I will kill them. Him. All of them.
"James, what if you die because of me? What if I die because of you? I don't want either of those to happen," Lily says. Even her voice is dripping with tears as she finishes with the dittany. I can't even feel the sting anymore. Nothing hurts more than watching her crumble to dust in front of me. How she manages to stop the bottle, I don't know. My strong, lovely, perfect Lily flower. Even when she is falling to dust, she is raising another up.
I tilt her chin up, making her look at me. "It will be alright. We stay together. I've never had anything more worth dying for than you," I say to her. She smiles tremulously, entirely for my benefit.
"I don't want you to die at all, you stupid, romantic toerag," she says. Her voice is the sweetest music, like nectar flowing across the senses. Tonight, I was so close, so close to losing her forever. Never again.
"Lily, I-"
"Oh for fuck's sake, Prongs, ask her already."
Our heads both turn, and we both wince in pain. Sirius is standing there, arms crossed, leaning against the wall opposite us. Neither of us had notice. A huge, wolfish grin plays over his handsome face. I give him an I-can't-believe-you-are-interrupting-our-moment look, but Sirius never did cotton on as quickly. Either that or he's being a berk on purpose. Probably the latter.
"Ask me-" Lily starts, looking back at me, eyes wide. "James, we can't! We're so young…"
"Lily, we could have DIED tonight. How much longer do you suggest you two wait?" Sirius asks incredulously.
"Plus, then you could live with me," I add in, the idea making perfect sense. I know I was going to ask her anyway, but Sirius is right. We nearly died. "I wouldn't have to let you out of my sight." I put on what I hope is my best roguish grin.
Lily lets out a noise of simultaneous disdain and incredulity. "James, I can get along perfectly well without-"
"Yes, but you get along even better with me," I say, waggling my eyebrows. She breaks into a laugh. It's hoarse, but beautiful nonetheless.
"Alright," she says, breathily. Her eyes sparkle with both tears and anticipation. "Ask me then."
"Are you sure?" I respond, looking down at my bandaged leg. "I can hardly get on one knee at the moment."
"Ask me." She looks steadily into my eyes.
"Alright," I say. I try to sit up a little straighter. Why am I suddenly nervous? All the moisture is gone from the back of my throat. "Lily Evans, will you marry-"
"Yes."
"I didn't even finish!"
She grins.
Lily is the most beautiful thing in the universe, even beaten, cut and bruised. Even reddened with tears, and burdened with fear. When her lips touch mine a moment later, I hit nirvana, and realize it's all I've ever needed all along.