Chapter six - I cannot lose you
The deatheaters waited till a few members of the Order were seen at the front gate of Hogwarts before they started their own plan. They split into two group as well. After all, the members of the Order were not the only people they considered as enemy. There was another person. They could of course, let the students go, unless they spot any Mudbloods among them. But that one person, they must kill, for she is their greatest enemy, and they made the Unbreakable Vow to kill all their enemies.
Severus was with the half of the Order battling the deatheaters. The deatheaters were viciously throwing killing curses at everyone, but most of the Order are only stunning them. Still they seemed to have stunned a huge number of deatheaters as the number seemed to have decreased by half. Severus could not imagine how the battle will end, because he knew that when the deatheaters wake up from getting stunned, they would simply attack again. He could only hope that Azkabank could take such a large amount of deatheaters and keep them there for good.
The other half of the Order were quietly and stealthily escorting the students and the injured out, surrounding the students in protection. Lily walked at the back beside her brother, who was limping slightly from the fall from the cliff. Mdm Pomfrey, carrying a little girl who seemed too weak to walk on her back, fussed over another injured member of the Order, whose shoulder was still bleeding slightly. Neville walked behind them all, wand out and looking around for signs of the enemy.
Suddenly, there were screams from the students as the deatheaters appeared, shooting spells at them. The Order fired their spells at them too to protect the students. But the deatheaters aimed most of the spells at the back of the crowd. At first Lily thought they were trying to kill all the injured members of the Order. Then she realized that they were actually targetting her.
"I'm the one they're after. I'll try to divert them away. You and the rest get the students somewhere safe!" she yelled to Neville and then ran the opposite direction from the students. True enough, most of the deatheaters followed her in hot pursuit. But Lily would not go down without a fight. She threw a few spells behind her as she continued running, stunning quite a few deatheaters. A few other deatheaters who wanted to follow Lily were knocked out by Neville. The rest of the Order were busy grabbing a group of students each and apparating them to a safer place. It was chaotic but the noises got softer as Lily ran deeper into the forest.
There were still five or six deatheaters chasing after her. Lily was not sure, all she knew was to run and keep on running, till a stunning spell hit her legs and she fell down. Quick to get on her feet again, she knocked one deatheater out and stunned the other. As the third deatheater pointed his wand at her, she yelled "Stupefy," sending him flying. Two deatheaters were left and one of them disarmed her. Wandless, she jumped onto him and fought him with punches, wrestling his wand out of his hand. The wand flew out of their reach and with another punch, she rendered him unconscious. However, the last deatheater was ready, pointing his wand at her and she stared at him, motionless.
Something's not right. Severus thought. He could not explain it, but he just had a feeling. He looked around the front of the castle. It seemed as if the fight was easy. As if the deatheaters manpower was down. It did not seem as if there were as many of them as when he was fighting with them inside Hogwarts. Then it dawned on him. If the Order could have a plan and split, Why couldn't the deatheaters do the same? He was just about tell McGonagall when he saw Neville running back. Without waiting for Neville to speak, he had already sped towards the forbidden forest.
Severus did not know how he knew where she might be, but as he ran deeper and deeper into the forest he could hear screams that no doubt was Lily's. He sped towards that direction and saw a deatheater using the Cruciatus Spell on her. Her screams were loud in the quiet forest. "I'll make you regret you killed him. I won't stop till you're dead!" the deatheater laughed evilly. Rage boiled in Severus. "Sectumsempra!" he yelled, his spell knocking the deatheater to the floor, bleeding profusely. But Severus have only eyes for Lily. Her body was curled up in pain and shaking uncontrollably, and soft sobs could be heard. Severus helped her into a sitting position, and quickly took a small bottle of potion from his pocket.
"Here, drink this," he said as he gently but firmly poured the potion into her mouth, tilting her chin up. The shaking stopped, but she continued sobbing. For a moment Severus feared that she was tortured too much that she had gone insane, but then he could made out words in between her sobs. "Thank... you...thank...you" she was thanking him even between her sobs. Severus pulled her into his embrace, stroking her back, soothing her, till her sobs finally subsided. She looked at Severus and weakly tried to stand. Severus helped her up.
"My wand..." she whispered, looking around for it. "Accio wand." Severus commanded and a few wands flew towards him. Severus gave Lily hers and pocketed the rest. He was about to bring her back to the castle when a couple more deatheaters appeared. "Get behind me." he simply said and raised his wand, immediately stunning one of them. Lily was so weak that all she could do was stand behind him. The deatheaters cornered them and were throwing curses at them, trying to hit Lily, but Severus blocked every single one.
One of the deatheaters fell forward suddenly, unconcious. Then another was stunned as well. McGonagall and Neville were running over to help them. "Go! We'll take care of them. You can go back to the castle, we've secured it." McGonagall shouted.
"Are you strong enough to apparate?" Severus asked. Lily was pale but she nodded. Severus held her hand and apparated to the front gate of Hogwarts. Of course, they would have blocked anyone from apparating into the castle, so he brought her to the place nearest to the school. But there were deatheaters waiting to ambush them, shooting poison darts at them. "Repello" Severus managed to block most of them.
BOOM! An explosion sounded, engulfing the whole area in dust and sand. Severus took the chance and took Lily into the castle, where they could not enter due to the charms. "Alright there Severus?" Hagrid asked, he was the one who caused the explosion. He nodded and glanced at Lily. She was paler than before, holding her arm. To his horror, one of the darts had hit her arm. She collapsed, her eyes opened to nothingness.
"No Lily no!" Severus put her head onto his lap, and quickly pulled out the dart, pressing onto her arm to stop the bleeding. Hagrid knelt down beside them, no knowing what to do. "Get two ropes for me, quickly!" Severus said. Hagrid hurried away and was back in a minute. Severus tied the ropes and two ends of her arm in an attempt to stop the poison from spreading.
"The poison is very lethal. Bring her to Mdm Pomfrey, she should have a potion that can contain the poison for awhile," he said and picked the dart up.
"Where are you going?" Hagrid asked, gently picking Lily up.
"I'm going to make an antidote for this poison, in my office," he snapped, and ran off.
Back in his office, Severus put the dart on his table and began setting up his apparatus. For the first time in a long time, Severus Snape was panicking. I cannot lose her, he thought repeatedly. Finally he calmed himself and said determinedly out loud. "I cannot lose you!" And he set about extracting the poison from the dart and began coming up with the antidote.
At the hospital, Mdm Pomfrey were frantically wiping sweat off Lily's head. "The potion does not seem to be taking effect, She's running a very high fever. We're losing her if he doesn't come up with the antidote soon." she told Hagrid, who stayed with her throughout the few hours, waiting for Severus.
Finally he ran in. "I've got the antidote!" He exclaimed. "Hurry then! Her fever's gone way too high!" Mdm Pomfrey almost yelled. Severus looked at Lily. Her face was pale with sweat droplets over her head. She was unconcious but her expression on her face seemed to be in pain, she seemed to be panting, having difficulty to breathe too. Severus immediately dropped a few droplets of the anitidote onto the wound on her arm, and then gently eased the rest of it into her mouth, letting her swallow it.
They held their breath and watched her. For a few minutes, she seemed to have stopped breathing. Severus could feel his heart wrenching. "Breathe, Lily, please," he whispered. Then, her chest started heaving up and down again, and she was breathing normally. Mdm Pomfrey touched her head and checked her pulse. "Her fever's going down. I think she's going to be fine," she said. Everyone heaved a sigh of relief.
Severus took her hand into his, and lightly kissed the back of her hand. He barely noticed Mdm Pomfrey shoo-ing Hagrid out of the place to give them some privacy. "I cannot lose you, Lily," he whispered to her, who was sleeping soundly now.