Chapter 12

Disclaimer: I own absolutely no part of Harry Potter. Aria and Sage are my own characters, but everything that you recognize from Harry Potter belongs to J.K Rowling.

Chapter started: April 21, 2012

Chapter finished: April 24, 2012

Date posted: April 29, 2012

~Last time~

"You are her mate." Sage's voice rang out in the silence of the room.

James froze. Everything about him was absolutely still, his hand was not moving in Lily's hair and it almost looked as if he had even stopped breathing. He was staring at Sage apprehensively.

"And if I am? What then?" His voice was quiet.

Sage was silent for a bit as she thought over the answer to his question. Once she came to a decision she spoke, "I had already had suspicions about you and her, but to find it out for sure is difficult. Why wouldn't she tell us?"

James looked sadly at the redhead still sleeping on the couch. "What do you honestly think of me and my friends Sage? Do you think that Lily would want to risk losing you over something that was not her choice? It's not as if she had any part in deciding who her mate was going to be. Neither of us did."

"As an answer to your question, I don't have the loathing towards you that Aria does, but neither do I support what you and your friends do. You have made several of the Slytherin's lives a living hell. I understand that some of them deserve it, but that does not make it right. And as for Lily… you brought up her not wanting to lose us because of this. Why would she worry about that? It's true that she had no part in deciding her fate, so why would we begrudge her the hand that destiny has dealt her?"

"So you won't turn your back on her because I am her mate?" James' eyes were begging her to stay by Lily's side.

Sage nodded, "I won't give up on a six year friendship because of something that Lily had no power over. She is too important to me for that, but that doesn't mean you and I are friends either. If you have honestly changed, which she insists that you have, I may change my mind. Make sure she is happy though." She gazed at him not blinking until he nodded. Her grey eyes were as hard as steel and James was relieved that they agreed on keeping Lily happy. As quiet as she was Sage was the one that terrified him the most; he never knew what she was thinking and knew that she would be a formidable enemy.

Lily groaned and shifted.

"Get out of here, I won't tell Aria about the two of you and will do my best to keep her reined in, but it will ease Lily's heart if she knows that I know. Go down to dinner," Sage ordered James as she saw the first signs of Lily waking up. James did as she said and left the common room moments before Lily's emerald green eyes opened. She stretched and glanced at the clock.

"Air wake up! We have to get down to dinner. Unless you don't want food of course," Lily cursed as she kicked Aria who was still sleeping on the floor.

"I didn't do it!" Aria shouted as she popped up off the ground, "oh, just kidding."

"Do you guys want to eat or not?" Lily shouted from the entrance. Sage and Aria just looked at each other and ran after the redheaded friend.

"Why didn't you wake us up?" Aria asked Sage as they jogged down the halls.

"I fell asleep too. I only woke up a minute or two before the two of you."

The three girls managed to make into the great hall before the end of dinner and threw themselves down onto the bench and began loading their plates. They had been late a couple of times before and had the food disappear from under their forks just as they were about to start eating, and that was an experience they had learned to avoid. Although they knew how to get into the kitchens, they didn't like eating in there all of the time.

They wolfed down their food like starving teenage boys and grabbed their books in order to head to the library to finish the homework that was due the next day. It was quiet in the big open space and when Lily entered the library she took a deep breath in. She loved the smell of all of the books that lived on the ceiling high shelves. This was one of the places that she used to come for comfort before she had found her other self, and realized that nowhere was going to be more comforting than water whether she had fins or not. Another place had been the astronomy tower, but along with her love for water, her fear of heights had grown exponentially. She could no longer go all the way to the top of it. The inevitable urge to look down left her shaking and paralyzed in fear. The last time she had tried it had taken James, Sirius and Remus, almost ten minutes to get her to crawl out of the observatory and into the stairwell leading back down. With the loss of her up high thinking place where she could look at the stars she had been forced to find another, but over time she had realized that while she was swimming in the lake all she had to do was flip onto her back and drift. She could see the gigantic expanse that was the night sky speckled with stars and immediately always feel at peace.

Peace was something that she was not feeling at the present moment. Aria and Sage had begun throwing crumpled up bits of parchment at each other for no apparent reason and because she was sitting in between them, Lily was getting caught in the crossfire. She managed to write about half a foot on the parallelisms between a few of the different animal wife myths, among them the swan maiden and selkies, but when she was smacked in the forehead with parchment she crumpled up one of her spare empty sheets after ripping it in two and effectively shut the two of them up by hitting both on the head.

"Ummmm, what was that for?" Sage looked innocently at Lily.

"Just stop it and get to work." Lily focused back on her paper.

Sage and Aria looked at each other and snorted, "yes mum."

After that only the scratching of quills and the occasional giggle were heard.

It was late by the time the three of them finished writing, but the upside to having the head girl as their best friend was that they could get away with walking back to their dormitory without worrying about getting in trouble. Lily walked her two best friends back to the Gryffindor dormitory and fully expected both to enter right away, but when Sage hesitated for a moment, Aria entered alone.

"I did a bit of reading and it has been more then two weeks since your birthday…" Sage's voice was quiet. Her words left Lily reeling. Had she found out?

"The book said that elementals need to find their mates within the two week transition period and solidify the first bond, or risk the destruction of the elemental. You know who your mate is," the words formed a statement, not a question.

Lily nodded, afraid the damage had been done and Sage was now preparing to sever their friendship because she had hidden the truth from them.

"Yes. I do know, but I didn't want to tell you because he is not exactly the person that you would expect."

"Does he make you happy?" At her friends question Lily nodded.

"Happier than I have ever been. We are still learning about each other for sure, but I do care about him and I know he cares about me."

Sage smiled, "that's all that I can ask of him. Be careful who you tell about you though. There were a couple of paragraphs in the book that spoke of what would be done with elementals that were caught. They were experimented upon and used for actions particular to their species. Veelas in particular stood out, they were kept by somebody rich who bought them and then used as sex slaves for the rest of their lives. If they tried to fight back or refuse then their mates were hurt and in some cases killed. I know you are not a veela, but there wasn't anything about what would be done to mermaids. I don't want you getting hurt. Please be careful."

"I hear you, and I will. I'm sorry for not telling you sooner," Lily's voice was earnest as she stared at Sage, who in turn wrapped her arms around her petite friend.

"You and James have my blessing if that means anything to you," tears sprang to Lily's eyes and she had to blink continuously in order to hold them back as her arms tightened around her friend, basically sister; who she now knew that would always be by her side

"It means more than you know. Thank you." Lily pulled back and Sage moved in the direction of the Fat Lady's portrait.

"Don't let your guard down tonight, I've had a bad feeling all day," and with those final ominous words the small brunette was gone.

Lily shook her head in confusion. What had she been talking about? In order to think about it she headed back down the stairs instead of going up to the Head's dorm. The desire to go swimming had been tugging at her heart since she had woken up that morning and as the day had progressed she had gotten grumpy. A quick dip was what she needed. Then she could go to sleep.

The grounds were eerily quiet around her as she strode down to the lake, keeping what Sage had said in mind. Putting the lack of natural sounds out of her mind Lily dove into the dark water. Euphoria filled her as she shone silver and her legs morphed into her tail. There was no greater feeling than that which she was feeling at that moment; the freedom to do anything, explore the unknown and go where she wanted was better than anything, well almost anything, spending time with her mate easily topped that list.

A flex of her powerful tail had her diving deep into the darkness, a twist and she was shooting back up towards that black night sky. She broke the surface and soared through the air, hair flying behind her and body arching to slice back into the water cleanly.

A flash of light had her surfacing not to far from where she had dove back into the water and her head popped up just in time to see a red spell hit where she had been only moments before. A muffled curse of the nonmagical kind brought her attention to the shore. There were about two dozen people in black cloaks with their hoods up and white masks on their faces scanning the surface. One shouted and pointed their wand at her while sending a jet of light in her direction. She dove down and swore. Sage's feelings had never been wrong before, so why had she not taken this one 100 percent seriously? She should have at least told somebody where she was going. The Death Eaters were looking for her and they were between her and the castle. It was too late to hope that somebody would see and get help. Lily was on her own.

Another flash brought her attention back to the issue at hand. Without having her head above water, Lily could see that the Death Eaters were now hovering above the water, hunting for her. She could hide, but they would eventually find her and there was a castle full of children not to far away. She had to do something.

~A few minutes before~

James was just falling asleep in his bed when fear shot through him. It was mind numbing terror that would have made him freeze if not for his quidditch reflexes and the fact that he ran with a werewolf once a month. He lunged for his wand and scanned the room, but came up empty. There was nothing there. His heart was still racing and the fear was still there, but now it was laced with determination. Then it struck him. These feelings weren't his, they were Lily's. For her to be scared meant that something was very, very wrong. He opened his senses, but couldn't get a strong enough feeling of where she was. He had to get to her. He threw on a shirt and bolted out of the portrait hole in the general direction of her magical signature.

~back with Lily~

The water surrounded her, both calming in its sanctuary, and terrifying in its prison. If she surfaced than they would get her, but they would get her if she stayed down here for much longer. The water pulsed around her. The water! She was an elemental! Not only that, but Lily had a stronger affinity for the water itself because of what species she was.

Lily took a deep breath in and used her water magic to propel herself up and out of the water, into the sky. Being held up by a giant pillar, Lily clenched her fists and watched as the liquid below lunged up and consumed a few of the Death Eaters. One of the remaining ones dodged the water and rose up until they were at the same eye level. Lily continued sucking the Death Eaters into the water below and using the water around her to create an almost impenetrable shield.

"Surrender! My master wants you alive. No harm will come to you if you willingly give in." The distinctively male voice rang out in the darkness.

Lily smirked, "why would I want to do that? I can easily take you down." She had to take the rest of them out quickly. The power she was harnessing wasn't hard to use, but this early in her elemental life, it was draining. And she had already been tired when she had gone out there. Her vision was starting to blur around the edges and she knew she had to halt the power soon, or risk exhausting her energy stores. What was she going to do?

'James where are you?'

~James~

'James where are you?'

The voice of his mate was clear in his head as he galloped towards the lake. With her voice came a picture; high above the lake, supported by a water pillar and with Death Eaters surrounding her.

'I am almost there. Hang on."

James increased his speed in the direction that his heart pulled him, the direction of Lily.

~Lily~

Much of her vision had lost clarity and Lily was forced to swim back down through her pillar into the dark lake below. The only bright light now was that she knew that James would be there soon. She just had to make it until then. She stopped moving long enough to take a breath in and shrieked when a hand reached through the water and grabbed her arm. Her other one was quickly apprehended as well, before she could send an elemental arrow through her captors, and she hung between two of Voldemort's followers above the surface of the lake, unable to do anything, completely helpless. Lily was holding none of her own weight; she was already so tired that she was almost unconscious. The Death Eaters brought her over to the shore and unceremoniously dropped her to the ground.

"How many did we lose?" One of the men asked.

"She took down about fifteen of us before we got her. He is not going to be pleased about that."

A movement out of the corner of her eye had Lily turning her head. James was in the bushes not too far away. The sight of her mate bolstered her strength and she found the will to sit up and throw her arms in front of her summoning the last of her magic in the effort. Three robed men flew into tree trunks due to a sudden intense wind, two more were pierced by arrows made of fire, another completely frozen solid. James stunned the other three and rushed towards her. He picked her up and ran towards the castle.

"Expecto Petronum! Get Dumbledore to the hospital wing as soon as possible," James ordered the silver glowing lion that manifested from his wand. He then rushed to the hospital wing with the pale, shivering girl in his arms. When he entered the wing, he yelled for Madam Pomfrey and lay Lily on the nearest bed before collapsing in the chair beside it, never letting her hand go.

"I'm sorry. I'm so so sorry. I didn't make it in time."

The healer checked over the elemental, scanning her with her wand, which glowed pale grey.

"She will be just fine Mr. Potter. Magical exhaustion. Now you will tell me how her entire magical stores are drained. How did that happen?"

"I'm afraid I can answer that Poppy. Ms. Evans was attacked." The headmaster strode into the hospital wing quickly and moved to the side of Lily's bed.

Madam Pomfrey gasped, "attacked! By what?"

"Death Eaters. We apprehended six of them down by the lake. Three with severe bone damage, another frozen solid and two more that were stunned. Unfortunately we did not get there early enough and three more managed to get away." Dumbledore's eyes were grave, "we don't know how they got onto the Hogwarts grounds though. Now Mr. Potter, were you with her when they attacked?"

Without taking his eyes off the pale redhead, James shook his head, "no, I was woken up by the fear that she was feeling and used our bond to find her."

"Well it is a good thing that you did. She will be a little stronger now, but now that Voldemort knows for sure that she is here, he will not relent. You must always be on guard from this point on and stay together as much as you can."

His words drifted through the open window and a voice sighed.

"It has begun. They have defied him once."

So that is chapter 12. I am on a break from school while I am writing this chapter, so I will work at getting more typed up.

Over 800 hits in the first 2 days after my last update and only 3 reveiws? Really? You are starving this poor wannabe author. I need more sustenance! Give it to me!

Do please review. I really do want to know what you think. Sorry it took it this long to get a bit more exciting.

RandR please!

Amber Eagle