A/N: Hello! Okay, so it's taken me a little longer than I thought it would to post this.. but it's been much sooner than on previous occasions! Huzzah for small miracles! Anyway, I hope you like this chapter - let me know what you think! :)

THE BEWITCHMENT OF JAMES POTTER

Chapter 14: Don't Let Me Down

Spinner's End hadn't improved over the years.

Clutching her cloak tightly against her, Lily rushed past the dilapidated houses, barely registering their grimy windows and dirty bricks. Leaning heavily on her cane, she made her way up the broken cobblestone street to its very last house, all the while hoping no one was watching her.

Lily's heart pounded in her chest. Adrenaline and anger surged inside her as she recalled what he had put her through for two months, as she replayed the pain she had felt, the insults he had hurled at her, the emotional torture he had caused.

I could have been killed...

And it looks like James is on his way there.

Reaching the house at last, she peered through the corrugated gate that preceded the short path to the front door. A dim light flickered from behind the curtains on the first floor. She rested momentarily, considering her next move carefully.

I definitely don't want to walk back into the snake's nest... I will not let him re-capture me again.

Yet suddenly, her subconscious surfaced and put together details Lily had nearly forgotten, details that were incongruous with his stated intent to 'break' her. How he had checked her pulse and completely examined upon her arrival, how he had tended to her wounds, how he had been determined to be the only one in charge of her. As despicable as the experience had been, she knew it would have been infinitely worse at the hands of someone truly sadistic.

Not to mention how it had ended... he let me escape.

Instead of revealing James' and Sirius' identity, he had allowed them full access, and he had let them leave with her. She knew what that would have cost him, to allow his enemies appear to have successfully deceived him, to appear to have emerged victorious over him once again. It would have been utterly humiliating to watch her leave in James' arms.

So he had exacted a terrible price.

He had chosen retribution, mortally wounding the person that he loathed the most. Avenging past wrongs. Administering punishment at last.

But had he also been seeking to punish me?

Standing at the house she hadn't been near since the early Hogwarts years, Lily knew what she had to do.

Even if he helped me, that still doesn't excuse what he did; what he is... a Death Eater.

She took a final breath and opened the front gate. It screeched forward on rusted hinges, noisily protesting its way across the brick path.

So much for the stealth approach.

Lily had barely crossed the yard when she heard a loud click; the front door flew open, and dark figure appeared in the doorway.

A ball of light sparkled into existence at his wand tip. A pale face marked by a hooked nose was now looking back at her. A slight flicker in the depths of the hollow black eyes were the only indication of surprise. Then his face changed, and Lily read resignation, acknowledgement.

"Severus," she said simply.

He moved aside wordlessly, his eyes holding hers as she stepped inside.

"Awake!"

"..."

"Potter, you must wake up immediately!"

"Go to hell..."

"WAKE UP!"

"WHAT!"

James' eyes flew open and he sat up straight in bed, his wand hand armed and ready.

Standing before him he saw a lit wand; holding it was none other than a dressing gown-clad Edouard Renoir.

"What the hell do you want?" snapped James, not lowering his wand. "Is the guest bedroom just not to your fancy? If that's so, I don't give a sh-"

"She's gone!" shouted Renoir, and James' heart started pounding in his chest. He could tell by Edouard's frantic expression exactly who he meant by 'she.'

"WHAT!"

James leapt out of the bed, but his legs buckled under him and he crumpled to the floor.

Oh bloody fucking hell. "PADFOOT! GET HERE NOW!"

James tried to get up, but couldn't get his legs to muster the strength to raise him to his feet. Stuffing his wand into his robes, he reached for the bed frame and used it to pull himself to a sitting position.

Oh shit.

"What is wrong with you?" asked Renoir exasperatedly.

"None of your damn business!" he shouted, trying to keep the desperation from his voice. "PADFOOT!"

"Ton visage!" exclaimed Renoir in alarm, creeping closer and moving his wand light closer to James' face.

James shoved Edouard's hand. "I said get the hell away from me." He ran a hand across his face and felt the painfully familiar red welts stretching from his right cheek up to his eye.

It's still spreading. I'm getting worse.

"James!" cried Sirius, running into the room shirtless, his wand at ready. "What is it?"

"Lily!" shouted James. "Renoir says she's gone - d'you know anything?"

"Of course not!" shouted Sirius. "Mate - can you not stand up?"

"NO, I'M LYING HERE FOR MY HEALTH!"

Sirius bent over beside James, and pulled him up by the armpits and then pushed him back onto the bed. "Don't go anywhere; I'll go have a look at her room."

"You should be hexed for the worst ironic joke in the history of the world!" bellowed James as his best friend ran out of the room. He turned to Edouard. "Tell me what you saw."

Edouard spread his arms in exasperation. "What is there to say? I went in to check on her and she was not there!"

"What else?" asked James, breathing heavily.

"What do you mean what else? She was not there!"

"Was there any sign of a struggle?" snapped James impatiently, his Auror training kicking in, "A broken window, knocked over furniture? Or anything strange?"

"I do not know!" cried Edouard, "As soon as I saw she was not there, I briefly searched for her in other rooms and then came straight here."

James squeezed his eyes shut and ran his fingers through his hair, resisting the urge to rip it all out. "Clearly, something's wrong," he said, his words clipped, "or she wouldn't have just left."

Sirius re-appeared in the doorway. "She's definitely not in her room. No sign of a struggle, just one drugged house-elf."

"What?" cried out James and Edouard in unison.

"Well, I asked Tessy to stay at the door," said Sirius, shrugging. "Lily had asked a lot of questions about you James, and I wasn't sure she was buying that everything was honky-dory. She must have slipped Tessy something; there was a tea set there."

"You suspected something?" cried Edouard, his face livid. "And you sent a house-elf to stand guard? This is absolutely ridiculous, I knew I should have brought guards!"

"She left on her own," pointed out Sirius, his eyes narrowed at the accusation of incompetence, "which means she wasn't taken. And Lily's brilliant - if she could drug a house-elf, she could dupe any bloody henchmen of yours."

"If she left," said James, his face paling, "something must be very wrong."

"She must have found out about how you were poisoned," said Sirius, his expression now grave, his eyes taking in the red lines on James' face. "If she figured it out, she would have tried to help at any cost."

"That is ridiculous!" hissed Edouard. "Why would she risk anything for him?"

Sirius raised his eyebrows. "D'you really want me to answer that?"

"I do not like your tone!" shouted Edouard, taking a step towards Sirius.

"Look, Eddie, you're a top-notch fellow," said Sirius, his hands on his hips, "but not even you can compete with what they've got together."

"Stop it, Padfoot," whispered James, stricken. "That's not it. She feels like she owes me, thinks that she caused this... she must have deduced that I was attacked when we rescued her."

"Prongs, you are once again being delusional about her - only this time, instead of being big-headed, you're afflicted with equally stupid humility!"

James shook his head. "No, she's made her decision."

"Really?" asked Sirius silkily. "Was this before or after she kissed you yesterday?"

Edouard brandished his wand. "HOW DARE YOU!"

"Protego!" shouted James, placing a Shield Charm between them before Edouard's curse could hit his target. He pointed his wand at Edouard threateningly. "I know he was being an arse-" he shot Sirius a dirty look "-but if you threaten my best friend again, I won't hesitate to hex you."

Sirius had also pulled out his wand and kept it trained on Edouard as he addressed James. "Look mate, I'll go see if Marlene's at the London flat. See if she's heard from Lily."

James nodded.

"I'll be back as quickly as I can, Prongs," continued Sirius. "Bye, Eddie."

With a small pop, Sirius Disapparated from the bedroom.

Edouard turned to James. "If he is going to London, I will go to Paris, see if she has gone back to her apartment or to any of her friends there."

"Lily's not stupid, she knows the Death Eaters will be watching her flat-"

"With all due respect, Potter," murmured Edouard in a calm, yet exceedingly patronising tone, "you do seem to overestimate her abilities - she did get herself captured, remember?"

"I was there, there was nothing she could have done-"

"Precisely - you were there. Do forgive me if I don't overestimate your abilities either."

James felt a surge of anger course through his body - an incendiary mix of rage and shame caused by the personal responsibility he had felt since the day she had been taken.

"I got her back, didn't I?" James spat, his face reddened, "and how successful were your attempts? Oh, right, you only bought magazine advertisements!"

Edouard's face turned a livid pink. "I did what I could! Now-"

"Don't you dare leave-"

"You cannot stop me, not with your present predicament!"

Fury welled inside of James; he aimed his wand carefully. "Petrificus totalus!"

A tiny pop echoed in the room, and a smell of singe reached James' nostrils.

James sighed.

His aim hadn't been accurate enough for his curse to effectively paralyse Edouard and prevent him from completely Disapparating.

However, he had managed to keep a part of Edouard behind.

James snorted as his eyes noticed the tufts of blonde hair as they fell to the floor where Edouard had been standing.

He then wrinkled his nose at the burned hair smell.

"Minio!"

With a loud crack!, James' house-elf arrived at his master's bedroom. "Master?"

"Go to Lily's room, please, and revive Tessy. Then I need you to run an errand for me."

James sighed, feeling his anger at Edouard ebb away and be supplanted with a gnawing concern for Lily. It was a feeling that had been eating away at him during her capture, a stomach-twisting fear he had hoped to never feel again.

And, for the first time, he felt concerned about his own survival.

Lily followed Severus Snape into the tiny main parlour.

Its walls were lined with well-worn books, and its wooden furniture was sparse. Ignoring the powerful feeling of claustrophobia, Lily obeyed Severus' hand gesture and sat down at the well-worn chair indicated. Severus took the one across from her; Lily could feel his eyes on her, searching.

He's debating how much I know.

Lily's emerald eyes meet his dark ones with fierce determination. "You know why I'm here."

"I'm not entirely sure what you mean." His eyes were wide; his gaze felt penetrating.

Suddenly, Lily realised what he was doing. "Stop it!" she ordered, breaking the connection of their eyes. "I'm may not be a good Occlumens, but I'm stellar at charms, so don't provoke me!"

"I believe you were the one who came to find me."

"I didn't come here to play mind games," stated Lily, her jaw tightening. "You don't need to read my mind to figure out that I'm here because I know it was you, you who kept me captive-"

"Me?" Severus leapt to his feet, pretences forgotten. "It is I who kept you alive, I who convinced the Dark Lord to place you in my care, under my supervision!"

"We were friends, Severus!" cried Lily, standing as well. "Best friends, remember? Yet you let me rot in that hellhole!"

"I never left that place either," protested Severus sullenly, scowling as he stared at the floor. "Not once, not while you were still there. I couldn't risk what one if them might have done if you were there alone, left unprotected."

"You - you forced me to tell you everything," cried Lily, fighting back tears, "you read my every memory, you even hit me, you -"

"I had to!" hissed Severus, his sallow face contorted with frustration as he stared at her now. "Don't you understand? They couldn't know! I couldn't give you preferential treatment - not with the Dark Lord skills at Legilimency! He had to believe I was doing actual experiments!"

Lily's eyes narrowed with incredulity. "How dare you expect that to absolve you! You chose to associate with that monster and his brainwashed followers! You're one of them, Councillor Four!"

"I helped you escape-"

With all her might, Lily slapped him across the face.

He staggered back, clutching at his burning cheek.

"HOW DARE YOU!" shouted Lily, rubbing her aching hand, "You only let me escape when it was at the lowest possible risk to you, when your own precious neck wasn't at stake! And then you attacked James, you gave him Merlin-knows-what-poison-"

"So that's it then?" hissed Severus, "That's why you're here? Him?"

"Why else would I have come?" returned Lily, her voice ice cold.

"To kill me."

"What?" cried Lily, anger instantly replaced by shock.

Severus smiled mirthlessly. "I always thought that if you ever found out the truth, you wouldn't hesitate to point that mighty little wand of yours straight at my heart."

Lily took a step forward. "You can't be serious."

Severus spread his arms wide; neither was armed. "If I were the melodramatic type, I'd say 'put me out of my misery.'"

Lily closed the distance between them. She looked straight into the canyons of his dark eyes, seeking the friend she had once known.

He didn't blink, daring her to take aim.

Instead, Lily lowered her wand, not breaking their eye contact.

As he gazed back at her, the memories came flooding back. She remembered meeting him, odd boy that he was that day with Petunia, remembered him teaching her the basics of the wizarding word when she was worried about how she, a Muggle-born, would fit in. She remembered the friendship that had later blossomed and solidified during their school years... until the awful day that Severus had uttered that single word. Mudblood.

Saddened by the recollections of what they had lost, what they had ruined, Lily decided to try to explain. "I forgave you for what you said that day at Hogwarts, you know, soon after it happened."

"That's not how it seemed," whispered Severus bitterly. "I even begged."

"What I couldn't forgive was the rest of it," said Lily softly, "The Dark Arts, the Dark Lord... why, Severus? Why are they so appealing to you?"

Severus stood wordless, and his eyes broke away from hers.

Unwilling to back down, Lily reached out and, before he could move away, she took his hand.

He tensed immediately.

"It's just me," she murmured, and put her arms around him, embracing him.

She felt him relax slightly, felt his warm breath on her neck as he exhaled. The, his back and ribs expanded in her grasp as he breathed in deeply.

Inhaling my scent.

She dropped her arms, sorrowfully releasing him.

"Still, Severus?" she asked, "after all this time?"

"You knew?" he hissed, leaping away as if stung.

She smiled sadly. "It took me a while."

"Smart witch like you?"

"Blind witch like me."

Severus shook his head, his dark hair rippling in the candlelight. "I'm not blind. You're engaged to another wizard, it's been in every bloody paper in Europe. May I take advantage of this little reunion to say that your tastes have not improved at all? Yet another pompous, arrogant, rich son of a bitch who-"

"Yes, I seem to remember you saying quite a bit about that, Councillor Four," said Lily, her face flushing with anger. "How I depend on strong, powerful and rich men to help me, since I'm a talentless Mudblood."

Severus' stared at her. "You have to believe I didn't mean that."

"Death Eaters have very little credibility these days," snapped Lily.

"Be that as it may," continued Severus, his skin paler than she had ever seen it, "despite this - this engagement," he spat out the word as if it burned to say, "your true feelings are unmistakably transparent. You're still in love with him."

"You may not be blind, Severus, but that still doesn't mean you're seeing clearly-"

"And as for him," interrupted Severus, his face full of revulsion, "He's still in love with you, do you realize that?"

Lily swallowed hard, unsure of what to say, not wanting to explain. Her eyes silently implored him to understand.

He stared back into hers, the doors to her mind now open.

"You - you kissed him yesterday?" he cried out suddenly, his eyes blazing with fury.

Lily gasped and then shut her eyes immediately. "How dare you invade my thoughts again! Was two months of unhindered access not enough for you?"

"NO!" shouted Severus, "It was I who wasn't enough for you! You chose him, that arrogant bastard, over me!"

"it was you who made the decision for me!" exclaimed Lily, her voice breaking, "as it was you who chose Dark magic and You-Know-Who over me in Hogwarts... and you chose them over me again two months ago!"

"Don't! Don't you dare blame me! This is all Potter's-"

"Stop it!" she snapped, raising her wand once again. "You abandoned me by choosing to follow the Dark Lord's path. James did the exact opposite - he changed his path in order to meet mine!"

"I saved you-"

"NO! James did! You just stood aside - and then shot him in the back!"

"Actually," smirked Severus, "I hit him face-on."

"I wonder why can't I remember that correctly? Oh, right, because you had drugged me again!" shouted Lily, her voice inflected with terrible sarcasm.

Severus winced, and Lily could see that her words' aim had been true. She closed her eyes. "I'm sorry. I don't want to do this anymore. I don't want to fight with you." She opened them again, the emeralds sparkling. "I want my friend back. I want you to stop being a Death Eater."

"That's not going to happen," hissed Severus. "It's not a club you can just quit."

"Well, then, you have another decision to make."

"Truly? And what is that?"

"Either you give me the cure for whatever James has-"

"Out of the question!"

"Then you give me no choice. Incarcerous!" Before Severus could pull out his wand, she had wielded hers. Magical ropes sprung from her wand tip and wrapped around his form. Using her wand, she Levitated him to the chair he had occupied earlier.

"I'll take that," she said, reaching into his robes' pocket to remove his wand.

"What are you doing?" demanded Severus, his face incredulous; he knew struggling against the restraints would be futile.

"Either you give me the cure or I'll turn you in to the Ministry."

"And what would that accomplish?" hissed Severus, "your precious Potter will be rotting in his grave long before I'm convicted!"

"Then make the right decision for once!" clipped Lily, her wand trained on him.

Severus' eyes glowed with anger. "Untie me."

"Like you untied me, Severus?"

She watched the fury in his eyes subside and be replaced momentarily with guilt. "I couldn't-" he began, but Lily cut him off.

"You could have. You made the wrong decision then. Make the right one now."

"But it's him-"

"I know, Severus. James was absolutely atrocious. But he did change, eventually, in the right ways. And because he changed, I changed my mind about him."

"I do not wish to hear this!" hissed Severus, his eyes blazing. "I will not - I cannot - help, not this time, NOT HIM!"

"I'm not like You-Know-Who, Severus," said Lily despondently. "I don't want to force you to do anything... haven't you realised, this whole time, that the whole point is that I want you to want to do the right thing?"

Sighing, she flicked her wand, and the ropes vanished. Severus kept his eyes on her, alert.

Lily examined his wand. As she twirled it, it sprouted a perfect water lily. She placed it and the wand on the coffee table between them. "Please don't curse me in the back with this."

She straightened her robes and turned to leave.

"Wait!" he shouted, springing to his feet.

Lily turned toward him again, and was surprised to see he had made no move to pick up his wand.

"Please." His voice turned pleading as his shoulders drooped. His eyes connected hers, boring into her. "Don't leave, Lily. Not yet."

"If you're not willing to renounce the Death Eaters, then the only thing I want from you is the cure."

"Then I'll do it," he said, his eyes unreadable. "Not for him. For you."

Two small pops! announced Sirius and Marlene's arrival.

"James!"

They hurried over to his bedside.

"I'm so sorry!" said Marlene, wiping away the tears spilling from her eyes. "I couldn't identify the poison, nor an antidote! And I have no idea where Lily could be!"

Sirius' face was beyond description. He placed a hand on James arm. "Just... keep taking it easy. Maybe that healer - Gaeler - can do something?"

Marlene shook her head no, her lower lip trembling. "He needed to know what it was, and I just don't know! I've never even heard of its symptoms, it's like someone's just invented it!"

A doorbell rang in the distance; James knew Tessy had completed her task, and Rupert would welcome in the person he had summoned. Sure enough, a knock at his bedroom door moments later let him know that his solicitor had arrived.

"May I have a few moments?" asked James, cringing at the thought of what needed to be done. "I need to take care of a few things... in case things don't go so well."

Thirty minutes later, James' solicitor had left, and Marlene and Sirius were in chairs, still at James' bedside. James' four house-elves were sitting on a couch just inside the door, comforting each other as they sobbed into their aprons.

I want everything in order, just in case.

"So let me guess this straight - you die, and I still don't get your antique broomstick collection?"

Marlene gave Sirius a piercing glare. "You think this is funny? How can you possibly feel like joking at a time like this?"

Sirius pointed his thumb in Marlene's direction. "As if you were her bloody best friend!"

James rolled his eyes and tried to relax in his pillow; it had been unnerving as it had been to write and sign his last will and testament. And he far preferred Sirius' weak attempts at humour to Marlene's guilt-ridden stony face and certainly in comparison to the weeping willows that his house elves had become.

"But thanks, though, for the "half of my fortune goes to Sirius Black" thing. That was rather nice of you," continued Sirius nonchalantly, "Now, about those shrunken heads your great-grandfather brought back from Peru, what the hell mate!" cried Sirius huffily, "The British Museum will just let them collect dust on some boring shelf. Now, in my hands-"

"Swear to Merlin-"

Marlene's shriek was cut off by a loud pop as Remus Lupin appeared in the doorway.

"Was that your solicitor leaving?" inquired Remus confusedly.

"Yes," replied James in a resigned tone.

"It must be serious!" said Remus, rushing over to James' side.

"As serious as death and taxes," muttered James. "Turns out, dying is a lot more complicated when you don't have an heir. An heir, for Merlin's sake! Remember when I was too young to worry about heirs?"

"Or too healthy, rather?" offered Remus nonchalantly.

"Glad my death is funny to you, Moony."

Remus smiled back at him, then sobered. "James, I've asked around, but no one seems to know where Lily is."

James closed his eyes. Unbelievably, her face preoccupied his thoughts far more than concerns of his own demise.

Another, louder pop! drew their attention to the doorway once again.

"You on your deathbed or something, Prongs?" joked Peter Pettigrew as he entered, nodding at the crying house-elves.

"Oh dear Merlin," snapped Marlene, "England's villages must have put me in charge of their idiots tonight!"

Peter skidded on something as he made his way across the room. "Whoa!"

"Watch yourself Wormtail!" shouted Sirius, preventing Peter from catching himself on James' lower leg.

"What the hell is this?" cried out Peter, bending over. He straightened up, clutching a tuft of Edouard Renoir's blonde hair in his pudgy fist. "Prongs? An explanation?"

James grinned as he eased into his pillow. "Long story, mate."

He started to drift into a tired nap, visions of a bald Edoard Renoir filling his mind's eye.

Wonder what Lily will think of him now!

With a pang, James jolted awake. LILY!

"What the hell are you guys doing here?" he shouted, glaring at his friends as if noticing them for the first time. "You need to be out looking for her! I would be, but I - I" his voice caught, "well, I can't, so I need you to do it for me."

"We need to be here for you -" began Remus, but was cut off by James.

"Sod that! Be here for me, for what? Watch me pee in a chamber pot? No thanks! What I need is for you to find her - she's still not well, and she could be in danger!"

"Where can we even begin?" asked Peter, holding out his hands in puzzlement.

"Pretend we're looking for one of our fugitive wizards," said James, turning to Sirius. "What are her known associates, known friends?"

"Most of them are here in this room," pointed out Sirius, nodding at Marlene. "I mean, there's Madeleine Le Vau, but she's in France, as are most of Lily's current friends. And she wouldn't have endangered them by going there. And she had a few other friends at Hogwarts, but no one she was particularly close to..."

"Except..." began Remus, but his voice trailed off as well.

James' eyebrows knitted together and his hazel eyes darkened. "You're not suggesting-"

"He's the only other real friend she had," muttered Peter.

"As disturbing as the thought may be," said Sirius haltingly, "it makes sense."

"For crying out loud!" shouted Marlene, patience long lost. "Who are you talking about?"

"Snivellus," spat James darkly. "Great. The end of my life just keeps getting better and better."

Replies to reviewers: Thanks soooo much you guys!

Lottie - Thanks for the positive review! Hope this was soon enough for you ;) What did you think of it?

thewandofdestiny - Hey, thanks! I really appreciated your review, and I have to say I looove your fanfiction name :)

itxprincessxlala - Hehehe, THANKS! I'm so glad you liked it! I tried to update as soon as possible, thank you very much for the encouragement and kind words!

Lolua - Hi again! Thanks so much for the careful re-read :) I'm also looking forward to resolving the different story lines - I never thought I'd have so many pages of outlines and notes for a fanfic!

Winged Flying Werewolf Girl - Thank you very much! I'm super excited to be writing this fic and so very happy to hear people actually like it :D

purpleroxs97 - I know right, can you BELIEVE it took four years? I think that's the first time I actually felt like I was growing up - or growing old perhaps - cause come on, to say I was working on something for a while, then put it on hold for four years, and then resumed it is just nuts. Anyway. Thank you for the review!

Anna - Thank you, thank you, thank you :) Hope this one didn't disappoint!

An Aspiring Author - I'm so glad you're still reading this! Well, Lily didn't beg... well, not exactly anyway... what did you think of it?

mebmarker24 - Hahahahaha, I KNOW, I can't believe it took me so long! I was actually DAZED when I realized how long it's been, and how weird it is to say I've been working on one thing for so long. Made me feel a bit old, to be honest, ahhh. Thanks for the sweet words!

SnarkySidekick - Yayyy you're still reading! SO glad you still like it! Hope you liked this last one :D

DaisyFlower10 - Thank you very much - I'm so happy that you're still reading! Hehehe I'm glad you like Marlene and Sirius, I love writing their part! Not nearly enough of them in this chapter, but next time there will be more :) Thanks for the awesome encouragement!

p3charmed - HAHAHA I was SO excited to see your review and then be in touch again! Hope you liked this last one and thanks so much for the beta-ing of the one-shot! :D