You tell me to hold on
Oh you tell me to hold on
But innocence is gone
And what was right is wrong

-Imagine Dragons-

"We'll be back in a couple of hours." Sirius told Marlene, she sat on the edge of James's bed.

"Okay, don't get arrested," She laughed, "Because I'm not bailing you idiots out of jail."

He walked over, took her in his arms and scooped her up into a kiss. "I make, no-promises."

Marlene rolled her eyes, but backed away from Sirius the instant she heard footsteps coming up the stairs. Both of the amusement faded from their faces as Sirius had to sit away from her. They had successfully kept their relationship a secret for awhile now, but as the school near was only two months from being over, it was beginning to wear on them both. Neither one of them would say it, but it hung between them.

Remus and Peter walked in, "Everything's all set. James is waiting downstairs." Peter announced with a smile.

"Have fun." Marlene told them with a half forced smile.

She walked down with them and went back to her room without another word. Sirius thought to say something to her, but he couldn't think of what he would say so he let her go. Instead he looked at James, thought of all the things they had planned and said, "Well boys, it's time."

Lily checked in to do her patrol. She waited a few minutes for her partner to show up, but the Ravenclaw sixth year never showed up so she just went alone. It didn't bother her at all to be by herself. She much preferred it, especially considering the busy day she'd had. For the first time ever, she considered James. On her own she didn't have to fear anyone asking what she was thinking. She could just …think.

It started off simple, her thinking of what it would be like to go on a date with him while she wandered around the third floor, the idea of his lips on hers lingering when she passed the Great Hall. The strangest thing was that the thought of them kissing didn't scare her anymore. He didn't scare her anymore. They'd gotten to a point where she trusted him and knew he wouldn't hurt her. There was a lie blocking her from seeing the truth. She fancied James, it was there and she couldn't ignore it anymore. She had to be mad for feeling this way. It not a good idea to fancy James, but it wasn't a choice. Lily always liked to think she was perfectly in control of her actions and could chose where her life was going at all times, but she realized something. Liking someone is involuntary, it just…happens and there is nothing anyone can do to stop or control it.

When she rounded the dungeons to do one last check threw, she wondered if she should tell James how she felt. It seemed such a simple thing to do, but now that the idea had presented itself to her it made her want to throw up. Sure he had said how he felt countless times and proved that he was sincere, but how the hell was she supposed to bring this up to him after all the times she had rejected him? Lily let out a large sigh, and spun around to go back up the stairs. All she had left to do was check back in at McGonagall's office, which wasn't enough time at all for her to figure out what to do about James.

There was a noise behind her, and she sighed in annoyance, taking out her wand. "If it's you four, I'm going to lose my mind! I told you not to-"

"You told us what?" Four Slytherin boys crept out of an empty classroom with sneers high on their faces.

Lily gulped, but tried to not seem afraid of them. If she showed fear then they would feast on it like vultures. "What are you doing out of bed?"

"Well," Nott began, glaring at her, "Mudblood, that really isn't what you should be focusing on. What you should be worried about is what we are going to do to you."

"What are you talking about?" She snapped back, more confidently then she felt.

Lestrange spoke this time, his voice was much colder than the other three. "Well you think because you are friends with blood traitors that the rules don't apply to you. But that's the thing. We are going to torture you, and we're gonna kill your friends for affiliating with you."

"And why would you do that?" She questioned sharply, "I've done absolutely nothing to you…Let me guess you want to hurt me because of my blood status, which was chosen for me at birth. If you truly that I was inferior to you, you wouldn't bother with me."

He paused for a moment, and took one final step forward, his eyes hardening on hers.

Nott slapped a hand on Lestrange's shoulder with a smirk, "You talk too much. We can help you with that."

Lily didn't wait for him to act. She shouted a hex, hurling him backwards and knocking two of the boys over by the sheer force of it.

Then, she ran.

She ran faster than she thought she was capable. She flicked a few curses behind her, but they blocked them easily and were much faster than she. There was only one professor that lived down there and with Slughorn's hearing he would never notice anything.

Lily was completely on her own.

Her blood rushed to her face, her hair rippled in the wind and she tried to think of something anything to stall them. She wouldn't make it to the main floor. Her steps were clumsily as she moved in an erratic pattern so she wouldn't get hit by any of the curses flying by her, but just before she reached the top her legs were tied together and she dropped to the floor her mouth and forehead smacking on the steps. She let out an involuntary groan and fought out of her binds though she knew that it was no use. Blood from her mouth dripped down from her teeth to her chin while her head bruised.

"Oh I don't know why you muggleborns bother," Nott sneered, kneeling next to her squirming body, kicking her over so she was flat on her back. "All of you will die, slowly and painfully."

"Enough chit chat mate. This bitch gave me a fat lip…. Crucio," Avery growled, pointing his wand under her throat.

Lily screamed, she screamed so loud she thought the whole world was shaking around her. All rationality vanished from her mind. Her bones were on fire, she was going to die, she was sure of it. Her body shook violently thrashing to put the fire out, but nothing helped. She cried and cried, and pleaded them to stop, but they didn't the pain just got worse until she just begged for them to just kill her.

Death was better than this.

Lying on her side, her body slammed back down on the stairs repeatedly. One of her ribs cracked, then another, then her forearm. She was crying so hard, she couldn't see, her eyes burned in agony. This was how she was going to she going to die, helpless and alone.

"Enough." A dark voice said in the distance.

And her body dropped, it was still twitching in pain, but the curse was lifted. She choked and she clutched her ribs with her healthy arm to breathe.

One of them started, "But-"

"If you kill her here, there are consequences. The dark lord doesn't take in wizards who are too irrational and reckless to make it to graduation. Besides…she's making far too much noise."

Nott scoffed, "You promised us blood."

"And you got it, besides, there are four blood traitors headed for the castle, as, we, speak." The voice spoke again, this time Lily recognized it.

"Fine," Avery snarled, "Let her go."

"But-"

"I said," Avery sighed furiously, "Let her up, but," His mouth dropped an inch away from her face, releasing her legs from the leg-locking curse. "Just know little mudblood that we are going to burn you and everyone who loves you into the ground."

She tensed when he looked like he might move towards her, but he didn't. All four of them walked past her, some stumbling. One kicked her on the way up, but the pain was nothing like the raw piercing shooting pains coming from her arm and side. Everytime she tried to breath she had to hold her side, when she didn't she couldn't breathe, she tried, but she just started choking. Blood had dried on her chin and that was all she could taste while she used her good arm to swipe the heavy stream of tears out of her eyes. It took a few tries but she stopped crying, the shaking however didn't stop. No matter what she did, she couldn't calm down. Her breathing was erratic and her bleeding lip was trembling.

She couldn't stay down, they could come back eventually, but her brain was working too fast for her to understand how to move. Lily scanned the stairs, praying that someone would come. Someone had to have heard her screaming, someone had to be on their way. Several times she screamed bloody murder for help, until her voice grew to hoarse to yell.

But after waiting for ten minutes she leaned back against the staircase wall and realized no one was going to come.

She was near the dungeons, no other house but Slytherin would have heard her scream, all of the their dorms were too far away. And no one in Slytherin would dare go looking for the source of the noise. Her friends were sound asleep and wouldn't notice her absence for hours.

No one was going to come rushing over.

No one would come looking for her.

No one was going to save her.

Fairytales that her mother used to her ran in her mind. Stories that told her when she was at her weakest the man of her dreams would run up, scoop her off to safety and she would never have to deal with bad guys again.

But that wasn't going to happen. There were many times in her life where she felt like she had no one and she had to pick herself up and put herself back together. She slowed her breathing and forced herself to focus. Her left side was throbbing so relentlessly she could barely see, but her right side was fine, she just had to angle herself on her good and push up. This would have been easier if she didn't have to hold herself to breathe right, but there wasn't anything she could do about that. She had to move and it was better now than later.

"Ughhhhh!" She cried when she moved, grabbing her wand off the floor as she struggled up the last few steps to the corridor leading to the great hall.

Sweat dripped down her spine, Lily leaned on the wall, her arm cupped under her, while she pushed forward to the hospital wing. Exhaustion was crippling her, but she gritted her blood-lined teeth and propelled herself forward. Tears wheeled up in her eyes from the torture she was fighting to ignore. She stopped for a moment to regroup when she heard the entrance doors bust open.

Her throat was aching, her skin was colorless and her emerald eyes were wide in fear as she leaned against the wall and silently begged it wasn't the Slytherin's back for round two. Lily gripped her wand and thought of the most destructive curses she could use. This time if they were going to knock her down she was going to take a few of them down with her. Hope rose in her chest when she recognized their voices. The first person she saw was Sirius.

She was so relieved she started crying. His handsome, wonderful face wasn't the thing she wanted to see first, but it was the best second place she'd ever seen.

Her face fell when she saw he had a black eye that had swollen shut, his lip was split broken and his shirt was full of blood, that wasn't his own. Peter came into view, his chest was slashed and he was slumped against the wall.

"What are we going to do?"

"Pete," Sirius groaned, "Can you walk at all?"

Peter nodded; he was much paler than he should be. "…Yeah…"

"Okay just, go sit in the Great Hall. I'll come and get you…after."

"Okay." Peter nodded, stumbling into the Great Hall slowly.

Lily inched forward to Sirius, to her salvation when Remus came into view, carrying James. His entire body was split apart. James's glasses were broken, his face was bruised and broken, it was clear that all the blood from Sirius's shirt had come from him.

"Did you hear what they said to him before they attacked?" Sirius breathed his grey eyes wide in worry as they moved.

Remus gasped and shook his head, "They said something about …this is for being a mudblood lover."

"They came at us like that…over Lily?" Sirius asked horrified.

Remus shrugged, "That's what they said."

"That's-"

Lily didn't hear anything else. Her eyes focused on James's limp body, she watched his head hang in the air while Remus and Sirius struggled to carry him over to the Hospital wing staircase. He looked lifeless, and that made her cry so hard her whole body shuddered with agony, but she didn't make a sound. She clamped her hand over her mouth and waited to move until they were gone.

She moved for the Great Hall and opened the door. "Peter…" She said ghostly.

He stood up off his hiding spot on the floor and strained himself by pushed himself up to his feet. "Lily…Merlin…"

"I need…" She took a breath and clenched her eyes close. "I need you to help me get to McGonagall."

"But," His eyes racked over her bleeding face. "The guys-"

"Peter," She cried, "I need to get to McGonagall and I can't get up all those stairs by myself. I need your help. You can leave a note for the guys. But you have to leave me out of it."

"Why?" He wanted to know.

"Because," She half-sobbed while he moved to her side, "It's my fault they're hurt in the first place."

Peter looked at her in horror. "How?"

"Because they wanted to hurt anyone …" She paused to wince, "Who is nice to muggleborns."

Peter noticeably stiffened and paled. "That's why we were attacked?"

"Yes, which is why you can't tell them about this. You have to say you just went to McGonagall yourself…" She let out a low cry of distress when they made up another staircase. "And leave me out of it."

Peter didn't say anything. He was sickened, but more so he was terrified. His best friend was barely breathing and Lily was …a complete and total wreck, but she was still fighting so he held onto what little hope he had left. Their cause would win, because they were still here and as long as they just kept fighting the Death Eaters. It wasn't a large chance, but he had to believe that Lily had a plan, that James and Sirius had a plan, and more importantly that Dumbledore had a plan.

He helped Lily, and she did need the help, she wouldn't have made it up the steps without him, but he had a feeling she was so upset that she would have found a way to make it. Her eyes were full of tears and every few steps he saw her begin to cry, but then quickly tug herself back together again. He'd seen Marlene cry before, she started off silent and then just shook until she cried so hard she had to take a nap to calm down. Dorcas on the other hand looked like a basset hound when she cried, she was loud, and broke heart with every sob. Lily, he discovered with discomfort wasn't like that. She didn't make much sound, because she would right herself as soon as a noise was heard. He did however notice there was a certain resilience in her eyes, something that was present in his other two friends, but seemed to be stemmed differently in her. Lily seemed to be gaining strength from her injuries when all logic said it should have weakened her.

When they arrived at McGonagall's office, she moved away from him and gave him a look. "Go back to the boys. Tell them nothing. Make something up. But please, please Peter don't mention seeing me."

"But, they'd want to know." Peter stammered in confusion.

"They'll get themselves killed… if they pick a fight with Death Eater's because of this." Lily told him shaking her head. "Promise me Peter…Please," She pleaded.

And he frowned, "Okay Lily. I promise."

Lily offered him a smile but thought better of it, blood on her mouth wasn't the most reassuring thing and she didn't even need to leave him more upset. So she stumbled into McGonagall's office, shut the door and knocked on her bedroom door awkwardly.

There was a slur of swears that Lily didn't ever expect to hear from her Transfiguration professor. Lily lowered herself into the guest chair in front of McGonagall's desk, and laid back controlling her breaths carefully. Her thick red hair, disgusting, sweaty and mixed with blood fell in her face, but she didn't even bother to push it back. She was so far from caring, she didn't even grab a tissue of McGonagall's desk to try and clean herself up.

"Yes," McGonagall snapped harshly opening the door, in her robe with a hairnet on. "What am I woke up at this time fo-?" Her speech stopped when she

"'Lo Professor," Lily muttered in acknowledgement, "I had a little trouble on my rounds tonight."

"Dear lord." McGonagall said, rushing forward worriedly, her eyes scanning Lily's sunken eyes. "...Who did this to you Ms. Evans?"

Lily took a breath, grabbing her cracked ribs in irritation. "What's more important is why they did it."

"Why did someone do this to you?" She demanded.

"Because I'm a muggleborn," Lily answered flatly, clenching her jaw, "Professor, I need to see Rick McKinnon."

"No. We need to get you to see Madame Promfrey-"

"No," Lily shook her head sharply, "I can't go to the hospital wing. I need to see Marlene's brother. Now."

"Why?" McGonagall asked taken aback by Lily's firm tone.

Lily's eyes lifted, their gaze was weak at first but firmed up after a moment, "Because I didn't stand a chance against them...No matter what I did, it didn't matter...and I need to make sure this doesn't happen again."