"Books! And cleverness! There are more important things―friendship and bravery."

– Hermione Granger, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

Chapter 9: Friendship and Bravery

Watching Draco Malfoy in a secondhand bookshop was about as distracting as the scheming Slytherins outside, Harry found. He watched in bemusement as Draco's expression went from utter disdain, hanging back near the door as if to avoid breathing the same air as people who shopped secondhand, to comical delight as he caught sight of books that had been out of print for decades or more. Within seconds of his first discovery, he was flitting from shelf to shelf like an over-caffeinated bowtruckle, reading the best titles aloud in an excited frenzy that Harry had only ever heard from Hermione.

"And here's Concise Derivations of Nordic Runes!" Draco told Harry, grabbing a third shabby book off a shelf as if it would sprint away if he weren't fast enough. He added it to the stack in his arms. "It's recommended in every Ancient Runes textbook, but it hasn't been printed since 1770. And— Merlin's beard, that can't be the stage script of The Witch of West Abbey, can it? Mother used to read it to me every night when I was a child. She was devastated when I accidentally turned it into a biting cactus during a tantrum. We couldn't find another copy anywhere…. Oh, and—!"

He darted off to another shelf before he could finish his sentence.

Harry stared after him, dumbstruck, with his lips twitching as he struggled not to laugh aloud.

"Now I see why it takes you so long to get any work done in the library," said Lily, appearing at Harry's side with mirth in her eyes. She, too, was looking at Draco, who was now babbling about his discoveries to thin air. "I admit, I thought the reason would be rather more risqué."

"Risqué?" repeated Harry, whirling around to face Lily with what must have been a truly hilarious expression, because she burst into laughter and didn't stop for so long that Harry started to get both annoyed and flustered. His face felt hot, but he refused to think about what Lily must have been implying.

After a while, she grasped Harry's shoulder and hauled herself upright, wiping tears from her eyes. "Oh," she gasped, strangling another bout of laughter. "Oh, your face, Harry. Honestly, haven't you ever had a romance before? Haven't you ever been caught kissing somewhere you shouldn't have been?"

At first, Harry's mind snapped back to Ginny, to those wonderful stolen moments at the end of their sixth year, to the lazy afternoons kissing by the lake and the evenings in the common room with her sitting in front of his armchair, his fingers stroking her long, silky hair.

Then he realized who he was speaking to, and his brain jarred to a halt.

"Why?" he demanded, aghast. "Have you? With who?"

"Of course, I have," said Lily, still grinning even as she waved the question aside dismissively. "I've had to learn a lot of good hiding places to keep out of sight of James. The moment he sees me with another boy, they seem to run away. The cowards." She scoffed, still lighthearted, and didn't seem to notice Harry's horror. She continued, "Anyway, the point is, I can give you and Draco some excellent recommendations if you need it."

She winked.

Harry's horror summited a new, great height.

"Aren't you meant to be looking for a book for your independent research?" came Marlene's voice as she rounded the nearest bookcase and threw an arm onto Harry's free shoulder. "Hurry up, I want to go to Honeyduke's!"

"And the dust is making Mary sneeze," said Gertrude ominously, appearing on her sister's other side.

The three girls exchanged dark, wary looks.

"What?" asked Harry. He did, in fact, hear another muffled ah-choo! from a few shelves over.

"Wizarding allergies," said Lily lowly. "When she starts sneezing, the gnomes come."

The girls exchanged that look of foreboding again.

Harry decided he didn't want to know.

"HARRY, LOOK! THERE'S A WHOLE QUIDDITCH SECTION!"

Lily looked like she might start laughing again, and Harry scowled.

"Don't," he said, holding up a finger threateningly. Then he hurried over to Draco, wondering what kind of Quidditch books had been lost to the ages.

He barely had time to glance at the top row, however, before Draco started pulling out books and handing them to him, hardly waiting for Harry to get his hands out before dropping them expectantly and reaching for the next.

"What—?" he began, spotting the tower of books sitting on the floor next to Draco. He looked at Malfoy in exasperation. "You know we can't get all these, right? We're on a school budget."

Draco froze in the act of stacking a fourth book in Harry's arms. "Budget?" he repeated, as if he had never heard such a filthy word before. Perhaps he hadn't. "But these are secondhand! Aren't they practically free? The owner should be glad someone is willing to take them off their hands at all!"

Harry raised his eyebrows at him.

Draco glared back, looking like he was going to start ranting anew, but then he looked upward. He sighed, and his whole body seemed to deflate with it.

"Budget," he repeated scathingly under his breath. He turned to examine the tower of books next to him, which he had apparently been levitating to follow him around the shop, because there was no way he had been carrying that many. "Alright, then. How many Galleons have we got, and how much does a book cost?"

Harry resisted the urge to sigh. He set his stack of books down instead. He picked up the top one, flipped it over to the back cover, and showed Draco the price tag in the bottom corner. "This one's five Sickles. That is really cheap compared to our school books. But we only get five Galleons a month for pocket money, and I'm guessing you'll want some Honeydukes and a drink from the Broomsticks."

"Five Galleons?" echoed Draco, his pale face flushing with outrage. "That's what the Accidental Magic Fairy leaves in your underpants as an infant!"

Harry snorted so suddenly, he choked on his spit and nearly suffocated. Draco slammed a fist on his back absently, and a good deal too hard to be friendly.

"The— the Accidental Magic Fairy?" he gasped, now both choking and laughing. "In your pants?"

"What? Of course, where else would she—? Oh, right. Raised by Muggles, weren't you? Well, see here: This budget is absurd! We're of age, and Dumbledore's given us a child's purse!"

Harry didn't know whether to keep laughing or berate Draco for his arrogance and spoiled upbringing. He still remembered seeing inside the Weasley's Gringotts vault in his second year, and there had only been a single Galleon and a pile of Sickles to get all the Weasley children their school supplies for the year. Five Galleons a month was generous, in Harry's opinion.

But then Harry noticed the genuine panic and despair on Draco's face underneath the bravado, and he found himself softening. Draco was looking back at his books as if he had been asked to not just leave them but Incendio them behind him. And Harry understood— whatever they couldn't make time to read in the present timeline, they would likely lose the chance forever. These books didn't exist, or were rare and coveted, in their own time. Maybe Draco would be able to find a copy of his mother's favorite play from another old family, but he'd likely have to pay hundreds of Galleons for that one book, and that was if he could convince them to part with it.

Harry wondered how so many valuable books had been lost in such a relatively short period of time, but then he remembered the war. Priceless treasures, little pieces of history, were always lost in wars, weren't they? Bombings and fires and raids. He supposed the Death Eaters had been as careless with books as they had been with lives in the first war.

"Tell you what," said Harry, coming back to himself. "Pick out your top ten. You pay for five, and I'll use my allowance to get the other five. I don't spend much money on myself, anyway."

Draco's face flooded with a series of different expressions. Harry thought he was able to discern confusion, anger, and something defenseless in them.

Finally, Draco swallowed once and nodded. He turned to his tower of books, which was almost as tall as he was, and started sorting through them. He chose his first five easily and handed them to Harry, but the last five proved more difficult. After deliberating for several minutes over the Nordic Runes book and an ancient-looking, little book on alchemy, Draco finally added them both to his pile, making six books total. He picked them up and told Harry, chin high and stiff,

"I don't want much from Honeydukes, anyway. Hogwarts' puddings have always been more than adequate." And then, as they left the shop, "Thank you."

Lily helpfully shrank their purchases so they could carry them in their pockets, and the group headed back toward the center of the village where Honeydukes lay. The bookshop had taken them to the outskirts near the Hogshead, though none were interested in visiting that particular pub.

Harry was giving Draco fleeting sidelong glances as they walked. Something about him had changed in the two months they had been in the past, and it wasn't just his dark, copper-highlighted hair.

Draco walked with Lily so close to his side that their arms kept bumping, and he laughed at something Marlene said. It wasn't his usual sneering, disdainful laugh, but the genuine sound Harry had only heard once, that previous week when they had gone flying.

He seemed comfortable, Harry realized. The weight and strain of playing host to Voldemort and the Death Eaters had started to lessen. He wasn't as tense and tired as he had been only two months ago when Harry, Ron, and Hermione had showed up at his house demanding information on Dolohov.

And he was comfortable with Muggle-borns. He was comfortable with the secondhand books in his pocket. He was comfortable giving up his own stash of Honeydukes chocolates so that he would have enough money left over to share drinks with his Muggle-born friends.

It was astonishing.

But then Harry thought about that horrible night on top of the Astronomy Tower, where Draco had cornered Dumbledore; he thought of how Draco had unmistakably begun to lower his wand when Dumbledore offered him a way out.

He thought of Draco saying, "Then why didn't you stop me?" when Dumbledore had admitted to knowing Draco was behind the attempted murders all semester. Draco hadn't said it in that sneering, disdainful voice then, either. He had said it as if hurt. He had said it as if begging Dumbledore to stop him now.

Maybe it wasn't so astonishing that Draco could befriend Muggle-borns….

"G'day, ladies!" said James, bounding down the mostly deserted road toward them. He added as an afterthought, "Parker. Mallory."

"Potter," said Lily, mild as milk. "Looking to get hexed? I already told you I was going to Hogsmeade with Harry, not you."

"No, no, nothing like that!" said James, waving his hand airily and laughing a too-deep, extremely forced laugh. "I was just looking through the adjustable binoculars in Zonko's and happened to see your beautiful visages sauntering down this lonely stretch…."

"Aw, you think Draco's cute, too?" asked Lily sweetly.

At the same time Marlene's face went cold and dangerous and she asked, "Those weren't the clothes canceling binoculars, were they?"

And Draco perked up, looking around at Lily. "Too?"

James reminded Harry of a Boggart confronted with too many people; he didn't know which shape to take and might make an entirely disappointing mess trying to address them all at once.

Then Sirius's voice came shouting down the lane, "Prongs, you idiot, we told you not to initiate contact!"

Remus said, catching up breathlessly, "You didn't tell them about the binoculars, did you?"

Pettigrew was bringing up the rear, his short legs and chubby frame working against him as he attempted to chase the others.

"'Course, I did," said James to Remus, puffing up indignantly. "I'm not a liar. And it's an excellent conversation starter! I was just about to tell Parker and Mallory they're far too skinny under those robes, and I can give them directions to the kitchens back at the school. You, too, Mary," he added offhand to Mary, who went pink to the roots of her hair.

Lily gasped, and even as her eyes widened with outrage, her hand struck out and slapped James for the thirty-fourth time, fourth time in seventh year. (James had treated the boys' dormitory to a monologue on Lily's Greatest Slaps a week ago, to Sirius's loud groans and Remus's pointed silence from behind a book. Only Harry and Peter had listened avidly.)

"YOU DO NOT," she shrieked, "COMMENT ON A LADY'S WEIGHT, JAMES POTTER! AND IF I EVER CATCH YOU UNDRESSING ME WITH YOUR EYES AGAIN, BINOCULARS OR NOT, I'LL—"

Harry caught Rosier's eye as the Slytherin walked past them in the street, watching Lily verbally castrating James with a smirk, and Harry realized too late what he had been forgetting. He whirled on the spot, looking for the other Slytherins who had been stalking them from the castle, but they had all disappeared, and—

The BH-WOOM of explosions from the shops ahead almost knocked them off their feet. The bookshop behind them became a solid wall of noise and heat and shattered glass like bullets.

Harry didn't think, just grabbed the person next to him and threw them both to the ground, pointing his wand upward and shouting, "PROTEGO!"

He heard his shout echoed from nearby— James, he thought, or Sirius.

Flaming debris ricocheted off Harry's shield, sending sparks, gouts of fire, and blue-white ripples across his field of vision. The heat was searing, unending. He thought wildly of Fiendfyre, of being cooked alive underneath the shield—

"Draco!" he shouted over the roar of the inferno. "Is it Fiendfyre?"

The body Harry had shoved to the ground half-underneath him struggled, got their wand in their pale hand, and cried, "Finite Horribilis!" But there was no effect. Draco said, panting under Harry's weight and shoving him as far away as the shield would allow, "No! They must have used Greek Fire!"

Harry spat a curse. Professor Bowie had told them about Greek Fire: It was unextinguishable except by the original spellcaster. It would just keep burning and burning until there was nothing left to fuel it—

Fuel.

Fire needed oxygen, and Flitwick had mentioned, only briefly, a spell opposite of harnessing the wind, which they had been working on for the past week. What had the incantation been?

As the heat blistered him from seemingly the inside out, as the oxygen under the shield grew thinner and he struggled to breathe, Harry desperately wished Hermione were there. She would have been paying attention in Charms. Hell, she would probably have looked up the spell Flitwick had mentioned only once in passing, like she had looked up Professor McGonagall's registration card when they had covered animagi. Always going the extra mile…

Then he remembered Hermione wasn't the only Charms prodigy, not in the '70s. She wasn't the only overachiever, wasn't Head Girl.

"Lily!" he shouted, praying she was alright and had found shelter from the fire. His voice came out weaker than he expected, suffocating under the flames. "The opposite of Ventus Maxima!"

She must have found shelter, must have understood immediately what he meant, because the next moment, she called, "Everyone, hold your breath! Ventus Evacta!"

The roar of the fire met the rush of wind. What little air remained under Harry's shield was ripped away with the whipping of his and Draco's robes. Harry's skin pimpled with goosebumps, freezing in the abrupt absence of being cooked alive, and an inexplicable pressure bore down on him. He struggled to move under it, struggled to keep holding his breath, as Lily drove the wind and fire away with her wand.

Red-faced and sweating, still holding her own breath, she didn't let up until the last of the flames in a twenty-foot radius had petered out and vanished.

Then she lowered her wand and gasped for breath. A gentle breeze was already slinking among them again.

It bore the scent of ashes and heat.

Harry and the others clambered to their feet.

Harry found he had not just been sprawled on top of Draco, but Mary, too. Draco must have grabbed her and pulled her down exactly as Harry had done to him. A few feet away, Lily, Marlene, Gertrude, and James were huddled together, and on the ground a little ways from them, Sirius was on top of Remus and Peter, still holding his shield and looking pale and stricken.

"James," said Sirius, dropping his shield at once and springing to his feet. There was a painfully familiar haunted look in his eyes, and Harry looked away, feeling as if he had been punched in the gut. Sirius continued, "Merlin, when I couldn't find you under the shield with us, I thought…."

"'m alright, Padfoot," said James, clapping him firmly on the shoulder. "Knew you'd take care of the boys. I just had to make sure…"

James shot not only Lily, but the McKinnons a look still weighed with panic and anxiety. His knuckles were white around his wand.

"Mary!" cried Lily, catching sight of her with Harry and Draco. She shot forward and flung her arms around her, and Mary hugged her back just as fiercely. Lily's face wasn't just wet with perspiration. Tears were streaming silently down her cheeks. "Oh, God, Mary! You were beside me one second and then you were just gone! And Harry, that was such quick thinking! I thought the world was ending; I didn't know what to do—"

"Come on," said Harry, starting toward the village proper. "More people could be hurt or trapped. We have to help. Come on!"

It didn't take more than that to mobilize the Gryffindors. With those few words, they had straightened up and were right on Harry's heels.

Harry didn't look back at the ruined bones of the bookshop. They had been the only students inside, thank Merlin. The shop was on the outskirts, and not many students ventured that far off the high street, but the shopkeeper…. There was no way she had survived. Not when she had been right in the center of the explosion.

James caught up with Harry and sprinted alongside him.

"We should send someone ahead to the castle," James said. "Have them bring help."

Harry didn't respond, expecting James to start calling out names and barking orders as he had done at Quidditch tryouts, but there was silence. Harry glanced at him and found James looking at him expectantly, waiting and worried.

He was asking Harry what to do. Instead of taking charge, he was deferring to Harry for some reason.

"Uh, yeah," said Harry. He thought fast. "Peter, Marlene, you run straight back to the school. Don't stop for anything. Get Dumbledore."

"Aye, aye, Captain!" shouted Marlene.

"This way's a shortcut!" said Peter, pulling Marlene aside as soon as they reached the high street, and they darted around a shop Harry didn't recognize.

The high street was utter chaos. It seemed every other shop had been blown up. People were screaming— some in pain, others calling for friends they couldn't find, or for friends that wouldn't wake up. Huge swathes of Greek Fire were still burning, eating craters out of the pavement and billowing high upon the skeletons of the shops. Once again, heat and smoke assaulted them, and they slowed as they approached, trying to see what was happening and where to help.

"Lily, start putting out the fires!" Harry shouted over the chaos. "Does anybody know any healing spells?"

"We do!" said James and Sirius.

"Teach Remus, Gertrude, and Mary and get going!"

"What about me?" asked Draco, looking around at the wreckage and human misery with an expression like he was about to be sick.

"Think you can do that wind spell Lily is using?"

Draco hesitated but then nodded. "Ventus Evacta," he said, as if reminding himself.

"Good," said Harry grimly, turning to the first burning building to their left. It radiated heat like a furnace, blanketed in lurid green flames. Even as they watched, the awning over the front door clattered to the ground, smoldering and twisted. A rafter joined it with a screech of splintering wood. Harry said, "Then follow me. If anyone's alive, we're getting them out."

He took off straight toward the front door, casting an Impervious Charm on his robes as he went. Behind him, Draco started cursing a blue streak, and Harry caught phrases like, "bloody fucking Gryffindors," and, "can't believe the Sorting Hat even considered," and, "sodding hero complex!" But then he was shouting, "Ventus Evacta!" and the heat ahead of Harry lessened.

Harry dove through the shop door. It might have once been an apothecary, judging by the shattered jars and charbroiled animal body parts littering the floor. He didn't know if anything would survive by the time they got the fire out.

"Is anybody in here?" Harry bellowed, and covered his nose and mouth as smoke made him choke.

"Back here!" shrieked a tiny, feminine voice. "We're trapped! Oh, God, help us! Help us!"

"Make sure we'll still have a way out," Harry shouted to Draco, motioning him to stay by the entrance while Harry skidded ahead over the debris toward the voices. He found them only a second later.

Three third years were huddled together, crying and coughing, as Greek Fire surrounded them on all sides. Harry didn't know how they had survived the initial blast— the only adult, the shopkeeper, was dead only a few feet away, his remains hardly recognizable as human under the flames— but whatever they had done to protect themselves, they had found their limit.

"Hold your breath!" Harry said, and then, "Ventus Evacta!"

He swooped his wand like a lasso and sucked the oxygen out of the shop around them. Concentrating hard as his lungs contracted like vises, he gave his wand a hard jerk, and the spell seemed to physically wrench the fire out of existence. He released it and gasped for breath. "Come on! Follow me!"

The third years hurried after him in terrified and sobbing. Harry ushered them toward Gertrude, who was triaging the injured out on the street. She was mending what she could with a few hastily learned healing spells and sending the more seriously injured in James's direction.

Harry grabbed Draco's shoulder and sprinted to the next burning building.

They had barely cleared it— formerly a secondhand robe shop— when Draco gasped and bent double in pain. He was clutching his left forearm as if it were on fire, though Harry didn't see any of the green flames near him.

"Death Eaters!" gasped Draco, straightening through his pain just long enough to give Harry a terrified look. "They're coming!"

They were there. The screams had redoubled out on the street. Now there were added jets of colored light and deafening bangs and crashes.

Harry felt blindsided.

Hadn't the Slytherins set their bombs and left? Why had they come back? To finish off the survivors? Considering everyone in Hogsmeade was magical, that seemed unlikely. Death Eaters valued magical blood too highly… and all of this right in Albus Dumbledore's backyard….

It was unbelievable, and Harry couldn't fathom their intentions.

A scream from just outside the shop door mobilized him. He barreled past Draco and into the street, shouting, "Expelliarmus!" and then "Stupefy!" at the first masked, cloaked figure he saw.

The Death Eater's wand soared high and landed out of sight in the chaos. He himself crumpled to the ground and did not stir.

Harry barely had the chance to take in what was happening before he had to defend himself.

Through the blur of action— attack, defense, quicker than his conscious mind could keep up with—

There were at least a dozen robed, masked figures in black.

The Gryffindors' attempts to create a healing station had gathered the students in one large mass, most of them either hurt, in shock, or worse.

The figures in black robes were trying to surround them, coming from the direction of the castle. The way farther into Hogsmeade was still open, but it wouldn't be for long.

Harry finished off his opponent with a Stupefy and shouted at the congregation of students, "TO THE HOG'S HEAD! GET TO THE HOG'S HEAD! GO!"

The students who had turned at his bellow looked bewildered. They were terrified, unthinking. Just waiting to be slaughtered.

But Draco had heard him, and even as he cast Harry an incredulous look, he grabbed the student nearest him and shoved her down the street toward the Hog's Head.

"The Hog's Head, at the end of the lane that way!" Draco snapped. "Go! Go!"

The momentum of Draco's shove kept her moving. She caught her friend's hand and then started running in the direction Draco had indicated, hauling her friend along.

It seemed to click, then, for the other students. They started running from the Death Eaters between them and the castle and toward the Hog's Head in a disordered, frantic mob.

Harry kept dueling, defending Draco as Draco herded the students along.

It was chaotic, too fast, and Harry relied entirely on instinct, Expelliarmus and Protego coming to his wand as reflexively as breathing. He threw in a few curses as he could, but his attention was on the students caught in the melee.

There were some who couldn't move.

A few yards away, sweat poured down James's face as he bent over an unconscious fourth year girl, whose Ravenclaw robes were singed away from a horrible, charred blister on her whole left side. James's wand glowed pale green, and he was muttering under his breath as he focused on her. The only sign he noticed the battle raging over his head lay in his tense shoulders and taut jaw. There were at least four other unconscious, badly bleeding students lying in wait next to him.

A few yards past him, Sirius was in a similar dilemma. He was crouching over a fellow seventh year boy, wand tip lit seafoam green, his gray eyes as sharp as razors and they catalogued the boy's wounds and formulated the best plan to save his life. He, too, had a line of patients waiting, unmoving and maimed.

Harry started to call for Marlene, the fiercest and most militant of the Gryffindors, but remembered belatedly that she was gone with Peter for that exact reason. Peter knew the shortcuts. Marlene could protect him.

"Lily!" he shouted instead. "Gertrude! Mary!" The girls whirled to face him, crowded over their own less fatally injured patients. "Guard James and Sirius! Buy them time to heal! Remus, get the injured moving to the Hog's Head!"

Harry deflected a curse and kept dueling. He forced his way deeper into the Death Eaters' ranks, trying to push them back from the impromptu hospital wing.

He only needed to last until Dumbledore arrived or the injured were healed enough to run.

…

James leaned over his latest patient, praying as fervently to an invisible Poppy Pomfrey as he might have prayed to Jesus Christ himself.

His patient was horribly burned, not even losing blood because of the cauterization, and James didn't know how to deal with burns.

He, Sirius, and Peter had learned a variety of healing spells to help when Moony got out of control during the full moon. They'd even had occasion to learn a few more when their pranks took a turn for the worst.

They'd never dealt with burns. Or smoke inhalation.

The most James could do was a general healing spell to speed up the body's natural healing process, plus a little charm to ward off shock. He knew a spell to seal an open wound, usually a cut in his experience, but he didn't dare seal the skin on a burn victim when he didn't know what internal damage could be underneath. He could set a bone, stave off infection… but flesh grilled like a prime steak?

He needed Pomfrey. They needed Pomfrey. He knew he and Sirius were doing a hack job at best.

Lily was at James's back. She was dueling two Death Eaters at once, and everything in James screamed to stop mucking about with healing and do something he was good at―fight, protect.

He forced himself to keep his eyes on his patient and trust her. Lily was Head Girl for a reason. No one else was better protected in that moment than James Potter. He wished she had learned some healing charms. She would have been better at this mess than he was, and he could have stuck to guard duty.

James finished with his patient. She wasn't fully healed by any means, but James had done the best he could, and he was confident she would survive if she could get to a safe location.

He turned toward the next body in his queue, a gasping, barely conscious fifth year in Hufflepuff robes, when he saw it.

Lily was dueling with a Death Eater to their left. There was another man coming up behind her on their right. And dead ahead, a third year girl ran into a black robed, masked man and froze like a mouse in front of a snake.

James and Lily saw the girl at the same time. Their eyes turned and met. James looked behind Lily to the Death Eater sneaking up on her. His heart sank and stuttered.

He had to intervene. Only….

He could rescue Lily, or he could rescue the little third year.

There was no time for both.

For a moment, all he knew was blind panic. He needed to be in two places at once. He had to save everyone. Why couldn't he–?

The Death Eaters raised their wands. James made his decision.

Lily was an incredible witch. She could protect herself. The third year girl was in serious danger.

He raised his wand and screamed, "Stupefy!" at the Death Eater who had raised his wand at the third year. The man crumpled, unconscious. The third year screamed and fled. Mallory ushered her deeper into Hogsmeade, toward the Hog's Head.

Behind James came several loud bangs and flashes of light.

James whirled and found Lily standing over two downed Death Eaters. She was staring at him, wide-eyed, panting. Her hair was a wild, messy wreath around her head and shoulders. Bits of the auburn hair stuck to her face and throat in sweaty clumps.

In a feat of pure athleticism and magical skill, she had downed her original opponent and met the Death Eater sneaking up on her with a split second to act. She had used it wisely and without hesitation, stunning him mid-death stroke.

James had never wanted to kiss her more.

There was something in Lily's vibrant green eyes he didn't recognize. She was alive with the glow of battle, but she was staring straight back at him as if she had never truly seen him before.

There wasn't time to contemplate it.

Another Death Eater stepped up to meet Lily, and the half-comatose patient at James's side let out a wracking cough.

James lurched forward with a healing spell. Lily sank again into battle.

The battled raged fierce and deafening around them. Out of the corner of his eye, James saw Harry ploughing through the Death Eaters like a tidal wave. Anyone else would have called the Ilvermorny kid reckless, suicidal, but James only saw determination, precision, and power. Harry dodged spells, cast his own, and advanced forward like a force of nature. No Death Eater could stand against him on equal footing. It was like watching an entire Auror task force driving their opponents back, except it was condensed into a single skinny seventh year boy.

James tried to return his focus to the injured Hufflepuff under his wand. His own heartbeat was frantic. His mind was a tornado of panic, worry, doubt, and fear.

Harry, Lily, Gertrude, and Mary were doing well against the Death Eaters, but he didn't know how long that would last. They were only students. They hadn't even finished their last year at school yet. How much longer could they hold off an invading force of fully trained dark wizards?

James's wand trembled as he cast, and he forced his hand and mind alike to steady.

They could last. They had to last.

He was just finishing up the Hufflepuff and wiping sweat from his brow when Lily let out a sharp yelp. He whirled just in time to see her go down in a heap.

"LILY!" he shouted, leaping to his feet.

The Death Eater who had attacked – killed? – stunned? – her crossed the short distance to James in a few strides.

The man grabbed James and called over his shoulder, "Is this him? Is this the boy?"

Ice flooded James's veins. The boy? What boy?

They're looking for someone specific.

James struggled, trying to wrench his wand arm free from the man's hold, but there wasn't even the slightest budge. The man holding him must have been built like a troll under those robes.

Another Death Eater hurried through the gap left by Lily's downfall. James couldn't see his face under the mask, but he gave the impression of studying James intently. He was panting from the exertions of the battle.

"I… I don't know," said the Death Eater. His voice was younger than the first's and vaguely familiar. "The other boy… I'm not sure…."

The second Death Eater cast his shadowy hood in Harry's direction, where the fiercest of the fight raged.

"Damn it, Dolohov!" snarled the Death Eater holding James, who was kicking and struggling like a rabid dog. "This whole thing was your idea! If you can't even recognize–!"

Speaking of rabid dogs.

Sirius tackled both James and the Death Eater holding him. All three of them crashed into the pavement. James writhed desperately, adrenaline surging through his muscles like a magical power he had never felt before, not even during the Marauders' wildest pranks. He managed to elbow the Death Eater in his sternum, kick his instep, and roll free. He had dropped his wand in the fall, and he saw it rolling away into the free-for-all.

"Take him!" roared the Death Eater who had grabbed James. He and Sirius were grappling, the sounds of flesh on flesh vicious and meaty as they fought without restraint.

James lunged and snatched his wand off the street. He whirled to Sirius and the Death Eater, another Stupefy on his lips, when an arm caught him across the chest and hauled him backward. The arm snared him like a vise and clamped him against the Death Eater's torso.

The Death Eater Apparated, and James was dragged along with him.

...

TBC...

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