Everything crumpled down at once. People screaming, running, crying, calling for their loved ones as the sky was ripped apart.
Snapping to his senses, James looked around him, his heart beating so loud inside his chest he could barely hear the chaos in the street. His friends were gone. They didn't notice him stopping to watch the suspicious wizards, and had kept on walking without him.
James was alone.
A spell missed him by an inch and hit the window of the store behind him. The burst of the explosion projected James to the ground along with a thousand pieces of glasses that cut deep in his hands and forearms. He crawled on the shattered glass to get to his wand which slipped out of his hand, each movement drawing more blood, more pain.
Wizards were casting spells left and right, unable to clearly spot the danger in the moving crowd and James had to duck several times to avoid being hit by what he chose to consider friendly fire. A toddler was crying in the distance.
James scattered to his feet, finding comfort with his back on the cold stone wall behind him, catching his breath while the panic in the crowd in front of him grew stronger every second.
Nothing he saw made sense.
A woman was levitating, apparently inanimate, her long blonde hair falling in front of her face. A few cruel voices were chanting things James couldn't understand, the blood rushing in his ears deafening him.
Further down the street, a store had caught on fire. Flames licked the wood structure, higher and higher, the wizards fighting the growing blaze barely silhouettes in a fog that gradually swallowed the alley.
Paralysed, James felt his heart sink in his chest as he looked up to see the black smoke fill the sky. Hovering above his head, a giant snake was gliding in between the teeth of a skull that seemed to have been carved out of a storm. The Dark Mark.
It had been in the newspaper a few weeks ago, in a sinister picture, floating above the house of a witch who had married a Muggle. Both of them had been found dead, with no sign of a struggle.
James didn't take a moment to think about what the Dark Mark here could mean. He ran as fast as he could.
All around, you could hear the loud cracks of people disapparating, alone or their arms firmly grasped around their family members.
A few people were apparating too. Journalists ready to lose their lives for a good article and Aurors, members of the Ministry, ready to fight. James recognized Alastor Moody, who had visited his parents a couple of times this summer, firing protective spells so fast he could have had two wands.
James didn't stop to seek safety by his side. His only concern was to find his friends.
And Lily. The thought hit him so hard James physically stopped. If the hooded figures really were Death Eaters, then the targets of this attack would be Muggleborns.
Without the shadow of an hesitation, James spun around and started running in the opposite way.
He didn't know where Lily was, but he knew where he last saw her, and something inside of him, a gut feeling, a magnet, or perhaps it was just love, was pulling him in the right direction.
He found her by the fire, in a narrow passageway perpendicular to the main street. One of her braids had come loose and blood was running down her face out of a deep cut besides one of her eyebrows.
She looked as dangerous as the flames.
An enormous man was facing her, young and bald, a cruel smile twisting his features. His right hand was clutching a small silver dagger and for some reason it terrified James even more than if it had been a wand.
"Evans!" he yelled, fear taking over his body like a cold and brutal wave.
Trying to locate the source of the noise, the man in the black robes turned around and adjusted his grip on his knife. His smile was wide and vicious, his eyes longing to see blood.
He threw himself into James with the speed of a horse, knife first. The blade drew a semi circle and cleaved through the air right were James was standing a second ago.
James jumped to the side to avoid a second stab, then a third. He was so close to his opponent he could hear his heavy breathing, smell his sweat. Each step he took the wizard took with him.
Not a second could be spared to draw his wand, although even if he had the opportunity, no spell he knew was designed for hand-to-hand combat.
He was trapped in this infernal dance, condemned to feel the dagger dig a hole in between his ribs. The man's movements were getting more precise every second. It would not be long.
Moved by a last rush of adrenaline, James dived forward, mobilizing each of his Quidditch earned reflexes, and violently shoved the man off him. As they were now barely a feet apart, James took his chance and drew his wand out of his back pocket to toss it to Lily.
Unaware of the movement, which had been incredibly quick, the man took a step forward to close the gap between him and James. His dreadful smile was gone. He raised the blade once again, ready to strike, then his entire body stiffened and he fell backwards.
Lily was standing behind him, James's wand raised. Once again, James realized he had never been more in love.
"Thanks," she said with a shaky voice, walking to him and handing him back his wand.
"Keep it," James answered, panting. "Where's yours?"
"Lost it in the fire."
She turned and looked at the burning building behind them and James suddenly realized the heat they had been fighting in. It was barely tolerable, heavy on the surface of the skin.
"You were inside?"
Lily nodded and moved the strap of her dress to reveal burns that extended from her clavicle to her left shoulder.
"It's regular fire though, not Fiendfyre, thank God."
Eyes fixed on Lily's burnt and irritated skin, James had trouble being as optimistic as she was.
"We have to go. Were you with someone?"
"Marlene and her parents," answered Lily, her brow furrowed with worry. "But we got separated when the fire broke out."
"I'm sure they Disapparated with her then," said James, more to reassure himself than Lily. "Come."
As a reflex, because he always did this with Sirius, he extended his hand for Lily to hold. She took it instinctively and despite the circumstances, despite the fire burning a few feet from them, the contact of their skins sent a shiver down James's spine.
"I'm gonna try to find my mom," he said with a slight tremble in his voice he hoped Lily didn't catch. "Follow me closely."
"You're not the boss of me."
"That I know," he smiled.
Together they walked back into the main alley. The fights there had stopped and spells were no longer being thrown blindly so they could walk without being bent in half.
The crowd was gone but a few people were left in the street. The floor was littered in a variety of things, going from wands and capes to school manuals and spilled buckets of frog legs.
Back to school shoppers had left their place to Aurors, who were walking briskly up and down the street, stopping anyone that looked suspicious.
Several times, James and Lily passed a group of St Mungo's Healers, kneeling around inanimate bodies. James tried not to think about the people that might have been hurt and looked away each time they saw anyone laying on the ground.
He needed to find his family. Moony. Wormtail. He needed to know that they were safe. They had to be safe.
They had to be.
"James?"
A voice in the distance made his heart jump and he let go of Lily's hand to run in front.
"Mom?"
Euphemia was here, disheveled, exhausted, but alive. James jumped in her arms, like he did when he was five, and felt a wonderful sense of relief overwhelm him. She was alive.
"Where's dad? And Sirius and the others?"
"Everyone is safe baby. Fleamont apparated home with your friends, no one got hurt."
James felt such a weigh lift off his chest, it was like he could fly. He hadn't realize until this very moment how heavy anxiety made his heart.
Suddenly, Euphemia drew her wand from her sleeve and pointed it in front of her, straight to Lily who had approached behind James.
Lily opened wide eyes and held both of her hands in the air as James instinctively pushed her away and planted himself in front of his mom's wand.
"Who is this?"
James had no idea Euphemia's voice could drop so low and be so menacing. He thought about every possibility. Imperius. Polyjuice.
Or she could just be extremely worried, like any mother would be in this context.
"Mom, that's Lily," James answered, slowly, calmly.
Euphemia's eyes softened and she lowered her wand by an inch.
"Do you trust her?"
"With my life."
James had answered without a second of hesitation and Lily looked at him with a new light in her eyes.
Euphemia nodded and put her wand back in her sleeve.
"Let's get you both home."