Chapter 3:

The Days Ahead

Lily Evans hastily pushed open a creaky door to the dingy bathroom of the safe house she was staying in. She stumbled over the ragged rug and leaned heavily over the sink. Quickly, she turned on the cold water and began scrubbing her forearms ferociously. She muttered a curse as large blisters began forming. How many times had she written and underlined in her notes to never spill the essence of Dittany because it has adverse effects on undamaged skin? Now she searched through years of memory to remember what exactly to do next. Her eyebrows furrowed as she let the water course down her scorched skin.

Did she soak a bandage in a soothing salve and then wrap it around her arms and treat it like a burn, or was there a spell? She chewed on her bottom lip, staring down at her red arms like she would a patient's. It certainly acted like it was a burn, probably second degree.

"Soothing salve it is, then." She said aloud, nodding to herself. She glanced at the grimy mirror and winced at the image of herself. The woman staring back at her had greasy hair pulled into a severe bun at the top of her head (which could rival a certain transfiguration teacher's). New lines were etched around the corners of her eyes and mouth; her lips were cracked and bleeding. The old, black t-shirt from a concert she saw years ago now was baggy on her thin frame and when paired with her bright green eyes in the dim light, it had the unfortunate result of making her skin take on a sickly hue. It had been a rough few days.

Lily closed her eyes, partly to erase the image before her, and replayed the past day's events. Three days ago she was in the middle of her lunch break when she received word of what happened in the form of Emmeline Vance. She was brought down to the main lobby by one of her superiors who garbled on about how sorry she was for her loss. Confused, Lily chose not to say anything. Once she caught sight of the petite, dark haired, grim looking woman, the situation became a little clearer. The pair hurried out of St. Mungos and it wasn't until they were out of earshot of the muggles Lily broke the silence.

"What happened?" Lily asked, her whisper seeming much louder in the deserted alley they just turned into.

"Ambush from what I understand." The redhead looked at her sharply, but Emmeline had her gaze focused ahead resolutely. They picked up their pace, almost running to the apparition point.

"Who?" The question hung in the air for a moment.

"Alice, Moody, and Fabian." An intake of breath. The dark haired woman's lips tightened. They were both rather close with Alice.

"Mission goal?" They had only a few feet left until they reached the point.

"Get the injured out of there and to a safe house. We've sent an advanced party to hold them off in the meantime, but we need to be quick. The portkey is this old red scarf." Vance gestured at it wrapped around her neck and then dropped her gaze to her wristwatch. "We have ten minutes." The pair made it, and after an uncomfortable second they arrived a little ways off from the fight and ducked behind a snowdrift. Their presence was not noted yet. Hastily Lily cast a heating charm, cursing her stupidity for not changing out of her thin healer's robes. Emmeline Vance was doing the same. She appraised her surroundings, and was not surprised to see that they were at an old farmhouse.

She guessed that one of the Death Eaters inherited it from their family and then handed it over to Voldemort for his use. That was not an unordinary occurrence. The area was flat and offered little coverage. Snow covered everything, making the dullest color pop against the utter whiteness. From where she crouched, she could only see the backs of swirling black cloaks and the occasional bright streak of light. The only possible way to go unnoticed was if she was able to get to the back farmhouse unnoticed and then sneak along the wall. It was about ten feet away. She would have to run for it. Of course then she had to try to find the injured and she had no idea where to look.

"Evans, come back here. Did you really think that you could just waltz through without anyone noticing? We have ten minutes. We can not afford any time to go and fight. In order for this to work we can't be seen! " Emmeline hissed at Lily as she edged away from the snowdrift. A little harder than needed, Vance tapped Lily's head with her wand. A wet, cold sensation seemed to drip slowly down her neck, shoulders, back, all the way to her feet. She looked down where her body was supposed to be and saw nothing white snow. The effects of the disillusion charm.

"Bugger. We have eight minutes now. Come on, and be quiet." Lily followed the sound of the crunch of snow and the little footprints Emmeline made, sometimes dodging jets of colored light as they got closer, praying that no one else noticed. Vance decided to go along the front of the house, instead of the back as Lily had planned, which gave them a side view of the fight. Lily paused when she heard Sirius's loud bark like laugh and searched for him among the flashes of light and long, billowing cloaks. He was diagonal from her, and he and a pale, heavily lidded, tall woman seemed to dance around each other with identical maniac grins. Bellatrix. Lily noted that she was the only one of the Death Eaters who had shed their masks.

Not too far from Sirius, Lily was surprised to see that Remus fought two Death Eaters, lithely dodging the jets of light, sending back his own in return with his own vicious smile. It was only ever in battle when Lily could believe that her friend truly was a werewolf. She picked up her pace—if Dumbledore had called Remus in from his undercover mission... As she continued to creep by, she was able to hear Sirius and Bellatrix taunting each other. Bellatrix was the only one who had taken off her skull mask.

"So Bella, how goes the marriage? I'm curious if you've told Rod yet of your little obsession with Voldy-Moldy? How has he taken it I w—" Bellatrix screamed and slashed the air with her wand sending a jagged, blood red stream of light toward Sirius. He laughed and casually cast a shield charm, but it passed thru and hit his arm. His laughing stopped abruptly, and Lily saw the snow turn red around him. He hastily pressed his cloak around his wound, trying to wind the fabric around the gash, panic making his moves sharp and jerky.

"So, you are really the best Dumbledore could send. Pity you decided to be a blood traitor, You've gotten weak," Bellatrix poked his left cheek with her wand, and with her other hand, wrenched his bloody arm out of his grip. Lily Evans stopped and disregarding her need for secrecy, shot a nonverbal full body bind curse at Bellatrix. She fell to the ground with a satisfying thump, leaving Sirius free to re-wrap his arm and mutter a healing spell before Bellatrix broke out of her curse.

"Evans! What are you doing? We have two minutes left! Leave the fighting to the others," Emmeline's voice hissed near her ear. Focusing on the task on hand, Lily trudged through the snow, which was getting deeper with each step. Despite the heating charm, the cold wetness was seeping through her clothing, freezing her skin. They had just made it out of the battle zone, when they bumped into seemingly nothing.

"This must be it!" Lily heard the mumbled finite incantatem from Emmeline Vance and suddenly three stretchers with three bodies wrapped in blankets up to their noses appeared. Emmeline muttered the spell once more, revealing Lily and herself again.

"We have thirty seconds left. Take the scarf and drape it over all three of them, and make sure that you are touching it too." Emmeline watched her work carefully.

"What about you?" Lily asked, after successfully completing her task.

"I am going to go help out in the fight. I'm not a healer." The dark haired woman said matter of factly. Before she was able to open her mouth to protest, Lily and her three new patients arrived at the safe house.

The redhead opened her eyes, and carefully removed her arms from the cold water. Satisfied that they were completely numb she opened the door and summoned a bandage and soothing salve. After she was wrapped up, she set out to check on her patients. Out of all the three, Alice had suffered the least amount of damage. Most of her cuts and burns were almost completely healed. Fabian had a long, deep slice extending from the base of his neck to his midsection, and only a couple of burns on his face and hands, which, besides the slash on his midsection, were also healing up quite well. She had a suspicion that the cut was created by dark magic and would never heal right.

Alastor Moody was the worst. He had deep gouges in his face, third degree burns on his chest, and she had found bits of glass and ceramic embedded in his skin all throughout his torso. Lily wasn't positive she got all of them out. Most of his injuries were caused by dark magic. Despite the extent of their wounds, it didn't make sense to Lily why they were still unconscious after three days of healing. If unconscious could even properly describe their state. It seemed like they were in a constant nightmare, sometimes groaning and yelling out nonsense, always restless.

Lily had refused visitors. Fabian's family found this particularly hard to understand. Molly Weasley's determination was a force to be reckoned with indeed. Lily ended up being forced to set extra security measures in the safe house. How she found out their location which was supposed to be secret Lily wasn't sure. But still, she held her own against Molly's big sister fury. No one, Lily decided, needed to see them in this state of torture. She found it incredibly difficult to view them as strangers, so she could work on them with a clear head. Moody was one of their infallible leaders, he had the most experience, and he was the most resilient.

And now he lay twisting in bed sheets, his face contorted in fear and pain, whimpering. Yesterday Lily caught word that Dumbledore was working with the Ministry to acquire a very private room in St. Mungos that would have the best security. That thought is what kept her going. That she would be able to return to her old, busy life eventually.

Suddenly a horrible shrill sound went off, filling up the mostly quiet room with noise. It was the caterwauling charm she set up. Steeling herself for the worst, she stood wand at the ready, running through millions of curses and charms for dueling. Then the ear splitting noise stopped. The door of her makeshift hospital opened with a loud creak, and out stepped a tall, old man with a long silvery beard wearing midnight blue robes with stars embroidered on the edges.

"Hello Miss Evans. How do our patients fare today? I fear I might have alarmed you." Dumbledore smiled kindly at the redhead as if it was completely normal for her to be pointing her wand at him as a greeting. She lowered it quickly and returned a smile somewhat forced.

"Hello Sir. They're healing, I believe, but only their outside wounds." She chose to ignore his comment about scaring her and moved to let him examine the three himself.

"Curious choice of words. But I think, unfortunately, you are correct." He looked closely at Moody's troubled expression and checked his injuries. Lily sat back in her rickety stool.

"What is your professional opinion on their coma?" He switched his appraising gaze to her, letting his blue eyes look over his half moon spectacles.

"I am not sure what caused it. It must have been some severe trauma or something...less natural. I don't know if it will leave brain damage or if it makes them unable to sense things in reality as with muggle comas. From what I have seen, it's like a nightmare that they can't wake up from," She said, one hand tugging on her tight bun. Dumbledore seemed to see passed her and after a moment moved to study the patients in silence.

"Sir, you act as if you've already considered what I said." Dumbledore turned from Alice and faced her once more with a glint in his eye.

"I have." Lily's eyebrows furrowed and she bit her lip.

"Then you've seen this before?" She met his gaze this time and couldn't help but feel like they were having a chat in his office at Hogwarts again.

"No, but I have a theory." He paused and let his stare pierce into her. "I fear that the days ahead will only become more difficult. Much more difficult indeed." He smiled at her once more, a sympathetic, pitying smile. One that made Lily feel nervous.

"Well, I must be off to Hogwarts. Minerva will not be pleased with how much time I spent away today. Good luck Miss Evans! I can see myself out." He chuckled as he strode out of the room and shut the door behind him. Lily Evans sat for hours later, chewing on her lip, wondering exactly what Dumbledore had meant.