Disclaimer: This isn't mine.
Sirius, Lily and James opened their eyes, and found Dark Marks and eerie lights and derelict shops peering in at them from all sides. The tiny tow was much more run down than it had been when Lily James and Remus had been there, as though a band of people had charged through the town and hexed everything in sight. One nearby house had been blown up completely, its burnt out shell acting like a beacon for changing times, and putting Lily even more on the edge than she was already, grabbing James hand tightly.
"Where to now?" she asked timidly, feeling a lot less confident now that they had left the warmth and comfort of Hogwarts, though no less determined.
Lily could feel something deep inside her. It was life an ancient voice calling out to her. She didn't know weather she was imagining it or not, all she knew was that she had to ignore the alarmed screams of her friends and put one foot over the other, heading for the caves that dusted the outskirts of the town, back behind them.
"Lily! Lily where are you going?" James asked.
"There's something there…" she said, in reverent tones. James looked to Sirius for support, but his features were oddly blank. This wasn't unusual. James remembered feeling simular upon his first visit to the crude town.
"Lily, Lily we have to find the stone."
"We are. I can here it. It's calling to me. They are." She said calmly. "They think that when one of us touches it then the effects will be reversed again…" she said, speaking the words in a detached kind of way, not knowing where the sudden bursts of knowledge came from, only knowing that she was right, and that there was nothing more important than getting to the stone.
"Lily,
how do you?"
"I don't know James I just have to trust it."
She said quietly, and James followed her obligingly, grabbing Sirius
forearm and leading him along, scared, looking around them nervously.
Lily kept on walking. One foot over the next, not stopping to look at Sirius and James, the sound of their feet thumping the cold stone ground enough reassurance for her determined mind to know that they were still there.
"What was that?" James asked, when a twig on the road snapped behind them. He whipped around quickly.
"Nothing." Said Sirius quiet quickly, the first noise that he had made since they had begun to walk. Lily spoke quietly again.
"It's probably nothing, calm down James, it's ok, we're almost there." She told him, putting a soothing arm on his, but not turning her head away from the way that they were walking.
Then, as suddenly as she had started, Lily stopped. Right in front of a hard stone wall.
"Here." Lily muttered, running her hands over the hard stone. James just stared.
"Lily, there is no way that we can get in there." He said quietly, resting a comforting hand on her shoulder. Lily ignored him. There was something that she hadn't thought of…something that would help her…
But nothing came. After standing in front of the wall for what seemed like forever, Lily groaned in frustration, and sat with her back against it, her head in her hands, feeling utterly defeated. James knelt in front of her.
"Sorry Lily." He said quietly. "I guess we can go back to the village, and ask someone…" he suggested pathetically, yet without must deliberation. Lily shook her head softly, and allowed James to pull her to her feet, but not wanting to leave the spot. There seemed to be something that she should have thought of. Something simply that she had forgotten.
Why was it that she could here something, calling to her, and the other two couldn't? They wee just as pure as she was, just as determined to find the stone…why was it that Lily knew where to come?
As though it had been listening to her thoughts, or tracing her feelings, the tiny bloodstone in Lily pocket suddenly seared with heat, and she snatched it up in her hand at once, it's warm smooth surface feeling comforting in the palm of her hand.
Lily pressed it up against the wall.
James gasped, Sirius just stared, and Lily leapt back in fright, clutching at James robes and trying not to loose the bloodstone that she had drawn from the tiny velvet bag. The wall that had previously stood so solidly in front of them had moved apart, the flawless skin of it's hard surface undamaged as it moved smoothly back, leaving a large opening in it's place.
And there it was. In all it's ancient glory, radiating power from its bright alluring visage. A large green stone, sitting in the middle of the cave on a stone stand, red cracks all over it's perfect surface giving out a scarlet light so fierce that it danced on the walls beautifully and cast a crimson light melting over them all, as Lily and James stepped into the cave, cautious.
It was as though Sirius had suddenly remembered why they were there. He leapt forward and ran for the stone in the centre of the cave, his arms stretching out in anxiety, and reaching out to grasp its unblemished façade.
Sirius clasped his hand around the stone, and…nothing happened.
He lifted it off the stand it was rested on…nothing happened. James let out a triumphant whoop, and gabbed Lily into a rib cracking hug, spinning her around wildly, and grinning crazily. Lily squealed, throwing her arms in the air. They expected Sirius to run right up to them, laughing, even crying in relief as Lily was now doing…
Sirius didn't even blink when he neared James and Lily. He didn't slow down. He kept on walking, straight past the place where James and Lily where celebrating. They quietened down.
"Sirius?" asked Lily.
Sirius didn't reply, he just kept on walking. Lily caught sight of his eyes. They seemed to be going wild, flashing with something like determination, yet at the same time looking oddly blank. Something was wrong. Suddenly, they seemed to light up, and he threw the heliotrope with what seemed to be enormous effort, so that it hit the far wall of the cave and bounced back down onto the floor, without a crack or a splinter.
"Crucio!" cried Bellatrix Lestrange, stepping out from behind the entrance of the cave, infuriated that her imperius curse had been defeated. James and Lily took one quick look at each other, and then watched in pain as Sirius fell.
He let out a horrible scream and twitched and writhed horribly on the ground.
Another Death Eater, who had his hood hiding all but his irate eyes, came out behind her, and pointed his wand at James.
Lily pointed her wand at him, an, without a noise, the man stopped in mid movement, frozen by her spell.
"It wont hold for long." She muttered to James, getting ready to take on Bellatrix, "Just keep fighting them until we can get the stone." She said desperately, and threw her wand into the air, as James moved forward to continue with the frozen Death Eater.
"Deflecto!" Bellatrix screamed, the stunning spell that Lily had been casting on her rebounding in a flash of blinding light, and hitting the other side of the cave, shattering the rock of the wall where it had hit and sending pieces of jagged stone crumbling mercilessly to the ground.
But it was enough. Sirius rolled over onto his stomach, and lay, face first on the floor of the cave, groaning in agony, though no longer screaming. Bellatrix didn't seem to care. The red haired girl with the fiery eyes that stood before her was much more of a problem to her now. Her cousin would have to wait.
"Cruc-"
"Expelliarmus!" cried Lily, cutting Bellatrix off in shock and sending the death eater's wand flying out of the entrance of the cave…
Meanwhile, on the other side of the cave, James Potter was dodging and ducking the curses thrown at him by the masked death eater, his deep, taunting voice haunting James, but not so much that he couldn't utilise the excellent reflexes that being a chaser for six years had given him. Unable to get a curse in himself, James was forced to roll on the ground and jump over beams of light as they blasted out a him from the tip of the abnormally thick wand that the death eater was brandishing,
James dared to glance over at where Lily was fighting Bellatrix, but his sight was blinded by a cruciatus curse that was blasted just passed his right ear, and he shelved his worries, and drew his wand.
Bellatrix's eyes opened in horror when she realised that her wand was so far out of reach. Lily watched, as Bellatrix's ruthless eyes darted from the entrance of the cave, where her wand lay abandoned and useless, to the bloodstone in the corner. She needed to get what she came for…
Lestrange ran, across the cave, and Lily found her, screaming so loud that she thought her lungs would burst. The words that she had pondered over so many times in her head rang out in her ears as though someone was shouting them at her…history would repeat itself in the worst possible way if Bellatrix Lestrange got her hands on that stone…it was too late, she couldn't make it in time…There was no way that she could get to the stone before Bellatrix did, her black hair whipping her shoulders as she dived for it…
"Reducto!" Lily cried, and the stone blew up in a cloud of red smoke and shards of stone.
She could see nothing. For a moment she thought that the spell hadn't worked, and all the smoke was from Bellatrix reaching the stone in time, but before the case of dread enveloped her she caught sight of James through the fog.
"Appearate!" she cried, desperately. Lunging for Sirius' lifeless body, lying immobile on the other side of the cave, Lily grasped him close to her, and apparated back to Hogsmeade.
A/N: well, I thought that that would be a great cliffhanger to leave you with, but then I remembered that Sirius was Sirius so you weren't really wondering whether he survived or not! Haha. Well, that was hard to write, I'm better at fluff, and being cute than I am at writing action, so I hope that you don't mind if this wasn't the best chapter. This story, as you can probably tell, is almost at its fateful end, and I hope that you have enjoyed it so far. At least one more chapter. Don't forget, keep watching out for the follow up; 'The Official Documents Of The Order Of The Phoenix'
Luv Ella xXx