This chapter is dedicated to soft n' fluffy who reviews absolutely everything! You're one of my favorite reviewers, there's about three people I wait for reviews from before I post because they're so reliable and wonderful and you're one of them! You always seem to know what's going to happen though, so maybe this will throw you off a bit.
(The other two are going to have dedications coming up, but remember, I love everyone's reviews!)
Lily got up to go downstairs and find James for herself, since she doubted that Severus would tell him to come up. She walked, as carefully as possible out the door, only to be met by the staircase.
She heard people below her talking in hushed tones, and saw many dark cloaked figures at the bottom of the stairs. She crept down one step. It was silent. She still couldn't hear them, so she crept down a few more. When she was about half way down, one of them looked up.
"Lily? What are you doing?" yelled a shocked voice. Lily was taking another step down, when she heard the voice. She jumped a little, and as you probably know a pregnant woman's balance isn't the greatest. She immediately came crashing down the rest of the stairs. When she reached the bottom, she didn't get up.
"Someone help her!" shouted one of the cloaked figures. Remus fell forward onto his knees trying to get Lily to wake up. James would kill him for sure when he found out.
"Don't move her, you fool!" Moody growled.
"Someone call for help, get our healers down here, immediately!" Molly Weasley called out to the group, they all started to run except for Remus, who was still cradling Lily.
"Is she breathing alright?" Molly asked, looking down at Remus. He nodded.
"Is she going to be alright, Molly? James will never forgive me if she or the baby dies," Remus said, looking extremely worried.
Molly sat down next to him, rubbing his back. "It's going to be alright Remus, she'll be just fine," Molly said, in her famous motherly tone.
James looked to his side, seeing Sirius, his wand outstretched. The cloaked figure to Voldemort's right lay on the ground dead.
"Good work Mr. Black," Voldemort said with pleasure.
James turned to Sirius. "I can't believe you!" he bellowed. Sirius looked at him, amused.
"What can't you believe, that I decided to be loyal to my family for once? The ones who truly care about me?" he asked, ever so smoothly. James stared at Sirius as if he were a multicolored dancing pig.
"You went over to the Dark Side?" he asked in disbelief.
"James can't you see? The Dark side will prevail. Join us, think of how great our names will be!" Sirius said, grabbing James' arms.
James nodded and pulled out his wand, without anyone noticing.
"Expelliarmus!" he said. Sirius flew back into the wall, and slumped to the ground, unconscious.
"What have you done to him Voldemort?" he seethed.
Voldemort smiled cruelly. "Nothing Potter. Absolutely nothing," he replied.
"What do you want with me?" James asked holding his wand out to Voldemort's face.
"I want you to stop the Order. I want them completely destroyed, and after that I want you to kill Snape, he is of no use to me," Voldemort said, staring at the tip of James's wand.
"No," James said, flat out.
"Why not? Snape is your worst enemy, you've been dreaming of this for years, Potter!" Voldemort said, getting up.
"I will not kill Snape, I may hate him, but I don't kill off my inferiors for no reason. I think I could make an exception for you, though. Avada Kedavra!" James said, the jet of green light hitting Voldemort square in the chest. It bounced off immediately and went flying back towards James. He dropped to the ground immediately, dodging the curse.
"Ah Potter, you do not seem to realize that I am your superior. You will never be as great a wizard as I am," he said, getting up and circling around his desk towards James, who was still on the ground.
"I am going to let you leave just this once, I don't enjoy winning when my opponent is not at his best, especially since it's you, Potter. I want to say I beat the famous James Potter at his best," Voldemort said kicking James. James looked at Voldemort puzzled.
"Quickly, before I change my mind!" he yelled. James scrambled up and ran for Sirius. He apparated both of them to the Shrieking Shack.
"I need some help!" yelled a voice from just inside the Shrieking Shack. There were many people bustling around.
People came into the entrance looking at Sirius, who was in James's arms.
"What happened?" one of them asked.
"Voldemort," James said. Some people shuddered at the sound of it, one woman screamed.
"Get over it, we're supposed to bet the top defense against Voldemort, how are we supposed to conquer him if we can't even say his name?" James asked, glaring at them.
Just then he saw two figures dressed completely in white dash for the stairs.
"Who are they?" he asked, laying Sirius down gently.
"Healers," Moody replied, giving James a sympathetic look. That was a first. James knew what the look meant. Lily was in trouble.
James pushed his way through the crowd gathering around Sirius, towards the bottom of the stairs where he had seen the healers run to. There was a small pool of blood on the ground, and more trailing up the stairs. James quickly followed the trail to Lily's room.
He saw healers around the bed, completely blocking his view of Lily. He spotted Remus in the corner, and rushed over.
"What happened? Is she going to be okay? Where's the blood coming from?" James asked, quickly.
Remus looked up, his eyes large with tears. "She fell down the stairs, I'm sorry James, I'm so sorry," he said, looking at what would be his friend for only a few more minutes.
"Why are you sorry? It's not your fault she fell," James replied, trying to look over some of the healers.
"I'm sorry but you two are going to have to leave," a healer, now covered in blood, was saying.
"Is she going to be ok?" James asked.
All he got was another sympathetic look before being ushered out the door. Soon he was downstairs in the kitchen holding a hot cup of tea that Molly had made for him.
"How did she fall?" he asked, looking at the others that were gathered around him.
"We were having a conversation about what had happened to you and Sirius. She came halfway down without us hearing. I looked up and saw her, and yelled caught by surprise. She lost her balance, James. I'm so sorry," Remus said looking anywhere but at James.
James got up and left. Molly followed him.
"You really shouldn't be so hard on him, James, we're all going through tough times now," she said.
"You're going through tough times? Look at Lily and me! We've gone through so much in just a couple of weeks! I found out she left me because she was pregnant, and she's been having complications, then she was bloody KIDNAPPED! She gets back and is fine. Now, she falls down the stairs, she could DIE!" James yelled at her.
Molly stared at him, looking a bit scared by his sudden outburst, but quickly regained her composure.
"Well, your friend knows that he caused part of this, think about how guilty he must feel. All he wants is for you to forgive him. Look at what he has to deal with once a month!" Molly shouted. It was James' turn to stare now.
"How did you find out about that?" he asked, dumbfounded.
"You're not the only observant one with a brain, James!" she shouted, and stormed back into the kitchen.
Sirius brushed by James, also going into the kitchen.
"What is with people today?" James asked himself, and walked back into the kitchen.
"I'm sorry Remus, I shouldn't have acted like that, Lily's going to be just fine. I overreacted. Will you forgive me?" James asked, sitting next to his friend.
"I'd love nothing more, Prongs," Remus replied.
James looked at the bandage on the back of Sirius' head. "Sorry about that, Padfoot," James said, wincing. Sirius's hair was still matted with blood.
"You have nothing to feel sorry about, Prongs, I'm the one who should be apologizing," Sirius replied, staring into his bottle of fire whisky.
"What do you mean? You didn't do anything wrong!" James said, looking surprised.
"None of this would have happened if I wasn't so weak," Sirius said, sighing.
"You're not weak!" James said. What had gotten into his friends today?
"You're one of the strongest people I know!" Remus said, looking surprised.
"No I'm not, he got me, he put the Imperius curse on me, and I couldn't stop him. I couldn't stop him at all! He told me to kill you, and I almost did. He told me to join him, and I almost did, if it weren't for you! If I could have just resisted the curse, you could have been here with Lily. Then she wouldn't have fallen, and we could all be happy right now!" Sirius said, draining the rest of the bottle.
James leaned over and hugged his friends, all of them were feeling a bit guilty right now.
Just then Snape walked in through the door.
"Ah, I knew that you three had something going on," he drawled, grabbing a cup of tea from the counter.
"What do you want, Severus?" James spat, sitting back down.
"Just to get this guilty feeling off my chest. I would like to apologize to you, Potter. I feel bad because Lily had told me to send you up. I'm afraid because I didn't, she came down here to look for you, and fell," he replied, walking out.
"He's such an insensitive jerk!" Sirius growled, still staring at the door.
"Sirius calm down, it's fine at least he apologized," Remus said.
"He's still in love with Lily," James said, the realization hitting him, "that's the only reason he apologized!"
Suddenly the door to the kitchen swung open and a healer walked in.
"Is Lily ok?" he said, getting up quickly, knocking pitchers of water and food off of the table in the process.
"She'll be fine, we just need to observe her for a while."
"Why? You said she's fine, if she's fine, you wouldn't have to watch her!" Sirius said quickly, also getting up.
"Sit down, both of you!" said McGonagall, walking in with a second healer.
"Lily is in serious condition right now, and it's vital that she's not alone at any time. When she fell she hit her head very hard. She's still not awake, we think there is some serious damage to the spinal cord as well, which could complicate things when she goes into labor," said the first healer.
"Is my baby ok?" asked James, feeling even more worried.
The healer nodded, "He's fine, but we must keep a watch on him too because when your wife-"
"She's not my wife," James said quickly.
"When Lily fell your child's umbilical cord wrapped around his neck, he'll be fine now since we got it off, but if he moves too much he could get wrapped in it again," she said, looking only at James.
James sighed, "Can I go see Lily now?" he asked, impatiently.
The healer nodded and James dashed up the stairs.
Lily looked so helpless lying there in the bed. So helpless, and pale. She looked about half of her size.
James rushed to the chair by her side. There was a variety of medical equipment hooked up to her, almost like at a muggle hospital. He could see that she was struggling to breathe. There was a large gash on her cheek.
"Lily, you're going to get better, because I would never forgive you if you left me now. I can't live knowing you're not there when I come home. Do you know how hard the last eight and a half months have been for me?" he whispered. Somehow he knew that Lily was able to hear him.
"Lily I love you so much, you mean the world to me, and now we're going to have a baby! You don't know how happy that makes me! You've got to get better so you can have the baby without complications, you've got to, Lily," he said, kissing her softly on the lips. As he did so he heard alarms going off. He looked at one of the monitors, and it started to flash.
He heard footsteps running up the stairs, and the door slammed open. One of the healers pushed him out of the way. Everything started to slow down for James. Everything was in slow motion.
"She's not breathing!" one of the healers said.
"Her heart stopped!" said the other one. More healers came in and James was pushed from the room. The last thing he saw was a multi-colored flash of spells and charms.
Author's Note: Ok, so how was that? We have a little more drama. I personally love this chapter, but that's just me. So review and tell me what you think, or what you think is going to happen or what you hope will happen.
Thank you, to: sirius'girl4eva99, SweetSouthernGal, and JediGurl who reviewed last chapter! I love you guys in the straightest way possible, lol!