A/N- Okay, I know this one is a little short as compared ot the others but trust me this chapter is anything but meaningless! I hope you like it! When you're done please leave me a review!

Chapter 11: Waking Moments

When Hermione and Ron got home late that night with the rest of their boys, Jack was still sitting outside Lily's door. When he heard the front door open, he got up and walked into his room to avoid the imposing questions from his brothers that he knew would come if they saw him sitting in the hallway. He left his bedroom door open and sat in the chair facing the window.

"Ok, come on boys," his mother's voice said. "Time for bed!"

"But Mum!" Joe protested.

"Listen to your mother," Ron told them firmly. The voices where getting louder and soon he heard his younger brothers speed past.

Andrew stopped at his door when he saw him sitting there alone. "Jack? Where's Lily?" he asked, walking into the room.

"In her room," Jack answered shortly.

Andrew took a seat on the bed across from the chair. Jack kept his eyes focused on the backyard through the window in front of him. "Is something wrong?"

"I don't know. I think so…maybe," Jack said vaguely.

Andrew looked mildly amused, "What kind of answer is that? You think so? Maybe?"

"She shut herself in her room!" Jack yelled in frustration. "She asked me to leave her alone."

"And you listened to her?" Andrew asked, bewildered.

"Of course I listened to her!" Jack replied, standing up and pacing the room. "What else was I supposed to do?"

"You were not supposed to leave her alone!" Andrew said firmly. "You were supposed to get your arse in there and help her!"

"She won't let me! She used magic to lock the door!"

Andrew walked over to his brother and shook his shoulders to reinforce his point. "Jack! What kind of wizard are you! If she won't open the door then just open it yourself!"

Jack opened his mouth to retort but couldn't think of anything better to say other than, "You're right."

"Of course I'm right! I take after Mum! You clearly take after Dad because you're incredibly thick! This is Lily we're talking about! When she's hurting she shuts herself off. Now get over there and help my sister!"

Jack didn't need telling twice. He knew Lily was just as important to him as she was to his brothers. Like Andrew said, she was their sister. He set his jaw, stood up straight, and walked out his bedroom door and into the hall. Andrew followed and ran into his mother when he exited Jack's door.

"What's going on?" she asked, watching Jack stroll deliberately over to Lily's door.

"I think we've got it under control," Andrew said confidently. He leaned over and kissed her cheek. "Good night, Mum."

"Good night," Hermione said as she saw Jack wave his hand over Lily's door and walk inside. She heard him mutter another locking charm and silencing charm. Shaking her head, Hermione walked down the hall the other way to her bedroom and found her husband in their bedroom getting ready for bed.

Jack entered Lily's room, locked the door behind him, and cast a silence charm. He looked around and found the room empty, though he saw that the light in the bathroom was on.

"Lily?" He called through the door. When no response came he spoke again, "I'm coming in there if you don't open the door." Again he heard nothing.

He turned the knob of the door and was surprised to find it unlocked. The first thing he noted was the intense heat coming from the shower. The water must be scalding, because the room was filled with thick steam making it nearly impossible to see his hand in front of his face. He walked over to where he knew the shower door would be and opened it. Feeling around he found the knob and turned the shower off. With the door open and the shower off, the mist began to clear and Jack saw that Lily wasn't in the shower stall at all.

He turned around and saw her sitting down, with a towel wrapped around her, on the tile, with her legs drawn up into her chest. She had this dazed expression on her face that reminded him of someone who had been hit by the killing curse. It was almost like she wasn't really there. Her skin was a deep red from being under the hot water and it appeared she had bruising showing up on her face, around her nose and cheek.

He approached her slowly, not wanting to frighten her. Kneeling in front of her, he said her name several times, but her blank expression didn't change. The only movement she made was the rise and fall of her chest as she breathed in and out. Closing his eyes in concentration, he entered her mind. He was immediately sucked into some kind of memory or alternate reality and it was recent, very recent. Lily was in a strange beach house with…Malfoy. He watched the scene for several minutes before it became too much and he had to leave. When he opened his eyes he saw she had covered her face with her hands and she was weeping. She knew exactly what he'd seen.

"Jack, I'm so sorry," she said, not looking up at him. "There was nothing I could do…he…" her voice trailed off into nothingness.

"Shhhh, baby come here," he cooed, sitting on the floor next to her and wrapping his arms around her. "It's okay."

"No, no it's not okay," she cried into his shoulder. "I didn't want to make a big deal of it. Today was supposed to be Dad's day. I didn't want him worrying about me."

"Your father isn't here now. It's just me and I am very worried about you," he said, without room for question.

"It wasn't real," she declared definitively, almost to herself.

"Honey, that doesn't change much. Think about it, he can physically hurt you through these attacks and in your sleep. We need to consider the possibility that it was…"

By the time Jack finished his thoughts on what happened she was hysterical, "Oh God, why is this happening? Why? That's all I want to know! What did I do to deserve this?"

"You haven't done anything, love. I promise you I'll figure it out," he guaranteed.

"What if you can't? What then?"

"I will," he told her again.

"How can you be so sure?"

"Because I have to be!" he said, perhaps too loudly.

She jumped at the tone of his voice and pulled away. He was immediately sorry for his outburst and reached to bring her back to him. "I'm sorry. It's just that I will not loose you over this. Malfoy cannot be doing this on his own. He's got to be using some kind of curse or spell. Once we figure that out, we'll figure out how to reverse it."

"Please don't tell my father about this?" she asked, looking into his eyes.

"I promise not to tell him until we're all back at Hogwarts," he said, choosing his words carefully.

"Jack! I don't want him to know about it! You saw him today. He's happy. I don't want to be the one to take that away. This isn't the first time I've asked you to keep something from him. I don't need him worrying about me even more than he already is!"

Deciding it was time to come clean, Jack made a confession. "No, it isn't the first time you've asked me to keep things from your dad. I know I promised you I wasn't going to tell him about certain things but I have, okay? I told him about the first attack you had when we started training again that day we went to Diagon Alley. I've been confiding the truth about how you're doing all year."

Lily jumped up from her spot on the floor and glared at him. "Jack, you promised me!"

He stood up with her. "Yeah, well some promises are meant to be broken! Personally, I see this as part of the promise I've made to Harry countless times when I told him I'd always take care of you. He deserves to know the truth about his own daughter!"

"Not if it's going to cause him more worry," she countered.

"Well, I'm sorry but I'm not going to help you lie to him!" he shouted. "He is your father, Lily. This is what parents do; they worry." Lily was about to comeback with another comment, but a knock at her door interrupted their heated argument. Jack sighed and walked over to open the door.

"Dennis?" he asked in disbelief. "What are you doing here?" He knew that because he was their department head he had special permission to apparate directly into his parent's house, but usually he used the door anyway.

"We have a lead on Malfoy," he said quickly. "I thought you might like to check it out with us."

"Definitely," Jack said, running to his room to grab his cloak.

"I'm going too," Lily proclaimed.

"I don't think that's a good idea," Jack protested, pulling his cloak around his shoulders.

"Well I didn't ask you, now did I?" she said testily. "Wait just a minute while I change." She shut the door in his face.

"Issues?" Dennis asked, raising an eyebrow.

"You could call it that," Jack agreed.

"You should probably leave your parents a note," Dennis suggested.

"Right," Jack said, running to his room and scribbling a quick note and leaving it on his pillow. If they weren't home by morning, then his mum would find it there. If they were back before everyone woke up then there would be no reason alarming them. By the time he rejoined Dennis in the hallway, Lily was already dressed.

"We're meeting the rest of the unit there," Dennis told them as they hurried down the stairs.

"Where are we going?" Jack asked.

"Just grab hold of this," Dennis said, pulling out an old tennis shoe. "I had a portkey made because I knew you all wouldn't be able to apparate there 'cause you haven't seen it. It's a small island off the American coast in New England. We have intelligence that Malfoy and Luis have been spotted there."

Jack and Lily did as Dennis asked without question, and soon they all felt the strange yet familiar tug behind their navel. When the world stopped spinning and they found themselves on solid ground again, they took a look around.

The weather was freezing. Several aruors were out and about conducting searches of the otherwise vacant beach.

"I've been here before," Lily said, turning around and around.

"When?" Dennis asked.

"In a…dream," she said, pausing to look at Jack. "I have a bad feeling about this. We need to get out of here."

"We should have a look around," Dennis said, ignoring her warning.

"No, I really think we should get out of here," Lily said again.

As if to prove her point, an auror to their right came running out of some bushes screaming, "INCOMING!"

A large number of dark looking figures came out after the auror and started attacking the closest aurors. Lily saw Jack engage in a duel with one of them and before she could react to help him she received a hard kick in the back that sent her falling to the ground. She was on her feet in no time, wand at the ready.

Stunners and severing charms could be heard all over. The scene was utter chaos. Lily had stunned three of them and tied them up before looking around to see if anyone needed help. Everywhere she could see there were aurors and death eaters engaged in fighting. She couldn't tell how long they'd been fighting. Thirty minutes maybe, an hour perhaps.

She had just taken off to help Dennis who looked to be in trouble trying to handle three of them on his own when she heard someone scream her name from behind. "LILY!"

Almost at the same time, someone in the crowd yelled a curse Lily had never heard before, "Desis Contorum!"

She turned around just in time to see Jack fly into her and knock her to the ground. When she fell, she hit her head on something hard and everything went black for several moments. She didn't know how long, but when she came round she was on her stomach and something else heavy was on her back. It took her a few disoriented seconds to figure out who it was.

"Jack," she managed to croak out as she moved his limp body off her. She gently rolled him onto his back and sat up to get a better look at him. The color in his face was quickly retreating and he was gasping for breath. "Stay with me," she instructed looking him over to see what was wrong. It was so dark that she could barely see her own hand in front of her face, and because she was preoccupied with the task at hand, she didn't see a death eater come at her from her right.

Whoever the attacker was, he clearly didn't have a wand because he went straight for her throat and started strangling her. They fell to the ground and a power struggle ensued before the unidentified man pinned her hard on her back. He straddled her waist and started knocking her head on the hard ground over and over again. When Lily managed to get a fist to collide with the man's jaw, he tightened his grip on her neck. Again the world began to go fuzzy, she didn't know if it was from lack of air or the blows to the back of her head.

"You'll get yours, traitor," he said with malice.

Gasping for breath, "I'm the traitor?" she asked with equal distain. In return for her remark she got her head slammed into the ground twice more.

The man looked to his right when one of his buddies passed him a wand. He held the tip to her throat and said another unknown curse, "Fantalia!"

It was the strangest sensation Lily had ever felt. It was like the sky above her had fallen down on her chest and was pressing the life right out of her. She gagged, trying unsuccessfully to get the man off of her. Just when she thought she was going to pass out again, he suddenly disappeared before her eyes.

As soon as he was gone, the world seemed to fall back in place and she could breath normally again. She didn't move right away, as she took deep breaths to fill her lungs with much needed oxygen again. She looked around and saw all the other death eaters were gone as well. Confused she searched the sea of equally perplexed aurors for a familiar face.

"Are you alright?" Dennis asked when he ran over to her.

"Yeah, I think so," she said, massaging her neck.

He pointed to her stomach with a horrified look on his face, "You're bleeding!"

She looked down and the harsh reality hit her all at once. "It's not my blood," she said as she frantically got to her knees and crawled over to where Jack was still in the same position. "Jack, hang in there," she pleaded, opening up his robes and ripping apart his shirt to find the huge gapping wound that stretched from his side and up his chest.

"Lily," Jack mumbled, coughing up blood in the process. He squeezed his eyes shut in pain and tried to roll away from her. Lily kept him on his side while he continued to cough so he wouldn't choke. When he stopped, she turned him back and reached into her wand only to find that it wasn't there.

"Where's my wand!" She asked whoever happened to be listening. Someone handed it to her.

"Shouldn't we take him to the hospital?" Dennis suggested.

"No, it might hurt him more to transport him until we stop the bleeding," she told him.

Dennis nodded and asked, "What can I do?" He fell to his knees on Jack's other side.

"Um…just distract him from the pain," Lily told him. "Keep him awake. Don't let him close his eyes."

While Dennis kept Jack occupied, Lily went to work. She muttered a healing charm but for some reason it wasn't working properly. It was healing, but at a painstakingly slow rate.

"What's wrong?" Dennis's voice asked, "Why isn't it working?" He lit the end of his wand so she could see what she could see what she was doing.

"I don't know," Lily said, taking off her own robe to try and stem the blood still pouring from his chest. Jack screamed out when she applied pressure and made to grab her writs to pull them away.

"I'm sorry but I've got to stop the bleeding," she said regretfully.

Dennis held his hands down to keep him from moving too much.

"Just take slow, deep breaths," she said, knowing that he was beginning to panic when they locked eyes. She saw the fear he no longer had the energy to hide. She sat up on her knees, and pushed down on his wound with all her might using one hand. The other hand she used to run over his forehead in what she hoped was a reassuring manner. "That's it, you're alright," she told him, watching him struggle to control his breathing.

No matter how much Lily pressed down on his wound, the bleeding didn't slow. The healing spell had stopped working completely, only healing half the wound. Her robe was completely soaked through with his blood and her own hands were numb from applying such pressure. She was running out of ideas and Jack was going into shock. He's whole body was trembling horribly and his lips had started turning blue.

"It's just a gash," Dennis said as they both fought to keep him still so he didn't hurt himself more.

"No, it was a curse," Lily corrected.

"Curse…what curse?" Dennis asked, his eyes too clouding with worry.

"I don't know. Something I've never heard before," she said, racking her brain and trying to remember. "Two words…sounded Latin maybe…"

"We're losing him, Lily!"

"Talk to me, Jack!" She screamed shaking his shoulders trying to get his attention.

"C…c…cold," he said, fighting to keep his eyes open.

"Look at me!" Lily coached. He made eye contact with her for a few seconds before his eyes rolled in the back of his head and closed.

"Jack, come on! Open your eyes for me!"

"Something's wrong," Dennis said behind her. "He's not waking up."

"He's lost too much blood," Lily told him, clutching the base of Jack's wrist and feeling for several seconds. "I'm loosing his pulse, Dennis; we've got to get him to the hospital. We no longer have any choice."

Dennis nodded his head and bend down to take Jack's hand. "I'll take him, you follow us," he said before disapparating with a loud POP.

Just when she felt her legs hit the ground at Mungo's emergency apparition point, Lily fell to the ground in a painful heap. Baffled at her sudden lack of energy, she pulled herself off the ground and looked around. She saw several healers already loading Jack onto a stretcher. She recognized one of them as Maggie Fairchild, a fellow healer trainee she knew from her work there on the weekends.

"Lily," Maggie said, running over to her. "Are you okay? You look like death walking?"

"I'll be fine if he is," Lily said, never taking her eyes off Jack's still unmoving body. She moved to follow them as they took him behind the emergency room doors but Maggie stopped her.

"You know you'll be no help to him in there. You're in no shape to be his healer. What happened to your neck? You're all black and blue!" she asked, stepping forward and looking closer.

"I um…nothing, please just help him!" Lily asked, desperately pointing toward the doors Jack has being treated.

Maggie dismissed her plea and turned her head to look at the back of Lily's head. "You're bleeding and you look like you're about to fall over! You need to be looked at!"

Lily looked her friend in the eye and glared. "I am not going ANYWHERE until I know he's okay!"

"Leave her alone," Dennis said as walked over after seeing his employee in distress. "She's had it rough and scolding her will only make things worse."

Maggie looked annoyed and crossed her arms over her chest. "Is there someone I can floo?"

Dennis stepped forward and put a reassuring hand on Lily's shoulder. "His parents," he informed the healer. "They need to be notified, Ron and Hermione Weasley. Her father as well; Harry Potter and his wife Ginny need to be called as well."

"I'll go take care of sending someone to tell them," Maggie said squeezing Lily's hand. "They'll come out to let you know if anything changes. After that you need to see a healer."

After Maggie left, Lily felt herself being guided to the chairs in the waiting area not far away. "I don't understand why those death eaters just left like that," Dennis thought out loud next to her.

"It was a trap," Lily told him, still staring blankly ahead of her.

"Still, I don't see why they would just not take us out right then and there. They had the upper hand," Dennis admitted.

"These are death eaters we're talking about. They don't want to just kill us on some random vacant American beach. They want power and power only comes from doing something big out in the open for everyone to see. This was just a message," she warned.

"Message, a message for whom?"

"Me, you, the whole wizarding world. What does it matter?"

"Lily, are you going to be alright?" Dennis asked, looking at her with concern. "I've got to get back to see if anyone else needs help."

"I'm fine," she said, still not looking at him.

"Jack's parents will be here soon," he assured. "I'll be back to make sure he's okay. And I want you to see a healer. I mean it, Potter, you're no good to me hurt."

She nodded as she saw him leave from the corner of her eye. When she was there by herself, she couldn't help but go over everything in her mind.

The spell didn't heal the wound. She'd used that spell more times then she could remember and had never had trouble with it before. Maybe the curse had something to do with it. Or he had another injury she didn't notice or unless. Maybe she just wasn't doing it properly.

She looked down to her knees and found them stained with Jack's blood from where she'd knelt at his side. Her mind then went back to their argument. She didn't want the last thing conversation she ever had with Jack to be a fight. What were they even fighting about? Her head began to pound. She leaned her elbows on her knees and held her face in her hands.

Minutes passed like hours for Lily as she waited for any news. About thirty minutes after Jack had been brought in, his father arrived. Lily looked up into the eyes of an extremely troubled Ron Weasley.

"Lily, are you alright?" he asked as he ran over to her.

She stood and welcomed his embrace. "You're hurt…you're bleeding," Ron said when he pressed his hand to the back of her head and felt warm blood on his palm. Her cloths and shoes, her face and hair; it was everywhere. Looking down at her, he saw she was covered in dried blood. He knew all of that couldn't be from the back of her head.

She pulled away to look him in the eye. "I'm fine. Jack's still in there…he took a curse for me…he…he…"

"Jack's blood," Ron concluded, looking at her again.

Lily held out her hands which were also stained red and he couldn't miss how horribly her fingers shook before him.

"Its okay honey, he'll be fine," Ron told her, though he didn't sound all that sure.

"Uncle Ron…there was so much blood," she cried into his shoulder. "I tried to heal him but it didn't work. I don't understand."

Fighting to keep his composure, he held her tighter. "Shhhhh, Jack's tough he'll pull through this."

"Where's Aunt Hermione?" she asked, suddenly realizing she wasn't there.

"Someone from the hospital came busting into the house and woke everyone up. She was trying to calm the kids down when I told her I'd go on ahead. She'll be here any minute."

"Oh God, the boys," Lily whispered as the room began to spin. How could she ever face them if…if…

Ron seemed to sense that Lily wasn't handling all this too well. He felt her tremble in his arms. "It's okay, calm down. I need to get you to a healer," he said looking around for help.

It was then that they heard a voice from down the hall scream, "Ron!"

Sure enough, there was Hermione Weasley running down the hall in her dressing robe to her husband and goddaughter.

Ron let go of Lily as just in time to catch his wife as she ran into his arms. "Is he alright? Do they know anything?" Hermione asked anxiously.

"No," Lily answered for him. "They won't tell me anything." She had this haunted look in her eye and it didn't take long for Hermione to become worried as well.

"Honey, sit down," Hermione said, forcing her down into a chair. "I sent an owl to your dad before I left. He should be here soon," she told her reassuringly. "We'll get through this. It'll be okay."

The three stayed there with their arms around each other for what felt like an eternity. Healers and visitors walked around them as life continued to pass them by, but at the same time the world seemed to stand still. It wasn't until the double ER doors opened that they pulled apart. A male healer walked over to them with an unreadable expression.

"Please tell us he's is alright," Ron begged.

The healer looked skeptical, "We've done everything we can for him. It took forever to get his bleeding to stop but it finally has. He lost a great deal of blood and his magical reserves are dangerously low which means he's very week. No matter what we do we can't seem to get him to open his eyes. He doesn't' respond to light or even pain stimulation. The good news is that his brain activity is still really good and he is breathing on his own without any heroic measures. Now he may just be too weak to open his eyes right now. This could be from the battle or it could be from some other kind of curse."

"He was hit with a curse," Lily told him, struggling to get to her feet. "It was meant for me…He pushed me from behind."

"Do you remember what curse?" The healer asked with intent.

Again, Lily searched her mind, "I can't remember. It's all a bit fuzzy. I'm sorry." She rubbed the back of her head tenderly and was startled to see she was still bleeding.

The healer patted her on the shoulder. "When we're done here I need you to go get checked out, do you hear me? We'll talk to other aurors at the scene and see if they heard anything."

"But he will wake up?" Hermione implied, bringing the topic of conversation back to Jack. "When he gets some of his energy back?"

The healer looked skeptical, "We hope."

Hermione's face screwed up in anger. "That is my son in there, so I don't want to hear 'we hope so!'" She screamed at the top of her lungs, taking a threatening step towards the healer.

Ron stepped behind her and pulled her back to him. "It's not his fault, love. Yelling won't help anyone, least of all our son."

Lily watched as her godparents comforted each other. The healer however turned back to her. "You're Lily Potter aren't you?" he asked, stepping towards her.

"Yes," she said, having to focus very hard to form an audible word.

"Do you remember me? You assisted me in a procedure last weekend?" He asked trying to get her attention.

"I…um…," she mumbled closing her eyes and trying to focus. She knew she felt someone's hand on the small of her back trying to steady her. It was almost like she was having an out of body experience.

"Lily, can you hear me?" the healer asked with concern. He turned around to the nurse sitting at the desk a few meters away and yelled, "I need a stretcher over here, now!"

She felt her body stagger backwards. Vaguely, she heard the healer ask her if she was okay again but this time it was almost as if he was talking from the other side of a long tunnel. Slowly she was overcome by exhaustion and felt her body fall to the ground.

"Oh Merlin!" Hermione cried as she and Ron helped the healer get Lily onto the stretcher that had been brought over.

"What's wrong with her?" Ron demanded to know.

"I don't know, Sir," the healer said as he made a light appear on the tip of his wand. He held Lily's eye lids open one at the time. "Has she been tired lately? Acting strangely?"

Ron and Hermione looked at each other and Ron spoke for the two of them, "No more than usual, but Jack is the one who would really know. He's…he's the one who be able to tell you."

"Well unfortunately I don't have that option," the healer said with a touch of annoyance in his voice. "Who is she to you?"

"Our son's fiancée and our goddaughter!" Hermione said, growing angry again.

"And do you have the authority to make medical decisions for her until her father is here?" the healer asked as he continued to look Lily over and check her vitals. Now she was barely conscious at all and clearly not aware of her surroundings.

"Yes, we do," Ron said taking Lily's hand and giving it a squeeze. "Its okay, sweetheart, you're going to be fine."

"Lily," the healer said getting her attention. "Tell me how many fingers I'm holding up." The man held out four fingers on his right hand in front of Lily's face.

She squinted her eyes as if she was trying to see a mountaintop off in the far distance. She said nothing, and only shook her head.

"No response," the healer indicated to the nurse who was taking notes behind him.

"What does that mean?" Hermione asked.

"Lady, I'm going to have to ask you to step aside," the healer chastised.

"I will do no such thing!" Hermione fired back, standing her ground.

"Lily, squeeze my hands," the healer asked taking hold of both of her hands. After a few moments he spoke again to the nurse, "Weak on both sides."

"Could she have been hit with a curse also?" The healer asked Ron.

"I don't know… I wasn't there, but I suppose she could have been," Ron said, watching Lily get paler and paler by the second.

"We're going to take her back to have a better look," the healer said, rolling the stretcher to the double ER doors. "You'll have to wait here."

"Someone will come speak to you about her and your son as soon as we know anything," the nurse consoled, sensing their worry.

"Get her father here," the healer yelled over his shoulder. "Now."

A/N- Wouldn't you like to know what happs! Please tell me what you think! Also, I'd just like to say thank you to my wonderful beta who tooks time out of her busy days to read all my chapters! You rock!