Disclaimer: I don't own anything you recognize. All characters belong to a woman with a great imagination and determination, capable of creating this world that is the center of so many stories.

Sins of Angels: Well, here's the next chapter. Thanks to all reviewers! You guys had great (and in the case of egg nog, very funny) ideas, but I kind of took one and went off on a tangent from it. So here it is, complete with inviting title and all. Enjoy.

Chapter 34 – Casualties

Sirius jumped, his broken paw flinging wildly as his good one landed in Greyback's face. James couldn't take it, and staggered back as Sirius bounded behind him. Lily paused. He was moving around too fast.

She wanted to aim it right. So, going for the safer option, she shot binds out of her wand. They wrapped around the intruder as he started ripping them, providing only a momentary stop.

The dog and that stag turned to look at her. Greyback, sensing that something was wrong, turned his eyes on her. He grinned.

"Ah, you must be that mudblood Snape speaks so fondly of," he said, ripping another bind. "You'd think you guys had sex or something," he said absentmindedly, fiddling with the ones around his shoulders. The stag charged at him again, one of his antlers coming too close to Greyback's stomach for comfort as he pinned him to the wall once more. "I see that's a rather touchy subject with you, Potter, is it? Can't be the little trick they tried in September, could it?"

The antler dug into his stomach. He winced slightly as blood began to trickle down his shirt.

"You going to kill me, beautiful?" he asked tauntingly, ripping yet another bind. His breath was shallow and rough. Lily looked outraged. She raised her wand.

This is it! "Avada Kedavra!" she yelled. Sirius turned to look at her, the surprise on his face evident. James ducked his head down lower. The werewolf just grinned, smiling at the jet of green light heading for him.

"Mother, let me go!" Remus yelled in his room at St. Mungo's. "They're still in trouble!"

"The Aurors are on their way, dear. There's nothing you can do except get in the way."

They have been sitting next to Mr. Lupin arguing for the last five minutes. Remus kept wanting to leave, but his mother spoke to him in a calm, quiet voice. "I have to help!"

"Help how?" his mother suddenly exploded. "Look what that thing did to your father! Do you propose to face him, with how little you know?"

Remus's face whitened. "Aurors? They're…they're going there?"

His mother nodded. "In a minute or so. They're just trying to get a team ready-hey! Where do you think you're going? Come back here, Remus James Lupin! I forbid you to leave this hospital!"

"Aurors are coming," Remus muttered under his breath as he hurried out to the entrance of the hospital, waiting to Apparate. "And Sirius and James are their animal forms. Oh, Merlin's beard, they'll be thrown in Azkaban!"

The werewolf smiled. He could feel the curse wasn't strong enough. He smiled again as he yelled out "Protego!" and the curse deflected back at the witch, who stared at it. It hit her, in the chest. Her eyes fluttered for a moment as she collapsed against the railing, her wand rolling out of her hand. Greyback grinned. Maybe the girl had more power than he thought.

He then smiled horribly at she astounded stag in front of him, and swiveled the wand to him, and after a flash of blue-white light, James was standing in front of him, his head down and on his hands and knees. The man brought his hand down in the middle of the boy's shoulders with such force that James just hit the floor flat.

Sirius had transformed and had rushed up the stairs to Lily, his arm bones coming through his skin at either side of his arm. With his right, he carefully checked her neck for a pulse. Before he could find the spot, Greyback had hit James. Sirius turned at the loud crashing and saw his best friend on the floor, groaning slightly, and the half-wolf looking at him and Lily as if they were breakfast. Sirius gulped.

Remus burst through the door, out of breath, and took in the scene around him. Greyback had a wand. He seemed to have used it, because James was on the floor, throughrougly human, and Lily was unconscious.

At least, she seemed unconscious. Her chest didn't seem to be moving.

Seeing the look in the werewolf's eyes, Remus made up his mind. "Here, puppy!" he called. It worked. Greyback rounded on him.

"And I thought your sensible mother had taken you away from me!" he growled menacingly. Sirius stood up and held out his wand, aiming as Remus made frantic head gestures.

Greyback screamed. He clutched at his head, the earsplitting scream threatening to shatter all glass. The grown man collapsed to his knees, as patches of hair began to remove themselves from his body. His nails became shorter. He turned his head to the heavens and screamed some more, allowing Remus a view of his teeth shortening. After he seemed to change back to a normal man, he collapsed on the floor. Remus carefully came next to him and, wand raised, prodded him with his foot. Greyback didn't move.

"What do you suppose happened?" Sirius asked, staring at the passed out murderer with wonder. Remus shrugged as he stunned him.

"I suppose the spell wore off," the boy said indifferently. He then looked around the room again and rushed over to James. Sirius glanced at his arm, winced, and made it to the last step before he threw up. "What's wrong, Padfoot?" Remus asked, glancing up. He caught sight of Sirius's arm and turned an unmistakable green color. He shook his head hurriedly and turned back to James. All in all, it wasn't an improvement.

But James beckoned, with his right hand, for Remus to come closer. "Make me change," he whispered. "It'll…it'll be better."

Remus shook his head. "Aurors are coming, Prongs. They'll arrest you if you change."

James's eyes widened. Sirius looked up. "A-Aurors?" he stumbled, and then looked at Greyback. "He…he saw us. What…?"

Remus walked over to Greyback and coldly soaked him in little wine. "This should discredit anything he says. Better, Sirius?" he said kindly. He turned to see Sirius bending over James, listening, his broken arm behind his back.

Even thought it was a whisper, it was a shout in the stillness of the house. "Lily?"

The voice was broken, and the request was simple. He wanted to see her, to know she's okay. The problem with that, Remus soon realized, was that she wasn't.

For a brief moment he thought he would throw up. Her breaths were so small, so irregular, that it didn't look like they were there at all. He bent down next to her feverishly. He could hear Sirius whispering to James about how they had to play that prank on Cassidy, the one about her skin turning green. Her searched for Lily's pulse, leaving blue and pink paint all over her neck. He found the small, soft beat. It was much slower than it should be.

It seemed at least a year ago that she was chasing them with a paint-spurting ice cream cone. He looked down again and carefully picked up her wand. There were some very large "pop!" sounds from the front of the house. The Aurors have arrived.

Sure enough, they charged in. Amidst them, wizards in Healer robes separated and went to Sirius and James. Sirius waved them off, but could not deflect one, who insisted on looking at his arm. As the bones were brought within his sights, Sirius turned and threw up again, this time getting a bucket full of paper in just the right spot.

Alastor Moody was standing over Greyback, muttering to the others as they packed him up. His gaze came to Remus, and he gave him a smile.

"Had your mother come and yell at us. We arrived with half the team because she kept saying that there were children in the house. We weren't need, obviously," Moody said, explaining while he looked around the room. "That bastard!" he muttered as he saw the broke window, and then James. He turned his eyes to Remus, who still had his hand on Lily's pulse. The boy was frantically making sure it wouldn't vanish on him.

"What happened to her?" Moody asked. Remus hesitated. What had happened?

Sirius looked up, then down at James, who nodded ever so slightly. "She was hit with…with her own curse, sir."

Moody walked over and stuck his hand through the stair bars, his hand getting some of the blue paint on her neck. "Seems an awfully weak pulse for a stunner. Too weak for anything, in fact. You, there! Why haven't you seen to her yet?"

A Healer scowled at him and rushed over to Lily. He ran his wand over her, and his face drained of color, as his eyes became three times their previous size. He hurried over to the crowd around James and whispered hurriedly. He came back with three others, all muttering and frantically running their wands over her bodies.

"What was she hit with?" Moody asked. Remus looked to Sirius, who hesitated. It was James who wheezed out the answer.

"The…Avada…Kedavra…" the boy said as his spine was being mended.

The Healers stopped and looked at James, as if daring him to laugh and say he was joking. When no such thing came, Moody growled. "Why are you all just standing there? Bloody useless Healers if you don't heal anyone!"

"But…there's no precedent to this…" one of them babbled.

"You better damn well find out how to help this young lady, or you'll be like her, only my curse would have gone to completion!" Moody roared. All of the Healers bent over her again, this time whispering hurriedly and shaking their heads every so often.

Remus looked at his house. The whole thing was a wreck. There was a streak of blood where Sirius had broken his arm and slid down the wall. James was starting to carefully twitch his fingers, a hopeful sign. The bones in Sirius's arm were no longer sticking out quite so perpendicular at each other. He was fine, physically. His father would live. Lily's heart was still beating.

They had all gotten out of this alive, hadn't they? They were all going to live. Might not be a Christmas full of presents, but of miracles, at least. They would be fine.

He glanced down at Lily.

Mostly. Probably. Perhaps…