Chapter 15: Betrayed

"Noooooo!"

Harry awoke to the sound of someone screaming and sobbing in anguish. He immediately scrambled up in case there was immediate danger to discover James crying heartbreakingly over Lily's body.

"What happened?" Harry asked blearily.

James looked up. His face was soaked with tears and his eyes burned with anger. Now that James had shifted, Harry could see Lily's body better. It was completely blood-soaked and a knife was protruding from her chest. Whoever had killed her hadn't even bothered the take the knife back with them. Her eyes were open, but lifeless.

"It was that rat, Pettigrew," James cried. "Lily was just waking me up to trade watches. Her back was turned, and suddenly Pettigrew grabbed her, pulling her away from me and plunged this dagger right into her chest. I saw the whole thing. As soon as he realized I was awake though, he ran off. Probably back to the Careers. It was a set-up! The whole thing was a set-up! The Careers used him to spy on us and if I hadn't woken up when I did, he'd have killed us all."

Harry didn't know what to say. James continued to sob, beside himself with grief. Harry moved closer and put a comforting arm on James' shoulder – the only thing he could think to do.

"He should've killed me," James sobbed. "I should've taken first watch with him. It shouldn't have been Lily. Lily was supposed to be the victor. She was supposed to make it out of this alive, raise our baby back in district nine and live a nice long life. She wasn't supposed to die like this. Not here. Not now. Not yet."

"You can't blame Peter," Harry said gently. "It's the Games. Everyone's trying to survive here, and the only way to do it is to kill. It may not have been the best way of going about things, but he was doing exactly what you and Lily were trying to do. He was trying to protect himself, to survive."

James considered Harry for a moment. "No," he declared suddenly. "I do blame Peter. I haven't killed anyone yet. You haven't killed anyone yet. Lily hadn't killed anyone yet. We're all still alive. He didn't have to kill her. He could have waited longer, seen how the Games were going. He killed her in cold blood. She wasn't attacking. She wasn't a threat in any way. No, I blame him. And he's going to pay for this," James declared, his face hardening. He grabbed his knife from his pack and stood, walking determinedly towards the door.

"What are you going do to?" Harry asked fearfully.

"I'm going to exact a little revenge," James declared. Before Harry could stop him, he was out the door and heading closer and closer to the Careers. Harry knew he needed to stop him, but he couldn't do it alone.

"Wake up!" he cried, shaking Sirius and Remus awake. "Wake up! Wake up!" he cried.

"Whazz goin' on?" Sirius asked.

"Peter killed Lily and now James is about to go down into the dungeons all alone to avenge her death," Harry said. "We have to stop him, or at least have his back down there."

Suddenly, Sirius and Remus were both up, grabbing their weapons and hurrying out of the trophy room with Harry. They ran the length of the Great Hall and as soon as they were in the Entrance Hall, they made for the dungeons, where they knew James would have gone first, regardless of whether the Careers were still there or not.

When they reached the bottom of the stairs, they were presented with two options; left or right. The left side sloped up a little bit, and a cheery light awaited them around the corner. The right side, by contrast, sloped downward a bit and the light was gloomy, almost non-existant.

"Which way do we go?" Harry asked, fearing the answer.

"That way," Sirius said, pointing to the less cheery of directions. They all knew that's where the Careers would have gone, and where James would have followed.

They hurried down the corridor as silently as they could. As they rounded yet another corner, they saw James all the way at the end of the corridor, peeking through a door, probably spying on the Careers, waiting for the perfect moment to pounce.

"James!" Sirius hissed. James spun around in surprise to find the three boys all chasing him down. "Don't do it!"

Before they could get close enough to stop him, James burst into the room where the Careers were, his knife out and screaming in an almost deranged voice. As Harry, Remus, and Sirius ran closer, they could hear sounds of a fight ensuing, but who was winning, they couldn't tell.

Finally, they reached the door, bursting through it only to watch as the boy from two, Riddle, drew a broadsword out of James' back. James' body slumped to the floor and suddenly the Careers had all turned to face the three of them.

They were outnumbered. There were five Careers and only three of them – and the Careers had better weapons. "Retreat!" Sirius cried, spinning Harry and Remus around and propelling them back in the direction they had just come.

They could hear footsteps following them, but they didn't turn around to see how many were behind them. They simply kept running as fast as they could, hoping they could get out of range, or maybe even find a secret tunnel somewhere to slip into.

As they neared the stairs, Harry breathed a sigh of relief. If only they could get to the Entrance Hall, they would have so many more directions they could go. To his horror though, suddenly two of the Careers appeared from around the corner of the other end of the corridor, running down towards them. They spun around to run in the other direction, but there were two more Careers behind them. They were trapped.

"Get ready to fight!" Sirius screamed as the Careers closed in on either side.

Harry gripped his knife in his hand and ducked when a sword swung around in an arc, aiming for his head. Defense was his best option at the moment, he decided, since his pitiful knife would be almost useless against swords and spears. He crouched down low and rolled to his side, trying to extricate himself from the fray. To his right, Sirius was wrestling with the boy from district one, their weapons lying forgotten on the floor. Grabbing the opportunity, Harry picked up the Career's sword and swung it around, just missing Riddle's arm.

Suddenly, Harry and Riddle were engaged in one-on-one combat. Harry swung his sword up, and Riddle met his swing in the middle, the swords clashing and Harry's ears ringing. They continued to swing at each other until Harry began to find his arm weakening. He hadn't been trained for this like Riddle had in two. If only his aunt and uncle had allowed him to learn to use an axe early on, but they had refused, probably anticipating a moment like this. Harry could almost see them right now in the living room, sitting on the edges of their seats, thinking that this was finally the moment they would be rid of their nephew forever.

Knowing he had to get out of there, Harry decided to try something risky. He mustered up all the strength he had, and just as Riddle was preparing another blow, he threw the sword almost like a spear right in Riddle's face. In panic, Riddle dropped his own sword and dove to avoid being hit by Harry's. While he was busy with that, Harry grabbed Riddle's abandoned sword and swung it around, letting it fly towards the other Careers. While they were preoccupied diving out of the way, Sirius and Remus were able to get away from them and they followed Harry towards the staircase.

"After them!" Riddle cried, picking himself up off the ground angrily. They could hear the Careers running for them, so they hurried up the stairs as quickly as possible and as soon as they were up, hid themselves in the nearest broom cupboard.

"Where did they go?" One of the girls asked.

"We'll split up," Riddle announced. "They can't have gotten far. You two, check their hideout. We'll take the stairs."

Harry, Sirius, and Remus barely breathed as the Careers passed by, heading in different directions. Even one all noise was gone, they continued to remain silent as they processed everything they'd just been through.

"Nice move throwing the swords," Sirius said finally, applauding Harry. "You really caught them off guard."

"Yeah, well I had to do something," Harry said.

"Come on, we should go somewhere before they come back," Sirius decided. He pushed the door open carefully, poking his head out to scope out the area before opening the door fully and allowing Harry and Remus to follow him out.

"Where to?" Harry wondered.

"Well we can't go back to the trophy room," Sirius said. "They know about it now."

"I don't think I'd want to," Harry muttered, thinking of Lily.

"We could try the forest," Sirius suggested.

"No!" Remus exclaimed. "Not the forest."

"Remus!" Sirius gasped, looking at Remus properly for the first time since escaping. "Your arm!"

"My what?" Remus asked, looking down at his arm. There was a huge gash across his upper arm, blood running from it profusely. "Oh!" he realized, wobbling a little bit. "Oh!" he said again. His face started to turn green and Harry ran around behind him as he fell.

"Are you alright?" Harry asked in concern.

"Seeing blood makes me nauseous," Remus said. "Just bandage it up so I don't have to look at it please."

Sirius ripped a strip off the bottom of his shirt and wrapped it around Remus' arm, covering the injury. "There," he declared once he was done. "That'll have to do for now."

"Thanks," Remus said, taking some deep breaths.

"Just don't look at it," Harry suggested.

"Yeah, I won't look at it," Remus agreed, picking himself up. "Come on, we have to get out of here. They could be back any minute."

"Come on," Sirius cried, leading them in the direction of the stairs. They'd climbed up to the fourth floor when Sirius finally decided they'd gone high enough. "In here," he declared, gesturing to the door that led to the fourth floor corridor.

They left the hall of staircases and started down the corridor. Harry almost wondered if Sirius had a particular destination in mind, or if he just wanted to keep running forever.

Soon, Remus began to lag behind.

"Come on man, we can't stop now," Sirius ordered.

"I can't… I feel strange," Remus said, coming to a stop and putting a hand to his forehead. "I don't think I can run anymore," he said.

"Come on, in here," Harry announced, opening a door to a classroom and ushering Remus and Sirius inside.

"We have to keep going," Sirius insisted.

"Not if Remus is going to pass out," Harry contradicted him.

"I just need to sit for a minute," Remus said. "I'm sure I'll be fine in a minute."

"I'll clean up your arm a bit for you," Harry offered. "Make it less bloody, you know?" Harry hoped that maybe this would calm Remus' nausea and help him to rally.

Sirius, for his part, crossed his arms and stood next to the door, claiming that if they were going to remain in such an unprotected location, he would have to stand guard.

"It'll just take a minute," Harry assured him, untying the piece of fabric from around Remus' arm. Once he had, what he saw underneath caused him to gasp.

"Sirius, come take a look at this," he said in a panic.

"What is it?" Remus asked, not daring to look.

"Nothing," Harry said, not wanting to worry the boy. "Sirius?" he asked again more urgently. He knew Remus didn't believe that it was nothing, but if he was right, that wouldn't matter much soon.

"What is it?" Sirius asked, coming over and bending over Remus' arm. The gash in his arm was still there and still bleeding profusely. However, the veins in Remus' arm were now suddenly extremely visible, the blood inside turning some shade of dark green. In addition, the wound was now not only bleeding, but also producing a foul smelling pus.

Sirius looked up and met Harry's gaze, his expression mirroring Harry's.

"He's been poisoned," Sirius declared.