Chapter 14: Reunited
I've been watching your world from afar, I've been trying to be where you are, I've been secretly falling apart, unseen. To me, you're strange and you're beautiful, you'd be so perfect with me but you just can't see...you turn every head bu you don't see me -Aqualung "Strange and Beautiful"
"Wait!" I felt a tug holding me back. He had a grip on my upper right arm, preventing me from going anywhere. "Wait." I struggled to keep my head down, away from his gaze-no-no, I thought desperately. I couldn't let him see me, couldn't let him-
But my eyes finally lifted of their own accord.
His own eyes widened ever further, bugging out completely when he saw the thin strip of my face that was all the scarf had to offer.
"Lily?" He gasped, hand trembling as he reached slowly for my scarf. "Lily, is that you?"
I closed my eyes as the scarf fell back around my shoulders, revealing my red hair, my face...everything. I opened my eyes, smiling a bit ruefully, looking at James's shocked expression.
"Lily-Lily-Evans-you-where-how-YOU'RE BACK!" He finally roared, settling on an exclamation. He grabbed me around the waist and lifted me off the ground, laughing with glee and hugging me furiously. My stomach was swooping madly, and I was laughing along with him. We continued to cling to each other even after he set me down, almost as if we were long-lost lovers rather than friends.
"What gave it away?" I beamed, happier than I think I had ever been, pulling my scarf back up.
"What do you think, Lily?" He rolled his eyes, still keeping his broad hands on my shoulders. "Those eyes-you're the only one I know with eyes that green, Lily. And your laugh, of course," he chuckled deeply, reminding me again of how much I missed his own laugh. "Now what's with this scarf? No-more importantly-we've got to catch up! Where have you been? No-are you alright? Wait, scratch it all-what happened? You've got to tell me everything!" He looked at me intently.
Suddenly, I was reminded of something Dumbledore had said to me earlier.
"Lily, if one person, theoretically, were to find you, and wish to join you in your search...and if this person were trustworthy...it might seem rather wise to allow them to accompany you, does it not?"
Somehow, Dumbledore must have known that I would meet up with James Potter. Once again, his strange wisdom baffled me. If I didn't know any better, I'd almost suspect that Dumbledore was trying to set James and me up...
"James, that will take quite a while. Hours, maybe," I laughed, linking my arm through his as he offered it. I shouldn't feel this content, seeing just one person from my past life: but I did. I felt absolutely perfect.
"I have hours," James waved his hand in the air dismally. "Take all week if you must, Lily!" He proclaimed.
"I very well might," I chuckled. "Shall we go into the Owl Emporium...yes, I think that's noisy enough-where we won't be overheard?"
"Top secret, eh?" James wiggled his eyebrows.
"Very," I knocked my shoulder against his. "But first, maybe, I should explain to you why I'm wearing this scarf."
"I never would have guessed...Daivat Frobisher...real?!" James's jaw dropped in awe. "And Dumbledore thinks he'll help us."
"Yes-wait. Us, James?" I looked at him sternly, one eyebrow raised.
"Oh, did that slip out?" He asked innocently, a smile twitching at the corners of his lips. He jumped, startled, as a particularly loud owl squawked near him, sending his glasses jumping to the end of his nose. I burst out into a fit of giggles, repositioning the spectacles with both of my hands.
"I've really missed you, you know," he said quietly, catching my hands on the way down. "It doesn't feel like it's been three years, does it?" He asked thoughtfully.
"No, it doesn't," I replied, completely agreeing. It felt like it had been a mere three hours since I had last seen him-and in the company of James, being Susanna seemed just a barely-memorable nightmare. "And I've missed you too. I really have. Even your incessant asking me out," I grinned up at him cheekily and he groaned, looking up at the ceiling.
"Trust you for that to be the only thing you remember," he rolled his eyes teasingly.
"It's not the only thing I remember!" I protested. "I remember that in Greece, we had started to be friends," I said softly, the memory warming my insides. He looked lost in thought as well, thinking of the times right before I had left.
"Before you left," he began. "The night before. The last words you told me...they have been playing over and over in my head. Every night. There's not a night that they don't. I barely slept the night you left-I had a feeling that it would be a long time before I saw you again. I had nightmares. And..when I woke up..." he looked up into my eyes. "The nightmare had come true. You were gone."
"Oh, James," I whispered as he opened his arms, folding my into them. I buried my face in his shoulder, holding back tears. It was strange, how quickly we slipped back into knowing each other, even when we had barely been civil to each other the first time around...
"You kids! Hey!" The grumpy store-keeper shouted. "If you're going to kiss, do it outside! This is no place for romantics! Buy an owl or get out!" He shook his wand menacingly at us.
"My apologies, sir, we were just-"
"I said get out!" He screamed, face going a shade of purple to rival Vernon's. Uncontrollably, I began to giggle. James shot me an odd look, but it wasn't long before he began to snort, holding in a laugh.
"Are you two laughing at me?" He hissed in a dangerously low voice, getting close into our faces, which looked funny, because he was at least a head shorter than me, and two heads shorter than James. "Out! Out! Out!" With every jab of his wand James's hair turned purple, then green, than back to black. Now I was laughing furiously, especially since he had just noticed what the storekeeper was doing. James was pulling a bit of his hair down in horror, gazing at his had-been colorful locks with dread.
"OUT!" He screamed again, and James pulled me by the hand as we scrambled out, tripping over our own feet and laughing until our sides hurt.
"That was-should have seen your face-he was purple!" I gasped, clutching my sides as James released my hand when we finally stopped for breath further down the street. We had been whooping and laughing gleefully all the way down-we had gotten many pointed glares, and of course, the whispers of "rowdy lovebirds!" traveled quite far when the whisperers wanted them to. Do you think either of us cared? If you answered no, you'd be correct.
"Hey!" James looked at me, pretending to be wounded. "If he would have changed your hair green-"
"And purple," I reminded him, sniggering again. "Don't forget purple. You looked quite cute in purple," I laughed, pulling up my scarf once more so it covered up an ample amount of my face.
"Thank you so much," James rolled his eyes, bowing. "And now, I do believe, it's due time for me to find out where exactly you disappeared to from Greece until now! You've only told my about Davait, not about where you've been."
I sobered up immediately.
"Alright. James, did you go off and get married?" I blurted suddenly.
"What? No," he looked at me oddly. "I already know you haven't, I..you know, checked your hand," he smiled cheekily, and I let out a noise of protest. But I was glad when he took my hand as we began to walk.
I started with the time Dumbledore had floo-messaged me to come to his office, and ended with Dumbledore putting me to sleep for two years. When I was finally done, it was at least an hour later, and my voice was hoarse from talking.
"Wow," James said quietly. "I can't believe...I never would have imagined...the portraits at Hogwarts-well, the Fat Lady and her friend Violet particularly, invented some wild story about you running off-"
"With a former Death Eater, yeah," I rolled my eyes. "She told me. What did you guys think happened to me when I left?" I asked anxiously.
"Sirius thought you were just pulling a prank on us, and that you'd be back any day, that you'd jump out from behind something and say, gotcha! Look how scared you all were!" James paused. "We thought it was his way of denying what happened. He never really accepted that you were gone...none of us did. Marlene thought Sirius's idea was ridiculous at first, but after a week or so of being gone she started to think the same thing. Whenever we went out and saw someone with red hair, we'd all gravitate toward the person just to make sure it wasn't you," he cracked a small smile. "In the beginning, we put up all these signs all over-and I do mean all over-wait a second-Knockturn Alley-that was you, wasn't it? That Susanna person?" I remembered what he was talking about right away.
"Yeah, that was me," I looked up at him.
"I knew there was something fishy about her," James shouted.
"Yes, well. Now, about Daivat Frobisher..." I looked at him hesitantly. He probably had a job, and his parents, he wouldn't want to come gallivanting around with an old friend to find a wizard that no one thought was real-
"I'm in!" James said excitedly. "When do we start?" I stared at him, speechless.
"James, what about-do you have a job? What about your parents? What are they going to think if you just disappear for a few weeks?"
"I'm training to be an Auror-almost there, by the way-I don't think they'd notice if I disappeared for a few days. And my parents are dead," he said bluntly.
"Oh, James," I breathed. "I'm sorry...they were such good people."
"I know, but it's been a while. I'm alright," he nodded.
I hugged him again, and this time he was leaning into me for support.
"I'm ready for an adventure, Lily-Flower," he grinned, straightening again. "When do we start? Can I owl Sirius and tell him to tell the rest of them not to worry?"
"Go ahead. But don't tell him I'm back, because...well, you know. We can tell all of them I'm back if we fail. If we succeed, there's no need."
"Alright!" he said eagerly.
That night we stayed at the Leaky Cauldron- James's parents had apparently left him a small fortune, and he easily rented two rooms.
"And this locket...it has the map?" He was asking doubtfully, sitting at the desk in my room, perching backwards on the chair.
"I guess. I haven't actually opened it yet," I shrugged, putting my fingernails between the opening clasp and pulling out.
Upon opening it-the locket visibly grew. I had to readjust my grip to keep it from slipping out of my fingers. On one inside face of the locket, there were swirling latin words inscribed. On the other side, was a bit of the map. It showed us now by a symbol with a star, and a faint arrow was pointing to the north.
"So, North then," James said. "That seems a bit vague."
"We should be able to do it, as long as we stay on track. James, do you by any chance speak Latin?"
"No, why?"
"There's a Latin message on this side," I pointed my pinky at the other side of the locket. "And I can't figure out what it says. I only know a bit of Latin from the spells we've learned.
"I don't know," James yawned, shaking his head.
"We should go to bed, you look exhausted," I pointed out, struggling not to yawn myself.
"A-a-alright," James yawned again. "Wake me up when you're ready for breakfast," he stumbled out of the room, yawning.
"Good night, James," I laughed.
"Promise you'll be here in the morning?" he stopped at my door frame.
"Promise.
"What are we supposed to do here? Are you sure this is the right place?"
"Positive! You know, it wasn't my idea to be crammed in a telephone booth with you, but the map stops pulsating if either of us steps out," I said crossly, adjusting my elbow so it wasn't bent behind me and smushed into James's stomach. We had followed to where the locket directed us, noses buried in it the whole time, down a muggle train-which, once we realized had gone past our destination, had ran screaming down to tell the conductor to stop. We ran out and followed the locket until the first location was in sight. As we grew closer, it pulsed with a soft, red light.
"I dunno. I think it's quiet cozy, don't you?" James chuckled deeply, looking down at the back of my head. I craned my neck to look backward and up at him.
"I think this would have worked if we were both in first year," I thought, twisting the wrong way and coming face to face with James, tripping forward and smushing against him. "Oh," I blushed until I was the girl equivalent of a fire hydrant. "Sorry." I took a step back, letting James un-plaster his back from the glass wall.
"S'okay," he grinned broadly. I'm sure I knew what whoever was watching right now was thinking-hopefully no one had seen that, but we were just off a street downtown. Not exactly private.
"Look at all these chars things, Lily! Do all muggles drive those chars?"
"Cars," I corrected automatically, smile blooming on my face as I searched for some sort of clue. "Most of them do."
"I think that would be fun," James put a hand against the window, accidentally elbowing me in the ribs.
"Sorry!" He jerked back, looking horrified.
"It's okay," I gasped, massaging the rib. "Hey-look," doubling over had brought me face to face with the bottom of the telephone box-I crouched down as well as I could, looking up into the black bottom. "I think-this indent here is the exact shape of the locket," I mused, fingering the ovular shape.
"Can I see?" James tried unsuccessfully to bend over-there wasn't enough room for both of us to crouch.
"Yeah-hang on-" we awkwardly switched positions, and James's eyes lit up with the discovery once he confirmed they were identical.
"Should we try fitting it in there, I suppose?" I closed the locket with a snap, unclasping it while it shrunk back to it's original size.
"It's worth a go," James shrugged. "Can I see?" I handed him the locket and he twisted it until it lined up-
"Dropping in three-"
"What?" James jumped back in surprise, yanking out the locket and landing on the floor, knocking me down as well as the backs of my knees gave out.
"Two-"
"James!" I protested as we both sat, a tangled mess on the floor. Our legs were tangled up, and I was smushed into his side-"Try the door-" we both reached up for the handle in a tangle of arms and hands-
"One-"
"It's stuck!" James shouted, pulling at the handle.
"Zero. Prepare for the drop."
"Ahhh!" My scream mingled with James's as the floor disappeared-James was getting further and further away from me, and it was getting darker-
"Lily? Where are you?" He yelled.
"O-over here!" I said shakily, trying to stop my rapid descent down the extremely dark chute. I looked up to the telephone booth where the floor was rapidly closing over us.
I tried to scramble over the slick surface, and I could tell James was doing the same-
"Gotcha!" Our hands met and he pulled me into him, wrapping his arms around me securely, one first clenched with the locket so we would all stay together.
My heart was pounding wildly in fear-what if this was a trap?
"What if this was a trap?" James spoke my thought aloud. His voice, though whispered, echoed around the chute. The floor above us closed with a clang, and we were plunged into complete darkness. James pulled me tighter into his side and I wrapped my arms around his torso, fingers locked in the fabric of his shirt.
"I'm scared, James," I admitted in a whisper, closing my eyes against the dark, wind whipping over my skin and making me shiver. I turned my face into his side so the fierce wind wouldn't burn at my cheeks, and he did the same, shielding his own face with the top of my head.
"Me too," he chuckled boldly, squeezing me. "Is it just me, or are we leveling out?" our descent was slowing, and I slowly looked up, keeping my death grip on James.
"Whoa," I breathed as torches flickered on across the walls, lighting up the tunnel in which we had just shot down. We came to a stop on the smooth ground, skidding to a halt in front of a tunnel barely lit up by torchlight.
I suddenly realized how tightly James and I were holding each other, and tensed up.
"Oh," he jumped back as though electrified. "S-sorry."
I muttered something incomprehensible. That was the first time I had seen James stutter-I was thankful that the dim light covered my blush.
"Ah-here," he opened his fist with the locket, keeping his eyes down.
"Thanks," I murmured, fingers shaking with the aftershock of the fall as I clasped it around my neck. My muggle jeans were extremely dusty from sliding so long. At least it had been a smooth ride-you had to give Daivat that. If he was the one who set this up, and it wasn't just some big trap, I shivered at the ominous thought.
"Are we going to go down that tunnel?" James craned his neck, pointing down the archway. It looked empty, but our view was obscured by the first turn.
"We don't have much of a choice, do we?" I said shakily, twisting around and looking for another exit.
"What about the locket? Are we still on the right track?" James gestured to the metal oval around me neck.
"Oh-" I opened it, fingers still shaking, and brought it close to my face, squinting to make it out in the flickering light.
"We are!" I grinned. "And this tunnel-see that turn? It matches up with this one. I think this locket shows how to navigate the tunnel."
"Let's go, then!" James strode forward into the cob-web cornered tunnel. "Coming?" he turned around to me.
"Right behind you," I nodded, stepping forward, keeping the locket out, looking up only when I was in danger of running into a wall.
"Reghre..." a sort of growl shook the walls, dust raining down from the ceilings-James stopped dead in his tracks, a fact I noticed to late.
"Ooof-sorry!" I apologized, jumping back and slapping the locket closed. Maybe I should have kept my eyes to what was in front of me-the locket wasn't much help, anyway-there was no choice of turns. All we had to do was follow where it lead. So far, no obstacles. But that groan was questionable.
"What was that?" James whispered, hand going to his wand.
"I don't know-but-it sort of sounded like a dragon, didn't it?" I pulled my own wand out and we advance forward, slowly.
"After falling through the floor of a muggle telly-foon booth and sliding miles under the city, I wouldn't be surprised at anything," James admitted. Both of us jumped as the growl sounded again.
We continued forward, not seeing the source of the noise.
"A crossroads," James spoke, stopping at the fork. "What does the locket say?"
I opened the locket and gasped.
"This isn't a tunnel, James," I stared down at the now very intricate map that was displayed on the face. "It's a maze."
"I like mazes!" James proclaimed boldly. "We'll be out of this in no time. Which way do we turn? Toward the beastie-" he jerked his head toward the left, the general direction of the noise-"or not?" he pointed his wand the other way."
"Not," I confirmed. "But there's probably something down that road, as well. So...right," we started down the prearranged path, slowly and cautiously. Suddenly, the maze had taken a turn for the scarier.
"Now I feel like there'll be something getting ready to jump out at me from every corner," I murmured, keeping my wand aloft. "And it's so dark in here, these torches aren't doing a thing-lumos!" I whispered, flooding the floor in front of us with light.
"Daivat Frobisher must have a lot of time on his hands," James mused.
"Must have," I agreed. "So-how was Greece? After I left?" James looked at me, startled. "Well, I think I went out with that Agatha girl for a while-"
"What?" I blurted, spluttering. "Right after I disappeared?"
"Yeah, I did! Why?" James said defiantly. "You had made your feelings toward me quite clear-friends only, and barely that! And even that took six years."
"Well, if you went ahead and took a look at how you acted toward me, and just-everyone- you were bloody arrogant, Potter, don't deny it. You and Sirius were downright mean sometimes!"
"Oh, it's Potter now, is it?" James rolled his eyes, and for a moment, he looked every bit the boy he was in sixth year before he had managed to change one iota. "Lily, you left. You were gone. I realize why you did so. I would have done the same thing. But you left no clue to where you had gone-no note, no anything! And we were left wondering where you'd gone. It was horrible."
"Stop! Stop right there, James!" I exploded, yanking on his arm. Shaking with fury. "You-you have no idea what I went through, but I can bet your whole damn bank vault full of gold that it was more traumatic than-than what you went through! And I wasn't allowed to tell a single soul!" I shouted, voice shaking. "They tortured me, James! At least five times, and I almost lost my mind! I was asleep for two years-James, you don't know what that's like, don't pretend you do! I wanted desperately to tell you, to tell someone-but-but I couldn't." My hands shook and my eyes burned. My time with the Death Eaters would always haunt me. I didn't want to talk about it, I could hardly stand it-
"No, Lily, you know that's not what I meant-I didn't mean it like that," he shook his head furiously, hand clenched around his wand so tightly I thought it would snap.
"How did you mean it, then?" I asked, eyes blurring. Now that I had thought about it, all the memories that I had struggled to push down and away, out of my brain, were hitting me full force.
"Lily, I loved you. I really did. And when you left..." he stopped. "It wasn't as hard as what you went through, I'm not so thick as so think that. But it was bloody hard."
I nodded. "We should go," I began to walk, turning my face away from James and angrily brushing a tear away.
"Lily, stop," James called after me, jogging to catch up. I turned to face him, eyes burning and breath catching in my throat. "I'm sorry, Lily-please-"
"It's fine, James. Let's just go."
"No Lily, it's not fine! I was a prat just now!" He declared, shocking me completely. As much as I refused to admit it, it wasn't just what he'd said that was hurting me-it was what he had implied. He had loved me. Paste tense. His crush on me had been one of my only constant over the past years-somehow, whenever I had imagined myself coming back, I had imagined James still feeling that way. Only more grown up-but now-he obviously didn't. James wasn't one to hide it, if he did. It was just...different. Too many things were changing.
"Thank you, James. But it was my fault, I shouldn't have snapped at you like that-"
"LILY, STOP!" James lunged forward, and the urgency in his voice shocked me. I turned back to look at him, confused, and my heel slipped over the corner.
For one, heart-stopping, terrifying moment, I flailed, about to lose my balance, and my foot slipped. I lost an inch. James jumped forward again, seizing me in the same movement and yanking me violently back from the edge. We stumbled back, and he released the grip on my arm and I stood, paralyzed, completely unable to move. My eyes were open in shock, mouth working soundlessly.
"Whoa-that was a pretty good way to apologize," I grinned faintly, and I felt light headed-all the blood had rushed out of my head in that moment of sheer terror.
"Thank you, m'lady," James grinned, relieved, offering me a sweeping bow. He looked up, grinning crookedly.
"And now, what exactly did you save me from?" I took a few cautious steps forward, looking over the cliff that I had almost met my death on.
"Whoa," I gasped in appreciated at cheating my death. "That is...this is mental."
"Wouldn't want to get boiled in that!" James agreed. The boiling lava river flowing down a few hundred meters below hurt to look at for much longer than a few seconds, it was so bright. The bright lava was marred by several large rock platforms that had fallen and were now floating down the river.
"The question is...how are we going to get over this?" I murmured, consulting my locket. My eyes raked over the map-I saw the lava of which we were standing on the lip of-it stretched from one side of the locket to the other, seemingly endless. No bridge, no nothing.
"Let's just levitate ourselves. Simple!" James clapped his hands together, pulling out his wand and muttering an incantation as I snapped the locket shut with a click.
"What?" he muttered, confused.
"Was that incantation supposed to do something?" I questioned, my brow furrowed.
"I just-I don't know, it was fairly easy, I'm not sure what happened."
He tried again, and got the same result-nothing.
"Let me try," I offered, pulling out my wand.
"Wingardium Leviosa," I pointed my wand toward myself-nothing. I blushed, embarrassed-that was a first year spell, and I was one of the top in the class.
"I don't know why that didn't work; there's no simpler spell," I looked at James, baffled.
"Accio rock," I whirled around, an idea forming in my mind. Nothing happened. "That's what I thought-magic must not work here. It must be another test, to weed out those who aren't completely determined," I sighed, starting to be exasperated with Daivat.
"How are we going to get over, then?" James asked, looking around.
"Without magic...there doesn't seem to be a way," I frowned. "Should we try walking in the opposite direction?"
"It's better than just standing here," James agreed.
We walked for what seemed like kilometers and kilometers-perhaps it was. It wasn't until much later that the locket finally revealed the edge of the river-or some sort of way to cross it.
"There's something up ahead a ways," I commented. "Maybe a bridge!" I said excitedly, though I didn't think it would be that easy.
"Hopefully," James said, though he sounded doubtful. "I wonder what time it is-it's odd without the sun. Are you hungry?"
"Yeah, I am, actually," I hadn't noticed until James had brought it up, but now that he mentioned it-I was famished. "But let's keep going for a while."
"Which was does the locket say to go?"
"It's just...stopped. There must be several ways to get across," the locket was still displaying where we were, but no longer the path we were supposed to be following.
"Hopefully we're near one of them," James said grimly, and we continued on silently. A stitch developed in my side after a while-the scenery hadn't changed at all-if we hadn't moved a centimeter from where we started, we would never have realized if it weren't for the locket.
"This doesn't help much," James said doubtfully, looking up. In front of us an archway towered over the river of lava-it couldn't be climbed over, because it went all the way up to the cavernous ceiling.
"Wait-are those handles?" I ran forward, eyes locked on the silver glint that had just caught my eye. "Look, James! Look at this!" I cried excitedly, pointing up to the handles. "We have to climb them-I'll start!"
"Wait, wait," James ran forward, catching up with me. "Just wait-are they even stable? Who knows how long they're been here? According to the legend-which isn't a legend, actually-Daivat is almost a thousand years old."
I winced. "That's got to be hard on the back."
James let out a laugh, throwing his head back. "True. But I think we should test out these handles before we put our life on them."
The handles were nothing more than metal rungs to curl your fingers and toes under. I stepped on the first one, pushing up until all my weight was on it-I bounced a bit cautiously, and it didn't so much as move.
"I think it's safe," I looked down to James, jumping down.
"Let me try-I'm heavier than you." We traded places and James climbed up, testing the first several rungs. "They look good," he pronounced. "I'm going to start climbing."
"I'm right behind you," I said firmly and he nodded grimly. We slowly made our way straight up-so far it was fairly easy, like a ladder. I curled my hands under the handles, stepping lightly on the footholds. James did the same until the trail of handles began to tilt-soon we would be climbing sideways, completely horizontally. That would be tough. James began and I waited, looking at the ground below me and then back to James.
"Careful," I called out, my grip increasing on the handles unconsciously as he continued-his body was leveling out now, and he was climbing horizontally, feet towards me-
"Half-way-there," he grunted after a while. My stomach began to twist-any tiny slip and he would die. I was safe, just on the first few handles, still standing vertically, whereas James was climbing horizontally. I tried not to think about that-I was beginning to sweat, and I wiped my palms against my jeans-
"Ah!" A yell escaped his lips as his hand slipped a quarter of an inch-I clamped my hand against my mouth, stifling a scream of my own-
"Come on, James, come on, almost there-" he stopped moving for a moment, breathing hard-
"Alright. Alright, almost there," he said to me. He was sweating hard and his glasses were slipping down his nose a bit. He climbed through the last few rungs, hanging from under the rungs like a koala climbing a tree, wedging his toes hard in the metal handles every time he moved, wiggling them out every time he made progress.
Finally, he began to go down again, dropping and climbing head first to the ground on the other side-I relaxed. Danger avoided.
Then the rung broke.
I let out a scream as James jerked down-the foot the rung had broken on was scrabbling for purchase-I began to climb silently, rushing to help-I pulled myself across until I was pulling my body along the rocky arch-James lost another foothold-now he was hanging by his hands only, feet dangling above the lava river.
"James-hang on-I'll-AH!" a scream fell from my lips, stomach plummeting as a rung of my own gave out. I was an arm's length away from James-
"Lily-Lily, we're going to fall!"
"No we're not!" I yelled fiercely. "Climb, James! Use your muscles! Grab the next one, swing yourself!"
"How are you going to get across, there's two rungs missing-Lily!"
One of my hands gave out and I hung on tighter until my knuckles were completely white. I was breathing hard, stretched out and hanging by one hand and one foot.
"AHHHH!" I screamed as my other foot gave away-I was now hanging over the river by one hand-somehow, the rung was getting slicker and slicker.
Whew! Two days, fastest update EVER! XD I would love some reviews, hope you guys all enjoyed this! :D
-Cassia