Chapter 12

The Battle of Hogsmeade

Lily figured the Death-eaters were not expecting them to charge so fast. Several of them didn't get spells off right away, and those that did often had terrible aim. Lily nevertheless had to dodge a spell, but was comforted by the fact that the light wasn't green. They really were trying to capture, not kill. Not that Lily had any desire to be captured by Lord Voldemort, nor could she guarantee that death wouldn't be a better option. But a petrifying curse could be reversed. Avada Kedavra could not.

It was James and Andrea who got the first two successful shots at the Death Eaters. Two were petrified before anything bad happened to a single one of the teens. By this time Peter had joined the fray. Nobody except the Death-Eaters noticed that he was a few feet back and to the left of the rest of the group. The other students could not see him, they were too focused on the death-eaters in front of them and essentially the person to their right and to their left. The high stress and focus of battle would do that to a person. Gave a person tunnel vision almost.

Any hope they thought they might have of making short work of the death-eaters was extinguished, however, as soon as the other Death-Eaters un-petrified those who were petrified. A huge advantage in numbers could do that for you, though Lily. Damn those Slytherins and their lack of any sense of fairness.

Now, the aim of the death-eaters was getting better, now that they were more accustomed to the idea of actually having to bring the teenagers in by force. And although every time the one of the Death-Eaters was petrified, there was one ready to reverse the spell, both Sirius and Marietta were lying on the ground petrified with everyone else to busy dodging and firing spells at the opponent to do anything for them just at the moment.

Finally, James, having dropped to the ground to avoid a spell, rolled toward Sirius and mumbled the countercurse.

"Thanks mate," said Sirius quickly, before jumping up and rejoining the battle, but in that moment, Remus was petrified in his stead.

Things were looking hopeless, until the door of Fortescue's sundae shop slammed open and the owner made his way out of the shop at a run.

The battle paused for a moment as everyone was shocked to see him run through the throng of teenagers to the front of the fray. Lily had the presence of mind to un-petrify Remus and Marietta.

After the surprise of the death-eaeters once again wore off, about half a dozen spells were shot at him, but he dropped to the ground, as did the teenagers behind him, who the spells would have hit as they ricocheted off each other having missed their intended target.

From the ground, Fortescue sent up a stream of flame which he managed to drag across the chests of two different death eaters before another death-eater hit him with a bright green Avada Kedavra curse.

Fortescue, Hogsmeade's best and friendliest supplier of sundaes, was dead.

There was a moment when each side tallied up their positions. Two of the death-eaters were still burning, and now would have been the perfect time for the 8 teens to attack, except that all of them except for Marietta, James, and Sirius were too shocked at the death they had just witnessed to go forward.

The two burning death-eaters dropped to the ground and started to roll. Marietta, James, and Sirius each managed to land a proper Petrificus Totalus curse while dodging spells thrown against them.

However, Remus got petrified again as did Lily.

Andrea managed to un-petrify each of them. Lily was forcefully reminded of the game she had played on muggle play grounds and streets, freeze-tag. The stakes were a bit higher here.

Peter had tried to aim a few spells at the death-eaters. One he nearly hit. But it was so hard to force himself to take shots. What if they were mad at him for resisting? What if he got caught and tortured?

Seconds later, through a process that Lily only managed to follow part of, there was one death-eater petrified to three of the teens, Sirius, Andrea, and Chloe. The remaining five teens were once again too busy dodging spells that would make the odds even less even to unpetrify their friends; it was nearly impossible to aim when one was dropping, rolling, or jumping. Lily had tried such a maneuver, but the spell went nearly a foot to Chloe's right.

Suddenly a woman in her late twenties ran out of the alley to the left of the Death-Eaters' rear. She was wearing robes in Slytherin colors, but certainly not a death-eaters' uniform. For a second, the students wondered if she would join the death-eaters' side.

But before the death-eaters even knew she was coming, she had killed one of them using Avada Kedavra.

Half the death-eaters turned around at the first curse, and a second one dropped to the ground a moment later.

All the death-eaters turned around and focused on this woman, hitting her with no less than five killing curses. The job was done no more effectively than had it been one, but the full attention which this apparent Slytherin had merited from the Death-Eaters allowed the students to reverse the petrifying curses afflicting almost half their number.

The battle was now ten to eight.

The Death-Eaters, however, were now ready to become more vicious.

Only several seconds after the battle recommenced in earnest, one of the death-eaters cast a Cruciatus spell, non-verbally, on Lily.

Everyone saw her drop to the ground and begin writhing in pain. Mostly, the teens tried to petrify as many people as they could on the other side, hoping that they would petrify whoever was cursing Lily and make it stop. But it turned out that the Death-Eaters were as good at dodging as their enemies, and only one was hit. It was not the one who was cursing Lily.

James looked at the other side, and saw one Death-Eater whose wand was not moving, and it was pointing at Lily. James yelled "Accio Wand!"

At the same time that Lily was cursed, another death-eater performed the Cruciatus on Peter. No one noticed, as he was a bit back from the main line of students. Sirius, the one closest to him in position, had been periodically glancing to the point on the field where Peter stood, but he was too busy trying to get Lily taken care of to look at this moment to notice.

The pain was unbearable, every muscle felt like it was ripping apart.

Lily's pain was relieved as the wand was ripped out of the Death-Eater's hand and came rocketing toward James who this time expertly caught it and snapped it almost at the same time.

Odds were down to 9 to 8.

It was in this moment of triumph that Sirius noticed Peter writhing on the ground, and found and petrified the Death-Eater responsible for it. Peter, however, could not help but feel hurt that it had taken so long for anyone to notice his pain. It had only been about ten seconds, but to Peter it had felt like much longer. Part of him felt as if his friends had failed him.

The Death-Eaters were not happy about James snapping the wand, a fact which one of them made clear by burning him across the chest. "Merlin!" said James, as he dropped to the ground to put out the fire.

Lily was having a hard time getting up, the after-effects of the Cruciatus curse not completely done. Whoever had done it was clearly more skillful than Flint. She was wondering whether she could fight at one hundred percent.

Suddenly, though, two more brightly clad figures with wands held above their head came charging down a nearby hill, clearly itching to join the battle.

"Disapparate!" yelled one of the Death-Eaters. One put his hand on the man whose wand James had destroyed, and soon all were gone.

As the two figures from the hill came into nearer view it became clear that they were other residents of the village. They must have heard unforgivable curses being used in their town and decided that such a thing could not be tolerated.

As they came even closer, it became obvious that one of the two people was Frank Longbottom.

"Oi!" said James, as they approached. "How are you doing?"

"Better than you, I'd say," pointed out Frank.

"Until you showed up, yeah," pointed out Sirius, who had also played Quidditch with Frank.

"Frank, where are your manners?" asked James. "Whose your friend, mate?"

"My manners? I forgot them on that hill when I was running over here to save your ass," said Frank. "He's my roommate, Michael McLanahan. Ravenclaw. Also in Auror training."

"Hey, nice to meet you. Nice to meet anyone who's just saved my life, actually," said James. Handshakes were exchanged all around.

"Actually, I've never met you either," said Andrea to Frank. "Started playing for Hufflepuff the year after you graduated. I mean, I've seen you play, but..."

Frank shook her hand.

"James, that looks like a nasty burn," said Frank.

"Yeah, hurts like hell," said James.

"Oh! Sorry James! I should have said sooner. Did you want me to do any kind of healing charms on that? I mean, you'll still have to go to Pomfrey to get it properly healed, but... I can soothe the pain, anyway," said Lily.

"You two dating finally?" asked Frank.

"Today was our first date," said Lily, as she stepped in front of James and started to mutter spells under her breath and point her wand at James' chest.

"Merlin," said Michael, as he looked around, taking note of what everybody else was trying to forget: the four dead bodies on the ground.

"You going to be a healer?" asked Frank of Lily.

"An Auror," said Lily. "Going to be harder for me than for James, of course. He's better at Defense Against the Dark Arts than me."

"Not by much," said James with a shrug, then turned to Frank. "How's your training going by the way?"

"Pretty well. Second year is the hardest, since it's the last, but we just passed our stealth test," said Frank.

"So what you're saying is that you were hiding stealthily on that hill until you were sure it was safe to come out and help us?" asked James.

They all laughed, but only a little. A joke like that wasn't really appropriate just now, Lily knew. But part of Lily loved James for being able to tell jokes at times when no one else would.

"All we did was even up the odds," said Michael. "Ten to ten, right? I counted them as we were coming down the hill from our house."

"Good counting," said James. "But I snapped one of their wands."

"And ended up with a burn across his chest," pointed out Lily.

"Right. So. Two dead from the Death-Eaters and... Merlin, is that Fortescue?" asked Frank.

"Yeah. And that woman in Slytherin colors was apparently on our side, too," said Remus.

"Right," said Michael. "Well, we'd better report this. And why don't you guys get back to Hogwarts. Actually, are any of you of age?"

"Yeah," said Sirius. "Me and Marietta.

"Great. Have everyone side along apparate to-" said Frank.

"The Honeydukes basement. There's a secret passage to Hogwarts, we won't get attacked in there."

"Sounds good," said Frank. "That way every one's safe."

The Halloween Feast that night was not nearly as festive as it had been in other years. Before the feast, Dumbledore made the following speech.

"Late in the Hogsmeade trip, after almost all of you had come back to the castle to get ready for tonight's feast, eight of our own Hogwarts students were attacked by Death Eaters. Aside from a couple of Cruciatus curses and one burn that has already been healed, each of these students have survived unscathed through their own skill and bravery. The intention of the Death Eaters, however, according to the students, whom I have talked to, was to capture the students alive and bring them to Voldemort. It is for this reason that we can no longer allow Hogsmeade weekends. We will make up for this disappointment with extra feasts this year, and even an end of year ball for all students above third year who would otherwise have been able to go to Hogsmeade. If any students had been captured, they would likely have been imperiused, and we cannot have students under the imperius curse in this school. What we must have in this school, however, is the beginnings of a resistance movement against these Death Eaters. I have expressed to some students already that exceptional students graduating this year will form the core of an army that I shall form to defeat Voldemort. I am not giving any information that he does not know, so this is not information that would hurt our cause if it were found out under torture someday. I think Voldemort rather expects that I will be the one to defeat him, in some way, as I did to Grindelwald. I will start a club, beginning in second term, that will be meant to train potential members of the opposition to Voldemort. Sixth and Seventh years are invited to apply. You will all be given identity-assuring ink to sign the letter of application, and I will either accept you or not. The people who helped the 8 students get out were very different. Two of them died, two lived. Fortescue, 20 years ago a Hufflepuff, died to prevent our students from being captured. Marie McMurphy, ten years ago a Slytherin, died as well. A Ravenclaw and a Gryffindor running up to the scene scared the Death-Eaters away, because now the odds were no longer in their favor. Therefore members of any house may join our resistance movement."

Most of the school could not enjoy the feast that came afterwards because of the number of times that Dumbledore had said Voldemort, and the thought that it could have been any group of students that was attacked that day. The only ones who actually enjoyed the feast were the Marauders, Lily, Chloe, Marietta, and Andrea. They had escaped today with their lives and their liberty, and they were more grateful for that than they had ever been.

A/N: School's back in now. More reviews equals more reason to procrastinate from work. And remember: You are also strongly encouraged to donate rice for this story. You can win it at freerice dot com and then let me know (in a review) how much you've won for this story in particular. This is for the group fanfictioners against world hunger. if you want to join, let me know.