James awoke to a musty smell in a room he did not recognise. As his eyes swam into focus, the first thought that popped into his mind was Lily, Where was she, and how had he gotten to where he currently was? The room was full of healers all grouped around a bed in the corner. James tried to speak but his throat was far to dry and no words came out. He sat up and immediately a searing pain cut through his head. Noticing a red button on the mall next to his head he slowly managed to lift his arm and press it. A soft beeping filled the air. One of the healers heard, turned around and after noticing that James was awake, hurried over and started kindly explaining where he was.
"Hello Mr Potter" she said after glancing at his file. "It appears that you have collapsed of exhaustion and have been asleep for 4 hours, your friends brought you in here earlier. Please, try not to move too much because you clearly need to rest."
"What about Lily? Where is she?" James asked looking clearly panicked.
"Miss Evans? Over there, in that bed." The healer gestured towards the bed that was surrounded by healers."
"What's wrong with her?" James asked straining his eyes to try and get a better look.
"That's the problem, we don't actually know what spells were used against her, and so we are unable to help her properly."
"It was the Cruciatus Curse, twice. Voldemort cast it." James seemed to be struggling to speak.
"What? This changes absolutely everything! If you need anything just press the red button and someone will come, now try to rest." The healer hurried back to Lily's bed and after hurriedly muttering under her breath to the healer in charge she hurried out of the room.
Remus, Mary, Sirius and the Potters were flipping boredly through the outdated magazines in the waiting room and drinking the coffee that Mr Potter had kindly purchased for them all. When the healer walked through the doors towards them they looked up hopefully seeing as it had been over two hours since they had been informed of James and Lily's conditions.
"I am pleased to inform you that Mr Potter has woken and will make a full recovery. Miss Evans however is although not yet as well as we would like her to be at this point is going to make a full recovery."
Remus, Peter, Mary, Mr and Mrs Potter all heaved a huge sigh of relief.
"You may go and visit Mr Potter but you have only ten minutes as he needs his rest. He should be able to return home tonight but make sure that he does not exert himself and…" The rest of her sentence was lost as everyone rushed into the ward to visit James.
"Oh my! Poor James," sobbed Mrs Potter into Mr Potter's shoulder.
"Are you all right?" asked Mr Potter, frantic panic, clear in his eyes.
"JAMES SAY SOMETHING!" shrieked Sirius.
"I'm all right! I just wanted to see how long i could go with out talking, I haven't done my quieting excercises in over a month!!" Remus shook his head.
"This is not the time to be quiet, James." Remus said, "Everyone needs to know what happened." As he spoke a women in pink slid up to the closed door and subtly leaned her ear against it, straining to hear the conversation taking place inside the room between the five teenagers and two adults.
"Well, basically we all managed to get out but Lily didn't: when I went back she said we couldn't leave because there were people that needed our help,"
"The three girls you apparated out." Remus comprehended.
"Yeah and then I wentto run back and help her but the roof collapsed and we were cut off; after stunning about 5 Death Eaters I managed to get around the rocks and back to Lily; she had done some brilliant spell work; I mean there were over 10 Death Eaters all stunnedor cursed to oblivion; I was about 10 metres away when this other cloaked figue that wore no mask came up behind her," explained James. "I tried to get to her faster but it was like everything suddenly went in slow motion; I wanted to get to her ASAP but I just wasn't running fast enough; as I was running he cast the Cruciatus Curse, twice." James buried his head in his hands and Mary and Mrs Potter both gasped, Mrs Potter leaning into Mr Potters arms and Mary clung to Sirius whilst he put his arm aroung her and interlocked their hands. "I got there as fast as I could but she'd already fainted; I didn't have time to help her I had to FIGHT THE BASTARD!" James finished his voicing vaising to a shout, one of the healers surrounding Lily's bed turned and gave James an angry glare.
"Do you know who it was, the person that cast the Cruciatus Curse?" Sirius asked.
"Yeah. It was Voldemort." James replied a hard glint in his eye. Peter gasped.
"Say, You-Know-Who!"
"I don't particually care anymore. I just want Voldemort to die and stop harming innocent people, like Lily," James finished passionately. The pink clad figure had heard enough and left her position from outside the room and went back to the waiting room. Two minutes later a healer called excitedly from around Lily's bed.
"She's waking up!"