SO THEIR HONEYMOON IS SO TOTALLY OVER. BUT THAT DOESN'T MEAN THE STORY IS. ENJOY!


She knew it was too late before she called his name. She watched him turn, as if in slow motion towards her, wand raised. The curse flew under one of his outstretched arms and hit him in the chest. He stumbled, confused for a moment before he felt it. Blood sprayed from his body like a fountain and he fell, hitting his head against the brick wall behind him as he went.

She heard herself screaming. It was a disconnected sound, an odd, out of body experience. It was as if she was watching herself run to him and she fell to her knees, trying to stem the flow of blood with her hands, but there seemed to be no source as it poured from his body. He jerked convulsively and she couldn't hold him. She was covered in his blood, the warmth and smell of it penetrating her senses. And as suddenly as it had started, it stopped. The blood stopped coming. He stopped moving. Lily didn't know whether it was a good thing, or whether he simply had nothing left to give.

"Go! Take him and go! Get to headquarters!"

She looked up at the old man, the man who had come out of nowhere to help them, and yet he seemed to know all about them and about the order. If she dissaparated with her husband, would she be condemning their saviour?

"Go! I'll hold them off!"

She hoped that it would work. Half supporting James' body in her arms she did her best. Determination, deliberation, destination. At least she thought that the three D's went something like that. She remembered her sixth year at Hogwarts and the apparition lessons they had been given by a dull woman who acted as if she was being punished somehow by being forced to associate with school children. She had gone on and on about the ability to apparate and how it was in fact quite as simple to apparate to egypt as it was to apparate a distance of ten feet but that was where Lily's memories of the classes ended. She hadn't paid much attention back then and so she wasn't even sure that the whole side along apparition would work out for her, especially when the side along was unconscious. Or perhaps that made the process easier, though either way, she still preferred flying.

There was a loud crack and she felt the air pressing in on her from all sides. She could still feel James in her arms, his head flopping against her chest like the Raggedy Anne doll she had had as a child but at least it had worked.

They landed with an uncomfortable thud on what looked like a pile of sand. She took a deep breath, inhaling dust and heat and pure, glorious silence on all sides. Lily crossed the fingers of the hand that supported James' head and pointed her wand at his chest, at the precise spot from which his blood had run moments before.

"ENERVATE!" she shouted, as if the louder she spoke, the more power the spell would have. She shook him and he drooped limply in her arms. She lowered his head to the ground and put her hands over her own face, trying to think, to take in what had happened, why they had been so stupid and irresponsible and finally to come up with a solution. When she raised her head again it was only to realize that her face would now be covered in blood as well.

"Enervate!" she cried again, more weakly this time. With a frustrated sound that reminded even her of a wounded animal, she threw her wand aside and raised her hand.

The blow that she delivered might well have woken him from unconsciousness, had he not opened his eyes a moment before her hand made contact with his face. He groaned loudly and attempted to roll away. Lily jumped back in surprise.

"Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god!" She cried ringing her hands. "I'm so, so sorry! Oh my god! I just wanted you to wake up! But you're alright!" she babbled.

"Geez, whatever I did, there's no reason to get violent." She opened her mouth to apologize again, but then she saw the amusement in his eyes even as he rubbed his face where she had hit him. When he moved his hand, she saw that it was raw and red. She threw herself around his neck, planting kisses on every bit of him that she could reach and earning another groan of pain. Finally, he was forced to push her face from his with the one hand that wasn't lodged under her body.

Then she pulled away and James glanced past her.

"Oh my god!"

"What is it?"

She was afraid to turn. She didn't want to know where they were. She had been hoping to get to headquarters but that obviously hadn't worked. She had figured when they had landed that anywhere was better than where they had been but what if she had been wrong.

A wide grin was spreading over James' face and even though she could still see the pain reflected in his eyes, he was laughing. She spun to see what he was looking at.

"So we're in Egypt then?" he asked her, still grinning. They both took in the stretch of dessert on all sides and the sun that was beating down. Lily realized that they were both sweating and that what she had thought to be a pile of sand was a little more complex than that.

"We're on top of a pyramid" she replied, with a tone that she hoped gave the impression that it had been her intention all along to land them on an Egyptian pyramid. James laughed harder and only stopped for a split second to say "Well, This is definitely the last place that anyone would ever look for us. Maybe we could live here" he added in a mocking voice. She wondered whether it would be worth it to hit him again.

"Well, not all of us get to lie down and have a nice nap in the middle of a battle. I had other things on my mind."

"Like Egypt?" he asked with an eyebrow raised but his face had clouded and she wondered how bad the pain was.

"We should get need attention" she said quietly.

"Did you see him Lily?"

She didn't need to ask who he was talking about because she had in fact seen him. Amid all the strange people who had been on the scene, the death eaters and the old, unknown wizard who had saved their lives, it was Regulus Black who she could remember most clearly through the panic and fight. A younger Sirius and an opposite one, not yet a man, and not on their side.

"Will you tell him?"

He looked up at her and she could see the sorrow in his face that had replaced the pain that still lingered underneath, for it was a stronger feeling that he felt for his friend, who was all alone, who's family hated him and yet they knew he would still have been eager to hear news of the younger man, who, evil or not, was still his bother.

James shook his head.

"I don't know. We'll see." He smiled again weakly. "You know, that's the third time that we've gotten lucky and escaped Voldemort's stupid death eaters. You think they would take a hint."

She forced herself to smile back, despite the fact that she was fairly sure they were both wondering the same thing. What about when their luck ran out? How much longer could they fight?

"Ready?"

Lily helped him to his feet, not eager to try to apparate them both again, certain that he would be able to manage it himself.

"Headquarters?" she asked. James nodded. Flinched in pain.

****

Cries of shock told her that she had gotten the right place. A crack, and James appeared beside her. He slumped sideways and she took his weight. The pain was coursing through him more strongly and the strain of the apparition had not helped at all, she could almost feel it radiating from him. Running footsteps announced that several people were approaching and she realized how bad they both looked, soaked in blood and covered in egyptian sand. She almost laughed.

"LILY! JAMES!"

Several voices cried their names. Sirius, Remus and Peter were all there, as well as Dumbledore and a multitude of other faces.

She looked around at the new headquarters beyond the fence. The large house stood in the middle of what she could only assume to be nowhere. It looked as if it was an abandoned building, collapsing in on itself. They had apparated just beyond the limit of the property, lucky that the whole of the order seemed to have been standing outside. She wasn't sure that she would have been able to do anything other than lie down and fall asleep right there on the grass if there had been no one.

She felt hands and arms on her, James being taken from heard voices talking to her, asking her where the blood had come from and if she had been hurt. What had happened?

She closed her eyes. She felt as if she too had been cut open and drained. She had no energy left, nothing to tell these people just yet. They had to look after James. If she knew that he was going to be alright than she too would be alright.

"Lily!"

The voice was sharp, yet familiar. Someone was shaking her shoulders roughly. She opened her eyes to find Moony's face inches from her own, concern in the extremely premature lines of his twenty one year old face. Padfoot, Wormtail, Moody and a few other's stood just behind him withsimilar expressions. Everyone else seemed to have gone inside, bearing James. She knew he was going to be alright. Not minutes before, they had been talking and laughing on a pyramid, which meant that Dumbledore at least, could fix him completely. She grinned broadly. Remus glanced at Sirius and moved his face back to see her better. She knew he was wondering if she had lost it or if she had been hit by a faulty memory charm.

Dumbledore was coming back down the steps and across the lawn with a look of utmost concern and seriousness. He approached her cautiously as her friends backed off a little to give them room.

"Is James alright?" she asked, the smile fading from her face in an instant.

"Yes, he'll be fine, he's asleep. But Lily, before you join him, I need to know exactly what's been happening since you left on your honeymoon."

Lily blushed before realizing what he really meant. She crossed her arms aver her blood soaked t-shirt and forced the crimson embarassment back beneath her skin.

"Well it was all pretty excellent until today."

Behind Dumbledore's back she saw Sirius elbowing Remus with an eyebrow raised but his friend simply frowned at him and waved him away, intent on hearing the story.

"We realized that the death eaters had been tracking us. They tossed our hotel room, so we decided to go looking for them. We thought that there would only be a couple of them and we also assumed that Voldemort wasn't the only one following us." She glanced at Dumbledore's expression, but he gave away nothing.

"i know it was a stupid thing to do but we thought we could handle it and we also thought that you had someone watching us."

Another loud crack made the assembled members jump and Lily was the only one besides Dumbledore who didn't even flinch. She wondered if she had run out of fear for the day. She looked around to find the small, old french wizard who had saved their lives. She was glad to see him in one piece.

"Well" Dumbledore said calmly as the people around them collected themselves, having expected another disaster. "You were right about one thing. Luckily." He glanced down at her and she felt another blush creeping out from beneath her collar, bringing the shame that she felt at having been so foolish, letting James be so stupid and for underestimating the death eaters when she should have known better. But Dumbledore didn't mention these things. He put a soothing hand on her shoulders, his long, white fingers giving her a reassuring squeeze.

"You did quite well tonight" he told her quietly so that only she could hear.

He held the other hand out to the old man.

"I would like to introduce you to an old friend. This is Dominique..." The old man shook his head slightly and Dumbledore faltered. "Just Dominique" he finished brightly. "He's been following you since you left London three weeks ago and he was the one who helped you out tonight."

Lily had known that already. She wiped her hands quickly on her jeans, realized that it was useless, as they were just as covered in blood as her hands and held one out anyway. He took it without a moment's hesitation.

"Thank you so much" she said sincerely. "You saved our lives."

"Pas de problemes" he replied, giving her a slight smile before continuing in english. "I quite enjoy the fight. And I hear that it's not the first time you've met up with the death eaters either."

She shook her head.

"I would be delighted if you would tell me about your other encounters. I was quite impressed with your skill with a wand" Dominique told her enthusiastically.

Behind them, Dumbledore gave a slight cough and they both turned towards him and the others.

"Perhaps that could wait for another time as I am quite sure that everyone here is quite as eager as I am to hear about the day's events and as Mr. Potter is currently indisposed it would fall to the two of you to tell us what we are dying to know."

"Of course, of course" Dominique replied, flustered. Dumbledore's eyes twinkled behind his half moon spectacles and he turned to lead the way up to the house.

Lily followed behind the others up the path but stopped very suddenly before she reached the stairs.

Nausea rolled over her in waves and she felt dizzy as if she had been spinning in circles. Bile rose in her throat, almost making her vomit, but she swallowed it back down, closing her eyes again.

"Lily, what's wrong?"

She reached out both hands and felt them close around an offered arm as she took deep breaths of the chilly evening air, trying to regain her balance and focus. She opened her eyes and saw the others all watching her with worried expressions, deja vue from minutes before.

"I'm fine. Sorry."

She dug her nails into Sirius' arm, sending him a silent message as the others turned back to the house. Not fine! Not fine! He got it with a grimace, unlatching her hands from his arm where she saw that red marks had formed where her nails had poked into his skin and he put an arm around her shoulders, letting her lean into him as they made their way after the others, Peter and Remus close behind them.