Warning: In this chapter there maybe things that more sensitive readers might find upsetting. Also, would again love some feedback on my Story so far, it's nice to know theres someone out there reading! :) x
-x-
It was a tip off from a Wizard undercover in the emergency call centre where Muggles go through to when they dial 999 that sent the Order members Apparating to a lonely street in Portsmouth. The information that had been relayed to us was that a group of Death Eaters were terrorising a Muggle street.
Darkness enveloped us as our feet planted the slippery cobbled streets. I smelt the moist, thick air laced with salt; it was sharp at the back of my nose and throat. I could hear the raging sea nearby, crashing against the balustrades and the resounding splatter as it over spilled them. The weather was much wilder here than it was in Godrics Hollow and it took a moment for me to get my bearings. The wind was a strong invisible force barrelling towards us from a westerly direction, bringing with it torn leaves and icy raindrops. My eyes drew to the florescent orange spotlights of the streetlamps lining the opposite, deserted street, the only relief from the gloom: the trees on either side being battered by the gale made for their branches to look like clawing hands of shadow puppets in the wake of its unnatural light.
Then suddenly, a child's perilous cry, as fragile as a spider's web in spring carried on the wind toward us on its rushed power, screaming the hairs on the back of my neck to attention. My heart rate spiked beyond a hundred: my chest tightened, my blood pounded and the ring on my shaking left hand clinked against the wood of my wand. I was ready.
'This way,' Fabian called and he hurriedly led the small group of Order members down a flight of stone steps directly to our right; the impenetrable darkness fuelled our sense of uncertainty and foreboding. Like the scream, the sounds of the Death Eaters seemed oddly amplified with the wind. I could hear gales of rowdy male laughter, more screaming and canon like blasts. In my haste to get to the fray, I slipped on the slick steps and James quickly threw out a hand to steady me. As he let go off my hand I brushed my fingertips with his for just a moment longer. The notion escaped my conscious thought but I suddenly couldn't bear to not be touching him and feel his warm skin. For reasons I couldn't fathom it started to put knots in my stomach. I felt more than heard his head turn slightly in my direction and he entwined our fingers; somehow understanding my thoughts without them being articulated. Perhaps it was because of how we had been interrupted from one of our rare times together; the dregs of his touch not quite having left my skin made me want to be closer. As we were both full time fighters for the Order and going off on missions around the country, it was challenging to catch many intimate moments together. The present only just becoming past stirred in the forefront of my mind of the two of us only minutes before in the darkness together, feeling James' hot breath bathing my face, I couldn't help but feel so very overwhelmingly safe. And then the patronus had flown through the wall and Sirius' hurried voice brought news of a muggle attack and the magic was broken.
We ran hand in hand and turned the corner. Death Eaters in black cloaks and masks were meandering down the two rows of terraced houses lining either side of the street with wands aloft; their numbers vast and outstripping our own. Doors from the houses that they had past were blasted apart into pitiful splitters from where they had forced entry to murder the residency. Some were left desolate and empty, others left blazing. There was a tingling of breaking glass far up ahead and a dark form floated out of a first story window by invisible ties, bellowing and sobbing with terror. It sounded like a teenage boy no older than sixteen. The assailant out of view inside the house released the Muggle from their control, he dropped from the sky for only seconds with an ear-splitting scream before being silenced by a flash of green light. If felt like there would never be a time in my life anymore when the sickening thud of his body would not reverberate around my head. The Prewetts: the Longbottoms, Benjy Fenwick, Dorcas Meadowes, Sirius, James and I charged forward.
'Expelliarmus, incarcerous!' I bellowed as I ran ahead managing to ensnare and disarm a Death Eater before he could block me; he fell, impossibly overwhelmed in black ropes to the ground unable to move. A slew of killing curses flew towards us and James and I disbanded just in time to avoid them; the curses that missed their targets blew apart the houses on either side of us. Shrapnel sailed dangerously in every which way with pings of metal embedding themselves into flesh and brick. I felt a sharp shard of something cut along the top of my scalp leaving a smarting trail behind. The Death Eaters were advancing on us fast as were we with curses flying haphazardly close to surviving Muggles home.
'Cave inimicum, protego totalum, protego horribilis!' I cried at a few houses on my left making complicated figure of eight motions with my wand and aiming far up above the dwellings for the protection to entomb them. I knew perhaps in vain that my charms wouldn't hold for long but it was worth a try at least to buy the people inside some time. Another jet of green light flew towards me which I stooped to avoid and sent a stunner at him that missed by an inch; it soared into a window - shattering it. The Death Eater advanced on me, wand arm raised in the air threateningly with his mask covering his face with only his eyes visible.
We began to duel. Killing curse after killing curse shot from his wand tip at me without relenting as I tried to pay him back in kind, although never aiming to kill. They whistled past me, colliding with guttering and window ledges. I had a feeling that he knew that I was Muggle-born for the ferociousness of his attacking strategy was almost hungry for my demise. Without warning a shot of blue flame hit my assailant by surprise. He gave a scream of agony before kneeling over clutching his knees. I had no idea who cast the spell and had no time to ponder on its effects.
'Levicorpus!' I thought whilst flicking my wand upwards at the fallen Death Eater. He rose ungainly through the air still trying to nurse his knee caps by the ankle; his robes fell over his head to reveal that his knees had appeared to have switched gruesomely around on the opposite side of his legs. As the Death Eater was hoisted in the air I saw a hooded figure emerge from a house a little way down the street, obviously alerted by the noise of our arrival. I saw him raise his wand and with it launch a mass of flames upon a house in front of him which they hadn't yet raided. The fire began to lick itself in through the top floor with terrifying speed, exploding the windows with the sweltering heat and burning anything in its way.
'We have to get them out of there!' I heard Dorcas yell from out of nowhere to my left as she successfully managed to stun a random Death Eater in the face making him drop like a lead weight. I could see that the pupils of her large, ochre eyes were huge with fear in the momentary flashes of lights that illuminated them. A channel of understanding passed between us as we regarded each other for that split second with bared teeth. We both knew that the Death Eaters had no plans to disappear anytime soon and would therefore try to cause maximum damage. I flicked my wand again with the counter curse at my airborne prisoner and he plummeted ten feet headfirst and did not move.
'I'm on it!' I shouted. My wand sliced and spun through the air firing any and all incantations that came into my head, panic setting in as the house continued to burn into an inferno. Suddenly a sound of an explosion cleaved the air in two and for one wild moment I thought that one of the houses had finally been blown up. However Gideon Prewett and an unknown Death Eater who he had been fighting fiercely appeared to have used two spells that had detonated on contact, the result being that a huge crater had been carved into the road. Gideon fired a bright white spell at the Death Eater and he was blasted off his feet barely missing a comrade who side-stepped him just in time.
An idea had abruptly occurred to me. I ran forwards as best as I could into no man's land, dodging and ducking under a heavy deluge of spells that was coming at us from all sides, trying to get closer.
'LILY WHERE ARE YOU GOING?' James roared. I spun around to where he was battling two Death Eaters at once; his head was bleeding profusely from being hit by debris or from something more sinister, I couldn't tell. My lack of concentration however cost me dearly. In my peripheral vision I caught sight of a violently orange curse coming towards me and I turned too late to deflect it. I was hit in the chest with such force that I was knocked backwards to the ground; smacking my head on the concrete and rubble. Lights imploded in front of my eyes and my breathing was coming out in wheezes with what tasted like smatterings of blood. I could distantly hear someone calling my name and it took me a second to remember where I was. I could feel the stickiness of blood flowing freely down my neck and back and my head throbbed to such an agonizing level that my eyes struggled to remain open. I had no idea what I had been hit with but it felt like my ribs were slowly turning inwards intent on piercing my lungs. Needless to say it was torture.
'Protego!' My head lolled sideways on the street to the sound of my protector and with it its accompanying blow of air that shrouded my body. Sirius, no doubt alerted by James' frustrated yells of trying to help me had just retracted his wand from my direction before casting his own protective enchantment against a particularly vicious looking spell aimed at him.
With a tremendous amount of effort I managed to swing my legs round so that they curled by my side so I could face forward.
'Defodio!' I croaked wetly, aiming at the road ahead where the vast majority of the Death Eaters stood facing us. The solid road under their footing collapsed as a large depression was made in the cement making them fall with surprise into the earth. Struggling to my feet and to maintain my balance, I spun on the spot letting darkness press all around me until I was relieved a moment later in front of the blazing building; I had managed to Apparate behind the Death Eaters undercover of the noise. On this side of the battle I could hear the screaming from inside the house.
I pointed my wand at my head casting the bubble head charm and then at my condensing chest.
'F-Finite incantatum!' Nothing happened. It must have been powerful dark magic. I curled my right arm helplessly around my cracking ribs then barrelled into the house. The heat and noise was overwhelming. Immediately I felt sweat sliding down my face and back as I tried to see through the engulfing black smoke. The fire had burnt through the ceiling with ease and most of the downstairs was ablaze, smouldering timbers crackled overhead and embers fell like fire flies causing the curtains to set alight.
'AGUAMENTI!' I swept my wand across the room trying to douse as much fire as I possibly could before a distant coughing scream overhead fisted my stomach together in iron cladding. There wasn't enough time to try to battle the flames and find the stairs and yet this was an unfamiliar house, if I Apparated wrong … I screwed up my face in concentration and turned on the spot. I reappeared at the top of the stairs a second later and came face to face with a wall of flames that almost knocked me backwards. The hem of my robes instantaneously caught fire along with my socks and laces, the rubber soles of my trainers melted so fast to the landing carpet I felt myself sink. The flames scorched my skin unbearably and I cried out in pain as I tried to put myself out jumping from one foot to the other.
'AGUAMENTI!' I held my wand aloft across my path, taking my free arm away from my ribs to shield my head from the dropping cinders. The compressing flames, the terror, the pain all started to become overwhelming for me as I tried to view a door handle or a face. Bloody spittle dribbled down my chin and neck as it became almost impossible to breathe with my crushed lungs.
'Homenum revelio!' My wand arm vibrated and seemed to form an invisible string of humming thread between my wand and what I knew to be a person that guided me to the end of the landing. Mercifully through the thick smoke and flames a brass door handle materialised.
'Alohomora!' A faint click signified the door unlocking and I kicked out at it with my foot but it didn't budge. It was almost as if something was lodged on the other side of the door. My stomach squirmed in panic. I'm too late.
'Deprimo!' The door blasted open so it hung limply on its hinges and to my relief I saw nothing but a bundle of towels that had been put down to try and stop the smoke getting in. I stepped into the bathroom and saw that the shower curtain had been drawn. I pulled it back. Lying and squashed together in the bathtub was a young man holding hands with a woman I presumed to be his wife and nestled in between them was a little girl no older than four. All of them were unconscious. Dread started to swell in my brain like an infection. Looking at them seemed to open up some sort of dam inside me which lay to rest all of my self-control. I felt every burn, every ache, every cracked and in growing rib. Instead of the lifeless family, I now saw James, Sirius, Remus, Peter. I saw everyone who ever meant anything to me, all their faces flashing in front of my eyes one after the other. Hot tears stung my eyes and flooded down my face rolling over the bubble covering my nose and mouth. My knees gave way to the crushing realisation and succumbed to collide with the titled floor. It felt like there was a Dementor in the room draining the life out of me. All my resolve, my will power, everything lay to waste confronted with this little family. I had seen death before, friends and Order members slain in front of my very eyes. But it was more what they represented. How as time went on, lives we're being crushed under the weight of the Dark Lords regime helplessly. I saw a thin, pale bespectacled face with untidy jet black hair with a grin that always meant trouble. What if James, right this very moment had periled, when I could have helped him instead of standing here doing nothing …
Get it together Lily, come on, keep going, stand and fight like you promised ...
I raised my wand, screwing up my face and allowed a fury to overtake my body at the sight of what the Death Eaters had done. It was like a tsunami of fire had suddenly crashed and swept through my veins and arteries. It fired me back into action: I was not going to give up; I was never going to give in. We we're all going to fight to the death no matter what it took.
'Rennervate!' I cried and the jet of red light hit all three bodies in unison. Mercifully, unbelievably, the family started to stir in the bathtub. There were only a few moments in my life that I could pinpoint that flooded me with such all-consuming joy such as this. My letter to Hogwarts, falling in love with James, looking into his blazing eyes as I said I do… They coughed and they spluttered back to life groggily as I scrambled to my feet unsteadily in their wake. Lights were starting to pop in front of my eyes from lack of oxygen travelling to my brain but this no longer concerned me. It was like a talisman of hope had roared to life to help kick start me like a shot of adrenalin in the jugular. I stood and repaired the bathroom door with a swift flick of my wand to try and stem the torrent of smoke that had got in from my inertia. Swivelling my eyes back to the family I tasted panic that had coated the back of my throat.
How was I going to get them out?
The young father struggled to straighten himself upright, but did so after a moment of manoeuvring himself away from his daughter who seemed to be in a state of petrification; the mother held her to her chest in silent desperation with tears streaming down her face. The man's light blue gaze came to rest on me and in an instant he recoiled in horrified terror. A second later I remembered the bubble head charm and how strange I must have looked.
'No please I beg you! Don't kill them, please I'll do anything!'
'Sir we have to leave now, there's no time to waste!' I outstretched my right hand to him urgently to take but he only flattened himself further against the tiled wall; his soot covered face contorted with fear with his eyes bulging out of their sockets.
'NO!'
I had a split second to make a decision. I pointed my wand and stunned him before he knew what had happened. As her husband slumped unconscious against the wall the mother tried to turn and face me, but I stunned her and her daughter in the next second. I levitated the three limp bodies to the hot ground at my feet and pushed them up to sit against the bathtub, taking their hands as quickly as I could. I knew the house would not hold for many moments longer under the tirade of fire that had assaulted it. I concentrated with all my might and turned on the spot flying into cool, crushing darkness with the dead weights of the family pulling on my right hand.
We slammed into the cobbled street and I was instantly hauled over by the heaviness of the bodies I still had hold off. I had Apparated two hundred yards from the spot that the Order and I had originally arrived not knowing where else to take them. I heaved myself back to my feet. For just a short moment, I allowed myself to survey the father, mother and little girl that I had saved from certain death. They all lay lifelessly on the cold, wet ground as innocent as you could possibly find any persons to be. I prayed that they would be safe here when they would wake up to a hopefully safe street. Without another moment's pause, I spun on the spot once more to be engulfed.
I Apparated to the corner, turned in to the street and couldn't help but falter. Since the several minutes of my departure, things had deteriorated dramatically. Bodies lay strewn face down on the ground with awkward limbs sticking out from their hurried falls. A water main had been hit by goodness knows what and was gushing a torrent of water over everything it reached; it clashed strangely against the black night and the light from the fires that consumed many of the houses nearby. I puffed a few feeble breaths into my disoriented body to propel myself forward and prepared to fight whilst tapping my head to rid myself of my bubble head charm. I was beyond properly computing the pain that I was in by this stage but nonetheless held my wand so tight that it cramped my left hand. Although I was Muggle-born, magic was so entrenched into my being it came naturally and without much effort; the spells came and met their victims in whatever way I wanted them to meet their end.
It was with stoic militancy that I proceeded into the fray again, sending all manner of curses at the still standing Death Eaters. I edged nearer doggedly, the war zone came to me oddly muffled and a large scoop of the commencing fear seemed to have been gouged away. From my position set back a little from the line of the Order, I could make out the backs of Alice, Frank, Dorcas, Benjy and Sirius. However, as many glances as I could spare, I could not for the life of me see where James and the others were. The fear that had momentarily trickled away began to creep back through my blood like a slow acting poison. My eyes flashed to the house that I had saved the family from. Could he possibly have followed me?
Before any other sort of ideas or actions could occur to me, the air was rent with a force to that of a bomb as the house exploded. I saw the nearest Death Eater to it be blown an infinite distance by the force across the street where he slammed into the opposing terraced house, dead and maimed. The other cloaked figures stumbled or even fell by the strength of the detonation as well as many of the Order members. As I was the furthest away from the blast I managed to remain upright; I disarmed and imprisoned two Death Eaters in their attempt to stand in quick succession with ropes.
In the new found disarray I scanned the street for James, this time in a crazed panic. He didn't follow me I thought desperately; I wound my trembling right arm around my chest against the grief that threatened to do it in. He merely was fighting out of my line of vision or at worse had been knocked out somewhere, lying amongst the rubble.
Edging closer all the time I searched and prayed and searched again. Death Eaters still remained but in lesser numbers than before to the point where we were equally matched, a rarity. It was obviously that everyone was beyond tired, soldiers in a fight that neither would leave until the other side lost.
'SIRIUS! Sirius, where's James?' Sirius was barely recognisable due to the dust and blood covering the entirety of his body and face. The only reason why I could distinguish him was because I knew him so well. His marred face turned in my direction after sending a questionable curse at a Death Eater a hundred yards off. As soon as his mouth opened I knew that my worse fear had been realised.
'He was looking for you! Haven't you-,' But before he could finish his sentence, his eyes glanced over my shoulder and he lunged with such speed that the spell that was aimed at us missed by millimetres. I had never felt in all my life such a powerful, evil spell in all my formative years in the magical world. Although it did not make a direct hit, the close proximity of the thing made my blood and that as well of Sirius' by his yell of shock, heat up alarmingly like a flash fire.
Undercover of the mayhem that was still ensuing, the noises behind us of the three new figures that had Apparated had been concealed. While there was two Death Eaters dressed with their masks and black robes on either side, Voldemort wore simple robes with his hood down needing and wanting no anonymity. He raised his deathly white hand with a sort of quiet grace, a leer illuminating his scarlet eyes, before he slashed it with such rapidity Sirius and I barely had time to dispel.
From the blast of boiling blood came an energy shot like adrenalin to a dying man. The – the being in front of me was the start and finish of it all. The ideals had always been here in this world, but he nurtured it, he fed it evil and ruthlessness and made people kill and slaughter innocent people for the cause. Genocide. Hatred imploded inside me to the point where the world fell by the wayside. All that existed was him and me. I aimed to kill.
'AVADA KEDAVRA!' I roared at the top of my lungs aiming straight for the face of Lord Voldemort. The jet of green that exploded out of my wand tip blinded my eyes for a moment. He sidestepped the little piece of soul I would be giving up for him, effortlessly laughing, while the two Death Eaters marched forward, both of whom seemed to vehemently want to take Sirius' life. There was no way that I could tell whether other people from the Order were assisting Sirius as all of my attention was being pulled into my own fight. My wand slashed and ripped through the air in a fury but no matter how hard I tried nothing was quite enough to touch him. Yet, nothing was quite enough to touch me either. I was not superior, yet nor was I inferior. Voldemort's leer contorted into a snarl as I continued to thwart him in his murderous crusade.
The ground grew hot underfoot, almost as if we were beneath a mass pit of lava from the magic that was permeating the air: rubble made it hazardous to gain any sort of footing, burning eyes from the smoke made it difficult to see. Yet I still carried on.
'Stupid girl, do not think that you can win against me, no one can!' Voldemort taunted me from a far. His voice was a hiss that travelled over all the commotion that was going on to entice me to defeat. Words failed me, so I simply bared my teeth to it. Yells, shouts and cries encompassed me like a cocoon of horror. James was missing; I had no idea if he was alive. I was waning with my chest impossible to negotiate into submission whilst trying to fight the world's most deadlest wizard of all time. I was barely a passable age to be deemed an adult and I was fighting for my life in a war that seemed insurmountable. I yearned to be young and carefree again. I wanted the only irks of my existence to be homework, exams and James Potter to make a negative dent on my day. I craved the walls of Hogwarts like an unborn baby to that of its mother's womb before its time was up.
Without warning, I heard an audible roar from behind.
'EXPULSO!' I swiveled my head upwards all but forgetting my immediate situation. Apparently taking inspiration from the explosion that had taken place moments before, a Death Eater had pointed their wand high above me. The roof that belonged to the house immediately to my right had been detonated. As if in slow motion, half the roof and chimney began to fall in an avalanche down toward me; my mind became a great blank upon which I made no effort to defend myself.
Seconds felt like an age. I looked to my left, hoping to find something familiar to look at before the inevitable. A Death Eater stood a few hundred yards up ahead where he stood quite still, wand raised. He shot a spell at me so bright you would not have been called foolish for thinking it to be a bolt of lightning.
Then several things all seemed to happen in very quick succession.
There was a roaring of noise as the debris began to pound my body. There was a searing pain where the spell hit me. Bellowing, screaming and shouting. There was a crack like a whip right behind me, a pair of strong arms, then crushing darkness and oblivion.
Wait…it couldn't be, could it?