Lily approached the child cautiously. For all she knew, this was another ploy of Voldemort's. Merlin knew she'd had enough of those. But she'd always had a soft spot for children. It would probably destroy her one day, but so far it'd been nothing but a blessing.
She kneeled right before where she thought the boy was, and lifted a hand. She kept it wavering in the air, not sure exactly where the child was.
Get a hold of yourself, she scolded. This boy may be close to dying, and all you're doing is wondering if you're hovering your hand over him or the floor!
With a resolute nod, she lowered her hand. It landed on what she guessed was a slumped shoulder. A very bony shoulder, she thought unhappily. He hasn't been fed nearly enough.
Gently, she tapped the shoulder. "E – excuse me?" she asked. "Er – are you okay?" Suddenly panicked, she lifted his arm and pressed two fingers on his neck. She paused and waited. He had a steady pulse, which meant he was alive and probably asleep or unconscious.
Faintly, she waved a hand over his face, and felt shallow breathing. Aftereffects of adrenaline…or he was in pain. She carefully slid a hand over his tensed face. Tenseness meant the injury, if there was one, was around that area, if she remembered her Healing training correctly. If it was an external injury this would be easie –
She heard a whoosh of flames and quickly laid the child down on the ground again. She turned just as Albus Dumbledore stepped through the flames and hurriedly dusted himself off.
Anger flared within her. This had been his idea – this stupid Fidelius Charm 'plan of action' – and it had nearly gotten her poor baby killed. In the back of her mind, she knew that it wasn't even close to his fault. It wasn't even Sirius's either. It was – it was –
Lily blanched. "Peter – he – I don't – "
Albus frowned. "What about Mr. Pettigrew?"
Lily glanced at her husband, but he'd just started processing what Voldemort getting into their house meant.
She turned back to Albus. "He was our Secret Keeper," she managed.
"I thought – " Albus broke off into a serene smile. "Clever, indeed. If…this hadn't happened, you would have been that much safer."
"I never thought – Wormtail – " James interrupted, looking sick. "We have to find him, maybe they forced it out of him – "
"I will take care of that," Albus said, becoming solemn once more. "A search team of Aurors should do it. I will return to hear your side of the story," – here, he glanced at Voldemort's corpse – "later tonight, if that is alright with the two of you."
"Of course," Lily said quickly. "That would be brilliant. And perhaps Peter – Pettigrew – will have been found by then, so we can figure out exactly how this happened."
"Peter…" James growled. "Even if they did torture him to get it, he should have kept his mouth shut, my son might have been killed – "
"James," Lily interrupted. "We don't know anything yet, so why don't we put it out of our minds until something solid does come up?"
James hesitated for a moment, then relaxed. "Right," he muttered. "Of course." He glanced at Albus. "We'll see you later tonight," he offered.
"Very well, then," Albus nodded, before taking a pinch of Floo powder from the mantle of the fireplace and Floo-ing back to wherever he'd come from.
"Right then," Lily said immediately. "James, come help me pick this boy up. We'll put him in the guest room."
"What guest room?" James looked genuinely confused.
Lily rolled her eyes. "The one Sirius crashes in nearly every night after you two try to make the most of you being cooped up in here."
"Oh, that room," James rubbed the side of his head. "He's in there so much he's named it 'his' room."
"I guess we'll just have to kick him out for a week so he gets the idea, then," Lily suggested as she picked the child up by the shoulders, making sure to support the boy's neck. James walked over and, after a moment of uncertainty, held what Lily assumed was the boy's legs.
They'd only gotten to the stairs when they heard the roar of a motorcycle and a man barged in through the open doorway.
"Padfoot!" James exclaimed, and let go of the child's legs. Lily just barely managed to catch them before they hit the ground.
James strode to the center of the room and Sirius met him there. They hugged ("In a manly way," James had claimed when Lily had questioned him the last time this had happened) and then James began a crash course on what had just happened.
Lily sighed. She had gotten James to help her carry the boy to give him something to do, to keep his mind off of what had just transpired. She couldn't carry the boy on her own, which meant she'd just have to take a risk and use a not-so-safe spell on an injured person.
"Locomotor mortis," she said, pointing her wand at the boy. She waved her other hand out to make sure he was floating. He was, if the mass of hair hovering at stomach-level was anything to go by.
Glancing behind her, she noticed that Sirius hadn't noticed a thing. He was too busy interrupting James's story to ask stupid questions like, "Are you alright?" Of course they were alright, they were standing and most certainly not in St. Mungos!
As Lily lifted the boy upstairs, extremely carefully, she listened to their conversation.
"Padfoot, do you want to hear the story or not?" Silence. "That's what I thought. Okay, so I was playing with Harry – "
"Where was Lily?"
"Oh, she was playing with Harry too. Anyways, then Voldemort appears out of nowhere – "
"Wait, really?"
"Erm, not really. He walked in through the front door."
"Right, then. Continue."
"So I'm ready to fight, and Voldemort starts to monologue, you know, like he always does, and I'm all ready to stun him – "
"Shouldn't you have been getting Harry to safety? And where was Lily?"
"Lily was taking Harry upstairs, pay attention Padfoot, jeez! Now, where was I?"
"You're all ready to stun him…"
"Oh, yeah, so I'm all ready to stun him, and – and – er, he just crumples to the ground and starts screaming! And I'm like, 'What the actual fuck?' but he just keeps screaming, and when someone's face is just peeling like that, you don't really want to touch them, you know?"
Lily just barely stopped herself from calling, "Language, James!" and simply kept climbing the stairs. She hadn't heard what had really happened to Voldemort. She'd have to ask James what had actually happened. For now, she'd just have to pay attention to line her story up with James's.
" – anyone want to touch Voldie, anyways?" Sirius was asking.
"I know, right?" James said enthusiastically, completely caught up in the moment. To him, it probably felt like narrating a win for the Gryffindor Quidditch team to a common room full of eager Gryffindors. "So then, we just stare at him dying – "
"We?"
"Lily! Seriously, Padfoot, are you listening to every other word I say? Who else would it be?"
"I am Sirius, thank you. And last you talked about her in the story, she was taking Harry to safety."
"Oh." Lily could almost see James smiling sheepishly. "Sorry about that. She just wasn't part of the action."
"Well, now that's cleared up. So what next?"
"He just – died, really. Burned to death, I s'pose."
"Bit anti-climactic for the terrible Dark Lord's death, eh?" Lily imagined Sirius nudging Voldemort's corpse with his toe.
Quietly opening the guest room door with her free hand, Lily slowly sidled into the room after the child's floating body. She carefully (with multiple checks to make sure she didn't accidentally drop him on the floor) set him down on the bed, and left the room, closing the door behind her with a soft click.
" – grand duel to the death," Sirius was elaborating.
"And big explosions," James added.
"A huge after-party. We can spike the punch, like we always wanted to do at school."
"James, Harry wants to see you," Lily said, cutting off their conversation. James caught her eye and nodded, heading up the stairs to check on Harry.
"Lily-flower!" Sirius exclaimed. He held out his arms to her, and she hesitantly hugged him around the middle.
"Who knows what terrible diseases you've encountered in dog form," Lily said dramatically, taking a large step back. "I'll be dead within the month!" she mimed fainting.
Sirius let out a barking laugh and grinned at her. "You always were the best at dramatizing everything," he chuckled. "Too much time around manipulating Slytherins, I expect."
"Slytherin's aren't all that awful, and you know it," she slapped his shoulder gently. Slytherins were a sore spot for her, and Sirius knew it.
Sirius cut straight to the point, lowering his voice. "Been in contact with Snivellus lately?"
"Don't call him that," Lily said automatically. She lowered her voice as well and said, "Not since we went into hiding. I couldn't key him into the wards, just like that; I'd have to let James know."
"So you haven't told him." Sirius leaned back and stared at her with what looked like disappointment.
"He'd explode in anger, or something," Lily said desperately. "You wouldn't even know if you hadn't caught me that one time."
"You're going to have to say something at some point," Sirius said. "I think your husband deserves to know who all your friends are, especially if they happen to be his childhood enemies."
"Look," Lily snarled. Sirius had been pressuring her for a while now, and something in her had finally snapped. "I'll tell him, soon. There's a lot going on right now, but I promise when everything dies down, I'll let him know. I don't even know what's going on with Severus right now; what if he decides we shouldn't stay in contact anymore? I would have said something for no reason at all."
"He should still know that you were in contact with him for some time," Sirius said disapprovingly. "I'll keep you to your promise. And if you don't say anything, I will."
Lily gritted her teeth. Raising her voice, she said, "So have you seen Remus?"
Sirius's look turned guilty. "Actually, I have to go apologize to him right now," he said, before his look turned dark. "After I kill that rat," he snarled.
"Stop." Lily grabbed his arm before he left. "Albus sent a search team for Pettigrew, and he's going to check up on us soon to let us know what they find. Go talk to Remus now, and you can come back straight after with him to hear what progress they've made. We don't need you being sent to Azkaban," she warned.
Sirius sighed, grudgingly. "Fine," he grumbled, heading towards the doorway. "I'm holding you to your promise!" he called over his shoulder.
"Aw, he left?" James said, walking down the stairs a moment later. "I was hoping we could spend more time together."
"He's going to see Remus, but he'll be back soon enough," Lily told him. "What took you so long?"
"As soon as I walked in, Harry started kicking and screaming. I put a silencing charm on the room and put him to sleep. I took the silencing charm off again," he added hurriedly after spotting her look.
"Good," Lily said, rubbing her temples and sitting down on one of the red-and-gold sofas near the hearth. "Because I don't think we're going to have any spare moments for taking care of him tonight."
Before someone asks, I'll just say that NO, LILY IS NOT CHEATING ON JAMES WITH SEVERUS SNAPE. She's just acquaintances with Severus, and that's pretty much how it'll stay. They may become good friends again, but there's always going to be a bar separating them. You can't just forget an incident like the 'Sev Thing' (which is what I call the OWLs incident), and I don't expect Lily or Severus to.
This is longer than I meant it to be! Well, I guess that's good for you guys. It might be a bit before the next chapter, my motivation sources are completely drained by this chapter, so it needs to get replenished with the exploration of this new world in my head. I try not to leave loopholes in my story, and sitting around and just thinking about what I'm going to write helps to catch the holes in my story.