Chapter Eight
All Good Things Must Come To An End
It was starting to get dark and although I was having a surprisingly good time I knew it was time to get going. "Come on, Potter, we should go." I stood up from the booth, surprising him by my sudden movement.
"Go where?" He asked, scrambling to stand up.
I rolled my eyes but laughed when he stumbled over his own feet. "Back to school. Look how dark it's gotten. We're going to be in so much trouble if we're caught."
"Relax Lily." He managed to stand properly, took out a galleon and left it to Rosmerta as a tip. "We're not going to be caught." He winked at me and pulled me out of the pub. "We've just got to be a bit more subtle than we usually are."
I assumed he was referring to the multiple arguments we usually had whenever we were in close proximity of one another. "Shut up Potter."
"What happened to calling me James?" He asked, tilting his head to one side and looking at me through sad eyes. "I thought we were getting along?"
"We are." I spoke through gritted teeth. "But when it comes to breaking the rules, we're still on a different page." He opened the door for me with a laugh and placed a hand on the small of my back to guide me through it.
"Oh Lily, you are one of a kind." His eyes sparkled as they looked at me and before I knew it some other emotion flashed through them. I couldn't identify it because it was gone as quick as it arrived but it seemed to give Potter the courage to lean down and press a kiss to my cheek. Before his lips made contact however, a loud bang was heard from behind us along with a sickening laugh.
I whirled around to see a man dressed in black with a mask on his face was blasting a few buildings as he walked down the street. I gaped at him, not understanding what he was doing. James on the other hand seemed to know exactly who he was because he pulled me to one side, down an alley where we were out of sight.
"James, what's going on?" I whispered, watching as the man walked past without seeing us and shot a spell at an innocent passerby.
"He's a Death Eater." He whispered back, eyes hard as he stared at the man. Before either of us could say anything else more of them appeared, apparating straight into the road. Immediate chaos broke out. Women were screaming, men were shouting and above it all, lights of every colour you could imagine streamed through the air, meeting their targets.
"We have to help." I muttered, seeing a little girl crying in the middle of the chaos. Her blonde hair was thrown about by the wind as spells flew over her head. I darted between James' hands and ran towards her, shielding myself as I went. I threw a stunner at the nearest Death Eater, watching as he went flying into a market stall that had been set up, sending wood everywhere.
I scooped the little girl into my arms and made my way back to James who was now out in open, sending spells at anyone who looked as though they were going to hurt me and the girl. I ducked as one particularly nasty orange light was sent over my head and put the girl down when we made it to the alley.
"Where's your mum?" I asked calmly, trying not to let my fear show on my face as I didn't want her to start crying even more that she already was.
"I don't know." She whimpered, fisting her hands in her dress and fidgeting. She screamed a little when a red light got past James' defences and almost hit us. Luckily it hit the wall behind us, leaving a large scorch mark in it's wake. I tried to calm her down by hugging her gently.
The two of us then heard a woman screaming. "Lucy! Where are you, Lucy!" She sobbed.
"Mummy!" The now named Lucy slipped from my grasp and ran past James who did his best to grab her. "Mummy!" She managed to make it to the other side of the street but there she was spotted by a Death Eater who had been trying his best to blow the windows out of the nearby shops.
"Aww look at the little baby." The man cooed, advancing on her threateningly. She startled and backed into the wall behind her, her face falling when she realised what was happening.
"Mummy!" She screeched, the woman luckily spotted her and ran over, blasting the Death Eater away with a bright red light that sent him flying through a window. She hugged her daughter to her and apparated the two of them somewhere else. I let out a sigh of relief when I saw this, having been looking over James' shoulder and trying to keep them as safe as I could.
James and I then spent a second deciding how we were going to get out of this, clearly someone needed to alert the Ministry as to what was going on and since we couldn't apparate yet, we were just going to have to wait it out as best as we could. Luckily we were hidden from the majority of Death Eaters, only one or two could actually see us and this gave us a tactical advantage.
We lay low, trying to wait it out as the Death Eaters only seemed to grow in size, blasting buildings and engaging in battles with random innocent people. There was only so much we could take, being in Gryffindor that before either of us saw anyone get seriously hurt we charged out to help.
We stuck together however, keeping an eye on each other in an attempt to watch each other's backs. I came face to face with a masked man who attempted to disarm me.
"Protego!" I shouted in a panic. "Stupefy!" I sent my own spell back at him, wincing when it missed. He turned back to me with a deadly intent in his eyes. I set about configuring a few of the stones in the road into a barrier of sorts. This was done quicker than he managed to sent a curse at me, the spell bouncing harmlessly off of my barrier which I soon reinforced.
I started using non-verbal spells, trusting myself to cast them correctly and protect myself. Bits of my barrier were being chipped away by the Death Eater who was growing increasingly more frustrated by the lack of blood he was managing to shed. I shot another curse over the top of it, ducking back down when a purple light fizzled past my ear.
I heard a scream of pain and looked behind me, eyes widening when I saw some of the people who had been in the Three Broomsticks with James and I were being attacked. I shot a curse at the one who was causing them pain, watching as he crumpled to the ground.
"Lily!" I peered over the barrier to see James was looking around frantically for me.
I stunned the Death Eater trying to curse me before revealing my location. "James!" He saw me and came running over, casting spells over his shoulder as he went. He jumped over the barrier, my magic automatically letting him in, and he collapsed down next to me.
"Are you alright?" He asked anxiously, wiping blood off of his face.
"I'm fine, are you?" I looked him over for any signs of injury but the only thing was the blood coming from a small scrape above his eyebrow.
He smiled in relief as he finished a similar scan on me. "Yeah, I'm good." The sun was beginning to set now, the darkness that I had been afraid of earlier now scared me for a completely different reason. James cast a shield covering both he and I as more Death Eaters appeared.
"Where are the Aurors?" I asked frantically, as I shot a curse at one of maniacs who rounded the barrier, wand raised high. He went down like a shot and tripped up one of the people behind him. I stunned him as well as soon as I saw the black robes. "There are so many of them." I dared to risk a glance over the top of the barrier and saw many black robed Death Eaters marching through the village.
Fire had spread from blasted buildings across the road, towards the joke shop which I knew was filled with magical fireworks. I cast Augumenti on it before there would be an explosion of colour before rethinking it and levitating them out of the shop and towards James and I.
His eyes lit up as he caught onto my idea. The Death Eaters had formed their own barrier consisting of themselves and crates which protected them from the few people who tried fighting back. James and I looked at one another before shooting off the fireworks.
The Death Eaters were caught unawares as the fireworks zapped around them and some of their robes caught on fire. Taking this opportunity the two of us crept out from behind my barrier and ran towards the alleyway we'd originated from. Honeydukes was blocked by a few Death Eaters so we had to play our cards right.
In the midst of all of the confusion, the Aurors finally arrived. I felt more comfortable with joining in the fighting, James and I had managed well without backup but, I couldn't speak for him, but my own mortality weighed heavily on my mind when we were alone. I risked my life for that little girl and that was enough of an adrenaline rush to get me through until now.
I was due for another however, my barrier had been destroyed by a well placed curse from one of the Death Eaters and it made me duck my head as bits of rubble went flying in every direction. James tried his best to keep me behind him as we came out of our hiding spot in an attempt to help.
"I don't want you to get hurt." He hissed as I dodged under his arm and took out a Death Eater who was laughing maniacally as he tortured an Auror. His screams were surely going to stay with me for a long time. The Auror lay limp on the floor.
I went to go and help him when another Death Eater stepped into my path, I sent a curse spiralling towards him, looking over my shoulder quickly to see James were also locked in battle, he never stayed in one place for more than a second, Quidditch had obviously helped him out here. His wand was shooting off spell after spell but the Death Eater was obviously talented as well because they managed to deflect them all and sent their own back.
"Look out!" I saw the Death Eater grinning sadistically at me, I dodged out of the way of the green curse he shot at me, which left a scorch mark in the wall behind me. I gaped at him and stepped up my own fighting, determined not to let him cast that at me or hopefully anyone ever again. My wand never stayed still from that point on, the Death Eater I had bound and gagged, stunned and then put in a corner where he would be arrested soon.
The fighting was so intense, I was sweating and heaving, trying my best to remain in the picture. I had a lot of cuts on my arms where a building had been blasted and I had been hit with a sizeable chunk of rubble. My shield was wavering but I knew we were winning the battle.
The same amount of Aurors and Death Eaters were out of action but they were showing a lot more breakage than we were. They were crumbling and they knew it.
Someone hit the wall next to me and I gasped as I saw James. I crouched next to him and protected us from anything trying to hurt us. He was alright however, having been flung from where he'd been standing by a spell that he had only just managed to block. He stood next to me and together we were about to go back into fighting.
But then all fighting stopped. I looked at James, confused. What was going on?
Out of the remaining smoke, caused by both rubble and the remainder of the fireworks that James and I had continued to set off randomly throughout the fight, stepped the one person we all feared, illuminated by the street lamp behind him.
The one person who would remain in our nightmares throughout history.
That person was Lord Voldemort.