A/N: Oh, that's right, I left you with a cliffhanger last time! Oops? Thank you for all who raved about the last chapter! I had fun writing it...well, as fun as I could writing scenes where my favorite people in the world are getting attacked. (Yes, I choose to claim fictional characters as my favorite people in the world. Let's move on, shall we?) So what's the aftermath of last chapter? You'll find out if you read on!
Disclaimer: I am not J.K. Rowling but I really wish I lived in England so I could see the premiere of "Harry Potter and the Cursed Child." Crossing every finger and toe that it winds up coming to the US!
Goodbyes on the Balcony
Chapter 53: Of Deals, Girlfriends & Family
By ByeByeBirdie
++REMUS++
When James and I got back to the edge of the forest we had all initially convened in, I could feel the panic crippling through my heart.
Lance's left leg was completely macerated, the flesh only barely hanging on to what appeared to be a very fractured bone. It was actually shocking that he was still awake, though the cries and groans coming from his mouth as Shane attempted to make him comfortable were disturbing at best. Frank was leaning up against the tree, his head split open exposing a large gash of blood pooling down the side of his head. Peter clearly had what looked to be a broken arm and bruises lining his neck that could only have been done by a strong choking spell, though Drew appeared to have only gotten away with a nasty rash spread across various limbs of his body. I didn't dare guess what caused that but he was frantically conversing with Frank so it couldn't have been too life-threatening. Fabian was lying down on the ground, breathing quite heavily and unevenly. Taking a quick glance at him I noticed that his robes were torn open, revealing a large deep purple bruise cutting across his chest. I could tell based off the tortured look on his face that he had been hit with far too many Cruciatus curses. James had a few broken bones and he had cuts across his face that I could only assume came from glass. I could feel several gashes across my body as well as a sprained leg, but nothing a few healing spells couldn't fix.
And Alice, Sydny, and Sirius were nowhere to be found.
"Fabian, where's Alice?" were the first words out of James' mouth.
That thought was on my mind, too. They had been paired up together with Pollux Place.
Fabian winced as he attempted to sit up to face us. "She's…I…I don't know," he whispered, wheezing into his hand as he attempted to catch his breath. "Sirius…he…"
"Yeah?" James urged, clearly not caring that it was paining Fabian to speak. "What about Sirius?"
He didn't answer immediately, taking a few even breaths which I could tell annoyed James to no end. "He…he found us," he whispered, letting out a heavy whimper.
"Who found you? Sirius? What did he say? Where is he?" James asked frantically.
"James," I muttered, shooting him a look. Fabian was clearly in a lot of pain and James hassling him wasn't going to make him feel better.
James shot me a look before rounding back on Fabian. "What happened, Fabian?"
Fabian let out a strained cough, gasping for air before he finally turned to James. "He ran into us," he spoke very slowly as he attempted to catch his breath. "As…as Alice and I left…left Pollux Place."
He hesitated to take a deep breath in, much to James' irritation. "And?"
"James!" I snapped, glaring at him.
Fabian didn't seem to be as put off by James' overzealous insistence as he continued to speak. "He…he said he needed backup," he murmured. He paused again to breathe. "Alice." Pause. "Made me." Pause. "Come back here."
He didn't say why but considering the state he was in, it was obvious she didn't think he was in any shape to fight any more Death Eaters.
"She went off with him," Fabian finished, glancing over to where Frank sat with a fearful expression in his face. He let out a loud cough, attempting to catch his breath once again. "That's all I know."
I met the alarmed gaze of James beside me. "If…if he needed backup, that's where they're hiding her," James whispered, his face full of torturous anguish. "She's there. In Sirius' old house. We've got to go after her!"
"No," I urged, grabbing James arm before he could go and do something stupid. "We don't know what's going on in there, Prongs. We can't just go rushing into a battle until summoned. If something bad was truly happening, they would have sent us a mass patronus!"
James grew quiet as he glanced around the group. I didn't know what he was thinking, but the sudden thought hit me that I was grateful we had all made it back there alive considering the ambushes we must have all encountered.
And then I wished I could take that back because there were three of us – four if you counted Lily – still missing and we had no way of knowing what shape they were in.
"Why…why didn't he send a mass patronus?" James whispered as he slipped down the trunk of the tree, plopping down against the soil with a defeated sigh. "Why…why?"
None of us said anything, all of us probably letting the same question linger in our minds.
"Sirius said nothing more to you?" Frank spoke up, his question directed at Fabian. Even through the blood pouring from his head, I could see the worry lines on his forehead.
Fabian shook his head. "No," he murmured, and I was grateful to hear that his wheezing had slowed down. "He said he needed backup." Taking another breath he added, "And he didn't have time to explain." Cough. "That was it. Then he took off running back towards his house."
"No one else came across Bellatrix, did they?" I asked curiously, glancing around the group.
Simultaneous shakes of the head followed. I had already known the answer to that question, but I had to ask.
"She's in there. Bellatrix. And Lily. They're…they're both in there," James whispered, his gaze once upon falling on to the Black house in the distance. It was a mere dot, barely a house at all, but even through the darkness of night, the moon seemed to be plummeting that particular house into a rather ominous spotlight.
If that wasn't a sign, I didn't know what was.
++LILY++
Some time after Dolohov got called away, Voldemort had showed up with Bellatrix right on his heel. I was hallucinating at this point, in and out of consciousness as I actively felt as if I was lying on a beach somewhere with James right beside me or walking down the street with my arm linked in Kay's or at Blarney's laughing as Sirius hit on another girl. They weren't dreams. I could sense that I was in a dark room with only a single window to lead me to the outside world, and yet every hallucination I saw felt so real.
But when Voldemort walked into the room, I knew it wasn't a hallucination. This was real. And with him standing there and me so weak I couldn't even move, I knew in the deep crevices of my heart that I wasn't going to live another hour. Whatever the outcome of that night was, I was going to die in that house.
That thought should have been unsettling. It should have made me want to cry. I should have been trying to fight for my life.
But everything inside of me was crippling with devastating pain – like a thousand knives piercing my body, like a herd of giants trampling over my entire body, like being attacked by twenty Cruciatus curses at one time, like falling off a broom from five hundred feet in the air, like being told my father and mother were dead over and over and over again, like I was standing in the middle of a fiery pit unable to escape. And all I wanted was for it to be over.
Voldemort had shown immense arrogance as he paced the corner of the room, providing idle chit chat as the minutes passed. I barely took notice, trying hard to just focus on keeping my eyes open. Bellatrix had yelled out to Dolohov – at least I was almost certain it had been her – advising him that they had company and I knew in my gut, though my gut was bleeding profusely so I could have been completely off, that that company was one or two or a handful of my friends and fellow Order members. But as the minutes, hell maybe even hours though my mind could not be trusted, ticked by and nothing happened, the bare minimum of hope I had possessed slowly began to fade and so, too, did I.
And that was when the first explosion struck the house. Glancing up at Voldemort, all he did was smirk. "Any minute now and one of my trusting sidekicks will be dragging that sad, pathetic excuse for a boyfriend through that door and present him to me. At which time, you will die, Lily Evans. You no longer get to live. You've escaped too many times in the past and I refuse to be thwarted by a Mudblood once again."
Those words should have scared me. I had been expecting them all night, and one didn't listen to someone tell them they were going to die and just sit back and accept it.
But I did. This was a long time coming. I just prayed that if I had to die, James got to live.
Explosions continued to shake the house and the attic was no exception. They were getting closer by the minute and I knew that something bad was about to happen.
What I hadn't expected in the very least was Sydny to explode half the attic and rush into the room in an attempt to come to my rescue.
It took every bit of energy inside of me to speak. It was as if my brain wasn't cooperating with my mouth as I struggled to get out what I needed to say before Voldemort burst from the rubble and presented himself.
Too late.
"Sydny LaFevre, am I right?" he greeted in a half sneer.
She slowly stood, attempting to shield my body as she faced the heinous villain. "What's it to you?" she retorted, her voice trembling slightly.
"You're not who I was expecting," he snarled.
"He's not coming," she urged, shaking my head. "If your plan was to lure him here, you failed."
"Oh, he'll come," he sneered, his red eyes blazing with hatred. "You're just another body I will dispose of. When you neglect to show up, he'll find his way here."
She grew quiet. Eerily quiet. The room was dark, only a thin outline of moonlight filling the room, so I couldn't be sure what she was thinking or doing. But what she said next somehow shook me to the bone. "How about I make you a deal?" she whispered softly.
He cackled in pure amusement, glancing to his left as Bellatrix finally joined his side. "I don't make deals with stupid little girls."
"Maybe not with stupid little girls, but I'm not your average girl. I have something you want."
"Doubtful!" he laughed, Bellatrix quickly joining in.
Sydny merely shrugged, at which point I was curious what she had up her sleeve. I had to fight to keep my eyes open as a sharp pain began to shoot down my spine from lingering injuries. Shutting my eyes, I merely listened to the exchange. "Let Lily go and take me instead," she urged
What?
"What?" he sneered, letting out a maniacal laugh. "And why in Merlin's name would I want you?"
The room grew quiet as we all wondered the same thing. I could hear Sydny shuffle her feet as she took a hesitant step away from me. Peeking one eye open, I saw her taking a step closer to Voldemort. "You have some vendetta against James Potter all because his father was the one to gun down your right-hand henchman nine years ago. A man known by an alias of the Executioner. A Giovanni Fevriello to you."
Where in God's name was this going?
Silence filled the room as Voldemort spoke. "Don't presume to think you know why I make any of my choices. It just goes to prove you are in fact a stupid little girl."
"You may think I'm just a stupid little girl but what you don't know is that I'm Giovanni Fevriello's stupid little girl."
The implication of her words were not lost on me, my consciousness slowly becoming easier to grasp as I focused on the conversation going on around me.
"What are you talking about?" Voldemort sneered.
I could hear the tremble in Sydny's voice as she spoke, her voice barely above a whisper, "Giovanni Fevriello had a daughter. I know you know that. I know you probably went looking for her. And I can only imagine how angry you were when you never found her. Well here I am, standing right in front of you. I've been standing in front of you all these years and you never knew."
"Crucio!"
Sydny screamed as she fell to the floor, writhing around in pain.
Her screams were murder to my ears. In that moment, I would have chosen unconsciousness than have to listen to her agony. Shutting my eyes once again, I willed the sleep to come.
I thought I had gotten it, but Voldemort had apparently just pulled his wand away, leaving a panting and shaking Sydny laying right beside me, grasping for breath.
"Is that how you want to play it, Cindy Fevriello?" he sneered and I knew he was standing over her body.
I jumped when an explosion went off underneath us. That could only mean that there was someone else down there in an attempt to come after myself and now probably Sydny. I prayed they got here before it was too late.
"You think you can come in here and use that as some pathetic attempt at a bargaining chip?" he snarled, his voice rising with every word he spoke directly into her ear.
He was caught off-guard for a second when Sydny whipped around to face him, crying, "Confringo!"
His robes caught on fire for a mere second as he flailed backward, but the fire was out before it could cause any real damage. It did give time for Sydny to scramble off the floor, her wand held outright towards the intended victim.
"I said once that I don't make deals, and I'll say it again," he sneered.
The ground shook with another explosion, the trembling of the wood below my body causing painful spurts to shoot across my body. I let out a loud groan, but was completely ignored.
"I. Don't. Make. Deals," he spoke. "CRUCIO!"
"Protego!" Sydny cried before the spell could hit her.
Voldemort shot another spell her way, which was once again deflected. I was praying to every God I knew that one of the Order members, or a whole army, was going to come running up the stairs and save the both of us before Voldemort did any real damage.
Another explosion struck, and this one was more destructive than any of the others. I could feel the entirety of the attic shake and slowly, the floor begin to crack, the wood splitting under my frail self. I attempted to move to no avail. Looking up, the exit looked too far and I was too weak to get to it. I didn't know how long the attic would hold up, but it could go down in any minute and take all of us with it.
"Find out what's going on down there!" Voldemort screamed.
Based on the frantic footsteps, I knew that Bellatrix was whisking out of the room. And every step she took caused the foundation of the room to split even more.
Voldemort merely smirked as he raised his wand in both of our directions. "I don't need to let the Mudblood go in replace of you, Cindy. I get the high honor of killing you both tonight."
"No!" I cried out. Or at least I thought I cried out, but I knew it had to have come out as a mere whisper.
Another loud explosion went off and this one shook the entire house. I saw Voldemort actually reach out to grab hold of the wall, making me think the explosion had been nearby. Was that a good thing? I tried to grab hold of one of the wooden beams in the floor as the room continued to fracture around me but moving my hand was an impossibility at this point.
"You think you can mess with the greatest wizard of all time and get off scot-free?" he sneered, his wand still pointed in our direction. "You think you can come in here and pretend that you have something I want? I don't want anything from you except what your father should have done to you nine years ago! Crucio!"
"PROTEGO!" Sydny cried out once more, continuing to deflect Voldemort's curses.
"LORD, WE'VE GOT TO GET OUT OF HERE. THE WHOLE HOUSE IS ABOUT TO COLLAPSE!" Bellatrix' voice boomed through the entire attic.
It was just a second. One measly second. A single second that Sydny took her eyes off of Voldemort and reached down to touch me. "I'm going to get you out of here," she whispered.
Just one second.
But it was one second too many.
"AVADA KEDAVRA!"
++JAMES++
It didn't take long for Remus to tend to the injured Order members. He had always been more skilled at healing charms than the rest of us, seeing as he had been determined to learn them at a young age after being bitten. And then he insisted on learning every healing and medicinal charm and spell he could when Sirius, Peter, and I told him our plans to become Animagi for him, determined to make safety his top priority.
As he helped Shane take care of Lance first, who was clearly in the worst shape (other than Fabian, but there wasn't much we could do for him), I continued to stare at the house in the distance that belonged to the Black family, knowing in the deepest crevice of my heart that Lily was in there.
I wanted to rush into that house so badly. I wanted to find her and bring her to safety. I wanted to know she was alive.
But I also knew that there had to have been a good reason that Sirius wouldn't have called for backup. So I did the one thing I was terrible at in a time like this.
I waited.
As I waited, flashes of memories I had shared with Lily shot through my brain, praying that she was alive to make more memories. Even if they weren't with me, I needed to know that she was going to make it out of this okay.
I thought back to our last moment together. The moment that I had stood outside the fireplace, feeling so grateful I had caught her before she could disappear off to the States. I tried to remember what I had truly felt in that moment, but my feelings were lost to me. All I could remember was staring at her from across the foyer and thinking she looked more beautiful in that moment than she ever had before. Maybe it was because I had known then that I wanted love to conquer all. I wanted love to be unconditional. I wanted love to be enough. I wanted love.
For months, I had wanted her to be safe. Comfortable. Protected. Shielded from harm. I had stopped thinking about it in terms of love and started thinking about it in terms of fear and overwrought logic.
In hindsight, I had been a fucking idiot.
Would I ever have the chance to tell her that? Would she die thinking I didn't love her? Didn't care?
For a moment – a brief one – I had let myself belief that I didn't love or care about her. For a moment – a brief one – when I thought about Lily Evans, I thought about her sleeping with my best friend.
But when the girl you're madly in love with was basically on the verge of being murdered, it really put things into perspective a bit.
And I knew that I would still be mad at her, if just for a little while, but that didn't stop the fact that I was one hundred percent, completely and utterly, head-over-heels in love with Lily Evans.
I just prayed she stayed alive long enough for me to tell her that.
"We've got to do something!" I found myself shouting out of nowhere as I scrambled off the muddy ground.
"Like what, James?" Peter asked softly. "We don't even know that there is something for us to do?"
Glaring at him, I turned to Frank. "Your goddamned fiancée is in there, Frank! Don't you want to go after her!?"
"Yes, of course I do, but for one, I'm not exactly in a state to do so," he muttered, wincing as Shane attempted to get a better look at his injured skull. "And two, Remus is right. What are we supposed to do without any instructions from Sirius or Sydny? Or Alice? Surely, one of them would be contacting us if they-"
"Did you or anyone ever consider the fact that they can't contact us!?" I cried out, slightly more pathetic than intended. "That…that maybe they've been captured? Or…or worse?"
I didn't dare say the words I knew we were all thinking.
"Why would Sirius have chased down Alice and Fabian alone if he had the chance to send a mass patronus should he need serious backup?" Drew questioned.
We all went quiet. That appeared to be the question of the evening.
Why hadn't Sirius sent a patronus?
"Maybe…maybe someone threatened him?" I suggested.
"He didn't seem very threatened when he came looking for us alone," Fabian drawled.
"Well, I don't know! You come up with ideas!"
"My idea is we wait here until-"
"I'M TIRED OF WAITING!"
"Really? You hide it so well."
I shot Fabian a glare, ignoring the amused snickers behind me. "Something terrible could be going on in there," I whispered helplessly, stepping past the injured bodies lining the forest soil to stand facing Black house in the distance. "What if they need us?"
"Then they'll call for us," Remus urged.
I wasn't so sure.
++LILY++
A jet of green light hit Sydny square in the chest. Her body crumpled to the side, slamming against the wooden floor with a sickening crunch. Her eyes, still opened, stared back at me. But no life rested inside of them. They were as dead as her body was.
Everything inside of me froze. I tried to scream. I tried to cry out. I tried to reach out, to touch her. I tried to do anything. But I couldn't. Not because I had just watched someone die in front of my very eyes, though there certainly was a first for everything.
But because the entire attic began to collapse as an explosion of mountainous flames took over the entire room – maybe even the entire house. The wood floor was now deteriorating underneath the strain of the fire and looking around as much as I could through the pain, I could tell that the attic was only seconds away from crumbling. I could hear Voldemort sending out another killing curse, but I couldn't see him through the raging flames. I noticed a jet of light striking the ceiling raptors having clearly been deflected by the fire. I had originally believed the curse was intended for me though later as I relived every minute of that night it started to dawn on me that maybe it had been meant for someone else.
I heard Voldemort shouting, something about murdering the idiot who set the house on fire followed by words of anger at someone else regarding how his attempts at playing the hero will get him killed. But the words quickly faded as the fire only grew in the attic, taking out floorboards and walls one at a time. Seconds later, I could hear his footsteps stumbling through the fire in the opposite direction where I lay. He clearly listened to Bellatrix, making a run for it in fear of falling three floors to his death and succumbing to what I could only assume was the worst kind of fiendfyre.
Exactly what I was about to do. I couldn't even attempt to save myself. I was far too feeble, too weakened by pain and injuries to even try to find a way out. So I didn't.
I simply shut my eyes, waiting for death to come. I should have been more scared, and maybe I would have been had I had any amount of energy left, but I suddenly felt unnaturally calm as James Potter unexpectedly crawled into my mind. As the wood below my very body began to splinter and I knew that the moment it did, I would be going down with it, I felt myself telling God that it was okay that I died as long as he continued to keep James safe.
And so I waited for the darkness to settle in. I waited to slip through the wooden boards into a pit of ashes and dust. I waited for the end to come.
It never did.
Because suddenly, out of nowhere, a hand reached out and grabbed my arm only seconds before the wooden floor below me gave way and plunged towards the black hole that used to be a standing home. The worst kind of pain shuddered through my body at the mere touch, sending me into a fit of writhing torture as I gasped for air before I plummeted into unconscious obscurity once again.
But not before looking up and seeing Sirius Black standing there with tears in his eyes.
++JAMES++
As the minutes ticked by, I felt more and more helpless and less and less reassured that something bad wasn't happening. I could hear my friends' voices behind me but they felt a million miles away. I prayed to a God I didn't necessarily believe in to bring my friends to safety and soon. I begged for him to make them suddenly appear in front of me, all injury-free. I pleaded for security and protection and the reassurance of safety. At one point, I felt myself repeating "Please God, please God, please God," over and over again as if that would make all the difference in the world.
Clearly God wasn't listening.
Because just as I was about to turn around and tell my useless friends that I was going after our four missing friends with or without their help, a deafening explosion filled the air and I watched as the entire Black House become engulfed in flames.
I stood there in horror before making the split decision to run towards the Black House, my feet pounding against the ground with every stride I took.
"JAMES, STOP! NO!"
I heard Remus' voice calling after me and I even heard a shuffle of footsteps closely behind me, but I didn't care. My friends were in a house taken over by the largest bout of fiendfyre I had ever seen and if they weren't coming out of the front door, I was sure as hell going in after them.
I was only a few feet away from the street when I felt myself being pulled down towards the ground. "Let me go!" I screamed, doing everything to wriggle free from the hands that were holding me down.
"James, stop!"
I had assumed it was Remus who tackled me, but glancing to my right I could see it was Drew that was pinning down one arm while Frank had taken ahold of the other, his knee digging into my back.
Remus and Peter rushed in front of me and Remus crouched down to face me to offer me what I could only assume were about to be words of condolence.
I did everything to tune him out because I didn't want to hear it.
Midway through what I could only assume was his attempt at an optimistic speech, I cut him off, not able to bear it anymore. "Please, just…I have to…I just…I need…" A string of meaningless words fell from my mouth as I stared up at the house that was no longer a house. It was a fire pit of destruction, the whole house slowly crumbling into nothing but dust in front of my very eyes.
The scene blurred in front of me as the tears welled up in my eyes and started spilling out. I knew I probably looked like a hot mess, but I didn't care. Nothing mattered anymore. The world was crashing down around me with the rest of the house. My best friend since I was a mere eleven-year-old boy was in there. My Auror confidante who always gave me advice about Lily even when I hadn't wanted it was in there. A woman who had started out my worst enemy and turned into my protector and ultimately my friend was in there. And the girl I was very much in love with was in there.
As the minutes passed with no sign of anyone, the slight twinge of hope I had once resting in my heart began to flicker out and fade into nothing but desolation.
I felt the restraints of my friends slacken as they let me go, but I was too succumbed by despair to do anything but lie there with my silent tears. I couldn't move. I couldn't talk. I could barely think. I was frozen with the fear and realization that I had put them all in that house. It was my fault Lily was taken. It was my fault we were all standing there watching the house go up in flames, our friends living with the same consequence. It was my fault I insisted that Shane get us emergency licenses. It was my fault we went after her.
"I did this," I whispered, bringing my hands to my face as I unabashedly wept, mourning the loss of four people I had grown to really love. "I-I did this."
I had expected one of them to tell me to not blame myself since that always seemed to be the typical response, but silence followed. Lifting my gaze from my hands, I saw that the four of them were walking slowly to the edge of the road. My initial thought was they were taking in the sight just like I was in their own way. Watching the people we cared about most fall to their deaths without us being able to help in any way. It was traumatic and heartbreaking to say the very least, but it was reality.
Until Drew whirled around and cried out, "James!" in such a hopeful way that I let that flicker of hope emerge into my heart once again.
I scrambled off the ground and rushed towards the four of them, relief and gratitude filling my every vein at the sight of Alice rushing out of the house, deflection spells spilling from her wand as she backtracked along what used to be the front patio.
"ALICE!" Frank was the first to cry out.
Whirling around, her eyes were wide with shock as she made her way over to us. I cringed at the sight of burn marks all over her body. She was black with soot, barely recognizable as she stumbled across the road to where we stood.
Frank reached out just as Alice crumbled to the ground with such a sad hissing whimper, my heart nearly broke for her. I saw the glistening of tears stained against his cheek as he hugged her close.
"Alice, what happened? What's going on? Where are the others?" Peter dared to ask, crouching down beside her.
He was met with a fit of raspy coughs exploding from her lungs. She fell from Frank's arms towards the ground, her ability to speak masked by her overwhelming need to cough out what I could only imagine was a sea of fire and smoke building up inside of her. The tears trickled from her eyes as she shook her head, her subtle way of essentially telling us she didn't know about the others.
And so the five of us turned to face each other before Drew, Peter, Remus, and I pulled ourselves off the ground to stare up at the house. Frank stayed back, holding Alice in his arms. We left the two of them there, all of us needing to feel some sort of hope that the other three will somehow appear just as Alice had. I stood all the way to the right, standing beside Remus, and then Peter, and Drew. Four men staring at a firework display of reds and oranges and yellows and browns lighting up the night sky, praying that three more bodies would emerge from the tower of flames.
Seconds ticked by, though it felt like hours. And nothing. Just fire shooting in every direction as the entire structure of the house began to collapse one room at a time. I forced myself to tune out the coughing fits that Alice was having behind me, knowing that if she was as bas of as I thought she was, the others were going to be much worse. My hope started slipping away once again, the tears prickling the backs of my eyes at the realization that I couldn't just stand there with the knowledge that three of my friends' bodies were being buried alive by wooden beams and fire in front of my very eyes.
I was about to turn away, willing myself to admit that the flames were too much for any one person, much less three, to survive against, when suddenly a silhouette coughing uncontrollably burst from the fire only seconds before the entire house plummeted to the ground, the sound of a million wooden planks slamming against the soil filling the air with a deafening reverberation. The four of us had to cover our ears and turn away from the sight, all of it too much to bear.
Slowly, we all pulled our hands away from our ears and settled our eyes on the silhouette that was slowly making its way down the front pathway.
As it got closer, I saw it wasn't just one silhouette. It was two. One man using every ounce of energy inside of him to take the remaining steps towards the edge of the forest with one woman in his arms, weighing him down as his own coughs matching those of Alice filled the air.
I couldn't move, so it was Remus who rushed over to the twosome. He took whoever was in the man's arms and cried for help. Frank scrambled off the ground and followed Drew and Peter towards him and the woman was transferred to Frank as Remus draped his arm around Sirius (at this point, I could only presume he was the man that had escaped from the house) and helped guide him towards where I stood, ignoring the coughs that continued to pour from Alice's mouth behind me.
"IT'S LILY!"
Those were the words that fell from Peter's booming voice as all of them made their way over to me.
Once again, I was powerless against the tears that fell from my eyes as I finally rushed over to help Frank. But this time, the tears were those of relief.
Until I took in the sight of an unconscious Lily and suddenly relief was far from my mind. She looked so tortured and damaged. Her body was scorched with burns, her face barely recognizable with a gash that ran down half of it. Her eye was swollen shut and she had a broken leg and an arm. Her one leg was emaciated to the point of undetection. Where her body wasn't covered in burns, bruises and scratches took over. Dried blood sunk into so much of her skin that if I hadn't known that her auburn hair indeed belonged to her, it would have been hard to pick her out of a lineup.
She was in desperate need of a hospital.
I turned to tell Remus this, but became quickly distracted by Sirius whose coughs were louder than Alice's. Deep burns covered every inch of his skin and every time he exhaled, dark smoke escaped in masses. I could hear him choking and wheezing on the smoke that rested in his lungs as he grabbed a fistful of grass underneath his curled-up body, his eyes twisted shut with pain. When I got closer to Sirius, I was shocked to see that it wasn't just soot and ash escaping his mouth every time he coughed, but that it mostly consisted of pools of blood.
I once again was about to tell Remus that they both weren't going to make it unless we found the closest hospital, but was interrupted by a gurgled word falling from Sirius' mouth.
"Ssss…." He cried out, another coughing fit quickly falling.
"What?" I asked, crouching down beside him. "What is it?"
"Ssss," he said again, whimpering when that was all he could say. I could see a mere glimmer of a tear in the back of his eyes as he struggled to speak. "Sssidd…"
The hairs on the back of my neck stood up as I turned to meet Remus' gaze. His eyes were wide at the realization that there was still one missing person.
"Sydny?" Remus whispered when it was clear I couldn't.
Sirius nodded, letting out another coughing fit of black smoke. Glancing up at me, he reached for the hem of my shirt and I could tell that he was about to put every ounce of energy he had into speaking his next words. "Saved," he spoke in a hoarse whisper. "Lil."
As Sirius hung his head, letting the smoke continue to clear from his throat as he crumpled to the ground again in pure agony, all he had left to offer was a mere shake of the head.
A shake of the head to let us know that Sydny didn't make it.
"She's gone, isn't she," I heard Remus whisper behind me.
Sirius didn't say anything, but he didn't have to. We all knew the answer. It was the reason we were all out here and she wasn't.
The hairs on the end of my arm stood up, a chill running down my spine at the shock of this revelation. Stunned, I slowly stood up as I did everything in my power not to meet the gaze of anyone around me. I could feel their sympathetic eyes on me. I could feel their words of compassion though no one actually spoke. I could feel the world slipping away into nothing at the thought that the best damned Auror in the entirety of the wizarding world had been killed. I could feel all of this.
Which was rather impressive since what I really felt was nothing.
I was numb to the pain. Powerless to the regret. Frozen with empty shock. The girl who I had only come to know because she was protecting me was dead.
There was no one left to protect me now but myself.
Turning towards Sirius, I wanted to thank him for getting Lily out. I wanted to commend him for wading through what I could only imagine was painful flames of torture. I wanted to show my appreciation that he was still alive when Sydny wasn't.
But I couldn't. Because when I turned towards Sirius, all that was sitting there was a stiff body of unconsciousness that had finally succumbed to the pain of fiendfyre.
"Sirius?" I cried out, kneeling down and shaking him. "Sirius! C'mon, don't do this. You've got to wake up! Sirius!"
Nothing.
Remus hastily knelt down, running his two fingers up and down the side of Sirius' neck, his whole hand shaking in the process. Seconds later, his eyes lit up. "He has a pulse. He's just unconscious."
"C'mon, we need to get them to a hospital now!" Drew insisted, leaning down to scoop up Lily's frail body.
It was only then that I realized that the night air was completely still. Meaning that the other body who had fended off fiendfyre was no longer producing her own coughing fits.
I wasn't the only one who made that realization.
"ALICE!" Frank's voice filled the air, his knees scraping against fallen branches as he scrambled over to her unconscious body. He bent down, his fingers running alongside her neck before he let out a cry of relief. Pressing my own fingers against her neck I, too, could feel a pulse. "She's alive!"
"Tell the others to meet us at the hospital!" Remus shouted towards where Peter stood.
"Which one?" Peter called out hastily.
The five of us all shared a frantic look before Frank said, "It'll take too long to floo back to England. There has to be a hospital close by!"
"ST. HAMADI'S!" another voice resonated.
The five of us whirled around at the sound of Shane's voice, who skidded to a screeching halt. "I just came from there. Both Fabian and Lance fell unconscious and were in need of desperate Healer attention. I have already warned them that more may be com—Oh my God!"
Following his gaze, he had finally spotted Lily's body. His face turned white.
"What's the full name of the hospital so we can apparate there?" I urged.
Shane said nothing, his eyes filling with regretful pain.
"Shane!" I cried out, stepping in front of him to block his line of vision towards Lily. "If we expect to help her in any way, we need to get to the hospital no-"
"St. Hamadi's Hospital for Healing."
Seconds later, six resounding pops could be heard echoing through the trees.
++FRANK++
"I DELIBERATELY TOLD YOU NOT TO DO ANYTHING! AND IF I RECALL, YOU ALL AGREED TO IT! RIGHT BEFORE YOU WENT ON SOME DANGEROUS WILD GOOSE CHASE! THIS WAS COMPLETELY AND UTTERLY IRRESPONSIBLE! RECKLESS! DANGEROUS! UNNECESSARILY RASH! YOU ALL COULD HAVE BEEN KILLED! WHAT IN MERLIN'S NAME WERE YOU THINKING?"
The six of us – James, Remus, Peter, Drew, Fabian, and myself – were spread out throughout the room being tended to by healers while we all listened as Moody berated us for what felt like hours. No one had heard anything about Sirius, Lily, or Alice since they had been swept away by a team of unknown Healers. Lance was in the room next door, though last I heard through the grapevine he had already woken up and was now just enduring painful procedure after procedure to fix up his demolished leg. Evidently he had up to ten potions shoved down his throat upon his immediate arrival and he wasn't close to being done. Fabian had been in and out of consciousness since he arrived at the hospital, though even though the Healers insisted he slept, he hadn't wanted to go anywhere so they compromised and let him lie down in the back of the room until we were all tended to.
"How's Lily doing?" James interrupted Moody's rant.
"And Alice?" I cried out desperately, jerking my head away from the not-so-gentle American mediwitch who clearly hadn't planned to be bothered with life-threatening injuries at midnight on a Sunday and was not so pleased that it happened.
"And Sirius?" Remus questioned.
The rage in Moody's eye did not go unnoticed. "HAVE ANY OF YOU LISTENED TO A GODDAMNED WORD I'VE SAID?"
"Yes, but we prepared ourselves for it," Fabian said from the back of the room "We knew what your reaction was going to be, Alastor, but you couldn't actually expect us to just sit back and do nothing, could you?"
"THAT'S EXACTLY WHAT I EXPECTED OF YOU!"
"Well, then you clearly don't know James at all," I snorted rather derisively, but my fiancée was lying unconscious somewhere in that hospital and no one was giving me answers so I was allowed to be derisive.
Moody turned his glare on me, but it was James who spoke up. "Hey, you all hopped on board quicker than—ow!" he snapped at the Healer as he popped James' shoulder back into the socket.
"And where the hell has Shane Redford gone off to?" Moody barked, whirling around the room as if the guy as suddenly going to appear. "I plan to have a very lengthy conversation with his supervisor about the actual uses of an emergency license! That boy should be fired for this!"
"Don't bother," James sighed. "Shane was forced into it. We…uh…we held a wand to his head," he lied.
"I bet it helped that his ex-girlfriend was the intended target," Moody drawled sarcastically.
James cringed. "Er…that, too."
Moody said nothing, his rage beginning to dissipate, sinking slowly into disappointment. "And where the hell is your other partner in crime, Potter?" he grunted, taking a seat in an empty lounge chair by the door. "I can't imagine LaFevre hadn't been in on this."
A heavy silence filled the room as the six of us exchanged looks of pure despair. I felt my heart drop at the reminder and the twisted glaze in James' eyes told me that just her name was enough to make him feel painful guilt.
I wouldn't necessarily call Sydny a friend as she had put up walls around herself the moment she stepped foot into our British office. But we had all grown rather fond of her. When James stopped seeing her as the enemy and just saw her as a coworker, we had had a rather close-knit group of Aurors that we all depended on. We didn't have to only look out for ourselves because I knew that James and Fabian and Sydny and Alice would always have my back. We had only grown closer after Caleb had died. It had caused unexpected heartbreak to have such a painful rift in our small clique, but we bounced back and started to depend on each other more than we probably would have admitted.
But now we lost Sydny. More heartbreak. More pain. Another rift.
We were too young for death to be so common.
"Well?" Moody interrupted my thoughts.
"It's my fault," James whispered, hanging his head shamefully. "Don't…don't blame the others. Blame me."
Moody frowned. "She was involved, wasn't she," he spoke softly, already knowing the answer.
James merely nodded. "Yes."
We all watched the realization strike Moody's eyes at the unspoken words that hung in the air. "She didn't make it out," he whispered. It wasn't a question. It was a very sullen statement, one he already knew the answer to.
Once again, a heavy silence filled the room until James finally confirmed. "No," he whispered, the word barely audible. "She didn't."
Moody breathed in a sharp intake of a breath, his eyes blinking as he attempted to meet the gaze of James, who was in fact doing everything he could to avoid looking at his superior. "Oh" was all Moody said.
Because what else could be said?
This was the part where Moody was supposed to continue berating us, even more so now that we lost a valuable coworker and friend. But he didn't. He simply slumped down on the chair, his eyes finding sudden solace in the floor tiles. We all knew that Sydny was somewhat of a protégé of Moody's, and in that moment we all felt the grief that emanated from our superior, even though all that was passed amongst us was silence.
I suddenly felt horrible, realizing that I had spent all of five seconds grieving over Sydny's loss, instead choosing to spend my every thought worried about Alice. When we had charged into the hospital, the three unconscious bodies were whisked away and I haven't been told a single thing about her. Was she even still alive? Would she make it? How much damage was there? Was she going to be okay?
But Sydny LaFevre was dead. She put her life on the line to save a girl she barely knew. She took the ultimate sacrifice to save the life of another and she was a true hero.
Of course what she actually did was still incredibly unknown, because the only people that would have any clue what led to her death were the people that were lying in hospital beds completely unconscious and unable to tell the tale.
The door to the room opened and in walked Shane. He opened his mouth to speak but was cut off by Moody jumping off the chair to glare at him.
"What in Merlin's name were you thinking providing emergency licenses for these immature fools!?"
Shane's eyes widened in guilt. "Er..."
"Is that all you have to say for yourself?"
"Well, I…I don't really have a good defense so, yeah, 'er' is pretty much all I got."
It should have been funny. At any other time it would have been, especially since it was rare for anyone to go up against an angry Moody. But in that moment, we were all too exhausted and drained and dejected to feel any sort of humor.
"Be aware, I will be talking to Nyger Lunder about this," Moody scowled.
Shane shrugged. "I already spoke to him. I'm on probationary suspension for the rest of the year and am ineligible for quarterly bonuses. So you can talk to him, but I've already been punished."
"You should be fired!"
"Probably. But I'm not."
Moody opened his mouth to argue once again, but James cut him off. "Please tell me you have information on the others, Shane."
He frowned, sinking into a chair beside the one Moody previously sat in. "No," he whispered, shaking his head. "They run a tight ship out there. They won't tell me anything unless I'm directly related to the patients, and while I'm pretty sure the Blacks are related to me in a very distant cousin thrice-removed or something along those lines kind of way, apparently that wasn't good enough to get some answers."
"'Directly related?'" Drew snapped. "The only one lying in a hospital bed right now who has actual family is Alice and when was the last time we saw her parents hanging around?"
I frowned. "Do fiancé's count as family?" I asked Shane softly.
He turned to look at me before slowly shaking his head. "No. I already asked for you. Unless you're married, it means nothing."
"Guess that means ex-boyfriends and best friends are out," James muttered, shaking his head. "They can't do this! We just went through hell and back and they won't provide us with just a smidge of information?"
"Why did they give us information on Lance if they're so prone on keeping secrets?" Peter questioned.
"Well, for one, he has a brother in the room," Drew reminded him.
Peter cringed sheepishly. "Oh, right."
"And two," I sighed, knowing the rest of Drew's response, "his condition isn't life-threatening. They already said he was going to make a full recovery."
"So you're insinuating Lily, Sirius, and Alice won't?" James snapped.
"No," I said, shaking my head. "I'm saying…I'm saying I'm going to go find a Healer that will tell me something." I jumped off the table, earning a clear protest from the mediwitch working on my head.
"I'm not done!" she argued.
"Unless you plan to tell me any information on my fiancée, this can wait for later."
"I assure you it can't!" she cried out after me, but I was already bolting towards the door.
"Word of advice," Moody muttered as I passed him. "Be nice or they'll never tell you anything."
Glancing at him, I saw compassion in his eyes and merely nodded my recognition of his words before hightailing it out of the room.
I felt my heart constrict with remorse as I started down the hallway. Every step felt heavy with concern as I searched for the mediwitch station. I didn't know what information I would be able to obtain that Shane couldn't, but I was done sitting in a room with the others simply letting the worry consume my mind while trying not to let Moody's anger get to me. In other words, my mind was a jumble of conflicting emotions that I couldn't seem to unjumble no matter how hard I tried.
When I found the mediwitch station, I could feel the tears prickling in my eyes at the reminder that we lost a great Auror that night, and that there was a chance I was going to lose not only two of my closest friends but the girl I was madly in love with. This was not how the night was supposed to go.
"Uh…hi," I greeted a mediwitch who was frantically flipping through files.
She barely glanced up at me. "What can I do for you?"
Good question. "I was hoping for an update on Alice Fisher."
She woman finally stopped searching her files for whatever she was looking for and looked up at me. "And you are?"
I hesitated before saying, "Her brother."
The look on the woman's face turned skeptical. "The last man I spoke to told me she had no siblings."
Hm. "That's because he was trying to get details and was hoping by pretending she had no family, you would be so kind as to give us an update on her condition."
"Do I look like a fool to you?"
Kinda. "Uh…no?"
"My guess is you're the fiancé."
"She has a fiancé? Hm, I wasn't aware."
She glared at me. "You should really work on your lying skills if you plan to swindle information out of unsuspecting mediwitches."
"I'm not trying to swindle," I spoke softly. "I just…I need to know if she's going to make it or not. That's all I need. Just some reassurance that the girl I'm madly in love with and planning to marry in just a few short months is going to make it out of this hospital alive."
"I'm sorry, but-"
"Just give me a nod if she's going to be okay. Or blink! Smile! Anything."
"Sir, I'm-"
"Did you just blink? Was that a sign?"
The woman frowned. "No, it wasn't. Like I told the other guy who stopped by, I just cannot release information unless you are family. And I'm sorry, but you are not."
"Well, what kind of rule is that anyway?" I whispered desperately. "We just risked our lives to save those three people and we deserve to know if they're going to live or die!"
She actually looked compassionate as she frowned. "I'm sorry," she responded. "I really am. But it's hospital policy."
"Well, I've got to say, your hospital policy sucks."
"Take that up with Management, not-"
"Frank!"
I turned away from the mediwitch at the sound of my name, quickly rushing down the hallway towards Kay. There were tears glistening in her eyes as she reached out and embraced me tightly.
"What the hell happened?" she blurted out as she pulled away, her eyes filled with confusion.
I didn't even know where to begin with that question. "How…who…I-I mean, how did you know where to find us?"
"Dumbledore," she whispered. "He came into the hospital and told me Lance was injured and that I should get to Hamadi's straight away. But that's all I know. So tell me, Frank, what happened?"
I didn't know what to say to that. It was a long story that just felt like too much to explain in a moment where my head and my heart were with a girl unconscious in a hospital wing. "How did you get here so quickly?" I murmured, changing the subject. "The floo gates are still-"
"There are fireplaces interconnected between all hospitals," she spoke hastily. "They're always open due to emergencies. I took it upon myself to consider this an emergency. Now can you please tell me what the hell happened?"
She had panic written across her forehead and I just wish I had some sort of answer that could make the situation okay. But there wasn't a single thing I could say that could make this okay. Sydny was dead. Fabian had been tortured by several rounds of Cruciatus Curses and it would take a while for him to heal. Lance's leg was mangled. And who knew what the prognosis for Sirius, Lily, and Alice was. Everything felt so unfinished and I couldn't be sure what was waiting on the other end when the finish would finally come. "Lily," was all I could croak out, my own tears threatening to spill out.
The panic in Kay's expression turned to pure horror. "Don't tell me…" she trailed off.
"She's…" I couldn't even finish that sentence because I didn't even know what the end of that sentence was.
"She's what?"
"She was kidnapped," I blurted out. "Held hostage. We all went after her. There was a fire. Fiendfyre to be exact. She's…she got out. Sirius got her out. Sydny helped. Alice, too. She's…she's alive. But I don't know how extensive her injuries are. No one will tell us anything. Oh, but Lance is okay. I mean, he's awake."
The words had come out in a jumbling ramble, and based on the confusion in her face, I wasn't making much sense.
"So…Lily's okay?" she finally settled on.
I frowned. "I-I actually don't know. Like I said, no one will tell us anything. Why the hell does this hospital have a policy on only divulging information to family members?"
"It's policy in all hospitals," Kay murmured, her thoughts clearly still resting on Lily.
"Not St. Mungo's."
She frowned. "No, the policy stands at St. Mungo's, too. We just no longer follow it when it comes to all of you. It helps that I'm a mediwitch there. And there's the fact that…" she trailed off.
"Yeah?"
She shook her head. "Nothing."
I frowned, too, suddenly realizing what she was about to say. "And there's the fact that we are constantly there that the staff knows us all too well?"
She winced as she met my gaze. The tears pooled in her eyes once again. "Everything is so fucked up, Frank."
You could say that again. "Lance is okay," I whispered in my attempt to focus on him. "He's in room 613."
"They won't let me see him. I'm just his fiancée. Nothing more."
"Yes, but you see, he's actually awake and therefore has the ability to tell the Healers who he wants included on his visitor log and I guarantee your name is already on there."
She merely nodded, not finding much comfort in that. "So…when you say 'he's actually awake,' am I correct in believing that Lily, Sirius, Alice, and Sydny are not?"
I cringed at the mention of Sydny. It would probably be a long time before I could hear her name without doing so. I swallowed hard as I said, "Lily, Sirius, and Alice were unconscious last I heard. Sydny…" I couldn't get the words out. It was painful every time I thought about it.
Looking at me, she frowned knowingly. "She's dead, isn't she."
My bottom lip trembled as I nodded. "She saved Lily. I don't know how or what happened or why the rest of us managed to get out and she didn't, but…she died saving Lily." I felt a tear slip down my cheek at the thought of Sydny's final acts of heroism. I didn't bother swiping it away. I knew more were coming.
Kay reached out and embraced me again, and I slipped my arms around her as the two of us succumbed to the tears we had both been holding in. I was so happy for Kay that her fiancé was awake somewhere in the hospital, but it just made me so much more aware that I had no idea what state Alice was in and I didn't know if I'd ever be able to find out. All I could do was wait.
I really hated waiting.
++JAMES++
Frank had returned informing us that Kay had shown up and was now with Lance. She had promised to see if she could get any further information from the mediwitches, being a mediwitch herself, but she said it was a long shot.
I barely heard Frank as he spoke, as if everyone was a million miles away from where I sat being poked and prodded by a rather stern-looking Healer. The cuts on my face were now gone and my broken arm and fractured leg were mended, though I apparently was intended to be sore for the next few days. What the Healer didn't realize was that I couldn't feel anything. I had no pain. I had no soreness. I had nothing. I was numb to it all, the world slowly slipping away into a sea of detachment while my thoughts bounced back and forth amongst Sydny, Sirius, Alice, and Lily.
When I couldn't bear imagining Sydny's final moments on this earth, I let myself think of Sirius and how he risked his life to save the girl I loved. When I was reminded of the fact that he had slept with Lily and I was supposed to be angry with him, my thoughts turned on Alice and if she was going to survive this. When I couldn't imagine what Frank must be going through any longer, I finally let myself think about Lily. A girl who was dragged into all of this because of me and I hadn't even been able to be the one to save her.
The entire time these thoughts were swarming my mind, only one question rang through.
Why the hell didn't Sydny and Sirius send a mass patronus for backup?
The only two people who knew the answer to that question were either dead or unconscious, and a part of me hated them for it.
"James!"
I jumped, searching the room for the source of the voice. "Kay," I murmured. "Hey."
She frowned, glancing down at my arm that was wrapped in a sling to keep the bones in place. "Are you okay?"
I could only nod, though I was far from being okay. "No, you're not," she whispered, taking a seat beside me and reaching for my hand.
A lump formed in my throat at the slight gesture of intimacy. "Shouldn't you be with Lance?" I croaked out.
Her expression turned grim. "The Healers are peeling off his flesh to get to the bone and it's…well, it's not a pretty sight. They asked me to leave. Apparently me being a mediwitch and seeing dead flesh being peeled from a body a couple hundred times didn't warrant me the luxury of sticking around," she murmured, clearly feeling defeated.
Once again, all I could do was nod as there was nothing to say to that. In an attempt to focus on those who weren't unconscious or dead or getting their flesh peeled off, I glanced around the room at my friends. One of the mediwitches resumed cleaning out Frank's cut, much to his dismay. Peter's arm was in a sling much like mine and while a Healer attempted to get the color back in Peter's neck, I could still see the faint bruises in the form of a choking curse. Fabian was now asleep in a bed in the back, the Cruciatus Curse having struck his heart which apparently could cause severe permanent damage if he didn't take it easy. Drew was sipping a rather disgusting looking potion that was intended to remove the rash from his body. Remus' ankle was still swollen but the Healers informed him that the sprain had been fixed.
And the only reason any of them were there was because I insisted on going after Lily on some wild goose chase.
A part of me was apologetic for it and another part of me wasn't at the reminder that we at least got her out.
But at what cost?
Suddenly, the room felt so small and I couldn't be in there anymore. I jumped off the end of the bed, slipping my hand out of Kay's. "I…need some water," I whispered, rushing towards the door.
No one tried to stop me as I thrust the door open and spilled out into the corridor, feeling a weird sense of relief fill my heart at the stillness that greeted me.
Glancing in both directions of the hallway, I found myself wandering to the right to nowhere in particular as I attempted to think about anything but what had occurred that night. Every time I tried not to think about it, however, my heart would constrict with pain and agony and my mind filled with guilty panic.
I flooded into an empty patient room, slamming the door behind me as I finally succumbed to the tears that I had been holding in all evening. I slid down the wall, covering my face with my hands as the sobs escaped one by one. At this point, I didn't even know what I was crying for. Sydny for risking her life to save Lily? Sirius and Alice who were lying in a hospital bed somewhere fighting for the will to live? Lily for being tortured by Death Eaters for hours? Myself for letting it get to this point?
Hugging my knees to my chest, I prayed that Sirius, Alice, and Lily would make it out okay because if they didn't, I wasn't so sure I'd ever be able to forgive myself.
I jumped at the sound of the door creaking open, hastily swiping the tears underneath my eyes and shielding my face from whoever was walking in.
I had expected it to be a Healer or a mediwitch, but it wasn't. "James."
My heart tightened at my friend's voice. "Not now, Remus," I whispered.
He said nothing and I just prayed he would turn and walk away. He didn't. Instead, he shut the door behind him and slid down the wall to sit beside me. I didn't know why, but his presence just made me tear up again and no matter how hard I tried to blink the tears away, they continued to fall. I buried my face in my knees, my cheeks flushing with humiliation.
I felt Remus' hand on my arm and I jerked away. "It's not your fault, James," he whispered.
"It is," I choked out, my voce muffled against my knees. "Sydny's dead because of me and…and who even knows what Sirius, Lily, and Alice's fates are."
Remus said nothing and when I peeked my eyes in his direction, I saw his face turning white at the implication. "Don't…don't say that," he whispered.
"Did you see them?" I hissed, my words catching in my throat. "They'll…they'll be lucky if they come out of this al-"
"Stop!" Remus pleaded, shaking his head. "Just…this isn't helping."
"None of this can be helped," I argued, swiping the tears from my cheeks as my remorse turned to anger. "It is what it is. Whatever the outcome is, we have to live with it."
"Please don't blame yourself," Remus requested, placing his hand on my shoulder.
I shrugged him off, frantically hurrying off the floor as I began to pace the room. "I hate just waiting around," I muttered irritably. "Waiting for answers. For an update. Waiting to hear whether they're going to live or they're going to die. I hate waiting around when these fucking Healers won't even tell us a goddamned thing! I mean, what the hell am I supposed to do? Go chase down Lily's sister when I haven't a bloody clue where she even lives? Inform Sirius' dear old parents that he's on his deathbed and watch as they don't give a shit? Go looking for Alice's parents when they haven't been involved in her life since she chose the life of an Auror? What the hell am I supposed to do, Remus?"
Remus pulled himself off the floor with a hesitant frown. "You may not want to hear this," he whispered, "but right now, there's nothing you can do."
"That's not good enough!"
"I didn't say it was," he spoke quietly.
Seething, I continued to pace as my thoughts jumbled back and forth between Sirius, Alice, and Lily. Finally, when I wore a large enough hole in the floor, I glanced up at Remus. "I need answers," I whispered.
He nodded. "I know. We'll get them."
I didn't bother pointing out that the only way we would get them is if the three of them woke up and there was a strong possibility that that wouldn't happen.
I slid back down the wall beside Remus, my thoughts resting on Sydny. Months ago, I thought she was the devil. I hated everything about her. She was sneaky and rude and far too smug for her own good. I can't be sure when that all changed, but somewhere in the last few months she had stopped being my rival and started being my confidante. When I tried pushing everyone away, she was the one person I felt compelled to keep around. She had always had the answers I was looking for. She held on to most of these secrets close to her heart but they slowly tickled out until she was completely exposed. And suddenly she became the only person I wanted to or needed to trust. But now she was gone.
I guess the only person I was supposed to trust now was myself.
"The floo gates have all been reopened," Remus spoke, and I had a feeling this is why he had originally come after me. "Lunder needs to know if there's anyone you need an emergency license granted for."
I frowned before slowly shaking my head. "No," I murmured. "Everyone's already here."
"What about your Mum?"
"No," I pleaded. "Please don't tell her about any of this. I just…I don't want her to worry."
The sympathy in Remus' eyes was disconcerting. "James," he whispered, "she'd want to know about Sirius."
A lump formed in my throat as I met Remus' gaze. All I felt in that moment was overwhelming defeat as I slowly nodded. "Okay," I murmured.
Remus opened his mouth to say something but nothing came out. I knew he wanted to say something that held some form of comfort but at this moment, those words didn't exist. So he shut his mouth, offered me a curt nod, and headed towards the door.
"Wait," I called out softly. "What about Keegan?"
Remus turned around to look at me curiously. "What about her?"
"She needs to be told about Lily."
Remus' lips pursed. "And Sirius," he muttered.
I frowned. "Get her a floo license. She'd want to be here."
Remus nodded before whisking out of the room, shutting the door behind him and plunging the room into quiet darkness once again.
I remained in that room for a while longer, just trying to collect my thoughts to the point where I wouldn't explode with anxiety when I walked back into the room filled with my injured friends.
As I made my way back to the room, I felt myself thinking about Sirius. Every emotion in my body was overtaken by thoughts of him. Just that morning, I thought I was destined to hate him forever. And maybe a part of me still did for sleeping with the love of my life. But he was now lying in a hospital bed wavering between life and death and what scared me the most about that was that I didn't know how I felt about it. With Lily, I couldn't imagine my life without her in it. I never thought I'd have to consider a world that Sirius Black didn't exist either. I may not have been his biggest fan at the moment, but an empty hole settled into my heart at the thought of him not coming out of this alive. I never thought it was possible. He was the strongest person I knew, facing so much aversion in his life and still surviving. He wasn't perfect in any way. He certainly had his flaws. I was still disappointed and hurt by him. But I didn't wish him dead. I wasn't as heartless as I've been appearing recently.
Wandering back into the room, I cringed as everyone stared expectantly up at me. "I don't have any information," I muttered, slinking back to the bed I had previously been occupying with a guilty sigh.
"Did Remus find you?" Drew questioned.
I nodded, noting his absence. Moody was gone, too, so I suspected the two of them were coordinating with Lunder regarding emergency floo licenses for our friends and family. "Where's Kay?"
"Yelling at the mediwitches I believe," Frank interjected. He had a bandage wrapped around his head to contain the gash. Glancing around the room, I realized that we were alone. There were no Healers or mediwitches tending to us anymore.
"Are we free to go?" I murmured.
"They're coming back with our release papers," Peter said with a nod.
"Not mine," Frank grumbled, wincing.
"You look like you took a powersaw to the head," Drew drawled. "Of course they're not releasing you yet."
"Fabian either," Peter spoke in a whisper, glancing towards the bed in the back of the room where Fabian was still sleeping.
"So…" I trailed off with a sigh. "Eleven of us went after the Death Eaters, and five of us have been given the clean bill of health by the Healers. What great odds."
"James-"
"This is complete bullshit," I snapped, my rage taking over once again as I jumped off the hospital bed with clenched fists. "We deserve answers! We are the closest thing that Lily, Sirius, and Alice have as family and this bloody hospital shouldn't be keeping valuable information from us! We deserve to know what's going on with them!"
As I finished my rant, I was aware that my voice wasn't the only one carrying through the hospital.
"What's that?" Peter asked as a sound of a shrieking female voice reverberated off the walls.
"Who's that?" Frank corrected.
We all strained to listen. "Is…is that Kay?" Drew questioned curiously.
Shrugging, I rushed towards the door and thrust it open. I wasn't surprised when Shane, Drew, Peter, and Frank were on my heels. As we flooded into the hallway, abandoning a sleeping Fabian in the room, we rushed down the hallway towards the mediwitch station.
I halted halfway down the corridor, my eyes growing curiously wide at the realization that it was Keegan.
"WHAT IN MERLIN'S GODDAMNED NAME DO YOU MEAN YOU WON'T TELL ME ANYTHING?"
I had to handle it to the mediwitch who looked unfazed by Keegan's outburst. "I mean that I can't divulge the status of a patient's condition unless you are considered family. And-"
"ARE YOU BLOODY KIDDING ME!? SIRIUS BLACK'S FUCKING FAMILY IS THE ONE WHO PUT HIM IN THAT BLOODY HOSPITAL BED! DOES THE NAME BELLATRIX BLACK MEAN NOTHING TO YOU PEOPLE?"
The woman's face turned a pale shade of white. "I'm sorry, but it is hospital policy to inform only family unless they or the patient has authorized you to receive personal information."
"When the patient is unconscious, it makes it kind of difficult, don't ya think!?"
"Ma'am, I'm sorry-"
"DID YOU JUST CALL ME MA'AM!?"
If it wasn't such a serious moment, it would have been amusing but I could actually see the veins popping out of Keegan's neck.
"Look, unless the Minister of Magic himself comes sweeping in here to tell me to forego the hospital policy, I can't release any information," the mediwitch spoke firmly.
"Not even to his concerned girlfriend!?"
"Girlfriend?" I found myself blurt out.
"What did she say?" Peter whispered to Drew.
"Since when?" Frank hissed.
"Wait, did you just say girlfriend?" I heard Remus' voice from the other end of the hallway.
Keegan froze, rotating her head back and forth down the opposite ends of the hallway between Remus and Moody who stood on one end and to myself, Shane, Drew, Peter, and Frank who stood on the other.
Her cheeks were flushed with brief embarrassment before she found her composure long enough to ask, "Please tell me someone has more information than this incompetent half-wit."
The mediwitch scowled. "I beg your pard-"
"WAS I TALKING TO YOU?" Keegan roared, glaring at her before pushing herself away from the desk and dropping on to a lobby chair.
We all met up with Keegan, who looked nothing short of disheveled. She had on white pajama shorts with a sweatshirt on top, clearly not bothering to put on actual clothes before hightailing it out of her apartment.
"Is he okay?" she whispered softly, looking up at us with hopeful eyes.
We all exchanged unfortunate looks. "We don't know," I finally admitted, shaking my head as I fell into the seat beside her. "As you have witnessed, these mediwitches won't tell us shit."
She placed her head in her hands with a moan. "This is what I was afraid of," she whispered to no one in particular.
Silence filled the hallway as we all glanced around at each other curiously, unsure what she meant by that.
"What happened?" she dared to ask.
Again, silence filled the room as none of us wanted to be the ones to inform her that her supposed boyfriend was caught in the crosshairs of the most vicious fire known to the wizarding world.
"Fiendfyre," Drew finally croaked out, his voice barely above a whisper.
Her eyes filled with fear at the mere mention of it, her bottom lip trembling with compassion. "Oh, no" was all she could whisper, burying her head in her hands once again as she vehemently tried to blink back the tears.
We all exchanged looks, knowing there were no words to comfort a grieving girlfriend.
"So," Remus finally spoke, clearing his throat. "You're Sirius' girlfriend?"
Her shoulders stiffened as she peeked her eyes out from behind her fingers. "Uh…well…"
Before she could answer, however, another thunder of footsteps could be heard down the hallway. Glancing up, I saw as the rest of the cavalry rushed to greet us: Mum and Dezzy followed by Frank's mother and Nora. Gideon was right behind them with Riley and Rhett on his heels. Minutes later, Rafe and Billy were wandering into the lobby area. It came as no surprise when Nyger and Dumbledore were the last to arrive on the scene having been the ones to grant them all floo licenses.
"WHAT IS THE MEANING OF THIS!?"
Our heads all swiveled towards the outraged mediwitch who stood standing behind the desk with a look of disgust on her face.
"This," I spoke softly, standing up from my chair proudly, "is the meaning of family."
A/N: So before I dive into discussing the events of this chapter, I just have to say that I pictured that last line in my head being the end of a chapter since I started writing this story way back when and am SO glad it made its way in!
So. Sydny. She actually became one of my favorite characters - I found her rather fun to write and loved her depth. But from the moment I invited her into this story, I knew she had to die. And I knew she had to die protecting James. That was her job from the beginning. She walked into a suicide mission and tried to make the best of it but if it had to be her or Lily, she knew she'd rather it be her. So yes, start the waterworks because I already miss her!
AND OH MY GOD KEEGAN IS SIRIUS' GIRLFRIEND? Yes, I had a bunch of people asking what the hell happened between them when I left it unopened so here's your answer! More on them is obviously coming.
And yes Sirius, Alice, and Lily are lying on their deathbed. Considering we all know the outcome, it's just a matter of how long will they torture their friends by being unconscious? Stay tuned for more of that drama.
But that ultimately leaves us with the obvious questions: what will happen between James and Lily when she wakes up? What about Sirius and James? Will James finally get all of the answers he's looking for?