The days after the attack were extremely hard on everyone, they panicked, they cried, they huddled together and they never, ever let Harry out of their sight. Slowly it seemed, they were losing apart of themselves to the fear bought on by the fear of what had happened and the hysteric happiness of the wizarding world. And Harry? Through it all, Harry watched, he watched as his parents matured and changed, but also as they lost their inner radiance, and that broke his heart, and even now he could do no more than watch, as he was pushed inside a cupboard beside Neville while his dad and the Longbottom's fought Bellatrix and her band of crazies. After a particularly insane article proclaiming him to be some sort of miracle, his mother had had enough and she had gone to Dumbledore to coerce his help. Unable to stay in the cottage after so many days and giving into the pleas of Lily's best friend, James decided to take Harry to visit the Longbottoms. Lily and Alice had been roommates and best friends along with Marlene Mckinnon, Mary Mcdonald and Dorcas Meadows. After the news that Marlene had been killed, Mary in hiding and Dorcas out on some mission, Lily and Alice were the only ones left, Lily was supposed to go over with James and Harry but she felt she couldn't put off the visit to the headmaster any longer and so had decided that James would take Harry to visit the Longbottoms while she went to sort things out with Dumbledore before joining them. The starting of the visit had been normal, Harry enjoyed seeing baby Neville and spending time with him, and he hoped that this way Neville would find his courage sooner, James had been talking with Alice and Frank, who was his senior in the auror office and his childhood friend while sneaking glances at Harry to make sure he hadn't disappeared within one blink and the next until the alarm had been tripped, until the kids had been pushed into the cupboard with hastily erected wards and the three adults taking up stances in front of the cupboard.
Bellatrix burst through the door, blasting spells and entrail expelling hexs tripping out of her mouth continuously, while behind her came the Lestrange brothers and Barty Crouch Jr. although Harry was the only one who recognised him through his voice. Frank fought Rodulphus and Alice fought Bellatrix, with James putting up continuous defensive shields and trying to hit the others when they were distracted, Rabastan and Barty did the same for Bellatrix and Rodulphus.
"Potter." Bellatrix cackled. "This is just perfect, where is he? Where is my Lord?" She screeched. "The cowardly rat said you did something, what did you do?"
Harry tensed hearing her words, luckily none of the parents were engaging knowing that it would be a waste of energy and nothing more. Harry longed to go out, to protect them, to kill Bellatrix and the Death Eaters, yet Evangeline held him back, she told him that some event's needed to happen, Fate could not be evaded completely, so here he was sitting beside a screaming Neville Longbottom, his ears straining to hear even a hint of what was happening as tears streamed down his face. He hated this, this wasn't him, he didn't sit on the sidelines, he couldn't, he was always the one doing the saving, not the one being saved.
Out of nowhere two voices screamed in gut wrenching pain as a mad cackle was heard, taunting the screamers. Harry knew those screams, he himself had screamed those screams when he was put under the cruciatus, and he began fighting harder to escape her presence, he couldn't let what had happened in past repeat, he wouldn't let Neville grow up alone again, and also mostly because one of the voices screaming was his dad's and the other was Alices', Neville's mom. He strained against the bonds holding him, his magic twisting out much more angrily with every scream of his dad's. Neville's magic too rushed out of him, hearing his mom in distress, unfortunately it was not enough to break through the barriers placed in front of them, one by Frank Longbottom and the other by the magic of the other realm.
And then just as suddenly, the mad cackling was cut off, instead an outraged scream erupted from Bellatrix's throat, and his dad's screams cut off.
"I killed you! I killed you!" Bellatrix screamed.
"Obviously you failed." A familiar voice travelled back to him, his mother's yet it's tone was so cold, he had never heard the likes of it before. His mother was here. Relief sang through him, if his mother was here, then so would Dumbledore be here, as she was visiting him at that time.
Say what you would about Dumbledore, but he would never stand aside when someone was in trouble. And he knew the combination of his mother and Dumbledore would be enough to drive away the death eaters.
Incensed fury released as screams from Bellatrix's throat at Lily's words. "No matter, I'll just kill you again, I'll kill the mudblood again." She cackled, apparently not even caring how her spell had broken the first time.
"Let's see you try then." Confidence and viciousness radiated from Lily's form, seeing her husband writhing under the cruciatus had filled her with a quiet fury, turning her green, green eyes into ice cold emeralds, ready to cut and bleed Bellatrix.
With insane cackling, Bellatrix launched forth the gleaming red of the torture curse, yet Lily just summoned a table into it's way, her breath exhaling calmly, to her right Dumbledore in all his magnificence was fighting the Lestrange brothers and an unknow wizard, but that wasn't her concern right now. All of her attention was focussed on the woman who had almost killed her and had almost driven her husband crazy, she wouldn't let it happen. She would not lose anyone else.
Lily danced through the spells like she was born for it, the sickly rainbow of dark magic just increasing her fury more, yet all she did was dodge and all this did was infuriate Bellatrix more. Her screams echoed constantly as her spells increased from just deadly ones to unforgivables, sickly red and deadly green leaving her wand alternatively. And through it all Lily kept calm, simply summoning objects or dancing out of the way. Slowly but surely, she lured her away from the shivering forms of her husband and best friend until they were in the hallway. All the while she calmly gathered her magic until it pooled right beneath her fingers.
"Stay still and let me kill you! I killed you! I will kill you again. Stay still you useless mudblood." Bellatrix screamed in frustration, her repeated spell casting stopping in the middle of her rant, and that is when Lily took her chance, spinning in a perfect circle she released an overpowered cutting curse, making sure that the curse funnels towards Bellatrix as an arc instead of a straight line.
A sickening slice cut off the insane screaming two dull thuds indicating just what Lily had cut off, a spray of blood splattered across Lily's face, yet her face remained emotionless, cold eyes just surveying the woman who fell to her knees, blank grey eyes staring at her hands on the floor and the bleeding stumps which had connected them to her arms. Unable to comprehend what she was seeing, or feeling and due to the rapid blood loss, grey eyes rolled back into her head before Bellatrix's form crumbled to the floor, her body being soaked in the still flowing pool of blood.
"My dear girl." Dumbledore's voice whispered hoarsely from the doorway.
"What have you done?"
Cold, cold eyes looked up at Dumbledore as he flinched at the face carved from jade. "She hurt James, now she can't hurt him anymore can she?" She retorted before walking briskly by Dumbledore to where her husband was struggling to pick himself up, to one side, Frank was holding Alice's unresponsive form in his arms, his eyes streaming tears.
"James." Lily whispered in pain as she knelt by his side, her arms coming up to support him. "I can't- I can't." Words seemed to escape James, as his mind was unable to cope with what happened to him, his words stuttering out as his body collapsed onto Lily.
"Shh, it's okay James, it's okay, I'm here." Lily whispered soothingly as she ran her hands up and down James's back.
"No, no-you don't-you dn't get it!" His voice increased into a panicked shout at the last word, making Lily flinch at the last word and James to escape from her arms. "I can't find them! I can't- I don't - I can't see. I can't see Lils, and if I can't see I can't find Ha-I can't see Harry- I can't find my glasses, I nee-I need- I need to find them! To-To se-see Harry!" Panicked shaky hands began moving on the floor as James's shivering body tried to crawl and search for his glasses.
Stunned Lily was unable to do anything until a pale blue light hit his form, making James slump on the floor as his shivering subsided. Dumbledore came into view kneeling beside her, two baby carriers floating behind him in pale yellow bubbles.
"I have called for the aurors to arrest everyone and for Sirius, Remus and Mary to look after the boys, get James to the hospital Lily, we don't know how long he was under the curciatus for." He pointed a dark wand at a pillow beside Lily. She noted that it was quiet different from his usual wand with knotted berries.
"Portus."Dumbledore murmured tapping the pillow. "I shall look after everything my dear girl, don't worry. Look after your husband for now" He said gripping her shoulder reassuringly. Lily nodded numbly before gently gripping James's arm and touching the portkey.
She reappeared in the middle of the emergency room, with a nurse in pale purple robes rushing towards her almost immediately. She hastily got to her feet, trying to lift James up awkwardly. She would have used magic, but right now she was feeling extremely drained.
"Lady Potter, please come this way, we are already preparing a bed for Lord Potter. Professor Dumbledore sent us a message before sending us Lord and Lady Longbottom, we have prepared adjacent beds for Lady Longbottom and Lord Potter and we already have medi-wizards specialising in trauma spells attending to Lady Longbottom." With a practised swish of his wand, the nurse had a cool blue bubble around James as he floated behind them.
Lily nodded numbly through it all, her legs working on auto-pilot until they reached the Janus-Thickery ward. Her limbs contracted and refused to walk more at that point, her hand shooting out to catch the arm of the babbling nurse.
"The Janu-Thickery ward?" She asked fearfully. She could not accept this, she would not accept this, James was fine, he had to be. She could not tell her child that his father would not be able to be there for him anymore.
A reassuring smile lit up the nurse's face. "It is just a precaution Lady Potter, it is not permanent, it is however the easiest place for us to evaluate your husband as he has been struck with the cruciatus." He waited patiently until Lily had nodded and set his arm free. The polite smile never left his face as he guided them both through the ward. Instead of going through the double doors that led to the in-patient care, he led them through the arch with a soft shimmering curtain of magic in front of it. As soon as they crossed it, a bit of the tension left Lily, a part of her calming down as the hallway filled with subtle scents of lavender and chamomile.
The unnamed nurse led them through to a soft blue room with a white bed before laying James down on the clean white bed. As soon as he laid down, the soft blue bubble merged with the bed, forming a bubble around him and the bed. A knock sounded on the door before a medi-wizard appeared in the doorway.
"Lady Potter? My name is Healer Helene, could you please step outside while my team conducts preliminary investigations?" Nodding at the tall, brown haired witch in green robes, Lily made her way out of the room after pressing a gentle kiss to James's forehead. He looked like he was just sleeping peacefully. Pain stabbed at her heart before she shut it down. Now was not the time for tears, she could cry afterwards. Two other nurses in purple robes joined the first one, as they began casting various spells and recording their data.
"If you could follow me to my OP room, we can take care of your wounds, Lady Potter." The same healer continued. Lily cast one last look at the door before nodding and following the healer across a pastel blue corridor, deeper until they reached a corridor with wide oak doors with name plates on them. She stopped in front of one proclaiming 'Healer H. Rook.' She opened the door for Lily and led her into a spacious room with a bed on the end of the room, warded and with a curtain to hide it from others, to one side of the door was a table with an empty tray in it, the other wall filled with cabinets and drawers. Healer Helene guided Lily to the bed, directing her to the small step stool to make it easier to climb up before she herself took a seat on a high stool. A swish of a wand bought a pre-prepared tray with cotton and antiseptic balm, along with a vial of calming fraught. "The draught is for your nerves." She stated politely indicating Lily should drink it.
Lily shook her head refusing it, she had a weird vulnerability to the calming draught, it always made her feel extremely disoriented and sleepy and she only took it in the most extreme of circumstances. She explained such to the healer who nodded before beginning to clean and dress Lily's wounds.
"Can you please explain to me what happened?" The clinically polite tone asked even as she worked on cleaning off the blood and grim from Lily's forearm, her eyes trained solely on her work.
"I was, I was with Headmaster Dumbledore, when James sent me a patronus." A single tear slipped out of the corner of her eye. Taking a deep breath she pushed her feelings into a lockbox, before tossing that box off a cliff into the very depths of her soul. "He said, he said that they were-" Lily closed her eyes in an attempt to stave off the stubborn tears, yet it seemed that was impossible. Shaking her head slightly, she fixed the laughing images of her husband and son in her mind, reminding herself of what was at stake.
"They were attacked, and when I got there, I saw Bellatrix, I saw her using the cruciatus. On James. I distracted her and fought her until we could come to the hospital." She very carefully obliterated the fact that she had mercilessly cut off that witch's hands. The healer didn't need to know that.
Helear Helene merely nodded."He took our son to play with theirs, we-we are, Alice is my, was my roommate in Hogwarts, and, James's and Frank's mother's, they are, were, Effy is dead, they were friends, so they grew up knowing each other." Lily shook her head, stopping the word-vomit of unnecessary explanations.
"He said they had been attacked, the Headmaster and I went as quickly as we could, but by then, even then, it was, I wasn't early enough." She closed her eyes, willing the image of her screaming husband away. James is fine. James is fine. James is fine. The mental chant worked at least partially in alleviating her worry and the lump stuck in her throat.
"There were two death eaters torturing James and Alice and Frank was fighting another two. We fought, and were able to run them off and Dumbledore made us portkeys."
A gentle nudge bought Lily's attention to the hovering stack of tissues beside her. Gratefully, she took a couple and began cleaning her face. The silence that followed the statement was interrupted by a gentle ping and a blue light over the tray on the doorside table. Healer Helene collected the documents that appeared, initial assessment of Lord James Potter.
A small smile graced her face, and succeeded in relaxing Lily. "The initial analysis for your husband is back, Lady Potter. The cruciatus didn't leave any lasting damage. His brain is completely fine."
Lily asked the unanswered question. "And physically?"
"Physically, there is some damage, all reversible in time of course. It seems the point of impact for the spell was his spine, which resulted in a few of his nerves being fried off. It will impede Lord Potter's ability to walk for at least a few months to maybe a couple years, but it can be reversed with regular potions, balms and exercise. He additionally did suffer a few more burns and cuts, which will be healed easily, but his core seems to have been drained. It looks like his magic has been pushing itself to try and protect him from the curse, which incidentally is the reason there is so little damage."
At Lily's incredulous look, the healer's face turned solemn. "Yes, it is less my lady. I have seen people inflicted by that curse who lose the ability to walk forever, who lose all mobility, who lose control of their organs, and some women who even lose the ability to have more children."
Lily swallowed, pressing her shaking hands together. Yes, it was lucky, he was, they were lucky. She just hoped they continued to be so lucky as time passed by.
