A/N: Sorry for the wait everyone – my lovely little baby kindly shared his awful cold with me so I've not had much energy left to work on this story. Here are two (short) chapters to make up for it though!
Chapter 29: Diagnosis
One moment, they were running around, being silly, tumbling in the moonlight, enjoying the freedom of their animal forms. Then Lily's Patronus landed in the middle of the clearing where they were resting, its message clear and terrifying.
James tripped over his own hooves galloping back to Remus's house in the woods, and almost botched his transformation in his haste to return to his human body. A hand on his shoulder steadied him.
"I'll get Moony back home and I'll see you at yours," Sirius said, and James nodded, not trusting his voice.
He steadied his wand and took a deep breath before Apparating home.
The house was empty, dark and eerily quiet.
"Hello?" he called, stepping over a broken lamp and shards of glass from the windows that littered the living room. He swivelled around, his eyes wide as if that would allow him to see better in the darkness. "Lily?"
"James? Out back!"
The panic in Lily's usually collected voice made his heart stutter. Keeping his wand aimed in front of him, he crossed the living room and the kitchen at a jog, ignoring the upturned table and chairs in favour of rushing towards the half-open door to the garden.
"Lil–" The words died in his throat.
The acrid smell of fire caught his lungs and he coughed. Through watering eyes, he took in the scene in front of him. The walls, the grass, even some of the trees closest to the house bore scorch marks. The only patch untouched must have been where someone's Protego charm had been cast. To James's right, barely recognisable, the charred remains of their attacker – Bellatrix, Lily's Patronus had said. He gagged and hastily averted his eyes, and then he saw them, in the place where all the burn-marks met.
Lily was leaning over the prone of shape of Harry. Even at this distance, James could tell the boy was lying unnaturally still.
"Jamie," Lily turned a tear-stained face in his direction, and his feet took him forward almost mechanically, until he could drop on his knees next to her. "Jamie, I tried everything I could think of, but it's not working."
He nodded, raised his wand and with that simple gesture he was back in his element, casting diagnostic spells to check Harry's heart rate, his blood pressure, his breathing. Another one for curse damage and one for further physical harm.
He muttered under his breath, as if he was talking to his Assistant Mediwizard in the diagnostic room. "No curses. No blood loss, but vitals severely weakened…"
"Can you check his levels of magic?" Lily interrupted him. "Bellatrix was about to Apparate out with him, and he let off a huge burst of energy…" She indicated the burns around them.
James nodded and raised his wand once again. The spell glowed white over Harry's body as it took hold. It shone there for a second, flickered blue and disappeared almost immediately.
James could only stare.
"What? What does that mean?" Lily asked, when he didn't say anything.
James looked at Lily and swallowed painfully before answering. "His magical aura. It's – it's almost gone…"
That was when Harry's body briefly flickered out of existence.
