Chapter 19: Separated from Some, Reunited with Others
Charlie heard James choke. He, she, and Sirius all stiffened and Sirius put a calming hand on James’s shoulder, and pulled the Marauder’s Map out his friend’s frozen hands.
His heart throbbing painfully in his throat, James struggled to stay quiet and concentrate on what the black-cloaked figures were saying.
“She chose death?” Jessica Fanning repeated. Then she snorted. “Nothing surprising there. The daft whore”wouldn’t know a reprieve if it crawled up her skirt.”
“Yeah, well, the Dark Lord has given orders not to feed her, and says that he’ll deal with her later,” the Death Eater with the flat voice told her. “We figure that means he’ll either use her for some indulgence before killing her, or he’ll just kill her.”
“I had been hoping he’d let us pass her around for our own indulgence,” another male Death Eater piped in.
“I wouldn’t want your sloppy seconds! Even if she weren’t a Mudblood!” exclaimed another.
James’s body shook as he tried to rein in control and keep his rage and his fear for Lily at bay. His hands fisted, his nails biting into his palms until they broke skin and pearls of blood dripped down his fingers. His breath hitched raggedly while he listened to their sick comments about the woman he loved. He squeezed his eyes shut and tried counting imaginary sheep, and when that didn’t work, look a deep breath and started counting backward from one hundred.
He didn’t get to ninety-two.
He managed to shrug off Sirius’s hand long enough to take a single step forward before his best friend tried to restrain him again. But it was too late. A twig had snapped under James’s foot, and the entire group of Death Eaters spun around.
They wouldn’t have seen anything if it wasn’t for James’s foot, which was still sticking out from under the invisibility cloak. But to the Death Eaters that saw it, it just looked like it was sticking out from behind the tree. Nevertheless, all hell broke loose.
James threw the cloak off and started to shoot hexes off at random, his blood pumping madly in his veins, his muscles quivering with adrenaline. Within five seconds, he was up against three black-hooded figures at the same time, and he couldn’t have backed away from such a wonderful challenge.
All the frustration and despair he’d felt for the last several days all balled together to weigh heavy in the pit of his stomach. If he got a gash near his temple or a scrape on his chin, he didn’t care. The blood he shed, he shed for Lily.
Meanwhile, the other four Death Eaters had spread out to check the area for other intruders.
As one of them neared the tree Sirius and Charlie were still hiding behind, Sirius urgently took Charlie by the shoulders and said, “I have to help James, he can’t fight them all on his own. Take the cloak and go back to the school. Get Dumbledore and some other teachers, come back to help.”
He dragged her close before she could utter a reply, and kissed her hard. Then he was shoving the Marauder’s Map into her hands and pushing her toward the path that led to the school before jumping out from behind the tree and joining the battle.
While Charlie ran like the devil was nipping at her heels, James and Sirius came to stand back to back, dueling the best they could against the seven Death Eaters. Once in a while they would cast a shield charm for each other because the other was preoccupied.
“Charlie went to get help,” Sirius finally managed to tell James as he dodged a Leg-Locker Curse.
“Impedimenta! Good. Hopefully they’ll come soon,” James replied.
In an hour, the two Gryffindors managed to stun four of the Death Eaters. Sirius still dueled one while James fought another and they would both send occasional hexes at the third.
“This is a piece of chocolate cake!” Sirius exclaimed on a rather manic laugh. “With lots of cherry icing!”
Not a second later he was sprawled on his back, his wand flying out of his hand.
“Sirius!” James yelled, making the mistake to glance over his shoulder.
“Stupefy!”
“James!” Sirius leapt to his feet and dashed to find where his wand had fallen.
“Kneazle!” shouted one of the Death Eaters for the heck of it.
With James stunned and Sirius wandless, it gave the remaining three Death Eaters time to revive their four fallen friends. One reached into his pocket and pulled out a small snake figurine.
“Oh, James! Boo-hoo-hoo,” Jessica mocked before laughing along with the others. One black-robed figure grabbed James’s limp wrist.
Just as Sirius stood, wand at the ready, the Death Eaters and his best friend disappeared from sight with a tug at their navels.
Moments later, Charlie burst through the trees, followed by Hagrid, Dumbledore, McGonagall, and several other professors, all with their wands at the ready.
“Where’d they go?” Charlie demanded. She quickly went to Sirius, who looked dazed and confused. “Are you all right? Where’d they go? What happened? Sirius?”
“They took him,” he said, his voice hoarse. “They took James.”
Charlie froze for a moment, then spun around, eyes searching the clearing frantically. “James?” she called. “James!”
“Span out,” Dumbledore muttered to McGonagall in an undertone. “Search the area.”
“And if we don’t find anything?” she asked him.
He didn’t answer, and after a moment the deputy headmistress turned to the other teachers.
Charlie turned back to Sirius and buried her face in his chest, saying, “Not him, too. Oh, God, not him, too.”
Lord Voldemort paced the small, sad “throne” room. At the knock on the door, he stopped and said icily, “Enter.”
The Death Eater that entered had her hood down, and her long, curly blonde hair tumbled down her back.
Voldemort’s lips curled into a smile. “Jessica.” Then his eyes narrowed. “What’s happened? Why are you not at Hogwarts?”
“I’ve been discovered,” she answered hesitantly. At the murderous look on her master’s face, she quickly tried to redeem herself, “But I’ve brought you something you’ve been wanting for a long while.” She smiled a bit. “The second piece to the set, perhaps one could say.”
Using Legilimency and common sense, Voldemort knew what she’d brought him almost instantly. But to humor her, he asked with just the right about of interest and curiosity in his voice, “And what might that be?”
In reply, she turned toward the door again and called, “Bring him!”
Two other Death Eaters entered, carrying an unconscious James between them.
Proudly, Jessica announced, gesturing grandly with her arms, “May I present to you James Potter.”
Voldemort waved his hand, and two Death Eaters dropped the bespectacled boy in a heap on the floor. Consideringly, Voldemort circled the boy. “Enervate.”
James’s eyes fluttered open. Almost immediately he tried to jump to his feet.
“Petrificus Totalus.” Voldemort flicked his wand lazily. James went rigid as a board, his arms snapped to his sides, and he fell to lie flat on the floor. But his eyes glared.
“Welcome.” Voldemort smiled as plans and ideas started to form in his head.
When the door closed, the Dark Lord looked at seven of his number. These were his seven spies in Hogwarts, students yet to graduate.
He looked at the one on the far left. After a pause, he lifted his wand. “Crucio.”
As the air filled with screams, Voldemort looked on with boredom. When several minutes had passed, he lifted the curse.
“You imbeciles,” he began, his cold, high voice piercing the stillness like a blade. “How many of you were identified?”
Shaking visibly, Jessica Fanning took a step forward. “J-just I, sir. It was I they followed.”
“Incompetence. I will not tolerate it. Crucio.”
Jessica fell to her knees, her mouth open wide as she screamed fit to kill. Her body bucked and twitched and writhed. The others could only turn their heads away, tears silently slipping down their cheeks in the shadows of their hoods.
Several minutes passed, and still Voldemort did not lift the curse. Eventually Jessica fell unconscious, blood running from her nose and ears.
He took the torture curse off, and then ruthlessly revived her. The only sign she showed of awakening was a guttural moan. With a sneer disfiguring his lips, Voldemort pointed his wand at her heart. His hand was steady and his conscience clear. “Avada Kedavra!”
Bright green light shot out of his wand and filled the room. As if cued, thunder boomed in the skies. Jessica’s baby blue eyes stared, glassy and lifeless.
“Now.” Voldemort turned away from Jessica as a toddler might turn away from a broken toy. “The rest of you will receive your punishment. Then you will go back to Hogwarts, and go about as you would normally”like you don’t know anything.”
She wanted to die.
Lily lay on her back, her head lolled in the direction of the door, her limbs heavy and useless. She stunk something terrible, she ached everywhere, and she was sure nothing was going to get any better.
She wanted to die.
Her parents were dead, her sister hated her, James”well, she had no hope of reconciling with him, since she would most likely never see him again. Lily tried to drag air into her lungs to sigh, but couldn’t drum up the energy.
She wondered what would happen to her stuff. Petunia wouldn’t want anything to do with magic, but if anyone thought to convert Lily’s wizard money into Muggle money, Petunia would snatch that up without a single stab of grief or guilt. Maybe everything will be divided amongst her friends, or maybe it will all just go to some sort of wizard charity.
And to think, she was so close to completing school. It reminded her of when she’d put aside some galleons so she could by this really neat potions set. It had been expensive, and she’d almost saved up enough to buy it when she had to use that money for some last-minute school supplies.
She could actually feel her life slowly slipping away from her. Every minute it got harder to breath, harder to think, harder to find reason. If she’d had the energy and wasn’t dehydrated, tears would be cascading in waterfalls down her cheeks.
She thought about the one thing she wished she could do before she died. James, she cried mentally with all her heart, please forgive me. I still love you.
When the door to her room suddenly opened, Lily didn’t even flinch. Maybe he’s come to kill me, she mused. Finally.
“Brought you a room’ate,” she heard a man say. It wasn’t Voldemort, so it must be a Death Eater. Wait”a roommate? “Daresay you know ‘im.” She heard a pair of snickers.
Something heavy was dropped to the floor. “Finite Incantatem.”
James instantly jumped to his feet and charged the two Death Eaters. They skedaddled out of the room quickly and slammed the door in his face, still snickering stupidly. “Bloody cowards,” he muttered bitterly.
Lily recognized the voice. Hell, how could she not? It was the voice she’d been so desperate to hear for the past several days. Painstakingly, she managed to turn her head and look up at him.
James caught a glint in the corner of his eye and turned his head. What could be shiny enough in this pitch-black room to glint, he didn’t bother to fathom.
Those eyes. Oh, Lily’s eyes. He could have picked them out from the middle of a sea of green. He stared, his mind trying to register what he’d just found.
“James.” Her voice was a strangled croak. Is that my voice?
He didn’t know what to do. Oh, God, he wanted to hold her, to gather her up and rock. But he couldn’t. She wouldn’t want that.
She tried to reach for him, but she couldn’t move her arm. The most she could do was curl her fingers and flop her wrist. She could tell he’d frozen.
She would have to do the talking”or try to, anyway. She was the one to had to apologize for her mistake, she was the one who had to ask his forgiveness.
“James, come here,” she commanded.
For a full minute he didn’t move a muscle. She thought that maybe she hadn’t spoken clearly or loud enough, that he hadn’t heard her or had misunderstood. But then he took a slow step forward, and came to kneel at her side.
“Oh, what have they done to you?” he whispered to himself, though Lily heard him.
Her breathing labored and loud, she began without preamble. “James, I’m sorry.”
He had been doing a thorough study of her abused and neglected body, but now his intense hazel gaze snapped to hers.
She swallowed difficultly. “I was out of line. I should have trusted you. She did it.” Lily closed her eyes because it was too much effort to keep them open. “She did it.”
James could fill in the blanks. When she shut her eyes, a thread of panic came into him. He groped around on her throat until he found her pulse. It was slow, surely irregular, but it was still strong. Knowing what she needed to hear, he cupped her cheek, turned her face toward him, and waited for her to open her eyes again.
When she did, when those enchanting emerald orbs focused on him, he simply said, “I forgive you.”
“How could this happen?”
This came from Charlie for the zillionth time. She sat once again on Sirius’s bed, curled into a tight ball in Sirius’s arms.
No one answered her. She hadn’t expected anyone to. Sirius hadn’t said anything since the forest. Charlie understood that he was feeling a sort of survivor’s guilt.
She looked across the room at Remus. He had taken up James’s post at the window, staring out at the midmorning sun. He was bitter that they hadn’t taken him along last night; he felt that if they had, James wouldn’t be missing now, too. He wouldn’t speak to Charlie or Sirius.
Peter was sitting on his bed, looking almost okay with the situation. Charlie sneered at him briefly. He didn’t look particularly grief-stricken; she figured he’d used James’s disappearance as an excuse to leave class.
She sighed quietly and buried her face in Sirius’s neck. She didn’t think she loved him, but she did have great romantic care for him. She knew that they couldn’t last forever; her heart would break a little, but she wouldn’t be left bitter.
Turning her face she gazed absently around in the room. Suddenly, the sun rose just enough to reflect off something on Remus’s bedside table. Charlie squinted in the blinding light; nudging Sirius so he would release his hold on her, she got up and moved toward it.
Soon James was unfolding a silvery cloak and was just about to pull it over the three of them when Sirius started to dig in his pockets. “Oh! Wait! Best leave this here, just in case.”
He pulled out a small mirror; walking to Remus’s bedside table, he placed it there and hurried back to James and Charlie. “You do have yours, don’t you, mate?”
James nodded and covered them in the cloak.
It was the small mirror Sirius had placed there the night before. Charlie had been so wrapped up in wanting to catch up to Jessica Fanning that she hadn’t even wondered about it. Thoughtfully, she played with it, turning it back and forth to catch the sun’s rays.
“Sirius, what’s this?” she asked. “What does it do?”
Numbly Sirius turned his head. Before Charlie could gasp, he’d jumped off the bed and plucked the mirror from her fingers. “Of course!” he exclaimed. He grabbed her around the waist and kissed her noisily with much enthusiasm.
“Glad I could brighten your day,” Charlie mumbled drunkenly when he released her.
At the commotion, both Remus and Peter had turned to look. “Look, Moony!” Sirius exclaimed, waving the mirror in front of Remus’s grumpy face. Gleefully, Sirius spun away. Holding the mirror directly in front of his face, he cried, “James!”