Grunt. Dig. Dump. Grunt. Dig. Dump. Grunt. Dig. Dump. As she set out to accomplish her difficult task of escaping, these words swirled through Lily’s mind. Her aching muscles and sore joints begged for her to stop and take a break but her stubbornness caused to her continue her hard work. Glimpsing below at her luminescent watch, Lily maintained her work at an arm-throbbing pace.
‘Only 35 more minutes until 6 o’ clock!’ Lily thought in horror as her watch dully noted that it was 5:28 in the morning.
The formidable thought of all of her hard work and perseverance being wasted due to lack of time filled her with renewed strength and energy.
‘If only I had listened to Nicole about going on that diet with her, I would have been done by now!’ Lily joked to herself. Roughly two and a half feet in width and three and a half feet in height, Lily was nearly done with her hole. A few more scrapes of her spoon and she would be free. At the moment, the only thing sustaining her was the feeling of sheer joy she was sure she would experience the moment she was able to step out of the hard, stucco walls of the prison she was in and into the real world once again.
Placing her spoon ever so gently onto her repulsive pillow, Lily stood back to quickly admire her work. Completely through the wall was a large, nearly perfect hole. Bent over the hole to make sure she would be able to jump through it within the next few minutes, Lily suddenly heard noises.
Could it be? Had the death eaters awoken already? Was all of her hard work about to be washed down the drain? Or worse: would the death eaters catch her in the act of attempting to escape and murder her? Bile rose up in Lily’s mouth and she refused herself to think such horrible thoughts. Realizing that she had virtually no time left, Lily gulped down a massive breath of air and neared her hole. Climbing up onto her bed, she inspected the hole to figure out the best way to jump through the hole.
“Go check on the Mudblood kid. I’m getting hungry and that little wench isn’t up yet!”
Tears filled Lily’s eyes as she realized that her escape was going to have to happen - now or never. Lying with her back on the bed, she inched herself up and, propping her arms on the ledge of the top of the bed behind her for support, pushed her head out into the open air. Unexpectedly, Lily heard the sound of the doorknob rattle.
“No, not now,” she heard herself whisper into the early, pink light of dawn, “after all of this hard work I am going to escape!”
Her arms, now gripping onto the top ledge of the hole above her stomach, were protesting with the pain of the nearly three hours of work they were put through. Urging herself to keep going, she now placed the soles of her shoes onto the bottom ledge of her hole.
“Come on! Get her out here! I need my food now!” the death eater roared from the kitchen to the person standing in front of her door.
“Well give me the damn keys then, and hurry up!” the man volleyed back.
‘Keys?’ Lily thought in confusion. With one foot on the ground and the other still on the top of her laboriously crafted hole up near her left shoulder, Lily kicked back, pushed herself away from and out of the hole, and built up the momentum she need for the long run into the forest, barely caring that her beloved wand was somewhere back inside of the horror inducing prison.
~~~~~~~
It was about 7:30 in the morning when Arielle awoke in the morning and, recalling her fight with Nicole the night before, she was suddenly overcome by a heavy wave of lassitude. Grumpily, she groaned and managed to get out of bed. Soon, she was down in the Great Hall, sitting by herself and eating her breakfast.
Without her noticing, Nicole, while still mad at Arielle, had come up behind Arielle and now sat down next to her.
“So, I need to,” Nicole started, before she was interrupted by Arielle’s quiet but sudden shriek.
“When did you get here?!” she exclaimed.
“Never mind that; I need your help!” Nicole replied crankily.
Arielle sighing heavily said hopefully, “Does that mean you’re not mad at me anymore?”
“I didn’t come to discuss that, Arielle; I have more important things to worry about than your current attitude.”
Arielle, recoiling slightly from the bitterness and harshness in Nicole’s voice, nodded her head, hurt, telling her to continue.
“I’ve been up almost have the night trying to calculate this, and I think I might have a rough estimate as to where James might be held captive. And, obviously, if we find James, we find Sirius and Remus, too,” Nicole informed Arielle.
Arielle, her large hazel eyes filled with renewed hope, replied, “How in the world did you figure that out? Wait, never mind, tell me later; just tell me what I can do to help you, first!
Struggling hard not to, Nicole felt a small smile creep up onto her lips at her friend’s excitement.
Restraining herself from apologizing and interrupting Nicole, Arielle listened on with rapt attention as Nicole’s brilliant plan became more and more realistic.
Finally, after many minutes of deliberation and missing the first twenty or so minutes of their first class, Nicole and Arielle had formulated a plan. Happiness filling both girls, they knew their friends were finally going to be able to escape.
~~~~~~~
“Negative 98173578362 bottles of Butterbeer on the wall, Negative 98173578362 bottles or Butterbeer. Take one down, pass it around. Negative 98173578363 bottles of Butterbeer on the wall, Neg--” Sirius sang.
“Padfoot! Stop singing that horrible song!” James screamed in anger.
“Well, if you two would do something more than mourn and pout, I wouldn’t have to sing!” Sirius declared. Sitting down in a huff, he looked around for something interesting to do inside of the large, dark cave that he was sitting inside. Finding nothing, he began bouncing a rock on the ground, much to the annoyance of James and Remus.
“Did you think of anything yet, mate?” Remus called over to James.
Without turning around, James shook his head and sulked even more. They were never going to get out at this rate. Although he had already lost track of the time that they were rotting inside of their moldy prison, James guessed it was around a day or two at most.
Seeing his friends deep in thought of trying to find a way out, Sirius sighed and said, “You know they will eventually feed us.”
Confused, both boys looked toward Padfoot, now standing directly in front of both of them and waited for an explanation.
Looking exasperated, Sirius elaborated, “When they come in to feed us, we can make a break for it and run.”
James faked a smile, “Yeah, and then we can go and end world hunger while we’re at it.” The fake smile disappearing from his face, he rolled his eyes at his best friend and stood up. Pacing around the room, James once again inspected the walls of the cave in search of something that could help them escape.
“That’s not going to help, and you know it, James,” Remus yelled, referring both to James’s attitude and his search.
“I’m sorry, are you doing anything? No. So, if I were you, I wouldn’t offer any kind of advice.”
Sirius, who while not placid about the situation and was trying to make it appear so, now lost his temper, “I don’t know if you are aware of this or not James but there are two other people in here with you who are just as desperate and angry about this as you are. And Remus.” Sirius said turning around suddenly and pointing a finger at his friend as if he needed an introduction, “you of all people know what Prongs is like under pressure so stop yelling at him. If you don’t, I’ll make you!”
Anger slowly subsiding from all three teens, James spoke up, “It’s not as if I didn’t know what I was acting like. Whenever I think of anything, any plausible way of escaping, I keep thinking about how hurt and upset Lily must be and how I should be trying to save her and not us.”
“James, listen to me, you can’t help Lily without helping yourself first. Sure, she is lost, and sure, we need to help her, but without being out of this stone prison, you can’t do a single thing to save her,” Remus consoled James.
Agreeing, the three boys attempted to formulate a plan and put their heads together. After a few minutes of brainstorming, a sudden and loud commotion was heard from all the way outside of the cave.
Screams of “get her!” and “not that curse” and “follow that one!” were being flown through the air. James, Remus, and Sirius all exchanged a nervous glance before running toward the sound. Through many twists and turns, the boys kept on running, daring not to stop until they reached the yells. Finally, the screams had become as loud as they possibly could be. There, in front of them, was the answer to their problems.
A large wall of rocks piled one on top of another were piled in front of them, and through the cracks in between the rocks, moonlight shone through and landed on the stone ground beneath them. The three boys silently agreed on what to do. While Remus peered through the opening to give the rest of them a play by play on what was going on outside, Sirius quietly but effectively found a large enough gap in the rocks to try to squeeze through and began making the hole larger. James, on the other hand, was too busy listening to what Remus was telling him to do much else but pace.
“It’s them,” he told the two boys grimly. Nervously, Remus continued to inform the two about everything that was going on outside. By the time Remus had confirmed their suspicions about who was attempting to save them, James had managed to figure out a rough plan of action.
Suddenly, James smirked and said, “Get ready to escape.” Whispering softly, he told his plan to his best friends, knowing all the while that he would soon be free and be able to help Lily.
Always and Forever by jamesnlilyforever
Chapter Notes: There, that wasn't too long, was it? A little less than a month, I believe. True, I was aiming for less than than, but this was a bit difficult to write. There was a lot of chocolate needed to get this chapter going. =) Anyway, I hope you like it. It's by far not one of my favorite chapters, but I do really like parts of it. And, it's not very long at all. So, if you like it, hate it, or are just generally unsure of what you think of this chapter, please review! Not only do reviews help motivate me to write more for all you loyal readers out there, but it also helps me to improve my writing. Yeah, so please DO review, it if it's not too much trouble. Without further ado, here you go: Chapter 11: Escape! =P =D