Into the Woods
The group Apparated onto unstable ground and promptly fell to their feet – one of the many hazards of Side-Along Apparition into unknown territory. James groaned as he lifted his face from the dirt, wiping the backs of his hands over his face before getting unsteadily to his feet and holding out a hand to Lily to help her up. The group turned slowly on the spot, gaining their bearings. This should have been where Dumbledore instructed them to go, but they had no true way of telling. They just had to hope they ended up in the Forest of Dean and found the department head before the Death Eaters had their way with him.
“This place is definitely a good one to hide in,” Gideon commented grimly, his eyes roving the territory with interest. He was right. The forest was littered with closely packed, extremely tall trees that let in minimal sunlight. It was secluded, very removed from society. They didn’t imagine people frequently traipsed through here on their afternoon walk. It would be a walk they never returned from if they did. Gideon sighed audibly and shoved his hands in his pockets. “Now where do we go from here?”
Sirius pulled out the map Dumbledore had given them, though wondering what the point of it was. There wasn’t going to be one of those Muggle kiosks with a You Are Here arrow on it in the middle of the forest. Dumbledore had marked the area they should have ended up in on the map and directed a path to where the Death Eaters were supposedly hiding out. It wasn’t a short walk, Sirius could tell that much. Yet he wished that Dumbledore had sent them to a place with an identifying feature, unless there wasn’t one.
“Isn’t there some spell that helps you find north?” Lily asked, twirling her wand between her fingers as she tried to recall it.
“Yeah there is,” Fabian confirmed, nodding. He took his own wand and held it flat in the palm of his hand. With a look of concentration, he said, “Point Me/” The wand spun around in Fabian’s hand and pointed to the north. Taking the map from Sirius, he studied it and nodded in the appropriate direction. “That’s the way we should be going.”
The five set off in the direction Fabian indicated in silence. They tried to keep their footsteps as quiet as possible, knowing it would be to their extreme disadvantage if they announced their arrival from several dozen feet away. All it would take for the Death Eaters to be alerted would be a simplest snap of a twig in this otherwise mute forest. Then again, the sound could easily be mistaken for one of the creatures that must have inhabited the place, but they soon learned that there were not many wild animals, save for a few birds overhead. No, any sound the Death Eaters heard would alert them to their adversaries.
They weren’t sure if the lack of wildlife was natural for this particular forest, but it was unsettling, as if all the animals fled because of the Death Eaters. Animals were best at weeding out untrustworthy people, after all.
The air was bitterly cold all around them. The air had been cold for weeks, months. England was not the warmest place on the planet, but the summer usually felt as a summer should – warm weather and blue skies. Now, however, the skies were almost always a consistent grey and foggy and the temperatures were cool. Dumbledore had explained this as a result of the Dementors breeding. It was a frightening thought – Dementors being able to multiply. The misery they spread had transferred to the weather, it seemed…
“What do we do once we find them?” Sirius asked in a whisper, as if he was afraid to speak any louder for fear of attracting unwanted attention. His eyes darted to Gideon and Fabian. They had been doing this much longer, they would know what to expect. The few months Sirius, James and Lily had been in the Order had provided them with experience, but nothing that would prepare them for something like this. He didn’t have the slightest idea as to how they would rescue a Ministry official, especially from the clutches of Death Eaters.
“I doubt we’ll be lucky enough that we can just grab the man and go,” Fabian muttered darkly. That would be ideal, yet he knew it would never happen and he wasn’t foolish enough to delude himself into believing that. This was going to take time and they would have to be extremely careful. “We’re going to have to fight and the Death Eaters aren’t going to be eager to let him go.”
“This is considered a huge victory for them,” Gideon added, his face grim as he looked towards the younger Order members. While the Death Eaters had done so many terrible things already – all the deaths and disappearances that had occurred over the years – none of them added up to this, actually capturing a Ministry official. It was likely they would be celebrating this and would not want to be disturbed. Upset Death Eaters were the worst kind to battle. “When we ruin it for them, they won’t be pleased.”
The group lapsed into silence once more; the only sound that could be heard was their uneven breathing. Dumbledore said he trusted them, had told them everything he could that he thought would help them, yet this did not ease their violent nerves at all. Dumbledore had also made it extremely clear the dangers they faced. No one in the group was stupid enough to believe that they would emerge from this mission unscathed. If any of them thought that, they might as well quit the Order before they realised they were in far too over their heads.
“Do you think we’re going the right way?” James asked after fifteen minutes of walking and not coming upon anything.
“It’s a big forest, James,” Sirius reminded him in a low voice, his face a shade or two paler than was normal. “We’ll be lucky if we find them today.”
Lily couldn’t help but agree with Sirius. “Sirius is right. Why else would Dumbledore have told us to be prepared to be here for a few days?”
She was sure they were going the right way. Even if they hadn’t come upon anything that indicated a Death Eater camp, they had been using the Point Me spell and following the map Dumbledore had made for them exactly. Unless the Death Eaters had packed up their camp and left already, they had to find them eventually. Lily wouldn’t deny that she was terrified of what might happen when they finally did. Everything they had done so far… nothing scared her quite as much as this. Granted, she had fought Death Eaters already and had an idea of what to expect. Hell, her first mission with the Order involved fighting a group of Death Eaters in Knockturn Alley.
But that had been in the public, where there were more witnesses than she assumed those vile people would have liked. Though she was certain the vermin didn’t care if they hurt the witnesses, they just didn’t want anyone to do anything that could wreck their cover. This time, however, it was out in the middle of a forest, where they had nothing but their own wits to save them. Lily trusted herself, knew she was skilled with a wand, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t scared.
The trail they were taking led them nowhere that day, nowhere they could tell that was helpful, anyway. They just had to pray that they had been following the right path. If they hadn’t been, this would take longer than they had anticipated and they might be too late to save Yearly. When the hour became too late and they could not move anymore for their exhaustion and severe lack of light, the group finally set up camp. They would sleep in shifts, two staying awake to keep watch while the other three slept, regaining their strength for the next day.
After eating a meager dinner of bread and cheese, Lily, Sirius and Gideon slept while James and Fabian took the first watch shift. James sat with his wand lit, pointed outward towards the thick grove of trees, his knees drawn up to his chest, resting his chin on them. Merlin, he was tired, but he had at least two hours before he could hope to get any sleep. Fabian sat beside him, his wand lit as well, eyes sharp and alert for any movement that could mean trouble.
“Do you think it’ll be bad when we find them?” James asked his fellow Order member, feeling quite like a child after he did so. In a way, compared to those he fought alongside, with the exception of his friends, he was a child. He had seen not even half of what they had. He had yet to develop that distant demeanour they all seemed to obtain after some time. They cared about those they fought for and with, but they couldn’t risk getting attached.
If they did get attached, it was always result in heartbreak.
“It won’t be good,” Fabian replied bluntly, turning abruptly when he heard something close by, though it was only a squirrel scurrying through their campsite, the first sign of wildlife they had seen so far. “Get used to this, James, being out in the middle of nowhere, never knowing when you’re going to see your family or friends again. Gideon and I, we haven’t seen our sister Molly in ages. She doesn’t know what we do when we’re gone. We just tell her that it’s work.”
James couldn’t imagine not seeing his parents for long stretches of time, especially now. His parents were by no means young and it was only a matter of time when he wouldn’t see them again. He would like to be around when that time came, just so he could tell them how much he loved them. But he knew that Fabian was right. He had committed himself to something larger than anyone could imagine. He wouldn’t get to do everything he wanted and sacrifices would have to be made.
“You’re lucky in a way,” Fabian continued. When James looked at him with raised eyebrows, he explained, “Your best friends are a part of this. If something happens, you’ll know it and won’t be taken by surprise.”
James supposed Fabian was right, but he wasn’t with all his friends right now. Remus and Peter were back in London and he was especially worried about Remus with the full moon so near. He hadn’t been there for his friend’s last transformation, but he liked being close by, able to Apparate there at a moment’s notice if he needed to. “I’m not with all of my best friends right now.”
Fabian instantly knew what James was talking about and frowned. “Lupin will be alright, won’t he?”
“He’s been going through this his entire life, he’s used to it. That doesn’t mean I don’t worry about him. His dad will be there for him in the morning and my dad will help out. He always does when we’re all home from school.”
“Your dad’s a good man, so is Lupin’s dad.”
James nodded. They were good men, men who would do anything for the people they loved, even people they did know. Why else would they have worked so hard to fight Voldemort before they had to stop? James was glad his father fought while he could, had managed to do something before his age caught up with him. James knew he would have been worried terribly about his father if he kept at it. His was no longer at an age where he was able to go out and fight Dark wizards. Harry Lupin was much younger, yet sometimes he looked older than he was. James knew that had to come from raising a son who was bitten by a werewolf and then to add the guilt of being the one to bring it about.
No, that wasn’t true. Fenrir Greyback brought it about, the vicious monster who had damned James’s friend and then came back to do it again. He was the one to blame, not Harry. Harry could never hurt his son in such a way.
In a way, James found it ironic that he was out here trying to save one of the people who made his friend’s life as hard as it was. Yet he had to. Warren Yearly may not be fair to werewolves, but he wasn’t going to use them the way Death Eaters would – give them the chance to think they’ll be able to make themselves into something and then take it all away and reveal it as the lie it was.
That was how Death Eaters worked – lies, deceit, making someone believe they could be somebody and the second they failed at it, it was all over. Their life wasn’t worth even living anymore. James couldn’t help but shudder at the thought. How had the world turned out this way?
“He’s got to be in one of those tents.”
“Yeah, but there’s at least six of them and we won’t find him unless we search them all.”
“And we can’t risk that. We might as well jump out of these bushes and announce our presence right now if we did that.”
“So what do we do?”
Gideon and Fabian exchanged contemplative glances. The Death Eaters would find them either way, their task was to bring Yearly back to London and, while they were at it, find out what they could about what he’d been through. Maybe he learned the identities of some of the Death Eaters. Whatever information he had would only be helpful to them. “One of us is going to have to find the man while the rest of us go after the Death Eaters,” Gideon finally decided.
“Which one of us is that going to be?” Sirius asked, his gaze roaming across his four companions. He would do it if he had to, but he would rather fight those bloody Death Eaters. It was more satisfying.
“I’ll do it,” Lily volunteered.
“Are you sure?” James asked her concernedly. Yes, she wouldn’t be fighting the Death Eaters right off like they would be, but if she found Yearly and he was with Death Eaters, she would be just as much at risk as they would be.
“Completely.”
James considered giving her his Invisibility Cloak, but decided against it. If someone walked into her or noticed her moving the flaps of the tents, it would only compromise the situation further. And he didn’t want the Death Eaters knowing they had the advantage of an Invisibility Cloak. Some things were best kept secret.
Gideon hissed the instructions under his breath and almost at once they put his plan into action. Sirius slid his wand out of his pocket and narrowed his eyes, aiming his wand at a Death Eater who was sitting over a fire. “Stupefy!” A jet of red light flew out from behind the bushes and connected successfully with the Death Eater, who promptly fell backwards off the log he was sitting on.
The plan went exactly as they planned. Chaos ensued.
Because of this, Lily was able to escape from the group and start her search for the department head without being spotted. She crept around towards the tents, using the bushes for cover while the men braced themselves for the inevitable onslaught of spells sent their way.
James and Sirius had never seen Fabian and Gideon in action before and it was something to see. The brothers were masters with their wands, encyclopedias of hexes and curses that could make even the most knowledgeable wizard’s head spin. Part of the two boys wondered why the Death Eaters weren’t cowering from the wrath of the Prewetts. But James and Sirius couldn’t spend long marveling at their companions’ skill, they needed to help. James waved his wand and a jet of blue light made its way towards the nearest Death Eater, who shouted and dropped to the ground, his mask dropping into the dirt.
James stared at the face with no idea of who it was. Perhaps if he had a name to the face, this would be an extraordinary revelation, but it wasn’t right now. The man spotted James staring at him, yet showed no emotion on his scarred face. Instead, he was on his feet in an instant and had his wand pointed at James, who held his own up with a remarkably steady hand. “Ah, the Potter boy,” the Death Eater said coldly, easily recognising James. “I wonder if you’re just as good with a wand as your father. If you’re not, you have a serious problem.”
Sirius had found his own Death Eater to chase after, ducking under the multicoloured jets of light shooting through the air around him. This monster in particular seemed thoroughly unwilling to be caught. Perhaps the wild rage in Sirius’s eyes was the incentive to run. He wasn’t going to let them get away with smuggling away an innocent person. They had been doing this for too long – first Professor Flitwick’s sister, then Alice’s dad, Peter’s dad… the last one gave Sirius the extra burst of energy he needed to catch up with the Death Eater and wrap his arms around the person’s middle, bringing the both of them crashing to the ground.
These arses would pay for killing Peter’s father.
Then, to Sirius’s utter surprise, the man behind the mask began laughing uncontrollably. “You’re going to fight me, Black?”
Sirius felt his heart stop. He knew that voice. He had heard it too many times in his life to not recognise it right off. This hadn’t been the same shock he had when he learned that Regulus was a Death Eater – the heartbreaking, disappointed shock. No… this was victorious. He knew this was the route that vile excuse for a human being would take.
“Snape,” Sirius breathed, a cruel smile etching into his face. This was too good. Severus Snape was a Death Eater.
“Black,” Snape snarled. If Sirius could see the man’s face, he was sure it would hold just as much dislike as Sirius’s did. “Somehow, I’m not surprised to find you here, fighting against us. You were always hopelessly foolish.”
A muscle tightened in Sirius’s jaw and he resisted the urge to punch Snape in his masked face. Instead, he merely returned the taunt. “Somehow, I’m not surprised to find you here. You were always scum.” And then he did punch Snape, right in the stomach.
Snape recoiled, hands clutched around his middle and his breath caught painfully in his throat. Then, quickly before Sirius could get another shot in, drew his wand and, before Sirius knew what was happening, he had fallen backwards and skidded across the dirt at least five feet. Sirius easily scrambled to his feet. He was ready for this. If there was anyone he would want to fight – it was Severus Snape.
It seemed that all of the Death Eaters had abandoned their tents in order to fight off the intruders. At least that was how it appeared to Lily as she combed the encampment, using a special spell to reveal any human presence within the places. Then again, how could they not abandon the safety of their tents when their camp was being attacked? She had half a mind to believe they were too cowardly to fight. This made her job easier, but made things all the more difficult for the others, who were out their fighting right now. She was scared for them, but she also knew that they were all fighters; they wouldn’t let the Death Eaters get their way.
At the fourth tenth she inspected, Lily detected a human presence inside. While she was certain all the Death Eaters had been drawn out to the fight, she still had to be careful. It was likely one could have stayed behind to guard the prisoner in case he got any fast ideas and tried to escape in the mayhem. But it only felt like one person was inside and, if it was Yearly, their mission would be a success. She would just have to get him out of there and back to London. Taking a deep breath, she ripped away the flap of the tent and peered inside.
Sitting against the far side of the tent, slumped over with his chin resting on his chest, was a large man with a mass of grey hair lumped on his head. He looked tired, completely worn out and, despite his big form, looked starved. At the sound of someone entering, his head snapped up and there was a frightened look in his eyes and he seemed to cower against the wall as if she may attack him. Lily felt sorry for the man. He was the head of the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures, he must have been put in more than enough life-threatening situations and she was almost sure he was never as terrified as he was right now.
Death Eaters were much scarier than a Hippogriff.
“Don’t worry, I’m here to help you,” Lily assured the man in a soft voice. Yearly didn’t look as though he was certain, but when Lily offered him a kind smile, he seemed to relax. “Come on, we need to get you out of her.” The man was weak, that much was clear, so Lily entered further into the tent to help him climb out. Once outside of the tent, Lily wondered if she should just Apparate with Yearly and come back to help the others. Fortunately, Gideon had hurried up alongside her, Fabian and Sirius right behind him.
“Where’s James?” Lily asked, concern springing out immediately when she noticed their numbers were short one.
“He ran off chasing a Death Eater,” Sirius explained, his eyes darting about in hopes of seeing the familiar mass of untidy black hair bounding towards them. Yet there was no sign of him.
Lily’s panic instantly increased. “Which way did he go?” Her eyes zeroed in on the direction Sirius pointed in. “Take him back, I’m going to find James.” Before any of her companions could say anything, she had darted off, oblivious to Sirius calling after her.
If anything happened to Lily, James would kill him.
The coward was taunting him. The bloody coward wearing the bloody mask was taunting him. And James wasn’t going to let him get away with it.
He chased the cloaked figure, who was chortling merrily, as though this was a fun jog through the park and not as though James would hex him within an inch of his life if he caught up with him. The words that had come out of the Death Eater’s mouth, it was as if he knew the exact buttons to push to infuriate James. He taunted the Muggle-borns, werewolves, and blood traitors. He even knew enough to claim the Blacks had the biggest blood traitor in their midst. Whoever it was, he had enough information about James to know what would enrage him. And it disgusted James to no end that the man had succeeded in doing just that.
James leapt over a protruding tree branch in the dirt, tripping over his own feet and stumbling to the ground, skinning the palms of his hands. Wonderful, more blood to go with the stream running out of his nose. A snarl emitting from his throat at his clumsiness, James hastily climbed to his feet and continued his pursuit. He didn’t know where he was being led, only that he was going to capture this Death Eater the first moment he could. Legs pumping furiously, he wove around the scattered trees, grabbing the trunks and wheeling himself by whenever he got too close to crashing into them.
He wasn’t letting that man get away. Whoever he was, he definitely he knew James was and that did not sit well with him.
“James!”
James tripped over another tree root, his face smashing into the dirt, his nose searing with pain, and his glasses snapping clean in two. Growling in frustration, he whipped out his wand and muttered, “Reparo!” Shoving his newly repaired glasses up the bridge of his nose, he whipped around and saw Lily chasing after him, her mane of red hair flying behind her. “Lily!” James hissed. “What are you doing?”
“What are you doing?” she shot back. Chasing a Death Eater into the middle of nowhere was a death wish and she wasn’t letting that happen.
“My job, what does it look like?”
“Getting yourself killed?”
“Thanks for the moral support, Evans. I appreciate it,” James shot at her coolly.
Just as James turned around to continue his chase, Lily gripped him by the elbow and pulled him back around. “That’s not what I meant and you know it.”
“Lily, I don’t have time to argue! He’s getting away!”
“Fine, if you’re going after him, I’m going with you.”
“No, you’re going back there with the others and I’ll meet you at Sirius’s flat like we planned, alright?” There was no way he was letting her get hurt just because he wanted to chase after this maniac. There was no way.
James was startled when the redhead simply shook her head and rolled her eyes at him. “When are you going to understand that I love you, James Potter, and if you’re going to do something stupid, I’m going to do it with you?”
She turned him around and gave him a light shove between his shoulder blades, signaling for him to run. But before she and James could get more than two steps, a cold, icy voice sounded from behind them. “Young love, how sweet.”
James and Lily had never heard this voice before, yet something in both of their stomachs told them that this was the voice that belonged to the cause of this war. Revolving slowly in their spots, the two found themselves faced with a man whose face was shadowed by the hood that hung over his head. They didn’t need to ask who this man with the long, pale white fingers holding a thin, black wand was.
Lord Voldemort.
“James Potter,” he hissed softly, his voice freezing the blood in James’s veins. Voldemort’s gaze, though they could not see it, shifted from James to Lily and, they were sure, held a look of the utmost pleasure at his find. “And Lily Evans… yes I’ve heard about you two. Two extraordinarily talented children, despite the filth that runs through your veins,” he spat at Lily, whose hand clenched tightly around her wand. She wasn’t going to show it, but she was terrified. The tighter she held her wand, she was sure her hand would shake less. “Yet exceptions can be made, even to Mudbloods.”
“What do you mean?” Lily asked, her voice heavily guarded. One wrong move and they were as good as dead.
“It can only benefit me to have two such talented people as yourselves on my side. What are you really fighting? The inevitable? Mudbloods and blood traitors have no business in this world.”
“We’re both those things, aren’t we?” James snarled. He was one of the biggest blood traitors there was, probably only second to Sirius Black. The things he did, the people he defended, what he fought for, all of that screamed blood traitor to the Death Eaters. Voldemort should want nothing to do with him. “Why would you want us to help you, especially when you know there’s no chance of it?” James felt Lily shifted uncomfortably beside him, a definite sign that she wanted him to shut up before he got them vaporized.
“As I said, exceptions can be made.” Voldemort’s wand arm rose, pointing first at James’s chest and then at Lily’s. He would not be denied. “If not, I’m sure you know what the consequences will be.”
James didn’t waste any time thinking about what he was going to do. If he didn’t act now, they were both dead. There was no way either of them was strong enough to take down Voldemort on their own. He merely gripped Lily’s hand and Apparated.