Chapter Text
Mooney and Wormtail met him as planned at the Leaky Cauldron. Mooney looked a little worse for wear because the full moon was only a few days away. The drawn out, tired expression on his friend’s face always made James worry, but he had learned his lesson. Once, all the way back in their fourth year when James had commented on it and suggested Remus have a lie down the other boy had nearly ripped his head off. Yes, the approaching full moon made Remus tired, but it also meant that the wolf was constantly prowling just beneath the surface, ready to snap at any minute. So instead of saying, “You sure you’re up to this, Remus?” James clapped a hand on his shoulder in greeting and said, “You look like shite, mate.”
Remus glared at him and responded with a growled, “Not looking so hot yourself, Prongs.”
Offended, James ran a hand through his hair. “I look fine, thanks.”
“Is that a worm you’ve got on your lip?” Peter asked, squinting suspiciously.
“What? No! It’s a mustache you morons!” James smoothed out the bit of hair to emphasize his point.
Peter squinted harder at it. “No. It’s definitely a worm.”
Remus snorted and James glared at him for it.
“You’re a bunch of unsupportive arseholes,” he muttered mutinously.
“I still don’t see why you need the two of us to help you buy new robes, Prongs,” said Remus. “But I know before we go anywhere I need to get something to eat.” James heard his stomach growl from across the table. Remus looked around to find Tom. James swore he could see Remus’ nose twitching, like he was trying to sniff Tom out. With the full moon so close, he probably was sniffing him out. Tom waved at them when he saw the boys looking and headed their way. He took Remus’ large order of a full English breakfast with extra bacon and sausage with a raised eyebrow but otherwise didn’t comment. When he scribbled down everyone’s order and left, James spoke at the same time as Peter.
“Breakfast for lunch, Remus?”
“Actually--”
Peter blinked at him and James decided to press on if only for his sake. He had caught the look Remus had pinned Peter with and knew that it wouldn’t lead to anything good.
“Actually,” he said again. “I don’t actually need to go shopping. I was just bored and wanted to hang out with you guys.”
“James,” Remus huffed. “You don’t need an excuse to hang out with us.”
“Yeah,” chimed in Peter. “You could’ve asked. We are friends with you, you idiot.”
“See, this is why you need to start talking to Sirius again,” Remus said, shaking his head. “You’re mental without him.” Peter nodded sagely next to him and irritation took up residence under James’ skin, hot and prideful.
“Hey,” James sputtered. He didn’t like the idea of his friends thinking he was useless without Sirius. “That git can--”
Peter cut him off. “That git just walked in with your girl.”
“What?”
James and Remus spun at the same time to see Sirius and Lily stumbling into the pub, laughing hysterically together. Sirius was in an expensive looking Muggle suit, long hair pulled back with a leather thong and Lily...Lily looked so beautiful that James felt his heart constrict in his chest. She wore a powder blue dress that fell just about her knees and her hair was starting to tumble down her back from an elegant looking knot at the top of her head. He could see freckles scattered across her shoulders like stars across the night sky. Her cheeks were flushed from laughing and so was the expanse of her chest that the dress displayed. James swallowed thickly and felt his brain stutter. He had no idea that that happened when her face got flushed. The information made his head start spinning.
“James, you look like you’re going to pass out. Remember to breathe, mate,” he heard Peter say as if from far away.
When James saw Lily laugh at something Sirius said he felt a yawning void open in the pit of his stomach. What if…
“Oi! Sirius! Lily!” Peter called over to them, waving wildly. Lily spun around to find them, dress billowing out pleasantly. Her eyes widened in surprise when she saw them and another dazzling smile lit up her face. Sirius looked pleased too until he caught a glimpse of James. His face shuttered immediately, becoming closed off with that classic Black family, holier-than-thou expression.
Lily grabbed his hand and pulled him over to their table.
“Hi!” She said brightly.
James was torn between being floored by how pretty she looked up close in that dress and glaring at Sirius. He settled for staring at the sticky table top instead.
“You look great, Lily,” James heard Remus say.
She laughed and said, “Well, you have to dress for the occasion, right? We just left my sister’s wedding.” She sounded strained at the end and James longed to ask her what was wrong but he was also worried that he would punch Sirius in the face again instead.
“We’re about to start drinking and counting how many sausages Mooney can put away if you want to pull up a chair and join us,” said Peter.
James looked up to glare at him, the traitor. Pete shrugged at him in response.
Lily laughed again. “We’d love to, right Sirius?”
Sirius grunted non-commitally. Smart. But he sat obediently when Lily ordered him to.
An awkward silence descended upon the table, only broken when Tom arrived to drop off Remus’ food and James and Peter’s drinks. To James’ surprise, Lily ordered two firewhiskies, one for her and one for Sirius.
“Being seventeen is so great, especially for days like this when all you want to do is avoid everything and have a drink.” She clinked glasses with Sirius and threw her shot back. Her eyes watered a bit and she coughed.
James looked up at that. “The wedding was bad, then?”
“Oh, he speaks!” Lily cooed. James blinked in surprise. Clearly the drink she had just ordered wouldn’t be her first of the day. “Let’s just say,” she said and quite literally risked her life by snatching a sausage off of Remus’ plate and taking a bite out of it before putting it back. The rest of the table looked nervously at Remus but all he did was frown and rip into his bacon. “Let’s just say,” Lily repeated, licking her fingers clean. “That it’s a really good thing that Sirius came with me and then took me for a ride on his motorcycle.” She leaned forward and patted Sirius on the knee. James wanted to strangle him.
“Maybe you should’ve ordered a lemonade or something, Evans,” Sirius said, speaking for the first time.
“A lemonade?” Lily gasped in outrage. “A lemonade, Sirius Black? A LEMONADE?”
Sirius sighed and put his hands up in surrender. James noted the way he moved his firewhiskey further away from both himself and Lily.
“So,” Lily turned to look between James and the others. “Did you just come in to town to watch Remus eat? Because if so? That’s really sad.”
“Unfortunately the whole reason we’re here is much sadder,” Remus said. The smug expression on his face as he looked between him and Lily made James want to steal a sausage off of his plate too. Maybe he needed better friends, if he kept glaring at them and fighting the urge to wring their necks.
“Is that so?” said Lily. She leaned closer across the table and he forced himself not to follow the dip in her neckline. His mother had raised him to be a gentleman (for the most part) and she would throttle him if he so much as peeked.
He lied and glanced away. “I need to go shopping.”
“Sure you do,” Remus and Peter sing-songed at the same time.
Lily laughed and proceeded to ask them how their holidays were going so far. Eventually the three of them were chatting away, with Lily trying to get them to do more shots with her (“Lily, it’s not even two in the afternoon yet,” Peter protested. “We’re on holiday!” she insisted). Sirius stayed tight lipped and each time Lily nudged him in the shoulder James felt a little more constricted, like someone had a vice grip around his heart and enjoyed squeezing tighter and tighter each time. He wanted to leave, but didn’t want to deprive Remus of his lunch. He wasn’t that much of an asshole, no matter what his friends insisted.
Finally, after what felt like eons, Remus popped the last bit of fried tomato in his mouth and sighed happily. James wasted no time in waving Tom back over so they could pay and get out. He pushed away from the table immediately after dropping some coins and started for the Alley.
“Care to join us and make fun of James?” He heard Remus ask behind him. He also heard Lily’s delighted laugh and a grumble from Sirius which he took to mean he was coming too. James sighed heavily and stomped out into the street, the rest of his friends--and Sirius following behind him.
He stuffed his hands in his pockets and trudged his way up the Alley without a particular destination in mind, weaving his way between other shoppers and trying to ignore the sounds of laughter behind him. The sky was that bright, bold blue that only summer skies seemed to manage and while most people were enjoying the sunshine (Florean Fortescue’s was packed) James felt thoroughly miserable. What the hell was wrong with him anyway? It’s not like he could begrudge Lily a friendship with Sirius. The pratt was an incredible best mate, you just had to watch out for the stab in the back, he thought darkly.
A hand pulled at his elbow and suddenly Lily was right there , threading her arm through his. Her perfume smelled nice, like lilacs and mixed with the scent of firewhiskey he was surprised she didn’t have a whole pack of followers. Then he remembered the guys trailing after them and chuckled.
“How are you this shitty, sunny day?” Lily asked him, trying to match her stride to his.
He obligingly slowed down slightly. It couldn’t be easy to power walk while wearing high heels. “I’m fine,” he grumbled.
“No you’re not, James Potter.” she admonished. “Don’t lie to yourself and don’t lie to me either. If you miss your friends they’re literally right behind us. All you have to do is get your head out of your ass and turn around and talk to them.”
He couldn’t help but smile. “You’re really something else, Red.”
She put her nose high in the air. “I’m going to take that as a compliment, thank you very much.”
“Want to stop in Flourish and Blotts? See if they’ve got any books that’ll help you with your internship this summer?” He began to steer them in the general direction of the shop.
“You know just what to say, don’t you?” Lily slurred slightly and laughed. The sound made the tight feeling in his chest relax slightly. She stayed on his arm while they wandered between the bookshelves. Flourish and Blotts wasn’t particularly crowded today. Most families were enjoying the first bit of the summer holiday together which meant their children avoiding school related shops all together and enjoying the outdoors instead. That left their group mostly alone while their search for healing related books quickly devolved into finding the most ridiculous books and comparing their titles. A volume Peter found entitled Merlin’s Misadventures through the Mystic Realms of ‘Oh Mama’: Sexual Congress in the Mists of Avalon left everyone in tears.
“Blimey, who the hell would do research on that?” Remus gasped, clutching his side.
“Apparently a Mister Delphinius Bimtrackle,” said Sirius, taking the book from Peter and turning it over to read the author’s biography.
The author’s name made everyone lose it again and soon everyone was in tears again. Lily quietly excused herself to go to the loo and left the boys to their laughter. James was laughing harder than he had laughed in a long time while Sirius began reading excerpts from the book and he barely noticed when Lily left.
Just as Sirius reached a part where Bimtrackle had begun an interview a supposed “expert” on the metaphor of mist in conjunction with “intimate acts” an explosion rocked through the store, blowing in the windows and knocking every bookshelf down and throwing the Marauders off their feet.
James coughed as thick clouds of dust and smoke coated his throat, making it hard to breathe and tried to think over the fear that flooded his system. For an eternity he tried to move but something heavy held him down and he couldn’t get it off. The weight solidified into one of the heavy wooden bookshelves with who knows what piled on top. Panic clawed at his chest and there was a shrill ringing in his ears. What if he was buried under tons of rubble? What the hell happened? Could he suffocate under all of this…? He could hear someone calling out near him but all he could see was the dust and rubble in front of his face. Something shifted above him and the crushing weight became heavier and he felt something snap in his side. He cried out and the movement stopped. He tried to move his arm to get to his wand, stuffed in his back pocket, but it may as well have been back at home for all the good it did him. His arm was pinned and he was trapped.
Fear tasted like copper.
Or maybe that was the blood in his mouth.
James didn’t want to die. Not like this.
The world rocked again. Another explosion ? He thought wildly. Things above him shifted again and he thought This is it , but instead of crushing him, the weight eased off of him more. He had never been so happy to reach his wand in his entire life. Once he grasped the handle, he didn’t think, he just blasted everything away from him, dislodging the debris and creating another cloud of dust around him. He struggled to sit up and his entire body protested. A hand appeared in front of his face and he grabbed it, using it to haul himself to his feet.
Sirius gripped his shoulders and shook him before wrapping him up in a hug tight enough that his ribs protested again. The rumbling in Sirius’ chest told him that he was speaking but he couldn’t hear anything over the high pitched ringing in his ears. He pushed Sirius away from him and said, “What the fuck just happened?” Or at least he thought he did. He couldn’t hear himself either. He watched Sirius’ lips move and the ringing subsided slightly until it sounded like they were underwater.
“Where’s Lily?” He finally heard Sirius yell at him. Remus and Peter were standing behind him, looking scared and covered in brick dust.
“Lily…? Wasn’t she just here…?” James said in confusion. He was having trouble piecing his thoughts together. One moment they had been laughing over a book and the next…
“I think he’s concussed,” he heard Remus say from behind Sirius.
“She said something to you before she left,” Sirius continued. The sounds of people screaming in the street reached them and Peter shifted closer to the group. James could smell something burning.
“Oh, the loo,” he mumbled and scrunched his eyes shut. The ground wouldn’t stop swaying beneath him and he felt like he was going to be sick. Trying to focus made the nausea worse.
Sirius clapped him on the shoulder and darted past him, presumably to go find Lily.
Lily.
The thought was enough for him to take a sharp inhale and then immediately regret it. Something sharp was poking into his side and each breath was agony. Suddenly Remus was there in front of him, frowning deeply. Were his eyes always that color? He thought in confusion. He had always thought his friend’s eyes were brown but now they stared at him with a distinctly golden hue. He watched Remus’ lips form a spell and the pain in his side lessened.
“You’ve got some broken ribs, Prongs,” he heard him say. “And a concussion. I can help a bit but we should get you to St. Mungo’s.” His friend waved his wand again and the fuzziness left his head and the nausea retreated slightly. The ground still felt like it was dancing beneath his feet, but this time it was less of a waltz and more of a slow dance. He could deal with a slow dance.
Sirius and Lily stumbled back to them through the haze and James felt even better seeing them again. For the first time he noted the cut Sirius’ face, blood trickling down and dripping off of his chin. Lily, mercifully looked unscathed. While her powder blue dress was more akin to grey now and her hair had completely fallen out of her bun, he couldn’t see any blood or sign of injury and his shoulders sagged in relief.
“Oh my God, you’re all okay!” Lily shrieked and threw herself at James. He automatically winced, expecting more pain but Remus’ healing spell had worked wonders. His arms came up to pull Lily in close and if he breathed in the smell of her hair he could always blame the concussion later. He made eye contact with Sirius over her shoulder and nodded at him. Sirius’ eyes widened slightly in surprise before he nodded back. James was tired of missing his best friend.
“We need to get out of here,” Peter said. His wand was out and he looked nervously out at the street.
“Does anyone know what happened?” Lily asked, pulling away from James. She reached down to grab his hand with hers and he could feel her trembling. The feeling was mutual.
“We need to get James to St. Mungo’s,” said Remus. “We can worry about everything else later.”
“I knew drinking so much was a bad idea,” Lily said, as if her being drunk the first day of summer holidays was the reason Flourish and Blotts had just exploded around them.
“Not your fault, love,” Sirius said and led the way out through the rubble, picking his way carefully and gesturing for them to follow. James let Lily sort of pull him along, reluctant to drop her hand. He took in the scene out on the street through a layer of numb shock and followed his friends.
It looked like a war zone. Half of the street was now an enormous, smoking crater and there were people lying prone in the street. What was left of Flourish and Blotts crumbled at the edge of the crater and Ministry witches and wizards were apparating in as Sirius led the group away. People screamed and children cried. The shop across the way was on fire, the thick black smoke billowing up into the clear blue sky.
His side began to feel rather wet and when he looked down he saw that it was mostly read. Oh, he thought, I’m bleeding . He kept a tight hold on Lily’s hand and decided to keep the information to himself. It felt more important to get away from all of this.
The far end of Diagon Alley by Gringotts was relatively unscathed and it was here that they came to a halt.
“Bloody hell,” Sirius said, looking back at the destruction.
“Yeah, bloody hell,” James said and fell to his knees. Rolling onto his back took no effort at all and he blinked as everything started to lose focus, his eyelids heavy. The last thing he heard was Lily saying his name before everything fell into darkness.
***
When James hit the ground at her feet Lily’s first thought was that he was dead. Then she saw the slight rise and fall of his chest and knew that they had to get him help, and help meant a hospital. Blood spread sluggishly across the cobblestones and began staining the tips of her shoes red. Dropping to her knees beside him and ignoring the way the stones dug painfully into her skin, Lily tried to find a pulse. When she was in primary school, she remembered the emergency services visiting the school to give the kids a lesson in basic safety and first aid. At the time, it seemed like the most important thing was getting to slide on the EMT’s bright blue rubber gloves and poke her friend Matilda with them, or get a chance to wear the firefighter’s hard hat. Now, she would give anything to be able to harness that aura of professional calm the EMT and accompanying firefighters had exuded. Her hands shook when she pressed her fingers just under James’ jawline, ignoring Peter’s bewildered, “What are you doing?”
His pulse was there, thready and light and far too fast, but he wasn’t dead yet. Lily clutched his collar and thought hard, disapparating and bringing them both to St. Mungo’s.
The wizard on duty at the reception desk barely looked up from his copy of The Daily Prophet . “Bodily injuries?” He asked in a bored voice. “You want the fourth floor.”
When a second pair of people Apparated practically on top of them, also covered in blood and soot, the wizard finally got to his feet.
“There’s been an attack in Diagon Alley,” Lily gasped out before levitating James in front of her and heading towards the elevator. The dejected sobbing of the woman on the floor behind told Lily all she wanted to know and followed them into the lift.
When the doors to the lift opened on the fourth floor, a scene of relative calm met them. Evidently news of the attack hadn’t reached the hospital yet. A healer saw them exit the lift and quickly strode over.
“What happened?” She wanted to know. Lily barely registered her appearance, a plump blonde haired witch who would have barely reached James’ shoulder if he had been conscious.
“There’s been an attack. In Diagon Alley,” Lily said. James made a small sound next to her and Lily saw the healer dismiss her in her mind and focus all of her attention on her patient.
She waved her wand over him once, twice, before blanching and saying, “That’s Charlus Potter’s son, isn’t it?” Lily barely said yes before the witch turned abruptly, whisking James away with her.
“Wait!” Lily called out, following behind. “Where are you taking him? Is he going to be alright?”
“Miss?”
“Evans.” The healer was fast, her short legs propelling her down the hallway fast enough that Lily had to jog to keep up. She almost slipped out of her heels trying to keep the pace.
“Miss Evans,” the healer continued. “As you are not a family member, I must ask you to wait downstairs. I will take care of Mr. Potter here, rest assured, but your part in this is over. Thank you and good day.” She turned into a room directly off of the corridor and it shut in Lily’s face.
Lily stared at the polished wood door in front of her, astounded. She could hear her heartbeat in her ears. When she reached out for the door handle, a loud voice belted out, “FAMILY MEMBERS ONLY PLEASE” and she jumped back. Not knowing what else to do, Lily summoned a chair and sat directly next to the door. She put her head in her hands and reminded herself that she needed to breathe.
Everything had happened so fast, she still wasn’t sure if it was real. One minute she was enjoying herself in Diagon Alley immensely and the next...this. She looked up and down the corridor. More and more people began appearing, some bearing friends or family levitated in front of them like her, others limping in on their own. All of them were covered in the same layer of brick dust and soot as Lily, and some of them were covered in blood just like she was. People cried and screamed in pain all around her, healers dashing to and fro, trying to control the chaos. Lily leaned back in her chair until her head rested against the wall, and settled in to wait. She would stay outside this door until she knew for certain that James would be alright. Only then would she relax and clean herself up.
She wasn’t sure how much time had passed when she heard voices she recognized. Whipping her head around, she saw the rest of the Marauders exiting the elevator and looking frantic. Remus saw her first, running over with Sirius and Peter following behind.
“Is he okay?” Sirius demanded.
“I don’t know! The bloody door won’t let me in! Only family it says.”
Sirius marched up and glared at the door. “Let us in.” He had a dangerous glint in his eye that spoke of barely suppressed violence. Lily was suddenly very grateful that she was friends with him.
“FAMILY MEMBERS ONLY PLEASE,” the doorknob bellowed, just as before.
“We are his family you piece of dragon shit,” Sirius snapped. He reached his hand into his pocket and Lily knew he was going to pull wand out and try to hex the door to pieces.
“Sirius--”
“Don’t be an idiot, Sirius,” another voice cut her off. Charlus Potter had arrived. “Please step aside,” he said quietly, motioning that Sirius should do as he said. “I’ll let you in once I assess his condition.” The door swung open for him before he even reached for the handle and swiftly swung shut behind him, leaving the rest of them out in the hallway.
Sirius swore and turned his attention to Lily. “Why did you just leave like that without saying anything?”
Forcing herself not to flinch at his anger, Lily defended herself. “Because, Sirius, he needed immediate medical attention! More than any of us knew how to do and I didn’t want to waste any time.”
“Do you know what it looked like when you just disappeared?” he hissed, grey eyes narrowed to slits.
“Yes, I do.” Lily got to her feet and stabbed a finger into his chest. “And don’t you yell at me, Sirius Black. I’m just as scared and worried as you are.” She knew she was yelling but she didn’t care. She needed an outlet and Sirius was conveniently providing one. “I won’t apologize for being the only one with enough sense to get help.” Her hands were trembling again and she clenched them into fists at her side.
Sirius rubbed the spot on his chest where she had poked him and abruptly turned around. She watched his shoulders rise and fall in a deep breath, trying to calm himself and she tried to do the same. She was just about to yell at him some more when he abruptly spun around and gathered her to his chest in a bone crushing hug. “Thank you,” he breathed in her ear and she could feel him trembling too. “Thank you,” he said again. When he pulled away he wiped at his eyes and ran his fingers through his hair, pulling it the rest of the way free from the style he had done for Petunia’s wedding. Lily felt wetness on her own cheeks and wiped some tears away too.
There was nothing to do but wait. The seconds stretched into minutes which dragged on and on. Lily summoned chairs for the boys and they settled in to wait as well. Having never been to a wizarding hospital outside of the occasional visit to the hospital wing at Hogwarts, Lily had no idea if this long of a wait was normal or not. From preliminary research into a healing career, she knew that some injuries required more complicated magic than others and a simple wave of a wand wouldn’t cut it.
Finally, the door opened again and Charlus’ voice invited them in. They all sprang to their feet and filed in. James was asleep in a clean hospital bed, sheets tucked up to his shoulders, looking pale but undeniably alive. The even rise and fall of his chest had Lily breathe a sigh of relief and a bone crushing exhaustion took the place of the anxiety that had been plaguing her.
“He’s going to be alright,” Charlus said. Lily watched the healer from before smooth down the sheets at the foot of James’ bed and fought the surprising urge to strangle her. “Miss Evans,” he said quietly, pulling her thoughts away from murder and back to the present. “I want to thank you for your quick thinking. You may have saved my son’s life today.” He held his hand out, as if to shake hers. “May I?” Lily looked down at his hand and reached out to accept it. Instead of shaking it though, he brought her hand to his lips and placed a gentle kiss across her knuckles, murmuring words of thanks again. She felt her face heat up in embarrassment and pulled her hand away, staring at the floor.
“I couldn’t just let him…” she trailed off, unwilling to finish the sentence.
“Just the same, you have my thanks for saving my son.”
“Sirius helped,” she said, desperate to move the attention away from herself. “He got us all out of there.”
“You’re not going to kiss me too, are you?” Sirius joked weakly.
“Come here, son,” Charlus said and wrapped Sirius up in a hug instead. Sirius seemed to melt into the embrace.
“Remus helped too,” Sirius muttered into Charlus’ collar. Lily saw Remus blanch at the comment and he put his hands up in defence.
“You don’t need to hug me too, Mr. Potter. Sirius is the one who dug him out of the rubble,” he said. “All I did was--” His protests were cut off by Charlus pulling him into the hug and then Peter was pulled in and Lily was left watching James’ father embrace all of his son’s friends with such care and tenderness that tears pricked her eyes again.
“Oi,” a voice said weakly. “I’m the one who nearly died. What are you lot doing over there?”
James was awake.
Immediately everyone crowded around his bedside, speaking all at once.
“Did we really get blown up? Or was that just a dream?” he whispered. He looked pale and exhausted, like every word took more energy than he had.
“This young man needs to rest,” the healer said in a tone that brooked no argument. She leveled a stern gaze at Charlus. “I’m going to give him a sleeping draught.”
“You kids can stay here if you like, so long as you stay quiet,” Charlus said. Lily had no intention of leaving any time soon. The determined looks on the boys faces showed they felt the same way.
“Dad,” James protested weakly, but he obediently sipped at the beaker the healer held in front of him and was almost instantly asleep. Charlus reached down and brushed some of James’ hair out of his face. The tender gesture made something in Lily’s chest clench and rewrite her impression of James Potter all over again. He wasn’t just the cocky and arrogant bastard at school, but a son with a loving father and friends who cared deeply about him. She didn’t know why the realization was so astounding. James was human, afterall.
“They need me elsewhere in the hospital,” Charlus said, turning away from his son and addressing his friends. “Watch over him for me. My wife would be here, but she’s needed with the D.M.L.E.” Everyone nodded and he left the room, the healer trailing in his wake. The sounds of chaos traveled in through the open door before it closed behind them.
“Well, fuck,” Remus said, summing up exactly how Lily felt. He waved his wand and their chairs from outside slid their way in.
Lily let out a shaky breath and echoed him. “Well, fuck.” Sirius snorted and plopped himself down in his chair on the other side of James’ bed.
The four friends sat in silent contemplation, occasionally making eye contact or just staring blankly at where James lay motionless in bed. Lily herself was in shock. At least, she thought she was in shock. Surely that explained the weird feeling in her chest and the way she reached over to hold Remus hand and it definitely explained the way she had started shaking again.
Someone had attacked them. Well, not them specifically, but someone had attacked Diagon Alley. She had seen bodies lying in the street, smelled the burning and seen the smoke staining the sky. And someone had done it all on purpose. Who could do such a thing?
She was afraid to find out.
One hour went by, and then a second but James slept on. At one point they had all been shoved against the wall as emergency mediwizards brought in a second patient. Before they pulled the privacy curtain and set up their privacy wards, Lily caught sight of the patient, an old woman with half of her face missing. She felt sick.
Dorea Potter arrived a few minutes after the healers had gotten James’ new roommate settled in. She brought a tray of sandwiches with her and a house elf carried an enormous teapot behind her on a tray with cream and sugar. There was a furrow between her brows but other than that and a few hairs out of place from her otherwise immaculate bun, Dorea appeared remarkably poised and calm. Lily recognized the expression as one she had seen on Sirius’ face more than once and attributed it to a Black family trait. Internally, the older witch was probably frantic, but externally she was perfectly calm and collected.
“Please, everyone have something to eat,” she said by way of greeting. With a wave of her wand she had another chair conjured for herself and settled into it near her son. The tray of sandwiches began making a slow circuit of the room, offering food to each of them in turn. Lily accepted an egg sandwich and gratefully accepted a cup of tea from the house elf. When she took a sip of the strong, black tea she immediately felt better.
“I would like to thank you, Miss Evans,” Dorea said in a rather imperious tone.
“Me?” Squeaked Lily. She wondered if she would ever be able to have a conversation with James’ parents without feeling completely out of her depth. Yesterday at the Leaky Cauldron had been one thing but now…
“I understand you brought James here.”
“Um, yes…”
“And Sirius is the one who dug him out from underneath the rubble,” Remus said.
Lily and Dorea turned to stare at him and then moved almost in perfect sync to stare at Sirius. He shifted uncomfortably under Dorea’s stare and Lily watched a flush appear high on his cheekbones. It was the second time Remus had mentioned Sirius digging James out from underneath the wreckage of Flourish and Blott’s and she wanted to know exactly what had happened.
“What the bloody hell was I supposed to do? He’s my best mate I couldn’t very well just let him get crushed,” he muttered. It was stupid, but Lily once again felt tears well up in her eyes. She was an emotional wreck and under normal circumstances she would be embarrassed, but after the events of the day she felt she was entitled to more than a few tears.
“You’re an idiot, Sirius Black.” James had finally woken up again. His words were slightly slurred together but he looked a little less pale. His eyes were open and they were narrowed at Sirius. There was a tense moment and then James stuck his tongue out at him, the childish gesture taking the sting out of the words.
Sirius’ shoulders fell in relief and he grumbled, “Next time you decide to get yourself blown up you can get someone else to dig you out again!”
James laughed weakly but it quickly turned into a cough and a grimace. “Bloody hell,” he complained.
“Language, James!” his mother scolded.
“Mum,” her son responded with an eye roll. “I was just squashed underneath an entire building. I think I should be allowed to swear at least a little!”
“It wasn’t an entire building,” Peter murmured.
“Stuff it, Pete!” James crowed and they all laughed. James’ reaction to everything made Lily start to think that they all just might be okay. If he could wake up after a brush with death and still laugh than just maybe they could make it through all of this. He sobered almost immediately though and asked, “Any idea what happened, mum?”
Dorea sighed and shook her head. “No one has claimed responsibility for the attack yet, but we’ve got our suspicions.” She gave each of them a significant look and Lily knew this was no longer a mother speaking to them, but a ranking member of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. “It’s becoming more and more dangerous out there, and I know you’re only kids but soon you’ll all be of age and you’ve got a right to know. We think it’s going to come to war. This could just be the beginning. So look out for yourselves, and for one another. Learn as much as you can when you go back to Hogwarts in the autumn, and know that so long as I still draw breath and your father has anything to say about it James, we won’t let anything happen. To any of you.” She made sure to hold eye contact with each of them over the course of this speech, holding it for longer first with Sirius and then, to Lily’s great surprise, with her.
Somewhere along the way, Lily had done something to warrant Dorea Potter’s protectiveness. Her gaze flickered to James and found him looking at her with an expression that she couldn’t read.
The conversation shifted to other things in that organic way that they are want to do, what their individual plans for the summer holidays were, plans and promises to meet up for various reasons.
“Hey, Red,” James said quietly to get Lily’s attention. “While you’re here you should find out who you’ll be working with this summer.”
Horrified, she answered, “I can’t just leave to track down information about my internship! Not with you--”
He waved his hand and interrupted her. “I’m fine. Give me another hour and I’ll be right as rain.” She saw a bit of a shadow behind his eyes that betrayed how he was really feeling, but she figured he was trying to make her feel better. James Potter, laying in bed after nearly bleeding out on the cobblestones of Diagon Alley was trying to make her feel better. A big lump suddenly formed in her throat and she found it difficult to swallow. Something must have shown on her face because he frowned. “Lily, are you alright?”
It was the way he said her name that did it. Without thinking, Lily rocketed to her feet and fled the room, tears spilling down her cheeks. She didn’t know where she was going or what she was doing, she just knew that she had to get out of that room, get away from James and the way he had looked at her just now like…
Like the way her father had looked at her mother.
A memory of her father gathering her mother into his arms after he and Petunia had been in a minor car accident flashed through her mind. Her father had been mostly unharmed and Petunia as well, but a nasty knock on the head had the doctors hesitant about sending him home without an overnight stay and Lily’s mother had been so worried…
Confused and mortified for reacting the way she had, Lily finally started paying attention to where she was. She had never been to St. Mungo’s before and other than the trip from the reception desk up the lift to James’ room, she hadn’t seen much of it. She was definitely lost. The hallway she was in had dark panelled walls with a handful of portraits hanging, each depicting witches or wizards in varying medical conditions on their way to being cured. Her heels echoed loudly in the empty hallway. A door at the end had sunlight streaming through the windows and when she pushed it open she found herself in a small garden, laid out in the simple, elegant design of a Japanese zen garden. She breathed in the air through slightly stuffed nostrils and felt marginally better. The air lacked the distinctly clinical smell of the hospital in addition to the scent of burning that seemed stuck in her nose from Diagon Alley. She knew that she probably looked a mess and desperately needed a shower and change of clothes (she was very determined not to look down at where James’ blood had dried to brown on her dress) but she couldn’t bring herself to care just then.
There was a small bench nestled beneath a Japanese maple and she made a beeline for it. She leaned back until her head bumped against the tree trunk and closed her eyes, taking a deep breath in the process. She needed to center herself. A riot of emotions teemed in her belly, chief among them confusion, quickly followed by fear. Fear about the sudden attack in the Alley, fear at the uncertain future dawning on the horizon where attacks occurred indiscriminately and in broad daylight, and most of all, fear about the way she had felt when James had been bleeding out at her feet and the different sort of fear with him looking at her the way he had just now, back in his hospital room. Because that look, that single expression had made something sprout in her chest that she was terrified to go near and examine. Objectively, Lily knew what that emotion could be, but it went against all of her experiences with James Potter thus far and she wasn’t ready to face it, to admit to it. Instead, she made a conscious effort to shove it down, to stuff it away in a shrouded corner of her heart to be looked at and examined later if she needed to.
Sadness also wound its way through the complicated mix of emotions. She felt like some of her joy in the magical world had been forcibly taken from her. Maybe she had been naive to think that everything would stay so easy and wonderful in the way her introduction to the Wizarding World had been. It was clearly time to grow up. The lingering sadness from Petunia’s wedding solidified into resignation and acceptance. She would never be able to change her sister’s opinion of her and she was tired of trying. The ship had sailed and there was no going back. It was time she followed someone’s advice of “fuck them.” Yes, she would always love her sister, but that didn’t mean she had to deal with her sister’s prejudices.
Lily opened her eyes, feeling more relaxed and centered. She muttered a quick “ Scourgify ,” a cleaned herself up, trying not to think to hard about what it was she was cleaning off of herself. The stains didn’t fade completely and Lily resigned herself to learning a spell that would clean blood stains out of clothes better. Merlin knew with the way things were going she would need it, and probably not with just her internship over the summer. She glanced up from the faint brown spotting on her dress just in time to see Remus walk into the garden. He padded his way over to her and sat on the bench next to her.
“How did you find me?”
He tapped his nose and winked at her.
“You mean you can smell me!?”
He shrugged. “Sometimes it can be useful. It made tracking down James and Sirius way easier when we were younger and they were all over the castle pulling one over on someone.”
Lily giggled. “They really did get up to some crazy stuff.”
“Oi, I was there too!”
Lily laughed again but it was short lived. “Do you think there will be much pranking in the future?”
Remus sighed. “Hard to say. Everything is getting so much more…” he trailed off.
“Shitty?” she supplied. She was too tired to think of a better adjective to sum up everything.
The surprised a snort out of him. “Shitty,” he agreed.
“I’m scared,” she confessed quietly. A bird starting chirping somewhere in the garden with them, oblivious to the dark mood hanging in the air.
“Me too,” said Remus. He was quiet for a bit and then, “Dumbledore has asked me to do something. After school.”
She studied his face. Sitting so close to her, she could make out the faint, silver outline of old scars that ran across the bridge of his nose and up his neck. He stared out ahead of him with his jaw set, but she could see how frightened he was. What sort of thing could Dumbledore ask of a boy who wasn’t even seventeen yet? And then it clicked.
“He wants you to reach out to them, doesn’t he? To other werewolves?” She said the last part as quietly as she could but Remus still cringed.
“It looks like they’re all going to side with him ,” he said. “Dumbledore wants to give them another option, but I doubt they’ll listen.”
“Why do you say that?”
“There are cells here, in this hospital. They’ll take you in for the night, during a full moon and lock you in.” As he spoke his voice grew more and more bitter. “Silver bars on the window, silver chains on the wall, anything to keep the beast contained. Voldemort is offering a pack and freedom to run with the moon.”
Lily thought back to that horrible night when she has seen just how dangerous a werewolf could be close up, and Remus wasn’t even a full grown wolf. A shiver of cold dread crept down her spine at the thought of an entire pack of mature werewolves pelting across Britain. “Oh, Remus,” she said, not sure of what else she could do. She squeezed his hand tightly. “You’ll be careful, won’t you?”
He huffed and it could have been a laugh or something worryingly close to a sob. She squeezed his hand again and her heart broke for him. They were just kids. They should be worrying about stupid things like who to go to Hogsmeade with and all of the homework they had to do over the summer holidays, not infiltrating hostile werewolf packs or getting blown up on a shopping trip. She was just brushing at her eyes to stop tears from falling when an instantly recognizable scent filled her nose.
“Remus John Lupin, are you smoking a cigarette?!”
Remus narrowed his eyes at her but didn’t stop taking a long drag off of a freshly lit cigarette. “Stuff it, Evans. I save them for stressful situations.”
“You do know that my father died from lung cancer, right?”
“Mm,” he said in response. A puff later and he was offering it to her. “They’re not so bad.”
“Don’t make me hex you.”
He laughed, but it lacked any semblance of humor. “Compared to the other shit going on, death my cigarette twenty years from now doesn’t seem so bad.”
“Remus…”
“I know, I know: ‘stop being so dramatic.’” He sniffed and ground the cigarette onto their bench, flicking it away. They both watched its trajectory into the bushes and sat in silence for a while.
“Come on,” Lily said, feeling exhausted all the way down to her bones. “You have to help me find my way back. I’m sure the others are wondering where we are.”