The Marauders - Order of the Phoenix - Part One

They've Found Us

"Watch your step there, Evans." James reached out a hand and caught hers, helping to balance her as she stepped over the rail and onto the tracks of the Underground.

Behind them, the light from the Harrow on the Hill station was fading and they were approaching the point in the tunnel where the Metropolitan line split - the left went off to Uxbridge and the right to Watford. They'd been walking for quite some time already, the wandlight all that was illuminating the shadowy walls.

Lily clutched James's hand tightly. "D'you reckon the dogs are alright?" she asked.

James laughed, "Remus may be driven crazy by Sirius by the time we see them next, but I reckon they're alright. They haven't called out on the mirror or anything."

She nodded. But the idea of the pair of them being attacked by inferi terrified her. She could just imagine Sirius casting a reducto and crashing the whole tunnel down on himself and Remus, and she worried about Remus's knees on the terribly uneven tracks.

"It's going to be alright, Evans," James said.

"Says the man leading the way to face an army of angry corpses controlled by an evil tyrant of a wizard," Lily muttered.

James chuckled. "Yes, well. There's that. But you know what, I expect that - true to every other attempt to sack the Ministry the blighter's made in the last seven years - You Know Who'll cuck it all up anyways. Probably got himself some rotted corpses whose arms and legs will fall off half way in and end up with a pile of useless torsos."

"That is utterly disgusting," Lily laughed.

James smiled. He could feel the nervousness radiating through Lily and the best thing he could do was to diffuse it and ease her mind as much as possible. He squeezed her fingers. "Just picture them all laying about the tracks groaning and unable to move," he said, "With ol' Moldyshorts standing over them screaming to get on with it! Hell, he probably would give a whole production of a speech, you know how he does..." James cleared his throat, and imitated Voldemort's voice, "You dare at having a lie-in while attacking London? Surely you know better than to defy me! The stupidest git that ever tried to take over the wizarding world!"

"James!" Lily laughed, and she pushed his shoulder, playfully swatting at him, "You're terrible."

"He tries at casting the cruciatus on them, but they're dead so they don't give a damn that he's doing it..." James joked further, enjoying the sound of Lily's laughter echoing in the tunnel. "He gets frustrated because they aren't listening to him, but like he's the one that's gone and lost concentration and dropped his own bloody curse that's mobilizing the poor bastards."

Suddenly, there was a noise ahead and James looked up, his eyes squinting to see in the dark. "Lumos maxima," he murmured, hoping to brighten his wand to see clearer. The noise was like a scrambling, scraping sound, punctuated by loud squeaks and squeals, but there didn't appear to be anything ahead until -

"Oh my gods!"

James turned about and saw that Lily was looking down at the ground. He cast his wand downward and saw them. "What the bloody --" There on the ground, an absolute flood of rodents were running toward them, a current of writhing furry bodies and long wormy tails. "Watch out, Evans!" He scooped her up, sweeping her legs up from beneath her and holding her body to his chest as she shrieked and the rats began streaming past them, shrieking and jumping over James's trainers. 

The rats were hurrying in such a panic that they piled over one another, plowing along without stopping. Nothing could slow them or get in their way. Lily clutched her arms around James's neck, watching over his shoulder as they scurried away into the dark beyond. It seemed to last forever, the barrage of rodents. James couldn't believe how many of them there were, and how quickly they were running. They were loud, like a hard downpour of rain, a million tiny squeaks added up to a dull roar as their little clawed feet carried them off down the rails. As suddenly as they had come, they were done and left behind was only an eerie, terrible silence.