Lily Evans and the Marauder's Secrets

The Golden Doe

I hear the battle before I see it.

Explosions, bangs, crashes, and shouts echo down the street. The worst are the screams. I can't tell who they belong to. I can't tell who it means is dead.

I burst into the square and the scene of battle greets my eyes. Unlike earlier, when the Death Eaters first struck and the fighting stayed tight in the center, now there's people all over, spread like ants down into the side streets and up against all the shops and buildings.

There's also less people than I was expecting to find.

And the ground is littered with bodies.

Doesn't mean they're dead, I remind myself. They could just be knocked out, or incapacitated, or injured in some way...

But then I trip over someone, and when I fall, I look down into Mary's glassy eyes, staring sightlessly at the sky.

"NO!" My head snaps up, scanning the square. Tears swim in my eyes, blur my vision, and I blink them away. There's Carol, fiercely battling Lestrange, her face a mask of tears and rage, and I know she knows. She manages to get him down, but a stray spell from a nearby duel catches her in the back, and she goes down writhing in pain. Beyond her, a towering masked figure hits Professor Jarvis in the chest with deadly purple light, and she drops too. There's Sirius, still fighting, his opponent fleeing in defeat even as I watch, but he's bleeding freely from a wound to his head and another Death Eater steps up to meet him almost immediately. I don't see Emmeline or Alice or Marlene at all.

"That's her!" Mulciber yells. He's dueling Frank alongside another Death Eater and points at me. "That's Evans!"

A half dozen masked heads turn in my direction and I have no choice but to leave Mary behind. I get to my feet and meet several opponents head on.

The next few moments blur in colored lights and heat and adrenaline. I react before I can even think about my next move. I feel death in every spell that ruffles past my hair. At one point Hawthorn is battling beside me, and then Frank, and then I'm alone, still standing, still fighting, but exhaustion is setting in and, with it, despair.

All around me, people are falling, and the barrier is still up. Remus won't be able to get back in. I don't know who's alive and who's not. There's no help coming, and Voldemort will be here in moments with a fresh wave of Death Eaters.

And James...

James is gone.

Rosier was right. We've lost, and there's no point in trying to go on. I don't even know who's left alive except the few I see standing right here, and we are no match for what's coming. A spell from the Death Eater I'm fighting slices my leg, and I stumble. I don't know how much longer I can go.

It's over.

And then there's a commotion across the square, a roar so loud for a moment everyone falters to look at the source of sound. And when I see it, my knees buckle in shock.

People.

A flood of people, rag tag and screaming and stampeding at the Death Eaters nearest them. It's the barkeeper from the Hog's Head, and Madame Rosmerta, and the couple I helped from Three Broomsticks. It's Marlene and Alice and Emmeline, and dozens of other students who must have been hiding out this whole time. It's nameless strangers, witches and wizards who must have got trapped here along with us, fresh and ready to fight. And right in the middle of them all, that dark untidy hair absolutely unmistakable...

James.

Alive, fiercer than ever, brandishing his wand like a sword and taking down two Death Eaters before they even see him coming. Still bleeding through his shirt and with a new gash down his arm, but alive.