Undying Love (A Jily Fanfiction)

Chapter 40: Confrontation

Never trust a duck.

~Jace Herondale

He woke up with a serious migraine, lying on the floor of Dumbledore's office.

Pain shot up his hand in tiny tingles as he tried to pull himself up, and the memories came rushing back to him.

Lily.

He limped to the base of the Griffin Door. Sylvia was gone and Padfoot was nowhere to be seen.

God Damn it.

His hand shot up to his head as a shudder went through his body - the after effects of having your head violently bashed onto the hard floor.

But he couldn't think of that now, not when Lily's life was on the line, and so he painfully dragged himself up, ignoring the slowly increasing pain in his head. His hand fumbled in his robes for his wand, feeling its absence, he frantically shook his head to find it.

Of course, Snape would not have left him with even the least defense a wizard could offer himself. Silly him.

Different ways to acquire a wand ran through his head, none of them speedy and not involving a tedious explanation which cost him dear time.

And there was no time to worry about such comparatively minuscule casualties. With an ugly grimace, he recalled his conversation with Severus Snape.

"Name the day."

"Tomorrow. Forbidden Forest."

-

The Forest was dark, and especially eerie after nightfall, even more so when James didn't have a wand to light the way. Out of habit, he kept whispering lumos to himself, and was surprisingly disappointed when the forest didn't light up like a christmas tree.

It didn't take him long, with his heightened senses, to hear the hushed, snarling voices of the Slytherins over the creatures of the night. Slowly, he inched his way towards them.

"What if he doesn't come?" Rodolphus Lestrange said in a cool, clipped voice.

"I agree with my darling," Bellatrix snarled, both protective and offensive, daring anybody to disagree with her. "Why would he risk his hide to save a mudblood?"

James could feel a dry chuckle rising up his throat which he managed to fight down. Believe me, he thought. I wondered about that too.

But as those words formed in his mind, he thought he knew the answer. Lily may be a muggle-born, but blood defined nothing. Look at Sirius, with Black blood running in his veins, joining Gryffindor and on the outs with almost his whole family.

Yes, blood does not make us. It is merely something running through us, desperate to keep us alive, but with different titles imposed on it, as if this one thing all humans shared could differ them.

If it were Severus Snape's blood running through Lily's own veins, he wouldn't mind a bit, though the thought was nauseating. Because he loved - yes, loved - her spirit, her headstrongness and strength, all those he could see only vaguely in himself but shining brightly within her.

"He will come, he's in love." Snape was saying.

Yes, he was, and is, and that wasn't a weakness that will maybe lead to hos death today, but a strength the Death Eaters will never comprehend.

"Regulus?" Bellatrix's shrill voice asked.

"Oh, he's already here."

Rather than let Regulus point out his whereabouts and make his entrance rather embarrassingly, he jumped out of his hiding place and confronted the Death Eaters, a quick count revealed there were seven of them.