A Marauder's World

Part 2

Peter had not listened to him. It was their saving grace as he stayed a step behind James, both with flashing knives to try and fend off the hoard while the man at their feet lay on his side, child still pressed resiliently to his chest.

James scooped down once and grabbed the infant, pressing the threat right into his friend's arms. "Take her and run, Peter, go home!"

"James!" His argument was more distress than fear this time, but he'd listen now, now that he knew James was choosing danger rather than falling victim to it. He was already backing away, a beacon to draw more, where shelter and their friends would dispatch whatever Peter couldn't outrun.

Another knife flash, another disgusting splat of noise as James pulled it free of a decaying skull only to rotate and bend once more, hefting the man's weight up as high as he could and dragging him back towards the tree line. Peter was still backing away too slowly, but shambling faster every moment as the dozen or so grew more hasty, more grasping with their hands and their snarls filling the air for the noise continuing louder while Wormtail hesitated to make sure James got to the tree.

"Go!" James ordered one last time as he gasped in a painful breath and heaved with all his strength. It wasn't easy, the stranger was solidly built and James was lean even before he'd been cut off from his daily supply of crisps, but pure and unfiltered determination drove his feet as he dragged the unconscious one along under the arms. He could only make it to the ladder before his own muscles tried to give out on him, he could not lift both himself and the unknown father up over his shoulder.

Turning to check any pursuit and scrambling madly for a plan B, Peter was out of sight, the fading noise of the child's distress a comfort as it both meant Peter's self-preservation instincts had finally kicked in and was still drawing the load of them off. Only two stubborn ones had remained from the initial draw and were shuffling far to close behind them.

Squelch, squelch, the disgusting noise as his knife jabbed one in the ear and the other straight through the nose in quick succession gave him a grim smile as he recalled Sirius first referring to more oncoming ones by such a name. Padfoot would be out here the second he took in the situation, all he had to do was wait. Lily would look over Judith, Remus would help Peter finish off the Squelch's, and Sirius would help him with the rest, just as they'd always done together.

James knelt over the fellow father, he had to be with such unwavering resilience with that child. Possible family at the very least to Judith, but regardless he had an answer already on his lips for when Padfoot came out here cursing him blue for what he'd done just as Peter had tried to ask of him.

"I'll be sure to thank you when you wake up," he said cheerfully but very quietly as he dug out his water canteen and began pouring it over the man's cracked lips first, hoping to rouse some life out of him, it would make the return trip easier. "My son's finally going to have company his age! Lils and I were just saying yesterday what a shame it was he'd grow up without any kids around, I've been trying to talk her into having another, but then you show up, it's really a godsend mate!"

The liquid lingered on skin, trickling in only through the hint of his parting lips before dripping in that way. His eyelids didn't so much as flicker though, and James sighed with pity as the wasted water rolled into his filthy, long, matted beard. "You've been on the road a long time mate," he continued for himself, Moony kept telling him his inane chatter would get him killed one of these days, hopefully today wasn't it. "Hope Mum's okay, that poor thing won't have much in this world as it is. Don't you worry though, that shirt off your back won't go to waste. Course, you've now embodied the saying we come into this world with only our name and the sun!"