The Toe-Rag and the Lily ✔ (COMPLETED)

Chapter 18

"Lil?" he whispered.

"Yeah?"

"I... I love you."

I stopped completely at this confession, so we stood there, not moving a muscle. C'mon Lily say something back! My mind nagged at me. I needed to say it back, but I couldn't form the words. So I summed it up in an action. I reached my hands up behind his neck and went on my tip toes, kissing him softly. I found the confidence to then say it back.

"I love you too, James."

He smiled broadly, leaning down to kiss me but we were interrupted by the castle walls shaking. Everyone in the room stopped, looking out the window for some sign of movement or attack. But nothing appeared in the cloudy night sky. The castle walls shook again, and then everything went dark.

*

James POV

The Great Hall went silent, everyone panicking quietly. My next move was just on instinct.

"Lumos."

My wand was immediately illuminated, and I decided that I had to find Dumbledore. Lily's wand lit up, too and I looked around as the Great Hall suddenly became a source of light once more. I pulled Lily along to the stage and got up, commanding the attention of my fellow students. I knew there would be at least some from every house.

"Guys!" I shouted over the chatter, "Guys! Right, thank you. Clearly something has happened, I'm not sure what, but something has and if I register a guess it would be something to do with Death Eaters. So what I'm going to ask is that you find your way out of the Hall, and make your way back to your individual common rooms and gather the students from your house in said common rooms, just to make sure everyone is ok."

Lily then proceeded to add:

"I should think that the prefects have a list of the students in each year, and ask that they make sure a roll count is done, so no one's missing."

"If any of the younger students should ask," I said, "tell them you're planning a massive house sleepover! And if they ask why there's a roll count, um...."

"Tell them they don't want anyone to miss out!" Lily shouted. Ha! So much for my 'unorthodox' ways; take that Lily Evans from year 5.

"Yeah, thanks, Lil. Lily and I will go find Professor Dumbledore, and the other teachers, hopefully the heads of house will join you in your common rooms. Right everyone head off!"

Lily and I left the stage, jumping off, heading for the door as quick as we could without running; we didn't want to cause a panic. Marlene, Al, Remus, Peter, Sirius and Frank all joined us there.

"Are you sure you want us to go, mate?" Sirius asked.

"We can come with you," Frank offered.

"No, go help Gryffindor, now guys, they need you!" I exclaimed, turning on my heel and running when Lily and I got out of the hall. We ran through the corridors, the only light coming from our wands. We flew up the flight of stairs and headed towards Dumbledore's office. The gargoyle sprang to life, even though we hadn't said anything.

"Professor Dumbledore has changed his password," it spoke.

"Oh, well can you let us in anyway, there's kind of a crisis, so..." I said.

"Unable to, sir. Professor Dumbledore isn't here at this present time."

"Where is he?" I exclaimed.

"He's at the Ministry of Magic. Now go away."

Lily looked at me helplessly, and I pulled her along, thanking the gargoyle sarcastically for its help, running towards the staff room. Surely the teachers would be up. Hopefully one of them would be in the staff room. Lily wrenched her hand from my grip and ran ahead of me, down the corridor and out of my sight.

"Lily, don't run off without me!" I exclaimed.

"James the staff room is just down here, I can handle myself fine, thank you very much!"

I hated how she was so independent. But I had to keep running; otherwise I'd never catch up to her, even with my incredible speed and agility due to Quidditch. Finally I rounded the corner and found Lily waiting impatiently for me just outside the staff room door. She shook her head at me and we entered, finding Professor Slughorn and Professor McGonagall in there, talking in hushed voices.

"James, Lily!" Professor Slughorn said.

"We couldn't find Professor Dumbledore," Lily began, "and I'm not sure if you felt it, but there was a tremor down in the Great Hall, and then all the lights went out and James and I think the Death Eaters have something to do with it."

"Oh, the whole castle felt it, Lily," McGonagall confirmed. "We came down here to sort the other teachers out, called a staff meeting, so the head teachers of each house are heading up to their common rooms and the others are going to check what's outside."

"We already set up a plan for the year sevens to do," Lily said. McGonagall raised an eyebrow. "We told them 'make your way back to your individual common rooms and gather the students from your house in said common rooms, just to make sure everyone is ok and that the prefects have a list of the students in each year, and ask that they make sure a roll count is done, so no one's missing.' And then we said: 'if any of the younger students ask, tell them you're planning a massive house sleepover! And if they ask why there's a roll count, tell them they don't want anyone to miss out.'"

"Good thinking, Miss Evans and Mr. Potter. Now head back to the common room, as there's nothing that you can do help at this point in time. I'll alert you when you are able to help, though, for now please return to your dorm."

Lily and I left, heading the quick way back to the dorm, but when we saw a light down a corridor leading to the dungeons. We looked at each other, curious, and then decided to see what the source of the light was. I grabbed Lily's hand, not letting her run off on me again, instead creeping down the hall silently. We rounded a corner, spotting a number of seventh year Slytherins and immediately stopped in our tracks. Unfortunately, they spotted us and a voice rang out through the cold, dark hallway.

"Well, well, well. Look who it is! Potter and Evans," it drew it the sentence,

"Snape," Lily growled.

AN: So... you know that cliffhanger yesterday.... how about this one! I am just feeling rly happy right now, because I've finally got my shit together and started writing this book again, and the responses I had yesterday made me so happy I cried. This chapter is dedicated to LilyEvans1117 because she has been very supportive, and has encouraged me to continue this story. And I have a question that I would like to ask. If I made a Jily imagines book, would you guys read it? I'm thinking about making one, so I thought I would ask my most loyal readers, because the decision I make will be based upon your answers. Anyways, I'll update soon, possibly not tomorrow tho, bcoz we have to go pick my sister up from Geelong, so we're staying there the night. And then on Sunday one of my besties comes over for the week so I might not be able to update then, but she is a wattpad girl so she might lemme and maybe I'll convince her to do some of her stories as well! That's enough from me <3, Cassie!