The Marauders: Year Six Part 2 #Wattys2017

I Said NO!

I Said NO!

"JAMES!" Lily struggled to her feet and felt along the bars for a door but there was none - the bars fed right into solid stone walls. "How the bloody hell did he get you into this thing?" she murmured, and she fought with her cardigan to pull out her wand and she aimed for the bars of the cell, "Liquescimus!" she commanded, and there was a sizzling sound, but the bars did not melt as they should have, not clean through. She tried again and again, the spell slowly cutting its way through the strong iron. "I'm coming. I'm coming, James. I'm coming!" It took impossibly long, Lily's forehead was sweating from the exertion of it, and finally one bar came undone and she held her breath and squeezed herself through the gap in the bars, barely fitting through, the jagged edge of the severed bar catching on her dress and tearing it at the bottom. She didn't even care. She shoved herself through and stumbled into the cell in her stocking feet, her footsteps shuffling across the stone floor...

"James," she whispered as she dropped to the floor behind him, and her hand rested on his shoulder... "James."

"No! No, no, no!" James cried at the touch, his cries barely a whisper, but his body trembling, muscles tightening at the touch. "D- don't don't don't -- p - please."

Lily lifted her hand quickly. "James..." she crawled around him to the front of him, and she gasped as she saw just how much damage had been done. "Oh my gods." She covered her mouth, tears filling her eyes as she stared down at him.

His skin was pale, dried blood beneath his nose and over his upper lip and cheek suggested he'd had a severe nosebleed and no energy to wipe the bleeding away before it dried. His face was swollen, his eyes darkened by purple-grey bruises, glasses gone. His chest was bruised and his breath shallow, his shoulder dislocated, hanging at a sickening angle compared to how it ought to be...

"Oh James," she whimpered and she reached down and softly moved a bit of his messy hair from his face and he trembled, his face twisting into a look that suggested he was anticipating another dose of severe pain. "Oh no.. no, shh..."

"No!" He pushed her hand away. James's cheeks were soaked with tears as they poured from his squeezed-tight eyes. "Do it. Do it. Just do it. Please."

Lily stared at him, aghast for a moment.

"No, please, no, just kill me, just kill me please. Please you're right I'm begging alright? Please. Kill me! Please! I give up! Please just kill me!" James choked the words, his face contorted with pain, "I d-don't care about what Mopsus said, I don't care, just please, please do it, do it. I can't... I can't t-t-take anymore."

Tears pooling in Lily's own eyes, she realized what was happening. "I'm not Voldemort, James," she whispered, "Open your eyes, it's me... It's me, it's Lily." She reached down and gently touched his face again.

His eyes slowly opened.

He stared up at her.

His breathing, already shallow because of his ribs, was even slower.

He stared up at her.

Moonlight was cutting through the dark window where the snowflakes were coming from... bright and pale white, the light came from behind Lily Evans and lit her up in a sort of ethereal glow and he stared up at her, he could feel the cracks in his chapped lips, could feel the tears drying on his face, and panic exploded in his heart.

"James, it's me," Lily said, "It's Lily."

I'm dead and she's an angel. Or this is a dream. Or it's cruel trick Voldemort is playing on me... this is more torture. She's not real. Or if she is, she's dead too...