I'll Take it Shaken, Not Stirred

Chapter 24: Wars

History: Shout out to the wonderful JKR—she owns it all.

Recap: Lily leaves James in the forest (el gasp!) and goes on to find the foreigner, but... that doesn't really work out. She runs into Snape, then Snape leaves, then she's taken by death eaters. James meanwhile, has a real sucky time at it. He finds a path, but is also taken by death eaters, and when he comes around he's in the shrieking shack (Remus-less). Korcesh is the Foreigner (el gasp!) and he "questions" James about who else knows where he is. Lily, meanwhile, is taken to the shrieking shack unconscious, and used as leverage. She is then taken to the clearing to be questioned, and James is knocked out. Korcesh tells James that Lily is dead (other DE's tell Lily that James is dead) and that he's going to be transported to the clearing for transportation the Korcesh's office. On the way, stuff happens, the DE's kill one of their own, and a werewolf attacks. Meanwhile, Lily is "questioned" by DE's and manages to kick their asses and nearly escape. James transforms into a stag to chase the werewolf (Remus), who nearly kills Lily, but James rescues her. And this damn recap is too long.

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"War is not nice..." –Barbara Bush
(It was a toss-up between that and Jimmy Carter's "necessary evil" quote. I flipped a coin.)

"You're alive," they stated in unison, marveling at the very concept that the words implied. They stared for a moment longer, before Lily added: "...and a horse."

"A stag actually," James corrected awkwardly.

"Right. Of course."

"Listen," he pressed, now urgent; "I can explain everything but... the werewolf—I have to go get him... y'know? No, I guess you don't but... I'll—I'll be right back."

"You—what?"

But James was already morphing once more into the white stag. He turned and galloped into the woods, leaving Lily alone and confused. "Er... okay," she murmured to the thin air. She did not honestly think that anyone had ever uttered a sentence to her even remotely similar to the one James had just very weakly attempted to articulate. She looked about for something to do with herself, and noticed that the death eater called Tisket was still not tied up. She proceeded to bind and gag him. With some difficulty, she managed to disappear the ropes around her own wrists, and then she waited.

A little over a minute later, the sound of James's... hoofs... could be heard again. He appeared a moment later. He was James again a moment after that, and he hurried over to Lily.

"Are you okay?" he asked hastily. "You're bleeding—your lip."

"What? Oh..." she felt the corner of her mouth and discovered that it was, in fact, bleeding. "I didn't know. What about you? You're bleeding all over! Oh, Merlin—are you alright? Your head!" She pushed his hair back to examine the bruise that was visible there. "This has been treated, hasn't it? Who treated it? And what's going on? Why are you a stag? And there werewolf—what...? Snape said he didn't... they told me you were... are you okay? I mean, I thought..." Her words were completely frenzied by now, and it was only with a good deal of self-control that she stopped herself from becoming completely hysterical.

James shushed her as soothingly as he possibly could, taking hold of her upper arms as he did so. "I'm fine, Lily. Perfect. Great. Fantastic. It's alright. You're okay now... you're okay. Right? Are you okay?"