who: James, Lily, Snape, Igor when: January 29th where: Forbidden Forest what: plot of dooooooom rating: high, for doooooom
James read the note from George and paled instantly. He knew Bill was criticizing him for encouraging George to do things, and now George was stuck because he'd gone out and done something. No matter that it wasn't his fault, James was sensitive to attacks, and the idea that they might lose one of their best new recruits in the Forbidden Forest was just unacceptable.
"Lily!" he called. "Evans, I gotta go."
***
Lily looked up from her aged book on protective wards, very glad that Harry had gone to bed early. She stared at James from across the room, “seriously? I’ll need a where and a why, James, at the very least.” The last time he had left the house (secretly, without even telling her) had worked out so well, after all.
***
"Help me. I'm in the Forbidden Forest. I was with Hagrid, things happened, I'm lost, I don't know if he's okay, point me keeps telling me to head back to where trouble started, I can't get out, please, help me? Pretty please? I'd make a light hearted joke, but there's a lot of creepy noises and I'm hiding in a tree right now. Help me?" James read, his voice gaining with pitch as he read. "Evans …" his voice trailed off. He didn't need to continue with anything else. He knew Lily wouldn't just let him leave George out there.
***
Lily paled as she listened to James read. “Oh god,” she gasped, her hand flying immediately to her wand. “I sent him there. If he gets caught...” she snapped the book closed and didn’t even bother sending it back to the bookshelf. “You’re not going alone. I’m not having you and George Wealsey in a bloody forest together. Who knows what you’ll get it in your heads to do!” Lily exclaimed crossly.
She took a deep breath to calm herself. “But Harry,” she spared a guilty thought for their son, “if we lock the door it’ll contain him for a few hours, won’t it?”
***
James moved as she spoke, grabbing his hand, checking his glasses, and staring at his journal. They could Apparate to the Forest, transform, but the journals would be useless. "He better stay exactly where he is," James said. He didn't question Lily wanting to come, he was relieved in a way. If they got there and it was too late …
"Locking the door worked for me all those months ago. Let's just … worry about him when we get back. We gotta go now."
***
Lily quickly rushed to the cabinet under the sink and selected a few vials, just in case. Her mind was already thinking of exit strategies for if things went badly. The vials clinked together in her pocket and she cast a silencing charm on them. “He won’t even notice we’re gone,” she assured herself. Her wards on the windows and doors had kept Harry from going off on adventures for years now. They would hold up just as well as long as she was alive. Lily nodded and headed for the rarely-used door.
A breath of chilly air washed over her face when she opened it and if the young Weasley boy hadn’t been on her mind, she would have spared a few moments to panic. Once the door was closed behind them she cast a series of spells on the door as quickly as she could. “Alright,” she said whispered and grabbed James’s hand, “you do it.” He knew where the edge of Hogwarts’ wards ended, after all.
***
"Transform the second we get there," James whispered to her. "And follow my lead."
He wrapped his arms tightly around Lily, never imagining that when they finally left the house together, this would be how they were doing it. In mere seconds they were at the very edge of the Hogwarts wards.
James immediately and very quickly (years of practice) changed into Prongs. Oh, the forest. He missed it. He missed it so much. He turned back to look for Lily, then pawed at the ground 'we need to head east'.
Head east, find a terrified redhead in the middle of the forest. Needle. Haystack.
***
Lily nodded and leaned into his embrace, treasuring the feel of being held in his arms. It had been years since she had found such significance in a small gesture, years since they had thrown themselves directly into the path of danger. “I love you,” she manged to say before she found herself somewhere else. As soon as they arrived, Lily willed herself into her animagus state, her limbs becoming slender, longer, bonier, until she was a doe and not a woman.
As doe, Lily nudged Prongs, letting him know she was ready to follow. How they were to find George, she really didn’t know, but if anyone could, it would be James. She thought of Padfoot and whether they should have raised the alarm to him, but it was too late for that. Lily bounded through the forest as quickly and silently as she could, just a step behind Prongs at every point.
***
James, excited to be a stag, bounded off, trusting that Lily was behind him. He listened carefully as he went, looking out for George. He hadn't realized just how close to the borders of the forest he had come until he saw a man who was not George standing in a small thicket. He turned back to warn Lily, but she wasn't there. There was a noise from the man, and James knew he'd been made.
***
Lily had not once been outside in her doe form. She had learned once they had been in hiding for a few years and although she transformed every month or so to maintain its ease, she had never run as a deer before. There were obstacles and her hoof sometimes clipped tree trunks and shrubs instead of clearing them. She found the gap between her and Prongs getting wider, until she was following the sound of him rather than the sight. Her ears picked up on other things, too. Other movements, some animal and then some... not. She slowed her pace as stealth became the priority, although her heart raced with nervous anticipation of what was to come.
***
It wasn't like Igor to take nighttime strolls alone along the edge of the forest, but it was a bitterly cold night, for late January, and he was utilizing that to the max. On the way out, he heard someone walking towards him. "Lumos," he whispered, his wand lighting up the entire hallway. He rounded the corner, expecting to land a student in detention, when he saw fellow DE and professor instead.
"Severus," Igor said, a slight smirk on his face. "What keeps you up this late?"
***
Truth be told, Severus had been expecting to assign a detention as well, but his method involved waiting in the shadows and terrifying the student. Seeing Igor was both a surprise and disappointment.
“Detentions,” he said dryly. He raised a brow at Igor. “The cold weather calls to you? I should join you, there are some things we need to discuss.”
***
Igor was not going to turn down company outside, he gestured towards the main doors, glad that Snape did not ask to return to get a coat.
They were outside with the cold in a matter of mere minutes after that, and Igor enjoyed every second of it. If Snape was cold, he hid it well, but Igor wasn’t sharing his mink coat or hat. Or mittens. They talked as they walked, strolling lazily along the grounds, the calm, cold night making him very glad for the few short days in which Scotland was like his home. It would never compare, but it was close, and close was enough right now.
***
It was nice to get out and just talk with Igor, though he had to work hard at sustaining his warming charm. They were just at the edges of the forest when he heard a sharp snap. Instinctively he looked, seeing nothing. He was about to frown and continue on when something shimmering caught his eye. "Wolfsbane," he said quietly. Igor was silent, so Snape just called that he'd catch up after collecting the wolfsbane. It was easy enough to collect the sample, but then he saw another patch. And another. And another.
"Unheard of," Snape muttered. He kept alert of his surroundings as he moved from clump to clump. He'd have to jog at this point to catch up to Igor, but the zany old man was eerily content with being cold and shuffling along while they discussed detention strategies.
Snape would appreciate the warming up.
***
Igor was more than fine to stroll along without his friend, truth be told, sometimes being alone in the cold was a nice thing. He heard a snap snap snap from the words and turned to investigate. Something was making a lot of noise in there. Suspecting students, he pulled his wand and took a few paces into the forest. What he saw instead was a stag.
It turned when it saw him and Igor knew.
"Stop," he said, raising his wand to fire at it. "Severus! I have him! Severus! It’s POTTER, SEVERUS, FORGET THE INGREDIENT!"
***
James went into panic over-drive mode. He hadn't had to be in actual battle mode for 16 years, having it suddenly tossed upon him … he was a little rusty. Lily. He needed to protect Lily, that much he knew. He needed to morph to do that, to grab his wand, fight off this threat. If he weren't panicking, he'd have pieced together that it was Igor, but Lily. He didn't know where Lily was and he needed to tell her to run, to just get out of there while he held him off.
Human before he could process being human, he went for his wand before opening his mouth to scream the warning.
***
Igor wasn’t going to give James the chance to fight him. It really was James Potter and Igor managed a twisted, cruel smile before calmly hissing “Avada Kedavra” and watching the man fall straight to the ground. He paused for just one half-second to let it sink in before calling for Severus again. “Severus!”
Then he touched two fingers to his Mark and held them there until they burned; their Lord had been called. He sent sparks up into the air to mark the spot where James’ body lie. And he waited.
***
When she heard the rustle of footsteps, Lily went still. It was instinct, perhaps, to freeze to the spot and hope that she wouldn't be spotted in the dark of the forest. Hopefully it was George, but the footsteps didn’t quite sound like she would expect them to. Lily heard the call and saw the figure at the same time.
No, not James, Lily thought to herself. She hesitated for just a moment, having faith that James could defend himself. James could always defend himself, he was indestructible! She didn’t have a chance to act as she fell to the forest floor.
***
The second Severus heard James Potter, he saw the doe, and he knew without really knowing, that it was Lily Potter. "Petrificus Totalus," Snape snarled at the doe, watching as it fell to the forest floor. He couldn't risk checking here, the groundskeepers hut was just paces away. If it was Lily, he didn't want to hurt her.
He muttered the spell for ropes to wind their way around the entire deer before muttering "Levicorpus". He said nothing as he started walking, but the flash of green light made him stop in his tracks for two seconds. "Lily," he breathed softly, then hissed as his Mark burned; Igor had Summoned their Lord. Potter had been stupid to come to the grounds, and if he'd nearly gotten Lily killed ...
It felt like hours, but it was only a matter of 30 seconds before Lily was in the hut, concealed with a blanket Severus had pulled with his wand. He ran full tilt towards the red sparks, glad he'd abandoned his bag of wolfsbane in the forest.
"Igor!" he called, "Igor!"
He saw the man and swallowed heavily, feigning catching his breath. "I ran in deep to see if there was anyone else, when you called. Nothing else suspicious. Confident it was just - James Potter." He couldn't help but smile at the body, frozen in terror. Looking for Lily, but Snape imagined it was the terror of knowing his own death was coming.
"James Potter," he said again, his voice now twisted and cruel. "What a glorious day this is. The sparks will mark the body, you check that way, I’ll check the hut, make certain."
***
Lily was helpless as she was bound. She heard the hiss of the Killing Curse in a foreigner’s voice and wanted so badly to cry out, to fight against the magic that was holding her, but it was no use. Everything was over. She remembered, vaguely, a promise that Severus had made. He wouldn’t kill her, her had written. But why was he trapping her and taking her away, when all she wanted to do was kill whoever had murdered James.
She watched Severus, unable to blink or close her eyes, as he carried her to Hagrid’s old, dilapidated hut. She was left there for just minutes, but it seemed like forever until she heard someone enter the hut again. Lily waited.
***
Severus had earned himself at most, another 30 seconds; he dashed for the hut, threw the door open and fired off various spells that would reveal a hidden person. At the end, he moved the deer to the fireplace, paused, then murmured a spell that would brick up the front of it. He said not a word, too terrified to speak. He was risking his life right now over a deer. Over Lily but right now it was only a doe. He would come back, when he could. He couldn't risk the red flash of a stunning spell, not now. He didn't know where the Supreme Lord was, but no doubt he was already at least at the Hogwarts gate.
Unable to apologize, Severus strode out the door, seeing the billowing form of Voldemort approaching. "The hut is clear, my Lord, we're confident it was just James Potter."
***
Igor raced in the direction that Severus had pointed, ducking into the forest to check for signs that something had suddenly run away. There was nothing; he turned back, knowing his Lord would arrive in seconds. As he hurried, his mink coat now far too hot and heavy for him, he could see Severus greet their Lord.
“It was I,” he said, when their Lord was closer. “It was I who killed him.” Suddenly, the adrenaline caught up to him and he realized what that meant. A huge grin broke out across his face. “It was I, Lord, who ended a 16 year hunt. I deliver to you, James Potter.”