For His Protection

2. Fallen Heroes

Thunder cracked in the sky over her head as she approached the front door of the house.  Lightning lit up the entire street and she could see that most of the onlookers had gone now.  They had gotten bored with the spectacle in the sky.  The wind blew furiously through her hair.  Droplets of rain started to fall and landed squarely on her face as she looked up at the cloud-covered sky.  The storm had finally made it.  The rain started to get heavier the moment she walked into the house.

Serena was amazed that he front door was even standing.  Broken planks of wood and plaster littered the living room floor.  There were burn holes in the furniture and everything on the shelves was knocked over, and broken, on the floor.  She lit the tip of her wand to help her see a little better, careful not to step on anything.  So far there were no signs of life in the house at all.  

But someone lives here, she reasoned.  Someone has died here.  Otherwise, the Dark Mark wouldn't be hovering above the house.

She tiptoed through the living room and started into the kitchen.  She stood in the doorway, her eyes focused ahead.  The kitchen looked nothing like the living room.  It was untouched for the most part.  Only a few things had fallen on the floor, and they weren't even broken, mostly utensils.  She started to walk farther into the room to get a closer look, until a loud sound caught her attention.  Her head snapped in the direction it had come from and her eyes fell on a set of stairs.  She hadn't even noticed them before.

She turned away from the kitchen and headed for the stairs, grabbing her wand from her belt, and gripping it tightly as she realized that she wasn't alone.  She swallowed nervously.  A tiny inkling in the back of her brain wondered if Severus had known that there was someone else in the house.  Was that the reason that he refused to come back inside with her?  She told herself that he would never put her in danger, but she didn't really know, did she?  She hadn't seen him in a little over three years and he had been under Voldemort's thumb the whole time.  What if he had knowingly sent her to her death?

Serena's mouth went dry as that possibility settled in her stomach.  She didn't want to believe that possible of the man she had called her best friend, but she had a level head.  She could rule nothing out just yet.  It wasn't until she got to the first landing in the middle of the stairs that she understood the real reason Severus had refused to come back inside.

She cupped her hand over her mouth to muffle the cry that burst from it.  There was a body of a man on the stairs...and that man was James Potter.

"No," she whispered as she lowered herself to her knees there beside of him.  "I'm so sorry."  She reached out and gently took his glasses off of his face.  She laid them to the side.  His eyes were wide and staring.  She could tell that he had not been expecting his killer.  The look of surprise was still frozen on his face.  She gently closed his eyes as tears started to make an appearance in her own.  She got to her feet.

None of this made sense to her.  James didn't live in this house.  He and Lily lived in the house, on the end of the street, four blocks away.  She knew because she had been by there several times and seen them in the yard and out and about.  There was a fountain in the town square not a mile from their home where she had seen them dancing one day.  They had looked like they were having the time of their lives.  Not to mention the smile on the face of the man taking the photo, his hands full of the camera and baby Harry.  If something had been amiss, no one could have guessed.

Serena took one last pitiful glance at James's body, then carefully stepped over it, and continued up the stairway.  Hopefully, the path ahead would give her some answers as to what was going on here.  Once she reached the top, she felt like she had stepped into the living room again.  There was debris everywhere.  She felt along the wall and stepped carefully around and over all of it.  There was no doubt in her mind that a battle had taken place right there in the hallway, and when she looked up at the entryway to the next room, she understood why.