The Marauders: Year Six Part 2 #Wattys2017

James!

Lily ran.

She ran so hard that her lungs burned. Sirius ran after her. He had one hand on her back, pushing her forward, keeping her ever ahead of him, trying to make her run as fast as he could, but she was much slower than him, and she was wearing fancy shoes that skid on the stone. "Take them off," he commanded her, after she'd slipped several times on the floor and she did, casting them aside and running in the stocking feet of her tights, the floor cold against her feet.

"Bloody hell," Sirius muttered, his voice strangled.

Behind them, Evan Rosier was coming, chasing them through the dark. It was like running through a maze, the entire world was blurry and dark and horrible and Lily could hear Evan Rosier shouting spells, could hear the magic cracking stone.

One - a stinging spell - caught Sirius in the back of the neck and he tripped a little, falling into her.

"Go.. go." Sirius pushed her, and Lily tripped up a flight of stone stairs.

"Ow!" she cried as her knee hit the stone, ripping her tights and drawing blood from her kneecap. She staggered to her feet again, limping slightly and Sirius looked down, concerned as the blood dripped over her tights and onto her shin, as she slowed and Evan Rosier was catching up...

He didn't know what to do.

"I know it's you, Black!" Rosier shouted, "I've seen you, I know it's you!"

Sirius stared back over his shoulder as they ran...

"Where's your puffer fish, Black? Is he here too?" Evan Rosier laughed, ever gaining on them, "Do I get to kill you both?"

The blood in Sirius's veins boiled.

He stopped running.

"What are you doing?" Lily asked, pausing a few steps away.

"Go on," Sirius said, "I'm bloody taking care of this arsehole." He turned, drawing his wand and standing in the center of the corridor, waiting. "Go, Lily, go find James. I'll catch you up in a mo'."

Lily hesitated, but then Rosier's voice was coming closer and Sirius wasn't budging. "But James needs our help..."

"And you'll help him. Go."

Lily scowled, but she went. She turned and she ran down the corridor, her stocking feet ice cold as she bolted down the hall, and Sirius stared over his shoulder at her 'til she'd turned 'round the corner at the end. He drew a deep breath. He'd distract Evan Rosier - and if he ended up caught and facing the Dark Lord himself, then so be it. At least Lily, for now, was getting away. And Lily could help James and they'd be alright. The two of them together would make it alright. So he turned with that in mind and drawing his bravery up from his very toes, he faced the darkness behind him as Evan Rosier emerged from the shadow, chuckling, his wand drawn as well.

Sirius stared him down.

"Your hair grew back nicely, I see, faggot," Rosier said.

"It certainly did, you cockroach," Sirius replied, and he aimed the wand. "I'm even more fabulous than ever, and you - you're still a pile of dung, I see."

Rosier laughed and blocked the spell Sirius had cast with a flick of his own wand, sending the sparks into the wall to blast a bit of stone. He counter-cursed and Sirius jumped out of the way of the beam of sparks, which broke apart several stones from the floor. Rosier shot a second spell and Sirius blocked it that time with a simple shield charm, which broke the sparks apart so that they showered to the floor and went out.

Sirius cast another strong one before Evan Rosier had had enough...

And then Sirius was hit and he fell to the floor.

Lily could hear the cracking of the magic behind her, echoing down the hallway, could hear their shouts as various hexes and curses bound off the walls or barely missed contact with their target... Her footsteps swept through the corridor as she went, her skirts fluttering about her ankles, her heart pounding against the cavity of her chest. It was getting colder and colder, the further down the hall she ran, and she paused, gasping for breath in a pool of moonlight that came through a doorway.

She could still hear shouting behind her... Sirius and Evan Rosier, she supposed, and she hoped that Sirius was alright.

Lily was catching her breath and leaning against the stone doorway, bent forward to inspect her knee, to wipe the blood away, when she heard a voice echoing through the dark... low and rasping...

"Lily Evans..."

She looked up.

"Mopsus?"

The name quivered in the air, floating through the darkness, drifting to her as though on the draft that breezed down the corridor. A breath in the night. She stood up, her skirts falling over her skinned knee and she walked, her steps silent across the stone in her stockinged feet, following the sound of the voice.

"Lily... Evans...."

"Hello?" she called.

There was silence. She was running down a hallway... and... a funny feeling came over her.

Deja'vu.

She'd been here before.

But that was impossible. She'd never been there before.

Except.

And she knew.

"JAMES?" she cried.

She ran down the hallway, her heart in her throat because now she knew. And she stumbled as she came 'round the turn to the cell and there it was, exactly as it had been always in her dream - dark and grey and dreary and the snow coming through the dark, rectangular window high above and the stones cold as ice. She slammed into the wrought iron bars, her breath knocked from her from the disbelief. "JAMES!" she cried.

For there he was.

Laying on the stone, his back to her.

"James!" she cried, and she fell to her knees, pressed against the bars, unable to reach him.