Wildest Dreams | A James and Lily Love Story ✅

Chapter Twenty-Two - Violence

Where is Padfoot? Is he safe? Oh, I hope that he got out of here! I...I think that I might die here. Now. With this in my head, I try to conjure up one last image, one last happy thought. The only thing that my mind can see is...a picture. It's a picture of me, and Lily, and the Marauders, and the girls at Halloween, decked to the nines in our fabulous Halloween costumes and smiling like we don't have a care in the world. One solitary tear comes to my eyes as I realise that I'll never get to see her again. I'll never get to breathe in her amazing flowery smell, admire her gorgeous beauty from afar, wonder at her never-ending knowledge about everything. I'll never get to tell her that I love her. That I always have, and always will.

A new type of pain burns in my chest at this horrific realisation.

The torturous physical pain is still here, slowly becoming more and more agonising. I can feel more blood coming out of my body, which now feels lifeless. Heavy. Like I have the weight of the world on me. Suddenly, another curse is fired...

It's like the world stops for just a moment as it hits me, and I beg for it to come. I beg for the world to start moving again, to get this over with. This darker light hits me, and an ear-splitting scream sounds from the depths of my aching chest.

The very second that curse hit my body, it felt like...like somebody took the sharpest blade they could find, and started relentlessly chopping up my body like a piece of meat with it. I feel deep, deep gashes appearing all over my throbbing body, and I hear my wrangled breathing oounding in my ears.

My scream is abruptly cut off by the blood that comes gargling and frothing up through my slitted lips, spilling all over me, choking me. Drenching me in my own blood. It comes spurting out of everywhere; my head, my chest, my stomach, my legs. Hell, even my fucking baby toe! 

I writhe on the floor in agony, living in a world of red. It's everywhere. This is a pain like nothing I have ever experienced. This is what I always imagined the Cruciatus Curse felt like, but I thought that it was always supposed to be mental - no physical side effects. This isn't the same curse - no, this is different. New. Dark.

The relentless knives continue to slice up my aching body, blood coming out of everywhere. I can feel it coming. Any minute now. Death.

I'm going to lose. 

I scrounge up anything I have left, and put one thing in my head. I know that nobody will ever know it, or hear it, or probably even care, but I do it anyways.

Lily, I love you.

I...I just had to say it before I die. And, now that I have, I will be able to greet death gladly. Anything to get rid of that never-ending torment. This torturous pain. There is so much that I've never done, that I've never got to do. And I know that I'm being cowardly - just giving up. I know that. I just...

Black. Everything is Black.

Lily:

Marly and I are just walking down the hallway after Charms class, a little confused about where James and Sirius are but thinking that they probably just bunked off. We drop off our bags on the Head's common room floor, before plonking down on the sofa, joining our other friends who are already here.

"Here, where is Prongs and Pads?" Remus asks, using their secret code names for each other. "No clue! Probably just bunked though!" Marly says, and we all laugh at their antics. Suddenly, the portrait door swings open and a frantic and dishevelled Sirius Black enters.

"It...it's Prongs! Come!" he shouts from the door, and judging by his tone there is something really wrong here. I quickly stand up and race out of the room, following Sirius. The others follow me, and we are all running at the speed of light.

We arrive in one of the hallways that leads down to the Dungeons, and Sirius stops running. I'm a little bit confused until I look past him and see...

James. Lifeless on the floor. Drowning in dark red blood. 

No! This...no! I rush towards him, and pull out my wand, trying to remember as many healing spells as I possibly can. But...it doesn't work. Not at all. In fact, I think that it makes the bleeding even worse. Deciding to act first and ask questions later, I shout up to my friends, "We have to take him to the hospital wing. Use a levitating spell to carry him there! Quickly!".

I'm frantic, and thankfully they oblige, his body being carried on an invisible stretcher. We go as fast as we can to the hospital wing, and I'm internally stressing the whole way. What if...now, I can't even bear to think it! But, what is he...he doesn't make it? What if he dies? I...I really don't know what I would do! Over the course of these last few months, and especially days, he has become my rock. The most solid thing in my life. I...I can't lose him.

We enter the hospital wing, and Madam Pomfrey looks up, disapproving of the way we just rushed in. "Now really! I-" she begins to say, but then get cuts off at the sight of James. "Oh my!" she cries, immediately jumping in to action. She tries to perform some of the same healing spells that I did, so I decide to jump in and say, "Please Madam Pomfrey! I tried those, and they...they didn't work! I think they made it worse!". She looks up at me, and nods in agreement. 

It seems like only now she has realised that we shouldn't be in here, and immediately makes an attempt to shoo us out. "Out! Now! All of you! Get the headmaster, Mr Black!" Sirius jumps into action at her words, but the rest of us won't leave. Eventually, many of the professors come and practically have to carry us out as they pull a curtain around James' bed. They shut the doors to the hospital wing after Sirius returns with Dumbledore.

We stand in silence for just a minute, completely shocked at the events that just unfolded. Shock.