To the Tower Room
CRACK!
"YESSSSS! YES YES YES YES. My gods - I am fucking brilliant! That was fucking brilliant!" Sirius crowed, stumbling up to his feet from the crouching position he'd been in as they disapparated, his hands releasing Lily's and James's arms as he twirled to his feet with a spin in his step, his grin taking up his whole face. His arms held open wide as he stood, his mouth curved in a great smile. "Did you see it, James? Did you? Just like your boggart! HOW WAS THAT FOR SAVING YOU, 'EY? Best bloody rescue in the history of rescues! PRONGS, DID YOU SEE IT? THE DAISY CHAIN AND THE DUCKS???" And Sirius looked down upon his best mate, his face aglow with the rush of the escape, expecting a high five and a good one Sirius, but instead, he felt his stomach drop out from within him - as though he'd been roughly gutted with a lance.
Lily had fallen to her knees beside James and she'd dropped her wand at her knee on the stone floor and had rolled James onto his back and her head was pressed to his chest, listening for his heartbeat. His eyes were closed.
Sirius stared, frozen in his place, even as Lily Evans drew her wand and started to try to magically repair the damages done to James Potter. The wind knocked from him, Sirius's jaw trembled. "What --?"
"Voldemort. The cruciatus," Lily replied, tears threatening her own eyes as she assessed James. "And I reckon a good deal of other horrible curses as well."
Sirius dropped onto his knees behind James and stared down at him as Lily performed an episky that cracked James's nose back into place. "He's alright, though, yeah? You can mend him?" Sirius asked.
"I don't know near enough healing spells," she mumbled, "We have to get him back to London, to St. Mungo's." She looked up at Sirius with wide eyes.
Sirius swallowed nervously.
What was unspoken between them was the knowledge that it was a miracle that none of them had been splinched in that disapparation (not that they could've very well told if James had been, the state he was in), given that Sirius hadn't yet passed his test (or even successfully managed to disapparate prior to that moment). Even if it was possible to disapparate across the thousands and thousands of miles from Durmstrang to London (which it was not), Sirius would risk hurting James far worse than he already was to even try it.
They had to get back to the Morris Mini.
Realizing that, Lily looked around, wondering where they were, only to find they were back in the library at Durmstrang Institute, among the dusty books.
"I thought of going back to Remus," Sirius explained when he saw her looked around.
Lily said, "We need to get Rey and Maryrose and get James out of here as quickly as possible."
Sirius nodded.
James groaned from the floor before them and Sirius looked down at him as James's eyelids struggled to open. His brown eyes barely focused from beneath the long, thick lashes, the skin around them was darkened by purplish-black bruising. He seemed to search the air before him in confusion for several long moments.
"Prongs," Sirius said thickly.
James's eyes tried to focus on Sirius.
"Prongs, it's me. It's Padfoot." Sirius inched himself closer to James, on his knees, his hands folded in his lap, clutching his wand in one fist.
James's eyes filled with tears. "No," he moaned, "No, no, no..." and he started to cry in a strange, broken manner that rasped in his throat and made his chest heave painfully beneath his bruised ribs. "No, Sirius, no... please..."
"James," Sirius said in his best reassuring voice, "It's alright, we're here. Me and Lily, and Remus and Maryrose and --"
"No, no, no!" James moaned and he closed his eyes again, "No, please."
Lily looked up at Sirius with concern in her eyes, but Sirius didn't look away from James. "We're going to get you out of here." He stood up quickly, his knees feeling a bit like jello. James looked so weak, Sirius didn't know how to handle it. James Potter was the solid foundation that he had always built his glass houses upon... seeing him weakened like this was something that Sirius was unprepared for. And the thought that if he had just noticed sooner, maybe James wouldn't be so bad as all this kept haunting him, spinning through his mind like neon. "If you just - just be okay, I swear I won't be annoying anymore about the dormitory, and I'll clean all my messes and I'll sweep the hair and I won't break anymore of the rules, just be alright. You can do that, yeah? Be alright?"
James face was pale and he was shaking, and though his lips moved, no words came out.
Lily looked up at Sirius.
"You're going to save him," Sirius said, deciding, tearing his eyes from James. He couldn't look at him any longer. He just couldn't. He stood up quickly, spinning away from the prone form on the floor, swiping at the tears pooling in his eyes, his mind rushing a bit dizzily. After all, what was a Padfoot without a Prongs? And he reached into his wand pocket and withdrew James's wand. Sirius stared at it a long moment.
Why do you always ruddy forget your wand, Potter? he wondered.
"What do you mean I'm going to save him?" Lily asked, looking up.
Quickly, Sirius turned back to Lily, who was bent over James again, wiping his forehead gently with a cloth she'd conjured. Sirius watched her a moment, then he stepped forward with the wand and held it out, handing the it over to Lily handle-first. "Yes, you're going back to London with him and - and I'm going to go and get Remus and Maryrose so we can get the blazes out of here." He hesitated, drawing his watch, trying to keep his eyes from falling upon James again, his heart was unable to take the sight of it. Denial was much easier than seeing.
"Sirius," Lily said, pausing with the cloth pressed to James's face. "I'm not leaving you lot here."
"Yes you are. We'll find alternate options back."
"Sirius."
Sirius was tucking his pocket watch away.
"Sirius, you're mad. How am I supposed to get him back to London?" She stared up at him.
"I don't know - maybe -- " But before Sirius could say what maybe he had thought up - the door to the library creaked open behind them, and Sirius quickly waved his wand. "NOX!" he hissed and he crouched before Lily and James, spreading his arms protectively over James.
They were tucked behind a shelf, luckily, where they were not easy to spot from the doorway, and with the lights out like they were, the room's shadows were long and pitch dark so that the forms of the three teenagers were nearly completely impossible to see. However, it also made the person approaching nearly impossible to see, too. Sirius moved, peering over the spines of dusty books, toward the figure moving through the dark.
He stared, eyes narrowed, as Lily leaned close to James as well, her heart in her throat. Please, we've come this far, we've succeeded this much. Please, if anyone is listening, let us get out of this, she begged silently. She pictured Voldemort walking toward them, imagined his bare feet, shuffling over the stone floor, his cloaks rustling about his ankles.
She didn't know it, but that was exactly what James Potter was seeing in his mind's eye as well...
"Lumos," came a hissing voice, and a wand lit.
And Sirius aimed his, a sneer crossing his lip. "Expelliarmus!" he cried and the lit wand clacked to the ground several feet away from the bearer as Sirius leaped up and ran 'round the shelf, grabbed onto the neckline of the timeworn robes, and shoved his wand directly against the throat of the approaching figure. "Just give me a reason to do it, Snivellus."
"Left up here," Remus whispered.
He was holding onto the opened book that contained their newly modified map, walking in the shadow of Igor Karkaroff. Well, no, Maryrose Jenkins, but she looked like Igor Karkaroff, and so it was important that, although Remus Lupin carried the book, Igor Karkaroff appeared to be leading the way, and so Remus was whispering directions for Maryrose as they navigated the corridors of the dark castle as he limped along behind her.
Maryrose took the left and held her wand up to light the corridor ahead of them. It was lined with paintings of angry-looking wizards that eyed them suspiciously as they walked past, though they didn't speak, which was very unsettling after all the chatter of the portraits around Hogwarts. Remus peered about at them uneasily.
They'd come to a long spiraling staircase and Remus said, "Up this and we should be to Peter." Maryrose nodded and they started up the staircase together, their footsteps echoing on up the stairwell. It reminded Remus of the stairs that led up into Dumbledore's tower office, except that these did not carry them up on their own accord like those outside of the Headmaster's office did. Rather, his knees cracked with each step as he moved up, making him wince and reach out to grip the stone...
At the very top was a landing and a large wood door, heavy, with thick black iron fixtures. Upon reaching the landing, Maryrose hurried forward as Remus struggled up the last few steps, and she grabbed onto the knob - but it was locked.
"PETE?" Remus called out, knelt to bend and peek through the keyhole, hoping to see their round little friend. He couldn't see much, what he could see looked like just a boring office and he wondered if this was the office of the headmaster, as well. "PETER?"
"Remus?" came a trembling voice from inside. "REMUS?"
"PETER?" Remus called again.
"Remus!" Peter's voice cracked, and then through the hole in the door, Remus could see Peter's eye staring back at him. "Oh Moony," Peter whimpered, "It is you." His voice shook.
Remus stared into Peter's eye and he said, "Yes, Wormtail, it's me."
Maryrose cleared her throat.
Remus looked back at her.
"We should, um,--" she mimed setting a spell on the door to break inside.
Nodding, Remus turned back to look into Peter's eye. "Stand back from the door, Pete, we're going to blast it in!"
"Oh thank you - thank you!" Peter simpered and Remus watched as the eye disappeared and he heard a shuffling gait inside. He backed up from the door and looked to Maryrose and they both held their wands before them. "Reducto!" they both said at the same time.
The power burst from their wands and struck the door with force, breaking it in the center with a loud blast. Remus couldn't help but think, as a bit of broken door swung pitifully from its hinge in the corner of the frame, that Sirius would have been quite excited by the explosive nature of the rescue and he wondered how Sirius and Lily's rescue was going, whether they'd found James yet, and what sort of insane tale Sirius would have to tell them...
Peter peered over the top of a desk whose papers had been blown askew by the force of the explosion of the door, his chubby cheeks flushed. He pulled himself to his feet, winded, and stammered, "R-remus!"
"Yeah we came," Remus replied, stepping 'round the shattered bit of door carefully, then hurried over and hugged Peter, clapping him on the back. "You're alright, Pete?" he asked, squeezing the pudgy boy tightly and then backing up to hold him at arm's length and assess him.
Peter had some visible bruises and dark circles beneath his eyes. "I'm alright," he choked, "Where's James? Have you found -- OH!" Peter squealed when he saw the tall figure of Karkaroff step through the door. "Look'cout!" he squeaked, pointing, fright in his eyes.
Remus turned 'round to see. "Oh - no, no Pete, that's Maryrose, not Igor Karkaroff. She's come with me to rescue you while Sirius and Lily are rescuing James."
Maryrose paused in the doorway and doused a small fire that had started on one of the bits with some water from her wand.
Peter's face had paled at the sight of Karkaroff and he still seemed rather wary, even knowing it was Maryrose. He looked at Remus, "He's really bad off!" Peter squeaked, "Oh Remus, they've nearly killed him. And Voldemort's been using the cruciatus on him and he's done to me, too, and it's absolutely horrible!"
Remus closed his eyes, the pain of the words making him wince, and he shook his head.
"I tried to - to stop him hurting James," Peter whimpered, "And he - he struck me with the cu-curse and --"
Remus asked. "How did you find out about what was happening?"
"My... my stones; I cast it in my stones," Peter said.
Remus sighed. Peter and his divination. Of course he'd divined it. And it occurred to him suddenly that Peter Pettigrew had been telling them all term long about exactly what had happened and none of them had listened to him appropriately. If only they had, perhaps everything that had happened could've been avoided.
"I - I came as soon as I knew," Peter said, "I thought... I thought nobody else knew and... I tried to tell Professor McGonagall, but she was busy - and - and I came to stop Voldemort from hurting James! I came to save him!" He looked at Remus, his eyes welling up as he puffed up his chest.
"How did you get here Pete?" Remus asked.
Peter, who'd wanted Remus to call him brave, deflated just a bit when the compliment he'd been hoping to be paid didn't come and his face twitched. "Well, I --"
But before he could say what happened, how he got to Durmstrang, a second Karkaroff stepped through the door frame and into the office.