Life After Graduation

Lily awoke one morning with a weird feeling in her stomach, she rolled over and curled up while holding it. She tried to ignore it, but after thirty minutes it was too much to take and Lily climbed out of bed, when she stood up though, the nausea hit her like a ton of bricks.

Stumbling but still trying to run Lily made it into the bathroom slamming the door behind her, before curling up next to the commode to get sick. When she finished she clung to it for a few moments then leaned back against the bathtub wall.

James awoke with a start when he heard something slam, and he instantly reached for his wand, but stopped when he saw Lily was no longer in bed. He just figured she had gone to the bathroom and shut the door a little louder than normal. He rolled over and shut his eye to try and sleep, but when she did not return a few minutes later he crawled out of bed to go find her.

Lily groaned after getting sick for the second time, sure there was nothing else left in her stomach. She heard footsteps and knew she had woken James up and felt bad for it. “I’m in here,” Lily called when he walked by before flushing.

He heard her muffled voice, and rubbed one of his eyes before he put his glasses back on and wondered inside the bathroom to see a very pale Lily leaned up against the wall. “You alright love?” James asked, he had figured out that she had been sick already by look on her face, and how she was holding her stomach.

“Been better,” Lily replied looking up at him. Her head was pounding, and her stomach still felt clenched.

“Can I get you anything love?” He asked leaning down next to her as he brushed the hair out of her face. He felt bad for her feeling sick.

“Ginger ale, and the bottle of potion that is lime green with a label on it that says stomach,” Lily said and she watched him go. She could hear him moving the bottles around in the kitchen and the loud smash of one thing and him swearing.

James cleaned off the sticky pink substance that had landed on him as he handed Lily the drink and the small vial.

“Thanks,” Lily said downing it. It instantly kicked in, and she started to feel better.

“Are you up for today?” He asked taking a seat next to her, leaning his head against the cold tiled wall as well.

It took Lily a second to figure out what he was talking about and when she did, Lily tilted her head back and sighed unhappily. They had another raid tonight, the last time they had one James had almost been killed, “yeah…probably just something I ate last night, I feel better now.”

He eyed her carefully trying to read her face, to make sure she wasn’t just saying that. She was pale, but he could see the color was starting to come back to her cheeks. “I’m going to go get breakfast do you want anything?”

“Just toast,” Lily replied before pushing herself up off the floor and following him into the kitchen. They had until six that night, which was the scheduled time for attack, but they had to be there relatively early to go over final preparations.

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At four that afternoon her stomach was still feeling a bit queasy, but Lily fought it off and headed out with James to the headquarters. Everyone was already there, it was quietly, but you could feel the anticipation and tension in the air.

“I’m going to go speak with Sirius,” James said lightly before leaning down to kiss Lily on the cheek and running off toward his friends direction.

“Hey Prongs,” Sirius said before clapping James on the back lightly. “How’s things going?”

“Good,” James said adjusting his glasses that had fallen a bit on his nose. “Lily’s a bit sick though, she woke up nauseous. I hope it’s not going around, I hate throwing up,” he said before glancing in Lily’s direction giving her a small smile before looking back to Sirius.

She couldn’t take it anymore, it had been on her mind all day, so she needed to talk to someone who knew plenty about this situation. “Hey Molly,” Lily said walking over to the plump woman.

“Hello dear,” Mrs. Weasley replied. She had been busy working on knitting the twins a sweater for Christmas when Lily had walked over.

“Um…can we talk?” Lily asked taking a seat on the couch next to her.

“Of course love, what would you like to talk about,” the woman asked, her first turning into a concerned mother look.

Lily glanced around quickly, making sure no one would be able to overhear before leaning in closer to Molly, whom matched her same movements. “I have a very important, and private question,” Lily said very quietly. “I haven’t even talked to James about it.”

“Go on,” Molly said, she was sure she knew what Lily was getting at, but kept her voice to herself for now.

“Well,” Lily said wringing her hands together, looking at her nails, before looking back at Molly. “I was sick this morning, terribly sick, but I wasn’t last night. It went away though…I was due today, but nothing came.” She said this very fast, and when she was done Lily looked around to be sure no one was looking in their direction.

“Don’t jump the gun yet,” Molly replied, trying her best to hide her smile. “But it sounds to me like your suspicions are correct. I was the same with Bill, he made me very sick for the first three months. Go get a test tomorrow. And tell James when you are ready.”

Lily nodded, giving her a warm smile and said thank you, but their conversation was cut short when Arthur came over to sit with Molly.

“She’s been sick eh?” Sirius asked nudging James slightly. “Should I worry about a little Potter running around?” He joked with him.

“No, that isn’t possible,” James said quietly smirking.

“That’s too bad,” Remus remarked walking over with Peter.

“We don’t have the money yet, but we are planning on it,” James said quietly. True they were only nineteen, but time was of the essence.

The conversation turned toward the typical guy things until the meeting was called to order. Final preparations were made, and the group disbursed. It had been decided that there would be no groups less than five splitting off because it was less dangerous that way.

“I am not letting you out of my sight this time,” Lily remarked a bit smug as her and James stalked up to the place. It was in a pretty crowded wizarding suburb, so they did not have to really worry about keeping things quiet, since there was nothing to hide.

“Ha-ha,” James replied though he had a small smile. His group consisted of himself, Lily, Sirius, and the Longbottoms. There was no point really to the groups because everyone was close to one another, but it did make it easier to keep track of people, and make sure they still had everyone when it was over.

There wasn’t enough time to strike, the Death Eaters were already a step ahead of them. Before James could blink they were swarmed. He could hear the cries of his fellow members as sparks emitted from the tip of their wands.

“James!” Lily yelled in time for him to see a spell aimed at the small of his back. Her stomach was in knots once again and she felt like she was going to be sick once again. She hunched over a bit with one hand holding her stomach as she continued. The jumping and lurching was not helping, she had to get out of there, or she would be sick in the middle of the street.

James could see the pain in Lily’s eyes and he tried to get closer to her, but the duels that had commenced made that hard. He tried to yell out to her, but his voice was drowned out by all the other commotion going on.

Lily bolted to a wooded section between yard, and fell to her knees, using her wand hand as her support and got sick. Her body convulsed violently, and her other hand held onto her stomach even tighter as she finished.

“Where is she!” James yelled into Sirius’ ear. Sirius quickly looked around and pointed in Lily’s direction before going to help one of the Prewett brothers.

He could barely make out her figure, but James headed her way. Something was wrong, she was laying on the ground, defenseless, as well as motionless. Panic had set in, and James was going at breakneck speed to get to Lily.

Lily was panting for breath, and she rolled over on her back, her body tense with pain and nausea. She could hear footsteps and Lily looked up in time to see a man in a black cloak heading her way. Desperately she reached for her wand to defend herself but it was too late. She was swooped up into a very strong and painful grasp, and her surrounding melted into the darkness as they apparated.

He was so close, he could see the man descending on her, “no,” he hissed, before tripping over a pot hole. James scrambled to get his footing back, but it was too late. Lily and the other person were gone. “NO, LILY, NO!” James screamed, but it was too late she was gone.

She fought as best as she could against the hands that were digging into her shoulder and thigh. “Let go,” Lily whimpered. She didn’t have her wand, and she had no idea where they were, but she was sure she had taken her to her death.

James ran to the now vacant spot and hit the ground letting out an agonizing noise that sounded like a wounded animal. The fight continued as James sat in his own personal hell, his hands gripping hard into the grass to keep himself from slipping even further.