Life After Graduation

Time passed by, and slowly things started to become easier to handle. James’ mother had decided she wanted to sell her old house because she could not live there anymore with the memories. Instead she moved into a small flat not far away from where Lily and James lived.

“Hey love,” Lily said when she returned home. James was lounged on the couch, the daily prophet blocking his face.

“How was work?” James asked quietly while he finished the article he was on. When he finished, James lowered it watching Lily take off her shoes, and one of her heavier cloaks. In September England always started to get cold, but it was not bitter yet.

“Good, busy,” Lily remarked before collapsing on the couch laying her head on his lap. She grabbed the paper and tossed it on the table before rolling to look up at him. He was still down in the dumps since his father died. It had only been a month, so she was not harping on him to move one yet.

James nodded, and very carefully shoved a stack of parchment under the couch. He had been busy ever since Snape had taken Lily figuring out just where he was. It had been his and Sirius’ side project, and he was pretty sure they were closing in. James could not let Lily know about this because she would guilt him into stopping, and it was a vendetta he needed to settle once and for all.

Lily watched out the window for a bit before looking up at him, “let’s go do something,” she finally said sitting up. She could already see the protest in James’ eyes, but Lily cut him off. “For the past month the only place you have gone is work, and Sirius’ place,” Lily remarked before stretching.

He kept quiet, careful not to slip about the reason why he had been going to Sirius’ so much. “Alright, where do you want to go?” James asked giving in.

“To dinner, go shower,” Lily said before she slipped into the bedroom to change.

Once he heard the click of the door shut James pulled out his mirror and tapped it once waiting for Sirius’ response. “Sirius,” James said quietly in the mirror as Sirius’ bedroom came into view. He could see a disheveled bed, and clothes strewn about. About a minute later Sirius came walking in and picked up the mirror.

“Hey Prongs,” Sirius said as he toweled off his hair.

“Hey sorry to bother you,” James said pausing for a moment to make sure Lily wasn’t on her way out. When he heard the dresser draw open he turned his attention back to Sirius. “I’m not going to make it tonight, Lily wants to go out.”

“Alright,” Sirius said tossing the mirror on the bed before pulling on a shirt and picking it up again. “Have fun,” he replied in a teasing tone.

“Bye,” James said before pocketing the mirror and heading for the bathroom.

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Lily and James went to a restaurant in a neighboring muggle town, nothing too fancy, and got a seat near the window. “Just wait till we have our own,” Lily said smirking. There was a family sitting next to them, and the baby was wailing loudly, and nothing would make it happy.

James just smirked as he began to eat his burger. Suddenly the baby stopped crying and James looked to see what had caught his attention. It was Lily. The baby was smiling happily, and watching her intently. “I think she likes you,” James muttered with a small smirk.

“I guess so,” Lily said making a fast at the baby causing it to laugh. Slowly Lily turned to her food, and the baby stay quiet, but kept its eyes on her. “Must be a good sign, if I can calm babies hopefully ours won’t be too loud.”

He just nodded before continuing eating his food. He was about to stuff a french-fry in his mouth when there was a loud crash, screaming, and flying glass. James bolted from his seat, his back searing with pain to see what had just happened.

Lily saw it coming, but did not act fast enough, her hands flew up to her face to block the flying glass, but some pieces sliced at her face. There stood a small group of death eaters, only three. It was obvious they weren’t there for a full attack because there were so few people. She looked at James who was standing infront of her, his shirt ripped, and blood seeping into it rather quickly. They had been the closet people to the window, so they had taken the brunt of the hit.

“Get them out of here,” James said over his shoulder while he stared at the group. They were standing very still, and it was one of the eeriest things he had ever seen. He heard Lily shoving tables and broken glass out of the way over the wails of the baby.

“Go, go out the back!” Lily yelled to the frantic group scrambling. “Get out of here, go home,” she screamed looking over at James over her shoulder. Her face was burning and pulsating with pain, and she could taste blood on her lips.

“What do you want?” James asked noticing their wands were not drawn. There was a low laugh, that slowly turned high pitched and maniacal. Goosebumps rose on his arms, and a chill ran down his back. He had never felt this scared in a long time; the laugh seemed to pierce him like a knife. He felt Lily stand next to him, and he glanced at her, she was bleeding, and pale, but he could see the look of fear behind that.

“What’s going on…why are they just standing there…” Lily asked James. That seemed to trigger a movement out of them. They were lightening fast, and on Lily and James within a second. They didn’t have their wands out, instead they were beating them with a flurry of fists and kicks.

“Fuck,” James said as his glasses broke, and blood spewed from his now broken nose. That’s when he noticed, there was a rank smell that made his stomach turn over, he could feel his food threatening to come back up and heard Lily scream pulling his thoughts away from his sickness.

“James…James…it’s,” Lily said scrambling to get away from the horrid figure that was backing her up against a wall. Her father-in-law was staring her in the face, except it was a more grotesque version. His skin was peeling away, and she could see part of his teeth and cheek bone from behind the rotten flesh. Both of his eyes were missing, but there was a white mist in its place, and Lily screamed, kicking him away.

James couldn’t get to her, or his wand. “I know,” James yelled before his face was shoved into a pile of shattered glass. He could feel the pieces cut his forehead, and his nose, and he yelled in pain. The only thing he could think of was to physically fight back. He grabbed the first thing he could get, which was a leg, well what was left of it, and yanked, causing the inferius to fall.

Lily was pulling at the fingers, and bones that were grasped around her throat, and began to feel her vision tunnel. She gurgled, and began to kick feverishly, but the kicks were growing weaker by the second. “Ja—“ she gasped before her eyes rolled to the back of her head and she passed out.

He could hardly see as he felt around on the ground for his wand, and his hand closed around one, though it wasn’t his. It was Lily’s, he could tell by how light it was. James stood up and stabbed one of the inferi in the throat, almost becoming sick by how easy it went in, and the sound it made. James screamed a spell, causing a red hot flame to shoot out and pulled the wand back when the body burst into flames. He had been trained to be able to use any member of the Order’s wand, in case something like this happened, so he was prepared.

Through blurred vision James could see a clump of brilliant red on the ground, and something hovering over it. He ran, ignoring the inferius right behind him, and knocked the figure off, before being slammed into the wall.

Lily coughed vigorously, and rolled on her to back, glass crunching under her. James was being beaten to a pulp against the wall, and she scrambled, finding her wand halfway across the room. There was an inferius on her once again, but she was quick enough to send a patronus to the order members.

James fell limp against the wall, a large gash in his forehead, his nose and lip were bleeding, not to mention the rest of the cuts from the glass all over his body. When he came too there was someone shaking him, and the smell of burning flesh in the air.

“Prongs,” James heard a distant voice say, shaking him lightly. The shaking started to become more urgent, and James’ vision started to come back. He saw Remus staring back at him, and found his glasses had been repaired and put back on his face. “Lily?”

“She’s alright,” Remus said helping James sit up. The restaurant was a mess, there was blood coating the walls, floor, and the tables. The only evidence of the inferi that were left were singed pieces of the robes they had been wearing.

Lily was sitting patiently as glass was picked out of her arms by Molly Weasley, and Fabian Prewett. She cringed, and almost yelped as a rather large piece was removed by her forearm. “So much for dinner,” she said angrily, wiping up some of her blood.

A few members had shown up in time to find Lily on the sidewalk in a heap with an inferius still brutally attacking her, and James inside being smashed against a wall repeatedly. Gideon, Arthur, and Sirius had taken care of the two inferi quickly, while Fabian, Molly, and Remus tended to Lily and James.

Muggles were standing on the street dying to catch a glimpse of what had happened, and whispered rumors were flying like wild fire. Some claimed that it was a mob hit, and others said it was the government. The Ministry was there as well starting to do damage control, acting like police officers and calming the crowd.

“To St. Mungos,” Remus said picking his friend up off the floor. They weren’t fatally injured, but they were enough to have to go to the hospital. Lily was walking on her own accord, though she was limping, and hunched over. Remus saw Gideon shake his head, and walk over to her to help her to the ‘ambulance’ so they could all apparate.

An hour later, Lily and James stumbled back into their flat, and Lily stomped off to her room, shaken and angry. “I’m going to shower,” she called to James who had collapsed on the couch. She hadn’t told him who the inferius was that attacked, and neither had the rest of the group.

“Watch your cuts,” James called before his fingers gently covered his swollen nose. It had been broken, though it was healing now, it still hurt. His right cheek bone had also been fractured, a few ribs broken, not to mention the countless bruises and cuts.

Lily was wincing under the shower from the sting in her cuts, and though she was moving gingerly, it still hurt. Thirty minutes later, Lily emerged to find James had migrated to bed, and was already asleep. She wasn’t going to bother to wake him, since he looked peaceful, and decided not to tell him about what she had seen for a while, and she had sworn the others to not say a word either.