17) Surprises

(JUST A REMINDER THAT NOTHING IS SPELL/GRAMMAR CHECKED. SORRY. PEOPLE HAVE BEEN ASKING ABOUT IT, I'LL PROBABLY GET AROUND TO IT AFTER THE BOOK IS OVER. THANK YOU FOR UNDERSTANDING.)

Lily's P.O.V

"What the bloody hell have you done?" James screamed to the front of the train. 

"We have to go help him!" I shouted over the sound of the engine and the train rolling over the tracks. I grabbed James by the wrist and dragged him three cars ahead to the conductor's area. 

Peter stood, looking terrified. "All I did was shovel coal here and light it up! I thought it was a weird old-timely furnace!" He shouted. 

I looked to where he was pointing. "Peter! This train is powered by coal! That's the engine! Ugh, I didn't even know trains still ran on coal! This is a freaking magic school, you'd think the train would run on, oh, I don't know, magic!" We were already speeding past  the school, faster than I would've liked. Luckily, no one inside the school seemed to notice. "We've got to stop this train and somehow get it back before anyone notices." 

"How the hell do you propose we do that?" James screamed. 

I racked my brain for ideas. "What if- what if we poured water on the hot coals? Peter, you look for a brake! It's not going to stop quickly, but it will stop it. James, start shoveling the coals out. Throw them out of the window if you have to, I don't care! Just get the ones that aren't burning out! I'm going to look for some water to see if I can keep them from burning!" (Quick A/N: I know absolutely nothing about trains. I know as little as there is to know about trains. Don't try this at home because there's no way it will work. Also, why also you have a train at home in the first place? Does that even look remotely like a furnace? Peter has an excuse, he's a pure-blood. He's probably never even seen  are furnace or a steam engine before. You have. Don't be Peter. ONLY OPERATE TRAINS IF YOU KNOW HOW OR YOU ARE WITH SOMEONE WHO KNOWS HOW AND HAS PERMITTED YOU TO.) I shouted, running around like a crazy person. 

"Will it work?" James asked. 

"No idea, we have to try" I shouted. 

"How are we going to get it back into the station?" Peter asked. 

"That's the least of our problems now,  Peter!" I screamed. 

I left them in search of the dining car, a discarded water-bottle, a fire extinguisher, anything! Anything that would get me out of this insane mess. How did I get here in the first place? Why me? Where had I gone wrong?

And then I realized. 

Everything was all  James bloody Potter's fault. 

Every single time I got detention. 

Every  time I was busted for doing something bag. 

Every time I had to use my brain to get out of a difficult situation. 

Every time I had to save someone else's arse only to save my own. 

It was all James bloody Potter's fault. 

And I loved it. 

There was a sense of adventure to him when he was being nice to me. When we were talking with no one else around. The way he looked at me when we were about to do something totally insane. It was always that fire, that speck of adventure with him. The 'it doesn't have to be this hard, but it might as well be'. The naive and stupid bravery. The Gryffindor. It was all because of him, all of it. 

And it was that sense of adventure I wanted to be with forever. 

"Lily! Come help us!" Adventure called from the front of the train. 

"Coming!" I shouted. 

"It's the break, it's stuck," Peter said, out of breath. He and James were both trying to yank the brake as hard as the could. 

"Of course it is. My life is a horror movie," I grumbled. "Don't just pull it, you idiots! Ugh, move over!" I pushed them aside, giggling the handle for a moment before pulling it back. The train slowly braked to a stop. 

"Magic, you are," James commented, leaning against the door-frame. 

"I wouldn't call it magic," I said. "Just raised by muggles. But also magic." 

James smiled so broadly, I thought he was going to eat me. "You're the coolest, Lily Evans," he said with a sigh. Peter coughed and slid past him  and out of the car. James and I both laughed. "Seriously, though. You're the coolest." 

"Well if I'm the coolest, then you're on fire," I told him. 

"I don't know if that's a compliment or not," James said, making a face. "What does it mean?" He asked. 

I smiled. "It means we're opposites. You're fire and I'm ice." 

"Two things, Lily Evans. One, opposites attract. And two, are you trying to call me hot?" 

"Hot headed," I teased. "But I don't think we make a bad team, Potter. Mostly because you're good at doing exactly what I tell you and not getting in my way." 

"I can always be in your way, Evans," James said and moved in front of me. I laughed, but before I could answer, he grabbed me into a hug. "Thank you for saving my ass." 

"Thank you for not checking out mine." 

There was a knock on the door. 

"I hate to spoil the moment, guys," Peter said, peeking his head in, "but I think we have a phone call." He held out the little pink flip phone, buzzing away. 

I looked at the caller I.D. It said; Marlalalala and Remmy Roo'. Why did I ever let Marlene enter in the contacts. "It's Marlene!" I told them before flipping it open. "Marlene, what's going on?"

Marlene's P.O.V

The kidnapper and I were both holding onto Remus as they apperated. It was the most unpleasant feeling I had ever experienced. It felt like my body was being stretched and ripped apart at the same it. It was a miserable experience. 

Suddenly, we touched down. I yanked the cloak around me again, just to be safe. Remus looked around frantically, so I squeezed his shoulder to let him know I was still there. We seemed to be in abandoned warehouse. You know, your typical place where the two curious teenagers are murdered by a man in a mask. I was not ready to be another person they write a horror movie about. 

"Name," the man in the cloak said to Remus before I was able to  finish looking around. 

"Remus Lupin," Remus answered after clearing his throat. 

"No," said another figure, stepping in from the shadows. "Tie him up with the rest."

"Okay," the first hooded figure said. He took our his wand and a rope appeared to bound Remus' wrists. "Say, um, Roader, what- what are you doing tomorrow night after work?" He asked the second figurer, Roader. 

Roader cleared his throat. "I'm working, Thinpin. We are literally always working." 

Thinpin's masked face looked disappointed. "Right, of course. It was silly of me to ask. Sorry." He cleared his throat again. "Prisoner! Let's move!" He barked at Remus. Remus froze. I shoved him forward, Thinpin already had his wand out and pointed at Remus' head. "Klutz," Thinpin huffed and hit Remus in the back of the head. I had to duck. Nonetheless, Remus began to walk forward and Thinpin swiftly behind him.

We eventually made out was to the back of the  warehouse where it looked more like a parking garage than a creepy borken down factory. Magically chained to the walls were all the students taken from Hogwarts and some I didn't recognize. They leaned against the walls thin, sleeping, pale,  like they hadn't seen food in days. Two hooded figures stood at the  end of the parking-garage-room, both had their arms extended and wands pointed down the middle of the room, right at us. 

"Hello Riley, Nika," Thinpin bowed his head at them.

I searched along the walls, looking for Sirius. Unfortunately, Remus found him first. 

"Sirius!" Remus shouted.

Sirius looked up from his sleepy gloom. "Remus?" His vacant eyes searched Remus' face. "Remus!" He shouted, recognizing his friend. "How the hell did you get caught?" 

Remus looked around awkwardly. "I was in the bath-"

"Silencio!" Thinpin shouted at Remus. He continued to tie him up on the wall across from Sirius. "Well, I'm going back out. Have fun with this one." He said to the other two figures. 

"Oh, Thinpin!" Riley said with a feminine voice that I wasn't expecting. "How's it going with Roader?" She asked. 

"Not well, I'm afraid," Thinpin said, shrugging. 

"Ugh, well don't listen to her," the other female figure said. "She's a hopeless romantic. Just bring back the one we need and Roader will be all over you." 

Riley crossed her arms. "Shut up, Nika! You don't know anything about love!"

"I know more than you do! My sister dated an auror for like... 4 months!" 

"Before he broke up with her because she was a psycho!" 

"Sigo was not a psycho! Just shut up before the boss finds us bickering again and we're back on the streets. I don't think I can handle begging with you again," Nika spat. Riley went back to pointing, giving Nika the silent treatment. 

Thinpin awkwardly turned and floated out the way we came. I sat next to Remus with my back to the wall, still holding onto his arm. "I'm going to go talk to Sirius," I whispered. "Don't do anything stupid. Actually, if you could clack those chains you're tied to around so that no one will hear me, that'd be great." Remus scrunched up his nose and tried to itch it with his shirt collar in a form of a nod to me.

I tip-toed over to Sirius and tried to think of a way to talk to him without his freaking out. Across the room, Remus made a symbol to him that looked like he was tip-toeing. I slowly tapped on Sirius' shoulder and put my hand over his mouth so that he wouldn't scream. 

"Sirius, it's Marlene," I whispered. "I'm under the invisibility cloak. This is all part of a plan. I'm going to call James, Lily, and Peter and they're be here soon to cause  a distraction while I get you out. Close your eyes for five seconds if you understand," I said. He closed his eyes. In my head, I counted one, two, three, four, five. They opened again."Great. I'm going to find someplace where I can call them. I'll squeeze your arm twice  when I come back." He rolled his neck, pretending to stretch. 

I got up and looked around for a private room I could close myself in to call them. Eventually, I found a closet that would work well enough. I crawled in, moving aside the head coats, weighed down by layers of dust, and pulled out the phone. 

"Marlene, what's up?" Lily asked when I called. 

"I'm in. Sirius is here, along with Frank and all of the other missing students. There are guards all over the place. You're going to have to cause a distraction so that I can get them all free without anyone noticing," I said quickly. 

"Got it," Lily said. "I think we can come up with something." 

"Got what?" I heard James ask. 

"I'll tell you in a second!" Lily spat back. "Can you describe the place to us so Peter knows where to apperate?" 

"Yeah. Do you have a pen?" The was a pause as Lily shuffled around in her purse. 

"Got it."  

"Okay. It's this old abandoned warehouse. The floors are cement and there are old metal machines everywhere covered in loosely tossed white tarps and cobwebs. There's this dramatic opening where the moon comes through the skylight and there are a couple of death eaters lurking in the darkness. There are more out an about looking for kids. Above the dramatic space, there's a wooden loft that looks over the entire place. It doesn't look really sturdy, there are planks missing and it's really dark up there, but I couldn't see any death eaters up there. Then, if you go to the  back of the warehouse there's this area with cement walls and it kind of resembles a parking garage. The kids stolen are chained to the walls and sit on the floors. There are two  death eaters there. They're powerful, but not very professional. I think your best bet is the loft," I whispered.

Lily's pen scratched on a piece of paper. "Got it. I'll text you a picture of it so you can make sure it looks right. Call me back if something's wrong." 

"Yep," I said and hung up.  Three minutes later I got a picture of a napkin with three illustrations on  it, showing almost perfectly the scenes I described. "Great," I texted back. "Text me when you're here." All that was left to do was wait. 

--

Lily's P.O.V

"Cant you hurry up?" James snapped at Peter, who was eyes closed, trying to picture where we were going.

"Sorry!" Peter yelped. "I'm trying to figure out where we're going.  Just hold on, okay, and be prepared." 

"Leave him alone," I told James. "He's better at apperating than you are." James grinned and rolled his eyes. "But Peter... don't forget my drawing," I said impatiently. 

Peter sighed at me. "No offense, Lily, but you're not the best artist." 

"I TRIED MY BEST!" 

Before Peter could further insult me, we disappeared into thin air. Before I could register what was going on, we appeared in the darkness with a POP. 

"Did you hear that?" Someone asked. James grabbed my arm and yanked me to the floor as quietly as possible. 

"It was just my bubblegum," another answered, blowing a bubble and popping out. Wow, talk about good timing. "Want some?" 

"Nah. Bad childhood memories with that stuff," said the first voice. 

James looked at me and grinned. Peter squeezed his eyes shut and bit his finger to keep from laughing. All three of us laid on the dusty wood blood of the loft, chests pressed against the boards and arms at our sides, ready to push ourselves up at a moments notice. James and I both held our wands while Peter had his in his pockets. I could just barely make out their faces beside me and see the dramatic light spot in the center of the room that Marlene had been talking about. 

"Whats the plan?" James whispered so softly, it could've been mistaken for a breath. 

I looked around for something, anything I could throw. One of  the boards on the floor looked like it was about to come lose, so I slowly pried it out with my fingers. I didn't want to toss it towards the back of the warehouse, where I knew our friends were, so I tossed it in the direction of one of the death eaters. It landed with a thud behind him. 

"What the hell was that?" Bubble-blower asked.

"This place is old. Probably something breaking off the ceiling or something. I wouldn't be surprised if there were old creatures living in here," Bad-Memories commented. 

"Dammit!" Peter breathed. "New idea," he mouthed. He wiggled his shoe off and tossed it, aiming at the head of the Bubble-Blower. Thanks to our luck, he missed. By like 5 yards. 

"Merlin! This place is crumbling around us!" Bubble-Blower exclaimed. 

"N- no," Bad-Memories said slowly. "I think that was a shoe, mate. A shoe from the ceiling." 

"OH FOR MERLIN'S SAKE!" James shouted, standing up and waving his arms around. "WE'RE UP HERE YOU BLUNDERING IDIOTS." 

"Up there!" Bubble-Blower gasped, pointing up to us. 

"Oi! They can't see us! They've got hoods and masks on, it's too dark!" Peter scolded, standing up and taking my hand to help me up. "We could've danced around up here, and they'd have been too stupid to tell! I guess our cover has been blown!" 

Bubble-Blower gasped. "We're not stupid! We were... we were acting!" 

"AFTER THEM YOU FOOL!" Bad-Memories screeched. "NIKA! RILEY! WE HAVE-  WE HAVE... TEENAGERS!" He screamed, his yells echoing off the walls. 

"Run!" I yelled as both death eaters turned into black bursts of air and charged towards us. I ran in between them, hurtled the railing between the end of the loft and the start of nothingness, and landed on a not-so-stable conveyor belt. James and Peter were already at my tale when I turned around. We ran across the conveyor belt, right into the other two death eaters who had appeared from out of the darkness. 

"Lily!" James shouted, grabbing my arm and yanked me away from one of the hooded women, who suddenly had her wand to my throat. James, Peter, and I sprinted back in the other direction, weaving through machinery, death eaters, and flying curses. For a couple of seconds, we lost them and Peter dragged us under a dusty tarp. We all tried to catch our breathes as quietly as we could. James look at me, smiled, frowned, clapped his hand over my mouth, and removed a squealing mouse from my hair. I wanted to scream so badly, I started to sob. 

I heard footsteps in front of us. 

"AAHH! A MOUSE!" Someone screamed as James released it and it scampered out from underneath the tarp. 

"Oh, get yourself together, Nika. It's just a mouse," a woman grumbled. "They've got to be around here somewhere." 

"No sign of them on the loft," Bubble-Blower's voice said as his footsteps joined the other two. "But Roader's still up there looking." 

"Ugh, they're down here, you idiots!" Nika cursed. "I came this close to getting one with my killing curse! I was so close, Thinpin! I could taste him!" 

"Calm down," the other girl said. She sighed. "Who do you think these kids are, anyway?" 

"Muggle teenagers,"  Thinpin commented. "Come in for a snog or a dare or something. They probably think we work for the government or the police. They've got to be  muggles, none of them have cast a spell, right?" 

Nika sighed. "Unless they're wizard teenagers who don't want to be caught by the ministry." 

The other girl groaned. "There's nothing I hate more than smart teenagers!"

Marlene's P.O.V

"NIKA! RILEY! WE'VE GOT... WE'VE GOT TEENAGERS!" I heard Roader scream from the other side of the warehouse. Remus and Sirius smirked at each-other. Nika and Riley glanced at one another before flipping up their hoods and racing over to Roader. 

That's when I started working on Remus' chains. They were rusted enough that I could step on them with my heal and they'd crumble away, but that did nothing to free his hands. "Ugh, I can't get your hands free," I whispered to him. 

"That's fine, let's just get me off this wall so I can help detach everyone else. Just, whatever you do, don't use magic!" Remus said softly. 

I pulled back the hood of my cloak, so that I looked like a floating head. A few kids gasped. "Don't worry, everyone, we're going to get you free," I said and started crushing the chain of the girl next to Remus as he ran across to work on Sirius'. 

I looked back over at Remus just in time to see Sirius launch himself over to him for a kiss. 

"Okay, lovebirds! Rescue first, snog later!" I sang, causing them both to turn red and get back to work. 

Lily's P.O.V

"You guys keep distracting, I'm going to sneak over to where Marlene and Remus are and see if I can start apperating people back," Peter whispered when the death eaters had gone to look some more. 

James and I nodded under the dark tarp. "Ready, Evans?" He asked, taking my hand. 

"As ready as I'll ever be," I whispered back. Together, we sprinted out from underneath the tarp and into the open. "Over here," I hushed, pulling him behind another machine. Then, I kicked the machine as hard as I could and shouted; "DAMMIT!" 

James looked at me, confused, but it worked. All four death eaters had their attention on us, away from Peter and away from the prisoners. 

Nika laughed. "Well, they're teenagers, but they sure as hell aren't smart!" She chuckled. 

"We're a hole lot smarter than you are!" James called back, but pulled me into a sprint. We ran to the side wall of the warehouse, where a huge garage door lead us into the darkness outside, lit by only the moon. 

"Dammit, they're outside!" Nika called as they chased after us. 

We wove in and out between huge shipping trucks, rolling and belly crawling under some as we went. It was unlike anything I had ever done before, but I couldn't help but grin as James pulled me inside one of the trucks for a moment so we could breathe. 

"I don't know about you, but I'm still running off pure adrenaline," James chuckled. 

"I feel like I could take down an army!" I said. 

"Could you, now?" A death eater asked, poking her head into the truck. I kicked her in the face, causing her to fall with a thud onto the pavement and pulling James into a run as we escaped into the loading lot again. 

"Lily! James!" Peter called, entering the lot and looking around for us. We ran towards him, grabbing him and pulling him back into the warehouse. "Everyone's at the Hogwarts train station!" He gasped. 

"How fast can you get us there?" I asked, turning around to make sure we weren't followed. 

"On the count of three," Peter answered. "One... two... three!" 

Author's note: 

Ahhhh! That was almost pure dialogue but I mean at least I wrote it. 

So I've been having A LOT of very serious family issues. My brother is very very sick and I'm going to leave it at that. But that's my excuse for not posting this when I promised I'd post it. I think there are only a few chapters left of this!!! 

I WILL NOT BE WRITING A SEQUEL.

HOWEVER, I am will to let one person write a sequel for me. If anyone would like to be in charge of writing the sequel and posting it on their account, please message me! I'd gladly advertise it and support it! 

The last few chapters should be coming out fairly soon. 

Thanks for everything!

And, as always, I  LOVE YOU. 

-Lily