The street was empty save for some loose candy wrappers abandoned on the pavement. A single street light flickered weakly, its dying fluorescent light adding to the wrongness of the night. Just hours before the street had been overflowing with children going door to door with their jack-o-lantern baskets, fingers sticky with the residue of the sweets they had already eaten. James carefully took his wand out from his jacket pocket. Lily mirrored him.
“James,” she said, her voice tight with anxiety. James followed her gaze down the darkened street.
“Is that smoke?” he asked.
“James, you don’t think—” Lily didn’t finish her sentence. She didn’t need to. She stared up at James, eyes wide with fear. Her breath came in small, visible puffs.
“Harry.”
They took off running, shoes slapping hard against the pavement, echoing off the houses around them. Mailboxes materialized in the darkness, addresses flashing by until they stopped, breathing hard, in front of the familiar cottage on the corner with the carefully pruned petunia bushes lining the walkway. Only now the cottage stood unrecognizable. Half the roof was blown out and pieces of it were strewn across the yard, the petunia bushes reduced to nothing but small piles of ash. James saw a little broomstick struggling feebly to fly away and heard the yowls of a cat from somewhere in the debris.
“The nursery! They blew up the nursery!” he shouted, shoving past the broken gate and racing through the wreckage that was once his front yard. He shoved the front door hard but it was stuck in the frame. He rammed his shoulder against it but it still didn’t move. “Lily! Lily, the door—”
“Confringo!” she shouted. A jet of blue light shot past his head. The door exploded and Lily dashed inside, red hair flying as she ran. James followed her, swinging his arms through the air wildly to clear the dust from the explosion. He heard Lily’s voice through the gloom.
“James.” She sounded wretched. He found her standing at the bottom of the staircase, tears tracking wrinkle-like lines through the dust on her face.
“What? What is it?” James asked, voice cracking slightly. “Did you find Harry?”
Lily shook her head and wiped the tears off her face. More fell to replace them. “On the stairs.” she whispered, pointing towards the staircase. James peered through the darkness and saw a figure lying on its back, unmoving.
“No.” He rushed forward, tripping over himself in his hurry to prove that the man lying limp across the steps was not Sirius Black. “No, no, no, no.” He could barely hear his own voice over the ringing in his ears. Sirius’ neck was turned at an unnatural angle, a couple strands of hair had fallen across his face and his mouth hung slightly open. But his eyes were the worst. They stared blankly at the ceiling, unseeing and unblinking, their usual twinkle replaced by a strange, cold, emptiness. James crouched beside his friend, tucking the loose hair behind his ear. He felt the tears catch on the rim of his glasses. A couple pushed over the edge and landed on Sirius’ pale cheeks. He glanced about, looking for Sirius’ wand, but it was nowhere to be seen.
“His wand,” James choked out, looking around at Lily. “Where’s his wand?”
“I don’t know,” she said, shaking her head. She pressed her hand against her mouth like she was going to be sick.
“We need to find his wand,” James said. Some part of his mind, the part that liked to lie, thought that if he could just get Sirius his wand back then everything would be alright.
“James, I don’t think—”
“No, he needs his wand! He just needs his wand, Lily. Help me find it, please,” James begged. He opened Sirius’ jacket, the black leather one he’d bought to match his motorbike, and searched the inner pockets.
“James, please stop. It’s too late,” Lily pleaded, trying to pull James away from Sirius’ body. She was crying harder now, hiccuping between her words. James shook her off.
“Ask Remus, he’ll know. He’ll— where’s Remus?” James stopped searching and stood. “Remus!”
“Don’t yell, they could still be here,” Lily whispered, panicstricken.
“He was here, he was watching Harry with Sirius,” James said. He felt Lily tugging his arms and looked down at her. “He was with Harry. Where’s Harry?”
“I don’t know.” Lily was shaking her head back and forth, as if she was trying to shake something out of it.
“We need to find them,” James said. His voice sounded like it was coming from somewhere very far away. Somewhere where his best friend wasn’t lying dead on the stairs and his son wasn’t missing.
“They were in the nursery when we left,” Lily said, eyes wild. She pushed past James and past Sirius’ body and raced up the stairs. James followed, trying not to look at his friend's face as he passed him.
He made it almost to the end of the hall before he saw Remus slumped against the doorframe of the nursery, his wand just a few inches away from his outstretched hand. Like Sirius, his eyes were blank. He was still wearing the hairpin shaped like a witches hat Sirius had stuck in his hair earlier that evening. James knelt beside his friend.
“Moony,” he said, gently shaking his shoulder. The hairpin fell onto the carpet with a dull thud. “Remus. Please.”
Remus’ head lolled forward. A horrible sound escaped from James’ throat. It tore its way into the world and was followed by tears that made it impossible to see or hear or think about anything except the angle of Sirius’ neck and the way Remus’ body remained limp when James shook it. He could see it in his mind's eye. Sirius, always the protector, falling first, the green light wrapping around his body and sucking away his life. And then Remus, he had at least had his wand. The evidence of the fight he had put up was scattered around the room. But it hadn’t been enough. He, too, had fallen before the man that had taken so many of James’ friends and family, order members and civilians alike.
James felt someone wrap an arm around his shoulders, dragging him away from his thoughts. He turned and saw Lily crouching beside him, Harry nestled carefully against her chest. She was sobbing just as hard as he was.
“He’s alright,” he said, placing a careful kiss on Harry’s forehead. A lightning-like scar ran from the baby’s temple to the tip of his nose. James touched it gently with one finger.
“They kept him safe, James. They loved him like he was their own and they defended him with their lives,” Lily said.
“But they shouldn’t have had too.” Anger was beginning to grow underneath the pain. The kind that burns and festers if it isn’t allowed to be released. The unique kind born from grief and heartache. “I’m going to kill him. I’m going to kill him for what he did.”
James looked down at Lily and Harry. He saw the same anger behind the tears in Lily’s eyes. They would not allow death so close to them again.