The Prisoner of the Town
Emmeline Vance had been chained to a wooden post in the towncentre of Hellsgate, the citizens walking past as they continued going about their business. She had been left there last night, Remus and Mary refusing to let anyone kill her, and Lily had to concede. They all settled on tying her up for now until they could agree on a longterm solution to her presence.
Remus had spent the day bringing her food and water, and tending to her injuries whilst Mary had flown up to Sirius’ to convince him to get Lily to back down.
Emmeline was in and out of it, she was clearly exhausted and likely concussed, as well as having lost a lot of blood. She had broken and sprained bones, but Mary had tried to fix them as best she could. Lily was the real healer, though.
“Remus”, Emmeline mumbled, currently awake, “It’s good to see you.”
He smiled back, “You too. Well, not great to see you in this situation, actually.”
She laughed slightly, although it clearly hurt her to do so.
“Why are you here?”
She shrugged, “I was assigned. Moody had to let Dumbledore know about you and James being gone, and he told me to come here to check it out.”
“Because of one vampire?” Remus frowned.
Emmeline tried to shake her head, “He knows. He knows about this town, and that other one nearby. Knows they’re run and filled with monsters.”
“How? It’s not mentioned on any of our maps or reports.”
“Moody’s hunter’s don’t get access to all information”, Emmeline groaned out.
Remus tilted his head slightly, “But why send you? No offence, but you are still in training.”
She smiled slightly, “Yeah. I think he- I think I might have been a pawn, Remus.”
Remus stayed silent for a moment.
People walked past them, getting on with they day. And Remus clutched her hand in an attempt of comfort.
“I’m sorry.”
She didn’t reply.
Remus continued to hold Emmeline’s hand as Lily took to the raised platform behind the post- usually used for town announcements or entertainment- plays, poetry, readings, music.
Lily was not there for entertainment.
“Citzens of Hellsgate!” The throngs of people stopped in their places, she drew in a crowd, “Last night we had a dangerous hunter intrude on our town in an attempt to kill us! Now, I know in the past we haven’t needed to take the threat of hunter’s seriously, but she is working for much more powerful people than the previous hunters. I plead to you all to take precaution and understand that she needs to be killed, for all of our safety.
Remus stood up, “Her name is Emmeline, and she works for the exact same organisation as me and James! She is not dangerous!”
Lily looked straight at him, “Do you know who the Phoenix are?”, and at Remus’ silence, she carried on addressing the entire town, “Well, I do. I have had run-ins with them before and they are real experts, with the largest knowledge of hunting and killing us than anyone else in the world. They are a threat! She is a threat! Sirius may have built this town, but he is not here, his priority is not our safety, only our security. We must protect ourselves! We must kill this hunter!”
A large portion of the crowd clapped, some moving to stand slightly further away from where Emmeline had been chained.
Lily raised her arms up, getting them to quiet down- they fell silent immediately.
“We are going to have a vote now, the majority will dictate what to do with this hunter. So please move to the left if you think we should kill the hunter, and to the right to keep her alive.”
The entire town hurried to the left of the town square. Remus left Emmeline to stand on the right.
Lily folded her arms, “Remus, I’m afraid you can’t have a say if you don’t live here.”
“I’m representing Mary’s vote.”
“Fine”, she nodded, accepting, “But the majority is still to kill. Marlene, please untie the hunter and bring her here.”
Marlene made her way from the leftside of the platform, to the post, and began to untie Emmeline. Remus widened his eyes, quickly trying to get Marlene away from her. As Marlene picked up Emmeline and started to drag her towards the platform, Remus erratically clawed at Marlene.
She attempted to throw him off to no avail, “Fuck off! We’ve voted, mate!”
Remus ignored her, still fighting to save Emmeline until Dorcas hurried to their girlfriend’s side and kicked Remus in the chest, he fell to the floor with a growl, cane falling away from him.
Marlene stood Emmeline up on the stage, arm around her to keep her upright.
Emmeline smiled softly to Remus.
Remus shouted, trying to make his way to Emmeline again, only for Dorcas to grab their dagger and drive it into Remus’ shoulder. He yelled in pain and stubbled backwards.
Lily addressed the crowd, “This execution is a sign for all hunters that we, as a town, will protect ourselves. They cannot take away our home!” Lily held Emmeline’s own sword in her hands and held it to Emmeline’s chest, “We will fight back, and we will never give up!”
“Stop!” A voice shouted.
Lily plunged the sword into Emmeline.
A hand shoved her backwards, and she spun to face the fury of Sirius Black.
“What the hell are you doing, Lils?”
Lily held her head up, “We’re allowed to kill, don’t you remember? You’re the one who wrote the laws.”
“I just told you to stop!”
“Well you were too late, Sirius.”
Sirius sucked in a breath, “Fucking hell, Lily. You heard me beforehand, I know you did.”
Lily sneered at him before looking around her. James was crouched by Remus, fretting over the injuries Dorcas had gave him. Mary had pushed her way to the stage and was holding Emmeline’s corpse, trying with all her magic to heal her as Emmeline, dazed and in clear agony, bled out. Marlene and Dorcas stood by the stairs to the stage, staring at Lily like awaiting her orders.
Sirius grabbed her wrist, “Calm down, alright. What’s wrong? What are you doing?”
Lily ignored him and shoved him off, instead turning to the crowd, “This town needs no leader, we were told we would have full freedom, we were told we would govern ourselves. This town relies on each and every one of us, we are Hellsgate. Do we not have a right to vote on things that influence this town?”
The crowd cheered to her words, clapping loudly and shouting their outrage at Sirius’ intrusion to a perfectly fair and legal execution.
James started towards the stage, but Dorcas quickly moved to block his path.
“I need to get to Sirius, Cas!”
“You’ll have to wait.”
“No!” James yelled, trying to push past them.
Dorcas instantly grabbed him by the shoulder and threw him to the ground.
“Kill the hunters!” Someone in the crowd yelled.
Lily paled at the realisation of what she had forced her neighbours to now think, eyes latching onto Remus, still injured and sitting alone on the ground. Completely vulnerable.
“Wait- No! That isn’t what I- Remus!”
Marlene nodded to Lily and ran to Remus’ side, flipping him onto her shoulder and running as she can from the town centre with him, disappearing between houses.
Lily turned around to find Sirius and Emmeline’s corpse gone, instead Mary stood there with tears in her eyes, and blood soaking her hands. But she wasn’t looking back at Lily. Her terrified eyes were fixed to one spot- the front of the platform, where the crowd had swarmed.
With only James left behind, the town placed their anger and outrage onto him. Lily stood on the platform, now unable to control her audience.