Author's Note: Hey, everyone! I am sorry that my updates have been…well, pathetic. Things are crazy for me. I am trying to balance everything. As for this story, I am probably going to be jumping through time quickly so it doesn't drag.

Everything that sounds familiar? It's JK Rowling's, and not mine. Unfortunately.

Chapter 25: Out of the Flames

Over the next several months, things were growing more and more heated in the wizarding world. Events that were being passed off as "unfortunate accidents" in the muggle press were happening with greater frequency, and the general magical population were starting to be more openly prejudiced towards muggles and muggleborns alike. Lily, Sarah, and Judy had all been dismissed from their jobs outside of St. Mungo's due to their muggle heritage, so they worked overnight in the hospital doing laundry and cleaning until they all passed their internships to become apprentice Healers and on the payroll.

James and Sirius were growing more reckless as tensions in society grew. They taunted muggle policemen (a chase that ended badly when they were attacked by masked men on broomsticks and they used one police car to block them and make their escape) and Sirius got in so many bar fights that it seemed as though he would forever sport a black eye.

Remus, on the other hand, was becoming more and more withdrawn, and he would disappear for weeks at a time, only to return thinner with new scars. Peter grew more paranoid and skittish, to the point that the other Marauders would beg Lily and Emma to drug him so he could just relax for five minutes, rather than look over his shoulder every few seconds.

One evening, while working on creating more effective antidotes for common poisons with her colleague, Damocles Belby, Lily's concentration was interrupted by a frantic Judy with news of a major skirmish that had happened near Yorkshire.

"Stout sent me to find you. We need all hands on deck on the fourth floor to treat the wounded," she said, gasping for breath. She must have ran the entire way from the tea room where she was grabbing a snack.

Belby dismissed Lily, and the pair of girls sprinted to the staircase. Since it was one floor, it would be faster than waiting for the lift.

The fourth floor was chaotic. People were screaming, and those with more superficial injuries comforted crying children. The stench of burning flesh, blood, and sick were thick in the air, and Lily waved her wand to perform a charm that helped to mask it so she could focus. Off to the side, she saw Emma mending a broken leg on a young girl who looked to be about fourteen.

"Merciful heavens," Lily whispered before running into the fray. She found an older wizard with a deep cut on his forehead and some sort of wound on his chest from a spell she could not recognize off hand. She could tell that he had been trying to heal the cut on his own, but the curse that had hit him was causing his hand to tremor, and he had managed only to slow the bleeding. He was horribly pale from blood loss, and she approached him first.

"Hello, sir. My name is Lily, do you have more injuries than the ones on your head and chest?" she greeted him as she healed the cut with a wave of her wand and began some diagnostic charms.

The man swung an unsteady arm and hit her arm away, nearly knocking her wand from her hand.

"I won't have some Mudblood bitch tainting me with her weak magic! Send over a real Healer!"

Lily's temper flared for the briefest of moments. She tightened the grip on her wand and continued her diagnostics. "Well, sir, guess what? It's either this 'Mudblood bitch,' or you lie there in hopes that a 'real Healer' might make it over here before whatever curse hit you finishes the job it started. Your pick."

The man glared at her, but fell silent and did not fight her further. That is what I thought, you royal pain in the arse, she thought. She performed an appropriate counter-curse nonverbally (just to show off her "inferior magic") and shoved a vial of blood-replenishing potion into his hand before charming his identification wristband blue so the orderlies knew where to send him for recovery (blue for spell damage). "Drink that, and be still. You still have quite a bit of recovery left ahead of you. That curse caused a chamber of your heart to collapse, so you may have occasional chest pains as it strengthens up again. Since it appears to be an original curse, there may be most effects, so you will be under observation for several days. As for now, you aren't going to die."

Without another word, she spun on her heel and left to continue triage. Suddenly, she saw a familiar head of messy, black hair.

"Oh my God, James!"

She ran to his side and set to work, since, conveniently, no other Healer happened to be there. Aside from cuts and scrapes varying in severity, he also had a disclosed shoulder, and the bones in the other arm were shattered. Throwing a glance over her shoulder, she saw Sarah working on Marlene as Dorcas watched.

"What the hell happened, James?"

James winced as she healed a particularly deep gash on his leg that was too close to an artery for Lily to ignore before getting to work on his arms. "Death Eaters attacked a magical village for no real reason we can figure out. It seemed like a random attack, and there were some nasty curses being thrown about, then someone conjured some fiendfyre and torched the place."

"It was completely random?"

"As far as we know. Moody is already investigating, of course. Constant vigilance, and all that."

Lily aimed her wand at his shoulder, and James visibly tensed with anxiety. While reconnecting a joint was not quite as painful the magical way as the muggle way, it was still a less-than-pleasant (to say the least) experience, and it did not help if the patient tensed up in the process. She remembered something her father had said when he had dislocated his own shoulder once. The paramedic who had pulled his arm had done it suddenly during a conversation.

She relaxed her wand arm slightly and healed another cut, and then another before asking, "So, where was Sirius during all of this?" She healed another scrape. "I thought I would have at least heard him by now."

"Oh, Padfoot was on an assignment for Moody on the conti-bloodyfuckinghell!" he swore as she suddenly repaired his shoulder with an audible pop.

"Mind your language, my love," she said conversationally as she measured out a dose of Skelegro for his leg. "There are children around."

He gave her a Look like a petulant child. She kept her face a mask of innocence as she held out the glass like it was a cold drink of water on a hot day.

"Drink up."

It took several hours to finish triage and send everyone where they needed to go, may it be shelters, recovery, home, or the morgue. Lily found herself sitting on the floor in the Healers' locker room, leaning up against a wall outside the showers, too worn out to walk the handful of steps it would take to get there.

Her robes were stained with blood and God-knew-what-else, and her hair was tangled in a messy bun on top of her head, the shorter pieces slipping loose and flowing around her face in careless abandon. She had her head resting against the wall with her eyes closed, but she still knew it was Emma who sat beside her by the sweet, nutty smell of her preferred shampoo.

"What time is it?" she asked her friend without opening her eyes.

"Last I looked at the clock, it was nearly two in the morning, and who knows how long ago that was." Lily heard the whispering sound of Emma casting a spell. "It is currently a quarter to three."

Lily groaned and rubbed the heals of her hands against her closed eyes. "My next shift starts at eight."

"The life of a Healer, you know."

She sighed and rested her arms in her lap. "I know. I signed up for this." She grunted again as she got to her feet and grabbed a towel from a nearby shelf. "I'll sleep when I'm dead, I guess."

She dropped her dirty robes into the appropriate bin for laundering and turned on the hot water before shedding off the rest of her clothes. Emma continued to talk to her from the other side of the wall.

"I heard that wizard try to refuse your help when you joined the fray. I'm sorry that happened to you."

Lily rolled her eyes as she dispensed some shampoo into her hand and began to scrub her hair. "I suspect that won't be the last time I encounter that brand of bigoted bullshit."

"Language, Lils!"

"Psh, Em," scoffed Lily. "This is war. This is no time for-"

She was cut off by a whooshing sound, and a small fireball erupting, no bigger than an orange, in front of her. Judging by the surprised squeak from outside of the showers, one probably happened in front of Emma, as well.

On the floor of the shower in front of her was a scroll, magically protected against the spray of the water, tied with a red ribbon and a phoenix feather.

Author's Note #2: Sorry for another shortie of a chapter. I just wanted everyone to know that I have not forgotten about this story, or any of my other stories, for that matter. Between being sick with pneumonia all of December (even spending a week in the hospital!), convention work, health drama, adulting, and my sister getting married, I have been all over the place! All is well, it's just hard to juggle everything sometimes. I am currently working on some other projects, including a second part to my one-shot Thirteen, and I don't plan to post any other new stories until they are done and can be posted on something resembling a schedule. Hearts and sparkles to you all! ~Nimue