James's jaw was squared with determination and eyes trained upon the figures coming toward them in the dark tunnel of the Underground. The inferi lurched and staggered along, slow but undeterred by the uneven ground beneath their feet.

"Alright, Evans?" he asked, voice stiff with nervous anxiety.

"I'm alright, Potter," she replied. "And you? Are you alright, too?"

"Positively spiffing, my love," James answered. He was too focused on the inferius to smile.

The pair of them stood their ground, watching the progress of the undead. Lily felt her heart thumping wildly within her. She stretched her wand arm, tightened her grip, and glanced at James, waiting for a cue to begin the fight.

"Reckon fighting the undead is as easy as the Death Eaters are?" James asked.

Lily answered, "Sure - this ought to be right dull, it'll be so easy."

James nodded, "I mean, half our work's already done, innit? Them being dead and all?"

"Precisely," Lily nodded, too.

"Evans?"

"Potter?"

"I think of all the evil shite we've seen You Know Who try, I'm afraid of these buggers the most."

Lily looked up at him - her brave, wonderful James. She could see the fear flickering in his eyes. "But you're not running from it," she whispered.

"I'm fighting every instinct I've got just to stay put here," he confessed. "I want to run, I want to get the hell out of here." He looked at Lily, his eyes clouded, ashamed. "I'm only staying here to fight because I know I've got to; I know the whole wizarding world depends on blokes like me, staying here to fight. But I am afraid."

"That's what bravery is, James," Lily said firmly.

His chin rose with pride at her words, she could see his nerves turn to steel at her encouragement. She'd bolstered him, and she could see the self doubt melt away.  She watched as he resolutely turned back forward, facing the figures that were now close enough they could see the detail of the rotting corpses - no longer mere shadow.

He was ready now.

"Come on," James murmured, and he took the first step forward.

Together, Lily and James moved over the tracks, wand raised. "We've got to get as many of them collected here as possible," James said, "Get them all clustered about, then we'll incinerate them." 

Lily nodded. "Alright."

James took a deep breath, and then brought his wand arm down in a slashing motion. A jet of magic shot from his wand tip, bright white and snapping with electricity, and it moved in a motion like a whip, slashing through the leading figure with a hissing, then squelching sound and the torso of the corpse fell away from the lower extremity, falling in two nasty bits to the ground, spilling blood and innards about. James recoiled at the sight of it, his stomach turning, and had to remind himself that what he'd done was not kill a person, but immobilize a walking corpse.

Lily winced, too, at the sight of it and she had to hold back the urge to be sick. It was grotesque, the sight of it. And worse yet was that even after being slashed and spilling itself everywhere, the corpse was still trying to drag itself forward, grabbing at the rails and rocks with decaying hands and pulling the torso along, eyes red with the magic that animated it. They could not be killed, she remembered, only slowed, and she used a charm to blast the thing back and away into the dark, separating it from them.

James's wand was slashing, slashing, and Lily blasted away each one he tore down, bodies flying back and knocking down others, piling up and crawling over one another, their mouths hanging open and rasping, terrible moans and wails coming up from them as their hands clutched and reached, their legs fell and the rails flooded with blood and entrails. The smell seemed to build with every cut and the noise grew louder and louder as more and more of the horrid things came, a seeming unending line of them. The inferi in the back climbed carelessly over their fallen comrades, not seeming to realize they were there at all, and they moved quicker than Lily ever expected they could, James's forehead was getting damp with sweat as he moved as quickly as he could, his whole body pitching this way and that as he slashed and cut his way, plowing into the corpses. 

A hand reached out from the pile, an inferius that had crawled closer than Lily had meant to allow it. "Watch out, James!" Lily cried as the inferius grabbed onto James's ankle and he kicked, hard, shouting.  Lily turned and aimed a quick blow to the corpse, knocking it free of James's leg as he stumbled backward, nearly tripping before catching himself on the service catwalk that lined the tunnel.

James did not see it, but a rat scurried out of the way as his hand caught the edge of the metal platform, hurrying to squeeze itself back into the dark crevices and out of sight.

"Bloody hell," James exclaimed. He wiped the sweat from his forehead, then launched himself forward, sending a shield charm between Lily and the corpses that were growing ever nearer, taking advantage of them being off guard for a moment. She shrieked and jumped back - the charm fell directly between Lily and a reaching inferius and had sliced off the hand of it as the protective magic dropped like a guillotine before her. James kicked the hand away and looked at her. "Alright, Evans?" he asked again.

She nodded, numbly.

The shield charm was like a milky window, blurring the carnage that lay beyond. She felt sick to her stomach.

James held the shield, his wand blasting the spell and his left palm splayed open to further direct the magic, as though bracing it up, as though physical motion could help to enhance the strength of the charm. He glanced over at her again, eyes flickering between the shield and her, the light of the shield making her look pale and giving her hair a sort of violet tone.

She was scared, he could see it. He was, too. She'd diffused his fear and now it was his turn to do the same for her.

"Bluebells and heather," he said.

"What?" Lily looked up at him.

"The flowers. For our wedding. I think they ought to be bluebells and heather." James was shouting over the crackling power of the magic.

Lily blinked in surprise.

"The first time we - we had a date -" James had started to slide back a bit from the pushing of the inferi on the opposite side of his shield, but he dug his feet into the stones between rungs of the rails and braced himself all the harder against them, "I brought you bluebells and heather. And we went to that little hamburger shop. Danced to the Carpenters."

"I remember," Lily replied. "But that wasn't really a date..."

"Alright,  a duck then," James said.

Lily laughed in spite of herself.

"It was a mighty great duck. One of my finest memories. I've used it before, you know."

"Used it?"

"To make a patronus," James nodded.

Lily blushed. She raised her arms and cast a shield charm as well, hers joining his, their efforts combined pushing the inferius backward. There was a wall of them now as they crawled up one on top of the other, rising up from the floor of the tunnel like water crashing on a bulwark.

"Most of my happiest thoughts are of you," James admitted.

Lily said, "Mine are, too."

"Nah," James replied, though he was grinning at her.

The inferius were piling up ever higher, the weight of the charm was getting near to unbearable, as though they were holding up a great wall that was threatening to cave in. James grit his teeth, leaning into the magic now, looking a bit like Atlas, holding up the world.

"Do you remember -" Lily, too, was leaning in now, "The kiss under the umbrella charm you cast? On the grounds?"

James chuckled, "Remember it? Oh yes I remember it. It was bloody amazing. You ought to ask Sirius how mental I drove the lads talking about it..."

Lily smiled.

James looked at her. "I reckon... we ought to... to get on with the incineration, ey?"

Lily stared up at the curved charm, the inferius scrambling at the top, the highest ones nearly touching the bloody ceiling of the underground. "How are we going to --"

"Just back up Evans, back up and be ready to start the fire when I say go, alright?"

Lily hurried to back up, away from the wall of the inferi. James stayed where he was, staring up at them, the weight of the charm clearly bearing down on him all the more as she dropped her contribution to it. He was shaking with the effort of it. "Are you ready, Evans?" he shouted.

Lily swallowed her nervousness back. She looked at him, straining to keep it up... Lily took a deep breath. "Alright, Potter."

James nodded. "Three..."

Lily gripped her wand all the tighter.

"Two..." 

The inferi were scrambling, their hands and grotesque faces pressing against the shield charm like a horrid display at an aquarium or zoo, where all the terrible, nightmaric creatures were pushed on the glass.

"Three!" James shouted. And very suddenly, he rushed backward, pulling the shield charm's limit back with him, creating a gap between the wall of inferi and the constraints of the charm, making them tumble and cascade forward, falling over one another, an avalanche of rotting flesh and decaying bones, and when he'd cleared the edge of the reach of the falling corpses, he dropped the charm altogether, the milky white wall falling like a sheet of shattering ice.

"INCENDIO!" Lily screamed and fire shot from her wand, a jet of fire roared forward, the flame white-hot as it seared through the air. James threw himself to the rails to avoid being hit by the blast, scrambling and rolling to land just behind Lily. The flames lit up the underground tunnel, bright orange and red as they caught onto the corpses and screams filled the air, a horrible, haunting sound that once heard could not easily be forgotten. They were dead human corpses after all, and their voices were those of people - people who were once mothers and daughters, sons and fathers, and it took a good deal of mental anguish to remember that the screams were not the screams of the people who these bodies once encased, but merely of a shell that walked with the power and mind of the Dark Lord.

Alarms began to sound - loud, shrill sounds that rang even over the sound of the screaming corpses. The alarms were so loud, echoing in the cavernous tunnels, it was something more felt than heard, like the echoing vibration of a symbol or a gong could be felt as the airwaves moved powerfully through the thickness of the air around it. Small water sprockets in the ceiling started raining water and Lily shrieked in surprise - the water was cold and wet and James leaped up to help, casting his own incendio, the corpses of the inferi blazing and crackling, some turning to ash and falling apart before their eyes, others seeming to melt.

It was the most awful thing that James had ever witnessed.

"Here they are!" there came a cry from behind them and Lily glanced over her shoulder, spotting a team of bobbling lights, wands held high as down the tunnel came Fabian Prewett, followed by others - the back up that Fabian had called for. Half had gone to help Gideon with the dementors, the others were rushing here to assist with the inferi. Among them, James saw with relief, was Albus Dumbledore.

"IGNUS IMPETUS!" Dumbledore shouted and with a whorl of his wand, a great tornadic swirl of fire and wind blasted the corpses backwards splaying them out into the dark beyond, a sea of flame and inferius.

Mr. Underhill and Mad-Eye Moody were there, too, and they hurried to back Dumbledore up, shooting smaller jets of flame toward stragglers who were not caught up in the blast of Dumbledore's spell, sending them flying backward to join the rest of the fray. "GOOD JOB THE BOTH OF YOU," Mad Eye shouted as he passed James and Lily, "AN EXCELLENT JOB INDEED!"

Lily's face was soot-marked and her body covered with dust and sweat. She stumbled over the rails to where James stood, panting, also sweaty and dirty, and she wrapped her arms around his neck, falling into him. He hugged her and kissed her forehead, thankful just to feel the weight of her in his arms. He held her tight to him.

"Bluebells and heather would be lovely with sprigs of fir and spruce."

James opened his eyes and pulled back just far enough to look into her eyes, his arms still about her. "They would," James nodded.

"With marmalade jars for vases."

"Sounds brilliant, Evans," he said, pulling her back into his chest. "Absolutely brilliant."