#aurors

"We're Not Cops."

Chapter eight: Shattered Wards

James Potter x Auror reader

SERIES MASTERLIST

The chamber detonated.

A concussive bang ripped through the corridor, wards screaming as dust and fragments of stone rained from the ceiling. James skidded to a halt, heart slamming violently against his ribs.

Another blast…closer. Hot. Wrong. Magic snarled through the air like a living thing, and something heavy scraped across the floor with a sound that made James’s stomach drop.

He was already running.

“Y/N!”

His boots barely touched the ground as he tore down the corridor, wand snapping into his hand on instinct. The walls pulsed, ward-lines flickering erratically someone was forcing their way through old protections. Someone powerful.

James rounded the corner and-

Everything stopped.

She was down.

Crushed against the stone floor like she’d been thrown there, blood streaking from her temple and into her hair. Her dress was burned clean through at the shoulder, fabric still smoking faintly. Her wand lay several feet away, snapped in half like a broken bone.

She wasn’t moving.

James’s breath hitched painfully in his chest.

Standing over her was a man James didn’t recognize…older, broad-shouldered, eyes fever-bright. Sweat plastered his hair to his forehead, his expression twisted with something far worse than rage.

Conviction.

The man lifted Y/N’s shattered wand, studying it with reverence, almost pleasure.

“You’re with James Potter,” he said, voice rough and jagged. “I know him. Letting the boy spend time with scum like you. With stepmother! Letting him live inside a lie.”

James didn’t think.

“Expelliarmus!”

Red light tore through the air.

The man deflected it easily, barely glancing at the spell as it shattered against the wall behind him. He let Y/N’s broken wand fall with a clatter.

“She doesn’t belong here!” he roared. “None of you do! Mixing bloodlines, pretending families can be stitched together like mistakes-”

James advanced, teeth clenched so hard his jaw ached.

“You’re sick.”

He cast again nonverbal, sharp, brutal. The man twisted aside, but the spell clipped his shoulder, hurling him back a step.

On the floor, Y/N moved.

Just a sound at first a rough, broken gasp but James felt it like a shock through his entire body.

Her fingers twitched. She dragged in air like it hurt. Blood slid down into her eye as she tried to push herself up, teeth clenched against the pain.

She understood everything in a single glance the danger, the distraction, the fact that James couldn’t risk a wide spell without hitting her.

And she chose anyway.

With a raw, animal sound torn from her chest, Y/N lunged not for her wand…

but straight for the man.

She slammed into his legs with everything she had.

The impact knocked the breath from him in a violent grunt as they crashed to the floor together. James didn’t waste the heartbeat she bought him.

“Incarcerous!”

Ropes burst from his wand, snapping tight around the man’s arms and legs as he thrashed, fury boiling over into panicked violence.

“You’re destroying the natural order!” he screamed. “You’re tainting-”

“Silencio.”

The word left James’s mouth like a blade.

The man’s voice vanished mid-rant, his mouth still moving uselessly as the chamber dropped into sudden, ringing quiet.

Y/N collapsed back against the stone.

James was at her side instantly, knees skidding as he caught her before her head hit the floor. She was shaking now, breath shallow, eyes glassy with pain and blood loss.

“Y/N,” he whispered, voice breaking despite himself. “Hey. Look at me. You’re safe. He’s down. You did -Merlin, you did brilliant.”

Her lashes fluttered.

“’m fine,” she murmured weakly, slumping into him like gravity had finally won.

James huffed a breath that was half a laugh, half a sob.

“No. No, you’re absolutely not. Don’t even try that.”

He held her close, wand still trained on the bound attacker, who writhed silently in the corner like something feral and trapped.

“You stubborn-bloody-brilliant-” James swallowed hard. “Don’t you dare pass out on me. I do not know how to explain to Harry that the coolest woman he’s ever met got herself half-killed on a recon mission.”

Her lips twitched. Barely.

Then her eyes slid shut.

“Hey-hey, stay with me,” James breathed, gripping her tighter. “Stay. With. Me.”