WHO Lily (mentions of James, Harry, Peter) WHAT Making a decision WHEN 4th of February WHERE Potters' home RATING Low
It seemed melodramatic to say a thing like 'the world had lost its colour', so Lily tended to stay away from such descriptions of her feelings over the past week. Everything was terribly different without James to make her smile. The house, which they had honestly always thought of as a prison, had hardly any distractions. Harry hated her and refused to speak to her for much of the day, which was fair enough. She, ever the cautious and rational one, had somehow allowed his father to slip away into the night without so much of a goodbye. Then James had died.
Even though they had been answering a distress call, it seemed a more futile death than any of the Order had suffered. Perhaps it was just because nothing ever could justify James' death to Lily. For sixteen years they had lived no more than fifty paces from each other in the one little jail. Lily was in the very centre of the home now, on the floor with photo albums strewn around her. It was torture to look through them but she needed to see his face. She missed his stupid grin, the one that could make her forgive him for anything. But she looked at it now and couldn't forgive him for dying first and leaving her alone. What do I do? She asked the photographs the same thing she had asked herself hundreds of times already that week.
In one of them they were newly married and at their reception. Friends and Order comrades surrounded them, each of them smiling and hopeful, even Mad-Eye. Everything had been so full of promise that day, the good future they were fighting for was almost tangible. These days everything was also full of promise, but it was a promise of gloom, death, and terror. She had cried more since getting a journal than she had for the ten years before it and that had been alright because James was there with her. Now there was nothing and no one. Peter had sneaked to the house in the early hours of Thursday morning, but only for a short time. It was too risky.
Lily had got the feeling that if she hadn't been a mourning widow, Peter would have been just as angry at her as Harry was. Being around Peter had given Lily an hours reprieve from the suffocating grief, but visiting for an hour or two every few months was all he could afford now, with the Ministry watching him. If Harry was to survive this with without losing his optimism completely, he needed more than Lily and a small time with Peter every month. Lily looked down at the photos again, the photos filled with her friends, laughter, and happiness. Harry needed those things, too.
She had been searching for answers for a week and now she finally had one. They had to leave Godric's Hollow. Harry had to be able to meet people and become friends with them, because what he had now (four adults, now three, soon two) wasn't enough anymore. Decision made, Lily quickly went about packing away the house. She couldn't bring most of it, but the library, her supplies, the work she and James had done while stuck in the cottage, all of it would come in useful. She tucked just two photo albums into the bag, the rest could stay here safe in the home that Peter would always keep secret for them.
"Harry," Lily called up the stairs, her voice quivering with nerves. Her son's messy hair and pale face appeared at the top of the stairs, eyebrows raised in a question. "Do you remember the school Albus told us about? The one in London? I want you to pack everything you'd like to take there. We're leaving for it today," she told him. It wasn't as simple as that, there was an endless lecture to give him about how to behave and keep careful, but it was the start of something. They weren't going to hide anymore.