WHO: Lily Potter WHERE: the Wier; Lily, James & Sirius' apartment WHEN: Saturday, September 17; wee hours WHAT: Being alive isn't always an instant fix for having died. RATING: High PG? STATUS: complete as a narrative, unless anyone wants to respond. NOTES: Dialogue you recognize isn't mine!
Four days. Four days since she'd been murdered. Four days since she'd found herself alive again. Four days in which Lily sometimes wasn't certain which end was up in this mad world where their entire world and all that had gone on in it was entertainment for Muggles. Voldemort and his Death Eaters were both revered and mocked, just as everyone else from their worlds was depending on what one read or saw. There were groups of people choosing sides in a war they didn't even dream was anything more than a story.
Sometimes, all she could do was laugh. It was either laugh and poke fun, or sob. Anyone who knew her would know she wasn't exactly slow to tears, and usually unashamed of that because it was real emotion, just as any other, but Lily sensed if she went about weeping for being dead while being alive, she'd get a few odds looks and awkward pats from those who thought her barmy for crying over something that had been undone. But it wasn't just the dying, but all she and James had lost that night, all their son and others had lost following that night, a loss that had built and built.
That's what the walks were for, the trips to the corner store with the excuse that cooking the Muggle way was enjoyable sometimes or the strolls to the closest park and back with the excuse the scenery was lovely. Any excuse that put her where others weren't going to see her go quietly to pieces when it all simply became too much, then pull herself together and slap back on her brave face for everyone and see to those who really needed the attention and love and care, like Sirius.
But she couldn't hide the nightmares that came on that fourth night, lingering into the early hours of the next morning.
~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~
"Time for bed, my dearest loves, time for bed," Lily said, hair sweeping down off her shoulder and around her face as she bed over the two, her smile bright.
"But Mum, we're not sleepy," James said with a playful roll of his eyes as he scooped Harry up, grinning down at the toddler before passing him to Lily
Sweeping Harry into her arms and tucking his head against her shoulder, Lily nodded and turned for the door. "Mm, yeah, that's why you'll be yawning right about-"
James tossed his wand on the sofa, then stretched out across it, letting go of the predicted yawn in a lazy way that said he wasn't much fussed by her knowing he was tired.
"-now," Lily finished, threw him an airy kiss and started out the door and up the stairs. The downstairs door flew open and the turned, biting back a scream as she clutched Harry closer. James darted out into the hall at the same time that dark-robed figured swept into the house. Voldemort.
"Lily, take Harry and go! It's him! Go! Run! I'll hold him off!"
She'd barely reached the top the the stairs when she heard those chilling words –
"Avada Kedavra!"
– the death knell of the other half of her heart. She couldn't bear to turn and look, not just in retreating for Harry's sake, but in seeing James looking no more that asleep.
Look, look there and see the end, face what blind faith led you to.
The voice was hers, in her head or filtered in the house, she wasn't certain, but it was there and it shouldn't be.
But she turned and looked. Voldemort seemed paused in time for a moment as she did, as her gaze fell upon James on the floor. His eyes were open, staring unseeing, but the fear on his face was softening in death. He'd look peaceful by the time anyone found him.
Your Jamie's dead. No more. And you could have prevented it if you'd been a little more insistent.
She turned away and dashed into Harry's room, piling boxes and a chair against the door as fast as she could manage without her wand. It was too late to summon Sirius even if she had her wand – she could hear Moody now in her head, rather than her own voice, telling her what a fool she was for letting her guard down even in her Fidelius Charm-protected home – but perhaps she could get them both out the window under the steam of some wandless magic. Even if she broke something, she'd crawl to the edge of the property and get Harry to safety.
The door blew open behind her, scattering her futile block, and she turned, confronting the harsh reality of that noseless pale face, those blood-red eyes that glowed in an impossible fashion and the lazy smirk his thin lips were twisted into, and she knew it was too late to escape. It left her one option alone – begging.
He won't listen, you're mad if you think he will, you'll die and Harry will have no one.
Lily ignored the voice, dropping Harry into the crib. "Not Harry, not Harry, please not Harry!" The tears had started, fear and panic and the sick sense of knowing that she would likely not live through this.
"Stand aside, you silly girl... stand aside, now."
He doesn't me~ean it! This is the end for you, Lily Potter, the very end. Of a sorts.
Lily squared herself in front of the crib, fighting back the instinctive urge to reassure Harry, who screamed in the crib behind her. "Not Harry, please no, take me, kill me instead –-"
"This is my last warning –-"
How was Voldemort here? No one could be here, find this place, unless the Secret-Keeper had told them, and she knew Wormy would never have done that.
Wrong! Wormy did! James died and you'll die too because Wormy betrayed you, you bleeding soft hearted incompetent, and then he killed twelve Muggles to frame Sirius, to ruin Harry's life in every way before he'd barely learned to say 'Uncle Wormy'.
That wasn't right. This wasn't how it had gone. Sirius wasn't framed for anything at all, that hadn't happened yet – and how did she know that?
"Not Harry! Please... have mercy... have mercy... Not Harry! Not Harry! Please –- I'll do anything –-" she sobbed, a last desperate plea to a man with only a fragment of a soul – Horcruxes, imagine if you'd known that, none of this would be happening, you blubbering nit – to spare her child.
"Stand aside. Stand aside, girl!"
This was the end. She knew it was and she knew it wouldn't hurt. Her body would fall to the floor while Harry screamed in fear, relaxed at first as though sleep, while her son wondered why she wouldn't wake up and tend to him
But it wasn't over. Sirius would find them. He would.
Wrong again! Look, look over there.
The draperies in Harry's room blew out toward her, though the window wasn't open. Time had slowed, Voldemort poised to act, but the words not yet delivered. The draperies ruffled, almost parting but then overlapping, as if teasing her, outlining the thin – too thin – frame of a person.
Sirius won't find you, he's gone, you absolute twit, gone where no living person should ever be, and it's all your fault too, for not trusting your own judgment, you're to blame, you are.
"Lil, help me, Lil, please."
It was Sirius' voice, weak and raspy and full of agony and he was calling to her from just behind the draperies, begging to her to save him.