lilyest (lilyest) wrote in reoccurrence, @ 2020-06-26 20:05:00 |
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Entry tags: | potter harry, potter lily |
when your feet don't touch the ground
WHO. Lily & Harry
WHERE. Godric’s Hollow
WHEN. Friday 26 June ‘05 3pm
WHAT. Lily reoccurs *WIP*
WARNINGS. SADS
“James?” It was sunny. The sun was disorienting, too bright. For two years she hadn’t felt the sun on her face except through a window, hadn’t left the house even to walk in the garden. The garden which apparently had gotten a lot more overgrown and wild than she had realised. Why was she standing there now? It was dangerous, she ought to be… Lily stopped, shook her head quickly, trying to clear the clouds. She felt oddly hungover, not just an-extra-glass-of-wine hungover but the way she’d felt the morning after Padfoot’s end-of-exams party when she’d gotten a bit too competitive in a game of Fuzzy Kneazle. Only she didn’t remember drinking. She’d only just stopped breastfeeding and even half a glass of anything stronger than Butterbeer was enough to make her lightheaded. She must have done something stupid though, to have wandered outside for no reason. Across the town square, the church bells tolled three. She turned to the house, to go back inside - stupid, what were you thinking - The shock sent her to her knees. There was a horrible sound, a wailing scream; it was so terrible and inhuman that she only knew it had come from her from the ragged pain in her throat. Half the cottage was gone. It was rubble, as if a bomb had hit it. It looked like a World War II photograph, except sharp, and in colour, and real. She scrambled up, seconds after falling, scrambling forward through the weeds and over scattered bricks; one of her house slippers fell off but there was no going back for it. The weightbearing walls were mostly still standing, so that she could see the floorplan like a map - she stumbled from the kitchen to the living room, clambering through overturned and rotting furniture, staring helplessly at the foot of the staircase, the stairs that had once led up to the bedrooms - to the nursery - now leading up into the bright empty sky. Harry. She might have screamed it, or it might have just been in her head. Her ears roared and for a moment she thought she might faint. Before she knew quite what she was doing she had descended on the nearest pile of rubble, tearing bricks aside with her bare hands. No. It was not going to happen like this. They were not both just gone, leaving her alone without a scratch. It made no sense. She wouldn’t let it happen. They were here somewhere. Could she hear crying, or was it the distant sounds of the village primary school letting out? “Harry,” she sobbed, ignoring bits of wood and glass that cut her fingers until her hands were bloody. “James… please… please…” Harry pushed his fingers up behind his glasses, pressing into the corners of his eyes until colourful static obscured his view. It had been a week. The first in a long while where the castle walls felt like the last place he wanted to be. Emotionally and physically he was exhausted, and wanted little more than a beer and a moment to sort through his thoughts. Yes, that sounded good. He could leave his essay marking until tomorrow, use his Sunday to visit his dad and Sirius. Everything would be -- For the second time in short while, the statuette he had charmed to warn him if any of his wards around his parents' house were broken let out its ungodly screech. Harry ran. Down the staircases, past the Great Hall, out to the grounds. Somebody yelled Professor? and he kept on. The second his feet crashed along the gravel of the Hogsmeade path he was apparating, barely slowing his pace, so that when he arrived with a sharp crack he arrived at speed, nearly slamming his shins into a fallen chunk of his childhood home. It felt like slipping into a recurring dream; if he hadn't been able to feel the warm June air on his cheeks or the ache in his chest as he ran out of breath, he would have bet he had fallen asleep at his desk. Godric's Hollow, again. Reoccurrence, again. (Again, again, again. How many more people would he have to watch crumble as he made their fate known to them?) A parent returned to find their partner gone, their baby gone, the house they had intended to raise him in rubble. Again. He had never had a brain much suited to calculations, but even he could figure a probability for this as infinitely slim. And then he saw her, all red hair and desperation, her sobs saturated with grief. "Mum --," it slipped out of him entirely instinctually, a product of that never satisfied childhood want. Photographs and memories hadn't done his father justice and they did very little to prepare him for finding her either. All the tiny glimpses he had hoarded over the years were nothing compared to the sight of her tangible and solid and alive. Instinct came first, but common sense followed after. "Lily!" he corrected himself, as much as it pained him to do it, and raised his voice so that she might hear him better over her own cries. He ran towards her, hands finding her shoulders, trying to coax her back from any sharp parts that might wound further. "Lily, they're alright! I promise they're alright!" Lily flinched as she was touched and leapt up and away, almost falling over herself in her sheer panic as she reached for a wand that wasn’t there. “Don’t -” she snapped, a half second before her eyes widened, fixed on his face. Harry jumped back, palms to the sky, desperate not to alarm her further. He stayed silent as she stared fixedly at him, not daring to interrupt whatever mental processing she was obviously working her way through. The sight of him alone was probably jarring enough. The man could be James’ brother, Lily thought, feeling even more muddled than before. It was uncanny. She wondered vaguely in the part of her mind still capable of thought, whether it was some sort of trick. Probably she ought to run; a stranger here, in a place where no one but her family should be able to step, was surely a danger - but - he said they were all right. Somehow he knew something, and she was not going to leave without knowing what it was, even if it was a lie or a trick. Something impossible. And god, he looked like James. Shorter, maybe, and the hair and the eyes were different, but… For a moment she simply stood there in silence, staring at him, ignoring the dull aching pain in her hands and where she’d scraped her legs and bare foot on the rubble around her, the tears sticking loose strands of hair to her cheeks. “Where are they?” she demanded finally, putting all other questions for the moment to the back of her mind. “Where’s my baby?” "Uh –," Harry started, and suddenly all coherent thought drained out of his head. Faltering wildly, he tried to drag up the script he had gone through each time this happened. This is going to come as a shock. Some parts of what I'm about to tell you are going to be scary, but I promise things are going to be okay. Images formed in his mind: Remus' crumpled face, the way Tonks had yelled for her child, his godfather and actual father – really, truly a double of him, even more than people said – and all the pain he had to bestow on them. "It's, he's – The war's over, we won. I can take you to James." Harry winced. His words sounded too rigid and came out too fast. That, and it wasn't an answer to her question. Right in front of you, Mum, he wanted to say. "But there's something else…," he let himself trail off cautiously, waiting to see her reaction first. She was breathing hard, eyes darting like a wounded deer ready to bolt. Over? How could it be over? For that matter who was we? For all she knew this man was a Death Eater who had James locked up somewhere - or was just lying - but somehow even in her panic, she didn’t think so. There was something in his face that made her want to trust him. “Please,” she said, feeling her resolve begin to shake, tears brimming in her eyes once more. Let him kill her if she was wrong, life would not be worth living anyway, unless… “Please, just… tell me what’s… going on, where…” Her voice caught in her throat on a sob. “Where’s Harry?” There were very multiple moments in his life where Harry had wished he had a pause button – something that would let him freeze time for just a minute or two, just enough to catch his bearings, gather up a rational thought amidst a haze of panic. Without that he leaned solely on emotion and his gut, and neither of them could be wholly guaranteed not to lead him toward stupidity. Sure enough: "I'm here. It's -- Mum, it's me." Fuck. Now you've gone and done it Harry. He stared at her, suddenly frozen on his next words, before managing a stammered, "I can explain, I promise I can." Every inch of Lily’s body tensed. If she hadn’t been trapped by the walls of the ruined house she might have made a break for it. He was mad. Either he was mad, or she was mad, or it was all some horrible dream she was imprisoned in. “Stay away from me,” she warned, doing all she could to keep her voice steady. If he attacked her she stood no chance, especially if he was armed. Harry squeezed his eyes shut for a half second, frustrated with himself, overwhelmed by the situation. Think, think, think, he begged of his brain. Sensing her distrust, and then hearing it her words, he raised his hands up again, as if to prove to her that he meant no harm. The tone of her voice felt like a slap in the face, but it was a deserved slap. He had been an auror for two years, was a bloody professor now. He was good at people. He should be doing better than this. "I can prove it. Ask me something, anything, I'll do my best to answer." He would do his best because, truthfully, he suspected there was very little overlap between his mother's knowledge base and his own, but she wasn't aware of that, couldn't yet know the reason why that was. “You’re not my son,” Lily said, flatly. “You’re insane. My son is fifteen months old. You… you look older than me.” She crossed her arms over her chest, suddenly cold despite the blazing sun overhead. “If you’ve hurt him…” she said, eyes flashing, not sure what she would do, but there was nothing more dangerous than a mother with nothing left to lose. Harry swallowed, feeling sick. This was going poorly. "I know. Listen, what I'm about to tell you is… mad. It is, completely mad. But I promise you I can prove it if you let me." Then, finally, his brain started to shift into the right gear. Evidence, he needed evidence. Slowly, carefully, he reached into his pocket for his wallet, maintaining eye contact with her all the while. "I have a picture in my wallet. And my driver's licence," he announced, very aware that it looked like he was about to pull a wand out on her. "I'm not going to hurt you, I just want to show you." Lily watched his every move. She didn’t know what she’d do if he did pull out a wand, but she felt her fear wane a little just at the words driver’s license. Any Death Eater worthy of the name probably even know what one was, let enough go to the trouble of faking one for her benefit. She nodded stiffly, but stayed where she was, trying to keep her limbs from trembling. In normal circumstances, showing your parent your driving licence for the first time would usually be a celebratory thing. Look Mum, I did it! For Harry there wasn't much normal about having it in the first place; outside of Hogwarts, particularly during the summers, he lived a mostly muggle life. He liked the anonymity, how easy it was to slip into. Hiding wasn't too dramatic a word for it. He avoided people who might notice him and conversations he didn't want to have. Being able to drive was just one small piece in the larger fabric of his double life, one of the ways he kept himself at a distance. He certainly didn't expect the little plastic card to have other uses. "Here." He handed it over: HARRY JAMES POTTER, DOB: 31/07/1980. She took a hesitant step forward, enough to be able to snatch it from his fingers. "And this, as well." His second piece of evidence was a photograph, folded horizontally and then vertically and kept that way in his wallet for so long that it no longer sat flat. The picture was a moving one: Lily, James, Harry in his father's arms, the two young parents cooing at their small child. "It's 2005, Mum. Let me explain, and –," he cut himself off, getting too ahead. "Let me explain." Lily looked down at the card in one hand and the photo in the other, thinking how many people did we send pictures to? Two, three? Her mind raced, trying to make sense of it, of some way he could have both it and the licence which made no sense whatsoever, and then her head snapped up to stare at him afresh. “It’s what?” she breathed. She looked around suddenly, her mind starting to fill in little details about the house that she had up to now not seen or simply chosen to ignore. Vines growing up around and even inside the walls. Overturned furniture stained and rotten from years in the open elements. Piles of old leaves in the corners. Whatever had happened to her home, had not just happened. It must have been like this for years. Time. She had read about time travel, but it was so rare, she’d never dreamed of experiencing it herself. And how? And did that mean…? She turned back to stare at him again, wide-eyed. Oh god, he looks so much like James. Harry thought he might vomit. He felt violently unprepared for this particular explanation. As the pieces started to slot into place, he watched Lily's expressions shift about, until finally her eyes landed on him (her eyes, his eyes) and, although he wasn't certain, he thought there might have been a slight glimmer of recognition there. Swallowing back all his uncertainty, he ploughed on. "It's 2005. I'm twenty four, Mum." He wanted to continue, I'm twenty four and I've missed you. I can't believe you're here. But that would be getting ahead of himself. "I know this is disorientating." “I… don’t understand,” Lily said, helplessly, torn between wanting to believe her child might actually be the grown man standing in front of her - healthy and alive and three years older than she was - and the horrendous realisation of everything else that might mean. “I don’t remember going… how… did I get here, then?” "It's a long story." Harry smiled weakly; he was aiming for something vaguely reassuring but felt like he must have missed the mark by a mile. He wagered it was more grimace than smile, really. "Listen, I have a flat, I can apparate us there. I'll put some tea on, and there's food in the fridge. You're hungry, right?" Enough encounters with the not-so-recently-departed had clued him in to what it was like to come back. There wasn't much in the way of cooking facilities in his office, but he could usually get something sent up from the kitchens, and most of them completely wolfed it down. "Then I can explain everything there. Not here." He cast a quick glance around the mess, and felt a pang in his chest. Not right where it had happened. “But…” Lily swallowed, looking around at what remained of their home. It felt somehow… treacherous, to leave it. And she still wasn’t sure she trusted any of this was real. She looked back down at the card and the photograph, clinging to them like a lifeline. If he was lying, then there was nothing left to lose. If it was true, if he really was, impossibly Harry, then she had somehow missed over twenty years of his life. And that mean James was out there somewhere, coming up on fifty? Had he been looking for her? Either way her baby was… gone. She suddenly felt dizzy, and swayed like a leaf in the nonexistent breeze, reaching out for something to steady herself. Harry watched in horror as Lily paled, looking close to overwhelmed. No wonder, really – he had seen fainting and vomiting, his poor carpet had taken something of a beating with the latter, but in those situations he had still kept a hold of his calmness. Here, he felt lost, not putting a single step right. He reached out for her, putting a hand on her shoulder and offering his arms if she wanted to cling to them. "Do you want me to take you to Dad? He's the same age as you, he – the same thing happened to him, he might be able to explain it better than me." It meant sacrificing whatever hours he had with her before she had to officially be reported, but taking them for himself right now felt beyond selfish. Lily made a small, helpless sort of noise. Forced to hold onto his arm for balance, leaving streaks of blood on his sleeve from her torn fingers, her mind racing as it tried to make parts that made no sense on their own fit together into an even more nonsensical whole. What she wanted was to go back to yesterday, when even though they were locked down and hanging under a constant threat, her family was together. She steeled herself, forced herself to look into his face. The eyes behind the glasses were somehow hauntingly familiar. And yes, he looked a lot like James, but not so much that it would have fooled her into thinking it was James; she knew her husband too well for that. Something in the shape of his nose reminded her of her own father, and the expression on that face was like looking in a mirror. She bit her lip and reached out with her shaking free hand to touch his cheek. “Harry?” she breathed, finally letting herself believe. There were so many points in Harry's life where this moment – his mother, comforting him, claiming him as her own and holding him tight – was all he had ever wanted. He could reach back through the years and pull out all the bad dreams, all the grief and the sore spots, and behind every moment had been that silent but aching gap that his parents had left. He wanted them every day. There was very little to say about it these days, he had lived with their loss his entire life, but even if he never spoke of it the want was still there. The belief in his mother's eyes caused his face to soften and his gaze to blur slightly. He was careful to keep supporting her still, but some of the tension that was holding him up melted and he let himself slouch with it. "Yes. Mum, it's me," he breathed. Lily didn’t know what to do; in a way it was too much, and all she could do was focus on his face and on the fact that he was somehow okay; her impossible boy. All other questions banished to the back of her mind, she threw her arms around his shoulders and held on tight. “Harry.” The street was starting to come alive with the kids coming home from school, but whatever wards were still on the house held; no one so much as spared the two of them a glance. She pulled back, tears streaming down her face, and managed a shaky smile. “This is very weird,” she said, quietly. “God, you look like your Dad.” The hug knocked the breath out of him in a way that had nothing to do with physical force. He squeezed his eyes shut tight, felt almost embarrassed by the feeling of damp eyelashes brushing against his cheek when he opened them again. He could choose to focus on the idea, think over and over again my mum is hugging me or he could surrender, let his mind run blank and savour the moment for what it was. It felt like it ended too quickly. Already she was pulling back to look at him, and a tiny, childish part of his brain wanted to say no, to pull her right back in again. Instead he swallowed hard and made an effort to arrange his face into something neutral so it didn't dip too far in either direction of manic happiness or emotional distress. "Yeah, yes, I do. But I've got your eyes," and he couldn't help the genuine smile that formed at that – for such a tired line, it felt good to say. “Yeah you do,” Lily said, with a kind of tearful laugh. She kept one hand one his shoulder, gripping his robe as if for dear life, and quickly wiped her nose with the back of the other. “Sorry… I’m… such a mess, it’s… this is crazy.” She swallowed. “Did I time travel?” Some floodgate of nerves within Harry cracked open and he let out a long exhale. It was half relieved (she believed him enough for this next part) and half exhausted (there was a next part, and it wasn't going to be pretty). "It's fine," he replied. It wasn't, but he desperately wished he could be reassuring. "In a way, but not really, no." Harry's voice trailed off and uncertainty rose up again. He wished he could hide the dread creeping into his expression but suspected it was horribly obvious. Lily saw his face change, felt her heart sink. “Harry,” she said - every time she said his name it reassured her that he was somehow real - “Oh, Harry… it’s okay.” She bit her lip, ran a lock of his messy dark hair through her fingers, and after a moment’s hesitation put her arms around him again. “I’m here now. It’s going to be okay.” Harry sunk back into the hug easily, his muscles softening like melted butter. He tried to push forward, worried that if he lost his momentum and succumbed to his emotions he would never manage to get out the words she needed to hear, but he hadn't prepared himself for just how intense the warmth of a mother's love could feel wrapped around him. From his throat came a low, strangled noise. Before he could help himself he murmured, "I've missed you so much," into her shoulder. Lily was running purely on instinct by this point; her boy was hurting and all she wanted to do was make him feel better, even if in the back of her mind a wave of grief was waiting for a chubby baby screeching laughter as he hung halfway off his toy broom. “It’s okay,” she said again. “I know.” She didn’t know, though. Why and how had she been away so long? What did it mean that the same thing happened to James? Questions, questions… they mattered only peripherally for the moment, as they stood holding each other in the remains of the living room of an invisible house that had once been her home. Twenty four years gone, like that. “You don’t have to tell me,” she said, pulling back after what felt like several minutes. “You’re okay, that’s… what matters.” She bit her lip. Her hands stung. “I… could maybe do with a bandage,” she admitted, belatedly. “Or like… a lot of plasters.” She just managed another faint smile. “Unless you’re good at healing? I don’t know what happened to my wand…” "Of course I do, I will, I –," he babbled over her, adamant that he wouldn't leave her in the lurch of her grief for the sake of his, when her comments about her hands cut him short. He glanced down at them, at the red brown flecks smeared on his sleeves. "Shit, I'm sorry. Here." Trying not to think too hard on swearing in front of his mum (the thought "will she tell me off for my language?" felt almost funny, and then a lot tragic). He stepped back enough to get a proper look at them and pulled out his wand to mutter a few healing spells. "Is that any better?" Healing surface scrapes was simple, but his mind was so busy he was worried he might have messed it up somewhere. “Oh… yes, lots,” Lily said, inspecting the results. “Thanks.” She smiled at him, still a little shaky emotionally but much steadier on her feet. “You said something about tea?” "Oh yeah, I did. Er." Despite her seeming to believe him, his stomach felt even more twisted in knots than before. Then he had been throwing out anything that might calm her down. Now he actually had the explaining to do. He swallowed and held out his arm for her to hold onto, trying to manage a weak smile. "It's in Hogsmeade." “Okay.” Suddenly now that she was no longer panicking - at least on the surface - she could feel her stomach attempting to eat itself. It didn’t seem polite to say so though, so she put her hand firmly on his arm. It prompted a very inappropriate sense memory of her first date with James - they had both barely gotten their Apparition licenses, and he had practically dared her to see whether or not he’d splinch her. She felt the familiar sensation of being pulled momentarily inside out - the reason she much preferred to Apparate herself if she had the choice, and embarrassingly had to lean almost her entire weight on him to keep from falling over again. They landed in Harry's (mercifully somewhat tidy) living room. It wasn't much, the type of place that had the bare bones to look charming – a large window overlooking the street from above, a real fireplace, sloping ceilings offering character – but that he hadn't put too much effort into dressing up. Hermione had helped him insert some life and colour, so it wasn't drab per se, but it did little to give a sense of his personality. Photographs of Teddy, his friends, the Weasleys, and of course, his parents, were the main personal touch. That, and evidence of his work: stacks of books and papers littered about the place that looked disorganised, but he had a system, really he did. Kind of. He cleared one such stack off the sofa, giving her space to sit if she wanted to, and gestured towards the adjacent kitchen. "I'll go… tea. Uh, make yourself at home," he said, offering up an awkward smile. He ducked round the corner to make it and then winced at himself once he was out of her line of sight. “Okay,” she replied, feeling just as awkward. Being in the house of someone you had just met was always strange and disconcerting, but this particular situation was something else. Not wanting to be caught snooping, she sat down in the area Harry had cleared. She sat properly at first with both feet on the floor, until she remembered she only had one slipper on, and quickly shifted into cross-legged, tucking her bare foot under her other leg. Then she wondered why she was worried about only having one slipper. This was all just… too strange. The pile of stuff Harry had moved was now balanced precariously on the edge of the coffee table. She peeked close enough to see copies of The Standard Book of Spells, Grade 5, and Advanced Defence Against the Dark Arts sandwiching a large stack of parchment. Reaching out with one finger she tipped up the cover of the first book to read the nameplate. Yes, it said Harry J Potter too. Her head started to buzz with questions again, and her stomach rumbled, with hunger or anxiety it was hard to tell. “Ever heard of a bookshelf?” she called in the direction he had gone, to try and ease the uncomfortable constant humming of imminent dread in her mind. "Hm? Oh, I tried that. But it's just easier when they're all out like that, I always need to flip through five at once when I'm planning lessons." The kettle seemed to take an age to boil, and he was so focused on its slow bubbling that he almost didn't realise he hadn't told her what he did. "I'm, uh, a Professor at the school. Defense Against the Dark Arts." He swallowed nervously, wishing he had told her that face to face. "How do you like your tea?" “A little milk, thanks,” she called back, blinking as she tried to take in this new information. “Um… didn’t you say you were twenty four? Seems pretty young to be a Professor.” Harry busied himself with making the tea, the teaspoons making little clinks against the sides of the mugs as he stirred. "Yeah, I s'pose. But I had some prior experience that helped." He screwed up his face as he said it. It wasn't technically a lie? Lily frowned. “In Defence Against the Dark Arts?” she muttered, mostly to herself. “You know when I was at school we had eight Defence Professors in seven years,” she called, gazing around the flat for more clues and fighting the urge to go get a closer look at the pictures on the mantelpiece. “One of ‘em got eaten three months into first term. People used to say it was cursed.” "It was," Harry said, finally emerging from the kitchen with two steaming mugs. "This one's yours." He had heaped sugar into his, aiming to fulfil a sweet craving that he suspected had something to do with adrenaline. "I've been at it a few years now." In an effort to ease some of the awkwardness he took a hasty sip of his tea. "The, uh, prior experience has something to do with why you're… all of this, really." He frowned, wondering if that was the best way to start. It was as if he was running downhill, unable to stop his stumbling at speed as the conversation continued to unfold. There was no room for grace, he just wanted to reach the bottom and get them both out the other side unscathed. Lily took her cup and nursed it delicately between her hands. It was pleasantly warm. “All of what?” she asked, blinking in confusion. “Sorry, I feel like I’m in a play and I haven’t rehearsed and I don’t know any of the lines.” "Right." Getting ahead of himself, running at speed. He exhaled a deep breath out through his nose and shifted slightly, so he was more directly facing her. "The first war ended on Halloween, 1981." Just as his voice rose up into the swing of his explanation he cut himself short, immediately wanting to hit himself – first war, come on, Harry. "Shit, sorry. That's – bear with me, alright?" He cleared his throat and forced himself past the knot of nerves in his stomach to meet her gaze again. "The war ends on Halloween. Which is also probably one of the last memories you have, yeah? Or maybe the day before? It ends because… you and Dad are betrayed. Voldemort comes for you, well, for me, for all of us. And you both sacrifice yourself to protect me. I live, you two die, and the strength of your protection kills Voldemort." His jaw felt tight and he could hear his own words but they sounded muted, muffled, like he was underwater or listening to somebody else tell them from the other room. He blinked a few times, trying to ground himself in the present. Lily listened with her tea cooling, forgotten, between her fingers. She found she could picture it perfectly, almost like a memory, except that it felt no more real than every other time she’d imagined any number of nightmare scenarios. And then there was the casual way Harry said Voldemort. He sounded like Dumbledore. “The strength of…” she repeated, breathlessly. “KillsI live, you two die... “I don’t… understand.” "You die for me, Mum. It saves my life and ends his. Your love protects me and his killing curse rebounds." Harry exhaled, his chest feeling weighed down. He was well aware of all of the doors such a statement opened, all the questions that must have flooded through her brain at that moment. "I'll explain the dying part, how you can be here and alive right now, I promise you. But there's a bit more I have to get through first." Lily felt numb. She might cry later - she would cry later, once she had time to process exactly what he was saying. “Oh… Harry…” she breathed, staring at him. She swallowed. She was dead? She resisted the urge to pinch herself to figure out if she was a ghost - or something worse. She had already hugged him, ghosts could not hug, nor could they hold corporeal teacups. She clung to hers like a temporary lifeline. “Sorry,” she said quickly, shaking it off as best she could, trying not to think about dying - about James dying - and leaving her baby all alone, and that monster trying to hurt Harry… “... go on. I’m okay.” Harry frowned, his forehead lining deep with concern as he searched her expression for any hint of being too overwhelmed or upset to continue. "It's okay if you aren't. Nobody would expect you to be." The weak, sad smile that played on his lips felt inadequate for everything he wanted to express. "Afterwards, I went to go live with the Dursleys. Pettigrew was the one to betray you, but he framed Sirius for it. He was – they sent him to Azkaban." He swallowed, suddenly unable to meet her eyes. Welcome to the saddest story ever told, Lily. "But I was fine, I got to Hogwarts and I made friends and, uh, Sirius escaped in my third year. Remus taught me that same year, Defense professor like I am now. I – there's a lot more to it, and I can tell you all the details, but in short: I had people who loved me. I was happy." Then he could look up, his smile a little stronger, hoping there was some small bit of comfort there for her. That was too much; it was a good thing Lily had a death grip on the cup because if not she would have probably let it drop disastrously into her lap. Sirius - Azkaban - escaped - Remus - “But…” she managed, “Harry… no, go back…” The Dursleys? “You mean my sister?” She shook her head quickly, violently and put the cup down before she could actually crush it between her fingers. “And Sirius… Harry, this doesn’t make any sense. That’s not… you should never have gone to Petunia, if Sirius couldn’t… then it should have been Frank and Alice, or Molly…” She reached out and grabbed Harry’s sleeve - he said he was happy, so a tiny spark of hope remained that maybe Petunia might have gotten over her lifelong hatred of both her and James for the sake of her baby nephew… she couldn't think what to say, only looked at him desperately for some sign that he was really okay, not just saying so for her benefit. The lump in Harry's throat threatened to swell up and stop him from replying altogether. Her hand on his sleeve, her eyes pleading with him for an explanation, the way her words seemed to fall apart as she grappled with each impossible, wrong fact in succession, every bit of it made his chest ache. "I'm fine, Mum." The truth was that he had become a pretty convincing liar. Whether through the twisted truths he told in order to seek the professional help he had come to realise he deeply needed, or the many assurances that he was doing alright, handed out to placate the worries of everybody who knew him well enough to ask, he was well practised. No part of it had been fine, everything he had survived in that house still echoed well into his adult years. But his mother didn't need to know that, and certainly not now. "He came back," he said, shifting the conversation rapidly forward before she could question his honesty. "He tried to a few times and then managed it properly in my fourth year." “But… you just said he was…” Lily hesitated, realising how hypocritical it was to say dead at this point. Her head was spinning. “Okay…” She steeled herself, determined to let Harry say whatever it was he needed to say, and maybe once she knew it all things might actually start to make sense. He was here, alive, so everything had to be okay in the end. |