Disclaimer: HP is, shockingly, not mine.
Note: Pretty short (and angsty!), but this was inspired by the HP Fanfiction Prompt: "027: Lily Experiences complications while pregnant with Harry." Pretty loose interpretation of the theme, but hopefully it fits! Enjoy! And please leave a review if you have time. :)
In the Dark Night
The air was full of the scent of earth and leaves and blood. Something sharp and metallic stung the back of her throat, but she wasn't scared. No, Lily Potter was calm. She couldn't say why or even where she was – only that darkness blurred everything around her. She blinked. Black tree trunks and spidery branches came into focus; she felt the wind on her face. All was silent as she drifted through this place she didn't know.
Something was missing, something was lost. Then she realised. And she reached out a hand.
Like a small child frightened of the darkness, her fears came to her at night. By day, Lily could play at normality – listening to Harry burbling his first words or arguing with James over something and nothing, as they always had. She could pretend that they were an ordinary family. A family who didn't go out much or see their friends a lot, but a family nonetheless. And above all, they were alive.
She had struggled throughout her pregnancy, suffering sharp pains beneath her ribcage and morning sickness so severe she thought she would lose the baby. As her mother always said, a first child was the hardest, and she had been right. One thing Lily never imagined, though, was that Harry would be her only child. Or that her mother wouldn't live to see him born.
Lily had always expected that she and James would have plenty of children. A whole Quidditch team, he used to joke. But Harry would be their only son. Lily knew that now.
She watched him tossing in his cot, ruffled his shock of dark hair and knew, deep down, that she wouldn't live to see him grown. All the protection in the world couldn't stand between them and the wrath of Voldemort. If Lily had learnt anything through working for the Order of the Phoenix, it was that he caught up with them all, in the end. Dorcas Meadowes, Benjy Fenwick, the McKinnons, Gideon and Fabion Prewett…
James was upbeat by comparison, even though his smiles didn't meet his eyes like they used too. Gryffindors don't give up. They would live, he said, and one day they'd wave Harry off from Platform Nine and Three-Quarters like all the other parents. Otherwise what was the point of all this?
Lily wanted to believe him – wanted to believe she'd have sons that would drive her mad like James once had, or daughters whose hair she could comb, whilst secretly teaching them all the best hexes.
He was supposed to be going to sleep, but she ignored that and swung baby Harry into her arms. He gurgled into her shoulder. You'll be okay, my baby, she promised, you will, I swear it. Harry simply grabbed a chunk of her long red hair in his chubby fist and chewed it. He laughed.
That night, when the darkness came, she dreamed of the forest again. Blood and earth and leaves. But now there was longing, tightening in her chest until she couldn't breathe, and yet completeness, too. A skinny boy with dark hair and glasses loomed from the darkness like a ghost. She reached out a hand…
Lily gasped awake. Beside her, James slowly stirred. "Nightmare?" he yawned, squeezing her shoulder.
"No," she murmured. It wasn't exactly a lie. She felt oddly calm, as she had in those woods. "Not a nightmare. Don't worry."
Lily closed her eyes. She curled around James and fell back asleep to the sound of Harry breathing.
