Prologue
"Do you think you could turn that off, Wormtail?"
Spring of '78. The Seventh Year. Their last.
Nine teenagers littered the living room of one James Potter and not one had planned for any of this to happen. Things just happen that way and happen in the exact opposite of what you'd imagined. But because of these happenings did they all find themselves able to withstand each other for more than five minutes of the two hours they were cooped up in the room. Wormtail, or Peter Pettigrew, reached beside him from the carpeted floor and switched off the black and white telly at his mate's request.
Now the silence was deafening.
Next to Peter was a boy named Frank Longbottom and he had his arms around Bertha Jorkins, his ex-girlfriend but longtime best friend. Her cries were muffled in his shoulder and the girl who sat alone in another corner was Emmeline Vance. She rarely cried in front of others—only when her team lost the 1987 Quidditch Championship and right before giving a swift punch in the snout to the boy sitting next to her: Sirius Black. He looked at her as if wanting to comfort her, though she couldn't see that. How do you suppose you comfort someone who got under your skin since the beginning of time?
The twins, Gideon and Fabian Prewett, watched the door steadily. Their sister would barge in any second and demand for them to come home with some cocky pop story of it not being safe for them to be here now. She would be right, but the reasoning all wrong. They knew she acted tough to protect them, but it was really Fabian who saw it first. The sign of fear in her eyes when this all started.
Andromeda Black couldn't tear her eyes away from the screen, even after it shut off.
She'd never been in a room like this before. Her sister and she rarely got sick fortunately. She always thought if she had to be here, it was for the birth of a daughter or to get her tonsils out.
She still had her tonsils in check.
"When can I know?" Lily Evans asked again.
"This is the fifth time you've asked. You'll know when I know, love," the receptionist with flaming, pink hair cut to her chin answered rater irritably. Lily looked as if she wanted to ask more, but she slid back into her seat in the waiting room with others. Across from her was a man holding his head in his hands.
She gazed at him until he looked up, as if sensing her stare. They locked eyes, echoing each other's pain. "What did she say, Lily?"
"Nothing. She said nothing," the redhead murmured, playing with the hem of her skirt.
"Oh," he sighed, closing his brilliant blues and repeating his previous position. Lily knew the man got sick around blood so she let him be. Her attention strayed to her hands in her lap, the blood on her fingertips.
"Stay with me! Stay here; stay here. Don't close your eyes—keep talking to me!"
"Tell Daisy something for me. Will you do that?"
"No. You'll do that yourself."
"We're the lucky ones."
"—blood on her."
"—need to…"
"—shouldn't move her."
"—sh, look. She's waking up."
"—Lily?"
It was raining now. Bertha knelt in front of her. "Hey, butterbean," the girl whispered with a smile and it took all of her strength not to cry upon seeing her friend. Most of the gang was here. Peter, Remus, Bertha, Frank, and even Emmeline—whom she hadn't been getting along with for several months. "How do you feel?"
Lily sat up, and a wool blanket fell off her. She guessed they draped it over her while she was asleep. "Thirsty," she mumbled, unconsciously rubbing her throat. "How long…?"
"We've been here for a few hours," Remus spoke up now from behind Bertha. "Emmeline drove us. Prongs stayed with Padfoot. Andromeda wanted to be with Nymphadora…" He went quiet. The question lingered in the air—two, actually. Neither Lily, nor Remus wanted to ask the other their inquiry. They were afraid of the answer.
So, Bertha joined one side of Lily and hooked her arm in hers. "You said you were thirsty?" Lily nodded. "I think it's about time you let someone else hold down the forth, trooper. Let's go to my house and get you cleaned up. Then we can grab a snack and come back later-."
"No!" Lily's sudden outburst startled the five that remained. She looked at all of them, at all their faces. They pitied her, but she didn't want that kind of reaction from them. She'd always been the one to solve a problem, not vice versa. It plucked a shameful chord in her. Remus and Bertha glanced at each other, and Frank chuckled softly, but he barely found the situation humorous.
"Look at yourself," Bertha reasoned, gesturing towards her tattered clothes and the dried blood caking her bare hands and blouse. "If not for you, go get cleaned up for us. You have her blood on you. And I don't know about anyone else, but it's really starting to get to me." The others nodded in agreement. Lily glared at all of them.
"Please."
Her glare turned on Peter, but soon softened. It was impossible, to be so angry with the tiniest Marauder. "Take me to Sirius," she bargained. Bertha began to protest, but when she met with a stubborn frown that they were all familiar with, she caved.
Lily and Bertha vanished to the car with Emmeline and that left Remus, Frank, and Peter to litter the waiting room. "What now?" Frank asked no one in particular.
"Now," Peter sighed, transferring the blanket over to the man sleeping across two chairs, "we wait."
And wait they did.
September 11th, 1989.
"Hullo. I'm Emmeline Vance…um….I guess if there's one word that would describe Charity Burbage, it'd be passion."
"Kindness."
"Greatness."
"Rock and roll!"
"That's two words, Mr. Diggory," Albus Dumbledore reminded.
"She was worth a million," Amos Diggory shrugged of his former Potions partner and guitar buddy as he stumbled off stage.
"Realistic."
"Imaginative."
"Creative."
"Love."
"Love?"
"She was love."
The student body, all eleven-thousand of them looked upon Daisy Hookum with curious eyes. They whispered, which she expected. They would tell each other stories that seemed close enough to the truth but was not at all the truth. In scattered Houses and seats sat her actual friends with actual facts. Because they were all there a time or two.
"You know what? This is stupid." Gasps. "This really is. Don't tell me any of you knew who Charity was after you victimized her. As far as I'm concerned…you all killed her. You made her out to be a monster for what—and who—she loved. Love is love; who the hell defines it? Who are you to say that she was greatness when all you did was treat her like a freak up until her death?"
Lily, who sat with James, felt him slipping away from where they were. She knew where his mind was going and gripped his hand, mentally pulling him back. "You're here with me. Don't go there. This has nothing to do with you," she whispered, kissing their intertwined hands. James pressed his lips to the side of her head, lingering for a long second and finally pulling away. They looked to their friend and proudly clapped when she exited the stage.
"Game over," she muttered in relief after giving herself a chance to think about it. "Right?" But James wasn't looking at his beautiful girlfriend. He only had eyes for one girl and her sudden appearance had him out of his seat and running over.
"What's she doing here?"