When she opens her eyes it's green all around her, bright, verdant, and for a second she thinks the curse must take longer than everyone's always said. They always said it would be instant, and painless, and it's true that nothing hurts but it's also not true that she doesn't feel anything. She can feel something soft and wet against her cheek and something crawling along her ankle and it's only as the brightness starts to fade that she realizes it's not the burning, blinding light of the curse she sees, it's grass on the ground and leaves on the trees and moss swallowing up their trunks.
The soft, wet against her cheek is the mulch on the forest floor, the crawling along her ankle some beetle she reaches up to swat away, and though she was so sure that what she was seeing was the light from his wand, it still takes her a minute to remember where she'd been, whose wand it was and why.
She sits up then, suddenly, dirt smudged across her face and grass in her hair because she's in the middle of a forest. It doesn't make sense. She'd been in her living room one moment and then it had all been so quick, the door splintering in and James in the front room, her feet crashing on the stairs and Harry's door slamming behind her. She'd shoved everything she could reach in front of it, as if that could stop him, but it had only paused him for a second before he was standing before her and she was crying, tears and snot smearing her face, her hands up and pleading with him and then there was that bright, green light. And then she was here.
The only explanation is that the curse must've backfired somehow, must've broken and sent her spinning through space to land here in the forest, tree roots creeping out towards her like fingers and mushrooms sprouting up around her. She can't tell whether she's been asleep or just thrown, but there's a chance she couldn't have been gone long, she can still get back to the house, can maybe still stop him, save Harry, do something, and before she knows it she's balling her fists and squeezing her eyes shut and focusing on finding that vibration in the air that she can slip through, that'll crack shut behind her and open up for her in Godric's Hollow, where her house is, where her son is, where he is and where she can stop him.
She hadn't considered where she was or how far it was from the house and when she finally stumbles onto the street a block from the house her head is spinning violently and she almost needs to stop to vomit right then, but there's no time because if she's fast maybe she can still save him, can still stop him. She lurches into a run despite the way the world tilts under her feet and she weaves side to side down the block but she still makes it without falling, and there's the house, there it is, just a few steps until suddenly –
It's not the house anymore. It's ruins, the roof fallen through in several spots and the support beams exposed. There's the door, shattered in, but cobwebs stretch between the splinters and she must be too late, it doesn't make sense, but as she throws herself into the mess she still can't help but think how things shouldn't be so dusty, so untouched. It doesn't occur to her until she's halfway up the stairs that, dead or alive, there hadn't been James in the front room, in the front room where he'd gone to meet him, to save them, to sacrifice himself. Maybe the same thing happened, she thinks hopefully, maybe he's in the forest too, and she keeps moving to Harry's room, doesn't let herself slow down until she's standing there and it's clear that this is where it happened, this is where there was whatever it was that made the house like this because the room itself is completely destroyed. There's nothing left of Harry's crib but wood chips and he's nowhere in them, there's no sign of him or anyone or anything having been in this house for years and something strange and dark curls in her belly. It doesn't make sense.
She backs out of the house more slowly than she came in, but she still doesn't stop. Hogwarts, she thinks, Dumbledore will understand, will know something. His wards will have gone off and he'll have realized that something's happened. Maybe he's been here, maybe he found Harry, maybe she was too late to save him herself but maybe he wasn't. She stumbles the block away from the building and closes her eyes and swallows hard and she's outside the gates, pushing them open enough to squeeze through the cracks where the chain doesn't hold them completely shut and then she's sprinting up the grounds, her hands grasping at the large oak doors and prying them open.
There's no one inside really, no students, and again she can't help thinking that something is wrong here, something is off – It's October, there should be students all around, clogging the halls and the stairways, but everything is clear and empty until she reaches the right hallway and then the only thing in her way is the gargoyle statue and as much as she screams at it, screams loud enough for Dumbledore to hear her up the stairwell, screams every bloody candy Muggle or otherwise that she can think of it refuses to move.
There are footsteps to her right but she can't stop to look at them, she just keeps shouting until her voice is almost nothing, guessing passwords until the footsteps fade away and whoever was there is gone. She can't think of anything else, any other sweets and she realizes as she starts guessing anything, guessing soups and pot pies and colors and shapes and any word that she can think of that Dumbledore's ever said that she's on her knees. That's when she hears footsteps again and this time they don't stop until they're only a few feet away and she can practically feel the wand in the man's hand even though he hasn't trained it on her yet.
Her throat aches and she sighs, deep and heavy, before she turns to look at him. There's something familiar there that she can't place, something about the set of his cheekbones and the curve of his jaw, and she can't stop looking at him, heavy and silent, until she finally manages to rasp out, "Where's Dumbledore?"
"Dead," he answers, and she can feel what little wind was left in her sails breezing by. "He died eight years ago. What's your name?"
It doesn't make any sense, none of it, but she has nothing left to fight it with now, nothing left to hold on to, and she leans forward to press her palms to the cool stone, to rest her forehead on it. Her voice is rough and weak and it takes all she has left to gather herself back up from the floor and sit on her heels instead and when she finally speaks all she can manage is one word. "Lily."
"Let's go to my office, Lily."
She follows him.