The stone walls were as unforgiving as their captors. It provided nothing but a harsh surface to lean back on. Nothing soft, nothing comforting. Nothing but each other, as she stared across the cell at the young man sitting across from her. His face was cut, bruised and swollen, making him almost impossible to identify, but after how long she'd been there with him, she had some faint idea as to who he was. His face was mangled, yes, but she recognized his eyes, if nothing else. She had him narrowed down to one of two brothers.
"I know who you are." He spoke first. In what seemed like an eternal capture, they had not spoken to one another at all. Partly because her first nights in the cell had resulted in abuse that had not allowed her speak without pain. After that, there seemed no point in speaking.
"Doesn't everyone?" Lily Potter's voice was harsh and unforgiving as though he were accusing her of something.
"You wanted to desert us."
A sound escaped her lips before she could stop it. It sounded like something between a laugh and a groan. "Well, I'm here now, aren't I?" Lily's voice became even harsher, her mind looming over his use of the word "us". She wasn't even sure what it entailed, but it was anything close to the accounts every media outlet across the Wizarding World loved to report since the start of the war, she knew she was better off not speaking to him. Otherwise, she might save her captors the trouble and kill him herself.
"You should've." He responded, then visibly flinched at the violent flash in her blue eyes. "I know you're not the most loved person right now, in the media, for wanting to not participate in the war, but I understand now."
"Only now?" Lily's voice was still rough, but he continued to speak in a calm voice as if she had every right to be upset. And perhaps she did.
"I was in your brother's year at Hogwarts."
That was what she needed to place him. She knew exactly who he was, now. "I thought you married Stacy." Lily's voice sounded gentle, even too gentle.
"I did." He nodded, genuinely surprised she knew who he was. "She was killed the day after we decided to stay and fight. She wanted to run. But my brother stayed."
"He died the day I captured." Lily said, knowing she probably shouldn't tell him, but her mind was moving from only one thought to the next. She did not have enough power left to think of anything other than the conversation at hand. The room fell silent as she watch him, tears starting to flow from his eyes. "Not from them." She added, knowing he knew who she was talking about. "It was just a pestering wound. He was in the Hospital. He wasn't in pain."
"We have to get out of here."
"For what?" Lily scoffed.
"So you can have the life I gave up. So you can marry Scorpius and actually run away."
X
A third Wizarding World war came and went, but not without serious casualties on the Potter-Weasley extended clan, but that much was expected. No war goes without casualties. In fact, it was a sheer miracle the end of the war came in their favor, at least that's how Lily Potter sees it. Not only were her parents and her aunts and uncles reaching ages where they were not exactly as fit as would've been most helpful, but she and her siblings and cousins were not as experienced as would've been most helpful either. Despite all that, the family was immediately pushed into the center of media attention. It seemed the majority of the Wizarding world simply did not know how to exist or fight without the Potter or Weasley families.
With several serious wounds, Lily Potter's survival was seen as a miracle to the majority of the population, but that was only because of the way the story was told to them through various media outlets. They only knew the young 17 year old girl, fresh from Hogwarts, youngest in the family, survived a month in an underground camp belonging to The Followers, as they called themselves. Harry Potter was caught, more than once, calling them more advanced Death Eaters.
How she escaped was never released to the press, and perhaps that is why she is viewed to be so lucky. It wasn't that her family never wanted to tell the world how their precious daughter survived, it was that she had never told them. She simply appeared one day outside The Order Headquarters, bruised, battered, and beaten. And yet, the only thing Albus saw in his baby sister was her broken heart.
Last time he had seen her, one long month ago, she had been smiling fondly at Scorpius Malfoy, a boy whom the Potter family trusted with her life. The girl that escaped on sheer will no longer had that smile. In fact, she hardly seemed a girl anymore.
Almost ten years later, little had changed.
"Lily!" Ginny ran to her only daughter after so long of not seeing her. Lily enthusiastically returned the embrace, while watching the rest of her family pile into the room, everyone excited to finally see Lily return home. "How's the book?"
"It's coming along," Lily answered with a laugh. Though it didn't show, she wasn't fond of people when they asked about the sequel to her bestselling book chronicling the before during and after of the third war. Before another question could be asked, Albus pulled Lily to him and she immediately started to laugh as her brother lifted her feet off the ground and spun her in circles. James soon did the same thing, but her father simply embraced her, as he smoothed her hair lovingly.
"I didn't know if I'd ever see you again." Scorpius' voice floated through the room and Harry pulled from Lily who had shut her eyes at the sound of his voice. She could hear his steps, something that surprised her. The Scorpius she remembered from all those years ago was silent. With a deep breath, Lily turned back and opened her eyes as she gazed at Scorpius across the room.
"You thought I would miss my brother's wedding?" Lily asked.
"Of course not." Scorpius replied. "I just didn't think you would miss seven years of Christmases and birthdays."
He was right, of course, but it seemed only Lily felt the bitter tones beneath his words. He probably noticed it, because he quickly smiled at her but neither stepped towards one another. Instead, they kept a distance between them. Most might've called it a comfortable distance, but in the few moments they spent in the same room, the family quickly came to the conclusion that no distance would be comfortable between Lily and Scorpius. Of course, her brothers had done what they could to help, but there was very little either could do, especially since after seven years, nobody but Scorpius and Lily knew what happened between them during the last few months of the war, and what happened concerning Lily's miracle escape.
"James, can you take Lily's bags to her room?" Ginny requested, hoping her interjection would stop the tension between Scorpius and Lily.
"Yeah," James walked between Lily and Scorpius, but their eyes did not part, and they did not look away until Albus pulled Lily into a second hug. By the time Lily peered back to the doorway, Scorpius was gone.
X
Perhaps it was the thought of him that pushed her along. She couldn't think of any other reason to hold her ground as strongly as she had, and she certainly couldn't fathom how Matt pushed along, right beside her. He had nothing left. His brother, gone, his wife, gone. Everything, gone. The very outcome Lily had hoped to avoid for her own life, and yet she had no way of knowing who was waiting for her when she escaped, if she escaped at all.
"What number was that?" Matt's voice was almost inaudible, but in the silence, Lily heard him from across the cell.
"Does it matter? We failed again. I can't imagine keeping count of our failed attempts matters at all." Lily replied, hoping she would not bleed to death from her fresh wound on her side. She was expecting a sweet response from Matt, a man who could not me rough even in the most dire of circumstances. She couldn't help but mentally compare him to Scorpius. Scorpius was a fighter, through and through, and though Matt was as well, Scorpius had fire that refused to be put out.
"Matt?" Lily called as she looked up at him, finding him laying across the stone floor. "Matt," Lily called again as she tried to stand, but decided to crawl across the floor to him. "Matt," Lily's voice was soft and gentle as she sat near him and pulled his head to her lap. "You can't leave me, Matt."
He heard the words, but she wasn't crying. Her voice wasn't even breaking, but she was Lily Potter. She was stubborn from the inside out, and as broken as she might've been on the outside, she could not be stopped entirely. Somehow, he knew, she was crying inside, but refused to look even weaken than she already did.
"I'm not going to leave you." He managed to spit out, his voice failing towards the end. His eyes were shut, but he felt some drop of liquid strike his cheek and start to roll down, but he didn't want to know if it was blood or tears. For some reason, it didn't matter. It meant the same thing to them.
"We're going to try again." Lily said, her voice faltering only a little bit. If he hadn't been paying his complete attention to her, he might not have even noticed it. He figured it was a tear.
"Now?"
"Yes." Lily answered as she stood and pulled Matt to his feet as well.
"No."
"Yes." Lily's voice was harsh, but he smiled. "Well, if you're enjoying yourself, I can leave you here."
"Shut up, Lily." Matt tried to laugh, but it hurt his chest and side too much. She didn't notice this, however, because it was the first time he ever said her name. "It's just amazing because Albus used to tell me about you, but none of it ever seemed true until now. You really are an impossible woman."
"Well thank you for that."
He couldn't tell if her voice was riddled sarcasm or not, but part of him felt she didn't know either. "Scorpius is lucky."
Silence followed, but for some reason, it was different than all the others. Lily couldn't understand why silence would bother her between herself and Matt, but Matt knew. He didn't want to explain, though, for fear, she might actually kill him.
"Come on," Lily's voice was softly as she pulled his arm over her shoulder and wrapped her arm around his waist.
"Go without me. I'll only slow you down."
"No," Lily replied sharply, and Matt knew arguing was pointless. "We're going together."
"Ok, Lily." He said her name again, and she couldn't help feeling as though he said her name much differently than he said anything else.
X
"So what's she like, Albus?" Lily asked curiously, her eyes shining the way they had in her childhood. Albus stared into the almost innocent blue eyes for a moment before he could answer. As happy as he was concerning his upcoming wedding, he was far more at ease knowing his sister was again the sister he remembered from years before the war.
"She's very sweet." Albus answered.
"What's her name?" Lily asked, realizing she had never learned the name of her new sister.
"Victoria." Albus answered vaguely, hoping Lily would not inquire more information. Of course, Lily did not ask any more questions, because it seemed she knew exactly who it was based only on a first name.
Lily moved away from Albus as her eyes darkened. It was an eerie resemblance to the broken woman Albus remembered from the war. "Victoria Silverton?"
"She's not the same anymore, Lily." Scorpius responded before Albus, taking both by surprise. It seemed Scorpius was still quiet as she remembered him to be.
"Really?" Lily let out a dry laugh as she stared at Scorpius. Albus could not help but feel as though it was a conversation Lily should want to have with him, considering he was the one marrying her, and yet Lily's attention was quickly turned to Scorpius. "You expect me to believe that?"
"It's not that hard to believe, Lily. What happened is in the past." Scorpius' voice was flat and almost monotone. It was the one thing about Scorpius that had never returned to normal after the war. He almost never regained emotion in his voice.
"You make it sound like I'm talking about all the times she sent petty little spells at me in Hogwarts." Lily responded sharply, vaguely aware of her parents appearing in the doorways. "Not only was she a bitch in school, but she tried to kill me!"
"A lot of people did."
The room fell flat silent, and Lily's stare alone seemed to cool the room by a good few degrees. "You have to at least talk to her before you decide if you like her or not." Scorpius was the only one daring enough to speak.
"Well excuse me for being a little bias considering she did hold her wand to my head quite a few times. It was during that thing, Scorpius. Do you remember it? The war. When I almost died. And where the hell were you?" Lily's voice was harsh, but nobody wanted to stop her. One, they feared Lily might turn her anger on them, and two, it was the first time Lily ever spoke about the way and Scorpius.
"Oh, that's right. I remember now. You were-"
"Stop!" Scorpius' voice rose, almost shaking the entire room. It was an outburst as shocking as Lily's. For years, Scorpius rarely seemed happy or sad. To see him angered to the extreme was something nobody expected, even in Lily's presence.
"What? You never told anybody?"
"Neither did you! Of course, half the world went frantically looking in your book which I thought for sure was going to earn me a death sentence, probably from someone in this room, but you left it out as if it never happened!" Scorpius motioned to her brothers and father, but his eyes never left hers.
"Tell me, Lily. Is it the second book?"
"Why do you care if people know?"
"Why do you? You're the one keeping it a secret."
"And you're not?"
"It's not my secret to tell, Lily." Scorpius snapped back. Again, the silence fell, but Lily's breathing could be heard. "I promised I would come for you."
"You never did!" Lily screamed.
"I did!" Scorpius yelled back. "I almost got killed trying to find you! And when I actually got there?" Scorpius laughed but did not continue when tears started to form in Lily's eyes.
"Just let it go." Lily's voice was broken and Scorpius might not have heard it if her family had not been so silent.
"It's hard to do that when you haven't spoken to me in years, Lily."
"It's not as though you ever tried to talk to me either." A tear escaped the corner of her eye when she could not hold it back any longer. Desperately, Scorpius wanted to hold her for the first time after so long, but he was rooted to his spot across the room from her. He wanted to kiss away her tears , and perhaps steal just a single kiss from her, but the room that separated them felt like miles to both.
"Al?" A high pitch, woman's voice carried through the air, and immediately Lily wiped the tears from her eyes. Without tears, her eyes appeared even colder than before, enough to stop the black haired woman in the doorframe as Lily whipped around to face her new sister-in-law.
There was a pause while Victoria stared at Lily's cold features before she swallowed and stepped forward. "You must be Lily. It's so nice to meet you." Her voice still sounded cheery but everyone in the room could feel how Lily had affected her.
"Meet me?" Lily demanded, her hand instinctively reaching for her wand. "We've already met. Quite a few times actually. You probably just don't remember because you were busy being a bitch while I was dying."
Victoria stepped back from Lily as Albus and Scorpius moved forward immediately. "Lily!" Albus yelled as she reached for her wand, but Lily pointed it at him as well.
"Lily." Scorpius' voice was low and demanding as he stood behind her. Knowing Lily would never actually harm him. Albus turned to Victoria, his arm protectively wrapped around her. "Lily," Scorpius whispered in her ear. His proximity was enough to make her lower her wand, and as she did so, Scorpius reached out to pull it from her fingers easily. As broken as she was during the war and it's after math, Lily fell into Scorpius' arms.
As though nothing difficult had passed them in the past, Scorpius' arms wrapped around her as well, his hand reaching up to stroke her hair as she buried her face in his chest. Even after so many years, they still fit completely perfectly within one another's arms.
Silently, Scorpius lifted her off the ground and moved to the nearby couch. He had no idea what happened around him, for every bit of his attention remained on Lily as he held her so closely to himself. As they sat on the couch, she curled to him even more, and he wrapped his arms even tighter in response. By the time he thought to peer around the room, it was empty.
X
It was impossible, and yet Lily pressed on. Acquiring a wand was difficult, especially since her opponent, had one, and she did not. With a few swift kicks to delicate places, she managed to get a hold of a wand, even if she wasn't able to accurately fire spells. It did the trick, however, as she fired spells every which way, one arm holding Matt up beside her. Naturally, they were struck with a spell here and there, but Lily was a fighter, and Matt had her to protect him when he could not protect himself.
She could only vaguely remember how to leave the camp, but she could not focus on her blurry memories for too long, otherwise she risked being defeated again. Part of her felt another failed escape attempt might mean the end of her life, and that of Matt's. Nonetheless, she pressed on, rather successfully for the time being. Other than the fact that nearly every alarm in the building was blaring, she felt she had so far done well. She only needed to find an exit.
X
She must've fallen asleep in his arms, because she woke again in her bedroom, in the middle of the night. In the moonlight she could see her childhood bedroom decorated with Quidditch posters and other things symbolic of a much innocent time. It was a lifetime ago to her. She saw stuffed animals in the far corner and an old brook leaned against the wall in the closet. It was the broom she had used into the Slytherin-Gryffindor match. It was the broom she had beat Scorpius to the snitch on, or rather, it was the broom she had been riding when he let her win.
As her eyes continued to scan the room, she froze at the picture on her desk. It was an old basic black frame holding a picture of her and Scorpius taken after her Hogwarts Graduation. She was leaned back against his chest, his arms wrapped around her protectively, both smiling brightly. It was only two months after that day that everything changed.
She willed the memories to fade, but they never did. Instead of fighting them, she climbed out of bed, and started towards the door. She noted she was wearing her sleeping clothes, but didn't want to think of who might have changed her. It didn't really matter anyway as she continued down the hallway. She wasn't entirely sure where his room was, but her bet was on the bedroom with the lights on.
Instead of knocking, Lily simply pushed the door open and peeked in slightly, before she found a head of tossed blonde hair. He was sitting up on his bed, facing away from the door, wearing only shorts. Even at the sound of the door opening, he didn't turn back. He only patted the empty space beside him. Slowly, Lily crossed the room, the climbed onto the bed until she sat beside Scorpius on the other side.
"I'm sorry." Scorpius finally said, his voice low and soft. Lily put her head on his shoulder as she wrapped her arms around his middle. To accommodate her, Scorpius lifted his arm and let her come closer before he wrapped the arm around her.
She wasn't really sure of what he was apologizing for, but she didn't want to ask either. Instead, she let the silence surround them, though the silence was not nearly as tense as it had been before.
"Did you ever tell him?" Lily asked. She gave up on stopping the memory from playing in her mind. It was the darkest day she could remember, and though she had done everything in her power to make it go away, nothing helped. Instead, she just let it play in her mind, even though she already knew how it ended.
"Victoria and I agreed we would never tell him." Scorpius answered.
It was a secret, formed out of the darkest day during the war. Lily knew it haunted her, but she could never be sure it affected Scorpius as well. It seems it had.
"So that's it then?" Lily asked with a heavy sigh. "It's just something stuck in the past?"
"Why bring it up now?" Scorpius replied. "They're happy together, Lily. I know you may not believe that, but they are. She's not who she was. I don't think anybody is."
"We're still a little bit of who we were."
"How do you figure that?" Scorpius asked and Lily lifted her head to peer up at him.
"If we weren't who we were at all, we wouldn't care about each other at all."
X
"That way," Matt moved his head in the direction of a hallway Lily almost passed without noticing. She didn't have time to question him, so she quickly turned the continued. They were moving much quicker after Lily performed a few simple healing spells on Matt, hoping the unfamiliar wand would not make the wounds worse. Though the spells didn't seem to actually heal the wounds, it numbed the pain enough for him to walk without her help.
"There's going to be more Followers, Matt." Lily told him, but he didn't respond as he tried to run, but settled for a fast walk. He looked down every hallway as they continued, as though looking for something specific. "We have to get out."
"I know." He responded as he stopped. "This isn't right, Lily." "What?" "There should be an exit right here." He said as he looked around at the walls. "Right here."
"Well, there's not," Lily replied. "We need to keep going." "No." "Yes!" Lily replied as she turned to glance down the nearby hallway.
"Lily, I can't." Matt responded and she turned back to him, finding him sitting on the ground leaning back again the wall.
"Matt," Lily went to him and crouched down. "Come on, we need to keep going."
"Just go, Lily."
"No."
"I can't keep going." He said as he lifted his shirt, only to look at his wound, finding it in much worse condition than it had been earlier. Lily swallowed as she stared at the wound, then back up at Matt's face.
"Ok," Lily nodded as she shifted her weight, only to sit beside him.
"No!"
"Yes." Lily told him as she linked their arms together. "Yes, Matt." She felt him tense beside her, but he eventually relaxed enough to rest his head against her shoulder.
"We'll be killed." Matt's voice was soft.
"I know."
It seemed only mere moments passed before they heard the sound of approaching footsteps. They were running, and it was more than one, but to Lily and Matt, it only sounded like approaching death. She took in a deep breath as she braced herself for what was coming. As the sound grew louder and louder, Lily clutched her hand around the wand, knowing it provided only minimal protection, if any.
Soon enough, two people appeared in her sight, but she did not lift her wand. She could only stare.
"Lily," Scorpius looked down at her, for a moment his eyes lit up with happiness, until they fell on Matt beside her. Then his eyes clouded over. But he was not the only one with something other than joy in his eyes, for Lily's blue eyes had nearly drained of color as she stared at the woman beside Scorpius, her eyes following her arm until her hand connected with Scorpius. But that had not been what upset Lily the most. What upset her the most had been the woman's clothes marking her as a Follower.
"Victoria." Lily knew her name right away, for she too had attended Hogwarts. As she rose to her feet, she pointed the wand at her.
"No," The woman stepped back and Scorpius stepped between them. Doing his best to ignore the man at Lily's side, he stared at Lily.
"Let's get out of here." He said.
"Why?" Lily scoffed. "You seem rather comfortable with her."
"And you seem perfectly fine without me."
"Well, I didn't really need you to get out, now did I?" Lily replied as she turned away and lifted Matt to his feet. "Come on, Matt. It seems you were right about an exit."