Lights out.
Just like that.
No, it isn't just like that. There's nothing just about it, no justice in it, not when the lights would go out again years later, one by one as they would all die. They would have shined the brightest, and the world would be a hell lot darker without them. Because none of the lights just went out – not now and not them. They exploded, the light bulbs crackling – fused with electricity, a kind of wizarding magic – and then shattering. Just like that.
Maybe they were damned from the beginning.
Maybe they wouldn't have to burn out so quickly if they didn't burn so bright.
It begins for her when the lights went out. Lily didn't usually curse because she didn't like how the words felt in her mouth, too hot and crackling like dead autumn leaves, but she wants to now. She's getting used to everything going wrong but seriously? Seriously? She doesn't even have her wand on her, and she's locked in some warehouse tied to a pillar.
It wasn't so bad, but now the lights had gone out. She sighs into the dark, wiggling in the dark. Her elbow lodges into another human body, and she wishes again there was light. She's known that it wasn't just her in the warehouse for a while now, but no matter how she twists and turns, she can't get a good look at who else got stuck with a dinner date with the dark. This whole thing is freaking her out. She considers for a few moments and then in a swift fluid motion incredibly uncharacteristic of Lily Evans, she manages to swing out a leg. She makes contact, scowling.
Nothing. Then mph. Her green eyes brighten, and she whispers out, throat hoarse, "you okay?"
There's a few moments of silence. "M'fine." Another pause. "Lily?"
The relief is gone, and now she's stiff and freaking out. Being alone was bad, but this wasn't much better. Better at all really now that she thinks on it. She's known James Potter for all too many years not to recognize the low brr of his voice or the warm undercurrent he has even now.
"Potter," she acknowledges coolly. "Just you?"
"Not enough company for you, Evans?" He got his bearings back, and it's almost like their entire dynamic hasn't been torn and shredded apart by that instant. By that word (mudblood), by that boy she loved and he hated (Sev). She doesn't hate people on principle, but that was the closest she's ever got, that moment with him where Lily would have given the world to ensure he was never born.
The thought makes her guilty now but not guilty enough for her not to snap back, "Answer the question, Potter."
"Bite me," he says, bored.
"Potter."
There's a few beats of silence and then James answers with a civility that's almost worse than the – the whatever they have going on. "One other body. Female, so I won't kick it."
She ignores that. "Chivalrous now?"
"Now?" She can almost hear the smirk. "Always was, Evans."
She's not going to play this game right now or preferably ever. "Just wake her up, will you?" Lily says.
There's some movement and noise now, too loud after all those hours of silence. It's thundering in her ears, and it takes Lily a few seconds to remember this is just her very alive heart thudding in her chest. She pushes against her restrains again. It's what they do in books. Look for slack, but she doesn't think chains are the same thing as ropes.
"The fuck?"
Not everyone has a problem with cursing. "Mary," Lily says, relieved because it's Mary and not some dolt like Black and then horrified because it's Mary who's a Muggleborn like her.
Mary repeated the expletive.
They're quiet again, and she guesses they're gathering their bearings. They're feeling the cold of the chains pressing into their skin, blinking into the darkness pressing into their bones. "So," Lily says after a few heartbeats and immediately wants to hit herself because how stupid was that? So? Except her nerves are jittering and her heart is just everywhere, so that's all she can think to say.
"I have an idea," says James, who to his credit, doesn't say anything about how stupid that was.
"Thank Merlin," says Mary.
Lily bites her lips, teeth skimming over the lower lip before she tells him to share with the class.
"How free are your hands, Evans?" James asks her (and he's always James in her head – she doesn't know why, and maybe she should just try to keep him out of her head altogether, but James in her head is just as stubborn as James in front of her).
She feels around. Her arms are firmly pressed to her side, but she still has some movement under her elbow. Not enough though. "Not very."
"Mary?"
"I can barely breathe," Mary's tired voice comes out. "These are sodding tight."
"Can you reach the side of my leg?" He asks her. "And before you ask, I only mean my legs. Don't get eager."
Oh, God, she hates him. "Prick," she snaps at him, and she doesn't even try to reach. "Where are you going with this?"
"Just reach," he tells her.
"Fine," she gives in only because they kind of might die. The thought had occurred to her in the past few hours, but it was only now that it hit her. She had known it was dangerous from the moment Remus had passed the Daily Prophet across the Gryffindor table, face set solemn, and she had read about the Muggleborn killings. It's just that it wasn't real until now. "I can reach," she makes contact with what must be his hip.
There's a quick breath, a spark of home. "Lily," and he must be counting on this more than anything because he's saying her first name. "Can you feel a mirror?"
"No matter how hard you look at the mirror, you'll still be an insufferable prat," she tells him (Mary snorts) as she leans closer, running her knuckles up and down her leg. Even through the cold of the chains, she can feel the heat of his body near hers, and it's stupidly comforting. It must be that even though sometimes he says things that reminds her he's pretty heartless, he's still biologically a human. A smile flashes on her lips when she feels something hard – and no, not like that. "I think so."
They struggle a little, and even though she can't completely dislodge it with that enchantment in his pockets, they can both see the glass.
"What's it for?" Mary's quick to ask.
"Sirius has the other half," James says.
"We're trusting our lives to him?" She asks, panicked.
Even though she can't see him in the dark, she knows he's smirking. "Black has our back."
"Did you just –" Mary begins.
Lily groans.
"I'm being perfectly serious," he told them, and then he groans too. "Shit, I did not just – "
"You did," Mary says.
"You say his name into the mirror, correct?" Lily interrupts because she sees Sirius Black enough as it is, and she doesn't need to hear the puns. She's read about the mirrors before, and she's kind of amazed that the two somehow got their hands on one. Half of their tricks feel much more plausible now.
"Ah, yeah, but I think its best you or Mary do it," he says. "I can't really see the mirror right now, and I think that screws with the contact."
"Let me," Mary says. "Sirius sodding Black, can you hear me?"
It's a hot day. It's not just the air that's hot, but it's just everything. The clouds, the blue-gray skies, the dappled leaves overhead – they're all just clinging to him, sticky with warmth. He's okay with that though. He's always liked the heat more than the cold. The cold makes him think of empty manors, of cold gravestones and of hours spent on names that share his blood that feel, more than anything, bloodstained. So, yeah, right now he's pretty happy.
"Were you planning on helping?" Remus asks him, dry gaze flickering over to him. He had his not impressed look, but Sirius knows it's just fondness.
"I am helping," Sirius told him with a laugh, leaning back into the tree. He knows that there wouldn't be a replica of a giant squid on the roof if it wasn't for him, but really, that was just a gesture of good faith.
Remus is giving him another look, this one drier than the last.
"Eye-candy to inspire you," he wiggles his eyebrows suggestively, and he laughs again when Remus rolls his eyes and looks away.
Remus goes onto change the subject because he doesn't flirt. Which, Sirius thinks, is a shame because James isn't so swell at it either (he really can't blame Lily there), and he's always so witty. "Do you know when Peter is coming?"
"'Bout noon, I reckon," he says.
"Good," Remus says as he shoots him a severe look, peeling a foam tentacle off the roof. "I would be nice to get some actual help."
"I can take off my shirt?"
"Rip it off instead. Some cotton rags would be nice for the squid."
"Rip it off, Moony? Rip it off? This is the finest of cotton. I would never."
Remus glances over. "You stole it from Diggory." That's another thing. Remus remembers everything. If Sirius asks, he's almost sure that the other could tell him what Sirius had for breakfast on the third day of second year.
"Fine," said Sirius, haughty. "Suggestions to how I'll be ridding myself of this fine shirt?"
"Do it like you did in our fourth year," Remus says immediately. "The whole dramatic ripping it open thing."
Sirius allows a moment to pass before he digs his fingers under the fabric, pulling at it, but there's not buttons thi time. It's surprisingly sturdy. "Dammit."
Remus's head snaps back. "I wasn't being – I didn't mean it, Merlin."
He tugs again, but no seams come loose, no threads tear apart. "I know how I can help," says Sirius, eye brightening.
When Remus looks at him all wary like that, Sirius knows that Moony knows him all too well. "How?"
"Music."
"I pick," says Remus quickly.
"No One Incantation?" Sirius asks.
"Sirius."
"We can flip a sickle on it."
They don't get to though. There's a voice in Sirius's bag, and he moves over to untie the drawstrings, pulling out the mirror. They're not supposed to talk till tomorrow, but well, they can't be tamed. "Hey, babe," he drawls into the mirror, making an I'm-on-the-phone gesture at Remus with a wink.
"Babe?" The voice is decidedly female. "Not telling us something there, James?"
"You got me," James's voice comes out from somewhere nearby, but he's used this mirror too many times to not know that James might be there, but he's not there there, not mouth to mirror there.
"Bloody Mary," Sirius snaps his fingers, grinning in recognition. He doesn't know why James is hanging out with Mary over break (they're not that close) or why he told her about the mirror (they're going to talk about that), but it's nice to hear James's voice anyways. It's a stupid though, and he kills it with fire as soon as he thinks it.
"Still not funny, nitwit," Mary says.
"Let's get to the point," it's another voice, and It takes him a moment to realize whose it is. Oh, Merlin, Prongs must be over the moon.
"Evans too?" Sirius asks, delighted. "Having a threesome without me now?"
"Don't be a twat, Sirius," Remus says as he joins him, sitting two porch steps above Sirius so his legs are aligned to Sirius's shoulders.
"We're in some serious shit," says Mary, and now she's panicked. "Woke up chained in some place. God knows where."
"Near the sea," Lily inputs, smart as always. "Too dark for specifics."
"What the hell?" Sirius is worried now. No, not worried, more freaking out. This isn't a good time at all, and it isn't a good time to be chained up I some dark hole. There isn't really any good time for it, but this isn't it. It's weird though. He knows Remus is thinking the same thing, probably even before him because he's smart like that. Lily and Mary are both muggleborns which leads them to what the hell is James doing captured?
He doesn't know if James thought about it. He's funnily naïve about this kind of thing, but that's just Prongs. It doesn't matter though. What matters is springing them. Whatever good humor he had from bantering with Moony sputters into nothing but this nervous hysteria that he hates.
Remus is talking now, and he's glad because he doesn't know what the hell to say. No, actually he does, but he doesn't think the hatred building in his chest and closing off his throat is going to help right now. "Do you have any idea how long you were in there?" He clasps Sirius's shoulder, squeezing it once before letting it go like James would have done.
There's a little bit of quiet before Lily talks again. He has no idea how she's keeping her head when he can hear James's restless shifting, Mary's silence which speaks loud. He knows Mary, or he used to anyways. So, yeah, he can't claim to know every girl he's ever dated (there's been a lot), but he knows Mary. She's a bit of a grade A bitch but in the next door neighbor girl kind of way that hates you in a nice way. The girl that doesn't work out only because they both kept trying to out-bitch each other (James's words, not his).
"Six hours. Ish."
Then there's James, his best friend, his brother. All the Marauders are the family, but James was different. Lily too. He doesn't know Lily well, and he hasn't ever tried. He knows her though because James knows her, and it's hard not to know someone a little after living with them for five years. "I'm going to kill him," the words, seething in anger, are out of his mouth, and he wouldn't take them back for the damn world.
Remus starts to say something, but James interrupts him. "Moony, mate, hit Sirius for me so he can bloody concentrate on the fact we're all screwed. I would if I was there, but you know, I'm too busy being screwed."
"Anything for a damsel in distress," Sirius says, but his heart isn't really into it. Actually, he doesn't know where the hell his heart is. It's stone thudding there instead, and he's feeling cold. James can probably tell because he's talking again, but Sirius just thrusts the mirror back into the bag.
"The hell, Padfoot?" Remus starts to stand immediately, but Sirius places a hand on his chest, pushing him back down.
"I've got an idea."
The grin on his lips is positively feral.
There's an heir, and there's a spare. Regulus is the spare. It's not something he's always known, not back when Sirius was his brother. Then they were just them, Sirius and Regulus, and the uncertain future hadn't matter. Sirius had gone off to Hogwarts though, and he had come back with a lion emblazoned into his heart and no room for Regulus. He had a new family, someone else to question their world with, someone else to love. If Sirius had just asked for one moment, he would have questioned it with him, would have been a disbeliever for him.
He hadn't, and Regulus, just like his brother, is proud.
There had been that one instance last year, but he doesn't think on it. Once upon a time, he would have done whatever Sirius asked him to do, anything to be his brother again. Not anymore. He loves his mother, his father, and he knows that if he stepped away from the path paved for him, it would break her heart. Sirius says he doesn't even believe their mum has a heart, but Regulus likes to think Sirius still loves them. He doesn't know how Sirius can just stop. It doesn't matter. Now it's his chance.
"Where are we going?" He asks Rosier, uncertain of the sand trickling into his shoes, of the sticky warmth in the air.
"Don't question it, Black," the older wizard's eyes rests on him for a moment. "Your task is simple. Easy, even. The Dark Lord will be pleased if you succeed. Do you remember it?"
Regulus couldn't forget it. It's all he thought about for the past week. It was only an unforgivable, not even the torture curse. No one would know it was him, not with the mask over his eyes. "Of course," he says, cramming his hands into his pockets so the other man doesn't notice them trembling and quavering.
"What was Snape's?" He asks, curious. He knows Sirius hates him, had done something to him that had turned him towards the dark. There was someone else in his ranks that saw Sirius as the enemy. He wasn't alone.
They're nearing the warehouse, and it's striking how ordinary it is. The paint is peeling, and the sun is sinking into the black tiles, the only color on the old thing. It's far away though. No one will hear the screams. Rosier is answering his question, but he can barely breathe, barely registering anything but the harsh wind against his face and the taste of salt (and blood) in his mouth. There was a black motorbike parked outside the doors.
"Snape? Snape brought them here."
When it comes to states of matters, they've dealt with the solids, the gases and the liquids, but it's really down to pasma that makes them feel so electric.
Valances Drift
States of Matter