A/N: Chaser 1, Wigtown Wanderers, writing for the QFFL Round 6
Genre: Supernatural (crossover with fantasy)
Prompts: keyhole
Chasing
Reducio
A dull throbbing was coming from her head. She felt the cold, stone floor beneath her. She heard nothing. She opened her eyes and found herself looking at an arched bathroom ceiling. She sat up and looked around. She recognised that she was in Moaning Myrtle's bathroom, except moaning Myrtle wasn't there. She rubbed her head and got to her feet. The bathroom was rubble. There were chunks of ceramic lying across the floor and shards of wood strewn across the floor. Fear gripped the girl's heart. The last thing she remembered was going up to her dormitory after arguing with James. James, she thought. The girl took off running towards Gryffindor tower. As she ran, she noticed chunks of wall missing with debris everywhere. When she got to the tower, she saw the portrait of the fat lady no longer covered the entrance to Gryffindor tower. It hung off one hinge, ripped, with its occupant nowhere in sight. Lily grabbed her wand from her pocket and entered the common room. She slowly climbed the boys' staircase and got to the sixth year's quarters. The door was off its hinges, and it lay on the floor. The bed hangings were shredded, there were clothes strewn across the floor, and furniture was overturned and broken. She looked closer at the room. Everything was covered in a thick layer of dust. It looked as though no one had been in this room for years. She noticed a trunk had been left open; it had the initials C.C embossed on the front.
That's odd, thought Lily. There wasn't anyone in Gryffindor's sixth year with those initials. And people should have slept here last night.
Lily checked Gryffindor tower, she found no one, and no one seemed to have been there in a long time. She proceeded to check the castle. She went to the kitchens, the library, the great hall, and even the dungeons. Not one place was without the same thick layer of dust she had found in the boys dormitory. There were no ghosts and the portraits were all either empty or broken.
What the hell has happened?
When she was fairly confident that there was no one in the castle, Lily decided to go into the grounds. She wandered down towards Hagrid's hut and found a pile of mouldy wood and rubble. She sat down on a large rock and put her head in her hands. Tears began to stream down her face. She began sobbing. This was clearly not the elaborate joke she had thought it was at first. She breathed deeply, trying to calm herself down.
What would mum and dad do? she thought. She needed a plan.
She looked at the forest. There seemed to be smoke rising about the trees.
A house, she thought. There was never a house there before, but if there are people, at least she could get some information about what happened.
She had only ever been into the forest once before, and that was only because her cousin had dared her to do it. She wandered in the general direction of the smoke and came across a small clearing. At the edge there was a smoldering fire. She looked around and saw no one. Suddenly she felt a wand pressed into the back of her neck.
"Take another step and I'll blast you into oblivion."
Lily recognised that voice, but she had only really heard it scold a student or read her bedtime stories.
"Who are you? Why are you here? And why are you wearing that?"
Lily held her hand up and turned slowly. She had recognised the voice, just as she recognised the man's face. He was very different from when she saw him last. His hair had grown considerably; it was pulled back and tied into a small ponytail. He had more of a beard and he had more scars on his face than she remembered.
"Uncle Nev?"
"I'm no one's uncle. Answer my questions," he stated, not lowering his wand even a centimeter.
"It's me. Lily. Neville, stop it, you're scaring me."
"I don't know you."
"Yes you do, I'm your god daughter. I've known you since the day I was born."
Neville frowned and narrowed his eyes.
"I don't know who you're confusing me with kid, but I'm not your godfather. Who sent you?"
"No one! You're my godfather! Why can't you remember?"
Lily sat down on a nearby tree stump and pulled her knees to her chest. She tried to breath slowly and calm herself down, but tears still streaked down her face. Neville looked around the clearing once more and lowered his wand.
"Look kid, I'm sorry you lost your godfather or whatever, but you shouldn't be here. You should leave."
He began to walk away from Lily and out of the clearing. Lily sobbed harder, and thought back to her childhood, to when you used to have nightmares.
"The world is behind, home is ahead. It's time to rest your head. Knights and wizards become your team, so lay down, close your eyes and dream," Lily sang.
Neville stopped in his tracks.
"How do you know that song?" he questioned, walking slowly towards Lily.
Lily swallowed and wiped the tears from her face.
"You used to sing it to me when I had a nightmare."
"My mother used to sing me that song." Neville frowned again and sighed. "Against my better judgement, come with me."
Lily jumped from her seat and followed Neville through a series of winding paths until they came to a large oak tree. He pressed his hand against it, and a door appeared on the trunk of the tree. The room Lily entered wasn't large but it was big enough to fit a bed and a table.
"Do you want something to eat?" asked Neville, whilst dropping his bag on the bed. Lilly's stomach rumbled; she hadn't eaten all day. Neville pulled out a bread roll and handed it to Lily. He took a seat at the table opposite Lily and gestured for her to sit down.
"So what exactly happened?" asked Lily, after a few moment of silence.
"What happened when?"
"To the school? I mean it was fine yesterday."
Neville blanched. "Yesterday? No one's been near Hogwarts in nearly a decade."
"That's impossible, a decade ago I was three! How could I have a uniform?"
"That's what I want to know."
"Well what do you think happened?"
"I don't think anything, I know. Voldemort happened. The battle of Hogwarts happened. And we lost."
"That's ridiculous! You won the battle of Hogwarts."
"Now I know you've lost it," stated Neville, getting up from his seat, shaking his head.
"No, it's true. You won the war, Voldemort died, and you all grew up and had kids."
Neville laughed, leaned against the wall and folded his arms over his chest. "Had kids? And you're my goddaughter! Yeah, who were your parents then? Ron and Hermione?"
"Actually, they're my aunt and uncle. They're also my brother's godparents. My mum and dad are Ginny and Harry."
The smirk on Neville's face dropped. "You actually believe this, don't you?"
Lily nodded vigorously in response. " Someone must have changed something, time turners..." she babbled.
"All the time turners were destroyed."
"Fine, but there must be something. What happened to my parents in your world?"
Neville looked at his feet, sadness and pain etched on his face.
"They didn't make it."
Lily gulped. Fury burned through her like hot coals. Someone did this, someone changed everything and by Merlin she wasn't about to let them get away with it. She got to her feet.
"Where are you going?"
"I've got to do something. I have to find out what happened."
"And how are you planning on doing that?"
"I'm gonna follow in my Aunt Hermione's example and go to the library,"she said simply and marched out the door.
Neville smirked. This girl must really know Hermione. He followed her out.
Once out of the hideout, Neville spotted the swish of red hair.
"Lily!" he called. "Wrong way!" Neville chuckled as she marched back over.
"Are you gonna help me get out of here or not?" Lily huffed.
They walked in silence up to the castle but when they reached the doors to the entrance hall, Neville stopped suddenly. Lily turned back to him.
"what's wrong?"
"I... haven't been in here in years..."
An hour later, the library desks (the ones that were not broken) were full of books.
"Uch, how can there be nothing!" raged Lily. "I've been through fifty books!"
Neville smiled, she really did remind him of Ginny. "I don't think it's quite fifty."
Lily marched off in between the bookshelves. She saw the restricted section.
Maybe what she's looking for is in there.
She pushed open the door. Surprisingly, there wasn't a lot of mess in the restricted section. There was only one book left on a nearby desk. She picked it up.
"Curses Most Wonderful and Foul" she read aloud. She flicked through some of the pages until she found a page where the corner had been folded down.
'Blood of blood. This curse is not one to be taken lightly. It will change the course of life.'
"Neville! I think I found something!" called Lily. Neville came strolling in and sat down, looking at Lily expectantly.
"The curse requires the 'blood of your enemy' and a time turner. The potion is made and put into the time turner then it goes back and prevents the 'rebirth' of blood. Whatever that means."
Neville frowned. "Sounds like it stops whoever's blood you take from coming back to life, but there's no magic than can bring someone back to life anyway."
"Wait! There is! Blood magic. My dad told me how Voldemort took some of his blood to come back to life and that because of that, he could too. So whoever cast this curse wanted to stop my dad from coming back and helping win the battle of Hogwarts!"
"Right." Neville said skeptically. "If this all really happened, wouldn't the death eaters all be locked up? Who would want this to happen?"
Lily had to admit, Neville had her there. There were some of the old bloodlines that still resisted change of course.
Lily slumped in her seat. "But this has to be it, I must be the only one not affected because it was my blood. The blood of Harry Potter."
She sighed. She looked around the room and saw an overturned cabinet.
"Neville, help me with this." The pair pushed the cabinet upright. "Why would this be in here?"
Neville was prevented from responding by voices coming from the corridor outside the library.
"Nobody is stupid enough to come in here, especially not Longbottom. If he isn't dead, that is. The crackpot old fool must have had one too many mushrooms. A girl in Hogwarts uniform? Yeah, that's likely."
A second voice laughed. "Yeah I know, but if the boss says we gotta check it out, we gotta check it out. We're basically Avery's slaves anyway."
Avery. Now that rings a bell. There was a boy in the year above her called Alec Avery, and she was pretty sure he was the grandson of the death eater of the same name.
"Yeah, but I wonder why Avery looked so freaked out. It was as if he saw a bloody ghost."
The voices got closer and closer. Lily snatched up the book and looked around for a hiding place. Neville yanked her arm and pulled her into the cabinet. Only, suddenly they couldn't hear the voices of the men. Everything went quiet. Then they heard a set of footsteps.
"No word from Athelston and Maron yet, Mr. Avery," said the voice of a young woman.
Lily peered out of the keyhole of the cabinet. Instead of the library, she saw a modern office with a large ornate desk and a tiled floor.
"Fine. Let me know as soon as they get in touch. You are dismissed," replied another voice.
Lily continued to spy on the old man through the keyhole. The old man sat behind his desk and sighed.
"Why is that brat around? Some bloody curse that was," he mumbled to himself.
Lily inhaled. So this is the man who cast the curse.
Neville placed a hand on her back with a concerned look on his face.
Maybe he could entertain the possibility that this was the truth.
The old man leaned back comfortably on his chair; he drew a small gold chain from around his neck. On the end of it was a time turner. Lily began breathing quickly and backed into the cabinet as far as she could and closed her eyes. She stood up and kicked the cabinet door open, only she didn't charge out into an office, she was back in the library. Luckily, the room was empty. Lily and Neville sat down at the table once more.
"So, potentially what you're saying is..." began Neville.
"True? That's what I've been saying all along."
Lily scoured the rest of the book on curses.
"Apparently, to reverse the curse, we need to create the same potion, except with the blood of the one who cast it in the first place. Then we need to fill the time turner and turn it forwards."
"Sounds simple enough," said Neville, sarcastically.
Lily frowned at her godfather and marched out of the library.
Once they had gathered the potion ingredients from the teacher's office, Lily found a cauldron and brewed the potion in same bathroom she had woken up in.
"It's done," she declared. "We just need the last ingredient, and the time turner of course."
...
"So, your plan is - Jump out, steal the time turner and cut him with a knife, then run back in here?"
"Pretty much."
Neville shook his head at Lily. Just as reckless and brave as Ginny and Harry.
Neville sighed and passed over a pocketknife. "Well, come on then."
The pair entered the cabinet. Lily peered through the keyhole once more. The old man was lounging in his chair. Come on, Lily, she thought to herself.
She nodded at Neville and charged out of the cabinet. The old man stood in alarm as Lily pointed her knife, and Neville pointed his wand.
"You little brat," he snarled. The old man swished his wand viciously. A heavy stone vase hurtled towards Neville.
"Reducio!" shouted Lily. The vase shrank to the size of a large peanut and smacked Neville on the forehead. Lily leapt over the desk and made a swipe for the time turner. She missed and was slammed backwards by an Expelliarmus curse cast by Avery. However, she did manage to cut the old man's arm with her knife.
Loud voices were heard before the door burst open to reveal a group of burly, mean-looking men.
"Time to go kiddo," said Neville, dragging Lily onto her feet and into the cabinet.
The moment they opened to door to reveal the library, they began to sprint. They got to the large doors of the library when they heard the blasting of wood and voices coming from the restricted section.
"Shit," exclaimed Neville.
There were four men and the old man chasing them. Neville and Lily ran as fast as they could up to the second floor bathroom. Neville stopped at the door.
"Go on, I'll hold them off for as long as I can," he said determinedly.
Lily ran to the cauldron, still bubbling near the broken sinks. As she dipped Neville's knife in the potion, it turned a deep hue of green. She poured the potion into a small vial.
Meanwhile, Neville was sending spells through the doorway, trying to cover himself with the inside of the doorframe. He managed to stun two of the men. The others came closer, sending flashes of green and purple lights towards Neville. Neville got thrown against the wall as one approached. He grabbed the man's arms, knocking the wand from his hands, and slammed the man's head into a nearby sink basin. The man crumpled to the floor. The other man approached and they began a fist fight, both wands fallen into the debris. Neville managed to twist the man's arms behind his back, incapacitating him and leaving him sobbing in the floor, unable to move his arms without great pain. Suddenly, Neville felt something sharp press onto his chest. Avery had produced a blade from the end of his walking stick.
"You and that brat will never change things. This is the way things are staying."
Neville saw the glint of gold around the old man's neck. It was just out of reach. He breathed heavily and thrust himself forward, forcing the blade into his chest. He grabbed the gold chain and pulled it from the old man's neck. He threw it over his shoulder, right into the hands of Lily.
"Neville!" she screamed, falling to her knees.
"The world is behind, home is ahead. Get your family back Lily," choked Neville, falling to the ground with a thump.
Lily quickly poured the potion into the time turner as Avery advanced on her, wielding his blade above his head.
"Knights and wizards become your team, so lay down, close your eyes and dream," sang Lily, sobbing, whilst turning the dials on the time turner.
"NO."
...
Lily opened her eyes to find that she was once again lying on the cold, stone floor of the second floor bathroom. Except this time, there were no broken sinks, no debris.
She got up and sprinted towards the Gryffindor common room. She arrived there out of breath, scouring the room for someone. She spotted James and Albus sitting by the window. She ran over and dived on them, pulling them into a tight hug.
"Woah, Lils. What happened? Listen I'm sorry about -" began James.
"Doesn't matter. Nothing matters. I love you both."