Author's Note: To those about to embark on this journey I offer a few customary warnings as well as some explanation of dates. One, this is a sequel to "Oedipus" which is a side fic for "Lily and the Art of Being Sisyphus", if you haven't at least read "Lily and the Art of Being Sisyphus" you'll be so confused you won't even know what's going on (I think "Oedipus" you could probably get away without reading it). The second is that this is obviously NOT CANON.
Now, a note about the dates. In the original "Oedipus" I failed to do math correctly and set the dates much earlier than they should have been, that story took place in James seventh year. Here I've corrected the dates and retconned them so that "Oedipus" takes place in the correct timeframe of summer of 1977. I probably should go back and fix that in the original at some point but eh.
London, June 1980
In some other reality, a reality that no longer existed, Eleanor Lily Potter would be born in a month. Instead, in this one, the paradoxical Eleanor Lily Potter, who now existed without a beginning or an end, sat in a darkened cinema next to the most feared man in magical Britain, watching a film she'd never had the chance to see in theaters.
Although, to tell the truth, Lily's mind wasn't really caught on "The Empire Strikes Back", even with Han Solo's smuggler's arrogance, Princess Leia's fierce pride, Luke's gritted determination, Boba Fett's ruthless desire for cash, and the pure menace that was Darth Vader.
Instead, perhaps as usual, her mind drifted back to three years ago and the death of her father, or, the man she hadn't been willing to admit was her father until it was a bit too late. She hadn't liked him much, or rather, she'd liked him relatively compared to his friends (mostly Sirius Black if she was being honest), still, his heart had been in the right place but he'd had an unwarranted arrogance about him…
She supposed that was half of what had gotten him killed, along with her own damning words. If he'd been a little more aware of his prowess, a little less determined to right the wrongs of history with his own bare hands, well, he might have been alive today, and thus Eleanor Lily Potter might have been conceived already.
(Unwittingly, in a single almost unremarkable decision, James Potter had lost the war before he had ever truly participated in it.)
Now he wasn't and Lily was in a reality that no longer seemed to want her, listening as Yoda rebuked Luke with a calm and unsympathetic, "Do or do not, there is no try."
Yes, do or do not, Lily. Only, at this point it seemed "do not" was the only option. Wizard Lenin had given up years ago, after he'd calmed down from his fury and disbelief, he'd given up after James Potter had died.
He hadn't said as much, oh no, he still made her make full use of the Malfoy library (his younger self all too willing to borrow the books from Malfoy on her behalf), still made her acquire rarer and rarer texts, each stored in their own Indian Jones stylized dungeon that almost always caused Lily a painful death, that started being in languages that didn't even have the decency to use the Latin or Greek alphabet, and even though Lily was now passably decent at reading 16th century Chinese characters and more, in the end it hadn't helped.
No one seemed too keen on theorizing travelling to a future that no longer was capable of existing.
And after a year and a smattering of months Lily had finally gotten down to their last option, "Lenin, if I try, if I really try, then perhaps we can simply go."
And she'd imagined him sitting next to her on the windowsill in the Malfoy manor, staring out at the wide estate in the moonlight, the peacocks glowing like bright little stars on the lawn, and for a moment a part of him had yearned so deeply but then he'd said, "Despite what many think of me, what Dumbledore perhaps thinks of me, I will not risk the world's destruction for my own ends."
They'd already obliterated their original reality, Wizard Lenin proved unwilling to obliterate this one as well.
But it wasn't so terrible, in fact, Lily might call it pleasant, once she got used to the fact that this was the way things were going to be. She didn't have to go to Hogwarts, for one thing, that was a plus, and everyone who was important to her was still around (although god only knew what Rabbit was doing without supervision… Actually, he had probably devoured her now nonexistent reality, that seemed like a Rabbit thing to do), people had a strange respect for her that people in Hogwarts had sometimes lacked (probably mostly due to her proximity to the younger Wizard Lenin and their uncertain relationship but that was beside the point), and in a strange almost ironic way Wizard Lenin had a body as well as a revolution.
Or, well, sort of, Wizard Lenin didn't, but his younger not-past self certainly did.
Which was part of what lead to this moment, if she thought about it, her and a pair of Wizard Lenins, in the middle of a revolution, sitting in a movie theater watching as Darth Vader decimated the rebellion.
"When you put it like that you make it sound like something worth watching," Wizard Lenin scoffed, the one inside of her head at any rate, which of course was blasphemy of the darkest kind because "Star Wars" was perfect.
Well alright, "A New Hope" had its pitiful moments (Obi-Wan turning into a force puddle had been… strange) as did "The Return of the Jedi" (there was only so much a plot that you could have that revolved around dancing alien bears), but "The Empire Strikes Back" was glorious and to deny that was to be a heretic of the worst kind.
"Too little Harrison Ford and James Earl Jones, they're the only things that make this travesty worth watching." Wizard Lenin said, which, Lily couldn't exactly deny that they, along with the dearly departed Obi-Wan Kenobi, had been the best actors in the film but all the same, she did not take sleights to "Star Wars" kindly.
"There is plenty of Han-Solo and Darth Vader… There's mostly Han Solo and Darth Vader!" Lily admonished.
"And yet, here I am, watching Luke covered in dirt and whining. If I was the green troll I would never have agreed to put up with this garbage," Wizard Lenin said, which was probably true, but then, Wizard Lenin probably would have been on the dark side of the force, so it'd all be moot point anyways.
Although, she could never see Wizard Lenin willingly serve another master, so unless he himself was Emperor Palpatine then he'd probably be on the side of the Rebel Alliance… Which meant he would be the one to train Luke, except not, because as Wizard Lenin pointed out, he would not agree to put up with Luke's garbage.
With that thought she turned to glance at the other revolutionary in question, unlike the Wizard Lenin in her head he seemed to be enjoying himself, his eyes were on the screen and an amused yet strangely soft smile played on his lips as he watched the film progress.
What was he thinking?
She could never really tell, not when she looked at him, and not when he looked at her either. He was so familiar yet so very different. Not softer, certainly not that but… He'd let her stay, since the day she'd sheepishly shown up on his doorstep out of nowhere, not really expecting anything, he'd shown her in and listened to stories about time travel and he'd let her stay.
For years now, when it had long become clear that Lily couldn't go back, that all her planning and researching had been for nothing and she was trapped here… In fact, she wondered if he wasn't happy that she was trapped here.
There'd been a certain, odd, almost undetectable relief inside of him when she finally came around to telling him, and the condolences he offered afterwards, while not entirely insincere, were far too flat to be wholly meant.
"Well, at least there's not another Death Star in this one." Wizard Lenin reluctantly admitted, jarring Lily from her thoughts as well as her staring, and she turned her head to look back to the screen where the confrontation in Cloud City was getting real.
Soon Luke would lose his hand and his faith in the world as his father was revealed to be the galaxy's nightmare.
James, you are my father… She'd never said that to him. Hadn't seen the point, hadn't really believed it was her father if she was being honest. It wasn't that she thought of Death as her father but… Somehow, she did, or rather, she correlated his face and mannerisms onto the father she didn't really know. James Potter had been so ordinary, so divorced from everything Lily knew about herself, and he'd been so young.
She was only a few years younger than he had been when he died.
(Would he have cried out in despair? Would he have looked at her and screamed as she cut of his hand and sent him into oblivion? She thought he might have… Or he should have, if he understood everything, then he would have. But he didn't understand anything, and that was why he was dead.)
Before she could really contemplate the parallels between her father that could have been and Luke Skywalker, the credits were rolling, the people around them shuffling out, and the Wizard Lenin who really wasn't Wizard Lenin was looking at her with a pair of raised eyebrows when Lily continued to sit there.
Lily nodded at his silent question, stood, stretched and cracked her back, and walked out with him to the front of the theater.
"I think I liked it," he said slowly, almost tasting the words as he said them, as if trying to decide if he really meant them or not, "I liked the villain… And the smuggler, the hero in training I could have done without."
Lily couldn't help but grin in response as it was what Wizard Lenin had said only with a completely different result. If Wizard Lenin weren't too proud he'd be dying of embarrassment that this other past reflection of himself would ever confess, out loud, to Lily, that he enjoyed "Star Wars".
"I bear no responsibilities for the things he says," Wizard Lenin snapped back, having long since washed his hands of his younger not-self, when the man had shown tendencies and flavors of thought that Wizard Lenin would never have allowed himself.
Things like liking "Star Wars".
"Luke grows on you," Lily said with a shrug, "I like him well enough."
And here Wizard Lenin smiled but it was a funny sort of smile, as if he was trying to parse her thoughts and was coming to an odd conclusion, finally, he said, "You know, I never realized it before, but you have a great admiration for heroics, don't you?"
He didn't respond to Lily's raised eyebrows or frankly, flabbergasted, expression; instead he mused, "You'd think that would be mutually exclusive, being a friend of mine, but you have an appreciation of nobility and valor that I hadn't recognized in you."
"Do you not appreciate nobility and valor?" Lily asked, and tried to think on it herself, not actually entirely sure what Wizard Lenin's thoughts were on the subject. Certainly, Gryffindors he was dismissive and contemptuous of, but then he was dismissive and contemptuous of nearly everyone so that was hardly unique…
The younger Wizard Lenin thought for a minute as they walked through the muggle streets, shoulder to shoulder, in no real hurry to get anywhere and return to the war, the revolution, and the burning buildings of magical Britain. Finally, he said, "I think that I am very appreciative of nobility and valor, but they are rare qualities, exceptional qualities found in exceptional men. What I despise is how they are disregarded, dulled, and assigned to a quarter of the population that has no concept of what honor means."
"Gryffindors, you mean?" Lily asked, "No problems with the rest of the houses though?"
He smirked at that, gave a small derisive laugh, "I'll admit I'm biased towards Slytherin, but their ambition was hardly ambition, warped instead into pedigree, Ravenclaws were more shut ins than they were necessarily intellectuals, and I've met more than a few Hufflepuffs willing to sell their neighbor's soul for their own skin. However, somehow, it bothers me less that these qualities are plastered onto unworthy eleven-year-olds than the fact that Gryffindor's qualities are so slandered."
Lily nodded slowly, her eyes caught on his face and the way the light of the streetlamps played across his pale skin, and then she asked, "Do you consider yourself an honorable man then?"
"God no," he responded without hesitation, "No, I'd sell my grandmother for a bar of soap… Well, if I hadn't killed her and the rest of my paternal relatives then blamed it on my bastard of an uncle. No, I have no illusions about what I am. You, I think, have honor though."
"Me?" Lily asked now well and truly put off kilter, "What the hell would I know about honor?"
"Well, it might not conform to a Gryffindor's idea of bravery and nobility," Wizard Lenin said with a derisive and cutting smile, "But what have they ever known about anything? Even now they're forming their own Rebel Alliance when it's not me that's their enemy, but the people themselves, the ministry which is flooded with my own Death Eaters. They would tear their country apart just to get a chance at destroying me…"
He paused looked down at her, that assessing gaze again, and almost with hesitation he reached up to her hair with a hand, twirling a red curl between his fingers, "And they've disregarded the greatest weapon they could ever hope to possess, the one that could win them their war if only they reached out with the right arguments, or in respect and a willingness to understand, in genuine friendship… They're fools, Lily, and it will destroy them."
And he seemed inordinately pleased about that fact, as if he wanted nothing less than to destroy these people, or rather to rub their destruction in their faces and force them into understanding. Sometimes she wondered if this revolution wasn't so much about power as it was about epiphanies, about Wizard Lenin shoving a mirror in front of their faces and screaming, "This is what you really are!"
"Friendship…" Lily considered slowly, taking in the lights in the windows, the streetlamps, the cars driving past, all the life in the city and said slowly, "I have very few friends."
"I know," Wizard Lenin said, dropping the strand of her hair, and offering her a too pleased smile, "And I'm glad that I am one of them."
"By the way, what do you mean to happen when you become emperor?" Lily asked, shoving her hands into her pockets and continuing to walk forward, delaying once again their return to younger Wizard Lenin's headquarters of the day and all the stares and whispers that Lily received among his cultists (half of them were convinced she was his long-lost daughter and the other half… well… they didn't dare whisper what they thought).
"Emperor? You think I mean to become an emperor?" He asked with raised eyebrows, but an amused spark to his eye, and certainly not a denial on his lips.
"Well, I don't think you're doing this just to be content with a title like Minister of Magic," Lily responded, certainly whenever she'd talked to her own Wizard Lenin he'd seemed in favor of toppling the whole bureaucracy completely, well, when he wasn't salivating after a body.
"Well, I imagine an emperor would need an empire, and that requires looking towards the continent." Wizard Lenin mused, "But that's a bit ambitious while rebellion on the home front, the Order of the Phoenix, needs to be stamped out. No, I will address the muggleborn situation first and foremost, as well as the Hogwarts curriculum, the ministry bureaucracy… I hadn't realized how tedious this all sounded."
"Such is life when you want to be king," Lily said with a smile at his pale face, his scrunched eyebrows, as if he was only now putting together all the work he'd have to do to reshape England into his own image.
"Well, we're not there yet, not while Dumbledore is alive," he said, straightening, "Once the old man dies, then we'll talk logistics… What will you do, Lily?"
"Hm?" Lily asked.
"When this is all over… Would you be opposed to being my Joan of Arc? Leading the troops into battle on my behalf? If I'm to be an emperor I must have something to conquer after all."
The battlefield, yes, it would only make sense if they kept going as they were, she was after all one of his greatest assets (even if he'd made surprisingly little use of her prowess so far)… And she would still be here, without beginning and without end, and she knew without thinking that she would gladly tear apart nations on his behalf. After all, in a way, in trying to revive Wizard Lenin for all those years, hadn't she already been destroying England for his sake?
And as these foreign wizards stared up at her in terror, at the enlarged and terrible sunset she left in her wake, she would declare, "I am become Death, Destroyer of Worlds."
Perhaps that was her honor, her valor, integrity, and loyalty, that she had once made Wizard Lenin a silent promise and she would keep it until the end of time itself.
But Joan of Arc was hardly the term for it, no, she was his Death Star.
Author's Note: Prompted by Prabhleen Arora who asked for a fic where we have a scene of Tom and Lily in the past like the one we had in "Oedipus", featuring a sane dark lord. I guess that turned into a sequel... and Star Wars.
Thanks for reading, reviews are greatly appreciated.
Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter.