A/N I wrote this epilogue before I started Lily's choice, and although I deleted the story when I decided that I did not have the skill to write the twists and turns that I'd made up. Maybe I'll write it one day, and this will make sense, but for now, I just wanted to post this. Thank you and Enjoy!
Lily sat down on the bench and observed the graveyard. She had arrived in Little Hangleton and gone straight to this place. It was the only place she had to be at the moment. It had been a year since Tom battled with James, Sirius and Severus and lost. She had taken him here when everyone stopped watching his body. There had been an uproar when the body disappeared, but James assured them that Aurors had taken it back to the Ministry.
She dug the grave herself, knowing that the muggles wouldn't bury him without asking questions she couldn't answer. She had closed the grave and returned days later with an appropriate headstone. She had given the name and dates, and a small sentence for the bottom. It was a simple headstone, and Tom wouldn't have wanted her to bother, but this was something she had to do. James didn't quite understand, but she loved him because he still tried.
She kept staring for a moment, before she took her diary out of her bag. She had only ever written one entry, but she still carried it with her. It reminded her of the choices she made and the things she had done that lead to his death. She had read the first page over and over again, never looking further, having no intention to write. But today, on the anniversary of his death, she felt that she should write something. She read the first entry quickly, memories flashing before her eyes, and still she couldn't answer her own questions.
Choices decide your future. Who you are and who you will be. Who you want to be, and how to come there. No one lives without regrets. Everyone wishes to have chosen differently. And when the time comes that you can choose again, you'll make the same decision. Regrets are only there, until you can do it over and you come to the same conclusion. Only in the moment itself, you can rationalize realistically what you can do to reach you goal. Every time you think about it later, it can't come alive in your mind once more. You forget details, the pressure, who depends on you and the wounds and scars that burn every time you move. A choice makes us who we are. Who that is, and who that will be is up to you, and you alone. If that's true, can you tell me who I am, and who I have become?
Flipping to the second page she was astounded to find Tom's neat handwriting covering pages two and three.
Lilian,
Having spent a lot of time with you makes me realise that even I can make mistakes, as you frequently pointed out. I knew that you were looking for my Horcruxes the third time I met you in your study. It had not taken me long to find the real reason you joined me, because while I admit that my asking you to join was incomprehensible, your acceptance was even more so. How you knew that I was after your son was a mystery to me until I found that you knew about the prophecy. What would've happened if you hadn't convinced me to let your son live and give you a piece of my soul will forever stay a mystery, but knowing you; I would've had to test the power of my Horcruxes.
I've admired the control you have on your magic, and even though you have little power, you use it magnificently. You have done things that would make others jealous and sometimes even I couldn't stop staring when you simply made things float for your amusement and that of your son.
Tomorrow will be Halloween, and I plan to take over the Ministry. I know that you will not read this for a long time, or ever, but for my selfish mind, I want to explain what I know.
I was too confident, I was sure that you would never find more than two Horcruxes, and I doubted that you could pass the wards and destroy them. When I went to check on them yesterday, I found that they were all gone.
You played me as I played you, and I know that you and I tricked each other far too much, but even now, I can enjoy the time we spent together.
Seeing you sleeping on the couch makes me wonder why I don't just kill you for your treachery. Two words, and you will never bother me again, even if it is at the cost of a horcrux. But I know that you'll stand on the opposite side of the battlefield tomorrow, and I find myself wanting to know if you can actually beat me, with your skills and knowledge. And then I want to kill you again, because I know that you'll never throw a spell at me because you claim to love me.
What started as a way to get into your house to get to your son has turned into something else. You were someone competent among my followers and kept me on my toes. You made me stronger and - at the same time - you looked for weaknesses and found them. I was so good at protecting myself from my enemies to remember that you were behind me. And yet, you would never stab me in the back like my loyal followers. Irony follows you everywhere, Lilian.
I wrote this today because one of us isn't going to survive tomorrow, and I wonder if it will be you or me. I will live on, because you'll have to die to make sure my soul will move on, and I don't think you can actually leave your son behind. It won't be you who kills me, which leaves your death as the only option as no other could end my life, which makes writing this useless.
I wanted to write this to maybe gloat, or explain myself, but I don't have to where you're concerned. You know just as much as I do. Therefore I will answer your entry to make up for it. Even though you won't read this, I know it will mean the world to you.
I don't know who you were, or who you wanted to be, but I do know who you are. Lilian, you have given up many things, and you never cared if you got something in return. A concept so foreign to Slytherins, and you still did everything our way. You are most likely the strangest person I've ever met. You believe in love, loyalty, and friendship. Things I find unnecessary and useless, still, we got along .
I taught you, and you convinced me to take a lesson from you as well. You thought me that I was getting sloppy, made mistakes, and you made me stronger and could've gotten people killed, and somehow that doesn't make you a bad person.
You see something good in everyone, and it made you stronger, instead of weaker. We both have a large social circle, both accomplished by other means. I see a lot of me in you, and that would make a lot of people laugh, because they think we're nothing like each other. But you know differently, and that's who you are.
You make your own decisions and let noone influence them. You always choose bad before worse, unless you can change 'worse' into 'the best'. I don't believe that choices make us who we are, I believe that who we are makes the choices. You didn't change, Lilian and you never should. It doesn't matter who leaves the battle alive tomorrow, it matters that the choices we took were ours.
Lily stared at the diary and read it over and over until the sun disappeared. A huge weight had somehow been lifted from her shoulders. She stood and kneeled in front of the grave. She guided her magic into the stone and it heated up. Nagini slid down her shoulders and curled up around it, to die next to her master. Lily moved her hands to the ground and plain grass rose from under her hands.
She stood and felt arms encircle her waist. "I understand." The diary in his hands fell to the ground into the green grass and James and Lily glanced at the headstone once more before James apparated them away. Lily's mind could only repeat the words on the bottom of the stone.
My brother, an orphan whose cry for help I heard to late.