Author's Note: Now, a pair of warnings. First this is a crossover of "Lily and the Art of Being Sisyphus" and "Teen Titans". Of those two I heartily recommend having read the former to have any understanding of what is even happening. The latter will give you more context and will make you appreciate the unspoken suffering of offscreen characters but is less needed for this. Also, obviously NOT CANON
The story of how Lily, Wizard Lenin, and Rabbit arrived in the dystopic Jump City was not a tale as exciting as it probably sounded. Or, at least, Lily didn't think it lived up to the initial description. Sure, there had been interdimensional portals, eldritch abominations from beyond the scope of time, space, and Hogwarts, and everything suddenly on fire, brimstone, and giant carrion crows with two sets of glowing red eyes. That part certainly hadn't lacked for ambiance.
It had certainly been a rather jarring experience to go from almost falling asleep in Charms to suddenly finding oneself, well, in not Charms.
Not only not in Charms but with only Wizard Lenin in his Lenin Rabbitson schoolboy persona and Rabbit for company. Lily, with a pit of dread growing in her stomach, wasn't entirely sure what had happened to everyone else.
The part where it fell flat on its hell dimension face was when, a moment after blinking and reassuring themselves that yes they no longer appeared to be in Scotland, Wizard Lenin and Lily both turned to look at Rabbit and he, staring blankly into their new rather hellish surroundings with all the perfect indifference he usually had stated, "It's Raven's birthday."
"I'm sorry," Wizard Lenin said, rubbing at the bridge of his nose and taking a deep calming breath to likely center himself in the latest and greatest hell hole they had ended up in, "It's what?"
Which, Lily liked to believe that half of Wizard Lenin's rising anger was caused by real panic at the idea that they were now in… Well, Not-Scotland versus Lily's growing suspicion that it was more because if Scotland was now Hell then Wizard Lenin wouldn't have a chance in hell of conquering it.
That and, as far as Lily could tell, it was much worse scenery. You would not be sending this place as a postcard to anybody any time soon. You know, if there were people here at all.
"Raven's birthday," Rabbit responded, again with all the usual blandness that one could expect from Rabbit in any given moment. Even when that moment was standing in the bowels of Hell in place of Hogwarts.
Lily glanced towards Wizard Lenin, trying to judge his expression that was torn between irritation, bottomless rage, and just a tad bit of fear, "That means nothing to me, does it mean something to you?"
"No, Lily, it means nothing to me," Wizard Lenin hissed, his anger now forming a visible miasma around him. It fit in nicely with the general atmosphere of discomfort.
Lily turned back to look rather nonplussed at Rabbit, "Well…"
She trailed off, having no idea what to say.
To be honest she had spent most of her time worrying about that whole heir of Slytherin business. It hadn't really occurred to her that Hogwarts would suddenly not be there anymore. Well, it had, she'd been warning about that for years now. Still, somewhere along the way she'd just sort of pushed that concern to the side in the face of more immediate issues. She supposed that she was reaping the consequences of her own distraction.
But at least there wasn't an heir of Slytherin.
Although, Lily might have felt marginally better if Rabbit had just confessed to outright eating Scotland. As far as she knew Rabbit wasn't really prone to lying or even bending the truth, so if he hadn't said he'd eaten it, if it instead was raven's birthday whatever the hell that meant, then shoving her fingers down his throat probably wouldn't fix this problem.
Well, if that would have fixed the problem to begin with, she didn't know what a half demonically digested Scotland would even look like.
"What is a raven's birthday and why did it turn Scotland into the underworld?" Lily finally asked Rabbit point blank, deciding to just get to the heart of the matter. Rabbit just stared back, blinking, apparently having said all he was going to say about that.
As Wizard Lenin and Lily stared at him something in the background, something certainly not human, had some sort of screeching and choking fit. While this blended well with the general distasteful atmosphere it just made Lily realize that much more that while she wasn't Hogwarts' greatest fan she probably didn't want to spend the rest of eternity here either. Wherever and whatever here even was.
"Alright, barring that, can it not be Raven's birthday?" Lily asked.
For a moment Rabbit simply studied her and Lily thought he'd revert to his usual yes or no type response. However, to Lily's surprise, he said simply, "You would have to ask Raven."
"I have to ask Raven to make it not Raven's birthday?" Lily repeated slowly, ignoring the way that Wizard Lenin was now rubbing at his face looking like he wished he was anywhere else in the world right now.
"Yes," Rabbit supplied, unhelpful as always.
"Oh, good," Lily said, waiting for some of that to make sense or at least give her a general direction, finally Lily asked, "Can you tell us where Raven is?"
Finally, Rabbit did something actually useful and pointed to Lily's left where a giant crevasse of lava awaited along with more oversized demonic birds. Still, with a glance towards Wizard Lenin and then a glance towards their new direction, Lily decided there was probably nothing for it but to simply walk into Mordor.
"You know, Lily," Wizard Lenin said with more than mild irritation as they trekked their way over the river of lava on a great stone bridge created by Lily, following behind their metaphorical white rabbit in the form of Rabbit, "I have imagined many things for myself over the years, but somehow navigating through hell to find a presumably overly large demonic reality warping bird has never been one of them."
"Are you blaming me for this?" Lily balked, nearly falling off the bridge with the force of his glare.
"Of course I'm blaming you for this!" Wizard Lenin groused, looking far angrier and far too pretty while angry than he had any right to be in his current hobbling twelve-year-old state, "This sort of thing only ever happens to you with me getting caught in the middle of it!"
"I resent that," Lily huffed, crossing her arms and motioning instead towards Rabbit, "I mean if we should be blaming anyone we should be blaming Rabbit. If he didn't have some hand in this I will eat my hat."
He, after all, despite the white and almost sterile look of him, seemed oddly at home in their grotesque surroundings. Far less juxtaposed than Wizard Lenin and Lily at any rate.
"You don't own any hats," Wizard Lenin retorted.
"Then I will eat my goddamn metaphorical hat, Lenin!" Lily then sighed, looked ahead once again to where all she could see was the fiery river continuing to wind its way about, "Rabbit, are we almost there yet?"
Rabbit just nodded, which at least kind of reassured Lily that there was a there to get to. Although she supposed Rabbit could be leading them on some sort of march of death through a labyrinth of his own devising for his own devious purposes. Except that to have a devious purpose one usually needed to have purposes period and having any kind of internal motivation seemed to offend Rabbit on an intrinsic level.
"Lily, know that I hate to point this out," Wizard Lenin started, rolling his eyes towards the overcast sky without a hint of light coming from it.
"Then don't," Lily shot back, not really in the mood for an intense bickering session with her ex imaginary friend.
"However, have you simply considered… Attempting to undo it yourself?" Wizard Lenin finished, looking as if this question really did cause him a terrible amount of pain.
Lily gaped over at him, "Aren't you always telling me not to do that?"
For Wizard Lenin that kind of response was like telling Lily to go ahead and cross the beams in Ghost Busters. It just wasn't the sort of thing he'd ever say and she'd never expected him to say. She honestly hadn't even brought it up because, well, he probably had a very good point in saying it.
"I… can't see it getting much worse," he finally noted, motioning briefly to their surroundings.
Lily could. Sure, there weren't any people around, hadn't been for miles, sure everything was too warm, there was no natural source of sunlight, the only sign of life at all was them and the evil birds but there were still… well, things. There was still a ground, still fire, the laws of physics still worked. Point being while Lily would hardly call this a vacation spot she wouldn't go out and say that it couldn't get much worse either.
"Well, maybe we should just try to talk to this Raven or whoever first," Lily finally said, rubbing the back of her head as she admitted, "Besides, I'm kind of curious."
"You're kind of curious?" Wizard Lenin asked, "Lily, this Raven has turned Earth into Hell."
Meaning that, as far as Wizard Lenin was concerned, this was not someone who could be reasoned with or who you should even want to reason with. Lily supposed so but that didn't mean she still wasn't curious. She'd thought she knew the big players in the game and yet here this Raven had come out of nowhere and done, well, this.
Lily really hadn't seen this one coming.
On that note, regarding Rabbit walking steadfast and true in front of them, Lily asked what she probably should have in the beginning, "Hey, Rabbit, who is Raven anyways?"
Rabbit stopped suddenly, looked back at them, and for an odd moment his eyes seemed deeper than usual and yet just as empty. It was as if the great void of space itself was staring out at them, an overreaching nothing tearing into all matter with grasping and greedy fingers. Finally, he said, "My daughter."
That was not the non-answer Lily had been expecting. She had been expecting a "Raven is Raven" or maybe even one of those tricky "Raven is not Lily" type answers that Rabbit seemed so oddly fond of. This was… Well…
"Your what?"
Lily wasn't quite sure she heard that right. At first, she laughed, wanting to elbow Wizard Lenin in the ribs that Rabbit had just made the unlikeliest of jokes and they should find it hilarious, and then she gaped as she realized that, as always, Rabbit was perfectly serious.
Finally, Lily let out a rather somber, "Oh no."
Granted she knew that Rabbit wasn't really twelve, was in fact likely far far older than twelve, she also knew that he wasn't really human and wore the body of a twelve-year-old boy per his own convenience. So, as it stood, he could certainly take the form to father… something…
Suddenly Lily was much less interested in meeting Raven.
"Oh no," Lily repeated, feeling like she hadn't quite said it loud enough the first time.
Because now she just had these terrible images of Rabbit cooing over some miniature female (female? Could abominations even be female, or did this mean it was some sort of ghastly half-abomination?) version of himself who had just taken its first toddling steps to devouring realities whole.
Along with the terrible mental images of an older version of Lepur Rabbitson getting it on with some poor hapless woman who had no idea what she was possibly getting into as she prepared herself for a one night stand with the sexy Rabbit-man. You know, as much as something like Rabbit could possibly get anything on, which was likely only enough to apparently produce a daughter.
"Well, I've changed my mind," Lily said, looking anywhere but at Rabbit or else Wizard Lenin, which meant staring at another one of those fat demon birds, "Lenin, we're getting the hell out of here, no pun intended and Rabbit… I… This will not happen again, so help me god!"
Rabbit said nothing, stared blankly, as if to say it was hardly his problem if it happened or didn't happen again. That or to say, "Oh the kids just grow so fast these days, you blink and they're creating hell-dimensions."
So, all Lily could do was repeat with all the authority she didn't feel she had at the moment, "Or so help me god, Rabbit, I will do something drastic and unpleasant!"
And with that, a great force of will power that caused both her frame and reality itself to buckle, Lily tore away the veneer of death and desolation from the Earth and threw the three of them back into Charms class just in time for Lily to get a detention for disrupting her classmates.
(And if Lily started peering in on other dimensions a little more and supposed dark-haired daughters of abominations, or asking Rabbit rather pointed questions and learning about his alter ego Trigon who was apparently known and feared by thousands of civilizations in other dimensions, and if she let abomination-daughters take credit for righting her personal reality and restoring Jump City to its former glory…
Well, then Lily wasn't about to say anything about that.)
Author's Note: Commissioned by AlleyKat2014 who asked for a fic where Lily, Wizard Lenin, and Rabbit appear in Teen Titans and everyone faces the horrifying discovery that Rabbit is Raven's demon father. Which, as Lily says, "Oh no".
Thanks for reading, reviews are most appreciated.
Disclaimer: I don't own Teen Titans or Harry Potter