I got the idea to write this from the song Unintended by Muse. That's really all I have to say really, it kind of exploded out from there.

Well. Have fun!

Bloodlust

Five minutes.

She curled up into a ball, her head resting on her legs as the clock ticked the seconds past. 1… 2… 3… She didn't move, not even when something fell off the bookshelf in the front room. Her eyes squeezed tightly shut, and her breathing grew more and more irregular.

oOo

"I'm sorry, my love," He said, squeezing her hand tightly. "But I really can't do anything more."

"You don't have to go," She protested, holding him in place with an iron grip of her own. "You know no one would blame you, you could fake something, I'm sure you could-"

He sighed wistfully, shaking his blonde hair out of his eyes. "I can't." He said finally, decisively, pulling his hand out of her reach and pushing the strap of his rucksack more firmly up onto his shoulder.

She didn't look over at him for quite some time, her eyes instead resting on her pale hands and her shoe-clad feet, her mind whirring and whirling with the terrible injustice of their world and the promises she made to herself.

When the Dark Lord rose once more, no one was willing to fight him. Not even the Aurors and the Hit-Wizards – the ones that did were killed within days of their missions. Harry Potter insisted that Lord Voldemort should have fallen – for good this time – but somehow Harry Potter was wrong.

This Voldemort was indestructible.

He was soaked in the blood of millions of lives, Wizard and Muggle alike, and he ruled those he had brainwashed and blackmailed with a will and fist of steel. It was all the Wizarding World could do to keep the Ministry under control.

After Kingsley Shacklebolt had been taken, two months after Voldemort's return, Harry Potter had been quickly coerced into office, being the only person that people thought knew how to kill Him.

But Harry had no idea what to do. So what was the Wizarding World to do to save the World and everyone in it?

It was the American Wizarding Society that gave the British one the idea. Their President for Wizards – Dirk Knowles – produced a scrap of parchment that forced all unmarried Wizards to join the fight against the New Death Eaters, a practice that should have surely died out generations ago.

That wasn't the shocking thing though. Neither was it shocking that Harry was forced to put it into practice in Britain as well. The shocking thing was that her boyfriend, despite his job as a high-up Ministry official, close enough to Harry that he shouldn't need to go and fight, wanted to go and fight.

oOo

She looked up at the clock, and registered the time. Then she looked down again, trying to block out the distant sounds of death and suffering. Why was this happening?

Four minutes.

The last time he had been able to return home, she had pleaded with him, trying to convince him not to return. But he had changed. He wasn't the same person that she fell in love with, back in Hogwarts, back before Voldemort returned.

Her father had told her of what bloodlust could do to good men, the same time that he told her of the Second War.

She brought her nails to her mouth, and chewed the nail of her ring finger.

oOo

"I think it's time I told you," Her father said, glancing at her mother quickly, before placing his fork down. "All of you."

She looked at her brothers, who both shrugged. They didn't know either then – she had expected them to be told a long, long time ago.

"James," Their father continued, looking at his eldest son. "Albus, Lily."

She sat up a little straighter, and felt James's hand slip into hers. Playing the protective older brother role, as always.

None of them said anything as their mother said something to their father, before standing up and smiling softly at all three of her children. "I'll be in the living room if you need me." She said quietly.

Only their father spoke from that moment on. Not even James – who was prone to cocky outbursts – cut in; he was too busy listening carefully to everything his father was saying.

"Lord Voldemort is gone, for good," Their father finished, exhaling slightly. "We don't need to worry about him anymore."

There was a tremor in his voice, a definite uncertainty, but Lily passed it off as nerves, and thought no more of it.

oOo

How much would she give to be that naïve right now?

Two minutes.

Lily pulled and tugged at the roots of her hair as the seconds still ticked by, not stopping like she so desperately wished. They would be lining that regiment up now, for the prospective mourners and close family member to see. Scorpius would be at the far left, head held high, even in face of death.

The look in his eyes that meant that he wasn't her Scorpius, not anymore. Lily still loved him, and she missed him, and she would miss him, but she was mistaking all of those emotions for regret. Regret that she couldn't save him from himself and his bloodlust.

The Twenty-First regiment (also known as the Suicide Squad), the one that included all the 'soldiers' with the special talents and tricks, had been known for taking on the most difficult and suicidal of tasks. Lily had known every single man that had joined the Suicide Squad, and they had all been, once upon a time, kind and caring individuals.

Of course, the war changed them.

oOo

"Marry me." Scorpius said quickly, getting down on one knee and pulling out a scrap of metal in an odd ring-shape.

"No." Lily said just as quickly, turning away from her ex-boyfriend. "It is over between us Scorpius. It has been for a very long time."

She waited for the words that never came, before she turned around and shook her head at him. She could read his mind – what he was thinking right now matched her thoughts almost exactly. They were both as annoyed, confused and angry as each other.

"Don't talk to me about death and murder like they're 'no big deal'." Lily hissed, her blood beginning to boil at Scorpius's dumbfounded expression. "Even Death Eaters deserve to be honoured in death. They're real people. Like me, and you, and James and Albus."

Scorpius scoffed. "Are you a sympathiser now?" He asked, his mouth curving into a sneer. "I have orders to kill all symphathisers now too."

"THEY KILLED MY MOTHER!" Lily burst out, the first tears falling. "Why would I… Why… My own mother. And all you can do is kneel there and gulp like a fucking goldfish!"

Scorpius opened his mouth to say something more, but Lily reached for her wand and pointed it at his throat.

"Get out." She said, in a dangerously smooth, cool tone. "Scorpius, get out."

oOo

One minute.

She had done the right thing, Lily knew that. James and Albus were proud of how she had managed to stand up to Scorpius, Albus not without a twinge of sadness. Albus and Scorpius had been best friends. Past tense.

Fellow Slytherins, partners in crime… None of that mattered now. Blood ran thicker than water, shown by how the first people to comfort her were James and Albus, no one else.

Why had Scorpius been so damn reckless? Getting captured by some sympathisers, handed in to the Death Eaters. And now they were all to die.

Lily wouldn't be going, of course. She would snap in two. After all, she still loved him. And she had never apologised for what she had said that day. They had both been upset and tired and their personalities simply clashed, like they did most of the time.

The worst thing was, she wanted to backtrack to the day on which she dumped him and forced him out of her apartment. She wanted to accept his marriage proposal, however shambolic and ill timed it was.

Thirty seconds.

Mr Nott would be the one listing out the crimes against the Suicide Squad. Someone would try to get them all off the platform, but it would be useless.

Twenty seconds.

Lily looked up again, deliberating on whether she could bring herself to Apparate over there. But she quickly pushed those feelings away, knowing that this – this vigil, as it were – would be her closure.

Ten seconds.

She just hoped that Scorpius would find it in him to forgive her in his final moments.

Seven.

Six.

"I'm sorry…" She murmured, gnawing on her lip, eyes fixed on the clock.

Four.

Three.

Two.

"I love you Scorpius."

Then the larger hand reached the top of the clock, hitting midnight.