AN: I have always been fascinated by the minor characters in Harry Potter, such as Sally-Anne Perks and Lily Moon. We have apart from the fact that they are both in Harry's year absolutely no information on them, they are not mentioned ever again. We don't even know what house they are in. I decided to give them stories.
Warning: This is not an entirely happy fic. It deals with the war against Voldemort and has themes of death and suicide. Really, it get's seriously dark in the end, and I did consider to put it under M because of it.
Lily Moon is born in a quiet December night, a few days before Christmas. She is a tiny baby, but she learns to smile very quickly. Her parents dote on her, their wonderful magical Christmas girl.
Lily is a curious child, always touching everything within her reach. She tries to eat most things, though, which is why her parents always keep an eye on her. They're quite sure she at least a few beetles anyway. She likes music, and always tries to sing. It sounds horrible, but her parents still smile proudly.
To her first birthday, Lily gets book with moving pictures. It details a child friendly version of what will later (much later) be known as the First War. Lily doesn't understand that the story is true, she thinks it's just another fairytale like the one her mother tells her every night before her sleep. Her father quietly sighs in relief. He doesn't want her to understand. After all, what father would like to tell his daughter that he was one of the bad guys in a real life fairytale?
Sally-Anne Perks is born on an icy-cold morning in late January. She greets the world with a blood curling scream and her parents couldn't be prouder.
She leaves the muggle-hospital with her parents three days later. Her father, John Perks, notices that his wife Maggie keeps looking over her shoulders, as though she is expecting to be attacked at any given moment. He asks her about it, but Maggie just smiles sadly. How is she supposed to explain her fear of Death Eaters, when her husband doesn't even know that magic is real? So she smiles and says something about just being worried about their little girl. John believes it. Somehow she is disappointed.
Lucien and Carmine Moon spend the year after Lily's birth trying to save their marriage. They want to give their daughter a loving home, so they decide to restart their marriage. It's not easy. They're both from halfblood families, proud, prestigious families that were able to give their children money and safety. During the War that had put them on the safe side, as safe as anyone was in those times. But Lucien had joined up with the Dark Lord. He confesses to Carmine that he wanted the power, that he believed it when they told him that muggles and muggleborn were the reason of all troubles. He had wanted to believe it. His family had supported him when he became a Death Eater. Carmine tells him that she never believed in the Dark Lord. She tells him that she considered running away a couple times, but that she was raised to stand side by side with her husband, to help and to obey him, and that such an education is not something one forgets easily. She confides that she was scared, too. Scared to leave the security of the family, that was as much prison as safety. She smiles sadly. "After all, I'm a Ravenclaw, not a Gryffindor." She tells him.
They discover that they can't have any more children after Lily. They cry that night, together, lying on the bed. It helps. It doesn't save their marriage, but it's a first step.
Maggie Perks dies in a car crash when her daughter is just three months old.
John goes into shock when the cops tell him. He is able to lead them out again, to close the door, but then he just crumbles to the floor, exactly where he was standing. To this day, he doesn't know how long he spend just lying there and crying. He remembers the desperation, the feeling that he couldn't live without Maggie, that life meant nothing without her. He doesn't pick up the phone or answer the door. He does nothing.
Then he hears a small whimper. When he looks up, Sally-Anne stares at him with big blue eyes. There are tears on her cheeks. Guiltily John wonders how long she has been crying without him noticing. He stands up and makes her a bottle of warm milk, the way Maggie showed him, with his hands shaking the whole time. Sally-Anne smiles at him. He promises himself, his daughter and his dead wife that he will take care of this little girl, that he will love and protect her.
The next few months are torture. He organizes Maggie's funeral, because her parents are long gone and there is no one else to do it, he goes to work, renovates the house lie he and Maggie had planned. Sally-Anne is with him at all times, playing in a basket or asleep on her blanket. John's boss had objected at first, stating that he working in an office and not in a kindergarten, but when he saw the desperation in John's eyes he relented. He wakes up one morning without searching for Maggie. It's a start.
Lucien and Carmine give Lily a toy broom for her fifth birthday. A few other children are invited, from good, half- or pureblood families that have money and social standing.
Lily is not sure how much she like the other children. She doesn't know them, and all conversations are awkward. She is sure that she hates the broom, though. It doesn't take her much higher than maybe a foot of the ground, but she still manages to fall of it and sprain her ankle. Her mother heals it quickly and sings her a pretty song, but Lily still spends most of the day crying.
John takes Sally-Anne to the zoo for her sixth birthday. It's icy-cold, like the day Sally-Anne was born, but the penguins enjoy themselves, and so does Sally-Anne.
Later there is a small party with a few other children from the kindergarten. They play board games and sing along with the radio while John drinks tea with their parents. Sally-Anne smiles the whole day.
Lily is nine years old when her heart gets broken for the first time. Kyle, a boy from the neighborhood who used to play with her on the playground and sometimes brought her flowers ignores her all of sudden. She's not sure why, so she quietly follows him one day and sees him playing with a few other boys. She is jut close enough to hear him say that she is stupid.
She cries the whole way home. When her father asks her what happened, she tells him between sobs. Lucien takes her in his arms and lets her cry, whispering that boys are stupid and muggle boys even more so. After she has calmed down a bit, he tells her funny stories until she laughs again.
Sally-Anne is eleven years old when her heart gets broken for the first time. She thought, her whole life she thought that she would go to school with her friends, with Mara and Ruby and Julie and Janice, that they would continue to be best friends forever, that they would all always play their music together. Sally-Anne is very talented with the flute. But then a strange woman in a strange emerald gown changed it all. Now she is going to a strange school in Scotland to learn magic.
Sally-Anne is at the same time overjoyed and heartbroken. She is very excited at the prospect of learning magic, of being a witch, and the few examples Professor McGonagall had shown her and her father to convince them that magic is real had been really impressive. At the same time she knows she is going to lose her friends. It makes no matter that they promised to write each other, Sally-Anne isn't allowed to tell them about magic. She will not be able to write them anything important, and so she is going to lose them.
Lily heard stories about Hogwarts, a lot of them, but nothing measures up to truly seeing it for the first time. It's huge, mysterious,... magical. She is on a boat with two boys named Ernie and Justin and a girl named Sally-Anne, and while they wait they discuss houses. Ernie wants to be a Hufflepuff which is apparently a family tradition. Justin and Sally-Anne are muggleborn and don't know what they want. Lily realizes that she doesn't, either. Her mother was a Ravenclaw, she knows, and her father a Slytherin. Those houses can't be too bad, then, she think, but Ernie looks disdainful at the mention of Slytherin, so she doesn't say it out loud. It doesn't matter though, because after a long while in which the hat whispers and whispers it finally proclaims her a Gryffindor.
Sally-Anne can't stop staring at everything around her. The desks full of food, the candles floating in the air, the ghosts, the teachers. The hat had told her that she had courage ad placed her in Gryffindor, which she supposes is pretty good because Lily is sitting next to her and explaining things. A boy named Harry Potter who was sorted right after Sally-Anne is somehow famous, and Lily seems genuinely shocked when Sally-Anne admits that she has never heard the name before. Then she blinks and launches into a long explanation.
They become best friends without ever really thinking about it. It is kind of logical, though. The other Gryffindor girls, Lavender Brown and Parvati Patil, were best friends before coming to Hogwarts, and Hermione Granger prefers to be left alone until after Halloween, when she tarts spending time with Harry Potter and Ron Weasley. Lily doesn't mind. Sally-Anne is very nice, she loves music as much as Lily does, and if Sally-Anne doesn't know how most wizarding things work, Lily doesn't mind explaining. They spend every free minute together, telling each other about their lives at home, about their families, complaining about teachers, discussing the difference between muggle and magical music, practicing their music. They do not spend time with Justin and Ernie. Sally-Anne seems to be a bit disappointed by that, but Lily didn't expect differently. They are in different houses now, and her father always said that inter-house friendships are difficult. They write long letters home to their parents, and Sally-Anne cries a whole night when her old friends stop writing- They go to the Quidditch matches, but only because everybody else does and they don't want to stick out. They don't got to the corridor on the third floor, because they are good girls with no particular interest in dying or detentions. At the end of the year they celebrate the house cup, even thought they're not really sure what to make out of the cryptic words of their headmaster.
They write each other a lot over the summer. They can't visit, but every other day there's an owl dropping a letter and scaring Sally-Anne's father half to death. She laughs every time, and he laughs with her. She starts asking about her mother, and John shows her pictures. The photographs show a very pretty young woman who laughs and enjoys her life. For the first time in years Sally-Anne cries because she can't remember her mother.
The second year starts slow. It's quiet, except the new DADA teacher is apparently celebrity, too. Lily is very excited about him, even though Sally-Anne secretly things he's actually not that great. One day she helps her friend look Professor Lockhart up in the Hogwarts yearbooks in the library. They don't find him (the yearbook in question was already with some fourth year Ravenclaws, they later learn) but Sally-Anne nearly drops the book when suddenly her mother is smiling at her. She must have paled significantly, because Lily takes the book out of her limb hands, presses a hand to her forehead and recommends a visit at Madam Pomfrey's. It takes Sally-Anne a few minutes to calm down enough to explain what is going on. Together they realize that Maggie Baker, who would later become Maggie Perks, wore a black and yellow tie, which means she was a Hufflepuff. They go to Professor Sprout the next day, and the head of house Hufflepuff sits them down and tells them stories about Sally-Anne's mother while fighting of her tears. It's strange to see Professor Sprout so close to crying, but Sally-Anne is more interested in the stories. She listens to them all, storing every single one away in her memory. Those stories are the most prominent thing on Sally-Anne's mind, even when there is writing in blood on the wall proclaiming that the chamber of secrets has been opened, because what does Sally-Anne care about a school myth when she can finally hear more about her mother? They are a bit scared when little Colin Creevey is found petrified, but not half as much as Neville, because they are both halfbloods, and the monster is only supposed to attack muggleborns. When Hermione is petrified, they spend the night together in Lily's bed, because while Hermione might not have been their friend, she was way closer to them than the other victims, and it felt almost as though the monster had invaded their bedroom and took Hermione from here. In the end, Harry Potter saves them all yet again, but they don't ask how because they are honestly to relieved to care.
The third year starts with dementors, what, in hindsight, Lily thinks should have been a neon sign of what was to come. Maybe she is exaggerating a bit, but the third year simply isnt fun.
Sirius Black had broken out of Azkaban, but nobody really cared, because nobody thought he would come to Hogwarts. But of course, with their luck...
When he breaks in at Halloween, the whole school is shocked and Lily sleeps in Sally-Anne's bed for a week, but soon enough everybody forgets. For some reason Sally-Anne falls in love with Justin Finch-Fletchley, as much as a thirteen year old can, at least. Lily can't see why, and she tells Sally-Anne that. They have a huge fight and don't talk to each other for three weeks, before Lily breaks down and apologizes. Those weeks are the worst in Lily's entire life. On top of that, Arithmancy turns out much more difficult than either of them imagined, and within the first two months they're sure Professor Trelawney from Divination is a fraud. Professor Lupin is amazing, but even that seems false when he later turns out to be a werewolf. (Lily's mother throws a fit about that one.) Sirius Black breaks in again, and again, and somehow not surprisingly, Harry, Ron and Hermione are tangled up in everything yet again. In the end, both Lily and Sally-Anne barely pass Arithmancy and Divination, and hope for better luck next year.
Fourth year starts with a bang. The Triwizard Tournament? Sally-Anne and Lily are so exited. They read up on everything, spend hours discussing who has the best chances and cheer for every Gryffindor who puts his name in the goblet. They cheer for Cedric Diggory, too, when he is chosen, because he might not be a Gryffindor, but he is certainly a worthy champion of Hogwarts.
When Harry Potter's name is called, nobody cheers. Everybody is way to shocked for that. Sally-Anne sees the look on his face. He looks about as shocked as everyone else, but she and Lily later discuss that he might have been faking it. Not that they really care. They are not champions, they prefer to stick to their music. They still know that it's the hot topic for weeks, that Lavender and Parvati gossip and spread theories shamelessly.
A lot of girls follow Viktor Krum, the Durmstrang champion, who is apparently also a famous Quidditch player, around. Sally-Anne and Lily agree that their not interested in him, because he doesn't look particularly good and doesn't seem to clever, either.
The first task starts and Harry, their Gryffindor Harry spectacularly outflies a dragon. Now the whole school is cheering. Everybody stays in the schoool for Christmas this time, and Sally-Anne has butterflies in her stomach when she goes to the Yule Ball with Justin, while Lily is asked by Dean Thomas. For both of them it's their first real date, and Lily won't stop talking about Dean afterward, even though most other people concentrate on the fact that famous Viktor Krum showed up with Hermione Granger. Sally-Anne herself dates Justin for two weeks before they mutually decide that they're better as friends.
The second task goes by almost unnoticed next to the things Rita Skeeter writes for the Daily Prophet and Witch Weekly. Sally-Anne is not sure how much of it she believes, because while Hermione is certainly dating Viktor Krum, she never seemed to be interested in Harry, at least not in the way Rita Skeeter writes it. Lily says that her mother is a fan of Rita Skeeter and believes everything she writes, ad Sally-Anne shrugs and lets it go. And then the third task happens and Cedric Diggory is dead and everybody is confused and scared. Dumbledore holds a speech about Cedric and there are crying students at every corner. Sally-Anne is terrified, and she knows Lily is, too. For the first time she is relieved to leave the school.
The whole summer before fifth year is very tense at the Moon house. The Prophet writes about how Harry Potter is insane and Dumbledore senile, and Lucien believes it. He wants to believe it, because if he does, he can ignore the twinging of pain in the Dark Mark on his arm, can pretend that the peace is going to last. Carmine is not so sure. She thinks that Dumbledore is probably right, and she also thinks they should make a run for it because if the Dark Lord is truly back then they're in deep trouble.
Lily doesn't notice that, though. She only knows that the Prophet says Harry is insane and that her father says that, too, so probably they're right. She writes so to Sally-Anne. Later, when they sit in the Hogwarts Express with Lavender Brown, Lisa Turpin, Mandy Bocklehurst and the Patil twins, it's the only topic of discussion. Lavender believes the Prophet, just like Lisa and Mandy. The Patil twins don't. Lily knows that Sally-Anne isn't sure either way. It doesn't matter, not really.
They have a new teacher, Professor Umbridge. Within one lesson, everybody hates her. She wears only pink, and her very high vice grates on everyone's nerves. She has it in for Harry, that's clear, but Lily is still not convinced that he isn't completely insane, so she doesn't really care. What she doe care about is that Terry Boot suddenly looks hot. She tries, with the help of Sally-Anne, of course, to get him to notice her, but he's always only with his Ravenclaw friends. Sally-Anne tries to get Justin Finch-Fletchly back, but he mostly ignores her. He seems to hang out too much with Crazy Harry Potter anyway, just like Terry Boot, Lily tells Sally-Anne as she cries about him.
There are quite a few people who hang out with Harry more than they used to, Sally-Anne notes whens he has calmed down a bit. Lavender, who had at the begin of the year insisted Harry was crazy, for example. Ernie Macmillian, Hannah Abbot and Susan Bones, for another. Justin and Terry. It's kind of strange, really, but since their new policy is to ignore people who ignore them, they don't investigate further.
Suddenly things go very fast. Umbridge fires Trelawney. Dumbledore gets fired and has to go on the run. Umbridge is the new headmistress. On the corridors, there are more and more kids clutching their hands as though they were hurting, but when asked, nobody says anything. And then everything changes once again. Dumbledore duels You-know-who in the atrium of the ministry, in front of dozens of witnesses. Suddenly Harry and Dumbledore are heroes again, instead of crazy. Lily and Sally-Anne leave the school more confused and scared than ever.
Lucien starts working for the Dark Lord again almost immediately after he publicly reveals himself. His wife argues about it with him, but he knows it's the only way to save his family from the retribution that would surely follow if he left the Dark Lord for good. Once, he had truly believed the credo of the Death Eaters, and even now, he finds himself feeling comfortable with them again. It scares him. He isn't a pureblood, but maybe the world would be better if wizards ruled muggles? Carmine nearly leaves him. They don't tell their daughter.
Sally-Anne starts into sixth year anxious and exited. Exited, because Justin has finally answered her letters, and anxious, because, well, You-know-who is back. Lily assures her that as halblood she should be more or less safe.
Then Amelia Bones is murdered, and Hannah Abbots mother, too, but they were both actively working against You-know-who, so they are still safe, they whisper in the night, trying to convince the other, and, perhaps even more so, themselves. They try to forget, to be happy.
Sally-Anne goes on ten dates with Justin, while Lily dates Terry first, then becomes Dean Thomas' rebound from Ginny Weasley and finally settles on Anthony Goldstein. They watch Ron Weasley dating Lavender Brown when it's absolutely clear that he's actually into Hermione Granger and Lavender into Seamus Finnegan. They watch Harry dating Ginny and him taking Loony Lovegood to a Slughorn party. They are silly, hormonal teenagers. They are happy.
And then there are Death Eaters in the Astronomy tower, and there is a battle, and Dumbledore falls. The funeral is nice, but surreal. Sally-Anne doesn't understand how he can be dead, how Albus Dumbledore can be gone. He was always larger than life, always somehow more than human. Now he's just dead.
The summer before Lily's last year they finally tell her everything. Lucien and Carmine sit her down, show her Lucien's Dark Mark ad start explaining. Lily stares at them for minutes, because this can't be true. Her father, her beloved Daddy, can't be a Death Eater. He just can't. But he is.
On the train to school she and Sally-Anne sit alone. There are so many empty compartments. She tells Sally-Anne everything, of course. Sally-Anne goes pale, but looks her in the eyes and says: "You're not your father." Lily remembers Sally-Anne's father is a muggle. They decide to talk about more cheerful things.
School is horror. The Carrows are horrible, and entirely too fond of the Cruciatus. Lily and Sally-Anne keep their heads down and hope not to be seen. Lavender and Parvati are different. They stand up and talk back to the teachers, like true Gryffindors. Soon, they have scars all over their arms, not as much as Ginny Weasley, but it still looks horrible. Lily and Sally-Anne feel horrible. They were sorted into Gryffindor, they are supposed to be brave, but they're not. They're terrified, and they're hiding. They are not like Lavender or Parvati or Ginny. And it isn't as though those are the only ones. Neville Longbottom seems to be the leader, together with Ginny and Loony Lovegood. They talk back regularly, they stand up to take the punishment for others, they prank the Carrows, they leave graffiti. DA, Lily's heard them call themselves. It takes a huge graffiti on the doors of the castle, proclaiming "Dumbledore's Army" in huge yellow letters for her and Sally-Anne to understand what that means. Even Lisa Turpin, whose parents and brothers are very vocal Death Eaters, seems to be one of them. She discusses joining them with Sally-Anne, and both manage to construct an excuse out of not knowing who to talk to about it. Silently, Lily loathes herself for it. They could easily just ask Lavender, or Parvati, or Lisa or... a lot of people. But they are too scared, too craven. They are Gryffindors, they are supposed to be brave. But they aren't.
They start a music club. It helps them sooth their nerves, and they are genuinely surprised when others students start to join. A first year with a wonderful voice. A third year with the violin. A fifth year with a guitar. Two second years with a piano. They play for everybody who wants to listen, Death Eaters and Resistance alike. Only the latter shows up. Members of the DA start to smile at them as though they were part of the Resistance. Lily doesn't understand, why.
Luna disappears. Then Ginny. And then, suddenly, McGonagall duels Snape and the Order of the Phoenix appears and Harry is there and they're fighting. The teachers offer evacuation, and Lily stands up with the younger children. Her father will likely come to Hogwarts to fight for You-know-who, and anyway, she's way to craven to fight Death Eaters. Then she realizes that Sally-Anne is still sitting. Lily begs her, Lily pleads her, but Sally-Anne stays. "I have to do this." She says. "For my father." Lily cries there and then, in the middle of the Great Hall, but Sally-Anne tells her to leave, because Sally-Anne is her best friend and she doesn't want Lily to have to fight her own father. They hug each other desperately. It's the last time Lily sees Sally-Anne alive.
They are in a house in Hogsmeade, over two hundred very scared children. Lily is the oldest there, and she tries to keep order, tries not to worry too much. They hear sounds of battle, but it is too far away to figure out anything. After many, many hours a ruffled Professor McGonagall comes in to tell them they've won. Everyone cheers, but Lily can't shake the feeling of dread.
The children get picked up by parents and siblings. Lily's parents com, too. Obviously, nobody has realized that Lucien Moon is a Death Eater. At least not yet. But Lily doesn't want to go home. Not without finding Sally-Anne.
So they go back together. The school is in chaos, pieces of walls and statues and people are lying everywhere. Lucien and Carmine hold Lily's hands. Parvati Patil sees them. She is alive, Parvati, Padma by her side, but both have a hollow look in their eyes and Lily doesn't dare ask about Lavender. When they hug her she knows what happened. She cries and screams and rages. She demands to see Sally-Anne, to see her best friend, her other half. They take her to a classroom that's now used as a morgue. Lily later doesn't even remember which classroom it was. All she remembers is Sally-Anne, blond hair tangled, blue eyes closed, a strangely peaceful sight, almost as if she was only sleeping. "Killing Curse. She didn't suffer." Someone next to her says. Lily never finds out who it was.
Lily goes to the funeral, along with Sally-Anne's father, her old friends who believe she died in a car crash and their little signing club. Lavender shows up in a wheel chair, together with Seamus Finnegan, the Patil twins and Lisa Turpin. Mandy Bocklehurst is dead too, Lily learns.
She starts drinking. It's a way to forget, the only way. Because she keeps seeing Sally-Anne before the battle, how she told her to leave, so that Lily would not have to fight her father. She feels incredibly guilty, because that was not the reason she left. She left because she was too craven to fight in a battle, so craven that she had left her best friends side, had abandoned Sally-Anne, had probably, certainly indirectly killed her. Her thoughts became a spiral of "My fault, my fault, my fault." The fact that Lisa Turpin, a Ravenclaw, stayed and fought her own family, doesn't help either. There are people offering her help, DA and teachers and her parents, but Lily can't bear to talk to any of them.
Six month later she has enough. She writes a letter for her mother and chooses a fast working poison. She just can't stand live anymore, and death welcomes her easily.
Carmine spends two weeks in shock. She lies in bed and stares at the wall. The healers have to feed her. Lucien leaves. He comes back two months later, eyes swollen and quiet. Carmine doesn't ask where he went. She doesn't care.
She makes sure Lily is buried next to Sally-Anne, because her little girl, the girl who couldn't live without her best friend, should be united with her at least in death. She buys black clothes and goes to a support group of mothers who lost children in the war. She tells them that Lily was a causality of the war and they understand.
She divorces Lucien. She's not scared anymore. There is nothing to be scared of, she has already lost everything. She watches Lucien's trial and feels a faint satisfaction when they decide he's guilty.
She searches out John Perks. They talk abut their girls. They put flowers on their graves. They remember.
AN: I warned you it would get dark. I kind of wanted to show the ugly side of war, what happens away from the heroes. I hope you liked it and would love to get a review!