0.

She dreamed she was the ocean.

True peace came in the depths, where the world was silent. So deep that the light no longer shone, up was down and there was weightlessness in the crush of gravity.

On the shores, the light of the distant sun lit water like fire, fire cold and sooth as glass. The light of ocean mirrors does not illuminate anything but itself: all else is shadow and silhouette. Winds and waves sounded like lost radios. Messages in sounds and bottles that would never reach those shores played the lament of minds forced apart.

She dreamed she was the ocean, and through the cracks in the water slipped fragments. Past, present and to be, but she was the ocean, and oceans are not changed by the passing of time. The edges shift and the shores recede and what were mountains become islands, but what was ocean is still ocean.

Her son, voice as shrill as seagulls, was the foghorn cradled in her arms. The siren sounding out the world; the sonar calling men as prey to lust and wrath. Others were only merfolk, curious and cruel but only merfolk; her son was sound in her arms, warmth that lit her shores.

She dreamed she was the ocean, and there were whales that carried the weight of the world in her depths.

A picture of the ocean hung on the hospital wall, but the air was still as too many deaths. Her son in the hands of a man that was not a man, that was more a man than the rest. He whose voice slipped in the cracks and tried to lure her to a line, to drag her to the surface.

He was changing the words to the song. She reached out and took her son back into her arms, where he could swim her waters and be free. Rock-a-bye baby…

She dreamed she was the ocean, and her waters were calm, but never still. At sea, the baby's basket rocked, floating in the soft waves. At shore, what was sand became water, and water became sand, and again, and again.

Her son cried: he who held him did not know why. Her voice fell uselessly on the rocks, like the shells the gulls dropped were empty and distant. "Give him something to eat! Can't you see he'll starve if you keep letting the fish swim free!"

Depths couldn't teach her son how to float. He would surely drown in her ocean.

But you are not the ocean. You can swim him to shore.

She could push him to shore, but when his tiny feet took to land and he learned to run and to soar, all her mighty oceans could not save him from the fire.

Lily. You can't keep dreaming. You are not the ocean, love.

She found peace on the dark ocean floors, where the lost ships with journeys still held stories of promises—

Let me be. You are not the ocean. Go to our son.

—but there they would rot and rust and be buried, and she was the ocean, and her power was not her own, and while time does not change an ocean, oceans change the world in ways they cannot control.

Let go.

And so the ocean became a selkie, and when she shed her skin she could carry her son safe to shore. And she brought with her the ocean, but she saw only the seas.

1.

Her own face stared up at her from a magazine, set carelessly on the top of the Healer's inbox on her paper-strewn desk. Lily stiffened, but her mentor, Healer Engelhart, was not the type of woman who would have chosen the magazine for herself. She was far too busy for Witch Weekly, and besides, she'd never trust a journalist to report her student's words accurately.

LILY POTTER REVEALS ALL! the headline, too big for its space on the page, proclaimed. EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH THE MOTHER OF THE BOY WHO LIVED.

Of course Lily had personally edited the article, but she was painfully aware of her youth. At twenty-one, most of the magical world still saw her as too young to fill the shoes fate had handed her. If fame had come differently, the witches' tabloids would be filled with slander. How thrilled they would have been to know that her son had been an accident—poor planning and a youthful fear that life was too short to pass the chance. Fate had intervened: Harry Potter would never be spoken of as an accident. Lily would make sure of that.

Healer Laura Engelhart, Director of Understudies and Third Surgeon, came in just as Lily made her move to flip the magazine over. Hawkish eyes missed nothing, but years of working in a hospital had given the Healer a good touch of tact. She said nothing of it as she hurried around her desk, pushing aside a few papers to clear space for the file she placed between them. "Good morning, Lily."

Though not, by nature, a kindly woman, the Healer was not so cruel as her reputation would rumor. She simply got to the point without the hassle of excessive friendliness. Lily loved her for it. Loved the way she never stuck her nose where it wasn't needed, but knew each of her students' personal situations, and checked in with her long-term patients regularly even when she hadn't slept in twenty hours herself.

"Hello, Laura," Lily replied. "Please, I've had enough of exchanging pleasantries to last me a lifetime. Let's get straight to the point, shall we?"

2.

James and Lily Potter had been married in secrecy shortly following their graduation from Hogwarts. It had been necessary; they had rejected an offer from Voldemort himself, and that made them targets. The wedding followed a meeting of the Order of the Pheonix, and for a night and three and a half years they lived in a pocket of music, dancing, and joy that defied the times. The house they shared at Godric's Hollow was filled with good food and better friends, for a time, and even when the world squeezed them in too tight for all that, it held those closest to them, and soon, their son. And even when it was just Lily, James, and Harry, everything she could have hoped for in life was in that house.

And then it was gone.

It had taken them hours to pry Lily away from her son long enough to be sure they were both in no lingering danger. Her son, with the scar like lightning tearing down from the sky etched across his forehead. Her son, who as she held him tightly in her arms, as ready to die as James already had, had not uttered a single cry. She remembered the green light, which she had seen too many times before. She remembered the shrieking, revolting, wretched sound as Voldemort's body crumbled into nothingness. The fell chill, the icy blast that passed through her like walking through a ghost.

"They're not going to give him a trial," Remus said one day. How long had passed since they had moved her here, a closed room with heavy wards? How long had she been locked away with her son and an enchanted window to the sea? She did not know when Remus had come, or if he had been there the whole time, or if he was even there at all—but he had to be.

"Who?" she had asked. She did not know how long after. Time was difficult to track. The waves beating against the cliffs were too difficult to keep track when they were all, in the end, all part of one greater swell. But she had been too long at sea, and between flashes of green and waves of ghostly chill she had heard Remus' voice, and that drew her out of the depths.

Remus, who had always been better at these things than the others, passed her a glass of clear potion and didn't ask about her sudden recovery.

"Sirius," he answered, trying and failing to sound matter of fact. She had forgotten what she was questioning, but he spoke on, and she anchored against his voice. "They've sent him straight to Azkaban for what he did."

"What he did?" she repeated. Harry began to fuss; she adjusted him in her arms and wondered when he had gotten so big. When she finally looked at Remus, he was staring right at her.

"Lily," he said, slowly. "James is—"

"Dead," she said. She tried to say. The word was like a clap of waves against the earth. Hollow. She stroked the fine hair on Harry's head. She couldn't think about James, about the green light and the man—no, monster, who had taken her husband from them—

She cleared her throat, and urged her lungs to breath again. Remus was right there, Harry, in her arms. She grasped at the present as tightly as she could. "What does Sirius have to do with that?" She looked around, vaguely wondering where the man was. She was so used to him standing at Remus' shoulder, keeping an eye on him so he didn't look like—like this. Like he'd been through hell and only come out dragged along by a thestral.

The way his eyebrows pinched made his tired face look just as confused as she felt. His voice was faltering: "After—after everything? When Peter found him—he murdered him, Lily. Blew up the whole street—Sirius did—right in the middle of Muggle London."

"Peter," she said, vaguely. She wanted to sound cold, but she did not have the energy to feel angry, she just felt—tired. It had been Peter all along, and they had been too blind to see it. They had always overlooked poor Peter, no matter how they tried to make room for him in their world. He'd always been straggling after his friends. "Sirius does have a tendency to over-react, but…" She paused. "Why aren't they giving him a trial? It wasn't the right way to deal with—but the Death Eater Clause—"

"Death Eater Clause?" Remus echoed. "Lily, Sirius was working for Voldemort! He gave up the secret of Godric's Hollow and murdered Peter! People are demanding the kiss!"

"What are you…" Things finally started to fall into place, just as Harry woke up and started to cry. She shushed him gently. When had he gotten so big? "Remus," she said as gently as she could. "Sirius wasn't the secret keeper."

She would not choke on it, their fatal flaw. She would not. They hadn't even known what Peter had done until the door started to shake as the wards began to fall. Lily, take Harry—I'll hold him off—the green light through the frame of the door—

"Lily." Remus' voice broke through the waves, and she opened her eyes. "Lily, what are you talking about?"

She tried to focus on his hands, but her eyes were still swimming—no, his hands were shaking. She was already reaching out with a hand to check his forehead. He was hot, but then again, he always was.

"We were afraid," she said slowly, "That they would use you to get to Sirius. He was at wit's end, trying to keep us, and you safe, and we couldn't ask you, in case they already had you, so we called Peter—"

"No—"

"—and asked him—"

"—no—"

"—and that night was—"

She cut herself off. The last of he will power flooding out of her. Harry, awake now, was grabbing at her hair. Remus had stood in the heat of things, and now stared down at her, eyes wide. Her vision kept blurring, and she realized she was crying—green light and a cold air—

"Lily, he's been in Azkaban for two months," Remus choked out, when he finally found his voice. "He's been in—"

Harry wailed, louder than before, and the both of them finally looked at him. Remus reached down and took Harry, bouncing the child against his shoulder.

"Two months?" Lily echoed. She could not—but Remus held Harry like he had done it a thousand times before, and found the bowl of food and spoon to feed him with.

"We have to tell Dumbledore," Remus was saying as he patiently helped Harry eat, ignoring the globs of food the child dribbled onto his shabby jacket. "He'll know what to do."

Two months? "Yes," said, Lily absently. "Is there a quill—I'll write him myself. Or maybe the Floo—"

"There's not one in here," Remus said, "and trust me, you don't want to go outside just yet." He pulled his wand out with his spoon holding hand and waved them both at her, sending bits of food across the white bedspread. Until that moment she hadn't realized it, but she knew exactly where she was now: one of the sealed rooms in the quarantine ward at St. Mungos. It was the closest thing the hospital had to a high-security room—indeed, there had been several fugitives awaiting trial mended in these rooms, just to the point that they were in no danger of dying prematurely before the aurors would swoop in to deposit them on the stand. The thought of it made Lily shiver, sending any comfort she might have drawn from the familiar location out the enchanted window.

She swung her feet out from under the covers of the bed, careful not to knock the writing materials Remus had conjured for her onto the floor, and found herself clothed in the simple garb that only long-term patients wore. "Remus, she said, her training nagging at her, "We should call a healer, shouldn't we? If it's been two months there are all sorts of tests they'll want to be running."

"We can, if you'd like," he said. "But there's only the emergency notice. They've been doing identity checks on everyone before they let them on this floor, in light of the attacks…"

"Attacks?"

Remus sighed. "They'll be a lot to catch you up on, Lily, but there'll be a nurse in here in fifteen minutes, and they won't give you the time to breath after that, will they? Lily, please."

She did not need to look at him to understand what Remus was asking—why he was asking—but she did. He was clinging to Harry as tightly as she had been, the minutes before. She wondered if this was how he had hoped to cope with everything, to try to take care of her and Harry and ignore himself, as he was so proe to do. But now, she realized, there was something like hope fueling his desperation.

Two months?

The green light—take Harry and go!

Her first attempt at standing did not go very far, because her legs seemed disinclined to obey her. She would have to ask the nurse later; Remus' answers would do little to explain the state she had been in for the previous two months, medically. She was not angry in the slightest—and, in fact, she was herself confused. Sirius had been in Azkaban for two months, and she was thinking about other things? Her anger finally reared it's head in her gut, propelling her to her feet, and on stiff legs she took the writing supplies to the small table Remus sat at, inking the quill and setting it to a parchment in a haste that defied her body's reluctance to move.

"There," she said, when the letter was composed. She blew the last of the ink dry and passed it across the table, where Remus regarded it wide-eyed, as though he had been handed the Holy Grail. She took her son back from him, smoothening the soft black hair away from the angry red scar etched across his forehead. It would mark him for the rest of his life, she knew. Would he be teased in school? Would he try to hide it under bangs, or wear it proud? Her throat clenched as she imagined him, a young James, and the realization—the green light. Take Harry—hit her gut. How revolting it felt to her, to sit here thinking of children when James was dead, Remus a wreck, and Sirius in Merlin knows what condition.

"Send it to Dumbledore," she said, trying to assure her friend that at least one thing hopeless could be salvaged before it's end. For once, she found herself doubting her own words. The feeling was new, and wholly unpleasant, so she swallowed it. "He'll know what to do."

3.

Remus briefly made a quiet escape in the flurry of activity that filled her room when they realized she was awake, but though the pair of them spent the afternoon only half-listening to the healers, they did not hear back from Dumbledore that evening. Nor did he arrive the next day, when the Minister of Magic and an entourage of faces she only half-recognized arrived to award Harry and herself Order of Merlin, Second Class awards, much to her confusion.

It was Remus, not Dumbledore, who explained that Voldemort had vanished, presumed dead, and that the legitimens who had looked into Harry's young mind had seen the impossible: a killing curse she had tried to shield him from had somehow rebounded off the child and killed the Dark Lord. No Dumbledore, head of the Order of the Pheonix, to explain that they were calling her son the Boy Who Lived, the Child of Light, as the other members were allowed in for brief, tearful visits. Or when she learned the that Frank and Alice Longbottom, despite all precautions, had been attacked as well, and were now two bodies in beds down the hall, minds lost to the torture of Bellatrix Lestrange. Or when she first left the room, and despite the security was set on by four plain-clothes journalists by the time she'd reached the end of the hall.

When two weeks passed and they hadn't heard from Dumbledore—even after several journalists had published quotes of her begging for Sirius' fair trial, and several floo calls to an empty office at Hogwarts—that it became clear to Lily she would be receiving no answer. What had started as concern at his absence had grown into cold fury. He was not so busy with his role as a member of the Wizengamot that he had not been spotted by various people in the Magical Villages. Diagon Alley, Hogsmeade, even Godric's Hollow—but no word to Lily or Remus or anyone else. Why he would not come to their aid, why, when he was a member of the Wizengamot, the magical world's justice system, did he not call for justice?

Remus waned as the moon waned, overcome, it seemed, by the guilt of letting Sirius waste away in Azkaban. The only correspondence that returned from the ministry promised the legal department would look into scheduling a trial when more pressing matters had been dealt with. Lily stopped reminding herself that Sirius may have killed Peter. Frankly, she was finding it harder to care, the more the reality of James' death set in—

—a green light. Take Harry and—

That's it," she said, setting down the Daily Prophet, the morning after the full moon. Remus had gone to the Coquet Island, uninhabited with winter, for the full moon. She could not transform the way James and Sirius could, and she did not trust to leave Harry with anyone else, not even the Order, but Lily could at least help the man find a safe place to change and offer a haven to recover. He was always hungry after the full moon, if Sirius' tasteless jokes were anything to go by, so she made twice their usual breakfast fare and pretended nothing was different as he sat at the table, dark circles under his eyes as he bounced Harry on his knee.

"Lily," he said tiredly. He knew that face. He knew what she had found in the Prophet, or what she hadent found, rather. "Don't do anything rash, whatever you're thinking of."

"Rash?" she echoed, slapping marmalade onto her toast.

Remus wasn't eating, really. Not for lack of appetite; he had scarfed down the first sausage alarmingly quickly for one of his small stature before his mind seemed to get lost in other things.

"I'm sick of sitting here doing nothing, waiting for someone else to set Sirius free. Hasn't every newspaper in the country—hell, the whole of Europe has been declaring me some sort of hero of light?"

"Well, yes, but—"

"Eat your breakfast," she said, taking a big bite of toast and chewing it with unnatural gusto. "I'll show them what it means to want justice."

"What are you going to do?" Remus asked. He sounded too tired to be afraid of her, though in the ten years since they had met he had learned that an angry Lily was not a force to take lightly. "We tried Dumbledore. What are you going to do? March into Azkaban yourself?"

"Exactly," Lily said, and took another bite of her toast as though she would show her force of will in the simple act.

Remus gaped. "But—"

"Eat your breakfast," she repeated, throwing her own toast back on to her plate as she stood. Her cloak was flying towards her almost before she had her wand out to summon it.

She left Remus with his mouth hanging open stupidly, the child on his knee beginning to cry "Remy, Remy!" at the sound of the door slamming shut behind her as Lily flew out of the apartment.

4.

They had chosen a spot in a suburb of Muggle London to hide out from the press that seemed determined to document her son's every breath, and so Lil had to walk a bit before she reached the apparation point closest to her. The walk did anything but clear her mind. In fact, it mostly made her agitation fester and grow. She was angry—angry at Dumbledore, who had abandoned them; Angry at the magical world, for only seeing what it wanted to see; angry at herself, for trying to rely on a system, like a naïve child. She couldn't be a child anymore. She was twenty-two years old, a widowed, single mother with lives to save and people to protect. There was no space in her life for blindness.

She reached the apparation point and traveled to the alley beside the Leaky Cauldron, donning her cloak and putting up the hood. She slipped inside behind a family, and stuck to the shadows of the room as she made her way around to the floo. It was public, so long as you had your own powder, which she drew out from a pocket inside her cloak.

She travelled first to her mentor's office at St. Mungo's. Azkaban would not be connected to the public floo, but Lily had been to Azkaban once before. In her training at the hospital, the year following her graduation from Hogwarts and shortly after marrying James, the Healer she was shadowing was called to the prison after a suicide attempt by one of the inmates. She was not sure if every floo in St. Mungo's was connected to Azkaban, as the one she had left in had been in a different ward. Though her mentor was not in office, it would not hurt to try, so she drew out some fresh powder, whispered Azkaban, and whirled away.

As her feet set down in the distant fire, she could feel the cold sinking out from her bones, as though they had split and the marrow had spilled out like ice water. The aurors, standing startled, were wearing extra cloaks, and though the room was warm enough in the physical sense they still shivered.

"Sorry," said one of the two aurors, a short man. He didn't look sorry, the way he had his wand out. "Sorry, but we aren't expecting no one jus' yet. Who are you, then?"

She regarded him. Not a member of the Order, and clearly a guard of little use from the way his hands shook. They'd been following the trials in the newspapers, when they weren't trying to connect with people they hadn't seen in years, to get Sirius free. Azkaban was full—Azkaban, which had not been full even in the purge of the 1860s, even after the fall of Grindlewald. As such, guards had been pulled from anywhere they could be found. He probably had an Auror's license, rushed through so they'd have another pair of boots filled. But he was probably one of the hundreds who had been in hiding, too scared to face the reality of conflict.

The girl—and Lily remembered her, a younger Ravenclaw when she had graduated—recognized Lily first and slapped her partner's hand down. "That's Lily Potter, you idiot!" she cried. Lily sighed and stepped out of the floo.

"Ow! Merlin," said the man, rubbing his arm. He had an intensely fake Australian accent so strong it was almost comical, like an American movie character, though he hadn't bothered to change his speech patterns to match his—what was it, a disguise? "What's that for?"

"Sorry, Lily—I mean, ma'am," the girl said with all the dignity one could muster when wearing a muffler indoors. She pulled it away from her face a bit. "Don't mind this idiot. Are you here for Sirius Black, then?"

She was surprised, but then again, they had been trying the papers for help. "Yes, she said, racking her mind for the girl's name. "I am, Babette."

"'Cause we read the papers," the girl went on. "They've been saying he's a murderer. But I remember him from school, don't I? An' he was never like, oh, Mal-Finger, was he? And I was telling John—wasn't I, John—I was telling him—"

"Babette," said Lily. "I'm here for Sirius, and I don't really care what you've read or said."

"Well, thing is," said Babette, "We've been we aren't supposed to let anyone out, 'cept on auror's orders, you see? And—you're not an auror, are you Lily? No, I didn't think so, you went to the healers, right? That's what the papers said—and if you're not an auror or some such we can't exactly just let him out, can we? Mad-Eye'd have my head."

"Babette," Lily said, "You're not an auror yourself, are you?"

"Well, not strictly speaking, no," the girl said. "But I've started my training. Why do you ask?"

"They've still put you on guard duty? Here?"

"Well, yes, 'cause there isn't exactly an excess of aurors, is there?"

"So you're just a trainee, but you can still move people in and out, under orders?"

"Uh—"

"Technically, Babette, you can, can't you?"

"Well yes," said Babette, "But only if it comes from a higher-up, right? And Lily, you aren't—I know you were head girl and all, but that doesn't mean nothing now, does it?"

"Well, said Lily, "Sirius Black has been an Auror trainee for almost three years now. That puts him higher up than you. And I'm willing to bet that if you ask, he'd be glad to give you orders to let him free."

Babette lit up. Her heart was in the right place, but Lily expected it was more the clever work-around that excited her. Ravenclaws always loved using logic to cheat the system, so long as there was no actual cheating going on. That was a different matter entirely.

"Babs, you can't!" her partner—John—cried. "We're guards, we can't just go letting people out! Especially dangerous murderers."

"Oh, shut your trap, John," Babette said crossly. She was already moving across the room to open the door. Lily took a few steps after her. "What do you know about dangerous murderers? You've been hiding in Canada since you left school. Only thing that'd hurt you in Canada is the wildlife, if your ugly mug didn't send 'em screaming. 'sides, I've talked to Black, haven't I? Not exactly the murderous sort."

"N—no! I won't shut up!" John said, as fiercely as he could muster. He put his wand up again, pointed at Lily, but his hand was shaking so violently he would be more likely to his the ceiling than her. Lily sighed. He reminded her of Peter, in the early years. Trying so hard to stand up for himself—so hard he would easily do more damage than good.

"Look," she said, "Why don't you go make your rounds? You're obviously not going to let anyone else know that I'm here, are you? So no need to go concerning yourself over it, right?"

"That's exactly what I'm going to do!" John cried. He turned to hurry past her towards the floo, and Lily, as soon as he passed, whipped out her wand to do a quick petrification spell.

"I didn't see that," Babette said, turning back as John hit the floor. "I really didn't. I was facing the other way. I wouldn't see you, say, turn his hair pink, if you wanted to."

"Every second we waste here Sirius is out there, at the mercy of those foul creatures," Lily snapped. "Now hurry, Babette. We've got to help him. Can't you see?"

"But you—you'd never just spell someone and leave them behind! You were always the one keeping James Potter, and—and Sirius Black in check! Weren't you?"

"Sure," said Lily. "And someone has to keep them alive. And that's what I'm here to do."

"Right," said Babette. She reached out for the steel handle of the heavy door, but paused and looked back at Lily. "You don't happen to know the patronus charm, do you? 'cause I amn't hardly any good, and the laterns don't do much, really…"

Lily silently raised her wand. The patronus charm had been one of the first upper level charms she'd learned. Dementors had always bothered her. Their very existence—

—but as she held the wand aloft, she realized she could not cast the spell. There was a spark of happiness, a bit of light that you had to focus on in order to cast something so pure. She couldn't find it. She didn't even know where to start looking. She put her wand down, and shook her head.

Babette sighed. "Aw, well. Come on, then. Give's me the creeps, but there's nothing to be done."

The icy cold was worse when they left the guardhouse. It wasn't just the fire they left behind, it was the carms woven into the stone to keep what little cheer could be found in such a place. Babette took two lanterns from their hooks in the wall beside the door, and tapped them each with her wand until they glowed with a silvery light. It was a poor imitation of a patronus, but better than nothing. She handed Lily one and led the way down the stone hallway.

It had been bright in London, a beautiful day for January, but here the sky was always dark, and within the walls little light could permeate the darkness. Despite their gentle glow, the lanterns cast harsh shadows in every direction, the type that as the child Lily had been before she knew about magic beyond her own intuition had once thought of as ghosts. It was a silly notion—ghosts could not be found in such lights—but Lily couldn't help but shudder at the thought of all the spirits that must haunt this place.

The fortress had been built long ago, by a dark wizard intent on luring muggles in for his own cruel purposes. From then on it had been haunted not by their ghosts, but Dementors. Wherever such foul creatures had come from, they lived in the worst of places, those filled only with pain and grief. It was true, they fed on happy memories, but their infestations occurred in places where there was no joy to be found to begin with.

Lily shuddered to think of Sirius in such a place. Sirius, whose life had been such pain, from being born into as archaic a family as the Blacks to the loss of his younger brother—even if he would never say it, his family had always held such sway over the condition of his heart. He had always been kept afloat by an addiction to joy. He bonded tightly to his friends, never mind anyone he dared pursue a relationship with, and found the thrill of a good prank among the most appealing joys in the world James had always urged him on, of course—but this was hardly the place to think of James.

They walked on for what seemed like far too long, without running into another soul. It was several minutes before Lily's eyes adjusted to the light well enough to realize that they walked down a hall lined with cells. She held up her lantern a bit closer to one, peering in as she walked by. The faces inside were wide-eyed and gaunt, staring out at her but seeing nothing but the light. One lunged out from the other side, reaching through the bars to try and grab the lantern. Lily held it just out of reach.

"Careful," said Babette. "We're not supposed to let them get too close to the light. They'll get addicted."

"Addicted?" the prisoner spat through the bars. The hair on their head was long and scraggly, skin leather and traced with grime. Lily couldn't tell if it was a man or a woman, but the face was so inhuman she couldn't help but wonder if such identity as sex or gender would even matter any more. "Addicted?" the prisoner rasped again. "Yes, pretty girl, bring the light a bit closer, yet? Let us feel the light, get addicted. Let us, if you will."

"Now you stop it, Anders!" Babette Snapped crossly. "Lily, come on. We're not far yet."

But Lily did not move. She was too busy looking into the bulging eyes. The cataracts were covering the pupils with a milky glow. But as she leaned in—a bit closer—the other hand swept out of the cell and snagged her shirt.

Above them, the dark sky gave a wretched shriek.

"Lily!" Babette shouted, from what seemed like a great distance. A dementor swooped down out of the sky, closer—

—and Lily jabbed the end of her wand into the hand that had grabbed her. It was only a spark charm, but the prisoner wailed like they had been shot, and retreated back into the shadows so quickly they might as well have apparated.

"No! Go away!" Babette was shouting up at the sky. Lily, centered again, looked up into the sky and saw that it was not one dementor, but four, and there were three more trailing closer. Babette waved her lantern, and the fell creatures pulled back. "There's nothing to see here," the girl called. Her voice cracked with nerves. "Go find someone else to bother, you miserable beasts!"

They seemed to stare down at the pair of them. No, that wasn't accurate: they seemed to be focusing directly on Lily. It was impossible to say, what with the hoods and lack of humanoid features, but the longer they hung there, the more Lily was certain. She held the lantern closer to her face and stared back, thinking of Harry.

Eventually the dementors turned and floated away.

"Merlin," Babette swore on the breath she'd bee holding. Lily kept the lantern up, watching the retreating shadows. "That was a close one. Nasty buggers. What were you doing so close like that, Lily? Don't you realize that they're dangerous, them in here? We're in ward seven, where the real crazies go. They threw Black in here after he was found laughing. Hysterics, of course, but they didn't figure that."

Lily slipped her wand back into the holster in her cloak sleeve. "What was that?" she asked, nodding towards the cell.

"Matriem Anders. Got the block after she killed both her children, fourteen years ago, now."

"No that's not—her eyes, Babette. What happened to her eyes?"

"Oh, they get like that, after a while," Babette said lamely. "I don't know if there's a reason why. They don't need to see much in here, do they, though? Just what daylight gets in, an' us walking by. Now can we go?"

Lily nodded, and they hurried on. It was a short trip to Sirius' cell from there, one more left turn. His cell was at an end to the hall. There was a long arrow-shaft-like windown in his wall, casting a thin strip of light across the cell and onto a stone ledge built into the opposite side. There, huddled up in a ball, was a figure clawing at his own hair. Lily winced.

"Open the door, Babette," she said quietly.

"You'll want to give it a clang first. They can be aggressive, you know…"

"Sirius won't hurt me," Lily said. "Open it!"

Reluctantly the girl tapped her wand on the heavy lock. It clicked, and the door swung inwards. Lily stepped inside, as reluctantly as Babette had been to so much as open the door, and held the lantern out between them.

"Sirius," she called softly. The figure did not move. "Sirius, it's Lily."

"Lily?" a rustling voice rasped back. Slowly, as though he had been huddled in position for a lifetime, the figure lifted his head to look at her. Lily swallowed—it was Sirius, definitely, but he looked several years older than the last time she had seen him. The bright glow that once filled his defiant face had vanished, leaving his skin pale and semi-translucent as it stretched across his bones. The laughter lines that normally creased his face were now sharper, sharp like wrinkles that stood against his youth. They were only twenty-two, but he could have passed as Lily's father, like this.

She took off her cloak slowly, stepping towards him. She didn't know how much damage had been done, sitting alone in the dark, prey to the dementors' hunger for nearly three months. "Yes, Sirius," she said, "We're going to get you out of here."

"Lily—it wasn't—it wasn't me!" he begged. He lunged at her the way Anders had, but Lily caught him before he could grab her too violently, setting the lantern on the stone slab. "I didn't—it was Peter—Peter! He—he—he—"

"Sirius," Lily said. "I know. We're getting you out of here." She eased him back down into a sitting position, and with one hand she removed her cloak, keeping a grip on Sirius' arm with the other. "Don't worry," she soothed, placing the cloak over his shoulders. It covered his frame nearly completely. Lily was a good six inches shorter than Sirius, and she was a slender woman, but he seemed to swim in her cloak. His wide eyes were searching her face.

"Lily," he rasped, "Harry—he—"

"He's safe," she said. "He's with Remus. Everything is okay, Sirius."

He frowned, but seemed to accept her answer.

"Lily," Babette said, "I'm all for touching reunions, but I do need that order, you know. For posterity's sake. That and I can't cast the spell releasing him without it."

"Right," said Lily. "Sirius, Babette is an auror trainee. She's a few years behind you, so you have seniority. So if you tell her to let you free, she can legally let you go."

Sirius opened his mouth, shut it again, and then opened it a second time, pulling back the slack corners slightly into something like a grimace. "Lily Evans," he admonished quietly. "Are you breaking the rules?"

"Bending them, Sirius. Now tell her to let you free."

He looked past her, to where Babette lingered in the door. "Uh—" he rasped, and cleared his throat a bit to speak up louder. "I order you to let me free, Babs."

She tilted her head, but waved her wand anyways, and whatever spell she was casting seemed to work. "Good enough for me," she said. "Now that'll be your name off the ledger, so if we can just hurry along before anyone notices…"

Lily helped Sirius to his feet. It wasn't easy—she almost thought the cloak would be too heavy for him—but once he had his footing he seemed to find his strength. She handed him the lantern, too, and Sirius took it wordlessly. They stepped out of the cell and followed Babette back down the hallways towards the guard tower.

1.

Healer Engelhart tapped the file on the desk between them.

"So," she said, "Are we going to talk about this?"

"You can just tell me, you know," said Lily. "I can handle these sorts of things, can't I?"

"You can handle much. Not everything, though."

Lily frowned. "Is something wrong?"

"No," said the Healer. "But you already know the answer. I'm curious, then, as to why you're here."

Lily blinked, then slumped back into her seat. It was as though the weight had lifted out of her gut and settle onto her shoulders. "It really is true, then," she whispered. Her hands settled on her gut, grasping the fabric of her blouse subconsciously. "Somehow…"

"Lily," the Healer said, when she settled into silence, "You don't have to go through with his, you know. There are options. You should not feel obligated to anything."

Lily gave her a sharp look, and sat up again. "No," she said firmly. "If I've ever had to do anything, it is this. For Harry, if not James."

"What about for yourself?"

"For myself?" Lily echoed. She paused. "Is it a boy or a girl?"

"Have a look," said the Healer, letting the question slide. Lily gave her a long look before reaching out to grab the file.

She opened it with a tremble in her hands. There, in the standard print of a medical quill, was proof: she was pregnant. Her second child was due in six months, August. That would make Harry two already. But in the long run, he would hardly know that a time existed without his little—sister. A girl. James had wanted a girl.

"If you're going to go through with this," said the Healer, "You can't keep up with all this excitement, Lily."

"Excitement?"

"Giving press conferences. Harassing the ministry. Not two weeks ago, you broke into Azkaban and kidnapped a high-security prisoner!"

"Sirius is innocent," Lily said automatically.

"So I've heard. But dementors and babies are a dangerous combination. The damage that could be done to a child…"

"No more dementors," Lily agreed. "And no more press conferences." She set the file down beside the magazine, which she pointed at with her pinky finger. "That was supposed to be the end of it. I can hardly have reporters breathing down our necks all the time and expect Harry to turn out all right, can I? I told you last time—"

"So you're still planning on leaving."

"Now more than ever. No one can know that Harry Potter has a sister."

"Why ever not?"

"Have you seen the people on the streets? We go into Diagon Alley and we're lucky to make it ten feet before they're on us."

"They don't mean any harm. You're a hero, Lily."

"Hardly. I'm a survivor. So is Harry. There's a difference." The lines on her face set. Since James had died, her once light features had grown still. "He deserves better. No child should be idolized for their pain."

"So you want to take him away from it entirely. Will that solve anything, in the long run? Won't the stories only become more fantastical?"

"Perhaps," Lily said, "But to keep him safe? I would cross worlds, Laura. He's all I have left."

"And your friends—Remus, Black?"

"Them too, of course," she acquiesced. "But they're different."

"You could live without them."

"If it came to it. Yes."

"But they're worth enough to go storming Azkaban?"

Lily sighed. "I could leave them behind, yes. It doesn't mean I want to, or that I should abandon them now. Remus is dear to me, and Sirius loved James as dearly as I did. They were like brothers, Laura, I couldn't let him rot away, blamed for the murder of his best friend. Haven't you seen what Azkaban does to people?"

She thought back to the eyes of the prisoner that had lunged at her, and shuddered. The image had come to her in nightmares several times isnce; the eyes finding home on her face, or Sirius', or Remus', or Harry's. Desperation and doom.

Of course, that was between the other nightmares. A green light—

"Where will you go?"

"An apartment in Paris, or elsewhere in France. Sirius has written a cousin to make some inquiries. We've been living in muggle apartments here; as long as they're warded enough most wizards can't find them. You'd be amazed how intimidated some people are by muggles. If everything works out, the children will live there, until it is time for Hogwarts. If that is still an option, at that point."

"Where else would you send them? Beauxbatons?"

"If it were safe," she said. "I want to apply to transfer to the French Mediwitch Institute. It won't be easy, but once I get citizenship…"

"You want me to write you a recommendation, don't you?"

"Well," said Lily, "Yes. Unless you don't think I meet their standards."

Engelhart snorted. "Of course you do. But I won't, not until well after this child is born. Your education is already piecewise enough. It can wait until after."

"Of course. I'm not leaving until then, either. I think she has to be born on British soil, for Hogwarts to automatically accept her. And we've still got things to sort regarding Sirius' innocence, and he needs our help to recover. You should have seen him…"

"I can imagine," said the Healer. "But no charging places for your daring rescues, or barring people likely to hex you from entering…"

"I can't promise that, but I will do everything in my power to keep this baby safe. She's just what Harry needs. He lost his father, Laura, and Sirius and Remus can only be so much. Sirius wants to get back to his auror training, and Remus is on the hunt for a job."

"Well, don't place too much on this baby. She'll just be one child. And she's no Harry Potter, to borrow that horrible phrase. One girl can't solve the world's problems."

"Neither can one boy, but they'll expect that of him. I won't let them ruin him, Laura. I won't."

Lily stood. She had gotten what she came for, and though she hadn't known what result she had wanted she would carry out the one given to her. "Thank you, Laura," she said, as her mentor stood to follow her to the fireplace. "I'll be in contact with you soon, I think. No one can find out about this."

Engelhart sighed. "I'll try whatever I can to help, Lily, but you won't make it easy. You never do."