Happy Jilytober fellow nerds. I wrote you another chapter for Fade because I hate myself.
It's November first and James is perfectly content while wrapped up under the covers with his wife. He wants to stay draped in her warm embrace forever but suddenly the cry of an infant startles both Lily and James apart from each other. Next door, their small son is crying for James. A smile spreads across Lily's face as James groans and throws the pillow over her head.
"Daddaaaaaaaa."
Lily giggles as James calls out, "Coming Harry!"
That only made the 15-month-old baby cry out more. Lily wrinkles her nose at her husband and kicks his ankles playfully under the covers. James kisses her cheek before stretching his arms to the headboard. The babies cries could not be ignored or he'd wake the whole neighborhood—silencing spells be damned.
"Why does Harry insist on me being the one to get him up?"
"Go get him," Lily tells James, "I'll meet you both downstairs for pancakes."
James rolls out from under the covers, goose bumps immediately rising on his back as he pulls on flannel pajama bottoms that are on the floor. James' feet drag him into the bedroom where Harry is standing in his crib, reaching his pudgy arms out for his father.
"How's my favorite son doing this morning?!" James asks Harry affectionately.
"He's your only son!" Lily calls jokingly from the other bedroom.
James chuckles and then picks Harry up, swinging the boy in the air. Harry giggles cheerfully as James pulls him in close for a hug. Harry' fingers take a fistful of James' mouth and tugs on James' face playfully. James pretends to kiss every one of Harry's fingers. The mobile over Harry's bed spins when Harry's feet kick out and activate it. James hears Lily make her way down the stairs. He takes the time to make sure Harry is clean and proper for breakfast with his mum and dad.
Once downstairs, James makes his way into the kitchen where Lily is bent over the table, reading the owl post. James eyes her robe, the fabric slipping down one shoulder, leaving it perfectly kissable. Harry spots his mum too and squeals, reaching for her.
"Mama!"
James takes the opportunity to pass Harry off to Lily, "He wants you."
Lily takes Harry in her arms and kisses his pudgy baby cheek carefully before turning back to the newspaper. James saunters over to the small cooling box where Lily keeps milk and juice. He looks inside for some proper breakfast materials.
"Want me to start on some bacon?" he asks merrily.
"James."
The way her tone falters, as if unsure, made James' hairs stand up on the back of his neck. James turns to see that Lily has tears streaking down her face as she holds Harry in the crook of one arm, balancing the paper in her spare hand. James drops the orange juice on the floor and rushes to her side, pulling her hair back so he can search her face for answers. Getting none, he turns his attention to the newspaper clutched in her free hand.
The headline is large and in bold letters: You-Know-Who Has Fallen! Wizarding World In Shock!
A million thoughts race through James' brain in a matter of seconds. Most importantly; if James' family didn't overcome the Dark Lord as suggested by the prophecy…then whose family defeated You-Know-Who?
"Gone?" James croaks, "How's that possible—"
A sound startles Lily and James from the front entryway before they can process the news. The door is thrown open wildly; James hears it crash against the pram in the hallway. The Potter's eyes meet instantly and James looks around wildly for his wand—which is still upstairs—he curses in frustration. He could tell by the look on Lily's face that her wand is still upstairs too.
"Lily, take Harry and go!" James pushes Lily behind him towards the windows in the kitchen, "Go! I'll hold them off!"
Lily takes one last look at her husband before scrambling away, "I love you."
He falls to the floor only seconds later, having been hit dead in the heart with some jinx that made his limbs feel as if they are on fire. He is unable to move. He is unable to think. There is nothing but agony and the hope that the screams he's hearing are his own.
xXx
He's a blank slate when he awakens. The world is grey and colorless, his fingers ache to move and paint his world bright again. He's always been an artist; the Healers bring him paints and quills of all different colors to make him feel better. It is James' drawings that keep him sane when the maddening memories threaten to creep back into his subconscious. He draws palaces from little figments of portraits that flutter across his mind. He makes pretty curly letters that form names of people he does not remember. He paints a woman with red hair and glowing green eyes.
He paints her the most. She covers his room in a borderline obsessive manner. She is different each time he sees her in his dreams. Sometimes she is laughing against a grass-covered background. Sometimes she is under a pile of sheets, covered in his kisses. Other times she is holding a baby with hair as black as a ravens wing. Life is anything but fair and dangles the woman as a model that he has no name for. James doesn't know who she is and the Healers can't tell him anything but James knows that she is special and he doesn't know who he is without pictures of her floating across his mind.
He is not allowed from his room until the healers clear him and the mysterious woman is his muse. Sometimes a few other faces come forward in his brain. There's a man with a fanged earring. There's a wolfish grin over a plate of spaghetti. There's a boy with a handful of sweets laughing beside a tree covered in lights. Besides faces, he gets flashes of castles and cottages.
These are the things he paints. He tries to forget the woman with black eyes. He tries to forget images of blood splattered walls and darkened alleyways. He pushes away magic wands and vampires. He struggles to overlook the way his hands shake when his world goes dark.
Most days are hard; the Healers do a lot of talking. They try to get James to work through his bad feelings, the ones that hurt the people around him. Sometimes James is strapped to a chair, forced to relive when he was lying on the cold ground being tortured by a woman with curly black hair. James hates her laugh; sometimes it interrupts his daydreams of the woman with green eyes.
As always though, he gets better. Slowly, he is allowed out of his room. He is never sure if he is in a new hospital or not, having no capability to recall much after a really bad episode. He'd heard his nurses talking about how the last episode of madness had left James immobile for months.
He is determined not to fall down the rabbit hole again, resolute to not let the madness get to him.
The nurses take James for small walks to the main foyer of the Hospital every morning. On his second day of walking, he spots a familiar batch of red hair by a window. It is a woman with a familiar sharp jawline, staring out into a summertime garden wistfully. James nudges his nurse, pointing to the girl curiously.
"Who is that?" he asks in a tone that implies he is interested.
The Healer doesn't even glance over at the red haired woman sitting in silence, "One of the patients here."
"I want to talk to her." James says, walking away from his Healer and towards the woman with red hair.
"I don't think she wants to be bothered James," the Healer sighes, as if she'd dealt with this before.
James ignores his Healer and creeps up next to the table. The red haired woman is picking at a blueberry muffin. She takes all the blueberries out, staining her fingers purple in the process. James marvels at the sharp curve to her nose, so alike with that of the woman in his dreams.
"Hullo."
The woman turns her eyes away from the window that depicted a summer wonderland and they fall onto James warily. James almost takes a step back in surprise. Her eyes are as green as the grass covering the ground outside. The emerald is intense and he knows he'll never be able to forget the way they looked at him with wonder.
She is the girl in his dreams.
"I'm James." He tells her and she blinks, once or twice, before letting her eyes leave him and travel to his nurse.
"I'm Lily." She says without looking at him.
He had to get Lily to look at him again, he needs to see her eyes, "You're beautiful."
That made her eyes turn back to him, red filtering across her cheeks as if she'd stepped into the sun. He simultaneously felt the darkness creeping back through the corners of his mind and felt the light exploding in his chest when she smiled. She shone like a star and he was going up in flames under her bright shine.
"James is new to the ward." The nurse tells Lily gently.
"I told her that I just had to talk to you." James smiles, pushing his glasses up his nose as he stares at her eagerly.
Lily gazes at her blueberries, which were staining the napkin she'd placed them in. Her red hair was greying near the roots, but it still fell beautifully around her thin shoulders. James thought her dress was pretty too, a lovely shade of blue for a woman with creamy skin like hers. He wants to draw this woman as he saw her now: real and not at all dreamlike.
James took his breakfast at Lily's table. He tries to start up conversation with her but she would hardly look at him, her fingers are curling into the edges of her pretty dress. James doesn't know why she won't talk to him. It was almost worst, having her in real life and not getting a word out of her versus having her in his dreams where she whispered dangerously poignant words into his ear.
Lily stays silent the whole week, not talking to James even though he tried his hardest to find talking points. Eventually, he gives into her silence and just sits quietly beside to her. Every once in a while he would get a kind smile from her as he sat down. All James knew was that around Lily, life seems a little simpler. He craves her smile, even at night when they drug James to get him to sleep; he desires the light in the darkness.
Since it was summer, the nurses take him outside to sketch. James is busy sketching a tree by the small pond in the garden when surprisingly; Lily came to sit beside him. He struggles to not to flinch or to say anything to her because he is worried that he might scare her away. Instead, James focuses on his drawing, sketching a poignant doe in between the trees. Lily watches with her enchanting green eyes skimming his paper, the look itself turning his skin to shivers.
"You draw very well."
He can't help but look up when her voice echoes through his ears. He feels himself buckle under her shy smile and he is in love with her without any other explanation.
"Thank you." He flips through the notebook to show her more; "I drew this dog last week."
Lily crosses her legs and takes the sketchbook, her fingers brushing across his. James wonders if she felt the spark between them, the electric shock that ran from his fingers straight to his heart. James watches as she gawks at the wolfish dog he'd drawn after a dream of a friendly werewolf afflicted his reveries all last week.
"I like them."
"Can I draw you?" he asks her apprehensively and her eyes widen at him.
"You want to draw me?" she whispers, shocked.
"Yes," he says, "I've wanted to draw you since I met you."
She tucks a strand of her hair behind her ear and hands him back his booklet, "Why?"
James licks his lips, "Because you remind me of someone..."
"Okay," she says self-consciously, "You can draw me."
James excitedly flips his pages until he finds a blank sheet. He doesn't care that he's got ink on his fingers as he eagerly dips his quill into the inkpot at his side. Lily is sitting beside him, holding herself so that she seems to be sitting atop a grassy throne. In all the other drawings of the red haired woman he had done, James recalled her green eyes being so alive.
The green eyes that he sketches across the paper now are dead.
"Why are you here?" he asks Lily as he sketches the way her hair falls in small tendrils over her shoulder.
She doesn't reply and he continues, "They told me I have PTSD from some fight I got into with a witch." He keeps speaking, even though he knows Lily probably won't say anything, "I think the Healers keep a lot of secrets."
"Why do you think they keep secrets?" her voice is barely above a whisper.
James pauses his quill, "I think they're afraid I'll turn into a monster if any of my memories come back."
There's silence and then she offers, "You don't look like a monster."
Her tone is kind and James lifts his eyes from his paper to see Lily staring at him, almost adoringly. James tries to capture that look as he drew her into life on the page. When he is almost done the nurses tell them it is time to head inside for dinner. Lily walks alongside James, her hand brushing his in a way that felt weird because she wasn't holding his hand like he wanted.
"Want to have dinner with me?" she asks as the nurses lead them into the dining hall.
Suddenly embarrassed, James looks down at his shoes, "I eat in my room."
Lily's eyes are wide and naïve, "That's okay." She lies, "I like to eat alone anyways."
When James leaves Lily to follow a nurse back to his room he feels almost as if he'd lost something. The nurse brings him a tray filled with beef stew and he eats it slowly, wondering if he could finish his drawing later. Abruptly, behind him, the door is opened. James turns in his chair and sees with great surprise that Lily is in his room. Her Healer is behind her, carrying a tray of food similar to his. Lily is chewing her bottom lip, her hands folded in front of her pretty dress.
"Can I eat in here with you?" she murmurs shyly.
"I'd love that." James moves over and makes room for his new companion.
The nurses stay in the room with them. Lily stares at James' drawings as she eats, her eyes taking in the world inside his head. James notices her staring at the portrait of a woman whose red hair covered her face. James takes Lily's hand and leads her to his desk, pulling open a drawer and pulling out other pages that have her face on them.
Lily pulls the pages from his hands in awe, "That looks like me."
James leans over her shoulder, "I mostly have nightmares." He divulges, "But sometimes I've dreamed of a girl just like you."
Lily looks up at him in admiration as the nurses watch over the pair with their wands drawn, as if Lily and James would start attacking each other. James doesn't think he could ever hurt the woman looking at him now like he held the world in his hands.
"I'm in love with you." He tells Lily tenderly.
Her eyes shift, going from cold to warm in the matter of seconds. She doesn't say anything but she takes his hand. One of the Healers walks over and puts her hand on Lily's shoulder.
"It's time for bed Lily," the Healer tells her, "We can see James tomorrow."
Lily blinks apprehensively and grips James' hand harder.
"What if I forget him?" she looks at her Healer worriedly.
"Don't worry," the nurse says kindly, patting Lily's head as if she were a child, "He will still be here in the morning, we have to go back and get your potions."
Lily's green eyes flutter back to James nervously, "I don't sleep well."
"I don't either."
He does not have a good night. He is tortured by nightmares. He awoke covered in a sheen of sweat and is shivering so much that the Healers have to cover him in extra blankets. Lily isn't allowed to see him; he hears her asking outside of the door. He draws her eyes again later that night and they are curious.
The next day is better and he is allowed to go to breakfast in the hall. He could've spent a hundred days away and it would've been okay because of the wide smile Lily gives him when he sits down at her table by the window. He'd pay a thousand galleons to make her smile every time that she saw him. They eat together in blissful silence. The nurses let them sit together the rest of the day by a fireplace. James sketches and Lily knits. She makes him a hat colored maroon and gold. James wears it with pride, earning another winning smile from Lily.
They spend every day together, soon becoming so attached that when James does feel the lash of lightening against his mind, he can take Lily's hand and suddenly everything seems all right. Of course, it is harder for Lily to escape the darkness. Sometimes she forgets he is there and sometimes she is unable to drag her mind from the dark figures haunting her. He wakes her up more than once by the fire; unable to take the tears streaking down her cheeks.
"What happened to Lily?" James asks the Healers and they all have pursed lips, glancing at each other fearfully.
Lily didn't even seem to know what happened to her. When she tries to remember she goes very still and seems to fade before his very eyes. Eventually, James stops asking. A whole month passes and the nurses throw a little party for them, inviting a friend of Lily's. He has messy black hair like James and wears a freckled woman on his arm like she is a Queen. Lily obviously adores the young man, constantly staring at him with a respect James had never gotten from her.
Lily has known the man, Harry, for a long time it seemed. It is his birthday and she gives him a whole stack of chocolate frog cards. The freckled woman Harry brought is loud and kind, always asking Lily if she needs anything. James is reminded of a mother that he doesn't remember.
"How long have you known Lily?" James asks the man when Lily took her turn to get a piece of cake from the Healers.
"Eighteen years." He replies, "Sometimes she forgets me though—so right now she'd probably tell you a few months."
"How did she end up in here?" James asks Harry, brow furrowed.
Harry turns to look at James, "How did you end up in here?"
"I don't know, I can't remember." James says bitterly, "But I wish I did."
"It's better when you don't know things." Harry replies sadly as Lily wanders over with her cake.
James wonders what Harry meant. He ponders what could be such a painful memory that it was better not knowing. James hears Harry talking to the Healers while he and Lily sit by the fire together once the party is over. The nurses are talking in undertones but their voices carry in the peaceful room.
"He hasn't relapsed like he did before and Lily's given him plenty of opportunities. But it always ends the same, Harry. It's happened countless times since we moved them back together. They won't ever be the same as they were before the accident."
Harry's voice sounds pained, "It's always the same. He loves her and she loves him—even when they revert."
"Lily ultimately triggers his meltdowns." The Healer warns, "James is a ticking time bomb around Lily."
"Harry, the last time James was in lockdown for months." Ginny, the freckled woman, speaks now, "Maybe it'd be best if we took James back to Levinstown Hospital."
"We're not separating them." Harry says firmly, "One day, they've got to wake up."
"Harry," Ginny sounds close to tears, "They're gone."
"They're not lost until they can't love each other anymore."
James knows somehow that they are talking about his relationship with Lily. Something about Lily triggers his memories and sends him into the storms he tries to keep at bay. James wonders how many times they'd played this game and how many times he'd been forced to forget Lily. James swallows deeply as Lily's head lolls onto his shoulder, her fingers wrapping up possessively in his clothes.
Harry isn't wrong at all; James loves Lily more than anything, even if she is his destruction.
XxX
Summertime fades into fall and Lily still stays with him. The green leaves turn the color of Lily's hair and fall to the ground. James takes her for walks outside as the breeze turns to wind and chills her to the bone. James keeps her warm, throwing his arm around her shoulder. The nurses beg them to stop being so lovely and take pictures of them together by the fall foliage. One of the nurses even cries when Lily ducks her head into James' arm shyly.
Harry reappears on Halloween, bringing with him candy and a candid smile.
"James!" Harry wears a beard, looking astonishingly older, "Lily!"
Lily and James had been reading by the fireplace. Lily drops her book and stands up, swaying on her feet as she allows Harry to throw his arms around her in a big hug. James wishes he could hug Lily like that, so boldly, without the fear of setting off the tricks of his mind. James stands up next and shakes Harry's hand favorably.
"I thought I'd come see how you were doing." Harry tells them as they take their seats again, "Ginny sends her love but she couldn't come—she's got a big game tomorrow."
"A game?" James asks, his head tilting in confusion.
"Quidditch." Harry replies chattily, "She's chaser for the Holyheads."
Eagerly James sits forward in his chair, "Do you play quidditch?"
"Yeah," Harry seems happy by the turn of conversation, "I'm a seeker. Youngest Gryffindor seeker in a century actually."
James' says hungrily, "I draw the pitch a lot, the Healers told me so."
Harry looks tense before he replies quietly, "Perhaps you played once."
James hears Harry talking to the nurses again before he left.
"They've been together almost a whole year." He sounds confident, "When can we start bringing more people in? Sirius is dying to speak to Lily and I know Remus would've wanted Teddy to meet James."
"I'm sorry Mr. Potter." The Healer says gloomily, "We just don't think this progress will last."
Harry swipes his hand though his hair irately, "What will you do if he relapses?"
"I think we both know what will happen if he upsets her."
James looks down at Lily, sitting with her hands clasped in her lap as she watches the flames in the fireplace. Why would James ever hurt Lily? Why are they all so sure she is his demise? Sitting in front of the fireplace, covered in the golden shadows, she seems like his savior. She places her chin on his shoulder late that night with her hands clasped in his, breathing lightly beside his ear.
"Lily?" he whispers.
She hums to show that she is awake.
"What do you want to do tomorrow?" he asks, hoping that if he made plans, tomorrow would have to happen.
"This." Her fingers curl tighter into his shirt and he feels a lurch in his heart, "I love you."
She's like a storm; her words act like the wind and blow him away. James can see right through Lily's eyes. The green is a shade he's only seen in his dreams, almost like the color of glass that washes up on shore after a storm. The affectionate look in her eyes makes him go momentarily blind and cuts him deep like a knife.
"I love you."
He can remember it now, as if it happened yesterday and not many years ago. He can remember Lily in her nightgown, gripping their son as she tells him goodbye for what they thought would be the last time. He remembers the secrets they kept, hiding away from the wizard who wanted them dead. He remembers falling to the floor of their kitchen. He recalls her screams echoing through his ears. He remembers the lies he's been told since.
Above all, he remembers loving her more than anything else on earth.
He can't do anything about it because the damage is done and the trigger is pulled.
His hands begin shaking and he struggles to block out the screams in head that are drowning out her current low refrain of his name. His name on her lips assaults him like her lightening quick words and he feels his fists tightening.
He can feel the pain of the spells on his back.
He can hear the disjointed laughter of the witch that tortured him for information.
The darkness is closing in and it's dampening the light in everything, including the woman standing in front of him.
"James."
He cannot resist the memories that come flooding back to his brain like a river floods a valley in a rainstorm. He crumples towards the floor and strong hands catch him before his knees hit the cold tile. His eyes meet hers for the first time in years; they really grasp her and cling on. He cannot believe she's alive and that she's as broken as he is.
He didn't save her.
There was nowhere to run from all of the havoc in his head, nowhere to hide from all the maddening memories. He keeps losing the fight, time after time.
"I'm sorry."
She stares at him for a moment and he thinks she isn't going to reply but then she whispers back, "I don't want to lose you."
There it was, the trigger, a look in her eyes that made him go wild. A look that cut him so deep it was like it opened up old wounds. A look that had the hair standing up on the back of his neck as she leaned closer, closing in on him as the darkness swirled it's taunting fingers against his mind. Lily's lips press against his but she can't keep him from the madness, not even with her fingers so desperately trying to pull him into her.
"Please." Her words pressed into his ear, "Please."
He can feel the fury of his pain, thrashing across the old scars along his back. He couldn't run now, he is trapped in the arms of his daydream spun nightmare. He is trapped in the arms of the woman he can't save.
"Lily, take Harry and go!"
James' fingers wrap against her arms and the dark crept back in just as he hears Lily scream.
xXx
There is no pillow for his head when he wakes up strapped to a bed. There are no windows so he doesn't know what day it is, or time. His entire body aches, like he'd been run over by an entire herd of centaurs. The walls are covered in pictures of memories he cannot remember of a life he once lived before the attack that had twisted him into such a meaningless shell of the man he'd been before. In every other drawing, a woman with amazing eyes stared back at him, teasing him like a temptress. James wondered who the woman was and why he yearned to draw her face so shattered, like it had been just before he woke up from another nightmare.