A commercial helicopter flies, thundering across the ocean. It roars past the miles of deep sea to reach its destination. There is no land at either horizon. The Keldysh is visible in the distance.
Through the window of the helicopter Lily's face is visible, sheooks out calmly. Harry and Ron watch Mir Two being swung over the side to start a dive.
Ron exclaims to Harry in disbelief, "She's a goddamned liar! A nutcase. Like that... what's her name? That Trelawney woman."
But Before Harry could give a reply, Seamus's voice cuts in, "They are inbound."
Harry nods and the three of them head forward to meet the approaching helicopter.
Ron continues to try and convince Harry about the woman's sanity.
"She says she's Lily Evans, right? Lily Evans died on the Titanic. At the age of 17. If she had lived, she'd be over a hundred now."
"A hundred and one next month."
"Okay, so she's a very old goddamned liar. I traced her as far back as the 20's... she was working as an actress in L.A. An actress. Her name was Lily Potter. Then she married a guy named Granger, moved to Cedar Rapids, had two kids. Now Granger's dead, and from what I've heard Cedar Rapids is dead."
The helicopter approached the ship, forcing Harry to yell over the rotors.
"Everybody who knows about the diamond is supposed to be dead... or on this ship. But she knows about it. And I want to hear what she has to say. Got it?"
In a thundering sound blast, the helicopter's wheels bounce down on the helipad.
Harry, Seamus and Ron watch as the helicopter crew chief hands out about ten suitcases, and then Lily is lowered to the deck in a wheelchair by some Keldysh crewmen. Hermione, ducking unnecessarily under the rotor, follows her out, carrying Freddy the Pomeranian. The crew chief hands a puzzled Keldysh crewmember a goldfish bowl with several fish in it. Lily clearly does not travel light.
The bizarre image of this little old lady, looking impossibly fragile amongst all the high tech gear, grungy deck crew and gigantic equipment draws many eyes to her.
Ron says rather uneasily, "S'cuse me, I have to go check our supply of necessaries."
While Hermione unpacks Lily's things in the small utilitarian room, Lily is placing a number of framed photographs on the bureau, arranging them carefully next to the fishbowl. Harry and Ron stand in the doorway.
Harry asks coming in, "Is your stateroom alright?"
Lily replies happily, "Yes. Very nice. Have you met my granddaughter, Hermione? She takes care of me."
"Yes. We met just a few minutes ago, grandma. Remember, up on deck?"
"Oh, yes." Lily holds her head.
Harry glances at Ron... Ron rolls his eyes. Lily finishes arranging her photographs. A general glimpse of them is seen, the usual snapshots... children and grandchildren, her late husband.
Lily states rather suddenly, "There, that's nice. I have to have my pictures when I travel. And Snuffles of course."
She gestures to the Pomeranian.
"Isn't that right, sweetie."
Harry enquires, "Would you like anything?"
Lily looks at him and says with conviction, "I would like to see my drawing."
Lily looks at the drawing in its tray of water, confronting herself across a span of 84 years. Until they can figure out the best way to preserve it, they had kept it immersed. The drawing sways and ripples, almost as if alive.
Lily's ancient eyes, gaze at the drawing her mind seeing flashes of scenes. They go as fast as they come.
Flash
A man's hand, holding a charcoal crayon deftly creating a shoulder and the shape of her hair with two efficient lines.
Flash
The woman's face in the drawing, dances under the water.
Flash
A man's hazel eyes, just visible over the top of a sketching pad. They look up suddenly right at her. They are soft eyes, but fearlessly direct.
Flash
Lily smiles, remembering.
Harry holds the reference photo of the necklace in his hand.
"Louis the Sixteenth wore a fabulous stone, called the Blue Diamond of the Crown, which disappeared in 1792, about the time Louis lost everything from the neck up. The theory goes that the crown diamond was chopped too... recut into a heart-like shape... and it became Le Coeur de la Mer. The Heart of the Ocean. Today it would be worth more than the Hope Diamond."
Lily points at the drawing, "It was a dreadful, heavy thing. I only wore it this once."
Hermione asks her, "You actually believe this is you, grandma?"
"It is me, dear. Wasn't I a dish?" Lily says rather mischievously
Harry continues, "I tracked it down through insurance records... and old claim that was settled under terms of absolute secrecy. Do you know who the claimant was, Lily?"
Lily answers, "Someone named Snape, I should imagine."
"Ethan Snape, right. Pittsburgh steel tycoon. For a diamond necklace his son Severus Snape bought in France for his fiancée... you... a week before he sailed on Titanic. And the claim was filed right after the
sinking. So the diamond had to have gone down with the ship." Harry stops speaking and looks at Hermione.
"See the date?"
"April 14, 1912."
He continues, "If your grandma is who she says she is, she was wearing the diamond the day Titanic sank." He looks at Lily again, "And that makes you my new best friend. I will happily compensate you for anything you can tell us that will lead to its recovery."
Hearing that Lily says, "I don't want your money, Mr. Potter. I know how hard it is for people who care greatly for money to give some away."
Ron asks rather skeptically, "You don't want anything?"
Indicating the drawing, Lily says, "You may give me this, if anything I tell you is of value."
Crossing the room Harry says, "Deal. Over here are a few things we've recovered from your staterooms."
On a worktable fifty or so objects, from mundane to valuable are laid out.
Lily, shrunken in her chair, could barely see over the table top. With a trembling hand she lifts a tortoise shell hand mirror, inlaid with mother of pearl. She caresses it wonderingly.
"This was mine. How extraordinary! It looks the same as the last time I saw it."
She turns the mirror over and looks at her ancient face in the cracked glass. She speaks rather wryly, "The reflection has changed a bit."
She sees something else, a silver and moonstone art-nouveau brooch. "My mother's brooch. She wanted to go back for it. Caused quite a fuss."
Lily picks up an ornate art-nouveau hair comb. A jade butterfly takes flight on the ebony handle of the comb. She turns it slowly, remembering.
Lily experiences a rush of images and emotions that have lain dormant for eight decades as she handles the butterfly comb.
She hears Harry's voice dimly, "Are you ready to go back to Titanic?"
In a darkened room lined with TV monitors, images of the wreck fill the screens, fed from Mir One and Two, and the two ROVs, Snoop Dog and DUNCAN.
Ron is in his element projecting excitedly.
"Live from 12,000 feet."
Lily stares raptly at the screens. She is enthralled by one in particular, an image of the bow railing. It obviously means something to her. Harry studies her reactions carefully.
"The bow's struck in the bottom like an axe, from the impact. Here... I can run a simulation we worked up on this monitor over here."
Hermione turns the chair so Lily can see the screen of Ron's computer.
As Ron calls up the file, he keeps talking.
"We've put together the world's largest database on the Titanic. Okay, here..."
Suddenly Harry interrupts, "Lily might not want to see this, Ron."
"No, no. It's fine. I'm curious." Lily placates him.
Ron starts a computer animated graphic on the screen, which parallels his rapid-fire narration.
"She hits the berg on the starboard side and it sort of bumps along... punching holes like a Morse code... dit dit dit, down the side. Now she's flooding in the forward compartments... and the water spills over the tops of the bulk heads, going aft. As her bow is going down, her stern is coming up... slow at first... and then faster and faster until it's lifting all that weight, maybe 20 or 30 thousand tons... out of the water and the hull can't deal... so SKRTTT!!" he makes a sound in time with the animation, "... it splits! Right down to the keel, which acts like a big hinge . Now the bow swings down and the stern falls back level... but the weight of the bow pulls the stern up vertical, and then the bow section detaches, heading for the bottom. The stern bobs like a cork, floods and goes under about 2:20 a.m. Two hours and forty minutes after the collision."
The animation then follows the bow section as it sinks. Lily watches this clinical dissection of the disaster without emotion.
Ron continues, "The bow pulls out of its dive and planes away, almost a half a mile, before it hits the bottom going maybe 12 miles an hour. KABOOM!"
The bow impacts, digging deeply into the bottom, the animation now following the stern.
"The stern implodes as it sinks, from the pressure, and rips apart from the force of the current as it falls, landing like a big pile of junk."
He indicates the simulation, "Cool huh?"
Rather shakily Lily voices, "Thank you for that fine forensic analysis, Mr.Weasley. Of course the experience of it was somewhat less clinical."
Harry asks her, "Will you share it with us, Lily?"
Lily's eyes go back to the screens, showing the sad ruins far below them.
She views one of the subs tracking slowly over the boat deck. Lily recognizes one of the Welling davits, still in place. She hears ghostly waltz music. The faint and echoing sound of an officer's voice, English accented, calling "Women and children only".
She sees in her mind screaming faces in a running crowd. Pandemonium and terror. People crying, praying, kneeling on the deck. Just impressions... flashes in the dark.
Lily looks at another monitor. Snoop Dog moving down a rusted, debris-filled corridor. Lily watches the endless row of doorways sliding past, like dark mouths.
An image of a child, three years old, standing ankle deep in water in the middle of an endless corridor. The child is lost alone, crying.
Lily is shaken by the flood of memories and emotions. Her eyes well up and she puts her head down, sobbing quietly.
Taking the wheelchair, Hermione says, "I'm taking her to rest."
"No!"
Lily's voice is surprisingly strong. The sweet little old lady is gone, replaced by a woman with eyes of steel. Harry signals everyone to stay quiet.
"Tell us, Lily."
Lily looks from screen to screen, the images of the ruined ship.
"It's been 84 years..."
Harry impatiently cuts in, "Just tell us what you can..."
Lily holds up her hand for silence.
"It's been 84 years... and I can still smell the fresh paint. The china had never been used. The sheets had never been slept in."
Harry switches on the mini recorder and sets it near her.
"Titanic was called the Ship of Dreams. And it was. It really was..."
-o-
In a glorious reveal, the gleaming white superstructure of Titanic rises mountainously beyond the rail, and above that the buff colored funnels stand against the sky like the pillars of a great temple. Crewmen move across the deck, dwarfed by the awesome scale of the steamer.
Southampton, England, April 10, 1912.
It is almost noon on sunny day. Crowds of hundred blacken the pier next to Titanic looking like ants on a jelly sandwich.
A gorgeous burgundy Renault Touring car swings in, hanging from a loading crane. It is slowly lowered toward Hatch #2.
On the pier horse drawn vehicles, motorcars and lorries move slowly through the dense throng. The atmosphere is one of excitement and giddiness. People embrace in tearful farewells, or wave and shout bon Voyage to friends and relatives on the decks above.
A white Renault, leading a silver-gray Daimler-Benz, is pushed through the crowd leaving a wake in the press of people. Around the handsome cars people stream to board the ship, jostling with hustling seamen and stokers, porters, and barking White Star Line officials.
The Renault stops and the uniformed driver scurries to open the door for a young woman dressed in a stunning white and purple outfit, with an enormous feathered hat. She is 17 years old and beautiful, regal of bearing, with piercing eyes.
It is the girl in the drawing. Lily. She looks up at the ship and takes it in with cool appraisal.
"I don't see what all the fuss is about. It doesn't look any bigger than the Mauritania."
A personal valet opens the door on the other side of the car for Severus Snape, the 30 year old heir to the elder Snapes's fortune. "Sev" is darkly handsome, arrogant and rich beyond meaning.
He chides Lily with arrogance dripping from his voice. "You can be blasé about some things, Lily, but not about Titanic. It's over a hundred feet longer than Mauritania, and far more luxurious. It has Squash courts, a Parisian cafe... even Turkish baths."
Sev turns and presents his hand to Lily's sister, Petunia Evans, who descended from the touring car being him . Petunia is a 20ish society empress, from one of the most prominent Philadelphia families. She is a widow, and rules her household with iron will.
Sev says to Petunia, "your sister is much too hard to impress, Petunia." Indicating to a puddle he continues, "Mind your step."
Gazing at the leviathan, Petunia exclaims, "So this is the ship they say is unsinkable."
"It is unsinkable. God himself couldn't sink this ship."
Sev speaks with the pride of a host providing a special experience. The entire entourage of rich Americans is impeccably turned out, a Quintessential example of the Edwardian upper class, complete with servants. Sev's valet, Fenrir Greyback, is tall and impassive and dour as an undertaker. Behind him emerge two maids, personal servants to Petunia and Lily.
A porter scurries toward them, harried by last minute loading.
"Sir, you'll have to check your baggage through the main terminal, round that way."
Sev nonchalantly hands the man a fiver. The porter's eyes dilate. Five pounds was a monster tip in those days.
"I put my faith in you, good sir."
Curtly, indicating Greyback, "See my man."
"Yes, sir. My pleasure, sir."
Sev never tires of the effect of money on the unwashed masses.
Greyback growls to the porter, "These trunks here, and 12 more in the Daimler. We'll have all this lot up in the rooms."
The White Star porter looks stricken when he sees the enormous pile of steamer trunks and suitcases loading down the second car, including wooden crates and steel safe. He whistles frantically for some cargo-handlers nearby who come running.
Sev breezes on, leaving the minions to scramble. He quickly checks his pocket watch.
"We'd better hurry. This way, ladies."
He indicates the way toward the first class gangway. They move into the crowd. Alice Connor, Lily's maid, hustles behind them, laden with bags of her mistress's most recent purchases... things too delicate for the baggage handlers.
Sev leads, weaving between vehicles and handcarts, hurrying passengers (mostly second class and steerage) and well-wishers. Most of the first class passengers are avoiding the smelly press of the dockside crowd by using an elevated boarding bridge, twenty feet above.
They pass a line of steerage passengers in their coarse wool and tweeds, queued up inside movable barriers like cattle in a chute. A health officer examines their heads one by one, checking scalp and eyelashes for lice.
They pass a well-dressed young man cranking the handle of a wooden Biograph camera mounted on a tripod. Daniel Marvin (whose father founded the Biograph Film Studio) is filming his young bride in front of the Titanic. Mary Marvin stands stiffly and smiles, self conscious.
"Look up at the ship, darling, that's it. You're amazed! You can't believe how big it is! Like a mountain. That's great." Daniel gesticulates excitedly.
Mary Marvin, without an acting fiber in her body, does a bad Clara Bow pantomime of awe, hands raised.
Sev is jostled by two yelling steerage boys who shove past him. And he is bumped again a second later by the boys' father.
The man apologizes to Sev, "Sorry squire!"
The Cockney father pushes on, after his kids, shouting.
Sev mutters under his breath, "Steerage swine. Apparently missed his annual bath."
Petunia says in a very snobby voice, "Honestly, Sev, if you weren't forever booking everything at the last instant, we could have gone through the terminal instead of running along the dock like some foul immigrant family."
Sev replies to that with, "All part of my charm, Petunia. At any rate, it was my darling fiancée's beauty rituals which made us late."
"You told me to change.", Lily defies.
"I couldn't let you wear black on sailing day, sweetpea. It's bad luck."
"I felt like black."
Sev guides them out of the path of a horse-drawn wagon loaded down with two tons of Oxford Marmalade, in wooden cases, for Titanic's Victual ling Department.
"Here I've pulled every string I could to book us on the grandest ship in history, in her most luxurious suites... and you act as if you're going to your execution."
Lily looks up as the hull of Titanic looming over them...a great iron wall, Bible black and severe. Sev motions her forward, and she enters the gangway to the D Deck doors with a sense of overwhelming dread.
"It was the ship of dreams... to everyone else. To me it was a slave ship, taking me back to America in chains."
Sev's hand closes possessively over Lily's arm. He escorts her up the gangway and the black hull of Titanic swallows them.
Old Lily continues, "Outwardly I was everything a well brought up girl should be. Inside, I was screaming."
A screaming blast coming from the mighty triple steam horns on Titanic's funnels, bellowing their departure warning takes us back to the Titanic.
A view of the Titanic is seen from several blocks away, towering above the terminal buildings like the skyline of a city. The steamer's whistle echoes across Southampton.
Looking through a window, and back further to show the smoky inside of a pub. It is crowded with dockworkers and ship's crew.
Just inside the window, a poker game is in progress. Four men, in working class clothes, play a very serious hand.
James Potter and Sirius Black, both about 20, exchange a glance as the other two players argue in Swedish. James is American, a lanky drifter with his hair a little too untidy and unruly for the standards of the times. He is also unshaven, and his clothes are rumpled from sleeping in them. He is an artist, and has adopted the bohemian style of art scene in Paris. He is also very self-possessed and sure-footed for 20, having lived on his own since 15.
The two Swedes continue their sullen argument, in Swedish.
James looks over his cards to the two of them arguing over the wager of the tickets to the Titanic. He waves to them jauntily,
"Hit me again, Sven."
James takes the card and slips it into his hand.
James's eyes betray nothing. On his other side, licking his lips nervously as he refuses a card, sits Sirius Black.
Stacked in the middle of the table are bills and coins from four counrties. This has been going on for a while. Sitting on top of the money are two 3RD class tickets for RMS TITANIC.
The Titanic's whistle blows again. It is the final warning. James whispers silently, "The moment of truth boys. Somebody's life's about to change."
Sirius puts his cards down. So do the Swedes. James holds his close.
"Let's see... Sirius's got niente. Olaf, you've got squat. Sven, uh oh... two pair... mmm."
He turns to his friend, "Sorry Sirius."
"What sorry? What have you got? You lost my money??"
James says again over Sirius's angry shouts, "Sorry, you're not gonna see your mama again for a long time..."
He slaps a full house down on the table and grinning he continues, "'Cause you're goin' to America!! Full house boys!"
The table explodes into shouting in several languages. James rakes in the money and the tickets.
James looks at the Swedes with not even a bit of apology in his voice,
"Sorry boys. Three of a kind and a pair. I'm high and you're dry and..."
He looks to Sirius, "... we're going to..."
They shout together, "AMERICA!!"
Olaf balls up one huge farmer's fist. They think he's going to clobber James, but he swings round and punches Sven, who flops backward onto the floor and sits there, looking depressed. Olaf forgets about James and Sirius, who are still dancing around, and goes into a rapid harangue of his stupid cousin.
James kisses the tickets, then jumps on Sirius's back and rides him around the pub. It's like they won the lottery.
James sings a stupid little song, "Goin' home... to the land o' the free and the home of the real hot-dogs! On the TITANIC!! We're ridin' in high style now! We're practically goddamned royalty."
Sirius chimes in and says to the pub at large,
"You see? Its my destiny!! Like I told you. I am going to America!! To be a millionaire!!"
He turns to pub keeper, "Capiche?? I am going to America!!"
"No, mate. Titanic goes to America. In five minutes.", the pub keeper corrects.
Looking over at the clock, James swears, "Shit!! Come on, Sirius!"
Grabbing their stuff, he says again, "Come on!!"
At the door to the pub, he stops and looks back and adds to all grinning.
"It's been grand."
James and Sirius, carrying everything they own in the world in the kit bags on their shoulders, sprint toward the pier. They tear through milling crowds next to the terminal. Shouts go up behind them as they jostle slow-moving gentlemen. They dodge piles of luggage, and weave through groups of people. They burst out onto the pier and James comes to a dead stop... staring at the cast wall of the ship's hull, towering seven stories above the wharf and over an eighth of a mile long.
The Titanic is humongous.
Sirius runs back and grabs James, and they sprint toward the third class gangway aft, at E deck. They reach the bottom of the ramp just as sixth officer Alastor Moody detaches it at the top. It starts to swing down from the gangway doors.
James shouts up to him, "Wait!! We're passengers!"
Flushed and panting, he waves the tickets.
Moody asks them suspiciously, "Have you been through the inspection queue?"
Lying cheerfully, James says, "Of course! Anyway, we don't have lice, we're Americans."
Glancing at Sirius, he says again, "Both of us."
Moody says rather testily, "Right, come aboard."
James and Sirius come aboard. Moody glances at the tickets, then passes James and Sirius through to Kingsley, another officer. Kingsley looks at the names on the tickets to enter them in the passenger list.
"Gunderson and Gunderson.
He hands the tickets back, eyeing Sirius's English looks suspiciously.
James grabbing Sirius's arm, "Come on, Sven."
James and Sirius whoop with victory as they run down the white-painted corridor... grinning from ear to ear.
"We are the luckiest sons of bitches in the world!"
A/N: Sorry for the long delay in updating, but I have been very busy. But I will try to update faster in the future.
So, please Review.