Lily was ill.
Lily was burning with fever.
Lily was trying to open her veins and nobody could understand it, she screamed again and again that she didn't want to die, she wasn't trying to die, it had nothing to do with that kind of death.
That kind of death. Your kind of death.
Madame Pomfrey had been awakened at two in the morning by frantic pounding on her chamber door. On the other side were Alice Pemberley and another Gryffindor girl holding the prone, bleeding body of Lily Evans.
Madame Pomfrey couldn't suppress her cry of alarm. She levitated the girl to the hospital wing and in her haste poured too much dittany over the wounds. Smooth, shiny scars sprang up on Lily's skin.
Madame Pomfrey gasped. Where the dittany had knitted her flesh, fine as calligraphy, were two elegant Bs etched into the girl's arms.
"Get back to your dormitory, girls," she gasped, trying to shield Lily's body from her classmates. Ashen, Alice shook her head. "All right then," Madame Pomfrey said. "Go and get Professor McGonagall."
Alice looked even more shaken at the thought of waking a professor. She craned her neck, trying to catch a glimpse of Lily around Madame Pomfrey who adjusted her position and gave her a steely look. Alice swallowed hard and nodded, backing slowly out of the room, pulling the other girl with her.
Less than three minutes later Professor McGonagall appeared in the doorway. Her face was white, lips pursed to a thin pale line. "Back to your dormitory, ladies. Pemberley, I am trusting that you will be able to keep this between us, at least until we have learned more." Alice nodded again and the two girls departed, leaning on each other. "Pemberley--" McGonagall called, and Alice stopped. "You two are to stay out of class tomorrow. I will be in to speak with you. Madame Pomfrey," she whispered, "can you give these girls something to help them sleep tonight?"
Madame Pomfrey nodded and retrieved two small vials from a nearby cabinet. "Girls, please drink this as soon as you get back to your dormitory. Please," she added, seeing the pained look on Alice's face. "It will be easier for all of us." Alice looked as though she would protest, but seeing the expression on Professor McGonagall's face thought better of it and took the vials, helping her classmate out of the room.
"What happened?" McGonagall demanded. Madame Pomfrey shrugged helplessly.
"The girls brought her to me this way. Well, not this way. When I got her she was bleeding."
"Pemberley told me Evans had tried to kill herself. That she had . . . cut her arms."
Madame Pomfrey nodded. "That's what I thought. But then I was—afraid, and I used too much dittany, which caused immediate scarring. And this," she said, stepping away from Lily's body, "was what I saw."
Professor McGonagall stared in confusion and horror at the girl. "My God, Poppy," she whispered hoarsely.
Lily began to shake violently. Her breathing was coming in short, rapid bursts, and she clenched and unclenched her fists so tightly that red crescents welled up in her palms. "What's happening?" McGonagall nearly shouted.
"Shock, I think," replied Madame Pomfrey. "I haven't done anything but mend her wounds. It was too—it was too--"
"Well for God's sake, do something else now!"
Madame Pomfrey leapt to the cupboard and pulled out another, larger vial. "This will relax her."
"She needs more than relaxing," Professor McGonagall hissed.
"It will . . . put her in a controlled coma," Madame Pomfrey said quietly as she stilled the girl with her wand long enough to get the liquid in her mouth. Lily's body slumped immediately against the bed. Her breathing evened out, and her hands uncurled. "She'll be this way until I give her the antidote."
The two women watched Lily for several minutes.
"Poppy," Professor McGonagall said lowly. "Has this girl been around Miss Black?"
"Well, there was the incident the first day of term, the fainting," Madame Pomfrey replied uncomfortably.
"Bring her up. Now, please."
"Here? Do you think that's . . . wise?"
"Bring her up please, Poppy." Professor McGonagall's tone was final. Madame Pomfrey looked at her, brows knitted, and left the room.
"Oh Evans," she whispered. "Not you, of all of them."
Shortly thereafter, Madame Pomfrey reappeared with Bellatrix Black, hair tumbling wildly around her bare shoulders. Professor McGonagall felt her skin crawl briefly when she saw the girl, then shook her head slightly and motioned for Bellatrix to sit on a bed on the other side of the room. "Draw the curtains around Miss Evans, Poppy, if you please," she said evenly.
"Why have I been brought here?" Bellatrix's imperious tone shattered the hushed stillness that had been cast over the room since Lily had been given the potion. "What is the meaning of you waking me up in the middle of the night and dragging me here?"
Professor McGonagall despised Bellatrix Black. She tried to maintain at least a professional relationship with all of the students at the school, but Black seemed to fall into a category that was decidedly other than the rest of the pupils. It was impossible for Professor McGonagall to speak to her as though she were any student, even a Slytherin, so she generally tried to simply avoid the girl. Black was poisonous. The older woman knew far more about her than she likely suspected; knew of course her family history, their penchant for blood supremacy above all else, knew Bellatrix's personal affinity for retribution that was aspired to by many in her house with only the palest of results. But Professor McGonagall knew of her association with Tom Riddle, self-declared Lord Voldemort, which was one of Bellatrix's most closely guarded secrets, at least within the world of Hogwarts. The professor doubted very much if even Slytherin's Head of House knew. Not that it would be a bargaining chip; Black would most likely stare at her with those unsettling blue eyes and declare that yes, she and Riddle—Voldemort—had been together, that he was her mentor, most likely her lover as well.
"Will you please tell me if you require something of me, Professor," Bellatrix sneered dryly. "If my presence is not needed, please allow me to return to my rooms."
Professor McGonagall set her jaw. "Miss Black," she snapped, "you are here for questioning about the condition of Lily Evans."
"That Gryffindor Muggleborn, you mean?" she responded with a mock innocence that twisted her disturbingly beautiful features. "I don't know the girl."
From across the room, Lily moaned. Professor McGonagall started. Pomfrey had said she was in a coma. She heard the other woman pull aside the curtain to look in on her. "What is it, Poppy?"
"I must not have given her enough," Madame Pomfrey responded. "I'll increase the dose."
"For God's sake, don't kill her," Professor McGonagall shot back. She swore Black's mouth curled in a slight smile as she said it. "You have something to say, Miss Black?"
"Nothing pertinent, Professor," she replied politely. "May I go?"
"You may not."
Bellatrix's eyes narrowed. "What exactly am I being accused of?"
"I will come to the point," Professor McGonagall said tersely. "Tonight Lily Evans was brought in with severe cuts to her arms. When Madame Pomfrey mended the wounds, she discovered that they appeared to be in the shape of the letter B. In short, your initials."
"I assure you, Professor," Bellatrix smiled widely, "I had absolutely no part in that girl disfiguring herself tonight. Until I was brought here I was sleeping soundly in my own room which, as you know, is several floors below hers."
"I understand you and Miss Evans had an . . . incident at the start of the school year."
Bellatrix laughed. Lily moaned again.
"I can't give her any more, Professor. I don't understand how she can still be making any sort of noise, or moving at all."
"Moving?"
"Yes, Professor," Madame Pomfrey said, looking out from the curtain. "She's . . . touching the scars."
"Professor," Bellatrix said evenly, "there was no incident, as you say, between that girl and myself. Our carriages collided on the way from the train, she was trying to do something about it, and she fainted."
"Professor Slughorn tells me she cut her finger."
Bellatrix looked at her expectantly.
"He also tells me that some friends of yours, Lucius Malfoy among them, were quite angry about it, that apparently she had gotten blood on you as a result of the cut."
"A drop, Professor. Nothing more. Not a crime, from what I recall."
Professor McGonagall knew Bellatrix was hiding something. The same girl who had been nearly expelled for hexing a Hufflepuff who had had the misfortune of treading on the hem of her robe in the corridor not upset about the blood of a Muggleborn touching her skin?
"Miss Black, you are dismissed. If you should think of anything that might help explain the girl's wounds, please contact me." Professor McGonagall was not satisfied with the interview, but knew her authority had been tapped. She stood and turned her back to the girl, something that always made her uncomfortable.
"May I see her?"
"May you what?" Professor McGonagall's shock was apparent.
"May I see her? Since I have been accused of somehow interfering with this girl, I feel it is well within my rights to see what I have allegedly done to her."
Professor McGonagall didn't know why she acquiesced. Black was staring at her in that odd way, as though she were studying her thoughts, as if she were determining them. The girl wasn't a Legilimens, the professor was fairly certain of that. But there was Dark magic in those eyes, she could feel it. Mutely, she stood aside and motioned for Madame Pomfrey to pull back the curtain.
Bellatrix stood at Lily's bedside, examining her arms.
Good girl.
It was too bad those bloody halfbreed roommates of hers had discovered her first.
Silently, Bellatrix sent a charm across the room that caused several of the bottles on a far shelf to fall to the ground. While Professor McGonagall and Madame Pomfrey were distracted, Bellatrix lowered her mouth to Lily's arm and traced one of those delicate, curling Bs with her tongue.
Through the sleeping draught Lily parted her lips and half-groaned, a low and hungry sound that made Bellatrix smile more widely than she remembered doing in her life. When Lily was released, Bellatrix would make sure she was rewarded. Bellatrix would give her so much, make her feel so much, she would cause her such pain and such joy and she would show her what gifts Lily's love would bring.
Mine, girl. You belong to me.