Chapter Seven: Know Thyself

Lily

I'd always thought of the dark place as being hot, burning and boiling. It was constantly trying to overthrow my control, and I suppose that made me imagine it as a more... Active place. Heated, maybe. The things I shoved in it were usually red-hot with rage.

But it wasn't. The dark place was freezing, biting cold. There was black snow covering the ground beneath an eerie charcoal sky. There were gray mountains jutting up from the icy ground, rocky and impassable. There were no softness, no shelter, no hiding. No color.

It's like the world's been drained of everything comforting.

Snow fell from the ominous, billowing stormheads above me. It was white, unlike everything else here. It was almost pure, almost good in the surroundings. But it turned black the second it touched the ground.

There was nothing. Everywhere I turned, it was barren, dark, and cold.

It was isolation. Isolation at it's worst intensity.

And I was in the center of it.

I realized now how big the dark place was. How much it could hold, how much it could be filled with, how much I'd suppressed. It was immeasurable. It was like trying to fill up all the barren wastelands of the world with individual flakes of snow.

I somehow managed to fill this entire place with the things that haunted me.

I wandered in the dark place, trying to reach the mountains in the far off distance, to climb up and find my way out of here. Surely I could climb my way out of it, rebind it, contain it again. I'd managed to fit it all in here before, hadn't I?

But then you let it free Lily. Do you think something will quietly go back to captivity once it's been freed?

No. I didn't think it would just shut itself back up in the dark place. The memories, the magic, the feelings - They didn't want to go back. They didn't want to be hidden anymore.

But it was my mind. My will. My life. I could fight it and shove it back in. I'd fought harder battles.

Scorpius

Lily's magic chose to manifest itself as a kitten.

It was a small, black kitten, with white mittens on it paws an adorable spot on its nose. The very tip of it's tail was dipped in white as well, and it had huge, shining, radiant blue eyes. It's whiskers were satiny, perfectly contoured, and adjusted just so in its plush, silky fur. Every hair was in place, it's tail wrapped delicately before it's paws. It's ears were canted forward just so, to catch every noise and encourage affection and play. It was collared with a zebra striped ribbon. Said ribbon had a bow on it.

It even had a tiny, white chiming bell.

It's head canted to one side, and it emphasized how small the kitten was. It couldn't have been more than a few months old. It was purring, quite loudly, in a high, rolling tone. It opened its mouth once to mew, and it's voice sounded like that of a tinkling bell.

In short, it was the most adorable thing I had ever seen.

Lily was collapsed behind it. Her robes spilled out around her and her hair covered her face. She looked like the cliche damsel in distress, in a dead faint on the floor.

Lily isn't a damsel in distress. Well, maybe distress if the dark place has spilled over. But she doesn't need saving.

There was nothing I could do to save her anyway. Lily had thrown me out of her mind, slamming the door closed, locking it, and throwing away the key.

I'd tried to get in. It wasn't a possibility at this point.

She had her own demons to fight. And I...

I had Lord Sin to oppose. His call was getting stronger.

Lily

I'd reached the mountains. They stretched up and up , straight into the clouds. Their sides were sheer cliffs, and there were no footholds. I could see a faint white light ringing round where the clouds and the mountains met. There was a strange tension on the ground at the base. It was a stretch toward the sky, almost like...

Almost like something's pulling them up from the ground.

The world tipped onto it's side.

My feet lifted from from the ground, and I had a moment to wonder what the bloody hell was happening before I, the black snow that had been beneath me, the strange storm that had been above me, and the pillar-like mountains that had been before me shifted and fell in the barren, empty space between the former earth and sky.

The grayscale altered around me. I was falling through pitch black emptiness, and then it lightened to the deepest gray, then an almost temperate tone, and finally to pure blinding white. It was in the glaring brightness that I landed.

It was like light was shining from every inch of the surface I was on. There was no shadow, no hiding, just the blinding, almost suffocating whiteness.

What had been the mountains before the fall came next. It was sudden, the once jutting rocks just appearing, and then they were crashing around me, shattering and breaking like stone pillars, but clanging like metal rods and bars against the ground I stood on. I ducked, covered myself in my black robes, but they weren't black anymore. The mountains weren't grey. Everything was white, bright white.

The clouds melted away when they hit the light, forming droplets and falling like a rain of light. They soaked through my cloths, and the white showed everything. When the drops touched my skin, they made it glow from inside, like an ethereal sheet over a bodiless ghost.

The light saw everything that I was. Soul, body, mind, everything. I felt it's touch everywhere. It was not warm, not comforting, but the same harsh, biting coldness as the rest of the dark place.

This was white, shadowless light, and for once, I wished for the ugliness I kept in the dark place, if only so I could hide myself in the horror of it.

And then the snow came.

When it hit the light, I expected it to melt, to instantly switch to white, for something to happen. Nothing did.

It fell, and it fell, and it fell, all over me, all over the light, covering it and drowning it out, until it had completely covered every inch of what I could see.

But I still shone. My hair, my skin, my robes, even my eyes still shone a bright blinding white.

And then the memories came, and I screamed as I had never screamed before.

Scorpius

Lily's magic kitten was entrancing. It was adorable, soft, innocent. It needed to be protected. It was so young, so tiny, so helpless against all the evil in this place.

So it seemed, until the first of Lord Sin's black-cloaked men touched it.

Teeth sprouted from it's tiny maw, sharp and dripping saliva, it's skin seemed to explode, and it grew and grew and grew, until it's very presence filled the room and there was very little air left to breathe. Power burst from it and flowed over us all in waves. It's blue eyes turned white, pure white, and they shone. It's legs and haunches thickened and reformed, until it wasn't feline anymore, but some hulking mix of cat and hellhound. It's voice deepened to a deep, demonic roar, and the white was eaten away by the black in it's fur. It bellowed, and it was a cry for blood.

It attacked. It ripped into the man's chest, took his still beating heart, and ate it. It was on the others before he'd fallen to the floor. It was fast, it was strong, and it was deadly.

It was Lily's magic. All of it in all of it's tainted glory, fighting, out of control, powerful and without remorse. It was no wispy formation like a Patronus. This was a real, solid, flesh and blood monster, and it had come to kill.

I did what any true Slytherin would do at that point. As blood spattered across my person and gore rained to the floor, I sprinted to Lily's unmoving, unconscious body, grabbed her, and ran, far, fast, and hard.

I left the monster to it's bloody feast.

Lily

I was just a tiny child. Maybe six.

{"Mummy!" I called, smiling brightly, excited beyond belief. "Mummy, Mummy look! Look what I can do!"

My mum turned, red hair fanning out around her, eyes wide and and wand out. There was something about her, something strange, and it glittered in her gaze.

"Mummy look! Look at all my magic!"

I let the entire mass of my magic go, and it drifted around me in spinning silver and black whorls. It changed the way things looked, shifting the world to a wonderland. There was snow on the ground, with splashes of bright, vibrant red all around. There were people sleeping in the snow, light skinned and ethereal. There was free magic everywhere, and men in bone-white masks and long, dark cloaks. They all had wands, and they shot bolts of light in all directions, most of them a bright beautiful green. When the light connected with the uncloaked people, they fell back to the ground, and all the fear left their eyes. They lay sleeping on the snowy ground with the others.

My magic created something new, and it shone in the background. It thrummed with an invisible sort of tingle, and I saw it was a pale, pale man. He didn't have a nose, and I wondered who had been mean enough to steal it. Stealing wasn't nice. Stealing hurt people. His eyes were red, so he must have been crying a lot. He looked angry and sad.

I raced forward to play with him. When people played with me, I felt better. He was all alone at the other end of the field, except for Papa. Papa was sleeping in front of him like the others were. He'd been hit with a green light too, and now he was sleeping, eyes still open, on the soft cool snow. There were splashes of red around him too, but there was no fear in his eyes. I wondered who had spilled the red on the snowy ground.

The sad, angry man was still a ways off, and I kept running. He was looking at Papa, and there was a strange look in his eyes. I had to look away because I was kind of scared of the look. But it would go away when I played with him right?

"Mummy! You're watching right? Look at all the fun things my magic can make Mummy! It made a whole party just for me!"

I looked away from the red-eyed man to my Mummy, and her eyes were glazed over. Her knuckles were white. One of her hands was in a fist, and the other clenched around her wand.

Does she want her magic to play with mine? I want to play! Mummy wants to play too!

She raised her wand up, and so I grabbed the red-eyed man's hand (I'd reached him by now), and I pulled him along with me. We had to play with him too and make him happy. Papa was sleeping, so he wouldn't mind.

Mummy screamed. It wasn't her "come down to dinner" yell, or her "What do you think you're doing!" yell. It wasn't even like the screams Papa sometimes made in his sleep when he dreamt about bad things.

Mummy screamed from terror. But more so, she screamed from rage.

"Voldemort!"

She waved her wind wildly and yelled something I didn't understand, and a light came at me. I didn't move, because I'd seen lights hit other people, and they'd just slept. This one was purple, too, instead of green. The purple ones had to do something different.

It hit me and I screamed. Behind me, the red-eyed man cackled madly, and I saw blood run from his eyes, nose, mouth, and ears as I fell to the snow. I splashed onto the ground with a sharp drip, and I knew I'd always remember the sound.

I was still screaming, and my magic came back into me. It hurt worse than Mummy's light had, but not for long.

Mummy yelled "Crucio" and waved her wand, and everything felt like it was burning and ripping and bleeding, insides bursting out and outsides clawing in, everything twisting until I couldn't even scream.

The red eyed man dissolved into a black mist, and then he followed my magic into me. He cackled next to my silent magic in my head, and then I felt him everywhere, and between the wrong he brought and the pain Mummy cast, I blacked out, too tired and scared to scream.}Mummy was afraid of me when I was six. It was because my magic is evil.

{Mummy and Papa were yelling and fighting. Mummy was crying, but she wasn't sad. She was trying to come at me, and she scared me a lot. Papa was trying to hold her back. But Mummy was scared and upset, and she stunned him and pushed him off of her. She looked half-mad. Her eyes changed between fear and anger and lunacy.

She grabbed me by the hair and wrenched my head back. I stared into her eyes because they were al I could see, and the were enraged.

Her words cut like a knife, and she scared me and broke me.

"You're not my daughter. You've a piece of Him in you. Voldemort's in your magic, and I hope he kills you, or I will. You dirty, disgusting mistake. You're repulsive, a leech, just waiting long enough to suck the life out of us before you kill us. I won't let you. I'll kill you first!"

She shook me by the hair, back and forth, again and again. She slapped my face and made me cry. She dragged me outside the house and threw me down in the snow. My blood dripped onto the ground, and it looked like the red splashes of paint my magic had made when the red eyed man was there.

Papa threw off the spell, and I saw him running at Mummy, yelling something, but I was too scared to know what. Mummy kept on coming, and she raised her wand. My fear doubled. Mummy's wand made everything hurt. My magic made Mummy so mad that she hurt me.

"You're evil," she spit at me, and her eyes fairly spit fire. " you're rotten and tainted and dirty. You're magic shows it."

Daddy was almost on her, but I couldn't see him. He had his wand out too, and he was casting something and yelling. It came at Mummy, and she deflected it.

"She's not my DAUGHTER!" She screeched, and spittle went flying. "I should have cut her out of me the day I knew she was there!"

She cast something else, and Papa's spells bounced off of it. Papa was mad too, because all his magic was out, and it dove at what was wrapped around Mummy and me like a red cloud. He roared, and it was almost like a lion, but it didn't work. She just kept coming, and I tried to scramble back and away from her. My had slipped in the blood that had dripped from my split cheek and lip.

She raised her wand at me again, and her eyes were hard and cold.

"Avada Kedav-"

Papa tackled her to the ground, knocked her wand away from him. She screeched and fought at him, and I could see her scratch my Papa's face til it bled.

He didn't care. He looked at me, and his eyes were hard too. "Run Lily," he said, and I did.

I ran to the woods behind my house, and I hid. I climbed the first tree I could find, crying and bleeding and terrified. Splinters stuck in my hands, and my clothes ripped, but I fought my way up the tree until I was far away from the ground.

I could still see every drop of my blood hit the snow. The splash of red stood there, and it was a silent testament to what had happened.}

Mummy hated me after that day. It was because I held a piece of what had destroyed the things she loved.

{Papa came for me later the next morning. Snow had fallen again, and I was cold, but it didn't matter. It was punishment because I'd made Mummy mad.

He called me down from the tree, but I wouldn't come down. I couldn't go near where the red splash was, because if I did, I'd be more evil, and Mummy would be mad again. She'd be scared and angry again.

Papa Apparated up to where I was in the tree, and he wrapped his arms around me, and he let me just sit there and cry quietly for a little while. In a few minutes, he made me look at him, and he told me what had happened.

"Before you were born, Lily, there were terrible things that had happened. Hundreds of people were killed, and Voldemort took a lot of people your mother loved from her. He almost took me away. He was -"

"Papa, who's Voldemort?"

"He's the greatest evil the world's ever known. Mummy says that you ran to him like an old friend."

"But I only ran to the red eyed man, and he wasn't evil, he was just sad and angry and -"

"Stop. Never speak of the red eyed man, Voldemort, or any of what happened again," he snapped. There was a hissing venom in is voice, and I knew that he meant what he said.

"Mummy's mind couldn't handle seeing... Him again. When you brought out the vision of that battle -"

"But Papa, I didn't, my magic did -"

"Hush."

His cold eyes made me quiet.

"When she saw him in your magic, when she felt the taint of him in the illusion, something broke in her. She can't handle that Lily. She was uncontrollable, all night. That's what He did to her Lily. And you have a piece of him in you. You have to hide it Lily. You're mother is calm now, because of a spell I did."

He looked at me a moment, and his eyes were almost sad.

"You know that I love you Lily. I do. But I can't let your mother break like that again. I love her too Lily, so much. She... I had to protect her from you. From your magic."

He was quiet for a time, and he looked down at the ground. I did too, and while he looked for guidance and peace, I stared at the red, dark accusing splotch f my blood on the ground, and remembered what I'd done. I'd hurt Mummy, even if I didn't know it. Good people didn't hurt the people that they loved. So Mummy was right. Mummy was always right. I was evil.

"Your mother," Papa said after a few minutes, "She... Won't remember you anymore Lily. She won't be able to see her or interact with her. She won't talk to you anymore. It's the best way Lily. She won't be hurt by you, and you won't be hurt because of it. And you're still young enough to change and adapt now. You can learn to live without a mum. And you'll still have me."

He tugged my face around to look away from the splash of blood again, and his eyes were hard, like stone and steel.

"But the spell does not block her memory of the taint on your magic Lily. You must never, never use your magic near her again. Do you understand me? Not even to save your own life."

I stayed silent, because I wanted to cry, but I didn't have tears anymore after the long night. I was tired and Papa's new rules made me feel like I was a grown up now. I had to protect Mummy.

"Your mother is the last thing in my life that I can hold onto Lily. Albus, James, even you will leave. I won't have you anymore. Your mother is the one thing that will make me happy for the rest of my life. I need her. So you have to keep her safe."

Whatever the cost, said the silence that followed, Even if it hurts you.

I nodded. I'd seen that Mummy wasn't able to handle me being there. So I'd just have to be strong enough to handle being invisible.

I can fight to keep Mummy and Papa happy.}

And so the years went.

{Four years, and I never let my magic out when Ginny was home. I didn't draw attention to myself. I mostly stayed in my room, though it was very small. Papa had let me have the cupboard that was just off the kitchen. He told Ginny it was where he kept his potions supplies, and she never went in there, because he asked not to. He brought me books, and I kept to myself and tried not to make noise. He had me do my chores, and he let me play with Albus and James every once in a while, when Ginny was out. But when she was home, I was in the pantry. I sat, and I read, and I never let my magic out. Not once til I left for Hogwarts.}

But the memories of Hogwarts were already dealt with, the price already paid. The black snow left my eyes, letting me see in the blackness, the shining light beneath my skin still white, still pure, still untainted. I moved forward, and then I was rising, up and up and up through the snow.

I floated, above the black snow but below the glaring, freezing light. For a moment, I thought that I was done, that I was leaving the dark place.

But the light turned black and the snow turned white. The world turned and stood on it's side, one half white and the other black, straight down the center of me.

A door appeared, a tiny little door cut down the middle by the darkness and the light. I ran toward it, and I was running, harder and faster than I'd ever run before, and it was getting farther and farther away.

The line of dark and lights grew sharp, until I could feel the division like a burn on my skin, but I kept running toward that door. Surely, it was my way out. I'd relived the memories, and maybe I could escape before the feelings came for me. If I could just get out of the dark place -

The dark and the light split me in half, and I screamed. Blood rushed, and the world morphed again. I saw the ground splashed with red, like a dark, accusing reminder of what I'd done as a child. It mocked me and it cackled that dry, hissing, terrible laugh of the red eyed man.

The light tugged one half of me away, and the dark another. And in the dark, the shadows rose, with glowing eyes and dripping teeth, and they attacked the dark half like a pack of starving feral dogs.

And the light half was being pulled, away and away and down, always down straight into somewhere foreign and strange, where colors whirled and danced, and quicksilver eyes saw into my soul.

The feelings ate at my dark half. Scorpius's mind drew my light half away.

The Dark Half

There was fear.

It was cold, colder than the rest of the dark place, so cold the it burned me and seared flesh from bone. I nearly felt my skin crack open, shatter and bleed.

There was nothing around me but shadows on shadows. There was no light cast and no light to see by, but I could see them, and they were there, dark, hungry, angry. They danced like monsters in the air, a macabre summons to the moribund and the lost. They were everywhere and nowhere, inside and out.

The shadows skittered across my skin, and then dug in their wicked, bloody, poisonous claws.

The pain of it made me mad.

And there was madness, from the pain. There was an insanity to it, the sharp edge of riddles, puzzles, nonsense and delusion that only madness can bring. My mind had been tormented and I hadn't known. There was no love in the world, no safety, no haven, no respite. It was all pain and no escape, but there was always another way out. I could hide the pain - but no, I could make a new place where there was no pain. There'd be puzzles there, to solve, and games to play, and people to play with, but no, I didn't like people because people always hurt me and they were everywhere and there was no way out and it never ended, and the pain, the pain, the wretched, bloody, thrice-cursed, devil-damned pain. And now there were circles and webs spinning round in my head, and I couldn't get through the paths laid out before me because i was falling and rising and spinning and circling and my mind was tearing away from my soul, and the pain, the pain...

The madness of it made me furious.

And the fury was right, because what had I done to warrant a monster's brand and a mother's hatred, a father's neglect and a lover's attack? Why was I the one to shoulder the bleeding responsibilities of the world? Why was I the hated leader, chosen for the hardest, darkest, most painful paths and always so angry, so consumingly enraged that I could scarcely breathe with need to destroy? Why couldn't people just love me? Why didn't they care, why didn't they see what I'd been through and what was happening? Why didn't they try to stop it? They saw the scars on my body. Some even knew the scars on my mind, and they hadn't stopped it, and I wanted to rend and tear and break. I wanted to make them suffer for what they'd done, make them suffer like I had.

The fury of it made me weep.

Fat tears rolled down my dark half's cheeks, warm in the silent solitude of the frigid dark place. There was nothing around me, no one to hold me or lie to me when they said I'd be alright. My mother hated me, and my father didn't love me enough to let her go. I'd been hidden away like something shameful, forgotten and left to my own devices, thrust into a world I didn't know or understand. How could they smile while I sat alone and ignored? How could I stand it a second longer? My family forgot me. My lover destroy me. I had nothing and no one, because GInny was gone, and Harry would never choose me. Scorpius was terrifying, and Rose was enraged. Raven was gone, and the others would look at me and see a monster. I'd let my magic out, my repugnant magic, the root of all the misery I'd ever felt in my life, and now it would make me alone again. I was trapped.

The sadness of it set me free.

Why shouldn't I be frightened? I was facing a monster, a mass murderer who'd slaughtered children in cold-blood. I'd nearly died, and I was alone in the world. It was a terrifying situation. The fear was justified, and though it clouded my mind, why should I shove it away?

Its ugly, my mind said, and messy. It's not useful, not practical. It doesn't accomplish anything. It's useless.

But look where hiding it had gotten me.

Why shouldn't I be mad? With the trauma and the years of not dealing with the ugliness I held, why shouldn't I have bloody lost my marbles by now? Less had driven others to madness. I'd been in pain, tortured, neglected, abused, raped, a witness to murder, slaughter, and a killer myself. How much could I be expected to take before I snapped?

It's weakness. It's ignoble. You should be able to take anything the world has thrown at you and focus through it, live through it. It should make you stronger, hone your will, not send you to the loony bin.

But look where ignoring it had landed me.

Why shouldn't I be furious? Ginny was an unfit mother, abusive and horrible and weak and wrong. She'd hurt me, more than she would ever know. My father was almost as bad, because he didn't value me enough to force his wife to change. He'd hidden me away like I was his greatest shame, and then told me he loved me. He'd lied, he'd cowered, he'd given in. He'd lost whatever nobility and courage he'd once had. Scorpius had beaten me, raped me, and left me with scars that would never fade and never heal. He'd killed something beautiful and priceless. The pieces were shattered, and my past was a wreck, and he had a part in making it like that. He was to blame too. And so was I. I'd let myself hide because it had been easy, locked my emotions away because it was easier than feeling the pain. I had as much guilt as anyone. I had a right to be angry. Why should I not be allowed to feel it?

Because it's hideous. It made your mother into a monster, and it'll make you into one too. It alters your judgement. Anger makes mistakes.

But look where suppressing it had lead me.

Why shouldn't I be weeping? What ha happened was tragic, and lives had been ripped apart by it. The person I had been was dead and gone, torn to pieces and left on the cold stone floor of the Room of Requirement. My scars would never heal. I'd never be the same again. There was a call for mourning. Nothing would ever be the same, and lives had been lost that couldn't be regained, and children had died and there was no reason for it. There was no call for my mother to hate me, no reason for my magic to be tainted, no purpose for my rape, no motive for those children to be slaughtered. It was all a tragedy. How could I not be expected to mourn?

Because there's no time. No purpose. Tears do nothing. They impede your vision and make your skin itch, make your head ache and your nose stuff up and run. They make you shake and feel sorry for yourself, and they get nothing done. They serve no purpose.

But look where holding them in had put me.

The shadows weren't shadows, but feelings, each different, each hidden within the dark place, trapped and abandoned and left to their solitude. They wanted to be felt, wanted to feel, to serve their purpose, for each had one, and to see my purpose be served.

One in the same, the shadows whispered, part of the whole and one in the same.

The shadows tore through the dark place, ripped it open, and flung themselves out. THey flooded into my mind beyond the dark place, the memories with them, and they raced along pathways and neurons and places untouched before by emotions. Everything felt, so many things at the same time, and it was new and odd and different, and too much.

My dark half was aware, and it was conscious and connected to my body, though my light half was gone. It was mad, sad, angry, afraid, suppressed but freed and whole, whole again, whole finally, no light half...

But the magic was missing. The magic was missing, not part of the memories, not in the feelings, but out and away and separate and wrong and bring it back in and make yourself whole. Hold it dear, hold it close, hold it near, hold it with you.

and then the magic was back, boiling under my skin, and nothing was cold because it was hot, so bloody hot, and I never wanted it to be like this, never wanted to feel and remember because it hurt, oh Merlin, the pain.

Scorpius

Lily's magic was monstrous, tearing men limb from limb, sucking the magic away from their souls and eating their hearts, tearing and rending and wrenching. There were screams, there was blood, there was terror. Spells were fired every which way, from every wand and every man left standing. Lord Sin's grating cackle rose on the air, above the screams and the cracks of spells discharging from wands. The battle raged on.

And then it just.. stopped.

Lily's magic was just...gone. No unstoppable monster or innocent kitten, no faint scent or subtle taint or shifting shadows left. It was just...gone.

Lily started convulsing on the ground.

Her eyes were open and rolling, bloodshot, wide, terrified, and yet only half aware. They weren't green anymore, but the blackest black or the whitest white. They rolled back in her head and then forward again and she shook and convulsed and seized.

Her head hit the floor, and the sound it made, wet and wrong, made me run to her, over the bodies, the blood, and the gore around her.

She was helpless. Again. But this time I could stop it. This time I could save her. This time would be different.

When I touched her, she was burning. Her skin was on fire with the highest heat of fever, but cold tears ran down her cheeks. I tried to keep her still, hold her head away from the ground and get her to stop convulsing, but it didn't work. She was too strong in this state, and the most I could do was drag her away from where the new battle raged. Lord Sin was retreating, having lost too many of his number, but he was fighting till the very end.

I got her onto a rug down the hallway, though she was still shaking and still seizing. Her eyes were in the back of her head now, and all I could see were the whites.

The seizure went on, and I was frantic to find some way to stop it.

The Light Half

It's very different here, I thought as I drifted through the mirrors and the halls of Scorpius's mind. There isn't much color - blacks, whites, grays. And the mirrors are disturbing. Does he want to see every part of himself, every second of the day? There's no hiding.

Scorpius had no dark place. There was no section that was forbidden, no place to hide secrets or feelings. The bad mixed with the good, and the single, quicksilver orb that floated beside me saw it all, and judged it all, and knew all of what was in his mind.

I'm terrified, I thought, he can see me. All of me. How can he not hide things?

No answer came. But the fundamental difference between his mind and mine was almost as disturbing as it was discouraging.

I'm the hopeful half, the optimistic half, the normal girl without the dark place aren't I? Then why is it that there's no hope for us? We're too different. How can he even care if I live or die when I have so much that I hide from him, so much I have to work through, so many scars that will never heal?

The outlook was dismal, no doubt. I had nothing to offer him, and nothing with which to garner favor. I was broken, after all.

Broken and his. So says the name carved down your spine.

The quicksilver orb next to me rippled ominously at that thought, but it stayed calm still. It had followed me the entire time I wandered through the halls, and every so often it would shift or shiver. It frightened me a little, but I felt safe here. This was Scorpius's mind, after all. He wasn't under the influence of Lord Sin.

There were memories floating around in the halls, and they were happy, whole, not dark and repulsive like mine. The walls got darker as I wandered longer, and the breezes shifted down the halls, changing from the light, happy, dancing breeze on the surface to a chilling cold gale.

And, in the same manner, the memories darkened. There weren't many of them - only two - but they were long and I knew nothing of them.

Curiosity struck me, and though I'd touched none of the memories up to this point, I touched one of these. What were these memories that were stored in the darkest part of his mind? What could possibly make his mind tend toward darkness so much?

My fingers sank into the soft, cool memory, and I was drawn in.

Scorpius

{I knew that something was wrong when my father came home that day. He shoved me into my room, locked me in, and wouldn't speak to me. But I heard him pacing, crying, sometimes screaming. He kept saying something about "not again, not now, it was supposed to be over". When I managed to look out the keyhole to see him, I saw him hunched over, shirt off, clutching his left forearm.}

I was seven then, and I felt as helpless now as I had that day. Lily had been seizing for minutes now, and I didn't know how to stop it, just as I hadn't known how to stop my screaming father then.

{He disappeared with a crack and a last scream of agony and rage. I stayed locked in the room, though I tried every method I knew to get out. Mother was gone to Grandmother's house for the day, and I was trapped, alone and helpless. It was the worst kind of feeling.

Wen he cam back, it was hours later, and I was still locked helplessly in the room. He Apparated in, and at first I though that he had fallen.

He hadn't. He was on the floor, and he was seizing. A great sinister snake floated darkly above him, striking again and again at his head. It was the snake from the Dark Mark, and it was attacking his mind.

I screamed. My father was on the floor, convulsing and crashing about helplessly, and I was locked in a room. There was blood all over him, and I knew that if he kept bashing into the floor, his bones would break.

But I could do nothing. I was helpless and locked in the nursery of all places, with Medusos. He was crying and screaming, and so was I, because we both knew something terrible had happened.

And then my arm started to burn.}

This was not the time for memory. Not when Lily was still convulsing and there was nothing to hold her still. I wanted to Stupefy her, but I ad no idea what that would do to her mind, Her skin was getting hotter and hotter and she was crying silently and helplessly.

I thought she was going to die.

{Father quieted after what seemed like hours. He was still on the floor, just in sight through the key hole. He wasn't moving, and I couldn't see the rise and fall of his chest.

My arm was still burning, and it was worse than before.

Medusos had stopped screaming, and now he was just making tiny hiccuping noises. I had no idea what to do with him. He was so small, born early, and I felt that with all the horrible things of today, I would break as soon as touch him. It was a terrible, horrible feeling, a new helplessness not of separation, but of ignorance.

I sat in a corner of the room, far away from anything else, and cried till mother got home.}

Lily was quieting. I'd gotten her onto her side and she'd stopped convulsing violently. Every so often, she'd stiffen or twitch, but she was mostly quiet now. She hadn't spoken as of yet, but her eyes were moving, and they'd mostly settled on me. Tears still rolled down her cheeks, and her skin still burned.

For a time, I sat with her and stroked her hair. The battle was done, Lord Sin gone, and the others had returned to the Room of Requirement to let the others know what had happened.

I sat among the ruins with her, and I held her close until the shakings had stopped and she could speak and move again.

Lily

I...can't see anything.

It was true. I knew that my mind was consciously in my body and not in Scorpius's any longer. I'd not gotten to see the second memory. But it could wait.

I can't speak either.

I wanted to tell him that I was sorry for the little boy who'd seen the father he adored brought to his knees and sick. I wanted to tell him that he should have told me. That I hadn't meant to leave him for dead, and that I'd always meant to save him.

But I couldn't. Couldn't see, couldn't speak, couldn't move.

He was cradling me, stroking my hair and holding my hand and whispering stupid things, little lies that made me feel safe and cared for regardless. I knew everything wasn't going to be alright, that I hadn't done well, that things weren't going to be ok again. He said the anyway, and for a second, I believed him.

I...hurt.

My entire body ached. From my head to my toes, I was one giant sore spot. Everything felt too sharp, too rough, too clear, too much, and that was just the physical sensation.

Emotionally I was...terrified. What had just happened, to the dark half and the light half?

What had just happened to me?

Author's Note

Next: Of Running and Reconciliation