Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter (unfortunately).
A/N: Hello all! So sorry for the late update, hopefully the next one will be out soon and thanks to everyone who's stuck around this long. As always, please let me know what you guys think. Feel free to let me know what you did/didn't like, who you want to see more/less of, what you want to happen next and anything else that comes to mind. Thank you all so much, it's your continued support that keeps this story alive.
But enough rambling and on with the story!
(Warning: There are bad words in this chapter)
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Chapter 7: 'Not hers'
The silence left in Harry's wake was complete and echoing. It seemed to have a mind of its own, winding its way around each and every person, twining around Lily and crawling into the cracks forming in her already aching heart.
Things had been going so well.
He had laughed.
And just like that it was over. The child that had appeared so briefly was gone, as completely as if he had never even existed.
The look on his face as he confirmed Sirius's death…
Sirius's death.
Lily felt her breath catch in her chest, the thought physically painful as it lodged itself firmly in her thoughts.
Sirius died.
Dead.
As in breathing no longer.
Sirius was James's friend first and foremost. Lily knew that. Understood that. Accepted it. But she also knew that they had their own relationship, independent of the one that existed between him and her husband.
The thought of him gone…
Lily looked over and saw her husband similarly shocked, his face pale as he stared at the spot Harry had last stood.
Harry…
The pain had been tangible around him, sending Lily's mothering instincts wild and she fought desperately to keep from smothering the child.
Not hers. Not hers. Not hers.
She kept the chant firmly in mind as she willed herself to stay in the dining room and not chase after the boy, as her body was desperately yearning to do.
Not hers. Not hers. Not hers.
Again and again. Over and over. She kept repeating the words to herself, trying to make her emotions see reason but they remained steadfastly oblivious to the situation and her mantra did nothing to ease her aching heart.
Because as far as her feelings were concerned, he was hers. She had decided that the moment she had heard his name.
Harry James Potter.
Her son.
But it as so much more complicated than that.
Of course it was more complicated than that.
So Lily struggled, trying to convince herself that what she was doing what was right. Reminding herself that she was stranger to the boy and that as much as she wished otherwise, he did not know her. He was not the little boy she had raised from birth.
But he was still her son.
And that meant that even though it just about tore her apart, Lily kept her feet firmly planted on the ground, and her hands remained tightly wound around chair upon which she sat.
He was her son, and she would do anything to help him, even if it meant hurting herself.
So she remained sitting, her body fairly trembling with the effort.
Lily Potter was many things, but she was not an idiot.
She had seen the conflict, the agony, that filled the boy's gaze when he looked at her and James. When he looked at Sirius.
Oh he was a good actor, perhaps the best she had ever seen.
But he had one fatal tell. No matter how blank his face, how firmly he plastered a smile across his features, his eyes continued to betray him. Maybe it was simply because they were so like her own, but Lily could see every emotion clearly reflected in those emerald depths, and it just about killed her; the pain she had seen pooling within them.
Watching her, and everyone else that he had lost - interacting with the loved ones he had never had - was breaking that poor boy.
She had seen the pain fade some, had watched it get easier for him through their conversation, and she had felt hope rise in her chest. Maybe, just maybe, she would be able to help. But the sheer exhaustion she had seen when as he turned to leave...
It was the kind of exhaustion that had no place on the face of teenager.
It was the exhaustion of a warrior at the end of a war.
And she knew that he needed a break. That her going up there, a living, breathing, reminder of all that he had lost, would do nothing to help right now.
There would come a time for that - she would make sure of it - but that time was not now.
So Lily remained rooted to the spot in that rotten room, feeling as if her heart was being ripped farther from her chest with every weary step Harry took away from her.
But still she did not move.
But still she did not make a sound.
She did nothing more than repeat her mantra and pray to whatever power that may be listening to help that lost little boy. Because he was her son, and she was damned if she would ever let anything ever hurt him again. Not on her watch.
Not hers. Not hers. Not hers.
But her chant was no more helpful the 72nd time than it had been the first time. Every bone in her body still ached to go comfort the hurting child.
But she couldn't.
But she still needed to do something.
Lily's gaze spotted the pensive, sitting calmly on the table.
The recently refilled pensive.
The pensive full of her son's memory.
She might not be able to help him, but maybe she could understand him.
With what could probably be termed an excessive amount of maternal energy propelling her forward, Lily practically threw herself into the pensive, falling into the pearly liquid before anyone even realized what she was doing.
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Breathe.
When was the last time he had remember to breathe?
Remus wasn't sure, so busy was he staring at the seat Harry had so recently occupied.
Dead.
Sirius was dead.
Remus wasn't sure why, but for someone reason that one fact was the tipping point for him. The final bit of information that brought his hard fought understanding crashing around him.
Because nothing made sense. None of it. The rules of logic and reason that had seemed so real mere hours before were falling around him, leaving him standing amongst the rubble with no idea how to begin rebuilding.
Everyone was dead. The other kids didn't even exist. The Longbottoms were insane.
And Harry…
No.
None of this made sense.
Remus closed his burning eyes, the darkness serving as a brilliant backdrop against the wild images his brain was concocting of his friends death. Their pale skin, unmoving chests, glazed eyes.
Dead.
Everyone was dead and none of this made sense.
And that was not okay. This had to make sense. It had to. It just had to right?
Because… Because…
But Remus floundered, unable to come up with an explanation nor a reason why there had to be one.
Didn't he know better than anyone that life didn't make sense? But still, there was something inherently wrong with this other world, so wrong that it went beyond a singular bad event or a bad moment. It was as if the world itself was cursed and nothing could ever go right for anyone, including his friends, none of whom seemed to be alive anymore.
Dead.
Everyone there was dead.
Breathe.
Remus drew a shuddering breath into his aching chest, his eyes slowly opening in a desperate attempt to dim the images playing across his thoughts.
And he had thought things were shitty here…
Screw the information the kid had - he was making things better simply by showing them all had much worse things could be.
Remus still felt the same he had before meeting Harry about a lot of things. He was still terrified for his friends and those he considered his family. He was still worried and anxious and stressed and simply exhausted over it all.
But now he was also horrifically, weak-at-the-knees grateful.
Grateful that he still had friends and family to worry about. Grateful that he wasn't dull to the struggles of those around him. Grateful that he was still aware enough to care. Grateful that things were not so terrible that he had to pretend that everything was okay even when things were obviously falling to shambles around him.
Because this Harry didn't have these things. He didn't seem to have hardly anyone left to worry about. Hell, the kid didn't even seem like he was able to show emotion any more.
This kid stood there, nary an expression on his face and told the story of his family's brutal murder. He had stuttered over mention of Sirius's death but still, not one flash of feeling showed on his face. Only a tiny stumble.
And Remus was grateful he did not have that kind of control. Grateful that he did not need it.
Because it made no sense at all.
What kind of world had the kid come from where showing that he was human could be such a terrible thing? And perhaps worst of all was the ease with which the child did this all. The ease with which he had watched his younger self face horrors that had set Remus's chest clenching in terror.
Nothing made sense.
And suddenly Lily was moving.
Her motion was abrupt and sudden. One moment she was sitting and the next she was flinging herself into the murky waters of the pensive, jolting Remus from his spiraling thoughts.
Lily.
Poor Lily.
Lily with her heart of gold and protective streak brighter than her hair. Lily whose cross-dimensional child had just shown up with enough horrors in his past to rival anyone Remus had ever met and a indifferent air about him that made it all the more terrible.
It was like the child didn't even know how horrible his life had been. As if he didn't even realize his life had apparently been nothing more than a glorified shit show.
And suddenly Remus knew that Lily should not be in the pensive alone. She should not be in there, facing whatever new horrors Harry had left for them to experience without the support of her friends and family.
She shouldn't be alone through this.
That thought made sense and Remus clung to it like a drowning man clings to a life raft.
She shouldn't face this alone.
Remus pulled his body from the chair even as he fought to pull his mind from the swirling daze of confusion it had become caught in.
LIly shouldn't face this alone.
Remus kept the thought firmly in mind as he grabbed first James and then Sirius, both of whom appeared too lost in their own ruminations to be aware of anything else, and began dragging towards the pensive.
When James turned to him, his hazel eyes glazed and overwhelmed Remus simply dipped his head in the direction the man's wife had disappeared and offered his friend the same knowledge that was saving him.
"Lily shouldn't face that alone."
That was all it took to snap James to attention and he began walking of his own volition, leading the way into the pensive. Remus let him take the lead and simply continued pulling an apparently shell-shocked Sirius along behind him.
Nothing made any sense.
But Lily shouldn't have to face these memories alone.
And so Remus dove back into the memories of a boy he was struggling to understand.
Maybe, this would make things make sense.
A desperate hope that was quashed before the memory had even played a full ten minutes.
Nothing about this made sense at all.
