Chapter Nine
A/N: No reviewers, unfortunately.
For the whole of the fortnight that followed, Lilly considered the blood stained message, and the offer it had made to her.
On the one hand, the letters was a means of escape, a way for her to ensure her survival, in the war which they all knew was coming. She was terrified, nearly to the point of madness, of the man who had slaughtered her family, and she had wished and hoped and prayed for a chance to keep herself and those she loved around her safe, along with as large a proportion of the world as she could do, both the Wizarding and the Muggle being in equal danger from the madman whose dark shadow was cast over them.
On the other hand, to accept the offer of security, tempting as it may be to have such a precious thing ensured, would be an unforgivable act of betrayal, not only to her friends, but to her own blood, as well, her own brother. He was the only family that she had left, and she was the only that he had as well. She could not take the offer, not possibly. Could she?
It had once been her father's choice, to take the offer of security from the Dark Lord Voldemort, though he had later been brave enough to take information from the very depths of the Inner Circle back to the Order of the Phoenix. He had taken the offer, then put himself more at risk than if he had not done so, by becoming a spy, even a traitor of sorts. If he had had the strength to do so, then that strength flowed through her veins. The strength, and the blood, of a spy and a traitor to the Dark Lord. A servant to no one, no one but her mother. Severus Snape had served only himself, and those he had loved. 'Surely that is what I should do.' Lilly told herself, though the voice inside her mind did not speak as surely as she would have wished for it to do. 'Surely that would be the right choice to make. It must be.'
"Lil?" came a voice from the doorway, startling the young woman, who had been staring out of the window at the sun, which was setting in the sky with a dazzling array of colour. She had thought that the house had been empty, as it had been until a minute previously, but need not have worried. After all, she had heard no breakages, no forced entry could have been made, and there was only one other person with a set of keys to the house.
"Harry!" she exclaimed, leaping up from the edge of her bed, where she had been seated. Immediately, she went to embrace the elder boy, holding him tightly to her, as if he was a piece of driftwood and she was shipwrecked in a storm. She had always been able to find comfort from her brother, as he had from her, and it was the thing that she needed the most at current. If anyone could possible help her come to a decision, then she would take any assistance that she could get, even if it was from a young man who was as biased as it was conceivable to be in this matter. "What are you doing here?"
"I haven't seen you for two weeks, Lilly." the boy responded, his voice showing clearly his concern, which made her certain that he was not going to go anywhere soon. "No one has. You haven't left the house for a fortnight. I was worried about you. Still am."
"I'm fine." she replied automatically, though she knew full well that it would not settle with her brother, as he had always been able to tell when she was lying, as she could do him. After a minute, the young man had rearranged his expression to such an extent that his sister was forced to tell the truth. "I'm scared, Harry. The war is getting closer, and I don't think that we're ready for it to happen again. Not when Hogwarts has hardly been rebuilt. I just feel like this time is going to be different, and that we aren't ready for that change, that's all."
"That's not all, is it, Lilly?" he questioned, moving the pair of them to the bed, so that they could sit back down on the edge of it. "I know you, and you wouldn't be bothered by something as small as a change in this battle from the last one. There's something else, I know that there is. And so do you."
Silence fell between the two, an awkward silence which screamed the truth as loudly as any number of words could have done. In the absence of Harry's questioning, Lilly considered the only two options she really had. She could lie or she could tell the truth.
In the end, her goodness won over her, and though she did not speak, she resolved not to lie to the dark haired man any longer. She moved to the drawer of her bedside chest, unlocking it with her wand and removing a stained piece of parchment from inside. Before she had a chance to convince herself that doing so would be a bad idea, the young woman placed it in his lap, turning away the moment she had done so.
The hush continued for a few minutes longer, bar the slight sharp intakes of breath that came from the elder of the Potter children. The younger still did not turn back, not wishing for The Boy Who Lived to see her weakness in the face of the letter's contents.
However, when she felt her brother's arms wrap around her, pulling her to rest his head on his shoulder, she did not object, merely rested there in his arms until both of their tears had dried, as the pair of them remembered all the people they had lost to Voldemort.
The Dark Lord may have been able to reach them, but he would not divide them. Not without a fight.
A/N: Please review! Pretty please!
