She hadn't realized the lights on the stage would be so alarmingly bright. Even offstage, waiting in the wings as Draco Malfoy slaughtered great mythical beasts with a panache and valor that was to be admired by all, Lily was very nearly blinded by it.
Her eyes roamed the audience searching the dark mass for one face in particular.
She'd tried to convince Wizard Lenin to come. He certainly hadn't wanted to, had certainly avoided showing any interest, but it'd seemed import to Lily that he come and witness whatever this ended up being.
If he was here, she thought, he was probably regretting it. Draco Malfoy was not doing well, had continued in fact to flop during rehearsals all while Lockhart received more and more threatening notes promising vague but ominous revenge. Right now, watching him on stage, it felt a bit like having your teeth pulled out of your head one by one.
Still, one thing that was perhaps good or bad, the voice, Ginny, the Wizard Lenin that wasn't Wizard Lenin had disappeared from whence he came. Lily hadn't seen or heard from it since the chamber, and for all she could tell, it was almost like he'd never existed in the first place.
So, weeks went by and Lily was left to wonder if she'd just made it all up somehow. Life proceeded as normal, well, more normal than even the year before as, around this time Rabbit had been introduced, Squirrel had been on the mend, and there had already been a troll in the dungeons.
She was left in this surreal floating haze as if waiting for the other shoe, unseen, to drop.
"Ellie," Gilderoy hissed out of nowhere in her ear, "That's your cue, get on up there!"
Lily jolted, but there was Draco, awkwardly looking straight towards her in sheer panic while Lily, straightening, prepared herself to get into the zone. She spared a glance for the audience, a look out of the corner of her eyes, and she thought she might have made out Wizard Lenin's shadow somewhere behind the pillars, barely noticeable.
Right, now, where was she, right this was the triumph moment where she was supposed to run into Draco's arms in delight, relief, and joy for her humble village being saved and then have the dramatic and grief inducing departure where he leaves her behind without a second glance.
Unfortunately, Draco Malfoy, as always, did not look prepared for that. Especially not prepared to break into his umpteenth love ballad of the night.
However, when he opened his mouth, it wasn't his words that came out.
"Did I not instruct that the role of Lockhart was to be played by Ellie Potter?" it resounded through the stage, loud and seeming to come from every possible direction, and at the familiarity Lily shuddered because there was the sound of the voice from a dream that wasn't a dream.
She saw half the audience, previously sleeping, startle to attention, a gleam of interest in their eyes as they realized that for once something interesting might be happening. However, out of the corner of Lily's eye, a shadow twisted.
Draco opened his mouth again, but no words came out, his voice inexplicably gone. He sent a desperate look towards Lily who in turn could only stare. From the wings, Lockhart, biting his lip and squeezing his eyes closed, waved his wand and cast a spell. Draco then doubled over and began to endlessly vomit slugs.
Lily stepped back as the audience screamed, watching as they oozed out of his lips and onto the floor, while Draco proceeded to get greener and greener. Up in the rafters, the voice was now in hysterics, as if he had managed to surpass his own expectations.
Awkwardly, in the audience, some of the first-year students began to clap, looking around at each other and clearly unsure if the play was still happening or not and this was the appearance of some new dread villain.
Abruptly Lockhart darted out, all but throwing slug vomiting Draco Malfoy backstage, "Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, due to some… technical difficulties I am afraid that we must take a ten-minute intermission. However, when we return the role of Gilderoy Lockhart will be played by… Miss Eleanor Lily Potter. In the meantime, we shall once again be giving you the ballet of the sugarplum reindeer from act one."
Lockhart then stepped off the stage, leaving the musicians hired for the pit orchestra to panic and flip pages backwards until they landed upon the aforementioned ballet (which was all too bad for Hermione as she now had to live through that catastrophe twice) while Lockhart pulled Lily off stage to stand by Draco, who was still vomiting slugs.
"Oh, Draco can't you stop that?" Draco just gave Lockhart a pitiful, and somewhat accusing, look. However, any threats regarding his father were stopped by the piles and piles of slugs crawling out of his intestines.
"Right," Lockhart said, and then pinned his gaze on Lily, grabbing her by the shoulders and looking deep into her very soul, "Now, Ellie, you are a girl and we can't help that. However, you are the only choice I have so by Merlin do not fail me! Go out there and be glorious!"
Lily was about to respond to this but that was when the shriek occurred. Lily looked towards the stage and saw, instead of the ballet, the actors paused in horror, as there, twitching from a noose with her eyes rolled back into her head was a hanging Ginny Weasley.
Lily felt as if someone was moving her feet for her, propelling her out onto the stage and then off of it, deep into the audience even as students started fleeing and staff members hurtled their way onto it, cutting Ginny's corpse down from the rafters (and somehow Lily was sure she was already dead, had been dead longer than anyone had ever suspected, and that perhaps Ginny Weasley had never been at the wheel).
Without any idea of where she was headed she found herself in the shadow where Wizard Lenin was watching the stage with wide, alarmed eyes, barely blinking as Lily took his hand and sprinted them out of there, "We need to leave, now, we have to get out of here."
Because all she could see was Ginny's face, Ginny's face in the chamber of secrets, worn as someone else's temporary mask.