Lily couldn't cry. She had done so much of it, wailing in desperation as she sat next to her husband's corpse, holding Harry in her arms. He had long since grown cold against her chest and James' fingers had grown stiff around hers. Her voice was lost, and on some level of consciousness she knew she would never, ever be the same. Lily rocked back and forth, willing the night to start again and crying anew when she opened her eyes and her husband's glasses were still crooked and the lenses cracked. His head had hit the edge of a stair, and blood flowed freely staining her carpets and matting the hair she loved to run her fingers through. And her little baby boy that she clutched to her didn't make a sound of disgruntlement, but his cries were still etched on his face. She closed her eyes again, praying for a miracle and praying that what had happened was just a fluke. But it wasn't. The Dark Lord didn't make mistakes.
She shuddered and collapsed so her head was on James' chest, but the usual rise and fall was absent and it sent her into a new wave of sobs and her body convulsed on top of his. She held her dead son closer, all comfort that the two offered her in spades now gone entirely, and forever.
A door creaked open, and deliberate foot steps could be heard if Lily were listening. But she wasn't, and she wouldn't because all that mattered to her in the world had ceased breathing. Her baby boy that she loved so much, her husband that she couldn't imagine her life without were taken from her, plucked out of her life. And she was spared, almost cruelly so. She couldn't imagine what sort of monster thought up this torture, but there she sat alone and surrounded by the corpses that had been her whole world without an idea on how she could possibly move on.
The foot steps stopped as they reached the landing and at first the wizard that they belonged to wasn't sure if the red head was alive or dead. A mere moment later he knew that her hair that was always so beautiful to him simply covered up her face in tangles because she didn't care to move it. He struggled not to sneer as he stepped closer.
"There, there, Lily," he tried to soothe but he had never been any good at this. He struggled at the most basic of human interactions, tears were quite beyond him. He crouched down and settled a hand on her back before slowly pulling her away from the family that his master had killed the night before. Though James Potter and Harry Potter stopped breathing the world continued to go round and the sun was beginning to rise to greet the first day of November.
Lily was quite weak, all the crying and wailing and screaming and pleading with God to just wake up the two great loves of her life had drained her and now she was a frail and easily broken shell of what she had been so much earlier the night before when a giggle was etched on her son's face and James' was making bubbles to entertain their son. And she watched on with a grin, snapping pictures of Harry in his pumpkin Halloween costume. She was lifted away from her family and felt a familiar set of arms wrap around her. She leaned into them as the voice hushed her, and tried to soothe her. Eventually, some strength returned to her and she pulled away to look at who had come.
Severus Snape had aged, though his features were familiar to her. His dark hair that fell to his shoulders, his nose still turned downward at the tip, his skin was still an unhealthy pale and sallow. She took several deep breaths and calmed herself as best she could, though she looked no where near it. Severus reached out and brushed her hair back behind hear ears and out of her face, "You're safe," his thin lips turned into a smile as the pad of his thumb caressed her cheek. He could still feel the heat of the tears that had flowed freely, "It's all going to be okay, Lily, you'll see. I'll take care of you."
Lily faltered and leaned into him at first, desperate for the comfort, for human contact that wasn't so cold. But then he continued and a fire lit in her eyes and she pulled back, "It's never going to be okay," she spat as she moved closer to her husband and picked up Harry's body and cradled it close to her again, as if her warmth would some how wake him.
Severus frowned and reached out to touch her again, "Don't be ridiculous," he sneered at her husband's corpse. "I asked the Dark Lord to save you, Lily," he said in a more gentle tone as he rubbed the length of her upper arm, "I saved you," he continued and waited for her thanks that would never come.
Lily turned to look at him and before the thought entered her mind her hand came flying across his cheek and the sound that came from the palm colliding with his face reverberated throughout her house left her far from satisfied. "You did this?" she asked, aghast and unable to control the anger that flowed through every bit of her. She didn't need to grab her wand, didn't care to. Any pain that she could inflict felt so much better coming from her fists, her feet, her knee as she pulled it upwards towards his groin. She didn't need her wand. "You," a pause as she tried to breathe, "fucking," again, "bastard," Lily screamed, "You did this! You had my baby killed!"
Severus was taken aback, but not so taken aback that he couldn't capture her wrists and spin her around so her knees would quit attacking him. He pulled her in close so she couldn't keep attacking him and wrapped an arm around her tightly to keep her in place, "Lily, I had to," he whispered into her ear, "Don't you see? This is the only way. The Dark Lord is going to win, there's no alternative. He's powerful, and strong. If you had given me only the chance and the time I could have saved you from Potter," he spat the last name angrily. She struggled against him but Snape's grip remained controlling and possessive, "I saved you, Lily, they didn't have a chance. The Dark Lord was going to kill them anyway, but I saved you."
A new strength poured through her and she broke his hold. She pulled away and turned towards him. Her fist pulled back and landed against his jaw. A satisfying crunch could be heard as her knuckles split, "I'd rather be dead!" she screamed at him, as her other fist landed hard next to his eye. Severus struggled to find his wand, but Lily was faster. She pulled it from his hands but rather than break it she turned it on him, "Fuck you," she whispered, "You'll never know love. You'll never know family. You'll die a sick and twisted and miserable man and I hope you go straight to hell," she said coldly, all the venom and anger she felt centering her. And then she flicked her wand and an unforgivable came off of her tongue, a wave of green light that she had seen twice before shot into his chest and he fell to the floor. A second set of marionette's strings had been cut.
When she saw what she had done, Lily's entire body shook. She returned to her family and tears streamed down her face as she pressed gentle kisses to both her husband's forehead and her son's. She knelt beside them, and Lily knew any life she could have without her husband and son wasn't worth living. What sort of person could she be if she couldn't be Harry's mother or James' wife? It was her love for them that defined her, and now without them she was as lost as a ship at the bottom of the sea. The floor boards creaked at the front door as Lily turned the wand on herself. Just as her husband's body had fallen to the floor hours earlier, hers did just the same. The light left her eyes at the moment Harry's god father appeared down the hall, and once more an anguished cry sounded throughout Godric's Hollow.