Desperation

Part Seven:

Sorrow

August 7th 1999 - Saturday - 1:00 p.m

Lily

Lily had been impatient to hear her son's story. She thought she could handle it. She thought the understanding she would gain of her son through it would be worth any pain she would feel. It was, but she didn't fully realize just how much it would hurt to hear Harry's story. From the start, she was unprepared for the life that lay ahead for her precious baby. She managed better than her husband, but just barely. That was until her son got to the point where the war broke out fully. Then she was a mess, and she hardly could believe that things could get worse until they did.

"He'd been protecting me all that time. Even if he hated me, the idea of me. Snape became everything he wasn't, everything he never wanted to be, so I could live. Even if he was a right old git, he saved me on more than one occasion. I never knew of a braver man. He might have not been a good one, and I won't ever feel anything other than dislike towards him, I can respect what he did for me. Or I guess for you mum."

Lily was already a mess at this point, but these last few sentences numbed her from the inside. Severus, her best friend since childhood, he had loved her all that time. Part of her was sickened by it, the part that couldn't forgive him and hated the person he became. But, there was a part of her that loved him like a brother, that wished that she could do more than hate the man that gave up nearly everything to save a boy he conflicted thoughts brought more tears. Her eyes were sore already from crying and she could tell that her face was wet with both tears and snot. She was always a messy crier. Lily couldn't take anymore of this. But there was more, and she knew that what was coming was much, much worse.

She knew she would not be able to handle it. Her baby, oh god her baby, had been through too much. Her friends, her family, they were all destroyed, and there was so much she had yet to learn. The pain and sorrow ripped through her veins like a poison. Every inch of her burned with it. How had her son been able to deal with all this when she was already drowning in it. He must have been ripped apart by it. No matter how much she'd eventually understand about her son, she's never be able to touch upon the darkness in his beautiful eyes, her eyes. The look of despair on his face, the tightness of his jaw, and the wetness of his cheeks would haunt her dreams in the nights to come.

"I knew after watching his memories what I had to do. What I was." Harry was shaking, his eyes lost in the past. "I was his last horcrux. I had to die. Part of me was ready to die. I would have been able to be with you all again."

His words shattered Lily's heart. There were no words to explain how her world shifted in that second. She gazed at her son, her baby son, who wasn't really a baby at all, and wished she could do something, anything to take away his pain and his sorrow. She wouldn't care if it killed her to take it from him, she just wish he never had to feel anything like it ever. To make matters worse, he wasn't done. Harry's story wasn't over. Lily had no idea what to do.

She was helpless, and she hated every bit of it.

A mother should be able to protect her son, and she couldn't, she didn't. How could she even call herself his mother. She had died. Lily never had a chance to be there for him. She wasn't anything more than stranger to her own son. She failed, and that pain could never be forgotten.

"Neville was so brave, his parents would be proud, if they could be. If I could only change one thing, I would give Neville his parents back. I have you guys now, that if I couldn't do anything I'd give him a chance to have his back too." Her son admitted, though it seemed to surprise Harry just as much as it did her.

Lily's son, he was so selfless. Even while curled into himself crying his eyes out he was thinking of someone else. Lily couldn't have been prouder, but she could only hold that swell of pride in her chest for so long. The overwhelming pain she was feeling, that sorrow that felt so close but not close enough to her heart swept it away. It was still there, just out of reach.

"I remember facing him. I expected there to be hate, to be anger, but I could only bring myself to pity him. After everything he did, I couldn't truly hate him in the end." Harry explained, his voice rising with his intensity. "I felt so many bad thing about Voldemort, I still do, but I don't think I can really hate him. We aren't too different, Tom and I after all, if you look at the core of each us."

Everything else after that seemed to blur into the rest. The words seemed to pass by her; they hadn't really sunk in yet. When he was done speaking, the silence made this so much more real. The pain swept into her veins with a renewed vigor, and she was made sick by it. Her face was sticky with tears and snot, and her hair was sticking up in every direction, she was a mess. Lily couldn't believe she'd been dying to know this for days. Honestly, she would have been better off waiting. Everything still felt so new and foreign, and this new knowledge was a heavy burden. For everyone, not just Harry who was miraculously not crippled by the weight of it.

"Harry! Look at me!" She said, not caring that she was sobbing. "Please look at me."

Harry's dull eyes mirrored Lily's as he hesitantly met her eyes.

"I'm so proud of you. You are the bravest, most amazing person I know. I don't have the words to explain how proud I am to be your mother." She said, her eyes shining with the intensity of her emotions.

She might not know how to deal with this knowledge, but this is one thing she knew that would never change. She loves her son and she was proud of the person he was, all his faults and all his strengths, she loves them all.

Lily may not be able to forgive herself for failing Harry as a mother, but she was proud to be his.