Sometimes We Die
Chapter Twenty-five: The Black Prophet
Author: H. Ashleigh
Disclaimer: I am obviously not J.K. Rowling, nor would I ever pretend to be.
Saturday, March 20, 1976
Teatime
I couldn't believe what I was about to do.
I stared at the door in front of me. The wood was grainy and pebbly looking, if a door can be pebbly looking. It looked like the bottom of a riverbed. Maybe it wasn't even wood at all. I reached out my hand to stroke it.
But before I could touch it, it whipped open. In front of me stood Professor Figg, long silvery robes enveloping her willowy form. Even though she was so thin, her stature filled the entire doorway; I could in no way see past her robes.
"Miss Evans!" she said, surprised to see me there. "Is there something you wanted to ask me about class?"
"Um- er- no, actually… well," I stammered, and was amazed at my inarticulateness. I had known as I had crested the fourth floor staff hallway what exactly I was going to say.
She folded her arms over her chest and looked down her long nose at me. She was a duplicate of her brother and it was unnerving. "Yes?"
"Well…"
"She's here to see me."
For a second it was Josie's voice I was hearing, not Arabella's. But reality always sinks in.
Marlena Figg turned around and revealed Arabella's shrouded form. The hallway was dark and Arabella's face was hidden. All I could discern was her hair, crowning her head in curls, silhouetted by golden light emitting from further back in the rooms. It was long and big and bushy, much unlike Josie's perfectly coiled, short ringlets.
Marlena looked back at me, and when I didn't say anything, she nodded. "Very well, I will go to my office and grade some papers."
"Thanks, Aunt Marlena."
I pressed down my skirt and blinked an eye and we were seated in a neat parlor.
"Tea?" Arabella offered. I nodded and she handed me a pretty plate with green and blue designs on it. Then she poured the tea and we served ourselves in silence.
I was taken a back by her amount of couth. She looked like Josie, sounded like Josie. Their hair color was exactly the same, that rich milk chocolate color that might melt if you touched it. When she glanced across the small, low-lying table and our eyes met, I saw the same dark cerulean waters lined by long, delicately thin pieces of hair. Her skin was just like Josie's: so many freckles you were deceived into thinking her skin was a shade or two darker than it actually was. Here and there was a peek of alabaster white under the quilt of spots.
But then their similarities ended abruptly. Josie never had enough patience to sit around for tea: she was always out on the Quidditch pitch or helping Potter and Black play tricks on younger students. Arabella clearly had been sitting on that sofa most of the day: the pillows had molded to her back and a book was sitting on the side table, its spine bent to hold her place.
"How do you like it here?" I asked her.
"It's gorgeous," she said. "I had never been here, only heard stories about it. It is better than I could ever have imagined."
"You have to come have dinner in the Great Hall some time," I offered.
"I have thought about it. Aunt Marlena has mentioned it a few times," she said. "I don't know."
We sat in some more silence. I drank my tea slowly; I had no idea what to say to her and wished to prolong the amount of time I was not required to say anything by sipping very small amounts of my tea.
She, apparently, had other ideas.
"So Lily," she said, setting her empty teacup down and pushing aside her half-eaten scone. "Why did it take you so long to visit me?"
I was caught off guard. I stared over the rim of my teacup with wide eyes; the teacup had become my defense.
"Ummm…"
"Sorry for putting you on the spot, but honestly," she said. Her eyes were very accusatory and wide. Maybe her and Josie were not so unalike after all. "I thought you would be here almost as soon as term started. I knew Dumbledore had told you I was here. And I kept waiting. Waiting and waiting. I was ready to talk to you months ago, what have you been doing?"
"Well- I, um, I thought about coming to see you," I started.
"And?"
"And I just couldn't," I admitted. "You don't understand, Arabella."
"Well then explain it to me Lily, because quite frankly I have not been happy with you the last couple months."
I was shocked! This was not at all how I had imagined seeing Arabella for the first time since Josie's death would pan out. She did not look angry, but her voice and countenance was angry.
"I don't really know what to say."
She said nothing.
"You see, Arabella. When you look at me, what do you see? You see Lily, only Lily: you see me. When I look at you, I see Josie. When I hear your voice, I hear Josie. It's much too painful." I could feel a lump of tears filling my throat.
She softened then, as if maybe she hadn't thought about the pain I would feel upon seeing her. She folded her hands in her lap and had the grace to look down at them.
"I'm sorry Lily," she said. "I was just very hurt to think you wouldn't want to see me."
"I know, it's okay," I replied. I felt ashamed I hadn't come to see her before now. "I'm sorry for not coming earlier."
"I just thought you would want to come talk to me about Josie, about what happened that day," she said simply, raising her blue eyes back up to look at me.
Of course she would think that. What had I been thinking, staying away, thinking she wouldn't want to see me? I was the next best thing to actually seeing Josie in real life.
"Well, what do you want to do?" I asked her.
"Go for a walk? I haven't been out of this room since I got here," she said.
"Sure."
"Let me just leave a note for Aunt Marlena."
Soon we were walking out of the front doors of Hogwarts and into the cool March air. It was cloudy, threatening to storm, but the clouds didn't look too swollen yet. I surmised it might be a few more hours until a storm swept through.
"Hogwarts is huge," Arabella said, turning around to look back up at the massive castle. Her head was bent all the way back on her neck. "When I came here, it was dark, after midnight, and I had been given some sort of calming draught. I remember only someone guiding me up to Aunt Marlena's rooms."
"Why didn't you just floo here?"
"They thought it would be too hard on me. At least, that's what Aunt Marlena said when I asked her that later. I don't know what they were thinking though, I would have been fine."
She was done looking at the castle for then, and we set out towards the lake. Everything was budding and spurting out of the trees and ground; the earth was iced over with new growth. It was very windy as well and our light spring cloaks whipped around our legs. Arabella had tied her hair back in two loose braids and the curls hung out of the ribbons like little bunches of grapes. For some reason I felt as if we were characters in Jane Eyre.
"So Lily, don't you want to know what happened that night?"
I was speechless. I couldn't believe she wanted to replay it all for me.
"Arabella, that's up to you," I replied. "I never once imagined anyone would wish to tell me anything about it." I had reconstructed what had happened that night and I was satisfied with my rendition of the night's events. Josie and her parents had died. That was all I needed to or wanted to know.
"Well," Arabella started to say. "I just think I will feel better if I tell someone about it."
"You haven't talked to Professor Figg about it?"
"Lily, please call her Aunt Marlena or something other than Professor Figg. She's not my professor." She kind of giggled then and her curls blew up in her face. "And no. I haven't. She has told me I could if I wanted. She even had a specialist from Mungo's come in and try and talk to me about it. Like a wizard's psychiatrist or something, you know? But I didn't even talk to him about it. I just couldn't. You knew Josie the best, and I wanted to talk to you about it."
Oh.
"Okay?"
"It's just that I don't know what I can do to forget seeing them there, lying in the Christmas parlor, their stares blank. Josie was staring straight up at the fairy lights my father always enchants every year. She always loved those the best about Christmas." Arabella paused here, even stopped walking. She looked up at me, her blue eyes wide and wet looking. I felt my stomach lurch at the idea that she might start crying. "At least I know she died looking at something beautiful."
"Oh, Arabella," I said, and reached out to hug her, but she backed away quickly.
"And to think it's partially my fault, to think that if maybe I had been there, they wouldn't have died," she continued, her lip trembling. "It's awful, Lily, just awful."
"Arabella, that is not what would have happened. You all would have died, Lord Voldemort is ruthless, and it wasn't your fault at all they died. Your father was an amazing, courageous man, as was your entire family."
She sniffled gently. "I was down in the town when it happened, but I knew almost immediately. Lord Voldemort casts that horrible spell, you know? The Death Mark or something like that?"
"The Dark Mark."
"It's so awful, Lily. Bethany, the muggle girl I was with, pointed up at my father's manor almost as soon as it was in the sky, and I had to turn around, you know? And everything was cast in evil green light. I will never think about the color green quite the same way, you know?"
I nodded slowly.
"I still just can't believe it happened. I still don't know what to do, every morning I wake up with the same question. Who am I supposed to be now? What am I supposed to do now? How do you keep living after your parents and sister have died?"
I didn't have an answer to her question.
We spent the rest of our walk reminiscing about Josie and her quirkiness. Arabella hadn't had a chance to do this with anyone since Josie's death, and I guess I hadn't really either.
***
I was becoming anxious about end of year exams. They were looming overhead like a gigantic troll with a club waiting to pound me if I hadn't the spell to deflect him.
Mostly everyone else in my year suffered the delusion that exams were two and a half months away and therefore elicited no panic; I knew better.
Arabella and I agreed on taking a walk or two a week around the lake, and I thought this was a perfect arrangement. I was hesitant to become too attached to her: I didn't want to start fooling myself into thinking she was Josie, but she really was a great girl, very mature for her young teen age.
I had come to avoid Hogwarts' grounds after dusk; the experience I had with Severus and James and Remus had traumatized me and I was not one to take the same risk twice. I still didn't know where James and Black and Peter got off to every full moon. I could assume they were with Remus, but who would want to spend an entire night with a full-grown werewolf on a rampage? No one.
But I found that I no longer cared. I had satiated my lust for adventure and I was sure I wouldn't be thirsty for quite some time.
No, I would much rather remain confined to the castle in the evenings, either studying in the library or common room or with the Ravenclaws, whenever I knew Morgan and Emily weren't studying with them. I had grown quite accustomed to studying on my own, sometimes accompanied by Arabella. She liked to come with me to the library and find a nice cozy corner with squishy armchairs and a window or two. There, I would study for hours and she would read whichever novel she was trudging through at the moment. I found out that she liked all classics, whether they were Shakespeare and Charles Dickens or Thomas Pynchon and Virginia Woolfe. She was incredibly sharp and I found that one day maybe I would learn a lot from her, even though she was a few years younger than me.
Vernette Ziegler also liked to study with me. We shared Herbology together, and she did seem to have a bit of trouble with it, so she liked to have me help her. She was already talking to me about spending time together in the summer, and I was actually looking forward to it. Spending time with her might get my mind off the void I felt from Josie and Emily's absence.
Emily was still ignoring me. Still! You would think, after 2 months or so of not talking to me, she would at least start to soften. But no, she still flounced around the castle with Morgan Kent, seemingly happier than she had ever been in her life. I was happy for her (what good friend wouldn't be), but a small part of my heart was still very sore about all that had happened between us. I thought about her every day, between classes, at meals. She never sat with the Gryffindors anymore in the Great Hall, and she was hardly ever in our common room; she apparently thought she had no friends in Gryffindor. She had become quite close to Winetta Rowe and Susie Ommerson, Ravenclaw girls in our year. Emmeline had kept her distance from Emily, perhaps out of loyalty to me. I wasn't exactly sure what her intentions were, but I appreciated them all the same; she even had the decency to update me on what was going on between Morgan and Emily, and how Emily was faring.
According to Emmeline, Emily was going with Morgan to Kenya that summer, for the entire summer. Needless to say, I was very jealous and could hardly contain my contempt when Emmeline told me about it. Emily had never before expressed any sort of interest in international travel! I was always the one who oohed and ahhed over different countries.
Underneath it all, I was also jealous of her regarding her relationship, and it's stability. I had no idea what I was doing with Severus, and what he was doing with me. After the werewolf thing, I hadn't talked to him for a few days. He was seething over the punishment that Dumbledore had given Black, which had consisted of eternal detention pending graduation, the barring from any sort of Hogsmeade trips (which really didn't constitute as punishment, because no one was allowed to go), a monitored curfew every night, and all Saturdays until the end of time, also pending graduation, spent with Dumbledore in his office, copying lines or something. Severus clearly had thought the offense against his person granted at the least expulsion, at the most detainment in Azkaban. Dumbledore, however, had told Severus that Black was still a minor and could not be incarcerated in Azkaban. Dumbledore had also told Severus that Black had made a very big mistake, and that he would pay for it, but that it is not wise to hold grudges like the one he was sure Severus was holding against Black.
Severus had told me that this was far from humanely possible. The boy had tried to get him killed, and quite frankly I was on Severus' side. How could I not be? What Sirius had done was, in my opinion, unforgivable. It had nothing to do with the fact that I had been involved.
However, out of the situation, I had developed a closer friendship with Remus. He was not talking to Black at the moment, although I was sure this wouldn't last. Remus was an eternally forgiving person, and he loved his friends. I also discovered just how very smart Remus was, and how effective of a Prefect he was. He did have a very hard time controlling his immediate friends, but beyond that, he kept very good control over our house and I found that together, once we began communicating more than polite nods and good mornings, we made a very good team.
March blossomed into April, and it began raining every day.
***
Sunday, April 18, 1976
Today marked the day Voldemort started his random but persistent killing spree.
That morning I went down to breakfast early, accompanied by Arabella. She, like me, preferred early mornings instead of long, drawn out lay-ins. A standard barn owl delivered my paper and I tucked in to my crepes and coffee before glancing down at the front page.
Which was completely altered from its usual appearance.
Instead of "The Daily Prophet" headlined at the top in huge, curly script, the paper was now called "The Black Prophet" in bold, hollowed out letters. All around the edge of the paper, like a border, were strung caricatures of the Dark Mark. The snake wiggled to an unheard tune inside the skulls mouth. I gagged a little bit on my uvula.
Underneath it was a personalized missive from Voldemort himself.
Good morning my fellow wizards. As you can see, I have effectively infiltrated the owl post system and have managed to recreate your newsletters. I personally think the new designs are much more appealing and eye catching, never mind what you think.
You will find with these new editions of the Prophet that you are still receiving the same news, it will just be elaborated upon in a much more scintillating fashion. All the stories will cover the same material, but my brilliant editors will be tweaking the words in order to bring the effect up to my standards. I think this is a very efficient way to convey my message and teachings to the community. I hope that you all will benefit from this, will appreciate my efforts, and will respect me all the more when the time comes.
The main purpose behind this transition, however, is to enable all of you to take notes of the changes that are going to slowly progress across Great Britain. The first of many to come is elucidated further in the next few sentences.
I feel as if I have been very slack on the entire community. Enough has not been done to establish in this country the respect and fear I know I deserve. Therefore, I have made the very difficult decision to incorporate my message more personally among you. You will be made aware of these exciting events starting tonight.
I hope you enjoy the changes I have made to your Prophet and I look forward to our relationship burgeoning in the future.
Yours,
The Dark Lord
I stared at the paper for about two seconds before standing up and casting a very strong incendio charm on it. Not only did the paper catch fire, but a stack of napkins and the ends of Arabella's overflowing hair.
"Lily!"
I seethed. I balled my fists and breathed through my nose like a bull. The smell of burnt hair was more than I could take and I fled the Great Hall. I was blindly running through the halls when I ran directly into Professor Dumbledore.
"Miss Evans!"
"Professor, have you seen the papers?" I asked urgently.
"Yes," he replied grimly. "I was afraid something like this was going to happen."
"What are you going to do about it? You have to do something!"
"I will conduct a school meeting today, in the Great Hall. Professor McGonagall will announce it in a few hours."
"But what are you going to do about it?"
"Miss Evans, there is hardly anything I can do about it right now-"
"But Professor-"
"But nothing, Miss Evans. Excuse me, I am going to meet with your Professor's as we speak."
And with that he strolled away, his robes fluttering softly and smoothly in his wake.
I was so frustrated I wanted to scream. How dare Voldemort do something like this, completely up heave our community! I wished that I could do more. I wished for an insane second that I was a grown witch in the Auror Department at the Ministry, leading a group of talented witches and wizards, all who had suffered by his hand, towards Voldemort's strong-hold. There we would take them, and each would have a turn torturing him, killing him for the pain he had caused all of us.
I vowed that one day I would meet this man, this imperious creature, just so that I could see what Hades looked like reincarnated.
***
"Good afternoon." Dumbledore's booming voice echoed around the room and hung from the rafters. The entire student body was assembled in the Great Hall. "I am sure by now you all have seen the renovated Daily Prophet. If you haven't, turn to your neighbor and ask for his copy."
He paused for a moment during which time there was a great deal of rustling.
"I know it seems as if something like this could never happen. Voldemort has always affected us singly; never before has he managed to affect each and every person of the community wholly at one time. He has taken a very invasive step towards his goals: his voice will now be heard by our entire community, which is what he wants the most. We must look beyond the pages of the paper and not allow ourselves to be goaded and manipulated by his words and his seeming omnipresence. He will always be one man, just as you are all one man or woman. His hubris will undoubtedly be his downfall.
"I hope that each and every one of you will have the courage and self-confidence to look inside yourselves and realize the incredible resilience you possess. You all can stand alone, and while strength is sometimes found in numbers, it is usually one person alone that can make a difference. Be that person. You can stand alone.
"Thank you."
Everyone stood up at once and clogged the exit of the Great Hall. I was walking behind Potter and his friends, with Arabella next to me, and we somehow managed to be walking side by side with the sixth-year Slytherins. I have no idea how this ended up happening, because our tables were on opposite sides of the Hall.
First I saw Frederick. He looked at me sullenly and nodded.
"Evans," he said. His arms were folded across his chest. He refused to look at Arabella, who was staring up at him curiously.
Behind Frederick was Jezebel Rosier and Virginia Travers. They were both smirking at Frederick's head and when Jezebel met my eyes, she spilled contempt. Then she looked down at Arabella.
"Well, if it isn't mini Figg," she said.
Frederick whipped his head around, and I noticed out of the corner of my eye that James and Black had turned around. Remus and Peter were standing behind them, great blurs of color.
"Rosier, back off," I said.
"What are you going to do, Evans?"
"She's not going to do anything," Potter said, coming over to stand in front of me. "Rosier, back off."
"Potter, move!" I said, shoving his back, but he was too strong for me to move.
"Please, Potter," Jezebel said. "You all are pathetic little pansy Gryffindors."
"This is beyond house taunts, Rosier. We all know that. So move along, unless you want something to happen."
"Who am I to turn down a threat?" she asked, and before anyone could reply, she sent a spell flying straight at Potter. Before I knew it he was on the ground, blood pouring from behind his ears. I gasped and realized I was wide open for her to send something at me. I pushed Arabella to the ground and whipped out my wand, but before I could do anything, Black had sent something at both Jezebel and Virginia. They were keeled over, their long hair pouring from the napes of their necks, and they were moaning in pain.
"Anyone else?" Sirius demanded, staring at the retreating Slytherin girls. Severus and Frederick were the only ones who didn't move. Severus had his wand trained on Jezebel and Virginia, and Frederick was staring at Arabella, as if he had just noticed her presence for the first time. He was just staring, dumbfounded into immobility.
"That was very stupid, Black," Severus said. "I was more than capable of taking care of them."
"You weren't doing anything, Snape," Black said nastily. "I don't trust you for a bleeding second."
"What in Merlin's name is going on?" Professor McGonagall had arrived on the scene. Behind her stood Dumbledore and Slughorn.
"Looks like some honest, healthy house rivalry," Slughorn said good-naturedly. He reached into his waistcoat pocket and stuffed something into his mouth.
"Horace, don't be ridiculous," McGonagall snapped. Her hat fell off her head. "This is an outrage! Evans, take Potter to the hospital wing immediately."
I immediately obeyed, and was soon hovering Potter's motionless form out of the Hall. Behind me I could hear McGonagall screaming not only at Black, but also at Severus and Frederick. I peeked a look and noticed that Rosier and Travers had collapsed onto the ground.
The halls were relatively quiet. Most of the students had stayed behind to watch the scene unfold. I stared down at Potter. His hair was caked in blood and a stream of it was dripping steadily still from behind his ears and onto the stone floors. I didn't dare try to stem the blood flow. I had no knowledge of healing spells and knew that if I tried to do something it would only become worse. I was afraid he had become unconscious though, from loss of blood, so I began walking faster.
"Put him here," Madam Pomfrey said hurriedly, as soon as I walked through the door. I hovered his body over to the closest bed and winced as his head fell onto the pillow abruptly. "What happened?"
I explained, and then said I wasn't sure what spell Rosier had sent at him.
"More than likely some diluted, botched Dark Magic. I've seen this before. Something similar to it anyway." She immediately set to work, and I thought it best to leave her to it.
I headed back towards the Great Hall. Students filled the corridors now; Dumbledore had probably dispersed the audience to deal with the culprits more directly. I slipped through the doors and saw them huddled in the middle of the room. Frederick and Arabella stood off to one side, standing not so close to one another. Frederick had snapped back to reality and was no longer staring at her so blatantly. Instead, he was staring up at the ceiling. Further away from them stood Tori and Judith, who rushed at me as soon as I came through the door.
"Evans, is Potter okay?" Tori asked me.
"Why do you care?"
"I would rather not Jezebel get into a lot of trouble," she explained.
I pushed past them and descended upon the main group, where McGonagall was talking to them.
"So, Severus, you're telling me that you attacked Miss Rosier and Miss Travers?"
"Yes, Professor."
Sirius was staring at Severus as if he was a Hydra, but he wasn't stupid enough to contest what Severus was saying. Remus and Peter were hanging back behind the rest of them, listening intently.
"But you were completely unprovoked."
"Yes, Professor."
"Slughorn, this is your house. I have to go and check on my student." McGonagall said, and I was struck by her passiveness. "Gryffindors," she barked. "Let's go."
The four of us followed her out of the Hall, and Arabella tagged along behind me. McGonagall set off towards the Hospital Wing, and Sirius, Remus and Peter followed her, but I stayed behind. Arabella stood next to me hesitantly in the hall.
"That was odd," she said after a few minutes of silence.
I didn't reply.
"Did you see Wilkes staring at me?"
"Yeah," I answered. "I told you you look exactly like Josie, except the hair thing." And I picked up one of her huge curls and let it drop out of my hand. "Let's go, before they all come out." And we headed up into the castle. I knew I wasn't going to be studying that much at all that night, for I had a lot to think about. Like why Severus lied to the teachers and defended Black's attacks on Rosier and Travers.
What was he thinking?
***
"Lily, I don't know," he said vehemently.
We were standing outside that next night after dinner. The sky was darkening.
"Did Slughorn give you any sort of punishment?"
"No, he thought what I had done was honorable. He did punish Jezzy though."
"Not Virginia?"
"She didn't do anything," he said.
Oh yeah.
"Well I'm sure she would have."
"I don't think so," he replied. "Virginia is not like Jezebel."
"What do you mean?"
"You have to know the two of them," he replied shortly.
"Oh."
"Never mind, I don't want to talk about this right now," he said. He grabbed my hand and pulled me closer to him. I could see up into his dark black eyes, lined by perfectly sectioned eyelashes. He kissed my forehead sweetly.
"Well, what do you want to talk about?"
"Nothing," he said, and then he kissed my mouth. I felt anxious though, and hurriedly kissed him back before pushing away.
"Severus, I don't like this."
"What don't you like?"
"Kissing you all the time like this, doing the things we do," I replied. I walked a little ways away from him and turned my back. The lake was spread out before me and I could see tentacles tickling the surface a ways out.
"Well, what would you have me do about it?"
"I just don't like this random activity. What is behind it? Is there anything behind it?"
Severus looked caught off guard, as if he hadn't planned on discussing this with me. Maybe he had thought that we would never have to talk about it, that we could just hover in this limbo consisting of kissing and unspoken desire.
He said nothing.
"What do you feel behind it? What do you want from me?"
"Nothing," he said. "Everything."
I bunched my eyebrows up. What?
"Lily, I don't know," he finally said. "I don't know how to explain what I want from you."
"Well try, because this is getting silly."
"I think that all that I want is you," he said slowly, as if each word he spoke needed to be clearly enunciated.
"Severus, there are things in the way," I said. "You don't only want me."
Severus struggled with his words.
"I want you the most."
"Then you have to put aside all of that other stuff," I asserted. "I could love you, Severus, if all of that stuff wasn't there."
I turned around and looked up at his face. His eyes were muddled and his cheeks were flushed. He reached between our spaces and kissed me.
"Okay," he said. "Okay." And then he kissed me again on the cheek. And again on the ear. And again on my neck. And we whisked away to our secret place.
***
That night a muggleborn man in Bath was killed.
***
A/N: Comments welcome and appreciated.