In which Lily's fundamental beliefs are challenged, the universe malfunctions slightly more than usual, and she uses far more effort than reasonable to try and catch the Hogwarts Express.
It had been a long time since she'd been surprised by life, or rather, she'd learned long before she'd even met Wizard Lenin or Death that life was rarely what it seemed to be and liked to contradict itself on a daily basis.
The universe, like Wizard Lenin himself, had many different names and faces that it liked to wear. And sometimes one face spoke in an entirely different language than the other, one stated the laws of physics, while the other permitted magic to flow through every now and then.
It was this aspect that had allowed her to meet Death in a train station, had let her pull Rabbit from a hat, and had allowed her to realize that there was a man living inside her head. Lily was well acquainted with the fickle, inconstant, nature of the world she lived in.
Somewhere along the way, as she'd become consumed by Wizard Lenin's goals, by his desperate material need to find a body and the events that had happened as they'd tried to reach this goal she'd lost sight of this.
She hadn't forgotten, talked about it often enough with anyone who would listen, but she didn't keep it in mind. She'd put it into a corner, pushed aside to do what needed to be done, and so she should have expected it.
The laws she'd come to accept were far from absolute.
"Ellie Potter must not go to Hogwarts!"
It was the morning she was to head out to the Hogwarts Express, she was already packed, waiting inside Riddle Incorporated for the last possible moment where she could teleport to the station and hop on board.
On her return to England she'd discovered that her disappearance hadn't exactly been brushed under the carpet while she was in Albania. Every wall in Diagon Alley sported a picture of her face and either the words, "MISSING" or "KIDNAPPED". According to the Prophet Quirell had allegedly kidnapped her over winter break, somehow managing to get her out of Hogwarts without anyone the wiser.
Almost completely ignored was the story of Hermione Granger's parents, who had been attacked by unknown dark wizards, and had completely and seemingly irrevocably lost their memory of Hermione. Hermione was now reported to be staying at Neville Longbottom's until some more permanent arrangements could be made. Lily had had to flip through many editions of the Prophet before she found the footnote like article.
Mostly what this meant was that Lily couldn't set foot in Diagon Alley as Eleanor Potter without causing some sort of riot. She also unfortunately couldn't set foot in Diagon Alley as Lily Riddle as that would also cause something of a riot for an entirely different reason. So instead Lily had just holed up in Riddle Incorporated for the rest of August, sending out various employees to do her shopping for her, and letting them deal with the terrified masses of the public.
(In retrospect sending vampires to do her shopping hadn't been that much better of a decision than going herself. Friedrich supposedly had been almost staked by Gilderoy Lockhart when he'd appeared in Diagon Alley for his book signing and the crowd there had been about two seconds away from finding their pitchforks and torches.)
Now, she was eying the stone once again, looking for something of herself inside of its reflection (of the man that Flamel had met almost a thousand years ago) and wondering just how she was going to deal with all of this once she got to school. Apparently leaving in the middle of the year with your professor's bleeding corpse left in his office had a lot of consequences.
"What did you think would happen when you left him on the carpet? Did you think that everyone would just ignore it?" Wizard Lenin asked somewhat sarcastically, he knew she didn't think that, they'd had entire conversations about how she didn't really think that. He just wanted to hear someone say it.
"Well… No, but I didn't think I'd be supposedly kidnapped by Squirrel." Lily responded with a grimace, which even the idea of it was causing her to cringe. Her reputation must be in tatters by now, kidnapped by Squirrel, there really wasn't much lower to sink.
Of course, he hadn't been Squirrel at the end of things, and that man he'd been at the end; the Wizard Lenin that wasn't Wizard Lenin, well, he certainly could have attempted it if he felt the inclination. She wondered if that had been in his cards somewhere, taking her off and beating the information out of her in a more secure location, but either way they had settled things in his office. There was no point in wondering what he might have done if he'd had just a little more time.
She didn't know if anyone even knew that he had existed; that Quirrell had never really been what he seemed.
"You left Albus Dumbledore little choice. He's doing you a favor, Lily." This was said grudgingly as if the very words were like pulling teeth.
"I thought you hated Dumbledore."
"I loathe the man." He responded swiftly but then relented and began to explain, "He probably had little choice in the matter, when he found a traumatized Hermione Granger and then Quirrell's corpse. If the public were to realize that you had committed murder, graphic brutal murder that only beasts and muggles pursue, that you were darker than they had ever realized the riots at finding you missing would be nothing in comparison. You are a symbol Lily, more than you are a person to them, and you must always represent their savior even if that's a far cry from what you really are. Better to have Quirrell disappear quietly, as your assailant, and you be found and brought to the ministry than to be labelled as a killer."
So it was a choice out of necessity, rather than protection, Britain wouldn't be able to handle it if Eleanor Potter was sentenced to Azkaban for murdering her professor.
"It was self-defense… I mean, he was clearly trying to kill me." Lily said taking some offense, but Wizard Lenin wasn't defending these people, he'd been the one to suggest that final outcome after all.
If it had been an act of magic, a brilliant flash of light, then it would have been different. But she had used a knife, and she had thrust it through his heart, that kind of death was too close for any wizard's comfort.
She might have been forgiven even if they did find out, might have been passed over, but that action would always hover over her like a guillotine just waiting to drop.
It was in the middle of that thought that the thing appeared, there was a sharp crack like a lightning bolt and she turned her head to see a small misshapen creature that looked like a five year old Dudley's sad attempt at drawing a human.
It had the right number of limbs, a nose, ears, eyes, even soiled rags like clothes but beyond that it was about as far from human as you could get. Its eyes were far too large for its face, its ears large and pointed, its nose thin and elongated, its limbs bony and yet somehow the skin hanging from them.
And as soon as it appeared, it stared at her, and insisted in a high whistling voice, "Ellie Potter must not go to Hogwarts!"
She had forgotten just how inconsistent and fickle the universe could really be.
"Wait, what?" Ellie asked, feeling as if she somehow hadn't heard right, as if this couldn't really be happening because the thing hadn't been there a moment ago.
"Ellie Potter must not go to Hogwarts! Great danger awaits her there if she goes, terrible danger!" It stepped forward, insistent, its thin too long fingers reaching out as if to grab her.
It had been a long time, almost too long, that the universe had appeared this unhinged. When was the last time? Was it that first moment of sentience in the cupboard, was it her first visit with Death, with Wizard Lenin, was it pulling Rabbit from nothingness itself, or was it further than that?
Wizard Lenin himself seemed in something of a state of shock and wasn't being any help at all, "Is that a house elf?"
Ellie didn't care if it was a house elf or not because clearly whatever it was it was a major inconsistent moment in reality.
"Ellie Potter… must not go to Hogwarts." Ellie repeated dully looking down at the thing, at its fierce insistence, as if this above all other things must be heeded.
That Ellie Potter was not to go to Hogwarts.
She looked over at Rabbit who had been lurking in a corner the whole time, she'd almost sent Rabbit to get her school supplied since he'd been acting so human recently but an unsupervised Rabbit was still a terrible idea, that and he'd probably be mobbed by school girls as soon as he was spotted in the streets.
Rabbit was staring at them both, blinking slightly, but offering no sign that this was out of the ordinary. Then again Rabbit was from the outer bounds of the universe so he was probably very familiar with the failing circuitry of reality.
The thing seemed enthused by Ellie's easy understanding, a smile appearing on its face, it hopped up and down eagerly, "Yes, yes, of course Ellie Potter is a wise and great witch. Of course she understand the terrible danger, Ellie Potter truly is a great witch."
But she didn't understand because Eleanor Potter was supposed to go to Hogwarts, that had been evident from the beginning, everything was aligned so that she had to go to Hogwarts. If she set one foot out the door she'd probably be carted their right now with journalists as her guide.
Eleanor Potter had murdered her professor, had traumatized her friend, and neither of these had prevented her from somehow returning to Hogwarts.
And yet now…
"Ellie Potter must not go to Hogwarts." She repeated more firmly this time, looking at the thing, waiting for it to contradict her. But it didn't if anything it seemed even more thrilled, more relieved, that she was agreeing that she couldn't attend Hogwarts.
"Lily, I hate to stop your philosophical ramblings but the house elf is clearly insane." Wizard Lenin said with a resigned sigh, as if this was just the sort of ridiculousness that she would get into the moment they were back in England, "Try asking it why you can't go back to Hogwarts."
But there might not be a reason, perhaps it simply was, as most things simply were. There wasn't a reason that Ellie Potter had to attend Hogwarts after all so why would she have a reason for not attending Hogwarts.
Lily could build Wizard Lenin's body outside of Hogwarts, if she had to, it wasn't physically impossible. And yet, Death had said this in as many words, there were so many things left undone…
The small photograph of Hermione Granger, sitting by herself before The Prophet's camera, lingered in her mind more than she cared to admit.
"Why can't I go back to Hogwarts?" Lily asked, taking Wizard Lenin's question.
The thing's, the house elf's, smile dropped abruptly and it became panicked again, "Oh, Ellie Potter must not, a terrible danger awaits her."
A terrible danger, but there had been terrible danger the year before and she had been fine, more or less. There had been trolls, trapdoors to certain death, and finally there was even Quirrell; Hogwarts was all about terrible danger.
"What kind of terrible danger?" Lily asked and the thing looked panicked for a moment.
"Dobby must not tell, Dobby cannot tell, his master forbids it. Oh Dobby is a bad elf!" And then it started hitting itself, picking up one of Lily's school books to whack itself in the face repeatedly.
She, Rabbit, and Wizard Lenin just watched in dull fascination wondering just how far it would go.
"I always found house elves a little odd but I don't think I've ever seen one this mad before."
"So you can't tell me exactly then, just that it's terrible, and it's dangerous." Lily concluded after finally having enough of watching it hit itself.
The house elf nodded eagerly, relieved to be excused from hitting itself.
"Oh Ellie Potter is a very perceptive witch!"
Hadn't Quirrell said something like that once, that she was unusually perceptive for an eleven year old girl? The memory brought a sour feeling to her stomach and the bitter taste of tea to her mouth.
A terrible danger, perhaps the house elf wasn't a malfunction of the universe, perhaps it was simply misinformed. It was easy to have contradicting signs after all, but terrible dangers should attract Eleanor Potter to Hogwarts rather than drive her away, it was her purpose to battle demons after all.
Without monsters Eleanor Potter had no reason to exist.
"I've handled terrible dangers before, you know." She said, and the elf nodded probably thinking of her most recent kidnapping and October 31, 1981. She wondered how it had found her anyway, especially at Lily Riddle's, no one besides Dumbledore would know to look there for her and so far he hadn't appeared.
It didn't even seem mildly concerned that her hair was black instead of red, and that she was dressed as a muggle, as if it somehow knew exactly who she was even with the disguise.
"House elves have different magic than we do." Wizard Lenin said with the mental equivalent of a shrug, as if he'd never really put that much thought into house elves before, and judging by how weird this one was she could see why.
House elves were more insane than wizards.
"Some might say I myself am a terrible danger." She added, eyeing it carefully, it wasn't a threat merely a statement but those words from Lily Riddle could send a grown man to his knees. The house elf just looked mildly confused.
She sighed then, "I'm afraid I have to go to Hogwarts, even if there is terrible danger, especially if there's terrible danger. There are some things I… There are some things I need to take care of."
"Ellie Potter is truly a great witch." The house elf stated slowly, its eyes never leaving her face, "But she must not return to Hogwarts."
It seemed they were at something of an impasse, the house elf wasn't backing down and Lily wasn't either, and both of them wanted completely the opposite thing. Wizard Lenin was lurking somewhere else in her brain stating that this was all just too ridiculous to even handle and that she could come and get him once it was all over and the bloody elf had left.
"Well, then, good sir, it appears we have a small predicament. Because you see, I must go to Hogwarts, and I will go to Hogwarts." She broke the staring match with the elf, turning to Rabbit, "Alright comrade Rabbitson, let's catch our ride."
And for the second time that day something went wrong or rather, for the first time, something went right. She wasn't teleporting, she was holding onto Rabbit's hand, her stuff, but she couldn't teleport out of the building. It was like something was blocking her somehow, like she kept hitting her head against the ceiling.
She turned slowly to look at the elf who was grinning across at her like it had just won some great victory.
Almost without thinking Lily shrunk her trunk and supplies and stuffed into her pocket, pulling Rabbit along with her, and pushed her way out the window floating her way down to the pavement below and then booking it through the streets to find King's Cross Station.
"Wait, Lily, are you seriously running through the streets as Lily Riddle pulling a supposed Albanian war refugee behind you?" But there was no time for Wizard Lenin's logic because every few steps she'd hear a harsh crack and some obstacle would fall in her path and some person would catch sight of her black hair and green eyes and take a wild guess screaming in terror.
"Oh Merlin, it's Riddle! It's Riddle!"
As she ran she kept attempting to teleport and the ceiling was getting higher but it was still there, the house elf was fast enough to somehow stop her teleporting even while she was on the move. She'd be impressed, if it wasn't so damn inconvenient.
Just before she was about to turn a corner she ran into a wizard, an auror by the look of his uniform with steel in his eyes, "Riddle, I never thought I'd see the day you'd be running around Diagon Alley in broad daylight."
"Oh hell, look, I don't have time for this." Lily said making to push past him but he stood his ground, his eyes sharpening, and he drew his wand so it was pointed right at her head.
Meanwhile in the streets people were starting to crowd around, to create a large circle around them, to watch the duel that was sure to occur. They were whispering among themselves, fearful, but also hopeful looks in their eyes that this might go well. No one had directly confronted Lily Riddle in decades, they'd all learned their lesson, and this time might be it.
At least that's what they thought, he probably was a fairly decent auror whoever he was, he didn't waste time chit-chatting or not taking her seriously but instead immediately set up a low level shield and raised his wand to fight her.
Unfortunately for him she was too short on time to take him seriously, she batted him away into the crowd, knocking over a rather large woman and sprinted through the hole they made pulling Rabbit behind.
She hadn't expected to have to run to the train station, at this rate she was going to miss the train, suddenly she wondered if it had been worth avoiding being mobbed because it struck her that without running from Dudley on a daily basis she'd lost a lot of her endurance for long distance sprinting.
And every few steps there was a crack and something in her way again.
"That thing is more persistent than the Terminator, what the hell is its problem?" Lily asked as she felt herself becoming winded.
"I… I honestly have no idea, but he really doesn't want you to go to Hogwarts." Wizard Lenin said, still not entirely sure what to make of this whole situation. He'd been sort of out of it since Flamel had revealed that Lily had secretly created the stone and given it to him thousands of years ago.
It was like Wizard Lenin didn't know what to think about anything anymore, which was all well and good, except when it came to her being chased by a house elf through magical London while trying to make her way to King's Cross station.
"Yes, thank you Lenin, is there any other obvious observation you'd like to throw out there." Lily snapped back and she felt a sharp pain in her scar, clearly he was feeling a bit touchy, but then he should have thought of a better answer.
"Lily, if you haven't noticed, this sort of thing only ever happens to you and it's usually somehow your fault."
Without thinking twice Lily bounded through the Leaky Cauldron, making her way into muggle London and turning in the direction of King's Cross. She kept sprinting through the streets, weaving her way through businessmen on their lunch break, each of them giving her an odd look as she passed.
The tube would take too long, and plus given everything else she was sure the House Elf could break it down before she'd catch a ride to the station, her best bet was to keep running even if she was cutting it very close.
According to the schedule the train was already in the station it'd only be there another ten or twenty minutes before it left for Hogsmede.
"My fault?! How is this… Oh this is still about Flamel isn't it? Look, you have to get over that whole stone thing."
"The Philosopher's Stone is arguably the greatest creation of any wizard aside from the time machine! And I found out, very recently, that it's a complete fraud created by you! No, Ellie, I'm not getting over it." He was seething, actually livid, but all the same he should be pinning this on her because it certainly wasn't her fault that Flamel had taken credit for it.
"I don't see how that's your problem, you hate everyone anyways." She stalled at a cross walk, watching as the cars zoomed past, too fast for her to try to sprint through. She tried catching her breath, bending over and staring at the ground, it had been too long since she'd done this.
"I didn't hate Flamel and I didn't hate what wizards have managed to accomplish."
He sounded as if he was going to hit an emotional low again if she didn't do something, not that she knew what to do or say about this, because he was kind of right. It did take the whole glamour out of Flamel knowing that he hadn't really made the stone. Sure, he was still a great alchemist and researcher, but he hadn't made the Philosopher's Stone.
It was at that point that Lily realized the light wasn't turning and that it hadn't turned in quite some time, she regarded the intersection dubiously, and realized that only a short while before she had heard a sharp crack.
"Oh hell…" Lily straightened herself, set up a brief ward to deflect attention, and moved into the sprinter's position.
She was going to get to Hogwarts, she was going to make it to that damned school, and she would laugh in that elf's face when she got there.
With that thought she sprinted to the edge of the cross walk and took a giant glitch assisted leap over the traffic. For a moment she was floating, far too high over the traffic and the street lights, and it was as if she didn't belong to that world at all and then she was landing harshly on the other side and pulling Rabbit along with her as she continued her mad dash to the train station.
It was with only five minutes to spare that Ellie pushed her way through the station, keeping her eyes glued for the column between platforms nine and ten. Finally she spotted it, and without hesitation, without any room for doubt charged straight ahead into it.
And the column remained a column, knocking her back onto the concrete, and everything feeling fuzzier than usual.
Distantly she felt warmth in her head and liquid dripping down her face. For a moment she wondered if she was going to die again, but she only seemed to be drifting, a concussion.
Quirrell had had to bash in her head more than once to kill her.
She didn't know how many minutes she was lying there, only it was enough for someone to notice and for a crowd to form around her, someone holding her hand and telling everyone to keep back and call the ambulance.
"Lily…" Wizard Lenin's voice was closer than it usually was, as if she was in his domain now rather than her own. She could almost make out his face, it was slightly blurred, but his eyes seemed anxious and he was gripping her arm gently trying to guide her somewhere.
"Lily, you have to focus, you need to heal your head wound."
She kept staring at the ceiling, and up there she could see the house elf staring down at her in horror, as if it hadn't realized that this could happen. She felt as if she was drifting slowly from herself, almost gone but not quite, and all the lights far too bright.
Had it been like this, in those few seconds before she'd been in the station with Death? It was becoming harder to remember.
And there she was, also in her own head at the same time, Wizard Lenin shaking her gently and his words too clear for broad daylight.
"Lily, they'll take you to the hospital if you don't move now. You need to focus."
Her fingers twitched, but nothing came to mind, and her head still felt too fuzzy.
"Lily!"
There was a sharp burning in her scar and with that she managed to find the thought she needed and to the amazement of the crowd they watched as her gaping head wound stitched itself up and she sat upright as if she'd never been hurt in the first place.
She took the memories from them and sent them on their way, back to wherever they had been only a few minutes before, as if they'd never seen her in the first place.
She pressed against the column, still solid, and she looked up to find the house elf there and she grimaced, "Touché, you're more tenacious than I thought."
"Ellie Potter is… Ellie Potter is wounded oh Dobby never meant…" It started and it made its way down to her, looking on the verge of horrified tears or else a frenzied bout of self-beatings.
"Ellie Potter is fine." Lily responded drily pointing to her healed head she looked towards the column once again, she'd just missed the train, she could still try to catch it if she ran along the tracks but…
"You're really not letting me go to Hogwarts are you?" Lily said looking down at the creature and it shook its head, even now, it wasn't about to let her go.
"And you'll prevent me from teleporting there even if I try, is that right?" Lily asked and it nodded.
"Well, then, you'll have to follow me all the way to Scotland because I'm still going." With that Lily stopped trying to make her way through the column and instead exited the station and made her way towards the highway that would eventually lead her to Scotland and from there to Hogsmede.
"Ellie Potter is going to walk to Hogwarts?" The house elf asked, incredulous, as if he'd though that this would somehow all stop her.
"It does have a point, Lily, you don't simply walk to Scotland." But Wizard Lenin was less serious, he knew, without even asking that she would walk there if she had to.
"You're not exactly letting me teleport are you? And I bet if I tried the floo I'd get the same reaction, isn't that right? So I might as well start walking, and who knows, maybe you'll get careless on the way and I'll get my chance. Either way, I'm going."
It desperately kept up with her, shielding itself from muggle's view, its eyes trained on her half in awe and half in confusion as if not sure why she would go so far to just attend a school. She wasn't sure either but now it was about the principle of the matter; not so much about Hogwarts itself.
"What's your name anyway? Or do you not have one?" Lily asked looking down at him.
"It's Dobby, Dobby is its name." It said with more of a jig in its step than was probably warranted. They walked in silence for a few moments, neither saying anything to the other, him constantly looking at her face as if trying to see if she was serious.
If she really was going to walk all the way to Scotland.
She supposed she could let herself be caught in Diagon Alley as Ellie Potter instead, let one of them take her to Hogwarts, but she was betting that they'd face similar difficulties in trying to get her there. That and she had no desire to meet the press and be hounded for exactly what she'd been doing and where she'd been.
So it was better to just be late.
"You could probably overpower the elf if you tried." Wizard Lenin suggested, but that was saved for truly desperate measures, so instead she'd try walking first.
The elf was persistent but it didn't seem like he had all that much time to waste, because each minute they went further he became a little more anxious; his eyes darted all around, he started wringing his knobby hands.
Finally, about an hour in, he stopped, "Dobby must return to his master now. Dobby has… Ellie Potter must not go to Hogwarts."
It stared at her, repeating this phrase, trying to convey so much more in it than simple words. She stopped to look down at him, not quite sure what to make of him or of this day. He'd run out of time, whatever he'd intended to do, and she doubted he could maintain wards above her while in his master's house.
Abruptly, seemingly on impulse, she created one of her own usual sweaters and handed it to him, "Your shirt looks like its falling apart."
"Oh… Oh Dobby can't… Ellie Potter is a truly kind witch… Ellie Potter is…"
And with that she turned and continued walking, waiting for one final crack, but it took several minutes to occur. She turned around one last time, after he was gone, staring at the spot where he'd been only moments before; as if he hadn't been there at all.
"A great and terrible danger, huh?" Lily asked, glancing over at Rabbit.
"Yes."
"At least it won't be boring then." She said, and with that they teleported onto the train they had missed as it barreled its way through the countryside. With a sigh she collapsed into the empty seat, turning her hair color red, and made to look out the window but her eyes caught something else instead.
Sitting across from her silent, pale, and dark eyed was a thinner and more tired looking Hermione Jean Granger whose expression was slowly turning into one of awe, disbelief, grief, and relief beyond words.
"…Ellie…"
Author's Note: Is this the wizard version of a car chase scene? I really can't tell. At any rate new in the Lily verse is an updated version of "Eleanor Potter and the Train Station Called Purgatory" as well as "In the Meantime" which features secret Slytherin meetings on how to deal with the Eleanor Potter problem.
Thanks to readers and reviewers, you guys are awesome, reviews are always much appreciated.
Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter
