Love is the Most Powerful Magic
It was Lily's sixteenth birthday. Lily sat on her front porch. Her hair was glistening in the bright July sun, and her mother was in the garden beside her, planting flowers of all different colors. Lily was playing with the charms on a charm bracelet on her left wrist; her father gave it to her when she had received her Hogwarts letter, as a present. She dropped her arms in her lap and turned to face her mother, her charm bracelet jingling daintily. "Did you ever think about how much things have changed?" she asked, putting a hand over her eyes to shield them from the sun. Her mother put down her gardening tools, wiped her muddy hands on her old denim pants, and sat down next to Lily.
"Every day," she said, sighing. "You've grown up into such a wonderful young lady, Lily."
Lily laughed. "Don't go all old on me, mum," she said, smiling. "I'm only sixteen."
"Yes, but sixteen is much older than five." Her mother sighed. "What possessed you to ask such a question, anyway?"
"Well…" Lily blushed, unsure of where to begin. "Remember I told you about James in my letters? How he did all that annoying stuff, and how he was a real arrogant prat?"
"Yes," her mother said hesitantly. "You seemed to really hate him!"
Lily looked up into the sky with her eyes closed, letting the sun wash over her face. "That's just it," she said finally, turning to look again at her mother. "He changed. He's actually nice, he stopped cursing people in the hallways—for the most part, anyway—and he hasn't pulled a prank on me all year. I don't hate him anymore, mum. I think I…" Lily stopped, her words trailing away into nothing as she realized what she was about to say. She loved him.
Suddenly the scenery changed. It was dark. Lily stood against the wall of her room. Voldemort was there, standing in front of her. "You're both very powerful. That would not be good for me, seeing as you are both so intent on joining the wrong side."
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Lily sat alone in the hospital wing beside James's bed. It was dawn. The first light of the sun's rays slit through the window and fell on Lily's face. Her eyes were closed; she had slept in the infirmary all night on a hard, wooden chair. Her hair fell across her face, and her head drooped down. There were tearstains on her cheeks. The minute hand on the clock on the wall hit the number twelve. It was six o'clock. Lily woke up abruptly, as if on impulse, and looked around her.
James was lying in the bed in front of her, with some cuts and bruises. Lily replayed the past day and a half in her mind. She saw James falling off his broom. She remembered jumping up and screaming, before running straight to the hospital wing and waiting for him to arrive there. She remembered listening numbly as she heard someone tell her that James would be okay, but would be in the hospital wing overnight. She remembered begging to stay in the hospital wing with him. Then she remembered her dream, and how stupid she was to be sitting there when he wasn't even hers anymore. And as she remembered, tears streamed slowly down her cheeks, retracing the lines that other tears had made. Voldemort's voice was echoing in her head. Both very powerful…You're both very powerful…very, very powerful.
Suddenly Lily heard a voice coming from beside her, and she realized that she was no longer alone. "Don't cry, Lily," James said softly, where he laid on his bed propped up on one elbow. She stared at him, wide-eyed.
"You—you're okay!" she managed to get out before sliding from her chair and onto the floor, squatting on her knees next to the bed. She wrapped her arms around James and kissed his cheek. "I—I was worried."
"I figured," James said, blushing profusely, his voice muffled by the mass of red hair that had somehow found its way into his mouth. Lily pulled away from James and resumed her kneeling position on the cold tile floor. "Did we win?" he asked suddenly, sitting up straight in bed. "Ugh, my head hurts."
"I dunno if we won!" Lily exclaimed. "What kind of a question is that? And of course your head hurts, you took a bludger to the head!" She sighed and hugged him again. "But you'll be able to leave the hospital wing today."
"Lily, why are you here?" James asked as she moved away from him again and sat down cross-legged on the edge of his bed. "I thought you—I mean, you don't care anymore…do you?"
"I never stopped," Lily said quietly, biting her lower lip and looking down at her thumbnail, which suddenly became very interesting to her. "I was just being stupid. I—I never really took to heart what Dumbledore said that night, in the alleyway by Honeydukes. Remember? He said that we need each other, and we really do. At least…I do."
James sat, dumbfounded, as Lily looked him straight in the eye. He seemed unable to speak, but Lily took this as a sign that he didn't feel the same way. She stood up and started walking towards the door.
"Lily, wait!" James shouted after her, sitting bolt upright in bed. He was just in time. Lily stood, one foot out the doorway, and looked at James with tears in her eyes. "Why?"
"Because, James, I thought it was my fault you were lying in the hospital wing! I thought it was my fault that the Death Eaters were after us. I was wrong. Last night, I had a…a dream, I guess."
"What was in your dream?" James said quietly as Lily walked back over to his bed and sat down on the foot of it.
"First, I was sitting outside with my mother. It was my sixteenth birthday. I had told her that—that you changed. That was when all this started. But then my dream changed. I was standing against the wall in my room, and Voldemort was over me. He said…He said he wanted both of us. Both of us. Don't you see? This time apart, it didn't have to happen. I was…I was being foolish. I'm sorry."
James scooted over so he was sitting next to her. "It's okay," James said, his arms engulfing her into a hug. "It's okay." He leaned back and looked straight into Lily's beautiful green eyes. "I love you," he said sincerely, meaning it with every fiber of his being.
No other words were needed. Lily smiled coyly before bringing her lips upon his. "I missed you," she said, pulling back and smiling up at him.
He pulled her closer and kissed the tip of her nose just as Sirius, Remus, and Peter walked through the room, followed by Shayna, who was dragging Jocelyn along. Remus would have been embarrassed and putout if his friend had not been in the hospital wing.
"Well," Sirius said, rubbing his hands together, "I see that you've recovered."
Lily giggled and James twirled a strand of her hand around his forefinger. "In more ways than one, Padfoot."
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Voldemort sat upon a throne in a dark room, his hands resting upon armrests shaped like miniature human skeletons. "Enter," he said, his high, cold voice echoing around the cavernous room menacingly.
Two robed figures strode into the room. Through the gloom and darkness a shimmer of blonde hair could be seen peeking through a black hood of one of the figures. "My Lord," a delicate, female voice said from behind the hood, and as she swept down to kiss the hem of Lord Voldemort's robes, the blonde hair swished gently.
"Master," the other figure said, sweeping down and following the woman's motions.
"You have news for me, or so I have been told," Voldemort said coldly. "Pray tell me." His long, spindly fingers were folded, and he was twiddling his thumbs idly, as though he didn't really care at all about what the two Death Eaters had to say.
"They are back together," The woman said.
"Is that so?" Voldemort said slowly, standing up from his gruesome throne and pacing on the floor in front of them. His robes billowed behind him, and his red eyes were narrowed into angry slits. "Well, now, this is not happy news…not happy news at all." The man whimpered quietly. "SILENCE!" Voldemort roared, pulling out his wand from his pocket. His slit-like nostrils (for lack of a better word) flared out dangerously. "I smell fear." He rounded on the male figure. "Get out. Get out! Both of you! Out of my sight! I must think."
The two scurried out in whispers, the woman's blonde hair billowing down her back elegantly and swishing slightly with each step. Voldemort stood, watching it with blood-red eyes, before calling the woman back to him. "Tell me everything you know about them," he said coldly in her ear, his breath chilling her to the bone. "Everything you know, that can aid in their deaths."
A/N: Hey guys. Decided to update a bit earlier than I had planned… I love this chapter. It's so sweet. Except for the ending. But you really should remember the ending. Can't tell you why, obviously. ANYWAYS, I'm writing a new story called RATS! and it's about Peter Pettigrew's story. You should really check it out, because it's turning out very good! Review, please, and as always, thanks for reading )
