"I'm so sorry."
Lily Evans fumed with rage and guilt and regret as those words swirled through her stricken mind. Mary MacDonald was dead and it was all her fault. Madame Pomfrey looked at her with pity, sadness and anguish glinting behind her usually calm eyes.
How could I have been so stupid? Lily thought as she slumped back in the hospital bed, tears streaming down her stricken face. What was I thinking?
"Oi, Mudbloods!"
It had been Mulciber and his gang of Slytherins. Normally, neither Lily nor Mary would stoop to their level, especially when they were outnumbered by people who wouldn't hesitate to curse them when their backs were turned. But this time they were surrounded. This time, Snape was there.
The muscles in Lily's jaw tightened as she saw her former friend standing before her, wand raised and pointed at Mary. Mary placed a comforting hand on Lily's arm.
Lily's breath caught in her throat. She composed herself, trying not to show how much the image of her former best friend standing before her, wand aimed at Mary was getting to her. She couldn't show any weakness.
"Travelling in a park, are we Mulciber?" Lily spat. "Why? Too scared to walk these halls alone? Are you too much of a coward to face two Mudbloods on your own?"
The tears fell harder down Lily's face. Maybe if she'd just kept her bloody mouth shut, none of this would have happened. Mary might still be alive.
"Go on, Snape," Mulciber sneered. "You know you want to. Prove your loyalty to the Dark Lord! Teach these filthy Mudbloods a lesson."
It all happened so fast after that. Lily choked back a sob. She didn't think he would do it. She didn't think he could. Oh, how wrong she was.
Colours were flying before Lily and Mary even had a chance to draw their wands. Lily's ears rang with the sound of screams. She couldn't tell whose they were, not with the searing pain shooting through her veins like wildfire. Maybe they were hers, maybe they were Mary's. Maybe they were both of theirs mingled together. The pain lasted for what felt like hours, burning straight through to her soul. It was like being eaten from the inside out. The last thing she saw was a flash of green light.
'This is the end,' she thought as the pain slowly subsided. She steeled herself for the inevitable, reaching out weakly to grab Mary's hand. She could only pray that Mary made it out alive.
Except it wasn't Mary who lived, it was Lily. Curling herself into a ball and burying her face in her knees, Lily began to sob. Her body was cruised and battered from her time under the cruciatus, and all Lily wanted to do was sleep, and never wake up. Then she wouldn't have to feel the guilt gnaw at her heart, she wouldn't have to see Mary's sweet face every time she closed her eyes. Lily wouldn't live the rest of her days knowing that she was the cause of Mary's death.
It should have been me, she thought numbly. It wasn't fair that Mary, who had such a promising life ahead of her, was dead and she wasn't. It just wasn't fair.
Madame Pomfrey, Dumbledore and McGonagall had all told her it wasn't her fault. But Lily knew it was, and she would carry that guilt with her for the rest of her life.