QLFC Round 11
Team: Holyhead Harpies
Position: Beater 2
Extension and Reserve: No
OPTIONAL PROMPTS:[Colour] Lilac; [Location] Hogwarts Library; [Word] Boardgame (spelt as "board game" with permission from mods)
Beta: Ash Juillet, bea weasley, MissyAndTheDocs
WC:1659
Lily was ten when she first slit her right palm for a blood oath. Severus had found the ritual in one of his mother's hidden books. They were young and absolutely fascinated with the idea that Magic could make them siblings. Sure, they were best friends, but the only thing better than a friend (at least in Lily's mind) was family.
Lily had stolen Petunia's pocket knife. Underneath the setting lilac sky, Lily made her very first blood oath and revelled in the emotions that rushed to her.
"Severus!" Lily yelled, squishing their bloodied palms together in absolute delight. "We're family now!" Her grin grew bigger as Severus put his arm around her and pulled her down to the ground to lie beside him. They soaked in the sounds of the day ending. One ritual was all it had taken to make Lily feel magical and she couldn't wait for more.
It is the night before Lily boards the train to Hogwarts and Petunia has not said a word to her all summer. Lily didn't know her sister could hold a grudge for so long, this was even longer than the time Petunia caught one of their cousins cheating at board games. There is a finality to Petunia's silence. As if, at thirteen, Petunia had decided that Lily did not need her love anymore.
Lily can't bear the silence that fills their lilac room. A colour between the shade of purple and blue that Lily and Petunia favour respectively. Lily feels so alone without her sister's love. She knew that Petunia could be cruel (Petunia had made the bullies cry when they went too far with tormenting Severus the day before), but her sister's cruelty has never been directed at her before.
So Lily, unable to carry the weight of rejection for a minute longer, bargains with her sister.
"I can give you Magic," Lily says. Although Lily isn't sure it would work on Petunia, her sister's eyes shine greedily. The light of the reading lamp between their beds makes Petunia's blue eyes look impossibly large.
"Give me your palm," Lily demands.
Wordlessly, Petunia places her left palm on top of the healed skin of Lily's right one. Lily takes off the lilac ribbon in her hair. Between the two girls, they manage to tie a loose knot.
Lily tries to remember the exact words and shape of the symbol she has to carve in both of their palms. The prospect of feeling that high again excites her. She can feel Petunia's excitement, and in that lilac room that held both their childhoods, Lily promises to never leave Petunia behind.
She unwinds the ribbon, now stained with both their blood and cuts it in half. Each half is then stuffed into a potion vial that contains a strand of their hair. Lily hums a wicked tune, feeling charged by the ritual just performed, while Petunia looks dazed. Lily can feel her sister's emotions simmering under the surface of her skin. She wonders if her sister can feel Severus' too. Will perfect Petunia judge her for not being whole the way the stories require souls to be?
Lily finds out that the rituals she's done with her best friend and sister are Dark Magic soon after entering Hogwarts. While the scars on her palms heal painlessly, the vial with lilac ribbon around her neck constantly feels either too hot or too cold (a perfect mirror to Petunia's emotions). However, it is not the necklace that gives her away.
She wakes up during witching hour the night of Halloween and runs as fast as her legs would take her to the Slytherin Dungeon. It takes a while as Hogwarts is truly set up like a board game designer had one too many long nights.
The sense of fear and urgency deep in her soul hasn't stopped and all Lily knows is that Severus needs her. His blood, bones and soul sing to her. It is a lonely call and it brings with it an unbearable sadness.
Lucius Malfoy drags her into the Common Room before she can open her mouth to scream. Lily moves right past the people who look at her too curiously. She doesn't care about what they think (not at this moment anyway) and she pulls Severus out of his bed, dragging him to the floor with her so she can hold him tightly as he keeps repeating the words "She's dead," in large sobs.
Lily could have killed Eilleen herself at that moment. How could Severus' mother have been so selfish to the most selfless person Lily knew?
"I've got you," she whispers in his ear, gently rocking him back and forth, the way Petunia does to her when the nightmares in her dreams are too scary.
When Severus finally falls asleep, Lucius tucks him into bed. He heals Severus' palm; the scar that Lily had assumed to have healed had been split open again when Severus had called to Lily.
Lily's own pyjamas are stained with blood. Whether it is mostly from her palm or Severus', she does not know.
Lucius points to a chair in the common room and makes Lily sit. She doesn't dare disobey and attempt to leave.
"Do you know what you and Snape have done is considered Dark Arts in most circles, child?"
Lily doesn't say a thing. Dark Arts according to their Defense classes was wrong and beastly. It was what Dark Wizards used to even wars. The concept of Dark Magic felt like a distant piece on a board game. Whatever this piece of Magic was, in Lily's mind, it was not Dark. Not when it kept the two people Lily loved the most closer to her.
Magic the colour of lilac could not be Dark.
Lucius sighs and slides over a spare piece of parchment with a list of titles towards Lily.
"I'm not going to argue with you, but a mudblood like you should know the consequences of the Magic you are dabbling with."
Lily grabs the list and then leaves.
"You can find most of the titles in the Hogwarts Library. Although many are under the Restricted Section. Use what little brain you have and get out of these bonds!" Lucius says as he drops her off by the Fat Lady's portrait.
Lily eats, breathes and lives in the library. She only pays attention to four subjects (Potions, Charms, and later, Runes and Arithmancy) and swiftly ignores the rest as they tell her nothing about Blood Magic.
She commands an entire desk in the Restricted section and makes use of the unlimited pass that Slughorn so graciously gave her after Lily spent the better part of a term sending him box after box of crystallised pineapple that Petunia makes.
Most of the time, Lily is surrounded by Slytherins and Severus. She knows she smells just like them, of old books and Dark Arts, but she cannot resist the allure of Blood Magic and Oaths. Not when the two promises she had made as an unsure child still thrum pleasantly through her veins.
She knows that when her research (usually when she hasn't found a specific solution in months) about this magic form (with its weird arithmancy equations and even stranger rune requirements) seems to hit a standstill all she needs to look for is a book taken out in the Restricted section by Tom Riddle. Whoever he was, he clearly had the same interests as Lily.
She wonders if he is still alive and if she could send him a letter. Sometimes she wonders if someone could fall in love with someone through only the books they both have read. Lily knows it is a one-sided love, but the silly part of her hopes that Tom Riddle is real.
Severus and Petunia are great. But they don't love this kind of magic the way Lily does. Severus prefers his potions and Petunia spends far too much time chasing after Vernon Dursley to think further than checking in on Lily every night through their bond.
As she sits in the library, feeling both terribly lonely and sorry for herself, she makes a decision. It takes five seconds of stupid courage. But using her lucky lilac ink, she writes to Tom Riddle.
She meets him at the Hogwarts Library an hour before his interview for the vacant Dark Arts position. Merryweather has finally retired and although Lily doesn't take Defence, she finds herself rooting for Mr Riddle to get the position. He is good at explaining things she doesn't understand and he doesn't think her obsession with the Darkest of all Dark Arts is strange.
Lily is there when he storms off. She sees it from her window at the Hogwarts library. Idly, she mourns the idea of losing a mentor. But it is only a passing thought, not something worthy to occupy the rest of her carefully thought out plan.
Harry looks at her with his large green eyes and Lily knows she has done the best she could by her son. The game is no longer like the board games she played in her childhood, the games with no consequences, and the sound of James' dead body hitting the stairs proves it.
The vial itches around her throat and she hopes that Petunia can feel what Lily doesn't have time to say. Lily is sending her boy to her sister.
While she knows that Petunia might not love Harry, the blood oath they share is enough to protect Harry until he is seventeen. Right now, all she can think about is her son's survival.
The air crackles with the familiar scent of a Blood Ritual taking place. All that it needs is a sacrifice made by a mother's love. Lily kisses her son one last time. She makes sure the lilac baby blanket is gripped in his arms. Then she turns to face her death.