In which Lily remembers what she is.

Lily found herself staring at a very familiar set of flats.

East London hadn't been very specific but Neville had insisted. Lily had ended up depositing them on a corner of an intersection outside a muggle pub. After that, they'd wandered seemingly aimlessly around the area for several hours, Neville growing more anxious with each step they took.

He kept glancing at her, eyebrows lowered, fingering his wand in agitation. He never said it, but it was very clear that he dearly wanted to ask if she'd done this on purpose.

She didn't answer the question he didn't ask.

She—

She'd let him take the lead on this one. Technically, she wasn't supposed to know much about Tom Riddle if anything at all. Oh, she'd been kidnapped by Voldemort twice now on the public record, but she'd never confessed to being chummy with him or the man confessing anything about his life whatsoever.

The way Neville had said that name—Lily had the distinct impression that it wasn't well known.

Which meant that she was just along for the ride and Neville was the one who was going to have to tell her where these horcruxes even were.

Which was fair because wherever he thought the horcruxes were was not where the horcruxes were. Maybe Wizard Trotsky had a flat in London (though how he could afford it was anyone's guess), but Wizard Lenin was at the Malfoy's in the country and the original was at the Black family townhouse on some street called Grimmuald Place.

As it was, she highly doubted they were headed to Wizard Trotsky's hypothetical flat to engage in fisticuffs.

So, wherever it was Neville was looking for Tom Riddle's horcrux—it wasn't anywhere Lily would be inclined to guess.

Though it was cold, the hour growing ungodly late, it was starting to rain, and Lily was starting to wonder if suggesting that five-star hotel idea would be out of place or not.

Eventually, well past midnight, Neville came to a halt.

Right outside a set of flats that Lily had stopped outside a little less than a year ago.

"It's—" Neville squinted at them, rubbing at his eyes as if to clear them, "This street—This is the right street, I know it is. But it's supposed to be an orphanage."

Bloody hell.

Lily only just managed to hold in her sigh.

He was right, of course. Once, years ago, it had been an orphanage. Wool's Orphanage, where a very bitter and angry Tom Riddle had grown up and Lily had vacationed for a year so as to completely ruin his interpersonal relationships.

She'd stood here as Wizard Trotsky had glared at the place in hatred, for both daring to have once been Wool's and daring to move on with the times and overpriced real estate.

Now, of course, Wool's was gone, and it was a set of flats like any other.

"I think they're flats," Lily observed to Neville, but he was shaking his head.

"No, no it was an orphanage—" he said, then he looked at her with a manic spark in his eyes, "This was his orphanage! This was where he grew up."

"Oh, the dark lord you mean," Lily said, as if she had no idea what he was talking about, "Right—not quite as atmospheric as I pictured."

Of course, that was a lie. Tom Riddle's humble origins, the way he'd fashioned himself from next to nothing, it'd always suited him.

And Lily felt—

Distinctly out of place.

She'd walked out of Wizard Lenin's life. She'd never intended to involve herself in the lives of the others, no matter how much Wizard Trotsky persisted. She—she wasn't sure if she'd ever see any version of Tom Riddle again.

She'd told him goodbye.

It felt wrong standing here, like she had set foot on hallowed ground, had unwittingly betrayed him yet again.

She should have nothing to do with him, that was what she'd promised but—

But she couldn't let Neville have anything to do with him either, no matter how much Dumbledore insisted.

Which meant, apparently, that she was going to break a few of those promises less than a month after she'd made them.

As it seemed she always ended up breaking her promises.

"It's true," Neville said, jarring Lily out of her thoughts, "He was a half-blood, he grew up muggle. He grew up here."

"Right," Lily said, her voice quiet.

She cleared her throat and forced the words out, "Right, well then, you think a horcrux is in there then?"

Then her words caught up with her, "Wait, you think he put a horcrux in there?"

In Wool's?

Why in the bloody hell would he ever put a horcrux in Wool's?

For one thing, Wool's was gone, it'd been demolished to become a set of flats. You couldn't exactly plant a horcrux in London for decades and not expect the scenery to change.

For another, Tom Riddle had loathed Wool's. He'd loathed it before he'd even had his ticket to the Hogwarts Express. Everything he'd ever wanted, everything he'd ever dreamed of, was to sprint out of that place as fast as he was able.

Putting a horcrux in Wool's meant visiting Wool's which meant being reminded of Wool's which meant that these flats wouldn't even be standing because he'd light it on fire.

"Headmaster Dumbledore believes he puts them in places meaningful to him," Neville said.

"Based on what?" Lily asked, "His horoscope?"

"The memories," Neville said, and his voice was—cold, oddly cold. He forced himself to soften, "Those memories—it means Headmaster Dumbledore, it means I know Tom Riddle really well. He'd put a horcrux here."

Except he hadn't.

Still, alright, that wasn't the point.

If Neville thought there was a horcrux in the flats previously known as Wool's Orphanage, then there was going to be a horcrux in the flats previously known as Wool's Orphanage. If Lily argued that meant—well, it meant that Neville was going to have to spend time figuring out where these horcruxes were which meant that much more time on the road in the middle of winter.

Sharing a tent with Rabbit and Neville.

If this wasn't over by January, Lily could not be held responsible for her actions.

"Alright," Lily said, "Fair enough, let's get to it."

She waited for him to move towards the building.

He didn't.

"What are we waiting for?" Lily asked.

He licked his lips, hesitated, "This building—it can't be right."

"Why not?" Lily asked, "It's London, development happens all the time."

"No," Neville said, shaking his head, "No, I mean, if he put a horcrux here—there'd be traps. They wouldn't be able to develop. That's what happened to the Headmaster's—"

Hand, Lily finished for Neville inside her mind.

However, it appeared he hadn't meant to say that. He turned to look at her slowly, with wide fearful eyes. For a moment he just stared at her, waiting for something to happen.

Then, when nothing did, he haltingly confessed, "The Headmaster said he went to Tom Riddle's mother's house. He found a horcrux there and—that's what happened to his hand."

The Gaunt house.

Lily—was not sure if she had ever been there.

Morgan Gaunt's memories still lingered in the back of her mind. The Gaunt shack had been a familiar, terrible, place to her and once had been all she'd known. Lily felt as if she could map every corner of that dilapidated, snake-filled, place.

But those had been false memories.

She had no idea if Wizard Trotsky had ever bothered to take her there.

When she'd been first living with him—it'd been the Riddle Manor that they had inhabited.

"I see," Lily said, again forcing herself from her thoughts and the past that just wouldn't seem to let her go.

"Well," Lily said, and then an idea struck her, "Maybe it's an illusion."

"An illusion?" Neville asked.

"Sure," Lily explained, "It just looks like flats. Really it's some—horrible hell pit filled with snakes."

Tom Riddle, after all, had always loved snakes.

God, Lily hated snakes.

Neville turned back to look at the flats, squinting at them again, "You think so?"

"Or it's just a set of flats and there's no horcrux here," Lily said with a shrug, as if it was no skin off her nose. Neville stared at her for a moment, something dull and flat in his expression, decidedly unamused.

"No," Neville said quietly, "No, there's something here."

"Or," Lily began again, "Or maybe it's–a concept. The building changed and whatever the horcrux was changed with it. In the orphanage it was an armchair and now it's–maybe still an armchair but one of those fancy ones where the footrest comes up automatically. And no one noticed because it changed–"

"No," Neville cut her off, his eyes–oddly intense again, "No, the horcruxes are objects important to him. He'd never make one out of a chair."

And as he said it he no longer just looked unimpressed, but genuinely angry in a way she had rarely seen him angry before. He was flushed, his lips curled, and his hands were curled into shaking fists as if he was only just restraining himself from punching her lights out.

He took a deep breath, shoved his hands into his pockets, then looked at her, "You should go first."

Lily blinked at the sudden change in atmosphere.

"Me?" Lily asked, looking at the flats, "But—what am I even looking for?"

"I'll be right behind you but—" he cut himself off, looked down at his feet, then said, "You're better at magic than I am, if there are traps then you'll have to counter them."

That—was technically true. She supposed if he hadn't said it then she would have offered it. Of course Lily then Rabbit would go first. Even if Lily didn't counter the traps she was immortal, the worst she'd get was a painful and temporary death.

Still, she hadn't expected him to—to say it for her.

Lily looked back at the flats uncomfortably, shifting on her feet. Next to her, Rabbit was staring at her silently, looking as if—as if he too were waiting for something.

Patiently.

That decided it, "You're right, I'll go first."

She wasted no time and sprinted across the street and through the double doors.

It was nice, as expected from downtown apartments. She found herself on a red carpet over glossy tile flooring, beneath bright white lights, looking at a wooden desk featuring a smiling receptionist.

Before Neville could stumble in, Lily snapped her fingers, and suddenly the inviting entryway was gone, replaced with a dark, dilapidated building and snakes. So many snakes.

Neville flinched on entering, moving behind her.

"See, snakes," Lily said, "Snakes everywhere. He—likes snakes."

God, she hated snakes.

"Where to?" Lily asked, warding off the fake hissing snakes with a wave of her hand.

Neville swallowed harshly, "I—I don't know, wait, yes, upstairs! His room!"

Lily carefully moved them towards what, in some other world, might have been Wool's single staircase. The floorboards were rotted through and those that weren't were covered in snakes. All varieties of snakes, cobras, vipers, sea snakes, pythons, anacondas, they all lazily wound their way along the banister, flicked their tongues, and at Lily's approach hissed with menace.

They wiggled out of her path as she walked, eyeing her and Neville's ascent warily, and leaving only just enough space for her feet on the next step.

Neville made sure to stay exactly behind her, as if using her as a meat shield.

She wasn't sure if she should feel flattered that he had such confidence in her abilities or else concerned that he appeared to have no regard for her well-being.

Then again, she thought to herself quietly, that was exactly why she'd volunteered to come.

Because otherwise, Neville would be wandering into places like this, where there really were snakes, on his own.

She moved quietly through the ruined hallway, where Riddle's old room, her old room, waited at the very end of the corridor. And for all that this was only an illusion, for all that it was based on her imagination and memories, it was as if she was fifty years in the past again.

And Tom Riddle, ten or eleven-years-old, would be yelling at her to get moving already because they had places to be and people to see. Even in this place, she could feel a flicker of his presence, could almost see him out of the corner of her eye.

She stepped into the room before she could forget herself and look for him.

There was all the furniture, right where she'd left it.

Tom's single bedframe and mattress, her own having vanished into the ether, and his wardrobe now empty of even his stolen belongings.

It looked so empty without him in it.

(She wondered, if for him, it'd looked empty without her. She supposed that didn't matter anymore.)

Just as Neville entered, she realized exactly where he'd expect the horcrux to be.

Where Dumbledore would have expected it to be.

On cue, the wardrobe began to rattle ominously. It looked like a piece of furniture that would contain a monster, or at the very least, something you would never expect.

Lily remembered how it'd looked when set on fire.

Neville fingered his wand, swallowing, then looked to her, "Open it."

Lily started, looked back at him, "I'm—not sure that's such a good idea."

"Open it, Ellie," he said, but it was a command, and that wand—suddenly, it looked as if his wand was angled so that it was pointed at her.

Slowly, Lily moved towards the wardrobe.

Even though it was all fake, even though she'd made this bloody illusion herself, she felt her heart thundering. All at once, she had no idea what was going to be inside that wardrobe. Something, yes, something that would scream horcrux to Neville so they could be on their way, but she had no idea what that something would be.

Some horrible manifestation of her own subconscious that—

All at once she didn't want to look at.

She reached the handles and hesitantly opened them.

Inside was a black pit.

There was no wooden backing, no sign of the wall behind it either, but an infinite cosmic dimension of darkness.

And not a hint of Tom Riddle.

"What is that?" Neville breathed in horror, still at the very edge of the room.

Lily didn't answer, she didn't know the answer.

Rabbit, however, did, "The easy way out."

Neville didn't hear him, to him Rabbit had never left Hogwarts at all, but his words weren't for Neville.

"You could take it," Rabbit continued, even as Lily didn't turn and just kept staring transfixed by the endless darkness, "Save yourself trouble."

"Save him trouble," Rabbit said, but Lily didn't turn, and so she didn't know if he was looking at the room, at the Tom Riddle who wasn't there, or—

Or at Neville.

Lily closed the wardrobe shut and backed away from it, "It's the wardrobe."

She said it hastily, as if she was trying to convince herself as much as Neville, "It has to be the wardrobe."

"Yeah," Neville quietly agreed, looking shaken.

"Destroy it," Lily commanded, then caught herself, "I mean—you should destroy it. You wanted to destroy it."

Neville opened his mouth, closed it, and finally confessed, "I can't."

"What do you mean you can't?" Lily asked before she could help herself, feeling wild and on the edge of—of something she didn't even know.

Only that she had the sudden, inexplicable, and terrible feeling that something awful was going to happen. That it was going to happen soon and that—everything was headed towards ruin because of it.

"I mean—" Neville looked at the wardrobe in horror, "I mean that it's hard to destroy a horcrux. I mean I can but—I'd have to cast fiendfyre."

"Then do it," Lily said.

"But we're in the middle of London—"

Lily snapped her fingers.

Suddenly they were on a beach, standing on a rocky shore, facing the ocean. Sitting partway through the water, in danger of floating out to sea, was the wardrobe. It also, with the water seeping into it, threatened to open again.

"Do it, Neville!" Lily commanded.

Neville hesitated but didn't argue. He brought up his wand towards the wardrobe, squeezed his eyes shut, and swished his wand, "Fiendfyre!"

Several great beasts made of flames erupted from his wand. They dove into the water, bearing their fangs, and descended upon the wardrobe. The wardrobe for a moment, stood just as proud and tall as it did underneath Dumbledore's false fire so many years ago. Something thunked within its depths, and Lily almost wondered if another, younger, Lily was trapped burning inside.

However, then it splinted, the roof collapsed, and it began to fall into pieces.

Just like that, it was a wardrobe and nothing more.

Before Lily could relax though, the fire monsters turned their eyes towards her.

Oh, oh shit.

They dove towards her while Lily scampered up the beach. Lily could feel them scorching her back as she scrambled away from them, sprinting for her very life.

"Neville!" Lily cried out, "Neville, it's time to turn it off!"

Either he didn't hear her or else was preoccupied, as there was no audible answer, and she only narrowly avoided the swipe of a fiery paw. A wave of fire jetted out in front of her, blocking her path.

"Shit!" Lily cried and made an immediate U-turn.

Only to, of course, face another wall of fire blocking her access to the sea.

"Shit!" Lily cried again.

Looking around, she noted that she was effectively trapped, couldn't even see either Neville or Rabbit anymore.

Squeezing her eyes shut she teleported, reaching out through time and space to grab Neville and Rabbit, and deposited them all into the sea. There, looking towards the shore, there was an ominous yellow glow as the beasts prowled on its surface, hunting for their lost victims.

Treading water, Lily turned to stare at Neville, who looked as if he was only barely keeping himself afloat. Rabbit, of course, was already sinking fast.

Out of nothingness, Lily summoned a rubber boat for the three of them, pulling in first Rabbit, then Neville.

Neville shivered violently, clutching at his wand and staring at the shore with wide eyes, fearful, eyes. He didn't say anything, didn't seem able to even look at her.

"Well," Lily said after a pause, wiping at her running nose, "We destroyed the horcrux."

And probably were going to destroy any nearby town if the fiendfyre kept going the way it did.

Lily really hoped that she'd deposited them nowhere close to civilization. She really hoped she did.

For a moment they both stared at the distant shore, neither saying a word, then Neville quietly said, "We should move on to the next one."

Lily blinked, looked at him, "Already? It's got to be nearly one in the morning and we just—well, you just released hell on earth. Shouldn't we call it a night?"

"He's not going to wait," Neville said, "And he might know we've been there already. He'll know what we're doing. He'll move them, he'll—we don't have time!"

No, he wouldn't, and even if he did—

Lily wondered if he would even care.

"He can wait a few hours," Lily said quietly, but Neville shook his head.

"No, no we have to keep going," he said, and he looked—shaking, pale, clutching at his wand he looked manic when he said it, almost deranged, "We have to keep going."

There was no talking him out of it.

He was going to keep doing this, keep hunting horcruxes, until he dropped from exhaustion.

Just what had Dumbledore done to him?

"Alright," Lily said, "We'll do the next one, then."

She took his hands in hers, smiled at him softly, and asked, "Well, Neville, where are we going?"

He yanked his hands from her quickly, as if her touch had burned him, and for a moment just rubbed at them. Then, quietly, he said, "There was a beach, he used to go to the seaside every orphan as a summer, and there was this cave there—Headmaster Dumbledore was certain one would be there."

"Where?" Lily asked, "You're going to have to be specific."

But she knew where.

She'd been to that beach.

Once, in the summer just like Neville had said. All the orphans had been taken there in mid-July, and just like Neville said there had been a cave. The young Tom Riddle had made a point of showing it to her.

She hadn't acted as impressed as he'd wanted her to be, and he'd ended up throwing her in the water.

It'd been fun though.

It'd been a good day.

Neville seemed beyond able to tell her, perhaps he didn't know, perhaps Dumbledore had never told him where it precisely was. Perhaps he'd only shown Neville a memory of—of something at the beach. Of a young Tom Riddle, the waves, and a cave nearby.

Lily took them to it anyway, deposited them on the beach, where just above the tide, on the rocky cliff face, was the cavern.

She waited for Neville to say something, but he didn't, his teeth were chattering too violently. Lily took his hand and Rabbit's and teleported them into the cave itself and—

And it had changed.

When she'd visited with the young Tom, years ago, there hadn't been anything inside it. There'd been a lake, a large interior, and an island in the center but other than a disturbing ambiance there'd been nothing.

Now, though, there was a single addition.

There was still a lake, still an island, but on that island was a single, marble, pedestal.

One that Lily had not put there.

Lily looked towards Neville, he nodded towards it silently, still trying to rub warmth back into his limbs. Unspoken was that Lily, once again, would be going first.

There was no boat to cross to the other side and the water—it was black, and for a moment looking down at it, it looked like she was staring into that wardrobe again. That it wasn't just that there was no light in this place, but that the lake wasn't made of water and that it had no bottom.

Taking a breath, she looked away from it.

She took Neville and Rabbit by the hand again and walked the pair of them on top of the water to the island in the center. Nothing impeded their progress and their footsteps—didn't make a sound.

Nothing made a sound in this place.

They silently approached the pedestal in the center.

It wasn't a pedestal.

Oh, it was a pillar of marble but at the top, rather than a flat surface, was a concave bowl that hadn't been visible from the other shore. It was filled with a dark, opaque, liquid. Summoning a light above her, the liquid remained dark and its contents unseen.

Lily, Neville, and Rabbit stared down at it.

"It'll be inside there," Neville finally said, he was shaking less, appeared to have recovered somewhat from his dip in the sea.

He then looked at her, clearly expecting—

Lily reached a hand towards the liquid's surface and—it was solid, her hand didn't pass through, but instead stopped on its surface. She concentrated but—it didn't bend, no matter how hard she looked at it or thought about it.

She tried to make it disappear, to vanish into thin air or evaporate, or do something.

It remained where it was.

It defied her will in a way reality never had.

As Lily extracted her hand there was a sudden noise. A clanging as something metal crashed against another surface.

Looking behind her, Lily caught sight of a silver goblet on the ground that had not been there two seconds earlier.

She picked it up.

It was unadorned, seemed purposefully undecorated.

"Maybe you have to drink it," Neville suggested.

Lily looked back towards the liquid.

Her throat felt suddenly dry.

Swallowing, she wordlessly dipped the cup into the liquid where—it suddenly was liquid again. It filled the goblet as she pulled it away.

She poured the goblet out onto the ground. It vanished before touching a single stone and, looking back to the bowl, its contents had grown back to their original volume.

She dipped it inside again. Same result.

Lily carefully pulled the goblet out of the liquid and held it in front of her face. It smelled—familiar, familiar for reasons she couldn't describe. It was something strong, something that smelled metallic with an aftertaste of salt. There was something else to it too, something she couldn't put her finger on but something that smelled—wrong.

"You have to do it," Neville said, and he sounded—despairing, as if there really was no other recourse, but that this had to be done and there was just no helping it and he'd wish it was any other way.

She had to do it, Lily realized in wonder and horror, or Neville would.

Lily brought the goblet to her lips, squeezed her eyes shut, and forced herself to drink.

She immediately gagged.

It was thick, almost sticky, and tasted exactly like it smelled. It coated the inside of her mouth and throat, clinging to her teeth, and even as she hunched over and found herself vomiting onto the rocks, she felt it clinging to her.

Immediately she felt—

Wrong.

Something was wrong.

The cavern felt like it was tilting, her legs felt weak, and her heart was hammering in her head.

"Ellie?" she heard Neville ask, but it sounded far away, as if he were talking from another room.

"I—" she tried to say, but the words wouldn't come out.

Suddenly, she couldn't remember why she was here.

Oh, she knew why she was here, to save Neville from himself but—it felt like she wasn't supposed to be here. Like she'd made room for herself in a place she didn't belong and—

"You bungle up everything you ever set your mind to."

Lily's head lifted, Wizard Lenin's voice ringing in her ears, but he wasn't here.

She was back in the cave again with just Rabbit and Neville.

Rabbit had moved to lean on the pedestal, looking across at her with a lazy, knowing, smile. He looked down at the liquid then back up at her.

She picked up the goblet from where it had fallen out of her numb fingers. She took a breath, moving back to the liquid, and dipped it in.

She took another drink.

"Do good by people? When have you ever done that?"

She accidentally dropped the goblet again. She cursed as she moved to the ground, blindly searching for it, barely noticing when Neville was the one to silently press it into her hands.

She stood, dipped into the liquid again, drank and—

"Do you remember how many people have suffered because of you? How many people have died now?"

"Shut up," Lily said to no one (because no one was saying this, Wizard Lenin wasn't even here, this was all in her head and she was hallucinating—)

She took another drink.

And this time, this time it was a different conversation with Wizard Lenin, before the beginning of the end when she'd still had hope for the pair of them, when he'd looked at her with such betrayal.

Opening her eyes, she could see him, standing in her memories on the Malfoy's staircase.

"It would mean that this, all of this, everything I've ever done or worked for means nothing! It would mean that I am the universe's, your, cosmic joke. That everything I am is merely a product of your meddling, only for the reason because you can't take a chance! I will be a side-show freak to your own grandeur!"

"Stop it," Lily said.

She found the goblet pressed into her hands again. Looking over, she saw that Neville had filled it and presented it to her.

Wordlessly, she took a drink.

"No, no one's Voldemort now, you saw to that, Eleanor Lily Potter," Wizard Trotsky said through Ginny Weasley.

That wasn't even true, she told herself, Wizard Lenin was still chasing after that dream and—

Another drink.

"That's the most… I can't believe you. I can't believe that you're the girl who lived!" a young Hermione, before the world chewed her up and spat her out solely for making the mistake of being Lily's friend, spat, "You know, I actually wanted to meet you on the train. I was excited, but I should have known better. I should have known that you'd be a shallow, stupid, self-absorbed, crazy, arrogant little girl who thinks the world's been handed to her on a silver platter!"

She found herself vomiting again, her hair falling down into her face and bile, but as she righted herself the goblet was handed to her again.

She drank.

"I think you like to make people suffer."

She didn't remember this conversation. She'd never had this conversation.

But Tom Riddle, a Tom Riddle who was none of the ones she knew yet all of them at once, was looking at her pensively.

"Your very existence, Lily, is to make people suffer. And you're so good at it too, friend and enemy alike, they're all worse for wear after you're through with them."

He began listing off on his fingers, "Me, Hermione Granger, Ginny Weasley, Dolores Umbridge, Gilderoy Lockhart, Quirinus Quirrell, Sirius Black, and just look what you've done to poor Neville there. Poor fellow. If it weren't for you Voldemort would be in power and Neville would never have even heard of a horcrux. Now, thanks to you, he's been brainwashed by Dumbledore."

"Even Ron Weasley's worse for wear because of you," he said with a mad grin, "You murdered his rat and destroyed his sister from the inside out. He'll never be the same thanks to you."

"Everything that even remotely crosses your path comes out worse for it," he said.

Lily took another drink only to collapse onto the ground. The phantom Tom Riddle held back her hair as she vomited onto the rocks again.

"You're a thing of destruction, Lily," he explained sympathetically, stroking her hair gently in a way that Wizard Lenin so rarely had, "I'm afraid it's simply in your nature. You really should stop kidding yourself and embrace it."

Then, then Death so many years ago in a train station, when she'd been so young and the world so different—

"You are the Death of this universe, Ellie."

"Enough," Lily said, pushing the goblet away, "Enough, I'm—I'm done. I'm done."

Neville, however, kept the goblet where it was, "Ellie, you're not done yet."

"No, no—I'm done," she pleaded, "I'm done, I don't want—I'm done."

"You have to finish," he said, pushing it towards her.

She shook her head, "No, no, I don't want to—I—I want to be a person. I want to be a person. I want to be—"

He pushed the goblet to her lips forcefully, holding the back of her head as he jammed it at her mouth, droplets spilling down her chin even as she took another drink. She tasted metal and salt, and—

"Don't you get it?" Tom asked, "You don't get to be a person, Lily. You never even were a person. You know what you are? You're a thief."

She was suddenly on a riverbank. There was a bridge, a wild river, and three brothers.

"I do not give gifts, but I can make bargains," a man who was not a man said.

"Bargains," Tom echoed, moving to sit next to Lily, "What do you suppose that means?"

"I'll tell you what I think it means," he said when she didn't answer, "He asked for something in return, for whatever he gave them, something he desperately wanted—something you wanted. I bet he asked for a child, for a descendent, some ways down the line where he could—pretend to be a person."

(Another drink.)

"Think about it, Lily," Tom said, smiling at her fondly, "Think what that means."

"It means that there could have been an Eleanor Lily Potter," he said, brushing her hair aside to reveal her scar, "There was supposed to be an ordinary girl, with ordinary parents, who would live an ordinary life doing good by people. Perhaps even making the world a better place."

"There could have been an Ellie Potter, but you murdered her before she was born, you stole her body for your own and warped her life into your farcical destiny where you brought only death, despair, and suffering to those around you."

"Who knows, perhaps without Ellie Potter there would be no Lord Voldemort, perhaps Tom Riddle could have grown up to live a pleasant, ordinary, life without murder or mayhem. Perhaps none of his victims would have died or faced civil war at all. His destiny, after all, is subservient to yours."

"Perhaps," Tom mused, "You were never meant to exist in the first place."

The goblet clanged to the ground. She flinched at the sound, flung back into reality but—Neville didn't pick it up. Lily was curled on the ground, her arms raised above her head as if to defend herself, but no one moved towards her.

Slowly, reality seeped back in.

She was in a cave. She was in a cave with Rabbit and Neville. She'd just drank—something, something where there was supposed to be a horcrux. She—she must have finished it.

She slowly uncurled, looked over at Neville but—he had a wand pointed at her.

In one hand was something silver, glinting in the dim light still hanging over their heads from Lily's earlier spell. In the other was his wand.

"Neville?"

He didn't answer.

Instead, he cast a severing charm.

Author's Note: Thanks to Vinelle for betaing the chapter and going through emotional trauma because of it. Thanks to readers and reviewers, reviews are much appreciated.

Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter