Lily screamed and sat bolt upright. Her eyes flew open, taking in the bright sunlight coming through the window, the scratchy hospital blanket over her knees, and the empty potion bottle on the nightstand. "James." She whispered. "He's gone. Oh god. Voldemort—and Harry." She began to sob.

"Mrs. Potter?" Healer Smythe came in. "I heard your scream. How are you feeling?"

"My husband is dead." She wept. "And my son—where is he? Where's Harry? Healer Smythe, I abandoned my son! For so long! Where is he? Is he safe?"

"Shhh. It's all right, Mrs. Potter. Harry's at Hogwarts. He's safe."

"Where's Remus? He brought me here. Please, I need to talk to him. He's the only one who will understand."

"He had to go back to Hogwarts. He's a professor."

"How do I discharge myself?" Lily scrambled to her feet, the blanket sliding to the ground. "I need to go to Hogwarts. I'll sign whatever discharge papers I have to sign, just get me out of here."

"Mrs. Potter, please, I implore you to stay a little longer. You've just recovered 12 years worth of memories. You need to stay and process for a while."

"No I don't! Healer Smythe, I abandoned my baby! I'm a terrible mother who abandoned her own child, and I need to make it right!"

"Lily, please, you're not a terrible mother." He took her by the forearms and pushed her down onto the bed. "You didn't abandon your son, you literally didn't remember who you were. As I tell many of my patients, we do the best we can with the information we have at the time. Your information was that you only had your daughter, so you did your best to raise her and we shouldn't blame you for a situation that was beyond your control. It sounds like we might want to sit down and talk about this some more."

"No, you dolt! I need to get to my son!"

"Fine. However, if you leave now, I'll have to have you sign papers acknowledging that you're leaving against medical advice."

"Done! Where's a quill?"

"Mrs. Potter, please, you should really . . . fine. I'll get the papers." Healer Smythe stood up and retrieved a shopping bag from under the bed. "Your friend Remus went out and got you a few things. New robes, I believe."

"My wand." Lily gasped and took her old wand off the top of the bag. "How did he get my old wand?"

"Took it from your Gringotts vault, I believe."

"Wow." Lily held up her wand and conjured a few colored puffs of smoke like James used to conjure for Harry. The memory of that was enough to make her sink back onto the bed, her legs trembling.

Healer Smythe waved his wand and conjured a set of discharge papers out of thin air. "Sign here. And please be careful. The entrance to Hogwarts is guarded by dementors."

"Dementors? Why?"

"Because of Sirius Black, of course. Haven't you heard? He's broken out of Azkaban?"

"Azkaban? WHAT THE BLOODY HELL WAS HE IN AZKABAN FOR?!"

"For murdering thirteen muggles with a single curse, ma'am. He's quite dangerous."

"No. There has to have been some kind of mistake. Sirius would never do that!"

"The Wizengamot found him guilty."

"No. The Wizengamot was wrong. Sirius isn't like that. Killing someone—that's everything he fought against."

"Well, the Wizengamot—"

"I'll give testimony! I'll find the wizengamot and I will testify that Sirius Black is not and never will be a murderer!"

"With all due respect, Mrs. Potter," Healer Smythe said, "I really, really think you should stay so we can talk through your newly regained memories."

"No, I can't! My son thinks I abandoned him, my friend is in Azkaban, and my husband is dead! Don't you understand? Everything's all wrong. It wasn't supposed to be like this." Before she start crying, Lily hurried from the room. In a small bathroom she splashed some cold water on her face, then paused and looked at herself in the mirror. Twelve years since she'd walked in wizarding circles, twelve years since she'd remembered her husband and son, twelve years since the last time she'd felt whole. She went back into her room. "I'm leaving." She picked up the discharge papers and signed them. "There's too much I have to attend to."

Healer Smythe took the papers, looking resigned. "Good luck."

Lily took her bags and went back into the bathroom to change into the robes. "All right." She wiped her face and headed downstairs. "Time to see if I remember how to aparate." She screwed her eyes shut, visualizing Hogsmeade high street, and turned, feeling her way into nothingness. A faint pop, and then she opened her eyes. The memories hit her with the force of the Hogwarts express chugging through the countryside. After all, this was where she would board that scarlet train to go home for Christmas. She and Marlene McKinnon used to go to Honeydukes to buy sweets. She'd gone to the three broomsticks with Remus once and they'd spent an afternoon making fun of James, who had been holed up in Gryffindor tower with a nasty head cold at the time.

But there was no time for memories now. The light was already starting to fade, and she had to get to the castle before it got dark. Three dementors hovered outside the school's main gate, cold air rippling from beneath their cloaks.

"Expecto patronum." Lily whispered. Nothing happened. A happy memory, Remus had always said. She didn't have any of those; every memory of her life was tinged with sadness—Godric's hollow tarnished with grief, and London blackened with regret. Finally she settled on something she hadn't actually seen—Harry and Christina together at Hogwarts. Christina in a little set of Gryffindor robes, and Harry—well, Harry would look like James. And she remembered what he looked like.

"Expecto patronum!" She cast the spell before the mental image could make her sad. The familiar silver doe appeared and the dementors parted before her. The doe's form was already flickering, and Lily gathered her robes about her in her free hand and hurried through the gate.

Another wave of memories hit as soon as she stepped onto the grounds, sweeter and more painful than the ones in Hogsmeade. The lake, the quidditch pitch, the grounds, the forest, all glittering in the setting sun. But old memories would have to wait. Lily doubled her pace and hurried in through the great double doors. The castle was quiet this time in the evening, with just a few students milling about. "Excuse me!" Lily walked over to a boy wearing a head boy badge. "Excuse me!"

"Yes?"

"Where could I find Professor Lupin?"

"He's probably in his office, near the defense classroom."

"Thank you!" Lily half-ran up the stairs, realizing that the head boy had to be one of Arthur and Molly Weasley's kids. Bill, maybe? She shook her head and kept going, yanking open the door to the defense classroom.

"Remus! Remus, I remember everything!" she skidded into Remus's office, pulling up short when she saw the marauder's map on the table. "Remus?"

"Lily!" He got up and hugged her tightly. "Oh, it's good to see you again. How are you?"

"Fine. I just got out of the hospital. They wanted me to stay longer, but I told them I had two children, one of whom hasn't seen me in twelve years. Oh, Remus, I abandoned Harry. What kind of mother am I?"

"One who'll help me track him down. You need to see this." He pointed to the map. "The map never lies. I know because I was one of its creators. This man—" he pointed to a dot labeled 'Peter Pettigrew.' "This man I knew to be dead for twelve years."

"Peter, dead?"

"We all thought Sirius had killed him. We—I—blamed Sirius for your deaths. But if Peter's alive . . . Merlin, if Peter's alive . . ."

"It wasn't Sirius." Lily had gone white. "We switched secret-keepers at the last minute. It was Peter. Remus, it was Peter who sold us out!"

"How do you know?"

"The very second you-know-who blasted our door open, I knew. It had to be Peter. He was our secret-keeper. He's the only one who could have betrayed us."

They both stared at each other for a moment. Between them, the map showed Sirius Black, Peter Pettrigrew, and Ron Weasley disappear off the edge of the map. Harry, Hermione, and Christina's dots moved through the tunnel, drawing closer by the minute.

"Get your wand." Remus threw on his cloak. "We haven't a moment to spare. There's four kids down there alone, and Harry thinks it's Sirius who did it. Go, go!" He took her arm and fairly dragged her out of his office. "Do you know the tunnel? Under the willow. Did James ever . . ."

"He told me about it." Lily panted. "Never been, but he told me. Why is Harry in the tunnel?"

"He was going down to Hagrid's, because Hagrid's hippogriff was being executed this evening. Don't ask, it's a long story and it involves Lucius Malfoy. When they left Hagrid's, I saw that they were accompanied by Pettigrew. Sirius came barreling in out of nowhere and took Pettigrew and Ron Weasley into the tunnel. Pettigrew has to be in rat form; Sirius can't take them both if they're both human."

"I'm going to kill him. I am going to kill him."

They stopped outside the whomping willow, Lily bent over hands on knees and wheezing. The sprint from Remus's office to the whomping willow was more running than she'd done in a while.

"Come on." Remus levitated a twig to press the knot on the willow's trunk, and as soon as the branches stopped moving they leapt into the tunnel beneath it.