A/N: Many apologies about the delay in updating, but I was having problems with my server. Hate mail should be directed to btinternet.com!



An Unrelenting Scar

I took a moment to gather my thoughts before I ventured into the hospital wing. I didn't know how Lily would be feeling after seeing her parents. They had been nice enough to me, but I was pretty sure I would be the only one on the receiving end of complete and utter gratefulness. Lily had probably had half and half. Half sympathy and worry, and half shame and anger that she had rotten herself into such a mess in the first place. And as for Severus, god help him. Mr Evans was not a small man, and was, infact, very well built for his age. If he weren't careful, more damage would be done by him than was by me in the dungeons.

I swallowed hard, and backed into the door of the hospital wing (I couldn't open the door with my hands full) and saw an empty bed. I looked around in vague confusion as Madam Pomfrey rounded the corner of her office. She caught sight of me looking puzzled, and politely directed me to a bed out of sight around the corner, in a more peaceful area of the ward. Lily was sat up in bed, reading a book. When she saw me, she slammed it shut and tried to get up. At this, both Madam Pomfrey and I rushed to push her back down, I nearly sending fudge and flowers flying around the ward.

"You really MUST rest, dear, and I do not think you should be sat up. And I must say, I am inoti happy about so many visitors." She gave me an evil and beady-eyed glare, worthy of Severus.

"Really, Madam Pomfrey, I'm fine." she pleaded "And if people didn't come to visit me, I'd go mad. I swear, once Rene's gone I'll sleep for the rest of the day, just please let her stay!"

She again eyed me like a human x-ray machine.

"Hmph. Well, all right, but 10 minutes, and no more."

With that, she strode off to her office, muttering under her breath about her knowing better and her decades of experience. I turned to Lily, and began to unload my burden.

"I went and got you some flowers, because I thought you may need cheering up a bit, and Hagrid sent this up for you." I summoned a vase from a shelf at the end of the ward and placed the flowers in it, and handed Lily the box. She examined it carefully, and sniffed it gingerly. She looked up and across at me, a little confused.

"I think its fudge. I'm not sure, mind, but it should be safe to eat."

She just looked at me, with a saddened smile.

"Thank you."

"Not a bother, Lil. I needed to get outside anyway."

"No, not for the flowers, Ren."

I was a bit puzzled. The trip outside had relieved my mind of all the unpleasantness and all the aggravation of the past months, and I was feeling very happy. I had managed to push all the tension between myself and Ed, and what seemed to be the irreparable damage to my relationship with Severus to the darkest corner of my mind. For an hour or so, I had been able to escape, and I had the most unrestrained time of my life out in the grounds. It was like being freed from Azkaban.

Then, God help me, the Dementors came to drag me back.

"No thank you for all you've done. I mean, I've not gotten off lightly, but I may have died if you hadn't been keeping an eye on me."

She began to cry again, but it wasn't the hysterical sobs you might expect. They were small, distraught yet accepting tears, and I knew as soon as the first one fell that this conversation was leading in a rather undesirable direction.

"Lil, anyone would have done the same for you, but what aren't you telling me?"

"Nothing, Nothing!" She said a little too quickly. Then her tears became a little more violent, and she held her hand up to her eyes. "Oh Christ, is it that obvious?"

"No, no, Lily, it's not, I swear. I just guessed that there was something wrong, but hey, I'm your best friend! It's my job!" I tried to say the last few words with humour, but it just came out as a nervous gap-filler.

She took her hand away from her eyes and tried hard to smile. It looked almost painful. I instinctively grabbed her other hand and squeezed it tightly, to let her know that I was listening.

"Ren, I've bloody ruined it! I've bloody well ruined my whole life!"

She pulled her legs up and hugged them close to her, burying her head into her knees. I could have passed out once again; the last time I had seen her like this was in the Greenhouse, and all I could think was "Here we go...". I didn't mean it as selfishly as it sounds, but I couldn't help praying to a God I didn't believe in that this time Lily's hysteria would not leave our lives in the mess it had done before.

I hugged her, and left my hand on her shoulder as I moved away. She managed to lift her head, and to swallow her tears for a few moments.

"Pomfrey got the results of the tests this morning. When...when I lost the baby, she thinks it did...well, she thinks it did more damage than we first thought."

At this, I panicked. I didn't know what to think. I closed my eyes and shut my mouth to try and hide it from Lily, but she was no fool. She noticed. My teeth shot out so rapidly that they cut right through my gums, so I was unable to open my mouth without a torrent of blood pouring out as well as my voice. I hoped for the best and expected the worst, and waited for years inside seconds while Lily conquered her sobs.

"Sh-she thinks...She thinks that I...I'm never going to recover properly."

My teeth dug further into my gums, and I almost yelped in pain. Someone was prolonging this to test me, I knew it. I silently begged for her to get to the point, though I never would have said it out loud.

"I...I'm not going to be able...able to have any more children." She promptly burst into hysterics. I just sat back in my chair and stared. I'd never thought about that.

"Lil, Lily, please. Calm down, I...I'm sure there's something we can do..."

She mumbled through her sobs, and I only just managed to catch what she said.

"No, No, No...I went through all this with her, and she said that creation of a child is something magic can't interfere with, and that I've no hope of ever having a child...Oh, Ren, I'm so sorry!"

I desperately tried to regain my composure. I just grabbed her and hugged her tight. I knew what that felt like, because half-breeds can rarely produce children. I had been thrown into a deep depression for months when I found out, and it still upset me from time to time. This would be even harder than finding out she was pregnant in the first place, and Madam Pomfrey was right. She would never recover. It truly was the end of a world, at least for a time. It was an Unrelenting scar, one that you would bear for life.