Chapter Eleven
Everlasting Memories
I pulled Petunia to her feet and said, "Come on we have to get out of hear and find James."
I never let go of Petunia's arm as we navigated through the tunnels, and I had the feeling that if I did Petunia would stop walking. She had never been captured before, never held as bate, never had to run for her life from a ball of fire, and the experience had left her trapped in her own mind. I opened a side hatch that was connected to the sewer and I must admit I had never smelled anything as beautiful as water and human waste. We trudged through the liquid, splashing it all over ourselves and making rats scurry. By the light of my wand I found the nearest hatch to the street opened it, helping Petunia through first then went through myself.
Petunia backed herself into a wall the second she got to her feet and then slid down it with the same mindless stare, pulling her legs right up close to her. We had ended up one alley over from the factory and a golden flickering light over the roof of the building we were next to told us that it was on fire. I heard foot steps running along the opposing street and since I could no longer move my fingers I prayed that it wasn't a Death Eater or a nosey Muggle.
Two very familiar profiles went running past the alley. "James!" I yelled. I heard four feet skid to a stop and run in the opposite direction. James and Sirius appeared several seconds latter, relief spreading over both their anguished faces as they saw me and Petunia. I ran out and met James half way, we then held each other like there was no tomorrow. When he let go I can honestly say that I had never seen him look so worried. He lifted my hands up by the elbow and asked, "Are you alright? What happened?"
"I'll be alright," I assured him. "They took Petunia, I don't know why. I think the head of the Blackguard is dead."
"How do know," he asked in astonishment.
"Because she was the one that blew up the building. James, it was Hagrid's mother."
There was a very painful silence. Hagrid, a half giant himself, was the Hogwarts gamekeeper and a very dear friend. James cast around for something to say and spotted Petunia, shacking in a corner like a frightened kitten. "Will she be alright?"
I looked over to Petunia and said, "I don't know."
"We need to get you to a hospital. Did you see what happened to Ardief?" Sirius asked.
"I saw," said simply. Just then a great, shuddering gasp came from Petunia; she had woken up from her trance. She sat hugging her legs and crying into her knees. I came up to her and shook her head up. "It's alright, Petunia," I said. "It's all over now, no more giants."
Petunia shook her head wildly and said, "No it's not alright. I can't take it anymore, Lily. I tried I really did. I don't ever want to go through anything like that again! But it will happen won't it? Because of this war, someone wants you and your family dead! I love you so much, Lily, and I can't hide that anymore. No matter how hard I try, I can't deny you and it's driving me mad. Why didn't you tell me?"
I scooped Petunia up and held her; it felt like holding steel, "I'm so sorry. If there was anything I could do-"
"I just wish I could forget."
With that all my emotions dissolved. It became all so simple, all so evident. I turned to Sirius and James, Sirius took a step forward but James held him back, "Lily, don't," he begged. But one of the things you should have realized about me by now is that once I decide to do something nothing can turn me back.
"I know what I'm doing. Go and wait for me at the corner. I'll be over in a few minutes." They stood there, staring at me with a tragic look. "Go on." James had to force Sirius to turn because he knew what was going threw my head. I turned back to Petunia, who was teetering on sanity's edge and said, "Do you hate me?"
The question almost physically knocked her backward. "What kind of question is that?" she asked to avoid answering.
"Please, it's important," I said, and when she looked in my eyes she knew I was telling the truth.
"Yes. No. I don't know."
I shock my head with out the slightest hint of a grudge and said, "How much are you willing to pay to forget."
"What relevancy dose that have?" she asked.
"How much?"
She looked like a reproved child, there was nothing left now but the truth. "I would give anything. I don't want to remember the look on Fridwulfa's eyes when she realized she would never see the light of another day. Why, you can't make me forget? Can you?"
"Not forget… rework." I said with a bit of reserve in my voice.
"I don't understand. You're a witch not a god."
"Who says God can't be a witch?" I asked. "It's a charm that isn't widely used since the discovery of the Imperius curse. That's the curse that Voldemort's been using to draft spies. But the Imperius curse has recently become illegal. The Rainashe, the charm I'm talking about, is band for wizard to wizard use. But no one knows you're a witch."
Petunia reached out and touched my face, silent tears running down her face and into the night. "Please, Lily. I feel like I'm loosing my mind. If you can do something about it, even if it means taking the coward's way out, I beg of you do it."
I looked at my fallen angel, shivering with cold and desperation, and I fully realized that I again held her life in my hands. With one flick of my wand I could rewrite her entire life on her shoulders; she needn't have been locked in that closet, she didn't have to carry the weight of a dead fiancée, she didn't have to worry about the war, or know that she was the last thing a very powerful giantess ever saw. I took a deep breath and said, "You do realize that you will never be able to see me again?"
"What dose the charm entail?"
"It's a very difficult charm and there will be several pot holes, I don't even think Dumbledore could perform the charm all the way through. You will remember me; nothing could ever make family forget each other. But the inherent repugnance you hold toward me will be enhanced. You will remember none of the good times we shared. They will be replaced. You won't remember anything magical, because of how much you fight it. You'll have to give up all that you've known, because any contact with that which is familiar will run the risk of reversing the charm, it's one of the Rainashe's greatest failings."
"Will I remember Neo?"
"Not if you don't want to-"
"I don't want to," she said, again hearing Neo's words, 'Because you refuse to remember me'. "I don't want anything to do with him. It's just too… painful."
I put my hand behind Petunia's head and said, "Once we do this there's no going back."
"I know. What about my… talents? If I don't know I have them how will I be able to control them?"
"It's all subconscious now. Because you've been suppressing them for so long it's become second nature, you won't have to think about it anymore, you'll just do it."
"Alright then, what happens next?"
"After I perform the charm you will be rendered unconscious. There will be some disorientation when you wake up, and you will still remember everything. The memory rewrite will slowly take place throughout a twenty-four hour period. The most resent memories will be the first to go, and then the charm will work its way back. You will be able to see me until the charm is finished, but I'll leave as soon as I can."
Petunia nodded her head and let out a very small, rather forced laugh.
"What?"
She shook her head and said, "Nothing. Just something Adrian once told me."
"Who?"
"Adrian. The boy the creamed me when we were young. He said, 'Sooner or later you're going to end up unconscious in an alley and it's going to be because of her'. I guess he was right."
I didn't know what to say to that so I didn't say anything at all. I reached into my cloak and, with a great deal of effort, pulled out my wand. I stuck it between my index finger and middle finger, and held it close to my palm with my thumb so I didn't have to try and bend any of the broken fingers. "When I first bought this wand Mr. Ollivander, the sales wizard, told me it was a good wand for charm work. I guess that's finally coming in handy. Ready?"
"As read as I'll ever be." She paused then said abruptly, "Lily, I want you to have this." She took Neo's ring off her finger and handed it to me. "I have no use for it anymore."
I rolled the ring around in the palm of my hand; it glistened and told me of passion, hope, and beauty. Ignoring all pain I closed my hand tightly around it and blocked all its heavenly rays.
"I'm sorry, Lily. I'm sorry for all the trouble I've ever cased you," she said.
Under normal circumstances I would have said something very comforting, but there was no time; the sun was beginning to rise and I was starting to loose my nerve. I raised my wand over my head and started the charm, swinging it in large concentric circles. Bright silver sparks started coming out of the tip of the wand, growing larger as the circles became bigger. I spoke the incantation with as much force as I could; given the fact that I wasn't entirely sure I was doing the right thing. Slowly I lowered the wand, keeping the circle at the same size now. When the wand was right in front of Petunia our eyes met and I saw the anxiety buried deep inside. She closed her eyes tightly and I stopped the circles with a commanding downward motion ending squarely on her chest. The silver light surrounded her and lifted her hair like a powerful wind rising gold thread to the heavens. All her muscles tightened and jutted, then they relaxed and she fell face forward into her lap.
I sat there on my knees, looking down on this pathetic limp figure and said allowed, "What have I done?" Because I was too big of a coward to be a big sister I had erased all we had held dear for most of our lives. There was nothing left to do but move her into a more comfortable position, this I did and then walked as quickly as I could into the street. A gust of wind caught me off guard and I dropped Petunia's ring. I turned and watched as it rolled into the gutter. I stared at the gutter that held such a beautifully bruised piece of life and thought, 'How appropriate.' I turned left and saw James and Sirius arguing with my mum. "Mum? What are you doing hear?" I asked, walking toward them.
"Dumbledore said that someone wanted to kidnap you and told me were you were. You could have told me yourself, I've been worried sick. And James hear wouldn't let me move. What's going on?"
"It's alright, Mum, you missed the excitement. Petunia's not coming back."
"Petunia? What, you don't mean she's dead?" she said with a modicum of confusion and absolutely no concern.
"No, Mum, she not dead. She's brainwashed," I said in a dead sort of way. It really hadn't fully sunk in at that moment that I would never know my Petunia again.
"Oh," she said. She shrugged her shoulders and looked around a bit. "Well, good reddens to bad rubbish, I say. That girl always was a waste of skin."
I slowly turned to her; there was nothing left in me but endorphins and anger. "How dare you," I said slowly. "Just who the Hell do you think you are?"
She looked at me with mild surprise and said, "I think I'm her mother and there for entitled to judge her."
"'Judge her'," I repeated indignantly. I balled what was left of my hand into a fist and said,
"Judge this!" before striking her with the back of my hand. She flew back and hit the floor, I tried to move forward with the purpose of hitting her again but James and Sirius held me back on either side.
I struggled against them until Sirius whispered in my ear, "Stop it, Lily, she's not worth it."
I straightened myself up and lifted my head with pride. I spate at her and yelled, "Get out of my life you heartless bitch!" She took one last fleeting look at me and then took off in the opposite direction without a backward glance.
"Come on, Lily. Let's go home," James said, and he started leading me down the road. I looked back at the alley Petunia laid in when I reached the intersection and fond that she was awake, staring at me. I didn't stop because I didn't want James or Sirius to see, but before we turned the corner Petunia mouthed her last words to me, "Thank you."
If I hadn't of hit my mother she very well might have taken Harry when we were killed, but she never did want anything to do with my family after that. And… well, you know what happens next. Dumbledore got the proof he needed to get us into a safe house only to find us dead less then a week after we'd moved in. Sirius was framed for leaking our position to Voldemort and was sent to Azkaban (without a trial). But what ever happened to Petunia? She was able to find an apartment before her memory ran out on her. Desperate for the love I could no longer provide for her she clung to the first man that paid any attention to her… Vernon. He was quite normal but never was afraid of witches and wizards. Out of instinct, as a sort of safety mechanism, Petunia changed that very quickly, making up several horror story's about me to fan the flame of his aversion toward anything abnormal. She married him, of course, and then became pregnant with Dudley. He is her miracle child. She remembered being in a motorcycle crash and the doctors telling her she'd never have children, even if she didn't remember Neo. Therefore to her, Dudley is worth every fattening treat, every overlooked incident of bullying, and every overpriced toy. I became pregnant with Harry only a few months after Dudley was conceived, and it served (to her at lest) as proof that I was trying to "steal her thunder".
Being presented with Harry after we, James and I, had died, was like having the knives of the past carve through her bones, but as she had never seen Harry before, it didn't unhinge anything. She kept Harry in the closet under the stairs as a sort of mental "Ha ha" to me, even though she didn't know that was what she was doing.
It was, by no means, the end of us. Nothing, not even the gods, can tear sisters apart forever. There is a land that rests between death and dreams. This is a place that a very select few ever enter; you must be on destiny's right hand to even be considered. It was the residence of this land that help Neo come to Petunia the day she was captured by the giants. The spirits of time, space, and eternity are the guardians of this place; it is their silver wings that Petunia rides on when she lays down to sleep every night. Here there is no pain to obscure pleasure, no doubt to complicate passion. Here I can find my only respite, because here there is no regret to haunt us beyond our graves, and tear us to peaces before death reclaims its children.
Search beyond the green valleys if you ever come to visit. Look past the trees, and flowers, and groves of naked souls, and I will guaranty you this: In the ripples of a child's first laugh you will always find Neo and Petunia, dancing under their crystal gazebo. There I will forever have my blond haired, blue eyed little girl, lying underneath the stars, which glisten like millions of diamonds in the iris of God. Here you can see for yourself that we will always be angles of yore. If you leave this place with nothing more in your heart then what you came in with then at least know this: There's a force watching over us… it's your job to find it.
Everlasting Memories
I pulled Petunia to her feet and said, "Come on we have to get out of hear and find James."
I never let go of Petunia's arm as we navigated through the tunnels, and I had the feeling that if I did Petunia would stop walking. She had never been captured before, never held as bate, never had to run for her life from a ball of fire, and the experience had left her trapped in her own mind. I opened a side hatch that was connected to the sewer and I must admit I had never smelled anything as beautiful as water and human waste. We trudged through the liquid, splashing it all over ourselves and making rats scurry. By the light of my wand I found the nearest hatch to the street opened it, helping Petunia through first then went through myself.
Petunia backed herself into a wall the second she got to her feet and then slid down it with the same mindless stare, pulling her legs right up close to her. We had ended up one alley over from the factory and a golden flickering light over the roof of the building we were next to told us that it was on fire. I heard foot steps running along the opposing street and since I could no longer move my fingers I prayed that it wasn't a Death Eater or a nosey Muggle.
Two very familiar profiles went running past the alley. "James!" I yelled. I heard four feet skid to a stop and run in the opposite direction. James and Sirius appeared several seconds latter, relief spreading over both their anguished faces as they saw me and Petunia. I ran out and met James half way, we then held each other like there was no tomorrow. When he let go I can honestly say that I had never seen him look so worried. He lifted my hands up by the elbow and asked, "Are you alright? What happened?"
"I'll be alright," I assured him. "They took Petunia, I don't know why. I think the head of the Blackguard is dead."
"How do know," he asked in astonishment.
"Because she was the one that blew up the building. James, it was Hagrid's mother."
There was a very painful silence. Hagrid, a half giant himself, was the Hogwarts gamekeeper and a very dear friend. James cast around for something to say and spotted Petunia, shacking in a corner like a frightened kitten. "Will she be alright?"
I looked over to Petunia and said, "I don't know."
"We need to get you to a hospital. Did you see what happened to Ardief?" Sirius asked.
"I saw," said simply. Just then a great, shuddering gasp came from Petunia; she had woken up from her trance. She sat hugging her legs and crying into her knees. I came up to her and shook her head up. "It's alright, Petunia," I said. "It's all over now, no more giants."
Petunia shook her head wildly and said, "No it's not alright. I can't take it anymore, Lily. I tried I really did. I don't ever want to go through anything like that again! But it will happen won't it? Because of this war, someone wants you and your family dead! I love you so much, Lily, and I can't hide that anymore. No matter how hard I try, I can't deny you and it's driving me mad. Why didn't you tell me?"
I scooped Petunia up and held her; it felt like holding steel, "I'm so sorry. If there was anything I could do-"
"I just wish I could forget."
With that all my emotions dissolved. It became all so simple, all so evident. I turned to Sirius and James, Sirius took a step forward but James held him back, "Lily, don't," he begged. But one of the things you should have realized about me by now is that once I decide to do something nothing can turn me back.
"I know what I'm doing. Go and wait for me at the corner. I'll be over in a few minutes." They stood there, staring at me with a tragic look. "Go on." James had to force Sirius to turn because he knew what was going threw my head. I turned back to Petunia, who was teetering on sanity's edge and said, "Do you hate me?"
The question almost physically knocked her backward. "What kind of question is that?" she asked to avoid answering.
"Please, it's important," I said, and when she looked in my eyes she knew I was telling the truth.
"Yes. No. I don't know."
I shock my head with out the slightest hint of a grudge and said, "How much are you willing to pay to forget."
"What relevancy dose that have?" she asked.
"How much?"
She looked like a reproved child, there was nothing left now but the truth. "I would give anything. I don't want to remember the look on Fridwulfa's eyes when she realized she would never see the light of another day. Why, you can't make me forget? Can you?"
"Not forget… rework." I said with a bit of reserve in my voice.
"I don't understand. You're a witch not a god."
"Who says God can't be a witch?" I asked. "It's a charm that isn't widely used since the discovery of the Imperius curse. That's the curse that Voldemort's been using to draft spies. But the Imperius curse has recently become illegal. The Rainashe, the charm I'm talking about, is band for wizard to wizard use. But no one knows you're a witch."
Petunia reached out and touched my face, silent tears running down her face and into the night. "Please, Lily. I feel like I'm loosing my mind. If you can do something about it, even if it means taking the coward's way out, I beg of you do it."
I looked at my fallen angel, shivering with cold and desperation, and I fully realized that I again held her life in my hands. With one flick of my wand I could rewrite her entire life on her shoulders; she needn't have been locked in that closet, she didn't have to carry the weight of a dead fiancée, she didn't have to worry about the war, or know that she was the last thing a very powerful giantess ever saw. I took a deep breath and said, "You do realize that you will never be able to see me again?"
"What dose the charm entail?"
"It's a very difficult charm and there will be several pot holes, I don't even think Dumbledore could perform the charm all the way through. You will remember me; nothing could ever make family forget each other. But the inherent repugnance you hold toward me will be enhanced. You will remember none of the good times we shared. They will be replaced. You won't remember anything magical, because of how much you fight it. You'll have to give up all that you've known, because any contact with that which is familiar will run the risk of reversing the charm, it's one of the Rainashe's greatest failings."
"Will I remember Neo?"
"Not if you don't want to-"
"I don't want to," she said, again hearing Neo's words, 'Because you refuse to remember me'. "I don't want anything to do with him. It's just too… painful."
I put my hand behind Petunia's head and said, "Once we do this there's no going back."
"I know. What about my… talents? If I don't know I have them how will I be able to control them?"
"It's all subconscious now. Because you've been suppressing them for so long it's become second nature, you won't have to think about it anymore, you'll just do it."
"Alright then, what happens next?"
"After I perform the charm you will be rendered unconscious. There will be some disorientation when you wake up, and you will still remember everything. The memory rewrite will slowly take place throughout a twenty-four hour period. The most resent memories will be the first to go, and then the charm will work its way back. You will be able to see me until the charm is finished, but I'll leave as soon as I can."
Petunia nodded her head and let out a very small, rather forced laugh.
"What?"
She shook her head and said, "Nothing. Just something Adrian once told me."
"Who?"
"Adrian. The boy the creamed me when we were young. He said, 'Sooner or later you're going to end up unconscious in an alley and it's going to be because of her'. I guess he was right."
I didn't know what to say to that so I didn't say anything at all. I reached into my cloak and, with a great deal of effort, pulled out my wand. I stuck it between my index finger and middle finger, and held it close to my palm with my thumb so I didn't have to try and bend any of the broken fingers. "When I first bought this wand Mr. Ollivander, the sales wizard, told me it was a good wand for charm work. I guess that's finally coming in handy. Ready?"
"As read as I'll ever be." She paused then said abruptly, "Lily, I want you to have this." She took Neo's ring off her finger and handed it to me. "I have no use for it anymore."
I rolled the ring around in the palm of my hand; it glistened and told me of passion, hope, and beauty. Ignoring all pain I closed my hand tightly around it and blocked all its heavenly rays.
"I'm sorry, Lily. I'm sorry for all the trouble I've ever cased you," she said.
Under normal circumstances I would have said something very comforting, but there was no time; the sun was beginning to rise and I was starting to loose my nerve. I raised my wand over my head and started the charm, swinging it in large concentric circles. Bright silver sparks started coming out of the tip of the wand, growing larger as the circles became bigger. I spoke the incantation with as much force as I could; given the fact that I wasn't entirely sure I was doing the right thing. Slowly I lowered the wand, keeping the circle at the same size now. When the wand was right in front of Petunia our eyes met and I saw the anxiety buried deep inside. She closed her eyes tightly and I stopped the circles with a commanding downward motion ending squarely on her chest. The silver light surrounded her and lifted her hair like a powerful wind rising gold thread to the heavens. All her muscles tightened and jutted, then they relaxed and she fell face forward into her lap.
I sat there on my knees, looking down on this pathetic limp figure and said allowed, "What have I done?" Because I was too big of a coward to be a big sister I had erased all we had held dear for most of our lives. There was nothing left to do but move her into a more comfortable position, this I did and then walked as quickly as I could into the street. A gust of wind caught me off guard and I dropped Petunia's ring. I turned and watched as it rolled into the gutter. I stared at the gutter that held such a beautifully bruised piece of life and thought, 'How appropriate.' I turned left and saw James and Sirius arguing with my mum. "Mum? What are you doing hear?" I asked, walking toward them.
"Dumbledore said that someone wanted to kidnap you and told me were you were. You could have told me yourself, I've been worried sick. And James hear wouldn't let me move. What's going on?"
"It's alright, Mum, you missed the excitement. Petunia's not coming back."
"Petunia? What, you don't mean she's dead?" she said with a modicum of confusion and absolutely no concern.
"No, Mum, she not dead. She's brainwashed," I said in a dead sort of way. It really hadn't fully sunk in at that moment that I would never know my Petunia again.
"Oh," she said. She shrugged her shoulders and looked around a bit. "Well, good reddens to bad rubbish, I say. That girl always was a waste of skin."
I slowly turned to her; there was nothing left in me but endorphins and anger. "How dare you," I said slowly. "Just who the Hell do you think you are?"
She looked at me with mild surprise and said, "I think I'm her mother and there for entitled to judge her."
"'Judge her'," I repeated indignantly. I balled what was left of my hand into a fist and said,
"Judge this!" before striking her with the back of my hand. She flew back and hit the floor, I tried to move forward with the purpose of hitting her again but James and Sirius held me back on either side.
I struggled against them until Sirius whispered in my ear, "Stop it, Lily, she's not worth it."
I straightened myself up and lifted my head with pride. I spate at her and yelled, "Get out of my life you heartless bitch!" She took one last fleeting look at me and then took off in the opposite direction without a backward glance.
"Come on, Lily. Let's go home," James said, and he started leading me down the road. I looked back at the alley Petunia laid in when I reached the intersection and fond that she was awake, staring at me. I didn't stop because I didn't want James or Sirius to see, but before we turned the corner Petunia mouthed her last words to me, "Thank you."
If I hadn't of hit my mother she very well might have taken Harry when we were killed, but she never did want anything to do with my family after that. And… well, you know what happens next. Dumbledore got the proof he needed to get us into a safe house only to find us dead less then a week after we'd moved in. Sirius was framed for leaking our position to Voldemort and was sent to Azkaban (without a trial). But what ever happened to Petunia? She was able to find an apartment before her memory ran out on her. Desperate for the love I could no longer provide for her she clung to the first man that paid any attention to her… Vernon. He was quite normal but never was afraid of witches and wizards. Out of instinct, as a sort of safety mechanism, Petunia changed that very quickly, making up several horror story's about me to fan the flame of his aversion toward anything abnormal. She married him, of course, and then became pregnant with Dudley. He is her miracle child. She remembered being in a motorcycle crash and the doctors telling her she'd never have children, even if she didn't remember Neo. Therefore to her, Dudley is worth every fattening treat, every overlooked incident of bullying, and every overpriced toy. I became pregnant with Harry only a few months after Dudley was conceived, and it served (to her at lest) as proof that I was trying to "steal her thunder".
Being presented with Harry after we, James and I, had died, was like having the knives of the past carve through her bones, but as she had never seen Harry before, it didn't unhinge anything. She kept Harry in the closet under the stairs as a sort of mental "Ha ha" to me, even though she didn't know that was what she was doing.
It was, by no means, the end of us. Nothing, not even the gods, can tear sisters apart forever. There is a land that rests between death and dreams. This is a place that a very select few ever enter; you must be on destiny's right hand to even be considered. It was the residence of this land that help Neo come to Petunia the day she was captured by the giants. The spirits of time, space, and eternity are the guardians of this place; it is their silver wings that Petunia rides on when she lays down to sleep every night. Here there is no pain to obscure pleasure, no doubt to complicate passion. Here I can find my only respite, because here there is no regret to haunt us beyond our graves, and tear us to peaces before death reclaims its children.
Search beyond the green valleys if you ever come to visit. Look past the trees, and flowers, and groves of naked souls, and I will guaranty you this: In the ripples of a child's first laugh you will always find Neo and Petunia, dancing under their crystal gazebo. There I will forever have my blond haired, blue eyed little girl, lying underneath the stars, which glisten like millions of diamonds in the iris of God. Here you can see for yourself that we will always be angles of yore. If you leave this place with nothing more in your heart then what you came in with then at least know this: There's a force watching over us… it's your job to find it.
