Did You Find What You Were Looking For

Chapter 15: The War

By: Taiyourshoes


James knew, as soon as winter holiday began, something would happen. Every year he'd been alive something bad happened at Christmastime.

First year, Grandpa Potter's dog was hit by a rampaging mailbox; second, he got lost in the Forbidden Forest and the Marauders teased him for it up until third year, when Lily Evans declared he was a wanker and should die (they found this funnier, and took this as their main point of conversation for months). Last year, his best friend nearly became a murderer while betraying Remus all at once. This had been the hardest Christmas yet.

This is why, it stood to reason, seventh year would be no better. And he was right. The first day of break he heard about an "accident" that happened on his peers' way back home for break. He ran down to breakfast the day after break started and saw Sirius Black and Remus Lupin (Peter was with his mother, who had suddenly become ill) pouring over the Prophet.

Seven muggles and two wizards were killed at King's Cross, despite all possible security measures by Dumbledore. The Dark Lord's subjects managed to claim the lives of hundreds by killing nine. One of the lives that was claimed was Lily's—two out of the seven muggles killed were her parents.

News spread fast at Hogwarts; somehow, mere hours after the unforgivable curses were used, the entire school knew about the muggles' death and the two ministry officials (Gideon and Fabian Prewett) who stepped in the way. All the students knew this meant the holiday season was ruined.

Lily Evans didn't return to school during break, while many other suffering students did. James heard a first year boy, muggleborn, crying in the bathroom stall Christmas morning.

"I beg you to remember," Dumbledore began softly, speaking to the students assembled in the Great Hall for Christmas dinner. "The only way we can brace ourselves for the upcoming hardships is to embrace each other."

Before James went to bed Christmas night, Sirius gave him a brotherly hug. "Forgot to wrap this one, mate."

James said nothing. His predictions left him no words. Somewhere, he knew Lily Evans was crying.


Lily's legs were working in a weird way, like jello gone bad. She took a taxi from King's Cross to her home that she shared with her sister. The stars looked like tears staining the sky.

She heard her sister talking quickly to herself in the kitchen. Lily had an image of her sister, her very best friend, talking to their parents about how Lily wasn't as much fun as Winnie the Pooh while Lily cried into her mothers lap. The smell of her mother's dress that day was still in her nose.

Lily saw her sister's pacing silhouette and heard the echoing of her footsteps. Her heart began to beat faster. Her mind was stained red. A stranger stood before her.

Petunia's head shot up at her sister. She was shaking.

"D-damn it, Lily," she sobbed. "Damn it."

Lily automatically drew toward her sister, arms reaching out. Her sister lashed out.

"NO! D-don't touch me! Don't come near me, you freak!" Petunia began to sob. Any tears she had held in seemed to break through the dam in her eyes. Rivers poured from her heart onto the ground before Lily could even cross the room.

"WHY! You are so stupid, Lily! So, so stupid!"

Lily felt the wind taken out of her. She froze.

"You decided to go to that school, you decided to learn 'magic.' What is so great about magic if all it does is make our PARENTS 'magically' disappear?

"They're gone, Lily. They're DEAD. Don't you understand what that means? What, are you stupid? Can't you talk? Can't you SAY anything? Are you that stupid? Well! Answer me, you freak! Answer me!"

Lily's image of her sister cooking last summer slipped through her hands like sand. Petunia dropped to her knees, her tears echoing into the emptiness of the earth. Her words came out slowly, slipping into Lily's fingertips and attacking her nerves. "I… I wish you had never been born."

Lily felt her dam beginning to break. She kneeled beside her sister, not daring to touch her like they used to.

"Me too," she said softly, as if uttering a long-kept secret.

Together they wept into the coldness of their old home, mourning the loss of the family they once had and would never have again.


Abigail O'Brien cried into Connor's sleeve.

"But… I thought we were in love?" she begged of him. "You promised me—"

Connor looked away, putting a hand over her eyes to shield his own from her tears. "I met someone else. They can offer me more than you could. They can offer me power."

"A girl?"

"Perhaps. Perhaps not."

She let go of his sleeve and put her hand over the one he had on her face. "Don't say that," she cried. "You're lying to me. I don't know why, but you are trying to push me away. Don't do that, let me stand by you."

"I don't want you to stand by me," he said icily. If she could have seen his eyes she might have seen a sparkle of despair betray his words. "You're so pathetic. I can't stand you." He pushed her away, standing and walking to the edge of the balcony. "Look at you; you just hold me back! I need more than you can offer."

Her whimper broke his heart. But he was saving her, wasn't he?

Saving her from his parents, from the Dark Lord's threat against the lives of his loved ones should Connor decide to remain loyal to Dumbledore, but mostly from himself. His thirst for more was consuming him.

"You… you need more than our love?" she asked him through teary eyes. She crawled to his feet and hugged him around the middle. "Connor…"

One tear that contained a million dripped onto the ground miles beneath them. They floated on clouds, but with his tear they crashed. He fell the hardest.

"Pathetic. You're pathetic."


James stared at the flames in the Common Room, willing the world to dissolve into the wisps of smoke that emanated from the magic of fire. He felt Lily's presence all around him.

Hailey sat a few feet from him, not staring at the flames.

"You love her, don't you?" she asked, knowing the answer. "Even when we were children, I never belonged in your heart."

She nodded in his silence. Slowly she crawled towards him and tilted his face to hers. Her eyes absorbed his face, the look his eyes were giving her.

Pity. That's what the love of her life felt for her.

The kiss she gave him pleaded, begged, urged him to love her back, but she felt the uselessness of it. She could never complete him, and he could never give himself to her without thinking of someone else.

"I… I am so, so sorry, Hailey."

She hated him for being sorry. She loved him for everything else.

But her love was lost in the wisps of the fire, burning until James poured water on it, hushing it and wished it away. She sat broken in the dark, wishing someone would fix her.


James found Lily outside of the Portrait hole, staring out at the moonlight at the end of the corridor. He sat beside her, resting his hand on hers. She turned her hand around in his so that their fingers were entwined.

"You know tragedy, don't you, Potter?"

"Better than I'd like to."

"How do you mean?"

"Well," he started thoughtfully. "My life ended last year, if that's a tragedy."

She paused. "I think I knew that. Something happened with you boys and Snape that Dumbledore decided to keep hush hush. Your head deflated. You weren't the same James anymore."

"Sirius did something that temporarily shattered our friendship. All of what we, the Marauders and I, had become rested between the bonds we'd created with each other, and when that bond was broken—as little a time as it was broken—we were all forced to become something knew."

"Do you regret changing?"

"Do I regret my boyhood ending? Sometimes. And sometimes, a lot of the time, I figure it made me a better person to grow up. I couldn't hide behind my friends anymore. The human James in me had to come out."

In her mind, Lily quite clearly saw a little boy standing in a mirror. "You'll find exactly what you're looking for."

James in the mirror handed her a piece of herself. James in the real world just sat beside her, comforting her with the silence she needed. This, she realized, was the beginning of two things: a war, and a new life.

James Potter would be there for both.


"When I Go Down" RELIENT K

I'll tell you flat out
it hurts so much to think of this
so from my thoughts I will exclude
this very thing that
I hate more than everything is
the way I'm powerless
to dictate my own moods

I've thrown away
so many things that could've been much more
and I just pray
my problems go away if they're ignored
but that's not the way it works
no that's not the way it works

when I go down
I go down hard
and I take everything I've learned
and teach myself some disregard
when I go down
it hurts to hit the bottom
and of the things that got me there
I think, if only I had fought them

If and when I can
clear myself of this clouded mind
I'll watch myself settle down
into a place where
peace can search me out and find
that I'm so ready to be found

I've thrown away
the hope I had in friendships
I've thrown away
so many things that could have been much more
I've thrown away
the secret to find an end to this
and I just pray
my problems go away if they're ignored
but that's not the way it works
no that's not the way it works

Any control I thought I had just slips right through my hands
while my ever-present conscience shakes its head and reprimands me
reprimands me
then and there
I confess
I'll blame all this on my selfishness
yet you love me
and that consumes me
and I'll stand up again
and do so willingly

You give me hope, and hope it gives me life
you touch my heavy heart, and when you do you make it light
as I exhale I hear your voice
and I answer you, though I heardly make a noise
and from my lips the words I choose to say
seem pathetic, but it's fallen man's praise
because I love you
oh God, I love you
and life is now worth living
if only because of you
and when they say I'm dead and gone
it won't be further from the truth

When I go down
I life my eyes up to you
I won't look very far
cause you'll be there
with open arms
to lift me up again
to life me up again