Wish Upon A Falling Star: By Thoughts and Pondering
Wow, here's another long chapter. And I also now spell checked it. My bad. I looked over it just now, and it look liked a minefield. So yes, this is the edited chapter. Nothings changed apart from the numerous spelling mistakes, and the next chapter description. I added to it.
Chapter Twenty One: The Talk
Lily awoke to the quite crackling of the fireplace and Harry's louder snores. The fire hadn't gone out all night. She marvelled at that fact. Maybe someone had come in and attended to it. She went to Harry who was sleeping on the couch and shook him gently.
"Wake up, Harry," she murmured. "It's Christmas morning."
"Dwangitup," Harry mumbled sleepily.
Lily shrugged. Harry could sleep in if he wanted to. She moved to the Christmas tree, by passing a pile of dilapidated marshmallows on the way. Moving around the frosted Christmas tree, she arrived at her presents. There was a large pile, which nearly rivalled Harry's. This surprised her. She didn't think that she would get that many presents this year. There was a large, cube present at the top, wrapped shabbily and hurriedly with paper that was the same colour and texture of a paper bag. Lily smiled. She knew who this was from.
She unwrapped it slowly and found out she was right. Under the paper was a box of ice-cream. Only one person gave her ice-cream every Christmas, and that person was Remus Lupin. As she pried off the lid of the plastic green ice-cream container, she unfortunately realised that the same Remus Lupin had forgotten to apply a freezing charm.
The liquid-ish chocolate mess at the bottom of the container did not look very appetising. Cautiously she dipped a finger into the melted mess and brought it up to her mouth and gingerly licked it. She grimaced. It was warm, and in this state, applying a freezing charm would be useless. Well, it would turn the liquid back into ice-cream again, but without anywhere to keep it, it would melt eventually. Freezing charms only kept for ten hours. Could she eat the whole box in ten hours? Re-applying the charm was a no-no, it was very unhygienic. She searched around for a card and found a little tag saying, 'To Lily. From Remus. Sorry, not much time."
She pushed it back under the tree, making a mental note to tend to it later. Lily ripped the paper off the next present without noticing its colour or texture. It was a book, entitled "The Mysteries of Life: The Cycle." Inside the paper was a slip of parchment. On it in big, loopy letters were the words, "I think you might find this an intriguing and illuminating read."
Lily smiled gratefully at the note, and set the book on the bedside table. You could always trust Dumbledore to come through with something important to the situation at hand. Not that she didn't appreciate the ice-cream; however it would have been a better gift if it had been in its intended frozen state.
Going through a few more presents, she unearthed two bags of Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans from Cho Chang, an eagle feather quill from Professor Sprout and a couple of rock cakes from Hagrid, (She had tea with him in his hut two weeks ago). Lily knew from hearsay that these rock cakes certainly lived up to their name.
The next present, however, was different. This present wasn't wrapped; this present came in the shape of an envelope. A paper envelope. There was something other than paper inside. Flipping the envelope over, she read the name written on the back in black biro pen.
P. Dursley.
4 Privet Drive
Little Whinging,
Surrey
Could it be from Petunia? Did she know any other P. Dursleys? She ripped the top off the envelope, and pulled out the object inside. It was a necklace. It was her necklace. The necklace that she had tied to the pigeon's leg with the note. She was so happy to have it back. Her mother had given it to her...before she died. All thanks to the faulty electricity in the television. Seeing her in the hospital was the worst...and learning there was nothing they could do...that she was going to die unless a miracle saved her...no miracles ever came...she wasn't sure if she was going to smile or cry, but her tear ducts seemed to have made up their mind. She cried. Grasping the necklace she fumbled with the clasp and finally managed to do it, (albeit a little too tightly). But she wasn't sad. She was happy. This necklace meant everything to her. She didn't know how someone could put everything that was special about them into one little pendant...but her mother had succeeded.
"S'yalright?" Harry said sleepily, sitting upright on the couch as he tried (and failed) to place his legs through the arms of his jumper.
"I'm fine. I got it back. She gave it back to me," she said blissfully. Whether she had actually heard Harry's question was a mystery to him. She could just be yelling out how happy she was.
Harry took a second glance at his mother, clutching the emerald green pendant in her hands, with a face so euphoric she looked like she was trying to do a jig on the spot, and shrugged his shoulders. "Mum..."he started but trailed off. Lily had not heard him. "Mum," he said a little bit louder. Lily still showed no sign of having heard him." MUM!" he finally yelled, waving his arms and jumping down on the spot. This caused him to trip over a couple of stray marshmallows littering the floor from the night before where Harry had moodily thrown them into the fire after having given up roasting them. He fell straight into Lily.
After being pushed backwards, she stood back up straight again, and looked at him, still with the same happy, slightly crazy, look in her twinkling emerald green eyes. Having finally noticed that Harry was awake, she looked at him. After picking a marshmallow out of his hair, Lily finally asked, "What is it, Harry?" She did not sound exasperated. She still sounded blissfully happy.
"I need to go to my dorm. My presents will be there. You need to escort me. New school rules, remember?" Lily nodded slightly absent mindedly. Picking up the ice-cream container, she nodded to Harry, and made her way to the door. Just as they were about to exit, the fire in the fireplace flared.
Slightly alarmed, but still not quite there, Lily more skipped, than ran, to the fireplace. She cheerfully dumped the ice-cream's content on the fire, hoping to put it out. But someone walked through the fireplace, and that poor, unfortunate person had ice-cream dumped on his or her head.
"I probably deserve that," said a slightly exasperated person whose head was coated with brown ice-cream.
"Remus?" Lily asked, slightly confused. "Is that you?"
"Yes it's me," he said, smiling despite the fact he just had two litres of ice cream dumped on his head. "I came to give you this." He held out a long thin object that Lily recognised even though it had been covered in ice-cream. It was a wand. Her wand. Her first wand. The one that she had thought had been lost when she had supposedly died.
Taking it gingerly out of Remus's hands, she asked, "Where did you find it?" She pocketed it and smiled. Yet another thing to add to her euphoric mood.
Remus sat in an armchair, cautiously moving to the side furthest away from the barking mad table. "It somehow came into the Ministry's possession. I was there, talking with Norman Lovegood. He does the Registrar of Werewolves for the Ministry...as well as running the Quibbler. I swear he's not quite right in the head...it might be something with his wife dying two years back, but word has it he's always been like that...anyway, I was updating my file, confirming things like, yes I still am alive, and no, I haven't changed my name. Anyway, he made a comment to me on your unsuspected...revival...for lack of a better word. Seems like the Quibbler's been doing a field day on you, running elaborate or just completely crazy theories about you. Anyway, he said that someone wrote in and said the Ministry had come across your wand and held it in the Department of Mysteries...anyway, a couple of appointments later, I found out that this certain rumour was true. I had a meeting with the Minister for Magic of all people and he asked me if I was a friend of yours, and I said I was, and he asked me if I was going to see you over the Christmas period, and I said I would, and so he told me to bring this back to you. All this happened yesterday, so I forgot to freeze the ice-cream. I'll replace it. Sorry," he said it all in a single breath of rushed air.
Lily just stood still for a second and hugged her friend. Actions spoke louder than words. Then she took a step back and asked, "What do you mean the Quibbler's been running a field day on me. I'm not that amazing enough to warrant the whole Wizarding's worlds attention, am I?" She sat down on the couch, shoving a blanket onto the floor.
"Ah, Lily. Ever the modest one, aren't you." He shifted uneasily in the scarlet armchair, and sighed slightly. "Yes of course, you aren't very special; you've just had some very special things to you."
It was only now, that her state of uninterrupted happiness had finally been interrupted that she noticed that Remus looked tired. Very tired. Lily leant back into the couch. Shrinking into it as much as she could, she whispered, "I don't feel very special...what one person finds a blessing, another finds a curse."
Remus closed his eyes for a second, and then asked her, "Have you ever thought about what you're going to do in the future?" he asked, his eyes glazing over and he was probably thinking back to a time where he had asked himself the same question.
Lily crossed her arms across her chest and said shortly. "Live. Survive. Be safe."
"And how are you going to go about that."
"However I can."
"Okay, so maybe looking to the future isn't the best thing to do. Maybe we should look at the past." Remus folded his hands across his lap, and looked like he had wanted to have this chat with Lily for ages. Harry had given up trying to exit the door, which Lily had locked the night before and he retreated to the couch to sit next to his mother, sitting with better posture than his mum was displaying.
"Why?"
"Because you're a responsible adult and should have some plans for your life, especially for Harry's sake!"
Lily faintly remembered that Remus wasn't as agreeable as he usually was when he hadn't had a lot of sleep. She kept this in mind.
"Well, what do you think I should be doing with my life?" she asked, exasperated.
Remus folded his arms defensively across his chest. Bad sign. "It's not my life."
"Exactly."
He stepped forward and moved on the couch, closer to Lily. "Do you really think its safe, to bottle up your feelings like this?"
Annoyed at the accusation, Lily replied a little too hotly. "I'm not bottling anything up!" she said sharply.
"Maybe I should leave, for a little while, until you calm down. Harry can keep you company. He walked over to the door and twisted the wooden knob. The door remained closed. "Lily, can you please unlock the door?"
Drawing her wand, her wand, her real wand, and pointing it to the door, she muttered an incomprehensible spell. There was the sound of a lock unlocking. "Thank-you. I have to meet up with Dumbledore at some stage today, and it might as well be now, while I'm waiting for you to mature." He let himself out the door.
Harry turned to look at his mother, and was not at all surprised to see that she was crying. "Mum," he asked, putting his arm around her shoulders, "are you alright?"
Not at all embarrassed about admitting her emotions to Harry, she pretty much sobbed into his shoulder. Hugging Harry tightly, she said, "God, I miss him so much...he would know what was happening...he was so smarter than I."
"You're smart too, Mum!" Harry exclaimed.
"Me!" Lily said vehemently. "What do I know? I know how to read, and that's about it. I can try to search for answers for books, but how can I? I don't even know what the question is. All I want to do is try and protect you Harry," she said, shaking her slightly, but loosening her grip since Harry was showing difficulty in breathing and she wouldn't be doing a very good job at protecting him if she suffocated him. "All I know is that you'll have to meet him someday, the man who caused all this damage...the man who ruined our lives. The one who ruined so many lives. V-Voldemort. And knowing you'll probably be the one to stop him. Do you remember the prophecy I told you at the start of the year.
"The one that said I pretty much have to kill him, or to him to kill me?" Harry asked curiously, "Is it real?"
Lily nodded, her arms still refusing to let go of Harry. "You don't have to try and fulfil the prophecy, but what I learnt from my rather short time studying them...the prophecy will find you. And since Voldemort is intent on fulfilling the prophecy...well it would be easier to just put it this way. You have the choice to fulfil the prophecy if you want to, and you can try and run away from something that's destined to be. Because no matter how far you run, you can't hide." Still shaking Harry's shoulder's slightly, she continued, "But I just want you to be safe...be safe..." she ruffled Harry's hair, making it even messier, a feat once thought to be impossible."You're so much like your father...at least that what I think...but when you were a baby...James...I mean your father...he said he saw me shining out of your eyes...you look so much like him...you know..."
Harry finished the unfinished sentence for her. "But I've got my mother's eyes."
"Yes. That. Eyes are windows to the soul, after all."
On a whim, Harry asked a question he had wanted to ask for a while, but was scared of what his mother's reaction would be. But for some odd reason, he thought that this was the time. "What was my dad like?" he asked curiously, tugging slightly at his mother's sleeve.
Lily looked at him in surprise, her eyes growing wide. "What do you mean, what was James like? Oh...right...how can I possibly explain..." her voice quavered slightly as she went on, "It's so hard to sum someone up in words...I don't know...let me just tell you this...he loved you more than anything else in the world...more than life it's self. I'm not sure if I'm the right person to be telling you this..."
Harry hugged his mum again and said, "It's better than Snape's jibes in class."
Lily grimaced. "Yes, I've heard of those. He only saw one side of the man I knew. Just put in this way. Take my rather undescriptive answer, and take Snape's taunts. Put them all into a one person, and you can only start to imagine...I'll just say one more thing. He was as brilliant and unique as everyone other human being in the universe, and he will live on in the hearts of everyone who knew him...because even if people do die, memories don't. You'll remember and cherish them forever, for the rest of your life and beyond..."
Harry didn't voice his first thought, which was if someone sustained massive head injury couldn't they forget everything, and just listened to her words.
"That's brilliant, Mum, you should have said that for his funeral. It was only slightly unfortunate that his funeral was held at the same time as yours..."
Lily smiled sadly. "Yes. Rather unfortunate." Ruffling Harry's hair again, she stood up, stretching her cramped limbs, she had been curled into a rather uncomfortable sleeping position last night.
There was a knock at the door and Lily pushed herself out of the beige coloured couch and called out, "Who is it?"
"Lily, have you matured yet?" was the response she was given.
Walking over to the wooden door, she flung it open. "Hello, Remus. Do you know all this talk about maturing is making me feel like a banana?"
Remus laughed, and strolled into the room, and it was only now that Lily realised that Remus's robes weren't as patched and shabby as they usually were. In fact, these robes were brand new. She squinted at Remus, making sure it just wasn't an illusion from the slightly warm winter sun streaming through the icicles on the window.
Remus was squinting at Lily in the same manner. "Have you been crying?" he asked. He looked concerned. Walking forward and putting his arm around her shoulders, he added, "I didn't mean to upset you..."
"No, I'm fine now. Harry and I were just talking about James."
Remus nodded as Lily spoke. When she finished speaking, he wiped some of his brown hair off his brow, and said, "James. Now there's a tricky subject." He took a step away from Lily, accidentally kicking the leg of the nearby roaring coffee table as he did so. The table lived up to its name, and Remus hastily stepped back to Lily again. "I went down here because I had a message from Dumbledore...what was it again..." he rubbed his chin."Oh, yes, I remember now. He wants you, and Professors McGonagall and Snape to look into the girls' bathroom on the second floor where the writing appeared nearby on Halloween night. Lockhart can't come; he's in the Hospital Wing. Dumbledore thinks he fell down three flights of consecutive stairs. Anyway, Dumbledore says there has been some suspicious activity surrounding it, especially since it's been out of order since the early 1950's. He suspects it's nothing, probably just some students brewing illicit potions or something, but he suggests for the three of you to check in on it before the feast tonight, which I am staying for."
Lily nodded absently. "Yes. There was something I was meaning to ask...Remus, are those new robes?"
Remus smiled slightly and nodded. "Yes. I finally found the motivation to look for a job again. I teach kindergarten students now, Muggles, since early November."
"Do you like teaching?" she asked.
"It's alright. The kids do get a little tiresome at times." Remus nodded, and said, "I really must be going. I promised I'd meet Mrs. Pettigrew for Christmas lunch."
Lily turned to look at Remus, and did a double take. "You. You are meeting Mrs. Pettigrew for lunch. I'm telling you, he worked for Voldemort." She didn't remember consciously doing so, but her hands curled into fists.
Remus shook his head. "I do this every year. She keeps telling me to eat more. I'm like an adopted son to her...you know...ever since...Peter...well...died..." Lily opened her mouth to speak, but Remus raised a hand, indicating that he was about to add on to his sentence. "Yes, I know you think that Peter's not dead, but Mrs. Pettigrew doesn't know that. I mean, if he was...I mean...is alive, wouldn't you want to chase after him, seek revenge?" He leant on the arm of the scarlet armchair.
"I think I learnt from Sirius's example. I feel like the only person I should be angry with is Voldemort. Everything ties back to him. I'm not going to try and find Peter Pettigrew...but if I ever see him again...so much the better for me, so much the worse for him."
"But if you find Peter, that is, if he's really alive, wouldn't that prove Sirius's innocence?" Remus looked a little confused and teary himself.
Lily looked at Remus, taking in the grey hairs, the wrinkled forehead and the new, not shabby robes and said, "What about the Muggles that died?" she had calmed down slightly, and her hands relaxed.
Remus seemed too uneasy to answer this question, and took a quick glance at his watch, and said, "Oh, is that the time? I really have to go to see Mrs. Pettigrew now. And you need to meet Severus and Minerva...and Harry can go on his own, there are teachers patrolling, like they do on weekends, since you know...there's no lessons..." Hugging Lily quickly and saying goodbye to Harry he walked back out the door.
Lily smiled, but then frowned and whispered to herself, echoing the words she had spoken before. "What about the Muggles that died?"
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Coming Soon: Chapter Twenty Two: The Big Black Dog, in which Lily finds out some more answers to the question she's not quite sure of, and Lily meets up with Trelawney, who tells her about the Unlucky Eleventh Theory.
Please review. It'll make my day. C'mon guys, we can make eight...aiming at 162 reviews by next week, I know you're there, so you can review! Anyway, thanks to everyone who's read and reviewed in the past, I really appreciate all of them, and especially any constructive criticism you guys might have for me. So thanks for reading! We are aprox. half-way through the story.
Bye,
Thoughts and Pondering.