A/N: This takes place at the same time of the last chapter. NEW!
It was painful for her the first morning she woke up and realized her daughter was gone forever. It was painful for her when she ate breakfast with James and stared longingly at the empty seat beside her. It was painful for her when she paced the living room and tripped over Gabriella's stuffed bear. That day everything Gabriella was, everything that existed while she was alive, existed after her death. All that was her daughter was still alive and to Lily that was the most painful thing of all. To exist. To realize that life was moving on and she had no power to stop it. realize that she had no power to turn back time and save her daughter's life.
She dreamt of her a lot the first few months after her death. It was the time before her numbness sunk in. It was the time before she was completely closed of to this world. She had dreams of a young child's sparkling emerald eyes. Dreams of a child's laughter or tears and then suddenly her dreams turn into the truth of her daughter's demise. It's always the same. Always begins as a serene memory that would have made her smile if it weren't so traumatic. It always ends with a long fall to the ground and a frightened scream as she sees her daughter's dead face in her mind. It always ends with a somber funeral and a headstone with the name Gabriella Elise spelled out in exquisite cursive writing.
She finishes washing the dishes and takes her washcloth to clean up the rest of the kitchen. It's impeccably clean. A spotless kitchen any woman would be proud to call their own. But she scrubs every counter, dusts off every chair and reorganizes each cabinet just to keep her mind busy. Just to prolong her trip to the liquor cabinet because she's tired of being lost in her weakness. She's tired of this surrender she gave to life three years ago.
She hears him leaving in her mind as she cleans. She hears him screaming at her and listens to the echo of the door as he slams it with extreme force. Tears fall down her face as she scrubs on one chair diligently. Scrubs it so hard as tears dirty its surface that one of its legs break and she falls to the floor. She screams right then as she sees his hazel eyes in her mind. Screams shrilly up at the ceiling and hurls the broken chair at the wall through her anger. Her head falls into her hands and the chair cracks against the wall. She sits there for a few moments crying to herself, cursing life for tormenting her each and every day. She walks over to the broken chair when her hysterics pass. Reparo she says quietly. The chair fixes itself and she returns to her cleaning pretending that nothing ever happened.
She begins putting the dishes away after she is done cleaning. She ignores the wand sitting on the table and takes a good hour putting every dish back into its proper spot. She puts them back by size, by color, by which store she bought them in changing the pattern each time she realizes she will be done too soon. She puts away plates, bowls, forks, and knives all carefully placed into a specially perceived spot it took her minutes to think of because she can't stop working. She can't stop moving and keeping busy because it's when she allows herself to think that her despair reaches its height. She doesn't feel like crying again.
When she's done she walks out of the kitchen and goes up the stairs. She passes her and James's bedroom and comes to a door at the end of the hallways. She pauses at the door as her breath gets caught in her throat and she leans her hand on the painted wood to calm her body down. She stands like that for a few moments trying to get the courage to turn the handle. Trying to get the courage to lift her hand and place it securely around the knob because she needs to look at it, needs to remind herself of the daughter who plagues her every thought.
It is a well known fact that parents create shrines of children lost to them. Parents leave their children's legacy in a timeless state that never changes from the time that their kids themselves walked inside that room, moved their feet on the plush carpet of their floors, and slept in the very same bed. It is a monument to them, a last hope for the parents that their children will come walking through that door this very day and sleep in the bed that has been made for too long. It is a last hope that if they didn't hold on to there would be nothing left, nothing to keep them going.
Gabriella's room hasn't changed since that day she played in it all afternoon with one of her magical friends. Lily's old muggle Barbie dolls are still on the floor and the various costumes for dress up are still hanging messily from her dresser. Her vanity is still full of the makeup she borrowed that day from Lily and her toy chest is wide open, half the games spilled out onto the floor. The window curtains are messily drawn and dust is visible through the sun rays that shine on the corners of the rooms and surfaces of the furniture.
It's a rather beautiful room for such a young girl. It was James who decided on it. My daughter needs a room fit for a princess, he had said once Gabriella was too old for her nursery. It's such a beautiful room. The walls are painted a light pink and outlined in a golden paint. The furniture is made of mahogany and glazed to shine in the sunlight. The wood itself has intricate designs of flowers and fairies. Beautiful designs Gabriella used to love to stare at when she was alive. The bed is a huge canopy bed with golden silk hangings and pink and gold bed covers. It is lined with pillows made of silk and sitting on the bed are three stuffed bears she could never sleep without. On one of her dressers are dozens of dolls expertly made. They're glass dolls costing a fortune each and looking so lifelike, looking at you as if they can actually see you.
As Lily opens the door this room is displayed before her in all its glory, in all its harshness. She sits under the window to hide from the sun rays and just stares around at this shrine she had kept so that she would never forget. It has always been a fear she could never escape from. What if she moves on and can no longer remember? What if memories of her daughter are lost to a new life? A new child?
She needs to remember. Every last detail must be known because if Lily forgets her daughter will die yet again. If Lily forgets it would be as if Gabriella never existed and that is something she would never allow to happen. She can survive with the pain of knowing her daughter is gone. It's an excruciating pain worse than a cruciatus curse but she has lived with it for so long.
Three years. Thirty-six months. One hundred fifty-six weeks. One thousand ninety-five days.
She has lived with pain for so long that it has become a part of her. It's as common as the breath in her lungs and the blood in her veins. It's inside every heartbeat, every blink of her eyes. She has lived in agony for so many days she can no longer function or live without somehow being immersed in melancholy.
She never told anyone that some days she begins to move on. She wakes up with a light feeling in her stomach. She smiles when she looks at James still deep in his sleep. She hums sweet songs to herself when she's in the shower. But then she looks in the mirror. Sees a sparkle beginning to lighten up her usually dead eyes. Sees a glow in her face she thought she lost along with her youth and begins to cry because how can she do this? How can she feel so light-hearted and happy as her only daughter lies dead? And she'll pull herself back to her depression, stay inside the shell she created for herself because she feels so frightened, so cruel at the thought of moving on and passed. Her pain keeps her connected to a person she loves more than anything else in this world and she can't, can not loose that in order to regain the semblance of the life she had lost a long time ago.
She sits in Gabriella's room for hours just remembering every memory, recalling every step she ever took. She recalls her and James. Recalls their time at Hogwarts, their time when they could love each other and live in a world of makeshift happiness. And she cries at the thought of what her family once was. Cries at how far she has fallen to the ground and screams out in pain because the impact of her fall from grace brutalized her body and left so many eternal scars.
She sometimes wishes to love him like she used to. It never gets any easier to look at someone who used to be your reason to live and realize that they aren't the hero you thought they were. It's hard to look at someone and realize that this isn't something he can rescue you from. And it hurt her because even while she hated him she ached for him to rescue her at the same time. She ached for him to cleanse her of her pain and remind her of who she once was. But he didn't. James didn't save her.
She walks out of the room at that thought and goes down stairs to her liquor cabinet because her reminiscing has left her the need to be beautifully oblivious. On her walk down she wonders about him. She wonders about his happiness and thinks back to the fight earlier that day. It would be so easy, she thinks. It would be so easy to just pack my bags and leave. Just to leave and never look back.
She feels bound here somehow. She feels as if she's trapped in a prison without neither a need nor a way to escape. But leaving, just finally breaking free is all that occupies her mind as she reaches her liquor cabinet and pulls out her Ogden's Fire Whiskey and one of the crystal glasses that were a wedding present to her and James.
She walks up the stairs again holding the glass and alcohol and wonders where James is. She vaguely wonders if he's with Sirius or Remus or his latest whore as she nears their bedroom. A single tear leaks out of her eye as she remembers the day, one and a half years ago, when her suspicions that he was unfaithful were finally made true. She remembers the beautiful cursive and the adoring words the whore spoke to her husband. She remembers her starting the letter with My Darling James and remembers it ending with a grand declaration of love that made Lily physically ill to read. Maybe that was when she lost all faith in him. She shakes her head. No, it was already gone.
She opens her bedroom door and pushes thoughts about other women out of her mind. She walks slowly to her bed and sits lightly down on the covers as she rests her back against the pillow. She pours some fire whiskey into the glass and takes a big shot feeling a burning sensation in her throat. She takes another one as she dumbly wonders if his whores are prettier than she is. If his whores are who he wishes she could be.
She takes a few more shots hearing her daughter's voice in her mind. She reaches out a few times. Reaches out to touch the long, black hair of Gabriella before realizing it was a figment of her imagination. She reaches out and touches nothing, touches air.
She takes more shots. Her head begins to get dizzy and her eye sight blurs as the whiskey works its own wonderful brand of magic. She fills the glass full once more after a good hour of drinking and places the near empty bottle on the table beside her. She's smiling peacefully as she forgets the present, forgets the past, and becomes beautifully oblivious. She closes her eyes, more tears leak out that she's too drunk to notice and she downs the last shot of whiskey. Her world turns a glamorous black as the crystal glass falls quickly to the floor. Beautifully oblivious.
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