AN: Thanks for your patients! I had a lot of fun this weekend camping, but I still wanted to make sure I posted something for all of you! We've got some jily in this chapter, I hope you like it!
The five of them woke up the next morning to find that the sun had disappeared.
Lily hadn't slept well, and when she did wake up, she felt as though she hadn't slept at all. Her eyes felt puffy and her whole body was sore. She could blame part of that on the fact that she'd slept on the ground, partly because she had ridden a horse for a long time the last couple of days, and partly because she was tired.
"Did you have trouble sleeping?" James asked, letting Lily know that she looked as rough as she felt.
"I feel like I didn't sleep at all. Like maybe I was running all night instead of sleeping."
She stretched her arms over her head and tried to loosen her muscles. Her butt was exceptionally sore, and she was about to say so when she heard Sirius swear.
"What?" Peter jumped up from his roll and swore as well. Lily looked around and realized why.
The darkness had spread while they slept.
When they had went to bed last night, they had been a good distance from it, at least fifteen meters. But now it was surrounding their campsite.
"It shouldn't be moving this fast." Remus said quietly.
"It has been moving more quickly now." James said quietly, "But look." He pointed at the edge of their campsite, where the green grass met the black.
And then everyone was looking at Lily.
"What? I didn't do it!" She said, hoping that that was true.
"It went around you," Sirius said.
Lily was about to ask what he meant, but then it clicked. The ground around them had been left untouched. The place where she had tossed and turned all night, uneasy and restless, seemed to be the midpoint of the patch of green that they were standing in. Everything around them had been destroyed, even the grass under their horse's feet nearer to the forest, was nothing but black ash and crispy strands.
Lily locked eyes with Remus. "How was my sleep a sufficient sacrifice?" She wasn't going to argue that she hadn't sacrificed something she felt like she'd been hit by a truck at the very least.
Remus shrugged and looked to James and then Sirius and Peter. But none of them had answers either. "Maybe because you were just preventing the spread, not reversing the effects."
James nodded. "That could be it."
Lily wrapped her arms around herself and sighed. She needed to lock herself in a magical library and read about all this stuff for a few weeks, months, years maybe. Was there some kind of school that she could go to that would teach her all the rules?
"Okay." Lily shook her head and tried to ground herself. "What do we do now?"
"I know we were planning on staying here and working out a way to undo this, but with the darkness spreading as quickly as it is, I think we have to ride out to a town just east of here and warn them of what is coming." James said. "If it continues to spread at this pace, the town will be overtaken in a week."
"Hopefully they have a week." Sirius said, looking around and surveying the damage. Then he looked over at Lily and there was a glint in his eyes that she didn't like.
"It has to be my sacrifice." She said, hoping she was right. "If you just kill me, that won't work."
"I was not thinking about killing you!" Sirius raised his brow.
"You were a little bit."
"Well we have to consider all the options."
"Killing Lily is not an option." James said, his voice dark and firm. Sirius nodded his head.
"I think we need to look into the prophecy more." Peter scratched the top of his head, looking very uncomfortable with the tension that James had ensnared them all in. "She is supposed to defeat death, but it makes it sound as though death is a person."
"Can death not be this?" Sirius asked, waving his hand out to encompass all of the dead earth.
"Trying to piece together a prophecy is a waste of time. We need to go and protect the people." James said, still glaring at Sirius. "Do you remember how much time we spent on my prophecy? How much time we wasted? It is never what you think it is. We are not going to guess just because she is here now."
"The court of death maybe?" Lily offered up and James let out a sigh.
"They do have a leader." Remus nodded.
"Severus?" Lily asked, wondering if she would feel guilty if it turned out that she had to kill him in order to save fairyland.
"No, he's a prince. I'm not sure how their whole system works, but he and Malfoy are princes. Tom Riddle is their leader. He doesn't call himself a king, but rather the Dark Lord. He has a lot of nicknames though." Remus crossed his arms over his chest and walked to the edge of the green patch. "Voldemort, Master of Death, He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named, Oath Breaker-"
"Motherfucker," Sirius interrupted.
"Only in the expletive." Peter assured her.
"He could be the representative of death." Sirius nodded. "Though, and I do not say this to offend you, I do not know how you would be capable of killing him."
"Because you're all immortal?" Lily asked, tightening her arms around herself and taking a step closer to James. He stepped closer to her as well and then reached out to rest a hand on her back. She glanced at him briefly and then back at Sirius.
James spoke though, "No. We are not immortal. We have very long lifespans in comparison to humans, but we are not immortal. Tom Riddle, he has gone to extreme measures to try and obtain immortality." His fingertips scratched her back lightly. "He has killed people, taken pieces of their soul for himself. That way, if someone tries to kill him-"
"He's like a cat with nine lives." Remus interrupted, and James looked slightly annoyed, but didn't say anything. "As far as we can tell anyway. And we don't know exactly how many times he's stolen people's souls."
"From what we have gathered, it is a very painful and timely process. Things need to be lined up very specifically for it to work." Peter added. Sirius looked like he was about to add something, but James cleared his throat and they all looked at him.
"I think we should start heading to town now." James said, looking around the camp. "We can talk more once we have some food in front of us."
Lily looked over at the horse and sighed. She was not looking forward to getting back on the horse. Her whole body was sore, and horses jostled her quite a bit. Maybe they weren't supposed to, but Lily had never ridden a horse before yesterday, so she found it all rather jostling.
"The town is not far from here." James assured her, easily reading the look on her face.
"I'm so tired and sore." Lily told him. "I mean, I understand why now, but knowing has only made me feel worse." She looked at the green grass under her feet and wondered if whatever power she had that could protect the land, could be controlled. Maybe she could learn to harness it. Remus said it was basically energy, and as a science student, Lily had a pretty good understanding of what energy was and how it worked.
She tried not to audibly groan as she climbed up onto her horse, and then she did her best not to fall asleep while her horse followed the others. She was surprised that she was even close to falling asleep while on top of a horse, but she was so tired that staying awake was actually difficult.
Luckily, the town wasn't far.
Actually, that wasn't all that lucky.
Lily looked over her shoulder, expecting the darkness to have followed them. She couldn't see it, but she knew that it wasn't all that far away. James was right to be worried about this town, especially if the darkness was spreading more quickly now.
If this was a movie, the problem would have been exacerbated by her presence, since this prophecy seemed pretty clearly to be about her. She couldn't really deny it at this point.
This wasn't a movie, but Lily still thought that maybe the darkness was spreading faster because it felt her out there last night, just like she felt it. It knew she was there, it knew what she was capable of. Maybe it had spread so much because it had been testing her, maybe it wanted to see just how close it could get to her before-
Lily needed to go to sleep. She rubbed the heels of her hands into her eyes and then almost fell off her horse because she'd let go of the reins.
James pulled off the road once they'd made it into the town, which looked a lot like a farmer's market and an old ghost town rolled in one. Unlike ghosts town though, there were a lot of people around, and a lot of them got very excited when they saw James. A few of them got very excited to see Sirius or Peter too. And Lily saw a few cast disapproving looks, or outright glares, in Remus' direction.
She all but fell off her horse, cussing quietly as her feet hit the ground, and then let Peter take the animal away. She didn't know where he and Sirius were taking the animals, but she went over and linked arms with Remus.
"I know standing next to you won't make them look at you and nicer, but you can pretend their glaring at me if you want," She said, purposefully tucking her hair behind her round, mortal ears.
Remus gave her a resigned look and a forced smile. "It doesn't bother me. Not really."
"Bullshit." Lily blinked at James, surprised to hear his swear. She shouldn't have been, she'd heard him say far worse when they were children, but hearing it now, when his speech patterns were now so particular and careful sounding, was jarring. "If they have a problem with you, they have a problem with me." James said loudly enough for the people nearest to them to hear. "We do not have to stand around and wait for Sirius and Peter. They will find their way. I am sure you two are as hungry as I am."
Lily was hungry. Now that he mentioned food, it was all she could think about. "I could eat a horse." She said, clutching her stomach.
"We do not tend to eat horses." James narrowed his eyes slightly. "Is that what you-"
"No," Lily quickly shook her head. She heard Remus snort. "It's just a saying. 'I'm so hungry I could eat a horse.'"
"Oh," James nodded, "Alright then." His ears were a little red and Lily bit her bottom lip.
"You don't have to be embarrassed. I don't mean to use mortal phrases all the time. I mean we can't all be like Remus and just always understand everything that everyone is talking about." Remus snorted again.
"Perks of duel citizenship as a child."
James spotted a small tavern that was serving breakfast and led them inside. A small fae, who came up to Lily's waist, seated them in the back of the room, at the largest table and apologized profusely for not having better accommodations for James.
He looked uncomfortable, but he thanked her and told her that this table was fine. It was Remus who remembered to mention that Sirius and Peter would be in shortly so she could point them in the right direction. Then he excused himself, saying that he needed to find a restroom.
Lily watched the people around the room as they watched him leave. "Is it always like that for him?" She asked. She looked back at James, who had his chin resting on his hand as he looked at her. He blinked a few times and sat up straight.
"What?" Then he looked around the room. "Oh, yes, I suppose. It is better when we are at the castle, but I can not control this environment so easily."
"How did he become a werewolf?"
"It was a curse." James muttered. "His father, his fae father I mean, he upset an old shapeshifter who has never been a decent creature. He was using his shapeshifting abilities to hunt people down and kill them. But anyway, to punish Remus' father, the shapeshifter paid a warlock to put a curse on Remus. A curse that is outside of his control and makes him desire the hunt, makes him lose all the parts of him that his father said were superior to the shapeshifter. We have not found a way to break the curse yet."
"Are there other werewolves in fairyland?"
James nodded. "I do not know how many, but a small group of them live in the north mountains. Remus has gone to visit them a few times. After it first happened, he told us that he was going to live with them so he would not be a bother or a burden to us." James rolled his eyes and ran a hand through his hair. "Which he could never be. Plus, in my stag form, his wolf even likes me, so it is not hard to keep him company when he transforms."
"Could you not keep him company otherwise?"
"No." James shook his head. "Probably not. I mean, I could use my magic to make sure that I was not in any danger, but it would be miserable for him. The wolf alters his mind, he is no longer himself."
"Like the Hulk." She nodded, remembering what Remus had told her before. It was still hard to fathom though. Remus was so even tempered and good natured, it was nearly impossible for her to picture him as anything to the contrary.
"The what?"
"Dammit, right after I told you I wasn't going to do that anymore. It's another mortal reference. The Hulk is a hero story, where a man turns into a giant green monster when he's angry. He loses his mind and goes on rampages."
James narrowed his eyes. "Then why is he considered a hero?"
Lily shrugged. "He protects a girl in his origin story I believe. But he later teams up with other heroes. When he's not a monster, he's a scientist who is super smart and whatnot. Plus, he sort of learns to control the monster version of himself to an extent."
"Alright," James laughed, and their waitress appeared, setting out five bowls of oatmeal with peaches and blueberries, thick brown toast and a yellowish beverage. Lily sniffed hers after the waitress walked away. "It is honey melon juice." He said. "It is safe for you to drink."
"Fairy fruit isn't bad," Lily said as she took a sip, glad that this was not fairy fruit. She didn't need to be a giggly mess in front of James. "I mean, it gave me quite the headache after it wore off, but I didn't completely lose my mind or anything."
"I am very glad that you were able to keep your wits about you." James said. "And I will never be able to apologize enough for letting him take you in the first place."
Lily pressed her lips together and then shook her head. "You think it's your fault, Remus thinks it's his fault, but I heard those men talking. They were going to get to me one way or another. If it hadn't been then, they might have tried when I was going home, or already home, and then you all wouldn't have known about it and he would have had more time to try and get me to agree to something."
James shook his head. "I know. I can not believe that he thought marrying you would give him some kind of power." Lily remembered something new then.
"They said something about a mad witch telling them that." It wasn't in the prophecy, but they had all seemed so sure.
"Mad witch? Not prophet?" James asked, narrowing his brow. "They're probably talking about Trelawney… mad witch though, maybe Bellatrix?" He grew quiet as he thought this over, but Lily had more questions.
"Is he really a prince?"
James shrugged. "I suppose. He calls himself the Half Blood Prince, because his mother was a mortal. Does he belong to a court that deems mixed fae to be 'dirty?' Yes, he does, but he is proud of his title and looks down on people of the same birth."
"He was going to marry me?"
"Bigotry does not often make sense." James shrugged.
"He said that he coveted me when we were children." Lily remembered. "And he can't lie, right?"
James tapped his fingers against the table. "He cannot lie." He agreed. "No fae can lie. But that does not mean that he was not being deceptive."
Lily nodded, because she had thought about that. At the time he had told her that he had fancied her when they were children, he'd been trying to get her to agree to live with him. She had been drugged and slap happy, but he was still trying to tint her lenses rose, instead of telling her that he wanted to marry her for power.
"I think it was both the truth and deception." She said quietly.
"That is also possible."
"Like right now," She looked at him, resting her chin on her hand as he'd been doing earlier. His bright hazel eyes bore into hers and she almost forgot what she had been about to say. She cleared her throat and pressed on, "'That is also possible.' It's the truth, but it's also deceptive."
The corner of his mouth tugged upward. "You are very clever. Covet is a good word for how Snape seemed to think of you when we were younger. I know that I teased you about being Remus' pet when you first got here, but Snape actually thinks like that. Mortals are objects that one can possess. You were something shiny that he wanted to own, and now that you have power to offer him, I'm sure those feelings have resurged."
"He covets power and status." Lily agreed, trying not to feel too weird about having this conversation, where they were talking about her person as though it was something another person could claim or own. "What is it that you covet?"
James grinned and looked across the room, where his three friends were walking in together. He must have heard them come in. "What I want most is to do the best that I can, for the people I love." His expression was the softest she'd seen it, his voice was quiet and firm, and even if she knew he couldn't lie, she would have believed him completely. "What about you?" He asked, looking back at her as the boys made their way to the table.
Lily chewed on the inside of her cheek, thinking about the star maps, the treefort in her parents backyard, the sneaking out for a quick trip to fairyland. She thought about hiding her muddy trainers in the rose bushes and wearing long sleeves in summer to cover the bramble scratches on her arms. She thought about the big, wide feeling she'd get in her chest when she was confronted with something new and awe inspiring in the fae world.
"I want adventure."