A/N: Hope everyone is continuing to stay well and safe during these uncertain times. Thanks to everyone for their support as I update my works here.

Chapter Ten: Nothing Gold Can Stay

"Nature's first green is gold, her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower, but only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf, so Eden sank to grief.
So dawn goes down to day, nothing gold can stay."
~Robert Frost (1929)

Lily gripped Severus's robes as he carried her to the castle. Her hands were shaking so hard that she was shaking him. He wasn't saying anything, and she didn't know what to say either. She didn't know how to feel right now. If she was losing the pregnancy, it was someone else's fault. A surge of anger ran through her as she thought about that and she clasped his robes with a great force.

"Lily-Lily, you're choking me." He said, breathing hard as he tried to carry her. She weighed less than he did, but she wasn't exactly light either.

"Sorry." She mumbled, easing her hold on him. "I don't feel well."

"You need to throw up again?"

"I don't think so. I just feel sick."

"You want me to stop for a second?"

She shook her head. "I need to use the bathroom again." She mumbled.

"Again?" He shook his head. He would swear she had to go every hour anymore.

"Yes."

"We're at the castle, can you wait?"

She saw the castle come into view and nodded. "Yes, I think I'll be okay. I just need to get to the bathroom."

He sighed. He carried her to the castle doors and then let her down and held onto her as they entered the building. Severus cringed at the sight of the blood that had run down her legs.

"I want to go to the head bathroom-it's more private." She looked at his back and he was covered in blood. She choked.

"Okay."

He helped her walk to the bathroom. Blood dripped on the floor and he cleaned it along the way so no one would have to see it. They made it to the bathroom, and she went into a stall. He washed his hands that were covered in blood from carrying her and helping her to the lavatory. Her robes were stained with blood and his were too.

He wanted to blast the sink in his anger over what had happened. He wanted to know who it. He was not going to let whoever caused to get away with it. It wasn't their right. It was terrible to do that to her and his mind began to race at who was all around when it happened and who would have shot that terrible curse at her. It had to be someone who was into the dark arts or at least knew some of them-maybe a future Death Eater, but he could not recall seeing any of them there when it happened.

Lily sat on the toilet, feeling sudden sharp and intense pains in her abdomen. She could feel the blood gush out of her. She had never felt pains as bad as this before. They made her cry out and she made herself shut up so Severus wouldn't become worried.

Severus heard her crying in pain and sobbing as if she was really hurting. He needed to get her help. "Lily?"

"What?" She asked softly, her voice shaky. She tried to breath in through her nose and out of her mouth, hoping it might help her calm down.

"I'm going to get help. I'll be right back-I promise."

Lily didn't want him to leave her, but she trusted him to come back. "Just hurry."

"I will, just take it easy." He left the bathroom and hurried to the hospital wing. Some first- and second-year students had come out of a class and watched him, and he could only imagine how he looked, but he didn't care. He entered the wing as Madam Pomfrey was coming out of her office.

"Madam." He spoke to get her attention his direction.

She turned and looked at him. Her jaw dropped slightly, and her eyes grew wide. "What happened?"

"My girlfriend-she's hurt-was hurt-someone sent her a curse-she needs help."

"What curse?"

"Some dark one-cwellan wambastarda."

She looked confused and it was obvious she didn't know that one. "Where is she?"

"The bathroom-head one-she's in a lot of pain and has been vomiting. She's bleeding heavily."

"Take me to her." She got a bag and followed him to the bathroom.

Lily heard Severus leave and put her face into her shaky hands. This was not happening. How could someone do this to her? Why would they do it? How did they even know she was pregnant to strike her stomach? After another moment in the stall, she forced herself to get up and stumbled over to the shower stall. She could barely grip her wand to turn on the water before nearly collapsing inside with her robes still on. She trembled and sighed with relief as the hot water pelted against her cold body. After a couple minutes, she removed the robes and wrung them out. Her knickers were saturated with blood and she removed them, and tears filled her eyes as she attempted to scrub it out. Lily's lips trembled and she tried to hold back the sobs that threatened to leave. Finally, she just threw her knickers out with the robes and laid against the shower wall in a foetal position as she clutched her throbbing abdomen.

He heard a shower running when he entered and saw Lily's robes by the stall. "Lily?"

Lily sat in the shower stall, trying to scrub the dried blood off her legs. "In the shower." She said, breathing hard from the pain and exhaustion.

Severus went to the shower and opened the stall. Lily was uneasy and quickly tried to cover her breasts with her arms and pulled her legs closer to her stomach to cover her privates though she didn't know why. Severus had already seen her without any clothes on and Pomfrey was the nurse/healer.

He saw Lily sitting in the shower completely naked and got a sudden vision of Lily in the shack, making love to him like they should be doing right now. Instead, she was injured by a dark curse of some type. She was still bleeding a lot too. It just pissed him off even more.

Pomfrey kneeled to her. "Okay, dear, what happened?"

"We were-talking, and a couple boys our year-started to duel him and I tried to stop them and others came and were firing hexes and things. Then someone shot a curse at me and it hit my stomach."

"Cwellan Wambastarda." Severus said.

"Are you currently menstruating?"

She shook her head, "No, ma'am."

"When was the first day of your last cycle?"

"December 8." Lily mumbled.

Her eyes looked at Lily suspiciously. "Are you pregnant?"

Lily really didn't want to admit it, but she had to. "Yes-was anyway."

"You are pregnant? You're about" Madam Pomfrey appeared to be thinking. "Nine weeks pregnant, almost ten?"

Lily nodded.

"Do you know who the father is? Was it consensual?"

Lily looked at Severus, who gave a shrug. Lily gave a quick nod.

"I do. He is. It was sort of consensual."

"Sort of?"

"We were both under a potion at the time. It wasn't either of our faults. He didn't rape me if that's what you think. He didn't even coerce me. It was consensual under the potion."

The nurse nodded but said nothing and put her hand on Lily's abdomen. "I'm going to need you to turn off the water so I can see inside of you without getting soaked, okay?"

Severus shut off the water with his wand so Lily wouldn't have to bother.

"I need you to move your legs apart so I can have a look."

She blushed and pulled her legs closer in. Though she had done this before, it made her uneasy.

"Just relax. It's like the yearly exams. You want him to leave?"

"No." Lily said quickly. She didn't want to be left alone right now at all. "It's fine-I need him-want him here, please don't make him leave."

Lily slowly opened her legs to let the lady look at her. Madam Pomfrey sighed. "I need you to stay calm and stay here. I'll be back in about fifteen minutes or so."

Lily watched her leave. Severus kneeled to her outside of the stall.

"We lost it." She swallowed hard. "It's over." She knew she sounded too calm.

"No," Severus said, taking her hand. "You didn't lose it. It's not your fault." He ran his thumb over her the top of her hand. "Do you need anything?"

Lily sniffed. "I want my mum." She said it very soft, but right now that was who she wanted to talk to more than anyone.

Severus's heart sank a little at that. "I can't give you your mum. She can't come here."

"I know-I just-I want her." Her eyes grew wet again.

He moved closer to her inside of the stall and she laid her head on his lap. He ran his hand over her hair and pulled it back from her face. He held her close. She put her hand on his robed thigh and twisted a loose thread in her finger. Severus wasn't her mother, but at least she wasn't completely alone in this.

Intense, sharp pains hit her again and she grabbed at her stomach. She wanted this to stop. "How long until it's over?"

Severus shook his head. "I don't know. I wish I did" He hated seeing her in so much pain and the blood that poured out of her made him feel terrible. He just wanted it to end too.

Finally, Madam Pomfrey came back with someone else and Lily and Severus could recognize the voices of Dumbledore, McGonagall and Slughorn outside of the lavatory.

"Everyone knows." Lily said in shock. Here she thought she would get a lovely day and night with Severus again and now she was having a miscarriage and the whole school would soon know she was pregnant. Her life as she knew it was over. Everything was happening so fast and her heart became heavy. Nothing good ever lasted. It was then that she realized that she was starting to get used to the idea of having a baby and now it was gone.

"Miss Evans, this is Healer Willow from St. Mungo's. She wants to ask you some questions, okay?"

Lily nodded. The bushy, blonde-haired woman kneeled to Lily. "So, you are almost 10 weeks pregnant? And you aren't married?"

Lily shook her head. "No."

"So, you are having an illegitimate child?"

"Yes."

"How was this child conceived?"

"Love and lust potion." Lily said. "On both of us."

"What sort of love potion?"

"We don't know." Severus answered. "We think maybe No.5. It happened after we drank some butterbeers at a meeting before the holidays."

"After you drank some butterbeers?" Willow raised an eyebrow. "Can you explain the details of that day?"

"What does that have to do with the curse?" Lily asked.

"We are trying to find out."

Lily told her what they knew about the incident. She didn't go into any detail of their night together but said they had slept together. She also mentioned who they think did it to them.

"Does anyone have a reason to be really mad at you? Any of your friends, young man?"

"Well, they don't like Lily because of her blood status, but I don't think it was them. I don't even think they were around. One was in detention-Mulciber and he would be the most likely candidate. Avery and Rosier had dates and wanted their alone time so I am sure they weren't even around. Travers is unlikely too. He's not exactly the most intelligent person-I don't even know how he made it through school at all. He was probably women watching in the shops. I only saw him once today."

"You're a muggleborn?" The healer asked her.

"Yes, ma'am."

"Okay. Well, let's have a look at you."

Lily let the woman look at her uncomfortably. "I'm afraid you did lose your pregnancy, or I should say you are in the middle of miscarrying it. The curse did the job it was meant to do I'm afraid and I am very, very sorry you had this happen to you, dear." She patted Lily's knees.

"What do you mean?" Lily asked in shock.

"Cwellan means to kill. Wamb is an old way of saying interior or womb and bastarda is bastard so the curse is an ancient dark one to kill illegitimate children. It's almost never used and has been deemed illegal because of the damage it can cause and our world is small enough that we don't need people purposely killing foetuses just because they were conceived out of wedlock."

"So, someone intentionally killed my baby, our baby to be?" Lily asked, trying to process it all in her mind.

"I'm afraid that's exactly it."

Severus let go of Lily's hair and clenched his fists. Someone would pay for doing this to her. He would see to it when he found out. "What sort of damage can it cause?"

"Well, it can cause the person, not always, but sometimes damages the reproductive organs rendering the woman infertile. That's why it's been banned."

Lily swallowed hard and felt like someone had punched her in the stomach and knocked the wind out of her. "Are you saying I will never have a baby-because of this?"

The woman touched Lily's arm as a comfort. "Your organs don't appear to have sustained much damage. Just one of your fallopian tubes a little bit. It is fixable though and you are still so young. You don't appear to be infertile so I would just take it easy. The long-term effects vary. People do go on and have healthy wizard and witch babies even after having it done on them, so don't worry."

"How soon can I start trying again?"

"Oh, I'd give it a couple months-at least until you have a regular cycle again, but don't rush anything. Give yourself time to process and grieve if you need to. This was forced upon you despite the tough situation you are in and that can be very difficult."

"I'm-I'm not having another, I just wondered." Lily sat up and gripped her stomach in pain. She hissed and cried out slightly because it hurt so badly. Severus put his hand on her bare back. The healer went through her bag and blood gushed out of her to her disgust. She couldn't take much more of this.

"Here, sweetie. Drink this." She handed Lily a flask of yellowish green liquid. "It will help get rid of the pain. Then I want you to drink this up." She held a flask of a thick brown liquid that looked like melted chocolate. "It will help you expel the foetus faster-within a couple hours this will all be over, but it will make you sick."

Lily shook her head. "I don't want to throw up anymore."

"Oh, it won't make you vomit. It will liquefy your bowels."

Lily knew she looked disgusted.

"I know it's not pleasant, but it will only last about an hour. Just stay near a toilet. It won't be too bad-we just need to clean you out so you can miscarry completely and quickly."

Lily drank both potions uneasily. She just wanted all this to be over. No, she wanted this to never have happened in the first place.

"I am going to leave you here for a few minutes. Is the young lad going to stick around?"

Severus nodded. "Of course."

"I am going to get some things. To start with, I want to get some fluids down you because you are already dehydrated from vomiting. I also need to get some potion to increase your blood, so you won't lose too much of it and become anaemic, okay?"

Lily just nodded once. What else could she do? She was just numb and wasn't sure how she felt now. She didn't know whether to scream or cry or get angry or upset or laugh. She thought about laughing-she was losing her mind. Nothing was funny about this at all, but that was why she wanted to laugh. She wanted to feel happy and knew she probably would not be happy again for a while. She should be happy right now instead.

"This is the worst Valentine's Day ever. We should be alone making love to each other right now-not here in the bathroom shower stall with me pouring blood and losing the baby."

Severus sighed. "I know."

"I wanted to have sleep with you-I wanted to do that again. Now" She couldn't go on without bringing herself to tears.

"I know, but we will have to do that another day instead. We have all the time in the world. I'm not going anywhere. When this is all over, we can have our evening and night again. We will go to the shack and make love until we are sick of it."

Lily smiled at him. That was a pleasant thought, but it wouldn't be as easily possible as it was today and it wasn't Valentine's Day, the biggest love day of the year, that they would be doing it on next time. At least he was trying to get her mind on something else lovely though. It worked.

Severus and Lily heard voices outside of the door to the bathroom. Severus and Lily only heard bits of the conversation, but they could hear "forced her to abort her child" "illegal-prison if of age" "Expulsion from school."

Lily gasped and hoped that was for who did this to them and not them for sleeping together in the castle and producing a child.

Severus heard her and rubbed her arm. "It's not us-it's the person who did this to you, Lily. They deserve what they have coming to him. You heard the Healer-that's a banned dark spell. For a good reason too. It's not their right-wasn't their right at all."

"It wasn't. It was mine-ours even, but not theirs. They stole the chance from us. They killed our coming child." It was suddenly harder to see outside the stall as her eyes blurred with tears. "It's not fair." She said in a slight sob.

McGonagall entered the bathroom. Severus was uneasy about that.

"Lily? I need to ask you a few questions as well."

Lily looked up at her and nodded. The shower stall was mostly closed now and Severus had his arms over her breasts to cover them anyway so at least she was not exposing herself to her.

"You said you were with him, Mr. Snape, when you were attacked by Mr. Potter and Mr. Black?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Potter and Mr. Black tell me that you two were alone when they arrived. Were you two, mating-at the time?"

"Not completely-we were kissing though."

"They claim the three of them-Potter, Black and Mr. Snape were in a duel and you were trying to stop them. They said someone yelled out a strange, unknown curse and claim they don't know who, but I think they know, but are afraid to tell me."

"I don't know who, I just heard it and then I was hit in the stomach."

McGonagall seemed to ponder this. "Thank you."

When she left, Lily grabbed her stomach and got up. "I'll be back." She mumbled and hurried to the toilet, shutting the stall.

Severus stood up and tried to scrub some of the blood off his robes. As he began to rinse out the shower, Lily weakly said his name.

"Can you get me a bowl or trash can?" He cursed and hurried to her. He handed her a small trash can as she dry-heaved. She was shaking so hard she could barely hold the can. He pulled her hair out of her face and cringed a little as she miserably dry-heaved until she vomited. She cursed as she wiped her mouth. It was not going to help her if she couldn't keep the potions down. If she wasn't so miserable she would be horrified that he was seeing her in this state.

Three hours later

Lily cried out, tears streaming down her face from the pain along with beads of sweat. It was so intense it had made her throw up more than once. Severus had his arm around her under her breasts. He held a drink in the other hand. She was shivering yet sweat dotted her forehead. He tipped the drink to her and she moaned and pushed it away.

"You need to drink it." He said coolly. "You need to stay hydrated."

"I can't-it makes me feel sick." She wanted to stop vomiting and feeling all the horrible pain already.

He sighed, his robes soaked from the shower that had been off and on. He hadn't left her side and his legs were stiff despite moving them around a little.

"Your bleeding has stopped for the past 15 minutes so let's have a look again."

Lily let her look. She was so exhausted she didn't care about anything and just wanted to go to sleep for a long time. It was all she could do to keep her eyes open.

"Okay." The lady took a breath through her nose and gave Lily a sad look. "It's over."

All she could do was nod. Severus could feel her shaking under his arms. She laid back down against Severus's chest.

"It's okay. It'll be okay." The healer said in an attempt to reassure her. "We'll figure out who sent the curse. You really don't have damage so if you want to eventually have a child, you shouldn't have too much trouble, okay?"

A lump caught in her throat. Over, it was over. The woman touched her arm and gave it a soft squeeze.

"It's okay. You'll get through it."

"It's gone." She said in a sob. "I'm not pregnant anymore. It's over."

"No." The lady said and rubbed her arm a little. "I am truly very sorry."

Lily's lips quivered and her throat clenched as her eyes blurred. She tried her best to not be upset, but she was faltering.

"Let's get you cleaned up and to the hospital wing so you can recover physically from this."

The lady left them alone. Severus cleaned his robes and himself quickly. Lily washed up in a hurry and more carelessly. Severus helped her to her feet, and she leaned against the outside of the stall trying to summon up the energy to put on her robes. Instead she collapsed to her knees too weak to stand up.

"I don't have any underpants." She mumbled. "Covered in blood."

"Don't worry about it."

Severus and the Healer practically carried her to the wing. She was changed into clean hospital robes and laid on a clean bed. The healer made her drink something that tasted tangy and sweet.

"It's a little something that will help your blood sugar and coat your stomach. I need you to drink as much as you can because you are quite lethargic."

Severus sat next to Lily on the bed and put his arm over her. He knew she was upset and watched as a tear rolled down her cheek. He wished he could think of something to say to help her, but everything seemed futile.

"It's my fault."

"Lily-"

"I didn't want it. I didn't want the baby-I didn't want a baby right now-no-t" She choked, not able to go on.

"No, that's not-if that's the case, then it's my fault too. I don't-didn't want it either. I thought it was ruining everything. I'm sorry for thinking about it. I didn't actually want it to die-I just wanted it to go away."

Lily clasped her hands over his and gripped them tight. "So, did I-I just didn't-us-everything-my mum-your parents-I don't know, but I was getting used to it. I take it all back."

Severus felt her hands squeezing his with a forceful grip.

"I don't want it to be over. I want to be pregnant again."

Severus's heart dropped to his stomach at her desperation. She couldn't have it back and he realized this was going to be a lot harder on her then he thought. She was going to have to grieve for this. It didn't matter how he felt, that was not anyone's right. It was not right at all for anyone to take that potential away from them. It was his problem and Lily's, not anyone else's and it was not their decision to make. It was their decision, his and Lily's; it was their child to come.

It suddenly hit him that all his worry and concern and anger were needless now. Lily was not pregnant anymore and for some reason that reality hit him harder than he thought it would. Maybe because he'd had a month to accept it and knew he would have to help her. Regardless of why, it was over, and someone had caused it to end in purpose. There wasn't anything wrong with the foetus that caused Lily to miscarry. It wasn't them aborting it on their own. He was ticked off about that and couldn't let it go.

"I want to have another baby." She said suddenly, fraught in her own grief.

"What?" He surely misheard her.

"I want another one. I want to be pregnant again. That's all I want right now. I won't complain about being sick or moody or making me swell or cramp or anything-I just-I want it back. I want a baby." She tried to not burst into tears, her throat clenching in her own grief.

He held her closer to him. "Lily, you know that's a terrible idea."

"I know, I just-I don't want another, I really just-I want it back." She caught a sob as a sudden horrible thought entered her mind. "What if they tried to do it again to me? If I ever got pregnant again. What if they tried again?"

"If you ever get pregnant again, we are leaving. We will leave town. Get as far away as you want from everyone."

Lily looked at him, brushing off her tears with her thumbs. She sniffed. "Where would we go?"

"Anywhere you want. Just away from Great Britain."

A little tiny smile crept up the corner of her mouth. "Are you saying you aren't going to be a Death Eater after all?"

Severus was not sure what he wanted still, but he knew what he wanted more. "Yes, Lily. I care about you more."

Lily, still distraught in her grief, managed to smile for a moment at his words. For a moment in her day, there was a small sense of peace in her chaotic world. However, that quickly fell away as she choked down more of the beverage. She glanced down at the mug and twisted it back and forth a couple times. Her eyes blurred with tears and she bit her quivering lower lip. She heard someone sob and it took her a moment to realize it was her. Severus pulled her to him, and she buried her face into his chest as sobs racked her body. Everything that had happened the last several weeks washed over her in that moment. He said nothing, unsure what to say, as she cried harder than she had cried in a long time. After several minutes, her exhausted body fell into his embrace. As his hands caressed her hair and back, she closed her heavy eyes.