Doubt
Severus had been enjoying the fact that after he had taken his hiatus from teaching at Hogwarts, he was allowed all the time in the world with his daughter. She had a rough start to the month of October all due to how that had been when the full moon had rolled around, so just like every other one he spent it staying close to her side and doing all he could to ease her pain. Though he found great relief in the fact that since she had not been locked up before the full moon that it seemed her body was a little stronger. Though he still found himself wishing for her to get better and not have to suffer so much as her body did not go through the transformation.
Though within the following week after the full moon she was regaining her strength and able to walk around the house without him or Twinkle doing what they could to support her. She had taken to writing to Draco and even sending letters to Tonks and asking her friend to slip letters to Charlie Weasley so that he could send them to Harry. It had been thanks to that system that she and Harry were able to talk somewhat regularly, though Severus had sent a letter when a letter from Harry had arrived during the week of the full moon. He had not said what was wrong, just explained that Lily's letter would be delayed due to her falling ill and for the boy not to worry.
Something that only seemed to sink in with Harry once Lily was well enough to send her own letter claiming that being locked up in their quarters at Hogwarts caused her immune system to become extremely weak but that she would be alright. Though once she had sent the letter off to Hogwarts along with a letter for Tonks, Lily had walked back inside to the couch and sat down only for Xander to hop up onto her lap and curl into a ball as she absently pet him. "I wish I did not have to lie to him or anyone else about why I fall ill so often…" she spoke softly as Xander let out a small meow.
"But you know that right now it is for the best." The gentle female voice said as Lily looked toward the fireplace to see the robed figure of her guardian angel. "Not many in the world are accepting of those with the werewolf affliction." She said in a sympathetic tone.
Lily glanced around making sure that her father and Twinkle had not returned yet since they had gone out for a short while but had opted to leave her home since she was still not fully recovered. Once she was sure that no one else was there she shifted, lifting Xander from her lap and resting him on the cushion only to stand and walk over by the fireplace to stand not too far from the hooded figure. "I know, but I feel that Harry would be accepting of me." She said as she reached up resting her hand on the crescent moon pendant her father had given to her.
"Yes, but others may not. And it is those people who would stand in the way of you being allowed to see him again." The figure said as Lily was focused on the flames dancing in the hearth.
"I am just worried that should he find out on his own he will turn his back on me. When all I want is to have him back in my life." Lily whispered as she reached up resting her right hand on the mantle. "He used to at times refer to me as a beautiful shining light in his life, but he was mistaken on that." She said as she closed her eyes. "Nothing seems to ever go right, and how I have already been deemed as a dangerous monster…"
"Lily…" the figure whispered as she reached out to rest her hand on the girl's shoulder only for her hand to phase through her. "If only you knew just how special you are." The woman said as she let her hand fall back to her side as Lily looked toward her about to ask what she had meant only for the figure to vanish.
"Wait!" she called reaching out to the figure as they faded from sight but all her out stretched fingers caught was air.
"Never forget, that even if no one else is your ally, you have your father. For you are his greatest treasure, his precious child." The voice of the woman said even though she could no longer be seen as Lily let her hand move back as she reached up resting her hand on the necklace once again.
About an hour later Severus and Twinkle got back to find Lily sleeping on the couch with Xander lying beside her purring away in his sleep. Deciding to leave her there for the moment, Severus led Twinkle to the kitchen where the two proceeded to put a few of the things they had gotten away before Severus went down to his lab in the basement to put away the ingredients he had gotten for the next few months to make batches of the wolfsbane potion for Lily. 'How much longer will we need to go through this…' he thought to himself before he sat down the last of the ingredients in their respected places and went to return to the kitchen to let Twinkle know to start on lunch for them.
Once he had a brief conversation with Twinkle, asking her to make them some sandwiches and tea for lunch, he went back to the living room and knelt beside the couch watching Lily sleep for a brief moment before he went to reach out to her. Though as he was doing so she went from resting peacefully to being in a full blown fit. She started to thrash on the couch, sending an unsuspecting Xander to the floor as he let out a startled meow while Severus rushed to rest a hand on Lily's arm and call out to her.
"Lily! It is just a dream. Come one, Lil, wake up." He pleaded only for Lily to go still but remain asleep. "Lily?" he asked hesitantly but she did not respond to him but remained in a deep sleep.
Lily was alone in a dark place, there were trees all around her, but the air felt almost as though it was dead. There was no wind, just the feel and even the smell of death. She glanced around, seeing nothing as she noticed her body seemed almost transparent as she held up her hands. 'Am I a ghost?' she thought to herself before she heard a voice, like that of a hiss.
"A host…a host has come…" as a sickly creature crawled along the ground on all fours only for Lily to scramble back away from it. "I must…new host…" it spoke in a weak tone that bordered on near pitiful. Though something deep down told Lily not to feel sympathy for such a creature. "Help me…" it spoke in a hiss as one of its small white boney hands reached out to her. "I can grant you…anything…" the creature gasped for breath as it was still on the ground seeming to have used up the last of its strength. Though after a moment of raspy gasping the creature looked up at her with blood red eyes that did not have a pupil but a slit like that of a snake. "Anything that your heart desires…"
"Nothing you can offer would tempt me to help you!" Lily declared backing away again from the creature as it reached for her. Sure her father had told her she should be kind and help others, but he had not raised her to be a fool. For there was something about those eyes that seemed familiar but she could not place from where.
"I only require…a host…"
"I said no!" Lily yelled backing away from the creature. "I will never be a host for you!" she ground out before a thick fog rolled in and engulfed her and the creature both so that she could no longer see any further than a foot in front of her.
"You may resist being my host, child." The voice spoke as it sounded much stronger within the fog, no longer the sickly weak hiss it had been before. "But one with my mark upon them will deliver you to me." The voice said as there was a brilliant glow through the fog before the image of a skull with a serpent protruding as it's tongue appeared only for there to be a flash of white light as the dream around Lily shattered. First the surroundings and then the very ground beneath her feet as she was falling among shards of glass as they turned reflecting that mark to her over and over.
Though her attention was pulled from that as there was then a series of images that flashed across the fragments of glass. Some of it she recognized, but others she did not as they were cast mostly in shadows or completely distorted. As she continued to fall a light appeared down below her as she looked back over her shoulder to see the triangular eye burning along with a skeletal figure seeming to try and draw her closer to it…
Lily sat up abruptly from the couch nearly knocking her father over from the abrupt force of her leaning up as she screamed only to look around, her blue eyes wide as she was gasping. She heard a faint voice as though it were miles away before she felt a hand on her shoulder as a blurry figure appeared before her and seemed to be calling out. She just remained where she was, wide eyed seeming to not be able to focus on anything around her as the dream kept playing over and over in her mind.
Severus became more worried by the second all due to how even though Lily had woken up she seemed unable to focus on him even as he sat in front of her and even put his hands on her shoulders while gently calling her name. "Lily…please answer me." He pleaded as her eyes did not seem to be coming back into focus but seemed to be becoming more and more distant by the minute. 'What the hell is happening to my child?!' Severus thought in a panic as he moved his hands to the sides of her face forcing her to at least be facing toward him. "Lily, please…come back to me…" he whispered as her eyes slowly came back into focus.
"D…dad…?" she asked hesitantly after several moments as his blurry outline came into focus allowing her to see the worried face of her father before he shifted pulling her close against his chest. "What's wrong?" she asked not fully remembering what had happened in her dream.
"I was so worried. You were having a fit like you do during the full moon." He whispered in a worried tone.
"I…" Lily started but she trailed off feeling as though she had forgotten something important. But after a moment she brushed it off and spoke in a small voice. "I was just having a really bad nightmare." She said feeling bad for lying to her father, but that was all she thought it was now. Just a bad dream.
/
A few days later, Lily was laying in her room still in her pale blue night dress with the blanket discarded to the foot of the bed. She was unable to sleep despite it being just before dawn. One part of the dream from a few days ago had come back to her. Insisting that one with the mark of that creature would deliver her to it. Then a part of the letter from Mrs. Weasley also rang in Lily's mind. '…anything to do with someone like your father…' A part of the letter that had made no sense to her at the time. Though something deep down was telling her to find out why someone would have said that.
'If I remember right from a book I read last year…the mark I saw in that dream was the dark mark. The mark used by He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named during his reign of terror during the Wizarding War that ended when he tried to kill Harry and the curse rebounded…' she thought to herself. 'That and one bit I found mentioned dad's name as one of the suspects as a supporter but nothing past that...' she thought to herself as she knew that had been one of the books her father had confiscated from her saying that it was too grown up for her to read. 'What was he trying to hide…?' she thought to herself as she shifted so that she was sitting on the edge of her bed with her hands resting beside her on the mattress as the rug brushed against the bottom of her bare feet.
"Severus…you made a mistake and now you have to accept that this is the consequence for it. I never want to see you again." A voice rang in Lily's ears as in the dream she had been having she had heard numerous voices but that one had stuck out due to how it had been referring to her father and how there had been so much hurt behind it. 'What kind of mistake could he have made to cause someone that much pain?' she thought to herself as she began to realize that her father had never once spoke of his life before. Any time she had asked, even about her mother, her father would get a sad look on his face and say that she had passed nothing more. Just that it was just him and her and that he would do his best to fill both rolls for his daughter.
'I want to know what he did…' Lily thought as she shifted standing from her bed as she turned and headed toward the door only to hear the voice of her guardian angel.
"Lily, do not walk this path, just let what happened in the past stay where it belongs." The woman pleaded as she appeared to the right of the door as Lily could feel her unseen eyes on her.
"I need to know the answer." Was all Lily said before she reached out taking hold of the door knob as she turned the handle before pulling the door open and stepping out into the hallway. She glanced down the hall making sure that Twinkle had not heard her exit her room since she was worried the house elf would distract her or be one to advise her to not go into her father's room so early since nothing seemed to be wrong.
Once she was sure that was not the case she headed to her father's room, quietly turning the knob and then pushing the door open only to see in the dark room that it seemed her father was still sound asleep. 'If I remember right, dad had some kind of tattoo on his left forearm but I can't remember clearly what it looked like…' she thought to herself as she tip toed over to her father's bed as he was laying on his stomach with his right arm tucked up under the pillow while the left was laying before his face. Carefully Lily reached out and turned her father's arm so that the forearm was facing toward her father, but still where she could see it.
Just as she was about to shift his sleeve he had shifted in his sleep moving to where he was laying on his back so his arm was on the other side of the bed. Taking a deep breath, Lily went over to the other side of the bed that was against the wall. 'Only one way to go about this…' She thought to herself as she moved closer to the bed only to climb up onto it and proceed to crawl on her knees to where her father was laying as she was careful not to jolt the bed as she got closer to him. Once she was close enough she was on her knees as she reached out and started to shift the sleeve up until it was at her father's elbow. 'It won't be there; it has to be a different tattoo…dad would have never served that horrible man!' Lily thought in desperation as she shifted her father's arm so that his forearm was up for her to see.
She sat there in shock as the pale light of the dawn was filtering into her father's room. There on his forearm was the mark she had seen in the book and in her dream. The skull with the snake for a tongue. Her blue eyes widened in pure shock at how there was now no denying it, her father had been a servant to the darkest wizard in a century. She started to move back along the bed only to find the edge and fall off with an audible gasp as she hit the floor. She heard movement as she soon found herself bathed in the light from her father's wand as he was sitting near the edge of the bed looking down at her in confusion and worry.
"Lily?" he asked, his voice a bit groggy as he was trying to wake up more due to how he had woken so suddenly from hearing his daughter fall from the bed. He thought that was odd since she had not fallen off of the bed since she had been around four and that had been from her jumping on it. "What is wrong?" he asked as he started to notice the panic in her eyes that were looking at him with absolute terror.
Without even saying anything, Lily scrambled to her feet, rushing toward the door she forgot to open it for a brief second before she scrambled to force it open and run out. Leaving her father staring after her in confusion as he went to move to the side of his bed only to notice his sleeve was rolled up. Not just his sleeve, but the one that had covered his left forearm.
'No!' he thought in worry and panic. 'She saw the dark mark!' he thought as he rushed to get up not bothering to get dressed as he heard the door downstairs slam open meaning she had taken off into the woods again. Racing from the room and down the stairs, the only thought on Severus' mind was that he had to find Lily and explain to her the truth of his past. Something he had wished to never have to share with her.
A/N: I am sorry for the delay in the chapter. I had planned it to go one way but then half way through the chapter I decided to scrap the original plan for the chapter and go with this one instead since it will help so much more with story progression. Do not worry, the original will be used for another chapter later on. Now I want to extend my sincerest thanks to Alia Prior for their review. They guessed right on what I asked in the last chapter so I will be doing something very soon as a special gift to them. Also I plan to start work on the next chapter very soon so hopefully I can get it done in the next month, which will be difficult. Mainly due to how I will have very little free time to sit down to outline, write and edit the new chapter this next month, but I will do my best to make it work. Also for any also following my other stories, I plan to update them as well soon too, not sure when yet. Now for a little question for the readers! Does anyone have a guess at the significance of Lily's dream?