Okay, here's another chapter! I really hope you liked the last chapter! Anyways, please leave a review! I love to read them! (I have ten for this story!)
Disclaimer: Scorpius is a figment of J.K. Rowling's imagination, not mine, like all of the characters in this story. *sob* Except for this new one from the very start of the story.
Just so you aren't too confused, Lily is having a dream/nightmare.
Chapter 6: Nightmares… Or Are They?
"Poor Lily," a voice said behind her. When Lily turned around, her warm green eyes found a charcoal black pair ensnaring her. The woman who had spoken to her had long, raven-black hair, darker than her father's. Her complexion was lighter than snow, reminding Lily of the painting of the sallow-faced man, but she was tall, probably about even with Lily's six-foot father.
"No one loves you, do they?" The woman's voice was as sweet as honey but just as venomous. Her cherry lips stretched into a seductive smile, revealing perfectly straight teeth.
"Of course they do!" she exclaimed, hurt that someone would think something like that, even if it was such a vile woman as her.
"Oh, yes," the woman said sarcastically, "Rose loves you to pieces; that's why she makes fun of you. And James and Albus, when have they ever protected you, from even the petty things like your cousin? What of your father and mother who are surely disappointed by your actions of today?"
Lily stepped away from the woman. "Th-that's n-not true!"
"Ah," she sighed. "You're little stuttering problem shows itself. Isn't that boy trying to help you with it? He isn't doing a very good job, but he only wants a good snog."
"Scorpius?" Lily found herself asking. "How do you know all of this? Who are you?"
The woman laughed, making her flinch. "Who am I? I am Mortellea, one you shall learn to fear, girl. You are the only one whose mind I cannot reach; everyone else will be at my power with only a slight effort."
"You are a dream," Lily said, too aware for a normal dream.
"Am I? I know more than you do, Miss Potter, and I suggest that you don't assume things. But we simply must have a discussion about this boy you fancy."
Mortellea waved her hand in the cloud of fog around them, and suddenly a boy with white-blonde hair stepped out of the mist. "Lily," he said, seeming scared and relieved at the same time. Scorpius reached out as though to take her hand and run away from this vile woman.
"How did you get here?" she asked, her hand reaching out to take his but encountering something like glass. "Scorpius, what is this?"
"Lily, you are in danger. You must stay away from this woman! She'll take us all! Please, Lily," The breath sped out of her when he leaned forward as though to kiss her softly but then vanished as suddenly as he had appeared.
"Oh, young love!" Mortellea cried, reminding Lily of her presence. "I used to be like you, Little Lily. And then he died!" Her sweet voice morphed into a hiss.
Lily shrank back, terribly afraid of this woman. "L-leave! D-do not s-speak to m-me! G-go away!"
Instead, the woman pulled out her wand. The last thing Lily was aware of was someone screaming, "Avada Kedavra!" and a flash of green light, before she screamed, waiting for death and darkness to take her.
XxXoOoXxX
"Lily! Lily! Wake up!" four girls were surrounding her bed and trying to wake her up.
Lily sat up straight in bed, "Mortellea!"
"Who is that?" One girl with brown curls in pigtails asked. "You were screaming the whole time like someone was trying to murder you, lots of gibberish I thought."
"It wasn't gibberish to me," another girl, an avid gossip girl, named Amanda Thomas, said with a pointed look at the other girls.
Lily flushed when she realized that she had probably screamed out to Scorpius when he left. Someone was shouting from down in the common room, a boy by the sounds. "You had best go downstairs," Lavender Smith said cautiously. "You woke up most of Gryffindor Tower, and your brothers are worried sick, furious that they can't come up here."
With a bit of a groan, Lily pulled herself out of the twisted sheets and pulled on her robe and warm, fuzzy slippers before she tiredly stumbled down the stars. James had her in his arms before she was off of the steps. "What happened, Lils? That scared us silly."
"I-it was j-just a n-nightmare," she said trying to stifle a yawn.
"It certainly didn't sound like just anything," Al said, hovering nearby. "You know you can tell us about it, Lils."
She shook her head against James's chest. "S'nothing, j-just s-something my s-sub-whatever made up. I'm tired. Can't I-I go t-to bed?"
"Lily, what was that?"
"I-I just dreamed that Mum and Dad tried to send me thousands of Howlers that kept going off, and I-I w-was g-getting buried beneath all of th-them…"
"Then go back to bed, sis," Al said yawning as well. "We can talk in the morning. We just wanted to make sure there wasn't some sadistic killer in your room. G'night."
James let her go upstairs, not leaving the common room until she had disappeared. Lily stumbled into her bed, now cool without her body heat. She slept like someone had given her the Draught of the Living Dead, feeling as though she hadn't slept during the conversation between her and Mortellea.
The next morning, she brushed her hair out and left the unruly mess alone, lacking the energy to even pull it back. She put on her white shirt with the red and gold tie and a grey sweater vest over top, along with a darker grey pleated skirt.
Lily somehow managed to stumble down into the stairs to the Great Hall where the rest of her family was already diving into the food. She sat down between Al and Rose and across from Hugo.
"You look absolutely horrid!" Hugo said, commenting on the dark circles under her eyes, seemingly stunned that anyone could look so horrid.
She glared at her barely older cousin. "Thanks, thanks a lot. Every girl wants to hear that."
Rose laughed. "Were you dreaming that you saw your reflection in a mirror last night?"
"Shut it, Rose," Al mumbled to Rosie.
She shrugged. "I really don't care. I'm going to go sit with Zach." Then she waltzed over to the Hufflepuff table and sat down by a boy with gold-brown hair, Zach Smith. She looked every bit of a tramp as she walked over, swinging her hips and drawing the attention of many boys in the room.
Some of the Weasley crew shook their heads, and the rest tried to ignore her. Hugo muttered, "Sometimes I really worry about her."
The owl Post flew in, the various colored owls swooping down to their owners to deliver their letters and packages. The Potters and Weasleys recognized an almost pure white owl swooped down to Lily, Albus, and James with three bright red envelopes.
"Hedwig," Lily said, feeding a bit of her sausage to the owl named after their father's first owl, not minding the Howlers. They were too regular for her to get worked up over them.
James and Albus sighed along with Lily. "Let's get this over with," James grumbled as he opened his first.
"JAMES SIRIUS POTTER!" Ginny Potter's voice rang through the Great Hall, making conversation unavailable for anyone. "HOW DARE YOU DO SOMETHING SO IRRESPOSIBLE AS STEALING HAGRID'S CREATURES! YOU HAD HARMED STUDENTS! YOU'RE LUCKY THE HEADMISTRESS DIDN'T TAKE YOUR PREFECT BADGE! AND I AM HORRIFIED THAT YOU DIDN'T FOLLOW YOUR RESPOSIBILITY OF THE ELDEST BROTHER AND KEEP LILY AND ALBUS OUT OF THIS, BUT NO! YOU HAD TO GET YOUR BROTHER AND SISTER DETENTIONS, TOO! I DON'T WANT ONE MORE TOE OUT OF LINE, OR YOU WON'T HAVE TO WAIT FOR WILKINSON TO EXPELL YOU!"
"Aww, thanks, Mum," James mocked as the letter ripped itself to shreds. "It's always nice to hear from you, too."
Albus snickered before he opened his letter. "ALBUS SEVERUS POTTER!" ("glad you remembered my name, Mum,") "WHAT WERE YOU THINKING? I CAN'T BELIEVE THAT YOU WOULD DO SOMETHING SO—SO JAMES-ISH! I EXPECT THIS KIND OF BEHAVIOR FROM HIM, BUT YOU USUALLY CAN KEEP OUT OF THESE THINGS LIKE THIS!" ("I can't believe Mum thinks you're such an angel, Al!" James grinned. He snickered, "'James-ish behavior.") "I-I DON'T EVEN KNOW IF I HAVE ENOUGH WORDS TO DESCRIBE HOW INFURIATED I AM!" ("Yes!" Lily cheered. "Less for me!") "WHEN ALL OF YOU GET HOME FOR CHRISTMAS YOU ARE SO GROUNDED FOR A MONTH! YOU'D BETTER NOT DO ANYTHING LIKE THIS AGAIN!"
Lily turned to her own Howler, and opened it, amazingly surprised by what her own did. "LILY LUNA POTTER," Harry Potter's voice echoed through the hall and anyone who had started gossiping about the masterminds behind the Skewert incident went silent, listening intently. "I CANNOT BEGIN TO EXPRESS HOW DISAPPOINTED I AM! I THOUGHT YOU WOULD BE MORE LIKE THE WOMAN YOU'RE NAMED AFTER! YOU DIDN'T HAVE TO GET INVOLVED IN WHATERVE YOUR BROTHERS WERE DOING, BUT YOU DID ANYWAYS! ALL THREE OF YOU DESERVE YOUR SIX WEEKS OF DETETION! PERHAPS YOU'LL LEARN SOMETHING THIS TIME! IF YOU DON'T, YOU CAN BE SURE THAT YOUR MOTHER AND I WILL LEARN! I DON'T EVER WANT TO HEAR OF SOMETHING LIKE THIS AGAIN! YOUR MOTHER ALMOST SCREAMED HERSELF HOARSE! DON'T DO IT AGAIN, LILY!"
Lily was shaking in her seat by the time it ripped itself apart. Even Albus and James weren't making fun. For five seconds, everything was absolutely silent, and then the whole of the Hogwart's student body began whispering quite loudly. Lily sat there, but when the whispers broke out, she ran out of the Great Hall, forgetting her bookbag, crying.
She couldn't stop the tears that leaked down her cheeks as she blindly ran through the castle. I cannot begin to express how disappointed I am… She heard someone calling for her, so she dodged into the next classroom she could.
She shut the door and locked it before she leaned against the door and slipped to the floor. "Poor Lily," a bittersweet voice said.
Lily gasped and looked up. The room was empty except for a large mirror in the middle of the room, inscribed with words in Latin that she couldn't read. As though trapped in the mirror, Mortellea smiled. Lily started to feel dizzy. "H-how a-are you h-here?"
Mortellea smiled again. "Little Lily's own dad is 'disappointed' in her. For some reason, that doesn't surprise me. You're a disappointment to the whole family aren't you?"
Lily couldn't answer, so she just shook her head. Suddenly she stood up and tried to open the door, only to find that even though it wasn't locked, she couldn't open it. She resorted to banging on the door with her fists and trying to scream.
"You're not courageous, are you?" Mortellea asked as though she had all the time in the world. "How could you have ever ended up in Gryffindor? It isn't a place for little frightened and screaming girls. How do you think your Scorpius would feel if he saw you now? Heartbroken? I doubt he can handle someone who cries when her father so much as slaps her hand."
"W-what d-do you w-want?" Lily asked through her thick tears, almost ready to do anything to get her to leave her alone forever.
"Oh, there are many things I want, Lily." She tapped the glass separating them. "I would like to get through here, but that clever old Headmaster Dumbledore, the one here while your father and mother were here, has prevented the glass breaking from only one way. I'd love to wrap my fingers around your pretty little neck and choke the living daylights out of you, but that won't happen either."
"Wh-why d-do y-you want to k-kill m-me?" Lily stuttered over the words, her back pressed against the door.
"Because, if I don't, you will first," Mortellea answered simply. She examined her perfectly blood red nails.
"Wh-why sh-should I-I kill y-you?"
"I'm bored," she said. She took out her wand, and before she had realized it, Lily had, too.
"Expeliarmus!" Lily shrieked at the same time Mortellea screeched, "Avada Kedavra!"
Lily screamed as the curse hit her, just as it had in her dream. She faintly heard her murderer say, "You're so much like your father…"
OoOoXxXxOoOo
"Lily!" a boy said from the darkness, shaking her. "Lily, please! You have to wake up for Merlin's sake!"
She groaned. The boy sighed. "It'll be alright, Lily. You have to get up."
Lily found strong arms picking her up, one supporting her neck and the other behind her knees. She couldn't be alive, could she? Mortellea had killed her. She heard the curse and felt the sting as it hit her. Her eyes fluttered open. Scorpius Malfoy was easily carrying her through corridors.
"I'm dead, aren't I?" Her voice asked when she finally opened her eyes. "And you're taking me to Heaven or something. But, Merlin, my head hurts. Are you gonna heal that? What's your name? I'm not special enough for Gabriel."
He looked down at her with amusement making his handsome grey eyes sparkle and a crooked smile on his face. "You're not dead, Lily. You must've hit your head extremely hard to think that I'm an angel."
She blinked slowly. "But she killed me; I felt the curse hit me. How could I have survived that? Only dad has ever survived the killing curse. Dad," she said sorrow washing through her, trying to drown her, if she wasn't already dead. "He's gonna be so upset. I wonder how he'll feel when he realizes that his last words were telling me how ashamed of me he was. Maybe he'll be happy that I can't be a hindrance to the good Potter name any more. Will you make me an angel now, too?"
"Does this look like Heaven to you, Lily?" Scorpius Angel asked, cynically.
Lily looked at her surroundings, and recognized the corridor to the Hospital Wing in Hogwarts. "Yes. Do angels break their wings sometimes? Does it hurt? When will you make my head stop hurting?"
Scorpius Angel shook his head and rolled his eyes, not deigning to answer. He walked into the bright Hospital Wing and yelled, "Madame Pomphrey! I found Lily Potter! She hit her head!"
He gently laid her on a soft white bed. Lily smiled at the comfort, and saw Madame Pomphrey rush over to her. "Hello," she muttered to the old woman dreamily, "Are you an angel, too? Where are your wings? Will I be an angel soon?"
"What is she jabbering about?" Madame Pomphrey Angel asked Scorpius Angel.
"She's convinced that she died," he explained, "and that she's in that Muggle place called Heaven. I told you she hit her head fairly hard. I think there's a gash."
Madame Pomphrey Angel prodded her head gently. She found a spot in Lily's head that made her cry out. "Angels aren't supposed to hurt people! Ouch!"
"Go get her brothers and the Headmistress."
Lily patiently let Madame Pomphrey Angel heal her gash on the back of her head and use her wand to examine her as she jabbered about angels and Heaven. It wasn't long before her brothers ran in along with Wilkinson and Scorpius Angel. They ran to either side of her bed and held her tiny little hands. "My brothers are in Heaven, too!" she joyful exclaimed. "Are Mum and Dad here, too? I would like to forgive Dad; he probably feels awful."
She began to move to get out of the bed, but almost everyone moved to force her down. "What on Earth are you talking about, Lils? Where have you been? Al and I were worried sick when the others told us that they hadn't seen you since this morning."
"We're not on earth anymore, James. We're in Heaven. I died! And then I'm gonna be an angel! Won't that be great?"
Everyone looked at her like she had gone insane, and she noticed the Weasley clan filing in, asking about her frantically. Madame Pomphrey Angel held up her hands and everyone fell silent. "Lily has hit her head very hard, and I fixed it, but I can't figure out why she keeps talking this rubbish."
"Are you all here to see me become an angel?" Lily asked excitedly. "Where are Mum and Dad? I bet they'll be so proud!"
Everyone glanced around at each other. "Well?" she asked Scorpius angel. "Am I going to get my wings or not?"
Scorpius Angel shifted uncomfortably when everyone's eyes darted to him. He cleared his throat and knelt down beside her bed next to Albus who was still holding her hand. "Um, Lils, you never died. You're not in Heaven; you're still at Hogwarts. You must have slipped and hit your head, Lily. No one tried to kill you."
"Yes, she did!" Lily exclaimed. "Mortellea was in the mirror and killed me!"
"Oh, not her again!" Rose complained.
"Rosie we don't have time for you to tease her," James snapped.
"I'm not kidding!" she exclaimed, stung a bit by his words. "She lied to you last night! She was screaming about Mortellea and, uh, someone else," she explained, her eyes darting to Scorpius Angel. "She was probably having nightmares while she was unconscious."
"I saw her! In the mirror! It wasn't a dream! I know it wasn't!"
Scorpius looked up to her, pale and blushing at the same time, something Lily hadn't thought possible. "Lily, that was- that was the Mirror of Erised. It's supposed to show you whatever you want most in the world. You couldn't have wanted to die." He gave her a queer look. "Did you?"
"No, no! Of course I didn't want to die, but that's what I saw!" She was so lost, and didn't understand anything.
"Lily," Scorpius looked up seriously, "are you dead?"
Lily had to think for a moment. "I guess I'm not… but I know she hit me with a killing curse."
James patted her shoulder. "Maybe this lady did, Lils, but obviously you didn't die. It's going to be fine."
Everyone in the room sighed in relief when she agreed, all except for Professor Wilkinson. "Don't think that you'll get off with just a warning to skip detention and class, Miss Potter."
"You can't do that!" most of the Weasley/Potter clan protested. "She was passed out!" James protested. "You don't get children in trouble for being sick in the Hospital Wing, do you? Lily couldn't get to class if she had wanted! She wasn't conscious!"
"I don't care," Lily said, her voice now faint with weariness. "Give me as much detention as you wish. I will do it all. I just—I just— I feel sick."
Everyone took a step back, except for Scorpius and Madame Pomphrey brought her a sick bin and a potion that would soothe her stomach. She gulped down the potion and smiled weakly. It struck everyone at that moment that she was too frail and sick for a thick-skinned girl like her.
Lily's emerald eyes seemed too big than usual and her skin was lighter than white and almost luminescent. She denied food when Madame Pomphrey tried to give her something good to eat, claiming that the smell was too much for her.
This isn't my Lily, a certain blonde-haired boy thought.
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