Chapter Three - The Obvious Lack of a Plan

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Lily stepped out of the shower stall, the twisting tendrils of steam curling her long red hair. Green eyes started relentlessly back at her as she searched for a clue, something in those seemingly mindless dark eyes that would tell her something. Her reflection blinked and she turned away, pulling her towel closer as the steam dissipated and the warmth faded away.

Lily Evans didn't know what she was looking for anymore. It had been for revenge at first. Revenge because her healer career had never gotten on track and her friends had drifted away into hiding and abroad. Revenge because Sev was a 'bad guy' and her parents were gone.

Then she'd come to the Order because she was angry and lonely. The Marauders were familiar and Lily had found herself enjoying their presence, despite the war, despite the dying and the angst and the loneliness. Because they still laughed and James still seemed hopelessly in love with her.

Lily dressed methodically, wondering vaguely what her late parents would have said if she told them that she was in love with a wizard. A wizard with adorably messy hair and very attractive hazel eyes almost hidden behind round glasses. She smiled.

The world was very quiet as she made her way up the stairs and into the boy's dormitory. The dormitory where Lily and the Marauders usually stayed when they were back at Hogwarts for any length of time between missions. To her surprise it was empty, the curtains fluttering in the wind and there was no one at all.

Then she caught sight of the owl. It blinked innocently at her and she felt like crying. These last few days had been hell and if this message said what she thought it did…

'Lily,

Me and Sirius are off to London tonight on Fenwick's orders.

Go see Remus for me. I think Pete's with the rest of the Order

down in the kitchens. Don't be lonely. Sirius says hi.

Love, James.'

Lily started to cry. Quietly at first so she barely noticed it. Then loud sobs burst out of her as she sank onto the bed, crying as if the world was coming to an end. Remus was dying and Sirius and James were out in London where the fighting was the thickest, without her nor Remus to protect them with their textbook knowledge of virtually everything.

Inevitably, in Lily's eyes, it all came down to goodbyes in the end. Everyone was leaving. Getting the hell out of wherever they were and she was left standing in the figurative rain without even an umbrella.

Sirius found himself trying to remember back when morals had been black and white, rather than that hazy instinct grey they were now. He followed James, lingering a step behind, his cold fingers stiff and cramped around his wand.

With Crouch in power at the Ministry, Sirius could kill. A Death Eater could die at his hands and he could walk free. The thought scared him sometimes and deep down inside a cowering part of him was horribly afraid of what he could do knowing that. Sirius had never been the good boy.

Before the war things had been so simple, Slytherin was the enemy and Gryffindor knew no wrong. The Unforgivable Curses were just that, unforgivable. Sirius sighed and in the cold, his breath whispered silver out into the bleak night.

Then this. Sirius remembered the dreams he'd had of killing Death Eaters, dreams that would change to nightmares when he pulled a Death Eater's mask away. He'd pull it away and see Regulus staring back at him through those unfathomable grey eyes identical to Sirius's own.

"Sirius!" James hissed, pulling him roughly into the shadow of a doorway. "Pay attention, we're here."

Here was in a quiet street. Most houses were boarded up and deserted, but behind the windows directly across the street, pale yellow light glowed.

"Who are we looking for?" asked Sirius, shaking his head free of the memories and attempting to concentrate.

"Raffella Lestrange," James replied without hesitation. "She's supposed to be involved in the Prewett deaths and Dumbledore wants her in for interrogation.

"Right." Sirius didn't like taking girls, especially girls who were his crazy cousin, Bellatrix's, best friends. Not his favourite cousin anymore, they were on different sides of the war now. "And what's the plan?"

"Plan?" James scratched the back of his head with his wand and frowned. The faint streetlight glinted off his glasses, blinding Sirius and making his expression hard to read. "That's normally Moony's area of expertise…"

Sirius's throat tightened and his chest constricted at the mention of something he'd been trying desperately to forget.

"…but I say we use a couple of disillusionment charms and scout around before we do anything."

"Ok,"

James tapped his wand on Sirius's head and with a sudden chill Sirius blended right into the dirty alley wall behind him. He did the same for James and warily they approached the house.

The contents of the phial glittered black in the faint candlelight. She sat in her mother's favourite chair and wondered what her brothers would do if they were in her situation. No doubt they wouldn't disobey the Dark Lord in the first place.

She'd just been trying to get out. But it had been too late. When she was sixteen she'd tied herself to the Dark Lord's cause and it was far too late to back out now.

Would it be like an adventure, like a nightmare or would there simply be nothing?

She thought fleetingly of her brothers, Rodolphus and Rabastan, her best friend and sister-in-law, Bellatrix Lestrange nee Black, about her enemies and all those people in between. She wondered if anyone would miss her when she was gone.

In a sudden fit of courage she threw back her head and tossed down the lethal overdose in one swallow. A drip trickled down her chin and splashed against her wrist, gleaming silver and black. The single candle spluttered and died as she sat still, too scared to move.

A wild sob tore at her throat as she realised what she'd done. Tears gushed down her cheeks and she put her horrified, shaking hands to her face.

"I'm going to die," the words flew from her lips as bubbles, shining unnaturally blue in the darkness. Suddenly she giggled, barely aware of the part of her inside that was screaming and crying hysterically. Death wouldn't matter as long as she was high.

"As long as I'm high!" she whispered to the lithe silver shadows that were hiding in the closed off corners of her parlour. They whispered untold secrets back at her.

Wild fireworks were going off inside her head. The still sane part of her marvelled at how the potion had taken effect so quickly. It wouldn't be long now. Soon the lethal side of the dangerously addictive potion would show and eventually she'd die of the overdose, though no doubt she'd be too high to notice.

"I'm dying!" she shrieked with glee and wonder, standing up and knocking over the chair. The room exploded with colour as she danced in circles. "I'm leaving! I'm finally going!

The room was swaying around her like the deck of a tossing ship. Her vision was hazy, but she was sure she could see other people or creatures slipping through the clouds of fog that had descended. Voices whispered, sung and cried for peace beyond the curtain the divided the mortal world from the immortal.

She was as high as a kite when without any warning a figure loomed out of the darkness.

Colours and visions faded, though bright lights still pulsed in time with her heart beat in her skull. In a single moment of clarity she saw through the potion induced haze and into the world behind. Recognition sparked somewhere within her mind.

"Regulus?" tears came unbidden to her eyes, rolling a familiar path down her gaunt cheeks.

Bright silver eyes blinked in almost comic surprise.

"Raffella Lestrange?" Sirius asked, holding his wand up high and peering into the mad girl's eyes.

"mm?" she murmured, talking to someone or something beyond him. Her pupils were huge, so big that you could only see the slightest sliver of iris surrounding her jagged black pupils.

"You're high!" he exclaimed, noticing the empty phial on the floor. She wasn't listening to him anymore, preferring to converse with mid air.

He stood still for a moment, utterly confused. This definitely wasn't going according to plan. He started to pull the mirror out of the pocket sewn in his robes, perhaps James would think up a plan. He was about to call James when the girl looked at him through her soft brown curls and started to speak.

"I heard about what happened to your friend," she sank into a chair, peering up at him through those massive, scarily black eyes. "In fact, I was supposed to dispose of him," she sighed and looked down at her 'way out', at the traces of the potion streaking the murky glass. "I couldn't. Which I why I'm now expecting a visit from the Dark Lord or more likely one of his many evil minions."

Sirius gaped at her.

"I had a massive crush on your friend when I was in sixth year, Bellatrix didn't approve of course, so nothing came of it. But that's not why I didn't do it. I wouldn't have sacrificed my life because of a childhood crush. I'm not quite sure why I didn't."

The wind battered against the window pane and a tree outside creaked ominously. Sirius wondered vaguely where James was.

"Is he dying? Am I dying for nothing? I couldn't save Regulus, I can't save him and I can't save myself,"

Raffella would have cried if she had the energy. But she felt weak, like she'd been sick for weeks and weeks on end. The Gryffindor fool was still standing there, watching her warily.

"Just do it, finish me off," she sneered at him, her aching body taut with fear, "that's what you've come for, right?"

"No – I - I guess – well,"

"You should ask Severus," the sudden change of topic caught Sirius by surprise. "He knows enough, get Evans to ask him. Hell, he'd do anything for her."

"To save him?" Sirius asked, leaning forward with sudden eagerness, "Snape can save him?"

"I don't know," her vision was getting fuzzy and she could barely make out the shape of the man standing across the room. She let herself flop back into the chair and listened to her heart beat slow.

"I'm sorry," Sirius didn't know quite what he was sorry for, but he felt remorseful nonetheless.

Raffella just sighed and slowly but surely her heart thudded to a stop.

Silence.