A/N: Recent reviews aren't showing up, but thank you to those that have reviewed. Luckily, they are linked to my email so I have been able to read them and they never fail to make me smile! Thank you for reading!
Story rating: M
Chapter rating: M (mild blood and gore, stalkery, dark theme)
Disclaimer: All characters, settings and the general fantasy world belong to JK Rowling. I claim no ownership or profits whatsoever. The only purpose of this story is for my own enjoyment, and hopefully the enjoyment of those who visit this site.
There it lay, innocently on her pillow. Lily stared at the intruder with bulging eyes, unfortunately forgetting how to perform the art of breathing in her shock.
Her muscles were frozen from fear. How did it get there? Who had put it on her pillow? Why hadn't she woken up?
Slowly, one by one, her muscles overrode the fear and she found herself being able to move again. Her breathing quickly followed, gushing out in a sharp burst only to be immediately inhaled deeply back into her lungs.
Lily rose herself up slightly onto her elbows, her wavy copper hair falling over her shoulders. Her eyes never left the object on her pillow as she warily sidled out of bed. Her movements were calculated and delicate, as though she feared the object would spring to life and attack her.
Once she had removed herself fully from the bed and had retreated a safe distance, she took the opportunity to cast a fleeting glance around the room. Nothing else seemed to be amiss. Everything in her room was precisely as she remembered it but for one exception.
She looked back down at the single rose on her pillow. It was only now that she remembered having received a rose like this before. In the terrifying chaos of that night, Lily had completely forgotten about her mysterious gift in the Great Hall - until now.
It was precisely the same red-orange colour, with an unmarked stem. Again, it seemed to have a note tied to it with a silky blue ribbon.
Lily's palms began to sweat from intrigue and fear. She itched to read the note and to inspect the rose more intimately, but her sensible side was insisting that she alert a member of staff to the intrusion before touching anything.
Her curiosity was beginning to smother the alarm bell, easily sidestepping all warnings her sensible side threw at her.
What if the rose is cursed?
The last one wasn't. Why would this one be?
To lull you into a false sense of security?
They could have easily killed me in my sleep.
Maybe they prefer romantising their murders?
Lily smiled smugly as the warnings became more feeble. She walked tentatively to her bed and crawled over to the other side where the rose lay, waiting.
Just as her fingertips grazed the delicate petals, a wave of nausea overcame her as another message flashed in her mind.
Maybe it is the Order of the Phoenix.
Lily blinked in surprise, snatching her hand away like she had been electrocuted. Why would she think that? She could think of no logical reason for why her mind would spurn this possibility up with such confidence. It was out of character for her to jump to a conclusion without logical, well-reasoned steps to back it up.
She shook her head, chiding herself for taking leave of her common sense. In one decisive swoop, she picked up the rose and unfastened the ribbon that held the note against the stem.
Lily caught the note before it could float down onto her bed and unfolded it.
May they burn in hell and your soul be at peace once more.
This note was definitely more detailed than the last, but again, largely ambiguous. It vaguely reminded her of the 'sorry for your loss' cards she had been given at her parents funeral, albeit with the addition of a cryptic message.
The more she dwelled on the message, the more convinced she became that it was from a sympathiser, referring to her recent tragedy. It unnerved her that this person would send repeated sympathies anonymously, and she feared that someone of unsound mind had become obsessed with her.
Severus Snape sprang immediately to mind. The morbid and slightly aggressive tone of the message seemed very much to be his style, as well as the hint of obsession that tainted the gift. Obsession and morbid were two words that complimented her old friend uncannily well.
Lily and Severus had been the best of friends up until their fifth year when, in the heat of the moment, Severus had finally revealed where his true path lay. He had called Lily, his dearest and longest friend, the worst insult one could possibly think of: a mudblood.
In the months following the incident, Severus had plagued her every step, begging for forgiveness. It had got to a point where Lily had feared for her safety with his increasingly wild and passionate declarations, seeming to have driven himself mad from desperation.
Then, just as Lily had resolved to confide in the teachers of her concerns, Severus had stopped. He had stopped staring at her, he had stopped following her, and he had stopped trying to gain her forgiveness. It was as though he had stopped acknowledging her existence altogether. Lily had never been more relieved, and was glad to finally walk away from the first person to break her heart.
She mulled over the possibility that Severus had sent the two roses. Although he seemed the most likely suspect, given past events, Lily despised the thought of questioning him directly. So she decided to keep an extra close eye on him from now on, to try and gage whether his interest in her had been renewed.
With that settled, she left the rose on her bed and made her way down the dormitory stairs, out of the common room, and up to the fifth floor where Professor McGonagall's classroom and living quarters were.
She knocked lightly on the door, secretly hoping that the professor had already made her way to the Great Hall for breakfast. Lily was not looking forward to telling her teacher about the previous night's incident, as well as what had happened that morning.
She knew that Professor McGonagall would scold her for not coming to see her straight away and upon reflection, Lily felt extremely silly for not doing so. Her masked attackers could have been found if she had been quicker to report the incident, meaning that herself and other students would no longer be at risk.
The longer Lily waited outside the door, the more ashamed she felt about how she had handled the situation. She had made a tremendous error last night, and she feared that such a mistake would strip her of her Head Girl position.
After what seemed like several lifetimes, Professor McGonagall finally opened the classroom door.
"Come on in, Miss Evans," said the professor calmly, as though she had expected Lily's visit. The professor promptly turned from the door, walked across the classroom and sat behind her desk.
Lily loitered in the doorway, confused. How could Professor McGonagall possibly have known she was coming?
After receiving a questioning look from the professor, Lily briskly walked over to the desk and sat opposite her teacher. She shuffled in her chair nervously, her eyes flitting around the room as though looking for some kind of inspiration on where to begin.
Professor McGonagall seemed to take pity on the nervous girl sat before her and smiled kindly.
"Lily, relax," she ordered, and magicked a bowl of biscuits with a wave of her wand. She then pushed the bowl gently towards Lily.
Lily immediately took a chocolate bourbon, thankful for the extra thinking time it gave her.
"I take it this is about your patrol last night?" questioned the professor, her kind smile involuntarily melting into a worried frown.
Lily stopped munching, her biscuit-filled mouth hanging open in shock.
"James came to see me last night and explained what he saw," the professor said. "I apologise, I wanted to come and see you straight away, but James said you had been feeling a little faint so I thought it best to wait until morning."
Lily hurriedly swallowed the large chunks of biscuit in order to free her mouth.
"Wh-what did he say?" Lily choked out.
"He told me how you had been patrolling, alone," she snapped the final word, her eyes flashing with disapproval. "And how he and his friends had seen two boys threatening you."
"James admitted to having been wandering the corridors with his friends - which he will be paying for - and had overheard some noises coming from a classroom. He and his friends went in, stupified the two boys and took you straight back to the Head's Common Room. Myself and Professor Dumbledore went to inspect the classroom James spoke of, but unfortunately it was empty by the time we got there."
Lily stared at her professor dumbly. She was surprised to hear that James' had been so responsible in reporting the incident.
"Now, Lily, I want you to answer me honestly. You won't get into any trouble. Did you see who attacked you?" asked Professor McGonagall in a serious tone.
"No, I didn't see their faces," Lily answered.
"So neither you, James, Sirius or remus saw who they were. I find that extremely hard to believe," probed Professor McGonagall suspiciously.
Didn't James tell her about the masks? thought Lily curiously.
Lily nodded her head in response, unsure as to why she was going along with James' half truth.
"Well, is there anything to add?" Professor McGonnagall asked, looking at Lily with a mixture of exasperation and sympathy.
Lily licked her lips nervously, considering how very much more there was. She knew that she should tell the professor about how her attackers had questioned her on the Order of the Phoenix, how it seemed likely that they were Death Eaters judging by the masks they had wore, and not to mention the tiny little matter of how they had stuck a shard of glass in her arm. As she debated on whether to tell the Professor the whole story, she wondered why James had not.
Granted, he had not overheard the whole conversation but he had known about the glass and the masks. What could he possibly gain from withholding that information?
"No, that's everything, Professor," Lily found herself replying, seemingly without her head's permission.
"If you remember anything else, or have any suspicions as to who they were, please let me know. It would be a great help," said Professor McGonnagall who was peering into Lily's eyes intently.
Lily looked back with determination, "Of course, Professor. I will let you know if I hear anything."
She stood up then, deciding on the spot that, whilst she was keeping secrets, to keep the mystery of the rose to herself. It worried her that she had been playing the role of 'victim' an awful lot these past few months, and she didn't want people to start seeing her that way. Lily was the Head Girl and she needed to be the one that people felt safe around. She couldn't be that person if she was constantly fainting, or getting attacked, or having other people protect her.
This problem was going to be one she solved on her own - no matter what the cost.
Lily thanked Professor Mcgonnagall and left the classroom, wandering down the corridors to her Potions lesson. It was nearing the end of breakfast and since Lily wasn't feeling particularly hungry, she decided to go straight to the dungeons. She took the long route so that she didn't arrive too early for her lesson, making sure to stay alert the entire time.
It angered her that she had to fear for her safety in her own school, a place where she should be free to act as any other teenager. Why should she be afraid to walk down a corridor on her own for fear of being attacked? She wished that people would get over their silly prejudices and leave her well alone.
As she revelled in her frustration and annoyance, she soon found herself arriving outside the dungeon and right in the midst of a frantically bustling crowd. Lily snapped out of her own thoughts as she tasted the fear buzzing in the air. Screams and terrified voices were reaching her ears, causing Lily to straighten up and convert into Head Girl mode.
She took a deep breath before muscling her way through the crowd. It was a difficult task, fighting against the people who were also trying to see what was going on, whilst the people who could see appeared to be frozen with terror.
When she did finally reach the front, she found herself stood next to James Potter, facing the open doorway of the Potions classroom. As though feeling her presence, he felt for her hand and held it like it was the most natural thing to do. Lily held it back, completely distracted by the sight before her.
There, splayed in the middle of the empty floor, was a dead body.
The person was completely naked except for a mask covering their face - the very same mask Lily had seen the night before. Their skin was a chalky white, as though all the blood had been drained from their body. No marks were evident, no signs of struggle, not a single drop of blood.
Suspended above the body was a bucket, floating magically a few feet up. Lily suspected that something would happen to the bucket if anyone was to step into the room.
Lily felt strangely calm. Despite the horror of the situation, Lily couldn't muster the energy to panic - perhaps she had no panic left.
She turned to the crowd behind her and surveyed them calmly as she prepared to speak. Her eyes lingered on Mary and Marlene who were close to the front of the crowd. Mary was as white as a ghost, trembling with her eyes clasped shut. Marlene had her arm around Mary's shoulder, patting her friend absently whilst she looked down at the corpse with ill-disguised fascination.
Lily pointed at her throat and said, "Sonorous!"
She felt her throat tingle as the spell took effect and made her voice echo loudly around the fear-filled corridor.
"Attention! Please could everybody follow our prefects, Remus Lupin and Sadie Humphreys, calmly back to the Great Hall and wait there for further instructions. Marlene McKinnon and Mary McDonald, please could you send for a teacher immediately."
There was a long pause and Lily feared that nobody would listen to her. Just as she was about to repeat the instruction, however, movement at the back of the crowd began and people started to gradually disappear from the vicinity until there was only James and Lily left.
He was looking at her expectedly, as though waiting for his own instructions.
"You stay with me," she said quietly, her voice back to normal.
She turned back towards the classroom and looked down at the body.
"Do you think it is one of the people who attacked you last night?" James asked.
"I don't know," she whispered. "I want to look."
James' hand twitched at her last words and Lily didn't miss the look of uncertainty that swept across his usually calm face.
"Okay," he answered simply.
They walked into the classroom together pausing after the first step, waiting to see if the bucket did anything. When it remained motionless, however, they continued forward.
When they reached the corpse, Lily bent down by the lefthand side of the body, bringing James with her. She reached out to touch the mask, to remove it, but James roughly grabbed her wrist to stop her. He bent his head close to hers so that she could feel his breath on her face.
"Are you sure?" he whispered into her ear, his lips brushing against the skin.
She wanted to move her head away but she felt as though she was under some kind of trance, as though the dead body had put her under its spell. Her body tingled at the contact of James' lips and she was ashamed at the excitement she felt, even with a dead body lying beside her.
This is sick, she thought. What we are doing is sick.
Despite this, her hand continued, with James' own remaining tightly around her tiny wrist. Lily trailed her finger down the mask, from the top, over the nose, sliding past the lips until she reached the very edge of the chin. Slowly, she pulled the mask upwards and gasped as the person was finally revealed to her.
Upon the moment of revelation, wet, warm liquid crashed down onto Lily and James, bathing them both in the blood of Cepheus Mulciber.