Chapter Four
They sat by the lake for a very long time. Only once the sun began to set in a blaze of gold and red (James would have been proud of such a Gryffindor sunset) did Lily finally realise how late it was getting. She stood up, stretching out her stiff limbs.
"We should head in," she said, breaking the silence for the first time in hours, "They're going to start thinking I've been kidnapped or something."
"They've been checking on you every hour or so," Severus replied, "Someone comes to the door, glances down at us and goes back in."
"Oh." Lily wasn't sure how Severus had noticed this. They'd been sitting with their backs to Hogwarts, and as far as she knew he hadn't turned round at all. She didn't question it. "Well we'd still better go in," she said. Severus nodded.
They made their way up to the castle. Lily was dreading going in. When she did, she would have to return to real life. She would have to interact with her friends, and find out whether they'd lost anyone else. She'd have to discover what had actually happened to Voldemort, and how they were going to go about putting the world back together if he truly was gone. She'd have to look after Harry, which had never before seemed like a task or a burden, but which suddenly seemed infinitely more difficult now that James wouldn't be here.
It was just about bearable out here, sitting by the lake with Severus and living in the memories. It didn't feel so real. Once she went in there it was real life. Real life without James, which barely seemed like real life at all.
Severus held open the door and slowly, very slowly, she stepped inside.
Her friends were all inside. They were doing a very good job of looking casual, sitting and chatting on the staircase or leaning against the wall as though they had just happened to decide to hang around here, but she knew they were waiting for her. The identical, relieved expressions that spread over their faces when they saw her did nothing to disprove this.
"Lily!" Diana said, "Come and join us. We were just wondering how long it's going to take Dumbledore to get Sirius out of Azkaban." Her voice was cheery, but there was a false note to it.
"The Ministry had better not make too much trouble about it," Arthur said, "You know how slow they can be about this sort of thing, insisting on multiple witnesses and lots and lots of paperwork."
"But there aren't multiple witnesses," Lily said, suddenly worried, "Only James and I knew we'd changed Secret Keeper. It seemed like such a good idea at the time, changing to someone less obvious, without telling anyone about the switch. Particularly with that rumour going round about there being a spy in our midst. Obviously it didn't help in the end," she said bitterly, "Since the spy was much closer than we'd ever suspected."
"Who'd have thought it?" Diana said, "Little Peter always seemed so devoted to James."
"I guess he found someone more powerful to protect him," Lily said sadly. She couldn't find it in herself to be angry with him, in spite of what he'd done. She felt like she ought to be. She ought to be furious with him. Not for his betrayal of her, but for his betrayal of James, who had always trusted his three friends implicitly, and would have defended them to the death. Wonderful, loyal James. And Wormtail had taken him away from her.
But she wasn't angry, because she knew James wouldn't have been angry. Sad, incredibly sad, and very hurt, but not angry.
"I knew it couldn't have been Sirius," Arthur said, "Sirius and James were too close. He would never have …" he tailed off. Lily decided not to point out that Arthur hadn't known it enough to defend Sirius when everyone else decided to throw him in Azkaban.
She spotted Remus, standing at the other end of the Entrance Hall on his own. She walked over to him.
"Hey," she said softly. She didn't ask how he was doing. He'd have said fine, and they'd both have known it was a stupid lie, but that there were no words to adequately describe how either of them were feeling.
"I just keep thinking of Sirius," Remus confessed, "He must have felt so betrayed when not one of us stepped in to defend him. James would have been furious if he'd known."
"Sirius won't blame you," Lily said, "He'd have done the same in your position. All the evidence pointed towards Sirius being the traitor. He could hardly have expected you to stick up for him after he appeared to have killed James."
"James would never have believed it," Remus pointed out, and Lily couldn't argue with that. James might have been able to accept that Peter had betrayed him, and perhaps even that Remus had, but never Sirius. He'd have defended Sirius regardless of all evidence to the contrary, and he'd have been right to. The loyalty and trust between Sirius and James had gone beyond simple friendship. They were like brothers; James had been far more like family to Sirius than Regulus ever had.
As if in answer to their thoughts, the doors swung open right at that moment and Sirius strode in. He gave them all a cheeky salute and a grin, but there was something in his face that wasn't right. Throughout Voldemort's rise to power, and even with the deaths of many of their friends and the daily struggles to stay alive, Sirius had always remained cheerful. He'd mourned their friends, of course, and he'd been capable of being serious when it was required. But he'd always been ready with a smile and a joke to lighten the atmosphere. Now, though, his eyes didn't sparkle like they had before. Some spark inside him had died along with James.
"Sirius!" Remus exclaimed. He rushed towards his friend, before stopping, uncertain. "I'm so sorry, Sirius," he said. For a moment the two of them stared at one another, and Lily worried that Sirius might not be able to forgive Remus his distrust. Eventually, however, his expression softened.
"I know," he said, "So am I. We should have told you about the change of Secret Keeper. But I persuaded James not to. I thought you were the spy. Can you ever forgive me?"
"Of course." The two men embraced, and Lily smiled. She was glad they had each other. They would need all the support they could give one another to deal with the loss of two friends. James' loss would probably be the easiest for them to come to terms with. He had died like a hero, and that was something they could honour him for. But to lose Peter through betrayal …
"Lily, if you have a moment to spare, I would like to speak with you." Lily turned in surprise to see Dumbledore standing in the doorway. He had come in very quietly behind Sirius.
"Of course," she said, "Up in your office?"
"Yes, that would do quite nicely. Severus, if you would also join us? There are some things we need to clear up."
The three of them left the Entrance Hall and walked slowly up to Dumbledore's office. Giving the password (Chocolate Frogs), Dumbledore led them up the moving staircase. They entered to find someone already standing there, holding a small bundle in her arms.
"Ah, Molly, I'm glad you received my message. I believe Lily is ready to take Harry again now."
Gratefully, Lily took her son from Molly's arms.
"Thank you for looking after him," she said, "I really appreciate it."
"Oh, it was no hardship, my dear," Molly said with a sad smile, "The least I could do, really. And he's such a well-behaved child."
"Thank you, Molly," Dumbledore said, "I believe Arthur is downstairs, and the two of you should probably be getting back home."
"Yes, we should," Molly agreed, "I left Bill in charge at home, which is never a good idea for a long period of time."
She bustled out, and Dumbledore motioned for Lily and Severus to take a seat in front of his desk. Lily did so, holding Harry carefully. He didn't look hurt in any way, and was currently sleeping peacefully in her arms. Spotting something red on his forehead, however, she brushed away his hair to reveal an ugly, lightning bolt-shaped scar. She gasped.
"What's that?" she asked, looking up at Dumbledore, "Where did it come from?" Dumbledore's faced remained impassive, but his eyes glistened. She got the impression that whatever he was about to tell her, he told her reluctantly.
"That is what we need to confirm," he said, "I know this may be difficult, but I would like you to try and recount exactly what happened that night at Godric's Hollow."
And so Lily did. She told of how she'd fled with Harry, leaving James to fight off Voldemort without even a wand. Looking back, it was hard to believe she'd abandoned her husband like that, but looking down at the precious bundle in her arms she knew she'd do it again for Harry's sake. James wouldn't blame her. She knew that.
When she reached the moment of James' death, she almost broke down. It took all of her self control to keep speaking, to follow the story through to the end. As she told of how Voldemort had given her the chance to stand aside, she realised that didn't really make sense. She was a muggleborn, a Mudblood. Why would he offer her the chance to live? It may have been Harry he particularly wanted to kill, but surely one more death wouldn't mean much to him?
Seeing her confusion, Dumbledore turned to Severus.
"I believe you may be able to explain that particular incident, Severus," he said, "Why did Voldemort not kill Lily when he had the chance?" Severus flinched at the name, and then looked down at his hands.
"Because I asked him not to," he said softly.
Lily stared at him incredulously.
"What?"
"When I heard that he was going to go after your son, I went to him and tried to persuade him to spare your life. I managed to convince him that James was valuable, that as a pureblood he shouldn't be killed. I even told him James might be persuaded to join us. I showed him some of my memories of James at his worst, when he was behaving like an arrogant bully, and claimed that he would make a good Death Eater." Lily flew to her feet, unable to believe what she was hearing.
"James would never have become a Death Eater!" she shrieked, "He was good and honourable and … how dare you?"
"I know," Severus said desperately, leaning away from her nervously, "I know he would never have agreed. But I thought it might buy him a little time, perhaps give him the chance to escape."
"And me?" Lily asked. She had calmed down now, realising that she'd overreacted. Severus had been trying to help them. She shouldn't repay him by screaming at him.
"That wasn't so easy, and in fact I pretty much failed. I resorted to begging him to spare you for my sake, and all that achieved was to prove how much you meant to me. In the end, he decided not to kill you himself, but to bring you back with him, and demand that I kill you. It was supposed to be a test of my loyalty to him.
"And would you have done it?" Lily asked, very quietly. She knew she shouldn't be so terrified of hearing the answer. After all, if Severus had killed her, it would have been in order to retain his cover, which would have been essential to him remaining a spy. And the information he would then have gathered could have gone on to save many more people's lives. This was a war. People made that kind of sacrifice all the time. But suddenly, she was really, really scared of what his answer was going to be.
"Never," he said firmly, and selfish relief flooded through her. She shouldn't care this much. She and Severus hadn't been friends for years. He didn't owe her anything. And yet … she did care. And she was relieved.
"But what would you have done?" she asked, "Would he have killed you for refusing?"
"Possibly," Severus said, "More likely he would simply have killed you and punished me. But I wouldn't have let it get that far. I would have done my best to get both of us out of there, and if that had failed I would have died trying."
He said all this calmly and matter-of-factly, as though it meant very little to him, but she knew him too well to think that was really the case. Severus wasn't good at showing emotion, and when he talked about the things that were the most important to him, he often took on a very neutral, expressionless manner.
"Thank you, Sev," she said gently, "For trying to save us."
"It may well be that he didn't only try," Dumbledore said, choosing this moment to re-enter the conversation, "If my theory is correct, the Severus' intervention is the only reason both you and Harry are alive today."
"But how? I mean, I understand that I'm alive because Voldemort decided to stun me rather than kill me straight away, but how on earth did Harry survive? And what happened to Voldemort? Does it have something to do with the scar?"
"Well, in order to fully answer those questions, I would need to be able to see what happened between James and Voldemort just before James was murdered. I don't suppose you were able to hear what was said between them?"
"No," Lily said, "I couldn't hear them. I was … a little distracted at the time." She had to hold back tears as she thought of the terror of that night, and the way James had been all on his own downstairs, facing Voldemort alone. He'd been so brave. So brave … and yet so stupid. If only he'd fled with them. Or pretended to go alone with Voldemort's offer. Or … something. If only.
Severus put a hand gently on her shoulder and looked at Dumbledore reproachfully.
"Is this really necessary?" he asked. Dumbledore's face softened.
"I'm so sorry, Lily," he said, "I know I must sound terribly insensitive. I suppose I'm just anxious to get to the bottom of this, and confirm for definite whether Voldemort is gone, and how permanent it is. But if you're not ready to talk about it yet …"
"No, I am ready," Lily said. She had to be strong. Dumbledore was right; this was important information, more important than her grief. "It's just … well I didn't hear anything. And we can't exactly ask Voldemort what happened, or James …" she stopped, struck by a sudden idea.
"Or maybe we can," she breathed. Dumbledore and Severus looked at her curiously. She took a deep breath. Explaining this was going to mean talking about James, and not just about his death. She was going to have talk about James when he was happy, about her memories of him when they were together and alive.
She took another deep breath. She could do this.
"Okay," she said, "Let me explain …"