Lily knew that running away was immature and childish. Her parents had told her so when she was nine years old when the cat had mysteriously turned green. Petunia had cried, her parents had scolded and she had disappeared in the dead of night. They didn't understand that she couldn't control it, they didn't know anything about magic. She had made it for nearly three days living in the forest, with Severus bringing her food, the two of them spending hours on end lying beneath the stars, wondering about their futures as her parents searched desperately nearby. Just as James would have discovered she was missing and launched a search across the globe. They would all be terrified for her safety and yet she couldn't bring herself to go back. She didn't want to reassure him that she was alright and she had no intention of settling back into her life at headquarters when she was no longer permitted to take part in the activities of the order, whether it was for her own good or not. She couldn't be that person, she had never been the one to sit down and let people walk all over her, and James knew it.

She left her parents house feeling worse than she had felt to begin with. A dark desperation had settled over her as she had watched her parents, listened to them, so innocent and unsuspecting. What would they have said if she had told them she was being hunted down by the most terrible wizard in the history of the world, that they too were in danger? That it was her fault? She lingered for some time just outside her old home, circling it idly, calling up memories from a time when everything was much simpler, when she too had been innocent and naive, when magic had been mysterious and playful, a card trick or pulling a rabbit out of a hat, when evil had been an imaginary monster under the bed or in the closet, simply a bad dream.

Finally, she turned out of her parents yard and made her way slowly up the street, with no particular destination in mind, not paying attention to where her feet were leading her. She walked past the houses, past the paved roads so that the only sound she could hear was the crunching of gravel under her feet and past the fields that made up the outskirts of her hometown and into a small back wood, a place that she had known a lifetime ago, a place with a small, enchanting river and a moonlit clearing. The perfect place for two young children to grow. She sat herself down in the grass, laying back on her elbows to look up at the moon through the branches far above her head, watching the water through the trunks around her, remembering all the wonderful times they had had. She put her hand over her stomach briefly as the memories tore at her conscious, the feeling of abandonment and betrayal fresh in her mind. "Don't ever trust a Slytherin" she said aloud, to no one in particular, or perhaps to her child, the note of bitterness in her voice clear even to her.

****

She knew it was a stupid, unnecessarily dangerous thing to do. Every fiber of her being screamed at her to turn around, to go back to safety, to stop being so thick, but her feet were foolishly ignoring her mind, her body restless for excitement.

She had followed the river that wound through the trees and out into a meadow that was quite beautiful in her memories but it had changed drastically in the time since she had last been there, the green grass had died and the ground was littered with useless muggle debris that overflowed the banks of the widening river. A small hill stood above her to one side and beyond it she could see a large brick chimney, the only remains of an old mill that had towered over the town below.

Minutes later she found herself ducking through a gap in a rusty railing at the edge of a dark lane. Houses with boarded windows stood to either side, abandoned. The remaining streetlights created pools of light halfway down the street, giving a break to the eery darkness that lay like a veil over everything in sight. An owl hooted in the distance and Lily shivered, pulling her cloak tightly around her as she wound her way through the empty streets, skirting through alley's and desolate yards.

Who in their right mind voluntarily goes to the home of a death eater? What kind of self destructive, disaster of a human being puts themselves and their unborn child in such danger? She ignored the frustrated thoughts circling in her mind as she neared her destination. Spinner's end.

The old house was dark and dilapidated with age, years of neglect and indifference having left it looking little better than the abandoned houses next door. She stopped as she reached it, unsure beyond that point. She had had no plan to talk to Severus, to hope that after all the intervening years he wouldn't immediately turn her over to his master, become a hero for killing the mudblood that even Bellatrix couldn't get. She had known all along that he was no longer the friend that she had once known, that she had cared about, and yet something had brought her to his home, a feeling that all was not lost, a memory of a recent fight, when he had seen her face and lowered his wand, making himself vulnerable to his enemy. To protect her? Or had it merely been an accident, a hesitation before he struck her down?

She couldn't breath, her chest constricting painfully, her eyes filled with unexpected tears. She lowered her head between her knees and stood like that, eyes squeezed shut tight for a long moment, desperate and afraid, taking deep, shuddering breaths, trying to calm herself. A sudden feeling of being watched made her straighten up and look around but all she saw was a dark tabby cat streaking between two houses on the other side of the road. What was she doing? She realized suddenly just what being there meant and how vulnerable she really was. It didn't matter that Severus had refrained from killing her one time. The fact remained that he was a death eater, that he represented everything that was evil and corrupt in the world, that he hated her kind. She didn't need him when she had James and their child, she had her friends and her parents and the order. Severus was part of her past but she had no intention of having him in her future. She didn't know why she had come, but she knew that she had to leave and never come back.

It was then that she removed the photograph from the deep pocket of her cloak. Years of being folded and unfolded had left a rough crease down the center, keeping the two occupants separated. She looked down at the photo of her younger self, with her dark red hair gleaming in the september sunlight, laughter on her lips. And the younger Severus, looking happy and carefree as they smiled and waved up at the real Lily, the Hogwarts express standing in the background, waiting to transport them to their fifth year of school, neither of them knowing that it was the year that everything would change and she would realize that her best friend saw her as just another mudblood. She wondered how many of her kind Severus had tortured and murdered for Voldemort in the time since she had counted him as an ally.

A distant cracking sound made her jump and swivel in the direction of the open street but the sound was far away and once again all she saw was darkness. With a sudden surge of anger she raised her wand and held the tip of it to the edge of the old photograph. She no longer had tears in her eyes as she watched the small blue flame engulf the picture, as the smiles melted from the faces of the small figures and then their faces melted altogether and the picture crumbled in her hand, the ashes slipping through her fingers and falling to the doorstep beneath her feet.

Lily sighed and turned away. She had spent more than enough time standing in the dark street, an easy target for comers and goers. She glanced at the old house once more, swearing to herself that she would never come again. She took a step back and turned on the spot. With a crack that echoed down the deserted street she disappeared, just as the drapes in a window two floors above her head were pulled back and a set of dark eyes gazed curiously down on the empty street below.