I'm back.
Lily had fallen asleep just before midnight on the old green couch that had been abandoned in the front hallway of headquarters in the early days of their use of the building. She had been waiting for news of James and the others and had passed out among the dusty cushions to dark dreams, full of shadows and faces of those who had died and others that had not yet fully formed into anyone at all.
She awoke with a start sometime later as the front door opened and the hall filled with the sounds of footsteps and triumphant voices calling to her and to the others in the house. Lily couldn't help but feel a stab of jealousy. She longed to have been there with them, fighting beside her husband and their friends as it had always been, watching each others backs, weaseling their way out of tight scrapes with the death eaters.
With a groan she rolled over and buried herself deeper among the moth eaten pillows. She wasn't ready to wake up and face her reality, despite the horrors that waited for her in her dreams. The footsteps and voices faded past her couch, some of them greeting her as they passed even though she appeared to be sleeping, and disappeared into the kitchen where Alice and Dumbledore waited. The headmaster had told Lily that he had important news but she found that she had no desire to hear it, in fact she was dreading hearing it and she didn't even know why.
She could sense him nearby just as she always could. Something about him that had always caught her attention before she saw or heard him, even when she had hated him it had been that way, drawing her focus. At one time it had been like a car crash, drawing her to look at what she knew she didn't want to see and then later it had turned into something far more wonderful than that, a sensation that she could not even attempt to describe.
She felt a hand brush the hair from her face and soft lips pressed against her temple for a brief moment, urging her to come back to the surface, to open her eyes and maybe even offer a smile that said she was happy he was alright.
The smell of smoke and decay filled her nostrils and burned at her lungs. Reaching out blindly she curled her fingers into the front of James' shirt and drew him nearer, blinking the sleep from her eyes, his hazel eyes gazing back at her, dark and cloudy behind the round glasses.
She tore her eyes from his and gave him the once over. He kneeled on the floor beside her in tattered clothing, head to toe soot, and the sent of campfire hung around him strongly, invading her senses. His hair was covered in dust and a trickle of blood was making it's way down from his hairline.
Lily released his shirt, leaving small creases where her fingers had clung and reached up to wipe the blood off with her palm, and when she pulled her hand down a moment later he stared down at the blood curiously as if he had been completely unaware he was injured, which she wouldn't doubt and then went back to smiling at her. She noticed that he had the slightly manic look about him that he got when he needed sleep.
"So what did you burn down?" she asked casually as he nudged her to her feet, as easily as if she was asking about the weather.
"Just a house... and a couple dead guys."
"They were dead already? Or what?" she asked, knowing the answer. He shook his head. "Nope. They got dead. And then they got crisped" he said on a smile.
Lily rolled her eyes skyward, trying not to picture the charred remains of what had once been people.
The kitchen was full of delicious smells and the clatter of forks and knives as everyone dug into their meals, all conversations forgotten momentarily for the more important task of eating. Lily took one of the two empty spots beside Remus, who smiled and immediately began passing her bowls and plates heaped high with food that she had to assume had been prepared while she was sleeping by Alice who sat next to her mentor, who also reeked quite strongly of fire, his magical eye fixed steadily on his chicken as he ate it without question, knowing full well that amy food produced by his protege was not about to poison him.
Not that Lily would have been of any help. She had never been much of a cook or housekeeper of any kind, with or without magic, unlike Alice, who seemed to excel at everything, from her job as an auror at the ministry to spells that had long been forgotten by the majority of the wizarding world and everything in between, Alice Longbottom could do no wrong.
Lily was just as far along in her pregnancy but while Alice had reached the six month mark looking quite impressive, as if she was about to explode, Lily had just barely begun to show and she thought that she looked more as if she was permanently and majorly bloated than anything else. Nonetheless, she was looking forward to the end of the nine months as if it was a prison sentence. Just like Alice, she wanted to be useful to the order once again without putting her own innocent child at risk.
James took the seat on her other side, next to Sirius, who Lily noticed was also covered in soot and debris and was sporting a black eye and a split lip. He noticed her watching him and he winked at her from behind James' bent head. Lily rolled her eyes skyward as Dumbledore raised a hand and silence fell around the table, sending a shiver down her spine. She looked up and down the table.
Only those who were her closest friends and family in the order were gathered there. The marauders, Alice and Frank, Moody and Dumbledore and McGonagall who sat next to the headmaster looking more serious than ever, her mouth forming a thin line.
Lily reached out and took hold of James' hand. He offered her a reassuring look and gave her fingers a gentle squeeze, pressing his leg against hers.
****
"The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches...Born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies...and the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not...and either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives...."
Silence followed.
Lily could taste the bile that rose in her throat and she forced it back down. She registered the looks of shock on every face at the table, each person staring either at her or Dumbledore or Alice, each person struggling to determine just what the words would mean and the impact that they would have. She was vaguely aware of James' tightened grip and that Remus' hand had formed a vice grip on the opposite wrist that had been resting on the arm of her chair.
Alice rocketed from the table and out of the room with Frank on her heels and Lily was prepared to bet that she had gone to throw up. Her gaze played over her friends faces. James' eyes had glazed over, Sirius looked furious, Peter looked slightly confused and Remus looked simply terrified as he stared back at her, unblinking.
She raised a free hand to her stomach to find that James' hands were already in place there, splayed over her belly as if to shield his child and she settled her hands over his.
She wondered vaguely if people had a limit to the amount of horrible things that could take place and still affect them. Perhaps years of seeing her friends die, her mothers death, her struggles with her own life and her future and trying to protect the muggles and the muggle borns, including herself had been too much, perhaps she had just gone past the line where she could take in anything more and so her mind had just stopped reacting. She was sitting at the table, perfectly calm as the words of the prophecy echoed in her head over and over again, possibly marking the death of her child and yet she found she could not muster any feelings of hopelessness or despair.
She glanced back up at the head of the table and her eyes locked on to Dumbledore's as he watched her sadly from across the room. His eyes held hers, the twinkle gone from behind the half moon spectacles.
So I've been thinking that this story needs a new title since it's old one kind of sucks and this story has gone way beyond what I had originally been thinking of. But all the new names that I can think of are totally stupid so far and I need some help. Any suggestions?
