Important: The Deathly Hallows in this story don't grant any special power when they're all gathered outside of the fact that when destroyed they return to their master undamaged, like in canon being the Master of Death just means you aren't afraid to die which Lilly already had in spades. Also Lilly is warming up to Draco and he to her, nothing romantic since I have no intention of breaking Hermione's heart but from here on out they'll be more pleasant with each other if for no other reason then they're family.
Also, I find Lilly just ranting about her evening to Hermione and Draco amusing, let me know what you all think, I know it's in desperate need of a beta but one wasn't available tonight. Anyway, enjoy and REVIEW!
Oh, someone suggested I make this 'M' rated so I guess I will for the time being unless you all think there is no point.
Hermione awoke feeling quite satisfied curled up in an unfamiliar bed, sitting up the comforter slid off informing her she was very naked at the moment, looking about her surroundings she realized she was still in her new library. Stretching she gathered up her clothes and got dressed, climbing up the ladder she noticed Lilly's letter on the desk and frowned slightly after reading it, her girlfriend was known to keep odd hours but she wished Lilly had woken her at least. Noticing the time the brunette slipped into her pajama pants and shirt while throwing on a snuggley robe, after perusing her library she grabbed a tome of choice and went downstairs to the sitting room.
She'd intended to nest on her favorite overstuffed couch by the fireplace but stopped short when she saw Draco Black sitting at one end leafing through a magazine looking fully enamored, not willing to feel like a stranger in her own habitat she entered the dim room and sat on the opposite side. Draco looked up and nodded at her, no sneer, no off comments, just acknowledging her presence and going back to his reading, she noticed with a bit of bemusement that it was one of Sirius' Nintendo Powers. They sat in silence for a bit before Hermione asked,
"Do you know where Lilly is?" Draco paused and shifted his shoulders a bit looking uncomfortable,
"I...have an idea, this may be one of those things she should tell you about in person," confused at his evasion and mildly hurt that he knew something about Lilly she didn't Hermione just nodded quickly and pretended to be absorbed in her book. At around midnight she heard the doors leading to the front hall open and in trudged a figure from nightmares, the armored intruder cocked its head upon seeing them, then shrugged. It started tearing its armor off and throwing it in a pile by the door, when the cape and cowl came off it was with some shock that Lillith was revealed, and damn did she look worn out.
Eventually the breast and back plates fell to the ground and she kicked off her heavy black boots, now garbed in nothing more then a skin tight leather suit that left nothing to the imagination she stretched cat like then prowled to the couch. Dropping bonelessly between the two teens she threw an arm around each of their shoulders and stared at the fire with a contemplative look on her face, after the silence was starting to become uncomfortable she sighed out,
"Draco, I ask you this since I already know the answer from Hermione will be 'no', have you ever made a pair of old men cry and have an emotional breakdown on Christmas?" Both her couch mates blinked at her owlishly before he drawled out,
"Christmas no, Easter yes," Lilly snorted at that as a wry smirk crawled up her face, letting out another exasperated sigh she continued,
"Not surprised, so I had an interesting evening as I visited the Dursley's for the holidays earlier, left Dudders a present that is sure to leave a mark, murdered 'Aunt' Marge with a sword, and kidnapped my 'Uncle, which reminds me I gotta get a copy of the investigation report from the bobbies later. I mean really someone looking like a D&D reject smashing into a suburb, kills a bitch with a sword and mysteriously vanishes with a man easily mistaken for a whale? Priceless," Draco was blinking rapidly and Hermione looked worried.
Lilly threw her head back and stared at the ceiling as she kept talking,"So I used the imperius curse on ol' Uncle Touchy and made him plod through Tommy's booby traps and when he recovered what I was after I crucioed the son of a bitch until his eyes were bleeding, hey is that normal by the way?" The question was stated so lightly that it had Draco gaping like a fish, Hermione of course was use to this sort of thing at this point so she answered,
"If they have a bad heart and poor diet, yes," nodding Lilly continued as if she was discussing what she was going to wear the next day,
"So anyway he died from a heart attack, shocker there, and I got my hands on one of Voldemorts treasures," reaching into her belt pocket she threw a gaudy ring with a large black stone in the center on the table. As the firelight caught the symbol engraved in it Draco gasped,
"Is that...?" Lilly nodded while Hermione was further annoyed about Draco knowing something she didn't,
"Yarp...Resurrection Stone, I spent most of the late afternoon talking to my parents...and my personal Reaper..." Draco stared at it in awe, leaning forward still with Lilly's arm draped over his shoulders he picked it up with a look of reverence,
"I can't believe it, an actual Deathly Hallow...you...you know what this means?" Lilly sighed and turned to Hermione, she quickly gave her the condensed version of the three brothers story, suddenly she understood Draco's interest.
"And if you're wondering what Draco is implying it means I have two thirds of the items necessary to conquer death, or rather had..." her cousin and girlfriend both looked at her sharply, then Hermione realized something,
"Oh...oh my, your fathers invisibility cloak...oh..oh dear..." Lilly nodded and pulled her arms back to herself, reaching up her sleeve she disconnected a wand from its holster and tossed it on the table, her companions immediately recognized it as Dumbledore's.
"Yeeeah...ends up the Headmaster had the Elder Wand and it err...chose me after I gave the poor old bastard a breakdown... so as I said, I had two, now I have all three, and before you ask I have noooo idea what it means. Hell I tried snapping the stick in half and it just reappeared in my hand whole, so that's a thing." Draco tried to reach for the wand but it simply vanished then appeared in Lilly's hand, she sighed in annoyance as she slipped it back up her sleeve, leaning back she threw her arms around their shoulders again.
Now it must be said, normal witches and wizards would probably react differently to this sort of situation, but those who had grown up around Potter's insane adventures, friends and former enemies alike just had a hard time being surprised at the turns her life took at this point. So the three of them remained silent for a few more minutes before Hermione decided to speak, she was interested in the talk with the late Potter's but felt that would be tactless at the moment so instead she asked,
"So...making old men cry?" Lilly gave her a rueful grin and shook her head slowly ,
"So, it ends up Dumbledore has some rather...hefty...baggage, he was Grindelwald's gay lover when they were younger, they got in a fight over the whole taking over the world thing and they started throwing curses around, one of them accidentally killed Albus' kid sister." Hermione gasped and Draco winced, Lilly just wanted some aspirin after her long night, "Anyway, Aberforth, that's the Headmasters brother, blames Albus for her death and they never really reconciled, so I popped in on them and summoned Ariana to give them some peace." Hermione worried her lip a bit then asked,
"Did...did it go well?" Lilly snorted while rolling her eyes,
"Oh you could say that, first thing this little girls ghost asked Albus? 'Why did you kill me?' Old man bursts into tears, starts going into hysterics, sticks his wand to his own head then suddenly the damn thing goes flying and hits me in the bloody eye." With that she pointed to the small bruise on the left side of her face, "Anyway, Ariana as it ends up is a bitch and she was just screwing with him, Grindelwald was the one to kill her and I had to sit there for an hour while the three of them worked things out, when the ring ran out of juice I headed back here."
She glowered at where the Elder wand was stored then huffed in annoyance, "Been spending the past two hours trying to get rid of this rudding wand and give it back to the Headmaster but that doesn't seem to be in the cards... Honey?" With that she looked to Hermione with a pleading gleam in her eyes, "Can we go to bed and you promise me no more weird shit is going to happen to us the rest of the hols?" Hermione met Draco's eyes and the boys expression said it all, 'Around Lilly? Not likely', being a good girlfriend Hermione evaded the question by giving her a kiss and pulling her to her feet.
"Come on you, lets get some sleep, tomorrow we'll lay in all day and make Sirius pamper us, we'll do our nails, gossip about our classmates and eat a metric tonne of chocolate, how does that sound?" Lilly gave her a watery smile and nodded quickly, Draco scoffed then laughed,
"Potter you're becoming such a girl!" There was no venom in the statement, just honest amusement, Lilly giggled, paused, let out an exasperated sigh and chuckled a bit,
"Goddess I know, it's sneaking up on me more and more lately, Draco do me a favor if I start hanging out with Lavender and Parvati piss me off so I can fly in a rage and get back to my roots," her cousin snorted waving a hand at her dismissively.
"That's Nott's problem now, me I like not having my bits threatened at wand point to push a political ideal I no longer care about, go to bed you two I'm going to go see if I can pry that game system away from Aunt Bella," saying their goodbyes Lilly let Hermione guide her to their room, she changed into her pajamas and curled up with her best friend sighing contentedly.
"Ya know...I really love our screwed up little family," Hermione gave her a quick kiss and her hug an extra squeeze as they dozed off.
Thankfully, much to everyone's shock the rest of the holiday flew by with no dramatics outside of what one would expect in a mansion filled with Black's, actually the return to school in general was for the most part completely and utterly mundane, this of course made Lilly ecstatic. The weeks rolled by and it saw her DADA group (That she'd given the name 'The Fallen' simply because it sounded cool as well as everything in her life suddenly having a death motif so she figured why not) trained on the muggle weapons and the school at large witnessed the destructive power of the T-80 tank. Sirius had to reassure his students that the mundane version could not in fact fly but that did little to reassure anyone since the damn things shrugged off the most powerful blasting curses he knew, he and Arthur had done a superb job on the modifications. Eventually January rolled into February and the most hated of days reared its ugly head,
"I hate Valentines day!" Lillith whined pitifully, "Every year has been a dramatic failure for me and I know this year won't be any different, I just want to come out of the closet already so people stop making half assed attempts to ask me out! Not to mention that I have to put up with watching everyone making kissy faces at each other and or mope around broken hearted. Ugh...at least you guys are normal right now..." Draco and Daphne, who had both taken to hanging out with her group of friends in the new term met each others eyes then smirked, Draco extended his hand to Daphne and drawled,
"Miss Greengrass would you do me the honor of being my date for this Hogsmeade weekend?" Fluttering her lashes while putting on one of those dopey simpering smiles often worn by other girls (mostly Gryffindor's she thought wryly) she cooed,
"Oh Mr. Black I graciously accept your invitation," Lilly glared over her sandwich at her friends,
"You two are wankers, you realize this yes?" The pair of Slytherins gave her superior smirks as they tucked back into their own lunches, pausing a moment Lilly cocked her head, "Wait, I thought you and Tracey were...?" Daphne rolled her eyes at the confused witch,
"We are Draco and I are just messing with you," Draco nodded quickly in agreement,
"I'm actually going with Susan Bones," Lilly's mouth formed into an 'O' but she remained silent, looking contemplative she ate quietly until she saw Hermione approaching their table. Coming to an abrupt decision Lilly tossed her sandwich on her plate while growling out "Fuck it" and hopped up, approaching her girlfriend she pulled her into her embrace and gave the brunette the most toe curling kiss she'd ever had. Breaking away she loudly but firmly stated, "Miss Granger would you do me the honor of being my date this weekend?" Hermione turned bright red as the entire Great Hall went quiet, eventually she stammered out,
"So-so-sounds like a plan," grinning she escorted her to the table as the room seemed to let out a collective breath, rather then jeers and taunts there was a smattering of "FINALLY"s, "About Times"s and "Took them long enough's as money was exchanged across the Hall, both girls looked around slightly bemused at their classmates antics. Lilly met McGonagall's smirking gaze as a grumbling Snape dropped a handful of galleons in her open hand, Dumbledore smiled happily at her while nodding and Sirius gave her a thumbs up, all in all she was completely shocked.
"That's...that's it?" She stated incredulously as they took their seats with their Slytherin friends, Daphne rolled her eyes her response one of exasperation,
"Look Lilly there are a bunch of stigma's against same sex relationships in our world but the thing is you're both women, meaning you can still carry each others heirs with a simple blood ceremony, how do you think those covens that stay sequestered in the wilds stay populated? Sure some of the more conservative purebloods will have a problem with it but they're You-Know-Whos lackeys anyway so what do you care? Just like I told you before the holidays your friends have been softening the school up to the idea for months, at this point it was just waiting on you losing your patience." At that moment the Weasely twins appeared out of nowhere as is there wont,
"Thank you ladies" Gred said grinning madly,
"Waiting till Valentines won us the betting pool," an equally cheerful Forge continued,
"And with our winnings in hand,"
"We now have enough to open our store,"
"So we'd just like to say,"
"Thanks for the help!" This last bit was in stereo, both witches were blushing fiercely at the attention being given them, after looking at each other a moment they immediately burst into laughter, maybe this Valentines Day would be different after all.
As the weekend arrived it found the young couple riding down from the castle chatting amicably with Susan and Draco, once they arrived at Hogsmeade the various couples broke off to do romantic ...stuff, or so Lilly assumed since her girlfriends idea of romantic was holding hands in the bookstore. Honestly being dragged around buying stuff for Hermione while openly flaunting their relationship made her giddy, it was like she was staking her claim and declaring to the world she didn't care what it thought. There had been some dissent of course, several seventh years tried to give them trouble before they left but seeing as the castles wards saw both the witches as founders heirs the guilty parties were quickly ejected through the main doors much like Umbridge had experienced.
The oddest confrontation had been with Ron, they'd both been expecting some blowup but when he had approached them fuming instead of ranting about the nature of the relationship he berated them for not coming out of the closet before Yule, apparently they'd cost him five galleons. Eventually Ron and his date Lavender (ugh) walked off after some good natured ribbing, as Lilly reflected on how perfect the day was she barely registered the tingle up her spine in time to push Hermione to the ground. Throwing herself on top of the smaller witch the curse meant for them sailed overhead and hit the shop to their left, the building exploded in a shower of fire, splinters and shards of glass, Lilly screamed in agony as her back was perforated with debris and nearly passed out from the shock.
"Lilly!" Hermione cried as she stared into her lovers wide eyes, the ravenette tried to form words but eventually she shuddered then fully collapsed on her, worming her way out from under the prone girl Hermione began trembling in horror. All across the town Death Eaters were casting curses at children, catching buildings on fire, and generally causing as much destruction as possible, not really knowing what else to do she began pulling the bits of glass and wood out of her girlfriends back and dragged her into cover. "What do I do what do I do what do I do..." she had no clue, Lillith was the one who thrived in chaos, she was the go to girl for seat of your pants plans, Hermione was the schemer, not the doer. With that thought running through her head she glanced around the corner to see a small child running away from a group of cackling Death Eaters, he wasn't wearing school robes and looked far too young to go to Hogwarts anyway.
As the blonde boy looked back at his pursuers he was hit with not only the intestine expelling curse but also a dark cutter, the now legless boy rolled to a bloody stop directly in front of Hermione his hazel eyes staring up at her lifelessly. Something snapped in the bookworm, something she didn't know she had that rested in her heart, something that had landed her in Gryffnidor despite being the Heir of Ravenclaw, standing up while still staring at the dead child Hermione's chocolate brown eyes shifted to ethereally glowing blue fire. The Death Eaters stopped in front of her sneering, comments of 'Mudblood', 'Potter's whore', and worse were said as she trembled in rage, lifting her head she splayed her open palm at the half dozen robed figures and coldly stated,
"Vita Exhauriebat" a massive violet pulse sprang forth and consumed the group, as they screamed in agony white light bled out of their mouths collecting in her waiting grasp, turning away from the withering husks that fell into dust and ragged cloth she placed her glowing hand on Lillith's forehead. As the light spread through her lovers body the ravenette let out a sigh and her breathing stabilized, leaning down she gave her a kiss then slid her hand up her sleeve claiming the Elder wand, there was a brief flash of light as the wand acknowledged her as its owner and she stood once again.
Walking out into the fire and chaos she pointed the Elder wand at a group of ten Death Eaters preparing to storm the Three Broom Sticks, swishing the wand into the shape of a five pointed star she jabbed into its center while bellowing, "CZAR BOMBARDA!" As the mother of all explosion curses left a twenty meter wide crater in the ground sending dirt, meat, blood and bone spraying across the town The Lady of Ravenclaw prowled towards the rising mushroom cloud, she was met by a seething Draco, a bloodied rag wrapped around his right eye. He nodded to her as they were approached by Neville and Luna, both blood splattered and carrying Moony's special AK-74's, as the quartet looked about the burning town Luna's dreamy but determined gaze met the blue fire that had overtaken Hermione's eyes.
"Orders?" Hermione threw a silent cutting curse at a Death Eater peaking around the corner of the tavern taking his head off,
"Kill them all," with that statement a new faction was placed on the board, sadly no one bothered to tell the old players that the rules had now changed for there is nothing more terrifying than when good witches go to war.
Shortish but I'm quite tired, wrote all this in about three hours so if there is any glaring errors I'll try to catch it later, anyway hope you all enjoy the turns the story is taking, with that good night and please REVIEW!