"Hold it right there, lassie," growled an unfamiliar voice from next to her.
Lily really just couldn't catch a break, could she? She slowly turned to face the speaker, and was met with
"I said stop. Drop your wand, lass."
"My wand?" Lily replied incredulously. After all, she hadn't actually drawn hers yet.
That thought made her chuckle at the absurdity. She'd just confronted Voldemort, with nothing but her words and a fucking court document.
"Think this is funny, do yah? Well, you'll have plenty time to laugh about it in a cell. You're under arrest."
"Mad-Eye? What are you—"
"Stay outta this, Nymphadora!"
"Why are you arresting her? She just banished You-Bloody-Know-Who!"
"Exactly. She did something, and suddenly, all the fire's gone, You Know Who's escaped, and everything's gone to shit! And Albus is still down there!"
Lily's gaze flicked around the trashed remains of the ceremony. And indeed, not a hint of the angry orange flames was left. They had all of them vanished, in the blink of an eye, together with their creator. What was left were large patches of grass, blackened and smoking, a scorched podium, the destroyed large white cloth, and the group of spectators who—
"She shows up outa nowhere, just strolls in, an' turns the whole thing around for her own bloody means. You felt the way she controlled the crowd? The ruddy weight in those words, how ye couldn't even look away? Bloody well reminds ye of someone else, don' it?" Mad-Eye growled, both of his eyes now boring into her. "She might not be You-Know-Who, but that doesn't prove shite!"
"Listen, uhm... Lady Blackwood?" the black-skinned Auror spoke up. "I'm really sorry about this. My retired colleague here has seen a lot during the last war, and he can be a little bit..."
"Bloody right I have. You-Know-Who, Dumbledore, Grindelwald, Flamel, you never know with monsters like these. Doesn't all this seem a little too convenient?"
Lily froze as she found the third and final group. Unlike the first two, these people weren't standing. And there was something, something sitting atop...
"Well, if she's on our side, I bloody well don't care! You saw what she did to You-Know-Who."
"You're buying in on this too, Dawlish? Have you all lost your ruddy minds? You remember what happened the last time some nobody just conveniently showed up to solve all our problems?"
Hundreds of meters away, half-way across the distance towards the forest, so far where she could barely make out the people on the ground, but somehow, that didn't apply to the thing.
The tall Auror sighed. "Alastor, no. She's not the Watcher."
"Bugger that cauldron of flobberworms! I know what you'll say Kingsley, an' it's a load o' dragon-shite. I'm tellin' ye, this time it's different."
She could make out every strand of black fur, every single whisker twitching in the wind, the eerily still pointed ears, and those eyes... those purple eyes...
"...Salem?"
Just as quick as it had begun, it was over again. That feeling of timelessness, which had started barely seconds ago, but might as well have been hours. She looked again, and all she saw were... bodies.
Unmoving. Blackened and charred.
Dead.
At least a dozen of them.
She guessed the reason for the Auror's ire made a bit more sense now.
"Seriously, the Watcher?" Tonks said incredulously. "Come on, Mad-Eye. That's a fairy tale."
"So was You-Know-Who, until he wasn't. How do we know she isn't being possessed right now? I ain't gonna ask again. Drop. Your—"
A familiar screech pierced through the tension, and both Lily and the Auror apparently called Mad-Eye whirled and found the source, hovering in the air next to them. The ephemeral phoenix flapped its wings, then opened its beak and spoke in the familiar, whimsical voice of the headmaster. "I hate to interrupt what sounds like a no doubt important argument, but I could really use a hand down here."
Lily's gaze met Mad-eye's and as one, they turned their heads down towards the dark abyss.
"I don't have much time left."
And with that ominous statement, the silvery phoenix shimmered, then faded into the wind. There was a sharp, acrid smell in the air. A faint green mist began to waft from the hole in the ground, and the grass and destroyed wooden podium around the edges began to rapidly blacken and crumple.
The green liquid. That strange substance that Voldemort had created. In an instant, all thoughts of animosity were put to rest for the moment.
Mad-Eye's wand flicked over towards the shaft and he shouted "Evanesco!" to little effect. A few more flicks of his wand followed, and his frown continued to deepen.
"Toxic, or acidic. Magical; don't get too close. We need to clear out the air," the one-eyed Auror shouted, squared himself, some of the Aurors following suit, and swiped his wand, pointing it at the hole. "Ventus!"
"Ventus!" the assembled Aurors echoed, but Lily wasn't sure if it would be a good idea to draw her own wand, even in this situation.
The column of air burst forth, from one wand, then several. It pierced into the billowing green fog, causing it to fizzle and begin to disperse, but also something else. As soon as the spell touched the green mist, it seemed to lose its energy and dissipate. The moving air still continued on, but without the power of the spell, it didn't manage to penetrate very far into the hole.
"It's not working!" Tonks called out the obvious.
"Can we bring the barrier back up with the key?" Lily asked.
"Only one person is in control at a time, it's useless without permission from Albus," Mad-Eye said.
He retrieved a small copper doohickey from his coat, twisted one of the dials and sent it flying towards the fog, where upon touching the mist it instantly began to spark and frizzle, then plummet down into the hole.
"Magic interference! Toxic to spells! Can't vanish it, can't move it... displace it?" Mad-Eye barked, then raised his wand and shouted, "Aguamenti on my mark! Three, two—"
"Hold on," Lily said. "If it's some sort of magical acid, all you'll get is an explosion."
In truth, she had no idea if that applied to magical acids, it was just what she remembered from the chemistry section of Hermione's book. Do as you oughta, add acid to water. The book was very clear about that one.
"So then what?" Mad-Eye rounded on her, his wand once again pointed at Lily. "You know what this is? How to make it stop? And why should I trust you?"
Lily still stood unbothered. This moment was still hers. None of them had made a claim to it, so there was nothing to worry about. "No, I don't; yes, I might; and because it seems to be your only option."
"Enough, Alastor," the tall Auror called Shack said. "If she says she can fix it, I say we give it a shot, unless you have a better idea?"
Mad-eye's gaze flicked between the dark-skinned Auror, Lily, and the hole, before he growled "Fine. But no bloody tricks. I got my eye on you."
In truth, Lily had no idea if she could fix it. This was his last play, his parting jab, his final word. There was no telling how or even if her Name would help with this. And Magic seemed to be of no use, either.
So she turned to the final frontier, the one set of rules that she herself was right now so far removed from it was more of a suggestion. But the world still obeyed it's laws. And he was no longer here to tell it otherwise.
The spells couldn't penetrate because the magic would fizzle on contact with the fog, and it wasn't enough to clear out the entire shaft because even if the air was still in motion, it would just cause turbulence, but not manage to clear all the way down into the bottom of the hole. That couldn't work by blowing air into it, as long as the end wasn't open either. It was simple physics.
What she needed was pure, raw physical power. Much more than any performance of the Ventus Charm could ever hope to manage. It wouldn't even need to be directed, really. And that was the final key. It wouldn't matter if the spell fizzled upon contact, if the mass of air moving were so large that physics would do the rest. She still wouldn't be able to get air into the hole, but also, she wouldn't have to. There was only one spell she could think of. Except from everything she knew, it should be impossible to cast outdoors. The spells power requirement was in direct relation to the size of the area you tried to affect. But right now, there wasn't a single doubt in her mind what she had to do. There was no other way.
"You may want to hold on to something," Lily said, stepped forward, and raised up a hand. She closed her eyes, and called Orange light—the raw Elemental aspect. She drew it in from all around her, herself, her surroundings, any and every scrap of light she could get her hands on, and shaped it into her orb. It didn't even need to carry her intent, or be tied to her control. The nature of the spell was just pure, raw, uncontrolled elements. So maybe, she could get away with some borrowing.
Light slowly drained from the surrounding area, anything close to Orange seemed to bleed its color and fade into grayscale as more and more wisps of orange light were slowly drawn into the growing ball of angrily sizzling plasma.
Lily raised her second hand to grasp the orb of light, gathering more and more Orange within, before it had reached a sufficient size to start, and she began to shape it. Taking a deep, slow breath, she held the wildly spinning ball aloft, and drew her wand. She gently dragged it along the edge, drawing little wisps of orange light into it, and layering them into fine lines that began to wrap around the angry orb of raw magic. Swipe twist swish, twist swish flick. Back to the center, and repeat, this time 45 degrees rotated clockwise.
Her wand drew lines that started to wrap and pull at the light, almost nonsensical yet still repeating. Swipe twist swish, twist swish flick. And again. Soon, the ominously flaring and swirling ball of pure Orange began to draw in more than just light. Air, debris, water, it even drew in some of the green fog, causing the light to flicker, but there was simply too much light for the little fog to dispel it entirely.
"Brace yourselves!" Lily called out over the currents of air whipping her hair in front of her face. With a final flourish, she poised her wand, pierced the center of the ball of swirling energy, closed her eyes and latched onto the spell.
"Tempest"
In an instant, the ball contracted and turned into a bright, stormy white. She swung her wand skyward, and the light erupted in a blinding column that pierced the sky. A distant cry of a bird echoed, seemingly from every single direction all at once. The pillar came apart, separating into thin, circular lines, then spread out across the sky and vanished within a few short seconds into nothingness.
Silence returned, as Lily slowly lowered her wand. The light gradually dimmed further, even after the magic had vanished, as if the sun itself was fading. The temperature dropped, at first slowly, then faster, causing her breath to turn visible in the air. Colors drained from the world, turning everything to shades of gray. A faint gust of wind began to swirl, tug at the leaves, the grass, and tousle her hair.
"What the bloody hell did you—"
A deafening crack of thunder split the calm before the storm, cutting off the protest, as nature unleashed its full fury. A wall of wind slammed into them, sending half the assembled Aurors sprawling to the ground. Trees groaned, chairs went flying, and the decorations of the ceremony were scattered to the winds. Amidst it all Lily stood, reveling in the fruits of her labor.
The pillar of greenish smoke was caught in the storm and dragged with it, first just the part above ground, but quickly the ferocious winds tearing over the shaft began to draw more and more of the acrid vapor from the ground in a massive real-life demonstration of the Bernoulli Principle.
More and more acrid fog was dredged up from the depths, along with flecks of brightly glowing green liquid, scattered to the winds, until finally, the green mist seemed to clear up. The storm, however, just continued unabated.
Lily stepped forward and stuck her head above the opening, holding herself in place by continually increasing her own inertia. Down the shaft, all the way at the bottom, beyond a faint triangular shimmer, rested the body of an old man. Lying on the ground, unmoving.
She kept looking but luckily could not make out any remains of the green liquid. Good. Now she just had to make an exit.
Lily turned, and met the Aurors' gazes, most of them still hugging the ground, with only some like Mad-eye apparently employing some sort of spell to remain standing.
She took a breath and spoke, trusting her intent to carry the words. "It looks like my job here is done. I will leave the rest to you."
"You're not going anywh—"
Lily returned a smirk, and simply flipped the Force aspect enveloping her from increasing to reducing inertia and was promptly whisked off her feet.
~V~
"—Minister! Minister! Are you—"
"Barnabas? Now is really not the time to—"
"Just a minute, Cornelius! I..."
Cornelius wasn't even really listening to the man in the Floo. He sprinted over to his desk as fast as he could manage, pulled open a drawer, closed it, then pulled open another.
"I don't know what went on there, or what happened to make both of my employees convinced that... Nevermind. I just wanted to—"
Cornelius finally found the document, snatched the piece of parchment from the drawer, slammed it onto the desk, and retrieved his Thunderbird-feather quill.
"I just wanted to assure you that I'm a man of my word. Not a word of this nonsense will be printed in tomorrow's edition, or any other edition—"
"Not now, Barnabas, please!" he growled, dipped the quill into the inkwell, carefully got rid of the excess, then repeated it two more times, before finally moving it over to the parchment.
"If you could just please tell Madam Umbridge to not... you know... that there won't be anything printed that even contains any mention of You-Know-Who, or..."
Cornelius whirled around and met the man's head floating inside the green flames. "Forget all of that. You-Know-Who is back. I'm declaring a State of Emergency!"
"You-Know—... what?"
"You heard me! Stop the presses! Emergency evening edition! You-Know-Who is alive, and he just spoke at Harry Potter's bloody funeral!"
~V~
Holy crap. This was a lot harder than expecteeeeeee—
She gasped and adjusted the force again, instantly tumbling head over heels in mid-air once more.
Basically, all she had needed were things she had done before. Reducing her inertia, and applying force in a direction. But the devil was in the details. Her quick all Force and no Control approach had meant that while she could push herself in some direction by some amount using her light, the amount of force was really hard to pin down, and also, it was relative to herself, and not to the ground. Also, she had no way to keep herself upright mid-air at all. Hence her current state of endlessly tumbling, having no idea which way was down most of the time, while trying not to smack into the castle walls.
After three unsuccessful attempts at trying to land at what she hoped was the other side of the castle, she instead cut it off mid-air, kept the decreased inertia and instead tumbled to the ground in a heap.
And with everything that had just happened, she didn't even have the energy to get back up. She just stayed there, onthe floor next to the greenhouses, staring up at the stormy gray sky.
Just who was she?
...what was she?
Was she Lily? Was she Iris? Both? Neither?
On the one hand, nothing had ever felt more... right. Her Name. Her true Name. And hers alone. She imagined if the soul was a physical thing, it'd be engraved across the center of it, in that same flowery curly script she had just used, without ever even learning it.
Many things started to make a lot more sense now. How she managed to easily master some spells, but not others. She had always thought there was something special about those strange Greek spells, as well as the odd rare Latin ones she had come across. But in the end, it wasn't anything about those spells that was special. It was all the others. Because all the others were either taught at Hogwarts, or were at least spells she presumed her mum had learned over the course of her life.
Maybe, it was also the cause of her internal contradiction whenever it had come down to choosing between her own life and Harry's. She knew she would give up even her own life to keep him safe. Yet the same thing applied to herself as well. And that made no fucking sense whatsoever.
Things had been so much simpler when she had just been Iris. When her life had still been...
Okay, her life had never been quite normal, had it? But there was then, and there was whatever the fuck her current life was.
How much of it was down to her Name? Would she just have had a normal childhood without it? Or would she not even be able to use magic at all?
The parts of her that were Iris... her friends, reckless curiosity, probably her cheek... Or were they? Were they even separate people?
If what Lupin had said about Goblins was true, then she was just as much Lily as her mum had been. But also, she was... well, Iris.
The same Iris who'd dragged Tracey onto a midnight excursion into Dumbledore's secret bathroom and accidentally got her trapped in the shadow realm, the same brat who'd fully embraced girlhood mostly only to tease the living daylights out of her friends, the same silly girl who had spent years talking and writing to a diary she imagined to be a character from a stupid TV show...
And right now, she was a grown-arse woman who had just given Voldemort cheek in an almost sultry way, and then proceeded to escape the wizarding bobbies, all without ever drawing her wand.
No. Something didn't feel right here. While she wasn't a scared little girl anymore, she also wasn't the type to just waltz into mortal danger with full confidence. She'd either rush in without thinking, or overthink things and then end up in somehow even more trouble. And no matter how good it had felt, she couldn't help but feel like she was... losing herself?
Was there a difference after all? Did something change when she... embraced the Name? Just who was she right now?
Who did she... want to be?
Or did she even have to decide?
She didn't know the answer. But she knew that things had been moving very fast. Too fast. And now she was bound and trapped, unable to leave the castle, without risking Voldemort's wrath upon her friends.
Maybe, it was time to try and be Iris for a little while longer. Especially if she'd be around her friends.
Iris Potter. Not even Iris Lily Potter. Just Iris for now.
"Iris!"
Speak of the devil.
Iris groaned, and slowly tried to get her limbs to cooperate once more. Apparently, somewhere in her stupor, the Aging Potion had worn off. "T-Tracey? How'd you... find me?"
Tracey just raised an eyebrow and waved a folded piece of parchment in her face. Right... she had told Tracey about that, hadn't she?
"How'd you get here? What happened?"
"I... uh..." Iris mumbled, trying to gather her thoughts.
Just what had happened? What the hell had she been thinking?
She'd... well, putting the insane confrontation with V̸̨̛͔͎̜̯̄̓̈́͂͘͝ö̶̪̪̰́̀͐͜͝l̷̲̟̓̅́͛—-
Gah! Stop it!
Oookay... Not good. So it had been her Name, that had been holding him off? That wasn't good. But she'd have to manage.
Anyway, well... the Dark Lord... he'd almost killed Dumbledore... well, at least, she hoped. She hadn't even checked really. It had just felt like her job was done, so she'd left... And all those other people— God. Were... had they been killed because of her? And worse... everyone else...
She'd honestly considered it. She'd well and truly considered sacrificing them. All of them. Because the other option would have been to... not even necessarily give up, but just to seriously impede her plans to bring back Harry?
"What the fuck, Iris?"
And yeah. It hadn't been Tracey who had said that.
"...Iris? You in there?"
Tracey was in front of her, clutching her shoulders, and peering into her eyes with worry written all over her face.
Iris just stared back, then mumbled, "Hell if I know..."
Tracey raised an eyebrow. "The hell is that supposed to mean?"
"Uh... nevermind. I'm fine. Come on, gotta get back inside."
After just a single step, she realized that that had sounded easier than it actually was. Iris stumbled, and Tracey quickly caught her, then slung an arm around her shoulder to support her.
"Thanks, Trace..." she mumbled into her shoulder.
If anything, the more she thought about it, the more messed up it sounded.
Lily was bloody scary. And Iris had no idea what to think about that. Because in a way, she was scared of herself.
~V~
"Come on, almost there. Don't worry, I'm sure Pomfrey will fix you right up in a jif."
Hermione returned a look, that was somewhere between thankful for his concern and condescending that he'd think she was this stupid. In truth, Ron wasn't faring much better. They'd noticed that Iris had been missing from the group of students who had returned to the castle, and even with Hermione's reluctance, Ron had successfully argued that it was what Harry would have wanted, and so they had slipped the group and made their way back.
Only to bear witness to some sort of unknown, hot, red-haired... definitely hot, uh... damn it, he wasn't a Weasley for nothing! Whoever it was had just waltzed up to bloody You-Know-Who, and one second later, he was gone. And still, one second too late. Because there had been the fire. And once he had realized that Iris might be caught somewhere in it, he'd reluctantly gone searching. Half of him still thought she'd deserved it. He hadn't written any more letters, and they had had a total of one conversation ever since the start of the year. But the other half also knew that Harry didn't. No matter what he thought of her, she was still Harry's sister. And so he had kept looking. Only to find nothing. Nothing except the fire. And before they knew it, they had been surrounded. It had caught Hermione's robes, and she hadn't been able to put it out.
In a way, he was thankful for what that woman... Lily? ...had done. Because if the flames hadn't just vanished in that moment, then Hermione...
But then again, if they'd just vanished a few seconds earlier, then nothing would have happened at all.
And he still had no idea what happened to Iris. He still didn't know how to feel about her. Or this Lily.
He pushed open the doors to the Hospital Wing, and led Hermione inside, who was still trying to cover her face. She'd insisted on trying to fix it herself, but he wasn't sure if it hadn't made it worse in the end. So here they were.
"Madam Pom..." Ron trailed off, as he took in the state of the Hospital Wing.
Bloody hell, what?
People. People all over the place. Beds occupied, Aurors, Ministry personnel... And teachers.
The fireplace flashed green, and out stepped a group of three witches, all dressed in those grey-blue uniform robes that he remembered from... St. Mungos?
"Over here, Sarah," Pomfrey's voice called out over the noise.
Ron's gaze followed the source, and the healers who quickly made their way towards it, and froze.
There was a single bed, surrounded by way too many people with their wands out, and a veritable array of potions at the ready on trays next to the bed. And upon it rested a single man, who couldn't look more out of place in the current state he was in, crumpled, frail, unconscious, tattered robes, singed beard, even the half-moon glasses were gone.
Just what had happened to Dumbledore? Last he'd seen him he'd faced off... against You-Know-Who...
A cold feeling began to settle in his stomach. But Dumbledore couldn't... he meant... he was Dumbledore! There was no way he'd just...
His eyes drifted on, towards another bed, and on it, rested Professor Black, just as unconscious, but as far as he could see, otherwise unharmed. At least, there weren't any additional people crowding around his bed.
Hermione gasped next to him, and he realized that he could worry about that later. His eyes darted around and found a single unoccupied teacher.
"Professor! Please, Hermione needs help, we... well, we kinda..." Ron trailed off, not sure how to finish that sentence.
McGonagall looked up from next to Dumbledore's bed, met his eyes, and something flashed across her face. Then she found Hermione and quickly began to wave over Madam Pomfrey.
"Mister Weasley! Miss Granger! Just where have you been? I have been looking for you!"
"Well... we sort of... got caught up in the fire," Ron decided there was no point in trying to lie. "Hermione did, at least, it was only a few seconds, before it vanished by itself, though."
"I... I tried to... I tried to fix it but..." Hermione whispered, still covering her face.
Madam Pomfrey approached, gently reached out, and tried to remove first Hermione's hands, then the side of her robes. Hermione flinched upon the touch, but then relaxed at last, and allowed her to peel back the fabric to reveal the reddened skin beneath. Extending from her right arm, up her shoulder, and part-way up her neck.
"Can you... fix it?" Ron asked quietly.
Pomfrey whirled, plucked one of the glass jars from the tray behind her, unscrewed the lid and handed it over to Hermione. "Here. Apply that to the entire area. The more, the better."
Hermione glanced down at the jar, then back up at the mediwitch. "And will that..."
"It's the best you can do. It might help, but I'm afraid there is no simple way to fix this. If anything, it might heal in time."
But... she hadn't even checked! Hell, she hadn't even drawn her wand! How would she know what—
"Mister Weasley? If I could have a moment of your time?" McGonagall interrupted his thoughts quietly.
"Sure, what is it?" he replied absently.
McGonagall gave him a long, strange look, before finally adding in barely a whisper, "Alone?"
~V~
The next breakfast had somehow been an even more subdued affair than the one on the previous day. The big reveal had come in the form of Professor McGonagall—which hadn't been much of a surprise at all, thanks to the rumor mill—that Professor Dumbledore was currently in medical care and not expected to return for quite some time.
This threw another spanner in Iris' plans. One of the thoughts in the back of her mind had been the fact that the main goal of her Geas had already been achieved. She had salvaged the situation, and banished You-Know-Who. And the main reason for wanting to bind him in the first place had turned out to be null and void anyway. So in theory, she could now just break it, right? At least, if they'd fixed the wards, he wouldn't be getting onto the castle ground anyway, Geas or no?
Except of course, it wouldn't be that easy. Because the main thing that had held the Dark Lord off during the last war hadn't simply been the wards. It had just as much been Dumbledore's presence.
And without that, the castle was fair game. Maybe he was still here, maybe he was in St. Mungos. But he obviously wasn't in any condition to face off against You-Know-Who a second time right now.
So no. If she wanted to keep her friends safe, keep Sirius safe, and everyone else, then she'd have to put her plans on ice, and stay. At least, for the foreseeable future. It rankled her, to all but give up on Harry. But she wasn't really doing that. And she still had two avenues to follow from here anyway. There was still the whole of the Restricted Section. And of course, there was also... him.
Her gaze flashed up towards the staff table, where a visibly winded, but still very much alive and kicking Sirius sat, seemingly his mood no better than her own.
If he had truly been honest about what he had said, both in his letter and during their dinner, then yes. Maybe... maybe he'd actually be the one person who could agree with her plan in the end. Who wouldn't just go along with it for mutual benefit like Daphne, but actually agree and help work towards it. She hadn't even realized how much that thought felt... relieving? Exciting even? Just the idea, the foolish hope, to no longer be alone in this.
This foolish quest of solitude.