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Chapter Text

For Lily Evans, the worst thing about going to school in a castle and learning about kinds of magic she only recently learned existed is being alone.

All of her life it had been her and Tuney, two sisters inseparable as twins. She had never once thought of herself as alone, until she learned she was magic and everything changed.

Now, she wakes up every morning alone. There are five other girls in the room where she sleeps, but they are not really there with her. Not the way her big sister Tuney used to be.

Every day Lily has to practice talking about her sister in the past tense. It doesn’t mean that she is dead, but the special sister friendship they used to have is dead, and Lily knows that is much sadder.

There is no conspiratorial laughter, no sneaking down the stairs to nick a sweet or two before breakfast, nobody to stand by her side and lie with her when one of them inevitably gets into trouble.

Instead, Lily’s morning ritual is predictable and therefore totally boring. She is awake before the other girls, and the floorboards hardly creak as her tiny body tip toes around the dormitory. Once she slips into her school robes and combs her hair, she stands very still in front of the tall mirror, peering curiously into it as it reflects her small figure, and the much larger empty space around her.

Lily’s Birthday was four days ago. She is twelve years old now. On January thirtieth she had stared into this same mirror, looking for what was different now that she was older. She had not been satisfied, and found herself in that same spot every day since.

On her birthday, she had seen the girl who would be spending the first birthday of her life without her dear sister.

On the day after that, she had seen the blue streak in her hair, the result of her spell that she had convinced her teachers was an accident. Lily thought it looked pretty when she made it, but now it was just a reminder that her sister doesn’t just hate what Lily can do, she hates what she physically is.

The next day Lily had hardly seen anything at all – her eyes were full of tears before she even reached the mirror, knowing all she would see was a remnant of the girl she had been when Tuney loved her.

Yesterday she saw the emerald necklace that she had automatically put on, and remembered that it had been a gift from Tuney, salvaged from the time capsule they found that summer in the woods.

Today all Lily sees is a girl, smaller than ever in contrast to the empty space around her. She stands still out of instinct for a moment, but soon feels she has no reason left to be there. She picks up her book satchel and heads down to the Common Room.

Lily walks past the table where she spent weeks writing letters that were never answered and plops down in front of the fireplace. There is of course no fire at this hour, but that meant that the big kids wouldn’t try to take the chair from her.

A quick jolt of movement from the armchair nearest her tells her that she is not alone.

“Oh! Hello, Peter.” Peter looks up at her, the obvious residue of sleep in his eyes. Lily thinks he looks quite funny in the overstuffed armchair, as if it is trying to swallow him alive. “Did you sleep here?”

“I was studying.” Peter indicates the textbook on his lap with a jerk of his head, screwing up his face in distaste.

Lily twists her neck to identify the book. “Ah – History of Magic. How’s your paper going?”

Peter once again screws up his face, this time holding out a crumpled length of parchment for her to take.

Lily unfolds it eagerly. History of Magic is her best subject. Before Hogwarts she was the top of her class in both reading and writing, and while many of her peers had a head start on the magical subjects, they have nothing on her in History of Magic.

Nor, it seemed, did Peter. For an all nighter in the common room, he had gotten less than a paragraph down on paper. Lily considers it carefully and asks herself what kind of feedback she would want if it was her draft.

“Well, you’ve definitely got a good start here,” she begins with as kind a voice as she can muster. “But there are a few things – like right here, I think you spelled Europe wrong.”

Peter immediately goes pale and grabs the parchment back out of her hand.

Lily sits very still, fearing that she has said something wrong. Peter sits equally still, his arms crossed and his eyes averted, until he finally mutters. “It takes a long time.”

Lily debates for a moment whether she should press the matter, but her curiosity gets the better of her. “What takes a long time, Peter?”

“Finding the right letters!” He blurts out in blatant frustration. “I know what to say, but my letters are always wrong. I thought that if I found every word in the book before writing it, I could get it right. But I’m too stupid. I can’t even see the words right.”

Lily’s eyes widen in sudden recognition. “Do you mean – do you have dyslexia?”

“No!” Peter insists immediately. “I’ve never even heard of it.”

Lily folds her arms pugnaciously, “Then how do you know you don’t have it?”

Peter considers her with a suspicious gaze. “Fine. Show off your fancy word.”

His comment embarrasses Lily as she realizes what a difficult word it must be for dyslexics. “Well,” she begins timidly, “It’s a muggle disease. Well, not a disease, just a way someone’s brain is. It’s what it’s called when someone doesn’t see letters in the right order. And so it can be hard to know what order to put letters for spelling.”

“That does sound like me, like, a lot.” Peter looks from Lily to the crumpled attempt at an essay in his hand. “But, I’m not a muggle, so I can’t have it!” He heaves a sigh of relief.

“I don’t know…” Lily continues. “I think maybe magic only fixes muggle problems in the body, not the brain.”

“Oh.” The momentary optimism fades from Peter’s face and he seems to sink even further into his chair.

“But it’s not that bad!” Lily rushes to reassure him. “My friend Alicia at muggle school had it. She got extra time and help to do her work.” Suddenly, her entire face lights up. “I could be your extra help!”

Peter looks back up at he, pessimistic doubt etched in his face. “How?”

“Well, my History essay’s already done, but I can help you with yours. Like you said, you know what you want to say, you just have trouble with the words. You can tell me what you want to write, and I can put the words down for you! And I can help you with the reading parts so it doesn’t take so long. We can try different things and see what works best.”

“Is that… fair?” Peter the touch of uncertainty in his voice competing with the growing light of optimism in his eyes.

“Miss Winifred says it’s always fair to get the help you need,” Lily quotes proudly.

Miss Winifred is the Feelings Doctor who Lily’s parents have her talk to while she is at home. She isn’t sure if being at Hogwarts means she is better, but nobody makes her talk to them here. Besides, all Hogwarts has is a Matron, and Lily isn’t so sure she knows very much about feelings.

Finally, Peter agrees.

“Perfect! We’ll be like secret homework buddies – we’ll be best friends!” She catches herself and, after a moment of thought, she rephrases her sentiment: “I will be your friend and you can be mine.”

Miss Winifred says Lily is supposed to change her words to practice thinking about herself as a separate person, whatever that means.

After agreeing to meet that evening for their first homework session, Lily says goodbye to Peter and bobs out of the common room, her mind busy with growing ideas.

Down at breakfast, Lily looks thoughtfully at the owls overhead as they deliver the morning mail. Today she does not hold her breath in doomed hope for a letter from Tuney, or at the very least one from her parents that might mention her sister. Instead, she imagines all of the words in those letters as the owls weave in and out of the Great Hall, zooming past each other and diving down towards students. She wonders if trying to keep track of them is anything like what it’s like for Peter to try to read.

Her stomach full, Lily makes her way to Charms, where they are practicing their Softening Charms. Instead of spending the period thinking about how to explain this spell to Tuney in a way that wouldn’t frighten her, Lily wonders for the first time if dyslexia might have an effect on how Peter learns spells.

Lily’s next class is Transfiguration, which seems to involve a lot more listening than actual wandwork. As Lily looks attentively up at Professor McGonagall, she daydreams about what it’s like to be a teacher. She has always been the follower – the little sister who plays whichever games are picked, the student who does as she’s told. To Lily this is not a bad thing – she has many good examples of how to be a leader. She almost loses track of the Transfiguration lessons as her mind invents different possible ideas for working with Peter.

Finally, class is out and Lily heads to the Great Hall, where she grabs a sandwich and a handful of fruit to eat on the grounds. Picnics are a long-treasured habit. Now, instead of two bare foot girls in the grass there is only one, but even that is beginning to feel normal.

After lunch is Flying. Lily thinks for a moment that perhaps this is the easiest class for Peter. She steals a glance his direction in time to see him colliding head first with Lyles. Okay, maybe not. But flying’s definitely not her favorite class either.

When Lily arrives at dinner, she does not see Peter at the table. She reminds herself that this is not unusual. She and Peter have been the loners of the house up until now, and unlike many of the loud boys and girls in their house, loners don’t tend to stick around the dining table longer than they need to. Tonight she eats her dinner even faster than normal, knowing what is waiting for her in the Common Room.

“We’re best friends,” Lily whispers to herself with a smile before climbing through the portrait hole to meet Peter.

When Lily finally tells Miss Winifred about this day, she does not reprimand Lily for not thinking of herself as a separate person. After all, for an entire day her sister’s rejection was the last thing on her mind.

Chapter Text

“Say trick or treat!” I coo at my son, enticing him with the blueberry in my open palm. “Come on, say it for mummy!”

“Trick or treat!” comes a playful call from across the room.

I look over the child in blue pajamas with a roll of my eyes, “Not you, James!” But Harry is already grabbing the fruit out of my open hand.

“Very good!” I can’t help but smile at him in adoration as he stuffs the coveted berry into his mouth and looks back up at me, waiting for more. “Okay, time for the next house – let’s go!”

I climb onto my knees and, taking Harry’s hand, scoot several feet around the perimeter of the sitting room. “Say hello to Mr. Hippogriff,” I instruct him.

Harry cocks his head, looking perplexed as to what his stuffed toy is doing perched so formally high above him on the chair. “Okay, now say trick or treat!”

My son is characteristically stubborn in his silence, and instead begins crawling under the chair in pursuit of some unnamed treasure.

“He’s looking for the berries,” James informs me, from his comfortable perch in his chair.

“Oh, right.” I jump up and grab a small handful of blueberries from the table and plop myself down again beside Mr. Hippogriff, this time laying two blueberries between his taloned feet.

“You know,” I say over my shoulder to my husband, “You and I could be eating real candy right now if we could only go out for the night.”

The muted gloom of my longing has my husband up and at my side in a moment. I keep my eyes fixed on my son as he finishes with the blueberries and grabs at Mr. Hippogriff, shaking him up and down with enthusiasm. My sight may be focused on Harry, but every other sense is tuned in to James as he slides down behind me, rubbing his hands down both my arms in soothing reassurance.

“This is only temporary,” he hums into my ear.

His voice is earnest and alluring, but I cannot trust his words. “That’s what you said last Halloween.” I hold my aching words close to my mouth, prohibiting them from reaching my careless child. “When will it end?”

James’ fingers brush across my forehead as they entwine themselves with my hair, pulling it delicately behind my ear. “When Harry is safe.”

“When Harry is safe.” I repeat the words that have become our mantra over the last year and a half, but like anything said too often, the words have begun to sound like nonsense.

I spin around to face James, abandoning our game for the comfort of my husband’s face. I dutifully tune my ears to the rhythm of Harry’s laughter, ready to run to his aid at the slightest sign of trouble, but it is James that fills my world.

He knows this, and we share a moment of tranquil silence, our hands cupping each other’s faces as we breathe together in a moment of sincere companionship.

We’ve spent almost a year and a half in hiding, and although we were protecting our son, in my mind it was always James that needs to be kept alive. It’s our family we’re protecting, and that family wouldn’t make any sense without James in it. I wouldn’t make any sense.

I can endure hiding in this house for years on end. I can endure never meeting another new person. I can enduring forgetting the taste of freedom. I can endure it all for him.

I take a deep breath, and James knows that is my signal that the moment of darkness has passed. He places a tender kiss on my forehead and turns his attention back to our child.

“Harry, look out – Mr. Hippogriff has learned how to breath fire!” James calls out in playful warning.

Harry lets out a yelp of surprise as a puff of blue smoke appears before the hippogriff, sent forth by James’ concealed wand.

I smile adoringly at father and son and stand up to stretch my legs. The night is coming to a close. Even the distant cries of excited children outside have begun to die down into the peace of darkness as November approaches.

I pop a few blueberries into my own mouth as I carry them into the kitchen. After tidying up the remnants of our evening meal, I instinctively linger in the room alone. This life of hiding is a paradox; I am at once totally isolated from the outside world, and yet never truly alone. I must be one of the only mothers who has never been more than a dozen feet from her child. It wears on me, but James is always there, and that is a constancy that I would never sacrifice.

I take a steadying breath and make my way back into the sitting room. Mr. Hippogriff lays discarded on his side as James conjures increasingly amusing puffs of smoke, which Harry’s hands immediately clap out of existence.

“It’s time I put Harry to bed,” I announce, calling the fun to a close.

James complies, tossing his wand aside as he picks up his son. “I’ll see you upstairs,” he says as he hands me Harry, the promise of intimacy laced into his voice.

I smile fondly back at him. My lips instinctively want to reach for his, but Harry is squirming in my arms. I turn towards the stairs, determined to put him to bed quickly before curling up with my husband.

“You know, Harry,” I whisper in a conspiratorial hush as we leave the room. “Today is your fifteen month birthday. I know your daddy didn’t say anything because he doesn’t think it’s a real thing, but it is to us. Fifteen months old!”

I am almost at the top of the stairs when the world changes. The door that is supposed to remain closed comes crashing open, and in that moment I know the smile that is not supposed to leave my husband’s face is gone.

I cannot turn around, cannot look at what is at the bottom of the stairs. I have nowhere to go, and James is not at my side.

And then his words break through my stupor: “Lily, take Harry and go! It’s him! Go! Run! I’ll hold him off!”

I obey immediately, my body’s instincts trusting that James knows what to do. I run the rest of the way to Harry’s room, trusting that James will follow in a moment. Harry is strangely quiet. He must also know that Daddy’s handling this.

Through the floor I hear the deafeningly final sound of a weighty thump, and then silence.

James is dead, and the child in my arms is all that I have left of him.

Suddenly this child is everything. He is my son and he is my husband and he is my sister and he is everything I have ever been separated from. He is the only thing I have left, and I cannot let go.

James is gone. A world without Harry is not an option for me.

A breath later, the nursery door is blasted open and the Dark Lord is before me. Those bloody eyes that took my husband moments ago now fix with hunger upon my child.

Before my mind can catch up with the moment, I have flung myself in front of the crib and am begging for my child’s life with all of the passion that I would beg for the life of the man I can no longer save. “Not Harry, not Harry, please not Harry!”

Somewhere in my desperate cries the thoughts of James are disappear, truly replaced by Harry for the first time ever. It is Harry who is my family, it is Harry who is my world, it is Harry who I can protect.

I stand on my own and I know I will not give up this fight. There is no separating me from the one I love.

A sign of recognition seems to pass before my foe’s eyes as he sees that his commands are wasted on me. With a look of indifference he raises his wand, and before another thought can pass through my mind, the world has become green.

The last thing on my mind as I fall to the ground is fear of losing the one I love.

Chapter Text

Form.

Existence.

You have it all. You have sight. You have a voice. You have a body - well, it’s not corporeal, but that feels like a small price to pay to be in this world. The world of picnics in the forest with Petunia and tender moments with James.

James.

James is here. Your eyes are fixed on the remarkable sight that is your son, but your heart tunes into the presence of your husband, only a few feet away from you. You would touch him if you could, and yet you do not turn your head to look directly at him. You do not have the strength to face the reality of being able to see right through his pale imitation of a body.

Instead, you look at Harry. He is real, he is strong, he is alive. He looks between his mother and father, and in his eyes you see James reflected back at you. If you were to look at your husband you would see confirmation that he is as dead as ever, but in Harry’s eyes he is more alive than he has ever been.

Harry is a miracle. He is all you ever dreamed and more than you ever imagined, and there is a weight in his eyes that does not belong to one so young. Your memories of your son are full of precious hours together - the laughter that came when he discovered a new toy, or the sleepless nights that accompanied the slightest sign of a raised temperature. You wonder how much of these memories Harry has been able to hold onto over the years. As you look at him now in pride and love, you feel like you are reliving a thousand instants at once. But for Harry, there is only this moment.

You want to tell him not to die. To stay in this world with its beautiful connections and amazing people for as long as he can. That it is how you would have responded when alive. But now everything is changed. You yourself are not any older or wiser, but your child is. He looks at you with quietly pleading eyes, searching for the guidance and wisdom of a loving mother.

You have so many things you still wish you could say. To Harry, to James, to Tuney, to everyone you’ve ever loved. But right now the only thing that matters is the thing your son needs to hear. The inevitable words that come from your mouth are merely the reflection of the truths that you see so plainly in his face.

“You’ve been so brave.”

You see the impact that your words have as Harry’s heart seems to be swell and break all at once.

He sees you as the mother who died for him, who would do anything for him. He does not see how you failed to stay alive for him, and how every day he has lived since is a day you have abandoned him.

After an eternity longer than death, Harry tears his feasting eyes away from you to speak to the others. He has loved you all, only to be parted from you one by one. You cannot fully understand how he is here, still standing so uncompromised in his faith and perseverance.

You hear not his words, but the feeling behind them. He is only a child, asking for comfort and forgiveness for transgressions no soul would ever blame him for. He is your child, and you want to wrap him up with all the warmth and safety that is left in this world, even now as he prepares to leave it behind.

Then once more his eyes fix on you. “Stay close to me.”

There is no request you would more readily grant.

He does not look back. Not at you, nor at your three lost friends. But in his own way he never seems to fully look away from you, and you can feel his heart beating in the rhythm of your names as he marches through trees and enemies, straight to the man who has been the death of you all.

Heroes will be heroes, cowards will be cowards, and you will be Lily.

Harry understands what it has taken you a lifetime and beyond to grasp.

That feeling which once consumed your life, that dread of being separated from those you love, is the last thing on your mind as Harry takes the last breath you will ever witness and the stone binding you to this world slips through his fingers.