Chapter Text
Lily Potter nee Evans gritted her teeth, flaming hair spinning around her panicked features as the house quaked with spell battle. She could taste the dark magic in the air, making her lips pull back in a snarl of distaste and fear in equal quantities.
There was a sudden finality in the air as well, a hushed blink of a moment that she recognized from other such previous moments from various battlefields, small and large, since she had become part of this detestable war with a squeeze of agony, it was a moment of death.
She could feel it with surety in her bones that the one to escape their mortal coil it wasn’t the intruder into their home, the feared dark bogeyman made flesh and reality. No, she was relatively sure her brave, foolish wonderful James was the crumpled body lying at his enemy’s feet.
She wanted nothing more then to fling every fiber of her rage and despair behind her magic in a curse that would level all curses in her revenge, but she was not so foolish as to give into her emotions and forget what was important.
She whirled around, casual robes swirling around her as she ran for the nursery.
'Why oh why did it have to be all the way on the top floor?!'
Her keen mind tumbled with plans. She knew there was a strong likelihood that the fire place floo was compromised, and apperating was not a possibility, she had felt the intruder's wards snap up as soon as the man burst through their front door, wand blazing and curses on his serpentine lips.
Lily sucked in a breath when she felt the Dark Lord Voldemort, so powerful and steeped in his dark intent that it actually proceeded him up the stairs, moving towards where Lily and her son, who was whimpering in her arms now, pulled from his sound slumber in his crib by all the excitement.
Or, her eyes strayed to the small window, seemingly cornered.
Using a spell she punched the entire window out and scrambled onto the ledge and with a quick Wingardum Leviosa she floated her and her son to the ground safely.
She didn’t dare look back at what had once been her home, not seeing hte enraged explosion of magic that Voldermort left in his fury at finding her gone, setting the house ablaze in an explosion, she just ran.
Ooo ooo ooo
1 month later...
The Longbottoms, including little Neville were dead, killed by Voldemort himself.
Lily let out a heavy breath when she read the headlines in the wizard newspaper that she had taken from the trash.
She wiped her eyes with an overlarge faded sleeve, the only moment she allowed herself to mourn for the latest casualties, then her grim green eyes returned to furtively checking the quiet streets of the small wizarding town of Frankincense, hidden like a decayed jewel in the rough, held deep in the heart of Germany.
So much apperating, so many portkeys, a confundus and obliviate on muggle transport agencies.
Always she was running.
She sometimes questioned her decision to have run so far and so long, not even contacting anyone in the Order, not even Sirius. It was so terrifying, so lonely...but the last time she had placed her family in the hands of Dumbledore, she had lost her husband. Lily’s chest ached at the thought.
The hood on the filthy patched cloak was drawn closer, hiding dark chestnut hair.
She gripped the sack of food she had carefully scavenged here and there. It had taken her longer then she had thought this trip and she was uncomfortable being out in the open for so long.
She grits her teeth thinking of her babe, how he had long ago stopped crying out of hunger.
She slid through a gap in a fence, leaving the mundane shops behind and into the more seedier part of the wizard town.
This section of the town had been decimated by an attack by Grindlewald back in the 40’s. Even decades later, locals still felt weary in venturing inside this end of the town. Stories of malevolent poltergeists, leithifold, even a dementor! All rumored to haunt what had been dubbed by the locals as The Blight.
They were right about all of it though, which was perfect for Lily.
Lily carefully skated the edge of a burnt out hole were the familiar flowing capes of two such creatures were whipping and wrapping around each other in a battle over a dead raccoon, Lily noted this and stirred clear.
She hid in a storm train when a group of poltergeists threw rocks at windows, heading in the direction of the closest inhabited buildings on the edge of the Blight, obviously bored.
She averted her eyes when the pale ghost of a weeping man called for the souls of his family.
At one point she gripped her wand and crouched behind the large glowing white crow of her patronous in a skeletal park as a dementor turned its hood in her direction before passing on to find better prey, likely the primitive souls of the other lesser dark creatures that infested the place.
With one last look around her, one check at the various sneakascopes hanging from her waist, reassured by their inert quiet, and pushed aside a large flat piece of wall, to reveal a square hole in the ground.
She pushed aside the blanket and smiled in relief as she always did when the wards she had constructed went up and the warm glow of her new home meant her eyes. She set the scavenged food on a rickety table and lit a magical fire under the large, slightly pitted but still usable, cauldron.
She removed the stasis spell on the bubbling potion, and taking a breath, pulled out a small vile that looked like liquid gold. This had been particularly hard to obtain. The shadier potion master in the neighborhood outside the Blight had demanded a high price for the difficult to make potion, perhaps because it was illegal in this country, but she had been willing to pay it with a vial of tears of pure innocence and the torn cloth of a Dementor's shroud. Her Harry was a naturally quiet babe by now, it had take awhile to catch enough of his tears to fill one tube for the former.
She had sweetened the pot by adding the remains of a dead lethifold she had killed her self. The shady man was very pleased indeed and had willingly turned over the potion.
Lily took a breath and carefully added half of the potion to the bubbling dark red concoction, stirring only once counter clockwise.
The cauldron shivered once, belched and turned royal purple.
She quickly returned it to stasis and finally let her self breath. The luck potion was pure enough in its ingredients after all. Had it been faulty, she would have lost a few weeks worth of work.
A soft coo from the play pen that sat under a glowing golden bubble caught her attention.
She took a few moments to unravel the wards around her son and smiled down at her babe.
“Hello luv,” she cooed reaching in and scooping up the baby, dressed in a faded pink jumper and ripped shorts she had pilfered from some ruins, which clashed horribly with his flaming red tangled mop. She ruefully had to admit that utilizing a simple colour switch spell on their features, an added layer of protection that wouldn’t need upkeep, had perhaps made looking at her son easier, to not see the features of her dead husband quite so clearly as he got older.
She cast the usual spells to clean and refresh his cloth diaper, gave him a brief wash in the small fountain basin she had scrounged from somewhere, filing it with an aquamenti and a warming charm.
She bathed them both, conjuring some soap, and scrubbing them both, laughing when her son giggled at the large colorful bubbles.
When they were done and wrapped up in fresh cloths and blankets and cuddled down on a broken down easy chair, Lily pulled out a slightly ratty gardening magazine that she had pilfered from the garbage, showing still colorful glossy images of rolling fields of flowers, soaring mountains, calm rivers with happy fat frogs croaking on rocks.
She would make up stories using the magazine. Stories about them both going to places that were filled with flowers and life. Stories that, if her plan worked, would hopefully come to fruition.
“Mama?” her little boy patted her cheeks, drawing her attention back to her son.
“Yes sweetie?”
“Mama, song! Song!” Harry demanded, waving his tiny fists.
“That should have a “please” with it young man,” she chided gently.
The toddler pursed his lips in a pout, but when his mother remained unmoved, if amused, the little boy reluctantly offered “Pwese mama?”
Lily nodded approvingly, “good boy, now let’s see...”
“Just a day,
Just an ordinary day.
Just trying to get by.
Just a boy,
Just an ordinary boy.
But he was looking to the sky.
And as he asked if I would come along
I started to realize
That everyday he finds
Just what he's looking for,
Like a shooting star he shines...” (1).
ooo ooo ooo
2 weeks later...
Lily froze when she saw stars.
No, she hadn’t hit her head or taken up star gazing. These stars were silver and gleamed on the slightly bent navy-blue wizard hat that sat on the head of a recognizable wizard.
Lily felt the breath leave her when she saw Albus Dumbledore stepping out of the very potion maker’s store that she had obtained a few of her vital ingredients. The man must have finally figured out who she was, and had turned her in. Both the Light and the Dark side had a steep reward offered to anyone with information on her whereabouts after all, she supposed that she should have expected this sooner rather then later.
She carefully shrank deeper into the shadows, not daring to breath as the Headmaster walked past her hiding place.
She had been delayed a day in her plans due to Harry taking on a slight fever in the night. She had only dared leave him now under the watchful gaze of a friendly ghost she had meant recently. Ethel would make sure that Harry would be safe, while She’d gone to obtain the most vital ingredient.
She gripped the dirty bag that dripped blood on her feet in anger, green eyes flashing.
It was because of him and his demands for lethifold parts and doxy venom that she had become rather good at hunting the dark creatures of the Blight, which had significantly shrunk the local population. She had known it was tricky, but the vile little man had seemed willing to keep their deal of him providing her the ingredients she needed and his mouth quiet if she assured his fortune with the rare dark creature parts she hunted for him.
She quietly swore, it seems that whatever the Order and/or the Dark Lord had put on offer for her an Harry's head must have substantially increased indeed for the despicable little man to renege.
She needed that final ingredient! It was to vital, to rare, to find anywhere else and she was in the final stage! She could not risk moving everything and having to start over again! It had been a miracle she had even come this far!
She waited until she saw Dumbledore’s colorful robes disappear around a corner, and with a grim set to her features, she stalked the shadows towards the seedy Apothecary.
Lily was, despite some of the actions she might have taken to insure the safety of her son, a Light Witch, or she had liked to think her self as morally Light, at one time anyway. But now, reality was a harsh mistress, and she'd had to do many questionable things in her months on the run, but she had at least comforted herself with the idea that she for the most part not done anything that truly compromised her sense of her being a good person. But she needed that ingredient, and she was to close now to let a little thing like her moral pride get in her way. So, with a shutter she buried the part of her that screamed that what she was about to do was wrong and used all the skills she had acquired sneaking up on lethifold and slipped inside with one purpose.
She found Gregory Dane counting the money from his till and writing down the results in his records with a satisfied look on his face.
Even sorry men can be decent bookkeepers, Lily supposed.
Gregory’s head snapped up when his sneakscope began to twirl and light up. A man in his business always carried one on hand, though Lily’s was not the loud bright thing his was.
Of course, it didn’t help slow reflexes, and Lily’s were much better then her victim’s. The man had a dagger at his throat before he could successfully pull out his wand.
“One wrong move and your blood will ruin your meticulous ledgers,” Lily growled, her voice harsh in her anger and desperation.
The man yelped, but stilled, especially when she added in afterthought, “oh, and did I mention this is my favorite lethifold skinner?”
The man began to sweat and whimpered, as well he should, someone in his business knowing the properties of lethifold blood better then she did, all of them lethal in its pure state.
“You betrayed me,” she breathed into his ear, “But I will admit that Albus is persuasive and you are a weak cad. I am only mildly surprised it isn’t the dark lord himself and not the leader of the light, but you were more likely to be paid by Albus then the former,” she mused to herself, then she narrowed her eyes, green eyes which were reflected in the man’s foe glass hanging above his cash.
Gregory swallowed swallowed and began to shake.
“Where is it?”
“Please! Spare me!”
Lily drew the tip of the blade along a fat jowl, not yet breaking skin but the threat was clear.
The potion master whimpered, but quickly pointed towards a small non-descript shoe-box under his desk.
She had him grab it and open it in her presence.
There resisting on a bed of cotton, was the dully gleaming slate grey upper and lower jaw bones of a dementor.
Once every thousand years, it was said, a few especially old dementors that were the weakest in power, as far as the creatures are concerned, would stop feeding or hunting, and eventually just...die.
No one had ever witnessed an actual dementor’s death without becoming insane, if you survived the encounter that is.
Sometimes those few insane bastards could be found with pieces of the creature on their person. Her luck was with her in that they were the specific parts she had needed. The rarest of the lot. Keeping the knife steady, she cast a spell to confirm the authenticity, and smiled grimly in satisfaction.
“Yes, this will do.”
Lily felt the man relax.
Then he stiffened again when the blade flashed across his neck.
A spray of blood washed the walls and Lily. She stared down at the dead man she had killed in cold blood for only a heavy second before grabbing the box and running.
When she returned she found Ethel, her ghost friend waiting for her just outside her hidey-hole.
The ghost would have been a good Santa Clause, had been the first thought when she had stumbled across him while scavenging in the remains of his old store a few months ago while she had reminded him of his deceased wife and had taken a shine to haunting her. She wasn’t adverse, as he was a valuable resource on the Blight and a great babysitter.
“Gracious Lily! What happened to you? Your covered in blood!”
Lily closed her eyes and pushed away the image of bulging dead eyes and a gaping red smile in his neck.
“I can’t talk about it now Virgil, my time is shorter then I had thought. I have been found.”
The ghost stroked his silvery beard worriedly.
“This is not good. Were you at least able to obtain the last item you needed for the ceremony?”
Lily nodded, pulling out the shoe box from inside the folds of her robes. She set it down and quickly began disrobing, not bothered by the ghost in the room. It wasn’t the first time that he had seen Lily disrobed.
She filled her make-shift tub, scrubbing her self as clean as possible, emptying the tub then filing it again. As Lily strode back and forth in the small space, grinding herbs and sprinkling them in the fresh water and on the floor, the candlelight shone off golden skin tanned by spending so long outside, scars of battles with dark creatures and hard living, and everywhere else covered in intricate, alien ruins.
They decorated every inch of her body. Virgil didn’t understand what any of them meant, but he understood enough of her intent, and was always willing to aide a desperate young mother.
After the woman had finished cleansing her bathtub, she took the still warm cauldron by its handles, and dragged the frothing pale blue potion to the tub and with a grunt and tipped the cauldron, pouring the potion inside.
It writhed like something that wasn’t quite liquid and might just be trying to be something solid.
In his crib, Harry watched his mother with wide eyes.
Lily sighed with relief when none of it managed to spill. The fact that this part of the ritual required her to do everything by hand was the most difficult. She was just glad that she had developed some muscle over the past year.
Rubbing her sore back, she stared down at the pool of frothing potion with satisfaction.
Then she turned to her son and gently picked him up. She removed all his cloths, even the little pair of glasses she had found when she had noticed he was starting to squint. Her son squinted up at her. She ran a hand through his messy red locks and stared down at the identical runes etched on her baby’s body, leaving only the face relatively clear, but for a swirling symbol above both their right eyes.
She gave her self a moment to feel the familiar remorse. Having to carve the runes and symbols into her self using a purified dagger and aide of magic for hard to reach places had been hellish but having to knock out her son and carve them into his skin, so carefully, had been a level of hell she hoped she never would have to visit again.
She pulled out a long rope made of dark hair, braided thickly. She’d had to take a hair lengthening potion for a few days to grow enough. She rubbed her short-shorn hair, wondering what James would think of her new look if he were to see it now. Likely horrified, the man always had loved her hair.
The rope was necessary. With what she was about to do, they could not move forward with anything from their world except their own bodies. She was uncertain at he strength of the forces she would face and didn’t want to risk her baby getting separated from her, so she used the hair rope to secure Harry tightly to her body in a make shift harness.
When she was done, she picked up the final ingredient and approached the seething pool. She took a deep breath in then let it out and threw the two jaw bones into the potion.
Her son began to whimper when the candle light snuffed out, then the temperature began to drop and Harry cried in discomfort.
Lily stepped towards the only light in the room, coming now from the sudden still potion. A ghostly death-like fog hovered like an after image caught in a negative.
Then a thing emerged from the potion, it writhed sinuously, but unmistakably had the ghostly appearance of a dementor.
She stood before the thing, took out a needle forged from her own bone (that had been a painful hour of skelgrow) and pricked both her and Harry’s hands, and tossing the bloodied thing right into the open bone jaws of the ritual.
The creature sucked it inside and dissolved, revealing the glowing bones, which began to enlarge, then opened wide, forming into a primitive arch way.
Suddenly the wall protecting the entrance to Lily’s home was banished in that moment, and she was left staring wide eyed at tall serpentine figure with burning red eyes as he swept into the room.
“So,” Lily said softly, “it appears Albus wasn’t the only one who was tipped off after all,” Lily said blandly.
She observed Voldemort taking in the glowing arch, the magic steeped atmosphere, the glowing runs that covered her and her son.
“This is quite an impressive bit of dark magic,” Voldemort complemented casually as he prowled the perimeter of the room, his wand waving as he tried to undo the various wards she had placed, shielding the ritual site from outside interference.
“Its not dark magic,” Lily corrected calmly, “though many of the ingredients could be said to be such. This is...primal, neutral, indifferent to the whims and demands of emotion or morality.”
“So my information that you were an Unspeakable before hiding away was true after all.”
Lily had no doubt about his contacts within the Unspeakables.
“Tell me Mudblood,” his tone was almost conversational, “what is the purpose of your little ritual, as intriguingly delicious as it feels? Even should you some how escape me again, there is no place safe on the planet that can hide you and your son from my wand, though I must applaud you on having kept up the chase for so long.”
Lily felt an amused smile curl her lips and Voldemort was mildly surprised, his intrigue over what he was witnessing growing, even as he worked quickly and silently to dismantle the wards.
“I know,” she agreed readily enough, running her fingers through her son’s hair absently.
He paused in his dismantling, “you seem very calm and accepting of that fact.” Voldemort’s eyes narrowed.
Lily nodded solemnly, “I have, and it was the only thing on my mind those early days after you killed my husband,” her voice was a little brittle, but otherwise steady, “I knew I would forever be running from both you and Albus. I knew that I would always be running from the greatest powers in this world, the whip crack of prophesy and fate driving all of us forward. I could run and run, and I would never escape it, just as I wouldn’t escape you or Dumbledore in the end. My only options were to have my son inherit a war under Dumbledore, or defeat prophesy.”
Voldemort grinned maliciously, as he let the woman talk, he was almost through the wards...
Then in an almost change of conversation, Lily asked the Dark Lord, “would you like to know the prophesy? The full one, not the small bit that your minion gave you?”
Voldemort froze. His enemy, a warrior of the Light side, though that might be arguable given what he had stumbled across just now, but still…Even if he killed the both of them this evening, the lack of knowledge on the full prophesy had eaten at him. After all, how exactly was this lesser being supposed to destroy him anyway? There was a weakness somewhere, and he anted to know what it was badly. Controlling his reaction, made an exaggerated go-ahead gesture, why not humour the girl? She was going to die anyway and soon her brat, she was obviously addled, despite the complexity of the ritual that was visible, why not listen to information freely offered?
Lily gave a little cold smile of her own and intoned the words of her one true enemy from the day that Albus had uttered them to two expectant mothers in his Headmaster’s office, when Fate itself had declared war on her family and that of another.
“"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... the one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord will be born as the seventh month dies...." (2).
Voldemort gave a high laugh of victory as the wards fell, soon after the words of the full prophecy, and screamed “Avada Kadavra!”
The green light of the killing curse cut through the unnatural darkness of the room, directly towards Lily, who stepped backward into the arch moments before the deadly spell hit.
Lily for a moment saw the spill of the dark green magic as it raked over the impassable barrier that existed for all but her and Harry. It was oddly beautiful in a way, and she had the idle morbid wondering if James and all those who had fallen under the Unforgivable saw the same beauty before their life was snuffed instantly.
She felt a combination of amusement and vicious satisfaction when she saw the Dark Lord’s wide-eyed gobsmacked expression before the yawning maw of the gate closed and swallowed her whole.