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It's quiet…there is a cold draft in the room....
Her head…hurts….
She is...slumped against a wall…her head lolls forward, and she can barely keep her eyes open….
The wall is yellow and she thinks that thing on the floor looks like Harry’s toy dragon….
Harry….
HARRY –
She looks up. Her vision is blurry but he is there. She says his name. Harry. Harry. Is he sleeping? Please sweetheart. Mummy is here she just...can't move very well...her head hurts. Harry?
When she stands up, finally she remembers. A black robe. A pale face. Red eyes. After months, months of hiding, months of thinking they would not be around to see their son grow up. Then the Fidelius Charm, and everything had started looking like it would be all right. It was not all right.
Stand aside
Stand aside you silly girl
He had gotten fed up with her resistance. He had done her standing aside for her. Now she is standing up and staring at her baby boy in his crib and he is not. He is not. There. He is there, but he is not there.
And then Lily is screaming. She is back down on the floor in the corner of the room. No. No. Not real. Not real. This is the worst nightmare she had ever had. And she is awake for it.
It wasn't really a scream even. Just a horrible groan that comes from her core. Because there is no other noise in this house. She has to supply it herself.
And then there is a noise. There is a door slamming. She knows who it is because there is no one else that it would be. She cannot hear Sirius because she is making the most horrible noise.
He is upstairs now. She can't look at him. Her eyes are open but she can't see.
It's not a scream. She doesn't know what it sounds like to Sirius, who is now holding her, but she knows it's horrible. She wishes she were dead. She wants to die. Die dead deceased dead dead dead just like them, just like both of them. Both of the other people in this house, who were just here and are still here but aren't here anymore.
She's grabbing at her hair and pulling. She's screaming, just screaming. They're gone, gone gone gone GONE. dead dead dead dead dead
Sirius is crying too. Lily thinks, or she would think if she could at all, he probably also wishes he were dead. No, she is certain of it. He's rocking her back and forth and making gasping sounds as he cries and the movement helps her, somehow. She cannot sit still for even one second because then she will start screaming again.
He says something and she can't hear it because of the horrible noises coming from her and he picks her up. She sees – her vision is blurry – a tiny fist. A tiny body. No no NO put her DOWN that is her child her baby her little baby boy and he's not moving still lifeless she is screaming again and squirming and beating her fists on Sirius’s back but he won't let go –
There is no Apparating in or around this house. They had arranged that from day one of hiding. Hiding to keep her baby boy safe. He was not safe anymore. He could not be safe if he could not be.
No Apparating so Sirius had to take her out the long way. Down the stairs. Over – no please not Harry and not James either – they have to – he's blocking the way his body is blocking the way and Sirius has to step over him as if he were a log on the ground but that's her husband that's her baby's father, they are together with each other, father and son, and she wishes she were with them why is she not dead, how can she fix this, please –
Sirius is still holding her when they make it far enough to finally Apparate and suddenly they are somewhere else. Sirius is pounding on a door. It opens and now Remus is here and things are happening but not the things she wanted because if what she wanted came true then she would be dead. She is not dead. She should be dead. Why isn’t she dead.
She's crying. She's crying in a way she didn't even know was possible. It takes every wisp of strength that she has to live another second, which, if she had a choice, she would not. She wants to be in Godric’s Hollow, where they are, even though they are not anywhere anymore.
Sirius and Remus are freaking out. So is she, except they are talking and crying whereas she is only crying.
“But why?” Remus says. She doesn't know. She doesn't know why. Why? Why? Why is she here? Why are they not? “Why would he...why? And, but, you – Sirius, you –”
“You think I would be here if it were me?” Sirius says. “It was fucking – fucking Peter, we switched, we fucking switched and now – oh my God now –”
Lily is in a ball, she is holding her legs to her body and squeezing her body into itself as tight as she can, grabbing more of her hair, Remus is right why why why why why her why is she still here why her?
It's been a week that feels like thirty years and she is not functioning but now she knows why her. She knows it because she's looking Severus Snape dead in the eyes and she knows. She knows why. She knows.
And somehow, Remus realizes that she is going to launch her entire body at him and he grabs her just in time. She's fighting him and now she's screaming at Severus Snape, because she knows, she can feel it, she just knows –
“It was you, you did this, you fucking did this, you did this –”
If it had been Sirius who was here and not Remus, Snape would be dead already. Because this man, this disgusting man that she had once cared about and defended and fought for, he had always wanted this. He had always wanted James dead. And apparently, he had wanted Harry dead, too.
“Is this what you wanted?!” she screams at him, in a way that rubs her throat raw. Yelling screaming and pulling against Remus, who is holding her back. She thinks – no, she is absolutely positive, that if she were to draw her wand and point it at him and say the killing curse it would absolutely work. But she won't do that, she won't even consider it because those words, the words of that curse, they are cursed. Those words took them from her. And if she were to send this disgusting man to his death then he would be closer to her husband and her beautiful baby boy than she is to them right now.
Please someone kill her. Please let her die. Let her die so she can be with them. Please.
There is a funeral but she is not there. She is with Sirius in his flat and she is lying in his bed and he's there, too. She doesn't know what he’s feeling, only a part of it. Because she had always, it felt like, shared James with Sirius, and thus they could suffer in his absence together.
But there was no one, not anyone, not in this world who would understand about Harry. Harry. Harry. Her baby boy. Her wonderful baby boy. Not here anymore. Somewhere else, with his father. Not with her. Not here. Not with her.
She wants to leave this world behind. That actually has two meanings – the first being, she wants to die and leave this world behind. The second is less morbid but just as life changing, but she is ok with making that change. She wants to go back to the Muggle world. She wants a world where there is no trace of what she will be leaving behind. She wants to snap her wand, destroy her cauldron, burn her textbooks and moving photographs, donate her robes and use an irreversible memory charm on herself. She wants to live in a world where no one will recognize her. She wants to change her name, dye her hair, get color contacts and move to a different continent. She wants to watch football on the telly and drive a used car and use a washing machine and write with pencils and send letters through the post. She wants to get a job at an office and work nine to five and take paper money out of her bank account and write checks to pay for her groceries.
She wants all of this and more. She wants this while she lays in bed after not showering for four days, staring at a blank wall and wishing she were dead.
She is not Lily Potter. She is nothing. She is only a person who wants to die. She feels so much that she feels nothing at all and no one knows what to do with her. She will not recover. She will never be okay until she is dead, like them. With them.
She just wants to be with them.