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When the blackness finally thinned out into a rush of colour, noise and pain, that pain really was the very first thing that held Lily's full, undivided attention, because there was an awful, awful lot of it. So much of it, in fact, that it couldn't just stay pain and so turned into a roaring in her ears and stabbing blades of colour behind her eyes, white and streaked bloody red. Vaguely, she felt her own throat make a sound, but she couldn't hear it; then the roaring of the pain got mixed in with the sound of voices. One of them kept trying to tell her to relax, which really made her want to slap the speaker across the face and demand how they'd like it if someone told them to relax while pain was stabbing their . . .their . . .their everywhere, but her body didn't appear to be doing what she told it to.
It took time. Time before the colours stopped their screaming and the roar went down, time before the pain - still there - seemed to be . . .a bit further away, like someone had closed a door between her and it, or a window. Still there. Just not overwhelming.
Then, and only then, did she try to blink her eyes open.
What she saw made no sense, at first. There were . . .plugs everywhere. Wires, tubes. A television, and a strange square thing that kept beeping and it took her all the way till then to be able to sew this all together, with the smell of the place, and think Muggle hospital, why in Merlin's name am I in a Muggle hospital; she turned her head, and there - there was Petunia, of all people, Petunia sitting with a rather fat baby in her arms. A rather fat, rather fussy baby with pale hair, nothing at all like Harry -
Harry.
Memory, previously waiting patiently for its turn at the back of her mind, stepped forward and hit her over the head. Harry. She sat up so fast that something pulled at her arm and the skin on her face but she didn't care. "Harry," she snapped, making Petunia jump and the fat baby (Dudley, that's Dudley, I think) start to scream. "Harry, where's Harry? Where's my son?"
Two different people dressed in white both tried to get her to lie down again - one obviously a Muggle doctor, one obviously a witch-Healer from St Mungo's, where Lily patently wasn't, and she shoved both of them away. Distantly, she felt aware that she'd managed to dislodge an IV from her arm. "Get off me," she snapped, "I have to find my son, and James - "
She stopped. No. James was dead. Somehow she knew that; didn't want to know it, but knew with an absolute certainty that shook her for a moment and rattled her voice right out of her throat. The Healer was, she probably thought subtly, reaching for her wand but Lily beat her to it, grabbing her wrist first, squeezing it tight enough to get a little gasp and turning her glare on the doctor, who (she thought) was probably trying for his own kind of sedation, and she snarled first to the Healer, "Don't even think about it," and then, to the doctor, "and if you even try anything I will turn you into a God-damned frog!"
The doctor took a step back, hands up, so Lily demanded of the Healer, "Where is my son?"
The voice that actually stopped her was quite familiar, came from the door, and managed to make her pause. "Harry is quite safe, Lily," said Albus Dumbledore, standing in the door of her hospital room (a private one, she noticed), with Remus hovering over his shoulder. "He is at Hogwarts, at the moment."
"Bring him here," she demanded.
"We think it might be wiser - " her old Headmaster and head of the Order of the Phoenix began, but Dudley was crying still in the background and it only drove nails into Lily's brain and she - made a sound. She herself wasn't sure what to call it, a growl or a shriek, but she made it and it made him shut up, and it turned into her shouting again.
"I don't care what you think is wise," she told him. "I want my son here. NOW."
In the silence that followed, even the upset one year old stopped crying, at least for a moment. Then Dumbledore said, in a very calm and conversational voice, "Remus, I wonder if you would be so kind as to go collect little Harry and bring him here as quickly as possible?"
"Of course, Headmaster," Remus said, and stepped back, and vanished with the crack of Apparition.
Lily sat for a moment, trying to catch her breath, and her mind trying to piece everything together. The doctor, showing a little more in the way of courage than the Healer, came and put his hand on her shoulder and gently pushed her back into the waiting embrace of the pillows. Which wasn't so far back; he must have sat the bed up. Then, wordlessly, he went about putting the IV back in her arm.
While everyone else stared at her as if she were likely to explode at any moment, Lily found her gaze fell to her own lap, partly because she realized the pain - adding its own protests to everything else since she moved - came mostly from there, although it then sort of exploded all the way along every bit of her. It took a moment for her to realize what she was seeing. Or rather, what she wasn't seeing. To make sense of the way the blankets fell funnily around where her left leg should have been.
"Where's my leg?" she asked, aware that it sounded stupid and she sounded rather stunned and distant. Petunia had managed to calm Dudley into sort of half-hiccoughing whines and, well, real hiccoughs. The doctor looked at the Healer. The Healer, the coward, looked at Dumbledore. So Lily looked at Dumbledore, as well.
The IV hurt a little going back in.
"That is, unfortunately, a question we cannot currently answer," Dumbledore said, and then added, "Ah, thank you, Helena," when the Healer got up and offered him her chair. "All that we can say for certain is that it is no longer attached to you, and due to the nature of the injury we cannot reattach it. We suspect it was destroyed with a great deal of your house, or perhaps lost in non-existence when you Apparated."
Lily did her best to take that in. She got as far as my leg is gone. Fine. We'll deal with that later, before the next, more important question pushed itself out of her throat. "Voldemort - "
The Healer flinched. Dumbedore did not. His eyes were grave, and his face was concerned, but - and it surprised Lily that she could see this, but perhaps it was simply that her head had no room for anything but observing and factual information just now - not, she thought, carved with the deep lines of care she had become so used to seeing. "That is another question I cannot answer," he said. "Not completely. He appears to have vanished. Or perhaps been vanquished."
"What do you mean?" Lily demanded, starting to sit up again, before the doctor patiently pushed her back down.
"Mrs Potter," the doctor said, interrupting, and in a flat tone of voice, "please stay still and attempt to remain calm. I realize there's a great deal going on here that I don't understand, and I can accept that, but what I do understand, young lady, is that two hours ago you were very nearly dead."
Lily stared at him, blankly, and then nodded. It seemed to be what he wanted. He shot Dumbledore another fierce glare, quite ferocious for a man so small and young looking, and stepped back. Dumbledore nodded to him.
"I," cut in Petunia, "would like to know what the Hell is going on here - " but she stopped when Dumbledore looked up at her and gently raised one hand.
"Mrs Dursley," he said, in his most courteous voice, "I absolutely understand your feelings on the matter. However, just at the moment, I believe our first priority is to find a state for your sister wherein she can allow herself to rest, for her own health. Once we have reached this point, I give you my solemn word, I will explain to you everything you could wish, and answer any question about the matter you wish to pose. Will that do?"
It took a lot to cow Petunia, Lily knew, and thought distantly. Even the Headmaster couldn't quite do it, and Petunia drew herself up to answer.
Then she looked at Lily.
"Please, Tuney," Lily found herself saying, and her voice sounded very small to her own ears.
Petunia pressed her lips together and then nodded. "But you'll tell me everything, mind," she snapped, rounding on Dumbledore, bouncing Dudley on her shoulder when he started to fuss.
"As I said," replied the Headmaster of Hogwarts, "you have my word." Then he turned his attention back to Lily and said, in the same calm voice, "As far as can be told, Lily, Voldemort - " and there the Healer shuddered again, "is gone."
"Dead?" asked Lily, feeling stupid, like her head was trapped in very cold water. Dumbledore spread his hands.
"I can only say 'gone'," he replied. "There is no body. Much of your house is completely destroyed. Harry is alive and largely unhurt - " he continued, when Lily started to get agitated again, though she noted the word largely, "and you are alive, although not entirely whole."
"James is dead," Lily said, and hated the sound in her ears. Dumbledore looked grave when he nodded. "Where is his body?"
"What remained of it is awaiting burial," Dumbledore replied, quietly, and Lily felt her next breath as half a sob. "Otherwise, nothing remains at your home. Voldemort is nowhere to be found. Spells I know him to have cast are broken. People under his thrall have been let go. His followers are scattering or, in some cases, preparing their alibis."
Which sounded like dead, Lily thought, but didn't say. Instead, she said, "He killed James." Her throat felt thick, and her eyes blurred. "James said to take Harry and run, stupid idiot," her words ground out, "as if I could, fast enough, if he'd just come back to me we could have - " but she stopped, and swallowed, and said, "Then he told me to get out of the way." She looked up at her old Headmaster, and shook her head. "He didn't want to kill me. I don't know why. He kept trying to make me get out of the way."
She swallowed again, and took a deep breath. "I knew," she said, trying to keep her voice even, so that she could get this all out in one go, and then they would bring her Harry, and then she could sleep and deal with everything later, "that if I moved he would kill Harry. I knew that if I died he would kill Harry. And I knew that if I tried to get out of there, right then, he would be able to stop me. James and I together, we might have been able to - " she stopped, and shook her head, blinking the blur out of her eyes, "but not me, not by myself."
"You attempted to Apparate anyway," Dumbledore said, leaning forward, intent on her. She nodded.
"You remember," she said, "last year, when we were talking about Thoroughgood's Theory of Spell Breakdown? That when a spell strikes another spell hard enough to make it unravel - "
"It will break down along the most basic channels, losing its complexity but not its basic thrust," Dumbledore finished for her, and Lily nodded again.
"I thought if I Apparated," she said, "with Harry, right when Voldemort tried to kill me - well, it would still kill me, because the spell was mine, but it might still take Harry somewhere. Somewhere - else, somewhere to do with that basic channel, and that might give enough time for someone to find him and protect him - "
Lily stopped and rubbed at her eyes to get the tears out of the way. "I had to wait until the exact moment Voldemort aimed the Killing Curse at me," she explained. "I had to wait until he was committed to the spell, so that he wouldn't be able to change it. I remember the first word, I remember grabbing Harry's ankle . . . " She trailed off. "Then there was a lot of pain and I was here. I suppose it worked somehow, but I was wrong - "
Dumbledore sat back. He looked thoughtful. "You were not," he said, "wrong. At least, I don't think so. I think the Apparition spell did degrade exactly as you said - except that it took you to your sister's, your remaining blood-relative, and simply put Harry back where he was."
Lily sat up, ignored the doctor and said, "Harry - "
"Is," Dumbledore said, raising a hand again and gesturing her back, "as I told you, quite fine."
Lily stared at him. "How?"
He sighed, and opened his hands in a gesture of ignorance. "I don't know, Lily. I truly do not know - at least, not yet. As nearly as I can tell, Voldemort attempted to kill your son, and could not. When he tried, the curse rebounded on him."
Lily sat back again. Her leg had truly begun to pulse fire up to her hip and beyond again, and she felt lightheaded. "Then he is dead?" she repeated.
"It would appear so. Indeed, I would say that he should be. Voldemort and death, however . . . "
Lily couldn't take that in, or sort it around to something that had shape or sense in her head. And the second crack of sound, and the reappearance of Remus with a bundle in his arms meant she didn't have to.
Wordlessly, Lily held out her arms. If Remus had looked at Dumbledore or either of the physicians before he gave Harry to her, she might never have forgiven him, but he just stepped right across and put the baby in those open arms, just as the bundle started to protest
Lily unwrapped the blanket a little. It was Harry's blanket, the blue one, a little singed. Harry was red-faced and more than a little angry, but it was him. It was him, it was Harry, he was alive (James is dead, part of her whispered, reminding her, but she ignored it), alive and in her arms. There was a cut on his forehead, in the shape of lightning, and she touched it and then kissed it and then held her squalling child to her and burst into tears.
Distantly, over Harry's crying, she heard Petunia, of all people, snap, "Oh for the love of - you, go and get me a bassinet. Or two. I don't know, steal them from the maternity ward. You - " that, Lily thought, was to the Healer, "come here and make yourself useful, take Dudley but don't you dare do anything weird to him, just bounce him a bit and give him a cookie from here if he fusses, and Lily, give me Harry right now and let the doctor give you more morphine. I don't know what is wrong with you people - no, that's wrong, I do know what's wrong with you people, and you - " this to Remus, "go and find me some tea."
Then Tuney was taking Harry out of Lily's arms; she resisted, a little, but Petunia said, "Don't be stupid, Lily, you're in no shape to calm him down - come here, little boy, that's enough, stop distressing your mummy," and Tuney's voice shifted a little, into the sing-song voice you used with babies.
Lily tried to stop crying, but she couldn't. She was barely aware of the change in the IV, or the fuss around her bed. James was dead, Voldemort was gone, she was alive, Harry was alive, and she couldn't have stopped crying for anything in the world.
When she woke up again, her throat felt raw and her eyes stung. Harry, she found, was asleep in the crook of one of her arms, and she certainly hadn't put him there.
Lily stared at him for a moment. She rolled carefully onto her side, facing him, and brushed her fingers over his sleeping face. He stirred a little, but didn't wake, a dummy in his mouth and a bandage over the cut on his forehead.
"When," Petunia asked sharply, and Lily looked up to see her sister come over to the bedside and sit down in an uncomfortable-looking chair, "were you going to tell me that people were trying to kill you?"
Past Petunia, Lily could see Dudley also sleeping in what did look like a bassinet from the maternity ward. He really was a fat little baby, but now she could see his face had an appealing cuteness to it. "You told me you never wanted to speak to me again," she pointed out, flatly.
Her sister took a deep breath, as if holding on to her temper. "Only you, Lily Potter," and she said the last name as if it were something to spit with, "would think that applied to times when evil sorcerers were trying to kill you."
Only you, Lily thought, but did not say, would disown your sister and then get mad at her for not telling you something. Instead, she simply pointed out, again flatly, "You said you hated me."
Petunia spluttered for a moment and then said, "Well, I did, but that doesn't mean I wouldn't have been really upset if you'd died, Lily! What kind of person do you think I am?"
This time, her mouth got the better of her. It must have been the morphine. "I think you're the kind of person," Lily snapped, "who would tell her sister never to darken her doorstep again, just because her sister could do something she couldn't. I think you're the kind of person who would have said some truly horrible, hateful things before she said that. I think you're the person who called me a useless good for nothing freak, and don't think I didn't know you changed from 'slut' to 'freak' just because you were in front of Vernon and didn't want him to think you were the sort of person who used those words and for the record, people were already trying to kill me then. The same kind of people who would have tortured you just for fun, and because I was trying to stop them. I think you're the kind of person who would hate me because I had something you didn't that I never asked for and I couldn't control. That's what I think, Petunia Dursley. That."
Lily realized she was half-shouting, breathing heavily, and both babies were stirring. She also realized, belatedly, that her sister was sitting with her hand to her mouth, and that her eyes had overflowed with tears. Lily looked away.
"I thought you were going to die," Petunia whispered. "I thought you were going to die, and those would be the last things you'd ever heard me say. You, you just appeared, and I opened the door and you fell over and fainted and there was all this blood, I used my housecoat but I needed more and I made Vernon ring the ambulance and I was afraid you were going to die because we were too far away from the hospital. I thought you were going to die right in front of my house and I'd never be able to say anything to you again. I'd never be able to take it back."
Lily didn't say anything. Lily couldn't think of anything to say. She let herself back onto her back and stared at the ceiling for a moment. Petunia didn't say anything else, either, but Lily could hear her sister sniffle a little, and take a couple of deep breaths.
Then, as if they hadn't just said all those things to each other, Petunia said, "That . . . Healer-woman, she said that because of the nature of the injury she couldn't . . .grow you a new leg, or anything. She suggested a peg-leg, if you can believe it. I thought Dr Johnston was going to laugh out loud at her. He said that there have been a number of advancements with prosthetics lately, and some of them are quite comfortable, and that he'd speak to you about it when you'd woken up. You'd have to wait until the stitches came out and the skin had all healed, of course.
"Of course," Lily said, hollowly.
After another silence, Petunia said, in a small voice, "I . . .really would have been upset if you'd died, Lily."
Lily's eyes stung again, but she did roll carefully over again. And equally carefully, she reached out a hand to her sister. After a moment's hesitation, Petunia reached out and took it.
Lily squeezed her sister's fingers. "I believe you," she said.