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When the redhead woke up, the room was dark and felt colder than usual, Lily looked at the time on the small alarm on her bedside table, and saw that it was barely two hours since she had gone to bed. Yawning, she decided she was going to go back to sleep, but before she could close her eyes, she heard a loud noise somewhere in the room, probably the same noise that had woken her.
Rubbing her eyes sleepily, she pulled the covers aside and sat up in bed somewhat disoriented. It didn't take her long to realize that the sale was open and the wind was gently moving it. She frowned, she thought she remembered closing it after sending a letter with her owl, Runa, before going to sleep, but apparently she had forgotten.
So she got up, yawning and shuffling across the cold floor, walked over to the window and closed it. When he turned around, the room was completely dark and he groped his way in the darkness to reach his bed again. Halfway there, the sound came again and she gave a little jump of fright as she noticed something moving beside her.
Now that she was fully awake, she realized that the noise that had awakened her was not coming from the window, but from a place closer to her bed, from her school trunk, so she quickly went to the lamp and turned it on.
As the light came on illuminating the girl's room, a movement at the foot of the bed caught Lily's attention. After a few minutes of Lily holding her breath waiting to see if it would happen again, the trunk moved again.
Lily frowned trying to remember what was inside...books, parchment, and the odd unmatched sock at most. As soon as she got back from Hogwarts she used to empty her trunk, but she always left it open only because Kyra, her little cat, had a bad habit of crawling into it to sleep. It wasn't Kyra, however, as the wily cat would meow for help if she had been trapped, but when the banging stopped, there was only silence.
The trunk moved as if it contained a small tornado and an idea made her curse under her breath. If this was a prank by her brothers, she would see to it that they regretted waking her up and scaring her like this.
Lily took a deep breath and steeled herself, grabbed the first thing she could find handy to defend herself, which ended up being one of her old second year books, and approached the trunk. As he approached, the trunk began to move even more forcefully, so much so that by the time he reached it, it was practically lifting a few inches before falling back to the ground making even more noise.
Holding on tightly to the book in her hands, she bent down to remove the lock and open the trunk. She expected that as she opened it, something would jump out and attack her. Something like angry goblins or enchanted books, but what was inside was a thousand times worse than any creature she had ever seen or even imagined before.
The book fell to the floor and her scream was loud enough to be heard throughout the house. It was a sound of pure terror. Lily scrambled backwards with her eyes fixed on that loathsome creature.
The trunk tipped over and the creature began to crawl out of it. It was an Inferius, with its blank eyes, robes and part of its torn skin and its putrid smell that made her nauseous, it was easy to identify, though she had only heard of the creature once. The mere certainty of the existence in one of those creatures was horrible, but that was not the worst, the worst of that sight was to recognize the corpse of her father turned into an Inferius.
- NO NO NO NO...
The fear did not let her think, she just wanted to get away from that thing, she went backwards trembling until she crashed against the wall. But the creature continued to advance, and when the Inferius raised a hand and was about to reach it, the door burst open.
Lily did not look away from the Inferius as her parents and siblings entered her room in alarm. Several wands pointed at the creature and stood in its way without hesitation. The Inferius backed away and began to change shape as soon as they got close enough to it. It changed shape so fast it was hard to follow and it didn't take them long to figure out what was going on and force the boggart into the trunk again.
It wasn't until her father wrapped her in a hug that Lily was able to reason properly. It was a boggart, and not her father turned Inferius, that had come out of the trunk. Just a silly boggart, that had snuck into her room and slipped in there while she slept.
When her fear receded enough for her to understand what had happened, she buried her face in her father's chest and tried to return the embrace with trembling arms, as she felt a lump grow in her throat. Luckily, she didn't need to say anything, because she couldn't, the lump in her throat made it hard to even breathe.
Lily wasn't paying attention to what the others were doing or saying, she was only vaguely aware that someone had taken care of getting rid of the boggart, while her father tried to reassure her by talking to her slowly and giving her little pats on the back, like when she was little and had a nightmare. But for the first time in her life, that wasn't working. The fear was still there, digging its claws deep inside her, and without the slightest desire to release her.
Having her father around wasn't reassuring her now, and she doubted anything would be able to do that for a good while. At some point her father guided her to her bed to sit up, and her mother joined in that embrace. But no matter how many loving arms and warm blankets surrounded her, she couldn't stop shivering. She didn't know how long it lasted, maybe hours, she still couldn't concentrate on anything around her.
It was already daylight when, at the insistence of her parents that she should sleep at least a little, she went back to bed, but did not try to sleep again. Her parents let her rest, but not before showering her with cuddles and assuring her that they would come to check on her every so often. But Lily didn't even close her eyes when they left her room, she just settled in between the covers and tried to let her mind go blank, which didn't work... and she didn't have much success in imagining something funny that would make her laugh and what she could turn a boggart into if she ran into one of them again, she tried, but she couldn't.
No matter how much she wanted to forget that horrible moment, she felt like that memory would never leave her and the terrifying idea that it was possible was too much for her If it would ever become real? No! She couldn't bear it, she just couldn't.
- It wasn't real Lily... It wasn't him... it was just a damn boggart.... your father would never become that, no matter what... just remember it wasn't real....
Alone and in the silence of her room, her own words rang hollow to her. The fear had not completely left her and she didn't think it would for a long time. Even without closing her eyes she could still clearly see her father turned into Inferi, and no matter how many times she repeated to herself that what she saw was only a boggart, that image would continue to haunt her for months, if not years.