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There was no doubt in the world that Lily Luna Potter was the baby of the Potter family. Out of her three older brothers, Teddy, James and Albus, two had already graduated from Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, and one was in his last year. Lily on the other hand, well, she was fifteen.
Yet, age was definitely not the sole reason she was coddled and treasured by everyone who knew her, for Lily was perhaps the cheeriest person alive, bringing sunshine and rainbows into every single corner touched with her presence, no matter how heavy the atmosphere really was previous to her entrance.
It was so, since she sweetly cooed in her mother's embrace with curiously large doe eyes sparkling with innocence since she was but an infant.
So it was most evident that she was quite pleased with her life, which was true, until around 3 months ago when she slowly started to forget what true happiness felt like but remembered how to smile.
Imagine the chill that ran down Ginevra Potter's spine when her daughter walked out of the Hogwarts Express donning the most brilliant grin with hollow hazel eyes, her son following close behind, face contorted into worry with his lips tight, eyes grim...and gaze not daring to flicker away from his younger sister for a single second, as if she was going to crumple into nothingness right in front of his eyes.
Ginny knew how Albus was feeling, because twenty-three years ago she was the one looking at someone she cared about with the exact same surprise, concern, fear and guilt while walking down the steps of the Hogwarts Express.
Judging from how James stiffened at the sight of his younger siblings, she somehow knew that he was experiencing the same horrifying sense of nostalgia. Except instead of relating with Albus, he was shaking with memories of his own school years, and how everything nearly ended with his life abruptly ending at the ripe young age of 16 after over a year of planning his own death.
Seeing one of his siblings wrestle with inner demons was James's worst nightmare, and Ginny refused to allow any of her children to slip away like both her husband and eldest son nearly had.
"Lily! Al!" 19-year-old James hollered, pretending to not have noticed the complicated emotions of both of his siblings, patting Al hard on the back and ruffling Lily's cherry-black hair, pasting his usual mischievous smirk on his face which resembled his father in every way but the colour of the eyes.
He was really good at that...pretending, having mastered the ability to wear masks and read emotions long ago. By pushing his siblings towards the exit of the platforms before they could greet Ginny and animatedly describing more dangerous missions that he was finally allowed to participate in as a third-year auror trainee with greatly exaggerated details and heavy sugarcoating, James put his skill that was both a blessing and a curse to use, not forgetting to send a meaningful look his mother's way telling her to compose herself before turning back to his boisterous facade of enthusiasm.
It was comforting to see Lily actually laughing once Ginny reached their muggle car, and even Al had a small smile on his lips.
So for the entire ride home through the ice and snow as well as supper after that, it was nice to pretend that everything was perfectly well and fine just like how it should be.
**********
That night after Lily had retired to her room for the night, Ginny, Albus and James all sat down with a heavy sigh at the kitchen counter, all three of them filled to the brim with previously well-hidden emotion.
Ginny was not quite surprised to see that Lily was not doing well. Albus had mentioned it through letters quite a few times, though mostly he talked about how stressed Lily seemed. They sent sweets and letters of assurance to help her get through exams without burning out, but it didn't occur to neither Ginny or Harry that a mental illness of some sort may be the cause. The bright smile that Lily wore whilst getting off the train only screamed an EMERGENCY that Ginny was all but too familiar with.
Guilt was completely threatening to take Albus under. The last letter he sent to his parents was dated around a week ago, and he had merely talked about what he originally believed to only be exam stress. Since that letter was sent out, Al hadn't seen Lily once until the prefect meeting on the train. He should've immediately sensed something was wrong when she didn't show up for a meal at the Great Hall the one day and the next and the next...and the next. When he finally saw Lily on the Hogwarts Express that morning, he knew that it was his fault that he didn't see it earlier, didn't investigate when something was so obviously wrong. Lily was his responsibility now that James was not at Hogwarts, and he had failed her, James, Teddy, his parents and himself by allowing his baby sister to descend into a hole as deep as she was in.
"Al..." Ginny tentatively addressed her younger son once the silence had caused the air to thicken to the point of suffocating. "What happened?"
"I don't know," Al admitted miserably. "Everything was fine one day. And then all hell had broken loose."
James let out a wail in despair as the tears he was holding back since he first spotted Lily on the platform finally broke through his emotional barrier. He tugged at his messy jet-black hair and buried his face into his hands as an aching sense of hopelessness he was basically accustomed to enveloped his very senses.
He knew the feeling all too well. The sorrow, the desolation, the sadistic and melancholic voice of himself telling himself that he's useless, worthless and would be better off gone. He couldn't even begin to fathom exactly what had taken Lily away, or what has caused it, or even how long it had been going on.
James's breath began to hitch with anxiety at the formation of a question at the tip of his tongue which he didn't dare to ask, so Ginny walked over and wrapped him in a tight hug as Al rubbed his back. "How long has it been going on?" She asked Albus again, voicing the exact question James could not put into words.
"I don't know." Because I didn't pay enough attention to her.
Ginny caught the remorse dripping out of her younger son's voice, and gestured him to come over to her, unable to move due to James's tight clutch. Once he did, she gathered him into her arms as well. "It's not your fault. You're in different years and different houses and it's your NEWT year. You couldn't have known."
Both boys leaned greedily into their mother's embrace, heads leaning in to rest on each of her shoulders. Ginny didn't know what to do. Silent tears started streaming down James's cheeks and Albus was so tense he was shaking in an almost violent way. She was deeply touched by how much her boys cared about their sister, but couldn't help but worry what they'd do if anything devastating were to happen. She refused to let that happen.
They stayed like that for who knows how long, until James finally managed to gather his words and say something since Lily went upstairs ages ago. "Why is this...why is this happening to her? What did she ever do to deserve it?" He cried, chest already constricting with the effort to breathe. "I don't want this to happen to her, I don't want her to suffer, why is it Lily who's..."
A wave of nausea struck him like a lightning bolt. His heart pounded against his rib cage as blood rushed to his ears, causing his vision to spin out of control. James collapsed against his mother and grasped his brother's arm as he desperately gasped for air.
"James?"
"James!"
"Al, get your brother some water, quickly."
"Hey, you're okay, you're safe. You're at home and with mum."
"Focus on breathing Jaime."
He was trying, but his lungs refused to take in oxygen, and he couldn't focus.
He couldn't focus.
Sweat was dripping down his forehead, mixing with tears, and James slowly lost all feeling in his limbs.
His ears were buzzing.
He could see but he couldn't see.
His tongue tasted of copper, and his mouth was so dry it felt like sandpaper.
A cool liquid was held to his cracked lips, and he drank it with desperation.
Only to violently throw up his supper after merely a sip.
And time froze on the Potter kitchen floor.
Albus had never felt as lost as he did that very moment. Not even the night which James attempted to take his own life...which they all remembered way too clearly. James was 16, Al was 14 and Lily was not quite 12 years old. Victoire had gathered all the female relatives for a girls's night that evening, so Lily was not home and Al was supposed to be at Scorpius' for the night.
And if it wasn't for that one fight with his best mate during the daytime, Al wouldn't have returned home to help himself into James's room for some brotherly advice in the middle of the night, and then James would have been gone by the time anyone discovered what he had done.
Al remembered his older brother's pale wrist hanging off the side of the bed, a dark pool of blood expanding by the second, a stark contrast to the ghostly sheer of James's skin.
Al remembered the huge and empty bottle of the draught of living death on the bedside counter.
Al remembered screaming for his parents and hysterically sobbing at the same time.
Al remembered anxiously waiting for news with the ticking hours of the night, Ginny's sobbing echoing off the walls of St. Mungos as Harry's expression took on something so grim and haunted that it sent chills down to the core of Albus's bones.
But what stood out to him the most from that horrific memory, was the note on James's bedside table that he had swiped up in the chaos as Harry rushed his second oldest child to the hospital through the floo.
It was a simple death note. One consisting of only five words.
Don't tell Al and Lily. It had said, so brief and scrawly and unlike James' usually elegant cursive that it was almost impossible to believe that he had planned his own death for an entire year before taking action. And the Potters’ knew it meant to never tell either of them that their brother committed suicide in the middle of the night. To make up whatever tale to make her believe that he didn't leave her on purpose because he didn't want her to suffer through the pain that would come along with that knowledge.
Except somehow Al found out. Still, no one slipped a word to the rest of the family until James had woken up.
Even then, the first thing he did when they were finally let into the hospital room at sunrise was ask if they told them. He almost shattered when Al entered the room, but James had sunk into the crisp white sheets with a relieved sigh when Albus shook his head for Lily. "Good," he said with the ghost of a smile flickering over his lips. "It would break her if she knew."
James broke down into sobs and didn't stop for hours when one of their parents (or was it a healer?) asked him why he tried to take his own life. To this day, no one really actually knew James' reasoning, though depression definitely heavily influenced it.
Broomstick accident was the cover that James and his parents decided to use...for Lily, the majority of their cousins and the press.
And that's what everyone believed.
"You really scared me Jaime." Lily had whispered after James dramatically "recounted" the story of stumbling into a bushel of belladonna and passing out seconds later, letting out a quiet hiss of pain when Lily leapt into his arms and accidentally contacted his tender wrists as she sobbed in the most relieved way.
And Al and Teddy glared at James behind Lily's back. You really scared us too.
Therapy eventually helped James recover to the point of feeling just as joyous as he appeared to be the majority of the time. Al and James grew much closer, even closer than they were before. So naturally Al knows that James's greatest fear is that he or Lily would have to go through something like that. His boggart literally proved it when they helped banish one from The Burrow.
"Mental illnesses are often genetic," James had said with a tired sigh. "Dad and I both have issues, and we both nearly died from them. I would not wish it on anybody. I don't know what I'd do if you or Lily have to go through anything like it. It's horrible."
Yet now, his worst nightmare was happening, and James barely registered Ginny's quiet sobs before passing out cold in her arms.