Work Text:
Something’s not alright.
There’s a sound from one of the long empty half-lit corridors ahead. Thumping as if someone’s stuck in a broom cupboard.
Technically, it’s still a few minutes before curfew and she’s not on patrol. Yet. But she will be once she meets her partner in the Great Hall.
Whoever is stuck in the cupboard doesn’t seem to care about it being almost after curfew. So maybe someone really needs help after a prank gone wrong. Without thinking twice about it, Lily heads off in the direction of the noise.
As she rounds a corner there’s a faint creak.
She stops dead in her tracks, her heart starts to beat frantically as a coldness settles in her stomach.
There’s blood smattered on the floor. A clear trail of red spatters; a trail she follows with her eyes and then with her feet as if they’re pebbles she dropped in the forest to find her way home. It’s a sight she desperately wants to look away from as dread fills her mind, but as if she’s the other pole of a magnet her eyes are pulled towards the scene in front of her.
There’s a shape on the floor, a cloaked figure, lying in a dark puddle. Is all of it blood!? There’s so much of it. She hesitates, checking her surroundings. What if whoever has done this is still here, hovering in the shadows, watching her, ready to attack?
But she sees nobody lurking and she can’t keep away any longer so she rushes over to the body, lying motionless on the floor
It’s a boy, a young man, he’s far too still and he’s cold. It takes all her strength to turn him around. Not because he’s heavy but because she fears what she will see. That it’s him.
The familiar angular face that she recognises immediately is pale, much too pale. Dark hair falls in unruly waves around his face. It reminds her of the statue of Jesus that hangs in the Cokeworth church.
Every Sunday she watched that face and counted the painted drops of blood on the marble. She also counted the dark crude cross-stitches on his loincloth. For long sermons she studied the naked body, that made the passage from life to death to save us all, what for , she couldn’t help but think. What good had His sacrifice done anyone? The world was still cruel and everyone in it died.
Sometimes Lily thought the bigger sacrifice would have been to stay alive, to stick around despite the world not wanting you to, instead of trading a life of suffering for eternity in Heaven. It didn’t sound like such a bad trade.
She was probably not wise enough to understand it all, why would you give anyone your other cheek to slap? Maybe being around Gryffindors most of the year hadn’t helped her to keep the faith. But Lily would be damned before she would offer the likes of Mulciber her other cheek, let alone give them a chance at all to hurt her. With the hate against Muggleborns growing every day, she was glad her ability to hex and hurt was well known.
She would fight Death Eaters one day for her right to be a part of the wizarding world. And maybe that would one day cost her her life. She wasn’t naive. But giving up your life without a fight seemed ridiculous to her. And for most anything, she thought being alive was more useful than being dead.
She’d been scolded for her doubtful mind and sinful thoughts. It didn’t stop her mind from having both doubts and thoughts of sin; they especially seemed to thrive as she zoned out halfway through the sermon and studied the marble muscles of the naked body in front of her. Her mind was always curious and if all men were made after his image, well, she might as well have a good look.
This boy here isn’t Jesus.
Jesus doesn’t wear glasses.
And this boy’s glasses reflect her, she sees herself mirrored in them.
His eyes are not right, she can see clearly behind the glass, but they’re dull without a glimpse of brightness. They don’t see her, they don’t see anything. It’s almost, almost as if... But it can’t be. He can’t be... she can’t bring herself to accept such a thing. He is not dead. James Potter is alive. He simply must be. He wouldn’t leave her?
She’s on her way to meet him, and she hasn’t told him yet. So he can’t die and leave her behind because she needs him to know how she feels. How she looks his way at breakfast to catch his grin and a wink because it’s the best start of her day. How she hopes he’ll walk with her when they have the same classes because he’s always making her laugh. Because he doesn’t know yet that she’s become addicted to his touch, to the warm and giddy feeling that lasts for most of the day if he puts his hand on her back, grabs her hand or even just bumps her shoulder.
How her Amortentia, brewed perfectly, of course, smells like pine trees after rain has fallen, a hint of orange and the petroleum smell of broom polish.
He can’t lie here stone cold, lifeless, in some dark and drafty corridor without knowing she wants him to ask her out again, how she wants him to hear her say yes this time.
Why the hell hadn’t she just asked him herself?
As she struggles to breathe she can’t find any good answer or reason for it, just that she’s been a coward. She feared rejection.
Now she no longer understands why, her only thought is that he can’t be dead because it would mean she’s too late to tell him any of this and that he’s left this world without her.
Her tears are too late, but that doesn’t stop them from falling.
She wants to cry and pull her hair out, she wants to scream and demand someone fix this; to tell her that this boy, who brings chaos and laughter wherever he goes, is merely sleeping as he’s lying here completely still. That he’s been turned into stone, another bloody marble statue.
It’s not right that he is gone, that she’s left behind. It’s not fair that she’s too late to tell him she’s in love with him. No, it’s too wrong, it’s... it’s... it’s ridiculous... It’s worse than ridiculous.
Her eyes burn, her cheeks are cold and wet and her chest heaves with sobs but she hardly notices. Because all she can think is how ridiculous this is.
She takes her wand and wipes her eyes roughly. Somewhere in the back of her throat the word forms and her wrist moves in a practised motion: “RIDDIKULUS”
There’s a flash of light as the boggart explodes with force, blowing strands of her hair out of her face. She’s still pointing her wand at where it was. There’s no more smattering of blood or a dead body, there’s only a wooden cupboard, its door slightly ajar.
A boggart. It was a boggart. That’s all it was. Just a boggart.
Still, she feels tears rolling silently down her face. Why is she crying? She’s not too late. It wasn’t real. None of it was real. It was just her biggest fear. Only her biggest...Oh. Oh .
She is late.
She runs to the Great Hall. To where she knows he’s waiting for her.
He will grin and mess up his hair when he sees her, she secretly hopes. She knows exactly what he’ll say as he pushes himself off of the wall he’s been leaning against.
“Alright, Evans?”
And she will tell him it is.
No, she will kiss him to make it so.