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Something dripped in the corner, and Lily squeezed her eyes shut. The motion sent a wave of agony through her head. It was hard to know what time it was down here, but surely it had been nearly a week. Six days? Five? Five days would be respectable. No one could blame her if she gave up after five days.
The magic binding her wrists to the chair chafed, small discomfort compared to the sharpness everywhere else in her body. She had several broken ribs, certainly. A ring of bruises around her neck. Broken nails and blood from where she clawed at the chair earlier, a sort of animal instinct that she hadn’t been proud of but also hadn’t been able to help, scrambling for purchase as a wand poked toward her eyes.
It had been a few hours since the Death Eaters were with her. Had it been? At least an hour, probably. Time didn’t mean much anymore.
She tugged at her wrist, a futile and impatient and hopeless gesture that only served to bring fresh pressure behind her eyes. She wouldn’t cry. If she cried now, she would break – irrevocably, completely. Lily had been strong for nearly a week now. She wasn’t sure how much longer she could do it.
The door creaked. Lily took a breath that sent fire into her lungs, and waited.
“You won’t.”
James stood in front of her, resolute as always, hair flinging in the gusts of wind. It was a blustery autumn day, the kind that usually made Lily want to bundle up and walk through the blowing leaves. Instead, she planted her feet in the lawn of their newly purchased home in Godric’s Hollow and shook her head at her husband. “We agreed when we signed up that you wouldn’t get overprotective – ”
“Overprotective?” James’s voice shot up an octave. “I’m being overprotective? You’re talking about a mission to a house we know that Death Eaters have staked out, a house that’s been on their radar for weeks, and you want to what, just waltz right in, grab Mary, and waltz out?”
“It’ll be a bit more complicated than that.”
James gripped the back of his neck with a tight hand. “More complicated,” he muttered. “She says it’s more complicated than a death trap.”
Lily took a deep breath. It wasn’t worth getting angry; she knew he wasn’t trying to suggest that she couldn’t handle it. “James,” she said, and watched his face as his arms dropped. He didn’t look at her. “Mary would do this for me, and I have to do it for her. She could be tortured in there, she could be dying –”
“So could you!” James burst out. “If you go, so could you, and I can’t – I won’t –”
He spun away from her and stalked back toward the house, stopping with his back to her and his hand resting on the porch fence. Lily sighed and followed him. She set a gentle hand on his back, his sweater soft under her fingertips.
“James,” she said quietly, “we’re in a war. We need people to fight if we’re going to come out the other side of this. We need you and me to fight.” She rubbed her hand up his back and felt his shoulders hitch, felt his lungs inflate unsteadily. Like he was crying. She took another deep breath. “If you won’t let me fight, you’re taking away my agency, too. You’re taking away my ability to help.”
He reached blindly back toward her and tugged, pulling Lily until she was mashed awkwardly between him and the house, his arms tight around her. His shoulders were still shaking as she wound her arms up to them and held on. “I’ll be okay,” she whispered, muffled into his chest. “I’ll come back to you.”
His hand moved up to her hair, and he didn’t let go.
Lucius Malfoy was in front of her, his wand steady as it pointed at her face. She wasn’t supposed to know it was him, of course. There was secrecy among the Death Eaters, masks and silence so they could never turn on each other. But she caught a flash of his white hair, so distinctive in school even when he was a few years older than her. And she had known even then where he was heading.
“Mudbloods saving other Mudbloods,” Lucius was saying, his voice a confident sneer. Lily focused on his shaking hand. “How sweet. Especially when we know you stand no chance, with your stolen and inferior magic.”
She should stay quiet. They couldn’t break her if they didn’t see anything that mattered, if she never spoke up.
He continued, “Where did you take it from, anyway? And who did you pay to finish your schoolwork? I can’t imagine anyone taking your filthy Muggle money, but Merlin knows you couldn’t have done it yourself.”
He looked at her like he was waiting for an answer. “Nothing? Well. That’s disappointing. Crucio!”
The spell came without warning, setting Lily’s bones on fire. She couldn’t breathe. She might have been screaming, she couldn’t tell, could only feel the fire and the agony and the certainty that this was it, this was the end –
The spell stopped as Lucius lifted his wand. Involuntarily, Lily let out a small whimpering sound.
“That’s better.” Lucius stalked behind her, bending to brush his lips against Lily’s ear. His breath was hot against her hair, heavy and dank. They won’t break me, she thought, even as she craned her neck as far away as she could. The can’t if I don’t say anything, they can’t make me talk –
Lucius’s fingers slid down the side of her neck and gathered her hair in one hand. “I want to hear you beg, Mudblood,” he whispered, fanning the words across her bare neck. “I want you to beg for my mercy, under my power as you always should have been. I want to hear it.” He placed her hair gently onto her shoulder and let go, circling until he was face to face. The mask hid his expression, but she could see a flash of hunger in his cold, grey eyes.
The anger boiling up in her was too much to tamp down. And the fear – who could blame her if there was fear, too? She clenched her fingers and spat, sending spittle over the mask. A jolt of satisfaction shot through her as he reeled back.
“Fuck. Off,” she panted, clenching her fingers into the wood of the chair beneath her. Her body ached, and she could feel the ghost of his fingers on her neck, phantom and insidious. But it felt good to shout, to have some agency, to feel. “Fuck off!” she shouted again, even as he stood up, even as he grasped his wand more tightly and once again stood rigid in front of her.
“Fine,” he hissed, “have it your way. Diffindo!” White hot pain slashed across Lily’s cheek, and her head cracked against the stone behind her. “You want to mouth off? You want to prove your worth? Prove it, then. Show me how powerful you are, tied to that chair and trapped under my wand. Show me you bleed something worthy.” He stalked toward her again, wand flashing, and Lily felt blunt force impact her knees, forcing a cry out of her. She didn’t have a chance to catch her breath before – “Crucio!”
Again, and again, waves of agony crashed over her. It was like being drowned in fire, being strapped to a table and peeled open, like her bones were breaking over and over and over again –
I will not break, she thought to herself, as her thoughts splintered into every nerve ending in her body. I will show them what power is.
She was crying by the time she passed out.
“Evans.” The voice was cold and clear, like water bubbling under a frozen surface. “The Mudblood with the Potter boy.”
She heard a shuffling and the soft crunch of footsteps moving toward her on the stone, as if several figures were moving away to allow one a path forward. Lucius’s voice came from behind her. “She was captured a week ago, my lord. We think she was attempting to rescue the MacDonald girl.”
“Ah, yes.” The voice was a cold whisper. “The ties that bind. Tell me, Mudblood, do those ties still bind you to life?”
Other voices in the room cackled; there must have been more than one Death Eater present. But of course there was. Lily had spent enough time in this war to know how Voldemort worked, and how much he craved validation. How companionship was nothing more than a performance for him, a step on the road to power.
When she didn’t answer, the laughter died. Voldemort’s voice was softer this time, more deadly. “I asked you a question, Mudblood. And you must look at me while you answer. Crucio!”
It was a thousand knives under her skin. Worse than a thousand knives; it was being burned alive and drowned, it was her chest peeled open while her heart still beat. Nothing Lucius had done to her had prepared her for this. She would take a hundred slices on her face, a thousand broken bones, if only this agony would end.
The spell ended and a hand gripped her jaw, tight around her chin. She was panting as it forced her face upward. “Open your eyes, Mudblood,” a woman’s voice said. “The Dark Lord demands you look at him.”
Lily cracked her eyes open. She wished she wouldn’t. She wasn’t proud of it, but something in her body screamed at her to obey, to avoid the agony again. She didn’t have it in her to refuse. But it didn’t matter, anyway – the walls around her refused to come into focus, the faces spinning and whirling to force her eyes shut again. Maybe she had a concussion. She had seen James get them enough times from Quidditch, though he just popped up to the Hospital Wing and was fixed in a moment. It would mean something worse here.
With a deep breath, she tried again.
The face in front of her was one of nightmares. Pale, almost dead, eyes with slitted eyes and cheeks that looked sunken like the grave. It spun in and out of focus as Lily struggled to remain upright.
Voldemort smiled at her.
“You and I have unfinished business, do we not? You’ve been keeping information from me.”
It was there, floating to the top of her head. Locations she couldn’t share, names of friends she knew were undercover. Everything she had safeguarded so closely for the Order for the last year, ripe and ready for plucking by long, white fingers. It wouldn’t be long before he took it from her.
She was so tired. Her body felt unattached; the only thing left was pain, wrapping around her spine and squeezing. Mary was gone; dead somewhere in another room, Lily was sure of it. And Lily would follow. It was okay, now. She’d been strong for as long as she could; she had protected her family. She would never see them again, but at least they would be safe, right? At least they’d have that. And if she told Voldemort to kill her, maybe he would oblige.
She opened her mouth. And there, just over Voldemort’s shoulder, gazing at her with such compassion and tenderness, with a softness she hadn’t seen in ages, was James.
You can’t go out without a fight, Lily.
His voice in her head was calm and sure. It sounded like it did when she came downstairs after a poor night’s sleep to see him on the sofa, smiling up at her. You can’t be awake yet, Lily, you didn’t sleep well. Go back to bed and I’ll bring you some tea.
Tears gathered at the corners of her eyes and started leaking down her cheeks, tracking paths through the blood and grime. I can’t, James. I don’t have any fight in me.
James tossed his head back and laughed just the way he used to when he was seventeen and carefree, before either of them knew how this war would tear them apart. You? Lily Evans, who has never lost an argument, with no fight left in her? Impossible. He stepped toward her, through Voldemort’s chest, and crouched down by her knees. Lily stopped herself just before reaching out to touch his face. His eyes, hazel and framed, were soft. You have your fight and you have mine, Evans. Hang in there.
He reached out a hand, placing it gently on her neck, and leaned in to kiss her forehead. I’m here.
A crash sounded from outside the room, followed by a shout. Voldemort’s head whipped toward the door, and then he was shouting to his Death Eaters to move, to attack, to silence the intruders –
A spell went off, too quickly for her to see, and Lily was unconscious.
“Hey. Lily, hey, wake up, come on – ”
The dream had come for her again. The one that was painful in its beauty, the one that made her want to wake up so she wouldn’t be in the agony of knowing it wasn’t possible. She didn’t open her eyes. What was the point?
“Lily, love, come on.” A tapping on her knee, a flare of pain from the bruises there. Something silver flashed behind her eyelids. “I need you to be conscious, Evans, you have to get up – ”
Clattering by the door, and a thump. “Padfoot, what –” and then a broken sound, a gasp and a sob all at once, one that made Lily squeeze her eyes shut tighter. This wasn’t real. This was a new torture, they couldn’t have brought him here, he wouldn’t have gotten caught. It wasn’t real. It was a dream. She couldn’t face it.
“She’s awake, I think –”
“Lily.” A warm body in front of her, kneeling. She could feel her hair tickled by his breathing. Gentle fingers touched her face and she flinched. The fingers pulled back immediately. “She’s awake.” The voice in front of her changed in pitch, from soft to commanding. “Padfoot, send Moony and Wormtail a message and get that Portkey ready. We’re leaving now, we’re not waiting for more information. Go!”
A thumping sound again, and another flash of silver. The voice focused back on her. “Lily, love, can you open your eyes?” It was soft, this voice. So soft and familiar, the feeling of everything good and warm and comfortable, and Lily couldn’t help the tears that slipped out. She shook her head, sharp and quick in a way that made her head an agony, made her gasp a short breath to ward off the pain.
“You can’t open your eyes?” The voice – James’s voice, warm and wonderful and lovely – was laced with panic now, as much as it tried to stay calm. “Can you tell me why, Lily? We have to go, I need to get you out of here.” A tentative touch on her hand, which made her fingers clench. “Come on, love, look at me.”
The tears were falling faster now. She shouldn’t answer, she shouldn’t give them ammunition to know what was happening inside her head, but – “You’re not real,” she whispered.
James sighed in front of her, heavy and sad. “I am, love,” he said. “Oh, Lily. I am. Please open your eyes.”
Another thud at the door, and Sirius’s voice saying urgently, “We have to go now, the Portkey is almost ready and it’s three doors away –”
“Please, Lily.” James’s voice was a whisper, his hands a ghost away from hers. “I’m here. Please.”
Lily opened her eyes.
James was a watery blur in front of her, a gash on his forehead and blood dripping into his eyebrow. His hair was full of dust, and she could see a rip in the collar of his sweater. There were tears in his eyes. “Hey, Evans,” he said softly, and a sob ripped out of her.
James caught her as she tipped forward but quickly let go, his hands fluttering over her body before landing gently on her shoulders. The weight of them felt foreign. She could feel her shirt sliding under his palms, slipping over cuts and bruises that made the new map of her skin. Everything hurt.
He was pulling her up now, tucking an arm under her knees and catching her back as she curled up into him. It didn’t matter if this wasn’t real. James was here, James had come for her, and even if it was a dream it was the best hope she had of getting out of here.
She felt his lips on her hair as they started moving. “I’m taking you home, Evans,” he said, quiet and firm in a way that wrapped around her like a blanket. “You’re safe with me.”
“I can walk,” she murmured, tucking her nose deeper into the heart of his sweater. It smelled coppery.
“Don’t you dare.”
They were in another room now, lit with a blue light. She could barely make out the forms of three new shapes moving around and she cringed, flinching into James as he set her feet on the floor. She felt a whisper in her ear – “It’s Padfood, Lil” – and the face in front of her swam into focus. Sirius looked like he had been spit out of a meat grinder, a bloody rash down his cheek and eyes like fire. He didn’t speak as he shoved something toward her. Lily’s fingers closed unconsciously on the smooth wood of her wand.
“Saved that for you,” Sirius said with a quick grin. “Pretty sure you’d fall over if I slapped you on the back, but know that I’m doing that in my head. You look like shit, Evans.”
A smile tugged at Lily’s lips, foreign and uncomfortable and the most welcome feeling in the world. “Your face took a beating, too,” she said hoarsely. “Thanks for risking it for me.” Remus and Peter, across the light of the Portkey, smiled at her. “All of you.” James’s fingers tightened on her hip.
“Anytime, Evans. Now can we go?”
James glanced down at his watch. “Portkey in three, two –”
Lily’s feet lifted off the ground, and blackness set in.
“It’s 10 o’clock in the morning. On October the 24th, if you’d like to know.”
A rustling and a sigh. “You can’t keep saying that every twenty minutes hoping she wakes up to hear it.”
“Would be pretty great if she did, though, wouldn’t it?”
Consciousness came to Lily in phases. She was comfortable – soft, coddled, warm. Her fingers tingled, and she blinked her eyes open. The ceiling above her was the rough, swirling wood of their home in Godric’s Hollow. The room was quiet, sunlight streaming in through the windows. For a moment, she lay still and took stock of her body. There was a gentle ache in her knees, a tenderness to her skin where it slipped against the sheets. But, on the whole, she felt better than she had in days.
She turned her head. “I never should have given you Lord of the Rings.”
“Lily!” The mattress sank down as James scrambled up next to her, his hands skidding over the blanket like he couldn’t decide where to land.
Sirius stood up behind him, stretching his arms over his head. “Glad you’re awake, Evans,” he said, and twisted a few times as if wringing out a stiff back. “Try not to need any daring rescues in the next few weeks, all right? My fans need me.”
Lily grinned. It was amazing, how that no longer hurt. “What fans?”
Sirius stumbled back toward the door, hands clutched over his heart as if mortally wounded. “I would’ve left before the insult, but now I’m ushered away for my pride.” He grinned at her and tapped the door frame twice. “You crazy kids have fun.”
Lily turned, smiling, to take in James’s face before her. His hair was sticking up with the effort of his hands running through it, as it always was. He was smiling. There were tears in his eyes. Gently, he reached out and smoothed Lily’s hair back from her forehead.
“Hey, Evans,” he whispered.
“You need a new line,” she replied quietly.
James laughed, a choked and wet sound, and a tear slipped down his cheek. “Merlin, I’m glad you’re alright.”
“One more daring rescue for the books, I guess.”
“That’s three now.” James traced the shell of her ear with his finger, then tucked her hair behind it. “Let’s not try for four, shall we?”
The lump in her throat was too tight to speak through. Lily nodded.
Silence descended. James’s gaze had slipped down her face, now focusing on where he held one hand in both his own. He played with her fingers for a moment.
Finally, he spoke. “Promise me that the next time we’re in trouble, it’s together.” James looked up, catching her eyes and holding them, lacing her hand with his. “I know I can’t ask you not to defend yourself. I love that you want to fight. But Lily –” his hand on hers was so tight it was past comfort – “don’t make me live without you, okay?”
Lily nodded again. “Together,” she whispered.
“Together.” James drew her hand up to his mouth and kissed it, resting his lips there for a long moment. “You should rest. I’ll bring you some tea.” He stood up, holding onto her hand until distance no longer allowed and it thumped back onto the bed.
Lily watched as he walked away, his shoulders tight and his hands tensing and releasing. “James,” she said, just to watch him turn around. “I love you.”
His smile was a quiet, fleeting thing, but it made Lily’s heart leap all the same. “I love you, too.”
She settled back into the blankets, sleep creeping into her body again. She didn’t know what the next few years would bring – how many more friends would die, how many more times she would be ripped apart by Voldemort. But she had James. She had Sirius, and Remus, and Peter, and the rest of the Order. They could fight, and they would.
Together.