Work Text:
August 1979
“Rough day?” A voice asked from somewhere behind her. Lily spun abruptly, startled by the closeness of the voice, then frowned at her own jumpiness when her eyes landed on the speaker. It was a man, no more than forty or so, with dark hair and a sort of refined air that spoke of wealth. Strange, given the rather run-down nature of the pub.
“I guess,” Lily said, turning away.
“Oh?” The man said, mild curiosity in his tone.
She huffed in annoyance. Couldn’t he take a hint? “Wedding planning can be exhausting,” she said. Certainly that was direct enough (and also completely true—it was a logistical nightmare to plan any sort of large get-together, given the current state of things).
“You don’t seem to be very enthusiastic,”
Lily pursed her lips, exasperated. “I went to deliver an invite to my sister. It didn’t go well.”
“Ah, well, family can be so complicated. Now, small talk aside, we have business, Miss Evans.”
She started in surprise, turning to squint at the man in confusion. “Do I know you?”
“Well,” he said, a slow, amused drawl. “After a fashion, I suppose. You’ll certainly have heard of me, though the papers have been refusing to print my name, as of late.”
Lily felt a thrill of cold terror skitter down her spine. “Oh,” she breathed out, voice sounding hollow and weak. Her gaze was frozen, staring at the side of his head. He didn’t turn to look at her, but Lily could tell he was smiling. How was he smiling? The thought made her sick.
He drained the last of his whiskey and ordered another, long fingers wrapped around the glass while he raised it to his mouth. They were clean and pale, but Lily knew what they’d done and felt like she’d swallowed cold poison. “Why?” She wondered, but didn’t quite know what she was asking.
“Why? What an interesting question, Lily. May I call you Lily? It seems only appropriate given these informal circumstances.”
Lily opened her mouth to respond, and then closed it again when no words came out and gave a mute node instead. Why wasn’t she already dead? He was sitting two feet from her. He was—well, he was—she couldn’t complete the thought, even in the privacy of her own head. What did he want? He must want something. What? What?
His smile widened, but he didn’t turn to look at her. “Anyways, why? Excellent question, and not one people often think to ask. I hadn’t planned on giving a real explanation for this revolution—”
“You’re calling this a revolution?” Lily demanded, appalled. The words spilled out without so much as half a thought, her conscious brain running several seconds behind. Oh. No. She only barely restrained the hand that moved instinctively to clamp over her mouth. She squeezed her eyes briefly shut. Her mind raced. Shite. Shite. I’m dead. I’m going to die.
He gave a delighted laugh. “You’re much more fun than I was expecting.”
Lily went light headed with some undefinable emotion half way between terror and relief.
Still, he didn’t look at her. He lifted his glass, rolled it about in his hand, then set it down with a soft clink , not drinking. His fingers steepled. “I can’t say I don’t see the cause for your offense. In all honesty, though, I don’t see why you should care. I have a simple offer for you. Join me, and you shall be safe. Join me, and James shall be safe. Your mother, your father, your sister, even her lump of a husband. All safe, for the simple price of your cooperation.”
“ Why?” Lily asked again. This time, she knew the purpose of her question. What did she have to offer? This madman, who murdered and tortured indiscriminately, who gathered followers from every corner of magical society, who rampaged across the country in bloody pursuit of its domination. What did she have that he couldn’t find elsewhere?
“Did you know, Lily, that NEWT level thesis work is public record?”
She blinked, momentarily surprised by the non-sequitur, and then came to a horrifying realization.
He laughed. “The authors are anonymous, of course, but dear Severus—” he drawled the name, a cruel, mocking note in his voice “—was happy to tell me all about it.”
Lily sat, unable to move. This was all her fault. She’d practically handed it to him, wrapped up on a silver platter.
The work was theoretical, a flight of adolescent arrogance on the parts of her and Severus. It should never have been published, but Severus had nagged and nagged and wheedled and complained and bribed and eventually resorted to outright blackmail. And so they had. It was not supposed to be used for anything! What use was he imagining it for?
Still, something didn’t make sense. “The question remains. Why do you need me, if you can just read at your own leisure?”
He sighed, sounding tired. “I have read your work. I share your academic interest in the nature of the soul. I have many years of experience and great resources to my advantage. Yet, I have never seen something quite like it. You have made something unique. Something…wonderful.”
“I made something horrifying!” Lily cried, suddenly unable to help herself. “I am horrified, even now. I never should have—” Her voice dropped to hardly above a whisper. “From the moment we submitted the paper, I knew. I knew. We unleashed something on the world that never…” she trailed off, panting.
“Soul magic of that sort is not illegal,” he said, dryly.
“Only because no witch in her right mind would ever dabble in such a thing! No one knew to forbid what they thought was impossible.”
“ Now I am become death…”
“Shut up!” she snapped. “Shut. Up.”
The sardonic amusement that curled at the corner of his lip was clearly at her expense. “You’ve not invented the second coming of the atom bomb,” he drawled. “ Relax .”
“Relax?” she hissed in outrage, then remembered herself, and sat back in her chair with a sharp exhale. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she wondered why he was familiar with Oppenheimer and weapons of mass destruction, of all things. “I still don’t understand why you need me. Surely Severus can explain.”
“That's why I’m here,” his voice rose, impassioned. “I can’t get it to work, and Snape is clearly not the one of you two who dabbles in soul magic.”
“And you…? You thought I’d teach you?” the shrill note of incredulity came through, unbidden.
He turned, suddenly, and met her eyes. “You. Will.”
And then she felt it. Cold ribbons wrapping around her mind. He lingered, just barely submerged in her surface thoughts, not moving to push past her shoddy occlumency shields. The act was an unspoken threat, one made Lily’s throat tighten and her breath come short. You are helpless, it said. You are nothing next to me.
With an abrupt jolt of horror, Lily realized that the presence in her mind was not new. He had been there the whole conversation, long before she had recognized him. He had probably been in her head since the moment she stepped into the pub, just lurking in her surface thoughts, waiting for the moment to pounce. It wasn’t like when Severus had taught her the basics of occlumency. There was no warmth or familiarity, no pretense of security. She felt like she had been stripped naked; vulnerable, weak, and humiliated.
Lily struggled briefly. Attempted the simple shove that Severus had taught her. He didn’t even flinch. There was nothing to do. He could kill her before she’d even reached for her wand. The second the thought crystallized into action, he would know, and she would be dead.
“I have tried to play nice. If you had just accepted my offer, you wouldn't be in this position.” He was standing; had drawn himself up to his full height.
Lily glanced around in panic. Realized that, while she had been distracted, the room had emptied out. She blinked. Oh God. How? How was that even possible ? She knew he was a strong legilimens, but this—
“Pay attention, girl!” He snapped.
Lily gasped, eyes stuttering back to him. She stumbled out of her chair, backing a few steps away. He towered over her, a reddish light glimmering in his dark eyes. He smiled.
“Now, you have a choice. Join me, help me, or become my enemy and die.”
Lily gaped, staring up at him. “I don’t—I don’t,” she stuttered, panicking, her tongue thick and unwieldy. “I don’t even know how!” She finally managed to spit out. “It’s a theoretical publication. It might not even work!”
“Are you really telling me that you haven’t experimented since that paper was published? Were you not approached by the Department of Mysteries?”
“How did you even—?” Lily cut off abruptly. On second thought, she didn’t really want to know if he had spies in the Department or had simply plucked the knowledge from her own head. “Never mind.”
“You are not a notably powerful witch, Lily. Slightly above average, perhaps, but nothing special. It is your ingenuity that sets you apart; your ability to ignore the presupposed boundaries. That is what I want.”
Lily stared down at the well-worn wood of the pub floor. She couldn’t bring herself to meet his eyes. “Those boundaries. They exist for a reason.”
“Don’t give me that tripe, girl! Those are someone else’s words in your mouth, because they are satisfied with the limits. They cannot see that limits can always be pushed, that true ingenuity; Magic to its fullest extent is found beyond the boundaries that Wizards place on themselves. Don’t parrot Albus Dumbledore to me!” He was roaring by the end of his rant, a speckle of his spittle wet on her cheek. Lily reached an absent hand up to wipe it away.
Dumbledore? Lily thought, incredulous. What?
”Pah!” He exclaimed, shockingly loud in the silent room. “I can hear that Muggle-loving fool behind your words. To imagine! He teaches the youth of this country. He might as well strangle the pureblood infant in its cradle, for all the good he does Wizardingkind.“
Ah . Now, this sounded a lot more like the sort of thing Lily had expected to hear. He must have caught that thought, because he laughed.
“The fear of Mudbloods is an attractive and convenient rallying call, and I do hate the way they bring their limited ways of thinking into our world, but my real disgust lies in those who limit themselves and worse yet, seek to limit others.”
Lily shook her head in mute disbelief, finally meeting his eyes. There was a gleam of red in them, though perhaps that was a trick of the dim lighting.
“At the heart of the matter, Lily, is the simple fact that even if you never produce a functional prototype based on that paper, you have a way with magic of the soul that I want. I cannot allow the enemy to make use of your skill.”
Lily heard the implication. She laughed, entirely unamused. “So it’s greed, then. If you can’t have me as one of your little followers, then nobody can have me and I’m better off dead.”
“Exactly,” he said. “Now, I see that you will not be swayed. One must assume, then, that death is your choice today.”
Her knees felt weak. She closed her eyes for one long moment, fighting the urge to run.
“Good,” he said, with what sounded like genuine praise in his tone. “You have a strength that many lack, to stand and die as a witch rather than be cut down fleeing as prey from predator. I’ll make it quick, then, as I can be merciful.”
He raised his wand to her chest and Lily stared down at it, breath coming in fast, almost panting.
She squeezed her eyes shut, light headed with panic, breath quickening. In, out, in, out, faster and—
“ Avada—
And the room exploded with noise.
Dazed, Lily found herself lying in the shadow beneath one of the pub tables, ears ringing and the world suddenly upended.
More importantly, though, she was—mercifully, blessedly —alone in her own mind. Lily scrambled for her wand. The Order had come. James had come, and she would live another minute, or even, another day.
It was later, bundled up in blankets at an Order safehouse, hot cocoa clutched in her hand, that Sirius Black came to see her. Lily was sitting in the corner of the room, away from the other, when he sat down in the next chair over.
After a long stretch of awkwards silence—they weren't really much more than acquaintances—Sirius let out a long sigh. “Did he really?”
“What?” Lily puzzled at the question. She’d explained the broad strokes of the ordeal a dozen times already.
“He really tried to recruit you, specifically? Not James. Not me. You? And not as a spy?”
She shrugged, a frisson of unease stirring in her belly. “Yes.” Lily gazed across the room at a painting of three small goslings, wadling happily about the frame.
“Why?”
She shrugged again. From the corner of her eye, she saw Sirius slant a suspicious look at her.
“Lily.” The way he said it made her look up, surprised. “What exactly was he after? It would take something significant for him to bother recruiting a muggleborn.”
Lily stilled. Damn. He was too perceptive by far, and familiar with the more esoteric aspects of magic in a way most of her friends were not. Dumbledore knew, of course, but he had always known and turned a blind eye. She noticed Sirius noticing her lapse. Damn again. She sighed. Well, there was nothing for it.
“Are you, by chance, familiar with the fidelius?”
He blinked. “The ward?”
“Exactly. I was, well. I was trying to pinpoint exactly how an idea can be hidden within the soul, for surely that must be how it works. I was fooling around with it. Yes, ill advised, I know, but I’ve always had a bit of a knack for those sorts of things.”
“Well, it’s not called the art of warding for nothing.”
“Quite,” Lily muttered. It didn’t really feel like an art. More akin to surgery, in all honesty, like being elbow deep in guts that were supposed to be inside someone, but were not.
“I found something. A way to reverse the common mechanism of that type of soul-ward. A way to make the soul be subsumed by a place rather than a place be subsumed by a soul. I wrote it up. A thought exercise, nothing more. Obviously I didn't try it. Professor Flitwick recommended I submit it as a Charms Thesis, in place of sitting the written NEWT examinations. That’s when Severus heard about it. He thought of a way to make it more practical; a weapon. We got a little…carried away. It's never actually been used, but I’m very certain it works.” Lily trailed off, voice little above a murmur. “That’s when I came to my senses. I tried to withdraw from publishing, but Severus convinced me otherwise.”
He sat for a moment, still and silent. “You…” Sirius trailed off. “You reverse engineered a horcrux?”
“A what?”
He looked surprised. “A soul canister. I’m surprised you’ve never heard of them, researching the nature of souls as you have.”
“Oh!” Lily hummed thoughtfully. “Not quite. More like an artificial dementor. The ward isn’t supposed to keep the soul intact after subsuming it.”
“That’s not supposed to be possible. For humans, I mean. Obviously dementors and other soul-eaters can do it.”
Lily pursed her lips. “Last I checked, Severus and I are both human.”
Sirius gave an unattractive snort. “Are you sure about that overgrown dungeon bat?”
She scowled at him. “This isn’t relevant.”
He sobered. “No, it isn’t.” He paused for a long moment. “Lily, I’ll be honest with you here. You should go into hiding. Now, before you attract any more attention.”
Lily tensed, anger prickling at the base of her neck. “I'm not going to run and hide! That… that thing the Death Eaters call Lord and Master. He’s insane! He sees me, people like me, as a means to an end! A lamb sacrificed at the altar of power. I don’t think he understands people as anything more than pieces in a game, to be allied with one day and disposed of just as quickly.”
“Lily—”
“Shut up, Sirius. You happen to be lucky that he sees people like you as a convenient ally today. But what about tomorrow? Do you really think that the man will stoop to share his power with anyone? I will not go into hiding, not when I can be useful here, today, to prevent him from gaining any more power. If we take one step back he will use it as an excuse to end us.”
“Lily, be realistic. What can you possibly contribute? There will certainly be no future if you’re dead and you’re nothing special in a fight.”
Lily looked askance at him. “What can I do? Sirius, he just showed me what I can do.”
Sirius stilled. “Are you serious?”
Lily knew he was, as he didn’t didn't even make a crack about the unintentional pun.
“Yes,” she said, emphatic.
“Lily, Dumbledore is not going to like that. This is exactly the sort of magic that he is deeply suspicious of.”
“He already knows, Sirius. Why do you think he didn’t press me for details? ”
“Really? And, well, of course I thought there were some details missing from your report. That’s why we’re having this conversation. Are you saying that Dumbledore, what, deliberately allowed you to avoid giving certainty details?”
“Exactly. At the end of our seventh year, he pulled me into his office to have a very pointed, though entirely indirect, conversation about the ‘realities of war’. Of course, at the time I thought he was referring more to some of the, uh, unsportsmanlike charms I’ve developed for dueling, but I can see now that he realized the same thing that Voldemort did—that the ward I developed can be employed offensively, to great effect.”
“Oh,” Sirius said. “Well, I guess I did expect that at some point Dumbledore would have to admit that lethal force will be necessary to win this war.”
“I think he’s known for a long time, Sirius. He just doesn’t want to be the one to give the order. He wants us to come to that conclusion on our own, potentially with a bit of prodding to help us along the way.”
Sirius nodded slowly. “Of course. Hence his meeting with you and the lack of details at the debriefing today.” He mulled over the thought for a minute longer. “Now that I think about it, his efforts to dissuade Moody and I from using unforgivables have become rather half-hearted, as of late.”
Lily raised an eyebrow at that.
“Oh, don’t give me that look,” Sirius snapped, before letting out a long breath. “Damn that manipulative bastard, he’s the best of us and the worst of us.”
Lily laughed without amusement. “Well, war time makes for strange companions. Though I do wish James could see the flaws in Dumbledore.”
“That’s asking for a lot. James’ mother practically owes her life to the man, and James’ Uncle is a good personal friend of Dumbledore’s.”
“Well,” she sighed, “you win some and you lose some.”
Sirius laughed. “Very true. Now, if you’re serious—” he broke off to grin obnoxiously, winking at Lily as if he didn’t do that practically every time he said the word, before picking back up. “If you’re really going to join the fight in earnest, we’ve got to improve your dueling. Now, I have a few ideas…”