Chapter Text
Their whole family had been cursed. Lily knew this is what they said behind her back. People liked to gossip, to look at her to make themselves feel better about their own life. Neither of these things meant they knew anything about her family. Her colleagues had grown bored of it soon, but new clients always stopped at hearing her surname.
“Potter… Your daughter is the one that disappeared from overseas, did she not? Dreadful business. And that darn half-blood impersonating the Black boy. I certainly won’t be sending my son to Hogwarts anymore. Durmstrang seems to be the only good school left. Tragic about the Black heir too. Who knows what that half-blood did to him.”
Lily took a deep breath and kept smiling. Maybe there would be some time before dinner to check in with Addy, finally have a proper conversation about how she liked her classes with her newly hired tutor. She just needed to finish this one meeting and not hex this man into the middle of the next week.
“Let us go over your requests one more time,” she said.
By the time they were finally done, and Lily arrived at home, it was already quite late. She saw her chances for a conversation with Addy dwindling. Lily gently knocked on her daughter’s door and waited for permission before entering.
“Oh, your dad finally got you to clean up.” Lily blinked at the clear floor space, which was usually covered in clothes and magazines and quidditch equipment. James always asked how Addy managed to find any of her belongings, to which Addy usually replied that her brain thrived on chaos and that a clean room deprived a growing girl of much-needed stimulation.
“Yeah sure.” Addy was sitting at her desk and didn’t bother looking up from her parchment.
“Are you still busy with schoolwork? It’s only the third week of your first year, surely it can’t be too much already.”
Addy shook her head, putting down her feather. “Did you need something, mum?”
Ever since Addy had realised her efforts to go to school at AIM were in vain, she had become increasingly distant. Lily felt bad for her, but ultimately the desire to keep her daughter safe at home had won out. Still, she missed the happy girl Addy had been before. Disconcerted, Lily told her to come down for dinner soon and went to find James. He was sitting in his study, head tipped over and clearly fast asleep. There were dark smudges underneath his eyes, testimony to all the extra work he had put in recently to chase after sightings of Harry or Archie, and which all turned out to be nothing but smoke. Lily hesitated to wake him, but decided that he needed a meal and a night in his bed. He groaned when she shook his shoulder, though it took him a long moment before he finally pried his eyes open. His pupils were huge. Lily frowned.
“Are you alright? Did you take something?”
He shook his head sluggishly. Lily pursed her lips. The diagnostics spell revealed traces of a sleeping potion in his blood stream. Grabbing his face, she tried to get his eyes to focus on hers.
“Do not lie to me,” she hissed.
“I’m sorry,” he whined, “I don’t remember taking it.”
She clenched her jaw. “You can’t do that again, James. Especially not when Addy is home.”
James let his head fall forward and his breath hitched. For a split-second Lily felt bad for him, she knew how disturbed his sleep had been recently. Then she hardened again. It had taken them a long time to get him off the sleeping draughts, back when Harry had disappeared and James had started working continuously around the clock to find her.
“What’s going on?”
Lily turned around to find Addy standing in the doorway, eyes dark in her pale face.
“Nothing, your father’s just very tired. Why don’t you go ahead and set the dinner table while I make sure he goes to bed.”
Addy stared at James for a moment. Lily momentarily thought she saw something in her daughter’s face twitching, but then she nodded and turned around to leave. By the time Lily was done with James and went down to eat, Addy seemed completely fine, and Lily decided not to breach the topic.
Sleep evaded her that night. She felt physically exhausted, but the events of the day had left her feeling restless. The nightlight! Lily sat up, feeling awful. Every night, she enchanted the lamp in the hallway to look like a little moon. Addy had always been terrified of the dark, and even after turning eleven, she sometimes still woke up in terror. Leaving her bedroom door open, so the warm light of the enchanted moon could spill onto her bed had helped to calm Addy’s fears. Finding James under the influence of a sleeping potion had scrambled Lily’s brain so much that she had completely forgotten about turning on the nightlight. Feeling guilty, Lily slipped out of bed and sneaked into the hallway to remedy her mistake. Once her surroundings were lit in the soft glow of the moon, Lily stuck her head into Addy’s room to check in on her. The first thing she noticed was how empty it felt. Apparently, she had gotten so used to her daughter’s messiness that being able to see the floorboards and a meticulously straightened out desk gave her the willies. Lily smiled to herself.
Only then did she realise that the room felt empty, because it was empty. Addy wasn’t in her bed. Heart in her throat, she hurried down the stairs, checking the bathroom, the living room, and the kitchen. They were all empty as well. Harry’s room was locked, like always. Which only left the basement. The door leading downstairs gaped like a huge mouth in the darkness, and Lily could not imagine her Addy braving those stairs even during daylight. If Addy had tried to leave, the wards would have alerted Lily and James though, and there was no other place left in the house.
Lighting her wand, Lily made her way into the basement. It had taken many years for Lily to gather the courage to go into the potions lab after Harry had disappeared. She had only done it when a doxy infestation had started to spread into the living room. Two whole days she had spent cleaning out potions ingredients that had gone bad in between bouts of crying. Afterward, she had sealed the door to the lab.
The door was open now, and when Lily saw a slender figure standing next to the work table her heart couldn’t help but wish for it to be a different daughter than it was.
“Addy, what are you doing here in the dark?”
The figure started turning around, dark red curls tumbling over her shoulder.
“You.” Addy sighed. “I didn’t think I would need to concern myself with you. He’s always the one up at night, so I made sure he would sleep for once.”
Lily took an involuntary step back. “Addy?”
“She’s not here right now. Go back to sleep and forget about this. Everything will be fine.”
Addy tipped her head to the side. Lily’s magic bucked against the sudden onslaught of foreign power. Lily felt as though she was choking, Addy’s name on her lips. Darkness washed over her.
”Good morning, love. Did you sleep well?” Lily greeted Addy with a kiss to the top of her head, who hummed agreeably through a mouthful of porridge.
”I slept like a stone.” Lily laughed. “And so did your dad. I could barely wake him this morning.”
Addy laughed too and looked up at Lily.
“I’m glad you slept well, mum.”
Her daughter’s irises glowed strangely red. Lily blinked and Addy blinked back, dark brown eyes just like her father’s. Must have been a trick of the light, Lily thought, and went to make her own breakfast.