Life After Graduation

Recovery was, in fact, slow for Lily, James was lucky enough to be back on his feet fully recovered within two days. She had been trying to call her mother since early this morning, but figured that she was just busy.

“I hate being stuck at home,” Lily whined when James walked in the front door with an arm full of groceries.

“The healer said you should be fully recovered by the end of the week,” James replied before disappearing into the kitchen to put the food away and feed the cat.

“Here,” he said throwing her a small package of cookies before taking a seat on the couch with two glasses of milk. Truth was, he was craving them, but he could always use the excuse that they were Lily’s favorite.

“Thanks,” Lily said with a smile before opening the package and dipping one of the cookies in her milk. “How was work today?” She asked him before shoving a cookie into her mouth.

“Alright,” James said grabbing the remote to change the channel. “It was extremely hot today, about ninety with humidity.” It was weird weather for England, especially in for May, even if it was the end of it.

“Well maybe I should be glad I am stuck at home,” Lily said with a shrug. Her side was almost fully healed, and the pain was subsiding. When she showered she removed the bandage and each day it was looking better and better. Thank God for magic otherwise Lily knew she would have had a nasty scar.

“Speaking of that, how is it looking?” James asked her pointing to her side and back.

“Not sure, I haven’t showered yet, I need you to put the potion on,” Lily said before finishing her glass of milk. “Actually, I will go shower now.”

With that Lily rose from the couch, kissed James lightly, and disappeared into the bedroom to get new clothes then went off to shower.

Once he heard the shower turn on, James sprawled out on the couch, removed his glasses and attempted to take a nap. The heat had taken it out of him since today was a monthly training session. He was deep in a dream about playing Quidditch against a team of dragons when a loud bang caused him to almost fall off the couch.

Quickly he reached for his wand and glasses before sitting up his wand aimed at the door. This time the banging was not as loud, and it was just someone knocking on the door. James’ heart began to slow down a bit as he rose up from the couch, “who is it?” He called.

“Sirius, now open up,” Sirius called a bit frantic. “It’s urgent.”

James raised his eyebrows and glanced back over at the bathroom door, the shower was still going, so he had not been asleep for long. He pulled the door open to see Sirius sweating, and a bit shaky. “What’s going on?”

“I’ve got some bad news,” Sirius said walking inside of the house as he pushed the hair off his forehead looking around the place. “Where is Lily?”

“She’s in the shower,” James said walking over to take a seat on the couch once again, growing more and more concerned.

Sirius sighed, he did not know why he had to be the one to break the news, but Dumbledore thought it would be best if it was him or Remus, but Remus opted to stay behind to help with the investigation. “I might as well come out with it, it is not going to be any easier if I beat around the bush.”

James stared at him completely puzzled, but continued to listen. He heard the shower shut off, and looked towards the bathroom before looking back at Sirius.

“Let’s go outside,” Sirius said not wanting Lily to overhear what he was about to tell James. Without saying another word he walked towards the kitchen, and out the back door and knew James was right on his heels.

“Your killing me here,” James said standing in front of Sirius.

“Trust me, you don’t really want to know,” Sirius said before rubbing the back of his neck and letting out a loud sigh. “Lily’s parents were killed last night,” he said very quietly looking James square in the eyes.

At those words James’ stomach seemed to clench tightly, “what?” He asked not sure if he heard it right.

“Somehow the Death Eaters were still able to get to them, they were found by their neighbors this morning. From what we know so far, they were tortured, and killed slowly.” Sirius hated breaking this news, he was not meant to do this sort of thing, he felt too blunt, and out of place.

“H-how?” James asked utterly confused. He could not imagine how he was going to break this to Lily. She was so close with her parents, it was going to crush her.

“We don’t know,” Sirius said quietly. “Ministry officials as well as the Order are investigating. We are guessing when Lily accidently took a death eater there, they began tracking her parents, and even with Dumbledore’s defenses they were still able to get to them. My guess is they went out, and when they returned home is when someone was able to get in.”

“Lily just talked to her mother yesterday,” James said still shocked. He could feel his emotions threatening to spill over, but knew he needed to be strong for Lily.

“From what we guessed it happened early evening yesterday,” Sirius said, then glanced through the kitchen window to see Lily looking at the two of them confused.

“Does her sister know?” James asked quietly.

“Dumbledore went and told her, I’ll come back later tonight with more information,” Sirius said before apparating back to the Evans’ house.

Everything seemed to be happening way to quickly for James’ taste. Just a week ago he and Lily almost died, now this. Sighing he ran a hand through his hair, before resting his right hand on his neck walking back inside.

“What’s the matter?” Lily asked James when he returned inside. She could tell something was weighing heavily on his mind, and she knew that whatever it was was not good.

“Let’s go sit in the living room,” James said taking her hand as he tried to figure out how exactly he was going to tell her.

“James what’s going on?” Lily asked him as she followed him out to the living room. She was growing nervous at his silence, and how serious he had just become.

James just motioned for her to sit, then took a seat next to her. He reached for the remote turning the television off before turning to look at her, why did he have to break this news? James knew it had to be him, but it was still heartbreaking. “It’s your parents,” he said quietly.

“What about them?” Lily asked sitting up a bit straighter, her eyes narrowing slightly.

“I-God I don’t know how I’m supposed to do this,” James said keeping his eyes locked on hers. He could tell though she knew it was bad because she had paled. “Lily your parents were…were killed last night.” James said trying to get it all out without breaking down himself.

Her stomach seemed to do a flip as she stared at James, “no that isn’t possible I talked to them yesterday!” Lily said shying away from him before running towards the phone.

“Lily stop,” James said getting up from the couch to try and follow her but she just shoved him off and dialed the phone in the kitchen. “I wouldn’t lie to you Lils.”

“It’s not true,” Lily said dialing the number. It rang five times then went to the answering machine, frustrated she hung up and dialed again, but got the same result. Tears were stinging her eyes and she collapsed against the counter, the phone falling from her hand.

It killed James to see her like this, when she collapsed he was instantly at her side, and pulled her into a tight hug. She was sobbing uncontrollably as she clung to him tightly, all he could do was hold her close, and fight back his own tears as best as he could but it wasn’t working. After about ten minutes of heavy crying Lily began to calm a bit as she caught her breath. “I-it’s my f-fault,” she said hiccupping.

“No it’s not Lily, don’t blame yourself,” James said rubbing her back as she looked at him.

“I b-brought the death eaters right to their house,” Lily argued as she stared at the ground unable to look at his face at the moment. “If I h-hadn’t they would have been f-fine.”

“You know that is not true, Death Eaters stop at nothing to get their way,” James said quietly. It was obvious they had done this to try and get to Lily, as well as James.

The phone rang suddenly causing the both of them to jump, James saw a look of hope on Lily’s face as she ran for the phone, but James knew exactly who was calling, her lovely sister Petunia.

Lily dove for the phone and picked it up, “hello?” she said into the receiver but was greeted not by her mother’s voice, but by Petunias.

“It’s your fault!” Petunia said shrilly into the receiver as she sniffed. “Yours and his.”

“It’s not Petunia, please listen to me,” Lily said crying again.

“No, I know you had something to do with it, I told you that magic would only get you in a world of trouble, and now mother and father are d-dead,” Petunia yelled back her hand holding tight to the phone on her end.

James could not take it anymore; he quickly wrenched the phone from Lily’s hand and hung up on the girl. A few seconds later the phone rang again, so he hung it up once more, but on the third time he just ripped the whole thing from the wall. “Don’t listen to her,” James said as he led Lily back to the living room.

As promised Sirius returned later that night with the rest of the news, and Lily seemed to be taking it as well as expected. The ministry estimated that they had been tortured and killed after they returned home from dinner around eight the previous night. The scene had been secured, and the bodies had been taken to the local funeral home.

“I need to talk to Petunia,” Lily said once Sirius had left. They needed to make funeral arrangements, and go to the reading of the will.

“Not tonight Lils,” James said as he gently played with her hair. “Call her in the morning.”

Lily nodded before nuzzling back up to him watching the television, though she was not really paying attention to it, she was feeling a bit numb at this point. “I’m going to head to bed,” she said quietly, knowing that sleep would be able to ease her pain.

James nodded and let go of her, giving her some alone time as he cleaned up the house a bit. When he was done he walked in to find Lily fast asleep curled up around a pillow. As gently as he could James climbed into bed next to her, and wrapped an arm around her side.

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The next morning Lily awoke with a sigh and wandered into the kitchen to fix the phone she had opted to let James sleep since he looked so cute sleeping. As she dialed Petunia’s number she fed Figaro before taking a seat.

“Is Petunia there?” Lily asked warily when Vernon answered the phone.

“You’ve got some nerve calling here,” Vernon snapped as he looked around to see Petunia scrubbing away at the kitchen counter.

“Just put her on the phone please,” Lily said quietly. She could hear muffled talking before the phone was handed off to her sister. “We need to talk.”

“I tried doing that yesterday…” her sister quipped though she was cut off by Lily.

“No you were yelling at me and trying to blame me,” Lily said rather loudly before gaining her composure. She did not want to fight with her, least of all today, her parents would not want that. “We need to make arrangements.”

They talked on the phone for about an hour, though it was a strained conversation. Once Lily hung up all the arrangements had been figured out, where they were going to have the funeral, when, and where their parents would be buried.

James reached around to where Lily should have been when he woke up but all he found was a pillow. Groaning a bit he sat up and rubbed his eyes blinking to bring things in focus, well as in focus as they could be without his glasses. Ruffling his hair, James threw his legs over the side of the bed, pushed his glasses on his face, and went to look for Lily.

Lily was pouring herself a very strong cup of coffee when she heard James stumble in and pull out one of the dining room chairs, the same ones her parents had given them. “Hey,” she said as she grabbed another mug to pour James a cup as well.

“Morn-mornin’” James said while yawning. After stretching he watched Lily walk over and could see how worn she really looked and he felt horrible for her. “Thanks,” he said quietly taking the cup from her and taking a big sip.

“The wakes are Friday morning, and the funerals are right after,” Lily replied taking a seat next to him before resting her head on her arm on the table and sighing loudly. “Petunia is a right pain in the arse,” she mumbled.

James just rubbed her back lightly, he had no idea what she was going through, but he also felt horrible. He had lost both of his in-laws and they were one of the nicest people in the world. The wake was tomorrow and he wanted to let the Order know what was going on.

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“Let’s go love,” James said quietly that Friday morning. He was adjusting his tie, which he had just turned black a few moments before. The wake was to begin in thirty minutes, but being immediate family they had to be there early.

Lily wiped her eyes of tears for the umpteenth time in three days before pulling on her shoes. She was wearing a simple black dress, and opted to keep her hair down. Grabbing the photo frames with pictures full of her and her parents she grabbed James’ hand and apparated down the road from the funeral home since it was in a muggle neighborhood.

When they arrived there were already people there waiting to go in, but she could hear the whispers. Of course the muggles did not know what exactly had happened so they assumed that some serial killer had broken in and killed them, or her father had possibly killed Rose then himself. The Order had been unable to figure out who had killed the Evans, but they promised they were still working on it.

During Lily’s tribute speech at the funeral she broke down a few times, but was glad James and her cousin Kenadie were standing with her for support. At three that afternoon both of her parents were laid to rest under the same tombstone, under a large willow tree atop of a hill at the local cemetery. Lily and James were the last people to leave, she and Petunia had not talked once that day, and Lily was sure from the look on her sisters face that the last time they talked on the phone would be the last time they would ever talk.