Darker

When I read the epilogue to DH ideas just started leaping out at me about the new generation of characters that Rowling gave us to play with. This is my first story on this site so let me know what you think (as a side note most of the tags in the summary are for later chapters).

Chapter 1

It started out like any other morning. Lily Potter crawled out of bed, pulling on warm wool stockings under her warm winter robes. Living in a drafty old castle made wool a necessity. She was only thankful that unlike both of her older brothers she did not have to sleep in the windy aerie of the Gryffindor tower. Being below ground level insulated the dungeon of Slytherin house against the worst chill, and the warm fire in the common room hearth drove out the remaining cold so that it was almost too hot at times.

Lily wrapped her warm green scarf (hand knit by her grandmother) around her neck and went to the great hall for breakfast. The usual fare was already laid out in abundance on all four house tables. Her cousin Rose caught her eye and nodded down her house table toward Lily’s brother. She caught sight of Albus, passing a note to Scorpio and stifled a smile. The budding relationship between her brother (Gryffindor prefect) and the prefect from her own house was a source of great amusement to her. She and Rose had even played a part in facilitating their friendship; Albus had always been clumsy with such things and Scorpio, for all his rakish good looks was insecure about approaching a member of another house.

While she was happy for her brother Lily felt a twinge of doubt at what her father’s reaction to the relationship would be, let alone what Uncle Ron would say. If the pair were to work out the family would have to be brought around slowly, but at least she and Rose would be able to help buffer the blow. Lily pushed aside such troubles and sat near the corner of the table, she was not really a morning person, and she usually preferred to take her breakfast alone. Of course often enough the tables were too full for such indulgences, but today most people were sill in bed, she didn’t blame them, it was bitterly cold and the winter holidays had just ended, some students had yet to return. Griselda Goyle, one of her year mates, trudged in scarf dangling sloppily, wand poking precariously from a pocket and her mismatched socks peaking out over the tops of her shoes. Griselda yawned and plunked down across from Lily.

“Morning Lily,” she said sleepily, and she dragged a plate of flapjacks toward herself.

Lily forced a polite smile, “Selda,” she mumbled acknowledgement into her hot cereal. It was not that she disliked the other girl, just that Griselda was not terribly gifted with intelligence, and she was easily the least discrete person Lily had ever met. It was well known among Slytherins that if one wanted a tale spread quickly it was necessary only to let word slip to Griselda.

“Is it true what I’ve heard about James?” Griselda asked, leaning across the table in a conspiratorial pose.

“Depends what you’ve heard,” Lily replied with an inward sigh. All she had wanted was to eat her breakfast in peace. Selda honestly could be utterly clueless. Besides, James Potter, the darling of Hogwarts, was the last topic Lily wanted to talk about. As if living under her family’s legacy were not enough he eldest brother’s disdain for her house had driven a wedge between them that would not be easily removed even with James newly graduated and making his way in the wizarding world. It did not help that every girl in her year seemed to have developed crushes on the handsome quidditch captain.

“Only that he made the Chudley Cannons!” Griselda gloated, “it is true, isn’t it?”

Lily poured herself some pumpkin juice, wishing fervently that Griselda would just go away. Griselda watched her searchingly until she finally relented, “for heavens sake Selda, how am I to know every little thing my brother is up to? If you are so eager to hear about it ask Albus!”

Griselda ate the last bite of her flapjack and with a triumphant smile she stood, “I think I shall.”

Lily watched glumly as the other girl trounced off. Now she felt even more morose than before. It would get better once school got back into its proper swing she hoped it would at least. Enduring an entire month of James’s alienation had been worse now that he felt himself a grownup. Albus had borne the brunt of their brother’s disapproval once it got out to the cousins that Scorpio and Albie were more than friends. Somehow Rosie had convinced James to keep it among the younger generation, but it had been a near thing.

The fluttering of many wings against the stonework of the high windows pulled Lily away from her musings. A large white owl peeled away from the others to drop an official looking document on her lap. She glanced up to see the owl’s twin dropping an identical parchment in front of her brother. Their eyes met briefly. Lily squeezed her eyes shut as she broke the seal. These kinds of letters were never any good, the last time they had received simultaneous letters that looked like this Rose had gotten on as well and the three of them had been at Grandpa Arthur’s deathbed within a few hours. A furtive glance revealed that Rose had not been the target of such a letter this time. This knowledge did little to assuage her half-formed fears. Putting off knowledge would not make the news any better, so she started reading:

Please report to my office before your first period this morning,
-Headmistress McGonagall

The line of text was written in the precise scrawl of the headmistress’ own hand. Lily felt cold as she tucked the scrap of parchment under her bowl and pushed the remnants of her barely touched breakfast away. She stood and walked woodenly from the great hall. Albus joined her in the corridor; he looked as pale and shaken as she felt.

Lily found her brother’s hand and gave it a reassuring squeeze. He smiled weakly at her and they made their way to the not quite concealed entry to the administrative office. The gargoyle guard let them pass without challenge, even giving them a sympathetic look that did little to improve their fearful state.

Minerva McGonagall was standing behind her desk, pacing. She appeared flustered, if Lily had not known better she might have accused the stern headmistress of having been crying. When she caught sight of the two Potter children standing uncertainly in her doorway she stopped her nervous movement and gestured toward two seats, “sit down children,” she suggested gruffly.

“What’s happened headmistress?” Lily demanded anxiously as they both moved to obey.

McGonagall fixed them with her pinched stern gaze, but she only spoke when they were both comfortably ensconced in their chairs. She braced herself on her desk as she delivered the news, “It is my regretful duty to inform you both that your father has passed away.”

Albus and Lily both stared in mute silence. Shocked speechless and trying to properly process the words that had just turned their world upside down.

“But we just saw him yesterday,” Albus protested dumbly, grasping for understanding.

“How?” Lily asked, forcing her initial emotional reaction back, choking down the tears that she felt stinging her eyes. Albus had always been the most fragile of the three of them; once James had served as his protector but James was not here and so Lily would be strong for both of them, “how did he die Headmistress?”

“Are you sure you wish to know Lily?”

“Yes please,” Lily nodded, forcing herself not to cry, not to feel the terrible crushing pain of the loss. Her last words to her father had been spoken in anger. Now she would never have the chance to take them back. Again she ruthlessly crushed her own feelings to focus on the moment.

McGonagall met and held her gaze and when Lily did not drop her eyes the headmistress relented, “he died by his own wand I am afraid. He left an explanatory note.”

“May I read it?” Lily pressed, her voice broke slightly but she managed to take the paper that McGonagall offered without shaking. Albus was staring at his feet, pale as a freshly whitewashed wall. He was also shaking. Lily steeled herself and read the copy of her father’s last words:

You might wonder, why? I was the boy who lived, I defeated the greatest dark magician in living memory, I finally had the family I have always dreamed of. Even my dream job was mine. I had everything to live for. But it was all a lie. Everything I have ever believed in. I can no longer live with myself. I am sorry Ginevra, know that I love you and the children. You are all the best thing that ever happened to me and I am proud of you. Ron has my will. And now it is with a heavy heart that I lay down my wand for the last time…

There was a splatter of something obscuring whatever signature he had used. Lily tried not to think what it might be. Instead she reread the brief words, drinking in the knowledge that he had been proud of her and yet feeling all the more hollow for the lack of explicit redemption after their last fight.

Lily knew that she would not be able to hold back her tears for much longer.

“You are both excused from classes for the remainder of the week,” McGonagall spoke gently, “we will hold a memorial here at Hogwarts this coming weekend, your father is to be interred beside Albus Dumbledore, you are both free to go.”

Lily hugged her brother and then fled the enclosed space. Tears blurred her vision. Dead, her father was dead. Never again would she feel safe inside the strong circle of his arms. She would never see his smile, never hear his laugh. Never apologize for the terrible things she had said to him about his refusal to let her invite a Malfoy home to visit. Gone. He had abandoned them, the same way that he had always promised that he never would. The blank wall of the dungeon loomed up in front of Lily and she hesitated before turning away to knock on the heavy wooden door further along the hallway.

“Professor?” she sobbed meekly as she beat her small fist against the unforgiving wood. There was no immediate response, “Professor, if you’re there, please, I need …”

Lily did not have the opportunity to finish the sentence, which was probably for the best since she honestly had no idea what she needed and the overwhelming flood of tears drowned out her capacity for words anyway.

The door swung inward and her head of house was revealed seated at his desk, a pile of freshly graded student essays in front of him. His slick hair framed a thin face that she had always found to be oddly compelling. A ragged scar from a snake bite that she had reason to know was the result of a near fatal injury healed by her father during the final battle with the dark wizard Tom Riddle made him seem somehow familiar to her, as though they were connected through it. Normally that sense of connection to her father was a comfort, but today it merely made her bawl all the harder.

“What is this?” professor Severus Snape stood and moved around his desk to draw his charge out of the hallway. He shut and locked the door by magic so as to prevent disturbances. Had she been less hysterical he might have settled her in his chair and tried to calm her, as it was she had latched onto him the moment he was within reach and was now liberally wetting his robes with her tears.

Had a student from any other house arrived at his office door in tears he would not have responded so nicely, but this was one of his slytherins, his responsibility and clearly something was bothering her. Lily Potter was like her namesake in more than just looks, she had the same fierce pride and determination and it would take much more than the general realm of childish complaints to reduce her to this kind of a state.

Snape let the girl cry herself out, holding her while she sobbed with a paternal tenderness that would have shocked any Gryffindor. He had years of experience calming the neglected children of his house. So many of them came with the kind of emotional baggage many adults had never faced, and the stereotypes that the rest of the school imposed on them did nothing to help. In the years since Potter had left Snape had seen improvements, but still, the old hatreds existed.

Exhausted, Lily had stopped crying, still she was clinging to his robes as though they were all that was keeping her upright. He knew better than to try to pry her off yet, that would only start her sobbing again, after nearly a quarter of a century dealing with distraught girls he had learned at least that much. Instead he placed a comforting hand on her head and asked in a neutral tone “What seems to be the problem Miss Potter?”

Lily nuzzled her face against her teacher, for a moment she could almost have forgotten what had happened and imagined herself a very young child scooped up by her father after skinning her knee falling from her first broomstick, one of James’s hand-me-downs. But it was not her father holding her, and the injury that brought her so much pain was not physical, nothing so easily healed as a scraped knee and bruised pride.

“He’s dead Professor, my Dad, he’s dead,” and with that Lily broke into fresh sobs. Snape again waited out her crying, this time uttering soft reassurances and stroking her hair. It took less time to calm her now and when he had left her comfortably arranged in his chair to go to his personal stockroom. After a few moments rummaging through numerous brown glass bottles and meticulously stored potions ingredients he returned with a small phial.

“Open,” Snape instructed, not that he offered her much choice, taking her chin firmly in one hand and upending the phial over her mouth. It tasted sickly sweet, but the strong odor of ginger burned in her nose. Lily sneezed after she swallowed the mouthful of potion obediently.

“What’s that?” she sniffled.

“A sleeping draught, to calm you,” Snape told her in the nasal tone that he adopted when he would rather not be having a particular conversation, after three years in his house she knew that well so she decided not to make anything of it.

“Oh,” Lily mumbled, staring at her hands, “I didn’t mean to be hysterical all over your office professor.”

“Think nothing of it Miss Potter, you have suffered a loss,” Snape spoke in such a way as to make it clear that her loss was not his own. Lily knew that her father and her head of house had a spotty history. The only story she had managed to pry out of Harry was as a part of the overall story of the last battle with Tom Riddle. And that had only been a side note to the overall story.

Riddle’s large pet snake had attacked Snape at the dark wizard’s command. The horrifying part was that he had believed Snape to be a loyal deatheater, but the succession of a magical item of power had been at stake. That was why her father had spent the cure to Nagini’s bite, a concoction of St. Mungo’s following a similar attack on Grandfather Weasley, on Snape even though he had brought it along as a precaution for his eventual confrontation with the unnatural serpent. The bad blood between the professor and her father was still there, but after her father had left Hogwarts to start his career as an auror there had not been much more interaction.

Lily yawned and looked up at her professor, her eyes catching on the telltale scar before locking on his hawk-like gaze, “I think I’m gonna fall….”

She was slipping from her chair before she could properly finish her sentence. Snape reacted quickly enough to keep her from cracking her head on the floor, taking her shoulders and easing her back into the chair. Now he had a dilemma. He could not very well leave the girl slumped in the rickety chair, nor could he return her to her own room. With a sigh he lifted her into his arms and brought her through his suite of rooms to his own neatly made up bed. He tucked her in carefully brushing sticky hair from her tear streaked face.

The grief would be just as terrible when she woke up, he knew that, but at least for the moment she could rest and he was free to go teach his class. Double potions with Slytherin and Gryffindor, Lily’s class. He had been looking forward to it, now he would spend the next two hours glowering and putting a stop to whispered speculation as to why Potter was missing. And if he did not hurry now he would also be late to the potions room. His characteristic frown was well in place by the time he stalked into his classroom and swept the fidgeting fifth years with a raking glare. The noise of a few whispered conversations continued a bit longer, this was going to be a long day, and all he could seem to concentrate on was the drugged child sleeping an artificial sleep in his bed.