hh_mirror | Open Your Eyes: Closed RP (Sirius, Lily, and Harry)

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Open Your Eyes: Closed RP (Sirius, Lily, and Harry)

((Backdated to the morning after Sirius and Lily discovered Voldemort was back and got into a massive fight over it. There's still a Harry-Sirius socking RP I need to do in which Harry and Sirius discuss the aftermath of the fight and generally have some good godfather-godson time, but for now that will have to wait. This RP comes after that.

Oh, and beware teh emoness. It burns!))

The only reason Sirius had slept well was his good friend Firewhisky. Lily had apparently lost her mind, and the upshot was that he was now kicked out of their suite and possibly broken up with. More importantly, it scared the hell out of him that Lily was out and about the castle by herself, being angry and rash and probably not particularly careful even though Voldemort could be anywhere. It was exactly the reason she had wanted to confine Harry to Slythendor, and yet she couldn't take the same advice for herself. And there was nothing he could do about it, because everything he had tried had only made things worse.

But the Firewhisky had been able to go only so far. Not wanting to drink in front of Harry, Sirius had started in on a bottle after the both of them had finally gone to bed, and even then, there was only so much he had allowed himself to drink, because he needed to be alert in case something happened to Harry or Lily.

Eventually, he managed to fall asleep, and when he woke up, the first thing he did was send an owl to Lily, because that would be quicker, easier (especially considering she had said she would lock him out of their suite), and hopefully less damaging to their relationship. The owl bore the following note:

----

Lily,

Are you all right? Harry and I are fine. We are both still in Slythendor. No sign of Voldemort.

~~Are we still~~

Please let me know that you're okay. I love you.

-Sirius

----

Unfortunately, the owl returned, bearing his note. Which was not a good sign. Now feeling quite frantic, Sirius made sure Harry would stick around Slythendor for a while (an idea that was not so thrilling to Harry, but that he acquiesced to, simply because he felt bad for Sirius after the mess of the night before, and anyway he didn't have a whole lot to do), and then he left Slytherin and went up the stairs and around the corner to the suite he shared (and hopefully still did share) with Lily to see if she was there.

His initial discovery sent flashes of red-hot panic across his flesh.

She hadn't locked him out as promised. Instead, the entire place was open; only the normal wards were up. He easily let himself in, only to find the place empty. Which, when put together, meant that she had never gone back to lock him out in the first place.

And Sirius bet he knew where she had gone. Because she had never really promised not to go looking for Voldemort. His fear turned ice cold and he began running through the corridors.

After he had searched out the entirety of two floors, he finally found her. She was sitting on the floor just across from the Popcorn Room, knees brought up to her chest and chin resting on them, and on her face a very strange, almost frightening sort of determined stare.

And there was a large piece of parchment in front of her. A piece of parchment he recognised very well, because he had made it years ago. It was the Marauder's Map, and the last person who had had it, as far as he knew, was James.

The other James.

Which meant that, unless he was missing something, she had gone up to Gryffindor to fetch it from him. Sirius didn't know whether that James was even around any more - he hadn't seen him for months, although he hadn't gone looking for him, either - but it didn't matter. The fact that she had gone up there and put herself in that sort of position, had taken that sort of risk, ignited Sirius's temper.

His initial flood of relief at seeing her alive evaporated within a second or two, and he asked sharply, "What the hell do you think you're doing?"

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It hadn't felt like long enough to have been an entire night. Her watch told her that the time had passed, but Lily honestly was unaware of it. She had left Slytherin with one goal in mind - to find Voldemort. To end this before more of her son's life was taken. To end it all before Voldemort could destroy what fragile bits of a life she'd managed.

The castle was too big, though, and Voldemort too adept at hiding. At first she'd been at a loss, simply wandering the corridors, wand out, heart pounding as she rounded every corner. It was far too risky; even she realized that. Lily wasn't mad. She wasn't reckless. She was simply too tired of being afraid for her son to allow it to continue. If she could put a stop to everything, once and for all, she would. No price was too high.

It had taken her a few hours before she'd remembered the Map. She knew that Sirius didn't have it and Harry had never mentioned it to her, so far as she recalled. Which, with Remus as popcorn, left only one person in the castle who might be in possession of it.

There was literally nothing Lily would not do to take the steps she deemed necessary to protect her son. Even begging that wanker impostor for the Map. But, upon entering his room in Gryffindor, she'd found everything abandoned, a trunk sitting forlornly in the middle of the room.

James had been her husband. She knew how he thought. It took her a while, but Lily - who was no stranger to wards and locking charms (and had, in fact, taught James some of the best ones he knew) - had managed to break past the locks and pull open the top of the chest. The Map was within and Lily quickly left the room, the trunk still hanging open, eyes eagerly scanning the Map for a name.

It had all lead her back to the Popcorn Room. Where she'd discovered Voldemort's name back on the plaque, obviously moved down the list. He had unpopped; but, apparently, had repopped shortly thereafter. No matter. Nothing had changed.

Taking up her vigil, Lily sat fixedly, staring at the door. When he reemerged - for Lily was convinced now it was not an if but when - she would be ready. He wouldn't terrorize her family any longer. He, and the fight against him, would not destroy any more of Harry's life.

She heard Sirius approaching. She knew his footsteps. Not turning her head, Lily simply continued to watch the door. All the danger lay within that room, anyway. Not reacting at all to his tone, she simply said, "He's popcorn again."

There was something lost, something bitterly disappointed, something tired about her tone. Lily felt cheated. She had wanted to end it. And now she couldn't touch him. Again, he'd evaded her. But for the last time. If she had to wait a lifetime, she would sit here until Voldemort came out and she could kill him.

She was going to end it. She just wanted it to be over.

"What?" His tone was still sharp. Who was popcorn? Voldemort? That...barely made any sense. Sirius towered over her, looking down into her face, even as she was staring straight ahead and not looking back at him. Abruptly, he turned and took a couple of long steps away from her and towards the Popcorn Room so he could look at the plaque.

Voldemort's name was indeed back on it. Well. Apparently he had been in worse shape than Sirius had thought. He was still cautious and wary; it seemed too good to be true. But right now he had more immediate matters to attend to.

"Come on, get up. Whether he's popcorn or not, it's not a good idea to be in the corridor alone." His eyes fell back on the parchment spread out in front of her, and another jolt of anger shot through his veins. Pointing down at the parchment, he asked in a voice that had suddenly gone cold and brittle, "Where did you get that?"

He knew bloody well where she had got it, but he needed to hear it from her mouth.

"No." The word was said calmly, without malice or defiance. A simple statement, like she was commenting on the weather. Unmoving, Lily simply tightened the hold on her wand, jaw set and face far too pale. Every freckle on her face stood out like a harsh mark against porcelain skin. She could not let go of her purpose; if she did, too many other things would overwhelm her and she'd fall apart.

"James' room." Again, the sentence was quietly spoken, a simple utterance of facts. She didn't respond to his anger, didn't react to his tone. She simply sat. Waiting. Sirius didn't matter at that moment. The Order didn't matter. Her own safety sure as hell didn't matter. All that counted was her decision to kill Voldemort, to protect Harry. Everything else was just background noise.

He knew it. So she couldn't be satisfied with doing one stupid thing; she had to make it a double. Why in Merlin's name would she go up there and put herself in a position to be berated and abused by that person again? If he had thought he was angry a moment before, that had been nothing.

"He's not James," Sirius snapped, because that was the easiest thing to focus his anger on, and then he bent down and snatched up the map, which made a dry, crumpling sound within his hand. "What is WRONG with you?" The seal was on the verge of breaking; the dykes were trembling and about to burst open. Sirius's heart was now pounding rapidly, and his fingers were shaking with frustration and rage as he held the map and looked blindly down at it. A couple of quick motions and he had roughly folded it up.

"What the HELL is WRONG with you, Lily?" He was now almost yelling. "Do you have a DEATH WISH? YOU WENT LOOKING FOR VOLDEMORT WHEN I ASKED YOU NOT TO, AND YOU WENT TO...TO HIS ROOM " - now he was talking about the other James " - WHEN YOU KNOW YOU SHOULD NEVER GO NEAR HIM AGAIN!" He paused, panting already. "GET UP!"

He really didn't mean to be ordering her around, but he was so angry that she would do this to herself - and to him and Harry and all the other people who cared about her - that he could barely contain his rage.

There was some part of Lily that responded to Sirius' outburst. Some piece of her that she had carefully locked away the second Harry had looked at her and told her it was too late. That she couldn't be his mother, that she had missed too much to make up for. But mostly Lily just felt numb. Frozen.

"That's his name," she said simply. Finally, though, just for a moment, her eyes left the door to look up at him. And they were empty - no fear or sadness or even anger. Just dull acceptance. "What do you want me to call him? He had the map. Anyway," her gaze went back to the door, "he wasn't there. I broke into the trunk and took it."

All of this was recited in the same flat tone. She couldn't let any emotion out. One emotion would lead to more and she wouldn't be able to bear up under the weight. "I don't care if I die." And that was heartbreakingly honest. "I have once. It's not that bad. I just want to end it."

That was her mantra. Over and over in her mind, that was her focus. To end it. "Go, if you don't like it. I'm doing what I have to do."

With that she shut down completely, going back to staring silently at the door.

Her impassivity only angered him further, and her stupid, stupid sudden lack of regard for her own life was the last straw.

"You might not care if you die, but I do," he growled vehemently through gritted teeth. "And so does your son." And that was all he had to say before he bent down and gripped one of her elbows and started tugging her up. This whole thing was fucking ridiculous, and if she planned to sit outside the Popcorn Room until Voldemort unpopped, came out, and killed her, she had another thing coming.

Without thinking, like it was second nature (and, perhaps, it was), Lily's wand was out and a hex cast almost before Sirius' fingers closed on her elbow. A sudden shield shot out, pushing Sirius away from her as Lily yanked her arm away.

"Don't touch me," she growled, a half-flash of life in her eyes. But then she curled back up on herself, still watching the damn door.

"It's too late." On that, the words voiced in a whisper, there may have been a slight crack. But it was gone as soon as it showed, shoved back away, nothing but cool neutrality apparent on Lily's face as she ignored Sirius again.

The hex pushed him off balance - he hadn't been prepared to counter it magically, as one doesn't usually approach one's girlfriend with the expectation that magical defences will be necessary - and he fell backwards, landing on his backside. There was an initial moment of shock, but his own experiences from his work in the Order and his years of living as a fugitive were never far from his mind, and so he quickly righted himself and then jumped to his feet.

"Fine, Lily." Now the words were just coming out of his mouth, not even going through his brain before they spilled out, fast and furious. "You want to stay here for the rest of your life? Be my fucking guest. You want me to get you a nice bed, or maybe a yoga mat, and you can spend the rest of your fucking life in front of this door waiting for something that may or may not happen?"

A chill so cold that Sirius actually shuddered suddenly ripped through his body. He had heard similar words before. About himself and James. He swallowed hard and continued, his voice now a low, sharp hiss, "You're a goddam hypocrite, Lily. Follow your own fucking advice and live your life. If you sit here in front of this door, I will not be there. Harry will not be there. And you will be alone and stupid. Is that what you want?"

"He will come back." For a moment, it seemed like that was all she was going to say. But then her eyes flicked up to him and the corners of her mouth trembled, just for a second, before she clenched her jaw so tightly it popped. "He will come back."

Lily took a quick breath, a tiny inhale, before she turned away. "You have no idea what you're talking about. You don't understand. So just leave, then, if that's what you want. I can't - " Her voice cut out then and Lily didn't even try to find the words for the rest of the sentence.

"I want my life back." Oh, Merlin, did she ever. Something horribly painful ripped through her voice as she held her wand in a white-knuckled hand. "Failing that, I want to kill him. I don't want anything else. Not now."

"Maybe you're the one who doesn't understand, Lily." Sirius's tone was far from gentle, and he was still speaking at a rapid-fire pace, no time to process what was coming out of his mouth. "Well, understand this: You sitting out here by yourself, staring at a room full of starchy kernels is not a life. If you want me and if you want your son, and all your friends, and your job and your pets and all the things you managed to accrue over the past year of your second chance, you need to get up and stop acting like you're the only person who can save the world."

That reminded Sirius of something. If anyone was a match for Voldemort, it was Dumbledore, and before Harry had gone to bed and Sirius had started in on the Firewhisky, Harry had owled Dumbledore, who had instructed them to stay calm and told them that he would reconvene the Order immediately. Dumbledore hadn't been there last time. And while Sirius didn't necessarily think of him as this infallible, mighty godlike man, he did greatly respect his skills of a wizard. There was no denying his powerful grasp of magic and his knowledge of Voldemort. He had made his mistakes - Sirius knew that very well - but he had been a formidable leader overall. And Lily needed that reminder.

"Harry owled Dumbledore last night. And he did not say in his return owl that you are to hunt Voldemort down. He did say he would reconvene the Order, and maybe that's not necessary now that Voldemort is popped again - I don't know - but the point is that you are not helping anyone by sitting here like this. And you're not going to kill him, Lily. HE WILL KILL YOU. Do you understand this? Stop being stupid and get UP."

"Fucking lot of good the Order did us last time," Lily spat. That woke her up and she turned eyes hot with anger towards Sirius. "Where was the Order when Voldemort walked in my door and ended everything? Where were you? Where was Dumbledore? Huh, Sirius? Oh, wait. I remember. Not there. None of you."

The bitterness in her tone - a bitterness she'd kept bottled away for over a year - was blatant. "I listened as he murdered my husband. I stood and faced him. Alone. And I made my choice, Sirius. And I destroyed him. I did. And I will fucking do it again."

For a moment her gaze held him. Then, quiet and vehement, she hissed, "And I don't care if I have to die to do it. I will kill him. I will end this. I will not have my son be used as a pawn. I'm too late for anything else but this. Fine. But I am not moving. So fuck off. You have NO IDEA. NONE. SO WHY DON'T YOU JUST FUCK THE HELL RIGHT OFF."

Again she stared before wrenching her eyes away, the lump in her throat burning. "I don't want the things. If you don't see... If you can't see..." She shook her head, once, and pressed her lips into a thin line. Shouting wasn't going to help. He just needed to leave.

He waited until she finished, and then he said in a low, cold, and obviously hurt, voice, "You know very well where I was when you and James were killed. And why I wasn't with you. And where I went after that." Her words had slapped him in the face, hard, dredging up that last bit of guilt he would always carry about having suggested that Peter be the Secret-Keeper instead. But he had sorted things out enough to know that it was ludicrous to blame the entire Order, as well as Dumbledore personally, for what had happened. Sometimes the good guys didn't win. Sometimes they couldn't. And wars had many battles. Some were won, and some were lost.

And while he had made a stupid choice, the overall outcome was not his fault.

He was done here. If she wanted to be an idiot and sit in the middle of the hall staring at an empty doorway, she could go right ahead. He would go back to the life he had built for himself. Back to his godson. And if she decided to join him at some point, she could. Right now, he was through.

He gave her one last, long look, the grey of his irises stone cold, and, without another word, turned and strode rapidly down the hall, away from her and the newly engraved name on that plaque, the name that kept ripping his life apart even after its bearer was no longer around.

Again, that part of her that wasn't numb was screaming at Sirius. Was beating down at the wall Lily had built around it. Was breaking.

But she couldn't let that part out. Because if she did, it would overrun everything. And all those little shattered pieces would pierce through her control, and it would be over. She would break down; and Lily simply could not allow that. Now she wasn't being strong for Sirius or Harry or anyone else. She was forcing herself to maintain the stony resolve for herself; which meant she lost even the tiny oasis of reprieve she'd previously had. There was nowhere to hide and allow herself to be less than whole.

"I know," she admitted quietly. But she didn't look at Sirius. Could not look at him. "That's why I can't leave."

Because Voldemort could take it all back. She knew that - why couldn't Sirius understand? All the things she had now she could lose, in a moment, in a breath, so long as there was a chance Voldemort might return. And she couldn't go back and pretend that she had forever anymore. Not when it was all this fragile illusion.

She was steady. She was sure. She was resolved. She was impassive. Staring at the door, wand out, Lily waited.

She was going to end this.

Sirius almost went back to Slythendor, but at the last minute, he turned into the suite he shared with Lily rather than continuing down the stairs the rest of the way to the dungeons. He was angry and hurt and upset, and the last thing Harry needed was to have to deal with that. Not after what had happened the night before.

But Harry did need to know that Voldemort had repopped.

Once inside his suite, Harry found Mr Quackers, and within a few minutes he had been sent to Harry, bearing the following note:

---

Harry,

Voldemort is popcorn once more. His name has reappeared at the bottom of the plaque outside the Popcorn Room. Unfortunately, your mother is still not doing well. Please do me a favour and don't go over to the Popcorn Room. She's sitting outside of it, waiting for Voldemort to unpop again, and I think it's best for you not to see her in her current state. I couldn't get her to leave, and there was no point standing and arguing with her more than I already did, but don't worry, I'll make sure she gets enough to eat and drink and is taken care of in general for however long she decides to stay there.

She's a good person, Harry, she really is. This is just hard on her, and I don't really know what to do about it right now. I think she just needs to be left alone for a bit (and don't worry, I really doubt Voldemort will unpop while she's out there - he's obviously in a very weakened state right now). I'll check on her around dinner time when we've both calmed down some.

-Sirius

Harry was used to the sight of Mr Quackers in his suite, although usually the little duck was coming to see Sirius. But this time he waddled directly over to Harry and laid down the piece of parchment he was carrying at Harry's feet.

"For me?"

Mr Quackers gave a loud quack.

"All right." Harry bent down from where he was sitting on his bed and picked up the note.

So. As he had expected, Voldemort was a downright mess. It probably was the Horcruxes. Harry didn't know much about the popcorn curse or how it worked, but it was quite probable, he decided, that it worsened the adverse effects of splitting one's soul, and so now Voldemort was doomed to a life of unpopping and repopping, over and over and over.

It was sort of funny, and he would have had a good laugh had the rest of the note not been so sobering.

Unfortunately for Sirius, Harry had a bit of a hero complex (which he no doubt had inherited from his mother). And so when he read Sirius's plea for him not to go to the Popcorn Room, he had already made up his mind that that's where he was going to be. He'd find a way to talk her out of whatever it was she was doing.

He was still raw from the previous night's fight, and he certainly didn't want a repeat of it, but if Sirius was at a loss, Harry would step in and do something about it. She was his mother. He was sure he'd manage to deal with her.

He sent the following note back to Sirius with Mr Quackers (after sparing a bit of a Pumpkin Pasty for the little guy):

---

Sirius,

Thanks for letting me know. I'm going to go out and fly on my broom for a while, but after you bring her dinner, let me know if there's something I can do.

Harry

---

And before Mr Quackers had even reached the first step from the dungeons up to the floor where Sirius and Lily's suite was, Harry had run up those steps and headed out towards the Popcorn Room.

When he got there, he found Lily looking a right mess, staring straight ahead of herself into the Popcorn Room, just as Sirius had described.

It was time for his opening gambit.

"Hi."

They were footsteps she didn't recognize. And yet Lily didn't move. She simply let her eyes flick, warily, to the corridor; even before Harry had gotten close enough to speak, she'd turned her gaze back to the door. Not a threat. Keep watching. Ignore the fact that she hadn't recognized his gait because she didn't know him. Because it was too late. Keep waiting.

Her eyes did return to him, almost unwillingly, when he spoke. For a long moment Lily simply regarded him, that fierce determination and dull acceptance giving way to the overwhelming love that she felt every time she looked at her son. One corner of her mouth twitched up slightly, curving into a ghost of a smile.

"Hi."

He met her gaze, waiting for her to say something. It was a little bit awkward - okay, very awkward - after what had happened the night before, but he wasn't going to look away.

And looking into her eyes was just strange in general, because it really was like looking into his own eyes in a mirror. The rest of her face was entirely different, of course, but her eyes and the way they looked at him.... As he stared into them, he felt a pleasantly achy squirming sensation somewhere deep in his chest.

After she had replied, a simple greeting, same as his, he was sort of at a loss, so he just stood there for a moment, continuing to look back at her. Finally, he found himself taking a few steps forward and then sinking down next to her. Not too close, but about half a meter away.

He still didn't quite know what to say, so he just sat there, staring mostly vacantly in front of himself and waiting for the silence to somehow resolve itself or for just the right words to pop into his head.

As Harry sat, Lily resumed her vigil on the door. For several long moments it was quiet and she simply continued to concentrate on her breathing, on the feel of her wand in her hands, on ignoring the pain from aching joints that came from sitting for hours on a cold stone floor. Finally, sighing quietly, she started to talk.

"You think I'm mad. It's ok. I'm used to it." A very quick flicker of her eyes to him, a roughly amused edge to her voice, but Lily's face remained impassive. "I didn't believe the prophesy, you know. Not really. It all seemed a lot of rubbish to me. Until the attacks came. Until it became too dangerous for me to leave the house while I was carrying you. Until every time one of our friends got hurt, I knew it was because of me. Because of you. Because of what some faceless person had decreed to be the future."

Tipping her head back to rest against the wall, Lily shifted slightly, trying to find a more comfortable position. "You don't know what it's like. To be so afraid. So helpless. And I can't do it any more, Harry. I can't let you go through it." Finally her face turned towards him; she looked fierce and stubborn and completely like she had faced down the darkest Wizard in a century four times. "I'm not mad, Harry. I'm not broken, no matter what your godfather thinks. I'm just done."

She sounded tired, and when he turned his head to look at her as she spoke, it was evident that she looked it, too, making him wonder whether she had been out there all night like that. He wished he had brought a pillow; she looked like she could use something soft to sit on. He had seen Sirius transfigure all sorts of things many times, and for a moment he thought about digging in one of his pockets to see if there was something there he could use, or maybe make an attempt on one of his shoes, but in the end he decided not to. He was all right at Transfiguration, but he didn't know of a specific spell to transform a shoe into a pillow, and he'd probably just end up embarrassing himself in front of Lily.

He wasn't sure what to make of most of what she was saying, really. He didn't know whether she was mad or broken, and he didn't know whether Sirius thought that of her. He suspected she was wrong about Sirius, because if he really thought those things, then he wouldn't be dating her. Sirius himself had issues of his own, but Harry still trusted him - very much so, in fact.

But one thing she said struck a very wrong chord with Harry, and so it was that to which he responded. "I'm not...I'm not that special. To Voldemort, I mean." He pushed up his glasses and then looked absently at one of his shoes as he continued. "I know what the prophecy said - all of what it said. And I still don't know if I believe it. But I'm just an obstacle to him. He just doesn't want to die, that's all. And I'm the only person who's supposed to be able to kill him, so he wants to kill me first. But he doesn't know that I know about the Horcruxes he created."

For a moment she was quiet. If Harry had known her better, he would have been able to see the wheels turning in her mind as Lily started connecting a thousand little things, making mental notes and generally letting her brain whirl along at a breakneck pace. Her face appeared expressionless, but there was a certain look in her eyes that she always got when she latched on to some new piece of information.

"I never heard the whole prophecy," she mused, slowly, thinking. "Dumbledore never told James or I the entire thing."

Biting at her lip, she let her wand start to twirl absently through her fingers. Then, turning to Harry, she said, "Tell me about the Horcruxes."

She knew what they were. When she'd been Narcissa's TA, the woman had given her many Dark Arts books to study; after the Professor's popcorning, Lily had taken the entire collection and locked it away. She'd read the term before, but them in the context of Voldemort was new.

And, hidden somewhere, was a tiny flicker of anger at Dumbledore. But that wasn't here. Right then she needed further information.

Harry would tell her about the Horcruxes. But first he wanted to make sure she knew the facts about what had happened with the prophecy. "Professor Dumbledore didn't tell anyone the whole prophecy. That's why Voldemort was after me the year Sirius di-...er, went to Reno. He wanted me to get it for him, because I was the only one who could take it off the shelf - well, except for him, but it was too hard for him to get into the Department of Mysteries - you know, in the Ministry of Magic. And so he used this, erm, sort of connection he has to my scar to trick me into going there. But all these Death Eaters were there, and they started duelling us - me and Ron and Hermione and Ginny and Neville and Luna." He had no idea whether Lily even knew who Neville and Luna were, but right now he was just talking, filling her in on details that she probably had never heard before "Sirius found out I was there, and he came after me, with some of the other Order members, like Professor Lupin and Tonks and Kingsley Shacklebolt, and everyone was duelling, and then Bellatrix LeStrange hexed Sirius, and he...was gone. Through this old archway with a curtain sort of thing hanging over it."

And that...was basically how it had happened. There was something else he wanted to tell her about the prophecy, but he would save it for later, because he didn't know how she would take it. For now, he was glad to fill her in on the other things she had missed out on.

"Do you still want to hear about the Horcruxes?"

"He died Harry." She spoke after a long silence, her eyes going to him and holding his face, desperately sad. "He didn't go to Reno. He doesn't know that. But we do." She was asking him to keep it a secret; telling him that it was all right to acknowledge the truth. "You godfather died. And then he came back. For you."

One corner of Lily's mouth curved up a bit into a soft half-smile. Harry had just given her a lot of information and she was working to process it, but that had been important to clear up. She never wanted to lie to Harry. He was old enough to hear the truth, no matter how bitter or painful.

Then, reaching out to give his arm a squeeze, she turned back to the door and let her mind detach slightly as she sorted through what Harry had said. There were...too many things that made a hot flash of anger prickle her skin. Damn it, she was going to kill Sirius when she saw him next. And Dumbledore.

"Yeah," she said after a bit, jaw tight. "Tell me more."

Harry nodded slowly, his lips pressed together in a resolute sort of way. "Yeah, I...I know. I heard the voices behind the veil, and...everyone knew what it meant. Professor Lupin knew once it happened. He told me Sirius was dead." And Harry very much trusted and looked up to Lupin. And in retrospect, that moment of his life, when Lupin had grabbed him and held him back from the veil, his own pain at the loss of Sirius evident in his eyes, was one of the worst of Harry's life.

"And if he didn't really die, I know he would have come back much earlier than he did." Harry had always felt that Sirius's excuses about the mental hospital and then having to earn money for a plane ticket were sort of flimsy. This was Sirius, the first person to escape from Azkaban, even though he had been its highest-security prisoner. The person who had managed to evade the Dementors and the Ministry of Magic for three years, two of which he didn't even have a wand for. If he had truly gone to America, he would have found a way back within a few days, even with a broken wand. He would have transfigured himself into his Animagus form and found a way to get home.

But Sirius had still managed to come back, and Harry did know that it was mostly, if not all, for him. That meant more to him than he could ever try to put into words, so he simply nodded again at Lily and looked down at a nearby spot in the floor.

Her arm squeeze got him to look up again. "Right. So, a Horcrux is - ...Do you know what a Horcrux is?" That question garnered a nod from Lily, which wasn't entirely surprising, considering she was the Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher now. "Voldemort made one. Or - he made several. Six of them, actually, and then the last part of his soul is still in his body, so there are seven pieces total. That's what Professor Dumbledore told me. I destroyed one of them when I was in my second year, and Professor Dumbledore destroyed another a couple of years ago. But the others are still out there, and he can't die until they're destroyed." Which was one big reason it made no sense for Lily to sit in front of the popcorn room waiting for Voldemort, but Harry would let her draw her own conclusion.

There were a lot of possible responses to that. Maybe Harry even had an expectation in mind. What Lily did, however, probably wasn't it.

She laughed.

It started out as a sudden giggle. Staring at Harry, eyes going wider as all the implications of this sunk in, she tipped her head back and began to laugh, hard, shoulders shaking with the force of them. The helpless, tired, frustrated laughs of someone who had just pulled back the curtain to find anything but a great and powerful Oz.

"That old fool," she choked around the giggles, wiping her eyes. "That sodding, batty old fool."

But there was no mirth in her eyes, no real joy in her laugh. Shaking her head, Lily pushed away from the wall, barely noticing her protesting muscles, cramped from holding the same position for hours. "Come on, Harry," she said, putting her wand away, looking a bit lost. "Let's go get some food. I'm bloody starving."

Turning to walk away, Lily paused, her eyes caught on the popcorn plaque. "What did the rest of it say?" she said slowly, turning to look at him. "This prophecy. What did it say?" The thing she died for, and she didn't even know the whole of it. That just summed up her life quite brilliantly.

No, Harry hadn't expected that reaction at all. But it was better than yelling. She wasn't exactly making a good case for her sanity, here, but Harry was quite used to erratic behaviour by now, so he took it fairly well in stride.

Then all of a sudden she was getting up, and he hadn't expected that either. Quickly, he scrambled to his feet and began following her down the corridor, until she turned around. He stopped short, too.

Ah, the prophecy. Yes, that was what he had wanted to tell her. "The second part of the prophecy said that one of us has to kill the other. That ultimately we both can't live at the same time. So either he kills me or I kill him." He paused, letting the weight of that statement sink in. "I have to be the one to kill him...Mum. And...I will."

It wasn't something Harry looked forward to. He didn't even know how to kill anyone. Well, of course, there was Avada Kedavra, but he didn't think he could do that, nor did he want to. Perhaps he could drop a heavy lourde (http://www.hrwiki.org/index.php/Heavy_Lourde) on Voldemort's head? He figured he could possibly handle that one. Well, he didn't really know. But he would have to work it out, because he would kill Voldemort.

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Open Your Eyes: Closed RP (Sirius, Lily, and Harry)

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