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

[toujours-sirius.livejournal.com]

((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?"

Comments

[lilypotter60.livejournal.com]

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.

[kill-voldemort.livejournal.com]

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?"

[lilypotter60.livejournal.com]

"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."

[kill-voldemort.livejournal.com]

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.

[lilypotter60.livejournal.com]

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.

[kill-voldemort.livejournal.com]

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.

[lilypotter60.livejournal.com]

Lily probably wouldn't have argued too hard for her sanity, either, at that point. All this time they'd been raging against Voldemort, all the meetings and the missions and the people who'd died, all the lives simply destroyed, and he'd had Horcruxes. They'd lost before they had even begun because they had been fighting the wrong battles.

Because Dumbedore hadn't told them the whole truth.

Much like the prophecy. She had known the timing; known that, for whatever reason, Harry (or the Longbottom child, Neville, who had been born at the same time) was a 'Chosen One'. But she hadn't know why. And, in her ignorant blind faith, had never asked.

That was her mistake. But Dumbledore would answer for his.

For a moment she just looked at him. At this...this man who had once been her son. And she longed, she ached, with something deep and intrinsic and undefinable, to protect him. To shout and rail against a world who would ask this of him. To kill Voldemort herself to save him this.

That silence stretched as Lily processed. As she forced back that instinct. Taking a small, shuddering breath, she offered, with a tiny smile, "You know prophecies are a load of rubbish, right?"

Then, eyes dropping away as she wished so hard for James that it was nearly her only thought, she nodded once. Green eyes rose once more to meet green, steadily, no sign of anything but love and pride and acceptance. "Then I guess you get to be the one to kick that bastard's arse. Too bad. Perhaps I can sell tickets."

Swallowing hard, she moved a step closer, her hand reaching out to rest on his arm. "I'll help you. Your education has been...rather sporadic of late. I'm no Dumbledore," she flashed a grin that seemed to take years off of the worry still evident in her face, "but I'm a fairly good Witch. And I have...resources. I can teach you what you'll need to know. Voldemort doesn't stand a chance."

[kill-voldemort.livejournal.com]

For a little while, she didn't say anything, but just stood there looking at him, and Harry started to worry that she was going to start ranting again, or maybe run into the popcorn room and hex all the kernels. But she didn't.

Harry breathed out a quiet sigh of relief and nodded. "I...yeah, I know. I mean, mostly." He absently reached up to try and flatten his hair down over his forehead, over his scar. "I know the person who made the prophecy. She's a crazy old bat, but...well, I saw her make another prophecy once. It was really strange, like she had turned into another person or something. And then that prophecy came true the same day."

He was just laying these facts out. He wasn't judging them, because he wasn't really sure what to think. Divination was absolute rubbish; a year in Professor Trelawney's class had taught him that much, and probably only that much. But it was true that he had seen Professor Trelawney make another prophecy and that that prophecy had been fulfilled. So he wasn't always entirely sure.

"And maybe it doesn't matter anyway, because if it's what Voldemort believes, then it will have to come true, one way or the other." Harry shrugged slightly, one side of his mouth curving up apologetically. That was also a fact, and there was nothing he could do about it aside from refusing to be the one who would die. Which meant he would be the one to kill.

His relief deepened as Lily offered to help him rather than insist she'd be the one to take Voldemort down. Once again, he nodded, the other side of his mouth joining the first half in its smile. "Okay. I mean, I think I'd like that."

Actually, although he wouldn't say it, he felt a huge thrill shoot through his chest. He did need to know as much magic as he could. He was a strong wizard in his own right, but he still had a lot to learn, especially with Voldemort as his adversary. He had managed to defy Voldemort four times, but he still chalked up most of that to sheer luck and outside help. Lily, on the other hand, was a powerful witch, and she and James together had truly defied Voldemort three times.

And he also simply liked the idea of spending more time with his mother, getting to know her better as she helped him learn advanced magic. He would also seek Dumbledore out for help with magic - he'd be a fool not to - but having the opportunity to learn from his mother was absolutely not something he would turn down.

His smile grew a little bit more. "Yeah, I'd like that."

[lilypotter60.livejournal.com]

She felt a small shoot of relief as Harry accepted her offer. Her own smile was a twin to his as she reached out to ruffle his hair. Her hand stopped, though, halfway there, and instead dropped to his shoulder, to which she gave a brief squeeze.

It's too late.

Well, maybe it was. She'd missed her chance to be his Mum, perhaps. But this she could do. She could teach him what she knew, what had kept her alive. What he needed to know to defeat Voldemort for the last time.

"Believing in them is what gives them their power," she shrugged. "It's like any other bit of magic. If you don't believe it will work, all the wand waving and incantations in the world won't help. It's a force of will. Divination is rubbish because it teaches that something outside of yourself can give power to it. That's simply not how magic works. The words have power, yes, but it's the Wizard that gives them form."

She hesitated, then. There was something else to the phrophecy that Lily didn't know if Harry was aware of. But he deserved to know, if Dumbledore hadn't already told him, and so Lily sighed softly and said, "There was another couple in the order. Alice and Frank Longbottom. They got pregnant at the same time James and I did." A brief flicker of a smile crossed her face. "We were so excited. Even with the sodding prophecy. And we... It's horrible and wrong, but..." How to say it so her son wouldn't think less of her? "I would sit across from her at Order meetings and pray that her child was the one in the prophecy."

She looked sad and guilty, but that was the truth of it. "But Voldemort, for whatever reason, chose you. And that choosing, that belief, not the prophecy, is why you have that," she nodded towards his scar. "And why you're now apparently in some sodding battle to the death."

Shrugging, Lily smiled bitterly. "But he's in over his head on this." There was an absolute confidence in her voice, as if Lily didn't have a single doubt that Harry would be the one to prevail. It hid well the cold, helpless terror that had settled somewhere in the pit of her stomach and which Lily knew would not be relieved until Voldemort was defeated once and for all.

Then, nodding her head towards the corridor, she said, "Come on, then. Let's get something to eat. I bet I can bully the house-elves into making us a pizza."

[kill-voldemort.livejournal.com]

Harry grinned. "Don't let Hermione hear you say that or else you'll end up with a two-hour lecture on house-elf rights." Not that a house-elf ever needed bullying to do something like that. All one needed to do was whisper the word 'pizza' and ten of them would be swarming around, each one with a different ingredient, and in five minutes, give or take, there'd be a hot, tasty pizza waiting.

His mind refused to leave what Lily had said about the prophecy and the Longbottoms, and so as they walked down the corridor, he said, "I know their son. Mr and Mrs Longbottom, I mean. Their son, Neville - he's in my class." Or he was. Harry didn't know where Neville was right now. Probably researching herbs of the coastal plains of Zimbabwe. (This thought showed how poor wizarding education was when it came to geography: Zimbabwe is a landlocked country with plateaus, not plains.)

"We - we're friends, actually." Harry hesitated slightly in saying that, simply because it had taken him a few years to realise it. But it was true. Neville was good hearted and loyal, and he had supported Harry during some of the times he had needed it the most. "And sometimes I wish Voldemort had chosen him, too."

Then he shrugged. "But it's too late. And I'm going to do what I have to do."

[lilypotter60.livejournal.com]

"House-elf rights, eh?" Lily's lips twitched up wryly. "Has she...ever met a house-elf?" No, seriously. Beyond the seven years she'd lived at Hogwarts, Lily had spent a great deal of her time during the year she'd been back treating them. The house-elves wouldn't know what to do with rights if they were given them; it would be a cruelty more than compassion. "She'd do better to focus on fair rights for werewolves and vampires. That is where the Ministry has their heads up their collective arses. Or in humane treatment of prisoners." Something dark flashed in her eyes - Lily would love to have a 'conversation' with the Ministry of Magic about that.

But what Harry said pulled her from her thoughts and she studied her son carefully. "Alice and Frank are good people. I'm sure they raised a fine son. Neville's lucky to have you as a friend." What was unspoken was the fervent wish that she, too, had that Voldemort might have chosen another child. There was nothing more to say about that. Harry knew and she knew and voicing the desire wouldn't make it true.

Ah. Those words again. Something of that frozen impassivity bled back into Lily's face. "It's too late for a lot of things, isn't it?" The words were spoken quietly, almost to herself, with no accusation or bitterness. Just the quiet kind of sadness that comes from realizing the hopelessness of a situation. No reason to rail against it. It was what it was. And there was nothing Lily could do to change it.

[kill-voldemort.livejournal.com]

Harry almost stopped walking. Their fight of the night before was very much still on his mind, as much as he wanted to push it away, and so he knew exactly what she was referring to (http://community.livejournal.com/hogwarts_hocus/1290617.html?thread=65895545#t65895545). Suddenly very uncomfortable, he jammed his hands into his pockets and looked down at the floor, rough stone just a shade or two lighter than Sirius's eyes passing slowly underneath his feet as he walked.

Then there was silence. Awkward silence. For a while, Harry simply didn't know what to say. It was too late for her to treat him like a child - or to be able to order him around at all and to think she had any right disciplining him. But that didn't mean he thought it was too late for her to be his mother. He wanted her to be his mother. He didn't exactly know what that would entail either, because he was too old and she was too young. But that didn't change the fact that he really wanted it.

Finally, still looking at the floor, he spoke, his voice low, but clear. "Not all things."

[lilypotter60.livejournal.com]

Her eyes were fixed on the corridor around them. It was impossible for her to go anywhere, to be anyplace, without her eyes continually scanning for exits, making contingency plans, searching for an attack. It was too ingrained now; and sometimes, when she caught herself at it, she wondered if there would come a day she could sleep in an unwarded room without her wand under her pillow. Somehow she doubted it. So while Harry's eyes were fixed on the floor, Lily's were unconsciously watching, ready to move if there should be a need.

His words startled her slightly, though she didn't respond outwardly. "Yeah." That was all she could say at that moment. But as another few minutes of silence slipped by, she sighed.

"My...my learning curve on this..." she sounded so hesitant, not at all sure, which was completely unlike Lily. She was always sure. And if she wasn't, she spent hours studying and practicing until she was. Uncertainty was unfamiliar to her. "I don't know what I'm doing." Gaze sliding to him, she gave Harry a half-apologetic smile. "I was supposed to have time to figure it out. But I didn't. I am going to make mistakes. I am going to say things wrong. But Harry, I... Just because I mess things up doesn't change the fact that I love you. You...you know that, right?"

Lily studied his face, so like James', and then shrugged. "I... I need time to process things. I tend to just...attack, and that's... I'm stubborn." A rueful grin flickered across her face. "And I don't always listen when I should. And I..." Oh, Merlin. Something caught in her throat and she looked away. "I miss your father," she admitted in a tiny whisper, almost as if she was ashamed. "He was so much better at this kind of thing. More steady. I just...react. And it's usually wrong, and then I get mad and I shout and..." Laughing a little - because the alternative was to cry - she lifted one shoulder in another shrug and let her eyes go back to Harry. "Give me time." It was almost a plea, for him to not give up on her. "I'll learn."

[kill-voldemort.livejournal.com]

Harry couldn't say that these were all things he had known, because the fact was that he didn't know his mother that well. They had had only a year - not even that, actually - and even within that period, they hadn't spent nearly enough time together. It certainly hadn't been enough time for them to really know each other, to fight and make up, to learn how the other reacts and is best reacted to.

He finally looked up when she said she loved him, meeting her eyes for a brief second before nodding and looking back down again, just because Harry wasn't really used to this sort of open, emotional talk, and he, too, was learning how to react. He knew that she loved him, and he was glad for it.

When she mentioned James, his eyes abruptly snapped back up to her. He had accepted that he probably would never get to meet his father, and that all he had were other people's memories to fill the holes in his heart that James's death had left. But that didn't make him any less hungry for anything more he could hear about James, anything anyone had to say about him.

He was glad to hear that Lily missed James, but his heart also ached for her - and for himself and for Sirius, because all of them felt the loss of James so acutely. But it was worst for Lily and Sirius, because they had known him. They had something real, something tangible, to miss. Harry only had pictures and a memory of a memory and the concept of a father. And all of them had been hurt by the other James, by the false hope that death wasn't final for him, that they had a second chance.

But it was really was nice to know that she still missed James. He had been so hurt when she and the other James had 'broken up', and since then she had dated other people. He was sure that she didn't see Sirius as a replacement for James, and he knew Sirius wouldn't want to be that, but it was a comforting thought that she still thought about James, that she saw herself and James and Harry as a family even though James was no longer alive.

He watched her as she continued to speak, and when she was done, a much shorter moment passed before he replied.

"We've got time."

He almost left it at that. He, too, was learning what to give and what to take. But he also didn't want to disappoint Lily. He wanted her to know that he did want her around. He did want to know her as a mother, and not just as some girl who was related to him, even if they were now nearly the same age.

And so, although it was really difficult to do so, he added, "I'm sorry what I said last night hurt you. I don't want you to treat me like a child, but I do want you to be my mum."

[lilypotter60.livejournal.com]

If she had known, if Lily had realized how much Harry wanted to hear about James, she would have told him. She would have eagerly regaled Harry with stories about how his father used to mix his mashed potatoes and peas (much to Lily's bemused disgust) but couldn't abide his gravy and roll to meet. Or how he could keep every score for every Quidditch match all season in his head, ready to rattle off at the slightest provocation, but he couldn't seem to remember to stir counterclockwise after he added wormwood to the pain potion. The way his laugh made everything seem just a little easier to bear, no matter how dark. How his favorite jokes always cracked him up before he got to the punchline.

Lily ached to talk about James. To be able to openly miss him. But she had locked it all away so tightly that, at this point, it was doubtful she even knew how to let it out again. So she simply grieved in silence, rarely letting on how much she missed him. It was better that way, she'd convinced herself. It was better for everyone if she simply did her best to let him go.

But she still missed him. Every day, she missed him.

Blinking, she looked over at Harry. And slowly, she smiled. She looked so young when she smiled like that - soft and warm and wondering - and so much of the worry and the guilt and the stress she carried around with her faded slightly. "Yeah," Lily said, voice rough with emotions she couldn't even begin to name. "Yeah, I suppose we do."

As he went on, though, she grimaced and looked down at the floor. "Don't apologize, Harry. There's nothing to be sorry for. It's true. What you said... It's true. It is too late." Forcing her eyes back up, but still unable to meet his, she shrugged, trying to look off-handed about the whole thing. "It is what it is, Harry. It's fine."

They were approaching the Great Hall and Lily glanced around, spotting some seats removed from the people around them. "Come on. I could eat a sodding hippogriff."

[kill-voldemort.livejournal.com]

She didn't look as nonchalant as she was hoping, but even if she had succeeded, Harry had already got the sense that the matter wasn't settled. He didn't want it to be too late. He had said that - that it was too late - in anger, and he hadn't meant for her to take it as a blanket statement about her ability to be his mother in some way, shape, or form. Parents were the one thing he had desperately wanted for most of his life. Parents who loved him. And although one of them was still lost, he had the other. He didn't want Lily writing off the possibility that they'd find some way for her to be his mum. He really didn't want that.

But he wasn't sure what to say to fix this. He followed her over to the seats she had pointed out and sat down. For a bit, there was just silence, and then he thought of a way he might be able to tell Lily just how much he really did want her to be his mother.

"Before you came back here," he said as he tried to flatten his hair down once again, "I saw you and Dad three times, not counting the pictures Hagrid gave me. The third time was in the memory I showed you (http://community.livejournal.com/hogwarts_hocus/1231090.html?thread=62792434#t62792434), the one where Dad and Sirius had that fight with Snape. The second was when you and Dad came out of the connection between my wand and Voldemort's. And the first was in my first year at Hogwarts. It was on Christmas. Professor Dumbledore had given me Dad's Invisibility Cloak earlier that day, and I was wandering the corridors when I went into this room and found a mirror. It was a really big mirror, one that shows your whole body when you stand in front of it. But when I looked in the mirror, I didn't see myself. Instead, I saw you and Dad and all these other people - maybe ten or fifteen of them. Some of them looked like you, and some of them looked like Dad."

His eyes were now on Lily's face, looking at those eyes he had seen reflected back at himself in the mirror, multiple pairs of green eyes, just like his. Before he had looked into that mirror, he had never seen anyone just like him. It had made his heart ache with a strange, but strong, combination of joy and pain.

"People kept telling me I had your eyes, but that was the first time I saw it. And they said I looked like Dad, and when I looked in the mirror, I saw they were right." The memory of seeing James right in front of himself, smiling and happy and looking at Harry like he was the most important person in the world, caused an unexpected and unpleasant lump to grow in Harry's throat, and he paused for a moment to swallow it down.

When everything was back under control, he continued, "I came back to the mirror a lot during the Christmas holidays so I could look at you and Dad and everyone else in the family. But then one day Professor Dumbledore saw me, and he told me what the mirror was. It's called the Mirror of Erised, and it showed the one thing we want most in the world."

He stopped there, feeling as though he should say something else, but not knowing just what that something was. But his eyes remained on Lily, on that face he had seen all those years ago in the mirror. Except now it was in front of him, real and alive, and he wanted Lily to know that this was what he wanted most in the world.

[lilypotter60.livejournal.com]

Most people in her life, when she said she was fine, let the matter drop. Lily had become far too skillful over the past year at dodging the subject, at sliding out from under any scrutiny. So when she told Harry it was fine, she wasn't expecting anything further on the matter.

But then, as he spoke, she felt some portion of that wall she had shoved all the maternal feelings about Harry behind begin to break down. He had said it was too late and, in her hurt and anger and confusion, Lily had taken that at face value. She had tried to forget that, some days, her arms literally ached to hold him. That there was a strange tightness in her throat as she thought about the fact she'd missed his first step, that she didn't know what his first word was, that she hadn't been there when he was sick or had a fridge covered in his drawings.

From the moment she'd learned she was pregnant, all Lily had wanted was to be his mum. When he'd stood there and told her that she was too late, that nothing she said mattered, anymore, it was like that part of her had died all over again. Lily felt cold; all she could do was rage against the man who had taken those years from her. And then she'd discovered that she couldn't even do that.

But then Harry was saying... Well, that he wanted her to be there. That he'd thought about her. That he'd missed her. And that part of her thawed a little.

Swallowing hard, she dropped her eyes to the table for a second before raising them back up, their green depths made brighter by a sheen of unshed tears. "You're one good kid, Harry James Potter. I hope you know that."

What more could she say? There was a lump pressing in her throat, cutting off any more words. So she simply rose and walked around the table, sitting next to him and pulling Harry into a tight embrace. "I love you," she whispered fiercely. "I always loved you. And we do have time. We'll figure it out."