Checking In

She did not know what she was expecting. That was the truth. Lily had just closed herself into a room with a man older than herself, who had a shady history and a definite drug problem, and had asked him to tell her a story. What could she expect? She had no expertise in this subject. Lily hardly interacted with people in her classes. She didn't know her dormmates' names. She was in completely foreign territory and she should have been terrified. But she wasn't. Her mind was a calm, settled lake, waiting for the gentle ripples of a dropped stone to remind her that life stirred beneath the stangant surface.

She did not know what she was expecting.

He had been involved with a werewolf, and a Lupin. It sounded like aset up to a bad joke, but it had Lily interested. The Lupin's were apart of her family circle. She had never met her father's friends, Remus or Tonks Lupin, but she knew their names, and she knew their family. She was not exceedingly close with the family - there was no one her own age among them - but she cared about them by association. An attack on one branch of the Potter trust was an attack on all.

But Henry was shutting down before he had even fully begun. She hesitated, and then slowly moved towards the hospital bed, gently settling down at the end of it. She reached into her pocket and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. It probably wasn't what he really wanted, but it was what she had on her. She had only taken Sugar and Spice a few times, though the frequency was beginning to stack atop itself. Even so, she had not taken to carrying it with her yet.

"I have no one to tell," she said, revealing a bit of truth for the truth he had given.

"I have no one to tell," she said, revealing a bit of truth for the truth he had given.

It was surprising how much of an effect these simple words could mean. Maybe it was how she said them too, and that fact that Lily had moved to sit on his bed. There was a sort of sudden bond between Henry and Lily. He always thought he was different, could never live up to the nobility of a Potter yet here he was empathising with the youngest of Potters.

The death eater knew exactly what it was like to be alone for he felt it all the time. The day he cheated on Hallie, thus ending their relationship, he'd been alone. Sure there had been Steppe Seker for a while but what had she done for him besides lead him into drugs and the dark arts? Nothing. She wasn't there for him now he was an addict forever falling from a high. He'd joined the death eaters in hope to get his life back on the rails, form relationships and prove to the likes of Hallie Cooper that he wasn't a nobody. Evidently that wasn't working out too well for him.

His brown eyes, full of angst and sadness, looked up to Lily's. For the first time in a while the man thought he could finally trust someone and even if he couldn't what would be the worst thing to happen to him? Torture? Death? Maybe they weren't the worst things to happen anymore.

'I'm a death eater.' He told the Gryffindor, 'We, and members of the Order, joined forces to rescue Khaat. I broke ranks, sent the first hex and ended up with a stunner in the face.' He told her. Really there wasn't much to the story besides that but if a death eater were to have overheard there would have no doubt been an uproar, claims of his disloyalty to them.

Lily did not have much right now that was making her life worthwhile. If she was not going to school, and she was not working, the mark of her life was the experiences she had. And drugs and alcohol were all fine and well but they made for pretty much the same stories. Lily had to start looking into the lives around her, exploring the interests and struggles of others in this world she was sharing, if she had any hope for finding any sort of satisfaction in this world, let alone any sliver of happiness. And lately, that hope had been looking pretty bleak.

For the first time in a very long time, someone was actually looking at her. Henry’s eyes met hers as she remained still on her perch on the foot of the bed and she stared back. The shades of their eyes were not vastly different, but the emotions there were on opposite ends of the spectrum. Henry’s eyes shone pain, bled hurt, begged for salvation. Lily could not muster anything in her own dark pools of brown. The dullness of acceptance rested there. Apathetic to life, tired of fighting, indifferent to the fact that she had given up. The difference was stark and shocking.

Her expression did not change as he told the truth. He was a Death Eater – Lily tried to think of the last time she had ever spoken to a Death Eater. Was Scorpius one? Maybe Marie and Thalia? The people that had the potential to be Death Eaters that she knew had not said anything to her about such an alliance, and they were also the odd sort of Death Eater who did not prescribe to any blanketing form of discrimination. Sure, there was the snotty little junior league, but Henry was the first person to ever straight up tell her he was a Death Eater.

So that was why she had seen Jack then. Anyone who knew Jack from more than what the magazines and papers said knew that she had to be Order affiliated. “Oh,” was all she could manage for a moment. “Okay.” Why was it hard to think of anything? Was it because her curiosity was running out as she found the answers? “Could I see the dark mark?”

Henry waited for Lily to process what she said, for a moment he had half expected her to turn around and leave but she continued to surprise him. Whatever he had expected it wasn't that for she was a Potter and, in history, Potters had been anti-death eater.

Tilting his head the death eater narrowed his eyes and his eyebrows furrowed in confusion. He couldn't work Lily out. Usually it was easy to understand people, they either disliked him, thought themselves more superior to him or... Well, that was pretty much it. With Lily it was a different story, she showed nothing bar curiosity.

His arm was bare beneath the sheets. It was only at that point the death eater realised he was wearing a hospital gown. Without hesitation Henry pulled back the sheet and extended his left arm above the white linen, displaying a blackened skull with a serpent for a tongue.

His eyes didn't catch the dark mark, instead they remained fixed upon Lily ready to watch her response.

There was a long silence. Lily Potter was not acting the way Lily Potter was supposed to act. Lily Potter should have run at the first mention of anything dark. Lily Potter should have brought the views and morals of her family out and fought to change the world for the better, one Death Eater at a time. Lily Potter should have told someone. Lily Potter should have been absolutely horrified that someone would brand themselves in the name of evil and hatred, and should have scorned the very thought of it.

She should not have been curious to see the proof.

All he had to do was lift his arm. Lily wondered briefly how the Healers handled it when they saw Dark Marks on people. Did their oaths that bound them to professionalism as Healers bind them also to hind the indentity of potential murderers and torturers? Had Henry hidden it? It was strange how these practical questions popped into her mind as this stranger admitted to her that he was allied with a faction that believed in using dark forces to achieve terrible ends.

She slowly leaned forward, her arm moving so that her hand came out and touched the mark. It was not raised as she would have thought. It looked like a regular tattoo, but there was definitely something about it... No ink could be so dark. Her fingers lightly danced along it, tracing one of the curves in the body of the serpant, absolutely marveling at the work that was put into such an evil spell.

"The magic is stunning," Lily whispered. "Magic is stunning. Did it hurt?"

Watching Lily for a moment was intriguing, it distracting him from the inner agitation he was feeling from lacking a high. Then, unexpectedly, she did something Henry could never have imagined. Lily began to trace her finger along the dark mark.

'Don't.' Henry told her, retracting the arm from her fingertips. 'Don't touch it.' He said. It wasn't that she would called other death eaters, that needed a wand, but the idea that she was touching him unnerved him slightly. Henry was bitter towards women, he'd been hurt as much as he had hurt and it didn't leave him, it left scars that had affected his personality. He'd been empty, untouched for so long it felt odd, unsettling and had sent a shiver along his arm. Lily had broke the barrier that had been in place for so long and to touch his dark mark? The death eater really couldn't figure her out.

She'd asked had it hurt. Well, it was certainly an odd sensation, a burning sensation that had bound him to the death eaters for life. The death eaters wasn't what Henry had thought it would be, he wanted out, wanted out of the darkness; out of the isolation. He wanted to escape everything. Sure he had gone down a dark path but really the path wasn't what nature had intended, it had been nurtured into him since the moment he cheated on Hallie. The only way he could escape now was through drugs, death or a dementors kiss.

'It hurts at times.' He replied, not knowing how much he should be giving away. Taking his eyes from here he looked to the door, then from the door to his clothes once more. The room was beginning to darken, the white linen sheets were grey and putrid whilst his teeth were digging deeper into his bottom lip. He needed drugs.

'I need to go.' He said, not really saying it to Lily in particular, more to himself. Swinging his legs from the bed he hurried to his clothes. Pulling out his jeans pockets, looking through the black robes he'd worn. Nothing. No brown bag. No blue substance. No-

His eyes spotted something in his shoe, something brown and crinkled. Taking the brown bag from the trainer Henry held it up to the light, forgetting that Lily was still in the room with him. A hunger for a high erupted through his pupils. Spice.

He pulled away rashly, and yet her hand lingered. She remained where she was, leaning forward, hovering over the hospital sheets and blankets, her slender hand just above his muscled arm. She lifted her chin upwards until her face was fully front, her eyes finding his as she tried to find his reasoning, tried to find why he had so suddenly rejected the conenction almost forged. She was curious - really only curious. She was not mounting evidence against him, nor was she judging. She had never seen such Dark Magic so close and so undeniably. It boggled the mind of any magical scholar.

He did not back off, the challenge still somewhat present in his eyes, so Lily settled back, conceding to him. Her hand fell and rested atop her right knee, though it still felt the ink, still felt the warmth of skin that was not her own. She righted her posture, sitting up so that there was only the slightest of a slouch in her tired, young back, her legs crossed beneath her. Her eyes remained on his - that challenge she would not back down from. There was no reason too - his eyes were still on hers as well.

He spoke, but it did not take long for him to change the subject. And like that, he was out of the bed, sheets flung over and landing in her lap. She gripped them and stared at them as he looked through his clothes. She turned and saw him examining something in a brown paper bag. Brown paper bags - in this day and age, she knew exactly what those were used to hide. And her encounters with him before were of great help, too.

She stared at him. "I'll help you leave early if you share."

He heard her voice again, her somewhat unattached voice that was almost music to his ears. It was a voice that he longed to here, a voice that he wanted to here more and, by the sounds of it, wanted to stay around him longer. Share. The past few years nobody had wanted to share anything with him, a few death eaters had wanted to share the torture of Hallie Rookwood but that was different. They were different for they weren't like Lily.

His dark eyes met hers once again. His head was saying no, his heart was saying okay. He could hardly take drugs here not when a healer could walk in any moment, did they already know he was a death eater? Had they seen the dark mark? Would drug abuse be a step too far? A step closer to Azkaban?

'Okay.' He said. It was as good a thank as she would get but the fact he was sharing was enough a presentation of gratitude as any. The idea wasn't perfect, Henry used where nobody could see him, this... This would be something new, maybe it was a good thing he wouldn't be alone.

'What do we do?' He asked, assuming that the Potter girl had some sort of idea.

Lily was surprised that he seemed willing to go along with her suggestion, since he had been so obviously wary of trusting her before then. She did not know what had made her even think that he would agree to it, or why she even wanted to spend any more time with him. Maybe it was that breaking him out and using the drug with him was at least something to do. Maybe having a purpose had reinspired her. Or perhaps it was just the draw of the drug, the promise of a high that would give some sort of escape.

She glanced around, her eyes calculating. “Get dressed,” she said. She strode over to the closet and found one of the spare robes that the nurses wore when they were worried about getting sick or blood or whatever on them. She glanced at Henry and then put her wand on the robes, quickly changing the color to that of the Healer’s robes that they wore on the job. She donned it and pulled it around her middle, before reaching in and finding a witch’s hat. She pulled it on over her ears and turned around.

She quickly went to the bed and retrieved the clipboard. “Ready?” She held out an arm for him to grip. “Just look weak and stick by me.”

Whilst Lily walked over to collect the nurses robes Henry pulled off his gown not caring it left him exposed in his underwear. Grabbed his jeans, pulled them up and fastened the belt. Next came a black jumper, whose sleeves covered his dark mark. Henry quickly fastened the laces on his shoes, pocketed the spice and wrapped his black death eater robes around him. They weren't really anything special simply plain and black with a hood.

'Okay.' Henry replied heading towards her and gripped hold of her hand, shuffling his feet and hunching himself slightly. It was a good plan, an exciting plan and any other Gryffindor would have enjoyed the task but the only thing on Henry's mind was getting out of the darn hospital. But where would they go? He couldn't exactly take her back to Scoprius' appartment where he had been staying and Borgin and Burkes was out of the question - too much trouble had happened there he didn't trust himself.

Making sure he had his wand secure in his robes Henry pushed open the door and stepped into the white hallway. 'Lead the way.' He muttered to Lily not having a clue where in St Mungo's he was.