Frailty, Thy Name is Potter

Casey was beyond worried. She was doing the very last thing she could do. Lily had been gone an entire month now. The school had come to her, asking after her cousin’s whereabouts and Casey had lied, informed them that had been a family emergency, an illness, and Lily was at home. No one questioned it when a Potter was having family problems. It was a small family but it seemed to be a cursed one, and the pity ran too deep for suspicion to rear its head. They had sent her a letter, the professor informed her, but they would retract it and give her the time she needed. They said they understood.

Casey left the meeting feeling rotten. Numbness collided with disgust, and she knew she was now in horrible trouble. Something was wrong with Lily, and she had not found her. The lies in Lily’s letters were horrid, and her cousin was not intending on coming back. Casey felt betrayed, sure, and abandoned. But pushing her own selfish emotions aside, the twelve year old girl mostly just scared and worried for the sake of her dark-haired cousin.

She had bullied a third year Hufflepuff into giving her some Floo Powder before arriving at the home of Teddy Lupin. She could not go to Albus without losing Lily’s trust completely, but she knew if Teddy knew, Lily’s brother would surely be informed. And then the matter would be out of her hands entirely and she could attempt to breathe again. He was shocked to see his young cousin, covered in soot and fear, standing in his living room as he left the bathroom.

“Casey? What’s wrong?”

The brick that was Casey Weasley trembled. “I lost Lily.”


This had been the part Lily had been dreading. This was when the fairy tale ended. This was when she woke up from the dream. When the face of beauty morphed into that of deception. This was the last stroke of midnight.

The full moon had come again.

Lily had been avoiding her school for a month now. Not only her school, but her friends, her family, and most forms of society. Ellery had been the only one to find her, and the Gryffindor had been good enough to not rat her out. But letters from Casey were close to daily now, and Lily knew the school would get wise. She had missed every exam, after all, and the makeup dates. She was completely past the point of no return. There was no resurfacing from this anymore without consequences. And the consequences would be more than a slap on the wrist.

The worst part though… she had run out of money. So she had been unable to secure Wolfsbane. As night fell, she ran into the forest behind the shrieking shack, heart drumming like timpani, terror rolling through her cold body like heat attacks a desert. She tripped and stumbled and brambles caught her face, but she had to put distance between herself and the village. Pain stabbed her and she stopped, doubled over in pain as she let out a gasp. She looked up and took off running again. The mountains loomed before her and owls hooted around her. A branch caught her and she caught herself on a tree, her feet keeping her moving forward. Again, pain hit her and she wrapped her arms around a large boulder, crying out in pain. She pushed herself over the rock with a determined growl. Just a few more yards. Just enough so the wolf would be more tempted to go towards the mountains rather than to the village. She kept running-

Her heart collapsed and shrunk. The transformation had begun. As her innards changed and reformatted themselves, pain seized Lily and she crumpled within herself, gripping her stomach as her knees curled under her. She rolled over twice and landed first in the dirt and leaves, howling a noise that was between human and beast. She tried to push herself up, but the legs and her arms broke to restructure themselves into that of a wolf. Her throat burned with the pain but her vocal chords were changing, so noise could not escape her face that was elongating and growing fur, the bones and cartilage moving and shifting and forming.

The wolf was out.


Dawn warmed a tired, cold, pain-riddled body. Lily’s clothes were nearby, shredded but intact enough to give her some modesty. Lily slept in the leaves and dirt. The wolf had almost made it to the Shrieking Shack when the moon had abandoned the sky, bringing all the progress of the canine to a halt. Her hair was strewn about her, her body covered in scratches, bruises, and other marks that revealed how tough the night had truly been for her. She looked pale as death, an Ophelia drowning in a pool of summer leaves, ‘as one incapable of her own distress.’

As the sun grazed her back, Lily awoke. It took her several minutes of lying there to take stock, to twitch every finger, ever toe, blink each eyes, tense each muscles, ensuring everything had gotten back into its place. The girl with such a knack for potions and with the money to supplement her talent had never gone a night without Wolfsbane. She never planned to again. The pain and the fear had been more than she would like to live through. She would rather be taken out of her misery before put through such a hellish night as the night before again.

She pushed herself up, and immediately remembered her dinner and lunch from the night before as it was delivered back unto the earth. Wiping her mouth, she pushed herself up, before collapsing backwards. She let out a shaky breath and slowly dragged herself towards her clothes. Not venturing to stand, she pulled on her shirt and pants, glad to see that her undergarments had clung to the body of the beast – what a sight that had to have been.

Oh, Merlin. Had someone seen? Lily wanted to immediately leave for fear of someone finding her, but she knew her body would not let her. She had worked so hard to keep secret what she was, and now she was at risk of being discovered. All for what, an identity crisis? Was that was this whole thing was? Now Lily felt immensely stupid for all that had happened in the past month because… she had risked everything. And she could not explain what for.

She tried to stand again and immediately fell to her knees. And again. And again. On her fourth attempt, she sat on her knees, head tipped back towards the sky, body heaving with the exertion. As she righted herself, a tear fell from her cheek. She could not go on. Not just in this delusion, but at all. If she did not die right here, she was certain death would soon relieve her. The world felt too heavy and she was too small. Lily Potter, daughter of the Boy Who Lived Until He Died, collapsed into the leaves of the Hogsmeade forest, resigned to join nature.

Albus Potter was a selfish sod.

That was what he contemplated as his thumb brushed, back and forth on the curling edge of the yellowed parchment that currently lay flat on the desk in his study. It had been delivered within a crisp, rectangular white envelope, currently residing in the otherwise empty wastepaper basket that the heel of his shoe nudged against, as it kicked back and forth, absently, beneath the desk. The Hogwarts seal, initially bright red and embossed across the envelope joint, was now shrunken, cracked, black- and the beginning ends of Draco dormiens nunquam titilla-” peeked slyly at him between the longitudinal and vertical bamboo strips of the crosshatched basket, diverting from the matter of attention again. Which was this.

His sister was missing from school.

He says ‘his sister’ and not ‘Lily’, because it seemed strangely difficult to reconcile the ‘sister’ they mention in the letter, the one who’d evidently bunked school and a month’s classes and exams, with the Lily that existed in his head, the Lily whose memories he had to dust off a little to remember that she was pretty good at her academics. It was admittedly easier to match their description with the sallow-faced, reticent teenager that had stayed in his home a week, then upped and vanished the moment school opened- though now he learned that she hadn’t quite been headed there. And he watched the broken Hogwarts seal on the envelope in order to stop his eyes from scanning the letter and re-reading the words Your sister, Miss Lily Luna Potter... so that it would sink in, that they wrote ‘your sister’ because they actually expected him to do something about her disappearing. Because they thought she was his responsibility.

Albus Potter was a selfish sod, he thought again, without any real heat behind the words. Because yes societal norms decreed that he should be responsible for his underage sister, but Potters had stopped trying to take care of each other a long time ago, because bad things happened when they tried. They only succeeded in making more of a mess of things than they originally were, and he had tried, though admittedly not as hard as he could have, in the week of his sister’s stay; but the indifferent, irritated eyes had told him exactly where to shove his ‘brotherly affections’. And after she left, it had been easy to forget the existence of his sister, or at least shove it to the back of his mind.

But now Lily was gone, just like James- and Albus was expected to do something about it.

The coat went on over his shoulders with minimum fuss, the socks rolled up and the shoes on and laces tied tight within fifteen minutes. The twins were thankfully asleep, the girls probably preoccupied in their own fun if the continuous bangs and shrieks coming from their room were any indication and Athena still in the shower, so he paced down the steps and closed the door behind him quietly; and let his eyes fall shut to imagine his destination. A quick squeezing sensation around his belly, air being sucked out of his chest, and a graceless stumble later, green irises opened to and blinked at the sight of Hogsmeade.

Boots crunching over gravel, Albus made his way down the High Street, pausing for a few seconds each at the doorways of Honeydukes and the Three Broomsticks: the former’s cellar had a handy passageway to Hogwarts and sweets for a girl’s appetite, the latter a warm bed to sleep in- but he would never have taken shelter in either of these places, so Lily wouldn’t have either. So this was why his feet came to a halt for a third time outside the grimy, unapproachable sign of the Hog’s Head, and his head ducked into the doorway without a thought.

Minutes later, he stepped back out, and his thoughts were in a much more considerable flurry than before. Yes, a young, black-haired girl with a rucksack had stayed beneath their roof for more than a month- but she hadn’t returned last night. She could have headed back to Teddy’s, limbs sore and careworn, or taken refuge in some random countryside pub, or even been hidden by Casey inside the castle and simply not reported to the authorities yet- this was getting tricky.

“-howls.....bloo’ chilling, the lo’ of them, frightened me ol’ Aunty Em ou’ of her skin..”

“Blood’s pack again, I’m tellin’ ya mate....the ruddy wolves won’t seem to keep outta this place..”

“-heard crashin’ in the woods, only hope some poor codger din’ get ambushed by tha’ filthy lo’-”

And his feet were walking, setting off towards the end of the road in a destination that only they seemed to know, and it seemed stupid to search for a deserted spot to Disapparate considering he was standing in the biggest Wizarding village of Britain, because it was stupider to think he was actually heading to the outskirts of Hogsmeade because of a partially overheard conversation. People gossip uselessly, and surely Lily’s too sensible to stay out on a full moon night even though he’d previously have thought her too sensible to risk failing and getting expelled.....

Then his feet stilled.

There was a willow tree in his field of view now, just a few metres away from the point where the road dwindled into grass. A branch, at least two feet in girth had been snapped clean off and was lying among the rushes, the tiny green leaves discoloured and trampled. There were three, long gouges down the knot set into the trunk- and a small scrap of denim dangling from a twig jabbing straight out of the base. Its tip gleamed with something dark, and sticky and almost black enough not to be red.

His wand had slid out of its holster, landing in his palm with a soundless thump, and his fingers barely clung on, cold and sweat-slicked. His hand didn’t shake as he held it aloft, light trickling in faintly through the clouds and the leaves, illuminating the slender rod of wood. Breath puffed out, almost non-existent through his lips, hitting the wand. “Point me Lily Potter.”

It spun, barely balancing on the cold, wet palm, and when it stopped, its tip pointed resolutely north-east, deeper into the woods. Towards the trail of destruction, the trampled grass and the clawed paw-prints that his eyes had been trying resolutely not to see.

Then.....then....he was vaguely, barely aware of something pounding restlessly against his chest, seeming quite like it might tear out through muscle and sinew and bone. It throbbed in his ears, and sounded not like a heartbeat, but a clock ticking its seconds out.

He was barely aware of his movements afterwards, just the ground rising and falling beneath his feet, the branches flapping into his eyes, a stitch searing up his side, heartbeat pumping faintly in his ears. His vision alternated in flashes- green and black and gold raking across his eyes, leaving numbed nicks and scratches, a little toddler rubbing her elbows, eyes welling up as two boys stand across the fireplace and quarrel over who dropped her, paw-prints here, a smeared blood-stain on a boulder there, a girl scowling on the platform with folded arms as her brothers fleeted off to the magical school again, the thickets of trees getting thicker, the stains getting larger, small stifled snorts of laughter as he banged on the bathroom door yet again, demanding to be let out, and a gleam in brown eyes as pale hands proffer a guitar looking like reptile scales, with a snake winding around it and the sly words- ’For our resident Slytherin.’, and fist pumps as she thrashed the entire household in Gobstones and a tiny, huddled figure hugging James’ knee as their mother’s coffin enters the ground and-

And those knees. He could recognize those knees anywhere, thin and knobbly like their father and his grandfather before them, but they’re scraped and bruised and bloody through the torn material of her jeans, and those are contusions, purple and ugly on the skin on her shoulder that’s pale enough never to have seen sunlight, but is clearly visible through the tatters of what was once a shirt, and can now be barely held together by her trembling fingers, and salt and blood and mud disfiguring her face, and vomit dribbling past her lip, and that. That sound echoing faintly in the silence of the trees is his wand, falling from slackened fingers and clattering to the floor.

“Lils.”

Lily had never truly liked her name. She thought flower names were horribly cliché. How could people mock celebrities for calling their kids Apple or Tree or Leaf and then turn around and call them Daisy or Rose or whatever. The name itself, though, was not the part that made Lily protest. It was the weight it held. James was the only one of the Potter siblings who had never seemed to mind. But that had also been because he had been named after the cool guys. The ones with all the stories, the ones who got the girls, the ones who no one had ever questioned. Albus had been named after two old geezers, one who had been called a changeable, weak man, and the rumors that had followed Dumbledore had been strange enough. Lily had been named after two woman – one that had been modelled as near perfection, and the other that had been sweet but strange. It was hard to be proud of these strange namesakes, but if they did believe the greatness their namesakes’ deserved, then what pressure they had on their shoulders.

Lily had always tried to call Albus by Al and Alby. James had always preferred James, though Jamie had come out every once awhile, and he could not stop it. James had always been pretty adamant about calling his siblings by their full names, leaving Albus to call her Lils. Teddy and Casey preferred LP, but it seemed right that the darker-haired Potter siblings were bound by their preference for nicknames. It was nice, too, knowing that those names had often been used on the occasions that they had teamed up on James. ’Get him, Lils.’ ‘Will do, Alby.’

It had to be a trick of the forest. Lils. Lils could be the rustle of leaves, the noise of wind brushing against bark, shifting the beams of the Shrieking Shack. It especially could not be her brother because he had more than proved his disinterest in her. Her stay in his home had been cold and quiet and distant and horribly sterile. It would take a brother she had not met to come out and search for her. Besides, he would not know. He should not know. And if he did, how in the hell would he find her here of all places. In this random patch of crumbling leaves. This is where Lily would cease being a Potter. Cease being anything.

But she had to look. She had to check. She lifted her head and peered through the trees. And there was her brother. Lo and behold. Undeniably Albus Potter. And though Lily wanted to cease here, though she did not want to be at the mercy of her brother, she could not help the fact that she was a seventeen year old girl with a lot of fear and a lot of life left to live. She drew her hands up beneath her and pushed upwards, pushing her torso up. She swallowed and looked at her brother, her only hope.

“Alby.”

And she collapsed on her side.

Three clockwise stirs. Four anticlockwise. Increase heat by five degrees. Simmer.

Silver knife. Silver knife. No, no, iron.......unaffected by sulphur.....

Thud. Thud. Thud. Finer slices. Finer. Gather up by base of blade, sprinkle over potion. Simmer.

Leeches, to suck out infection. Two.....no three. Two and half? Grate. Mash. Drain. Sprig of rosemary- symbolises remembrance. Love. Crumble to fine powder.

By Law of Constant Proportions......two point seven five grams. Measure. Not a single grain over required amount. Not a single grain.

“Al?”

He didn’t startle. Just stared at the tiny wooden jar he was filtering the dark green powder into, his fingers wrapped tight around the base, watched it quiver minutely in the air. The muscles of his arm, drawn taut underneath sweaty skin, were quivering too.

“I think she’s up now.” Teddy’s voice was calm. Soothing. Mildly reprimanding.

He had nothing to be reprimanded for. He was brewing a salve for his sister after all. Holed up in Teddy’s basement for six continuous hours, hair curling with the steam constantly rising from the brimming stone cauldron, brewing; while his cousin and godbrother tended to his unconscious sister curled in a bed upstairs. It was more logical, that way. She had confided in them, would be more comforted by their presence.......that’s why he had brought her here instead of back to his own flat. They could take care of her while he made salves from a distance.

“She’s allergic.” Teddy said. Albus looked at where he was pointing, at the tiny, leather pouch with the twine untied carelessly, poppy seeds spilling out onto the wooden counter. The next ingredient.

“Oh.” His mouth said. “Of course.” A barely there wave of the hand, the pouch disappeared, and nothing remained but a few scattered grains of white to remind him about this almost fatal detail he had forgotten to remember about his sister. It would have pricked; except Albus didn’t remember knowing about it in the first place.

And fingers clutching at a measuring jar, his hand was still shaking.

The sound of wood knocking over wood entered his ears dimly; his hand was by his side now, fingers twitching intermittently, without stimuli. His chest was pressing down, squeezing out every last remnant of breath held captive inside. It felt like the muscles holding his body upright, and his heart beating were coming undone. Unravelling like strands of rope used to hold down a reality for so long.

Albus registered the faint sensation of warm fingers curling around his shoulder. The hand that was still under his control reached up to press against the warmth- and it shouldn’t have been such a surprise, but the realisation still filled him with wonder that the broad, dependable hand that had taught had taught him to walk and run and fly...... no longer eclipsed his own. Their palms were the same size, their fingers aligned length to length, and who would have thought that one day Albus’s juvenile digits would grow to be more calloused than that of mature Teddy’s, the first among them who had transcended to ‘grown-up-kind’.

That hand had led him through a lot of dark places.

It slid off his shoulder silently now, as Albus turned around, the air drifting with the scent of rosemary. Albus didn’t smile. If they were making a new reality now, then it was best to leave behind all old, undesirable habits.

He left the potion under his godbrother’s watchful eye, and ascended the stairs, the floorboards creaking under his soles. The door barely whispered as it swung open, and his hand automatically felt backwards to press it closed, those thin sheets twisted around Lily’s shoulders looking barely sufficient to keep out draughts. Even from his vantage point at the doorway, he could still see her whites peeking and shifting restlessly beneath her eyelids. She twisted in place, entangling the sheets about her even more, and Teddy’s sweat-sodden t-shirt, overlarge for her gangly frame, slipped lower at one end to reveal a still bruised shoulder.

Her eyelids blinked awake, just as Albus realised they had the same nose- straight, sharp, with a slight bump over the ridge- and the last mindless thought which coasted past his senses was: why us? Why always us?

“Feeling better?”

Teddy had tried to talk some sense into her when she had awoken earlier. Naturally, his first instinct had been to try to urge her to go back to sleep, but she was in a mild panic. She was not exactly sure where she was, but she was afraid.

“No, Teddy, I’m going to transform.”

Teddy was kind through her delusion. “Lily, love, you already have.”

“I don’t have my potion, Teddy, I need it. Where’s Casey?”

“Lily, you already-“

“Where’s Casey? I need Casey! I need her. I need Casey. Casey!”

Teddy knew that words would not work. He sat on the edge of her bed and with one of his long arms, scooped her close to him. His arm held her around the shoulders as she repeated her cousin’s name into his chest, tears beginning to dampen his jacket. His chin rested atop her tangled hair, as she shuddered her cousin’s name out one last time. Her eyes squeezed shut, and words left with her tears. She swallowed the last salty clump that remained and sighed, going limp against the one man she had always depended on. He let her settle back into the sheets, where she concentrated on her breathing, intent on returning to the comfort of sleep. Teddy stood and watched her for a moment, before refilling her glass

“Do you want to see your brother?” he finally asked.

Lily paused for a very long time. She only had the energy for a few words so she decided to say what she meant the most. “I want Casey.”


She could feel a presence as she toed the line between consciousness and sleep. The presence entered her dreamland before coaxing her to return to the land of the awake. She did not rush the journey, but allowed herself to drift back to life, slowly feeling the world around her before she attempted to view it. She was that horrible cold feverish. Inner burning, outward chills, an uncomfortable sweat. Her hair was matted and tangled, but someone had tried to brush it out, so it was teased and frizzy in places, and it rubbed her cheek. The bed was dirty from her own devices, she could feel that under her fingers. The room itself was warm, sort of muggy. Her eyes had flicked open as someone closed the door, and she wriggled, hoping that sleep would steal her from the world. But it was long retreating and consciousness was ready to tackle her. She wriggled again and let out a sigh.

She was met with sound before she confronted sight. It was her brother speaking. She knew this not because his voice was the most familiar but for the opposite. She would have known Casey or Teddy before either said a word. Fred would have opened with a joke. Process of elimination left Albus. She slowly opened her eyes and stared at her brother, the brother with hair so similar to her own. So dark. So uncontrollable.

It was terrible, because the first thought in her head was What do you want?

She had already gone through hell and back, and she was certain her brother was here to ask her to take her schooling more seriously or something of that matter. She just wanted to sleep and he was depriving her of that. She did not voice these feelings, though, because she knew it would start an argument that she did not have the strength to win. So she wrapped the blanket closer around her and rolled onto her side to more comfortably take in her brother.

“Teddy’s making sure I do.” No malice. Just what she thought to be fact.

They hadn’t always been horrible at this.

Sometimes Albus could almost remember. A time when he and James used to bear scratches and marks of scuffles born out of jest- not the invisible wounds left by words. When they’d play Quidditch on the same team. When they’d run upstairs on Christmas mornings and ambush their parents on the bed, the springs squeaking merrily under their bare feet. When James would rib him mercilessly and he’d flush and sniffle and call for Mum......but a mere cuff around the ear and a “All fine, Al?” could mend all rifts and cure all fights and send him stumbling after his brother’s heels, glowing face hanging on every word.

Then they grew up. And they learned new words. Duties. Responsibilities. Expectations.

James was the first. He’d always been the fastest learner. Standing up to the responsibility of being the eldest son, of making sure that his younger siblings grew up without a care, of avenging his parents’ death, of standing up to his father’s name.......and somewhere along the line, while the world gloried and gossiped over James the prankster in equal measure, his family lost him. James had always been nothing but himself to his younger brother, and somehow that killed the love between them, because all the anger and frustration and fear of failure that the world wasn’t allowed to see mixed itself with overprotective love and the rash words of a teenager trying to be a father. Slights, real and imagined, tossed freely in Albus’ mind, in a child longing for a brother but only finding a role model. And Lily watched, silent and judging from the corner; because that was what she always did: watched while her brothers tore the home around them into pieces.

He blamed James. Because that was what he always did too- blamed his father and his brother and everyone else in turn for everything not under his control. But never for a moment had he ever thought that he could do the same thing. That he was doing the same thing.

Lily stared back at him, eyes reddened and a little glassy, tone sullen and matter of fact- and it sunk in so quickly that it seemed incomprehensible how he had never seen it before.

He was her James.

Because maybe all of them had fallen victim to it, not just his elder brother. Maybe Albus too, had been trying too hard. Giving her ‘space’ to live and think and breathe, and distancing himself in the process. Never interfering in her decisions, and coming off as disinterested and uncaring as a result. Never nagging at her for academics or homework or asking about friends and school because nagging was suffocating- but also the best way to show affection. Never cracking a stupid quip, or a miserable one-liner, or even sharing a joke and a butterbeer together- because he was supposed to be the responsible older brother. Except he had failed in the most important, most basic, of brotherly duties. He failed to keep her safe. Because she didn’t trust him to.

And whose fault was that?

He was her James. He had never wanted to be her James.

She was the one wounded, yet he was the one who felt out of his skin, who took uncountable seconds to move forward, who seated himself gingerly at the end of her bed like a stranger. He was a stranger. And strangers had no right to ask questions.

“I’m sorry.” Not sorry for her condition. Strangers would say that. Express sympathy. But sorry for the fact that he had to ask a question at all. Sorry that she had two blood brothers left in the world and she had to seek safety among relatives and godbrothers. Not sorry that she was a.....werewolf (even now it seemed strange, that those bird-like, frail-boned wrists could turn into manacles on silver nights). Sorry that he ever had to know this way. Sorry that she would rather burn her flesh and bone with agony on the outskirts of villages, howling at the moon- rather than seek out solace with him.

Sorry that he had been such a complete, absolute failure.

((literally... my hand suddenly pushed against my heart as I read this))

The Potters had always been very ambitious people. Both of her parents had ambitions – to influence society, to play Quidditch, to do well in the Ministry. James had always desired to be the best Quidditch player in his league. Albus had always desired to be an influential politician of some sort. And Lily… well, she had just wanted to be smart, and clever, and happy. As she had grown older, her ambitions had grown, outgrowing their modest beginnings. Be the smartest Potter. Be the smartest girl my age. Just be different than your brothers.

And she had succeeded.  Neither of her brothers were werewolves. Neither of her brothers had transferred out of Hogwarts.

It had taken her this year to realize, however, that a similarity still remained. The Potters were ambitious, and they tried hard at everything they worked on. They knew what they wanted and they went after it. Realizing that she was not sure what she wanted was the first terrifying step. Everything after that fell into place. Her ambitions dissolved and she stopped trying. The full moon left her tired and she never did get up the courage to face school after that.

And now, she was the Potter without ambition. Without direction. The burn out.

She had expected him to start laying into her about school, or about keeping secrets, or about the alcohol, or the drugs. She should have known better by now. James was the one who drove her crazy by asking too much. Albus never asked anything. James feigned care with over-concern, when it was really his ego that was appeased. Albus did not pretend, at least. She would say she was disappointed, but she was accustomed to this.

This pity party – still a little bit of Potter in her, it seemed.

So much of the past few weeks had been so lacking in emotions. She had fallen into a state of numbness most nights, being numb to whoever approached her, no longer feeling nor caring about the effects of the drugs in her body. She felt like a piece of refuse alongside a busy road, being twisted and turned amongst the wake of the unforgiving machines. And, on occasion, she was twisted onto the road, being whisked between car and trucks, never certain of when that final blow would come.

But now, that comforting numbness was slipping away. She could feel the rocking of the bed when he sat on its edge, and she felt an opinion on it. She was irritated. She was mad. She could feel some form of turmoil twisting within her, flipping in her stomach, squirming in her chest. She flipped back onto her back and took in a deep breath, letting it out. She took in deeper breaths, her eyes closed tight, squeezing her fingers into small fists. Her breath shook in her lungs.

He was sorry.

"There's nothing to be sorry for," Lily said through gritted teeth. "It's not like you broke any promises. It's not like I'm disappointed. I can't be, can I?" There was the edge of bitterness in her voice. Emotion was working its way back into her detoxing system. She was clean. She was beginning to feel.

This has to be stopped.

"I need a cigarette. Get me a cigarette. Tell Teddy I need my cigarettes."

((Thanks. Your refuse analogy made me ache ))


"There's nothing to be sorry for. It's not like you broke any promises.”

Because he hadn’t made any. It couldn’t have been clearer if she had screamed it out. Let her voice and throat ring raw, instead of that wrought-iron tone she was using now, cold and brittle, words pressed between her teeth.

It would have been so easy. As easy as breathing, as smiling; to return to old ways, lapse to old habits. To be selfish, and turn, and walk away from his sister as she so clearly was desperate for him to. He could justify it too, like he could justify so many other things- logic in the eyes of the logician- that Lily obviously could and would speak properly only to her godbrother and cousin, and that his presence merely served to aggravate her condition further, that she needed rest and peace and it would be in the best interests of all involved if he were to walk away now.

Breath forced its way past his lips in an exhale. Lily’s dark eyes were still hanging on his, a little sullen, a little crazed, a little dead.

Except, of course, that he would be spinning delightful webs of self-delusion, and maybe James had merely been a case of good intentions gone awry in his relations to Albus; but Albus was no James, and his f*ck ups with Lily were stemmed not just of misdirected love- his throat clamped down on the air again honest honest, be honest Potter- no, not love at all. His sister was perceptive, always had been. She wouldn’t have been fooled so long into believing so ardently in his distance, disinterest. Not unless a part of it actually existed.

The venom of self-realisation, all too familiar since that stint in the Ministry cell, rose to existence in his throat again, churning wildly, casting his tongue bitter. His lower lip twitched to the left. Was natural, really. Such a......a......self-absorbed person as himself would scarcely have the time to love or care for anyone else, preoccupied as he was in demanding it from everyone else.

“We care for the people who need us and for the people that life gives us to love.”

It was strange, that embroiled in such a situation, standing so far away from everything that might possibly remind him of her, Jack’s voice should echo so clearly in his ears now, sounding a few centimetres- and a lifetime apart. She spoke, and Albus looked straight into Lily’s eyes: righteous, justified, accusing and hurting all at once, and wondered if this had been what Jack had felt as she looked into his eyes that day. Wondered if he was supposed to feel pride at the fact that his sister was replicating him so perfectly, that her white, cold, porcelain like expression would mirror his so easily. If Jack would be happy to know that what she had been struggling to make him understand was now clear as limpid water in his mind. And all it had taken was a step to the other side of the line.

All through his life, he had struggled, fought, raged war at the fact that he was the unwanted one. The one whose presence no one seemed to seek, the one whose being or unbeing scarcely seemed to make a difference, the one who would never be missed, never be needed. And now life seemed to be spitting that same fact right back at him, in the form of the sister who had hidden the greatest truth of her identity (werewolf. werewolf werewolf werewolf were-) from him for Merlin knows how long, and even now having barely escaped death from a nightmarish transformation, seemed barely regretful of the fact- insolent even, metaphorically closing the door in his face, demanding the presence of someone not even related to them. Teddy over him. Anyone over him.

Except. Except. His eyes moved over the straining lines of her jaw, the bruises that shifted and twisted and claimed ownership over pale skin, the fingers that gathered fistfuls of bedcovers, squeezing and releasing them convulsively. He was playing James. Which meant Lily was playing Albus. And every single bloody time he had snapped, pushed James.....Fred.....Scorp.....Jack...away, he’d been waiting for someone who would push back harder.

And that was the clear water of realisation rising, ever so inexorably through his mind. People were never going to tell you that you were needed. Are needed. People are as wounded, sometimes more, than you are. They will not expose themselves to further hurt through rejection. No, it lied with you. The initiative to suck in a breath, suppress the doubts, and plough ahead believing that you are needed, to do what needed to be done regardless of consequences. And sometimes your efforts would go in vain, fall upon closed doors and mocking smiles. And sometimes they would bear fruit, and lead you to strange, new, brighter places- and Athena’s pale eyes, blinking slowly and afraid as if dreams were about to splinter before her eyes, the moment Albus had offered his home to her and her children, flashed before his eyes like a warm, searing brand of sunlight- and somehow Lily’s eyes didn’t seem all that dark anymore.

The rod of rowan, slipped seamlessly out of his sleeve the moment he raised his hand, settling in his grasp with his thumb coming round to encircle the base. It swished, once, twice, thrice, in the wan light blanketing the room and Lily’s paper thin eyelids- and something began expanding from its distal end, a ball of light, becoming increasingly oblong, then cylindrical, then gaining form and shape and texture and plopping down, falling soundlessly on the bed.

The Conjured cigarette lay nestled into a crease of the white covers, innocuous. Meaningless.

Then the light at the end of his wand gleamed bright, and the tiny paper rolls, filled with tobacco began dropping through the air one after the other, as abundant as drops of rain in a summer shower. Ten, then twenty, then forty, a hundred- cigarettes piled up in the space that divided them, carpeted the bed that was the sole plane that joined them in this reality where they happened to be siblings. White covers, white hands, white throat, white paper cigarettes - white, white, white. One could almost call it the colour of purity, if one discounted the whiteness of the skin that denoted disease, the scent of nicotine that clung to the colour like an ever-constant companion.

He met her eyes over the sea of white, wand hanging lax by his fingertips, useless. “Not worth much of anything if I can’t even disappoint you, am I.”

She wanted her cigarettes. She wanted him to leave. She wanted Teddy to come back. She wanted to sleep more. These trivial little desires cycled through her system like drugs, coming than going, flooding her veins before flushing out of her system, before returning once more. As they began returning again, her brother still doing nothing, Lily could not help but remind herself of the fear and the mantra she had lived by in her isolation. You don’t want anything, Lily Potter. You have no goals, no ambitions, no directions, no motivations. You aren’t trying to achieve anything, you’re not trying to be anything. Hell, half the time, you aren’t even trying to be.

She could almost believe it. She wanted to believe it. Because if she could believe that she did not want anything, then she could never suffer a disappointment, never believe she had been denied anything. She would never face rejection, failure, or loss. But she had faced these monsters, so she had, once upon a time, desired. And maybe it had not been a sentiment of the past either. For Lily Potter was a very convincing young lady. And she had done the impossible. She had been so convincing that she had convinced the most cynical, oppositionary person she knew.

Herself.

Because she knew she did want. And it wasn’t just cigarettes, or Teddy, or sleep, or for Albus to leave. She wanted to take back this stupid month of irresponsibility. She wanted to take back her rude treatment of her brother when he took her in. She wanted to take back agreeing to come to Hogwarts, while also wanting to take back ever going away. She wanted Casey to know how much she loved her and hurt to have hurt her. She wanted to see James. She wanted to be a child again, and plan an elaborate prank on her brothers who were so caught up in their own games that they did not see her coming. She wanted to be the smartest witch her age again. She wanted to see her Mum and Dad again. She wanted to know her Dad. She wanted to not be an orphan. She wanted to know what it was like to be a full family unit. And why that made people so happy. Because, for so long, the very idea of family, of her family, was what caused her the most misery.

And that was her deepest desire. For that misery just to end.

It did not hit her hard. It was like remembering the name of the song you had forgotten yesterday, the discovery was that gentle. She closed her eyes, and if she was not aware of her brother’s presence, she might have uttered a soft ‘oh.’ Her lips did part a little, as though she wanted to say the word that had finally come to her, finally given her a reason for this mess she had created for herself. The missing puzzle peace for why she could not find any sort of satisfaction.

Come on now, Lily, you have to say it.

Her eyes flickered beneath her eyelids.

I am depressed.

Before this could settle into her bones and wrack her with the anguish of accepting defeat, though, something caught her attention. Something had fallen on her bed. She opened her eyes and looked. A cigarette. She sat herself up for a second and picked up the small object, turning it over in her hands. He was just… allowing her to continue her vice? Then another fell. Lily glanced at Albus, but before any words of disdain or disbelief could be uttered, the air between them was full of falling cigarettes. Nicotine vessels snowed upon her bed and she would have been so pleased, had it not suddenly become so abhorrent to have her addiction laid out before her. For surely, she had gone through almost this much since she had decided not to give a shit.

“Stop it, Albus!” she finally said. He was mocking her, hating her, for being so foolish and weak. He spoke, and if his words sounded sad, it was only because he wanted her to feel horrible. Wanted her to feel worse than horrible. She buried her eyes in her hands for a moment, breathing audibly, almost wheezing. And suddenly, her arms came out and they swept the cigarettes off of her bed in large, violent strokes.  It was not cigarettes that she wanted. They were just another reminder.

“I’m sorry I smoke, Albus. I’m sorry I drink. And abuse. And I’m sorry I ran away. And I’m sorry a werewolf, and a burn out, and a f*ck up. I’m sorry I went away to America and didn’t tell you why.” These words were sobbed into her hands, having once again pressed her fingers to her eyes. “I’m sorry that I don’t like anyone, and that I don’t know why. I think I’m depressed and maybe worse and I’m sorry that I’m not a good sister anymore. I can’t ask you not to hate me anymore, but please – I hate myself enough for the both of us.”

It was all out. And now came the real sobs. The sobs that wracked her whole frame, threatening to crack the brittle, malnourished bones. Her taut skin shivered and shook, and her vocal chords were wrenched as she tried to bite back the sobs, tried to swallow them into her chest where no noise would pervade. But Lily Potter failed at that too.