The Alchemist - Chapter 67

[northangel27]

Here you go:

Chapter 67

 

Up and down she went, the rush of wind through her hair, the sweet smell of freshly cut grass undercut with the slightly putrid smell of the river only a few short blocks off brought back a rush of memories so pure and present that it was almost like reliving every moment of her childhood with each swing.

 

The wind rushed against her face, pushing her hair away from her forehead, and she remembered all the times she had come here with her sister as a child.

 

The wind flowed against her back, blowing her hair forward into her eyes, and she thought of all the changes she had started to experience, the inexplicable things that would happen when she was near, the odd glances her mother and father would give her, the downright angry ones her sister sent her way.

 

The swing moved forward again, reaching the very zenith of its upward arc, and she let go, let herself fly from the seat, float mid air for a moment; felt all the thrill of that one terrifying magical moment, the trick she hadn’t tried since she was a girl, and she thought of the first time she met Severus, the moment she learned what she really was, that there were others like her, that she was not alone.

 

As her feet softly made contact with the lawn she looked around her and smiled.  Everything looked so clean, so lovely.  She couldn’t ever remember her neighborhood looking so pristine.  It wasn’t so bad a place as Spinner’s End, but still, her parents had been anything but rich, and the neighborhood had been already quite old when they had moved in.

 

The day was warm and pleasant and the park surprisingly abandoned, so she considered taking a walk to Spinner’s End to see if Severus was about.  She hesitated for a moment.  It felt as though there was something she was forgetting.  Looking about her, she tried to see if perhaps she had left something, but there was nothing there.  She continued on, out of the park to the street beyond.

 

As she drew closer to Spinner’s End the sound of children playing drifted over to her on the breeze and she smiled.  So it appeared that the children of Spinner’s End preferred to play in the street rather than in the perfectly lovely park only a block or so away.  Sure enough, as she rounded the corner of Severus’ street a small group of boys playing football in the middle of the street came into view.  There were younger boys, little ones about seven or eight, but also older ones who looked to be about twelve or thirteen.

 

One of the boys in particular caught her eye, and she stopped.  He had his back to her as he struggled to make a goal between two rusted cans, his wild disheveled hair, sticking up in the back as it always did.  What on earth was Harry doing playing football in Spinner’s End?

 

“Harry!”  She quickened her pace as she approached the group of boys, and they stopped and all turned to look at her.  That was when her heart stopped.  All she could do was stand there stupidly, staring. 

 

The boy seemed just as surprised to see her.  His hazel eyes widened, and then suddenly he rushed forward, grabbed her arm and pulled her off, away from the rest.  She followed him in silence, too much in shock to do much else, and when they had finally squeezed between a couple of the tenements and made it to the river’s edge, ironically right beneath the tree she had spent so many hours under with Severus as a child, he turned and gazed into her eyes, his full.  “Lily…What are you doing here?  You shouldn’t be here!  It’s not your time.”

 

“James?”  She finally managed. It was barely a whisper.

 

He nodded.  “Yes it’s me.  You shouldn’t be here.”

 

“Here…?”  She felt thoroughly confused.  “Where is here?”

 

“Here…here…”  He motioned around him as though it should be completely clear.

 

“Spinner’s End?”

 

He gazed about himself with a scowl as though just now realizing where he was.  “Oh…No, no, it only looks like this because it is a place you recognize.  I’ve been staying here because I assumed you would come home first and I wanted to wait for you, but…Lily, you are not supposed to be here yet.”

 

A sudden panic gripped her.  “Am I…James, I’m not dead?”

 

She saw worry cloud his hazel eyes.  He lowered his voice and looked about as though afraid they might be overheard.  “I most certainly hope not.  But you must be very close if you are here.”

 

“But I can’t die.  Harry.  Who will watch out for Harry?  And Severus?  I …I cannot be…”  She stopped short suddenly realizing what she had just said.  She felt her heart drop.  Damn her loose tongue!

 

Strangely James seemed to have either not noticed her slip, or didn’t care.  Reaching for her hand, he led her over to the trunk of the Beech and pulled her down in the grass beside him.  Once he had seated himself cross-legged beside her, he rested his elbows on his knees; hands clasped together and leaned forward.  “Lily, you have to go back.”

 

She shook her head in confusion.  “I don’t even know how I got here?”

 

“You passed out in Dumbledore’s office remember?”

 

She thought hard.  It was very odd to have James before her, able to remember things of which she had no recollection.  It was odder still to be staring into the eyes of a boy, rather than the man she remembered, but then even as she thought it, she realized that he was not a boy any longer, but rather about seventeen or eighteen years old.  She blinked once thinking that it must be a play of the light, some sort of odd optical trick, but when her eyes opened again, he still looked the same.

 

“Weren’t you just…”

 

He waved a hand dismissively.  “Oh don’t mind that.  I stay young for Sirius.  It’s easier for him.  We can be anything here.  Most choose to take on the form that most reflects the state of their soul; some, the age they were when they were the most happy…”  He gazed into her eyes now, and she felt a little guilty at the wave of familiar warmth it sent singing through her veins.

 

“Did I make you happy, James…?”  she whispered.  “Sometimes I felt such a failure of a wife…”

 

He smiled softly, his mouth lifting up on one side in that infuriatingly sweet crooked grin of his, the one that had finally melted her heart and convinced her to at least give him a chance in seventh year.  “Of course you made me happy.  Sometimes…sometimes you were all that made me happy…”

 

“And sometimes I was the bane of your existence,” she stated bluntly.

 

He laughed out loud then, and reached out to take her hand.  “Sometimes…but…Don’t think I don’t know what I put you through in that last year, Lily.  It was unfair to have expected so much of you.”

 

She frowned.  “What do you mean?  We were in it together.  It was hardly as though the whole thing were your fault.”

 

He shook his head.  “But it was in a way.  I was far too cocky.  I took risks when there was no need.  I openly defied Riddle again and again, and in that put both you and Harry in danger.  I never thought.  I never thought about what my actions would mean for you and him, and I am responsible for that, Lily.  You stuck with me long after most friends would have abandoned me.”

 

“But, Sirius…”

 

“Sirius was Sirius.  I always felt that I was more there for him than he for me, and he had Remus, and then Remus wasn’t there either, and Sirius was in that foul mood for all those months when everything was falling apart for us, and then suddenly he wasn’t, and I knew that you must have spoken to him.

 

“I know, Lily.  I know that you spoke to him and the two of you agreed to try and get along because you were worried about me.  You were always there, watching out for me, and…I couldn’t have wished for a better friend – or a wife.”

 

She looked away, suddenly ashamed.  He still loved her.  He had waited here for her all this time, and yet her heart…her heart belonged to another now.  She had to tell him.

 

“James, I…”

 

“If you are going to tell me about Snape, don’t bother.”

 

She looked up mortified.  “You know.”

 

“Of course I know.”  His eyes had darkened a little, but he did not sound angry, only perhaps a wee bit sad.  “I…I’ve always known.  I knew it when I married you.”

 

She was speechless.

 

His eyes flickered away to the river, and he stared out at the lazily flowing water as he continued.  “I wanted you, Lily, I had wanted you from the first time I ever laid eyes on you, and then, in seventh year when we started spending so much time together, I realized that I actually liked you too.  One day I woke up and I realized that I needed you even more, and then Harry…I wanted to marry you.  I didn’t want to have to be without you, ever, and Harry…Harry just made the chance of you saying yes all the greater.”

 

Slipping her hand from his she reached up and ran her fingers through his hair.  “James, I…”

 

“Don’t…  Don’t, Lily.  Don’t say that you would have said ‘yes’ anyway.  You and I both know it isn’t true.”

 

She dropped her hand and swallowed hard.  “I’m sorry, James.”

 

He just nodded, his eyes still focused on the water’s edge.

 

“I did love you.  I do love you.  And that is the truth.”

 

His eyes finally returned to hers.  “I know.  But not as you love him.”

 

She opened her mouth to protest, but what could she say that would not be a lie.  “I love you both differently, James, it doesn’t mean…”

 

He shook his head, and reached out pressing a finger to her lips.  “I’m happy for you, Lily.  Honestly, I am.  You were never happy, not ever truly.”  His hand reached out to cup her face for a moment and then dropped to the grass between them.  “I remember one day when we were locked up at Godric’s Hollow, it was August, and you were outside picking herbs in the garden - I would watch you from the window sometimes, when you didn’t know - and I remember thinking how weary, how old you looked, and I thought  - ‘when was it that she changed?  When was it that all the light and fire that I loved was extinguished?’  I realized then that it had been sometime in the winter of sixth year, and I remembered too that that was when that rumor had started going about the school that Snape had taken the dark mark.  It was the same time that you had that run in with Lucius Malfoy, and Snape went to find you when none of the rest of us could.  You were never the same after that night, Lily.  It was like something had died inside of you.

 

“I knew then that you loved him, but I still wanted you despite it.  I couldn’t help it…”

 

And then she couldn’t help it, and she slid over and pulled him into her arms.  There was really nothing else that could be said, but at least there was this.  This was honest. 

 

He seemed to accept her affection eagerly, almost hungrily, and then after awhile he pulled away.  “Lily, you have been here a long time…  I lost track.  If you stay too long you can’t get back.”

 

“But how do I get back?”

 

“You can just apparate there.”

 

“Really?”  It seemed ridiculously simple.

 

“Yeah, I think so.  Where were you when you first got here?”

 

“The park up the road.”

 

He nodded.  “Yeah, just go back there, and you should be able to get back.”

 

He got to his feet and dusted the grass from his trousers before holding out a hand to help her up.  She took him in, every little detail, not wanting to forget even one, and they walked back to the street hand-in-hand.  As they reached the curb she realized that he had reverted to his younger self again.

 

The rest of the boys seemed to have dispersed and the street was empty.  He looked up one side and down the other, a scowl forming on his youthful brow.  “I better go find Sirius.  He’s always getting the other boys into trouble, especially the little ones…”  His voice trailed off, and he looked back up into her eyes.  “There’s a war coming, Lily.  Mind you take care of yourself.  I don’t want to see you here sooner than you should be.  You still have much to do…  Tell Harry I love him.”

 

She smiled.  “I will.”

 

The grip of his small, warm hand tightened around hers.  “I love you, Lily.”

 

“I love you too, James.  Take care.”

 

She hardly remembered getting back to the park, her mind was swirling with too many thoughts, and then, as the small patch of green grass appeared, the empty swings blowing softly back and forth in the breeze, she thought only of returning and with a sickening rush felt herself hurtle back toward home, toward Hogwarts, and Harry, and Severus, and a destiny of which she could no longer have any doubt.

 

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“DO SOMETHING!”  She could sense Harry’s panic, even as she fought all the nausea and disorientation of slamming back into her body.

 

“You need to go over there and sit down, as I’ve asked, Harry.  Let me do what I have to do.” 

 

“But you said that putting them together would make them better!”  His voice was choked now.  “And look at her.  LOOK!”

 

“Blaise, take him over there, please!”

 

“Harry, come on.  We had best do as she says.”

 

“LEAVE ME ALONE!”

 

“Poppy, what’s happened?”  Albus’ voice filled with...something…was it slight panic?

 

“Oh Albus, do take Harry to my office.  I need him away from here.  Now, please!”

 

“But what about Professor Snape?  Is he alright?”  A girl’s voice.  One she did not immediately recognize.

 

“No, but Professor Evans is worse off and my concern is with her at the moment….Albus, please!”

 

“Yes…Harry, come!”  There was a tone of gentle command in the man’s voice that brooked no refusal, but it was hoarse too, as though weighed down with some great emotion.

 

“I WON’T.  I WON’T LEAVE HER!”

 

Her chest felt tight, and she suddenly realized that she needed to breathe.  With a great gasp she took air into her lungs.  It felt strange, how a babe must feel coming out of the womb, she thought.  The one defining moment when one goes from breathing the sweet air of eternity and is forced, for the first time, to fill ones lungs with the thick, heavy atmosphere of earth.  She had felt it once before – years ago.

 

A silence fell over the room for a split second, and then a great weight slammed into her, and she felt arms around her, lifting her, the dampness of tears against her neck.  She reached up weakly and smoothed a hand tenderly over her boy’s head.  “It’s alright, Harry,” she whispered.  “I’m fine.”

 

He was sobbing into her neck and she did her best to wrap her arms around him.  “That was a bit close, I know.  I’m sorry.  It won’t happen again, I promise.”  He didn’t say anything, just clung on desperately, and she was reminded for just a moment of the boy she had just left.  “Your father said to tell you that he loves you.”

 

Another small sob burst against her neck at the words and she tightened her grip around his shoulders in comfort, finally letting her eyes slide open.  The ward was much darker than it had been, and from the angle of the setting sun outside she guessed it to be near dinner time.  Poppy stood near the end of the bed a hand over her mouth and tears in her eyes.  She smiled weakly at her.  ‘I’m fine.’ She mouthed.  The tears broke free then and the woman nodded once before wiping them away.

 

Blaise stood across the room, staring at she and Harry.  He looked stricken, and she realized yet again just how much she and Severus had come to mean to the boy.  She waved him over.  He seemed rather hesitant, but she nodded once, motioned again, and he came quickly then, slipping into the chair beside her bed and taking the hand she offered him.

 

And then over Blaise’s shoulder, she saw Albus, standing alone in the shadows, his face pale, and his blue eyes focused not on her or the boys, nor on Poppy, but rather at a spot just behind her.  For some reason the look there made her blood run cold.  They flickered to hers for just the fraction of a second and then he strode forward with remarkable speed for a man of his age and fragility, and moved around the other side of her. 

 

Harry pulled away just then and she turned, realizing for the first time what he had been looking at.  Severus lay beside her looking every bit as ill as she imagined she must - pale, vulnerable, small.  Albus held his wrist firmly in his hand, as his fingers pressed in for a pulse, his face growing paler by the moment.

 

“Albus?”  She heard the panic and desperation in her own voice.  When he looked up and his eyes met hers, she knew.  She shook her head, and looked down at Severus again.  “Try again!”  she demanded.  “You aren’t doing it properly.  Try again!”  He did as she asked, perhaps because he wasn’t willing to accept it himself.

 

Poppy strode over and began to whisper soft incantations, her hand hovering first over Severus’ heart and then his head.  After a moment or two her brow furrowed, and her voice faded into silence.

 

“Is he…”  A small frightened voice suddenly piped up from across the room, and for the first time she noticed the tall read headed girl standing by one of the beds across the aisle.  She recognized her from class – Igraine Phelan.  “He’s…he’s dead?!”  It came out more of a shriek than a question.

 

“He’s not!”  she snapped back.  Her eyes went back to Albus, but he was only standing frozen now, Severus’ wrist still cradled in his hand, his eyes completely blank as he stared down at his still form.  “He’s not…Albus, tell her, he’s not!”  But he said nothing.

 

“Oh Merlin!”  The girl looked as though she was going to be ill, and she moved a little as though to rush forward, but then caught herself and went back again.  She paced in that manner more than a few times before finally letting out a choked sort of sob, and crawling up onto the bed, turned her back to them, pulled her knees up under her chin, wrapped her arms around them and tucked her head in tight, as she rocked gently back and forth, seemly unable to accept the reality of the situation.

 

Albus very gently laid the hand back on Severus’ chest, and then quietly walked away to the far side of the ward, where he sat down on the edge of one of the beds.  He too turned his back to them.

 

She let her eyes fall back upon Severus, and she knew.  Over the minute or two she had been begging Albus, observing Poppy, the girl across the room, a subtle transformation had taken place.  He was not there.  She felt the inner connection sever like the snapping of a rubber band, and that is when she broke. 

 

She heard someone let out a sound unlike anything she had ever heard before, like the dying of a wounded animal, and realized vaguely that it must be her, but all she could think about was getting close to him, trying desperately to cling to whatever small bit of him might still be lingering in or around the shell that had been his body.  There was nothing - only a cold, bleak emptiness.  She felt empty to the very core of her, as though nothing would ever fill her, as though she would never be warm again.

 

She was barely aware of the sound of others weeping - there was Blaise - she should be there for Blaise.  It was too soon, too soon after his mother’s death.  Somehow, she had to pull herself together, but the realization that she would never see Severus again seemed to suck all the breath from her, until she thought she was suffocating.  She felt gentle hands come around her arms.

 

“Come away, Dear…”  It was Poppy.  She meant well, but she didn’t understand.

 

“Leave her!”  Harry – bless him.  She felt another hand come to rest gently on her back and knew that it was his.

 

She needed to be strong, but she felt only weak.  Blaise needed her, even Albus and the traumatized girl across the room needed her.  If she was not strong for them, who would be?  She needed to be strong, but she wasn’t - not now, not in this moment, her body draped over his, terrified and sickened by the complete absence of ‘him’ she felt there.  It wasn’t supposed to end like this.  James had said that she still had much to do.  She couldn’t do that without Severus.  They needed to be a united whole in this, needed to stick together, work together.

 

Something shifted in her then.  Yes – they were meant to work together, and if it was not her time, then that meant it was not his either.  She had always been the more stubborn of the two of them, never willing to budge, to give up on something until she was completely certain it was a lost cause.  Except once.  In their youth she had given up on him far too easily.  She would not do it again.

 

She had sat up, surprised at the strength and conviction in her voice as she spoke. “Severus…you are being ridiculous.  Now wake up.”   

 

Poppy reached out for her.  “He’s gone, Dear.  There’s nothing more to be done.  He can’t hear you now...”

 

She stared at the woman for a moment, not really hearing what she said.  It seemed to take a couple of moments for the meaning of the words to register with her brain.  “Tosh.  Utter tosh.  He can hear me, and he’s just being insufferably stubborn.  Well, I won’t have it Poppy.  I’ll not have his last words to me be…  Well, I won’t have it.”

 

She turned back to him.  “Severus, do you hear me.  There’s too much still to be done, and I can’t do it without you, am not meant to do it without you, and you know it.  I need you, Blaise needs you….”  She looked over at the stricken looking boy beside her.  “Take his hand, Blaise.  It’s alright…”  His eyes filled and spilled over again, but he did as she said.  Slipping out of the bed, she padded across the cold stone floor in her bare feet, much to Poppy’s chagrin, and then climbed back up onto the bed beside him.

 

Igraine had stopped her rocking now, and had turned just slightly, staring curiously over her shoulder at the proceedings.  Lily caught her eye.  “Come here.  I need your help.  He needs your help.”  The girl’s violet eyes grew wide and she shook her head. 

 

“I…I don’t want to touch him…”

 

“Please, Igraine…”

 

The girl took a slow, deep breath and then slowly uncurled her limbs from the tight little ball they had been entwined in and slipped from the bed to approach tentatively.

 

“Come here and take his hand.” 

 

To her credit the girl did so without any further hesitation, though she looked as though she might faint, and huge tears formed to roll over and hang like diamonds from her thick lashes.  Poppy brought her a chair and made her sit down.

 

“Albus…”  He still sat on the bed on the other side of the room, but he was hunched forward, his good arm supporting his weight on the mattress, his withered one lifted to cover his face.  “Harry,” she whispered.  “Go and bring him here…please…”  Harry stared down at Severus and then back into her eyes, and then he nodded once and went to do as she had asked.  She watched him as he walked over to the old man and placed a hand on his shoulder, leaned down, whispered softly to him.  Albus shook his head, and Harry said something else, and finally Albus got to his feet and followed Harry back across the room until his stood before her.

 

She looked him straight in the eye, probed the icy blue depths, until she found what she needed to know.  She nodded in understanding and then reached out and took his good hand, pulling it gently toward her, and guiding it down until his palm covered Severus’ forehead, his long, pale fingers woven through his hair.  Finally she placed both of her hands over his heart, as Harry moved in behind her to lay his hand back on her shoulder again. 

 

“Poppy.  Try them again.  The incantations…”

 

“Lily, I…”

 

“Just do it.  Trust me.  And don’t stop, unless I tell you to.”  She saw her look toward Albus for guidance.  He nodded weakly.  Her eyes looked sad, almost pitying, but she moved to the end of the bed and began to quietly cant the charms again, each phrase sounding like a tiny song. 

 

Lily let her eyes slide shut and concentrated on every happy moment she had ever shared with Severus, every sorrow, every bittersweet moment of bliss.  She let the completeness of all he was, all they were, fill her up until she felt more love for him than she ever had before.  She let it pour over her, fill her to the brim, and then she let it flow out of her into him.  She could only hope that the rest were doing the same.

 

A warmth began to build under her hands.  It was possible it was only her imagination, her need to feel a change, but her heart told her it was something else.  ‘Please, Severus…’ she begged him in her mind, with that form of communication that only they shared.  ‘Please come back to me…’  It had been some time now, and she had begun to grow concerned about the state he would be in if he did revive.  Wizard or muggle, to go so long without oxygen could not be good for the brain.  “Severus, please…”

 

The warmth beneath her hands increased and she could feel a strange sort of a humming there too, just beneath her fingertips.  It felt like the thrumming, living energy that flowed through the verdant grounds in Spring, the throbbing pulse of the earth one could feel when standing upon bare rock in bare feet.  It felt like the flow of warm blood through healthy veins…

 

Beneath her hands she felt a little quiver and then an old familiar rhythmic beat, and at that moment, he shuddered once and then took in a great desperate breath. 

 

“Professor?!”  Blaise’s voice so filled with surprise, relief, joy.

A tiny cry of gratitude from Igraine.

 

A great sigh of relief from Albus.

 

She could not bring herself to open her eyes.  She just kept her hands over his heart, let her love flow into him, until she could be sure that it was strong enough to beat on its own.  With each beat, each gasping breath he took she felt herself relax a little more, until finally, his breathing steadied and she let her eyes slide open at last.

 

Severus’ eyes were open, staring about him blearily.  He somehow managed a scowl as he realized that there was a veritable convention of visitors around his bed.  Finally his eyes found hers again, and softened. 

 

‘I’m sorry.’  She heard it as clearly as though he had spoken aloud.

 

She nodded.

 

They would be alright.