WHITE FLAG ▹ potter

020. you better run

Lili dreamt that she was destined to be the villain.

Things had been decidedly icy between Lili and Sev.

Most days, the girl didn't see her father at all. Even at mealtimes. Sometimes she emerged from her room, hunched up and shivering, or sometimes, unable to get up at all, she was confined to a summer in bed, but always she'd find that he had left out food under stasis, way too much of it. Usually, she could manage only half, and after she shuffled back to her room or rolled back over, he took it away again when she didn't notice. And Sev, well, he spent more time in his potions lab, did not attempt conversations, played the music louder than ever.

Lesser known fact about one Severus Snape: he had a penchant for rock music, and he was something of a punk in his day, apparently — though she only discovered this once she first came to Spinner's End as they couldn't listen to any of their music while at Hogwarts, unfortunately.

Lie lie lie lie, you liar
You lie lie lie, tell me why
Tell me why, why d'you have to lie

Even from where she sat in the windowsill, cheek resting on her arms whilst resting on her knees, Lili found herself mouthing along to the words blasting from below:

Should've realised that you
Should've told the truth
Should've realised you know what I'll do

Lili had to face a load of hard truths in the past year. One: her mother was in prison. Two: her father likely deserved to be in prison. Three: her father wasn't in prison because he was a spy. Four: her godfather was the Dark Lord who had tried to possess and/or kill her friends annually. Five: she had been damned since the beginning.

It was almost too much to take.

The girl barely left her room, nevermind going to the river or the park or any of the usual places she went when back in Cokeworth. Besides her summer assignments, she wasn't sure if she'd opened a single book at all this summer. No reading forbidden texts. No sketching in margins. She still occasionally helped Sev with meals and still tended to their garden, but... it was so stilted, so tense, that it didn't feel at all natural.

Sometimes Lili paced her room like a caged tiger, and she became intimately familiar with every little aspect of the space. It took ten steps to reach the wall with the window and it took eight to reach the door from her bed. If she laid on the floor in the corner at exactly two PM, she could bask in the sun's warmth for at most three hours, and the floorboard between the bed and the nightstand creaked if she put more than one foot on it.

Only very occasionally did Lili feel the sudden and startling need to get out, out, out. The farthest she could get was the downstairs sitting room. She was mercifully alone there, too, most of the time. She found herself bundled in Professor Sprout's quilts in the tightest corner of the ratty couch, head crooked awkwardly on the armrest, watching the fire, listening to the fuzzy radio.

Lately, the reporters had been chattering nonstop about some escaped convict.

"—The public is warned that Black is armed and extremely dangerous. A 13 special hot line has been set up, and any sighting of Black should be reported immediately. The Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries will announce today that..."

Barely interested, her eyes trailed to the low table where today's issue of The Daily Prophet was torn and mangled and practically in pieces. Through the shreds, in the firelight, she read in big bold print: BLACK AT LARGE. Under it was a large photograph of a gaunt—faced man with long, matted hair screaming madly at Lili from the front page. The name sounded familiar...

The radio turned off suddenly.

Lili lifted her head (d—mn, her neck hurt now) and found Sev rather rudely slamming down the antenna and stuffing the Muggle device away.