❝ he and i are closer than friends, we are enemies linked together, the same sin binds us ❞ | in which lilium snape is bound to harry potter by fate, destined to stand on either side of a war that will soon be waged. she is cursed by prophecy, or so...
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ACT THREE, chapter forty—nine : what i want to save, i'll kill is that who i truly am?
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Lili called a meeting.
She knew this wasn't going to be easy, not for any of them. No one wanted to be here, and no one trusted one another. The Ravenclaw that had given up the DA and the Slytherins in the Inquisitorial Squad had sowed deep seeds of distrust amongst them. But she had to try.
Lili didn't just invite the disbanded DA members, no, she invited everyone who had been punished and carved up by Umbridge. The number had only increased since Lili's last count: twenty—nine Gryffindors, seventeen Slytherins, fourteen Ravenclaws, and eleven Hufflepuffs. Her heart ached with grief at the seventy—one students all round her. Seventy—one too many. So d—mn many.
"Thank you for coming," Lili called over the quiet din of her fellow students, voice sounding stiff even to her.
And after that, they lapsed into an awkward silence. They waited for her to say something. She waited for something good to say. D—mn it, why was speaking so bloody hard?
"Are we going to restart the DA?" Colin mercifully broke the silence, looking both hopeful and a little scared.
Lili could understand, in truth.
"No." Harry's response was quiet, saving her from trying to explain. "Not now. Not when it's still so dangerous for all of us. We're here for another reason."
At this, her boyfriend nodded to her and she forced herself to fully step into the metaphorical spotlight. She held her left hand and showed the room — another Mark, another brand, another scar.
"I must not be a slut; that's what my scar says. You each have at least one to match, though most of our words say something different. I don't need to explain to any of you why this isn't okay. Because it's not."
But then she was suddenly consumed with the worry that maybe these kids didn't know that. Had Umbridge broken them like she'd tried to break Lili with the detentions, with Goyle? Had that b—tch managed to twist their minds so much to believe when she said that they deserved to be punished? Merlin. Merlin help her, Lili hoped not. Her voice was much stronger when she said:
"It's not f—cking okay!"
"Hear, hear," called George from the back, bless him.
Feeling that Gryffindor courage bolster her, Lili sturdily continued, "That being said. I called this meeting to discuss what finally needs to be done about Dolores Umbridge, once and for all."
