Disclaimer: The only Harry Potter thing I own is my time turner (which I may or may not be using to read three books, watch two tv shows and update this book at the same time).
The title and gif are a dead giveaway, I know.
/unedited chapter/
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Chapter 27
It had never really occurred to Lily how bad things could get for her because of her blood status. She had always been surrounded by people, purebloods even, like Marlene, Sirius, James and the others who never made Lily feel any different because of the fact that her lineage wasn't purely magical.
It was all sunshine and rainbows until her then best friend fell into a group of prejudiced imbeciles who thought she was polluting their community. Even then she wasn't fully aware how dangerous they could be.
So Lily Evans got a reality check on the very day she had been excited about for weeks.
"Lily, where are you going?" Marlene asked.
"I have to get something done, Marlene. It's urgent." Lily said.
"What is so important that you can't help me with these arrangements?" Marlene pointed her wand at the gift wrapped boxes and quickly casting a disillusionment charm.
"I can't tell you right now." Lily said with a sigh, "But it's important."
"Fine." Marlene said at last, eyeing Lily suspiciously, "But be here before the party starts. You know better than me, how important you being here today is."
Lily shifted from one foot to another, chewing on her lips nervously. She looked around the common room, covered in decorations. It had been really difficult to arrange so much without the teachers or other prefects finding out. But Frank, who was head boy, had been a lot of help. Well, and the Marauders too. Nothing was impossible to those four dorks.
"Where is Sirius?"
"I don't know. Last time I saw him, he was trying to build Eiffel Tower with butterbeer bottles."
It took Lily some time to find Sirius. He was just on his way back from Hogsmeade with at least a dozen - surprise, surprise! - Firewhiskey and butterbeer bottles.
"That's illegal, you know?" Lily said, "Firewhiskey."
"I'm seventeen." Sirius said, shrugging. He was the first one of all of them to come of age. So he never missed a chance to brag about it.
"Not everyone is."
"It's not a crime until you get caught." he said, his blue-gray eyes twinkling with mischief, "Where are you going?"
"Hogsmeade."
"Sneaking out again, Evans?"
"It was one time, Black."
"I think I know why you're going." he said with a knowing smile.
"Oh yeah? Why am I going to Hogsmeade?"
"Today is twenty seventh of March."
Lily's eyes widened. She hadn't told anyone about it, not even Marlene. There was no way, Sirius Black, of all people, could have found out.
Am I really that predictable?
"You will not tell him." she said, pointing a threatening finger at Sirius, who was smirking, "Or I'll make sure you'll regret the day you were born."
"What will you do, Flower? Give me detention? Dock house points?"
"I'll kick you were the sun doesn't shine." she said, trying (and failing) to be intimidating.
"Oh. Threat to valuable body parts." he said, nodding, "Impressive."
"I mean it, Sirius."
"Okay, okay. I won't tell him. Jeez, woman. Calm down." He gave the Marauders' map to her then. "Please don't lose it. Moony will murder me."
"Thanks." she said before following the map towards the tunnel to Hogsmeade.
As she sprinted down the dimly lit tunnel with only her wand showing her way ahead, Lily wondered what fifth year Lily would say to her now.
Look at you now, her old self would say, Breaking Merlin only knows how many school rules. For whom? A boy you claimed to hate for five years?
A boy I happen to like a lot, seventeen year old Lily would reply, quite proud at herself too, for admitting it without hesitation. She was past that stage now and was clearly aware that she was obviously attracted to a certain James Potter.
What happened to never falling for his charms?, younger Lily would ask.
It was inevitable, Lily would say, I couldn't help it. It was meant to happen.
After all, they had been through so much now. Five years of skirting around each other and pretending to be enemies. Somewhere along, she was bound to realize that everything had been leading up to this, to them.
Shaking her head, she smiled a bit. This wasn't part of her plan. Forgiving him? Yes, she had chosen that. But falling for him? That was out of her control.
Lily hadn't realized time passing, until she stood in front of the same shop she had walked into a few days before. This time it was a girl behind the counter.
"Excuse me?" Lily said.
The girl looked up, a polite smile on her round face. "Yes?"
"I was supposed to collect something from here today." Lily said, "I had ordered it about a week ago."
"Your name?" the girl asked.
"Lily Evans."
The girl then proceeded to take out a binder from the drawer, breezing through the pages in search of Lily's name. She then opened another drawer and pulled out a package wrapped in brown paper and handed it over to Lily.
"Do you want it gift wrapped?" the girl asked, holding up two sheets of wrapping paper - green and red.
"Green." Lily said, waiting impatiently. Red was her favourite, green was his. Like every other aspect of them - completely contrasting.
She checked the time - it was almost four. Which left her with at least an hour till the party would start.
Lily paid, it cost her almost all of her pocket money for the month, but still worth it, she thought and left the shop. It took her only fifteen minutes to be back in the castle.
She was skipping down the stairs, humming Fur Elise, when she felt like someone was following her. She should have checked the map, which would have been the best choice. But she brushed off the feeling as paranoia and continued walking.
Lily had just passed the Transfiguration class room, when she heard the voices. She turned around.
"Look who we've got here, Avery." Mulciber sneered, amber eyes glinting dangerously.
"Oh, it's the mudblood. Alone that too. Quite convenient." Avery remarked.
All four of them had their wands drawn. Lily's eyes darted from left to right in search of a way out only to realize that she was outnumbered and trapped.
Lily's hand immediately reached for the wand in her pocket. "Don't even dare come near me." she said, pointing her wand directly at the four boys. Her voice shook with nerves but she refused to step down in front of them. She wasn't about to let them have the satisfaction of knowing that they had cornered her.
"What will a helpless, fragile girl like you do?" Mcnair taunted, "You're outnumbered, sweety. It's four against one. And Potter isn't here to save his damsel in distress."
"I don't need anyone to protect me." she said and flicked her wand. The curse wasn't harmful but it was the first thing that came to her mind. The very spell she had seen James use on countless occasions. Mcnair hung upside down in the air, as if held on his ankles by an invisible force.
"That's the best you could come up with?" Avery asked, waving his wand lazily and Mcnair landed smoothly back on the floor.
Lily's mind was buzzing with thoughts. There was no way she could duel four of them at the same time. Yes, she was smart and good in charms. But she wasn't a dark arts expert to hold herself against them. She immediately cast a shield charm around her, moving back until her back hit the wall.
"Regulus?" Mulciber said, "Why don't we practice the new spell. We've got the perfect specimen to experiment it on."
Regulus stepped forward from the shadows and Lily saw how striking his resemblance to his brother was. They both had the same shiny, dark hair and blue-gray eyes. The only difference was that while Sirius had warm eyes with a persistent mischievous twinkle, Regulus's eyes were cold and expressionless. It looked like the life had been sucked out of them. While she was confident Sirius would never raise his wand against her, Regulus wouldn't hesitate to do it. Regulus wasn't there to help her like his brother would have been.
And even if for a moment, Lily felt relieved when Regulus looked uncertain.
"Fine." Avery said, "I'll do it if you don't want to."
Lily brought her hands up in front of her face, strengthening her shield charm but it was futile.
"Sectumsempra." Avery said and the curse pierced right through Lily's shield.
She fell to the floor, writhing in pain as every inch of her skin was slit with an invisible knife. Blood soaked through her shirt, pouring out in small rivelets across her ivory skin. She clutched on to the small green box in her hand as if it was her lifeline and screamed in pure agony.
~~~~~
"Where did she say she was going, Marlene?"
"I don't know, James." Marlene said, "She said it's something urgent."
"Don't worry, Prongs." Sirius said, "I gave her the map."
"Do you know where she went?" James asked Sirius.
"She asked me not to tell you."
James rolled his eyes. "Of course, she did."
"What are you so worked up about?" Marlene asked, "She'll be fine. She can take care of herself. She's Lily, for God's sake."
"I'm just having a really bad feeling about all this." James said, his forehead creased in worry.
"She'll be fine, mate."
James went back to staring at the clock, time ticking by, feeling oddly paranoid.
~~~~~
Lily didn't know how long she lay there, bleeding as her torturers watched on with triumphant, sadistic smiles until she heard a shrill female voice shouting.
"Stop it!" the voice said, "What are you doing?"
"You'll kill her. Stop it." another voice said. It sounded strangely familiar to Lily, though she couldn't quite place it.
"Regulus, go back to your common room." the girl said. Lily opened her eyes slightly and saw the girl kneeling in front of her bleeding body. She had blonde hair and blue eyes. For a fleeting moment, Lily thought it was Marlene. She leaned up on her elbows with whatever energy was left in her to look at her saviour.
Narcissa Black.
"Can you heal her?" Narcissa asked to the other person.
"I can try." the person said, "I'm not sure if it'll work."
Lily heard his voice clearly this time.
Severus?
Then she slumped back on to the floor as the rest of the energy drained from her body. She heard Severus mutter something, probably the counter-curse and felt the blood that was pooled around her rush back into her body. The wounds were closing slowly, agonizingly slowly. Her fingers were still wrapped painfully around the box. And then Lily looked down at herself and saw that now there was no sign that she had been tortured merely minutes ago, except for the fact that she still couldn't see or think properly because of the blood loss.
"I'll take her back to Gryffindor tower." Narcissa said to Severus, "Take Regulus with you. Don't let anyone know about him. I'll talk to Dumbledore."
Then Lily was being lifted gently from the floor by her arms and once she was back on her feet, she was leaning on to Narcissa for support.
"I'm taking you to your common room, okay?" Narcissa said. Lily managed to nod weakly at her. Narcissa was shorter and leaner than Lily and with every passing moment, walking was becoming even more difficult.
"What is your name?" Narcissa asked, voice strained from supporting Lily's weight.
"Lily Evans." Her voice too was scratchy and hoarse from the screaming.
"Muggleborn?"
Lily nodded again. She couldn't find the energy to open her mouth to reply. She could barely feel her body. Everything was numb, frozen.
Somehow, they managed to make it to the portrait of the Fat Lady.
"Can you go from here?" Narcissa asked, "I have to inform Dumbledore as fast as possible."
Once again, Lily nodded at her and turned to the door. The Fat Lady, seeing Lily's condition, let her in without asking for the password. She stumbled into the common room and saw the Marauders, Marlene and Mary waiting for her. They turned at the sound of the door opening and Lily's vision blurred again.
The last thing she saw before she blacked out was James and Sirius running towards her.
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A/N : Cliffhanger? Kind of. Sorry about the short chapter but I really wanted to end it there itself.
I honestly hate this chapter. I'd much rather write about James's pranks or Sirius's flirting than my favourite character being tortured. But it was needed for the plot, so here it is.
This chapter was supposed to be up on 27th March but my exams got in the way and messed with my schedule.
Any guesses what is in the green box?
See that lonely golden star at the corner? It'd be nice if you clicked on it.
Have a great day/night!!
~Lianna