Five Lines

Disclaimer: I own nothing but the not there plot. :D

The wind was harsh, and the night was cold as Lily Evans sat with her back against the cold stone wall of the tallest tower in Hogwarts. Her dark auburn hair was flying around her small delicate face, sticking to her flushed cheeks and nose. She closed her eyes as she reached her small hand out to grab the neck of a bottle; bringing the glass to her lips she took a large gulp, savoring the burning feeling of the firewhiskey sliding down her throat.

Her emerald green eyes opened slowly and her mouth opened to let out a short anguished cry to the dark heavens. She slowly lowered the bottle and picked up a pack of cigarettes from beside her, and the red lighter beside the pack. The red head then slowly pulled a single cigarette from the pack before lighting it, and taking a long slow deliberate drag.

Staring up at the black sky Lily released the smoke from her lungs watching as it swirled up like a fog into the sky. Taking another long drag the girl sighed and the smoke once again spiraled heavily around her, shielding her from the world.

After an elongated silence filled with heavy sighs and grey smoke, the small woman put out her cigarette against the stone, before throwing it across the tower. Washing her mouth out with another gulp of alcohol, the pretty girl put down the almost empty bottle and picked up a silver knife.

The blade was a sharp and threatening silver, and the handle was an intricately carved lion, with eyes that were glimmering rubies. Lily looked at her wrist where four scars sat in even row along her forearm.

The first was made by her eleven year old self, when she lost her best friend, her confidant, her sister. Her shy self had been devastated, when the only person she would talk to, left her to suffer by herself in a new world. She had taken the lion blade that her father had given her and made a cut straight across her arm.

The second scar was made in Lily's third year when she first met James Potter's wrath, he had asked her out in front of the whole school in the great hall. She had turned him down nicely and in her usual shy fashion when he said, "who would want to go out with you anyway Evans."

She had retreated to her dorm room to make the second cut across her otherwise pale and perfect skin.

The third marring was from fifth year made from, her best friend since Petunia left her, Severus Snape. James bloody Potter was teasing and showing off again when it all happened. Some immature shouts and hexes and then it came…that word. That awful word coming from the mouth of her best friend, the one person that she would trust with her life… had betrayed her.

"Mudblood."

Her blood was mud, she wasn't worthy of being a witch…she had told him that it had hurt her, what she hadn't said is that she believed it. She new that her blood was dirty, it was stained, it wasn't pure…it was gross and disgusting. So when she made the third cut across her forearm she imagined the blood, the blood filled with streams of dark brown mud.

The fourth cut was made because of her; her own body caused this thin pink line. In sixth year she had been sitting in the great hall, eating her dinner, when Sirius Black yelled across the table at her.

"Bugger Evans, got a mountain on your plate, yeah" He and James laughed and Lily shoot an automatic reply that didn't even register in her mind. She immediately rushed out of the great hall and up to her dorm, staring at herself in the mirror. Her perfect body wasn't what she saw, she saw fat. She saw flab hanging over her bones and over the bands of her clothes. She saw it jiggling and swaying as she pinched and prodded. Lily ran into the loo and threw up her dinner and lunch, before finding her knife hidden deep in her trunk and making that fourth cut.

Finally here and now the fifth cut. She slowly pressed the sliver blade against the white of her skin and watched as the deep blood leaked from the skin and began to drip hotly across her arm. Black clouded the outskirts of her vision a mixture of the smoke, alcohol, and cut. Lily didn't even hear the door to the tower open, so she opened her eyes wide hoping to last another few seconds before she knew the black spots in her vision would cloud over.

She let out a loud scream to the heavens, a scream filled with anguish, terror, and pain. Then it was gone, left with a defending silence as the small girl slumped against the wall, passed out.

Two strong arms lifted her easily from her pathetic spot on the ground and carried her effortlessly from the tower all the way to hospital wing. The male set her down upon a sterile white bed and went to get the nurse, making sure she was taken care of.

Then he made his way back to the tower and with a flick of his wand all evidence of Lily's late night excursion was gone.

Then James Potter made his way back to the hospital wing and sat next to the girl's bed. He reached for her hand when he noticed the cuts, the fifth clotting and getting ready to scar. He brought his lips to her arm and kissed each cut softly, tears falling from his hazel eyes.

"I promise you Lily Evans, that you will never be pained like this again. I will protect you and keep you safe, and love you…even if you don't realize it."

He gently stroked her hair, running his long digits through it slowly. He watched as she breathed slowly through her open mouth. He leaned down and placed his lips upon hers gently before pulling back and running a free hand through his black messy locks.

Tears formed in the tall mans eyes, and as they began to fall… he fell to his knees and buried his face into the comatose girls side, his tears soaking the white sheets, and his sobs racking the empty hospital wing.

The scars fade. Always there to be remembered, to know that it was real, but also there to remind her that it was over. It had been over, for a long time. The last thing she saw were the green eyes of her son and the five straight scars across her wrist before she made the last decision of her life…and the most important.

To save a life, a life that was needed far more than her own;

Harry Potter…the boy who lived, her son.

Fin