If I Die Young

Disclaimer: I own absolutely nothing from the Harry Potter universe. This fanfiction is written purely for entertainment purposes and nothing more, though all ideas and writing are done by me and belong to me.

A/N: Hi, all. Quarantine is kicking my butt. I've been so stir crazy, I haven't even wanted to write, which is ironic since now I have all the time in the world to do so. Anyway, last chapter was pretty dark, and unfortunately there will be an increasing number of "dark times" ahead of us from here on out, although I will definitely focus on the good times as well. With Voldemort rising, the world is about to get pretty bleak, but there's always light at the end of the tunnel, just like with this stupid virus.

Enjoy!

—Annie.

XV

1979

Part Two

When the night was full of terrors
And your eyes were filled with tears
When you had not touched me yet
Oh, take me back to the night we met

"The Night We Met" - Lord Huron

(i see hell in your eyes)

"Where were you?"

Her voice is brittle and weak. James squeezes his fingers around hers - in comfort, in desperation...she can't tell.

"Alice and I were investigating a lead," James tells her and her green eyes narrow.

"A lead," she repeats dully. The pain medication has made her numb. "For work or for the Order?"

He pinches the bridge of his nose and inhales deeply, not meeting her eyes. "Both."

She nods stiffly and pulls her fingers from his, resting them on the hospital blanket folded over her abdomen. "How come no one else in the Order knew about this 'lead'? How come you didn't call for any back up? Does Dumbledore know?"

"It came up suddenly while Alice and I were working and we didn't have time - "

"Sure," Lily cuts him off curtly, flinching against the hoarseness in her throat. "You didn't think it would be smart to alert anyone else in the Order. Impulsive, as always. Might I remind you that you don't give the orders. You are not in charge."

"Lily, I had no idea what was going to happen to you or that someone would come after you. You were supposed to be with Remus and Sirius all night, and Marlene - "

There's a scoff from the hallway that Lily knows is Marlene eavesdropping.

"I was with Sirius and Remus and Marlene and they came after me anyway." Lily breaks off hastily to grab a throb at the side of her skull. She sucks in a deep, steadying breath and continues more calmly. "What happened to me doesn't even matter - it's clear now someone was just trying to distract your team so they could wreak havoc elsewhere - I'm positive we will hear about the real threat from Dumbledore later - even I can see that and I'm just an advice columnist."

James opens his mouth but promptly shuts it at the menacing look on Lily's face.

"You clearly pissed some Death Eaters off recently, why else would they target me specifically? Honestly, how could you be so stupid? You could have been walking into a trap."

"I never would have gone dark for so long if - "

"I'm your wife, James," Lily seethes, eyes snapping upward to skewer him with a glare. "I deserve to know when you're going to go dark, even if I'm not speaking to you."

"You're right," he apologizes for the tenth time, head hanging low.

Someone clears their throat from across the room. Lily spots Sirius and Remus standing at the doorway, looking disappointed and angry, Marlene lingering a distance behind them, her face ruby red and puffy. They'd obviously overheard their conversation.

"So, you're just tackling everything on your own now because you lot are big bad Aurors now, is that it? Don't think us lowly folk have got what it takes?" Sirius spits furiously. "We are in this war, too, you know."

Remus frowns deeply at James.

"How could you and Alice not even brief Dumbledore? You think he doesn't know what you two have done?"

"You, I can understand being so stupid, but Alice?" Marlene scoffs indignantly, shaking her head violently against an onslaught of fresh tears. "Where is she? You didn't get her killed, did you?"

James bristles at Marlene's comment and Lily's first instinct is to defend him but she bites her tongue instead, setting her jaw stubbornly. She pulls her hand away from James' grip. It startles him and he glances imploringly between his wife and his comrades.

"She's with Frank," Remus pipes in softly and when everyone shifts their eyes to him he shrugs and explains, "I sent a patronus to update her on the situation and ask if she's safe. She feels horrible, asked if she could come see you, Lil - "

Lily swallows painfully and shakes her head, her hands drifting to her damaged abdomen. "I - I don't - "

"She needs rest," James answers for her. "In fact, you should all leave and let her get some sleep."

Lily simmers, green eyes flashing ominously against the harsh florescent light of the infirmary. "You don't get to speak for me, especially not right now."

"Lily - "

Lily feels like she's going to burst - going to scream. James inches closer, quietly urging her to his side.

"Get out!" she finally releases, shoving James away from her. "All of you, just get the hell out and leave me alone."

Her friends are astonished by her outburst and Healer Mallory pokes her head into the room to check on her, alarmed by the escalation. Lily can't bear to look at any of them as her healer ushers everyone out of the room.

"I'm her husband," James protests hotly, jerking against Healer Mallory's grip. "Lily, come on. Don't shut me out, not right now."

"Where have you been these past few weeks, hmm? It's more than just working overtime, James. You've become obsessed with the chase and it is clouding every other aspect of your life," Lily grinds out. "Is it being an auror? Are you trying to prove something to someone? You're not your damn father."

"Lily, please, I've just been trying to help. To do my part."

"Yeah, and what about doing your part as a husband and a friend? Where's your sense of duty to us?" Lily snarls back and even she is alarmed by the viciousness in her tone. " Don't you get it, James? I needed you weeks ago, long before I left you, and you weren't here. I don't want you here now."

She can't bear the look on his face as he deflates and finally allows the healer to wrangle him out of her hospital suite, leaving Lily alone with her demons.

(what's in your head, zombie)

Lily is discharged into her husband's care two days later and she's too tired to be angry with him any longer. She is on so many potions she has to be carried up the front steps to their cottage. Healer Mallory has sent them home with a slew of medications and resources for trauma counseling, which Lily promptly tosses in the waste basket once she has the energy to move around by herself.

James brings her dinner in bed and places a kiss on her forehead. He looks confused and sad when she flinches at his touch.

It's not you, it's that monster...I'm... sorry, she says silently. She tries to squeeze his hand but she can't make her fingers move. Instead, she shivers. She's not even cold.

"I'll fetch you a blanket," James comforts.

When he comes back to the bedroom, she's in the shower with the heat up as far as it will manage and the door fastened closed in a message that she wants to be left alone.

The steam curls around her, warming her, but still she cannot stop the shivering. She scrubs and scrubs and scrubs until her arms and legs are raw. Until she can't see the bruises anymore. Until she can't feel him anymore.

James eventually uses his wand to break into the bathroom and retrieve her. The water has long since turned cold and her lips are blue and she is still shivering.

"You'll get better," he promises, resting her on their mattress. He charms her with a warming spell and changes the bloodied dressings on her abdomen, applies the ointment, sits her up and feeds her one of her many potions - she's lost track of which one.

"Sleep well, love," James whispers and Lily can tell he wants to kiss her.

He doesn't.

Stay, Lily pleads silently, but her eyes are already drifting closed against the potion's lull and he's a blurry silouette in the doorway.

The door clicks shut upon his departure and his footfalls on the stairs are the lullaby that drifts her to sleep.

(i'll drill through your hands)

There's a monster under her bed.

He's stalking her dreams and making her scream.

"Lily, you need to sleep," James urges, growing worried. "Your body needs to heal."

All she can do is shake her head and clutch his shirt with steel fingers.

Healer Mallory orders a new dose of sleeping draught, made specifically to help against nightmares. It's a bright, electric blue and tastes like cough syrup. That night she walks straight out the back door of their small kitchen, barefoot in the snow. A search party is enlisted to help find her.

Sirius finds her the next morning, wandering Hogsmeade with glassy eyes.

"I think she's sleepwalking," he croaks when he returns Lily to James. "It's scary... You should talk to her doctor."

"That can be an adverse reaction to that potion, sometimes," Healer Mallory explains.

The next potion is a deep violet that causes Lily to sleep like the dead for the first time in days. Alice stops by to check on her but Lily doesn't stir for her friend. She leaves a vase of daisies on her bedside table.

"She looks like a corpse, James," Alice worries when she takes her leave. "I'm worried."

Lily doesn't wake up for two full days, until James is forced to dump a bucket of ice cold water over her. She flings awake with a shattered cry, scratching and lashing with what little strength she has until James is forced to petrify her and wipe the blood from his face. She shrieks and snaps and snarls and doesn't stop screaming and gnashing her teeth like a wild beast once that evening. James forces her into restraints and sits in the corner of the room, shaking in sobs, watching her writhe and curse.

Healer Mallory cancels that prescription immediately and writes up another. "She won't attack you like that anymore, not while taking this."

This one quells the impulses, the frantic anxiety, the fits. It makes her gratifyingly and horrifyingly numb - she gloriously can't feel anything. She stares out the bedroom window for two hours straight that morning. She begins to wonder if she's even alive.

James only realizes something is wrong when he hears the shattering of glass and finds Lily in the upstairs loo, the antique mirror above their sink smashed into bits. Glass protrudes from her skin, scarlet droplets flowering down her forearms and streaming onto the tile.

"Why are you laughing?" he demands, shaking her madly. "This isn't funny!"

Was she laughing? How interesting.

"She just needs a little bit longer to adjust," James assures her boss after her third missed week of work.

After that, James demands Lily be given a different healer.

"No more medicine," he declares and digs the trauma counseling pamphlet out of the trash before dumping each brightly colored vial down the drain.

Lily slowly begins to withdraw from her potions and the fog lifts for the first time since she's been home.

"Thank God," James warbles when her eyes begin to brighten and she speaks for the very first time in three weeks - a small, timid "Ja - am - es?". "You had me so frightened. Don't ever leave me like that again, Evans."

"Potter," she releases with a chap-lipped smile. "My name is Potter."

She thankfully - finally - has the presence of mind to catch him when he falls to his knees and leaves her sweat stained with tears.

(there's a hole)

"I... I missed Christmas?"

James nods somberly, pointing to the calendar tacked to their kitchen cupboard. "And New Years."

He's moved the flowers Alice had dropped off to the kitchen windowsill so they could gather some sunshine. Even so, they were wilting away with time. Lily rubs a petal between her thumb and index finger, worshiping the feel of nature on her pale, cold skin.

"It's almost February," she whispers in awe.

"Everyone's been so worried." James clears his throat against a bubbling of emotion. "The girls wanted to throw you a birthday celebration, but we didn't know if you would be up for it."

Lily's lips pop open. "My birthday."

"It's tomorrow, love."

She'd forgotten her own birthday.

"My parents - your parents," Lily realizes slowly, turning toward her husband. He'd let his facial hair go untouched and his hair was far longer than he usually let it get. Dark circles lined his eyes. "We were supposed to spend Christmas with my dad. What about your parents annual New Years celebration?"

"Canceled," James explains, cupping her cheek.

"What? Why?" Lily exclaims. "Not because of me, surely?"

James doesn't respond.

"You can't just cancel an entire holiday - two holidays - "

"Oh, shut up," James exhales with a wobbly chuckle, pulling her into his chest.

She inhales his scent greedily - smoky sandalwood and homey baked bread and newly polished leather - and presses a kiss into his chest.

"I've missed you," she releases with a frown, winding her too thin arms around his waist. She can feel his ribs.

(laid to rest)

Lily celebrates her birthday at her cottage in an armchair and tries not to cry at the outpouring of love she receives from her small circle of friends. They wrap around her with urgency, full of grateful tears and warm hugs and encouraging words.

"You cut your hair!" exclaims Marlene, grasping Lily's claret locks.

Lily's fingers snake up to her hair, finds it choppy and short, just above her clavicle now. It used to reach her ribs. "I... I did?"

Her eyes find James from across the room and he looks down at the woven rug beneath his wool socks. Remus shifts uncomfortably in his armchair by the fireplace. Dorcas coughs quietly into her hand from her place next to the bookcase. Peter taps his index finger against the coffee table he's seat cross legged in front of.

"What?" she presses.

"You cut it the night - the night when you smashed the mirror," James explains reluctantly.

Lily blinks, lips open in awe. "I - I smashed a mirror?" She fingers her short locks with wonder. "I cut my hair?"

James clears his throat, his Adam's apple bobbing up and down.

"Why would I do that?" Lily wonders out loud, searching the room for an answer.

"I - I can't - " James stammers, backing out of the den.

"Prongs," Sirius starts, but James is already headed towards the staircase.

"I'm sorry, I just - I can't - "

"James, wait," Alice calls after him.

Lily blinks, stunned.

"Is he okay?" Peter wonders, pulling himself up to his knees. His voice is squeaky and small, just how Lily remembers it. "Should we go after him?"

Peter glances between Remus and Sirius, as if seeking encouragement, but both men remain silent, staring hard at the fireplace. Things clearly hadn't been completely resolved between the marauders since the scene at the hospital.

"I'll talk to him," Alice offers after a pause, getting to her feet.

"No," Dorcas orders, grabbing her milky white hand. "Just let him be alone for a minute."

The bedroom door shuts with a hollow thud that causes Lily to jump, a small gasp fleeing her chest. Peter reaches for her hand, gives it a reassuring squeeze, as if reminding her that she's safe.

Marlene claps her hands together and heads toward the kitchen. "Who wants some birthday cake?"

"And drinks," Sirius adds, coming out of his stony trance. "I brought booze."

This breaks the ice and chatter begins to fill the cottage once more.

When Lily blows out her nineteen birthday candles, she wishes for James.

But he doesn't come out of the bedroom for the rest of the celebration.

(don't leave me behind)

Lily starts therapy at the beginning of February and by Valentine's day she's cleared to go back to work. She sends flowers to James's office and makes him a souffle for dinner that evening. He's home promptly at six with a box of rum infused chocolates and a bottle of her favorite wine.

"Will you sleep in our bed tonight?" she asks him as they are clearing the dishes together.

He pauses.

"Please?" she presses. "I miss you next to me."

"Are you sure you're ready?" he hedges. "You haven't - "

"I'm better now," she ensures him, taking his hand. "I have to try to move on from what happened."

"I don't know if I can move on," James admits almost brokenly, pulling his hand free. He turns his back. "I'm going to watch some telly for a bit. Thanks for dinner."

Lily's eyes begin to water as he heads to the den and flips on their television.

There's a frigid distance between them that she's never experienced before and it terrifies her.

"Happy Valentine's," she mumbles sadly after she finishes tidying the kitchen, giving him a long kiss on the forehead. "I love you, James."

She is awoken by the shifting of the mattress later that evening. James sighs as he settles in next to her and Lily snuggles into his chest. She can hear his heart thrumming against her cheek.

"I love you, too, Lils," he whispers, kissing her hair. "Happy Valentine's."

Lily smiles sleepily and resists the urge to cry.

It's a start.

(however big, however small)

By mid March, Lily has fallen into a steady rhythm again.

She sees a healer twice a week for trauma therapy and finds it tremendously helpful to speak to someone outside of her circle, someone with no judgement. Healer Marlowe is a kind and studious middle aged man with four children that he keeps a photo of on his office desk at St. Mungos. He plays absentmindedly with his wedding ring during their sessions and offers her a salt water taffy before she leaves each time.

Between therapy sessions, she attends yoga with Dorcas and Alice once a week on a regular basis and Marlene often meets up with them for dinner and drinks afterward.

Lily put on her favorite records and deep cleans the cottage every Saturday morning while James goes on a run with Frank Longbottom. She and Alice go to church together once a month.

James and Lily still brush their teeth together each night.

Things are finally starting to look up.

(i think of what the world could be)

Dorcas goes to Lily's follow up appointment with her.

"I don't want to concern James with any of this on his birthday," Lily explains lightly.

A healer comes in with Lily's chart floating nearby. She's younger than Healer Mallory and much kinder.

"I'm Healer DeLuca," the woman greets the two women with a brilliant white smile and a firm handshake.

Lily feels at ease with her. She doesn't even flinch when DeLuca lifts Lily's blouse and begins to palpate her mostly healed abdomen. She runs a few tests with her wand and then makes a clicking noise between her teeth that catches Docas's attention.

"What is it?" Dorcas immediately presses and Lily chuckles, rolling her eyes at her friend.

"Dor, please don't interrogate my doctor," Lily chides jokingly but when she catches the look on DeLuca's face, her heart trembles.

"Wait, is something actually wrong?"

"I'm sure it's nothing, dear," encourages Healer DeLuca calmly, brushing Lily's shoulder. "I'm just going to run a few more tests, just to be sure."

Lily's hands begin to shake and instantly Dorcas is at her side, taking her hands into hers, steadying her.

"Breathe, Sunflower," she coaches, rubbing her thumb against Lily's prickly skin.

What seems like an eternity later, Healer DeLuca finally stops her tests. With a wave of her wand, she conjures a rolling stool and seats herself upon it, rolling closer to Lily. She rests her olive hands on the medical table and inhales deeply through her nose, as if readying herself for something.

"Just tell me," Lily demands, unable to blink. Unable to breathe.

(how can we rewrite the stars?)

"I can't have children," Lily repeats lifelessly.

Healer DeLuca reaches for Lily's hand and shakes her head firmly.

"That's not what I said, dear. I said that there may be some complications in bearing children."

"Because of my injury," Lily deadpanned.

Dorcas had stopped rubbing circles into Lily's hand.

"Correct," DeLuca affirms. "You've developed quite a lot of internal scar tissue where the curses were inflicted. I just want you to be prepared for a struggle."

Lily swallows harshly, reaching for her scarred abdomen. She shakes her head. Hadn't that monster taken enough?

"But - but... we just got married," Lily balks. "We haven't even discussed children yet."

DeLuca nods with support. "I understand this comes as quite a shock. I can give you a moment."

When her healer leaves the room, Lily turns to Dorcas.

"I can't do this to him, Dor," Lily says, on the verge of tears. "Not today. Maybe not ever."

"You aren't doing anything to him, honey. This was done to you," Dorcas consoles. "But you do need to tell him. He deserves to know what's going on with his wife."

"What if he leaves me?" Lily frets, plucking at a loose thread on her blouse. "I may not be able to give him children, Dorcas. James is the type of person who will want kids and now I can't give him that. I haven't even had a chance to think about being a parent, Dor. I'm nineteen and I'm already barren."

"Lily, you don't know that for sure," Dorcas reminds her and then sighs. "You're spiraling. Take some deep breaths for me, like we practice in yoga."

Lily does as her friends instructs, inhaling deeply through her nose and exhaling slowly through her mouth.

"Okay, I'll tell him," Lily insists. "Just not today. I won't ruin his birthday."

By Dorcas's encouragement, she takes Lily to an emergency meeting with Healer Marlowe once her follow up appointment is finished and Lily spends a good two hours processing the news with her therapist.

When Dorcas and Lily return to the Potter cottage in Hogsmeade and begin to set up for James's party, they are exhausted and emotionally depleted.

But they smile widely anyway when James appears in the Floo and shout, "Surprise!" with the rest of the guests, as if there were nothing wrong in the world.

Not. One. Thing.

(if i just lay here)

That night, long after the guests have left and James is giddy with whiskey, they find themselves in each other's arms for the first time in months.

James kisses like he's been dying of thirst and Lily is his oasis in the desert, his breath hot and tongue dripping in a sweet cinnamon from the whiskey. Lily responds to his hand with an arch of her spine, her pulse fluttering sporadically. He groans into her hair as he lowers her onto the bed and falls upon her, littering the exposed part of her chest with a trail of molten kisses, kneading and squeezing and re-familiarizing. The intensity of it lights something sticky hot within her abdomen that makes Lily both excited and incredibly panicked all at once.

"James," she gasps breathlessly against his neck, twining her fingers through his riotous black hair.

His other hand, restless and exploitative and demanding, travel down to her waist, wanders feverishly under the cotton of her shirt.

And then suddenly Lily's heart crashes to a halt and she feels bile surging up her esophagus. The air is suddenly thick and heavy with sweat and blood thrums loudly, abrasively, in her ears, like a war drum. Her palms grow clammy against James's shirt and her lungs short out.

"St - st - o - p - " Lily stammers, breaking their heated kiss with a gasp, but she doesn't think James hears her. He begins to kiss down her neck and Lily's pulse accelerates in panic. She jams her eyes shut against the onslaught of memory.

"Ja - mes - st - op - " Lily heaves out.

She grabs the hand inching its way under her blouse and yanks it away from her. James startles, ripping himself away from Lily in surprise.

"I can't - " Lily wriggles out from under him and crawls across the bed, reeling for air, wheezing as if her lungs are about to collapse in on themselves.

"Shit," James breathes, coming to realization. "Lily, I'm sorry - "

Lily clenches her eyelids shut, begging herself not to cry, not right now.

Please, God, not now.

"It's not you - " Lily trembles.

But she flinches as James reaches for her and that's all it takes. He shuts down immediately and backs away.

"Fuck," he releases.

Angrily. Brokenly. Guiltily.

"James, please don't - "

She reaches for him but he shakes his head, eyeing her. Lily follows his gaze, notices her shirt has ridden up in a way that exposes the scarred part of her abdomen. Her head falls and her cheeks flush red. She tugs her shirt down with a trembling hand, ashamed.

She feels so ugly.

Damaged.

How could he ever look at her the same?

"I'm so stupid," he mutters, raking a hand through his hair. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have - "

He disappears into the bathroom and moments later she hears the shower-head kick on. By the time he's done showering the stress away, she's cried herself to sleep.

(help me out of this hell)

"It will take time for things to return to normal in regards to your intimate relationship," Healer Marlowe informs Lily.

"I want to be close to him again," Lily sobs. Marlowe hands her a tissue with a sympathetic nod. "I just... I don't know how."

"You were brutally attacked, Lily," Marlowe reminds her calmly. "The man that did this to you is deranged."

"But I'm fine, now," she insists with frustration. "I trust James. It's been months since the attack. He's my husband."

Healer Marlowe sighs as Lily blows her nose aggressively into the tissue she'd been offered.

"You have PTSD, Lily. Your brain sometimes can't process things as it normally would have before you experienced trauma. You need to remember to be patient with yourself."

"Screw being patient!" she erupts, sending the tissue box sailing toward the wall. It knocks a framed diploma sideways.

Marlowe suggests re-learning how to be comfortable with her own body, first.

Lily spends the entire evening in the bathroom, looking at her new body in the repaired mirror. She's much skinnier than she used to be and her short hair needs to be layered and styled. And of course, there's the matter of her scars. Scars that would never go away no matter how many custom made ointments she bought at the shops in Diagon Alley.

"You're pretty," she told her reflection, almost threateningly.

Her frown deepens as she moves her hand to her stomach, grazes her scars. Her eyes bulge with moisture and a rock forms in her throat.

"No," she grinds out, glaring at herself. "No."

She presses her hand firmly on her stomach and sucks in a shuddering breath.

"You are strong," she states bitingly to the frightened woman in the mirror. "You are not a victim. You never have been and you refuse to be now."

She whips her wand out and charms her hair into short, carefully cut layers. Pinches her cheeks for some color - perhaps she should get a tan once the weather warms up. Still not satisfied, she strips completely bare in front of the mirror, kicking her clothes to the side.

"I hate you," she hiccups at herself. "You're pathetic. Weak."

Her throat tightens at the intrusive thoughts.

Mudblood whore.

Troublesome bint.

Bitch.

Worthless worm.

Swine.

My whore.

"I'm not yours," Lily hisses vehemently.

Her lungs explode and she screams at the top of her lungs, chucking her wand across the bathroom.

"Lily?" comes James's frightened voice from the other side of the door. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," she replies brightly. "Thought I saw a spider, is all. Just a piece of lint."

James is silent, un-moving behind the barrier of the door. Eventually, he sighs and retreats, leaving Lily alone again.

She remains in front of the mirror, determined to take her body back for herself, scars and all.

End of XV: 1979

Part Two

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