A/N: I never planned to post this year, as I am still on my exchange in Belgium, but, well, homesickness hits at the worst times and makes people do unplanned things. But because I am posting, and I am in Belgium, on a foreign computer, without Microsoft Word, or good-old American spell-check, please be nice. As my French gets better, I'm seeing my English get worse...

Chapter Sixteen: Response

Everything was fuzzy. Were things supposed to be fuzzy? Lily wasn't sure. Lily tried to clear her mind. She could feel something touching—was it her hand? She couldn't be sure as her whole body felt detached and jumbled. She'd have to open her eyes to make sure. Now how was that done again? Oh yeah.

Lily pried her eyes open and blinked drunkenly at the figure lying over her hand. It had messy brown—no it should be black, Lily corrected herself—hair and its glasses were pressed lopsidedly against its nose and right side.

"James?" Lily whispered. Her throat was coated with phlegm and her voice cracked mid-word.

James lifted his head, his eyes unfocused before they snapped to his wife's groggy gaze and relief spread across his face, burning away the worry and despair. "You're awake! Thank Merlin. Poppy said—" he broke off and pulled his love to his chest. He was mumbling into her hair, but Lily was too muddled to understand him.

All too soon for the couple, Poppy appeared to shoo James away. Lily didn't want him to go, but she couldn't muster the strength to argue with the intimidating healer.

"How are you feeling?" Poppy asked, not unkindly. Lily tried to sit up, but Poppy stopped her. "Oh no you don't. You gave us all a right scare. You've been unconscious for almost a week, you know."

"A week?" Lily sputtered. "I have to check on the girls. My classes…" She made to get up, but Poppy held her back again.

"I assure you the twins are perfectly fine with Mr. Weasley and Professor Lupin has your classes well under control."

"I should still—"

"No!" Poppy ordered sharply, shutting Lily up for the moment. She sighed and clicked her tongue. "And people think the young Mr. Potter gets his irrational fear of the hospital wing from his father. Really, Professor, did you truly believe I didn't know?" she added, seeing Lily's stunned expression.

Her scolding effectively shocked the resolve to escape out of Lily. She had been so careful! She'd even had James transform her hair and adjust her cheekbones to make sure it would be good (transfiguration had always been her weakest subject) and when Poppy had delivered the twins, she'd made an effort to use James' alias even when she was cursing him to high heaven.

"Why didn't you say something before?" she finally managed to squeak.

Madame Pomfrey held out a potion, having used Lily's momentary stillness to cast multiple diagnostic spells over the professor. "It never came up. Now take this."

Lily swallowed the disgusting potion. "How did you know?" she asked when the "liquid" had slid sufficiently down her throat.

"After all the lies I get told working in a place like this! It takes more than a good spell or two to fool this old witch!" Poppy exclaimed, using her wand to tuck in the covers of Lily's bed so tightly Lily wouldn't be able to get up even if she tried.

Lily wanted to continue her interrogation, but the potion she'd drunk—a sleeping drought, she suddenly recalled—was starting to take affect. Her eyelids dropped even as she fought to stay awake. She lasted only a couple more seconds before she was drawn into oblivion.

OOOOOOO

"Mummy, Mummy, Mummy!"

Lily's eyes flung open at her daughters' chorus the next morning. She only had time to sit up before two bundles of energy jumped onto her bed.

"Fawnies! What did I tell you?"

Lily looked over Mary's dark red head to see her handsome (even under his disguise he was sexy enough to make her heart skip a beat) husband. He looked considerably better with a good night's sleep. The bags under his eyes that had accumulated over a week of worry were smaller, if not entirely gone. He'd shaved and his robes were a startling but regal purple. Under normal circumstances, Lily would have berated him for not dressing in the standard black required for teachers, but she loved the color and she knew he'd worn them for her. The thought made her heart flutter again.

"Hello, my dears!" Lily cried, dropping her gaze from her, quite frankly, perfect husband, to smile at her twins.

"Mummy!" Daisy gasped, hugging her mother tighter. "We missed you so, so much," she said, while Mary nodded fervently along.

"We all missed you," James added, leaning over his daughters to give his wife a kiss. "Don't ever do that to us again," he whispered into her ear.

"Yeah, 'cause we didn't like it," Mary spoke.

Lily smiled and shook her head, overjoyed to see her family around her. The joy was hampered, however, when Lily suddenly remembered that her whole family wasn't there. Her son wasn't with them. But, she forced herself to remember, soon he would be. She and James were only waiting for the right time to tell him. Though she knew the longer they waited the harder it would be, they were terrified that he would reject them. They had waited almost six years; they could wait another few weeks. At least, Lily hoped she could.

Lily was pulled out of her thoughts by Daisy sitting up and bouncing on her legs. "When will you be out of here, Mummy?"

"This place is scary," Mary added, her voice low.

Lily laughed and pulled them closer. "I know, but I'll be out soon."

"Oh," they both said at almost the same time. There was silence for a second before James had to break it.

"Pansy," the name still felt strange on his tongue, even after years of use, "I am sorry, but I have to go."

Lily looked up. "Why?"

"Classes. I wish I could stay—"

"No, of course not," Lily broke in. She wanted her husband to remain with her, but her rational side knew she couldn't deprive his students of his tutorage. Knowing him, he'd probably been neglecting them the past week also. "I'll be fine."

James kissed her again. "I love you."

"I love you too." Lily looked down at her girls again. They'd been watching the exchange with rare patience. "Do you want to go with Daddy?"

"No. We want to stay with you," Mary said while Daisy answered, "We've been with Ron all week."

"Really?" Lily wasn't surprised, but she was a little disappointed that her husband hadn't been watching them. Then again, she reasoned, if James were the one in the hospital bed, she probably wouldn't have been as attentive as she would have liked. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw James hesitate at the door, watching his daughters and wife, before he left for his seventh year class. "Were you good?"

"Of course, Mummy," Daisy replied.

"What did you do?"

Daisy and Mary exchanged a look. "We listened to Ron, and did everything Hermione told us."

Lily didn't like the sound of that. "What did she tell you?"

"Nothing," they both said at once.

Lily raised her eyebrow and focused her attention on Mary, as she was the one most likely to crack. It only took a few seconds. "We gave back Harry's laces and we listened to her, even though the book was boring." Lily fought not to laugh at the shared expression of disgust on both of their faces.

"I helped Ron beat Harry and Mary in chess!" Daisy suddenly broke in.

"We would have won!" her twin shot back. "But Harry's castle-thingy and horsey moved the wrong way."

"I bet they did," Lily moderated. She loved listening to her babies tell her stories. It was one of the many things she missed about not being able to raise Harry. The knife in her chest reared again before dulling back into the subtle ache of longing. She hadn't noticed his absence so much in years.

"Uncle Moony told us stories. Did you know Daddy and Uncle Moony and Uncle Padfoot is the Marauders?"

Lily was about to correct Daisy's grammar when she realized the twins had just used the Mauraders' names. James had of course told them about their 'uncles' but she didn't remember him ever using their pack-names; he'd once confessed that it hurt too much. Yet another question that needed answering.

"Uncle Moony says Uncle Padfoot's—" Daisy was interrupted by Madame Pomfrey appearing all at once at Lily's bedside.

"Your mother needs her rest," the healer said. "Mr. Weasley should be here any moment now."

"But we haven't told her about how Hermione made Ron's chessboard bite him—"

"She says he should've be working," Mary finished.

"He should've been working," Lily corrected automatically.

"You can tell her all about Miss Granger's spell-work and Mr. Weasley's laziness when you come back in a few hours. Don't you want your mother to get out of here soon?" Madame Pomfrey replied, once again demonstrating near-Dumbledore-ish omniscience.

OOOOOO

Ron had already been and taken the twins and Lily had fallen into a bored (Madame Pomfrey had firmly deigned her request to get a book) stupor, when Professor Dumbledore appeared at the doors of the wing.

The medi-witch was already at the door, forbidding the headmaster entrance, before Lily could think. "No Albus, Lily must rest."

"I am afraid, Poppy, that I must speak with her." Lily was shocked that Dumbledore appeared not to be surprised that Madame Pomfrey had used her real name. Did everyone know?

The healer hesitated, recognizing the tone in Dumbledore's voice. She grumbled as she stepped aside. "Fifteen minutes, Albus, no more! She's been through a terrible ordeal. She needs rest."

"No more than twenty minutes, I promise," Dumbledore's eyes twinkled in amusement as Poppy puffed out her chest, preparing to inform him that she'd said fifteen and not twenty, but Dumbledore deftly flicked his wand and sat down on the newly appeared armchair next to Lily's bed. Poppy seemed to realize that Dumbledore was no longer listening and turned on her heel to grumble in her office about trying to save lives and not getting any respect for her troubles.

The headmaster waited until the witch was back in her office before he addressed Lily. "So, my dear." Dumbledore's blue eyes lost a bit of their twinkle. "How are you?"

Lily smiled thinly. "Bored, but I will be fine as soon as Poppy lets me get back to work."

"Yes, she can be a little overbearing, as well you know. Especially when her patient, and dare I say it, her friend, is only recently returned from the brink of death." Dumbledore pulled something out of the inside pocket of his orange with yellow strips robe. He offered her the pouch of lemon drops, and when she refused, shrugged and popped one in his mouth. "As much as I enjoy lemon drops, I do believe we must get down to business."

Lily nodded solemnly. "Severus' potion worked. I remember how to destroy the horcux."

Lily could now remember everything from her "past" life. The potion had had the side effect of clearing the cobwebs that had surrounded that part of her history, but only the day she'd found out how to destroy the evil anchor of Voldemort's soul was in sharp relief. It was like the day kept replaying; it was too sharp to be a memory. Harry had been in the living room with James and Sirius when she'd read the passage, and his year-old laughter had woken her twice last night.

A lump formed again in her throat even as she tried to push the sound back into the background of the memory.

Dumbledore noticed her discomfort. "Would you like to tell me, or would you prefer I view the memory from my pensive?"

Lily hated that she was too weak to be able to control the guilt and longing that the memory had revived in her. She wanted to be able to tell Dumbledore, but she knew instead of telling him how to get rid of the soul fragment, she'd describe Harry's young laugh, and that would never do.

She couldn't make herself speak around the lump in her throat, so she just felt the nightstand for her wand. She grasped its handle, the wood warm and comforting to her touch, and put the tip against her temple. She focused all her willpower on the essence of the memory, forcing herself to distance the emotions from the past. With immense effort, she drew the wand away from her head, the shimmering wisps clinging to the tip. She watched them as they melted into a beautiful, swirling plasma in the bottle Dumbledore had conjured.

"Albus! I have given you twenty minutes!" Poppy cried from her office.

Dumbledore stood up, corking the little bottle as he did so. "Thank you, Lily. This will no doubt be extremely beneficial."

Lily nodded and surprised herself by falling asleep before Dumbledore had even crossed the threshold out of the hospital wing.

OOOOOO

Dumbledore pulled himself out of the pensive. He stood, looking at the swirling colors of Lily's memory for a moment, digesting what he'd seen.

The memory had been clearer than most, no doubt because of the recollection potion, but Dumbledore wasn't reflecting on its brilliant clarity, or for that matter, on the information he'd gleaned on horcruxes. No, Dumbledore was thinking about the other parts of the memory.

He was sure Lily hadn't meant to give him so much. Besides reading the information on horcruxes with memory-Lily, Dumbledore had also experienced her longing for her son. That in itself was disturbing—when one viewed a memory through a pensive, one was an observer, not a participant—but combined with the feelings he'd felt as Lily, the great Albus Dumbledore was shaken.

He'd known that keeping the Potters from their son would have emotional effects, how could he not, but he hadn't known just how deep those emotions ran. He had never been so overwhelmed by emotion, nor so unsure of his decisions.

Fawkes cried out from his perch in the corner, and Dumbledore shook his head like a dog shakes off water. Fawkes was right; he had only done what he must. The war had to be won, and if it took a boy without parents or a mother without a son, well, that's what it took.

Dumbledore gathered Voldemort's ring, careful not to touch it, and Fawkes dropped him in front of the strip of wall outside of the Room of Requirement. He had a horcrux to destroy.