Chapter Thirty Two

A/N: No reviewers.

Lilly had expected death to be far less painful than it was. She had thought it would be like floating, rising up out of the body left on the ground and slowly flying up into the sunlight. She had not expected, after a few minutes of heavy numbness, to feel the tingling, then the pain, spread across her limbs once again.

'This is not fair.' she thought to herself, sounding like a whining baby even inside her head. 'I thought death was meant to be the end to all suffering. But it still hurts. This doesn't make any sense.'

Slowly, a thought spread across the front of her mind. It was a ludicrous idea, it could not possibly be true… and yet, when Lilly experimentally tried to lift a finger, she found that it obeyed.

'I'm alive.' she thought, her lip beginning to tremble. She might have gasped, had she thought herself capable of it. 'I can't believe it. I survived the Killing Curse. Just like Harry.'

The thought of her brother was what eventually forced her eyes to open, the lids heavy and disobedient to her wishes. He was lying a few feet away from her, exactly where he had been when the first flash of green light had struck, and for a moment, the tears began to well in Lilly's eyes all over again. And then she noticed his hand, reaching out towards her. She was sure it had not been there when he had fallen.

Suddenly, a shadow fell over her, and Lilly almost flinched away from it, but then she recognised the awful sound of sobbing that could only have come from her fiancé. He could not see her eyes and she could not summon the strength to turn and face him.

"Lilly, I'm so sorry." Ron cried, lifting her upper body from the ground. "I should've done something. I should've seen it coming. I could've saved you, if I'd just stopped and bloody thought. I'm so sorry, Lil."

The young woman tensed her muscles, summoning all the strength she could find to roll her head to the side. It took Ron a minute to notice through his tears, but when he finally did, his face lit up with awe.

"Lilly!" the boy exclaimed, clutching her tighter to him, as if he were not sure she was real. "Merlin, I can't believe it!"

"Can't… get rid of me… that easily." Lilly sighed, each few syllables stealing her breath away completely.

"Good to hear." Ron laughed almost madly through his sobs, rocking her back and forth in his embrace. The young woman smiled at the warmth of his arms, but it was not Ron she spoke to.

"Harry." Lilly croaked, her voice cracking under even the slightest strain. "Harry! Wake up!"

"Lilly…" Ron began cautiously. "He's-"

But no sooner had he begun to speak than Harry let out a spluttering cough, his head raising up from the ground and falling back down with a thump.

"Well, Weasley," Draco could not help but taunt from where he stood a few feet away, though Lilly could see his face was also stained with tears. "If you consider becoming a Healer, warn me. I'll need enough notice to get out of the country at the slightest sniffle."

Ron clenched his jaw in irritation, but he was too relieved to start a full-blown row. Draco, meanwhile, helped Harry to sit up, while his sister slowly climbed to her feet, leaning heavily on Ron's supportive arms.

"Where did he go?" Lilly asked suddenly, looking left and right. Even that slight movement was enough to set her head spinning. "He was right here, where did he go?!"

"As soon as he saw you fall, he was gone." Draco explained, shivering a little. After all he had endured at the Dark Lord's hands, he could not even speak of the man without his hands beginning to tremble with fear. "He didn't even bother hurting us. I guess we weren't important enough."

Lilly let out a heavy breath, blinking back the tears of frustration from her eyes. She had had a chance, right at her fingertips, to end this once and for all… but Voldemort had gotten away once again. 'I'm never going to be free of him. This is never going to be over. He's going to win. No!'

The final word had caught the attention of Draco and Ron, though Lilly had not realised she had spoken out loud. Their eyes followed the redhead as she paced furiously across the gravel, ignoring the lack of balance that threatened to send her pitching towards the ground at any moment. "No, there has to be a way to stop him. We can't just let him win, there must be something we're missing! There has to be a chance. There has to be a reason we're still alive, it can't all be for nothing. There has to be…"

Lilly trailed off, finally realising that the rapt attention she received from two of her companions was not sure by her brother. That was nothing unusual, of course, when he had endured the impossible by her side and was probably trying to get his head around it once more. But there was something about the way Harry's eyes were fixed on the distance. Lilly could not help but look as well.

She did not see it at first, the presence so warm and familiar to her that she did not realise anything was wrong. Harry's mouth was hooked into a smile wider than she had ever seen from him, his eyes glossy with tears. Or so she thought at least, for Lilly could not see well enough through her own tears to be certain of her brother's reaction.

"Lilly?" Ron asked, tentative, as if he did not want to intrude on a wondrous experience he had no knowledge of. "Lil, what's going on? What are you looking at?"

The young woman did not answer him; she barely heard his question at all. Instead, she took an uncertain step forward, then another, then another, until she was eye to eye with the same emerald irises people spoke of so often to her. Only then did she find the breath to elatedly whisper.

"Mum."

A/N: I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter, even if it was largely a set-up for the next one. Please review!