You're nearly out of time.
You're Lily Evans Potter, wife and mother, and time is slipping through the gaps in your fingers, slithering down your cleavage.
But at the moment, you don't care—you've done your part. Done it, and you're ready to join him, the man with the moon in his mouth who's on the ground, askew and broken. Yet you can't. You can't join him because of the little boy behind you, crying softly, looking around with wide green eyes—your eyes, your eyes—and at his mother's haggard face. The little boy who's going to die.
But he can't die. He can't die. You clutch at the wood of his crib until the joints in your fingers ache and let mascara slide spider legs down your taut, taut cheeks. Something in your head is screaming.
He can't die, he can't die, he's only a baby, just a baby, and he can't die…
He can't kill him, he can't, the boy born of a thunderstorm, the one who made James—dead, dead, dead James—wet in the eyes when he was born…he's Harry, your Harry, and he can't die.
The door slides open, and all you see is a hood and a hand and a wand. Harry whimpers, and your hands touch his, trying to wring the significance out of these blinks and breaths and shaking sobs.
Yesterday he almost spoke. James had called for you, nearly airborne, shouting like a boy.
Lily! Lily! He said something! Harry spoke! Don't know what it means but he said something!
The wand lifts, and you can't feel your face anymore, don't want it anymore…
Your mouth falls open and you hear yourself beg for it not to happen, because he's going to live, he's going to, he has to, he's your Harry, and you've worked so hard…
Your voice isn't yours, and neither is the jagged thing pounding at your ribcage, clanking and useless like an old washing machine.
Step aside. He says to step aside, but you can't or you won't, and your nails are broken and you're a screaming martyr, dying for your downy-cheeked cause. Your thoughts lack punctuation and bang against your skull.
dIe Die diE he can't die he can't die he can't he won't, he's yours, yours and James's, yours and an hour ago he'd bathed and you admired the way he smelled of velvet lavender—yours and he smiles like James, galactic and lovely—he can't die, he can't die…
There's a wand slashing through the air as the words tumble from your white, dry, bitten lips, sandpaper on your tongue, in your throat.
He can't die he can't die he can't die.
Green light-green eyes, he has green eyes, like you…
Can't Die
Can't Die
Can't