FIC: Love In a Hopeless Place, R, (2/5)
Title: Love In a Hopeless Place 2/5
Rating: R
Warnings: Dark themes, some sexual content.
Original Prompt: [Magical AU where Voldemort won the First War, preferably James and Lily don't know one another] Given her Muggle-born status, Lily is forced to work as an (escort/call girl/prostitute) in order to support herself in the wizarding world. The night she (meets/is hired by) pure-blood heir James Potter changes her life.
Summary: Having been hiding out in the middle of nowhere to escape Voldemort’s tyranny, Lily is captured by patrollers and subsequently offered as a prize to Voldemort’s followers. James claims her as his own, in the process altering the course of his life - and hers too.
Part One/ Two/ Three / Four / Five
Part Two
“Well, well, well, what do we have here?” a familiar voice drawled and immediately, Lily’s blood turned to ice. She recognised that voice, had nightmares about the owner even though she hadn’t looked upon him since he’d attacked Hogwarts in her second year, killed Dumbledore and subsequently claimed victory.
Lily was kneeling on the hard floor of the Ministry’s Atrium. She was magically bound, but two of Voldemort’s cronies flanked her and the monster himself stood before her ready to enact whatever horrors he saw fit. Maybe he’d torture information out of her and would try to find out what she’d been doing with a wand. Maybe he’d find out where she had been hiding all this time (though he already knew about McGonagall and her Resistance.) Maybe she’d be defiled. Maybe (and with any luck) she’d be killed; it meant breaking the promise she’d made to Remus that she’d never abandon him, but it was better than the alternatives. Although she was frightened, she refused to lift her gaze from the ground.
Sensing this, Voldemort used his powers to force her chin upwards, so she was looking into bloodshot yet menacing eyes.
She swallowed and he grinned.
“My men tell me that they found you in a woodland, yielding a wand. Is that true?”
She didn’t answer and he took her lack of response as affirmation. Instantly, his eyes narrowed and filled with a frightful intensity. She suddenly felt as though she was being choked and she began to splutter.
“Muggle filth are not allowed to carry wands; in fact, you’re hardly allowed to exist. Anyone caught with a wand is punished and you, girl, will be punished.”
A crowd began to appear to watch the spectacle and through her choking, it made Lily’s blood boil. These wizards - these people - derived satisfaction from watching the likes of Lily suffer and it disgusted her. Did these people ever have humanity?
She didn’t know how often Voldemort personally enacted punishments and was surprised to find him doing so and not one of his many minions.
Maybe he doesn’t have much to do, now that he’s gained power and become Minister, she grimly mused.
I hope he chokes me to death, she then thought, as the pressure on her neck became unbearable and she keeled forward.
But as though he read her mind (and maybe he did; she’d heard rumours that he could), his choking hold on her ceased. She spluttered and gasped for air.
She was forced upwards by one of his men and magic again lifted her chin upwards.
“You’re a pretty thing,” he considered. “It would be a waste to simply kill you.”
No! She thinks. Death she could handle - she was ready for it. It’s what he had prepared for her if not that she couldn’t bear.
“It’s been a while since my men have had someone like you to play with. I think they would appreciate it greatly.”
The wizards began to cheer.
Lily wanted to sob. She hated this monster with every bit of her heart, and she hated every single person who followed him unquestioningly. If she didn’t think it would make her look weak she’d break down in tears, but this was the one weakness she couldn’t stand to show in front of him - or any of them.
Imprudently she closed her eyes, not wanting to stare any longer at this man and not wanting to eye their ‘audience’ out of the corner of her eye. If she saw someone she knew, if she saw Severus staring on unfeelingly, her heart would break even though she thought it was long ago broken.
Voldemort looked at his men. “Which one of you wants her?”
Voices murmured, a few speculated, some debated and one or two called out.
Am I to be sold to the highest bidder? she thought wildly, trying not to contemplate what would happen to her in any of their hands.
“What a poor reception,” Voldemort mused. “Maybe you would like to see more of her?”
People cheered and Lily felt sick, wondering exactly what it was he was about to show them.
Then a voice spoke. “I’ll have her.”
Silence descended, the hold on her chin vanished and heads turned in the direction of the authoritative-sounding voice.
Unwittingly, Lily lifted her own gaze upwards, making out a man staring right at her, his dark brown eyes fixed upon her own.
+++
From the mezzanine he looked down and observed. The usually packed Atrium was jammed-packed full of people, most of them the type who salivated after the Dark Lord. The Dark Lord himself was in the centre of it all, positively lapping up the attention tormenting the girl brought him.
James watched the scene with absolute indifference. He followed Voldemort, but he wasn’t so enraptured by him that he clung to the hem of his robes, like the fools below. But at the same time, he didn’t look upon the people Voldemort so actively destroyed and feel compassion. He’d simply come the point where he didn’t care about anything, even if that anything was an innocent Muggle-born girl about to be tortured by one of his kind.
Still, when the Dark Lord asked who wanted her, James found himself speaking out, his voice commanding such authority that everyone stopped to look at him.
Even the girl, whose hair was a long, red scraggly mess and falling in her face, lifted her face to look up at him. He encountered blank green eyes that demanded nothing from him. They demanded nothing from anyone.
James told himself he claimed her because he was bored, it had been a long, tiring day and because he’d been working endlessly at the Ministry and deserved a reward. It certainly wasn’t out of pity for her.
He made his way down the stairs towards the crowd, and Voldemort looked at him much like a father might look upon his favourite son.
“Mr Potter,” he greeted jovially. “How nice of you to join us. So you would like the Mudblood girl?”
James nodded in affirmation.
“Then she is yours.”
The men surrounding them murmured in disappointment, but James didn’t hear them. Instead he watched intently as the girl’s eyes shut again and she visibly gulped.
“Indeed,” the Dark Lord continued. “I believe she will make the most rewarding gift.”
“Thank you, my lord,” he replied, his voice devoid of any emotion. “Bring her to the fireplace,” he instructed one of the henchmen.
“No,” a voice called out and it took him a moment to realise that it was the girl speaking. “No,” she said and she was louder this time, her eyes now open and alert. The two men beside her grabbed an arm each and began to drag her; she started to struggle, crying out in turn.
Her muffled cries filled the Atrium and everyone just looked on, unfeelingly. Then the Dark Lord took one look at her and struck her with a spell. She didn’t protest after that.
+++
Back at his grand manor house, the girl sat in front of the fireplace, with her legs drawn up and her head against her knees. She’d been in that position for the last hour.
At first, James had dismissed her and left her there, still bound. But then something (maybe it was his conscience, though he wasn’t sure; he hadn’t heard it in a long time) told him to go to her.
As he walked back into the reception room, he wasn’t surprised to find that she hadn’t moved a muscle.
She looks as though she’s given up fighting, he thought and then inwardly sneered. If there was one thing he couldn’t stand, it was weakness, no matter if their circumstances dictated it.
“Oi,” he called out to her, but she didn’t respond. He drew a little closer. “Oi!” he tried again. “Look at me.”
Slowly, the girl lifted her head. He expected her eyes to be full of fear, but instead she looked at him properly for the first time, took in his face and then her eyes filled with surprise.
“What, expecting to find someone older? Creepier-looking, perhaps?” he mused. “They always do.”
She said nothing; instead, she just looked at him as though she was waiting for something.
James looked down at the magical bounds around her wrists and ankles. They looked quite painful.
“I’ll remove those for you. But don’t try to escape,” he said, his voice full of warning. Although he didn’t believe she had enough fighting spirit left in her to try and do so.
He stepped even closer and drew out his wand.
Rather defensively, the girl drew her wrists towards her, but he just reached out and grabbed the sleeve of her jumper (which was a threadbare, pink mess that clashed with her hair) and with uncharacteristic gentleness, tugged her hands towards him.
She looked at him in uncertainty; he waved his wand and the bounds on her wrists were gone. Next, he removed the bounds on her ankles.
Instead of looking at him with gratitude, her eyes blazed with hatred and it was so intense, that for a moment all he could do was look at them.
Her eyes are her only redeeming feature, he mused. The rest of her was in a state. Her hair was too long, too dull and too tangled. And she was far too thin.
He took a step back so she could stand up. Her eyes now wary, she did so and backed up so she was touching the fireplace.
Just as James was beginning to think the girl was the passive type, the type too afraid of him to try and resist him, she lunged at him and began pounding his chest with her fists.
“Let me go!” she yelled. “Let me go!”
There’s her fighting spirit, he thought, oddly glad of it. Despite her size, the girl packed powerful punches.
For the briefest moment he struggled to regain the upper hand, finally capturing her (already sore) wrists and holding them to him.
“Stop,” he commanded. The authority in his voice stopped her in her tracks, just like it did with everyone else.
For a moment she just stared at him, eyes wild and frantic. Then she attempted to break free of him and he let her.
“Let me go,” she repeated, though this time her voice was quieter and imploring.
“No.” His answer was brusque.
“Please,” she intoned. “I don’t belong here.”
“You stole a wand and used magic despite not having consent to do so. The Dark Lord believes that any Muggle found with a wand is to be punished and hence, your punishment is to be my prisoner.” James relayed this to the girl as though he was reading it off parchment.
“And what do you believe?”
He didn’t look her in the eye. “I believe that he is right.”
She could not disguise the disgust on her face. “What are you going to do to me?” she demanded.
James shrugged. “I haven’t decided yet.”
Her fists clenched and her eyes shut. He could almost hear her thinking, “Please don’t hurt me. Please don’t hurt me. Please.”
“Tell me your name,” he suddenly said.
The girl did not say anything, but her fists clenched even more. Her lack of response only sought to annoy him.
“Tell me your name or I’ll look into your mind and find it out myself.”
The girl’s eyes flew open and she looked at him in fury. James knew that if she thought she could get away with it, the girl would have punched him in the face.
“My name is Lily,” she gritted out. “Lily Evans.” The glare in her eyes warned him that James wasn’t permitted to use it.
He ruminated the name over in his head; it sounded familiar but he couldn’t place from where.
“Potts!” he suddenly called out, making Lily jump.
There was a pop and a sweet, elderly-looking elf appeared.
“Master?” Potts hovered on the spot and cast a look over at Lily. She wasn’t surprised to see a new face.
“Kindly show Miss Evans to one of the guest rooms,” he said, deciding he had had enough of this girl for now and wanted some solitude.
A look of surprise crossed the girl’s face.
“Were you expecting the dungeons?” he inquired. Her lips pursed but she didn’t answer. He looked at her and raised an eyebrow. “Potts? Also give Miss Evans a bath.” His nose wrinkled. “She could do with one.”
The girl glared and he smiled inwardly.
James made his way out of the room but just before he left, he turned to Lily and said, “Oh, and no doubt contrary to your belief, Miss Evans, I’m not going to hurt you.”
He turned back around and caught a glimpse of startled but disbelieving eyes as he did so.
+++
The bath was warm and welcoming, but Lily barely noticed through her shock. Her sore arms were resting on the sides of the bath and she leant her head against the edge of the gigantic claw-foot tub whilst Potts stood on a stool and poured water over her hair, attempting to wash it. All the while, Lily kept her eyes closed and tried to keep from trembling.
She was still trying to comprehend how she went from being in the middle-of-nowhere with Remus to being captured by Snatchers, to meeting the vile Dark Lord himself, to being here, in this man’s house, as a toy presented by Voldemort. If this was an awful nightmare then she just wanted to wake up.
“Master James is not so bad,” Potts tried to console her. “He is a good and kind master and treats his guests with the same respect he treats Potts!” The house-elf pauses thoughtfully. “If Master James seems cold and mean, Potts wants Missus Lily to know this is not so!”
Potts poured shampoo into Lily’s hair and Lily lifted her head up off the side.
“Why are you telling me this?” Lily murmured.
The house-elf began to massage the shampoo into her hair. “Because, Missus Lily, Potts fears this will be hard to believe.”
“It is.” In Lily’s brief meeting with James, she’d taken him to be a cold and heartless man, and one that she certainly would never warm to. A supporter of Voldemort would never be nothing but vile. Still, there was something familiar about him and that niggled at Lily. As soon as she had seen him properly, she’d been filled with surprise and a strong sense of familiarity, but she couldn’t recall from where. Maybe she went to school with him; it had been so long since Hogwarts that she had trouble remembering faces.
Lily let out a sigh. The man was handsome with his jet-black hair, piercing brown eyes and sharp cheekbones, but this was masked by his incredibly cold and detached demeanour. When he looked at her, she felt her soul turn to ice and she wondered whether he’d grown to be so unfeeling or whether he’d always been that way. Still, no matter how trapped she felt, Lily conceded that she felt a little relieved at being offered to him rather than the older, slimier occupants of the Atrium, who no doubt would currently be committing unimaginable horrors on her. However, no matter his vow to not hurt her, Lily was not going to let her guard down; she didn’t believe him in the slightest. Just because he didn’t look like the monsters that had crowded around to jeer at her today didn’t mean he wasn’t one. After all, he had claimed her, hadn’t he? And why would anyone want someone like her if not for nefarious purposes?
Having rinsed Lily’s hair, Potts moved her stool so she was by Lily’s left wrist. Gently, she lifted it up but it was painful enough to make Lily cry.
Potts tutted as she inspected Lily’s wrist. “Awful, awful!” she murmured. “Potts will look for something to heal Missus Lily’s wounds. Potts will be back!” With that, Potts vanished and Lily was left on her own.
If she had the energy, she would get up and try to leave. But Lily was in pain and felt weak - emotionally and physically. - There was no way she could escape, not tonight.
Tomorrow, she thought. I will escape tomorrow.
Potts returned and brought a jar of salve, which she applied to each of Lily’s wrists and then her ankles. It helped the pain immensely.
When she was ready, Lily stepped out of the bath on unsteady feet (too exhausted to care that she was standing naked in front of a stranger) and Potts dried her down and helped her into a nightdress and dressing gown. Lily didn’t try to think who they belonged to; if they had belonged to a girl like Lily, she would be sick just thinking about what happened to her.
The house-elf Apparated Lily to a bedroom. In her tired state, she didn’t take in much of the details other than it was small but had its own four-poster bed, complete with red curtains still tethered to the posts. Blithely, Lily wondered if four-poster beds were a standard requirement of every manor house.
“Missus Lily should get some rest now. Potts will see to you in the morning,” Potts said as she helped Lily into the bed.
“Thank you, Potts,” Lily murmured as the house-elf disappeared. She sat up and leant against the headrest, not daring to go to sleep despite the exhaustion she felt. Her eyes were trained on the shut door and truthfully, she expected James to walk in at any moment for her. If she was awake, she’d have more of a chance to fend him off.
But her body was tired and the residues of her wounds lingered. Soon enough, she felt herself reclining on the bed and despite her internal protestations urging her to stay awake, Lily was asleep in moments.
+++
In that moment between sleeping and being awake, Lily thought she was back at Hogwarts. The bed was soft like she remembered (and it had been so long since she had slept in a proper bed), the four-poster bed familiar and the angle at which the sunshine poured through the partially-opened curtains made her feel like she was high up in the sky.
For a whole blissful minute, she believed she was safe from the world. Then suddenly it all came back to her: she wasn’t at Hogwarts; she was at a strange (and possibly dangerous) man’s house and she certainly wasn’t safe.
Instantly, Lily shot straight up. How could she possibly have allowed herself to let her guard down and sleep? She should have been plotting her escape and trying to get back to -
Suddenly Lily let out a cry. Remus! She’d forgotten about Remus! At once, Lily threw off her bed cover and leapt off the bed, her strength having full returned. Potts had placed her now clean clothes on the chair in the corner and her worn-out shoes lay under it. She decided she didn’t have enough time to waste getting changed from her nightclothes, but she hurriedly put on her shoes and dashed out of the door. She found herself out in a long corridor and for a moment she felt disorientated.
Left or right? Her mind demanded. She turned right, rushed down the corridor and found herself approaching the top of the grand staircase. Without a moment’s pause she fled down them. She spotted the main entrance and headed straight for it; in her desperation, she didn’t consider if it was safe to flee. Lily reached the large door, opened it - and found herself being flung backwards into the air, before landing hard on the floor.
Potts was there in an instant. “Missus Lily?” The house-elf’s warm hand reached out for the side of Lily’s head and Lily let out a low moan.
“Oh, Missus Lily should not have gone out of the door,” Potts lamented. “Missus Lily should have waited for Potts to come and see you! Come now,” she said, and helped Lily to stand up. “Is Missus Lily okay?” she asked, once Lily was standing.
Lily placed a hand on her lower back. “Not at this precise moment, no,” she replied and then as an afterthought said, “Ow.”
“Trying to escape, were you?” a voice drawled and Lily turned around to see James leaning against the doorframe of the reception room, dressed in his resplendent work robes. He looked her up and down, his cool eyes impassive as he took her in her dishevelled form. Lily felt glad that her white nightdress fell to her ankles and that her garish floral dressing gown was shapeless and loose-fitting; still, it didn’t stop her from feeling violated by his penetrating gaze and she removed her hand from her sore back and tied up the sash of her dressing gown instead.
She looked at him, trying to decipher whether he was angry at her attempt to leave. He didn’t seem as livid as she expected.
Trying not to look perturbed by him, she lifted her chin and stood her ground. “I have somewhere I need to be.”
James gave an incredulous laugh. “You have somewhere you need to be? Do you not understand the concept of you being my prisoner?”
“You do not understand, I have to find-,”
“I don’t care what you have to find; you’re not going anywhere. That, Miss Evans, is the price of being caught.”
“Look, I just need to see if my friend is okay and then I’ll-,”
“You’ll what? Come back? Don’t be so ridiculous. Besides, I’m sure your friend is more than capable of looking after themself.”
“It’s not like that. He’s ill! And if I don’t see to him, he could die!”
“That is none of my concern.”
“Well, it is mine!” Lily cried. “He’s not like me or even you. He has a condition that makes him vulnerable and I cannot, I will not abandon him to Merlin knows what terrible fate awaits him!”
“If you leave this house you will be killed,” James warned. “I told you that I wouldn’t hurt you and whilst you stay within the confines of this house, I mean that. If you step outside you will die; there is no protection for the likes of you outside these walls and I most certainly will not offer you any.”
Yet again the question of why she was here if he wasn’t going to hurt her lingered, but this wasn’t the time to delve into that.
“You can’t expect me to just stay here and leave my friend to flounder!”
“Your friend is probably dead now! If he’s as ill as you say he is, patrollers will have caught him and killed him. The Dark Lord does not take kindly to weaklings, especially if they’re Muggle-born.”
And if they’re half-blood werewolves? she thought.
“No,” she said, shaking her head violently. “No!” The anger and pain she suddenly felt was so intense that it caused a painting that had been hanging on the wall to fall down. When Lily endured such powerful emotions, she found her magic (which had no conduit to channel itself) combined with these feelings and unleashed itself in random outbursts. She was glad to see James jump as the painting clashed on the floor.
“I refuse to believe that he is dead,” she told him softly.
“Believe what you will,” he said as he waved his wand and fixed the painting back onto the wall, “it makes no difference to me.”
At that moment she truly loathed him. How could anyone so freely allow someone to die without giving a second thought to their wellbeing? Even though James didn’t know Remus and had no reason to care for him, she hated that his kind were so apathetic to the suffering people like her and Remus endured.
Lily knew full well that she couldn’t escape from this place unless James let her go, but that possibility was low. And given that he knew she had stolen another wizard’s wand, there would be no chance that James would be lax enough to leave his lying around. She couldn’t find Remus herself; her only choice was to get her captor to find him, but the problem was making him willing.
She took a step towards him. “Couldn’t you at least find out at the Ministry if he’s been captured?”
James eyed her warily. “And why should I do that?”
“Because-,” she began and instantly faltered, trying to think of a reason. “Because I need to know that he’s okay and I need for him to know that I’m alive. If you grant me that, if you do this for me, I will-,” she closed her eyes for a moment, then opened them, her gaze never leaving the floor. “I will give you my word that I will not try to resist you: I will not runaway, nor will I fight you; you will have me, all of me, at your bidding.” With the implications of her statement laid bare, she looked up at him, only to find tumultuous, stormy eyes that surely matched her own.
For a moment, he didn’t say anything, but when he did, he stepped closer to her and fleetingly, she was scared of what he might do to her. Instead, he threw her off by saying, “Why does he matter so much to you?”
Her eyes never left his. “Because he’s the only thing I have left in the world and I can’t lose him.” She paused. “I don’t expect someone like you to understand what that feels like.”
His jaw grinded and his nose flared and Lily wondered if maybe, in actual fact, he did understand.
“Fine,” he said. “I will find out at work if there have been reports of this person-,”
“Remus Lupin,” she interjected.
“- being captured.”
Her eyes widened in surprise. “You will?”
James gave her a curt nod. “But if he has been captured, I will do nothing to ensure his safety. And if he remains free, I cannot then communicate to him where you are.”
She gave a nod of her own in understanding. Even if James genuinely was concerned for Remus’ wellbeing, he could not seek to free him if he had been captured lest he garnered the suspicion of the Dark Lord. And if Remus was indeed still in the cottage, James couldn’t risk communicating with him, be it by owl or otherwise; Voldemort might track his owl even if sent anonymously and there was always the chance that Remus would come and find Lily, which wouldn’t be what James wanted.
“Thank you,” she told him sincerely.
He seemed surprise by her gratitude, but said nothing. Instead, he Apparated to work and Lily was left alone in the hallway.
+++
Potts, who had disappeared when James had announced his presence in the hallway, reappeared as soon as he left.
“Missus Lily, Potts has made you breakfast.”
“Breakfast?” Lily had lost all sense of time and as if to remind her, her tummy rumbled with hunger. She followed Potts into the dining room, only to find the long dining table adorned with food.
“Is this all for me?” Lily enquired.
“Potts did not know what Missus Lily wanted for breakfast, so Potts cooked some of everything.”
“Oh, Potts, you shouldn’t have!” The sight of all this food truly astounded Lily; she had not seen anything this grand since Hogwarts and after years of scraps, the food all seemed incredibly tantalising. Up until that moment, Lily didn’t think she’d be able to eat anything despite her hunger; the adrenaline from her encounter with James and the anxiety she felt about Remus had suppressed her appetite, but she felt these feelings ebb away.
Potts led her to a chair and Lily sat down and stared at food, overwhelmed and not knowing where to start.
“Potts, won’t you join me?” She didn’t know much about house-elves but knew dining with guests wasn’t exactly protocol. But in the short time she’d known the elf, she’d taken quite a liking to her and wouldn’t mind her company to ease her sense of isolation.
Potts’ eyes widened. “Potts is not permitted to join guests when eating, Missus Lily!”
“Please, Potts? I would quite like some company and I don’t have many options. Please? I won’t tell your master, if that’s what you’re worried about...”
Potts twisted her hands together, conflict evident on her face. On one hand, she didn’t want to disobey her master; on the other hand, she didn’t want to upset his ‘guest’.
“Okay,” Potts finally decided. “But Potts will touch nothing; Potts will keep Missus Lily company, but only briefly.”
Lily smiled. “That’s all I ask.”
Potts pulled out the chair beside Lily, but instead of sitting on it, she stood awkwardly on it instead. Lily noted that only when standing on the chair did Potts reach the same height as her.
Clearly at loss at what to do, Potts looked at the food.
“Would Missus Lily like Potts to serve you some food?”
Lily shook her head. “No, it’s fine, Potts. I can manage. You just rest.”
The idea of resting was certainly unheard of for Potts, who nervously fidgeted on the spot. As Lily shovelled toast, eggs, bacon and baked beans onto her plate, she decided to ask questions to sate her curiosity and to set Potts at ease.
“How long have you been working here, Potts?” she enquired.
Potts was startled by the personal question, but answered dutifully. “Potts has been working here for almost all Potts’ life.”
“That’s a long time,” Lily mused, between bites of food. “How have you found it?”
This question seemed to throw Potts off. “Potts has enjoyed every moment of it, Missus Lily. Even with the passing of the elder Potters, the Potter resident remains a wonderful place to work and the new master is kind to Potts.”
Lily’s fork dropped from her hand. “Potter? His surname is Potter?” Lily’s hand drew to her mouth in shock and she felt the blood draining from her face. How did she not realise who James was, even when the signs had been staring her in the face? His name was James, he was young and she had seen the way Voldemort revered him - he'd even addressed him as Potter, hadn't he? But she hadn't been paying her full attention then. Merlin, even his house-elf had a similar name! She had heard many tales of the notorious James Potter, one of Voldemort’s most trusted aides and someone who was regarded as one of the most ruthless and cold wizards. And she was his captive. And she had asked him to find out about Remus!
Suddenly nauseated, she pushed her plate away and stood up.
“Excuse me, Potts; all of a sudden, I am not hungry anymore.”
“Is Missus Lily alright?”
She shook her head. “I need some air.”
Potts stepped down from the chair and went to other end of the dining room, where a giant set of doors overlooked the back garden, and opened them.
“Missus Lily can wander out here.”
Lily looked at her in question.
“Missus Lily will not be hurt in the garden. The anti-Muggle charms lie at the edge of the land.”
Lily nodded and made her way out, not caring that it was cold and she was still in her nightclothes.
The chilly air hit her hard, but she kept walking out on the grass. The garden was stunning with its various trees, bushes and ornaments, yet Lily didn’t notice. Instead, she tilted her head up to the cloudy sky.
Remus, what have I done? Have I made things worse? Merlin, I hope you’re safe.
Still, Lily couldn’t help but feel that despite his earlier display of sincerity, James was probably divulging about Remus to Voldemort right this instant, and who knew what her friend’s fate would be? It was a well known fact that captured women were tortured and raped; for men, their fate was torture and death.
Not being able to go to Remus, not being able to help him - that was Lily’s torment. She had never felt so helpless in her life and she tried to suppress the sobs that subsequently followed. The wind in the air picked up and blew violently through her hair, dried her tears and caused her dressing gown to flap in the wind; the coldness penetrated her skin and caused her to shiver tremendously. But Lily stayed outside, facing the cold and the wind and never taking her eyes off the sky. She didn’t go back inside until Potts came out and urged her to.
+++
Much later, Lily awaited James’ return. Dressed now in her own jumper and trousers (which seemed to be thicker than she remembered - maybe Potts had somehow altered them), she wandered the house, trying to pass the time until James came back from work. Potts hadn’t told her she couldn’t look around and James himself hadn’t confined her to a specific place in the manor, so Lily took this as a sign that she could freely learn about the place she was now forced to stay in.
The house, with its many rooms, winding staircases and eerie paintings on the wall, was much too big for Lily’s liking. She couldn’t understand how someone could live in this place with just a house-elf as company - surely it was a lonely existence?
Maybe he wanted me for company, she mused then snorted. There were better ways of finding company than imprisoning a Muggle-born girl.
The house didn’t divulge much about its master, except for the fact that he wasn’t a big fan of bright lighting, instead preferring dark rooms with candles in the air, and that he wasn’t too big on colour in the house. There were no personal artefacts, no portraits of him or his family; the house was devoid of any clutter or any semblance of a home. This manor seemed like a place someone merely stayed in.
After a bit of wandering, Lily stumbled upon a library and instantly was both curious and overjoyed at her findings. How long had it been since she’d read a book - a proper book, not a stolen, tatty textbook? As she stepped in the oversized library and began to look around, she wondered if she remembered what that experience was like. There were shelves and shelves adorned with books and, gleefully, Lily ran her hand across the spines of many, taking it all in. At Hogwarts, the library had been the place of salvation for her and Remus when times started to grow tough and they began to feel isolated from their pure-blood counterparts. Books had been their way of escaping from a world they shouldn’t have had to escape from, and as Lily breathed in the smell of old books, she was transported back to that time and place. It was funny how safe it felt compared to the place she was in now.
There was a book that caught her eyes: A History of Magic by Bathilda Bagshot . Instantly, Lily smiled, picked the book up from the shelf and sat down on the floor with it. Everyone had hated that book at school; it had been far too long and boring for them to handle, but Lily always harboured a secret liking for it. As a Muggle-born who had known nothing about the wizarding world and Hogwarts, A History of Magic was not only her guidebook to an unknown world, but it was liking reading a wonderful story about a world that just so happened to be real. Just because the world she lived in now was completely different from that wonderful world she had fallen in love with, it didn’t make her love the book any less.
Instantly absorbed, Lily began to read; the hours started to slip away and she barely even noticed.
+++
It was late evening when James finally returned home from work. It had been a busy day at the Ministry and he had spent most of it processing reports about Muggle transgressions, convictions, rehabilitations and deaths. Voldemort liked to keep a tight grip on the small, highly-regulated Muggle-communities that still existed, and part of James’ job was to oversee this.
He was exhausted by the time he Apparated home. Potts had his dinner ready on the table, which he immediately ate, before deciding that he’d better enquire as to Lily’s whereabouts. Truth be told, he wasn’t in the mood for company, especially the company of someone who would grow increasingly antagonistic when he divulged what he had discovered about her friend.
James was surprised when Potts informed him that the girl was in the library. He had expected her to be hiding in the guest room or plotting her escape, but instead she was in a room he barely visited, reading a book he despised.
He stood in the doorway and observed her. The hovering candles had moved close to her to provide her with light and they cast an appealing glow over her. He watched as her eyes darted across the pages, and there was something in those eyes that he had trouble identifying. Passion, he thought. It’s passion. It was an unfamiliar sight and an equally unfamiliar feeling - and it almost intrigued him.
James stepped out of the shadows and into the light. He cleared his throat and Lily jumped a mile in the air.
Immediately, her eyes latched onto him.
“You,” she said, clearly uncertain how to address him. “You’re back.” She closed the book and stood up, and the candles around her shot back up in the air. Wasting no time, she asked, “Did you find out about my friend?”
He nodded and drew a little closer to her. “Are you sure you want to hear what I found out? It’s not good news.”
“Yes,” she answered instantly. “I have to!”
“Fine,” he said and let out a sigh. “I made a few enquiries. A man by the name of Remus Lupin was taken by a Snatcher not too far from where you were taken.”
The girl winced. “Was he hiding in a cottage?”
“No, he was out in the open.”
She briefly closed her eyes. “I told him not to leave the cottage,” she whispered.
James ignored this. “The Snatcher who took him wasn’t from the same group who took you. This was a different Snatcher who operates mostly alone and on his own agenda.”
The look on Lily’s face suggested that she was uncertain what James was getting at.
“This Snatcher goes by the name of Sirius Black,” he told her and watched her to gauge her reaction.
Straight away her face transformed to that of terror. “Sirius Black?”
Instantly, he knew what she was thinking: most Snatchers would bring those they captured straight to Voldemort, who would then determine their fate. Black, on the other hand, was renowned for taking it upon himself to subject his captors to intolerable cruelty and their eventual death, before handing them to the Ministry. The Dark Lord didn’t seem to care too much about Black’s methodology, so long as those who were against him were being dealt with. James himself had never directly dealt with Black, but considered him a law unto himself.
“That man has taken Remus? But that means he could be dead already!” the girl exclaimed. At least if it had been another Snatcher, she could have consoled herself with the fact that she might have a chance to go and save him - even though James knew that chance would never be granted to her.
“Black hasn’t been known to keep pets.”
Lily placed a hand to her mouth, clearly devastated. “Remus wouldn’t last two minutes with that man in his state!”
“Maybe that’s a good thing. He wouldn’t have suffered for long.”
The girl looked at him aghast and belatedly, he considered that what he just said sounded callous.
“Please, I need to be left alone,” she announced in a broken voice.
Finding this situation uncomfortable, he nodded and walked away. It was only when he was at the doorway that he turned around to look at her. He watched as she collapsed to her knees and held her head in her hands as she began to sob. James imagined that her already fragile world was falling down all over again. Once upon a time, he’d known what that felt like too.
+++
Potts ran Lily a warm bath, which seemed to be her solution to everything. The house-elf didn’t know the cause for Lily’s absolutely distraught state and luckily didn’t question her. Instead, she helped her into the bath, whispered soothing words and then left Lily as she cried her heart out in the bathtub.
Lily wasn’t exactly sure what she grieving about, since she didn’t know whether Remus was truly dead or merely captured. However, it was more than likely that he was dead and that very thought broke her heart, but it was also the idea that she had abandoned him that caused her incredible pain. She couldn’t stop thinking about what Remus must have gone through: he must have waited for Lily in the cottage and when she hadn’t turned up, he’d probably gone out to look for her, incredibly worried about her. He would have been weak and would have required another potion, but he was the most persistent person she knew and he would have stopped at nothing to find her.
How long had he looked for her in the woods before he was captured? A minute? An hour? And had he given up hope of ever finding her, or was he captured before his hope had let out?
And what then? What did Sirius Black do to him? Did he torture Remus? Did he somehow find out about him being a werewolf and thus elicit the worst kind of pain on him? The speculation was driving Lily insane. She wanted nothing more than to go out and find her friend still alive and then take them both away to safety, but how could she? Lily didn’t have the luxury of freedom and it seemed that now Remus no longer did either. Remus no longer had anything.
+++
Part three