[Fanfiction] The Surrender of Harry Potter
Title: The Surrender of Harry Potter
Rating: R
Word Count: 2,084
Pairing(s): Albus/Scorpius, but only a little. D: Sorry.
Warnings: Character death (I guess there can be people in a darkfest who don't want to read character death?). Um. Lots of it.
Disclaimer: All Harry Potter characters herein are the property of J.K. Rowling and Bloomsbury/Scholastic. No copyright infringement is intended.
Summary: Lily Luna Potter is the strong one in her family.
Author's Notes: Written for nextgendarkfest. My recipient dropped out, so it ended up being for the community. ^_^ I have no idea if this fits the prompts at all, but this is apparently what I had in me. ^_^
Notice: Whoever you are, whatever site you want to repost this on, you do NOT have permission to do so without asking me first. If I find out you have, I WILL take action.
I.
It had come, as these things inevitably did, as a politely worded but ultimately insensitive letter from the Ministry.
Mr. Potter,
The Auror's Office and the Ministry of Magic regret to inform you of the untimely passing of James Sirius Potter. Though it may be only small consolation, you may be pleased to know he died in the fulfillment of his duties to the Wizarding world and England, and with his passing went too a wizard who fancied himself the next Dark Lord.
The idiot who wrote the letter went on to expound on all the service Mr. Harry Potter had done for the Ministry in the past-never mind that he hadn’t done anything for the Ministry so much as for those he loved and people in general-and to say that even if James had not been a stellar and dedicated Auror in his own right, of course he would still have been afforded a funeral with all the pomp and circumstance the Ministry could muster due to the simple matter of his prestigious parentage.
Moron.
Lily's father had disappeared not long after the letter arrived. She knew where to find him, but she didn't look. Looking would only mean finding him in a state neither of them wanted her to see. Besides, she couldn't deal with him now, not right now, not when people were already beginning to make condolence calls to the house, or send owls, or use the telephone if they had them and there hadn't even been time to sit down and think about contacting Albus.
Uncle Percy had come as soon as he could, but he hadn't managed to arrive before the letter. By the time he arrived, the damage had already been done and Lily was left to greet him and speak to him in somber tones while she made excuses for her father. Uncle Percy understood, of course. Who wouldn't?
"If there's anything I can do . . .?" he offered, voice low, awkward. This was not their first experience with untimely death, but, well, these things were never comfortable, were they?
II.
Lily still remembered the day her mother died. She remembered, very clearly, the ashen pallor of her father's skin when he came to tell the three of them. She had been nearly twelve, Albus thirteen, James fourteen years old. All of them old enough to know something was wrong with their father, and that it had to do with their absent mother.
"Come here," he'd whispered, and pulled all three of them as close as he could manage. He held them as tight as he could for a few moments without speaking, and the longer he held them the worse Lily's fears became until she started to cry without knowing exactly why she did, only that the situation had to warrant it, based on her father's behavior.
"Dad," James said, muffled in Harry's sleeve. "What's happened? What's wrong?" Even James, the oldest of them and always the most confident, sounded afraid. Somewhere between James and Lily, Albus sniffled.
Harry let go of them. Lily glimpsed the figure of Uncle Ron standing behind them in the doorway between the living room and front hall. Only a glimpse, but in it she saw the shock in his posture, and in his face, and knew. Even as her father guided her to sit next to the boys on the couch, numbness set in, so she was already on her way to grief by the time he began to speak.
"Your mother had an accident on her broom at the Quidditch game," he said. His voice sounded strange, as though there were a rope tied around his neck that kept drawing tighter and tighter with each word. Even more strange was the way his mouth tilted in something like a grim smile. "They played rough, those old-timers, your mother included. None of them paid any mind to the new rules."
The new rules being those created to make Quidditch a safer sport, as though anyone wanted to watch a safe sport. Even Lily, who did not yet share either of her parents' interest in the sport, understood sports were not about sportsmanship or anything like that. They were about violence; spectators wanted to see the players fight, wanted someone to be knocked off their broom by a Quaffle or another player. People wanted to see these things, so the new Quidditch with its safer rules had not been very popular.
As a last-ditch effort to save the game from either death or reversion, the Department of Magical Games and Sports had asked dozens of retired players to get together for a couple of Ministry-sponsored All-Stars games. Mrs. Potter had been only too glad for the chance to play again; after all, their father would be there, and her children were old enough to care for themselves for a little while if needed.
"Is she okay?" asked Albus, because someone had to ask even if they all knew better.
"No," was all their father said, but it was enough.
III.
"Dad?" Lily stood outside the door to the cupboard beneath their stairs. "Are you coming out any time soon?" For a long time she didn"t hear an answer except the low sound of tears.
Lily put her hands to the cupboard door and sighed. For some reason no one had ever told her, this was where her father went when the world pressed too firmly on his shoulders, when something happened that broke him. She'd asked her mother once, after they'd received a letter about one of their old friends, but Ginny Potter had only smiled a small, sad smile and told her not to worry about it. Right after their mother died, they'd stayed with their grandparents for a week, and hadn't seen him until he came to take them home.
Then Ginny died, leaving them all with grief and mysteries their father would never talk about.
"Dad," Lily tried again, "you're going to have to come out eventually." She didn't even know how he fit in the small space, grown man that he was, but somehow he managed. Tears stung, but they didn't fall just yet, she couldn't let them.
"Lils?"
Turning, she saw Albus there, her littlest older brother who hadn't tried to stop his tears. Who had told him? It didn't matter, this was why she couldn't cry. Albus needed her to be strong, to not cry, and so did their father. Or he would, if he ever emerged.
"What happened?" Albus asked as she took him around the shoulders in a hug. His arms came around her, shaky. "What. . . how did it happen?"
Lily shook her head, swallowing back a stronger reaction. "I don't know, the letter didn't say. Dad's supposed to go to the Ministry tomorrow to. . . to collect James' personal effects, the things they found on him. I guess they'll tell Dad the details then."
"He's in the cupboard, isn't he?" Albus sighed when she nodded. "How long?"
"Since the letter came. It's worse than after Mom died, he at least told us then before shipping us to the Burrow so he could do whatever it is he does while he's in there." With one last squeeze she let him go, glancing at the door behind him. "Didn't Scorpius come with you?"
Albus shrugged, a flush brightening his cheeks. "He said he didn't feel comfortable. I understand." The flush said otherwise, but Lily didn't comment. It wasn't the time, and she knew perfectly well why Scorpius didn't feel comfortable and she really did understand. He'd been her best friend growing up, and that had been bad enough.
IV.
That night, after she sent Albus home to Scorpius, chased everyone else away, and checked on her father one more time, Lily went to her room to lie down. Sleep wouldn't come, because this was the first time she had any chance to think about what had happened.
James was dead. In her head she knew he had died doing what he loved, but her heart hated him for being so damn reckless. Just like their mother, who went off and played a dangerous sport and lost her life. Lily hated them both for a moment that felt like an eternity as her chest swelled to bursting with it; if she could have, she'd have given them both hell for having the ill grace to die such young, senseless deaths. Hadn't they known there were people who stilled cared for and needed them? James had never married, never had any children, but he still had a sister, a brother, and a father who needed him.
Ah, her father, who still lived but acted dead. Would it be too much for him to be the strong one for once?
Lily, you have to be patient with your father, said her mother in a memory. He's been through so much in his life already, he's already been so strong for so many, sometimes he needs to be weak.
Lily didn't understand it then, and she couldn't understand now, either. People never needed to be weak, not to the crippling degree her father succumbed. Not people who still had friends and family. Thinking about him curled down there in that cupboard didn't make her sad, it made her so angry she couldn't think straight.
Her body moved before her mind had completely given permission, leading her down the stairs and back to the door behind which her father cowered. "Dad!" The door rattled as she pounded on it without care for his reaction inside. "Dad, stop this! This is stupid, it's mental! James is gone, he's gone, sitting in the cupboard isn't going to do anyone any good!" No answer. She kept pounding. "Damn it, Dad, if you don't come out now I'll come in there, I swear I will!"
She lied, and she knew she did. Apparently, he knew as well, because he didn't answer to her shouts or banging, and in the end she left him alone as she knew she would the entire time. Back in her room, Lily cried for her brother, her mother, her father, but most of all for herself.
V.
They held both funerals on the same day.
Lily held herself as straight as she could while they laid to rest both her brother and father. Her jaw set tight as she stared straight. She barely saw anything, didn't hear anyone. All she could hear was her own voice, chanting over and over I should have forced the door open last night. I shouldn't have let him hide. I should have known something was wrong.
For all she knew, though, he had already been gone by the time she pounded furiously on the cupboard door. The poisoned potion couldn't be easily traced to a time period, it could have worked over the course of several hours. Even if she had broken down the door earlier in the day, she might have been too late to stop him from ingesting. These things her mind produced to counter the self-blame threatening to weaken her. She could not be weak. There was still Albus. Their mother, James, their father had all proven weak in some way or other, as though the trait ran in the family.
Slowly, Lily turned to peer at her remaining brother, standing beside her, tears flowing unashamed from his eyes. Would he prove as weak as the rest? No, not if she had anything to say about it, Lily decided. Albus needed her to show him how not to succumb to the same frailty.
Scorpius, on Albus' other side, seemed able only to look uncomfortable and supremely out of place. While Lily did not doubt Scorpius loved her brother, she did doubt him capable of teaching him the strength Albus would need to continue and not make the same stupid mistakes as the rest of their family. Strength was not one of the things Draco Malfoy had taught his son.
Someone who must have been a priest, or more likely a Ministry official, droned on for half an hour before Lily watched her father and brother lowered to plots next to her mother and her grandparents Potter. As gravediggers began to levitate dirt back in the two graves, Lily felt something empty in her that felt suspiciously like weakness.
Without hesitation, she shut away that part of her heart so it could never touch her again.
Rating: R
Word Count: 2,084
Pairing(s): Albus/Scorpius, but only a little. D: Sorry.
Warnings: Character death (I guess there can be people in a darkfest who don't want to read character death?). Um. Lots of it.
Disclaimer: All Harry Potter characters herein are the property of J.K. Rowling and Bloomsbury/Scholastic. No copyright infringement is intended.
Summary: Lily Luna Potter is the strong one in her family.
Author's Notes: Written for nextgendarkfest. My recipient dropped out, so it ended up being for the community. ^_^ I have no idea if this fits the prompts at all, but this is apparently what I had in me. ^_^
Notice: Whoever you are, whatever site you want to repost this on, you do NOT have permission to do so without asking me first. If I find out you have, I WILL take action.
I.
It had come, as these things inevitably did, as a politely worded but ultimately insensitive letter from the Ministry.
Mr. Potter,
The Auror's Office and the Ministry of Magic regret to inform you of the untimely passing of James Sirius Potter. Though it may be only small consolation, you may be pleased to know he died in the fulfillment of his duties to the Wizarding world and England, and with his passing went too a wizard who fancied himself the next Dark Lord.
The idiot who wrote the letter went on to expound on all the service Mr. Harry Potter had done for the Ministry in the past-never mind that he hadn’t done anything for the Ministry so much as for those he loved and people in general-and to say that even if James had not been a stellar and dedicated Auror in his own right, of course he would still have been afforded a funeral with all the pomp and circumstance the Ministry could muster due to the simple matter of his prestigious parentage.
Moron.
Lily's father had disappeared not long after the letter arrived. She knew where to find him, but she didn't look. Looking would only mean finding him in a state neither of them wanted her to see. Besides, she couldn't deal with him now, not right now, not when people were already beginning to make condolence calls to the house, or send owls, or use the telephone if they had them and there hadn't even been time to sit down and think about contacting Albus.
Uncle Percy had come as soon as he could, but he hadn't managed to arrive before the letter. By the time he arrived, the damage had already been done and Lily was left to greet him and speak to him in somber tones while she made excuses for her father. Uncle Percy understood, of course. Who wouldn't?
"If there's anything I can do . . .?" he offered, voice low, awkward. This was not their first experience with untimely death, but, well, these things were never comfortable, were they?
II.
Lily still remembered the day her mother died. She remembered, very clearly, the ashen pallor of her father's skin when he came to tell the three of them. She had been nearly twelve, Albus thirteen, James fourteen years old. All of them old enough to know something was wrong with their father, and that it had to do with their absent mother.
"Come here," he'd whispered, and pulled all three of them as close as he could manage. He held them as tight as he could for a few moments without speaking, and the longer he held them the worse Lily's fears became until she started to cry without knowing exactly why she did, only that the situation had to warrant it, based on her father's behavior.
"Dad," James said, muffled in Harry's sleeve. "What's happened? What's wrong?" Even James, the oldest of them and always the most confident, sounded afraid. Somewhere between James and Lily, Albus sniffled.
Harry let go of them. Lily glimpsed the figure of Uncle Ron standing behind them in the doorway between the living room and front hall. Only a glimpse, but in it she saw the shock in his posture, and in his face, and knew. Even as her father guided her to sit next to the boys on the couch, numbness set in, so she was already on her way to grief by the time he began to speak.
"Your mother had an accident on her broom at the Quidditch game," he said. His voice sounded strange, as though there were a rope tied around his neck that kept drawing tighter and tighter with each word. Even more strange was the way his mouth tilted in something like a grim smile. "They played rough, those old-timers, your mother included. None of them paid any mind to the new rules."
The new rules being those created to make Quidditch a safer sport, as though anyone wanted to watch a safe sport. Even Lily, who did not yet share either of her parents' interest in the sport, understood sports were not about sportsmanship or anything like that. They were about violence; spectators wanted to see the players fight, wanted someone to be knocked off their broom by a Quaffle or another player. People wanted to see these things, so the new Quidditch with its safer rules had not been very popular.
As a last-ditch effort to save the game from either death or reversion, the Department of Magical Games and Sports had asked dozens of retired players to get together for a couple of Ministry-sponsored All-Stars games. Mrs. Potter had been only too glad for the chance to play again; after all, their father would be there, and her children were old enough to care for themselves for a little while if needed.
"Is she okay?" asked Albus, because someone had to ask even if they all knew better.
"No," was all their father said, but it was enough.
III.
"Dad?" Lily stood outside the door to the cupboard beneath their stairs. "Are you coming out any time soon?" For a long time she didn"t hear an answer except the low sound of tears.
Lily put her hands to the cupboard door and sighed. For some reason no one had ever told her, this was where her father went when the world pressed too firmly on his shoulders, when something happened that broke him. She'd asked her mother once, after they'd received a letter about one of their old friends, but Ginny Potter had only smiled a small, sad smile and told her not to worry about it. Right after their mother died, they'd stayed with their grandparents for a week, and hadn't seen him until he came to take them home.
Then Ginny died, leaving them all with grief and mysteries their father would never talk about.
"Dad," Lily tried again, "you're going to have to come out eventually." She didn't even know how he fit in the small space, grown man that he was, but somehow he managed. Tears stung, but they didn't fall just yet, she couldn't let them.
"Lils?"
Turning, she saw Albus there, her littlest older brother who hadn't tried to stop his tears. Who had told him? It didn't matter, this was why she couldn't cry. Albus needed her to be strong, to not cry, and so did their father. Or he would, if he ever emerged.
"What happened?" Albus asked as she took him around the shoulders in a hug. His arms came around her, shaky. "What. . . how did it happen?"
Lily shook her head, swallowing back a stronger reaction. "I don't know, the letter didn't say. Dad's supposed to go to the Ministry tomorrow to. . . to collect James' personal effects, the things they found on him. I guess they'll tell Dad the details then."
"He's in the cupboard, isn't he?" Albus sighed when she nodded. "How long?"
"Since the letter came. It's worse than after Mom died, he at least told us then before shipping us to the Burrow so he could do whatever it is he does while he's in there." With one last squeeze she let him go, glancing at the door behind him. "Didn't Scorpius come with you?"
Albus shrugged, a flush brightening his cheeks. "He said he didn't feel comfortable. I understand." The flush said otherwise, but Lily didn't comment. It wasn't the time, and she knew perfectly well why Scorpius didn't feel comfortable and she really did understand. He'd been her best friend growing up, and that had been bad enough.
IV.
That night, after she sent Albus home to Scorpius, chased everyone else away, and checked on her father one more time, Lily went to her room to lie down. Sleep wouldn't come, because this was the first time she had any chance to think about what had happened.
James was dead. In her head she knew he had died doing what he loved, but her heart hated him for being so damn reckless. Just like their mother, who went off and played a dangerous sport and lost her life. Lily hated them both for a moment that felt like an eternity as her chest swelled to bursting with it; if she could have, she'd have given them both hell for having the ill grace to die such young, senseless deaths. Hadn't they known there were people who stilled cared for and needed them? James had never married, never had any children, but he still had a sister, a brother, and a father who needed him.
Ah, her father, who still lived but acted dead. Would it be too much for him to be the strong one for once?
Lily, you have to be patient with your father, said her mother in a memory. He's been through so much in his life already, he's already been so strong for so many, sometimes he needs to be weak.
Lily didn't understand it then, and she couldn't understand now, either. People never needed to be weak, not to the crippling degree her father succumbed. Not people who still had friends and family. Thinking about him curled down there in that cupboard didn't make her sad, it made her so angry she couldn't think straight.
Her body moved before her mind had completely given permission, leading her down the stairs and back to the door behind which her father cowered. "Dad!" The door rattled as she pounded on it without care for his reaction inside. "Dad, stop this! This is stupid, it's mental! James is gone, he's gone, sitting in the cupboard isn't going to do anyone any good!" No answer. She kept pounding. "Damn it, Dad, if you don't come out now I'll come in there, I swear I will!"
She lied, and she knew she did. Apparently, he knew as well, because he didn't answer to her shouts or banging, and in the end she left him alone as she knew she would the entire time. Back in her room, Lily cried for her brother, her mother, her father, but most of all for herself.
V.
They held both funerals on the same day.
Lily held herself as straight as she could while they laid to rest both her brother and father. Her jaw set tight as she stared straight. She barely saw anything, didn't hear anyone. All she could hear was her own voice, chanting over and over I should have forced the door open last night. I shouldn't have let him hide. I should have known something was wrong.
For all she knew, though, he had already been gone by the time she pounded furiously on the cupboard door. The poisoned potion couldn't be easily traced to a time period, it could have worked over the course of several hours. Even if she had broken down the door earlier in the day, she might have been too late to stop him from ingesting. These things her mind produced to counter the self-blame threatening to weaken her. She could not be weak. There was still Albus. Their mother, James, their father had all proven weak in some way or other, as though the trait ran in the family.
Slowly, Lily turned to peer at her remaining brother, standing beside her, tears flowing unashamed from his eyes. Would he prove as weak as the rest? No, not if she had anything to say about it, Lily decided. Albus needed her to show him how not to succumb to the same frailty.
Scorpius, on Albus' other side, seemed able only to look uncomfortable and supremely out of place. While Lily did not doubt Scorpius loved her brother, she did doubt him capable of teaching him the strength Albus would need to continue and not make the same stupid mistakes as the rest of their family. Strength was not one of the things Draco Malfoy had taught his son.
Someone who must have been a priest, or more likely a Ministry official, droned on for half an hour before Lily watched her father and brother lowered to plots next to her mother and her grandparents Potter. As gravediggers began to levitate dirt back in the two graves, Lily felt something empty in her that felt suspiciously like weakness.
Without hesitation, she shut away that part of her heart so it could never touch her again.