Eternal Recurrence

Lily Evans has been dead since the beginning. So has James Potter.

Remus Lupin, Sirius Black, Peter Pettigrew, and Severus Snape are all dead, even if that happens later.

Regulus Black, Marlene McKinnon, Gideon Prewett, Fabian Prewett, Dorcas Meadowes, Edgar Bones, Benjy Fenwick, and Caradoc Dearborn have been dead since the beginning. 

Tom Riddle has been dead since the beginning. 

It’s just a small story really, about, among other things:

• A girl
• A boy
• Some words
• Some fanatical blood supremacists
• Misplaced trust
• And quite a lot of magic

September 2nd, 1976

Lily Evans has been abandoned by the three most important people in her life.

Her mother, who died when Lily was fourteen years old. She’d missed all of her final exams that year.

Her sister, who had once been her most precious friend. Her sister, who seemed to delight in the vicious push and pull of their relationship now. Her sister, who called her a freak and said she was a danger to normal people everywhere. Her sister, who was more right than she knew. 

And now Severus. Looking back, it occurred to Lily to be embarrassed at how many times she’d forgiven him in the past. How many times he’d put her last on the very long list of his priorities, only to beg and plead for her forgiveness? How many times she’d let it slide in the name of love? In the name of the boy who represented both magic and home. Hogwarts and Cokeworth. For so long, he had been the one person she had been absolutely sure she loved. 

*** Severus Snape believes that loving is the same thing as possessing.

Only Lily’s death would change that. ***

And now she was back at Hogwarts. Back in the dormitory, she shared with four girls with whom she should have been much closer if she hadn’t always placed them second to Severus. Now she was struggling to sleep in dark red bed linens, instead of the pale blue ones of her childhood bedroom. She missed the ancient glow-in-the-dark stars she’d plastered on her ceiling before she’d known that magic was real.

She was sure there was a spell that could replicate the sky on her four-poster bed. It wouldn’t have been the same. 

Lily Evans has spent so long living in the past. All of the people she loved were there. That was where they still loved her. 

Now she couldn’t help but grieve for the future. For the hundreds of people dying in a war that most of the world didn’t even know about. A war based upon, among other things, her right to exist. Her right to grow and learn and thrive. She’d been told so many times to live in the present. Stick to the now and stop fearing the pain that was yet to come.

But she could already feel it. She could feel the pain and grief that would come from losing more people. The only way to stop that would be to block them out–and yet she couldn’t. 

It wouldn’t be long before the people around her started dying. She couldn’t run from this war. It wasn’t in her nature. The same nature that had led the sorting hat to put her in Gryffindor a mere instant after settling on her head. She would never run if there was someone out there who needed her.

But who would be next? Marlene McKinnon, on the bed next to her? What world would let beautiful, whip-smart, impatient Marlene McKinnon die?

*** Marlene McKinnon is murdered by Death Eaters in 1981, along with her entire family. 

 She is the oldest of five siblings. ***

Lily rolled over, reaching for the watch on her nightstand and angling it towards the moonlight in order to see the time. 4:36 am. Too early for her to attempt to start her day.

What she didn’t know was that at the very same time, miles away in London, a tragedy was taking place. Or, perhaps, simply a sad event, given how quickly people’s definitions of tragedy can change over time. Two decades ago, the torture and murder of a ministry official would have been granted a full day of mourning, weeks of political discussions, and a march in solidarity with the victim’s family.

Instead, when the Senior Undersecretary to the Minister for Magic–Jeremy Altman–is found dead and ritually posed on the grounds of the Minister’s private estate, no march is announced. No photos are released. No mention of the Dark Mark carved into his chest is shared. The front page of the Daily Prophet simply announces his passing, along with his long litany of achievements within the Ministry, and a general plea for peace and kindness.

When Harold Minchum, the Minister for Magic, sees the body, he will vomit the bland breakfast of porridge that he had just consumed and remember, briefly, what it had been like when the two of them shared a dormitory at Hogwarts themselves, all those years ago. Alastor Moody, a Junior Auror, will clean up the mess with his wand, before leading the Minister back inside. 

*** Alastor Moody will fight in both wizarding wars and will be killed by 

Voldemort in 1997 while protecting Harry Potter. ***

James Potter is still asleep in his dormitory across the hall from Lily Evans, although he won’t be for long. In a few minutes, he will be woken up by his new girlfriend, Adelaide Carpenter, who has just snuck out of the room she shares with Lily Evans, and intends to start the first day of the new school year off right. Right, in her mind, is in the arms of James Potter. Who could blame her?

Sirius Black, who is awake and smoking a magical cigarette by the window, nods at her as she enters, letting the smoke of his cigarette form a small bird that perches on the sill next to him. He doesn’t like Adelaide much, but he likes James a great deal, and that is enough for him to keep his mouth shut about this clearly doomed endeavor. For now. 

He looks back out of the window as she disappears between the curtains of James’s four-poster bed, starting at the waxing crescent moon. They had a little over a week before the first full moon of the year. Before he’d get to shed the human skin he’d grown weary of and transform back into that oversized black dog, free to run and howl and play with the people that mattered most to him. He liked the full moon. He hadn’t yet learned to feel guilty about that. 

The little bird made out of smoke slowly faded away, disintegrating into the night. 

*** Sirius Black, if speaking under Veritaserum, would have to admit that 

there was another person who mattered as much to him as his fellow Marauders. 

But Regulus Black would die before the brothers could reconcile, 

the rift between them forever unbridged. ***

The rest of Gryffindor Tower slept soundly in their beds (or the beds of others), exhausted by the train journey or overwhelmed by their feelings regarding returning to Hogwarts for another year. Several muggleborns had elected not to return, their beds simply vanishing out of their dormitories. 

Mary MacDonald–who currently slept fitfully in the bed opposite Lily–had considered doing the same. But her muggleborn mother stubbornly refused, insisting that Mary finish the education that her mother had so valued. Her muggle father had left them both when Mary was two, unable to deal with the reality of raising a witch. Her mother said it wasn’t her fault. Mary knew it was. 

The fifth girl in their room was Constance McAllister, although she was typically known as Connie. Connie was enjoying a lovely dream in which she had finally won the attentions of Sirius Black and the two were flaunting their relationship in the Gryffindor Common Room, much to the jealousy of her peers. Except for Adelaide, of course. Connie would never wish ill on Adelaide. 

For, despite the war that had been going on since 1970, Hogwarts was still a home for teenagers. Many of whom could still pretend they were untouchable. They were safe. Some even refused to read the Daily Prophet, in the vain hopes that it would allow them to continue as if the tragedies were not happening. 

The tragedies, of course, will happen anyway.

*** The Hogwarts school year of 1976 will see three deaths, one suicide 

attempt, four attempted murders, and dozens of curse-related injuries. ***

Peter Pettigrew and Remus Lupin sleep relatively soundly. Both prefer Hogwarts so greatly to their homes that, even given the suffocating threat of the war, they were happy to be back within its walls. Peter felt safe. Remus felt that people were safe from him. Both are naive. 

Jack Danes slept as well, as the fifth roommate of the Marauders. He, like Lily Evans and Severus Snape, came from Ireland, which meant he’d grown up immersed in a different conflict. He’d recently buried his muggle cousin after a conflict with a Loyalist paramilitary group. He had never been able to tell his parents about the war in the wizarding world. Hadn’t wanted them to know that there was truly no safe place for him. 

He hadn’t wanted to come back to Hogwarts.

*** Jack Danes should have trusted his instincts. ***

Severus Snape, a castle away, stared up at the ceiling of his bed, just like Lily. He had spent the entire summer trying to convince Lily to forgive him. Attempting to coax her out of her home, to join him in the forest or at the playground–the locations that made up the tapestry of their friendship. He’d begged and pleaded and apologized. 

It seemed like Lily Evans would give second chances to anyone but him. 

She couldn’t forgive him for one tiny mistake after he’d been attacked by her housemates, even after he’d put so much on the line for her. He’d protected her from the other Slytherins time and time again, without her ever knowing. Because if she knew, she’d have known just how involved he had become with them. 

Severus Snape wasn’t a Death Eater. Not yet. 

But his friends were. And after being alone for so long, and now losing the girl he had been sure he was meant to spend the rest of his life with? He would not risk losing his friends. He would make himself indispensable to them. Indispensable to the Dark Lord himself, when the time came. Because Severus Snape would not lose again. 

In an hour, Albus Dumbledore will be owled regarding the death of Jeremy Altman, in a report that spares none of the unsettling details. He will remove his glasses and rub his tired eyes, his phoenix chirping sympathetically by his side. He would have to tell his fellow teachers the news. Jeremy Altman had been a good man. He’d been one of the most prominent litigators against the Pureblood Riots of 1968. But he was dead now. As so many of Albus’s friends, colleagues, acquaintances, students and family were. 

*** Remember, this is a story about dead people. 

And this is the story of how they died. ***