you're still out there on your own, and i'm still the last to go (Mary, Pandora, Lily)
October 31st, 1981, Mary Macdonald
Mary takes a breath before knocking on the door to Remus’s apartment. No one answers, but it's unlocked so she enters anyway. It’s been over two years since she was last in London.
She hasn’t talked to Remus since the wedding, she hasn’t seen him since the funeral. Before she would have stayed at Lily’s or Marlene’s but she doesn’t know where Lily lives now and Marlene. . .
Marlene’s not an option anymore.
Remus’ brown boots aren’t by the door but she sees a black pair she recognizes as Sirius’s, he must have moved back in. It feels weird not knowing these things about her friends.
She walks into the apartment and sees Sirius sitting on the couch in the living room, he’s facing away from her but she’d recognize those long black curls anywhere.
“Back already Lupin?” He calls out from where he's sitting.
She's about to respond but something about the way he addressed Remus feels off, like he's just a friend or acquaintance and not someone that he spent hours crying to her about every time they broke up. His voice sounds different too, higher and more posh. Mary brushes it off, she's been away for a long time.
“Sorry to disappoint Black, it's just me.” She says setting her bags down in the hall. Sirius turns around but he’s wearing a dead boy's face and that’s when she notices the dark mark on his arm.
Mary reaches for her wand.
“What are you doing here?” Regulus asks and Mary wants to laugh at the hypocrisy.
She wants to yell at him for being dead, for hurting Lily, for every idiotic selfish choice he made, but she can’t yell at a corpse. She's not insane, despite what her eyes are trying to tell her.
There are probably a lot of questions she should ask him but all she gets out is
“You're supposed to be dead.”
A stunning spell follows that, she may be insane but she’s still not dumb.
April 7th, 1979, Pandora Lovegood
There’s a knock on the door.
Pandora takes a breath and opens it.
A man who is not her brother stands on her doorstep.
He says something but she doesn’t hear it.
The man who stands there is technically her brother just like he is technically alive, but the brother she loved has been dead for years and she does not recognize his eyes.
The ghost of her childhood wearing her brother's breathing corpse still stands there. He asks a question but she still can’t hear him.
She wants to scream,
She wants to run,
She wants to kill him so his body matches her memories,
She wants to watch the light in his eyes die as he realizes she too will not save him.
Instead, she steps aside and lets him enter her house.
He walks in and sits on the couch. He says something and this time she chooses not to hear him, she doesn’t want his thanks.
She goes to the kitchen and starts making tea. The routine comforts her and gives her a moment to rest.
As the water boils she sits on the kitchen floor and sobs.
The man doesn’t come to comfort her.
He probably can’t hear her, all the way down the hall, but the small voice in her head likes to think it's because he doesn’t care.
Because he doesn’t.
As she brings the mugs into the living room, she finally looks at him. His clothes are soaked and even though his arms are covered the image of the dark mark on his skin is so seared into her mind it's all she can see.
She sits in a chair across from him and sets the mugs on the coffee table between them.
He sips his tea.
She draws her wand.
There are so many things she wants to say, so many questions she wants to ask him.
All she gets out is, “What are you doing here?”
“It’s Regulus,” he says and finally she can hear him, “I think he’s going to die.”
September 3rd, 1971, Lily Evans
It’s the first Friday of the year and Lily’s life is already falling apart. She’s been sitting at her and Sev’s table in the library for thirty minutes and he still hasn’t shown up. The transfiguration essay they were supposed to work on together sits half-finished in front of her.
Marlene thinks teachers assigning homework on the first week is criminal, Lily disagrees, she doesn’t know what she’d do without the constant essays and projects Mcgonagall assigns.
She doesn’t want to think about Marlene, she can’t think about her without an anxious ball forming in the pit of her stomach, she can’t stop thinking about her.
They were supposed to hang out today after classes but at lunch Sev came over and said he needed help with the essay, which Lily knows isn’t true because he’s just as smart as her but she also knows that he’s awkward and has a hard time asking to hang out so she tried to invite him to come with her and the other girls, but then Marlenes new first-year friend, Mary, made some side comment about him so Severus insulted her, and then they started fighting, and Marlene had to get involved to stop them from hexing each other so Lily tried to solve the situation by agreeing to study with Severus today and said she would hang out with Marlene some other time, and now Mary’s been giving her the cold shoulder and Marlenes been acting weird and the Severus didn’t even show up, and Lily doesn’t know what to do because everything’s awful and awkward as hell, and she’s in the middle of the library so she can’t cry, and she can’t go back to the common room because then she’d have to admit what happened, and then Mary would win, and then Lily hears a thud and . . .
She’s spilled her ink all over her essay.
Lily doesn’t even try to hold back the tears falling on her already ruined scroll.
She’s finally gathering her things to leave when she hears a voice behind her.
“Umm. . excuse me, are you okay?”
Lily wipes the tears off her face trying and failing to stop more from emerging as she turns to look at the voice. It’s a boy, around her age, but she doesn’t recognize him meaning he must be a new first year. He’s wearing Slytherin robes and has neat black curls that frame his murky grey-blue eyes which are staring at her inquisitively.
When she doesn’t respond he speaks again. “Sorry, dumb question you’re obviously not okay.” He’s awkwardly fidgeting with his robe and Lily notices a blush creeping across his pale skin. “Umm, I came over here ‘cause I noticed your ink spilt and I thought maybe I could help?”
The boy’s concern is cute but Lily has to hold back a laugh through her tears, “You think you’ve already learned a spell I don’t know in five days?” She questions him enjoying his flustered response.
“No! I mean yes? I mean it’s not really a school spell. . .”
“Excuse me?” She laughs.
“It’s a trick my brother taught me, he’s really clumsy.” He explains, “Can I try?”
“Sure, knock yourself out.” She says, handing over the ruined scroll. What’s the worst that could happen, he can’t ruin it more than it already is.
The boy sets the paper back on the table and takes a seat next to her. He does a quick spell she doesn’t recognize and pulls a knife out of his bag.
“Wait is that a knife?" Lily jumps up from her seat. "Why do you have a knife?!?”
“Just in case, be quiet.” The boy says covering the knife with his hands. Lily looks around the library but no one seems to have noticed her outburst. He then starts scraping the ink which falls off the scroll with remarkable ease. When he’s done Lily looks at the scroll which to her surprise, instead of being blank, holds her half-finished essay once again.
“That’s amazing, how’d you learn to do that?”
“Like I said, my brother, he and his friends like to experiment with magic I guess.”
“That’s cool, my best friend, Severus, does that too. Maybe they could be friends.”
“Wait did you say Severus? Like Severus Snape?”
“Yeah, do you know him? I guess you would, you know being in the same house and all.”
The boy’s face pales suddenly, “Oh Merlin.” He mutters under his breath.
Lily’s about to question him when the doors to the library suddenly slam open and Severus is storming in directly towards their table, fury in his eyes, but Lily’s not the one he’s glaring at.
“Regulus Black I’m going to fucking kill you!”