Time out

“Helianthemum Lily Potter!” Ignoring death first naming her Lily sipped on her coconut drink with a satisfied sigh. Cold white fingers gripped her red curls harshly pulling her head back- “Did you give the house elves human forms and grant them immortality?!” Wincing at the grip on her scalp she squinted up at Death who had decided to look like a bleached-out version of Hermione today.

“Well, I didn’t see the harm, I gave them their own planet and everything. It’s not like they really needed Wizards anymore anyways. Plus, it’s not even a human form, I made sure to make them extra beautiful with glowing features to rub it in the human’s dumb faces. They deserve something for getting their magic transferred into their lifespan and thousands of years of slavery.”

Death-Hermione released her scalp with a screech of rage to pace in front of her chair. “I thought I made it clear the last time, NO giving away Immortality to an entire race of beings! I don’t care how cute Jellyfish are they should not be immortal!” Working themselves up into a rant now the Deity started tossing Hermione’s bone white hair to-and-fro with every turn.

Eye’s the color of brimstone glared into Avada green as Lily nodded along to their exclamations. “That’s it…. That is IT! I am just going to have to punish you.” Suddenly calm Death smacked a hand down on the table knocking the paperwork off and onto the floor.

“Punish me? What are you going to do put me in time-out? Take away my toys?” scoffing Lily waved her hand in the air shoo’ing the Primordial being like a fly. “Look what you did, it’ll take the reapers ages to clean this up.”

“Oh yes…. Yes, a time out should do perfectly.” An unsettling grin stole across the being’s face, bloodless lips spreading Hermione’s cheeks too wide to be human. Quicker than a flash her friends hand shot out, burying itself deep in Lily’s chest, shrieking in pain when she felt the touch on her soul Lily tried to push them away. Hands fumbling uselessly against their body.

“I do hope you’ll learn this time dear Master, don’t try to kill yourself off or I’ll send you someplace much worse.” With a final tug, Death removed Lily’s soul, cradling the squirming thing in one hand lightly. Smirking in glee Death teleported, going from the Master’s office in Purgatory to a tiny hospital room in a fraction of a second.

“Push! You’ve almost got it, just once more!” the doctor coached the woman shrieking on the bed.

With a hoarse cry the woman pushed the stillborn out of her body, blood staining the sheets and the cold baby. Quickly before anyone could move, Death gently coerced his Master’s golden soul into the newborn; flesh warmed instantly, body squirming- the nurse cleared the airway and his Master was re-born with an outraged scream.

“You’ve got a girl Mrs. Swan!” the nurse told the new mother cheerfully.

Laughing in delight Death transported themself back to the afterlife- if their master loved immortals so much she could surround herself with them.

Fuck Death.

Seriously. Fuck him in his face borrowing mouth. Accepting another bite of cheerio from her daddy, Liliana Rene Swan scowled at her twin from her highchair. They had dumped her in a universe she didn’t even like, ‘fucking sparkling vampires?’, with the most boring person in existence as her sister, and without most of her magic.

She could still feel it, but it was buried down deep inside her soul, most of it having stayed with her real body in the afterlife. She only had a spark of it now, she didn’t even know what it would become.

Today was their first birthday, Lily was watching their mother simultaneously scream profanities at her daddy, and dote on Bella at the same time, Lily eating cheerios as Rene fussed over her twin. Lily was wondering if the damage to her head she just suffered was the reason Bella had acted how she did in the book as a teen.

Rene had been rushing around the house, trying to decorate for their birthday while holding onto Bella at the same time- had tripped over a fold in the rug and dropped her brunette sister right on her soft baby head.

Now, she did land somewhat softly, in the pile of laundry Rene had started and not finished, but the THUNK as her head bounced off the floor was still audible- right before the screaming started.

  Rene was blaming Charlie, Bella was screaming in pain, they should probably call a doctor but they were barely 20 years old and obviously shouldn’t be living alone with their children yet.

“I have had it! I can’t take this anymore Charlie! I can’t live like this in this damn town, I’m taking the girls to stay with my parents for a few days and then I’m moving to Arizona!”

Hell, no you’re not taking me anywhere baby killer. Smacking her hand away when she tried to pick me up, I made grabby hands towards my daddy with teary eyes.

“Daddy!” he picked me up, backing away from Rene as he tried to reason with her to stay and calm down. Which- objectively seemed to make things worse, the blonde woman screeching now, stomping around to pack up some clothes and a diaper bag, grabbing the still crying Bella- just to slam the door behind them with one last insult.

“Fine! You keep that one, but I am not staying in this town for one more week do you hear me? I won’t be tied down by some hick cop for the rest of my life!”

Wow- ‘that one’ like it didn’t even matter which kid she ended up with. Blue-Green eyes looked up at brown, the young man crying softly as he held her close to his chest.

‘Damn…. What a bitch.’

Rene didn’t let Bella visit Forks until she was ten years old, making Charlie and I travel from Washington to Arizona every year just to see them. Lily hated it- she hated the heat and how it burned her into a lobster no matter how much sunscreen she slathered on herself- hated how their mom made her Daddy feel, throwing a new boyfriend in his face every visit- hated having to spend time with Bella- who was maybe brain damaged or maybe just that clueless- just hated everything about it.

Unfortunately, for Rene and Bella, when Lily turned ten her dormant magic sparked into a flame- unfortunately for Lily, it seemed to be some kind of unholy mix of Accio, Hominum Revelio, Depulso, and Wingarduim Leviosa- that she couldn’t turn off.

She was able to sense the life force of people for a few meters around herself- which was extremely distracting and discomforting- and could move things with her mind. It was quite a shock for Charlie when they decided to manifest.

They had been sitting on the couch watching the football game, wing-sauce smeared along their faces as they shouted at the screen- and when their team lost, she had thrown her hands up in the air in frustration, nearly every piece of furniture in the room on either side of herself flinging with her motion.

They had stood- shocked- as wood splintered against the walls, the coffee table slamming itself into the television with a spark of electricity. Turning wide sea-blue eyes to her daddy Lily started crying.

“I didn’t mean to!”

She helped him clean up- and the next day they went into town for a new t.v.

Half-way there her life-sense had come alive- smacking her in the face with information; it gave her a killer migraine but she was able to make it through the trip relatively fine. She did end up having to skip school for about a month trying to get used to all the information her brain shoved at her though. Which turned into her being homeschooled once she finally convinced her dad that she could just. not. Deal. With the children.

People’s lives felt like ants crawling along her skin, not letting her forget that they were there for one second. She could foresee never moving to a more populated city in this lifetime.

From ages ten to thirteen Bella visit them in Forks, always complaining about the weather and not wanting to do anything other than read her outdated unhealthy love stories. She wouldn’t go fishing with them, didn’t want to go hiking, didn’t want to watch t.v or movies, didn’t want to go to Seattle for a show.

Just sat in Lily’s room and whined on the phone to their mom every night about wanting to go home already. Finally, after she left the year they were 13, she decided she was never coming back. Which was fine with Lily- although she had really tried, she just couldn’t get along with the girl.

She reminded her somewhat of Lavender Brown actually when she thought about it, they were both love-sick anyway. Hoping for prince charming to come save the day to whisk them away from their boring lives.

Lavender was much prettier though. Which isn’t to say Bella isn’t, she did have nice features, but she didn’t take care of her looks at all and didn’t have any confidence in herself. Lily herself wasn’t a beauty queen either, but she at least tried a bit harder than making sure to take a shower like Bella.

… Three years later…

“No daddy I don’t want to come with you to pick her up, I’ll just stay here and keep moving my stuff up to the attic; I want to be able to sleep in my own bed tonight without Bella keeping me up with her mumbling.”

Giving him a peck on the cheek Lily waved him out the door- sighing before returning to moving the furniture up the shaky steps. Struggling with the bed frame she wished again that she had more precise control over her not-magic; she had practiced, but the movements of the telekinesis were always sporadic or jerky; not reliable for things she wasn’t okay with breaking.

Luckily dad had made her practice the summoning with pillows and stuffies after the first cocky attempt re-scarred her face when she tried to summon a plate towards her.

The damn thing had shattered on her, scratching her all over her face and making one deep slice right through her eyebrow and up to her hairline.

She was able to get everything set up and have a shower to wash the sweat away before they returned- she was standing at the stove heating pasta sauce when she heard the cruiser pull into the drive. Turning the sauce on ‘keep warm’ she wiped her hands clean. Opening the front door in time to see Bella fall out of the cruiser and trip over nothing.

Still pouting at the unfairness Lily picked at her nails in the passenger seat of Bella’s truck. Their dad was making her join Bella for the school year. In his words ‘I’ve let you avoid humanity enough, now go make some friends already’

Like Lily didn’t already have friends. She was friends with those wolf-shifters down on the reservation, but daddy said they didn’t count as ‘human interaction’ since they were as wild as she was most of the time.

The orange beast of a vehicle rumbled to a halt in the staff parking lot, both girls having to jump out of the truck to get down. Blue-green eyes glanced around, quickly locating the front office she led the way- Bella shuffling after her nervously.

The office was tacky and humid, desk fan sputtering on every rotation. The woman behind the desk was a bottle red, much darker than her own sunset hue.

“Good morning, I’m Lily, this is Bella, we were told to pick up our class schedule today?” the woman ‘call me Mrs. Cope dear’ easily handed over two schedules along with a map for each of them. They had ended up in different classes for the most part, it looked like they only had to share gym and lunch.

Agreeing to bring back the signed schedule by the end of the day Lily parted from Bella- she had Biology first thing and decided to walk to class while Bella moved her truck to the student parking section. Nodding at the few kids she remembered from elementary school no one stopped her on her way to class.

Getting the teachers signature she settled down in the space closest to the door- school hadn’t even started and she already had a raging migraine. Closing her eyes she tried to focus, she had built up her occlumency since becoming the Master, but it didn’t seem to help whatever the magic of this world was doing to her.

She couldn’t totally block out the feeling of their young vibrant lives from enclosing on her, but she could try to focus on a smaller area instead.

Pulling her awareness in, Lily tried to focus on just this class, just this room. One by one the lights drifted away to the back of her mind- like the humming of electricity you don’t notice it until the power cuts out.

Classes were dull; she had lived millions of years as a Deity of Death, she already knew everything they were trying to teach her (Death disagreed; no, she was just bored and had a superiority complex)- Lily did notice she had a few vampires in this school that she forgot about.

They also had life she could sense, but it was different than a human’s; it was weak, like a dull reflection instead of the real thing- quite soothing for her senses actually. Instead of ants they felt like soft sand dripping out of her fingers.

She’d had a fellow red-head in her math class, and a girl actually shorter than her in her English class. They had both given her baffled looks, intense stares and a few impolite sniffs as she walked by them. Lily was used to people staring at her no matter where she went since she was 11 years old in her first lifetime, their bad manners didn’t bother her.

At lunch she sat alone- ignoring Bella’s pleading eyes to save her from the popular kids. She was just devouring her sandwich when the cool sand feeling returned stronger than ever- the five vampire teens entered the lunchroom- huddling together at a table near the windows to whisper at each other.

Lily thought they couldn’t be any more conspicuous if they tried. They brought food, but didn’t even pretend to be eating it. The big one had a whole bag of shelled eggs just sitting in front of him- she suspected they were not boiled- the bombshell blonde was holding an apple but pretending to eat the stem, even the red-heads salad looked to have a whole potato in it.

They also didn’t seem to be breathing much, maybe half as regularly as a human, the blonde man not even at all- and they were sitting way too still.

Shrugging them off she ate her lunch- she didn’t have time for weirdos like that when she had a nice BLT on schedule.

Finishing out the day with a game of volleyball Lily joined Bella to return the signed forms. They were blasted with the fan as soon as they entered the room, the red-head vampire arguing softly with Mrs. Cope. He stiffened as soon as the door closed behind us, black icy eyes snapping to Bella immediately- damn that’s a look.

“I understand, thank you for your time, I’ll just have to bear with it.” He told the woman suddenly before rushing out of the door. Looking over to her sister Lily just asked- “Did you spit in his face or something?”

Blushing Bella stuttered out a no- telling her about their shared Biology class.

Laughing Lily grabbed a lock of her sisters’ brown hair- “Smells like shampoo to me, maybe he’s constipated?”