For a man dressed in pale blue robes and a pointed wizard’s cap, he didn’t stick out nearly as much as you’d think, standing as he was in the middle of the muggle village of Godric’s Hollow. Lily halted in her tracks to look at him, and as if feeling her gaze, Dumbledore’s bright blue eyes turned her direction—and promptly passed right over where she was standing.
Grinning, Lily removed her cloak. “Good Morning Professor, something I can do for you?”
Dumbledore didn’t jump. But his hasty correction of, “Ah Miss Ev—that is, Mrs. Potter,” was at least mildly less smooth than usual. “My, but that is quite the remarkable cloak, isn’t it?”
Lily moved closer and only then noticed the small briefcase clutched in the Headmaster’s hand. “Thank you, it’s James’ actually. I expect it explains quite a bit of the mischief his lot got up to back in school. Are those the books you mentioned?” she asked, motioning to the briefcase.
Dumbledore’s piercing gaze was still trained on the cloak. “Indeed.”
“Excellent, why don’t you come inside? I was just visiting with Bathilda and she gave me some lemon biscuits for James and Harry. Harry has recently developed a bit of an obsession with lemon flavor you know.”
There was a slight shimmer in the magic as they passed through the wards around the house, but soon enough Lily and Dumbledore were walking in through the front entryway. “That is a lovely Jack-o-lantern,” complimented Dumbledore, “I suspect Hagrid himself would be impressed with the size of it.”
Lily rolled her eyes, “That’s James’ doing. He denies it, but I know he snuck out several times to cast growing charms on the pumpkin patch behind Mrs. Deinwright’s house.”
Just then, a dark-haired toddler came hustling out of the kitchen, a look of mischief plain on his grinning face. James came hurrying behind him, “Hold up there little guy—oh, you’re back. Hullo Headmaster.” He made a discreet move to grab the toddler, but Lily got there first.
“Harry, what’s in your mouth?” she asked sternly, picking him up and holding out her hand in front of his mouth expectantly.
Harry shook his head, and Lily frowned, “Harry,” she said warningly.
He gave her a long look before finally opening his mouth to reveal, to her complete lack of surprise, a round yellow sweet. “Harry, I’ve told you, you’re too young for hard candies. Now spit it out before you choke. Go on then.”
Harry dutifully spat the sweet in her waiting hand. “That’s a good boy,” she said. In barely a second she’d pulled out her wand, vanished the slobbery sweet, and handed Harry a nice soft lemon biscuit from their neighbor. She beckoned them all into the sitting room and set Harry in the middle of a pile of colorful blocks. “Tea, Headmaster?” she asked. “With two sugars?”
“That would be lovely,” he replied, setting his briefcase down on their coffee table and making himself comfortable in the particularly lumpy armchair by the fire which he always seemed to favor.
“I’ll get it,” volunteered James.
Lily gave him a look.
“What? That was one time. I know to boil the water before putting in the leaves now.”
Lily smirked and let him go.
While they waited, Lily casually returned a few things to their places around the room. She cast a quick folding charm on the laundry hamper. “I apologize Headmaster, under the circumstances, I’m afraid we don’t get many visitors.”
“Nonsense,” said Dumbledore, “Motherhood really suits you, if I may say so.”
Lily flushed and ruffled Harry’s hair before returning to the love seat. “I suspect I’m biased on the matter, but Harry is quite possibly the most wonderful little boy who ever lived.”
“Too right,” said James, coming in then, “I’m not surprised in the least he’s going to be the one to defeat Voldemort.”
Lily tensed. “Don’t say that James, don’t even tease. He’s just a baby. He’s not getting anywhere near Voldemort.”
James deflated at once. He put the tea set down on the table and sat down heavily beside her on the love seat. They were all three silent for several long moments before James reached into his robe and gabbed a small bag. “Sherbert Lemon?” he said, offering one of the yellow sweets Harry had stolen earlier to the Headmaster.
Dumbledore eyed them warily, “Go on then Headmaster,” said James, “They’re good. Sirius put me onto them.”
He was no doubt remembering the time in third year when James and Sirius had managed to put together an entire box of ear wax flavored Bertie Botts Every Flavored Beans for the Headmaster as a Christmas gift.
“They really are tasty,” put in Lily, “Sour at first, but very sweet too.”
Dumbledore took a sweet and popped it in his mouth. He hummed thoughtfully. “Delightful,” he concluded.
James laughed, “Better than ear wax?”
“Significantly,” he said. He helped himself to another, “Mr. Potter, I did have a question for you. It’s about that marvelous cloak of yours, is it demiguise fur? Your wife mentioned you’ve had it for years.”
“This old thing?” said James, motioning to the cloak where it was now draped over the edge of the love seat. “It’s been in the family for generations. My father gave it to me for Christmas the year before he passed. He said his father, my grandfather had it before him.”
Dumbledore’s bright-eyed gaze had sharpened, “May I?” he asked, one hand reaching toward it.
Lily coughed and re-directed their attention to the briefcase on the table. “Perhaps we could discuss the books first?” she asked. “Bathilda had a few old tomes on prophecies, and destiny, and maybe it’s my muggle upbringing, but it seems rather like a load bunk to me. There has to be some old spell that can protect him from being affected by prophecies, isn’t there?”
With one final lingering look at the cloak, Dumbledore turned to Lily. His grave face was coupled with the usual raised eyebrow, and slightly upturned lip that he adopted when conversations turned philosophical. “Prophecies themselves are not a threat,” he told her, “They are merely statements about the future which we may or may not choose to believe. If I may, I shall make a prophecy right now: the sun will rise tomorrow from the east.”
Lily crossed her arms. “And I’ll make another. The sun will rise tomorrow from the west.”
Dumbledore chuckled. “Perhaps it will. The difference you’ll note is that my prophecy is based on data that I have observed with my own senses. A true seer’s prophecy is similar, though their senses can extend beyond the physical. However, until the future actually comes to pass, there is no guarantee that my prophecy will be proved true.”
“So Harry doesn’t need to—.”
Dumbledore shook his head, his mild smile slipping. “I’m afraid it will not be up to us or to young Harry. Voldemort, to the best of my understanding, has always been obsessed with the idea of his own destiny. He has always believed he was meant for something—for greatness. He will take a prophecy like this very seriously indeed. I have little doubt this prophecy will be proven true.”
Lily frowned and felt the by now normal tears of frustration begin to form at the corners of her eyes. “So that’s it then?” she said, “He’s coming after Harry and there’s nothing we can do? Nowhere we can run? America, maybe? Bora Bora?”
“There is nowhere safer than under the protection of the Fidelius Charm,” he told her, “Especially when it’s cast by someone who loves you.”
Lily and James exchanged a look.
Lily cleared her throat again, “So what books did you bring, then? If not about prophecies, you must have found something interesting that we could use to protect Harry?”
“Well, as I mentioned in my letter, these are journals that a dear friend of mine brought back from a trip through Kenya several years ago. He had the opportunity to visit with a very secluded tribe while he was there, secluded even by wizarding standards. It was a miracle, really, that they permitted him onto their tribal lands at all.”
“Why’s that?” asked Lily.
“Oh because they’re a heavily matriarchal tribe, one whose leaders normally refuse to even speak to men. They seemed to have made an exception for him,” he chuckled then, “Perhaps if you knew him, you wouldn’t be surprised at that.” He smiled wryly and continued, “They practice some of the most interesting magic I have ever seen. Their magic is deeply steeped in rituals and sacrifice, as though the magic is bestowed upon them by some powerful, near-sentient force.”
“To them there is nothing more sacred than their young, and they cast some of the most powerful protective magics on them when they are born. In fact, their records indicate that despite famines and war in their region, they’ve lost remarkably few children.”
Lily felt her skin begin to crawl with her need to review these journals. “Professor, may I—?” she asked, reaching for the briefcase even before she’d consciously decided to do so.
“By all means,” he said, handing her the case. “Now James, about this cloak of yours, I was wondering if I might borrow it. I have a few tests I would like to run, nothing harmful. I would bring it back first thing tomorrow.”
James shrugged, “Sure Headmaster,” he said, “Just so long as you promise not to blame the cloak for any curfew breaking or out-of-bounds explorations that may have occurred with its aid. I reckon Harry will get some good use out of it too once he’s roaming those hallowed halls.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it,” said Dumbledore, “Now I really should be going. Morale has been low at the school recently, and the Board of Governors has once again been in discussions regarding the school’s safety in these difficult times. I’m hoping the feast tonight will serve to lighten things up, for at least a little while.”
James and Lily nodded gravely. The Prophet seemed to grow grimmer and grimmer each day, and apparently the one who was destined to bring a stop to all of this darkness was their one-year old son.
“Might I have one more Sherbert Lemon?”
James chuckled, and Lily smiled as well. “Of course, Headmaster,” he said, “Here, have the whole bag. We shouldn’t keep them around with Harry anyhow.”
And with that the old wizard bid them goodbye. He disapparated from their front porch with all of the hopeful casualness of someone who fully intended to see them all alive and whole again the very next day.
Lily, for her part, set about her reading with a fervor that surpassed even her NEWT studies not so long ago. She gradually moved about the house, from living room, to kitchen, to bedroom, and living room again, making notes or spare parchment as she read about a sort of goddess which the Dathomireen people referred to as The Mother.
She found the ritual in one of the journals. It was meant to be performed by every mother in the tribe on a New Moon night—such as tonight. Lily bit her lip as she read through the ritual preparation. Alihosty? She had plenty of that. Hellebore? Sure, she’d just bought some last week. There was only one thing she was missing. “James,” she asked, poking her head into the living room where he and Harry had passed out after terrorizing the cat with Harry’s toy broomstick. “Do we have any unicorn hair? I just need one strand.”
James blinked groggily at her and shifted Harry off his stomach. “Unicorn hair? Uhh, dunno. What do you need it for?”
“Protection ritual,” said Lily simply.
“Did you check the cold cupboard?”
“Yes.”
“What about the dry stores in the basement?”
“Looked there too.”
“I dunno Lil’s. Send Sirius a message. He can pick some up in Diagon tomorrow.”
Lily sighed and went back into the kitchen. Tomorrow would be too late. She had to do the ritual tonight or wait for another full month to try again. And there was something tugging at her, deep in her core. She couldn’t bear the thought of waiting any longer. It had to be tonight.
Lily was desperate. She would do anything to protect Harry, anything at all.
Lily glanced down at her wand.
It was ten and one quarter inches of willow encasing a strand of tail hair from a very old unicorn mare—a mother and grandmother and great grandmother to a whole herd. She’d gotten it from Ollivander when she was eleven years old, and it’d never been far from her grasp since the day she got it.
She remembered the first night, after her very first trip to Diagon Alley. She’d slept with the wand clutched in both hands and nearly poked her own eye out with it. She’d cleaned it daily, bought it a nice satin stand, and several holsters. But as much as she loved her wand, and as much as she knew she might never find another that suited her even half as well, it wasn’t all that difficult a decision. With careful precision, Lily took out her best potions knife and sliced the wand down the center longways, revealing the single hair encased within. She placed it in the center of her circle, grabbed up the journal and began to read.
The words of the chant were not English, though the journal’s author had done his best to write phonetic approximations of the words. Lily sat in the center of her circle and said the words, once, twice, three times. On the third time, the unfamiliar words started to take shape in her head, into something wholly different.
I call upon the Mother. Protect my child. Give them life. I call upon the Mother. Extract your price. Be it my own life. I give it. I call upon the Mother. Protect my child.
The words were certainly not English. They weren’t like anything Lily had ever heard before, certainly not Latin or Germanic. But she found that she understood the words as she said them. She felt warmth inside of her as she said them: again and again she repeated the words, until—an unpleasant buzzing feeling like the prickling legs of hornets passed through her from head to toe.
Lily had felt the strong and almost familiar magic flowing through her as she said the words in the ritual, but this was different. This was something outside of her—something threatening. She recognized the feel of a newly cast anti-apparition ward, and something else—something dark and furious and vengeful.
Suddenly, James was yelling, running into the kitchen with Harry clasped in his arms. There was a crash from the front entryway, the door crumpling on itself. “Lily, it’s him!”
Neither of them could see the front door, but they both knew.
“Lily, take Harry and go! It’s him! I’ll hold him off!”
The last thing Lily remembered before… before the end, was begging for Harry to be spared.
"Stand aside, you silly girl… stand aside, now…."
"Not Harry, please no, take me, kill me instead—."
There was a flash of green light. At first it was a poisonous green, but it morphed quickly into a brilliant glowing green that permeated everything around her, like sunlight through leaves. I call upon the Mother. Protect my child. Give them life. I call upon the Mother. Extract your price. Be it my own life. I give it. I call upon the Mother. Protect my child.
There were voices ringing out in Lily’s head. Women from all over the world and all over time—women from other worlds too, though Lily couldn’t say how she knew it. Their voices chanted the words of the ritual and Lily found herself repeating them along with billions of other voices, in a chorus that deafened her.
Suddenly, the words of the chorus changed. “What is your name girl?” sang a billion voices, including Lily’s own.
Lily told them, “Lily Potter,” she paused for a moment and added, “Mother of Harry. Please,” she whispered, “You have to help him.”
“You call yourself Mother?”
For a brief instant, the fog in Lily’s mind cleared and she could see Harry clutching at the bars of his crib while a tall, cloaked figure held a wand aloft in his Harry’s face. “Please! You have to help Harry,” she said more desperately, “We have to save him. Voldemort—.”
“Voldemort,” spat the voices, “Is no match for us. Are you really a Mother?”
“Yes.”
“What would you sacrifice to save your child?” demanded the voices.
“Anything,” said Lily.
The brilliant green light around her suddenly solidified into the shape of Lily’s own parents. A year ago, they had been the victims of a horrible traffic accident, and Lily’s throat clenched to see them again, climbing obliviously into the very vehicle in which they’d died. “We could bring them back instead,” said the voices, “We could save your parents.”
And for a moment Lily couldn’t think. Her parents. They’d died so unfairly young, hadn’t they? And like it was yesterday, Lily could feel her mother combing her hair and plaiting it for her. She could feel her father’s warm embrace, kissing her goodbye as she climbed aboard the Hogwarts Express. Lily shook her head. “Harry,” she insisted, “Save Harry, please!”
The vision changed and next she saw James, facing down Voldemort himself. There were loud crashes as a Bombarda hex broke down the wall between the entryway and the living room. The coffee table flew into the wall and James dove behind Dumbledore’s favorite chair. “We could save James,” said the voices. “The man that you love. The father of your son.”
“My son!” she insisted, “Please, save my son.”
Once more the vision changed, and this time there was a wrecked stone structure before her. It took Lily a moment to recognize the Great Hall of Hogwarts—the tables pushed to the edges of the room and covered in bruised and broken bodies. Hundreds of people were gathered in the Hall, witches and wizards of varying ages. She saw children as young as fourteen, and a red-haired family that may have been the Weasley’s. “You would save Harry over everyone?” asked the voices, “Over the entire world?”
Lily was just about to say yes. Forget the world. She only wanted Harry. She wanted him safe, and alive, happy. “I—,” she hesitated.
She wanted Harry safe more than anything. It was maddening how much she wanted him safe. She was so afraid for him sometimes that she couldn’t breathe. But at the cost of the whole world?
Even for Harry she couldn’t.
There was a buzzing in Lily’s ears, as though she were about to faint. She thought this must be it, she was about to be released into true death. She closed her eyes and braced herself.
“Mother,” said the voices, and there was something like approval in the wavering tone, “You are Mother. To all of them. They will live.”
“And Harry?”
“Him too. But you will pay a price.”
“Anything,” said Lily at once. “I’ll do anything.”
“You are Mother to the Chosen One. Bring Balance.”
With that last command, the voices began to chant again. Lily became aware of a sweltering heat around her, the light changed from brilliant green to dull red. The voices in the chant slowly died out, until it was just one whispered voice, nearby.
I call upon the Mother. Protect my child. Give them life. I call upon the Mother. Extract your price. Be it my own life. I give it. I call upon the Mother. Protect my child.
Lily became suddenly aware that she was in a primitive sort of hut, sprawled out on a floor made of sand. In the corner of the hut, a shuddering woman was tethered to a stand, her face and dirty robes mottled with rips and bruises.
Blearily, Lily tried to get up. Her head was spinning and she tried her best to focus on the stilted words of the now familiar chant. I call upon the Mother. Protect my child. Give them life. I call upon the Mother. Extract your price. Be it my own life. I give it. I call upon the Mother. Protect my child.
“What happened to you,” said Lily, stumbling over to the woman’s side. The chant cut off and a pair of watery brown eyes gazed up into Lily’s own.
In wheezing breaths, the woman said something, but Lily couldn’t understand it. It was in some language Lily had never heard before. She was in bad shape, and Lily knew with a certainty that she couldn’t explain that this woman was dying. “Let me help you,” said Lily, and she reached up to carefully untie the woman’s restraints.
Slowly, Lily pulled the woman into her arms and tried to remember a good healing charm—even though she didn’t have a wand. She sighed. “Episky,” she whispered, holding her hand over a cut on the woman’s face and willing it to heal.
It didn’t do any good. She tried again, and once more. The woman looked to be barely conscious, and in her delirium, she started up the chant again. I call upon the Mother. Protect my child. Give them life. I call upon the Mother. Extract your price. Be it my own life. I give it. I call upon the Mother. Protect my child.
“You’re a mother,” said Lily at last, “What’s your child’s name?”
The woman met her eyes again and somehow, seemed to understand, “Anakin,” she said, “Ani.”
“Anakin?” said Lily, testing out the strange word. She felt the woman’s grasp on life beginning to fade more quickly. She said a couple of other words, and Lily didn’t understand them, but somehow she knew what they meant. Help him. He is nearby. He will be here soon.
Lily nodded, believing her. “I’ll help him,” she assured the woman. She felt familiar tears of frustration and sadness leaking out of her own eyes as she watched the woman struggle to take in her breaths. Was this the task that The Mother had meant for her? “Just hold on a bit longer,” she said, “So you can see him again.”
All at once a bright blue laser of light managed to cut through the edge of the hut from somewhere outside. It was like concentrated spell fire, and Lily watched in shocked fascination as a tall young man barreled through the newly cut hole in the structure. The essence of fear and worry about the young man seemed to permeate the air around them, surrounding and crushing them.
“Ani?” said the woman in Lily’s arms.
The fear was replaced with a sudden spike of furious, desperate love like Lily had scarcely thought existed. The young man fell to his knees beside them and Lily carefully helped the woman into his arms instead of Lily’s. Several words were exchanged, in a language Lily couldn’t hope to understand, and the young man was crying, his sadness a force of nature unto itself.
Lily was crying too of course. How could she not? She’d seen a lot of terrible things in the war against Voldemort—the McKinnon’s, the Prewett’s, almost countless muggles whose names she would never know—but she was still human. The two of them exchanged a few more words, and Lily watched as the mother reached a weak hand up to the young man’s cheek and call him “Ani.”
When Lily felt the woman finally pass away, she reached forward and wrapped the young man in a tight hug. “I’m so sorry,” she said. She repeated it again and again, and the young man cried and clutched at her too.
She didn’t know how long it went on, but eventually she felt the young man’s desperate sadness begin to morph into something else. Lily shivered and sat back to look at him. “Anakin?” she asked.
There was a steely glint in his eyes, a cold flash that made her think of the look Voldemort wore when he broke into their house in Godric’s Hollow. “Anakin, what are you thinking?”
He ignored her and stood up. In his strange language, he said something short and dark, and angry. “Anakin,” she tried again and got to her feet as well, holding out her arms to try and stop him.
He brushed past her, ignited the same bright blue laser he’d used to break into the hut, and walked out the front door. There were two thumps, and then suddenly a whole lot of screaming and yelling in inhuman voices. Lily raced out of the hut to a scene of absolute horror. Anakin, his actions full of crazed grace, was prowling around the strange desert camp, striking down humanoid creatures everywhere he went.
They were firing guns back at him, but he batted the bullets away from him—strange colorful bullets that looked like spells themselves. “Anakin stop!” she cried, running past strewn bodies on the sand, and dark green flowing blood.
Lily tried to get to him, but he moved quickly through the camp, killing everyone, two-legged and scaly four-legged creatures alike. Eventually they stopped fighting back and began running away from him in earnest.
Anakin pursued. The screams of these strange creatures filled the night, and Lily was crying all over again and wishing she knew what to do. Her emotions were in turmoil. She’d seen so much death, today especially, and this boy—this young man was supposed to be under The Mother’s protection. Only, from where she stood, it seemed like everyone else needed protection from him.
And that was when she saw it. Anakin had come to a stop before a cowering group of the strange creatures, much shorter than the rest. They were children, she realized, and suddenly, Lily’s blood was thrumming in her veins. She couldn’t let him do this. She had to stop him. She had to. It didn’t matter that she didn’t know how, just like it hadn’t mattered that she didn’t know how to make flowers bloom as a child, or how to float through the air after jumping off a swing.
“STOP!” she cried, and she felt the compulsion in her words.
Every living being in the camp froze and turned to look at her, Anakin included. “Anakin,” she said, “Anakin, no!”
And to her great astonishment and relief, Anakin’s stiff posture slumped in defeat. Slowly, putting one careful foot in front of the other, Lily approached Anakin and took the metal cylinder with the deadly laser out of his hand. She reached up and wrapped him in another hug and turned to the children and the leftover wary looking creatures. “Go,” she told them firmly, “The Mother has spared you.”
She had no idea if her words made sense to them, but the creatures, each looking at her through strange metal eye pieces gave her a long look before scurrying away. Lily held Anakin for a long time while the creatures scurried off onto their odd tusked mounts and disappeared into the desert.
When she finally felt Anakin relax, Lily released him. He turned away from her and said a few things in his strange language.
“I’m sorry,” she said, “I can’t understand you. Do you speak English?”
He gave her a wry bewildered look. “I’ll take that as a no.”
She sighed and looked at the dead creatures spread out all around them. For a fleeting moment, she considered trying to bury them, but what if that was taboo in their strange culture? She knew centaurs buried their dead, but Veela burned theirs, and merpeople brought theirs to The Great Whirlpool, whatever that was.
“Let’s get out of here,” she said, grabbing Anakin’s hand and leading him back to the hut where his mother had died. Together they wrapped her in a shroud, and then Lily followed Anakin back to a strange, rusted metal thing that reminded her a bit of Sirius’ motorbike without the wheels.
Anakin carefully laid his mother on the back of the bike. He turned to her and said something, something which sounded remarkably like some sort of order.
Lily put her hands on her hips. “Excuse me?” she demanded.
He gave her a wry look and motioned to the back of the bike. Lily considered her options. Go with the crazed young man who’d just murdered a bunch of strange creatures with a magic laser, or stick around here in a desert she’d never seen before and wait for the same strange creatures to come back, and presumably murder her as they’d done to Anakin’s mother. She sighed. Things were never easy, were they?
Lily climbed on the back of the bike, and then grabbed on for dear life when Anakin took off with a furious burst of acceleration. Oh Merlin, he was worse than James on a broom. She didn’t bother trying to tell him to slow down. No doubt he’d just speed up all the more if he managed to understand her request.
The sun had breached the western horizon by the time they reached a settlement. Anakin pulled to a stop beside a strange concrete igloo-looking building, and several people came out to greet them. There were three people about her age, but one of them stood out more than the others. She was slim, with dark brown hair wrapped in a tight, intricate bun. She was quite possibly one of the most beautiful women Lily had ever seen. Her bright brown eyes were expressive, and Lily could feel the wary curiosity pouring out of her.
Anakin climbed off the bike, and without bothering to offer Lily any assistance, walked forward to wrap the lovely brown eyed woman in a hug. Clumsily, Lily climbed off the bike and tried to shake the stiffness out of her very sore limbs. She didn’t even want to think about what her hair must look like.
She hurriedly pulled it back into some sort of knot (a hair tie would be nice… alas, she had none), and then crossed the desert to greet the new people and hope that some of them might speak some sort of familiar language. “Hello I’m Lily Potter,” she said, stepping forward to shake hands with the young people (Owen, Beru, and Padmé), and a one-legged older man (Cliegg) in a floating chair.
Lily gazed at the chair for a long moment while she received unknown words of greeting from her hosts. And then she found herself face-to-face with a man made entirely of metal. “Hello,” she tried again.
Anakin and the others seemed to be looking between them expectantly. The metal man said several things to her, and Lily was forced to repeat the phrase, “I’m sorry, I don’t know what you’re saying,” to him several times before he finally gave up.
She shrugged at Anakin, and the young man simply lifted an eyebrow.
The next few hours of Lily’s life were strange indeed. First, she followed the strange group of people down into the concrete igloo, which was much larger underneath than it had appeared from the surface. It was unlike any muggle or magical residence she’d ever visited, and the food she was served was bizarre. She took a small sip of a pale blue drink which was a bit sour in her opinion, and had some strange, (also sour) berries that were the size of small plums.
“Uh, Sh-hank who,” she said, trying to imitate the phrase she’d heard the pretty, brown-haired woman say when someone had handed her some of the fruit. She got the feeling this Padmé woman was the politest of all of them, and so intended to copy her manners as best she could.
After breakfast, they held a small burial and funeral for Anakin’s mother, and another metal creature, this one blue and white and dome-shaped came rolling through the desert to deliver some sort of message to Anakin and Padmé. And that was about the time Lily realized that there was something very important about this place that set it distinctly apart from anywhere she’d visited before. “There’s two suns,” she said aloud, staring, and blinking, and staring again. “Oh Merlin, Morgana, and Circe, there are two bleeding suns in the sky. That is not normal.”
So this was not Earth then. Good to know, good to know.
“Lily?” said Padmé, a nice lilt to her voice. She said something else that Lily couldn’t hope to decipher, and Lily just helplessly pointed at the suns.
“Tatooine,” said Padmé knowledgeably.
And then Lily followed Anakin and Padmé onto a very large metal construct which turned out to be, to her utter shock, a spaceship. Lily stared out the window on the front viewport as Anakin easily brought them into space—outer bleeding space. “Kriff,” she said, copying the curse she’d heard Anakin mutter when he’d dropped a bag he’d been carrying earlier.
Anakin and Padmé glanced at her with matching wry looks.
She had many other occasions to use the word that day. First when they landed on a strange orange planet that reminded her a bit of Mars, and then when they wound up in a large completely automated factory of some sort, a factor which built… Lily hadn’t the foggiest idea what it built… machines? While Anakin and Padmé had some harrowing run through the factory, Lily was immediately apprehended by a group of giant insects. “Anakin!” she called worriedly, as the insects lead her away from her new friends.
“I don’t suppose any of you speak English?”
Her question was met with derisive skittering and Lily was promptly pushed into a dark, underground room.
She worried for Anakin and Padmé. And Threepio and Artoo too of course. That factory had seemed very unsafe. She had no idea what they were supposed to be doing there, but it was abundantly clear that they were not welcome. What she wouldn’t give for a good translation charm just then so somebody could explain to her what in Merlin’s name was going on.
She shook her head and tried to focus on her own situation. Anakin was apparently a space traveler, and he had his laser, and he… he was pretty scary when he wanted to be. He would get them all out of this somehow. Hopefully.
Lily’s worried waiting was quickly brought to an end as the insects returned and hustled her onto a weird cart, led by some strange four legged-lizard creature. The cart carried her out into a bright sandy arena, and to a series of pillars that were being erected in the middle of the arena. There appeared to be four of them altogether and attached by a long metal chain to one of them, was a man in pale tunic and trousers. The one pillar on his right was erected first, and Lily was brought to it and tied to it much like the man was beside her.
She wondered if these insectoid creatures just really hated humans. Maybe it was their custom to tie up any humans that came into their territory so that they could all gather around in an arena and gawk at them. How charming.
“Do you know what’s going on?” Lily called to the man who’d been tied up near her.
The man turned to look at her, and his single raised eyebrow told her at least one thing. He didn’t know English any better than Anakin.
“Kriff,” she said.
The man answered with a single word, which in Anakin and Padmé’s language, Lily was pretty sure meant, “Quite.”
It wasn’t long before Anakin and Padmé themselves were being carted out to join them in the arena. They were kissing. Of course they were. Lily glanced over at the man tied up beside her and she was pleased to be able to share with him a universal look of exasperation.
She and James had never been like that. Well okay, maybe a little, but she was grown now and fully capable of recognizing how ridiculous they would have looked kissing in the middle of a highly dangerous situation. Just imagine, in the middle of a fight with Death Eaters, and taking a little passionate moment to themsel—okay, that was one time! Years ago. A year and a half ago, minimum. Before Harry was born.
Lily shook her head and smirked a little.
Anakin and the man beside Lily exchanged some words while Anakin and Padmé were being attached to their pillars. Anakin and this new man clearly knew one another. That was good, probably. The man would be an ally to them against the thousands of horrible insects in case things got bad.
And then the doors on the far side of the arena opened and four enormous and angry looking monsters were led out by their insectoid handlers using very large electric livestock prods. Lily had never seen anything like any of these creatures before, but it was patently obvious that they were dangerous (and probably hungry). One looked like a giant praying mantis, and it was being brought purposefully toward the man beside Lily. The one slated to greet Lily was a leathery black squidlike creature, slithering, more than walking on its many writhing legs as it was forced toward her. From his mouth came suddenly a flying black blob of boiling tar.
“Kriff!” shouted Lily, “Oh Kriff!”
Her companions agreed with her.
Lily thought hard, trying to find a way out of this. She willed her wrist braces free with the hardest mental Alohamora she’d ever tried. She was relieved it worked, but she didn’t quite know what to do from there. Padmé was smartly climbing her pillar to get away from her creature, but Lily suspected she, Lily, didn’t quite have the upper body strength required for that sort of feat.
Wandless magic was not something Lily had a lot of practice with, but she was about out of options. She was on an alien world, sent here by The Mother to do something… something to do with Anakin. And Lily was 90% sure whatever that something was did not include dying in the leathery tentacles of a land squid within a day of arriving here. So, holding up her hands in front of her, she shouted “Bombarda Maxima!”
There was a whiff of magic soaring past her, and her squid stepped back as if it’d been struck by a force—a very light force that barely did anything at all, but it was something. Lily heaved in a breath, suddenly feeling exhausted. Okay, that had not been worth it.
She could really go for one of Anakin’s laser swords just about then. Another boiling glob of tar came flying past her right shoulder, catching the edge of her arm and Lily hissed in sudden pain. It felt as though she’d been hit with a fire hex. Clutching at her arm, Lily sprinted away from her squid, barely pausing to see how well the others were holding up against their creatures. “Accio Anakin’s Laser Sword!” she screamed, huffing in several deep breaths as she ran away from the squid.
It took almost two whole minutes, and Lily couldn’t tell what would make her pass out first, the physical exhaustion, the magical exhaustion, or the pain in her shoulder. But then, finally, the gleaming metal cylinder flew through the air from… somewhere… and Lily hastily snatched it out of the air.
She held it up and turned to face the squid. Now how did one go about igniting the thing? She found a little switch on the side, flipped it, and suddenly, the metal was a glowing blue plasma sword. She’d seen what this thing could do.
Clutching it in a clumsy two-handed grip, Lily charged at the squid, and took another burst of tar to the neck this time for her troubles. She dropped the sword and clutched at her neck, screaming in pain. She would have been a goner if Anakin and Padmé hadn’t rolled through then on a stolen chariot. Anakin used a silent summoning charm to pull his laser sword away from Lily and in one fluid motion, ignited it and decapitated the squid. Padmé helped Lily up onto the chariot.
“Kriff,” said Lily.
“Kriff,” repeated Padmé dutifully.
“Schank-who,” said Lily.
“Thank-you,” corrected Padmé.
Lily looked around and blearily realized that they were no longer alone in the arena. While she’d been distracted, the place had filled up with all sorts of strange beings carrying laser swords like Anakin’s. Hopefully that meant they were allies and not more human-haters.
And then the machines from the factory they’d visited earlier were arriving in dangerous droves, each armed with guns and firing indiscriminately into the crowd of laser-sword carrying beings.
All in all, it was more intense than any Death Eater battle Lily had ever engaged in. It was loud, and there were all sorts of screaming in unrecognizable languages. Lily followed Anakin and Padmé toward the center of the arena and huddled up with their allies. She grabbed another laser sword from a fallen ally, nearly took off her own foot, and then decided to give that up for now. Instead she went about summoning the guns from the attacking robots. “Accio, accio, ACCIO!” she cried over and over.
She got a few weird looks from their allies, but she’d seen several of them do similar things (albeit without any sort of incantation), so she decided not to worry about any sort of Statute of Secrecy.
And then suddenly the fighting came to a halt, and a white-haired human male said something full of disdain. Clearly, he was in charge around here. It didn’t surprise Lily as much as it should have to discover that the chief human-hater was a human himself. It was like Voldemort all over again. Dumbledore had revealed once to the Order that the worst blood purist to grace the British Isles in centuries was a half blood himself.
Lily shook herself out of her thoughts as the fighting started up again, and then suddenly there were dozens of air ships coming out of the sky. Reinforcements!
Lily’s initial relief was quickly replaced by a sort of awed shock. There was a whole army of reinforcements descending around them, dressed in matching uniforms and everything. Lily hadn’t quite realized… but this was a war, wasn’t it? This was something full scales of magnitude worse and bigger than anything Voldemort could contrive to cause in the Wizarding World back on Earth.
She looked around for Anakin. How was she supposed to save him when he was in the middle of some sort of intergalactic war?
She didn’t know and couldn’t begin to guess. She made her way towards him and followed him up into one of the airships. Padmé was there too, and the man who’d been tied to the pillars with them. “Lily Potter,” she said, greeting the unknown man.
“Obi-Wan Kenobi,” he replied. He said some other things, but Lily just smiled ruefully and shook her head.
Anakin took it upon himself to explain (most likely), that Lily was not familiar with their language.
Lily turned and gazed out over the rocky plains passing below. There were more airships full of their army everywhere she looked, and they were attacking these giant domes that were ascending from beneath the ground like miniature planets headed for the sky. Their army had deployed ground troops too, and they were engaged in a deadly looking firefight with the machines she’d seen in the factory. It was dazzling and horrifying all at once.
Their ship suddenly veered right, and Lily glanced out the open doorway on the side of the ship to see a small group of flying motorbikes like Anakin had used back on Tatooine. At the front of the group was the white-haired human-hater from back in the arena. Lily pointed at him, “Name?” she managed to say in their language (or at least, she was pretty sure that was the word for name).
“Count Dooku,” offered Obi-Wan Kenobi.
“Count Dooku,” she repeated.
“Is he a wizard?” she asked in her own native English, knowing they didn’t have a hope of understanding, but wishing she could puzzle this out anyway. When they looked at her in confusion, Lily focused and managed to silently summon Anakin’s laser sword to her outstretched hand. She motioned at the path the sword had travelled. “Count Dooku?” she pressed. “Can he do that too?”
The three of them, Anakin, Obi-Wan Kenobi, and Padmé were all staring at her in shock. “What?” she asked in their language.
The three of them began speaking at once, and Lily didn’t get any of it, until Anakin slowly pointed at her and said, “Jedi?”
This was clearly the word for witch in their language, so Lily nodded enthusiastically. “Jedi!” she agreed, “Lily, Jedi,” she said, pointing to herself.
“Count Dooku, Sith,” said Obi-Wan Kenobi.
Lily nodded, understanding at once. Sith meant wizard. “Anakin, Sith,” she said to demonstrate that she got it.
Anakin paled and Obi-Wan Kenobi began vehemently shaking his head. “No, no, Anakin, Jedi,” he insisted.
Lily looked at Anakin. He could be female she supposed. “Are you sure?” she said, back in English again. They didn’t get it, so she settled for giving them all a doubtful look. And then suddenly their airship jolted and Padmé went flying out onto a sand dune below.
“Padmé!” screamed Anakin, rushing for the edge of the ship, but Obi-Wan Kenobi grabbed him—sorry, her—and stopped hi—her from barreling out of the ship after Padmé.
“Padmé!” repeated Lily in alarm. That was a long drop! She waited for the ship to turn around, ignoring Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin arguing with one another. But the ship remained on course. She looked to the pilot of their ship and then to Obi-Wan and Anakin. “What aren’t we turning around?” she demanded.
She looked at them both imploringly, trying to convey her worry and confusion. “Padmé!” she insisted.
Anakin crossed their arms and turned away to face out the other opened doorway. Obi-Wan Kenobi gave Lily a wary look, “Padmé!” she repeated, pointing out toward the sand where they’d dropped her.
Obi-Wan Kenobi then proceeded to say a whole lot of things which Lily couldn’t begin to grasp, but one word that kept coming up was Jedi. Lily crossed her arms in disbelief when she thought she understood, “Padmé no jedi?” she asked. It was just like the bleeding wizarding world, wasn’t it? Because Padmé wasn’t a witch, she was clearly worth less as a human being and they weren’t going back to rescue her. She was expendable.
Obi-Wan Kenobi seemed oblivious to Lily’s disdain. In fact, he almost seemed relieved that Lily had understood. “Padmé no jedi,” he repeated.
Lily scoffed. “Padmé!” she yelled, uncaring if her voice had grown shrill to be heard over the engines of their airship. “Anakin,” she demanded, “Padmé!” she cried, pointing out into the desert. Surely someone didn’t kiss a woman like Padmé one moment and then abandon her in the desert the next.
And just like that, Anakin dove out of the airship to go after Padmé. “Anakin!” cried Lily, half shocked and half impressed. She saw them land in a graceful roll on the sand below and then go sprinting at near in-human speeds back toward where they’d dropped Padmé.
“Anakin!” shouted Obi-Wan Kenobi, sounding more exasperated than worried. He watched Anakin run away and then he turned a pair of furious blue eyes on Lily. “Lily,” he growled.
“Obi-Wan Kenobi,” she spat back haughtily. She didn’t care for his muggle hating ways. Padmé deserved to be rescued just like anybody else.
Obi-Wan Kenobi sighed and pinched his nose. “Lily, jedi?” he said finally. Apparently, he needed to double check her magical status. The sheer audacity of this man.
“Yes,” hissed Lily, “Lily, jedi.”
Obi-Wan Kenobi nodded and then began explaining a whole lot of things. “Yes?” he said once he’d finished.
The airship had pulled into some sort of hangar built into a red stone mountain. Lily shrugged and hopped out of the ship. There was another ship nearby, this one looking far more appropriate for space flight than the one Count Dooku had been piloting earlier. Obi-Wan Kenobi sprinted for the ship and Lily went running after him.
They quickly came face-to-face with Count Dooku. “Obi-Wan,” said the man with careful enunciation that Lily suspected was rather refined for their language. He said something to her which Lily interpreted to be a request for introductions.
“Lily Potter,” she said proudly, pointing to herself. She could absolutely learn a new language on the fly while she was in the middle of a bloody war, go on, tell her she couldn’t.
Count Dooku began saying several other things and Lily stared at him. For a human-hater, he sure liked to talk with other humans. She heard the words jedi and sith tossed around a few times and Lily scowled. Great, another blood purist wanting to know her magical status.
She was getting tired of this rather quickly. “Jedi,” she said through gritted teeth, pointing once again to herself.
Count Dooku began spouting off several more things which involved the word Sith, likely trying to tell her about the superiority of those blessed with magical ability. Blah, blah, blah, wizards good, muggles bad, everyone less powerful than me should die. She was almost glad she couldn’t understand him.
Lily crossed her arms and waited for Count Dooku to finish. She couldn’t believe that there was apparently an entire galaxy out there, filled with all sorts of amazing creatures and machines, and space flight, and still people were obsessed with blood status. What was the deal?
And then Count Dooku used magic to bring down a piece of the roof almost on top of them. Lily shouted out an instinctive “Protego”, she was almost used to the idea of trying out random bits of magic without a wand now. Her summoning charm had worked well enough, if other things hadn’t gone quite as well.
To her relief, the rocks crumbled against her invisible shield, and Obi-Wan managed to toss them away from them with a few flicks of his hands and a mildly strained look on his face.
And Count Dooku was talking again. Lily regretted being upset about the talking, because as soon as he stopped, a glowing blue bolt of pure lightning flickered in his fingertips and then came barreling towards them. “Protego Maxima!” shouted Lily, desperately holding her hands out in front of her.
Like the rocks, the lightning dissipated on Lily’s invisible shield and Obi-Wan Kenobi gave her an impressed look. Lily wondered what he’d think if he learned her parents were muggles.
He took out his glowing blue laser sword and caught the next bolt of lightning on the tip of it, the sword’s laser absorbing the energy from the lightning, like she’d seen Dumbledore do in a fight once with his wand. Lily panted, relieved. She’d been much too tired to try for a third shield charm.
The lightning petered out, and then Count Dooku drew out his own glowing red laser sword and charged at Obi-Wan. Lily watched in amazement as Count Dooku and Obi-Wan dueled like a pair of the fastest, most athletic fencers she’d ever seen. Obi-Wan was clearly on the defensive, but he seemed content enough to stay there and let Count Dooku lead them around the cliffside hangar-bay, leaping over boxes of supplies and summoning various items from around them to try and throw off his opponent.
Lily evened out her breathing and then waited for a chance to step in and assist. Maybe she could summon Count Dooku’s laser sword away from him?
She didn’t know any sort of lightning spells herself, and wasn’t sure if she’d cast one even if she did. She did know a good wind charm though. “Ventus!” she intoned and frowned when a very soft gust of wind breezed out of her hands—rather like an asthmatic child blowing out their birthday candles. Pathetic.
She took a deep breath and tried to center herself. Casting magic without a wand was difficult, and it required an incredible amount of focus. “Accio Count Dooku’s Laser Sword!” she screamed, glaring at the man as he fought with Obi-Wan.
To her chagrin, the sword did not come completely free, but it did wiggle just enough to give Obi-Wan an edge, and in the next moment, he’d swiped hard and taken Count Dooku’s hand off at the wrist. The laser sword tumbled to the ground and the hangar was quiet for a long moment.
And then the cavalry arrived. Their white armor-plated troops poured in at the entrance to the hangar, led by Padmé and Anakin. A small green creature came hobbling in on a cane, and with a wave of powerful magic, summoned Count Dooku’s laser sword to his outstretched hand and put Count Dooku to sleep. He looked like a thick house elf, or a green goblin, and his magic reminded Lily of Dumbledore’s.
“Master Yoda, I am,” he said, introducing himself to Lily, while the troops and Anakin handcuffed Count Dooku and loaded him onto their ship.
“Lily Potter, I am,” she replied.
He lifted a thick white eyebrow at her and Lily wondered how badly she’d garbled that. “Sorry, I don’t actually speak your language,” she said, “Unless you happen to speak English?” she tried, hopefully.
He continued staring at her in something that felt like mild curiosity and Lily sighed. “Jedi,” she informed him, pointing to herself. She’d better mention it preemptively in case he got any ideas about performing obliviations.
He nodded sagely and pointed to himself as well, “Jedi,” he repeated and Lily flushed. She hadn’t realized—so, Yoda was a female of her species. Very well then.
“Sith,” she said, pointing to Obi-Wan.
The alarmed response this proclamation made lead Lily to suspect that she may have misunderstood a few things.