Lily set down the last of the three obsidian ritual knives (carved by hand, untouched by magic, and older than the House of Windsor). Her hands shook slightly as she carefully began to lay out a circle of crosses - each one freshly cut from the trees, one stick of yew and one stick of elder bound together in an ‘x’. She had never attempted something like this. Most of her friends from Hogwarts would have found it to be unconscionably Dark.
“My family has an odd relationship with Death,” James said sheepishly, shrugging when Lily frowned at him. “It’s one of those things. You know - Uncle Sharly talks to mountains and castles, Ama can raise firebirds and call lightning, and if you need a bit of help…”
But she was desperate. Five months pregnant and the focus of a prophecy that had already set its claws into her family and ripped -
One large gravemarker, three names engraved. Three birthdates, one date of death. Lily refused to look away, even as her eyes teared up. James was crying into her hair, she could tell, and Sirius was as unmoving as the two stone hellhounds that guarded the graveyard. Mere yards away, Henry and Priya Potter lay at rest, their elaborately carved gravemarker a testament to the firebirds for which the Potter Matriarch had been so famous. Only a bit to the left, and the shared grave of Charlus and Dorea Potter was flanked by the grave of their son, Henry. And now James and Sirius had lost the last of their family - and James had lost three parents in one day.
The war was heating up. There was no Henry Potter to terrify the Death Eaters away, nor his wife with her firebirds. James’ aunt and uncle were gone, leaving the ancient home of the Potters unspeakably silent. Their son was gone, too, leaving only James. Only James, and Lily, (and Sirius, if they were being honest,) and The Baby.
“There are fairy tales about the Cloak. Silly stories about power and stuff. But the Cloak isn’t about power. It’s about understanding that we are all equal in the eyes of Death…”
Maybe the rule-following child that she had been at eleven years of age would have flinched away from this. Maybe she might have once flung hateful words in the face of this option. But those days were long gone. Burned away by war and violence, and leaving only silence in return.
Her baby would die. Unless…
“Granda told me this story from the time I was very small - before I was even really doing accidental magic. It’s a bit different from the official one, or even the new translation that Professor Dumbledore did when we were kids.” James took Lily’s hand in his own, staring at the stylized bridge in the center of the Potter Family’s land. “It goes like this: Once, not too long ago, three brothers crossed a raging river on a faulty bridge…”
Thirteen crosses made from elder and yew. Three obsidian knives, untouched by magic. The Caller in the center, and the Cloak on the ground. A simple, unadorned Invisibility Cloak, looking all-too-innocent as a piece of silvery cloth, laid out before her feet.
A request.
“Please.” Lily’s voice wavered. “Please. I know - I know I’m not really a Potter. Not by blood. But if you’re listening -”
“I’m always listening.”
There was a girl, about her age, seated on the Cloak. Dark eyes, dark hair, dark clothes. A heavy silver ankh hung from around her neck.
“You called?”
Lily shivered. She was terrifying in the sheer simplicity of all of it. No huge crashes of magic, no roaring thunder or flashing lights. Just - She was there.
“It’s - it’s my baby.”
Death rocked in place, easy movements that could belong to any teenager comfortable in her skin. “What about him?”
Lily slid to sit on the ground in front of Death. “He’s going to die.”
Death leaned forward, tilting Lily’s chin to meet her eyes. “Everything does. In time. But that’s not why you called me, is it? You want something.”
“A deal.” The words spilled from Lily’s mouth eagerly. “I know Jamie doesn’t think you do deals, and Sirius thinks that everything is worth a try, but all of the tales say you might. Just - that you might make a deal. My life, for my baby.”
Death stood up abruptly. “He’s not even born yet. I don’t do that kind of thing, in any case.”
“But he will be!” Lily shot to her feet, all of the desperate fury that had pushed her to this point boiling forth. “He’s my baby, and because some idiot can’t keep his mouth shut, he’ll be killed before he sees his first birthday! There has to be something, there must be! You say you don’t do this kind of thing, but you do, don’t you?”
“…The bridge split, as they all must do, and the brothers plunged forth to their deaths. But the eldest leapt free, for he had learned Black Magics that made him swifter than any man should be. The second-born followed, saved by his brother’s powers. The youngest cast himself forward, and clung to his brothers, until they had dragged him free of the river…”
Death frowned. “It’s not that simple. A moment here, a moment there. If I give you one time, then what about the next? Or the next? If I say - fine, your life for your son’s life - what happens after that day? When his life continues on? When he faces me again?”
Lily shook her head. “No. I don’t - I want him to have a Life.”
“…And there stood Death, cloaked in silver, who demanded to know just what they were thinking, to cast themselves unto certain death, and then cheat their day of it’s time…”
Death shook her head. “A curse for a curse - that I could do, that’s simple protection magic. One for one. But you won’t be satisfied with that - nobody ever is.”
“…And the eldest, who called himself Antioch, drew his wand and told Death that She had no claim on him - he had cheated Her, and he would live that day. Death smiled, and asked if he wished for a forfeit. His youngest brother shook his head, backing away. ‘Play not the games of the Endless, brother,’ he warned. ‘We all know better.’
“But Antioch laughed. ‘I have beaten the Endless! I would show the world that I have done so!’ And so he demanded his forfeit - an unbeatable wand, to show his power over even Death. She smiled, and nodded, and lifted a stick of Elder from the ground, handing it to him. And so the Elder Wand was born…”
Lily felt tears spill down her face. “I just want my baby to live. He’s been painted as a target before he was even born! I just want him to have a chance!”
Death scowled. “For every boon there is a price - and lives are priceless. Would you have your own life, however many years it might be, cast aside for a handful of weeks for your son?”
Lily looked up at Death. The coldness that had waited quietly in her soul for this very day, drew forward. “I would give my years, and any year given by my family. We’re bound by oath. I to James, and Sirius, and Sirius and James to Remus and Peter, and Alice to me, and Frank to Alice. Any of us would give - should give.”
“…And the second brother, called Cadmus, who saw that his brother had won such a prize - he, too fell prey to desire. Even as his younger brother asked him to come away, to be pleased with the life he had stolen as his own, Cadmus turned to Death and demanded his dead betrothed. But Death refused - those who leave for the sunless lands, at their time, they do not return. So he demanded a way to speak with her. And Death handed him a stone, a pebble, from the river’s bank, and told him that he could speak to any soul in the sunless lands, should he but turn the stone thrice in his hand…”
Death sat back down on the Cloak, twisting the fabric in Her hands. “I don’t make deals.”
Lily licked her lips. “But what about facilitating a gift? A gift of life, freely given?”
“…And the second brother was satisfied, and he left, the newly born Resurrection Stone in his hands. Which left the last, the youngest, who still went by the name his mother had given him, though his baptismal name was Ignatius. He, who called himself Aodhan, shook his head when Death raised an inquisitive brow. ‘I shan’t play games with one of the Endless, My Lady, though your gift is kind when the time has come.’
“Death smiled. ‘Canny. You saw what your brothers did not?’ She drew her cloak from her shoulders as she spoke.
“Aodhan held out a hand, and took the proffered cloak, folding it over his elbow. ‘If today is my time, then escaping the river does nothing. If I live on through today, then it was not my time to follow You.’
“Death smiled…”
“A gift of life, freely given?” Death leaned backwards until She was prone on the ground, sprawled like a child across Her Cloak. “As much as any Power, a gift could be facilitated.” She hesitated. “Especially for a child of the Sparkling Lake.”
“…As the day drew into night, Antioch’s boasts were heard by many a passerby, and he continued his boasts at an inn, where he drank his fill. In the night, a covetous man slew him, in his sleep, and stole the Magnificent Unbeatable Elder Wand…”
“Thirteen is a very magical number,” Lily said hastily. “As is seven. Seven people, willing to give, thirteen years from each?”
Death waved a lazy hand in the air. “Seven people?”
“Myself. James. Sirius. Remus. Peter. Alice. Frank. I got verbal consent from everyone before I even attempted to call you.”
Death swung upwards. “You didn’t think it would work.”
“…On the side of the road, Cadmus stood, for he had not walked far before falling to temptation, calling his beloved back to him. He spoke with her for hours upon hours, of all he had done, and their son, whose birth had stolen the life of his mother. He drowned in his beloved, though she begged him to stop, for being called to the sunlit lands gave her great pain. And while he wallowed, and night fell, a cutpurse came by. He took Cadmus’ purse, his sword, and then his life, before stealing the Stone as well…”
Lily froze. “Well, I -”
Death hugged her, and Lily couldn’t - quite - understand what was happening. Death hugged her.
“Life is hurting right now, and anything is worth a try,” Death hummed in Lily’s ear. “But there are beautiful things, too, and I want you to see them. Rain splashing down your back, and the sound of marbles rolling on stone, and the crunch of a really nice apple. Hugs. Children laughing. Ferris Wheels.”
Lily’s heart hurt. The words fell from her lips, almost involuntarily. “Playing fetch with ridiculously large dogs. Idiots getting their antlers stuck in the doorway and forgetting they can change back. Butterscotch ice-cream with strawberry sauce. Schubert’s Ave Maria. Properly salty peanuts. Kisses. Waking up with someone you love…”
“…Aodhan walked home, carrying a Cloak, gifted to him by a smiling Death. ‘No games,’ She had promised. So he took it home, and swept the Cloak up, and found that it was an Invisibility Cloak like none he had ever seen. So he kept it a secret, and when he grew old, he gave it to his granddaughter, who had married the Lord of Sparkling Lake, the land where Aodhan had been born. And the night after Iolande took her grandfather’s cloak home to Sparkling Lake, Aodhan stepped out of his house, and breathed in the clean air, and smiled at the stars. They were beautiful, and he told his gooddaughter so before stepping away from the house, and into the arms of a beautiful lady.
“Aodhan’s gooddaughter demanded to know who had come calling at such a time of night. The Lady simply smiled, and said her name was Death. Even Death, She said, came in person for an old friend.”
Lily woke up to find the room dark. The sun had gone down, while she was…sleeping?
Someone had draped the Cloak over her while she slept.
The knives were neatly stacked in a corner.
The crosses of yew and elder were gone.
“My family has an odd relationship with Death,” James said sheepishly, shrugging when Lily frowned at him. “It’s one of those things. You know - Uncle Sharly talks to mountains and castles, Ama can raise firebirds and call lightning, and if you need a bit of help, you take out the obsidian knives, make a circle of crosses made from yew and elder, and just…ask. Granda said She was great at giving you perspective, and helpful when She could be.”