chdarling-tle

[chdarling-tle]

James ran. He ran faster than he’d ever run in his whole life. He hurtled out the door of the apothecary, slamming it shut with his wand as he went, lest the others try to follow him into the fray. He weaved and dodged through spell and smoke, flinging up a shield charm just as a masked man raised his wand — the curse hit the invisible barrier in a cascade of sparks. James paid it no mind. Kept going. Distantly, he was aware of someone shouting at him through all the chaos, recognized adult figures that weren’t masked or dressed in black — he ignored them all. Only one thought filled his brain, drowning out everything else amidst this swirling hurricane — only one word, one idea, one purpose commanded his mind’s eye: Lily.

He was nearly to the bookshop, just a few more paces. The fire was growing — roaring, spitting, spreading; it circled the shop like a snake about to squeeze its prey. If he didn’t make it through, the shop would be cut off — and Lily trapped inside.

A burst of heat blossomed behind him; he pushed harder, ran faster.

Skid of heel against cobblestone; air hot with smoke and ash. He slipped through the circle of fire just as it closed upon itself, a flaming ouroboros. James paused for half a second to catch his breath, sweat pearling on his brow in the heat of the blaze. Then the fiery snake flicked its tail, and a wall of flame crashed into the shop.

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#tle2 #the last enemy: dark marks #james potter #jily #i would like the world to know that i wrote 6000 words today #my back hurts and it's way past my bedtime and i barely edited but #let's fucking goooooooooooooooo

[chdarling-tle]

Peter stared.

High above him, bright gleaming emerald stars glittered against a smoke-stained sky. They formed the shape of a skull — gaping eye sockets as dark and empty as those of Professor Carter-Myles’ several feet away. A serpent slithered through the skull’s teeth…Peter could almost hear its hiss, echoing in his own skull, slinking through his thoughts, unfurling through all the horrors that flitted about his brain. And amidst the hiss, there was a voice — his own voice — that couldn’t stop squealing: It’s my fault, it’s my fault, it’s my fault!

But how could he have known this would happen? His little plot with the mirror had been completely innocent. He’d just wanted to impress his friends, to get back what was theirs, to show them that Peter Pettigrew wasn’t useless. And he’d gotten the mirror back, had it stowed safely in his trunk in the dormitory. He hadn’t told his friends about it yet — there hadn’t been time, he’d wanted it to be a moment of triumph — and he hadn’t wanted to tell them about the little incident with Snape. But he couldn’t have known this would happen! He thought at worst Snape might tell a teacher, or perhaps some of his Slytherin pals would show up and harass them…but this? This?

Maybe it didn’t have anything to do with him at all. Maybe it was all just a terrible coincidence.

“The Dark Mark,” said Sirius, and Peter wrenched his gaze back from the heavens. “That means—”

“I know what it means!” snapped Peter, and he hated the hysterical shriek in his voice but he couldn’t turn it down.

“We have to move.”

“I’ve been saying so!”

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#tle2 #the last enemy: dark marks #jily #peter pettigrew

[chdarling-tle]

At first, the only thing that registered was the heavy thump of pain that echoed through the body like the aftershocks of a quake, each heartbeat a blast reverberating against this battered bag of flesh and bone.

Then, slowly, Sirius became conscious of the fact that the heartbeats were his own, the pain his own, and he began to make further inquiries into the status of his body. He discovered that he was lying on his stomach, cheek and palms pressed to the hot earth, and they ached. There was some sort of pressure atop him, keeping him down. He couldn’t move. After a heart-stuttering moment, he determined with relief that he could — though it was most unpleasant — feel his legs. They also ached, all the way down to his tiniest toenail. Even the gums of his teeth seemed to ache. His skull clanged like a ringing bell.

He tried to determine where he was, to remember how he got here, but he came up empty. Perhaps he’d been attacked by his cousins again. It felt about the same.

It occurred to him at this point that he might open his eyes. He tried it. It didn’t make much difference. He could only see straight ahead — all an endless, dusty grey — and of that he could only glimpse a sliver as there was most certainly something large and painfully heavy atop him. Like a wall. It was as though a wall had collapsed on him, pinning him to the ground.

That didn’t make any sense.

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#the last enemy: dark marks #tle2 #sirius black

[chdarling-tle]

“Here we are,” said James, breezing into the bookshop as merrily as the jingling bell that announced their arrival. “Hotbed of dangerous political activity, and all that.”

He peered around cheerfully. Though he, Remus, and Peter had arrived on the early side, arms laden with signs for the protest they’d crafted in the dormitory earlier, the place was already quite full of activity. He’d been inside this tiny little shop once before, and it had been utterly empty. Today, however, it was teeming with people, all students, all milling around picking up books and chatting.

“Blimey,” said James. “I guess we successfully got the word out?”

“I’d say so,” agreed Remus. “Here, give me those signs, I’ll set them up on a table over there to hand out later.”

“Right you are.” James unburdened himself of his political paraphernalia and turned back to beam around the shop, basking in the bustle of activity as one might enjoy a really sunny day. He’d been quite grumpy on the way over, to tell the truth. They’d taken that tunnel hidden behind the mirror, not wanting to draw attention to their protest signs and Muggle clothing, and James had engaged in a good sulk most of the way about the fact that Sirius had opted to stay behind to “get to know Garrett.” It didn’t take a genius to spot that Sirius was, one might say, up to no good.

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#tle2 #the last enemy: dark marks #james potter #jily

[chdarling-tle]

The cup of tea was hot in her hands as Lily watched the milk she’d poured unfurl in a riotous blossom. She gave it a stir, gazing intently at the swirl, the storm, the eventual settling. Eternity in a teacup.

She sat alone at the Gryffindor table. Only a few other students were freckled around the Great Hall, sleepily assembling their own breakfasts. She’d come down far earlier than was her usual habit. No one would ever accuse Lily Evans of being a morning person, but she’d woken up early today. She couldn’t sleep. The frantic week prior had flitted away like a fretful spring breeze — all their planning and plotting, whispers in the corridors, owls in the evenings — until suddenly it was Saturday.

The day of the big protest.

Probably it was some combination of nerves and exhaustion that kept her staring into the depths of her tea, and she lost track of precisely how long she’d been at this before she noticed a presence behind her. She glanced over her shoulder. It was Severus.

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#the last enemy: dark marks #tle2 #lily evans

[chdarling-tle]

He hadn’t meant to eavesdrop.

At least, not at first. He’d been working on his essay on poison antidotes (trivial stuff, he couldn’t wait to get to N.E.W.T.-level, leave the rest of these third-year dunderheads behind and learn the real art of potion brewing) when he’d been distracted by a reference in the text to something call a bezoar. He was in the library, waiting for Lily to meet up with him as they often did on Friday afternoons, but she was late, as she often was, and he found himself irritated by his own shameful state of unknowing, so he’d got up to find another book that would provide an answer to this new, itching question. His studies often lead him down such circuitous paths of learning. It may not be the most efficient method, but there was a reason he far excelled his classmates in every subject.

As he stood to begin this hunt for knowledge, he noticed something that made his skin crawl: Sirius Black and James Potter were seated only a few tables away, partially obscured by one of the library’s tall shelves, so that Severus hadn’t noticed them before. All Black would have to do was tip his chair back and he’d easily spot Severus sitting behind him. 

This felt like an unbearable intrusion. This was his place, the one part of the castle where they weren’t supposed to bother him. And yet, here they were. Intruding. He wondered if they’d sat there on purpose, if that was their goal, to make sure that Severus knew that nowhere in the castle was safe from their hooliganish behavior, their constant torment that had steadily escalated in the nearly three years they’d been at school.

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#the last enemy: dark marks #tle2 #phew

[chdarling-tle]

The annoying thing about Sirius Black was that he wasn’t just good at things: He always had to be the best. This obnoxious perfection extended, it turned out, to the protective charms he’d placed on the remaining half of his two-way mirrors. This was perhaps effective in preventing Snivellus from snooping on them, but it was proving extremely irritating for Peter, who had been working for weeks and hadn’t yet cracked the spells.

At first he’d thought it wouldn’t be a big deal if he couldn’t get all the protective magic scrubbed off, but it turned out tracking spells were extremely sensitive to magic, and any deviation from the original charming messed the whole thing up. It occurred to him with a sort of heavy sinking in his gut that this meant any tinkering Snape might’ve done could derail his whole plan and put Peter firmly back at square one…but he wasn’t ready to give up yet.

The frustrating thing was that he knew if just asked his friends for help, they’d be able to fix it in a moment — but he was determined to do this on his own. To prove that he could do this on his own, to finally show them up just once…so he’d squirreled away for the evening in the dormitory while the other boys remained downstairs, spending his evening in solitude, fiddling with charm-breakers and other complex spells that made his head hurt.

After about an hour of this, Peter actually felt as though he’d made some progress. None of his revealing spells showed any traces of magical barriers…but then he was faced with a new complication: How would he know if he’d got it right, if the connection between the two mirrors was indeed fully cleared again?

He stared into the small, square mirror, his scowl reflected back to him as he thought. What harm could it do, really? Just for a moment…?

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#the last enemy: dark marks #tle2 #peter pettigrew

[chdarling-tle]

“Dreadful, dreadful thing,” said Professor Slughorn, shaking his head sadly as he spread a great glob of clotted cream upon a scone. “There’s simply no rhyme or reason to it — especially when you add those Muggle automobiles into the mix—” “I really—” interrupted Lily, because she couldn’t bear it. It was a Saturday afternoon, and Professor Slughorn had invited her to tea in his office. She sat across from him — he in a plush armchair, she on one of the grand leather chesterfields — a spindly table set up between them, topped with a tiered tray of sweets and scones, bright and colorful as baubles in a shop. A stout silver teapot glinted in a beam of afternoon sunlight that filtered through the windows. She didn’t particularly want to be here, but she understood this was the sort of invitation a student had to accept. Professor McGonagall had summoned her for the same sort of thing a few days earlier — a handful of biscuits and the obligatory check in from which Lily desperately wanted to check out.

“I really just want to focus on school right now,” she said at last. “Catch up on what I missed and everything.”

“There’s that classic British phlegm,” said Slughorn approvingly. “I’ve always known you were made of tough stuff.”

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#the last enemy: dark marks #tle2 #jily #lily evans

[chdarling-tle]

“Monty, guess who’s come home to see you!”

A low groan, a rustle of bedsheets, a squint through the darkened room. “Who…?”

“Hi, dad.”

“Who is this? Who are you?”

“Dad, it’s me. James. Your son…?”

“I don’t have a son. Ephie, who is this?”

“Oh, dear. James, darling, come on, we’ll try again tomorrow.”

“Dad—”

“James,” hissed a voice, followed by the sharp nudge of an elbow to his ribcage, and James blinked back to attention. He was seated at the grand dining table in Professor Slughorn’s office, along with about eleven other students and a few guests Slughorn had brought in, all of whom were staring at him over the towering blancmange a house-elf had just delivered.

“Er…” said James awkwardly. “Sorry, spaced out a little. What was that?”

“My dear boy,” laughed Slughorn. “What were you thinking about?”

“Er…” said James again, desperately rooting around his brain for a more suitable answer than the truth. “Quidditch.”

“That’s all he ever thinks about,” said Florence, patting his arm in an affectionate-but-long-suffering sort of way.

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(OK I LIED. YOU GET ONE MORE. NOW I'M ON VACATION BYEEEE)

#tle2 #the last enemy: dark marks #james potter #jily #tle2 spoilers

[chdarling-tle]

“HANDS IN THE AIR, NOW!”

Beneath the Invisibility Cloak, Sirius froze — but only for a second. Wand gripped in one knuckle-clenched fist, he turned rapidly from Lily — who stood wide-eyed and wandless with her hands raised to her shoulders — to the door behind her that had sprung open so suddenly. In the sparse pool of light from the gaping door, Sirius took in the form of a tall black woman in what appeared to be pajamas, her hair wrapped up in a scarf, a furious expression on her face. One hand held Lily’s disarmed wand, while the other pointed the woman’s own wand directly at Lily, whose back was to her still.

“Put your hands on your head,” directed the woman, “and turn around slowly.”

Lily began to do so, and Sirius saw his opportunity. Flinging the Cloak from his shoulders and stuffing it into his pocket in one swift motion, he sent an aggressive disarming spell towards the woman. It should’ve taken her by surprise, and it was strong enough that it would’ve knocked most wizards off their feet, but the woman reacted with preternatural reflexes, as though she had already been anticipating an attack from all sides, and launched a shield charm so powerful it knocked Sirius back against the glass window of the shop. He recovered himself and quickly pointed his wand back at the woman. “Leave her alone!”

“Put that wand down,” demanded the woman in a harsh voice.

“You first,” snarled Sirius.

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#tle2 #the last enemy: dark marks #sirius black

[chdarling-tle]

“There are loved ones in the glory…whose dear forms you often miss…”

Anthea Evans’ voice wafted through the kitchen like soap bubbles in the air. She always sang when she did the dishes, which is what she was doing now, and Lily loved to listen to her. As far as she was concerned, her mummy had the most beautiful voice in the world…and she knew this was true, because plenty of others agreed. Her mother was often asked to sing at church — all right, she was mostly asked by Lily’s father, who happened to be the vicar, but still: Everyone loved when Lily’s mummy sang, and Lily loved it most of all.

“When you close your earthly story…will you join them in their bliss…”

She often sang this song — one of her favorite hymns, she said — and Lily hummed along from her perch at the kitchen table, where she sat hunched over her diary, a pile of trusty colored pencils at her side, intent on finishing her drawing. It was a castle: a beautiful castle filled with magic, just like Sev told her.

“Will the circle be unbroken…by and by…by and by…”

The kitchen door swung open, interrupting her mother’s song, and Lily looked up to see Tuney enter. Petunia — as she preferred to be called now that she was so grown up — was thirteen and ganglier than she’d ever been. She loped over to the kitchen table, glanced at Lily’s drawing, and scoffed. Petunia didn’t like when Lily talked about the castle. She thought it was all silly and made-up.

“Ah, Petunia,” said their mother. “Good, help me dry these, won’t you?”

Petunia groaned loudly. “Why don’t you ever ask Lily to help with the dishes? Oh, wait, let me guess, it’s because you know she’d break everything.”

“I would not!”

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#tle2 #tle2 spoilers #the last enemy: dark marks #lily evans #bring a tissue maybe? idk

[chdarling-tle]

It was a glorious sort of spring day, the day that James Potter decided he’d had enough of the hermit life. He’d spent the afternoon on one those charming country walks that his mother had been so adamant he try. She’d noticed her sons’s restlessness early in holiday, and as by day three he had already played seven games of one-sided Quidditch (not very fun), paced endless circles around the confines of his bedroom (dizzying), and made himself a nuisance to the stray cat that occasionally wandered through the gardens (disappointing, as the creature had little interest in making new friends), he’d decided to finally give the whole country walk thing a go.

It had become a bit of a daily habit. He made the best of it: He reveled in the glories of the English countryside, all twisting lanes and hedges freckled with honeysuckle. He took the time to listen to the birds sing, that sort of thing. He’d even found a rather nice walking stick on one day’s detour into the woods. A knotted old branch, it made the sort of staff that suggested its carrier was a wise old man, wandering the wilderness — which was a fun role to playact, perhaps, but a far cry from the truth. James did not feel particularly wise at all.

Perhaps he ought to try and grow a beard. That might help.

There were a number of matters in his life that could use a little burst of wisdom, and as it turned out, stomping around one’s old — well — stomping grounds was a surprisingly effective method for resorting the shuffled up parchments of the mind. His mind had gotten awfully jumbled over the last term. Perhaps there was something to the life of the hermit. He made a note to mention this revelation to Remus when he returned to the castle.

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#tle2 #the last enemy: dark marks #james potter #jily

[chdarling-tle]

“So? Did you talk to her?”

The hospital wing was at present empty, save for the habitual monthly residency of the castle’s local lycanthrope — and now, of course, for Sirius Black, who dropped himself heavily into the chair beside Remus’s bed. His expression was weary and vaguely pugilistic, which usually meant he was troubled by something.

“Well?” Remus prodded. “Did you?”

Sirius kicked his feet up onto the pristine sheets of the hospital bed and sighed deeply. Madam Pomfrey would likely make a comment about dirty shoes next time she bustled by, but thankfully she’d been somewhat scarce since dropping off his lunch shortly before Sirius’s arrival: a tomato and cheese sandwich, a bag of crisps, and a little cup of rice pudding.

“Words were exchanged,” said Sirius flatly. “D’you think Poppy will kick me out if I have a smoke?”

“Yes,” said Remus. “Anyway, was at least one of those words ‘sorry’?”

“You know, she didn’t really let me get that far.”

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#tle2 #the last enemy: dark marks #just yeeting this one out into the universe

[chdarling-tle]

It wasn’t real. Severus knew that much. What it actually was he hadn’t yet discerned, but he knew enough — he knew Lily enough — to know that whatever the strange, perverted, horrifying arrangement going on between her and Sirius Black may be, it was not real.

He had theories, of course, ranging from the absurd to the insufferable. At times, he felt certain it was all an elaborate scheme to punish him personally, a Machiavellian burst of vengeance in response to the issue of the diary that had flared up again at Christmas. What better way for her to twist the knife directly into Severus’s gut than to parade around with the very boy who had truly caused all that misery third year — misery for which she now blamed exclusively Severus.

He had heeded the demands she’d shouted at him during their last disastrous encounter following Slughorn’s Christmas party. She’d been hysterical and unreasonable, refusing to let him tell his side of the story — but she’d asked him to stay away from her, and he’d done it, and apparently it wasn’t enough to assuage her spite because now she was putting on this shameless, revolting display exclusively to torment him. 

As horrible a thought as this was, it was addicting in a way, and he stewed on it endlessly, seething as Black slung an arm over her shoulder in class, as Lily walked hand in hand with him throughout the halls, as she degraded herself by snogging him (him!) in the middle of the corridor. His hatred had been soothing, medicinal, keeping his limbs moving while the rest of him screamed and writhed and raged.

But his hatred towards her had been short lived, because as soon as he saw that article in the Daily Prophet, he knew the truth: This was Sirius Black’s fault exclusively.

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#the last enemy: dark marks #tle2

[chdarling-tle]

“Okay, Reggie, you stand here.” Two hands landed firmly on Regulus’s shoulders as Cissy directed him a few steps to the right until he stood centered before the nursery windows. Bright, afternoon sunlight sloped into the room. “And Sirius, you stand there.”

They’d been dropped here at Black Hall for two weeks over the summer while their parents went off to France, and though Regulus had always founds his cousins’ home to be a daunting labyrinth of discomfort and confusion, he liked the nursery all right. He understood its rules.

Bella and Andy were home for the summer holiday, but they seemed to have better things to do than play nanny to Sirius and Regulus. Cissy, however, hadn’t hesitated to quickly integrate the two boys into all her favorite games of make-believe, most of which usually involved some form of dress-up.

“Why do I have to marry you?” complained Sirius, fists shoved into his pockets as he glowered at his cousin.

“Because,” Cissy’s reply was sharp, impatient, as though this were a completely stupid question, “Reggie’s too little.”

“This game is stupid.”

“That shows what you know,” said Cissy loftily. “A girl’s wedding is the most important day of her life. Now stand there, and I’ll get my veil and walk down the aisle.”

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#the last enemy: dark marks #tle2

[chdarling-tle]

“What the fuck was that?”

Sirius stood frozen amidst the milling crowds as Lily Evans — one-time foe, part-time pretend girlfriend, and, apparently, full-time psycho bitch — strolled away, heedless of the inevitable shitshow she’d left in her wake.

“Well, I’m no expert,” said Peter from beside him, his voice glinting with sarcasm, “but it looked like Lily Evans just snogged your face off.”

“Yeah, thanks, Wormtail. I worked that bit out myself. Come on.”

Sirius pushed through the tangle of jutted elbows and bulky bags that clogged the corridor as their peers spilled out of classrooms, feeling rather like he was macheteing his way through the jungle in search of his game. For James had already vanished into the throng along with Florence, a fact that both annoyed and troubled Sirius.

It wasn’t like James not to wait for his friends.

“You might not want to look so ticked off about her snogging you,” advised Peter as he scurried to catch up with Sirius’s determined strides. “She is supposed to be your girlfriend, remember?”

This was prudent advice, but Sirius wasn’t sure he was capable of following it at the moment. Because he was ticked off. In the stumbling aftermath of Lily’s kiss, it had taken him a moment to work out precisely why he was quite so irritated, but the answer, when it arrived, was simple: It had been the look on James’s face, glimpsed from across the corridor as Sirius tugged himself back from Lily’s ambush. It had only lasted a moment, that worrying expression on his friend’s face — for James had turned quickly away then vanished into the crowd — but Sirius had seen it all the same, and now it lingered, needling at him, admonishing him.

James had looked…hurt.

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#tle2 #the last enemy: dark marks #sirius black #ayyyyyyyyyy

[chdarling-tle]

“It was your idea, mate.”

“It bloody well was not!”

Peter sidled into the Gryffindor boys’ dormitory to find James and Sirius in a heated debate. Well, James was heated; Sirius’s temper for once was perfectly neutral as he donned an expression of unbothered amusement. This apparently was infuriating James. Interesting. Remus was watching from the sidelines, perched on the edge of his bed. He caught Peter’s eye as the other boy entered and offered the slightest grimace of warning.

Peter had taken a little detour on the way back from the Great Hall — mumbled excuse, no follow-up questions — and thus he’d missed whatever discussion had led to this confrontation, but it wasn’t exactly difficult to catch up. Sirius’s performance at dinner with Lily Evans had no doubt ruffled a few feathers — most notably: James’s.

James had been undeniably out of sorts since his birthday party. Peter reckoned it had something to do with Florence blowing him off, but even so, it had been surprising to learn that James had inexplicably punched Bertram Aubrey after they’d all gone to bed, something James only admitted after being confronted with the rumor — at first grudgingly, and then with increasing panic as the implications of his misdeed danced before him.

“You’re the one who said it was a good plan,” said Sirius.

“I never!” spluttered James with a bristle of metaphorical feathers.

“Wormtail?” Sirius had noticed Peter’s entrance at last. “You were there, back me up?”

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#the last enemy: dark marks #tle2 #jily #peter pettigrew #ayyyyyy it's been a minute