Night Falls, And With It I Fall

Night Falls, And With It I Fall.

I always was arrogant. From the moment my seventh year started, I thought I was the best thing since sliced bread. Who could play acoustic, bass and electric guitar, and play them bloody well? Me. Who could sing in a way that stopped people talking and made them listen? Me. Who had more inherited power than any other witch in history since the age of the Founders, and possibly before then? Me, that's who. But my arrogance was my ultimate downfall, and I took the man I loved (still love) down with me.

My name is Lilith Le Fey- Potter. Lady Lilith Le Fey- Potter, to be exact, but I hated the title from the moment it was given to me. I was eighteen years old -for goodness sake, I couldn't deal with a title, let alone the responsibilities that it entailed-, and that means that is the form in which I stay in now, for the rest of forever, or until my soul is called into a new shell, as sometimes happens. God, I don't think that I could have been anymore of a fool. Power is supposed to corrupt; I just fought against the power that I had constantly, and I ended up dead because of it. So did my husband, James. James, my beautiful James. So good, so pure. Too trusting. How could some one so beautiful, angelic and pure end up with some one like me? Tainted, dark and vicious; a weapon in human form. The Heir of the notorious Morgan Le Fey and the unknown other Heir of Slytherin. Dumbledore and James thought that I didn't know about that little detail of my bloodline. More fool them I say; in joining souls, blood and minds with Morgan, I learnt her story. She wasn't what every one thought she was; she wasn't the evil, power hungry witch that she was made out to be in the legends.

But that's another story. There was a purpose to this record, if I can merely find my thread of thought once more. I need the truth known, about the night I was dragged away from my two children. Oh, my beautiful little ones; no one but a mother who had lost their children could understand how I desperately want to hold them again, just once more. Somehow, any way possible, I desperately want to. But I simply can't. Not until they join me, and that hopefully won't be for years and years. It's odd to think that in one way, I want my children to live long lives, and in another I want them to die, just so that I can have them back. Is it wrong to want your children to die? Yes, I suppose it is. But then again, I always was selfish.

James had got home from work late as usual. I should have been fairer to him; he had to Apparate to different points to check in with The Order before he could come home; it was the one way we could carry on getting out of the house without attracting attention to its location. I know that he was only nineteen, but he was my husband, and I was younger than him, and beginning to get annoyed with the way he acted about the way I kept the house. He hated me working; he wanted me to be the traditional house wife. Me, Lilith Le Fey- Potter, a house wife?! NEVER. Besides, what I did wasn't really work to me; I loved being a Spell Crafter. It just came naturally; with power, comes knowledge. With knowledge, comes talent. With talent, comes money. Therefore, power is riches. That was a little something I got off of Morgan.

Anyway, almost as soon as he walked into the house, I flew at him.

"Where have you been?" He just blinked at me from behind his glasses, beautiful hazel eyes confused and enlarged. That just added to my annoyance; I liked the way he looked better when he used the Oculus Charm, as you could see his eyes better.

"...At work. As usual."

"You're ALWAYS at work! You're never here! You never help with Harry and Morgan! How can you expect me to keep my job, and take care of the twins as well?! No one can expect that much!" He glared at me venomously, and spat his words at me, throwing his briefcase to the floor and hanging up his travelling cloak.

"Then don't work; it's as simple as that."

"I like working though; it helps me keep control of this power, which, may I remind you, I only have fully because of you."

"Then hire a bloody nanny you daft female, don't bother me about it the moment I step through the door! For god's sake, I'm tired! Give me five minutes at least!" That just made me furious; how dare he demand anything from me, the selfish bastard?

"Oh, so you're tired, are you? And what did you do today, you poor paper shuffler? Write five hundred lines with a quill that had a blunt nib? I have the right to be tired! I've cleaned the house, again, kept the twins in order, again, cooked, and done the finishing touched to a spell that should take seven hours but instead took me three days!"

"And whose fault is that, pray tell?! If you didn't insist on having a job, you wouldn't be so tired! Why can't you do what other women do for once?! WHY CAN'T YOU AT LEAST TRY NOT TO BE SUCH A FREAK?!" The silence stretched out, as James covered his mouth with his hand in horror, realizing what he had said, and his eyes going murky with deep regret. But it didn't matter that I could see that he was sorry; it hurt like hell. I started to turn away, tears pricking at my eyes, and I didn't want him to see me crying over something he had said. I had my pride. My foolish pride.

"Lily... gods... what's happening to us?" He grabbed me by the shoulder, and wrapped his warm, Quidditch hardened arms around me tightly, squeezing until I thought I would see stars. "I don't want to fight with you love. I'm sorry about being an old fashioned, chauvinist pig; I do want you to be happy really." I smiled into the shoulder of his work robes as he quoted my words from the argument we had had a few nights ago, on about the same topic.

"And I'm sorry for being a whining, spoilt bitch." I always had been much blunter with my language than he had. It must have been the Muggle upbringing and spending summers with Muggle teenagers.

"I love you. You know that, right?" I laughed; he always said that after a fight. It was nice, that he could say it so easily.

"I know you do. And I love you too." I could feel him smile as he squeezed me again, my head tucked neatly underneath his chin.

It was then that the warning Mark that had been tattooed into my arm during my seventh year, against my will, began to burn sharply, as though acid had been poured onto it. The minute I seized up against the pain, every muscle clenching to try and block it, James turned around, pulling out his wand. My poor darling, he was always ready to defend those who were close to him (he was a true Gryffindor after all, where I was only in the house because it had been pre-arranged. I would have been in Slytherin), but he never was much of a dueller; he was too nice to be able to hurt people, to not think, or realize what he was doing; by being a mindless killer. That was why Dumbledore had never asked him to be in the Order of the Phoenix in our sixth year, when he was searching for a new member. That was why he had asked me, and gave me the equipment that I needed to do my part properly when the time came. Ignoring the pain as best I could, I put my hand on his shoulder.

"James-" He turned to me, and I saw with one small look the finality and acceptance in his gaze; he truly believed that he would not survive this night, and that he would not see the dawn of the next day. He grabbed the front of my robe, and kissed me with a hard, desperate passion that I had never known from him. In a flash, I felt the full extent of his love for me, how he had loved me since we were about thirteen, how it felt that I had agreed to marry him; the happiness, how much he adored Harry and Morgan, and how sorry he was to have to leave this way, and, most of all, the pure, undiluted misery of leaving me behind. It left me reeling. He let me go, and pushed me away.

"Lily, it's Him. Take Harry and Morgan and go; I'll hold him off." I couldn't bear to leave him; he was my soul mate, and I couldn't imagine life without him if I survived and he didn't.

"James-"

"Will you just go?! I love you. Forever. Never doubt that."

"James!-"

"Go!" There was no arguing with him. I could feel Voldemort, my distant cousin, working his way through the last of the wards around our house; our safe haven. Well, it was safe until Peter Pettigrew had betrayed us. I swallowed, and kissed him with infinite softness. In that kiss, I pushed into him some of my power, and he staggered back as the whites of his eyes glowed faintly green. I let the tears stream down my face as I gazed at him.

"I love you too James. There was never any one else." I heard a crash as the final ward fell, and James pushed me with all his strength down the corridor. I ran- no, flew- down the corridor, up the stairs, three at a time, and darted into the nursery. There they were, my babies, sleeping peacefully. As gently as I could in my panic, I picked them up, and ran out of the nursery, and headed for the stairs, trying to ignore Harry as he began to whimper; he always was so fussy about being jolted. Morgan never did mind.

Just as I reached the end of the stairs, trying to shush Harry, as I feared that he would begin to scream at any moment, I saw a faint flash of green in the corner of my eye, and a huge... aching emptiness poured through into my mind. I knew then that James was dead and gone forever. That I would never hold him in my arms again, never laugh with him, never merely sit with him and read or talk. Never kiss him again, or see the way fire light danced over his skin, or the way his eyes darkened when he felt passion. My legs slowly gave out under me, and I fell to my knees, my mind slowly draining of all ability to make my body move. My arms gently let the twins slip to the ground, where upon Harry began to whimper even louder, and Morgan looked at me with her huge, brilliant green eyes, with the strange yellow streaks through them, still clutching her toy wolf. It had been one of her presents from her first birthday, from Remus as a joke on my account. She never let that toy go, and clutched it tightly even now. I could do nothing to stop myself, as I knelt and sobbed dryly, pleading for it not to be true, pleading for James to come back to me, alive and well, that for once in his life, he had made the un-Gryffindor decision and run.

A shadow fell over me, and a second later a thump echoed down the corridor. The thump that was distinctive to a body being dropped to the ground from a height of a few feet. Fearfully, I looked around. James's blank, staring eyes looked back at me, a look of puzzled, peaceful consent permanently on his features. His glasses were broken, and hung lopsidedly on his face. I choked, and glared up at the man before me. A pair of brilliant red snakes eyes looked back; He had changed into a monster since we had last met a year ago. His voice came out as a cold, high hiss.

"Greetings cousin." My grief over James's death turned to anger against Voldemort, and I rose up from the ground, silently calling up my power from its deep well in the core of my mind.

"You always were one for turning up uninvited Tom." How could I have spoken so calmly to that... thing, when everything inside me was falling apart and screaming with the loss of my hearts' own darling? I don't know even now, so many years later, with all the clarity of those who have passed over.

"I don't need an invitation to visit my own family, my Lady Le Fey. But, as you are my only family, you and these two little brats, I will grant you a favour. I'll let you live long enough to watch me kill your offspring. Then I'll kill you."

"You won't kill my children; I won't let you." I stepped in front of them, and dropped the shield around my power, giving me full reign of it. Voldemort sneered at me, his already terrible, white features becoming even more distorted, and he took a step forward.

"Stand aside you foolish girl." I raised my chin defiantly, tilting my head back slightly to look him in the eye.

"No." He snarled, and grabbed hold of me.

"I said stand aside!" For all that I'm a strong witch, I'm tiny when it comes to height, so when He chose to pick me up and pretty much throw me into the wall, I really couldn't do much to stop him. I couldn't do anything to stop him. With a cruel smile on his face, I saw him turn on my Morgan, and raise his wand. A brutally familiar dull yellow light flashed in my eyesight, and I heard my daughter whimper pitifully in pain. I slowly looked up, and saw blood, a brilliant, dark poppy red, trickling down her chubby little cheek from her left eye. As my dearest cousin turned his wand on Harry, I knew what I had to do. Just was he muttered the fatal words that would end the little boy's life, I sprang from where I was, and threw myself in front of my two children. The moment the curse hit me, for a second I knew why my ancestor's face had been so full of pain as she died. But then, I was seeing things from outside my body. In the spilt second I had, I poured every scrap of my magic into my daughter; the heir to my title and power. But there were tiny touches of certain elements of my powers that I saved, just a touch of them. That, I put into Harry. Some of what I gave him was survival; some thing I had given them both, but that I thought Harry needed more. I just had a feeling that he would need it more. As I felt myself being drawn away from the house, heard myself being called out of the mortal realm, I saw Morgan's wound healing into a pure white scar, identical to mine, and I saw Voldemort raise his wand again. But he would do no more harm; I had seen to that.

I screamed out of that world like the very hounds of Hell were after me, but as I left what had been our safe house, how I laugh at that now; we were never safe there, I felt something latch onto me. But I had no time to see what it was, as I suddenly tumbled into emerald green grass, and had to lay there as moment. I felt more alive in those first few seconds lying in that grass than I had in all my eighteen years of life. I sat up then, and looked around to see what had caught hold of me, fearing seeing what could have taken the bother to catch me. James's beautiful face smiled into mine as he scrabbled up and threw his arms around me; I was in too much shock to return the embrace. He kissed the top of my head and I heard his voice rumble from deep in his chest.

"You didn't think you could get rid of me that easily, did you?" I laughed, and wrapped my arms around his waist. I was back where I belonged; in his arms.

"Not a chance, laddy buck. I'm not giving you the chance to get away from me again." A hand touched my shoulder tentatively, and I turned around to look into bright green eyes that were identical to mine. Morgan Le Fey, the one who had started it all, smiled at me, a little shyly. She couldn't have been anything more than twenty when she had been killed by her lover.

"My darling girl... Welcome home." I blinked, and leant back into the protective circle of James's arms. I could almost hear him glaring at Morgan in a way that said 'Hurt her, and you will regret bringing us here'. When I spoke, my voice sounded confused, but calm.

"Home?" I looked around, at James, whose face was one of surprise, then back at Morgan. She nodded, smiling even more broadly, and then she pulled me to stand before her by my hands, which she held. I heard James rise behind me, but I couldn't remove my eyes from Morgan's gaze.

"Yes my darling; home."