Comedy/Tragedy: The Story of a Doomed Existence

Chapter Twenty-Three: Please-men and Staring Contests

"Look!"

"I wonder what she's doing..."

"No, Stevie, get back! We don't know what she is, stay away! We can use the other entrance."

"She sure doesn't look like the sort of ragamuffin one normally sees in the streets."

"Look, that trunk!"

"Jacqueline Monique Evans..."

Lily felt as though her eyes had been frozen closed. She was hearing voices, she was awfully cold, and she couldn't see anything but swirling blackness. Was it still snowing? Or even still night?

But as she continued to try to figure out what was going on, she discovered that her eyes actually were frozen shut. She moaned softly, stretched her arms into the air, and yawned a tiny sort of yawn. Strangely, this stretch allowed Lily's eyelashes to pop open as well. She smiled, suddenly feeling the sun on her face and the sort of feeling passing over her as though she had been swimming at the beach and fallen asleep on the sand.

Lily opened her eyes, expecting to see the crystalline, aqua-colored waters of the tropical places she had never visited. Instead, a very different scene met her eyes.

An entire crowd was gathered around her, some clearly staying as far away as possible and some drawing nearer to her sprawled self. Upon Lily's return to verticality, many backed up, though all continued to stare at her.

Mainly to escape their oppressive gaze, Lily looked around and behind herself. Her trunk was sitting right next to her; it looked as though she had fallen asleep leaning upon it. Aristotle's cage was, incredibly luckily, lodged behind a pillar and out of view of any passerby. Lily considered this a good thing, mainly for the reason that she was already worried people might want to know what she was doing with a trunk, and what was in it.

She quickly averted her eyes from Aristotle's snoozing form; staring at something other people couldn't see was not a bright idea if one wanted it to seem as normal as possible to the eyes of any prying spectators.

Instead, Lily gazed up at the sky. It was a pale blue and the sun shone, however weakly, on the area around London Library. As for the sidewalks that the crowd was splayed over, these clearly bore the signs of the snow of the night before, though someone had shoveled them a number of hours ago, making it possible for a large amount of slush to invade the shrubberies nearby. Now that Lily had stood up, the sun was no longer on her face and she felt cold again; her cloak was still damp and the sun's rays were understandably weak.

A soft cough in the crowd averted Lily's attention to all of the people watching her. She gazed down at them, tucking stray strands of hair behind her ears and smoothing her skirt carefully.

"Erm...Miss Jacqueline?" a young woman called timidly. Lily looked curiously at her, but refrained from any comments. "Are - er, are you all right? I know of a nice lady who lives fifteen minutes away; she's always giving money to the poor and needy. Emily and myself'd be more than happy to take you over there." She indicated a friend standing on her right.

"No thank you, ma'am," Lily answered her carefully, though her voice sounded strangely distant. "I was waiting for the library to open and I must've fallen asleep."

"Waitin' at five in the mornin'? Tha's when I found her here," an older man said to the woman at his left, presumably his wife. "And why do you 'ave a trunk an' a - a - what is that? A cloak?" He and his wife, not to mention numerous other onlookers, let confusion and incredulous doubt pass over their faces, giving the sour expressions even less welcoming aspects.

"I'm a schoolgirl at small boarding school in France, by the name of Luminenfant," Lily told him, amazed at how well she was lying. Normally she blushed fiercely or did something equally obvious, but right now she was acting considerably well. "The cloak was a gift from my rather eccentric uncle, but it does keep me warm rather efficiently. I arrived at King's Cross station last night, but my parents were unable to pick me up. Plausibly, I wanted to wait within the station, but the guard in charge ordered that I be removed, for some absurd charge like loitering. Naturally, I wanted to get out of the pounding sleet, so I chose a sheltered place that was not part of anyone's private property." She smiled brightly at each of the people watching, letting her own green eyes flash in the sun's light.

She felt different, somehow...it was strange, she had never been able to talk her way out of these sort of situations before. Maybe sleeping outdoors in the frigid depth of winter was a cure for embarrassment? Lily wondered as the people around smiled at her.

"She's so cute!" a dumpy-looking mother figure grinned. Lily felt glad, for once, that she was so petite.

"She's not a homeless girl, Iris, I told you!" Emily, the friend of the young woman who had been the first to speak, laughed.

"We apologize for the trouble." A middle-aged man tipped his hat to her and walked off, followed by Iris, Emily, and a few other people. Each of these grinned at Lily before they disappeared around the bend.

"I don' believe 'er!" the irritable old man bellowed. "She's lyin', she's a pickpocket fraud who wants to steal from the library! I called the police and they'll be here, mark my words! Men of stature like them know 'ow to recognize fraud when they see it! Innocent schoolgirl my arse! I spent forty years in the armed forces, and a little girl tries to trick me! It's barbaric, I tell you!" Still muttering fiercely and casting Lily incredibly dirty looks, the old man and his wife retreated to a corner of the sidewalk.

Lily merely giggled and smiled girlishly, feeling the odd expression pinch her face. Strangely, it seemed to appease many people watching. Not for the first time this year, Lily felt as though something other than her own will was controlling her actions. Smiling despite her fake smile, Lily surveyed those still watching her.

Some apparently shared the old man's opinion, but a group of old ladies waved annoyingly at Lily and a group of schoolchildren Lily's age smiled warily, yet welcomingly, in her general direction.

The clatter of shoes on the sidewalk made everyone in Lily's vicinity, including the redhead herself, look up. A group of five policemen, all dressed in the traditional London squad uniform and looking rather windswept, had raced into the middle of the crowd facing Lily, most of whom budged up to provide room for the out-of-breath policemen.

"Someone - is trying - to break - into - the library?" a particularly overweight officer gasped, his hands on his knees as he tried to regain the breath he had unwisely sacrificed.

"She hasn't revealed her intentions yet, but her attitude is highly suspicious. We believe her to be a dangerous pickpocket," the irritable old man rushed forward so that he could speak before anyone else. Lily noticed that he seemed able to talk with a lot less of a crude accent if he wanted to. His wife stood next to him and nodded in agreement with everything he said.

"Where is this person?"

"Over there." The man's wife pointed at Lily.

"A nine-year-old girl?" One of the officers wrinkled his prominent eyebrows in shock and ill-disguised disgust. "We don't like people wasting our time, sir."

Lily continued to smile cheekily, though she thought that 'nine-year-old girl' was going a bit to far. She didn't look that young!

"I'm not wastin' your time!" the old man yelped indignantly. "She's a little girl, alone in the middle of London, with a giant trunk and suspicious garments." The last words were a terrified whisper. "She just spent the nigh' on the stoop of the library, for goodness' sake! An' she's got some far-fetched story about coming in on the train from France!" His accent had returned in his annoyance.

Lily wondered if Leanna Thompson had given this man advice on how to accuse people; the old man's screeching and pointing reminded Lily forcibly of an all-too-familiar brunette.

"Didn't I make that clear?" she asked sweetly. "I flew into Heathrow, and took the train from there."

A tall policeman with very high eyebrows and a prominent widow's peak stepped forward.

"Young lady? I think that you need to explain."

Lily repeated everything that she had said previous to the policemen's arrival, with the only slight differences being the usage of a slightly dumbed-down vocabulary and lots of wide-eyed blinking.

"What's in the trunk?" the same officer asked as soon as Lily was done speaking.

For the first time that morning, Lily faltered.

"My sc-school supplies," she stuttered, unable to look at him.

"Humph." Apparently he believed her even less than her unconvincing nature might merit. "Garrett. Trunk." He pointed at a man and then at the trunk.

The officer he had pointed toward quailed under his superior's stare and hurried forward to Lily's red velvet trunk.

"Is it locked?" he muttered in Lily's direction. She hurriedly extracted the key from her cloak and handed it to him before sinking back against the library's wall.

She was in for it now! What was going to happen once he saw all of the magical schoolbooks, her wand, her potions ingredients? Lily chewed her tongue painfully and watched as the man hastily sprung the lock and flipped the trunk's lid back.

Lily couldn't help it; she squeaked and hid her face, Mary Jane-shod feet poised to run and ears strained for the explosion of confusion that would undoubtedly follow everyone seeing the trunk's suspicious contents.

But it didn't come.

No noise, in fact, pervaded the small patio. That is, until what Lily recognized to be two curses rang through the air, just seconds apart.

"Impedimenta! Avada Kedavra!"

As quickly as it had come to be, the high voice faded away. Silence fell again; the soft beep of a car horn could be heard far away, but otherwise there was absolutely nothing. Still incredibly nervous, Lily removed her hands from her face and looked around.

This was, undoubtedly, the strangest sight that had ever met her eyes. Each and every member of the crowd had their necks craned in the direction of the trunk. One guard had his hand on the edge of the trunk, whose lid was at a forty-five degree angle to the ground; just visible to some of the curious crowd. The eyes of the guard holding the trunk open, as well as those of all that could see, were widened in some combination of horror and surprise at the collection of quills and potion vials that they could see.

This was all, in Lily's opinion, perfectly understandable. What disturbed and shocked her was the fact that not one of the people she was looking at was moving. At all. It was as if someone had frozen time itself. Lily looked down at herself. She was perfectly capable of movement. So the question was, why weren't any of these Muggles?

Looking up again in hopes of revealing the truth behind this curious behavior, Lily saw a sight more disturbing even than the immobilized people and the fact that Lily still possessed movement. A young couple had been completely knocked off of their feet, both people lying flat on their backs and with expressions of mild disturb on their faces. They were unmistakably dead. Lily stared at them for a few moments, too shocked to feel or do much of anything. Finally she was able to blink slowly and go back to trying to figure out what had happened.

On sudden inspiration, she craned her neck in all directions, with the hope of seeing who or what had caused this disturbing phenomenon. She saw what she was looking for, though it was a weak and nearly unhelpful clue.

The edge of a frayed black cloak seemed to have caught on the edge of the building next to the library. Lily watched it stretch for a moment, it's occupant seemingly not noticing their predicament. Then, quite suddenly, the cloak became taut, resting momentarily in such a fashion before it zipped around the brick it had caught upon. It slithered away just as quickly as Lily's single chance to figure out what had happened. Lily came to her senses and leapt forward, dodging the immobilized people and slamming her trunk shut in the process.

"Excuse me! Sir! Pardon!" Lily called after the single figure on the street. Though his step was ungainly and his ratty cloak suggested he was nothing more than a filthy vagabond, he moved very quickly.

When she received no reply or recognition, Lily raised her voice to what was very nearly a shout. This did the trick. The - man - whirled about and advanced on Lily speedily, only stopping once he was a mere six inches from the startled schoolgirl. The black abyss that was his cloaked face expelled harsh breath that smelled of poor hygiene and spirits Lily didn't recognize, nor even want to know of.

"Keep your voice down, fool!" he hissed. His voice was strangely high for being so scratchy. This was quite clearly the person who had uttered the two curses.

"Do you want them to come?" he continued.

Perhaps he was mad? Lily wondered. Who could 'them' be?

"What do you want?" he spoke again.

"What'd you do back there?" Lily blurted out, ruing that she had covered her face and hereby missed seeing what was clearly both illegal and potentially important.

In reply, the man hissed and grabbed Lily's wrist with a dirty, long-fingernailed hand. Lily was unable to prevent herself from being pulled into the space between two brick buildings. Once the man was satisfied with their location, he stopped moving and released Lily's wrist, much to her relief. This dissipated instantaneously when the man reached up and lowered his hood.

Lily gulped and wished fervently that she hadn't been fool enough to follow him. Dark hair that was matted and lanky framed the most sinister countenance Lily had ever had the misfortune to look upon. One side of his face was paler than the moon and high cheekboned, with a thick eyebrow that sheltered one dark eye. This rolled and bulged unpleasantly, as though its owner were both terrified and mad. The white of the eye was filled with red veins and was a rather gray, unhealthy-looking tone that nearly brought up Lily's nonexistent breakfast.

The other side of the face, however, was scabbed and red, raised higher than the less disfigured side. Dark boils rose in a number of places and the cheeks were sunken below heavily baggy eyes. The eyebrow on this side of his face was as good as nonexistent. But even more disconcerting than the part of the face that should have drawn the most attention was the eye. Though perhaps one description that would not fit it would be that it made its occupant appear mad, it was nonetheless eerie. In Lily's opinion, it resembled the eye of Ruby, Mr. Evans's cat who had died before Lily was old enough to really know her. The only aspect of the man's eye that differed from the cat's was that his was a bright, menacing red as opposed to Ruby's soft green.

Lily couldn't help but stare into this eye; once it had captured her gaze it was virtually impossible to reroute from her vision.

"Like it?" the man asked her, his voice scratching and screeching at the same time. Underneath the bizarre acoustics, Lily could define such emotions as conspiracy and obvious madness.

"It's finally worked - one of the harder appearance transfigurations to achieve, particularly when you want it to be so - captivating. Now if I could just duplicate it and get rid of this!" he waved one long fingernail at the mutilated side of his face.

Lily was unable to remove the disgust from her own countenance, so instead entertained herself, so to speak, with trying to draw her own gaze from the man's scarlet stare. It was incredibly difficult; she discovered that she couldn't even close her eyes, let alone move them. So instead she stared just as hard back at the man as she could, placing all of her willpower and magical prowess into what she was trying to achieve. Doing so seemed strangely important.

A few moments were spent this way, both members of the tiny alleyway staring as hard as they could at one another and too occupied even to bother wondering what a Muggle might think if they were to see what was going on in the seemingly innocent space between the buildings.

Starting to feel the strain of keeping such contact, Lily narrowed her eyes a bit and placed every bit of willpower into what she was unknowingly trying to achieve. And it worked, in a sense.

A tiny orb of emerald fire formed in between Lily's gaze and the gaze of the unknown vagrant. Though Lily could no longer stare at him, and could now blink, the orb continued to swell until it burst on the man's side and sent him sailing with a loud smack into the brick wall behind him, a slight clink echoing as though he had dropped something. Lily unknowingly ignored the tiny clatter and let out a gasp of surprise - she hadn't meant to do that!

"I'm - sorry," she told him awkwardly, extending her arm to the man to help him up.

Breathing heavily through his largish nose, the man crawled hastily up, though he pointedly avoided Lily's helping hand. Once upright, he glared at Lily again. But this didn't capture her gaze at all. In fact, Peter Pettigrew would have a better chance at keeping Lily's vision attentive.

"What was - how - very interesting," he muttered to himself, running a hand through his greasy hair. He continued to survey her through his mismatched eyes, clearly trying to disguise his surprise. "What did you want to know?"

Feeling as though she had just passed some unknowing test, Lily explained that she thought that it was he who had frozen, not to mention killed, the Muggles back at the library.

"Never you mind," he answered, though he didn't sound like an overprotective nanny, he sounded like he was threatening her.

Lily didn't have much of a desire to press the subject after this. Though she really wanted to know why he had killed those two people, she could see the man fingering something in his pocket - his wand, no doubt - and knew all too well that her own was back in her trunk. It didn't strike her as a particularly brilliant idea to annoy the man who had uttered the killing curse only minutes before.

"Wise decision," he continued after Lily didn't say anything.

Lily determined that this was a much wiser decision than anything Sirius might deem so. Thinking of the tall boy reminded her of Hogwarts, of Chanukah, and of how awful it would be to spend another night alone in the cold. She shook her head sadly at the fact that it was simply her own foolhardy decisions that had brought her into this whole mess, attention averted fleetingly from the present situation.

"Well, Miss Jacqueline," the man continued in his sinister voice, oblivious in the quiet, chilly morning of the complicated thoughts whirling through the mind of the girl he was addressing.

Lily gave a start; it was certainly different to hear that name as opposed to her own. But she refrained from correcting him. Something told her that she didn't want this man to know any more about her than whatever false information he might have discovered upon viewing her trunk.

"You seem to be a bright enough girl, Jacqueline; you've gotten past the mind of the most evil man to ever exist, so that's saying something." He sounded proud of his 'evilness.' "So I'll say this: I do not want your apologies any more than I want your pity. Quite frankly, I don't deserve them, because I have a nasty little habit of turning every little thing to my own advantage and profit. I will say, however, that you will always remember this day as the day you fell in debt to Lord Voldemort. And believe me, that's not a place you want to be."

Before Lily could make any reply or recognition of his words, a loud crack echoed through the alleyway and the man who had referred to himself as 'Lord Voldemort' disappeared entirely. Lily stared at the spot he had been, running his words over in her mind. Unable to really understand him and fully surprised that a wizard of his dilapidated state was able to do what Lily recognized as Apparation, the redheaded girl turned away.

However, before she could make it out of the alley, she saw something glitter in the darkness that obscured the other side of her vision. It really was an enticing shimmer. Lily bent down quickly, as though trying to convince herself and the people who weren't watching that she wasn't doing what she clearly was. She snatched up the tiny silver ring and held it up to the weak sunlight filtering into the alley from far above, where the two buildings ended in blue-gray sky.

It was tiny and simple, consisting of a very thin silver band and a green jewel no larger than the rounded edge of a match. On the inside there were a few markings, but Lily did not know what they represented.

It's really pretty, Lily thought as she looked into it. And it seemed somehow familiar...she ran a finger through her hair, which had now entirely left her braid. Though something told her it probably wasn't very clever to take something that had been in the presence of someone with such a crooked character as this 'Lord Voldemort', Lily pocketed it. She reasoned away her reservations by insisting that there was a very tiny likelihood that the pretty little ring had anything at all to do with that mysterious vagabond wizard.

Of course, she was incredibly wrong.