Rising from Embers

RISING FROM EMBERS
by shiiki

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CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Development

May, 1977

‘Prongs. Hey, Prongs.’

James heard Sirius, but he didn’t turn his head. He was watching Lily study at her table across the room. Ever since her sight and strength had been fully regained, she had thrown herself into work with fervour, determined to catch up. Sadly, it hadn’t been enough. She had been forced to drop Care of Magical Creatures to lighten her load.

‘Oi, Potter.’ Sirius threw a fallen pawn at him. It hit him square in the jaw.

‘Ow!’ James drew his eyes back to his best friend with lightning speed. ‘What was that for?’

‘I’ve been trying to get you to turn, you berk. It’s your turn.’

‘Huh? Oh.’ James studied the chess board. ‘Er ...’ He thought a few moments, then advanced a knight.

‘Bad move, James,’ Peter observed. ‘You’re leaving your king open to attack.’

‘Hey, shut it, Wormtail. You can’t take it back, Prongs, that’s not fair!’

‘You’re just scared you’re going to lose,’ laughed James.

‘Not a chance, Potter. Go ahead, choose another move. I’ll still beat you in the end … if Peter keeps his mouth shut from now on.’

‘Care to challenge me after?’ grinned Peter.

‘We’ll see about that. Got to show Potter here what’s what first.’

‘You won’t sound so confident when I’ve got you cornered, Black.’

Ten minutes later, James’s mind was wandering again. His eyes seemed to travel of their own accord to the corner where Lily was hard at work.

‘Don’t say anything this time, Peter,’ warned Sirius, before calling out to him. ‘Oi, Potter. It’s your turn again. Put your eyes back in.’

‘You took infernally long on your move,’ grumbled James. He carelessly moved his queen two steps forward. Peter obediently held his silence. Sirius grinned.

‘Oh, that’s going to hurt.’ It took only a minute for James to lose spectacularly.

‘Tough luck, Potter. You know, it helps to keep these –’ he pointed to his eyes ‘– on the game instead of mooning over Evans.’

James threw a cushion at him. Sirius caught it deftly and sent it back. Lily chose that moment to glance in their direction. Sirius flashed her a large grin and a wave, and she shook her head back at him. But her eyes lingered briefly on James before she returned to her work. James knew his face was pink.

‘Go on,’ said Sirius. ‘She could do with some company while I thrash Pete here.’

‘Not a chance,’ Peter shot his own words back at him. ‘Get ready to be demolished, Padfoot.’

By the time they’d set up the chess board, James was across the room.

~ * ~

James took a seat in front of her. Lily’s quill stopped moving, poised in the middle of a sentence for two seconds before she looked up.

‘Aren’t you playing chess?’

James shrugged. ‘I lost.’

‘I see.’ Lily glanced down at her work again. She was halfway through her Potions essay, and suddenly she couldn’t remember what came next.

Mandrakes may be considered as a controversial potions ingredient, lethal when one is exposed to their cries, yet an essential ingredient in the

Lily had known what was coming next – the name of the Healing Potion, only it suddenly slipped her mind.

‘Mandrake Restorative Draft,’ supplied James.

‘Er, yeah. Thanks.’ Lily wrote it down quickly. Mandrake Restorative Draft.

‘I’m not bothering you, am I?’

Yes you are, she thought. I can’t think when you’re staring at me. And can someone tell me why I don’t want you to go away even though that’s so?

‘No,’ she said shortly. ‘I’m finishing soon, anyway.’

James cast a sceptical look at the stack of books beside her. Lily saw it and smiled.

‘That’s the finished pile. Transfiguration, Charms, Arithmancy and Herbology. When I’m done with this Potions essay, I’ll just have Defence, and that’s all. I’m glad I decided to drop Care of Magical Creatures.’

James nodded. ‘It’s amazing you’ve been able to do so much.’

‘Well, it’s been an awful month. But you’ve helped me, and I wasn’t so far behind as I thought when I went back. And you’ve done so much for all the prefect meetings, I haven’t had any paperwork to do. Thanks, you know? I thought I might have to step down when everything happened – but … well, just thanks.’

‘Happy to be of service.’

Lily smiled at him, and tried once again to return to her essay. If she concentrated hard, she could continue it. James, thankfully, took down her Transfiguration book from the pile and started skimming through the back pages.

She finished her Potions essay, and started on Defence. It was an easy essay, revision on sixth-year work, and she was soon putting a full stop to her last sentence, full of relief that she had finally managed to get back on track with all her work.

‘Finished?’

‘Yeah.’ Lily couldn’t help beaming at him.

‘That’s great.’

‘What time is it?’

‘One, I think. You ought to get some sleep.’

‘And you don’t?’

‘Point taken.’

‘Are you going?’

‘When you do.’

She opened her mouth to tell him she was going to bed now, but then she found herself asking, ‘What do you want, James?’

‘Sorry?’

‘Why – you’ve done all this, read me my work, managed the prefect stuff, helped me catch up. I mean, I’m really grateful and everything, I know you’ve got your own stuff, and Quidditch and all and it’s amazing you can do all this …’ She was rambling. ‘I mean, why did you? I don’t know what you want from me.’ It sounded so petty. She’d made it sound like a transaction. Lily felt like hitting herself for bringing it up.

James stared at her curiously. ‘I don’t know,’ he said simply. ‘I just wanted to, I suppose. And it felt like the right thing to do. I’m sorry if it was awkward for you or anything –’

‘No – I didn’t mean that. I just – it was really wonderful of you. It’s just that – I don’t know if I can give you what you want in return.’ She couldn’t meet his eyes anymore. It was the closest she’d come to acknowledging how he felt about her.

‘You don’t have to give me anything.’ He said it in a quiet, resigned tone. ‘I’m happy to help you, that’s all. You don’t have to do anything you’re not ready to do.’

She could feel his stare intently, even though she wasn’t looking. She didn’t dare look up, to meet his gaze. There was a small explosion in the pit of her stomach, as she realised that James understood her better than she thought. And she did care about him, didn’t she?

It should have been quite simple to look up, smile and tell him she could return his feelings. But she was confused.

‘I – I think I’m going to bed now.’ Lily stood, still staring at her feet.

‘Sure.’ James helped her stack her books so she could carry them back up to her dormitory and walked with her to the stairs. She looked at him then, and set her books on the ground.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I don’t know what I feel.’

‘It’s OK.’ He smiled sadly at her. ‘Seriously. I don’t want to force you into anything.’

Lily stepped closer to him and gently wrapped her arms around him. ‘I’m confused.’

James engulfed her in a big hug. ‘Don’t think about me, OK? Good night.’

She nodded. ‘Thanks, James. Good night.’

~ * ~

In light of everything that had happened and the workload that Lily was facing, Professor Flitwick had offered to put their private Charms sessions on indefinite postponement. Lily, however, had refused. It was the one thing that she was certain to be of use in the very near future.

Also, her progress in this lesson, at least, was not hampered by the long break she had taken.

‘It’s an innate ability you have, Miss Evans. We built the foundation before Christmas,’ explained Professor Flitwick. ‘And this –’ he gestured at the visible web of Expecto Patronum that Lily had successfully created and maintained for five minutes. ‘This is simply the beginning. We are working with the rudimentary spellcraft, the steps that could lead to the creation of new charms.’

‘I don’t understand, Professor. Aren’t new spells being developed all the time?’ Severus Snape, Lily knew for a fact, had created any number of new spells of his own.

‘Spells, certainly,’ said Professor Flitwick, almost haughtily. ‘And curses. Anyone working with Dark magic can come up with new ways to harm and hurt. But this, Lily – this magic is to help and heal. You will be able to play with the threads of magic itself, to manipulate these charms and construct new ones whose basis is emotion. You understand, of course, that the strongest charms –’

‘Take their strength from the caster’s emotion. But Professor, so do curses – the Unforgivables, for example. Are you saying that I could tamper with those?’

‘I hope you are not thinking of messing with Unforgivable Curses, Miss Evans. Those three curses are the only Dark magic that plays upon human emotion for their power. However, they draw strength from our darker side – hatred. I’m sure you’ve heard of the phrase “there’s a thin line between love and hate”.’

Lily thought suddenly of James and how she’d hated him for so long.

I don’t love him, though, she protested in her mind.

‘Nevertheless, I trust you will not fall into the temptation of using the Unforgivables. No matter what happens to you. Dark magic has a way of making us lose ourselves in its power.’ Professor Flitwick looked more serious than Lily had ever seen him. She hastened to reassure him.

‘I’m not planning to use Dark magic, Professor. I promise.’

‘Returning to our earlier discussion, then,’ said Professor Flitwick, looking relieved, ‘the Patronus, for example, is a personification of joy. And what you have just revealed, and may begin to dissect and reassemble, is the raw material of the Patronus Charm. You are, in essence, playing with joy itself.’

Lily could not help but look at her wand in wonder. When Mr Ollivander had sold it to her, telling her that it would be perfect for Charm work, had he known its capacity to do this?

‘Miss Evans, it is not the wand that provides this ability, it is you,’ said Professor Flitwick, correctly interpreting her action. ‘Although Ollivander would say it’s the wand that chooses the wizard – witch, I mean.’

He ended their lesson with that quote, and left Lily deep in thought in the classroom.

She was thinking about the Unforgivable Curses again. Certainly, she felt no inclination whatsoever to use them – control, torture and death were tools that her mind rebelled naturally against. But an idea had sprouted in her mind.

‘Are you saying that I could tamper with them?’

‘I hope you are not thinking of messing with Unforgivable Curses.’

Professor Flitwick, of course, had misinterpreted her. He thought she had meant to try them, to satiate a curiosity. Or to use its raw materials in spellcraft (a scary thought, for what other horrible curse could be built up from hatred?)

But Lily wanted to reverse the Unforgivables.

Particularly, Avada Kedavra.

The Imperius and Cruciatius were both horrible, of course, but they could be fought, or blocked. The killing curse could not. It was unblockable, irreversible; the green light that had sliced through her Shield Charm and the dull thump that followed cemented this firmly in Lily’s mind.

She knew, of course, that she couldn’t possibly create a counter-curse for death. No spell could re-awaken the dead. The finality of the killing curse was something that she couldn’t change. However, did Avada Kedavra have to be unblockable?

What if she could build a shield that would protect one against the killing curse?

This was how she wanted to fight Voldemort. Not by violence, but by defence. By building Charms to keep people safe from Voldemort.

First, though, she had to understand the killing curse before she could oppose it. Lily cast a wary glance around. It would be too easy for people to get the wrong idea if they walked in on her meddling with the killing curse in the room.

‘Colloportus!’ She sealed the door shut. Trembling slightly, she raised her wand.

‘Revelio Avada Kedavra!’ Lily shut her eyes, not sure she wanted to see what horrible image the killing curse might take. After a moment, she opened them gingerly.

Nothing. There was no spell web, terrifying or otherwise. It hadn’t worked.

Lily lowered her wand, half-disappointed, half-relieved. She couldn’t work on Avada Kedavra after all.

Maybe Professor Flitwick was right: she shouldn’t try. She didn’t even know what would have happened if she had succeeded – what if the curse had been so large that it filled the room … she might have accidentally killed herself! Lily cursed herself for being so careless.

She was shaking as she unlocked the door, put out the lights and left the classroom.

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A/N: And we have a date! Five and a half more months to go before the release of Deathly Hallows, and my goal now is to finish this so that it doens’t end up A/U before I do. I therefore owe enormous thanks to my beta, jamc91, for gamely taking up the challenge with me. Our goal now is a chapter a week, and I sincerely hope to deliver! Thank you all for your reviews and encouragement – it’s the fuel that keeps me going!