Thanks to J for being a wonderful beta!
Note: Three lines in the middle (any time Harry or Riddle speak) are direct quotes from Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (American paperback edition), Chapter Seventeen: The Heir of Slytherin, page 307.
|
The Lady | ||||||
|
Category: Girl Talk Challenge (2010-3), Girl Talk Challenge (2010-3) Characters:Harry/Ginny, James Potter, Lily Potter Genres: General Warnings: Spouse/Adult/Child Abuse Story is Complete Rating: PG-13 Reviews: 55 Summary: ** Winner of New Skills and the People’s Choice Award in the Girl Talk Challenge ** For protecting their son in the face of certain death, James and Lily Potter are given a wonderful gift: the chance to help their son succeed. James chooses the girl that Lily will train. Unfortunately, the girl is stubborn, willful and doesn't trust the Lady in her mind. Hitcount: Story Total: 25612; Chapter Total: 3901 Author's Notes: |
Previous Next |
|
||||
|
29 May 1993 “...milk for the base, slowly stirring anticlockwise five times until the milk is nearly ready to boil. Then had five milligrams of finely ground chamomile. Continue to stir anticlockwise, though add one clockwise stir after every third anticlockwise one. After twenty stirs, let the mixture simmer and add the chopped mint leaves, no less than five full leaves for a mild concoction, up to twenty full leaves for a more potent version of the potion. The mild version is best for those with medical conditions that may require potions or when you want the recipient to be calm, but alert. The potent version will relax a person to the point of sleep in all but the most agitated. Once the mint is added, reduce heat so that the potion will stay warm, but not heat any further. Let it sit for twenty minutes, and then stir clockwise twice. Add four full strands of unicorn hair and increase heat until the potion boils. Allow it to boil for one full minute, and then remove immediately from the heat source. Cover and let the potion sit at room temperature for one hour. Use immediately or store at no more than 6 degrees Celsius.” Reciting the directions for a Calming Draught was the best Lily could do. Being dead, technically, she didn’t need a Calming Draught, but she wanted one very badly. Not even the previous year, when her son had faced the spectral form of Voldemort had she been this anxious, this nervous, this terrified. She, James and their guide watched the scene below them in a state of panic, though their guide wasn’t as anxious as the Potters. Lily wondered, briefly, if she had seen how this would, or could, turn out. After all of this time, Lily still didn’t know the girl’s name, but she had grown to respect her immensely. The girl would simultaneously see several different possible outcomes of a single event. She kept them inside of a Pensieve so that she could watch them and keep track of each vision. A Pensieve, Lily had learned, was different from an Ineosieve. While the Ineosieve allowed someone to enter into a person’s dreams or life, a Pensieve allowed a person to view memories in an objective manner. One big difference between them, however, was that a Pensieve was rare amongst the living, but there were some. Ineosieves, on the other hand, could only be used by the dead and were not even known about amongst the living. All year long, Lily had tried and failed to enter Ginny’s dreams. Someone else had gained an entrance into the girl's mind and was quite adept at keeping intruders out, much to Lily's dismay. Only once had Lily made it through the foreign barriers. What she had witnessed had scared her horribly. A handsome, dark haired young man had been speaking intimately with Ginny in the familiar meadow scene that was almost always present in the girl’s mind. Handsome and charming though he was, Lily could sense his sinister intentions. But she had been unable to warn the red-head. Ginny was still convinced that Lily had been trying to harm the girl’s family, but for some reason had grown to trust this young man. With a wave of his hand, the young man had forced Lily out, a cruel smile on his face all the while. It had been a nail-biting year, to be sure. James had attempted to enter Harry’s dreams twice in the hopes of giving their son anything that might tip him off to what was happening, but, surprisingly, he was locked out of Harry’s mind as effectively as Lily was from Ginny. In desperation, they had entered the mind of their son’s Muggleborn friend (disguising themselves, of course). Hermione had completely discounted her dreams at first. While Lily appreciated the girl’s studious nature and identified strongly with her, there were times she wanted to shake the girl. The younger Muggleborn witch was very set in following the rules and not varying from the tried-and-true methods. ‘Not even taking into account that new discoveries require a creative process,’ Lily found herself thinking. ‘The fantastical nature of magic forces one raised by Muggles to realize a new logic where it seems almost anything is possible if you have enough nerve.’ Thankfully, Hermione had made the connection and it saved the life of herself and another witch and Harry had realized there was a pattern all on his own. Lily briefly wondered if they could persuade Harry to take Ancient Runes in his third year since he seemed to have a knack for pattern recognition, but quickly dismissed the idea. They had no way of getting such an idea to him that wasn’t suspicious. ‘Let’s make sure he survives the end of his second year before we start thinking about his third,’ she thought as she peered back into the Ineosieve. Below her, Harry had just hissed something at the carved snakes that caused them to open and admit him into the Chamber. The three watching the scene could see what awaited him, but James and Lily only knew that something (or someone) had forced Ginny into the Chamber and that she appeared to be dead. Only the tiny fluttering of her eyelashes and Lily’s gut feeling let them know that the young witch was still alive. “Ginny!” They watched as Harry ran to her, dropping his wand as he knelt beside her. “WHAT ARE YOU DOING! PICK UP YOUR WAND, YOU IDI-“ “JAMES POTTER! DON’T YELL AT YOUR SON OR CALL HIM NAMES!” “Er, yes, of course dear.” “Ginny — don’t be dead — please don’t be dead —“ Harry attempted to rouse her by shaking her shoulders, but it only made Ginny look worse. Her head rolled around and she seemed to look even paler, if that was possible. “Ginny, please wake up.” He was getting desperate. If the situation wasn’t so dire, Lily imagined her husband would be betting that Harry would try bribing Ginny into being okay by telling her he’d date her if she woke up. But instead, a voice that raised the hair on the back of her neck and sent a chill down Lily’s spine spoke. She couldn’t see the person, but she recognized that voice instantly, younger though it sounded. “She won’t wake.” “Voldemort,” Lily breathed, clutching one hand to her chest, while the other covered her mouth in horror. James looked at her in shock, before leaning further over the Ineosieve in an attempt to see more. They watched as the young man, Tom Riddle, explained what he had done to Ginny and who he was to their stunned son. When the memory Riddle called forth the Basilisk, the Potters looked away instinctively. That’s when a thought struck Lily. ‘Riddle is trying to steal Ginny’s soul, but he isn’t in her mind right now!’ Without taking a moment to think things through, Lily dove past James and into the Ineosieve, entering Ginny’s mind almost immediately. The emptiness almost broke her heart. Instead of blackness, which is what Lily expected to find in the mind of someone unconscious, she was surrounded by brilliant whiteness. Only in the very centre was there any colour, but even that was drastically muted and more grey than actual colour. Even Ginny’s red hair was subdued. Lily thought it was what Ginny’s hair would look like after fifty or sixty years, but it was terrifying to see on an eleven year old girl. The young Gryffindor sat, huddled up in the last bit of meadow that Lily recognized from her previous visits with the girl. Still acting on instinct, Lily rushed forward and grabbed onto the bit of meadow that hadn’t bled away into whiteness. Ginny looked up at her with deadened eyes. “Come to gloat, Lady?” Even her voice was muffled and all of the fight seemed to have left the normally vivacious girl. “No. I’m here to help you hold on until Har...” Lily took a deep breath. “Until my son can kill the Basilisk and save you.” Ginny looked at Lily with a questioning look. “Who is your son and why would anyone want to save me?” “First of all,” Lily grunted while giving a rather vicious yank on the bit of meadow she was holding and pulling back a little bit more that had disappeared in the whiteness. “After all of this is over, you and I need to have a serious discussion about your current lack of self-esteem. As to why anyone would want to save you, your family loves you very much. My son knows this and would, is, risking his life because he doesn’t want your family to have the pain of losing each other. Besides, he’s Harry Potter. Saving the day is what he does. Would you mind terribly asking him to find a safer hobby for me? I’m not cut out to watch him battle evil wizards and Basilisks and who knows what else. He may try to take on a werewolf next year for goodness sake!” It did the trick. Ginny was shocked into perking up a bit at the mention of Harry Potter rescuing her. “He’s really here?” she whispered, while reaching down to grab another bit of meadow and successfully stopping it from disappearing. Lily nodded. Ginny’s eyes took on a hard, blazing look, though it was only the determination in her face that made her look less lifeless. “When all this is over, you and I are going to have a serious discussion about who you are and why you keep visiting me. No more dodging or.” She gritted her teeth. “Lies.” With a curt nod, Lily acknowledged the jab. Ginny didn’t believe that Harry was really the Lady’s son, but her interest was piqued and the thought that Harry was there had driven her into action. They had made a little bit of progress. Instead of the full square metre of meadow Ginny had been huddled in when Lily had entered her mind, there was now almost three square metres. Then it happened. For one split second, colour burst into Ginny’s mind and then Lily was thrown forcefully out. James caught her before she fell to the floor beside the Ineosieve, his wide smile confirmation that their son had not only survived, but had succeeded. |
| Reviews 55 |
Previous Next
|
