Author's Note: Expanding, finally! This story has been in progress at fanfiction.net for a couple of months now, and is (finally!) nearing its end. I've revised the prologue and the first few chapters since the story's first posting. They needed it, trust me. Enjoy!
Dedications: Mwahaha. (This is sort of a running joke--a feeble one at that--from my last story. Don't worry--you'll catch on.)
Whoever the hell gave me this idea, probably my muse: Thank ya.
Prologue: A Very Bad Start
The pungent smell of smoke clogged Lily's nostrils and with a cough she awoke, waving her hand in front of her face to brush away the incoming clouds. Frightened by the sound of a distant scream and the streams of thick smoke pouring into her bedroom, she threw the covers off her, snatched the thin wooden wand from her night stand, and muttered a few words to clear the hallway and her bedroom of the toxic smog.
Her older sister, Petunia, stumbled from her bedroom into the hall, coughing. After a quick look down the staircase to the kitchen, where more thick smoke laced the air, she gaped wide-eyed at Lily and warbled,
"What the fuck is going on?"
Rather than responding, Lily tightened her grip on her wand, brushed past Petunia to the staircase leading to the upper level, and jumped the stairs three at a time. Searing heat met her and she hopped backward, nearly falling over Petunia.
Instinctively, she thrusted the wand in her sister's direction.
"Don't you point that thing at me!" snapped Petunia, and with a glare Lily brushed off her pajamas and made for the staircase again.
Flames consumed the door to her parents' bedroom. Beads of sweat ran down her forehead and she trembled with anxiety, holding her wand out before her. She wondered if her parents were still alive. No noise other than the crackling of flames came from their bedroom.
"Do something, you idiot!" screamed Petunia from below. She sounded tearful.
A tear slipped from Lily's own eye. "Exstinguo!" she choked out. "EXSTINGUO!"
Jets of extinguishing fluid shot from the tip of her wand and piled on top of the flames. They died down almost instantly and the atmosphere grew quiet. The sisters stood silently for a moment and stared fearfully at the large black burns on the charred door and ceiling.
Lily felt a hand on her back, urging her forward, and she stepped up the last few stairs to the only room on the third floor, where her feet squished in the bubbling remains of the extinguishing fluid.
"Open the door," whispered Petunia, adopting sepulchral tones.
Lily's fingers closed around the door knob but, gasping, she released it instantly.
"My hand!" she cried, nursing the fresh wound. "The knob's hot!"
Petunia stepped up beside Lily and kicked the door open with her foot. It swung inward, creaking as it always had, and revealed the massacred site of their parents' bedroom. It was almost nothing but ashes. The beams from the roof were visible and several hung at odd angles, ready to fall. Most of the ceiling had been burned away; the darkness fell through the gaping hole, making their situation ten times more frightening. Their only light came from a few remaining embers scattered on the floor. The bed had been reduced to ashes and twisted metal. The dresser was a heap of ashes. Their mother's hat collection, which had formerly adorned the walls, was now a collection of ashes. Their father's golf bag was now, also, a pile of ashes and twisted metal. And the owners of the former hat collection, golf bag, dresser, bed and room appeared to have collapsed into ashes as well.
Forgetting the pain in her hand, Lily entered the room, walking only on the ash-free sections of floor and stopped in the center of the room. She paused before looking upward.
'Not them,' she thought pleadingly. 'Let it have been anyone but them. It'll be all my fault.'
When she finally looked up she cried out in surprise; the taunting skull of the Dark Mark grinned back at her.
"What is it?" asked Petunia, trembling, pale as a ghost.
Lily backed against one of the fire-marked walls, shaking and breathing heavily. Though she was well aware the Death Eaters prayed on Muggle-borns and their families, she never expected to be one of their victims. She forced down a sob, feeling stupid and naïve, as she remembered her sister's question. She pointed toward the hole in the ceiling.
Petunia crossed the room and stared upward. "What is that thing? What does it mean?" Her hands found their perches on her hips and she stared over at Lily like a mother to a disobedient child, as though she had been the one who set the house on fire.
"It's the Dark Mark," said Lily, barely managing to speak. "It's the symbol of the people who did this."
Petunia's mouth opened and closed several times. Lily suspected she'd been waiting to corroborate her belief that the whole ordeal was her fault. Her older sister's eyes gleamed with tears.
"I knew it!" she said, trying to yell through her tears. "Wizards! It's your fault they came here! It's your fault Mum and Dad are dead and it's your fault they can't see my baby or my wedding!"
Petunia's hand clutched her abdomen, which was completely flat. Petunia was only one month pregnant, a secret both girls had kept from their parents. She was due to marry the father, a man Lily thought to be a boorish brute and a slimeball, in three weeks.
Lily was not at all surprised to hear her sister's accusations. Over the last seven years she had grown accustomed to them. Ever since she received her Hogwarts letter seven summers ago, everything bad that happened in the Evans household was Lily's fault, according to Petunia.
The older girl stepped toward her, avoiding the ashes. Lily backed toward the doorway, afraid of the look in Petunia's eyes. Before she knew what was happening, her wand was in her angry sister's fist, directed toward its owner. Lily stood rigid in the doorway, terrified of what her sister might try to do with it.
"I hate you," she snarled, wiping the wetness from her eyes. "For years I've hated you. Now you've killed off our parents and they're not around to save you. I can finally--"
She didn't get to finish her sentence. A jet of magic shot from the end of Lily's wand, hitting Petunia square in the chest. Looking back on the incident, Lily thought--for a second or two--that the spell had hit her, because at the same time a force collided with her chest as well, sending her toppling backward down the staircase.
That force was Petunia's fist. The back of Lily's head smacked against the railing and the sound of sirens in the distance was the last thing that reached her ears before she blacked out.
O O O