Lily had lost Marlene in the scuffle. That much wasn’t surprising, as the Ministry of Magic was covered in Death Eaters and cowering civilians alike. While the two women had not rekindled their friendship with one battle, they’d had one another’s backs. They had made sure the other stayed alive. And that was something.
When she found herself face-to-face with the next Death Eater, however, the person wasn’t wearing a mask. Ainsley Abbott apologized for bumping into Lily politely, as though they were at the market and both reaching for the same apple. She stood with her fingers to her glasses and the gesture sucked the air from Lily’s lungs. James would’ve had to do the same to keep his from flying off his face. His specs often getting in the way of Quidditch or running around the castle - or battles.
If he’d had proper eyesight, would he have died?
Those are the questions that kept Lily up at night, though she knew the answer. Yes, he would’ve. It didn’t matter what he was wearing or if he could see more clearly or if she’d been there to stop him. James would’ve died anyway because he hadn’t raised his wand while Ainsley had.
But she wasn’t raising her wand now. It was almost as if she was allowing Lily to do something. Get revenge, maybe. Or perhaps Ainsley just no longer wanted to live. Lily clutched at her wand as she stood in front of the older woman. Ainsley had been fighting this war for so much longer.
“Ainsley,” Lily breathed out her name much too late. They’d been staring at one another for many precious seconds when it came from her lips, disbelieving and angry and sad. Lily was not afraid. Ainsley was not raising her wand. And maybe there was a moment where Lily wished they could go back and this would’ve been Ainsley’s choice in the first place, but there was no room for wishes in a world that didn’t allow for them.
She could feel the tears burning behind her eyes, but she did not cry. Ainsley Abbott didn’t deserve her tears. “He never raised his wand,” she told Ainsley. Reminded her, more like. Not sure if Ainsley, too, was haunted by that knowledge that Mary Macdonald had shared with her. “He never raised his wand and you thought he was planning to kill your sister.” Lily gripped her own wand tightly. “How could he kill her if he had his wand down, Ainsley?”
“I’m - I’m sorry, Lily,” was all Ainsley’s reply and Lily did not know this woman enough to tell what was going on in her mind. James knew her; James might’ve been able to tell. “Is this where you kill me?”
It made Lily laugh, looking down at her wand. Not raised. “Do you want me to?” The girls stared at one another, their eyes gripping with the knowledge that Ainsley wouldn’t cast a spell this time. If Lily wanted to, she could do to this wix what she’d done to her boyfriend. Sirius would want her to.
“No,” Lily said. “Tomorrow when you wake up, I want you to remember how easy it was to not raise a wand.” It was said with spite, though not quite with hate. Lily did not hate Ainsley, though maybe she should have. But death might be a blessing. Death would allow Ainsley to forget.
The choices they made in this war will live with them forever. And, just as she had with Severus so many years before, Lily turned to walk away. Ainsley has chosen her path and Lily would choose hers.
Ainsley stared as the younger witch walked away, wand held low by her side. Not attacking. Confronting Lily Evans was a moment that Ainsley had imagined many times (usually in the pale, thin hours of the morning on that cold liminal cusp between waking, sleeping, and nightmare) but for all the varied scenarios she had played-out in her head, none of them had played-out like this. And now she felt...what? Not relieved, she knew that much. Disappointed? Maybe...not that she’d wanted to fight Lily, but her just walking away was undeniably an anti-climax. Ainsley opened her mouth to say -- what? Sorry was inadequate at best, and she’d said it already anyway, but she felt like she had to say something else to the woman whose life she had destroyed in trying to save her sister’s...
And then pain, white-hot and blazing like ice, unfolded deep down in her bones; burning up cold on her skin, a blistering agony that left no blisters behind -- none that could be seen, at least, but oh the pain...! Ainsley didn’t scream; she couldn’t spare the energy or breath to scream. All that came out was a choked, hollow gasp of a moan as she bent double, folding-up around her arm -- around her left arm.
The one that he had Marked.
Knowledge crashed down on Ainsley like a tsunami. All the bits and pieces she had puzzled together; all the years of researching ancient magicks and Dark Curses; the memory of how it had felt when Voldemort had burned his claim of ownership into her skin with his own soul -- all of it slammed together in sudden understanding, and she knew: Voldemort was dead.
This was the feeling of a soul being ripped from its vessel -- from all the vessels on which it had a claim, all the hearts and minds and hollow-eyed victims it had touched. Voldemort was gone, torn free from all those tethers -- torn free from her.
The brand on her skin blazed an ugly, pinkish-white like lightning made from blood and Ainsley collapsed, writhing around it. If she screamed now, she couldn’t hear it for the shrieking in her head -- high, cold, and unmistakable. Even through the pain, Ainsley smiled at that last-gasp of a scream and what it meant: Voldemort was dead...
But how had it been done? Ainsley knew only a little bit about the lengths to which he had gone, the ancient magicks he had dabbled in, in his quest for immortality -- but she knew enough to know that simply killing him would more than likely not be fatal. (That was why she’d never tried and, no doubt, why the Dark Lord had let just enough of his secrets slip loose so that those within his own ranks who might have been a threat -- whether for their own ambitions or out of simple hate, like Ainsley -- would know better than to try and fail.) Someone must have figured-out a way around his protections, his precautions...had it been Edgar? Gideon? Oh, what she would have given to have been there with them, picking that tapestry of spell-work apart! She wondered if she would have a chance to learn how it had been done, before her trial...or maybe even at the trial, depending on how the questioning went...she knew just enough that the Ministry might want to question her about it, which meant they’d have to offer at least enough explanation to frame their questions...
(She could have run. Ainsley was a talented witch with a wide-ranging knowledge of uncommon magicks; she could have run, and might well have been able to hide herself well enough to make it out. But she had made her choices and she would appropriately pay for them now. That would not balance the scales, of course, but better to face what she’d done than try and pretend she hadn’t. There was no truth in running.)
She could write to Edgar, she supposed; few letters made it out of Azkaban but it would be weeks, maybe even months, before the Ministry finished with all the trials they would soon need to hold (before they finished catching all the Death Eaters who did run) and she would have time to write to him before her sentencing, and Edgar would surely not hold the choice she had been forced into making against her enough that he would be too cruel to tell her something so monumentally fascinating as this...
But Ainsley realized, as the pain ebbed down to a dull throb, that she didn’t really care. Part of her brain was whirling over the possibilities even still, as ravenously curious as ever, but it was a thin and distant part and growing fainter with every breath that she sucked into her lungs that Voldemort did not. It would be interesting to know, yes...but in the long run, did it matter?
No, Ainsley decided. Curiosity for its own sake was pointless. Maybe she would never know how it had been done (and part of her, a small dying fragment of a spark, screamed in horror at the realization that was dawning in the darkness of her soul..but that part was a fading echo, and the rest of her did not hear it wail) but she found now, as she sat back tiredly against the nearest wall and waited for the Aurors to come, that she simply did not care.
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