#evans murder

[hehashereyes]

This Goodbye - Beth Crowley

My world caught fire You're the one who lit the spark Now I'm playing with matches All alone here in the dark I had to learn the hard way That salvation has its price But I'll never forgive myself That you were the sacrifice I can't bring myself to say goodbye I walk with my head up, say I'm fine but that's a lie Your face will always haunt me It's my comfort and my curse I can't imagine any feeling could be worse Than this goodbye

[hehashereyes]

Dear person I hate,

“Dear” murderers of my parents,

I’m going to find you.

It might take me a year or a decade, but I will track you down.

I would like to say I’m going to have you locked up in Azkaban as soulless husks for the rest of your miserable days, and then I will find peace, but I don’t know if I’m a good enough person for that. Sometimes I just want you to hurt as much as I have been hurt - am still hurting.

Whoever you are, wherever you are, be afraid.

You will no more know peace than I will.

This isn’t over. You started it, I’m going to end it.

Lily Potter

[hehashereyes]

Pinocchio: What is your greatest wish?

To go back in time and save my parents. I want them back. I need them. They should have been there at my wedding. They should get to hold their grandchildren.

I need my Mum. I miss them.

[hehashereyes]

Roaring Silence // Self-para // February 2nd, 1979

Date: February 2nd, 1979Time: Afternoon Place: Evans' house, Cokeworth

“I hope you are happy.” Petunia’s voice was hoarse and shaky from tears, but somehow she still managed to sound harsh at the same time, cutting even. It was enough to make Lily flinch, and made her wish she could turn away and cover her ears. Whatever she was going to say was bound to be bad. But her sister’s cold, hard eyes and her pinched mouth kept her spellbound; there was no way she could have turned away. “You have finally gotten what you wanted.”

  The scene reminded Lily oddly of one of these old westerns her father liked – had liked – to watch, a stand-off at high noon.

  There was Petunia on one side, with huffing, puffing, red-faced Vernon standing beside her, and Lily straight across from her on the other side of the small kitchen table, James hovering protectively behind her. It was an unlikely setting for a stand-off, their parents’ kitchen with the flower wallpaper and lacy curtain was meticulously clean since Petunia had started cleaning the moment the Aurors left. She always cleaned when she was anxious. The bouquet of cheery gardenias was still on the table, Lily had brought the flowers when she visited her parents just three days ago.

  Lily flinched and James growled, but she shushed him before he could so much as say a word. “No,” she said quietly, raising a hand to calm her fiancé. “She’s right.”

  Triumph sparked in Petunia’s teary, reddened eyes. It was an ugly sight that made Lily’s stomach churn. Nobody should feel gleeful over the death of their parents just because it proved a long-contested point.

“She’s right that I endangered them,” Lily whispered. “If it weren’t for me the Death Eaters would have never paid attention to them.” She inhaled deeply, and her shoulders trembled with the effort of holding back the sobs that threatened to spill. But at the end of the day Lily and Petunia were sisters, and one was as stubborn as the other. “I painted a big fat target on their backs.”

  Petunia choked on a sob. She pressed her fist against her mouth, fingers still curled around the first of the condolence cards that had arrived. “You’ve been ruining this family ever since you first ran off to play magic,” Petunia muttered bitterly.

  “Now you wait one bleedin’ minute, Lily’s not…” James started to protest, but Lily grabbed his hand and squeezed it until he fell silent.

  For all that Petunia had known Lily twice as long as James, it was James who sensed the shift in her mood. He was the one who stepped closer until he was pressed back to chest with her, and brushed a kiss to the back of her head in a show of silent support. He was the one who felt the tremble run through her body, and understood that she wasn’t shaking from tears this time.

  “When did you become this pious, sanctimonious, judgmental twit?”

  Lily’s hiss cut through the tense silence like a knife through butter.

  Petunia’s face lost what colour remained; Vernon snapped his suspenders and huffed so hard that his moustache fluttered. “Miss Evans,” he said, the very picture of gentlemanly indignation, “name-calling is no way for a young lady…”

  “Don’t act like you’re my grandfather from butler school, Vern!” Lily snapped, her fingers clenching around the back of a chair. “You don’t get to berate me or tell me how young ladies are supposed to behave. The only man who had the right is dead!” Her words hung between them, but the anger was still bubbling hot and bright in Lily. “Yes, that’s right, Petunia, our parents are dead! They were murdered right here in this very house and you’re turning their funeral into a bloody competition!”

  “Don’t you think I know that!” Petunia snapped back, matching Lily glare for glare. Lily found herself reminded once again that they were, in fact, sisters. “I was the one who found them! You didn’t arrive until the normal police and your freakish friends had already been in here and cleaned away all the blood, but I found them, Mum…” She pressed her lips together and abruptly turned her back on Lily. “Leave. I’ll send you the itinerary later by your freakish owl post. But…” Her shoulders shook. “I want you and that man out of my parents’ house. Magic people have done enough damage for today.”

  James’ arms enveloped her just in time for her to flinch. Lily squeezed her eyes shut against a wave of fresh tears.

  They were my parents, too, she wanted to protest, but the words wouldn’t come.

  The End

[hehashereyes]

Strength // Amelia & Lily // Thursday 8, 1979

Date: Thursday 8, 1979 Time: 8:03 p.m. Location: Amelia's place

Lily had nearly called it off. A mere four days after burying her parents, she didn't feel like meeting a friend, not even to speak of revenge and mourn the dead. It felt... disrespectful, somehow, as if she were going partying when she should be mourning, though she knew very well that neither Amelia nor her would feel like partying. It was only because she'd promised that she apparated over at 8 o'clock on Thursday night, carrying a bottle of firewhiskey in her hand. Well, because she had promised and because James needed a break from hovering over her. He looked nearly as drained as she felt, and she remembered how it had been when he lost his parents. She had supported him, of course she had, and she had done it gladly, but there had been moments when she was so mentally exhausted from being strong for him that she just wanted to curl up in a corner and cry, but she couldn't... She had to be strong for him. James needed an evening off.

So here she was, knocking on Amelia's door. This was a very different Lily Evans from the one known from the Order meetings, the vivacious young woman looked pale and frail, with deep shadows under her eyes, her hair unkempt, clothes a rumpled mess. She'd held herself together long enough to get the funeral over with, but then her reserves of strength had been exhausted.

Amelia, she knew, would understand, and so she hadn't even bothered to try and repair the façade of being okay. Her friend knew better anyway, and tonight was about not having to pretend.

"Hey," she said when Amelia opened the door, and flashed her a wan smile. She held up the bottle. "I brought a little something to keep us company... but I brought chocolate, too."

[hehashereyes]

Lily, 

I’m so sorry for your loss.

Severus.

———-

Lily was sitting at her desk, numbly reading the owls from people telling her how sorry they were for her loss, few of whom she knew and even fewer who knew the parents she had lost. They said sympathy from strangers was a comfort in tragedies, but she found none; the only comfort laid in going through the motions. Answering the mail was normalcy, and as long as she kept acting normal she wouldn’t be screaming. Or crying. When droplets of clear liquid splattered this thank you note as they had so many before, she reached up to touch her cheek, finding it wet. Oh. Right. She was crying. Lily took some grim satisfaction from shredding the envelope of the next letter. Numb acceptance of her fate wasn’t how Lily Evans dealt with things. She wanted to be out there fighting Death Eaters, but James had been right. They couldn’t storm Grimmauld Place or Malfoy Manor or whatever home they suspected of harboring Death Eaters. For now, all she could do was bide her time. She skimmed over the note and in the next moment, it dropped from her limp fingers. The letter fluttered onto the desk to join half a dozen other similar notes. But they didn’t matter, for none of them was from Severus Snape. "That git,” she growled, glaring at the letter, and that was when the sobs came. Severus who had liked to sit in her mother’s kitchen while she fed him tea and crumpets and tutted over him being too thin, who once embarrassed him terribly when she made him take off his shirt to mend it though he insisted he could fix it with a spell once he was back at Hogwarts. He had almost been like a son to her mother. If anyone could truly understand her loss, then it was Severus, for nobody but Petunia and her had loved her parents as much as Severus had. Lily crossed her arms on the desk and hid her face against them. She had never wanted her best friend more than she did now. But he was no longer her best friend, for he had chosen to side with the people who would slaughter innocents for no other reason than that they were Muggles. If there was one person Lily couldn’t deal with today, then it was Severus Snape. She jerked into a sitting position, her back ramrod straight, and snatched up a quill. Lily dipped it into the ink, uncaring that it dropped ink blobs all over her correspondence when she yanked it out, and wrote a short, angry message on the back of the tears-stained parchment he had sent her.

This is what the people you joined do. I hope you are happy.

[hehashereyes]

[Lily’s letter is a crumpled mess, the ink blotchy from tears.]

Dear Amelia,

I don’t know how anyone could help nothing can make it better is going to bring them back to life. But I’ll take whatever help you can give me. I need your comfort friendship - and for you to help me hunt down the monsters who killed my parents. Amelia, I’m so angry I don’t know how to keep going I’m scared I want them to pay. We’re going to bring them down. I couldn’t protect my parents but I won’t let them rob any more people of their parents.

Lily