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It rankles to have been captured by this brute of a Death Eater, one so thick as to think violence is the way to pry honesty out of his captives.
Lily doesn't think about lying. She can't, in fact, think about much of anything over the blinding, all-consuming pain wracking her body. Without planning, her mouth cries out against the floor, "Lily Potter!"
The tormenting magic vanishes as quickly as it set in, the sudden reprieve drawing another strangled sound out of her.
"Potter and Meadowes," the man says, his voice rich with condescension. "They'll be happy to hear that."
Lily's lungs, still in residual agony, can't seem to draw in enough air. She struggles to control her shaking limbs, but she manages to roll onto her back to let her chest heave freely. As she lies there, sucking in damp air and squeezing her eyes closed, she hears his heavy footsteps shuffling across the stone floor, thankfully away from her.
The door thuds shut behind him. His muttered spell guarantees they're locked in, but at least it also means he won't be casting another Cruciatus against Lily for the moment.
Then there's only the sound of ragged breaths.
Her mind has never been so utterly blank before. Nothing permeates her thoughts other than how much she aches, from her scalp down to her toenails. She can’t move, she can’t think, and time stretches on, marked only by the faint subsiding of her symptoms.
Dorcas recovers first, pulling herself upright against the wall. In the faint light of the candle hanging out of reach above their heads, her eyes meet Lily's.
"Your first time with Cruciatus, yeah?" Dorcas says, her voice as rough as the floor beneath them.
Lily nods, and even that motion was a mistake. It's beyond her how Dorcas can be as mobile as she is.
"You should've answered sooner." Dorcas grimaces as she props up her back against the wall, letting her head fall backward. "No point drawing it out."
"Hard to think about talking," Lily says, "when you can't think at all."
"Unforgiveable-happy, that one." Dorcas glances at the door before looking meaningfully at Lily. "Well done on answering."
Oh. Right. Lily had lied.
It was a smart lie. Captured Muggle-borns don't usually fare as well as pure-bloods.
But she had to say Potter, didn’t she?
Thank God it was Dorcas in here and not Marlene, who would never have let Lily live that down. Dorcas will have understood the purpose of the lie. She won't ask about it again. She won't tell anyone in the Order.
And yet.
"It's not because I fancy him," Lily feels compelled to say.
Dorcas doesn't say anything.
Lily's hands curl into fists, and it doesn't hurt as much as it would have a minute ago. Her nails are ragged against her palms, ruined from her wild scratching against the floor earlier.
"I didn't plan to--" Lily cuts herself off at Dorcas's sharp look. Of course. Who knows who's listening in?
Besides, she doesn't need to convince Dorcas. Dorcas doesn't care.
And so she shuts her mouth, closes her eyes, and tries to convince herself that she's going to be perfectly fine soon.
--
The problem is that the minutes tick by at a cruelly slow pace. There's nothing in this small, windowless room save for the candle, and Dorcas has never been the chatty type. Lily is left trapped in her mind, watching the wax drops above her Vanish once they've slid to the bottom of the candle.
There's nothing else for Lily's mind to think about besides fruitless wishes that the Order will come rescue her. The possibility that they might not is too terrifying to think about, so her mind slips into a familiar track.
James Potter. Tall, clever, beyond fit with that wild hair and that lopsided grin he favors. She could have picked any number of pure-blood surnames, but her mind had defaulted to his.
Telling Dorcas she didn't fancy James brought her total number of lies to the evening to two.
Even though she feels like she could sick up at any moment, her stomach flutters pleasantly just thinking about him. It's almost unfair how much he affects her.
It wouldn't have surprised anyone if they'd got together back at Hogwarts. At one point it had seemed like an inevitability.
She'd very nearly kissed him one day. They'd been walking down the corridor together on their way to Dumbledore's office when James had spotted a phoenix soaring above the Forbidden Forest.
They pressed together next to a narrow window to watch the warm evening light catch on the phoenix's tail, and when the bird dipped down into the forest at last, she turned to James, beaming. He turned toward her too, their faces only inches apart, and it would have been so easy to dart forward and press her lips against his. She started leaning forward, and then--
"Didya see that phoenix?" A mousy-haired second year boy ran up to them, his face alight.
Lily cleared her throat and stepped away from James.
"Brilliant, yeah?" James said, one of his hands threading through his hair, red blooming on his cheeks. (That should be your hand, her brain supplied.)
And then with N.E.W.T.s and Head duties and the Order, things had never come together.
Now, with her torn-up nails and grimy face and tangled hair, Lily wonders why she hadn't simply thrown James up against one of the tapestries and snogged the daylights out of him as soon as that second-year had run off.
She should have done. Now she never might.
As much as she wants to avoid falling into the pit of hopelessness, this might be it for her. Another downed Order member. Possibly the fifth so far this year, or the sixth, if they kill Dorcas first.
There are no tools to escape. No hope of overcoming a guard anytime soon, not in the shape she and Dorcas are in.
James is on some other mission tonight, one Lily isn't privy to the details of. He won't burst through the door at any minute. Dorcas and Lily probably haven't be missed yet. They aren't due to report back for what Lily estimates to be another hour.
She and James haven’t been paired together on any missions. Probably just by chance, not through anyone’s planned intention. But sometimes when they cross paths at headquarters—Dorcas’s deceased grandmother’s house—they wander off together to catch up. James likes to do dramatic reenactments of his adventures, and he’s always climbing up on the furniture and leaping off of it and filling the whole house with his presence.
One time he’d slipped and fallen on top of her, his hands landing on her stomach, and she’d hoped beyond hope his fingers would wander, or clutch, or something. Instead they'd both sat frozen for a second, breaths intermingling, before he’d jumped up, blushing and apologizing.
She’s had so many opportunities. She’s taken none of them.
She’s such a twit sometimes. And now she’s got nothing else to do but relive those missed moments and wish she’d been just a bit wiser.
Because she has no other choice, she lies there, waiting and remembering.
--
It's been several hours, she thinks. She and Dorcas haven't spoken since their first conversation.
The lingering effects of the Cruciatus have worn off. No more tingling, no more spasms. Just the absolute weakness and lingering aches in her muscles, like she's run three marathons back to back.
She hasn't bothered to get off the floor. She could probably stand up, but there's not much point. Nothing to do, nowhere to go.
Footsteps echo in the corridor outside, faint at first but growing louder.
Dorcas and Lily make eye contact again, and Lily forces her limbs to push her up, sitting and then kneeling. She pauses there, grimacing at the way her body's resisting her, at the bolts of pain triggered by movement. With a final push she's on her feet, one hand leaning on the wall for support.
Dorcas is standing behind her, just in time for the door to swing open.
"Good evening, Potter," comes an all too familiar voice, in an all too familiar smug tone.
Severus halts in his tracks when he sees it's Lily, his dark eyebrows drawing together in confusion.
Lily, for her part, didn't think she could be in more pain after the Cruciatus, but seeing Severus in those robes, in this building, tears at her heart more than the spell tore at her nerves. They're not friends anymore, and she hates that this is affecting her at all, but she can't help it.
"Hello," she says evenly.
"They said--" Severus says. He stalls, his sharp features casting shadows under candlelight.
A curl of pleasure winds in her stomach to see him speechless for once.
The bemusement on his face shifts, his mouth drawing into a disgusted snarl. "You married Potter?"
"No." Lily can feel the heat rising on her cheeks and feels like a third-year for it. "He and I--we're not--no."
"Oh." Relief washes over him, and he shuts the door behind him. "A well-placed lie, although an easy one to disprove."
She tries to tell herself not to give him a reaction, to stay calm, but he's so casual in here, as though it's commonplace to see your former best friend held captive.
"Come to kill me, then?" she says.
"No." He crosses his arms over his chest, his wand clasped in one hand.
She might be able to grab it from him, but then her weight sags as she tries to step forward. "And what about Dorcas?" she says. "She's a half-blood, so she's fair game, right?"
Severus seems to have forgotten Dorcas is in the room with him. He glances at her, and before Lily can take another step, he waves his wand to send a jet of red light flying across the room.
For a second, the floor seems to drop away from under Lily. She shouldn't have said anything, she should have distracted him more, now Dorcas is going to die--
But it's only a Stunner. Dorcas collapses, her head cracking against the floor. She's not bleeding, but that's bound to bruise, and Severus doesn't show any indication of caring. Lily nearly drops down to help her, but there's no help she can really offer, not without a wand, and she doesn't want to give Severus even more of a physical advantage over her. Her legs are already screaming out in pain--they weren't ready to support her weight--but damned if she's going to literally look up at Severus.
"We've got to get you out of here," Severus says.
"Oh, so I'm worth sparing, but Dorcas--"
"I can't get both of you out. It's risky enough to spare you, but both prisoners, I can't--"
"Then don't bother," she says coolly.
And then her brain catches up with her mouth and panics--she's turning down an offer of escape, he would help her and she's turning him down, is she mad--
"Don't bother? Lily, they're planning to perform a blood ritual on you to hurt other pure-bloods in the Order--pure-bloods they think are related to Potter--and they'll figure out you're lying as soon as it fails. They'll kill you, provided the ritual doesn't first."
This is it, then. She's going to die.
If she were as perfectly Gryffindor as she'd like, she would probably feel free right now, brave and courageous.
As it is, adrenaline and terror flood her veins. Oh, God, she's going to die.
"Don't be stubborn." Severus takes a step toward her, and Lily finds the strength to move away from him, her limbs on the verge of giving way. "Let me help you."
She and Dorcas have never been close friends. They barely speak when they're not on missions together, and even then only as much as necessary.
It would be so easy to agree, to let him whisk her to safety and pretend she’d had no say in it.
Dorcas would never know Lily had abandoned her. The Order would never know. No one need ever know that she'd been selfish in this room.
Fear and pain threaten to send her into a collapse, but she knows the truth of it. She’s a fool for it, but she couldn't live with herself if she left Dorcas behind.
Tears well up in Lily's eyes as she tells him, "It's both of us or neither."
Severus paces across the room in long, crisp strides, his black robes trailing behind him, and then stalks back to stand too close to Lily. "I don't need your permission," he says.
He's properly furious now, gainsaid by her once more.
She hasn't missed this side of him. She hasn't missed his cruelty or his desperation for approval. His willingness to ignore anything she says or wants. He really will force his will over hers and see nothing wrong with it.
Her chest aches, and not just from the Cruciatus. He could do it. Body-Bind her and Portkey her away, leaving Dorcas alone, unconscious, and unprotected. Oh, God, he might. He would.
"If you force me," she says, "I'll make sure the Death Eaters know you helped me escape."
He looks stricken. "Even after I'd saved your life?"
"Yes."
She has no idea if she could deliver on that threat, but it's possible. And it seems to work at least for now. He takes a step back, and she can breathe again.
"They don't know I'm down here," he says. "They'll think you're lying to cause dissention."
"Maybe," she says. "Maybe not."
His wand snaps up to point at her, but his expression is agonized. "Lily," he pleads.
She's perfectly aware that he's capable of doing it. That he will, unless she can keep him distracted. Maybe if she can make him angry enough, he'll leave her here.
"Why did you come down here?" she demands.
"I thought--they said it was...." Severus looks mulish.
"You thought I was James, and you were going to taunt him." She eyes him. "Or torture him?"
Severus looks away from her, his wand hand dropping to his side.
"You haven't changed at all," she says.
"I don't need to change."
A sliver of her had hoped that somehow her proving her loyalty to her friends would convince him he was wrong about, well, everything. But the way he says that—with confidence, with confusion--convinces her that he is, in fact, hopeless.
A crack splits through the air.
Lily starts, causing her legs to finally buckle. She angles her back against the wall to move into a controlled drop to the ground.
In the center of the room stand Sirius Black and James Potter, wearing identical grins, their wands in hand.
Severus is stunned, and then Stunned.
Lily starts to cry in earnest.
She's not going to die.
Dorcas isn't going to die.
"I know I'm dead handsome," James says, offering her a hand, "but there's no need to cry about it."
Lily laughs through a sob as he helps her up. When she's on her feet, and his hands are warm and steady on her waist, she lets go of his hand, grabs two tufts of his hair, and kisses him.
“Lily,” he manages between kisses.
“James,” she says, before kissing him again. “James Potter.”
His lips curve into a smile beneath hers, and then his hands are deftly moving her just out of reach of kissing him again.
“Not that I’m not mad about this, or you,” he says, “but let’s maybe finish up somewhere more romantic than a manky Death Eater dungeon, yeah?”
She nods. He hasn’t let go of her waist, which is good because she couldn’t support her own weight.
She spares a glance toward Dorcas, but she’s gone. Sirius has already disappeared with her.
Severus is in a heap on the ground, his long hair splayed across the stone floor, his prominent nose pointed up into the air.
He’s no friend of hers. Not anymore. Not for a long time.
Lily wraps her arms around James. He smells like smoke and ash.
“Yes,” she says. “Let’s go.”
James casts a spell, and they’re gone.