WHO: James & Lily Potter
WHAT: DDDDD; or the story of what happened to the Potters' living room
WHEN: 8 PM-ish
WHERE: Potter residence
It had been 188 hours, 23 minutes, and 49 seconds, roughly, since Lily Potter had seen the outside of her bedroom. Approximately 154 hours, 32 minutes, and 12 seconds since she had given up, taken out her wand, and Accio'd a sandwich and a glass of water from the kitchen to force herself to eat something. In less mathematical terms, about an hour after James had stormed out of the house and left for work and left her laying there to go ahead and rot like she wanted to. Like she had most feverently wanted to.
Lily couldn't explain to you what had happened in that hour between James leaving her and her eating for the first time in three days, but him slamming that bedroom door and going on and giving up had stirred something in her, in a place that she had refused to let herself go since after the attack and returning home. The furious look on his face when he realized that she was not going to move to help herself and that she had literally forsaken herself had broken through, somehow, some way, and while it may have taken her two more days after that to stand up, to let her feet cross that threshold into the rest of the house, to decide that she needed James so much more than she needed to sit alone in a bedroom and protect herself, she had done it.
She regretted it in an instant.
It had been to the kitchen first, straight to the kitchen, she had even Apparated, because it was one step at a time and she knew that it wasn't going to be easy and she had to take it that way. Maybe a little firewhiskey would help, she thought then, spotting a full bottle (a wedding present, no doubt) on one of the counters. Everything was easier when you were a little drunk, at least maybe she wouldn't be a total wreck, but--just a little. But 'just a little' had easily turned into a couple of glasses without Lily even realizing it until she stumbled a tad when she finally decided to get up from the kitchen table.
She had to move on, she had to do it now or never, no more holding back--
--well, she'd take the bottle with her just in case.
Lily took another long drink from the neck of the bottle as she made her way into the living room. The living room, it was--pristine, completely clean, completely clean because her mother had--no, not her mother, her mother was dead, her--her fucking mother and--Bellatrix, it was clean because Bellatrix fucking Lestrange had left it that way, and she had probably done it with magic too--Lily bet the stupid twat didn't even know how to handle a duster, she probably had house elves for that shit and--she hated her, fucking bitch, she hated her with every last fiber of her being.
With one hand she continued her excavation for the bottom of the firewhiskey bottle, while the other groped blindly on the table next to her for something, anything to--ah, ahahah, there was something, a lamp, a glass lamp and--she recognized it, new, she had bought it when she was out shopping with that slag parading as her mother, well--fuck that, she hadn't even liked it anyway, she had just nodded her head because she had wanted to protect her mother's feelings and she hated that FUCKING LAMP---
SMASH!
Lily watched with sick satisfaction as the glass shattered into a million pieces on the opposite wall, and she rushed, nearly tripping over her own feet, to the coffee table in front of the couch and with a kick that she was sure hurt her foot more than the table itself, she sent it tumbling over. Flowers on top scattered and that vase she picked up and threw also, into the entry way wall, smashing into the mirror to send both pieces into ruin. She turned around madly and spotted the couch. She wanted to rip cushions, it would be easier with magic, but she didn't want magic, she needed to do this with her bare hands, like a Muggle, and it felt good, so bloody good.
James certainly wasn't earning any brownie points with his fellow healers. The past few days he'd been something like a zombie, doing their bidding without question and in an irritatingly monotonous manner. He wasn't sure how many vials of pepper up potion he'd brewed and filled, but he'd done so many that Healer Cervantes reckoned they wouldn't need to refill for at least three weeks. This might have gained him some points, but then Healer Jordan commented on his lack of enthusiasm toward the procedures he was showing and that had gotten James nervous, and he'd managed to, for a lack of a better word, blow up a third of them with some wandless magic.
They'd sent him home early, saying that he needed to completely get over his flu before he blew up anything else (the potions weren't the first things, there had been plants that had withered and piles of paperwork that had gone swirling down a hallway---). James had argued that he was fine, that they'd even tested him, but Cervantes was stern and sent him on his way. After working such long shifts, James should have been grateful to go home, but knowing that Lily was just going to be lying there, lifeless, made him want to stop by the Order house and put up some new wards. That would take a few hours, right?
But, he knew there was no point. No matter how much he wanted to avoid the sight of his wife literally fading away, James knew he wasn't going to give up on her. He'd trudge back home every day, yell at her to get out of bed, and when she didn't, he'd change and go to sleep beside her. Because that's what a husband did, and that's what he'd do. He didn't like it, he hated it more than anything, but he was going to do it. It didn't mean he had to jump into it immediately, however, and James had sat on their porch for a good two hours before a startling noise coming from inside of the house jerked him out of the seat. There had been silencing spells put on the walls, so---for something to break through that---
He threw the front door open only to lay eyes on a complete catastrophe of a hallway. James' heart began to pound through his chest as the worst possible scenario came to his head, and he ran to where the noise was coming from. "LILY!"
If they'd gotten her, if they'd attacked her and he'd just been sitting outside, he'd kill himself, there was no other---James halted immediately at the sight of Lily destroying their living room, heart clenching as if someone had stuck their hand in his chest and decided to suffocate him from the inside. He only waited another second before crossing to her, grabbing Lily around the waist and pulling her away from her next target with an oddly soothing tone, "Stop, Lily, stop----"
Lily's anger, mixed with the potent effects of the alcohol she had just consumed two thirds of a bottle of, had clouded her vision to the point that she didn't hear--or didn't register, maybe--the front door opening, or the footsteps, or James' voice yelling to her. It was a surprise she hadn't been prepared for when she felt a strong arm around her waist and her free hand groped wildly for the cushion she still hadn't shredded quite enough as she was pulled away without really understanding how or by whom.
When her skewed depth perception had finally allowed her to notice that she was grabbing only at air for a reason, her arm went to the one around her. Lily's fingers pried at it ineffectually, partially from the fact that she didn't have the strength to pull someone off of her; she still hadn't slept in days and it was just now becoming strikingly apparent to her. She screamed in frustration, because she needed to destroy something else, she needed to hear something smash against a wall again, and someone was trying to stop her and the only thing close enough was the firewhiskey bottle in her hand and there was nothing else and she threw it as hard as she could manage, still somehow able to hit the wall over the couch.
Lily could only watch the amber liquid racing down the white walls for a mere second before she felt empty again and--so bloody... so empty, she was so empty, she needed something else to take this out on, she screamed again because fuck, she--she couldn't get away from this--"LET ME GO! WHO ARE YOU, LET ME GO, I NEED TO--!" She tried again, without gain, to pull James off of her, and she kicked and screamed some more, much like a child throwing a fit.
"Lily! Lily---Lily, Lily," James could only keep repeating her name as he pulled her out of the living room, trying to get away from the mess she'd created. The pain in his arm from her nails digging into him was barely comparable to the ache he felt at seeing Lily so terribly distraught. Though---there was life in her, there was a fire, and that was more he'd seen from her in almost a week---no, no it had been a week. One bloody week of living in hell, and James tugged her closer to him, managing to turn Lily around in his arms and press his forehead to the top of her head.
He let her fight against him, hit him and kick him as if she was being murdered, but James wasn't going to let go. Lily needed to see he was there even if she wanted nothing to do with him after her fit was done. He'd be there, he'd let her do whatever she wanted to do to him because she needed it and that was his job---he could live without being a healer, but he couldn't live without Lily; if he hadn't been sure of that before, this past week had proved it once and for all.
"Lily…Lily, Lily…"
The way that Lily looked at James when she realized that it was him--no, the way she stared, wide-eyed bloody stared--could be described only as that deer in the headlights look of someone who had just gotten smacked in the face. After all the smashing and screaming and fighting, the silence that descended upon the house was sudden and eerie, but she couldn't make a sound, it was like seeing him had torn the voice and her fighting spirit right out of her and stomped it on the floor with the rest of the living room.
She felt his forehead touch hers and he spoke softly, almost too softly to hear, but all she could do for the longest time... minutes it must have been, but it felt like years--was listen to him repeat her name over and over and over and--
--and then she felt a crazy, a strange and unfamiliar feeling and it was like someone had grabbed her by the throat because she couldn't breathe. She coughed--no, it wasn't a cough, though, it was like a choke, and her eyes, her eyes felt wet, her cheeks felt wet too and it was like she had forgotten what this was, and what was, it she was doing, this--she was honestly sobbing, Lily couldn't believe it, but she was sobbing her heart out and oh God it felt so horrible and so good at the same time and she couldn't stop it. All she could do was throw her arms around her husband and cry.
James could barely contain his own tears as Lily broke down, and shifted his arms and her weight so that he could pick her up, whispering and kissing her face all the time. She was alive, she was actually alive, which wasn't something he could've said a mere day before. Lily had been ready to give everything up and now---a person who was ready to die didn't feel sadness like this, didn't waste their energy on feeling anything and as horrible as it might sound, James was grateful that she'd began to sob. It meant she was alive and he couldn't be more thankful.
Making it up the stairs, James was reminded of how happily he carried Lily over their threshold the day of their return (well, after she'd already crossed it). He wanted to get back to that, he wanted to one day look at their living room and not think of the times he'd spent with those death eaters hiding as her parents; it wasn't fair that the house they barely got to live in literally had no good memories for them, already. He wanted to move far away from it, but that would let the death eaters win, and there was no way he was ever going to let them think that they have.
He'd thankfully changed the sheets that morning (another round of trying to get Lily out of bed, switching sheets with her still in them) and put her down on her side, discarding his scrubs and letting her go for only a few seconds before crawling in beside her and pulling her close again. He wouldn't sleep until she did, and even then James wasn't sure if he'd manage it. The thought of Lily being okay, or at least, getting back on the road to getting better was too much for his mind to handle at the moment.
