Lily awoke to silence in a house that was never anything but noisy. She gazed at the ceiling for a full minute while she recovered from the stunning spell that had been cast on her, and then immediately turned to Harry's crib, hoping against hope that he laid there quietly instead of making his opinion known as he was wont to do.

She rose from her prone position on the floor and staggered to the crib, peering inside. There, her son appeared to be sleeping, unmoving when she touched his cold cheek. She felt the cold wetness of tears falling down her cheeks. She refused to understand, touching him again to confirm what she already knew; he didn't respond, stubborn now in death.

Harry Potter had been killed by Lord Voldemort.

Lily stood there, weeping over her son, before becoming aware of a presence behind her; she turned quickly and drew her wand to confront ultimate evil yet again. The figure shocked her when he pulled his hood down from his face.

"Severus?"

She immediately blushed at the trembling in her voice, but noted it simply matched her hands as they shook. She lowered her wand, conscious of how foolish that decision might be when Severus could very well be a follower of her son's murderer. Her teeth began chattering when she imagined her old friend deciding to take advantage of her shock, taking her life along with her son's.

And her husband's. Oh, god, James.

"Lily." Severus' response finally came. She looked at his face, carefully noting the sorrowful expression. Curiously, his voice shook as well. His eyes, always nearly black in colour, seemed rimmed with red, as though he had begun mourning her family even before she had. He kept eye contact with her for a moment, but his eyes betrayed relief—strangely—as well as sorrow.

"I…uh, I've contacted Dumbledore. He should be here any minute," he muttered, breaking eye contact and looking at the floor. "Ah… your… Potter is downstairs. Well," he glanced up at her, "Potter… what's left of him—"

She made a choking sound, covering her face with a trembling hand in an attempt to shut out the world all at once. This can't be happening. This is just a nightmare. She found a wall to lean against, sinking to her knees. Maybe she would wake up at any second, and no one in her family would be dead right now. Maybe she wouldn't have looked into the eyes of pure evil a little while ago.

"Dumbledore?" she whispered. "I… I suppose I didn't think you—"

"Yes, well," his voice was almost sharp in interrupting; he always sounded sharp when she was too close to the mark. She let her hand fall into her lap, looking at Severus more closely.

"What are you doing here, Severus?" she asked.

A loud crack sounded downstairs, and Dumbledore's voice floated up the stairs. "Oh, my dear… Severus! Are you here?"

"Yes!" he shouted, turning his back to Lily for as long as he could bear. "Lily is up here with me, but…no one else."

Dumbledore moved up the stairs of her home much faster than Lily could've guessed he could. He swept into her only child's bedroom, stooping down next to her. He gave Severus a long look that Lily couldn't see and turned to her, putting his hand gently on her back.

"I am so sorry, Lily. This should not have happened. Your husband and your child should be alive. Despite this tragedy, however, we have to leave this place immediately. Severus, please get her out of here while I… move the bodies."

Severus started, looking at Dumbledore with disbelief. He moved quickly, taking Lily's arm and Disapparating immediately. Taken by surprise, Lily moved with the uncomfortable squeezing of her entire body before the gates of Hogwarts materialized before her.

She felt herself losing consciousness, wishing she could be stronger when her life was falling apart but unable to stop what was happening.

Severus caught her as she fell, holding her to his chest for a mere second before lifting her into his arms and walking through the gates. To his simultaneous relief and chagrin, Professor McGonagall was already waiting for the both of them, opening the gates before him and walking alongside him to the hospital wing.

Lily regained consciousness much later in the Hospital Wing of Hogwarts, looking around—wildly confused for just a moment—before remembering the waking nightmare that brought her there. She sat up straight, panting, and tears quickly began to stream down her cheeks. She looked right at Severus, whose head had been resting at the foot of her bed, as he awakened and looked at her, almost expectant. She was unable to stop the loud, horrified sobs that felt like they came from the root of her being out into the world. She covered her face with both hands, wishing she could stifle the heart wrenching sound.

Grief, it seemed, was the second child she bore.

Severus woke up when Lily had started crying in the Hospital Wing. Madame Pomfrey had immediately bustled over, administering a potion to calm and prolong her sleep a while longer. Lily protested in taking it, but she swallowed it all the same.

While she slept again, Severus couldn't help but watch her face as the magic overtook her and forced her face into a peaceful expression. Even when wracked with the agony of losing her family, she was beautiful—Severus couldn't help but see it—but the look of peace on her sleeping face made him grateful he had shown up at her house as soon as he could manage after the Dark Lord's deadly break-in.

He shuddered, closing his eyes as tears threatened to prick them again. She should be dead, he thought. He couldn't imagine why the Dark Lord had spared her Muggleborn life when she had presented such serious threat. He had killed James Potter without any apparent second thoughts, and he had destroyed one of two prophesied infants with impunity. Severus flushed at the reminder of the prophecy, still horrified that his actions had been the cause of this atrocious night.

At the same time, however, Severus couldn't help but be grateful that Lily had survived, however horrible it was for her. He recognized that things would get worse for her before they got better; she still had to bury her infant child and her husband. The agony in the memories of this night would be slow to leave her; even magic had no instant cure for psychological trauma. But the fact that she was alive—the possibility that she could get better and she could, perhaps, become a part of his life once again—was enough for him to be overjoyed at her survival. He had spent the weeks between delivering the prophecy to the Dark Lord and this night in a long, horrible nightmare of stress and fear for the life of the person he held most dear. The pure force of relief that she had survived the cruel trial by fire had brought Severus to tears for yet another time in the course of so many weeks.

He shuddered to imagine how she would react when she found out he had given the Dark Lord his information, but he would deal with that when it came. At the moment, all that filled his mind was cold, sweet respite from his perpetual terror that she would disappear forever from this world; her survival felt like a second chance from fate, for which he would be infinitely grateful.