Been a long while since I posted anything... I think. It's been long enough I don't remember. Anyhow, this was a spur-of-the-moment fic, and is actually a background piece for a story I've never written. (Haha, don't bother asking the logic for that.) Oh, but it would be fun...

Ah, and since my beta Dolphin River asked, Riddle is not a good guy, despite evidence to the contrary.

Disclaimer: If I were JKR, then the 'story I've never written' would actually have been written. Since it remains 'the story never written,' I'm not JKR. Since I'm not JKR, I do not own Harry Potter, and I make no money off of this. In fact, since time is money, and this wastes time, I'm actually losing money...

Illaria

(aka Lily of the Alley)

Mr. Henry Evans knew the instant he laid eyes on her that she was trouble. The woman lay in the shadows of the trash bins in the gutter alley between Occanery Street and Lily of the Valley Road, eyes closed in exhaustion and smelling something awful. Long brown hair hung lank with dried sweat and mud around a dirty, tired and sickly pale face, and that and dark blotches of dried blood stained the odd black robe she wore. Against her side, nearly hidden behind the bins he saw a bundle of linen, not quite as filthy as the woman's clothes but still nasty, a swath of dark red fuzz visible against the paler fabric. It was a baby, his instincts told him, and against his better judgment Henry stopped to help. Stepping gingerly around the bins, he kept his voice down as he knelt down by her.

"Ma'am?" he said, and nothing more as the woman jerked upright, the effort causing her to gasp in pain, and had him pinned against the wall in an instant, a long and thin piece of wood leveled at his throat. Henry wondered for a second what his wife would say about this; probably something about his hero complex getting him in trouble again. Then he really looked at his captor.

Despite the condition he found her in, it was clear this woman was no tramp. Henry could see it in her face. Her eyes were wild and proud and angry and dangerous, and Henry had never seen such a green in his life. They were simply too bright to be human, and there was no fear in those alien eyes at all… except, perhaps, for the baby the woman kept behind her and away from him.

"You Ministry fools never learn do you?" she rasped. Though speaking seemed to aggravate her throat, the pain that flickered across pale features was not present in her voice, and she spoke with a whip of command. The woman's eyes flashed to his hair, and something about the bright red mess made her sneer. "Of course, a Weasley wouldn't. You're all far too honorable to kill a downed target." A snarl. "But if an infant's awake then it's no trouble, is it?"

Henry was quite lost. "Ma'am," he said again, his confusion apparent, "you take me wrongly. I don't even know who you are. My name's Evans, Henry Evans."

The woman gave him a penetrating look, not seeming to believe him. For eyes as bright and expressive as hers, they somehow gave the impression of shutters rather than windows to the soul. Dark shutters, like those that hid dirty truths and even dirtier deeds, like murder, like torture, like rape, like knowing all those and enjoying it, like loving it; and suddenly Henry was terrified like he'd never been before, because this woman was more frightening than the bombs of his early childhood, because bombs could only kill and this woman could do so much worse-

And just as suddenly the terror left him. She looked at him now with a mix of incredulity and disgust.

"You're a Muggle!" the woman said, and laughed an irony Henry didn't understand. He wasn't sure what a muggle was, but he was glad to be one since it meant she released her deceptively strong hold on him. He massaged his neck where her stick dug into it. "A Muggle, of all things. What does a Muggle want with me?"

"I hadn't wanted anything," said Henry, deciding to abandon his temporary anger at being called a thing as the woman slid back to the ground, her furious energy spent.

"Doing a good deed then? A Gryffindor, for sure." The contempt clear, she snickered, and the snicker transformed into a racking cough that made Henry cringe to hear, even before she ducked over and spewed blood on the ground. He knelt down again, patting her on the back for lack anything else to do.

"You need to go to a hospital, ma'am," Henry said. If it was just bruises, even just broken bones, he could patch her up well enough himself, and spare the woman the trouble of being taken for a crazy. But coughing of blood indicated internal damage, which was far beyond his scope of expertise.

"Ha," the woman replied, sounding bitter, and bitterly angry. "As if I would ever willingly subject myself to you Muggles' barbaric practices. Trading organs, blood transfusions, breaking healed bones and tearing pieces out when they should be mending them. It's disgusting. And pointless. That Riddle bastard got me good, the filthy half-breed."

The acid in the woman's voice for 'that Riddle bastard' made her contemptuous dismissal of Henry as a muggle seem downright friendly.

A whimper from behind the trash bin drew the woman's attention from her anger. Pinning him with a glare that was as distrustful as disdainful, she lifted the bundle from the shadow to cradle it against her chest. Henry had been correct to assume it was a baby – an adorable baby girl, topped with auburn fuzz, looked out from the folds of material with green eyes that would be identical to her mother's. Aside from the whimpers, the baby was very quiet and well-behaved, in a way his own daughter Petunia had never been.

"What's her name?" asked Henry.

The woman stared hard at him until he almost regretted asking. "I would have called her Illaria," she said finally, her breathing harsh. The baby in her arms whimpered and let out a sudden cry, and the woman tensed, stowing the child back in the shadows. She gritted her teeth and returned to her feet, brandishing her stick like a deadly weapon.

"Would have?"

"Watch my daughter for me, Muggle," said the woman, startling Henry. She pierced him again with her alien brilliant green gaze, which cut off any comment he might have made. "Watch her while I'm gone."

Henry was not given a chance to speak, let alone argue, before he heard a soft pop and the woman vanished into thin air. The baby whimpered again. As he picked her up she began to cry softly, and nothing he did could make her stop, though he tried everything he knew from raising Petunia.

The baby seized the finger he was using to tickle her cheeks and stared up at him with tearful green eyes. "Mamamamama…," she gurgled, which would have been cute if it didn't sound so sad and mournful in a way babies should never be. She sounded like she was crying for her mother…

Henry felt a sudden sense of horror and foreboding. Out in the direction of Lily of the Valley Road, he heard a thunderous uproar like nothing he could place before, except in his father's old war stories. The yells and screams of fear and fury and desperation and pain… Henry, succumbing to his apprehension, took cover behind the trash bins himself, holding the baby protectively against his chest. This happened none too soon, as the shockwave of an explosion made the metal bins rattle and threw a cloud of dust into the air.

Then there was silence.

Henry stayed where he was as motion restarted in the road, along with much muttering he couldn't make out. The baby in his arms mimicked his silence and stillness, though green eyes still dribbled tears and the tiny mouth kept mouthing "Mamamamama…." Take care of her while she was gone, the woman had said. Henry knew she wasn't coming back, and despite the circumstances, he was determined to as she asked.

Illaria was a big name for a little baby and a big name for any child of his. His wife's name was Roslyn, or simply Rose, and Petunia was Pet. But that didn't mean she couldn't keep it as a middle name. As for the first, Henry looked out on the street where her mother had gone and knew.

Henry shifted Lilith Illaria Evans into a more comfortable embrace and crept out of the alley into Occanery Street. This wasn't how he had imagined having another child and would no doubt be awkward to explain, but he had the feeling Rose would adore little Lily.

Hope you enjoyed. Comments and criticism welcome! Even flames, since they're wildly entertaining at times.