Author’s note: I’m trying to be a good updater today – and with so many plot lines in this story I felt like I needed to get back to some characters I had unintentionally left behind. Please review, and I’ll bake you a cake!

This chapter is dedicated to Rye-pie because I want her to be happy.

Chapter 14: How Bright You Shine

i.

The world is fractured like broken glass lost between the fibers of a carpet, all the lights are turned off now, and there is no notion of space or time, only the sound of blank beating hearts and bare feet unsure of what direction to turn.

Lily clings to the back of James’ shirt as he wanders into their bedroom, her face is moist from tears and her chest heaves with uncertainty and desire.

He turns to her and holds her like a broken doll, a bird without wings, and she murmurs and blinks into his tense shoulder.

She speaks silent questions into the night, pleading to be let go, for now that she is here, in the emptiness of this room, she realises that her heart too, is empty.

All the capacity for love that was once there has faded into an abyss that she can’t find, and she is aware of how fragile everything feels, as if she is tottering on the edge of a precipice and no one can hold her back.

Perhaps he can save her, but not James.

And all along he never could save her from what she was fleeing, because to him she was always a pillar of strength and vitality and wonder – and now that she was in pieces he couldn’t hold all of her together.

The loss of their child had opened a wound between them, red and gaping it stretched too far to be breached, and even the familiarity of smell and touch and taste couldn’t help them to jump across to find each other.

Holding each other to the night – they were oceans apart.

ii.

Somewhere between the washing line and the kitchen sink, Petunia has lost herself.

Trapped within the confines of the too white walls and the smell of disinfectant, she slides to the tiled floor.

Her eyes staring but not seeing, her body falling and not standing, her hands closing but not opening.

It has been a long time coming, this breakdown.

She remembers a dark haired boy, his nose too long, his smile too crooked; she remembers the way he carried Lily’s toys for her, tentatively held her hand when he thought no one was watching, stared at her as if she was the only person in the world.

She remembers the next dark haired boy, with his arm muscles and his goofy grin; she remembers the way he talked to her parents at dinner, brushed a stray hair from her face, walked to her across the snow that littered the lawn on Christmas.

Most of all she remembers a love between them that she could never have.

For all Petunia has is a crying child and a fat husband, an organised house and a fake smile.

She lifts herself from the barren tiles and returns to the laundry.

Picking up the wiry steel brush she begins to scrub.

For in her cold, desolate life there is no love, only order.

iii.

The rain plummets from the sky, raining down in quite suicide across the wide expanse of the Hogwarts grounds.

Severus drinks his steaming cup of coffee and watches the way the moon light is delicately filtered through clouds and rain, the steam from his drink mists the window over and he feels like a child as he writes her name in the fog.

It is only now, when he is alone, that he allows the jealousy to rise within him like a bitter bile.

For she is with Potter, and he watches the rain.

Its angry descent from the clouds does little to calm the internal battle that rages within him.

He wonders if there was anything he could have done that would have made her stay, but he knows that by letting her go, he has won.

He wonders what hold Potter has over her, what it is that would make her go back to him after the way he walked away.

Severus turns away from the window, tired of the rain, so tired of the injustice of it all.

He moves back to the cauldron that dominates the room, stirring it first clockwise then twice anti-clockwise, watching as the purple changes into a thick dark red.

It would be ready within the week – the potion that would counter the effects of the one Tom Riddle had filled a basin with and made a helpless house elf drink.

Turning back towards the rain, Severus allows himself a small inarticulate smile.