Sighs of the Neglected Flower

Prologue:

The ticking and whirring of devices formed background noise to the almost real storm of rage in her mind. She looked at these merrily sounding silver instruments with misdirected disgust.

“Shut-up!” she bit her words out separately; and to her surprise the instruments did just that. With a small apologetic 'peep' they each quieted. She sighed having lost the target of her anger; and with that expelling breath she lost her outrage too. It was replaced by her familiar companions of grief and of deep loss, but today a desperate disappointment took home as well.

Hot tears ran down her stricken face, her green eyes reflected the setting sun streaming through the high windows of the peculiar office. It was the same look that had forced her erstwhile headmaster from his very own office.

Two years it had been since she had lost her family because of the ramblings of some Seer; who had predicted her child to be the bane of the marauding Dark Lord. And now she was being asked for another child; asked to 'breed' them a savior.

Her silence and look of outrage was enough to make the man 'requesting' this 'service' of her to apologize and leave her to think on what he'd asked.

Many emotions crossed her face but betrayal and heart break were dominant. Even those she had turned to in this time of complete loss were busy with war and worries for their own blood and love. With no real hand to hold hers she turned to what was left; and since then been a good follower of her old teacher, working in his Order. But even that strength and the faith she had put wherein failed her today.

Looking back on all the truths revealed after the murders of her son and husband she knew she should not have trusted her leader. But she had hoped that he was faithful to her, having nothing else she had clung to him and the Order that he commanded.

But now they wanted her to be the incubator for a hero.

Because the last one she bore was killed.

With that thought she sobbed, hating Albus Dumbledore for letting her down; hating him to expect her to accept another man in her bed, to bear a child from him. She sobbed and despised herself for being broken like this, for being vulnerable enough to be taken advantage of. Of all people why did it have to be Dumbledore who wanted this disgusting duty from her?

He had not revealed whose seed he expected her to take.

“I will castrate the bastard before he even looks at me,” Lilly Evans Potter swore with feeling; imagining a faceless man.

Suddenly she snapped her hair back from where it had been hanging in front of her like a tangled veil, a determined glint in her eye. She was not going to let anyone take advantage of her grief or her being without a family in the wizarding world. It was sad that even in this time without a blood relative or someone by marriage in the magical world left her less protected. A lone witch could be pushed, harassed and no one would know better.

For a moment the thought of another baby crossed her mind and her eyes softened in a sad smile. Knowing what she did now of her own allies and even more of her enemies she would never set her child up to be Voldemort's killer, never.

No child deserved that, not her child, least of all. With that she thought of her green eyed child, his baby face overwhelmed by hair he had inherited from his father. She no longer could see the great desk in front of her but saw her son in her mind's eye, his face screwed up in some tantrum. She laughed and reached out into space as if to ruffle his hair. She began to hum and sing in a watery halting voice.

Lullaby and good night, with roses bedightWith lilies o'er spread is baby's wee bedShe reached and only found thin air, her hand fell on the many trinkets sitting on Dumbledore's desk, and with that solid touch the vision of her son faded. The sudden jerk from her day dream made her curl her hand around a stone sitting on the desk in frustration. She pulled her hand back to her stomach holding the etched stone and stared out blankly thinking on her son.

“Lullaby and good night, thy mother's delight,” she whispered, wanting nothing more than to hold him again. To be secure feeling the tiny body's clutching hands around her neck.

“Come back, please come back,” she begged, turning over the strange stone in her hand; never knowing that what she held was the resurrection stone, and uncountable sands of time and breadths of space away another of her blood was turning the Resurrection Stone too.

….

….

He was going to sacrifice him self.

There was no other way; the last part of Voldemort's soul was in him. It was always meant to end this way.

It was a good thing Hermione and Ron weren't with him, it would be hard explaining what he had to do. But before he died he wanted to see the ones who'd died before him, maybe find out what it's like. So he held the Resurrection Stone.

Anxious to see his fallen loved ones again,

He turned it once,

He turned it twice,

She turned it thrice, 'Come back to me!'

He turned it a third time and the earth beneath his feet was sucked away and he fell.

Screaming against the dirt rushing past him and pressing him, he fainted; feeling last the amazing pressure of soil and rock filling around him and hurtling him through to the core.

And then he was no longer in his place, in his time, in his world.

…

…

The etching on the stone was leaving an imprint on her smooth palm and she was still wishing for her baby to come back when the floor underneath her feet fell away; she jumped back with a shriek. Just as soon as the hole had formed it closed, only above it now rested a body.

Lily drew her wand and crept forward, her heart thudded loudly in her ears. She imagined echoes of her own scream, and cursed herself for giving away that she was there. The body lay neatly in the space between the visitor chairs and the Headmaster's desk. Keeping him marked she went around behind his head, thinking he would have a harder time aiming for her over his head if he was pretending to be dead.

Last rays of the sunset fell upon the glasses of the boy and the black stone in his hand glinted. Something like petrifying terror seeped into her blood and she realized it when she noticed herself leaning on the chair having lost her wand, staring at a very recognizable face under grime and sweat.

Tension built up between her eyes and she swooned but held herself unwilling to look away from someone with incredible likeness to her husband, and more, carrying a scar that had covered the body of her murdered son. She opened her mouth in an attempt to scream and fell on her knees by his head, silently - the scream having died in her throat.

In the same way she had before she tried to reach to ruffle the hair and noticed finally the stone in her hand. As soon as she saw it, her hand spasmed and it fell clattering and rolling next to the hand of the boy holding a stone just like the one she had.

A.N. Much thanks to Typa for being beta.