A.N. Lots of thanks to the writer's coven for getting this just right and beta'ing.
Also I ended the chapter where I felt it should.
Chapter 7
The Grim Protocol
For him, it began under the boughs of a tree in summer bloom, letting through little of the rain that seemed to just pour everywhere else around its shade; it was there he became afraid of her for the first time. Drops slipped down his nose, hanging for an irritating moment before falling. His eyes were fixed on the woman, not more than a wraith in appearance, standing in the middle of the street - waiting.
Her transformation had been strange; as she had curled her fingers around the invocation mark, a certain ethereal quality had come over her. Her short red hair had become dull and her face and eyes had grayed, so it looked like she was made of shades of stone. When she moved her outline blurred just like the sheets of rain blowing in the wind - it scared and intrigued him.
She had looked at him with her ethereal stone-hue eyes, and warned him to stay while she carried out her mission as the Order's Grim. But he had followed her, donning his invisibility cloak, fearful for her, and fearful of what she had transformed into.
"The magic linked to me as an invoked Grim helps me hide, be stealthy, and make the Death Eater very, very afraid of me," she had told him to ease the nervousness she'd seen in him as she had taken on her role.
And now they were both waiting for the Death Eater in the rain; him under a tree, and her boldly standing in the lane. She's right, he thought, I can hardly see her. A mixed feeling of dread and excitement filled him at being so close to finding out exactly what the Grim Protocol was. In his mind he had played with the thought that she had been sent to kill the Death Eater, but a childish conviction that his mother was pure and everything good in the world hindered him from giving the thought any consideration.
So he waited, telling himself that his excitement was only for seeing her in action, and finally be able to tell how good she was for himself.
One town house door opened, spilling out a wedge of yellow light. A wizard stepped out casually, leaning against the rail that led downstairs. He looked up and down the lane unhurriedly before waving behind him. First a couple of witches appeared, checking their right and left furtively before disapparating with sharp cracks. One more wizard followed, and then a larger group of people.
Harry tensed as he felt, inexplicably, that the moment had arrived. His teeth chattered in a sudden chill and he wondered what had changed the warm summer rain to biting cold. It seemed the wizard on the steps noticed too; giving up pretense, he wildly looked down to where Lily was standing, but Harry assumed that like himself all the wizard saw was sheets of rain blowing. She was nearly invisible, standing in the middle of the street.
The wizard at the door rushed down the steps and popped out of existence before his feet touched the last step. Behind him the door stayed open, an odd beacon of light in the cooling night and rain. Harry saw Lily move; a concentrated shape of gray in the dim light, she walked unhurriedly from one house to the next until she was almost directly opposite from the one she had marked earlier. Harry had seen her point her wand at different places on the road, apparently painting some symbol. But afraid of discovery, he hadn't walked too close to her to find out exactly what she had done. In his mind he had drawn a line from each point where Lily had stopped to cast spell work on the ground, to make a wide triangle.
She now stood at the base of the triangle, opposite to the vertex pointed straight at the door.
On instinct Harry looked away from where Lily was waiting, like a creature made of water and wind, to the still-open door spilling out the only light. A blocky shape of a witch was wrapping itself in shawls in its frame, before pulling the door shut behind. If it weren't for the over endowed curves, at distance he would not have been able to tell it was a woman, for her wide shoulders made her seem a wizard more than a witch.
She walked down the outside stairs leading up to the house, bent against the beating weather. Harry looked to where Lily was standing, and found a cold shiver going through him that had nothing to do with the chill but everything to do with anticipation; she was in a classic dueling stance, her formerly slate grayed eyes gone eerily marble white. Frowning, he looked back to the witch with the blocky outline; her slow movements did not seem threatening, nor aware that she was about to enter a duel.
“Dear, dear. So cold, why so cold? A summer chill-?” he heard the woman speak out loud to herself before she suddenly caught herself, stilling and straightening to peer at her surroundings. She drew a wand from the depths of her many shawls, and with a muffled incantation, four transparent medieval shields appeared around her.
“Who's there?” the witch demanded, her voice high and old, betraying the edge of fear. Harry recognized the voice; it was Mrs. Shay, the woman his mother had snubbed so harshly at the flat. Mad Eye Moody's words came back to Harry, and he felt fearful of what was about to happen. Lily was not revealing herself. Why is she not showing herself?
Mrs. Shay's dark form turned on the spot in an exaggerated pre-step to Apparition, a step most adepts found unnecessary with experience. Just like her high voice, it betrayed her fear. Harry felt beginnings of pity and alarm when Mrs. Shay turned and turned but went nowhere. The shields she had conjured stayed loyally around her.
”Expecto Patronum, Expecto Patronum!” she cast desperately, and Harry could see why, as he felt the undercurrent of fear in the air that was sharper than just one spread by night's darkness. A form finally shot from her wand, looking from afar like some winged creature, and straight at Lily.
Harry shouted but the Patronus simply hovered before Lily, shining its light on her ethereal form, making her ghostly eyes and dulled red hair shimmer in reflection. The Patronus was unable to do more than reveal the threat.
“Y-You?” Mrs. Shay croaked, shocked. “You can't use the protocol for your own gains, have you betrayed us? Why? Why?” She began rambling in panic as she tumbled over her retreating feet. She ran straight into an invisible wall. For a moment Harry saw the triangle on the ground light up in silver, and so did Mrs. Shay. She was trapped inside it - with Lily.
Lily said nothing and stood in her classical stance, as if she was merely a frozen apparition. Mrs. Shay ran to one vertex of the triangle, her four shields spinning around her in lazy pace. A guttural incantation came from her lips, followed by a lance of amber light that crashed into the vertex.
Purple rods of light jutted out of the vertex like spears, twisting and cutting through Shay's leading leg in response to her magic. The magical shields cracked as if they had been solid, unable to resist the triangle's defense coming from under them. Shay lurched to the ground, a moan escaping her.
Harry gave up caution, coming to stand at the borders of the triangle now shining silver on the earth, still under his Invisibility Cloak. He saw Mrs. Shay's face, contorted in pain, her eyes ugly with fear and hate. Her hair was gray and wet with the mud in which she had fallen. With shocking speed she turned over her stomach to point her wand at Lily, with another guttural incantation. Two looping forks of brown light pierced the air where Lily had been. In front of Harry's very eyes, Lily just blew away with the rain in the wind, and coalesced at another end of the triangle.
He saw Lily make her first wand movement in the duel, and although he couldn't see her lips move, Shay understood what she was doing. She began trying to roll but only succeeded in dragging herself, before thin ghostly fingers came up through like blossoming flowers and caressed her lumbering form - and she began screaming.
Harry felt blood rush from his face, as those hesitant fingers left thin strips of peeled cloth, leather, and human flesh behind. They were stripping Mrs. Shay, and the corpulent woman screamed from terror so primal that it made Harry's hands tremble.
“I am sorry, Mrs. Shay,” Harry heard Lily; he hadn't seen her move but she stood above Shay's form being flayed. A slashing wand movement from her dashed the ghostly fingers, sending them away. Mrs. Shay jerked in the rain in a mad fit of agony and terror.
“Just remember, Shay, you sent our Order members, your friends, your students, to much worse than this. For the betrayal of the Order of the Phoenix, you are condemned to death. I have been invoked, I am you Grim-”
“Lily! No!”
“Avada Kedavra!” His mother's voice, which he had been cherishing inside his mind all day, turned alien and distant, as she cut off Shay's last words.
Harry watched her in abject terror; she looked like a painting of sorrow and disappointment, and before his eyes she blew away with the rain in the wind. The silver triangle dimmed in the earth.
Harry felt something hard and tightening by the second in his throat, but he didn't succumb to it. He stood dead quiet, like his mind was inside.
Lily used the strength of the Grim Protocol, flying with the rain-heavy wind, far away from where she had executed Mrs. Shay. She felt the magic immerse itself in her, a near sentient armor and weapon. It brought her a deep sense of surety that she was the inevitable; if it hadn't been for Dumbledore's tempering warnings she might have thought herself invincible. But caution was as much a part of the Order's Grim as was its power and Lily embraced both.
She reflected on Mrs. Shay, not finding herself regretful, for she had betrayed those who trusted her. But it worried her that someone so high in the Order's hierarchy had fallen to Voldemort's side. Peter Pettigrew had been on the lowest rung in the Order, and yet his betrayal had cost them all so heavily, and her the most. And because of that she had no sympathy for traitors.
Seeing the aluminum awning of a tea shop, she swung to it, quietly commanding the stealth magic to take her. There, leaning against the unfinished concrete wall, she stood like an unfinished statue, all shades of gray. She ran her canine over her bottom lip as she thought over her strategy.
Executing Shay close to the Order's meeting place was the best idea she had come up with. When Shay was discovered, Moody's argument to move headquarters immediately would have enough weight for Dumbledore not to say no. It was the best she could do in the harrowing game Moody was playing: keeping Dumbledore unaware that Mrs. Shay had betrayed them and hadn't actually been killed by Death Eaters, while trying to find out exactly what secrets she had betrayed.
Lily made an exasperated noise, slamming a closed fist on the concrete wall. The blow bruised her pale knuckles and left an imprint in the wall; the Grim's strength was with her still.
She wished she could go back and duel Shay again, and really make her pay for the lives probably lost to her treachery, and more that were endangered. Fury came hard and fast; she did not hold to caution like she had when killing her, there was no need to be careful anymore. Anger made her eyes water, as always; she swiped at them impatiently, knowing people mistook her tears for a sign of weakness. She wished to whoever would hear that Moody would be able to do enough to counter the damage Shay had done.
Where she would have felt pity for her leader's loss before and indulgence for his inability to believe Shay could betray him, now she only felt disgust. If only he had trusted Moody when, she was sure, he had brought his concerns to him, she wouldn't have had to play in the shadows creating enough evidence to make Dumbledore act.
It was done, she decided, pushing off the rough wall against which she was leaning. With a whispered spell the Grim armor and weapon fell away from her like passing shadows. Her skin regained its color, her stone-hue eyes returned to their expressive green, and her hair regained its relative liveliness. It had been a long time since she had cared for herself, and so her hair's once luster was lost.
The thought softened her eyes, and her heart leapt a little at the thought that unlike every other time she had carried out the Protocol, there was someone waiting for her, for whom she would want to take care of herself. Someone whose concern and fear for her warmed her and made her feel alive. With a starved look she smiled nervously to no one in the world and Disapparated to Hogsmeade.
As dreary as the day was, one would easily mistake the time for late evening, instead truth of it being not yet fully noon. Lily had purposefully struck as soon as she could after finding Mrs. Shay had set her up. Most likely Death Eaters already knew where she lived; even though Mrs. Shay was magically bound from being able to betray the identity of the Grim Protocol's executor, there was always a chance things could go devastatingly wrong.
Lily calculated all the ways she could, even then, be in the eye of a narrowing noose; she kept to the back alleys, gray and wet as her cloak and robes. She blended with the scenery, seemingly another dejected witch going home, unless someone saw the quick movement of her eyes which betrayed her alertness. She came to the mouth of the alley and halted; from there she would have to give up shelter to dash in plain view over open road and ground to the Forbidden Forest's side. She finally pulled James' old Invisibility Cloak from within a faux lining of the deceptively worn cloak she wore, and cast the ever simple but most forgotten spell to mask her footsteps.
The ground beside the paved road leading from Hogwarts into Hogsmeade was muddy; the sparse grass did little to provide friction and she slipped and slogged through to the other side of the road. Carefully, she cleared the suggestion of a fence running the length of where the forest officially began. Common sense usually kept even the curious types away and a more robust barrier was thought pointless. Lily wondered what the good people of Hogsmeade would think of all the young boys and girls who braved the Forest for that little bit of privacy to be naughty - well, someone got injured or eaten every year, she conceded to herself.
Her feet slid on the gradual slope as she navigated through the thick trees and haphazard roots threatening to trip her. She paused for a moment, shooting one hand out to steady herself against a trunk. With the wand that had never left her hand she made a circular movement in the air, her lips in an 'O' as well. Delicately, she pulled the wand from where she had made the motion, and as she drew it close to her chest a white bubble began inflating around her. When the base of her wand touched her sternum, the bubble completely expanded to envelop her in an undulating globular shape. Lily gave her spell-work a satisfied nod and pushed forward, her wand hanging at her side, having successfully pinned the charm to herself. As she walked, the globular charm encasing her gently pushed back the low hanging branches and formed tough gripping surface under her feet when she stepped on loose earth and rock. In the nature bubble she quickly made the quarter-mile to the dark forlorn façade of the Shrieking Shack. Not for the first time, she weighed benefits of having the Shack unapproachable by Apparation in a three mile radius, to the sheer nuisance it was for her.
Casting the identifying charms and magicking the correct set of runes hidden from any but who knew they were there, she opened a crack in the wall, large enough to slip through. As she entered the Shack she hastily put away the Invisibility Cloak and dissipated the unique charm.
Standing in the Shack, she suddenly felt apprehensive of seeing him again. The night before she had stopped him from calling her 'mother'; she couldn't stand it, she just couldn't accept it. But she had told him he was hers, and what that meant even she didn't know, except there was some unfathomable truth to it - she clung to it, and ran up the steps two at a time.
Catching her breath for a moment outside the door, she ground the misgivings of logic deep down and stepped through with a tentative smile. The boy, Harry, she corrected herself, was sitting on the bed, his shoulders hunched and head bowed. He looked at her over his glasses then raised his head enough that she could see his bleak expression.
Her smile fell and worry filled her.
“I'm back.”
Her voice sounded loud and ugly to her in the oppressive silence. Rain beat softly on the Shack, and when at any other time it would have been pleasant, then it was just intruding on the blanket of disquiet around the boy.
He nodded slowly, his eyes, her eyes in his face, stayed glued to her. She stepped forward and he flinched. He tried to hide it, abruptly getting up and pretending to look out the cracks in the boarded window. Her face grimaced in pain at his reaction; she had inspired fear in her victims many times and knew the symptoms of it too well to be fooled by his act. She quickly hid her own reaction, mentally scolding herself for being too easily affected. Swallowing dry air, she made her way to him as obviously and non-threateningly as possible.
“See? There was nothing to worry about, and nothing to worry about now, I am fine," she appealed to him. Her features softened, taking on an almost pleading look as she found herself leaning to take his arm, or touch him in anyway - she let herself. She rested her palm on his covered arm and felt a shudder run though him. Her heart broke at his repulsion or fear, or whatever it was. She wanted to pull away, but she wanted to fight more, so she stayed there, with his skin warm through his clothes, and waited.
“I-” she began but stopped when she heard him choke. Stepping around so she stood in front of the boarded window, she saw his struggle to keep emotion from showing on his face. He had shut his eyes tightly, his hands had clenched, and he coughed shortly, trying to hide what might have been sobs.
Her heart clenched like his fists and she threw her arms around him, pulling his head on her shoulder, careful to not let skin touch skin. The top of his hair mussed against her cheek, and she felt him try to break from her. But she had decided to fight, and so she locked her hands behind him, making her grip stronger than him with her will alone. The more he struggled, shuddering in quick hiccoughs against her shoulder, the more she angrily held him to herself.
Finally a moment came when he stopped trying to break her embrace and he grabbed her back with the same ferocity as she was holding him. Her ribs ached as his arms encircled and squeezed her, and she felt his own ribs where she had him in the vise of her arms.
“You're hurting me,” she said quietly, as if it didn't matter, and that he could go on doing it and she wouldn't be in pain.
“No, you are.” His voice had been rough, as if coming from a bruised throat.
“I'll stop if you don't run away.” She loosened her arms a little to lend credence to her words. He matched her, but did not leave her.
Lily eased her muscles, knowing she had won the fight. She moved her head back enough to see his face, which was wet and blank. He had obviously wept, but what that had to do with him being afraid of her she didn't know.
Instinct told her not to ask, but she did anyway. “What frightened you?”
He pulled away from her in answer; she let him go, feeling cold.
“I saw someone killed.” He bowed his head, and her eyes grew wide at his words.
“Where? In Hogsmeade? Was it a Death Eater attack?” Her wand was in her hand and she threw a nervous glance behind her at the door.
His tone stayed flat. “No, it wasn't in Hogsmeade.”
“Was it someone you knew?” she asked sympathetically.
“Yes, I knew the killer.” And he looked at her in accusation.
Her mouth dropped open and color fell from her face. Then she closed off her expression, saying, “I told you not to follow me. I didn't see you.”
“I'm good at not being seen. A lot like you, Shay never bloody saw you coming, did she? Never had a chance!” he spat out venomously.
Lily felt herself harden inside out. “You think I should have given that treacherous bitch a chance? Do you know what Death Eaters do to us when they get us? Do you know how many of our friends we've lost, not knowing how Death Eaters found them? You want to give me a damned lesson in morality. How dare you!” Lily pushed him into the wall and strode from him, fury thundering through her.
“You could have sent her to Azkaban!” Harry shouted.
“Azkaban? Azk - haha!” she laughed in disbelief. “Azkaban is a sieve through which every murdering rapist walks free. We had nothing to take her to court over. The Grim Protocol isn't invoked for every piece of dark filth. They call me when they can't touch someone, when they are too dangerous, or when, like for Shay, we are afraid of how their betrayal will break the scared sheep who follow Dumbledore.”
“But you didn't have to kill her,” Harry muttered, deep sadness in his words. It cooled Lily's anger in a heartbeat.
“Why not me?” She shrugged, walking close enough to him so if she too hung her head they would touch.
For a long moment only the rain on the roof answered her.
“Because you're supposed to be good, a light witch, because you're meant to be a hero.”
Lily wanted to scoff, she felt indignant at his ridiculous answer, but…his emotion was too raw for her to stay unfeeling and upset.
“I wouldn't be good if I sent someone else to do what is necessary, Harry. Want me to tell you about the first one I killed as a Grim?”
“No. I don't.” He moved away from her.
“He was after my friend Susana. She's a pureblood who married a half-blood. She came from an old family, a lot of tradition. Dumbledore invoked the Grim Protocol, I was sent after him. I was a very angry woman, I wanted to hurt something, but I had this idea that if I meant to kill I would be just like them. So I worried about it, and was slow to get to Susana's home.
“When I got there to wait for him to show up, I found her husband, half mad. The Death Eater was a pureblood of high standing, above the law. He had defeated them in a duel, and then raped Susana in front of her husband. Kidnapped her, and we didn't see her till ten months later, when she showed up at her house.
“They made sure she was impregnated with the proper seed,” Lily paused in her sotto voce narrative, catching his eyes, “you know, to ensure the purity of blood. Her husband wasn't a suitable stud. They kept her till she carried the baby and delivered him, then they threw her away. She doesn't know where that child is, her husband is dead, having tried to kill the Death Eater himself and gotten caught by Aurors instead. They threw him in Azkaban, convicted of attempted murder on an upstanding member of wizard society, and he died there,” she derisively spat the words. “So I got over being good, and I did the right thing, the heroic thing, I killed the evil bastard like I was meant to from the beginning. What. Would. You. Do?”
“I don't know,” he admitted, still standing listlessly under the weight of his sadness. “I just wish it wasn't you.”
“Why the hell are you disappointed anyway?” Lily whirled on him.
“Because I-” Harry shouted back with equal anger. “I don't want you to be a killer! Everyone always said how perfect Lily and James were, how they were the most wonderful couple ever, how brave, noble, generous...well it isn't bloody perfect of you to be murdering old women, is it?”
Lily sighed, feeling the words make her indignation and hurt disappear. “I am not evil, Harry. Isn't it the job of a hero to protect innocents?”
“Protect, not kill,” Harry muttered.
Lily cursed. “You stupid, ignorant, naive, self-righteous idiot. Get over yourself!”
Harry winced at each insult as if she was hitting him.
She continued, “You said your parents were killed, right? What about him, what about Voldemort? Is it wrong to kill him?”
She could see his blood-drained face register shock. He made an ugly face like there was something sour in his mouth.
“No," he said, leaving a pregnant pause in which she saw him hesitate. But then he gained his courage, "You're right. I've tortured Death Eaters, put them under the imperius. I can't blame you.”
Lily reeled from his confession, equally infuriated that he had the gall to accuse her of being evil, and shocked that he was capable of casting Unforgivables on mages as dangerous as the Death Eaters. She went to berate him for his double standards but stopped mid sentence; realizing she didn't want to win being right, she wanted to win him.
His vulnerable mien reminded her he was the miracle she had begged for. She took a deep breath, letting anger flow out of her.
“I understand." She made eye contact so he understood she accepted him. Then pleaded with him, "Please, stop being afraid of me."
Harry snorted quietly, and gave her an appraising look. “You're scary as fuck, Mu-Lily.”
Lily was the one to wince this time, but seeing his weak smile, she reflected it back to him. "Thanks," she said tentatively, seeing if he was ready to joke about it.
He gave a disbelieving shake of his head but his smile grew wider, Lily was glad to see the tension leave him. Then she acted on what had driven her back to the Shack, she stepped to him, her wet boots squeaking comically, and almost timorously reached for him, waiting.
He didn't disappoint her; he accepted her gesture of need and hugged her. She smelled him in, breathing the familiar scent and felt herself melt into safety of home.