Solace for a Graduate

Lily hadn't been at Hogwarts when the battle that prompted the dedication of the Garden of Solace to those lost, but she had heard of it. People had died. Students, teachers, Death Eaters, Order members. It had been bad. As she had heard from Teddy, it had been the battle that had really defined the status of the country. Supposedly, Jack Dyllan had stepped into the position of the head of the forces against dark after that battle. Supposedly, it had been the battle that had pretty much squashed the activity of Potter's Army and the Dark Followers. After that battle, it didn't seem worth it.

It still amazed Lily that people were willing to fight for beliefs. Because, really, it wasn't always action that caused skirmishes. A lot of wizarding history was based on fighting because of this philosophical disagreement or that ethical confusion. It drove Lily bonkers that people could go as far as to kill each other over something that had not actually happened yet. How could anyone be so certain about what they felt or thought or believed? She hardly knew what she thought one day – and then the next day, it had all gone to sh!t. There was very few things in the world she believed in enough that she would be willing to fight for.

So she wasn’t sure why she came her, this Monument to Belief, a Commemoration of Wrongful Death in Times of War. This wasn’t her war – it belonged to the world she had been born into, without choice, without warning. But tonight, on her graduation night, this is where her feet naturally led her, naturally carried her. As though it would somehow be of comfort to her. She didn’t know how it could be that, but she needed to be away from the castle.

They had all been there. Teddy. Casey. James. Albus. Roxi. Everyone who had somehow contributed to her becoming the mess she was. Teddy and Casey had kept her from… from something. Had put so much pressure on her to get better, to be better, that she had quit trying because how would it be worth it if she still disappointed them in the end? James had just never had much interest in her. Not then, and not now – present or not. She knew that he had made further attempts to connect with Albus, but apparently, he had not done enough wrongs to her to warrant attempts to make it up. Albus… perhaps she was the one who had put too much pressure. He was the brother she had wanted, and he had never managed to care enough to be that brother. That was just expectations gone wrong once more. And Roxi… Well.

That one pretty much explained itself.

“Hey.”

Lily raised her head, turning on the bench she had chosen as her home for the next hour or two or whenever she decided to go… wherever she was going to go next. There stood her cousin Molly, hair like hers, skinny legs a bit knock-kneed, dull eyes blinking, a cigarette burning between her fingers. Lily straightened up, hands sliding from her knees to her thighs as she let out a sigh of her own, breathing the word, “Hey.”

Molly raised the cigarette to her lips and inhaled. She was in a loose dress that hung from her frame, webbed tights leading to mid-sized combat boots. She dropped her hand to her side, blowing smoke out into the night air. “Can I sit for a bit?”

Lily nodded and Molly approached, dropping down onto the bench next to her cousin. Molly crossed her legs and rested her elbow atop her knee, once again puffing on her cigarette. There was silence for a long moment, and then Molly spoke again. “Congratulations on graduation.”

Lily didn’t know what to say. “…Thanks.”

Molly nodded her head up and down, taking it in. “Bummer about the werewolf thing though.” Lily expected to tense up, to feel some sort of aggravation, but she didn’t. Between Molly’s casual tone and her own exhaustion, she couldn’t really muster up anything but a long sigh. Molly continued after another puff on her cigarette. “I heard Apollo’s doing just fine. Could be good for him. Chicks dig scars. Maybe you did him a favor, y’know-“

“Molly,” Lily interrupted, not looking at her cousin. “It wasn’t charity. It was a mistake.”

This silence was definitely more tense than the others, which had all been surprisingly calm, considering the circumstances. Neither girl was looking at the other, and that seemed most comfortable for the pair of them. “Right.” Molly stood, glancing about, trying to figure out where to go next. She turned and looked at the top of her cousin’s head. “Y’know – sometimes mistakes are good. Make us better.” Molly lifted a shoulder and slowly pivoted to walk away.

“Stay away from Roxi.”

Molly didn’t move for a moment, before slowly turning back around on her heel. She crossed her arms, lifting the cigarette to her lips but not inhaling. “Yeah?”

Lily stared at her, before slowly nodding her head. “Yeah.”

Molly’s lips twitched and then a corner raised. She took a final drag on the cigarette and exhaled. “Thanks.” She dropped the cigarette and toed it into the ground. “Toodles, cos.” She pivoted, her torso remaining upright, and walked away. Lily expected Molly to turn back towards the castle, but she instead headed down the lane into Hogsmeade. Lily blinked a few times, clearing the imprint of her cousin from her vision. She cracked her knuckles and slumped in her seat. Alone again.

Lily vaguely remembered last year's graduation. Vague maybe only because of how much she had tried to forget it. Driven out of the ceremony by people who thought she was dirt, accosted by an irritable Henry Yewbeam who had turned her into a monster in his head. She had run away, again, going to Stewart Harding's place because he had told her he would always be there if she needed something - a load of bull hat had been. But that night, a year ago today, had shaken her to her very core, actually frightened her.

The next time she had seen Henry Yewbeam, he had reeked and been crawling with maggots.

She had shut out that memory particularly. Nope. Nope. Better to pretend Henry Yewbeam had never existed, had never come into her life.

But that was hard considering she was pretty sure he had been murdered. And she was pretty sure she knew who had done it.

So, of course she would see the woman. She would never forget Hallie Cooper's name, because of the same reasons she would never forget Henry's. And Lily, so used to being passive and allowing the world to sweep her up and swirl her about, just had to do something about it.

She stood. "Hey."

((Not awful at all. I didn't give you very much to go off of))

Lily had not planned ahead, as she typically did. The girl had always been very clever and calculating, but everything had been thrown askew in the past year and a half or so. Between Henry, and her lycanthropy, and Roxi, Lily's thoughts had been plagued and destroyed, derailed and made into confusing, uncertain, twisted balls of emotion. So, the acting on a whim part had been easy, because thought had not motivated it, had not interrupted or complicated it.

Hallie turned, inquired about her name and Lily shifted from one foot to the other. "Yeah, I'm Lily." How much of her life had consisted of her confirming people's suspicions about her identity? Ginny had told her children that their father, the great Harry Potter, had been made miserable be strangers staring at his scar, asking over and over if he actually was the Harry Potter, the Chosen One, the Boy Who Lived. It was something she had inherited, along with his dark hair, having to confirm that she was indeed the Lily Potter.

"I..." What? What words could complete that sentence without seeming completely out of the blue, without being completely jarring. Whatever her strange relationship with Henry Yewbeam had been, this woman probably did not want to bring up that dark chapter. But Lily had to know. So many chapters of her life were closing, and she wanted that to be one of the things she could put passed her.

"Could I talk to you? I..." Once again. What could be said? "How did you know Henry?"

So she had broken the ice. At least the other woman knew what Hallie wanted now, and didn't seem to have any plans to evade her or her questions. In fact, the Cooper woman wanted to sit down. Get more comfortable. Lily figured the woman was trying to buy time to prepare for the difficult questions she was sure to receive. She could be thinking up lies, could be gathering all the necessary thoughts.

Lily wanted to shed him from her mind. As horrible as that sounded. She had attended the small funeral* held, though it wasn't much of one. She had not told anyone about Henry. Not Casey, not Teddy, not her brothers, who had seen him at the Ministry holding cell. Her acquaintance with Henry Yewbeam had only ever involved the woman in front of her and her now ex husband - which she knew, of course, from Hogwarts gossip.

Lily didn't want to sit. She wanted to stare down Hallie and wait for understanding to reach her, via the Auror's knowledge, if she had any - though she must have known something. Lily could not believe the woman had just been some random victim in the whole mess that the Potter girl had stumbled upon. No. She was more involved than that.

And Lily thought the woman should know she knew. So she didn't sit. She crossed her arm and looked at her, her expression firm and blank, lending nothing to the blonde.


*Figured it could even be a Ministry thing. Just very simply putting he body to rest.

Lily Potter didn't sit. Instead she did the exact opposite and remained firmly rooted to the spot where she was stood and held her arms in protest. All of a sudden Hallie was starting to feel slightly ambushed and backed into a corner. The blonde didn't intend on evade the topic she simply felt it would be better for Lily to hear sat down. Hallie didn't know what questions the girl had but she expected the answers to be not so friendly to the ears.

When Lily didn't say anything Hallie soon realised that, in spite of the girls hardy facade, it would be the auror leading the conversation. Whether that was because the girl didn't know entirely what information it was that she wanted or she wanted to throw some added pressure onto Hallie remained unclear.

'What is it you want to know?' Hallie asked, resisting the urge to fold her arms in response. The ominous silence from Lily was creating a business-like atmosphere, as though they were doing some dodgy drug deal. How fitting.

Hallie was either being withholding or she was forgetting the fact that Lily could make her talk by reopening Henry's case and submitting all she had witnessed that involved Hallie and her ex-man candy. When someone was murdered, the fact that a near fatal show down had happened mere months before was enough to rouse suspicion, even out of the their frail Ministry. And any Auror in good standing, as she supposed Hallie was, did not need nor want an investigation in which they were implied to be complicit.

So she needed to start talking now.

"Everything," Lily said. "Obviously I walked in on something in Knockturn. Obviously you knew him. Obviously, you were privy to more information regarding his death. I want to know."

Everything. If Hallie could let out a sigh without coming across rude she would have. Lily may be curious to know more about her friend or whatever Henry had been to her but not all of it was her business. Hallie wanted to help settle the girls contemplations that had led to her questions but there was too much for to tell Lily, to reopen in her own mind.

There had been a time in Hallie's life when she was so wrapped up with events that had happened in her life that she'd allowed them to define her. The auror felt as though they had happened to make her stronger or to learn from them and develop as a person but upon reflection that was just a coping strategy to help her through them. Hallie had been to hell and back and none of it was justifiable.

Since the most devastating loss in her life, her stillborn child, Hallie had moved to Spain. She'd cleansed, washed herself from the negativity that clung onto her and for once was free from her past, it didn't define her, nor did it refine her, it was something that had simply happened to her. Having to go through that again with Lily wasn't something the blonde planned on doing. However, knowing how it felt to be as lost and confused after the loss of a loved one Hallie only felt it reasonable to divulge a few facts.

'Henry was a death eater.' Hallie told the girl with a barely audible sigh. 'I used to date him in Hogwarts, but what you saw in Knockturn Alley wasn't personal he was simply doing his job. I guess the fact that we had history kept him from taking me straight to his leader, had it been another death eater I would probably already be dead.'

Hallie shifted slightly on her spot. The blonde had never thought about that before. Henry had toyed with her, played with her as though he were some food on a plate he disliked. The death eater had been given a due date for his task to be completed, the task being he had to capture the auror and take her to the leader of the death eaters. Henry was waiting until that date, he had kept her alive a little longer but for what? Suffering? For practice? Hallie wasn't thankful for what he'd done to her but she was glad, in a twisted round-about way, that it had been Henry who'd accepted the mission.

'Look, Lily. It's not that I don't want to keep anything from you it's just it's personal what happened between me and Henry.' Hallie continued, glancing up the lane towards the cottage where her Father was staying in hope it'd appear she was in a hurry or needed to leave.

'And I had been privy with regards to his death just as anybody would be. It's in my nature to know what happened to someone and I guess we'll never know what happened to him but just remember that, as horrible as it is, he was a death eater. Death eaters have a lot of enemies.'