The Darkness Within

Chapter Two - The Dark Prince

  Chapter Two

Lily sighed as she put down the last of the papers she had been marking. Potions was a much more difficult subject than most people gave it credit for and marking essays for the subject wasn't an easy task. She leaned back in her chair and rubbed at her tired neck; she had been trying to get all the marking done before she retired to her bed for the night. At last she was finished.

She glanced around at her surroundings. Her staff quarter at Hogwarts was located in the dungeons but she had managed to bring a level of comfort to it. She had given the place a woman's touch by painting the cement walls and decorating the quarter as best she could. Around her desk she had pictures of her family. She always felt it was important for her to be able to look up from her work and see the face of a loved one.

It was just as well she had pictures of her family around her as she hardly got a chance to see James any more. What with her teaching Potions and him out on Auror duty, not to mention they both were members of the Order of the Phoenix, that left next to no time for them to be together. School holidays were the only time she got to be with her family.

Her emerald green eyes shifted to the photo of her twelve year old son. If it wasn't for Damien, she would have worked full time for the Order. Damien had started Hogwarts two years ago and she had taken up the post as the Potions professor last year when it was offered to her. Damien had complained endlessly that he couldn't get up to mischief if she was at Hogwarts too but that only worked to encourage Lily to take up the post.

Lily sighed again and took a hold of his photo. It was taken only last year when Damien had been a first year. Unlike his older brother, Damien was not a spitting image of James. He still had the black hair but it wasn't messy like James'. He had James' eyes, deep hazel eyes that he always used to get out of trouble, again very much like his father. His features though were like Lily. He had his mother's nose, her mouth and even her smile. He had inherited her fiery temper and James' love of pulling pranks. He was quite a mix of the two. Sirius had taken it on himself to turn Damien into a James rival at trouble making and pulling pranks. Of course Damien was all too eager to learn from a Marauder.

Lily gazed at the picture of James and felt her heart ache with the pain of missing him. She had not seen him for the last two weeks. But that pain was nothing compared to the anguish which took a hold of her every time she looked at the picture next to his. The picture had been taken only 3 days before he was taken. Lily turned her emerald eyes to the portrait of her eldest son, Harry. He was giggling and pointing at her before clapping his little hands together. Her heart constricted so painfully when she looked at her baby. She looked away from the picture and to the small calendar on her desk. The date read May 31st. She felt her breath hitch in her chest. 'Two months' she thought, 'in two months time he would have turned sixteen.'

She had always thought of Harry like this; always wondering what he would have been doing if he were still alive. It was difficult for James to hear Lily talk about Harry, so much so that Lily had stopped mentioning Harry to James.

James had taken the emotional blow of losing his son much harder than she had. After all, it was his friend that had stolen Harry from right under their roof and had handed him over to a monster to be brutally killed. It had been his friend that had attacked him and Sirius before kidnapping Harry. It made James feel guilty and responsible. Lily remembered how awful it had been when James had woken up a fortnight after the attack to learn what his friend had done; that they had lost Harry. James had always blamed himself for not protecting his son. He had vowed to himself that he would find Peter and Voldemort and kill them both. For the best part of two years, all James did was try to find a way to get to the Dark Lord and his Death Eater follower, Peter.