All in the Family

Chapter 92: Priori Incantatem

To Stitches: Agreed, the first leg of Regulus' journey to be the person who his book self is/ was has finally ended, but how he'll get the rest of the way there both does and does not involve Sirius in a way I hope you enjoy!

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Lily was still crying as she crash landed once more, rolling several times and coming to a painful halt. Even as her impact caused what felt like bricks to fall all around her, she merely lay where she was, curled into the fetal position, trembling fingers pressed against her lips as another sob broke free. She hadn't stopped for so long now, it seemed impossible she ever would. It was too much, all too much to take in, and yet a fourteen year old boy, her boy, would be going through it all alone.

"Oh come now dear, it can't be all bad."

Lily sat up with a painful gasp, shuttering in fear and just a few more lashes of pain at her own stupidity for letting her guard down. Just because it had been so long since they'd seen another person didn't mean it couldn't inevitably happen! She was now far more familiar with her seven companions voices than she ever would have believed possible, could pick any of them out in a crowded corridor now, but she didn't know that one!

She forced her bleary eyes to focus, she had to know if there were anymore dead bodies around, nobody had started reading yet and Merlin knew what was happening- then she gasped a wet, snotty, painfully disgusting noise in relief to see it was a portrait. Tisking away at her, eyeing the mess she made.

It was not the only one in here, but the one speaking to her nonetheless in a kind, gentle voice. Despite her aged face, it held a hint of youth in it Lily didn't quite understand until she wiped yet more tears from her burning cheeks and saw the now familiar, kind hazel eyes shining out. The name plate underneath read Carinthia Potter- Nee Greengrass. Coughing slightly, shoulders still shaking with the force of it, she looked around again to find herself in an opulent library. She'd knocked over almost an entire bookcase, the evidence scattered all around her. Portraits of other Potters that had married into the family scattered the rest of the free space, and as she looked over her shoulder, she saw a tapestry woven together pyramid style right into the wall from floor to ceiling, of the far more direct line. There, on the bottom line where the last strip showed James Flemont Potter, there was a piece of red string tacked on, and a sticky note proudly bearing the name Sirius Orion Black right next to it.

She tried, and failed, not to laugh. She sat down back on her bum, feeling like one as she buried her face into her knees. Of course they'd wind up here eventually, James Potter was probably going to be as miraculously alive as his friends and swope in to save young Harry and probably bring Cedric back to life and defeat You-Know-Who all while hopping on one foot. She sighed in exhaustion as the sounds of ruckus finally reached her ears, even the faint echo of someone calling out her name. She tipped her head to the side and peaked out through her hair at the door, waiting for someone to come barging in even as a few more tears trickled out. She wasn't going to bother to hide them. She was too exhausted to do much of anything else.

It was finally Lupin who stumbled through the door, like he was trying to see how fast he could dart in and out, but came to an outstandingly poor halt when he actually caught a flash of her. They stared at each other for a solid thirty seconds before he turned around and bellowed over his shoulder, "I found her!" Then he turned back to her, still rubbing his lined face in exhaustion. "Merlin Evans, you could have at least come and told us you were still alive before being alone."

She didn't understand the snappy tone he used, or why he even cared. She was well past that point, as Cedric's body still flickered behind her eyes every time she blinked. She just sat there like a useless, hopeless lump.