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bait_backup*Lily spent three hours alone on the tube that night.
It didn't make much sense, the decision to be in the comfort of strangers after experiencing something so horrifying. But things were nearly as horrifying at home when she took a shower after the battle and watched the rust red of blood colour the water settling by her feet before disappearing down the drain. She realized with a newfound sense of horror that it was coming from her hair more than her skin, and that the blood wasn't her own. With a lurch she clambered out of the shower and managed to drop to her knees in time to throw up in the toilet bowl.
An hour later she was on the train, sitting in a quiet little corner undisturbed with drying hair, a purple sundress, and a blank expression. She hopped around, from the Jubilee line to the Northern, Bakerloo to Picadilly, District to Circle til late and walked back home with a lingering sense of dread. The entire journey was surreal, watching everyone carrying on with their lives without the knowledge of a war and carnage always was.
But this time it was different.
The many people who took a seat near her or gave her a friendly smile didn't know that they were sitting by a murderer. They'd never know that hours ago such an innocuous looking young woman killed a man and was covered in his blood. Of course, he was a vile, horrible, disgusting man who was killed in self defense...and unadulterated malice. But he was a man who had people who loved and cared about him, she's sure, and would cry about his death just as she would if she were to lose someone close to her.
There is no such thing as a war without casualties, but she liked to believe that she could manage to fight back without actually ending a life. She saw it as taking the higher road, an alternative that was a much closer match to her values and ideals.
But that awful Amycus Carrow was going after James, and then it became a matter of self-defense, and then the taunting about the forest...It was too much.
Lily comes home at the stroke of eleven, still unable to take the very vivid image of Carrow dead and bleeding out of her mind. She can still imagine the feeling of his blood saturating her skin before drying and caking over, and the soreness of her throat from her cries. Hours ago feel like seconds ago, and as she wordlessly passes an anxious James in the living room and walks into the bedroom, she knows she shouldn't expect this time warped sensation to cease any time soon.*
It didn't make much sense, the decision to be in the comfort of strangers after experiencing something so horrifying. But things were nearly as horrifying at home when she took a shower after the battle and watched the rust red of blood colour the water settling by her feet before disappearing down the drain. She realized with a newfound sense of horror that it was coming from her hair more than her skin, and that the blood wasn't her own. With a lurch she clambered out of the shower and managed to drop to her knees in time to throw up in the toilet bowl.
An hour later she was on the train, sitting in a quiet little corner undisturbed with drying hair, a purple sundress, and a blank expression. She hopped around, from the Jubilee line to the Northern, Bakerloo to Picadilly, District to Circle til late and walked back home with a lingering sense of dread. The entire journey was surreal, watching everyone carrying on with their lives without the knowledge of a war and carnage always was.
But this time it was different.
The many people who took a seat near her or gave her a friendly smile didn't know that they were sitting by a murderer. They'd never know that hours ago such an innocuous looking young woman killed a man and was covered in his blood. Of course, he was a vile, horrible, disgusting man who was killed in self defense...and unadulterated malice. But he was a man who had people who loved and cared about him, she's sure, and would cry about his death just as she would if she were to lose someone close to her.
There is no such thing as a war without casualties, but she liked to believe that she could manage to fight back without actually ending a life. She saw it as taking the higher road, an alternative that was a much closer match to her values and ideals.
But that awful Amycus Carrow was going after James, and then it became a matter of self-defense, and then the taunting about the forest...It was too much.
Lily comes home at the stroke of eleven, still unable to take the very vivid image of Carrow dead and bleeding out of her mind. She can still imagine the feeling of his blood saturating her skin before drying and caking over, and the soreness of her throat from her cries. Hours ago feel like seconds ago, and as she wordlessly passes an anxious James in the living room and walks into the bedroom, she knows she shouldn't expect this time warped sensation to cease any time soon.*
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