𝐖𝐇𝐄𝐍 𝐓𝐈𝐌𝐄 𝐈𝐒 𝐍𝐎𝐓 𝐄𝐍𝐎𝐔𝐆𝐇

Chapter 15

Chapter Fifteen: Hades, Greek God of Death

I don't know how many times my memory's been wiped of this incident, but it always manages to come back to me.

It happened the day after Uncle Sev told me that Dad was dead. He said that Dad wasn't coming back. Papa was crying too much to tell me anything.

Everyone had tried to comfort me, but it was obvious Papa needed more help. I didn't understand death back then. All I knew was that Dad wasn't coming back and that he wouldn't be able to finish that book off.

That morning, though, when Papa was sitting at the table, crying, I found a box in the hallway. It came up to my knees. It was a simple cardboard box with the lid folded shut. As any child my age would have done, I opened it.

And this is where it gets a bit fuzzy. I opened it; I can remember my hands fumbling with the edges. I reached in and my fingers brushed someone so smooth. It was just like Dad. That was the initial thought I had. Whatever it was, it reminded me of Dad's hair. And it looked like it, too.

The further down I reached, the wetter the box got. The sensation of soft hair thinned until I felt something cold. I needed both of my hands to pull whatever it was out of the box.

Thanks to my altered memory, all I get after that is a flashing image of Dad's face, followed by my screams. I can't remember how quick Papa was to get to my side, to scoop me up and hold me close. I don't have a clue how long that took, but I know I was screaming for my dad long after Papa had carried me up the stairs. He was telling me to stay calm, to focus on him.

My hands were wet and my rear was cold. I was sitting on the bathroom bench and he was washing my hands and up my arms. He had taken my shirt off and had burned it with a spell. Then he washed my neck and my chin. I didn't realise I had gotten them dirty, but when he pulled the cloth back, it was red.

He kept kissing my forehead, telling me it would be alright. Something kept telling me that it wasn't. My eyes were burning with tears and my throat...I must have been crying for a very long time.

I was put in his and Dad's bed, where I curled up around Dad's pillow. He then magically put me to sleep, giving me a potion.

When I went downstairs after that, I couldn't find the box. There was something in it that I wanted to see.

Papa and Uncle Severus were talking in the lounge. I found the two of them there, with Papa curled up in the corner. He was holding something to his chest, rocking back and forth. Uncle Severus wasn't happy.

"You have to give it to me," he told Papa, who looked up at him and cried.

"But she's my baby girl," Papa replied, shaking harder. "She's mine and Draco's..."

"It's a corpse, Harry."

He held whatever it was closer to his chest. "She's Lily!"

I don't remember much after that.

When I started dreaming of this, Papa took me to a doctor and he erased my memory. It happened at least once a year. Papa didn't want me remembering this at all. Thing is, though, I might have forgotten the main images or the facts, but I remembered what I felt. Papa would hear me screaming in the middle of the night and would shake me out of it before he carried me off to his bed again. They were the only times I slept in his bed.

But when he died, and I had the nightmare again, I asked Uncle Severus, who finally told me the whole story.

Voldemort had sent that box to our home. They never figured out how it got in or how whoever delivered it got through the safeguards, but it was definitely from him.