A Tale of Two Brothers

Chapter 1

Lily carefully signed the parchments in front of her, the last one in the bundle of thirty sheets. Three more bundles laid on her right side, waiting to be checked and signed. Eight more on her left.

The task was exhausting, but important.

Those documents contained in-depth information about the new recruits. Their names, ages, specialties, names of close relatives and family to contact in case something happened to them. A picture of them. Any mark of identification on their bodies. Lily did not need to, she shouldn't even, but she often tried to memorise them, as many as possible. It felt too inhuman, to look at bodies and search through numerous pages to get the name of the person who'd fought for them; who'd lost their life for them.

These 'recruits' were young children, barely eighteen, who had volunteered to join the Resistance and aid the Order of the Phoenix.

There was no volunteering though, when the only options these children had was to surrender themselves and be either executed or imprisoned, or to assist the 'undesirables' in their fight against Voldemort's rule. Ever since the war became bloodier and more extreme, these were the only choices the meagre number of muggleborns who studied and lived in Hogwarts had. Lily had failed to persuade the entire Order against involving such young people into the war, so this was the least she could do to save those who she knew would not survive the harshness of the fights outside.

Many young kids were killed even before they were found by the Resistance, and some died within the seven years, mostly during vacations when they left the castle going against the Order's will.

Hogwarts was the only safe space for those who stood against that tyrant. It was their last hope.

As time passed, the castle had become a glorious sanctuary and a withering old cage for all its inhabitants.

At three in the morning, Lily finally emerged from her office; the Defence Against the Dark Arts' class.

Soon, the people who'd gone to the village attacked hours ago by the Death Eaters would be back, with less casualties she hoped.

On her way to the Great Hall, she passed by the Hospital Wing to check whether her help was needed. As she opened the door, her body froze, looking at the empty, lifeless room in front of her.

She rushed inside and saw all the healers sitting by a table, looking pale and terrified.

"Lily!" Poppy exclaimed and rushed forward.

"What happened, Poppy? Why is nobody here?"

Hannah was patting Dennis Creevy, the newest recruit, on his head, who was whimpering silently.

"We don't know. Roughly fifteen minutes after they were gone, we received a patronus from James. They urgently needed the entire Order there. I don't know why. I sent Dennis to fetch you, but your quarters did not open."

Of course it did not. Lily had made sure of it. She had been working without a break for the last two weeks and had to hear an earful from both Moody and Minerva about it. She was supposed to rest tonight, but still, Lily had somehow found herself in front of the paperwork again.
And now it may cost her husband and son now.

"No word from them?" She asked faintly.

Hannah shook her head in response.

Lily wanted to suggest that she could go on site to check, but held her tongue. If something really horrible happened, there had to be some Order member to.... to carry forward the Resistance. The responsibility laid on her shoulder. She had sworn to do it all those years ago.

"The war rests on our shoulders. If you choose this, no matter what, you will always have to put the Resistance first. Nothing will be more important than winning this war. Not your morals, not yourself, and definitely not your family. Do you understand?" Kingsley and Lily nodded gravely and murmured their agreement. Moody stared at them for a moment and said, "Leading a revolution will never be easy. It's a lonely and cruel path. You understand the stakes. Every single person you fought for might be dead, but you will not give up this. Our enemies might be the only ones alive, but you'll not recklessly fight them and die. As leaders, we work to keep our ideals alive. People come after that. Never forget that."

Lily sat down at the table silently. She felt the disappointment from the others in the room.

Now, all they could do was wait.

At some point, she couldn't bear the silence and got up. Tired of seeing the empty, pale walls of the Hospital Wing, she decided to go out.

"I'll be back."

"Are you going to check on them?" Dennis asked.

"No."

The others nodded unconsciously, not glancing up from the floor.

Her aimless walk ended up bringing her in front of the doors to her quarters.

She went inside silently, walking towards her office.
"You'll die inside that office one day." Jason had once said, when he had dragged her out for a Sunday brunch with the Weasleys last winter.

She skipped her desk and the bundles lying on it and went inside her and James' room. She then went inside the small passage to the bathroom door. Once in it, she turned towards the wall and waved her wand, muttering in Latin.

The wall opened up, revealing a tunnel.

Her research lab.

Lily, for the Resistance and most of the Order, worked as a director of the Order of Phoenix alongside Kingsley Shacklebolt and Alastor Moody, fighting Death Eaters during the day and going through endless paperwork at night.

Very few knew about her work as a researcher, since it wasn't strictly moral, in a sense.

She developed potions, which were used for their prisoners' interrogation. Some were used for making explosives and poisonous bombs. Some simply acted as an energizer for the fighters on the fields, while many were used for healing.

It was her curses' work that shed a bad light on her research.

Lily studied Dark Arts; a subject heavily frowned upon by almost everyone on their side. It was considered a taboo nowadays to even speak of it.

James and their friends, along with Alastor, Kingsley, Minerva and Andromeda, were the only ones who knew about it.

She developed curses, some almost as dark and violent as the Cruciatus. She mostly restructured the new curses developed by the Death Eaters, to make them somewhat less painful but more lethal. Lily wanted to defeat Voldemort's army, not torture them. Her research mainly aimed at killing a large number of selected people in a short period of time. It did not sound good, not even to her own ears. But it was work to be done. And anyways, she hated the part of her that felt giddy with excitement every time the rush of using dark magic washed over her senses. Luckily, she had people who'd stop her if she ever took her studies to the extreme, no matter the cost.

She went over some of the arithmetical equations written on the board when her eyes fell over their family portrait hung on the wall in front of her table.

No matter what she did, what happened, Lily could not bring herself to get rid of it.

There were so many people in the picture. There was such joy and life in it. Just one thing made her want to throw it all away.

The Potters, Blacks, Remus, Weasleys and Longbottoms.

The event they had celebrated together just before her nightmare started; with the nightmare in it like a dark shadow over their happiness.

Jason, along with the four youngest Weasley boys, stood in the centre. He had an arm slung around Ron, his best friend ever since they met and was grinning cheerfully at the camera. He looked a lot like her. He had her red hair, though a lot darker, and her face. The only thing he got from James was his all-over-the-place-hair and his eyes. He was eleven in the pictures, just a month before starting Hogwarts. But even in his happy face, Lily saw the hurt.

She and James were on the groups' right side, arm in arm. Between them, Ginny Wealsey was waving shyly at the camera.

The rest of the Weasleys occupied the whole left side of the picture, with the Longbottoms squeezed in between them.

Remus and Sirius stood beside James, almost falling over each. Regulus stood a bit away from the chaos-

A blinding bright light entered the lab, snatching her gaze away from the picture, away from the horror itself.

'We are here.'
Her son's voice said, as his stag came closer to comfort her.