His Twenty-Eighth life

4. Slow-Motion Destruction

Thoughts went through Lily's head every day, looping like an old film through its reels.

If I'd done something.

If I'd thrown myself in front of Harry when I realized Voldemort was going to Summon him.

If I'd only stood up to him instead of sitting back and letting Harry defend himself and us.

Then the thoughts would turn into speculation about why Harry had spoken like that and why he seemed so much older than his age, but those thoughts had no end, either, no resting place and no answer. Her mind would return in seconds to the thoughts she knew were useless—she couldn't have anticipated that Voldemort would Summon Harry, no one could have—but couldn't get rid of.

Yet even they were better than the thoughts that came and haunted her nights, making her lie motionless beside James as they both pretended they were asleep.

What happened to Harry? Did Voldemort kill him? If he's kept him alive, what kind of tortures is he going to make him suffer before he dies? Should I wish that he was dead, because that would probably mean less suffering?

Lily hated the other thoughts that crept in, the ones that wished Voldemort had killed Harry in front of them. Not because she wanted her child dead. Not because it might have absolved her of some of her guilt, that she hadn't protected him and prevented him from being taken away.

Because anything was better than not knowing.

He's gone into silence. I can't ask him. I can't ask Voldemort. My precious baby boy...anything could have happened to him, and I wouldn't know.

Lily had believed, until it happened, that the worst possible thing in the world was watching your child die. Now she knew better. The worst possible thing in the world was watching your child swept through the door and carried away by a man in a black cloak, who you knew had already tortured and murdered countless others.

I want to know. That's all. If they find a body, that would be horrible, but at least I would have the answers. Let me know.

*

James found it so hard to continue smiling at Jonathan.

His older boy had always been serious, much more so than Harry, the baby who seemed to giggle the instant they picked him up and barely cried at all when he was born. But that just made it better for James to come up with a story or a prank or a game that would make them both laugh, or sneak around the corner and surprise Jonathan into a squeal or a smile.

Now...

Now there was only one, and James knew it would be more than worth the effort to cheer Jonathan up. But he kept looking at the spot where his second son should be, and the smile dissolved in midair.

Sirius took him to task for it, one day about two months after Harry had been taken when he came over to try and plan Lily's birthday party. James listened to whatever he said, and agreed to whatever he wanted. Sirius sat up abruptly on the other side of the dining room table and glared.

"You have two children, James." He'd never growled like that even when he was Padfoot and playing around at Hogwarts. "I know you're mourning Harry—believe me, we all know—but you have to think of Jonathan, too. He doesn't deserve it for you to just turn your back on him."

James stared at Sirius with his mouth open. Jonathan was taking a nap at the time, or he knew Sirius would never have said it. But that didn't matter. James always remembered there were two children missing from the room, not one.