She walked into a dimly lit room to find candles lining the walls. The fumes were enough to make her fall to the floor with a migraine, but she stood there seemingly untouched.

Her eyes stayed transfixed on the spot in front of her. There laid a single shard of glass that reflected what little light there was off of it. It was shaped into a rough triangle, almost like someone had taken a piece of glass and threw it against the floor.

Careful as to not cut herself, she picked the piece of glass up off the floor. Turning it in her fingers, she found that none of the edges felt as rough as they had looked.

Two startling emerald eyes stared back at her despite her own being a bright blue. The person trapped in the mirror had then started screaming for help, her red hair flying about. Lily.

Marlene woke up with a heaving chest, near gasping for breath. It took a few seconds for her to recognize her surroundings, but it all came flooding back to her. Lily was as good as missing, Minnie had showed up at her house disheveled, and no one had been answering her questions.

Shrugging off Sirius's arm as all the teens had fallen asleep in Marlene and Mary's shared room, she crept down the stairs at the sound of voices, deep ones. She stopped at the bottom of the staircase, so the inhabitants of the kitchen couldn't see her. She was in the primal spot for eavesdropping.

"You should've seen the haunted look in her eyes, Mum."

Marlene recognized the voice as Myles's, and hoped that she didn't tumble down the rest of the stairs by accident because she was almost sure she was going to get the good information that she had been yearning for.

A few days before, when Dumbledore had said that they were finally ready to know what was going on, they had only told them about the Order of the Phoenix. Marlene and the others recognized this as a big deal, but they just wanted to know what was going on with Lily.

"She had just been through a traumatic event, of course her eyes will look haunted!" Her mum responded with strong emotion.

"Lily told us she wanted her friends to know all the details."

Marlene held her baited breath as she heard Marcus speak this time.

"Dumbledore will be the judge of what they hear."

Well that's just shit!

...

Lily didn't know what she had been expecting, but this wasn't it. Learning the names of seven redheads and a whole lotta ruckus later, she had truly been acquainted with the Weasleys and the Burrow.

At first, Lily had completely withdrawn and taken to hiding in her given room. Not wanting to disturb the family with her tears, it stayed that way for a few days. Yet, one day a little redhead boy visited her room and tried to coax her out as he hated seeing people sad.

Charlie Weasley, at the ripe age of five, knocked quietly on the shut door, silently awaiting any response at all. His mum had told him what had happened—albeit a very dumbed down version—so he wasn't expecting a reply, but he sure would like one.

The girl, apparently named Lily, intrigued the small boy as he had never seen someone outside of his family with red hair. Sure, it was a different shade of red, but he still wondered if she could be a distant relative.

He heard a few crash, boom, bangs, before the door opened to reveal another disheveled redhead. She had an extremely bad case of bed head and heavy bags under her eyes, like she hadn't been sleeping. She wore a Gryffindor quidditch jumper and a pair of athletic shorts, presumably as her pajamas.

"Hello! I'm-"

"Charlie, right?" Lily interrupted, the faint smile growing on her face at the small boy.

Lily had always been surprisingly good at learning names, so the Weasleys were no challenge for her. Molly and Arthur were one of the most in love married couples she had ever seen, closely rivaling her parents. Bill was the oldest child, coincidentally very good at conversing with adults at the age of seven. Charlie—who was becoming her favorite child out of them—was particularly fascinated with dragons and could talk nonstop for hours on end if given the chance. Percy was only one and three quarters, so he hadn't developed much of a personality, but the first time Lily had met him, he had been staring at a book with wonder and amazement. George and Fred, being less than a month old, were two of the cutest things Lily had ever seen. George constantly yawned and, on the contrary, Fred was almost always wide awake with his eyes skirting around the room.

"Yeah! You remembered!" Charlie exclaimed, happiness practically radiating off of him.

"Of course I did! Was there something you needed?" Lily inquired as the boy entered her room and sat down placing a few dragon figurines on the floor around him.

"I just wanted to give you some company. I hate seeing people sad," Charlie spoke earnestly as Lily sat down next to him on the wooden floor.

Elvie took the chance to sit in Lily's lap as the cat had become increasingly clingy with the more time he spent with her.

"What species is this?" Lily asked, accepting his casual answer.

"It's an Antipodean Opaleye," Charlie stumbled over the name, but ultimately Lily could understand what he was saying.

The dragon figurine had a pearly shimmer to its a scales that could practically hypnotize you if one looked at it for too long. Lily could tell that it was one of the most beautiful dragon breeds that existed in the wizarding world just by looking at it for thirty seconds.

"It has really hot fire breath, so you have to be careful around those ones," he stated very seriously.

...

Potter Manor was bustling with even more extra people as the Order had decided to go and utilize the leftover rooms. Although, the teens had been very territorial of "their hallway," especially Lily's room.

None of them were taking this particularly well, but seeing as they were being withheld the truth, it was to be expected. James had actually refused to do anything his mum said out of pure spite of the whole situation.

Said teenagers were currently trying to break into a top secret Order meeting that the entire Order was sitting in on. Euphemia had placed a proper long table in the ball room for the event as the normal one cut off at least ten members.

"What are we to do with the girl?" A voice spoke up as the meeting started.

"She is safe at the Order Safe House and the people there are keeping a close eye on her. We have been communicating back and forth."

James couldn't hear anything over the smell of fire. Smell of fire? Smell of fire! He rushed over to the fire place to see Remus coughing as he quite literally hated the flooing system. Yet, desperate times such as these called for desperate measures.

Remus had come as quickly as he could after reading a rather alarming letter written by a distraught Marlene. He brought with him the daily newspaper.

"I only had time to grab a muggle newspaper, so some of the facts might be wrong," Remus spoke firmly, with a quiet defiance in his eyes.

"That's fine," James said shortly as he was handed the paper.

FIRE AT SMITH MANOR

Smith Manor, one of the oldest and largest buildings in town, was devastated by a deadly fire two nights ago. Authorities say there was one death, a woman called Rose Evans. She had married Henry Smith earlier this year. Her daughters are both safe and unharmed.

"Would you all quit making all this noise? Oh hello, Remus!" Euphemia said startled at the arrival of another Marauder.

"Where is my girlfriend?" James asked in the best fake calm voice he could muster.

"You know I can't tell you that! So, please, James, stop asking!" She pleaded with her son.

Mia wasn't sure she could even provide him with a factual answer. All she knew was that Lily was at the safe house, she didn't know where that was or who the girl was in the company of.

"I'm not going to stop asking because I need to know Lily's okay! Her mum just died and-"

"You all need to go upstairs this instant and do not come down until I give the go ahead!" Mia had never used such a harsh tone before, so she was surprised when James tried to argue.

"But, I'm of age! We all are!"

"Go. Now."

...

Lily hadn't learned this much about dragons since she had had tea with Hagrid and the girls. Charlie went through each figurine and talked about the backstory of each species, where their natural habitat was, and what the dragon was known for. She had also learned that his favorite was the Hungarian Horntail because of how violent they were around wizards. The violence was apparently what drew him in.

She got up off the floor, pushing Elvie off her lap, after he spoke about the last figurine—a Hebridean Black—to run a brush through her hair as she still had a massive case of bed head. Charlie, the ever curious boy, caught a glimpse of the back of the quidditch jumper she had been wearing and got super excited.

"Are you a Potter? My mum knows Mia Potter, I think! Is that your mum?" Charlie asked, throwing the questions at her at a rapid pace.

"I am not a Potter, it's my boyfriend's last name, and his mum is Mia Potter," Lily explained.

"Ew, you have a boyfriend? I only like dragons!" Charlie ran around the room flapping his arms about, in an attempt to make himself look like a dragon.

Lily, who had finally finished brushing her hair, turned to look at Charlie, who had now begun squawking, and laughed the hardest she had in days.

Interested in the sound of laughter, Bill followed the noise to find his brother running about the room still. It was quite the funny scene, he could admit, but he wasn't all that interested to see why Charlie was running around the room like a lunatic.

"Her boyfriend is a Potter!" Charlie spoke with a tone of light disgust, Bill just scrunched his nose.

"How boring! I want to know about Hogwarts because I haven't been able to talk to mum about it very often," Bill raised his eyebrows in anticipation for Lily's answer.

"Well, what do you want to know?" She asked in turn.

"What house are you in?" Charlie started.

"Gryffindor."

"Do you play quidditch?"

"No."

"Boring!" Charlie said copying his brother.

"Well, what do you do then?" Bill spoke in confusion as quidditch seemed like one of the most exciting things at the school.

"I'm head girl this year because it's my last year at Hogwarts and I was a prefect for two years straight."

Lily had near dreaded talking about Hogwarts with the boys as all the things she hadn't wanted to think about washed back. Dumbledore didn't tell her how long she was going to be there for, but she assumed for at least the rest of the school year. This meant she had lost a number of things that only the last year could give her, but she wouldn't take for granted that the last quidditch game she had seen was Gryffindor kicking Slytherin's arse.

"I'm going to go for a walk outside. I just need some alone time. Why don't you boys see if your mum needs help fixing dinner?" Lily left the room before the boys had time to explain they weren't allowed to help with dinner because the last time they had tried, Bill accidentally levitated a knife into the air.

The cool evening air smacked Lily in the face as she ran outside. She knew the magical boundaries quite well and she also knew she was never allowed to push them. If she was to keep herself and the Weasleys safe, she was just going to suck it up and spend her time at the Burrow and coincidentally, the Order Safe House.

Her chest heaved up and down as she felt on the verge of another breakdown. The voice in her head screamed at her, telling her she should've tried harder to save her mum, and that it should've been her lying in the living room floor. Crumbling to the ground, she laid back onto the well kept lawn to stare at the darkening sky.

Great Morgana! I miss you so much, Mum!

Lily tried to bite back the tears, but you can't fight the inevitable. The salty tears licked her cheeks as her despair only deepened because she was an orphan. Henry had taken away her only blood relative—that she was particularly close too—and Dumbledore took away her means of communication with her friends.

She sure hoped James was doing okay.

...

Author's Note:

I know I'm being extremely cruel to every single character in this book right now, but it is far too late now to change the plot.

The idea of this actually sprung from the pandemic lockdown as you couldn't see your friends for awhile and everything seemed hopeless, etc.

I hope this chapter didn't put too much of a damper on your day! I promise there are happier chapters to come!

Lmao anyways thanks for reading
-teddy😑

Emoji courtesy of Aaliyah_hp