More Than You Could Ask For
- "I was just wondering... before my father died... did he tell you anything, anything at all, that would give you an idea that he realized what had happened to me?”-
The Gryffindor team stood in the centre of the pitch, broomsticks securely on their shoulders, looking up at the bright blue sky. It was the perfect weather for a match, especially an important match like this one; they couldn’t risk losing. They had to make it to the finals, no matter what. They could see the Ravenclaw team approaching them from the opposite end of the field; the game was about to start. Lily looked around at the team and gave them a nod, signaling for them to get ready. Lily scratched the back of her head, hoping that she would stay in this condition for the game. When she had woken up that morning she felt perfectly okay; she just needed to remain that way until Harry caught the Snitch.
When both teams were facing each other, Madam Hooch approached, carrying the chest with the game balls.
“Captains,” she said, looking at Lily and the Ravenclaw Captain, Anthony Goldstein. “Shake hands.” Lily and Anthony quickly shook hands and got ready. “Now, mount your brooms.” The teams mounted their brooms and took off with a roar of excitement coming from the stands.
“Welcome to another fine game of Quidditch,” said commentator Jacob Lawrence. “Today’s match is Gryffindor verses Ravenclaw. This is a very important match, as everyone knows; this decides who will be facing Slytherin in the Quidditch Finals. The Quaffle has been released and the game is on!”
The Chasers lunged forward, scrambling to get the Quaffle and Demelza Robins of Gryffindor emerged with the Quaffle tucked safely under her arm. She sped towards the Ravenclaw Keeper and tossed the Quaffle and,
“Score for Gryffindor!” shouted Jacob as the scoreboard changed to 10-0 in Gryffindor’s favour. Lily was now in possession of the Quaffle and was aiming to score. “Black of Gryffindor, back from her sick leave, is now in possession of the Quaffle. She shoots, and misses.”
There was a groan of disappointment from the Gryffindor end and a loud uproar from Ravenclaw. Lily, yet again, had the Quaffle, but when she was moving towards the Ravenclaw end she slowed down and seemed to space out, only to be brought back to reality by Harry yelling at her. Now woken up, she managed to score for Gryffindor, making the score 20-0. The game went on in a pattern after that, first Gryffindor would score, then Ravenclaw, then Gryffindor, and on it went. Harry had to find that snitch soon otherwise the game would never end.
Lily was beginning to feel dizzy; they needed to get that snitch. They were not going to postpone the match because of her. She managed to narrowly avoid being hit by a Bludger and decided that instead of trying to score, she would just prevent the other team from scoring. She managed to stop a Ravenclaw Chaser from scoring on Ron, who seemed immensely grateful about this. The game went on and still neither Seeker had caught sight of the Snitch. It seemed that the game had gone on for four hours rather than two. Ginny had just scored making the score 160-140 in Gryffindor’s favour.
“So we’re now entering the third hour of the match,” said a rather bored Jacob. “These players must have some bladders because if I have to stand here for one more second “”
“Lawrence,” said Professor McGonagall warningly.
“Sorry. Anyway, Gryffindor is now in possession of the Quaffle. Weasley shoots and scores. 170-140, Gryffindor.” The Gryffindors cheered unenthusiastically and went on watching the game as though they were sitting in History of Magic. “Black of Gryffindor is now in possession of the Quaffle - shoots and misses, the score remains the same.”
Lily snapped her fingers in disappointment and turned to help her fellow Chasers. However, as she was nearing them, her stomach lurched painfully and her head felt as though it might explode. She ignored it and went on, her eyes squinted in pain. She couldn’t move any further; she was in such pain she couldn’t muster the energy to move her broom. She tried to lower herself closer to the ground, but a sheet of blackness covered her eyes and she passed out. It was only faintly that she heard someone from far away yell in the midst of cheers, “Professor McGonagall, look!”
“Lily! Lily, wake up!” said an anxious voice from somewhere in the distance. But Lily didn’t want to wake up; she liked it in the darkness. The pain didn’t seem as intense here; if she opened her eyes it would be worse. “Lily, please.”
Using all of her strength, Lily opened her eyes and found that she was still lying in the Quidditch pitch. She couldn’t have been out for too long. Professor McGonagall was sitting over her, her face pale. Lily made to sit up but the professor quickly stopped her.
“No, don’t move.” Lily didn’t need telling twice, her whole body ached and her back was searing in pain. “Potter just went to get Madam Pomfrey.”
Lily stayed on the ground, breathing heavily, trying to remember what happened before she blacked out. She had been trying to catch up with the Chasers, but her stomach was churning and her head was pounding. She must have blacked out. She must have fallen off her broom. That was when she realised that all around her the Gryffindor team was watching her nervously, though they could hardly contain their grins. That was when she remembered the match… they must have won if the team was smiling. Professor McGonagall seemed to figure out what she was thinking, as she said that Harry had managed to snag the snitch right when she hit the ground.
Lily smiled, pleased that they were in the finals, but even smiling made her body ache, so she stopped. Madam Pomfrey appeared next to Professor McGonagall and observed Lily through wide eyes. The nurse stood up, waved her wand, and Lily found herself floating in thin air.
She was brought to the Hospital Wing where Harry, Ron and Hermione were waiting, their faces as pale as McGonagall’s. They immediately stood up when the nurse walked in and made way for her to walk through. Madam Pomfrey made a simple wand movement and Lily landed softly on the one of the beds. Harry, Ron and Hermione took seats around her bed and waited for the nurse to do what she needed to.
“We won,” said Harry, trying to make conversation.
Lily smiled, though she already knew they had won. She wanted to say something, but her jaw was completely against moving, much like the rest of her body. She was in so much pain she couldn’t stand it. Madam Pomfrey came back into the room moments later with her arms full of potions. She shooed Harry, Ron and Hermione from the room and immediately began administering the potions to her patient. The potions tasted horrible, much like all of the potions she took after her transformation in January, but they enabled her to ask questions.
“What happened?” she asked the nurse between potions.
Madam Pomfrey capped the bottle she was holding, “You fell off your broom,” she said plainly. Then, elaborating, she continued, “no one seemed to notice as Potter had just caught the Snitch, but the commentator saw and yelled it out. You may have broken your back, so that was why Professor McGonagall wanted you to remain still.”
Lily had thought that was what happened, as her back was still throbbing, but Madam Pomfrey didn’t care if she moved. In fact, she encouraged it. Lily was done taking her potions and was now watching lazily as Madam Pomfrey moved about the Hospital Wing, muttering about how dangerous Quidditch was. She could also hear the nurse say that they should not have let Lily play in the condition she was in. Normally, Lily would’ve disagreed with the nurse, saying she was in perfect condition for a match, but now she agreed. She had been so stupid to have begged Professor McGonagall to let her play when she knew very well how sick she was. She just didn’t want to let her team down, and she wanted to have some fun. Was that too much to ask? She didn’t think it was.
She wished this hadn’t happened. She wished she was never bitten by the werewolf. She wished that she had known better than to take a potion from Professor Snape when he was in a foul mood. She wished she had never been in St. Mungo’s with an illness that could kill her. Most of all, she wished that she had never been taken away from her real family. She had always wished Sirius had never been framed because of the injustice of it and that Sirius was a man who didn’t deserve to be imprisoned. Now she wished he hadn’t been imprisoned and that Peter had been caught because than Rachael never would have given her up. True she would still have her doubts about giving Lily the same childhood she had; she wouldn’t worry as much because Sirius would have been there to reassure her.
Sirius had known that she was his daughter. Sirius had found out within the very last hours, or days, of his life that his long lost daughter had been right under his nose the whole time. She wondered if Sirius had told anyone about his discovery. He clearly didn’t tell Remus because Remus was so shocked himself to find this out. Then she thought, what if he told Dumbledore? Professor Dumbledore would have been the first person he would have told if it hadn’t been Remus. Then why would the professor keep it from her? Unless he didn’t want anyone to tell her until Sirius did, that had to be it. She needed to ask him, but she couldn’t get to his office with Madam Pomfrey still lurking about. Luckily the door to the ward opened and in strode the Headmaster himself, with Rachael standing behind him.
Rachael’s face was incredibly pale as she looked at her daughter; the reoccurrences of these accidents was definitely getting to her. She didn’t know how much more of this she could take. Professor Dumbledore put a comforting hand on Rachael’s shoulder and pushed her down into a seat beside the hospital bed.
“Well, Miss Black,” he said in his most pleasant voice. “It seems that, yet again, you have had us all frightened.”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to “”
Dumbledore held up a hand to stop her. “No need to apologise, I understand your wanting to play in the match after having been refused to the last time. You want to lead your team to victory, do you not?”
“Well, yes, but-”
“Then you must learn to pace yourself. You have been stricken with an illness that is unknown to our kind; we have not yet been able to understand the cause of it.” Lily exchanged a significant glance with her mother, both of them thinking along the same lines. “So you mustn’t try to do everything at once and exert yourself to do things you know you are in no condition to do. Do you understand?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Very good, now if you’ll excuse me.”
Now it was Lily’s turn to stop him.
“Wait, Professor, I wanted to ask you something, privately,” she added, giving her mother a pointed glance.
“But of course, Miss Black.” Professor Dumbledore strode over to the door, opening it for Rachael, who left rather reluctantly. Resuming his seat, he nodded his head for her to continue.
“I was just wondering… before my father died… did he tell you anything, anything at all, that would give you an idea that he realised what had happened to me?”
Professor Dumbledore sighed heavily and rubbed his temples.
“You have to understand that your father loved you very much,” Professor Dumbledore said. “I remember the first Order meeting he attended after you were born, he brought you with him and couldn’t help but show you off to us. He only wanted what was best for you. So, to answer your question, yes, he did tell me.”
“Well, what’d he say?”
“He said he was happy you’d grown up away from them. He had always said when he became a father, he wanted to be more than that; he wanted to be able to be friends with his child. By you growing up away from your family, he was able to do that. He became your friend. He said he had been becoming suspicious. You know very well the striking resemblance you share with your mother, he didn’t want to get his hopes up when he had seen it. He couldn’t deny that you have his eyes.
“The night before he died I had been at Headquarters discussing Remus’s mission for the Order, he asked to speak with me privately. He told me of his suspicions and I confirmed them.”
“Wait…” said Lily slowly. Professor Dumbledore had known all along and he had never bothered to tell her? “You knew this?”
“Indeed, I did,” Dumbledore concurred. “But you’ll remember that it was your mother who wanted to reveal this to you. I had no say in the matter. All I could do was to tell Sirius that you were not Lily Jameson as he had thought, but Lily Black, the daughter he had loved so much.”
Lily nodded, her stomach in a painful knot. Sirius had known and that was what made her knowing worse. She had never gotten to speak to her true father as his daughter. She had only talked to him as the girl that was friends with his godson, whom he adored as though he was his son.
“Sirius did love Harry very much,” said Dumbledore as though he had read her mind. “It probably makes you wonder if he used the love he had for you and gave it to Harry.” Lily nodded shamefully. “He admitted that to me. He said that if he couldn’t love his daughter that much because he didn’t know her, then he could at least do the same for his godson. The next day at the Ministry, when we were getting ready to leave, he told me that if anything happened to him and he never got the chance, he wanted me to tell you that he is proud of you. You are more than he could ever ask for.”
Professor Dumbledore left, probably thinking that he had made Lily feel better by telling her what he had, but he had done the complete opposite. She felt horrible, not for herself, she felt bad for Sirius. He had never known his daughter because he was locked up in Azkaban for twelve years; he was taken away from everything he loved so much. James and Lily were killed, he was blamed for it. Peter had betrayed them all. Sirius left Remus without his friends. His wife and daughter were left thinking that he had betrayed them, when that was the last thing he ever wanted to do. Sure she had never known her true family for years, but at least she was with people who loved her as though she were their own. Sirius never had that even when he was child. He wasn’t anything but a blood traitor to his parents; Hogwarts was his home where his friends lived.
Maybe that was why Sirius and Rachael got along so well. They both had similar situations when it came to their families. Rachael had a mother who had hated her with every gut and nerve she possessed. Sirius was an insult to his family, but such a great person to others. Then he was thought to be a murderer and a betrayer throughout the entire Wizarding community, when he was the one who was betrayed. Everyone had betrayed him. Every person who thought it was his fault that Lily and James died had betrayed him, and that even meant his own wife. He was the one who was betrayed and, even though he was innocent, he still died with the title of murderer. The ones who knew that it wasn’t his fault were the ones that really mattered.
Rachael peered into the room and saw that her daughter was awake; looking as though she could use some company.
“How are you feeling?” Rachael asked.
“Fine,” Lily lied. “Mum, you don’t have to be here. Madam Pomfrey’s taking good care of me.” She didn’t like what her condition was doing to her mother, she wanted it to end.
“No,” said Rachael firmly. “I will stay here until I want to leave.”
“Mum, please, I don’t want to talk to anyone!”
“Then we don’t have to talk,” Rachael said simply, making herself comfortable on her chair.
Lily opened her mouth to protest but one look at her mother told her it was useless, she wasn’t budging. Lily wasn’t going to give her the satisfaction of talking to her, so she rolled over onto her side, squinting in pain as she did so. She shut her eyes, willing herself to fall asleep. However, it was still too early to fall asleep. It could only be mid afternoon at the very latest. The match had last three hours, but it had started at eleven; it must have been around three.
She knew her mother hadn’t left the room, nor changed her position at all. She was going to stubbornly wait for her daughter to break and talk to her. Rachael didn’t seem to need Lily to start the conversation; she started one on her own.
“What you did was something Sirius would’ve done,” she said in a reminiscent sort of voice. “Playing when you knew you couldn’t, that is… Sirius always did stuff he shouldn’t when he was sick or injured.” She waited for Lily to say something, but Lily was determined to fall asleep so she could finally get the privacy she wanted. “I remember one time he had a really bad case of the flu and it was a full moon and he still went to the Shrieking Shack. He ended up falling down the stairs from being so sick. Luckily he didn’t break any bones.”
“That’s great, Mum,” Lily muttered, letting her annoyance show in her voice. “But I really-”
“Dumbledore told me what you wanted to ask him,” Rachael interrupted.
This got Lily’s attention and she rolled over to face her mother.
“Did he?” she said.
“Yes and you should be happy to know how proud he was of you. You really are the daughter he always wanted.”
“But I don’t feel happy,” Lily said hopelessly. “I mean, I knew Sirius, but I never knew my dad.”
“Yes you did!” Rachael disagreed. “That man who you knew was your father; he acted as he always had!”
“How do you know? You didn’t decide to show up until Uncle Remus called you!” Lily didn’t know what had come over her, but she had the desire to let everything that had been boiling up inside of her come out in this furious rage. “How hard could you have looked? Hogwarts would’ve been the first place you looked!”
Rachael looked as though she had been struck across the face.
“Don’t you talk to me like that,” she warned.
“I don’t care! I thought I knew who I was and then one day you pop up and suddenly I realise I was an orphan? That my mother just gave me up because she didn’t know if she could hack being a mother.”
“Lily, I didn’t want you-”
““ To have the childhood you did, but it wasn’t all bad! Your mother loved you, didn’t she? It was just that one day when you went into the forest when it all ended. But that was when you were eight! Wait, I know the next part too… you spent that next three years in living hell, right? But then you went to Hogwarts and it was all good! Second year stunk, didn’t it? But after that it couldn’t have been all bad? Grandma was in Azkaban then, and then she was under house arrest. The only reason fifth year was horrible for you was because grandpa died and Sirius kissed some other girl.”
“I was only fifteen when I lost my dad-”
“So was I! And you know what was worse? I didn’t know it. It took me months before I knew Sirius was my dad. I just wish I had gotten to talk to him as his daughter! Was that too much to ask?” Rachael didn’t say anything, so Lily continued. “I bet it is, isn’t it? But, you know, if all goes as planned I might be speaking to him very soon, won’t I?”
“Lily, don’t talk like that.”
“I’ll talk any way I want to! We all know I’m going to die right? So why not shout it to the world? Let every Wizard and Muggle know that I am going to die!”
The door to the Hospital Wing office swung open and Madam Pomfrey came bustling in, looking quite scandalized.
“What has been going on out here?” she exclaimed, looking from Lily to Rachael.
Rachael got up and put her cloak on.
“I was just trying to have a chat with Lily here,” she said in the most pleasant voice she could muster. Then, looking down at her daughter, she smiled in a grim sort of way. “I won’t make that mistake again.”
With a curt nod to Madam Pomfrey, she left the ward and slammed the door behind her. Madam Pomfrey looked curiously at Lily, wondering what had caused Rachael to say what she did, but she shrugged it off and returned to her office.
Lily knew that her mother was trying to make her feel bad, but she didn’t feel that way at all. She had meant everything she said. She didn’t want to hear any more about Rachael’s childhood and how she never had a decent family. That wasn’t anything compared to never knowing your family, and then realising that someone you had been talking to for two years was really your father. Then she had him die before you could ever make the connection. She didn’t why her mother would keep bringing her childhood up, it just made Lily feel horrible. Why would she insist on sitting there when Lily blatantly stated that she didn’t want to talk to anyone? She wanted privacy; it was the least they could do for her.