Enchanting Melodies (HP SI)

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I tend to upload drafts of early chapters on there to get people's opinions of them so you can read up to 20 chapters ahead as a bonus.

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20 April 1995, Mount Olympus, Greece

Lily Evans knew that she was a bad person. For one, she had killed her own husband and almost caused her son's death. She was responsible for the deaths of thousands, if not tens of thousands of people, in magical Britain with the war that she started. She had lied, manipulated, and caused misery in general to most people who had ever had the misfortune of meeting her. She accepted that, all the bad things she had done out of desperation, out of hope that she would finally be whole once more.

She wanted to restore her connection to her home, to her dimension and was willing to do anything to do that, even betray her own blood. She didn't think she was capable of doing that when she left Harry to die in Durmstrang to save her own hide, and yet she did it. Sure, she had nightmares later and felt horrible about the entire thing, but the sheer relief she felt when using her connection to her dimension, even if it was sluggish, soothed the pain.

It still wasn't enough, though. When she left her son to die, she felt something fundamental shatter. She felt as if she had broken some sort of magical promise, one that went against her very nature. There didn't seem to be a price, at least not one that could be put into words. The world just became greyer, wrong, in a way that she just couldn't describe. She supposed it was a form of grief, something that she thought was immune from feeling, from her time with the Unspeakables. It seemed that a parent's child dying would even make a sociopath feel something.

When Harry returned, there was something inside her that felt so much relief that she put that into words. Despite his cutting words, despite him wanting nothing to do with her, Lily felt happy that she hadn't killed her own son. It didn't exactly make any sense. He had personally done more to hurt her that day than anyone had ever done before. He had messed with her connection to her dimension, even affecting the realm itself, dooming it with a slow death as its energy was slowly being drained into the void between worlds.

All her life, Lily longed for freedom. She wanted to be free of the Department of Mysteries, free of Dumbledore's machinations, free from anyone who tried to keep her down. She found a way to achieve this freedom by forging a connection with a dimension, ascending, in a way, into a being unlimited by the mortality of humanity. She had been so close, and yet her son's meddling put her life's work into jeopardy.

A part of her wanted to take revenge at that, but a much bigger one was just too tired, unwilling to involve Harry in her affairs once more. She destroyed everything around her, and she had already almost killed her son. So, seeing that he was fine, that he would leave Dumbledore and Grindelwald be, she decided that her priority was to forge a new connection with her realm, one that wouldn't snap the more she used it.

The answer to that was obviously the Sixth task of the tournament in Greece. Dumbledore and Grindelwald probably had some insane thing ready, using the magical releases of broken prophecies to prepare for the end of times or something. She didn't know if these men were delusional or if there was an actual threat, but there was very little she could do about it. It wasn't really something that affected her. Her soul was bound to her realm. If she died, her soul would just return to her true home. She wouldn't really die, just stuck in her home. And with the world being destroyed and whatnot, it wasn't exactly a bad deal.

Either way, she decided to focus on forging her connection to her dimension using the remains of the magical release of whatever prophecy the Champions of the Light and Dark had chosen to break. She snuck into Mount Olympus, staying there for days, ready for the magical release to occur. She expected it to be something big, something massive really, considering that this prophecy was likely to be thousands of years old.

However, as the endless mountain trembled, shattering with some form of strange space-time breaches, as monsters that were as large as castles died from just the impact, the magical release was nothing more than pathetic. Her original plan was to reforge her connection to her dimension and try to patch the hole that Harry left there, but there was barely enough to do the former. Even then, she had to cannibalise her already spotty connection to do that. It was a patch job, that worked, but it wasn't nearly what she had planned to do. Still, the comforting warmth of her true home filled her veins. She had reversed the most immediate consequence of Harry's spiteful actions, but there was more to do. Thankfully, she wouldn't be pressed for time.

Still, to say that she was surprised by the disappointing magical release would be an understatement. Something had definitely messed up with Dumbledore's and Grindelwald's plans and Lily couldn't help herself, deciding to see what that was. Imagine her surprise, as she saw her son, standing on a platform of water, somehow channelling the majority of the energy from the magical release towards his girlfriend, vaporizing her curse out of existence.

Lily had noticed what the foolish girl had done months prior. To be perfectly honest, the magic itself was pretty good, aside from the massive blunder, of course. She was very efficient and used what she learned from Lily's blood magic lessons to shift her sister's curse to her. Lily had known that the blonde was severely affected by Harry's death, but that was really reckless, especially since she forgot about her body needing to adapt to the curse. It should have been a slow process, probably one that would have taken a bit more than a year, but Daphne was too hasty. Or perhaps, she decided to just ignore this part on purpose. The blonde had really not taken Harry's 'death' well, so it was a possibility.

Despite what Harry had done to her, Lily had not said a word about what Daphne had done. She was really tempted. It was at the tip of her tongue, but something stopped her. For some reason, she didn't have it in her to cause Harry so much pain, not when she had just found out that he was alive.

It seemed like he found out anyway and had done something insane to help her. He used enough magic to rip a hole in the very fabric of reality, enough magic to pull off a miracle and use it to destroy a curse. She hadn't even known that it was possible to overwhelm a curse the way he did, and yet it worked. He was also singing, well, calling it singing was an understatement. It was more akin to a melody that shaped magic itself, which he was somehow directing to purge a blood curse that was centuries old.

The most unbelieving thing was that it had worked. She couldn't feel the presence of any curse on the young girl, but Lily knew that what happened was definitely not going to be left unnoticed. She was proven right when Grindelwald emerged from the shadows and fought Harry.

Gellert Grindelwald was someone that Lily was wary of fighting. It was practically suicide. And yet, Harry was holding his own. Oh, it was obvious that the Dark Lord wasn't taking this as seriously as he should, and to be fair, Harry was obviously exhausted, but their battle would have definitely been counted as legendary.

They fought in midair at first, as the mountain collapsed around them, before landing on the collapsing mountain and continuing either way. The fight had been going well enough until Harry actually almost killed Gellert Grindelwald. He created some kind of space-time breach and impaled him with a sword made of black ice, injuring him enough not to heal.

That seemed to be the trigger for the Dark Lord not to hold back once more, and Lily felt her body move on its own. It was stupid. Harry had asked her to specifically stay out of his life, he had caused her more misery than any single person had before. He had used her weakened connection with her realm hostage, telling her to leave him alone.

She should have been vindicated to see him fail as she could have helped him, and yet, something primal in her didn't want to see him die. And so, Lily probably did the single stupidest action in her entire life and stood before one of the most powerful Dark Lords in history and her son, using her reforged connection to her dimension to stop the man from executing Harry.

"Stay away from my son!" she snarled at him.

She ignored the pain she felt at the sight of Harry's obvious wary gaze at her back, deciding to stay in front of Grindelwald, doing her best to appear fearless.

The Dark Lord's previously furious face turned into an amused one, "Lily Evans. This is very much unlike you."

"Don't presume that you know me, Grindelwald," the redhead replied.

"You know, people always say that human beings are complex creatures. It's in my experience that we're not, not really. When you strip down all the falsehoods, everyone is very simple. You, my dear, are very easy to read. Your entire life, every single decision in your life, was made out of fear. You probably fooled yourself into thinking that it was all for some grand purpose, to be free of the world's cruelty, but it isn't. All your actions stem from the single idea that you are afraid of being subjected to the cruelties you experienced in the Department of Mysteries once more. There is something sad about that, that even after you took over the damn place, you're still scared of it. You're still the little girl who they turned into their weapon."

Lily stayed silent at that, not denying a single thing, and the Dark Lord continued, "Come on, my dear. There's no need for us to fight. There's no need of a witch of your calibre to die today."

The redhead's answer was simple, "You will not touch my son."

"You son? You betrayed him, left him to die, for your ambition, for your fear. Do not kill yourself trying to pretend to be a good person or a good mother. You are neither. Look at him. Do you think he will ever consider you to be his mother? Do you think he will ever love you?"

Lily shook her head, "No. He will never love me. He will never consider me to be his mother, and the blame for that falls on me and me alone. All my life, I've spent running. You're right, I am a woman driven by fear, and it's time that I stop."

"You will achieve nothing, girl. You will die and he will follow you in death."

"You're assuming that you're going to win," Lily retorted with a subtle grin.

The Dark Lord's eyes turned black, and a cloak of darkness surrounded him, "So be it!"

Grindelwald was definitely trying to stall for time, as a gigantic pillar of destructive energy came from the very ground they were on. Thankfully, Harry had the foresight of conjuring a magic circle and throwing himself away.

Wings made of ash and fire appeared from Lily's back, letting her fly out of the way, and she used her connection to her realm to power a piece of blood magic. It was a lot easier with a dimension worth of power behind her, but channelling this much-needed time, which was why she was also preparing in her 'banter' with Grindelwald.

After all, blood magic was built on the idea of making a contract with the world and using energy, channelled through blood as its binder. This energy was often made through a sacrifice of some kind, but she didn't need any of that. She had her realm after all.

When Lily rolled and landed on the ground, she cut her palm, and released her program, making the destructive magic unable to affect living beings. It was a surprisingly costly contract, but it was enough to take Grindelwald by surprise by flying through a stream of his conceptual destructive magic and appearing unharmed by the other side.

She conjured a blade of ash, channelled by her own realm's power, trying to impale the Dark Lord, only for the man to turn to shadows, making her pass through him. He conjured a giant hand of shadows, grabbing her, only to be destroyed by a wave of golden light by Harry.

Then Lily felt something strange. Something was messing with her connection. It wasn't really that hard, more like a poke or something. She shrugged it, sending a beam of ash at the Dark Lord, who shielded against it. Then Lily felt Grindelwald trying to overpower her contract and grinned slightly. Instead of channelling more magic to stop him, she let it happen, which caused a powerful magical release, which she manipulated into turning into an explosion of ash and flames.

The Dark Lord was barely able to shield against it, only to barely dodge a slash from Harry's black ice sword. Still, he didn't leave unscathed as a small cut appeared on his cheek. Grindelwald glared at them and released a giant explosion of pure darkness. Lily felt herself be pulled away into safety by a magic circle, courtesy of Harry.

Grindelwald slowly rose into the thin air, his cloak of darkness slowly growing around him. Lily was prepared to attack, only for a Hydra that was as large as a castle, to roar behind them. It was covered with that same darkness as Grindelwald, with black lightning obviously growing in each of its dozens of heads.

Damn it, Grindelwald must have distracted them, trying to surround them with the monster that he somehow commanded. And so, mother and son found themselves surrounded by one of the biggest and deadliest magical creatures that she had ever seen and one of the most dangerous Dark Lords in history.

Yes, things didn't look good, but for some reason, Lily had the largest smile she ever had on her face.

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If you want to support me check out my patréon at https://www.patréon.com/athassprkr

I tend to upload drafts of early chapters on there to get people's opinions of them so you can read up to 20 chapters ahead as a bonus.

Thank you guys for your support in these hard times.