Lily Got Her Gun

Lily

The heavy weapon seemed cool to her touch.  It took both hands to hold the pistol on the target, and even then she could see that her aim was far from steady.

"Just like that Toots," her father said quietly from where he stood behind her.  "Don't worry about holding the weapon steady, that will come when you get stronger.  Just squeeze the trigger, that's my girl."

The girl jerked on the trigger like she had seen people on television do.

Click.

"Not like that Toots," Tony Evans said as he gently reached around his youngest daughter to pull the hammer back on the unloaded pistol, while keeping it pointed down range.  "Squeeze slowly and gently.  When the hammer falls, it should surprise you.  Now, try again."

"Daddy, this is boring!" 15 year old Petunia whined from where she sat on watching her sister's lesson.  "Aggie and Jen are having a party and I'm stuck here."

"There will always be another party Pet," the elder Evans said in that quiet way of his.  "The time I can spend with my girls teaching them to take care of themselves is precious to me.  Today we are doing this together."  He turned his attention back to Lily.  "Again Toots, squeeze slowly this time."

12 year old Lily nodded and again tried to steady the pistol on the target, and slowly increased the pressure on the trigger.

Click.

The sound of the hammer falling caused her to jump a bit.

"Surprised you that time didn't it Toots?" her father asked.  Lily nodded her answer.

"Are we done yet?" Petunia whined again.  "This is stupid, when will I ever need a gun?"

"Pet," Tony said with a glare.  "You bloody well know what happened to Mrs. Gavin down the far end of Spinners End last month.  I didn't get my bloody arse shot off at the Suez so that something like that could happen to my daughters at home.  The two of you are learning to defend yourselves and that's final."

"It was probably Lily's freaky friend what did it." Petunia groused.  "He's always skulking about.  He even lives down next to old lady Gavin."

"It was not Severus," Lily protested.  "It wasn't Daddy.  Severus was with me at Hogwarts then."

"Don't let Pet get to you Toots," Tony said.  "She has important teen aged things to do and doesn't think its fair she's stuck her with me and you.  Now then, you've kept your weapon pointed down range this whole time Pet and I were talking, and that's good.  Now then, I want you to squeeze off a few more dry fires, and then I'll teach you how to clean the weapon."

---===oooOOOooo===---

The targets weren't bull-eyes any more, 15 year old Lily Evans noted as she took aim and fired her father's Browning Hi-Power pistol.  The round went wide, perforating the target above and to the left of the human silhouette's shoulder.

"Either you have gotten quite rusty since last summer, or you aren't trying to kill him," her father noted dryly.

"I don't know if I could shoot a man," Lily said in a quiet tone as she slipped off her protective ear muffs.  "This seems somehow... wrong."

"Killing a man is always wrong Toots," Tony Evans agreed.  "The only thing more wrong is allowing a man to kill you or someone you care about when you could have stopped him."

"But Daddy..." she said.  She laid the pistol down on the shooting table and turned to face her father.  "You don't..."

Tony raised his hand, cutting off Lily's protest.  "From the stories you've told me about your magical lot, there's a bastard with a small army out there killing people. People like you and your friends."

"Voldemort," Lily nodded.

"Stupid name," Tony sniffed.  "Sometimes I think that I should go recruit a few of the lads from 3rd Battalion and sort the bastards out..."

"Daddy..."

"Fine," Tony smiled at his daughter's frustration with him.  She was so like her mother.  "Suppose this Volde lad shows up and is set on killing your werewolf friend Regus,"

"Remus.  His name is Remus Lupin," Lily corrected.

"Of course it is, His name is 'Lupin' and he's a werewolf."

"Daddy!"

"Yes Toots, so this terrorist is going to kill your friend.  Do you try and talk him out of it or do you defend your friend Remus?"

"Of course I'd defend Remus!" Lily huffed.

"Of course you would, you're my daughter after all.  From what you've told me the use of magic involves both talent and study.  All the reports from that school of yours tell your mother and me that you are an extremely talented young woman.  Do you think you could match this Voldefella in magic?"

"No," Lily admitted.

"Well there you go Toots.  You need an edge, and this old pistol can be your edge.  Until the terrorists are dealt with, I want you carrying this weapon everywhere you go.  I know you've got storage in your things that will allow you to hide it.  My old army piece could keep you alive."

Lily was shocked by the tears she saw in her father's eyes, and by the pleading tone of his voice.  She turned back to the targets, and picked up the Browning.  She took careful aim, and squeezed the trigger, just as her father had taught her..

The round punched a hole in the center of the silhouette.

"That's my girl," Tony Evans whispered behind her.

---===oooOOOooo===---

17 year old Lily Evans stood, her head hanging as she found she couldn't look away from her parent's caskets as they were lowered into the dark earth.  Petunia and her new husband Vernon stood at her side.

Before it could register, the service was over and Lily was being consoled by the other mourners, and then she was alone in her parent's house with Petunia and Vernon.

"Don't think you'll be moving back here after you're done with your freak school,"  Vernon growled.  "We've seen the will, the house goes to Pet, and it will be sold right off.  We've found a nice home in a nice normal community, the kind of place your sort isn't welcome."

"I've no intention of living anywhere near you Vernon," Lily said, not really able to produce the indignant response the fat oaf deserved.  "Though it might interest you to know that respecting a person's personal grief is a normal thing to do."

"We'll be putting the things they left you into storage." Petunia spat.  "I'll write and let you know where it is and what you'll owe."

Lily sighed.  "Did you wait until the doctors pronounced them dead Pet?  Or where you digging through Mum's jewelry as soon as you heard about the accident?  Were you having the house appraised while they were still in the Casualty ward?  I'll leave with what I want to remember Mum and Daddy by, you can have the rest."

"We'll be watching to make sure you aren't stealing what is rightfully Pet's" Vernon threatened.

That finally did it.  The anger had finally burned through the grief. Lily's wand was in her hand and Vernon Dursley found himself crushed against the wall by an invisible force. "Vernon, your tiny little mind isn't capable of understanding just what I can do to you.  So I'm going to explain it in small words.  Unless you want to spend the rest of your miserable ignorant life as a small toad, you will never speak to me again."  She stepped forward until she was eye to eye with the suspended fat man, while ignoring her screaming sister.  "Do we understand each other Vernon?"

The fat man managed to nod and Lily walked away.  Vernon remained pressed to the wall until Lily had left the room.

---===oooOOOooo===---

"Lily, take Harry and go! It's him! Go! Run! I'll hold him off!"

So, Potter thought he could defy the greatest Dark Lord in history yet again?  This time without even a wand in his hand? ... Voldemort laughed before casting the curse ...

"Avada Kedavra!"

The green light pulsed, flooding the cramped hallway, the flash freezing everything around it, like a strobe.  The pram pushed against the wall reflected the green light, the banisters glowed like the neon lights he recalled from his childhood in London before the war, and James Potter fell like a marionette whose strings were cut...

Voldemort could hear the woman screaming from the upper floor, trapped, but as long as she was sensible, she, at least, had nothing to fear...  He climbed the steps, listening with faint amusement to her attempts to barricade herself in ...

She had no wand with her either ... How stupid these two were, and how trusting, thinking that their safety lay in friends, that weapons could be discarded even for a moment...

Voldemorte forced the door open, moving the chair and boxes hastily piled against it with one lazy wave of his wand ... and there she stood, the child in her arms. At the sight of him, she dropped her son into the cot behind her and threw her arms wide, as if this would help, as if in shielding him from sight she hoped to be chosen instead ...

"Not Harry, not Harry, please not Harry!"

"Stand aside, you silly girl... stand aside, now."

"Not Harry, please no, take me, kill me instead…" she pleaded

"This is my last warning…"

A smile stretched across Voldemort’s face when he saw the woman’s resolve break, like so many before her, he watched as her shoulders slumped and her proud head lowered in submission.  Severus would so enjoy his reward.  “Please?” she whispered while moving aside.

The child had not cried all this time. He stood, clutching the bars of his cot, and he looked up into the stranger's face with a kind of bright interest, perhaps thinking that it was his father who hid beneath the cloak, making more pretty lights, and his mother would at any moment resume her laughing teasing…

The Dark Lord pointed the wand very carefully into the boy's face: He wanted to see it happen, the destruction of this one, inexplicable danger. The boy began to cry.  He had had realized that this stranger was not James. Voldemort did not like the crying, he had never been able to bear the small ones whining back at the orphanage… It was time to stop the crying, to end this absurd threat.  Voldemort raised his wand “Ava…”

Voldemort’s last sensation was the feeling of a bee sting behind his left ear, as Lily Potter emptied her father’s Browning Hi-Power pistol’s 13 round magazine into his head and chest, just as Anthony Evans had taught both his daughters all those years before. In a smooth motion she ejected the spent magazine and inserted one of the two reserve magazines she had been carrying in her robes since the Potters had fled under the Fidelius. She dropped the slide and scooped up the Dark Lord’s wand.

The loud cracks of the pistol firing had startled young Harry out of his tears, but the sounds did not frighten him. No child who had successfully survived fifteen months in the company of James Potter, Sirius Black, Remus Lupin and Peter Pettigrew would be frightened by a mere explosion. No, loud noises like that meant that fun things were about to happen!

Lily waved her captured wand a few times and got nothing from it. Of course not , she thought.  Her own wand was in the kitchen, but no force on Earth could make her leave this room until help arrived. Lily tossed the wand aside, not seeing or caring where it landed. She settled herself onto the floor facing the door, her father’s pistol still in her hand with the hammer back and the safety off.

The thrown wand bounce off the wall and arced into the boy’s cot. Harry’s green eyes grew wide in excitement. A light stick! Harry picked up the wand using both of his chubby hands. This wasn’t Mum’s light stick. It wasn’t Da’s either. It was different than Pafoo’s and Mooey’s and Wormies’. It looked like the light stick the scary man had held. Had he come to bring Harry his own light stick?

Unnoticed by his near hysterical mother, Harry waved the wand over a small arc and was rewarded by a shower of silent golden sparks. That was funny!

Lily twitched slightly at the sound of her son’s giggles. Sirius, please come. James said you might come over tonight, please come help me! She screamed inside her mind.

---===oooOOOooo===---

Outside the cottage, Peter Pettigrew cowered behind a tree. He had seen the Dark Lord enter the home of his best friends in the world. Because he had betrayed them to him.

Self-loathing filled his soul as he sobbed in regret for what he had done, but really, he hadn’t had a choice. No one could deny the Dark Lord. No one. Peter HAD tried to resist… really, he had. He had lasted almost two days before he gave the Dark Lord what he wanted.

In doing so, he had doomed James, sweet Lily and little Harry.

He cringed as he heard James screaming for Lily to take Harry and run. He saw the flash of green light that had ended James’ life. There was silence for a few seconds, and then the Dark Lord’s laughter issued from the upstairs window that Peter knew opened into Harry’s room. Lily’s pleading for Harry’s life reached him as well, then there were more than a dozen unexplained cracks, like a string of fireworks, then nothing.

Peter had waited ten minutes now, and there was no sign of the Dark Lord, none at all. He summoned what little courage he possessed and slowly made his way to the shattered door of the cottage, wondering why the hat had ever thought he should be in Gryffindor. He found James in the shattered living room, the dead man’s eyes open and staring into nothing. Peter knelt next to his old friend and gently closed those eyes while real tears ran down his own cheeks.

“I’m sorry James. I’m so sorry.” He sobbed, silently cursing his own cowardice.

Peter rose to his feet and ascended the stairs silently heading toward Harry’s room. Arriving on the landing, he could see that the door to Harry’s room was open. Using his Marauder taught stealth, he approached the doorway and stepped silently into the room.

To find he was staring down the barrel of Lily’s pistol.

“Lily! It’s me, Peter.”

“Peter?” the hysterical woman asked. “Peter! Thank god!” She rose from the floor in that fluid grace of hers and rushed to envelope her friend in a hug. “You’ve got to help me protect Harry!”

Peter was amazed to find the Dark Lord’s body lying lifeless on the floor, and slightly sickened by the spray of blood and other bits of Voldemort’s body that painted the floor and far wall. Lily released him and rushed to gather up a few items of Harry’s clothing.

“We’ve got to get out of here. There’s no way Voldemort would have come alone, there will be Death Eaters coming.” She stopped grabbing at the baby clothes. “Voldemort broke the Fidelius.” She reasoned. “But that’s not possible. The only way he could have found us is if…”

“Accio pistol!” Peter spat, snatching the Muggle weapon from the air as it arced toward him. “I’m sorry Lily, but he captured me, and did horrible things to me. He broke me. I was never strong like James and Sirius and Remus, you all knew that. This is really all James’ fault you know. If he had just used Sirius like we originally planned, none of this would have happened. But no, they had to be clever. Use Peter, no one would suspect that we trusted Peter.”

“Peter! Please, you’re Harry’s uncle in everything but blood!”

“And I always will be Lily. I will have to disappear, but Sirius and Remus will raise him to be a next generation Marauder, but you, you know what I did. You’re going to have to die.”

“Peter!” she screamed.

Mum screaming woke Harry from his dozing state. He looked up and saw Wormie. He could show Wormie his new light stick… What did big people call them? Wads!

Harry stood up in his crib. “Wormie!” he laughed.

Harry’s voice startled Peter, he saw his almost nephew’s smiling face and his heart broke a little more. “Hello Harry. Why don’t you lie down and take a nap?”

“Wormie! Look!” He raised the Yew wood wand. “Harry Wad!”

Peter’s eyes widened at the sight of the infant holding the Dark Lord’s wand.

“Harry, you need to give me that wand,” Peter said as he reached for the wand that had killed and tortured so many.

“NO!” Harry screamed backing away. It wasn't fair! Wormie had his wad, why did he want to take Harry’s wad? The boy pointed the wand at Peter as he had observed the adults using their own all his short life. “Wormie go way!”

It was Lily’s turn to stare in open mouthed amazement as a solid beam of golden energy lanced from the wand in Harry’s grip to Peter’s chest, throwing the man across the room impacting him hard enough into the wall to embed his body into the plaster. Both Peter’s wand and Lily’s pistol fell from the unconscious man’s hands.

“Harry Wad!” the little boy said. “Mum! Wad!”

Lily rushed to her son and swept him into her arms. “Yes, Harry’s wand.”

“Bloody Hell!” A familiar voice came from down stairs. “Lily! Harry!” Sirius Black screamed as he ran up the stairs to the second floor.

“In here Sirius.” Lily called.

Still in his duty uniform, Sirius came through the doorway in a combat stance. The scion of the Black family stared opened mouthed at the cooling body of the Dark Lord, then his eyes flicked to Peter’s moaning form still embedded in the plaster.

“Padfoo!” Harry called.

“Harry! Lily, I saw James and I was so…” he wrapped the mother and son into a hug. “Peter saved you?” he asked incredulously.

“No. Peter betrayed us to Voldemort.” Lily explained. “I killed Voldemort and then Peter came in, he was going to kill me to keep anyone from finding out what he had done, when Harry somehow got Voldemort’s wand and he…”

“Harry Wad!” the boy said proudly waving it about causing golden sparks to fly about the room.

“He can’t do that.” Sirius said, feeling stupid as he said it.

“He blasted Peter across the room.” Lily noted. “In theory a child his age may not have a sufficiently developed core to power a wand, but in practice ‘Harry’s Wad’ works just fine.”

“Harry Wad!” the toddler agreed.

---===oooOOOooo===---

“Are you sure Peter won’t wake up?” Lily asked nervously as she draped a sheet over James’ still form.

“No way in hell. I used a full Auror lockdown on him. He’s down for a week if not given the proper potion once he’s in a cell. I’ll make sure they know he's an animagus to he won’t be getting out of the cell as a rat either.” Sirius looked around the room trying not to look down at his oldest friend. “Have you got everything you need? It might be a few days before the Crime Scene types let you back in.”

“I am never coming back here.” She patted the pockets of her robes feeling the shrunken fragments of her life as well as her wand. She scooped a sleeping Harry into her arms. “I’m ready, are you finished upstairs?”

“Yeah, I got photos of the crime scene, and then I went through Riddle’s pockets for change. Three Galleons, four Sickles, and two Knuts. Score!”

“I know what you’re doing Sirius, but I don’t think even you could cheer me up tonight.”

“You can’t blame an old dog for trying Lils. I’m just trying to keep from crying. Let’s go.”

Together they exited the cottage and found Reubus Hagrid on the steps.

"Lily!" the half giant exclaimed.  "Thank Merlin yer alright.  Perfesser Dumbledore sent me ter get Harry, ter move him somewhere safe."

"Dumbledore sent you?" Lily asked, puzzled by that information.  "How did he know that we would need help?  And why didn't he come himself?"

"Dunno," the half giant shrugged.  "When the Perfesser asks me ter do summat, I do it.  Great man Dumbledore."

Lily and Sirius exchanged looks.  "That doesn't make any sense Hagrid.  If Dumbledore knew that You Know Who was coming for James and Lily, why wasn't he here to help?" Sirius asked again.

That line of questioning seemed to give the gentle giant pause for a moment, until he quite visibly made up his mind.  "Perfesser Dumbledore will explain everythin'.  He always does.  He told me to get Harry an' take him to a safe place, an' he said tha' I wasn' to let anyone stop me.  Let me have the cute little tyke an' I'll be on my way."

"You're not taking Harry, Hagrid," Sirius said placing himself between Lily and his old friend while drawing his wand.  "It's not going to happen."

"Now Sirius Black," Hagrid rumbled.  "Yeh know unless yer willin' to kill me, there isn' much yer magic can do to me.  Now step aside."

Still holding her sleeping son, Lily pushed past Sirus and extended her right arm.  Hagrid found himself staring into the barrel of the Browning.  "Hagrid, we were already betrayed once tonight by someone I thought was a friend.  If you move to touch my son, I will kill you.  There may be little I could do to you magically, but I suspect that a bullet in your eye will kill you as effectively as any other person."

The half giant's bushy eyebrows shot up toward his hairline.  "Yeh'd kill me Lily?"

"If you try to take Harry from me, yes," the young woman answered in a manner that left no doubt as to her resolve.

"But..." Hagrid paused for a moment, "Perfessor Dumbledore said..."

"We don't give a damn what Dumbledore says," Sirius barked.  "James Potter is dead.  Harry Potter is the last of that line, and no one, not you, not Dumbledore, not even the Wizengamot is going to take that boy away from his mother.  Go back to Dumbledore and tell him Harry is safe with his mother."

With that, Black turned his back on the half giant and led his best friend's widow to his waiting motorcycle.

Hagrid watched as the big bike's sidecar was enlarged and attached, and the trio drove off into the night.

Dumbledore wasn't going to like this.

---===oooOOOooo===---

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Lily