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The first person Lily Evans ever loved, and she meant really loved, not childish crushes, red cheeks, and giggling, the first person Lily Evans ever ached for was Pandora Lovegood. It started during Fourth year, the last good year they’ll later say, and they were so very young and had a habit of doing all the terribly fun things rebelling teens did. Well, Pandora did, Pandora and the green curling around her neck and her enticing smile and the way her hands were always so warm against Lily’s. Pandora wanted the world and Lily could only follow behind her.
And so they stayed out late and snuck through winding, secret passages decades old, and Pandora’s finger’s dug into her arm and Lily could smell the lavender in her hair when they were this close together. They went to Hogsmeade and Lily's mouth burned from fire whiskey but it was worth it, worth the flush on Pandora’s cheeks and her sweet, sweet laughter. It was worth the whisper of, my own fire, when she went particularly red, when the heat of the pub was too much and their cloaks were tossed to the side. All the trouble, all the nagging from Severus about the bags under her eyes and the smell coming off her robes because she forgot to wash them, all of it was worth the look in Pandora’s eyes and the smile she would throw Lily from across the room. Small and barely there but Lily could see it, Lily could see it and she cherished it, their own little secret.
And they were so happy, the two of them and their secret, they were so happy. But of course, everything has to come to an end, this is not a coming of age story. Although Lily supposes one night, curled under her rainbow covers she’s had since she was six, that this is, in a way, was a coming of age. Coming of age with a newspaper crumpled under her bed, the death tally growing in dark black ink. Coming of age and jinx’s thrown at her back and sneers and harsh whispers and that God awful word. Coming of age and the tables are growing more and more empty. Coming of age in war is still coming of age.
Fifth year was the end of it all, a bit dramatic but it was the truth. It was the end of their true, carefree days, the end of the blissful childish innocence they could pull over their eyes and hide under them like they were seven and scared of thunder. It was the end of pretending and Lily wasn’t many things, a pureblood, good enough for them, strong enough, smart enough, but she was a realist. And there was no point in pretending that everything was okay, that nothing was changing. It was Fifth year and the Wizarding world was delving into chaos and Lily Evans wanted to kiss Pandora Lovegood under a willow tree and see her lovely brown skin flush.
Fifth year might have been the end of the world but it kept spinning, muggles were dying and Lily brushed her finger over their names and then got up and went to her classes. Some Malfoy or the next threw a curse at her feet and she hopped over it, smiled at him in a way that Petunia had always marked as infuriating and when he wasn’t looking during dinner, his plate became slugs. Pandora Lovegood smiled at her, knocked their shoulders together, before leaving Lily, and all she could smell was lavender, lavender and rose. Remus smeared ink over his hand and his paper and his face and looked so hopeless with Sirius and James laughing in the background, that she had to take pity on him. Professor McGonagall taught them spells to fight, to defend, to hide and Lily wondered if fifth years a decade ago learned this. She already knew the answer; they didn’t. Her father died and Lily knew grief, knew the hollow feeling that came with a piece of you dying. And when the Malfoy or the next sneered, when they whispered that word like a curse she snarled and broke his nose with her muggle fists. The world ended and it kept turning and Lily Evans lived.
The last day of Fifth year before they left was a warm, dull day that called you to the nearest nook, to the hammock swaying in the trees. Bags were packed and the castle was buzzing and so were the ones left, it was a contradiction for all those involved, they both yearned to leave and yet they savored every moment, desperately clinging to it. Lily Evans, clad in a striped white shirt and jean shorts, hair in a long braid down her back, the only thing saving it from the frizzy storm it became during the summer, was walking alongside the lake. She was taking in Hogwarts in all its majesty, because a thought, a feeling was bugging her. Something was changing and nothing would be the same, and Lily had a feeling it would be for the worse.
Now if anyone had been watching Lily and the particular expression on her face that meant she was thinking, they would have seen a figure running up behind her, a girl with blonde braids and brow skin and an elated smile on her face. Nobody had been there and that is why Pandora Lovegood in all her greatness, threw herself onto Lily Evans's back, cackling while she did so. After the play fighting, and God how Lily wished to impress Pandora’s laughter into her mind, to bottle it up and take it with her, the two had settled under a sweeping willow tree. They lay there lazily, the warm air lulling them and the wind pleasant against their faces, and they talked about anything and everything and nothing.
Later Lily would say it was the water, the way the light glinted across it, and Pandora, if she was ever asked, would have said it was fate. Either way, Lily sat up rather abruptly and turned her head towards Pandora who could not resist the urge to brush a loose tendril of red hair off her face. Lily looked at Pandora who for once in her life did not fill the silence, and maybe Pandora was right, maybe it was fate, but Lily Evans leaned closer, a hand drifting to cup Pandora’s cheek. And under the willow tree, the day before the end of Fifth year, Lily Evans kissed Pandora Lovegood, and Pandora Lovegood kissed her back.
It was messy, it was awkward, it was half bumping teeth and searching lips, but it was everything and if Lily Evans believed in God she would have forsaken him for this. She would have given up religion if it meant she could kiss Pandora Lovegood, if it meant Pandora Lovegood would look at her like that and whisper against her lips, my fire. Lily Evans worshipped one thing in this life and it was this ungodly girl.
If you had asked Lily Evans at fifteen what love was she would have started describing Pandora’s laughter, the way her hair fell into her eyes, and the way she bit her lip when she was concentrating. If you had asked Lily Evan at sixteen what love was she would have simply answered, Pandora.
Nothing last’s forever but Lily would never find it in herself to regret Pandora, not when the world started burning and they fell apart. Not when James Potter found her in the astronomy tower in the midst of a panic attack and told her the stories of the stars until she was breathing right. Not when James Potter held her hand and made her cheeks go red, not when he kissed her and his lips felt right against hers. Not when her pillows started smelling of pine and cinnamon rather than lavender and rose.
Not when she grew up or grew into war and her hands stopped shaking on the battlefield. Not when Lily Evans became a soldier. Not when she became a mother, when she held Harry in her arms, so small and screaming and fighting and she was covered in sweat and blood and tears and fucking exhausted, and she just pressed her lips to his crown and loved him.
Not even when she died, died before turning twenty two, and her husband's body was cooling downstairs and she would not be afraid.
Lily Evans would never regret Pandora Lovegood and when Pandora Lovegood braided her daughter's hair, when she watched the fire dance and her husband spun her around as music faded into the background, when something went wrong and she lived longer than she thought she would have. Pandora Lovegood would never regret Lily Evans nor would she ever not love her, and that was that.
The end. This chapter of the story is done and somewhere intangible, somewhere far away and right here, Pandora Lovegood presses her lips to Lily Evans and kisses her laughter away.