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Lily Evans entered the gryfinddor common room with Remus only to immediately turn around and walk back out.
'Lils where are you going?' Remus called after her. She mumbled incoherently back as she dashed off round the corner to disappear from view.
See, Lily could deal with a lot. She was a muggle born, female, queer in the 70s; life was never going to be a walk in the park. And she'd thought she come to terms with that now, after realising her sexuailty from a drunken kiss with Marlene in 5th year it hadn't taken time to realise she wasn't straight. So yes, life wasn't going to be easy, but she knew she could handle it. Or she thought she could. Because it turns out walking into the common room to see Mary Mcdonald kissing Sirius black is her limit.
Lily Evans had been in love with Mary Mcdonald for 3 years.
Three painstaking long years of heartbreak and love in an endless, tortuous cycle that she never wanted to leave. Mary was a hurricane in which Lily was all to eager to be swept up in. For all the pain and destruction she caused, at the centre of it there was peace. There was peace in the quiet moments after dark, curled in each others arms as they shut out the outside world. There was peace in the gentle brush of Mary's hands against her back as they lay there in the moonlight, content to just be. Like watching a burning car, Lily could not tear her eyes away from the destruction that was falling in love with her best friend. She would rather have Mary as a friend that not have her at all.
That didn't mean it wasn't a fucking kick in the guts everytime Mary would excitedly talk about her new crushes, or go on dates, or see her kiss Sirius Black. Everytime Mary got with some one new, it meant that Lily would be swept to the side, replaced, no longer needed until it all crashed down and Mary came crawling back into Lily's bed bawling her eyes out. And each time, like a damn fool, Lily welcomed her back with open arms. Lily would mend Mary's broken heart with shattered pieces of her own.
Mary knew Lily wasn't straight, it had slipped out one night when Mary had been pestering Lily which boy she liked. Lily had firmly responded that maybe she didn't like boys and that was that. It was never really talked about again, but Mary never asked her about boys anymore. And still, Mary kept coming to her bed. Some nights they would talk and laugh, others they would just hold each other until they fell asleep, yet Lily always woke up alone. She knew they could only ever be friends - Mary was straight and even if she wasn't she didn't like Lily. Friends held hands, friends hugged; it didn't mean anything. To Mary anyway. And she knew Mary never meant to hurt her, she loved her as a friend, but didn't that just make it ten times worse? If Mary was mean and cruel it would be so much easier, but Lily loves her for a reason.
And this left her walking around the grounds ten minutes before curfew to avoid seeing her best friend with her boyfriend. Unrequited love's a bitch. Lily paused to lean against the bridge railing, over looking the Black Lake. It was peaceful out here, most students having already gone up to their common rooms for the night. She tried to push thoughts of Mary from her mind and distract herself with her other problems and worries that had nothing to do with her best friend. Thankfully, Lily's life seemed to be one disaster after another at the moment and she had a wide range of problems to distract herself with; the approaching war, N.E.W.T.S, her werewolf friend, Severus, her sister...
No matter how hard she tried, it all seems out of her control. She constantly felt this pressure from all sides, and from herself. She felt like she had to prove them all wrong, all the blood supremacists, her parents, every person who thought she would fail just because of who she was. But she just wanted a damn break. She wasn't sure when she stopped learning because she wanted to, and studied to prove people wrong. Spite was a great motivator, but Lily wasn't invincible. Her own family called her a freak, and yet was the wizarding world any better? She felt so alone. Less muggle borns had returned this year but Lily had wanted to get her N.E.W.T.S. And with everything going on, was it silly to be worried about something as menial as grades? Yet here she was struggling through her final year, for what? To be around Mary for another year before it all goes to hell?
Lily sighed as she prepared to go back to the common room. Another fucking day over was just another day closer to war, so why did she feel like she was already in it?