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lily jane evans is a chubby-cheeked, smily faced kid with a body speckled full of freckles in summer and a head full of blazing, messy, wild red hair. and since the day her fingertips first touched her mum's left cheek, she's so full of love that it threatens to spill out from the sides.
she laughs into empty space as a baby, clutches her toys so fiercely with her tiny little fingers like they'll be taken away from her any second. she hugs strangers on the street as a toddler, earns scratches from the stray cats she tries to pet, trails after her sister with fond eyes; so impatient to hear every single word out of petunia's mouth, so desperate to be shared something with. and when she grows into a primary school student, she's the little girl to cry on the last day of school because she'll miss her teacher so much. because she's scared that her teacher will find another student who she likes better than lily.
when her magic first shines it's again, out of love. she's six, and it's a perfect day outside. the sun shining bright yet not too hot, the clouds are nowhere to be seen and the sky almost too perfectly blue. petunia's about to go to school and lily's sitting on the stairs, very grumpily as her sister prepares to leave the house. but she had promised lily they would bake cookies today, since they made their father buy those quirkily shaped cookie cutters for them.
lily doesn't want her to leave now. she wants her sister to stay with her all day. so that they could bake cookies and watch cartoons and play together.
so the door doesn't budge when petunia tries to open it. and the door doesn't budge when their mum tries to open it. it stays stuck for so long that her mum panics, almost calling the neighbours to come and help them, afraid that they're trapped in the house. that's when it finally opens, and lily feels like she lets go of something she didn't realize she was holding. however petunia's already late for school, so she stays home for the day and they bake their cookies as petunia promised they would. lily smiles so brightly as she gently fills them with cranberry jam, using a tiny teaspoon.
she's also very smart. she knows she can get doors stuck now.
✰..
feeling love this intensely is tiring on a body as small as lily's. feeling love like this also means feeling every other emotion with just the same intensity.
when lily cries she sometimes fears she'll flood the house, her father now and again thinks that when lily laughs the sun actually shines a little brighter. when lily's scared she's like a little mouse and when she's nervous she shakes like a feather. she's a bundle of feelings woven together, a thread so thick that sometimes it threatens to strangle her. her tiny shoulders crushed under the weight of her emotions, her heart a couple sizes too big for her body.
and when she gets angry it's a different story.
she shouts, she cries tears of rage. even as a toddler, her tantrums were destructive. she breaks things and says anything, she gets stubborn. she yells until her throat hurts badly, she doesn't calm down until her mum holds her, hands her a mug of chamomile tea. she gets scolded for it every time, but she does the same again and again. it causes bursts of accidental magic; the classroom windows shatter suddenly when a boy accuses her of something she didn't do, petunia's new pair of shoes wear down overnight, the red leather getting wrinkly and the buckles rusted after she refuses to let lily wear them for the day, the swing in the playground freezes mid-air with a kid on it after said kid doesn't let lily get her turn. lily knows everytime that it was herself who caused it. that's when her parents start realizing something's very strange with their daughter, and that's when lily first gets told to "stay away from the other kids" and play by herself. she cries for hours under the sheets.
she feels then, when she cries and cries by herself, waves of sadness so strong washing over her; that something must be wrong with her. she feels it in the look on petunia's face when she hears about the window incident, when her shoes are ruined, when she sees the kid stuck on the swing crying for help.
lily hates like she loves. she holds onto her grudges like they're keepsakes. she keeps them in a tiny trinket box in her chest, organized neatly, side by side with everything she loves. the lines sometimes get blurred. sometimes she doesn't know what she hates exactly, but feels the sensation of it nonetheless.
she's never been good with forgiveness. it never comes easy to her.
she never forgets too. her memory way too vivid, she remembers names and faces and voices; she remembers people's gestures, their accents and choices of words. she remembers every single detail about every single person; maybe she cares too much about every single person. even the ones she despises. because you see, in order to hate one also has to care enough.
lily doesn't like it though. she doesn't like the way hate comes to her, she doesn't like her wrath and the way it consumes her. so she puts on a show, and she makes kindness into a life goal around age eight.
but the bitterness doesn't leave. she never asks petunia to share their clothes with each other ever again.
✰..
since petunia stopped playing with her, when lily isn't at school or home, she goes to the other; less crowded playground. that's where she meets the boy who's just as wrong as herself.
the first second their gazes meet, lily knows he understands. and she hopes that he keeps on doing that.
that's where she learns how to fly, where she makes flowers bloom in her palms. that's where she learns about magical castles filled with children just like her; with potions brewing in cauldrons, spells taught in classes. a castle where stairs apparently move and paintings talk, where everyone understands her just like severus does. petunia laughs at her when she tells her about it, her father gives a smile that looks almost pitiful. lily hates herself once again for having such intense emotions as she tries to smile.
it feels as if their house is more of a home to petunia, who never makes doors get stuck shut.
she tries though. she shows petunia her little flowers, makes little, clumsy butterflies out of her school textbooks to make them fly around. severus tells her that these are very impressive, tells her that he can't do magic at will yet. she hopes petunia will think the same and beam at her; petunia shrieks and calls her a freak every single time.
lily slowly comes to terms with not belonging. and waits. waits for her life to change one day, when she gets the letter sev told her about. waits for the magical castle and witches and wizards, waits for the day she'll be allowed friends again. she falls asleep every night in her bed, staring outside the window in her bedside, trying to picture a castle lit with magical candles; filled to the brim with children just like herself, joyful to be there. she pictures a girl with red hair among friends, making paper butterflies fly as she feels bliss at last.
on her 11th birthday, a letter does come but not by itself. it arrives with a tall woman dressed in emerald green robes, wearing a funny hat that lily can't stop staring at. when her mum welcomes her inside, she smiles at lily. lily beams back at her.
✰..
everything is perfect until it all comes crashing down.
severus told her she would belong.
he didn't mention the looks she'd get when she talks about her family. so she stops. he didn't mention people would whisper after her in the halls. so she tries not to hear. she doesn't understand it first, she's just eleven.
but then everything starts to make more sense. then she understands that she never belonged after all.
she's cursed with never belonging anywhere.
she's cursed with caring too much. she's cursed with loving too much. she's cursed with feeling too much.
whatever she does, it seems to be too much.
but lily learns quickly that she if she can't change it, she needs to embrace it. it takes a while for her to understand this, and another while for her to actually to do it; but she does.
she learns that sometimes her wrath is a weapon. that her love which is still oozing out of her is a welcome flaw, and some grudges are worth keeping. she holds onto her rage, her anger; she grows up. as she hates stronger she loves stronger, she loves and loves and loves stronger...
she hates herself stronger, and that causes her to love herself more. she does. she embraces herself with the love spilling from her sides, with the childish tantrums she still throws every now and then, with her struggle to forgive and her struggle to let go. with the fact that she's never-belonging, with the "dirty" blood present in her veins... despite everything, she carves out a space for herself in the castle that she dreamed about for years; the castle that she felt never really wanted her to begin with.
she screams loud at protests, she reads books upon books about her newfound ideologies, she holds her head high, she picks fights with slytherin's little death eater groupie clique; she also picks fights with gryffindor's own pure-blood ponces. she learns to never shut up again, she studies and works harder, she goes to those slug club parties she despises. she doesn't run away from politics, she knows she needs them to continue existing as she comes to terms with the fact that there are huge group of people outside of these supposedly "safe" castle walls who want her dead.
she spots in sev's eyes; the same look petunia once had. she tries to ignore it.
✰..
she loses severus.
that word rings in her ears. when she first hears it the world goes quiet for a second. she thought she grew numb to it by now, but when she hears severus's voice, when she hears that snarl strikingly full of resenment she realises how wrong she was in thinking that.
she lets go. as hard as it is, she lets go. she stops holding onto severus, she stops holding onto a love withering away and lets it become a grudge. lets a faded flower petal turn into an insect, lets the daisies in their palms and the paper butterflies go. sees the castle for what it really is. what a shame said castle is her entire world by now.
her love is a struggle, her hate is a struggle, her wrath is also one as she screams and yells in james potter's face that day and glares at sirius black every time she sees the boy.
feeling too much, feeling all of everything too much tires her to the bone. she spends that summer sneaking out of home to nightclubs, trying to be a muggle for once but whatever she does she feels like she lacks. but in witches robes or in diagon alley she feels foreign too.
a "mudblood" to the core. never-belonging, an alien in both worlds, an alien among other muggleborns too because noone feels everything in the intensity that she does.
she looks in the mirror, aged sixteen. her hair as red and wild as ever, her green eyes looking back at her with a lost expression. the freckles on her nose, the little braids she puts in her hair, her pointy nose, her lips that feel a bit too thin. the face of a girl she no longer feels like she knows.
she feels wrong all over, she's a child all over again.
✰..
the war brews outside. a summer full of terror. she's back inside hogwarts, scared like she's never been before. she doesn't feel sixteen and she had thought she was the only one, but she finds everyone else the same as her.
they all grew up. the headlines on the daily prophet, killings over the summer, the ministry crumbling, the tension rising; these make you grow up.
and when people grow up they change, lily never thought of it like that before but now it seems so obvious.
she sees it in that boy with glasses, the boy who bothered her for the longest time, the boy who asked her out again and again and got turned down every single time. she notices the way he doesn't hold that childish air of arrogance around him anymore, even his posture feels more mature somehow. the gleam of mischief still present in those hazel eyes and his raven hair messy as ever, that smirk still ever present on his face but he's... different. in a good way.
suddenly she has friends again. and all the love inside her that she bottled up; explodes.
she gets to know people. she feels that some people stand with her, not against her. she laughs like the teenager she is, she lets all that love ooze out, spill out finally, lets herself drown in it. she warms up to people. remus becomes the dearest friend, he becomes a confidant. with sirius it happens slowly but intensely, as she learns more about his family that he left behind. he feels more and more like a brother somehow and lily's shocked at how quickly a person can go from hated to dear to her. and peter is always timid, but he's so sweet underneath it all, always a nice company.
then there's james. and oh, how it all came crashing down again... in waves, washing over her as she blossoms. james who came like a thunderstorm into her life, causing her to realize that he had been a storm brewing all along. always at the edges of her mind, always in her peripheral vision. ghosting, haunting. the loveliest and most annoying spirit ever. she denied it as much as she could, she told herself he was a friend and nothing more... until love, consumed her so that she couldn't ignore it anymore.
remus was warm mugs of tea in the light rain, two person bookclubs, secrets and intimate conversations had in the gryffindor common room. sirius was cigarettes sneaked by the greenhouses, sudden flashes of mischief, standing side by side in protests, rebellion in it's purest form. peter was wizard chess with friends, piping hot food at dinner in the great hall, jokes and fond looks shared with each other.
james was all of it and then more.
he was beaming laughter, the warm light of the morning, the faintest brush of fingers against her own, the warmest of hugs, well concealed kindness, nights shared talking to each other up at the astronomy tower, staying up until morning in the common room while talking about the war and everything else, an understanding look, a smile that feels like home all of a sudden. he is the feeling of her chest tightening, the reason she laughs like she never did before.
james is a kiss shared under the rain, away from the prying eyes of everyone, his smile against her lips as he holds her so tight; like she'll slip away any moment. the look in his eyes as his lids flutter open, a look she knows so well.
in that second she's alien no more. she beams up at him as she recognizes it; the eyes of someone who feels too much.
just like her. funny, how it took her so long to realize it. james potter, who has his emotions flood everything he does. the boy whose heart was also a couple sizes too big for his body.
the rest of the year is spent with chaste kisses, having each other as a secret and the summer comes with pining. ice cream at fortescue's, watching her friends play quidditch at the potter house's backyard while he looks breathtaking on his broom. her fingertips itch for him, she aches for him all over. now they shout together at protests and pick fights together, they discuss politics together and they try to make a change together; they decide slowly, that they'll fight a war together. a sense of dread she does feel, and it's grim but knowing that they have each other's back... and that they have remus, sirius and peter along too, that they have all of their friends along too; it somehow feels safe.
when they go back to school, she feels for the first time that she really does have a place in the castle too. and she laughs while looks at the boy next to her, stressed in a way that doesn't suit him in the heads common room. her boy. her james. her lover.
head boy and head girl? she could get used to this.
✰..
the wedding happens over the summer, in the middle of the war. moody rolls his eyes when they hand him the invitation, but lily can swear he looked rather fond.
she's just eighteen, but she doesn't feel so. she feels much younger and also much older at the same time, standing in her wedding gown in front of the mirror, her mum would love the dress if she had been here. she smiles to herself, holding her flowers a bit tighter as she feels too many things way too intensely at once again, but knowing that james is just next door helps her calm down.
remus walks her down the aisle, she thinks of her father. she visited their graves just the week prior, told the tombstones that she was getting married next saturday. she sucks in a breath as she sees james waiting for him, looking so achingly handsome in his tux but his hair messy as ever... remus squeezes her arm as they part ways, a reassuring smile on his face as he sits down.
they get married, in the potter house's garden; the same place they played quidditch as the children they were just a summer ago, with james's father watching them out of his window. now they aren't children anymore and fleamont potter isn't here anymore to see this, but it's engraved in her mind forever as her happiest moment up to date. james looks at her, smiling, beaming; she looks back at him, alight with happiness. they kiss, and it's as exciting as their first. they have their first dance to a muggle song, some guests shooting dirty looks at them as james spins her around on the dancefloor. a muggleborn, marrying the son of a pure-blood family in their own garden, dancing to muggle music with him, in the middle of a war.
sirius cries. once he sees sirius crying, james cries as well. then it's not long before lily is crying too, and when remus returns with a drink in his hand his eyes are suspiciously red. peter laughs at them fondly, asking lily to dance with him and she does.
she doesn't remember dancing that much in her life ever. the night is a blur of happiness; marlene kisses her on the cheeks as mary doesn't let her stop dancing for more than five minutes, euphemia potter tears up every single time she sees lily, remus and sirius are both drunk by the time most guests are gone. james on the other hand, seems to have a smile permanently plastered onto his face. lily has never seen him look so happy, and that means something because james is the most joyful person she's ever known.
later that night, when they enter their home and it's just the two of them james kisses her again and again. he grabs her by the cheeks gently, a smirk on his face as he whispers;
"i knew it," he says to her; "i knew we were meant for each other, i knew you were the one all along."
she smiles, she smiles so wide that her cheeks hurt by now.
"i knew it was you when i looked into your eyes that day," she replies.
they don't talk much after that, only laugh as james tries and makes a show of carrying her bridal style to the bed, rambling something about "muggle traditions".
✰..
lily was so scared at first. james was too. oh merlin, they were only twenty yet. and fighting a literal war. what would the order think? how would they even do it? would it even work? it was a bad idea. a very bad one.
the thing with lily and james was that, they were the type to move forward with bad ideas in hope that they would prove to be otherwise.
remus seems nervous and sirius is pacing around the room, peter is late. the sun had started shining through the curtains, illuminating their bedroom. lily can see the specks of dust flowing around. they hadn't had time to go to st. mungo's, but some healers had come. they had left though by now, leaving only the four them in the house. lily felt at ease because of that.
she could hear the baby crying from the room across the one they were in, she could hear james's voice trying to soothe him. her baby. their baby. she smiles as she hears the door creaking open.
and there stands james, in all his tired glory; holding a baby version of himself. sirius and remus both straighten up, looking up at james as he sits next to lily on the bed. as lily reaches out her arms, james slowly hands the baby over to her, eyes stuck to his little face.
"alright harry," he says as lily holds him, so gently yet as tight as she can, just like she did with her toys as a kid; "meet mama."
his eyes were open, his little, tiny fingers closed around lily's finger instinctively as she held it out to him. they look at each other, he looks her as if he wasn't a newborn but older than that. he looks sleepy all of a sudden, at ease in her arms as she holds him. his little eyes are green, just the same as her eyes. everything else was painfully james, she loves that.
"hi harry," she touches his tiny nose with the tip of her finger, a sudden rush of love taking over her. she feels her little trinket box emptying, to make space for the little life in her arms; "i love you."
he makes a sound, and sirius starts crying. that makes remus laugh in return, his eyes red rimmed. and james just sighs contently, kissing her temple softly as he brushes her hair away from her face, so close to her. she touches harry's nose again, unable to wipe away the smile on her face.
"he looks just like you james..." she mumbles, absentmindedly. too caught up in him, in his beauty, in the pure joy that having him provides.
"yeah prongs, how'd that happen? the kid's a literal copy," sirius looks a bit more collected as he talks, remus and him now sitting together next to the bed. remus only smiles, his eyes locked on harry.
lily can't really hear them as she looks at her son, but they seem to be bickering as they always do. for a second she stops and thinks about it all, all of it.
"the kid does look like me mate, but not the eyes y'know,"
"oh yeah, he has lily's eyes! other than that, a clone i fear..."
harry looks at her again, with those beautiful green eyes. she never really understood before when people gave her eyes every single compliment they could think of, but now she definitely does. she feels like drowning almost, in a sea of love, a love she never felt before to this intensity. she wants to cry, she wants to laugh, to kiss everyone in the room and shout so loudly that every single person on earth could know just how much she truly loves this little, tiny, living, breathing human in her arms. it was love at first sight.
she thinks about it, as her and harry looked at each other. the people they lost, the war still going on, the order, everything she'd been through in her life suddenly flashing before her eyes. she thinks about how scared she was, she thinks about how happy she was. she thinks about the three times she ever saw sirius crying, the fact that he was going to be the godfather. she thinks of the hug remus gave her when he learned, the way she cried for almost an hour leaning onto his shoulder, remus comforting her as he always does. the look of shock on peter's face, the beautiful wishes everyone from the order gave them. she feels james's hand on her shoulder, then she thinks about how she loves him. how they love each other. how noone understood her quite like he did before. she hopes someone would understand her harry the same way.
her harry. she likes the sound of that.
james, sirius and remus are still bickering when peter knocks on the door, quickly joining them in the room and meeting harry with awe on his face. he tells them that dumbledore sent his greetings, and that he might pay them a visit soon. lily only nods, it was the first time in months dumbledore sent something other than orders their way.
she sees it then, in harry's face, the most beautiful face she had ever seen that is; hope.
a beacon of hope, shining, gleaming in the darkness that was this war. hope; materialized in the tiny body in her arms, in the laughs echoing around the room, in james's hand on her shoulder, in dumbledore's greetings, in sirius's tears and remus's smile laced with emotion.
she feels her heart growing even bigger. she feels, she feels more things than she thought she was capable of. and when harry gives the tiniest, most innocent little smile to her, wrapped in his little red blanket embroidered with snitches that james had picked out, she smiles back. her love no longer a struggle, hasn't been for a while.