Chapter Text
‘And I said, “What do you do with the pieces of a broken heart,
And how can a man like me remain in the light?
And if life is really as short as they say, then why is the night so long?”
And then the sun went down and he sang for me this song.’
It was the type of heat that turned her vision orange, everything bathed in a hue of gold like autumn evenings illuminated by a candle flame. Unfortunately, it was also the type of heat that made the hair on the back of her neck slick with sweat and Lily was certain that the hair by her nape had already begun to curl from the moisture.
Looking around at the others, Lily could tell that she wasn’t the only one who was feeling the intensity of the sun. Sirius, with his newly sheared head, was sprawled out on the cobblestone steps in front of James’ front door, fanning himself desperately with a scrap piece of paper.
Lily wasn’t surprised that they still hadn’t taken off yet. Despite the original plan to leave at the crack of dawn, it was ten o'clock and there was still no sign of movement. She knew that it was getting to James that they hadn’t yet left, all the more telling when he came hurtling out the house with a suitcase in his hands, running a hand through his dishevelled hair.
With a laboured grunt, he heaved the suitcase into the already cramped boot of the van, swiping his forehead with the back of his hand. “Okay,” he sighed, trying to hide how out of breath he was, “that should be everything in now.”
Standing up from where she sat on the garden wall, Lily waltzed over to inspect the boot, wincing internally when she saw how utterly packed it was. They could only hope that no luggage came hurtling out as they sped down the winding country lanes. “Is now a bad time to say that my morning stuff is still in the car?” she asked innocently, watching as James’ face contorted into one of horror before realizing she was joking.
“You are so not funny, you know that Evans?” he grinned, shaking his head at her as he turned to face the group.
Following his lead, Lily turned just in time to watch Marlene holding Sirius’ hat from his reach as Mary and Remus laughed hysterically from the side. Sirius just frowned, making swipes at the hat to no avail, “Look, the joke’s just going to be on you lot. If you want to have to look at this horrific hair cut, then by all means.”
Remus laughed once more before taking the hat from Marlene’s hands and passing it to the man beside him. “Oh come on,” he chuckled, pulling the front of the hat over Sirius’ eyes playfully, “it doesn’t look that bad, it’s just a bit shorter than you’re used to.”
“Are we ready to go?” James asked, interrupting whatever Sirius was going to say in response, though judging by the frown still pulling his eyebrows down, Lily knew it would only be more complaining.
Mary looked around as she nodded, “Yep, seems so. I think we’re just waiting on Peter and then we can hit the road.”
Throwing his head back, Sirius groaned in irritation. “For Christ's sake,” he muttered, “I told him we were leaving like five minutes ago and he’s already buggered off.” He quickly swatted Remus’ hands away from where they were attempting to mess with his hat again.
At that moment, as though summoned by mention of his name, Peter appeared coming through the front door, already glaring at Sirius. “I was just in the toilet, you arse,” he complained, making his way to the van.
As they all loaded into the van, James was stopped by his mother, Euphemia brushing the hair from his face. She pointed a stern finger in his face, “You call me as soon as you make it to the hotel this evening, you hear me? Stay out of trouble, don’t drive for too long at a time- I swear it James, the second you start feeling tired, you pull over-”
“I know mum, we’ve been over this,” he cut her off, holding her hands in his own, “you just remember that I was the first of this lot to get my licence and I’m nearly the youngest here! I’ll be fine, alright?”
The woman looked at him with the love only a mother could show before she nodded in agreement, “I know. Lily, my smart girl, you look after him alright? Make sure he doesn’t do anything stupid, that goes for Sirius too.”
Ignoring Sirius’ outcry of ‘Mum, leave me out of this!’, Lily just nodded, chuckling at the antics of her friends. “Of course, Mrs Potter, I’ve had seven years of experience saving them from themselves,” she assured the woman.
“Good girl,” Euphemia smiled at Lily, turning back to James, “right, I love you. Have fun but don’t do anything stupid.”
With a final, “I love you too,” from James, the group piled into the van. “Okay, it should only be about forty-five minutes until we reach Arundel, that doesn’t sound too bad, does it?” he murmured mostly to himself, checking the map one last time before switching the engine on.
The van rumbled to life, and Lily’s head vibrated from where it was resting against the window. Somehow, Marlene had won her way into the front seat besides James whilst the rest of them had piled into the back.
Fortunately, Lily was sat next to Peter behind the driver’s seat with Mary, Remus and Sirius sat behind them. Sitting next to the blonde boy meant that she had easy access to the snacks he had packed for the trip, a good thing since she had stupidly missed breakfast. Her mother had encouraged her to take a breakfast bar for the road, but like all new adults, Lily believed herself wiser than her mother.
“Right,” Peter said around a mouthful of crisps, “I spy with my little eye, something beginning with ‘r’, go.”
“Rover?”
“No,”
“Reptile?”
“Why the fuck would there by a reptile in the middle of the road, this is Sussex, not Arizona,”
“Jeez Mary, there might have been,”
Startling Lily slightly, Remus perked up from behind her, “Is it a road?” His hair was slightly dishevelled, and his brown eyes still hung low on his face like he hadn’t slept in months. It wouldn’t surprise Lily if that were the case, no one she knew had worked harder for the exams, except of course herself.
Peter hummed in agreement, “Yeah, it was.” The boy reached into his small bag, taking out a bag of crisps. Before he could take one for himself, Lily stuck her hand out, her stomach rumbling gratefully when she finally ate something.
After reaching over the seats to take a crisp of his own, Sirius gave Peter a disbelieving look, “Road? Is that really all you could think of mate? That’s absolute shite!”
“Well, what else was I supposed to spy with my little eye? Clouds? Lamppost? Cars? And those are my crisps you’re eating you bastard! I’ll have them back if you’re going to be an arse,” Peter complained, reaching over Lily to try and grab the crisp back.
From the front, James looked through the rearview mirror, sighing in irritation as he took in the scene behind him, “Guys please. I’m trying to focus on the road.” Like the child that he was, Sirius chomped happily on his crisp before Peter could reach it, smirking in victory as Peter decided to give up.
The shorter boy sat back in his seat with a huff, glaring at Sirius from the corner of his eye, “Go on then, you have a turn. See if you can come up with anything better.”
“Fine,” Sirius accepted, leaning forward in his seat in the form of utmost concentration, “I spy with my little eye, something beginning with ‘s’.”
“Signs,” Marlene called from the front.
“Okay then, ‘p’,”
“People,” James answered with a smirk.
“Fine, ‘w’,”
“Windows,” Lily sang happily, giggling when Sirius threw his hands up in defeat.
“I spy was a bust,” Mary said, “who wants to play twenty questions instead?”
“NO!” they all yelled.
Places rolled past the windows like passing fancies, there one moment and gone the next. As was expected of June, the flowers had come through, peeking through the grass like shy performers, an array of pinks and yellows.
It reminded Lily of days spent in the Summer down at her grandmother’s house, the old woman’s garden always shrouded in colour and Lily and Petunia always returning home with grass stains on their jeans and dirt trapped under their nails, much to their parent’s chagrin.
Lily was never one to get nervous about the future- she was always the kid that would stay up restless before her first day of the new school year, wishing more than anything for the next stage when the years began to drag. It felt different now, looking around the car at the people she had come to know as family. People that she may never see again.
“Hey,” Mary said softly, snapping Lily from her thoughts with her chin resting against the back of Lily’s seat, “what’s got you all quiet?” She looked into her eyes, all brown and reassuring like a hot chocolate on a cold Winter day. In that moment, Lily could’ve told her anything.
Instead, she simply shook her head, strands of red falling into her eyes, “Nothing. I just don’t want to tell James that I already need the loo.”
From the front of the van, James called over the music, “No you don’t! We’ve just left, I’m not stopping until we’re there now.” Lily rolled her eyes fondly at his antics, content to just let her head rest against the window, the cool glass a relief to her flushed face.
Though she tried desperately to fight it, Lily soon found herself succumbing to sleep, the familiar drag of exhaustion pulling her under. She dreamt of wisps of gold and pink, of days spent climbing the lemon tree in her garden, of ambitions and black hair.
She woke a while later to the soft call of her name before she was startled fully awake by Marlene shouting in her ear to, “WAKE UP!”
Lily stood to attention instantly, looking around in a frenzy before her eyes finally landed on the girl’s mischievous smile. Rolling her eyes, Lily quickly wiped away the drool that had accumulated in the corner of her mouth. “You’re such a twat,” she muttered to Marlene, though she still went along as Marlene pulled her from the car.
The heat hit her almost immediately, and Lily was strangely reminded of the feeling of stepping off the plane on holiday. Any remaining shreds of tiredness soon left her as she looked around, taking in her surroundings.
Arundel was beautiful, like the type of town you would plaster on the front of a postcard to lure American tourists into visiting. Distantly, Lily could just make out the soft trickling of a running river and the chatter of locals as they went about their day.
The illusion of serenity was quickly broken when Sirius let out a mighty sneeze, loudly stating that he hadn’t taken his allergy medicine that morning. James rolled his eyes, moving to stand next to Lily, “Where to first?”
Rather pathetically, Lily just blinked up at him, still slightly jetlagged from her nap before she snapped out of it. “You’re asking me?” she clarified, raising an eyebrow.
James shrugged his shoulders with an easy smile, “Please, if I asked Sirius, we’d just end up in the pub and it’s not even lunch yet.” Lily considered this before accepting that the possibility was extremely plausible remembering the time she had gone out with Sirius whilst the others were in an exam with the purpose of shopping and instead ending up wasted on a Thursday afternoon.
Looking around, Lily turned back to James, covering her eyes from the sun as she looked up at him. “I’ve heard the castle’s good. My parents came down here last Spring and they said it was just absolutely beautiful,” she suggested.
“I’m up for the castle!” Marlene called out, raising her hand as though she were still in her French classroom.
And so it was decided that they would go to the castle, marching through the streets of Arundel and stopping Mary from going into every tourist shop she laid eyes on. James scoffed when Remus suggested picking up a map, “Please, I did my gold DofE, I think I can find a castle.”
Minutes later, as they stared at the cobblestone wall of the dead end that James had steered them into, Remus tutted, “I’ll just go and ask that woman for directions, shall I?”
“Probably a good idea, yeah,” James admitted.
Fortunately, with the help of the kind bar woman’s directions, they at last arrived at the castle, craning their necks to see the top of the turrets.
It looked like something out of a fantasy novel, a huge structure of creamy rock surrounded by rolling hills and trees. The front entrance was lined with hedges and large patches of pink flowers that stretched up tall to feed greedily on the sunlight. Lily could see why people like her parents thought so highly of the place.
They soon agreed to make their own way around the grounds, Mary and Marlene peeling off with soft giggles to the stairs and Sirius, Remus and Peter wandering over to the edges to look down.
Watching as their friends ran off, Lily looked up at James with a questioning glint in her emerald eyes, “Fancy a trip to the gardens?”
Though she had rolled her eyes at Sirius’ mention of allergy medication, Lily too felt her nose begin to tickle as the two of them walked around the gardens. It didn’t help that bumble bees were fluttering in and out, spreading the pollen that clung to their behinds.
“You know,” Lily found herself saying, “this castle was built on order of William the Conqueror. I believe it was 1067 that it was built, which is why it has so many Norman features compared to castles built later on. I- sorry, this is actually probably pretty boring to listen to.”
A blush spread across her freckled cheeks as she realised she had once again gone off on a tangent. Despite her embarrassment, James simply shook his head with a small smile, “Not at all. Don’t tell Sirius, he’ll never let me live it down, but you’re not the only one who did your research before coming here.”
Lily looked at him in shock before she huffed out a laugh, “James Potter, don’t tell me there’s actually a nerd under all that jock persona.”
She knew exactly what type of boy James was. The star of their school’s football team, the name on every girl’s lips in the hallways, the ringleader of his little group. For goodness sake, he would be off to study sport and health at university once the Summer came to an end.
“Oh please, I would never ruin my reputation like that. But, you know, my father always loved his history. You should’ve seen his library Lily, you would’ve had a field day, sniffing all those old books-”
“Hey, you saw me do that once!” she cried out, swatting him lightly on the arm with a laugh.
He nudged her shoulder back, tipping his head back to laugh with her, “Yeah, one time too many. I swear, I thought I was interrupting something special there when I walked into the philosophy aisle. I mean really Evans, the philosophy aisle is what does it for you?”
Lily shrugged, “Don’t knock it until you try it. Besides, that’s where all the really old books were.”
“Only you Lily,” he sighed, wrapping an arm around her shoulder as they continued their way around the gardens.
The two of them ducked under archways, stopped to smell the flowers, and laughed behind their hands as a little boy tripped whilst running. Eventually, James had to grab her and run when the mother of the child noticed them laughing over her son’s misfortune.
They finally stopped running when they reached a small waterfall, the stream of water falling over layers of rocks. The last layer was blanketed in a thick moss of bright green and watered down yellow, the algae trapping water as the fountain cried.
As she turned to comment on its beauty, Lily found that James was already looking down at her, a small smile gracing his face. “Lily, I-”
“Found them! They’re by the fountain,” they heard a voice call from behind them, turning to watch Marlene walk towards them, the rest of the group not too far behind. “Wow, this is lovely isn’t it?” she stated, though all Lily could think of was what James might have said if Mary hadn’t stopped him.
Remus stepped from behind Lily, looking at the water gushing down before addressing her and James. “We were all thinking of going for some lunch, but if you two wanted to continue looking around, we could meet you some place?” he offered, resting the backs of his knees against the walls of the waterfall.
Without looking behind her, Lily shook her head, “No, no, lunch sounds good. I don’t think those crips I stole from Pete are doing much to fill me up. Is that alright with you?”
She looked at James then, waiting for his answer. For a moment, a stupid, silly moment, Lily wished that he would say no and drag her back into the world where only they and the garden existed.
Instead, James hummed in agreement, “Yeah that sounds fine. Where were you guys thinking? We passed some good places on the way in.” And as Lily tuned out the rest of their debate, she missed the flash of disappointment that crossed James’ face.
They ended up in a small pub by the castle which was owned by a friendly, middle-aged couple who gave them a bowl of peanuts on the house. Lily took a sip of the cider she had ordered, shivering slightly when the bitter liquid fell down her throat.
Her thighs stuck to the leather of the booth, and she was sure that if she were to move then, she would leave a trail of sweat in her wake. Despite that discomfort, it reminded Lily of days spent in the local pub when she was a young girl.
Late evenings sleeping on the booth, protected by her father’s coat, when she pretended to drink orange juice as though it were a beer, when her and Petunia would mess with the gambling machines despite the screen flashing a huge eighteen at them. If she focused hard enough, the stickiness of the table brought her back to those days.
“You know, I’m sure that my grandparents still have a house down here, close to Brighton I think,” Mary murmured to herself, swirling the beer she held by the neck, “there was one Summer that we drove through Arundel. Though my granddaddy was the type of man that wouldn't do a thing he hadn’t planned, so we never stopped.”
Sirius looked around, resting his elbow on Remus’ shoulder much to the boy’s chagrin, “It’s nice, though I could never live here. It’s way too quiet, I need some noise in my life.”
“Which is why I’m sure you’ll end up in the North somewhere for uni,” Remus muttered, laughing softly. Though Lily saw a strange look come across Sirius’ face as he opened his mouth before quickly shutting it again. When Remus looked his way, he forced a small smile that Lily saw through immediately.
Before she could think on it further, Marlene started talking to her. “What about you Lily? Are you still thinking about somewhere in Scotland?” she asked, resting her chin on her open palm.
Forcing the issue to the back of her mind, Lily hummed in thought, “Edinburgh’s definitely my first choice, though mum wants me somewhere a bit closer to home. She’s been pushing Nottingham as a serious contender all year, though I’m not opposed to it.”
Marlene nodded, taking a sip from her rum and coke, “It’s Oxford or nothing for me. I didn’t spend years working my arse off for the top grades, sucking up to McGonagall until she put me on the student council, tutoring all the year sevens, just to end up not getting into my dream school.”
Placing a comforting hand on the girl’s shoulder, Mary rolled her eyes fondly, “And as I’ve been telling you all year, there’s no one in the world that deserves the place more than you do, so quit worrying about it.”
“I’ll drink to that,” Marlene sighed, holding up her glass as the others followed suit, all cheering to a future that still remained unknown. And though she swallowed it behind her drink, Lily was just as nervous as Marlene.
They left the pub once Peter got bored of simply sitting around and at last indulged in Mary’s wishes of entering one of the small tourist shops.
Like any shop in England, it was painted in that familiar buzz that immediately set the customer at ease. Necklaces with small crystals attached to them dangled from the ceiling and Lily was a step away from having her eye taken out by a clump of amethyst.
Pushing past the racks of clothing that Lily was sure her mother would love, and stepping past where Mary was ogling all the postcards, Lily arrived at the bracelet stand. She looked down at her bare wrist, scanning the various bracelets for one that would compliment her pale skin with the pink undertones.
Orange, though it matched her hair, was an absolute no. The colour was too bright, too deep, too encouraging of the pink hue of her skin. The same went for red, for pink, for yellow. Blue was a colour that would never go with her hair and purple, well Lily had never cared for that colour.
At last, her eyes landed on the beaded bracelet of jade, the green stones glinting in the dim lights of the shop. Lily picked it up, moving the balls between her fingers, the material cooling down her burning skin.
“I’ll get it for you if you want?” a voice asked next to her, and despite herself, Lily fell backwards into the mirror in shock. James only laughed at her expense, picking up the bandana that had fallen in her fight with glass.
Once her heart was back to beating at a normal pace, Lily rolled her eyes, “You can’t just sneak up on people like that. What if my fight or flight instincts had kicked in and I hit you right in the nose?”
James raised an eyebrow, "Unfortunately for that mirror, your fight of flight instincts did kick in. Nice form by the way, just falling back and letting gravity deal with the rest. Now, that bracelet, do you want it?”
Getting over her indignation at the insult, Lily looked back down at the bracelet, “You really don’t have to get it for me, I’m more than capable of buying it myself.”
“I know you are,” he nodded in agreement, “doesn’t stop me from wanting to buy it for you though.”
Realising that he wasn’t going to let it pass, Lily handed the bracelet over with a huff, watching as James bought it for her. He placed it on her wrist with a smile, complimenting her well the colour suited her.
And as she walked through the town with the rest of the group, Lily fought hard to keep herself from tumbling over with the feeling of the bracelet on her wrist.