Title: Epistulae Desiderantis
Author: Amethyst-Heart
Rating: G? PG? One of those.
Words: 2103
Author's Notes: Written because today is October 31 (Halloween), which marks the anniversary of the death of Lily and James, my two favorite characters from Harry Potter. It was inspired primarily by Ovid's Heroides I, which is a letter Penelope writes to Ulysses (about the events of Homer's Iliad and Odyssey). This ficlet was also inspired by the Hindi Song 'Sau Dard Hai' (it's about someone mourning a lost love—well, a lost child—in the movie it's from and the lyrics are absolutely beautiful) and Owl City's song 'Vanilla Twilight,' even though I had already mentally written this ficlet long before I even realized they were relevant.
Sorry about the formatting. Anything that is in these brackets [--] was supposed to be striked out (scribbled because parts of this is written like a letter and the writer couldn't find the words). If you want to read it in its original format, try my LJ: amethysth(dot)livejournal(dot)com/35169(dot)html
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[My Darling James]
[James, My Love]
Dear James
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She offers him the brightest and widest smile she can muster, and immediately his eyes fill with concern. He knows the gesture is halfhearted, that there are so many things she desires to scream at him at this very moment, but for reasons unknown to him, she forces the impulse away.
"I'll be fine," he starts to say, but Lily stops him.
"I believe in you."
Suddenly, his lips press against hers—so slowly, so delicately—and she tries to ignore the feeling that this is goodbye.
'James will come back,' she persuades herself. 'I just know he will.'
.
You've barely been gone three days and yet, I feel as if a century has passed. I don't know where you are or what it is that you must do, but I wish you the best and hope that everything is going well. [I miss you terribly.]
.
Lily Potter tries to smile as she listens to Remus Lupin remind her for the umpteenth time that everything will be fine. "The Order of the Phoenix needs James," he explains. "He's one of the most skilled wizards they have and it would only make sense that they send the most talented and the most agile members out there." She understands this, she supports this, but she can't help but worry. What kind of mission have they given him that requires no contact, no news, such secrecy? Why won't they share the details with her? (Because of Harry?) She knows she's just as talented, just as intelligent, just as qualified as James and the two of them already have defied Voldemort together twice... So why didn't they trust her?
"He's safe, Lils. You know James. He and Sirius will storm in there, do whatever it is they were told to do, and be home in no time. This is James Potter we're talking about, remember? Whatever his faults, he's committed."
She nods her head, attempting to use her friend's words to drown out the many anxieties coasting in her over-analytical mind. 'Stop worrying! James will be fine,' she tells herself. (But if this were true, then why does it feel as if someone has ruptured the very essence of her soul?)
.
Sometimes I feel as if you've never left. The autumn wind brushes against my cheek, and I feel your fingertips dancing upon my skin, warm and ever so gentle. Your voice sings to me with the birds each morning, chuckling and off-key, and every time I hear Harry laugh, my heart jerks, thinking that you have finally returned.
.
Even with the unending spontaneous visits from friends and members of the Order, Lily can't help but feel alone. In spite of the amount of guests she receives, her life is empty now, weary, hollow, and monotonous. She feels claustrophobic in this house, in this village, in this perfunctory life she has (somehow) created for herself, and she longs for the ardent days of before... Of chasing and chastising James in the yard as he took Harry for a broomstick-ride she had specifically vetoed. Of falling asleep in his arms and feeling him smile against the side of her face as day turned to night and night turned to day.
She imagines that even in the reality of anarchy and decay, weeks ago this war had nothing to do with her. —Yes, she was still confined to the house, and yes, her barely three-month-old son was still in danger, but this sense of imminent dread did not follow her every second of the day. In spite of it all, there were moments, moments in which she felt safe in a way that she isn't sure is possible anymore.
Now, as she watches Frank kiss Alice's cheek, and Arthur and Molly swing their smallest boy high into the air, she longs for her former peace of mind.
She wishes James were here.
.
When I close my eyes, I feel your lips gently caress my eyelids, and I find that sleep has escaped me once again. I see you everywhere, smiling and teasing and flitting about, but this ache in my heart subsists. How does one embrace a ghost?
.
'He's just tired,' she tries to reason, but the more she watches her son—his pouting lips, vociferous whimpers, and the crimson blotches etched upon his face—the more she discovers that she cannot surrender to her delusions. Of course she knows why he feels unsettled; she feels the same way herself, constantly haunted by her own personal demons, her vitriolic thoughts, multiplying anxieties and flagrant inconsistencies.
She lifts Harry into her arms, rocking him slowly up and down the way James would do the second he heard his son cry, humming his favorite childhood tune ("Harvey the Hairy Hippogriff") with occasional bits from one of hers ("Hush Little Baby"). "It's okay," she whispers, tracing small circles on Harry's back and adjusting his head more firmly upon her shoulder. "I'm (still) here." When he gurgles, capturing a fistful of thinning russet locks and placing them in his mouth, she almost laughs, instantaneously hearing the words James had "exchanged" with his son the first time Harry had decided that he preferred his mother's hair to baby food. ("Now Harry, a gentleman never slobbers upon a woman's hair," her husband explained, ostensibly serious. "You'll never get the girl that way. What you should do instead is find a girl who appeals to you and, before stuffing her flamboyantly colored hair into your mouth because you're so nervous, charm her with your hilarity and wit. Merely some water balloons, hair coloring hexes, basic transfiguration—harmless things, really—would do. And then soon enough, if a sufficient amount of time has gone by and you've followed her around quite a bit (with countless, but completely original and amusing professions of love), you'll capture her heart—and she'll never leave you alone afterward!" he declared as Sirius let out a bark of laughter and Lily hit them both upside the head, highly amused.) Noticing his drooping eyes, she carries Harry into her room, wrapping her arms around his now-slumbering figure as she herself attempts to claim a moment of respite as well. Instead, she finds herself awake hours later, fingering her son's own unkempt strands.
When she rises in the morning, cradling her son in her arms, Lily nearly pinches herself at the sight of disheveled ebony.
'It's only Harry.'
.
Each day, I sit alone and imagine the things you must be doing, and I picture myself beside you, battling, defending, achieving all the things we vowed to accomplish in order to brighten our son's days. We would be a team, reckless and calculating, eager and calm, bold and wary. An untouchable duo. But as the shadows gradually blanket the earth and the light dims in my baby's eyes, I know this is a virtual reality. I can't leave [and I don't understand how you could have either].
.
"Do you believe in magic?" Lily remembers asking him the night Professor Dumbledore informed them of the prophecy. To any other wizard, the question would have sounded ridiculous. 'We're magical—of course I believe in magic!' he would say. But James merely blinked, tilting his head slightly and interlacing her dainty fingers in his own. She had eyed him carefully then, noting his furrowed brow and bitten bottom lip as he seriously considered her words. For the longest moment, he said nothing, holding her body tightly against his, failing to conceal his tense muscles as they paced outside their former Headmaster's office. "Yes," he finally declared later as he lay down beside her, whispering the word into her shoulder when he imagined she was fast asleep. "I believe."
These days, she wishes she had his resolution. She wants to believe, to be able to mull it over and decide that miracles do happen, that although the world is black and white and undoubtedly grey, the clouds will drift away eventually. With only faith, magic, and pixie dust, this nightmare will end, the war will be won, and everything will be just the way it once was.
But she isn't like James and she's not even sure James is like himself anymore. When she looks up at the sky, the possibility of such wonders occurring is scant. She sees no stars, just faded memories and fallen heroes. Lily doesn't want a place in this legacy. She isn't a martyr or a heroine and all she really wants is the chance to watch her son grow and to age as well, alongside her husband. But he's off chasing windmills elsewhere, fighting for reasons she can no longer remember.
She wishes he would remember his son. She wishes he would remember her.
.
I think of you always. [Do you ever think of me?]
.
It has been thirty one days, ten hours, nineteen minutes and eight seconds since the day she had seen him off, and Lily doesn't know what to think anymore. Time is playing tricks on her, passing so quickly, so abruptly, that she isn't sure she can keep up with it. How much longer is she meant to endure this--this agony of never knowing, never hearing where he is or when he'll return. Professor Dumbledore tells her not to fret, that her husband is one of the best they have and of course he and Sirius will succeed. Moody won't even answer her. ("Potter's persistent. He'll come back when he gets the job done.") Remus avoids her eyes and Peter claims to be just as much in the dark as she is. They can't write her a fairytale and so they envelop her in empty words and halfhearted assurances, refusing to distress her with news she already knows. (Other members sent on this mission have either returned or were killed, so where are James and Sirius?) Every moment that passes by increases her apprehension tenfold, but even she realizes that—by now—the situation is hopeless. He's gone, leading, fighting, dying—and there is simply nothing she can do about it.
.
I'm trying to be strong, I'm trying to be hopeful, but James, I can't do this on my own. I can't let myself think—What am I supposed to do if—[you never come home again]?
.
As she has taken to doing every night, Lily tucks her sleeping son into his crib, kissing him upon the forehead before grabbing a novel and sitting down upon her mother's old rocking chair in the den. She opens a window, allowing the fresh, arctic air to peck her face as she reads, but she finds that she is unable to concentrate. Before she can stop herself, she's shrieking, crying with such abandon that she fails to notice that salt and water have drenched the pages of her book. Lily wants to control herself, to remind herself that she's a Gryffindor—Where is her bravery? Optimism? Strength?—but she can't blink away the tears.
'Where are you?'
The stars mock her, glittering in the obsidian sky so gloriously that Lily has to force herself not to stare. She doesn't want to see his name scrawled in the moonlight. Shivering, her hands reach for her fleece blanket and she inhales sharply. She swears she just touched his fingertips. Shaking her head, she begins to wrap the warm cloth around her shoulders, wondering if her body has involuntarily surrendered to the mental anguish and she has finally lost her mind. Her eyes close—one sheep, two sheep, three sheep, four—and before she can fully grasp what is happening, she is engulfed in a pair of arms, bruised and battered and significantly shaken. She doesn't want to look up, to meet his eyes and discover that some cruel, sadistic deity is playing tricks on her and she's only dreaming.
"Lily...," he whispers, holding her closely, and, eyes opening, she feels her breath catch in her throat. His hair is long, coarse, and ferociously feral, and his eyes—although scintillating just as brightly as always—appear weary, cautious, and aged. She brushes his jaw, rough and unshaven, with her palm and before she realizes it, she's sobbing again, holding onto his arm, his chest, his face, and seemingly every part of him at once. So many things she wishes to say to him ("I thought you would never come home... Don't you ever dare leave me again!"), but before she can find the words, she feels his lips graze her own. "Please don't let me go."
And somehow, all her shouts, rants, and concerns no longer need to be expressed. James is home, and Lily finally feels whole.
.
Fin.
Notes:
We're reading Ovid's Heroides/Epistulae in Latin right now and the first one we read, Penelope to Ulysses, inspired this. I've actually seen many L/J fics in which Lily has to be home for Harry and James goes off to war, but none explored this idea of writing letters and it just intrigued me. I've always loved Penelope (I wrote my first university research paper on her two years ago) and there's just so much about her—in personality and situation—that is just like Lily that I couldn't help myself.
I hope the combination of letters and scenes wasn't too bizarre (the style is fairly new to me and I've never written in present tense before and this is both my first time writing anything Harry Potter and Lily/James—basically, this whole ficlet is experimentation) or difficult to follow.
And also, I apologize for the letter. I've written few in my life and never a love letter, so yeah, sorry if that was awkward (was it?).
Anyway, thank you for reading! ^^