A/N: Honestly, I don't even know why I'm posting this. It's actually not even a story, it was more of an application for an RPG but I felt sort of proud of it as a standalone piece so I decided to post it.
Disclaimer: JKRowling owns everything recognizable. I should also point out that the Lily smoking B&H headcanon was inspired by The Life And Times by Jewels5 which, for me, is one of the main characterizations I follow for Lily and James, and everyone else in that era. It's THE Marauders Era fic, for me. But to keep the work original, I tweaked where she got it from. I don't want to be a rip off, I mostly just like the idea of them smoking B&H because I smoke B&H too.
So, there you go. Let me know what you think.
TEN MEMORIES LILY NEVER FAILS TO THINK ABOUT
It's a rainy afternoon in the town of Cokeworth, England and Lily's absolutely certain she'll die if another peal of thunder cracks through the sky. At four years old, the crackling in the sky seems like the worst thing that can happen to her. She jumps and screams as it rips through the air, flashing through the window, burying her head under the pillow. There is a creak at her door and she whimpers, wondering what monster of the night has come to take her away. But there is only warmth enveloping her as Tuney's arms go around her, shushing her. Lily cuddles close to her older sister, a tiny tear escaping the corner of her eye.
Shhh, Tuney whispers. I'm here now. I won't let the bad thunder take you away. Go back to sleep.
Now that she's all grown up, Lily dreams of Crucios and Avada Kedavras and wonders if Tuney can take away that bright lightening, too.
She's fifteen years old and she doesn't think she's ever been hurt like this before. It's a different kind of pain than the one she's used to. It doesn't taste like nostalgia and broken dreams, it doesn't make her want to curl up and never move.
It's the kind that numbs you and you don't feel it until you take in another breath.
Her dress is too tight around her shoulders, and she's sure her hair has frizzed up in the rain and humidity. Lily wonders if the sky is weeping the tears she can't bring herself to weep.
Lily, her father whispers, voice thick, eyes thin. Lily, dear, you have to say some words. you must -
She doesn't listen. She's supposed to be prefect and she's supposed to be a good orator.
But her mother's in a casket, and there's a death certificate that says 'cardiac arrest' somewhere in their living room, and Lily wonders if maybe sadness is tasteless, after all.
Ask her about winter, and she'll say there's something very sexy about cold winter air. Something more intimate than sweat and naked heat. She finds it more enticing when she can feel her breath curl, and the only heat pressed against her is that of another person.
There's nothing sexy about New Years' night 1975 , Lily thinks, her back against the cold walls of the Astronomy Tower and Kieren Lowell's lips on hers. She's a month away from being fifteen years old, and she thinks it's about damn time she's snogged someone, proper. She doesn't usually do these kind of things but she's had a little firewhiskey to treat her well, and it's only the holidays.
They've been dating for four weeks now and it's only been pecks and hand holding, and she wonders if he's waiting for her or for himself.
When it finally happens, her reaction is more along the lines of 'oh' and not 'oh'. It's sweet, it's chocolatey and it smells of underage drinking.
She hates to admit it, but she's glad it's over.
It's potions class and it's the first day back from Easter break of her second year. Her eyes are watering, there's thick smoke in the air and her cheeks feel hot with flush.
A bead of sweat runs down her forehead, petite hands wiping it off as she leans over her cauldron, taking a deep breath and dropping the five lacewing flies. It bubbles, it spits, and then clears into cerulean blue.
Before she can react, Professor Slughorn howls in delight and slaps an 'O' for Outstanding on the parchment he's carrying around. It's the first time she's done so well, and she can't help but enjoy the envious and annoyed looks her classmates throw her.
Her mother tells her modesty is the best feeling in the world. Lily would disagree.
She doesn't think she's ever felt better than having something everyone else wants.
The first time Lily Grace Evans rode a broom, she ended up in the hospital wing with a cracked hip. A lot of people thought it's because she's absolute rubbish at flying (which is not true). But really, she just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time - the wrong place being the banks of the Black Lake and the wrong time meaning the moment when a couple of Slytherins thought it would be absolutely hilarious to knock her off.
She'd have fallen flat on her butt if her ankle hadn't gotten stuck, swung her wildly about and dropped her at an angle that shattered her side. Good thing she goes to a magical school, huh?
She blacked out from the pain and woke up to her friends surrounding her.
And people wonder why she doesn't cheer very loudly during quidditch matches - it's because she swears she can feel her hip throb, every time she does.
Sibling rivalry stops being cute when you hurl death threats at each other over your mother's funeral.
It's ugly, it's brutal, it's disgustingly cathartic.
Lily's got her wand whipped out, snot running down her nose, tears blazing in her eyes, and she wonders if this is what sadness does to you. It reduces you to point your best weapon against the girl who was your best friend.
Tuney's blonde hair is tangled, eyes are bloodshot and her lips are quivering as she uses the best insults she can think of while kicking off her black shoes.
Freak. Bitch. Selfish little shit. Princess Lily of the Land of Losers. You should die.
I hope you die.
That's the last time they've spoken to each other since, and Lily sometimes wonders what started the fight (that's the thing about a fight - you don't remember what starts it; you only remember how it ends).
It ends badly.
It's sunny and suffocating when Lily walks out of her house, the summer after fifth year. The houses of Cokeworth are not a sight to see, she wonders to herself, watching the mill in the distance and the monotonous, brown, slanted roofs. She used to dream of living with a white picket fence and green lawns.
All she got were stone walls and gloomy days.
She's walking and walking and walking, and before she knows it, there's a sign in front of her eyes that says 'Spinner's End'. How her feet took her there, she doesn't know. She waits, and she waits, even though she really shouldn't. But she can't help herself.
So, when she sees him in the distance, her throat closes up and all that's left echoing in her ears is the slur he threw at her a few weeks ago. She promptly turns around and walks off, vowing to never set foot in spinner's end again.
Vaguely, she thinks James Toerag Potter would be a little smug. It makes her feel both better and worse, for some inane reason.
She's eleven years old and waving her new wand, hand clutched tightly to her father's. Her parents are in awe of Diagon Alley, but Lily's already breathed it in the moment she set foot on the cobbled stone path. Now she's inhaling the air and the magic and thinking - Yes, this is my world. This is my life.
Mudblood, a tall wizard spits, and she wonders vaguely who he's talking to before she realizes he's staring at her.
She squints her eyes, confused, ready to ask him if she knows him and what the word means. She doesn't know it, but she doesn't like the tone of his voice. Her mother quickly pulls her away from the stranger, whispering to her about stopping to talk to unknown men.
Lily wonders why she's got a very heavy feeling in her chest and the urge to cry. The word means nothing to her. It was probably a mistake.
But she can't shake the feeling of his eyes on her.
(Two years later she finally figures out what it means, and she thinks it's horrible that she's stuck in between the muggle world pushing her away and the wizarding world pushing her out. Where does she belong?)
Winter-breath-Astronomy-Tower Kieren Lowell gets dumped in the worst way she can think of.
It's in the way he doesn't even know he's been dumped.
It's been two months of her slowly falling out of like with him, and two months of him asking her where they're going because he's older and dreams of a war; she's younger and she dreams of a Head Girl badge. He's up, she's down. He's right, she's left. He's vodka soda in Muggle bars and vegan diets, and she's firewhiskey shots and lamb chops for lunch.
When he finally tells her things are over, her best friends take bets about how long it'll take for him to figure out that Lily only manipulated him into dumping her because she'd had enough of something she wasn't ready for.
Lily groans as they tally off the earnings, and wonders when she became so emotionally abusive towards genuinely nice people.
It rains again when Professor McGonagall calls her to her office and sits her down, explaining that prefect duties will be harder for the new batch than they have been before.
They're in danger.
They're in the middle of a fight that's turning ugly.
She tells lily that Lily has to keep her chin up and take responsibility of those who can't take any for themselves - the kids who roam the halls. There's so much trust in the older woman's eyes and Lily idly wonders who is going to take responsibility for her.
Thunder claps overhead and she barely holds back a flinch.
Nobody. Nobody gets to tuck her into bed this time around.
NINE THINGS SHE LIKES
Lava lamps.
She's got three in her room, and they look completely idiotic against her bare bone walls. But she loves them.
The blue goes up, the pink comes down, the yellow hovers somewhere between. Tuney says it's juvenile but what can Lily say to her? How is she supposed to explain that sometimes when you're tired of potions fumes and blazing lights, there's nothing like watching wax go up and down? No magic, just science.
Lily always wondered if she'd be just as clever as she is in Hogwarts, if she lived in the muggle world. Probably not.
Clever girls don't lay upside down on their beds, head hanging off the edge, feet crawling up the wall, trying to imitate the lava lamps as sunshine streams through translucent curtains.
That's what broken girls do.
Led Zeppelin.
Lily hates not having her record player work in Hogwarts because man, oh man does she miss twirling in a trance while Stairway to Heaven echoes across her bedroom.
It's magical in a muggle kind of way and sometimes, that's the best kind of magic there is.
It's a spell without incantations, a trance without tea leaves, and Lily loves losing herself to it like it's Amortentia. Because she'll take muggle music over magical bands any day.
Sometimes she catches herself humming the tune under her breath as she runs from Defense Against the Dark Arts to Charms lessons. Then there are days she tries to write the lyrics down on the edges of parchment paper while the Gryffindor common room is empty.
She thinks it's kind of stupid since she does the same with wizard bands when she's back home but what's that they say about grass and other sides?
Writing.
She thinks it's a little cliche that she loves to write.
Of course, poor little rich (sort of, not really, not at all) girl has her problems. What happened? Did your pink shirt not match your red hair?
Well, that's what the girls from Tuney's school used to say, anyway, when they came over during the summers and found Lily sitting with a diary and her feet propped on the coffee table. She'd never admit it, but she only really started writing because she missed the feel of holding a pen instead of a quill. But then things got out of control, and suddenly Diary became her confidante and ink became her tears.
Sometimes she'd pose silly, rhetorical questions.
Why do my eyes and hair have to make me look like Santa's elf? Why is Kieren Lowell so fit? Will James Potter ever stop being a bully? Why is James Potter so fit? How did I forget I had half a foot of Transfiguration homework left?
Then there were the questions that were only rhetorical because nobody had any real answers to them.
Why can't we live in a nicer home? Why does Tuney pretend we're rich when she knows her friends will come home and see we're only normal people? Why did mum have two appointments with the doctor if she said she's fine? How can the muggle world think I'm a freak for having magic, and the wizard world think I'm a freak for coming from muggle blood?
Am i going to die by the end of this?
She's not quite sure when it became scarier for her - the fact that she refuses to think of dying, or the fact that she knows she just might.
Not in her head, Not in a far of future. But any second.
Curly Hair.
Dad used to tell her (nicely, of course) that her hair looks like copper turnings when she curls it. She knows it doesn't suit her. She knows she looks ridiculous when she does it (maybe because she just doesn't know how to do it right).
But there's something seductive (more than winter night seductive) about running your fingers through it and not knowing which way is up and which way is down. Maybe it's all about not wanting to be herself just for a little while, and who really cares if it looks silly and weird against her face?
She's Lily Evans, isn't she? Esteemed member of the Slug Club? Might as well get whacky hair to match the whacky club.
(She'd rather tell people these things than tell them that she hates what she sees in the mirror, and maybe looking bad on purpose is better than looking bad when you're trying to look good).
Chocolate Cake.
First time her mother baked chocolate cake for her was when Lily was fourteen. She didn't grow up eating her mother's baking because Mum was a bit of a rotten cook, and even worse baker and it took her forever to get it right.
The first time she had a slice, she had to wash her mouth out. No, not because it was disgusting.
She had to do it because it was so good, she said oh fuck me in front of Grandma Evans and Grandma Evans was all about how a lady doesn't swear.
Regardless of what Grandma Evans thought, the cake was heavenly and she wondered when her mum got that good at baking.
She misses it a lot these days, but what to do, what to do? No spells to bring back the dead.
Benson & Hedges.
If Grandma Evans hated Lily swearing, Lily can imagine what she'd say to her secret little habit. It's a bad habit. The absolute worst.
But bad habits are like fights - you can't ever seem to remember how they started.
No, that's a lie. Lily knows exactly how it started. It started with another fight with Tuney, a dare lily took far too seriously and a pack of her Uncle Henry's smokes lying in the garage.
One puff, and she almost hacked a lung. Two cigarettes, and she thought her chest couldn't hurt worse. Two days, and three tries later, she realized bad habits weren't like fights, they were like fevers. They get bad before they get good - and oh boy, do they get good.
They certainly make Led Zeppelin seem much better when you're laying in a haze of smoke.
Sometimes, she gets very ashamed of it. Those nights when she hides under the Quidditch stands or behind alleyways during Hogsmeade trips? Yeah. Prefect badges don't look so shiny when they've got scorch marks from a slippery lighter.
This one time a half decent Slytherin found her stubbing it out and asked her why she smoked. She remembers telling the older girl - prim, perfect, pureblood (obviously) - that if her blood is so polluted, she might as well go all the way.
(It's easier being witty when you try to hide how a habit has become a weakness).
Dressing Up.
It's curly hair obsession all over again, every single morning when she lines her red lashes with mascara and slides beaded bobby pins to keep her fringe off her face.
Dress smart, dress neat, is not her mantra even if it's a mutually beneficial motive.
It's about looking perfect and prim and proper and invincible. You have to look it if you want to feel it.
Sunshine.
So, magic does have it's good uses in the mundane world, especially when it comes to preventing Lily from becoming a lobster as she soaks up the sun. Sun used to mean no rain. Now, sun means no more Dark Marks in the sky. It's a little morbid, and it's a little weird how she loves the look of smoke filtering sunlight, but really it's just that she likes the sun.
Who said she has to have a reason for it?
Hair back, eyes closed, tie loose, she lays near the lake and soaks up the sun. Lazy Friday afternoons were the best.
Neatness.
Remember the prim and perfect routine? Yeah, sometimes it bleeds into her surroundings too.
It's a wonder how she can pull all nighters dusting study tables and rearranging books to look perfect, and then spend afternoons finding patterns on the ceiling while dishes wait in the sink for her to do them.
Lily, Lily, quite contrary, her mother used to sing, ruffling her hair.
EIGHT THINGS SHE DISLIKES
Spinner's End.
That's her origin story. There's nothing that broke her more than everything that started with one boy making a witch out of one girl. She used to tell herself that, really, the wizards would've still come to fetch her even if Severus hadn't found her.
But it's easier blaming him knowing that her sister stopped trusting her after she chose him.
It's easier blaming him every time she gets asked about her blood, because it's him and his friends who are going to kill her one day.
It's easier blaming him because maybe, maybe if he'd told her that being muggleborn does matter then she'd have run far, far away and joined a muggle school.
She always blames him and Spinner's End for it because she'd rather blame them than her own parentage.
Racism.
If she has to explain why she hates this, then she thinks you're not worth her time. She's got a target painted on her back just for being born how she was.
Her biggest crime has become her existence.
White Chocolate.
White chocolate, she's decided, is like Severus Snape.
It pretends to be regular chocolate. It pretends to be nice. It pretends to be as good as the chocolates around it.
But it leaves a sick taste at the back of your tongue and makes you regret getting into the whole thing at all.
Rats.
Never really liked them, she didn't. Not since she was five and watching her dad work in the garage, and a big one crawled over her foot. She screamed bloody murder, and the neighbors almost called the police until they realized they should be calling pest control.
She hates the rodents. She hates the traitor kinds too.
She's sworn to herself that if anyone ever betrays her - yeah, yeah she knows Tuney betrayed her, and so did Severus, and so did mum with her honey, we need to talk. i'm sick speech - she'll kill them slow.
(No, she won't. Because the worst thing about traitors is that you trusted them and loved them with everything you had).
Bullies.
These, maybe she can kill without (much) remorse. Or stop, at any rate.
God knows, she doesn't need the shiny prefect badge to put an end to the nonsense that involves picking on innocent people just to prove how much better you are.
Do what you want Lily, she tells herself. Don't ever let someone take advantage of someone else's suffering.
So, she doesn't.
At least, she's doing something for humanity while stuck inside those castle walls. Maybe contributing to the emotional stability of teenagers is doing good, even if they'll turn into war orphans any day now.
John Lennon.
He's weird, he's not talented as much as he thinks he is, Tuney likes him, he doesn't really know what he's saying half the time, he seems a bit creepy, he's got James Potter-esque glasses - does she really need to go on with the list of all that is wrong with him?
Crying.
She rarely does it, and when she does, she hates it.
Tears are precious as diamonds, she used to hear her mother say. Don't waste them, she used to say.
Lily always thought that was kind of funny because maybe it made more sense for her to cry her eyes out and collect all the tears of apparent pricelessness.
Now she knows what her mum meant about diamonds running down your cheeks - they look pretty to everyone else, and they only cut you.
Don't show weakness, don't show them your tears. Ever.
Love.
She hates it more than crying.
Love makes you strong, Lily, Dad tells her one night when she's watching Gone with the Wind and wondering what is romantic about a tragedy.
She doesn't say what she's thinking.
Love makes you strong. Love makes you vulnerable. It's lethal.
SEVEN QUOTES FROM SEVEN DAYS
Monday.
"I've got butter all over my hands. Pour me some pumpkin juice, won't you?... A little more ... a little more ... A little - come on, I'm not a Cornish Pixie, I'm a human...That's it. That's good."
Tuesday.
"No, I won't go out with you. Sod off."
Wednesday.
"It's a stairway because it's hard to climb all the way there. And the higher you give up, the harder you fall. At this rate, I doubt I'll make two steps to heaven."
Thursday.
"I don't see what the big deal is. A bunch of people flying after a couple of balls. You could do that in one of those shady joints in Knockturn Alley with lesser life hazards...alright, alright I'll come. But only because I'm prefect and who knows which first year will get knocked off the stands."
Friday.
"If you mixed firewhiskey with butterbeer - what would you get?"
Saturday.
"I'm going out...because I'm bored...I finished it last week...Because it was given to us last week..Why would I wait till the last minute to...Say hi to the Restricted Section for me. Bye!"
Sunday.
"If i die...no, just listen...if i die, make sure my body comes home. Just..make sure I reach home. Yeah?"
SIX QUALITIES SHE ADMIRES ABOUT HERSELF
Cleverness.
Brightest witch of her and age and all that... it's got to mean something, right? Tuney calls her a freak but she's the Queen of Freaks, as it turns out.
High grades, loving teachers, preferential treatment from time to time. It gives you a high that's dangerous to get used to.
Overconfidence is overkill, they say. Well, she basks in the irony of it.
Best witch of her age, and she's filthy, right? She's the one "stealing" their magic when their kids can't do half as well as she does.
She has a habit of sitting at the back of the class and watching some of those supremacists fumble while she idly does her work, with ease. It's weird watching them struggle, sweat dripping down their temples.
Whose blood is filthy now?
Bravery.
Well, she's a Gryffindor. As if that explains everything, but it's the twentieth century and people love stereotypes, so what can you really do?
She remembers the train ride from first year when James Potter brandished the invisible sword and said he'd go to Gryffindor like his dad. And she was supposed to end up in Slytherin. What idiotic kids they were - although in hindsight, she remembers the hat telling her she was very brave for choosing Slytherin and put her in Gryffindor instead.
She never really understood what that meant, back then, either.
She wonders if she's brave, sitting in her dormitory, warm bed, plush hanging, full belly of food. What's so brave about laying and doing absolutely nothing?
Getting out of bed and walking into this world, despite what's going on?
Maybe that's a little brave.
Sarcasm.
If Professor Slughorn wasn't such a glutton for punishment, he might actually notice how his "brilliant" club members use him to siphon up points.
Lily doesn't try too hard. She does her work, tries to stay nondescript because sometimes she's tired of being that Lily.
And then he comes up to her and asks her a question that's so painfully obvious, she can't help but reply a bit cheekily. She gets points for that too.
It would be borderline inappropriate if Slughorn wasn't half as clueless as he always seems to be.
You're going to get it, one of these days, her friends warn her.
No shit, she laughs. Doesn't mean I can't call them as I see them.
One day she'll learn that there's a right place and a right time for a smart mouth. But not today.
Charms.
So, this is something she swears she can brag about, but let's be honest, how could she not brag about something that comes natural to her?
No memorizing, no studying, no excessive hours spent at the library for this one class. Sometimes, she swears if there wasn't a war going on, she'd do something about charms and make a career out of it.
Maybe join some research facility. Maybe get into some Department of the Ministry that could use her help.
But she can't swish and flick the death away.
Organization.
Grace Evans once told her daughter that she'd make the perfect bride. No bridezilla moments for this redhead, because she's a walking, talking day planner.
Sure, she's a lazy teenager sometimes, but if she's got her head in it, she's going to get it done. Grace Evans was convinced Lily could single handedly organize her own wedding, while the mother of the bride could relax and sleep like a log.
That metaphor hits a little too close to home now.
Charisma.
This one she's absolutely positive she can brag about (you can't make this stuff up, she insists) because how in the name of Merlin can anyone fake charisma?
You just can't. She's got it from birth, and it's probably the one thing that's kept her going all these years. From up to down, to back and forth, and a little topsy turvy, charisma is all she's got to hang onto.
Where would she be without it?
FIVE QUALITIES SHE WISHES SHE DIDN'T HAVE
(Stubborn) Because she's Lily Grace Evans and she's smart enough, so why would anybody want to question her choices and decisions? Evanses don't give up. they don't.
(Pessimist) But yeah, sometimes they do give up because life is inevitable in front of fancy quotes and catchphrases.
(Short tempered) And it makes her so angry. Sometimes it makes her so angry she buries her head into a pillow and screams. She shrieks and shrieks till her throat hurts and her ears echo because this feeling she's feeling - loss, despair, fear, hatred, anger, paranoia, war, war, war, war - it's not fair. She's just a kid.
(Reckless) And she wishes she could use that excuse again. But she's a grown up girl and now she has to practice what she's been preaching all these years. She supposes people don't see it because she's not the barrel-roll-during-a-Quidditch-match kind of reckless. She's not the speed-down-the-highway-and-yank-the-hand-brake kind of reckless. She's not the jump-off-the-highest-swing-point kind of reckless (although she did do that once and turns out she could fly, so). She's the touch-the-flame-because-it-looks-gorgeous kind of reckless. The fall-in-love-because-it'll-break-my-heart-no-matter-how-hard-I-try-not-to kind of reckless (because she's a glutton for punishment too).
She's the kind of reckless that's the reason behind beautiful roses having sharp thorns.
(Selfish) Because she's Lily Grace Evans. Evanses don't fricking give up.
They get what's theirs and they get what they want, no matter what they do to get it.
FOUR PEOPLE WHOM SHE LOVES
Mum.
But Mum's gone now.
Dad.
But Dad's as good as gone now, too.
Tuney.
But Tuney was never really there for her to have gone.
Marcus.
She loves Marcus the most. Marcus is her cat, and he's more human than the entire lot of them.
THREE LIES SHE'S EVER TOLD
"I love the wizarding world."
She hates it. Sometimes she loves it, and sometimes it's complicated.
Because she's got to love it on principle, and then she remembers that it even if it showed her who she really was - it showed it to her too soon.
She'll never be a kid again. There's something toxic about magic running through your veins and people calling it mud.
Sometimes she wonders if she was right all those years ago, when Severus called her a 'witch' and she said it wasn't a very nice thing to say.
"I've never been in love."
Yeah, right. She falls in love everyday. Sometimes she falls in love with herself (even though she kind of, sort of, hates herself). Sometimes with that cute boy across the classroom (whom she'll forget all about the moment she walks out of class). And sometimes with the color of the sky (because she has to enjoy it before it bleeds into red into orange into blue into black).
She falls in love with everything, everyday and that makes her the weakest of them all.
"I hate you."
But you're my sister, so I love you more than I hate you.
TWO TRUTHS SHE'S NEVER HIDDEN
"I'm a Mudblood and proud!"
She won't lie, she did envy pureblood statuses for a very long time.
Then she learned to love herself a little more, pay gratitude to her parents a bit more, and really, there's nothing more empowering than calling yourself a Mudblood and watch those prejudiced pricks deflate at the idea of it being a compliment.
They don't know that she's used her insecurities like armor. That everything they do to hurt her, she does to herself much worse.
And, really, truly, honestly - they can't hurt her with a word anymore.
"I hate Quidditch!"
Why would she even try to hide this fact?
ONE WAR SHE'S IN THE MIDDLE OF
The battle for her life