Disclaimer: ...hence the fan.
NNN: Drabble! Oneshot! Uno! Singelo! However I must put this, there is only one. Sorry, I'm much too lazy to commit.
Show and Tell
Lily Evans remembered the last thing her Muggle schoolteacher had taught her: A good writer will show, not tell.
Lily had always looked up to that teacher; she was somehow awed by the woman's ability to use symbolism in every situation and to make every choice worth something. Although that was also what Lily really hated about her, just because she often thought that she had absorbed this habit.
She knew they both loved her, though it was subtle hints on one side and obvious blows on the other.
She knew it by the way his hand lingered when he accidentally brushed her during class. She knew by the way he played with her hair when they lay by the Lake and counted stars. By the envious jealousy in his eyes when she left for the Common Room, James already three steps ahead of her. By the way he knew what she was thinking – everything except what really mattered. By the way that they stared into eachother's eyes for endless hours, showing so many unspoken, unexpected things. By the way he always looked back over his shoulder when he walked away with his Slytherin friends, away from her, and them, and by the way her heart sank when he did just that. Because Lily knew she was in love with Severus Snape, and she knew he could show her that he felt the same in a million different ways, and she knew that she craved each one exceptionally more than the last.
James, on the other hand, was a teller. He told Lily how lovely her eyes were. He told her that she simply deserved to be flattered into oblivion, and that was the reason he tried so damn hard. He described her fingers as the line of snow where it met water, thin and smooth, endless… beautiful. He told her it definitely meant something that her trunk was more filled with his clothes than her own. James told Lily that he loved her a million different times in a million different ways, and she remembered each time as clear as water. He told Lily who they could be and what they could do; together. He told her he could spend hours swooning over her. He told her that she had the most gorgeous smile he'd ever seen, so Lily told him he could call it his smile.
Only mine? He'd asked
Only yours.
It didn't matter if that had been someone else's smile at some point, because, for God's sake, Lily was in love with James Potter, and if he didn't tell her he loved her nearly as much as he already did, she might combust.
But how was a poor girl to choose? Your heart can only control your thoughts so much, in Lily's case anyway – she was Logic's fool. Show, not tell.
The problem was, Lily knew that she couldn't live happily without either of them, and that the time she would loose one crept closer every second.
And that was why it mattered when Sev said it (Lily had trained herself to address this incident as it.) Because, really, she didn't mind so much that he'd called her anything, but the reason he'd done it. He may not have known then, but Sev had chosen sides the second his lips formed around the word he'd been so careful not to use around Lily, to think around Lily. Sev had chosen sides, and he hadn't chosen hers.
So, what did stupid grammar rules taught by clueless Muggles have to do with anything, anymore? What really mattered was the decisions behind them; that was what changed everything.
A/N: Raise your hand if you liked! Haha, well, I wrote this one in a coffee shop, hoping some Jo-ness would rub off on me... Although this particular coffee shop was in South California, not London, so that would definitely explain any suckyness. Tell me what you thought! Jo or no Jo?
