Sorry kiddies, this is just my contribution to the Review's Lounge challenge contest -- there were a few glitches in recieving my email, so voila! Lexie or Cuba (forgive me, I can't remember which right now; it's the meds, the meds, I swear!) suggested this plan, and here it is! If you want to read all the submissions for The Reviews Lounge challenge contest, simply check out this link:
go crazy ;)
Happy Birthday Trisky!!
Alice in Wonderland
Lily was like a rainbow; a constant stream of colours that seemed to dominate any situation. Her emerald eyes were filled to the brim with so much emotion that sometimes I was afraid she would cry, and often, in private, she did. It wasn't only because she was sad – quite the contrary, she sometimes cried from excessive happiness, of being too cheerful; that was one aspect that confused me, and I put it down to her uniqueness, the one of the things about her that no one else I knew displayed.
Another reason Lily was like a rainbow was her vivid red hair. I believe it's what attracted me to her in the first place, and before me, though I did not know it at the time, Severus Snape and James Potter. In retrospect, maybe she should have dyed her hair a brilliant shade of blue to ward James off, because then, I wouldn't have had to listen to all those years of complaints, then later on, her constant stream of chatter about how good James was to her (I wasn't jealous, mind you, I had my darling Frank at my side then). Or perhaps, since I'm going down this road, I wish she'd just never met him at all, because then she wouldn't have died; my best mate wouldn't be buried under a ton of bloomin' dirt right now!
But I've lost my point – it's not like he wouldn't have found her in the end anyway, and the prophecy would still have been made. My point is, that Lily was a rainbow, both in colour and appearance and personality. I've already mentioned her eyes and hair, but I believe her lips, so pink, were apart of her rainbow trait as well. If Lily smiled at you, you knew it to be a good omen because those lips, apathetic to any who wasn't a close friend, hardly ever upturned for no reason. I believe it's part of the reason the Marauders pulled as many pranks as they did: to make the apathetic Gryffindor smile, if only once, simply for them. Well, perhaps it was simply James then and not the Marauders plurally.
Her clothes, so brilliant in colour, were apart of her – she always wore them under her uniform, not caring whether they clashed with her face or eyes or hair. And though she would never care to admit it, I always knew she worried about the way she looked, as well as her studies (though she would fervently deny any sort of need to dress socially acceptably). For instance, she never wore the same colour twice in the same week – one day she'd wear a bright yellow sundress, blinding everyone with the combination of yellow and red, even though I told her it was in her best interest not to wear reds, yellows, oranges and pinks with her hair colour. The next day she might go in a totally different fashion direction, and wear black leggings over a large, baggy indigo shirt, quite a contrast in comparison to the day before. Only I understood her need for diversity, although I do think the two most prominent men in her life, Severus and James, had somewhat of an inkling of it.
I think my favourite by far was the day in which she came over to my house for the family Christmas party in our sixth year and she wore a floor-length, strapless emerald green ball gown. I said she looked stunning; she said she looked like a Christmas tree. I said it accentuated her eyes; she said it made her look like a two-knut whore. Needless to say, I never saw her wear it after that, nor did I ever see her look as stunning (except perhaps on her wedding day), though she did occasionally wear emerald green again, when I insisted upon it – usually in small doses.
If my memory is correct, I remember Sirius' favourite outfit on her (though he'd never publicly say it) was a pinstriped blue suit that she had been trying on for laughs when we'd all gone shopping and dragged the boys along. Naturally, since James could never refuse Lily anything, he'd come and his friends were simply there for support. It was then that she was modeling it, and I remember the look upon her face – wrinkling her nose at the Muggle-version-of-McGonagall of it all, but laughing as she admitted that it did look good on her, especially with her hair knotted up in an elegant twist. Sirius had walked in and taken one look at her, deeming it an immediate improvement (he'd always claimed she looked like a twelve year old child, but we all knew he was never serious, if you'd pardon the over-used pun), causing her to roll her eyes, stalk back into the stall and get changed.
It's these simple things, the excessive colour, laughter and luck she brought into my – our – life. I remember her, and then I look at myself, and I think, why did it have to be her, why not me? But then I immediately feel guilty, remembering the prophecy and my own son, Neville. I could not wish anything upon my sweet angel child, though I also feel guilty for thinking that, because it means that Lily's son would be the child of the prophecy. Either way, I would feel guilty, and my life becomes even greyer and dull than it had been.
I must admit, with Lily's death, colour seems to have faded out of the world. Out of everything. Why aren't I good enough to bring the colour back? The rainbow? I look in the mirror and see my reflection; my blonde hair so thin it's impossible to style and the clear blue of my eyes, true I still hadn't lost some of my pregnancy weight, and I would never have the grace Lily did, but I wasn't ugly. I dress now in drab colours of black or grey, because the colours hurt, even now, maybe even especially now since it's been nearly a year since her death – too long, I'm probably experiencing something akin to Lily withdrawal symptoms. The colours hurt, because they remind me of Lily and her rainbow.
Sometimes I catch Frank looking at me with a certain look in his eyes that I've come to understand is worry. I know I'm hurting him by clamming up, and that I probably haven't been acting as I should have, now that I'm a mother and wife. But how does one explain to her husband that she's lost the colour in her life? I've taken recently to hiding in my room, Neville left with Frank's mother, the curtain's drawn and the light switched off. It's probably not healthy and I know my skin's gotten paler, whiter, devoid of any colour at all, much to my cynical amusement – I'm becoming a ghost, losing Lily has made me lose myself.
I have never been close to being a rainbow; I have never had the energetic capacity for it, nor the outgoing personality and the vibrant attitude towards life – that was all Lily. I preferred to think I was her backbone, her spellotape, the thing that held her together when our world was falling apart. This was, I like to believe, put to the test only a year and three months ago, when the prophecy had been made. Suddenly, it was my child against hers, and suddenly, I felt as though I couldn't be there for her – shouldn't be there for her. I just couldn't bear the thought of her child dying at Voldemort's hands, but my child? My own flesh and blood? The child that I carried in my womb for nine months? It was impossible, and the thought made me sick.
But now, looking back on it, I suddenly wonder if there couldn't have been another way. Maybe I should have called on her more often, tried less to distance myself away from her, away from the pain. I say that I lost my rainbow the day she died, but in truth, my rainbow disappeared long before that, when the prophecy was revealed to us and the abyss between my best friend and I sparked and grew. I abhor my weakness – would Lily be shutting herself away right now? Would Lily be as weak and cowardly as I am now, not seeing my son and husband, simply because she missed me? Somehow, I doubt she, with her colourful personality, could have existed in a world of grey and darkness, shut away from those she loved.
This marks a new difference between us, I suppose. My inability to move on. But do I want to move on? Do I want to open the shutters, shower, and go down to eat something? Shower, maybe, but that is probably more due to my sensitive nose than to my willingness to forget Lily and move on with my life. Forget all the times we'd shared, all the tea parties, school dances – all the pranks we'd lived through.
A man once said, "If you love them, let them go" and here I am, trying to accomplish that stupid goal. I do love Lily, but how do I let her go? Do I simply forget? Do I simply get up one morning and say, 'oh, I think I'll make some scones today' and move on? I don't think I could bear it if that were the case, I don't think I even want to let her go, whatever some man said or not.
I like to imagine Lily in a wonderful place, looking down on me with James in a field of flowers with a creek babbling nearby, where the sun is always shining and… perhaps a Quidditch pitch in the vicinity for James. If Lily were to look down on me, would she be shocked or appalled at the lack of colour? The lack of passion? … Would she want me to move on? Sometimes, when I'm really tired and Frank insists upon leaving the window open to 'get some fresh air', I think I can hear her voice on the wind, telling me to go check on Neville, or to eat something. Even in death, she must be taking care of me, watching out for me. That is my opinion, and the only other one I can think of is that I'm going mental – and maybe I am, who's to say? Who's to say that losing my best mate has made me lose my mind?
Now that I think about it – I mean truly think about it – I can easily come to the conclusion that Lily would want me to move on, to live, if only to remember her. If I surround myself with colour, with rainbows, with everything Lily, would that make the loss bearable? Would it make whisper-on-the-wind Lily happy? It would certainly appease Frank. I imagine Lily would be disappointed at my behaviour, appalled at how devoid of colour I am. I imagine her scolding me, hands on her hips, red hair flying on the wind.
Maybe I am losing my mind, for the image I can see clearly in my head certainly does not constitute a sane person.
A sign – that's what I need, a sign. A sign that Lily wants me to move on, or at least to be more alive. I don't know what I'm looking for as I move towards the window, but my heart rate increases and I can feel the adrenaline rushing through my body – to feel something, anything feels nice after feeling nothing but emptiness, the numbness that accompanies losing a loved one.
I try to open the window, but the curtain is hard to pull through lack of use. Eventually, I manage it though, and it's night. The disappointment that follows my adrenaline high marks a new low for me – I suppose I had been half-expecting a rainbow, or a dove or the sun flashing in my eyes from a certain angle – I suppose I had been half-expecting a ghost-like, surreal Lily to show up and frown at my appearance. A beam of light catches my attention from the corner of my eye and I frown; a light?
My spirit – or what's left of it – uplifts slightly before I realize it's only the light that Frank charms to be permanently light, a light so I'm never in the permanent darkness; his fear that if I'm in the dark for too long, I'll be gone from him forever. Upon closer inspection, the corner of my lips turn upward slightly – I have my sign right there.
The light, refracting off the diamond of my wedding band, has created a brilliant arc of colours; a rainbow. I suppose it's a good thing I hardly ever wear the band now, though Frank's heart breaks every time he sees that. My sign – Lily's sign – has presented itself.
The corners of my lips return to it's now-usual frown; a problem has presented itself. I still don't want to lose Lily, to forget her. Does this mean that I find a new rainbow, a new splash of colour? But to do that would be to replace Lily, and simply the idea of it repels me. We'd been friends for so long, her and Frank being the sole reason for happiness in my life until Neville.
Frank. Neville. My heart clenches at the thought of them – thoughts that I'd been suppressing ever since the Potters' funeral. I suppose, if there'd been any reason before this to live, it would be them. I would go through the steps of life, trying to be there for them. I never really thought about how this all must be affecting Frank, or rather, I suppose I just didn't care – and how fair was that? A course of guilt rushes through me and I shake my head; I'd had my sign, and now my reason.
I'd live, if simply for Frank, Neville and, indirectly and though she was…dead…Lily. Eventually my rainbow would come back, even if it took time. I would wait, and until then, I must at least pretend to be happy. Just like that other Alice, Alice in wonderland, must have felt when she fell down that rabbit hole; I'd simply fallen, and now it was my turn to get up and look around, examine this new world around me in which Lily no longer existed. I would examine, and I would look.
Yes, that's it; I'm Alice in Wonderland, looking for my Lily, my rainbow.
AN: I'm not too sure about the ending, but… eh. This fic is dedicated to Trisken Leigh because it was her birthday the other day. Happy Birthday, Trisk! –glomps–