They're best friends, even though she's the vibrant, mischievous Gryffindor and he's the reasonable, quiet Ravenclaw.
Her heart is broken first when she's fourteen.
She's got tears streaming down her face when she stumbles into the nearly empty Ravenclaw common room, but he thinks she's beautiful anyway. He tells her so.
She only manages to laugh out, "You have to say that, you're my best friend," and smile weakly before she bursts into tears again. He holds her and doesn't mind that she's probably ruining his shirt because she's Lily and he's Lorcan and holding her is worth it.
Later she tells him that she wishes she could find a boy like him and then continues to rant about Scorpius and Rose and how sickening it is to see them happy.
(It takes all he has not to say, "I'm right here.")
When they're sixteen, Vincent Nott steals her heart and gives it back in pieces.
Once again, she stumbles into the Ravenclaw common room with tears streaming down her face, except this time it's 2AM and she has to call for him.
Her eyes are swollen and red and she smells of alcohol and there're leaves in her hair.
He frowns as he removes the foliage from her fire-red waves, and she cries into his shoulder.
After she's quieted down and he's dozing off, she sits up abruptly and says, "Kiss me." He has to ask her to repeat herself and she does so quite clearly.
And it's wrong because she's intoxicated and isn't he supposed to be the logical one? But he does, and she kisses back, and then she's Lily and he's Lorcan and everything's normal again and she leaves.
She asks the next day if she'd done anything stupid and tells her no, that everything's fine.
(Except his heart, 'cause it feels like it's been dropped in a pit of acid.)
The third time is when they're seventeen and he personally thinks it's a little ridiculous as she'd never even dated the guy.
He's not even surprised this time when she staggers into his common room, interrupting his essay-writing. They're alone but for a few first years sitting in a corner, but the three little girls quickly take off when they see the intimidating older girl crying.
Lily practically sits on his lap this time and whispers, "I th-thought they'd at least w-wait a bit, y'know?"
He doesn't have to ask who she's talking about, because he got Teddy and Vic's wedding invitation too.
An hour of outright sobbing later, she says, "I love you, I really do," and then kisses him.
In bed that night, he remembers the alcohol and the smoke on her breath and wonders why she turned to the bottle before she did him.
He knows that, one day, he's going to cut himself picking up the jagged pieces.
(This is the price of silence.)
AN: I am a terrible person. This is what happens when I can't sleep at 2AM.