Lily Luna stood silently in the shadows, her ears open and her mind silent. She was disappearing, as she liked to call it-disappearing into the shadows.
In this particular moment, she was standing outside the classroom where her cousin, Rose, and her friend Scorpius were. She had followed them because she felt lonely and empty; disappearing helped her disappear from reality, too.
She would stand still, motionless, listening, letting herself become a shadow. She wasn't Lily, she was the dark that hid in corners and walls. She heard everything like the shadows did, and lately, like the shadows, said nothing.
The room was silent for a while. She assumed they were exchanging one of their everlasting glances, the ones where they would stare and Rose would bite her lip and push her hair and Scorpius would put his hands in and out of his pockets. Lily knew because she had always watched, always been observant, and no one seemed to notice.
She winced as she thought those words. No one seemed to notice. No one seemed to notice she was unhappy, that she wasn't being around her family or friends. She felt so distant and far from everyone because she felt ignored, ignored by her two best friends whom she loved dearly.
She pushed the thoughts far away. She was escaping. She was disappearing. She was a part of the shadows now.
"Why is this so complicated?" Scorpius' clear voice rang out through the dim hallway. She could hear Rose's struggle for words, her mind failing to click around the idea. For Rose, it had been the one thing she couldn't understand.
Lily pushed herself against the wall. The dark seeped into her thoughts. They don't care about you. Neither of them do. You'll see. You'll come back and they'll ignore you. They'll stare. They'll laugh.
"I don't know." It was Rose this time, her voice small and unsure.
Scorpius' feet shuffled along the ground. Lily could hear their hugs and Rose's tears.
"Please," Scorpius said, "ignore what they say."
They. The word rang in Lily's ears. The others who had nothing better to do than make up lies about others. They were the ones who ruined everything. Making up some rumor that Lily had been spreading the lies about Lorcan and Lysander. It hadn't been. And they hated her, hated her for what they said.
Rose and Scorpius were whispering now, their voices distant and far to Lily, because she couldn't take it. Her thoughts were too cloudy to disappear. She came back, back into her dull reality. She could hear them approaching the door and backed herself farther away from them. She heard the door creak open, Scorpius and Rose emerging, their arms around each other. They disappeared down the hall, farther and farther from a seemingly invisible Lily.
She slid down the wall and onto the ground. Her head echoed with the voices of her cousins and throbbed to the tune of footsteps.
The noise got louder and louder until there was a thump next to her.
She turned to see what it was. And she it. Him. There he was, the source of her suffering. She shut her eyes tight and tried to disappear, willing herself to be invisible. She could feel his gaze staring at her, willing her to open her eyes. She was sitting next to the source of her suffering and wanted nothing other than to turn away, but somehow, she found herself not able to look away.
She could hear them laughing, drawing when they were little, talking quietly in the Great Hall. She was lonely because he wasn't there. He was one of her closest friends, and trying to shut herself away from him and everyone else did nothing for her at all. She missed being happy.
She opened her eyes slowly, reality returning dimly. His face, which looked much like his mother's, came into view, the pale blond hair, the blue eyes.
"Lily, I…I'm sorry," Lorcan said, his voice soft and distant, "I don't know what got into me. I know you wouldn't say…that. I've watched you just disappear and fade from view, and it's bad, so bad that I didn't do anything. I couldn't let you just go, just disappear, because I don't want you to. I care, Lily, I care so much."
With those words something ebbed through Lily. A warmth, a heat, a happiness: relief. She felt like she had just stepped in from the rain. She didn't feel the need to disappear anymore; the feeling hid inside her like she hid in the shadows.
She reached out and grabbed Lorcan's hand.
"Thank you," she said quietly, the words rushing out of her mouth.
Lorcan squeezed her hand in response. He smiled serenely at her.
And suddenly, Lily began to talk.
"I don't know what happened to me. I just…I really don't. All I wanted was to disappear, disappear from here because I didn't know what I'd do without you and Lysander. And I felt like I was the horrible person. So I started to…well, I started to disappear. Into the shadows. I'd stay there and listen because I was afraid of talking and getting my words used against me. I listened and watched, and I'd become like a shadow, and I'd forget that you were mad at me."
Lorcan stared at her.
"I don't know," Lily said, brushing off the awkwardness. "It was how I dealt with it, okay? It's over now, and we're here. Right?"
"Why didn't you look at me when I came over her first?"
"I wanted to disappear…you were why I was disappearing. I thought maybe it would really work, and maybe you would go away, but you didn't. And I realized…I don't know. That I really missed you while I was shutting myself out. And I missed being happy, and that's how you make me. Happy. I love being around you, I love being your friend…"
Lorcan smiled at her.
"I missed you, too, Lily. I've been around you since…well, forever, it seems. And then you were gone. Invisible."
"Maybe we can be invisible together."
"I'd like that."
She leaned in and kissed him.
A/N: Okay, so I don't really know what to think about this fic. Um, I think that it probably depicts a different kind of Lily Luna than most other FanFictions probably do, so it's probably somewhat AU, and yes, I think I do ship Lily Luna/Lorcan. :) It's for Project PULL, by the way. Thanks for reading. Please review!