To Build a Life
Lily feels the weight of the war in every contour of her body. They were both so young and cocky when they started fighting, her and James, both of them so sure this was a war they could win easily. How wrong they were. How wrong and naïve and young. Lily doesn't feel young anymore; this war has aged her beyond belief.
She is finding it harder and harder to stay positive when news of more deaths are coming daily, each one a massive blow. Lily has finally accepted that they are losing this war. It is becoming more likely that one day it will be her in front of Dumbledore, hearing the news she dreads. "I can't do this anymore," she says, her voice cracking. "Every day I wait here, terrified you're not coming home." She can't look at him, can't face seeing the strain on James's face.
"Lily-", he begins, his voice weary, but she doesn't want to hear it. She knows what he is going to say; they've had this fight before.
"Don't James," she interrupts. "Don't stand there and tell me nothing is going to happen to you. You don't know that. Do you think Marlene or Gideon or Fabien thought it would be them?" Lily finally looks at James, and she wishes she hadn't. He is broken, completely and utterly.
"We'll leave," he finally says and Lily knows he is trying hard not to cry. "Let's go, right now. We'll disappear; go somewhere so far away that no one will ever find us." Lily holds her breath, he can't mean it. But she looks at him and sees the resolve on his face and it is all she needs. James has given her a tiny seed of hope and she clenches her fist around it tight.
Lily imagines the tiny village they would live in. She can see the pub where they would go on the Sunday's she can't be bothered to cook and the park they would take the baby to. They would live in a cottage covered in ivy, with a garden they would sit outside in on warm evenings. They could grow old there, her and James and the baby, Lily thinks. She runs her fingertips over her swollen belly. They could have everything and anything they wanted. They'd laugh unrestrainedly for the first time in, what felt like years. Lily wanted James to laugh – needed him to laugh – with every fibre of her being, so desperately that it hurt.
Lily remembers when James couldn't stop laughing. She remembers when she used to hate that, the sound of it grating on her, but then one day all she would need to hear was that laugh and she'd melt. She remembers the way his eyes would light up when he laughed, bringing out the tiny flecks of gold in hazel. It has been a long time since she has seen James's eyes that colour; her favourite colour.
James is leaning against the kitchen counter; his eyes haven't left her face since he suggested they leave. It would be hard for him, Lily knows that. James is not a coward. Neither is she, but this baby has changed everything. They have something else to fight for now; something so fragile and so entirely theirs. Lily looks at James, takes in the face she knows off by heart, and thinks about what would happen to her and the baby if something happened to him. It is this thought that makes up her mind. "Let's do it," she finally says. "Let's go somewhere, somewhere we can be free and happy and safe, the three of us."
Lily sees something flash behind his eyes – doubt, she thinks – and she worries that maybe he didn't really mean it, but then he is in front of her, swooping down to rub his lips against hers, his hands on her belly. A tap on the window interrupts them; an owl with a letter from Dumbledore. James reads it aloud, but Lily blocks him out, stares out of the window instead. She's heard it before, the bad news and the urgent call for a meeting, and she isn't interested. They are escaping now.
But then James is nudging her, a frightening look of terror on his face. The letter mentions a baby; their baby. Lily turns away from James, puts on her travelling cloak. Finally, she unclenches her hand and drops the seed; watches as it disappears into nothing.
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