disclaimer ...Depressingly, not mineee.
a/n ...Another one-shot. Overly mushy, cliche, and ...Well, it's Remus/Lily and the title speaks for itself.
"Beauty," Lily used to tell me, "is so overrated."
Not really, I'd mumble blandly. And Lily - Lily would sigh, to make me answer properly: "Beauty's not overrated, it's just not recognised for what it is," staring into her green eyes - her eyes sang, you know, a bright shiny song with a silently cheerful voice. Contrasting against my entire being.
When I told her that, though, she said I was a silly Remus. I tried very hard not to be silly Remus - I tried very hard to be her Remus. I didn't tell her that but she laughed anyway.
All she ever did was laugh. And now she won't laugh anymore.
x
James went out with her, since sixth or seventh year. James and I grew further apart, but Lily never did, not from me, never from James. We'd sit under the old tree, laughing and talking - the old friends we were - no matter how much she loved James.
I knew she didn't. I know she did.
She said, once, that family was everything to some people. And she said, many times, that family meant nothing to others.
I'd agree, and Lily - she'd look at me oddly, she'd ask, "Isn't James the family you've made here?"
I didn't answer. So Lily went on to describe her sister Petunia and her jealous and just how irritating she was, how often she betrayed her - that her family betrayed her, all the time.
I listened patiently. "Everybody's family betrays them sometimes," I told her finally.
"I know," said Lily.
But she didn't.
x
Lily and I, we'd look out on the lake. It was wonderfully tranquil really ...an indirect scent of dampness, a noisy silence, light water. The Giant Squid sometimes extended a tentacle, relaxing lazily in the murmuring sunlight. The lake was very pure, very quiet, unlike the tangled crazy lives we led.
Like Lily, the lake was beautiful.
The lake was never solace. And it always was. It was always constant - not indifferent, but always there - always alive, always radiant. Always painful - piercing words metallic hidden under a filmy veil of pastel blue.
So the water shimmered, and we noticed but never really said; so the hearts broke, and we hurt but refused to see.
x
Sometimes, Lily would say, she just wanted to leave everything behind. "Go on a holiday to Hawaii, maybe away from James, run away from the engagement - just run away from it all," with her bright echoing eyes and sad smile, a smile that was sometimes grim, always beautiful, but never half-hearted, just like the rest of her. "I'd run away if we could, you know, Remus."
We couldn't; we would.
Lily ran, I ran. We ran together.
All we ever did was run, you know ...
Now she'll never run again.
x
I'll always run, Lily.