When I walked out of the locker room, she was lying in the rain, tilting her head back and catching the drops in her mouth.
Lily has been doing this since she was little, because whenever it rained, she'd always send an owl to Teddy to make sure he was doing all right, and then go wait outside until our family owl, Azzie, returns. Then she'd send one to Hugo and Rose, then to Roxanne and Fred, then to Molly and Lily, and then to Victoire, Dominique and Louis. She'd wait outside for hours at a time, hoping for the letters to come back full of positive news and hopefully a knut or two to add to her piggy bank.
She's never broken the habit, and she's stopped sending the letters, but when it rains you can catch her outside with her face tilted up to the sky, her mouth opened wide like this was the only water she can mange to find.
The smart little peanut she used to be, writing her own letters and waiting in a thunderstorm, had turned into a genius young nutcracker who sometimes stopped to feel the rain.
I got over myself and clambered out to the center of the pitch, lying down and letting her rest her head on my legs. "You don't want me to go, do you?" I asked her, not bothering to wipe the droplets of water making their suicide plunges down my face.
"I think the only people who do are Scorpius and Headmistress McGonagall," Lily said dryly, closing her eyes. "And Cory only wants you gone so you'll stop jumping down his back about a crush on me and Rose that he doesn't have."
"Oh, trust me, he wants you both, and I'm not letting it happen," I told her, drawing out a smile.
"How come you get to do all the leaving," Lily asked me, drawing her knees up to her chest. I looked down at her.
"I do everything first. That doesn't mean you don't get to do it, it's just that you do it later than I do." I grinned. "It's my birthright."
"I'm feeling melancholy," Lily said. I almost wondered if the beads of water on her face were really rain.
"I don't exactly understand the words that you're using…" I said, hoping to draw out a laugh. Lily just let her legs back down on the grass.
"It means that you're doing things, and it makes me sad that you're doing them, but at the same time I know that you're going to do them and I'm happy for you." Lily gathered her fiery hair, already soaked to the point where it was a near rust color, and put it in a messy knot at the top of her head. "But I'm still sad."
"Well, do you want a marshmallow?" I asked her, causing the corner of her mouth to lift just a little.
"No, I'm fine." I almost gasped.
"When you're sad, you always want a marshmallow."
"Remember when I was little, and I used to send the letters in the rain?" Lily asked me. I nodded. "And I would wait in the yard for them to come back and tell me it was all fine? Well I'm going to wait in the rain for you to tell me that you'll be fine wherever you're going, and until you send a letter I won't leave."
"Lil," I said, cupping my hands. "Here. I'm giving this to you, and if you keep it forever, you won't need a letter."
"It's water, smart. It's going to evaporate." Lily drew her eyebrows together.
"No. I'm giving you the rain. Because when it rains, even when you're not there, I know you're sitting out in it, hoping I'm all right. And if you hope I'm all right, I won't need any other reason." Lily reached down and took the water from my hands, and then splashing it on my face.
It was only when I retaliated when I realized that when I told her I was giving her the rain that she looked down from the clouds and smiled her genuine Lily smile.
She looked down from the clouds for me.
"James?" I heard Lily ask from the ground after we collapsed, panting and, if possible, even more soaked then when we began.
"Yeah?"
"You promise you'll be fine?"
"As long as there's rain, I'll be perfectly all right."