The Girl of Many Sweaters
Lily Evans was always cold, it didn't matter the time of year, through summer and winter she was always wrapped in a sweater or cloak. Her parents rationalized it with the traditional England weather, her sister blamed it on her being a freak, her teachers never seemed to notice and her classmates didn't seem to care. If Lily could chase away the chill with a warm embrace of a close friend she would, but she had lost her closest friend, and once you lose your best friend it's hard to replace their warmth.
Summers were the worst for Lily though; summer was the time for seeing friends, spending all your time with them. Summer was the time for carefree laughter and picnics in the woods. However summer for Lily meant lonely nights and hostile days.
Lily lay in the grass of her backyard and stared into the cloudy, grey sky. It was days like this that she wished to just forgive Severus, to get on with their lives. She wished she could walk to his house and they could spend the morning in the park picking flowers, or the afternoons at the beaches. But deep down she knew she couldn't, she could never forgive him for the prejudice she had placed on him. And it was days like this she had realized the prejudice she had placed on others as well. Her friendship with the Slytherin had ostracized her from her fellow house mates, or maybe her friendship had caused her to ostracize them.
She knew they all liked her well enough, after her fight with Snape they had all come up to console her, they'd brought her dinner and sent him nasty looks. But that was it; they didn't invite her over for the summer nor did she ask. She could never enter their group and feel as if she was truly accepted. She was an outside, it was self inflicted but too late to change.
Sighing Lily rolled over, nose in the dirt she closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep.
It wasn't till dusk that Patrick Evans popped his head out the back door; he frowned as he saw his youngest daughter lying in the dirt. Opening the door the rest of the way he walked the short distance from the house to his baby girl. His frown deepened as he kneeled down next to her. As a child when Lily was upset she would always do the same thing, storm outside, plop down in the garden and then lay there till one of her parents made her come inside, many times she would dose off only to have her father carry her up to bed or wake her up for dinner.
That had been the pre- Hogwarts days, and Mr. Evans hadn't seen it happen since. However the summer after her 5th year she had done it every day. This summer it had yet to change. It worried Patrick to see his daughter lying in the dirt. He had almost pulled her out of that curious school after the first summer, his wife had convinced him to let her continue. Now he wondered if he had made the right choice. As Lily's father he was supposed to protect her, yet there was so much he didn't understand about her world. It hurt his heart to see Lily suffer.
Wiping away a stray tear Patrick Evans did what he hadn't done in a while, he bent down and scouped his daughter up in his arms. He had gotten older since Lily was a child, and she had gotten bigger, but Mr. Evans didn't mind. Slowly he made his way to the back door.
He knew it must have looked wonky to his eldest daughters boyfriend, to see Mr. Evans carrying his sleeping 16 year old daughter to bed; Mr. Evans didn't care about the thoughts of such boys though. He ignored Vernon's glance as he walked up the stairs to Lily's room. One day the lad would have his own children and then he would understand.
Laying Lily down in her bed he tucked her in, she mumbled and rolled toward the wall. Sitting on the corner of her bed Patrick stroked her disheveled hair. He wondered when she two would bring a boy home to meet the family; he worried of what type of boy it would be. One thing he was sure of though, none of them would be good enough for her, none of them would love her the way he and Rose did. Petunia and Lily were the Evans lives, Patrick loved them more than life itself.
"Now to get back down to dinner," he mumbled to his sleeping daughter as he stood back up. Just as no boy was good enough for Lily, no boy came close for Petunia either, but she really liked the block down stairs, Vernon Dursley was his name, they'd been dating for a year and a half. Petunia was sure he was the one. As he made his way down stairs Patrick shook his head to get the though away. His daughters were way too young to be thinking about marriage!
If someone would like to explain to me how to actually create bigger gaps in my story instead of using the line it would be great, thanks!