Thank you to the amazing people on tumblr who helped me with this: araniaexumae, ginnyweeaslxy and gryffindormischief, you are all absolutely wonderful and you helped this fic become so much better, and your encouragement has kept me going. Here we go!
Don't go breaking my heart. I couldn't if I tried.
If Lily heard that song one more time this summer, she was going to break something. It bounced through the house every day, reverberating against the walls.
Dad had a fancy new radio installed in the car since Christmas, and the first thing that crackled out along with a wave of static were the words don't go breaking my heart, spitting at Lily in the back seat. She curled in on herself on the long drive home. There wasn't an inch, an atom, a fibre of her body that didn't scream and cry and plead for sleep. This tiredness went deeper than her bones. She was utterly frayed at the edges, and the ironic refrain that made up a plea to please, not break her heart, was what sliced at her until she fell asleep.
It faded in and out in the train station, when Lily was returning from Mary's house in Bournemouth. She hadn't been that close with Mary up until that year. Maybe it was just getting older, or maybe the pressure of the OWLS had started to change the dynamics between her friends, or send them on different paths.
Or maybe it was the simple, unavoidable fact that she was the only other Muggleborn in Lily's dorm, and even though Lily had plenty of friends, Mary made her feel like she wasn't alone in a way that none of her other friends - from Gobstones or Charms or the Slug Club - could quite manage.
The girls had spent two weeks in companionable silence, strolling the seaside with nothing to say and no expectations from the other to worry them. Mary was a little paler, her eyes a little rounder and her movements a little jerkier than they had been before Mulciber and his lot had got to her. Lily had been uncharacteristically miserable, but seeing Mary like that also made her certain that she had made the right choice.
She hadn't the courage to ask if Severus had been with Mulciber - he'd told her no, but now his word seemed so cheap. But really, Lily wasn't ready to know.
The bloody song dogged her, sitting steadily at the top of the chart and blasting through the radio that sat on the kitchen counter while Lily was helping her mother make dinner, each chord stabbing at her until the whole story came pouring out of her, tumbling out between her tears and her coughed out sobs and her breath sticking in her throat like it could keep her quiet.
Dinner forgotten, her mum just hugged her tightly, and Lily squeezed her eyes shut. She felt lighter than she had from the moment she'd come home.
I won't go breaking your heart. I won't go breaking your heart. I won't go breaking your heart.
The house was much quieter than Lily remembered. Of course, her sister was in London, working as a typist or something, and she was spending a record number of hours indoors. She was really spending a record number of hours in her own head, going over and over the last few years of her life, playing out her memories in her head as often as the radio stations played that song.
It was the only sound in the stillness of Lily's house, which transformed Lily's study breaks from "scheduled" and "controlled" to "deadly, unavoidable traps" and "nap time".
And then through the chorus, there was a soft knock on Lily's door.
She didn't bother answering. Her mother would push it open anyway, never giving Lily more than a moment's warning.
The next knock was sharp and impatient, making her jolt up in surprise. She tumbled off her bed, yelping, and pushed her hair from her face as the door opened.
Petunia stood there and raised her eyebrows, the ghost of a smile tugging on the corner of her mouth as she surveyed her younger sister lying flat on her back and blinking up at her from the ground. It faded slightly when her eyes landed on the stack of schoolbooks balanced beside Lily's bed, another open on the covers and her quill resting on top of it.
"What kind of school gives homework over the summer holidays?" It wasn't the first time Petunia had made this remark, but now there was no venom in it.
"Well, there's just a lot to get through," Lily muttered, shrugging from her position on the floor, unable to read Petunia's expression when it was upside down. She used to scowl and shoot back, "the magic kind," but it never did any good. They had learned to tiptoe around each other - for the most part - and the subject of Lily's school, her life. They coexisted, not exactly in perfect harmony, but well enough.
"I didn't know you were coming home," Lily added, rubbing her eyes.
"I'm just here for the day," Petunia said, shrugging one bony shoulder. "Came to pick up a few things."
"Oh." Lily nodded, and there was nothing else, no more words to say. The silence dragged on long enough to make Lily fidget.
"Well, are you going to get up, or are you doing something terribly important down there?" her sister asked her, digging the toe of her shoe into the floor. "This is going to go cold."
Lily scrambled upright and sat on the edge of her bed. In her hand, Petunia held a steaming cup with pink polka dots all over, carefully painted by Lily's hand. Petunia gave a tiny nod and held the cup a little higher, out further.
"That's for me?"
"Of course it is," Petunia said shortly, rolling her eyes as she set it down carefully on Lily's bedside table.
Lily blinked rapidly. Unsteadily, her heart swelled somewhat for her big sister. She felt a soft, gentle tingle across her skin all the way to her scalp, and she was still and quiet, dumbfounded for just a few moments.
She wrapped both her hands around the cup and took a sip in the silence. Not too strong, half a spoonful of sugar. Just how she liked it.
"Thanks," she said quietly, her lips barely raised from the cup and her eyebrows knitted together. This soft, warm feeling in her chest was delicate, and this bubble was carefully crafted and barely held together. It would burst at any moment even without Lily's help.
Like she was reading her thoughts, Petunia threw her eyes upwards and folded her arms across her chest. "Just so you know, I think you're better off without him."
Lily's eyebrows shot up. "I - what?"
Petunia clicked her tongue. "That boy. Mum told me about it."
Lily said nothing.
"And I think it's about time," Petunia continued, folding her arms. She seemed to shrink away from the conversation, shoulders hunched together like she could protect herself from it. "But I'm sorry he said such - erm - awful things to you, I think," she added in a small voice.
Something surged up inside Lily. Something that split her right down the middle; Petunia never acknowledged Severus if she could help it, and the fact that she was making an exception was enough to bring a lump to Lily's throat, and tears started to pierce the back of her eyes.
But then again, Petunia never brought it up, not even to say something cruel. "Petunia, I'm not sure you have any idea what you're -"
"Talking about?" Petunia finished for her. "Lily, please. He broke my arm. He didn't even blink when he did it. He went through my things, and read a private letter addressed to me and then gave it to you. And I've heard you telling mum last summer about all the things he'd done that you didn't like. And the summer before."
Lily couldn't meet her eyes, staring so hard at her knees she felt her bones start to burn. She swallowed hard against the raw, stinging hardness in her throat.
Petunia clucked her tongue again, unimpressed. "I don't know how many times I've heard you tell him off for saying someone was 'just a Mu-Muggle'." She tripped over the word, and even looked concerned, before folding her arms tighter, heels digging into the ground. Closing herself off again. "I can't believe you stayed friends with him for so long, if I'm honest."
Lily hesitated with her mouth open to speak, blinking up at her sister, and then bit her lip. "Yeah. Well, you're right." Her voice was thick, and she looked away hurriedly.
She felt her big sister's eyes rest on her, like a physical press on her skin, and then she heard Petunia sigh. When she spoke, her voice was much closer, and much gentler. "You're better off without him, Lily."
"He was my friend."
Petunia made a little noise in the back of her throat; when Lily looked up, she had one eyebrow drawn and her lips pursed.
"Maybe you should look again at that friendship," she said quietly.
Then she tilted her chin up, ever so slightly, but Lily knew the conversation was over. She drank her tea in silence, and Petunia stood and watched her in silence, before holding out her hand for the cup when Lily had finished it.
Lily gave it to her. "How's London?"
"Good," Petunia said shortly, turning the cup over in her hands. "Yeah. I like it."
"And how's Vernon?"
Petunia flushed, a delicate rosy bloom on each cheek, a perfect pink. Lily didn't blush like that. Lily went rose red from the tips of her toes to the top of her head. "He's very well," Petunia told her, with a small smile to let Lily know that she was pleased Lily had bothered to ask. "I'll let you get back to it."
Lily nodded, smiling as he sister turned to go.
"I mean it, Lily," Petunia added at the door. "You don't need someone like that in your life."
She watched her sister go, the sight of Petunia's back turned so familiar to her. Such was the price for all that Severus had offered her, all those years ago. He had always been there, to share his world with her and lead her into it. And in return, Lily had lost her sister. She had watched as Petunia's petulant expressions turned sour, to disdain and then to hate. She had felt it deeply when, after ending up in the middle of a tug of war for so long, Petunia had let go, so sure and unwavering. Now both sides had dropped her arms.
She shut the door behind her, yet Lily stared at it like she could see through it. Look again, Petunia had said. Lily had done nothing but look again this summer, and she felt sick every time she did.
She barely knew who that girl was, the girl who didn't see the signs sooner. Every time she'd catch the tail end of a conversation without piecing together who Severus had been talking about - Muggleborns - or every time she'd caught him laughing when his friends would tell him about what had happened, or rather what they had done, to a helpless victim. Also Muggleborn.
Why hadn't she understood sooner, when she'd witnessed for herself the way he'd followed every last baby step in the war raging outside the safe haven of Hogwarts? She'd seen him poring over the newspaper reports. She'd heard him and his friends talk about "the Dark Lord", but she'd never managed to overhear much before he noticed her. She should have tried harder.
She should have known.
She looked again, and she saw him divide the people around him into pure and impure. She saw him dismissing her when she confronted him about his friends, waving a hand when she brought up Dark Magic. She saw the frenzied hate that overtook him when he talked about James Potter, or Remus Lupin, the manic look in his eyes when he thought he could catch them out. She saw him gleeful when he was throwing darker hexes than Lily would dare to use. She saw him incoherent with hate.
Lily glanced over at the stack of letters that was sitting on the dresser, and her chest ached. There was the faintest of whispers in Lily's head, growing day by day, that wondered if he'd always been this way, and she just hadn't seen it. That thought maybe he'd started as many fights and duels as he hadn't. That pointed out that he gave as good as he got, and then some, and maybe he deserved to have someone stand up to him and challenge him, because Lily had been too blind to do it.
She took a deep, shuddering breath. Petunia had been sure and unwavering when she had decided that there was no longer a place for Lily in her life, maybe that Lily didn't deserve it anymore. Now Lily had that very same decision to make, and she would make it the same way - resolute and steady.
She didn't want to look back too far. She didn't want to know if the person she met when she was just a child had been this way too. The soft-spoken boy who had brought Hogwarts to her, who had woven pretty stories about a secret castle and the magic running through her veins, she didn't want to think of him as the person Severus was now, who hated that magic in her, the very thing that had brought them together.
That boy would be safe, but Lily knew he was gone.
She put her wand to the stack of letters, and they went up in blue flames, fire that would make everything clean, make everything brand new, once her grief had faded away.
And Kiki Dee and Elton John faded away too, along with the pain. She finally replied to the letters the rest of her friends sent to her. She started to go for walks again.
And when her father drove her back to King's Cross in September, there wasn't a broken heart to be heard of. She stretched after the long drive, and the last words that floated from the radio said see that girl, watch that scene before Lily took the familiar steps back to her world of magic, and it was entirely hers.
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