Title: Strings That Tie To You
Rating: G
Pairing: Lily/Severus
Summary: Today belongs to James, and tomorrow and tomorrow, but her yesterdays are the other boy's, forever and forever.
Author's Notes: Extremely plotless and fluffy. But all is well when things are fluffy, yes? Hehe. Written as a drabble. Title is from Jon Brion's song, Strings That Tie To You. :)

ooo

She sits upon the grass, in their favourite spot beneath the willow tree. It is a hot June afternoon, the promise of summer faintly dancing with the breeze as it blows through her hair. NEWTs are finished, and today is theirs to enjoy. Their school robes are cast away, their shoes taken off. The grass is cool beneath her bare feet, and somewhere in the back of her mind, she remembers water and ringing laughter.

James is resting his head upon her lap, lulled by the drowsy sounds of the lake. She threads her fingers through his dark hair, gently, lovingly. She hears the chatter of other students in the distance, feels the precious stillness of the air, and thinks no other day could be more perfect. The boy she has come to adore—to love, even—is here beneath her touch, and she smiles.

Lily love, he whispers, turning to look at her, sing me a song.

He is a handsome thing, charm and mischief perfectly moulded into a boyish face. His eyes are spun with affection and calm, but when he stares at her, she remembers someone else with colder eyes she once had come to love, beneath a tree, on the swings, in her childhood. His was a face hardly comparable to this golden boy's: lips drawn into a frown, thin, pale cheeks, and eyes the colour of night never leaving. But she loved him, and he loved her, in a time when James—perfect and handsome and everything he could never be—could be forgotten.

But that was then, and today, she adores him, the smiling one, the good one.

James closes his eyes when she begins to hum a tune her mother sung to her as a girl. It is about riverbanks and playful children, sunshine and grass, and in her mind, canopies of trees and secret glades. She sings without the words, but the melody is enough to make her remember things she'd made to put behind her. And it aches, somewhere inside her, because she had sung it for another, many times before on afternoons more wonderful, she realizes, than this one.

Today, today, we'll play all day

Beneath the sun, in song of birds

Today, today, we'll dream of tomorrow

And thank the sky for yesterday.

Today belongs to James, and tomorrow and tomorrow, but her yesterdays are the other boy's, forever and forever.

Lily love, I love you.

She closes her eyes and pictures him, crooked nose and shy smile, offering his heart to the girl with red hair. And it is when the breeze passes by, when James falls asleep, when it is only her and her memories that she finally responds with words that should have been left behind.

I love you too, Sev.

ooo

Author's Notes: Fluffy, wasn't it? And entirely plotless. Told you so. Ah, I love drabbles. :D Review?