This story contains mentions of abuse, self harm, actual abuse, probably some torture and sex, in which the latter is not very detailed. Over all, some very dark and mature themes. If this isn't your cup of tea, leave, and don't let the door hit you on the way out. Rating may go up when and if I feel it is necessary.
Thank you to all my devoted readers and reviewers. :D Thanks for putting up with my slow review pace. This story is very hard to write.
One.
Here Are Your Answers.
. ... .
Lily Evans.
The name is associated with purity. Innocence. Beauty.
From the outside, Lily is all of these things. She is nice and she is popular, and people go to her with their problems and she smiles and makes them feel better. She becomes friends easily with everyone, no matter what house they were in(except the Slytherins. They were a bit difficult), but no matter how many friends she had, she never really talked to them about her problems.
There were things like "I can't believe I failed that essay," or "I wish Slughorn would leave me alone," but never anything real important, like the problems people went to her with.
Most people shrugged it off. She was Lily Evans. Maybe she had no problems. Maybe her life was as perfect as her ivory skin and graceful red curls and her brilliantly green eyes.
Sirius, though, wasn't buying it.
Having come from a family where to show what you were really feeling was considered weak, having grown up being forced to retreat inside himself in order to survive the darkness that seemed to leak out of the walls of his house, he knew that no one was ever as perfect as they pretend to be. That everyone, even Lily Evans, had secrets. Painful ones. And, because of the fact that she chose to hide them instead of showing them, they were probably all the more painful.
He never understood how James was able to overlook the saddness that every so often flashed in those eyes that everyone always complimented. How, sometimes during the middle of class, her hands would start to shake and her eyes would be pained, as though her head was about to explode. How during those times, she would raise her hand and Slughorn(or McGonagall, or Binns, or any other teacher, really) would give her permission to go to the bathroom and she'd come back five minutes later, looking calmer and she would walk with the slightest bit of a limp.
How could he say that he was in love with the beautiful girl that Lily was, but not notice these things?
. ... .
Lily found herself falling behind on her schoolwork again. It seemed like a constant battle to keep her head above water these days. Her first years of Hogwarts had come so easy to her, and she had gotten herself a reputation of a brilliant student. That reputation was now laughing as it attempted to choke the life out of her, because she was no longer the little, happy Gryffindor she was when she had first come to Hogwarts.
She didn't know when things had started to always be so tired, but she suspected it was right after her friendship with Severus came to an abrupt, painful end a little less then one year ago. The second that that word had come from his lips. That was the day that she became tired.
Her mum and dad are in danger every moment of every day - Pettie, too - and she wonders in a detached, numb, and tired (tired of fear and anxiety and glittering black-and-white Dark Marks twirling and twisting their way through the stars) way if she would have said 'no' to magic and unicorns and chess pieces you could argue strategy with if she had known that it was a package deal. A deal where blood matters and death haunts for free.
She signed away everything she could have been at the age of eleven. And it killed her.
She knew that it wasn't right to be so angry and unhappy with her lot. She was a witch, for goodness sake. Some muggles would kill to be in her position.
All she wanted was to go back. Go back to when she thought it was cool to float to the ground so gracefully, not magical. Back to when her sister didn't hate her, and back to when her life made sense. Back to when everything--living, breathing, reading, smiling--didn't hurt.
That was when she felt it. The big bad wolf from that faerietale her mum used to tell her started clawing itself out of her chest, twisting her intestines around and pulling while simultaniously howling in her head until she thought her eyes would shoot from their sockets to relieve the pressure. Her chest clamped tightly, and she found that it was almost impossible to breathe. Her heart clammered painfully.
No, no, no...Lily thought desperately, as she struggled for breath, looking around the library. Not here. Not in her one sanctuary. This could not happen here. Anywhere but this place. In this place, she was safe. Safe from Severus's dark, blank stares during Potions class, safe from the flirtations that made her skin crawl exhibited from Potter, and safe from this.
She stood up quickly, in such a way that she almost knocked the chair out from behind her, and grabbed her wand. She left her other things there in her haste, and walked through the twisted isles of books, and heading towards the exit, trying to remember to breathe. Breathe. Just breathe, and don't pass out.
Normally, she could feel it coming on. The pain in her chest, and then the difficulty to breathe. She would push past it for a little while, and try to ignore it. Then her hands would start to shake, and her head would start to hurt, and the breathing became all the more difficult. That would be when she raised her hand and exited the classroom to do the deed in the bathroom.
But it was different this time. It hit her all at once, smacking at her head in such a way that, once she exited the library, she took off at a run.
She came to stop at Moaning Myrtle's bathroom. Without thinking twice, she went into it, closing the door behind her. She and Myrtle had come to an agreement long ago. Lily would listen to her problems every now and then, and whenever Myrtle saw Lily come in looking like she did now, she would go to one of the other bathrooms and give her some privacy.
This was Lily's favorite bathroom. No one came to this bathroom. They seemed to find it's depressing demeanor too much, and stayed away from it. That was the exact reason she came to it to do this.
She looked around, checking only briefly for people there. There never was.
Lily walked over to the mirrors across the way from the door, and ripped her school cloak up, and propped up her knee on the edge of the sink. She hitched up her cloak again, for a clearer veiw of her leg. She paused for a moment, looking.
It looks like lace, twirling around her thighs. Dark purple in color, beautiful(to her) in decoration. They were really the only thing about her that she liked.
Only the finest scars for legs like these.
The thought popped into her head as she looked at them, and a giggle escaped her lips. And then another, until she was giggling like crazy and sounded insane in her own ears. She didn't know how, but suddenly there were tears coming from the very eyes everyone loved, and they didn't want to stop.
She lifted her wand, looking at it for a moment.
"Venas," she muttered, and watched as her wand glowed for a moment, before returning to normal. The laughter had stopped, and she lowered the tip of her wand to the skin on her leg, pressing down and carving a small curve into her leg. It wasn't as deep as they normally were, having sliced only down to the white.
She waited for a moment, waiting for something. She felt a small tingle of feeling, as the blood began to spot in the cut. She watched for a moment as the small curve of a slice filled with the red liquid, before oozing over onto the rest of her skin.
Deciding that she needed more then a tingle, she took the tip and pressed down roughly, deciding that, just this one time, she could cut without a specific design in her head. She had to get back to her homework, afterall. She wretched her hand sideways, and gasped as the feeling hit her almost instantaneously. The howling in her head stopped. Her chest unclamped, and her hands stopped shaking. Just like that, she was able to function again.
She jerked in surprise when blood spurted up out of the cut, like it did in really bad muggle movies, leaving dots of red liquid on the sink, and mirror.
Lily lifted her head to look at the mess she had caused(she didn't know why, but the fact that she had spurted blood, actually spurted blood, was too amusing to contemplate) on the mirror when she froze.
Two dark blue, terrified eyes stared back at her. His handsome face was etched with disgust and terror.
"My god, Lily. What are you doing?" Sirius asked, his voice reflecting his horror.
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