It had happened too fast.
What happened to my little girl that ran with her wonderful red hair caught in pigtails? Where had my darling girl with dirt on her knees gone? Had the times she spent running in her grandmother's garden with her cousins really even existed? Why was this all happening so fast? Where was she? Who would she be? Where—
"Calm down." Luna murmurs into my ear. She takes my hand and gives it a good squeeze before kneeling down in front of my little ("I'm not little!") girl and giving her a kiss on the cheek. They exchange some farewells but I can't hear them over the roar of the train or over the faze that I've been set in.
"Mum?" She looks up at me, her Weasley head just reaching my chest. I smile and kneel down too, and Luna stands and looks around in an airily fashion. It reminds me of when Harry and I dropped off Albus for his first day. Things change so much in just one year.
Lily's little brown eyes meet mine for a spilt second and it is then that I'm amazed by how quickly the human mind remembers things. All at once I'm reminded of the first time she peeked up at me, the first day she walked and smiled that huge, big smile just for me because Harry wasn't home, the first haircut I ever gave her, when her small fingers grasped around her own soft locks of red, and the first time a flower opened up to her and she ran in excitedly from my mother's garden to show me.
"It's a rose, just like Rosie!" She's seven, Lily, she's adorable and her hair is long, she spends hours in the sun with her cousins and falls asleep in Teddy Lupin's lap as he tells her stories. Her skin is tanned so dark and the white of her teeth, of her eyes, they stand out amongst everything. When I see her grinning like that, I can't help but smile.
"You know what flower first opened up to me?" I ask her, letting my fingertip trace over the velvet petal.
"What?"
"A daisy."
"Is that why Daddy always brings them to you on special days?"
I smile but shake my head. "No, Daddy brings me lilacs. Uncle Charlie brings me daises."
"Why Uncle Charlie?"
"Because I let Uncle Charlie keep the daisy that opened up to me, so that he would remember he was the first to see it."
"Oh." She says, twirling her rose in her hand. She glances between us, the rose and I, a few times before she sets her eyes on my face and holds the flower out to me.
"Then you keep this one and I'll bring you roses on special days."
"Mum, I have to get on the train." Her soft voice says and her hand takes my wrist.
"I'll write all the time, you know." I tell her, and she smiles, she nods.
"I'll write, too. Promise." She gives me one last fleeting hug before she skips onto the train and I'm still kneeling down before I feel Luna's hand on my shoulder. She pulls me up with her three fingers. I'm not used to needing many people and I'm certainly not used to leaning into somebody but then, I just let myself go because this was my daughter.
I leaned into Luna then, her arm sliding around my waist in a casual manner, but for all I could tell, she was keeping me from collapsing to my knees.
And then, together, we watched my little wide world sink away into the countryside and out of sight.
At times, it felt like September molded itself into October and they became one. I got letters from Lily, James and Albus every week telling me about how things have been with them, but quickly, as the year went on, three letters a week from my boys became one letter a week and soon enough it was their usual combined letter.
Lily kept writing me two times a week in the least, never stopping, never trying to get off the hook. She told me about what she was studying and how well she got along with her classmates, her teachers, even some of the Slytherins were decent to her about certain sorts of things. She informed me that she wasn't the brightest in her year but she did well enough, that she tried out for Quidditch and placed in some of the topping ranks for Beater but didn't quite make it, and that she was having plenty of fun with her housemates, even if at times she really did miss home.
And I would never tell her because she would scold me for it, but I had never been so proud of her.
Lily's third year becomes her fourth and over the summer she's grown. She's just an inch below me now and while I don't expect her to grow more, sometimes I still cast a bit of a heightening charm on myself so that I have that over her. She's got curves and full lips, glossy, wonderful hair and a hand that rests on her hip when she's standing still. Luna tells me that this is the way I used to be but in a more defined way. It would be agreeable to say that Lily inherited the more subtle side of Harry and the more physical and occasionally daring side of me. Those characteristics balance each other out and make Lily beautiful.
She doesn't see her father as much as she sees me and while that's largely due to how much I want to spend time with her, it's also because she would rather not be with him. The falling out we had in Albus' first year happened at home and Lily was the only child to bear witness to it. Sometimes I wish to take that year back so that she could have a normal parentage, even if her father was Harry Potter, but in the back of my mind I know that having Luna around was like having an aunt around.
Luna would always be able to fix the empty pieces but no one would be able to replace my children's father, no matter how much had happened.
Lily returns this summer, the summer before her sixth year and she's different. Her hair is longer like it always is and she's just a few centimeter taller than when she left, she's still wearing that funny lip gloss that tastes like cherries and she still rests that hand on her hip, but she's different. Something is off.
"This happens with every girl." Luna reassures me when I discuss this change with her in the midnight hours. Tea sits warmly between both of my hands and my fingernails rap against the china.
"But Lily is different than every girl. This shouldn't be happening to her." I say, looking down into my drink. I can't meet Luna's eyes because in the recesses I'll find something that I'm wrong about and she's right; that's how our relationship works.
"Do you remember the summer before your sixth year?" Luna asks quietly and even though I know she's dead serious, I crack a smile.
"I snogged Harry in my bedroom." She smiles halfway but it doesn't meet anything other than that slight curve of her lip. It drops and she's still waiting for my answer.
"That was another world, Luna. We were going to die…"
"We didn't die." Luna's voice is like ice, the very quietest kind. "This is what happened: the summer before your sixth year, you became beautiful and strong, you became one of the fiercest fighters in the D.A., you became who people needed you to be, and you became who you are today." I see her knuckles turn white around her mug of tea.
"It's for those reasons exactly that Lily has become your opposite."
Lily is ten and she stills sits on Teddy Lupin's lap after dinner at the Burrow because she's small enough. He smiles and tells her about all the places he's been and all the places he's going to go. She just listens to him with wide eyes and I'm glad she has a distraction from the absence of her brothers.
She takes my hand when it's time to go home and we say goodbye to Harry. I kiss his cheek and she hugs him tight. I tell him that she'll be over in the morning for her week with him, that she gets to have breakfast with me and then she's all his. He smiles and agrees to the plan, wrapping an arm around me before we step into the fireplace and spin home.
"Mummy?" Lily asks me later that night as I'm helping her put away her clothes. I turn my head to her and wait for her question. "Did Daddy bring you lilacs tonight?"
I smile but ask, "Why would he bring me lilacs?"
"Wasn't today the day you found out about me?"
I'm surprised at Lily's memory but more at the fact that I couldn't remember that today was the day Harry and I found out that I was pregnant with our third baby ten years ago.
"How did you know about that?" I ask her, putting one of her blouses in her drawer.
"Luna gave me a rose so that I could give it to you. She always remembers the special days and makes sure that I do too." I smile and run my fingers over the soft fabric of her yellow summer dress.
"And Uncle Charlie brought you daises."
Lily, my faithful girl, has turned into the robotic things of her brothers and joins in with Albus' weekly letter. It's barely three paragraphs and it's written too much like the essays Hermione used to make me proofread for her. I send them long replies and ask so many questions but my replies are so short, sometimes hardly achieving what one could even call a proper sentence.
I take my chances as a good mother and put on my cloak the day they have scheduled for a Hogsmeade visit.
The Three Broomsticks is as crowded it as it usually is and I take my seat at the bar, where no one will pay me much mind. I see Lily walk in twenty minutes after I've been sipping butterbeers; she's surrounded by girls I've never even heard of, girls with perfect faces and perfect hair and perfect bodies, the kind of girls that I had never told Lily to stray from but had never encouraged their friendship.
What happened to my little girl with dirt on her knees?
It was very much like a young teenager of me to think these things when I knew all of those students could very well be kind, intelligent, wonderful people. But I'll be damned if I want my daughter to grow up around people who care about such things.
It isn't until an hour later when Lily gives everyone a small smile and slips out the door that I begin to ponder if she knows she doesn't really belong there.
I take some more risks and follow Lily into the snow a few moments later, placing a few Galleons in my wake even though I know my drinks were cheaper than that.
I know her by the red of her hair and the gold of her scarf; had anything been different, I wouldn't have been able to pick her out from any crowd. She travels through the snow like it's the air she soars between on her broom. I have trouble keeping up with her strong pace.
She turns down a small path that runs between a few buildings and keeps her stride, never turning back. For some reason, I think she knows I'm behind her but doesn't care, but I'm proven wrong when she glances over her shoulder and I'm lucky enough to duck behind an archway. She steps into an old door with hesitant steps and now I know that she's up to something. She is Harry's daughter, after all.
I'm just lucky Harry left his old cloak at the house this weekend when he visited.
I drape it over me and frown when I don't have to crouch like Hermione to fit. I catch the door before it hits the wood of the frame again and Lily doesn't give me—or my area—a second look.
It isn't a familiar building that she's visiting; in fact, it looks completely deserted, as though it is a descendant of the Shrieking Shack. The wood creaks beneath her steps and I stay immobile. She walks slowly, afraid to be heard, to be seen, to be caught, but who could do all of this, I do not know.
"You're late."
And then everything is clear to me.
Lily is thirteen and doesn't sit in Teddy Lupin's lap anymore, but she sits next to him still and listens to him tell her about Australia and China and all kinds of places that she wants to visit someday. He brings her gifts every time he returns, and they're never much.
But you can tell by the way that Lily's eyes shine that a hat from Chile means more than a solid gold necklace from America.
She's Harry's this week of her summer and I'm sad that she won't get to come home with me. I give her a hug and wait for Albus to finish talking to Andromeda. Albus has four more days with me until he and James switch and he'll become Harry's for however long. They take turns, and once they're bored enough with that, they'll team up and we'll spend a day or two as a family somewhere.
When Harry turns to speak with Dad, Lily looks at me and holds out her hand.
"Today would be your and Dad's sixteenth anniversary."
"Did Luna remind you?"
Lily shakes her head. "Luna doesn't remember things about Dad. I always remember."
"Lily's got herself a boyfriend." I inform Luna that evening at dinner. She looks up from her plate and tucks a long strand of hair behind her ear. Her eyes twinkle a bit and she gives me that half smile that lets me know that I've been clueless for quite a while now.
"How long have you—"
"His name is Ethan, he's a year below her and they've been meeting secretly for about three months now."
"Secretly?" I ask, confused.
"At school, they usually meet in the Room of Requirement, and at Hogsmeade they meet in the old pub that used to be Cray's."
Cray's? There was a chap a few years ahead of me when I was at Hogwarts that went by that name… He had opened his own pub? He must've closed it down when the War began, I thought, otherwise…
"How long have you known?" I ask her quietly, looking into my chicken.
"Since she told me she was trying to cover up her relationship with Pansy Parkinson's daughter before Christmas." Luna's voice is too casual, too easy. Why won't Lily tell me these things? Why won't she come to me?
"Lily is… afraid, Gin. It's already been hard for her to be accepted with us," Luna motions between her and I, "being the way that we are, and she was so scared that if she was that way too, she would never be who she thought she ought to be. Her dating Ethan isn't a secret at school; everyone in her year knows about it but it isn't mentioned up front."
"It's just…"
Luna reaches across the table and takes my hand.
"Lily was with Astoria Parkinson for six months before people found out. They stayed together for two more months before it all became too much and they decided it would be best that they put it behind them." She explains softly, her thumb running over my knuckle in that soothing way it often does.
I take a deep breath. And I let it out, and it sounds more like a sigh than anything.
"Does she still want to be with this Astoria?"
Luna gives me that half smile again and her eyes are still twinkling. She squeezes my hand.
"Of course."
Lily's home for Easter holidays before I know it and she's still looking too much like a doll. Still, when I go to the Ministry to pick her up from the Floo network, she smiles at me and surprises me with a hug. It hasn't been like her to be affectionate in this past year and when she turns to greet Harry, I wipe my eyes with the back of my hand.
Albus is grinning madly when he steps out of the fireplace and after he's dusted himself off, he permits himself to be kissed on the cheek as well and scolded for getting lost along the way. (The truth is, he's always getting lost one way or another and by this point in his life, it just makes me happy to see him all in one piece)
We're due at the Burrow in a couple of hours for dinner since Mum hasn't seen any of the kids since Christmas, but Lily, Luna and I leave Harry and Albus after a lunch at the Cauldron and wander around the streets of Diagon Alley like we used to when Lily was nine.
James is supposed to meet us at the Burrow and he told me last week that he'd bring that new girlfriend of his, but I don't know if it's going to be the same girl come this evening. After he finished up at Hogwarts, he stayed with Harry for a few weeks before he got a job in a small business that made wizard sporting goods. He bought his own flat in London and he's been attending dinners at the Burrow every Sunday like the rest of us ever since.
Albus is going to be a Healer when he's finished with school, or that's his plan right now. A year ago he wanted to be an astronomer, and before that he wanted to be a teacher. Both Harry and I have told him endlessly that he would make a brilliant teacher but he just goes along with whatever he wants at the time. People that don't know our family tend to think that James is the wild one, and sometimes he can be, but Albus is the free spirit and I don't think that will ever change.
Luna runs a flower shop below our flat and writes on the side, and occasionally she'll take up an expedition with her father. (Sometimes I get to tag along and it's always so thrilling, so exhilarating. They always remind me of how much I love Luna.) After Lily went to school, I took up Quidditch again and played for a few more years. Right now I'm playing almost part time but I'm mostly coaching and I couldn't be happier with the position.
Lily doesn't quite know what she wants to do after she gets out of school but she's still got her whole seventh year to figure that one out. She tells me that she's not too worried about it and just focuses on her classes. It reminds me of Hermione, when she returned for the seventh year she never had, and how she studied until she couldn't stay awake. We were all relieved when she finally announced that May that she had been offered a position at the Ministry and she was going to take it.
"I think I want to work with people." Lily says as we stroll down the cobbled streets. "I mean, I want to help people, not just be around them."
"You could be a Healer." Luna suggests as she stops and looks at the dresses in a window. "Oh Ginny, look at this. You know, you really are lovely in red."
I felt my face flush since red dresses weren't the only thing that Luna liked to see me in.
"I don't want to deal with wounds or blood. I don't have the stomach for it." Lily says. "Besides, that's really not the kind of help I want to do. I like the green one, with the Muggle dye patterns."
As we step inside the small shop, I say, "Do you think you'd want to be a counselor?" Luna wanders over to the summer dresses and Lily steps up to finger the fabric of a long skirt. It's a deep orange.
"I think that would be good for me. I like talking to people about their problems." She replies, holding the skirt up to her waist and frowning when it flutters out from her skinny little hipbones. "Some of the girls at school ask me to listen to them sometimes. It's kind of nice." She replaces it and looks for a smaller size on the rack.
I finger through the things on the rack and find a purple skirt, shorter than the last but not too short. I hand it to Lily, who makes a face and tells me, "Purple isn't my color."
"It is today." I say, taking her shoulders and steering her over to the dressing rooms. She gives an exasperated little sigh but steps inside.
As soon as I close the door, Luna comes out of the next room over in a stunning sky blue dress. She grins and twirls for me, her bare feet gliding across the tile. I smile and lean my upper body forward, my arms crossing over my chest. She laughs that wonderful laugh and pecks me on the lips.
I loved how Luna made me feel fifteen again.
I hear the door creak open behind me and turn to see my Lily.
She enchanted her makeup off of her face and let her hair down from its bun, so now it's cascading down her shoulders and brushing her waist like Luna's used to. Without her mask, you can see Lily's freckles, the ones that pecker themselves on her cheeks and over the bridge of her nose. She's got her hand on her hip again and she's waiting for my response.
I wanted to say, "You're beautiful," but I know she would have been embarrassed.
"We're buying you that."
When Lily looks at Luna and gives a bit of a smirk, I'm assured that she knows it wasn't about the skirt.
Lily is fourteen but it doesn't feel like just a year has passed by. She's older and wiser and too mature for her own good, but it makes well for conversation with Teddy. He tells her of Canada and Kenya and oh, Bulgaria was a favorite of his. This time she responds with all the things she's learned in school about world history and she says that one day she wants to go on a trip with him. He smiles and tells her to name the date.
She's staying at the Burrow tonight because Mum feels like she hasn't seen enough of her grandchildren, so she stands next to me as I'm waiting to leave. Harry takes the Floo, as does Teddy, Andromeda, Bill, Fleur, Victoire, Dominique, Percy and Audrey.
I'm always the last one out. That's just the way it works. Luna takes the Floo before me because once she's said her goodbyes to our family, she's ready to leave. And somehow, she knows that I need to be alone with my family sometimes and always, she respects it.
As Fleur dips her head under the mantle and vanishes in a flurry of green flame, Lily says, "Know what today is?"
"Um, how about something important?"
"Close." She's smiling. "James got his first broom ten years ago."
Luna greets me with a kiss when I step out of the fireplace and as I'm shrugging off my cloak, I feel a rose brush against the fabric of my pocket.
And Luna walks away with a whistle in her step.
Four days later, when I'm taking Lily her laundry, I hear her stifling sobs from her room. I almost back away and give her the privacy that she needs, but then my girl instincts take over and I'm not just her mother.
She looks up from her pillow, some black lines smearing down her cheeks from whatever she was wearing on her eyes, and since she's not allowed magic she can't enchant it to stay waterproof. I set down her basket by the door and take a seat next to her on her bed. She buries her face in the pillow again and inhales whatever sort of weeping noise she was going to make next.
I knew from my days with Hermione that sometimes a girl just needed to cry and that I didn't need to ask questions.
But Lily never just cried, at least not a home, and I knew that there had to be a reason behind this.
"Mum," she says breathlessly into her pillow, and I brush the hair back from her face so that I can hear her better, "can—I—date—girls—instead of—stupid—boys?" She pushes out her question between quick inhales and she can't talk when she cries, she's never been able to.
I put my hand over hers and instantly it relaxes against the sheets.
"If I told you no, I'd be as big a hypocrite as Ron."
I hear a good pass for a laugh into her pillow. She lifts her head and wipes her eyes frantically, and then points to her dresser.
"It's late, but it was yours and Luna's anniversary last week."
On top of a few books and discarded clothes sits a little memory, one just for me.
I smile and burst into tears, wrapping my arms around Lily with the fragile red rose tangled tightly in my palm.
It's the middle of July and there's still a good amount of time left before Lily departs for her seventh year. When we picked her up from the station, she wasn't wearing anything other than that purple skirt and one of her old school shirts, no makeup and no cherry flavored lip gloss.
It was just Lily who stepped out of the train that day and she was beautiful.
We visit Charlie in the summer and this year it's not just Harry, Luna, the kids and I. There's a new face and everyone loves her, with her dark hair and her bright smile and the hand that never seems to leave Lily's. She's staying with us while we're here in Romania and for an hour or two every day they disappear together into the forest around the enclosure.
I took a walk out there with Harry and Luna one evening. We weren't looking for them but we heard them splashing in the creek, the creek that has a little bridge that runs over it. The water is muddy and when they stumble out of it, laughing, they're filthy.
Lily calls Astoria's name, she takes her hand and Astoria wipes the dirt off of Lily's mouth and plants a kiss there. Lily grins and tugs her to the edge of the bridge, threatening to pull her over and into the water. Astoria smiles and shouts something at her, taking her other hand and pulling Lily into her.
Together they leap into the creek and for the first time in a long time, I know that Lily doesn't care who's watching her.