Lily walks around the crowded halls of Hogwarts with scars on her arms that nobody knows about, and it's empowering. Having a secret- it's empowering.
Knowing things that nobody else knows.
Doing things that nobody else does.
It's empowering.
Another O on a test. Another tick, another smile, another praise, another award, another fuck that Lily just could not give. She plasters a beam on her perfectly- glossed lips, flutters her perfectly- mascaraed eyelashes, and wonders how the hell people can actually believe the perfection isn't skin- deep.
"You're so amazing" they say. "You're so clever/funny/intelligent/compassionate."
"You're so stupid," Lily thinks, "So fucking dumb/moronic/unbelievably ignorant."
"Thank you," Lily says. "You're so sweet/kind/nice."
Potter sits next to her in Charms. No, he doesn't sit. He sprawls. He's made of long limbs that he's only just growing in to and a school uniform crumpled beyond belief. Lily sits even straighter, as if her composure will make up for his lack thereof.
"Wow," Potter says, rolling his head around to look at her. "Who stuck a stick up your arse this morning?"
Composures can crack. "Fuck you."
Potter looks suitably shocked for a second, and then Lily curses herself. What was she thinking? How could she let such foul language leave her lips?
Lily waits, tense, for his predictably pissy response. It's three minutes and twenty two seconds later when James leans his elbows on the table and stares at her face. "Evans," he says slowly, "Are you alright?"
No. Fucking hell, no. "I'm fine."
"You look kind of-"
"Shut up, Potter, this bit is important." Lily nods at Flitwick, who's raving on about something she can't even remember the name of, and Potter falls silent again.
Lily Evans is very good at hiding things. Presents for friends, notes in classes, bags under eyes, tear tracks on cheeks, screams stuck in throats, cuts on forearms. It takes some work, sometimes, but she will always find the right spell, the right words, the right smile, to deflect attention away for long enough that she can stuff whatever it is out of sight.
Out of sight, out of mind.
Lily Evans is going out of her mind.
She wonders if there's a spell to hide herself.
There are few things more satisfying than bleeding out your own emotions. It starts with the bad ones, and then, when that isn't effective enough, you move on to the good ones, as well. Sadness, happiness, regret, hope- it all leaves in a trickle of blood.
Blood is dirty. Lily needs to feel sparkly- clean, so she empties as much of it out as she can without passing out. Passing out would mean a day in the hospital wing, lessons missed, grades lowered. No way.
They're getting bored of her, and it's scary- why aren't they congratulating me? What have I done wrong? What haven't I done? What did I do?- and so she steps up the act.
It doesn't take long for the school to know about the newest couple: Head Boy Potter, Head Girl Lily. They're famous in under a day.
Lily has to admit, they look good together. He's the perfect height for her to kiss his neck, and their hands fit together as they stroll around the school. And that's all it takes; everybody is paying attention to her again, complimenting her, praising her, respecting her.
It was almost too easy.
A month later, Lily knows it was definitely too easy. The guilt has set in- he's so happy, and everything she's said to him is a lie- and it won't go away when she bleeds. She tries to cut a little bit deeper, but the only emotion that leaves is the remnant of hope that, actually, it might be okay. That washes away down the sink, and she's left with a cut that won't stop dripping and a whole load of painful emotions.
It's a cold, bright Wednesday evening when Lily officially loses her mind.
The reason? They kissed, they touched, her sleeve slipped, he looked down and saw the decorations littering her arms.
He froze. So did she.
He lifted up her sleeve. She didn't stop him.
He looked up at her, and there was such pain on his face that she feel in love with him, because she seemed to have a habit of falling in love with pain.
Lily fell in love with James at the same time as she broke his heart.
He left her standing in the hallway, and she watched him walk away, watched his shoulders shaking, watched his hands clench around himself, and she makes it to the bathroom and pulls out the blade and pulls it along skin and bleeds and doesn't feel any different than she did a moment before, and then Lily Evans loses her mind.
A second later, she loses consciousness.
It's not like in the books, where she wakes up in somebody's arms/somebody's bed/a hospital. She wakes up where she fell, on the floor of a bathroom cubicle, in a small puddle of her own blood.
It's not romantic.
It's not dramatic.
It's just painful, and she can't help but wish she didn't do it.
Lily finds James in the Head Girl and Boy's common room, curled up in a chair with his arms over his head.
"I need to tell you something," she says, "And I think you might hate me afterwards, because I'm not who you think I am."
And so she tells him everything, in 25 words.
"I tried to be perfect for so long, but I wasn't. And now I love you, and I feel like I am. Perfect, I mean."
No, in 28 words.
"I love you."
He gazes at her for a long time, not talking, just staring. Lily realises that there's a big chance she's just ruined the only good thing that ever happened to her, but then he pulls her into his lap and kisses her. It's not their usual perfect kiss; it's a little desperate, a little scared, a lot sad. But it's good enough for Lily. Her standards seem to have dropped.
She finds she doesn't care about her standards anymore.
It's empowering.