-+-
Lily Evans loved James Potter, she really did. But it was Sirius Black who really got under her skin, lodged somewhere deep and stayed. James, James and then Harry filled the whole of her heart, but Sirius seemed to be everywhere else. Idly, she'd wonder if James had her heart and Sirius her soul.
Lily Evans kissed Sirius Black after he confessed to sending Severus down to the Shrieking Shack in the full moon. And he cried and cried and she broke a little inside and idly, she thought that if James has her heart, then Sirius has her soul.
-+- -+-
When she was little, Lily loved her mothers laugh. It was rare to hear and rarer to cause, creeping out in a breathy whistle and giggle and then a full blown peal of throaty laughter. Lily could've listened to it for hours.
When she was little, she'd pull faces till her mother laughed unfailingly. She was five when her mother looked away and held her close and cried. Her father was dead and her mothers laugh died, and the ghost of it rang in Lily's ears till she clapped her hands over them, unable to bear that once magical sound.
-+- -+- -+-
The first time he told her he loved her, he was hot and panting from the sex and she was sore and hurting. He'd looked right into her eyes and it somehow seemed a payment for a gift she'd given so freely. It felt wrong and she closed her eyes, breathed deep. Told him to say it like he meant it and not as a reward for her body and as she looked at him she realised the difference. He said it believing he meant it and James said it simply knowing. And now, just now, she knew it too.
-+- -+- -+- -+-
At three am on the ninth of July, Lily sat cross legged in an open window and lit a single white candle. She watched the red and yellow flame flicker and dance in shadows on the wall. She watched it slowly melt and thought of the once loved as the wax spilled over. She thought of tears and of venom as droplets hit her wrist and she bit her lip at the sting. She watched and she cried in silence, tears that burned like the flame; swiped them away and snuffed the light. She faced the night.
"Happy Birthday 'Tunia."
-+- -+- -+- -+- -+-
Sometimes she had days where she couldn't bear the thought of getting out of bed. Days when the dead and the dying, those she loved and those she loathed, those she'd killed and seen killed pressed so heavy against her that she could barely breathe; would wake with a strangled gasp, her chest tight. And she'd lie wide awake next to him, listen to the steady thrum of his heart, the rise and fall of his breath and he'd pull her close, kiss her hair and tell her it was alright to cry, love, it made you do that sometimes.
-+- -+- -+- -+- -+- -+-
She was nineteen and listening to the wireless when it came crackling through the speakers.
"James, it's our song!"
And she took his hand and they danced outside in the snow as the sun beat down upon them; hot and bright and wild. And he sang.
'I say love, it is a flower, and you it's only seed.'
And she stopped dancing in the snow, and looked, really looked, as the sun hit his face.
"I love you. I'll love you forever, you know that don't you?"
And he hadn't, but he did and smiled and wordlessly, they walked inside.
-+- -+- -+- -+- -+- -+-
He was seventeen and gripped her hand so hard it was turning purple, and the pain etched on his face nearly killed her.
"I don't think you know quite how much I love you Lily, how long I've spent loving you. I was fourteen when I began to suspect and fifteen when I first thought it and sixteen when I knew for certain. I love you. I'll love you forever, you know that don't you?"
And his dark eyes burned into hers; her vision blurred as her tears spilled over and she pressed her lips to his palm. "I know."
-+- -+- -+- -+- -+-
In her last year at Hogwarts, Lily would sneak out of bed in the middle of the night, creep silently out of the tower and race as fast as she dared to the very top of the north tower, take off all her clothes, and launch herself off the edge.
She'd give herself over to the rush that filled her so completely, her mind blank and empty of everything but the joy of being utterly free. She'd land in the icy waters of the lake, float until her body was numb, alone for almost sixty flights- then Remus came too.
-+- -+- -+- -+-
Lily loved the element of surprise. She loved the look on a face, the whole spectrum of emotions from shock to disbelief to anger if it was of the bad kind, to pleasure and delight if it was the good. She loved to give, to receive and especially loved to be the surprise. But as she held her son in her arms; and looked into Dumbledore's bright blue eyes, she fought the urge to laugh. Once a rat, always a rat and they all should've noticed except there was a war; they were friends! Lily really fucking hated this one.
-+- -+- -+-
She once read a book about a man who was so in love with a girl that he went mad when she died; as mad as she'd been after he left her and forever after she couldn't shake the notion that love was madness- a madness that seeped into your bones, right down to your soul, making your blood burn and your head spin and your heart break, a thousand little deaths when he said 'dad' instead of 'mum' and she turned her back and he smiled as he kissed you, and it was all there was in the world.
-+- -+-
*This story was inspired by many things and people: T S Eliot, 'The Rose' by Bette Midler, Bob Dylan and Janis Joplin; and the gems written by Lady Bracknell, Wingless Flight and Cupid Painted Blind among others...and my own Sirius, who taught me to beware.
-+-