Disclaimer: I absolutely do not own the world of Harry Potter.
Warning: Incest, if you do not like it, don't read it.
Broken Bonds
Lily shouldn't look at him like that, she knows that, he's her cousin, it's just wrong. But he makes her feel so... alive, and cherished, he always has.
They're celebrating Christmas in the Burrow, all their cousins, aunts and uncles are there. Albus, Rose, Fred and James talk cheerfully about some mischief they're planning (Even though they're legally adults, their souls are still young), Lily's just pretending to listen while thinking about something else, actually someone else, like the blonde chick who has Hugo's hand on the small of her back. Lily felt a sting of jealousy because Hugo's hands should touch her... except they shouldn't, because they're related.
"You're staring" Dominique whispered in her ear while she placed herself next to the redhead.
Lily blushed lightly and looked at Dom who gave her a supportive smile.
The rest of the evening passes by slowly, so slowly it's almost painful. She has to watch Hugo and Melanie (what a horrible name) kiss and giggle, and he introduces her to all their family members, it's hideous. She works at the ministry so aunt Hermione just LOVES her, she talks about Quidditch with Uncle Ron and her cousins, and even Rose seems to like her, what a traitor.
When they exchange gifts she doesn't receive any from Hugo, who's supposed to be her best friend in the whole world.
Later that night she's at her apartment in muggle London (she chose not to stay at the Burrow because it's too crowded and her heart is just a little bit broken), drinking a bottle of firewhiskey on the couch of her living room, drowning her incestuous feelings in alcohol, trying to forget but just being able to remember even more stuff, like their first kiss, they were fourteen and they were so drunk, Lily was genuinely surprised that she remembered, she didn't know if Hugo did, he hadn't said anything. It had been the best kiss ever, until they kissed again during their fifth year at Hogwarts on the astronomy tower, they were drunk again, Hugo had gone so far as telling her that he loved her, and then he proceeded to puke on her shoes.
Suddenly she heard a loud crack; her heart skipped a beat at the sight of no other than Hugo Weasley.
"Hi" She said "What are you doing here?"
He looked at her awkwardly.
"I... I don't know"
"Well then. Can I offer you a drink?" She said, holding the bottle of firewhiskey.
"No thanks, I have to go back to the Burrow and Hermione will kill me if I get there smelling like alcohol"
Lily shrugged and took another sip from the bottle.
"Lily" When the word left his lips she felt a sting of pain, there was something about the way he said her name, it always broke her a little bit "there's something I need to tell you"
"Okay then, please take a seat" She pointed at an empty spot on the couch in front of her.
"This is not an easy thing to say, but here I go... I'm proposing to Melanie." They just looked at each other in complete silence; Lily suddenly felt the need to throw up. He had known this girl for like, what? Six months? "Unless you don't want me to"
"Wh...Why would't I want you to propose to a girl you've known for less than a year?!" She jumped of the couch and started pacing around the room "Do you love her? Because as your cousin and your best friend I suggest you think about it before you do anything stupid"
"I think I love her"
"YOU THINK! THIS IS NOT SOMETHING YOU DO BECAUSE YOU "THINK" YOU LOVE HER! HAVE YOU LOST YOUR MIND?"
"So you're against this marriage because I haven't been with her long enough?"
"Well... Yeah" That was a lie; her heart was so broken it would be impossible to fix it "Why else would I be against it? Don't you think you should love the girl you're gonna marry?"
Hugo stood up and shortened the distance the separated them, he looked at her with something she couldn't identify.
"There's only one girl I'll ever love and, sadly, I can't marry her"
"Who is she?" Lily new it was her, she just wanted him to say it.
But he didn't say anything, he just grabbed her from the small of her back, pulled her towards him and kissed her and Merlin, it was just glorious.
And then they started taking each other's clothes off, hands were wandering, touching and kissing every bit of exposed skin. Moans and sighs escaped their lips while they reached pure bliss.
"You can't marry her"
They were in Lily's bedroom, both of them panting, naked under the sheets.
"What do you want me to do? Wait until our family is okay with incest? Because that's not going to happen!" Hugo turned around to face her "Lily, I love you, but I want to form a family and live a normal life, Melanie wants the same things, maybe I'll never love her like I love you, but she'll give me what I want"
Lily felt the tears burning her eyes, wanting to come out, but she didn't let them, she was stronger than that.
"Then why did you come?" She whispered.
"I had to see you"
"Why? Did you want to hurt me? I would have been fine with it before you came, before you told me what you feel, but now... I..." She sat up and turned her back to him "Get out"
"Lily..."
"Just get out! I don't want to see you again" She closed her eyes tightly, waiting for him to leave, when she heard his footsteps and the sound of the door closing behind him, she took the bottle of firewhiskey and just cried until she fell asleep.
Lily didn't tell anyone what had happened, it was too humiliating. It didn't matter anyways because Gringotts sent her to Egypt to break a curse on an ancient tomb; she was going to be there for like a year so she wouldn't be able to make it to Hugo's wedding (It's not like she wanted to go anyways).
She got the invitation to his wedding in March, on her birthday, blimey the universe hated her. So she went out to a bar that night, and she met a young wizard, he was a healer, he had deep brown eyes and an amazing body but, the most important fact is that he wasn't Hugo; so she took him to her hotel room and tried to forget.
It was quite hard to get him out of her room in the morning, he was all lovey-dovey and she was hung over, plus, he wasn't as cute as she remembered, bugger. After threatening to hex him, he finally left, and Lily was alone, again, no cousins or friends to hang out with, she was completely alone.
A few weeks later something went wrong whilst she was trying to break a curse. She was feeling fine (If not slightly hot), doing her thing when suddenly she felt a punch on her chest and all the air left her lungs. Before she fainted she was able to whisper "Expecto Patronum", Lily didn't know if it had worked, she hoped it had because she was completely alone somewhere in the desert.
Then, everything turned pitch black.
Lily just kept going in and out of consciousness; she heard distant voices, some familiar but they were too far away to recognise them. She had horrible dreams, sometimes she was scared that she had died already and that's what comes after life, an eternity of terrifying dreams and being tortured with memories of the people you loved the most.
It was an awful sight, the woman she loved confined to a hospital bed, all banged up and sleeping, well, less like sleeping and more like... he didn't even wanna think about it. Lily used to be so full of life, it was the thing he loved the most about her she could never stay still. Hugo just wanted to shake her until she woke up, but when she did she would give him a disgusted look and tell him to get his hands off of her.
"What happened?" He asked to his aunt Ginny.
"The healers don't know yet, they say a very strong curse may have back fired"
Well that was useless, he could've known that, Lily was a curse breaker and she got hurt BREAKING A CURSE. Stupid healers, they never know anything, most of them anyways, his sister was a great healer but it's against the rules to treat family members so she probably knew as much as auntie Ginny did.
Hugo walked next to his aunt, the woman looked really tired, and she probably hadn't left since Lily arrived at St. Mungo's.
"Why don't you go home and sleep for a few hours, I can keep her company" He said lightly touching her shoulder.
"I want to be here when she wakes up"
"Don't worry, I'll let you know immediately if she wakes up" Hugo didn't want to say it, but he didn't think she was waking up any time soon.
Ginny planted a soft kiss on her daughter's forehead before leaving the room. Hugo took one of Lily's limp hands between his, it was cold, lifeless.
He remembered the first time he realised he was in love with her, they were fifteen, some Slytherin jerks were picking on a first year Hufflepuff girl and she stood up for her. It wasn't a particularly brave thing to do, she didn't fight a dragon or defeat Voldemort; but she always stood up for the little guy, and he thought that made her simply and utterly brilliant.
And he had hurt her; he hated himself for that, if he could go back in time he would've told her he loved years ago and maybe their family would've understand, maybe they still could understand. Inbreeding in wizard families wasn't that uncommon, pure blood families still practice it. Or maybe they could move to a place where no one knows them, like an island in the Pacific Ocean.
Hugo allowed himself to kiss her lips softly just for a second and he hoped she would wake up.
Time passed and Lily hadn't woken up yet, the healers at St. Mungos said she was free of the curse but the damage it did was extensive and her body was still trying to heal. Uncle Harry called every famous healer in the world and they said the same.
Hugo spend all of his free time at the hospital, he never was at home which means his engagement with Melanie fell through. He didn't care anyways, it's not like he loved her.
"I brought you a cup of tea" Hugo lifted his sight from the book and saw Rose standing in front of him with a cup in his hands.
"I hate tea" he grunted.
"You hate everything these days" She said taking a sip of tea.
"You're drinking my tea"
"You said you don't like tea"
"Whatever"
"Go home, it's two a.m. and you have work tomorrow"
"What if she wakes up and she's all alone?"
"I'll be here, it's my job"
"Thought you couldn't treat family members"
"But I can babysit them"
"No"
"Wow, you're really in love with her, aren't you?"
Hugo looked at her for a moment, trying to figure out if she was joking or if she really knew the truth.
"I'm not in love with her, she's my cousin"
"I'm not stupid, I've seen the way you look at her and, out of everyone in the family, you're the one who spends the most time here, also, I saw you kissing her once, I'm gonna guess that that wasn't the first or the last time you do that" She said with a smirk on her face.
"No, it's not, and please don't ask me about it"
"Okay, I just want to say that you were by my side when dad found out about Scorpius and me so, as the amazing sister I am, I'll return the favour, and support you no matter what"
"Don't you think it's gross?"
"Well... yeah, but that doesn't matter because I'm your sister and love you which means that I'll support you when nobody else does"
She ruffled his hair and gave him a big bright smile, and then she left the room.
Lily felt... sticky, her mouth, joints and eyes felt that way, like she had been sleeping for a long time.
She opened her eyes and saw Hugo sleeping next to her on a chair. It was dark outside and she could see that the windows were covered with a layer of frost. For how long had she been unconscious?
Hugo jolted up when she touched his shoulder to wake him up; he opened up his bright blue eyes, like he couldn't believe what was happening.
"You're awake" He said.
"Very, now, could you bring me some water?"
"Yes, of course"
He left the room for a few seconds, when he came back Rose was with him, she examined her before Hugo handed her a glass of water.
"What day is today?" Lily asked.
"Friday" Replied Hugo.
"You know that's not what I meant"
Rose and Hugo exchanged a worried look.
"Maybe you should wait until your parents are here," said Rose softly.
"I'm not a baby, Rose, there's frost on the windows and Hugo brought his coat so obviously it's been quite a while. So, how long have I been here?"
"About eight months" She heard her father's voice coming from the doorway, her mum was behind him and she was looking at her with teary eyes. The couple closed the distance between them and their daughter, her father hugged her tightly and her mum planted a soft kiss on her forehead, looking at her with teary eyes.
"We've missed you so much," Ginny said as she caressed the top of Lily's head.
"When can I go home?"
Everybody looked at Rose, expecting her to answer the question, "I don't know" she said "but I'll get your attending healer to come and see you", having said that she left the room.
"I think I should leave as well, goodnight" Before Hugo left he glanced at her for a second and gave her a sad smile, like if he was wondering if she remembered that, before she landed in the hospital, she was mad at him for playing with her feelings; and yes, she remembered and she hadn't forgiven him.
Lily turned to see her mother and asked "How's everyone in the family doing?"
Then Ginny gave a twenty minute summary of everything that had happened in the last eight months, Victoire and Teddy were expecting a baby, Rose got engaged and she was getting married in May, Lucy was working at the ministry in the legal department, auntie Hermione had been elected Minister of Magic and Hugo didn't get married.
Lily felt the urge to ask more questions about Hugo's failed engagement, but Rose and another healer entered the room. The wizard examined her and told her she could leave as soon as she regained some muscle mass, then he gave her Muscle-Gro potion, it tasted awful.
Lily was allowed to leave St. Mungos a few weeks later; she decided to stay with her parents for a month or so. They celebrated Christmas at the Burrow with the rest of the family, everyone was happy to see her and she was happy to see everyone. They ate dinner and exchanged gifts and then the female cousins had a slumber party. She moved back into her apartment in January even though her parents told her she could stay with them as long as she wanted, but she needed space.
One night she was washing the dishes when she heard a knock on the door "Who is it?" she asked.
"It's me, Hugo."
Lily walked towards the door but she didn't open it, "What do you want?"
"I want to talk to you."
"Then talk."
"I wanna talk face to face."
"Okay, I'll open the door," Lily hesitated when her hand reached for the door knob but it didn't matter anyways because a loud CRACK let her know that Hugo had decided to Apparate into her apartment, "Why did you do that? I was going to open the door!"
"Why does it bother you? You were going to let me in anyways!"
Lily was unable to hide a little smile; it almost felt like they were friends again, "What do you want to talk about?"
"I broke up with Melanie."
"So? That doesn't change anything, we're still cousins."
"Lily, when you went to Egypt I realised I'd made a huge mistake and every night all I wanted to do was to go there and bring you back with me," Hugo looked at her with his beautiful deep blue eyes and she just melted on the inside, "I don't care what people say, we should be together, I know it."
"I want to be with you too, but you were right when you said that our family won't accept us."
"I don't care," He closed the distance between them and caressed her cheek, "we'll fight for our love, plus Rose is on our side and dad does anything she says"
Then, Lily started crying, because he had hurt her, badly, and now he was offering everything she had ever wanted, but a part of her kept saying that their family wouldn't accept it, that it was impossible for them to be together. She felt Hugo's strong arms around her waist and the scent of his cologne. He lifted her chin and then he kissed her softly, she parted her lips and placed her hands on his hair. Clothes started falling on the floor whilst they walked towards the bedroom. "I love you's" were exchanged and, for the first time in months, Lily felt at home.
I hoped you like it, I know it seems like an odd couple because well, they're cousins, honestly in my country that's not a big deal, I think that's why I ship them. Any reviews are welcome and appreciated :)
