Word Count: 1,130
Challenge/Competition: The sad and depressing one-shot challenge
Prompts: Time jumps, mental illness.
Warnings: Depictions of depression, implied suicide.
Disclaimer: I don't claim to own Harry Potter, it's all JKR's.
Note: Wow, I've done depressing before, but nothing like this in a while. The amount between the time jumps isn't really important, they're just to show her deterioration and the progression of her depression without writing a 20,000 one shot, really.
Lily is just not enough, she discovers. Her mother sits with Albus, telling him stories about their wartime whilst her father scolds James, all attention on him.
"Mum?" she mutters, flinching slightly when her mum waves her away with an utterance of wait till I'm finished.
"Dad?" To which she doesn't even receive a reply.
So she shuffles away to her room, pulling out the gleaming scissors from her locked box, and cuts each lock of her waist-length hair to whatever length she feels like. They'll have to notice her, now.
"Really Lily, pink in your hair? Please take it out," Her mother sighs, already knowing what her reply will be.
"Really, mother. No," Lily grinds out.
Her mother looks hopelessly to her father, who's here while the whole family are together. "Harry… tell her, please."
Harry mutters, "Kids will be kids," before turning back to his newspaper.
The other parents shuffle awkwardly at the display before them, urging their children with pleading eyes to disperse. Lily's heart sinks, because Harry still doesn't care – he barely looked up from his paper to see her, he barely ever looks at her, these days. It's as if all she is, is a disappointment.
Lily Luna Potter. Lily Luna Potter. Lily Luna Potter. The auburn haired girl faces her reflection, chanting her name – her famous name, over and over, hoping to make it lose itself… she's found the more that you repeat something, the faster it loses its meaning. The faster it doesn't make sense. Lily Luna Potter. Lily Luna Potter. Lily Luna Potter.
She doesn't want to be herself anymore. She hates herself. Many would think her mad – Lily Luna Potter? The girl who the all the boys want and all the girls want to be? With Harry and Ginny Potter as parents? James and Albus Potter as siblings? With her cool cousins? Why on earth would someone such as Lily be unhappy?
Honestly, she doesn't know, but unhappiness fills every part of her, it is an abscess in her body, a constant gnawing pain eating away at her. She's a disappointment – a Slytherin, an attention-seeker, she's not good, she's not a true part of the Weasley-Potter clan.
"Come on, Scorpius, I know you want to," she says as she smiles seductively, dangling the bottle of pills in front of his sparkling grey eyes.
"Drugs? That's what you're into now? Fuck, Lily," he sighs, rubbing a palm across his face.
"Just one." And she straddles his lap, leaning in for a kiss.
"This isn't you." He pushes her off of him.
"How do you know what I am? I'm just your fuck buddy," she says with malice, eyes narrowing.
But secretly, she knows it isn't her. Lily isn't this orb of darkness, she's everyone's beacon of light with her glittering smile and her kind words towards anyone and everyone. Although, being a beacon of light has never gotten her anywhere and it's what helped Scorpius to steal her heart in the first place.
Playing nice doesn't work, not anymore.
Pulling her lips into her perfectly practiced smile, she doesn't falter for the five seconds she counts in her head. The fact it doesn't quite reach her dead green eyes that used to twinkle like stars should be the giveaway to her encased darkness – the abyss that is herself. But then again, she supposes, people are naïve. They believe what they want to believe. Lily looks happy, so she must be. Simple.
As she steps out of the bathrooms and into the hall, the unusually warm spring sunshine falls through the windows, and she feels as if it illuminates her. Sunlight is the light that fills her translucent skin, that lights up her beaming smile and gives her the bounce in her step. It isn't coming from the inside, it isn't her natural light – nothing light resides in there anymore.
"I don't know who you are anymore," Rose whispers, tears glimmering in her eyes.
"What are you trying to say?" she says in her hardest tone, eyes as void of emotion as possible, because if people can't read her then they can't hurt her.
"I can't be your friend. Not like this. You're not yourself."
And just like that, she loses everyone. Apparently, people can't handle dark Lily. Well, Lily doesn't care – she doesn't want to be tamed, she wants to be powerful. Without power, she's nothing at all.
She's surprised her cracks aren't visible, they're all she feels and sees. It's as if every day that passes, a new crack appears and an old crack grows deeper. Lily is unravelling, she's falling apart, and it's happening quicker than she can pull herself together. Stepping out into the courtyard, a sudden chill hits her. It's that same chill, the one that she shouldn't feel but is always there because of not enough (but still too much) fat on her bones… the chill stings her arms and she remembers all at once. Very jerkily, she pulls her sleeves down to the tips of her fingers, before sighing shakily to herself.
In the corner of the courtyard on a bench, she spots Rose and Scorpius and they're laughing together, eyes shining and smiles genuine. They don't need sunlight to light them up, they don't need power to be happy, and they accept the attention they receive from each other.
Suddenly, she feels something. A pang. And she's not sure what it is – she's used to being utterly and entirely numb, but she thinks it's sadness. It's that hole inside her that grows and grows, threatening to pull her into it, for her to be swallowed by darkness. She's the explosion of the supernova.
The days always pile up endlessly, she grows emptier, her skin grows paler, she becomes thinner, red scratches decorate more and more of her body, more and more people abandon her, and she becomes nothing. Lily is not dark, nor light. Maybe she finally repeated her name enough times. Maybe she finally doesn't mean anything any more.
It's her time – she doesn't want to do this anymore. The multi-coloured pills don't do anything to her now; they don't lend the excitement they did previously. She's wasted away; she's allowed herself to do so. It's a sign, she thinks. She's done here. She's ready to go.
The last of her collection slide down her throat like water, and she feels herself fading. Not in the metaphorical sense, like the slow deteriorating she's felt throughout her life, it's real fading – her life is slipping away from her… yet, it couldn't be a better feeling. Her pain slips away at a faster rate than her life does, but it's going and so is she and that's all that matters.
AN- Sad and depressing enough for the sad and depressing one shot challenge? Haha, sorry for lack of updates, writers block is a bitch! (excuse the language, but it is). I would love for you all to send lovely reviews my way, that is, if you liked this (in the strange way that you can like stories like this) and... I'm thinking of writing something lighter, now, although I still think it will be angsty. Angsty romance. Yes. Lots of love to you all!
edit: I'm adding this as I've realised a few of you seem to be misinterpreting. I am not trying to suggest that Harry and Ginny are horrible, neglectful parents here and that they dislike Lily for being in Slytherin or for being different etc... This in Lily's POV, and that is just how Lily sees it - it doesn't necessarily mean that is the case, and she has a different mind-set due to her depression. Just clearing up any confusion :)