A/N: This is a story in two parts. It will change between past and present events every other chapter. The story is told from Lily's perspective. I have attempted to recreate her thought-process rather than staying true to the characters, though hopefully I have managed both.
Comments and reviews are much appreciated.
Disclaimer: All recognizable places and characters is the property of J.K. Rowling. The rest is mine.
THE WAR WAS IN COLOUR
Prologue
Though Potter was orphaned early in life, his parents continued to have a larger than normal impact on his life. Not only due to the fabled prophecy, but in setting an untarnished example for the young wizard to live up to. Upon enrolling in Hogwards School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, stories of his parents followed him wherever he went, thus he developed a close personal connection to them. "I believe my parents would be proud of me," Potter stated himself in an interview with the author at the occasion of the triwizard-tournament.
Throughout his Hogwarts days, the repercussions of his parents actions, continued to reach him, shaping his life and creating bonds beyond that of time and even magic.
~ "Harry Potter – The Man, The Wizard, The Legend" by Rita Skeeter
I
She did not believe in expressionism nor the magical manifestations of emotion. And yet, looking up at the torrential sky, the castle grim in the dwindling light, there were no denying; the world had been tainted.
It was as if somehow her foul mood, her fractioned heart, had bleed into the world and painted it grey. Even the hillside with it's autumn splendour of red and yellow appeared only as a backdrop to the darkened hue that rested over both school-grounds and Lily Evan's mind.
It was no overstatement. Indeed, had it only been. But friendships were just as important in the precarious teenage years as they were later in life. And the thought that she might lose one, that powers and circumstance beyond herself might fraction and break this piece of her life, that was no joke.
And so the weather seemed fitting, even intrusive in it's aptness. Before her, gold and scarlet, silver and green, blended together, leaving streaks across her vision, seeping out into the grey. She squeezed her eyes shut for a moment, letting them clear, and opened them to find that the world was once more whole, unblemished.
It was walking there, trailing after the smattering bunch of Gryffindors and Slytherins, across the rain soaked ground that she suddenly found herself coming to a stop. Her legs unable, or perhaps unwilling to move further up the path. Her friends, those that remained, had done their best, shoving their sympathy in the little things, like delivering her homework when forgotten, or indeed waiting on her when she fell behind. But weeks had passed and interest faded. But the solitude that remained was one of comfort. After all, how could they understand? Who else would have such rotten luck to end up with a friend that was the best, and also the worst. Who craved her and despised her all at the same time.
"This damn weather. I hate autumns."
"Really? I like the rain?"
They saunterer upwards, chatting, laughing, their adolescent minds filled with quidditch and hormones and magic, both in the literal and figurative sense.
She watched them, seemingly from so far away, though she where only a few steps behind, pondering their naiveté, as if she was so much older, so much wiser, so very much more broken.
"That's easy for you to say. You don't have quidditch-practice later."
That was his worry, that arrogant boy before her. And Severus nowhere to be seen, the idyll complete.
It was better then, she found, to step out of the frame, to walk alone. In this sodding rain.
A final act of defiance at the unfairness of it all, she let it fall, let it hit her. Let her frame be shrouded in the grey hue of autumn. It covered her, seeped through clothes, through skin. Filled her and pored out again, through her eyes, her nose. The world flickering, colours blending together in a blur that was both splendour and chaos. And it seemed for a moment, as if clarity struck down through the torrential downpour, that this was how the world really was. Bleak and tarnished. That made it all the more overwhelming.
