let's go on dreaming
So close to reaching that famous happy end
Almost believing this was not pretend
Let's go on dreaming, though we know we are
So close, so close and still so far
-So Close; Jon McLaughlin-
The embroidery on her bag was very pretty. She picked at it to distract herself from the couples swirling around on the floor. She'd unpicked a butterfly and two little hearts when Lysander dragged a tall dark boy over to see her.
"Lily, this is Ryan. Ryan, this is Lily, my wife's cousin," Lysander said. Bending down, he whispered to Lily, "You looked so sad, I thought I'd provide you with a spare man to dance with."
"So, d'you want to dance?" Ryan asked. Lily smiled faintly and took his hand, letting him lead her onto the dance floor and put his hands on her silk-covered waist.
Molly, her white dress dyed temporarily blue-pink-yellow by the flashing lights, smiled blissfully as she spun slowly past in Lysander's arms. Ryan was gentlemanly, kind and a passable dancer - he only stepped on her toes twice in a four minute song - but not the one she really wanted to dance with.
There was an incomprehensible shriek from the top table, a string of swearwords and a splash. Pushing Ryan away, Lily whirled round to see Lorcan soaked from head to hips and Lucy holding a glass in her hand.
"Next time, I'll throw red wine, you piece of shit!" she screamed and stormed out of the room.
Lily looked around at her cousins and brothers. James looked at his feet. So did Albus, Rose, Hugo, Molly, Fred, Roxanne, Dominique and Louis. Even Victoire stayed swaying with Teddy to the muted music. Lysander walked up to the top table to mop up the thrown water and Scorpius was nowhere to be seen. She took in a deep breath.
"I'll go after her," she announced. Her family all looked relieved that none of them would be the one to suffer Lucy's wrath. With a parting nod, Lily hurried from the watching crowd towards the room Lucy had vanished into.
"Fuck off!" Lucy shouted as she opened the door with a slight creak. Lily looked around. The room had been used for the ceremony, but now, with a layer of confetti covering everything, the chairs stacked against the walls and the red carpet rolled up to reveal a dusty floor, it seemed just as destroyed as the woman hunched in the middle of it all.
"Lucy, what's wrong?" Lily asked in a soft voice, approaching the blonde with great caution. One never knew when she'd blow up. "What did Lorcan do?"
"He's a lying, cheating fuckwit!" Lucy screamed. Lily winced slightly at the volume her cousin could reach.
"I know, but what did he do?"
"I saw him snogging Mystii Corner the other day," Lucy explained. "You know, the gorgeous redhead with the tiny waist and brown eyes? Little Miss Look-at-me, Look-at-me."
"The same Mystii Corner who dated James for three years?" Lily knew her brother still had feelings for the redhead, no matter how many girlfriends he'd had since their break-up.
"Yeah, her. Anyway, I saw him snogging her and confronted him about it. And do you know what he did? What really gets me? He lied about it!"
"Why?"
"Because he loves me, apparently. If he loves me, why is he going about snogging other girls? The fucker."
"Are you going to break up with him?" Lucy regarded her with sympathy.
"Oh, Lily, are you really that out of touch? I broke up with him six weeks ago. Molly was so cross with me for wrecking her numbers."
"If you broke up with him, why are you annoyed with him?"
"We only broke up six weeks ago, Lily! He can't enter into another relationship already, it's not polite!"
Lucy brushed off her comforting words and hands, stepping out onto the balcony and banging the doors shut behind her. Deciding that she'd done enough to try and fix everything, Lily returned to the party. She found that everyone had swapped partner, with Molly happily bopping with Ryan and Lysander with Roxanne.
"How is she?" Victoire asked in a low voice as Lily approached her and John.
"Annoyed, swearing, yelling, melodramatic, the usual," Lily whispered. "She's out on the balcony just now."
"May I have this dance, Lily-bell?" Teddy asked. Lily smiled and nodded, taking his hand with a wave to Victoire as he took her to the other side of the room.
Skirts of lilac and green and yellow and red mingle on the molten gold floor as couples danced, sometimes swaying gently under romantic lights and others spinning violently to beats that shake the floor. After Teddy left, aiming for Dominique, Lily danced with Lysander, Scorpius, Louis and her Uncle George, the smile on her face fading as she looked over at Lorcan, pinned to the wall with a glass of pumpkin juice in his hand.
"Go find Aunt Angelina and dance with her," she told Uncle George, dropping his hands and hurrying over to Lorcan, the back of her mind wondering where her shoes were and if she'd ever find them again.
"What do you want?" Lorcan asked, looking up from the depths of his glass straight into her eyes. With a shuddering sigh, her nails digging into her palms as she nervously clenched her fists, she asked,
"May I have this dance?" He looked shocked and she hurried on. "You look so lonely and sad over here, come and dance, just once."
"Oh, fine," he said with an exaggerated eye roll, handing his glass to a passing Roxanne and following her out onto the floor. As luck would have it, the music changed from old rock tracks to a slow waltz. Everyone drifted back to the person they'd arrived with and the spare men and women paired up.
"So, were you really kissing Mystii Corner?" Lily asked, avoiding taking his hand.
"No," Lorcan said shortly. "Are we going to dance or not?" He placed a hand neatly against her waist and clasped the other. Feeling her entire body shake, Lily put her hand on his shoulder and held tight as they spun slowly around the floor.
"Who were you kissing, then?" Lily asked, watching her mother and father spin past, both of them laughing and smiling.
"No one, Lucy just needed an excuse to throw something at me." Lily looked up at him. He sounded and looked completely serious.
"There's something you're not telling me," she said, narrowing her eyes at him. For a moment there was complete silence.
"Let's just say, when we were together, I said the wrong name at an inopportune time," he mumbled, blushing furiously. Lily looked over at the beautiful redhead, dancing with James.
"I don't blame you, she is beautiful. James still loves her, even though they broke up years ago."
"Not Mystii. She's a friend, but that's all." Lily's gaze snapped quickly back to Lorcan, tilting her head in confusion.
"Then who?" When Lorcan fell suddenly silent again, it was her turn to blush. "Sorry, it's none of my business."
The gentle, romantic song finished and Lorcan dropped her hand like it was red hot, hastening to get away from her. Another song began, one that Lily recognised. Seeing Ryan, she dashed across the floor and took his hands, pulling him out onto the floor.
Despite her best efforts, her eyes kept sliding away from Ryan to Lorcan, over by the wall once again, this time drinking Firewhisky straight from the bottle. His dark hair fell across his face, disguising the scar over his eyebrow and the burning in his eyes.
"Well, if it isn't my new sister-in-law!" Lysander exclaimed as Lucy paused in the doorway. "Come on, come and dance with me." Molly smiled and laughed, easing her feet out of tight shoes and sitting out the dance. Lucy managed a small smile and allowed Lysander to whirl her into the crowd of black suits and colourful dresses.
"Sorry, Ryan, I'll let you go back to Collette," Lily said, dropping her partner's hands and leaving the floor. With a glass of apple juice in her hand, she walked over to Lorcan and pulled a chair to sit beside him.
"What are you drinking?" she asked, just to start a conversation.
"Firewhisky, numbs the pain, y'know," he answered, taking another swig to illustrate his point. "You?"
"Apple juice." She lifts her glass to show him the gold-green liquid.
"I remember, you've never liked pumpkin juice. I'd never heard you swear until that poor guy tried to give you pumpkin juice in fourth year." Lily laughed at the memory. "Why aren't you dancing?" Lorcan asked as the sing drew to a close and another rock track started.
"I'm tired and needed a drink." Lorcan looked down at her, at flushed cheeks and stars shining in bright green eyes.
"Come on, we'll go outside." With a smile and a wave to Molly, Lily followed him from the hot, crowded ballroom through a maze of corridors scattered with columns and marble statues, out into the impressive gardens.
"It's so beautiful out here," she whispered, bending down to smell a dark red rose. Lorcan just nodded and his big warm hand wrapped around hers as they walked through the gardens, the glorious scents of freshly-mown grass and a thousand flowers growing together and sheer summertime rose around them.
"Look at all the stars," Lorcan said, his arm sliding around her as he pointed upwards at a thousand pinpoints of light against a blue-black backdrop. "There's so many of them. There could be messages written there, notes to us. Written in the stars for us to see."
"That's beautiful," she breathed. "You have a way with words." He smiled down at her.
"Look, lie down and you'll get a better view," he said. She obeyed and lay on her back on the damp grass, looking up at the night sky. Lorcan lay down next to her and took her hand as he pointed out constellations, joining up the dots with his words.
"There's a story behind all of these," he said, and began to tell them in his slow, level voice, soothing her like a bedtime story and a mug of hot cocoa used to after a nightmare.
"Look, a shooting star!" she exclaimed, pointing at the streak of silver across the sky. "Oh, it's beautiful!"
"Make a wish." She turned to Lorcan and saw his smile. She closed her eyes and thought her wish as hard as she could, hoping the star could hear her and would answer her fervent prayers.
"What did you wish for?" she asked as she opened her eyes again.
"A pony." She grinned and punched him in the arm. "Ow! Bloody hell, you have good punch. Okay, okay, I wished for inspiration in song-writing, what did you wish for?"
"If I tell you, it won't come true," she laughed. "But you can try and guess." She laughed again as he rubbed his hands together, because Lorcan Scamander can never resist a challenges.
"I'm betting it involves you, a nice man, a first date, the word love and I'm sure there's a happily ever after mixed in with it all," he said, laughing at her shocked expression because he's guessed her wish, word-for-word.
"You are a genius in more ways than one," she told him, sitting up and frowning at the grass stains on the back of her pale blue dress.
He stood up first and helped her to her feet, a little fairy with hair that flamed in the darkness and her green eyes filled with stars and wishes and that streak of silver. He was just a tall man with dark hair and grief in his eyes, trying to keep the spirit of his great father alive.
"We should probably rejoin the party," she said, her words echoing through his world. "They'll be wondering where we've gone."
Her words coincided nicely with a faint call of "Lily? Lorcan? Where are you?" She smiled and shrugged and turned to go back to the party.
He couldn't help but notice her hair was the same shade as the roses in the bed next to them and how cold her tiny hand was when he grabbed it, pulling her back and round to face him. He had never really believed in soulmates and finding the centre of his universe and he wasn't even really sure what all that romantic claptrap meant, but he had found his centre of gravity here, in the fairy girl with a grass-stained dress and stars illuminating her delicate face.
He moved his hands to cup her face with fingers calloused from hours of strumming his guitar and saw the wonder in her eyes as he bent his head and captured her lips. Her response was instantaneous and not something he thought even Trelawney could have predicted. Sweet little Lily kissed him hungrily, pulling herself closer by the lapels of his suit, hooking one bare leg around his waist.
Her eyes shone with happiness as their lips parted, both of them breathing heavily and him still holding her up. She turned and saw blonde hair, amber eyes and an expression of absolute horror. With a scream that split the serene night in two, Lucy turned and ran. Lily followed, shrieking her cousin's name and leaving a man with broken dreams and brooding eyes.
"Lucy, wait, it wasn't what it looked like!" Lily screamed. Lucy paused and turned around, her eyes flashing and hair flying.
"Oh, really, well what was it, then?" she asked. "Did you choke on a peanut and ask him to give you mouth-to-mouth? I may not be a Ravenclaw, but I'm smarter than that."
"No, Lucy, listen to me! I never meant for it to end up like that, it just kind of…happened."
"It wasn't even Mystii corner I caught him kissing the other day, was it? It was you! It's just like you to lie to me, Lily Potter! Everyone else may think you're a sweet little fairy who couldn't hurt a fly, but you can't fool me."
"Lucy, it wasn't me, it wasn't anyone. Lorcan says-"
"Oh, Lorcan says this, Lorcan says this, Lorcan said Lucy's a bitch so obviously I'm going to believe him! You're the bitch around her, Lily, and you know it. What Lorcan and I had was real until you came along and spoilt it!"
"Lucy, calm down, please. I had nothing to do with you and Lorcan breaking up, you just went stale-"
"You're a fucking good liar, but I'm not believing you. You're trying to poison everyone against me, you little bitch. If I'm out of the way, if everyone thinks Lorcan's too good for me, then you can have him! You act like little Miss Perfect, you'd never hurt anyone or lie and you deserve all the wonderful things life throws at you because you're so fucking nice!"
"Lucy! I'm not going to lie, I'm just telling you what Lorcan said! Lucy, don't go!"
"I've had enough of this fucking wedding and pretending everything's so fucking perfect!" Lucy stormed out, an entire army in one woman with perfectly sculptured golden curls and swearwords as her ammunition.
Lily staggered out onto the balcony, her vision clouded by a curtain of tears. She'd never known Lucy hated her that much or blamed her for the break-up that had completed her transformation from dreamy Lucy Weasley to the terrible person who'd thrown her drink over Lorcan and stormed out of her own sister's wedding.
The stars seemed fainter, not shining as brightly as they had done a mere five minutes ago, when she was lying beside Lorcan with his fingers threaded through hers and his voice echoing in her ears and his lips on hers. She remembered the happiness in his eyes, happiness unseen for almost eight years, when they parted briefly, and then she left him to run after Lucy. Where did that get her? To a shell of a girl, crying out on the balcony after most probably ruining her cousin's beautiful wedding.
"Lily, what's wrong?"
Wiping her eyes, Lily turned to see Victoire and Teddy standing together in the doorway, both of them the picture of concern. His hand rested almost imperceptibly on her waist and their feet were turned towards each other, an intimacy conveyed through body language.
"Is there any way we can help?" Teddy asked, striding forwards and placing a comforting hand on her freckled shoulder.
"Only if you can tell me what to do when you've just kissed the man your cousin broke up with six weeks ago, the cousin in question saw it, you broke the man's heart by chasing after the cousin, the cousin screamed at you and just stormed out of her sister's wedding," Lily said dolefully. Teddy frowned slightly, looking confused.
"Er…who exactly are we talking about?" he asked. Victoire laughed and Lily managed a small, wobbly smile.
"Lucy and Lorcan, you silly man," Victoire told him. "Lily, you go to Lorcan and tell him exactly how you feel. Teddy and I will go after Lucy."
"She was wearing a tight dress and high heels, she can't have gone far," Teddy said reassuringly. All three of them whirled around as there was a screech of tires to see Lucy in Ron's car, driving off into the night. "Unless, of course, she's nicked her uncle's car."
"Don't worry, we'll get her," Victoire told Lily. "Just go, find Lorcan and tell him everything." With those words, the woman with star-blonde hair and the man with hair quickly changing from happy turquoise to worried purple departed, running for the cars parked outside.
With blue skirts swirling around her, Lily hesitantly descended the stone steps and walked through the gardens, calling his name and hoping the gentle summer breeze will somehow carry it to him. Finally, she caught a glimpse of wide shoulders covered in charcoal grey and hair almost disguised against the dark sky.
"Lorcan, I'm sorry," were the first words to leave her lips. He turned and tears pricked her eyes as she saw the slump of his shoulders, the defeat in his eyes and his heart, once worn proudly on his sleeve, locked away again.
"I should have known this would happen," he said in a flat voice. "If you open up, all people do is hurt you."
"That's not true!" she exclaimed, rushing to him and grabbing his hand. "You know it isn't!"
"Really? Because I opened my heart to dad and all he did was leave me at home when he went on those expeditions and then get killed and break my heart. Then I opened up to you and let you affect me and you chose your family over me. Do you even understand how much that hurts me?"
"Lorcan, I couldn't let Lucy just go. I didn't know what she might do. But she's gone now, so won't you let me in again?" She had to stand right up on tiptoe to kiss him, silently begging him to feel the apologies and feelings she was trying to convey through the language of lips.
"I can't Lily, I can't let people keep breaking me like this. I don't want to be a wreck."
"What if I love you and I promise never to leave you or hurt you? What if I made an unbreakable vow to promise that? What if I really, truly love you with all my heart?"
"What if I don't know that you're not just saying that?" His stance was wary, but his eyes are warm and she hoped that he was staring to believe her.
"Believe me, I mean it. Don't you know I never say something when I don't mean it? I'm not a liar and certainly not about something as serious as this."
"I still don't believe you."
"How can you not believe me? Lorcan Scamander, you're an idiot because I meant every word of that-" Her tirade was interrupted by gentle lips and warm hands. With his hands gliding over silk-covered skin and his lips on hers, Lily found herself incapable of rational thought or, indeed, any thought but the words Lorcan Scamander.
"What are you doing to my sister?"
The moment of bliss was interrupted as Albus ran towards them, his wand out and his most frightening glare directed at Lorcan, James close behind him and equally angry.
"I was kissing her, if you must know." Lily backed away, frightened of her brothers with their equally angry eyes and their wand trained on Lorcan's face.
"You shouldn't be!" James shouted. "Do you have any idea how many times she's cried over you?"
"She didn't eat for a week when you first started dating Lucy!" Albus roared. "Her heart was broken and it was your fault!"
"James, Al, you don't understand. It's different now-"
"Stay out of this, Lily-bell, you're just a girl." Lily's eyes flashed and Lorcan privately smugly thought Now they're in for it.
"Maybe I am 'just a girl', but I'm old enough to know what I want and what I'm letting myself in for!" Lily screamed, pulling her wand out and pointing it with an amazingly steady hand at her brothers. "Lorcan would never intentionally hurt me, he didn't even know I loved him back then! Leave us alone, you prats!" With an almost lazy flick of her wand, Albus and James fell to the floor, paralysed but for their eyes, which registered nothing but shock.
With a soft sigh of relief, Lily slid her wand back into her bag and turned to Lorcan, her smile wider than ever seen before. She walked slowly towards him, each step seeming to take an age.
"I can't believe you did that to defend me," Lorcan managed to choke out. She took his hand and looked up into his eyes.
"I can't have my brothers mangling you, it would put a damper on Molly's wedding," she said softly, pressing a kiss to his jaw line. "Shall we go back inside?"
"No, let's stay out here," he said, taking her hand and leading her away from the frozen bodies on the grass, towards the edge of the gardens where the regimental rows of flowers spill away into a cliff and the view is exquisite, faint traces of the ruby red sunset still lingering on the horizon.
He slid an arm around her in a perfectly natural gesture of intimacy, like he'd been doing the same for years. They sank down onto the grass together, his arms around her and her head on his chest. The stars appeared to have brightened again, the silvery glow falling across her face.
He turned his head and kissed her, their lips moving together in a beautifully fluid motion and the stars all shone brighter, playing a symphony of lights for the couple on the grass.
They've both found happiness, a fairy with red velvet tresses and stars in her eyes and a man wearing grief in his eyes, his heart on his sleeve and his father's legacy in his actions.
They've found it in each other, the smell of summertime and starshine.
I hope you liked this. I'm experimenting with a sweeter Lily and bitchier Lucy than I normally write, so his is different for me.
Please don't favourite without reviewing, thank you :)