Learning Evolution (Lily/ Hermione)

It used to matter where the books were from. She needed to own their knowledge, store them on her bookshelf, keep them close to her heart and have them available whenever she wanted it.

Somehow that's come to matter less these days.

There are books checked out of the library on a whim, some are even returned unread. Then comes the day when she's excited to know that she's the first to hold and read and learn from this book in over 30 years.

There is a sense of kinship in dreaming that someone else has loved these characters, wormed his or her way into their lives the same way she will.

Someone had this book lying on their bedside table while they dreamt of their crush. Someone carried this book in a bag jammed with schoolbooks, or Quidditch gloves or paint supplies.

They left some sort of imprint on the surface no matter how careful their handling. Someone learned what they could, and then walked away leaving the lesson waiting for her.

And there's something comforting in that now. In the idea that it is enough to take just what you need and leave the rest.

In the idea that maybe the experience and the memory matter more than the thing itself.

White Towel (Lily)

She's done. She's throwing the white towel into the ring, from the way that she feels as if she can stand up straight for the first time in ages, she's not sure if it really constitutes surrender.

All she knows if that she's sick of being walked over, sick of taking the giggles and whispers and inside jokes, and no amount of past history can make up for the fact that in this moment she feels worse than she ever did sitting alone at primary school.

There is a twisted betrayal in watching the girls that were supposed to watch her back juggling knives, and instead of hating them she's come to loath herself a little bit more every time she lets them hurt her this way.

She knows for sure that she isn't perfect, but she refuses to accept all the guilt and blame for the way things have changed for the worst.

The thing that keeps her up at night is the hard won perspective that lets her see that maybe she doesn't want to go back to the way things were.

Maybe those golden days that gleam so brightly in her memory are only present because of the will of selective memory. Maybe she has been this miserable all along, and simply refused to face it before.



But it doesn't matter now, because she's severing those ties. The bad has come to far outnumber the good and she knows that if she doesn't walk now, she never will.

Aching (Lily- had she lived)

The gaping hole in her chest is aching and burning and expanding by the minute. The hushed murmurs from every angle say that things will improve with time.

She can feel the others moving on, but even though she has long since shed the funeral black it still cloaks her in misery.

There is a veil on her heart that their pitying glances can't penetrate, and no amount of warm, soothing touches can patch the barren gap.

Some days it's a ripping sensation, right in her very core as if her whole being is vanishing, being eaten alive by the sorrow and misery and regret. Other days it is a numbness that leaves her too cold to shake.

The pauses in her breath and pulse seem to drag on, so that it is a minor shock whenever another patch of air or beat of blood passes.

There are times when the sound of his name is a knife ripping into her carefully constructed barriers, shredding what remains of her heart so that the pieces feel foreign in her chest. Then at other times there is no reaction whatsoever.

The name remains in her consciousness for the shortest of moments before being shoved deep into the dark corner of her mind that is reserved for any memory of their lives together.

She thinks with a hollow laugh that if this is healing it won't be long before she joins him.

Individuality (Lily)

Individuality had never been more of a struggle than during her fifteenth year.

Her nail polish cycled from cream to fuchsia to sunflower to midnight in what seemed like mere hours and even something as fundamental as her smile made minute alterations daily.

It was amazing how one quirk of either lip could change her expression entirely; from a vixen's pout to a naive schoolgirl's grin. One day she was reading an old classic, cuddled within the folds of a decades old quilt.

The next she was flipping the tissue thin pages of the latest glamour magazine from under the confines of a retro plaid duvet.

She considered darkening her auburn red locks a variety of times and even came home with a semi-permanent caramel brown hue for Easter break.



The more anyone tried to advise the harder she rebelled until her family learned to carefully school their features into an expression of nonchalance whenever she made a dramatic entrance.

Eventually she was back to sprawling on her floor, sketching the sights of London from a well worn travel guide and allowing an old, scratched CD to fill the gaps in inspiration as she worked in charcoal and pen with the tips of her bare uncolored fingertips.

Early Morning (Lily- the way it could've been)

The room is awash in the glow of another early dawn, and she takes care not to wake her companion as she rises from the king bed.

Her bare feet draw muted creaks from the dark cherry wood as she makes her way down the hall.

She hesitates briefly at each brightly painted door along the way, sparing a moment to list for any noise beyond the sighs and rumblings of a child's deep sleep.

Then it's down the creaking, curving master stairs, and she gives a soft sigh of contentment as her feet sink into the lush carpet at the stairs' base.

Absentmindedly she treads her way to the kitchen, where she plucks an apple from the bursting fruit bowl and snags a caramel colored afghan from the fireplace grate.

Her voyage continues to his study at the far end of the ground floor, where she falls into the heavily cushioned window seat with the elegance of long practice.

Two small hands pull a well worn novel from its resting place on the floor and vivid emerald eyes take in the house's surrounding gardens before steadfastly committing themselves to the task at hand.

The book opens with a barely noticeable groan and its pages pepper the air with soft sighs as their reader searches out her most recent passage.

Author's Note: In this section I kind of looked at the way things might've been had Lily lived, and Harry had been raised in a traditional home. This chapter is a bit shorter than the others, but I wasn't quite sure what people wanted to see. I'd be much obliged to anyone who dropped a line with an idea of what they might like to see next. Thanks so much for reading- a review would make my day! As always- constructive criticism is completely welcome! I really want to improve as a writer!

Disclaimer: Sooo sorry I haven't posted one of these before! Trust me if I was J.K. Rowling I would not be living my life with a serious addiction to fanfiction. The characters, settings and anything else you recognize are not mine!