This is the story of Lucy Weasley. Go easy on her; she's fragile.

1. Lucy's name means "light," or something to that affect. This makes senses to Lucy, as she is the "light one" in a family of heavy.

As for her older sister, Molly's name means "sea of bitterness," or something like that. This makes sense to Lucy as well.

2. Lucy's parents are respectable people. Her father holds a high up job with the Ministry of Magic. He is and has always been, power hungry and proud to a certain extent. Lucy has always seen that in him, which is why she was not surprised by the story of his betrayal. Audrey is respectable as well. The house was always spotless, there was always something baking, the living rooms were not lived in, and dinner was always on the table at 6:35. Lucy always rather wondered if her mother would spend her entire life apologizing for being a muggle. Molly was different, decidedly so. Lucy always found her older sister to be a bit silly. Predictable, even. She was so very intent on casting off the chains of their perfect and perfectly respectable parents and in doing so, she made herself more like them than she could ever imagine.

Lucy was the light one, the quiet one, the sweet one, the fair one, the one who watched her family's self destruction and laughed.

3. Lucy never pretended to be anything but a Weasley. She enjoyed Holidays at the Burrow, played with Uncle Harry and Uncle Ron's children nearly every Saturday, hero-worshiped her older cousin Victoire, and when she arrived at Hogwarts, two years after her sister, she was sorted into Gryffindor, a feat she never regretted.

The Potter/Weasley family was grand. Why should she be ashamed of such a legacy?

4. All of the Potter/Weasley children were well-known at Hogwarts for obvious reasons. Molly and Lily were frightening; they were feared, Rose and Albus were sweet and kind to every one; they were appreciated. But only James Sirius Potter and Lucy Ginevra Weasley had that perfect combination of winning personality, good looks, fame, and easy, effortless charm. They were considered the height of cool. They were popular. It was rather strange. James never liked his Uncle Percy. He certainly didn't like his Aunt Audrey. He had no time for Molly, a feeling quite reciprocated, although she was his own age and they did play together as toddlers. James didn't even have time for his own sister. But he felt a certain connection with Lucy, the kind of connection that only the popular, loved, and revered can feel for one another. They were in an exclusive club and shared a bond they couldn't share with anyone in the rest of their family. James and Lucy heard about every party the moment it was thought of, they could laugh so hard they spit vanilla latte all over their desk in History of Magic and everyone would find it a great joke, they could treat people however they pleased and everyone accepted it and loved them all the more. During their years at Hogwarts, they could do no wrong.

They were popular because they could get away with anything and could get away with anything because they were popular.

5. Lucy hated going home over break. She liked her family fine. They were odd, not as cool as say, the Potters, but nice just the same. The house was always clean and smelled fairly nice. Molly kept to herself, so Lucy didn't have to worry about fights. She didn't fight with her parents. They didn't really care what she did. She was the good child, anyway; they only had to worry about Molly. Lucy had it all under control. Good grades, nice, reasonably attractive boyfriends etc etc. But Holidays at home were strange. They were just too quiet. Sterile, perhaps. No one spoke out of turn. Audrey asked how school was going. Lucy anwered fine. Percy asked how her grades were, already knowing the answer: good. Great. Straight O's naturally. Shoe in for Head Girl. Then they found Molly's stash or caught her slipping out her window to see Scorpius and Lucy was forgotten once again.

At home Lucy was never granted the attention she so desperately, quietly craved. She wasn't sure she even wanted it anymore.

6. There were many boys in Lucy Weasley's life, naturally. She was quite pretty after all, tall and slim, with long dark red hair and blue eyes. Added with her easy charm and boys clamored to go to Hogsmeade with her. She was really the only Weasley to gain that casual ease with the opposite sex. Lucy even dated James' best friend, Chuck for a semester or so. But there was one boy, one special boy, for whom Lucy, the pretty perfect Weasley could not do anything but pine. Lysander Scamander was a nice guy. He was two years older than Lucy. He wanted to teach History of Magic and make the subject interesting again. He cared about the environment and worried over the effects the muggle and magical worlds jointly had upon the world. He was not popular by any stretch of the imagination; on the contrary, he was much too cool for popularity. He wore his hair long, all the way to his shoulders and dark brown. His face was interesting, odd, but lovely and Lucy, with all her generic prettiness and flirty comments could not win him. She couldn't even try.

For the first time, she felt trapped by her own world. She felt trapped. She couldn't go after the only boy she would ever care anything for and she couldn't even tell him that she cared. She couldn't risk loving him. She couldn't risk the only stability, the only world she'd ever known for a boy who couldn't even ever love her back. He was so good after all and she wasn't. She was shallow and scared of everything. So she never spoke to him, gazed blankly at him in the hallways, and continued with her charmed existence.

7. Lucy Weasley was chosen Head Girl her seventh year at school. That same year, Professor Binns finally retired and a new History of Magic professor was brought in. He was young and hip bringing fresh perspective to an old subject. Professor Scamander was just off two years in Africa working at a school/orphanage for magical orphans.

She had buried her feelings for Lysander deeply away. But still, seeing him walk in, smiling broadly at everyone, unable to say a mean word towards anyone, cracking jokes with that sly, sarcastic sense of humor that always so unnerved her. Lucy knew she would return to watching his every move from a distance and her stomach returned to its ever-constant state of churning and sickness that indicated the awfulness that is unrequited love.

8. Lucy hit a wall her seventh year of school. Nothing felt meaningful anymore. She was leaving school and she was self aware enough to realize that life would never be as easy again. Instead of enjoying her last few months of popularity and unfair advantages, Lucy began to lose her cool. Her friends were not truly her friends, she realized and as she began locking herself away, her friends began to shun her. She wrote a letter to James, begging for advice. He had nothing to tell her. His new life was merely a continuation of his old one, no responsibilities, partying with Chuck on the weekends. He laughed at her teary idealism. Lucy began visiting Molly and the baby in Hogsmeade some weekends and Molly, although she recognized the fragility of her sister's state for the very first time, was not able to help her sort through her tangled emotions. Lucy felt as though her life was a never-ending series of brick walls and she had no way out. She felt like shouting her terror of this feeling from the astronomy tower before leaping out of the window. She felt like screaming and running away, but she knew for a fact that she never would. She felt like praying, but she couldn't think of a god who didn't offend her. She felt bland. Bland and perfect and pretentious and cruel and sad and scared and so very young.

Lucy Weasley was very and truly lost.

9. Professor Scamander (she had so much trouble thinking of him in that manner) found her one day. She'd let the pressure get to her for a moment and she broke down in the empty charms classroom. She slid down the wall behind the stack of books that Professor Flitwick stood upon in order to be seen. She let the tears roll down her cheeks, let her thoughts run wild. Thoughts of leaving, thoughts of dying, thoughts of being someone new. She wanted to be anyone but herself. The popularity, the lovely popularity that had once been her doorway to the world now encompassed her existence, suffocating her and smothering her until she sank beneath. He found her by accident and looked so surprised to see her. "Oh, hello there." He said quietly. He sat down beside her. And she found herself unloading all of her awful thoughts, everything she'd ever felt about herself and her awful family who never listened to her, of James and the rest of the Gryffindors who knew only her pretty lies wrapped up in lovely paper. She told him that she loved someone, but could never tell him.

An unreadable expression was on his face as he listened to her. She felt silly for a moment. She never could tell if he was making fun of her or not and all of her problems must seem so silly to him, so trivial. He'd seen real problems, surely he must be judging her. And when he wrapped his arms around her shoulders and let her cry into his chest, she'd never been more surprised and pleased.

10. Their relationship defied the normal, appropriate student/teacher relationship. He knew it. She knew it. They talked about everything. Her own insecurities seemed to melt away with his attention. He smiled at her and she felt as though she might be too happy to exist. Those she had once called friends saw them walking on the grounds and cruel rumors were started as to the nature of their friendship and for the first time, she didn't feel the need to do damage control. She was almost out anyway.

She was almost ready for the real world. She felt less shallow, and less dependent upon what others thought of her. Unfortunately it was a trade off for she was entirely dependent upon Lysander.

11. After graduation, Lysander kissed her forehead in the privacy of his office. She beamed up at him, told him of her plans to travel for a bit. She would start in Budapest… she'd always wanted to see Budapest. She saw something strange flicker across his expression.

She promised to write every day and he promised the same. He would miss her, he noted seriously, and she felt as though her heart might burst. She owed him so much; she could almost forget how she used to love him.

12. Lucy returned two years later, wiser and with that certain maturity and depth she'd never lacked, but that had been just hidden below the surface. She grew into her sense of humor, grew out of her cruel streak. She went to Hogwarts first. There hadn't been a single day of her journey in which she had not spoken to her former classmate/professor, and she was so eager to see him.

It was a surprise, her return. His expression was worth every second of her journey. She vaulted herself at him and he caught her like he'd been catching her every day since she was seventeen. And Lucy Weasley got what she'd once thought she'd had, but had really always been desperately hunting. Acceptance. True, never-changing acceptance. And she was happy.