For hideyowifehideyokids for reviewing EVERY SINGLE chapter - THANK YOU :)

So, this is my big finale :) Thanks to everyone who reviewed, story alerted and favourited - ly :) Warning for profanities (gosh, I love that word) suggestions of M themes and tense jumping&changing (but only a bit.) Happy Christmas people!

Teddy/Lily (because I love them, and their messed up lives)

He was Teddy, you were Lily and you were best best friends, forever&always. You would wait for him every summer, hanging out of your bedroom window, and running down the stairs and out of the door as soon as you saw him arrive.

It didn't matter to you that he was eleven years older than you, all that mattered was that he was there, and he didn't make fun of you like your brothers did. He told you stories, helped you chase butterflies, let you stay up late when he babysat you, and never, ever, told on you the way James and Al did.

Teddy thought of you as his best friend too, no matter how much he was teased by his friends at school for being best friends with a girl and a girl who was eleven years younger than him at that. He could talk to you, he said, and you might not really understand his problems, after all, a six year old has a very different level of maturity than a seventeen year old, but you listened, and you understood that he was upset, and needed comforting. So you took him poppies when he broke up with Vic, the scarlet flowers spilling out of your eleven year old hands, and scaring him with the thought that you had somehow injured yourself.

When you were sorted into Slytherin, Teddy stood by you, was truly happy and proud of you amongst all of the forced smiles, and hushed whispers about how a "Weasley and Potter child" had ended up in Slytherin. You had heard your great-great aunt Muriel insisting that your mother must have been having an affair with "Draco Malfoy or one of the like" because there was no way that a child from the "distinguished houses of Weasley and Potter" could ever end up in a house filled with Death Eater scum.

But truthfully, you rather enjoy being a Slytherin; you rather enjoy the way that it marks you out from the rest of your family. Not all of the Weasleys had ended up in Gryffindor, there were too many of them now for that, but none of them, not one of them had ended up in Slytherin.

At first, many people thought it was a fluke, they didn't understand how such a nice girl, how a girl that smiled at people on the street, who seemed to care so much about her cousins, they didn't understand how that girl could be sorted into Slytherin. But they didn't know what was going on inside your head, and Salazar, if they did, would they even care?

But when you hit your fourth year, after everything had blown up in your face, after you had had that massiveawfuldamnscary fight with Teddy, after you stopped being so damn Potterish, after you grew into your house, then they saw. They saw exactly why you were in Slytherin.

Slytherin isn't the house of baddies, and Gryffindor isn't the house of heroes&heroines, life's not clear cut enough for that. Slytherin is the house of those who aren't afraid to fight for what they want, who are cunning and ruthless enough to get it by any means possible.

Slytherins have always protected their own, always have, and always will, that was the most important lesson any Slytherin was taught when they entered the house. When you arrived back at Hogwarts to start your fourth year with puffy eyes and tear tracks down your face, they grabbed you, forced you on the bed, and made you tell them who it was that caused you to feel like this.

And then they swear to get him back in any way possible.

Of course, because he's Teddy Lupin and he's currently one half of the wonder couple that is Teddy&Victoire, the obvious way to start is with your appearance. If he wants unrequited love, he can fucking have unrequited love.

So gone are the days of messy ginger curls haphazardly framing your face, and instead you have long, copper ringlets snaking their way across your back. Your skin goes from bare of makeup to perfectly polished, pale skin, green eyes, long lashes and redred lips. You wear short skirts, high heels, tight tops and low necklines.

And somehow, along with your new look, comes a new personality. A new Lily, one who says "fuck" far too much, drinks muggle spirits and wizard spirits in a cocktail of destruction, sneaks out to party all night long in the muggle clubs. You're addicted to that muggle drug they call nicotine, or maybe you just like the way your lips look when you have a cigarette between them.

You're showing Teddy Lupin that you couldn't give a fuck that he loves you, and you hope that you've fucking given him enough of a case of un-fucking-requited love to still your heart. (Because you'd never admit that you were in love with him. Not even to yourself.)

You bomb out of Hogwarts in a blaze of glory, more spectacular than anything Fred and George ever did (and, fuck, but George is proud of you.) You fail all your O.W.L.s and are caught in a compromising position with one of the boys you play with, get your kicks from.

The headmistress offers to give you one last chance, but you've had enough. You're done with this fucking school, and all the people that are in it. You couldn't care less about O.W.L.s or N.E.W.T.s or getting a job – you know for a fact that you will get enough from your inheritance to live on for the rest of your life. You may not get the Potter fortune, or the Black fortune, but you get what's left, and, fuck, that's a hell of a lot.

You can't resist going to see him one last time though, turning up in your skin tight jeans, spike heels and leather jacket. You smell of smoke, and he swears he can smell muggle spirits on you as well, but he hopes his mind is playing tricks on him.

You slap his face, and leave him standing there, reeling from your blow. You turn around and storm out, screaming out a medley of lies about how much you hate him, because you can't carry on with this dance of lies and regret anymore.

Sometimes you wish you had at least given Teddy&Lily a shot, but JustLily is so much easier, and so much less fuss.

So tilt that bottle up, darling, and drain it dry, because that's all the warmth you're going to get this Christmas day.

Because sometimes, sadness is easier to deal with than happiness.

A/N: Well, umm, Happy Christmas, people!