PART II

we sat apart and watched (all we had burned on the pyre)

Two years pass by in a flash.

Lily is content, for a lack of better word. She doesn't love her job, but she goes through the motions like she's supposed to. She's not in love with Lysander, but she likes being with him, knows he's the ideal boyfriend – supportive, funny, good in bed and is just as independent and detached as she is.

With his work as a travel photographer for The Quibbler, he's out of the country more often than not, which suits her just fine. It gives her enough space to breathe in his absence, enough time to miss him so, when he comes back with his lopsided smirk, he finds her waiting with open arms.

Their reunion is always joyous, and even if this isn't love, Lily thinks, it's as close as she's ever going to get. Lysander smiles are infectious little things, persistent enough to provoke mirror images on her own face. Every time he comes back, he comes back filled to the brim with affection and raging with so much desire for Lily that it's enough to turn her own slow burn into a forest fire.

He rains kisses on her face, on the pale hollow of her throat, on the delicate skin of her arms, tasting her pulse, and he worships on the junction of the thighs. He kisses her like she's something delicate, bound to be broken by the smallest touch, and even if she sometimes wishes to be to be pressed down, consumed, possessed by the madness that seem to curse into her veins, her blood calling for someone who will never want her back, Lily knows is better like this, with him.

Lysander always manages to keep her mind anchored to the ground, where is safe, even as he makes her body take flight. And it's so easy, being with him. He doesn't ask too many questions, doesn't wonder what kinds of books she's reading, doesn't probe into the daily minutia of her life.

And he never, ever, mentions her weekly meetings with Teddy –

– every Wednesday before her rotation on the Artefact Accidents floor and after his shift at the Ministry, they meet at The Leaky for a thirty-minute chat over a cuppa of coffee (hers) and tea (his) and talk about silly, little inconsequential things. They laugh, and they tease, and it's almost enough to fill the hole that her heart has ever since she's started trying to stamp out this doomed infatuation she carries for him –

Lily knows Lysander is a little curious about her friendship with her Dad's godson, knows that he doesn't really understand its existence, but she's known for never volunteering information if she can help it, and he never asks. When her whole family get together for lunches or dinners at The Burrow, she avoids Teddy and Victoire like the plague and Lysander never, ever bats an eye, doesn't act like it's weird that she barely acknowledges the guy she also makes a point of seeing every week. He just takes it all in stride, as he does with everything else that she doesn't want to explain.

That's why their relationship works.

She knows she's secretive and quiet and reluctant to share her feelings. But he's the most unflappable person she's ever met, good-humoured and so, so sunny, just like his mother. He never asks for more than she's willing to give, even when she's willing to give so little that sometimes it amazes her how Lysander, who is open and full of life, of wonder, doesn't seem bothered by her tight-lipped stoicism.

He just...accepts her. Doesn't try to change her, doesn't push for more. He comes, and he goes, and it sort of feels like he loves her in between, and that's good enough for Lily. In fact, it's exactly what she needs, and she might love him a little bit just for that.

He sweeps in every other fortnight to sweep her off her feet then takes off for another country for a couple of weeks before starting all over again.

If Lily is a storm in the making, Lysander is a hurricane, blowing in and out of her life with little regard for anything else but her mouth, her body and all the ways he can tease a smile or a moan out of her lips. It's soothing and it's good and it doesn't hurt, being with him. Her life feels better for it.

Lily's twenty-one years old and she pays her bills on time, takes cares of her flat and her pet, goes to her job and, occasionally, gets to come home and find her cute boyfriend cooking something exotic in the kitchen, his mouth tasting like lemon and pepper when she kisses him hello, when she lets him take her bed.

She knows she's supposed to be thankful, happy, grateful. And she is. She truly is. She never imagined she would get to have this. But the entire time they're together, she can't let her guard down, can't help but feel like she's holding her breath. It's two years of bracing for impact, for the moment it all falls apart, because she knows that it inevitably will.

It always does.

xxxXXXxxx

It starts during one of her weekly meetups with Teddy.

They're joking around and she's feeling smiling so much it hurts, just because she has finally managed to convince him to taste a pumpkin latte (what in the bloody hell is this, he cried out, his hair morphing into a horrid shade of yellow with disgust, and she laughed so hard she snorted hot coffee though her nose), when Teddy completely disembowels her with just a sentence –

"I'm going to be a Dad soon", he says, excited, his ears pinkening violently like the information was a secret that slipped out. He's clearly bursting with joy, and Lily tries to school her face into something resembling anything except what she feels on the inside (gutted, heartbroken, despairing).

"Vic's preggers? That's...great news," she manages to say, and is very proud of the way her voice sounds even through the roar in her ears. Never let it go unsaid that Lily Luna Potter isn't a consummated actress and expert liar.

"I mean, shite, sorry, we're not pregnant yet," Teddy clarifies, stumbling over his words. "But we've started talking about it in a real way. Not in that maybe, someday way that couples do, you know?" and she nods, but she hasn't had a clue that this was something that people joked around or dreamed about together.

"We've been married for over two years. I have always wanted to be a Dad, and Vick is wonderful with kids. It's still early days, but we've started to talk about how maybe it's time to start our family".

Family. He says like it's the most precious word there is, and of course that for someone like Ted, someone who lost his parents so young, it would be the ultimate dream come true, a family of his own. But the word slices through her heart like a jagged knife, splitting it wide open.

Teddy and Victoire, they're going to be a family.

And Lily will never, ever, get to be with him.

Truth is, deep down, she already knew that. Had even admitted it to herself, late at night, when she couldn't stop herself from tearing down the sandcastles her heart kept trying to build. But oh, it never felt as truly and completely impossible as in this moment, the moment she hears that the boy she has loved since she could understand what love was, is going to start a family with someone else.

With her cousin.

Lily bites her tongue so hard that she tastes blood, but Teddy's looking at her like he's expecting some sort of reaction to this news other than the hollowed-out congratulations that Lily managed to deliver over her own bleeding heart, and, well, she has never managed to deny him anything, has she?

"I hope you get everything you want, Teddy", and she sounds so solemn, so different from their earlier mood, that he stares at her a little bit shocked. If Lily could've managed, she thinks she would've laughed, because it has never been clearer than in that moment that Teddy really has no fucking idea about her feelings for him.

She could have offered her heart in a plate for him to swallow and he would probably eat it and spit it out without noticing her chest ripped wide open for him.

Always for him.

Lily doesn't particularly care how she sounds or looks like at the moment because it's the first time she understands she has to say goodbye to whatever it is they have. This friendship, this infatuation, love or whatever, it's all a pointless exercise in torture.

She knows she won't survive sitting across from him every week, listening to him gush about her cousin, her pregnancy, his baby, their family. This would be the thing that might actually destroy her.

It's better if she watches it at a distance.

It would be even better if she never watches it at all.

"Thanks? I hope you get everything you want too, Lils", and he sends her that fond, boyish smile that had her falling for him in the first place. Her heart thuds painfully against her ribcage and she thinks she smiles back, but maybe it's a grimace because he looks at her with questions in his eyes, concern practically spilling out of his lips.

"Yeah. We'll see", it's what she says, cutting him out, before making up an excuse to rush into work. Lily gives him a brief hug, trying to memorize the way he feels, like home, the way he smells– cedarwood, books and Teddy – before saying goodbye.

This time, she knows she has to let him go and truly move on.

She doesn't know it won't be the last time this will happen, but that comes later.

xxxXXXxxx

Then their lives explode, and they don't see each other for over a year.

But that also comes later.

xxxXXXxxx

The night Lily says goodbye to Teddy it's also her last night as a Healer.

She clocks in, does the rotation, goes through the motions.

But she can't stop thinking - what's the point?

Lily smiles and greets her patients and waves her wand and sews back someone's skin, but she feels nothing. She examines the places where the skin hasn't healed yet, press the wounds to stop the blood from flowing, looks for tender points, but there's a litany of questions in her head, a world of doubts that she can't seem to answer.

What's the point?

If I don't love it, why am I even doing this?

Who am I doing this for?

What's the worst thing that can happen if I just walk away?

When Lily clocks out, she realizes with a start what she had been trying to resolve all along – that there won't be a next time. She won't be coming back.

xxxXXXxxx

Three days later, Lysander shows up with flowers (white candytufts he probably stole from someone's garden), a bottle of Ogden's Finest and a big smile on his face. Lily's been crying and knows she looks a fright, red eyes and stuffy nose, but he still holds her like she's something beautiful when Lily practically cannonballs into his arms.

She has never appreciated him more than in that moment.

"What happened, Red?" Lysander asks, voice muffled by her hair. She's still holding him tightly by the door, hanging on for dear life, and anyone could walk by and see how dreadful she looks and feels, but for the first time in her life, she doesn't care if people watch her fall apart. There's thunderbolts and lighting crackling inside her head, so much anger and sadness swirling inside her ribcage, a mountain of guilt churning in her stomach because she's Harry and Ginny's Potter daughter and she's not supposed to quit, or to just walk away, from anything, ever.

"I think I did something bad", she finally manages to say.

Apart from writing, rewriting and burning a resignation letter to her supervisor, Lily has spent the last few days ignoring her family's Owls, dodging their calls and even blocking her Floo connection just in case anyone (ahem Hugo ahem) tried to drop by without warning just to see what the hell is going on.

She doesn't want to see anyone because then she would have to explain, and she doesn't even understand it herself.

Three days ago, Lily was perfectly fine. She was happy. She was having a cuppa and a laugh with the person she likes best in the entire world. Then he threw a grenade on her lap, and everything exploded. She was forced to confront the absolute madness of her life, the truth of it all, and promptly freaked out.

What was the point of going through the motions, of doing everything she was supposed to do, being the person everyone wanted her to be, if she just ended up with empty hands and a broken heart?

What did playing the part of being the perfect little daughter ever got her except the eyes that followed her every move and this crushing feeling of loneliness?

She feels like nobody else actually knowsthe real Lily. The one she hides behind the mask she puts on ever since she understood who she was and what exactly was expected of her. Not even her own brothers, who had struggled and chafed beneath the weight of their legacy, realize how much harder it is for her to breathe, to break away from the supposes to and just be.

While being a Potter stifled them too, it was also so much easier for them to live with the privilege and the pain of being whom they were.

The only one who guessed, who glimpsed at the aching, hidden parts of herself, was Teddy. He had always known, somehow, and always listened. Never judged. He would never point fingers or sell her out. And he made everything okay, somehow. He gave her the strength she needed to keep on pretending because he was her refuge, the one place where she could rest her weary heart, the person that she could say anything to, or do anything with, without being afraid of condemnation.

But now she doesn't even get to have him as a friend. It hurts too much, to picture him smiling that soft, quiet smile he sometimes gives her, to a little blond baby with her cousin's eyes. And to watch him slip further and further away from her as his dreams come true, to stand by and watch her own secret dreams stolen away, lived by someone else, would be an unimaginable pain.

So her haven no longer exists.

"But did it felt good? The bad thing you did?" her boyfriend, her perfect hurricane, surprises her with this question. His arms are a solid weight encasing the storm inside her body, and he smells like peace. Like understanding.

She never thought she would get that, with him.

So, Lily takes a deep breath and allows herself a moment of naked honesty.

Did it felt good, to walk away from a profession that she had never wanted to pursue in the first place?

It did, the storm rages back.

It felt like the first real thing Lily has ever done in ages.

She lets the knowledge sink into her brain, settle in her bones, then she says –

"Yeah. It did. It felt bloody good".

A slow smile blooms on Lysander's face, and she finds herself smiling back, blinking back tears. He chuckles then kisses her hair, her eyes, her lips.

"I guess it means it was the right thing to do, luv", and her body starts shaking with relief once he says it. Yes, her soul still feels raw, but with Lysander's body wrapped around hers, offering words that feel like an absolution, it doesn't hurt that much.

In the time they've been together, it's the first moment she's candid with him. It's also the first time she really feels understood by him. Known. Protected.

This is what she gets, from telling the truth?

She wishes that it could be like this forever.

And in that moment, it feels completely clear what she has to do.

xxxXXXxxx

Lily makes a promise to herself –

No more lies.

The storm that raged quietly in her chest her entire life cries out in ecstasy.

xxxXXXxxx

She's done pretending.

From the moment Lily's decided there would be no more lies, she doesn't hold back. She makes no effort to hide who she is, what she thinks or wants, and it feels like a colossal weight has been lifted from her shoulders.

It feels like she can breathe for the first time in almost 22 years of living.

And even though she's four months shy of being a full-fledged Healer, she schedules a meeting with her resident in what would be her last shift in this rotation, only to return that ridiculous lime-green robes she always hated so much.

Mrs. Wentworth is completely baffled by her decision and tries to get her to come back, then turns vicious when she doesn't waver. Calls her spoiled, selfish, entitled. Lily just cocks her head to the side, takes the abuse silently. The storm thrums quietly beneath her breastbone in warning, cautioning her not to break her promise.

No more lies.

She meant it. She means it. So she doesn't take it back.

Lily walks out of the hospital, head held hight, and all she can think is –

Thanks for everything. But I'm done here.

xxxXXXxxx

Later, she chops off her hair, cutting really short like she has always longed to do but had never had the courage to. She lets her nails grow long and paint them navy blue, then orange, then electric yellow, whatever colour she feels like it, whenever she feels like it. It feels good, doing all of these things just because she wants to.

It feels like living.

xxxXXXxxx

Most people seem to think she's having some sort of mental breakdown.

She can see the unease in people's eyes – there's talk about depression, or potion addiction, as if she's the angel who has fallen down from grace. But she had never been an angel, and it's taken them this long to figure it out, this long for her to summon up the courage to show people who she is, what she wants.

Or, more accurately, what she doesn't want. Which is to bend to everyone's ideas of what her life should look like, instead of living it for herself.

Her parents, miraculously, understand her without missing a beat. She sits down with them and tries her best to explain that she had just had enough of pretending to be someone she wasn't, that those recent decisions she had made weren't a phase she was going through or some sort of latent teenage rebellion, but a real attempt to sort herself out and be the most honest version of herself.

In hindsight, it shouldn't amaze her, the fact that they don't hide, don't shrink – but that they stand tall and proud by her side while the press goes into frenzy, article upon article writing about Harry Potter's daughter possibly going nutters.

They shield her from scrutiny, push back against the lies written about her with so much grace and dignity that Lily finds herself finally understanding that her parents are so much more than decorated Heroes of a recent past, or even her dear old Mum and Dad who love to dance and hold hands while watching the telly – they're endlessly brave individuals, fiercely protective of their family, and they, above everything else, are the two people who love her the most in the world, who love her unconditionally.

She's humbled, and grateful, and so fucking sad.

If only she had realized this sooner, she thinks. Her whole life could've been better or, at least, different. She wouldn't have felt so weighted down all this time. She wouldn't made herself turn invisible, put herself in a pedestal of perfection, to divert attention from her brothers' mistakes. Just so that everybody else could have peace.

During these hard, exhilarating days, when Lily finally starts discovering her true self, her parents go above and beyond. They do more than understand her reasoning, they support her decisions, call her brave for standing up for herself and actually apologize for ever putting pressure on her to behave like it was expected of her, apologize for things there weren't really their fault in the first place.

She lets them see her, hold all parts of her, jagged edges and all, for the first time in her life. Her Mum smiles, hard and sharp, and says let them talk. You're ours, and you're perfect just the way you are, and the storm inside Lily's mind breaks.

It smells like the woods after the rain.

Her Dad hugs her, whispers in her hear, I love you forever, moonbeam, and she clutches him harder, pretends there's no hint of tears in her eyes.

Inside her, the sun comes out. There are clear skies all around.

xxxXXXxxx

Lysander comes back from China two months after the start of her little revolution and asks her to go away with him in an assignment. She doesn't have a job at the moment, really has no idea what she wants to do with her life, and she's been spending her nights at either Al or James' flat, sometimes Hugo's, because she can't stand to be alone in her impersonal apartment. It had never felt like home, and she doesn't have the energy to try and make it one.

She has also been dodging Teddy's Owls and visits. She needs distance, space, so that she can start properly getting over him. He had said it himself, he's starting a family with Vick, and she can't be the kind of person who gets in the way of that.

Even though she had kind of, sort of, burned her old life to the ground, she's not prepared to deal with the fallout of seeing Teddy, with his grey eyes and his questions, not ready to admit that his confession was what prompted her epiphany, because then it would end up with her telling him everything, and, well...

It's just not the right time for this conversation, Lily thinks.

So yes, she's unemployed, avoiding one of her dearest friends and feeling restless, wondering what's next. She knows what she doesn't want, a life that felt fake, and was filled with loneliness, but she hasn't gone much further than that.

Lysander's offer comes at the ideal moment.

So what if she's running away from the paparazzi and the making-serious-decisions-part of adulthood, and kind of, sort of, running away from a confrontation with Teddy and the baggage of her weird, complicated feelings from him?

So Lily says yes, packs her bags and hops into the first international Portkey she can find. When she arrives at the Swedish countryside, Lysander is covered in purple goo and her godmother is gently extracting the tentacles of a lemon and lilac octopus from her son's face. Even this can't hide the blinding smile he shoots her way once he spots her coming their way, red hair whipping everywhere from the wind, backpack filled to the brim with clothes and the poetry books she couldn't leave behind.

Lily feels something gentle and sweet unfurling inside her chest at the sight of his obvious delight in seeing her.

I could love him, she suddenly thinks, and slowly allows herself to smile back.

"Oooh, look Lys, a Potter in the wild", her godmother says, flicking her pale silvery eyes over Lily before returning her attentions to the animal attached to her son's nose.

"Let me just get poor Lionel back into his tank, and then I want to hug you. Lysander told me you've started to accept your exceptional-ness, which I must confess is a relief," and it's so good to see her Auntie Luna, to hear the teasing in her tone, the gentle smile on her vacant face. Her godmother's dreamy voice sounds just as comforting as Lily remembers from a childhood spent attached to Luna's side whenever she stopped by a visit, begging for stories from her and Rolf's trips, fascinated by the strange woman.

"I was beginning to fear my namesake would turn out to be just ordinary, and that would just be boring", and suddenly they're hugging, and Lily stars laughing, Lysander still watching them from a distance, light blue eyes twinkling with tenderness. "My mother always said that no Luna that walked this Earth should ever be known as boring. I'm so glad you're living up to her expectations'".

Lily hopes she was right.

"I'm no longer boring, but I'm also a mess," Lily confesses once they break apart, and her laughter subsides.

"Aren't we all? But it's the messiness that makes life exciting, darling," Luna says kindly, and yeah, maybe she's right. Her Dad had always said that Luna was one of the wisest people he had ever met. "Now come, let me introduce you to Lionel. He imprinted on Lysander while we were researching Pituíi fish in Indonesia, and now we have to take him everywhere we go, otherwise he'll get depressed and die. Come, he loves to cuddle," and Lily grins and lets herself be dragged into the madness.

A.N: I've changed the chapter count to 05 because the story grew longer than I expected :)

Please review, coffee and kind words are my fuel and inspiration.