A.N: I have no idea if anyone is checking for this, but, at last, the promised update is here.
PART III
loneliness came and you were away
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It's strange for Lily, living this new life. For maybe the first time in over a decade, there's no routine to follow, no structure to adhere to... just endless possibilities. She can do whatever she wants, whenever she wants. She can choose to follow Lysander and the rest of the Magizoologists on their nature treks, looking for new creatures to study, and she does do that sometimes.
But whenever she doesn't feel like wandering around in the snow (or the jungle, or the beach) searching for some mystical being, she can sleep in or hang around the camp or do whatever she wishes with her time. Nobody bats an eye if she stumbles out of bed at 11, blurry eyed and tangled hair curling around her face. No one is hiding in the bushes with a camera waiting to document her eventual mistakes and sell it to the highest bidder.
Whenever they're staying closer to civilization, she often chooses to explore the sleepy little towns near their camp, the ones smaller than the one that her grandparents live in. In those, she meets the locals and fade into the background for the first time in her life because there's no one watching her every movement.
Lily finds that she likes this new life. She likes getting to kiss Lysander under the stars, once everyone's asleep, and to tangle together in bed every night. She likes that she can dance horribly in the rain if she wants to, and that people might join in instead of stating at her like she's lost her mind. She likes that she can swim naked in the ocean whenever the opportunity strikes without fearing judgment.
She likes making decisions without having to weight the fallout from them, without having to wonder if this would be something suitable and befitting to the only daughter of Ginny and Harry Potter.
She allows herself to fall in love – and she falls, hard, fast – with all the places they visit. Ireland, Sweden, Poland, then Siberia. After that, they spend a stretch of time exploring the Asian continent – Vietnam, Indonesia, Cambodia, Philippines, Thailand, and she feels so engaged, so happy, so alive. It's like a flame, burning her from inside out. Sometimes, instead of the storm that used to rumble and shake inside her body, all she can feels is warmth. A gentle flame, kindling and glowing within her chest.
Everything is going wonderfully until they decide to stay in Bangkok for a little while.
Her aunt Luna and her crew of are off somewhere around the Chiang Mai province, looking for a rare breed of magical elephants that supposedly can camouflage and Apparate at will. She and Lysander, however, elect to stay behind. He wanted to try his hands at documenting the magical monsoon season for The Quibbler, and Lily didn't mind - she loves the hustle and bustle of Thailand's capital, is deeply attracted to its organized chaos, its sprawling temples and numerous food stalls.
It's the middle of September, a couple of months into their global adventure, and they're walking around aimlessly on Khao San Road after stuffing their faces with papaya salad, a Tom Yum soup so spicy that Lily nearly felt her face melting off and a plateful of kluai thots so sweet that her tongue feels like molasses.
They've grown silent into their foray and Lily's mind if far away, unwilling wondering about home and how strange it is that she hadn't heard from her parents, brothers or even Teddy in almost a fortnight. She's about to ask Lysander to stop by the nearest Owl Post Office, just so she can maybe send some postcards to them, when she notices how he's looking at her quite intensely and differently than he ever had before.
There's a soft, vulnerable look on his face that has Lily feeling shaken to her core, dread pooling in her stomach.
She recognizes that look, has seen it, even, on other people's faces.
She realizes with a start that she knows what he's going to say before he begins.
"Hey Red, I have to tell you something," he starts, so earnestly, so sweetly, that it breaks her heart a little. He wants to spill it out, the way he's feeling, but she knows that she must stop him. If Lysander gives her his heart, she'll either have to shatter it or lie to him about giving him her own.
And she doesn't care for pursuing either path.
"Don't, please," she interrupts. "Not now. I'm...I'm not ready."
His eyes harden, but he keeps holding her hand, which she takes it as a good sign.
"We've been together for three years," he tries. Pleads, even.
"I know. But you know we've only been living like this, in each other's pockets, for what? Five months? And what we had before was good, but a little...hollow", he frowns, and she swallows hard before continuing. "I was a little hollow. And now, I've only just begun to recognize myself. I haven't had the mind to do much else."
He looks gutted, and Lily feels awful. This is the opposite of what she had wanted to do, but somehow, by being honest, she's managed to accomplish one of the two things she had set out to prevent – and that was heartbreak.
But what's she supposed to do?
Right now, she can't honestly say she's fallen in love with him, like he was about to confess doing it with her. She doesn't think she'll be doing Lysander a kindness, lying about something as big as her feelings for him.
No more lies, the storm inside her roars in remembrance.
She takes a deep breath and tries again.
"I don't want to hurt you, Lys. I care about you, so much, but it's just – this is my first time feeling like this unburdened. Free. I want to enjoy it, enjoy us. Fly around and explore the world. I don't want to make longterm plans or put labels on what we're doing or feeling. I just want to live in the now, basking in the possibilities", she squeezes his hand and gives him a small smile.
"If you ask me about the future, all I could tell you is that I know is that I want to spend the next weekend drinking on the beach, with you all over me. But I can't get much further than this right now. Can you be okay with this?"
"Yeah... I... I get it. It's okay," but Lysander sounds so defeated when he says it that Lily breaks her hard stance on not having public displays of affection and wraps her arms around him, holding him tight. After a couple of minutes, she can feel the tension slowly ebbing away from Lysander's body, and he tentatively hugs her back.
"Even if I don't say it, doesn't mean I'm not feeling it," he adds after a while. Like he's afraid of being judged for it.
"I know", she sighs, and squeezes him again before stepping back from his arms, peering into his strange, silver blue eyes. "It's wonderful, that you're feeling those things for me. I'm not asking you to stop, in fact, I don't think people can stop even if they want to –but I didn't want to lie to you about where I'm at. And I didn't want you to put yourself out there. I know how much it can hurt, not hearing those words back. So, no, I not asking you to stop – I'm only saying I'm not there."
Later, Lily will realize that his smile at her words meant that Lysander hoped there was an "yet" left unsaid at the end of her sentence. Later. Lily will also realize she hadn't known, but there would never be a time where she would feel it, at least not with him. Because she hadn't stopped, not really, feeling those things for someone else.
But that comes later.
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She's standing on the porch of a cabin in Switzerland watching the snow fall, wearing her pyjamas, and sipping some coffee, when James' Owl arrives. She almost drops the mug when she recognizes the tawny wings and the white, oval head of Theseus.
It's been two months since she's properly heard from her family, mostly because Luna and Rolf's expedition had entrenched itself on the Himalayas for seven weeks and Lily had been thrilled to go along for the ride. She had sent an Owl notifying them she would be incommunicado until late November, when they were scheduled to stay for a three-week mission in the Alps, and that she would get in touch when she could.
But still, she's startled – she hadn't expected them to risk sending a family Owl instead of a hired one like they've been doing since she upped and left Britain. A couple of moments later, Theseus hoots in greeting and lands gracefully on Lily's shoulder, a hastily wrapped parchment encircled around his talons.
There's a heavy weight on her stomach.
This can't be good news.
"Hey there, boy," and the owl pecks tenderly at her earlobes before letting her untie the letter with shaking hands. She puts down the coffee without finishing it, for maybe the first time in her life, and goes sit down on the small cabin's kitchenette.
Her mind has no idea this is the start of a new chapter in her life, but somehow, she feels that everything is about to change. When she opens the parchment, she recognizes James' emerald ink and the chicken scrawl that announces his haste in penning this letter.
"Little sis,
We need you back here. Things have exploded, sort of speak, and everything is a mess. Teddy is gone. He and Victoire broke up, we think, and he's hasn't been seen or heard of in over two weeks. Not even Aunt Andie know where he is. Vicky is refusing to say anything, aunt Fleur moved into their flat in Kensington and Uncle Bill starts breaking stuff whenever someone (mostly Uncle Ron) tries to breach the subject of their separation or whatever.
We have no idea what in Merlin's saggy balls happened.
The bloody paparazzi won't leave us alone, and Mum and Dad can barely get out of the house without getting mobbed. Hope to find in good health etc but get your arse back home as soon as you can, please?
You're our last hope of finding Teddy when he doesn't want to be found.
Your oldest, wisest and handsomest brother,
James"
Lily can't believe what she's read.
Teddy and Victoire broke up?
Teddy's missing?
What the hell happened to her family while she had been off chasing Bigfoot?
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Lysander comes back from the village with Lorcan in town while Lily is packing her bags. The cabin is in completely disarray, reflecting her fractured state of mind. Her heart has been racing ever since she had read James' words and she can focus on the task at hand, James' words in a loop – Teddy is gone. We have no idea what happened.
When Lily left England, Teddy had been talking about starting a family with her cousin. She had been bracing herself for a pregnancy or birth announcement for the past eight months. But instead, it seems like all hell broke loose when she wasn't looking.
There had been no indication that something was amiss from their previous letters – Albus and her Dad sent them regularly, while her Mum and James not as often. Neither Louis nor Hugo wrote frequently, both somewhat hurt by the fact that Lily up and left (her job, her house, the country) without saying goodbye in person.
And Teddy... he had written her, during the first couple of months of her absence, but he rarely mentioned Victoire or their marriage. The letters stopped after a while, probably because she couldn't bring herself to write him back – knowing, deep in her heart that she wouldn't be able to properly get over Ted if she maintained their connection intact. If she didn't break their bond, her feelings for him would continue to fester and grow in the shadow of her silence and longing.
And it wasn't right, wasn't it, to continue to love him as she did? Not when he was married and about to become a father. Not when Lysander had fallen in love with her, and she wanted to grow to love him back. He deserved at least that.
Lorcan takes one look at the frazzled look in her eyes and the estate of their cabin and promptly walks out. Lysander, meanwhile, spots the letter resting on the table and motions towards it. She nods and continues to look for her wand – she has no idea where she left it, after putting up a contraception charm the past night.
"Well," he says after a beat. "James does have a way with words."
"A regular poet, that one," she volleys back. "Mum should've snagged him up for The Prophet. Such eloquence is wasted on the Tutshill Tornados roster".
He shoots her a quick grin, then folds the letter in quarters, feet tapping the wooden floor, something he only does when he's nervous. With a pang, Lily realizes she will miss this – living with Lysander and all the little discoveries that comes with it. The intimate details of his inner workings, the daily minutia of their crazy life on the road.
Somehow, she already knows she won't be coming back to it.
"So... you're really going," he starts. Opens his mouth, closes it. She thinks he wants to ask her to stay, or maybe to come back, but can't bring himself to do it.
"Luna's managed to get a Portkey for tomorrow morning."
"Ah." And they stare at each other from across the room. "Will you let me know once you've arrived safely at home?"
"Of course." It's crazy, how much distance there is between them. Just last night, he had kissed every freckle she has on her body. She had done something with her tongue that him crying out and pushing her down until she couldn't tell where she ended, and he begun. They had seen the sunrise from their bed before he left for the village to fetch some goat cheese and his brother.
"Lysander, after everything's settled, I'll –"
He puts his hands up, interrupting her thoughts.
"Don't bother, Lily," and he looks so resigned, so sad, that tears begin to prickle in her eyes. "I think deep down I've always known this."
Lily feels terribly cold, frozen to her bones, and she realizes she's shaking again.
"Known what?" she asks, dreading his answer.
He tilts his head, looks at her from beneath his eyes and gives her a humourless smile.
"That given the choice between me and him, you would never choose me."
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Head sore and eyes puffy from all the crying, Lily's staring listlessly at the fire roaring in living room when she feels, rather than sees, Lorcan plopping down on the sofa by her side.
"Should I curse you or something?" he asks, sending a dazzling smile her way. While he and Lysander are technically identical, it's impossible now for Lily to mistake one for the other. While Lorcan is all brash and bluster, Lysander radiates calmness and comfort. Her boyfriend's eyes invite you in, while his brother's make a point of never resting too long on whatever direction. "After all, you just broke my brother's heart."
She colours with shame but fights back.
"And you destroyed my cousin's."
He looks impressed.
"That I did," he concedes.
"Are you proud of it?" she impulsively demands. "Because I'm not. I'm ashamed. I never wanted to cause him any pain, not when all he's ever given me was the opposite of it".
"You can't even say it, can you?" he shakes his head, smiles like she said something funny. "You know, the last thing I wanted was for him to fall for someone like me."
"I'm nothing like you!"
"Ah. But we're the same," and he smiles that hollow imitation of a smile again. "You see, you're broken and in love with someone who doesn't love you back. I know this story like the back of my hand". Lily is speechless, but Lorcan carries on.
"Then, suddenly, someone who's soft and warm and willing walks into your life, offering you a safe place to rest your weary heart. So, you take it, never once stopping to think about what will happen once you can't outrun all the things you're running from."
"I've been there, Lily. It doesn't end well."
"I'm –"
"You're sorry. I get it, angel. Trust me, I do."
"How do I stop?"
"Running? I have yet to find out."
They stare at the flickering flames for a while. After what it feels like hour, but are probably minutes, Lily says –
"I love him, you know. Lysander."
Lorcan offers her what it looks like the first sincere smile she has ever seen him give.
"He's so easy to love, isn't him?" She nods. If it were up to her, if there was no Teddy, she could've stayed in Lysander's arms, in Lysander's bed, forever.
"I really tried to... fall for him. To love him as much as he loves me."
"If you're not there yet, after all this time, you will never be. So you know what's the right thing to now, don't you Lily?". She nods. "Be brave and release him. He deserves to be loved by someone just as much as he loves them."
She quietly agrees.
Before Lorcan walks out, he stops in front of the fireplace and hesitates. The lines on his back are rigid, and his whole posture scream of reluctance, but he seems determined to get it all out.
"I'm not proud of it." She shoots him a quizzical look. "Of breaking Roxanne's heart. I... I adored her. But I'm not fit to be the person she wants me to be. I would've only failed and disappointed her in the end, and even if she would never tell me so, I couldn't bear it to see it in her eyes. Not when she's only person apart from my family that really knew me. That's why I ran from her. I haven't stopped."
"Lorcan..." and Lily's startled when she realizes he's trying to wipe the tears from his eyes. "Roxanne... she didn't want you to be this ideal boyfriend. She never felt the need to change you. She just needed you to be there for her, to want to be her partner through life, that's all. To be someone that holds her hand. It's as simple as that."
He looks shocked by this.
"I –"
"Someday, when you're able to stop running, you should tell her that, what you just told me" she says, and he looks a little less haunted when they say goodnight.
She might've broken one twin's heart, but maybe she could help mend the other.
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She's lying awake in bed when Lysander tiptoes in, trying hard not to make a sound. She sits up, startling him. His eyes look as hollowed out as her chest feels. Wordlessly, she reaches for him, and he allows himself to be tugged down into a hug.
"I'm sorry," she mumbles against his chest.
"Whatever for?"
"For leaving. For being unable to choose you. Merlin knows you deserve it," and she takes a deep breath. "You're the best men I know."
He kisses her hair and Lily wishes, not for the first time, that she had the ability to sever the invisible line that connects her so deeply to someone else. Just so that she could've been fully present and stayed here, with this wonderful man, instead of always feeling like there's a big part of her heart living inside Teddy's ribcage, beating along with his.
"I really thought you loved me," he whispers, and his voice cuts her like a knife.
"Oh Lys, but I do. I do love you," and she kisses his cheek, his eyes.
"But you're not in love with me. You're in love with him," he adds. "That's why you wouldn't let me say it. That's why you wouldn't say it back".
She can't contradict him without lying.
"I'm sorry," it's all she can say instead.
Somehow, he manages to give her a small smile.
"I'm not, Red. Even if it hurts like hell, even if it wasn't enough to make you stay, it was an honour to be loved, even a little, by you."
They're both crying now, their tears mingling together. They meet in the middle of a kiss somehow, frenzied and saddened at the same time. It's sweet, and it's bitter, the last time their bodies come together and then apart. He's the only men, so far, that has made Lily feel like she's safe in this intimacy, in this passion. Lysander has made her feel wanted, protected, loved. He had never once judged and restrained her.
He had, instead, set her free.
She will always love him for this. She will always love him for being the first person she loved without feeling like it would break her. She will always love him for teaching her how to take a great photo, how to cherish the bad ones. She will always love him for his kindness, for this greatness, for his big, tender heart.
She will always regret not being able to love him enough to stay for this feeling, to follow it through until the end, to be the person he had wanted her to be.
She hopes that, someday, he will forgive her, forget her. That he will move on with the real thing instead, with someone who won't drop his hand and left him alone, standing crestfallen in the rubble of the dreams he had for their future. That he will find a love to explore the world with, to settle down with, to grow grey and old.
He hopes he won't remember the red-aired girl with the storm in the body and the heart that spelled out someone else's name with anything but a distant fondness.
When the sun rises, she tiptoes out of their cabin, luggage in hand, and imprints in her memory the way he's sleeping, hands clenched in the space she left behind in the bed.
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She comes home and everything is a mess, just like James had said it was.
Her Dad has deep, dark bruises under his eyes from sleep deprivation. Her Mum has a permanent mark etched into her forehead now, from frowning so much, and she quit her job at The Prophet. There are reporters everywhere – Lily can't fetch the Muggle mail by hand without getting swarmed with cameras and questions. One of Teddy and Victoire's neighbours let it slip that they had overhead the couple arguing in the street, during a thunderstorm, right before Teddy moved out, and The Prophet goes wild with speculation. Her Grandma Molly can't stop baking, and her Uncle Bill mouth is set into a permanent rictus of sadness. But the worst is her Aunt Fleur, who alternates between looking furious at someone who so much as glances in her direction or bursting into tears at the slightest provocation.
It's a circus, and the Council of the Cousins decide to assemble for the first time in almost a year to decide what to do with this before it blows-up into a full scandal.
"The adults are bloody useless right now," Roxanne starts, doing the honours of knocking back the first shot of Scorching Tequila, the ceremonial act that mark the opening of their meetings. "If I have to eat another bloody scone while Grandma Molly push back tears and force feeds me tea, I will go batshite insane, I swear on Morgana's grave"
"At least you get to leave. But I'm on the off season, so there's nowhere for me to go away from this mess they made. I can't seem to escape Mum's crying, and I can't console her either. And Dad just keeps making disappointed faces all over the house," Louis counters, slamming two shots in a row.
"I mean, you could just move out of your parents house," Rose points out, sipping a glass of G&T. She always ends up terribly sick whenever she does shots, so she gets away with drinking cocktails. "You're 24 years-old. It's about time."
"Pshaw," it's all Louis says before stealing her drink for a sip. "This," he downs the rest of the G&T while making a face, "is vile."
"You're vile, you pink-headed menace –"
"Guys! Guys!" Scorpius intervenes before Rose launches a full-body attack on Louis. "This isn't productive. Shouldn't we be trying to form some sort of plan to fix this terrible situation?"
"I don't even know why you're here, mate," Freddie draws out, making lazy circles of light with his wand, probably stoned out of his mind, while lying upside down on Albus' couch. "You're not a Weasley-Potter cousin."
"Excuse you," Albus snottily retorts before Rose launches into another tirade to defend Scorpius' honour, "he is my best friend my flatmate. And as Rose's intended, he can be acknowledged as an honorary cousin."
Scorpius blushes a furious shade of pink while Rose and Louis break out in giggles, their battle over the G&T all but forgotten in the face of Albus'... Albusness.
"Merlin's bloody smelly sack, brother," James says, rolling her eyes. "Why can't you just act like a normal human being instead of the biggest nerd to ever exist?"
Dominique, who normally spend their entire meetings in the corner rolling cigarettes, takes a deliberate drag, completely ignoring Lily and Rose's side eye, before saying –
"You know, I talked to Vickie."
Silence descends into the room quicker than Lily's mum Bat-Bogey Hex. Victoire, as the founder and first president of the Council of the Cousins, has been conspicuously absent from this meeting, which, for Lily, makes complete sense.
Nearly nine month ago, she had made it a point to skip the meeting they had in her honour after her supposed break down. She wasn't in the mood for an intervention, like James' banner had proclaimed, so she skipped town instead. Lily would've wanted even less to be in Victoire's shoes, with the entire family, and the whole wide world, coming together to speculate and dissect her private love life.
"Well... what did she say?" Molly pipes up from Lucy's mobile – she's doing her doctorate in the United States and wasn't able (or willing) to undergo international Floo travel for this. Molly's no-nonsense attitude is what makes her one of Lily's favourite's cousins, even if they rarely see each other outside Christmas and the rare birthday. "Is there any truth to those rumours about her cheating on Teddy?"
"We don't exactly get along, you lot know that, but I managed to drag out that while their split 'was a long time coming'," and Dominique makes air quotes between puffs of her cig, "it was ultimately Vick's fault," she concludes with a dramatic sigh.
There's a beat of silence, then Louis takes three shots in a row.
"Well, fuck," and he splutters into a cough while James half-heartedly pats his back. "It sure does sound like an admission of cheating. Maybe that's why he left."
Everyone looks a little bit shell-shocked. Lily, who knew exactly how Teddy felt about Vick, felt her heart hurts in sympathy for him. She doesn't know exactly what went wrong between them, but she does know how wilful and selfish Victoire can be. She can easily imagine it that, when confronted between a rock and a hard place in their relationship, her cousin chose to go nuclear instead. She has a history of it.
"None of that helps us decide what to do about the press," Lily quietly points out. "Their speculation isn't helping matters. Whatever happened between them, neither Teddy nor Victoire deserve to deal with their harassment. The rest of our family deserves this even less. Some photographers followed Granda Molly into the village just this week, and tried to get a quote out of her while she was doing the shopping."
"And we all got it bad as well. I haven't been able to sneak into Bettina's flat in almost three weeks," Louis pouts, and the whole room explodes. Everyone starts arguing at the same time, some people scolding Louis for being so self-centred, while others complain about the constant barrage of questions and pictures as well.
Eventually, Roxanne manages do quiet everyone down and, together with Scorpius, cooks up a diversion plan in order to regain control of the narrative, or whatever they called it. Lily abandoned the Slytherins to their plotting, mostly because she just keeps picturing Teddy's heartbroken eyes and aches to go to him, to try and help however she can.
After the meeting is adjourned, Lily helpsAlbus and Roxanne clean the flat, while Scorpius and Rose are drunkenly making out in the couch and Louis is scrolling aimlessly on his phone. Her older cousin keeps eyeing her wearily, her eyes flashing with concern, and it makes Lily's skin crawl, how easily Roxanne can read her.
"You shouldn't go find him," she eventually says while Lily's rummaging through the cookie jar - Scorpius' epic sweet tooth culpable for always keeping the flat fully stocked with treats - right after Al excuses himself to take a shower and Louis Apparates back to Shell Cottage.
Lily doesn't bother dancing around the subject, she knows now that playing dumb never works with Roxanne.
"Why not?"
"If it's true, if Vickie... the point is, he will be in a bad place. And you're... vulnerable to him. I'm afraid he will only break your heart again." Lily looks away and swallow, hard. Suddenly, the black and white cookie she was nibbling tastes like ash in her mouth.
"Roxanne, I've made peace with the fact that he doesn't love me," she says. It's not exactly true, but it's also not a lie. Lily is more like resigned, but it still hurts.
"That's not what I'm saying. I think that if you go looking for him, all bleeding heart on your sleeve, you won't be able to help yourself from trying to heal him. And in his pain, he might do something that you'll both regret later. Something like shagging you. Do you want to be his revenge fuck?"
Her heart starts hammering fast and she knows she's flushing.
"Lily, look..." and her cousin comes closer, almost like she would hug Lily if she had the nerve. "He's not ready for you. He might never be. You want to be his friend, I get it, but this is something you must let him figure out for himself. This is not the time to start something – he will only come to regret it. Regret you."
"And I know you don't want that. When it happens – if it happens – let it not be in the shadow of his wife's betrayal. Let it be something to comes naturally, from genuine affection, not misdirected hurt. Don't be his Roxanne, Lil. Trust me, that's not a good place to be," and there's so much naked pain in her cousin's eyes that Lily can feel her own heart breaking in response.
Knowing now, what she knows about Roxanne and Lorcan's history, she wishes she could offer some modicum of closure to her cousin.
"He did loved you, you know?" she says.
"But, apparently, not enough to want to stay," Roxanne points back. "But forget about Lorcan - this is about you, Lily. What do you want? What does your future look like? Do you know it yet?" Lily shakes her heard, and Roxanne almost smiles.
"Teddy is an adult, Lil, and he will figure himself out. And you own it to yourself to do the same."
"Look at how far you've come, quitting that job you hated. Just stop running – to him, or from him. Stay, and live the life you want to live. If Teddy's meant to be your partner, he will be. If he's not, you'll learn to live with it or live without him. I know I have, and I don't regret it for a single second."
The cookie slips from Roxanne's hands once Lily finally hugs her, but after a moment of atonishment, her cousin hugs her back.
"Thank you," Lily says after a while, and she gets what, she thinks is for the first time, a genuine Roxanne Weasley smile.
It's glorious, and Lily will treasure it forever.
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She finally cancels out the lease and moves everything out of her white, lifeless flat and puts into storage. Her cousins schedule all sorts of outings and public displays of affection that manage to divert the paparazzi's attentions, and the rumours die down after Rose and Scorpius decide to announce their engagement. After a month of crashing on her childhood bed, Lily starts looking for another flat and convinces the family to stop looking for Teddy and leave him be.
Victoire shows up to a family dinner with Daniel, Teddy's best friend, in tow. It doesn't go over well – James breaks Daniel's nose and his own hand throwing a punch. Grandma Molly burns the roast, and Uncle Bill has a shouting match with Vick in the attic that is so loud that people can hear them from the orchard. Aunt Fleur gets roaring drunk on brandy and accidentally eat one of Freddie's edibles. The family stops getting together for six weeks after that.
Teddy stays AWOL for the whole time.
But when Lily searches herself, she finds that really doesn't care about the drama as much as she would have before. Yes, it sucks that everything sort of imploded over one couple's broken relationship, and yeah, she misses Teddy like hell. But while the old Lily would've sought him out, would've tried to be someone that Teddy could've turn to, would've tried to be everything he needed, she heeds her cousin's advice. She understands that, had she gone after him like she had first planned to, she would've lost her hard owned sanity, her sense of self, in her attempt to save him from his pain.
For him, she would've been a fool, she would've ruined herself a million little times.
That's no way to love someone – to put them above yourself.
She thinks she knows better now.
And she knows, deep down, that the only way to get through the pain is to simply live it - ugly parts and all.
The storm in her chest stretches out, testing its limits, finding there's none. There are no barriers between it and Lily anymore, they are one and they are the same, as they should've been from the start.
Lily Luna Potter, she realizes with a start, is finally done with running.
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She finds a flat in a dingy part of Muggle London, and she falls in love with it from the moment she sees its yellow door with the white trim curling around its edges. Once she's set foot in the place, she realizes that maybe it has been waiting for her all along. There's two rooms and a miniscule study, a dusty fireplace, and a miniscule balcony on the living room, and it's a fourth-floor walk-up. The flat is a little grimy and run down, but its stale air smells of possibilities. And most of all, it feels like a home.
It feels like her home.
The old Lily had never been one to believe in destiny or fate, but she's trying this new thing where she doesn't judge herself so harshly anymore. She takes Hugo there and she sees the doubt in his eyes, hears it in his words, but no one can't stop her from wanting this badly enough to make it true. Lily belongs there, and she can and will turn this place into a home because it's already hers in every way that counts.
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Lily gets a job at Florean Fortescue's ice-cream parlour during the spring. It's strangely soothing and surprisingly fulfilling, serving people ice-cream and conversation. Standing on her feet all day is tiring and she sleeps like the dead, once she comes home, and that's a first in and out of itself. Some people are rude, other people gawk at Harry Potter's daughter working in a place like this, but she ignores the whispers and the stares because she genuinely likes getting up every morning, putting on her apron and her customer-service smile.
She more than likes it - she loves it.
It's different from being on the road with Lysander. There's routine, but it's not oppresive. She likes having a place to come home to, and smiles everytime she sees the yellow door. She starts renovating her flat in the Muggle way, and she thinks about getting a cat like she had always wanted to. She writes late into the night, sitting in the couch facing the fireplace, nursing cup after cup of unsweetened coffee. She buys a camera and goes out exploring the world on Sundays, then comes by her parent's house for tea.
She thinks about her future, and it doesn't feel like a bleak question mark, more like a blurry polaroid where she can't quite make it out the picture. It feels exciting, and honest, and she wakes up most days with the urge to sing in the shower. She feels... settled. At peace with herself.
Sometimes, she thinks about Lysander, wonders how he's doing. Thinks about writing to check on him but thinks he might not want to hear from her. Thinks about how he had loved her, and how she had used him to hide from herself. She writes apology note after apology note and never sends one. She writes about the fact, the aftereffects, the journey. One day, she writes I wanted to take him home and rough him up and get my hands inside him, drive my body into his like a crash test car. She confesses into the paper things she would never say it out loud, things like I wanted to be wanted and he was very beautiful, kissed with his eyes closed, and only felt good while moving.
She doesn't destroy them, and she doesn't send them either. Just let the truth of the matter lie naked in the paper, words that came right through the heart of her.
After a while, she lets herself wander about Teddy. Mostly about is he's okay, if he's hurting, if he's safe. If he misses her sometimes, wanders how she's doing. Then she feels selfish and foolish. Teddy just left the love of his life. Of course he's not thinking about Lily – he probably doesn't even remember she exists.
She writes, and she writes, and pour everything she feels about him, about Lysander, about herself, in the pages of her journal. The storm inside is rumbling quiet within, content, contained. But there's smell of sulphur in the air and Lily, she just knows, that something big is coming along.
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After three months at Fortescue's, she gains three pounds, a whole new cluster of freckles and a second chance of friendship with Teddy.
It starts again like this –
She's pretending to smile as a fourteen-year-old Gryffindor with a lot of confidence tries to flirt with her instead of making his order when she spots the blue hair and grey eyes that she never quite manages to forget.
Her breath catches in her throat.
He's sitting in their worst table, the one that gets a lot of sun, drinking some gillywater. His Sundae Rainbow Extravaganza is laying forgotten in favour of an ancient book about potions, and he looks tired. He looks beautiful. The rush of fondness she feels at the sight of Teddy in his natural habitat is so fierce that the kid trying to flirt with her stares dumbfounded at the real, large smile taking up her face, the one she shared with her namesake and that she rarely deploys.
She ditches the blubbering Gryffindor and approaches Teddy's table.
"Can I get you anything?" she asks, with her employer of the month voice.
"I'm quite all right, thank you", and his eyes don't stray from his books.
"The least you could do is eat your sundae. There's children starving in cupboards dreaming about this sort of treat, or so I used to hear", and a startled laughter filters out when he looks up at her, a startled and indignant expression on his face that is quickly replaced with a look of delighted surprise when he recognizes her.
"Lily! Merlin's pants! What are you doing here?"
"Right now? Teasing you, you nerd. You got so wrapped up in your book that you forgot to eat, as usual".
Teddy rolls his eyes and half stands, half hunches in his seat.
"You gave me such a fright that I don't whether to hug you or not", he admits.
"Well, let me make this easy for you", and she envelops him with her arms, cheek resting against his rapid heartbeat. "There". And she quickly let go, because the urge to stay there forever still exists, despite her better judgment.
She's twenty-three, for Agrippa's sake. She knows she should've been over her first love by now, but Teddy's like an irresistible force and she an unmovable object.
She can't help but being attracted to his orbit.
"But really, Lils. It's been a year, I think?"
"Yeah, around that, actually."
"Last I heard, you quit your job, left with the Scamander kid, and stopped responding to my Owl's. The cousins thought you were having a mental breakdown. I would've tried harder to get in touch, but I was sort of busy, you know, having one of my own".
His smile almost reaches his eyes, and her first instinct is to hold him and never let him go, but she can sense he needs levity instead of a hug or a come-to-Merlin talk. So she laughs, breezily, like he made the funniest joke she had ever heard.
"So I've heard", she says. "But no, I was not having a mental breakdown. Just trying to figure my life out. Thus, the quitting slash running away slash breaking up".
"Oh. What happened there?"
If stills feels sometimes like a fresh wound that she can't help but pressing down on, just to watch the blood, just to feel it hurt.
And she doesn't think Teddy's ready to hear Lysander loved me, but I loved you more, so she says –
"I've always hated the smell of blood, so there was no future in Healing. And me and Lysander, we just... wanted different things."
"Well, shite".
"Yeah. But you know. I know I never wrote you back, and then I heard about your own stuff, so, I guess we're even? For being shitty friends to each other".
"I know shitty friends and, trust me, you have never been one to me," he blurts out, sounding more serious than he probably intended. He colours when he sees the look on her face. Lily tries to school her features into something resembling neutrality, hopes that the pity she feels isn't painted as fiercely on her face as she thinks it is.
She tries for a joke.
"How was that, by the way?"
"The cuckolding? Just splendid".
She cringes, but forges ahead.
"No silly. How long had they been doing that behind your back?"
"No idea. I walked in; saw them, promptly walked out. She chased me in the rain. We argued in the middle of the street, like a class act. The neighbours loved that, I bet. I never went back to our flat; Al and James went back for my things. And I've been living out of my suitcase and holing up in a dingy Muggle pub for the past five months, so".
"Well, shite".
"Yeah. Change of subject?"
"I moved to this great flat in St. Luke's a week ago".
"Really? Can I see the place?"
"Sure. I'm off in a couple of hours".
"I'll wait. It is not like I have anything better to do. My boss gave me sabbatical on account of my marriage falling apart".
"Sounds fun. I should try it sometime".
She manages to squeeze a laugh out of him this time, and he looks as startled by this development as she is delighted by it. So, he waits for her to finish her shift at Florean's, eating all the crazy combinations of ice cream she can concoct, and alternates between being shooting her amused looks and being completely absorbed by his book while her heart does a tap-dance on her chest whenever their eyes lock across the room.
She can do this, she thinks.
She can be his friend without hoping for more.
Merlin knows how much Teddy needs a friend right now. She had put her old feelings in a drawer, but now she can lock them and throw the key out. She can be a shoulder for him to lean on, and nothing more than that. When he smiles at her at the end of her shift and follow her into the night, she almost believes it.
A.N: So, somehow, it's been almost two months since I was able to properly sit down and write this, and I'm sorry. Please review?
Life has a way of bowling us over, right? Ever since my last update, I've 1) quit my job 2) started a new job 3) had several anxiety attacks 4) re-started therapy 5) packed-up my apartment to move into a new house with my partner 6) postponed the move because the builder's were unable to finish the renovation 7) tried to stay alive and sane while living through a pandemic in a country where our presidents hates us and wants us to die (cries in brazilian). How are you guys doing?
Ps: I miss Thailand!