Friendship Has Its Limits

Disclaimer: I don't own any of it.

This wasn't how things were supposed to turn out, Lily thought, furiously wiping at her eyes. She ran into the shoulder of a man, but didn't stop to apologize, and he said something rude to her, but she didn't care. I was supposed to grieve, people were going to feel sorry for me for a bit, and then I'd get over it. Just like before. She was not, however, supposed to loose her temper with her sister and threaten her with magic; that wasn't who she was. She had never, ever threatened a Muggle---especially her family---with magic before, and she was quite frankly very ashamed of herself for doing so at a time like this. Even though Petunia had said those awful, snide things, Lily knew that inside she was hurting, too. She was just too afraid to admit it. Petunia's way of mourning was to find someone to blame for what had happened, or bury herself with social events, like she had after their mum's death.

It was not the fact that Veronica and Petunia both blamed her for her father's death; they had just voiced what had been going on in her head since the accident. It was the fact that they both blamed her solely on the fact that she'd been in the house at the time. Of course she'd be at her own house, for heaven's sake! Where else was she supposed to be? But it wasn't just that. Mostly Lily had gotten so upset because they were right. Lily should have warned her father about the explosion before it'd happened; he'd been in kitchen, after all, so he might have been able to scramble out the backyard before, but she hadn't. She hadn't done anything to save him.

She had no idea where her feet were taking her, just let them take her away from the graveyard. Then her feet stopped dead (pardon the pun) in the middle of the sidewalk, and Lily looked up to see where they'd taken her. It was her house, or rather what was left of it. The whole foyer had been completely destroyed, and the rooms surrounding that were scattered with debris. Her breath caught in her throat as she stepped toward the skeleton of her childhood home. She carefully stepped into the wrecked house, avoiding the larger pieces of debris. When she moved into the living room, her foot crunched down on something; bending down, she saw that she'd stepped on an old photograph. She traced her mother's face with a shaking finger, and then moved on to her dad. It was the picture of her parents at college, taken by one of their friends. They both looked so young, so happy, and so in love.

All she could think of was what either of them had done to deserve this, and who had done this to them. Carefully she set the photo down on the remains of the coffee table, and when her hand brushed the wood, an old memory popped into her mind. It was almost like a movie scene played out in front of her.

A redheaded toddler waddled into the living room from the kitchen, where a young couple held hands and watched her. She picked up speed, but suddenly got tangled up in her own feet, and went toppling over into the coffee table headfirst. Her mother let out a startled gasp and went running toward the toddler, who was now screaming quite loudly, her face bright red, and a wound near her temple bleeding. Her father also came rushing into the room to where the woman cuddled the child to her chest.

"Oh, Lily," cooed her mother, rocking her back and forth in her lap to get her to stop crying. "You silly thing. You can't run before you learn to walk, darling! What a scare you gave us…"

The current Lily fingered the scar near her temple gently, reminiscing. She remembered that her mother had told her that she'd gotten stitches that day, but she'd stopped trying to run for a while after that incident. Sniffing, the redhead walked to the kitchen doorway, running her hands along the wood there, too. Another scene played out in front of her.

A woman, a redheaded girl around the age of five, and another girl, this one a brunette the age of seven, all stood around the kitchen table in front of a bowl of cookie dough. The five-year-old stuck her finger in the bowl, but didn't manage to grab any of the dough because her mother gently slapped her hand away.

"I told you we shouldn't have let Lily help, Mum," said the brunette girl, glaring at the redhead. "All she does is cause trouble."

"Nonsense," said Mrs. Evans, smiling fondly down at the redhead. "Lily's going to do great things when she gets older, won't you, darling?"

Yeah, great things, Lily thought bitterly. Those great things entitled getting both her parents killed. Great things, indeed. If only her mother knew what she'd turned into.

"I thought I'd find you here." She jumped and whipped around to the back door, where James Potter stood. Somehow she wasn't very surprised to see him here. She turned away, and he came inside. That didn't surprise her, either.

When James didn't say anything for a moment, she finally gave in and asked, "What are you doing here, James?" It felt like she was asking him that question a lot lately.

He shrugged, wondering if he should answer with his traditional response of, "I wanted to see if you were okay," or something else, something that might cheer her up a bit. Finally he said, "I missed your delightful company."

She rolled her eyes, but he saw a small smile tugging at her lips. But it was gone in a few seconds. "Why is it that you always manage to find me when I'm miserable?" she asked him, sighing. Her eyes scanned the room and fell on the puddle of her father's blood. He followed her gaze to the blood and winced slightly.

"Oh, you know," he said, waving a hand in the air. "Misery loves company and all that, in which case you're misery, and I'm company."

"Are you trying to tell me that I love you?"

"I dunno," he said seriously. "You tell me."

Her shoulders fell. "James, don't do this right now."

He wanted to respond with, "Hey, you're the one who brought this up," but decided against it. "I'm sorry. I'm just trying to take your mind off what's going on." She sniffed a little, but tried to cover it up with a fake cough. "Hey, you okay?"

Standing a little bit straighter, she replied sarcastically, "Yeah, James, I'm fine. You know, burying my dad, being slapped by my step mum and threatening my sister with magic, that just makes my day a little bit brighter."

"Hey Lils?"

"What?" she snapped.

He took a small step forward. "Even if I do happen to get on your nerves a lot, me and others can be a family to you, too. We're all here for you, if you ever need a shoulder or five to cry on."

There was a long moment of silence, and then, slowly, she turned around to face him. "Thank you," she whispered, finding it suddenly very hard to talk over the large lump that had formed in her throat. "You have no idea what that means to me." She sniffed again, trying hard not to cry, but this time she didn't bother trying to cover it up. "And I'm sorry, James. I've been a bloody mess these past few days, and I know I haven't been the greatest person to be around, but you, all of you guys, really, have been so good to me, even though I've been acting so distant lately."

"Lily, I think you have the right to be a mess," James said, reaching out to brush a strand of her hair out of her face. "I mean, bloody hell, if my parents both died, I'd…I dunno, but I wouldn't be handling it as well as you have been."

"Yeah, that's me, staying calm and distant in the worst of situations." She swallowed again. "I always have been the 'strong one,' as my dad always says---said." It hurt to have to use the past participle when referring to her father.

He looked worried for a spilt second, but then it disappeared. "You don't always have to be the strong one. Even you need to express your emotions sometimes. Don't worry about crying in front of me, either, if that's why you won't cry; I promise not to tell anyone that the strong, stubborn, fiery-tempered Lily Evans actually cried. Besides, it's not good to hold in emotions like you're doing."

"I'm not 'holding in emotions,'" she said, but her voice cracked. "I know it's stupid to keep emotions bottled up, thank you very much."

"Oh, come on, Lily, you're dad just died and the rest of your so called 'family' just blamed you for his death! Don't you feel a little bit upset?"

"I don't want to cry! I've always been the one who never cried! I was always there when someone wanted to cry on my shoulder. I'm not supposed to cry, I'm supposed to listen and sympathize, not the other way around. I'm supposed to be strong, damn it!"

"You are strong," James told her, searching her eyes for something he knew was just beneath the surface. "You're the strongest person I know, Lily, and that's saying something. But even strong people cry now and then, honest."

"If I'm so strong why do I feel like this, huh?" she asked wildly. "Why, James, why? Why do I feel so…angry, and sad, and empty all at the same time? I don't understand why all of this is happening to me. Everyone keeps telling me they're sorry for my loss, that my dad was a great man, but no one can tell me why this happened to him! If he was so great, why did he die?" A tear fell down her cheek, followed by another, and another. "I can't understand why anyone wanted to take him from me. And no one can tell me why. He didn't deserve to die, James! He had his whole life in front of him!"

"Oh, Lily," he said, and even his voice cracked. "It's natural to feel like that." He wanted to say more, but he didn't know what else to say that would make her feel better.

"It doesn't feel natural," she said, wiping at her eyes, but the tears kept falling anyway. "I feel rotten, because I'm not just a little mad…I feel like I hate them both, for leaving me here to take care of everything. I'm seventeen! I'm not supposed to be worrying about things like this, I'm supposed to be freaking out about getting all of my homework done. I hate them, James, and I feel bad about that."

"It's okay to be angry with your parents. No one should have to worry about this," he said strongly, swallowing against his own tears. He felt like he hated her parents, too, for leaving her like this, torn and broken and scared of what was going to happen next. "They shouldn't have left you. You have the right to hate them, Lily. Hate away."

"I feel like everything's falling apart, and all I can do is watch while everyone I love just disappears. I feel helpless, weak, like I can't do anything to help anyone. I hate them so much right now, it's scaring me." She looked up at the ceiling, which was blurry through her tears. "You hear that, Mum and Dad? I hate you both! You're supposed to be here for me, but you're not! It's not fair!" She choked out a sob, and then screamed at the top of her lungs into the empty house, "I HATE YOU!"

Her knees gave out, and she fell to the floor, sobbing into her hands. He knelt down next to her, pulled her into his arms, and let her cry into him. Secretly he cried, too.

A/N: Sobs. I actually did start crying while I wrote this. It's just so sad. I'd really like it if you'd please review, as I've been putting in a lot of effort into these last few chapters, and yet no one's been really reviewing for them. I've been writing five pages lately, for crying out loud (last chapter I wrote 1979 words, and this chapter I wrote even more with 2044 words)! So please review, please. Also, I'd like to thank MIDNIGHT-PIXIE, who has been reviewing continuously for this story. You're fantabulous! Thanks so much!