Disclaimer: None of it's mine. Need I say more?
It's Warmer In The Winter
Lily Evans has always hated change.
I don't know when I first realized this, exactly: perhaps at the beginning of our second year, when she gave an unhappy little squeak upon receiving a new schedule which placed her classes "out of order" - or it could have been in our fourth year, when we started to hear about the different careers, and it occurred to her that we wouldn't all be together at Hogwarts forever - or maybe it was simply the expression on her face whenever she noticed that one of us was showing a few inches of ankle below the hem of his robes.
I think it was mostly the look in her eye whenever she caught sight of the trees on the school grounds turning auburn and gold with autumn - or when the leaves fell away altogether with the cold of winter - but worst of all was her stricken expression when she saw that winter was giving way to burgeoning spring.
Winter had always been Lily's favorite; she loved "the stillness, the quietness, the perfect white sameness of it all". Sirius would laugh and give a shiver when she said this, and James would smirk and say that winter was positively awful: there was no sun, no warmth, no light like there was in summer or spring - but secretly, privately, I could never agree. I had loved spring too, until I came to Hogwarts - but there I found Lily, and year round she was enough sun for me.
And she was as much mine as she was James's, or Sirius's, or Peter's - I liked to think that she was mine a little more, even, although maybe that wasn't so. I told her once that I thought she had a beautiful name, and she kind of tilted her head and smiled at me funny and asked me why. "I don't know," I had replied, honestly - and she had leaned in closely, confidentially, to whisper in my ear, "Then call me Isabel." Isabel was her middle name - and while James only laughed at the fact that her initials spelled out LIE, here I was, being given the name like a secret treasure that was just for me to use. Lily was exquisite, and I would always love her best - but Isabel belonged to me, and me alone. My use of the name was the one change from the ordinary, the one difference in her life, that Lily never seem to mind.
We were best friends, the two of us - whether we were ever more than that, I still can't say. She was Lily Isabel, the bright splash of scarlet hair and emerald eyes in comparison to which the rest of my world seemed dismally pale; I was her "dear, loony moony Remus", her sometimes silly, sometimes serious comrade-in-arms. Together we took on the tedium of homework, the rottenness of nasty Slytherins, the exhaustion of full moons; together we endured the stupidity of Peter, the madness of Sirius, the arrogance of James. We were all friends, of course, we were all a pack, the Marauders plus Lily - but she and I alone walked circles round the frozen lake in winter, contemplating life and dreams and hopes and forever.
I was 'the best friend', and James, in time, became 'the boyfriend' - but what surprise should that have ever been? He did love her, perhaps, but differently than I - he knew a different side of her than I did, and I can't help but wonder if, looking past the part of her that loves him, there's another part, a bigger, deeper part, that loves me.
She knew, I think, what I meant to her and she to me, but there was a sadness to her whenever the matter seemed to come to mind; because I was the best friend, and Lily Evans hated change. James was there - he had always been there - to tease her, to flirt with her, to bully her to go out with him; I can remember her saying that it was "only natural", she supposed, that one day she tell him yes. I, on the other hand, had never once even suggested something more - I didn't dare, and perhaps I should have, but I knew, oh I knew so well how she hated - no, how she feared - the threat of change. I was Remus - she was Lily. We lived as much for each other as we lived for life itself, but to be anything more than we already were was to risk our own destruction.
Lily Evans will not be Lily Evans for much longer now. She is going to marry James today.
It seems the whole of the wizarding world has turned out for the wedding - everyone knows James, and everyone adores Lily, and everyone is in giddy, gleeful fits over the impending ceremony, because, everyone keeps saying, "those two are just so perfectly made for one another". And it strikes me that maybe they are - because James is the tall one, the handsome dashing one, and Lily is so sweet, so radiant, so stunning, so warm and full of light. But then I remember that James does not see this - James feels the cold, the gloom in winter, while Lily sees sameness and I can still find the sun. I understand, now, why she so hates change - because following today, I will have to suffer through it for every moment of my life.
"Are you happy for me, Remus?"
I look up sharply as she asks - she stands gracefully, a vision in the sleek folds of ivory wedding silk, with only the cross of her arms to reveal the bold, dazzling spirit that I know, and only the slight, worried furrow of her brow to betray the fact that she is still afraid. Looking back now, time has flown by: the past ten years are melted blissfully together in a haze of red hair, green eyes, sunshine and winter white. I find myself rising to my feet and crossing the space of the room between us, suddenly unable to stop the hand that reaches out to smooth the wrinkles from her forehead, to tuck a stray ginger lock behind her ear.
"Yes," I reply, softly. "Yes, Lily. You know I could be nothing but happy for you, not on a day like this."
"Don't call me Lily," she begs then, her green eyes going wide. She takes the hand that still lingers on her cheek, gives it a squeeze - and at last I feel the staggering sensation of a heart ripping in two: because she has given herself to James and for me, it is too late. I am happy for them, truly - but never again will I smile and laugh like I did when she was Lily Evans, and I was the best friend, and there was nothing but winter and a fear of change.
"You're going to be Mrs. Potter. Will James like to hear his wife called Isabel?"
"You're bitter. Don't be bitter, Remus."
"I'm not bitter, Lily…I can't be bitter. You're my best friend. James is my best friend. There is no part of me that could bear to begrudge you the happiness of what you two share."
But this is untrue - because loathe though I am to admit it, there will always be a small, guilty corner of my soul that wishes to God that it were me standing in that other room, wearing James's black suit and James's beaming smile. I force myself to withdraw my hand from the fingers that still clasp it tightly, giving a shrug of my shoulders and offering Lily a weak grin.
"Life moves on," I say, rather awkwardly, choosing to turn and gaze out of the window rather than continue to stare into those heartbreakingly verdant eyes. "Go marry James, Lily. Fate brings people together for a reason."
"Fate brought us together, too, Remus." Her hand is on my arm. "Just…differently, you know? We weren't meant to - we never could have been -"
"I know. I know, Isabel."
She laughs, though it is a weary, trying laugh. "Thank you. It's nice to know that some things will still never change."
"Yes," I agree. But inside, I feel she couldn't be more wrong.
A/N: I haven't written anything in ages, and this is a bit random, I know…I'm typically a big fan of the Lily and James love story, but this just sort of popped into my head…a bit sad, a bit sweet, a bit…eh? oh, just go review :)