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Lily was the embodiment of fire, from her dark red hair, to her fiery eyes and blazing personality. If you asked Sirius he might've said she was hot like fire. Remus might've said something about her appetite for destruction- towards herself and others. Peter probably would've said that when he saw fire he ran or got reinforcements. But James would've said that it was one of the most beautiful and deadly forces on earth, wild and unpredictable and intense, and did you know that fire actually creates its own weather? He'd seen it in action and he'd fallen in love.
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On his sixteenth birthday, Sirius was wide awake next to Lily. She knew it like she knew herself and found his hand among the tangled sheets. In the moonlight she shone like a pagan goddess as she straddled him, felt him slide inside her and cradled his face in her hands.
"Fuck me, Siri." She begged, as a tiny smile flickered over his lips, and he deftly slid her leg to his waist, pinning her beneath him. "Say it again."
He sucked her earlobe as she shivered and breathed. "Please, Siri."
And he did, and their sex was on fire.
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She'd been trapped inside a burning building once. She was nine, and her best friend Jude had double dared her to explore Mr Manson's 'House of Horror'; as the local kids called it. Rumour stated Manson had torched himself in his bed one night and the house had been abandoned ever since. She never refused a dare and went into his room alone, touched the scorch marks behind the door; and they'd burst into flame beneath her hand. She fainted from smoke inhalation and they'd only just pulled her out in time. She still has the scars on her palm.
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After she almost died, she became obsessed. She followed arsonists trials voraciously, devoured news reports with wide-eyed rapaciousness and papered her walls with pictures. She found an old lighter of her fathers and would lie in bed clicking the flame again and again and again. And when she met Severus, on the third day, she'd made him wait outside while she grabbed a jacket; and he stood in the threshold of her room and simply stared. For her birthday the next week, he gave her a poster of the ocean. And slowly, she made her way out of the fire.
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And then she was back into the frying pan. She met James Potter on the train, and sparks flew. And she and Sirius hated one another instantly in the effortless way only children can. She told him he was the most revolting git she'd ever met; even though she secretly thought he had the prettiest eyes she'd ever seen in a boy. And he knew it too. She hated James for similar reasons. He was smart, and a pureblood wizard, supremely self confident; and refused to take anything seriously.
And she envied his easy freedom, and his peace of mind.
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They're sixteen, huddled round the common room fire when James gets the news. His father is ill, with what no-one quite knows, but it's critical. Lily meets his eyes across the circle, wide and wet and shining, and something inside her cracks just a little. And she has this insane urge to hold him, tell him it will all be okay, before Sirius descends like a whirlwind and spirits him away. It's only later, when she's still wide awake in her bed, that Lily realises her hand had already started to reach out to him, seemingly of its own accord.
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James turns seventeen and there's a bonfire in the woods. Someone's strung lanterns through the trees, and laid out tiny cakes and wine flasks. It reminds Lily of childhood tales of faerie queens and faraway trees. She's on her third cup of plum mead that Sirius spiked; the music and the magic electrifying her body like a live wire and she's barefoot and dancing like a gypsy. James is suddenly in front of her, and she's holding his hands as they're twirling madly and he looks so happy she wants to keep it that way forever—so she kisses him.
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Later on, Lily will ask him why he never gave up on her. He stops tracing circles on her hip, and looks up; surprised she doesn't know the answer.
"Third year. Remus masterminded our prank- a school wide charm that would set fire to the pants of all the people that were telling lies. So Sirius and I went round asking people all sorts of embarrassing questions. And when I asked you if there was any chance at all that you'd like me, you said never-"
"And my pants were on fire!"
"It was worth every bruise you gave me."
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James was the first to join the Order; in Auror instruction when Fabian Prewett recruited him. Lily was adamant that she'd finish training as a Healer before she signed up to willingly kill people. She had a month left when they bought in a six month old Muggle baby, covered in burns. Death Eaters had tied the boy and his father to a stake, and raped his mother as they were set alight. Healers couldn't save him. Lily watched his mother howl and wondered when they would start going after muggleborn children. She took the oath the very next morning.
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There's war in her head and war in her heart and she feels that everything she was and had once known is falling apart. It's cold out, but she's desperate for sun rise, to see the light that she's so fervently fighting for. The dark seems omnipresent and she wonders when this war will be won and leave them be. They're all tired, tired of failing, fighting, dying. Eyes closed, she faces the horizon. Her eyes open into the blinding light as the sun sets the sky on fire and she can't remember a time she felt so intensely alive.
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*Please review! Just click that tiny little button to make my day! (and win your very own Marauder cabana boy :D) Oh, and the 'sex on fire' part came from the very lovely Kings of Leon song 'Sex on Fire'!