The A/N on five lines.
Finally after all the background writing,
the real story begins.
And this is the filler out line.
Lumos Maximum

VI:
Persistence

I would forever hate Hugo for giving Jacob my home address.

("He is charming, he even charmed me!"
"He is cocky, selfabsorbed and utterly…"
"It's a act Lily! Guys do that. All. The. Time."
"Merlin beard Hugo, what were you thinking?"
"Uhm, I wasn't… I was kind of distracted by his scar and his eyes, you know they have a…")

Yes, I would forever hate Hugo for his weakness for scars and eyes and his kindness but after a week of flooing with Jacob I couldn't think of anything else to do during the week. Surely we nagged mostly and he had a way of interrupting me during the most crucial times like when I was going to work or stepping out of the shower, the ladder one was for his own enjoyment he told me without traces of shame across his face. Despite our constant bickering Hugo had to drag me away from the floo for our Sunday night bar almost-tradition and Jacob flooed me right when I was back home, half tipsy and half amusing according to myself at least. I crashed at the couch, where I spent my last night's on and stared into the flames where the features of Jacob started to appear slowly.

"Hi there Jacob!" I said cheerily after deciding that being nice was good for a change.

"Are you drunk?" was the first question instead of something in style with "Hi sweet pie" "Hullo love", "Howdy red flower" or his most annoying "Hey Potter".

"Well hi to you too," I said, a bit offended but beaming to see his familiar face in the flames.

He did not smile back.

"You're drunk," Jacob said stiffly.

"Well, yes Jacob. Yes I am," I said matter-of-factly. There was a burst in the flames and Jacob was gone, hours too early.

"JACOB!" I yelled, not knowing why, and I felt lonely all the sudden, Hugo was not on the couch but home, sobering up on his own and I hadn't got the company of Jacob that I took for granted this week.

After an annoying silence in my flat I realized two things. One, my flat was too big for silence and two, I was weak for thinking about a thought I suppressed a whole week because of that arrogant toe rag Jacob. It was a weak move by me to turn to my thoughts to Lily Potter's diary because I was feeling bitter and surely Lily Potter wasn't. Truthfully, I was a bit amazed that I forgot about her book, or at least managed to suppress the book.

Hugo often explained me as a person that was easily sucked in and out of things, almost obsessing until somehow I found something else to start obsessing in. Mum however told me that this was normal, that she too obsessed when she was young but she was eleven then, when she had an weird obsession on the "Harry Potter" but somehow, for reasons mum never told us, she got out of it. (Marrying her obsession, way to go mum).

I was twenty one and had been able to obsess about three different "love of my live", Quidditch, witty inventions, divination, pranks, dying hair, muggle war history, Animagus magic, muggle body ink (I have one too prove it too) and the important task of improving goblin welfare during my long and fulfilling life. Oh, and my latest obsession was being an Auror.

Obsessions could take me too far sometimes and that's why I avoided the book but this time when I rushed into my room to find the book on the desk where I left it last week I was half drunk and half angry but mostly fleeing. Fleeing was not heroic and Harry Potter-ish at all but I chose to do that when things got out of hand or too hard and being lonely for a girl – no woman -- with Weasley running in her blood was harder than accepting loneliness as a woman with Potter running in the same veins.

.

.

The black book invited me into the secrets as normal and the third entry I was allowed to read was dated much earlier than the entry before.

"How ironic," I let out when I saw the date of today but in another time period inked in poison green and blood red.

.

"19 December 1974

Hi, my name is Lily Lily and I am 14 years old. I do not write diaries but he told me that this wasn't one. He gave me this book as a Christmas present after our talk after the DADA classes and told me that I could keep anything in this book. I do not know what to write after this…"

.

This time the warm feeling of warm goo rushing through me veins was welcoming and the suction towards the book was a thrill that didn't make me as ill as before. I didn't admit it to myself but I was a bit exited to see where this journey might take me. The scene rushed around me, trying to form into something before I hit solid ground and found myself standing in front of a chair with a desk between me and a young version of Lily Potter.

"Here you go Evans," said someone and left a book on the desk. Lily Potter nodded, no Lily Evans nodded to thank but didn't lift an eye up from the book she was buried in with the quill in her hand.

The scene was familiar somehow, books were stacked up high and it was filled with newly opened quill, fresh parchment and forbidden chocolate bars. It took time before I realized that Lily was writing in the thin black book that I had in my possession right now and that I was in fact in Hogwarts library.

The "he" Lily referred to in her entry was nowhere to be seen in the moment so I decided to sit in front of Lily to wait and observe. I tried to sit on the chair I stood in front but somehow fell through it and hit the library floor. Lily looked up from the black book as I fell and the panic started to interfere with my sense. I stood up, met Lily gaze that seemed to look distant and was ready to leap out of the library, possibly back to my old Gryffindor dorm. If there was one thing I did learn from my history obsession was that you never interrupt or interfere with history, you observe and learn. But Lily didn't speak or comment my presence but formed a "O" with her lips to someone that wasn't me.

.

Oh, he is Sev of course; my best friend. We have been best friends forever almost (it feels like forever at least) and we go to Hogwarts together, he is in Slytherin and I am in Gryffindor. He is clever, smart and I really think that he could go far someday. Maybe a healer or a DADA teacher, he don't know what he wants yet but I know that he'll be good at it whatever he does.

.

This "Sev" character that I heard Lily voice introduce as "he" was standing behind me when I turned around to see what was causing the "O" on Lily lips. He looked like a young bat in his worn out robes that were a wash from having the black washed out. His skin tone was yellowish fading to pale and the nose was long and crooked. The eyes of the boy were deep blacks with small traces of warmth behind the cold that surrounded them and they narrowed annoyed when small pieces of his greasy hair fell into his eyes to block out the vision in front of him.

I thought he looked familiar in some way, with his stiff and forced smile plastered towards Lily and the mistreated look that his thin body represented. The small fingers clutched a thick grey book with brown letters eagerly and Lily stared at him, still with an "O" on her lips before gesturing him to sit down in front of her. I leaped backwards when the bat like boy approached the chair and thought twice if I should warn him from sitting on it. But he sat on it without falling and placed the gray book carefully between himself and Lily on the library table.

"Remember how I thought that it might be experimental to read into the theory's we discussed at the first five DADA classes this year," Sev said with a rather soft tone that I didn't expect from him.

"Those theories about mind reading and mind blocking?" Lily said a bit frightened and impressed.

"Legilimency and Occlumency," Sev corrected rather harshly.

"I do remember what they were called, I just pointed out the wrongs with it," Lily told Sev with a provoking tone and crossed her arms. There was a little smile twitching across Sevs fourteen year old face.

"It's only wrong if they are used to hurt someone," Sev pointed out but Lily didn't buy it by the look on her face.

"Fine -- what about those?" Lily asked when Sev started to look through the book with eyes flickering from page to page casually.

"I am attempting to learn them," Sev said a bit prouder about himself than his soft voice implied.

Lily looked suspiciously at the book, at Sev who looked confused and then at the tip of her own nose.

"You're reading my mind right now, aren't you Sev?" Lily burst out all the sudden and her eyes widened before she shut them rapidly and held them like that for a long time. I panicked when the memory went black.

"Open them again," Sev pleaded in the dark but the memory was still black, indicating that Lily decided to keep her eyes or her mind shut. I couldn't tell because I never understood the theories behind the mind despite the long seminars in Auror classes last year.

"Sev, it is wrong to steal parts of someone's soul," Lily voice told Sev bitterly.

Sev voice was defending. "I am not stealing anything Lily."

"You might call it stealing if you go around Hogwarts and read minds!" Lily snapped.

"I am not reading your mind or your secrets Lily," Sev pleaded once again and there was a sound of a book swooping across a table, possibly the table they sat at because the sound was close by.

"Besides, if I were reading your mind you wouldn't be able to stop it by keeping your eyes closed," he added while the sound of a quill moving rapidly filled the memory instead of a scene of them in the library.

A few moments of silence and the memory I stood and observed was back to color again.

.

I don't know what I would do without Sev, I know everything about him, about his parents and his moods and his wishes. And he knows everything about me.

.

Lily Evans twirled her auburn hair nervously around her quill. Sev however had scribbled something down on a page on her black book and moved his wand to put the page in front of the page Lily had written on.

"Here," Sev told Lily that accepted the book once again and read the same sentence. I walked to Lily back to see what Sev wrote on the page.

"The fractions of Lily Evans soul. Fractions?" Lily said and smiled warmly towards Sev. Lily only observed that the sentence was poison green from the ink on Sev's quill and Sev managed to smile back, all the sudden he looked like fourteen.

"Well, you can't put your whole soul in a book – that's impossible." Sev said softly and looked at book between Lily fingers.

"It's not my soul I want to keep to myself – it's my secrets!" Lily added to Sevs soft explanation.

"But you call secrets pieces of soul, right?" Sev added and Lily replied with a nod.

"So save them there," Sev told Lily simply and nodded towards the book.

"You're still able to read my mind," Lily snapped, clearly reminded of what they were talking about.

"I won't Lily, I don't have to. We're best friends right?" Sev asked, hesitating a bit and Lily nodded so fiercely that her auburn hair jumped up and down in the ponytail she had high up on her head. Sev shot a thin smile because of her silliness and pointed a long and thin finger towards the sentence about fractions of souls. "I haven't read everything about the subject yet but I think that I grasped the theory behind the mind-moving spells – I do not know why it's in the forbidden section though --"

"Maybe… and this is just maybe Sev, maybe because it's wrong?" Lily interrupted sarcastically.

Sev ignored her rant and continued. "If you put your wand towards your head you can drag out pieces of your memory, say Apliciato Dublicio and a copy of the memory will float into the book but the original memory will and say Apliciato Removate and the memory will float into the book and leave your head until you drag it back."

I however observed this Sev boy carefully, he was too clever for his own good and if Lily hadn't stated that he was in Slytherin before I could've easily guessed that he was a Rawenclaw. Lily wasn't impressed by his intelligence however; she seemed used to it and observed the book instead of the eyes of Sev.

.

He gave me this book to put my secrets in so I write here because I have one.
My secret is that Sev will know all my secrets because there are some I don't want to share. We are best friends but there are still my secrets. My own.

.

"So… you won't be able to see in -- into my mind?"

"I wouldn't do that."

"In theory Sev."

"Well, in theory Apliciato Removate removes the memory from your mind, I don't know that much yet."

"Like Obliviate does?" Lily said with questioning eyes.

I was a bit taken by that, Obliviate was highly complex magic that they still practiced to make perfect in Extended Auror training and Lily knew about this at fourteen. The conversation interested me enough to keep silent, all the other sounds and events in the library didn't faze them or me. The conversation between the auburn haired girl and the boy with the crooked nose was interesting enough for me to get sucked in and wait for an answer from Sev.

"Well…No," Sev said after reading in the thick gray book he brought with him to the table. "I think it only takes it away from the part of your brain that is readable, but the mind is not a book – it resembles more like a library".

Lilys lips formed an "o" and then broke into a warming smile. "Thank you for my Christmas gift Sev, have I mentioned that you are talented?"
"Oh, I know it's a book and all and that we don't –"

But Lily interrupted. "You are talented!"

"Lily, I am not good at it, I can only sense feelings. I cannot read minds, which is hard"

"Not that." Lily chuckled at Sevs bemused expression before taking on a more serious tone.

"But you are clever Sev, you are! Have I told you that lately?"

"Well" Sev started and his lips twitched a bit."This morning at potions." This time to my surprise Sev pale face lid up, his eyes looked warm and he smiled a smile that even made the crooked teeth in his mouth look pleasing.

.

He saw me write this entry and he smiled but he told me that I could do it on my own. He see me write this too, and this. And this! So I choose to put this memory here, the memory of us in the library with my early Christmas gift and if I haven't written it yet I write it again.
Sev and I are friends, best friends.
Lily

.

I felt the ground dissolve, the figures of Lily and Sev dissolved with it and after a minor journey where my insides went up and down and my blood rushed through every limb in my body I found myself back on the familiar bedroom. I felt drunk and sober all at once and hid the book on the top drawer and stretched out on my bed to catch my breath. The window over the desk showed a morning in the making, light clouds were breaking out and the dark disappeared slowly to reveal a Monday morning I knew I would dread. The snow was late this year but something told me that the snowflakes would fall any day now in time for Christmas. Christmas and falling snowflakes were the last thought I thought before catching the few hours of sleep. That, and the thought of auburn red hair and a crooked smile.

.

.

.

Well, I went a bit un-reviewed for a while.

TELL ME, Is it bad? Should I quit writing on it :/, save me some time of my life by being honest. And review of course, so I know.


Lumos Maximum