Spring passes and one remembers one's innocence
You don't really remember the first few years of her life – after all, they were your first years too. But you remember flashes of red hair and chubby cheeks sprinkled with freckles and sticky hands grasping yours. You remember delighted giggles and cries of "Hugo Hugo, come spin with me!"
You remember yellow sun dresses and floppy hats tiny hands wrapped around big bunches of flowers that you had decided to pick for Grandma. You remember chasing tiny fish in the pond at the Burrow and falling asleep on the couch together.
You remember the beginnings of a friendship that would last a lifetime.
Summer passes and one remembers one's exuberance.
You will never forget the day you got your Hogwarts letters. You had turned eleven the day before, but you secretly wrote to McGonagall to ask her to send yours with Lily's. It would feel wrong to get yours before she did, and anyway, one day wasn't that long to wait, really.
You remember Lily's righteous indignation when yours didn't arrive on your birthday. "But you have magic Hugo! I've seen it! How dare they not send you a letter! I-I-I'll catch the Knight Bus and go to McGonagall and force her to write you one!" Your carefully chosen words stating you were sure the letter just got delayed and it really wasn't a big deal fell on deaf ears, and you learnt later that she didn't sleep at all that night, instead plotting what she would need for a trip to Hogwarts.
Her face when the Hogwarts owl arrived with not one but two letters was priceless, even if she has threatened to burn the photo countless times. Her shock didn't last long though, and soon you were both bouncing around the Potter's kitchen, laughing and squealing and planning all you would do once you arrived at school.
Hogwarts wouldn't know what hit it.
Autumn passes and one remembers one's reverence.
You had teased her when Henry was born, laughing at her soppy expressions and inability to leave him for more than about five minutes. But looking down at the tiny baby in Alice's arms you understood. Nicholas was yours, to keep and treasure and protect, forever and ever. And you couldn't help but be in awe at this tiny being you helped create.
You felt fully justified in laughing at her reaction to your son though. You were the last of the cousins to have children, meaning she was well versed in newborns by now. Merlin, Henry was two and a half. She wasn't inexperienced when it came to meeting and interacting with babies. And it wasn't even like this was the first time she had been asked to be Godmother either; she was already Godmother to Vic and Teddy's youngest.
But when you walked over to her chair with that little blue bundle and placed it in her arms, it was all you could do to stay upright. Her face immediately softened until you thought it might melt off altogether, and she looked into the big blue eyes of her Godson with an expression of utter lover and reverence.
You knew then that you may have to counteract a lot of spoiling over Nick's lifetime.
Winter passes and one remembers one's perseverance
You remember how much Lily had wanted another child. How she had hoped and dreamed and planned, just to be let down again and again. Even when everyone else stopped hoping, she never did. She just folded baby clothes into the chest of drawers and made up the cot and then locked the nursery door with a whispered "one day."
And that one day did come, cold and dreary and full of panic. For this long-awaited baby, this tiny little girl with her mother's hair and freckles, was six weeks too early. She was too tiny, too young, too unprepared for the outside world. And it was then that you could see Lily's hopes leave her and her walls break as she watched her baby be rushed away by a team of medi-witches.
This time it was you and Lysander, aided by the large extended family of course, who talked of hopes and dreams and of what this little girl might do when she grew up. And you watched as slowly, slowly, the hope came back into Lily's eyes, and soon she too was dreaming impossible dreams for the tiny baby in the insulated cot.
Even when Jessamine had a fever so high it left her deaf, even on the days that it looked like she may not make it through the night, Lily sat and watched and waited, never again letting herself lose hope. And soon spring came around again and the sunny skies and fresh breeze carried Jessamine home, to giggle and spin and catch tiny fish in a yellow sundress and you remember all those years ago when you watched another little girl do the same.
And you smile, because you are both grown up now but that doesn't stop her from putting on a floppy hat and grabbing your hands and crying "Hugo Hugo, spin with me!"
Written for the Connect the Weasley's challenge: Hugo/Lily - seasons
The lines in italics together form a quote by Yoko Ono