"Your eyes met mine.
The fetch of a wave is the distance it travels, you said,
from where it is born at sea to where it founders to shore.
I must go back to where it all began."
-the fetch, ciaran carson
Later, in her room, Lily taps her wand against her ankle, rolls a flask in her hand, and follows herself through the day, from the thrill of setting out into that fresh morning, to the moment after she dropped Teddy off, before he went inside, when he'd bumped his shoulder against hers long enough to make it something softer, and said "Thanks for inviting me, Lil."
She hits herself in the ankle again, hard enough to sting, and tries to pick out something good enough to put in her box.
The problem is, she's already shared Maastricht – worse, she's built Maastricht into her mind with Teddy spun through it, spoiling everything.
How's she going to make anyone understand why she'd wanted to see the Museum –all those careful collections of things people had loved – when all they'll see is Teddy cracking jokes all the way through?
What's the moment at Helpoort, brimming over with layered silence, warm with the wonder of being understood, going to mean to them when it just looks like two all-but strangers standing in front of an old stone thing?
It's the same problem as always, the reason she'd needed time off from the Prophet in the first place.
She gives herself three vivid and creative expletives before she lets herself fall across the bed and kick her heels in the air like she is ten again and ready to scream.
The problem is, the best parts of it, the parts she'd loved the most, shouldn't be the best parts, and now she has to go back out and do it all over again.
You big nuisance, she tells Teddy's face in her mind, and even in her mind, he doesn't pretend to be ashamed.
Outside, the sky is deep and dark. She sighs heavily, and stretches herself towards the furthest corners of the bed before bouncing her heels off of the leg of the bed. Tomorrow, then. She'll go back tomorrow.
-x-
"Oh, no, you aren't," Lily says, at the museum the next morning.
It's Teddy, of course it is, and he is – thwarting her.
He turns around and says, "Ah."
"Ah?" Lily echoes, wondering if she should be offended.
"It's – well, it's not that I didn't like going with you –" Teddy begins, that conciliatory tone creeping into his voice.
"It's fine," Lily says, exasperatedly, "I planned to come alone, too."
He shrugs. "Great minds, then?"
She purses her lips over another laugh, and crosses her arms instead.
"Copycat," she says accusingly.
"I was here first," Teddy says, shifting his shoulders so it's an invitation instead of a dismissal.
Lily takes a step closer, accepting it. "Well, I'll let it slide this time, but if we show up in the same outfit tomorrow, I'm going to be really upset."
The museum is very worth the second visit – this time without Teddy's witticisms. The collection is small, but lovingly maintained, and the museum is nearly empty that day. They are sent off with audio guides to the displays (Lily politely pretends not to notice Teddy fumbling with the earphones), and a gaggle of friendly staff members hovers behind them, eager to gesture them further along in the exhibits.
Lily eats it up, like something sweet and soft in her mouth. She's tempted to squirrel away something to bring home with her, but also knows that she would feel guilty every time she looked at it.
After the end of the trip the staff shunts them towards the museum's small cafe; the tea is refreshing, the food is passable, and all throughout the meal, Teddy sneaks looks at her over the rim of his cup.
Lily's mind, meaning her imagination, has the unfortunate tendency of leaping into wakefulness a great deal earlier than any other part of her, for example, her common sense or the great majority of her logical thinking. That is to say, Lily is very familiar with being looked at over the rim of a cup by other boys. Lily's common sense offers the argument that Teddy is not other boys, and it's mostly her irritation over the clangor this sets up between her forebrain and hindbrain that makes her snap at Teddy.
"What?" she says.
His eyebrows shoot up, and Lily, to her chagrin, feels quite effectively chastised. This is also galling, since even her mother's pointed eyebrow raise has long since lost its sting.
"What?" she says again, this time more calmly.
Teddy shrugs and looks at her. "Museums," he says, "And the Helpoort, yesterday. I know you said you left the Prophet – is it because of all of this? Because this is what you actually want to do?"
Lily says, "I think it's just Helpoort, actually?"
Teddy lifts his eyes, considering it. "Well. Just Helpoort, then, sorry."
"And, I mean – I don't know," Lily says, finally, "I thought the Prophet was what I loved doing. Talking to people, and getting to say what I thought and then, suddenly, it just – It felt like I was just writing the same stories about the same things – I couldn't figure out how to really say anything important anymore." She takes a breath, "I felt stuck. Stuck in – in my life."
She doesn't want to meet his eyes, which is terrible, because she's not embarrassed about it. She just – it's just a way of protecting herself. Just a way of saying something hard while pretending she isn't.
In her peripheral vision, Teddy is nodding, so she frowns at the knot of her hands in her lap, and decides to risk it.
"You know. Wasn't it like that when you left?" She does look at him then, gauging his reaction. He's surprised, uncomfortable, maybe a little displeased, and a little vengeful part of her is saying, Now we're even, even as the rest of her is stumbling to fix it. "Or – you know, it might not have been. I didn't mean to assume."
He shakes his head, the surprise fading away. "No, I – I just didn't think you'd noticed. That you'd remember all of that, you know, that long ago."
She's still looking at him, a little wary, not quite head-on. "So what did happen? I remember it was right after I started my first year, so you were, what… twenty?"
Teddy gives her a brittle smile, shakes his head again.
"Well, Gram died, that year," he says, "And, you know, Harry and Ginny – your mum and dad – they were great, I'm not saying they weren't. But Gram was my family. Gram was all I had. Your, you know, your parents and James and Albus… it was different, all of a sudden. It didn't feel like it was big enough without her there. It was like you said, before; I felt stuck. I couldn't – breathe."
He's got his eyes fixed on the grain of the table, one thumb reflectively rubbing the edge of his teacup – not meeting her eyes, she realizes. Keeping himself safe, the same as she was. It makes her feel suddenly, unfairly warm towards him, because this is something they share: that need to protect themselves, to speak regardless.
"So you've been wandering ever since?" she asks, finally tipping her gaze back to her own side of the table.
"I mean, it's not just that," he says, shifting back to himself, "I'm doing what I love, and I would have picked this, anyway. I just got here differently than I expected," he finishes, with that wry smile.
Lily gives him one of her own. "I always thought you wanted to be an Auror, like Dad," she says.
This makes Teddy grimace.
"I," he says, firmly, "Was never going to be an Auror. My Defense grades alone…" he huffs out a laugh, rubbing his neck. "And I don't think I would have liked it," he adds after a moment, careful.
His mother had been an Auror, Lily remembers belatedly – how stupid, to say like Dad – like it was the obvious – she shakes her head, abruptly tired of inching through this.
"And that's enough heavy conversation," she says, clapping her hands on the table. "Let's talk about something else."
Teddy laughs, and shifts his chair in. "All right, let's. Tell me what else you're going to see today."
Lily tilts her head at him. "You're not coming?"
"Working this afternoon, unfortunately." He wrinkles his nose at her teasingly.
She mirrors his expression, and responds, "That's a pity. I wanted to show you the carpet museum, too."
Teddy throws back his head and laughs. "I'm genuinely sorry to miss that," he says, still grinning. "You're going to have to tell me everything."
Lily snickers. "Teddy, my dear," she says, "That was what we like to call a joke."
He lifts his hand, acknowledging the point, and then shoots her another grin.