Decisive
Sev was chatting with Jack, bonded, in the kitchen of the Evans house.
"How do we do it then?" asked Sev. "Should I call Ariel on the phone now so he can come or wait until later?"
"I think it's best if he comes as soon as possible, you'll make him very happy."
"Ugh… But there are going to be too many of us in the house and maybe I won't be able to talk to all you before him about things that are bothering me or worrying me at the moment."
"Okay, I understand. So let's do something, call him and talk to him, let him know from the start that he's going to sleep with you and let him wait for you to call him later so he can come," suggested his friend. "Also so he can wait to go to bed, even if he goes to sleep later today it's not a problem. Taking that into account, he didn't get up early this morning, he got up after nine, and he won't have to do it tomorrow either."
"Great, Jack, more things. I want to talk to Lily, she's alone in her room and she must be worried, and I'm worried about her too. I decided a while ago to discuss every decision I make with everyone, but I know they'll probably make me give up on the idea if I suggest it to the others, especially Cecile, Remus and her parents. Her father, in fact, didn't think it was appropriate for me to talk to you about my mother, and yet I needed to know certain things that were really bothering me. I think it's going to do me good to talk to Lily. Do you think it's appropriate for me to do it?"
"Ugh... you alone?"
"Yes, the two of us alone," Sev replied.
"I don't know if it's a very good idea, huh? For two good reasons. The first, probably, instead of her comforting you, you'll have to comfort her. She's been alone since before seven, she must be knackered. Second, but not least, you two might get overexcited and be tempted to do more than just talk, which I don't mean to pry into your private life, but I don't think it's a good idea for you right now, not with her, until you've cleared things up between you by talking about your relationship, not about what's bothering you right now."
"True."
"If you don't think it's appropriate for her to go down to be with everyone because you think the others will reject her, we can resort to an intermediate solution, go up to her room together to see her," suggested the eldest. "If she's really bad, I'll be the one to comfort her and I'll be your chaperone, I'll stop you from doing something in a moment of weakness that you might regret later."
"Sounds like a good solution, Jack. We'll do it after I talk to Ariel on the phone."
"Great. Something more about Lily. Don't bond, you're going to feel her love for you and her suffering, and it's going to overwhelm you, and for today you're already getting strong emotions."
"Okay Jack. I wasn't going to do it, but thanks for the warning."
"What are you feeling right now for her?"
"I love her with all my soul, I haven't stopped for a moment."
"Ugh... you're addicted..." lamented his friend.
"Of course I am, Jack, seven years are not forgotten in four days, and even less so with what you just told me about her."
"I shouldn't have done it."
"Anyway, I've been missing her since I got home, huh? I haven't stopped thinking about her the whole time, I already missed her yesterday. The only thing that's saving me from falling is that the others are watching me closely, and Hippolyta."
"Maybe it's better if you don't see her, Prince, I'll go up alone to talk to her and I'll tell you about it later so you can feel better."
"I want to see her, Jack…"
"Prince… don't be dependent, don't make the same mistake I did. I spent almost a whole year alone yearning for a ghost, someone I'll never be able to have like I wanted."
"True."
"You have a lot of people out there who are eager to be with you and give you their support. Don't hold on to Lily, right now she's the one who can give you the least support. We'll do one thing, another intermediate solution, while you talk on the phone with Ariel I'll go up to see how she is, and if I see that she's in one piece and that she'll be able to support you and not the other way around, we'll go up together again."
"Okay, let's do it like this," agreed Sev. "One more thing, Lauren gave me this letter the last night to read today after I found out everything, she even put a spell on it so I couldn't open it until now. I think it's going to be great to read it too. Should I do it now?"
"I think so, it's going to be good for you, but you won't be able to answer her, you'll be left wanting. You'd be better off being with people you can interact with. Better save it for a moment of solitude when you're weak, or in any case, a moment closer to Saturday morning when we're going to see her and you'll be able to chat with her. Also, think about one thing, she wrote the letter before you two had the idea of continuing to see each other in the summer. It's outdated, it could also be a farewell letter, nostalgic, maybe it doesn't suit you so well. Better not read it today, what I'm telling you, wait until a closer time to see her again."
"Great, Jack, that sounds like good advice."
"By the way, before we got back with everyone, did you have a good time?"
"It was amazing, Jack, probably the best night of my life."
"Wow… I'm so glad. Well, you know, hold on to that memory so you don't fall out with Lily so early again. I'm not telling you to never be with her again in your life, but it's not a good time for either of you. You need time to recover from what just happened to you, and she needs time to toughen up and get stronger apart from you, to mature on her own, because everything she's matured has been for you, driven by the need to keep up with you. You're a person who got used to not depending on almost anyone and she's a person who got used to depending on many, and lately on you too much. She also needs time to let go and take steps towards her own individuality, so that her goal in life is to become a person through herself, not through you. You have to give her space."
"Thanks Jack, you're making my ideas much clearer."
"Shall we do it like this then? Do we call Ariel and while you talk to him I go up to see Lily?"
"Okay."
"Which is her room?" asked the eldest.
"Of the two that face the front of the house, the one on the left."
"Okay, I'll get my bearings, I've already seen the stairs. Do you know my house number?"
"No, I've brought them all written down, I have them in my backpack," answered Sev.
"Don't worry, I'll call, and if you want we'll wait for Ariel to pick it up to give it to you."
"Great."
"I'll try to go back down before you finish talking, to bond with you outside of the others and so that they don't find out about the conspiracy so that no one censures you or asks you for explanations," suggested Jack.
"Great."
"Shall we go there?"
"Let's go."
They unbond, left the kitchen and went to the phone, which was on a side table in the dining room. Jack dialed his house number, Sev watched as he did so to memorize it. A few seconds later, someone answered.
"Mum, it's me, calling from the Evans' house. Do you have the number handy?" A brief pause. "Very well, give it to Ariel and tell him to call as soon as he can, the sooner the better… See you later." Jack hung up.
"Jack, you didn't have to, we could just as well talk by calling ourselves."
"No, no, it's another county, neither of us are in our house and I want you to talk calmly for as long as you like. So you know, get ready to receive the first of many calls from your brother. I'm going to warn the others so they know the call is for you and don't get up to answer it when they hear it, and I'm going up to see Lily. Give me the letter and I'll put it back in your backpack."
"Great." Sev gave him the letter and Jack went to the living room. He stayed there for half a minute, the phone rang and he picked it up immediately. "Tell me."
"Sev!" Ariel exclaimed.
"Ariel!"
"Have they told you everything yet?"
"Yes, honey, they've told me everything yet."
"How are you? Are you happy or are you sad?" the boy asked.
"I don't know how to be, I'm very happy and very sad at the same time."
"I understand you, the same thing happened to me the night of my Soting when I saw you sitting at the table. But I had to react quickly, huh? You know I'm from the be and the Hat wanted to send me to Huffle, and no, no, I had to go to Sly to be with you."
"Of course…"
"And it still took me a while, huh? More than two years," Ariel lamented.
"True."
"But in the end I got it, the more you keep going, the more you get. You should never give up. I also had to react quickly when I found out at Christmas that you were staying, to warn the prefect not to send my trunk to the Express without Jack, Deborah or Shelley finding out. They got quite a scare the next morning when I didn't show up to catch the carriage to Hogsmeade, you can't imagine how I played them."
"Wow..." Sev laughed.
"I laughed a lot at their expense that day, but then I got a good scare, huh? Because you didn't show up for lunch and I thought I was going to spend all Christmas alone in the castle for nothing."
"It's true…"
"Were you in your secret place?" the boy asked.
"Yes, I spent the day sleeping because I hadn't slept that night."
"Yeah, I saw you in your corner crying for hours while the others were packing. That's why I knew you weren't going to leave, not just because of what you said to your yearmate."
"Of course."
"You know, I was always looking out for you whenever I could," Ariel added.
"Oh…"
"And the joy I felt that night when you showed up for dinner thinking that you weren't coming anymore either, because you showed up for the second course, huh?"
"Yes."
"I spent the rest of dinner planning how to have an excuse to chat with you, and I thought of the fifth grade Defense book, the one from your year, so I ran to the Library to get it directly from the Great Hall to get home before you and for you to see me with it in my hands," the little one explained.
"I'm going to confess something to you."
"Say, say."
"Do you remember that I said hello to you and went up to my bedroom?" asked Sev.
"I do."
"And that I came down with objects and a book?"
"Yes, and you sat on the couch to practice Transfiguration," Ariel remembered.
"No, that's not what I did. I read you on the sly to find out what you were thinking."
"What are you saying?"
"What you are hearing. Luckily, at that time I only got to immediate thoughts and I could only find out what you were reading at that moment and that you wanted me to talk to you," explained Sev. "If I had read a little deeper and looked for what you thought of me, I would have found out everything right then and there."
"Booaaah... what a scare…"
They laughed.
"Of course," agreed the older one.
"Well, it would have been good."
"Yes, I would have paid more attention to you all Christmas."
"And you would have been accepted into the Guard right away," said Ariel. "Jack told me this afternoon that if I had told him in my first year we would all have become friends with you right away. I was very stupid, it was so easy for me."
"Of course, honey, but I understand, you didn't want me to find out the truth."
"Of course not, because you would have been very angry with Mum. Have you been very angry with her?"
"Yes, very," answered Sev.
"Well, you'll get over it, I was angry too when I entered Hogwarts. The first few times she came to visit me I had to pretend a lot so she wouldn't notice that I was angry with her."
"Of course…"
"Well, you're going to have to do the same so she doesn't have a bad time," recommended the boy. "Poor woman, she must have been upset too."
"Well, yes, she was, that's what Jack told me."
"I really want to see her and call her Mum finally, because I've never called anyone Mum, I always called her Aunt."
"Of course..." Sev was sad.
"And I've missed her a lot, I haven't seen her since before Easter because you told her things and the old man couldn't read her."
"Of course, honey, it was my fault, but it was because I didn't know anything, I had no idea that she went to Hogwarts often."
"I thought I would never see her again," said Ariel. "At first I didn't want them to tell you, but then Jack and Valerie convinced me by telling me that we can spend the summer together, the three of us."
"Of course, we'll be together."
"When you get over the upset, okay?"
"Yes, when I get over it," confirmed the eldest.
"Ah! I'm remembering something else from Christmas. I spent it thinking that it was Mum who wrote to you every day. Do you remember that I always told you, 'your family loves you very much, they write to you every day'?"
"Yes, of course I remember."
"And I was very sorry that she never wrote to me, because I really like letters," said the boy.
"Well… Know that she didn't do it because she didn't have an owl, from now on she will."
"Of course, and I also found out the last few days that it wasn't Mum who wrote to you, it was Lily."
"That's it."
"She almost never wrote to you either," Ariel deduced.
"Neither."
"At least she visited me."
"She saw me on holidays," said Sev.
"Well yes, we've had her a little bit each, always separated. Ugh… it's starting to make me very sad…" very sorry. "I would have loved to meet you and Lily when we were little, that dream that you showed me, and do magic the three of us together in the river."
"True, we would have had a great time."
"Oh... I feel so, so sorry..." The little one cried.
"Don't cry, honey, now we're going to be together forever."
"Not forever anymore, we've lost more than thirteen years and we only have four left, until I graduate."
"But when you graduate, if you want you can continue living in Hogwarts with me," suggested Sev.
"Really?" excited.
"Of course, I'll have a room in my house for you. We'll only separate when we want to."
"When am I going to see you?" asked Ariel.
"Tonight if you want. I'm going to sleep at Lily's house, do you want to come sleep here?"
"Yes! Of course!"
"And do you mind if Hippolyta sleeps with us too?" asked the eldest. "The three of us in a big bed."
"No, Sev, of course we can sleep the three of us, there's no problem. But never tell Shelley, she might get jealous."
"Relax, honey. Besides, I'll be in the middle like when we were cuddling on the couch that night."
"It'll be perfect, because tomorrow I'll be there, I can go from Lily's house to Mum's house walking along the river," the boy suggested.
"Ugh... it's complicated, huh? You can get lost on your own."
"Let Lily's Mum or Lily herself come with me and I'll be with her too."
"Okay, that's for sure," agreed Sev. "I'll call you in a little while, okay? To let you know you're coming, prepare your sleeping things so you can come as soon as I call you."
"Know that you can also wait until late, if you want to be with all your friends first so they can comfort you, because I don't know if I would know how to comfort you, you've seen that I just started crying, it makes me very sad too."
"Of course, honey."
"In time I also want to know everything I don't know, why we separated when we were little and we haven't lived together all these years," said Ariel. "But there's no hurry, okay? When you both get over the upset a bit."
"You can ask Jack to tell you."
"No, no, I prefer that you tell me, now that I'm going to see you whenever I want. Better things be clear between us, things about our family."
"I warn you that these are very sad things, huh?" said the eldest.
"Of course they have to be, otherwise we would have always lived together."
"That's it."
"Do you want to tell me anything else?" asked the boy.
"I can't think of anything else at the moment."
"Me neither, it's okay. We'll leave it to talk face to face, we'll have plenty of time to do it."
"Of course," confirmed Sev.
"Then I'll prepare my things and wait for you to call me. I told you, don't be in a hurry, I didn't get up early this morning and I'm not sleepy yet."
"Okay."
"See you later, Sev."
"See you later, little brother."
They hung up.
Jack was sitting at the dining table waiting, he bonded with Sev and said, "You can see Lily if you want, she was bad but she has managed to get better."
"Do you think it's appropriate for me to do it? The talk with Ariel has been great for me."
"Do what you want, Prince. These are your feelings and your relationships, not mine, I'm just trying to help you out as I know you've always tried to do with me. I think if you have so many doubts it's better not to."
"Come on, let's go, even if it's just a matter of giving back to life a little bit of what it's giving me as you told me before. I'm in the right mood to even comfort her."
"Let's go there then."
They unbonded, went up the stairs and Jack knocked on the door of the Princess' Haven.
"Come in," they heard from inside.
Jack opened the door and they entered. As soon as they did, the good memories spent in that place overwhelmed Sev. Ugh… I shouldn't have done it…
Lily was sitting on the bed facing the door.
"We're both here, Lily," said Jack.
"Yeah, I see. How are you, Sev?" asked Lily, very seriously.
"I was much better ten seconds ago, before I came in here," he replied.
"Well, it's easy for you, go back out."
"Lily, that's not the mood," Jack told her, a bit harshly. "You told me you wanted to see him."
"True, but I didn't expect that answer."
"Well, you should have expect it, the past doesn't just disappear in one fell swoop."
"Of course not," she agreed. "It hurts me too to be here and I have no other choice. If you want to stay, sit in the desk chairs."
They did so by turning them towards the bed, she sat facing them.
"I had good news for you," Sev told her. "Ariel is coming to sleep with me tonight in the guest room and tomorrow morning you can be together. You can show him the way to my house by the river if you want, he'll be very excited to be in the place where we spent so much time as children. You can bond with him and show him our memories, so he can live them as if he had been there. I showed him the first memory of our Patronuses in the Pensieve."
"Oh…"
"Of course, that's why I came up, but not only for that, both yesterday afternoon and today since I got here I haven't stopped thinking about you. I also love you and miss you a lot, Lily, and a moment like that in my life would have been perfect for a reunion after two months of separation if we had had a healthier, more solid relationship, based on deep feelings and not on dependence and physical attraction, as it has happened to you with me."
"Do you think so, Sev?" spitefully. "That what I feel for you is only dependence and physical attraction?"
"If it completely passed you by without any action on my part to justify it when you found someone else to hang on to, yes, I do."
"You're very wrong," returning to seriousness.
"I don't think I'm that wrong," he disagreed. "If you had liked me as a person you would have liked me a long time ago. You fell in love when I started to attract you physically, when you were old enough to think about such things. Be honest, what came first? What did you feel when I tried to kiss you under the beech tree, now that you have reliable memories? Did you feel deep love?"
"I didn't."
"At first you felt only attraction. You started to feel what you call love two months later, when you felt that you were losing me. That wasn't deep love either, it was dependence, need."
"You're right, I spent the month of August locked up missing you. But the berries tasted intense to you for a long time, Sev. Do you not trust in that magic anymore?"
"I don't know what to think, we barely know the review of a book, human feelings can't be simplified so much so that they fit on a sheet of paper, so that they can be described by a couple of sentences. I only intend to give you material for reflection, you have had fewer experiences than me, and therefore, fewer opportunities to experience different feelings and reactions both yours and others', you don't know yourself well in that aspect. I think you should have more experiences before deciding on someone specific to spend your whole life with."
"That's what I was trying to do with Sirius."
"I wasn't just referring to that kind of experience, Lily, but to life experiences in general, that you open yourself up to many things happening to you. But since you brought it up, there you have it, as soon as you fell in love with him you stopped loving me, you learned something about yourself that you didn't know, that you can't love several men at the same time. Did your Patronus change?"
"I didn't try it."
"Badly done. Did you look at yourself in Erised?"
"Neither," she answered.
"The same. Witches have many guides and you don't take advantage of them, Lily."
"I trust what I feel."
"And you never feel confused?"
"Of course I do, very often," she answered.
"Well, that's what guides are for, they help us get out of confusion, they show us the way to follow. Didn't you see me try all my Patronuses just a week ago?"
"Of course."
"Well, it was very easy for you to have material to reflect on during the summer," he continued. "Now you won't have the opportunity to do so for two months."
"I'm sure my Patronus hasn't changed, with Sirius I didn't have any memories as happy as the last one with you."
"Not all happy memories are sexual. The ones I have with Hippolyta aren't at all."
"I know they aren't, Sev, but what I'm telling you, not with Sirius or with anyone, or in any situation. My happiest memory is the Bond we made as a Couple."
"Well, if at least you're clear on that, I'm happy for you. For me, the last time I tried it, which was on Sunday after I had the disappointment with you, it worked."
"Oh... What about Lauren's?"
"I'm not going to tell you, I have the right to keep the rest of my relationships to myself now that I've decided not to have anything more with you for the moment," he answered. "It's enough for you with the information I give you about what I feel for you. And I can assure you with absolute certainty that the love I feel for you is not based on physical attraction at all, because right now I have completely lost that feeling towards you. What you awaken in me is longing and what I felt for you for so many years, a very innocent feeling."
"Oh…"
"Can I ask you a very personal question in front of Jack?"
"Ask it," Lily agreed.
"When did you get horny with me for the first time?"
"Under the beech tree, the morning of the trip to Hogsmeade and then we went to the Forest."
"I noticed it in you," said Sev. "I didn't get horny with you until more than a month later."
"When?"
"When we had the big fight."
"I noticed it in you too. Never before?" she was surprised.
"Never, Lily. I'm telling you that my love for you is not based on physical attraction at all, but on your person, on your interior, on how you are by yourself. Even if you were ugly I would love you just the same. Can you say the same about me?"
"I don't know. I can tell you that I've never thought you were handsome or noticed how attractive you are until the September Express trip, when I'd already been in love with you for a month."
"Well... that's good to know."
"I've always thought that the physical attraction I feel for you was born out of love and not the other way around, otherwise I would have noticed that aspect of you much earlier. I was constantly with you, Sev."
"True."
"And so far, in my life, I've only liked two boys, you and Sirius, I had a close relationship with both of you for many years and neither of you attracted me first because of your physical appearance, you know that very well. So in that I'm like you. And the same if Remus' premonition in which he saw me with Potter had come true. Maybe yes, I would have ended up as his partner, but I would have done so only after he had matured and changed as a person. You know he's been after me for five years and I've never, ever paid attention to him, and that's despite the fact that Potter has everything that is required of a good match."
"True," he agreed.
"Even right before you you have a good example, Jack is handsome and attractive at the same time and he also has everything, a good last name, money, and I love his personality. But I've never seen him, now I can tell you without reservation, more than as a brother because of the family relationship that we would have had over the years if we had stayed together, Sev."
"Of course…"
"So yes, thank you for coming up to see me and making me reflect on myself and my relationships. It's much easier for me to do that with someone than alone, and even more so with you, with whom I've always had absolute confidence and have shown myself as I am without any reservation."
"Of course you have, which I can't say."
"I wish you had done it too. If I had realized much earlier that you loved me that way, as something more than a friend, I'm sure I would have done it too, Sev."
"True, that's not the first time you've told me that."
"And by the same token, if you had never shown me your love by trying to kiss me, we would have missed that aspect of our relationship forever, and I wouldn't have learned everything I know about myself in that aspect and in many others thanks to you. So I will always consider that afternoon at the end of fourth year as a turning point in my life, perhaps the most important of them, whether or not it changed premonitions."
"Oh…"
"That's why I'm telling you right now, if you can bear it, that no matter how many twists and turns my life takes, I'll always love you, because I doubt very much that I'll find a person more decisive in my life than you have been, even if he were to become my permanent partner and the father of my children. He would never be able to change my life like you have changed it since I was nine years old, and always for the better."
