primrose

Lovestruck

I found photographs of our school, on the day we met 

I thought that you were so beautiful. It was love, I guess.

A House in Nebraska, Ethel Cain 

⚘ ⚘ ⚘ ⚘

They met under a cool September sky at eleven years old, tugging their coats closed with cold-bitten fingers.

The groundskeeper had separated the girls and boys when they got off the train, he made a joke she hadn’t understood and rushed them onto creaky boats meant to take them to the school. 

Lily had stepped onto one with weak knees. Girls who felt years older than her (even though they couldn’t have been more than a couple months her senior) linked arms and hopped into them with ease, laughing with one another as if they’d known each other for years. She stared down at her brand new shiny black Mary Janes. She thought about her mum and her eyes welled up with tears, she stared down, intent on not letting anybody see. 

People whispered as they past. None of them sat with her. The stars twinkled above, and she frantically tried to wipe her tears away. Lily was no stranger to people not wanting to sit with her, it had happened all the time in her schools back home. But she’d hoped that this would be different. Sev had said it would be different.

The boat rocked. 

“Can I sit here?" Said a very pretty girl with brown skin and black ringlet curls. She had tiny pink glittery butterfly clips in her hair that made her absurdly jealous. "I'm Mary Macdonald."

Lily nodded rapidly, glad that she wouldn't have to go alone. "Lily, Evans."

Mary sniffled as she sat down and the boats departed by themselves. “Sorry, I just…” She trailed off and wiped her nose with her long, pink sleeve. “I miss my dad.” Mary gave her a sad smile. 

"I miss my dad too, and my sister. Tun- Petunia. And my mum. They're norm- They’re muggles." Lily said, nodding and wiping her nose with the sleeve of her robe. 

Magic had been so sacred to her then. Like a secret. Always said as if it were prayer, something to be astonished and cherished with upmost reverence. As she got older she tended to forget things, but she never really got over that. The initial awe with magic. Lily spent her entire life both trying to get Petunia to understand it, and feeling bad that she couldn't and Lily could. Mary once said to her, later on, that nobody loved magic like Lily loved magic, that she admired her for it. That it was beautiful. 

Besides that, she missed her sister more than anything. 

The pretty girl stared at her with her big brown eyes, like a doe in a picture book. "What's a muggle?" 

"Someone with no magic. They can't go to Hogwarts." 

"That's stupid." She said bluntly, crossing her arms with childish defiance, " My  parents are muggles. Well, my dad. Mums dead." 

The cold flushed her cheeks, and she could feel the wind through her thin green gloves. She frowned, another tear falling from her eye. She couldn't imagine not having her mum. The thought alone made her shaky all over again. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be," She waved her off and smiled so bright it made everything warm. "Here. I'll cheer you up." 

Mary reached into the pocket of her pink peacoat. She stuck out her tounge absently when she searched her pockets and smiled when she pulled out a small baby blue camera with cartoon stickers all over it. Wiping her own tears, plopped herself down next to Lily, causing the boat to rock. She extended her arm high. 

"Smile!" She said, clicking the picture button at the top when Lily obeyed, her painted fingernails catching the flashing light. 

She leaned in so the photo caught her too, just the side of her face. People from nearby boats looked over at the flash with curiosity. When Mary was done fiddling with the picture she turned the camera over with extended arms and beamed. 

They were both in it, Lily more than Mary, but she hadn't really cared about herself. Mary looked like a fairytale princess, with her doe eyes and pink clothes. She hadn’t changed into her robes yet. Mary took another one of the two of them, her arm slung around Lily. She kept that photo, after Mary had gotten it developed. She threw a fit when Lily asked for it, but Lily insisted. Mary could never really say no to her. 

For the rest of her life, in a box beneath her bed untouched by dust from how much she'd pulled it out, she kept that photo. Because it was just them. Innocent, happy. Mary is herself in it, and Lily is staring at her with the biggest, and truest smile caught in a giggle despite herself. The 

Earth orbiting the Sun. Always and forever. 

That, at the very least, never changed. 

"See?" Mary said, pointing to the grainy image of Hogwarts behind them, "My dad tells me all the time. The world has a natural magic. The world is beautiful, and were all lucky to be in it. Even if it's scary. Dad says that sometimes the scariest things are the most beautiful."

When she looks back on that memory she always thought it was ironic that the words she'd chosen to live by since she was eleven weren't even Mary's. Technically, they were from her dad. But Mary had said them, and at eleven years old that seemed like reason enough. 

Magic was prayer, but Mary Macdonald? 

She was gospel. 

⚘ ⚘ ⚘ ⚘

She quickly learned, with more and more time in her dorm in the Gryffindor tower that Mary would be her best friend. There was something about her. Even then. Radiant, always glowing. 

There was something about  them , as a unit, that attracted energy. They were the same, in that way. Beings so full of life that they overflowed onto everybody else. It was as if, no matter what they did, there were eyes. It wasn't always bad. With Mary anything and everything felt exciting. They had a way about them, an awful terrible little thing, that caused the rest of the world to feel small and inconsequential when they were together.

Kalopsia is the word she's looking for. "The delusion that things are more beautiful than they are." 

It's hard to look back on the earliest years and not see them with rose-colored-glasses. Everything felt grand then. High off sugar, drunk off magic. Mary hadn't known her when she was a kid, but when she reminisces on her childhood she always seems to come to mind. The world was boiled down to the two of them. The Sun and the Earth themselves seemed to revolve around it, the rain warm when they wanted to run off to the lake. Snow when they wanted to stay in and read. 

But as things are, their inability to be invisible inevitably had its downsides. The purebloods were their downfall, really. 

"Mudblood," They called them. 

The bullying was their initial downfall, but they do say that pain brings you closer. 

And it did. 

Severus partly understood. He pretended he did, at the very least. He was a half-blood, and he was definitely still subject to ridicule, but it wasn't the same. He was a Slytherin, for starters, much to her dismay. But it did save him from a bit of it. Especially after he befriended Mulciber and his gang of toe-rags. Severus understood her more before Hogwarts. She hadn't known much girls then. The ones at her school were often cruel, and her sister was a bruise she pressed on frequently with no avail. 

Mary was different. They were girls together.

They had a dorm to themselves for a couple of years, until their third when Marls moved in if memory serves. But it was fun then, most things. Reading often brought them together. Rain or shine. Night or day, they'd crawl into one another's beds, fawning over muggle literature they'd nicked out of hidden corners of the library. It was incredibly hard to find. Few and far in between. But they'd made a game out of getting it for each other. Whoever could find the best ones, whether it be the most notorious or the best written. 

Mary was enthralled by the Bible. She was raised by Atheists, which Lily hadn't even known was an option. But she listened when she told her about the Bible, as if it were an ancient myth. There was something fun about retelling it in her own words, and then Mary would tell her stories of her own. Ones she'd heard in the hallways at school, or ones entirely made up in her head. She had a storyteller's soul, her voice perfect for shaping vibrant words. 

Mostly, though, they lounged. They read, they did their coursework. 

They both had so much fire in them, and nowhere to put it. Except, of course, within one another. That’s how their bond started. 

⚘ ⚘ ⚘ ⚘

She met Remus Lupin during her second year, when he'd unknowingly saved her from a very tense train ride. Mary had waved her and Severus over to her at the station, excitedly, one hand holding her dads and another holding her cart. At her feet, a small poodle the color of cinnamon ran circles around her boots. Lily’s cheeks flushed with her smile, and she tugged on Severus's hand. 

"It's Mary, let’s go say hi!" Lily pulled at his hand another time. It was obvious to her that Severus didn't like Mary. She'd treaded carefully around it, assuming that if she balanced the two of them that they could both be her best friends. But she knew that Severus got jealous. She didn't blame him then, if she could've been in Slytherin with him she would've. 

He'd given her a displeased look. "She isn't decent company, Lily."

"Don't be mean Severus! She’s my friend." She scolded, frowning. 

In the end, though, Mary had come to them. Her nose was red at the tip, just barely visible on her skin. Her grin immediately brought one to Lily. It was always awfully contagious. A sickness, really. 

Mary seemed to notice that she'd walked in on some kind of argument because her eyebrows furrowed despite her smile. But she spoke brightly anyways, enveloping Lily in a hug that nearly burned her skin to the touch.

"Lils! I convinced Dumbledore to let me bring my Mon Cheri!" Her French accent slipped when she mentioned her dogs name, and her dad laughed cordially behind her as he watched the scene unfold. Cheri has a variety of names, since Mary could never decide on one. All of them are French terms of endearment, so mostly she just calls him Cheri. 

Lily poked Mary on the cheek, causing her to giggle. "That's great! I told you! Didn’t I?"

"Severus." Mary greeted politely when they let go, though there was a hint of sarcasm in her voice that she knew Severus detected, "Lovely to see you." 

"Dogs are not allowed in Hogwarts for a reason. It's a safety hazard." He replied, crossing his arms and eyeing her like a snake eyes it's prey. Mary's smile flickered briefly. 

"You don't mind if I sit with you two do you? I'm afraid that little Cheri here might be a hazard   somewhere else."

He'd agreed, reluctantly. Mostly because, Lily suspected, he did not know how to say no. He grumbled unhappily under his breath the entire time Mary said her goodbyes to her dad, and when they were settling in the two were making quips at each other like it was some kind of pissing contest. Luckily, though, a very tall boy with a head of blonde curls and a face full of freckles and scars knocked on their compartment. 

"Ah, sorry." He turned behind him where multiple loud voices were chatting with excitement. He turned back, "Sorry, uhm, can we sit with you? There's no other compartments and- Ow! Yes! Black I know! I'm asking! Christ!" 

Lily laughed, "I'm sure we can make room. I'm Lily." 

"Remus," Remus nodded gratefully and introduced his friends as they all filed in and sat down. "Sirius, Peter, and James."

James, the boy with the most unruly hair she'd ever seen and lopsided glasses stopped dead in his tracks when he saw her. She'd felt a bit insecure under his gaze, his mouth slightly agape. Lily picked at a string on her knee socks before he spoke. 

"Marry me." He'd said, with an unchanging face that showed no signs of humor. 

"...No?" 

He broke into a smile then. A really annoyingly pretty one that save him dimples. James ran a hand through his hair and plopped himself down next to Severus, who physically and almost violently recoiled. "One day red-" He paused, "What's your name?"

"Lily Evans,  not red. " She crossed her arms. Severus was going to hate him, she could tell. "There is no one day."

"I'm going to marry you one day Lily Evans, mark my words."

Severus' narrowed eyes were expected when she'd glanced over, but what she hadn't expected was the glare Mary was sending him. She’d seen Mary glare before, but not like that. The train ride did end up being unpleasant after all, even more so. But good things came of it. One, her friendship with Remus, who she found in the library later that week. And James, but that would come much later. 

But oddly, it started an unspoken thing that Mary and Severus could bond over: 

They both hated James Potter.

⚘ ⚘ ⚘ ⚘

When she went home for Christmas break her second year, leather back full of books and homework assignments, she came home to an empty home. Lily's mum had picked her up, gushing over the way she 'just flew right out of the wall' at the station. She'd asked her all kinds of enthusiastic questions about her wand (which she'd answered several times before last year, and last summer, and on the phone) and her studies. She answered all of them with equal reverence. It felt good to talk to somebody about magic who was equally impressed with it, and as a twelve year old it felt very cool to educate her mother on something. 

She waited up, nearly jumping off the walls while trying to do her winter reading, for Petunia. Severus called while she waited, they spoke about potions, of which they were both passionate. 

Her dad was basically a chef, so he hardly needed her help preparing dinner. Even still she sat on the counter peeling potatoes and poking fun at his work gossip with him.

Mum had said that Petunia had gone for a bit, and assured her idly that she'd be back soon. But Lily waited. She'd stayed up like a child waiting for Santa Claus to pop down the chimney.

Petunia had gotten home at midnight that night, long after their parents retired to bed. She had creeped in, heels in hand to conceal her footsteps. She was wearing a small blue hoop skirt and a matching tank top under her pink cardigan. Tuney still had a brief smile on her lips when she shut the door. Lily came through the kitchen with a bag of crisps, "You don't have to be quiet. Mum and dad already know you were out."

At the sound of Lily's voice, Petunia sighed and crossed her arms. "I was being quiet so I wouldn't wake  you. " 

"Oh," She set the crisps down. "I don't sleep well anyways. It's probably the magic muddling my brain." Lily tried to joke, though Petunia only scrunched her nose up with contempt.

"I wouldn't say things like that. It's unbecoming."

"Where were you?" She changed the subject.

"I was with Vernon. He's courting me." Petunia looked down at her crisp heels. “He’s a fine man.” 

Lily had heard of Vernon before, briefly while speaking to her parents on the phone. Vaguely, she could remember Petunia mentioning him a couple of times when she was home for the summer. But as far as she was concerned, this 'courting' must have been for his parents rather than hers. She was religious, but they weren’t the courting-before dating type. She knew, though, that saying that would just make her upset. 

"Oh. That's lovely. Does he- uhm. Does he always take you out at nighttime?" 

Petunia's nose scrunched up as if she'd just sucked on a lemon. " Maybe I just didn't want to see you. Ever thought of that?" 

Even during the war, there was never anybody who ever made her feel smaller than Petunia did. Maybe it was the way she spoke, or just the fact that she was her older sister. Either way, at least during the war there was some kind of equality, everybody's life was at risk. Lily may have been the witch, but Petunia was willing to hurt her. And that was a lot more powerful then. 

She let Petunia get halfway up the stairs. Watching her blonde hair, tied back in a tight plait that swung when she walked.

 "Why not?" She spoke finally. ” Why didn’t you want to see me?” 

The bottom half of Petunia's face was highlighted by the moonlight through the stained-glass window of the door. Lily stared back at a face that looked so much like hers, only full of contempt whereas hers was betrayal. She stepped down four or five steps, just enough to where she was nearly at Lily's eye level. 

"Because you ruin everything."

And then she left, leaving Lily at the bottom of the stairs, alone.

⚘ ⚘ ⚘ ⚘

On Christmas day she attended a church service with her mum and sister. Her dad, the pastor of their small church, dressed up in his Sunday best and moved to stand at the podium. She had often begged Severus to attend with her, and that day was a rare occasion in which he did. Petunia scoffed at his charity-shop blazer and torn dress pants. The Evans were fairly well off, but it wasn't a secret that Sev's family wasn't. More than once, she'd reprimanded Petunia for her foul tone. 

That was the only time she ever really fought her sister as a girl. When Severus was involved, she was willing to fight anyone.

Though she'd suspected that he only came so he could see her, she was eternally grateful. Lily held his hand in her lap the entire service. He'd ask her why, later. Perhaps she should've told him the truth. Or, she knows that she should've. She should've said that Church frightened her. That every time she stepped onto that crisp, polished wooden flooring since she was nine years old, she'd imagined herself burning into nothing but ash. Right there on the floor. She always had this feeling, this awful pit of guilt in her stomach when she looked at the mums with their little babies on the pews. They were all so happy, and they felt so safe under the glow of the stained glass windows. And none of them knew. None of them knew she was a witch. And Lily knew that if they had, as sure as she knew her own name, that they would've hated her.

Mum tried to help her. She'd let Lily lay her head on her chest, carting her hands through her hair and muttering in Irish, despite the looks of disapproval from the other attendees for her speaking. The Irish was comforting, her mothers native tounge always was. Like soup, or something else warm. She never could shake that feeling, though. Not when she could physically feel the magic radiating off her body.

She'd come to love that feeling later. When she understood it's power. The connection between love and magic. But then? At twelve years old? Love felt like nothing but a curse.

It was hard to fear something she knew she loved so much. 

Having a wizard there helped. Because at least then she could feel his magic too, like a two way street. It made everything seem less daunting, less fearful. If Severus wasn’t burning up, then she wouldn’t either. 

She never told Severus that, though. Lily had shrugged, said something like, "Because" and left it at that.  They ran out to the field between their neighborhoods afterwards, reciting her fathers words in varying impressions and preforming little party-trick spells. Those were there best times, in her opinions. Days spent wrapped up in a bubble of magic, where nobody else was in the way. He was happier then, and it always made her forget anything she was mad at him for. 

It was one of the best Christmases she'd had in a while. He gave her a notebook with pressed Lilies, she remembers thinking that it must have taken months for him to collect them all. Her, pressed between pages. 

In return, she gave him her diary of various potions that she'd learned through her research. A couple at the end she'd created herself too, a brand of calming drought that eases physical pain too. It took her ages to work it out with Mary. Lily told him about the process. He was happy, if a little disappointed that she hadn't asked him for help instead. In any case, they stayed out so long that her dad came barreling through the trees to chase Severus away. Even still, he left with a laugh caught in the breath stolen from his lungs.

Even then she reckons part of her knew that Severus liked a very specific idea of her. It wasn't inherently malicious, she doesn't think. But it was always there, in the back of her mind.

Maybe part of her had felt indebted to him because he'd shown her magic, which to the end remained one of the greatest gifts she was ever given. Or maybe it was just love. The love she'd felt her entire life. A powerful, freefall of emotions that more often then not ended in more fear. It varied, of course, from person to person.

But it had only been different once, in her opinion. 

That's for later, though. 

⚘ ⚘ ⚘ ⚘

When she’d shown Mary the notebook Severus made for her, with its lilies pressed between the pages, she wordlessly flipped through the book.

She sat there, in a plush Gryffindor-red armchair. One leg draped over the other, lips painted with lip gloss she’d gotten over the holidays. Her nails painted, a deep maroon, this time. Lily couldn’t help but think that she looked different at Thirteen. Older, somehow. Even though it had only been a couple weeks. But then again, Mary had always looked older to her. More grown then herself and the other girls. A figure that always shone just a bit brighter than the rest of them. 

Abba was playing gently in the background, from the charmed record player she'd set up with Remus before they'd left, Mary nodded her head to the beat absent-mindedly as she turned the pages. 

Lily always found herself enraptured with everything she did. The ease at which she did it. No matter what it was. Even when she struggled, she'd somehow manage to make it look effortless, and painfully cool. They were both outcasts then, with one another as their only real solace, but Mary might as well have been a celebrity. 

Mary closed the book, snorted, and said: “Doesn’t he know your favorite flowers are Primroses?”

He didn't. Or, if he did, she didn't know. Lily was sure she must have mentioned it a couple of times. But Mary had remembered. She always did. 

There was always something vulnerable about it; their friendship. Mary was in her soul, a deep presence buried within her bones. And she knew her, intrinsically, more than a person should ever know another. It ruined them a bit. Because even though they knew everything about one another, to the point where anything simple could burst into flames, both of them wanted more. That was their fatal flaw. The jealousy, the envy. Of each other, no doubt. 

But also everybody that they interacted with. Their friends, lovers. Lily felt it like a peach pit in her stomach, weighing her down. Jealous, jealous girl. Jealous of the wind, the way it got to make it's way through her curls. The clothes that hugged her skin, the blood in her veins. 

Hers was something she wore as a secret, dark and dirty in its nature. 

But Mary? She wore it on her at all times, as if it were simultaneously a beautiful broach, and a sharp blade to wield as her own. 

⚘ ⚘ ⚘ ⚘

The day Marlene came into the picture is clearer than most; the first day of their third year. McGonagall had written them over the summer, informing them that they would be housing another resident in one of the empty beds of their dorm. A transfer student from another, smaller, wizarding school in Scotland, she'd said. 

Mary and her had spoken on the phone for hours that night, angering Petunia to no end. 

They'd been a bit mean. If she's honest. Neither of them were particularly happy about giving up the extra space, or their comfortable solitude in the dim light of their shared dorm. 

They'd promised that they wouldn't give up their sleeping arrangements, and that come September they'd move their beds together as they'd done both years before. And they did just that.

But the truth of the matter is that Marlene changed everything. For better or for worse, she served as a constant connection to reality. Whereas Mary and Lily tended to get lost in daydreams with one another, hazy days spent reading in candlelight and dancing at night until their feet hurt, Marlene was never one to pretend. 

She was just as bold as the two of them. Strolling into their room, clad in a pair of boys uniform dress-pants she must have nicked from one of the train storage compartments and her tie untied around her neck.

Lily remembers thinking that she looked like one of those girls she'd seen on the feminist magazines she enjoyed, missing the eyeliner then, but still. Her hair had choppy layers tied back into a ponytail with her wand that still somehow managed to look good whilst also breaking every dress code they had.

Although it wasn't the same, she'd gotten that feeling with Marlene that she initially had with Mary. That 'Oh were going to be friends' feeling. 

Because Marlene had walked in, took one glance at their beds pushed together, and forcefully levitated hers next to theirs. They'd stared at one another for a moment, Lily and Mary, somehow astonished that their little act of childish defiance hadn't worked. But it was as easy as that, really. Apparently friendships are really easy to form when you're thirteen years old and every night is one big sleepover. 

Things were different, though. Marlene had been a childhood friend of James, and he tended to linger around them more with her presence. She was honest too. Brutally. She never hesitated to call anybody out, a trait they'd gain eventually, from her mostly. Her family was a rough subject, and they'd both had the tact to not bring it up, but eventually they'd gotten most of the details. Marlene was a half-blood, technically. But her mother was an Obscurus, something she hadn't heard of. After a bit of research though, she'd come to learn that it's when a witch or wizard had manifested repressed dark magic. 

They don't live to have children, usually, but Marlene's mum had. Even if she was shortly taken away by the muggle courts, leaving her in a messy custody situation. The muggles assumed her mother was mentally ill, Schizophrenia, or some kind of nasty eating disorder.

She was only allowed to go to a boarding school because her mum died shortly after her twelfth birthday and Dumbledore had made an exception, sorting her with the first years and placing her in the only dorm with empty beds. 

Mary and Marlene joked about it a lot, having dead mums. It made her slightly uncomfortable but she'd understood that it was some kind of coping thing and let it be.

She had her fair share of laughs with Remus about their fathers poor health's.

James' mum had taken Marlene in for a bit of that summer, after everything. Bought her her Hogwarts supplies and made sure she got on the train with everything she'd needed. Lily could sympathize with it. She remembered how hard it was to only have one friend going into Hogwarts, and not being able to see them as much. But she did wish that James didn't have to be around  all  the time. He was annoying, to be frank, and it constantly upset Severus. Who apparently had made an enemy out of the boy. 

It was around then, somewhere in her third year, that she'd made more of a friend out of Remus. He often needed quiet, as she found herself craving with the passing seasons.

It seemed to be something his friends grew to accept, his absence. When asked, each one of them would shrug and say something like "'S just Lupin." 

Either way, they had a habit of running into each other on their walks. And without realizing it they started waiting for each other. He was good at silencing charms, and her warming, so they created quite the bubble to shut out the rain. 

They had a lot in common too. Hope Lupin frequently attended church, praying for her family's health almost obsessively. Remus himself wasn't religious, which almost awed her. Mary she could understand. She didn't grow up in it, instead she was raised in the countryside of France with jazz music and supposedly really good food. But Remus had grown up with a religious parent. 

He told her that he was never really religious. That he could never quite  make  himself believe in it. 

They bonded over other things too. He shared her and Mary's love for muggle literature, and her particular fondness for Dostoevsky. Lily teased him relentlessly for only having read 'Crime and Punishment' but Remus still had insightful things to say. Mostly, though, they both liked watching the weather pass them by in silence. He'd bring his endless supply of chocolate, and she'd bring strawberries when she could. 

It was simple then. Bothering one another for homework answers, falling back and watching from afar when their louder friends made their scenes. Peter hung around them as well, often actually. But she finds it hard, when she thinks back, to remember him fondly. His face blurs in her mind. Lily can't quite recall if he was always so hardened, if it was all a game. Surely, she knows, it couldn't have been. But there's hardly any rationale in betrayal.

Remus told her once that he remembered it differently. During the war, maybe a bit before. He'd said that she was hardly around him at all until fifth year when they became prefects. That he assumed she avoided him for the most part. 

It may be true. She doesn't remember very well. When she thinks of him, it's clear. His scars and the gap between his teeth when he smiled. But she knows that she was far more concerned with being a good friend to Severus then. And while her memories of Remus are fond at worst, he was never innocent. Neither of them were, in retrospect. But all that mattered then was that she'd known Severus for years, her eldest friend, and Remus closely only a couple of months.

Time was, and always will be, a funny thing. 

⚘ ⚘ ⚘ ⚘

Most of her life had been wrapped up in books. 

Tied to love, and magic, literature was always sacred to her. Creation came from a book. Words were only spoken literature. Lily always thought of things she loved as things to handle with care. Gently pressing the pads of her fingers against the thin pages, preserving the words of her favorites with magic. If she wanted to write notes, she'd use a separate notebook. 

Mary loved books too, more than almost anybody. She'd grown up in a house with a dad who worked and no siblings. Locked up in a penthouse in France, she spent most of her lonely childhood reading upside-down on her bed, or at the park if she was feeling fancy. She'd translate the books to English, and then back to French. Then to Latin.

Even while Lily knew her, she sometimes would still translate books for comfort.

When Mary read, she loved it. She poured her heart and soul into everything she touched. It was as if she were Midas, turning the world into gold. Lily wondered if she could help it, the way she loved things with everything she had. Annotating the book in loopy cursive, all over the clean margins with a leaky quill. Folding the corners of the pages. Breaking the spine. Her books were an extension of her, with the circular imprints of coffee mugs still stuck on them like some kind of tattoo. 

If it were anybody else, Lily would've cringed at it. Their lack of care for something so intimate, the thoughts of another human being. But when Mary would lend her the books she'd read, Lily cherished it. The words, every single thought she'd had. She consumed it hungrily, as if starved, if only so she could dip into her mind. 

What are you thinking?

It's such an intimate question, isn't it? 

One people answer every day. Wordlessly. Desperately. It's such a human thing. The desire to be seen. The desire to share your soul without having to speak it aloud. For the fear that it's too dark, perhaps. 

She felt that she always knew with Mary. Like an instinct. Her problem was that it was too much for her. The intensity of it all. Her emotions, Mary's. The way it never quite fit into the perfect puzzle of the life she was set to build for herself. 

When she was younger she was one of those girls who made scrapbooks of her future wedding. She'd planned it out in excruciating detail. Lily wanted a long elegant white dress with billowing leaves and a flower crown. She'd wanted to write her own vows, and be sworn in by her father in his church. She'd wanted to marry a man.

It was too much to grapple with then; the desire to do otherwise. The loss of what she'd assumed to be her former self. The moment where she'd allowed herself to imagine it, even if just for a moment, were few and far in between. When they were younger it was often while her head was on Mary's shoulder, watching her write in her book on that bed of theirs. Wrapped up in Gryffindor-red quilts, the room lit by the way of candles. Still in their school uniforms, because even though class had ended hours ago dinner was thirty minutes away. 

She'd never felt more at home then. A cup of coffee in her hand, the whisper of Mary as she read aloud. The rain against the window, everything a haze of brown and black hues. A permanent sense of Autumn where the harsh winter never came and the splintering summer was far behind.

Slowly, but surely, her third year passed her by. And she wasn't thirteen anymore. 

⚘ ⚘ ⚘ ⚘

Fourth year was much of the same. Lily began to feel acutely and strangely as if she were wasting time. Like she could not stop it. The flowers would wither upon themselves outside her window, their room growing darker and darker. Her prayers became increasingly frantic. She wanted  more . 

Whenever she'd done something good, like coming out on top of her classes, it always felt as though there was somebody else doing infinitely more than her. 

She became obsessed with it. The idea of being the best, perfect. And even though she spent her days with her nose in a book, ripping holes in her tights and tearing and the wood of her wand with the stress of it all she couldn't convince herself that it was enough. At the end of the night she still fell asleep the same. The trees died outside. Rain kept coming, and never left. 

She'd hardly spoken that term, her lungs growing tired and thick with venom as if there were big flowery vines collecting bile on her tongue. 

It's hard to explain what made her that way. She isn't sure it was anything, really. They were all obsessive those days.

There was one day, a Monday in the middle of an early February winter, that she remembers quite well. The snow had settled and melted, letting the rain take over but leaving the bite of the cold. It was for Herbology, a class which she loved quite a bit. They had it with the Ravenclaw's that year, a respectable group if not a little ostentatious in nature. Not that it mattered. Gryffindors are notoriously audacious. 

They'd walked down as a group with Marlene and Remus' friends. Sirius lead the group, James at his side singing some ridiculous tune that made Mary and her roll their eyes at one another. Marlene made idle conversation with Peter, who hated Herbology and complained non-stop the entire way. Apparently, he found it hard to keep mere succulents alive. 

"I hate that Larkin is making us go into the forbidden forest. It should be, like, illegal." Mary moaned, pulling her boot from where it'd gotten stuck in the mud. The air was thick with dew from the rain that day, and the floor slipped beneath them as they walked downhill. They'd been yelping and grabbing one another with laughs, and the occasional protest since they left the dorm. Just a few minutes prior, Marlene had attempted to take Lily down with her from behind, prompting a small catfight that ended in laughs. 

From ahead, James said, "Oh come on Macdonald! You're a Gryffindor!"

"Have some bravery!" Sirius added boisterously, throwing his wand arm up and sending small fireworks into the air.

Lily scoffed, holding her books close to her chest and keeping close to Remus as to stay in his drying charm. Her legs were beginning to grow numb from where she'd put on black patterned tights under her school skirt. "There’s bravery in being scared." 

She'd quipped. James looked back at her then, for a long moment he just stared, as if he'd forgotten she was there. He did that often, on the rare occasions she was around him for more than a couple of minutes. He stared, a lot. Big, doe-eyed stares that she found hard to hold. Lily always did, stubbornly refusing to look away first. Even if it meant not being able to let her eyes linger on his face, or the way his hair hung in his eyes and stuck to his forehead from the precipitation. 

The laughter was gone, and with sincerity so genuine that it threw her off, "How so?" 

Her foot slipped, distracting her. Mary caught her quickly though, as if she already knew it would happen. "Isn't it obvious?" Lily asked

That was probably their first real conversation, the blanket of night often concealing her negative emotions for him if only just a little bit. It really wasn't her fault, truly. James Potter just looked  really good at night. She was fifteen. Sue her. 

Sirius looked back as well, he did a full three-sixty and walked backwards. "That's what bravery is, Evans." His voice was laced with that aristocracy that he was yet to shake, posh without even trying. Sirius tended to drag out his words, ending them with a long drawl that implied that he was right, and he knew it. ”Doing ‘scary’ things anyways.” 

"No, that's what stupidity is." Mary countered, looking down at him. She wasn't all that much taller than he was, but if she wanted to she had a way of towering over people. 

" Bravery is acknowledgement that something is dangerous, and doing it anyway if necessary despite that." Lily expanded, gesturing to the two of them with one hand, "You two endanger yourself, and everybody around you for a laugh. That's not brave. It's idiotic, and makes you a pathetic, arrogant, asshat." 

James' face broke out in the goofiest grin she'd ever seen, and she had to fight to keep her expression clear. It annoyed her how infectious it was. Contagious. Awful, like a disease. He batted his eyelashes and pouted dramatically. 

"You don't mean that Evans. I'm plenty brave, smart too. Very smart! Top of my-uh-" He hit Sirius and almost fell down in the process, "Pads! Aren't I top of the-" 

"Divination!" Sirius replied enthusiastically, laughing at his friends show. He looked back at Lily, who remained unimpressed. "He's top of divination." 

Remus, who had remained silent with amusement until then cut in, "Pete's top of divination. James isn't top of a class, but he's close in plenty. And he's considered the best chaser in Hogwarts, ever." He explained, always praising his friends, "Lily's right though. You're idiots. You didn't need to lie either."

In all honesty, Lily couldn't have cared less about quidditch. She was never good on a broom, and gave up immediately after flying classes. So she genuinely didn't know that James was particularly good at it. Distantly, she assumed he was. He was always getting patted on the back in the hallways, treated like some kind of celebrity. But she hadn't actually thought about it until then.

They reached the clearing after that, joining their other classmates where they'd gathered around Professor Larkin, cutting off their conversation. 

⚘ ⚘ ⚘ ⚘

For their assignment they were paired off and told to collect Lavender, as they'll need it for insect repellant later in the unit. She and Mary were paired together despite their surnames being distant in the alphabet. They often were, then, their professors giving up on other options lest they be subjected to the girls relentless protests and eventual persuasions. James and Peter were paired, Marlene and a Ravenclaw girl named Nicole, and of course Sirius and Remus. (Sirius often argued for his partnership just as vehemently as they did theirs.)

They huddled close as they walked off. Raindrops clung to the ends of the olive willow trees that covered the night sky. They found their project hard to pay attention to, both of them bursting out into fits of delighted screams as they toppled over one another trying to navigate the sprawling foliage beneath them. They clung to each other, as if blind, permanent smiles on their lips. 

The world had felt so empty. Everything possible and inevitable at the same time. The forest was lit with hundreds of glowing orbs varying in size, golden in hue. Surrounding them was a seemingly endless expanse of trees. Brimming with life, and tiny flowers all red and pink. The lavender bushes were rare, and hard to find when they weren't really concerned with searching. They did begin to fill up their baskets, eventually. The laughter died down and fell into idle conversation, inevitably turning to James and the others, who were a decent way away. 

"He's an arse." She commented, eyes drawn to Mary as she stared ahead. She looked nearly inhuman in that light, her curls highlighted with gold, her eyes deeper than the black lake. 

Mary hummed, "Of course he is. He's  James Fleamont Potter ," She accentuated in a posh overly-British accent. "Honestly. It's like there's no good boys at our school."

It was odd to hear her say that. Rather recently Mary had gained a plenty of admirers. Red-faced boys who interrupted their lunch to ask her out, or letters that came directly to her window. She always entertained them, much to Lily's annoyance. But, she supposed, she never actually said  yes . She'd flirt, promise to talk to them later, and never mention them again. 

"Cheers to that." 

"Why can't I just marry you? We'd be a hot couple."

Lily laughed, an honest, true laugh. One that got Mary laughing too, staring at her the entire time, awed. "We would," She shook her head, unable to ignore the way her cheeks burned all the way down to her neck.

“Talk of the town, and all that." That was true, at the very least. People would definitely talk.

"They'd hate us too," She said immediately, to herself more than anything. She thought often about how every facet of her being, the deepest parts of herself, are things that were hated. Lily couldn't win. The muggles she knew hated her for having magic, the witches and wizards for her muggle blood. They'd hate her for this too, she knew. Mary did too, she was sure. She wouldn't have been so blunt if she had any control over it. 

But she'd always been bare with her, completely stripped of all the layers on the outside of her being. Mary never had all of her. But in a way, what she did have were the truest parts. 

"Yes, well," Mary started, and Lily looked over at her. She had to squint in the darkness, but she'd strain her eyes just to see her. "We'd have lived nicely before that.”

They would've, too. That's the part she never got over. For years she was tormented by it. She'd see flowers in a shop window, and think, 'Mary would love these'. Lily had dreams about it a lot. Especially before they went into hiding. James' presence beside her in their best often quelled them, but when he was off during order missions all she saw when she slept alone was Mary. 

Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. 

What if you had chosen that life?

"Here." Lily took her wand from where it sat atop the bundles of lavender in her basket and held it's point to the bark of the nearest tree. Mary followed, close enough to send goosebumps all over her arms through her jumper. She performed a small charm controlled at the very end of her wand, causing it to warm as if it were on fire. 

The wood burned as she drew along it, leaving a heart in its wake. Inside: 'M+L' 

"People will think whatever suits them."

And it won't be us.

Doing that had made her feel all shaky, completely on edge in a way that she didn't understand at the time.

But the smile Mary gave her, radiant as the sun, burned all that to a crisp.

⚘ ⚘ ⚘ ⚘

The last weeks of their fourth year were pleasant. The three of them spent most the day in the library, and then outside lounging by the lake after exams. A strange feeling of calm washed over them, despite their exams that might have been the most settled they'd ever been. Lily was top of her class in charms and transfiguration as well as history of magic, but she came second to Severus in potions. Perhaps it was only fair that the energy crash came after she'd taken the exams, but it ended up being a good thing.

 She was no longer staying up the entire night into the afternoon the next day, falling asleep when the sun had barely started wan. 

Things were good. 

She was lying down on the grass with Mary and Marlene during the second to last week of term. Marlene was tossing a quaffle in the air, catching it lazily but never fumbling. Her tie was undone, her school shirt untucked and falling just above the skirt McGonagall eventually hassled her into wearing. Her own head was lying on Mary's stomach as she read with her arms extended above her head to shield her from the sun. Mary had her eyes closed, breathing deeply as if she were asleep while she ran her hands through Lily's hair. 

Laughter bubbled up and was carried over to them by the gentle breeze from an armature quidditch game that was being played by a group of second years with levitation spells.

"Lily?" A cool, quiet voice she'd know anywhere asked. When she sat up she was greeted with Severus, his hair in his eyes as if it were wind-blown from running.

"Hi Sev!" She'd smiled when she saw him, handing the book to Marlene and raising her hand to block the sun. The water glistened and winked in her peripherals. "Sit! Please?" 

She patted the grass beside her and scooted over to make room. Mary, who had sat up with the commotion, was staring him down with a look so bored you'd think he were nothing but drywall. Marlene was acutely disinterested as well, simply watching him as she leaned back on her palms. 

Severus crossed his arms over his chest. "No, Lily, Headmaster wants you in his office. He said it was urgent." His tone had a bite to it. Lily's eyebrows furrowed, she didn't think she'd done anything. 

Marlene began packing up her bag, "We'll go with you." Her Scottish accent was thick. 

"He asked me to escort her.

Marls paused mid-bend as she was reaching for her blazer. Mary, who had already gotten up spoke before she could.

"Okay? Do you need to see a speech pathologist? We're going too." 

Lily cut in to stop any bloodshed. "It's fine. I'll go with Sev. It's nothing, likely."

She'd felt an uncharacteristic level of calmness about it, one she wasn't sure she'd ever felt before while being called by an authority figure. They didn't scare her, necessarily, but she'd always felt the need to overcompensate so she didn't come off as rude or stand-off-ish. Always making jokes she hoped they thought were funny. 

The walk was silent at first. Which was uncomfortable. Silence never bothered her, but with Severus it often felt tinged with annoyance. It often made her feel like she'd done something wrong. "Alright?" Lily asked wearily, his uneasiness bleeding into her.

When she turned Severus was already looking at her. His black iris' locked on her from his peripherals, turning when she did, only looking slightly ashamed at being caught. "I hardly see you anymore." He'd replied, turning to face forward again with a red face. The wind had picked up and she had to wrap her arms over her chest. 

Lily hadn't expected that, genuinely. "You see me everyday." 

Marlene and Mary had been complaining relentlessly about how little  they saw  her . Aside from mealtimes, classes, and curfew where she was with them, all her free time was with Severus. She studied with him in the library, ditched walking with Remus to brew potions with him instead. She'd even started to wake up earlier so she could go to his dorm before breakfast. Literally every moment she could be with him, she was. That day had been one of the few that entire year that she'd spent time with the girls outside of lectures, and before bed. 

That was the first time, that she can remember, that she felt genuinely angry about something Severus had said to her. She'd been sad before, but then she could always find some way to justify it. 'He has a lot going on' . 

Even when his friends called her a mudblood in the hallways, even then. 

“They see you more. I'm your eldest friend, Lily. They don't even know you." 

Do you?

The fleeting thought came.

"Mary and Marlene are my friends too, Severus. Don't insinuate they aren't. Jealousy is beneath you." She said.

They didn't speak after that. His cheeks were red and his face was tinged with a scowl, and for once she didn't feel the need to apologize. 

She told him she'd see him tomorrow when they parted at the door, and he gave her a curt nod in response. 

⚘ ⚘ ⚘ ⚘

The gargoyle leading to Dumbledore's office opened without her speaking as soon as Severus left, leaving her no time to panic about not knowing the password. From above he spoke in a light, calming voice, "You may come up Ms.Evans. You're not in trouble." 

The staircase was steep, and the air was cold. It smelt old and new at the same time. Like dust on fresh plastic. Her new Mary Janes slipped a couple of times, having not been efficiently broken in yet. She did eventually get up though. 

Dumbledore's office was one she'd never been in before. She'd been in McGonagall's a few times for school related things, like an essay she'd written or when she was congratulated for being top of her classes. The Headmasters office was different. More comfortable in a way that made her uncomfortable. She rather liked the clean, almost clinical feel that McGonagall's had. There was nothing special or overwhelming about it, it was just an office with a desk and two chairs, a modest amount of photos and not much else. 

Dumbledore's was crowded and immediately too much. Trinkets and artifacts covered the floor, the walls were lined with portraits of old professors that seemed to stare directly at her. It may have been interesting under different circumstances, but all of it was overwhelming when she noticed that Dumbledore wasn't alone.

McGonagall was with him, as well as Slughorn, both of them looking solemn. The headmaster was completely serene, as always, but his eyes were ever so slightly saddened.

And Lily's heart  sank. 

Because she knew, immediately, as if a puzzle piece had snapped into place.

"Is he dead?" She'd asked, "My dad. He's dead. Isn't he?"

Nobody replied for a minute, but behind them her bags were packed neatly with her owl perched next to them in a Hogwarts issued cage.

⚘ ⚘ ⚘ ⚘

They put her on the train alone a week early. Officially, it was listed as a 'parental emergency', which Lily thought was a funny way of saying she only had one now. The day she left was a solemn one, where she walked from the headmasters office straight to bed, skipping dinner. Her bags were already packed, obviously, by the house elves. Which meant that they'd actually entered their room, and switched all their beds to their original positions. 

That was the first thing she cried over. A lot of people say that they didn't cry after hearing somebody like a parent had died. That it hit them years later, on a sunny street in a new life, perhaps. Technically Lily hadn't either. At the time it really was truly about the beds. She couldn't move them on her own, and in her daze she hadn't even thought to use magic. So she crumbled onto Mary's bed by the window, the one that still had a duvet unlike hers. The letter Petunia had sent to Dumbledore for their mother in her hand. 

Lily ,

Dads dead. Mum wants you home early. The funeral is in two weeks, she wants you to help us plan. 

Petunia. 

That's how Marlene found her, a weeping mess on a bed that wasn't hers with snot running down her nose. That was the only time she'd ever seen Marlene Mckinnion hug somebody. Even when she was with Meadows in the order, she never remembers them hugging. They kissed a couple of times, after battles or raids where everybody was too preoccupied with their newfound appreciation for life to care much. But Marls wasn't a hugger. She didn't refrain from draping herself over Lily and Mary while they all shared a bed, though. 

But when Marlene saw her she wordlessly climbed into the bed, now far too small for the two of them, and pulled her into her chest. "D' ya get expelled or sumthin?"

"My sister wrote."

Marlene rubbed circles into her back, easing the tension knots still sitting there from studying for exams. "And my dad died," She continued tonelessly, the tears falling without expression. 

While most of her school memories revolve around Mary, she was always very fond of Marlene. One of her best friends, till the end, she supposes. They got closer during the war, when their mis-matched puzzle pieces were worn down, and everybody had jagged edges. Something in her died a little when she heard what happened to Marlene and her family. 

Marlene tried so hard to be good despite the darkness she felt she possessed, but in the end it didn't really matter much. 

"That's shit." She'd said, and Lily laughed.

She never told Marlene how her dad died, or how she knew, or what happened the summer afterwards. Marlene never asked and Lily never felt like talking about it. There was something comforting about that security. Marlene said to her once, over whisky after a fight with Cas, that she didn't ask questions because people would tell her if they wanted her to know. Lily always admired that mindset.

Mary and Marlene were similar in a lot of ways. Mean when they wanted to be, reckless when they could. Mary would chew you up, and Marlene would spit you out. But that's one thing that made them polar opposites in Lily's mind, just in the way that she felt with them. There were no secrets with Mary, everything was stripped down to the fabric of her soul. But Marlene understood that there are some things that you just can't speak about. A lot of them learned that in battle, but Marlene was raised in war. 

The greatest luxury, as it turned out then, was not talking about it. Not saying how her dad had been sick for years. How in recent years he began to hold his podium at the church with a white-knuckle grip and deep purple painted under his eyes. That he drank more than communion wine and sometimes he looked at her like he was scared of her. 

He was a good man . She'd tell herself. She really believed that. 

He always bought her and Tuney flowers on Valentine's day, and let them dance on the tips of his toes. He kept his drinking a secret.

Then he did for his family what he felt was best and went out on pills in a hospital bed. 

⚘ ⚘ ⚘ ⚘