BITTERSWEET AFTERTASTE
BITTERSWEET AFTERTASTE
31st August 1977
August slipped away like a bottle of wine
‘Cause you were never mine
Your back beneath the sun
Wishin’ I could write my name on it
Will you call when you’re back at school?
I remember thinkin’ I had you
But I can see us lost in the memory
Dear Lily,
Please write back to me
Please acknowledge me
I never meant what I said that day- had you ignoring me, you hanging out with them, I can’t bear it anymore Lily.
Please
Please
Please
I’m sorry.
Severus
Lily scanned through the letter carefully one more time, her bottom lip caught in her teeth. She had been true to her word. She hadn’t said a word to Severus since that day, since he had called her that word. A sharp pang of guilt burnt in her chest as she considered what to do, what to say.
Somehow everything had gotten so twisted, so confused and turned around. Lily hadn’t meant to- truly, well. She had thought that perhaps Severus would come around. Understand that the didn’t have to be like all the other pureblooded pricks that he clung to the edges of. Lily had thought that she would be enough, that she could convince him that he was better than all that bullshit. Apparently she hadn’t tried hard enough.
Lily let out a slow breath, squeezing her eyes shut and stuffing the letter in the bottom of the trunk. It was a desperate call for help, a plea for Lily to come and save Severus once again. But how often could she risk her life just for Severus to go crawling back to those who had tossed him aside? Lily knew how they treated him, she knew how little they appreciated Severus.
And, well…
“Stop being such a goddamn hero Lils,” Lily could practically hear Mary’s voice, and she could imagine her friend as though she were in the very room with her. “He’s nothing but a tiny dicked arsehole. You deserve better. You get to have better.”
Lily would deal with the letter later.
Lily would deal with everything later. She didn’t need Severus nor his problems in her life anymore. Despite everything, despite the horror and the terror that had gripped the wizarding world for the last year, Lily didn’t owe him that. She didn’t owe him any of it.
Lily wished that they were still the kids that they had been when they first arrived at Hogwarts. Everything had been so much simpler back then, and she often looked back at that time with an aching fondness for the girl she had been. Fierce. True. Honest. Severus leaving her and somehow broken her- it hadn’t just been Severus. Her father dying, her sister marrying that ogre Vernon… Lily had no one left anymore.
1st November 1977
A version of Romeo and Julliet
This time with adidas sneakers and cigarettes
A couple of kids trying to put down a safety net
They twisted the story so that they can bring glory to it
I love you, will you marry me?
Oh what a shame we gotta pay for reality?
Ain't it sad, sad, sad…
Lily rapped her knuckles on the door to the boys dormitory, tapping her fingers rhythmically against her thigh. It had been too much, all too much. She had to find Remus, Remus would understand. After all, he had been there for her when she had told him… when she had told him about her dad, when she had told him about Severus, when she had told him how abandoned she was. How truly on her own she was.
Instead, a confused looking James opened the door.
“Shit!”
Lily swore, grimacing at her violent reaction to James. Not that James minded, he took the greeting well within his stride. After all, Lily’s usual frosty hostility towards James had become somewhat an inside joke amongst the entirety of the school. Lily wasn’t entirely sure what it was about the Gryffindor boy that made her react in that way. It’s just- James had everything that Lily craved. He had two parents, who thought the world of him. He had doting friends that trusted him, who believed in him. He had the whole world at his fingertips, meanwhile Lily had watched as her mum and dad had scraped to get by year after year. Petunia, one of the few people that Lily had to depend on, treated her like she was some kind of freak.
“You looking for something, Lils?” James asked, leaning against the door, crossing his arms across his chest. He had a twinkle in his eye that Lily hadn’t seen for a while, a soft curled smirk that she had grown accustomed to since her time in joining the school. Lily blinked, both a familiar and unfamiliar feeling blooming in her chest.
It caused her to burst into tears.
Unsure of what else to do, James wrapped his arms around Lily in an awkward hug, pulling her in so that she was tucked into his chest. It was oddly comforting, as Lily sobbed into his shoulder, her wet cries muffled by his neck. James said nothing, gently pushing the door closed behind him with his foot, and rubbing soothing circles across her back.
“Hey,” he spoke softly, scared that he might spook her. Lily felt like a right twat. “Hey, it’s alright.” Lily lifted herself away, shaking her head. She could feel James staring intently down at her, and she tilted her head up to look at him.
James had always been good looking. It was annoying really, his deep tanned skin, his black hair that he had still been unable to tame, his brown eyes that looked like shards of amber. He had been that way ever since first year. It felt like a cruel joke when James had chased after her. Lily wasn’t pretty. Not that she was ugly it was just- well, Lily wasn’t like Mary.
Mary was a goddess on legs. She radiated confidence and self-assuredness. She was stunning, a beauty and Mary knew it. And Lily wasn’t pretty like Marlene either. Marlene, who had golden hair that looked like it had been kissed by the sun, Marlene whose figure had always remained lean and athletic, Marlene who was tall, elegant, and graceful in ways Lily could never be. Lily had carrot coloured hair that everyone teased, she had a chubby figure that she had never been able to lose, she had freckles that spotted her face and somehow marked her. She wasn’t pretty like the other girls.
But still, but still…
James had picked her.
It wasn't that she thought James was a bad person. In fact, ever since she had fallen out with Severus James had gone out of his way to be sweet to her, to be kind. And she had certainly noticed the absence of his pig headishness last year. Last year- well, Lily wasn't sure how to put it. James had been distracted, in the sense he hadn't been chasing her round and round for practically her hand in marriage. Instead, he had been more relaxed. Calmer, if James could ever be considered calm. He had treated her like a friend, like a person rather than a thing that he wanted, a thing he needed to have like him, a thing he needed to impress. It hadn't gone unnoticed by Lily. If anything, she had started to like this version of James. Not that she would ever admit it, of course.
Without even thinking twice about it, Lily leaned up and pressed her mouth to his, a nervous tingle racing up and down her spine. James jerked his head back sharply, and let go of her, regarding Lily as though he had never seen her before in his entire life. Lily wanted the ground to swallow her hole.
“I’m sorry- I thought, it was stupid,” Lily cursed herself internally, allowing a beetroot blush to flush her cheeks, all the way down her neck. James shook his head vehemently, his eyes widening at Lily’s hasty apology.
“No- NO!” James rushed, tripping over his words in an eager attempt to get them all out. “It’s alright Lily, honestly.” Lily quirked her eyebrows upward, and pressed her mouth into a firm thin line. James let out a breath, and ran a hand through his hair. “I just…” he trailed off and Lily turned as if to leave. She was embarrassed enough as it was. “Wait, please!” James hurried on. “It’s not that I didn’t want to kiss you,” and Lily paused with her hand on the door. “It’s just, you’re sad, clearly, and not thinking, and well… It’s not how I imagined it.”
The last sentence had Lily stopping in her tracks. “Not how you imagined it?” Lily had never thought of James of thinking anything through. The past six years had made that evident. She turned back to face him, and he was hopping from foot to foot, clearly torn on how to reveal this secret aspect of himself to her. This vulnerable aspect.
“No,” James started slowly, quietly. “I thought, well I would have taken you on a date first. Obviously. And then- then I would have taken you to the astronomy tower. Looked at the stars? That’s when I would have kissed you.”
It made Lily’s heart flutter. All this time, all this time James had genuinely liked her. It hadn’t been some tease, some ploy, some act of pity. He had liked Lily.
“Ask me then,” Lily breathed, holding her ground. James studied her, confused. “Ask me again.”
“D-Do you want to go on a date with me?” James asked cautiously, waiting for Lily to inevitably shoot him down.
Lily grinned back at him.
“Sure Potter.”