How Snow Falls

Lily’s problems with setting up her sister’s engagement party began with the garland strings, or more specifically the color of the garland strings. The spools had been delivered to the doorstep in boxes on the eve of the party, as agreed upon by the party business from London. She opened the box in the living room, Petunia anxiously pattering around the house. She had not been expecting something to be amiss with the order.

Petunia’s engagement theme was something along the lines of ‘gilded christmas,’ gold and velvet, crystal and diamonds. The garland strings were supposed to have been gold like many of the decorations Petunia had carefully selected, to accentuate and bring the whole theme together. 

But they were green. 

Petunia’s horrified shriek had rattled the family pictures on the wall when she set her sights on them, and while Lily’s ears rang with her sister’s screaming. Beside her in the kitchen Lily’s father startled, the mug of tea fell from his hand, and Lily, quick reflexes (maybe she should have tried out for Quidditch in her school years), went to catch it—but her hand was too slow. The cup tipped in her hands, tea sloshing over her palms.She yelped, fumbling to catch the mug, but it slipped from her grasp. The china hit the floor with a sharp clatter, shards scattering across the tile. Tea splashed in every direction, soaking their trousers.

“Bugger it,” her dad cursed, dropping to his knees as he went to gather shards with his bare hands.

“Oh Dad, don’t-” Lily stepped over the disaster, grabbed the broom from the pantry before she returned. “Here let me,” she said. The glass tinkled as she brushed the mess into the dust pan, which glistened with the wetness of her Dad’s breakfast tea sloshing in as well. 

“Thanks, dear,” he said, standing with a groan, muttering something about “dodgyknees” and “getting too old for this.”

“Sounds like something went wrong in the living room,” he observed, bracing his hands on his hips and casting a glance over his shoulder, though he made no move to actually investigate the situation.

Lily knew all too well what the situation was and winced. She’d opened the box hours ago, and nearly choked when she’d seen the garish mistake and promptly retaped it. Best if Petunia were to find out herself, she had thought.

“Yes,” She said, deadpan, “a real state of emergency. ”

Her Dad shot her a look that could strip paint from the walls. “Don’t start. Today’s already going to be a lot for your sister, and your mother… and by extension, me,”He muttered the last part like he was preparing to get a headache just by thinking about it. He looked back toward the living room again, eyes narrowing slightly like he could picture and dreaded the evening ahead of them. The throngs of people that would deign his halls and eat out the contents of the fridge. “I’m half-tempted to lock myself in the garage and pretend I don’t exist for the next few hours.” 

Her lips quirked up. “Who’s getting smart now?”

“As a beneficiary of this event, I get to be. You, on the other hand, are a freeloader and therefore have no say. It’s only polite to keep your clever comments to yourself.”

Bite her tongue? Flee the scene of this impending, dastardly party? Lily thought with a smile that she could manage either or.

Her Dad sighed after a moment and took the filled dust pan from her hand, tossing it in the bin. “You really should go and help,” no more joking now, his tone turned serious, and his expression tight, “If I get involved, there will be hell to pay.”

“And you think if I help there will be any less?” She scoffed at the idea. 

Her dad’s smile tinged sadly. “It might be a start. Your sisters, Lily. And I know sisters bicker and quarrel- hell knows I’ve had my fair share of sibling scraps, but- it’s been different. You know that. You know that.”

Lily looked down at the streaks of wetness on the floor ducking from her Dad’s gaze, the malty smell of tea drifted to her nose and her expression twitched. 

“Think of it this way,” he came to her side, clothes rustling as he blotted at the tiles with paper towels, soaking the spill up. “It’s Christmas. Your sister is getting married soon, and this can be a good time to patch up… differences.” He paused then, wrapped his arm around Lily’s head until his hand met her forehead and pressed his lips to her hair. “The differences aren’t your fault, dear, but that doesn’t mean you can’t overcome them. Go help Petunia.”

Lily leaned into her Dad’s side for a moment, letting the feeling wash over her as her stomach churned.  She wanted to argue, to insist that space between her and Petunia was not just necessary but preferred by now. It had become a habit, something they’d settled into. She remembered when they’d been close—when they shared a bedroom, even though Petunia was nearly three years older. The Evans’ spare room had gone unused because Lily and Petunia preferred to share, giggling into the night. But those memories felt like they were gathering dust now, like old, forgotten books in a Bookshop.

It was Christmas. Her sister was about to get married. Things were not easy with her sister, but maybe they could be easier. Maybe they could find that closeness again—reminisce over the shared room.

Lily groaned into her Dad’s side, relenting. She knew this was not to be the last, nor the least of her problems. She came to a stand, walking into the living room where Petunia was struggling with the garland in the box, and offered her a hand.

Oh, she’d been all too correct. 

On top of the apparently abhorrent color (though Lily couldn’t bring herself to mind too much, she rather liked them), they were rough. Plastic needles sliced into Lily’s hands as she draped them over the fireplace with precarious balance on the wobbling step stool. 

“Higher!” Petunia’s voice cut through the living room like the crack of a whip, “A little bit more to the left- no my left!”

Lily’s hand ached from the constant adjustments, but she didn’t say anything. She bit her tongue, breathing in slowly—once, twice, three times—before re-stretching the garland with the patience she was rapidly losing.

The scent of pine mingled with cinnamon from a candle flickering on the mantle, and for a fleeting moment, Lily felt herself relax into the warmth of the room. But as soon as her thoughts wandered, Petunia’s voice was there again, cutting through the air like shards of glass.

“Lily, you’re not even listening! It’s too low. Do it again!” Petunia stood on the ground behind her, her arms folded across her thin frame and lips pressed into a thin line. Her meticulously styled and short hair gleamed blonde under the warm light, and she huffed and scowled, twisting her face into all sorts of contortions as she directed Lily this way and that.

Lily’s muscles tensed as Petunia’s voice rang out, each command striking her chest like a stone. Part of her wanted to snap, to tell Petunia where she could shove her garland, but another part—her father’s voice echoing in her mind—forced her to bite back the words. Breathe, Lily. Just breathe. She’d hoped that if she just kept working, if she just kept silent, she could finish and then go back to studying or at least find a quiet corner to recover.

But no. Instead, she was trapped— tangled in garland, Petunia’s shrill orders, and the biting needles.

“Dammit,” Lily muttered past the tape roll in her mouth as her skin slivered on another jutting, fake pine needle. This was the last stretch of the string, and if she could just suffer through hanging them (and Petunia’s badgering) then she could get back to more important things, like studying, or finding a suitable outfit for the party, or maybe a plausible excuse to escape it.

If she could just pin this bend…

She stretched further, barely managing to keep her balance as the stool teetered dangerously. She should have stopped. She should have told Petunia she’d had enough. But she didn’t.

Lily’s foot slipped, and before she could stop herself, she was falling.  Her arms flailed, grabbing for anything—anything—to catch herself. Her hand hit the garland, but it offered no support, sending them both crashing to the floor.

She slammed to the ground with a heavy thud, the garland tangling around her like a mess of green and gold. A glass ornament rolled away, its delicate tinkling sound echoing in the otherwise silent room. Lily lay in a heap on the floor, decorations circling her as if she were the eye of the storm.

Petunia’s horrified shriek split the silence, loud enough to rattle the family frames on the wall. “LILY!”

Ah there’s the ear-splitting thunder, she thought as she struggled to right herself and simultaneously recover from her spill. 

“Petunia-” her tone was growing in frustration and had enough bite to sink into skin, but reconsidered if only to save herself the hassle,“Just- help me up.”

Petunia’s face contorted as she yanked Lily to her feet, her voice tight with barely contained anger. Lily, now facing her, was acutely aware of the height difference—Petunia was a few inches taller, her gaze icy as she surveyed the damage.

“Now look what you’ve done!” Petunia said, bending down to snatch the tangled garland in a panic. Her hand shook as she grabbed the twisted strands, and Lily saw the tightness around her mouth. “We’re going to have to start all over,” she added, but there was a tremor in her voice—frustration, yes, but something more. Pressure. Fear of judgment.

The harsh glitter from the garland shimmered against the warm, golden light of the candles, only reminding her of how far from perfect the party was turning out to be. 

Petunia, of course, seemed oblivious to her sister’s silent seething as she meticulously unwrapped the garland, eyes narrowed in concentration.

"You know," she said so calmly, so rationally she could have been talking about the weather or trying to talk someone down  “there’s another way to fix this if you’d just let m-”

Petunia whipped around so fast that between one blink in and next she hung millimeters in front of Lily, glowering, “Don’t you even dare finish that sentence.”

Lily’s chest tightened as she stood in a stalemate with her sister. Pale blue eyes locked onto jade green that sliced with an angry, intense heat. No tinge of trust was in her sister’s gaze, no hint of softness or understanding. Just the cold, polished steel of resentment. It was like looking at a stranger across an expansive divide, and it widened in that moment along the gaps and clefts of Lily’s ribs, and no matter what she attempted to do to bridge that distance, it only ripped apart further.

Where had those two little girls in the shared bedroom gone? Lily thought dimly, When had that protective older sister disappeared across the hall?  And when had Lily stopped looking for her to come back?

“This evening,” Petunia wrung the garland in between her fingers tighter, and Lily caught the faintest tremble in both eyes and gaze, “has to be perfect. It has to be normal . Vernon and his entire family came all this way to celebrate us, and I’m not going to risk your- aberrations- blowing up in my face in front of them. No freak tricks, Lily. No magic ruining everything, like always. Just hang the damn garland—and keep your twig out of sight. Do you understand me?”

Lily’s frustration gagged at the back of her throat like a clothed knot shoved there, and her fingers clenched into fists enough to add to the cuts that the pine needles had already lacerated into her palms. Lily forced her hands to relax, and brushed the pine needles off her arms, and ignored the sting.

Her sister had become even more of a despot in her wedding planning.

"Fine," Lily snapped, spinning on her heel, she stormed past her Dad as he trotted down the stairs, and gave him such a menacing glower that he paused in his tracks as she made her way to the door and slammed it so hard that it reverberated into her skull.

In the kitchen, the mugs on the shelf rattled before splitting in half, one by one. The sharp sound of popping ceramic detonated, and Lily faltered for a moment on the porch, eyes wide. She clenched her fists and muttered under her breath, “Even the mugs can’t stay intact here.”

Mr. Evans would find them later, when he went to soothe his eldest daughter’s nerves about meeting her soon-to-be in-laws. But he’d be unable to serve her signature favorite—chamomile with milk—and unsuccessful in his attempts to calm her.

*****

Lily, in the meantime, walked into Cokeworth, and hardly knew where her feet carried her in her fuming as her breath hit and froze against her face, again and again like a hammer. 

No one seemed to be on the street today, and that was probably for the best. She didn’t want to grimace at the neighbours in a poor attempt to smile, nor did she want to hear their whispers behind her back, repeating years old gossip that she’d been a delinquent in her youth. That she’d been sent off to a behavioural boarding school because the strangest things used to happen when that girl lost her temper…  the air heated and things caught on fire…

She didn’t notice that the footprints behind her melted into slush and puddles, but did notice the cold wracking into and up her jumper.

Her teeth ground together.

She tried. She tried , damn it.

Petunia was determined to resent her and Lily- Lily was cursed to keep trying to win her over only for her efforts to be shot down again and again.

And it felt hopeless and bitter and maddening to continue chasing Petunia in this circle that neither one wanted to be a part of. 

The little homes changed to charming shops and pubs and cobblestone streets and Lily looked up finally, very familiar with the pothole shy of her left foot and the alley to the right. She huffed as she looked up and came across the familiar sign of Evan’s Haven , and thought that was especially fitting for how her day was shaping up to be. Her mother, oblivious to the squabble with Petunia, was buried in order entries and didn’t notice Lily slip past like a shadow, silent thanks to wet, rubber-soled shoes charmed for stealth.

These were among some of the perks of paying attention in charm’s class . She could call for silent shoes at her bidding. 

Lily did not want to talk to her mother, didn’t want to hear what she had to say in Petunia’s defense, and didn’t want to think of what was expected of her.

Study your magic. Help around the shop. Fake smiles, endure Petunia’s sneering remarks, pretend like none of this suffocating mess was happening. Just behave, like a good little girl. Be who they want you to be.

Oh and most importantly- keep the witchcraft to yourself.

Wonderful. It was all wonderful, and Lily was absolutely fed up with it all.

Lily stalked the maze-like shelves of the bookstore and made a beeline for a trolley ladder that had been abandoned in the aisle which had a chain secured at the front with a painted sign hanging from the front that read, ‘ employees only’ , in Petunia’s elegant, cursive, to which Lily scowled at. She unhooked the chain and wheeled it along with her. Lily’s neck craned as she looked again for those landmarks that instinctively guided her like a map. And when she spotted that familiar ceramic garden gnome she nearly tripped over the wheels and onto her face in shock. 

She halted in her tracks abruptly, stopping the trolley as her fingers clenched around the cold steel of the handle, and her hair fell in front of her face. Her chest gave a painful lurch, the memory still so fresh that it caught her off-guard. 

Just yesterday, she'd rounded that same corner and slammed into Potter—wild-haired, smug as ever with that infuriating smirk that had been such a welcome surprise and highlight of Lily’s return to Cokeworth and made everything seem easier to face, or rather bear. 

He’d come for that Belrose manual. Probably to give to some lucky witch he’d met at the ministry, having long forgotten about Lily and the school yard crush he’d had, and strolled off with all the ease of a boy grown up.

The thought left a dull ache in her chest, one she hadn’t expected. It was foolish, really. He’d grown up. Moved on. And here she was, realizing too late what could've been. But it didn't change a thing. Not for him. Not for her.

When it came to Lily and James, it was only ever going to end one way.

Lily straightened her shoulders, a mournful exhale bubbling out of her mouth, and moved along the corridors of books, her steps deliberate. The maze-like shelves pressed in around her. At the Mystery aisle, she parked the trolley and climbed to the top rung.

Her fingers brushed the rough wood of the top shelf. Leaning in, she stretched onto her tiptoes, breath hitching. Almost there—

Heat from the vents warmed the wood beneath her touch. Her fingers patted along until they met soft fabric. Triumph flickered through her, and she clamped down on the urge to laugh.

Lily pulled the hacky-sack-weighted pouch of Floo Powder into her palm and clutched it to her chest as she leapt down from the trolley. The floor barely thudded beneath her silent shoes.

She darted through the labyrinthine shelves, the musty scent of parchment and dust clinging to the air. The boiler room wasn’t far. Faster, faster—

She rounded a corner and—

“ Oh !” She yanked herself sideways to avoid a shuffling figure. The air whooshed between them as she just barely missed collision.

“Sorry, Mr. Ghove!” Lily called, jogging backward for a moment. “Didn’t see you there!”

Mr Ghove did not respond. Lily glanced over her shoulder to spy him only to catch sight of his weathered face- cold and impassive. He wasn’t wearing his usual bottled spectacles, any good-natured humor written into his wrinkles hardened into a stony, unwavering stare.

She gave a weak slant of a smile. She probably deserved that for rushing around- really had she not learned anything in the last two days?

She slowed her pace with a build up in her throat, and did not look back at Mr Ghove as she made her way to the locked boiler room and slipped downstairs.

The boiler room was dark and warm, Lily fumbled for the light switch, flicking in on, she was met with storage shelves filled with cardboard boxes and paper, the boiler and beside it the thrumming furnace. 

She sighed, weariness pulled on her bones. Lily extracted the Floo Powder from her pockets and knelt before the barred gate of the furnace, its heat rising to meet her face. She took out her wand and with a practiced wave she flicked it before the furnace. The gate swung open with a groan and she tossed the Floo Powder inside. 

With the motion came the hunch of a memory, years ago, when she was still in Hogwarts.

A boy stood before her with green flames biting the hems of his robes, leaving no singe marks. 

“Pott-” She’d started, but his hand clamped down on her mouth. His glasses gleamed in the light of the full moon, and he looked frantic.

“Evan’s there’s no time to explain, I need you to come with me-”

“Whavm? Whavmarvyotalingavout? Lefgoovmeeff!”

“It’s Snape!” he rasped, pulling her from the bed and toward the fire, “he’s in trouble! There’s no one else! If I take my hand off you, will you promise not to scream?”

Lily narrowed her gaze, wary of the boy who had somehow broken past the girls’ dormitory wards. She’d interrogate him about that later. She nodded, and he sighed in relief, dropping his grip next to her own hand.

“Good,” he said, sounding exhausted. “Listen- the spell on the wards won’t hold long. Floo Networks are in short- are the Indolent’s way of traveling around the country. Throw this powder into the fire-” he pulled sand from a pouch in his robe. “Step into the flames and say ‘The Shrieking Shack’ loud and clear. You got that?”

“Yes I-” 

“Good. We need to go. I’ll follow after you,” He said. 

So without further ado, and further context, Lily flooed away into the night.

And the sight that met her was burned into her memory.

Lily opened her eyes again, not realizing that she closed them in the first place, to see the flames had tempered and shifted green inside the furnace. A weary smile tugged at her lips. 

She couldn’t floo back to Glasgow from here, the furnace doors were too small for her to crawl into, Lily wasn’t even going to attempt that as she had just a shred of dignity remaining. And beside the apparition point was just outside, but going from England’s midlands to Glasgow was a jump too far and too many, even for her, so she settled for the next best thing.

Lily poked her face past the gates and into the fire, the flames tickled and whisped against her hair and face, and she said loudly, “Dorcas Meadowes flat,”

The flames frenzied and roared in her ears. Lily scrunched her face up as soot blew into her face, gritty against her skin. The roaring was almost like the hum of a landline, a ringing sound that made her gut sink lower. She peered into the emerald flames, heart pounding. What if Dorcas wasn’t there? What if she was out—at the boutique, grocery shopping, or, Merlin forbid, on a date?

When the furnace seemed to dim and Lily’s hope sank. She caught wind of an echo.

“Lily? Is that you?”

Dorcas’s face began to appear slowly, and at first, Lily could only make out vague, shifting shapes. She held her breath, waiting for the detail to settle, watching as Dorcas moved the long, black slinks of her hair over her shoulder and she peered presumably into her own Floo green fire with wide, dark eyes.

After a month of only owling letters, the sight of her friend—however blurry—was like a breath of fresh air. Her chest tightened, and tears welled at the corners of her eyes. “Hey,” she choked out, voice trembling, “It’s been a while. I—I don’t even know where to start.”

“Oh my- Lily,” Dorcas’ face suddenly took sharp detail, so much so that Lily could make out the tiny nick of a scar that ran along her friend’s chin. Lily couldn’t help but smile despite herself, overcome by how much she missed this girl—how much she missed this detail. She knew it probably contributed to the fact that Dorcas had leaned her own face further into the hearth, the focal point of magic focused and had sharpened the frame of her face with life-like clarity. “What is wrong with you? Marlene would say you look like shit.”

Lily laughed weakly, some of the tension easing from her shoulders. She wiped her eyes, “I feel like it right now. I just… I needed to talk to you, and an owl didn’t cover it. And you don’t deserve a Howler of me ranting, ya know?”

“‘Course,” Dorcas replied, tone as casual as ever, as though sticking your face into an interdimensional fire portal was a perfectly normal way of calling up a friend on a bad day instead of going to a phone booth. Lily briefly wondered if the halfblood had a phone set up in her apartment and made a mental note to ask her later. Might be easier than sneaking off into the basement of a bookstore to talk. “So- what’s up? How’s the living arrangement been?”

Lily groaned at this and dropped her face into the soot piles, barely caring about how she’d regret it later.

“That bad, huh?”

She sighed in response, her frustration hanging in the air. “Yes. Petunia’s engagement party is tonight, and she’s been an absolute monster to deal with. My parents have been meddling and prodding me to make nice. Studying is nearly impossible. I bumped into Potter, that’s its own can of worms, and I don’t have anything to we-”

“Wait, waitwaitwait. You bumped into who now?”

Lily closed her eyes. “Don’t make me repeat it. It’s bad enough to say it out loud once.”

“Damn- so, he came into the bookstore then? Did he know you were there?”

Lily didn’t question how Dorcas had guessed where James and she had bumped into each other. It was well-known that Lily became something of a hermit when she visited Cokeworth, for a multitude of reasons. She blinked at the second question, puzzled for a moment, “It was a complete accident actually. Why? You think he planned it?”

Dorcas shrugged dismissively, her expression crossed and she huffed, “How am I supposed to understand how that twisted-on head of his works? But you- what did you think?”

Here, Lily hesitated, though for what she didn’t know. She wanted to check the security of her setting. But that was a ridiculous, insecure urge. “It was nice,” she admitted, her voice quiet. “He looked good- happy. It just brought back a lot of memories…”

Dorcas said nothing at first, and for a few moments, the crackling fire was the only sound between them. Then, in that silence, Dorcas's voice broke through, as dry as ever, but there was a hint of concern she didn’t bother to hide. “Are you sure you’re okay with it Lils?” Her flame and char eyes were so fine tuned to seek and understand detail that Lily had to look away. “Not telling him?” 

Lily pinched the inside of her teeth with the corner of her lip and swallowed around the first words that came to mind. ““No. He didn’t need that on his plate atop of everything else. And like I said- he’s happy. I think- I think he’s moved on now, and that’s for the best. That’s what I wanted. And it would be really selfish of me to go and undo that.””

Never mind the fact that she had absorbed every second she had spent with him, drinking in his presence like he was the only water in a desert. Never mind that she’d almost followed him out of the shop that day, a weak moment she would never admit aloud, to Dorcas, or to herself. 

Lily sighed, but the weight in her chest wouldn’t lift. “Potter’s the least of my problems now. It’s long since been resolved. Everything will go back to normal once I’m back in Glasgow…”

Dorcas’s brows arched in an inquisitive way, “You’re coming back? When?”

“As soon as I pack my bags and make my rounds at the party tonight. Everything except the decorating has been finished. Actually…” she checked her watch, “I need to go pick up the catering soon. Mum and Dad will understand. Being here—well, I’ve had more than enough of Cokeworth for a while.” Her voice shifted ever so slightly, like she was weighing her words carefully. “Speaking of which, I need a favour.”

“Aren’t I already house-sitting your flat, and pet-sitting that ugly beast of yours?”

“Technically,” Lily pointed out, trying to resist the urge to both eyeroll, “you and Marlene are crashing at my place while you remodeling that damn kitchen of yours, and Marlene is feeding my cat. This favor is something more up your alley…”

“I’m listening…”

Lily grinned, and it was probably one of the easiest she’d given since talking with Potter, “Do you remember that muggle magazine we read about Holly Harp?”