The first time Lily had a panic attack, she had no idea what was happening. All she could process is that it felt impossible to breathe. She thought she was going to die. Petunia had just called her a freak for making it snow inside their bedroom and left to tattle to their mum. Lily was confused and hurt, she had no idea what just happened. She hadn’t meant to do it, Petunia just mentioned she had wished it snowed all year round and Lily had agreed with her and all of a sudden, it was flurrying.
Maybe Petunia was right, maybe she was a freak. What was their mum going to do when she found out? Would she send her away? To some place for weirdos?
Her thoughts began to race and her breath became more and more shallow. Her heart felt like it was about to explode out of her chest. Lily started to hyperventilate, unable to steady herself long enough to calm down. Her ears were ringing and her vision blurred, the only thing running through her mind was her panic. It didn’t stop for what felt like ages but when she could catch her breath again, the clock said only five minutes had passed. She didn’t understand what had happened but she knew that if anybody found out, it would only be another reason for them to consider her a freak. She vowed to keep it to herself and never let it happen again.
Months went by and Lily was able to move past the episode and convince herself it was a one time thing. But half a year later, the anxiety reared its ugly head once more. Lily was in her first year at Hogwarts, enjoying the newfound freedom and understanding of who she was. She missed her mum and dad and Tunnie but she loved learning everything she could about magic and the new world she had been thrust into. Her new school hadn’t been without its challenges and hardships but it was all worth it.
She was in the middle of packing for Winter break when an owl came through the dormitory window. It dropped a letter into Lily’s trunk and flew off. Lily excitedly tore it open, recognizing the handwriting as her sister’s. Petunia barely wrote back anymore, despite weekly letters arriving from her younger sister. Most recently, Lily had written to ask what she wanted for Chanukah. She was overjoyed to see that her sister had responded this time, maybe enticed by the idea of a present. The initial thrill of getting the response was immediately diminished when she started to read it. Petunia had written back to tell her sister that what she wanted more than anything this year was for Lily to stay at ‘that freak school’ over break instead of coming home. She wrote all about how she didn’t want Lily stealing away their parents’ attention like always and that everybody would be much better off if she wasn’t there this year.
Lily felt the same feeling from the June day she had tried so hard to forget. Her breathing became laboured and the room around her began to spin. She collapsed onto her bed, burying her face into her pillow as she sobbed. Of course, this only made it harder to breathe and she quickly had to lift her head up once more. Just like last time, her vision blurred and all she could see was the various hues of crimson from around the dormitory. She tried to focus her eyes and make something out. Finally, she was able to make out the shape of Marlene’s bed curtains. She looked around the room and counted the beds, slowly coming back down to earth.
A few minutes later, she felt slightly better and could at least feel her heart rate go back to normal. She lay down on her four poster bed and tried to process everything that had just happened, letting tears fall freely.
By her third year at Hogwarts, Lily began to see the attacks coming. They had become more frequent, happening whenever her emotions became too overwhelming or the environments around her were too stimulating. She still didn’t know why they only happened to her or how to stop them but she had at least learnt how to conceal their existence from her friends and handle them on her own. She realized after the first few times that focusing on her senses helped make it easier to ground herself. She decided to make it a sort of game that she could always have in her back pocket in case the panic overtook her.
So, when Lily got back a Dreadful on a Transfiguration test that she had studied for relentlessly, she made her way to the bathroom as fast as possible before anybody could notice anything was wrong. And she began to play her little game. She looked around for five things that she could see. It didn’t matter what they were, she just needed to focus on her surroundings and name five things. She counted them out.
1. A toilet cubicle.
2. A sink.
3. A mirror.
4. Her own reflection.
5. The windows.
The thought of the test came back into her mind and the hyperventilating threatened to start but she refused to focus on that. Instead, she moved on to the next part of the game. She had to think of four things she could hear. This part wasn’t that hard, she had always been brutally aware of every little sound around her to the point that it sometimes triggered her episodes.
1. The footsteps in the hall.
2. The toilet flushing in one of the stalls.
3. Her own heavy breathing.
4. Professor Flitwick’s voice from the classroom across from the girls’ loo.
She was already starting to feel slightly better, her inner monologue less centered around the failing grade and instead focused on her surroundings. Next, she had to name three things she could feel.
1. The cool touch of the sterling silver Magen David she wore under her uniform against her skin.
2. Her stockings clinging to her legs.
3. The breeze coming in from the open window.
She took a deep breath, steadying herself, and moved on to another step. This was where the game got a little harder but it was usually helpful to have to think extra hard as you reached the home stretch. She had to come up with two things that she could smell. Unfortunately, a bathroom was not the best place to be for this. She quickly thought of two things and moved on to the last step.
All she had to do to finish her ‘game’ was think of one thing she could taste. This was always the hardest as she wasn’t usually eating anything when this happened. She thought hard about it.
1. The little bit of spinach that lingered in between her teeth from lunch.
When Lily finished taking in her surroundings and accounting for all her senses, she never felt nearly as awful as she had minutes before. It was a lot easier to breathe in and out and a lot of the time, she could even go back to whatever she was doing before.
Lily needed somewhere to hide. Severus would not stop trying to talk to her and apologize and she needed a chance to get away from him. She couldn’t listen to his self pity anymore. She wasn’t trying to be heartless but she had given him countless chances and he had finally pushed her to her limit. So Lily paced the seventh floor, trying to find a place to go where her ex best friend wouldn’t find her. She noticed a door and went in. She took a deep breath and closed the door behind her before noticing that the room was already occupied.
“Remus? Is that you? Are you… alright?”
Remus was huddled in the corner, very clearly in distress. He was clearly crying and looked as though he needed a paper bag just to breathe properly. He didn’t respond to Lily’s inquiry so she tried again.
“Hey, it’s okay. Do you want to talk about it? Can I sit?”
The boy nodded. “I can’t- it’s not- I don’t- fuck, I can’t,” he tried to respond but his breathing was just becoming more laboured.
Lily sat down next to him, realizing what was wrong with Remus. “You’re okay. You’re gonna be okay. Can you do something for me?”
Remus nodded again, timidly, clearly not able to focus much on Lily’s words.
“Okay, I want you to look around and tell me five things you see in this room. Can you do that for me?”
“Five- five things?” Remus questioned. “Uh, you, my legs, uh, the wall, fuck, I-“
“It’s okay, just don’t think about it. Look around.”
“The wall, the door, and er, that cabinet.” He pointed to a cabinet Lily hadn’t noticed moments earlier.
Lily smiled encouragingly. “Great! Now what are four things you can hear?”
Remus took a second. “My talking, my breathing, my heart beating, and people talking in the corridor.”
“Wow, you have really good hearing,” Lily said, genuinely surprised. “How are you feeling?”
“I don’t know, I just-“ He seemed to have been doing slightly better but that question sent him into a tizzy once more. Lily winced, regretting asking.
Instead, she reaches out a hand. “Is it okay if I touch you?” She received a nonverbal yes from Remus and gently put a hand on his shoulder. “You don’t need to think about any of that right now. Just focus on breathing and answering my questions, okay? What are three things you feel?”
“I feel like shit. I feel angry and nervous and,”
Lily cut him off. “Sorry, my fault. Should have been clearer. I mean like what can you feel in terms of touch?”
“Oh,” Remus chuckled humourlessly. “Um, I feel the carpet, your hand on my shoulder, and my shirt.”
“Awesome. We’re in the home stretch. This one is a little harder. What are two things you smell?”
Remus wasted no time in answering. “Your perfume and strawberry scented toothpaste.” Lily looked at him, a little shocked, and he gave her a toothy grin. “Sorry, I’ve just always had a really good sense of smell. The strawberry suits you though.”
She smiled. “Okay, wow, good job. Okay, last one. What’s one thing you can taste?”
Remus scrunched up his nose. “I had a Bertie Bott’s this morning and I can still taste it. Grass clippings.”
Lily bursted out laughing and Remus couldn’t help but chuckle a little too.
She looked over at Remus, removing the hand from his shoulder. “A little better, no?”
He thought for a second and then nodded. “Yeah, actually. I can actually breathe and shit. Fuck, was that some type of magic, Evans?”
“No spellwork here,” Lily responded.
“How are you so good at that? How did you know what to do? I don’t know what I would have done if…”
“You would have been okay. It usually calms down after a few minutes. Feels less like you’re about to die.”
Remus tilted his head. “So you know what it’s like?”
Lily nodded. “Yeah, I get like that too. That’s how I knew how to handle it. You’re actually… the first person I’ve ever told about my… attacks. I just hate knowing that you have them too.”
“Well, at least it’s nice to know you aren’t alone?”
Lily smiles. “Yeah. It is. And now you have some idea of what to do next time.”
Remus returned her smile. “Thanks, Lil.”
“Any time. Do you want to talk about it? Whatever it is?”
Remus shook his head. “Maybe another time. Not right now. It’s a long story.”
“Okay. Do you want me to go then?” She asked.
Remus shook his head. “You don’t have to. Do you- sorry, it’s stupid.”
“No, say it,” Lily encouraged.
“Do you want to just sit here together for a few minutes?”
“Sounds great.”
And so they sat there, in companionable silence, just breathing slowly and enjoying the company of another person who understood what it was like.