Songbird
Mary catches a glimpse of her before Lily does, a flash of red hair, tangled in the buttons of her sage green peacoat. She watches her intently, the downward curve of her lips. Her titular bambi eyes. Lily scans the bar, her eyes fluttering over everything Mary has set out: the white chairs, the ornate tables, the vines on the wall. She wonders if Lily notices the lilies crawling up them.
The bar is washed with dim light, white orbs she charmed floating in the air. It’s filled with muggles who giggle and gawk curiously at the magic. It reminds her of being a child, of seeing her own magic for the first time. She’s stood off to the side of the stage, just barely behind the curtain. Mary was supposed to be on five minutes ago, but then, of course, Lily Evans walks into her bar. She knew it was coming eventually. Mary can run, it’s what she’s good at, but Lily Evans is just as good at chasing. That was all it was with them, Mary ran, and Lily chased. She liked the feeling, knowing she was right at her fingertips, knowing that nobody truly knew her. But Lily got close. Too close.
She’s in Mary’s soul, fragments and ligature marks left from her white-knuckle grip.
Mary descends the stage, ballet flats padding silently on the hardwood floors. She watches Lily take her in, still standing. She stares at her like a deer caught in high beams. She doesn’t break eye contact, she can’t. Lily’s eyes are piercing, the brightest shade of green she’d ever seen, even in a dark bar.
The piano plays itself behind her, and the muggles laugh amongst themselves. They call it a magic trick. A play on the lighting. Something tied to their sense of reality. She envies them, in a way. Lily always loved magic in a way that Mary didn’t. She was grateful for it, despite all the vices, she drank it up like wine. Always wanting more. To know more, to see more. Mary, on the other hand, felt magic like a heavy blanket of snow on her chest. Beautiful as it was, she couldn’t breathe with it shaped around her lungs. Her magic was always something she couldn’t control, it drew people in without her uttering a word. The way she spoke, the way she moved, it was all wrapped up in magic she could barely process.
“Hello everybody,” The words slip from her glossed lips easily. It enchants the crowd and they fall silent. She looks right at Lily. It’s been four years, if memory serves. And she still looks the same. “You could’ve gone anywhere tonight, but you chose here. Thank you for that.”
With that she begins to harmonize with herself, and the sound fills the entire room. She leans into the microphone, feeling the music flood through her veins. Champagne flies through the air, wine sloshes in glasses held by shaky hands. The room stays silent. She looks at Lily the entire set, neither of them willing to break eye contact. She sings the blues, the audience smiling gleefully through words that cut Mary’s entire soul.
Her hands shake with the weight of it, unsteady around the microphone stand. She hates this part, the feeling after she’s been to a million different bars. She’s been touring too long, and her entire body aches. It’s only fitting that Lily found her at the end of the line.
Still, she lets her mind wander during the last song of the night. She lets the 1AM blues wash over her. She lets herself think on those years, bodies pressed on silk bed sheets, soft lips, snow over pink roses in the wintertime. For a moment, just a moment, she pretends that she’s back in France. In the house she grew up in. Ornate pillars and floral prints, for a moment she’s not on stage.
Instead, she’s laying on her side, her soul washed clean by the breeze coming in through her window. Plush, rosy sheets lay beneath her, her song book sits in her hand. Birds chirp and the sound of low rocking waves from the nearby rivers fill her ears. Magic surrounds her, and for once, it doesn’t hurt her.
And then the song ends, and she’s on stage once more, green eyes staring back at her.
The crowd filters out after closing an hour later, she endures the compliments, the wandering eyes. She tells security about the drunk man passed out in the middle of the floor. And alas, Mary makes her way back to her dressing room. She doesn’t have one in all the bars she goes to, her level of anonymity requires her to not be picky with where she spends her time. But as it goes, the more she tours the better gigs she gets.
She looks at herself in the mirror, her white babydoll dress, her brown skin. Mary knows she’s overworked herself. She knows she should take a break, she knows, she knows, she knows. But she can’t think. She wants to rest, she knows she does. But sleep is rare, and a place to lay her head is even more scarce.
What’s she to do? Go back home? That place doesn’t exist anymore. It’s nothing but a fairytale, a figment of her wildest imaginations. The war took that too. Mary ran from it, and it caught up to her anyway. How funny is that?
There’s a knock on her door, and she knows in her heart who it is. Her fingertips linger on the brass doorknob for just a moment. Mary doesn’t hesitate often, but Lily always brought out a different side of her.
“Mary?” Lily’s voice is so hopeful, so achingly familiar that Mary has to press her forehead against the wood. She stays there for a moment, wishing she could stretch time and make it last forever. “Mary, I– I don’t have a lot of time, but I had to see you.”
She twists the knob and she hears Lily’s breath hitch. When she opens the door she feels entirely out of her body, everything feels alien and like it’s not even her at all. Lily looks beautiful, she always does. The tip of her nose is red from the cold, there's snowflakes stuck to her eyelashes, melting into her copper hair.
“I didn’t want to be found.” She crosses her arms over her chest, even though she doesn’t tend to run cold.
Lily used to joke it was because she was made of ice.
“I know. You’re a hard woman to keep track of.”
It makes her smile, just a bit. She lets Lily into the room. “I assume you followed in my footsteps.”
She’s waiting for the ball to drop, Lily never would’ve ran alone— and while the war is still going on, it’d be hard for her to leave. There’s something else, some reason why she felt safe enough to track Mary down.
Lily doesn’t hide it. “Severus found me.”
Mary isn’t surprised. Lily and Severus were like magnets, even in the age of the two of them, she was never over with him. “Isn’t he a Death Eater?”
“No— he, uhm. Its complicated.”
She pauses. “You can’t tell me.” Mary deadpans.
It’s evident, even after everything, that Lily still doesn’t trust her. Mary doesn’t even really blame her. She dropped the ball and ran. But what Lily always failed to realize is that if she’s a villian, Lily’s just as guilty.
There was a time when Mary would’ve stayed forever for Lily.
Lily doesn’t say anything for a moment. She surveys the room, the dried bouquets of flowers on the walls, the plush couch in the corner, the vanity scattered with various makeup products. “I just wanted to hear your voice again.” She says, her voice barely above a whisper.
Lily was never immune to Mary’s voice, but she seemed more drawn to it then most. She was addicted to it. Always begging Mary to sing her a song. She can almost feel her head on her lap right now, those wide eyes pleading, that toothy grin. “Just one song, Em. Just one song.”
Mary steps forward, hands behind her back. “Did you miss me?”
Mary could kill her. She could wrap her hands around Lily’s neck and squeeze. She feels all the feelings she tried to hide, the ache, the hatred, the love. It’s all so clear in her mind: the fighting, the shouting.
The kisses, the makeups. Lily’s hands around James Potter. The war. The ultimatums. The choices.
She lays her hand on Lily’s cheek, and she leans into it.
“Everyday.” Lily confirms, her lips an inch away from Mary’s cheek. Mary stands up on her toes, her hands on Lily’s shoulders.
“I’ll see you in hell, Lilliana.”
The last thing she sees before the pull of apparition takes her away is a single tear down Lily’s face, and that knowing look in her eyes.
Like she saw it coming.