Headcanon that every year on Petuniaâs birthday, Lily Evans writes her sister a letter. One day in seventh year, the emotions trip her up and James Potter is there to catch her before she hits the floor.
âYouâre just a spoilt, skinny rich boy!â snapped Lily. She noticed the way he winced a little, and her shoulders slumped, heart dropping in her chest. She closed her eyes and counted to ten, imagined stirring counter clockwise and once clockwise for good luck until all the haze had disappeared from her mind. âIâm sorry,â she murmured. âI didnât mean-â
James got closer, reaching out hesitantly to touch her arm. When Lily didnât move away, he held both of her shoulders, rubbing her arms.
âAre you okay?â he asked. âWhatâs wrong? You hardly ate anything this morning.â
Lily sighed, reaching up to press her fingers into her eyes so her vision would go fuzzy before everything would clear up sharper. She peered at him. âYou watch me eat?â
Jamesâ eyes nearly popped out of his head. He dropped his hands and stumbled, âNo. I mean, yes. That sounds weird. Not every day- I just-â
Lily looked away and laughed weakly. She prodded his chest. âI was messing with you.â
He visibly relaxed, a relieved grin slipping into place. He said, âI noticed you were quiet at the Headâs meeting last night too. Do you want to talk about it?â
She swallowed thickly, eyes darting to her feet. James stared at her, before he glanced down the corridor, licking his lips nervously. Then, he took her hand and started walking.
âWhere are we going?â Lily asked, walking quickly to keep up with him.
âWe are going for a walk,â he told her. âTo clear our heads.â
âWe canât skip class!â she stressed, digging her heals into the floor so he couldnât drag her along. âWeâre Heads! It sets a bad example!â
âItâs McGonagall,â James replied in the same tone of voice. âMinnie is a real cool cat, you know? Iâll just tell her we had Head business. Sheâll understand.â
Lily frowned, slowing down a little. âSheâll know weâre lying.â
James nodded, and he adjusted his grip on her so that he could keep them moving out of the dungeons and onto the grounds. âSometimes, Evans, itâs not about the words themselves, but the implications behind those words, you know? Yeah, sheâll know weâre lying, but sheâll also know that we wouldnât be using such an obvious lie if it wasnât serious.â
âItâs not serious,â protested Lily.
James relaxed his arm around her once the October air had swallowed them and they were far enough away from the castle that she couldnât change her mind and run back. It hung loose around her shoulders so there were still fair inches of open air between them.
He sighed. âLily,â he began. âYouâre beautiful.â Her breath hitched in her throat and she really hoped he hadnât heard it. âYou know I know that. I know you know I know that⊠But you are quite the ugly crier. Honestly, I think maybe the Giant Squid would be a prettier crier-â
Her mouth dropped open and she gaped at him for a second, before slapping his arm repeatedly. âWhy, you chump-â
But she couldnât stop the laughter from pouring from her, as James attempted to twist his body out of the way of her hits, mewling and complaining when her fists landed, catching her hand and laughing with her.
âSee!â he said, waving her hand. âYou have a beautiful smile.â
Lily pulled her fingers from his, shaking her head and unsuccessfully trying to bite back the smile tilting her lips. It broke out, however, blossoming like a meadow in spring, thriving in the light and heat of James Potter.
She followed him without another word as he led her further into the crisp, chilly grounds, skirting the lake and past Hagridâs hut until they got to the Quidditch Pitch. Nobody was out here. They were all inside, basking in the warmth of log fires or working furiously in the classrooms. They skirted under the stands, the ghost of a million cheers falling deaf on their ears, steeping them in the peaceful silence of the day.
James didnât stop. He walked away from her and laid down in the middle of the field, ignoring the way the cold seeped into his skin and made his uniform damp and freezing. He peered up at her, and patted the space next to him.
Lily didnât have to be told twice. She laid down beside him, feeling acutely each blade of grass and drop of winter dew against her cheek, gazing up at the sky.
Jamesâ finger pointed upwards suddenly. âThat cloud looks like a dragon.â
A faint smile curled her lips. Sure enough, when she followed his finger, she could see the body, the curve of the wing, the stumps of the feet, the tail that dissipated into nothing.
âI suppose it does,â she agreed.
âAnd that one looks like a octopus riding a centaur.â
âNow, youâre just pulling them out of your arse.â
âNo, no. Look,â assured James. He traced the clouds. âThereâs tentacle one, tentacle two, tentacle three, tentacle-â
âItâs my sisterâs birthday today.â
He fell silent immediately. Lily kept her eyes trained on the sky, trailing the tail of the dragon and wondering what the fire it breathed would look like, whether it would be the same fading white of the clouds that form its wings or if it would be the faded pink, still scattering from the break of that morning. James looked at her in surprise.
After a moment, he said, âI didnât know you had a sister.â
âNo,â said Lily. âI donât talk about her very much.â
Before James could say anything else, she continued hurriedly, âWe used to play Pooh Sticks when we were younger. Oh- I donât suppose you know what that is.â She laughed a little, tilting her head towards him and smiling brilliantly. âThere is a stream at the bottom of my garden, and on a summerâs day, my sister and I used to go down the little bridge and drop sticks into the water and see which one would cross under the bridge first. I was⊠seven. Tuney was nine. We went to play.
âYou get to pick your sticks, you see. You want to go for long ones- they cross the line first, thin enough to travel quickly but thick enough not to stray too far from the current. We were very competitive. We stood on the bridge and we dropped our sticks, shouting and screaming. I could see through the wooden cracks beneath our feet that Tuneyâs stick was winning, so I tried to⊠make mine go faster. I acted as though I could push it along with my hand if I waved it frantically enough, screaming and yelling like a child-â
Lily broke off. James was staring at her. âI froze the entire stream, apart from my stick which skidded along the ice⊠First bit of magic I ever did was to win Pooh Sticks.â
She laughed and James smiled lopsidedly at her, though maybe thatâs just because she was looking at him sideways.
âNaturally, my parents didnât believe Tuney when she told them. So we kept it to ourselves- our little magical secret. I used to bloom flowers for her, Dahlias because they were her favourite, and make it snow in spring.â
âThatâs advanced magic for a seven year old,â James told her.
Lily smiled at him. âCharms has always been my strong point.â
Her face hardened, became almost wistful, when she said, âI was nine when I first met Severus Snape. He held out his hand and created the same flowers I had always made for Tuney. They never got along. She would make jibes at his hair and clothes, and he would use magic to rip her new dresses. I always thought she was lying, you know. I thought she was jealous because I had a new friend and our magical secret was no longer just ours. It was only when I came to Hogwarts that I realised how cruel he could be, how malicious. My sister and I fell out a lot. We wouldnât talk for days at a time.
âIt got worse when I finally got my Hogwarts letter,â continued Lily. The story became difficult to tell, memory making her choke. Her face screwed up and she said in a small, wounded voice, âShe called me a freakâŠâ
James didnât say anything. Lily knew he was still listening though. His body was warm and present next to hers, and every now and then, she would hear a breath escape gently from his lips. She closed her eyes and tried to inhale quietly, so he wouldnât hear the way the air shuddered.
âPetunia moved out when she was 18. Now, sheâs engaged to some hotshot in drills. I havenât spoken to her since fifth year.â
There was a quiet between them. It settled over them like snow does in the fledgling days of winter, peacefully and comfortably, and neither one of them looked to indent it for a few moments.
Finally, James said, âDrills sounds like something that could kill you.â
Lily laughed loudly. Of all replies she had anticipated, she couldnât say that was on the list. She looked at him. âI mean, if it has the grit and dedication, a duck could kill you, so I canât exactly refute that.â
He looked at her, soaking in the amused smile still fading into her skin. James drew a line from each freckle to each hair in her eyebrows to every eyelash and fleck of gold in her eyes.
âWe should be dancing,â he said suddenly.
Lily let out a short, surprised laugh. She tilted her head to look at him. âWhat?â
âWell, if it was my birthday, Iâd want everyone to be dancing. Itâs not a party if youâre not jiving.â
âJames,â she was still smiling, looking at him with something shining in those wide eyes. James didnât think heâd ever seen her look like that. He wanted to spin her around and make her laugh and immortalise that light in her forever.
James nimbly hopped to his feet, holding out a hand to pull her up. Lily eyed him oddly, but she took it nevertheless. She couldnât have found him too weird, or maybe she did and it liberated her to realise she really wanted to dance with him in the middle of the Quidditch Pitch, when they were both bunking off school, on her estranged sisterâs birthday.
There was no music playing, but James spun her anyway, and Lily laughed. It spilled from her lips, flying off into the air around them. He kept twirling her until her hair whipped his arm with the winter wind, and her laugh was one continuous squeal.
He pulled her into his chest then. The world danced for her, pirouetting and spinning, and James remained the one constant thing in her vision. She clutched onto his shoulders tightly, lest she lose her balance.
Lily didnât think about the owl carrying her sisterâs letter once that day. She didnât think about the way Petunia would see it flying towards her bedroom window and freeze, breath trapped in her throat. She didnât think about the inevitable tower of scrunched up paper balls in her sisterâs bin that his yearâs unwanted letter would add to.
And she most certainly didnât imagine Tuney opening her window with trembling hands to let the bird in, stroking its head and staring at the nickname she hadnât been called in five year, written in thick, black strokes on the envelope. She didnât see Petunia smoothing out the creases in the parchment, running her thumb over the seal wax, soaking up the words as she read it, then read it again, closing her eyes for a few moments, before she crossed her room and kneeled on the floor beside her bed, where she would slide out an old musical box.
The music played as soon as she opened it, but Lily wouldnât play that song in her mind or close her eyes and see the way the ballerina danced. She would therefore miss the hundreds of other letters all written in the same hand, with the same red wax seal on the envelope, wishing her happy birthday and telling her about everything: the boys; the magic; her new friend Marlene who wore a leather jacket instead of her cloak and got detention for it. And she wouldnât see the way Petunia caressed the letter a final time before she locked it safely in her box and carried on with her life as though she didnât have a sister, when she did and she always would.
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