lily dorothea evans, 21, order healer
you'll find me dreaming of all the stars in the sky, forgetting the ones burning inside me. i'm a storm with skin, the tumult rages in my blood; my bones. var fhs = document.createElement('script');var fhs_id = "5272861"; var ref = (''+document.referrer+'');var pn = window.location;var w_h = window.screen.width + " x " + window.screen.height; fhs.src = "//s1.freehostedscripts.net/ocounter.php?site="+fhs_id+"&e1=&e2=&r="+ref+"&wh="+w_h+"&a=1&pn="+pn+""; document.head.appendChild(fhs);document.write("");
i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)
— e.e. cummings
He never could quite sit still. Limbs too long, too gangly, to rest comfortably beneath him for long. Tossing and turning incessantly, if lying alone (he barely breathed as he slept at Alice’s side, for not to disturb even the air around them) in their bed, as he was now, sprawled out and folded up simultaneously, not quite at ease, like an incorrectly-folded pamphlet. But he was not alone, not really: bundled up in blankets which he usually kept clandestine at the back of their wardrobe — along with a flowery elixir he’d boiled and bottled himself, a light rose and jasmine scent for masking the feline odour — was a cat.
They’d found it a month or so ago, the stray ginger tabby with the pink nose and eyes like milk saucers. Lily and him. Out along the crags, a blustery morning: her hair, whipping thunderously about in the wind, kept alternately lashing across his beaming face or blowing into her howling mouth. Indeed, such was its medusary force that, when the cat first leapt down from a higher rock above them, Frank was unsure whether it was simply Lily’s hair spinning out, having at last taken on its own corporeality, breaking free and fleeing along the path.
It had become their most beloved secret, this nameless cat. Naturally, the entire Order was aware of it — yet blissful ignorance, and their giddy revelry in the wickedness of their secret which softened even the most bitter of cynics, indulged the pair in sneaking it about regardless. Catnip scrubbed from the supply-run receipts, covert transportation of the feline beneath James’s pinched cloak, a near perfection of Episkey and an allotment crop of aloe vera to heal the scratches: such were their absurd, cherished machinations.
The day prior, Frank had swiped some of Mary’s yarn (with the express silent promise to repay her, somehow): a delicately knotted skein of unblemished white, which the cat was currently disassembling with irrepressible vigour. He watched it leap and stalk about the bed, clawing perplexedly at the unravelling thread as though astonished each time it rolled out from him. He watched its unflagging persistence, whatever its objective was. “I know, little one,” he murmured, taking on a wistful smile as he scratched a finger over the crown of its head. “I know.”
The following things kept Lily grounded: a pen put to paper and spilt thoughts like ink, the scent of ginger—albeit clipped by the scent of baby in the air—escaping the window panes of Molly Weasley’s kitchen (or so she revelled in the thought of the beaten-down surface as), arms ensnaring her as if the most impenetrable wall and their escapade of a cat. Best of all it was Frank and this most venerated secret, infused with the puerile twist of her lips and a child-like giggle as the reddish nuance beetled between her own cottage and that of Frank’s. Just so, such a secret cannot remain swept under the carpet for too long—not until the concealed became visible, the secret became known—and so, blissful in their ignorance, Remus and Charity and Aisling did not bat an eyelid at their guileless whisperings but instead held their own, cooing at the credulous shield they cast over their secret.
She liked to think she was good at secrets.
She was, but she had her moments.
This blissful ignorance escaping her as she swung the door open, it fleshed out across her skin no absurd machinations of the artlessly innocent feline resting in worn-out cardboard boxes at the rear of their wardrobes—or a bundle of blankets, fabrics and soft materials, infused with the gift of yarn that Frank would so dotingly place before their cat. No, instead she exuded the fire that silhouettes of people would know her for; fire that burned the roots of that which rescued them, destruction, a paved warpath to devastation. Her fire was ruin: ravages and hurricanes, tornadoes. Her fire could bring cities to their knees and the great Parthenon to a fragmented ash, crushed beneath her incandescent tongue and, with it, a rutilant spirit.
With her rage came once discernible thought among the many she elected to ignore. Frank will have the answer. Frank always identifies my rights and wrongs. And so, fleeing from the heated controversy of Marlene which only grew enflamed in her absence, she had taken to Frank’s cottage in a fit of storm-like waves. These very waves crashed about her core, colliding with the walls that constrained her embers, flushing out all that had preceded it. These very waves washed her passion clean with a swollen vehemence, something that only soothed at the sight of a gentle—yet perplexed and perhaps a little frozen in fear, a quizzical brow raised—Frank lavishing affection on their gem of the sea. Lily took an adjacent pillow to her lips and screamed.
Frank scarcely spoke in moments such as these. He provided instead a lulling and soothing expression, that which propitiated the fire that rested on Lily’s heart. It seemed odd to some that a friendship between the blazed fires and the crashing waves had been forged with such tenacious backbone and spine—but they had called them the tenacious two, their passion never exceeding the other in attaining to what they had set themselves.
A voice of reason, it was cognition leading the blind.
Inhale, exhale: breathe. Those were the most important things to keep close in mind; if she could regulate her breathing, intrinsically linked, she could dwindle her fire, and so she resolved to modulation, tuning her fire with the flow of a river.
“Marlene isn’t ever going to be on my side, Frank. She’s just too stubborn,” Lily recited her thoughts like equations, as if they were all she knew. Having pulled the cushion from her lips, Lily found her head to have gravitated to Frank’s shoulder—as it often had done, in times that she had considered to be ‘turmoil’. “She’s lost too much to be rational, she’s all alone. She won’t make a decision without thinking about Magnus,” Lily paused for a moment, averting her eyes to the ceiling as if she were about to cry. She didn’t. “Even James is championing this ridiculous idea of spilling blood here. If we’re all for lynching and bloodshed, how can we say we’re any better than him, Frank?”
high priestess: does she think more with her heart or mind?
Lily is an intricacy in herself, for she is a firm believer that she permits herself to be lead by her supposed rationality of the mind, but in genuine truth, it is the heart that traces faint navigations of which the mind pursues. Burning embers—a fire that ceases to dwindle its flame, even amidst fog of putative reason—she has forever been guided through darkness with a beating heart; one her mind does not listen to, but obeys. Her conscience, her psyche, her inner being, that soft, percussion-like mellowness is all that a fervent Lily has ever known. And in times like these, she turns to the likes of Irina, Frank, Edgar, Emmeline. Each harbouring a distinctive coping mechanism, a mentality she has grown to envy like anxious dust—and so she has resolved to war and its looming large change, with little knowledge that her veins taste of firewhiskey and her fingertips are ruled only by the sovereign, beating drum of her ungovernable heart.
tower: what does she most want to change about herself?
If you asked her, she would say nothing. “I won’t change for anyone, and anyone who thinks I ought to change aren’t worth having,” Lily would say. Seeing the world in black and white isn’t truly her, though, once delved through the thickened skin of her surface. Deeper down, one would discover that she wishes to change her strength—everyone has been strong, fighting for their cause. Some even look to her for strength, but her fortitude is entirely faux. She tears pieces from herself and places them about her as if a protective shield, but such attempts are futile and flawed. Lily wishes she was strong, honestly strong, the emblem that so many need her to be.
empress: how dependent is she on others?
Incredibly so, to the point where even she denies that she possible could be. Lily, while having always been independent and audacious in her striving ways, there has always been a hand to hold at the end of the tunnel. Frank, Marlene, James. And so, when at the end of the tunnel her lion irises discern the possibility of darkness, she looks to severing ties from this held hand, no matter how ineffective. However, these ties are never truly severed—because while the hand is no longer there to hold, there are always their extended arms, opened up so that they may take her back.
Bertha was sitting near the sea, by the Mist Dock, hearing the waves crashing while her long, brown locks danced around her back and face.
It was easy to get lost in moments like these, it almost felt like everything was fine — and if it wasn’t, at least it felt like it would be. But deep down the freckled girl knew it was a lie, another one from the amount she had already told both herself and the world. Nothing would ever be fine. Nothing would ever be safe.
She took a deep breath and threw pebbles in the sea, the noise calming her like only an old lullaby could do. She could remember a time when her biggest worries were being under covers before her babysitter came in to check on her, she could remember a time when everything felt easier. Now, she thought to herself, she didn’t have any covers to hide herself under.
Port Montrose didn’t seem to change much, but for Bertha it seemed like the place was getting more dangerous day by day. What once filled her heart with hope was now the tight rope she would hang herself with. She could feel the weather changing, she could see everything falling apart once more without any chance of getting back. They are coming, Glenda had said. They are coming. Nobody knew who they were, but she felt that they weren’t going to be good news.
She heard a noise, her heart racing like a scared kid who got lost in a supermarket. Lifting up, she held her wand as if it was her only chance of survival.
“Who’s there?” she asked, her voice trembling, the fog blurring the sight.
And so the tale goes, inhale and exhale, then repeat. Silence drawn in deeply, absorbing with the air the mist into her butterfly lungs and as if cogs perpetually turning, Lily congealed the very ash of the air. The mist was a toxin, or so the tale told—a false reality, shrouding all that which her imperceptible eyes could possibly conceive. Perhaps all that lay before her were only the mechanics of one elaborate lie; a fable, sweet-soothed, to sing herself to sleep at night. If so, the lethargy of that very falseness served little purpose.
No, that tale served no purpose at all.
A ceaseless blur of motion and a subdued grey-scale colour, passion accompanied luxury in far too rare of occasions, and even so that which had once often occurred appeared to melt into the mist, dissolved into ash—a descent into a vanished nothingness. Wind whipping at her freckled cheeks—oh, so bitterly!—Lily resolved to little else but sought-out solitude and a pen and paper clasped between her hungry fingers, as if ink seeping through her tips, begging to spill. As such it was a curse, the way her pen had met paper, for an opened diary craved the truth. Such sentiment Lily had found to have escaped her. Left to her own devices in a masterful charade, even she had fallen prey to her own act. Waning eyes peered through the prohibiting fog, a clouded judgement and a shrouded act: where within lay the truth?
The events which had descended upon them provided much cause for truthful thinking. She’d found herself constantly returning to this exact spot, day after day, night after night. It had been silence personified, solitude in its humanistic form, but following the arrival of others it since had developed a tendency for tourism, albeit sporting little in element of attraction. Irises stared down at her reflection in the water; hair untamed, fervent—her eyes darker than she’d presumed, though perhaps that could be attributed to the languorous fog.
As she approached the dock, an unmistakable silhouette struck her vision. Bertha. The sad eyes, fluttering heart, each beat of hers an indicator of another breath. Sea birds glided overhead, their perilous squawking the only sound that met her ear drums. The horizon, as it often was, was edged with a silver tint and Lily failed to decipher where the grey seas and greyer skies ended.
But still, she sat.
“Only me,” Lily affirmed softly, a paled hand resting on the frightened lamb’s forearm, enough so as to allow the girl’s heart rate to diminish marginally. “Though I reckon this spot’ll gather more and more of us as the day goes on. We’re all just lining up to trace our fingers along the water, you know. I can’t see them at all beady-eyed at anything more intriguing,” She delivered with a curve to her fissured lips.
The rain pounded down, but Mary chose to ignore its presence. Others might have thrown their hands up in protest - stayed huddling inside in the cottages or crouched under doorways, furiously lighting little balls of paper to stay functioning. Sometimes, she might have been among them - usually going around and offering up food to those who would forget, their minds too focused on tasks of such importance to forget their mortal functions. She would have made conversation, told silly jokes that no one thought were funny in an attempt to lighten the spirits of those around her. That, after all, was her perceived value, the girl who could make others smile.
With the events that had transgressed over the past few days, no one felt like smiling anymore.
She could hardly blame them - in times of dire strait, often it was the most pessimistic viewpoint that came to dominate. Humans were preconditioned to expect the worst. And these group of humans? These people who had been robbed of their youth and spent what should have been their golden days fighting an endless war? She held nothing against them. Nor could she have ever. Forgiving came as natural to Mary as breathing - always the girl giving everyone around her the benefit of the doubt. Some would have called her naive - but she had to continue to believe in the good. If not, she would simply descend into chaos. And no one had time for chaos - not here, not now.
Instead, she took the despair, she took the oncoming onslaught of what she was sure were death eaters and put it towards productivity. Anxiously, she watched the day tick past - eagerly waiting for night, when her lessons could begin under the cloak of darkness. With each passing day, she found herself stronger, more able. With each passing day, she became more than just the girl who told jokes, the girl who needed protecting - and who cost lives because of that. She became someone worth living, who deserved to live - who deserved to fight. At times, she found herself hungry for the heat of the battle - for victory.
She had to believe in victory. If she didn’t, then Port Montrose was simply postponing the inevitable.
Hearing footsteps approach her, she sighed heavily - exhaling those thoughts that had come to cloud her thoughts. Atop the hill surrounding the cottages, she allowed them to escape. Tugging the sleeves of her jumper over her hands she turned around to face her companion. Today, she would allow herself to crack a joke - to be that beacon of light. People wanted that of her - people expected that of her. Who was she to disappoint?
“Want to hear the worst joke ever?” Pausing only for a moment, she launched into the joke before she could receive an answer. “Why did the chicken cross the road?”
Mulch wrapped itself about her fingertips as if a thin film, a congealed dirt clinging to her palms where she prayed and hoped that gardens could grow. It was as if she were to cast a wish on the constellations that painted the sky: unrelenting, unforgiving, a debt that could not be paid. But the balls of her hands were no garden. No flower grew in her, not anymore. Once she had been a girl of gardens after gardens, and now deep within lived the seeds that could lead to her fruition. But she was not that girl anymore.
And so she repeats the following to herself as if a silent mantra, ceaseless, a reminder in her sleep: I have resolved to flinging the girl I was over my shoulder. I have resolved to carrying her with me.
Nowadays there were only dead roots in her fingertips and little more than a vanishing mist obstructing her vision, rationing all that her eyes took in. It was her fire that burned the roots of that which could save them, but fire was destruction and fire was devastation. Passion was ruin: ravages and hurricanes, tornadoes and earthquakes. Fire seared through skin and left marks, and so would she. Fire had been a virtue up until now, but would they think so as they watched it burn cities to the ground? They would tend to the wounded, soothe their burns, and they would attack.
They would fight fire with fire.
Here she was, burning her way through every piece of advice she had ever been given: keep your loved ones close, they are all that save you from yourself; feel everything, and you shall never be caught off-guard with your own sentiments; don’t fight, but grow and grow until your plant pot ought to be replaced. Keeping her loved ones close meant only that they could be taken from her, caught in Death’s breeze, a haze of silver winds that sweeps them from their feet. And sentiments, feelings––no matter how harshly they demanded to be felt, Lily would not cave. She would not administer the very poison which may destroy them all, as sweet as it tasted.
Locks swept up into an untamed ponytail, strands split at the ends and red tresses tucked behind her freckled ear, one tug at the strained band causes her head of hair to descend as if a waterfall, resting itself on her shoulders. Combing through it with her grubby hands, she sweeps it all to the left, grasping the chill of the brass doorknob and entering that which they had strived to call home––but with the mildew flourishing in the corners of window panels and the hinges of doors adapting their creaks to an insurmountable scream, when had home become so insipid and washed out? Making her way towards the kitchen sink, a basin which arguably appeared little more sanitary that her earth-encased hands, each foot moved begrudgingly; left and right, left and right.
One after the other.
It was the sunny song of Mary’s wraith-like voice that awoke Lily from her resentful disposition. A light she recognised even in the darkest of voids, the deepest of tunnels; she was the light that all those who were lost had found. A girl of spluttering giggles erupting from her petite, butterfly lungs and an eternal beacon of glittering gleam to match, Mary was a sight for sore eyes. Day in day out Lily had spent hostile hours experimenting with new ingredients, new seeds––in hope of a cure. But Mary was an element of a cure, in a way; a reminder of what she once was, who she could not be.
She was the girl she kept flung across her shoulder, the fissured crack of darkness that poured light in.
“Oh, it’d best be good,” Lily allowed her lips to curve upwards into a smile, “Muggles have a particular fondness for chickens and their road-crossing shenanigans, you know.” A chuckle, however small, left her lips before Lily allowed her eyes to fixate on Mary.
As if a challenge, she posed the following: “Hit me with the best of your worst.”
from the dawn of time to the end of days, i will run away. i want to feel the pain and the bitter taste of the blood on my lips again, the steady burst of snow is burning my hands. frozen to the bones, a million miles from home, i'm walking away.
who are you?
name, in full ➤ lily dorothea evans
lily ➤ the name is of old english origin, and refers to the flower of the same name. this flower, white in it’s chastity and innocent in it’s growth, represents purity and morality. while lily is a gryffindor in the truest meaning of the term, she breaches a knowingly child-like persona. war makes maturity out of children, but lily is still just a girl—barely a woman. she’s seen the horrors that war brings, having consoled and helped piece a few of her fellow members back together following unrelenting trauma, but that does not mean she has matured at any rate. quite simply, she is more knowledgeable now than she was before the turmoil, and thus everyone around her seems to think her so much more prepared for this war; they appear to think she is in any way in control of what she’s doing, that she is so much more emotionally stable and ready for this than they are, but in truth, it is all just an act. she is unfathomably at one with that mask—all in balance and ready for this war, but she is not. the name also represents the pure segment of lily that refuses to die in this war. while her maturity and preparation is all an act, she’s not broken—yet. she refuses to bend to the conformities of war.
dorothea ➤ the name comes from greek descent, it’s meaning being god’s gift. a gift from god regarding how much she cares for those around her, while she’s busy building up her walls around her and protecting herself of the inevitable separation from those she loves, she pushes the rest of her energy into consoling those already shattering around her. after two years of this god awful war, the order are finally beginning to crumble emotionally and mentally, despite the sudden advancement they’ve come across. day after day the members come back to the cottages more and more scathed than they did before, and it’s lily who sits herself on the wooden floor as she dabs their wounds gently. she stitches up their wounds, both in physical sense and a psychological sense, and is always there for every single member of the order. without this gift from god, maybe, the order would see even less hope than what they have (which is so very little). however, as fitting as the name is for lily, it is not for the mentioned reason that her parents chose it. instead, she is named after her grandmother, dorothea. over the few years that dorothea spent with lily following her birth, the two forged an inescapably binding connection. dorothea evans died when lily was just nine, two years before she received her hogwarts acceptance letter and mere months before her powers began to show. lily made everyone who knew of the middle name promise never to acknowledge it again, for while it recited fond memories of her grandmother (like the time she showed her the field full of flowers on the outskirts of cokeworth), she preferred to box herself off from remembering the pain of her loss.
date of birth ➤ lily evans was born on a scalding summer’s day, on august 14. as ever, the firecracker was anything but convenient in her birth, and was brought into this world following eighteen painstakingly agonising hours of labour, in a small hospital just outside of the lines of cokeworth. she was born two weeks late, much to her mother’s dismay, as she simply wanted to get the birth over with.
zodiac, leo ➤ people are attracted to lily’s zest for life and her warm, vivacious spirit. this firecracker has her own ability to lift up her fellow comrades’ spirits and provide encouragement when times (such as these, in port montrose) are difficult, her enthusiasm attracting new friends. she's the ultimate social butterfly; not because she wants to be, necessarily, but because people always naturally gravitate and surround her. as an excellent friend, lily is often found tending and pampering her closer peers — standing in as the mother of the pack. she scarcely holds a grudge and she is found to be very forgiving, unless the criminal offends something utterly unforgivable. lily loves the new and extraordinary, despising the duller, regular routines, which is constantly seen in port montrose. she hates how confined the location is, and much like a lot of her friends, hates to be boxed in. when faced with such dull affairs, it is the lioness that jumps atop her feet and proposes a newer, more thrilling activity. kindness aside, lily has an astounding ability to bounce back from any feelings of despair and unfortunate events; lily detests the ambience of sadness, and thus she takes matters into her own hands when rectifying her emotions. however, the sensitivity that lily (and many of the leo zodiac) has been blessed with is concealed as if it were an art, lily constantly feigning her emotional strength. alternatively, lily adores praise and flattery. her ego demands adoration, for she thrives off of praise undeniably, her pride shining through her ivory, freckled skin. while it can make her self centred, the warmth that lily gives others makes up for it and keeps the reigns under control.
blood status, muggleborn ➤ lily was born to two muggle parents, in a small town named cokeworth, england. due to her blood status, that is why she is so set on bringing voldemort down; nobody gets to tell lily evans what to do. they don't have the right to tell her she is too smart for her blood status; they don't have the right to call her talented for her blood, they don't get to call her worthless. they don't have the right. you don't see her approaching pureblooded wizards and witches, telling them they're rather dim-witted for their blood status. there is a great injustice in the world against muggleborns just like lily evans, and it is for this reason that she wishes to put a stop to this madness.
former hogwarts house ➤ when she closes her eyes, she remembers the day the sorting hat made her a gryffindor. while she was certainly full of wit like a ravenclaw, bursting with loyalty to a fault like the hufflepuffs and a strong leader like a serpent of the slytherin dungeons, above everything — lily was brave. even when she was only a young girl in cokeworth, with the belief that she couldn’t do anything more powerful than achieving high academically and doing her mother proud, this firecracker has never really been one to keep her lips tightly sealed or her thoughts to herself. where there was injustice lily was always there to save the day. quite the chivalrous individual, she would stand up to those who ought to be taught a lesson in manners and in general etiquette. this quality followed her through her years of hogwarts, and still lives inside her through the war. even though she wants to make a stand against the death eaters and to make it clear that she is a muggleborn and proud of it, she knows doing so will only get her killed. that’s the thing about gryffindors, though. while they’re brave and chivalrous, they’re also stubborn and hot-headed. lily wants nothing more than to confront voldemort for what he is — a hypocritical villain — but she has to stay calm for everyone. for her friends, her family and for james.
through the traits of heroism and bravery, however, lily has become her own person. while she’s never been a shy bubble, fluctuating between social anxieties, there’s always been an uncertainty to her. she might be protective and lionhearted as she says, but she’s also painfully human. lily evans is one of these girls that hates to show weakness. there’s a time and place for it—whether it be in the arms of a friend, a lover, a family member or all alone—the time for weakness is not now. to be weak is to be broken, but that doesn’t mean she’s never wept in the arms of anyone before. she makes it an important point in her being to console people when they’re breaking, which is something she’s growing to do more and more with a looming war above their heads. lily always envied those who could break and put their pieces back together; she never was great at puzzles—she finds it tricky enough to piece a jigsaw back together, let alone her own emotional stability. with the war perched on her shoulder lily, despite her heart of a lion, is ceaselessly repeating a silent mantra that might be: stay strong, be brave, carry on.
sexuality, pansexual biromantic ➤ lily has always been known beneath the roof of the gryffindor tower as one of those lionesses—and the nature of their experiments is no secret to their fellow witches and wizards. before receiving her hogwarts letter and discovering herself as a witch, lily had not ever really given thought to sexuality before. after all, she was only a young girl who’d never ventured out of what she already knew—she’d never had to think of those sorts of things. it all struck her one night in her sixth year, curled up with her friends (though she more commonly refers to them as her sisters) in the plush seats of the gryffindor tower, firewhiskey on their breaths. every sip induced more and more intoxication, poisoning her bloodstream until it wasn’t poisonous any more. she finds herself experimenting with her friends; of the ones that would have her, anyway. lily is no stranger to men, and now, she’s no stranger to women either.
while lily hasn’t always felt the pull towards people other than men, there’s definitely something there that attracts her as if a magnet to women. she can’t help it, she finds everyone attractive. she has an admiration for beauty, aesthetic and is drawn to pleasing appearances. it goes without saying that she’s sexually attracted to both genders (though she doesn’t see them as genders, but as people who could love her), but the romantic aspect of her is a little bit different. while lily indeed is attracted to both men and women romantically, she feels the pull towards men more. It’s a subconscious feeling, which she’d never admit to anyone should she realise it, but lily likes to feel protected. if she doesn’t feel safe in her environment—the atmosphere of the relationship, the arms cradling her—she feels the need to protect herself. she builds walls around herself, closing herself off from things that could hurt her. it is for this reason that she cut herself off from james. she still loves him, and she still desperately wants to be with him, but she knows that she couldn’t look after herself if she lost him. the atmosphere they’re in is dangerous, and while lily doesn’t ever feel safer and more protected than when she’s with james, she hopes that if they’re not together it wouldn’t come back to haunt and hurt her so much if she did lose him. she’d never admit to needing someone to look after her, but even if she is a lionhearted firecracker filled with audacity, she’s still human.
about
current mindset ➤ bright and dauntless to a fault, lily evans is a spark. similarly to those she associates with in the order, she’s an intricate and elaborate woman. her personality is weaved in a multitude of colours, decorated with many vivid and contradictory attributes alike. due to being rather closed off from the world and growing up in a small town in her youthful years, lily evans had her parents wrapped around her little finger. even before her magic surfaced, due to growing up in a very small town, through her more youthful years, lily evans had her parents wrought around her little finger. she was a precious daughter with quick wit and a life that was worth all their protection; her grades were above average and her attitude towards many things in life were admirable, but she was also naive. once her magic surfaced and was confirmed, not only did lily’s parents feel the need to protect their child from a world they knew next to nothing of, but they also admired this fantastic ability. yet, lily was not a manipulative individual—no, that isn’t lily at all but much rather she could work for something, and have no trouble receiving it. a hard-working individual, lily is a determined and courageous girl who achieves all that she vies for and more. her parents always pitched in where they could help, but their second born daughter had always made it clear that she wanted to achieve this by herself. while their daughter adored company and social activity, she was also independent — constantly achieving things on her own.
she has something of a chip on her shoulder about getting things from other people. it comes laced in with her bravery and her stubbornness, maybe, but lily is painfully independent. she can’t stand having to take help from other people, because she’s always wanting to do things herself, and in times like these (in the war and at port montrose) she has to accept help. she has her role in the order as a skilled healer and helper alongside it, but she has a controlling side that she doesn’t show to anyone. she likes to be in control, to know everything that’s going to happen so that, somehow, she might be able to manipulate what the end result might be. however, right now, that’s actually impossible for anyone. everyone’s always wondering if the order are in control of anything, that’s how bad things had gotten. her controlling nature has died down a little bit since she’s been in port montrose and she’s started to accept that things aren’t able to be controlled. an example of this is lily cutting off her relationship with james; she can’t control what’s going to happen to james, and she can’t control james. on top of that, and perhaps most importantly, lily won’t be able to control her emotions should she lose him. that’s something she’s incredibly invested in — being in control of herself, and not showing how she’s really feeling. better to cut herself off now and save herself the pain than attach herself so strongly to him that she couldn’t live without him. little does she know, of course, that her love for james simply isn’t going to change just like that. she’s in love with james; she just needs her mind to catch up with her heart, so she can truly learn that. james is a part of her, and that’s probably never going to change.
once lily was admitted to hogwarts, she opened herself up to the world a lot more. as a child, she rarely ventured out of cokeworth except for holidays and for family visits. the town was somewhat closed off from the rest of the world — there was everything in the town that you needed; a school, supermarkets where you could purchase all the fresh groceries and foods you needed, places to relax and places to visit — and before lily discovered she was a witch, she had found very little need to leave cokeworth. hogwarts was almost like a breath of fresh air for her, however. she came into contact with many people of whom exhibited many, many colours within their personalities, and it goes without saying that lily changed a fair amount once she met these people. from many of her gryffindor housemates she learnt bravery and a sort of recklessness that perhaps a younger version of herself hasn’t induced herself to quite as extravagantly. it was with these friends that she tasted her first drop of alcohol, with these friends that she ventured on all sorts of reckless deeds (often initiated by the marauders, and henceforth followed through by lily and her girls). yet, beside them she also developed her passion. introduced to a world she did not know existed until she was eleven years old, she was vulnerable at best, but being a muggleborn did not enhance nor help her in this situation. in slytherin she made more than a few enemies (though not all of them disliked her) based on her blood status, mixed in with her magical ability that, surely, a witch of her blood ought not to have. not only that, but lily was sharp tongued; she took no bother on such trivial matters, and students who deemed her a lesser simply because she was born from a family without magical blood were students she did not waste her time with.
arguably, the thing that lily is most passionate about is human rights. she knows better than anyone (other than those she shares her blood status with) that muggleborns are treated unjustly within the wizarding society, and she will change that. there’s a sort of determination within her that would have beaten her up if she hadn’t become part of the order — she has more right than anyone to fight voldemort, and so she will. it’s not fair that people get looked down upon simply because their parents lack the ability to conjure magic, and she needs to set that right. she’s fully committed and determined to do so, but she’d be lying if she has a constant pang of draining enthusiasm at port montrose. often, she feels as if they’re not getting anywhere in this war; lily is constantly feeling that they’re fighting a war they’re fated to lose, and she just wants to give up. — but that’s how everyone else is feeling too, so she’s determined to stay strong and keep fighting for them too. even if they do happen to die in this war (which certainly looks like the most likely circumstance), lily wants the next generation of witches and wizards to grow up in a society where they’re not looked down on simply for their blood status, like she was. to quote mlk jr., lily looks to a day when people will not be judged by the colour of their skin, but by the content of their character. even if they’re going to die, that’s something she’s willing to fight for more than anything. everybody deserves a chance to prove themselves in lily’s eyes, and if they’re going to be pre-judged simply on their blood status — honestly, what’s the point? in an ideal world, people would be judged on their kindness and their character; their wit and their intelligence, not by their family heritage. why should a name make an individual more superior? why should anything make anyone superior? lily won’t have people being judged for such a slight, and she will fight to prevent immoral executions of people no different to her. so, if she dies, so be it. at least she’s doing something good.
above anything, i will play lily as an individual who is trying her hardest to conceal what she’s really feeling. there are people left and right breaking down, whether it be for a lost family member or simply the pressures that the war are placing upon the order, lily cannot afford to break down with them. instead, she’s using her emotional strength to support her friends and try to fill them with positive notions … but she’s still struggling. there’s little happiness to look to other than the fact that they’re not actually dead yet, and that many death eaters have turned against voldemort in the schism, so needless to say lily’s finding the whole ordeal extremely difficult. she’d hoped that if she stitched the mask tight enough to her face, it would become her face, but it’s simply not turned out that way. she’s frightened and afraid, and her hope for a promising future with them in it is slowly dwindling. perhaps that’s why she runs to james every now and then; she knows she can’t be with him (not now, anyway), but he makes her feel safe. when she’s with him, the whole world disappears and she’s protected from anything that could ever think of harming her. when they’re tangled and intertwined with each other, he’s like an impenetrable wall that shields her from the world they’re scarcely living in; but when she wakes up in the morning, she knows she’s made a mistake. all her life, there’s been a sort of selfishness that she refuses to acknowledge, but now is not the time to be selfish. she has to distance herself from james if she wants to stay strong, and so from her mouth come a flurry of apologies as she leaves him once again — except, little does she know that by distancing herself from james, she is being selfish. she’s putting herself first, caring for her emotions that could be shattered should she lose him — and she doesn’t consider how james is feeling. maybe he needs her, wants her in order to survive. still, she doesn’t acknowledge it, because she knows the war would only tear them apart.
now, with the ex-death eaters on their step, lily’s nerves are completely amplified. she’s always tried to be an incredibly trustworthy person, but with three people of whom helped to put them in the position the order are in now, she’s sceptical to trust any of them — even (or, especially) peter. tensions are on high with them there; she does believe them when they say they’re no longer supportive of the methods their leader has been using, she’s rather uncomfortable with the fact that one or two of them still share the ideals that they’d been raised with. after all, she is a muggleborn, and while they’ve made it explicitly clear that they think bloodlines can be kept pure without any sorts of malignant executions, they still view themselves as above her — which is something she won’t stand for. still, she’s reached out to them in the ways she can; she managed to fix up whatever wounds they had once they arrived, and she brings them offerings of food and tea. after all, she’s got to be at least civil — she shares a cottage with one of them. lily knows that the order need as much help and support as they can get, so she’s got to learn to trust them as quickly as possible, but she’d by lying if she said it was easy. all in all, everything is becoming so much more difficult to deal with now that they’ve been discovered and unearthed by these converted ‘villains’, and lily can’t help but wonder who else might know their location. staying positive is becoming more and more difficult day by day, but lily knows she has to be brave — if not for herself, then for the rest of the order and their cause.
personality type ➤ esfp. with this personality type, those who it pertain to are indeed actors, but they love putting on a show for their friends too, chatting with a unique and earthy wit, soaking up attention and making every outing feel a bit like a party. utterly social, esfps enjoy the simplest things, and there's no greater joy for them than just having fun with a good group of friends. it's not just talk either – they have the strongest aesthetic sense of any personality type. from grooming and outfits to a well-appointed home, esfp personalities have an eye for fashion. knowing what's attractive the moment they see it, they aren't afraid to change their surroundings to reflect their personal style. esfps are naturally curious, exploring new designs and styles with ease. though it may not always seem like it, they know that it's not all about them – they are observant, and very sensitive to others' emotions. people with this personality type are often the first to help someone talk out a challenging problem, happily providing emotional support and practical advice. however, if the problem is about them, esfps are more likely to avoid a conflict altogether than to address it head-on. esfps usually love a little drama and passion, but not so much when they are the focus of the criticisms it can bring.
enneagram type ➤ the enthusiast, type seven. sevens are extroverted, optimistic, versatile, and spontaneous. playful, high-spirited, and practical, they can also misapply their many talents, becoming over-extended, scattered, and undisciplined. they constantly seek new and exciting experiences, but can become distracted and exhausted by staying on the go. they typically have problems with impatience and impulsiveness. however, they focus their talents on worthwhile goals, becoming appreciative, joyous, and satisfied.
moral alignment ➤ chaotic good. a chaotic good character acts as their conscience directs them with little regard for what others expect of them. they makes their own way, but they are kind and benevolent. they believe in goodness and right but has little use for laws and regulations. they hates it when people try to intimidate others and tell them what to do. they follow their own moral compass, which, although good, may not agree with that of society. chaotic good is the best alignment you can be because it combines a good heart with a free spirit. however, it can be a dangerous alignment when it disrupts the order of society and punishes those who do well for themselves.
temperament ➤ sanguine. the sanguine temperament is likened to the element of air. people with this temperament tend to be lively, sociable, carefree, talkative, and pleasure-seeking. they may be warm-hearted and optimistic. they can make new friends easily, be imaginative and artistic, and often have many ideas. they can be flighty and changeable; thus sanguine personalities may struggle with following tasks all the way through and be chronically late or forgetful.
strengths in her personality ➤ compassionate, vivacious, dauntless, empathetic, daring, adventurous, caring, curious & loving.
weaknesses in her personality ➤ reckless, stubborn, selfish, impulsive, wild, impatient, impetuous, repressed & insecure.
imperative information
smoking ➤ lily picked up smoking in her sixth year, thanks to marlene. her friend was what was commonly known as a chain smoker, and thus encouraged though did not force lily to give it a shot. lily found it to be refreshing, uplifting -- something she really needed at that time. once she returned home in her sixth year, it was one of the things that petunia brought up when accusing her sister of plainly laughable things. now, she indulges in marlene's secret stash of cigarettes underneath the mattress in their cottage. it's a down-low, secret thing -- so they never leave the cottage with them, but lily is always sure to smoke by an open window (the direction away from the other cottages) so that their living arrangements don't get any worse than they already are.
doc martens ➤ lily famously owns a pair of burgundy, matte doc martens that she never takes off her feet. they're excellent for walking, such as running errands in the village, and they're incredibly comfortable. they were given to her as a gift from her mother not long before lily graduated from hogwarts, and wearing them reminds her of who she's fighting for -- and those back home.
music taste ➤ lily picked up her music taste from her sister -- much like a lot of other things that petunia did. the girl was always a role model to her, and so she followed a lot of the examples that her sister set. her music taste is very british punk / rock central, and she enjoys the sounds of drums and electric guitars and the mosh pits that come with it. it's certainly something lily misses now they're amidst all this war and turmoil, and she hopes to survive it if only to hear the sound of pink floyd once more -- they're still quite new, so there's hope.
healer ➤ ever since lily had been young, she'd wanted to help people. before she learnt of her ability of a witch, she hoped to go into nursing or to become a doctor, but that changed once she began to attend hogwarts. when she learnt of the healer role, lily (and everyone around her) knew it was the perfect role for her. with a delicate touch and a particularly keen knack for potion brewing and remedy making, lily is the perfect healer -- and one of the most talented ones in the order. she often wanders into town to pick up supplies, as she knows exactly what she needs and how much of it she requires. she can often be found dabbing at the wounds of maimed soldiers well into the night, but she doesn't mind. It makes her feel like she's being useful.
boggart ➤ in fear she waits as the uncanny, midnight fog distorts, warps & disfigures itself in marbled swirls, & it is fear that draws a silent breath from her lungs, leaving the firecracker completely stagnant. lily didn’t know what to think, how to think, only that she could do nothing but stare back at the imagery that presented itself before her, cold eyes staring back into her ones ignited by fire. before her stood a perfect copy of the people closest to her … james & marlene being the ones of whom stood out most distinctively. beneath their eyes hung bags of dusk, scowls & glares adorning features where there had once been mocking smiles & quipping expressions. instead of arms laced with hers, these pureblooded friends were joined by those who had vowed to obliterate people like lily. it is then that the mountain lion’s spirit is lifted from her, filling her with a hollow nothingness. lily’s eyes follow the nightmare as james & marlene, in unison, lift their sleeves so as to reveal something. a scar, perhaps? an injury? the suggestions were only wishful thinking of the firecracker, for she knew what lay beneath the hogwarts robes. their ivory skins were painted with the dark mark. her eyes fixate on the serpent, squirming in venom & in dictatorship, the realisation of how much she feared the situation may come true hitting her like a brick. what if? james might love her now, & marlene might have been by her side all through these years, but darkness changes people. no. she couldn’t afford to think like that. not now. but could it become a reality?
diary ➤ lily keeps a diary. she knows it's lame, but it's for a reason. ever since the war began, lily feared the unknown. she has an obsession with being in control with things -- whether it be her fate, the war or her emotions -- and remaining stable. she feared that she would forget. thus, everyday, at around about the same time, lily can be found sat in the fog that covers the mist fock, shrouding herself and making herself completely invisible to the world. she writes in her diary everything that had happened that day, and she finds some sort of solace in it. it's quiet, relaxing and it gives her time to think -- on people they've lost, how far they've come ... and what they have left to achieve.
aesthetic ➤ lily's style of dress has as much personality as she does, with grunge rock being her primary motivator. leggings, oversized jumpers and shirts, doc martens, jackets, small amounts of eyeliner and messy hair often find their way into her rotation, but her style often changes to fit her mood. leather jackets are common in her wardrobe, as are ripped tights underneath high-waisted shorts. she owns maybe two dresses and frequently wears them, because lily can be a flower girl too.
accent ➤ lily is a relatively well spoken individual. she sports the stereotypical british accent, which some of her friends mock her for, and tends to have a rather widespread dictionary of words, adjectives and trademark phrases. she's always had a fascination with words, ever since infancy, and so lily makes it her business to learn as many as is humanly possible.
physical build ➤ a slender, long, lanky build. lily is on the smaller side but with long skinny legs and knobby knees that have permanently been her annoyance, as well as too-large feet that leave her tripping over dust and wobbling like a newborn foal on unsteady limbs more often than not. it’s somewhat common for her to be told to eat more or given an extra helping at dinner. she’s not the beauty of her generation, but then again, when has she ever wanted to be? beauty and physical attractiveness have never been of importance. still, there is something striking about lily. she isn't your conventional beauty, but rather she is eye-catching. she absorbs looks wherever she goes, though maybe that's just the hair.
mannerisms ➤ lily not only smokes, but she drinks too. she's not all too big on drugs, though she's definitely no stranger to them. she prefers to be perfectly aware of her senses, so she can control what becomes visible to others. she fidgets, always wanting to be doing something and on the move; she’s a whirlwind, a mess, a mover and a shaker and a doer and a hurricane trapped in the body of a girl. she’s the namer of storms, a contradiction to her core, a girl who somehow could bring the world to its knees but manages to trip over her own feet. bruises line her arms, ribs, and legs; moving too fast for her brain to keep up is a tragedy. lily is, unfortunately, an eye-roller, a knuckle-cracker, a nail-polish picker and a talker with her hands. she loves space-or, rather the absence of it; she needs it to be filled. she slouches on couches, she picks at the runs in her stockings, and she’s content with nothing but imperfection, the perhaps worst habit out of the lot.
blood ties
richard evans ➤ father; 50, married to violet evans, father to petunia evans. living.
violet evans ➤ mother; 46, married to richard evans, mother to petunia evans. living.
petunia evans ➤ sister; 23, single, daughter to richard and violet evans. living.
potential connections
hold my hand, darling (open) ➤ lily needs someone, anyone, to help her take care of herself in a multiple ways, someone who can cut through all of her crap. she needs someone who knows how she actually feels about herself, who knows how hard she tries to keep this seemingly crumbling family together. the person is likely to have reigned her in when she needed it. this person could also challenge her but in a way that makes lily think, and actually talk about what she feels. they're her anchor.
issue me a challenge (open) ➤ someone who conflicts with lily. someone who questions her motives, her ideas, her general being. maybe they saw her as something of an annoyance during their hogwarts years, or maybe they just don't think lily is up to the tasks that she takes on. they don't take her crap or her bullshit, they give it to her straight and try to put her in line. it doesn't have to be a hateful relationship, but i'd say it's a little less that friendly. this relationship bond is most likely to be found in a self confident or parallel of lily. someone who causes conflict. needless to say, lily isn't their biggest fan either.
whiskey and tequila (marlene mckinnon) ➤ suns and mountains, rocks and cliffs—the ins and outs of all those that they had come across, they had risen conquers. empresses of their own heart, wound at the hip with an inescapable attachment, through cataracts they are the sea that beckons, the sea that recalls. fair-haired marlene, though not faint-hearted; she is the insurmountable rage, the beckoning storm, the sea that draws itself from the shore only to return so as to attain solitude from the feral viciousness of sea-foam and waves. bold-browed lily, forever bound to an ongoing storm; they are all that could ever be wanted, but in the two, fire is a fatality.
with sharp intellect (aisling mccrae) ➤ lily needs someone to share her philosophical ideas with. she's like that, always creating new ideas in her head -- and there's a part of her that just wants to explode with ideas. lily needs someone to tell these ideas to, someone who's intelligent or who would understand where she's coming from. they have an analytical mind, perhaps, or they sometimes question lily's thinking ... to get her thinking. when they're talking, it's like they're away from the turmoil, just two friends discussing the errors of the world.
bonnie & clyde (open) ➤ lily is in dire need of a partner in crime. in their hogwarts years they were constantly parading around, pulling tricks and wrecking havoc. now, however, their pranks are probably more stagnant -- but there's still a fire within both of them. this role could be male or female; they could be feminists, or they could be a guy and girl with a rebellious streak in them. there's a passion in everything they do, and lily loves to hang out with them because they give off a vibe of a free spirit. they're like freedom -- everything she hopes for in this war.
i am sweet empathy (open) ➤ lily's always putting other people first. she's like a mother of the order, always listening to people's problems and offering advice -- but this person comes to her more than the average order member. they're wrestling with their inner turmoil like a storm, and lily knows exactly how to calm them down. she understands them, offers them great advice and this person loves her for it. she's their shoulder to cry on, their rock. i envision this person being a naive character, but i could easily go the other way and involve a character who's ordinarily quite shelled up in their own emotions. male or female, again, i don't have a preference.
a quiet storm (bertha jorkins) ➤ she sees sadness in her eyes, no matter how often the lethargy behind it protests. as if a mirror, her own fears and sentiments are reflected in that of the lamb; slaughtered, bloodied and raw, as if awaiting her date of trial and accepting her fate. beneath sadness lies secrets, pouring from its seams once fractured; ruptured, unprotected. but lily doesn’t wish to disclose anything, only trust: something bertha cannot afford, cannot allow herself. trust, in its truest form, cannot be true to her.
the darkness within (open) ➤ lily does not trust the ex-death eaters who found themselves on the steps of port montrose, even if it was some time ago. they'd committed their lives to destroying people like her, so how could she? over time, however, she has come to accept their presence here. she knows they're sincere, but the fact that they still view themselves as superior is alarming to her. i should imagine that this character takes up a few of lily's offerings on more than one occasion. she brings them tea and soup as a peace offering, and slowly they're building up to telling her about their experience as a death eater.
like a mother (open) ➤ i think lily really needs a mother figure. lily's constantly repressing her own emotions in order to look after those around her, and she needs someone to do the same for her. she puts people before herself a fair bit, so sometimes she forgets she's hurting deep inside. she needs someone who can pull her back together, to nurse her back to health and just to talk to. lily doesn't open up to many people, but this person is an exception. they don't have to be a female, of course -- they could be male. lily just needs platonic love and a shoulder to cry on now and again. if she doesn't, well, lily fears she might lose herself to the war.
LILY EVANS / TWENTY-ONE / ORDER MEMBER / FC: JULIA JOHANSEN
“What, what kind of world would take a sweet wild flower and pull it up from the ground, my little Lily Love?”
↳ BEFORE THE WAR
Lily Evans was born the second daughter of two muggles in a tiny town in England, and for eleven years those streets were all she knew. With her bright red hair whipping behind her, a young Lily Evans took her world by storm. A selfish child by nature, Lily wanted every bit of her fantastic world to be her own. She never wanted to take it all, she never meant to be selfish, but Lily couldn’t help but want to experience all she could. When she received her Hogwarts letter this desire only intensified. One letter, one piece of parchment opened a whole new world to Lily, and she wanted to know every inch of it. To this day she can still recall each and every plant in the Hogwarts Greenhouses by name, and tell you exactly where to find Diagon Alley’s hidden tea shop. Lily wanted to know this world just as she knew her home and the cobbled streets and brick houses of Cokeworth. However, with every thing she learned, with every fact she told her parents, there was her sister Petunia reminding her just what she was — a freak.
Perhaps the most peculiar thing about Lily was how well she seemed to know what she wanted, especially for how young she was. In her years at Hogwarts she always had a goal she was striving for, whether it be getting an “O” in potions or finding every hidden passageway in the castle. In her fifth year, one of Lily’s main goals became denying James Potter of any sort of satisfaction. He was arrogant, self-centered, and an all around git, and yet there was always a whole crowd of girls vying for his attention. Lily, on the other hand, couldn’t care less. When she came back for sixth year everything changed for Lily. That summer she and Petunia had gotten into a nasty fight. There was yelling, screaming, and Petunia called her a freak at least a dozen times. There was always a part of Lily that thought maybe she was right, but after that argument Lily was done second guessing herself. When she came back to Hogwarts she was different, more confident in herself, and this time it was Lily that pursued James. After all, fully embracing the wizarding world meant having a wizarding boyfriend, right?
↳ CHAPTER ONE
Lily had always been the girl who had everything, but only because she worked for it. However, as the war approached Lily watched it take everything from her. When she was nineteen she broke things off with James, not because she didn’t want him, but because she wanted to have some sort of control over her life. She didn’t want the war to take him from her; she couldn’t let it happen like that. So she let go of him, hoping that meant he wouldn’t be torn away from her. However, the stresses of war are often too much for Lily to handle. She’s gone running back to James more than a few times, and he always takes her back. It isn’t until the next morning that Lily realizes how foolish she’s been. She apologizes to James, because she knows she can’t be with him. Not now.
↳ CHAPTER TWO
One woman split all of Port Montrose. One woman had people yelling at the top of their lungs during meetings. One woman left Lily Evans somewhere in the middle of it all. Vivienne Travers had done terrible things, but Lily didn’t think killing her was the answer. Vivienne deserves to be punished but the last thing they all need is more blood. Lily agrees that Vivienne needs to be watched and she’d rather see how things go than kill her, especially with a storm on the horizon. In the meantime, Lily has been doing anything she can to help find a cure. If she can solve one problem and make herself useful maybe they can get past all the arguing. Maybe she and Marlene and James can be on the same side of things again.
“They’ve got a seastorm on their shoulders and people say they’ve got to remain strong, bold, but they’re already lifting the world & carrying the skies.”
