Lily opened her eyes.
She was alone. She could tell from the penetrating silence all around her. Alone to get ready for the moment when her life would change. She sat up in bed and fixed a stray hair back into place. Looking at her clock, she realised it was late. She had slept for barely two hours, and what sleep she had managed had been plagued with disturbing dreams.
She turned to James for comfort, realising from the empty space that he had done what she’d asked and gone to stay with Sirius. James never understood her Muggle superstitions, but he respected her opinion enough to comply when need demanded. She didn’t need bad luck to add to the thoughts that were creeping from her subconscious.
Pulling a warm jumper over her nightdress, she made her way through the house and into the living room. Lighting a fire, she surrounded herself with photographs of herself and James. After a while she found herself staring into the embers, a solitary tear rolling down her cheek.
Was she making the right decision?
Throughout her childhood she had known how love worked. The Princess always fell in love with the knight in shining armour. So why was she wishing that the knight was someone else?
She paused and stared at the picture at the top of the pile. There she was, sitting with James in the local park. They sat on a swing each, Lily on the left, James on the right, swinging away happily as they stared into the camera and smiled. Standing, she brushed the tear from her face and made her way to the cupboard in the hallway. The top shelf held a small box, wooden and carved with intricate swirls. She placed it on the kitchen table and moved its contents around, until she found what she was looking for and took it back to the living room. She sat back down and positioned it next to the picture. Now she stared down at two smiling versions of herself, sitting on the left swing and staring into a camera. The two photographs were taken many years apart, but documented two of the happiest days of her life.
The first photo showed a moment merely three hours before James had proposed. But the second, earlier picture showed a different boy beside her. In many ways the boys were similar, black hair and a warm smile, though the boy who was not James had lost his warmth now.
“Lily,” said a voice.
She started and looked up, coming face to face with the grown-up counterpart of the boy from the earlier picture. Deep in his eyes she saw the same young boy she had known so many years ago.
“Lily,” he said again.
“What are you doing here?” she replied, suddenly realising how little she was wearing and pulling her jumper tighter around her, making sure her nightdress wasn’t on show.
“I “ I couldn’t sleep.” He turned away and moved deeper into the shadows of the room.
“You couldn’t sleep, so you decided to come here at one thirty in the morning?” His excuse was ridiculous, she knew he knew it, and yet some part of her made her continue the conversation. “You didn’t just decide to come here and see if you could change my mind?”
He looked up at her again, his eyes meeting hers with a flash of green on black. His mouth opened slightly as if he were about to speak, but no sound followed and the gaze went on. Coming to her senses, Lily blinked and looked down to the ground. Only to be greeted with the same dark stare.
“It would seem like you were doing that yourself.” He picked up the photo and examined it with care. “You restaged our photo?”
“I didn’t mean to,” Lily admitted, attempting to take it from him. “I didn’t know he had a camera that day.”
“Right,” he said and turned away from her once more.
She could feel the emotion rising in her throat now. She wanted him to plead with her, to beg her to go with him, to make the decision for her.
“Why are you here?” she whispered, barely trusting her voice to hold.
“I don’t think I know,” he replied.
She walked around to face him, to find his eyes once more. She had learnt a long time ago that this boy was a master at hiding himself, but somehow, to her, he could never hide his eyes. With one look she could tell what he was thinking, or feeling. One look could tell her all she needed to know. One look “
But it was cold.
“You replaced me, Lily.” His voice sounded strained too. “I thought-”
“You thought what? That I’d end up with you? After all that you’ve done to me?” She let the anger build up now. How dare he make this her fault?
“I-”
“No! This is my turn. You think this is easy for me?” She stormed across the room, hardly trying to keep hold of her temper. “This is my wedding day, and I’m standing here with my heart torn. How can I commit myself and give my life to another person when I know, deep inside, it could’ve been someone else?”
“Lily, I-”
“I love James.”
He stopped as he moved to step towards her. His breath caught still and his eyes reflected pain.
“But, I love you too.” She stared down at her hand and felt the tears fall to the floor. Her legs began to shake beneath her until they buckled and she fell.
“Lily, you know I love you.” He was by her side now, kneeling beside her with such care and devotion. He reached up to stroke her face but she flinched away from his arm.
“Let me see it,” she whispered.
His face became still, his eyes hardening and his small smile returning to its usual cold state.
“There’s nothing to see.” He stood once more, not allowing her access to his soul, but she was too quick for him. She stood and pulled up his sleeve, revealing the dark black tattoo on his forearm. She recoiled to the wall with a strangled gasp before breaking down and sobbing into the sleeves of her jumper.
“I- I-”
There were no words to describe how she was feeling so she let the cries release the anguish from her body. She was not afraid for her life, nor in pain from the broken love in her heart. She was mourning the death of her childhood sweetheart, the boy she had promised herself to that lazy afternoon as the sat in the swings. She was mourning the death of a boy with whom she could share all her secrets, with whom she could tease her sister, and with whom she could truly be herself.
“Lily,” he tried, but the abrupt silence that greeted it halted his breath.
“Go!” she breathed, unable to say more than this one short syllable.
“Please.”
“You lied to me, you swore. You promised it wasn’t you.” She felt herself rising to her feet despite not being in control of her body. “You promised you wouldn’t join them. Now go!”
She reached for her wand and pointed it at his heart “ though no spell she could cast could do more damage than the wound he had inflicted upon it himself.
Defeated and broken, he turned on the spot and fled from the house of his soul mate.
Lily let the wand fall and fell forward towards the mirror hanging up beside the door. She stared at herself as she let the grief take over, crying for as long as it took to numb the pain inside. Then she stood as straight as she could and fixed the stray hair that had fallen into her face.
The sun rose slowly over the hill and streamed through the window in pale orange beams. Lily Evans tore the picture of herself and her first love and placed it into the fire before turning towards the stairs to prepare for her wedding day. In the embers, the curling corners of the photograph burnt away the eyes of the smiling black haired boy, removing all evidence that she had ever loved Severus Snape.