Emma Vanity hadn't seen color this bright in a long time.
She resisted the urge to squint (actually, she succumbed to it) and marveled at the curious being that was Lily Evans. But she only glared, and she returned it, if only on instinct.
Her hair was such a brilliant hue, reddish maroon. It fell elegantly, resting on the shoulder, straight, gentle strands coalescing in such a marvelously angelic fashion. Emma briefly wondered how weird one had to be to notice a witch's hair before all else. Then again, she had been counting, and nothing should ever interrupt.
When the universe spoke into your ear, when it mentioned even a hint of a threat, you listened. And you listened well. She would've given anything and everything to redo it, to listen to its harsh demands, save him from the cold clutches of death.
She wasn't quite sure what death's hands felt like, but she chose to imagine them as nimble and cold, underoxygenated like all the once-healthy bodies that had fallen to a stop, whether abrupt, a final snip as the marionette fell, limp, or elongated, one moment stretched out into thousands.
Her hands were cold. It could've easily been her hands that reaped her energy, her life, in exchange for release. In a way, it was. Maybe it was supposed to provide some comfort in her, self-sufficiency being as indulgible to her as cigarettes, or alcohol, or any other substance that stimulates complacency. Maybe it was her need to rationalize such an intangible fixation, herself, death, and the universe. All one and the same.
Death was such a foreboding thought, to meet them and entrust your soul in theirs. But she had no other choice, not in her eyes.
Maybe she believed she was cheating death.
There was something appealing about evading its cold (or at least, imaginably cold) grasp, beaming to its empty face in place of begging. She would go before they had any chance to take her. She was not a hostage, not if she'd been held willingly.
Then there was the matter of Lily Evans.
Evans and the remarkably red hair, the book that had skidded to a stop at her feet, the need to rifle through and take a peek at what Perfect Lily's handwriting looked like. Evans, who she'd stood up for, who she'd sacrificed her overlooked-side-character status for.
Suddenly, the prospect of contemplating death seemed infinitely simpler.
**********
"Lily? What happened? Are you alright?"
James looked up, eyes full of concern as his Transfiguration textbook snapped shut. He rushed up to her, taking in her flushed complexion, clutching her hands. He recoiled at the slick sight of blood. "Are you hurt?"
Lily blinked, mind frozen in a haze of bright lights. "I have a little bit of a headache. Is that my blood?"
She ignored the wave of nausea the threatened to consume her, instead burying her face in his chest. He stood, shocked before rubbing her back awkwardly.
"Oi, Jamesie! What's all the- Evans? What's wrong?"
Sirius stopped midsentence, a look of confusion mingling on his features. He approached the two cautiously before notice the crimson spot blooming towards Lily's hairline. "Oh, Merlin. You're bleeding. Should I call someone? Er, Remus, Peter, Alarie, get your ass down these stairs in the next five seconds. There's something wrong with Lily!"
The three of them were in the Common Room in the allotted time, Brigitte very nearly tripping on a displaced armchair. She landed on a decorative pillow with a thud, straightening with a threatening glare before anyone could mention her misstep.
"Lily?" She asked cautiously, eyes sweeping across the scene. "What happened? You're bleeding, you know. Why don't we get you to Madame Pomfrey's?"
But Lily didn't respond, removing herself from James's lingering grasp. "I think I'm going to throw up."
James let go with a yelp and Sirius backing away in fear of being within spraying proximity. Brigitte only scoffed, grabbing a nearby bin before placing it by Lily's feet.
Lily retched, lurching forward to avoid a mess. Brigitte reached out to catch her hair, rubbing her back with a surprising amount of humility.
Remus frowned, offering Lily a handkerchief he'd kept in his pocket. "It's probably a concussion. You must've hit your head pretty hard. What happened?"
*********
"Um, sorry, they did what?"
James glared mutinously at the wall, resisting his growing urge to put his fist through those Slytherin scumbags and pound them under their limited brain particles oozed through their orifices.
"James, mate, you have to calm down. You'll get us kicked out of the Hospital Wing," Remus admonished from his position in a tacky green chair, rubbing his temples aggressively. He couldn't name a single reason why someone would target Lily Evans, his oversharing-whilst-intoxicated best friend, study partner, and certified suckup.
Brigitte stood next to him, back stiffer than the flimsy plastic chairs they were all issued. She had her hands balled at her sides, eyes dangerously calm. Every once in a while, her eyes would storm over, and she'd motion towards her wand before letting her hands fall back against her legs.
Even Sirius and Peter looked quite disconcerted. Sirius sported a dangerous scowl, holding a cigarette he'd neglected to light. Peter twisted around in his chair. He looked vaguely disturbed, and his eyes remained vacant.
"Guys? You know it'll be fine, right?" Lily asked, nervously twisted the sheets around her finger. "Honestly James, you get concussions all the time during Quidditch matches. It's not a big deal."
But there was an underlying heaviness that weighed in the atmosphere, proving to them all that the matter was much larger than they were willing to admit.
********
Emma once watched, enthralled at the renaissance paintings her mother loved to examine whenever they visited the art museum. She'd fantasize about their full, luscious lips. She wanted to hug their hips, to feel their hot breath against her throat.
She didn't care much for the male portraits.
They looked rather comical in comparison to the majestic goddesses surrounding her. Georgie always laughed as she leaned in closer, soaking up every inch of the aeriform beauty, such a divine gossamer entrancing her. She needed to be closer to such supernal women, needed to feel their canvas epidermis. It was an instinct like no other.
No one could understand her animalistic urges for the wrong sex.
Georgie didn't understand, though he tried, many times. It was surreal, distinguishable from the order that surrounded her life. You count, you calculate the speed of bacteria that is currently multiplying on your hands from touching the stairwell handle, you kiss men and you enjoy it.
Of course, now he was dead. And her mother might as well have been.
There was very little left from the days of silence. But what remained was her love of women.
Her mother paid no heed to any endeavors of hers, and for once, it paid off. Her mother and the permanent absence that settled in her chest. She remembered a time when mum would've cared very much when she would've certainly had objections, but that was all too long ago.
There was little that remained of the woman her mother once was. Sometimes Emma could catch a wisp of her old self, a final leaf quivering against the branch before its slow trek down, trodden through the dirt. Heaviness sinking deeply into her chest like a thousand-kilogram weight, crushing her slowly.
Some days, Emma wondered how she could even let herself End It, and what a selfish soul one would have to be to leave their grieving mother amidst another gut-wrenching loss. Truthfully, she believed her mother had a hard time discerning gut-wrenching and timely. Maybe Katherine planned to let the grief consume her sluggishly, but Emma did not. She was not going to go to bed one day and wake up, indifferent to The Soul Reaper. She would look them directly in the face, and ask how they could take Georgie, ask how they stole Katherine's life before even her body had given up.
She was once fierce, both in nature and in love, she'd felt her heart torn to shreds the day Georgie was lost. Once upon a time, she sang about the stars under her breath as she peered out into the vast expanses.
Katherine Li (she didn't take her late husband's surname, though her children did) had eyes as black as the depths of the sky. They didn't need to shine in the sunlight, didn't need a spot of golden brown to make them beautiful. They were introspective regardless. Some people made remarks of disdain at the hooded quality, but no eyes held more wisdom than Katherine's once had.
Three years later, and the denial stage is still very much apparent.
**********
Words.
They drifted through the air, traveling with syllables of tapered expressions, rolling off your tongue mellifluously tangy like lemon meringue pie, and all the linguistic beauties one could dream of.
Emma enjoyed the art of stringing letters to create randomized meanings determined by no one person in particular. She briefly wondered who made up the rules, who created words with the vowels and consonants the scarce English alphabet presented us with.
Some wrote lyrics, penciled on arms, or poetry, stanzas lining the margins of your potions essay.
Emma wrote letters.
She wrote letters to everyone and no one, leaving them tucked behind a broken sink in Myrtle's bathroom.
She wrote to all the people she wouldn't get to love, all the strangers who'd remain nothing more than just that, all the friends she'd never make, all the girls she'd never kiss.
Myrtle had never been a nuisance, not after she'd spent years as a professional burden among her peers. The ghost while morose, understood more than any of her living acquaintances. Sometimes they enjoyed lengthy discussions on the mundane human life, other times, she listened as Myrtle wept, wounds as fresh as they'd been thirty years ago.
Truthfully, the first floor lavatories weren't even close to her first choice when it came to solitary locations. In fact, bathrooms usually remained a source of panic for her. She hated touching the sink, and if her hand did so much as brush against its smooth, wet surface, she scalded herself until her hands were splotchy and dry.
However, Myrtle frightened (she wasn't particularly intimidating, but she did help ward of discourageable presences) of any visitors, and she performed the Scourgify charm as many times as one could possibly remember. Even then, she couldn't bring herself to sit down, so stood, inkpot floating beside her, neck aching and handwriting barely legible as she bent over her letters.
Writing had never come naturally for her. She couldn't remember the beautiful words she loved to absorb, couldn't produce literate allegories from the wisps of imagination. She wrote not because it was of any enjoyment to her, standing next to germ-infested toilets, listening to Myrtle moan about her nonlife, but because it had slowly adapted itself to become a necessity.
Each letter always started itself the same way.
To whom it may concern...
Letters, Recollections, and Realizations from Desk of Emma Vanity
(text translation in the comments)
Something Emma Vanity Did Not Expect
A reply.
👹🚫‼️
Hey y'all~
Okay, so I spent a few days creating images that are basically Emma and Lily, and even though they hate each other right now, I'm gonna show it to you!
AHHHHHHHH!
It's supposed to have an oil painting feel, but idk, it kinda just looks blurry. I'm super duper proud because the girl on the right was blonde before I colored her hair, and I just discovered that Photoshop has an oil painting brush.
Anyway, please tell me what you think! Reads have been going down, and I don't wanna sound annoying, but please tell me what I should add! I have extremely high expectations for myself, and when I don't meet them, I think it's always good to take a moment to reflect (or have a mental breakdown in the bathroom).
A reminder that this story has a romance subplot! Brigitte and James are one of many things we focus on, although I'm planning for them to have bonding moments in the next chapter, along with Emma & Lily stuff!
I'm gonna let you vote on what you wanna see more of. Comment when you see a subplot you want me to focus on.
Wolfstar (or the lack, thereof, and jelly Remus):
Brigitte and James (once again, sexual tension):
Lily and Emma (I already have some planned, but this is gonna be fun):
Regulus (I'm thinking about making him have a crush on James, comment anything you want him to do in particular):
Also, let's not romanticize mental illness! Emma isn't trying to be quirky, isn't doing it for the aesthetic, she is in pain. If you relate to some thoughts she has, please, please, please seek help! Depression and other mental illnesses aren't just emo aesthetics and remaining beautiful, it's not being able to get out of bed, barely showering once a week, and letting homework pile up while you rewatch a comfort movie for the thousandth time. It's. Not. Fun.
It's not glamorous, it's not something you ever want to experience. Please tell someone if you are having depressing/suicidal thoughts. Please.
On a lighter note, we've reached 9.7k reads! AHHHH THANK YOU SO MUCH I CAN'T THANK Y'ALL ENOUGH!!!
I love y'all so much! If you'd ever like to talk, I'm here for you <3