"Lily!"
"That's right! That's Lily!" Mrs. Evans smiled and laughed, her eyes dancing merrily as she sat on the floor, her twin daughters playing beside her on a blanket spread out on the ground in the garden. She turned to the slightly younger of the two daughters - Lily. "Lily honey. Can you say Petunia? Pe-tuuuu-nia," she sounded it out, looking expectantly at her daughter.
"Tuney!" Lily giggled.
Mrs. Evans laughed, "Pe- tuuuu-nia!"
"Tuney!"
Well, Lily would grow into being able to say her sister's name at one day, Mrs. Evans thought.
And grow they did.
Sirius watched as they grew, like flowers in the garden - a Lily and a Petunia - shooting up from the ground where they'd been babies with their mother, growing into toddlers and young children and on...
Tuney was laughing... they were friends... they were so close, they were inseparable, they were proper twins, twins who finished each other's sentences, who brushed each other's hair, who sang songs and danced to the radio, who held tea parties for their Barbie dolls and stuffed animals every day and held hand when they were nervous. They shared secrets. They were exactly alike but different, fraternal twins not identical, Tuney's face more pinched with lovely tresses that had natural body and curl to it, with clear, pale skin and a classic Hollywood beauty, while Lily's face was heart-shaped, ruddy, freckled, her ginger hair straight. Tuney was graceful and elegant, Lily rough around the edges, clumsy, and boyish in that she didn't care if she got dirty, only that things were a lark. Tuney's things were pink and Lily's were green or yellow or even brown - more earthy to Tuney's delicate. They completed each other, like together they made up a whole, they learned from each other, fulfilling elements the other lacked.
"Tuney! Keep up!"
"I can't keep up, you run too bloody fast!"
Lily laughed, ducking through the trees that lined the north side of the park, her hair catching brambled branches and leaping over log and splashing through a shallow puddle, her lacy white socks and white patent leather shoes getting muddy as she went, red hair flying wildly behind her head, half fallen out of the braid Mrs. Evans had put it into that morning.
She laughed and laughed, and the scene melted until she was flying... flying... pumping her legs sooo hard until she was kicking up at the sky, the swing beneath her soaring so high... She was shouting for Tuney to go ahead and do it, too, and Tuney was laughing and shouting no, no she'd get hurt, and to be careful!
"What's Georgie Pringle doing now?" Tuney demanded in a snobbish voice from the ground.
"Georgie Pringle is a great prat, someone ought to put that kid in his place. Deserves a detention, he does - always going around bullying other kids all over the school," Lily was saying - an echo of another day - like a voiceover as she slowed her swing, dragging her feet on the ground, dust kicking up 'round her as she did... She stared across the park.
A brutish boy and his mates were encircling a park bench like a skulk of angry foxes, and on the bench sat Severus Snape - though Lily didn't know him yet, Snape's features were too familiar to Sirius not to be easily recognized. This memory - it had to be sometime before his eleventh birthday - the summer before, judging by the weather and the greenery of the plants all about... Snape was about the stature and weight he'd been when Eileen Prince had brought him to visit Number 12 Grimmauld Place... begging for help.
Help that Walburga had not extended.
Help that he, Sirius, and Regulus had laughed at Snape for.
Help that now, seeing him in this memory of Lily's, Sirius could clearly see how much Severus needed.
His stomach turned.
The brutish boy - this Georgie Pringle - he'd knocked Severus's book into the mud and Severus had bent down from the bench where he'd been sitting and Georgie Pringle brought his knee up into Severus's face.
Sirius thought of another boy who had sat on a park bench, minding his own business, and being attacked by a gang of boys.
"That's it, that's it, I can't let them keep being bullies!" Lily said.
"What are you going to do?" Tuney asked, nervous.
"I'm stopping them, that's what."
The swing was still flying fairly high when Lily jumped off it, and she tumbled ungracefully, scrambling to her feet as Tuney cried out, worried Lily had been hurt on impact.
"STOP IT!" Lily was shouting - stamping her foot, "I SAID NO!" And there was accidental magic, sparks flying through the air, her palms wielding control to scare away the bad kids, them all rushing off and leaving Lily to help Severus Snape up, to pull him to his feet, to stare into his eyes...
"You're a witch," he said. "I'm not calling you names..." the words echoed in Lily's head and Sirius could feel her heart pounding in her chest, the blood rushing through her, excitement at the idea...
"So what if he's from Spinner's End?"
"Lily, Spinner's End is where the poor people live. They're filthy there. They have cockroaches and smell funny because they don't take baths..."
"Sev can't help where he's from, Petunia..."
Then she was standing on a sidewalk and Severus paused and he looked around, then walked over to the flower bed in the yard they were passing by. He bent down and plucked a couple petals from one of the flowers there. He held up his palm so she could see them, then closed his hand around the petals. She watched as he moved his fingers for a few moments, then opened them up and in his hand there sat a butterfly of precisely the same colors as the flower petals and, it looked, the same texture. But the butterfly was real - it flapped its wings peacefully as the antennae wobbled and its beady black eyes peered up at Lily.
As it flew away, he heard a new familiar voice.
"Ms. Evans, you've been selected to attend Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry." It was McGonagall, and she was sitting in the parlor at the Evans's house, sipping tea.
"Me?" Lily had asked, and then, "What about Tuney?"
McGonagall's eyes were sad. "I'm afraid only - only you are magical, Ms. Evans. Not your sister."
"Why not?! Why aren't I good enough?!" Tuney was screaming and then she was fighting with Lily another day in their bedroom, their pretty pink tea set lay spilled over, the plastic cups laying on the floor. "Why can't I go to magic school too?! Why do only you get to be magical?"
"Write to Dumbledore! Minerva McGonagall said the headmaster was the one who said it was just me. Maybe if you write to him..."
There were torn up bits of letter then, raining around Lily, Petunia fuming angry, tears falling from her eyes as she threw the letter's remains into the sky. "He's a mean, terrible old man and I hate him! I wouldn't want to learn from his school if it was the last school on earth!" Petunia shouted, her voice shaking and laced with pain. "I wouldn't go there if you paid me to do it! It much be a terrible place anyway, if he's invited that boy from Spinner's End, that freak boy with the greasy hair!"
"Sev is a good person, you can't judge him by where he comes from. Being poor doesn't mean he can't be any good... He's been through a lot you don't know about, Tuney! You don't understand him like I do."
"He's a freak," Tuney said, "And so are you."
"Stop it!"
"Freak! you're a Freak!"
"Freak!"
"Freak!"
And Lily was sobbing.
Her hands were covering her face.
She was sitting on the train, her brand new wool gray skirt on, her knee socks carefully pulled up and hugging her calves. Her shiny black mary-jane shoes buckled carefully... She sat, crying because Tuney wouldn't hug her goodbye, wouldn't even speak or reply when Lily said it anyway, kept her arms crossed over her chest when Lily said given her a hug...
Broken. Lily felt broken. A half of a person. Just the clumsy, unpretty half.
Couldn't she see how beautiful she was? Sirius wondered.
"'lo... is, um... this seat taken?"
Lily looked up and there was James, blurry through her tears.
"No, it's quite empty. I don't think anybody wants to sit with the sobbing first year."
James's eyes stared at hers and Sirius could see the compassion in them - those same eyes had stared at him in the middle of the night taking tea in the common room after nightmares and they'd stared into his as James listened about horrible things that Sirius couldn't talk to anybody else about. They were eyes that Sirius loved, his favorite eyes to look into, second only to Remus Lupin's eyes... and sometimes honestly they were even first over Remus Lupin's eyes because James Potter's had seen him first.
"I'm James, by the way."
"Lily Evans."
"Are you okay? Just - because you're crying..."
And then there he himself, Sirius, was, coming in through the door and Lily stared at him as he settled himself into the bench next to her. "I'm Sirius," he said.
"About what?" asked James.
"It's my name," Sirius answered.
Lily stared out the window, nose to the glass, watching her family disappear - watching Petunia disappear, watching everything she'd always known disappear... How horrible a sinking feeling it was, watching Tuney's shape fade into the distance... how poetic and true to life...
"Is she alright?" his own voice whispered from behind Lily.
Then, "We only just got her to stop blubbering!" James was snapping...
Sirius turned to see that Severus Snape had arrived in the compartment. Sirius noticed Severus Snape looked... healthier than he had before in Lily's memories. He was scrawny but not quite so much as he'd been before, he was filling in a bit about the peakiest parts of his face, like he'd been malnourished in the previous visions and now he might've had a bit of food on a regular basis perhaps...
"Slytherin?" James's voice echoed. "Who wants to be in Slytherin? I think I'd leave, wouldn't you?" And James's face had changed a bit and for the splittest of a second, Sirius could see the arrogance that Lily always accused him of. He could see the attitude that she'd always claimed he wore.
"Where are you heading if you've got the choice?"
"Gryffindor!"
Severus snorted.
"Got a problem with that?"
"If you'd rather be brawny than brainy...."
"Where are you hoping to go, seeing as you're neither?" Sirius was ashamed of the tone of his own voice. And yet there was James, roaring with laughter, and Sirius felt small listening t othe horribleness of that laughter. He felt small and dirty, as he recognized the horribleness of the moment for the first time.
They really had been bullies.
"Evans, Lily!" McGonagall's voice rang loudly over the sound of their horrible laughter.
"I'm scared, Sev," Lily whispered.
"Go, you'll be brilliant," Severus answered, and he had a sparkle in his dark eyes, a kindness that Sirius had never seen before.
"What if I trip on my way up to the stool?" Lily asked.
"Then I'll catch you. I'll always catch you, Lily..."
Then the Hat was talking. "...what makes you tick... hmmm, You've got a lot of love in you. That's a mighty, ancient power... You're a rare one, Lily Evans, very rare indeed... Slytherin? Goodness me, no that would never work..."
"Please. Sev needs me."
"Needs you?"
"I can take it. It doesn't matter that I won't fit in... I'm willing to take on whatever the Slytherins can chuck at me to stay with Sev..."
"You're far too brave... best to be GRYFFINDOR!"
"Gryffindor, all right!" Sirius's voice broke through... and Lily was beside him on the bench and he felt the emptiness when she didn't high-five him back all over again... and yet somewhere in his head he also heard her apologizing for it, apologizing recently, saying she was sorry she didn't high-five him back, saying she'd not noticed it before she'd seen this very memory.
It gave him chills.
There were flashes - flashes of Severus slowly getting darker and the way that ached and hurt, and there were flashes of the Marauders, laughing and joking and across the room - this loneliness filled the memories and there was a dormitory bed with a tear-soaked pillow, there were pictures of Petunia and memories of that echoing word "freak...freak...freak" over and over and Sirius could feel the isolation that Lily felt, the separation, the emptiness.
Still just half a person... still a broken piece.
There was Alice Bell, though.
Alice Bell, laughing and smiling, teaching Lily charms to do make up and showing her articles in Witch Weekly. They were giggling, laying side by side on Lily's bed, looking at pictures of cute wizard boys in Teen Witch and Alice Bell telling Lily about what it was like growing up in a wizarding family, being patient and kind, explaining things and showing her how to get about the castle, teaching her little, useful charms like how to sharpen pencils and how to charm the quill not to run out of ink so that the inkpot was magically replenishing the quill without having to dip the tip. They were reading each other's assignments, checking for errors, and there was laughing and friendship... for the first time, someone besides Tuney to be friends with.
Lily was singing quietly, making friendship bracelets and giving one of her best ever to Alice Bell, mailing her very best by post to Petunia and never hearing back...
Then the news, the horrible news.
They were in Florish and Blott's and James was holding some of his books and the list from the school. Charlus was there, talking to Mr. And Mrs. Evans as Lily and James talked.
"Remus isn't doing so swell," it's was James's voice breaking it.
"What? Why? What's the matter? Is he alright? Is he ill?"
"No, his mum died," James said. "She was killed, by You-Know-Who."
Hope Lupin.
Remus Lupin's mother.
Dead.
"Is Remus alright?"
"I dunno."
"Haven't you heard from him?"
"I've had the parchment on my desk for weeks, but what do you say to somebody who's mum's been killed, I dunno what to say."
"You say that you care! You don't just ignore it!"
There was Remus - crying in the hallway, and Lily's arms wrapped around him as he pressed his face into her shoulder... and Sirius felt guilty. Guilty because he'd never been the one to do this, never been there for Remus when he cried over Hope Lupin - not then, anyway, not when he needed it most. Sure, he'd help Remus countless times for the memory of his mum, for tears shed years after the fact, but when the pain was fresh, raw, and horrid like this - he, Sirius, had been too busy mucking about, too busy living his own life... and Remus had had only Lily Evans.
And then there was Alex Tinnamin's voice echoing through, "There's been another attack. The Death Eaters attacked the Bells' funeral."
"Blimey," James said, "Is everyone alright?"
"Dunno..."
And Lily was sobbing again... her heart broken...
"Are you alright?" Remus's voice echoed.
Lily shook her head.
"I'm sorry," Remus said.
"They don't deserve this," Lily cried, "They're good people..."
Lily held Remus's hand because Remus cared, Remus had just lost his mum to the Death Eaters. Remus understood loss and Lily understood it now too. They were there for each other - a bond formed, unbreakable... a deep kind of love and understanding... a connection...
"....Alice Bell, daughter of the late Leonard and Stella Bell, was killed on site. Witnesses of the attack sau that several unidentified followers of the Dark Lord arrived at the funeral wearing dark masks that obscured their faces..."
And she was crying even more now - gut wrenching sobs, sobs like Sirius himself had cried a hundred thousand time so that he felt the loss so completely with her even in the memory...
Another broken piece chipped away from an already broken person.
Less than a half now.
Everything was spinning then, spinning color and sound and an empty, hollow sort of feeling... more of that loneliness and isolation, so much confusion and there were thestrals... A mess of color and shape and not much else, a numb disbelief, a darkness illuminated by a thousand high-held wands, lit in memorium in the Great Hall.
She was sitting next to Remus Lupin then in the corridor at Hogwarts.
"You need a friend who isn't a prat," she said.
Remus was sad-eyed, green eyed, and his voice was gentle though low with pain that hung from the words. "Lily... you've got a big heart. You love very well. Maybe that's your special brand of magic - why you've got magic and Petunia doesn't. You have a very open heart."
"But that would make you -- a --"
"I'm not lying Lily," Remus said as she stared at him, horror-struck. "I'm just telling you the truth. I'm a werewolf."
She was holding him, "It's alright Rey..."
"You don't think differently of me?"
"No, I don't. You're the bravest person I know, just for being you."
And there she was, fingers touching his scars, loving him and his broken pieces before Sirius was, and there were awkward brushes of the hands as they held one another's fingers, and mutual pain, mutual loss, mutual understanding of what it was like not to be whole, to be broken pieces. But their broken pieces didn't fit together. Their jaggedy edges didn't line up... and there was a bloody lip, awkward kisses and, eventually, broken hearts...
"You have no idea how long I'm going to hear it from James about this, Evans," Sirius said.
They were in an empty classroom where she'd dragged him off before Transfiguration class one morning.
"Well James Potter can shut it, I don't want to talk about him, I want to talk about your brother, Regulus."
"You're making us miss Transfiguration for that little tosser? I don't want to talk about him."
"Wait!"
"Oh bloody hell, please tell me you don't have a crush on my brother or something. Please!"
"No, I don't! It's you that I --"
"Please don't have a crush on me, either, Evans. James would hex me so fast..."
"Shut it about James Potter! I need to talk to you about siblings!"
"I'm hardly an expert about siblings," Sirius laughed.
She was staring at him with those impossible-to-ignore green eyes. "You're the only one who could possibly understand what I'm going through. I have nightmares about it!"
"I have nightmares every bloody night," Sirius said. "I cry myself to sleep most nights... I don't dare to go home because when I do I end up on the floor with my mother doing the cruciatus curse on me..."
And Lily was hugging him then, too. Hugging him the way she'd hugged Remus Lupin. He felt himself giving in to her, feeling her absorbing the anxiety her hugs were giving him and returning it with peace. The earliest form of the love magic.... a converter of feelings... "Now you're getting the hang of it," Lily said.
"I'm not sure I like it," Sirius replied.
"You do," Lily assured him.
And then she was always hugging him, Sirius, and it was like she was the one always holding his broken pieces together. And they were broken together, too, her and Sirius, and still they didn't complete eachother either. But she could see that Sirius's broken pieces that fit Remus Lupin's where hers didn't - and she was there, guiding the pieces together...
"You're not a freak," she was saying, and she and Remus were sitting side-by-side again, outside, on a curb, their knees tapping. "You're a boy who's in love."
And there she was hugging such an assortment of people - lovable and unlovable alike - she was laughing and talking with Ali Prewitt, and with Frank Longbottom, and she could see their jaggedy pieces lining up and she was putting those together... and she was smiling with pride at hearing Remus and Sirius were together, shouting and jumping over the back of the couch and giving them hugs and kisses 'round the face...
"I don't know what to do Lily," Marlene McKinnon was saying. They were sitting on the bridge on the grounds, leaning against the mid railing bar and staring into the water of the lake, Marlene's beautiful hair catching the sunlight and her glistening tears as she kept her eyes diverted from Lily's. "I don't know who I am anymore."
"What do you mean?"
"I don't even know. I feel so..." she shook her head.
"Marlene?"
"You know how Sirius Black and Remus Lupin are - are together?"
"Yeah."
"I - I feel so jealous of them."
"Because you still love Sirius?"
Marlene looked at Lily and the saddest expression came onto her face, "No..."
"Then what, sweetie? What is it?"
Marlene's tears overflowed. "I don't know what's wrong with me."
"There's nothing wrong with you."
"Then why didn't I ever feel anything when I kissed Sirius?"
"Maybe Sirius wasn't right for you."
Marlene stared at her.
"Maybe you just need to try kissing the right person."
And Marlene suddenly leaned closer and she cupped her hands on Lily's cheeks and she bent in and pressed her lips to Lily's with urgency. There was a long, very strange pause as Marlene's mouth stayed pressed to hers and Lily's cheeks flushed even as their lips touched and though she didn't push Marlene away, it also didn't feel right. And it was clear on Marlene's face when she drew back that she didn't think it had gone very well, either, and she teared up as her hands fell way from Lily's face. "Oh God - I'm so, so sorry, Lily."
"It's - it's okay," Lily stammered. "I - I'm sorry, too."
"For what?"
"For not being the answer."
And it was like Lily's heart actually broke for not being the answer.
And there was a flash of so many people, so many people Lily Evans loved and who she was there for through so many things. There were first years crying and homesick, long before Lily was a prefect or the head girl she was there for first years - of any house - anyone who needed her. She would stop in the hallway and talk to people who looked sad, and linger behind in Potions to chat with the lonely-looking Horace Slughorn, or ask Professor McGonagall how she was doing. She paused and thanked Mr. Filch for cleaning up a mess that the Marauders had made in the corridor and walked down the path to Hagrid's hut for tea because she'd seen him spying on the Care of Magical Creatures class and thought maybe he'd like to help her do her homework for the class so he could learn about the creatures she was learning about, too, and how she smiled when he got excited about the drawings she'd made and tried at doing some of his own and he showed them to her - the sketches done with thick charcoal pencil that looked like something a child had drawn, but had so much heart to them that she rather thought they were the best drawings she'd ever seen...
There was so much love in Lily Evans, so much love always being poured out, always going out to others, always being given with open hands, always being taken and spread out. It was the deepest love - the purest sort of love - the sort that was given out completely freely, regardless of what could be given back.
And so little did come back.
So little got through a shell that Sirius could almost see on her skin now, looking at her in the memories.
It was like she was made of glass, like one of those porcelain dolls, slowly cracking...
Always a half a person... broken pieces with no matching edges to line up to... The pattern so specifically broken that it seemed there was no other pieces that would ever fit.
And then there was a dream.
A dream of a stag. Moonlight reflecting off the lean body, brown eyes staring through the trees....