V.
I’m standing before a towering yet drooping willow by a small bank. There is no sound. All is in deafening, staunch silence. And ever so slowly, my ears tingle with the sound of water...
The river below begins to softly whisper to me a marred melody, one that I can faintly recognize, but which is broken as though someone had ripped its song out and left it with mere words. Useless words.
Do you remember me, Lily?
…No…
Or is it that you don’t want to remember? the river murmurs, almost knowingly.
The willow’s leaves finger my cheeks, touch my tears, and hangs its melancholy branches over the river. Drip, drip, drip “ it drops my tears back into the river’s gentle, flowing depths…
I don’t want to remember. It hurts too much, I finally answer, shutting my eyes from the memories.
“Lily.”
“What?”
“What are you doing?”
“…I’m not sure.”
“I thought so. You still haven’t learned to think before you act, have you?”
“I never will,” I answer, opening my eyes “ for I know I can’ t bother keeping them closed anymore. Dad never tolerated being ignored.
His brown eyes were smiling at me, like they always used to when my five year-old self came home, bouncing because I had drawn a picture for him…or when I received my letter from Hogwarts…or when I fell in love with James. Those eyes, so welcoming, so accepting “ the eyes that had never failed to put me in the place that I belonged in.
“What are you doing, poppet?” Dad repeated, folding his arms. “This is a dream. You can tell me everything.”
There was darkness below and above us, and we were suspended in mid-air. Dad was facing me, wearing his favorite checkered shirt and lucky pair of trousers “ the ones he swore had won him every single chess game he had ever played. Just the mere sight of him brought tears to my heart; my heart, and not my eyes, because I couldn’t let Daddy see me cry.
“I don’t know,” I whispered, wanting to jump into his arms, but at the same time escape far away from here. I couldn’t deal with this…not now…but I couldn’t help it. Even though this was a dream, I couldn’t help not being captivated by my Dad’s presence, the one that I had been wishing for so many times.
“The willow knows,” Dad teased, the wrinkles around his face fanning out into the “rays of sunshine” I had dubbed, ever since I was old enough to crawl into his lap and trace them with my small fingers. “The Willow can tell what you feel, Lily. Remember our days by the bank? You and I always played that game…whichever direction the willow’s leaves blow, that’s the way we’ll take to go home.”
I gave him a small smile. “I’m too old for the willow, Dad. I’m too old for everything.”
“No one’s ever old, poppet,” Dad rebuked me, shaking a stubby finger. “You’re as old as you want to be. And lately you’ve been wanting to be too old for life.”
I examined him, my eyes memorizing his ruddy cheeks, the dark red hair on the sides of his head, the way his hands always found their way into his trousers’ pockets…
”I’m just living up to my responsibilities. Someone has to take care of Gwen.”
“And are you really taking care of her?” he asked quietly, appraising my face as well.
Caught a bit off guard, I stared at him. “Of “ of course. I visit her everyday, I bring her favorite things, I talk to her, I make sure she’s always comfortable “”
“No, I mean do you take care of her,” Dad interrupted, arching his furry eyebrows. “Taking care of Gwen means taking care of her yourself. The Lily who’s been with Gwen for the past two years isn’t Lily Evans. It’s her shadow.”
At this, tears filled my eyes, and my voice cracked as I tried to continue. “Daddy, I’ve tried “ I’ve tried so hard to be the Lily I used to be. I just can’t, I can’t! I can’t be carefree anymore, I can’t laugh all the time, I can’t believe in the best in people, I can’t assume that everything will have its own happy ending. I just…I’m not able to anymore.”
“Well,” said Dad, rubbing his bushy beard with two thoughtful fingers, “Why don’t you try being the Lily you want to be? Now there’s an idea!” He looked enormously pleased with himself, wearing the same beaming smile that winning a chess game always gave him.
“I liked the old Lily better. The one I knew before she was swept off into her own little ideals, trying to save the world with her own idea of what an actual rescue is.”
“I joined the Order so I could help save lives, Dad,” I said, shaking my head. “But look where it got me! My whole family is practically dead and my friends are threatened by merely communicating with me.”
“Did you think it would be easy?” he demanded, planting an intense look on me that made my shoulders stiffen. “Did you think that you could win this war against Voldemort with your hands tied behind your back? This isn’t one of the fairytales or pirate stories you grew up with, poppet. There are bound to be sacrifices “”
“But not something like this!” I shouted, backing away from him. “Not losing everyone I loved!”
“That is what rescuing means, Lily Elizabeth Evans!” My father replied calmly. “Risking your world, your loved ones, yourself to save the lives of innocent people. When you told us you joined the Order to fight against Voldemort, your stepmother and I were so proud! We knew you have what it takes, but I was afraid you were still a child to understand what you were getting yourself into.”
He stepped towards me then, his eyes as warm as ever. “My child, you have the kind of heart that can risk everything for those you love. That’s why you’re still standing, after everything that’s happened. Everything had been handed to you, and then it was lost. But you’re still trudging on, trying to take care of Gwen and living for her. However lost you yourself might be, you haven’t lost your heart. You can never lose your heart poppet, unless you willingly choose to lose it. And you’re on that path now, Lily.”
Ask the willow, the river whispered.
-----
VI.
“Lily,” a deep voice murmured into my ear.
My eyes flew open, and I found myself looking at my night table with my alarm clock (whose alarm never works) ticking the time of seven-thirty in the morning. The morning’s rays of light shed over my room like a blanket of warmth, caressing my bare skin.
Then I felt fingers “ firm, masculine ones “ stroking my bare shoulder. I suddenly realized there was a body next to me in my bed, under my yellow cotton sheets.
Oh, no.
“Lily,” James repeated, draping an arm over me, his mouth just above my ear, his breath cuddling my lobe. “Are you awake, love?”
I pulled the sheets up to my mouth, my mind racing with an effort to remember everything that had happened last night…and it all came down on me like a rush of heat: the gentle murmurings, the blissful sighs, the whispers that treaded over my body like playful, loving fingers…
I tried not to notice the toned muscles of James’s bare arm as it snuck its way around me, his body pressing against my back, his skin’s heat dancing with my own, teasingly, temptingly. “Ah…why do you ask?”
“You were just murmuring something,” James answered, his voice thick with sleep, and I had to fight a pleasant shiver. “I thought you were having a nightmare.”
Then the memory of my dream shot through my mind’s eye: my dad…a river…the willow…whispers and a melody, broken in its tune…
What are you doing, poppet?
“What are you doing here, James?” I asked abruptly, turning to face him, the sheet still pulled up to my nose. His hair, messier than ever, made James look like he had a wild night…I flushed brightly.
James looked taken aback, for his drowsy eyes opened to meet mine in confusion. “I “ we “”
“I know we had sex. I mean, why did you come back?”
He pulled himself up, placing his head on his upraised palm and peering at me. Black hair mussed, his morning stubble starting to cover his face, and his naked, toned chest staring at me, he didn’t look that intimidating. No, indeed…but I forced myself to concentrate on his face, which had never failed to lie to me, no matter how hard he tried.
“I came to see you,” he replied simply, hazel eyes warm while casting me a devilish grin. “And I must admit, I received a better greeting than I expected.”
A deep blush washed over my face, but I tried to push it down “ vainly, and it succeeded in making my face look like a tomato. “This was a mistake, James. I never “”
“You never what?” he asked, reaching over to pull down the sheet. “You never wanted to kiss me? You never wanted to sleep with me?” He gave me a crooked smile. “That’s not what you told me last night, in my arms…”
“I was caught up in the moment,” I interrupted, refusing to let him cast his spell over me again. “Last night was “”
“Wonderful,” he said huskily, caressing my face with his thumb. “Marvelous. Magical. Yes, I think those are the right words.”
“They’re not,” I breathed, his face closing in on mine before I could protest. I resigned myself to him, yielding to his disarming kisses all over again. I didn’t want to fight it, because I now recalled what I had seen in his eyes last night, what had pushed me to kiss him, what had urged us to make love.
As our kiss deepened, I wrapped my arms around him, trailing my fingers down his back and through his hair, losing myself in our connection. He tugged at my bottom lip with his own, stretching our kiss, and I pulled him closer, melding our face together so that our breathing was one. James then started tracing my face with his lips, as though he wanted to memorize every inch of it physically and emotionally.
“I’ve missed this so much - spending my mornings with you,” he whispered, finally pulling away and leaving me breathless. His voice was just as tender as his lips, making my heart soar with the wings his eyes had given me last night.
“And spending my nights with you,” I murmured, lacing my fingers around his neck, casting my eyes down to examine the sheets between us. How much is between us still….
“But you know this can’t continue, James.”
His lilting kisses into my auburn hair paused, and he readjusted himself so he was sitting on his side looking at me again. This time the loving desire that engulfed his eyes now broke down, to be replaced by a shrewd observation. “What do you mean?”
I cleared my throat while wishing to clear my thoughts, as well, but I met his eyes without restraint. “I don’t want you to think last night wasn’t special for me, because it was.” I reached out my hand to hold his, caressing it like I had caressed him last night, and I continued, haltingly.
“But I have to admit that your coming here was something that I had not been expecting. I was afraid of what you might bring with you, James…my past. I didn’t want to remember the Lily that existed in Hogwarts. She was the one who was part of another world, a dream world. And I couldn’t bear taking a glimpse of that world, because I was afraid that I would wish to be back in it.”
“And you don’t want to be back in it because you think you’ll be let down again,” James finished in a soft voice, eyeing every crease in my face that was the result of so many doubting and harried nights.
“Yes.” It had always been like this between him and I. I was unsurprised to see that our connection hadn’t been crushed despite these long two years. “Besides, I can’t risk our relationship after what happened.”
Sighing, James tucked a tendril of my hair behind my ear. “Why don’t you let me make that decision?”
I shook my head firmly. “It’s not only you, James. It’s Gwen. If I’m involved with you, the Death Eaters might go after Gwen, too. Everyone knows by now that you’re in league with Dumbledore.”
“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
“For some people, it is.”
“What he’s doing is heroic, Lily. He’s doing something that the Ministry is not even capable of doing “ Dumbledore is uniting the people and taking a stand against Voldemort!” James stared at me. “Can’t you see that?”
“James,” I began, choosing my words carefully, “I thought I saw that, once, but it’s not a part of my life anymore. And I’m not criticizing you for allying with Dumbledore…that’s what I’ve always loved about you,” I added, kissing his chin, “You stand against the odds, no matter how bleak they may seem. But I have to take care of Gwen. She’s all I have left in the world.”
“So what am I? Chopped dragon liver?” he scowled.
“You’re James Frederick Potter,” I said, brushing his messy hair with my hand. “And you’ll always have a place in my life. But nothing else is possible for us right now.”
“All right, then let me tell you something,” said James, fixing me with the most intense, probing look I’ve ever seen that made me feel as if he was undressing me all over again.
“When I saw you last night, you’re right, you weren’t the Lily Evans I had known at Hogwarts. You aren’t laughing all the time, you don’t seem carefree, and you’re not as bold as you were before….”
My dream of last night came back to me, and I recollected my father’s words…
“I liked the old Lily better. The one I knew before she was swept off into her own little ideals, trying to save the world with her own aspirations of what an actual rescue is.”
“But you’re still Lily,” James murmured, cupping my face with his strong hand. “When you kissed me last night, I recognized you as the Lily I’d fallen in love with. The Lily who cares more about others than herself, who doesn’t care what anyone thinks, who has an inner strength that’s made her survive everything that’s happened to her.” Then his face hardened, and he took away his hand, leaving me alone again.
“But the Lily Evans I knew wouldn’t succumb to all her fears like this,” James went on, shaking his head in disbelief. “She’d find another way to live her life. She’d go back to the Order, go back to the magical world, and make those Death Eaters pay for what they did. But most importantly, she wouldn’t give up on hope so easily.”
With one final look that sent chills to my heart, he reached for his clothes and was dressed before I could muster a word.
And he Disapparated.