Jily oneshots

your scent passes with the wind

by lovesickjily

It didn't feel real.

Life, that was.

Not since the prophecy ten years ago, and not since news had come about that marked her as someone doomed to walk this world alone.

Because with war, the only realistic take on it was that nearly everyone was to die, no matter how they viewed the world and how it should be regarded, no matter how highly they regarded the lives of others. Frankly, the world did not at all care for the amount of heartbeats that were to beat in a person's chest, and while some get to live up to say that they'd had three billion heartbeats in their lifetime, others are only able to say that they'd had three billion heartbreaks in their lifetime.

Lily had lost count of her heartbeats much too long ago, had started counting her heartbreaks— platonic, romantic, whichever— instead, for she wasn't sure if she truly was alive, the only confirmation of such appearing when she found herself waking up with streaks on her pillow, which was so lacking of the scent that she so desired, the scent that she wasn't even sure what exactly she was so in need of.

She did, however, know whose scent she needed, the scent of someone that had long disappeared too soon after he'd disappeared.

James Potter was dead, had been dead for the most of ten years.

He had left without so much as telling her when he'd come back, if he would ever come back, hadn't even been able to put a ring on her finger despite promises that it was to happen soon, had only left her with one last lingering kiss, one that was bittersweet enough to tear her insides apart, to twist her guts about to the point of not making out what they had originally been, to shatter her like glass.

He'd built her up to feel indestructible to the point that she'd ascended to the level of being bulletproof, but at the end of the day— days— glass was merely what she was, fragile and broken and perhaps all over the place without him to keep herself balanced and to balance him back.

And each day widened the gap between reality and her imagination, another measly scratch on her calendar to mark another day without his presence, without his touch, without him.

It was all because of a prophecy that they'd yet to fulfill, would never fulfill now.

Wasn't knowing prophecies before they came to be true supposed to save? No, that wasn't right at all, because the Longbottoms had been taken, a reminder that she could have easily been the one in their place, but perhaps, perhaps, had it been her instead, she would have been more at ease, with her eyes fluttered shut for all of eternity. They'd learned of the prophecy ahead of time, and perhaps this mere fact had saved her life, but it just couldn't bring her to ease. If it had been her, she would have left a child, a sweet, precious, innocent child, alone in the world, and she couldn't imagine anyone put in the same position as her. But for now, she would miss him, would miss the Longbottoms and all the other people that this war had cost them.

Sleep couldn't replicate that feeling of death, not precisely, but at least she was able to revisit him and the memories they'd shared together, even if just temporarily.

Even if what felt like a measly five minutes in her head was insignificantly small compared to the years, decades, that they were supposed to spend together.

Time would hopefully, but most likely not, help to ease her pain.

And time, she supposed, did somewhat of a decent job at numbing that pain.

It didn't help that with every step that she'd ventured out into the world, she'd look about for any traces of messy black hair, but she found that she couldn't find anyone with hair that even matched the torrentiousness that was his own. She couldn't find him.