WHUMPTOBER [2023]

No.5: Rebuilding Hearts

"You better pray I don't get up this time around."
Debris | Pinned Down | "It's broken."

JILY [James Potter x Lily Evans]
Past JEGULUS [James Potter x Regulus Black]
Past PANDALILY (Pandora Lovegood x Lily Evans]

***

"You better pray I don't get up this time around," Lily seethed, annoyingly underneath Severus, despite her best efforts.

This had been going on for a long while. Severus hadn't changed, and Lily was still stupidly trying to make him a different man, opposed to the one on top of her currently and clearly capable of the raw darkness Death Eaters managed.

And Severus was jealous. The bastard was almost a piteous sight, but Lily had gotten her fair share of 'enough.' And enough was enough.

She would prefer to have been under James Potter, for one, which was saying a lot already. But James had grown from the nuisance of a person he was.

Severus Snape had not.

Lily didn't like the scenery, of course. Debris everywhere, and a deliriously breathing Snape pinning her down.

"We could've had everything," Severus choked out. Severus? Snape? She wasn't sure where their relationship even stood anymore.

"Let me go," Lily managed, calmly.

"Why? James isn't here to save you," Snape spat. And yes, it was definitely going to be 'Snape' from now on.

"I don't need a man to save me, you idiot."

Lily launched her head upwards, and with a loud thwack, barged her forehead into Snape's. The boy cried out in shock, groaning, as Lily picked up pace and quickly straightened out her clothes.

"Don't ever call me a Mudblood again, Snape. In fact, just never show your face around me again."

With a ferocity her younger fiery-tempered self would be incredibly proud of, Lily marched off, trying not to sound as if she was childishly stomping away and hoped that within her rage, Snape would get the message.

Without looking back, Lily angrily charged her way straight to the boy made of sunshine and brave and who had looked at her with love since the day she was known to him.

James Potter waited by the lake near Remus's temporary residence, an emptiness to his features. After all, losing Regulus Black had been an unimaginably painful experience, even whilst Lily had barely met Sirius's younger brother, always shadowed in the House of Black.

James had suspiciously been very upset also. And Lily wasn't stupid.

James Potter was the sun, and he could, if he set his heart on it, manage to love almost everyone.

Lily sat down next to James and laid a hand over his. "You alright?"

"I'm out of sorts," he replied. But weren't they all?

"Okay," Lily whispered. "I'm here for you."

James raised his head, and slowly, offered her a hesitant smile. "You're still as beautiful as ever, Lily Evans."

Lily's face burned a blazing red and heated in a way she hadn't felt for a long time. "Thank you," she mumbled, tucking a strand of auburn behind her ear. Her eyes fluttered shut, before reopening and meeting James's from beside her.

"Why are you so depressed over Regulus Black?" Lily asked, unable to stop her curiosity from so suddenly spiking. Maybe it was because of the way James had complimented her — like it hurt him to think of falling in love with anyone... else.

James swallowed, the sound audible in the silence. He didn't dare meet Lily's eyes when he spoke next.

"Because I loved him."

Sincerity — pure and agonised. It spilled from James's throat, and Lily felt like she was intruding on a romantic horror scene. If romantic horrors were even a thing.

"That's alright," Lily heard herself say. Because she knew the war had already hurtled their way. Because she knew James had once loved her, and they could both learn how to do it again, together.

Pandora had died in a Potions experiment almost immediately after Regulus Black had.

Lily knew pain. She knew it in the golden sunlight that used to filter through Pandora's playfully light and soft hair, streaked in pale blond. She knew it in Pandora's glittering eyes wrinkled with the wiseness of somebody Lily thought could create heaven with just her hands.

It seemed that James knew the same kind of pain.

Lily leaned her head on James's shoulder, carefully so as to not startle either of them. She went ahead and grasped his hand when he made no move to stop her.

"We can heal," Lily voiced, determined. James was silent for a moment.

"It's broken," he suddenly said.

Lily blinked at him. "What?"

"My heart," James muttered, grunting like every word stuck a nail through his skin. "It's broken."

Lily's eyes softened. "So is mine," she admitted simply.

As the day turned to night, Lily and James sat by the lake, knowing a war was brewing and that they had lost their loved ones, but hoping their shattered hearts together could rebuild new ones.