Lily

When Lily was ten years old, she had a cousin named Harry. He was her best friend and they did everything together. Their older siblings were forever teasing them, but neither of them minded because they had each other. To them, they were better than any Petunia, Victoria or Matt.

Sometimes they pretended they were twins and sometimes people believed them because of their emerald green eyes but mostly people just laughed and smiled at how adorable they were.

Harry had a treehouse, and it was their place. They spent hours in it. Sometimes it was all their friends and they laughed and played and talked about how mean Miss Pack was, and sometimes it was just their little group with Hannah and Jack (their other best friends), but mostly it was just them. The treehouse was where the first strange thing happened. They had been seven and Victoria and her giggly friends had tried to elbow them out one day, to do their nails and gossip, and inexplicably, two bottles of Victoria's nail varnishes had exploded. Victoria and her friends had exited quickly, screaming about ghosts, but Harry knew it was him, and they both knew they were special. They never told anyone that they were special. For one thing, they knew no one would believe them, and for another, they liked secrets. They had lots of secrets, but this was their favourite.

One day, Harry wasn't in school, but Lily didn't think it strange as they had a mathematics test that day and Harry hated mathematics. As usual, Lily went to Harry's house after school. That day, they'd planned to go down near the woods and set off fire crackers with Jack, Hannah and the rest of the gang, and Lily didn't think he'd want to miss it.

At Harry's house, Aunt Heather had answered the door, looking anxious.

'Hello Aunt Heather,' Lily had said. 'Is Harry about?'

Aunt Heather had shaken her head. 'Sorry, Lily dear. Harry's a bit ill today. You'd best go home in case it's something contagious.'

Deflated, Lily had bade her aunt goodbye, and had trotted down to the edge of the woods to set off fire crackers. The next day, he'd again been absent from school, but Lily knew how paranoid Aunt Heather was about passing on germs and thought nothing of it until her mother appeared just after break with the news of Harry being in hospital.

Everything after that was a bit of a blur. Lily remembered leaving school and going to the hospital, where Aunt Heather and Uncle Gareth were. Aunt Heather was hysterical, and she wouldn't stop crying. Matt and Victoria had appeared sometime during the day, and so had Petunia, escorted my Lily's favourite aunt, Monica. Lily didn't need anyone to tell her how serious things were.

She could tell by the tense and scared looks of all the adults as they sat around the visitors' area.

She could tell by the graveness of the doctors and their bafflement which they tried to hide with professionalism.

She could tell by the paleness of Harry's face that she could see through the glass panel in the hospital door.

At 7:03 pm, Lily snuck into his room, while aunt Monica had dragged the adults off the eat. He was swallowed up by the hospital bed and looked like a mere shadow of Harry, not Harry himself, and for a moment she had been scared it wasn't him. She had grabbed his hot hand impulsively, to reassure herself of his presence and had felt her whole body fill with sadness as he faded.

'Harry,' she had whispered quietly. 'You missed Jack's fire crackers.'

Harry had opened his bright green eyes tiredly. 'I know,' he had said hoarsely. 'But that doesn't matter. I'm going now.'

Lily had been chilled by those words and the sadness threatened to overflow. 'You can't go. We're special together. I won't be special without you.'

Harry had squeezed her hand. 'You'll always be special and magical, you silly plant.'

Lily's eyes smiled when he called her a silly plant - she had always thought it was hilarious. 'I'll miss you,' she had told him gravely.

He had nodded solemnly. 'I'll miss you too.'

'Will you watch over me?' she had asked.

'Yes,' he had replied, and he smiled and closed his eyes.

She had kissed his cheek and squeezed his hand, swallowing the sadness and pushing it back to the dark place.

Harry died at 7:06 pm on the fifth of June, 1968, a date that would haunt Lily for the rest of her life, though she could never remember the name of the illness that had killed him, nor what had happened afterwards.

She didn't cry. You cried over silly things, like grazing your knee, or Petunia stealing your favourite stuffed bear and refusing to give it back or having a fight with Hannah, and Hannah declaring her new best friend Polly. You didn't cry about Harry. You couldn't cry about Harry, you just couldn't, as she had explained to her mother.

The funeral had been terrible. Lily, a small form dressed in black but with a vivid purple ribbon in her hair and holding a sunflower, sat quietly, as ladies sniffed quietly into their hankerchieves and Aunt Heather and her mother had weeped. She remembered hating the priest and how he was talking about Harry as if he'd known him, and she remembered staring at the small casket. She hadn't believed that Harry could have been in there, and when they'd lowered him into the ground, she still hadn't believed it was him, but she threw the sunflower into the hole anyway.

That night, she'd stood in front of the mirror and turned side-on and tried to imagine that she was half a person.

She'd wondered what being half a person would be like.

She'd wondered if she was half a person now that Harry had gone.

She'd asked her mother, and her mother told her not to be stupid, and did she look like half a person? Lily conceded that she didn't look like half a person, but she didn't think that she could be a whole person without Harry, so she decided that she was half a person anyway and went to bed.

A day after her eleventh birthday, after a month of tippy-toes and shut-up days in her room, an owl flew in Lily's bedroom window. In the days after Harry, nothing seemed strange and she solemnly took the envelope of funny coloured cardboard-like paper addressed to her that the owl offered. It was sealed with a wax seal that Lily scraped off carelessly with bitten fingernails and it said:

Dear Miss Evans

We are pleased to inform you that you have a place at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment.

Term begins on 1 September. We await your owl by no later than 31 July.

Yours sincerely,

Minerva McGonagall

Deputy Headmistress

Lily had run her fingers over the letter like it was a sacred object, because they had known they were special and magical, and it was, because it was the doorway to a whole new world. Their world.

Except Harry wasn't there and never could be.

She'd pulled on her coat and tucked the letter in her pocket. Then she'd turned and walked to Aunt Heather's house where she'd climbed up to the empty treehouse and for the first time since that dark day, she'd let the sadness swallow her completely and let the tears fall.

Two months later, she was on a train, going to her new school, happy, but not happy because Harry wasn't there. A noise in the hallway caught her attention, and a moment later, a boy with messy black hair and round glasses entered, dragging his trunk and a cage that most likely held an owl.

'Hello,' he'd said. 'This compartment full?'

'No,' she'd said, because it wasn't; the sole occupant was herself.

'Do you mind if I sit here?' he'd asked.

'Not at all,' she'd replied distantly; at that point in time she could have been sharing a compartment with Hitler and she wouldn't have cared.

'Well that's good then,' he'd replied cheerfully, plonking his things down and sticking out his hand. 'I'm James Potter.'

Lily had looked away from the window and looked at the hand he was offering. After a moment's deliberation, she'd shaken it. 'Lily Evans.'

'Nice name,' he'd said. 'Lilies are pretty flowers.'

'My cousin used to call me a silly plant,' Lily'd said on impulse, at the same time wondering why on earth she was telling things like that to a boy she'd only just met.

'My cousin calls me idiot, so that's definitely an improvement,' James'd said, flashing a grin.

For the first time in a long time Lily had smiled.

She'd realised that there was life after Harry and hell, she was going to live it.