Comfort

Comfort

By: Madelynn

Lily was good at comforting people. Whenever a friend or acquaintance was sad, she would sit with them for hours: listening, talking, shedding a few tears, recollecting happy times, and, quite often, going over all the reasons why one did not need a boyfriend and was certainly better off without that slime-ball. Lily was excellent at comforting, but she was horrible at being comforted.

When it happened, on the way home from the train station for the summer, nothing and no one could take memory away. The crunch of metal, the blind panic as gravity suddenly pulled her up, then down again, and as they turned and crunched and the doors closed in on her. The tears and screams and heat as that old magical defense kicked in, deflecting metal away from her. The sparks that flew mere minutes later, as the firemen cut off the roof and pulled her out, the people at the side of the road making the sign of the cross and gaping. Petunia's screams once the police had left, screams that Lily was a witch and if she got away without so much as a scratch why did they both have to die? Vernon pulling his wife to the other room, the smell of coffee flooding through the house. Mrs. Henson's assurances that it was a miracle Lily was safe, the never-ending flow of people in black. Nothing could make her stop thinking about it.

She told only one person. Her best friend, Abigail, was owled as soon as Lily could keep her hand steady enough to hold a quill. But somehow many others found out. There were nearly as many people from Lily's world at the funeral as there were Muggles. They were all there to comfort Lily, but none could. Everyone was there, all comforting. Or, trying to be.

"I'm so sorry, Lil."

"If there's anything I can do to help..."

"It's okay to cry."

"I'm so sorry..."

"You're so lucky to be okay..."

Well that was a lie. She was not lucky, and certainly did not consider herself to be so. She was not lucky. Her parents were dead and she was not. She survived because of her stupid magic. What was magic good for if she couldn't save them? Why didn't she try? Why, why, why!

Everyone was there, all trying to comfort her. Even Professor Dumbledore, who assured her that he would help her in any way he could, transportation to and from school, assistance in finding housing for the rest of the summer, had made the journey to Surrey. She refused help. She didn't want help. She couldn't help them when it counted, why should she get help. No one could make her feel better.

Every day she walked to the cemetery. Every day she walked across town from Petunia and her husband Vernon's home to see them. And every day, she would sit, cross-legged, in front of the gravestone and she would cry. Sometimes for hours on end, she would just sit there and let the tears run down her cheeks.

She stopped reading her owls. They all said the same thing. People trying to pretend that they knew how she felt. They didn't. No one could. Besides, they all tried to be so smothering. They all came closer when she wanted them to back up. She didn't want to be hugged, not by people who hadn't the foggiest what she was thinking.

This was what she thought as she sat there, hugging her knees, resting her chin on them. She thought of how she couldn't do anything to save them, and how nothing could bring her out of this misery. It was beginning to drizzle, but she remained motionless.

"Lily?"

She whirled around. She had never seen anyone here, let alone someone who she knew. And yet there he was. Why was he here? They were hardly acquaintances, let alone friends. And yet there was James Potter, standing nervously, shuffling his foot, readjusting his glasses and mussing up his hair.

He sat down, a good metre between them. "I would have come to the funeral, if I had known then. I'm sorry."

He was a comfortable distance away, but he had said those magic words that made her furious.

"You're not," she said tonelessly. "You didn't know them, you're not the least bit sorry they're gone."

He shrugged; she could see him from the corner of her eye. "I'm sorry that you're sad. I do know you. And I'm sorry I never got to know you better. If I had, maybe I'd know how to make you fell better."

"No one can," she mumbled.

He didn't seem to hear her. "Seeing as I don't know the specifics, though," he said, "I'll just have to go for what worked for me."

Before Lily could ask him what he was going on about, or demand for him to leave her alone, he has stood up, turned himself over, and was struggling to stand on his head.

He wasn't very good at staying straight. In fact, he tumbled over about five seconds later.

"Ow."

Eyes widened, she rushed to kneel beside him. "Don't move," she commanded. "Are you hurt?"

"No. It worked way better when Sirius did it."

She sighed. Good. She wasn't going to let people to get hurt around her. She wouldn't allow it.

"You know,' he said, "you're supposed to be smiling now. That's why I came, to cheer you up."

"No one can," she mumbled again.

"Sure someone can," he said. "Just give it time." He reached out and lay a hand on her shoulder.

She jumped back. "Don't touch me!"

He nodded apologetically. "Yeah, I know. Everyone wants to hug you and no one understands that you really want them to just leave you alone."

"Not everyone," she mumbled.

"Just everyone who's pretending to know how you feel." He stood up. "Let's get out of the rain."

Lily furrowed her brows, wondering just why he was here, and why he was talking to her, and just why he knew exactly how she felt. But she stood. "We can go to my sister's," she said hesitantly.

"Great! Can you Apparate? Makes the whole process much faster."

She nodded. Her face was still sore from all the crying she had been doing, and she wasn't sure she even remembered how to smile.

Once at Petunia's, she led him up to her room. It wouldn't do to let Petunia or Vernon see him, they barely tolerated Lily, and hated any mention of anything magical.

He grinned at her. "Lily, don't you think we're moving a bit fast?"

She wasn't in the mood for joking. "Don't bother."

He shrugged again. "I'm trying to get you to laugh. If you'd work with me, it would all run so much more smoothly."

"Why are you here?"

He sat on the end of her bed. "To cheer you up, I already told you that."

"And I told you, no one can cheer me up. Don't bother trying."

He gave a short nod. "That's how I felt, too. But I got over it."

"That's how you felt?" Lily sat beside him and drew her legs up under her, confused.

"When my dad died last fall. That's how I felt." He cast his eyes towards his feet.

Lily bit her lip. She hadn't known that. She had known that he had suddenly become solemn, and often sat alone, but she hadn't known the reason. It was around that time that Remus and Sirius, his friends, stopped speaking to each other, and she had credited it to that, when she thought about it at all.

"How?" she whispered.

"Dementors. Voldemort's. Not the Dementors that guard Azkaban."

Lily was confused. Dementors didn't actually kill anyone. It didn't make sense. "James-"

He looked up, his eyes flashing. "I know. They keep telling me that. Dementors don't kill, I know. But his body's in St Mungo's, and he's not there anymore. Just an empty body. He's dead, as far as I'm concerned."

Lily felt her eyes fill. That would be so horrible. That would be so much worse than if he had just died. Suddenly, her own grief didn't seem so justified.

"Do you visit him?"

"He's dead. You don't visit a dead man." He probably wished that he hadn't told her at all.

"I do," she replied softly, thinking of her position a mere ten minutes previous. Before she could stop herself, the tears began to fall again. They were gone. Both of them. All three of them. Her parents, and James' father. All of them, gone.

"That's different. They're properly dead. At least you have that." He was staring at the ground again. "So much for cheering you up."

Before she understood what she was doing, she had taken his hand in both her own. "Thank you, though," she whispered.

Their eyes met, both filled with tears and grief, and suddenly Lily knew. She knew that he could cheer her up, because he understood. She knew that no matter what happened, he would always be there to comfort her, even if he didn't really know how.