EverythingÕs really already said. Hope youÕve enjoyed it. LOL!
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"I wish I could just make you turn around
Turn around and see me cry!
There's so much I need to say to you
So many reasons why
You're the only one
Who really knew me at all
So take a look at me know
There's just an empty space
Take a good look at me now
'Cause I'll still be standing here"
~Phil Collins
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
~*~ December, 2024. London.
His kiss was refreshing in the sunlight. It wasn't precisely passionate, crazily, hungry kind of a kiss. It was a tender embrace, through which he gave her the small bit of courage she was still needing. Her right hand, closed around the flowers he gave her, was pushing his back closer to her. His hands were joined at the back of her waist, keeping her in place. Still, it was a only comforting kiss, even if his tongue danced crazily in search of hers, and if her frantic left hand kept holding his neck, pressing his head against her.
Lily slowly pulled apart, keeping both her hands where they were, and patiently opening her eyes. The bright orange autumn sunlight blinded her. She moved her head slightly to keep it in the shadow of Alex's. She smiled at him, moving her left hand to caress his temple, the beauty of her ring sparkling in the sunlight.
"Ready?" he asked her in a whisper. Lily nodded and he kissed her cheek before letting go of her. "I'll wait for you."
Lily nodded, turned her back on him and started walking. She reached her destiny and took a deep breath, as she looked down at it, her heart racing.
"Hey!" she said as she sat on the little bench that was sitting in front of the grave, her mother's picture facing her. "I wanted to drop by..." she choked the tears in her throat back, swallowing hard. "I... a few things have happened, and I wanted to come and tell you..."
Lily felt the pressure of her tears both in her eyes and her throat and she let out a sigh and felt the tears rolling down her cheeks. She gasped before she could speak.
"Alex proposed to me yesterday..." she said, trying to wipe her tears away from her cheeks. "He brought me here... I wanted to tell you first, so he came with me. No one... no one knows at home," she cried, and when she spoke, her voice was higher. "He... he gave me a beautiful ring! I really wish you could see it!" she cried, her face hiding in her hands. "I wanted to tell you first... I... I'm going to miss you so much! I'll want to go shopping with you, and choose my wedding dress with you... and I'll need to fight with you over rings and flowers and food... And when I take dad's arm and walk down that aisle... I'll look to my left and wish so badly to have you there!"
Lily stopped speaking and cried into her hands, shaking her head slowly. She tried to breathe, but she couldn't help but crying. She tried to wipe away her tears but more came. She gasped.
"I... we're playing the Nutcracker this Christmas... I...Ally's going to be there, she'll be a mouse!" she gasped again. "I wish you could see her, the other day... she asked me..." Lily shed more tears to the memory of Ally's question. "She asked me if I thought you'd like her costume... Mum I... I was speechless, I couldn't talk, couldn't breathe!" she wiped her tears again. "I... I'll be playing the Sugar Plum Fairy, it's quite a part, I'm having some issues with the fouettŽs... but I... I'll go out into stage and I'm going to wish so badly to have you there!"
She tried to wipe again the tears from her cheeks and breathed. She tried changing the subject.
"Dad... he has nightmares, I know he does, he won't tell me about it, but I know he does... Ally's had quite a few as well, she wakes up in the night calling out for you, and when I go and see her, she cries in my shoulder for you... James... he misses you so badly! He keeps walking around with this permanent look in his eyes which says I wish mum was here..." Lily shook her head. "Dad... He... I think he doesn't know how to live without you! He breathes and eats and sleeps and walks like he doesn't know why he does it... He... he won't tell me, but I know he's waiting his time since you left... he waits to meet you again... Dad... oh Mum, everything dad knew about love... he loves us, I don't ever doubt it, but... everything he knew about love was about you... Everything he knows about happiness, even the three of us... it's like every happy little thing in his life is about you... how can he live without you like he did when he had you? He can't, he's working hard, I know, because of us... But's hard, for all for us it is."
Lily wiped her tears again, she felt calmer now she had talked mostly everything.
"Alex has fulfilled his promise... he hasn't ever failed you... he..." She smiled and shook her head. "You should see how dad keeps looking at us... like he can't believe it!" she sighed. "He probably can't... You... I brought you flowers... Alex chose them for you! I... I'm happy you knew about us, I'm really glad... I... he's going to take care of me! He... he's going to be my knight in shining armour when I feel the world on my shoulders... I know he will, he is already, he's been with me when I've been having too much..." Lily tucked a bit of hair behind her ear. "I cut my hair, not much, but still... You know... I'll really miss you when I marry Alex, I will... but... when we marry, when I get pregnant and we have our children, I'll come and visit you here, and, just like today, you'll be first to know!"
Lily wiped her eyes for the last time and got up, she took the flowers and placed them over the stone grave, on top of her mother's name.
"I'm leaving now, I'm... we're meeting Dad and James and Ally and Draco and Ginny and Gina for lunch... they all think we asked them separately, but we didn't!" she tucked her hair again behind her ear. "We're telling them the news, but I had to tell you first... I love you mum, and I miss you... dreadfully!" she kissed her fingers and pressed them against the cold stone, that not even the early December sun could warm. Still, she placed her kiss there, in an attempt to warm it herself. She was almost walking away when she turned around.
"Oh," she said. "We're marrying on September the 19... we... we wanted it... we'll feel like you're there... and I know you will!" she sighed and put on her sunglasses. "I'm sure you will!"
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
"So this is who I am
And this is all I know
But you are my only
We don't say goodbye
We don't say goodbye
And I know when I've got to be
Immortality
I make my journey through eternity
I keep a memory of you and me
Inside"
~Celine Dion and the Bee Gees
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"Why in the world are you not getting ready?"
James was sitting in his desk. His desk faced the window, and his back was to the door, where Lily was franticly hurrying him.
"I'm trying to write!"
Lily took a deep breath and walked until she was sitting in her brother's bed.
"Sweetheart," she said slowly. "I don't mean to disappoint you, but, I believe you're suffering from a writer's block!"
"How, possibly?" he asked, turning to look at her. "I'm supposed to be writing about our mum, and have a writer's block!"
Lily shrugged. "Sometimes, the things we know the most about, are the ones that turn out to be the most difficult,"
"I guess, you have a point. Hey!" he said, raising a hand as Lily opened her mouth. "Don't say you always have a point!"
"Fine!" she smiled. "But I always do!"
"Lily!"
"Sorry, couldn't help it!"
"So..." James said, turning his chair to face his sister. "You're really marrying?"
"Yeah," Lily nodded. "I guess so,"
"What do you mean, I guess so?" James asked, a huge grin on his face.
"Don't be stupid!" Lily grinned. "I mean, yes, I'll marry him,"
"Did he go down on one knee and all?" James asked, his grin even wider.
"Yes he did!" Lily said, grinning in spite of herself. "Why? You're looking for teaching on how to propose?"
"Oh no!" James said, his grin almost vanishing. "Absolutely not!"
"Lionel, you do realise you ought to start finding a girlfriend you can bring home," Lily said, laughing as James raised his eyebrows when she called him Lionel. "Without mum to assure him he's being paranoid, dad will start to worry about you."
"Of course not!" James said, going back to grinning. "You'll convince him he's just paranoid."
"Perhaps I'll stop covering your affairs so you're obliged to settle once and for all,"
"Me? Settle?" he asked. "You must be confusing me for our other twin!"
"Ha, ha, so not funny," Lily answered. "Are you really never settling on someone?"
"I may, one day," he said, trying to get serious. "Actually, I just met this girl,"
"Really?"
"Yeah, she's one of my new publishers, she's quite nice and pretty... I may ask her out one of these days, and if she turns out to be nice enough-"
Lily interrupted James by throwing him a pillow.
"You have no remedy!"
"Of course I don't" he said. "I'm a twin with you!"
"You know what?" Lily said as she threw him another pillow. "Why don't you go and get ready so that we can all go out and dinner like a normal family with the Malfoys?"
"Because I'm not going!"
"What do you mean Lionel, that you're not going?"
"I meant I'm not, and don't call me that!"
"Why in the world not?"
"Because I'm going to stay in this very desk and write until I drop death, or at least until I manage something that's decent enough!"
"Don't be ludicrous!" Lily said. "You have a writer's block, live with it!"
"I haven't ever had such a thing, and I won't start right now!"
"There's always a first, and this is yours," Lily said, getting up from the bed. "Now go and get ready before I have to hex you to Sidney and back!"
"Like you-"
"I'm so going to have to hex you!"
"Like you won't pity me if I'm hexed to Sidney and back," James said as he passed Lily and kissed her cheek. He went to the bathroom door at her back and closed the door.
Lily shook her head, letting out a huge breath. She tied her hair up in a ponytail and walked up to her brother's desk.
She took a deep breath, grabbing James's Eagle feather quill and wetting the point in ink. She stared at the blank parchment that James had been unsuccessfully trying to fill, and took another deep breath before she'd start writing.
"Many things can be said about my mother. A lot of people doesn't usually say any of them, they feel more attracted to my father's figure. I don't blame them, most of those have had my father saving their lives more than once. But there is one thing everyone in the world ought to know about my mother; she was the phoenix in all of us, my father included. Whenever the world would decide to burn any of us, she'd take a look at our ashes and would start building the figure of any of us again. Allowing us to rise from the ashes. My mother, she was brilliant, and not because of her cleverness, but because she knew there were more important things than books and cleverness; friendship, bravery, and love. And my mother, she loved my father, until her last minute. And as for my brother, my sister and me, she loved all of us, with a patience and a strength I could feel any time she'd hug me. And she knew how to show her love for us; from mending Ally's knees when she'd fall from her broom, to allowing me to dance just because I felt I wanted to dance. From packing my dad's lunch to buying James's quills. My mother did not do an action that wasn't about love. Love for us, for anothers, for herself. My sister, Ally, she's only six years old, and she wouldn't remember my mother. My brother James is writing this book about her, because we promised her that Ally was never going to forget her, but right now, before James has written a word, I know Ally will never forget my mother. Simply because she will be in everything that Ally will be. My mother, she was everything a woman is supposed to be. And sometimes, I'd like people to know she isn't just my father's beloved. To all of us, from our father to my sister Ally, Hermione Granger wasn't just a wife or a mother, she was the woman in our lifes... the woman everyone wants to be able to become, the one that, I know, my sister and I are hoping to become.
One thing, I know it for sure. My mother knew what her mission in this world was. It wasn't being our mother or marrying my father, it wasn't saving him from death all the times she did or helping him defeat Voldemort. My mother's mission wasn't teaching Ally and me how to be a woman, it was teaching the whole world how to be a woman. And this, I didn't understand it until the day she died, but she accomplished it. The day I realised who she really was."
"She was a woman to love," said Harry at her back. She was slightly startled to hear him, but recovered fast. She turned to look at him, and holding his gaze for a moment, she smiled before turning back to the parchment.
"She was a woman to love."
Author Notes: Thanks for reading so far. Review is appreciated, but no Mary Sue on Lily please ;) !!! LOL!