Everything that kills me makes me feel alive

It was a good thing that Harry Potter had money to leave to his children, because Lily Potter did not have a cent to her name that was not gold from her father's will. Lily Potter was very much like her father that, by being orphaned, she had inherited a small fortune. None of the Potter children lived extravagently, choosing to live within their means instead, but having a surplus of gold came in hand for things such as running away and trying out truancy for a change.

She had not meant to do this, but it had been nine days now, and she had no intention of heading back to the school. She had sent Casey several owls now, assuring her that she was fine and interning with the Ministry. Lily had never lied to her cousin before. She had never had a reason too, though. Casey had been there for Lily's attack, and that tragedy had made the girls nigh on insperarable. But now, as Lily was nearing adulthood, she was learning there was less and less that Casey understood, and she was not free to feel as she pleased, which was generally miserable and confused. It was nothing against Casey - no one made Lily feel free to be herself anymore.

She had never been to the Library, a new establishment in Hogsmeade, before this venture of hers. Now, she came in for the second time - she had been careful not to revisit the shops too much, for fear of raising suspicion. She was a recognizable face, after all, and she did not need people inquiring as to why she was not in school. But as it was probably about time for another Hogsmeade weekend (she could not be sure, she had lost track of time) she figured it would be safe to slip inside for an iced tea and a sandwich.

She found a table in the crowded dining area - it seemed Hogmseade weekend was upon them. Students bounced from table to table or loitered in the walkways to talk and chat and flirt. Lily was briefly tempted to turn and leave, but a waitress caught her and was leading her to a small table in the center of the room that was unoccupiede. Lily was here. She would eat, she would pay, she would leave. Why make it anymore complicated than that?

*

The weekend was a moment of fresh air. It was a time to just let all the stress of classes be swept under the rug while all of Hogwarts made their way to Hogsmeade. The bustle of business on the weekends became something every shop owner must have looked forward to as young wizards threw away their galleons on coffee and sweets. Ellery was no exception to that. With the handful of money her aunt sent her every other week, Ellery quickly planned on how exactly she wanted to put it into the Hogsmeade economy on the weekends. This weekend, she decided to stray away from her usual places of attendance and try somewhere new. The Library, of course, wasn't completely new to Ellery, as she and everyone else flocked there when it first opened. But this weekend she needed a break from people she constantly grew tired of being pestered by.

Walking into the Library, Ellery could feel in her gut that she had made the right decision. Coffee bean smell flowed through her nose and resonated warmly behind it. As she walked herself to a small corner table, she passed a younger boy with a chocolate looking pastry in his hands and the scent caused her mouth to salivate. The galleons in her pocket felt heavier as she weighed the idea of spending a little more than she had planned originally.

After claiming a table, she ordered a strong coffee with a chocolate chip croissant. Ellery pulled out a book, put her feet up on the second chair at her little table, and sipped her coffee while devouring her croissant. Now as far as Ellery's book goes - most would think that since she was unexposed to the magical world until she was eleven that books from the wizarding world would entice her the most. This is not true. What had always enticed her the most was muggle books. She loved their stories about what they believed to be magic and their make-believe fantasy worlds that resembled their own. She especially loved stories about their simple muggle lives. A life without magic, but yet they could compare a simple moment to what they think magic could be. She admired these books for their ignorance, an ignorance she wished often she still had. Had Ellery never been called upon by Hogwarts her mother would never have left. Had the world never had magic, maybe their family would have been happier from the start.

And so she lost herself in this small muggle book for hours.

Ellery let out a sigh. Her body felt heavy after reading for so long, and stiff. So she put her legs down on the floor and bounced them a bit to get the blood flowing. She called a waitress over for one more cup of strong coffee and stretched while she waited. Her eyes surveyed the place she'd been sitting in for so long and fixated on a figure being sat in the middle of the restaurant. Ellery's nostrils flared and her eyebrows pulled in toward her nose as she tried to deduce how she knew this girl sitting just tables over from her. When the realization hit her mind, Ellery sat up straighter and allowed her face to relax. Memories of her first two years at Hogwarts flooded her mind and a small, thoughtful grin tilted the corners of her lips. Her gaze was stolen from a long-ago friend as her waitress sat down another cup of coffee in front of her. Ellery thanked the lady and picked her coffee up as she stood on her feet. Quickly grabbing her stuff, she moved cautiously in the direction of the center table. She evaded sight of the girl by approaching from behind her chair and slipped into the chair across from the girl casually. Ellery sat there for a moment in silence, sipping her coffee before looking up at Lily Potter.

"Well, this brings me back to my twelve-year-old self. Sitting quietly with another as we explore our own thoughts." Ellery smiled back down at her coffee. "Minus the studying this time around." The memories of sitting in the common room next to Lily as they both studied. They never would talk deeply with each other, but Ellery always felt a sort of friendship between them, one that never needed confirmation on Ellery's part. When her third year began, though, she would set up her books and study materials in the common room and wait. She would watch as others would come and go from their dorms and the corridor, but she never saw Lily. Always after a half an hour, Ellery would begin studying on her own, looking up every time a person would pass just in case Lily was late. No, she never outright asked another where Lily Potter had disappeared to, but she knew that she must not have been at Hogwarts. After a good portion of the year had passed, she'd heard some various rumors of where Lily must have gone, but she ignored them. Now here Lily Potter was - in the middle of The Library at Hogsmeade, and here Ellery was - sitting next to her as she used to.

Ellery looked up at Lily and back at her coffee again - unsure of how to approach a conversation form here between them. She thought she might as well show some honesty. "I'd heard rumors after you left, but I never cared to remember them. They weren't very clever." She cleared her throat as a gap-filler. "And when I heard one not that long ago that you were back, I ignored that one too. But here you are." On that last sentence, Ellery made sure to meet eyes with Lily. Questions flooded her thoughts and her thumb rubbed against her coffee cup out of habit. She searched Lily's face for answers to the obvious. Where had she been? Why did she leave? And the most important one to Ellery, why was she suddenly back? Not much of it made sense to Ellery yet.

Lily made sure not to let her eyes wander, for fear of catching the eye of anyone in the shop around her. That could bode no good for her. Surely she would be recognized or someone who have the audacity to think her in want of company - a supposition that could not be farthest from the truth. Lily had not abandoned her studies in the hope of pursuing a new social life, or of meeting new people - though, in truth, meeting new people had become a side effect of her truancy. She had left for the purpose of escaping the people who had so boggled her mind. The people of Hogwarts had a tendency towars being all-encompassing, invasive, and unavoidable. It was the boarding school feel. Once part of the crowd, never parted.

For a detatched person like Lily, this mindset was hell. She had never felt close to her peers, being from a family of renown tragedy. Everyone had either wanted to know her so they could get to know the family she had never truly understood or belonged to, or they were intrigued by her tragedy, a fact she treated with anger and spite. Her change into a werewolf before her fifth year had done nothing for her skills in relating. At Salem Witch's Institute, it had been easier to blend in, because the Potters were not as big news to American society as they were to British, and because people forgave her aloof nature as having something to do with the fact that she was a transfer.

Her return to Hogwarts, however, had only furthered her detatched nature. So few people wanted to question her reasons for her disappearance for fear of being rude or insensitive, but it seemed they were not able to get over their questions and become more than just aloof strangers to her. Which was perfectly fine to her. She prefered the solitude. Besides, she had Casey and Teddy. Still, she knew it was not healthy to be without the proper amount of people in one's life, but Lily could give a flying rat's ass about healthy. People got on her nerves.

She was so busy musing about her preference for solitude, that she did not realize her own state of comfortable loneliness was being interrupted by an old, familiar face. Lily's eyes widened as she lifted her head, sitting back a little. "Ellery," was all she said, immediately feeling aged. The girl had been twelve the last time she had seen her - had been the age her young shadow Casey currently was. Now, she was grown, transforming. (Look, she even had boobs now..) Ellery Dixon was a marker for how much she had grown and changed.

The waitress suddenly swung by and deposited Lily's spiked tea, as she had decided an iced tea would not be enough. "Your hard iced tea." Lily blinked - well, what a great second impression to give her childhood friend. She stared down at the drink for a second, feeling something almost akin to shame, though her expression revealed little. She took a sip of her drink and set it down.

"Rumors had a bad habit of hiding a seed of truth among a heap of bullshit," Lily said, her monotone voice grating above the gracious chatter around them. "I need a change of pace and transferred to Salem over the summer. I transferred back this year, but I've been... busy."

Upon examining Lily Potter, Ellery felt that something was not quite the same. Sure, they both had grown, but Lily seemed to hold herself differently. She seemed harder in the face than before, and Ellery assumed that maybe her whole reason for leaving is what had put that hardness into her features. Her train of thought disappeared as a waitress sat a drink down in front of Lily with the announcement of what it was. Ellery just stared at the glass. Hard iced tea? She knew that meant alcohol was mixed into it, and she knew that Lily was technically too young, but she ignored that. Instead she drew a focus on the relation between her previous thoughts and this - a hardened drink for a hardened girl.

Ellery's thumb grew tingly from the friction caused by rubbing it on her coffee mug while Lily spoke. Even her voice was different than Ellery felt she remembered. She pondered for a brief moment on how even a year can change everything in a person's life until Lily spoke once more. And there came some answer to her many questions. To America's Salem and back again. So she leaned back in her chair and crossed her feet underneath the table. "Ahh, the great America. No wonder your voice is so flattened. They don't speak very musically as we Brits do," Ellery commented, her last sentence purposefully imitating a much heavier countryside accent that jumped up and down on her voice. She smiled with just her lips before eyeing Lily's drink and then Lily again. She back-tracked to Lily's last thought, "Busy suckin' down some strong iced tea, from the looks of it." Ellery gave Lily a long look then. "I missed you, Lily."

It had always been hard for Lily to sit still while being watched. She had gotten used to it, however, in her seventeen years of being the daughter of the infamous Harry Potter. People had always stared, looking to see whether or not she had the iconic green eyes (she didn't), the messy hair (sort of, she guessed), the Weasley freckles (not really), or the Potter green eyes (a big fat nope.) Some had the stupidity to see if she had somehow inherited her father's scar. She had been examined for the spunk of her mother, the ability of her father, and had typically been found wanting. She had learned to bear this examination with the dull grace she naturally seemed to carry, but she had always felt unsettled by it, or exasperated it. She longed for the day that people gave up looking for greatness in her.

Ellery looked awkward, but she could have no idea to how awkward Lily felt. Here she was trying to escape the world, and she ran into one of the few people capable of really making her connect. She did not want to be forced back to reality. Her vacation from school had been so nice. She was starting to get used to all of the cigarettes, Firewhiskeys, and empty flirtations with danger. Ellery threatened all of that because, if Lily knew the girl, she cared, at least a little bit. They had never established themselves as more than study buddies, but humans had a nasty tendency for being sentimental for every societal connection.

Ellery made a joke about America and Lily tried to laugh, but only managed a single, hollow "ha" that fell flatter than an opened day old beer. She cleared her throat and drummed her fingers on the glass, letting out a long, sustained "Yeaaaaah..." Another cough. Ellery spoke. Once again, making Lily feel horrible because caring was more responsibility than she wanted to take on right now. She struggled, and a bit of this conflict manifested itself as a cloud darkened her face and she gnawed on her bottom lip. She released it and reached up, scratching her head. "Yeah, sorry about that. I missed you too, I just... family stuff." No one questioned a Potter on family stuff - there was always family stuff. "I'm back now, though. Probably here to stay. Until I'm forced to be someone's little wife-y."

Ellery's eyebrows came together as an ocean of thoughts tangled her mind. Her previous views of Lily were so different. Maybe it was because she had just entered Hogwarts and looked up to Lily as they studied quietly together, but Ellery had always held Lily in high regard. It was not because she was a Potter, as Ellery had only been briefly introduced to the stories of the great Harry Potter the summer before her first year. It was rather because Lily had always seemed strong to her, had seemed like the kind of Gryffindor that Ellery wanted to be. She had always studied with her because it was a nice unspoken friendship as a young witch with not so many friends, but also because she had hoped in that young mind of her's that she could be just like Lily Potter. So unshaken, so immovable. And when she had not returned as Ellery entered her third year, all Ellery could think was something had moved Lily and shook her world. Never in her life did she think that Lily would have transferred for a change of pace and then try to play it off as "family stuff."

Ellery's eyes were locked with Lily's hard iced tea. Her grip on her coffee mug was getting tighter. She could feel it rising in her - the anger, the disappointment, the passion. It was filling her chest and crawling up the back of her neck where upon she felt a tense begin to come over her shoulders. She looked away, anything to try not to let image she had kept in her mind of Lily Potter from crumbling. What made her so different now? And where was the fire that Ellery felt from so long ago? She felt that fire was leaving Lily, that this wasn't the first time in recent days that Lily had decided an alcoholic drink was her cup of tea for the day. Ellery took a breath and looked over at Lily, then Lily's drink, and then Lily again.

In one fluid motion, Ellery stood straight up, her chair sliding back with that awful chair-against-hard-floor shriek. Her right hand snatched up Lily's drink and threw the glass to the floor, letting the satisfactory shatter sound bring the entire attention of The Library to their central table. Ellery damn well knew what a scene this would be. She slammed both of her palms on the table, bringing her face closer to Lily's. Her face simmered with a passionate anger that had reached its peak within the past few moments. "You're better than this, Lily Potter." Her voice was loud and strong as she pointed to the smashed glass on the ground as she said "this." She felt all the eyes on them, a silence around the room between her words. "Get your shit together and graduate. Then feel free to waste your life on whatever beverages you choose," she threw her hands in the air and took a step back. "Alcoholic or not! Your choice." Ellery turned and stepped around her chair, but felt her body pause. She turned and stepped back, around the table, closer to Lily and pointed a finger in her face. "Don't lie to me. I'm not stupid."

Ellery turned on a heel and made a beeline for the exit. Whether Lily thought Ellery knew Lily was lying about needing a change of pace or the family-stuff or both, Lily knew where the lie was and that's all Ellery cared about. She shoved the door open with both hands out into the cold of the air surrounding Hogsmeade.

Lily knew that this was not the Lily that Ellery knew or expected to greet. She knew that she was hardly a shell of the old Lily, barely passing off as a shadow. Ellery would know. If Casey could tell, so could the older, more observant girl. Of course, Casey was more forgiving. The young Gryffindor could not judge Lily when she felt so much guilt for the predicament that had caused Lily to lose so much of herself. Casey had seen the change take over, so this version of Lily was just as unfamilair as the Lily who happily went on adventures and broke rules for the innocence of pursuing youth.

But how could Ellery forgive this version of Lily? This stranger? Lily had just left. She had not told anyone. The end of the year had come and she had told everyone 'See you next year!' and then she had not come back. Her cousins had not had explanations for her disappearance. Her professors had not been warned. Only the Headmaster knew that she had decided to switch to Salem, but no one had been given a reason. And Ellery, who had often made it known that she was not one to find herself in the company of many, had been given no warning that she would not be seeing her friend again.

Many people often envisioned themselves dying just for the sake of knowing who would miss them. Lily Potter had hoped to die to Hogwarts. She had hoped to be the forgotten Potter, that no Potter's name would be relevant to the school hallways until her brother's children walked the halls. Lily was not curious nor flattered to hear how much Ellery missed her. She would have much preferred Ellery to completely forget her, move on, find new friends, and not care that Lily Potter had ever existed.

Lily Potter did not often get what she wanted.

And suddenly, her drink was gone. She looked at Ellery in surprise, the girl seeming more like Casey when Casey had been unafraid to tell Lily what for. Ellery had never seemed the outspoken  sort, so this was completely unexpected. Lily stared, her eyes wide and lifted, her chin drawn back, her face struggling to remain stone. But it remained. Because Lily had learned to shed emotion. Don't feel. What was there to feel?

And Ellery was gone.

And that was when she broke.

Her body responded before her brain informed her that honesty was coming. Honesty, something she had not let into her life in awhile. Honesty, the one thing she denied even herself. She was out the door before she made up her mind of what she was going to say. It took her a bit to catch up to Ellery. Ellery was almost at the Shrieking Shack, past the hordes of people that filled the village on Hogsmeade weekends. Lily caught Ellery's wrist and turned the younger girl around so that she was facing her.

For a moment, Lily just stared at Ellery, her expression almost revealing an anger that she did not feel. Her grip was tight, her eyes were sharp, her lips were drawn downward. For a long moment, she stared Ellery down. And then her grip tightened, and the truth came out. "I'm not going to graduate."

It was the first time Lily had said it aloud. She released Ellery. "I can't. There's no way. I was already missing too much class, and then I was getting detention, and now I've been out of class for much too long, and I've missed key exams, and there's no way I can dig myself out of this hole, and right now I don't want too." She was speaking more than she had in weeks. And it wasn't stopping. "I don't want to. And that's scary. So I drink. And I smoke. And I let men try to pick me up. Because I don't want to be f!cking Lily Potter anymore, I just want to be some witch in a bar. I'm sorry. I'm not who you think I am. Not anymore."

Ellery felt the ground hard on the bottom of her flat shoes. Her arms were tense at her sides, her face in a twisted mess of anger that people saw and moved out of her way or she moved them herself. She did not have a particular place she was heading toward. All she knew was that she was steaming from the inside out and felt like her throat was hot and raw with her anger and frustration. She brought up the back of her hand to her cheek instinctively, not expecting the tear to meet her hand. She always failed to remember that she would shed some tears whenever she got worked up. And it was not that she was worked up with straight anger at Lily, it was all frustration. Ellery was frustrated with the lack of reaction, the blank face on Lily Potter's face as Ellery let her quick anger get the best of her. She pushed past a couple blocking her way and ignored their yells as she stormed away. Approaching Lily Potter was a mistake. Ellery should have just looked up and went on with her life as normal. Lily Potter-less.

But that is when she was brought to a stopping halt by a hand on her arm. Forcefully, she was spun around, where her angry eyes met the surprisingly emotion-filled eyes of Lily Potter.

Their eyes were locked, both just staring at one another. Ellery weighed the choices of Lily in her mind. She tried so quickly sort through any possible reasons for Lily to chase her down toward the Shrieking Shack. They were breathing nearly in sync Ellery noticed and the grip on her wrist was strong, but nothing too uncomfortable. She felt as though they were staring for several minutes, catching the attention of wizards and witches around them, but everyone walked on with their daily lives. Ellery was thankful. She assumed Lily might not have enjoyed the scene she started in the Library, and she was glad for the noise around them. But then Lily's grip tightened on her wrist and Ellery's lips pressed together so that she would not show that it had become uncomfortable to her. But as Lily started to speak, Ellery could not find it in her to let her expression change. She wanted to prove how strong she had become since year two for her.

But every single part of her screamed with emotion from within.

She felt as though this was a big step for Lily. Chasing Ellery down just to tell her this. Ellery knew Lily was no longer hold her wrist and let it drop to her side. She listened as Lily began speaking, keeping her face as solid as she thought Lily kept her's. That was hard. She felt for Lily in a way that she did not think they had ever connected emotionally before. So Ellery listened and when Lily was finished just stared for a long moment once more. No, Lily was not the same as she had been before. And Ellery was okay with that.

She stepped forward to Lily and wrapped her arms around her in a tight hug. Ellery rested her chin on her shoulder and took a deep breath inward.

"I never said when you had to graduate, silly."

Ellery did not give a response to the second part of Lily's speaking. She felt as though her hug was responsive enough.

Lily had gotten used to being wrong. She was the baby in the family, after all. Even when she had been right, she was wrong. James was pigheaded like that. Albus was clever like that. And Lily just wanted them all to leave her alone. Usually, if she had admitted something like this at home, she could expect James to blow up, Albus to quietly tell her how she could have avoided it all, Casey to try and fail to defend her, Teddy to begin being so helpful it hurt, while all of her aunts and uncles lamented that none of this would have happened had her parents still been alive.

And it was for this very reason that she did not go to her family for such problems anymore. Even Casey could not know this, because, if she did, she would surely see that the problem was much too big for the two girls to handle on her own, and she would go to someone in the family. And Lily could not deal with being another problem the family had to work on, another side effect toher parents' deaths. She just wanted to fix this on her own - or not fix it, if she so chose. It was her problem to worry about.

Therefore, she was vastly surprised by Ellery's response. She would not have expected a hug from someone else, especially not a hug so lacking of pity. She supposed one of her aunts would have hugged her, but it would be one of those crushing hugs full of tears, lamentation, and pity, and that would have just pissed the dark-haired girl off like no other. Ellery hugged her like they were close friends, comforting each other after a disappointment that they both knew they could bounce back from.

It took Lily a few moments, but it was Ellery's words that finally coaxed her into returning the hug - limply, yes, but this was coming from someone who had completely removed herself from all society. Any signs of affection at all were a marked improvement. Lily let the two of them remain locked in the hug for a few moments, before she released her stepping away. She quickly reached up and wiped her eyes - no tears were there yet, but she feared there was more emotion in them than she wanted to express.

"Thanks," she said, the dull edge of shame in her words. She looked down. Hey, at least someone knew now. That was one less person to be disappointed and surprised when she returned to school next year.