This chapter is dedicated to TheGirlWhoReads99 thank you for being such a kind hearted person and supporting me!
Love you ♥️♥️♥️

(18th April 1978)

James hadn't dreamt of the dominos since the day his mother died. The black and white motions hadn't stolen his breath and burned his skin like ice in nearly a year. Yet that morning he woke in a cold sweat, hair sticking to the sides of his face; heart racing like he had been running from something; and goosebumps ran up his arms like a rash, spreading round his neck.
He didn't remember the dream, but there were faint glimpses of cold stone, and black markings...

It had been a week since Esme-Leigh had gone, leaving behind a gap that seemed impossible to fill. Nobody spoke much about her, except in late nights, using the same nostalgic tone that one uses when describing a distant memory, while asking if anyone else remembers too. Sometimes the answer is no.

It was still dark when James woke from the dream. The middle of the night might have best described it. To say it had been exactly a week now would have been accurate– Esme left in the middle of the night, she hadn't said goodbye.

The dominoes brought James back to his mother, their goodbye. It was a wonder he was here now, dreaming of them, when her birthday was so close. Perhaps his dreams had a way of coming back to him?

His mother would have been disappointed in the way he was living. She wouldn't have explicitly said as much, but she would make it apparent in some other way. If she were here then he would never have agreed to go on a date with Esme-Leigh, instead he would have encouraged her to find a reason with Mary. Perhaps if his mother were here then he might be with Lily, she would have told him all the right things to say and do. Or perhaps if Euphemia hadn't died when she did, Lily would still hate him; or if she hadn't have been sick in the first place, maybe James wouldn't have been so detestable towards Lily in their first meeting.

He went round in circles like this until the sun rose. Then he left for a run and continued to wonder. He supposed it hasn't mattered anyway– in the end. Because his mother was still dead, Lily still didn't want him, and Esme-Leigh was still gone.

Round and round, over and over, until all the dominos had fallen.

♣ ♣ ♣

(18th April 1978 continued)

Mary MacDonald sat alone in the library, the way she preferred it to be. Since Esme-Leigh had left, all Mary wanted was to be alone. Her friends had honoured that, allowing her to simply be. It made her wonder how much they knew about how deeply her feelings for Esme ran? Had it truly been so obvious?

The rain was warm outside for an April afternoon. She'd been out earlier, walking from the Herbology greenhouses. Peter had waved but they hadn't spoken, it was the way Mary had kept it the past week. No body had asked her to explain, she hadn't wanted to. So they left her alone and she was grateful.

There was only so long it could continue, Mary understood. Often she would catch Remus watching her with a concerned air about him, but he would say nothing. Eventually she would have to go back, explain why she couldn't bare their company.

Everything had turned on its head without Esme-Leigh to guide her through. Nothing really make sense. Mary felt like she was sinking, a river of emptiness was washing over her, flooding her veins. She would not address it.

♣ ♣ ♣

(18th April 1978 continued)

Sirius Black hated a lot of things. On the worst days, he felt that there was always anger somewhere. On good days it was deeper, on bad it simmered at the top, bubbling and boiling.

Sirius was not a violent person by nature, he thrived off those he loved, of which there were many, but something deeply hidden was a hatred for the other people.

One of those people was Severus Snape, and at the present moment, his anger was bubbling over, consuming, burning.

Severus was at best out of line, at worst a Death Eater, but any excuse to pick a fight with him would do, even if he was saving the neck of a third year Ravenclaw who got on his nerves.

"Oi! Sniv!"

Snape turned his head, subconsciously dropping the collar of Atticus Twain, whom he had been terrorising seconds ago. How the tables had turned, Sirius thought to himself bitterly. He didn't reminisce fondly on his fourth year days, nor did he find they painted an accurate picture of himself now, which made him justified in his disgust of the way Snape was treating Twain, as a seventh year. Older, wiser, supposedly.

"What's a prefect like you doing manhandling third years? Especially muggleborn ones, eh? Not very 'prefect' of you is it?" He spat the word 'prefect' like it might be an insult, Severus certainly took it to be one.

"I'll do what I want."

"Is that right? Because to the wrong eyes it might look like you were about to hurt poor Atticus here."

The halls has been nearly empty when Sirius had called to his old nemesis, but now there was a small crowd of students coming from all angles.
"You don't know anything about what I was about to do!"

"Don't I?" Sirius baited, "shall I show you?"
Before Snape has time to compute the words, Sirius had already drawn his wand and hollered, "confringo!"

Collectively there was a gasp, as Severus hit the wall.
"Scram," Sirius muttered to Twain just as Severus was rounding back up. To his surprise, the third year did.

"How dare you, filthy blood traitor! I don't know why you insist on playing the hero, you used to be so much worse."

At this Sirius genuinely laughed, locks of charcoal hair fell behind his shoulders with wracks of his shoulders.
"I was fifteen, Sniv, and I wasn't a blood supremacist, or a slimy, bigoted, sick tool by that point either."

Snape raised his wand, and cast a spell, red and wicked. It would have hit him if it weren't for the shield charm forced across the corridor.
Sirius turned to see his boyfriend, Remus Lupin, with his wand outstretched, from it came a shield charm.

"Sirius get the fuck away from the slimy git. He's not worth your breath never mind a detention."

"That's assuming your boyfriend could ever hurt me."

Remus scoffed, "don't make me laugh."

A few of the growing crowd laughed at Remus' remarks as he took Sirius away. No house points were deducted however, which struck a number of students as odd.

As soon as the two boys had rounded the corner, Remus let go of his boyfriend's wrists and sternly caught his eye.
"Please don't go looking for fights again."

Sirius' anger had a way of bubbling that Remus could predict. It had appeared more often since Esme had left, and now Euphemia's birthday was coming up. If he didn't have the map it wouldn't have mattered, Remus knew where to find him the second the day began. Looking for a trouble. It would not be the first time, nor the last.

"I'll try."

"You won't." It wasn't fond, nor annoyed.

Sirius said nothing in return, instead leaning his head onto his boyfriend's shoulder and allowing himself to feel hurt for a moment.

(18th April 1978)

When Dorcas told Lily that Esme-Leigh had left for France, she had feigned surprise. Dorcas had received the letter from Marlene less than a day ago but Lily had known for months, or at least she had been expecting it for months.
Marlene had written that she'd left in the night, without telling anyone the exact day she planned on leaving.

Sometimes Lily wished she could be like that. Spontaneous, liberated, something. That was why she had given herself the name Lily Simpson last August. It had felt like a chance to be someone better, someone free spirited and impromptu. Instead she was the same, just called something different.

A name couldn't change the way she felt –Lily realised as she lay in her bed that night– staring at the ceiling. She would still cry blood, or rain ash, she would still break objects, and birth flowers. Somewhere else she was still Lily Evans, if in name only.

Lucifer had come back that night. He'd been gone for a few days, but that night he'd returned to grin at her, in the sinister way he did, shrouded with shadows to the point where Lily wasn't sure he was grinning at all. There was just darkness.

Sometimes Lily imagined Lucifer as a shadow himself, black and baleful. Charcoal and wicked. He could creep into spaces like liquified darkness, slipping through her window, or the gaps in the walls. Anywhere, everywhere and nowhere. It made no sense and yet she thought it before she drifted off to sleep. That night she fell into a nightmare.

Darkness wrapping round her wrists, across her arms, seeping though her pores. In her mouth, her nostrils, eye sockets.

The shadows came and left, like a heartbeat into her body. She could feel them, dry and invasive. Everywhere.

Then they wrapped around her neck, choking her, they couldn't laugh as they did so, but Lily imagined they did.

She struggled against the shadow's confinements, pulling at her heart, her eyes, her skin, her neck. Everything.

She was sweating with the strain of staying alive, fighting the darkness, an assailant she couldn't see. She was helpless. There was nothing for her to do, not really, but she tried. She wouldn't give up. There was a significance there but it was too far out of reach.

The shadows tightened, everything did. She was going to die. There was no scream.

Lily gasped when she awoke, sweating, panting, tears in her eyes. Everything seemed to be in pain, and she was tired, but sleep was so far away that it seemed impossible.

There were shadows all over her room, the moonlight aiding their travel to her bed. Hastily she turned all the lights on, keeping them at bay.

Still, Lily did not sleep. But the lights stayed on.

(19th April 1978)

Mary had thought the library was relatively empty, especially in the secluded seat she had chosen she did not expect anyone to take the space next to her, lest of all Remus Lupin.

There had been an unspoken agreement the past week to allow Mary her space, she hadn't spoken much to any of her friends but here he was, sitting in the chair along from her as if he belonged there. He was smiling slightly, the curve of his lips showing her there was nothing to fear from him. Remus was like that, a steady presence, balance.

Mary nodded at him, his smile widened in return. She blinked at him, then spoke.
"What is it?"

"I know we've been playing this game," Remus responded softly, "we've been pretending we were never really as close as we had been when Esme was around, and I won't try to drag you back into spending time with us, I just want to know that you're okay. And if you could, why you've stopped talking to us."

Mary stopped breathing for a moment. He asked the question so bluntly that he made it sound ridiculous, only Sirius would ever do something like that. His candour was intriguing above anything else, it made her want to explain.
"I...I think I'm okay, it's just..." she shrugged, her golden blonde bangs obscuring the crease in her eyebrows as they knit together.

"Mary," Remus reached out a hand to her, she took it. His skin was warm, a ever present comfort.

"I can't bare being with you all when Esme-Leigh isn't there. Seeing all of you just makes the gap she left all the more evident. It... it doesn't feel right."

The air between then was thick, the truth cutting it sharply.
Remus let out a breath of air, "I get it. Esme was... she was Esme."
A breathy laugh escaped Mary which she swallowed before it became a sob.
"But she wouldn't have left if it wasn't right for her, and if she didn't think we could cope without her."

Remus squeezed her hand just as Mary realised a tear was rolling down her cheek, "I just wish she'd said goodbye," she whispered, afraid that voicing the thought might make it real, that 'goodbye' meant Esme wasn't coming back.

"Hey, hey, listen. Esme-Leigh cared about you, saying goodbye might just have been the hardest job. Maybe she was a Gryffindor, but there is nothing harder than letting go; and you might think her a coward for not saying goodbye to you, but she might see it as bravery that she let you go the way she did. And I'm sure she wouldn't have wanted you to leave like this, she expected everyone to carry on in her absence."

"I want to but..."

Remus nodded, squeezing her hand, "we can give you more time. I just needed to know you were okay."

"Well I'm better now."

The two shared a smile. Perhaps this was what it meant for Esme to be gone. The gap she left allowed for something else to fill it. And while that might not take the same shape, it filled a little bit of it. Like a puzzle piece. Esme left, but behind her was the chance to solidify a friendship.

♣ ♣ ♣

(19th April 1978 continued)

Esme was gone, nothing really felt as it should. Everything had a slight lilt to it these days that nobody seemed to want to address.

The Gryffindor common room seemed different at night, which was why James loved to sit here, revelling in the fact everyone else was asleep. The room that was usually so loud and full of life, seemed to be sleeping with the students.

On a normal day, he might sit here alone to think, but today there was no such thing as 'alone'. He sat with Aliona, the two of them enjoying the silent company until they weren't silent anymore.
"Trudy and Ozma broke up," Aliona said, more to the fire than to James.

"I heard, is she alright?"

Aliona shrugged, "she says so, but I can never be so sure." She sighed, pulling her hair out it's ponytail and James watched as the waves tumbled down her back.
"You probably think I'm enjoying this."

"What?"

"After what I told you, you probably think I'm revelling in Trudy's break up."

James shook his head, though she wasn't watching him, "not at all."

"Just because she's broken up with Ozma doesn't mean it's still not impossible. She bore her soul to me and I rejected it. How do you go back on that deal?"

James wondered for his own sake. He supposed changing Lily's mind on him would turn out the same way.
"I don't know, Al. I really wish I did."

"Your muggle girl still the same then?"

"Yeah. Though I don't know if you should be calling her mine. Wishful thinking, that is. I'm her's. That's the correction, miserable as it is."

Aliona turned to him, holding his hand tightly. Her skin looked pink in the firelight, the reflection of the flames dancing on her cheeks.

James thought about telling Aliona about his mother just then, that it would be her birthday tomorrow, and that he'd been dreaming of dominos, again. He did consider it. But then he remembered the oblivion he'd felt in the room of requirement, how close he'd been to forgetting anything ever existed. Then he realised how close they were to each other, how he could smell the scent of peaches and strawberries from where he sat.

The last time it was Aliona that had kissed him first, this time he took that extra step, leaning closer and connecting their lips, gently, like a question.

When he pulled away they gazed at each other for a moment. Her eyes were a dark grey, like a thunderstorm, turbulent. She kissed him back.

♣ ♣ ♣

(19th April 1978 continued)

At first it was James that had kissed her, soft and assuring, she knew that he was not only seeking comfort in her from Esme's absence, she knew the 20th of April was Euphemia Potter's birthday. Every year Trudy's would be invited to Potter manor, and every year she would stress over what gift to bring, or what to wear; and every year Aliona would help.

She could tell how badly he needed this kiss, how much emotion he was pouring into it. But somehow she couldn't help but feel like a monster. She was offering him this oblivion as a distraction from things he should face with the right people, his family, his friends, not his ex girlfriend who indulged in his emotional vulnerabilities.

When he pulled away the first time, his breath was laboured and he smelt like broom polish and something like sandalwood, expensive she guessed. His eyes watched her, closer to a gaze than a stare and she did not look away.

James kissed her again and suddenly he was everywhere. Five fingers in her hair, the other five stroking her jaw, then cupping the base of her neck. It was wonderful, beautiful, and it broke her heart like crystal. Something once delightful, now dangerous and violent. She kissed him back desperately. His kiss was warm, rose, romantic; but she burned an orange shade of anger, and glowed a blue shade of guilt. She kissed him deeper, wearing the same lipgloss she wore that night in the room of requirement, and she wondered if he could taste the strawberries, or if it was just the guilty poison that she could feel coating her own lips. Everything felt on fire and she could feel herself turning into a flame, and it had to stop. She pulled away, gasping for the air she didn't realise was missing, and wondering how much of her strawberry poison must still be on his lips.

"James," she whispered and he pulled away, resting his forehead onto hers while she spoke. He refused to open his eyes, as if keeping them closed might seal himself inside a dream.
"James, we can't. If we carry on like this we'll both become addicted to the oblivion it brings, we'll want to be with each other the second we can't face our own feelings, and one day we might convince ourselves that this is all we really want, when in reality, we'll never be happy. We can help each other to forget for a while, but it will always come crashing back."

Aliona allowed her own eyes to filter closed too, barricading herself in her thoughts, the same way James was doing. She should have put distance between them but instead she placed a gentle hand on his cheek. James did not lean into her touch, nor did he pull away, he just continued to listen.

"We shouldn't do this again. It's not worth the pain. We can't get used to this."

Slowly she felt James nod against her own forehead.
"You know, don't you? About my mother."

Of all the things Aliona expected to hear, those words hadn't made the list. James for all his obnoxiousness was truthfully emotionally jaded, and so to hear him say it so bluntly startled her.
"It's her birthday tomorrow," she replied without thinking.

"Yeah. I know I've been shitty recently, so has Sirius I suppose, but using Ez leaving felt like an excuse to be shitty."

"I've been using it as a excuse too. Maybe I did celebrate the fact Trudy and Ozma broke up, in some sick, distant part of my mind."
It was true, and she hated herself for it. Rejoicing in her best friend's sadness made her stomach churn and a dark shade of red burn behind her eyes, but it was still there, whenever she blinked. Maybe she was a terrible person, but she would not be the terrible person that allowed others to do terrible things with her. She would not be terrible anywhere outside her own mind.

"It's not sick, and you're not sick for thinking it, Al."

"What if I am?"

"Then I've done much worse."

"That doesn't made me feel any better."

James chuckled, only a hint of humour hidden behind the dryness of his tone.
"C'mere," he said, holding out his arms and pulling away from her head completely.

Aliona instantly folded, setting herself into a hug instead. This was nothing like a kiss, it wasn't a distraction; it didn't lead to heartache; and it didn't make her a monster. A hug was comfort. It was healing.

"Can we hug more often?"

James laughed, real and visceral, she felt it on the side of her head that was resting against his chest.
"As often as you want. Merlin knows I'll need it."

They were quiet then, and Aliona thought he might tell her something, but when he didn't speak she was almost glad. She just nestled further into his arms and was grateful she would always have a friend in James. One that would understand her, even as a monster, even as a person, as real as she could ever be.

♣ ♣ ♣

Dominos loom behind his head. He doesn't need to turn to know they're there. They stand ominously, creating a shadow behind him. Still he does not turn, he refused to watch them fall, even holds a hand over his ears to block the horrendous crash they make as they fall.

Usually, in his dreams, there would be a final domino, one he would push. It would stand proud and baleful. Sometimes he would be the domino, and marble would prod at his back, crushing him, making him fall.

He woke up before either could happen.

♣ ♣ ♣

(20th April 1978)

Months ago, at his mother's funeral, James had sat on the roof of the church with Lily. She had rested her head on his shoulder and they'd watched the sunset. That day, James decided he would refuse to let the dominos fall, and he hadn't dreamt of them since. But here they were.

He had tried telling Aliona, but the words got stuck in his throat, understanding wasn't quite enough, so he said nothing. But it was while James sat on the couch with Aliona in his arms that he realised the only person he had ever wanted to talk about the dominos with was Lily– the girl that turned up at the funeral to show him the sunset, despite hating him a little. If there was a day he began falling in love with her, there was a high chance it was that one.

So when classes were finished for the weekend, James arrived in Cokeworth just after dinner time; the sun was only just debilitating setting, in that way it did in mid-spring. During the summer months it would burn gold for at least another two hours, and in the winter it would have retired long ago. But today if remained, halfway between a blue sky and an orange one.

Lily was on her bike when he spotted her, just pulling into her house. She saw him standing at the end of the street and James noticed she'd stopped peddling.
She was at his side before he could blink, it might have stuck him as odd if he didn't know who she really was. Lily Evans.

"Potter, what are you doing here? You didn't write to say you were coming." Her bike leant against a lamppost which had not yet turned on.

James shrugged, "I just wanted to see you. Sometimes you're the only person I want to see."

She hugged him then, fierce and tight. It was only when he tried to pull away that James noticed he'd started to cry.

"Want to go for a walk?"

James nodded into her shoulder and she took his hand, guiding him away from her house and dragging her bike by the handlebars with the other hand. Lily ignored his tears, which he appreciated. If they didn't acknowledge them right away, then maybe they might never exist.

♣ ♣ ♣

(20th April 1978 continued)

They stopped by a high wall near to the church where James' mother was buried, if he craned his neck, it was possible to see the headstones.

"Lily?"

She did not respond but held an encouraging look in her eye, the colour of emerald compassion. He'd have told her anything just about then. Anything at all if only she ask...

"For months before my mother died I had this dream," James begun.
The evening was crawling in as he spoke, the wall they were perched on gave them a perfect view of the sunset.
"I was in this dark room, marble floors; sometimes it was pitch black, sometimes there was a candle or a lightbulb– either way it always flickered. In the room there were marble dominos, always taller than me, and when they started to fall they'd make a sound so loud it could split you in half. They would fall everywhere around me, and the last one to fall would be behind me, and it would topple over me– I'd be the last domino. Sometimes I'd wake up before then, others I'd lie there, in the dark, buried underneath the dominos."

Lily was watching him, James could feel her gaze on his cheeks but he did not catch her eye, instead he fixed his stare on his shoes as he kicked the soles against the wall.

"It stopped soon after my mum died, and I hadn't dreamt of them until recently."

"What happened to bring them back?"
Lily's voice was gritty when she whispered to him, and it struck him as oddly beautiful that this was her first question. She did not judge his thoughts, or his nightmares. She only asked what brought them back.

"Today," he replied, his voice shaking with emotion, he swallowed thickly. "Today was her birthday."

There were no words. Not really. James hadn't expected words, he'd only wanted someone to tell, someone that would be here, with him, and maybe understand.

James certainly hadn't expected her to shuffle closer to him then, and rest her head on his shoulder. A sudden jolt of deja vu wrecked through his spine, making him tingle; and when she lifted her head slightly to kiss the space between his shoulder as collarbone, the very same heart that had been broken, seemed to flip in his chest.

"Sometimes," she whispered into his jumper, "sometimes I feel like my parents are already dead."

Words ran dry from his throat, nothing seemed to sound right in his head, so instead he opted to say nothing as she continued. There was something vulnerable in the air, something that only intensified now Lily had spoken. It was a doleful blue, lonely.

"My mum probably died when I was eleven –that's when she started drinking– and she hasn't been the same person since then. Before that my mum used to be like a superhero. She would always be the one that bandaged me up when I skint my knees and held me close when I had a nightmare; but now she's a complete shell of herself. Sometimes, the day after she's been drunk, my mum will call me over to sit with her, and she'll just stroke my hair for hours and neither one of us will say anything, and I'll think 'where was this when I needed you?' 'Where were you last week when that boy in my year called me a bitch? Or even just when I couldn't pick an outfit for dinner with my friends?' It's like she's not my mother anymore, shes just someone else they put in her place."

"Lily—"

"It's okay. We don't have to talk about it. Neither of us want to, that's why we told each other, right? Because we'd understand."

James nodded, resting his head on top of Lily's and breathing in the scent of lilies and lavender.
"Because we understand."

The sun was setting, they watched it go. Everything seemed to come to a standstill while the sun sets, nothing really matters as much as bidding it goodbye. Sometimes, James wonders if the sun is ever melancholic when it leaves their company? Will it miss them?
The moon awaits them, useless in the abendrot the sun leaves behind, but an assurance that there will be light when it fades.

"Did you know that the smell of freshly cut grass is actually the chemicals the grass give off when they die?"

James doesn't move, neither does she. It seemed an odd way to break a silence but he assumed there would be a reason behind her musings and so he indulged her (he would indulge her even if he saw no reason behind her musings. He would indulge Lily Evans' every whim if he could).
"No I didn't."

She hummed, almost conversationally.
"The grass is screaming in pain, calling for help as it dies and what do we do? We breath it in and watch children do cartwheels all over it."

"Why are you saying this?"

"Because it's true. Because apathy kills us more than most things. We ignore that which we don't wish to see. If more people knew why mown grass gave off such a beautiful smell, do you think they'd still cut it?"

This stumped James but only for a moment. He took a breath and watched it rise up his glasses.
"Yes."

"Yes?"

"Of course they would. It's a beautiful smell –you just said yourself– and people are bastards."

"I suppose so."

James did not probe her further, but he suspected that Lily agreed more than she let on. Something in the way she hesitated before responding told him just how deep her relation to that statement was. Perhaps there was something she hadn't told him, or perhaps it was a general agreement, but either way he'd got what he came for: someone that understood.

"I've had dreams too."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. Not of dominos but... other things. Darkness mostly. Shadows."

A chill crept up James' spine at the way she described her dream. It was one he couldn't quite place, it was eerie, nearly similar to his own dominos but there was something more there, like she was being hunted by something in her dream. He chose not to say anything, only to understand...

The half moon stood out when James took her home, pushing her bike across the street from lamppost to lamppost, using the pools of amber light to guide them. The concrete was still wet from an April shower that week prior.

"I'll see you later," Lily dared to entreat, more of a question that a statement.

James grinned, "you can only try to get rid of me."

It was only as he watched her leave that James realised neither of them had spoken about the moment they'd nearly kissed the last time they'd seen each other. Somehow it wasn't important anymore. Or perhaps it was too important, and so they daren't go near it, afraid to tarnish its near perfection. A beautiful mistake, perhaps, but beautiful all the same. Too beautiful to ruin with something so frivolous as words.

♣ ♣ ♣

(21st April 1978 continued)

It was early morning when James returned home, and as he smoked a cigarette out the window he wondered if Lily would be disappointed in him for doing it. She'd been pulling them out from between his teeth recently, it had become such a fixture of their relationship that he'd come to associate fags with her complaining about how he shouldn't smoke them. He supposed that the connection was formed intentionally.

The castle was so quiet this time of night that he could hear the faint crackle of his cigarette burning. There was no wind that night, or rain. Everything was clear, serene, it was thinking weather, James mused.

And he had thought a lot recently. Ever since Esme-Leigh had gone, leaving behind a gap in Hogwarts as they knew it, James had been thinking. Esme had been a fixture of everyone's lives, so prominent that it was nearly impossible to imagine normality without her. In James' mind, Esme-Leigh represented the promise that there would always be someone to bump into on an early morning run; someone to fill in on the quidditch team when a chaser was sick; someone to run her fingers through his hair when he sat on the common room carpet, playing chess with Remus or Peter. Esme-Leigh, to him, was someone always there. Someone that represented a security that he hadn't been able to describe, or even notice, until it was gone. To James, she was permanent, comfort; he was the only person allowed to call her Ez; he was the first person to see her in her rawest veela form, without her coloured hair and eyes; and she was the only girl he had ever loved so much as to cry over.
There was a time where they were everything to each other, but what James was beginning to understand was that letting go was nearly as important as holding on.

With Esme, she was ready to move on, to leave Hogwarts behind and start somewhere fresh. And maybe that meant there would be a gap where she had once been, but it would be filled, or they would adapt around it, and maybe one day it would be impossible to tell the difference.

It worked the same way with his mother. She had left a gap in James' heart that would never be filled. A gap that had once been early morning cups of tea left beside his bed; light kisses in his hair when he was sick; a mellifluous laugh when his father said something funny; a fond smile when watching him and Sirius together. Now that she was gone, in her place there was Lily. There was her head on his shoulder, hair that smelt like lilies and lavender; there was timorous kisses, wiped away under the guise of regret; there were stolen smiles, caustic winks, and sarcastic comments mumbled behind hands. James may have lost his mother, but he had gained something else.

Letting go was easier knowing that there was something else to hold onto. James would not allow himself to become a domino, and he would not allow himself to fall.

He'd barely smoked the cigarette in his hand but he put it out anyway, knowing Lily would congratulate him for it.

That night he did not dream of the dominos, and when he woke in the morning he wondered if Lily had dreamt of the shadows again. He wondered what her dream had meant, if there was something miraculous he could say to make it disappear, like she had done for him.

Everyone had holes in them somewhere. Everyone had something that needed fixing, something that hurt enough to take a piece out of their heart, never to be given back. But in the end it didn't matter what was taken out, because in some way it needed to be let go of. Esme-Leigh had been ready to move, his mother ready to die. What really mattered was what one chose to bridge those gaps with– not fill them– but allow them to be lived with, to make them inhabitable.

James had not dreamt of the dominos since his mother died, and then in late April, on her birthday. But it would be the last time. He was not a domino. He would not fall. Not this time.

Another shorter chapter! Idk what's happening to me recently but my chapters have been coming out half the length of some of my earlier chapters? Maybe it's my subconscious in a rush to get things finished?

Anyway, for the next chapter I decided to merge two chapters plans together instead so maybe it'll be longer?

Anyway, thanks for sticking with me while I tackle this!

Love to all,

Abbi♥️