For Alicia ~ WiseRavenclaw07

【In which they fought the war and the war won...】

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She is the sweetest thing that I know

~ 01/09/70 ~ He saw her age eleven on a rather bitter day for the first of September. She stuck out in a crowd with her vibrant red hair and her coruscant green eyes with red rims from the tears. She was holding onto the arm of another boy; one that most wouldn't give a second glance. One that seemed to blend in with his outlandish normality. He didn't like the boy from the get go. Maybe it was jealousy?

You should see the way she holds me when the light go low

~ 15/06/77 ~ They lay together in his four poster, her wondering why it took so long and him wondering how he got so lucky. Her arms were wrapped around him more tightly than she would ever admit in the morning.

Shakes my soul like a pot hole, every time

~ 22/10/73 ~ She liked to insult him. He liked to insult her. Almost everyday they would have volumes of fresh, malicious material to use as cutting insults. Nobody could match her like he did. Nobody could challenge him quite like she did.
"You're such a snob, Evans!"

"And you're a danger to society and a pig into the bargain!"

He wasn't upset by the words. He wasn't. Not really anyway. She was just a girl, just a stupid girl.

Took my heart upon a one way trip. Guess she went wandering off with it

~ 04/05/75 ~ "you've stolen my heart Evans!" (He was only half joking).

She sneered at him, somehow simultaneously rolling her eyes. On anyone else this might give the observer the impression they were under demonic possession but on her it looked tantalisingly threatening.

But unlike most women I know, this one will bring it back whole

~ 18/11/77 ~ Together they sat in the library, their homework essays long forgotten and left, abandoned, for the sheer desire to be in each other's company without distraction.
"Did you mean it?" She said.

"Mean what?"

"That day a few years ago," she asked, seemingly vaguely invested in his answer, "when you said I'd stolen your heart?"

He grinned, leaning forward and pecking her apple-red lips lightly, "you know? I think I did. Although I didn't know it then."

Daisies, daises, perched upon your forehead. Oh my baby lately I know

~ 20/05/76 ~ They were friends this year and they had agreed that they would come back after the summer the same. Friendship was comfortable and it was inviting. They enjoyed it, the company and the security it gave them. Silences no longer had to be filled, they spoke their own language of things that weren't said.

"You suit that," he told her, breaking the tranquillity of their companionship as they sat under the oak tree listening to the comings and going of Hogwarts.
He was gesturing to the crown she had crafted herself out of daisies she picked off the ground and spent the last half hour weaving together.

"You like it?"

He nodded, wishing he could kiss her smile and tell her she was the most beautiful thing he had ever laid eyes on.

Every night I'll kiss you, you'll say in my ear, oh we're in love aren't we?

~ 14/10/78 ~ "you love me don't you?"

They were dancing in the middle of their living room, a smooth song glided around the four walls from the gramophone as they swayed side to side with the sort of romantic elegance that one could only hope to find.

"Of course I do. More than life itself." He replied, kissing the top of her head and drinking in the aroma of honey and vanilla that always seemed embedded in her auburn locks.

"Good."

Hands in your hair, fingers and thumbs baby

~ 01/01/77 ~ They were starting to regret the bender of a party they had allowed Sirius to rope them into attending. Firewiskey often came back to bite the consumer multiple hours later.

He buried his head on her shoulder, pulling the blankets tightly over the both of them and wishing to god the sun wouldn't rise.
She smiled fondly not for him to see and ran her hands through his soft, curly hair, adoring the way it felt beneath her fingertips and the little noise of shameless appreciation he omitted when she toyed with his hair. If the Sun ever did rise she would do everything in her power to send it away.

I feel safe when you're holding me near

~ 18/02/79 ~ He didn't want to leave but The Order insisted. If he could stay by her side his entire life he would die happy; but the cruelty of life always seemed to have other plans.

He promised her he'd be back soon but after a while promises become empty. He couldn't really promise he'd come back at all.
He held her tight to his chest while they stood at the door of their house, "you're the only real thing in the world right now. I've never felt safer than I do with you." She told him into his jumper, holding back the salty tears swimming in the back of her eyes.

Love the way that you conquer your fears

~ 22/09/76 ~ If friends didn't take their friend on a broomstick ride at midnight what sort of friend were they?

That was James' ideology but of course it was more than that. They had always been more than that. She clung onto him at first, letting the height destroy her with fear but after a quarter of an hour she was screaming with excitement and James had never felt so elated but of course: they were only friends.

You know hearts don't break around here, oh yeah yeah

~ 08/06/74 ~ "The giant squid, are you kidding me?!" He cried (only half joking).

"Not at all, anything'd be better than you!" Her reply was sharp and simple and yet James felt a twinge of hurt cut down his pride. Slowly, bit by bit, she was breaking him down. He was evolving, with every rejection, every snide remark and every flagrant insult he was changing because she was changing him.

He was doing the same thing to her. Loosening her up a little, teaching her to laugh and roll her eyes with every bad pun, articulated prank and clap-back at the Slytherins. They taught each other, without really realising it, how to grow up.

She is the river flow in Orwell, and tin wind chimes used for doorbells

~ 16/07/78 ~ They stood in front of a cottage. It wasn't big. It wasn't small. It was perfect. He took her hands and guided her with the caution one might treat a paper doll into the front door.  A wind chime hung just above their heads on the porch which lead to the kitchen. A kitchen that would need a lot of fixing-up to do but she could't resist anything but her new husband and a challenge. And so over the weeks and months they painted, plastered, decorated and built; but they also laughed, sang, danced and smiled. The war didn't look so bad with a distraction.

Fields and trees and her smell fill my lungs

~ 22/07/77 ~ They had just graduated weeks previous and if they didn't deserve this then they deserved nothing. Peace was a word scarcely used nowadays but right there, walking, running, skipping and dancing hand in hand there was no want for a better use of phrasing. They were peaceful for the first time in a long while: nothing could touch them. The world had stopped and nobody mattered anymore. Just them.

That night they slept under the stars. He held her tightly and the smell of her perfume enveloped him like a blanket, although the warmth in the summer air already provided one. Peace was hard to come by, but they realised it wasn't impossible quite yet.

I spent my summertime beside her, and the rest of the year the same

~ 04/08/76 ~ "Here I am!" He whisper-shouted, from outside her window. It was dark early in respects to the usual sunset during the height of British summer but that didn't stop her from grinning at him out the window, climbing out and following him to wherever tonight's adventure would take them.

It took them to a rooftop in Muggle London where they sat with their legs dangling off, watching the people go by.

"You promise we'll still be friends when we go back to school?" He asked her, vulnerability dripping from the quiver in his usually confident demeanour.

"Of course we will. Until the very end and after that."

She is the flint that sparks the lighter, and the fuel that will hold the flame

~ 17/11/73 ~ She came stomping out into the courtyard; her dark, angry red hair giving off the impression she was a raging ball of fury– which would not have been far off.
"What are you doing?!" She cried, her fists legitimately shaking with rage.

"Fireworks. Care to watch?" He had replied with a wink. It was a miracle they weren't caught by a professor, in all respects they were lucky it was only her.

"I can see that! I'm asking what made you think it was a good idea to set fireworks off in a school?!"

Again, he shrugged with an infuriating level of apathy that made her want to scream.
"At what point did we say it was a good idea?" And then he lit them with his wand and they had no choice but the watch them go shooting into the air in a obnoxious display of sound pollution.

Roses, roses, laid upon your bedspread, oh my, all this, oh this I know...

~ 19/10/79 ~ Pregnancy had never been a part of her plan until much later. She lay curled up on her bed with tears cracking her porcelain skin. They were so young. So nieve. So very fucked.

As she pulled the rose patterned blanket over her face she imagined the look of horror on his expression when she told him. The loathsome cries and the anger.

She was expecting a whole new kind of war. But she had forgotten to consider the peace.

He had burst into tears as soon as the sound reached his ears. Whether the tears were of happiness or of fear he could not tell and neither could she but it didn't matter because he hugged her like he'd never let go. He promised her it would be okay. They would figure it out together.

Every night I'll kiss you, you'll say in my ear, oh we're in love, aren't we?

~ 01/03/80 ~ Occasionally she would feel her bump kicking on her lightly, sometimes uncomfortably, and whenever it did she would call for him. And every time he'd come running, skidding round the corners boisterously and the grin on his face when he put his hand, or his forehead, or his lips to her stomach wasn't like any smile she'd ever seen him give. It was brimming with excitement and zealousness.

Whenever she would feel a kick she would still call for him, even if he was away on a mission she would call. Sometimes she would wait days for an answer.

Hands in your hair, fingers and thumbs baby

~ 30/01/1978 ~ "Happy birthday, Evans," he said, grogginess coating his voice as he opened his eyes to see her smiling at him with radiance like he'd never seen.
"You're officially an old woman now."
She pushing him away as he laughed at her offence.

"Oh come on! I'm kidding!" He chuckled, pulling himself up and grabbing her by the waist, tickling her violently.

"No no no no! Abort! Abort! No I'm sorry!" She screeched, loud enough for the whole castle to hear.

"Say you love me?" He continued to tickle her and she wheezed and squirmed.

"Never!" Followed five minutes after with, "okay! Okay I'm sorry I love you so so much!"

He grinned, "I love you too. Not so bad for an old woman."

I feel safe when you're holding me near, love the way that you conquer your fears

~ 20/07/81 ~ "I'm so scared." She whispered one night as they lay together in the dark. The bump on her stomach had grown to its largest and it left her feeling slightly sick in more than one way. She was too young for this. It was a stupid idea. How did she let it happen?

"Me too."

Me too. She felt warmth resinate through her like honey, or firewiskey, and settle at the bottom of her stomach. Just the confirmation that she wasn't alone was enough to keep her strong. To keep her alive. She needed him just as much as he needed her.
"If you're not scared, you're not ready."

You know hearts don't break around here, oh yeah yeah yeah

~ 31/07/80 ~ She had never felt pain like it. It was like her body, her heart, her head, was splitting in two and she had to encourage it if she wanted it to be over. She had to welcome it if it was going to go away.

He held her hand and promised her it would he worth it. He spun wondrous tales of what life would be like once it was over and how happy she would be.

He was right. He was rarely wrong.

Well I found love hidden inside the arms of the woman I know

~ 31/07/80 ~ Harry. Harry was placed in her arms and it was like no other feeling on the world. Not a single word or phrase could be spun from the English dictionary –or indeed any dictionary– could be used to describe it.

He was sheer perfection. He was beautiful, he was magical, he was hers and he was his. He was theirs and she would be damned if she let anyone take him away from them.

She is the lighthouse in the night that will safely guide me home

~ 27/03/81 ~ "Say happy birthday daddy?" She coaxed the little boy in her arms while the three of them sat on the couch together sharing a slice of the birthday cake they had made earlier in the day.

Sometimes the days didn't seem so bad, sometimes the endless morphing of days indoors didn't bother them too much. Today was one of those days. No doubt the next would be different. Different how? They wouldn't know until they got there. But if one thing was for certain they would persevere because that was all they would do. No matter how helpless they felt, no matter how loud they wanted to scream, no matter how sick of each other they got they would preserve because their baby boy was in danger and they would lift the world off his shoulders to keep him safe.

And I'm not scared of passing over, or the thought of growing old

~ 31/10/81 ~ He heard him coming before he saw the hood in the shadows. The crunching of the leaves was enough to give him away and enough to send the world upside down in the matter of a split second.

He screamed. "Lily! Lily it's him!" He could hear her feet pounding down the stairs to see him, the tantalising fear in her eyes enough to make a person go mad.

"Take Harry and run!" He cried, rushing over to her and trying with pleading eyes to shunt her out the door and back up the stairs.

She shook her head desperately, clasping onto his hands like he could make it all go away. For the first time in years she finally owned up to the grounding fact that he couldn't. He was human, just like her.

So from now until I go...

The ticking of a clock was the only thing he could hear for a moment as they stared at each other. It was deafeningly loud and eerily fitting as he felt time come to a stop.

"You need to take Harry, Lily. Take him and run. I'll hold him off, okay?"

There was no way he believed the canards that he assured her with. She wasn't assured but that didn't matter, what mattered was that she took Harry and ran.

But she wouldn't leave his side. She couldn't let him die like this. On his own...

Every night when he would kiss her temple and she would ask him the same question: "oh we're in love aren't we?"
And he would always give her the same answer. When she asked him for the final time he caught her tear stained eyes and nodded.

"Until the very end."

She kissed him a final time. Holding his head in her hands, her fingers and thumbs wrapped in his hair, trying to convince herself that if she didn't pull away then time would pass them by and go back to normal. But life didn't work like that. Life was cruel and it was unfair and sometimes it was short.

He had always felt safe with her. He was always allowed himself to think that with her nothing could hurt him. How humanising it felt to be drowned with the sudden, crashing, realisation that he was wrong.

But he wasn't scared. She had taught him to fear nothing; if she could be fearless then so could he. The lights seeped into his pores before he got the chance to remember her one last time. To remember their little boy.

He hoped to the existence of any god that might listen that they would be okay...

Her heart broke the second she heard him hit the ground. He promised he wouldn't leave, ever. And yet with that last crash to the floor every promise they had ever made to each other distinguished.

She shouldn't have been surprised, really, most words were empty when one was forced to challenge them...

And there was Harry. Their baby, their miracle, their magic.
She crouched down in front of him, looking into those eyes that were so like her own, tears of confusion clouded them but more or less content.

"Be brave Harry Potter. Be strong."

They fought the war. They fought it furiously and they fought it vigorously, and courageously, but sometimes hearts break. Sometimes when you fight the war the war wins.

You know hearts don't break around here. Oh yeah yeah yeah...

And they fought the war. But the war won.

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