❝ he and i are closer than friends, we are enemies linked together, the same sin binds us ❞ | in which lilium snape is bound to harry potter by fate, destined to stand on either side of a war that will soon be waged. she is cursed by prophecy, or so...
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ACT TWO, chapter twenty—one : but i can see us lost in the memory august slipped away into a moment in time 'cause it was never mine
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For the first time this summer, Lili got out of the house.
First, she'd taken her friend on the tour of her home, and now the tour of her town.
Opening the front door, the girl wasn't surprised by the sudden onslaught of sound — even if Harry jumped a bit. Compared to the near silence of the house, the noisiness of the rest of Cokeworth could be overwhelming. Long ago, Lili learnt that Sev put what was more or less a silencing charm on their home to keep out the sound of car engines and inane chatter. Now, outside, they were hit by a wave of intense petrol fumes and muggy air and the sound of people getting about their day.
Their shoes crunched in damp soot and gravel, breaths a bit heavier with the weight of polluted air. Harry was taking everything in, green eyes intent and interested as Lili guided him down Spinner's End onto Slack Ave and past Old Walsall. It was misting slightly, even if bits of sunlight could be seen through the smog. When she was sure no one was looking, she gave a subtle flick of her wand to keep the rain off.
Harry's eyes brightened instantly. "You can do magic here?" He paused, hesitating with confusion, "I thought... underage magic was—,"
"Ah." She spun her wand between her fingers before slipping it back up her sleeve. "Underage magic can't be identified when there's an adult wizard nearby... You'll find that Sev likes even less of the rules that he makes everyone else follow," she sounded indifferent rather than bitter.
Harry eyed her contemplatively, "You call him Sev. You don't do that at school, even when we're not in class."
Her cheeks blushed pink, the feeling of being noticed stirring quite pleasantly in her chest.
"We're... He's different here. Well, usually."
Mercifully, Harry didn't ask anything else.
After a while, Lili found herself biting her lip and peeking at her friend from the corner of her eye, anxious and feeling stupid because of said anxiety. Because she had never once cared what others thought; when had that changed? She was under no delusions that Cokeworth wasn't a shabby little town with smokestacks and pollution being its most defining features, but it was her home — besides Hogwarts, of course. And she was nervous to receive Harry's judgement.
But Harry... he had never judged her, and she knew he wouldn't now.
Leather jacket on her shoulders, Lili pointed out what was important, "There's the old mill — it's been shut down for years. Across the bridge, you can see the better side of town (we don't go there), and there's the park but it's been shite for ages... And, I, uhm, spend much of my time out here."
