Expectations

Lily Luna Potter

Lily Luna hated her name. Okay that's a lie, she loved it. What she hated was the expectations it placed upon her. Everyone expected a sweet little girl, smart, beautiful, and perfect. She was Harry and Ginny Potter's daughter. She was supposed to be perfect, so she tried to be.

From a young age Lily knew she had expectations and that was alright at first. At first she was daddy's princess, his little girl. As long as she stayed sweet and innocent it was fine. As long as she was a little bit of her godmother, mother, and grandmother she fine. So she played Quidditch for her mother, learned every magical creature for her godmother, and faked her grandmother's temper. (Albus was the only one to know she really didn't like making a big deal of things. If you asked her anger didn't get you any where.)

Then she got to Hogwarts. It seemed everyone wanted something out of her. Some wanted the straight O student that answered every question in class. Others wanted her out on the pitch like her mother, an expert chaser. And a few even expected her to know everything in the Quibbler. It was always what everyone else wanted, never what she wanted. 

If Lily Luna would rather go to the party well too bad, Lily Evans always had homework done first. If Lily Luna would rather spend all day planning pranks well Luna was always talking about some creature or another so she had to as well. If she wanted to let her brothers fight it out themselves well Ginny never did, she hexed them both back into place.

OWL year was the worst. She was made Quidditch captain and prefect so there was that stress. She had mountains of homework (mostly Charms (her least favorite class)) and Jamie was gone. James and her hadn't been that close but he was always there, always took her mind off things. (She wouldn't tell but the short story he wrote for her was her favorite book ever). Albus tried, Merlin he tried. 

Albus always said it was okay, to not worry about what mum and dad think. It's okay not to be perfect. But it wasn't. Every time her grades slipped even  a bit her father always gave her that look of pure disappointment. When she asked her mum if it was okay to quite the team she said it was fine but Lily always noticed that look of disappointment. Lily Luna's biggest fault was simple, she hated to disappoint people. 

When Christmas of OWLs year came her father took a look at her report card. It was a good one but not perfect, four O's and the rest were EEs. Her mother or father gave no words of encouragement but Albus did. Albus took it from their father and grinned. He even laughed and said she was doing better than he did. That made Lily Luna smile for the first time in weeks, a real smile too.

Her parents however disagreed. When her mother saw it she was told to raise her grades, her father agreed. That night Lily tried writing James, hoping for a response. The letter came back unread. The night before she and Albus went back to Hogwarts Lily had reached her limits. She couldn't go on. Couldn't live knowing her oldest brother didn't care and that her parents saw her as a disappointment. 

So her suicide note was written to only Albus, apologizing for never being enough. Apologizing for leaving him and not being able to ignore Harry and Ginny. When she uttered the cutting curse (aimed at her veins) she didn't flinch at the pain. Lily Luna died believing she wasn't enough.

A.N: So Lily Luna's was angst. Well to be fair this whole thing is but I digress. I'm used to seeing Albus as the one everyone expects to be perfect or a broody brat as a teenagers and so I took his a different route. I wanted to do the same with Lily, most seem to paint her as Ginny 2.0 (at least from what I see). But I think most would expect her to also be like Lily Evans. Here Lily Luna lost herself trying to make everyone else happy. If this isn't your cup of tea well everyone has their own opinion and this is mine (sort of).

Teddy Lupin's chapter should be out soon, maybe even later today if I can manage it. It will be finished before the 14th though (I go back to school then so I want this done with.)