Obliviate [ON HIATUS]

Likes and Dislikes

It was mid December now. Professor Flitwick had gone around asking the students if they would be staying at Hogwarts over the Christmas holiday. 

Lily couldn't wait to go home and see her family. She had really enjoyed her first term at Hogwarts, she had spent countless hours in the library, either completing her homework or reading. She wanted to be just like her Aunt Hermione, the brightest witch of her age. However the more she tried to be like her Aunt, the angrier she got. Something felt wrong inside Lily but she couldn't quite put her finger on it. 

The books she read lost their appeal and seemed more like a chore to read if anything. Lily was growing sick of herself, why couldn't she be more like her Aunt? Intelligent and sensible. 

Lily kept her thoughts to herself until one day, when she was studying with Hugo and her friend Kara Zavala, she couldn't take the suffocation of it anymore. 

'Oh my god!' Lily bellowed. They were sitting down at a bench outside. 

'What's wrong?' Kara asked. Her hair softly danced in the wind. 

'I just...' Lily began but stopped herself, 'I don't know! I'm sick of this, I'll catch up with you guys later, okay?' Lily gathered her belongings and walked away without their answer. She hated opening up to people, it never felt right to her. Opening up to someone to Lily felt like, passing a gun over to a murderer and expecting them to not shoot. Lily's skin felt flushed and itchy. 

'Lily, hold on,' Hugo shouted after her, quickly catching up, 'Come on, tell me what's wrong.'

'It doesn't matter.' Lily groaned. 

'If it's bothering you, it does.' Lily stayed silent. She walked aimlessly through the school grounds. Hugo's bushy hair, just a tinge lighter than hers, bobbed in the wind as he walked beside Lily. He stayed silent, knowing that if he spoke Lily would explode. 

Lily walked until her feet hurt and her mind eased. She fell to her knees on the cold dirt, her hands only inches away from the frozen Black Lake.

'I can't do this anymore...' Lily whispered to herself. She didn't realise until she spoke the words how very stressed she had become. 'I can't be this anymore...' She hadn't known how true those words were until they left her lips. 

'Be what?' Hugo placed his hand on her shoulder gently, comforting her instantly. 

'Be like your mum.' Lily didn't think as she said it. They both stayed in silence, too shocked at what Lily had admitted. 

'Why do you want to be like my mum, Lily?' Hugo knelt down beside her to look at her more clearly. 

'Because... because...' Lily mentally begged for the words to come to her but they didn't. 

'Listen to me Lily. My mum is great, I know, and so is my dad, and so are your parents. But what makes them great is their ability to be their true selves, always. It's easy to pretend to be someone else, that's why so many people love reading, to escape themselves. But if you escape yourself for too long you end up forgetting who you really are and become lost.
'Lily, we are ourselves, we are our own people, I am me and you are you. Don't try to change into someone you're not because you think they are better than you or something. The thrill of life is finding yourself... You already know how my mum's story goes, why do you want to live her story? Don't you want to make up your own?' Lily stared at Hugo, her hazel eyes wide. Hugo was a wise boy and Lily couldn't comprehend her thoughts. Why was she trying to live someone else's story? Where was the fun in that? 

Lily got to her feet and brushed off the mud on her cloak. When she finished she squared her shoulders and hugged Hugo tightly. Her heart thrummed in her chest and her throat tightened as the tears escaped her eyes.

'Thank you, Hugo.' she said. 

***

For the next couple of days Lily thought of different ways to find her true self. She finally decided while she was heading to dinner that she would write down her likes and dislikes on a piece of parchment. It wasn't much to go on but she thought if she got the basics down she could at least start from there. 

'Lily what are you doing?' Scorpius came up from behind her where she was sitting, making Lily almost spill her ink on the platters of food. 'Aren't you going to eat?' he sat beside her, looking over her shoulder at the parchment she had begun to write on. 

'No, I'm too worked up for food right now.' Lily replied halfheartedly. All her focus was aimed at the parchment and what she was writing over it. In the 'Likes' section she had already written: 'hanging out with friends', 'playing games' and 'breaking small rules'. While in the 'Dislikes' section she had written: 'the library' and 'boring books'. 

'What are you doing?' Scorpius asked again. 

'Trying to find myself.' Lily replied. She was stuck on where to write 'Quiddich'. She did like watching it and was a good Chaser, but she wasn't as into it as the rest of her family. Lily decided to place it in between the 'Likes' and 'Dislikes'.

'You don't like the library? But you're always in there.' Scorpius sounded incredulous.

'I've been pretending to be someone I'm not for a very long time now...' Lily whispered.

'Why?' Scorpius whispered back.

'I guess I thought being myself wasn't worth the pain.'

'What pain?' Scorpius asked, his eyes trained on hers. The look in them relaxed Lily. She felt like she could tell him her every thought and he would listen and help her through it all. 

'I don't know... I guess some pain I had made up in my head... I think I felt like if the real me didn't belong somewhere, then the pretend me would... I guess I thought why even bother finding out if the real me belongs if I can just skip onto the second and not get my feelings hurt.' 

'Well I know for a fact that you definitely belong here.' Scorpius grabbed a bread roll and bit into it. 

'How would you know that? You don't even know who I really am, even I don't.' 

'No,' Scorpius agreed, 'but I do know what the real you is like... Hotheaded, impatient, stubborn, but also independent, modest, honest and kind.' he spoke softly that Lily needed to lean in to hear the last few words. 

'What do you mean hotheaded?!' Lily yelled at him jokingly and they laughed. 

'Well, I wish you the best of luck with finding your true self, I need to go do some errands now but I'll see you later, Hothead. Oh, and don't forget to write my name under the 'Likes'.' Scorpius jokingly winked and walked out of the Great Hall. Lily was tempted to actually write Scorpius' name under the 'Dislikes' section, instead she smiled to herself and continued on her task until curfew.