Title: It Hurts To Become

Summary: "Sometimes, Lily says, "Rosie, I don't want to die. It hurts to leave." But then she thinks, sometimes it hurts to become." Lily, Rose, and becoming their own. / For Gamma.

Prompts: HPFC gift-giving challenge - LilyRose, hair-pulling, fear, secrets, whispering and the Inspirational Story Challenge - 'A sibling dies and your character feels guilty about it.'

Word Count: 2025

Recipient: Gamma Orionis

Notes: This is for the absolutely fabulous Gamma - I'm very sorry for the lack of femmeslash, but hopefully I made up for it with buckets of angst. Buckets. I sincerely hope you enjoy!

ii.

"The day my ribcage become monkey-bars for a girl hanging on my every word, they said, 'You are not allowed to love her.'" - Andrea Gibson, I Sing My Body Electric; Especially When My Power Is Out.

"Rosie!"

Lily runs towards her, opening her arms and smiling widely. Rose keeps her head down.

"Hello, Lily," she whispers. "How are you feeling?"

"Much better for seeing you," she replies, giggling childishly and sticking out her tongue. Rose tilts her head at her. Lily swings her legs on the seat and tilts her head back, laughing loudly. Her friend looks sad. She wonders why. "Where's Al?"

"He's running late, sweetie."

"That's not like him." Lily scowls, batting Rose's hand away. "Where is he?"

Rose's eyes glaze over, and she sits down next to Lily on the bed. Lily blinks quickly. This doesn't look like her room. Her room is purple, she knows that, it's been purple since she was seven, and she's ten now, so -

"Just late," Rose pleads. "He's just late, Lily, I promise."

"Where am I?" Lily knows her walls aren't white. They can't be white. Hers are covered in posters, not sterilized white paint like this, which is so cold and untouchable. This isn't her room. Her room is red, has been ever since she was eleven -

"You're safe. You're very, very safe. But Lily, you need to calm down-" Rose tells her calmly, but her hands are shaking at her sides and her eyes are so panicked.

"I'm not at home, Rose, where am I?"

Because she knows very well that she's a Slytherin and all good Slytherin have green rooms so she changed it when she turned thirteen, didn't she, and she must be thirteen now -

"Don't think about it, darling, don't, it's not worth it. You remember me, don't you?" Rose mumbles, more to herself than anyone, but Lily tunes her out because of course she remembers, she remembers Rose sitting in her black room was she was fifteen, kissing her on the bed and telling her she was special -

Life isn't supposed to go this quickly.

"For fuck's sake, Rose, just tell me where I am!"

Because she remembers one special thing and one special thing was painting her room yellow with Rose and laughing when they got the paint on each other's noses before they took her away to a white-washed room that -

"Oh."

Her room is white. Her room's been white ever since she turned eighteen and they took her here because she told her mother she was a whore, told her father he was a snake, and James that he was a butterfly.

"Where is Al?" Lily asks softly, holding the white bed sheets in her clenched fist. She knows, she knows, but she'd like to hear it, she'd like to hear a pretty white lie -

"He's dead, Lily," Rose sobs, and she hold Lily close, and yet doesn't touch her, and Lily wonders how that can be when they're the same person and a million miles apart, like stars in different galaxies with their hearts beating out the same rhythm -

"Lily."

She stays silent.

"Lily."

Rose blinks at her, wraps her hand around her wrist, and tugs. Lily whimpers.

"Lily, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

"Roxanne's got a girlfriend, you know. She told me, when she visited yesterday." Rose doesn't look at her - maybe it wasn't yesterday after all. Lily pulls at her hair and a few of the red strands fall, softly, landing on the ground in silent thuds that sound like heartbeats and gunshots. "Charlotte. Very pretty. Arrogant. Sporty. Brunette. Exactly her type."

"I'm happy for her," Rose whispers.

"No you're not," Lily disagrees, shaking her head, rocking slowly. "You're never happy for her because she always does what you can't."

"That's not true. That's not, Lily, don't you ever say it is."

"Me thinks the lady doth protest too much," she growls, standing up and pushing Rose back. "I'll tell you a secret. You've always been jealous, Rosie. Rosie dear, just like her mother, can't do any wrong, right? Well, guess what. You're just as fucked up as the rest of us, but at least we accept it."

"No. I'm not. I'm not!"

Lily grins.

"Well, you've got brother Jamesie. Nut job, that one, isn't he? Locked up, too, with padded walls and all the shite that comes with a mental hospital. And the only one who visits him is Dominique, who's completely smitten and not to mention his cousin. Victoire's on the bottle, again, and four months pregnant. Miscarriage, probably inevitable. Teddy won't be there to pick up the pieces."

"Stop," Rose sobs, clutching at Lily's forearms and pressing their foreheads together. "Stop, Lily, stop. Don't do this."

"But," Lily continues, "that brings us to Louis. Auntie Fleur went and got herself a mental disorder and ruined him for life. Uncle Bill won't help him because Uncle Bill's gone.

"Molly's gone off to god knows where and slept with half the population on the way. Lucy moved out at the age of fifteen because guess what? Uncle Percy thought she was too much like him. And Freddie, well; Freddie's gone and failed school and changed his name."

"You have no right, Lily; I'm not who you think I am, you can't talk to me like this-" Rose begs angrily, but she's ignored.

"But I haven't even got to the best bits, Rosie. Because Hugo's empty, now, have you noticed? He doesn't smile. I think you could kick him and he wouldn't feel. Isn't that sad?"

Rose digs her nails into her palms, but she stays quiet. Silent. She lets Lily say her piece. She lets Lily tear out her heart and trail it along the floor, expecting her to chase after it like it's just a ball of string. In the end, it's true; it's not worth much more than string.

Lily swallows audibly and wrings her hands in her lap.

"Roxanne got addicted to every known "recreational" substance in existence, from cocaine to Firewhiskey, and yet she still found someone to love her. Do you think she's lucky for that?" Lily asks loudly, not looking at Rose anymore.

"Don't say it, Lily, don't-"

"And then Al chucked himself off the Astronomy tower because he thought he wasn't good enough. Do you see justice in that?"

"No, Lil. I don't." Rose reaches forwards, trying to grasp Lily's hand, drag her back to shore, but she pulls away.

"But I'll tell you one more secret, okay, Rose, dear?" They're both crying now, and Lily claws at the fucking white walls that won't let her breathe-

"They looked you in the eyes and said, 'You are not allowed to love her.' The only reason you visit me is because you're not brunette and you can't play Quidditch and you're not arrogant and Roxanne's never even looked your way."

Rose covers her eyes with her hands. "Shut the fuck up. Just shut up. I love you; I'll always love you-"

Lily smiles.

"And the best bit? I'm insane. I hung on your every word and stayed locked inside your empty ribcage and maybe I even cried myself to sleep and I still don't love you, even though I should. It's like we're ghosts and we don't feel anything."

"I don't care about our family, Lily, I care about you," Rose begs, and she grasps Lily's hands, not letting go when she scratches her. Lily glares.

"Why are you the only one who visits me?" She asks in a small voice, clawing once more at Rose's back like trying to catch smoke, pulling at the red strands and tilting her head back, her teeth scratching lightly at her cousin's throat, pinching the skin, kissing the bruises. Healing. Scarring.

Rose strokes her head and starts to cry.

Lily tilts her lips, her mind whirring, protesting against the constant thought of RoseRoseRose.

"Because they told me I'm not allowed to love you," she sobs.

She leans upwards and presses her cold lips against the older girl's, her hands twisting, once more, into her hair, tugging fiercely. Rose whimpers into her mouth and presses herself closer, her hand reaching up to cup Lily's cheek.

Cold.

Why is she cold?

"Rosie," Lily murmurs, but Rose's lips leave an invisible trail of fire down her neck, leaves love poems carved into her throat, secrets whispered into her hollow of her chest.

"Rosie," she stresses again, but her cousin's hand ghosts upwards and presses against her breast, breathing into the gap and filling it with warmth, filling it with love, making her remember to breathe, to listen to her own, non-existent heart-beat.

She doesn't understand. She can't understand.

"I can't breathe," Lily gasps, and she pulls Rose away. She's still crying. Why is she still crying?

"I know, I know, I know," Rose babbles, tugging her close, breathing into her cheek, her hands shaking at her sides. "You were a genius, you know. The brightest of the bunch, back in the day. You once said you had at least ten thoughts running through your head at any one time. That's why you wrote. If you didn't let the thoughts out, they'd drive you insane."

Lily clutches Rose tighter as she sobs softly, ignoring her own twitching fingers.

"What happened?"

"Al died. Hit by a train. And you stopped writing."

Lily shakes her head, over and over, red hair spilling over her pale face, like blood splattered on a blank bed sheet. Her hands grasp at nothing. "No. No, he didn't Rose, he didn't. He threw himself off the Astronomy tower, I remember-"

"No, Lily," Rose whispers, her eyes wide and sparkling. "You did."

In her surprise, Lily laughs.

It sounds like she's choking.

"Of course I didn't Rose. I'd know if I did. I'd never leave you," she mumbles around her giggles.

"That's what I thought," Rose tells her quietly. Her laughs fall silent, and all that's left is the lump in her throat. "But you did, Lily, you did, and poor James was sent away. You left us, left me, and you promised-" She cuts off, and she falls to her knees in the cold earth.

Rose clutches at the blades of grass underneath her fingertips. Lily looks around.

The room isn't white anymore.

"Rosie-"

"The others have visited," Rose interjects, smoothing out the petals at her feet. "They said you just sat there, silent. They let you be. Hugo - Hugo tried to kick down the headstone. It didn't work. He couldn't bring himself to do it.

"But it's time, now, Lily. It's over. We've said our pieces, whispered our secrets, pulled out our hair with worry and let out our fear. What more do you want?"

Rose looks back down, her fingers digging into the mud, her hair shielding her face. Lily brings her knees to her chest, perched atop her own headstone with the sad dates written on them.

Lily Luna Potter.

2007 - 2025.

Loved.

"It's time to move on, Lily."

Suddenly, Lily turns around, jumping - (floating) - away from the gravestone. Her eyes are wild and cold and - dead. "Rosie, I don't want to die. It hurts to leave." But then she thinks, sometimes it hurts to become.

Rose nods, but doesn't say anything more. She looks up, and for a second, their eyes meet. And for a flash of a moment, Lily can feel warmth through her fingertips, a flush against her cold face. She leans forward, and presses her hand gently against Rose's cheek. She leans into it.

"There was a time when I thought I was made to fit into the hole in your heart," Lily whispers slowly, and as she says it, she starts to fade, to black and white and away from oh-so-vivid Lily-red.

"Lily-"

"But I realise now that I was there to patch it up and kiss it better."

She presses a cool, tender kiss - that neither of them can feel - to Rose's palm.

"I love you," she murmurs, and Rose nods. She leans forward, grasps at Lily's hair, but her hands pass through it like smoke. The last thing to leave is Lily's smile. Rose stands up, leaves a violet - because Lily has never been white like lilies and Rose has never truly had thorns - leaning against the headstone.

And finally, she walks away.