As Tears Go By [Jamie & Ginny]

[lily luna potter]

@jamie & Ginevra Molly Potter (maybe after a few posts when they get to the station?)

Things shouldn’t have been able to get worse than they already were. That wasn’t supposed to be possible anymore. And yet here she was, sitting on the Hogwarts Express across from Jamie, who had just graduated from school, on the way back to King’s Cross Station in London two weeks earlier than planned. The last month had been like living in a dream. Or a nightmare, rather. A dream-like state where everything that happened only fed into the ever growing negativity and pain. Adrian leaving months back seemed like a non-issue at this point in time. That was elementary, petty almost. Painful sure, but not something permanent by any means. The horrors that the Beauxbatons and Durmstrang students had endured was something else altogether. So many were gone. Elias was gone. Another werewolf that she had hoped to add to the pack. The family. If only that was it though.

The month had already sucked well before the explosions even happened. It only started by being told that her dad was gone. Missing. Poofed from existence and nowhere to be found. Lily wasn’t even sure if she knew how to process that weeks later. What did that even mean, gone? There was no closure to that, no answers to her thousands of questions. How could her dad, Harry Potter, go missing without anything more than a letter left behind addressing the family? None of that made sense to her. What was so pressing that he couldn’t tell any of them? That he couldn’t write her and tell her? There was no way to describe the confusion and pain that caused, because it was an empty void of nothing and yet everything all at the same time. A black hole of emotions that wanted to be simultaneously released and suppressed, because doing either would mean acknowledging any number of her father’s possible fates.

The destruction of the other schools’ transportation was simply a distraction from her own demons, and as cruel as it sounded, she welcomed it for a short while. Everyone else trying to comprehend the same inexplicable pain she had been going through made her feel normal again, even if it was only for a second or two. It was sick to think that way, but it helped at the time. Packing everything in her dorm room and getting on the train brought it all rushing back though, and the normally fun trip back to London was instead quiet. She didn’t even know how to talk to Jamie anymore, because they were probably in the same headspace but not at the same time. So Lily just sat there on her seat, head slouched against the wall of the cabin, her eyes staring out at the countryside that was flashing past them in a blur. That had to be some kind of symbol for life over the last few weeks.

[Deleted]

This was her last train ride home from Hogwarts. Jamie knew that she ought to feel triumphant – only a few decades ago someone like her wouldn’t even be allowed to go to Hogwarts, let alone graduate with a career waiting for her. But it was difficult to feel triumphant about graduating when so many others didn’t get the chance to, her brother included. Seeing her siblings on graduation day had helped Jamie immensely when it came to processing Elias’s death, but there was still a lot she needed to work through before she was anywhere near to okay with it. She needed to see if she could contact her half-brother’s mother, to see if she could help with the funeral arrangements. Jamie doubted that Elias’s mother would accept her reaching out well – from what Jamie could tell, Fenrir had done a number on Elias’s mother, and she was unlikely to want to accept help from anyone who was related to Fenrir but not to her. Elias was the exception, because he was her baby… and now her baby was gone. Jamie couldn’t say that she’d blame Elias’s mother for making that choice. Her brother’s death wasn’t the only thing she was trying to process, though – Harry Potter, Lily’s dad, had gone missing, and while the Gryffindor girl wasn’t exactly forthcoming about how she felt about that, Jamie could tell that she was not okay. It was even worse than after Adrian had left – probably because this time, there was no solid reason as to why, and no guarantee that the person Lily loved was safe. Jamie had never met her pseudo-sister’s father, which made it slightly easier for her to offer comfort to the younger girl; she wasn’t stuck trying to help someone through emotions while also trying to deal with her own grief. Granted, Jamie was grieving, but for someone and something else.

The silence in the train car was deafening, but Jamie found herself unsure of what to say. She knew that Lily was struggling, but the Hufflepuff was worried that prodding the Gryffindor to talk would just end badly for both of them. Instead of talking about either of their losses, Jamie decided to take a slightly different route that had an equal chance of disaster – making small talk. At least if this ended disastrously, it would just be awkward instead of heartbreaking, though – that was what Jamie was banking on, at least. “I’m moving in with Odette until I can get a place of my own.” Jamie said softly. Even when she did have a steady income, Jamie wanted to stay with her sister, just to make sure that Odette wasn’t alone again. The Ravenclaw had gone through too much on her own, and just being there would make Jamie feel better that yet another person in her life was going to fall into some sort of emotional pit without her there. “I hope you’ll come visit?” Jamie asked softly. She didn’t want Lily to be alone, either. Jamie was worried that Lily would do something reckless – or even more reckless than usual – and regret it whenever she pulled out of her funk.

lily luna potter

[lily luna potter]

@jamie

Despite the delicacy of Jamie’s words, the crack in the monotonous train soundscape was harsh on her ears. Lily hadn’t forgotten that Jamie was sitting across from her – she could always see her out of the corner of her eye. It was more like the zoned out mode she was currently in made her frequently forget that there were other things going on outside of her head. Lily made some sort of response resembling a ‘mhmm’, but was sure that it was lost in translation if it even made sense to begin with. Straightening her body up, she ran her hands through her hair, which was now matted from having her head slumped against the cabin wall for the entire trip. “How’s she-” Lily’s voice cracked, her throat dry from barely talking. She cleared her throat a few times before trying again. “How’s she doing now?” When was the last time Odette had been brought up in conversation? The Gryffindor had always admired the eldest Greyback; she had always seemed like she had everything together, at least in Lily’s eyes. Technically that wasn’t a hard thing for anyone to do when being compared to the youngest Potter, but Lily liked to use both Odette and Jamie as role models in different ways.

Jamie asked if she would visit the two of them, and Lily nodded her head. “I want to,” she cracked a weak smile. “But I don’t know how often I’ll be let out without…supervision.” Things were going to be different now. There had always been some level of oversight by her parents while home during the summer breaks, only because she would run around all day if possible. This was Jamie and Odette though. There couldn’t be anyone more responsible than the two of them. They knew how to handle her, both the human and wolf sides. “I don’t think I can stay there all summer. Not even home yet and I already feel like I’m suffocating,” she admitted, turning her head to stare back out the window. It wouldn’t be much longer before they were in London. Then there was going to be more emotions and crying. She knew she couldn’t deny them if they were going to force their way out. She was simply tired of them all.

[Deleted]

Jamie tried not to frown when Lily spoke again, hearing the crack in the younger girl’s voice. She was worried that Lily wasn’t taking care of herself, and the fact that Lily looked worse for the wear wasn’t helping that impression. Jamie understood grieving, but she was worried that Lily was going to dig herself into a hole that she wouldn’t be able to get out of. Jamie wasn’t going to lecture, though, especially not when she wasn’t sure it was a problem, yet. How long would it be before Jamie considered it a problem? Jamie didn’t know. “Odette’s doing well.” The Hufflepuff said with a smile. “I think she’s been talking to her friends more again, which is… good.” Jamie couldn’t remember how much the Gryffindor girl knew about Odette and her relationship and the loss of her boyfriend and then their baby, but suffice it to say, Odette was doing better.

Jamie furrowed her brow when Lily said that she might not be allowed outside of her house without supervision. She understood that Lily sometimes had a way of getting herself in trouble, but Jamie was a responsible adult, and she thought that Lily’s mother liked her – all parents liked Jamie, right!? “I’m supervision.” Jamie said with a smile, hoping to elicit a smile from the redhead, too. The Hufflepuff normally wasn’t one for mischief, but a little danger was what Lily needed to feel like herself again, then Jamie would happily comply. Lily said that she couldn’t imagine staying at her home all summer, saying that she already felt like she was suffocating despite not even being home yet. That was worrisome for Jamie – she knew that she was atypical among werewolves, because she was fairly good at staying inside and being stationary. Being cooped up wasn’t good for most werewolves, let alone one like Lily, who was so in tune with her wild side. “I can ask Odette if you can stay for a while.” Jamie offered. Still, trading the Potter’s house for the Greyback girls’ apartment was just trading one prison for another. Jamie didn’t know how she was going to keep Lily from being swallowed by sadness or whatever else it was that was making the younger girl behave strangely.

lily luna potter

[lily luna potter]

@jamie

So Odette was doing well. At least one of them was. They had only met a few times, but Lily liked to think that she was like the oldest sister. Or maybe cousin? Obviously they weren’t related, outside of her being turned by Adrian and all that, but Jamie seemed to look up to her, so the Gryffindor felt like she could as well at times. That being said, Lily hoped she could find some sort of solace from Odette if Jamie was able to at times. Hopefully that wasn’t too greedy of her, and considering her typical behavior it probably would be. She just needed a couple more people that weren’t going to look at her and say sorry about everything that had been happening. That was starting to get old. “Friends are good,” Lily repeated for no particular reason. “I think they help more than they realize sometimes…” she continued voicing her thoughts. While most of her closest friends understood, it always went back to that surface level of obligations for everyone else. But she also couldn’t have them by her side every single second of the day. That would be silly to think.

“I guess you are,” Lily nodded her head. Supervision hadn’t really been a word in her vocabulary before all this. It existed, she just didn’t care about it and preferred to face the consequences after. Now though, she was afraid of what would happen if she broke those rules. She didn’t know what her mum would say or do the second they met on the platform, but there were definitely going to be stricter rules on what happened in and around the house. If they didn’t come from her mother, they would be coming from the Ministry. That was mostly what Lily was worried about. Aurors wouldn’t really understand that she needed to get out and walk her thoughts off. They would rather drag her back into the house. Maybe she was overthinking it all. There was no guarantee that was even what was going to happen when she got back. “Could you? I understand if she’s too busy and doesn’t want to deal with me for too long, but even a day or two to escape would probably help I think…”

[Deleted]

Jamie nodded pensively when Lily said that friends were good, and sometimes they helped more than they realized. Jamie wondered for a moment if that meant she was doing enough to help Lily. She felt like she wasn’t, since she didn’t have anything to offer except for hugs and kind words, but that hardly seemed enough when someone’s father went missing. If that was some subtle way of telling her that she had done enough, then Jamie appreciated it, because she was always worried that she was doing things wrong, and being a bad friends and a bad sister. The worry had been easier to push off when her friends and siblings were all alive and happy, but not that Elias was dead and Lily was miserable, it was harder to pretend that she was Jamie Greyback, golden girl, who could make everyone smile and make everything better. “The world can get very lonely if you’re not careful.” Jamie said; it was a comment not exactly in response to what Lily had said, but related to the reason why friends were so important – they helped stave of loneliness. Family was all well and good, but sometimes even family couldn’t understand you as well as your friends could. That was the case, Jamie thought, with Lily – even if she cared for her brothers and her mother, the bond that she had with her father was special, and losing that bond wasn’t something they could understand.

The Hufflepuff gave an encouraging smile when the Gryffindor said that she guessed the older girl was supervision. She didn’t sound particularly convinced, but it wasn’t Lily that Jamie had to convince – it was Ginny. Jamie wouldn’t be surprised if Ginny was overprotective of her children after what had happened to her husband, but Jamie could be charming when she needed to be, and she was definitely responsible enough to be trusted with Lily’s safety – she had, after all, done it before. “Of course I can.” Jamie said with a smile when the mention of visiting with Odette came up. She wouldn’t have offered if she didn’t mean it. “She’ll probably be gone, in all honesty, but I can cook dinner and you can sleep in my room, and it’ll be fun.” It would be like a sleepover, but with slightly less giggling since Lily was so down in the dumps.

lily luna potter

[lily luna potter]

@jamie

Jamie’s words resonated more than they should have with Lily. Loneliness had never exactly existed inside her before, because it was so easy to go find someone to fill the void, even if it was only for a few minutes at a time. With everything feeling like it was useless, she was finding it harder and harder to jump from one person or thing to the next like she typically did. Those motions had always been automatic for her, so the idea of being careful about it now was extremely difficult to get past. How did one even do that in the first place? Taking the first steps towards trying to understand it was harder than anything else. “That’s why I feel like this then,” Lily muttered, still trying to wrap her head around it all. She had friends and family that cared about her, but being left by someone from both of those categories over the last few months had to mean something, didn’t it? “How do I get past it?” She didn’t expect Jamie to have an answer to it if there wasn’t one in the first place. It was probably one of those responses where it would be different for each individual. Trying to figure out what that could be felt like it was impossible right now.

Lily’s eyes flicked up from where they had drifted off to, back to meet Jamie’s when the Hufflepuff said that she could ask Odette. She knew Jamie would be able to pull it off. She always did somehow. The concept of staying with Jamie and it being fun hit harder than Lily had expected. It wasn’t necessarily because she knew it would be great, but because trying to have fun over the last few weeks was increasingly harder to do. “Yeah, fun,” she sniffled as she started wiping at her eyes to stop the few tears that dripped out. The irrationality of tears over the last few days was incomprehensible to her; it seemed like every little thing set them off, and when something that should have made her upset didn’t, it only served to confuse her more. Needless to say, being quiet and not saying or doing anything at all worked the best. “Sorry Jamie,” she said, sniffling again. “I keep dumping everything on you when you’re probably having a hard time too…”

[Deleted]

Jamie’s heart damn near broke in two when Lily said that the reason that she felt the way she did was because she was lonely. The younger girl asked how she got past it, and Jamie bit her lip. It was hard to put that into words. She had gotten out of her own funk by clinging tighter to her family and by striking up a friendship with Andy, who seemed to genuinely understand how Jamie felt despite how unique her situation was. Andy wasn’t a cure-all, though, and Jamie was worried that if she told Lily to find someone who understood her, then the redhead would just use that other person as a crutch rather than actually working through her feelings. Jamie wished that Adrian was there. Even if he wasn’t the best with emotions, he and Lily seemed to get each other in a way that Jamie wasn’t sure she’d ever be able to understand. He’d be able to help Lily. She still needed to answer, though, and Jamie only hesitated a moment more before responding. “Find people who make you feel like you’re not as alone.” She finally said. “No one is going to make it go away completely, but sometimes other people can help.” The Hufflepuff advised. She hoped that she was one of those people for the younger girl, but Jamie also didn’t want to assert herself in that way if it wasn’t good for Lily.

A few tears dripped down Lily’s cheeks, and Jamie’s heart continued to splinter. She wished that it was easy as giving Lily a hug and telling her that it was going to be alright… but Jamie never wanted to lie to Lily, and she had a feeling that promising this would all turn out okay would end up being a lie. Even if Harry was found, he was likely in bad shape, if he hadn’t come back yet, and that wasn’t alright by any stretch of the word. Jamie didn’t tell Lily not to cry, because that would be wasted breath. Instead, she focused on Lily’s words right after that, about how Lily shouldn’t have been dumping everything on Jamie. The Hufflepuff didn’t mind other people being sad around her, though – in some ways, it was easier to focus on comforting others than it was to comfort herself. “I learned a long time ago that everything I could love, I could lose.” Jamie answered quietly. She had lost a bit of her humanity when she had bitten another student, she had lost a bit of her family when she had fallen out of contact with her mother, and she had lost a bit of her heart when she had broken up with Harper. All of those things had felt so permanent, until she didn’t have them anymore. Jamie had loved, and she had lost, and she had accepted that the two went hand in hand. Elias had been another item on the list, but he had never felt as permanent as the other things, so it hurt a little less. “It hurts, and it won’t stop hurting. But eventually you accept the pain as a part of you. And that’s what I’ve done.” She said quietly. Jamie couldn’t tell Lily how to reach that acceptance. One day, it just happened.

lily luna potter

[lily luna potter]

@jamie

Lily understood what the Hufflepuff was trying to say, but also couldn’t bring herself to reason with it one-hundred percent. She thought she had found people that wouldn’t make her feel lonely, ones that had seemed like they were going to be built into her life for the remainder of it. But they were both gone – one literally missing and the other doing the one thing he promised not to, which was leaving her behind. Obviously Jamie was still here and there were other friends to fill some of the void, but nobody could currently take over the mantle that had been left behind by her dad and Adrian. That was impossible, and that wasn’t a feeling of impossibility either. She knew that they were irreplaceable above all else. Jamie had stated basically the same thing, and the Gryffindor nodded her head in agreement. “But I also don’t want to waste my time on someone that’s just going to leave again…is that wrong?” She didn’t think it was, but so far Jamie had worded things in a way that made sense to her more than her own thoughts had. It wasn’t beyond a reasonable doubt that there could be a glaring omission in her question.

The idea of losing everything she loved hurt more than she thought it would. Jamie also wasn’t wrong either. Lily knew that things were going to be like that now. Her own ignorance and inability to grasp how life really worked was why she was struggling so much. Bouncing around and not giving a hoot about anything was not only not worth it anymore, but she was also starting to see why some people got annoyed with her. Serious things hurt, and she was a constant reminder to a lot of people that selfishness still existed. Jamie continued on, saying that eventually she would accept the pain. “If it won’t stop hurting, then I don’t want to accept it,” Lily replied quickly, brushing the last few tears off of her eyes with her shirt sleeve. She didn’t care if she was being obstinate about it, it seemed silly to suffer all the time like that. There had to be a different way to get over it all.

[Deleted]

Jamie listened as Lily said that she didn’t want to waste her time on someone who was just going to leave. Jamie was of the opinion that spending time with someone you loved, even if that love wasn’t permanent, wasn’t time wasted at all, which made it difficult for her to answer Lily’s question. Above all, Jamie knew she needed to support the Gryffindor, and let her know that whatever she was feeling was okay to feel, so saying that something she was thinking or feeling was wrong wasn’t Jamie’s prerogative. “It’s not wrong.” She said gently. “It can hurt when you give your heart to someone, because you don’t choose when they give it back.” There were people who could leave your life without ever giving back the piece of your heart they took, and that was awful. Jamie suspected that was what Adrian had done with Lily; he had taken her heart, and he hadn’t thought to give it back again before leaving them behind for America. He had done the same thing with Jamie, though she had no doubt that the chunk he had taken from Lily was much, much bigger. Wanting to preserve what you could, and keep more people from walking away with your heart, was a natural defense mechanism. But Jamie… Jamie wasn’t in the business of building walls, and she didn’t want Lily to think that was the only option, hence her lukewarm response.

Lily said that if the pain wasn’t going to stop, then she didn’t want to accept it, and Jamie bit her lip. She wasn’t sure it really worked that way. Denying pain didn’t make it go away any more than accepting it did, but accepting the pain at least meant that you could move on with your life. The thing was, Jamie could say whatever she wanted to about pain, about grief, about moving on, about letting go… but if Lily wasn’t ready to hear the advice, she wouldn’t. That was the worst part, Jamie thought – she couldn’t give Lily all the answers, but even if she could, the younger girl wouldn’t have been able to do anything with them with the way she was acting now. Jamie didn’t blame Lily, but it was frustrating, and scary, and saddening. “Maybe you’ll be better than me.” Jamie finally said softly. Maybe Lily would find a way to heal completely… or maybe she would just break even more.

lily luna potter

[lily luna potter]

@jamie

Lily hated all of this. Not the part where Jamie was helping her, or that they were having a heart to heart on everything that had been going on, but she disliked the aspects where she should have known better and probably could have figured it all out on her own if her head had been in the right place. But that wasn’t going to happen anymore, which left her in this rut – an inescapable pit of misery. Climbing out only meant getting pushed back down again. What was the point in escaping when it would never truly end? Saying it would be all right, or that eventually everything would fade was an optimistic outlook, but Lily didn’t think it was a possible outcome. She sighed as Jamie said that it hurt because it was never her choice for everything to go away in the first place. Another one of those irrefutable statements coming from the Hufflepuff. None of this was her fault, except the part where her brain told her it was, or at the least, that she was part of the problem. That was easily the most frustrating of it all.

Jamie added that maybe she would be better than her; which must have meant coping with loss and her emotions. She didn’t think so, but who really could tell? Everyone seemed to handle things differently, and even she was handling this different now than she had a month earlier. The piling on of awful situations most likely had something to do with that, but the fact remained that she was reacting in a more moody manner now than before. Lily opened her mouth to tell Jamie that she didn’t think she would be able to handle any of this better than the Hufflepuff, but the words fell short. “Maybe,” she responded after a few seconds of silence. “Forgetting everything and going on like nothing happened like I usually do doesn’t seem right,” Lily added, her eyes flicking back to the window. “But maybe that’s what I’m supposed to do, because trying to accept it doesn’t seem to be working at all.”