[HP Spring Fling 2011] Expecting the Unexpected - A gift for willfully
Title: Expecting the Unexpected
Author: kitty_mrowr
Recipient: willfully
Pairing(s): James Potter/Lily Evans
Rating: G/PG
Word Count: 1,245
Warnings: None.
Summary: Lily reflects on the people in her life and the stories their bedrooms tell.
Author's Notes: Thank you to the mods for offering yet another year of a really great fest and thank you to my beta for reading through this to make sure it didn’t suck. Hope you like your gift, willfully!
One could tell a lot about a person by taking a look around their bedroom. The bedroom, Lily Evans thought, was someone’s sanctuary, a place where they could be themselves without anyone looking in and judging them, the only place someone could truly and utterly be exactly who they were. Her own room, at home, was a prime example of this theory. It was clean, but cluttered, walls plastered with Muggle band posters. On her dresser was a constantly playing record player and a crate full of her record collection was on the floor nearby. Her vanity mirror was littered with photos, some of her when she was younger, some with her friends at home and some with her friends at the castle. Hidden discreetly behind these photos were photos, also, of Lily and Severus and photos of Lily with Petunia. The fact that they were hidden behind the other photos was a sign that her attachment to the two was always existent even if buried beneath the rubble of mixed emotions and never-ending obstacles. Lily very much so enjoyed the opportunity other people’s rooms when they let her in.
Her parents’ bedroom told so much about her parents, as well. There were stained overalls always present thrown over the chair in the corner of the room by the window. They were her mother’s overalls, worn for gardening, and only ever weren’t residing on the chair when her mother was either gardening or doing laundry. Her father was a businessman, always in suits and carrying a briefcase. In her parents’ room, however, was a closet filled with flannel shirts and a tackle box hidden away on the floor beneath them. It was probably difficult for someone who did not know him to be able to think of the suited man and the flanneled man as being the same person, but that was one thing Lily loved about her father. He was everything.
On her mother’s vanity sat a tiny blue shoe, the only sign of the little brother Lily and Petunia would have had but never did. It was an unspoken truth that no one else would know if they’d never been into that bedroom to see that bootie.
Petunia’s room, also known jokingly as the Department of Mysteries thanks to Severus’ occasional spot-on humor, showed how vastly different she was from Lily and their parents. If she was more like one of the parents than the other, it was most likely their father who knew how to organize everything he came across as though it were the easiest task in the world. Petunia was the same way, only she could probably be considered a bit more extreme than their father was. Her bed was white and always spotless and always made. Without seeing her sleeping, one would think that bed was never touched. Petunia was not a lounger. Where Lily kept a crate of records, Petunia kept a basket of magazines. Mostly they were lifestyle magazines where Petunia would circle her dream homes and pristine kitchens she would want. There were bridal magazines even though she was not getting married. When I meet the man I am meant to marry, I have to look like I can organize a wedding effortlessly. So, I’ll plan it now and when I am engaged it will look like I just planned it then. Lily remembered the day the previous summer when Petunia had told her that in a brief moment where Lily thought she felt the old sisterly bond they’d once shared. It was very brief, though, and after that momentary lapse in judgement, Petunia had gone back to her magazines and back to pretending like Lily did not exist.
Yes, each of the bedrooms in the Evans household held a window into the resident’s life. They all showed each individual’s hopes and dreams, their thoughts and ideas even if some of them were not completely pleasant.
This particular bedroom was exactly, yet completely not, what Lily had expected. The walls were covered in school house paraphernalia, Gryffindor to be exact. She felt like she was swimming in a sea of gold and silver as bits of gold from the Gryffindor decorations and silver from the Arrows’ decorations blended together around her. The bed was unmade, showing her that the person to whom this bedroom belonged enjoyed his bed, but that hadn’t been unexpected, she already knew how much he enjoyed mornings in which he was able to sleep longer. His broom was propped up in the corner and, while some of the books on the floor next to it were covered in a very fine layer of dust, the broom was glittering in its cleanliness. The obvious extra care given to the broom was unsurprising, as well.
There were things she hadn’t thought she’d find here, too, though. Like the worn, well-loved copy of The Tales of Beedle the Bard on the night stand beneath a pair of Quidditch gloves. She was suddenly overwhelmed with the mental image of a young boy, lying in this bed while his mum and dad read to him from this book and then another image of him getting older and reading it before bed by himself. She wondered vaguely how long this book had been in his possession. Moving the gloves just so to the right, she lifted the book and carefully, carefully opened the cover. Lily smiled as she noticed the slanted, somewhat messy cursive belonging the book’s owner on the front page claiming his ownership with his name.
Property of James Potter
It was a treat, to her, to have this window into who James really was, considering that her head and her heart told her two vastly different things about the person he was. The flashy memorabilia showed off the over-the-top person her head told her he was. Just looking at all of it made her think of the boy by the lake with the Snitch he couldn’t help but to play with. The other pieces of his life in this room, though, reminded her of the person her heart told her he was. She was beginning to think that maybe he was both of those people and that, maybe, that was something with which she could be alright. Knowing what was underneath his intense enthusiasm and a seeming need for attention made Lily far more accepting of his boyishness than before.
Sitting on the edge of the bed, she flipped through the book, reading stories she’d never heard of before. Engrossed in the book, she didn’t moved until the door opened and she started, glancing up from the page to look at the incomer. James was there, dressed casually for the day and hair untidy and wet from the shower he’d just come from. His most prominent feature, though, was the ridiculously happy grin on his face.
Lily could not help but to smile, too, as he walked over to her and leaned down to greet her with a soft, chaste, warm kiss. Of everything she had found in this room--the untold stories, glimpses of his past and present--there was one thing she’d found that had been more unexpected than all the rest.
Unexpectedly, Lily Evans had found love.
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Author: kitty_mrowr
Recipient: willfully
Pairing(s): James Potter/Lily Evans
Rating: G/PG
Word Count: 1,245
Warnings: None.
Summary: Lily reflects on the people in her life and the stories their bedrooms tell.
Author's Notes: Thank you to the mods for offering yet another year of a really great fest and thank you to my beta for reading through this to make sure it didn’t suck. Hope you like your gift, willfully!
One could tell a lot about a person by taking a look around their bedroom. The bedroom, Lily Evans thought, was someone’s sanctuary, a place where they could be themselves without anyone looking in and judging them, the only place someone could truly and utterly be exactly who they were. Her own room, at home, was a prime example of this theory. It was clean, but cluttered, walls plastered with Muggle band posters. On her dresser was a constantly playing record player and a crate full of her record collection was on the floor nearby. Her vanity mirror was littered with photos, some of her when she was younger, some with her friends at home and some with her friends at the castle. Hidden discreetly behind these photos were photos, also, of Lily and Severus and photos of Lily with Petunia. The fact that they were hidden behind the other photos was a sign that her attachment to the two was always existent even if buried beneath the rubble of mixed emotions and never-ending obstacles. Lily very much so enjoyed the opportunity other people’s rooms when they let her in.
Her parents’ bedroom told so much about her parents, as well. There were stained overalls always present thrown over the chair in the corner of the room by the window. They were her mother’s overalls, worn for gardening, and only ever weren’t residing on the chair when her mother was either gardening or doing laundry. Her father was a businessman, always in suits and carrying a briefcase. In her parents’ room, however, was a closet filled with flannel shirts and a tackle box hidden away on the floor beneath them. It was probably difficult for someone who did not know him to be able to think of the suited man and the flanneled man as being the same person, but that was one thing Lily loved about her father. He was everything.
On her mother’s vanity sat a tiny blue shoe, the only sign of the little brother Lily and Petunia would have had but never did. It was an unspoken truth that no one else would know if they’d never been into that bedroom to see that bootie.
Petunia’s room, also known jokingly as the Department of Mysteries thanks to Severus’ occasional spot-on humor, showed how vastly different she was from Lily and their parents. If she was more like one of the parents than the other, it was most likely their father who knew how to organize everything he came across as though it were the easiest task in the world. Petunia was the same way, only she could probably be considered a bit more extreme than their father was. Her bed was white and always spotless and always made. Without seeing her sleeping, one would think that bed was never touched. Petunia was not a lounger. Where Lily kept a crate of records, Petunia kept a basket of magazines. Mostly they were lifestyle magazines where Petunia would circle her dream homes and pristine kitchens she would want. There were bridal magazines even though she was not getting married. When I meet the man I am meant to marry, I have to look like I can organize a wedding effortlessly. So, I’ll plan it now and when I am engaged it will look like I just planned it then. Lily remembered the day the previous summer when Petunia had told her that in a brief moment where Lily thought she felt the old sisterly bond they’d once shared. It was very brief, though, and after that momentary lapse in judgement, Petunia had gone back to her magazines and back to pretending like Lily did not exist.
Yes, each of the bedrooms in the Evans household held a window into the resident’s life. They all showed each individual’s hopes and dreams, their thoughts and ideas even if some of them were not completely pleasant.
This particular bedroom was exactly, yet completely not, what Lily had expected. The walls were covered in school house paraphernalia, Gryffindor to be exact. She felt like she was swimming in a sea of gold and silver as bits of gold from the Gryffindor decorations and silver from the Arrows’ decorations blended together around her. The bed was unmade, showing her that the person to whom this bedroom belonged enjoyed his bed, but that hadn’t been unexpected, she already knew how much he enjoyed mornings in which he was able to sleep longer. His broom was propped up in the corner and, while some of the books on the floor next to it were covered in a very fine layer of dust, the broom was glittering in its cleanliness. The obvious extra care given to the broom was unsurprising, as well.
There were things she hadn’t thought she’d find here, too, though. Like the worn, well-loved copy of The Tales of Beedle the Bard on the night stand beneath a pair of Quidditch gloves. She was suddenly overwhelmed with the mental image of a young boy, lying in this bed while his mum and dad read to him from this book and then another image of him getting older and reading it before bed by himself. She wondered vaguely how long this book had been in his possession. Moving the gloves just so to the right, she lifted the book and carefully, carefully opened the cover. Lily smiled as she noticed the slanted, somewhat messy cursive belonging the book’s owner on the front page claiming his ownership with his name.
Property of James Potter
It was a treat, to her, to have this window into who James really was, considering that her head and her heart told her two vastly different things about the person he was. The flashy memorabilia showed off the over-the-top person her head told her he was. Just looking at all of it made her think of the boy by the lake with the Snitch he couldn’t help but to play with. The other pieces of his life in this room, though, reminded her of the person her heart told her he was. She was beginning to think that maybe he was both of those people and that, maybe, that was something with which she could be alright. Knowing what was underneath his intense enthusiasm and a seeming need for attention made Lily far more accepting of his boyishness than before.
Sitting on the edge of the bed, she flipped through the book, reading stories she’d never heard of before. Engrossed in the book, she didn’t moved until the door opened and she started, glancing up from the page to look at the incomer. James was there, dressed casually for the day and hair untidy and wet from the shower he’d just come from. His most prominent feature, though, was the ridiculously happy grin on his face.
Lily could not help but to smile, too, as he walked over to her and leaned down to greet her with a soft, chaste, warm kiss. Of everything she had found in this room--the untold stories, glimpses of his past and present--there was one thing she’d found that had been more unexpected than all the rest.
Unexpectedly, Lily Evans had found love.
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