Escaping Trivalities

Lily had hoped to ignore the fact that he was under the influence of Sugar, because she had learned (from experience) that it was not safe to come between people and their drugs. Lily's rebellious nature had flung her into the company of less-than-stable people several times now, and she had learned firsthand how dangerous a user could be. It was especially unwise considering her location - she doubted she would find many friends here.

Still. She had committed to this now. And her pride had been engaged. Lily forgot about Casey Weasley. She forgot about her brothers. She forgot about school. She was faced with a man who would consider her a petty thief and call in his boss to make her pay (or whatever) if she didn't get her way out of this. Her dark, clever eyes remained fixed to the man. It was Gryffindor blood that ran through her veins, after all.

He drew nearer to her but she remained rooted to her spot, tilting her own head to match his posture. She raised her eyebrow further. "I think your more afraid of prison time than I'm afraid of a week's worth of gossip. Possession is the majority of drug laws, and the fact that you're high while at work is immediate grounds for termination I'm sure. You have a lot more to lose."

Check.

Who did Lily Potter think she was talking to? She was a mere student, she didn't understand what the real world was about, she hadn't been through the pain and abandonment that he had. He'd lost the love on his life, lost his friends, ventured to the dark arts for pain relief. Then, the sugar had come.

Henry had been getting high on a daily basis for the past seven months or so. The death eater didn't realise it, but it had been when Hallie had almost died in the battle of the shrieking shack. The moment when the person who understood him most and left him had almost left his life indefinitely. That was the first time he abused sugar. Since then it had been a downward spiral.

'Aren't you a clever girl.' Henry hissed, flourishing his eyebrows. 'I guess the books you learnt that from never told you how the real world works did they?' Taking a step back in his feeling of disarmament his face dropped, as though the fight was too big for him. 'I need this job. I can't afford to lose it to a stupid school girl who thinks she knows everything. You may think you're acting the Gryffindor, standing your ground, but there's nothing noble about taking the only good piece someone has away from them.'  

With that Henry turned his back to her, returning to the cabinet where the Ptolemy was kept. Opening the cabinet he returned his sad eyes on Lily once more. 'You may as well take the lot, it wont make a difference to me after I report you for raiding the place.'

Lily was amazed at how calm she felt as she threatened this man, this man who was surely Dark-affiliated at the least, this man who had nerve enough to show up to work high. If anything, the girl was clever enough to know that Henry was not a safe person. And here she was, threatening him with the collection of a woman announcing that tea was ready to be served. She knew that if this proved anything, it was that she was not the noble Potter everyone expected her to be.

Nobility and innocence were somehow linked, and she could not recall when her innocence had been lost. She knew it had been gone before she had lost her virginity, and even before she had been turned into a werewolf. The girl sometimes wondered if it had ever been there. Something about losing her mother, the last adult who was her full blood, had deprived Lily of a basic goodness that most people (and ever Weasley descendant) seemed to have.

There was the proof then. Good was not nature. It was nurtured.

There it was, he said it himself. "You're right - there's nothing Gryffindor about it," she said. He turned away and she pocketed the Ptolemy, before dropping her entire money bag on the counter. He turned back around and she held a hand up. "I don't need any more, and this isn't a raid. That's some of the money - I just don't have the rest. I won't report you to your employer and we should be square. I can always pay back the money you would report, but you cannot repay the hours you've spent here, improperly doing your job. Take the money, and I'll take my stuff. We both leave unscathed."

It seemed the only option to take. Henry thought as his eye narrowed, weighing Lily up. Before she'd lied, rather obviously, but Henry could sense there was nothing about a lie in what she was saying now.

'You'll need to pay the rest back though.' Henry replied, shutting the cabinet door and moving to the counter where Potter's part-payment sat. The Gryffindor had paid over half already, just a long as Henry would get the rest his job was secure. Thankfully, with it being the new year, a stock check and cash count wouldn't be done until the end of January. Plenty of time. 

'Incendio.' Henry grunted, pointing his wand at the webbed door. Bluebell flames fired from the acacia tip, singing the cobweb and melting them away. 

'Oh.' Henry added, 'I may get high when we're not busy but I do my job right.' 

She was lucky, she knew that much. Nothing more than luck could have pulled off this little stunt of hers. Lily had so much nerve, too much nerve she had been told, and she knew that she was very fortunate to not be getting into any further trouble. He was defeated, and Lily almost felt sorry for him. She hadn’t heard much of what Henry had been up to, but the fact that he was a mere sales assistant probably meant that he had not found heaps of success in the adult world.

She worried about that on occasion. She had the talent to succeed, she knew, but she also had the tendency to make enemies. She sometimes worried that she would constantly come between herself and happiness – it had happened before, and she would be an idiot to think it could not happen again. And here was Henry, potential proof of how destructive people could be to themselves, to their future, to their happiness. And she was bullying him.

She turned towards the door, and the web burned away, leaving her free to go. She would have to return, that much was true. And it would be better to be on a day when Henry was there, for finishing her payment with his manager was sure to get him in the very trouble she had convinced him he was avoiding. She put her hand on the doorknob, so ready to leave. She had the ingredient, she had his permission, there was nothing holding her back except for…

Herself. She had already begun to hold herself back.

She turned around. “I’ll be back soon. You’re just doing your job – high, yeah, but… you know.” She shrugged lamely.