Avoidance

Lily felt like she had not really breathed in a long time.

Now, she did just that. She did not even ruin the moment with a smoke, as she had been smoking a lot recently. No, she was enjoying the way the air tasted, unmarred by the smoke and tar of the nicotine she had grown so dependent on. It had been a long time since she had visited the Shrieking Shack, which had (apparently) been burnt down when she had been gone in America. Magic had restored it to its former glory, so she sat atop the top slate of the rickety fence, watching the old house creak and shift in the wind.

The snow was melting, which somehow made the air crisper and sharper in her lungs. Lily loosely held a bottle of Firewhiskey in her hands, her arms dangling between her legs. She slowly lifted the bottle and drank, thinking (for probably the eighth time that week) that she was so glad to be away from the school. The decision to not return to school after the full moon had never been vocalized, but had just become something she had done. And it was soon becoming the best decision she had ever made.

Some days... she considered never returning. Not just to school, but to anyone. She would sneak into her brother's home and steal her things back, before just running off to America. She could make money in muggle terms, while working at a wizarding bank or something. She was certain she could get a place with the money her parents' will left her, and she knew she did not need anyone to survive. She could start her life, rather than waiting around for it to start happening. She was sick and tired of waiting for life to happen to her.

She could not do that to Casey though. She could be okay with disappointing everyone else, even Aunt Hermione, but she could not let her little cousin down. And Teddy - she was certain losing the love of Teddy Lupin would also hurt too much.

Lily was stuck with waiting. But for this week, she was living out the dream. Jumping from place to place, drinking from dinner 'til sleep, waking up and wandering and ignoring the life that was waiting for her. She could live the rest of her life avoiding returning to school if she could... But for now, she was content to drink her Firewhiskey, feel the snow melt around her, taste the air, and gaze on the oldest haunted building in Hogsmeade.

Hermes shivered, he enjoyed watching his breath form white smoke against the ice cold current of the wind. He reach out and touched the wall of the shrieking shack… he preferred standing behind the shack, it was the only place he could really be out of view. The field before him was practically an empty white coat of icing. The tiny white orbs of snow lightly floating glazing the scenery before him, and adorning the vast blue of the sky. In days like this, whenever an open field lay before him, empty and spacious, with the blue of the sky marking the sharp white line of the flowing snowy white hills in the horizon, he felt odd, like if something was missing, and if the intense blue of the sky was going to swallow him up, it was an uncomfortable almost scary feeling.
He felt relief to see at least one cloud forming in the distance. The snow was also comforting. He reached out and reclined against the wall. He felt sort of cold but his coat of goat fur was really helpful. Only his nose was suffering. He got the idea that he looked like a reindeer.
‘What was he going to do?’ he figured he was going to get his dog and pack his few belongings and leave town first thing next morning. He didn’t want to stay stuck here and be married, well literally they could never force him to marry, if he didn’t show up to the second meeting and if he didn’t show up to sign paperwork, then he was not obliged. No, the only way they could force him to marry was if they sent several guards to drag him out of his house and straight to the altar. Still he doubted the ministry would do something like that though, he believed they would arrest him and send him to Azkaban, and that just wouldn’t do. Another thing that could happen, would be that he would marry, but afterwards let the 4 weeks pass without any contact with said woman they would try to marry him to. If there was no child then they couldn’t possibly send him to Azkaban right? But... four weeks? In a house with some girl. He had felt sort of liking for some girls but it had been a while sense he felt real affection for someone. He didn’t think he would be able to stand being stuck in a house with someone he had never met. His insides rumbled. Hunger.
Hermes turned and walked towards the front of the shack, he hoped no one was standing nearby, he instantly regretted as he turned the corner of the shack, a dark haired girl, was sitting in the distance looking down on the house. He quickly turned and hid behind the shack again. ‘Great,’ he thought. He felt stupid he knew she saw him already.

Lily was only seventeen, so her tolerance to the Firewhiskey was not great. She had a tolerance level that significantly outstripped that of her peers, but most of her peers were horrific do-gooders who had not done much. Apparently, the years before her class had been absolute heathens, but she seemed to be surrounded by people preocuppied with securing their salvation. When the girls in her dormitory had seen her pull out a bottle for the first time, they had threatened to call a prefect. When her classmates had seen her smoking out in the courtyard, there had been absolute stares. And it did not make it better that her family was so well respected.

That said, she was still an ameteur drinker, and drinking as much as she had been recently meant that she felt as though she had a continous buzz. So it took very little for her to get to the point where her judgment was slightly impaired, slightly out of the usual the shrewish sharp mindset she typically had. Lily was no longer the Lily who preferred solitude at all times. She was no longer the girl who always chose silence to noise. She was no longer the girl who avoided eye contact. She was no longer detached. She was a version of her, sure, but one that was just different enough to be new.

So when she saw an elder man round the shrieking shack, Typical Lily immediately informed her body to straighten up, turn, and walk away. But Ever-So-Slightly-Tipsy Lily was more curious than her usual placeholder. She tipped her head, narrowing her eyes ever so slightly on him in an attempt to find some sort of recognition in his figure. She did not recognize him, but now she had been looking at him for far too long. She slowly raised a hand and tipped it by means of greeting.