Peanut Butter

peanut butter

if u make a girl feel bad about her body ur a bitch

Ghada Karmi and Ellen Siegel, in 1973, 1992 and 2011. Photos by Francis Khoo (1, 2) and Jean-Pascal Deillon (3).

there’s been an accident at the explosion factory

Five Men Who Broke Lily's Heart And One Who Healed It

For training prompt Tuesday, @petalstosarah, I told you I would make it angsty. You can read it below the cut or on Ao3!

1. Michael Evans, 1971

Lily could remember the day her father left like the back of her hand.

It had been sometime in quiet days after Christmas, but before New Year’s. He had stood in the doorway, his suitcase packed, his jacket on, his life with them erased from the walls of their home. She would see him again, just a small handful of times, but it would never be the same. He would never be her father, not like how he had once been before.

Lily would cry for hours and hours and hours after. Christmas would never be the same after that. She would find ways to stay away from home, from her mother and sister during the most festive time of year.

Michael Evans would never return to them. He would never pick Lily up and spin her around in his arms again, he would never kiss Iris again, he would never wink at Petunia and smile as they shared their own private joke again. The thing was, he would never be in their life again, not as he used to be, as he wanted to be, no, the separation would never go away.

He wasn’t breaking just his eleven year old daughter’s heart, he was breaking up a family. He was showing his daughter’s that faithfulness wasn’t a thing. He was showing them that men couldn’t be trusted.

How could they? He wasn’t faithful to their mother, he wasn’t kind to her, he broke the trust they had once created.

He broke the trust his daughters had in him.

Michael Evans was the first man to ever break Lily’s heart, and she would remember that. She would remember him and that cold, cold morning when he left. Lily and Petunia sitting side-by-side at the top of the stairs, their mother, Iris standing at the bottom, trying to protect them even then.

Michael Evans would die a few years later, when Petunia had left the house and Lily was away at school. Iris would get the last laugh, but even then it wouldn’t be kind, it wouldn’t be nice.

Either way, the damage was done.

2. Remus Lupin, 1973

The next one would be Remus Lupin.

He wasn’t a man yet, just a kind sweet boy who was thirteen. He studied with her in the library, they passed notes in Arithmancy as none of their friends were with them. They spent hours and days together, just the pair of them, just having fun and discovering a new friendship.

Until it became too real.

Lily would forever keep the photo of her and Remus, taken a warm and sunny day, the pair of them studying in the library, only looking up at the sound of the shutter clicking. The camera was a gift from her father, old and worn down, but still able to make something beautiful.

She would always have a copy, it would be framed, it would move from home to home with Lily. A document of a friendship that she loved, that she cared about, that ended one horrible day over a discovery made public.

She wasn’t afraid of Remus, no one could be afraid of a boy that tucked in his sweaters, and owned more cardigans than shirts, and who sing ever Beatles song as long as he heard the first few notes. No one could be afraid of a boy whose smiles had to earned and his laughter fought with well timed jokes. No one could be afraid of a boy who slept like the dead and studied as if his life was in danger.

No one was afraid of Remus Lupin, but he wasn’t just Remus Lupin.

It wasn’t the admittance of the truth, it was the lie to cover it up. Lily hated being lied to, it made her feel like she was eleven and crying into her sister’s shoulder as their father left to never return again. Broken trust, from a broken man.

It would take almost a full year for Lily to let her guard down again around him, a year of apologizes and passed notes and studying in the library together. It would take a year of whispered conversations and explanations for everything to go back to how it was.

It would take time for the trust to reform.

3. Sirius Black, 1976

When people hear the name Sirius Black, they think trouble.

They don’t think of a broken boy, of a child thrown out of a broken home. They don’t think of tattoos and motorbikes and leather jackets. The first word is trouble, the second is Marauder, the third is brother.

For Lily, it’s unfaithful.

Lily had known him for five years at this point, she had classes with him, she had been partnered with him more times that she could count, she had held his hand after he received Howler after Howler. She didn’t know what it meant to be a Black, but she did know what it meant to not feel at home in your own childhood home.

She knew what it felt like to not belong.

And with that they bonded, they drank tea and told stories about their siblings and cousins and parents, they shared their life. They were friends because none of their other friends got it, they were friends because they needed someone else to understand.

The pact had been simple. They would write during the summers, swap war stories twice a week of their craziness. They would share what they knew, what they could tell, what the other could understand.

But after a week in, Lily got radio silence.

Another week passed, then another, then another, unanswered and unopened letters littered her desk. Worries went unchecked.

Her worries grew, they went into overdrive, she cried herself to sleep. This boy that she loved, that she cared about, that knew her and the life she lived, was forced into during the summer and holiday visits had abandoned her.

This boy who knew everything, who understood everything…he broke her heart in the most selfish way.

Sirius Black would come back, he would squeeze her hand when Howlers came to him at Hogwarts, he would cry on her shoulder when his brother would die years later, he would walk her down the aisle on her wedding day. But he would also take something from her that summer, that long and hot and cruel summer without the lifeline of someone who understood a bitchy sibling and parents who didn’t know how to love a child different than them.

It would take months for Lily to love him again, but she would fall for his heart break all over again. It would never be his charms and jokes and infectious laughter that earned her heart, it would be his familiar tragedy and the way he helped save her.

4. James Potter, 1977

The first time Lily ever kissed James Potter, it was because he broke her heart.

Years and years and years of mixed feelings, of fights and arguments that never seemed to blow over, of day dreams and pining looks and lingers touches. It had been stupid, all of it had been stupid.

Love was stupid.

It was overrated, irrational, and life ending. And yet she fell.

She fell because despite all of the fights, all of the day dreams, all of his smiles and rushed words and his stupid, stupid ticks, she had always loved him. He had the rights to her heart when they met at eleven on the Hogwarts Express. She, going away from everything she knew at top speed, and he, surging forward towards everything he wanted.

She had always been a sucker for kind eyes and a nice smile. She just didn’t realize it until it was much too late.

Until her heart ached whenever he was near, until her head grew dizzy when their arms brushed, until she looked at him and saw everything she could ever want. This was a boy, no man, that you did fall in love with at first sight. That you let kiss you in the rain on a cold November night. That you cried over in bed because you couldn’t sleep at night.

James Potter was a man that love touched and didn’t let go.

It took Lily much longer to realize that she should’ve.

He broke her heart with a kind smile, his hazel eyes bright with laughter, his hair a frizzy halo around his head. He was tall and tan and so beautiful that it hurt to look at him, it hurt to try and smile and pretend that her heart didn’t want him.

James Potter was a man that didn’t deserve rejection.

It would take another month for her to pluck up the courage to tell him. To whisper her love for him on the last warm day of the year. It would take her time for her heart to mend itself, for her brain to forgive the pain in not allowing herself to love him. It would take Lily the rest of her short life to forgive him.

It would only take a moment to kiss him though. She would remember the fire in her veins, the aching in her chest, the fuzziness in her head. She would remember the warmth of his hands, the soft feel of his lips, the small moan that he made when she touched his throat.

She would remember the feeling of her heart knitting itself back together, slowly and carefully, but enough to feel whole again.

5. Peter Pettigrew, 1980

It would be much too late when Lily realized that Peter Pettigrew was the reason for her biggest heartbreak.

It would be long after her son was born, with soft spikey black hair and tan skin and her green eyes. He would be talking and walking and laughing when Lily realized that the tiny little man with sad blue eyes and anger in his heart betrayed her.

Betrayed James, betrayed Harry.

He would cause her death, so young, so prematurely, so unnecessary.

He had made her son be marked as an equal, a baby boy with a toothy grin and bright eyes, a baby boy who smiled and found laughter in everything. A baby boy who called him wo-my and giggled when Peter threw him in the air and always fell asleep in his arms.

Peter had broken her heart when she heard the door blast open, when she heard James fall to the floor, when a man who hated her because of her birth killed her.

But she felt the sadness much earlier. Looking at Peter hurt, not in the way it once had with James, no, it hurt because he was growing smaller, thinner, paler. He was no longer happy, he shied away at smiles and laughter, he grew unfamiliar.

He broke her heart long before the mark appeared on his arm, his greatest shame.

He broke her heart, and somehow, it was like he knew before it all came to an end.

1. Harry Potter, 1981

“Mama loves you.”

Lily stared at her son, his chubby cheeks and dark hair, his tan skin and toothy smile, she stared at her own eyes and tried to find the strength to say something else. Her baby boy was going to die and it was her fault.

“Mama loves you Harry,” she whispered, hoping and wishing that he would know that she never wanted this for him. Her baby boy, her only child, she would never have another, she would never live pass this next moment.

Harry would never know her, never know James, he would never know the love she had for him.

One more man to break her heart.

Go ahead, break my heart. You can break it a thousand times if you so desire. It’s been yours break since the day we met.

She had once stood in front of James and told him that he could end her, break her heart over and over and over again. But even then the words hadn’t been meant for him, they were for Harry, they were for their son.

“Mama has had her heart broken so many times, Harry,” whispered Lily, desperate to get the words out, to let her baby boy know how much she loved him. “But you are the one that I’ll never be angry about, you are the one that I loved most.”

She wished that she could kiss James one last time; that she could hug Remus and tell him how much he meant to her; that she could cry into Sirius’ shoulder and hold his hand; that she could say goodbye to her father once again; that she could be the one to murder Peter.

She wished that her son could grow up loved and safe and protected.

She wished that she could hold him and never let him go, never put him down again.

She wished that the green light wasn’t the same shade as her eyes.

“Mama loves you Harry, forever and ever Heartbreaker.”