Archive of Our Own ^beta

Nobody has ever asked you what you want.

You are seven when you realize this. Seven, and watching your oldest sister get fitted for her Hogwarts robes. You need a new cloak, Cissy, don’t you? your mother says. Pink, I think. You look so beautiful in pink.

You don’t like the color pink. You prefer yellow, like the flower you were named for. Yellow is a sweet color, a cheerful color. Well? says your mother.

You nod, your mouth pressed closed. Of course you do. You always do.

You are nine when your other sister leaves you. You watch the train turn the corner and you don’t know what you wish for more, that she was staying or that you were going with her. Your mother takes your hand to lead you away, her grip too tight, her nails cutting into your skin, and you decide you would prefer to simply disappear.

Nobody has ever asked you what you want. Even now when it is just you and your mother and your father they act as if you are nothing more than a doll, something to dress in pretty clothes and put on display. Whenever you open your mouth they look surprised, as though they have forgotten you have a voice. Little girls are to be seen and not heard, your mother tells you. But that’s not true, because they don’t see you either.

Green and silver, silver and green. It’s everywhere, on the walls and the trim on your father’s robes and the pattern on your sisters’ scarves when they come home for the summer. What else could it have been, in the end? When the Sorting Hat is lowered onto your head? Anything else but green and silver would have been a miracle. All you are is what they expect you to be.

Another Black in the halls of Hogwarts, another Black in the Slytherin common room. Another Black? said the Sorting Hat. I know exactly where to put you.

Are you drowning, or has the water already closed over your head? You can’t tell. Either way you are sinking too fast to have a chance of reaching the surface. Nobody has ever asked you what you want and now it’s too late to ask yourself. You are immersed in green and silver, silver and green, and it seems you always will be.

Except.

A green-eyed girl with sun-red hair appears one day in the corners of your vision. It’s wrong, you think, that those two colors should mix so well together, but it doesn’t feel wrong when she smiles at you. For the first time in your life the color green isn’t suffocating, isn’t pulling you down. In her eyes, you can’t find anything but life.

When does it start? You can’t say, because you don’t want to force your memory back to when she wasn’t there. You only remember bits and pieces of the beginning. A hand offered to you that time you tripped on the stairs—you didn’t take it. A smirk as the two of you watched Lucius Malfoy arguing with James Potter—you smiled back before you could stop yourself. A quiet greeting from the other side of the shelf in the library—you stepped away.

You do remember the lake. A sunny day, clear skies, and she said, Can I sit here? and took the spot before you could say no. You would’ve said no, right? You’ll never be sure.

Why are you talking to me? you said. Don’t you know the lion and the snake aren’t supposed to be friends?

But we’re not a lion and a snake, she told you. We’re flowers. Lily and Narcissa. Their war doesn’t have to be ours.

It takes a while. You’re too locked up, after all these years, you can’t feel anymore, you can’t breathe anymore. But she undoes that. Slowly she pulls you out of the water. Her mouth against yours is gentle and loving and no one has ever asked you what you want, but she does, whispering into your ear when the lights are out and it is just the two of you in the world.

Maybe you should have been a Slytherin, you tell her. You want to be someone someday, that’s what Slytherins are all about. And you have green eyes.

I have red hair, too, she counters. It’s you who should have been a Gryffindor. You have the heart for it.

No, you have my heart, you say, and the talking stops for a while.

You don’t know which of you is right, but it doesn’t matter. Red and green, gold and silver. The colors blend together in your mind until you can’t understand why they were ever separate.

You leave school before she does. She writes to you whenever there’s a Hogsmeade weekend and you steal away to see her, tangle your hands in each other’s hair and gasp out promises that part of you knows you cannot keep. You push that part away.

People talk. Don’t they? They must. The two of you aren’t as covert as you should be, being what and who you are. Fire and ice, they have to whisper. Opposites in every way that matters. And it’s all true, but sometimes you think maybe you are fire and she is ice and everyone is wrong. She is ice because ice heals and ice melts and ice forgives.

You are fire because you are burning from the inside out and always have been, and the only thing that stops it is when you are with her.

You tell her this once, whisper it in the darkness. No, she says, not fire, not ice. Flowers, remember? Life, remember?

Nobody has ever asked you what you want. If they had, it would have been her.

But it ends, because it has to.

I love you, she says, flinging it like a weapon. I love you, we can make it work, we can run away.

Love has no place in my life, you say, and this is why you never could have been a Gryffindor. At the end of the day you are not strong like Andromeda. The Sorting Hat was right. You are just another Black.

Her green eyes are full of tears. The forest looms dark around you. I won’t let them hurt you, you promise. You can go on living your life, I just won’t be in it anymore. She turns away.

You’ll be safer this way, you tell her.

Your last words to her, and they are a lie.

Two years later, James Potter proposes to her in a small messy room with his friends all around them. Lucius Malfoy never proposes to you. Your father talks to his father and one day you are wearing a ring and you realize you have never seen him smile.

Two years after that, Lily Evans dies.

You lied twice. Love does have a place in your life. A quiet place. A field of flowers in your mind. Sometimes you close your eyes and watch the lilies sway in the breeze. You remember what her laugh sounded like. You remember a different kind of green.

Time goes on. You have a son and dracaena draco trees join the lilies in your mind. Everywhere else is underwater and it seems nothing can pull you out again.

Except.

She has a son, too.

Nobody has ever asked you what you want. It is only at the very end that you finally ask yourself.

What you want is to pay a debt.

What you want is for Lily’s son and yours to be safe.

And when you get your chance, you take it.

Green eyes, dark forest. You know this story.

This time, you will fix the ending.