A/N: Inspired by, influenced by, and many things taken from "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" by The Beatles. The lyrics are changed a bit, though, for Lily.

Pairings: a sort of pseudo-friendship/relationship between Lily and Severus, and James/Lily

Rating: K

Warning: DH Spoilers

Disclaimer: Although I'm getting quite good at my British accent, that sadly does not make me a British woman and four British blokes (especially because the fact that two of said blokes are dead). JKR and The Beatles own everything except for the storyline; I'm just playing with their characters/song.

:-:-:-:-:-:-:

When Lily first accepts that she is a witch, and that strange boy from Spinner's End isn't lying to her, she is so excited. She can imagine the Wizarding world, beautiful and sparkling and magical. Sev tells her that it's not all that different than the Muggle world, and she tells him she believes him, but there is this part of her that really doesn't. She can imagine getting off the scarlet train that Severus says takes them to Hogwarts, and seeing the school for the first time. Sev says that you ride in small boats across the water and step off, gazing up at the school in all its glory. Lily smiles a small secret smile every time he tells her that – for she asks him to repeat the stories that his parents once told him many times – and imagines herself in a boat on the river, with the trees glowing tangerine and the skies the color of marmalade.

On their last night before they depart for Hogwarts, she and Sev sleep under the stars in her backyard. Her parents pitch a tent and curl up inside too early for Lily's tastes, and Petunia refuses to leave the house. Lily and Severus lie on their backs, comfortable atop their bedrolls and watching the sky late into the night.

"They're like diamonds," Lily murmurs lazily, lifting a finger to point out a constellation. "Diamonds twinkling in the sky."

"They're balls of gas," Severus says.

Lily frowns. "That's too logical," she admonishes. "Do they look like balls of gas? No. They look like diamonds. And that's what I'd rather they be. Diamonds are much nicer."

"Okay," Severus agrees readily. Lily smiles at this.

There is silence for a moment. Lily breaks the quiet by asking, "Do you think I can be like Lucy?"

Sev turns to face her, sending her a curious look. She can tell he's confused, but she isn't worried about it. They confuse each other often, and always learn things in the end. She loves this about her relationship with Sev.

"Who's Lucy?"

Lily rolls her eyes a bit. "Lucy. From the song." Sev shakes his head, still not understanding. "You know…Lucy in the sky with diamonds," she sings softly. "Lucy in the sky with diamonds."

"That song that you always sing," Severus realizes. He's silent for a moment. "You want to be like the Lucy girl? In the sky with the stars?"

Lily nods. "Yes. I think it would be lovely. Just beautiful." She pauses, thoughtful. "Do I have kaleidoscope eyes, though? The girl with kaleidoscope eyes."

Sev turns to her, squinting. "I'm not sure if they're like a kaleidoscope," he decides, "but that doesn't matter. You have the prettiest eyes I've ever seen – prettier than Lucy's." His face colours a bit when he says this, and Lily feels her own cheeks warming, although she tries to hide it.

"Lucy doesn't exist," she says. "How can you compare my eyes to hers?"

"You are the one who wants to be like the non-existent Lucy," he points out. "Besides, that doesn't matter. If she is or isn't real – your eyes would still be prettier."

Lily sighs, tilting her head on the side so it rests on Sev's shoulder. His fingers play with the tips of her hair, and she watches the stars again, imagining what it would be like to be up there, dancing amongst the diamonds, ruling the sky.

"Would you take me?" Severus blurts out silent minutes later. He seems nervous; his body is rigid.

"Where?" Lily asks drowsily.

"To the sky. If you could go, like Lucy. Would you take me with you?" He swallows.

"Of course," Lily says, snuggling into his shoulder. "I'd get quite lonely up there, all by myself. I'd need you."

"I'd be lonely without you, too," Severus agrees softly.

"Mm-hm," Lily murmurs.

"So we'll never be lonely, right?" His tone is pleading, like he need reassurance. "Right?"

"Of course." Lily closes her eyes. "Never lonely. Always in the sky together."

She can hear Severus softly singing Lily in the sky with diamonds as she drifts off to sleep.

:-:-:-:

The porters at the train station are not plasticine, and their ties are plain, boring black. She doesn't mind, though; they are Muggle porters, not Wizarding ones. When she gets to Hogwarts station, she tells herself, there will be porters rushing to her trunk with looking glass ties, Alice smiling in one, the March Hare in another. She pushes through the turnstile – the girl with the prettiest green eyes, ones that rival Lucy's – and is drawn back into the real world by another horrible argument with Petunia.

Once they are on the train – she and Sev in their own compartment, away from those two awful boys – Lily's body thrums with excitement. She thinks that Sev notices how many times her eyes dart towards the window, searching the horizon for marmalade skies, but he never says anything; just smiles.

:-:-:-:

The skies are blue, but Hogwarts is nearly as amazing as Lucy's world. Lily loves the magic, the freedom, her new friends. She still loves Severus, though; her oldest and best friend. She tells him that she'll never abandon him just because he's a Slytherin, and he tells her that she'll always be his Gryffindor best friend. They always smile their special smiles then; Severus's shy, Lily's transcendent.

Lily finds a field of tall grass near the forest, and Sev follows her there every Sunday afternoon. All of the other students have better uses for their Sundays, so they are usually alone. Sev convinces some older students to teach him how to transfigure weeds into flowers, so one Sunday he turns the field into towering green and yellow blossoms. Lily is so happy that she throws her arms tightly around him and presses a kiss to his cheek, and they're both a little embarrassed after that. It doesn't ruin their afternoon, though. They stay outside until dinner time, and exchange regretful looks as the sun begins to set. Lily grabs Severus's hand and pulls him towards the castle, and he tells her, blushing, that her eyes look even prettier when they catch the sunlight.

:-:-:-:

They have Astronomy together in third year, and it is Lily's dream class. She loves the stars, and she loves having a chance to spend more time with Sev. They always set up their telescopes next to each other so they can chat at free moments and make observations about the stars.

During one late night class, Sev silently comes up behind her, and she stifles a gasp as he takes control of her telescope, manipulating it for his purposes. He leans towards Lily, peering through the lens, then smiles slightly at her, guiding her back to the eyepiece.

"Look," he breathes in her ear. "See it?"

It takes Lily a moment to catch on, but when she does, she whispers, Oh, Sev, delightedly, breathlessly. There are seven stars in the sky, forming a lopsided L.

"It's you," he says, his cheeks high with colour. "Lily in the sky with diamonds."

When Lily makes a list years later of the best moments of her life, this one makes the top ten.

:-:-:-:

The last thing they do together before their friendship goes to hell is sit on the edge of the bridge stretching over the lake, their feet sticking through the holes and dangling out into nothingness. They share a marshmallow pie and Sev gives her a bouquet of cellophane flowers, ones that he created the Muggle way, coloured green and yellow.

Everything has been wrong lately, with the man named Voldemort rising and Slytherins spitting out the word Mudblood as if their life depends on it. Every day Lily fears the end of her longest friendship, although she tries to hide it from the rest of the world. Sev is just as concerned; frightened; afraid of losing Lily.

"You'll still take me to the sky, right, Lily?" Severus asks nervously, and it's such a heavy question phrased in such a light way. "Will you?"

She sighs, and her chest is cracking. She idly toys with a cellophane flower. "I hope so," she answers in a heavy breath. "I really do, Sev."

When he says the hated M word three days later, they both realise that Lucy was in the sky alone, anyways.

:-:-:-:

She steps into a taxi, murmuring the address of somewhere twenty minutes away. The driver nods and pulls away from the shore, and Lily props up a newspaper like a shield around her. She curls into herself, and feels like crying. She's somewhere else completely, somewhere far away from where she is.

She should be happy. She has James, whom she loves, and Harry, the perfect little boy. She would be happy…if she wasn't going to die.

Nineteen…too young to be married. Twenty…too young to be a mother. Twenty-one…too young to die. Lily has heard all three, and only agrees with the last. She is too young to leave James, Harry, Remus and Sirius and Peter, her friends, everyone, everything.

Her parents are dead. She got a letter yesterday, from Dumbledore. He didn't even tell her personally, and Lily hated him for the first time in her life, for a few minutes. But still, her parents…they're dead. Murdered by Voldemort himself.

He's after her.

James, Lily, you have to go into hiding, Dumbledore says. It's the only way…you know of the prophecy. It's your only chance to help Harry survive.

This is her last day in the outside world. She feels selfish for being here, out, whilst James is home with Harry. But she needs this. She needs to make one last connection with the Muggle world, the world she could've belonged to, before retreating to the darkness of the Wizarding world.

Lucy was a Muggle.

The sky is grey, and it depresses her even more. She gives the taxi driver too much money and walks to the nearest park; slowly, her steps lingering. She lies back on a bench, slipping her hands into the pockets of her leather trench coat, looking up at the sky as the sun begins to set. Her fingertips toy with a folded scrap of parchment, and she feels close to crying.

"Look for the girl with the sun in her eyes," she sings softly, sadly. "And she's gone." She closes her eyes, breathing out. "Lily in the sky with diamonds."

:-:-:-:

The last thing she sees before she dies is green, but the things she sees before are memories. Her wedding day, little newborn Harry, James's smile. The Hogwarts Express, her record collection, the telescope in Astronomy, focusing in on her constellation. A voice, low and unsure, singing to her at age eleven. A note written on a folded scrap of parchment, I'm sorry, Lily, I'm sorry, in nearly illegible handwriting. Laughter, tears, Gryffindor, kisses…

Green, the colour of her eyes.

You have the prettiest eyes I've ever seen – prettier than Lucy.

Then everything is black, blacker than those eyes she has pushed from her memory for years, and she is falling, falling through the rabbit hole, and opening her eyes to the blinding whiteness of King's Cross. She squints and makes out the figure of James, pulling himself up, and no Harry, no Harry.

James offers his hand, and she takes it quickly, letting him help her to her feet. She leans against him for support, not trusting her own legs, and squeezes his hand tightly. She feels foreign, and is amazed that James can stand so confidently. Then she feels the nervous tremors of his muscles beneath his skin, but is still amazed. She's amazed by this all.

She looks up, and the ceiling is inexplicably missing. She isn't sure whether this is to mock or comfort her, yet it does neither. Instead, as she stares up at the sky, exhaustedly depending on James, her broken heart breaks a little bit more, and she closes her eyes against tears, against the sparkling L.

"Are you okay?" James asks softly, and Lily nods, although she most certainly isn't. He just holds her tightly to him, and presses his face into her hair as they let the full gravity of the situation fall around them. Her free hand fiddles with the note in her pocket. I'm sorry, Lily, I'm sorry…

"We should go," James whispers. Lily looks up at him with eyes expressing what she can't put into words. He wraps an arm around her shoulder and they walk forward together, clutching to each other to stay upright, lost in this new life.

They leave the train station, broken hearts not beating, lips pressed in a line and palms warm. Then Lily gasps as she looks up, into skies of marmalade, tangerine trees silhouetted against them. There is a boat waiting for them, two oars resting peacefully inside.

"Lily?" James murmurs. "Are you ready?"

"I think I am," Lily says softly, and there is a touch of a smile on her lips as she embarks into Lucy's world, Lily's world.

Picture yourself in a boat on a river
With tangerine trees and marmalade skies.
Somebody calls you, you answer quite slowly,
A girl with kaleidoscope eyes.

The sky is now the deepest midnight blue, the stars twinkling unnaturally, beautifully, surreally. She inhales sharply, remembering Severus, thinking of James, missing Harry, and being Lucy.

Cellophane flowers of yellow and green,
Towering over your head.
Look for the girl with the sun in her eyes,
And she's gone.

Lily in the sky with diamonds…

Lily in the sky with diamonds…

Lily in the sky with diamonds…

Lily in the sky…