a/n: So I wanted to write something sort of angsty and this was really the only couple I could come up with that produce good angst, so here we are. Make of it what you will, I just needed to channel some stuff.

–

throw my pride into this fire

lily/teddy

–

one. the stars are burning out tonight.

Lily Luna is a lot of different things; she's a keeper on her house team, she's the best defense student seen in Hogwarts since her father's glory days, and she's also a Slytherin. She's sneaky, opinionated, and most of all she's independent. She's a ball of energy and passion, so much so that most don't know where to even start with Lily. It's hard to tell where the fire and ice in her begin and end. So most people don't even bother trying to understand her, she likes it this way.

Except for Teddy. Teddy with his golden eyes and shocking turquoise hair. Teddy and his Hufflepuff naïve ways and his warm hugs that remind her of sunshine on the coldest day of winter. She knows that Teddy isn't just anyone though, he's kind and compassionate, warm and feeling, and mostly he's Lily's total opposite.

Maybe that's why she had been drawn to him as a child. Teddy had been everything she ever wanted: a knight in shining armor; a guest to her tea parties; someone who let her win at chess; as a Slytherin with a Ravenclaw IQ she feels pretty fucking stupid for not realizing where that would lead in the future, but as her lips are on Marcus Zabini's in the dark of her dormitory, she tells herself that Teddy doesn't even matter.

She thinks back to nights spent laying under the stars, fingers casually brushing in a way that felt secret and enthralling. She swallows the bile that rises in her throat, forcing herself back to the present where she belongs.

Zabini's dark skin looks oh so wrong against her pale fingers, she thinks he's too tan, too tall, too everything. Instead of this repelling her, she slips into her destructive tendencies and digs her nails into the boys back, arching under him. This is easier, this way you don't feel. The voice in her mind chides her.

He's too old for you, remember? He told you that when he slipped that ring on Vic's finger.

So she lets Marcus Zabini have her body, while her mind lingers miles away from her dark and uncomfortable bed wondering how the stars looked wherever he was. The burning in her chest intensifies and she gives in, moaning the wrong name and leaving as soon as Zabini's snores fill the cool room.

–

two. set this cruise control for crash.

"You look like shit." Is the first greeting Lily receives as she tumbles out of the fireplace into her parent's home, arms full of books and bags under her eyes. She smiles sarcastically at her older brother, dropping her books on his foot.

"Nice to see you too, James." She says sweetly as he curses under his breath, hopping up and down on one foot. She didn't become a Slytherin by being the nicest person and Lily has a mean streak that is unparalleled throughout her family history.

Her mess of redred hair is thrown haphazardly up in a bun and her brown eyes arm covered with thick rimmed green glasses. Everything about her clashes; her red hair and her too short maroon dress; her chunky bracelets and her small necklace. Lily doesn't do order, she enjoys chaos, which is why she spends most of her time making it.

Then suddenly he's standing right there, somewhere between her throwing her belongings in her room and fumbling her way back to the kitchen she's run into him on the crooked stairwell. He looks different, his hair a black shade today that doesn't suit him in the least and his eyes a bright blue that makes her think of Vic and not of Teddy at all.

"Hey Lil." He says simply and she feels an irritation creep up her spine like a fly that she just can't squash.

"What the hell happened to your hair?" She asks because Lily has never exactly had tact, her mother says she gets it from Uncle Ron. Lily secretly thinks everyone in her family but Aunt Hermione kind of suck at the whole being subtle thing anyway.

Teddy winces and Lily doesn't feel remorse. His hair and eyes gradually shift back to their normal shades and Lily wishes for a moment he would go back to the unrecognizable stranger from a moment before. Looking at the real Teddy just makes her heart ache and her head hurt. She doesn't say anything more to him, she simply pushes past him into the living room to hug her father and kiss her mother, ignoring the blue haired boy standing in the hall staring after her.

It's close to two a.m. when she sneaks back into the kitchen for some coffee. Lily runs on caffeine, it breathes new life into her and sometimes the word addiction floats around in her head, but she already knows she's fucked up anyway, so one more thing can't hurt her that much more, right?

She isn't prepared for his silhouette to be sitting at her family table, staring out the huge windows, golden eyes bright. His gaze turns to her and she feels frozen, her mind racing and she's pretty sure he can hear her heartbeat as it crashes in her ears.

"Our constellation is out tonight." He speaks after a moment, his voice soft, pointing out of the wide kitchen windows.

She knows what he's talking about because as much as she tries to forget about him the more she remembers. She, too, has spotted the bright stars that make up the formation of the big bear in the night sky and she feels like she might throw up or hit something, knowing her it would probably be both.

"Lily, you're mad at me. Just.. tell me why." He says in his stupid earnest voice that makes her remember when she was a kid and he would come to her when she was upset and ask her to talk to him about it. She decides that this must be what hell feels like as he stares intently at her, waiting for her answer.

"You know, Teddy, I don't think you even really fucking care." She hisses, her defense mechanism kicking into gear and propelling her from the dark kitchen back to her warm bed room that feels too open and seems too lonely.

The tears on her pillow dry as she climbs out her window, wand in hand and pack in the other. She pauses only briefly to leave a note for her parents and then she's slipped away into the night air like she was never really even there to start with.

–

three. let's dance around this mess we've made.

Planning things isn't exactly her strong suit, so when she shows up at the Hog's Head, Aberforth just sort of shakes his head at her and offers her a room. She feels weird being so close to Hogwarts though after just leaving it for good, so she moves on to Switzerland quickly, making her way by taking small trinkets and food when muggles aren't looking.

Switzerland is beautiful to Lily, it's busy and hectic and no one knows her; she relishes being anonymous. On the occasions where she feels a stab of hurt because she misses her family, she quails it by telling herself that she's avoided all the wedding plans and cooing and planning of Teddy and Victoire's perfect children. She finds it hard to simply not think, so she feels her back against a few different beds before she realizes that isn't the safest or best option for her.

Her eighteenth birthday passes quietly, it's warmer out that it has been and she spends most of it sitting on the edge of a beautiful lake. It's lonely but she thinks it's better than nothing. She briefly stops to wonder what her parents had wrapped for her this year. Thinking of James and Albus and her grandmother's famous chocolate cake causes tears to sting in Lily's dark eyes.

Even as a small girl she hated crying. Albus had always been the sensitive one in the family, (she's still pretty surprised her parents didn't see it coming when he announced his relationship with Scorpius), so the tears in her eyes were not welcome. She angrily brushes them from her cheeks, standing from the ground, deciding that maybe Switzerland isn't the right place for her after all.

She stumbles into the local pub that light, the bartender knows her by name now and tells her there was a man looking for her. It doesn't take the blue hair for her to know who it was, but there he sits in the corner, his face torn between hurt and relief.

"What the hell were you thinking, Lily!" He asks in a voice that is too loud and not friendly enough. She flinches at Teddy's anger because Teddy doesn't even do anger. She's fucked up pretty big, that much is apparent in his stormy eyes.

"I'm eighteen, Teddy, I can do whatever I want." She speaks in a calm voice so as not to betray herself and end up screaming that she misses him so much she can't even breathe. His expression becomes more stormy and his eyes change to a threatening shade of grey.

"That doesn't mean you should just run away in the middle of the night leaving your parents a note that only says, 'Gone sight seeing. Be back soon. Love, Lily!' You have no idea, no idea at all, how worried we've all been! Your mum's frantic and your dad's got every auror he can spare looking for you!" His words just keep tumbling out and she feels her head start to pound so she does the one thing she can to shut him up.

Her lips are on his like the crashing tide and he's dragging her under with every second she spends attached to him. She finds herself thinking that this is what feels completely right. It should always be like this, with Teddy's arms around her and her red nails clutching his shirt for dear life. He doesn't pull away from her and she takes what she can get.

When they end up in her dark room over the pub, she begins pulling off his shirt and he looks down at her, his eyes golden and bright, his hair the exact shade of the midnight sky outside. She wonders if he's about to stop her and if he does she might explode.

"Lily, I-" She places her small hand over his warm lips and shakes her head.

"Shut up, Teddy. Just let me have this." And maybe because he doesn't want to fight it anymore either he let's her have it.

Their clothing is every where and she's under him and he's breathing into her neck. She thinks this is paradise and swears she can see stars as he moans her name into her ear. She forgets about her cousin and her family and who they're supposed to be. She gives into all her desires and dreams since she was fifteen and knew that Teddy was everything she needed.

In the morning she rolls over to a cold bed and a broken heart.

–

four. let's let them see the mess we became.

It's fall again and she pretends not to notice the calender and that it's the day Teddy becomes someone else's forever. She's spending most of her time in Scotland mostly because it feels like home to her and she wants to be somewhere she can still feel magic. Her days are spent in her small rented flat, but she constantly feels an itch that makes her uncomfortable.

She's grown up a lot over the past year and she's finally realized that running away wasn't the best solution. So with a heavy heart and cloudy eyes she packs up her few belongings and buys a train ticket to London. It feels right to go home, even if she's terrified because she's a Slytherin and just because she's strong doesn't mean she always has Gryffindor courage.

Apparating to her parents home seems odd to her, because for a year she's lived in different places and to think that this place is her actual home is almost hard to believe. She's even more surprised to find the place devoid of balloons and streamers and cake and presents and guests. She can see her father through the living room window fooling with something and her mother in the kitchen, peeling potatoes.

"Lily!" Is what she hears come from her father's deep voice and she finds herself fairly surprised at the relief in his tone. Hadn't Teddy told them she was okay?

"Hi Daddy." She says quietly, as his arms go around her and squeeze her to his chest and her mum drops her sack of potatoes to hug her daughter. Lily feels the first tinges of real remorse for what she's put her family through.

"Lily, don't you ever do that to us again!" Her mother's stern tone takes her back to when she was five and had broken her mother's favorite vase. In a perverse way, it makes Lily feel more at home than anything else has.

"Where is everyone?" She's not sure why she asks, knowing the answer will, in all likelihood, just hurt her. But Lily's nothing if not self destructive so she asks and doesn't care about the pain that may come.

Her parents' eyes flick towards each other in a worried gaze because they've just gotten their daughter back. It didn't take much after Teddy fell out of the fire, his clothes wrinkled and face full of pain, speaking only the words "She's all right," to tip them off as to why Lily had left in the first place. Where there once might have been anger for him was now only sadness because they knew how stubborn and hurtful Lily could be.

"Teddy decided not to marry Victoire, then he left. He didn't even leave a note." Her mother spoke in a calm voice, but Lily knew that her parents understood and for a moment she didn't think it was possible to love them anymore.

Like a flash of light in the dark, she knew where he was. Perhaps that was where it would all lead to in the end. She turned from her parents, spinning on the spot because she knows how much time she's wasted and she can't stand to waste one more minute without him.

–

five. rip me apart to see my insides.

Switzerland is cool at night, a light breeze lifts her ginger locks and swirls them around her. Someone might say she looks like a princess in the light of the street lamps. She simply pulls her jacket closer to her and makes her way through the streets her feet once knew oh so well. Her determination keeps her going until she sees the familiar pub.

Turquoise is the only sign she needs to push herself towards the back table, her eyes filled with hope and relief to see him sitting there, eyes downcast. She wants nothing more than to pull him towards her but she wouldn't be Lily if she didn't hesitate out of fear. His golden eyes lock on hers and she swears he can see straight through her soul.

"Lil." He says sadly. "Lil, I'm so-" But she can't let him say it because then she'll feel even worse.

"It's not your fault." She says gently, sliding closer to him, her brown orbs roving over him out of a hunger to memorize ever facet of him.

"That night- I'm too old for you, goddamnit." He says angrily and she's not sure if he's trying to convince her or himself, but she doesn't care because next thing she knows his lips have found hers and everything feels like it should be.

"I think I've loved you since I was fifteen and you told me that Ursa Major was our constellation because you'd always be my big bear." She breathes in the dim light of the pub and he knows that's probably the most honest thing to spill from between her soft pink lips.

"I broke it off with Victoire." He answers back, and somehow that seems like a fitting response to her. She doesn't ask why but he keeps talking anyway as if she had, "I broke it off because I've loved you since you were fifteen and you told me that I was too nice to be a big bear, that I'd always just be your Teddy bear." He says in a soft tone that melts her thudding heart.

Her lips devour his again, tasting every piece of him and for once she feels like she's actually got something right. Lily's a lot of things; she's a supporter of the Cannons; she's also a stubborn idiot usually; but most importantly she's Teddy Lupin's, just like she always has been and always will be.