I'm shocked.
This is the most intense, profound and disturbing battle of self I've ever read.
To actually see within Lily's mind and feel her fright at Scorpius's inclination to Rose, it's quite amazing.
Personally, I love Lilly, and have never liked Rose.
I feel her pain, jealousy, and all her hatred override all her feelings, and make her lose control, lose that sanity she tries to hold on to.
The ending of the story was chilling, and my heart was pounding hard and fast as it reached the climax: "Rose."

Author's Response: Wow. Just wow. You've understood the story, and especially Lily's characterization, perfectly. The story began as a way of further exploring Lily's psyche, and it quickly became something far more disturbing to write. I'm very glad to hear that you were able to feel the intensity of her emotions - that was the key to the story for me, being able to capture this complex and confused personality, making it, and Lily, real. Writing this story made my flesh creep - it was terrifying to think that this character was coming out of my head. She's so trapped in a role, and she hates it, yet she also takes advantage of what it offers her. Lily is divided, but she's become so good at hiding her true self - the scared, jealous girl - that even her own family doesn't realize it. She's like an evolved version of Jekyll and Hyde.

Thank you very much for reading and reviewing this story! It's fantastic to hear about your experience while reading it. This review truly made my day!

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Absolutely brilliant. I love the way you wrote Lily. In a way I’ve never seen before. She’s awful in a good way. I guess I should pity Lily. But, I can't. She’s just too much into herself. And she reminds of other people I know. People who want to beat other people in certain things like marriage and such. I like the (one-sided) rivalry she has with Rose. I mean it’s understandable that in such a huge family it’s impossible to just like everybody. I especially like it because in most stories I have read Rose and Lily are best pals. Well I know my reviewing is lacking but this one-shot just blew me away. I will favourite this. Brilliant!

Author's Response: Thank you! I'm really pleased to hear such lovely compliments for this story and its narrator - it means a lot. ^_^

It's amazing to hear that you like this portrayal of Lily! She's one of those love-to-hate kind of characters, but I also wanted to give her more depth - maybe induce some people to feel sympathy for her, though mostly more to better understand this kind of person. You're right in saying that she's too much into herself - she believes that everything, even something completely unrelated to her, must be about her, whether a criticism, a jealousy, or some other negative thing. It was actually fun to make Lily into a less-than-agreeable person (she's not terrible, nor is she quite a villain, but she's not the kind of person I'd like to know, that's for sure :P). It was a risk because, like you said, many writers make her and all the Weasley cousins into likeable, friendly characters, but that makes it more interesting to explore the other potentiality. ;)

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She really is like Lydia, isn't she? I love how true to life this story is. It's not a fairytale, and Scorpius isn't Lily's Mr. Darcy. They're both broken, like real people. Please continue writing, I love your stories.

Author's Response: She is! And I didn't intend her to be that way, but when I looked back and how I was initially characterizing her, I saw the comparison and was stunned. She was just meant to be annoying, somewhat scheming, and very girly in a disturbing way - but those are also Lydia's traits, so I capitalized on the comparison. :D

I'm really glad to hear that the story was true to life - that's what I wanted to get with Lily and her relationship with Scorpius, that it wasn't fairytale in the least but that it was something that happens too often, and is very sad to see.

Thank you so much for reading and reviewing! Your reviews have been really inspiring and I appreciate that you took the time to write them. ^_^

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Absolutely brilliant. One short. I really enjoyed this one! I could feel, and relate to the emotions, in the begining with her family. Your detail in your writing is once again, outstanding! :)

Author's Response: Thank you very much for reading and reviewing! I'm glad that you liked the details and emotions in this story. :D

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Oh my goodness. This Lily, is totally reminiscent of Lydia Bennet. She irritates me somewhat, but I can't help sympathise with her, especially at that awful point; "Rose". Oh dear.
That last section is utterly eerie and chilling. You gave me goosebumps.
The whole Lydia/Wickham situation (in P&P) doesn't have a satisfactory ending anyway, does it? I recall that they eventually drift apart.
Anyhow, I loved the spectacular imagery and incandescent prose that as usual characterises your writing. Superb.

Author's Response: It's wonderful that you also see her as Lydia - I didn't want it to sound forced, but still give a strong enough impression for those familiar with P&P. I don't know if Lydia was ever as jealous of her older sisters, but certainly she was selfish, petty, and with only one goal in mind: marriage to the right man. Lily did a heck of a lot better than Lydia, though. :P

You're right that they do drift apart, and what scares Lily the most is that she knows, within, that Scorpius doesn't love her - or at least, she suspects that she's been used - but she takes advantage of it and makes it work out better for her. She's not really the loving type, anyway. Her story is a sad one, but it's so hard to feel sorry for her, too, which makes her a complicated character to understand.

Thank you so much for reading and reviewing this story! It's fantastic to hear that you loved the imagery and prose - I was worried that Lily's annoying voice would overwhelm the rest, so it means a lot to hear that it wasn't actually the case. ^_^

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Absolutely creepy!
But that's what I loved about it.
I like how disturbed you make Lily seem to be and the best part is that she is so convinced that absolutely nothing is wrong with her..
Very creepy indeed!

Author's Response: Haha, that's the perfect word for this story - Lily is so disturbed that entering into her thoughts and emotions like this is certainly creepy. And you're right in that she believes that she's the normal one, that she's a victim of fate rather than a victim of her own vanity. This was such a weird story to write - I can't even think about re-reading it now. XD

Thanks very much for reading and reviewing this story! It's wonderful that you enjoyed it, for all its creepiness. ;)

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I loved winner takes all so much!! This is like perfect to go with it.

Author's Response: Thank you! I'm really glad that you loved WTA and that you thought this was the perfect companion piece! ^_^

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Wow! That was...that was...I don't know what to say!
Even if I don't like Lily's personality, the story is really good.
Now it buggers me, that I don't know how that whole thing ends. Will she marry him in the end? Will she let him go?

Greetings :)

Author's Response: Thank you very much! I'm glad that you liked this story! Lily is an unpleasant personality, to say the least, and she was meant to be unlikable in this - putting this story in the first person, though, forces readers to confront this head-on, and it leads to interesting results. ;)

The ending does let you decide whether she'll marry him or not - to the story itself, it's just a plot point rather than the central idea, which is Lily's inability to distinguish herself from Rose, something she can't come to terms with. Until she does, she can never be herself.

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It's been too long since I've been on this site - I've missed the incredible pieces of writing.

You're depiction of Lily is so intense, the first person monologue gets us straight in her head, displaying her selfish and blind personality. The headstrong attitude works perfectly with the situation. I particularly love the line 'The smell of the flowers made me sniffle in rebellion. Awful things they were, those lilies. They had too much smell to them, overpowering everything thing else around them, trying too hard to be noticed.' Ironically, it's like she's talking about herself and her own attitude. She's what's too much, the one who's trying too hard to be noticed and to escape her cousin's shadow. The girl hates herself and everything around her, but has foolishly tied herself to the very life she hates.
Loved it. x

Author's Response: Thank you very much for the compliments! It's great to see you around again, and it means so much that you've chosen to read my stories. ^_^

Her voice is definitely overpowering - it was physically painful to write her because she's just like those flowers, exuding too much odour and giving one a headache. I'm glad that you caught that parallel between Lily and the lilies - a bit of dramatic irony that I couldn't resist including.

It was quite something to write such a character study as this - very intense, and I don't think I want to do it again. There are so many questions that I was left with, unanswered, like her jealousy for Rose - Lily is the prettier one, yet she's intensely jealous of her cousin, seemingly without reason. She doesn't need to try to be noticed, but she throws herself in everyone's way. She's very troubled - that's the only way I can describe her.

I'm so glad that you liked this story, though. It was an experiment to write such a character, and I'm glad that it turned out to be a success. :D Thank you!

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She's so bitter it's almost painful to read. I can only imagine how painful to write it was. I feel sorry for their baby, gosh. And for scorpius. He seems less like a pig here. And for Lily too. she's not learning or growing from this situation, she's trapping herself in a loveless marriage... and she seems so desperate.
A really good piece of characterization and writing. 10/10

Author's Response: She's dreadfully bitter, which made it frightening to write this in the first person - I don't know what unconscious sector of my brain this story emerged from to take on such a voice as Lily's. :S Both she and Scorpius are rather terrible people, thinking mostly of themselves and how other people see them. And no matter what manipulations they attempt for their personal benefit, they end up being miserable. Together, but miserably so.

Thank you very much for reading and reviewing this story. It's fantastic that you liked the characterization and writing - it's certainly the most disturbing thing I've written, and I'm really glad to hear that it paid off in the end. ^_^

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Wow.
I can't find the words to describe this story.
So I'll leave it at wow.

ten million/10

Author's Response: Thank you very much! I'm really glad that it left you speechless. ^_^

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Wow, that was so powerful! I really love Winner Takes All, and I gained a lot of insight into Lily by reading this.
Great story!

Author's Response: Thank you very much! It's great to hear that this story helped provide further insight into Lily's character - I know that it helped me understand her better, especially with the use of the first person in this one-shot, and hopefully it'll help make her a more interesting character within Winner Takes All. :D

It's fantastic that you love WTA - that means a lot to hear. ^_^

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This was an amazing story to read, and the nuances were weaved in so deliberately, that it's really hard not to be affected.
Thanks for writing.

Author's Response: Wow, thank you so much for this review! It's wonderful to hear that all the little details in this story worked together effectively in that way. ^_^

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i've not read winner takes all (and i probably won't--rose is somewhat annoying, to me, anyway) but this was beautiful. i especially love the end with the like a rose thing.

and lily! omigod, lily. she was wonderful--i do so love the evil characters, lol. :) great story.

Author's Response: You're probably rarity, disliking Rose, but it's not at all a bad thing - Lily is a fascinating character, and I unfortunately enjoy making her so vain and unpleasant, especially when she doesn't really know what she herself is like. I'm with you on loving evil characters - they're more interesting. ;)

Thank you very much for reading and reviewing! :D

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I really liked this one-shot. A lot of people are doing a parallel between Lily / Scorpius and Lydia / Wickham. Personally, if I find that Lily has a lot in common with Lydia (she's immature, stupid and so shallow) Lily appears meaner than Lydia. And I don't see Scorpius as Wickham, he appeers to me more like Darcy: proud, attached to social conventions, good manners... I imagine that for a man so proud, Rose rejection must have been a very hard moment. He seems to have been deeply in love with Rose, and Lily just seems to be an ersatz for him. But really, their relationship seems so fake, so wrong, I can't see Darcy ending up with a woman like Lydia. Scorpius doesn't deserve that! But she's pregnant... or so it seems. It's just a little strange that it's Scorpius who discovers the pregnancy... men, in general, are not so observant: what about her mother or her cousin Molly? Is this the reality or just another of his wishes: to marry someone to replace Rose, to have children with her? This one-shot was perfectly done and written, as allways. I hope you'll make Scorpius escape this marriage, he deserves happiness too... because it will ruins so much lives: Scorpius, Rose and even Lily: no way she'd be happy in the long term... deeply, she knows he does'nt love her but her cousin, and the end shows it perfectly.

Author's Response: The more I think about it, the more I agree about Scorpius being more like Darcy. He's very aloof and snooty, and I can just imagine what it must have been like when he and Rose were dating - they would have been snapping at one another, he telling her to act more mature and posh, while she would snap back that he was a snob, and they would rather enjoy that. Her rejection would have been a severe blow to his ego, making him feel like a failure, so in retaliation he makes sure that she feels the same way, if not worse.

It's interesting that you bring up how Scorpius is the one to notice Lily's pregnancy - even she didn't know what it was, and I wouldn't believe that she could be that naive. He is trying to create a new reality for himself, perhaps even using Lily's so-called pregnancy to convince himself to marry her. I'm never sure what to do with him, what decisions to have him make. He's an ambiguous character, and it makes me wonder how he'll resolve the issues between Lily and Rose.

Thank you so much for this review! I really appreciate hearing from you on this. ^_^

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This was absolutely fabulous! I loved getting an inside view into Lily's mind. It doesn't make her any more likeable, but it certainly does make her much more understandable and though I think she's rather a spoiled brat, I can sympathise with her a little. I love the parallels between them and Lydia and Wickham, you've made me feel like reading P&P again XD
I simply love the ending. It's poignant and gorgeous and now I really, really can't wait to find out what happens in Winner Takes All. Ending with the word Rose just shows, well, everything regarding Lily's feelings towards Rose - it's such a fabulous way to end the story.
This was brilliant to read, can't wait for more WTA :)

Author's Response: Thank you so much! It's great to hear that you liked it as well as you did - hearing that always makes me grin happily (not quite insanely :P). For this story, I was only going for understandable, so it's good to know that at least that part succeeded. Making her likeable is beyond my skills - she's too awful a person to be liked. XD

What I like about how this one-shot ended is that anything could happen in WTA and this storyline would still work out. Lily and Scorpius could marry, but they'd never be happy, not with Rose between them forevermore. Lily is trapped within Rose's shadow, and I'm so happy that you liked that in the ending. :D

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This is brilliant Susan! I've been feeling kind of disconnected from WTA of late but this off-shoot brought back the interest full-swing. I love how you delved into Lily's POV (and you're right, first person was the way to go) and it brings a whole new depth to the WTA universe. She didn't appear much in WTA and all we - I - saw was a flighty creature, immature, spoilt and perhaps not quite aware of how she impacted others. But this turned it all around. She's still what I thought her before but with added layers. She's so different from Rose, mainly because she views everything through a single lens: herself. Her relationship with Scorpius is interesting because she's forcing herself to see him her way, despite whatever inkling might be at the back of her mind. Scorpius himself becomes more interesting since we get to see him through an opposing POV. It also makes it more believable that him and Rose were an item. I always wondered why Rose got with the manipulative ice bucket in the first place.
There was more that I wanted to say but I can't remember what... XD All in all, it was wonderfully written with excellent characterizations. Now I'm really looking forward to the next chapter of WTA!

Author's Response: Wow, thank you very much! It's great to hear from you again, and it means a lot that this story was able to bring you back into WTA-dom. It's also great news that what I set out to do with Lily's character actually worked. :D

In the story she's more of an entity rather than a person, someone who stands in Rose's way to some extent, and writing this allowed me to understand Lily better, both as a person and in her relationship with Rose, which I wanted to learn about from her side. And it's interesting that Lily keeps denying herself what could actually be true about Scorpius, Rose, and herself. She knows in the back of her mind what's really going on, but she won't admit to it, which does deepen her character.

Haha, I love the image of Scorpius as a "manipulative ice bucket". It's perfect! Like Lily, he also narrows himself into expecting a certain way of life, though in his case, he knows that it may not be what he really wants. He's a strange character, and while he seems the villain in WTA, I'm not sure that he actually is. Yes, he's highly manipulative and has caused Rose a lot of pain, but he's caused himself that same pain due to some pride thing, I'm guessing.

Anyway, thank you so much for taking the time to read and review! ^_^

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Susan! It is not ok that I did not know this was up! It was pure accident I stumbled across your post in my usual UFG stalking, and while I got ridiculously excited when I saw you were writing Lily, I was doing a mental jig when I realised this was a companion to WTA!

It was incredible. I can understand why it would be troubling to write, because it's really very dark and driven by a more twisted, overt sensuality than any of your other pieces. You managed to pull that off tastefully as well, so much fanfic is just luridly and gratuitously graphic, but you conveyed all their illict passion even more powerfully by not showing us every little detail - I don't know how you balance between vivid description and knowing restraint, but you really have got that mastered!

It was gripping and absolutely fascinating to get a look in Lily's head. She's SUCH a brat, but first person really did make it much easier to see where she is coming from.

I loved the continual comparisons Lily made between herself and Rose, most especially the 'Rose wouldn't even be here': the Lydia/Elizabeth parallel works so, so well! I was curious as to how you would end it, but the ending was perfect - everything built up to it, and I can't wait to see how it compares to WTA - if they'd actually got married WTA would have lost some of it's tension, even with readers knowing Elizabeths get their Darcys.

I really enjoyed reading this, and my final tribute is that I even feel sorry for Lily - she can't even pretend completely to herself that she has won. Lovely, lovely job - not that I expected anything less from you!

Author's Response: Jo! :O A review from you is a real treat, and it's fantastic that you took the time to read and review this story, thank you! Haha, I think I have to advertise more or something, since people keep finding my stories in the weirdest of ways. XD

Stories like this come out of me every so often and the disturbing part is wondering where they came from, what part of the subconscious they exist. Freud would have a lot of fun stuff to say about this story. o_O

With the description, I go as far as my prudish mind will let me, and also as far as I think that Lily would allow her descriptions to go. Not that she's prudish, but that she doesn't want to say too much, nor does she know how - she's very naive about sex and tries to hide that fact. I was worried for a lot of the time writing this that it would tip the scales into PWP, and that restrained things as well.

Your comment on tension in WTA has got me thinking. I've had problems with the plotting beyond the day of the wedding - how any relationship between Teddy and Rose builds (and maybe falls), and what Scorpius will do next in regard to Rose. But the idea of the tension makes me want to change the timeline completely. XD A postponement of the wedding may have to do, though a cancellation isn't out of the question with Scorpius kept in mind.

Thank you for confudding my poor head, but thanks even more so for the fantastic review. I really appreciate hearing from you and it means so much to me as a fan of your stories. ^_^

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Very ... thoughtful. I like it. I also like the way you didn't make it a typical easy-to-read romance, but rather opted for something closer to reality.

Author's Response: Thank you very much1 :D Yes, I was trying for something more realistic here, to write something different from the norm. I'm glad that you liked it!

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Susan...you made my brain go BOM. Literally. I'm utterly speechless. In fact, I read this about ten hours ago and I'm still unable to come up with a coherent review for you.

But, since I'm me, I'm going to try anyway. @_@

Lily...I like the connection that you've drawn with her and Lydia from Pride & Prejudice. The irony and hypocrisy she shows when she criticizes the lilies only shows her immaturity and well, just...how 'full of it' (is that the term? i'm not quite sure that it's right...) she is. Through all this manipulation, her trying for "once" to be better than Rose...she's gotten herself into this situation and even though she'll disagree, she loves this attention.

Lily thrives off this attention and the drama that comes with it. And Scorpius -- the whole time I'm reading about how their 'relationship' (if you want to call it that :p) progressed...it feels like a sham. It's all show, even though it's written to seem...legitimate...because we know Scorpius and Rose and what they had (etcetc..) in WTA, I guess reading about him and Lily just feels fake. It doesn't work. Doesn't feel right.

I guess I should pity Lily. But, I can't. This one-shot just strengthens my dislike of her. I now understand her reasoning and her thought process but at the same time...even though I do understand her...I can't pity her. I can't sympathize because I just don't like her. It's hard to explain :p

When Scorpius called her Rose...I sort of closed my eyes and shook my head because I could only imagine how Lily must have been irritated or sad or something. And it also made me kind of happy, because it showed that ...yes, she 'has' Scorpius but he still loves Rose. It's kind of a slap to her face; damaging her ego, you know? Which satisfies me. :P

Favorite part of the entire thing? The end. With the last word being Rose. It's just, again, ironic how Rose is the one she hates. How she's trying to beat Rose by taking her Scorpius and all of that; and yet, Rose is the thing most mentioned within the one-shot. Lily doesn't want to lose to Rose anymore but she's obsessed with Rose. This one-shot is about Lily but ends with a mention of Rose.

Ugh. I don't make sense. I hope you can make heads or tails of this review. It's 4 in the morning and I need some sleep. T_T You're wonderful, by the way. I envy your skills :p ♥

Author's Response: Wow, thank you so much for this review! I've looked over it a few times without knowing just how to respond. It's fantastic and I'm very thankful that you took the time to read and review this story. :D

I'd never thought about this story as a way for Lily to draw further attention to herself, but you're entirely correct - it fits her personality perfectly. She could have done all of this in order to make people see her and know who she really is. And she's willing to do this at great personal cost to herself, though I wonder if she knew quite what that cost would entail. She's succeeding too, as I can't see Scorpius getting out of this too easily. No matter what, Lily will have won something.

Their relationship is supposed to feel fake, mostly because both of them are fake in many ways - Lily almost right through, and Scorpius on the outside. They're both amazing actors. I can see how it makes you hate her more. I myself want to feel pity for her, but can't because she brought all of this on herself and had to realize just how far it could go in the end. She's not stupid, even if she may seem so.

She can never truly have Scorpius, but she can still marry him and keep him by her for as long as possible, using his sense of pride to prevent him from leaving her for Rose (not that Rose would have him back by then). Yet Lily will always be haunted by Rose because most of her existence is based on not being Rose, and she can't escape Rose now, she's in too deep.

Haha, it was a great review, and I'm actually glad that the story affected you to such a degree. At least the story was able to do something, not just disturb me to death. :P Thanks again for reading and reviewing this! It's fantastic to hear from you about this story.

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Susan, you are brilliant. Seriously, my jaw is on the floor in awe and i cannot stop reading for anything. i loved it, all of it. Every word just flowed off the page, every conversation, everything has left me awestruck.

A line that made me chuckle a bit:
“Thanks, Al. And you look like a Death Eater.”

i thought that was rather funny! But it got deeper as it went on and at one point, I think my heart stopped for a moment. And I think it was when he called her Rose.
And I think I'm beginning to understand Winner Takes All just a bit more now that you've put this one shot out there. I laugh at how I first wanted to smack Lily across the face in WTA because she was marrying Scorpius etc. I think I have a bit more sympathy for Lily now that I've read in her perspective. (Another thing I must commend you on is being able to write in different character views for the same storyline/theme!).

I think Lily likes the attention but she also likes to feel loved, wanted and I think she likes the idea of having something that no one else can have. She's almost a bit like Lydia in Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice! (love that book by the way). I'm almost feeling like Scorpius proposed to her out of duty/responsibility seeing as Lily is pregnant (Is that right?). Him calling Lily, Rose, really hit me. He must've really loved her then..

I like how you ended this one with Lily in front of the mirror staring back at herself. Sometimes all it takes is looking back at what you are to realize what you've become. And sometimes what you've built yourself up to be, really isn't that great after all. She's built up a facade of sorts, fantasizing her life with Scorpius, beating Rose but in reality, she hasn't won because she feels horrible. She can't even call it a baby, she calls it a thing.

And the last lines were beautifully done with the referral to a rose.. i loved it! Well done Susan! You've let me awestruck once again! Thanks for sharing this!

Sarah

Author's Response: Hey Sarah! Thanks again for reviewing, and I'm very sorry for having taken so long to respond to this review. The ones for this story were ridiculously long, and I put them off as long as I could. *hides*

It's great that you liked the story so much. It was an incredibly strange and disturbing one to write - Lily is nothing at all like me, so getting into her head was a very different experience, and it was even more difficult to make her sympathetic. I'm glad that she is a little understandable to readers now because in WTA, Rose's perspective makes Lily such a hateful character. I do like being inspired by Lydia while writing her, and I remember feeling sympathy for Lydida near the end of P&P when I saw that Wickham didn't love her and never would. In one respect, they deserved each other, but in another, I can't help wanting everyone to be happy.

I wonder if, when Lily is looking into the mirror, that she sees that she is becoming Rose, that Scorpius is making her into Rose, and that's why she sees Rose in the mirror. The evil smile signifies Lily's own actions and how she knows they appear to everyone else. It's probably the first moment she's ever felt her conscience, and it's painful for her.

It's a deep story, and I look back at it and wonder where it came from. XD Thanks again, Sarah!

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Oh Susan. I was having such a horrible day and this really made it better. Thank you for this!

As soon as I saw Lydia...I know it was from Pride and Prejudice =). I've seen the movie, and just start the book. I love the way you wrote Lily. She's just awful, in a good way you know, I mean in a villain way. I love when she ironically hated how the lilies tried so hard to be noticed, yet that is exactly like her =). Little hypocrite!

My lips literally grew into a grin when Scorpius called her Rose, when I noticed, he was being himself. The whole time thus far I thought..this isn't Scorpius, it's an act. He's manipulating Lily as she is him. It's so obvious they are not right for each other!

ANd LILY IS PREGANT! *GASPS*. This is not working out as planned for me Susan! And the end, I love it. When Lily said, When he looked at me, who did he see? Or was it easier for him in the darkness to forget that I was Lily and pretend that I was Rose?" That was the first bit of sense she finally understand. I think she's right too; I think Scorpius is trying to replace Rose with Lily in the hopes of getting over her or whatever.

I also want to point out how much I love your Scorpius. He's so intriguing yet very deep in character. He's like a little onion with all these layers lol. I'd love to read a chapter or one shot in his pov. I'm still rooting for Rose/Scorpius though. Perfect little Lily is beginning to fall apart =) and Rose is smiling back evily. I just love it. LOVE IT.

I'm waiting for the big girl fight here, haha. This was lovely and I look forward to WTA. Sorry I rambled a lot here, lol.

Ashley

Author's Response: Hey Ashley, thanks so much for reading and reviewing this! It's always a pleasure to get one of your reviews, and to hear that this made your day better only makes me happier. ^_^

It's interesting to imagine that Lily doesn't think she's as bad as she appears to be, and that most people think she is. I guess like Lydia, she thinks so highly of her own charms that it doesn't matter what others think, as long as she herself is happy. She's just so weird that I can't even place her as a good or bad person anymore - I honestly don't know what to call her, especially now, having written this, that I've seen what she is underneath all of that superficiality.

Scorpius as an onion - I won't be able to resist one of the characters in WTA saying that about him. XD I don't know if I could write him because he's so incredibly confusing - the ultimate chameleon, changing every time he's with a different person.

Now I sense that you're one of the Scorose shippers reading WTA. :P I do so want to give Rose a happy ending, and I don't think I can do that with Scorpius, or maybe not with anyone. As for a girl fight, it might not be as explosive as you may hope. ;)

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I stumbled upon this one-shot in the Got A New Story thread on the forums and was delighted to see that it was a companion piece to Winner Takes All, which I love. Lily is far from my favorite character in WTA, but I did enjoy reading this one-shot from her POV and I feel like I understand her motives a bit better. She's vain and self-centered and superficial, but there is one part of her that gives her more depth...and that the part of her that's determined to make herself happy, or at least seem happy, by marrying a man who may not truly love her. Anyway, the writing was practically flawless as usual. Also, this quote:

"Awful things they were, those lilies. They had too much smell to them, overpowering everything thing else around them, trying too hard to be noticed."

I found it to be quite...ironic, if that's the right word. :D Very nicely done!

10/10

Author's Response: It's great that you came to read this as a fan of WTA (and that you're a fan of that in the first place!). I really appreciate hearing from you on this story. :D

Lily is not a character I thought I'd ever want to write as a main character, especially not in first-person, but by the time I got to a certain point in WTA, I needed to write it to understand things from her POV, maybe even make her a more sympathetic character. Like you said, there is something deeper behind her vanity and apparent silliness. She's actually very ruthless and shrewd, and I'm now wondering to what extent she'll go to keep Scorpius.

Thanks very much for reading and reviewing! It's great to hear that you liked this one-shot. ^_^

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