My first fic in the intimidating Harry Potter fandom! Please read and review. Constructive criticism will be much appreciated!
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. Obviously.
In retrospect, she really should have known, thought Lily Evans, as the tears fell, unbidden, down her cheeks. The relationship she'd had with Sev (he wasn't Sev anymore, though, was he? He had lost the right to be called that) had been toxic, all give and no take. He'd wanted to be more than friends, she knew that; she'd known it since their third year when he had first developed his crush on her, though he'd never told her so explicitly. But he hadn't done anything to deserve her love; she realised that now. James Potter, of all people, had been right about Snape, though she was loath to admit it. Arrogant as he was, Potter had an annoying habit of usually being right.
If she was being true to herself, she had actually seen the signs. In fact, she had even called Sev (Snape, she corrected herself bitterly) out on the pureblood mania bullshit. She knew for a fact that he himself was a half blood, and buying into all that nonsense was nothing but hypocrisy at its finest. And if there was one thing Lily Evans truly hated, it was hypocrisy. Hindsight, she decided, was like Karma – it came to bite you in the arse eventually. She had conveniently ignored all the signs, blinded by the fact that He was her oldest magical friend, who had introduced her to this new (wonderful) world; and it had all culminated in such an ugly (and public) way, hadn't it?
Her hopes that He wasn't really bad, all the nights spent in justifying their unconventional friendship to her friends (and herself), saying that He'd had no choice but to befriend those fanatics; they had all been dashed horribly, and her disappointment and frustration at Him (and herself) had made her lash out at Potter. She had undoubtedly meant what she said to him, but her fair and naturally sweet disposition was now making her regret her harsh words, uttered in the heat of the moment. That was the pitfall of a short temper. Her anger never lasted very long, and she almost always felt guilty for whatever she did in her anger. Great, she thought. On top of everything else, it looks like if anything, I owe Potter an apology. Because he'd been right all along, hadn't he? In fact, she was a little surprised he hadn't turned up already to gloat and say the dreaded four words: "I told you so". All her speculation had tuned her out of her surroundings, and the usually alert Lily jumped when she saw a shadow looming in front of her.
"Evans", he said, sounding surprisingly subdued, and not at all like he was coming to gloat.
"What, Potter? If you've come to say you told me so, save it:", she snapped, taken off guard at his general lack of prattishness, her shock coming across as irritation, all thoughts of apologising to him pushed to the back of her mind.
"Actually, Evans, I came to apologise", he said, no trace of his usual mischief. Dumbfounded at what he'd said, she let him continue, "Not because Sni- Snape called you that vile word, because he used that name to address all Muggle-borns other than you already, but for the fact that I was indirectly the reason you lost a friend. I also shouldn't have asked you out the way I did. I've made many mistakes, I'm human after all, but this one cost you your oldest friend at Hogwarts. So I'm sorry." With that, seeing that he wasn't getting any reply, he left.
Lily, shaking herself out of her stupor, was now experiencing the feeling of her entire world shifting, turning upside down. Snape turning out to be the arse everyone made him out to be, and Potter showing a mature side she never knew he even had, all on the same day, was just too much to digest. I need to rethink everything. Maybe Potter isn't all that bad after all. I just never got to know him because of the hatred between Snape and him, back in her speculative mood, she trudged up to her dormitory, knowing that she wasn't going to get any sleep that night because changing her entire worldview would take all night.