AUTHOR'S NOTE: This is my third story. It has no direct correlation with my earlier stories, so there may be gaps between the two of them. You don't need to read the other two to understand this one.
All characters, plotlines, and places are copyright J.K. Rowling. All story content is original and my own.
Please read/review!
The dark corridor
looked empty, but Lily wasn't taking any chances. She held her
wand in front of her and tightened her grip on it, cursing the
slickness of her sweaty palms. She had never been this nervous on a
raid before.
She looked around her quickly, knowing that nobody would be there. The others were searching the upstairs. Lily knew that their quarry wouldn't be hiding up there, where anyone could find him. He would have built himself a priest's hole in the basement. He would surely be holed up in there – waiting for her.
She did not even light her wand as she softly opened the door to what she knew would be the basement. Her eyes would adjust to the dim light in time, and far off, down the steps, she could see the flickering light of a candle. Nimbly, she took the stairs two at a time, and landed on soft dirt, glancing all around her warily.
The basement was empty. She had known it would be. Her fingers sought the edges of the rock. Where was the spring? She knew she would find it eventually. Her fingers touched a piece of rock that wasn't quite as solid as the others. Did she dare?
She hesitated only a moment. Her fingers tapped the rock with resolve. There was a low, grinding noise, and the wall slid open upon itself.
Standing inside, eyes like glittering black pieces of coal, was Severus Snape. His wand was pointed at her throat.
"I should have known you would be the only one to find me," he said quietly, "Is anyone else down here with you?"
"No," Lily answered just as quietly, aiming her wand at his heart.
"Strange of you not to come down with backup," Severus commented, his eyes hard, "Isn't that one of the first things they teach you during Stealth and Tracking? Never to go in alone or unarmed?"
"Listen to me," Lily said, "I came down alone on purpose. I came because I want to give you a chance."
Was there a flicker of surprise in Severus' eyes? She couldn't tell. If there was, it vanished in an instant.
"I don't understand you," he replied, his face expressionless. He was going to make this as difficult as possible.
Lily watched him, "I want you to get out of here and to do the right thing, Severus. I'm sure you understand that."
"What do you care what happens to me one way or another?" Severus asked silkily, "I was under the impression that you didn't care one way or another what happened to me."
"Severus, don't do this."
His expression didn't alter. Lily felt her blood pressure rising.
Has he really become that cold? she wondered. Anything was possible at this point. So much had happened in the four years since they'd graduated from school. She had not seen him since then.
Severus had changed, since she'd last seen him. His long black hair had grown even more unkempt, if possible, and his clothes were ratty and dirty, as if they hadn't been washed in quite some time. His face looked drawn and wan, as if he hadn't had much sleep as of late. But his eyes were as bright and alert as they had always been. As Lily remembered them.
"What would you have me do, Lily? Give up? Hand you my wand and turn myself in?" Severus sneered, "I'll take my chances, if it's all the same to you."
Lily let out a low sound of frustration.
"What do I have to say or do to get through to you?" she asked.
"If you're really here to help me," Severus said, "you'll put your wand down and speak to me like you'd speak to anyone else."
"You know I can't do that."
"You put your wand away," he replied, "and I'll put away mine."
Lily slowly moved her wand down towards her waist. Severus mimicked her. Their wands hung by their sides, dangling from their fingers treacherously. Both of them were as tense as springs, reading to leap into action at any moment. But for now, a silent truce was called.
"There isn't any time," Lily murmured urgently, "They know who you are working for."
"How astute of them."
"There's no time for your sarcasm right now! Don't you understand? We've been authorized to kill you if we find you. You know I wouldn't do that, but the others would, and if they find you, you're as good as dead. You have to get out of here. I'm sure you have a back escape. Use it. Get out of here. Find Dumbledore; he can help you. There's still time – to fix things."
Severus' black eyes narrowed into slits.
"Why are you trying to help me?" he asked, "Forgive me for being overly suspicious, but considering the fact that we have barely spoken in the past six years, I hardly think that you would risk your life and your job to help me, as you put it."
Lily did not know what to say.
In her heart of hearts, she knew that Severus would not kill her. Oh, he might want to, might even think that he could bring himself to do so. But she knew that he could not. Too much had happened – even if it had all happened so many years ago. The entire situation cried out for explanation – but they did not have time.
"I think you know exactly why I'm doing this," she said, "And you know that we haven't got any time."
Severus felt his resolve weakening. He did not want it to; he knew that the faltering of the wall he had put up so many years ago could very well mean that he was setting himself up to be destroyed. He had scraped his way out of many a tight space before. He knew that there would be many more roadblocks ahead of him. But the toughest to surmount stood in front of him – a slip of a twenty-one year old girl.
How on earth could she have not aged in four years? She had cut gorgeous mane of red hair short and she was thinner than she had been; a result of eating on the run and of constantly pursuing lawbreakers. But her green eyes were still as lively as ever, and she was still the prettiest woman that Severus had ever seen – with the exception of Narcissa, the wife of his old school friend Lucius Malfoy. Secretly, though, Severus had always thought Lily Evans was much prettier than Narcissa.
Not Lily Evans, he reminded himself. Lily Potter. Potter. His jaw set.
"I hear you married James Potter last summer," he said off-handedly.
Lily closed her eyes momentarily, "Is this really the time to talk about this?"
"It seems to be as good a time as any."
"I hardly thought that it would matter to you," she retorted, "After all, don't forget that it was you – "
Footsteps echoed over their heads. Lily and Severus froze, both of their eyes flickering to the ceiling and then back to each other.
"There's no time," Lily said, "I have to go. What's it going to be?"
Severus looked wary, "You mean you're going to let me go?"
There was a hardness around Lily's eyes. She looked sick, as if she was making a very difficult decision, one she didn't want to make.
"Yes," she replied, somewhat reluctantly, "I'm letting you go."
But then she leaned closer to him, her wand pointed at his chest.
"You know what you have to do to keep me from arresting you," she said, her voice low, "I don't want to have to do that. But I will."
She turned and stopped at the foot of the stairs, looking back at him.
"You know the right thing to do," she said.
She hurried up the stairs and threw open the basement door.
Severus stepped back into his priest's hole and closed it. He could hear muffled voices upstairs.
"Nothing on the third floor!" a man's voice called. Severus recognized that voice. It was Ned Longbottom.
"Second floor's secure!" Severus didn't recognize that voice.
"Lily? Anyone in the basement?"
Severus' teeth clenched. James Potter – in his house! It took all of his resolve not to scarper up the stairs and show his old arch nemesis who trespassed in the Snape house. But he stopped himself. Breathing hard, he strained his ears to listen.
"There's nothing!" Lily said. She sounded tense, breathless, as if she had been searching as hard as she could and was upset at finding nothing. Severus felt an unbidden flicker of admiration at Lily's very potent acting. She was better at her job than the lot of them, and they didn't even know it.
"Snape must have known we were coming and fled," James Potter's voice came again.
"Let's get out of here."
Severus held his breath as footsteps crossed the floor. The door opened, and then shut. Everything was silent once again.
Cramped and uncomfortable though he was, he did not leave his priest's hole. There was always the chance that someone would have lagged behind, hiding in a corner, waiting to see if their suspicions were right after all, to see if Severus would be careless and abandon his hiding place prematurely. An amateur's mistake. Severus Snape was no amateur at what he did.
But if they were searching his house, then they already had their suspicions of who they were looking for, and what he was doing. He could evade them, he knew this; they thought they knew exactly what his plans were, but they weren't, not really.
He knew that his capture would have made Lily Evans – Lily Potter – one of the most celebrated Aurors in the Ministry's program. He'd been tracking her progress in the newspapers ever since she'd been made an Auror three years ago. She was the best at what she did; nobody else even came close. But because she was a woman, she was never taken quite as seriously as that idiot, James Potter, or his friends, Sirius Black, Remus Lupin, and the rest of their kind.
Capturing a known Death Eater single-handedly would have earned her the respect she was so worthy of already. The Ministry couldn't fail to see her qualities.
But then – why would she give up this chance?
Severus closed his eyes. He didn't want to think about Lily now. He didn't want to remember.
He had to decide what to do.
But to decide the right path was to have to think of Lily.
He put his fingers to his throbbing temples, rubbing them to break up some of the pain. He had pretended for so long that he didn't remember anything that had happened. But it was all a lie.
He remembered.
