Knowing
He knows her better than anyone, can identify every expression, every flick of her wrist and lilt of her voice. He thinks he always has; it's something about growing up together, being by her side for every significant moment in a way that only Petunia could have understood, if she hadn't given it up years ago.
He knew her even before he started to really pay attention to knowing her, to marveling at all of her little idiosyncrasies and cherishing each and every one, which happened somewhere between twelve and thirteen.
So when they're nine and have just been caught clambering over Mrs. Quincy's fence to use her swimming pool (her idea; she always was livelier, wasn't she?), he listens intently as she apologizes in that mature, utterly sincere-sounding way that makes adults melt in her hands. But he alone notices the slightest tilt of her lips at the corners that means she's hiding a smile and the barely-discernable undercurrent of thrill in her voice that means she'll want to try again tomorrow, and he has to smother his own grin.
Two years later, when the Sorting Hat decides they don't belong together, she smiles her widest, most dazzling smile and skips over to the Gryffindor table. But only he sees the way her teeth are nipping at her bottom lip and knows it for uncertainty. Only he observes the way the toes of her new leather flats are scuffing against the floor and knows it for worry – worry about fitting in, about being separated from her best friend – childish worries that even bright, blazing Lily Evans is not immune to.
The summer after third year, when Petunia introduces them to her new boyfriend as "my mad sister and her ragged little friend from the loony bin," and Lily swears she will never forgive her, Petunia laughs it off, like she knows her sister isn't nearly cold enough for that. But he knows Lily better, and he can read in the set of her jaw and the hardness of her eyes that Petunia has no idea how cold her sister can be, just as she has no idea what she's lost as the door slams behind them.
And fourth year, their last good, unblemished year, when they are lying side by side on the edge of the lake, and she says to him – You're not any of the things those horrible boys say about you. You know that, right? – and he nods (even though he really doesn't know that), and she smiles and squeezes his hand and says, Love you, Sev, he sees that her eyes are dark as ivy, and he knows she's telling the truth. And even though he knows it's only friendly, platonic love, he knows she means it, and that's what matters.
When she stands in front of him, arms crossed and hip jutting to one side, and tells him their friendship is finished, he catches the slight tremor in her voice and the shine of moisture in her eyes, and knows it's not really finished. He knows she still holds some semblance of hope that he'll come around, even if she doesn't know it herself, and he could fix it if he wanted to.
But he doesn't, and the next thing he knows is that Lily Evans is falling in love with James Potter.
And that last nearly kills him, because knowing her has always meant loving her, and suddenly it doesn't.
He catalogs the half-suppressed smile that lights her face when Potter tells an inane joke in Transfiguration. He sees her cheering, just a little louder than usual, when Potter ducks below the bumbling Ravenclaw Keeper and tosses the Quaffle casually through the center hoop. He notes the cheeky grin that has replaced the irritated frown when the two of them bicker during Heads' rounds, and he understands it all.
And when Potter's mother dies (some sickness; he never cared to find out which), and she follows him out of the Great Hall and sinks down beside him by the lake, silent but there, he knows what that means, because he knows her.
And this time, knowing her means hating her – despising her with every (controllable) part of his being. Because even though he betrayed her (and he did; in the loneliest hours of the night, that knowledge is all he's left with), he never thought she would betray him, and this feels like nothing but betrayal.
The next week, he is the only one who isn't surprised in the least when it finally happens. It's breakfast, and Potter is back to his old games – Go out with me, Evans – and she looks up from her book, cool as day, and says, Sure. And everyone is shocked, even the be-spectacled boy wonder himself, but not him. Because it's been written on her face and in her movements and in her actions every moment of every day for two months.
And on Hogsmeade weekend, when he watches them leave the castle, smiling and laughing, he understands that them is going to last. Not because he sees that Potter is smitten (you'd need all the discernment of a one-eyed mountain troll to see that), but because he observes the glow in her cheeks and catches the way her fingertips brush against his forearm. He sees the way she looks at him, and he knows that Lily Evans has never looked at anyone that way before.
He knows this because he knows her better than anyone. But for the first time, he wishes he didn't.
Author's Note: I finished one of my exams today and rewarded myself by writing this (even though I should be studying for the next one, heh). So please make my day and review!