AN: This is written for round one of the Quidditch League. This is also the first time I've written Lily and Snape, so if it's terrible, I can understand that. Please leave a review and tell me what you think? :)
Team: Harpies
Position: Chaser 3
Prompts: purple, leaving, "Imagining the future is a kind of nostalgia."
Disclaimer: While most of the writing from the flashback came directly from the book, I don't own anything Harry Potter related and I'm only writing this for my enjoyment.
Good Times Gone Bad
The night sky was slowly turning a little pinkish, purplish tint as the sun was starting to set. Lily Evans was sitting in the corner of the Head Girl and Boy's common room, staring out of the window. She couldn't believe that in just a couple of days, her Hogwarts life would be over and she'd be out in the real world. She never believed that the seven years would have flown by as quickly as they had.
She sighed before standing and making her way over to the portrait hole to take a walk around the castle. When she reached the sixth floor landing, her feet started walking in the familiar pattern that she took on numerous occasions. The Astronomy Tower has always been Lily's place to go whenever she needed time to herself or a quite place to think.
She didn't know if it was the view of the grounds or the beautiful night sky that drew her towards the tower, but she had always gone there.
Eventually she found herself climbing up the spiral staircase that led to the tower. She could hear movement coming from the other side of the door as she neared it and couldn't help but wonder who could be there at this time of night.
She pushed the door open and saw someone who she really didn't want to see again. Someone who she thought was her friend, but of course she couldn't have been more wrong. Someone who could call another person such a horrid word wasn't a friend of hers.
"What are you doing here?" She heard the words but couldn't believe that she had actually spoken them. "Shouldn't you be in your dormitory?"
He turned around to face her. "I could ask you the same question. What are you doing, stalking me? I thought that was below you. I guess Potter's arrogant ways have rubbed off on you."
Lily felt her eyes narrow. "You have no right to talk about James after what you've done."
"What I've done?" he retorted. "What about everything he's done."
Lily took a breath. "Sure James has annoyed me constantly since first year and has gotten loads of detentions, and pranked people; but he's never called a Mudblood. You have and I don't think I could ever forgive you for that."
"I don't want your forgiveness," he growled.
"You've changed so much, Severus," Lily said, disappointment high in her voice. "And not in a good way."
"I really don't care about your opinion of me. I don't think you're a good judge of character."
Lily crossed her arms over her chest. The tension between them rising at every minute. "I guess I'm not, seeing as I believed that we could be friends," she scoffed. "How could I have been so stupid?"
"Well, you've agreed to go out with him, so that should tell you a lot."
There's a moment of silence between them. One in which Lily realizes that she may truly hate him. She does hate him. She's hated him ever since that dreadful day. She had only wished to help him and he dared call her that dreadful word.
"I hate you," the words tumbled out of her mouth before she could stop them.
In the light from the still setting sun, Lily can see the smirk that appeared on his lips. "I know that and I don't care. It doesn't change anything."
A few moments of silence past between them and in that moment, Lily was trying to calm herself down. Her short temper was trying to get the better of her and she didn't want it to win.
"You're going to join them, aren't you?" she asked, after a while.
He just shrugged. "Maybe, maybe not; but I don't see why it would matter to you. As you said, you hate me."
She was silent for a moment as she wondered how their relationship had come to still. She remembered the simpler days when Severus was one of the few friends she had and was one of the first friends she had upon starting Hogwarts. Now, she could hardly stand to be in the same room as him.
"Just forget everything," Lily said as she started for the door. "Forget what a pitiful friendship we had and forget me."
Lily quickly turned on her heel and walked out of the Astronomy Tower, wondering how things could go from good to bad so easily.
People change, Lily. You of all people should know that.
"Ever since that day," Lily said aloud to herself.
It was a nice day and many Hogwarts students were enjoying the day outside. Lily Evans sat near the black lake with her friend Marlene.
"Has James stopped asking you out every chance he gets?" Marlene asked.
Lily shrugged. "He has for now, but I highly doubt that he's going to stop. He's probably just waiting before he asks again, as if I'll say yes because he's left be alone for a while."
"I think he really likes you," Marlene said.
"He's James Potter," Lily reminded her.
"That doesn't mean that he doesn't have real feelings for you," Marlene retorted.
Lily looked out at the Black Lake. "I'm sure once he gets tired of me always turning him done, he'll be on the hunt for another girl to bug."
"I don't know about that, Lily," Marlene told her. "He's been trying for about a year and a half now. Usually he would have moved on by now."
"Potter loves a challenge and he's also thick headed; he'll get the hint one of these days," Lily stated.
"I don't know about that, Lily," Marlene replied.
Lily started to say something, but loud voices caused her to turn her head. She rolled her eyes at what she saw. James, his three lackeys were walking towards the group of trees.
Lily turned her head to see what they were walking towards and saw Severus Snape sitting under a tree, looking a textbook.
"You don't think James is going to do what I think he's going to do?" Marlene asked as she looked towards the group of Gryffindors.
But Lily wasn't listening. She was too busy worrying about what James was going to.
"Hey Snivellus!" James called.
Severus looked up from his book, before he closed it and placed it in his bag. He stood up and started leave.
"Alright Snivellus," James said loudly.
Severus dropped his bag and quickly reached into his robes and his wand was halfway in the air when James shouted, "Expelliarmus!"
His wand flew into the air and landed with a small thud in the grass behind him.
"Impeditmenta!" James said, pointing his wand at Severus, who was knocked of his feet halfway through a dive towards his own fallen wand.
Other students had begun to surround James and Severus, forming a circle of bodies that Lily couldn't see through.
This isn't going to end well, Lily thought as she stood up. She quickly made her way towards the group of students. She had to shove her way through the students, but had finally managed to get to the middle of the circle. What she saw made her temper flare.
"Leave him ALONE!" Lily shouted
James and Sirius spun around.
"All right, Evans?" James said.
"Leave him alone," Lily repeated, looking at James with every sign of dislike. "What's he ever done to you?"
"Well," James said. "It's more the fact that he exists, if you know what I mean."
Many of the students who surrounded them laughed along with James and Sirius; but Lily didn't.
"You think you're funny," Lily said coldly. "But you're just an arrogant, bullying toerag, Potter. Leave him alone."
"I will if you go out with me, Evans," James replied. "Go out with me and I'll never lay a wand on old Snivelly again."
"I wouldn't go out with you if it was a choice between you and the giant squid," Lily said. "Now leave him alone."
James looked from Lily to Severus, who was still in the air, and sighed deeply before he muttered the counter-curse.
"Happy now?" James said, as Severus struggled to his feet. "You're lucky Evans was here, Snivellus—"
"I don't need help from filthy little Mudbloods like her!" Severus shouted back, as he picked up his bag and his wand, stuffing it into his robes.
Lily blinked, as she turned to look at Severus. She just stood there, staring at him, lost in her thoughts. She hadn't even heard what James had yelled.
Lily shook her head, trying to force the memory out. When she finally got her bearings back, she realized that someone she'd ended up in the Ancient Runes hallway. She turned around and slowly started to make her way back to the heads common room.
Well, that just proves just how much people can change, Lily thought. Severus had turned from one of her friends to someone she couldn't stand and James had turned from someone she couldn't stand to her boyfriend.
When she reached the portrait, she said the password and walked inside. She made her way up the stairwell and towards her four-poster bed.
People change and so do friendships, she thought before she finally fell asleep.
