Author's Note: It has come to my attention that January 9th is Severus Snape's birthday. Lily is also born in the month of January, so I thought I'd write a little short thing about birthdays and memories and such. May or may not be canon compliant. It is what it is, but I hope you'll let me know what you think.
Lucky Number Thirteen
It had been the worst week of Severus Snape's short life.
It was as though all of the peace and quiet that he had enjoyed during the holiday break, hidden in the library or using Slughorn's potions classroom to mix a few of his more experimental ideas just to see how they'd turn out, had dissipated like the New Year's fog. The moment he heard the far-off whistle of the Hogwarts Express signalling the end to the winter holidays, his insides had clenched with dread.
They would be on the train. Those two Pure-Blooded gorillas and their little buck-toothed, gibbering jester. There was even something about that bookish Lupin kid that made Severus feel uneasy. They fancied themselves a secret club, but he knew what they really were.
Bullies.
The Slytherins had a secret club too, one that promised power, prestige and wealth beyond dreaming. But he wouldn't be allowed in as a lowly Second Year. One had to prove oneself to be in a proper club, and he did not dare ask them for help.
No, this is my battle. I must fight it alone.
If his parents had taught him anything, it was that he was a worthless burden unless he had something to offer. That was the way of the world. There was no such thing as a free lunch.
And Severus was tired of going hungry.
The only thing that gave him pause in his vigil from the third floor hallway window was when his heart flip-flopped involuntarily as he glimpsed that familiar long, wavy copper hair catching like fire in the cold ineffective January sunlight as the students poured out of the carriages and towards the castle.
Lily.
His mouth silently formed into the syllables of her name and his mouth drew up in a rare grin despite himself as he pushed himself away from the paned glass and turned down the hall with a rustling excited billow of green robes.
As the doors to the castle burst open, he hung back in the shadows of the adjoining hallway that led towards the library, telling himself that he wasn't doing it because he was shy, it was just that everyone was streaming in and he didn't fancy being trampled, that was all. As he watched the ever-widening stream of students make their ways inside, their breath cloudy in the cold air, he realized that Lily wasn't alone. She was with another girl, Alice something-or-other...and…
"Potter."
The word left his lips like a snarl, and he could feel his eyes narrowing as the wild-haired boy ran up to Lily and tried put his arm around her. The nerve! Lily simply sniffed and and tossed it off of her shoulder as though it were an offending speck of dust.
"You seem to have left something of yours lying around. You might want to be careful about doing that regularly or you might end up losing it," she said disdainfully, rolling her eyes at the kissy faces that Sirius Black was making behind his best mate's back.
"I'll be sure to do that, Evans!" James replied, ruffling his hair and grinning as though he were as dense as mud.
"I hope that it's nothing that you'll regret losing later, then," Lily replied, sticking out her tongue as Lupin quietly grabbed his friend's arm and pulled James up the stairs with an uneasy look on his face.
Severus snorted with laughter at Lily's display of her razor sharp wit. He only hoped that he never had to face the full force of Lily's wrath. It was then that he realized that Sirius Black was looking right at him, had seen him snickering in the shadows, and the look on the long-haired Gryffindor's face was enough to make Severus go silent as his face turned a deathly shade of white.
Sticking out a finger, Sirius grinned toothily and pulled it across his neck as though pretending to slit his throat. And then he pointed right at Severus and mouthed "You're dead, Snivellus" before turning on his heel and climbing the stairs behind his friends with his hands in his jacket pockets.
He told himself not to be afraid, that there was nothing serious that Black could do to him at Hogwarts, not with all the teachers around, but his feet didn't listen and he found himself running towards the library in a panic without realizing that Lily had glimpsed his tall, slight frame from the back as he retreated. She had taken a couple tentative steps as though to go after him, but he had already turned the corner and was gone. Lily hesitated for a moment as though trying to decide the best course of action before turning back to her fellow dorm mates, who had stopped to wait for her, and reluctantly climbed the stairs to Gryffindor Tower.
Monday arrived, gray and gloomy, the warmth of the naked sun long forgotten as the grey light filtered through the misty clouds and cast a depressing glow on the greenhouses. Gryffindor and Slytherin had Herbology together, and in the span of twenty minutes, Severus had been stung, pricked, bitten and whipped by the various flailing appendages on a number of dangerous plants that seemingly appeared out of nowhere behind him. It was only when he noticed that Sirius and James were snickering and giving each other high-fives under the table (which defeated the point of a high-five, but Severus didn't expect much from the two dunderheads) as they looked through a reference guide together and pointed at various pictures that he also noticed a small hole in the greenhouse near his desk that looked suspiciously as though it had been made using a spell from the books in the Restricted section of the library.
Upon closer inspection he discovered that the two bullies were using Accio to summon various plants by name through it. He had to admit, it had an air of cleverness about it that seemed most uncharacteristic. He wondered if they had put Lupin up to the task, but the boy with the long pink scars on his cheeks was sitting on the other side of the classroom working quietly on his assignment with another boy. Much to his chagrin, when he pointed it out to Professor Sprout, she merely blustered about saying that he needed to be more careful around the plants as she plugged the hole with some newspaper and sent him up to Madame Pomfrey for some salve. It had been the stinging sort of salve, too, and thanks to Madame Pomfrey's fussiness, he had been late to lunch, which meant that the only sandwiches left were stuffed with tuna.
He hated tuna.
He spent the evening in a foul mood, hiding behind the curtains of his green velvet bed reading by wand light and silently cursing Mulciber for snoring loudly enough to wake the dead. After having gotten used to the silence during the break, it was enough to make him grind his teeth in irritation. He resolved that he would need to figure out some sort of way to create a spell to block out noise or he would surely go mad. His only comfort was in his studies and he finished off an extra long potions essay, complete with extra sources and material that had not been covered in class. With a sigh of relief, he rolled up his parchment and tied it with twine, collapsing almost immediately onto the stack of still-opened tomes that were spread over his duvet.
Tuesday wasn't much better. After waking up with red marks all over his face and body from having slept on books the night before, he limped to the Great Hall for a miserable, achy breakfast. In class, one of the Gryffindors (he was sure it must have been Black, even though the boy had decided to skip Transfiguration class to smoke out back with some of the older boys) had placed an old set of Exploding Snap cards along with a failed, congealed potion from the rubbish heap in his desk and when Severus sat down, the slight vibration of his arm on the desk had caused the entire thing to explode, belching forth a black smoke that stunk evilly and clung to his robes in dark brown globs. Even several Cleansing Charms did nothing for it, and he had to miss his next class, sitting in his underpants as the house elves in the laundry room down in the dungeons scrubbed and scoured his only set of school robes until at least they looked clean again even though they still smelled faintly of burnt tar.
Wednesday involved being set upon while he was on his way from the greenhouses and unceremoniously dragged by Potter and Black to the lake, where he was tossed in and told to take a bath for once. Severus had never learned to swim beyond a mad instinctual thrashing motion to keep his head above water. The frigid water did no favors to his body and it began to stiffen quickly with chill, weighing him down like a stone. Luckily, the Giant Squid grabbed him just as his nose sunk under the choppy waves of the lake and it tossed him back on shore roughly. He lay on the muddy, snow-slushed bank gasping like a drowned rat but alive. As he finally pulled himself up to his knees, still shivering violently with the cold, Hagrid happened to pass by on his way back from the Forbidden Forest with some rabbits and pheasants strung over his back. Noticing the shivering Slytherin, the massive groundskeeper draped his gigantic fur coat over the boy's shaking shoulders with a friendly smile and an invitation to his hut for tea. It took an hour to banish the chill in his bones, and Severus learned firsthand why it was an unwise decision to chew on one of Hagrid's little homemade cakes.
There was something about the big, jolly man that Severus liked, even though he was loath to say so. Perhaps they could even be friends if he could ever allow himself such a luxury. He thanked Hagrid politely for seeing him back to the castle and went to the infirmary yet again to have his toes treated for frostbite, cursing the fact that the week was still only halfway over.
Thursday started out alright but quickly went south. Avery and Mulciber were practicing hexes on a first year student in the Slytherin Common Room again and Severus was stupid and tired enough to soundly tell them off.
"Go hex some Gryffindors instead! At least that would be somewhat useful, unlike everything else you two lumps do round here!" he shouted, drawing stares and regretting the words even as they left his lips. The young Slytherin girl ran to the girls dorms in tears, leaving Severus on his own. The other two boys merely narrowed their eyes and turned their wands on him before he even had time to pull his wand out to shield himself.
His face was still half swollen from a Stinging Nettle Hex when he entered the Great Hall and he took a seat at the very end of the Slytherin table in a desperate bid to go unnoticed until he could leave for class.
It was halfway through his poached egg that he realized that the Gryffindor boys were singing something that sounded a lot like one of those pub songs that his father was so fond of singing when he was in his "happy drunk" mood (which was regrettably short compared to his angry drunk mood and his violent drunk mood). He'd even begun to unconsciously hum along and tap his fingers on the table until the first year he'd saved earlier tapped him on the shoulder and he turned to look at her.
"You do know that they're singing about you, right?" she said, her face confused at his apparent enjoyment of the tune, "And I doubt they meant for it to be flattering."
His eyes narrowed at that, as he went abruptly silent and stopped tapping his fingers, glancing over at the Gryffindor table with what he hoped looked like a bored expression. Sure enough, there was Black, standing on one of the benches and waving his arms back and forth like a conductor with his wand in one hand as a number of the other boys (including James, who had begun to make gestures and pantomimes for increased effect) sang:
The Greasy Git, The Greasy Git,
Tall and dirty, full of shit,
With a long hooked nose
And hairy toes,
The greasy, grossy Git!
His father was a big baboon,
His nose long as a crescent moon
His mum mistook him for a rat
What do you think of that?
The greasy, grossy Git!
There were a couple other verses likening his hair to an oil slick and his arse to a flat and splintery board, but Severus had heard enough. Slamming his hands on the table in rage, he gathered his things and gulped down the rest of his breakfast with a swig of pumpkin juice before storming out, the unkind laughter following him down the hallway towards the staircase as he told himself that it really didn't hurt as much as it did. He was in such a state that he didn't realize that he had just barreled blindly by Lily and Alice on their way down the stairs to breakfast. Lily tried to stop him, but his long legs had carried him out of sight before she even had the chance to open her mouth to call out to him.
The whole day, it seemed like that damned song was everywhere. Severus even caught a few Ravenclaw students singing it in a round during the morning break and a group of first years from a number of Houses had their heads together trying to come up with new verses by midday.
Not to be outdone in cruelty, Mulciber had a number of rude gestures to add to the already humiliating words at lunch in the Great Hall that so irritated James at the thought that he was being outclassed by a Slytherin that the two boys had a dance-off competition amid the wild cheers of the other students as they sang the song at a dull roar. Somehow, it seemed that even the teachers thought that the antics were humorous, as no one lost points or was reprimanded.
Severus skipped lunch after opening the door to the sight of two boys dancing on the table with a banana held out in front of their respective noses and another hand up the back of their robes as though they were breaking wind. After such complete humiliation, he found that he was no longer hungry, and he trudged to the boys bathroom, his face blotchy with humiliated tears to hide in the stalls until he could compose himself again.
The only thing that kept him from simply skipping his last class and curling up on his bed and crying into his pillow at the unfairness of it all until he passed out from sheer exhaustion was that Lily had stopped him in the hall on his way from the boy's loo and told him that she would meet him later at the library because she had a huge secret for him, a secret, he reasoned, that he would be unable to hear if he got detention for skipping class.
He steeled himself for class and kept remembering how his only friend's face had lit up when he promised her that he would do as she asked.
Anything would be worth it for her. For Lily.
"I knew I'd find you here, Sev!" Lily said brightly as she practically skipped up behind him as he was pursuing a long row of books on medicinal herbs, still trying to get the ringing out of his ears from having been subjected to that horrid song in the halls on his way down to the library. He thanked Merlin for Madam Pince's strict rules against superfluous noise in her library. According to rumor, she had even tried to have Silencing Spells placed throughout so that everyone would need to use notes and sign language to communicate, but the headmaster had soundly crushed that idea, deeming it too impractical to implement.
"Well, you did say that you were going to meet me here, and we both know that the big Herbology paper is due on Monday," Severus replied, "So here I am, as promised."
"I wanted to talk to you about something," Lily said conspiratorially, and she lowered her voice until it was barely a whisper, "Can you keep a secret?"
"To the grave," Severus replied seriously in a matching whisper.
"It's not that serious, but I appreciate the offer," Lily replied with a wink and Severus felt his face flush red from something other than embarrassment.
"Those from my House are prided for their discretion to their friends," he said simply, and Lily rolled her eyes in an expression that told him she thought he was being far too melodramatic again.
She still thought that the four-House system was unproductive and silly, but she accepted that it was a wizard thing and that it was simply how things were. The fact that Lily accepted things the way they were so easily, even though she still had a sharp tongue when she thought someone was in the wrong was one of the things that Severus liked best about her. She could always see the best in others, a skill that he desperately wished he had as well. But pessimism and suspicion had saved his life far too many times for him to turn his back on them. Still, when he was with Lily, it was like basking in sunlight. When he was away from her side without her warmth to draw him out, he grew colder until he was sure he would simply freeze, his heart going hard as ice, his skin going sharp with icicles until it would hurt simply to look at him. He suddenly noticed that she was staring intently into his eyes, her bottom lip sliding slightly between her teeth as a slight pink tinge rose over her lightly freckled cheeks. She was staring at him in a way that made his heart begin to quicken its pace, and he began to wonder if she felt the sudden increase in heat as well.
"In any case!" she said more loudly than she had intended, and they both jumped before glancing around wide-eyed, expecting at any moment to see Madame Pince rise out of the gloom like a female version of the Cryptkeeper. When no one appeared after several minutes, they hunched together until their faces were only a foot or so away from one another and Lily grinned mischievously.
"In any case," she continued, in a low voice, her eyes sparkling with mirth, "I know that your thirteenth birthday is this upcoming Tuesday, Sev, and I know that it's a bit earlier than the actual date, but we'll have to do it on Saturday or there won't be enough time. You see...I want to give you a special birthday present. After all, this is the big one-three!"
For a moment, he was stunned speechless. A special gift? Surely he had heard her wrong. Sure, he'd received tiny birthday gifts before. His mother had gotten him a library card one year, which was saying something, seeing as they rarely had money in the winter to stock the pantry and still be able to afford enough coal and wood to keep warm. But every gift he had received from his mother had always been coupled with a reminder that he was a burden, and it had been hard to truly enjoy any of them.
Lily was his first and only friend, and while she had made or given him small things- a card, a crown of daisies that she had somehow cultivated in a window box until January and a green and gray striped muffler that she had helped her mother knit that he wore everywhere not only because it was warm but also because it was the only muffler he owned- these were not on the same level as a special gift. They were just things that she had handed to him that had already been wrapped with a bow. He saved all of it- the ribbon, the paper, even the tape. All of it was painstakingly folded and wound and placed in his trunk for safekeeping.
Suddenly, his mind was buzzing with the possibilities. And his cheeks were going scarlet when the sudden mental image of Lily kissing him on the lips, of her hand stroking his neck as she pulled him close, sighing her approval into his mouth and tasting him for the first time popped into his mind before he could push it away.
He blinked twice before he realized that Lily was staring at him with a concerned expression on her face.
"What's wrong?" Lily asked, placing a cool hand against his forehead, "You look flushed. Are you sure you're alright?"
"Never better," he replied, his voice breaking slightly as she pulled away again.
"Anyway," Lily said, "I want you to meet me down by the Black Lake after classes on Friday so I can give you your super special thirteenth birthday present! You only get to turn thirteen once, you know!"
"You are aware that everybody only gets to turn thirteen once, right?" Severus replied sardonically, but his curiosity was piqued and he tried not to look too desperate.
"Yeah, well, if I totally fail and it blows up in my face, at least you can laugh at me," Lily said, her expression suddenly shy, and Severus began to wonder if his little daydream was more than just idle fancy.
"I would never laugh at your expense, Lily, you know that," he replied, patting her hand, "Will you stay awhile with me? I know that you have homework too, and I have found that work always goes faster with two."
Lily looked at his hand, which was still resting over hers and looked back up at him again, her eyes wide. He raised his eyebrows and shrugged his shoulders comically and turned his mouth up on one side the way that was somewhat reminiscent of Groucho Marx sans mustache. She crinkled her nose a little and laughed gaily, pulling him against her slight form and into a bear hug.
A part of him felt the bile rising in the back of his throat. How could she be so carefree when the halls were practically ringing with "The Greasy, Grossy Git?" But another, larger part, starved of affection to skin and bones simply melted into the only non-hostile touch he had received in what felt like ages. Lily was that way, she couldn't help but touch those she cared about; a light press of fingers on one's elbow or a casual hug goodbye. And he loved her all the more for it.
"Oh, Sev!" Lily giggled secretively into his shoulder, "Of course I'll stay here with you, even if your robes do still smell a bit like they've been dipped in gasoline. You did get them checked out, right? I would hate for you to catch fire in potions class tomorrow! Now then, let's go find a table and get started!"
And with that, she took his hand and threaded her warm, slim fingers through his freezing cold long and bony digits, pulling him down the aisles of books towards an available study table where he would forget all about his troubles for several blessed hours at her side in comfortable silence punctuated by hushed intellectual discussion.
By the time they realized that the evening meal had long ago come and gone, it was practically curfew, and they turned to one another with matching grins on their faces.
"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" Lily said hungrily.
"Kitchens?" Severus asked hopefully.
"Kitchens," Lily replied, her grin widening.
They packed up their things and kept their heads down as they briskly strode past Madam Pince, whose magnified eyes glared at them both from behind her jeweled horn-rimmed glasses.
They had discovered the kitchens shortly after their Sorting when Severus had found a small note folded in his trunk from his mother. It was written in her spidery script as though she had written it hurriedly. All it said was:
Severus,
If you find yourself hungry and in need of food, tickle the pear.
-E.S.
HIs mother had never bothered referring to herself in the third person as a parent, and she certainly wasn't about to start when her only son was away at school, but he found the note comforting. Even though it did not gush with flowery hearts and admonitions of love, it was almost as good as something like that as far as he was concerned. His mother knew that he was underfed, and as much as she resented him, she despaired at her inability to provide well for her own flesh and blood.
It had taken two weekends of scouring the castle until they found the proper pear to tickle, but it was worth it. And being admitted into the kitchens not only allowed them to get a bite to eat when they had studied far too long but also doubled as a way to become well-known by their fellow Housemates as the go-to person to bring in snacks for their common room. Eve though Lily always got the food for events in Gryffindor, she never divulged her secret and was very tight-lipped about deflecting inquiries about how she was able to seemingly pull food from thin air, which secretly made Severus feel that she would probably have been quite the Slytherin student, had she thought to put her mind to it.
Their dinner was pleasant enough and they even had enough time to get back to their respective common rooms when Lily finally said the words he had been dreading to hear.
"I wanted to ask you about something, and I hope that you don't take offense or think that I immediately thought of you because of it..but.." she said, her mouth still half-full with a bite of chicken leg, "People have been singing this song all day long...and it's really...quite cruel. James told me that it's a song he wrote about his least favorite uncle, but I don't believe him. You've had this sad look all day- and don't you deny it! So, I hate to sound like a total dunderhead, but…is this song supposed to be about you?"
Severus stared into his juice, nodding slightly. It was utterly humiliating to admit that he had been at the mercy of his tormentors all day long, even when they weren't nearby, as the damned catchy tune just seemed to spread through the school like wildfire.
"I wanted them to stop," he said quietly, "But you know them. When they know that it gets a rise out of me, it only makes things worse."
When he dared to look up again, Lily's eyes looked as though they were burning with emerald fire.
"Why those bastards!" she swore, her voice filled with rage, "I'm gonna-"
"No! You're not!" Severus replied plaintively, standing up and bending towards her, his eyes shining with tears, "It's not your job to fight for me! I would never forgive myself if you became their new target because you tried to help me! I already saw how Potter has fixed his designs on you. Placing his arm around you without so much as asking! He's a menace, Lily! He's just looking for an excuse, and he won't take no for an answer!"
"You're my best friend, Severus Snape," Lily said fiercely, "How dare you tell me not to defend you when you need help!"
"Lily, you're all I have, my only friend, my BEST friend! Without you….I'm nothing. I wouldn't even want to live," Severus begged, his voice rising over the din that the house elves made preparing the ingredients for Friday's breakfast, " So please, PLEASE, let them have their fun and when they finally get it into their thick heads that it doesn't hurt me, and maybe then it'll be forgotten in a couple of days and it will stop."
It was Lily's turn to look down at her cup of pumpkin juice as though it were the most interesting thing in the world. And when she finally spoke, the fire in her voice had been replaced by a weary sadness.
"But it does hurt you," she said softly, "And you and I both know they're just going to come up with something else to make you suffer when they get tired of their stupid song."
"I've tried talking to Professor Slughorn and nothing ever comes of it," Severus said tiredly, "I've even tried to get an audience with Headmaster Dumbledore, but he's always so busy with important things, and besides, he's far too busy to see a greasy nobody from Slytherin who is being called names by his favorite Gryffindor cubs."
"Sev…." Lily said, placing her hand on his shoulder sympathetically, and even though his eyes were still fierce with frustration, he didn't push her hand away. Both of them sat and listened to the idle chatter of the house elves coming from the kitchens and simply focused on breathing deeply.
Finally, Severus looked up at the clock that hovered through the kitchens, reminding the elves of the time as it rotated, and realized that they would be late back to their respective houses if they didn't finish their food soon.
"We should get back," he said, glancing up at her and giving her a sad smile.
"Yeah," Lily replied, but she wasn't smiling at all, and he could practically see the gears grinding in her head as she thought of some sort of way to protect her friend.
"Just promise me that you won't go after them on my behalf," Severus pleaded, "Please, Lily. Promise me."
Lily groaned with irritation and rolled her eyes but finally she nodded her head.
"But only because you asked me really, really nicely," she said as they both went their respective ways at the stairwell.
"Thank you, Lily. Sweet dreams," Severus said, surprised that he had said something so sentimental, but it simply tumbled out of his mouth unbidden and he decided that it simply sounded right.
"You too, Sev," Lily replied, hugging him quickly before starting up the stairs, "You too."
Friday was surprisingly normal, all things considered, but the lack of jokes at his expense or mysteriously exploding desks seemed more like the calm before a storm than an actual reprieve. Everyone was still singing The Greasy, Grossy Git, but it had taken on a life of its own, and people had begun to create entirely new verses that obviously had nothing to do with him. In fact, people had begun to write joke verses poking fun of themselves, and the second line of the original song had been changed from "full of shit" to "full of spit," which didn't seem all that different at first glance, but actually seemed to soften the overall tone of the song.
He'd even begun to hum along with it, much to Potter and Black's dismay, and he found the unhappy looks on their faces coupled with the friendly wink and grin from Lily at lunch made him feel cautiously happy for the first time since classes had resumed.
After dinner, Lily stopped him on his way out of the Great Hall and took his hand, leading him outside into the cold January air.
"Shouldn't we get bundled up a bit more?" he asked, his teeth chattering in the icy air.
"We'll just be a minute, Sev," Lily replied reassuringly.
She led him over to the left side of the castle steps. It was nearly dark, but the cool winter sun was still dipping over the tree line and deep shadows had sprung up everywhere. Lily pointed towards the western bank of the lake, still frozen with icy slush where the water met the land.
"Meet me around the left side of the lake, near the tree line tomorrow at eleven in the morning. I'll meet you there. Don't be late. Dress warmly. We'll have to walk a bit, ok?"
"I only have one question," Severus said through chattering teeth.
"And what is that?" Lily replied, putting her hands on her hips in mock annoyance.
"Why did you have to take me outside? Surely we could have seen all of this from one of the windows?" Severus had pulled his wand out and attempted a Heating Charm, which he had read about in his mother's fourth year textbook earlier that summer, but never actually attempted. It seemed to work fine at first, but then he realized that it only covered the top half of him. As though to illustrate this fact, his knees had begun to knock together involuntarily.
"Easy, silly," Lily said, her grin widening into that mischievous smile that she wore so often when she was about to do something crazy, "The halls are full of prying eyes and listening ears. I don't want anyone else to know but us. It's our secret. Now let's get back inside before we both turn into ice sculptures."
"You know, for someone who claims to trust everyone she meets, you sure can be suspicious," Severus drawled as they turned and pulled open the heavy doors.
"I learned from the best," Lily replied, winking at him as she headed back up the stairs.
Severus snickered all the way back to his dorm room.
Severus had trouble sleeping. He kept closing his eyes, only to open them again and realize that only a few minutes had passed. So he was utterly flummoxed when he closed his eyes and opened them again only to realize that he had actually slept in until 10:37. He jolted out of bed and hurriedly dressed himself, taking care to put on an extra layer of clothing with his uniform and robes over, finishing up with his beloved scarf, a ratty wool hat and some green gloves that Lily had given him for Christmas. He sprinted from the dungeons at a dead run, passing a number of students who were sluggishly meandering back from breakfast at the Great Hall, calling after him to tell him not to bother because the food had already vanished until lunch time.
He didn't hear a word, though. All he could think of was Lily, waiting for him, telling him not to be late. He couldn't let her down. He wouldn't let her down. Even though the blood was roaring in his ears and his lungs were screaming from never having been pushed this hard before, he continued on, ignoring the pain and the sudden shooting light headed sensation in his head.
When he reached the shore, he nearly collapsed on the snowy bank, but somehow stayed upright, his legs swaying back and forth as he tried to steady his tired body and regain his balance.
"Psst! Sev!" the voice came from behind the pile of rocks to his left.
"Lily?" he asked in a puzzled voice, making his way towards it.
"Come back here before you're seen!" she hissed, her red glove pulling him down into a painful crouch with her.
"What do you mean?" he whispered, looking around in confusion.
"I saw someone," she said cryptically, but didn't elaborate, "Keep your ears open. They're using something to hide from view."
They sat and listened, but only heard a light crunching of snow from quite some ways away, as though someone were strolling off in the distance, though they could see absolutely nothing.
"Come on, I think the coast is clear," Lily said, after a time, and they moved cautiously into the trees.
The Forbidden Forest was still off-limits to students on the weekends, but there was only so much that Hagrid and Filch could do to dissuade people from going out and about. The winter months were often so prohibitively cold that it was its own deterrent, so there was little in the way of resistance to their descent into the dark trees of the forest, holding hands as though they were the titular characters from "Hansel and Gretel." The only difference was that Lily knew where she was going.
At first, their trek seemed random, but eventually, he began to see a pattern. What started with a tiny trail of ivory mushrooms, barely discernable from the snowy sludge on the ground, progressed to a tiny trail of pale green grasses and a few puff-ball weeds that bobbed eerily in the still winter air.
As Lily walked ahead of him, he bent down carefully, rubbing the soft greenery between his fingers.
"What in the world…?" he said softly, looking up to see Lily's leg disappearing behind a copse of thick black, gnarled trees.
"This way!" her voice echoed as though he were hearing it in a dream, and he felt compelled to follow.
As he got closer, he realized that he could smell something familiar, something that he couldn't quite place. Intrigued, he quickened his pace and followed her through the the slim gap in the trees.
A blinding light filled his eyes, and he had to squint at first until his eyes became accustomed to his surroundings. Familiar fingers brushed against his and he found himself being pulled gently along from his crouched position until he felt himself being pulled up to his full height.
"Open your eyes, Sev," Lily said gently, "I want to show you something."
He did as she asked, wincing out of habit as he did so as though expecting a blow. He was not used to being vulnerable, not even with Lily, and the thought of the possibility of betrayal kept him on guard.
Everything was glowing.
"Am I just imagining things, or is everything...all rainbowy?" he asked in a puzzled voice, his eyes still adjusting to the colors that filled the space.
"We're about ten feet under the ground, for starters," Lily said proudly, "I've been working on this ever since I found it in September. It's not really a cavern, more like a...bubble, really, but what it lacks in size, it makes up in selection. I've been sneaking out to cultivate it ever since."
"You did all of this yourself?" he asked in awe as he turned around in the space, his eyes lingering over the ceiling that sparkled like indigo starlight. He cast his gaze downward to watch the moss floor under his feet change to a rich amber as he pressed his weight upon it, the color returning to a bright green as he stepped forward.
"Sadly, no," Lily said, blushing at his obvious enjoyment, "But when I tripped and fell….er...I mean…found it when walking in the Forbidden Forest, it looked quite shabby indeed. The area is maintained a small underground river near the far wall. It appears to be imbued with a number of minerals with magical properties, which is what causes the glowing, but it's more form than function, and it makes it easy to see without having to bring a torch down here. I expect a former student created it. And that's not even the best part."
"This isn't all? It's absolutely brilliant, Lily! Figuratively and literally."
Lily snorted and turned to face him, cupping her hands to her mouth and breathing out a puff of clear air. Severus raised an eyebrow and waited for her to explain.
"Have you noticed that you can't see your breath anymore?" Lily said excitedly, "That's because whoever created this space didn't just make the moss glow, they also made it a veritable cornucopia of potions ingredients! See, here!"
"Firebrand Thistle? No wonder why I have been feeling a bit overheated," Severus said, his eyes growing large with shock, "But these are almost impossible to find fresh and the dried version sold at apothecaries only has a fraction of the efficacy as the freshly picked version, which means it's very, very expensive and one requires a large quantity for any of the potions that call for it."
"I know what you're going to say," Lily replied, standing up straight with her face drawn up in a mock-scowl and doing her very best imitation of his voice, "'Oh I say, Lily, how very Slytherin of you to make this place and get all of your ingredients for free!'"
"I do not sound like that," Severus replied, crossing his arms, but he couldn't hide the smirk that quirked his lips up in the corner of his mouth, "But I must admit, the thought occurred to me."
"That's because I made this for you. This is your birthday gift from me to you, because I know you need it, even if you're too proud to say so," Lily said, spreading her arms out to indicate the entire area, "And if you let me cultivate it with you, I will only ask that you let me take a few ingredients for myself when I need them."
"Lily...this is...more than generous," he said finally, trying not to look as stunned as he felt, "But you didn't need to go through all this trouble for me. The school does provide ingredients for us, and I have...my ways...of getting extra ingredients when I need them. After all, did you know that Slughorn is obsessed with anything pineapple? Lucius told me that in my first year here and I've put that tidbit of information to use a number of times."
Lily put her hands on her hips, "It's Professor Slughorn, Sev. You know better."
"So I do," Severus shrugged, looking away, "But we're not in school right now. We're in a glowing cave under the Forbidden Forest. And it's my birthday. So I'm allowed."
"On Tuesday!" Lily laughed, "It's your birthday on Tuesday!"
"Tuesday, Saturday, it doesn't really matter. You were the one who said that you wanted me to have my birthday present today," Severus said, shrugging nonchalantly, his mouth drawn up in a smirk.
"So I did," Lily said, smirking back at him, "Never argue with a Slytherin."
"Especially not when it's his birthday," Severus replied, his grin widening.
"ON TUESDAY, YOU MASSIVE DUNDERHEAD!" Lily shouted, whacking him playfully on the head with her hand.
"You did not just call me a dunderhead, did you?" Severus asked, covering his head and pretending to rub the spot where she'd lightly bumped him with her hand in an exaggerated manner.
"That sounds exactly like the sort of thing a dunderhead would say," Lily called playfully as she skipped ahead of him, just out of reach, "Now come on, your present's not over yet."
"Why you…" He followed her with a playful grin of his own as she skipped across the moss covered earth, her feet touching down and turning the floor a number of shades of green and gold.
He reached a small rise in the floor and noticed that a square of darkness had been laid across the ground.
"I knew you'd be late, so I took the liberty of packing a picnic," Lily said simply, gesturing for him to sit down.
Suddenly, Severus realized he was indeed starving, as he had skipped breakfast in his hurry to meet Lily on time after oversleeping.
"It wouldn't do for you to have an empty stomach on your birthday," Lily continued, pouring a mug of pumpkin juice from a screw-top jar.
"AHA!" Severus cried, as he took the juice from Lily, "You just said it was my birthday!"
"I guess I'm a dunderhead too, then," Lily said, smiling from behind her own mug, "We can be a club- 'The Dunderheaded Duo.' Has a ring to it, it does."
"Speak for yourself," Severus said, snorting into his juice and coughing when some went down the wrong pipe, "I like our names the way they are, thank you."
"Lily and Sev," Lily said thoughtfully, "Sounds good. Of course, it's only proper to put the brains of this outfit in the front."
"Then I think you've got it backwards," Severus replied smugly, laying back against the natural curve of the floor with his mug placed next to him.
"Is that so?" Lily replied, laying down next to him, propping herself up on her side with one of her elbows.
"How about this? We'll switch who gets to be first on even and odd days," Severus said finally.
"I think you're overthinking this a bit much," Lily replied, snickering loudly, "Let's just stick with who we are now with our own names. There's no need to be all cloak and dagger after all."
"I think that would probably be best," Severus said, grinning openly at Lily's expression, "We'd be terrible spies."
"Now that I can agree with," Lily said, picking up her mug with her free hand and sticking it out towards Severus, "A toast! To your thirteenth year! May it be the best one ever!"
"It will also be my only one ever," Severus replied, lifting up his mug to clink against hers, "Being thirteen, that is."
"Are you still going on about that, Sev? You really can be mental sometimes," Lily said, rolling her eyes.
"But why else would you be my friend, if not for my biting wit?" Severus chuckled.
"Because I love you," Lily said seriously, "Because you are my friend, and you have always been there for me, even though I am in Gryffindor and I can be stubborn and sometimes even a bit of a dunderhead-"
"Your words, not mine!" Severus said flippantly, putting his hands up in mock surrender.
"Stop, it, you! I'm being serious!" Lily said petulantly, drawing her face into a mock pout.
"Lily…." he started, "This...this gift means more to me than I can say right now. In fact, I probably can't really describe exactly what you've done for me because I don't think there are any words in the English language that can be arranged in such a way that I can convey it."
"I meant what I said," Lily said quietly as she turned to look at him with wide, searching eyes.
"What do you mean?" he said haltingly, and his heart felt like it would stop beating at any moment as the heat rose in his cheeks.
"I love you," she continued, "You were my first friend who had magic just like I did, who made me feel like I...belonged. I will never forget that, Sev. I feel like I belong...when I'm with you."
She reached her hand out to him, and he hesitated. It felt different than before. It was no longer the gesture of childhood comfort that it had been. It was somehow more than that, in a way that he couldn't explain, not even to himself. He took a deep breath and his fingers folded around hers.
"So," he said.
"So," she replied.
They lay on the blanket in the darkness, staring at each other, the rest of the picnic forgotten and their breathing seemed to synchronise until the rise and fall of their chests moved in time with one another.
"Lily?" he said, after a time, his voice breaking slightly as he said her name.
"Yes, Severus?" she half-whispered, her voice seeming older than before.
"You don't have to if you don't want to...but...can I kiss you?" he said awkwardly, feeling himself go a violent shade of red from his hairline down to his chest.
"I thought you'd never ask," she replied simply, and she scooted ever so slightly closer to him, uncurling her fingers from his, looking up at him expectantly.
He shimmied sideways towards her, bumping against her chest slightly with his own as he tried to angle downward to meet her lips. He'd never kissed her like this before, only pecks on the cheek here and there the way a brother or sister would. In fact, he'd never kissed anyone like this, and his nervousness was palpable.
"Relax, Sev, it's a kiss, not the Spanish Inquisition," Lily murmured, and he snorted loudly at her joke, his eyes going wide with fear that he'd ruined the moment.
"How can you be so infuriatingly calm?" he demanded.
"Who says I'm calm?" Lily replied, shoving her quivering hand in his again to illustrate her point.
"Right, then," he replied, his hand sliding to grip her shoulder and pull her closer to him.
She tipped her head up so he could reach her lips and for a moment, when they touched together, he felt an intensity of sensation that almost overwhelmed him. He had to suppress a moan as she pressed her warm, soft lips more firmly against his and he was surprised to feel her hand slide behind his head under his hair and hold firmly against his skull, pressing him against her in a manner that made him feel lightheaded.
And then, there was air between them again, and they were both breathing heavily, their hearts beating frantically with the enormity of what they had done.
Severus cleared his throat as Lily set to work busily pulling sandwiches and fruit from the basket. They ate in silence, stealing glances at one another over their food.
"So…" he said, after finishing his meal.
"So…" she replied, biting her lip.
"We should probably get back," he said hesitantly, "People might start wondering where we are."
"Yeah, that's probably a good idea," she replied quickly, pulling herself up and busying herself with packing up the picnic area, waving him off when he offered to help.
"Happy birthday, Sev," she said, as they took the path back out of the Forbidden Forest.
"On Tuesday, remember?" Severus replied, smirking.
"Smartass," Lily said, lightly punching his arm as she grinned back at him.
They looked up at Hogwarts Castle, its stone towers standing out against the deep gray of the winter afternoon sky and with a last wistful smile at one another, her scarlet gloved hand resting in his glove of deep green, they began the trek back together in the snow.