Lily Flower
By: PenDiva
DISCLAIMER: I do not own Harry Potter - ha! - obviously.
…
Petunia's hands were curled into fists and she pointed an accusing finger at her sister who was running away from her.
"I'm going to tell mummy!"
Her dress was fading to dull brown and the repugnant uptight buttons near her collar matched her loathsome expression.
"You're a freak!" she said in a high-pitched voice. This made her sister stop and turn around.
Their green eyes met, one filled with hatred, the other with betrayal.
The young Lily stood petrified, still clutching the remains of the flower that she had created in her hand. A warm wind blew her fiery red hair into a frenzy and covered the pained expression she wore.
"You're a freak, Lily!" Petunia shrieked.
Lily stood abruptly on the hill above her, hands down at her sides, a defiant frown now settling onto her face.
Petunia stopped chasing Lily to spit at her, "Come here!"
There was a subtle movement underneath the shadowy roots of a warped and mangled tree whose unsightly brown color defiled the brilliance of the blue sky in its isolation atop the grassy hill.
A dark haired boy emerged, moving with awkward, nervous movements. His face however told a different story as he stared Petunia down with unwavering, deep, black pupils.
Lily glanced at the boy and turned ever so slightly.
The words Petunia was about to say stuck in her throat. She turned quickly on her heels and fled from the freaks, seeking the safety of her mother. Petunia's straight hair bounced against her back as she grew smaller in the distance.
The wind had calmed down to a delicate breeze, and Severus reached down and plucked from the ground a grassy weed. It immediately changed from stiff and coarse to a pliable soft stalk of grass obedient to Severus.
He made a small gesture with his hand and it fluttered from his hand and sailed lightly into Lily's. She looked down at it, her soft fingers stroking it kindly. Lily gave Severus a small smile which Severus returned.
She sent the grass back into the sky with her own magic and watched it soar high into the clouds, spinning as it went.
Lily's face was bright as she said, "I'm Lily - Lily Evans."
Lily, like the flower, Severus thought, pure, gentle, and kind. He replied by telling her his own name, although compared to hers it sounded shrewd and wicked as it lingered too long on his tongue.
"Oh, I like your name - it reminds me of something… sweet!" Severus blinked, confused, but a wide grin erupted onto his usually static face. "Can you do magic too, Severus?" Lily asked watching the boy's black hair shake with his nodding head. She broke into a giggle. "How silly I was to think I was the only one!"
…
Slowly the memory began to melt away. A dark mist turned the sunny day into shadows and the details began to blur together. In the darkness, a much older Severus was hurrying through a street while desperately trying to return to the memory.
Lily's sweet voice echoed in his mind as his feet fumbled over the cold stones. He glanced behind him, always aware of anything that moved.
Severus breathed quickly, clutching his forearm which burned with new kind of feeling. Something has happened. He clutched his wand firmly in his hand.
Suddenly, colors swarmed in front of his eyes. The gloom of the night was disappeared and Severus forgot about the chill in his bones and shaking in his hands. Light penetrated his consciousness as he was transported into another memory.
…
Lily and Severus were lying down on warm grass, enjoying the shade of a tree.
"You grew up as a muggle, so your family doesn't know about magic."
Lily's face fell slightly. "Oh. But I'm not a muggle?"
"No you're a witch."
Lily folded her hand across her stomach as she answered, "I thought witches were bad."
Severus watched her troubled expression out of the corner of his eye. "I only say witch to mean that you can do magic."
"So… that makes you a wizard? Why are some people magical and some not?"
"I'm not sure." Severus sat up. "There is a whole wizarding world out there. One day, you'll see."
Lily touched the soft grass underneath her and pulled herself up with it. Her bare feet curled underneath her in a comfortable sitting position.
Severus looked into her green eyes as he said, "When you turn eleven you can go to Hogwarts to learn how to use magic."
Birds chirped in the tree above them, making Lily smile pleasantly. "Are you going to Hogwarts too?"
"Yes"
"Good, because then you can teach me everything I need to know," Lily said with confidence.
She giggled slightly as the wind played with her dress which she forced down with her hands.
"It's so pretty today. I don't know why Petunia didn't want to come play with us today. I think she hates me."
Severus' onyx black eyes "She's just jealous because she's ordinary."
"That's mean Severus," Lily said.
He didn't respond. They both turned their gazes toward the Mwerebi tree hanging over them; the sun made patterns in the soft leaves that hung from the delicate branches.
Lily was laughing happily, but it was a distant noise and it did not come from the redhead lying next to him, but from another memory. A wind blew through the tree and strings of leaves fell, but when they did, they twirled through the air and fluttered around like butterflies.
Lily's innocent laugh carried these leafy strings through the air. The scene beneath the tree disappeared. Severus heard Lily say his name softly before the light nearly stretched into emptiness, but he forced his mind into another memory.
Now Lily and him were walking around a lake on an overcast day after just having finished their first year at Hogwarts.
"I do not understand Potions, nothing makes any sense," Lily.
Severus listened before saying, "What don't you understand?"
"What's the difference between stirring it clockwise or counterclockwise? Why does the heat have to be such a specific temperature and then why do some things have to be crushed and others minced? Slughorn never explains anything; he just gives us directions and gives house points to his favorite students."
Severus huffed, knowing full well the favoritism the old slug showed.
"Well, potion making is a certain art. Different ingredients have to mix with other ingredients to get a result. Sometimes you have to have your potion at a certain temperature so that one substance can be broken down and then another can be mixed together."
Lily stopped walking to sit on a bench. Severus sat down next to her. "Isn't that the point of chopping it up first?"
"Yes, but then it gets broken down more in the actual potion. At least some ingredients do. You stir clockwise a certain number of times in order to mix it the right amount.
"You know so much about potions!" Lily said, habitually brushing her hair out of her face so she could look at her friend's expression.
"You could be good at it too you know," Severus replied.
He watched the lake for a second, noticing the lapping waves against the shore. A few ripples radiated out from a certain point on the surface of the water. The sun reflected off of it and gave a bright shine to the otherwise dark and murky water.
"You like to cook, right? The muggle way."
Lily gave an affirmative answer. Severus continued with, "Potions is like cooking. You have mix ingredients together to make a certain food."
Lily watched Severus intently, understanding what he was saying. "Potatoes might take longer to soften than corn for example. So when you're making a soup or something, you have to cook those first."
A huge smile filled Lily's young face. "I never thought about it like that!"
Severus laughed a little "But potions is a lot more dangerous than making soup. Sometimes having too much motion or stirring against the current can agitate a substance incorrectly and make it react in a bad way."
Lily's eyes were wide and she leaned forward with interest. "Really? Like when the cauldrons blow up in class?"
"Right. One time when I was younger my father was letting me brew a simple potion in his lab. I accidentally stirred the wrong way and the entire potion bubbled over and splashed all over me turning my clothes green."
Lily laughed thinking about it. "I bet your father wasn't too happy about that."
"No, he wasn't," Severus but his face turned solemn just thinking about his father.
"Severus, are you upset? I didn't mean to mention your father-" her eyebrows knit together in worry.
"Lily it's fine. Let's keep talking about potions."
She shrugged. "If you're sure."
The young Severus smiled but Lily's compassionate face sunk into a black abyss and the tweeting birds were silenced; it was only a memory.
…
Severus violently came back to reality and blinked a few times, squinting through the darkness. The crescent moon sent misleading shadows onto the grass, causing Severus to nearly trip.
He was practically running now, his black cloak flapping behind him.
Severus approached Lily's house now with smaller steps, hands shaking. Never before in his life had he been so full of fear and worry.
The gate was standing wide open. Not a sound could be heard in the night.
He walked to the front door but the journey felt like a lifetime. He saw the door, barely hanging on by the hinges come closer and closer. The darkness was eternal.
His left arm continued to burn from his death eater mark, a poisonous scar that will remind him of the blackness within his soul. He felt familiar surges of dark magic and evil twist his insides into knots. The entire house reeked of hopelessness and death.
At the bottom of the stairs laid his fallen foe: James Potter.
A hallway in Hogwarts, snickers behind him. Somebody knocked the books out of his hands and stepped on his beloved Potions book, all while laughing. The dark head of hair above a pair of glasses ran down the corridor to return to his jeering, smiling friends.
Standing on the wooden floor of Lily's home, Severus gasped. James eyes were dead and cold, and Severus could hear his taunts in his head. His mind reeled with flashbacks and the terrors of his childhood.
James was taunting him like normal, insulting his name, his hair, and calling him his hated nickname, Snivellus.
"Expelliarmus!"
Snape was defenseless.
"Nice one James!"
The now dead body of James lay on the ground with a fatal expression. Severus stepped around the corpse but I'm his mind he heard the jests. He heard Lily protesting. He remembered the loneliness, the hated looks from members of his own house.
"How could you call her that name! She trusted you!" James shouted at Severus in the darkness.
"DON'T YOU THINK I REGRET THAT? I WOULD GIVE ANYTHING TO TAKE IT BACK!"
"Lily will never trust you again! She thought you could look past her as muggle born but you're no better than your father!"
Both boys had their wands drawn in an instant. Severus shook his head, fury settling into his soul.
"You have no right to say a thing about my father!" Severus said with hatred.
"Why don't you go run along with your death eater friends! Lily doesn't want anything to do with people such as yourself. She was a fool ever to befriend you!"
"I cared for her more than you ever will," Severus said with a shaking voice.
"Stupefy!"
"Incarcerous!"
Both spells were blocked and each boy looked each other in the eye before winding up for their next spell.
"Expelliarmus!" James said but Severus blocked it without a word.
His face erupted in fury. "CRUCIO!"
The spell knocked James off of his feet and cause him a temporary pain but it ended quickly. James struggled to sit up and stare at Severus. The Slytherin student stood frozen, the ringing sound of his own voice shouting the unforgivable echoing in his head.
"Severus…" Both boys looked sharply up at the girl standing above them on the grassy hill. The look in Lily's eyes took away all of Severus's fury. Her green eyes reflected betrayal and the lift was gone from them.
Severus shook away the memory, trying to hold onto hope that his best friend was still alive and might still be able to forgive him.
The stairs creaked beneath him. Severus felt his heart racing and he shook as he climbed. He didn't dare call out to Lily who he hopes waited in the room upstairs. He didn't dare breathe; in fact, he could hardly think.
The nursery was in shambles, splintered wood littered the floor. Severus approached slowly, his chest tightening with every step. Darkness was all around him and swirls of magic coursed through body and made him shiver. He turned the corner…
Lily was lying on the ground, her bright green eyes vacant of life.
The world tipped sideways and Severus slid down the side of the wall he now leaned on. His face contorted in pain but he couldn't look away. His whole world had crashed in around him. His ears were ringing and his soul wished that what he was seeing was an illusion but it wasn't. Lily is gone.
Severus felt lifeless. His own soul ached. Waves of pain and loss struck him down and Severus shook his head.
"No…" His vision blurred with tears. It felt like part of him had been ripped out and burned, and his face twisted into an expression of the agony he was feeling.
Her hair was spread out around her head, and her arm was limp on the ground next to her. "Lily, come back… Please," Severus begged, now holding back sobs.
His chest heaved. He crawled over to her quickly and took her up in his arms. His whole body felt numb. Lily is gone.
Tears streamed down his face and he cried out from the pain he felt inside. He rocked back and forth holding his childhood friend, someone he had never stopped loving.
Severus did not even notice little Harry crying in the crib next to him.
Through the cold, grey window the world began a celebration that would last week's; Lord Voldemort had been defeated. Severus knew better and though he did not understand why his left arm hurt that night, he knew that the war was far from over. And he knew that he would not be celebrating this Halloween night.
Severus would never fully understand everything that transpired on October 31st of 1981. In fact, nobody would ever truly understood the effects of everything that had happened surrounding Lily Evans.
Voldemort's original plan had been to slaughter all of the Potters, including the baby boy. Lily's sacrifice would have never been made. She would've been dead before she could even protest against the Dark lord; Harry's death would have followed soon after.
Something stopped him however, something Voldemort would never understand. One of his most loyal followers, Severus Snape, asked him to spare the girl. So as he made his way into the nursery of the Potter's house, he asked Lily Evans to stand aside.
Lily begged the Dark Lord to spare Harry, to kill her instead. Voldemort could not wait any longer. He killed Lily, knocking down her body that had been shielding the boy. He did not understand her sacrifice, but to him it did not matter. When he went to murder Harry, the small boy was protected by Lily whose sacrifice was provoked by the sacrifice of her childhood friend: Severus Snape.
If it weren't for the love and sacrifice of Severus Snape for Lily Evans, Harry Potter would have never survived the night of October 31st 1981, and the whole world would have suffered under the rule of the Dark Lord.
The undying love for Lily by one Severus Snape is the sacrifice often forgotten, and is one that stayed with him until the end.