Disclaimer: I do not own Rowling's work.

Author's Note: another what-if AU because in a fight there are often two wrongs.

Summary: she shouldn't have said that – he said, she said/on apologies/severusxlily AU

As a little girl, Lily's mother always brushed her hair when she was upset. It was a habit she passed on to her daughters, pulling them aside to her vanity and pressing a hankerchief into their hands. Careful fingers pull out the pins and the brush carefully worked out the tangles as she would ask soft questions, soothe the small hurts. Even now that she is no longer at home, her mother no longer near for comfort, Lily takes her brush and does her hair. Ninety strokes, like her mother, because no problem was that vast that she needed one hundred solutions. Ninety, her mother whispered, was a large enough number to work through the trouble and come out on the other side laughing.

A hundred was a catastrophe. One hundred brush strokes, her mother said, was akin to the world ending.

Lily takes out her ribbon and removes her plait. Closes the curtains around her bed and pulls the brush through her hair.

{One}

She does not want this to be the end of the world, she promises to herself.

{Two}

Boys are stupid, she reminds herself.

{Three}

Guilty apologize, the repentful regret. (that is the difference darling, always remember that.)

{Four}

They had meant it

{Five}

He hadn't.

{Six}

She has a terrible temper, like him. She should know better.

{Seven}

The Marauders are monsters, just like the Death Eaters.

{Eight}

She shouldn't have said that.

Her hand stops. She gnaws at her bottom lip. Here lies the crux of the matter – he said, she said and both were right and wrong. His words hurt, if he was her friend then he never would have said that. But, if she were any better, then she would not have said what she said. Yes, she's not from a noble House like Malfoy or Bones, but that doesn't make her worthless. Yes, he's talented at spellwork, but his devotion to hexes is mostly retaliation and it doesn't make him a terrorist.

"Lily?" Alice stands awkwardly at her bedside. "Snape wants to talk to you." Her eyes are wary.

"Does Frank ever make you mad?" Lily asks, still gnawing at her lip. Alice rolls her eyes.

"All the time, but I have loads of bad habits that make him think I'm a dingbat but he loves me anyway," Alice tells her with a smile. "He's a whole person and I like that. If I wanted a drawing, I'd be seeing a portrait now wouldn't I?"

Oh. She hadn't thought about it quite like that.

"I think you'd better go see him," Alice says with that tone of a happily taken woman. "He's very upset with himself."

"Of course."

The whole common room is watching, the Marauders smirking from their position near the hearth. The Prefects are standing watch in mild curiosity while the first and second years are wide eyed. The older students are either paying close attention or elbows deep in their books for the upcoming OWL's and NEWT's and have no time to be concerned over an inter-house squabble. Alice smiles brightly at her as she leaves, Frank curling himself around her with his own warm smile.

He looks completely miserable. Clearly the taunting hadn't stopped on the grounds, Lily sees and tries not to grind her teeth together. His shabby clothes are more are more noticeable now, his hair even more unkempt than Potter's first thing in the morning. His eyes are glued to the floor and he looks like he is barely restraining himself from fleeing.

"You asked for me?" she says quietly. Severus jerks at her voice. Mutters to himself for a bit and twitches.

"I wanted to apologize," he says even more quietly. "I didn't mean what I said."

The look he gives her is heartbreaking. Lily forbids herself from crying because if she cries it will alarm him and Severus will panic and it will just be a mess.

"I also wanted to apologize," she breathes deeply and does not shy from him. "I should not have said what I did. I did not mean it."

Nobody has ever apologized to Severus Snape before – not with sincere meaning, anyway. But she looks positively distraught and pale against the smooth length of her hair, he knows she's not lying.

"Um."

Lily smiles.

"We need to go to Hogsmeade," she says thoughtfully. "I know I'm out of a couple of things in my potions kit and I need a personal copy of that reference book we were using for DADA. It was dead useful. And we should probably come up with an essay topic for Transfiguration – I'm thinking of the ethical issues with transfiguring sentient objects into a non-sentient form."

"You're not mad at me?" he asks incredulously. The girl reaches up and tucks his hair behind his ear.

"We're friends Severus, and everything's okay."

"Oh," he is very confused. It smooths over quickly into irritability. "I'm not working with Lovegood."

"He's excellent in Transfiguration though!"

"He's completely mad."

"Severus. Be nice."

"It is getting rather close to curfew," The Pink Lady interrupts with a fond smile. "And given the distance you'll have to travel young man, you'd best be on your way." The portrait has never seen a situation like this before, where a member of another house risks humiliation and rejection in front of the tower she protects.

Lily begins to flail about, pushing him down the hallway and telling him to stay away from the bullies in his own house and to go to bed immediately and to not forget to meet her in the courtyard for Hogsmeade tomorrow.

(inside the common rooms of the dungeons and the tower, there is nothing but an uproar of delight and disdain but she smiles daggers and he sneers poison and there is nothing that will come between them)

-fin