Disclaimer: All Harry Potter characters herein are the property of J.K. Rowling and Bloomsbury/Scholastic. No copyright infringement is intended.
Warning(s): References to off-screen child abuse, angst, fluff, non-H/D character deaths mentioned in the epilogue.
Additional notes: This was written and posted as part of the 2013 hd_smoochfest fic/art exchange on livejournal, prompt #83. Seerstella, I fear I may have inverted your preferred angst/humour ratio; if so, I apologize! Also, Betas and Mods deserve ALL the chocolate.
EWE (Most of the story takes place only a few years after the war.)
Originally posted for the 2013 hd_smoochfest on livejournal; posted on FF 13 Oct, 2014
The Bravest Man
It was a warm and sunny summer afternoon, made all the more pleasant by the company. Instead of her sister, who'd been nasty and resentful ever since the day Lily had received her Hogwarts letter, she was at the park with Sev. Not Severus, the Slytherin boy who only spoke to her when it was absolutely necessary, but Sev, the boy who'd first made her believe that magic could be real.
They were lying on the grass together on the little hill that had been their special place the year previous, and it was almost like the horrible parts of the past year had never happened — no awful housemates, no house rivalry — but Lily could participate in the conversation now, rather than simply listen in amazement.
It wasn't completely perfect because the swelling of black, blue, yellow, and green that surrounded Sev's eye was a glaring reminder that horrible things happened here, too.
"You know what we should do?"
He looked over at her, turning his head just a bit — he was trying to protect her from the sight of the bruising, she knew — but he didn't speak.
"We should invent a potion to make you younger."
He barked a laugh that had no humour in it. "According to Witch Weekly, it already exists, or haven't you seen the adverts for the cosmetics line Celestina Warbeck's promoting?"
"No, not that sort of thing — a potion that can really make you younger, turn you back into a child."
He sat up and gawked at her. "I'm counting the minutes until I can leave; why would I want to deliberately stay longer?"
"No!" she said, sitting up as well and reaching out for his arm, in case he tried to leave. "Not for now. For later... so that you can have a chance to do it right, have the childhood you should have had this time."
He looked as though he might be tempted for a moment then shrugged apathetically. "It wouldn't matter. There's no way to guarantee that the same thing wouldn't happen again. And probably no one would want to anyway."
"I'd want to," she said earnestly. "I'll be older then and could make sure you'd be safe. I'd do it now if I could." She'd never told him she'd asked her parents if there was some way they could take Sev in or that they'd cried as they tried to explain why it wasn't possible. She never would.