The End, In Three Acts

Disclaimer: All recognisable characters are the property of JK Rowling.

Act One

They stopped talking after OWLs.

It was easy to hate her back, when she hated him. Easy to look down his nose and laugh along with his housemates, easy to sneer and swear about the uncouth, pathetic Gryffindors and the filthy, undeserving Mudbloods.

He pushed her out of his mind, carved her out of his life with precise, careful strokes. He ignored her, even though every space in the castle held her memory, their memories. There was easy, effortless comfort to be had amongst the praise and admiration heaped upon him within the inner circle of Slytherin, where wickedness so inexorably became greatness.

They ruled the underbelly of the school, and when seventh year began he, Sebastian and Nathaniel could roam the stone corridors free and proud and feared, with Slytherin green and reputation to precede them.

He looked away when she was announced as Head Girl; inclined his head to Nathaniel's lewd comment and laughed along with the others, and it was easy. Simple. He hated her, she hated him.

The others had their fathers' fortunes to fall back on, but he had to study, like always. The common room held too much noise and too many distractions, in the late hours when the library was closed. The Seventh-Floor Room, the secret place where Lucius and Narcissa used to disappear for days on end, way back then, was perfect.

It looked like a sitting room, when he slipped through the new door; small and cosy and warm with a huge, roaring fire, and he could sit all night, pouring over his books in silence.

*

Lily paced, back and forth, in straight lines. Making precise turns on each end, thinking hard.

I need to talk to Sev.

Three times over, and it was the faintest pop! when the gold doorhandle appeared.

It was different from last time, years ago; an older, mature room more suited to the adults they had somehow grown into. She saw him, leaning back in an ornate chair by the fire, wand raised and making quick, complicated little movements in the air. Some spell of his own creation, no doubt. She'd been so careful, for a year now, to never look directly at him, so she had not seen how much older he'd become.

Even sitting, she could tell he'd grown tall; limbs still lanky but stronger now, fingers precise upon his wand, eyes focused. He'd grown into his sharp features, too; the long, angled nose, the heavy, dark brow, and it all seemed to suit him, much better than the softness of childhood ever had. She'd heard, peripherally, of the pretty, pureblooded Slytherin girls who hung off his crowd of boys; men, now, and she couldn't help feeling spiteful, standing like a trespasser in his little haven, watching him work.

He noticed, eventually, and leapt quickly to his feet; sharp reflexes remaining from a childhood she knew was spent dodging blows. On his feet with his wand raised, that dark hair grown long to hang past his shoulders, he'd looked frightening; deadly and strong and fast and no longer a child, at all. She'd shivered, hands hanging at her sides, as always not thinking to arm herself, never thinking to fight.

It hurt, so very much, looking at him. My best friend, she'd thought brokenly; the only person in the world to look at me and see only a kid, naive and foolish. To see past the gleaming school badge, the good marks and manners and joviality. He knew me, so well, she'd thought, and even now when he looks at me with hate in his eyes he still sees what I really am. A poor girl, in her mother's old hand-me-down dress, magic as rough and uncontrolled as her accent.

But he was looking at her, and he hadn't in a year, and even though it hurt, it was enough that he was looking, surely.

Act Two

"You can't just come waltzing in here, you know. As if the whole castle belongs to you."
- I don't care what that badge says -

"You're here. What gives you the right?"
- Don't make me fight you, I could never win -

"I found this place!"
- You don't belong. Mudblood, scum, filth -

"You didn't. Lucius Malfoy found this room, and only because his father told him where to look."
- I remember. I remember when you used to tell me things -

"Get out."
- You don't belong here, you don't belong with me. Not any more -

"No."
- You can't tell me what to do, Slytherin, you're not the boss of me -

"Get out!"
- I can't look at you anymore -

"I want to talk to you."
- I can't make my eyes look away now they've found you again -

"There's nothing to say. Nothing I want to hear from you."
- I can't stand your voice -

"Well, I want to say it. Please."
- One step, two steps, just a little bit further... don't point your wand at me, Sev! -

"I don't want to hear it, Lily. I don't have to listen to you any more."
- Don't plead with me, don't beg me, don't speak to me with your quiet voice, I can't stand it -

"I don't want to fight with you."
- Oh gods, oh heaven and hell, say my name again! Say it, it's all I want to hear, ever, forever, please. Say it again -

"Then what do you want?"
- You don't know what fighting is, you don't understand. All those times you looked at me with pity in your eyes. You don't know what fighting means -

"Sev, please."
- I don't know. I've never known. I'm not like you, I don't have a destiny -

" I don't want to talk to you."
- Don't. Stop. Please. No. Don't call me that -

"I know. I know you don't."
- Please don't turn your back on me, just look at me, a little longer -

"Then go away."
- I can't stand being here with you, I can't breathe the same air as you, now -

"I can't."
- Two steps, three steps, you're so close... don't you remember when we couldn't stand to have the smallest space between us? Back then? -

"Go."
- Don't touch me please, please, don't touch me -

"Sev."
- You're so familiar, I remember everything about you -

"Don't. Lil, don't."
- stop stop stop stop don't do this I can't -

"Sev."
- I can't stop myself, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, but I can't stop myself -

"Lil."
- If you start, I won't stop, Lily, please! how can we stop this if we start? -

Act Three

Hair of the darkest, bloodiest red, and it's so soft in his hands, so warm and sweet-smelling and good. She's like a vine, twining like summer around him and it's every fantasy, every imagining he's ever had, but better and worse, all at once.

Beneath the grey of the uniform she is the same; skin whiter than earthly possibility, and soft, so soft, but he's never seen her this way. Laid bare and wide-eyed with want and wracked with rushing, shallow breath. She reaches and grabs and tears at his shirt and belt and soul, small hands pulling him roughly down, right on top of her. The firelight colouring her face in red and gold. There aren't words, there is nothing to communicate more than touch me and don't stop and please, and soon even thought disappears along with good judgement and sense and reality itself. The fire dies out, and they don't notice a thing.

*

They didn't speak, at all, and two days later James Potter slung an arm around her shoulders at dinner. She smiled, and didn't pull away, and a table away - an ocean, a lifetime away - he leaned into Nathaniel's rude joke, and laughed.