Note: I own nothing. All things belong to J.K. Rowling, except for the song lyrics, which belong to The Smiths.
Note 2: This story takes place between Lily and Severus's 4th and 5th school year (during the last summer of their friendship), making them 15 years old. Thanks for reading, please review!
And in the darkened underpass
I thought oh God, my chance has come at last
But then a strange fear gripped me and I
Just couldn't ask
- The Smiths, "There is a light that never goes out"
That damn rain.
He felt cold to his bones, his soaked clothes making him shiver. The underpass was dark and damp, and on both ends of it, the rain poured down as though a mighty sea had opened up right above the concrete ceiling. He really couldn't understand what was so funny, but she was laughing, her eyes crinkling.
"It's been years – years! - since I've been in the rain like this!", she said and sounded as though nothing could've pleased her more than being stuck here. She threw her damp red locks over her shoulder. They settled on her back with a wet, splashy sound.
He sneered, then shivered violently.
"Oh, great, glad to see someone's happy. Please do tell me, which method of dying do you prefer - to freeze to death, or to drown?" he mocked and eyed the curtains of water which separated them two from the rest of the world. All the sound was oddly muffled by the sound of the water hitting concrete. Then he looked at her. She looked just as thoroughly soaked as he felt.
"Don't be such a wet blanket. Quite literally, mind you -", she laughed again, "because if we do die, there's no need to sound so depressed about it. At least we'd die in great company, huh?"
"If not for a particularly great cause", he mumbled and averted his eyes, feeling his face heat up. Her shirt was wet, and he had seen the outline of dark lace through the fabric.
"It shouldn't take long, I think. It's raining too hard for it to last long", she said hopefully and eyed at the puddles which were slowly reaching their feet. "Let's just wait a few more minutes."
She tossed her hair again, and the wet sound rang in his head for much longer than it should've. He thought of other wet things, other wet sounds.
A truck passed over them, the sound of it humming through the concrete. A large splash of water spilled over one of the open sides of the underpass. He leaned against the wall and tried to shake the water off his shoes.
"The last time I was this soaked, was that time when we were supposed to sneak to the factory roof to look at Saturn", he said slowly, staring at his feet, which he could hardly see through the darkness. "And you got grounded and couldn't come -"
"Yes!" she said. "I remember that time! I had climbed half out of the window when it started raining like mad -", she laughed again, "- and my mum caught me when she came to get the patio furniture in – but you didn't wait for me, did you? It was raining so bad -"
"No", he said. "I barely got out of the door when it started raining. Figured you wouldn't come. We wouldn't have seen Saturn anyway."
"True. Probably would've slipped off the factory roof and broken our necks instead," she said. "How's that for a redundant death, huh?"
He shrugged and said nothing.
"But hey – we should do it this summer. I mean, if the weather improves at all..."
"All right", he agreed and lifted his eyes. Then he shivered again. He could no longer feel his toes, his shoes soaked so thoroughly that he might've just as well been standing there with no shoes on.
Her face fell.
"God, this is so ridiculous! Wish we could just use magic. We could light a fire or something", she said.
"Told you", he said. His sarcastic voice was undermined by the slight tremble of his teeth chattering. "We're not getting out of here alive. I'm betting my money on death by freezing."
"Come here, then", she said and opened her arms.
He stared at her.
"Might as well go down together, huh?" she said lightly.
He didn't move immediately. For a moment he thought she was joking, but she just stood there and looked at him earnestly, still holding her arms open.
He felt torn between his desire to go and melt into her receptive arms, and between his immediate need to build up walls; to reject such an alien form of affection. But the former desire proved to be stronger - of course it was – and he pushed himself off the cold wall and cautiously walked through the puddles towards her. He hoped his face feigned an adequate amount of disinterest. She wrapped her arms around him, and for a moment he felt very awkward and uncomfortable, but then, almost exuberantly pleased.
Her clothes were damp and cold, so was her skin. But her body felt too soft and that was all he could think about. Her hair smelled floral and soapy.
Did he just imagine it? Did she press herself against him a little firmer than was necessary? Was it normal for a friend – a purely platonic friend – to press her head against his neck like that, as though she was was making sure his blood was still coursing through his veins, that his heart was still beating? Oh, it certainly was beating.
"I'm not cold anymore, actually", she mumbled from somewhere in the vicinity of his ear. Her voice hummed through him when she spoke. A mad thought crossed his mind. This may be the closest I will ever be to anybody in my entire life.
He tightened his fingers around her back and said nothing. The water from her shirt was soaking through his, but he no longer cared about the cold. A messy jumble of shameful, aching words danced on his tongue, begging for release – but they made no sense, he couldn't arrange them, they didn't fit, none of them. He wished he could push his mind into hers, to push the tangle of emotions into her very core. He wanted her to know. But he didn't want to say it.
She lifted her eyes. Had she ever been this close to him before? He couldn't read her eyes at all. Another mad thought danced on the edges of his mind - was she doing this on purpose, was there a plan, a strategy behind what was happening? - her lips were so close, they were bluish pink and slightly parted, and he wanted to know if they were cold or warm, if the inside of her mouth was hot...
A humiliating need was building inside of him.
He stepped away from her, shaking her arms off almost briskly and crossing his own, shielding himself from her.
"I don't think it's stopping any time soon", he said and turned towards the downpour. "We better just run through."
He turned to look at her when she didn't reply. She stood where he'd left her, and she had a strange, dark look in her eyes which he didn't understand. But then her expression changed and she smiled her light, if a little pink-nosed, smile.
"I think you're right, Sev", she said. "Let's just run through. I guess the worst case scenario is that you get a proper hair wash for once."
But she said it warmly, using a completely different voice than Potter and his posse would've used in relation to his hair. He couldn't help but push the wet, stray locks out of his eyes anyway. His insides were still burning for her and he hoped she wouldn't notice.
"C'mon then!" She said and then she was gone in a flash of red hair, her form looking oddly blurred through the rain as she stopped beyond the curtain of downpour. He wondered if he had missed some chance, some tiny moment of time which could've changed everything...
He followed her, the harsh droplets hitting his face almost painfully as he exited the shelter. She was running in front of him, and his eyes were so full of water he could hardly see more than the red of her hair.
He thought of that time, years ago, when he'd sat on the roof of the factory, cold to his core, and shivering as he looked down hoping to catch a glimpse of her red hair among the muddy, industrial landscape. She had never come. Finally he'd climbed back down, trying not to let his fingers slip from the cold metal bars of the emergency ladder, awkwardly holding the telescope in one hand.