A/N: This is the final version of Opposites Attract. I know I have posted several over the years, even recently, but I've just never been happy with how the story was told. This story is my baby and I want to portray it in the best way possible, which brings us to "Of Eagles and Serpents". I hope you can forgive me, and that you enjoy the following. Huge thanks to iNiGmA who helped me when I got stuck.
Disclaimer: Everything belongs to JK Rowling
But If you loved me
Why did you leave me
- All I Want, Kodaline
Lily drew her knees close to her chest, wrapping her arms around them beneath the shade of a crooked and aged willow tree. Green tendrils of leaves hung in front of her, her green robes disguised amongst the foliage. She was safe here beneath the baby blue sky, flat, white clouds speckled across it, safe here upon the grass that had only just returned to life, drinking up the nutrients of a wet spring. She was safe here as she watched the house on the hill below, smoke billowing up from its chimney despite the warmness of the day.
The house was yellow, not what she had expected, but then again, had she expected any of this? It's windows were open, planters of flowers hanging beneath each with vines and petals hanging from the boxes that had grown too small. White trim hung on the edges of the house, pulling it all together. From her point upon the hill she could see the small herb garden that lay in the back, the tire swing that hung from the oak tree that had grown long ago, the tire swinging gently in the wind.
It was a home, a home she had always wanted but was never privy to. Clattering could be heard from inside, the metal clanging of pans intermingled with the joyful screech of a child, the voice of scolding that followed. Lily was witnessing a life, a normal day unfold in front of her, and she was about to change it entirely.
She stood from the perch that she had watched, her joints protesting against the movement when they had been held in one place for so long. Before now, Lily had been unable to force herself to take those steps, to mutter the words that would destroy this family. She had waited too long, but it must be done. If she didn't come here, if she didn't share her words of warning, the family would be lost forever, their bodies cold and unmoving amongst the hundreds of others that had died at her hands already.
Her feet made quiet shuffles in the grass, the people in the rural home beyond completely unaware of her presence. Her heels clacked as she reached the paved path that led to the door, flowers growing along it, spilling over onto the walkway. There was something about the untamed domestication that she loved, that she envied, a metaphor for what lay within, she supposed.
Mingled with the trilling song of birds that nestled within the trees around her, were her shoes. Click, clack, click. She had dressed up for the occasion, a foolish endeavor if there ever was one. She had chosen her finest robes, the crocodile green of her clothing bringing out a similar shade in her eyes.
She drew in a breath as she stepped to the door, the bluish gray of a stormy sky. Lily inhaled, drawing in fresh oxygen and the scent of Lilacs that hung thickly in the air. Her fingers found the bell, round and white beneath her finger, devoid of any smudges of dirt. As perfect as everything else. She heard the tinkle inside the home, the pitter patter of feet running towards her. And then, the handle was turning. There was no turning back now.
A little girl who couldn't have been much older than five stared back at her, her phthalo blue eyes streaked with black, the image of her mother. Lily added the math in her head, realizing the child in front of her was nearing six. She hadn't been wrong.
"Ava!" Called a voice from inside, red around the edges with anger. "We've talked about answering the door–" The words that were meant to follow were cut short, displeasure, perhaps a mix of fear setting in Severus' upper lip as he stared back at Lily. "Octavia, room, now." The words were barked over his shoulder, the inky haired girl obeying without a second thought.
The wadded tea towel in Severus' hands was released, thrown over his shoulder as his wand slid from its place within his sleeve, just as she had known him to keep it. "What are you doing here?" He stepped onto the walk, the door shutting behind him. His wand was trained at her chest and Lily raised her hands, hoping to instill any sense of safety, any confidence that she wasn't here to hurt him.
"He's looking for you, the Dark Lord."
"I know who you mean." His voice was rough, any inkling of friendliness between them having evaporated long ago and hid instead by pain. The stars of his galaxy shaded eyes sparkled with a madness she had so rarely seen. One that had only been directed at her in their recent times together.
"Oct–"
"Don't say her name." The hand that clasped tightly to the wand trembled, from fear or anger she wasn't sure. She was struck by the protectiveness of him, the love he felt for a child he hadn't originally wanted. She remembered when Cassia had fallen pregnant, remembered his agitation despite the fact Lily and Severus weren't on speaking terms. Staring at him now, the tendency for him to boil over was still there, but she wondered if the boy she knew was buried deep inside.
"I'm trying to protect you." She forced, her green eyes pleading with him. She wanted to shove her way past, to force her way inside the home, to hold that little girl she'd never had a chance to meet.
"Why? Why does he want us? Basilnell holds no threat."
"There's been a prophecy."
He was silent, his eyes flicking between hers. She felt the familiar tingle of legilimency, the attack she knew he so rarely used and now he used against her.
"The mind is a private thing" Severus droned, almost bored as she had read to him. "It is not to be perused at will because one is curious."
*You wouldn't do it?" Her voice pitched upward at the end, dripping in the very curiosity he spoke of. She had laid the book upon the library table they were seated at, placing her elbows on the table and chin on her fists. She waggled her eyebrows at him. "Even if I had a secret?"
He scoffed, looking up from the parchment he had been studying, his legs lazily tossed atop the desk, ankles crossed. "It's called a secret for a reason, Lils. Should you wish me to know it, you'll have to tell me."
"Feet off the desk, Snape!" Madam Pince stepped out from behind a bookshelf, her eyebrows knitted together, eyes blazing in anger. The library was her sanctuary and she expected it me treated as such. "You wouldn't like it if I came over and put my feet on your furniture, would you?"
"I'd quite like to see that, actually." Severus murmured, his feet dropping to the ground. "Mum would kill her long before I knew she was there." His voice was hushed as Madam Pince moved on, quiet enough for only Lily to hear.
"That's not what I was looking for." Severus' cut, his legilimency tentacles retreating, returning them both to reality.
"No, but perhaps it'll remind you of your manners."
"Manners aren't necessary when it comes to my family, to the safety of Octavia. He glanced over his shoulder, looking behind him and at the closed door behind which his daughter was. His eyes filled with something Lily didn't know. Perhaps memories she didn't understand. She was never entirely sure what had happened to Cassia, the girl's mother, and she hardly thought now was the time to ask.
"Severus." She began again, his neck turned back slowly, eyes meeting hers. She realized then that his wand had dropped, only centimeters, but it was lower all the same. She reached out, grabbing the hand that held his wand, forcing to his side, and he let her. "Let me help you."
"Prove it. This prophecy, what did it say?"
She glanced around herself, dragging her lip through her teeth. The village was small, each house like the last with spaces of field between them, the tall grass swaying in the wind. They were alone, utterly alone.
She closed her eyes, the memory of the prophecy forming in her mind. She had repeated it to herself on more than one occasion, had used it as reason to come here. Severus had to know, had asked to know.
"When starless black paints the night,
When no light touches the earth,
Dangers untold, the dawn of a fight
Will bloom into birth
The darkest of black,
Tinged with emerald and blue,
Colliding to crack,
The serpent for true.
Uniting in brightness,
Two hearts shall awake,
When fate meets in kindness,
For the end of the snake.
Multifaced monsters and purple hues
Death and beasts and dangers await
For great battles and the darkness that ensues
From green and blue befalls the great."
He stared back, a millimeter of space between his parted lips. "That's…that's nothing. Why does he think it's her?"
"Her birth was unusual, you know this, the Dark Lord knows this. It is for that reason he thinks it's about her."
"No, no, it can't be." His wand lowered still, though his arm hadn't fully dropped to his side. "She's just a girl." A flash of light burst into being in his eyes, a flash of terror Lily had seem only on one other occasion. The night he lost Cassia.
Severus clutched at the white sheet that covered her body, his fingers intertwined with hers, cold, unmoving. The beds of her nails we're purple, the color of death having seeped into her skin in minutes. Lily watched the heaving of his shoulders.
"No! Please! A minute more!" his voice betrayed the shattered soul within, the broken defeat that had occurred at her death. And that flash, the flash of pain, of fear, as he pleaded with Madam Pomfrey not to take her away from him, from them.
Lily wanted to go, to wrap her arms around him and let him cry against her shoulder, but those moments of closeness were gone. They had been for some time. There was nothing she could do, instead, she found herself turning from the hospital wing and taking steps back to her common room.
Giving a tiny jerk of the head, she forced herself back to reality. "Of black and blue. You can't deny you don't think of her."
Severus looked at her seriously, a crease appearing between his brows. "Everything makes me think of her."
"In this case, it causes the Dark Lord too as well."
He ran a hand down his face, heaving a sigh as it reached his chin. "I thought…" His voice trailed off, whatever words he had meant lost along with it. "How do I know I can trust you?"
Lily was silent, it was the question she had been crazy enough to assume he wouldn't ask, hopeful enough to assume he would trust her immediately. It's me. She wanted to tell him, but the mark on her arm negated all of that. She had vowed to destroy people that opposed her master. People like Severus. "I have no proof that you can, only to tell you to run, leave this place, go somewhere he won't find you."
Severus was silent and she understood. Not only was this place home, it had been the home he shared with Cassia, the last place she had existed, the only place Octavia had known. She couldn't imagine how painful it was for him to leave.
"Why are you here, Lily? Why are you…trying to save us?"
He would never understand. He'd never been on this side of the war, never been surrounded by the hatred that she had. "It's the right thing to do." She answered finally, turning away from him. She wanted him to grab her, to invite her inside, but as she turned her back on him he made no such movement, instead letting her go like he'd done far too often in the past.