a/n: The idea of Lily and Snape having had some kind of strange relationship (not necessarily lovers, no, that would have been much to clean and peachy or the them) has always been appealing to me. And Snape's character is really interesting. So! Anticipation for Deathly Hallows, and an urge to write a LilyxSnape that fits with my characterizations of them, led to this story. Now, for a disclaimer:
I do not own Harry Potter. Jo Rowling is the brilliant author who came up with the series, and I believe Warner owns the rights to the movies. This is only a fanfiction, from which I gain no profit (it's only for fun! To feed my fangirl soul! Have mercy!). :o
Reviews are appreciated. :) I really do like to know what I did right, and what I did wrong. While I'm perfectly content with an, "oh, I liked that!" or whatever, a little more detail is extra-appreciated. :D It's possible that I'll continue this, but only a bit. It's not really... mutli-chaptered. Just a series of oneshots. And only if I feel like it. :)
Poitons. Slughorn is beaming, and fawning over his favorite pupil. No, not him, Slughorn never cared much for him. Too greasy. Too common. No charm to make up for his dull surname.
Severus is looking down, intent on his potion. But, he pauses while he should be crushing the juices out of the mulberries before him. He pauses, and, hopefully, inconspicuously, his eyes roll up over the steam of his sleeping draught. To her.
The first thing that he makes out is her flaming red hair. Then her vibrant green eyes. Slughorn moves on, and Lily rolls her eyes a bit, still grinning. Severus has been observing her all year, in these classes. And the two years before this. He knows that she likes and dislikes the attention in near-equal measures. From what Severus knows of her nature, she wouldn't feel right taking the attention. She would see through Slughorn, not want praises spoken from self-serving lips. But she is not a severe person, no, she would not think him all-bad.She would never think ill of anyone, not without great reason.
She catches him staring and, through the fog of his potion, gives him an unsure smile.He gives her a surly look. Mutters, under his breath.
She looks offended, and, with a wrinkle of her nose, turns back to her potion.
She sees him, once, nose bleeding and cursing under his breathe. Not the best of positions. Oh, nothing spectacular. The usual beating. He's staggering down the hallway and leaving a trail of blood, clutching at his proclaimed 'over-large' nose and trying not to let the salty, burning sensations in his eyes spill.
She nearly drops her books on sight of him.
"What happened to you?" she asks, darting to his side, supporting him. In her haste, her books end up falling to the floor, thudding in the silence.
He pushes her away, but she does not leave. Merely picks up her books and fumbles through her bag. After a futile search, she mumbles something to herself nervously and darkly. She takes out her wand, flicks it with another mumble, and hands him the towel that has appeared.
She surveys him more closely. He keeps murmuring for her to leave him be, filthy girl, but he knows that he's too weak to say them audibly.
She takes his arm, and he wants to jerk it from her hands. Her hands are pale and smooth, and they burn. He has the vague impression that he will never forget where she touched him.
"What happened?"
"Hanged me upside down." He doesn't meet her eyes. He tries, half-heartedly, to stop the bleeding in his nose by gagging the blood back with the cloth. It doesn't work. "Hit me. Nothing particularly refined." These words are still a mutter, but at least they're audible.
Her eyes, he finds when he looks up, have widened considerably.
"They hit you?" She sounds so incredulous that he almost wants to retort with sarcasm, or fling her away and stumble into the dingy, abandoned bathroom as planned. But he doesn't.
"Yes, Evans, they hit me." It's strange to call her Evans. He's never really talked to her before. In his mind, he usually calls her nothing. Or sometimes 'mudblood'.
"That's – that's so- cruel – and - and unrefined!" she said, unwittingly using his words in her righteous fury. "To hang to upside down with Levicorpus, and – and to hit you when you clearly had a great disad-"
"Much easier that way. Any brute can use his fists." His voice is still no more than a
contemptuous, low-toned flow of sound.
She just stares for a moment. Without thanking her for the towel, he walks past her. He has regained some of his composure.
"Severus, if you have any trouble stopping the bleeding, I might have a charm that will work." She's not smiling, but she looks concerned. Tentative, almost.
"Thank you," he murmurs finally, and he walks away as quickly as his worn legs will go. It feels even stranger to have him call her Severus than for him to call her Evans. It feels strangest to express gratitude.
Behind him, he hears the jeers and whistles of the boys who'd just bloodied his face. He hears Lily shout something unpleasant at them, and his face goes warm as his step somehow manages to quicken. The bleeding hasn't stopped, and a tiny trickle joins the numerous stains already on his robe. Though they're hardly visible in the black, second-hand material, this robe has been stained more times than Severus cares to count.
Mudblood. Filthy, dung of a mudblood. It's none of her business.
But that night, the boys' cries from that near-empty hall are the ones that reverberate in his mind. Not so much the taunts, which are already beginning to fade and merge with others in his memory. Or the laughter, as he gasped for air, sunk to his knees with sheer pain. He recalls that he'd desperately groped for his wand, but that they'd taken it and thrown it out of his reach.
The quill in his hand begins to tremble, along with the rest of his body, in fury. His Potions book is laying open before him. It's begging him to study for his O.W.L.s. But his vindictive mind throws his body into another pursuit.
He begins to scribble furiously in his Potions book. He is in a hard, lone armchair in the corner of the Slytherin common room, surrounded by the chatter of others but in his own world. Once in a while, he will lift his wand and give it a flick or a sweep.
Now he is the only one left there, that night, when the embers of the fire have all-but-died and finally he allows himself to be pleased with his work. He gazes for a few long moments as the page, the solid black ink. The perfect revenge. He has variations scattering the page, crossed out or smeared, but one stands perfect. Unblemished in any way.
Sectrumsempra.