The Hogwarts Express trundled along the countryside, serene and blissful and nostalgic on the outside, but inside trembling with the excitement of the summer looming ahead on the tracks. The train would not arrive for hours, and had left Hogsmeade not ten minutes ago, but the corridor between compartments rustled with activity - a gaggle of second-year girls giggling and whispering and shhing there way through to the compartments of equally irksome second-year boys, a group of thuggish Gryffindor boys hanging onto the frames of compartment doors, a Hufflepuff couple sharing a tender moment amidst curious first-year onlookers (a moment that would inevitably end in snogging quite inappropriate for first-year ogglers) - all in the bittersweet, awkward rush to say their goodbyes until next year.
A fifth-year Slytherin boy with curtains of greasy black hair and a peculiar air of distance sat alone in his compartment, his head against the window, trying and failing to ignore the sociable students outside as ultimately as they were ignoring him, despite his wide open compartment door.
Severus Snape was feeling rather restless. It was not O.W.L.s that worried him (he was unwaveringly certain that he had scored at the very least 'Exceeds Expectations' on any of them, and was even confident in his "Outstanding"s in Potions and Defense Against the Dark Arts), nor was it the gloom of leaving Hogwarts (although that did weigh on him heavily - Spinners End was not an overly pleasant place to spend two months when company was uncertain and family was unstable). He was simply waiting for someone to join him in his curiously empty compartment.
A flash of deep red waved by across the open door and Snape's head snapped up, but only to see that the source was a gold and red Griffyndor scarf trailing behind an older girl. He slumped back but still kept his increasingly bleak, colorless eyes on the corridor.
Snape knew he needn't sit alone - Rosier, Avery, Mulciber and Wilkes had a compartment only a few doors down. The boys were significantly rowdier than Snape, and had recently been a source of complications in the his life, but he knew they would welcome him amongst them and share with him their dark, fascinating tales and ambitions and secrets. But Snape was not the kind of person who flinched away from solitude, and right now, there was only one person he felt compelled to share his compartment with, as he had every single time he boarded the Hogwarts Express.
A deep scarlet passed Snape's compartment door, this time in a gentle billow of hair instead of a flash of wool. Snape's gaze followed it, and he rose as it disappeared, peering around the compartment door. Lily Evans was walking alone through the train's corridor hesitantly, as if - Snape's hands clenched numbly on the door frame - looking for a place to sit. She had never sat with anyone besides Snape before.
"Lily," he called to her as silkily as he could. Lily turned at the sound of her name, and when her bright green eyes met Snape's, her face settled into a subtle smile that held no warmth. It was polite, distant, and it made Snape's stomach lurch uncomfortably - and not in the good way.
"Severus," she sighed, and his stomach dropped a little further at the awkward, resigned way his name sounded. "Er, do you need something?"
Snape wasn't quite sure how to respond to that without sounding desperate. His hands slid down the door frame and he stepped hesitantly outside.
"Well, I -" he sounded much more flustered than he wanted to, "I just thought you might be looking for somewhere to sit."
Lily bit her lip, her expression of pity making Snape feel sick. This was exactly the reaction he feared since that fateful day only a week ago, where those loathsome boys humiliated him in front of the school, and he had made perhaps the biggest mistake of his life: calling his supposed best friend, who had gone to his defense at his most desperate hour, that unforgivable word...
"You're not sitting with Mulciber and all them?" she asked casually, not trying to hide the coolness in her voice.
Before Snape could answer, a compartment door behind Lily slid open. To his utter horror, out poked the conceited head of Snape's worst enemy, apparently laughing at something inside his own compartment. The bespeckled boy saw Lily, and his expression carefully transposed into that of complete coolness and uncaring ease.
"Hey, Evans," James Potter called, and Snape couldn't help but notice Potter's superior smoothness. "Looking for a compartment?"
Lily looked around and saw Potter, and that Snape couldn't see and evaluate the expression on her face was maddening. Potter seemed to notice Snape just then, and as their eyes locked, the loathing in the corridor was palpable.
"Unless," Potter added, "you'd rather cuddle up with Snivellus."
Snape's lip curled, eyes flashing in revulsion, and he withdrew his hand inside his robes to grip his wand. Potter opened his compartment more fully to reveal Sirius Black looking up excitedly from a conversation with the werewolf (as Snape had learned recently), Remus Lupin. Black looked from Potter to Snape, grinning, but Lupin paid none of them any heed and spoke to someone else in the compartment.
"Oh, shut up, James," Lily snapped, and Snape couldn't stop his smirk. He felt a soaring feeling at Potter's unnerved disappointment. "I would rather spend the entire trip alone in the toilet than be shut up with you four."
"Oh, Evans," Black swooned, "that hurts, really."
"Don't be a prat," Potter hissed at Black, clearly worried about his standing with the girl he would never deserve.
"Stay out of this, Potter," Snape snarled. He was very keen on continuing his conversation with Lily. He was taken aback, however, when she bristled and rounded on him.
"Severus, you can go sit with your little cult," she said waspishly, her almond-shaped eyes unable to look ugly, even in anger. "I wouldn't want to ruin your reputation with them. What would they think if you sat with a mudblood?" Snape flinched a tiny bit.
Lily stormed past him as Black chortled arrogantly. Snape saw her stop at the door of a compartment filled with other Gryffindor girls who would always hate him, and after a cheery exchange, went inside, not even glancing back at Snape and the other boys.
"Bad luck, mate," Snape heard Black say as he slid the door closed, and their muffled conversation continued, as if Lily Evans meant nothing.
Snape slid his door closed and returned to his seat, his hands balled to fists on his lap, his face more pallid than ever. That had gone far worse than he had dreamed, and his insides felt hollow and empty. Despair fell over him like a veil.
He settled this head back against the glass, trying to banish thoughts of the girl in his head, dreams in which she ran back to his compartment and said she had made a mistake, and that Snape meant too much too abandon over one little word...
He couldn't assuage the feeling that this summer would be an absolutely dreadful one.
A/N: Thank's for reading! Please review! Tell me what you think! Thanks!