Lily always seemed to be smiling, even on the gloomiest of days. She is my whole world, my sun, moon and stars. There would be no love in my life without her. None whatsoever. She has no idea, and I wish I could tell her, but I don't want to take away her joy. If she knew what my family was like, she would want to save me. You see though, she already has saved me, a million times over, she just doesn't know it. Lily is a curious soul, she is always asking why I never take her to meet my family, or why I would rather stay at Hogwarts over the holiday season, and one of these days I will have no choice but to tell her everything. Simply watching her lay in the grass, among the wildflowers, her red hair falling over her face, sleeping so soundly, gives me peace. I wish I felt as safe and comfortable in nature as Lily is, I've always struggled with sleeping, I've never truly felt safe sleeping, which is why I hardly sleep at all. Lily can fall asleep anywhere, and so she does. She has a very calming presence, she keeps my anxiety levels low when i'm around her.
"Severus, do you always watch me sleep?" Lily has a quizzical look on her face, I have finally been caught. I knew this day would come, I was too caught up in my own thoughts to notice that she had woken up.
"Umm no, that would be strange. I was just lost in thought, and happened to be looking down at you." Lily's facial expression is not giving me much comfort. She doesn't believe a single word that just came out of my mouth.
"Alright Severus, I believe you." I wish I could pretend that she does in fact believe me. I am mortified. I'm such a prat!
"Lily, what do you want to do today?" I asked in hopes she would forget completely how big of a creep I am.
"Hmmm, I don't know. Let's do something new! We practically do the same thing every day." There was a pang of desperation in her voice. Lily needs change, she craves adventure. Which is a serious issue over the summer holiday because there is not much for us to do when we're home. Godricks Hollow is a quiet village, and since we are not of age, we can't practice magic while away from Hogwarts. Which leaves us to our own devices when it comes to fun.
"Lily, there is nothing new for us to do in this godforsaken town. We have exhausted all possible options." Lily lets out a dramatic sigh and throws her hands above her head as she lays in the grass.
"Severus! It's only been two weeks! We still have ten to go. I'm going mad! Is it possible to die of boredom?" I think she might actually be serious. In a sense I suppose Lily could die of boredom, not literally, of course, but due to her intense boredom she will find a way to entertain herself and that often times results in getting into trouble. And when Lily and I get into trouble, danger always follows. Danger that may kill us one of these days.
"I know, but what else is there to do? And no, I am not interested in doing something that could quite possibly kill us." Lily and I have gone on far too many dangerous adventures for my lifetime, I would be happy living a risk free life. I wish Lily could endure such a lifestyle, however I know she will be mischievous until the day she dies.
"Well...Severus….we never go to your house. That would be something new!" Fuck! How am I going to tell her absolutely fucking not without sounding suspicious in any sort of way? Lily is eyeing me suspiciously already, she can read me like a book.
"My house is crap. There isn't anything interesting to do there. We would be just as bored there as we are here." Lily looks sad, this isn't the reaction I expected. I thought she would protest or at least give me her most wicked glare. I can't take it when she's upset, especially when I know i'm the one who caused her such anguish.
"Severus, are you ashamed of me? Do you think your family won't like me… because i'm a mudblood?" Her voice is weak and I can see tears welling in her eyes. I can't believe she thinks that! I could never be ashamed of her! Or care at all that she is muggle born! She has no idea. And now might be the time, I have to tell her about my family. I can't let her think so low of herself and that she isn't my entire world. The love of my life.
"Lily, it's not you i'm ashamed of. I'm hurt you would even think that! It's my family that I am ashamed of. They don't deserve to know you." Sadness has been replaced with confusion. Which means I am about to be berated with questions.
"Severus, why are you so ashamed of your family?" I want to lie to her, so badly, but I can't. I could never lie to Lily, even though I feel that lying in this case would protect her.
"I've been trying to avoid this conversation, but I knew that I would eventually have to tell you. But I need you to promise me something first, can you do that for me? Please." Lily can sense the desperation in my voice, she can tell this is going to be one of the hardest things I have ever done. Lily has taken my hands and is staring deeply into my eyes.
"Of course, Severus. Whatever you need." Her kind voice sends a wave of relief over me, I know I can trust her. The thing about Lily is, she feels so deeply, that once I tell her what my father does to me, she will feel my misery almost as deeply as I do. Something I wish upon no one, not even my greatest enemy.
"I need you to promise that you won't get involved and that you will not repeat what I am about to tell you to a single soul. Can you promise me that?" Lily can see how serious I am. She takes a deep breath and exhales slowly, she's afraid. She fears what I am about to reveal to her.
"I promise." I don't think I can look at her while I do this. I can't watch the life drain from her face, her joy being sucked from her soul.
"Lily, we don't have to do this. I would rather not share any of this with you, but I also can't lie to you." I really hope she changes her mind. But it's highly unlikely.
"No, I want you to tell me everything. You're my best friend, and you shouldn't have to carry this all on your own. That's what friends are for, Severus." Without her, I would be dead. I've thought of death so many times, but when Lily came into my life, death wasn't so appealing to me anymore. She's given me life.
"Alright. I will tell you everything." I closed my eyes, held onto Lily's delicate hands and confessed everything.
As I revealed to Lily that my disturbing father tortures me with the unforgivable curses every night when he comes home, I could feel Lily's tears fall onto my hand, which was desperately clutching hers. I kept my eyes shut as I exposed every gruesome detail. I even told her of the time that I had nearly died, my father had conducted the cruciatus curse on me longer than usual one night, when I was nine, around the time I first noticed Lily. My father is intelligent, and skilled in the art of torture, he knows how long a person can be cursed for before they die. Usually, my father was much more careful, he would stop torturing me far before I would physically die, my heart and soul however, died long ago. This one night though he got carried away, my father got high off of watching people suffer, he is a sick man who does not deserve to exist. When he realized that he had taken it too far, he stood over my limp, barely conscious body, and the last thing that I remember before slipping into unconsciousness was his facial expression. A facial expression that will be ingrained in my memory for the rest of my life. My father looked concerned, he was terrified that he might have killed me. I don't know if the concern was due to explaining to the police what had happened to me, and eventually being caught and then sent to Azkaban or if it was because he does love me, in his own sick and twisted way. I hope it's because he was worried about himself. My father can't feel love, he doesn't understand what love is. There is no way. Dark, psychotic people like him don't feel anything at all. He doesn't deserve to feel love. I woke up the next morning, alone. My parents had gone off to work, just like any other day, and left me to heal myself. I honestly wish I hadn't woken up that day.
My mother, although she does not physically practice any of the unforgivable curses on me is just as bad as my father, because she stands by and says nothing. She fears my father more than I do. I have begged her so many times to take us away from him but she is convinced that he will find us and kill us both. I have never been able to understand why she can watch her only child in so much pain. I don't know if my father does the same to her or if him torturing me is her own form of torture. I've always wished I had a stronger mother, and if I get the chance to escape, I hope that I can get her to come with me.
Lily hasn't spoken a word since I stopped talking. I told her everything. I'm afraid to open my eyes, I don't want to see Lily in pain, pain that I have caused her. The tears i've been fighting have finally broken free and are now streaming down my face. Lily is no longer holding my hand, she is now holding onto my face, willing me to open my eyes and look at her.
"Severus, please look at me." Her voice is serene. After a few more silent moments, I finally build up the courage to open my eyes. I let out a calming breath, lift my head and stare straight into Lily's ocean blue eyes. She isn't in pain, her expression is of admiration, but I don't understand.
"Severus, you are the strongest person that I have ever met." She's crying again and has now climbed into my lap. Lily and I sat there for what felt like hours, crying into each other's arms. I feel as if a weight has finally been lifted off of my chest, I feel like I can breath again. I'm no longer alone.
"What do we do now?" I really don't know what Lily has to say about all of this, but knowing her she is going to want to do something about this and since I have her, I am no longer afraid.
"You're not going back there, I hope you know that." Lily's tone is harsh, she is very serious about me never stepping foot into my house again. I just wish that was a possibility, convincing her is going to be incredibly difficult. She is the most stubborn person I know.
"Lily, you know that isn't possible." I desperately wish it were though. Lily no longer looks angry, she looks more determined than anything. I know this look anywhere, she is not taking no for answer.
"Severus, nothing is impossible. We will find a way! I can't let you go back there!" I have never seen her this angry before, and Lily is always getting angry about injustice.
"Lily, I have to. They will come looking for me and I don't want to put anyone in danger, especially you." I'm starting to regret bringing her into this at all, I don't want her getting hurt. It's too late though, I have already hurt her. I can see it in her beautiful eyes, she's in pain because she knows I am. There really is no going back now.
"Nonsense Severus! I'm not saying we can do this by ourselves. We need to find Dumbledore, he'll know what to do!" I wish it were that easy. Lily looks so excited and relieved that she may have found a solution to my problem. However, she has no idea how elusive Dumbledore is when Hogwarts is not in session. He is not an easy wizard to track down, especially when we are not permitted to use magic outside of Hogwarts.
"Lily, Dumbledore is incredibly difficult to track down when school is not in session! No one ever knows where he goes! And we cannot use any magic, otherwise we will be in huge trouble and I will be sent back to my parents immediately." Lily looks defeated, and I hate that I have made her feel this way. I didn't want any of this, I wish I could go back and never say anything at all. The peaceful, happy girl sleeping in the meadow is gone and it's all my fault.
"Well, can we at least tell my parents? They might be able to help!" This is what I was afraid of, I don't want Lily's family getting involved. I've already put her in danger, I don't need her sister and parents to be in danger too.
"Lily, I don't want anyone else knowing, I told you that already. And you promised. I don't want your family to be put into danger." Based on Lily's current facial expression, she thinks I am crazy which only tells me that she does not understand the sensitivity of this situation.
"Severus, they might be able to help! I know they are not magical or anything but they are adults, they might know what to do. I just can't sit around here and do nothing!" I understand where she is coming from completely, I just can't get her parents involved. They are muggles, they will not be able to defend themselves against my father if he finds out they helped me escape him in any way. And as horrid as Lily's sister Petunia is, I don't want anything happening to her either. Family is family, and no one should die for me.
"Lily, your parents are muggles. If my father found out they helped me escape him at all or even know about what he does to me, he will kill them. He's killed before and he will not hesitate, especially with muggles, he doesn't care for them at all." Lily is enraged, and she has every right to be. This entire situation is frustrating and it is starting to look like we are going to need to come up with a clever plan to find Dumbledore without using magic.
"You're right. I guess we are just going to have to find Dumbledore on our own. Now, where to begin…?" I can see that Lily is trying her hardest to come up with a single idea, and I can't express in words how much it means to me. No one has ever cared for me as much as Lily, I just wish I knew how to show her my gratitude.
Lily and I sat in the meadow for the rest of the afternoon brainstorming possible ways for us to locate Dumbledore. In the end we decided that we would need to contact another professor from Hogwarts to see if they knew of his whereabouts or knew someone else that did. We decided to visit Professor Slughorn's home in downtown London, this however was tricky because we could not tell our parents where we were off to. They would never let us visit London on our own and so late in the day. I insisted that we wait until morning but Lily didn't want to wait another second, she wanted to find Dumbledore so that I would never be tortured by my father again. Lily and I stopped by her house on our way to the train station and left a note for her parents so that they would not worry too much, but Lily has very loving parents, and she knows that they will worry about her and that she will inevitably be grounded when she gets home. Lily is a hard girl to argue with, so I said nothing about how horrible I felt that she was going to get into so much trouble with her parents, but I know she doesn't care at all. She would do anything for me and she knows that I would do anything for her.
Once we grabbed some rations, money from Lily's secret stash, and found Professor Slughorn's address in the directory we ran for the train station. We made it just in the knick of time, the final train headed for London was arriving at the station and we managed to jump onto the train right before it left. Lily and I keeled over laughing as we tried to catch our breath, I was overcome with such joy, even though the reason for us being on the train was nothing to feel any sort of happiness over. That was the sort of effect Lily had over me, even in my darkest hour, she brought out the best in me. Once we caught our breath I looked over at Lily, who was watching me and saw something in her eyes that I had never seen before. I've always know that Lily loves me, but I always believed it was in a strictly friendly way, not romantic at all. I figured a girl as incredible, brave and beautiful as Lily could never love a timid, nerdy boy like me. But in that moment, I saw a flash of love unlike any I had ever seen in her eyes before. I however, the stupid boy that I am, brushed it off as nothing, because I didn't want to get my hopes up, make a fool of myself and end up crushed. I also would never do anything that could possibly ruin our friendship, that would be more painful than knowing for a fact that Lily does not and could not love me more than a brother type. I can manage being her friend, just being around her makes me happy, and I don't need more than that at this point.
The train ride to London is about three hours, we arrived at seven thirty. When Lily and I exited the train, we pulled out the map that we grabbed from her father's study and started to navigate our way to Professor Slughorn's home. Lily and I had not thought about whether he would be home or not, he could be on holiday in another country or city for all we knew. We both hoped that our trip didn't end up being a colossal waste of our time. It took us about an hour to arrive at Professor Slughorn's townhouse in East London. Lily and I both took a deep breath, looked at each other and then knocked on his door. Professor Slughorn answered the door within five seconds flat and was absolutely stunned to see the two of us standing on his doorstep at eight thirty at night in the middle of summer holiday.
"My! What on Earth are the two of you doing here? And better yet, how did you find me?" Two very good questions which of course deserved answers, but we were crunched for time and needed to find Dumbledore as fast as possible. My father has been home for over an hour and I was due back about thirty minutes ago. He is going to start to get suspicious within the next hour or so.
"Professor Slughorn! We don't have time, we need your help to find Headmaster Dumbledore!" Lily of course took initiative and got the ball rolling. I seriously can always count on her.
"Why do the two of you need Albus so desperately?" Slughorn is a highly intelligent man, he knew something was up as soon as he saw the two of us standing in front of him. We may have no choice but to tell him everything that is happening. I suppose I never thought about Professor Slughorn being able to help us, we may not even need Dumbledore anymore. Lily glanced over at me, willing me to answer his question but I couldn't go through that again, so I grabbed Lily's hand, giving her the okay to tell him herself.
"Well, sir, Severus told me today that his father tortures him every single night with the unforgivable curses. And almost killed him once. He can't go back there and we didn't know who else to go to for help!" Professor Slughorn's eyes fell onto me, great sadness and anger fell over his face.
"Please, come inside! I'll put on the kettle and we can figure this all out together." Lily and I followed closely behind Professor Slughorn and found ourselves in his kitchen. His house was quaint, it had a feminine touch to it, which made me wonder where and who Professor Slughorn's wife was. Professor Slughorn gave us each a cup of tea and biscuits, Lily and I devoured our biscuits which prompted Professor Slughorn to put more food out onto the table for us. Lily and I had not packed nearly enough food before we left for London, and were very grateful for Professor Slughorn's hospitality and warmth.
"Thank you so much sir! I didn't realize how hungry I was until just now." Lily giggled while stuffing another biscuit into her mouth. I however had lost my appetite.
"Now, Severus, I need you to tell me about your father. I won't be able to help unless I know the whole story." Professor Slughorn sat back in his chair and watched me closely as he awaited my response.
I explained everything to Professor Slughorn and the entire time I was telling him the pain and anguish I suffer at home, Lily held my hand. I looked up only a few times at Professor Slughorn to gauge his response, the entire time I was speaking he was watching me very closely and absorbing every word that flowed out of my mouth. I tasted my own salty tears as I disclosed the night I almost died. Although I had already told my story to Lily, it was still just as hard telling Professor Slughorn. Thinking and talking about the horror I go through at home is never easy, and I am so proud of myself for being able to do it at all, let alone more than once in a day. And i know Lily is incredibly proud of me and that means the world to me. Once I finished explaining to Professor Slughorn our reason for traveling out to see him, he broke the silence first.
"Severus, I am terribly sorry. I had no idea. Lily is right, you are not going back there." It felt as if I could breath for the first time. Telling Lily made me feel better but knowing that Professor Slughorn could help made me want to cry tears of joy, the sort of tears I had never dreamed of shedding in my lifetime.
"Do you think we need Dumbledore?" I asked, hoping that we didn't since it would all go much faster if Professor Slughorn could directly help me.
"Not at the moment, I feel that he will be of greater use later. But for now, I can help you. You will stay with me, and I will contact Dumbledore to deal with your parents." The emotions I felt in this moment were contradictory, I was happy that I would never have to go home again but I was also devastated to no longer live within minutes of Lily. I of course, being fourteen years of age, knew that I needed to stay with Professor Slughorn and that Lily and I would be together at Hogwarts for the majority of the year.
"Thank you, Professor. You have no idea how much this means to me." Professor Slughorn squeezed my hand and looked deeply into my eyes.
"Severus, you are the strongest young man that I have ever known. And you will be alright, you will achieve great things in your life. And I am grateful that I am able to save you from anguish that no person should ever know." In that moment I began to cry harder than I ever have before. Lily took me into her arms and I cried for what felt like ages. Once I had cried all of the tears my body could conjure, Professor Slughorn waved to Lily and I to follow him up the stairs.
"I apologize for the room situation, I was not expecting company, as the two of you know. One of my spare rooms has a lot of miscellaneous files scattered on the floor. I hope you don't mind." The fact that he is apologizing at all, is ridiculous. I would be happy sleeping in a tent in his backyard. I'm just happy to be away from my father.
"Of course not! Don't be ridiculous Professor, it is so kind of you to allow us to stay the night. And for Severus to live here indefinitely, of course." Lily looked so peaceful and happy again, my favorite side of Lily.
"Good. Right then, Lily you get the messier room since you will not be permanently staying here. Also we better ring your parents so they know that you are safe." Lily let out a big sigh, nodded then headed for the kitchen to call her parents. I ran after her to make sure that they know that she did this for me and that she can tell them my story. Maybe that will lessen her punishment a bit.
"Severus, it's fine. I don't mind getting into trouble. Now that you are gone, who else am I going to hang out with anyways?" Lily grinned at me as she said this and then she disappeared into the kitchen to call her family. I wandered back upstairs to help Professor Slughorn prepare the beds. As I walked back upstairs, my exhaustion, from the day finally hit. I knew that once my head hit my pillow I would sleep longer and better than I have slept my entire life. The thought of a good night's sleep made me want to cry again, but it was impossible for me to produce more tears.
Once Lily and I were settled into our respective rooms, Professor Slughorn wished us both goodnight and headed off to bed himself. It took me a few minutes to drift off to sleep, but just as I was about to slip into the deepest sleep of my life, I felt something come up behind me. Lily had crawled into bed and wrapped her arms around my waist. I stiffened when I realized what was happening, which prompted Lily to pull away.
"I'm sorry, I'll go back to my room." Lily whispered while sliding off of my bed.
"No, please stay. You just startled me, that's all." The desperation in my voice was very much apparent, I thanked God that it was dark in my room and Lily could not see how red my face had turned.
Lily crawled back in behind me but as soon as she did I turned to face her. I don't know what came over me but I began to stroke her soft, freckled cheek and ran my fingers rhythmically through her long, wavy hair. I closed my eyes and took in her sweet scent and the feeling of her body so close to mine.
"Lily, thank you for saving me." Lily then took my face in her hands and kissed me. I felt it throughout my entire body, her soft lips met mine and the sensation was unreal. She loves me just as much as I love her. We kissed for what felt like hours and fell asleep in each other's arms. I awoke the next morning before Lily, her head rested on my chest and her free hand was intertwined with mine. I watched as Lily slept peacefully on my chest, and in that moment I knew that I could never lose her. She was the love of my life, and I was never going to let her go.