My favorite scene in the books and movies was that whole summary of Snape's life, and I've always loved the relationship between Lily and him and wanted to attempt my own collection about the two, spanning from their meeting to the timeframe of the books. Thanks to a reviewer, I decided to break it into three chapters, for easier reading.
And Snape, Lily, and anyone and anything else mentioned in this story are property of J. K. Rowling.
She Didn't Notice
Chapter 1: The Boy
The rundown neighborhood of Spinner's End, if described in a word, was grey, but not for the color, for all the identical, little houses that lined the cracked streets like weary soldiers were brown, as was the dusty sky and the sluggish river that ran beside it. Among these little houses was one house in particular, and one family, which went by the name of Snape and which included a father, a mother, and a young son. The boy's name was Severus, a name he held great disdain for, but not just because no one tended to like the name picked out for them, but because he didn't like the things that happened when he heard it.
He often wandered the neighborhood to avoid his parents calling his name and to avoid the things they yelled when they forgot he was listening, and his wandering always led him, inevitably, to the river to watch the children in the playground. He spent many long hours watching them from behind the bushes as they played on the swings or chased each other in games of tag, and they never paid him any mind, and he doubted they would notice even if he did ever bother to step out into the open, but he didn't care anyway because they were stupid children, stupid like his father because they couldn't do anything special like he and his mother could.
His mother had taught him many things, the only things that really mattered, of magic and witches and wizards and creatures he could only imagine, an entire world he could tell no one about, had anyone even cared to listen. The only times, it seemed, the other children noticed he was there were to ask why he was so unwashed and why his clothes didn't fit right and why, even in the heat of summer, he would wear long sleeves and pants that covered all but his face and hands. And yet, at any other time, when they weren't asking questions or laughing regardless of the answers he gave, if any, he could almost swear he was invisible, and sometimes he believed it was possible to be a ghost without being dead.
He was nine when he first saw her, the girl with the red hair. She began coming to the river with her sister, and it was not just her abilities that made him take notice of her. What struck him most of all was that Lily was the first person he had ever met that didn't look right through him.
"I had the most awful dream last night, Sev," Lily told him one day as they sat at the river bank beneath the branches of a tree that leaned over the water in such a way, they almost thought it did so in order to better see its reflection.
They spent most of their days here, where the shade was cool and one could become lost in the tranquil lull of breezes blowing over water, if they weren't forced to stay alert to keep watch for spying and bitter older sisters. And it was fine if they got grass stains, for his mother didn't care if his clothes were clean, and hers cared enough to clean them.
"Well, what was it?" It was the obvious question, but the worried frown and furrowed brow she continued to direct out over the calm waters told him such prodding was necessary.
"I dreamt…I dreamt that we got in a terrible fight, and we weren't friends anymore." She turned to him, and a gentle gust of wind pushed stray strands of red hair into her face that only he seemed to take notice of. "That wouldn't ever happen, would it?"
He shook his head with as much seriousness as he could muster, but which was easier for him than most. "No. Never."
For years, Severus would wake up to silent nightmares that held no screaming or calling for a mother who no longer came anyway. More often than not, he would jerk up in his bed, breathless and with his face wet with tears after dreaming of countless terrible things. Sometimes he would dream his parents were dead, and he lived alone in a silent and empty house with no doors and no windows, and other times he dreamt he had done something bad, and the dementors his mother had told him about were coming to drag him off to Azkaban for eternity.
But, the biggest reason of all for his silence was so his father wouldn't hear him, because his father was real, and the dreams were not.
Lily smiled and brushed her hair from her face at his answer, and he would have grinned back if such things came easier to him, but Lily was his best friend and was the only one who recognized the grimace he made when it was really a smile that he meant.
"Do you get nightmares, Sev?" The doubtful tilt to her eyebrows told him she already knew the answer, and his silence only served to confirm it.
And then, he shook his head, his answer simply, "Not anymore," and it was almost true. At least now, the nightmares didn't scare him like they used to. Not anymore.
Severus couldn't really understand why Lily was so shocked to hear that he had never eaten cookies before, but this shortcoming of his seemed to make more sense when he explained that his mother was so thin, she had likely never eaten sugar before in her life, and booze was more his father's cup of tea than anything else, a statement which had the potential to be humorous, or at the very least, a very ironic pun, if it hadn't been absolutely true.
Once the uncomfortable lull that followed had ended, Lily insisted that he come over to her house, and they'd make cookies, as her mother had recently bought eggs, and that had been the one ingredient their house had been lacking until two days ago. Her parents seemed obliging enough to their youngest daughter's wishes, and as far as he could tell upon her mother's most recent pass through the kitchen to retrieve something from the pantry, she didn't intend to exact any retribution on them for the mess they had made, or the butter he had wasted when he dropped an entire stick on the floor, and Lily had suggested cutting off the soiled part to be a satisfactory solution.
Just because Lily's parents seemed to have no qualms against their attempts at baking, however, that didn't mean they didn't receive resistance in the form of her older sister, Petunia, who wandered into the kitchen far too many times to be casual, especially when she would direct sour glances at him every time she came in to top off a glass of orange juice she hardly appeared to have touched. It wasn't until Severus was standing on a stepstool attempting to scrub sticky dough from the mixing bowl, while Lily was keeping close vigil on the rising temperature of an oven her mother suggested was wise to preheat so she could be fully prepared to alert her once the desired number had been reached, that Petunia made her true feelings known on her eighth visit in twenty minutes.
"Why's he always here?" she had asked in her younger sister's ear in a voice loud enough that contradicted the close proximity in which she asked it, and he glanced over just in time to catch a frown she had pointed his way as if he was a stray dog that had been allowed inside.
Rather than bother explaining, Lily met her gaze for several long seconds, as if to ensure her sister was prepared for the answer before the verbal part of it even came. "Fine, if you have a problem, we'll do it outside," she said at last, and Petunia pursed her lips at such an impossible statement.
"And how are you going to manage that?"
"Why, it's easy." Lily turned to wink at Severus, his arms still elbow-deep in soapy water that was beginning to turn cold. "We'll do it with magic, won't we, Sev?"
The dishes were forgotten, and the pair brought the pan of unbaked cookies out into the yard, and despite doubts that they would be able to make good on Lily's promise, he didn't dare voice it aloud and risk sounding like Petunia.
They sat on the patio together and proceeded to stare at the pan for a good half hour, and Severus found it rather difficult to share in Lily's optimism when the only change he could see was when the balls of cookie dough began to melt, minor progress he was certain came merely from the sun's heat and not from their joint willpower. Again, he began to feel Petunia's gaze on his neck, and he frowned back on more than one occasion to catch her slipping out of view before he could get a good look at her.
Eventually, when even Lily's enthusiasm began to wane, based on the sag of her shoulders, Petunia peeked out the back door once again, but this time, a grimace backwards failed to remove her.
She met his gaze for only a second, an act that seemed to have been done by mistake when she was so quick to correct it, and Lily only bothered to look back when her older sister called out to them. "You freaks aren't going to accomplish anything by just sitting there all day! If mummy knew—"
Severus jumped to his feet with his hands balled into fists and his teeth set in a snarl. "Leave us alone! Go find yourself some actual friends to pester!"
Petunia's eyes snapped wide open, and she released a horrified shriek that made little sense in response to his words, and he only broke eye contact with her when Lily tugged on the end of his sleeve. The pan of cookies, formerly untouched by every bit of magic the two had attempted to channel into it, was now engulfed in flames he knew their cookies would stand no chance at surviving.
By the time he looked back, Petunia was gone, but he could still hear her panicked screams as she retreated into the house, which involved multiple variations of the accusation, "Mummy, Lily's friend almost killed me! He tried to burn the house down! Mummy!"
Severus blinked sheepishly at the empty doorway, a splash from behind causing him to spin about to catch Lily standing next to a thoroughly blackened, but thoroughly soaked, pan with a bucket in her hands.
She smiled at him, hints of laughter present in her bright, green eyes and at the corners of her lips.
"I won't admit to it if you don't."
Just a quick note, that silly part at the end was inspired by the time a friend and I were making muffins. My friend dropped butter on the ground, which picked up all kinds of grime, and she merely cut off the gross part and still used it. Eww. I guess that works.
Please review, my dears!
