A/N: Hurray for the decision to start a serious Jily story. Yes, the format will stay this way; yes, the chapters will be this long, give or take (mostly give); yes, it will contain 7th year and possibly a bit of post-Hogwarts Jily.

Shout-out to my beta Alex (anobscureaspirant on Tumblr) for making this happen!

DISCLAIMER: I don't own Harry Potter or anything that has to do with it, including some original quotes found in this chapter from Snape's Worst Memory.

Now let us commence.

Of Pleasantries and Broken Souls

Prologue

(Lily's Worst Memory)

4 September 1976

Dear Petunia,

How are you doing? How's Vernon? Did you guys enjoy your trip to Majorca? What is it like in Majorca, anyway?

My guess is sunny, but other than that I wouldn't really know; it's not like I left Britain and am conveniently suffering from amnesia. Mum told me she wishes you stayed home more, but I think that's just because she wants someone willing to model her dresses. Dad volunteered, but you can see why it didn't work out.

(Talk about clothes—did you buy that pink swimsuit we saw in June?)

Anyway, I actually wanted to tell you a couple things that I didn't have the guts to bring up during summer. It doesn't have to do with Vernon, don't worry.

(I'm still sorry for embarrassing you two at dinner—I really just wanted to make conversation, but I should've actually thought about what I was asking).

This is about Severus. I know you never liked him and always told me he was awful, so you probably could've said "I told you so" when I said we were no longer friends but I'm really glad you didn't.

Truth is I didn't really tell you what happened that day. It was the day of my Defence Against the Dark Arts OWL (that's one of the very important exams, remember?).

To be quite honest with you, it had really started off as a good day (as good as exam days go). I spent the morning mostly studying, but so did the other Gryffindors, and it was morderatly fun—until the actual cramming started and we ended up snapping at each other.

Okay, that's pretty boring. In my defence, it was an exam day, and what else should you do on exam days except last minute studying. Well, unless you're James Potter and Sirius Black.

The Kappa has webbed hands and a depression atop its head that is filled with water.

She let her quill down, tilting her head ever so slightly to inspect her notes for any other corrections they might've needed. It was less than a couple of hours until the Defence Against the Dark Arts OWL, and Lily was feeling particularly distracted. It didn't help that, on her left, Mary was making faces at the parchment.

"Stop it," she tried to sound firm, but she couldn't get rid of the traitorous smile on her face. "You're distracting. And it's not like the parchment can see you."

Mary rolled her eyes and leaned back in her chair. "I can't help it. I mean—the properties of a fanged Puffskein and why it's illegal to breed them? Five ways to stun Cornish Pixies? When are we ever going to need that?"

"Maybe you'll want to be a zookeeper for seemingly harmless creatures in the future," Lily offered innocently, expecting a glare that never came because Mary still had her eyes on the parchment.

"What even is a fanged Puffskein?"

"A fanged Puffskein," said a third voice, seating herself next to Mary and holding a mug of pumpkin juice. "Is something you would know of if you paid attention in Defence instead of tossing parchment at Professor Crawford."

Mary looked up at Marlene and gave her a one-armed shrug. "I really can't help it. He manages to make magic sound boring. He's worse than Binns."

"No one's worse than Binns," said Lily in return, having long ago realized she couldn't keep focused during History of Magic for more than twenty minutes at once.

"True. Besides, he'll be gone by next year," Marlene added, sipping thoughtfully on her juice and balancing The Advanced Guide to Beasts and Beings on her thighs.

"Not you, too," said a new voice, and Lily craned her head in its direction. Jack Mercer was barely a few feet away from their couch, and looking distinctly ruffled. Lily wondered if he was even aware of the quill sticking out of his hair. "The curse isn't real, McKinnon."

"I never said it was, but I heard some Hufflepuffs saying Professor McGonagall caught him snogging with a seventh year."

There was a pronounced sound of 'Ew' coming from Mary and a lot of cringing on Jack and Lily's part. Out of the five cases of dismissal she had seen so far, this one took the cake.

"That's something I didn't need to hear," Mary voiced her exact thoughts. "Let's go back to learning useless things."

"They're not useless."

"Yes, they are, Marlene. When are you ever going to need to stun Cornish Pixies? At least in Muggle school, they taught you things like Maths. Now, that's something you use in the future," she grumbled almost indistinctively as Jack took a seat on Lily's right.

"You're a witch, Mary. And who knows when you're going to want to work in a reservation for incredibly harmless creatures?" he suggested.

Lily had to bite back a laugh as she realized she'd given Mary more or less the same suggestion. The girl in cause had noticed, too, but instead of laughing, she settled on giving him one of her darkest glares.

"Lily, tell your brother the Evans family snark's not appreciated."

"What?"

"Never mind."

"What?" he insisted, turning this time to Lily, whose smile was twitching. "I think the joke flew over my head. Since when are we related?"

Marlene seemed to have abandoned her pumpkin juice along with her book and was now staring at the exchange with quirked eyebrows. "I haven't the vaguest idea."

They didn't joke around for too long after that. Soon enough, Mary had already gone back to her study of useless facts, Jack disposed of the quill in his hair and, by the time Peter Pettigrew and Remus Lupin had arrived, Lily was immersed in a lecture of curses and counter-curses. She looked up at the sound of them approaching.

Lupin, even with his distinct pale and sickly look looked a lot better than most of the OWL students Lily had seen in the hallway lately. He also seemed to be faring exceptionally better than Pettigrew was. The boy was a right mess, shaking down to his toes as he gripped tightly on the set of notes he was reading over; he didn't seem to have combed his hair this morning. Lily offered him a sympathetic glance, and he returned it with a smile.

They exchanged pleasant hellos, but Lily was quite sure this was not the reason the two of them had approached their small group. Her suspicions were confirmed when Remus' eyes started darting around.

"Have you, by chance, seen James and Sirius around?"

And they all answered no. As the boys thanked them and departed (one more clumsily than the other) Lily's smile slipped down to a thoughtful frown. It was obvious to anyone who'd ever met James Potter and Sirius Black what they might have been doing. It took some of her willpower not to rub at her Prefect Badge and go look for them, but in the end her responsibilities as an OWL student clearly out-weighted the ones she had as a Prefect. Besides, Remus was a Prefect, too, and it was exam week, so one could hope Potter and Black were studying in a secluded place and not causing any mischief.

And quite a while later, only she and Marlene were sitting on the couch in the corner of the Common Room. The exact same moment in which she was trying to get a stain of Pumpkin Juice (Marlene had a habit of drinking a lot of it before every exam) off of her The Dark Forces: A guide to Self-Protection copy, the two missing students from before entered the Common Room, instantly filling it with loud sounds of laughter.

Potter was the first one to take notice of her.

"Alright, Evans?" and he ran a hand through his already too messy hair. Sirius Black smirked as if there was a real joke behind it.

"Hello," she said evenly, letting her gaze fall back on the book, and distinctly heard Marlene greet them, too. "Your friends were looking for you earlier this morning."

"Did they say why?" asked Black.

"Not really, but Pettigrew didn't look too well."

"He gets really peaky during exam weeks."

She felt something shift behind her, and there was James Potter, looking over her shoulder and down at her book, which was no longer stained orange.

"You're not going to need catching up on this chapter. Pretty sure they're not going to have it in the exam."

She didn't say thank you, or asked him how did he know that, but instead, "Shouldn't you two be studying? There's less than an hour until the written examination."

Potter smiled quite dubiously, before seeming to snap back to reality. "We've done our fair share of studying, believe me."

As if it wasn't obvious they didn't, Black snorted from behind him. But she'd also seen him carrying a bag when they entered, so perhaps they weren't so hopeless. Or perhaps they had just stored up on Dungbombs to perform an unnecessarily cruel prank during the exam. Merlin, she hoped not.

"You'd better hurry, then," said Marlene, who Lily had almost forgotten was here for a second, for she was unnaturally quiet. "Given twenty more minutes, you won't be able to hear your thoughts from all the panic going around."

"So that's twenty minutes until Wormtail has a major freak-out. C'mon, Prongs. We don't want a repeat of last year," said Sirius Black, a trace of laughter still present on his face, and the two of them took in the direction of the dorms.

"See you around, Evans," Potter called over his shoulder, seeming to have regained the usual strut to his walk and the overconfident smile.

Lily almost rolled her eyes. "Good luck at the exam!" she called out.

"Oh, we won't need luck. We'll just have to be brilliant."

His last words hung over her head almost like a promise.

Yes, Petunia, of course they're involved in this story.

On the bright side, I suppose, the exam itself turned out to be more than manageable (turns out I got an E, the second to best grade) and after we were let out, I joined Mary and Marlene by the lake. It was a really nice day, so we just sat around and chatted, dipped our feet into the water, discussed Mary's questionable taste in boys, etcetera. It's getting better (well, worse), I swear.

So, everyone was minding their own business, and then it's like I blinked, only to see they've crowded around to watch something.

"Did Remus make you smell his practice potions again, Mary?" asked Marlene, minutes after the exam when they were all sitting by the lake, splashing water with their feet. "Alfie Jefferson is absolutely hideous."

Mary flicked some water in her direction. "You're so superficial, Marlene. Alfie's adorable."

"Except for the bowl cut and the fact every inch of his face is covered in pimples—yeah, he's just like a puppy. A very strange, socially awkward puppy, that is."

"Who cares what his face looks like? He's a really great bloke, you know."

"You're just saying that because he bought you a large bag of Honeydukes sweets with his allowance."

Mary flushed very noticeably and kicked harder at the water, this time managing to soak some of Marlene's left side. "What can I say? I'm a woman that enjoys the finer things in life."

"The finer things in life cost a whole bag of galleons, so I think you should come back between us commoners until the day you marry an heir," and then she winked. "I heard Sirius Black is single."

Lily burst into laughter the exact moment Mary slammed her whole weight onto Marlene's side, making her lose balance and nearly topple into the water. Her hand instinctively latched onto Mary's, sitting closest to her, and Lily quickly extended hers to grip her by the shoulders before the both of them would be sent on a visit to the giant squid. This seemed to help, because no one fell into the water and they managed to resume sitting quietly as they were before. And then they all burst out laughing. They could only imagine what this had looked like from afar.

After a while, Marlene seemed to drag at her cheeks as to sober up and said, very seriously, "You could've just said he was not your type."

And unhelpfully, Lily added, "But there's still Potter to consider, Mary. I give you two my blessing."

"You are the absolute worst," she retorted, but didn't try to push either of them into the water, and the laughter in her eyes hadn't disappeared.

It was quite nice, Lily thought, just hanging out and being silly on a very stressful moment of the year. Not that she'd found the written exam particularly hard, but there was something absolutely wonderful about hanging out by the water and just laughing about everything on a day this nice it would be a shame to spend the rest of it cooped up inside the castle. Some time later, Sev would probably seek her out and they'd compare notes on the exam, or maybe Marlene's brother, a NEWT student, would wave at her in the hallway, or maybe Emmeline Gardner would braid her hair at evening. She could almost feel it, deep in her veins—the anticipation for something, for anything.

Maybe she should've been wiser, because the anything came in the form of a sudden lot of noise—exclamations, a spoken incantation, the flurry of footsteps behind them as everyone gathered around one spot and Mary untangled her fingers from her hair and all but moaned, "Please let it be someone giving out cauldron cakes."

One small part of Lily urged her to go in a different direction—the very opposite direction, for instance. But Lily was easily concerned, and she was curious, and she was a Prefect, so she pushed through some students (it wasn't hard, because after a while they just parted willingly to make her way).

She heard screams and very, very foul words, and then a voice that just made her spine straighten and her stomach fill with dread. We'll just have to be brilliant.

There was a thick layer of bubbles—soap bubbles—coming out of Severus' mouth. He was blue in the face, and looked like he was choking, but his eyes never left Potter. And he, the cruel bastard he was, because she had no other words to think up and didn't with to, just looked back with a smirk on his face, and his wand pointed and—

"Leave him ALONE!" left her mouth before she could help herself, before she could want to help herself.

He turned around—so did Black. And then he ran a hand through his stupid hair, as if he was doing absolutely nothing wrong and there was no one suffocating behind him because he was being a lowlife bully, like Severus always said he was.

"Alright, Evans?" he asked, just like he did not that long ago, and if Lily would have closed her eyes, she might've seen the Common Room, and not the lake, and if she looked down, she would've seen parchment.

But down, there was no parchment, only grass, and in front of her there was Potter, and even though she was no longer in the Common Room, she saw red.

Of course it had to be James bloody Potter, you see. He and Severus never got along. It didn't give him or his friends an excuse to go on and pick on him, but it explained half of what happened.

The other half, I can't really explain, either, without having to admit you were right.

I don't think you know what a Mudblood is. I don't even feel that much when I write that word, you know? It's horrible to hear, though. It's what "pureblood" wizards call us Muggleborns. Dirty blood, unworthy of magic, impostors. It's sickening to see how prejudiced they are.

That's what Severus called me.

Later that day, I thought that, in hindsight, if I didn't jump in his defence, he wouldn't have been embarrassed and wouldn't have called me something that awful. But then again, how could he being embarrassed excuse the fact he thinks I'm nothing but filth? Even if I let it be that day, it didn't mean he'd stop thinking it, so he could have said it on the day of the Defence exam or three years from now, but he would've said it anyway. "It slipped", he said. "I didn't mean it." But how can you not mean something like that?

You always told me he was a horrible boy. You were kind of right, okay? I want to think you're not silently cheering right now.

But how could my best friend face me and say he didn't mean to call me something so awful—to admit he doesn't think "my kind" can be just as good as wizards with magical parents.

He listened to those bigoted friends of his even though I was there. Do you know I still can't wrap my mind around the fact that, the whole time he was with me he just thought I was some kind of sub-standard, some disgusting creature only worthy of his pity?

They're the disgusting ones. They're wrong, and I wish Severus never met them, or that I'd done a better job keeping him away from them and their purist propaganda. (Was there anything I could've done to prevent this, though? What do you think?)

I was really mad, Petunia. It was the only emotion I could have that didn't involve crying, because I suppose I wanted to have at least some dignity left.

And, as if Severus wasn't hard enough to deal with, there was also Potter.

He and his group of friends had no business targeting anyone, let alone people who hadn't done a thing to them. So I vented out on him.

He made it easy enough. Everyone was crowded around us, he had Severus on the receiving end of a hex for nothing he's done, and what does he do? He messes with his hair and asks me out.

I do not kid you and I'm not letting you start laughing. But that's exactly what he did. I rejected him and I admit I wasn't very nice about it, but how could I be, in that situation? Did he honestly think there was a chance I said yes?

And then I told him to let Severus down, and he did, and I'm not sure what happened next, but suddenly, Potter had a bloody cheek and Severus was upside down, with his underwear on display.

I almost smiled. Can you believe how despicable I was?

So I did what I could—became angrier. I said "Let him down" and I think I said it a couple of times, and then Severus—and his damned pride—called me a Mudblood.

I might've said something cruel in response, but I can't remember what. I know I was furious, and then, Potter just had to go and make this worse. He started defending me, of course. I was so angry, and he was being so arrogant and so undignified and so horrible.

I don't need James Potter to defend my honour. (Maybe Severus didn't need me to defend his, either, but that was different.)

So I screamed at him.

"Apologise to Evans!"

That was what James Potter yelled immediately after Severus called her a 'filthy little Mudblood'.

She was taking deep, heavy breaths the whole time, clenching and unclenching her fists, carefully avoiding the concerned looks she was receiving from her friends. The crowd hadn't dissipated one bit, and Lily Evans was not going to lose her temper in front of the whole castle.

Her resolve cracked when she saw Potter's wand point threateningly at Severus.

"I don't want you to make him apologise!" she said with a voice so loud and strong that she wouldn't have been amazed if her throat went sore immediately after. "You're just as bad as he is."

And that, she thought, was true. It was painstakingly true, and even the prospect of having James Potter, the same James Potter throwing spells around and humiliating people just for laughs, as her defendant made her physically ill. Lily looked at them, really looked at them, and had half a mind to spring in the complete opposite direction. But, she concluded, when James Potter gave her an incredulous look, that was not what she would do.

"What?" he yelped, sounding genuinely bewildered. "I'd never call you a—you-know-what!"

Everyone was watching. She could see Mary and Marlene, the former looking as if she was contemplating taking out her wand to attack, the latter looking absolutely mortified and glancing helplessly from Lily, to Potter, to Snape, and finally to Remus Lupin, who had finally abandoned his book. She saw Black and Pettigrew from the corner of her eye and, suddenly, that was it.

She knew her face would be getting gradually red—as red as her hair, as the Gryffindor Common Room, as the anger bubbling inside of her (an alternative to tears her pride wouldn't allow her to shed). And with a final twitch of her jaw, she just couldn't care less about everybody watching, or about Potter being sensible about slurs yet insensible about everything else.

"Messing up your hair because you think it looks cool to look like you've just got off your broomstick, showing off with that stupid Snitch, walking down corridors and hexing anyone who annoys you just because you can - I'm surprised your broomstick can get off the ground with that fat head on it," it took all of her willpower not to laugh bitterly. "You make me SICK."

If there was any reaction from him, she didn't stick around to see it. And she heard him calling as she hurriedly made her way back into the castle, looking down at her feet, at the grass, but never at faces.

Nobody stopped her. She walked the stone corridors, listening to the sound her steps. Clank, tap, clank, tap, clank, tap…

She eventually got to the portrait of the Fat Lady, she guessed, and to the dorm, because that was where she found herself maybe one hour and a bit later. She had no memory of what happened during that time, but judging by the soreness of her muscles as she tried to stretch them, she'd lied on her bed and fell asleep, even though she didn't feel well rested at all.

She couldn't fall back asleep for the life of her, so she let her head fall back down onto the pillow and stared blankly in the general direction of the ceiling, barely moving at all, save for her elaborated breathing making her chest rise and fall.

That was how Mary found her, too, when she drew the curtains of Lily's bed aside and carefully nudged her leg. Lily looked up at her friend. Her dark mass of curls looked strangely lopsided, and there was a dark smudge on her left cheek (probably dirt).

Lily wanted her to go away, because the anger had already worn out and if the only option left was crying, she would have really liked to do that on her own.

So, she finally asked "What?" in a weak, croaked voice, surprising even herself for a moment. Ah. The shouting she'd done at Potter.

"Marlene wanted me to check on you."

No, she didn't. Lily didn't say it out loud, though. A pregnant silence followed.

"…Okay, I wanted to check on you. Marlene actually told me not to," she admitted, awkwardly sitting down on Lily's bed, then standing back up. "Thought you'd need some time alone. But I was worried, I guess."

Lily didn't speak—she didn't know if that was because she was concentrating on pushing her feelings aside, or calling back all that anger or simply because she honestly didn't know what to say. Mary looked at her, expectantly, and bit her lip before continuing on her own.

"He's waiting outside the tower. Snape is, I mean…"

The sound of his name reawakened something in Lily. She pushed herself so fast and stood upright on her bed that Mary took a tentative step back, regarding her with unease. Lily's eyes locked with hers.

"Come on, then. Say it," she snapped, and Mary's eyes widened. "You knew that Sev and I were never going to work out. You and Marlene both. Probably having a party now that h-"she took a deep breath "he called me a Mudblood, aren't you? Finally, Lily's realized how stupid she'd been all along to think— To think—"

She couldn't finish the sentence by the time she felt something wet running down her cheeks; she didn't bother wiping at the tears either, because it wouldn't stop more from falling. Mary was silent for a very long moment, and when she spoke, it was softer than her usual high pitch.

"This isn't about me or Marlene, Lily. This is about you. Potter and Snape are both arseholes. And what happened today—you really didn't deserve any of that."

"It's fine," even though the lie was really obvious, it felt a little comforting. "Can I… be alone for a while, though?"

She didn't look at Mary for the real answer her face would give out, but verbally, she did not protest.

"Okay… You know where to find me… and Marlene, if you need us… that is."

She then put something on the bed, next to Lily, and left. She made sure to close the curtains behind. Lily, in spite of herself, reached blindly for the unknown object and her hand closed on something with a flat surface and reminiscent of a rectangle. Honeydukes' Best—with Sour Cherry.

She took a good chunk of it and, as she was nibbling, she distantly wondered why was there ever a moment where she doubted Mary and Marlene as friends enough to think they would be happy to see her miserable.

I actually don't think I would take back anything I said that day if I went back in time. Or maybe just one thing. Maybe.

And, of course Severus tried to apologise. He even waited outside the Tower on countless occasions, but I realized I really did want to have some dignity left, so I couldn't forgive him. It's become obvious he'd changed—they've changed him. And I guess he chose them. Good. Fine. I don't want anyone who supports the disgusting blood purity ideals in my life.

As for James Potter, he's only tried to talk to me once. Whatever he wanted to say, though, I have no idea, because I didn't want to listen. So I did the most mature thing I could think of—I silenced him and stormed off.

What's actually the worst part of this is not only I can't blame Potter for our fall-out, but I still wish it never happened, and I can't let go of the idea things would've been better if he just shut up. They wouldn't have, I guess, because now I'm not sure if he was even my friend.

Sorry I ended this on such a depressing note. I just want to tell someone who wasn't here to see it first-hand.

I'm not going to make myself look even more stupid by adding something like 'hope you write back' at the end since it's not the case.

Hope I'll see you next summer, though.

Love,

Lily.

P.S.: You were right; I do write really long letters.

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