Disclaimer: All credit to Jo Rowling
Lily Evans throws herself on her bed in the girls dormitory and sobs. She can't hear the birds tweeting, or the music coming from the Gryffindor common room. All she can hear is that word, echoing over and over in her mind. Mudblood.
She remembers Severus Snape telling her that being a Muggle-born didn't mean anything; it didn't make you a less powerful with or wizard, it didn't affect anything to do with your magical abilities. Now she looks back and notices his hesitation. To him, of course being a Muggle-born makes a difference. To him, and people like him, blood is everything.
She remembers Severus telling her that he hoped she'd be in Slytherin, that very first train ride to Hogwarts five years ago, and how crestfallen he had looked when the Sorting Hat had yelled Gryffindor.
She remembers all the time spent together, just having a laugh, being the best of friends. Lily sits up and wipes her eyes. She should've known from the start that a friendship between such different people could never last, not with everything that's going on. Ever since Severus became friends with Avery and Mulciber, he's been slightly different. She should've seen it coming.
Severus is the one who broke the seal of their friendship. Lily can't believe she actually thought she loved him. Now she knows better. She doesn't hate him; she will always care for him. But there was no use trying to salvage anything, no use trying to go back to how it was. He can't take that – that word back into his mouth. She'll never forget the way he said it, down by the lake. All she'd been doing was looking out for him, just like she's done for the past five years. And he throws it back in her face with one little sentence:
"I don't need help from filthy little Mudbloods like her!" As soon as he'd said it, Lily had frozen. She couldn't look at him. She saw James Potter pointing his wand at Severus, yelling at him to apologise.
"I don't want you to make him apologise," she'd said. She didn't want anyone to make him apologise. She didn't want to anything to do with him. She'd spun around and walked back to the castle, straight to the common room and up to the dormitory she shared with four other girls.
"Lils?" She hears Hestia Jones say softly, peeking around the door. Lily gives a weak smile, and stands up from the bed. She rubs her face with her hands and sighs. Marlene McKinnon walks in and strides over to Lily, hugging her tightly. Apart from Severus, Hestia and Marlene are Lily's best friends. Lily starts crying again, and the girls comfort her as she cries.
James sits on the plush red sofa in the Gryffindor common room, fiddling with the little Snitch he'd recently acquired. Remus Lupin was trying to persuade Sirius Black to plan for the Transfiguration exam they had coming up, and Peter Pettigrew was attempting his Potions homework.
"She didn't do anything, anything," James says, staring absently into the fire. Sirius looks at him and sighs.
"Mate, what did you expect her to do?"
"Snivellus was her best friend – although Merlin knows why – and she just stood there. He called her a Mudblood, for Merlin's sake!"
"Well she called him Snivellus," Peter says feebly. James looks at Remus.
"Moony, what would you do if one of us turned around to you one day and insulted you because of your condition?" He asks, feeling a desperate need for some kind of answer. "Not that it will ever happen of course, it's just out of curiosity." Remus thinks for a moment.
"I'm not entirely sure, Prongs," he says. "I think it's one of those situations where it actually has to happen before you know what you would do, where you can fully understand it." James sighs.
"I'm never going to understand her, am I, Padfoot?" He asks his best friend, who sighs again.
"To be honest Prongs, I'm never going to understand girls."
"You get with enough of them; surely you should have a bit of an understanding of them?" Remus says, his blue eyes glinting with amusement. Sirius shrugs.
"Physically? Yes, but emotionally?" He says. "Nah." James and Remus chuckle, Peter has to think for a moment.
"Oh!" He finally says. "I get it." James snorts and Sirius rolls his eyes.
The door opens just as Lily is slipping her dressing gown on and Mary, a fellow Gryffindor fifth year, rushes in.
"Snape is outside the common room," she says. "He says he'll sleep there if you don't go out and speak to him." Lily sighs.
"I'll go and sort him out," Marlene offers, tying the strings of her pyjama bottoms together. Lily cracks a small smile and retrieves her wand from her nightstand. She slips it into her dressing gown pocket and heads for the door.
"I've got it," she says. She pads down the stairs and enters the common room. Her attention is drawn to Potter and Black, who are messing around in front of the fire. Normally, she would reprove them for such behaviour, but she just doesn't have the energy. She sighs and heads for the portrait hole. It opens and she steps out, and is greeted by the sight of her former best friend looking dishevelled and anxious.
"I'm sorry," he says. Lily folds her arms across her chest.
"I don't care."
"I'm sorry!"
"Save it. I only came out because apparently you told Mary you were going to sleep here."
"I was. Honestly Lily, I never meant to call you that, it just slipped–"
"Bullshit. I've heard you call every Muggle-born you hear of a Mudblood, Severus, and I'm tired of ignoring that. All I've ever done is defend you and be there for you, and this is what you do? It's too late. Nobody understands why I ever bothered with you, and now I don't understand it either. I don't understand how I could call a future Death Eater my best friend." Snape shifts uncomfortably. "You don't even deny it! But it's done. I've made my decision."
"No, Lily. Please. I didn't mean–"
"Sure you didn't. I'm no different to all of the other Muggle-borns you've insulted. Try pleading for their forgiveness instead." Snape goes to say something, but Lily has already retreated back through the portrait hole.
Lily sits in the library, trying to find information for the potion recipes they'll be studying in Potions next week, but she can't concentrate. As much as she says Severus is out of her life for good now, every now and again her mind wanders back to the good times they shared together. Especially when she's doing Potions homework, with which Severus always helped her.
A bag is thrown down next to her, and she looks up to see Hestia smiling down at her.
"You alright Lils?" She asks, frowning slightly. The auburn haired witch nods and smiles.
"Yeah, you?"
"Yeah," Hestia says, pulling a quill and ink pot from her bag. "You got any spare parchment?"
"Yeah." Lily gives her a sheet and her eyes drop back down to the book in front of her.
"Had any luck on the Potions homework for next week?" Hestia asks.
"No, trying to do it now," Lily replies. "Finding it hard to stay focused though."
"You're thinking about him again." It wasn't a question. Lily couldn't look her best friend in the eye.
"He was one of my best friends, Hestia–"
"He did the worst thing he ever could've done to you, Lily! How can you sit there and think about forgiving him?"
"I haven't even considered forgiving him!" Lily snaps. "Imagine if you and I suddenly fell out and you knew we were never going to be friends again – would you be able to forget our friendship so easily?" Hestia doesn't have anything to say to that. She knows Lily is right. Lily sighs and packs her things up.
"Where are you going?" Hestia asks. She's close to tears knowing she's just upset her best friend.
"For a walk," is all Lily says before walking out.
Severus Snape watches from afar as Hestia quickly packs her things up and hurries after Lily. Lily is never going to forgive him. He sighs and goes back to the Transfiguration essay he's doing.