Lily presses a cold rag against Sev's swollen eye, brows furrowed. He won't tell her why he was in a fight, only that it was Potter and his gang. She doesn't know them too well, only Remus, who she can't possibly imagine doing this, and Peter, who is too mousy to even raise his hand in class.
He's got a nasty scratch on his cheek and his sallow, olive skin is mottled purple around his already dark eye and so she just tries to get some of the swelling to go down, apologizing each time she presses the rag too hard and feels him flinch.
She wants to believe Sev, in nearly the year they've been friends, he's not lied to her, not that she knows of, at least. But she's still having trouble wrapping her head around his flimsy story. At least until she sees the four boys the next day.
Potter's sporting a black eye to mirror Sev's, and his nose is swollen as if it were punched, hard. Remus's lower lip looks swollen and she sees a bruise peeking out from under his collar. Pettigrew seems to have escaped with the least amount of injuries, only a small bruise on his temple, but Black is another story. A black eye, a cut lip, and marks ringing his neck that look all too much like fingers. Sev couldn't have possibly done all that…
And maybe she could have let herself believe his story, but she sees a few boys from Stevens, Sev's house, all a year older, bearing similar marks of a scuffle. And when all nine boys are called down to McGonagall's office, she tries to ignore the sinking feeling in her chest.
As soon as Lily sinks down at the table, setting down her tray, Mary's off like a shot. Elbows on the table, head tipped forward, hair tucked behind her ears. The gossip pose. "So, have you heard about what happened?" She asks, conspiratorial. Dorcas slides in next to Lily and quirks a brow.
"Gossip? This early in the afternoon?"
Mary flicks a pea at her from across the table. "Come on, don't tell me you don't know what happened. A bunch of blokes from Stevens got into it with James's lot out behind the building yesterday." Dorcas's eyes widen and Mary nods and Lily scowls, stabbing violently at her chicken breast.
"Sev told me about it yesterday," she begins, though as soon as his name passes her lips her mates faces' darken, "said that Potter's groupies ganged up on him." She knows, of course she knows, that it sounds like a lie. And maybe it is. But Sev isn't a bad person. He wouldn't lie to her, would he? After all, she's seen the way Potter acts.
Dorcas frowns, leaning back. "Lils, sweetheart." She reaches out to pat her arm, as if offering her condolences. But they don't know Sev. He's not a bad person.
Mary's already steamrolling forward, eyes lit up. "I heard it was about the convocation. Black's got a brother, you know. He goes to Riddle, least he did. Maybe he'll get pulled out and sent here after what happened."
Dorcas shifts on the bench, cocking her head to the side, her hand still on Lily's arm. "Black's got a brother? Wonder why they went to separate schools. Sirius and I aren't, like, friends, but friendly enough to know he's got a brother," she says, her lips pursing as Mary continues to nod, bobble headed and eager.
The conversation grates at Lily, all but in one ear and out the other. She loves her girls, really, she does, but sitting there, listening to them go on and on about the fight and Sirius's brother- Reggie or something awful- it's a reminder of Sev and the fact that he… well, she isn't quite sure what he had done, but he had done something. Lied, maybe. Gotten into a fight, definitely.
She doesn't want to dwell on it much at all.
"I've got to go. Slughorn asked if I'd grade a few papers for him and I-" Lily falters, just for a moment, Dorcas and Mary looking up at her, matching frowns working onto their faces.
"Lils, don't go. We believe you believe that Snape isn't lying-" Mary begins.
"No, it's cool, really it's cool, I just have to go,' she says, fumbling over her words as she quickly stands, sliding her bag back up onto her shoulder, hands gripping the plastic of the lunch tray. Hard. "I'll see you guys later. I'm fine, really. Everything's fine."
It would be great, Lily thinks, if I believed what I said. But recently, Sev's been so distant. It isn't like they were ever chatty. That's not the type of friends they were. The type of friends they are. She isn't really sure, anymore.
He's been spending so much time with Mulciber's crew, ditching their afterschool study sessions to work on assignments with Avery and Rosier. Or at least, that's what he's been telling her. Lily isn't sure what she should be bothered to believe anymore.
She tucks her hair back behind her ear as she walks, the missing eight inches still a shock. But, a good shock, Lily's decided. A good sort of change. Her flats clack against the ground as she makes her way towards Stevens. She really does have papers to grade for Slughorn. (She'd just been hoping to put them off until he delegated them off to another member of the Slug Club.)
She's halfway across the courtyard when she hears the it, the shuffling and scuffling and huffy breathing before the shout of her name. "Evans!" She doesn't have to turn to know its Potter.
Lily doesn't quite stop walking, but, she'll admit that she slows down, just a bit, as a rather sweaty looking Potter appears at her side. His tie is undone, his shirt partway unbuttoned, and there are what look like grass stains on his elbows. All of this comes in second to the massive bruise blooming just under his eye, his glasses bent around his very angry looking nose.
"Potter," is all she says.
He pushes a hand up through his hair, takes a gulping breath. "Look, I know that you probably think that I went out of my way to attack Sni- Snape. That I went out of my way to attack Snape, but I promise I-" Lily holds up her hand.
"I don't care, Potter. Please, just leave me alone." It's a lie, a dirty, blatant, lie. And she knows it, and maybe she isn't exactly fond of the way that Potter looks like a kicked puppy as she speaks, but she's seen him tearing down Severus enough to know a lie when she hears one.
"Right, yeah. Uh, sorry, then," Potter mumbles, eyes falling down to the ground as he falls out of step with her until he's just standing there in the courtyard. She pretends not to feel his eyes on her until she disappears into Stevens.
If she was a worse friend, she would have just said "no" when Mary showed up on her doorstep, waggling her eyebrows and announcing that they would be going out. But, Lily flinches as Mary plucks out an apparently stubborn hair from between her eyebrows, she's not a bad enough friend.
"I know what you're thinking already, Lils, but this will be fun, I promise," Mary murmurs, her brow knit in concentration as she continued to pluck at her brows, all but sitting in her lap to do so. It would be much easier to believe her, Lily decides, if she wasn't currently yanking out her hair. "Cardoc throws, like, the best parties. And I know you've been all messed up about what went on with Snape lately and this has to help."
Mary isn't really the sort of girl anyone says "no" to, and so, Lily rolls her eyes and gently pushes her off her lap. "I'm fine, Mary. But," she pauses and offers a slight smile, moving over to her closet, "a party does sound like fun." She tugs open her closet and fights back the unwelcome thought of Petunia. She would have loved to help her get ready, back then. Before. And it still stings to think about.
So, Lily tugs down a tank top and holds it up appraisingly, looking over at Mary with a quirked brow. Mary- who has sprawled out across her bed in a far too easy manner- nods, her fingers steepled in front of her face. "Yeah, definitely. Show off those sexy shoulders is what I always say." Which, Lily knows for a fact, Mary has never once said. "Pair it with those cute flats, the ones with the laces."
The next two hours pass like this, with Lily holding up tops or jeans or skirts or jewelry or shoes, and Mary trying to mix and match for the cutest possible outfit for Cardoc's party. It's fun, having Mary there. It's been… too long, Lily thinks, since she's had this sort of fun. She can't even remember the last time she'd been to a party.
But as Mary pulls into an empty bit of space around the curb in a glaringly posh neighborhood, Lily's painfully aware that she's never been to a party like this.
She doesn't recognize half the people stumbling up the sloped lawn, can't name half the models of cars that are wrapping around the street, but at least she can halfway hum along to the song pouring from the open windows of the house.
This.
This is what being a teenager is supposed to be.
"Dorcas said she'd be here, but god only knows where. I haven't been here in ages, I forgot how fucking massive Cardoc's place is." Mary is yelling over the thumping of the bass while their shoes slip against the damp grass of the Dearborns' overly manicured lawn. The door to the bloody mansion is wide open and inside, Lily can see her classmates dancing. Or grinding rather. Like the queen that she is, Mary pushes inside, her hand slipping into Lily's, her long legs clearing a path.
"Oi, Mac wasn't sure if you'd make it!"
"Mary! I fucking love that top, where did you get it?"
"Lily, ohmygosh, I've, like, never seen you at a party before, you look so cute-"
She can't hear anything really, not over all the voices, or the music, or the sounds of bottles clinking. Lily is certain that someone had been trying to talk to her, but by the time she'd managed to glance around, Mary's already dragging her through the crowded foyer.
It's not the first time she's been in a nice house before. Mary's house is nice, with its high ceilings and white tile, and vaguely geometric looking furniture. But Cardoc's house is some strange combination of old money, midlife crisis, and way too much mahogany. She should feel small and out of place and poor, but- Lily steps quickly to the side to avoid being tripped over by Benjy something-or-other- it's rather hard to feel out of place when everyone is on such an equal playing field.
The lights in the living room are dimmed and she can just barely see all the furniture pushed up against the walls under the shoddily hung blacklight and strobes. Lily can see a bit of light pouring out from a room just off all the madness- a kitchen or dining room, she's guessing, where it looks like a group are playing some sort of drinking game.
The entire house reeks of expensive cologne, expensive alcohol, expensive weed. Mary leans in close to her, lips almost brushing against her ear as she all but shouts. "Would'ya mind if I went to find Becks? I've been meaning to talk to her for like, the past month, about what she saw going down in Hufton the other day," she yells. Though, at least she has the decency to look rather apologetic. "I can wait though, until we find Dorcas, I don't want to leave you alone or anything-"
"It's cool, Mar. I want to look around anyway," Lily says, well, shouts, waving her hand. Mary bites her lip and watches her for a moment, before Lily rolls her eyes and gives her a gentle shove so she can go find someone named Becks, apparently. Whoever the hell that is.
"You're a peach," Mary pauses as she smacks a lipgloss sticky kiss to her cheek, "keep your phone on you, I'll text every half hour," she adds, before quickly disappearing into the mess of people, looking right at home in the throng of writhing hormones.
And then, she's alone, standing just at the edge of the dancing. She takes a breath before slipping into the crowd herself, rolling her hips along with the music. She isn't sure when she starts singing along, shouting the lyrics as a very pretty girl she doesn't quite recognize starts to dance with her.
It's fun, and exhilarating, and freeing, and Lily's laughing, and jumping and waving her arms to music she's blasted on the radio. This is what she's missed. For the time, it's easy to forget about Sev and Petunia and the way Potter looked when she'd walked away and her dad and who her mum was becoming and grades and everything bad.
It's every terrible teen movie wrapped up into an indistinguishable amount of time. When she finally breaks free from the crowd, squeezing her way toward the kitchen to try and find something to drink, her phone vibrates in her back pocket. A text from Mary. Rather, a lot of texts from Mary.
lil my car got fucking towed holy shit what do i do
come find me i gotta go like, bail my car out of car jail
did u see the fuckin hydrant bc i didnt see a hydrant
lily lily lily lily where tf are u
Shit. Lily pushes past a couple making out and slips into an empty hallway, pressing the "dial" button by Mary's name.
"Lily, where are you? I am so sorry, I feel like we just got here and now I have to bail and I feel, like, so terrible-" Mary is rambling, her words coming out almost too quickly to comprehend.
"Mary, it's okay, really. Just go get your car-"
"Are you sure? Like, I cannot leave you alone here. I am not a terrible friend-"
"You aren't a terrible friend. I can catch a ride with Dorcas, okay? Really-"
"You gotta text me when you get home, okay? I am so, so sorry but-" Wherever Mary is, Lily can't hear what she's saying anymore, and so after a bit more warbled yelling, she hangs up, slips her phone back into her pocket.
She leans up against the wall of the hallway, just off from the kitchen, she thinks. The music is still thumping through the walls, but there aren't any strobe lights or any people, and so Lily takes a moment to catch her breath, pushing a hand through her hair, shaking it off the back of her sweat slick neck. A part of her wishes she'd put on a headband before she'd left the house, but according to Mary, it hadn't fit the "aesthetic."
Lily pushes herself off the wall, rolls her shoulders, and sets herself to go and find Dorcas- she doubts she'd be able to hear her phone in that mess out there- but-
"Lily?" Her stomach drops. Because why would he be here? He doesn't even know Cardoc- well, not that she really knows Cardoc much either, just, the idea of Sev, there, at a party thrown by the type of person he said he hates. She turns, just slightly, hoping that she imagined it, imagined his voice. She hadn't.
Because Sev is standing there in the hallway, a glassy sort of look to him in a pair of ill-fitting jeans and a worn-out t-shirt with a stain near the hem. It's strange, to see him out of his uniform. She hadn't even thought he owned anything casual. She can still see his black eye, even in the dark.
"What are you doing here?" He takes a few steps closer to her, and as mad as she is at him, it's stupidly comforting to have someone else there with her, someone she knows.
"I came with Mary. I'm allowed to have fun, Severus," she says, a bit pointedly. His eyes aren't quite focused and it's apparent he's been doing something. She can smell whatever it is he's been drinking on his breath.
"You don't like parties," he says. It annoys her, for some reason, that he says that, that he says it like that. She folds her arms over her chest, frowns, just slightly.
"I do, actually. You don't like parties. I never went to anything because you never wanted to go." He'd always found some way to get out of everything like this, out of everything that reeked of money and their richer classmates.
"Came with Avery and Mulciber. I'm having fun, too. This is fun." His words are strung together in a way that doesn't come naturally. He's close enough that Lily can see how glossed over his eyes are. Of course he's here with them, his new friends.
"Why are you hanging out with them? They aren't good people, Sev, you know that. I know you know that. Their racists, you know." She doesn't know why she says it, especially why she says it there, in Cardoc's hallway during a rager, but.
He laughs at her and it sounds sick. It's wet and heavy and drunk, his palm hitting the wall too close to her head as he tries to support himself and she hates that she flinches. He should have hated that, that he'd made her flinch. It doesn't look like he notices.
"What do you know? You don't know them, Lil, their fun. They like me. They don't take any shit from dirty fuckers like Potter. We don't need his kind here. Not him, or… or fucking fags like Black or all those fuckin' immigrants," he slurs, gesturing with one hand. Lily hardens.
"No, don't you say anything like that. You're not like this. You're just…you're drunk and saying what they've been telling you and-"
"He likes you, fucking Potter, always fucking staring at you. Thinks he's so much better than everybody else 'spite being one of those."
"Severus," Lily snaps, her palms damp with sweat, shaking. No, no, no. She thinks about what Potter had said to her- tried to say to her, earlier in the courtyard. "I've defended you to him. You aren't like this. This isn't you. I've stood up for you." Even she knows how desperate she sounds. How pathetic she sounds.
"I don't fucking need that, not from some immigrant cunt-"
And it's like shattering glass. "Goodbye, Sev- Snivellus." She uses the name like a slap, hoping it hides the quiver in her lip because he is supposed to be her best friend. He's had lunch with her, with her Polish mum, in their house. He's supposed to have been her best friend.
"Lily, no, wait, I didn't-" Snape stumbles toward her and over his words as she pushes him away, his hand on his shoulder, tugging and tearing at the strap of her top. It snaps as she pushes him again.
"Leave me alone. I never want to fucking speak to you again." And she's pushing him again and moving faster than she thought she could down the hall. Someone presses a full, sloshing, cup into her hand and she drinks it, quick and thoughtless and stupid. She can hear him behind her still, trying to catch up, yelling her name.
not from some immigrant cunt-
not from some immigrant cunt-
not from some immigrant cunt-
There's another cup in her hand and she doesn't know who put it there. Most of it spills down the front of her ruined blouse.
She isn't sure exactly when she started crying, but her head is swimming and she can't breathe, and it feels like the world is getting too close too quickly by the time she breaks out into the open night air.
Lily doesn't look, not as she clumsily unlocks her phone, not as she scrolls, not as she hits call.
"Potter," she hiccups, "ca-can you come get me?"