See them, the children of the night, they who cast off their smiling masks when the sunlight deserts the land of the living and leaves them to the mercy of their nightmares.
Hogwarts is dark at night, Lily quickly discovers, only the enchanted torches lighting her path through the corridors. She moves silently on bare feet, emerald eyes avoiding the curious stares of the portrait occupants. Their whispers, feather-soft words sweetened with poison, seem like the buzzing of mosquitoes in the aphotic gloom.
Lily begins to run.
Each breath is a gasping sob, shallow and terrified, and tremors wrack her tiny frame from head to toe. The castle is still strange to her, still foreign in its long, twisty corridors and tricky staircases like Orpheus' shadowy path to Hades. The first classroom she comes upon is empty, and she enters without hesitation.
She curls up here, cowering in the corner of this deserted classroom and wondering if the Sorting Hat had chosen wrong for her. Surely a Gryffindor is afraid of nothing, just as surely as she is a coward.
The castle is cold, much colder than her bedroom at home. The smooth stone floors are like ice in the autumn chill, and the redheaded girl shivers despite herself.
"Lily?"
Ah, and there he is. Her protector. She turns, bottle-green eyes bright with unshed tears, and offers him a small, watery smile. "Sev. What are you doing here?"
If she had not already grown used to him and his uncanny knack for vanishing into the shadows, she would have perhaps mistaken him for one of those fancies of an imaginative mind that lurks so secretly in the dark for only one to see. But she has grown used to his disappearances, had become accustomed to it long ago, and she smiles as he steps in the wavering torchlight. He wears his nightclothes as well, dark garments the same shade as his inky hair, but to Lily, he seems a knight in armor all agleam.
For half a moment, he seems flushed under the flickering glow of the enchanted flames, but it disappears before Lily has a chance to ponder its meaning, replaced by a grin. "I was looking around. Have you seen the dungeons? They're brilliant, Lily, really fantastic. You'll see them tomorrow when we go to Potions."
He pauses, his smile fading just as quickly as it had appeared as he notes her shining eyes, her hiccupy breathing, her slight trembling. "What is it?" She can hear the concern in his voice mounting, each word edged with worry and anger at whatever has upset her, and she almost smiles. These are the times when she considers how lucky she is to have a friend like Severus.
"I don't like it here, Sev." There it is, the truth at last. There is no one else she would trust with her doubts, not her parents in an owl and certainly not her new roommates, practically strangers. No, her best friend and the night itself are her only confidants when she speaks these dark words, and she likes it just fine that way.
Seeing his wide-eyed expression, she continues in a soft, tremulous voice more like her older sister's than her own. "Everything's so different here. So new. I don't know any of the people I room with, and I miss home. I miss my parents and my room and our special place by the river." A sad smile flits across her features. "I even miss Tuney."
She looks up at him anxiously, seeking something, even though she isn't sure what. Reassurance, perhaps? And before she can stop it, her greatest fear is slipping off her tongue and into the open. "I'm not brave at all, Sev. What if the Sorting Hat chose wrong? What if I'm too much of a coward to be in Gryffindor?"
Her companion's features contort into some emotion she doesn't recognize on him, and as he crouches down beside her, she cannot help but notice how gaunt his features seem when darkened by shadow and the bruises that linger on his face as the darkness passes.
She feels his fingers are just as cold as hers as he takes her hand, and the intensity of his gaze is almost frightening. "Never say that again. You have never been a coward, Lily, and you'll never be one."
His voice is low and severe, and his words have edges sharp as razor blades. She is used to his mood swings, but even this surprises her. "Sev..." she whispers, squeezing his hand, and he seems to snap back out of his black mood.
"I'm sorry, but...you just can't say that, Lily. You're the bravest person I've ever met." Severus shakes his head. "You're not a coward, and you never will be."
Lily almost smiles before remembering the problem at hand. "I just...I don't know if I'm going to get used to Hogwarts. It's different for me than everyone else. Some of the other students, the Slytherins...you didn't see how they stared at me, Sev. Like I was dirty, or didn't belong her."
"Lily," he sighs, and it seems to the redhead that his voice carries the worries of the entire world. "Don't pay attention to them. They don't know you; they don't know anything." He squeezes her hand, and his black-as-pitch eyes are intent on hers again.
"I'm going to make you a promise, but you have to make me one too. I want you to swear that you'll never let anyone call you a coward, even yourself. Do that, and I promise that I'll protect you from everything."
Lily smiles and embraces the boy crouched beside her. A few tears leak from her eyes, but she pays them no mind. In the morning light, she will go back to being the first-year Gryffindor, and Hogwarts will return to its usual alien menace. But here, in the cloak of midnight and torchlight, with Sev's promise ringing in her ears, she knows that she won't be afraid.
She squeezes her eyes shut for a moment, ending her tears, and she smiles into the fabric of her best friend's shirt. "You'll really protect me, Sev?"
He remains rigid in surprise at the unexpected hug, but she feels his arms slide around her and return the embrace. "Always."