II. The Fat Lady Sings

By: Calliope Confetti

The next morning, he sat down to his plate of oatmeal and buttered toast, preferring the muggle food he was accustomed too. Lucius droned on about his defensive strategy for the upcoming Quidditch match, while Narcissa feigned interest as she applied her red lipstick in a compact mirror. Across the great hall, he saw James whispering in Lily's ear, his hand on her thigh; her giggle echoed through the hall as he watched James move in for a kiss, an act that made his stomach drop and put him off his breakfast; he shoved his tray away. Like a masochistic voyeur, he kept his eyes trained on the new couple until every little affectionate gesture compounded, leaving him with a painful lump rising in his throat. He found the scene duplicitously agonizing and arousing—he found some vicarious enjoyment in observing them, just to see her like that, her lips red, her face flushed as she sat breathless and riled.

"Hello Severus," he heard the distinct voice of Vale, a voice like a glass chime. To his chagrin, she sat down next to him, either ignorant of or deliberately ignoring the exclusivity of the Slytherin table, which was reserved strictly for members of his house; it wasn't a rule in the binding sense, it was an unspoken one enforced by the brutes among them (and Lucius). Severus kneaded his brow as she started on her breakfast; he noticed that she'd selected the more exotic and magical foods among the vegetarian options.

For a moment, he wondered if she'd slept at all after the Luna landing, although it was impossible to tell with those eyes, which appeared wide-awake regardless. She reached into the bag she'd slung over her shoulder and withdrew her sketchbook, displaying her latest work—of the male moth he'd witnessed—and although she'd drawn it in immaculate detail, he couldn't discern the differences between the second sketch and the first one she'd shown him, except that she'd completed the second. Mortified by her presence, he simply nodded and kept kneading his brow in the hope that she would catch on to the fact that she wasn't wanted, since his table-mates seemed oblivious to the presence of the interloper.

The unflappable girl simply smiled and switched out her sketchbook for a paranormal newsletter that she proceeded to read over her breakfast. Although he put it down to cognitive bias, he began seeing the girl everywhere—he'd never noticed her in his Divination class, even though Cassandra Trelawney considered her a pet favorite, since she helped the dotty professor polish crystal balls and wash the teacups after Tasseography class.

After only one chance meeting, she seemed over-eager to pin him with the "friend" label, even though she's averse to doing the same to moths, he noted with a wry smirk. The antithesis of her, he kept himself guarded and his surly disposition rendered him inherently difficult to befriend; he summoned his ire as an offensive measure, wise to the fact that his tormentors had employed the "friend" tactic many times before. In the past, the Marauders had bribed other students to befriend Severus in order to gain more information, providing them with more ammunition to add to their creatively lacking arsenal of insults.


When he reflected upon that fateful day at the lake, he later realized that Vale had been among the onlookers, although she simply sat on the shore, absorbed in a book, unaware of the paradigm shift occurring only yards away, when he made his biggest mistake, the one that shattered all, the one that no apology could mend; the word—the kill shot—that sent it all crashing down around him. That same night, he knowingly left his dignity in the dungeons when he made the decision to march up to Gryffindor tower.

When he reached the portrait of the Fat Lady, he was in no mood for her games. She unknowingly provoked him when she sang the directive in soprano, "Password!" ending on a note that could break glass.

"Let me in, or so help me I will take paint thinner to you faster than you can hit another sharp," he snarled as he thrust his finger in her face. Predictably, she shrieked and fled to another frame, arms akimbo, flinging insults as she went—only ones that her weak constitution could handle, anyway.

"What a rude young man!" she scoffed at his audacity, furiously fanning herself. She hogged Sir Cadagan's frame, and the knight glared at Severus through the eye slot in his steel helmet. Severus stood outside the door, pacing and occasionally lunging in the direction of the Fat Lady to frighten her again and send her hopping portraits, running through scenes she had no business being in, much to the annoyance of their subjects.

Finally, he heard footsteps as someone ascended the stairs, and he spotted one of Lily's friends, Mary Macdonald, approaching the door to the tower. The doe-eyed girl appeared quite skittish, her brown wispy curls falling carelessly across her face, and Severus knew why. A few weeks ago he had perfected his sectumsempra curse and, in his excitement, recklessly shared it with to Lucius, who informed some of his more disreputable friends, leaving a few Death Eaters raring to test it on a live victim—selecting Mary, whose taciturn disposition made her perfect prey.

"Mary," he grabbed her shoulder and she whirled around, wand in hand and a curse chambered on her lips; she hadn't noticed him lurking on the stair.

"Jesus, you shouldn't sneak up on people!" she said, her thick Scottish accent clotting her words.

"I need you to tell Lily I'm out here—that I need to speak with her. It is imperative that I speak to her," he insisted, repeating his entreaty several times, pacing and gesturing wildly, with his disheveled hair sticking to his sweat-drenched face.

"She doesn't want to talk to you, Severus," Mary admitted, cowing to him; she feared an outburst, still rattled by the earlier assault she'd suffered at the wands of Death Eaters—he noticed the fresh sectumsempra slashes marring her willowy arms, some held closed by stitches.

Railing at Mary had left him he nearly out of breath, so he panted further instructions to the frightened girl, "Tell her, if she refuses to hear what I have to say, I will stay here all night—I will sleep at the threshold if I must, so when she leaves for class tomorrow, I will have my time with her."

Caught between the castle stones and a crazed young man drawing a hard line, she darted her brown eyes every which way, looking beseechingly for backup, but none came. She finally sighed and bent to his will. "I'll tell her, but I warn you, she's not coming out."

"Then tell her I will see her in the morning. If she walks past me, I will shout it across the great hall. She cannot avoid me forever."

Mary's eyes widened at his desperation, and she knew he meant every unhinged word of it, so she nodded and simply said, "Alright." When she turned to say the password, her breath caught midway, when she realized that only the background of the Fat Lady's portrait remained, sans one rubenesque broad. "Where's the fat lady?" Mary asked, perplexed.

"On safari," he answered with an impish smirk, pointing to Saharan scene where the Lady hid herself behind a wildebeest, which he found perfectly appropriate.


It seemed like he'd misjudged the timing of his "mea culpa," since Mary was the last one to enter the common room, the rest of the girls were already in for the night. After hours of pacing by the door, he slumped against the stone wall with a heavy sigh, rehearsing what he planned to say to Lily.

Finally, he heard footsteps just beyond the painting barring his entry, and his heartbeat thrummed hard in his chest as he awaited the reveal of the Gryffindor behind the door. When Lily stepped over the threshold, she loomed over him as he crawled to his knees, overjoyed to see her even under the circumstances. "I'm sorry—," he began, hands clasped together, pleading.

The green eyes that once held such warmth for him were now totally devoid of it. "Save it," she snapped, bristling. For a little while, she coldly listened to him offer his remorse, pleading for atonement as he knelt at her feet like a supplicant, until she decided she'd had her fill of his groveling, so she turned to leave.

"Wait!" he cried. "What about James Potter?!" he barked as he rose up to meet her, his nostrils flaring as penitence gave way to pure fury.

"What about him?!" she roared, throwing up her hands.

"What about what he's done to me Lily?" He cried, his voice breaking in his hysterical state. "The degradation, attacks and public shaming?!" he raved, his voice hoarse from shouting. "Attacking me four-to-one?!" he snarled. "He's treated me with far more malice than I meant to inflict with that one stupid slur!" As soon as the last two words left his mouth, he realized that there was nothing worse he could've said. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean it that way, I simply meant…" he began, but Lily interjected.

"Just shut it!" she shouted, seemingly fed up with his justifications. She took one last look at the broken boy, still shaking and frantically pleading, staring her with a distressing intensity resembling insanity. She scoffed at him and shouted the password at the Fat Lady who had intruded on "The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicholas Tulp," trilling away to the Dutchmen around the slab and shooting hateful glances at Severus. Once the painting allowed Lily access, she marched through the door, leaving Severus fighting the urge to cling to the trailing tail of her robe to keep her from retreating.

When the portrait slammed closed over the entrance to the tower, the noise echoed in his spinning head with a harrowing ring of finality—this time, no matter how contrite he felt, no matter how deeply he regretted his remark, no matter how many apologies he leveled at her feet, he had destroyed their friendship beyond repair. She was done.

This realization had him doubled-over, leaning forward until his nose nearly grazed the floor, slamming his fists against the hard stone until they felt tender and bruised—he hoped the pain would hold back the tears that threatened to well at the corners of his eyes. The coping mechanism had been ingrained in him by his abusive father—with his father, if he screamed or cried in pain, the abuse would escalate, so he had conditioned himself to dam his tears through exposure to pain. Wordlessly, he conjured flames and held his palm above the fire until he felt the flashing sensation of a burn, doing this a few times before his wand finally dropped from his burned and trembling hands. With his back against the wall, he threw his head back, panting and stifling sobs.

There had to be some combination of words that would make her understand—an explanation that would lead her to forgive him, to stay his friend. But even if, by some miracle, he found them, she'd never consent to being his captive audience again, a thought that left him hopelessly spiraling into despair.