Author's Note: Thank you to my beta, aberrantstrain, who is dealing with RL issues, but still takes the time to talk HP with me every day. Thank you also to snapeslittleblackbuttons for her detailed review.

Check out AO3 this week for photos of what I imagine Evan Rosier and Mercedes Shacklebolt to look like.

Also, this chapter is 3000+ words of pure fluff. Sorry about that. But fear not: next week's chapter (which has been written for weeks) finally starts to get into the political meat of the story.

Chapter 10: Public Display of Affection

The morning of the Hogsmeade visit, Severus awoke to Lily's angelic smile reflected to him through his two-way mirror. It was held to the bed hangings beside his face with a re-peelable sticking charm.

"Hello sleepyhead," she crooned softly, "ready for Hogsmeade today?"

Severus's heart constricted in his chest. How nice would it be to wake up next to her like this every morning? They had tried the mirrors for the first time the night before, and good thing they had waited until the Friday to do so, because they had stayed up half the night talking. Lily had had the genius idea of casting a Muffliato to encompass themselves and the voice emerging from the mirror, and their dorm mates had been none the wiser.

It was strange to be able to see her and hear her and yet not be able to reach out and touch her. It was stranger still to be gazing directly into her eyes and yet be unable to sense the residue of her emotions. This two-dimensional, cerebrally silent facsimile of Lily almost made him miss her more, and he ached with the desire to hold her in his arms and surrender to the tidal wave of her unoccluded feelings.

"Meet you in the Entrance Hall after breakfast?" he asked. They typically walked over to Hogsmeade together.

"Yep," she confirmed with a wide grin.

"What're we doing today?" he asked her, while slipping his hand under his tee shirt to scratch his belly. He winced as his own whine assaulted his ears, and he realized that over the years, he had come to depend on Lily to make up the schedule for their day. How pathetic was that?

Lily certainly didn't seem to mind, as she started to rattle off their scheduled stops. "Well, first we need to stop off at Dervish & Banges to drop off my telescope to get fixed, then Tomes & Scrolls, I've lost my copy of 1001 Magical Herbs and Fungi, and then lunch at the Three Broomsticks of course, and then oh! We need to stop by Scrivenshaft's, you're all out of parchment."

"No, Mulciber gave me a bunch for my birthday, remember?" he interjected.

"Oh yeah. I forgot. That should be enough to last you the rest of the year for sure."

He and Lily used parchment, quills and ink only to turn in assignments and write exams. For their own note-taking, it was biros and notebooks from home, which were far more user-friendly and cheaper, besides. As a result, they got by with a fraction of the supply of parchment that their classmates did.

His bladder spasmed as he scratched his hand across it. "Okay, I got to piss. See you after breakfast," he said, unsticking his mirror from the bed hangings with a wave of his wand and snapping it shut.

An uncharacteristically distraught looking Evan cornered him in the loo, where he was fussing over his hair in the mirror.

Severus wrinkled his nose, his eyes watering. "Jesus Christ, Rosier, you smell like you crash landed into an enormous vat of cologne."

"Jesus Christ?" questioned Evan with a frown.

Oh, right. "Nevermind. Muggle saying." Severus muttered under his breath. He often slipped back into taking the Lord's name in vain (instead of Merlin's) after he'd been home in Cokeworth with his Catholic parents. Especially his father, who cursed as good as you'd expect any tinker turned mill worker to curse.

Evan was now sniffing the collar of his purple button down shirt. "Too much?" he asked, voice muffled.

"That depends. Are you trying to seduce her or to obtund her?" Severus deadpanned.

Evan looked at him with wide eyes. Wide, desperate, almost crazed eyes. Severus took a step back, bumping against a sink.

"I can't do this," said Evan, an increasing note of panic to his voice.

"The charm you're looking for is effunderetur odor (1)," Severus snarked.

Evan waved an impatient hand. "No, I mean, I can't take Mercedes on a date. She's — she's a goddess and I'm just a mere mortal and she's going to laugh in my face before she squishes me like the insignificant insect that I am," he blurted in a single breath, his voice ending up an entire octave higher by the end of it.

Severus was taken aback. In the four and a half years that he had shared a dorm with him, he had never known Evan to question himself before. And here he was having a full-scale crisis of confidence. Over a girl. Granted, saying that Mercedes Shacklebolt was just a girl, was like saying that a dragon was just a lizard.

Evan stepped toward him, grasping him by the shoulders. "You — you could come with me! Yes! Then I wouldn't have to face her alone!"

Severus raised an incredulous eyebrow. "You want to bring a friend along on your date? You really think that's the way to go about impressing her?"

"Just for the start," Evan begged. "If I make it through the first 15 minutes without vomiting all over myself, you can leave."

Severus hesitated. "But, I already made plans with Lily."

"Bring her!" said Evan excitedly. "That's even better. They can talk to each other about whatever it is that pretty, popular girls talk about."

Severus shifted from foot to foot in Evan's hold, casting his mind about for a way — any way — out of this.

Evan tightened his grasp on Severus's shoulders. "Please Severus, it's the only way. It's too late to brew a calming draught."

Evan's blue eyes beseeched him, and Severus found himself inexplicably swayed. "Alright," he conceded. "I'll let Lily know. But we're not tagging along with you the whole day."

Evan's face broke out into a relieved smile. "Thanks, mate, you're the best." He let go of Severus's shoulders and clapped him on the back.

Severus could feel the waves of gratitude and genuine affection radiating off of his friend, and he knew that he had made the right decision.

Severus had always felt a certain distance between himself and the other boys in the dorm. It wasn't his dorm mates' doing — on the contrary, they had made a concerted effort to include him, but had gradually given it up as a bad job as Severus consistently turned down their invitations in favour of spending all of his free time with Lily. It had never been an issue for him until this year, when he had found himself craving male companionship for the first time in his life — a certain camaraderie that Lily simply couldn't provide. Out of the four boys, he had always felt the most all-around affinity for Evan. Avery and Mulciber were sort of their own little duo, and Wilkes was a sound enough bloke, but mostly kept to his books. Charming, vivacious, and genial, Evan was the sort of boy who seemed to be friends with everyone, although upon closer reflection, Severus realized that the boy lacked a true best mate. He had felt Evan gravitating toward him recently — their simultaneous foray into the World of Girls seeming to unite them on some level — and he found himself welcoming the newfound closeness.

Yes, helping out Evan was the right decision. All he had to do now was to convince Lily to join them.

He left the bathroom and made his way back over to his bed, opening the mirror back up, but nothing other than his own reflection stared up at him. She must have shut hers, and he had no way of telling her to open it back up. He needed to figure out some way of alerting her by way of the mirrors…perhaps some sort of a ringer in the vein of a telephone…

He sighed and started to get dressed, pulling on a pair of worn denims and a Slytherin vest. He would just have to catch her at breakfast. Hopefully she wouldn't mind that he had sprung the change of plans on her with such short notice. He intended to wait for Evan so that they could walk up to the Great Hall together, but ten minutes later, Evan was still fussing with his hair in the mirror, so Severus gave it up as a lost cause and made his way up on his own.

When he reached the Hall, he noticed that Lily was already at the Gryffindor table, next to her friend, Mary McDonald. He crept up behind her, and cleared his throat, but they were having themselves a right proper chin wag (2), and didn't even notice him standing there.

He rolled his eyes, and tapped her on the shoulder. "Lils, can I talk to you for a minute?"

Lily twisted her upper body around and smiled as soon as she spied him.

But Severus found himself preoccupied by the peculiar appraising look on McDonald's face. He lowered his shields slightly to investigate, and got a whiff of — was that curiosity? He was tempted to drop his shields completely, but there were so many students around that he wouldn't be able to separate McDonald's mental emissions from those of the bystanders, unless he actually invaded her mind. And he almost never did that with anyone other than Lily, since active legilimency (the kind where you actually breached a person's mind) was tricky to perform without arousing the subject's suspicion that something was amiss, even if hardly anyone would be able to identify that something as legilimency, given the general population's woeful unfamiliarity with mind magic. Nevertheless he didn't really fancy landing himself a stint in Azkaban, and figuring out why Mary McDonald should be curious about him was hardly worth the trouble.

Lily climbed off the bench and followed him to the far wall. They stood together beneath a shaft of light, the rays scattering widely as it refracting through an enormous stained glass window.

"What is it, Sev?" she asked, tilting her head to the side.

Severus ran a hand through his hair. "Listen, there's been a slight change of plans. Evan is taking Mercedes Shacklebolt to Hogsmeade today and he had a minor fit this morning he's so anxious."

"What's that got to do with us?" said Lily unconcernedly.

He shoved his hands in his pockets, wringing them where they were out of sight. "What it is, right…see Evan's gone and asked us to tag along on the start of his date, so he can ease himself into it with her." At Lily's blank expression, he hurriedly added, "It'd only be for, say, half an hour, tops, all right?"

Lily bit her lip, squinting off through the window into the distance. "Are you sure Rosier wants me there? He's not exactly my biggest fan."

"He specifically wants you to come along to talk Girl with Mercedes," he assured her.

Lily made a great production of rolling her eyes. "Talk Girl? You make it sound like it's a different language."

He raised his hands up in front of him, eyes wide. "Swear down, it practically is."

She sighed in exasperation and crossed her arms. "I hardly even know her. What am I supposed to talk to her about?"

Severus was struck with a sudden stroke of insight. "Evan's exact words were 'whatever pretty, popular girls talk about.'"

Lily couldn't hide her pleased smile. "He called me pretty?" Her eyes softened. "Well, all right then, but I'm keeping you to half an hour."

Severus grinned. His stroke of insight had been right on the mark. If there was one thing that was guaranteed to soften Lily Evans up, it was flattery. "Thanks Lils, that's well mint." (3)

As it turned out, Evan needn't have worried about impressing Mercedes Shacklebolt. Almost from the moment that the four of them squeezed in around a table at the packed Three Broomsticks, Evan and Mercedes had retreated into their own little bubble of new teenage puppy love. They were so wrapped up in each other that they barely spared Lily and Severus a glance, never mind a word. He watched, entranced, as a giggling Mercedes fed Evan a chip off her plate. He cringed at Evan's wide, dopey grin. He didn't look like that when he was alone with Lily, did he? God help him if he did.

Severus found himself caught between genuine happiness for his friend, second hand embarrassment at their shameless display, and a wistful sort of envy. Mercedes clearly wasn't afraid to be seen on a date with Evan. He chanced a glanced at Lily, who was politely feigning interest in her butterbeer, while surreptitiously sneaking voyeuristic little glances at the Slytherin couple in front of her. Did she envy them too? He probed the outskirts of her mind gently, but found her to be fully occluding.

Mercedes' sultry voice broke him out of his maudlin mood. "Nice talking to the two of you. We're, er, going to go for a walk. See you later, Severus, Lily," she said, vaguely nodding in their direction, though her lovestruck eyes never strayed far from Evan's face. They traipsed out the door, holding hands and whispering to each other.

Left alone together, an awkward silence ensued between him and Lily. Looking for some way to break it, he sprang out of his chair and hurried up to the bar to get them another round of butterbeers.

Lily hadn't offered to split the tab. That was new.

He returned to the table, popping the cap of Lily's butterbeer with his belt buckle (4) before handing it to her and doing the same with his own bottle. She took it from him absent-mindedly, her attention diverted. He followed her gaze to a nearby table, which hosted Potter and his fan club. But far from their usual boisterous display, they looked to be sitting in compete silence, apart from Pettigrew, who seemed to be telling jokes and not realizing that he was the only one at the table laughing. The rest of the lot looked practically solemn. Well, that was peculiar.

Potter was watching Lily. Black was watching Potter. MacDonald and Lupin were watching Black. And Pettigrew, as always, remained thoroughly oblivious.

"Sickle for their thoughts?" asked Lily, sliding a silver coin to him across the table. She wasn't a legilimens herself, but Lily often asked him to peek into their classmates' heads when she was curious enough. Instead of scanning the thoughts of the Gryffindors at the next table, Severus slipped deftly into Lily's mind, and she let him. He saw immediately that Lily's suspicions about Black mirrored his own.

Severus slid the coin back over to her. "Save your silver. You've got the right idea already." He lowered his voice conspiratorially: "You don't need to be a legilimens to tell that Black's got it bad for him."

Lily smiled triumphantly, before her brows knit together. "But…how does Lupin fit into all of this?"

He smirked. "You mean, apart from being a gay werewolf?"

Lily reached across the table and smacked him on the arm. "Oh, would you stop it. He is not a werewolf." Her expression turned thoughtful. "Besides, I reckon he's bisexual, you know, like David Bowie." (5)

Severus raised an inquisitive eyebrow.

"I've caught him staring at my tits in the common room," she explained in a matter of fact tone.

Severus growled low in his throat.

"Oh, don't be a hypocrite. I let you stare at them all the time," she said flippantly.

Heat licked his cheeks. He scowled half-heartedly. "If you don't want me looking at them, you should put a sticking charm on the top two buttons of your shirt. They keep coming undone. Especially in Potions. It's quite distracting, you know. I nearly melted our cauldron that time we were brewing antidotes before Christmas."

Lily giggled. "I know. I'm the one who rescued it at the last minute." It was true. She hadn't merely rescued the cauldron — she had completely fixed the antidote, and they had gotten top marks. She really was a little Potions genius. "Your mistake, Severus Snape," she continued patiently, "is assuming that my shirt buttons coming undone is an accident," she finished with a saucy little lip bite that had Severus instantly hard in his keks (6). Blast. Not again. He glanced back over at the Gryffindor table to distract himself. Catching sight of Potter's smug face was always good for deflating an inconvenient erection.

"Your friend MacDonald looks downright miserable," he remarked. Arms crossed, she was staring disconsolately at the table top, sneaking glances every once in a while at Black, who continued to ignore her in favour of Potter. She wore a tight, low cut tee shirt meant to emphasize her shapely figure (which it did nicely) and capture Black's attention (which, unfortunately for her, it didn't).

Lily sighed, picking at the label on her butterbeer. "She's supposed to be on a date with Black."

Suddenly, Severus had an idea. "Why don't you invite her over here? Rescue her from her afternoon of playing third wheel to Black and Potter?" Not that he cared, but he figured that playing nice with Lily's girl friends was bound to win him some points.

He was wrong.

Lily suddenly clammed up, shifting in her seat. "What, so she can play third wheel to us instead?" She let out a nervous sounding giggle.

He would have let it go, chalking Lily's reticence up to the fact that Lily's friends weren't overly fond of him, and made no secret of it. Except that instead of reading that sentiment from her, he was reading precisely….nothing. Because she had completely occluded him out. Severus narrowed his eyes. She was hiding something. And she didn't want him talking with MacDonald. But why? He resolved to get to the bottom of it.

"Oh please, it's me who's going to be the third wheel, listening to the two of you bitch on and on about Black. Besides, if she joins us, we won't look like we're on a date," he finished bitterly.

Deperate to divert the conversation away from the secret nature of their relationship, Lily reluctantly waved Mary over to their table.

Mary frowned in confusion, pointing at herself, as if to ask 'who, me?' Lily gave an exaggerated nod in return. Mary dithered for a moment, before pushing her chair back and shuffling hesitantly over to their table. She shot Sev an apprehensive look before perching herself onto the chair next to Lily.

"It looked like you could use some rescuing," said Lily by way of explanation.

Mary dropped her chin into her hands, elbow resting on the table. She huffed a breath, which lifted up her fringe. "Yeah, he hasn't said two words to me all day. I don't know what I've done wrong."

"Oh Mary, I'm sure it's got nothing to do with you…" said Lily, laying a hand on Mary's back.

To her surprise, Sev piped up at that moment. "Lily's right, you know. Trust me, when I say that there is no other girl in the world that Sirius Black would rather spend the day with."

Lily caught his eye and shook her head in admonishment. This was definitely not the time nor the place to make veiled insinuations about Sirius Black's sexual orientation. Sev widened his eyes in mock innocence, and Lily rolled her own eyes, trying to reign in the twitching of her lips.

Mary looked up at Sev with a bemused half-smile. She appeared to have missed his insinuations, and hadn't been expecting his vote of confidence. "Thanks, you two."

Sev caught Mary's eye, and a peculiar expression crossed his face. It made Lily shift uneasily in her seat. But just as quickly, it was gone, to be replaced by a small smile of his own. "You're welcome, MacDonald."

They spent the rest of the day keeping Mary company, and perhaps most shocking of all, Sev and Mary actually seemed to get on well enough. It was a stark contrast to Mary's plain disapproval a mere week ago, and it threw her for a loop.

Perhaps she had been too hasty, shrouding her relationship with Sev in secrecy. It would have been nice to be able to stroll down the streets of Hogsmeade, her hand encased in his.

1 - Latin for 'diffuse the odour'. At least, according to google translate. I took 4 years of Latin in high school and sadly don't remember a single word of it.

2 - Chin wag is slang for gossip fest

3 - Well mint means excellent

4 - I once had a guy do this for me, and it was the sexiest thing ever. Don't ask me why.

5 - David Bowie announced that he was bisexual in the January 22, 1972 issue of Melody Maker. It made the front page.

6 - Keks is a mancunian word for trousers