Chapter 14: Changes

"My girl!" Mrs Evans uttered a cry of joy and pulled Lily into a hug. "Let me look at you!" She held the girl at arm´s lenght. "You look radiant, dear! Come in! Everybody is waiting for you! Severus! Help me with the luggage, please!" She called into the house. "Professor Dumbledore! How rude I am! Please, step in, Sir!"

Dumbledore smiled. "No, thank you, Mrs Evans. Your invitation is very kind, but I have a meeting to attend and your family has reason to celebrate. Good bye, Miss Evans! Master Snape." He nodded to Severus, who had just stepped out of the house to help with Lily´s trunk, turned on the spot and disapparated with a faint plop.

"Wow, you´ve grown quite a bit," cried Lily and hugged her friend. "Look how tall you are. I´m barely reaching to your chin!"

"We´re feeding him well!" laughed Mr Evans. "Come here, girl." He hugged his daughter. "Obviously Severus is not the only one, who´s grown. You´re a young lady!"

He took one handle of Lily´s trunk and Severus took the other. Together they carried it up to Lily´s room.

"Is Petunia not at home?" asked Lily.

"No," whispered Mrs Evans. "She has a boyfriend. She leaves after breakfast and comes back after supper."

"A boyfriend? Is he nice?"

Mrs Evans shrugged. "Your father and Severus don´t like him. We weren´t introduced yet, but of course we had a look through the curtains."

"You weren´t introduced? But that´s rude!"

"She´s afraid, he may find out about you and Severus. You know, what I mean."

"About magic, you mean."

Mrs Evans nodded apologetically.

-x-

Mrs Evans prepared Lily´s favorite dishes for lunch. They sat at the dining-room table and Lily had to tell them everything about France. She chatted happily about life at Beauxbatons and everybody had a good laugh at poor professor Fraudeur´s flight from his colleagues. "Just imagine, the poor man´s called Aimé! That´s French for ´beloved´!"

At four in the afternoon Severus got up. "Sorry," he said, "but I have a decoction brewing at the lab. I have to check on it."

"May I come and have a look?"

"Of course, it´s your lab as well as mine. If your parents have no objections, that is."

"No, no, you go, dears," said Mrs Evans. "I´ll unpack Lily´s trunk and start the washing."

"Thank you, mum."

"Be back for supper!"

"OK."

-x-

"Oh, that smells good! What are you decocting?" Lily sniffed.

"I´m trying something with the lavender you sent in your last parcel." Severus led the way to the kitchen, were a cauldron full of violett liquid was bubbling merrily. He stirred it and smiled in a satisfied manner. "This is ready for destiling."

He started to put up the necessary equipment and handed Lily a flask. "You fill this with the decoction."

"Yes, Sir." Lily saluted and started to work.

"How long will this take?" she asked after a while.

"It should be ready next Friday, before we go back to school."

"What will we use it for?"

"Burn oinment. I found the recipe only yesterday. There are not many left, which don´t require a wand." He sighed. "The problem is, it takes ten days to make it. And it requires fresh lavender. If this works, we can replace the fresh flowers and make it during Christmas break."

"So we´re making lavender oil?"

"Not simple lavender oil. I added some nutmeg. This should stabilize the essentials and thus allow us to use this oil instead of the fresh ingredient."

"Nutmeg. This could work."

"I hope so."

"I missed our discussions."

"I missed them, too."

They smiled at each other and continued working.

-x-

The next days passed with more chatting about France at the Evans´ house and checking on the oil at the Snapes´ house. One day they went to the forest to get some bark of birch and oak.

On Friday they went to the lab to finish their work on the lavender-nutmeg oil. The last drops of oil were running through the cooler and they sat down to wait for them to fall into the vial.

Severus showed Lily his work in his mother´s sixth year potions book to bridge over the waiting period. "Your handwriting is a menace," she complained and leaned over to get a closer look. "Who can read this? Tell me, what´s this word, here." Severus leaned closer. The scent of lavender filled the kitchen. Suddenly the handwriting was of no importance. Green eyes met black eyes. When their lips touched, time seemed to stand still.

Severus came back to his senses first. "I´m sorry," he stuttered. "I didn´t mean to..."

Lily was furious. "What do you mean by you didn´t mean it? You can´t kiss me and tell me you didn´t mean it. Next time you do a thing like that, you better be sure about it!"

Severus was taken aback. Desperately he struggled for words. As he couldn´t find any appropriate, he leaned forward and made sure that Lily understood he meant it.

-x-

"This might be a problem, you know." Lily said, when she stoppered the vial with lavender oil.

"Why?"

"If Black or any of his friends finds out that we´re an item, we´re facing hard times."

"So secrecy is crucial."

"I suggest so."

"I agree. I can´t help you in Gryffindor tower. And you´re not as good a dueller as I am."

"Nobody cared to teach me."

"We can use Hogsmeade weekends. I´ll teach you."

"That´s cute of you."

"Cute? I never thought of myself as cute."

"Not? Well, I´ve been told that interesting is a better word for you."

"Who finds me interesting?"

"I won´t tell you. You´re mine alone."

"OK."

-x-

The matter was too important to ignore. Lily and Severus spent Saturday at the lab, packing things away, and discussing their need for secrecy.

"We can´t afford to spill the secret. Black and his idiot friends would be after both of us." Severus pointed out.

"I know. We must be very cautious."

"I know Myra is your best friend, but I think we can´t even risk telling her."

"What she doesn´t know, she can´t tell."

"Exactly."

"I feel bad about that. Myra has been faithful."

"It´s too risky."

"You´re right. But nevertheless, I feel bad."

"Poor girl. We have to be careful that we don´t do anything thoughtless."

"But how can we stop each other from being imprudent without giving the secret away by the action itself?"

"Don´t know."

They dragged a big box with pots and cauldrons to the storeroom.

"Maybe I have an idea," said Severus.

"Tell."

"You can call me a halfblood. It always makes me calm and focused."

"Who´s calling you a halfblood?"

"Nobody."

"You never were a good liar. Who?"

"Some in Slytherin house."

"I never thought of that. Having a muggle father won´t be fun in Slytherin."

"I can handle it."

"And you really want me to call you that?"

"I´d know you don´t care about my blood status and I´d get the warning."

"So, what you´d call me? A mudblood?" Lily looked at the boy searchingly.

"Only if you allow it. And it always would mean this." He kissed her.

"Wow, we´ll be noticed, if you keep walking around insulting me. I shall be egging you on, mister."

"So you agree?"

"Yes. It´s a good idea and it will fool Black´s gang. But I don´t like it too much. We should keep this as an emergency plan."

"Which part of it don´t you like?"

Lily looked scandalized. "Severus Snape! You greedy little squirrel! We don´t have time to kiss all day. Look at those herbs we have to store away!"

The boy sighed. "It was worth a try."

-x-

The evening was spent with packing trunks. Lily had some difficulties to get D´Artagnan into his cage. The owl suspected her of wanting him to take the cage to some distant place and kept trying to escape. At last Severus threw a blanket over the rebellious bird, which earned him a grateful glance from Lily and an encounter with the owl´s beak.

"Bad owl! D´Artagnan is a very bad boy!" scolded Lily and shut the cage. "Come here, poor you!" She offered Severus a jar of salve.

"What´s this noise about?" Mr Evans rushed into the room.

"It´s my owl, dad. First he refused to go into his cage and then he bit Severus." The boy showed his bloody finger.

Mr Evans shot D´Artagnan a severe look. "You better be a good bird." He waged his finger at the owl. "You need help, boy?"

"No, thank you, Sir. Lily was just going to give me some salve." The owl hooted guiltily.

"You´d better go to bed. We have to start early tomorrow. Do you need help with the air-mattress?"

"No, Sir. I´m used to it by now."

"Good night."

"Good night, dad." – "Good night, Sir."

True to his word given some years before, Severus stayed on his air-mattress. He had, however, not given his word not to hold Lily´s hand all night.

-x-

At the breakfast table Lily and Severus tried out their new sign for ´I kiss you.´. It was designed for breakfast: stir your coffee two times clockwise and once counter-clockwise. It worked well. Each of them caught it, when it was given by the other but neither Lily´s parents nor her sister noticed anything.

Lily didn´t enjoy the car ride much as reaching King´s Cross would mean four months of secret keeping and her friend beyond reach. Her mood was rather subdued, when her father finally put her trunk into the Hogwarts express and said good bye. The only comfort was Myra, who was cheerful as ever.

"Look," she beamed and showed a silver bracelet with light blue stones. "After you were gone uncle Aureus had Pierre and his family invited for remember Pierre, don´t you? He apparated with our luggage. Well, Pierre´s father and uncle Aureus have been to school together. They stayed two days and we made a trip to Marseilles and Pierre bought me this."

Lily admired the bracelet.

"He says I´m merveilleuse, Pierre."

"You´re not love-sick, are you?"

"It doesn´t feel like sick. His eyes are coal-black." Myra uttered a happy sigh. "I could have drowned in them. Hey, what are you sighing for? He´s mine."

Lily bit her lip. This was going to be more difficult than she had thought. Luckily Kassandra and Eloise arrived, which caused a change of topic. They had spent their summer together at the antarctic continent as Eloise´s parents felt an urge to study penguins and whether their dung could be used for potions. The two girls kept abusing them for taking them to the cold.

Black and his friends walked past the compartment, but luckily only two seats were empty and they passed. Shortly after the train´s departure Potter came back.

"Hi, Evans!" he said and rumpled up his hair. "You look, eh, great. I was wondering, well, if you´d like to go to Hogsmeade with me?"

"Aren´t you a bit early?" asked Kassandra.

"Just wanted to be sure to be the first to ask." Potter grinned.

"Only to make sure, this is no misunderstanding," said Lily. "You´ve been threatening me for three years, four hadn´t I been abroad, and now you ask me out? You must be mental. I´d not go to Hogsmeade with you, were you the last living being on earth."

"I´ve been protecting you from dark scum."

"Had I ever felt the need for protection I´d have told you. And now get lost, before I´m getting really angry!" hissed Lily.

Potter hesitated, but then left without contradicting.

Lily sighed. Life had just become one touch more complicated.

-x-

The start of term feast brought another surprise. Lily had just chosen a piece of chocolate cake, when a small black-haired girl came and gave small rolls of parchment to her and Myra.

Lily thanked the girl and opened the parchment. It was a message from professor Slughorn, who invited her to an after-feast party in the dungeons.

Myra had an invitation, too.

-x-

"What do you think," asked Myra on their way to the dungeons. "Why were we asked to Slughorn´s party. I mean, I´ve heard about them, but he invites only those, who come from interesting families. None of us can claim to have one."

Lily shrugged. "I have no idea. I say, we have a glass of pumpkin juice and leave as soon as possible."

They had reached Slughorn´s office. Soft music led the way to a near store-hall, were a group of about fifteen students had already assembled. On a table at the wall drinks and small snacks were displayed. The students held glasses, but seeing the fact, that they all had just enjoyed the feast, nobody had touched the food.

Lily knew only few of the assembled students. One of them was Greenspoon. She had a look around and her heart leaped. At the far end of the room stood Severus. She pointed him out to Myra and the two girls set out to meet him, when suddenly Black and Potter stepped into their way.

"Nice to meet you, Evans!" Black grinned. "Bones, here as well?"

"Can I get you drinks?" asked Potter and eyed Lily sheepishly.

Lily scowled at him. "Pumpkin juice," she said. Professor Slughorn had just entered the room. Making a scene in front of him seemed imprudent.

Potter returned with four glasses of pumpkin juice. Black helped him to hand glasses to the girls. There was an awkward silence, during which Potter tried to direct Lily´s attention at his badge. He had become Quidditch captain.

"I didn´t know, you play Quidditch," said Myra as the seconds stretched.

"Started only last year," Potter said in fake modesty.

"Don´t hide your light under a bushel, Prongs," interfered Black. "He´s a superb seeker. Gryffindor owes him winning last years Quidditch Cup and House Cup."

Lily tried to seem interested, but her attempt was more than feeble.

"Ah," Horace Slughorn joined the group. "My young Gryffindor friends! How is your father, Black? I haven´t met him for, what, it must be three years!"

"My father is well, Sir." Black replied politely.

"You give my regards to him, Black! I was so disappointed, when you went into Gryffindor! Well, at least I got your brother." He pointed at a smaller boy, who shared Blacks grey eyes and was just chatting with Severus at the other end of the room.

"Potter! My congratulations for becoming Quidditch captain! Your performance was superb last year. If you decide to be a professional player, I may be able to make contact with some teams for you."

"Thank you, Sir." Potter murmured.

"Bones! Why did you conceal your kinship to Mr Aureus Dupont from me, when I asked you some years ago?"

"I didn´t conceal anything, Sir. You asked me about the Bones, who work for the ministry and I said, truthfully, that I´m not related to them."

"No accusation, Bones, no accusation. I should have worded my question better." He smiled. "Mr Dupont is your..." He looked at Myra questioningly.

"My uncle, Sir. He´s married to my father´s youngest sister."

Slughorn beamed.

Lily was the last of the group to be addressed. "Miss Evans. I understand, you´ve been guest at Mr Dupont´s house as well." Lily nodded. "And I heared from my colleague, Monsieur Fraudeur, whom I happened to meet at Cannes this summer, that you´re an extraordinary potion brewer. According to him, we have more than one here at Hogwarts at the moment." Slughorn winked at Lily. "You excuse me, I have to greet all my guests."

"Thank you for your invitation, Sir," said the four Gryffindors. "Not at all, not at all," beamed Slughorn, "enjoy the party, children." And off he went to greet Greenspoon.

-x-

"That was so creepy!" Myra pointed out on their way to Gryffindor tower. "Having drinks with Black and Potter!" She shuddered.

"Mmh." Lily was absentminded. She had been but meters from Severus and not even been able to talk one word with him. She just hoped, that her timetable was favorable this year.