Hatred

"Hey Evans what happened? Forgot the spell?"

"Oi Evans, don't worry about it! Everyone messes up sometime…except me of course."

"Oi Evans!"

"Hey Evans!"

"Evans!"

"Hey Evans!"

"What? What do you want Potter?" I finally spat. The back of my neck ached.

Potter didn't even blink. "Just wanted to compliment your spell work today," he said with an infuriating smile.

I wanted to scream. No. I wanted to tear my hair out. No. I wanted tear his hair out. My neck was aching, my eyes were getting all hot like they do when I'm about to get a fever, my week has already been beyond awful, Alice still isn't talking to me, and now Potter has decided to make me his personal target for the day.

And just by thinking about all the stupid things he'd said to me today I got so incensed, I suddenly couldn't think straight.

It's a really big problem of mine. Not thinking before speaking.

I felt like Potter had sliced my heart with all of his horrible barbs and from that spot all of my anger just came pouring out. It was a relentless tide of anger and I couldn't stop.

Maybe this wasn't the best analogy. Whatever.

"Will. You. Just. Shut. Up!" I screamed. "You're so annoying. All you do is annoy me. And why? I didn't do anything to you! But you just keep bugging me and I hate it! You're such a stupid, annoying, arrogant, useless boy and I wish I'd never met you!"

About halfway through my tirade, I started to feel really guilty about what I was saying. And I wanted to stop. But like I said, I can't really control my mouth when I'm angry. Luckily, my throat started closing up from anger—it's usually really annoying when that happens—and I knew if I kept talking I would start crying. So I shut up and ran away.

I found a nice corner in the castle after I had gotten good and lost—well only lost because I didn't pay attention to my surroundings, I think after being here for four years I wouldn't get lost.

Anyway, I sat there and let my anger simmer because I wanted to, okay? Potter was a huge jerk and my life sucked right now and I just wanted to be angry. In fact, I wanted to hate someone. Preferably, Potter.

And then someone slid down next to me and I buried my face in my knees. This was not really because I wanted to avoid the person, but because a few tears had slid out during my internal anger and I really wished to avoid anyone seeing. So the person and I sat together in silence for a good ten minutes before he said anything.

"Do you hate him?"

I looked up and sighed. "No. But I wish I did."

Sev nodded.

"It's because I—," I started

"Don't hate people," Sev finished.

We shared a grin.

"Yeah. And the thing is, I can't help but feel that he's not all bad. And that it would be kind of a tragedy for me to hate Potter. Because what if he gets better? And anyway, he's not even worth my hating him. No one is really. Hatred is too much work without any benefit."

Sev shook his head. "You're something else Lil."

I grinned. "I know."

"So why were you crying?" Sev asked.

I looked at him in surprise. "How did you know?"

Sev raised an eyebrow. "If you think you can hide your tears from me after all these years, you've got another thing coming Lily."

"Couldn't hurt to try," I grumbled. "And how do you know it wasn't because of Potter?"

Sev did his little half-smile, the one I was so fond of. "Never. He's definitely not worth that."

"I fought with Alice," I admitted with a sigh. "And I'm pretty sure I failed a test."

Sev looked at me carefully. "Do you want to talk about it?"

He knew the answer to that question.

"Definitely not."

He stood up and held his hand out to me. "Want to go drown your sorrows in chocolate?"

I looked at his hand then up at his face. "Why Severus, you know me so well," I said as I accepted.

Sev flashed me a grin.

"What are best friends for?"

I would really appreciate some constructive criticism on this one. I really don't know how I do when I write in first person.