A/N: Trigger warnings for drug use
Chapter 46: Of Decisions and Choices
Lily had planned to write to Severus the morning after her resolution, the thought of prolonging the separation suddenly unbearable, the knowledge of how much her silence was hurting him every day a sharp pain in her chest. But Bettina had woken her up after she'd overslept, and now she was hurrying her along or else they'd be too late for breakfast. Lily couldn't think of a way to shake her well-intentioned friend off without hurting her feelings – Bettina had never taken well to anything she perceived as displeasure or scolding from her closest – and so the redhead resolved to sneaking away to write as soon as she'd eaten instead.
The sight of James among her Gryffindor group made Lily's stomach flip, and for once not out of excitement, but out of dread. She'd been avoiding him for the last few days, giving herself the justification of needing to make a decision, but now that she had, she knew things needed to change. The best option for Severus' peace of mind would be to make some sort of definitive break with James – Severus' fears would no doubt continue even after they spoke about what they were to each other, because she'd not be able to assure him the way a public relationship would – and for all the friendship and comfort that had grown between her and James in the last two or so months, she wasn't hesitant to give it up, even if she would miss James' easy company. The problem was that, after how close she and James had been just days ago, doing it suddenly was bound to cause too many pointed questions that Lily couldn't answer. By now, she'd learned her current limitations when it came to lying, and they were great enough she knew she'd have a hell of a time wriggling herself out of Clotilde's curiosity or Sirius' suspicion, to say nothing of James himself or the school rumour mill, for that matter.
She may not have gotten far with her Occlumency training in the last four months, but if she had learned something, it was that the best way of keeping secrets from those close to her was to hide that she was keeping secrets, and the only way she knew how to do that was to make sure they wouldn't have reason to question her in the first place. In translation, that meant not doing anything sudden regarding James, even though it was the action she felt she owed Severus, regardless of her own feelings on the matter. A conundrum she needed to think on, and consult with Severus on, too; she was determined to begin involving him with any and all of her decisions that related in any way to his mission with Dumbledore, and this one certainly related directly.
Silently sighing to herself, Lily sat down across from Remus, keeping Bettina between herself and James. She was still feeling too unsettled to manage a full breakfast, but it seemed her appetite was coming back at last. The conversation around her was as lively as was usual by now, the upper-year girls and boys integrated in ways they hadn't been at the beginning of the year – Remus and Peter began softly talking with Bettina about their homework, Mary was giving slightly frowning looks towards James and Sirius, who seemed in some sort of quiet discussion, and Clotilde was debating the day's newspapers with Neela from her year, the rest of the seventh-years occupied by last-minute homework completion. Having kept rather quiet for more than a week now, no one seemed too concerned with Lily not participating after she'd given Mary her reassurance that she was on the mend from her supposed illness.
With no one insisting on her immediate attention, Lily's mind wandered right back to Severus. She couldn't quite stop herself from glancing at the Slytherin table here and there, wanting to catch a glimpse of him covertly, thoughts turning to the question of how he might react when they spoke, spinning out idle scenarios and little fantasies that made her stomach flutter. She hoped he'd be proactive, though she suspected she had more experience of the two of them when it came to romance. So maybe she'd kiss him instead, take it from there. Had he ever kissed anyone before? Her stomach twisted at the very thought of it, of him with another girl.
There was also the question of how exactly to tell him her decision. It wasn't something she could just write out in a journal, but aside from the by-now-old problems of meeting up in person, she also needed to be careful of her words. His usual attitude when they got into a tiff was sullenness and uncommunicativeness, and given how well she'd managed to bugger this up over the last couple of months, if she were to just blurt it out, he'd be liable to disbelieve her. Then too, there was the matter of the distance that had sprung up between them, which was quite a separate hurdle to overcome if they were to get together – their friendship needed to finally come onto firm ground irrespective of whatever romance happened between them. But the journals would help them in reconnecting, she was sure, and cursed herself for the fool who hadn't made those a priority from the very beginning.
She glimpsed up again and there he was suddenly, sitting with Stacie Monroe and Regulus Black, clearly in some sort of a discussion. His hair was down today; he'd taken to wearing it tied back more and more, and she'd in turn started trying to guess what dictated if he'd let it hang around his face or not. His eyes flickered for a moment towards Lily's table, and she looked down at her omelette hastily, biting her lip and swallowing past her dry throat, suddenly not hungry at all. She felt warm all over, and wondered if this'd be an ongoing thing, or just while everything was so very unsettled.
"Lily, can I talk to you for a second?" Remus asked, tapping his finger against the back of her hand across the table. Blinking up at him, Lily felt a bit caught out at the rather serious look on his face.
"Now? All right," she agreed, dropping her fork and grabbing a baguette to munch on, since it seemed that her stomach was only up to handling dry foods after all. She managed to catch another glimpse of the Slytherin boy before they exited the Great Hall, her heart flipping in her chest, equal parts nervous excitement and fearful apprehension.
Remus tucked them into a nearby empty classroom and cast a privacy spell on the door. Then he turned to her with his eyebrows lifted.
"You've sorted yourself out, then?"
"I, erm..." she hedged, caught by surprise, and nodded. "Yeah. How could you tell?"
"You're acting soppily."
"I'm sorry?"
He waved at her face. "You're pink all over, and you've been biting your lip until it's bleeding, and you've been taking peeks at the Slytherins since you sat down." His expression was worriedly serious. "You're being very obvious about it."
The realisation settled into her stomach like a stone. She'd known she was, but it hadn't quite registered properly until the words rang in her ears.
"Oh. That bad?"
Remus gave her a very unimpressed look. "Lily, the only way I could think of for you to be more obvious would be if you went back to the Great Hall and started snogging him in front of the whole school."
"Shit," she hissed, her nerves shifting into full-blown anxiety. "Shit, that's bad. I only really made my decision last night, haven't even written to him yet; I'm nervous."
"I understand, but unless you want everyone to start asking questions, you need to get a handle on it, and fast. It's too different to how strangely you've been acting since term started, and James is liable to notice, if Clotilde doesn't. He's been preoccupied with Sirius' bad spell the last week or so, but he's been subtly bugging me about you for a while now. Well, subtly for him," Remus allowed. "I told him it had to do with your family, but unless you can come up with an explanation that has to do with your family for why you keep... well, mooning at the Slytherin table, he'll stop believing me, and you can bet that the moment he starts being actually suspicious about it, Sirius will get dragged in, and then you'll have a mess on your hands."
Leaning against the wall, Lily rubbed at her eyes frustratedly. When she looked up again, Remus was giving her a sympathetic look.
"Maybe he would have some suggestions? I don't imagine his situation will be much different once you two have your talk, and the Slytherins are even more observant than us Gryffindors."
"I was planning on discussing that with him anyway. But it still doesn't solve anything until then, and I don't imagine I'd be less obvious once we do settle things." If she and Severus got together this evening, they'd be found out by the end of the week, of course they would. Even worse, she was having trouble keeping away from him when nothing had been settled between them – how was she supposed to keep away from him when everything had, when she knew what it was like to be held by him and to kiss him and to spend time together as a couple, instead of as friends?
The obvious solution was staring her in the face, and her stomach felt like lead for it. "Bloody buggering fuck," she hissed, tugging on her ponytail in frustration. But she couldn't think of anything else. "I can't contact him until I get myself under control," she said miserably, clenching her eyes tightly shut to stop the tears from leaking. God, as if six months weren't long enough already.
Remus' surprisingly strong arms tugged her into a familiar, bony hug and she exhaled her frustration into his robes.
"If this thing you two have cooked up is so important, then he'll understand," Remus tried to assure her, and though the attempt completely failed, Lily was grateful. "And if he doesn't, then maybe it'd be better for everyone if you gave up on it and just stood your ground."
"Would that we could," Lily replied, throat dry. But they couldn't, and Lily took this for the harsh preview of their future that it was; the sooner she learned to accept this sort of pain, her own and on Severus' behalf too, the better off they'd both be, because this was the hard path she'd chosen, and the only one who could or had the right to take them off it was Severus, whose constancy and determination, once his mind was made up, were things that made her admire him greatly, even if they frustrated her in equal measure.
"All right. But promise me one thing, Lilian – don't let him hurt you just because you love him, yeah?"
"You should be telling me not to hurt him," she replied, voice tight. "I've done it far more than he has."
"Lily, you are my best friend, not him. By definition, I need to be on your side." He sighed, and in his next words, she heard a smile. "But if it'll make you feel better, I'll remind you of that when I deem it necessary."
Pulling back, she met his gaze squarely. "Do," she said in all seriousness. "If you ever think I'm doing something wrong, tell me, please. I've made enough of a mess by hiding from my issues; maybe if someone had smacked me upside the head with all the consequences of it, I would have caused far less damage to everyone."
Remus nodded. "You have my word. Also, if you ever need me to hide his body, I'll be there. I'm sure I know plenty of good places in the Forbidden Forest already."
Lily couldn't stop the helpless giggles that slipped past her lips. The gratitude she felt for him was spilling over and out, pulling her out of her misery, so that she couldn't contain it even if she'd wanted to.
"I love you, Remmy," she told him, kissing his cheek, the angle somewhat awkward given their height difference. "You're a far better friend than I deserve."
He laughed with her and squeezed her forearm lightly in answer. "I love you, as well. Now come on, let's get some more food into you – I doubt you'll be able to pretend illness for much longer before Mary starts really fussing over you."
"A regular mother hen, that one," Lily agreed with a smirk as they began making their way back to the Great Hall and the never-ending trials she had to face, as price for choosing Severus and the hard path.
The terrifying state Sirius had experienced on Thursday hadn't repeated itself for the following week; nevertheless, he couldn't find his way back into any sort of normalcy, spending the week tense and irritable, tossing and turning in the night and fighting off nightmares when he did manage to fall asleep. James was worried, Peter was worried, even Remus was worried, and all Sirius wanted was to shake it off and stop feeling like he was back at Grimmauld Place, constantly on guard and waiting for the next bad thing to hit.
He fought off all thoughts about his father's health as best he could, trying everything that came to mind, from studying to running as Padfoot to the weed Peter had gotten for him. He managed it some days better than others, but never fully, and never for long, and it drove him nuts, because there was no bloody reason to care, none, that his father was slowly dying – firstly, he'd known that already, the man had already had one heart attack and the Blacks always died young, it was a clear warning sign; secondly, Orion was cold, calculating and manipulative, and he'd seen Sirius only as his property to turn into his idea of the perfect heir, never as a person in his own right; thirdly, Uncle Alphard was doing just as badly, and that man actually loved Sirius like a son, so why the hell would his impending death be less upsetting than Orion's?
Sirius blamed Regulus for it. Regulus had done all in his power to remind Sirius of his connection to Orion, of who Orion had been and still was, even now, to him – his father, his creator. And where Walburga had destroyed any notion of a bond between Sirius and herself (indeed, Sirius would have only wanted to go to her funeral to spit on her grave, were she the one dying), Orion had actually had moments when he'd acted in some lukewarm way as a proper father, which were all now coming back to Sirius, reminding him of what he no longer had, reminding him that if his father died before he'd made any peace with him, he'd not have a chance to maybe win those moments back, on his own terms this time.
Orion was the one true parent Sirius had had left by the time he'd been disowned, for whichever value of 'true' that qualified, and the thought of him dying was almost as upsetting as the realisation that he'd failed at tearing himself away from that family in his mind and heart, that though he'd convinced himself he'd expunged any and all love for his parents after the disownment, he was now being proven spectacularly wrong.
He was trying to snooze a bit before dinner in on Wednesday as Padfoot – James was out at Quidditch practice and Remus had one of the classes they didn't share – when Peter flew into the room, startling Padfoot so much he almost transformed back. Letting out a warning rumble got Peter to look briefly at him, though not with much attention, which seemed to be solely focused on digging everything he could out of his trunk.
"My Charms textbook, have you seen it, Padfoot?" the pudgy boy asked distractedly, bent almost in half over the edge of his trunk as he tried to dig through every nook and cranny of it. "I had it yesterday!"
Blinking in curiosity, Padfoot let out an inquiring sound.
"I need to finish the assay, and Bettina's just offered to help me, but I had all my notes in the textbook, I can't write anything without them." Turning to dump all the stuff now littering the floor back into his trunk, Peter looked distractedly up at Padfoot. "Well?"
Padfoot yipped, smacking his tail against the edge of the bed to indicate Peter should look under it. Scurrying to his knees, the short boy almost found his way completely under the bed before re-emerging with a triumphant 'hah', the book held in his hand.
"Thanks!" he said with a wave, veritably running back out of their dorm. Huffing in amusement, Padfoot looked back at the still opened trunk of his friend and the absolute mess inside. Then he blinked and peered closer, before moving to inspect the find, transforming back into human form in the process.
There, flung against one of the bed legs right next to Peter's trunk, was a pair of jeans, and peeking out of a pocket was a little plastic bag filled with white powder. Curious, Sirius picked it up and examined it – plastic wasn't something found in the Wizarding world, but it certainly was overflowing in the Muggle one, and the only other thing that had looked anything close to this Sirius had recently seen on Peter was the bag of weed he'd handed over when he'd come back from his hols. The high-strung boy was willing to bet all the Galleons he'd been disowned out of that this was also some sort of drug.
A reckless idea bloomed in Sirius' mind, his curiosity mingling with his desperation, and he clutched the little bag in his hand. He had no idea what it was, and had no idea how to find out short of asking Peter outright, which he wasn't going to do, he wasn't that foolish – Peter would no doubt demand the drugs back, and might even go to James and Remus over it if he thought it more important to stop Sirius from having it than the others knowing he could get stuff other than weed, too. No, what Sirius was going to do was try a little bit of it first, see what it did – surely it was meant for consumption, or it wouldn't be packaged in what looked like a very defined quantity, ready for sale no doubt. And if it was meant for consumption, then trying just a very small amount wouldn't be too dangerous. Besides which, drugs worked differently on wizardfolk than they did on Muggles – tobacco did nothing at all aside from providing a ritual to partake in, and weed only made one feel slightly relaxed and loose, but wasn't otherwise impairing anything. Sirius had been smoking weed for months now, and none of his friends with the exception of Peter were any the wiser. Surely this would be the same.
He still waited until well into the night, when the other boys were asleep. He had no clue how this powder was supposed to be consumed, so he did what seemed the most logical – he licked the tip of his index finger and squished it firmly against the white substance, sticking a thick layer of it to his finger. He examined it in the weak light from his wand hooked over his ear and then stuck it in his mouth, licking the powder off. He'd done this with powdered sugar so many times as a kid, the house-elves had started keeping a separate little stash for him in a drawer in his room, just so he wouldn't be sneaking into the kitchens in the middle of the night and risking waking Walburga up. As soon as he'd done it, though, he unhooked his wand and washed his mouth out with a weak Aguamenti – he'd not expected it to taste rather disgustingly bitter of all things.
Sealing the rest of the powder away, Sirius lay back onto his pillows and waited to see what happened. At two minutes, he was still waiting. At five, he was feeling rather puzzled, given that he couldn't really tell any difference whatsoever. At ten, he thought that maybe it really was just some innocuous thing, like baking powder, and not a drug at all. At fifteen, he started considering taking some more and in the end decided against it, just in case – anyway, with the disgusting taste, he didn't think it worth it even if he were certain it would be safe to take more.
It was only somewhere between twenty and thirty minutes after he'd tried it that the effects became truly noticeable, and for the first time in a week, Sirius felt himself unwinding properly, the unconscious aches in his muscles from being so tense vanishing into a pleasant haze of drowsiness that had him nodding off without really setting out to do so.
In spite of the dry mouth and a feeling of mild nausea that welcomed him in the morning, Sirius managed to sleep through the night for the first time in a week with no nightmares whatsoever, finally feeling a bit more like his proper self.
Maybe that was exactly what his issue has been, he thought as he showered and got ready for the day – not that there was an inherent problem in dealing with his father's worsening health when he was forbidden from basically even laying eyes on him, but that insomnia and nightmares had made the whole thing far too difficult to manage without some assistance.
He'd keep that white powder for a rainy day, he decided; the taste almost didn't make it worth it, and after all, there had to be more kinds of drugs in the Muggle world than just this one. If Peter had access to both this and the weed, he might have access to something that'd serve as Dreamless Sleep, without necessitating Sirius going to Madam Pomfrey for help. Dreamless Sleep could get addictive very quickly, and anyway, he didn't want the school staff knowing about his issues.
He could handle them on his own, just like he was handling everything else. All he needed to do was remember it when things got temporarily tough again, and have some chemical assistance on hand if worse came to worst.
Lily learned by the end of Monday that getting a handle on her own behaviour wasn't going to be a quick thing, not by a long shot. All throughout the day, she struggled to keep herself focused on the lessons, to keep herself from staring at Severus during their joint classes (which were, unfortunately, practically all of them), to hide her hammering heart and the nervous fluttering in her stomach, to stop herself from blushing beat red as soon as her recalcitrant thoughts wandered to the thought of Severus, of kissing him and holding his hand and even just speaking with him, for Merlin's sake, that wasn't even that big a deal, they'd been doing that for eight years now!
She spent most of late Monday evening with the journal in her hands, torn between writing to Severus and not writing. On the one hand was the fact that she owed him an answer, that she'd done enough damage postponing all of this already, that she wanted to read his words and imagine him saying them to her. On the other was the day's struggle, the cause and the mission to which Severus had almost sacrificed his soul, the risk and fear of mucking it up when she only had one chance to get things right and fix everything without irrevocably breaking it in the process.
What made the decision for her in the end were two things: one was the fact that if she were to expose them by her unruly reactions, it would be Severus' safety on the line, especially if his mission last weekend had been successful and had done what she suspected was its purpose, to put him in sights of Lord Voldemort; the other was the fact that Severus had given her three weeks and wouldn't be expecting any contact from her until then, meaning the next two weeks.
So she took it day by day instead, and damn her guilt over needing that time, too, even though she'd made the decision. She almost rattled apart during Tuesday's Potions class, but at least Severus seemed to have realised something was wrong, as he kept his silence throughout and made sure to give her space. Thursday class was easier, though Remus had to brush rather clumsily against her on his way to the storeroom to get her to stop throwing furtive glances at Severus that hid words bubbling up on her tongue she had to constantly swallow back. In between those, she patrolled herself rigorously, until her eyes weren't flying of their own accord to his familiar profile, until the thought of feeling his arms around her didn't make her blush, until she could hold a conversation without her mind wandering and getting lost in the memory of dark, dark eyes and deep laughter she'd not heard since the summer, and never mind the thrumming resentment she felt at being unable to throw herself headlong in her newly discovered feelings, of having to fight against this tide of infatuation, when it was so much stronger and more meaningful than the previous ones she'd felt and had gotten to enjoy while they'd lasted.
She wasn't sure she quite succeeded, but she did also try to smooth down all the feathers among her friends she'd ruffled with her manic behaviour of the past few weeks. She didn't avoid James outright anymore, but she made damn sure not to be alone with him at any time, nor to pay him more attention than anyone else in their group. Her crush was still there, like a nearly burnt fire, spluttering up a little flame here and there, but on the whole it seemed quite inconsequential compared to her longing for Severus, and became easier and easier to ignore as time went on; she felt certain it'd fade completely once she and Severus settled things between them.
By the next weekend, she finally felt enough like her old self to feel that getting things in motion with Severus wouldn't be an enormous risk, even knowing that she'd no doubt lose a lot of the hard work of the week as soon as they spoke. And there was even a small side benefit to her delay – she got an idea of the perfect way to show Severus her own feelings and hopefully soothe his pain over the way she'd forced him into admitting his feelings to her at the same time.
So, on Saturday evening, after her two dormmates had gone to bed, Lily lit up her wand with a Lumos, cracked the journal and her stenography notebook open and, her heart in her throat, began writing.
I need to see you
Severus' answer came about fifteen minutes later, during which Lily practiced writing stenography and tried not to fret.
Very busy weekend. Tomorrow seven my lab?
Will be there. Everything all right?
Mission didn't go according to plan. Don't be late, I won't have much time.
I'll do my best. Hope the mission is salvageable?
Working on it
That had to have been why he didn't have time for her, she decided, trying to pretend to herself that she wasn't hurt by it. Then she realised that was never going to work and allowed herself to feel the hurt instead, to acknowledge that it was because she'd wanted to always come first to him, before bloody Albus Dumbledore and his bloody missions to get Severus under Voldemort's thumb, before his own anger, and in spite of having put herself in that position in the first place.
The hurt lingered for a bit longer once she'd done that, but it dissipated by the time she extinguished the light and snuggled into her bed, trying to force herself into slumber in spite of the nervous anticipation that now coursed through her.
She went up to Dumbledore's office with some apprehension the next day, but the Headmaster only nodded at her and calmly greeted her by her first name, a greeting she returned with the respectful 'sir' at the end, the proper order restored between them. Then she hurried through the hidden passageway down to Severus' lab, her nerves making her run all the way down and then have to stop and catch her breath. Finally, once she'd calmed as much as she ever would, she peeked out from behind the shelf.
Severus was pacing up and down the small room; she watched him in silence a bit, studying his crossed arms and rigid back, his bound hair, oily as always, the scowl on his face, the fear in his endlessly dark eyes. She could very well imagine how upset he was with her after everything and her heart made a painful stutter in her chest.
And yet, in spite of all that, she felt herself physically responding to him, in this new way of the last two weeks that she still wasn't really used to. The state of his hair didn't matter too much anymore, and she didn't doubt his oral hygiene in spite of how his teeth looked, and even his poor nose, broken more times than she could count, wasn't in the least off-putting, but rather somehow contributed to his severity, promising to make him appear dignified once he'd fully matured out of puberty.
In his lingering anger and hurt with her, in his frustration with their continued situation, in his trepidation of why she'd been so insistent on meeting with him, he reminded her of a caged predator, a dark, sleek jungle cat one step away from exploding, and the sight made her mouth feel dry, made her stomach clenched as she took in his stiff, straight shoulders and the storm in those dark eyes. It took more than a little bit out of her to stop herself from just marching in and fusing their lips together, and damn all her worries about .
But just like six days ago, all the risks and long-term goals of the war rose up in her mind to stay her impatient feet. And for once, her trust in Severus felt unshakeable. If anyone was going to see them through all this, if anyone was going to figure out ways for them to be together without giving themselves away, it would be him, with his beautiful, devious Slytherin mind, and the least she could do to help was by not making things even harder for him than they were almost certainly going to be.
Severus didn't get a wink of sleep the night after Lily asked for a meeting. He'd tried and given it up for a lost cause within the hour, far too jittery in his fear and anxiety. He wasn't sure what to expect, not with the way she'd both been sneaking glances at him and keeping her distance far beyond what their charade had required, in the last two weeks.
Frankly, he wasn't sure if he knew how to read her at all anymore, and that terrified him to his core.
He'd thrown himself into securing his business dealings among his own House, in light of the very clear letter of dismissal he'd received from Lucius Malfoy through Wilkes. For his part, the Quidditch Captain didn't seem too changed in attitude towards Severus, though that was understandable enough by the fact that unlike Malfoy, Wilkes was still bound by Hogwarts rule and had a very different set of priorities. Nevertheless, with the rumour of his failure now having spread to the rest of Dark Lord's supporters among Slytherin, most notably to a suddenly extremely smug Avery and an uneasy Thistletwaithe, shoring up the foundations of his newfound reputation was paramount. And that meant a whole lot of brewing and research, certainly enough for him to start understanding exactly why his mother detested her job.
That had kept his mind from obsessing over Lily for most of Sunday, though as their meeting time neared, inattention began interfering with his work, until he gave up on brewing as well and just paced up and down agitatedly, wishing that she'd come sooner in the same breath in which he hoped she'd be late and give him some more time to prepare.
Not that he had the first clue how to do that, either.
The sight of her stepping in from the hidden passageway behind the shelf halted his steps, and he felt his breath catch in his throat, because she was here and this was it, there was no going back from this moment anymore and he feared so, so much that he'd never manage to mend his heart after she left.
"Lily."
"Severus," she said quietly, taking a couple of steps closer and then halting with most of the room still between them. Severus felt himself tense even further, not knowing what to say, not wanting in any way to help her destroy him even further than she already had.
She looked at him, licked her bottom lip, sucked it between her teeth and bit it, let it go.
"I need to show you something."
Severus lifted his eyebrow, watching her as she took a breath, gripped her wand tightly and began making a broad circular motion with it that had his stomach dropping into his shoes.
"Expecto Patronum."
The mist that shot out coalesced into the doe, standing attentively by her side, looking around until its eyes settled on Severus. The sight of it made him feel faint, because its presence meant that Lily now not only knew, she understood, and it wasn't devastation of her witnessing it with incomprehension anymore, it was the devastation of his soul laid bare before her, of what he'd been so afraid for so long, of her now owning every last piece of him.
"You've managed it," he spoke quietly, closing his eyes in resignation, unable to bear the sight of the doe any longer.
Merlin, he wasn't going to survive this, he knew he wasn't. Why couldn't she have just broken his heart without showing him that she understood perfectly well what she was doing to him, why?
"Sev, look at me. Please." Her voice was a whisper, a caress. Severus clenched his eyes shut even more tightly, trying to resist and failing, his body disobeying his mind as his eyes opened and met those gut-wrenchingly beautiful almond-shaped, green orbs. "Show me."
He flinched violently away, turning his head from her, the humiliation making him want to lash out at her, to tell her to go to hell, to just spare him this agony and tell him she was choosing James Potter.
"No."
"Please, Severus. Cast your Patronus."
He clenched his teeth so tightly shut they creaked.
"I already did," he spat, almost gasping the words out.
"Please."
The desperation in her voice flayed him alive, a fist squeezing his heart, and he couldn't resist her any longer, couldn't deny her, not when she sounded so anguished.
She was going to be the death of him, he knew it. He stopped resisting.
But he couldn't look at her as he did it, couldn't bear to see whatever would come when she got her request. He didn't even truly see his own doe appearing, only perceived the sudden brightening of the light in the room, the shadows in the corners of his laboratory vanishing at the combined glow of the two Patronuses.
He only caught the movement on the very edge of his peripheral vision. Then it felt like a bolt of lightning, like distant thunder somewhere behind his eyes, the sudden flood of joy and yearning and resoluteness and guilt and regret that he could almost taste and he gasped, eyes flying to the centre of the room, his mind unable to comprehend what was happening even as he saw the two does nuzzling cheeks together, his heart hammering in his chest so much he couldn't quite hear past the rushing in his ears.
It was the hesitant touch of familiar, gentle fingers that brought understanding, that this was Lily's Patronus-powering memory he was tasting, that this was the essence of what made her doe exist. Then her palm was against his clammy one, cold and dry, fingers sliding against fingers, intertwining, still hesitantly, and Severus couldn't focus on anything anymore, couldn't do anything but feel the emotions in her memory, his wounded heart trying to shy away from the meaning even as the rest of him grew hungry in the sudden fierce yearning and brilliant burn of raging hope.
He'd been a coward for so long, and she knew, she knew she possessed all of him. He wasn't going to be a coward anymore – if she destroyed him yet, then at least he'd know that it wasn't because he'd been too afraid to try.
He tightened his fingers around hers and squeezed.
"I am not interested in James," she said quietly, into the silence of the room. "I'm not interested in anyone but you. Not now, and not ever again."
The words felt like a Stunner to the chest, all his expectations and fears disintegrating as if caught in the blast of a supernova, and the only thing Severus could do was stare at her with eyes wide and his mouth hanging open as her declaration ricocheted around his head
not interested in anyone but you anyone but you
She met his gaze timidly and Severus couldn't look away, couldn't figure out how he was supposed to even breathe, let alone move, couldn't think of a single thing to do but stare at her.
not interested in anyone but you
Tears flooded her eyes and spilled over in a second, so quickly Severus didn't even realise what had happened at all. Then she was suddenly leaning against his chest, their entwined hands trapped between them, her cold nose burrowing past the stiff collar of his school robes, her other hand tangling into the back of his uniform.
"I'm sorry," she was saying, her tears wetting his collar. "God, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry for everything, Sev, I'm sorry."
She chose me.
The realisation settled like liquid warmth in his chest and he suddenly couldn't bear to have her apart from him, even though she was already clinging to him like a limpet. He needed her closer still, needed her so close he'd not be able to breathe, needed all his senses filled with Lily.
He wrapped his other arm around her, drawing her closer still, feeling her cling even more tightly to him. Closing his eyes, Severus buried his nose in her red tresses and just breathed, the familiar scent that he was now allowed to smell making his head swim. The bright light turning his eyelids golden gradually faded, leaving behind only the weak illumination of the candlelight, and in the soft darkness left behind, he too almost cried, from the disbelief and shock of having braced for the worst and been gifted with the most precious thing he could ever imagine wanting.
Eventually, Lily pulled back, just enough to meet his eyes, and Severus gazed at her, feeling dumb and cottony and so, so happy he didn't know what to do with it. It was like nothing he'd ever experienced in his life, the joy sparked in him by being allowed to hold her like this, to know that she'd chosen him, not James Potter, not Remus Lupin, not anyone but him.
Gazing at him in wonder, Lily unwound her arm from around his back and lifted it up to tuck a strand of hair that he'd not even noticed had escaped his hair tie behind his ear, the one opposite the side of her free hand. She slid her fingers along his jaw and wound her hand around his other cheek, fingers brushing the nape of his neck, his skin burning where she'd touched it. Then she lifted slightly on tiptoes and pressed her chapped, bitten lips against his cheek. Severus' eyes fell closed, his whole focus suddenly narrowed only on that one spot, and as she prolonged the contact, he felt heat rise to his face, felt his breathing grow laboured, his heart beating faster and faster.
By the time she pulled back, he had her pinned against him again, and he couldn't stop himself from chasing after her, didn't even know he was doing it until their noses brushed against one another and he felt the warmth of her breath against his mouth.
His stomach tightened in anticipation, because her mouth was right there and she wanted him, she'd kissed him, had let him hold her, had chosen him, and he had no clue how to actually kiss a girl on the mouth, he'd never done it in his life, but it somehow didn't matter one bit, not when it was Lily and he was allowed to kiss her, and he knew that he'd never, ever let her go, never not feel this way, like his skin was too tight for his soul, like he wanted to worship her and devour her all at once, like nothing in the world mattered but Lily in his arms.
The loud buzzing fell on his eardrums like a blow to the head, and not of the good variety. Severus felt himself actually leave the ground in a terrified jump, cold shock passing over him like a bucket of ice water being dumped on his head. He met Lily's wide, panicking eyes and fought for focus as the buzzing increased in pitch and urgency.
"Severus..."
"Someone's coming," he rasped out, struggling to think past the fog of happiness in his brain. Lily's head turned towards the door. She asked something he didn't catch at all just as the doorknob shook and a muffled male voice called out to him.
Severus tried to grasp for his Occlumency skills and failed. It didn't seem too important anyhow, not with Lily–
Lily, who'd now pulled away from him slightly and was patting his cheek with just enough force to register past the fog in his mind.
He finally managed to Occlude enough to get some clarity back into his own head.
"Snape, you in there?! Wilkes needs to speak with you!"
Montague's voice burned like acid, igniting his fury at fucking being interrupted before he'd managed to kiss Lily. Severus hissed past clenched teeth.
"He won't be able to get in, but you need to leave," he told Lily with some urgency, grabbing hold of her upper arms and then faltering when he met her green eyes. "Lily..."
It was the redhead who rallied for the both of them, relaxing in his hold as she tugged Severus' robes into order with brisk, sharp moves. Severus found himself trapped yet again by the enormity of this thing in his chest, the shock and joy and incredulity and wonder, as he watched her, unable to tear himself away. When she was done, she put her hand to his cheek again and nodded.
"Your safety comes first," she said. "Write to me tonight when you've time to talk; I'll wait up."
For a moment he almost swooped down and kissed her, but Montague's continuing banging on the door was driving him up the wall, and he couldn't stomach doing it with that wanker in the background. Lily, apparently of similar mind to him, just slipped her hand from his cheek to the back of his neck and wrapped her other arm around him as well, giving him another tight, tight hug that Severus returned with all his strength, trying to gorge himself on it for however long it'd take them to meet up again.
Merlin, the thought of being separated from her for so long was unbearable.
Lily slipped out of his embrace and ran to the passageway, the shelf sliding back into place behind her, and Severus' arms ached from the emptiness, from the fact that he'd let her slip away, even as giddiness and shock and happiness bubbled in him, trying to make him chase after her, Montague and Wilkes be damned.
But she'd given him instructions, and he wasn't going to let her down, not now when their mission was the price for getting the only girl he'd ever wanted.
He silenced the Caterwauling Charm and cancelled the silencing wards that kept anyone outside from hearing in, then marched to the door and yanked it open.
"Have you ever heard of patience, Montague?" he snarled at the mountainous boy, who almost took a step back in fright, a sight that would have been comical at any other moment.
"Wilkes wants you."
"I know. I heard you the first dozen times you'd said it."
"Then why weren't you opening?"
"Because I was at a critical stage in brewing, and your miniscule brain may not comprehend the demands and complexities of potion-making, but that doesn't change the laws of magical chemistry!"
"Fine," Montague said, lifting his palms out in a conciliatory gesture. "Are you done now?"
"Yes, let's go."
He let the seventh-year lead the way, keeping a step behind to stay in his blind spot, and tried to wrestle his ignited, turbulent emotions into a corner of his mind where they wouldn't impede the impromptu meeting that had been hurled at him at the worst possible moment.
He had little success with that endeavour, even with the emotional dampening techniques that had carried him successfully through until now; all his mind wanted to conjure up was the ghost of Lily's breath against his mouth, the bump of her nose against his, her lips on his cheek, her fingers entwined tightly with his, her smell filling his nostrils, her smile and her shy joy and her wonder and her awe when he'd held her.
And the sharp, sharp regret that he'd not gotten to kiss her, like he'd dreamed of doing for four years.
He needed his full fucking faculties about him, and he had none.
There was nothing for it, he realised with a fury born of utter frustration; he'd have to do something drastic, because if Wilkes suspected him now, he'd never be able to repair the damage he'd caused with his choice of friends over the mission. So he reached inwards, ignoring the instinctive agony of what he was about to do to himself. He had no choice.
The most advanced Occlumency techniques bordered on Mutamency, an advanced Mind Art that dealt not with shielding and controlling thoughts and emotions, but with fully replacing and supplanting vast parts of one's mind. It was categorised as a Dark Art, unlike Occlumency, and for very good reason – what Mutamency hinged on was in essence infliction of damage to one's own or another's mind and soul in a way that simply modifying individual memories only barely touched upon.
What Severus did to himself was one of these transitional techniques between the two Mind Arts, and he was certain he could pull it off only because he knew it wasn't about fooling a Legilimens, but about controlling himself when something uncontrollable was ruling his mind and soul. He chose the journal as the anchor and gathered up the memories of Lily writing to him last night and their meeting tonight, attached them to the anchor and then, incanting in his head, promptly erased them from his mind.
He stumbled in his step and blinked in momentary confusion as to why he'd been so annoyed with Montague when the older boy had come get him, then remembered his nearly ruined potion he'd spent the whole evening brewing, and scowled. Wondering what Wilkes wanted now, he sighed internally – this was the cost of messing up his mission on his birthday, and he'd known he'd have to pay it. Increased scrutiny had been the norm in the last two weeks, and it would have worried him more, were he not by now fully expecting to lose Lily to Potter next Sunday, when her time ran out and she had no more excuses to stall.
Really, if he lost Lily, what else would there be for him to do but this commitment he'd made to Dumbledore and the hope that she'd respect his refusal to have anything to do with her, no matter how painful, because seeing her with Potter would destroy him anew every time he glimpsed it.
"Peter, got a sec?"
A chill went down Peter's back at the deceptively easy-going question. He halted on his way towards the Gryffindor Common Room and let Sirius drag him into the nearest alcove, wishing that he'd waited for James to be done with his Quidditch practice at the Great Hall, instead of going up to put all his stuff back before dinner.
"Yeah?"
"You dropped something the other day," Sirius said once he'd raised a privacy spell. What he pulled out of his pocket to dangle in front of and above Peter's face had the pudgy boy feeling almost faint from how quickly the blood in his face drained to pool down at his feet. He tried to swipe the bag of heroin out of Sirius' grasp and the bastard of course pulled it out of reach, smirking slightly as if he was amused by Peter's predicament.
"Where did you find that?" Peter asked him when he realised he'd not be getting it back this way, anxiety bursting out of him as he turned it around and around in his head – how was it possible that Sirius had found it in his stuff, how? Had he gone through Peter's things?
"When you were looking for your book, you didn't pick up a pair of jeans; it was sticking out of the pocket," Sirius explained, so utterly unselfconscious about stealing something that belong to one of his supposed friends that Peter had a nasty urge to hex him underhandedly the next time he got the chance.
But it did give him the answer to the most pressing question – he must have forgotten one of the bags in his Muggle clothing when he'd last gone out on a thieving run for his mother after New Year's. Fuck.
"What do you want, Sirius?" he asked, wringing his hands and hating how squeaky his voice had gotten, but unable to do anything about it. "Are you going to tell James and Remus?"
"I didn't think you'd want me to," Sirius answered. "So, what is it, then?"
"What..." Studying his friend's face, Peter zeroed in on the next most important piece of information he needed to have. "Have you tried it?"
His reckless friend shrugged so carelessly Peter wanted to scream and beat him over the head with a book. "Doesn't taste very nice, for something people use to feel better about themselves."
"You ate it?"
"I tasted it," Sirius corrected. "Gave me a good night's sleep, I'll give you that, but frankly the taste is horrible enough I'm not quite clear on why Muggles like this stuff."
The idiot hadn't known what to do with it, though he was stupid enough to try a substance he hadn't even identified beforehand, Peter realised.
Eating heroin was about the least effective way of consuming it, because it always took forever for the hit to come, and because most of it got digested into far less effective product by that point anyway. For the very high price of the substance, no one who knew the first thing about drugs would have ever used it that way. But the fact that Sirius hadn't known made Peter breathe out an internal sigh of relief – the idea of his friend becoming addicted to a hard opioid because of his negligence was terrifying. Having to deal with his mother's addiction was already eating him up inside; being responsible for Sirius going that way too... Peter had no clue how he'd ever be able to deal with that.
At least with Sirius' first experience with heroin being largely inefficient and even somewhat negative, he still had a chance of steering the other boy away from that sort of life mistake.
"I hadn't meant to bring it with," he admitted, letting his nerves show in his voice. "I've never actually used it, I didn't know it had such a bad taste."
"So, what is it?"
"Just some crushed Muggle medicine. Muggles use it to lessen pain, that's all."
"Crushed? So it comes in a different form too?"
Pretending he'd been caught in a mistake, Peter shifted guiltily on his feet. "Well, sort of... I hadn't meant... I mean, why?"
"Well, since it tastes so bad, I was thinking of just giving this back to you, but if there's a better way of eating it–"
"I can't get you Muggle medicine, Sirius," Peter cut him off, then shifted back a bit, even as he marked that down as a score for him – knowing Sirius, if he knew what he actually had on him, he'd find out how to shoot himself up with it within a week. This way, he'd think it wasn't worth the effort to learn more about it at all, and eventually forget it altogether. "It's bad enough you had me get you that weed."
"Wormtail," Sirius said, putting his arm around Peter's shoulders and pulling him into a half-hug that was only friendly on the surface, "I'm sure you noticed I was a bit off the last week or so, yeah? It's some stuff with my family, and I haven't been sleeping very well, but I haven't wanted to go to Madam Pomfrey over it – you know how she gets, and she'd tell McGonagall as well. She can't help in any case if she did know, but frankly, it's none of her business, and I'd rather it stayed private."
"Maybe I could get you some sleeping potions..."
"From whom, Snivelly?" Sirius scoffed in derision at the idea. "Nah, those things are addictive, and anyway, this works pretty well from what I can tell."
You don't understand the first thing about addiction, you arrogant numbskull, Peter wanted to tell him; he kept his mouth shut.
"I figure – you could get the weed and this stuff too, then you could probably get me some Muggle stuff to help me sleep, right?"
"You're asking me to be your dealer, Sirius! I can't–"
"Is that a Muggle term?"
"Yes, it means someone who sells drugs to people. I may know some people who do it, but I don't want to do it myself!"
"You wouldn't be, though, would you?" Sirius replied. "You'd be more a go-between for me, that's all. Or you can put me in touch with these people you know, and then we can forget all about it."
Fat chance of that. He was not letting Sirius near anyone from that side of his life, it would be a disaster waiting to happen.
"I don't know how this stuff works on us, though," Peter lied. "It might be addictive, too. It's... I have a Muggle aunt who has chronic pain, I got that stuff for her."
"You never thought to try it?"
Not on his life. That poison had ruined his life quite enough without finding its way into his veins, too.
"I never had any cause to," he answered instead. "It's Muggle medicine. Magic's way more reliable."
"I suppose," Sirius acquiesced, though with great scepticism. "Still, where's the harm in trying it? If it works, I promise I'd be quite stringent with it – I do know how to avoid that sort of danger, Wormtail, I've been doing it since I was a kid."
Exhaling mightily, Peter slumped his shoulders. "I could maybe get you a couple of my aunt's sleeping pills. But that's it! You wouldn't make me be your dealer, would you?"
"Of course not," Sirius answered immediately. "You're my friend, Peter; I'm not gonna make you do anything you don't want to do, promise."
Hollow promise that one was, and Peter knew it, but he nodded anyway. Sirius wasn't going to give up on this, he'd known that from the start, and in spite of his buddy-buddy attitude, Peter knew perfectly well what sort of personal danger he'd be exposing himself to if he'd refused Sirius' request outright.
And anyway, if Peter had learned something about addicts and desperation in his life, it was that they found a way to feed the habit, one way or another. His refusal wouldn't stop Sirius in the slightest; in fact, it might spur him even further on, since he'd realise how big a deal this was from Peter's rejection. Better to downplay things; so long as Sirius didn't have proper knowledge of Muggle medicine and recreational Muggle drug use, Peter could get him some actually harmless stuff and buy himself time.
He'd need to do two things, and he only had until Sirius became unhappy with whatever stuff Peter provided him with (which he was bound to be at some point for sure, that was how people with addictive personalities worked). One was to sniff that bag of heroin out of whatever hidey-hole Sirius was stashing it in; once he had the damning evidence, he'd feel a great deal less intimidated by his friend. The other was to figure out a way of telling James and Remus without exposing the extremely well-guarded secrets about his private life to them. They'd be able to rein Sirius in, when Peter couldn't, because there was no way in hell that either of those boys would let Sirius become a drug addict.
He was going to do this for Sirius, because that was what friends were supposed to do, but even when deciding that, Peter still had to battle a very strong urge to just say 'to hell with it' and give Sirius exactly what he'd actually been so ineptly asking after – a proper heroin high. He deserved it, too, for being not just such a lousy friend himself, but for being a self-centred, arrogant, stupid, idiot arsehole and dabbling with something this dangerous without having the first clue about any of it, and not even caring that he didn't!
He deserved it, but Peter wasn't going to be the one to help him kill himself on accident; he just wasn't sure he could truly consider Sirius as one of his friends anymore after this, and what that would mean going forward for their group, now finally knitted back together again, he hadn't a clue.
The thought of it made him feel vaguely ill.
It wasn't until he'd crawled into bed around midnight and found the journal on his bedside table that Severus realised something wasn't quite right with his memories. Frowning, he shut the curtains around him and raised his privacy wards before drawing his knees up into his chest and, the mental itch not leaving him alone, opened the journal, to torture himself with Lily's few communiques, he supposed.
The completely unfamiliar text he found on the last of the filled-out pages sent a sharp pang of pain passing through his head, and he winced at the sensation, now seriously concerned that something was definitely wrong. Putting his finger to the bottom corner of the page, Severus read the text that glowed a soft green from the jumble of potioneering nonsense.
I need to see you
Tomorrow seven my lab?
The pain in his head turned into a blinding headache in a second, and he doubled over with a groan, clutching at his temples, his magic scrambling to reconcile the fact that suddenly, there wasn't just one set of memories of this evening, there were two, one mundane and in line with the last two weeks, the other fantastical and unbelievable.
Almost instinctively, Severus dropped all his Occlumency shields and just tried to breathe through the pain until the storm in his head passed. When it did, the memory of Lily holding his hand, of kissing his cheek, of looking at him more tenderly than she'd ever done before, of choosing him was back in its place, strong and tempting, and yet Severus couldn't quite believe it, couldn't trust it, because how could it be, how was it possible that she'd chosen him over Potter, him with his horrible hair and sallow skin and ugly nose, over the school's Quidditch star, him and the secrets and vows he came with, anger and all?
And yet he remembered erasing the memories to give himself a clear head to deal with Wilkes, because he'd been desperate and everything else he'd tried had failed, remembered choosing to perform a dangerous, damaging technique in his mad scramble for self-control.
Unable to help himself, his head still aching from what he'd so inexpertly done, Severus burst into tears, hugging the journal to his chest like a favoured toy and burying his head in his pillow to muffle the sounds, though no one could hear him anyway. It was sobs of disbelief and relief, rent from his heart and soul, the torrent of conflicting emotions seeking release, everything he'd been bottling up for months with his Occlumency and his sheer bloody-mindedness to not deal with it, now released by virtue of all his shields being gone.
When he finally managed to calm down, in exhaustion more than anything, Severus was left with the soft, fuzzy, somewhat unreal joy that coursed through him from head to toe, and the sobering realisation that he couldn't use this technique anymore, not in any but the direst of circumstances. Wiping his tears, he summoned his quill, ink and stenography study materials, rearranging himself onto his side with his head and shoulders propped high on the pillows, and opened the journal.
Did I dream it? he wrote out, feeling looser than he could ever remember feeling, utterly unworried about things in spite of everything that had gone wrong in the last three weeks. Somehow, nothing mattered at all except Lily, Lily and her shining green eyes, her soft lips on his cheek, her warmth pressed against him.
He only realised after sending it that the question came not solely from disbelief at the events that had taken place between them, but also in large part out of the erasure and restoration of the memories, now making him just that little bit insecure about their very existence. He wanted suddenly to take it back, to conceal that gnawing worry from Lily. But it was already sent, and so there was nothing to do but wait with his heart in his throat for her to respond.
If you did, I dreamed it too
Smiling stupidly to himself, Severus snuggled deeper into his bed and flipped through the stenographic notebook, the rules of writing with it now somewhat more settled in his head after two weeks of practice at every spare moment.
Lily wrote before he'd quite figured out what to say next to her.
Did everything go fine with Wilkes?
As fine as could be expected, he answered back, and while he was composing his next sentence, new text darkened right beneath his.
What are we going to do, Sev?
The weight of her question slammed into him, bringing him to his senses somewhat. He couldn't keep doing what he'd done this evening, but equally so he wasn't sure he'd be able to control himself from exposing their secret, not if they hurled headlong into a romantic relationship – the very thought of being in a romantic relationship with Lily was too momentous, too blindingly joyous, too frightening.
And the only thing Severus could think of that might help them was time, time to adjust and to accept, and being very, very cautious with every step they took.
Clenching his teeth, he wrote back to her: We cannot risk being discovered, now more than ever.
Your mission? The one that went badly?
I am on very thin ice at the moment. There must be absolutely no suspicion of me until this has been resolved.
Not much better for me. Remus said I was far too obvious about it on Monday. I've been trying to be less since then, but I'm not sure it'll be enough.
Anger licked at his happiness. He knows? he couldn't stop himself from writing.
He's on our side, I promise.
He wanted to argue with her on this; unfortunately, he knew it would only mean putting off the inevitable, and it took them so long to write to each other already, with their beginner skills in stenography. Damn Montague and Wilkes for interrupting them before they'd had a chance to discuss anything properly.
How is your Occlumency coming along?
Not quickly enough. I think we need to take things slow, Sev.
Accepting that this was their only option put a momentary damper on his happiness to a large extent.
If we only continue to see each other properly once a month, there isn't much else to be done, he wrote moodily, the ache of separation overcoming him all of a sudden.
If only there was a way for us to connect the places people expect us to be at. But my laboratory is in the dungeons, and yours is on the fourth floor.
Blinking in thought, Severus reread her message, remembering someone else already suggesting the same thing. In the press of responsibilities in the last four months, he'd completely forgotten about that.
Leave that to me, he wrote out, already planning to rope Mickey, Stacie and Ash into helping him out on this – after what he'd done for them, it was the least they could do, especially since it had been Mickey who'd suggested it in the first place, back in September. I know how to get that sorted out, at least.
Truly?
I promise
Her response was a long time coming, and Severus lay there, curled around the journal, waiting for it and idly going through the previous text, erasing some things, modifying others, adding yet a few third ones, until it looked less suspicious even for those who might actually know what they were reading. His previous worry had dissipated, replaced once again by the disbelieving awe of Lily retuning his feelings, at least to some extent.
His heart flipped over in his chest when new text appeared, almost two highly cramped pages of it.
Oh, if we could have a way of seeing each other so often!
I've missed you so much these few months, Sev. I'm unbearably sorry for putting you through all that. I'm sorry I pushed you into showing me your Patronus before you were ready. I'm sorry for not understanding, before or after, why you couldn't. I'm sorry about my infatuation with James. I promise you that there will never be anything more between him and me. I've made my choice with my eyes wide open, and I don't see myself changing my mind. Please, if you've ever trusted me on anything, trust me on this, Severus.
There are so many things we need to speak of, things I need to make right. You clearly don't trust me, with good reason as it's turned out, and I want to earn your trust back, the way you did mine last summer. I am also determined to do my part in your mission properly from now on, and for that I need you to start truly including me in your work with the old man. I understand why you didn't, but we cannot go on in that manner anymore. We have always been better at hurting each other with words than solving our problems with them, and I think that if we want to make it work, we need to change this, together. So, taking the time seems smart all around.
(No matter how much more fun it'd be to pull you into an alcove while you're on your way to your lab with your head in a book and just snog you senseless. Or would that be you snogging me senseless? Well, there'd be a lot of snogging in any case, I'm sure)
Severus' cheeks heated up at the brazenness of her last couple of sentences, the almost casual way in which she kept talking about them snogging, like she had no idea what it did to him, that it twisted his insides and made him see it all in vivid detail of his overactive imagination, that it settled low in his gut and made his head spin from arousal in seconds.
Pushing it to the side for just a moment, the anticipatory excitement tingling almost pleasantly in his blood, Severus wrote out his answer, the assurance of reciprocity giving him courage to be just a bit more open than he'd ever been before with her. He wished her good night, put all the communication utilities back on the nightstand, and then finally allowed himself to fall into fantasies of her, of loving her without fear and restraints, until he had to bury his face in the pillow to quieten his pants and the orgasm hit him like a freight train, for the first time in his life with no guilt or fear of what she'd think if she knew it was her he always thought of when he sought release.
He fell asleep, utterly exhausted, before he'd even cleaned himself up, and couldn't even find it in himself to be disgruntled over it the next morning, when he woke up with the dawn to a complete mess of his own making.
Lily had chosen him, and in the cool light of January morning, nothing else compared.
I've missed you too, more than you can imagine. You're right, we have a lot of things to talk about and work through. I sought to protect you by not including you in my schemes with the old man, not to add to your load when you were already struggling so in September. I believe now it was a mistake, as you said in the summer it would be. I didn't listen when I should have. As for trust, I do want to trust you again completely, like you've done for me in the last half year, and I believe we can figure it out, together.
We absolutely need to be careful and do whatever it takes to protect both of us and the work as well. Still, seeing things as you suggested might be the only way that I'll manage to rein in my frustration and impatience, because right this second, I'd really love to just say 'to hell with everything' and do exactly what you described at the end there. But I won't, because my work - no, our work - matters too much, if we are to have the future we want.
I just need you to know that in spite of all the hardships until now and from now on, I've never known one could be as happy as you made me tonight. Sleep well, Lily. I can't wait to see you in the morning, even if it's just from across the room, even if I have to pretend I'm not.
A/N: Sixth interlude yet to come before the story goes on hiatus, and it's called 'The Congirl' - you can guess who the POV character is :)