A Taste of Paradise
by Bil!
K+ - General – SS, LE – Oneshot
Summary: Severus, Lily, and a more innocent time. They were friends, after all.
Disclaimer: JKR's characters, not mine. However, I'm pretty darn sure she wouldn't have written them this way, so maybe that makes them mine after all.
Timing: MWPP era, fifth year before the OWLs exams.
Pairing: Lily/Severus friendship, with a touch of one-sided romance.
A/N: Snape-friendly: don't like, don't read. Look, if Lily was friends with him for years even after they went to Hogwarts, there must have been a reason for it.
Basically, this started because I was sitting at my computer trying to edit an essay for my postgrad paper and feeling completely and utterly sick of the thing because I'd already been living with it for a month, so I started writing about a character in a similar situation. From such unglamorous beginnings is fic born...
Lily sighed hard enough to ruffle the end of Severus's quill as he scrawled some notes on a spare piece of parchment. "I'm sick of this essay," she said, shoving the parchment away and putting her chin on her hands to stare blankly at the nearest set of library shelves.
"It's due the day after tomorrow," Severus pointed out sternly.
"I know. But we've been working on it for a week!"
"Six days."
"Practically a week," she said, shooting him an annoyed look. "And I've almost got it done, I know exactly how to rewrite it so it's not too long and it's completely on topic – but I can't seem to do it. I'll do it later. Come on, Sev, let's go outside."
"Don't call me 'Sev'," he ordered, not looking up from his own essay. Trumpkin despised Slytherins and if he didn't get his Charms essay perfect he would never get a passing grade. And if he didn't get a passing grade it would be on his report card and if that report card went home...
"I won't call you Sev if you'll come outside," Lily bargained, breaking (to his relief) his chain of thought.
"Don't you have other assignments to do?"
"Yes, but I don't want to work on them either. Come on, Sev."
He attempted to ignore her, running the tip of his quill along the parchment as he checked his spelling and grammar.
"Oh God!" she said suddenly in a distressed undertone. In case this was a new tactic at distraction, Severus ignored her. Lily refused to say 'Merlin' like an sensible witch because, she'd told him, she didn't want to fit in to magical society just because they thought she should fit in. Keeping some of her Muggle mannerisms was her way of staying independent and not letting anyone look down on her just because she was Muggleborn. Severus could in fact understand where she was coming from because he had a stubborn streak of his own and a distaste for being dictated to, but 'Oh God' annoyed him. It was like she was pretending she wasn't a witch at all. So he stayed focussed on his essay and refused to look up.
When he didn't react she kicked him under the table. "Severus!" she hissed. "We have to leave. Now."
"Why?" he demanded, finally looking up at her.
She wasn't looking at him, but over his shoulder. "Because Potter has finally realised he's supposed to do homework same as the rest of us."
Severus ducked instinctively as if to avoid a spell, his shoulder blades itching furiously. "Has he noticed us?" he whispered urgently, refusing to look back and possibly gain attention and make himself a target.
"No, but it's only a matter of time before he gets bored and starts looking around. And we are not getting detention because of him twice in two weeks."
"He started it," Severus said defensively as they started to pack away their belongings. Quickly, but not so quickly as to draw attention; Severus had learnt such camouflage tactics further back than he could remember and Lily was a quick study.
"I know, Severus; I was there, remember? But I'm not going through that again. Especially not for him. Next time you'll be spending more than a couple of hours in the hospital wing."
Severus scowled as he shoved his parchments into his bag. "I could have taken him if Black hadn't snuck up and got me from behind." Lily had been holding off Pettigrew and Lupin, giving Severus a chance to take on his nemesis on an equal footing – until Black decided playing fair was only necessary if you were duelling a Gryffindor. If it wasn't for Black, Severus would have been fine.
Lily paused to look at him. "And if you hadn't been trying so hard not to use any Dark curses," she said quietly.
"I didn't use any!" he said hastily, panicking.
"I know. And I know how hard that was."
He looked away from her warm eyes. "Well, you were right," he said gruffly. "That kind of magic just hurts me too. But..."
"But it's what you grew up with, I know. That's why I was so proud of you."
Severus looked up again. "Really? You were-"
Only two people were ever proud of him, Lily and Slughorn, and it meant more than he could ever have admitted even to himself.
She smiled. "I'm always proud of you, Severus." She frowned, perhaps remembering the time he'd turned Petunia's doll into a snake (for which he was not sorry). "Well, almost always."
A warm feeling glowed in Severus's stomach, and even as they slithered out of the library, luckily unnoticed, he was smiling. He didn't care what Potter thought, Lily liked him.
"Can we go outside now?" Lily pleaded when they were safely in the corridor with the library doors securely shut between them and Potter. "We did just spend-" she looked at her watch, "-two hours! on homework. It's time for a break, right? You're supposed to take breaks. We need a break, Severus."
Severus smiled despite himself. "Okay," he said.
"Great! Come on!" She dragged him along behind her like a toddler towing an unwieldy balloon and Severus smiled and let himself be towed. Lily's enthusiasm, wearying though it could be at times, was one of the reasons he liked her. Severus himself seldom succumbed to enthusiasm (except about new potions) but that didn't mean he didn't occasionally like to see it in others. Certain others, anyway.
They slipped out a side door and ducked unseen into the ground to sidle around the building unheeded. Out on the Quidditch pitch a fierce pick-up game was being waged, to the great delight of the loud crowd of Quidditch fans who'd gathered to take advantage of the bright autumn afternoon and cheer on their favourites. Severus and Lily ignored them; they both went to official matches because it was expected and they argued amicably over the triumphs and despairs of their respective house teams, but though they both enjoyed flying for fun neither took any particular delight in Quidditch for its own sake.
Lily led the way along the outer wall of the castle, ducking under the wide sprawling branches of the trees that grew old and gnarled under Hogwarts' wing and were probably old enough to have seen the castle when the Founders walked there. A small pleasure garden interrupted their path - a prime favourite with romancing teenagers, but not their destination. Lily peered over the outer hedge and rolled her eyes, waving to Severus. He peeked more cautiously, aware that being male and Slytherin he would get in a lot more trouble than Lily if he was caught; it wasn't fair but it was true.
Head Boy Hamish Davies was far too involved to notice them, though. "That's Emma Diggory," Lily breathed in Severus's ear. "But he's supposed to be dating Judith Knox!" Severus looked at her, startled, and she winked. He grinned a silent thank-you; blackmail material was a very useful tool for survival when one was a Slytherin, and a second-class Slytherin at that.
They moved on, swiftly bypassing the pleasure garden (keeping their heads down and out of sight) and went to their knees at the hedge on the far end, crawling under it on their bellies and dragging their bags behind them. Then, after a quick, cautious scan of their surroundings, Severus gave Lily a boost up onto the top of the wall then let her pull him up behind her, both scaling the wall with the easy familiarity of those who'd done this for over three years now.
They dropped down the other side of the wall - and found themselves in Paradise. (That was what Lily had called it when they first found it; Severus thought it was a girly name, but as long as only Lily knew about it he put up with it.) It was a small courtyard, complete with fountain and small raised garden tended by no one they ever saw, completely enclosed by walls and with no entrance they had been able to discover except for the way they'd just come in - over the wall. The walls defended them from prying eyes and also from the chill winds that swept down off the mountains so that even on a brisk autumn day, here in a puddle of sunshine it was warm.
Severus was the one who'd found their private courtyard, trained as he was by Spinner's End to look for exits and hiding places, to sneak about in the shadows and investigate nooks and crannies, to suss out his environment and learn of dangers and make sure he had sanctuaries. Severus had found it, but Lily had enthusiastically adopted it as Theirs.
It was their favourite place outside, out of the way of anyone who might glower at them for being Slytherin and Gryffindor and still being friends. Lily refused to be ashamed of him but she was dimly aware that it caused him problems in the privacy of his house - not that he'd ever complained, of course - and tacitly agreed to not flaunt their friendship. Not to hide it, precisely, just not advertise it unnecessarily. She'd always been his only friend (Spinner's End street gangs didn't count, nor did Slytherin house study groups - that was just survival), while he was her only friend who transcended the boundaries of her life, who was a part of both her worlds, magical and Muggle. Neither wanted to give that up.
Severus settled in in a spot in the sun and relaxed. He was safe here. He didn't have to worry about Potter's gang spotting him, he didn't have to watch out for teachers waiting for him to prove himself a typical Slytherin. He didn't have to feel Malfoy's eyes watching him suspiciously for any signs of taint from his Muggle father or listen to Nott's whispers in their dorm.
It wasn't, in Nott's case, that Severus entirely disagreed with him; Nott whispered about an uprising under a great leader who promised to remake the wizarding world so that Slytherins were no longer despised and ostracised, and Severus desperately wanted that remade world, wanted a place where he could belong for a change. But Nott also whispered about Muggles being inferior and while Severus was proud of his Prince heritage and hated his dad, he didn't love his mum either. And Lily's parents had always been kind to him. And half the tormentors of his life had been magical, not Muggle at all. So when Nott started talking Severus was always torn in two and it was much better to just sit here in the sun in Paradise and forget it all.
Lily pulled an apple out of their secret stash under the far wall. "Oy, Severus, want one?" He shrugged and she tossed him one overarm; he caught it one-handed and Lily grinned. "And why aren't you on the Quidditch team?"
Severus treated it as a rhetorical question, though it might not have been. He didn't want to go into the reasons, which ranged from his parentage and low status to his lack of money and lack of friends. He tried to shake off the thoughts: here in Paradise he was supposed to be free of all those things.
Lily spread herself out on a stone bench and smiled up at the sky, squinting into the sun and chewing on her apple, giving a happy sigh. Severus liked it here because he was safe. Lily liked it because it was like living in a book to have a secret courtyard all of their own.
Biting absentmindedly into his apple, Severus dug in his bag and pulled out his Transfiguration textbook. "Lily?" he tried hopefully.
Though she rolled her eyes, she agreed to quiz him for next week's test, holding the book over her face and nibbling on her apple between questions. She always thought he was too uptight over his marks but she usually gave in and helped him anyway. There were two reasons Severus agonised over his schoolwork. One was simply that he wasn't Lily - or James Potter. They were both brilliant, Severus knew (even if he was loathe to admit it in Potter's case); they learned things easily and quickly and didn't need to study hard to get good marks. Severus was good at potions and had an instinctive understanding of the subject that made Slughorn keep a watchful eye on him, but he was only average at everything else. To even approach Lily's level he had to work twice as hard.
And he did work, even when Lily, not understanding the gulf between them, laughed kindly at him. He was too desperate to do well at school so he could escape his parents' life, he needed to succeed. Anyway, Severus had never learnt to procrastinate: indeed, with such volatile and unpredictable parents he'd learnt early on to do things quickly before the rules changed on him.
Lily finished her apple and sat up, putting the core on the stone bench beside her so she could evanesco it with a touch of her wand. Severus had no core to dispose of because he, in old childhood habit, ate it with the rest of his apple. Lily wrinkled her nose at him, mildly disgusted, but Severus saw nothing wrong with the practice, and anyway her father had never been out of work.
At the thought of food his stomach grumbled loudly. Lily chuckled - breaking into outright laughter at the look on his face. His stomach had got used to regular meals at Hogwarts. "Can you pass me another apple?" he asked ruefully.
"I can do you better than that," she said proudly and reached into her bag to pull out a bulky package. She carried it over to him in triumph and opened it up; an engorgioed napkin held an array of sandwiches and pastries. "I saw you weren't at lunch and I thought you might get hungry," she said with a smile.
"I was working on my potions assignment," he said, sheepish at being caught.
"You work too hard, Severus," she chided, her eyes warm and even a little concerned.
"No, I don't."
"Yes you do. Now stop arguing and eat, before your stomach gets any louder."
Smiling, he took a sandwich - ham and egg, his favourite - and looked at her. She could be annoying, she had a temper, she didn't do her homework early enough to suit him - but when it counted she was there for him. "Lily," he said impulsively.
She turned to look at him, bright-eyed, smiling, hair shining in the sun, mouth full. "Mmm?"
Will you go out with me? But his momentary burst of courage was gone. "Thanks. For the food."
She grinned at him. "No problem. What are friends for?"
Severus smiled.
Fin