Lily Bud

Year 6 Chapter 79

The next day was a slow start for Lily and her friends. Thankfully it was Saturday they could sleep in. Maybe just because Sulfia and Dorcas had both threaded James with physical violence would he so much as think about doing Quidditch training in the morning.

By the time everybody was getting out of bed, it was nearly noon and lunch was their first meal. At the Gryffindor table an ural owl was impatiently waiting for them or better one of them. Lily didn't recognize it, but Sulfia seemed to know it. Sulfia wasn't even sitting down yet when the owl flew over to hoot at her and held out its leg over Sulfia's plate. As soon as Sulfia took the letter from the bird it flew away again. Sulfia rolled her eyes at it.

"That's mum's work owl Birdley. He's always a bit impatient. Not sure why she even uses him to write to me." She explained and opened the letter. She started to read, but faltered somewhere half-way and started over again. Her eyes got darker the longer she read.

"Is everything alright?" Dorcas asked softly.

Sulfia hastily shoved the letter into her pocket and shook her head. "Yes, mum is still just a bit strange at the moment. She is acting a bit off and we had a fight about it. It's probably the stress, with everything going on…" But Sulfia was closed off in the way she talked that made clear, that she didn't want to talk anymore about it. They all let the topic drop.

A moment later the boys were arriving in the great hall. They were loud and rowdy. James was restlessly shifting in his seat or bouncing his legs. This together with the letter from her mother seemed to put Sulfia in an, especially bad mood this morning. She just gave James a look of pure disgust at his level of awakening at this hour.

"It's not his fault!" Sirius defended him. "There is just something wrong in his brain. He needs to move or he gets anguish. Mum and Dad don't know where he got it from. They're both very relaxed. Not like their jumpy little dear, here."

James started to kick Sirius under the table, who kicked back, and soon an excessive kick battle happened between them. It ended when Remus howled in pain and declared.

"Ok that's it. Those two have too much unused energy! We go out."

Sirius and James only looked slightly guilty, as everybody had to pack up to get ready to go outside. The whole group went back up to the Gryffindor tower to fetch warmer clothes. Like this they all made their way outside, mostly because Remus was still looking really serious and stuff. It had snowed every few days for the last couple of weeks and the grounds were covered in a white blanket, that still showed some of the old tracks people left behind. You could easily see where Hagrid had moved around the ground, because while fresh snow settled in his huge footprints they still were visible. The snow crunched under their feet as they walked around the grounds.

Today the sky was clear and the sun was tickling Lily's nose. That made her remember something she had forgotten earlier. With a quick spell she summoned a small potion vial from her room to her. She checked that it was the right one before drinking it swiftly. A short shiver ran over her body at the taste. When she looked back up the boys all looked at her in confusion.

James cocked his head and furrowed his brows. But it was Remus who asked. "What's that?"

"Just a sun protection potion." She answered and put the empty vial into her bag. When she looked back up they looked at her as if she was crazy. "What?"

"I hate to break it to you." Sirius started slowly. "But in case you haven't noticed we are in Scotland, in winter, there is SNOW!" He opened his arms to present the winter wonderland around. The other boys around him nodded along with him.

Lily felt herself blush and crossed her arms in front of her chest. This made Dorcas and Sulfia fight smilies until they couldn't suppress it anymore and giggled. Lily huffed and turned away from them all.

Between giggles Sulfia answered Sirius. "And Lily still gets a sunburn from so much at seeing a picture from the sun, because in case you haven't noticed, Lily is a nearly translucent ginger."

"Ha…" James hummed and seemingly had to think deeply about this. The other boys were much faster able to voice their thoughts.

"Ginger you say?" Sirius said with fake surprise. "I never knew. Did you notice anything like that?" He looked at his friends.

"No!" Remus said. "Never!"

"Why didn't anyone tell us? In the form of waxing poetry." Peter added.

"Yes, if just someone told us, that she has hair like dancing flames." Sirius agreed.

"Red like the first and last rays of sunlight."

"The colour of passion and victory."

"Like a battle cry made visual."

"Feisty like pumping blood and shiny like fluid silk."

The three boys tag-teamed each other and overacted all their statements under the cheers and laughter of Dorcas and Sulfia so much that they didn't see James' sightly embarrassed and majorly annoying face or how he charmed three huge snowballs over their heads and let them drop all at once. They didn't break but encased their heads. James swung his wand once more and coals and carrots appear to make them seem like snowman heads.

"Much better! Don't you agree?" He declared with a wide grin, even if he still looked quite red in the face.

But this state didn't last long as the boys tore the snow from their faces and glared at James. They came after him with jinx and snowballs. First it was three against one, but soon Peter was tempted by James to betrayed the other two.

"Come on Peter! I can stand my ground against the three of you alone. We would crush them if we team up!"

And within moments it was a free-for-all and everybody against each other. They were laughing like little kids. The girls were watching from the side and laughed at them. Which looking back, maybe it wasn't the right way if they wanted to stay out of it. The boys united against them. With mischief twinkled in their eyes they circled them with snowballs floating around them.

"Don't you dare!" Sulfia screeched. But her shrill warning only egged the boys on more. Soon they were bombarded with snow and James was shoveling snow down the back of Lily's pullover, before running off with the wicked laughter of a toddler on his lips. Lily screeched at the cold feeling and ran after James. But he was so much faster than her that he could even mess with Remus some more. The cold air was burning in her lungs and she got a stitch.

Lily was out of breath when she stopped next to Dorcas, trying to catch her breath. "Why is he so bloody stupidly fast?" She asked her friend while sending a tripping hex at him, but a actually jumped over it and laughed.

"Quidditch training." Dorcas shrugged her shoulders, but Lily could detect the smug undertone in her voice.

"Rubbish! You guys sit on brooms in the air. If you run around I'm pretty sure you play the game wrong." Lily said back as haughty as she could.

"Tell that to James. Stupid, sadistic, overachieving captain that he is." Dorcas mumbled darkly. "He is all about stamina and general fitness and that rubbish. He lets us run rounds and rounds before training and if we complain we have to run, even more, no matter the weather." She shivered if from the cold or the memory of the training in the pouring rain. Lily had to laugh at her and Dorcas stuck her tongue out at her.

Lily discreetly swung her wand and let snow rain down on Dorcas. Before she could shake the shock of the cold off, Lily had already started running away towards the castle. But she didn't get far before Dorcas caught her and shoved her into a snow dune face first.

Lily shrieked and turned around and pulled Dorcas down next to her. They both started to laugh uncontrollably and lazily threw handfuls of snow at each other.

"Are you doing snow harpies now?" A voice asked them from over the top.

Lily looked up and looked at the upside-down grinning faces of James and Peter. "Sounds like a brilliant idea!"

James laughed. "Yeah! Sirius, Remus! Sulfia you too! Let's make snow harpies!" He declared and ran off to push everybody in the snow for this. Peter just stood there, shrugged, and let himself fall into the snow next to Dorcas and Lily. They all spend some more time outside before it got too cold and Lily felt her fingers getting numb. Sulfia was loudly complaining about her cold feet.

"It's like I have two blocks of ice at the end of my legs." She mourned.

"Sounds like somebody wants to run extra laps." James teased her from the ground where he finished a mini-snowman, but his nose was red from the cold as well and he rubbed his hands together.

"Shut up, we are not at training you berk." She shouted back and gave him a two-finger salute. But the group already got up and back inside.

Lily went to the prefect bathroom to warm up and took a lovely bubble bath for an hour or so. The sweet scene around her lulled her into a timeless bliss. She hummed a soft tone as she relaxed and thought about the afternoon. A smile played on her lips. Why had she tried to keep her distance from the boys for so long? They were a breathless and welcoming kind of fun to be around. It wasn't that they were stupid and dull or anything, but they didn't think themselves to be above easy fun even at themselves. And their friend groups seemed to fit together so well. But at the same time it all seemed so loud at times like a silent moment was hard to come by. She sighed and got out of the water and dressed again.

Maybe she should get all of them something from the kitchen on her way back? Maybe a warm kettle of tea. Dorcas and Sulfia would probably stop the dirty looks they had sent her on her way here.

And so she went in her relaxed trance downstairs, thinking about her friends. Her feet carried her own their own and she only really snapped out of it when she realized that it smelled muskier than she expected.

She wasn't near the kitchen, but down in the dungeons, in front of the potion lab, Slughorn had allowed Lily and -. And Snape. To use. To experiment on their own.

Now they still both used the lab, but never together. Lily made sure of it. Or more honest she had avoided it as much as possible. She no longer worked on her theories and ideas down there, as she had before. She did this now in the library or some unused classroom. Someplace where she could talk those ideas out loud with herself. Even if there was nobody around anymore to answer her. If possible she even prepared her ingredients beforehand. To make sure she had to spend as little time as possible here and if possible at times, when she knew he had other classes.

Her hands shook and she wasn't sure if she wanted to go in there, but the truth was he or this fear of being confronted by him was slowly, and maybe even without wanting to, taking away some of her passion, something of her.

She was seventeen now, an adult, she reminded herself. Yesterday she became an adult. She shouldn't run away like this. Yes, there was a chance that he was there, but she shouldn't run from this.

She straightened her back and chin up, chest out, she opened the door. She stepped in and-

He wasn't there.

For a moment Lily wasn't sure if she was relieved or disappointed. She let out a shaking breath and looked around. On one side she had her station, on the other side he had his. And in the middle on an unused table sat a wrapped gift. She felt tension ripping through her body. She stepped closer. Her hand was hovering over it. Over the colourful ribbon. She was nearly touching it. And pulled her hand away. Now she noticed an open note next to the box. She didn't have to touch this to read it.

Hello Lily

I waited all day for you to show up. Like we always did. But you apparently to busy with your gaggling flock of gryffindor friends. I don't know how you can even hear yourself think with all this noise and useless chatter around you.

And I know that you didn't get me a present this year, but maybe we could use this as a restart. That would be the best gift.

We could work together again like we used to.

With all my love and patience

Severus

She forced herself to look away. Her eyes landed on the board. He had written on it.

He hated to write on the board. Thought that it could allow other people to steal their ideas. She was the one that liked to write things down on a big board to get another perspective for a problem and to talk in half-finished strings of thoughts.

It was her board. He liked to mull things over in his head until he had worked out all the kinks in his brain or maybe write it down for himself somewhere private. Leaning down and with his arms protectively around his book, so that nobody could see it.

She started at it. He hated to have the white chalk dust on his robes.

Anger bubbled up in her.

There was a mistake on the board, a stupid mistake, not a totally obvious one, but one Lily was sure he hadn't missed. One that left his potion stable and still able to correct it easily with the right ingredients and care. He wanted her to interact with it, him. He tried to use her passion against her.

She thought about whipping the board and trashing the gift, but that but would be an interaction with him. She turned around and went to Slughorn's office.

He looked slightly surprised, but his face lit up in a warm and friendly way when he greeted her at the door.

"Miss Evans, dear, what brings you here today? Isn't it your birthday? You're an all grown-up witch now and a brilliant one at that." He placed a heavy hand on her shoulder and squeezed it lightly.

"Yesterday." Lily corrected him quickly and Slughorn grinned at her. Patting her on her shoulder in an affectionate way. "My birthday was yesterday and another room- lab. I need another lab to work in." Lily rushed out.

Slughorn's face fell at her words. "Lily, I know you and Severus have some issues right now, but we shouldn't break a wand because it stabbed us in the side once. I'm sure there are some hurt feelings and misunderstandings on both sides, but if we sit down calmly and talk about it we can come-"

"No!" Lily interrupted him with more force than necessary. "I spent too much time denying, forgiving, and hoping and looking away. I can't do this anymore."

"I understand you, dear, but-"

"I won't work like this anymore. Afraid to run into him or have him corner me because he can deduct when I need to look after my potion or even be afraid that he could temper with my potions." Lily said and looked her teacher in the eyes. "I need another lab to work in."

Slughorn looked contemplating. Lily just wasn't sure if it was about giving in to her or how to convince her of his point of view. She tried a different approach.

"How about we see it as a birthday present." She put on a sweeter smile than she felt like.

"You drive a hard bargain here. Really you would have done great in Slytherin." He jovially claimed, while shaking his head. Lily felt her smile became stiffer. "But I really shouldn't let students work alone like this. You always need another person around in case something goes wrong."

"Now Snape and I didn't work together there for quite some time now." She watched her teacher carefully, but he didn't seem convinced yet."Aaaand I have friends. Lots of them are in NEWT level Potion class, as you know."

"But they aren't really as interested in potions as you are, or Mr. Snape." He challenged her back.

"But they are my friends and if I asked them, I'm sure they will come with me and if they just read a book while I work." She put on an innocent smile and fluttered her eyelashes at him a bit and she saw how his body language from strict to amenable.

"Because yesterday it was your birthday." He finally agreed a bit reluctant. "There is another lab I can let you use, actual it is just a few doors down from here. But for all this I expect great things from you in the future. Things that go down in history."

"That was my plan anyway." For the first time in this conversation Lily managed to smile for real. "Thank you very much!"

She had a smile on her face the whole time she moved her stuff into the new room. It was a bit smaller, but she loved it. It was hers. She could set up the small cupboard with ingredients as she wants. Animal parts, plants, and minerals all separate from each other. She didn't have to make any compromises in her order, her system.

She had a bit of a spring in her step when she arrived back at the Gryffindor tower. She wanted to tell Dorcas and Sulfia about this. She looked around the common room, but couldn't see them, maybe there were upstairs. Lily took two steps at the same time.

"Dorky, Sulfia!" She shouted as she threw open the door to their dorm.

"They are not around." Came the answer from Gwen's bed.

"Oh." Lily's shoulders dropped. "Do you know where they are?"

"Not sure." Gwen now pulled open her curtain open and turned to Lily with her feet tucked under her. "They were talking about some letter and some kind of problems at home. They wanted to be alone."

"Ah." Lily let herself fall on her own bed. And out of nowhere it felt like somebody had punched the air out of her. They didn't actively reject her. She just hadn't been here at the right time. "I just wanted to tell them, that- that I got a new lab. One I don't have to share with Se- Sn- him." She felt her voice breaking and her eyes well with tears. It didn't make sense. She felt like she couldn't breathe.

A hand started to rub her back. Lily hadn't noticed that Gwen got up, but now she was smothering Lily softly.

"I cut him out. I did it this time. I decided that I can't even give him another chance to a chance. I gave up on him." Lily's body shook with sobs. She didn't understand. She thought she was past crying over Severus. "Maybe if I gave him another chance he would have changed. What if I gave up too soon?"

Lily wasn't sure why she was like this right now. She never had spoken with anyone about it really. Not with her parents, to who she first would have to explain the war and politics to let them understand. Not with Sulfia and Dorcas, who were just so happy that she finally got rid of him. Most definitely not Mary and the other muggleborns, who had every reason to hate him as much as any other junior death eater.

"Shh," Gwen said softly. "You did nothing wrong. Just give him chance after chance and keep going as before would have never changed anything." She drew soft circles on her back.

"And what if I had just given him more? What if I gave him what he wanted. Even if I don't feel like that, maybe I could… I don't know, just go through it. What if…" Lily hiccuped.

Gwen stopped her movements. "Lily." Her voice was harsher and made Lily look up to her. Her eyes seemed merciless at that moment. "If anyone really thought that your cunt had such a mind-altering power to turn someone into a good person and you willing to whore yourself out to chance to change a person for the better, we would all set you up on a blind date with You-know-who"

Lily choked up at the unexpected crude words from Gwen, who was always while soft-spoken. Lily stopped crying and just stared at her.

"Lily, you couldn't f- ehm love him into a good person. He would have to change in himself and for himself, not to pretend it to please you. It wouldn't make him a good person just a gratified one. And you know this, right?"

"Yes." Lily agreed. "And I don't really want him back. I feel lighter since I'm done with him. And I don't know, why this just happened… I was just… I don't know…" Lily mumbled and tried to make sense of her own feelings.

Gwen shrugged her shoulders. "Sometimes you just have to grieve for what-ifs and your own ideas of a person…" Gwen looked down and for a moment she looked smaller than normal.

"Gwen?" Lily asked hesitantly.

"We- well don't talk with a cosine anymore. He is ten years older than me, he was my babysitter when I was young, loved to play with him and he- joined them. Sometimes I think about him and try to understand when or why, but it doesn't change anything, does it?" Gwen's eyes were unfocused and stared into nothing, before shaking her head. "We all can only make choices for ourselves. Nothing more, nothing less."

Lily nodded. She didn't know what to say other than. "Thank you."

They sat next to each other in silence and it started to get awkward.

"So." Gwen started with a long pulled o. "You never thought about Snape like that? Even when he was your best friend? You never imagined yourself together?"

She wasn't looking at Lily. So Lily's head shake made little sense. "Not really… I tried to, when I noticed and how hurt he seemed to be about it… But it never felt right…I just didn't want to deal with it"

"Hmm… And now with James? I mean, he is even more flamboyant about his crush on you…" Gwen peeked at her with a side glance.

Lily felt herself flush. She bit her lips thinking about the question and trying to put her feelings into words. Part of her wanted to nearly reflexively deny it. But that wasn't true and Lily knew it. "It's different. He doesn't make me feel- invalidate. Like my friendship is something less. Like I deny him something that he needs, by not being with him like that. Like I have to decide his happiness and that I'm cruel or unfair not to give him what he wants. I do not feel guilty with James. He makes me feel like my friendship precious on its own and that he is happy to be my friend and hear my thoughts and not just crumbs and leftovers that he has to feed on because I wouldn't give him more… I think…"

Lily rambled for a bit. Before shutting up again. A little voice in her head whispered that maybe it didn't hurt that James' attention just always felt more flattering and Snape's uncomfortable. But she didn't put those ideas into words and looked at Gwen. Her dorm mate looked deep in thoughts.

"Thank you…" Gwen mumbled.

Lily first knitted her brows before her eyes widened. Was this about Gwen's mysterious crush? Lily was kind of friends with Gwen but didn't know who she was close with, other than Gunny of course. But she didn't have a chance to asked before Gwen stood up from the bed and grinned at Lily.

"I'm sure the other girls are back soon and will be happy to celebrate your new lab."

AN. Hey, I feel like I'm all over the place with this chapter, but I feel like Lily needs this as well. I never like stories, where Lily is just so hung up over Snape when there is really no reason to assume this, just because Snape is hung up about her. But at the same time, grieving or like in this cutting someone unhealthy out of your life is not always a straight line. Sometimes, you feel like crying and pondering about what-ifs, what you could have done differently. Lily is still happier now, but it just hit here hard for a moment when she felt so rejected by her friends after she rejected Snape again. And in the end Lily had to think about what makes her feel different about Snape's and James' crush on her. To me this is the other side of the 'friendzone', when a friendship becomes worthless or just a stepping stone without value on its own for a potential romantic relationship.

I hope it is not too much in this chapter and you fine people could enjoy it never the less.

On another note, I sewed myself a marauder's map mask. It is folded in a way that you could only read Marauder's Map when you unfold it to put it on, not when it is in your bag and stuff. It is a bit of nerdy fun that I want to share with you guys because I don't think anyone else would cherish something like this with me.

So stay healthy and have a nice day