Lily had other friends, you know.
That's what she told Severus when she left him once and for all, told him he could never call her a Mudblood again, told him that there was no room in her life for someone hoping to become a Death Eater; Lily had principles.
Severus was devastated and she knew it, those black eyes were so expressive.
"What will you do without me?"
Lily detested him for even asking. For the first time in her life she saw the oily, greasy, and utterly despicable human that Potter must've recognized all along. "I have other friends, you know," she said haughtily, and turned around and climbed back into the Gryffindor common room for the last time.
And she did have other friends, she realized, as she collapsed on her red velvet bed and started to cry. Marlene was there to give her a hug, Alice to ask what was wrong, Dorcas to say that it was okay if she didn't want to talk about it. The girls' eyes flashed, nostrils flared as Lily explained. "And he was my best friend in the whole world, and he called me a Mudblood. He calls everyone of my birth a Mudblood, and he loves the Dark Arts, infatuated with them really, and I guess I just thought he was better than that. I feel responsible, almost. We raised each other."
"Raised each other," Marlene repeated lightly, gently scoffing. "That's not how that works. Snape's parents raised him, that's the problem. You're not responsible for who he's become."
"And if he really loved you," Dorcas said, "he would respect you as an equal, wouldn't he?"
Alice's face had gone white. "He's an awful human, Lils, and I'm really sorry. We're here for you, you know that, right?"
Dorcas and Marlene nodded empathetically, and Lily had mustered a watery smile; she thanked them.
But Lily's life was different without Severus in it, different because it was simple, now, almost. Having friends that you loved and who loved you, unconditionally, the whole silly drama with Potter, her NEWTS. Lily was just a schoolgirl without Severus; things felt too easy, if she wasn't careful she would slip into the type of irresponsible happiness she thought her generation could never experience while war raged outside the castle walls.
Lily was happy, and it was unsettling, after a decade of being a dumping ground for all of Severus's rubbish.
"Lils! You coming?" Dorcas called into the bathroom.
"Yeah, yeah" she said, running her fingers through the red hair that she'd recently cut, pulling at the hem of her dress. She opened the door and almost gasped; Dorcas looked so beautiful in her silvery gown, like an angel almost.
"Dorcas!" she said with a teasing smile. "You look brilliant!"
"Hey, now," Marlene replied, "that's my girlfriend, Lils, not yours." Lily laughed, and she remembered that with Severus her laughs were soft, sympathetic hums, and now they were so loud and raucous and endless.
"So, Lily," Alice said seriously, "is tonight going to be the night?"
"What do you mean, the night?"
"The night you finally say yes to Potter."
"Never," said Lily, knowing her cheeks were betraying her with their furious flush. Alice let a small grin slip at Lily's pathetic attempt at an eye roll.
"Okay," Dorace said skeptically, and to Lily's relief her friends decided to leave it at that.
Lily, of course, had been thinking about James- Potter, she meant- more and more lately. Thinking about his stupid hair and how it probably wasn't even messy when he rolled out of bed, probably it only got like that because of how often he'd run his fingers through it as he sat in the Great Hall, on the Quidditch pitch, in Potions- always he seemed to be in the corner of Lily's eye, especially when she was particularly trying to forget about him. She thought about his quips during class, how he tried so hard to look bored and unimpressed while his brown eyes positively glittered at the magic of transfiguration. How he yelled, "I think you messed up your potion, Evans, it doesn't smell any different around here, just flower perfume," when she was brewing Amortentia, and how that was the most romantic thing he could've ever said.
And how he was a stupid prat. Obviously. Who she couldn't even think about that way. She'd learned, hadn't she, the differences between love and obsession, and James had a clear case of the latter…
But maybe that wasn't entirely true. I mean, Potter had really cooled off in the last couple years. He was a shameless flirt, obviously, but that seemed to be more of a gimmick to impress Black than anything else. He hadn't tried to ask her out for the past seven months, not that Lily had been counting, and even when he had it had always been as a joke; Lily had never, ever felt pressured to say yes.
Maybe it wasn't an obsession so much as a silly little crush James kept up to keep things exciting. Potter had dated before, tens of girls, all while flirting with Lily throughout every single class. And the girls didn't seem to mind. James himself was really never upset or surprised when she rejected him; it was half-hearted routine at this point.
Maybe Potter didn't even like her.
Yeah! How come Lily had never thought of that before? Maybe her ego was just so blown up from the whole Severus debacle that she assumed that every single boy in the whole wide world was obsessed with her, when why would they be, and Potter was cool and he had cool friends and a cool life and just overall better options. Lily wasn't cool, she was Head Girl and spent most of her time in the library and for all that studying James was still admittedly better in most subjects than she was and anyways he was just incredibly out of her league and-
"Lils!" Marlene said sharply. "Did you hear me? It's time to go!"
"Oh, right, sorry," Lily said breathlessly, and grabbing the small beaded back that she'd enchanted to hold her textbooks, she walked slowly out the door. Her mind, of course, was still firmly stuck on James Potter.