His Greatest Wish, by AndromedaMarine
Author's Note: Many apologies for the lateness of this chapter. The update feature on the website has been on the fritz lately.
Mirrors
Whereas Lily fell asleep at almost the exact moment her head hit the pillow, Sev sat at his window for over an hour after he and Eileen returned home, staring out at the falling snow and the faint reflection of light from the streetlamp off the pristine white blanket. If only life were as perfect, he thought hollowly before banishing the thought from his mind. Instead he turned his attention to the larger issues at hand—mainly, destroying Horcruxes in the attempt to destroy Voldemort.
Dumbledore had requested a meeting with him in the week before holidays, during which Albus asked Sev to clarify details about the Horcruxes. The Headmaster had gone through the memories still in the Pensieve and picked out the ones pertaining to the hunted objects, but even with both Severus Prince's and Harry Potter's knowledge at his fingertips, nothing beat the absolute surety of reading from the source.
As Sev watched the softly falling snow he replayed the conversation over in his head.
"Secrets of the Darkest Art," Sev said in response to Dumbledore's question. "You have it, here in your office. You confiscated it from the library, didn't you? It wasn't done soon enough. Dippet should have confiscated it the moment it came into the castle. That's the book you need to understand everything better than I do, Albus. That's the one that taught Tom Riddle to split his soul."
"I admit I have the text, however I barely opened it before sensing the powerful presence of evil within it," Dumbledore confessed. "I only imagined the depths of evil to which it plunged."
"Sensing evil never stopped you from putting on the Gaunt ring," Sev replied and watched Albus's expression. "I don't blame you for falling under the lure of power, and here I mean with Grindelwald, but placing an object of such extreme vileness and danger on your finger is something common sense should have prevented. When you come across the ring again, do not put it on. This time you may not be as lucky."
"I must have fallen under its spell, then—"
Sev interrupted. "Unwise, but the ring is more dangerous than the book. The ring can possess, it can corrupt, and it can destroy from within. The book imparts only knowledge, albeit knowledge of dark origin and even darker purpose when used as intended. The only reason I ever survived at all in my former life was that I knew and understood dark magic with the intent to protect myself. Aurors are no different."
Dumbledore turned towards his bookcase and lifted the Elder wand. Without speaking he waved it in a complex twirl and Sev saw the air in front of the cabinet door shimmer like a wave of heat. Albus opened the case and gingerly extracted a moldy leather-bound volume with medieval script writing on the front. Albus held it without opening it. "Do you remember the book inside the Wizard Cracker I gave you last Christmas?"
The question, unexpected and seemingly unrelated, threw Sev for a loop. "The one written in Ancient Runes?"
"Precisely. I believe I told you that it would be an extraordinary tool in your arsenal. I was uninformed, apparently. I would wager now that you know more about Ancient Runes than I do."
"The title was Magick of the Moste Anciente Defense," Sev replied, staring at the evil volume still in Albus's hands. "I hadn't read it before. There was information about combined spellcasting, and the shield charm they suggest is almost powerful enough to avert Avada Kedavra."
"But nothing can avert that curse," Dumbledore said sadly before setting Secrets of the Darkest Art on his desk. Sev knew he was thinking of Ariana. "I had hoped you were going to take years of study before attempting to read Magick of the Moste Anciente Defense, and that by the time you read it you would be of age and qualified for induction into the Order. I stand by what I said, that Runes can be keys to long-lost magic. But you still know of things I could only hope to one day understand."
Sev steered the conversation back to point. "Horcruxes."
"Horcruxes."
Sev blinked and shifted in his position. His legs were sore from being in one place for over an hour, but when he moved to the bed and stretched the soreness disappeared. He still couldn't fall asleep, his stomach felt like snitches had taken up residence and when he closed his eyes he could see Lily smiling sweetly at him. It was past two in the morning before Sev could finally fall into slumber.
When Lily jolted awake it was to shrill screaming and crashing and stomping coming from the kitchen. She flung the covers off and pulled on her slippers, shrugged a bathrobe on and hurried downstairs to see what the trouble was. When she skidded into the kitchen she came to a complete halt. Petunia stood with her hair in all directions, tear stains down her red cheeks, breathing heavily, with a broken plate and shattered teacup at her feet. A towel hung limply in one of Rose's hands and she was glaring at her daughter. Petunia looked over at her sister and her face contorted.
"You!" she screeched. "You goddamn freak!"
"Petunia!" Rose yelled at her elder daughter. "You hold your tongue!"
Petunia glanced at her mother for a moment. "No, I won't! I'm sick of it! I'm sick of you not even caring that she spends all her time with a slimy, greasy boy at a school so far away you don't even know where it is! You don't know what they're doing there! I'm sick of her and that Snape boy getting all of your and Daddy's attention and praise! You didn't even notice that I came home last week with a solo in the Christmas concert, Mother!"
Lily's blood boiled. "Don't call him that!" she yelled back. "If you knew anything, Petunia, you'd know his last name isn't even Snape anymore! It's Prince!"
"Oh, what'd he do," her sister said cruelly, "get married and change his name? Was he the bride or the groom?"
Lily walked forward two paces and punched her sister in the nose. "You twisted bitch," Lily breathed through clenched teeth. Her mother gasped and covered her mouth with one hand. Lily's green eyes flashed dangerously. "You just can't stand the idea that I have someone just like me who accepts me for the witch that I am. You're jealous that you don't have friends like I do. You're jealous that I'm actually better at something than you—magic, and keeping friends!"
Petunia reeled from the impact of Lily's fist against her face. She clutched a napkin to her bleeding nose and glared at her sister through hate-filled eyes. "You and he are unnatural freaks of nature," she spat acidly. "I heard Mother and Daddy talking about how seedy Spinner's End is. I heard them talking about the war that's going on in your world. You can't even live with yourselves, you're so unorganized."
The edges of Lily's vision began to tinge red. "Sev will never turn into his father, Petunia, never!"
Before Lily could continue, Petunia screamed, "I hope that whoever you're fighting against, I hope that you lose!"
Lily's voice dropped to a deadly quiet she'd learned from Sev. "No, you don't. Because if he wins, he'll kill you. He'll kill all non-magical people. He hates you more than you hate us."
"Lily," Rose said, but Petunia spoke over her mother.
"I don't care. I'll only be happy if I never see you again." With that, Petunia Evans stalked from the kitchen, the napkin still held against her face.
Lily's shoulders slumped. Rose rested a hand on her daughter's arm and when Lily looked up at her mother, Rose said, "Ignore her, dear. Only you know the truth of what goes on in your world. She can't say anything to make you believe otherwise. She's grounded for the holidays."
The only Evans witch sucked in a deep breath and hugged her mother.
"If I were you I'd be spending most if not all my time with Sev," Rose whispered conspiratorially in her daughter's ear. "You're always happier around him," she observed.
Lily sniffed and wiped her eyes before nodding against her mother's chest. "Can we go to Diagon Alley? Just me and Sev?"
"I don't see why not."
"We can take the Floo Network from Sev's house to the Leaky Cauldron," Lily said softly. "And we can visit Mrs. Prince at the potion shop."
"That sounds like a lovely idea, dear. Go get dressed and I'll make you some kippers."
Lily went back up to her room and made straight for her trunk. She opened it and started pulling out belongings until she found a wooden box near the bottom. From inside, she pulled the cloth-wrapped mirror whose twin would let her speak to Sev. She held it up to her face and spoke into it: "Sev!"
Nothing happened for several moments.
"Sev!"
Another few seconds passed before the surface rippled and Sev's face swam into view. "Lily? Are you all right? What happened? Why were you crying?"
Lily realized that her face was flushed and damp and that she should have taken a shower before calling him on the mirror. He could see the distress in her eyes. She wiped her eyes again. "I had a fight with Petunia. Mum said it would be all right for us to go to Diagon Alley today. I just want to get my mind off what she said."
"When will you be here?" he asked softly.
"Half an hour, probably. I'll be as fast as I can."
"I'll be waiting," Sev replied in a voice that conveyed empathy and understanding.
I love the way his voice sounds, Lily caught herself thinking as she broke contact with the mirror and placed it back in the wooden box. Quickly she took a shower and brushed her hair, all the while unable to stop herself from thinking about Petunia's hurtful words. She just can't stand the idea that I have a group of friends that loves me. She's just jealous of my relationship with Sev and the Seven. She's still angry over Sev and me finding that letter Dumbledore wrote her…Petunia, Petunia, Petunia! As she tied her shoes she let out a sound of anger. She stomped downstairs and ate her breakfast without tasting it.
Rose watched her daughter go through the different emotions at the table and thought about how to punish Petunia for making such awful statements about her sister's best friend. She would discuss it with Mark when he returned home; he'd gone to the college for a meeting with his colleagues and would be back in a few hours. Rose wished that Petunia would eventually come to accept that her sister was special, was different, and would never stop being her sister. It was all for naught, though, as Sev had told them last summer. If Muggles don't like the idea of magic right off, they never will. Rose certainly hoped that Sev was wrong in this case, but her elder daughter's behavior only proved Sev right.
Lily hugged her mother goodbye and pulled on her winter jacket before stepping outside onto the snow-dusted front walk. As she set a brisk pace down the street towards Spinner's End, she couldn't help but throw imaginary hexes at her sister for the insults and the insinuations. She remembered reading about the Bat-Bogey Hex in a library book. The nerve! Lily thought angrily. The nerve she has! She nearly missed the turnoff to the street down which Sev lived, but caught herself and started counting the houses. Sev's was the fifth on the left.
She knocked on the door and when it opened she came face-to-face with Sev. For a fleeting instant his eyes were unguarded, and in that moment Lily saw concern, love, and adoration pass through his dark hazel eyes. Lily looked down at her feet for a second before looking back up at him. The walls were up inside him, she could tell.
"What happened?" Sev asked softly after moving aside so Lily could enter. She sat lightly down on the couch and fixed her eyes on a picture frame sitting on the coffee table. It showed a young Eileen smiling at a baby Sev levitating a spoon.
"Petunia said some hurtful things about you," she said quietly without looking at Sev. "We got into a fight. I punched her in the nose."
"You what?" Sev exclaimed, surprised. "You punched her in the nose? What did she say that made you do that?"
Lily finally looked up at him. Her eyes were a little red. "She called you a greasy gay kid who was putting the moves on me," she babbled quickly in the hopes that Sev couldn't understand her.
Sev was silent for several seconds. He stared at her without blinking before closing his eyes, shaking his head, and saying, "What?" in disbelief.
Lily stood up and paced in a circle before standing a couple feet in front of him. She fixed her eyes on the chest of his shirt. "She suggested to Mum that you…" Lily turned away from him, shaking in anger at her sister. "You heard me, Sev," she said quietly, not meeting his eyes.
"Lil, don't listen to her," Sev said slowly. "Petunia obviously doesn't know anything, anything at all if she said, well, if she said that."
The Evans witch nodded her head and looked around the room. "Mum said that you and I can go to Diagon Alley by ourselves. It would be a good way to get my mind off her."
"Sounds good to me," Sev said, still studying his best friend. "Let me just get my cloak. We can go to Gringott's first, I suppose."
She looked at him curiously.
"You'll need to change money, won't you?" Sev asked. "I've barely touched what Mum gave me back in August," he muttered. "I don't need to go down to the vaults."
"Right," said Lily. She watched as Sev ascended the stairs and returned a few moments later with his cloak around his shoulders and the moneybag in his hand. "Oh, I've never traveled by Floo before," she remembered out loud.
"That's all right, I can show you how. You can just follow me after I've gone through." He smiled at her, pinched some Floo powder from the pot beside the fireplace, and stepped inside. He threw the powder down and the green fire erupted around him. "The Leaky Cauldron!" he yelled, and disappeared in a flash.
Lily, who had never seen someone travel by Floo before, stared in shock at the empty fireplace. Green flames flickered at the base and died before she even thought to step forward and take her own pinch of the powder. Swallowing, she stepped inside the large fireplace and threw the powder downwards, jumping a little when the flames erupted again. "The Leaky Cauldron!"
The spinning sensation overwhelmed her. She flew past fireplaces and grates and ash was everywhere, she couldn't breathe—and then she tumbled out onto the floor of the Leaky Cauldron, and Sev's hand was extended down to her.
"You all right?" he asked. "First trip can be a bit disorienting."
"A bit?" Lily repeated sarcastically, gripping his hand and pulling herself up. "A bit is an understatement, Sev." She looked down at her clothes. "Oh, I'm not wearing my robe!" she realized. "I look like a Muggle! And I'm covered in ash!" She started brushing herself off.
"Don't worry about it," Sev chuckled. "You look fine. No one will notice, really. Muggle parents come to Diagon Alley all the time when they're kid is a witch or wizard."
Tom the barman surveyed the two twelve year olds brushing off dust. "Passing through, Mr. Prince?"
Sev started at this address before turning to face the much younger barman than in Harry's days. "Yes, thank you." He smiled courteously and took Lily by the hand, leading her to the back area that hid the entrance to the Alley. He tapped the brick third up and two across three times, and the entrance to Diagon Alley appeared.
"That will never get old," Lily exclaimed with a smile on her face. The cold winter wind swept around them, reminding them that they weren't inside anymore.
"Well, when we're seventeen we'll be able to Apparate just about anywhere. We won't have to use brooms or the Floo Network…" He trailed off, watching Lily.
She noticed. "What?"
Sev shook his head and stuffed his hands into the pockets of his cloak. "Nothing. Do you remember where that new shop was?"
"The Daily Prophet said just past Slug and Jiggers."
They set off down the alley, stopping briefly at Gringott's and passing apothecary, before coming to the store Lily wanted to peruse: Meltwit's Magical Muggle Mechanisms (and Other Assorted Items). Sev looked warily at the flashing sign. How they'd managed to actually get electricity installed he'd never know. "You sure about this, Lil? They don't sell anything…dangerous…do they?"
"Oh, come on, Sev, where's your sense of adventure?" Lily teased, dragging him inside.
Sev neglected to answer, for they had just entered into the midst of walking tea kettles, tap dancing mugs, and other items that Sev didn't even recognize because of their seemingly Muggle origins. He spotted a sign next to the register that proclaimed: Use of products for Muggle-baiting is punishable by law. One of Sev's eyebrows went up. "You know," he muttered, "I don't think this shop will last that long. It's a miracle the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts Office hasn't raided it yet." Or maybe that office hasn't been established yet?
Lily didn't hear him.
This is a place that would attract Arthur Weasley… "Speak of the devil," he said quietly to himself.
Arthur Weasley's shock of ginger hair could be seen next to the shelf with plugs that would yell at the owner when a fuse was close to blowing. Lily saw him.
"Arthur!" she called out, and the former prefect twirled around, startled to be hearing his name.
"Lily! What're you doing here?" Arthur asked, looking quickly over the girl's head to see if Molly was behind her. He visibly relaxed when he didn't see his wife.
Sev stepped forward to stand next to Lily. "Hello, Arthur," he said politely, smiling a little to himself. Arthur was so predictable.
"Hi, Sev," Arthur replied with a smile before looking back at Lily.
"Oh, I wanted to see what they had in here. I am Muggleborn, you know." Lily grinned up at Arthur. "Where's Molly?"
"I, uh… I'm not sure, actually. You won't tell her I was in here, will you?"
"Why not?"
"Well, I'm fascinated by Muggle objects…and the last thing Molly wants is me bringing a bunch of enchanted Muggle objects back home." He looked a little sheepish.
Lily started laughing. "All right, then. If I don't see her, could you tell her Sev and I say hello?"
"Of course," Arthur replied with a relieved smile on his features. He ran a hand through his red hair. "I'd better go in case she comes looking for me… It was nice seeing you two!"
Lily and Sev watched Arthur leave, and when he disappeared down the street Sev nudged Lily with his shoulder. "I wonder if we'll run into anyone else we know," he said, thinking of Potter and hoping it wouldn't happen.
"I wonder if we'll see any of the Seven here."
Meltwit's Magical Muggle Mechanisms was relatively empty compared to the surrounding shops. It was only usually people like Arthur who came inside.
"Probably not in this shop, Lil," Sev said skeptically. "Is it really worth it?"
Lily shrugged and wandered down two aisles pretty quickly. "It sounded good in the paper, I guess. I can get Dad something just plain magical."
"That's an oxymoron if I ever did hear one," Sev quipped as he followed her. "To Muggles, magic is anything but plain."
Lily smiled at him over her shoulder. "Well, you know how much my dad likes his coffee, Sev. I can get him a mug that changes color or something."
"How about a mug that cleans itself when it's empty? Then he wouldn't have to worry about remembering to put it in that dishwasher contraption of yours."
She laughed as they exited the store and turned down the Alley towards the perfume shop where Eileen worked. "You're funny, Sev," she got out. "But that really is a wonderful idea. And Mum wouldn't have to nag him about remembering to wash it."
Sev was reluctant to enter the profusely pink establishment where his mother brewed 'beautifying' potions, but Lily wouldn't let him stand outside in the snow. They greeted Eileen and stood chatting for several minutes, but Lily did want to do her Christmas shopping and she would have to come back to Diagon Alley later without Sev so she could buy his present.
It was midafternoon when they finally returned to the Leaky Cauldron with pink faces and packages under their arms. The shopping trip had done Lily some good from that morning, but Sev could still see the discomfort in her eyes when she thought he wasn't looking. Sev didn't say anything to Lily about it as they set their things down on a table inside the Leaky Cauldron.
"Two Butterbeers," he said to Tom.
They sipped the sweet drinks in silence, each mulling over their own thoughts. When they finished they Flooed back to Spinner's End, and Lily didn't return home until after Eileen came home, fixed dinner, and night had fallen. Sev walked her back to her house, pulling her into a hug before she went inside.
"I had a great time today," Sev said with a small smile on his face.
Lily returned it. "Me too. I'll call you tomorrow on the mirrors. I want to make a snowman."
Sev chuckled. "All right."
As she went upstairs, Lily absently remembered something Mary Macdonald had said in the dormitory before they left: boys started noticing girls when they were twelve or thirteen. Could Sev…? No. He wouldn't think of me like that…would he? I saw a lot of things in his eyes this morning before he threw up his walls…
She watched him walk home from her window until the night darkness swallowed him up. She filed the thought away in the dark corners of her mind, placed the mirror on her bedside table, and closed her eyes, falling asleep.