"I'm waiting, Severus." Lily said, biting her lip to hold back the trepidation that her friend might already be too far gone. No matter what Pettigrew had done to earn the Slytherin's ire, nothing she could imagine would warrant the excessive and brutal threat that was given. A voice that was so ruthless and cold, eerily reminiscent of the scene that the Boggart-Severus had spoken as he slaughtered the phantom images of her family.
His black eyes stared back at her, unblinking. Clearly her presence had been so unexpected that he was still having trouble thinking of something to say even after moments of silence.
"Is he just going to try to lie to me again..? Like with Sectumsempra?" she thought fearfully.
"What exactly do you want me to say, Lily?" Severus finally answered, his voice defiant and stubborn.
"I want you to tell me why you felt it so appropriate to threaten Pettigrew like that!" Lily said, irritated that she had to repeat herself. "Nothing he could possibly have done to you could warrant that! He's practically harmless, Severus!"
"That's not true." he retorted immediately. "The most dangerous ones are the people you can't suspect. Never underestimate the lengths a coward is willing to go to save his own skin."
"Meaning?" she sighed with frustration.
"He followed me up here to spy on me. Apparently being quiet isn't his strong suit because Rosier and Mulciber found him and bought his services by threatening to expose the fact that he's an illegal Animagus."
"A what?!" Lily thought with a jolt. "Can't be. Pettigrew's nowhere near skilled enough in transfiguration to manage something that advanced…"
Obviously, her skepticism was evident on her face because Severus snorted. "I suppose you're willing to believe a Marauder over me, then?"
Taking a deep breath in so as to not be set off by the sarcastic cheek he was giving her, Lily shook her head. "Severus, whether that's true or not isn't important to why I'm so bloody angry right now! I was starting to believe in you again! To have faith that I hadn't lost you to them. But every time you take a step forward, you fall another step back."
Finally pushing the door to the chambers shut behind her to give them some privacy, Lily leaned back against it as she looked at Severus warily.
"I need to know where you stand, Sev. One second you're helping me teach Mary how to improve her ability to brew, and the next you're just standing there while your little gang of housemates are gloating and traumatizing her!"
Severus winced at her remark. "You actually think that I was okay with what they did?"
"How should I know?!" Lily snapped back. "You didn't say a word until they left, and then you left me to pick up the pieces of what they did to her! They hurt her so badly that even that perfect Draught of Peace could barely help her, Severus! I know your magic is having problems coming to you right now, but you still could have at least said something! What would you have done if Rosier made good on his threat to cast the Imperius on me?"
Lily could feel her heart breaking in two as the conversation led her towards the only logical conclusion. "Or would you still just have stood back and watched? Is that what's expected of you? Silent consent? Is that the skill you need to develop for your...career plans after we graduate?"
Severus went rigid as a statue, instantly recognizing the implications that Lily was making.
"Your fancy for the Dark Arts...the company you keep and refuse to tell off for acting like monsters to an innocent girl...that horrible, threatening demeanor that I just witnessed? And then, of course, your little invention, Sectumsempra...a sword that you can intimidate and slaughter your enemies with. Is this what all your potential is going towards, Severus?!" Lily cried as she felt her eyes beginning to burn.
"I'm going to ask, and I want you to tell me the truth! Do you want to join You-Know-Who and his horrible pack of Death Eaters?!"
Severus gazed back at her with an almost indecipherable look of contemplation as the silence between the two dragged for what felt like an eternity.
"Answer me, Severus!" she pleaded frantically, her cheeks becoming damp; at some point her tears had returned again. "This was my worst fear, and I believed it enough for a Boggart to take advantage of it!"
"No...I don't want to join them." he answered quietly, yet decisively enough to be believable..
Before Lily could sigh with relief for what she felt was an honest answer though, Severus' voice interrupted her.
"...but you asked me to tell you the truth, so I won't hide the fact that yes, there was a time that I did want to." he confessed.
Lily's voice caught in her throat as her best friend's answer took her completely off-guard. What was that supposed to mean?
"Why..?" was all she could ask with a quivering whisper. It was impossible for her to even entertain a reason why someone like Severus could make such an obviously horrible choice for himself.
Lily watched as he turned away from their long stretch of eye-contact, as he made his way towards the Mirror of Erised. The tiniest curiosity and wonder for what he saw in the glass danced at the back of her mind, but she quickly buried it. It was hardly appropriate in a situation as dire as this.
"...That's an incredibly long story."
"Good thing for you that it's still not dawn yet." she said, folding her arms. "And I'm not going anywhere until I have some answers. You can't just say something like that without explaining yourself, Severus!"
"You want to know why I wanted to become a Death Eater?" he asked, still preoccupied with the mirror's reflection. "You'd have to go back several years to when they were known by another name."
"Why isn't he even looking at me anymore?" Lily thought nervously, allowing him to continue nonetheless.
"The original name and mission of that group, the Knights of Walpurgis, that's what I was swayed by when I was younger. That and-"
She watched as Severus' head bowed forward shamefully.
"You could say that my father didn't give me a particularly glowing opinion of Muggles."
"...How bad is it at Spinner's End, Severus?" her voice sobbed quietly, trying to do her best to rein in how angry she was by his past choice.
He tore his gaze away from the mirror to finally meet her eyes again. His black eyes, usually so intense and steely, were simply dull and distant. He pointed a finger at his hooked nose.
"One of the many tokens of his esteem that I carry. This 'raven's beak' of mine, as you so often call it. It's a reminder of the first time he ever struck me. Broke my nose, and because it was never fixed, it grew into this monstrosity."
"H-how old were you when it happened?" she asked, shocked by the news. She had long suspected that Severus' father was abusive, but hearing it in such detail from his own lips was not something she could have expected. He was such a private person that all of this was so out-of-character for him.
"I was six." he said back numbly. "The second Tobias Snape found out that I wasn't a Squib, he ceased being my father and hurt me in all manner of ways."
Lily's body stiffened as she stood before Severus, frozen as a statue. It had been commonplace for her to playfully point out his nose as resembling the black bird. She never meant anything bad about it...on the contrary, she always felt it made him look more mature and dignified. Yet here he was, telling her that it was a source of such terrible trauma, too terrible for an innocent boy to ever need to suffer.
"Sev…That's horrible...and I'm so sorry, but...you know that not every Muggle is like that...Mum and Dad cared about you!" she stammered.
"I don't know your parents particularly well, Lily, but even if that's true. How many witches and wizards were tortured and executed by Muggles that found out about their magic? Even into this century? For every loving Muggle family who accepts the news that their son or daughter can do magic, there's another that does everything they can to hide or even 'fix' their child."
Pausing to take a deep breath, Lily could see the wheels in Severus' head beginning to turn as his story began to form.
"You're aware that Merlin was a Slytherin, yes?"
Lily nodded back at him, wondering what the legendary wizard had to do with this.
"Back when my mother used to read stories to me for bed, she'd often tell me about Merlin and King Arthur. Was always one of my favorite subjects…" he said with a nostalgic smile, stained by sadness.
Lily's own lips slightly curled upward, fondly thinking about her own love of stories. Tales of chivalry...fighting for freedom against the weight of tyranny. In addition to all the other fictional stories her father would tell her, she'd had an insatiable taste for Arthurian legends as well.
She never knew that she had such a thing in common with Severus. The boy always seemed glued to his studies and more rational things to read about than fantastic acts of heroism.
"After my father did this...I started to hear about a group of wizards that wanted to free us from the Statute of Secrecy. How the Ministry's laws seemed put in place to protect Muggles and not ourselves. All I heard was that this group wanted to free us from the yoke of being secret to Muggles. That we shouldn't have to hide what we are without our lives being threatened by people like Tobias Snape.
"The Ministry protected people like him, but never came to save me from his beatings. Nor did my mother, after he had sufficiently broken her down and turned her into nothing more than a miserable house pet."
Lily listened as Severus explained his tragic reasoning to her. To the eyes of a naive child, angry and hurt by the horrible actions of an abusive father...the Knights of Walpurgis must have seemed like heroes. Even their original name was more benevolent and honorable than what the Death Eaters became. And that was by design. Lord Voldemort simply prayed upon the childish ambitions of those too young to know any better. Most Slytherins took incredible pride that Merlin was one of them.
Severus had just been a boy who wanted to become a knight himself, just like those at Arthur's Round Table that the legendary wizard stood at. Even his self-imposed nickname that she saw written down in his school books. The Half-Blood Prince. It was romanticized, innocent grasps for a more grand and heroic ambition that only a small child could have.
"You realize how naive that all sounds now, right?" Lily asked, her emotions finally beginning to settle. "Your little band of 'heroes' didn't just want to free us from secrecy. They want to punish Muggles, and by extension punish Muggle-born witches and wizards. All for having the audacity to be born into their world."
"Of course I know that now," he answered back. "But the moment I was sorted, Lucius Malfoy was there to show me the benefits and finer things that I could gain. All the wealth, the network of influence, and the respect I could gain If I just remained a good little soldier...a knight for the cause."
He snorted in disgust at his own words. "More nonsense to sway a child who lacked all three. By then, all I wanted was to impress someone, so I soaked it all in."
Before Lily could ask who that someone was, Severus continued hastily.
"Sectumsempra was to be my blade. I took all the nonsense of knighthood so literally that I created a weapon for myself."
"For your enemies." Lily corrected him, recalling his spidery-handwriting meticulously written upon the page that had revealed its true nature to her. Before then, he had lied to her about its purpose.
He stared back at her for a few seconds before surrendering. "...for my enemies." he said with a nod of agreement.
"That's hardly the kind of reason that a knight should wield his weapon." she said with frustration. "No hero from any story would ever threaten someone like I saw you do to Pettigrew."
"No, they wouldn't. But my stupid dreams and fantasies are long-dead. I'm no hero, Lily."
"Even the best heroes can lose their way, Sev…" she said with a quiet murmur. She knew that to be true. Redemption was often an element in her favorite stories.
"But before their tale is done, they have to stand up for what is right. That's the measure of a hero."
A pause hung between them as Lily wondered how best to continue. There had been so many sensitive revelations gleaned from Severus during this conversation, but she didn't want to end it this way.
"You know that a war has started. Everyone in our year knows and as we inch closer to graduating, we have to think about which classmates might become our enemies. If I decide to fight, please don't tell me that I'll be staring at my best friend from across the battle lines...because I can't handle that, Severus."
"I'm done trying to fight for a cause, Lily…" he whispered. His voice sounded so exhausted. Whatever had happened to change his mind about becoming a Death Eater had clearly weighed heavily upon him. "I can promise you that I won't be standing on their side."
"So...the knight's putting down his blade, then?" Lily asked, trying to bring some much-needed levity to such a serious conversation. She looked down at her feet with a soft smile. She could accept that. Just as long as she didn't need to fear Severus joining the cause that wished to hurt people like her, then even him staying neutral was so much better.
"I didn't say that." he answered.
Lily's eyes rose back up to meet Severus once again, her head tilted in confusion.
"What?"
"I said I was done trying to be a knight for some idiotic cause. But I'm still going to fight, because what I really want is to be…"
Yet before he could finish, his voice came to a sudden halt.
"Sev..?" Lily asked, staring at his slack jaw as she waited for him to continue. Yet the silence persisted, with only the soft cracking of the warm fireplace in the chamber. And as Lily continued to look at him, she saw his cheeks swiftly turning red, but he continued to look at her nonetheless despite his embarrassment.
"What do you want to be, Sev?" she asked, eager to know what his plans were for the war to come. "Please...tell me?"
Still, the boy remained quiet, shaking his head slightly to deny her request. His face was twisted in a grimace of disgust for whatever had been at the tip of his tongue.
Lily could see after a few moments of this awkward pause that this conversation was over. She'd learned and seen enough to at least believe him when he said he didn't want to be a Death Eater anymore. Whatever else he wanted to say could stay hidden if that was what he wished.
"Alright, then…I need to get back to my Prefect patrols." she sighed as she reached for the chamber door. "Get some rest, Sev. The second week of our O.W.L.s starts in a few hours. If you're up for it, we can talk more during dinner tonight in the Great Hall."
Slightly dejected by their conversation's uncomfortable nature and sudden ending, Lily shut the door behind her as she started back down the dark hallway. It had left her with even more questions, and not once did she properly ask why he was staying in an old staff bedchamber. Let alone one that housed the Mirror of Erised.
As her soft footsteps echoed down the moonlit castle hallway, Lily reflected on the discussion. Severus had been so surprisingly open with her about things that he had been tight-lipped about for ages.
All these years, she never understood why he could stand being around the Slytherin students who so blatantly aspired to be Death Eaters. But if he had been fooled into believing the false good that the organization had promised during their more dignified era as the Knights of Walpurgis...then it was just him rationalizing their behavior that they were his future comrades. Allies that, for better or worse, were going to help bring change to the wizarding government.
If she and Severus had met when they were nine years old, then simple math told Lily that the boy spent three, agonizing years in the Snape household after his first bit of accidental magic. He had been alone, abused and beaten by his own father, neglected by his mother, and as a result, built his own belief that the world had abandoned him.
Of course he'd be angry and want to change it himself. Severus had more reason than any of the privileged snobs that he had been hanging around.
But there were other ways for him to change the world than by buying into propaganda from Lord Voldemort and serving a cause that more and more made its true colors known by how many innocents had been killed.
And then there was that spell...Sectumsempra. As much as Lily disliked the purpose of it, based on everything he had told her about Merlin and his childhood bedtime stories, she understood why he had invented it. As boyish and silly as the notion had been, if he truly aspired to be a Knight of Walpurgis...every knight had a weapon. Whether it was King Arthur wielding Excalibur, or Aragorn with Andúril, Lily was well-versed in the fantastical tales of heroes and their legendary blades that helped them do right in the world; Severus just chose to make one of magic instead since he was a wizard.
There was one nagging feeling that Lily had as she made her way back up the Great Staircase once the first traces of dawn began peeking from the horizon. The determination on his face as he uttered his final words before he stopped himself. That didn't look like a boy who'd given up on his dreams of being a knight, no matter what he said to her.
"Sev is still going to fight...why?" she thought.
He said that he was done fighting for causes and change to the wizarding government, and in that, she believed him. Yet he was still going to fight. But as she recalled the intensity of his words, the blush on his cheeks, a sudden thought occurred to Lily.
No, it wasn't a thought...it was a memory. The memory of her father reading one of her favorite lines from The Fellowship of the Ring. How he'd always try his best to act out the characters to help her immerse even more in the story as a wide-eyed little girl. And the way Severus had looked at her was so similar to how her father would read Aragorn's line...
"If by my life or death I can protect you, I will. You have my sword..." she muttered the quote to herself.
And after a few seconds, the realization struck her with a sharp gasp, and her cheeks had begun to warm. What Severus had wanted to say, but been too embarrassed to finish. Something that had long-teased the back of Lily's mind and had been joked about by Marlene and Mary at the lake. The way her best friend looked at her, especially over the past several days since the incident at the lake.
He still wanted to fight...but not for a cause. He wanted to be a knight...for her.
Author's Note: I felt quite strange when I plotted this chapter out, because I wanted this to be the moment where Lily's remaining doubts of Severus' loyalty is washed away. There's still an incredible amount for these two to unpack as friends (especially now that Lily consciously realizes how important she is to him.) But at the very least, she can start to feel safe in the knowledge that for as dark as Severus might seem, he's not swayed by childish causes or idealism that can easily be poisoned by a madman like Voldemort.
The original ideas I had in my head almost felt too cringe to put into words, and I spent so long going over it in hopes that I could get it across just the way I wanted to (even consulted my regular reviewer TJ Jordan if I was going about it the right way).
I don't know how this chapter will be received, whether it's too on-the-nose and cringe to a reader, but I'm trying to rationalize in my head why Severus would make the choice to become a Death Eater knowing full-well how stupid that would be if he wanted to "impress Lily" as Rowling has said. So I took some time to think to myself what good a child might think of their mission and just blindly accept it as altruistic.
If you liked the chapter, please review and tell me why. If not, that's fine too, tell me what you feel I did wrong. The more detail, the better.