Hello all! Good to be back
(Currently writing this Author's note one handed and leaning sideways as my massively large cat has decided to pass out along my torso and hip)
As usual, thank you for your reviews, feedback, and advice. I can't stress enough how helpful I find it.
This chapter doesn't need much in the way of warnings, so I'll just get right to it.
If Someone Cared Enough
Chapter Thirty-Eight: Friendly Discussions
Lily woke up with a quiet gasp, jerking upwards in bed so quickly she felt a crick in her neck. Doused in a cold sweat, she peered out through her bed curtains and listened carefully. When sleepy mumblings and deep even breaths reached her ears, she breathed a sigh of relief; she hadn't woken her roommates.
Half passed five in the morning; Lily sat up in bed and adjusted the pillows behind her, not intending to sleep again just yet. She propped her pillow against the headboard and leaned into it. Quietly opening her bedside drawer, she pulled out a pad of paper and—the most muggle of devices—a pen.
Nightmares were commonplace for Lily since Avery assaulted her, but writing them down was a relatively new thing. At night, she would sometimes toss and turn, tormented by horrors so vivid and real, but oftentimes the details would fade with the morning light, slipping from her recollection into blurry snippets soon after she joined the waking world. It made things greatly difficult for Lily. One can overcome a nightmare or decrease the frequency in which it show up if they managed to face the fear or problem the subconscious hid behind it. One just needed to examine the details, but how could Lily examine her dreams if she could barely recall them.
Her nightmares used to stay fresh in her mind during the first few weeks of summer, but as time went on, it seemed her brain was working overtime to push it to the back of her mind shortly after she woke up.
That's when Professor Sprout gave her the journal. The head of Hufflepuff thought documenting the dreams when they were still fresh in Lily's mind would be of some use. Now whenever Lily woke up from one of her mind's creative new terrors, she could quickly scribble it down before she forgot and show it to Sprout the next time they spoke. It was becoming quite helpful to discuss her dreams in depth and decipher any emotions her subconscious was hanging onto.
'Hands again,' Lily wrote, 'They're always dirty, and something deep down always tells me if they touch me I'll never be clean again.'
She paused, tapping the end of the pen to her lips.
'Different location again,' she jotted down, 'My own neighborhood instead of the train or Hogsmeade. But people there were jumbled up instead of where they should be. Avery lived in Mrs. Evelyn's house next door, the staff from the Hogwarts Express staffing my favorite café. Classmates at my playground.'
Professor Sprout seemed to think Lily's dreams shifted the location and people around so much with the same plot because of how easy it is to be attacked just about anywhere. Avery was a classmate, someone she despised but otherwise saw very little threat to despite his rude words. She always expected a predator of that caliber to be someone she didn't know, some filthy, beer smelling vagrant lurking in the back alley of the roughest neighborhood. In other words, someone Lily would never likely meet hanging around in places she was sure to avoid. The fact that it happened in a trusted place like the very train that takes her to and from school—in broad daylight no less—was a rude awakening to Lily. Such dangers could lurk anywhere, in plain sight if one wasn't careful.
In order to ensure Lily's slight trepidation of men would lessen instead of grow, Sprout was doing her best to teach Lily to watch out for specific things rather than painting men with the same brush. Does a person seem to appear in many places you do like stores or parks without buying anything or doing something? Does the person who offers you a drink or two not have one of his own? Does a person only approach you when you begin to wander off from the crowd? These weren't always sure signs of someone up to no good, but they were good tips for singling out potential dangers from the everyday folk.
Whenever Lily's dreams seemed to venture back into the 'it could be anyone' scenario, she'd write it down and she and Sprout would work that fear out some more.
Truth be told, the journal wasn't initially Sprout's idea. Severus had taken up recording his dreams at the recommendation of Marcus during one of their initial sessions and told Lily about it one evening while they were studying. He had been carrying a plain leather book and Lily's curiosity prompted her to ask him about it.
The idea of Severus keeping a journal seemed unusual at first considering Severus was a very private person. To him, diaries were just asking for trouble from nosy roommates with sticky fingers. Marcus seemed to have changed Severus's tune however, as Severus now carried one around—heavily warded, of course—and kept a very detailed and precise summary of his dreams. Lily mentioned the journal to Sprout and the kindhearted professor found it to be a marvelous idea.
It was evident that Severus had a difficult time letting go of the resentment (no shit) and tended to hang on to the past even if the anger it instilled in him ran the risk of ruining his quality of life. He tended to prevent himself from enjoying things with how often he dwelled upon past events, so the hatred he held for his father was still a big issue to address.
Marcus held no hopes of ever getting Severus to forgive his father, though honestly, no one who knew of Severus's childhood could truly fault him for being unable to do so. Instead, the dream journal and their sessions about them were more about getting Severus to forgive not only his mother but also himself. From the brief snippets Severus had allowed Lily to skim through, many of Severus's nightmares about his father circulated quite often on a reoccurring theme of Severus being in some position to stop it—armed with a wand, a knife, or other weapon—but not doing anything, no matter how much he internally urged his dream self to act.
Sometimes he would be chained in place and yet holding the key to free himself, but no matter how much he yelled or urged himself to move forward, his dream self would not unlock the chains. Sometimes he would respond, but the ley would be astoundingly too heavy to lift and he would struggle helplessly as his mother's screams and sobs filled the air and his father charged towards him with a thick leather belt.
It was clear Severus still believed he should have done more to fight back all those years and resented that he never did. He just couldn't wrap his mind around the fact that as a child it wasn't his job to stop it; adults should have intervened long ago. Severus certainly didn't blame himself for his father's actions thankfully; he was more than happy to lay the blame at the feet of his monster of a father and know nothing he had done had warranted a beating. For some reason though he still seemed to think that regardless of his father actions, Severus had magic and therefore resented himself for not using it in defense.
At least Marcus was making progress with Severus. For a boy with such high intelligence, it must be frustrating to face an obstacle where no amount of one's own skill or talent can fix it, but sometimes, life just doesn't give you a fair hand you can deal with yourself. What Severus had gone through as a child was too big for him, loath as he was to admit it. Police should have been involved, neighbors shouldn't have turned a blind eye to it, adults in general should have taken responsibility instead of placing the burden on a child's shoulders.
Lily knew from her talks with Severus during the summer that there had been very little he could do on his own. Reporting it himself would have required an investigation, and who was to say his father wouldn't lie his way out of it? His mother would have certainly been too scared to collaborate Severus's claims for fear of Tobias's wrath. With how blurry the line between abuse and "discipline" was when it came to child rearing these days, the police could easily dismiss the word of a child over that of his parent.
Without much help coming from the muggles, the most Severus would have been able to do was rely on the Wizarding World and Lily was thankful the light side that came to his aid. She knew exactly what would have been expected of Severus had he sought out help from Malfoy; a lifetime of servitude to a madman. It still scared Lily to think how easily Severus almost ended up manipulated into signing his life away to that; he must have been desperate to escape his home life.
Lily sighed; thankfully, that chapter of darkness was behind Severus now. He finally had dependable allies and resources among the 'good side', so to speak, to not resort to such desperate actions to escape his father or his fear of being a washed up, penniless drunk like that man. Learning to trust muggles like Marcus and moving on from his old life and grudges would open up new doors to him. He could build better connections, earn recognition for his talents and pursue a career he would be proud of. Disassociating himself from You-Know-Who and his followers would mean people would stop dismissing Severus as a lost cause. Though it still irked Lily that people like Dumbledore had seemed content to overlook Severus's problems when they believed Sev would choose the wrong choice—teachers should help their students to prevent them picking the wrong path—she was glad he finally had taken an interest in Severus's wellbeing.
"Stupid teacher biased," Lily mumbled.
"What was that?"
"Gah!" Lily flailed, nearly falling off her bed, "Marlene! You startled me."
The older girl had the good grace to look remorseful.
"Sorry, it wasn't my intention," Marlene said sheepishly.
"What are you even doing here?" Lily asked, tucking her journal away as the other girl's began to wake from the commotion.
"Mary said I could borrow a bra of hers for Quidditch practice," Marlene explained, already moving to roll said curly haired brunette out of bed, "Mine don't have enough support for sports. We're the same size."
"Something I regret discovering," Mary grumbled, holding onto her blanket with all her might to prevent Marlene from pulling it off her, "You're always borrowing my stuff."
"Think of it like us being sisters," Marlene said merrily, tugging on Mary's bedspread.
"Little sister's borrow from the older sister," Mary argued from beneath her fleece fortress, "That's how that dynamic works. You're older than me."
"But shorter than you," Marlene said, tugging harder on the blankets, "So I'm littler."
"That's not how sisterhood works," Mary sulked from beneath the covers.
"Can't you borrow from the girls in your own dorm?" Mary whined.
"They won't let me," Marlene replied, "Besides they're either bigger or smaller than me in the chest."
"I'm glad I don't have to worry about Marlene borrowing from me. I'm bustier," Meldonna said cheekily, sitting up in bed with a stretch. She smooth the front of her nightgown down with a proud smile, "Unlike some people," she spared Jess a glance.
"Hey!" Jess said indignantly from her bed, glancing down at her more diminutive bust, "That's not fair." She sat back on her heels, pouting, "If we're going to pull crap like that, I've got nicer hips than you."
Lily rolled her eyes, "Are we really having such a stupid conversation?"
"And this early in the morning too," Mary groaned, kicking her leg out.
Marlene cackled, dodged the swinging foot, "Point is, I fit your clothes, so fork 'em over," with one last mighty pull, she yanked the covers off of Mary's prone form, leaving the girl curled up on the bed face down in the pillows, her knees tucked under her and her bum in the air.
"The liiight," Mary hissed, bringing her arms up around her head to shield her face, "It buuuuuurns!"
"Anyway," Marlene carried on as she took Mary by the leg and dragged her off the mattress, "If we want to talk curves, Lily has you all beat."
"What?" Lily bawked.
"Oh come on," Marlene continued, "You've got the biggest boobs in the bunch," she gestured around the room, "In your own year and dorm at east. Mary has the ass, but your hips are almost as wide as Jess's. You're what most guys would call a mature woman."
"Lucky," Jess harrumphed.
"They're not that big," Lily sputtered, hiding her chest with her arms and turning away from the others, "They're perfectly normal sized!"
"I'm not saying they're bigger than your head," Marlene said, "But you have to admit, you've gotten pretty…endowed since the puberty fairy paid you a visit."
Lily looked away, her cheeks burning red.
"Don't be like that, Lily. It's a compliment," Jess stated.
Meldonna nodded, "You're an hourglass."
"With an extra half hour on the top," Mary's muffled voice came from the floor.
At that remark, Lily chucked a pillow at her friends, prompting Mary to toss one back and hit Jess by mistake. The fair-skinned girl grabbed one of her many ornamental throw pillows and threw it at a laughing Meldonna. The girls dissolved into a fit of giggles as pillows began flying around the room, all amidst Lily's still embarrassed defenses of her figure.
Marlene took the distraction to root around in Mary's wardrobe, seeing as the girl was too distracted to try to police what Marlene borrowed this time.
"Ooh, this is nice," Marlene marveled as she picked up a royal blue sweater hemmed to frame the chest and hang loose beneath the bustline, "I'd look like a pin-up girl in this…"
A pillow collided with the back of Marlene's head at that precise moment, nearly knocking the Chaser off her feet.
Turning around, Marlene looked down to find Mary, still sprawled across the floor, looking up at her with a cocked brow.
"Could have sworn I said you could borrow a bra," she said with a grin, "That sweater is off limits."
"Surely not to me," Marlene protested.
Another pillow smacked her square in the face.
"Especially you," Mary replied.
Tossing the sweater aside, Marlene scooped up the nearest pillow. With a war cry, she charged in the fray swinging the pillow as hard as she could as Mary cackled and rolled under her bed for shelter. The battle got so intense, several pillows burst, feathers and floating everywhere.
'I've got you now," Jess warned, reaching to reload with Lily's remaining pillow.
"Don't!" Lily cried suddenly.
Jess froze mid-lean over Lily's bed, "What?"
Lily pulled the pillow over to her and out of Jess's reach.
"This one is for playing," Lily said, holding it protectively.
"Why not?" Jess asked with a frown, "It's just a pillow."
"It's not the same as the others. I brought this one from…from home," Lily said, not technically lying, "It still smells the same." She nosed the cotton pillow cover, breathing in the scent of mint, cinnamon, and ink still clinging stubbornly to the fabric, much to her relief.
She thanked her lucky stars Flitwick had taught them a cleaning charm for refreshing clean linen; with a minor alteration it made for a quick fix in renewing the scent embedded in her favorite pillow.
You should just try buying a bottle of the perfume your mom wears," Meldonna suggested, calming down some and starting to pick the feathers out of her hair, "It always works for me when I feel a little homesick, and you can keep applying it to the scent doesn't fade."
"That…that could work," Lily agreed, mulling the idea over in her head. She wondered if there was a type of cologne Severus wore to have such a pleasant scent. It would be worth looking into anyway. Discreetly.
"But for now, this pillow is off limits," Lily said firmly, "It helps me sleep and I do not want it to smell less like hi—home."
Jess raised her hands up in surrender, "Okay, I'll leave that one alone." Grabbing a pillow from the floor, she pelted it at Meldonna as the other girl was walking to her dresser.
"The moment's passed my dear," Mel said with a yawn as she began brushing out her hair.
"We should probably clean up," Lily suggested, tucking the pillow safely back at the head of her bed and pulling her covers over it, "McGonagall would have a fit if she saw this."
"True," Mary agreed, pulling out her wand and assisting Lily in putting the feathers back into all the pillows, "I do not want a detention this early in the morning. That would be the worst way to start off the d—Marlene you come back here, I said you could only borrow a bra!"
With a manically laugh, Marlene darted out the open door, a bra and a blue sweater clutched tightly in her hands.
{page break}
Myrtle floated upside-down by the large bathroom window, occasionally letting out a theatrical ghostly moan here and there, completely with ghastly facial expressions.
"And this other time I was flushed into the lake and the merpeople chased me away. Such nasty people," she bemoaned, sailing through the air at a leisurely pace.
"Mmhm," Severus hummed, leafing through a dark arts theory book he managed to nick off of one of the seventh years in Slytherin. He hoped a more advanced year textbook would prove more useful in his search for answers to the diadem, "Not sure why you allowed them to scare you off. You're intangible to them."
"But they're just so scary," Myrtle insisted, "I mean have you seen them? They're nothing like what's shown in paintings; talk about hideous."
"Not really sure you or eye should be judging other's looks," Severus muttered to himself. Though he initially sympathized with Myrtle's rather difficult school years and unfortunate end, he was finding actually liking her to be quite hard. While he was sure her treatment at the hands of her classmates was unfair and terrible, he couldn't determine from his numerous meetings with her whether or not her bitter, overly sensitive personality came to be after her death or was something she was known for before she died.
Simpering and whining over every little thing, Myrtle demonstrated very little tolerance for anyone else while demanding his or her unending patience in regards to her own behavior. She constantly belabored the mocking of her past peers over her glasses and poor complexion while being very quick to poke fun at flaws in others. Severus wondered if she saw the hypocrisy in that or if her time in death had left indifferent to it. It was almost staggering how easily Myrtle could laugh at the expense of others she had spied on over the years and their various misfortunes while expecting people to be appalled by how she was once treated.
The only reason Severus was even bothering with her presence was that he didn't want to risk being caught by the owner of the book, nor arise the suspicions of professors like Dumbledore as to why he was perusing advanced material on dark magic. Knowing his luck, they would assume he was going back down darker paths.
"So ghost can go in water," Severus said, feigning interest in the current topic at hand, "That's not something you hear too often in legend or even basic knowledge."
"Well why wouldn't we be able to?" Myrtle asked, spinning through the air, "We don't need to breathe, we can't drown, we can't feel the wet or cold. It's just the same as floating on land."
Myrtle let out a dreamy sigh, "It really is quite lovely down there; so dark and murky."
"Uh-huh," Severus agreed disinterestedly, flicking through another page or two.
"But the water isn't nearly as interesting as what I find within Hogwarts," Myrtle continued with a grin, "I can go into just about any room in the castle, except for the ones warded against spirits of course. So I see everything that happens in this place; plenty of people known about me and yet they always seem to forget I'm around," she let out a pitiful wail, "Everyone always forgets about poor Myrtle."
Severus resisted rolling his eyes, Myrtle's emotions tended to bounce all over the place on a regular basis.
"But that just means they don't know I'm listening," Myrtle said, suddenly chipper once more, "I see students sneaking out to see their boyfriends, students up to no good. Sometimes I hang aroud the restricted section of the library and see who's trying to sneak in. It's always fun to make a lot of noise and lure Filch right to them!"
"The restricted section?" Severus asked in surprise, "That's right…you can go there."
"Of course I can," Myrtle said proudly, "I have access to nearly all of the school; something most students would no doubt do anything to be able to do."
"So from where you watch them, you can see when Filch is on his way up?" Severus inquired, an idea brewing in his head, "You can lead him places by causing a commotion?"
"Like a puppet on a string," Myrtle answered, "It's really quite easy. Normally if I cry or laugh, he'll assume it's one of the living students and come to investigate. I can lure him right over to the restricted section and catch people there. It's great fun," she cackled nastily.
"What if it was needed for you to lure him away from the restricted section?" Severus asked.
Myrtle blinked, "Why would I do that? It doesn't sound nearly as fun as getting someone into trouble."
"Let's say I need your help, Myrtle," Severus poised, "As a friend. Would you do it?"
"You want my help to break the rules?" Myrtle asked, her wide eyes seeming even more owlish behind her large glasses, "No one has ever asked me to do that before; not even when I was alive."
"Think of it as causing a little…mischief," Severus offered, "Friends get into adventures all the time. Surely in your lifetime you saw kids, maybe even that nasty bully of yours, seeking off with friends to do something they shouldn't and wished you had people to get up to trouble with like any other regular teen."
Myrtle bit her lip, looking away, "Olive Hornby did use to sneak off to smoke behind the greenhouses—not that I wanted to smoke or anything; that's just foul—but…it would have been nice to have someone ask me to go hang out, maybe break some rules…"
Severus grinned inwardly; now he had her, "What if I told you that I was planning to break some rules and wanted you to be my second in command?"
Myrtle regarded Severus carefully over the frames of her glasses, "That could be fun, I suppose…what would I need to do?"
"The most important role, Myrtle," Severus said, laying it on thick, "I need you, with you skills of being unseen, to keep Filch from finding me while I get some books from the restricted section. I need to avoid getting caught and only you are the one I can rely on."
"Only me?" Myrtle asked, flattered. After a moment she frowned, "What do you need from the restricted section anyway?"
Severus considered his answer. He couldn't exactly tell Myrtle the truth about the diadem; that would be too risky. As desperate as the ghost was for friends, she would probably give the secret away to someone else in exchange for their company at a moment's hesitation. It'd be even more foolish to tell her of the room they found the diadem in. All it would take to unleash the danger the diadem held was to let it slip to the wrong person that a potentially dangerous and powerful item was hidden in the school.
"Well…as you know, I like to learn," Severus began slowly, "Knowledge is fascinating to me and I'll do whatever it takes to acquire it. I've heard rumors of an item that can grant it's wearer an increase in intellect and I must say the idea…intrigues me. However, the item has long since been lost. I should like to have a look at some of Hogwarts's more advanced reading materials to see if I can garner any clues as to it's last known whereabouts. You know…so I can look for it after I graduate."
"Why not ask for permission to go get a book from that section," Myrtle inquired.
"Because I pride my vast intellect already," Severus lied smoothly, "I would hate for anyone to find out I am looking to increase it by magical means instead of letting it come by sheer talent and skill. Put yourself in my shoes," he entreated, "Would you want someone to find out you were secretly trying to improve something about yourself? They might see that as you admitting there was something about yourself that wasn't good enough."
Myrtle nodding, seemingly agreeing with Severus's reasoning as a distraught expression crossed her face. If Severus were to hazard a guess, Myrtle was probably thinking of what it would be like if Olive Hornby had ever caught her with a Witches Weekly article on how to lose weight of something else along those lines.
"I could see how that would be dreadfully embarrassing," Myrtle conceded, "So what's the thing you want to research on finding?"
Severus weighed his options carefully and decided the truth was allowable in this one instance seeing as he was claiming that diadem was still lost, "Rowena's Lost Diadem."
"Oh, that old thing," Myrtle said, interested, "I've heard mention of it loads of times."
"You have?" Severus asked.
Myrtle nodded, "I speak to the other ghosts of the castle all the time. It's actually a great sport to guess where it might have been hidden; the Fat Friar's bet is Peru, but we all think he's barmy. Not that it matters anyway; I heard that Rowena's own daughter stole it. She died before her mother, you know and if that's true then I bet you anything the diadem is in Albania."
"Rowena's daughter?" Severus couldn't say that thought had occurred to him before. He searched his brain for any snippet of information on her, "Helena…I suppose she did vanish around the same time as the diadem. But why would that mean the diadem's in Albania?"
"Didn't you know?" Myrtle questioned excitedly, "That's where Helena was murdered."
Severus leaned back with a start, "Murdered? That's not in any history book I ever read. Helena's whereabouts were never found and neither was her body. How would you know what happened to her?"
"I have my ways," Myrtle said smugly, "Anyway, the diadem is likely wherever in Albania that Helena hid it last before she met her end. That's what my sources tell me anyway…"
"You mean ghosts. Are you saying there are ghosts here that might know more about the diadem or at least Helena?" Severus pressed.
Myrtle shrugged, "Maybe there are, maybe there aren't. It would be rude of me to divulge my sources." She seemed to be taking great pride in knowing something others did not for once.
Severus sighed; he had a good feeling he wouldn't be able to get it out of Myrtle today. Pressing her for the information for only serve to further her feeling of self-importance, "Are you at least going to help me out with the restricted section?"
"Of course," Myrtle cooed, still riding the high of being in the know for once, "What are friends for?"
Severus watched Myrtle spin and sail around the bathroom, all the while thinking a mile a minute. If Helena truly was the one to have taken the diadem from Rowena, it left more questions than answers. Myrtle said Helena died in Albania shortly before her mother's own death. Rowena died sometime in the 11th century, placing her daughter's death roughly around the same time. If the diadem was with her when she died, how did it get from Albania to Hogwarts? And when? Surely it hadn't been sitting in the Come and Go room since the 1100's. Severus saw how much clutter accumulated in the room; if the diadem had been placed there that much earlier it would have been buried by centuries of junk and Simone never would have come across it.
So the diadem was most likely placed in the Come and Go room at a later century. But then who found it and brought it to Hogwarts? Helena's killer? Someone who found her body? It made little sense that whoever found it would keep that fact a secret; the finder of the fabled lost diadem would surely garner much fame and fortune unto themselves, so why keep it secret?
Severus shut the book he was reading; he would have to bring his latest findings to the others. In the meantime, he could only hope a trip to the restricted section would give him insight in to just what it was they were up against.
"If you don't mind, I would like to get into the library to do this as soon as possible," Severus said, standing up, "Would you be alright with tomorrow night? After curfew?" He'd rather do it that evening, but he had a rather large arithmacy assignment to complete before the morning; worrying over the diadem had led to him neglecting his usual homework schedule.
"Why not?" Myrtle agreed, "I rarely get to hang out with a boy at night," she giggled coyly.
"Right..." Severus lowly, "Well until then I must bid you goodnight." Nodding at her, Severus left Myrtle's bathroom and made his way down for dinner.
"Hey, Snape."
Severus looked over his shoulder to see Simone sauntering towards him.
"Serapeum," Severus greeted, glad to see her. He could at least tell one person what he had leared, "You're alone for once. Normally I see at least one of your friends attached to you."
Simone grinned sheepishly, "Still serving detentions for fighting that bloke who tried to drug Nesme. Just got let out for the evening."
"Ah, yes the fight," Severus said nodding, "Of course you would be punished for defending someone."
"But of course, I'm a Slytherin," Simone joked. Smile fading Simone looked over at Severus, unease clouding her features.
"So, you know...I never got to apologize for dragging your name into that whole mess in the hall that day," she began guiltily, "I know you don't like being portrayed as some victim...I just got a little...heated and the conversation got away from me. I didn't stop to think how you might fee with me bringing up your issues with Potter in front of everyone."
"I didn't exactly appreciate it," Severus admitted, "I may be able to accept that I am a victim of some unfair treatment and that it doesn't make me any less of a person, but I'm sure to my detractors it would be seen as a weakness." He cast a glance at Simone, "I don't want to be seen as weak."
"I know, I know," Simone cringed; it was unusual to see her truly repentant for something, "And looking back on it now I know it wasn't right to use you as an example just to make a point, but when it comes to that subject...it's touchy for me."
"As you explained once," Severus said, "I suppose I can see how it would be a subject that becomes to stay calm over."
"Really I didn't mean anything by it," Simone went on, rambling, "I made a big scene and probably embarrassed Nesme even more than she already was-and I appreciate you all being so understanding with me; lord knows most of you probably thought a lot like the rest of that lot before all this mayhem with Avery and Mulciber went down-really I'm just glad you are all able to see my point of view now and-"
"You're wrong," Severus cut her off.
"Pardon?" Simone asked.
"You're wrong that I thought that way," Severus clarified, "I would never have considered a love potion okay on anyone, even before what happened with Lily."
"Snape, it's okay," Simone reassured him, "You don't need to get defensive, I understand; all of us were raised thinking this stuff was okay. It's society's fault, not ours. You know better now."
Severus shook his head, "You're not listening."
"You don't have to explain yourself to me," Simone assured, "Changes take time. I mean, it's like with Lupin; you may be acting all civil around him for Lily, but whatever weird illness he has that you're so wary of is something you still don't fully feel comfortable with, right? You're just being polite for Lily's sake."
"Well yes, that is true," Severus replied. He wasn't about to correct Simone on her illness assumption, but she was right. He still didn't fully trust Lupin and if he were being honest, even with Simone's impassioned speeches on magical equality and Lily's bleeding heart he still struggled to imagine Werewolves being peope you were safe around, at least close to the full moon.
He cringed inwardly; Lily would hex him if she knew what he thought about it.
"So this whole issue is just like that," Simone said, breaking Severus from his thoughts.
"No it isn't," Severus denied.
Simone waved a hand dismissively at him, "Snape, I'm not going to be upset. I get it; this is still a subject a lot of society hasn't considered. I was the same way years okay. Even if you still don't fully get all the issues with consent and love potions, I'm just happy that you and others are starting to come around to att least acknowledging it is wrong."
"I'm telling you I was never like that," Severus snapped, coming to a stop.
He faced Simone down in the deserted hall.
"Even before Lily and Mary were attacked, I never would have thought forcing someone to love you was okay," Severus said seriously, "Yes, I don't spend ages fixating on our world's questionable morality, but I have aways known making someone do anything they don't want is wrong. I grew up in a hellhole, Simone. You think I never saw my mom putting up with my father's orders and threats and found a problem with how society said women should honor and obey their husbands?!"
Severus too a breath, trying to calm down, "I may not have given consent as serious a thought as you clearly have, but I still knew that enchanted love isn't real love and forced love isn't love at all."
He pointed at Simone, "Know this now; if Lily had never forgiven me, if we had never spoken to each other again...I would have done nothing to change that. I would have been upset, maybe even miserable-definitely miserable-but I never would have tried to force her to want me with a spell or potion. I would have let her go, because I don't want something fake and I don't want her unhappy. It wouldn't be real and that wouldn't have been the Lily I loved; just a fake of her created by a spell to suit my needs. I never would have been okay with doing that to her or anyone else."
He meant every word. In the days following the destruction of their friendship, Severus had been desperate. He would have given anything to have Lily back in his life in any form. But even then...he couldn't bring himself to raise a wand against her and make it happen or use a potion to change her mind. The very thought of forcing her to be by his side curdled his insides and chilled him to the bone. It painted an all too familiar portrait in his head; one of a greasy, hooked nose man and a pallid, broken woman with stringy black hair and hopeless eyes. He knew deep down that he would never want Lily to be his if she didn't want him.
"Sorry, Snape," Simone said sincerely, "It wasn't my intention to imply you were that sort of person...I just meant, I appreciate that whatever the reasons may be, you understand and support my stance on the matter..really, that's all I meant," she put her hands on Severus shoulders and looked him square in the eyes, "I was trying to say I don't see you the way I see all those guys in the hall that day; the ones who made light of it."
Severus breathed out through his nose, "I know. I...I didn't mean to get sharp with you. I suppose that that is just a subject I get heated about."
Simone smiled, "We're both hotheads, it's what we've got in common."
"Oh joy," Severus drawled, "We've alike in some ways."
"Please, you wish you were more like me," Simone sniffed, "So uh...dinner?"
Severus nodded and the pair went to the Great Hall in comfortable silence, Severus recent discoveries momentarily forgotten.
So there's that chapter out of the way.
Lily strikes me as generally a practical girl, so I see her using a pen whenever she can get away with it. A quill would be a big hassle when writing in your diary, as the risk of dripping a blob of ink on the page and ruining it would be a big concern.
Considering the Grey Lady and the Bloody Baron's true identities were not common knowledge to most students, I assume most everyone would know very little about them. Surely the ghosts would have said something to at least one student by now if they knew who the Grey Lady was. This probably means no one ever learned the fate of either of them, not even Helena's mother (which is sad to think of). Since Rowena never told anyone that Helena stole her diadem, and the diadem apparently remained hidden until Riddle found it using Helena's instructions on where to find it, presumably where she died was had to find and therefore her body was unlikely to be recovered.
Severus's speech at the end is drawn from my own analysis of his character in regards to his love for Lily. Despite how desperately he loved her, it seems he did steer clear of her after she cut all ties with him, respecting her wish to never speak to each other again. There's no mention of him ever having tried anything under handed to win her over, despite having the skill and ability to make a potion or cast a spell capable of doing so. Heck, if he had tried something like that, it would probably have been something Sirius and Remus would be quick to point out whenever possible as adults (If I was forced to work with a potential rapist, I'd be airing that dirty laundry Everywhere). So it sounds like no matter how badly Snape loved and desired Lily, he couldn't bring himself to stoop to such a level; I imagine his love for her would make it too painful to have anything other than genuine love from her rather than a facsimile brought on by magic.
When Dumbledore accuses Snape of asking Lily to be spare because he hoped she would become his, Severus doesn't answer. Given my earlier assessments of Severus, I feel his lack of response was confirmation of this claim but more so because he was already aware of the absurdity of such a hope even before Dumbledore pointed it out. He knew Lily would never want anything to do with him; all he wanted was for her to live. It's doubtful he held any belief she would want to be with him and he knew it would never happen. And so, out of sadness at knowing it impossible, he deigns not to answer the a questions they already know the answer to.
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