Thank you for reading! I don't own any of Harry Potter! Please let me know if you enjoy! Updates every Saturday!
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Severus and Lily didn't allow the Sorting Hat's decisions to end the time they spent together.
Severus found new friends in Narcissa Black, Lucius Malfoy, and Bellatrix Lestrange, while Lily made several girlfriends in Gryffindor.
However, their new allies were the company they kept during the hours the academic day forced them to remain with those in their houses.
Whenever Severus and Lily possibly could, they spent their moments together, side by side as they studied, chatted, or just existed.
Severus's Slytherin friends disapproved of Lily and Lily's Gryffindor girl gang saw Severus as an austere, strange boy, but no one irritated them as much as James Potter.
Whenever Lily saw him approach, she moved closer to Severus, both to annoy James and to remind Severus that her loyalty remained with him.
Their first year of magical education ended with James Potter hurling scowls and insults at the couple, which they once again ignored as they rode home on the Hogwarts Express.
"What's the matter?" Lily pouted at Severus after she noticed the frown on his face while the train traveled through the green hills of the countryside.
"Nothing….." Severus replied as he stared out the window, "I'm just not that excited to go home, I suppose."
Lily had a season of family, smiles, and outdoor cookouts waiting for her in Cokeworth.
Severus knew that weeks and weeks of alcohol-fueled misery and violence lay ahead of himself in his parents' care.
"Well, whenever you tire of being at your home, you can come to mine." Lily offered with a smile.
"I don't think our parents will like that very much." Severus said with a frown.
"Why won't they?!" Lily laughed, "Your Mum loves me….My Mum loves you…...As long as you ask first, it should be fine, Sev. We can spend loads of time together that way!"
Severus grabbed onto a longing hope.
As he looked at Lily, he nodded at her and allowed a soft smile to drift across his pale face.
Wouldn't it be lovely if he could escape completely into Lily's world?
Severus felt his heart skip a beat as he silently admired her beauty.
Wouldn't it be lovely if Lily…..became….his world?
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The next few months proved to be the best summer of Severus's young life.
Eileen lacked the ability to leave Tobias, but she understood what a terrible environment that her husband created for their son.
As a result, she allowed Severus to venture over to Lily's whenever he pleased.
His only concern was potentially wearing out his welcome.
If Severus had truly understood that the Evans' family was happy to host him anytime, he would have moved out of his parents' home and into Lily's.
Mrs. Evans was the model picture of everything a loving wife and mother should be; friendly, charming, kind, generous, beautiful…….with the ability to float face down in the water unharmed.
Severus discovered Mrs. Evans' hidden talent by surprise one morning in late June when he walked into the bathroom during a visit to Lily and found her mother floating face down, limp, in a bathtub filled with water.
The cry of horrified shock that came from his throat sent Mrs. Evans sitting up with a start and Lily racing down the hall to reach him.
"It's alright, dear! It's alright!" Mrs. Evans reassured Severus, who trembled as he watched the soaked woman in front of him pat his arm comfortingly, "I needed to cool off a moment, that was all! There's no need to be frightened."
The incident rattled Severus badly.
Afterwards, he sat with Lily on her bed while they played a game of chess.
Lily frowned at Severus while he stared down at the board with wide eyes.
"Sev, I know it was a bit shocking to see, but really, it's alright, you don't need to worry." She reassured him.
Downstairs, Mrs. Evans began to bake a batch of apologetic cookies to give to her daughter and guest.
"She was floating face down in the water……." Severus recalled as he continued to stare at the chessboard, "Relaxed, with her shoulders rolled forward…..I thought she was dead….My father told me once that people….people do that to themselves….they crawl into bathtubs, turn the water on, and-"
"-Sev!" Lily cut in with a laugh, "Really, Mum's fine! Don't worry about it! I've seen her do that loads of times!"
"You…..have……?" Severus blinked.
"Yeah." Lily shrugged, "Tuney has too, for as long as we can remember. It's just something Mum does. She's not trying to hurt herself, she says it makes her very happy."
A question formed in Severus's inquisitive mind, which prompted him to ask Lily, "...Where does she go?"
"What?" Lily blinked.
"...On the trip every year with her friends?" Severus questioned, "Where does your Mum go?"
"Oh." Lily shrugged again, "Well……She goes to some beach with them, or something. To be honest, I've never really paid that close of attention. She's done that since we were babies and you know, that's……that's just something she does too…...It makes her happy and that makes Dad happy, so I've never really questioned it much."
Severus blinked at Lily for a moment as he pondered her red hair and bright, green eyes.
He noticed that Mrs. Evans had the same features while Petunia did not.
As Severus and Lily finished their game of chess, a need to learn rose within him.
A part of him longed to go back to Hogwarts that very day and access the library.
Severus had some private research that he badly wanted to complete.
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His desire had to be put on hold for some weeks as the summer continued.
Severus and Lily spent all of their free time together, day in and day out as they laughed, talked, and played.
Mrs. Evans went on her customary, annual trip and returned the week before school started.
Severus had been ready to do somersaults of joy when the Evans family invited him for a day at the beach during the weekend before he and Lily departed for their second year at Hogwarts.
Although they were only twelve, Severus couldn't help the blush that crept over his pale cheeks when he saw Lily in her swimsuit that morning.
Lily's swimming outfit had been made from a single piece of stretchy fabric, modest and blue, with small ruffles on the hips. She wasn't dressed obscenely, but it still made Severus's pulse pound to have Lily next to him on the towel in the sun, with her legs, arms, and back largely exposed.
Her figure hadn't developed much yet, but Severus could already see the beginnings of curves.
The sight made him desperately want to move forward through time.
He could be an adult man, tall and proud.
Lily could be an adult woman, beautiful and soft and-
His thoughts were called back to the present suddenly as Lily leapt from their towel, ran across the sandy beach, and joined her mother and sister in the ocean.
Mr. Evans sat behind him, reading a book in his chair with an umbrella over his head, but Severus was more than content to watch Lily play in the waves.
She was gorgeous, vibrant, happy, and alive.
Seeing her splash and frolic in the ocean lifted his heart.
In fact, as Severus busied himself in his observations of Lily, he failed to see the gathering storm clouds until it was too late.
The sky turned black startlingly quickly as the sun hid behind the grey swirls in the sky.
An ominous wind whipped across the beach that lifted chairs and towels into the air.
When a frown appeared on Lily's face, Severus was brought back to the reality of his grim surroundings as the spell of happy bliss that she had enraptured him in ended abruptly.
"My goodness!" He heard Mr. Evans exclaim behind him.
Severus turned around to see Lily's father hold onto his hat while he stood to fold his chair and umbrella before they were swept away by the slicing winds of the fast-approaching storm.
Severus rose to help Mr. Evans until the sound of terrified shrieks reached his ears.
His head snapped towards the direction of the noise as soon as he recognized Lily's voice.
She had ventured too far out in the water with her mother and her sister.
Severus's black eyes widened in horror as the violent waves crashed around the Evans' ladies with sinister strength and ferocious power.
If he had brought his wand with him, he would have pulled it, but he had failed to anticipate they would encounter such a gail.
Furious regret fluttered through his mind as he became a helpless bystander.
Severus watched Mrs. Evans clutch onto Petunia as a massive wall of water rose behind them.
He saw the fear on Lily's face as she reached for her mother, only to be rejected as Mrs. Evans pushed her away.
"LILY!" Severus shouted.
The wave crashed down and smashed all three of the Evans' ladies into the ocean.
In that horrifying instant before the impact, Severus saw Mrs. Evans take Petunia fully into her arms and purposely abandon Lily.
Severus grit his teeth as he bolted to run forward.
He wasn't much of a swimmer, but he certainly wouldn't passively watch his beloved drown.
"NO!" A voice boomed behind him as a hand clamped down on his shoulder.
Severus growled at the feeling of being jerked forcibly back as he turned to glare at Mr. Evans, who held him in place.
"Let Lucy bring Petunia to us, son." Mr. Evans nodded, "Lily will find her way."
"Find her way?!" Severus gasped, "Find her way?!? She's going to drown! She'll die! You call that 'finding her way'?!?!"
Mr. Evans frowned at Severus for a moment until he took a deep breath and nodded, "I know that you and my little Lily are quite close, my boy…..but I'm afraid there's a few things that you don't quite understand yet."
"What don't I understand?!" Serverus demanded, "I understand that I watched her mother send her to her doom! Her own mother! How could she?!"
"Listen to me, Severus." Mr. Evans said very seriously as he bent down and whispered, "As long as it's water, she'll be just fine."
Severus's mouth fell open as he stared into Mr. Evans' face in abject disbelief.
A few moments later, Mrs. Evans and Petunia crawled out of the raging sea, but Lily was nowhere to be found.
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Severus felt ill.
Nausea chewed at his guts while a sheen of clammy perspiration beaded on his face as he stood, stricken with fearful grief, and waited there on the sand.
He watched in dismay while the rescue mission helicopters circled the wide ocean in front of him.
The storm had ended as quickly as it had begun, but Lily had been lost in the waves.
Severus started to hate the Evans family.
As he watched the muggle flying machines move above the water, he braced himself in preparation of witnessing them lifting Lily's lifeless body from the sea.
It had been too long, she couldn't have held her breath for over an hour.
Severus glanced behind himself and gnashed his teeth as he noticed her parents and sister calmly loading their car as if nothing had gone wrong.
Movement in his peripheral vision led Severus to turn his head back towards the ocean.
His eyes nearly bulged out of his head when he saw Lily walking towards him.
Her scarlet hair was tangled but beyond that, she appeared to have suffered no harm.
A dry gasp of pure relief left Severus's throat as he called out and charged forward, "LILY!"
She laughed heartily as he reached her and threw his arms around her to pull her into a tight hug.
His treasure had been lost and then returned to him.
For a brief second, Severus felt as if he might collapse there on the beach.
"It's alright, Sev! I'm back! See? I'm alright!" Lily laughed as he pulled away to look at her incredulously.
Inexplicable.
It had been inexplicable.
His eyes narrowed as he stared at Lily and wondered how she had survived without air, without magic, without her wand, without Gillyweed, without….anything?
Severus became a bundle of questions.
He and Mr. Evans made eye contact in the rearview mirror on the car ride home.
Severus marveled at one, undeniable fact…….Mr. Evans had been right.
Severus concluded that surely whatever Lily's father had spoken of, whatever secrets he had alluded to, must all have been true.
He glanced over at Lily.
As she smiled back at him, he silently vowed to learn more about his darling flower.
Severus wondered though if Lily was his darling flower……..or his darling ocean pearl?