Title: Boys Don't Cry
Fandom: Harry Potter
Pairing: Severus Snape and Lily Evans
Rating: K+ - T
Summary: Everybody laughed… but her.
Author's note: Sorry to all you James/Lily fans out there, but I love this pairing so much and I think it's sad but really adorable (Plus, I love dear Severus, okay). This is a oneshot so don't expect any other chapters coming up. Please review afterwards, but flames are NOT welcome. Enjoy!
Disclaimer: insert usual 'I don't own Harry Potter' crap here
"Leave him ALONE!"
There was something about her.
She was probably the most beautiful girl he had ever seen, but he was scared to death of her. She was, well, perfect. She was smart, popular, confident, kind, and all the rest of the existing positive attributes a person could possibly have. He was compelled to smile even just a bit when she laughed and she walked with such grace that he felt himself unworthy to be in her presence. He both loathed her – because of jealousy and contempt – and adored her – because of the way she intimidated him but made him feel as though someone actually cared that he was alive. She was the only girl who never made fun of him or laughed when the infamous foursome bullied him publicly.
And yet, even with all that he was still too proud to even give her a proper thank you.
"I don't need help from filthy little Mudbloods like her!"
He knew he had hurt her by what he said, but she still kept her composure and did not fuss about it like Potter did. She had defended him against her fellow Gryffindor, but all he could do was call her something worse than a harlot. His shame was too much for him to bear. He had been humiliated once again, but this time it was in front of her. She had retorted to his degrading comment but he was too numb to realize that she had not meant to say those things. He looked at her face and caught her green almond eyes staring at him with more pity than contempt as she called him 'Snivellus', and he knew at that point that he could never show his face to her again. He hated himself for it.
After the nightmare he found himself running – to where, he did not know. He cursed himself for being so weak and stupid. He came to an empty classroom, wherein most of the chairs were set upon dust-covered tables and cobwebs hung from every corner imaginable. He sat on one of the unset chairs and buried his face in his hands.
Damn them all, he thought to himself.
He looked up and saw shafts of sunlight filtering through the boarded-up windows.
Why do they always have to do this to me? he asked in his mind.
It's always 'let's go bully Snivellus'. It's always laughing, laughing, laughing. It's like they think I can't feel…
He heard them laughing in his head, their taunts and torments that gave them so much amusement and him so much anger. He heard their chants of his given nickname. 'Get Snivellus! Get Snivellus!' The cacophony of noises surrounded him and he could not escape it.
'Look, it's Grease Boy!'
'What're you up to, Snivellus? Polishing the trophies later with your face?'
'I can't imagine what kind of no-brained girl would even look at you.'
'Your mother must be happy to have you in school all year. I reckon she's relieved that she wouldn't have to look at that plate-face of yours everyday.'
He had walked away from these taunts without a word, trying to keep his dignity by holding his head up. But he was only human, and he could only tolerate so much. Every single morning of his life he would wake up, knowing he would have to face them all during the course of the day. At night he was too terrified to even fall asleep because he could not flee the torture even in his dreams. They followed him to the depths of his subconscious. 'Snivellus, Snivellus!'
No one cares about me.
He was a brilliant student and his teachers were impressed by his competence, but he knew that he was only given empty praises. None of the professors cared whether other students traumatized him with their endless bullying. They passed by him without any greeting and he would feel as though he was a mere wall to them.
No one, especially not her.
He thought about the way she had defended him earlier and started to feel that the tears forming in his eyes were ready to fall. No, boys don't cry, he thought angrily. Boys don't cry. I won't cry. I won't.
He remembered that when he was still little he had tripped on the pavement and scraped his knee quite badly. His mother had slapped his cheek hard when he cried. 'What are you, a girl!' she yelled. 'You goddamn good-for-nothing little–'
No, mother. I won't cry…
But he felt the tears sting his eyes and one of them fell down his cheek, right over the spot where he had nursed the bruise from his mother's slap of indignant shame.
He put his face in his hands again and tried to stop himself from weeping, but he had lost control of his tears and they continued to fall. He despised himself for crying; it made him feel…helpless.
"Severus?"
He lifted his head but he did not turn to see who it was. He did not need to.
"What do you want, Evans?"
He did not want her to see him like that. It was worse than allowing her to witness his public humiliation. Crying meant that he was submitting himself to embarrassment.
She did not answer. He wiped the tears from his eyes and face then turned to see her. She stood in the doorway, looking at him with an unreadable expression on her face. Her silence made him feel sick.
"I said, what do you want?" he said coldly. "Come to laugh at me, have you? You forgot to do so a while ago."
She still did not answer. His discomfort was overwhelming. He could not tell what her expression meant and it frustrated him.
"I don't need your pity, Evans." he said quietly. He turned and stared at the shafts of sunlight that shone upon the vials that were placed upon the old mahogany teacher's desk.
"I don't pity you." she answered at last.
He turned to her again. "What?" he said.
Her expression slowly changed to one of sadness. "I don't pity you," she said again. "I'm still angry at you for calling me a Mudblood, so you can't expect me to pity you."
He bit his lower lip. "So why are you here, then? Want to see me cry, don't you? So that you could tell all your friends that you saw greasy Snivellus crying like a little baby?"
"No." she replied in a tone that was neither cold nor warm. He looked away and felt the tears resurface. He heard her footsteps coming towards him.
"It's alright to cry, you know," she said gently. "It's completely normal."
"What do you know!" he yelled suddenly. "You don't know what it's like to be teased and bullied every damn day of your life, even when you haven't done anything to anyone."
"Actually," she said, standing in front of him so she saw the tears trickling down his cheeks. "I do know what it's like. When I was younger my sister and her friends would make fun of me just because I was a little… different."
He finally recognized the look on her face. It was sympathy.
"But boys don't cry…" he said in a low voice. She started to laugh softly.
"Who told you that?" she said with surprise.
"My mother."
"Well, you're mother's wrong. Boys do cry. If they didn't then they couldn't possibly be human. You are human, aren't you? So you have nothing to be ashamed of."
He felt his lips form into a small smile. She smiled as well.
"Listen, James and Sirius are gits and we both know that all too well." she said. "They have nothing better to do in their lives than make fun of the first random person who catches their eye. They've no right and I'm sure they'll pay for it one day, okay? Does that make you feel better?"
He hesitated, then shrugged. "I guess so. I don't even know what the hell I'm doing here, talking to you out of all people."
"Well, be thankful you actually have someone to talk to," she said, raising her eyebrow, which made him blush. "I'm sorry, that was tactless of me. I meant, maybe I was just in the right place at the right time."
His smile grew a little wider. He had stopped crying once she had reassured him of Potter and Black's bad karma.
"Oh, and before I forget," she said, rummaging through the contents of her bag. "You left this in the dungeons yesterday."
She handed him a book with the title 'Advanced Potions Making'. He frowned as he took it.
"How – how'd you know it was mine?" he asked. She grinned.
"Oh come on," she said. "You don't think no one sees you scribbling all over the pages during class, do you?"
He felt his heart beating harder and faster against his chest. "So you read what I wrote…?"
She nodded.
"You know that I'm –?"
"The Half-Blood Prince? Yeah, I figured. It was your handwriting after all."
He felt the heat rise in his face. "Now you know that I'm a half-blood and a hypocrite." He said, discomfited.
"Oh, don't worry," she said. "Everyone's a hypocrite anyway."
She turned towards the door to leave, but as soon as she reached the doorway, he called out to her.
"Evans?"
She stopped.
"Yeah?"
Silence ensued for a moment, then he continued rather reluctantly. "I'm sorry about earlier. I – I did not mean… what I said."
She cocked her head a little to the side and shrugged. "I'm sorry, too. For calling you… you know… Didn't know what I was saying."
They looked at each other for a while. He sat alone, the shafts of sunlight falling upon his figure, and she stood in the doorway, covered by its dark shadow. It was as though their roles had been reversed. He suddenly looked more vibrant and alive than he ever was before as the light shone on him. In the darkness she looked mysterious but vulnerable, just as he always seemed to everyone else. The only difference was that she was still beautiful, with her long red hair and green eyes whose iridescent glow would not die, not even in the darkest of shadows.
"Well, see you around." She said, aware of the heat that had risen in her cheeks. She did not know what brought that about, but she chose to ignore it anyway. He nodded as a sign of farewell and she exited the room, feeling a little dazed by the encounter. He was left alone once more in the empty classroom, but somehow it was no longer the same. He felt… different.
He looked back at the book that she returned to him and smiled inwardly to himself.
'Boys do cry. If they didn't then they couldn't possibly be human.'
Thank you, Lily.