No, red wasn't such a bad color after all.
The summer Severus stayed with the Evanses, his friendship with Lily was rekindled. They spent the afternoons laughing at Petunia as they frightened her, sharing Mrs. Evans's homemade Sundaes, or speculating about next's year's Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher (they seemed to run through those).
"I'm going to teach that subject one day," Severus told Lily solemnly.
Lily was building a castle with a set of crisp playing cards, something Severus had no taste for, and so he merely watched as he flipped at random through his Dark Arts volumes, sometimes flashing a particularily gross picture across the room at Petunia, who was attempting to easedrop on the edge of the hall.
"Oh, no, you shouldn't," Lily told him, aghast. "Not after what happened to Professor Wheezler last year! To drown in the lake, an clever wizard like that . . ."
Severus snorted, "I wouldn't call poking the giant squid in the eye clever."
"He didn't do it himself!" Lily cried indignantly. "He was Imperioused! I know he was! Voldemort wanted to finish him off because he had information."
"Oh, please," Severus rolled his eyes. "You say that," he continued, turning a page idly, "because you've carried a soft spot for him since second year."
"I haven't," Lily snapped, but two red spots appeared on her cheeks, an indication that she had. "Anyway, what makes you so certain you'll last when other teachers haven't? The job is jinxed. Even Dumbledore thinks so."
"Who's to say Dumbledore is always right?" Severus said, watching Lily with narrowed eyes over the top of Mastering and Making: Inferi and Golems.
"No body's perfect, Severus -- "
"Exactly," said Severus smoothly, turning another page with his long, pale fingers. "Even Dumbledore can be wrong about something . . . or someone . . . Here!" he said suddenly, and Lily looked up as Severus laid his book open on the table, carelessly deminishing her card castle.
"It took me two days to get it that high!" Lily cried indignantly.
Severus ignored her and read feverishly, "'Inferi, or human remains, can be animated with a simple spell involving the spellcaster's own blood smoothed onto his or her own wand . . .'"
Lily made a face, "Why are you reading -- ?"
"There's more!" cried Severus impatiently. "'Inferi can be used as Animagi. The spellcaster need only perform the Morphmagus spell to transform the Inferi into its animal form . . .' Don't you see?" he cried, turning to Lily. "I can use this spell on Potter!"
"But . . ." said Lily slowly, "he's not an Animagi and he's not dead . . ."
"He is!" cried Severus, a feverish light in his eye. "Remember what happened to me last year? The Whomping Willow incident?" he said resentfully.
Lily nodded warily.
"I discovered when I went down there," he lowered his voice, " that Potter is an Animagi! I saw it! And so is that stupid Black." He turned back to his book, a satisfied, hungry gleam in his eye. "And I can use this spell to reveal him!"
"Ok," said Lily, clearly resigned to humor him. "Say Potter really is an Animagi and that you saw him change -- wouldn't it have taken him years to accomplish that?"
"He didn't change completely," sneered Severus. "But his head became a stag, and besides, I heard them plotting about it! That's enough to get them expelled!" He cried gleefully. "Possibly even arrested!"
Behind him, Lily shook her head.
"Even so," she said reasonbly, "I reckon Dumbledore would know, and he wouldn't want you to reveal that infomation."
Severus whirled on her. "So you're going to side with your precious Potter, are you? Going to take up for Dumbledore's favorite boy? I should have known," he spat.
Lily's mouth hardened, "I'm not siding with anyone! I just think you're being stupid!"
"He's no good!" Severus snapped at her. "He's a big-headed, rich, spoiled, prat who goes around hexing people for no reason at all -- and you know it!" He fired at Lily, pointing a quivering finger at her as he clutched his book to his chest. "And I'm going to stop him! I'm going to get rid of him once and for all."
"You can't go drawing attention to yourself," Lily cautioned him. "Not after your father. Don't you understand? People think that YOU killed him!"
"Maybe I did!" he cried, relishing in Petunia's squeak from the hall. "Maybe my mum's just taking the wrap."
"You didn't," Lily said. "I know you didn't."
"How do you know?" Severus grumbled. "It's not in me to love, so it must be in me to hate."
"What d'you mean you can't love?"
Severus shook his head slowly, "You don't understand. You haven't been through what I have. Sure, your sister's annoying and people used to call you a Mudblood, but both of your parents love you. They don't fight every night about what a freak you are. They love that you're a witch. Sometimes . . . sometimes I think my mum wished I were a Squib or a Muggle like my dad. Maybe then he would have loved us."
He scratched his long hooked nose to avoid Lily's eyes and lifted his book infront of his face again, but Lily reached out a hand and lowered it slowly.
"I like you the way you are," she said. "Isn't that enough to make you love me?" She smiled mischeviously, her green eyes firing, but he knew she only meant as brother and sister.
Severus blinked solemnly. After a moment of intense staring, he whispered, "You're going to fall in love someday, I can see it in your eyes." He thought of Potter and his insides wreathed angrily. "People like you always fall in love," he muttered resentfully.
"People like me?" Lily lifted her chin. "Nonsense. You're perfectly capable of falling in love, Severus. Don't ever stop believing that."
"What if I never start?"
Lily's eyes widened, "Then you won't fall in love!"
But Severus thought he had fallen in love.
Though he looked at Lily solemnly as they spoke or laughed or played, behind his black eyes burned emotion and longing only stifled by his fear and his hate. Ekstasis: that was what he felt for Lily, and it frightened him to know that he had this ability: the ability to love, to care, to want someone. It was there, buried deep in his heart all along, and a girl named Lily Evans had surfaced it. She had taken him out of himself.
"Love?" cried a shrill, derisive voice from the hall.
Petunia stood on the edge of the livingroom with her fists on her hips, looking sour.
"Only a mother's love could love that!" she cried, narrowing her eyes on Severus, whose face flushed a pallid gray in his rage as he lowered his book. "I should have known you had a crush on him. Why else would he be here?"
Petunia looked at Severus again and said as if it gave her the greatest pleasure, "Other boys have been here too, calling on my harlot sister -- "
"Shut your mouth!" cried Lily angrily, looking stung.
Petunia smiled nastily, revealing the flash of braces over very croaked, yellow teeth, "Boys with black hair, boys with glasses, boys with -- with wands -- dropping in for tea! Freaks, all of them!"
"Shut up!" Lily shrieked. "It would take a blind boy to come calling on you!"
Petunia stood with her hands clenched at her sides. "Ooo!" she cried angrily. "You abnormal -- you -- you freak!"
"Running out of words, are you?" scoffed Lily. "Better run off and look up more, off with you now!" she said mockingly.
"No, I have one more," Petunia said through her teeth. She seemed rather determined to hurt Lily one way or the other and the usual names weren't working. "I know what they call you at school, Lilian."
Lily went rigid in the act of drawing herself up.
Petunia smiled triumphantly, apparently aware that she was about to strike a nerve. She took a deep breath and burst, "They call you - !"
"Mudblood."
Both girls looked around. Severus was standing with his hands motionless at his sides, staring at Petunia from between long greasy curtains of hair with his glittering eyes.
"Correct me if I'm wrong," Severus went on, "but the term 'Mudblood' means 'dirty blood' and, ah, you are related to Lily, are you not?"
There was a pause as Severus's words sunk in, and Petunia's pale, horsey face flushed a whiter shade in her fury. Her eyes darted to her sister, who was smiling with a mixture of triumph and amusement.
"You have no power here, be gone before someone drops a house on you too!" Lily said suddenly, pretending to wave a wand.
She and Severus burst into laughter as Petunia stormed from the room, fuming, and up the stairs.