They Didn't Know We Were Seeds

With only a handful of weeks left to the school year, the weather finally starts to improve. Like most of their classmates, Severus and Lily choose to take full advantage of the fact the spring chill has finally dissipated and enjoy an afternoon out on Hogwarts expansive lawns. Falling back on a patch of grass a little ways away from most of the activity going on around them, the two stretch their limbs out and breathe in the scent of grass and fresh air.

"I think this is what I'm going to miss the most when we go back to Cokeworth," Lily murmurs.

Severus lifts his arm away from where it is blocking the sun from his eyes and turns his head to squint at Lily. "The grounds, you mean?" he asks.

Lily nods. "It's so fresh. Not even by my house is the air so crisp."

Severus hums his agreement. Lily is right, the air of Cokeworth always has a bit of an acidic edge to it. Shifting a little, he gets on his side and asks, "Are you ready to go back?"

She sighs. "Christmas wasn't so bad," she says. "I liked spending time with my parents. It's just…"

"Petunia?" Severus offers.

Lily frowns. "I was as nice to her as I could manage. I didn't talk about Hogwarts when she was around, I kept my school-books out of sight, and did her chores for her when possible, but she was still just so mean. I don't understand it."

"Face it, Lily, your sister is a bitch."

She glares at him. "'Tuney is not a bitch! She was nice when we were little," she argues.

"Then you turned out to be a witch," Severus says, "and she's still just an ordinary muggle."

Lily's lip trembles. "I hate that it's magic that tore us apart."

"Magic has a habit of doing that," Severus mutters.

Her brow furrows. Not with confusion, however, but thoughtfulness. "Your parents…"

"What about them?" Severus demands, voice suddenly rough and defensive.

Lily looks down and begins to pick nervously at the grass. "Magic is why they row all the time, isn't it?"

Severus flips onto his back once more and stares unblinking up into the sun. His eyes begin to water as the silence draws on between him and Lily. Finally, he whispers, "If you look deep enough."

She doesn't say anything after that, but the gentle ministrations of her fingers through his hair speaks volumes about her feelings on the matter.

Silently, Severus vows to do something about Petunia.

-o-O-o-

"Severus! Hey!" shouts an all too familiar voice from behind.

Shooting a long-suffering look at Lily, who returns it with an amused smile, they turn around to see Sirius standing breathless on the stairwell behind them. "Yes?" Severus asks coolly, only to grimace a moment later when Lily steps on his toes. Sometimes, he just doesn't know what Lily expects out of him. He's not excited to see Sirius and he's not going to pretend he is.

Sirius briefly looks between them, uncertain for all of a moment, before he says, "My summer is going to be quite dull, since my parents are still angry with me about my sorting, and James is going on holiday with his parents to Italy for a month. Peter's also going to stay with his aunt and uncle for just as long in Wales starting about mid-summer, so they won't have much time for writing most of hols, and I don't want to end up being a bother to Remus by writing too much–"

Severus cuts in with a raised eyebrow, "I assume this is some roundabout way of asking if I would mind you writing to me?"

The boy flushes. "Yeah."

He sighs. "As much as may or may not like to be your pen-friend, my father would have a fit about owls coming and going from our house."

Sirius begins to deflate. "Oh well…"

"You can send your letters to Severus to my house," Lily offers up as Severus sends her a nasty glare. He doesn't want to spend a summer having to keep up an inane conversation about who knows what with a child.

Sirius doesn't notice Severus's glower as he turns his attention to Lily. "Really?"

"Severus lives just a few streets away from me. It won't be hard to get the letters to him."

"Wicked! Thanks, Lily," Sirius says.

Her lips twitch with a smile that's far too fond for Severus's liking. "You're welcome."

Severus grabs Lily's elbow and says, "Seeing as that's settled, we really must be going. We have to study for the transfiguration exam tomorrow."

"What do you two need to study for? You're at the top of our year. You could fail the exam and still get straight Os!" Sirius teases, grinning impishly.

Lily chuckles weakly. They both know very well why they're at the top of their year – and it has nothing to do with studying. "Yes, well," she replies, "it's only because we spend so much time studying."

"Exactly, now, if you would excuse us," Severus grumbles, finally pulling them away from the mutt.

When they have turned a corner into a lesser-used corridor and are a fair distance away from Sirius, Lily says, "He likes you, you know that, don't you?"

"Isn't that bully for him?" he mutters. Lily yanks out of his grip and stops. Turning around, he frowns. "What's wrong?"

Hands balled into fists, Lily demands, "Why are you being such a huge prick?"

"What?"

She juts her chin out obstinately and glares at him. "About Sirius! You're being a prick about Sirius wanting to be your mate!"

Severus scowls right back. "He was an utter berk to me as long as I knew him. Why should I want to be his mate now?"

Lily throws her hands up. "The Sirius you're talking about and the one who wants to write you aren't the same one!"

"They are too!" Severus shouts back. "We've been returned to the past, not placed in an alternate universe!"

"We may as well have been placed in an alternate universe! If you haven't noticed, everything we do is altering what we know as the past into something different!"

Severus wants to deny the truth, but he can't. They may have been placed in the past, but the past isn't the past anymore. It's something else. Sometimes, if he thinks too much on that, it terrifies him. What good is all that he knows if everything is different? "I don't see why I have to want to be his mate – even if they aren't quite the same person," Severus finally says after a long, tense moment.

Lily's shoulders sag a little. "You don't," she tells him. "Just… Just don't be such a prick, alright? He's just a boy." Tentatively, she moves closer. Reaching up, she pushes a few of his stray locks behind his ear and whispers, "I know it's hard for you, but you need to let the past go, Severus."

He looks away from her pleading eyes. "I'm not very good at that," he admits.

"Perhaps that's why we're here together," Lily says. "To help one another be better than we are so the future can become better than the one we knew."

Severus presses his lips into a thin, disagreeable line. He doesn't like it one bit, but he supposes Lily's theory is as good as any that they've come up with in the past year or so. He sighs. "Perhaps," Severus relents.

Lily grins, relief smoothing away the worry lines from her forehead immediately. "Brill. Now, let's hurry to our classroom. We really need to clean that up while we still have the time to."

This chapter's a bit longer than the others parts of "Germinating". What did you think about Lily and Severus this chapter?

Thank you all for reading, like always, it's greatly appreciated.