Chapter 4 - Heartache

Stepping away from Severus when she had so desperately wished to merge with him had been the hardest thing Lily had ever done. She still had no idea where she had found the strength, nor how she was managing to hold on to her feeble resolve. The distance between them felt horribly wrong, the cold seeping into her heart promising never to leave her. But she had to do this, to break it off before they got too serious and she lost the ability to make the right decision.

Because, wrong as the distance between them felt, it couldn't be right to be with someone who would go back to ignore her or even sneer scornfully at her as soon as some witness showed up. Her mum would be appalled if she allowed someone to treat her like that, and her dad no doubt would have a few choice things to say to Severus.

"... Let us just forget it ever happened and move on, go our separate ways," she forced herself to say, each word tearing something in her chest and leaving her with the certainty that she would never heal from this.

Severus had looked befuddled until that point, as if he couldn't make sense of what was happening, but her last words seemed to finally break through his stupor and fill his eyes with horrified comprehension. Lily could almost feel the moment when his heart broke —or maybe it was her heart breaking at the sight of his hurt expression what she felt—, and also the moment when Severus' pain was replaced by furious denial.

"No," he said shaking his head and clenching his fists. "You can't break it off, I won't let you!"

"Let me?" hissed Lily, her eyes narrowing as her anguish was quickly replaced by outrage. She had never tolerated Severus telling her what she could or could not do, and he knew it.

"That's right, I won't let you move on!" he declared furiously, shortening the distance between them in one long stride and grabbing her by the shoulders before she could react. "You're mine now, forever!"

Perhaps Lily should have felt frightened by the manic gleam in Severus' eyes, but she was just assaulted by a confusing mixture of lust and anger, the urge to surrender to his claim warring with an itch to slap him, hard. She just barely managed not to cave in to either impulse and forcefully disentangled herself from his grip.

"Let go!" she demanded, quickly restoring the distance between them. "You don't own me, Severus! And I can decide to break this off, you can't force me to do anything I don't want!"

"You do want to be with me!" he yelled angrily, his clenched hands twitching as if he wanted to grab her again and possibly strangle her. Still, Lily wasn't afraid. She knew that Severus would never harm her. Others... maybe, yes, but not her.

And, indeed, Severus immediately seemed to regret his outburst, pausing to get his temper under control by closing his eyes and taking a few deep, calming breaths while he massaged his temples. The sudden silence made Lily realize that they had been making a lot of noise, but miraculously neither Filch nor Peeves had been drawn to their corridor yet. She contemplated the convenience of moving their conversation somewhere else, but it made her hesitate the possibility that Severus might misinterpret her suggestion the way he had misinterpreted the hug, and she seriously doubted she would be able to effectively put an end to this if he kissed her again.

"You said you love me," said Severus finally, sounding considerably calmer but still angry, "and it's obvious that you like me kissing you." He dared her with a menacing look to deny his accusation, and his eyes glimmered with furious triumph when she didn't. "So why should we stop this, if we both want it?"

"Because you're obviously ashamed to be seen with me," she stated, daring him with a raised eyebrow to deny her accusation.

"I'm not ashamed-"

"Prove it," she challenged him. "Sit with me tomorrow at breakfast."

Severus stared at her in horror.

"Are you insane?! I would be kicked out of Slytherin or killed in my sleep if I sat in the Gryffindor table!"

"Then let's go for a walk together, in public. I dare you to simply hold my hand in front of someone from Slytherin!"

Severus ran both hands through his hair in exasperation.

"You don't understand anything, Lily!" he growled. "I told you the other day that it's complicated in Slytherin, that I have to do certain things to fit in. Pretending you're nothing but worthless scum to me is one of those things, but it's not for real. I'm not ashamed, it's just not good for me to be seen with you-"

"How do you expect us to be together, then?" demanded Lily skeptically. "Or was your plan to sneak around every other night to meet behind tapestries or inside broom cupboards?"

"Pretty much, yeah," said Severus shamelessly. "I doubt you would want me to do all the things I want to do to you at the Gryffindor table during breakfast, anyway."

The suggestive tone, and especially the look in his black eyes when saying those words scrambled Lily's brain and sent a thrill of anticipation through her body, but she fought down the blush and the images that came unbidden to her mind and forced herself to remain firm.

"I can't do this, Severus," she repeated with as steady voice as she could muster. "I do want to be with you, but not like this. I won't be the filthy little Mudblood you scorn by day and meet secretly by night. I deserve better than that."

"And what about me?" complained Severus angrily. "I need to keep appearances in Slytherin, Lily, I have enough working against me as it is, and you... My friendship with you always made them mistrust me, now that everyone thinks I despise you things are finally improving for me..."

"You call improvement being surrounded by more aspirants to Death Eaters?" scoffed Lilly. "Wilkes is even worse than Mulciber, Severus, and the Jugsons are known supporters of You-Know-Who!"

"So what if they are?" snapped Severus. "They are valuable connections to have, Lily. Wilkes has already promised to lend me some rare books, and Jugson said he would introduce me to-"

"To who? The Dark Lord?" asked Lily sharply, not really wanting to hear the answer. "And let me guess, Wilkes is lending you books of Dark Magic."

"I have already explained to you that following the Dark Lord or using Dark Magic doesn't necessarily make someone evil," said Severus with obvious irritation. "Why are we arguing about the same thing again?"

"Because we never finished the argument!" exclaimed Lily. "Explaining your point of view doesn't automatically make it valid, Severus. I don't have to just accept what you say or approve of what you do."

"If you truly loved me you would accept me as I am and support what I need to do!" he snarled.

"If you truly loved me you would not treat me like scum to impress all those Slytherin creeps!"

Severus threw up his hands in exasperation.

"It's just an act, Lily! Why can't you just go along?"

"Because that would make you think I support what you're doing!"

"Exactly!" he yelled, his tone and expression smug as if he had just won the argument.

Lily shook her head and sighed.

"As long as you insist on going the way you're going, I can't support you, Severus," she said sadly. "And I can't be with you."

Severus scowled at her for a long minute, his expression darkening by the second.

"Then you don't really love me," he finally declared, his tone so cold and his eyes so hard that she felt as if she had been stabbed in the gut with an ice spike.

He was gone before she could recover enough to say anything in response.

By the time Lily returned to the Common Room, the memory of Severus' last look and words had reduced her to a shivering mess, but mostly she felt detached from her own emotions, as if a protective fog had settled around her heart to keep the pain contained. She knew the numbness would lift eventually, but some childish part of her was hoping to be able to hold on to it for a week until she was back home so she could cry in her mother's arms.

"Lily?"

A voice stopped her before she could reach the stairs that led to the girls' dormitories, and she reluctantly turned to see who had addressed her. All she wanted right now was to curl into a ball in her bed and get warm, even though she was pretty sure all the blankets in the world would not be enough to dispel the chill from her heart.

It took her a moment to recognize Remus in the dimness of the empty Common Room, and another to remember everything that had happened earlier and that had been driven from her mind by her ensuing conversation with Severus. Some of the numbness lifted at the realization that she was standing mere feet from a werewolf.

"Lily, please," implored Remus, "please don't tell anyone. I..." he swallowed, and Lily could see how hard it was for him to say whatever he was about to say, "I won't come back to Hogwarts next year if you need that reassurance, but please don't... I would never be accepted anywhere, nobody would give me any sort of job, and my parents... It would ruin their lives too, if people knew. Please, Lily."

Her already aching heart almost broke again at the desperate entreaty. It was simply impossible to see a monster in Remus when he was displaying such raw, human emotions, Lily actually felt it would be monstrous to deny basic human compassion to someone so vulnerable. She had read about werewolves, heard people talk about their viciousness, their bestiality and their treacherous nature, but she just couldn't believe Remus was like that. At least not most of the time, while he was... in this form.

Dumbledore had supposedly admitted him in Hogwarts knowing of his... condition, and he had taken precautions so Remus would not be close to any student during the full moon. It hadn't been Remus' fault that he had almost killed Severus, had it? Sirius was responsible for that and should have been expelled, it wouldn't be fair if Remus was the one who had to leave Hogwarts.

On the other hand, it wouldn't be fair if Severus was expelled because he had told Lily about Remus. He shouldn't have been threatened by the Headmaster at all, even if she could understand it must have been the only way to keep Severus from ruining Remus' chance at an education. She was certain he would not have cared one bit about that, only about getting Black expelled, but she still couldn't approve of the way Dumbledore had handled the whole mess.

Lily sighed and rubbed her face with her hands, wishing things weren't so complicated.

"I won't go to Dumbledore," said Remus, clearly guessing what was troubling her. "I didn't know about the threat of expulsion, I swear, I would never... I will not tell the Headmaster that Severus told you, nor that you know, I just... I was hoping you might be willing to keep the secret out of... kindness. And maybe you can speak to Severus for me? Tell him that I'm sorry, that I will go away if he's really so against me being here... I have already taken my OWLs, that's a lot more than my parents had dared to hope for me, and it's..." He took a deep breath. "And it's enough for me."

Lily tried to imagine how it would feel not to be able to come back next year for her sixth year, to stop her education after her OWLs while the rest of her schoolmates continued on to NEWT level and beyond. Horrible. And Remus was one of the best students of their year, with so much potential... Now Lily understood why he applied himself so much to his studies, taking full advantage of every class and book in the library as if he wanted to make the most of the opportunity to learn. Clearly Remus had never taken his place at Hogwarts for granted.

"I will not tell anyone," promised Lily, and she saw Remus' shoulders slumping with relief. "And you don't have to go. As long as you don't hurt anyone I don't see why you shouldn't stay and finish school."

She could see some hope joining the relief and intense gratefulness in his eyes, but he still gave her a dubious look.

"Severus..."

Lily shook her head sadly.

"I don't think you should listen to his opinion on this, Remus."

She noticed that his eyes were a bit puffy, and remembered that he had seemed at the verge of crying when Severus had drove him away with his harsh words. Severus could be so cruel sometimes... Lily didn't think he was evil, but she wasn't sure she would classify him as a good person either. He certainly wasn't a nice person, and he seemed to revel in other people's misery, as if he believed everyone deserved to suffer as much as possible. His hatred towards Potter and Black made sense, and now she could even understand why he resented Dumbledore, but Severus was almost equally nasty towards kind, innocent people like Mary or Remus. Of course no one was innocent in his eyes, and he always managed to come up with some irrefutable accusation that seemed to justify his loathing, but he was too unforgiving, too ready to condemn someone for the tiniest flaw or mistake. And sometimes he hurt people with his words just because he could, sensing a weak point and attacking it by instinct like a shark upon smelling blood.

"You shouldn't let what he said to you earlier affect you either," she added, idly wondering what did it say about her that she was hopelessly in love with someone like Severus. "You... you're not a monster."

Remus grimaced and glanced uneasily in the direction of the stairs that led to the dormitories.

"I am," he said dejectedly. "Severus is right, about everything."

Lily shook her head again. Severus was wrong about so many things! She could see that Remus really believed himself a monster, though, a dark creature that should be put down or at least kept apart from normal people. It was no wonder he clung to James and Sirius —and Peter— if they all knew what he was and accepted him despite that. Or perhaps he was afraid they would betray his secret if he refused their friendship... that might actually explain why he never stood up against them. Lily had no trouble imagining Potter or Black ruining someone's life out of spite or just for fun if that someone were no longer their friend. Sirius certainly had not cared much about Remus when he had sent Severus to meet him during a full moon. And it wasn't very considerate of them to force their Prefect friend to turn a blind eye to their bullying when it was plainly a cause of conflict for Remus.

This wasn't the time to question him about his friends, though, especially since she didn't really know how things were between them. Besides, she was aware that right now it was her who was causing Remus distress just by standing here knowing. Everything in his posture and expression indicated that, despite her attempts to reassure him, he was expecting to be rejected, to be feared and shunned. Lily would have liked to believe that his apprehension was unfounded, but sadly she had been in the wizarding world long enough to know that most people would react to a werewolf living in their midst much in the same way than Severus had. Her initial reaction hadn't been very good, she realized with a pang of guilt and shame.

Wanting to make up for that, and to prove to Remus that she wasn't afraid of him nor thought him a vicious monster, Lily moved in his direction, ignoring his obvious panic at her approach as well as his attempt to retreat when she got too close. He clearly hadn't forgotten Severus' threat and he had taken it very seriously even though he must know better than anyone that he couldn't hurt anyone just by touching their skin when it wasn't even a full moon. At least Lily was pretty sure that Severus had been insanely over-protective when pronouncing that threat, and that he wouldn't truly curse Remus if he so much as casually brushed her hand while passing her the salt over dinner.

Pushing away the disturbing thought of whether Severus would be capable of actually killing someone, and the excruciating pain that caused her to realize that after tonight he probably would not care enough about her anymore as to threaten to curse anyone who touched her —much as Severus' extreme protectiveness and possessiveness annoyed her, she couldn't deny to herself that it did funny things to her to be so strongly claimed—, Lily closed the remaining distance and came to a stop right in front of Remus, who resembled a frightened, cornered deer far more than a dangerous werewolf. His eyes were wide and fearful, darting from side to side as if in search of an escape route.

"I don't know about... those days," she said carefully, still avoiding to say words like 'werewolf' or 'full moon' out loud, "but for what I've seen, the rest of the time you're the furthest thing from a monster than I can imagine."

They were so close that Lily could see every tiny twitch in Remus' face, every failed attempt to rein in his emotions or hide his vulnerability. She saw his throat working through the anguish, his lips trembling, his eyes blinking away tears. Lily's heart was suddenly overcome by a strong surge of compassion, and next thing she knew she had ignored his last attempt to retreat and pulled him into a sample of the most basic kind of human contact.

Before long she was crying in the arms of a werewolf.