Chapter 8 - To ask for understanding
Resentment and envy burned inside Severus while he watched the Muggle children chasing each other around the playground, laughing without a care in the world. He had hated to see other children play when he was little, envious of their happiness and easy friendships, bitter because he knew they wouldn't include him even if he were to stoop so low as to mingle with stupid Muggles. The first time he had seen Lily and Petunia playing he had hated them too, his resentment accentuated by their nice clothes that spoke of a higher social class.
And then the younger girl had done magic in front of his eyes.
Severus had felt exhilarated at the discovery, not having met anyone magical of his own age before, and he had decided on the spot that she would be his friend, someone who would not hate him for what he was and with whom he could share his magic. He had found out later that both her parents were Muggles, but it hadn't been too hard to overlook that conflicting detail when he had seen how powerful she was. At nine years old Lily had had as much control over her magic as Severus, although of course she had used it for innocent things like soaring or making flowers bloom while he had almost exclusively used it to hurt or destroy.
He was distracted from his melancholy by the loud cry of a kid who apparently had been too inept to remain on his feet while running on a flat surface. Severus was certain that the fall had only bruised the brat's ego, but by the sound of his screams one would think he had broken a leg, and the mother immediately ran to him as if she feared her darling boy was dying. Disdain and jealously coursed through Severus, who had never made such a fuss over a simple fall and had never been comforted by his mother after any sort of injury. At most when he was very young she had commanded him to keep still and quiet while she none too gently treated the wound, and he had soon learned not to bother her as well as to heal his own injuries with both Muggle and magical methods.
His thoughts had drifted towards that stupid underage restriction and how moronic and unfair it was to forbid them to use magic during the holidays while no one had ever cared what they did as children, when the sound of gravel being stepped upon nearby brought him back to the playground and made him jerk his head around to face the approaching threat.
His heart skipped a beat and his stomach flipped when he saw Lily standing right there in front of him like a dazzling mirage, her auburn hair burning like fire in the afternoon sunlight while those damned eyes bore deep into him making him forget all about breathing. Just the sight of her face scrambled his thought process and stirred a multitude of emotions and sensations all through his body, and taking in the rest of her body didn't exactly help him staying cool.
He knew that she hadn't meant to draw attention by wearing that old dress —she never tried to draw attention, and she certainly owned more provocative clothes that she could wear if that were her intention—, but precisely because it was old and she had grown quite a bit in the last few years the thing now didn't reach past middle thigh and the faded fabric was so tense at chest level that Severus could easily trace with his eyes the shape of her breasts. While he generally scorned all things Muggle, at times like this he could only be thankful for the Muggle fashions that allowed him to appreciate Lily's long legs and mouth-watering figure with much less obstruction than in Hogwarts. He only wished that no one else could see her like this, and he half-cursed Mr. Evans for allowing her to leave the house alone dressed in such a manner. Although, knowing Lily, if her father had forbidden her to wear that dress she would have immediately decided to wear nothing but that the entire summer.
Realizing that he was staring like a drooling fool, Severus pushed to the back of his mind the fantasies about running his hand along her inner thigh as far up as it went —he had always wanted to touch her there— or releasing her glorious breasts from that cruel prison of a dress, and he focused on the miraculous fact that she was standing before him. The last time he had seen her he had insulted her again and pushed her away, and yet she was here. Severus had waited for hours in this swing, hoping she would come, but he hadn't really expected she would and he had no idea what to do now that she had.
He searched her eyes for signs of anger or contempt, but all he could see was vulnerability. She seemed worried, nervous, insecure, afraid. And there was something in her eyes that resonated deep inside him and made him want to hold her close and never let go... But he couldn't do that, could he? Nothing had changed. Lily had probably only approached him for the same reason than she had in King's Cross: because she felt sorry for him. Severus would frankly prefer to be despised than pitied —it would be less confusing if she didn't care at all about him—, but that was the kind of person that Lily was.
He felt the urge to insult her again, to make her angry and hurt her before she could hurt him more, but the nasty words got stuck in his throat when he remembered what Lupin had said about Lily crying and thinking that Severus hated her.
"I don't hate you," he said, sure that at least that was something that must be clarified.
Lily's shoulders seemed to relax, and Severus thought he saw relief in her eyes. After a moment she lowered her gaze and shifted nervously in place, her arms wrapped around herself.
"I do love you," she said softly. "I truly do."
Hope swelled inside him when he heard her say the words again, but when she raised her eyes he knew that nothing had changed. They were still at stalemate. He sighed in frustration and ran his hands through his hair, the pain that the gesture sent through his back not helping him at all to stay calm. He put his arms down and closed his eyes, trying to compartmentalize the pain inside his mind and to rein in his anguish before any tear dared betray him.
He heard Lily moving, and a moment later the sound of her settling in the empty swing next to him.
"I wish..." began Severus after a long silence only broken by the distant screams of Muggle children. "I wish you would understand."
"I want to understand, Sev," said Lily. "You're so smart... I don't understand why you would want to get involved with those people. Why you would listen to them and swallow all their crap. They're brainwashing you!"
"They're not," said Severus shaking his head. "I am smarter than that, Lily, and I can think for myself. It's you who have been brainwashed by Dumbledore. You Gryffindors swallow all the crap he feeds you without questioning it, see everything in terms of black and white, and are arrogant enough to think only you can decide what is right or wrong."
"That's not-"
"I love you anyway," cut her off Severus, "bloody Gryffindor and all... Mudblood and all. If I had been brainwashed, I wouldn't want to have anything to do with you. But it's you who won't be with me because I'm a nasty Slytherin interested in magic that Dumbledore doesn't approve of."
"It has nothing to do with you being a Slytherin-"
"It has everything to do with me being a Slytherin!" yelled Severus. "Because that's what I am, Lily, and you don't accept me as I am!"
She didn't say anything in response, and when Severus glanced at her he saw that silent tears were sliding down her face. His heart clenched, but he forced himself to look away.
When after a quiet minute Lily suddenly climbed out of the swing, though, Severus panicked.
"Don't go," he implored jumping to his feet after her. "Please."
Lily wiped her face with the back of her hand and shook her head.
"I shouldn't have come," she mumbled. "Nothing has changed, has it? You won't even consider the possibility that you might be making a mistake."
"You are making the mistake, Lily," he argued in frustration. "But maybe if you understood... I wanted to explain, that's why I've been waiting for you. I'm sorry for yelling at you just now, I promise I will keep my temper in check, but please, let me explain. I need... I need you to understand. Please."
Lily looked into his eyes for a long moment, her expression fearful and hesitant, until she finally swallowed and nodded.
"All right," she said. "But not here. If my dad finds us together..."
Severus frowned.
"You told your father that I kissed you?" he asked in disbelief, his stomach fluttering a little in panic. He would never admit to anyone that he was afraid of a Muggle, but without magic he would be just as helpless against Mr. Evans as he was against his father. Not that he thought Lily's father would beat the crap out of him, but he might punch him, and Severus had been too careful directing his father's ire away from his face the last two weeks as to want to risk a black eye from another source now.
"No, he doesn't know," said Lily, visibly shuddering at the idea. "But he has forbidden me to hang out with you. And I was with Tuney when I saw you here, so she must have gone to tell him..."
Casting a glance in the direction of the Evans', Severus didn't waste any more time in leading her away from the playground, noticing with a mixture of anger and smugness the censuring looks thrown their way by a pair of gossiping old ladies. They probably thought he was luring an innocent young girl to some dark alley to defile her, an impression that Severus was all too happy to reinforce by donning his most devious smirk and placing a hand on Lily's lower back as they walked. He regretted his audacity when she tensed at the touch, however, and withdrew his hand as he berated himself for risking the chance she was giving him to explain just to cause some scandal.
While he would have liked to talk to her at their usual spot by the river, Severus knew that that would be the first place Mr. Evans would check when he didn't find them in the playground, so he reluctantly turned right when they reached a crossroad and led her to a less predictable part of town. Lily as usual seemed completely oblivious to the way every single bugger they passed ogled her figure, but Severus didn't fail to glare them all down as he fought the urge to possessively throw an arm around her shoulders. Most people on this side of town were aware of his reputation and wisely left him alone, but their blatant stares at his girl suggested they didn't realize it would be wise of them to keep well away from her too.
Finally they reached a small square that was usually deserted due to its neglected state and lack of entertainment fixtures, and settled on a bench next to a waterless fountain. Severus sat with his body oriented towards her and allowed himself a moment to just drink her in, his eyes memorizing every line and freckle on her face, the involuntary trembling of her lower lip, the throbbing pulse in the hollow of her neck... He swallowed at the thought of kissing her there again, under her ear, one hand buried in her hair while the other took advantage of her distraction to get lazily acquainted with her breasts before continuing travelling down and along her thigh, snaking around when reaching the hem to slip his fingers under her dress...
"I really don't care about you being a Slytherin," said Lily suddenly, her voice brusquely bringing him back to his cold reality. Frustrated, and angry with himself for losing focus when he needed his wits about him, Severus closed his eyes and tried to occlude all sex-related thoughts while simultaneously willing his blood back to his proper head. "And I do love you as you are," continued Lily, apparently not aware of his lapse in attention. "But I feel like I'm losing you, Sev, and I... I'm afraid I won't know you anymore if you keep going this way. It scares me that you might become someone like Mulciber or worse, and I just can't be around you when that happens."
Severus opened his eyes, her words sobering him up completely.
"Lily," he said, and he waited for her to meet his eyes before continuing, so she could see how serious he was, "I would never hurt you. I don't want you to be afraid of me."
"I'm not," she said, her eyes turning back to her fidgeting hands. "But it worries me that messing around with dark magic and people might change you. You're already different than you used to be, colder, harsher, crueller..."
"Well, excuse me if my life is several times crappier than it used to be," snapped Severus. "Not that it ever was less than crappy. I'm sorry for not being a smiling ray of sunshine after all the shit I've gone through!"
Lily had paled.
"I- I didn't mean-"
"The magic and people I'm getting involved with actually make my life better, not worse. Change is good, Lily, I need it, and you should want that for me. I need to gain control over my life, and to become powerful, but that doesn't mean I will ever be a sadistic bastard like Mulciber. If you lose me it will be because you dumped me, not because I've stopped being myself!"
Lily's eyes were again moist, and she seemed afraid to speak. Severus turned away and hunched forward to rest his elbows on his knees, rubbing his temples with his fingers as he took a few calming breaths. That Occlumency rubbish was supposed to help him control his temper, but so far it had proved to be completely useless in that regard. He supposed it had helped him control his murderous impulses during the last month, but in general he felt more emotionally unstable since he had began practicing clearing his mind. It was hard to tell at this point whether he was doing it wrong or if being constantly in pain, famished, and sleep-deprived rendered his brain incapable of performing mental processes of such complexity.
"If you think Mulciber is a sadistic bastard, why are you friends with him?" asked Lily hesitantly after a few silent minutes. "You don't even call him by his first name."
"That's because he's not my friend," said Severus, straightening up and turning to look at her again. "No one is really friends with anyone in Slytherin, Lily, and I'm not stupid enough to think otherwise. You are the only friend I have ever had, and the only person I could ever trust."
He hated the look of pity she gave him at that admission, but the admission in itself didn't bother him. He had never needed nor wanted more than one friend, although it had always bothered him that Lily had other friends besides him.
"Why do you hang out with those people, then?" she asked with a frown. "If you know they can't be trusted, and by the sound of it you don't even like them, why-?"
"Because I'm a Slytherin, obviously," drawled Severus. "People can be useful, Lily, and sometimes it's just wiser to have them on one's side than to have them against one. Do you think I could sleep with both my eyes closed if Mulciber had his evil eye fixed on me? And Avery is not much better, I assure you."
Lily was still frowning, but after considering his words a few seconds she finally sighed.
"I suppose it's safer for you to get along with your roommates," she conceded. "But the others... Wilkes didn't even help you that day by the lake, he was there and-"
"He did help me," corrected her Severus. "Wilkes was the one who stopped Potter from... He stopped him shortly after you left."
"Stopped him from what?" asked Lily sharply. "What else did that asshole do?"
"It doesn't matter, Lily," he said evasively. "Wilkes stepped in just in time."
She sighed.
"I shouldn't have left. I'm a Prefect, I should have stayed and made sure they left you alone."
Severus shook his head.
"You tried to help, and I spat in your face for your trouble," he said wincing at the memory. "It was better that you didn't stay. I really didn't want you there, and if you hadn't left Wilkes wouldn't have intervened..."
Severus didn't think he could have ever recovered if Potter had stripped him naked in front of a crowd. And if Lily had been there to see... that would have broken him. In that terrible scenario he couldn't imagine himself coping with it in any way, and he was certain that he would have jumped off the Astronomy tower that very night.
He swallowed a painful knot in his throat and took as deep a breath as he could manage.
"That day by the lake..." he began slowly, his voice a little rough. "It was the worst day of my life, Lily. At least until I kissed you. You have no idea how it feels... to be humiliated like that. To feel so powerless while everyone laughs at you. That wasn't the first time the blasted Marauders attacked me, but it was the worst, and..." he swallowed again, "I can't take any more of that. I just can't."
"I won't let them harm you again," said Lily fiercely, "I'll hex Potter's balls off if he so much as-"
"I don't want you to defend me, Lily," snapped Severus. "I won't object if you want to hex Potter's balls off, but do it for yourself, not for me."
"But-"
"No! You would only be making things worse, Lily, don't you understand? Your presence would be a dangerous distraction during a confrontation. I would be afraid to hurt you by accident, and extra-humiliated if I they beat me down in front of you and you jumped in my defence again."
"I can't watch them hurt you and do nothing, Severus!" exclaimed Lily shaking her head.
"Please, Lily," he beseeched, "stay out of it. Things with Potter and Black will escalate next year, and I don't want you to get caught in the middle. Besides it would be beyond suspicious if you kept defending me after I called you a Mudblood, or if I jumped in your defence when that fuckwit Potter tried to hex you for interfering with his favourite sport."
Lily sighed.
"Maybe if you told the teachers..."
"Great idea, who should I tell? Let me see..." drawled Severus, "McGonagall, who loves the Marauders and never punishes any Gryffindor? Or Slughorn, who cares more about his club of favourites than about his House? Or perhaps Dumbledore, who threatened me with expulsion for almost getting killed by Black? And I'm sure being labelled as a snitch won't have any negative effects on me, it's not as if my own housemates would think me even more weak and pathetic if I ran to a teacher in fear instead of dealing with my problems like a proper Slytherin."
"You mean sneering disdainfully at everything?" asked Lily dryly. "I don't think that will help against those assholes."
Severus rolled his eyes.
"No, but having someone covering my back will," he said. "Jugson and Wilkes have already arranged for Nott and his mates to look after me next year, so Potter and Black will quickly learn to think thrice before messing with me. As long as no one suspects I don't actually think you're filth, I will be fine."
Lily didn't say anything, but her lips were pursed in disapproval and Severus could almost hear her mental grumbling.
"I know you don't like it," he said carefully, "but calling you a Mudblood that day by the lake improved things for me. I didn't do it on purpose, it just slipped, but thanks to that now my fellow Slytherins are protecting me. And I need that, Lily. I need things to change. I wish I could handle Potter and Black on my own, but when they gang up on me like that sometimes I can't, I... I'm not powerful enough yet."
It was extremely hard to admit his weakness to Lily, to admit to himself that he wasn't strong enough, but he needed her to understand. Lupin had said that she might, and Severus desperately hoped the damned werewolf was right.
Lily let out a defeated sigh.
"I guess I'm glad that someone will back you up," she said grudgingly. "But I don't trust them, Sev. People like Jugson and Nott don't just offer their help to someone out of the kindness of their hearts. They will want something from you in exchange of their protection."
"Obviously," agreed Severus, glad that Lily at least understood that much about Slytherins. "But as long as what they want and what I want coincides, I don't see a problem."
"Well, I see a problem," said Lily sharply, "because what they and you clearly want is for you to become a Death Eater. Or am I wrong?"
"They more likely just want my skills at their service," said Severus. "It's not as if a half-blood like me has much of a chance of being accepted into a blood purist organization."
"But you want that, don't you?" she insisted. "Tell me the truth."
Severus sighed and rubbed his face with his fingers.
"The truth, Lily, is that I can't see that far ahead now," he said tiredly. "Is there talk about the Dark Lord and the Death Eaters in Slytherin? Yes. Does it sound appealing to me? Yes. But right now all I can focus on is surviving long enough to graduate, ideally not spending my NEWT years in Marauder Hell. And if a bunch of rich purebloods want to help me achieve that, I will not turn them down. Because I have no other options."
Lily didn't seem happy with his answer, but mercifully she held off further questioning of his Death Eater aspirations.
"Rich purebloods?" she repeated instead, narrowing her eyes. "Tell me that you haven't accepted any money from them, Severus!"
"Not yet," he said shaking his head. "I will have to borrow some to pay for my school supplies, but the amount I need is nothing for someone like Mulciber, he probably won't even expect me to pay him back."
"If you need money I can-"
"No," cut her off Severus. "I've told you countless times that I don't want your charity!"
"It's not charity! You just said you're willing to borrow from Mulciber, why not from me? Why can't you ever accept anything from me?"
"Because I should be able to give you things!" roared Severus, jumping to his feet and beginning to pace in front of the bench. "I'm not telling you all this for you to pity me, Lily, I just want you to understand! I don't need your help, I can manage on my own, all I want from you is your moral support, and that you won't give me!"
Tears were again rolling down Lily's face. How many times had he yelled at her since he had promised not to yell at her again? Severus was afraid of scaring her off, but he seemed intent on achieving exactly that, what was wrong with him?
"Why do you even need money?" asked Lily softly after a silent minute, drying her tears with her hands for lack of a handkerchief. "I know things have always been... tight, in your house, but your mum always managed before, didn't she?"
Severus stopped pacing and slumped down again on the bench, feeling his frustration deflate as he let out a heavy sigh. He didn't want to talk about his mother, but some part of him wished for Lily to know, to understand this too.
"She..." he swallowed as he traced circles on the palm of his hand. "She left."
"What do you mean?"
He took a deep breath and slowly let it out, determined not to break down like a pathetic kid over this. Not in front of Lily.
"My mother. She... She wasn't home when I returned from Hogwarts." Severus tried to shake away the memory of that moment when he had realized that he had been left behind, but he knew no amount of Occlumency in the world would be enough to compartmentalize that feeling of abandonment. "She left."
"Your mum... left your dad?" asked Lily, her eyes widening in shock and horror. "She left you?"
Severus shrugged and told himself once again that he didn't care. He didn't need her.
"She was the one who somehow convinced my father of setting aside some money to buy my textbooks and robes every year, so without her... He wanted me to take a shift in the mill, but I will be damned if I ever do filthy Muggle work!"
Half their rows over the past month had been over the mill, the other half about food. Severus knew that he was to blame for most of the beatings, for provoking his father over and over again with his denigrating comments about Muggles and for refusing to risk his precious hands doing manual work, but that didn't mean he wasn't going to kill the bloody bastard as soon as he could get away with it.
"I'm sorry," whispered Lily, reaching out to take his hand. He brusquely snatched it away, though.
"I don't want your pity," he hissed. "I just want you to understand why I need to get more involved with 'those Slytherin creeps' you so despise. They can lend me money for my supplies, and with any luck offer me a place to stay during the holidays."
"A place to stay? Do you mean... You're leaving too?"
Severus nodded.
"Without my mother I can't use magic in the house anymore, and my father..." And my father is enjoying the underage restriction. "I just can't stay there with him."
The horror that he had felt when he had realized that he not only had been abandoned by his mother but also left alone in that house with his father and no magic, would forever fuel his nightmares. He had been relatively spared his father's brutality in the past because his mother had taken the brunt of it and because the bastard had been afraid of his son's vindictive freakishness, but with Eileen Prince gone and Tobias Snape aware that Severus couldn't risk using magic without his mother in the house...
"Severus..." whispered Lily seriously. "Did he... has your father hurt you?"
He shook his head.
"No," he lied, "he's all bark and no bite. But it's hell in there, I can't stand it anymore."
She didn't seem convinced, but thankfully she didn't insist.
"Where will you go, then?"
"I'll stay with the Mulcibers for at least a week, then perhaps with Avery or Wilkes the rest of the holidays, I don't know. The only sure thing is that I won't be coming back here, ever."
Silence fell between them. Severus was regretting having snatched away his hand when Lily had tried to touch him. Why did he always do that? He pushed away the things he most wanted, and then he had to live knowing that it was his own fault to be so miserable. Even being aware of his tendency to do that he couldn't stop doing it, at the time it just felt unbearable to be touched or pitied or helped.
After a few minutes Lily let out a loud sigh and she climbed to her feet.
"I don't like any of this," she said in frustration. "There has to be a better way, Sev, someone else that you can ask for help. I heard that there is a special fund in Hogwarts for... for people who can't get their supplies. And maybe they would allow you to stay at school over the holidays. If you wrote to Dumbl-"
"I won't beg Dumbledore for help," spat Severus, standing up too and scowling at her from above. "Nor to anyone else. I'm not a charity case, Lily."
"You're asking for help to Mulciber and the other Slytherins," she pointed out.
"No, I'm not. I'm accepting what they offer, knowing that they want something from me in return. It's not the same."
"And how is that better than accepting help from someone who only wants to help you?"
"Do you really think Dumbledore's help wouldn't come with a price?" scoffed Severus folding his arms. "That old bastard would demand my humiliation and eternal gratefulness, and I will never bow my head to him after the whole business with Lupin and Black."
Lily sighed.
"I understand why you don't trust Dumbledore, Severus, but there still has to be a better option. Mulciber, Avery, Wilkes, Jugson, Nott... they're all blood purists and supporters of You-Know-Who. It's easy for them to lend you money and favours, but it won't be so easy for you to repay them. What if you end up being forced to join You-Know-Who in return?"
"No one could force me to join anyone if I didn't want to," he assured her, feeling tired of arguing about the same thing over and over again. He rubbed his face with his hands and then locked eyes with her. "Look, Lily, I don't expect you to approve of my decisions, but... do you at least understand why I need to do what I'm doing?"
She ran both her hands through her silky hair in a gesture of despair.
"I do. But-"
"Do you think I'm evil?"
"No!"
"Do you think I will turn evil if I keep going this way?"
Lily looked into his eyes for a long moment before letting out another sigh.
"No," she finally said. "But I still couldn't support you if you became a Death Eater. It's not just about you, Sev, it's about the war and all the people that are dying. I couldn't... I couldn't be with someone who is complicit of that."
Severus pursed his lips.
"I'm not complicit of anything yet," he said. "You refuse to be with me because of something that I might do in the future, that's not fair!"
"It's the fact that you want to do it that bothers me, Severus! What it says about you."
"You agreed that it doesn't say anything about my evilness," he reminded her with irritation.
"It does say that you don't care about all those people dying!"
"Of course I don't," he huffed. "Why should I care about anyone besides myself? What has anyone ever done for me? Some of us can't afford the luxury of caring about others, Lily. The only person I would move a finger to stop from dying in this war is you, everyone else can die tomorrow for all I care."
His words seemed to affect Lily deeply. She looked ill, and she was shivering, although the latter might have to do with the fact that the sun had just gone down and it was getting cold. Not having a jacket to wrap around her shoulders, Severus would have liked to at least offer her the warmth of his body, even if a hug would probably be a painful activity with his back in its current state, but he was afraid she would back away again and he didn't think he could handle that kind of pain right now.
"I... I need to think," said Lily after a minute, glancing around. "And I have to go back home before my dad calls the police or something."
Severus didn't want to leave things unresolved, but he could see in her eyes that she wanted to go, and she was cold so he gave a silent nod and proceeded to lead the way to her house, his apprehension and anxiety growing with each step closer they got to the end of what was possibly their last walk together. He kept replaying their conversation in his head and regretting most of the things he had said, fearing that so much honesty had ruined his chance of getting her back. He shouldn't have raised his voice to her, definitely, and he shouldn't have admitted that he needed money and a place to stay. He wished he hadn't said anything about his home life, either, since now he felt awfully vulnerable. Somehow he was sure it would be a lot harder to deal with the pain of her mother's abandonment if Lily turned her back on him knowing about it. Everything would hurt more if he was rejected after having exposed his deepest wounds to her.
They came to a stop half a block away from the Evans residence, but Lily seemed as unwilling to say goodbye as Severus was. She was looking at him with bright, intense eyes, and Severus would have sworn she was deliberately provoking him by biting her lower lip.
When she suddenly stepped forward, however, he immediately retreated a step, forcefully ignoring the wild complaints of both his heart and cock as well as the hurt expression in Lily's eyes.
"I... I want you so much, Lily," he tried to explain, his voice trembling with fear and despair. "I want to hold you, and kiss you, and be with you always. But if you're not sure... If you're going to pull back or break it off again the next time we see each other... I can't go through that again."
A lonely tear ran down her lovely face. Severus knew he would regret it forever if this was the end and he didn't take the opportunity to at least hug her one last time, but he really didn't think he could keep himself together if she stepped away from him again. Knowing Lily she probably had only intended to hug him out of compassion, just as that time after the confrontation with Lupin she had hugged him out of concern or whatever, but Severus wanted more than that. It wasn't that he couldn't hug her without kissing her, he would actually give anything for just a hug, but he needed to know that there would be more hugs to follow, that Lily would not abandon him immediately afterwards.
"I'm sorry," she whispered, "I never meant to hurt you, nor to confuse you. I love you, Sev, and I want to be with you, but I... I don't know. I need time to think."
Severus just nodded. He feared he was making a terrible mistake by giving her time instead of pressuring her to decide now, but he wanted her to be sure, to make up her mind and come to him without any doubts, so he supposed he could wait for her decision. He definitely didn't want her to give him false hope now to then crush him again the next time they met, which would be directly at Hogwarts a month from now.
And there really wasn't anything else that he could do. He had declared his feelings and intentions, and explained away all her objections. If understanding his situation Lily still refused to be with him... then she truly didn't love him as much as he loved her and nothing he said or did would change that. It was that simple. Hard to accept, but simple.
Resisting an overwhelming urge to send all his careful reasoning to hell and just kiss her, Severus finally turned around and walked away.
He glanced backwards when he reached the corner, and saw that Lily was still standing where he had left her, looking forlorn with her arms wrapped around her as if to hold herself together. Severus paused, his heart longing to go back to her, but he would never know if his will would have crumbled or held steady because just then an angry shout reverberated through the neighbourhood.
Severus scowled at Lily's father from a distance while she hurried back to the house, suddenly enraged at the bloody Muggle for daring to interfere between them. What if Lily allowed herself to be influenced by all the crap that Mr. Evans had to say about Severus? She had never listened to Petunia, but her father was another matter. As if it weren't hard enough to persuade her without her entire family actively trying to turn her against him too!
He stalked away once they had disappeared into the house, anger coursing through him at the injustice of it all. It wasn't his fault that he had been born in a shit hole, nor that his father was a worthless drunk, nor that his mother had never been able to afford better clothes. It wasn't his fault that the Princes didn't want him, that his father hated him —well, at this point probably it was, but Severus hadn't done anything to earn his hate as a child—, that his mother had left him behind. None of it was his bloody fault, and yet everyone judged him, and even Lily rejected him for doing whatever he could to survive and thrive. It wasn't fair!
His fury had reached a boiling point when a few blocks from the river he crossed paths with one of the cocksure assholes that had earlier dared to leer at Lily while completely dismissing Severus as a threat with a disdainful glance over. Without thinking twice he checked that there were no witnesses around and, grabbing the filthy Muggle by the throat, he pushed him into an alley.