The Dream House
Severus didn't want to read the letter the post owl had delivered that morning. Letters from home always brought bad news. As he trudged toward their meeting place at the edge of the Forbidden Forest, his dark eyes scanned over his name written in his mother's distinctive elegant script. Reluctantly, he opened the folded parchment, noting how it smelt like his father's cigarette smoke. Its contents were as he expected: short and to the point. His mother always wrote in such a way that he could tell she was trying to not worry him. As if he couldn't hear everything she wasn't saying in the carefully chosen words she'd put to paper, didn't know what she was hiding from him. He sighed, folding the stained parchment and shoving it into his school robes as he dropped into the pile of leaves next to his best friend.
Lily leaned up on her elbow, glancing over him. "Was that letter from your mum?"
"Yeah." Severus pushed his fingers through his hair at his scalp. He debated telling her the contents of the letter; he knew she wouldn't ask until he told her about it. "She wanted to tell me to stay here for the Christmas holidays," he said simply, hoping she would understand what that meant and not make him spell out the reason his mother wanted him to stay.
"Is your da drinking again?" she asked, her hand settling his knee.
He glanced down at her hand and nodded, huffing out a breath of air. He pulled off his scarf; it wasn't quite cold enough for it. "He lost on the rugby match, she said. She didn't say he was drinking, but he always drinks more when he loses a lot of money." Severus folded the scarf over his hand, trying not to think of all the times this had happened before.
"I wish your da weren't so mean," Lily confessed, dropping back into the leaves, her hand retreating from his lap to tuck behind her head.
"It won't matter soon enough," Severus declared, tucking the scarf under his head as he laid back in the leaves next to her. "I'll work hard and have enough money to take mum and get us a wizarding house where he can't find us."
"I'll help!" she exclaimed, turning on her side to look at him. "We can be roommates, and do magic as much as we like. We'll be adults, and no one will call us freaks for our magic."
He heard how her voice dropped toward the end, knowing immediately who Lily was talking about. There was only one person who called her a freak. He turned on his side, propping his head up on his hand. "Petunia still mad?"
"She won't talk to me." Lily frowned, gazing down at the red, russet, and orange leaves on the ground between them. Pinching one between her fingers, she swept it across the ground.
Petunia Evans was the reason that Severus was thankful he'd never had the burden of siblings. She knew exactly how to hurt Lily, how to make her cry. It always infuriated him that a simple, insipid girl like her could make his vibrant best friend so unhappy. Severus shook his head against his hand. "People like her are jealous. You are special, and she isn't."
"I suppose," she whispered forlornly.
Severus suspected his words were meaningless in the wake of Petunia's cruel judgement..
"Do you want me to stay with you for Christmas?" Lily looked up from the leaf she was sweeping the ground with, her green eyes full of concern. "I don't want you to be alone."
Being alone for the holidays was something he wasn't looking forward to. He expected it, but that didn't mean he wanted it. Having Lily with him would make the dreary and unpleasant time far more enjoyable. And he would be infinitely kinder to her than Petunia, who would likely make her miserable all of the hols. "I would like you to."
"Yeah," she smiled. "We'll stay together."
Smiling wasn't something he did often—he was incredibly aware of his crooked yellow teeth—and usually it was only ever with Lily, but that did not stop him from breaking into a grin when she agreed.
Her eyes widened, the way she did when she had an idea. "We can practice our summoning spells!"
"And get ahead on potions," Severus added. If they could get ahead, he could make more money tutoring his classmates. He already spent his evenings checking over the potions essays of three first years. "Maybe if you ask him, Slughorn will let us use a lab."
"I'll ask him." Lily laughed, rolling her eyes at him, "as long as you promise you won't do schoolwork all holiday."
Pondering what they could do over the holiday break, he thought about the fact that they now were free to go into the village. Maybe the professors would let the students who stayed go again. He'd like to get her a present if she was going to stay with him. "They might let us take a special Hogsmeade trip. I have some money from tutoring, we could get some sweets and camp out in the Astronomy Tower."
It wouldn't be the first time they took their duvets and tucked into a corner to avoid the world. Severus had spent a long time learning every hiding place he could to avoid Potter and his gang, as well as get time to himself. He didn't like spending time with other students—unless it was Lily. He didn't have many friends in his house, and her Gryffindor friends were not keen on him; Marlene McKinnon, Dorcas Meadows, and Mary McDonald all treated him like a nuisance.
Lily brought him from his thoughts as she sat up, clapping her hands in excitement. "We have to go sledging too! After it snows. Down the hill by the lake."
"Alright," he agreed. Sledging wasn't his favorite activity, but he knew it would make her happy.
She collapsed back into the leaves, making some blow over his chest. He brushed them off, turning to look up at the canopy of the trees. Some leaves were still holding on, not yet dropped in the chilly fall winds. The blue sky could be seen through openings in the branches, and Severus thought the beams of sunlight filtering through the leaves made it look like fire. They sat there for a long while in silence, gazing up into the trees and enjoying the peace that their private spot provided.
"Severus?" Lily's voice was pensive and quiet.
"Hmm?" he asked, turning to her with an arched eyebrow.
Lily wasn't looking at him, her green eyes focused on the scene above them. Her lips were curved down as she lay, her bright red hair blending in with the fallen leaves. "When you move away with your mum, you won't forget about me, right?"
"I will never forget about you, Lily," Severus admitted, taken aback. He couldn't imagine not having her in his life. She was his best friend, the only person other than his mother who really cared about him and whom he cared about. How could she ever believe he would forget about her? Severus thought about the fact that she'd just said that they would live together and rolled his eyes. "Besides, I thought you were going to be my roommate."
"That's right," Lily's frown broke for a smile, and she glanced at him. "Where will you work?"
He had it all planned out: Severus wanted to be a Potions Master, he wanted to spend his whole life working with cauldrons and herbs, improving things he'd already noticed were wrong. He knew how he was going to do it and where he wanted to start. "I want to work for the apothecary in Diagon. I'll become a master potioneer and then I can buy everything. What about you?"
"I want to work at Gringotts with the Goblins," Lily giggled. "Do you think I could be a Curse-Breaker?"
"Of course," he told her. She was a powerful witch, positively as powerful as he was. If she wanted to break curses for a living, he was sure she could do it. She already had high marks in Defense Against the Dark Arts, and her charms work was astounding. Professor Flitwick had told her she'd done the best cheering charm he'd seen in his entire career.
"What kind of house do you want?" she asked, turning back up to the leaves.
Severus squinted his eyes, trying to imagine the house he would get. One where he could keep his mum safe, where they would never need anything again. "We have to get a big enough house for you, me, and my mum. With a garden, so my mum can have as many plants and flowers as she wants." Severus' mother always mentioned how much she would love to have a garden in the back of the house.
"I can help her garden! Mum always has me helping in her rose garden," Lily agreed.
Severus' cheeks rounded with a closed-lip smile. "We can grow some of our potions ingredients too. I'll get a shed as a lab, so I can experiment."
"Can we paint it yellow?" she asked.
It was an odd question, and he scoffed at the idea. "Why? You aren't a Hufflepuff, neither am I. And my mum was a Slytherin."
"Yellow is a cheerful color," Lily countered happily, "and I want you and your mum to live in a happy house. And it would look so pretty with green rose bushes in front of it too."
"Alright, we can paint it yellow," he agreed. Lily had a point, and he considered his mother would love to have a house different from the drab grey brick of their house on Spinner's End. Severus would live with it for that reason alone. "Not the inside. Only the outside will be yellow."
"What about the inside? What do you imagine," she questioned dreamily.
Severus glanced over and her eyes were closed, her lips curved in a smile. He knew from her expression that she was imagining it in her mind, like she used to when he told her what he knew about Hogwarts when they were young. Leaning his head against his scarf, he closed his eyes, bringing up what he imagined his future house would be like.
Immediately he thought of the smell of bread, mince pies, and warm cider. They would never be hungry, and it would always be warm in the house. "It will have a kitchen full of food, that can cook whatever we want. And water that comes into the house, no more pump outside. Mum will never have to pump bathwater again," Severus described, thinking of how heavy the water that had to be brought in and boiled for a bath was. Never again would he have to watch her struggle, while his father sat there uselessly yelling at her for being so slow. Never would he have to bathe in secondhand bath water because he refused to let his mother fetch more. He wasn't allowed to touch the pump, his father was adamant that it was a woman's job.
"We can put up lace curtains in the sitting room, like my mum has. I bet your mum would love it," Lily added softly.
A breeze brew across them, stirring up the leaves and shaking a few more loose from the tree, causing them to land on the two students lying on the ground.
He nodded, even though he knew she wasn't looking. "Lace curtains, soft chairs, clean floors. We'd get her a house-elf to help while we're at work. She'd never have to do the wash again." If Severus had his way, his mother would never have to lift a finger again for grueling housework.
"Can my parents visit us in our house, Severus?"
The idea of a grand dinner sprung into his mind. He would sit at the head of the table and invite everyone to start eating. Petunia would sit there sour faced, unable to say anything about Lily in her own house because she didn't have one yet. It would feel like holidays were supposed to feel. He wanted that so desperately, to know what a family gathering was like where everyone wasn't yelling or screaming. Instead, they would talk about work, the garden, and how pleased they were with the house. "We will have them over for Christmas, and we can cook a big feast, and my mum will be so proud to have people in the house. Your mum and mine can talk about flowers, and your da can tell us about his work, and we can tell him about ours."
He heard a contented sigh from her.
"I would make pudding with my mom in our kitchen," she added. "Will we have a library to read in, with books all the way to the ceiling?"
"Of course," Severus answered as if it were an absurd question. No house he ever lived in would be without a library. He would collect all the books he could, until there was no room for any more on the shelves. They would be his—not the library's, not borrowed books from the school, and not second hand. His own books that he didn't have to hide from anyone. "Mum can read whenever she wants in there, and not have to hide her books in the laundry. We can all sit in the library and listen to the wireless with tea in fine china with no chips."
"We're going to make your mom happy," Lily chimed, exhaling deeply. "We will all be so cheerful, and we won't ever have to worry again." She paused.
Severus heard her sitting up and opened his eyes as she put her hand on his chest.
"No one will hurt you or your mom again," she stated firmly, her green eyes hardened with seriousness. It was the expression she had when she was determined to get a spell correct. Or when he was being bullied and she stood up for him.
Right now it was only a dream, something he planned for and worked for, but no one else had ever taken it seriously before. No one ever expected Severus would make enough money to get a house and move his mother away. At least, no one in Cokeworth did. Except for Lily.
"You really want to do this, don't you?" he let the words tumble from him, surprised at the level of her conviction.
"I promise Severus, we will do this." She grabbed a hold of his hand, shaking it emphatically in hers as she spoke. "We have to get through four more years after this year, and then we can move your mum away from Cokeworth, and you'll never have to go back."
Something about the way she said it made his chest feel strange and tight. Severus sat up, putting his hand over hers as he stared at her in awe. "And we'll be together?"
The tolling of a bell boomed over the grounds; it was time for classes to switch over and their free period was over.
"Always," Lily agreed, smiling at him. "Now, let's go before we're late to Transfiguration."