1
On the day that Lily had received her Hogwarts letter that fine winter day when they had just recently turned eleven, she had gone running straight to him, jumping on him and throwing her arms tightly around his neck, almost knocking them both over to the ground.
He'd never been what somebody would call to be the athletic type (and let's be honest, never would be even if he'd tried), and it wasn't really much of a surprise that he had a very hard time trying to support her weight when it was suddenly thrown on him out of nowhere while he was having a very nice day reading at the local park (and where was the book he was reading now, he must've thrown it somewhere in the surprise).
"Sev — Sev, I got the letter!" Lily giggled in the delight, but he simply found himself wishing that she wouldn't move so much, otherwise they were going to fall down. Maybe he should indeed take Tunia's advice (on rare occasions when Tunia wasn't busy snarling at him and being just completely disagreeable, she was a very pleasant company to hang out with, and the advice she usually gave were always useful in some sort of a way) and do some exercises on his free time, as it wasn't like he was busy with the school anyway. "We are going to Hogwarts!"
It wasn't like he'd ever gone to a school like Tunia and Lily. He'd mostly been home taught by his mother, on the rare occasions that she did have the time to spare some time to him, and not busy arguing with his father. Maybe he should wait around until Tunia was in a pleasant mood to ask her about any exercise books that she may have.
Lily giggled again, throwing her head back, and it was at that moment that Severus had finally lost his balance like he feared he would, and they both fell down to the ground with a very loud thud.
Lily cried out in the pain, but she was still laughing like a madwoman.
Sometimes, Severus thought, he really did not understand her.
He shook his head, laughter bursting down his own throat. "We are going to Hogwarts," He finally let out, and once he said them, he found the words quite hard to believe. He was finally escaping from the hellhole that was his own home, which he could only do previously when he was at Lily's.
He felt safe there the way that he wasn't at his own house, surrounded by the people that though may not show it at times, still cared for his well-being. Lily's father taught him how to fish, showed him all the tactics and strategies one could use to catch a fish, though Severus wasn't very good at it. Lily's mother always cooked the food that he liked whenever he went to stay there, and he'd started to consider her to be the mother that his own couldn't afford to be for him. And Tunia, though usually unpleasant to be around, going around snarling about filthy freaks and weirdos, there were times that he did like to spend time with her.
It was her who'd explained to him all about the muggle history, starting from the Trojan wars to WW2, adding a few major details that anybody else would miss. It was Tunia who had protected him from the muggle boys in their small town, who'd told him that he shouldn't just stand around waiting to be bullied, and should start learning how to stand up for himself.
"Lily may not always be there to save your day, Severus." She had told him, dramatically swaying her long brown hair over her shoulder, bearing her blue eyes down at him, "You should learn how to protect yourself." And she was right. It would be foolish to think that Lily would always be there to save him.
"I know." He'd told her then, "I am sorry."
"Stop saying you are sorry. I am not looking for an apology, you idiot." She'd kneeled down in front of him. "All I am saying is, you need to find who you are without Lily. I know my sister. She is amazing and fun, and you would have to be blind to not adore her. But I also know what it's like to be in her shadow, to be constantly overlooked in the favor of my perfect little sister who simply can do no wrong. Don't let yourself be in her shadow, Severus. It isn't the most pleasant feeling in the world, and you deserve better than that."
Beside him, Lily tried to pull him up, grinning widely, drawing him back to the reality, "Come on, they are throwing a birthday party for me." She informed him, "And I want you to be there."
He smiled, and let himself be dragged to her house.
2
Once they'd started Hogwarts, it did not take Lily very long to make friends, but then again he'd never doubted that she would. She'd always been the more social one out of the two of them, with her ability to shift a contestation into the way she wanted it to, instead of standing still like an idiot like he often did, struggling what to say and worrying needlessly whether he'd said the wrong thing. It was why he had made a decision a long time ago that as long as he had Lily with him, he would be fine, but of course, just like Tunia had said, she wasn't always with him. It wasn't that she suddenly decided to abandon him in the favor of her new friends — no, nothing like that happened, as a matter of fact, Lily tried to uselessly befriend those new friends of hers, though he was afraid that he just did not know what to talk with them.
They weren't interested in the arts of potions like he was, simply considering it another subject they must endure though, and he didn't even know where to start with when they started going about fashion and design.
Dorcas tried, though, more than Alice did, and he didn't mean anything negative about the small blonde when he said that. The fact was, Alice Fawley with all of her pureblood heritage and fancy handbags that seemed to change every time he saw her, just didn't seem able to understand him, or like him for that matter, though he supposed it did make some sort of sense.
Alice grew up and was raised with people like Narcissa Black and Zoë Zabini, and just because she started dating Francis Longbottom did not mean she suddenly gained a newfound respect for people who lived differently than she was used to. He must seem so strange, he thought, in the contrast to the people that she knew. She did have a good heart though, he could see that. She simply did not seem to know what to make of him, and he didn't blame her, not really.
He didn't know what to make of himself when he looked in the mirror sometimes, didn't know what it was that he was seeing there in his own reflection, a boy or a strange creature that he did not understand.
Dorcas, on the other hand, tried more than he probably would have done in her place. She invited him to things, even when there was no Lily in the sight, and often he did feel quite awful when he refused her many offers. But still, she treated him just like she always did, with a remarkable kindness that he'd only reserved from Lily's family before. But maybe it had more to do with her recognizing the same type of brokenness that he knew she was in herself when she looked at him than a genuine kindness or a pity. Only the broken recognized another broken— that was the way about the world. He thought she saw him bare, all those scars and wounds laid down for her to see with no secrets between the two of them, and the thought made him feel honestly horrified.
He didn't think he would want anyone else but Lily, and maybe Tunia to see him like that.
So, if he tried to avoid her more than he should have, he didn't think anybody would blame him.
And they did not.
3
He was twelve when he'd met Evan and Ada Rosier, who were as alike as they were different, the way he imagined all the twins were, though frankly speaking, he didn't know enough twins to say for certain that was the way it really was.
Ada was always confident, though unlike her brother, it wasn't a blind arrogance. She was simply confident in her own abilities and strength, and out of the two of them, he thought it was Ada that you should fear the most. Unlike Evan who more than often did not calculate things as he should have beforehand, Ada was very careful, maybe even too careful, and if you told her a secret in a confidence, the chance was that she may use that secret against you.
It was probably why even though he did like her, he could never feel safe around her. Merlin knew how many of his secrets that she knew, and he wasn't in any hurry to find out either.
Evan, on the other hand, was more social than his twin sister, and was more prone to rushing into things that he shouldn't rush into, important decisions that needed a throughout thinking and more pondering than the effort he gave to those decisions. It was why Ada often joked that he would have made a very fine Gryffindor, for surely the only reason he was even sorted into their house was because of his pure blood and heritage.
"Stop fucking around, Ada." He would always say, with a roll of his eyes, to which Ada would merely smile cheekily, shrugging her shoulders in a way that appeared more elegant than it probably should be.
It wasn't just the twins that he met that day, though. Trailing after them was Louis Wilkes, their half-brother that they always treated like some sort of servant than a brother, though Ada certainly had more empathy towards the boy than her twin brother.
It hurt him to see him being treated like that, but he also couldn't afford to lose the twins' good side either, and taking Wilkes' side would certainly do just that.
He couldn't afford to lose what connections he did have, especially when he was already in a tight spot with his housemates because of his friendship with Lily. If he hoped to keep his friendship with her, he needed good connections that would be able to protect him from the rest of their housemates, and the twins were as good of a bet as any, even if it would mean he would have to sacrifice his conscience to do it.
He needed them more than they needed him, and that was the sad truth of it.
4
James Potter was a major annoyance. He wished he would just go away already, and leave him alone. Despite what the other boy believed, he didn't have any sort of romantic feelings for Lily, and his feelings were purely platonic.
He didn't even think that he was capable of having them for anyone sometimes, that his childhood fucked him up too much for him to be able to experience that with anybody.
Not that there was anything wrong with Lily. Of course not. If he were to crush on anyone, Lily would have made a great choice. She knew him better than anyone in the whole world, and never once tried to judge him for it. But the fact was that he simply did not feel that way about her.
When he thought of Lily, he saw her like sunshine shining bright in the sky, like a rainbow that was too beautiful for a human mind to be able to fully comprehend, nobody would be able to measure up to what Lily was to him. Though sometimes, during times like these, he thought Tunia was right when she'd told him that he put her on a high pedestal that she did not deserve. However, he couldn't help it. After all, for the lack of better words, Lily had saved him from a life full of misery and pain, and brought a ray of sunshine to his life, giving him a whole new purpose to live.
"That's not the way a friendship works, Severus," Petunia had told him once, shaking her head disappointingly, but like she hadn't expected anything less. "Continue doing that, and you will lose her."
Maybe, but like an addict, he didn't know how to quit.
5
To Severus,
I've heard what happened from Lily.
You have my apologies. But it was bound to happen with your unhealthy worship of her being.
Lily would forgive you soon enough. You mean far too much to her for her to not forgive. It may take several years, but eventually, she will.
In meantime, try to figure out who you are without her. Think of it as a trust exercise.
P.S. You still owe me twenty pounds, you little fucker.
Petunia
6
He cannot sleep.
His mind is far too clouded, filled with worries and unnecessary imaginations of countless possibilities that could still happen any day now to be able to get a wink. He'd turned in his bed until it was well over midnight when he'd decided that he simply wasn't getting any sleep tonight.
And it was all Evan's fault. His fault that he was up doing an assignment instead of sleeping like he was supposed to. It was his fault that he now had an unwanted eye on him, watching his every move. His fault that he was now in this very undesirable situation, forced to watch in a wait until the deadline Lestrange gave him to think things through expired, until he would eventually find himself as dead as those muggles on the street, Lestrange laughing over his dead body. It was all his freaking fault that his life was now going to be ruined, every bit of future plans he had shattered right in front of his eyes to the dust.
After school, he'd planned to travel around the world, research different potion types that were scattered around the globe. He wanted to meet a nice girl, and marry her, have the family he'd always desired ever since he was a boy. He wanted to be friends with Lily again, be able to talk to her like he used to, and if he were to join them, that would surely be an impossible thing to do.
Lily would never forgive him for joining them.
So, it was clear to him that he must find a way out of this very unfortunate situation, find some way out that didn't involve going to Dumbledore. Of course, he knew it was a possibility, one Lily surely would offer to him if she knew anything of his situation, but not one any self-respecting Slytherin was willing to take.
Accept the help of the one who'd always made his distaste of their house painfully clear, who would surely only use them and throw them away when they grew out of their use? Forget about it. He would sooner die than fall that low.
However, as for the moment, he simply didn't know what to do.
It was frustrating.
Maybe he should just die already. Somebody shoot him, please.
It would certainly be easier than dealing with this.
There was a sudden voice in the common room, somebody cursing in the pain, and when he'd turned his attention towards the source of the noise, it was Black who had bumped over a broom that somebody had carelessly left laying on the ground, though he did manage to regain his composure in the time, which saved him from having to fall down to the ground.
"Snape," Dark eyes met his own across the common room, and there was a hint of amusement in his expression when he saw him there at the table, doing an assignment, his eyebrows arching to the side of his head. "Fancy meeting you here." His mouth twisted into an almost smile (yet another of their differences, Sirius Black never smiled, only grinned or smirked, and usually he found those expressions to be rather distasteful and quite cruel when directed at him), while he sat himself down into one of the couches around the fireplace. "Funny, I did not peg you for a scholar."
He merely shrugged in the response, "Well, you don't know me, so." Not that Black was the type to care to get to know somebody. He always got the feeling that he was too distrustful for that, though you probably wouldn't be able to tell just by looking at him.
"Fair enough," He leaned back against his seat, seeming to be thinking about something, "How do you feel about playing a game of cards?"
He blinked at him once, feeling confused at the sudden proposal. "Alright," He must be planning something, but to refuse would arise more suspicions, and suspicion from Black was the last thing he needed right now. "What game?"
Regulus Black grinned at him wickedly, reminding him all too much about his brother at that moment that a sudden surge of fear rushed down his veins, the unwanted memories of the past running through his mind despite his best efforts to keep them away, locked away far away from the center of his mind. Memories including Black's brother and those hooligans that he called his best friends weren't exactly what one would describe to be pleasant. "How do you feel about Exploding Snap?"
7
On Tuesday morning, Lily received a mysterious letter after she'd returned to her room from finishing the classes. The letter was written in careful, elegant letters, unlike any writing she'd ever seen before. It read:
Lily,
Go check on your friend.
I don't know what's wrong, but Snape appeared to be very troubled last night.
I think what he needs most right now is a friend.
Go be that friend.
R
8
Lily sat down beside him on the bench, her heart heaving in her chest tightly, not really knowing how to even begin telling him the things she wanted to say, the countless things that she had run in her mind beforehand immediately dying on her tongue from the nerves. "You look thinner," Lily noted and wanted to slam herself in the face for having decided that was the first thing she would say upon meeting him after years of complete silence, though of course, for him it hadn't been as long. "Have you been eating well?"
He shrugged. "Good enough," He looked at her worryingly, like he feared she was going to go snapping on him any minute now, and all the more Lily hated herself for how she'd treated him for the past decade, and he did not even know half of how badly she had done him wrong. She couldn't use her ongoing issues to excuse away her actions, not really. But what she could do was to accept that she had done wrong by him, and make a vow to be a better friend than she had been in the past. "Why are you here, Lily?"
"A tiny bird told me that you appeared to be in quite of a pickle." Lily began, smiling pleasantly at him. "And I wanted to talk to you for a while, only I didn't know what to say, or how to even begin of approaching you. There are so many things I want to say, to tell you, but first things first, would you be able to tell me what's been troubling you?"
Severus shook his head with a deep sigh. "No," He informed her with a cracking voice. "I — I can't."
But Lily understood anyway. "I am sorry," She said, moving her arms to hug him around his shoulders. He seemed to have gotten taller in the past few weeks. "I promise that we'll think of a way to get you out of that situation."
"You can't promise that."
Lily shook her head, smiling bitterly at him. "No, I can't." She agreed. "But I can try anyway." And then she hugged him even tighter around the shoulders, leaning onto him with the side of her head.
She had to find a way to save him from that brisk future that he'd led in that life, to save him from a life of imprisonment and slavery. They may not have gotten along in a while, but regardless of what happened between them now, it wasn't a future she wanted for her childhood friend.
She would find a way to save him or die trying.
9
"Crucio." Bellatrix Lestrange whispered with a cruel smile that seemed to appear so odd on her otherwise pretty face, and Richard Weasley shoved down the scream of a pain that threatened to be let out of his throat at the contact. He may have lost the duel, but he would die before he would give her the satisfaction of winning. "Crucio."
There was no doubt in his mind that he would die tonight, and he struggled to remember if he'd hugged Arthur properly before he'd gone off on a mission last week.
He had a bad feeling that he did not.
If only he had known that it would be the last time he would ever see his little brother, he would have hugged him as tightly as he could while he still had the chance, but alas, he did not, and he feared the regret would stay with him long after his death. "Crucio." Finally, unable to take it any longer, he screamed, and Bellatrix Lestrange cried out manically in the response.
"Bellatrix, would you cease this childish behavior?" drawled Augustus Rookwood, and though he couldn't see the expression on his face, as he was laying down on the ground, he had a feeling that he wasn't looking at her pleasantly. "It is not a game, you know."
Bellatrix Lestrange drew back her wand for a second, blinking her eyes at the taller wizard, the wolfish grin never leaving her expression for one second. "Well, aren't you rather naïve, my Lord Rookwood?" She asked him, toying with the tip of her own wand, "Everything is a game if you take the mind to make it one, my Lord." The honorifics that would sound polite and appropriate in anybody else, sounded more like a mockery when it came out of her mouth, though maybe that was the way she had expected it to sound.
Richard dared not to breathe. Even if his whole body ached all over, he wasn't willing to take the risk of her trying to cast that accursed spell on him again.
He didn't think his body would be able to handle one more of that same spell. He may just die before then.
"We do not have a time for this, Bellatrix." Rookwood snapped in a frustration, "The dark lord is waiting for us."
"I am certain that the dark lord wouldn't mind," Bellatrix shrugged, shifting her wand back at his throat once again, "Now, what spell shall I use? I should be creative, don't you think, my lord? My father always says that I am rather clever when I want to be, and as fond I am of the torture spell, I am getting quite bored of it."
"Bellatrix," Rookwood warned, "Enough is enough. We do not have the time to be fooling around."
Bellatrix sighed disappointingly at him. "You are so boring!" She complained. "Where is my husband?"
"I've told you, he is dealing with the new recruitments." From the way he sounded, it seemed like a conversation they've had many times before today. "When he asked you to come with him, you've refused, remember?"
"Well, it's not my fault that Rod wanted to do something as dull and boresome as recruiting," She scoffed her nose in a disdain, rolling her eyes. "Oh well, tell him I want him to come home to me as soon as he can if you see him, will you?"
"Bellatrix, how many times do I have to tell you? I am not a messenger. If you want to forward a message to him, go write a letter." Bellatrix Lestrange waved a hand away, as if it wasn't an important matter. "We need to hurry up and find our spy, Bellatrix, you know the entire reason we've even gone out in the first place, in the case you somehow forgot. So, hurry up, and deal with him. We do not have the time to be wasting, and he may just get leave because he got tired of waiting for us."
Bellatrix sighed childishly, seeming to be pouting. "Very well," She said. "Until the next time then," She stared at him, brown eyes that seemed to pierce through his very soul, wand pointing at the crook of his neck, making it quite impossible to breathe. "Avada Kedavra."