Second Chances

Lily now resonates the red and golden, and he resonates the green and silver. But together they are still the colours of Christmas.

Lily and Severus are inseparable, but there is a line, a line he cannot ignore. He is one one side of the line, and on the other side are Marlene McKinnon, Remus Lupin, Alice Fortescue, Frank Longbottom and Mary MacDonald. Lily claims that though they are all her friends, he is her best friend. But Mckinnon is a smart-mouth, Lupin is now best friends with Potter and Black, Fortescue and Longbottom often look at him sympathetically, and MacDonald always makes her disdain for him plenty clear. They are five people who look down upon him, five voices of reason telling her not to be friends with him, five individuals not worth Lily's time.

His own housemates are quite alright, at least in theory, he relates to them. Signum Nott, Caleb Mulciber, and Grant Avery sit with him for lunch and mock the ignorance of all the first year muggleborns. They often discuss the advantages of being from pure blood families, and how it is only natural for them to have more magical power and prowess than these encroachers. A failed attempt at obliviating a muggleborn Hufflepuff in Herbology, makes them realise it's easier to hex the new students than to hex someone of their own year.

Narcissa Black is surprisingly quite the conversationalist when she isn't being vain. She has strong values about family ties and blood loyalty. She is also more disciplined and quieter than the rest. She shares stories with him about the greatness of her ancestors and their struggle to save the the wizarding world - stories she has grown up listening to. Severus cannot help but wonder what went wrong with Sirius.

By new year of 1973, he is quite familiar with the terms "mudblood" and "blood traitors", they are the vernacular in the dungeons. He internally deliberates why Mary Macdonald is a mudblood to him and Lily Evans is a muggleborn. He reasons that every cell in Lily's body is magical, while MacDonald isn't half the witch she is.

Its on an afternoon in March, when he is on his way to the Library to meet Lily right after charms, that he sees them.

Potter and Black, along with their two new sidekicks, Peter Pettrigrew and Remus Lupin, are using the tickling charm on two second year Ravenclaw girls, in the third floor corridor. Really it is only Potter and Black with their wands out, Pettigrew is just laughing hard, leaning against the portrait of the screaming banshee and Lupin is rearranging a bunch of parchments the girls had probably dropped, on falling pray to them. Severus recognizes one of them as the muggleborn Nott had been questioning regarding her lineage the other day.

He decides to pass them quietly, but not before making sure some of the parchments zoom out of Lupin's frail hands and hit Potter smack in the face. All four quit paying attention to the two girls and whip around to face him. The minute Potter sees him, his eyes rage with mischief.

"Are you upset we haven't sent you any gifts lately Snivellus?" Potter smirks.

"Perhaps Snivellus likes to fall on our feet and worship us as Lords" Black snickers pointing his wand towards him.

Severus hears Lupin's exasperated sigh, and decides that if he is going to gain an upper hand in the fight that is about to ensue, his best bet is Lupin, who looks like he has just come from the hospital wing. He swiftly points his own wand towards Lupin and yells 'incarcerous'. A thick rope snakes out of his wand and ties Lupin's legs, causing him to fall on his knees. Potter and Black, who were expecting the attack on themselves, look taken aback. Pettigrew rushes to Lupin's side, the two Ravenclaws are long gone.

"Too scared to pick fights with us, were you snivellus?" Black sneers. He looks genuinely angered, serves him right.

"I'm braver than you lot, jinxing good for nothing mudbloods." Severus spits back.

"Take that word back!" Potter bellows and fires a stinging jinx so fast, Severus is unable to block it. Back on his feet, he send a bat bogey hex Potter's way, but Black lands him on the floor again. Both their wands point at him, and he almost closes his eyes accepting defeat, when a spell from behind him, throws them flying to the wall. He catches sight of Lily's flaming red hair, right after he hears her footsteps stomping towards them.

"Why must you make trouble all the time?" Her voice is so calm, she almost sounds dangerous. All four look unhappy to see her there. They don't want to fight her, their expressions make that clear to Severus.

"Listen Red we..." Black begins, but Lily cuts him off

"I don't want to hear a thing, there are four of you hovering over one person. In what universe is this a fair fight? Moreover, why is there a fight at all?"

"Don't question us like you're our mother," Potter says harshly. "And for the record, only two of us had our wands pointed at him, Pete and Remus didn't do anything. For that matter, neither did we. If you'd just give us a chance to explain, you'll know who to defend and who to question."

"I'm sure you didn't do anything," she gives Remus a cursory, but disappointed glance before continuing, "just like you didn't do anything the day you drenched my robes in pumpkin juice, or the day you put extra beetle eyes in Sev's potion, making it explode, or the day you hid all of Alice's cauldrons on the Astronomy Tower. I'm sure you'll have an explanation, you always do. But you don't deserve a chance to explain."

For a minute they are all silent, but soon enough Potter catches hold of a different line of argument and retorts, "Evans, don't meddle in matters you don't know anything of."

"I have seen enough," she says through gritted teeth, taking one step towards him.

"Well clearly you don't know the way your boyfriend's filthy mouth runs, so you haven't heard enough." Potter takes a step closer as well.

They are both seething at each other, and for a moment, when Potter's wand hand twitches, Severus is sure Potter will hex her. But he only shoves his wand back inside his robe.

"The fact that you have to blame others to excuse your own misbehaviour is plainly pathetic" Lily says, looking straight into his eyes.

"The fact that you'll side with scum, even though you have great friends otherwise is pathetic"

At this, Lily loses her temper, "I'd be friends with the whole of slytherin before I'd ever be friends with you." She points her wand to his chest and murmers the toe nail growing hex.

She turns around and walks away, Potter only stares after her.

None of the notorious lot say anything, except for Lupin who quickly mutters the counter-jinx for Potter. Severus and Lily leave for the library. For some reason, Severus knows they wouldn't use a spell on them, even with their backs turned. They never duel with Gryffindors, they only pull pranks on them or bully them. That's probably why Potter put his wand away, when Lily started arguing with him. Their ironical house loyalty in this matter is laughable.

As they sit in the library, quietly working on the transfiguration essay, he realizes Lily is looking at him from the corner of her eye. The second he raises his head, she goes back to fully focusing on her essay.

Another fifteen minutes pass before she speaks so softly that he almost doesn't hear her, "Sev". She is biting her lower lip, the way she does whenever she is contemplating something. He thinks she isn't going to continue,and she almost doesn't, but then, "Don't ever use that word again." His heart skips a beat. He thought she hadn't heard him. He is always so careful of what he is saying around her. He nods his head slightly, but he is unable to look at her. Her voice had been void of any emotion, it wasn't a plea, it wasn't a command. It was just another chance for his mistake.

Lily is red, Severus is green, and there is a line that is threatening to become more and more prominent.