Author's note: Sorry for having not updated for so long, I had so many exams and other things going on but I hope you enjoy this chapter! x
Chapter Seven - Slughorn's dinner
Professor Slughorn's office hadn't changed one bit since Severus had last been forced to enter it for his career interviews in fifth year. The room was fairly large, and occupied a large circular table that was positioned on the right-hand side, which had enough seats for at least a dozen or so students. This was the exact purpose of the grand oak table, as it was well-known that Professor Slughorn loved to choose certain students to be part of his 'Slug Club', and they would regularly dine on said table and consume extravagant amounts of food, in particular deserts with chocolate, of which Professor Slughorn was particularly fond of.
And this was the exact same table at which Severus now sat, awkwardly, as was his nature, next to Ella Bakersfield on his left, and (thankfully) Sophie Evergreen on his right. He desperately hadn't wanted to come, but he knew it would seem terribly rude if the Slytherin Seeker did not attend the Slytherin Quidditch trials celebration – and how offended Professor Slughorn would be! He wouldn't want to upset that strange man, as he knew he had a few more career interviews to get through before he would leave Hogwarts, and he had to remain on the Professor's good side until then.
So far, the evening hadn't gone too badly. Professor Slughorn had started a monologue on how much he loved holding these little gatherings, whilst everyone else waited, barely hiding their impatience as their deliciously steaming lasagne was growing colder by the minute. At last Professor Slughorn had ceased talking, and everyone began tucking into their meals. Severus couldn't deny how appetising the food was, but he still hated sitting there – being comfortable in social situations had never been his forte.
Professor Slughorn had gone around the table asking everyone how they felt about being picked for the Slytherin team, and eventually he came around to Severus.
'Ah, Severus Snape! The unexpected member of our dear little party! Ah yes, you did surprise me you know, when I read the list of names up on the Slytherin notice board! I never took you for one of the sporty ones, but now I see I've been wrong all along! Well congratulations, my dear boy! And tell me, how do you feel about all of this?' Professor Slughorn asked him in between huge mouthfuls of cheesy lasagne which threatened to jump off his fork any second as he twirled it around in the air.
'Um…well I didn't expect it!' Severus said nervously, for now all eyes has turned on him. 'I'm really grateful that Mitchel chose me as Slytherin's Seeker, and I hope I'll make our house proud!'
To this the Slytherins raised their glasses in the air and cheered, and for the first time Severus felt a swelling feeling of pride – they accepted him. It didn't matter that he was Severus Snape here, because they were Slytherins and he was a Slytherin, and that was enough for them to believe in him.
'You will make Slytherin proud,' Sophie smiled at him, 'and you'll make me proud.'
Severus grinned back at her, overjoyed that she believed in him. She seemed to be looking at him admirably, and it made Severus feel strange – no one had ever looked at him like that before.
'He's got amazing broom skills,' Mitchell nodded at Severus, 'so hopefully Gryffindor's Beaters' will have a harder time knocking our Seeker off his broom this year!'
'Cheers to that!' Professor Slughorn yelled, and everyone raised their glasses and clinked them together.
Yes, thought Severus, cheers to that!
Severus got back to his dorm so late after Professor Slughorn's dinner that he woke up at nine o'clock the following Saturday morning, which was the latest he had woken up in months. They had had profiteroles for dessert, and Professor Slughorn had even prepared a chocolate fountain to dip them in. The result was an almost uncomfortably full Severus staggering his way back to his dorm room, although the contentment he felt by far outweighed the mild discomfort at having eaten so much food. Nevertheless, Severus gathered up some scrolls of parchment, an ink pot and quill, and his textbook for Defence Against the Dark Arts, and headed to the library to get started on some homework.
He found Lily already working at one of the long wooden desks, with multiple large textbooks sprawled out over the desk and several scrunched-up rolls of parchment.
'Good morning!' Severus greeted her pleasantly.
'What do you want?!' Lily replied back irritably, after tearing up yet another roll of parchment.
'Woah, I was just saying hi! Are you okay?' He asked, slightly concerned by the purple shadows beneath Lily's eyes and the wild look in her eyes. It didn't seem as though she had brushed her hair this morning either.
Lily sighed and pushed her chair slightly backwards. She rubbed her eyes with the back of her hand and tried to run her fingers in her hair, but failed as it was so knotty.
'I'm sorry,' she apologised, 'but I've spent all night trying to do this Arithmancy homework but I keep getting everything wrong!'
'You could have asked me to help you?' Severus suggested as he pulled up a chair to sit next to her.
'You were at Slughorn's stupid dinner.' She muttered, annoyed. Suddenly, she seemed to realise that she was being rude when she asked with a significantly less angry tone, 'So how was it?'
'Oh, alright.' Severus said nonchalantly.
He didn't want to start talking about himself when Lily was in such a state. What was going on with her? Usually she put so much effort into her appearance – she would never leave her dorm without straightening her hair, applying a bit of blush and a few dabs of mascara. But today her hair was wild and unkept, and her cheeks were pale white, almost ghoulish.
As if hearing his thoughts, Lily caught sight of herself in the silver surface of the large mirror on the opposite side of the library, and she yelped with embarrassment.
'Merlin! I look terrible – I can't believe you've seen me like this – oh my' she cried, ashamed, before suddenly grabbing her belongings and running out of the library.
Severus watched, puzzled, as she ran away. Why did she care so much about what she looked like in front of him? She had seen him as a terribly-dressed eleven-year-old after all. And she always looked pretty, even when she was tired. What made her so self-conscious?
Unable to answer the question himself, Severus decided to start on his homework and he spent the next few hours laboriously completing it, before realising that he had Quidditch rehearsals starting at three o'clock. He had just enough time to get some lunch, get changed and head down to the pitch, and so he grabbed all of his work and made his way back to his dorm, with the question about Lily still floating in his mind.
'Our match against Hufflepuff is in ten days, so we've only got that long to make sure all of you are playing at your absolute best.' Mitchel Clearwater told the Quidditch team as soon as they reached the pitch. 'You guys need to be putting in your maximum effort today, okay? Losing to Hufflepuff would be an embarrassment.'
One of the boys in the group laughed loudly, and Severus realised that it was Rohan Sandhu, one of Slytherin's Beaters.
'As if we would lose to Hufflepuff! Have you seen their team this year?' Rohan guffawed.
'Yeah, I don't think it's going to be that hard to beat them this time!' Ella agreed.
'Which is exactly why we need to make sure we beat them!' Mitchel argued. 'Everyone knows Hufflepuff aren't hard to beat. So imagine how bad it'll be if we lose to them! Now come on, enough about talking about beating them, let's make sure we will beat them!'
Training was much more tiring than Severus had anticipated, and he soon grew tired of continually having to fetch the Snitch after Mitchell released it again, only seconds after Severus had handed it over to him.
'You need to build up stamina,' Mitchell informed him when he observed Severus panting and wiping the sweat off his forehead. 'That's one of the main problems this team has compared to Gryffindor-'
'But we're training for the match against Hufflepuff!' Severus reminded him, as he tried to shake off the weary feeling that had begun to permeate his entire body.
'Yes, but the match against Gryffindor isn't too far away. We have to make sure we can keep up this level of skill and speed throughout the entire match, or we might as well wave goodbye to the Quidditch trophy already.'
'Alright,' Severus sighed as he got up from kneeling on the ground, 'release the Snitch again.'