Disclaimer: Harry Potter and his world belong to J. K. Rowling. This is for fun, no copyright infringement is intended.

Author's note: A heartfelt Thank You for your kind reviews and a word of WARNING for this chapter - matrimonial violence and other disturbing themes will be mentioned, please don't read if this upsets you.

Time frame: Marauder era, start of their third year.

- Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry

The first complete week of the new school year was over. Students had by now found the way to their classrooms at least once, gotten used to the new timetables, settled back into the routine that dictated life at Hogwarts most of the time. Friends one had not seen since spring had been greeted, news had been shared, summer holidays had been described in all detail. Teachers had had opportunity to despair of the now gaping holes in the already fleeting memories of their charges and once more shouldered the task of pounding some knowledge back into them. Portraits and ghosts either welcomed the renewed bustle of children from eleven to eighteen in the former silent corridors or complained heavily about it. House-elves were determined to be as efficient and invisible as the year before or the one before that or the one before that one and so on until time faded into legend. The castle itself was as silent and unperturbed as ever, bearing the changes of seasons and generations with stoic calm ... and if staircases tended to change more often in the first couple of weeks after summer holidays it was most probably coincidence.

Severus Snape shifted the large book in his arms and glanced indifferently out of a window as he walked down a long corridor on the seventh floor. The brilliant sunshine outside held no appeal to him and neither did the occasional squeal or screech echoing all the way up from the lake where the giant squid had a great time splashing excited students. Reaching the enormous tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy's attempt to train trolls for ballet the black-haired boy made sure he was really alone then performed the odd ritual that would open the Room of Requirement. As soon as the highly polished door had appeared he looked round once again, and stepped into the familiar dim light and cool air, eyes settling without surprise on the red-headed girl sitting cross-legged on one of the tables. Lily Evans cocked a brow without really looking.

"Hey, Snivellus."

"Mudblood."

Severus weaved his way through the tables until he reached the back wall. Sitting down he pulled the book in his lap and opened it deftly without another word. Lily didn't seem to mind though. Tongue between her teeth she concentrated on a jar filled with blue fire standing in front of her and started drawing tiny flaming balls out of it with little flicks of her wand. For some time the only audible sounds were those of softly turning pages and her quiet muttering.

"Aha!" Lily suddenly exclaimed in obvious triumph. "Severus, look quickly! I TOLD Petunia I would be able to do this if I was allowed to do magic at home but she just wouldn't believe me."

Regarding the rough, blue but nevertheless recognisable model of the solar system rotating in front of her with mild disinterest Severus pursed his lips briefly and returned to his reading.

Completely undisturbed by his behaviour Lily guided the blue balls of fire back into the jar before hopping off the table and bouncing over. Flopping down beside him she heaved a long-suffering sigh.

"Oh, my dear sister can be such a COW..." Then she paused and sniffed, nose wrinkling in disgust. "Ugh. Severus, don't get me wrong but I hope that is not you."

"No." Without looking he turned a page. "It's the book. There was a dead Doxy behind it on the shelf and the smell has seeped into the parchment."

"Uh-huh."

Lily did not seem entirely convinced. She had never known anyone besides Severus who could be so ... oblivious to anything else when his mind was set on something. Including hunger, thirst, cold and (unfortunately) body hygiene. Then she shrugged mentally. Before she had first stumbled into the Room by accident and found herself at his wandpoint she had never known anybody who could draw his wand that fast either. So some things were better left alone. Bending forward she prodded at the book until Severus grumbled under his breath and hoisted it up and around so she could see the title. Her eyebrows drew together.

"Mystery and Magic," she read out loud, "An Account Through the Ages by Wilbur Candlestick the Younger. Where did you get THAT from?"

"Grandfather's library." Severus settled the heavy thing back against his thighs.

Now Lily looked puzzled. "I thought you were not allowed to take your grandfather's books."

"I am not."

Snorting a bit at this flat reply Lily shook her head. "Well, it's your neck. Is it at least worth it?"

"It's terrible and the author is an idiot. But is has a rather long chapter about Occlumency."

"Occlu-what?"

"Occlumency."

Pause.

"And what IS Occlumency?" Lily finally prompted when it became clear he did not intend to continue. It was a game they played fairly often and so she didn't bother looking for the amused twitch of his lips she naturally imagined to be there. She should have.

"The art of shielding your mind against Legilimency," Severus replied curtly. Lily groaned loudly and he had the grace to add: "Meaning the art to extract and correctly interpret feelings and memories of other people."

"Really?" Lily's interest was piqued. "You mean some wizards can actually read minds?"

"That would be a very Muggle interpretation of this complicated and subtle ability but all in all ... yes."

"That's interesting. And Occlumency is the counter-charm to this Le- Legi-whatever thing?"

Severus sighed and quietly rolled his eyes. "If learned correctly it enables you to close your mind against it by suppressing any emotions or memories the person using Legilimency could distinguish or interpret."

"Ah." Lily nodded a few times. "Well, I would like to try that mind-reading thing on Petunia one day or another, might be enlightening. You see, there was this paper model of the solar system they made at school and..."

And off she was, indulging in the favourite pastime of most children growing up with siblings no matter if older or younger: verbally abusing said siblings. Petunia's sins and outrageous lack of interest in all magical accomplishments of her younger sister soon led to an account of all summer excursions undertaken with her family followed by a rather detailed description of a visit at Madame Tussauds in London - where she had longed so much giving the other visitors a scare by making the wax figures move just a tiny bit but withstood temptation - and ended in a not entirely logical but heated complaint how unfair it was that under-age students were not allowed to do magic at home. After dwelling some time on the mischief the new puppy of her best Muggle friend was coming up with - including a resigned confession that her roommates at Hogwarts simply were not able to appreciate how cute non-magical pets could be - she last recounted how fearless her father had braved the weirdness of Diagon Alley as they went and bought her new books and other school stuff. Dropping her head back against the wall she then considered the ceiling in silent contemplation for some time and finally sighed contently.

"And how was your summer?"

"Pretty boring," Severus, who had continued reading through all her ramblings, shrugged dismissively. "Except mother finally managed to kill father with an Unforgivable and was shipped off to Azkaban. Nobody expects her to last long. I live with grandfather now."

There was a thin crack in the ceiling, about six or seven inches long, black against the whitewashed surface. As if one was really in the dungeons with tons and tons of stones above. Amazing. Lily slowly rolled her head until she could see Severus's dark hair out of the corner of her eye.

"What?"

"Yeah, grandfather had to pay the Malfoys a veritable fortune to keep it under the hat. Put him in a horrible temper. He hates being indebted."

Lily frowned slightly then pushed off the wall and turned over on her knees so she was facing him. A moment she uncertainly rubbed her hands across her thighs. She would never deny that he sometimes had a nasty kind of humour but... She tilted her head.

"Severus?"

He calmly turned a page. "It was lucky the evidence was so clear though. Otherwise even their influence would not have stopped the Prophet and other magazines from making a big deal of it. But as it was they quickly lost interest anyway."

A chill ran down Lily's spine that had nothing to do with the actual temperature. She licked her suddenly parched lips.

"Severus ... please stop."

He continued as if he had not heard her; in the same flat, monotonous voice bare any emotion.

"Dumbledore has been informed, of course. Summoned me to his office first day. Held a nice little speech how much he understood how I must feel and how hard it must be while McGonagall supported everything with firm nods and Slughorn looked like he would rather be anywhere but there."

"Severus, stop PLEASE."

"Told me to confide in my Head of House or Professor McGonagall whenever I felt the need to. As if I ever would. I mean can you imagine talking about something like that to Slughorn? I can't. And McGonagall? That's just ridiculous."

Lily clenched her fists. Her voice was hoarse. "Stop."

Severus calmly turned another page. "They had to put Memory charms on more than twenty of father's colleges at the factory by the way. And almost as much neighbours. I heard the Aurors complain about the workload when they took tea in grandfather's kitchen."

"Stop. It."

"I wonder what they did with his family. Haven't seen them, of course. Not that I have ever seen them much. Once a year a few hours at Christmas that was the most mother would tolerate her Muggle relatives..."

"Stop it, stop IT!" Lily's voice rose to a screech as she ripped the book from his lap, flinging it across the room with all her might. It hit the floor with a loud thud and the sound of crumpling pages. Shaking she made to reach out but drew her hand back again, her breathing loud and harsh in the sudden silence. "Oh god, please stop it."

Severus didn't start yelling. He didn't get angry. He didn't do anything. He just kept staring down in his lap, his empty hands, at the place where the book had been. His eyes were distant, far away - black, bottomless holes in a frighteningly empty face. Lily swallowed hard. And as an overwhelming sense of panic threatened to consume her she had never felt more helpless in her life. Then something flickered in his eyes.

"It was my fault."

Breath left her lungs in a painful rush. "No."

His forehead wrinkled slightly. "But it was my fault. I know how they are. They keep bickering and bickering until he hits her and then she hexes him or the other way round... I should have gone down."

"No," Lily repeated and shook her head. "Please, don't do this, Severus."

"I should have gone down." Black eyes widened almost imperceptibly. "They had been at it the whole morning I knew how it would end. I should have stopped them. But I was so annoyed I - I didn't want to. I didn't want to."

And as if she had been there Lily could suddenly see him: A sour looking, greasy-haired teenager lounging on the bed in his dark room, shooting flies off the ceiling and muttering every now and again nastily to himself whenever the shouting from the first floor increased in volume. She closed her eyes.

"Don't, please. Don't do this to yourself."

Severus did not even seem aware of her words. His eyes were staring in the past. "And then I heard her. Avada Kedavra. I had never heard her sound like this."

Yes, Lily could see him. Saw him jump violently as the enraged scream from below reached his ears, saw him send his wand clattering to the floor as he scrambled from the bed, ran for the door...

"I knew. I just knew something terrible had happened. I ran downstairs. Into the kitchen."

Slipping, almost falling in the narrow staircase of the two-storey brick house that looked exactly the same as its neighbours left and right; sturdy, efficient, bleak.

"She just ... stood there. Just... Stood. She didn't even seem to see me. She just ... just ... stared down at him."

Oh yes, Lily could see it. Could see him standing in the doorway, gasping for breath, looking back and forth between the frozen woman at the stove who had clapped one hand over her mouth, the other dangling limply wand forgotten in her fingers - and the large hook-nosed man crumpled on the impeccably clean floor. Huge, still so huge, filling the cramped space and yet so strangely small, diminished. Severus's gaze flickered for the second time. His slightly open lips moved soundlessly for a heartbeat and then his voice still held some of the disbelief he had felt that moment.

"He wouldn't move. He simply wouldn't move and I - I panicked. I - I didn't know what to do so I ... I ran to grandfather."

And Lily could see him, pelting down the narrow street, robes hiked up over his knees, for once not caring about possible gossip in the neighbourhood. Running, running as he had never run before through what had once been an airy suburb before the shadow of the mill chimney had fallen over it and the very last house in a street that was now called Spinner's End. Saw him throw himself against the door, pounding, pounding until it suddenly opened and he nearly fell into the arms of an impatient looking old man... She sobbed quietly and reached out, grabbed his hands, cold and limp and slightly greasy but she did not care.

"Severus, no."

"It was my fault."

"No, it wasn't."

"It was MY fault."

"It wasn't." Lily leaned in and touched her forehead to his, noses brushing; she could smell his a bit stale breath as it mingled with hers. She closed her eyes. "It wasn't." A spell, a plea, a prayer. "It wasn't."

The clammy fingers in her hands twitched then suddenly came alive and closed with crushing force around hers. Holding on, holding on like he was drowning and maybe he was but no matter how hard he squeezed she squeezed right back, nails leaving deep marks in equally white skin.

"It wasn't," whispered Lily as a tear slid down her face and fell on their joined hands, and Severus made a strange sound, like a strangled sob, deep in his throat, "No, it wasn't."