Disclaimer: Harry Potter and his world belong to J. K. Rowling. This is for fun, no copyright infringement is intended.
Time frame: Marauder era, middle of their first year.
- Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry
Hogwarts was hilarious, frightening, exciting, frustrating, wonderful, shocking, amazing, maddening and inspiring ... all at the same time. Especially after you were bitten by a plant of all things. Pausing in front of a large moth-eaten tapestry where a couple of club-swinging trolls in ballet gear chase after an odd looking wizard Lily Evans looked down at her by now perfectly healed hand and silently shook her head.
A plant. And darn painful it had been too not to mention the gleeful laughter of her 'friendly' classmates. Well, her face must have been quite a sight, she would give them that. Lifting the hand she sniffed at the skin and smiled involuntarily as she caught the lingering scent of the potion that had been applied to it in the hospital wing. Never in her life had she smelled anything more wonderful and the nurse had said when fresh from the cauldron it would be like standing in a meadow of summer flowers at dawn when dew still glittered on petals and leaves of the slowly opening blossoms and the air was still innocent and sweet. How she longed to make that experience! Heaving a deep, wistful sigh Lily gave herself a shake and continued down the long seventh floor corridor.
Oh, wouldn't it be wonderful to have a place to brew outside lessons? If asked she would have easily listed Potions as her favourite subject so far - although she liked the rest just as well even History of Magic it was all so exciting and new - but homework there was so terribly boring. Always theory and essays and reading this and reading that instead of doing something because it was not regarded as safe. All right, maybe it wasn't considering the impressive eruption and following shower with horrid smelling bile they had witnessed two weeks ago when someone had added the spider webbing before the crushed slugs but still... She wanted so badly to try something on her own.
Abruptly changing her mind Lily turned sharply at a man-sized vase and headed back in the direction she had been coming from. Maybe the book about transfiguring potions she had signed up for had finally been taken back to the library. Besides, with the next game on tomorrow there was no other subject but Quidditch to be talked about in the Gryffindor common room.
Not that she didn't like Quidditch, mind you, it was exciting to watch, but too much was too much just like the endless discussions about the boarding school football team her best Muggle friend described in her letters. The very boarding school Lily herself would attend by now had she not turned out a witch and gotten The Letter at her eleventh birthday. As usual this thought made her a bit sad.
She really missed Claire. Oh, her roommates were nice enough and she had quickly found friends among the other girls too but ... sometimes she really missed talking about, well, Muggle things with someone who understood. The confused glances she got when she tried to explain how to play hopscotch or what music or clothes she liked best... A pity that in the wizarding world anything not being or resulting from magic seemed to be immediately dismissed as unimportant or boring. Worst thing was she could not even answer the letters she received with the same honesty and had to send them through her parents - poor Claire would have a heart attack if an owl should happen to sweep through her window.
With a puzzled second look at the tapestry as she walked past it again - why were the trolls wearing ballet gear? - Lily heaved another deep sigh.
Yes, she really wanted a friend, a real friend like Claire had been, to stick together and have secrets with and do daring things no one else did - but so far she had not found this at Hogwarts. Maybe it would have been different if more Muggle-born students had been sorted Gryffindor. But this year she happened to be the only one and the only half-blood first-year in her house was a mousy little boy named Remus Lupin who had ended up under the wing of the insufferably arrogant pair Potter and Black. Now there was ... PEEVES!
Freezing in her tracks Lily stared for a second at the corner from where the telltale sounds were coming closer and then whirled round and dashed off in the other direction.
Oh, god, Peeves, she needed to get away, she needed a place to hide, somewhere, anywhere... Glancing wildly over her shoulder at an especially loud raspberry Lily suddenly noticed a door in a blank stretch of wall that had somehow escaped her attention before. Without a second thought she performed another spin and raced back to it, wrenched it open as silently as possible and slipped through, closing it with the same desperate care.
Long moments she clung fearfully to the polished brass handle - holding her breath, heart thundering madly and fully expecting to see the poltergeist darting through the wall any second now. But those seconds ticked by and nothing happened. Finally daring to breathe again Lily sagged against the wood, knees weak with relief.
Yes, Hogwarts was hilarious, frightening, exciting, frustrating and wonderful but Peeves was the only thing she truly hated here and she simply didn't understand why he was allowed to stay. You could never turn a corner without fear of having something thrown at you or to step into something ugly or to be otherwise scared and when you ran away his mean, cackling laughter followed you everywhere. Her hair had been green for two entire days after he had dumped something on her on one occasion and his bad jokes had ruined at least two essays she had painstakingly put together for homework.
Shuddering a final time with feeling Lily congratulated herself to her good fortune, straightened and looked up and around. Involuntarily her jaw dropped. She was in the dungeons. Dim light filled a large, sparsely furnished room with heavy cupboards and shelves on all sides much like the Potions classroom. It was so cold her breath formed little clouds. But before she could take in more she caught a whiff of something that drove any other thought straight out of her head.
A meadow of summer flowers at dawn when the blossoms opened and dew still glittered on pedals and leaves with the air innocent and sweet.
Drawn like a magnet Lily followed her nose and shuffled between the tables then nearly screamed when a dark head suddenly popped up behind one of them. Lank, greasy hair, falling like a curtain on slim shoulders. She recognized him instantly.
Still oblivious to her presence since his back was to her the boy from the train stepped up to the table in front of him and carefully filled a glass bottle with a sample from the smoking little cauldron on it. Setting it securely aside he then used a pair of protective gloves to pick up the cauldron and carry it to a place by the wall Lily could not see completely. Flipping his hair back with an impatient gesture he carefully dipped the cauldron over a ... sink!
"NO!" Lily shrieked without thinking.
The boy jumped violently, dropped cauldron and gloves with a clatter and whirled round, whipping out his wand with surprising speed. Then he huffed and let his shoulders sag.
"The Mudblood," he said with disgust.
Lily was way too distracted to notice the insult. Hurrying around the last table she stared with dismay at the last blotch of potion slowly trickling down the drain.
"Why did you do that? It was perfect!" She was nearly crying in frustration. "It smelled just like the nurse said it should. You could have given it to her."
The black-haired boy sneered, his voice dripping with sarcasm. "And who, do you think, would use a concoction a first-year made all by himself?"
"Oh." This gave Lily pause but she recovered soon. "Anyway, I'm sure you could have used it somehow. It was so perfect!"
"As if a Mudblood would know." The boy pointed his wand at her with renewed vigour. "How did you get in here?"
"That is the second time you've called me that." Lily frowned, still blissfully ignoring his threatening stance. "What does it mean? Mudblood?"
That earned her an exasperated rolling of eyes. "It is a bad word for Muggle-borns."
"Really?" She thought about that for a second. "You mean like nigger for coloured people?"
The boy heaved a long-suffering sigh. "Yes."
Now Lily was surprised. She had fully expected to have to explain this Muggle expression since - as she had been told with total conviction - no Muggle-born had ever been sorted into his house. Then an easy solution occurred to her.
"Oh, you must have been to a Muggle school before Hogwarts! Are you a half-blood?"
"You - I - this is -" The boy spluttered then gathered his wits and waved his wand. "I am asking the questions! How did you get in here? Answer me!"
"Why, I took the door, of course." Lily looked slightly irritated.
"This is the Room of Requirement. You don't 'just take the door'!"
"Room of Requirement? I didn't know something like that was in the dungeons. What is it used for?"
"You think we are in the dungeons?"
"Well-," Lily vaguely waved her hand around, "that is pretty obvious, isn't it?"
"I can't believe it." The boy dropped his wandarm and pinched the bridge of his nose.
"Can't believe what?" Lily put her fists to her hip. "Come on, can't believe what, Severus Snape?"
Severus sighed mightily and spoke as if he was addressing a five-year-old. "This is the Room of Requirement. A room on the seventh floor that only opens when you have real need for it and only if you follow a specific procedure and it will always be equipped for your needs. So now can YOU explain to ME how you came to stumble in here without even knowing about the Room while I was already in it?" The last was spat with increasing impatience.
Lily shrugged. "No idea, really. I mean I WAS in dire need for a hiding place to escape Peeves..."
"Peeves?" Severus glanced somewhat nervously at the door.
"Exactly my reaction." Lily nodded grimly. Then she looked round with new interest. "So we are still on the seventh floor? Amazing, I really thought it was a short cut to the dungeons." She took a few steps and peered at the rows of shelves then turned to the table he had been working at and curiously picked up a rather battered looking book. "How did you find -"
"Give it back!" Severus snatched the book out of her hands but not before she had read the title, given as Advanced Potion Making. "That is mine!"
"Whoa, no reason to get upset." She held up her hands in a placating gesture. "I'm sorry I touched it. Honestly."
He glared at her a moment longer, cradling the book protectively to his chest, then gave a sharp nod. "Just don't do it again."
"I won't, big promise." She looked round for a safe topic and finally pointed at the glass bottle with his sample of the healing potion. "Where did you learn to brew so well? Were you allowed to practice at home?"
Severus shrugged. "Every now and again. Father doesn't like the funny smell."
"Ah," Lily gave him a sympathetic smile. "So I guess your father is the Muggle in your family?"
It was the wrong thing to say, she could almost see him shut like an oyster. He shot her a definitely hostile look.
"This is none of your business, Mudblood."
"Fine, have it your way, Snivellus!"
The surprise on his face was almost comical. "What did you just call me?"
"Well, if you insist on calling me bad names while I'm just trying to be friendly..."
"I don't want you to be friendly!"
"SO glad you told me because I would not have noticed!"
For several moments they stared at each other, panting angrily. Then Severus grumbled something nasty but thankfully unintelligible under his breath and - shoving the book in a pocket - started cleaning up his table. Lily climbed on a chair nearby and watched silently for a time.
"So," she started finally in a carefully neutral voice, "was your mother good at Potions?"
He paused, glanced at her and lifted his shoulders. "Not really." He packed some more things away. "But she doesn't mind supervising me a bit or if I take her old textbooks."
"I wish my mother were a witch and could teach me things."
For a heartbeat their eyes met. Severus looked away first. Lily kicked the chair leg with her heel.
"Did your mother tell you about this room?"
"Not directly. I mean I don't think she was ever in here but she must have heard about it from the house-elves. She once complained to father how small the house was and that in the wizarding world there were things like the Come and Go Room and such. That's the name the house-elves have given the Room of Requirement because he sometimes is there and sometimes not." Severus put his elbows on the table and rested his chin on his fists. "Father had just come home from an extra shift at the mill because he wanted to have the car fixed with the additional money and did not take it very kindly."
It was one of the few occasions that Lily Evans did not know what to answer.
"Teach me potions," she said finally.
"What?" Severus spun around.
"Teach me potions. That's what you need the room for anyway, isn't it? A place for brewing. Teach me."
"I will most certainly not!"
"Why? You are good at it."
"But I won't teach you! It's bad enough you found entrance to this room once! I won't make a habit of it!"
"Why? Slughorn says I have talent for brewing."
"Yeah, I heard he picked you for his slug club." Severus sneered.
"Hey, I didn't ask him to. And why are you not in it by the way?"
She got no answer to that one. What she counted as success. Hopping off the chair she crossed her arms.
"So, will you teach me potions?"
"No."
"And why? Just think of all the fun we could have at it."
"You are a -"
"If you now say Mudblood or Muggle-born I'll hex you."
"- a girl."
"And you are a boy, so what? I don't hold it against you."
Severus visibly had a hard time swallowing this. Finally he made an angry gesture.
"It is impossible because you have been sorted Gryffindor and I Slytherin."
"Because I am Gryffindor and you Slytherin?" Lily repeated slowly, frowning.
"Yes!" Severus smirked, satisfied he had finally shut her up but then noted with growing irritation the return of a smile on her face.
"Oh, then everything is perfectly all right," Lily announced happily. "As you can read in Hogwarts: A History there have been no such friends as Slytherin and Gryffindor until they broke up over some small, unimportant detail and WE will never be so stupid and repeat their mistake, now will we?"
Severus opened and closed his mouth several times like a fish out of water until he realized what he was doing and snapped it shut. He regarded her with more than a little confusion.
"You are weird," he declared finally.
Lily's eyes twinkled mischievously as she reached into her robes. "Yes, I think I've been told so on one or two occasions. Chocolate frog?"
Severus looked down at the sweets she held out to him. Again. He looked back up.
"Why me?" It sounded almost desperate.
Lily shrugged. "I like your hair. We don't have Potions at the same time so I have at least a chance to shine in one subject. And you saved me on the train."
"I did not!" Severus protested indignantly.
"Did too."
"Did not!"
"Did too. Without you I would not have known what to do." Lily grinned.
Severus rolled his eyes and shook his head at her. But he took the frog.