Wounds
As Lily rounded the corner she stopped leaning against the wall, letting her contained tears flow. She cried on the way to her house, stopping on a park bench to try and collect herself while she remembered what happened last Christmas, another borderline situation very similar to this one.
A few days before classes ended, she brought up the subject of their holidays at Cokeworth. Sev's face darkened and he took a deep breath before telling her, "My mother sent me an owl telling me that the old man is at home. I would rather not see him, but she is not able to use magic against him, I don't understand her, she always lets him back despite how he treats her. I would feel guilty staying at Hogwarts and leaving her alone with him."
Lily feared for her friend. "But what could you do? You can't use magic outside of school."
"I can try to convince her…" he rolled his eyes, "…once again, to defend herself, although I suspect it will be useless."
"Don't go, Sev…" she begged him.
But he did, and several days passed without hearing from him. Lily was getting more and more restless, but she couldn't bring herself to go to his house, so she sent Puck, her owl, to him, hoping to find out if he was fine.
The bird returned without an answer and visibly angry, but Lily waited two more days until she could no longer bear the uncertainty, something serious could have happened to him. So she went to Spinner's End without forgetting her wand, ready to do anything to defend her friend.
When she knocked on the door, no one came to open it. She insisted and thought she heard a noise inside the house. She tried a third time, and receiving no answer and even at the risk of coming face to face with Tobias, she began to shout, "Sev! I know you are there! I'm Lily, open me up!"
She continued to pound and scream for several minutes. "I'll stay here until you get out!"
She no longer feared for the drunk, if he had been at home he would have already kicked her out of there. When she was about to give up she was inspired. "If you don't open it I'll go find the muggle police or whoever it takes to break the door down!"
Immediately, the door opened, Sev appearing visibly upset, and roughly taking her by the wrist forced her to enter while he scolded her in a low voice, "Lily! Are you crazy? Who should be arrest is you, for the scandal you're mounting," while he returned to close quickly.
But she wasn't listening to him, she was frozen and speechless seeing what Sev looked like. The entire left side of his face was disfigured, with a black eye and split eyebrow, a swollen cheek, and a recent bruise on his jaw.
She finally managed to whisper. "Sev, you're hurt... it has been your father..."
He cut her off sarcastically. "Obviously, Lily." And still upset with her, "But come on, don't just stand there. You're lucky he's gone, otherwise he would have taken it out on you too." And again irritated, "You can't be so stubborn, you put yourself in danger!"
They had gone into the living room, and Lily sat on the worn sofa with her gaze on the floor, exhausted by the previous tension, distressed by Sev's state and also affected by the scolding she was receiving.
"But I was worried about you… I hadn't heard from you… Why didn't you open the door for me?" said her.
Sev, who was pacing up and down the small room with his arms crossed over his chest, trying to calm himself, turned to her, pointing to her face. "What do you think?" again shouting in a low voice. "Do you think I wanted you to see me like this?"
She glanced back at his battered face, but she quickly looked away, she understood.
"Haven't you worried even more?" asked him.
Lily continued trying to justify herself. "I sent Puck to you and he came back very upset and without an answer, I thought something bad had happened to you."
She expected new recriminations that did not come. She looked at him a little scared. The healthy half of his face was livid, his mouth slightly open, stupor in his eyes.
"What's up Sev?"
He slowly took the two steps that separated him from the couch and sat down next to her, resting his elbows on his knees and holding his head in his hands, shaking it in the negative while he muttered as if to himself, "It was your owl… I should have recognized him…"
Lily was even more unsettled by her friend's change in attitude. He had suddenly lost his anger and now she saw him tormented.
"Tell me, Sev, what happened to Puck?"
He kept shaking his head, hesitant to speak. Lily shifted on the sofa, her body pressed against his, and she put her arm around his shoulders to encourage him. She felt how he relaxed at the contact, exhaling a sigh, and after a few seconds he finally said, "I'm sorry Lily, I should have contacted you before..." He was interrupted to take a deep breath. "Things weren't that bad, he spent most of the day out and when he came home drunk at night we locked ourselves in my room until we thought he was asleep... I should have warned you that everything was under control, but you know we don't have an owl... Even so I could have gone to Diagon to send you one, but I didn't want to leave my mother alone, we both should have gone... Forgive me, please, I didn't think you would be so worried…"
There was a long pause, Lily pulled him closer, she had only gotten him to apologize and she wanted to know everything. What had happened for him to be in that state? And Eileen? How would she be?
"Come on Sev, tell me everything. What happened to Puck? Your mother is fine?"
She felt him tremble slightly, as he began to speak his voice cracked. "The day before yesterday your owl arrived… I was going down the stairs, there is no window there… that's why he called the living room one with his beak… I heard him but I didn't get there in time… When I got in, the big pig had caught him, he had taken him the letter and was about to wring his neck…" Sev trembled more and more, Lily began to caress his arm.
"What a bastard," she said, but at the same time she felt guilty that her owl had caused the conflict. "I shouldn't have sent him."
Sev sat up, clasping his hands together and staring straight ahead at a fixed point on the far wall. He seemed to have calmed down a bit. "Not at all, don't blame yourself. Sooner or later he would have exploded for something else."
"Come on, what happened next?"
"I got furious and threw myself at him, but Puck was faster, gave him a strong peck and he let him escape... But when he felt the pain and saw the blood on his finger he went crazy, he started screaming 'damn witches' and other worse insults and he lunged at me… I tried to run away but he was very close and he grabbed me by my clothes and started hitting me. I was trying to get away and I also gave him his, but that made him even more furious, it was morning and he wasn't drunk yet, so he had all his strength and I couldn't do it," he paused briefly, "Then my mother came…" His voice cracked and he sank his head back into his hands, trembling violently.
Lily stroked him harder, trying to calm him down, she also ran her other hand through his black hair, and as she fixed her gaze between his feet, she saw the tears fall to the ground. She had hardly ever seen him cry, always in anger and holding back, certainly never like that. She was very scared at what could have happened to Eileen to make Sev like this, but she held back and asked him calmly. "Is your mom fine?"
"Yes, yes…"
But he didn't stop crying and she didn't want to cut off his venting, it was so hard for Sev to show what he felt... She gently took him by the head, pulling him towards her, making him lean the healthy part of his face against her chest, while she leaned back. slowly against the back of the couch, stroking his silky raven hair, kissing it from time to time.
She didn't know how long they spent like this, Sev took a long time to recover. It seemed to her that he was crying not only because of the recent conflict, but because of all the years of abuse he had suffered. When she felt his crying start to subside she dared to ask him, as she was still worried about Eileen, "What happened to your mom?" she told him as sweetly as she knew, which was a lot.
His voice still cracking, he continued. "She had heard us from upstairs... I know she would have used her wand, she had it with her when I got home from school... but days later he took it from her in an oversight... so she tried to come between us..." He took a deep breath, striving not to collapse again, and continued with a certain tone of rage, "But the damn bastard hit her, she hit her head against the wall and fell to the ground. I thought she was dead…" He began to tremble again, but this time Lily encouraged him to continue, alarmed.
"But you told me before that she is fine, right, Sev?"
He seemed to come to his senses suddenly. "Yeah, she was just unconscious."
Meanwhile he wiped his tears and got up, leaving both shoulder to shoulder. She took him by the hand and both their eyes fixed on that contact.
"But I didn't know, Lily," he continued, "I thought he had killed her. I took out my wand, you know I always carry it with me, I was about to throw an Avada at him... but he separated from me scared and that gave me a second to decide that I would not go to Azkaban for that son of a bitch," again with anger. "I cast a Desmaius and Incacere on him and ran to see if my mother was dead. She had a pulse, so I levitated her to the couch and then him to the door. I dragged him out into the street, so the neighbors wouldn't see me use magic. Then I put anti-muggle wards on the house so he couldn't get in."
Lily was concerned that Sev had used spells and he might be kicked out of school, but she didn't interrupt him, because he still hadn't told her what had happened to Eileen.
"I went back to my mother, who was still unconscious. I didn't know what to do, the only thing I could think of was try to take her by Flo to St. Mungo's..."
"Both together? It can be?" she cut him off, surprised.
"Yeah, it's possible. I didn't know, so I held her very tight against me, trying to stick to her as much as possible, and we did."
Lily imagined the scene. Sev holding her mother, who was taller than him, and also having a Muggle fight and dragging Tobias, who was much more heavily built, into the street. Apparently, the thin and apparently puny friend of hers was not so.
"And what happened to her? How is she?"
"She had suffered a concussion, it was not serious, but she had to stay there for observation."
"And now she's okay? Is she still in the hospital?"
"Yes, yes. I saw her again that afternoon and was told that she had regained consciousness but had been sedated again because she needed rest. I was there yesterday and this morning too, but I haven't seen her awake yet."
"But she's going to recover…"
"Yes, I've already told you that they keep her asleep so that she heals faster, maybe tomorrow they'll discharge her."
Lily breathed a sigh of relief and realized that in her concern for Eileen, she had forgotten that her friend was hurt as well.
"And you, Sev? Why didn't they heal you?" turning to look at him. The lacerated half of his face was on the other side.
He flashed a wry smile looking ahead. "When I arrived with my mother at the hospital I was only worried that they would treat her and return home as soon as possible to see if the bastard was still here and had tried to do something, but he had left. He hasn't come back, and I hope he doesn't, apparently I managed to scare him quite a bit, he never knew that I can't use magic outside of Hogwarts, he always thought I didn't because I was afraid of him." His lips curved in a satisfied smirk.
Lily was still unsettled by Sev's injuries. "But you've been to the hospital several times, why haven't they healed you?"
He was still smirking. "The first day they offered me help, but I was so upset and I treated them so badly that they have not tried again. You know how touchy mediwizards are," with a hint of contempt.
"And of course, you haven't asked them either…" recriminating him.
"I didn't want to explain," he had become serious. "I only told them about my mother that she had fallen."
Lily looked away from him, sighing wearily. "You, your bad temper and your damn pride. You should have told them everything."
"What for? So that later she denies it? You know I can't do anything if it's not my mother who reports it."
Lily felt anger towards Eileen. Okay, now she was in the hospital for having tried to defend Sev, but she did it late and badly, as always. She did not understand how she could continue to bear it, she was an adult and a witch, she could do with her life what she wanted and she had chosen to expose herself, and worse, her own son, to years and years of abuse. And yet Sev kept trying to protect her and looking out for her.
"Always taking care of others but never of yourself," Lily said.
"Bah!" he said sarcastically. "They're just Muggle wounds, they'll heal on their own.
They remained in silence for a moment, it had been a long time since the afternoon was declining and they were in darkness. Sev and his circumstances, always pushing him to the limit.
