Chapter 1: Mudblood
"I don't need help from filthy little Mudbloods like her!"
Lily stood, transfixed. Who was this? It didn't sound like the person who, until seconds ago, had been her best friend. She looked into his black eyes and immediately had the impression that she was looking into cold dark tunnels. She blinked.
"Fine," Lily said coolly. "I won't bother in future. And I'd wash you pants if I were you, Snivellus."
"Apologize to Evans!" Potter thundered at him, threatening him with his wand.
"I don't want you to make him apologize," Lily shouted at Potter. "You're just as bad as he is."
"What?" Potter yelped. "I'd never call you a – you-know-what!"
Lily ignored him.
"Messing up your hair because you think it looks cool to look like you've just got off your broomstick, showing off with that stupid Snitch, walking down corridors and hexing anyone who annoys you just because you can – I'm surprised your broomstick can get off the ground with that fat head on it. You make me SICK."
Fuming, she hurried away, leaving her childhood friend behind.
"Evans! Hey, EVANS!" She heard him yell distantly.
She ignored him. After a few minutes, there was a flash of light and Severus was hanging upside-down in the air again.
He deserves it, Lily thought darkly.
At dinnertime, Lily walked into the Great Hall with a couple of her friends, carefully avoiding Severus' eyes from the Slytherin table. She barely touched her food and pretended to be listening to Mary and Alice's conversation about the Defense Against the Dark Arts exam. She could almost feel Severus' cold black eyes on the back of her head. She didn't want anything to do with him anymore. Let him fraternize with those Death Eaters. Why would she care? She had friends besides him.
"…and question fourteen C was pretty hard, don't you think, even for someone like you, Lily- Lily? Hello, I'm talking to you!"
Alice waved her hand in front of Lily's bright green eyes.
"Huh? Sorry, Alice…"
Barely listening to their conversation, Lily finished her dinner slowly and then went to Gryffindor tower to the girl's dormitories, her head still spinning with thoughts.
How could she have been so blind? She should have seen this coming. Severus had always been interested in the Dark Arts, and was part of a gang of Slytherins who she was sure would turn out to be Death Eaters. And anyways, he called all Muggle-borns Mudbloods, too, why had she been stupid enough to think that he actually thought of them as best friends? Not when those creeps like Mulciber were around…
The door was wrenched open. It was Lily's friend Mary.
"Lily," Mary panted, "that git, Snape is looking for you. He's right at the Entrance-"
"Tell him I'm not interested," said Lily brusquely.
"I did," Mary said impatiently, "and he said he would sleep down there if he didn't get to talk to you."
She looked mildly amused.
"Fine," said Lily huffily.
"Hey, I'm not making you do it,"
Lily nodded without a word, went down to the Common Room and climbed out through the portrait hole. Severus was waiting outside. Lily folded her arms.
"I'm sorry."
"I'm not interested," Lily retorted, avoiding his pitch-back eyes.
"I'm sorry!"
"Save your breath."
Why was she here, anyway? She didn't have time to listen to his pleas for forgiveness- how could he think she was just going to let them be best friends again?
"I only came out because Mary told me you were threatening to sleep here," she said when he didn't speak.
"I was. I would have done. I never meant to call you Mudblood, it just-"
"Slipped out? It's too late. I've made excuses for you for years. None of my friends can understand why I even talk to you. You and your precious little Death Eater friends- you see, you don't even deny it! You don't even deny that's what you're all aiming to be! You can't wait to join You-Know-Who, can you?"
He opened his mouth but closed it, lost for words. Lily was finally voicing what she had been thinking since that evening. She felt no pity as she spoke again.
"I can't pretend anymore. You've chosen your way, I've chosen mine."
"No- listen, I didn't mean-"
"-to call me Mudblood? But you call everyone of my birth Mudblood, Severus. Why should I be any different?"
Without waiting for his answer, Lily gave him a contemptuous look and then climbed back through the portrait hole.
She stayed in the common room for a while for last minute revisions for the exam tomorrow, not wanted to endure her friends piling her with questions the minute she stepped back into the common room. Finally, when she could work no longer, she took her book bag and went to the dormitories.
"How'd it go?" asked Mary.
Lily grimaced. The last thing she wanted to hear right now was her friends telling her that she could have been more careful in choosing her friends.
"Fine," Lily managed to choke, biting back her tears.
Mary gave her an understanding look.
"Do you want to talk about it?"
"Not really," said Lily.
"If you say so," came the tired reply.
Lily changed and got into her four-poster bed.
She suddenly remembered a conversation she had had with Severus, when they were about ten.
"Does it make a difference, being Muggle-born?" Lily had asked.
"No. It doesn't make any difference."
"Good."
"You've got loads of magic. I saw that. All the time I was watching you…"
Snap out of it, Lils, she told herself firmly.
Yet as she was trying to fall asleep, she couldn't help but realize that everything that he had shared with her, his friendship, his knowledge, his kindness… it had all been lies.
She let out a stifled sob and rolled over and fell asleep.