your zen is false
Chapter Four
A Step Back
. ... .
When Lily regains consciousness, she doesn't know how much time has passed. All she knows is that she is lying in a pool of dried blood and the air still hurts. She crawls to a nearby chair and pulls herself up - and the cuts on her back break open again. She ignores it because she is really starting to get used to the pain and she is zen. Zen.
She manages to stand this time, even though there is a lot of trembling and swaying involved, and she notices for the first time the dark brown that is streaking her inner thighs. She stares at it, puzzled, and touches it tentatively with her fingers. The brown flakes off, and -
Oh. That's why it hurts down there.
She very decisively does not think about it. She searches for her clothes and finds them in tatters, but her robe is mostly alright so she slides it on, wincing as the coarse fabric brushes against her abused back. She slips her shoes on sluggishly and takes a moment to lean against the wall (that is stained with a small amount of her blood) and catch her breath before she leaves the room.
What she catches is a glimpse of herself in the mirror. She doesn't even recognize herself at first. She is in the midst of thinking up an explanation for the blood and torn pieces of clothing still littering the floor when she recognizes her own distinctive hair.
Oh. She stares at her pale, bruised face and wonders for the first time what they are doing. She wonders what the hell got into Bellatrix last night, because it had never been like that before, and she can't remember much but what she does remember does not include the usual redeeming, mind-numbing pleasure. Part of the story is missing, and why...?
She suddenly gets the urge to break the mirror.
Instead, she quietly pushes off the wall and limps to the door. It shuts behind her with a subtle thump.
. ... .
It is a fifteen minute walk through the dungeons. She doesn't know her way around, though - that is why Bellatrix always brings her - and she has been wandering for forty-three minutes when she runs into the last person in the world she wants to see at the moment. She is already in pain, and why does she deserve more? Fuck you too, God is what she thinks when she sees him. (It's not like she hasn't been losing faith since age eleven, though, so the thought is not biting and acidic like it should be - like she wants it to be. It is tired and habitual and a little bitter.)
Severus.
She is dizzy and wishing for a numbing potion and limping heavily. The constant movement keeps breaking the cuts on her back open, and the blood loss is being really inconvenient. Why did Bellatrix leave her there alone? (Why did she go so far? Doubts are creeping through Lily's mind, but she is in too much pain to really care at the moment. She pushes them away. Later. She'll think about it later, she tells herself.)
So, yes. Severus is the last person in the entire universe she wants to see. He is clever and observant and too brilliant for her to lie to, and she loves him even though he betrayed her. He was her best friend, after all, and - fuck, it hurts to look at him.
She is glad the dungeons are so badly lit. He can't see what she saw in the mirror.
But the lighting isn't so bad that he doesn't recognize her. "Lily - " and he looks worried for an instant; he must be worried if he's calling her by her first name, "what are you doing down here?" He seems to recover himself. "Do all Gryffindors have a death wish, Evans?" There is a half-hearted sneer in his voice, but she knows him too well.
It hurts her heart to look at him, so she focuses on the pretty starbursts in the air between them. "Severus," she greets, and her voice is faint but not obviously so. "How have you been?"
He stares at her. "This is not," he says, his tone faintly incredulous, "the time for polite chitchat. This is the time for you to get the hell out of Slytherin territory before Lestrange and Avery find you. They have a nose for Mu-ggleborns."
"Why, Severus, I didn't know you cared." The sarcasm is palpable in the air - who betrayed whom? - and Lily does notice the way he stumbled over 'Muggleborn.' She doesn't say anything about it, though, and maybe Bellatrix is having more of an influence on her than she thought? No, she tells herself. No. Bellatrix doesn't really feel that way. She just got overenthusiastic about the game.
Severus flinches in the wake of the silence. "I don't," he snaps gruffly. "But I don't feel like watching you be played with."
"Oh, Severus." And she laughs - it isn't the laugh that he knows. He does not recognize this laugh. He looks closer and does not recognize this girl. ...Is that a bruise? His scrutiny is interrupted when she finally stops that awful sound and says, "It's all a game, lovely."
His eyes narrow, and Lily knows that she has just screwed herself to the wall because those are Bellatrix's words and he may know that. She interrupts his thoughts quickly with: "Show me the way out?"
He looks at her again, dark, bottomless (fathomless) eyes unreadable (and she used to fall into those eyes and bask in the warmth, and she trusted him but she trusts all the wrong people - all the weak people, the selfish people who don't give enough of a fuck), before nodding sharply. "Come with me."
She almost gets away with it. But then - then he grabs her shoulder (because he is secretly in love with her and he can't stop himself from touching her one more time - one last time, he swears to himself) and she stiffens. There is a sound that is almost a whimper but not quite, and he pulls his hand away, horrified and confused.
"Lily - "
She glares at him, suddenly furious. "Don't," she hisses. What goes unsaid is: You cut your ties and chose your side and - and you chose, and what you chose was not me.
He stares for a split-second and finds that he cannot meet her eyes anymore. He turns around curtly and says in a cold voice, "Follow me."
She has managed to get hopelessly lost, so it takes twenty minutes to reach a secret passageway that leads to the second floor. She leaves Severus without a word and heads to the Prefects Bathroom.
He stands in the half-light of the open passageway and looks at the dried blood staining his hand. Lily's blood. (Muddy blood.)
(It's all a game, lovely.)
But he had chosen, and what he had chosen was not her.
A/N: I like this chapter, but it may just be me. Is it?